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Crazy Old Guy

I swear I can’t go 24 hours without something strange happening to me in The City.

Today I picked up 10,000 CD’s from some Crazy Old Guy in Queens.  Part of the reason I like moving other people’s shit is because it gives me a real perspective into how people live — what motivates them, what keeps them alive, how they solve daily problems.  The days you lift up the couch and see what’s hiding underneath are very raw, and I like the idea of helping out during some of the most stressful portions of people’s lives.  Today was not really one of those days.

I was hired to pack up and deliver 10,000 CD’s that were almost all still in their original packaging.  Crazy Old Guy had been living in his house since 1953 and it looked like he had not updated or repaired anything since then.  Over the years, I have been hired by some world class hoarders (remind me to tell the story of Ely sometime), and I would give this guy 3.7 out of 5 stars on the Hoard-O-Meter.  I could at least walk around all the dusty crap, and it was sort of stacked up even if he had shit from the 50’s stacked to the ceiling.

Crazy Old Guy was in my ear for the next 4 hours (packing 10,000 CD’s takes awhile) mostly about how badly he was getting screwed over on the sale price of the extraordinary collection.  He simply could not understand that a plastic packaged CD of Michael Jackson’s album, Bad (or, insert 10,000 other titles) was not worth more than the original sales price of $14.99.  In other words, he believed that the current retail price should retain some sort of investment grade price because of its authenticity.  I tried to explain that few people gave a shit about CD’s because of digital music, and that he was lucky to get $1 apiece for them.  “Fuck the Internet,” he told me.

Yeah, Fuck the Internet.

As I worked in the 100+ degree shit hole of an attic (ever see, People Under the Stairs?) my shirt soaked through with sweat in about 15 minutes despite the 5 “brand new” air conditioning units from the mid-80’s he held under blankets that he insisted I inspect.

“Impressive…” I lied. “I bet you could get this son-of-a-bitch down to about 30 degrees with those motherfuckers.”  By the way, cursing is considered good manners in this part of Queens, so I wasn’t being disrespectful — just mindful of local culture.

I labored.  He cursed out Jews.

I filled the truck.  He told me about his goddamn pancreas.

I left a trail of sweat down his rotting, molded stairs.  He left a trail of obscenities behind me.

Here’s the thing… if you can’t move forward, you risk losing out big time and wasting a lot of time, money, and emotion on things that don’t matter.  If you’re stuck in an ideal that is doomed, and you’re the only one snapping up the great deals on something you don’t even give a shit about, don’t blame other people when you can no longer sell your bullshit.  Sure, there will always be a market for bullshit, but you may lose $14 for every $15 investment if that’s the real reason you spent the money in the first place.

Crazy Old Guy had no passion for music whatsoever, and didn’t even know what he had.  He just kept buying maybe because somebody told him someday they’d be worth a lot of money.  However, that day is not today.  There was no soul in all that decrepit dust — no life… just plastic wrapped in plastic under a pile of neglect and angst.  The guy I work for — the buyer, however, is absolutely enamored with music, and even though he is a shitty business man, he manages to attract people who also might say, “Fuck the Internet.  We’re buying vinyl or CD’s.”  He provides something that has meaning for other people in a forum that they appreciate.

Rolling through the Midtown Tunnel with somewhere between $10,000 and $150,000 worth of CD’s, I was happy that all that music came out of Queens today.  Somebody is going to get a great deal on Michael Jackson’s album.

At the end of the day, Crazy Old Guy turned out to be not so crazy.  When I was done, he asked me if I wanted to see his garden, and even though I thought I may end up as fertilizer, I agreed.

In his tiny backyard, he had a small farm growing, and I could hardly believe what I was seeing.  He estimated he had about 600 vegetable plants growing, and I believed him — there was enough to feed 2 big families.  He offered me some eggplant, but I declined.  I figured I’d taken enough from him today as I marveled over his achievement.

“You work like a fuckin’ mule, Trucker,” he told me.  (Crazy Old Guy didn’t like my real name, so called me “Trucker.”)

“Yeah, sometimes I get the wild hair when I’m feeling motivated, Crazy Old Guy,” I explained.

Up Next:  How to Run a Moving Company Without Owning a Truck

The Mind Battle

Do you ever feel like giving up?

For the Americans, do you ever think of fleeing the country as a sort of consumerist refugee? Where would you go? What would you do? Is it possible to reconstruct a non-consumerist America? Or, is it better just to leave?

