Hadn't seen one for a while, and didn't want to, so I froze and swore when I saw a roach climbing the wall above my typewriter. Quickly I splattered it with my dictionary.
♦ ♦ ♦
What seemed like a couple of hundred hippies and homeless and un-indicted co-conspirators came marching down the Avenue at dusk. As they approached I wondered what they'd be protesting — there's so much to choose from. "Free Mumia," or "Free Leonard Peltier," or "Free everyone in prison for drugs," or protesting the cops' murder of Aaron Williams or a thousand other black people, or a dozen other causes I believe in, but it was none of the above. This was just a wake-up-and-smell-your-stink hoot & holler fest, and it was beautiful.
Actually, "Boycott Christmas" was the first rallying cry I heard from them, but after only a few recitations that faded into "Fuck Wall Street" and then my favorite, a repeated chant of "Buy more shit, buy more shit, buy more shit"…
The guy selling t-shirts next to my fish-stand took it as an endorsement, and started shouting, "I have the finest shit, right here, so buy buy buy…"
I didn't have any smart-ass remarks. I just watched all the colorful, angry but happy people march past, protesting against whatever you got, and wondered why I wasn't walking with them.
Why am I sitting here selling cute but completely useless novelty fish? And when this gig comes to an end, what ridiculous thing will I be doing next, instead of marching with the people who've opted out?
♦ ♦ ♦
When I got back home, home bored me, me bored me, everything bored me, so I walked the new neighborhood, six blocks one way, four blocks the next way, eight blocks south, and then two blocks back to home, and you know what? I'd thought this was a boring neighborhood, but after exploring it, I'd say it's a very boring neighborhood.
Brooklyn might be more interesting, and I might be there soon.
From Pathetic Life #14
Saturday, July 22, 1995
This
is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago,
called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but
might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting
things, so parental guidance is advised.
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