out from under

Some changes afoot, arcane decisions of the powers that be, attendant absurdity with relatively decent results for yours truly, who now can chortle more at seekers in search of membership into the Esoteric Order of St. Drogo, which contrary to popular belief, is purely for imbibement of the Kynge's Brewe and the accompanying commentary of Sundry Important Issues, and not for anything resembling bunga-bunga. Lay off those old blues records, boomers, sometimes a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.

just to wake up tells me, hell I must be brave

As I watched desert warriors play songs of protest and assertions of humanity, the drone of electric guitars, the heartbeat catharsis of calabash and djembe, the voices drawn out and chanted, as the hippies and hipsters and boomers and the girls in hijab sway and clap. They've had lives I can't imagine and struggles I can't comprehend and I'm tired from being awake from so long and zone out with my eyes closed, taking in this sound. Desert Sessions aren't just for swanky stoner rockers, after all...





I wake up exhausted, staring at the ceiling, asking for divine sustenance because it's not in me. Exhaustion and depression, post-quarterlife crisis of conscience and existence, further torpedoed by monumental shifts of power meaning more frustration for yours truly. It's not that it's so bad, but just with everything else, with the pent-up frustration, I ended up in tears today, but thankfully there was class-cutting and city-wandering and spiritual introspection as therapy to put things back into perspective.



And Mia Zapata's fabulous cut-too-short punk rock fury. It still kills me that for all the female-fronted punk bands, the Gits don't get more attention. I loved this stuff as a frustrated art kid, and as I've gotten older and dealt with more suck, it's stuck for me.

weekend warriors

I didn't make any money for the station during our annual fundraising thing, due to being on so early and everyone in Cleveland who still listens to terrestrial radio being poor.

Well, you're on really early and it's when a lot of blue collar people go to work," says a professorial looking friend of the DJ after me. "Blue collar people usually don't listen to college radio anyway."

OH REALLY.

It's not like I haven't run across this attitude in other places, and it seems prevalent among the multiply college degreed that make up the fields of academia and technocracy. The people who listen to Springsteen and Billy Bragg and talk about solidarity "working people" when it's a convenient talking point involving unions that they're not even in, yet condescend and disparage those whose hands are cracked and dirty at the end of a ten-hour day as ignorant of the finer things in life because they don't sit around all day reading blogs at work. "Well they probably listen to Nickelback and drink beer and watch football and don't read books."

Well how the hell do you know? And so what if other people do? No one's making you conform to that. And I wonder if they have any friends outside of their profession or income demographic or political affiliation, honestly, because when things are painted with this broad of a generalized brush of cultural snobbery, my Inner Parmastani kid gets mad because it's so condescending and at least in my experience (which admittedly might be both biased and also lucky), not totally true.

And it's funny, because a good amount of my callers are warehouse workers and third shifters who want to hear King Sunny Ade or really liked that Siouxsie and the Banshees song or would have loved to have a pair of those tickets to see that band but they work second shift and can't go. I think of people like my dad and his friends, my friends who are also peons who can talk as smart as any PhD scholar who just never had the opportunities or ambition or the convenient accidents of birth.

There is so much more nuance than credit is given, so many brilliant minds without the letters after their names who don't even give themselves credit for their brilliance because they like what they like and have nothing to prove. The poets whose brilliance will blush unseen in desk drawers or shared by a handful of others, the musicians whose gifts never leave the living room, the artists whose canvases are stacked in a corner and given away to friends, the infinite basement rockers with day jobs and sometimes kids who get their catharsis out on the weekends and after dinner.

But I hold my peace, because I haven't had my morning coffee, I don't know this person and will probably never see them again, and there are some battles just not worth fighting. This is our noise too.

Everything's white, now so are the smiles

When I was underemployed and depressed, I used to spend my days off riding the bus down to the library, reading graphic novels and scrawling terrible writing in the Arcade over a cup of tea and a falafel wrap.

I love this city because it's home and familiar but my illusions have been dissed, as Randal so eloquently put today, and I know exist in a disillusion that is comfortable in the reality of the situation, but not entirely unhappy, as I've carved out a decent little life in this strange part of the world.

I've never been a boosterific type, and will probably change the title of the blog soon, because what I write has less to do with the city and more with the inner world and the outer world at large. I know there's a part of me that is provincial and intimidated by the ambitious, that is completely okay with not achieving great social status, and figures it's better to expect nothing than think the world is at my fingertips.