The future of Freedom is in creation — not destructive consuming for consumption’s sake. The future of Freedom does not have an interest rate. The future of Freedom is in having the discipline to reject and punish while retaining the ability to nurture.

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Electric Dream

It’s a proud day to be an American as China has now surpassed the US in global energy demand.  Of course, there’s about 1 billion more Chinese than Americans, but — you know, whatever.  The world’s energy usage isn’t showing any signs of slowing down despite the daily unprecedented flow of natural resources used to maintain existing grids.

These are sobering trends to consider in light of Congress’ inability to pass any type of emissions restriction on coal-burning electricity generators in the US.  I look at what’s happening in Venezuela with regulated blackouts of energy and think that the rest of the world cannot be too far off.

Opponents say compelling utilities to pay for emitting carbon dioxide would force them to pass along those costs to consumers in the form of higher prices (from the WSJ).

No shit?  I don’t understand the problem with making energy more expensive.  Sure, it will create a larger rift between the corporate elite and the rest of the world, but isn’t that sort of inevitable in Fiat Land?  Aren’t we sort of past the myth of equality?  This type of legislation is designed to provide incentive to produce “green” technology, but it appears most corporate innovation is aimed at making the next Facebook (bread and circuses) rather than creating a less wasteful society.

Given the enormous barriers to entry, the idea of the next great thing coming out of somebody’s garage and competing with the $100 billion Research & Development industry seems unlikely.  Plus, the chances that you are breaking some sort of law just by producing that certain something in your garage are pretty significant.  I think we can finally turn the lights on and reveal the big government/corporate dry humping secret.

As usual, it looks like we’re on our own when the lights start to go out.  As the globalization fiesta starts to wind down and we enter the extended weekend hangover of easy credit, something-for-nothing industry, and cheap energy we may wonder why we didn’t save anything for the future.

The rest of the world is onto us and our bullshit shenanigans.  Now, the globalization reality means that many American jobs can be performed anywhere for a fraction of the price and with premium efficiency.  It seems the American quest for global dominance has painted us into such a corner where the top US corporations barely even pay taxes here and rarely maintain a factory force here.

What can we do?  We must focus on providing and using local skilled labor and food sources.  We must provide real value within our community and seek to reconnect with reality.  We must move past the consumer era and enter the post-carbon era with a resolve.  We must re-kindle lost crafts and return to a simplified and improved way of life.  This energy gluttony + fiat currency equation does not lead to more energy consumption and a better way of life.

In case you have not noticed, I added a wiki editable page of “50 Item Checklist.” If you have something to contribute, please do it there or contact me if you’ve got something to share.

Reduction of both waste and energy use is no longer just a good idea but is a long-term necessity that I believe will become the next way of life.

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The Art of Focus

The average American is exposed to 3000 advertising messages in a single day.  These blasts are designed to be very passive and create a sort of subconscious awareness in a consumerist ecosystem.

I recently watched a very unfortunate movie called, “The Book of Eli” starring Denzel Washington in a post-apocalyptic tale of religious justice and spiritually-driven ass kicking.  I counted six product placement advertisements in the apocalyptic setting including KFC, Busch beer, Oprah, and Motorola — apparently the official sponsors of the apocalypse.

The problem with the human mind acting as a crap filter is the same problem any filter has — it either clogs after being overburdened or it allows stuff through that should be retained.  Focus is becoming a lost art that needs to be revived.

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The Courage to Change

For all of you who have the courage to change really difficult things and for all the people struggling to do the right thing — I want you to know I love you and support you.

Take care and have a great weekend.

Respectfully,

Tommy

The Trifecta of Bullshit: Credit Scores, Accreditation, & Investment Ratings

What do credit scores, college accreditation, and investment ratings have in common?

All three are gatekeepers in moving around the Economic Grid, and all three are bullshit.  Nowadays, you can’t even rent an apartment without references and a good credit rating, and credit rating has become a sort of good citizen score.  In fact, some people are starting to screen potential mates based on their credit rating. Ironically, carrying no debt lowers your credit rating or even paying it off too soon can damage your score. It’s all based on an algorithm that indicates how reliably you can make money for the person in power.

College accreditation is becoming another high profit golden ticket for private schools charging up to 4 times the amount of overpopulated state universities and community colleges. The college dream has become another profit-taking venture aimed at selling a dream state to unsuspecting young people bound for pizza delivery and cable install jobs upon graduation — if they’re lucky. With more Boomer retirements being placed on hold, the expensive jobs are being held by older Americans who have no intention of going anywhere.

Investment rating firms are dogshit as far as I can see.  These guys are holding a giant shitbag for rating all sorts of investment instruments that were trash as “AAA.”  This is sort of like awarding a 3-pound sewer rat “best in show” at the Westminster Dog Show and having everybody applaud — except your life’s savings is hinged on it and rating agencies are getting paid to do the judging.  It is quite simply one of the biggest piles of bullshit I’ve ever stepped in.

The whole financial “industry” (I hate using that word for non-industries) pays attention to investment ratings for some unknown reason.  Today, a friend of mine who works at Standard & Poor’s told me that he just went through a full day of changing the company’s mission statement.  Apparently now this corporation is concerned about the investor because, “it’s all about the investor.”

I had to ask, “sooooo, there was a mission statement where it wasn’t about the investor?  Aren’t you guys paid to assess risk… for… investors?”  No, I’m not making this up.

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The Truth about Body Odor

Ahhhh... the smell of parole boards and gang showers.

I just read that 1 of 3 personal hygiene products contain carcinogens and that antiperspirant contains aluminum salts that are linked to the development of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  Most people don’t realize that antiperspirant is classified as a drug by the FDA, and it appears fighting nasty BO is now slowly killing us.

Deodorants were first marketed in the 1940’s to solve a problem humans have had for about 2 million years — we stink when we sweat.  Of course, we didn’t realize we stunk until “they” convinced us, thereby solving a problem that really didn’t need solving.  I don’t need to explain the industry standard because you already know it — palm sized sticks of something-or-rather encased in plastic that shoot up when you twist the bottom thingy.

Humans have been religiously applying carcinogenic dust and trace-element-laced salts to our bodies to the tune of $11 billion per year for a generation now with sales of cosmetics experiencing another growth period.  As the American population ages, the demand for anti-aging gels and lotions correspondingly rises along with the average price per product.  These are powerful products with bold promises that, from what I can tell, don’t do shit.

I like wrinkly faces and weather-worn hands.  I like gray hair.  While I’m not a huge fan of pit smell, it’s not so bad as to warrant trashing a whole bunch of resources.  I mean, just wash up every now and again, and we’re cool.

Which reminds me of an old joke… “How do you hide money from a hippie?”

“Put it under the soap.”

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Calculated Neglect

Ever try stuffing 10 pounds of shit into a 5-pound bag?  It’s not pretty.

What “efficiency experts” call Time Management, I call Calculated Neglect.  The problem with limits is that you can never accomplish everything that you are either capable of doing or passionate about.  Make a list of everything you must accomplish and everything you’d like to accomplish, and I’m betting you’ve got a pretty healthy amount of items.  The trick is getting to the stuff you want to do.  I’m in the middle of firestorm of calculated neglect and it’s got me down a bit despite all the love and support one man could ever hope for.

Right now I’m working on a project that I am hoping will change my life and change the world, so it’s pretty important to me.  In exchange, I had to ship my daughter off for the weekend and drop everything to meet a self-imposed deadline.  I pulled back-to-back all nighters with broken naps.  Sound familiar?  If not, you should write a book, and I’ll buy it.

Family, work, money, play, health, eating, sleeping, school, friends… the person who figures out how to balance a human ecosystem becomes life’s master.  The person who doesn’t feel the sword hanging above his head either hasn’t figured out it’s there, or has figured out how to forget about it.

I can’t live half way.  When I run, I’m going for marathons.  When I drink, I’m coming home late and drunk.  When I love, I love fully and without expectations.  When I fight, I don’t expect to survive.  I’ve tried not giving everything, and it always fails, so I’m careful with what I care about.  It’s a difficult way to approach life.  It’s difficult to live in a raw state of exuberance because of the constant conflict it creates.  The calculated neglect is painful.

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Unacceptable

If you’ve been following for awhile, you probably know where I stand on scrap, street recycling, and dumpster diving.  Turns out, all the thousands of dollars I’ve pulled off the streets of New York is yet anther illegal activity I’ve unwittingly crawled into.  Turns out, making a side living off waste is a big no-no according to city politics.