But I can't help but roll my eyes as I watch this, because I walk these streets on a regular basis and it never looks like this, even on a summer afternoon at the peak of lunch hour. I've seen maybe one food truck ever downtown and it was for Wilson's Tamales, which goes everywhere. I've seen one person walking their dog in the last four years. There hasn't been a crowd at an Indians game that big since 1997. The president of CSU (which has a nice campus believe it or not) said he was going to live downtown but opted for a swanky mansion in Shaker. So who are we kidding here?



I know this is to make us look cosmopolitan, but the part of the city that is world class is a few miles east where the gardens, museums, and the universities converge, not at the overpriced gimmicky bowling alley (my Inner Parmastani says that new ones that aren't smoke smelling and looking like 1959 are phony by default) or restaurants I can't afford or aren't interested in. $5 for a serving of ramen noodles? That's a week worth of vending machine ramen lunch or a month of Top Ramen from Aldi's. I'm probably outing myself as not the target demographic, because even though I'm relatively young and artsy and educated (ding ding ding!), I'm also poor and prefer a kibbie from Aladdin's if I'm downtown or a gyro from Frank's Falafel around the corner.

And seriously, this is almost all rich and young, and mostly very very white people. Over half of this city is African-American, and there's other sizable non-cracker ethnic communities as well. Also, most of the Bright Young Things are gone. They live in Chicago. I blame this factor in part for my perpetual spinsterhood. My friends are all 6-10 years older than me and usually married, and therefore aren't as likely to leave. If they're trying to leave they're usually stuck. I don't expect them to show people who are homeless or maybe work in a profession that isn't White Collar Technocrat, but that's a lot of our downtowners, the Peonage in varied states of dress.

We're downtown too. And while we deal well in snark and purty photos of things falling apart and the center unable to hold, at least we tell the truth, or something. It's so overblown.

storm in my house

Maybe it's some last vestiges of picket fence American dreams when I've wanted a place of my own, when I see for sale signs for little 1920s urban cottages in my neighborhood with stained glass windows or century old Victorian-era rowhouse townhomes with slate roofs and wild roses growing up the porch within walking distance of the water in Lakewood, knowing that with no credit history (no credit cards, no debt, no car payment), and little income, this would be almost impossible, and I'm not the world's greatest maintainer of things. Keeping an apartment clean and the garden weeded is hard enough, and I live alone. I really don't need all that space and hassle and wouldn't want to have my life and money tied up in something that seems to be more of an albatross than equity at this point in history.

So I went into the kitchen this morning, and realized that not only is it raining outside, it's dripping in my kitchen. A plastic bucket and some pots and pans on top of the fridge, going up to the attic to find the source, which looks like piles of insulation and boards of dubious stability. I'll leave this to the experts and my landlord, and head to the empty house I grew up in to do laundry and drink coffee. Plans of seeing Scrawl tonight look like they'll be derailed by both inclement weather and family functionals. It won't be so bad.

the last summer night

Writers block in attempting anything creative, the tap has run dry and the Sea of Stories is so fast that I'd drown attempting to dive in and come up with some kind of treasure.

But there's studying to do, and a decent flow of people coming through, the student diverting the creeps away. A half hour longer and I'll be home to be back here again.

paper scraps and paper chase

Being Peonage of the Towering Slab of Ivory, I hear a lot of people talk about their degrees, the degrees they want, the degrees that someone else has or doesn't, and there is some degree of cultural capital in certain circles where you're validated by how many letters are after your name or where you went to school, what you studied, and how far you went, where you got published, what conference you presented at, who you know.

And then there is the vicious cycle of a cramped job market, where everyone has the same credentials but possibly more experience or better connections, where you don't get called back because you don't have some piece of paper, or if you have too many pieces. I only got my gig of relative underemployment due to not graduating in time and learning the hard way after not getting called back for looking too overqualified or for having the right credentials but not the 20 years of experience that belonged to others. In Proverbs, it's said to be wise is to ask God for neither poverty nor riches and that's what I did, and that's what I got. While the interpersonals can get complicated, it's truly everywhere.

My peers defer adulthood and keep taking out more loans, to find out that they've screwed themselves over because that golden ticket never did materialize. Most of my fellow grad-schoolers pursued other dreams instead or held out for that Really Good Job because they considered themselves too good to do what I do. I've got free tuition and really good health insurance and a couple good coworker homies, which makes up for the lack of pay most of the time, but to think that one is entitled based on having such and such a degree or two, when there's little work ethic and even less decency towards others, starts seeming absurd.