Apparently a man (and his mother) were fined $4000 and had their car impounded as a result of picking up an air conditioning unit off the street that was destined for the dump.  This is total and utter bullshit and completely unacceptable.  The Department of Sanitation claims that scrap is an important revenue source for New York City (plus the fines too) and accounts for a whopping $300,000 per year, and trash picking is considered “theft of city property.”  This is a paltry number when faced with the billions of wasted tax dollars NYC is famous for generating.  This probably accounts for one of dozens of ego-driven dining festivals held by Mayor Bloomberg at Gracy Mansion.

I have pulled dozens if not hundreds of such air conditioners off the street over the years.  Often the only problem is a switch or condenser that is easily repaired or replaced and set back in service.  Sometimes the only problem is that it’s dirty.  I have fixed these units and pocketed $50 and everybody wins.  If the unit is beyond repair, I can scrap it intact for about $20/unit depending on the market.  The problem with the “theft of city property” idea is that I’ve watched sanitation workers work (yes, I’m fascinated with trash), and these either go straight into the crusher to be deposited in the ocean or set aside for later pickup.  The real problem is that many sanitation workers are scrapping these themselves and don’t like the competition.  Using a heavy government stick to pummel your competition isn’t really an even playing field, especially since the Sanitation Workers Union is the most powerful in the city.

Here we go again, New York City.  This middle finger is for you for the relentless stupidity and waste that could go away with the scribble of an expensive, taxpayer-purchased pen.  The only consolation is that this type of system cannot last forever, and when it gets dismantled I will feel relieved not frightened.  It is not possible to sustain such a colossal waste of resources when combined with reinforced and strictly regimented stupidity and government corruption.  I am going to continue to pull usable trash off the street because the bullying and ridiculous overbearance cannot deter me from doing what is right.  In fact, I may step up my effort out of annoyance.  Not really the deterrence the Department of Sanitation was hoping for, huh?  I never imagined I would have to make a stand on trash.  Wouldn’t the Founders be so proud that we’re now fighting over expensive garbage?  WTF?

Of course, maybe a better idea is just forget about air conditioners altogether.  Looks like AC just keeps creating problems.

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Footnote

I was pleasantly surprised to see Michael’s post on human tribal feet because I’ve been thinking about my own for about a week now after reading a masterpiece book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. I was inspired by the story of the Tarahumara tribe of the Mexican Copper Canyon region and their amazing culture of running distances that most people would consider suicidal (435 miles?  WTF?).  Just a note, this book isn’t really about running.

It seems feet and hands have truly changed the world, and the relatively recent invention of shoes has accelerated our ability to go places and do things maybe we shouldn’t be going or doing.  The human capability to capitalize on an extraordinarily unique set of features has lead us down a path that we may want to reconsider.  In an effort to question just about every facet of daily life, I’ve been questioning shoes — in particular, athletic shoes.

The athletic shoe business is a $21 billion net revenue industry that is growing almost exponentially with new designs erupting throughout the market and throughout the year.  Sales of athletic shoes has grown from about 150 million pairs in 1968 to about 2.5 billion pairs last year and the average household in America (3 people) spends $327 per year on footwear.  Overlay these numbers with the most recent rising obesity rate measurements, and I start to smell the bacon frying.  If athletic shoes are so prevalent, why are nearly 1/3 of all American children obese?  Similarly, if shoes are getting better then why are foot ailments also increasing?

Feet are just plain, friggin’ awesome.  A perusal of my wife’s Anatomy book illustrates a whole mess of bones, joints, and ligaments that look so complex I can understand why some doctors specialize in nothing but feet.  But, then again, why do the Tarahumara run essentially barefoot for hundreds of miles and Americans get massive bunions by sitting on their asses in $175 Nikes?  Somehow I doubt the Tarahumara are a tribe of podiatrists.  I would imagine the Tarahumara and other tribal people frustrate the hell out of Nike and podiatrists, which earns my instant respect.

This seems to be yet another case of marketing really fucking things up by first creating the problem to solve through increasingly costly and consumptive innovations.  I’ve been long distancing running for several years and have followed the “replace shoes every 300 hundred miles” paradigm for most of that time, so I’m embarrassed to report that I’ve burned through dozens of pairs of these shoes.  I’m done with that nonsense.  It seems that all the high tech padding and shock absorption technology is merely messing up a nearly perfect evolutionary creation — feet, and it seems that our technology keeps driving us to avoid one of the most basic human activities — running and walking.

I’ve been running the 12.5 miles home from school every night for the past couple weeks, and it has been great.  Not only do I get the benefit of exercise, but my commute takes on much more purpose.  I don’t live around mountains and streams, but when I start to think like a kid who has no access to cars, buses, or trains the world becomes much more acceptable, and I can see the mountain everywhere I go.  There is no better therapy than a long walk or run, which also lends more evidence to the idea that perhaps we were indeed born to run.

Accepting something less may be giving up your birthright.

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Thoughts from the Darwin End of the Formula

In case you missed it, this is how the comments closed on my latest poorly crafted post: “Unfortunately for you, making the choice to stay in New York City, along with your rhetoric proves that one day you will end up on the extinct Darwin end of the formula…”

Translated: you’re stupid, and you’re going to die. Of course, I had to read it a couple of times while imagining it being said aloud by Dr. Evil before I got it (try it, it’s funny). Sometimes it takes awhile to understand stuff when you live in the Darwin end of the formula.  This is very useful information, because here I was thinking I was going to  live forever in NYC despite all those movies where my neighborhood gets blown up.

Here’s the thing… maybe we show up on these websites because we’re looking for a little support, information, or insight into solving our own personal living strategies.  Your level of buy-in to the range of post-industrial apocalyptic rhetoric is sort of irrelevant, because we’ve all got a certain stake in the future regardless of how horrible or how rosy it may look for you.  Most likely, you are uncertain about the future or where our society is headed, otherwise you’d be reading about wind chimes and puppies and just skip over the whole “transition” idea.

I think my critic may be surprised how many things I’ve done that would not appear beneficial to a personal survival plan, yet I’m still here — frustrating as that may be.  Things change.  Things fall apart and are sometimes reconstructed more sustainably and with more care and purpose, but we don’t need to constantly live in fear of these changes even if it means sacrifice.  I’ve lived and traveled to enough places to know that there are problems and unique vulnerabilities everywhere. This is something we share.  Concepts like community, support, and purpose are alive and sometimes finding, creating, or protecting those concepts is more important than your personal survival.  I am very aware of the downfalls of New York City, but thank you.

In other words, there are things worse than death.  Yes, this is a very non-Darwinian concept until you consider the Selfish Gene and the immortal genetics that get transported through our bodies.  We’re just transitional host carriers that matter much less than the genetic soup we transport.  In this regard, life and death are nearly identical with the difference being our limited perception of it.

I’m much less concerned about my personal survival than about discovering the meaning and purpose to this crazy cognitive ability we’ve been handed.  The frustration that sometimes boils over here is when I observe mass abuse of this gift.  Believe me, when you spend enough time asking “why?” it doesn’t matter if you live in New York or New Zealand.  The commute to enlightenment takes the same amount of time.

Stop worrying about dying.  Start worrying about living.

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The United States of Delusion

Dear United States of America,

We’re family, so I feel like I can tell you something very personal, constructive, and from my heart.  I wanted to say to you in the nicest and most respectable way possible, USA,… Fuck You.

I just left the library because it’s too cold despite the 100+ degree outside temperature today.  I forgot to bring my parka and ski mask to study comfortably in the 57 degree paradise of shamefully disgusting excess that has become the United States of Indulgence.  The United States has become a place where all day long I fight to see the really good shit and get hammered down by the barrage of throat-closing horrible shit.  I am assuming that despite my affection, service, and dedication for several decades this is your way of telling me to Fuck Off.  Okay.  Since we’re so close, USA, I feel like you need to get slapped around like a misbehaving mule today.

Love it or leave it?  Well, I’m not going fucking anywhere.

What was I studying?  Marketing:  the study of merging statistics with stupidity in order to prop up the unproppable.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to escape air-conditioned madness in America.  Despite the refrigerator-like temperature that made my ears sting and my fingers numb, I just witnessed 3 separate fat people fanning themselves.  One of them was a 12-year old child.  What the fuck is a fat 12-year old doing in a library in July?  Five hundred feet away there is 196 acres of forest where 2 rivers meet.

I had to leave.  The blast of hot air outside was most welcome but the Americans on the street can all fuck off for all I’m concerned today.  The first 13 people I encountered were all massively overweight and were lined up outside the Dominoe’s Pizza and the 99 Cent Shop to buy worthless plastic food and worthless plastic crap.  That’s Marketing right there.  The United States of Zombies makes me want to fucking vomit today.  This shit that gets sold for the sake of being sold is like having crack available for $3 every five feet.