Self-perpetuation of those already entrenched, ageism of the you're too old or you're so young, the stress of maintaining image and lifestyle, of making a good impression and paying the mortgage while the domestic life disintegrates. Maybe this is why people like Jonathan Franzen novels and Desperate Housewives. At least someone's suburban misery is worse.

Suburban desperation has long been a cultural trope and one I've found ridiculous and overwrought, but I've never existed in the world of the super-suburbs, just the working-class one where the people in my life who went to college ended up being truck drivers or stay-at-home moms who used their brains to help us use ours, so I've never truly understood this, and living in the city means that I see less of it, so when I do, it stands out intensely.



And as education becomes more to do with becoming good little cogs with culturally appropriate opinions, and higher education a lucrative enterprise that's bought into with the expectation of economic payoff, of higher wages and greater prestige, more people have bought in and it's gotten more cramped, and I watch more and more people reduced tears and bitterness because the system they paid so much into is not producing the returns that were expected.

And then the people who do have the qualifications who got where they were more or less by accident of birth, of getting in while the getting was good back when there were times of relative economic prosperity, when degrees and diplomas meant more, look down on everyone else who is not so lucky.



These are things that I don't deal with as much, only observe. I hover in social limbo between suburbanites and those that have little to nothing. I can't say that I've dropped out of this system, but I've left the rat racing to others, but I see it all around me and sometimes I wish I was doing a little bit better so maybe I could travel somewhere outside the United States just once, or maybe not live upstairs from someone, and realize that there's still residue of these American dreams that have fueled all sorts of bad things. We've all got our struggles, and those of us who preferred learning for the sake of learning and art for the sake of art are the ones living paycheck to paycheck, but I still feel like I made the better trade.

melvins mondays

Despite my frustration with certain aspects of being Peonage, I do like that I can now do my work with the accompaniment of such Batcave-friendly sounds like King Buzzo and friends. And I got to go through files relating to shady city politics and mobsters. And with coffee. Not too bad.

They sing while you slave and I just get bored.

Because some have nothing better to do with their time than micromanage in true Kafka meets Office Space form, amazing how condescension screams through the detachment of electronic communication, amazing that people care that much about stupid things, though perhaps in their world, things, especially monetary, generally mean more than people. Human resources are just that, something to be exploited to maximum potential until they're used up.

Well, he hands you a nickel,
He hands you a dime,
He asks you with a grin
If you're havin' a good time,
Then he fines you every time you slam the door.

And it's not that I'm unhappy, as things are overall good and even better than they were, but it's hard for me to suffer fools gladly especially those who make triple what I do who tell me that I'm so lucky and so wonderful until I'm not and then even the smallest misstep that no one will notice becomes the end of the world. I'll be working Maggie's Farm for a long time it seems under one person or another.


Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
They sing while you slave and I just get bored.


I'd rather not be on the radar at all, the subject of no conversation, the recipient of no insincere accolades or unfounded criticism, and on my end, I'm flexible and work hard and do my best not to be passive-aggressive. I'll blame this absurdity on the Vodka Zeppelin floating around the skies of Our Fair City.

I don't mean to be so angry, but I'm already walking on eggshells and I'm clumsy. I pray to God that I don't become bitter, and seek solace in the beauty of wind and water, in the meantime thankful for glasses that hide the tears that are welling up because I'm tired and all this does is remind me of the other slights and condescension. I've been a legal adult for ten years now. I pay taxes and hold down a job just like you do. It'd be nice to be treated like one for a change.

carnivalesque

We the Female Peonage concluded yesterday that it would be a most excellent idea to attend the fair in our fair county, as neither of us had seen a demolition derby, admission was a dollar with a canned good, and the bright lights, fabulous people-watching, and aromatic greasy food was to be had.

As the Marquess is a better planner than yours truly, she had a bag of donated items that merited dollar bills from the rest of the masses in line with us and inevitably ran quite the hustle.

We covered quite a bit of ground, feeling bad for the ponies doomed to equestrian Dante-ish fates of walking in circles for hours carrying small children, watched a bemulleted cover band play hits from the 60's, wondered why people collect such random things and display them at the fair, and chortled at the promised exotic delectables that, according to the website, are straunge and unusual dishes not to be found easily in Clevelandia. Maybe it's that I grew up certain ethnic in Parmastan, but judge for yourself, denizens of the rust belt, if these sundry delights are as obscure as birds' nest stews and potions of dragon's tongue.



The livestock were many and while I went down on a frequent basis to the southern part of the state where my relatives have farms, in true city slicker fashion I'm a bit skittish around animals bigger than me or that smell. My parents took me to a pig farm in Indiana when I was probably six years old and I remember smelling like pig just from being there, and it took my mom hours to wash that smell out of my hair. That and being scared of the bulls at my great aunts. Those things were mean, and so were the chickens, understandable since their overlords would eventually eat them. It makes sense.



Insert obligatory Alice in Chains reference here

The county fair makes you remember that yes you are in Ohio and no it's not like your almost-hood in Clevelandia or your concrete-towered place of peonage. The music is country and classic rock, not reggaeton, the t-shirts are emblazoned with Pantera and patriotism, not Tupac, though bad tattoos transcend all age, ethnicity, and culture. The tchotchkes sold are of the American Flag/Stars and Bars/"Native American"/Harley Davidson/Military/etc kind.

I get tired of and a bit creeped out by the hagiography and personality cult of the current president that I see around me but I was equally disconcerted by the number of stands and t-shirts selling bumper stickers about the president being a commie and how much illegals and people on welfare suck, and don't take away my guns. These were not really differences of policy issues, but a cultural againstness that I recognize yet don't quite understand.

I tend to get overanalytical even as I'm entertained, wondering what the the stories of the carnies are, wondering what the freak show girl twirling the snake thinks of the gawkers, wondering what the stories are, what people's lives are like when they're not on stage or trying to get you to throw darts at balloons.



Still, this made me laugh:



Punk rock birds



The obligatory Freemasons



Mechanical cows



Pop culture ephemerals



Lots of the carnie kids had tip jars for their college funds.



Gonna smash it up til there's nothing left...


Is the demolition derby the blue-collar equivalent to the the games played in Roman arenas, with the masses in the stands, the anticipation of chaos, the adrenaline surge of watching collisions, and the quasi-bloodlust exhibited when the tires have blown out and the engine is smoking and the crowd yells "hit him again!"

Pectorally exaggerated Robert Plant



People are strange when you're a stranger.



Rides of Spinny Doom



Pretty lights



But I had a great time, devoured a delicious flurry, savored the atmosphere of the fleeting, and was glad to get out on a weeknight to do something different for a change.

I've got nothing hey but I'm a star

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival."

In his chapter in 'The Four Loves," C.S. Lewis describes platonic friendship as a beautiful thing that is often derided and in some cases feared. When people discover common ground of one kind or another, it inevitably generates suspicion among one's overlords, especially when they do not recognize it for what it is.

"Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend. The rest of us know that though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best. And the reason for this is important.
... In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets... Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, "Here comes one who will augment our loves." For in this love "to divide is not to take away."
— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)


As I'm now older and a cog in the machine, conforming to dress codes albeit relaxed ones and on my own terms and a semi-regular schedule, I thought that my days of being against The Proverbial Man were behind me, but it seems that acting like a normal human being, in the sense of consuming caffeine and having the pleasure of working with likeminded souls with whom compact discs and lengthy tomes are traded with regularity, is somehow threatening to the order of things, and I'm not even in the corporate world.

"For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes will not often be a bodily one like hunting or fighting. It may be a common religion, common studies, a common profession, even a common recreation. All who share it will be our companions; but one or two or three who share something more will be our Friends. In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? - Or at least, "Do you care about the same truth?" The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer."

There's something wrong with people who obsess over money and networking and whose only interest outside of that is the minutiae of micromanagement, the toxic gossip of small minds, all done in a socially acceptable way. What's wrong with them? They don't buy into this. Someday when they're older and wiser like us they'll understand..."

It is supremely ironic that in a place dedicated to reading and study and the pursuit of knowledge, that the Powers That Be are often suspicious of these very things and the friendships forged along these lines, of people who read books that are neither pulp mysteries or primers on how to be rich, who listen to incomprehensible music, and follow news that has more to do with Central Asia and the Middle East than what so and so and whatserface is up to. The irony is astounding.

But hey, I've been here four years, others have been here longer, we still get along, and what better way to celebrate the absurdity of life but with some ephemeral Daria?

Wyrd Historye of Thee Daye: The Ranters

... not the ravers, kids.

As the Peonage takes advantage of our literacy and our employment in the Hallowed Halls of Information, the Kynge's Brewe is a constant companion to our serious scholarship of all manner of esoterica.