Making my way up Broadway to the polluted banks of the Harlem River I encounter the ephemeral mass of unemployed on the park benches sipping rum, staring blankly, or yelling through their cell phones.  All around is a nest of plastic trash swirling about in the hot breeze at the feet of the plastic-filled people sitting in old plastic-laced clothing despite the 4 empty trash cans set out within sight.  Nobody can give himself a fucking job apparently.  Nobody can figure out that work doesn’t have anything to do with money.  I don’t care if you don’t make money.

I am reminded of my unemployed wife who, this past 4th of July weekend, spent the afternoon picking up trash in the park as hundreds of people walked by in celebration of American Independence by sucking down sugary drinks and ingesting conveniently packaged coronary bombs.  The optimally marketed packaging is discarded haphazard to create a sort of mine field of insanity.  I watched kids using trash as makeshift “safe zones” in a game of tag while my wife and I worked.

“This is embarrassing,” is the only thing she says.  Of course, she’s embarrassed by the waste part — not the picking up part.  I’m thinking silently, how is it possible to survive so much waste and addiction?  How can we get anything else right if we can’t get the really easy stuff right?  But, I shook it off with the echoed chants in my memory, “yes-we-can! yes-we-can!” for the sake of the holiday.

“Huh?”  I had to ask, because I can’t hear above the cacophony of pimped-ride, hip hop music blasted like a dance club on wheels from the downed-windows of an Escalade.  Windows down, AC cranked, $4000 stereo transported atop $4000 rimmed wheels under the control of $4000 worth of tattooed forearms.  $12,000 of Premium Dumbfuck all designed for the LOOK AT ME! generation.  Welcome to the United States of Excess.

The trash piles tell a sort of archeological story:  plastic soda bottles, ice cream wrappers, empty beer cans, fast food packaging fills the voids of Kentucky Blue Grass empty space between the lolling, lightly clothed, heavily oiled, fat people.  The scene looks like a sort of twisted war movie where aliens have been slaughtered by a plastic shrapnel bouncing betty — the aliens are all suffering out on the battlefield wearing uniforms of enormous cock-eyed baseball caps and sports jerseys.  There’s little movement amongst the alien casualties but lots of noise.

Out on the ball fields, city kids are getting scouted for minor league ball.  Behind the dugouts, grown men are gambling on the outcome of kids’ performance and the 75 mph fastballs.  Throw a ball, and you might become a hero.  Catch a ball, and you might gain respect.  Hit a ball, and you might get a job.  Welcome to the United States of Distraction.

Here in the States excess = comfort.  Here in the States we’ve got so much “money” we can burn it.  If we need more, we go and take it.  Here in the States, you’d better beware if you don’t believe in Freedom, because Freedom is on the march, you raghead, camel-fucking, Haji-Motherfucker! U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-SA!  Welcome to the United States of Intimidation.

Here in the States. we got things called rights, and 57 degree libraries are a right.  The irony of posting a sign that reads, “help support our Library!  The budget has been slashed by $37 million dollars!” right next to the thermostat goes unnoticed.  At the counter I motion to the sign and suggest, “maybe we should turn down the AC — you might be able to buy more books.”

“We don’t control that.  The AC is controlled by Facilities,” the Librarian dismisses.

Ahhhhh… Facilities is the culprit — as if I know what the fuck he’s talking about.  I wonder silently if Facilities is also responsible for the shit that is creeping out of the toilet, the wireless not working, and the books from 2007 being shelved in the “Newly Published” section.  Welcome to the United States of Bureaucracy.

I left and went back to the park to watch young fat kids sweat like greased pigs after a 4-minute softball warmup.  I sigh as I breath in the New York City atmosphere of Mr. Softee jingling in the background enticingly, long strings of profanity coming from the mouths of teenage women aimed at their children, and the fecal smell of the Harlem River at low tide. Ahhhhh….summer.

Back to the Marketing chapter entitled, “Multivariate Techniques & Data Mining.”  Back to the United States of Delusion.

But, goddammit, USA… I fucking love you. I will never give up on you even when you’re a bleeding, disgusting pile of shit. I still believe there’s plenty of good bones, and I will never fail to dig deep and pull for you.

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