Ohiolink is a beautiful thing for acquiring unaffordable art books, books we want to read, books to write papers with, and sundry graphic novels and varyed musick, though the treasure trove of early English writings remains inaccessible to us.

Still, the headlines of said microforms make for entertaining reading, if one finds amusement in "Scurvie Alchemy" and whatnot.

There was quite a bit about The Ranters, which according to Wikipedia was a fringe religious sect that practiced some form of pantheism and general free love, which makes them something like 17th-century hippies. The screeds below make references to blaspheming song and other travesties with some amusing alliteration.



Needless to say, this didn't go over very well.

The routing of the Ranters, being a full relation of their uncivil carriages, and blasphemous words and actions at their mad meetings, their several kind of musick, dances, and ryotings, and their belief and opinions concerning heaven and hell. With their examinations taken before a justice of peace, and a letter or summons sent to their sisters or fellow creatures in the name of the Divel, requiring them to meet Belzebub, Lucifer, Pluto, and twenty more of the infernall spirits at the time and place appointed. Also, a true description how they may be known in al companies and the names of the chief ring-leaders of this new generation that excell all others in wickednesse.

The joviall crevv, or, The devill turn'd Ranter: being a character of the roaring Ranters of these times. / Represented in a comedie, containing a true discovery of the cursed conversations, prodigious pranks, monstrous meetings, private performances, rude revellings, garrulous greetings, impious and incorrigible deporements of a sect (lately sprung up amongst us) called Ranters. Their names sorted to their severall natures, and both lively presented in action.



The Ranters declaration: with their new oath and protestation; their strange votes, and a new way to get money; their proclamation and summons; their new way of ranting, never before heard of; their dancing of the hay naked, at the white Lyon in Peticoat-lane; their mad dream, and Dr. Pockridge his speech, with their trial, examination, and answers: the coming in of 3000. their prayer and recantation, to be in all cities and market-towns read and published; the mad-ranters further resolution; their Christmas carol, and blaspheming song; their two pretended-abominable keyes to enter heaven, and the worshiping of his little-majesty, the late Bishop of Canterbury: a new and further discovery of their black art, with the names of those that are possest by the devil, having strange and hideous cries heard within them, to the great admiration of all those that shall read and peruse this ensuing subject. Licensed according to order, and published by M. Stubs, a late fellow-Ranter.

The ranters last sermon : With the manner of their meetings, ceremonies, and actions; also their damnable, blasphemous and diabolicall tenents; delivered in an exercise neer Pissing-conduit. The third day of the week, being the 2 of August. 1654. With their mock-Psalme. Also God's wonderfull judgements shewed upon Ranters, Quakers and Shakers, and other wicked and profane persons at their meetings and exercises in London and other places. Written by J.M. (a deluded brother) lately escaped out of their snare.

The black and terrible vvarning piece: or, a scourge to Englands rebellion. Truly representing, the horrible iniquity of the times; the dangerous proceedings of the ranters, and the holding of no Resurrection by the shakers, in Yorkshire and elsewhere. With the several judgements of the most high and eternal Lord God, upon all usurpers, who deny His law, and His truth; and the manner how 130 children were taken away by the devil, and never seen no more; and divers others taken, rent, torn, and cast up and down from room to room, by strange and dreadfull spirits, appearing in the shapes of, a black boar, a roaring lyon, an English statesman, and a Roman fryer. Extracted out of the elaborate works of Bishop Hall, and Sir Kenelm Digby; and published for general satisfaction, to all Christian princes, states, and common-wealths in Europe

One of their founders later joined an apocalyptic proto-Unitarian group called the Muggletonians which I didn't know existed until about five minutes ago, and who liked to discuss the impending doom of the world over some beers at the local tavern.

In other words, nothing new under the sun, be they hippies or fundies, and history is awesome.

sometimes you get a case of the mondays on a wednesday

One of the truly great things about being an Esteemed Member of the Peonage is the ability to do one's work quietly and not deal with the Powers That Be. I prefer the invisibility of civil service to having to speak in front of others who are higher up than me and to feel put on the spot in not entirely a bad way but put on the spot nonetheless sucks fantastically.

So much of what I do depends on what the higher ups ask to be done and if they don't give me anything than that's just the way it is. People have way too much time on their hands to analyze minutiae and I sit there just wanting to melt away knowing that I am neither in trouble or at fault but I just want out of this room, I want to go home, I want to be far, far away.

call me crank

Frustration with rank incompetence is a constant struggle for yours truly, but thankfully the ratio of awesome fellow peons to those who give us a bad name is pretty stacked in favor of the former.

I've been deprived of my art-making sanctuary this week, and miss the visceralness of twisting wire and shaping clay greatly, but having a flash drive full of cathartic tuneage of the heavy variety, potential rockingness of some kind and cousins coming in this weekend, some cinematic greatness arriving from another bibliotheque, and fabulous department soiree leftovers of the fruit/veggies/swanky cheese have turned my surly mood into one that's a little less curmudgeonly. As lame as it sometimes gets, there's a lot of things in my life that are good and it could always be much much worse.

one more thing to put in line / one more thing to waste my time

So the economy of my state depends on the prison industry and people drinking themselves into oblivion or some combination thereof, we can't fund NPR but we can drop bombs in Libya, even though life is hard in the rust belt, it's way worse other places, and the family is suggesting strongly that I invest in a security system because I live in the almost-hood but what's the point if the cops don't come when you call anyway. Besides, given my clumsiness, I'm the kind of person that would trip the alarm on my own as it is.

I don't mean to sound so surly, but listening to powerpoint presentations of bureautechnocracy in all of its mind-numbing banality will do that. To think about all of these people who think they should know all your business, under the pretense that it's for your own good is spooky as anything, whether it's those who see us peons as expendable human resources or the general nanny-statism that has become the norm over the last decade.

I know that I participate in my own forms of escapism as much as those I deride for obsessing over the Kardashians or the last episode of whatever people are watching on TV, hence the nights spent honing artistic skills and writing my Chinese Democracy of an unfinished novel.

Ah well, I'll be going home to crash from the comedown of all the coffee I've drank, finish up that damn midterm, and try to retrieve my brain from the absurdity of modern life. And while this band really isn't all that good, this song is pretty awesome for those days when I just need some abstract angst and Butch Vig-produced power-chordness that sounds an awful lot like that guitar sound on 'Nevermind.'

the widening gap

I remember when phrases involving gaps regarding generations and haves and have-nots seemed like theoreticals discussed in Sociology 101 classes but more and more I'm seeing the way that these dynamics play out in a dying city where the ones who can afford to get out flee like rats off a sinking ship and the politicians still manage to get theirs for theirs and tell the rest of us to keep being nice and paying our taxes and our union dues because we don't really have a choice.



I live a simple life and don't ask for much, and I know I could get by all right, having ample networks in the way of support (family, church, friends), and I keep on going knowing that the future looks more and more bleak.

I just have to laugh when I listen to the foolish and selfish talk of those older than me who live a life of ease and self-centeredness who can't see beyond their own generational myopia because they make twice what I do and have nothing to worry about but maintaining the status quo while still trying to fight the system.

It's "those other people who tax our social services" not him and his fat public pension that I'm paying for. I blame the Republicans and Dems equally because the former have run the country into the ground, and the latter have continued to do so, not to mention having run my city into the ground and have bled us dry.

"We paid into this system and so we get what we're entitled to. You young people seem to think that you deserve everything handed to you. They paid into it for us and now it's your turn to do the same."

And then the talk about revolution which is a fashion statement to the Woodstock generation and its ideological whitewashing descendants who brag about their favorite whiskey and cool clothes as opposed to being musicians who often lost everything for speaking out against corrupt systems.

To which I say that you wouldn't like it because it'd keep you from watching sports and going to gamble at the casino that will only contribute more misery to those who don't live in the swanky cracker burbs. You're just as tone deaf as the neocons you rail against.

There's no point in trying to explain that everything is screwed because everyone's so obsessed with their own comfort that they don't think about how their decisions affect anybody else. No one they know is living paycheck to paycheck, they'll be totally fine when the bottom drops out for the rest of us.



Up in the morning and out to school
Mother says there'll be no work next year
Qualifications once the Golden Rule
Are now just pieces of paper

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

If you look the part you'll get the job
In last year's trousers and your old school shoes
The truth is son, it's a buyer's market
They can afford to pick and choose

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because I dress like this
Doesn't mean I'm a communist

The factories are closing and the army's full
I don't know what I'm going to do
But I've come to see in the Land of the Free
There's only a future for the chosen few

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

At twenty one you're on to of the scrapheap
At sixteen you were top of the class
All they taught you at school
Was how to be a good worker
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

is this my world?

I read, I listen, I watch, and I'm just a bystander not wholly innocent, an observer.

These systems in other countries, built upon entitlement, intimidation, and corruption, are finally beginning to crack, but I wonder what will replace them, how they will rebuild. So much of history is just one despot after another, talking a different game, but doing the same things all while talking about bright new tomorrows and hopeful futures.

I've got no love for self-absorbed and self-important boomers of either partisanship and their culture wars and politics, the smokescreens of cynical manipulation. Whether they're politicians or unionistas, they'll get what's theirs while the getting's good, the perks they feel entitled to by coincidence of birth and privilege and let the rest of us deal with the fallout.

this ain't no picnic

I've been through this rollercoaster of emotions before, in regards to certain pressing issues at hand, and know that I'll endlessly repeat these for quite some time until the next round of cuts comes around.

I'm a people person by nature, but tend to avoid those who make me nervous, especially when they have a lot more power and when this could really affect one's future. I gingerly bring up the suggestion that in the future of skeleton crews and general austerities, that there are a lot of other things that I've done before, could do again, and yes I know that there's such a thing called training do I look that dumb, because you seem to think so.



And I know it's stupid that it makes me mad. It's one thing to be ignored. I'm fine with that. It's a whole other thing to not be taken seriously, to feel like the word of one person or the unfairness of one incident when the person lowest ends up getting the blame totally invalidates the fact that I show up on time, heck, early, every day, learn from my mistakes quickly, and do whatever is asked of me, and go above and beyond on a regular basis. I get along with everyone, even the people I don't care for so much.

It's been like this awhile now, but when there's balance sheets involved, the sword of Damocles, the Axe of Austerity, it just adds to that sense of helplessness and frustration. At least there's always nerdy disenfranchised 80's punk to get me through the rough spots.

'battle dress'

...evidently has nothing to do with medieval warlike accoutrements or re-enactors but rather this whole thing called "Dress for Success."

My first dealing with this whole culture came at the Seasonal Holiday Retail Hell Job I had for three weeks when I was 19. At orientation, we learned how to run the cash register the lady who ran this was wearing a power suit and told us we were really special because we worked at Kaufmann's and were dressed much classier than those people at JCPenney's.

We had to carry on this tradition of looking really good so that when we went for lunch at the food court, everyone could tell that we worked at Kaufmann's. Honestly, I don't think anyone else in the rest of Parmatown Mall really gave a damn either way, but then again, there's a reason that I'm not the manager of anything.

So now I'm in the world of grown-up-ness where I have to maintain a modicum of respectability and negotiate the precarious terms of business casual and read these articles about careerwear with some bemusement.

What do my legs say about me as a barely creative individual? What kind of authority do I want to project? Being that I'm often told I'm young enough to be their children by my superiors, I get the feeling that I'm not taken terribly seriously as it is.

Evidently knee-high boots and the color purple are okay, which is ironically what I'm wearing today, not because it's a "Power Color" but more because I got it for free from someone, as I did the accompanying skinny black pants and the dangling heavy glass earrings. At least Eugene Hutz & Co. would be proud of me.



Thrift and comfort over fashion, but I'm getting better at this whole thing, since I have to. Our Industrial Sociology overlords claim that one should not express oneself especially as a female, but since I have no ambition and work in the non-corporate realm, I'll continue to indulge in my love of dangly earrings (de-gauging my ears was a good thing) and dark colors. So far it hasn't gotten me in any trouble, so I guess I'm okay.

I'm thankful I live in an unfashionable rustbelt city in a run-down part of town so that I can get away with old jeans and an endless array of black t-shirts, where a winter wardrobe means putting thermals under and a hoodie/cardigan over said previous items, and I get mistaken for a record store clerk every time I'm shopping in said establishment. It's not entirely a bad thing.

notes from my 19-year-old self

So I went back through some of my old writing from my seasonal employee days at the Cleveland Zoo. My writing wasn't all that good as these were mostly quick notes and typed mostly in lowercase, and I used to listen to a lot more Black Flag back then and used the word "awesome" way too much.

Working there gave me a trash-talking mouth that I've since tried to rein in, and an imperviousness to the most absurd of verbally abusive customers. Also, I'm glad I no longer have to wear terrible khaki pants, though I did my own early-20's nonconformity with my black Converse shoes (our shoes were supposed to be "mostly white" so I'd just buy a shiny new pair), gauged ears that you could see through, and more jewelry than was probably necessary.

I was 19 though, and I've changed less than I thought I have. There's still a distrust of authority there and a healthy dose of sarcasm but hopefully I'm less catty than I once was.

The worst people by far to deal with were suburban housewives with children named Madison and Cody, and boomers who just got their Golden Buckeye cards and felt entitled to a discount. Everyone lies about the age of their kid and since the customer is always right, you can't tell them that you know their 22 month old is talking in complete sentences and barely fits in the stroller and instead end being snarky to try to make them feel guilty by saying "wow, she's pretty developed for her age."

The best people were the metal dads who usually had tattoos and old Anthrax and Iron Maiden t-shirts who were always the nicest and had cool little kids.

Tourists were pretty bad too, especially the Australian who cussed me out for saying "koala bear" because I should know better.

It was a strange melting pot of Parma kids, girls from Glenville, assorted older women including one who believed in the Evil Eye, total slackerness in the form of riding around on golf carts and being told "just look like you're doing something useful," prank calling people at other ticket booths and at the front desk on slow days when the managers weren't there.

We got accidentally mooned, cussed out on a daily basis, dealt with unfunny clowns and people that were on acid trips, smuggled in toys that the gift shop kids gave us, set up a bowling alley in the back hallway, took money that came from pill bottles, women's bras, and wadded-up dollar bills from stinky shoes, and amazingly rarely got sick.

absurd conversations, gruesome horror stories written in the notebook used as a problem log that we all added to until our manager discovered it, and continued commentary on bad tattoos, dismal fashion choices, and wondering what woodwork some of these people crawled out of.

Free Mondays answering the phone:


Can I speak to Miss Ellie Phant? What about Mr. Lion? HAHAHA!!!

Is the zoo free today?

Are you a Cuyahoga County resident?

no, I'm not a Cuyahoga resident. I live in Parma.

Uh, is Cleveland in Cuyahoga County?

Of course I'm from Cuyahoga County! (pulls out Texas ID)

I'm having a party and it's Egyptian themed and i was wondering if i could rent your camels?

I saw this bird outside. And then it flew away. I just wanted to tell you about it.


Not only were there animals, but we also had animatronic dinosaurs and a simulator ride that was always described dirty mind or not as the Dinosaur Stimulator that you could pay extra for. Parents often begged me to threaten their bratty kids with the possibility of being fed to the tigers or thrown to the (real) dinosaurs if they didn't stop whining about cotton candy.

And the customers:

Drunk parents at the African Savannah watering hole.

The frighteningly fashionable Armani-clad couple whose drivers licenses looked like dress up senior pictures

The family with all these cute little kids and all the boys were wearing camouflage baseball caps that said "Daddy's Little Hunter." One kid had a toy rifle sticking out of his backpack.

I met the King of trailer trashdom today at work. he came through my line in the full glory of wifebeater, faded acid wash jeans, long stringy hair and a motorcycle vest. he had this awesome gold plastic crown thing too. he swept through, shouting "make way! i'm ROYALTY!"
he even had Kid Rock in his entourage. or someone that looked like him.

I don't understand why people tattoo the number of their favorite NASCAR driver on themselves.

I saw some guy with a creed logo tattooed on his whole shoulder and i wonder if he will regret it in 10 years

LOTS of prison tattoos

work was perfectly fine until the last five minutes. i was so worried i would have a lawsuit on my hands. the window i sell camel ride tickets out of has a hard time staying open so there's this stick that we use to hold it up. not the safest thing to begin with. some little kid was being kind of stupid and playing with the window and it fell down and smashed his hand. i freaked out and his family freaked out even more. thank god he didn't break anything because they wanted to know who i was and talk to my manager. it all ended up getting smoothed out but it was really stressing.

then i missed my bus and had to wait a half hour for the next one.

there were 2 wedding parties today. the second one came in as i was closing up and everyone was totally plastered. one bridesmaid fell out of the charter bus. everyone else including the bride was chain smoking and yelling stuff. half of them could barely walk straight.

Ryan, the new kid gave me a 2 day bus pass and saved me a nice $3. i saw a 50 year old lady with very dyed blond hair down halfway to her knees, a rhinestone studded cowboy hat, camou tube top and booty shorts. i never want to look like that when i get old.

saw Trailer Trash King again but he wasn't wearing his crown this time. just the biker vest and the WMMS t-shirt with the cut-off sleeves.

Amish midgets do exist.

zoo quote of the day: dumb guy: " the Rainforest is where the pandas are right?
dumb guy's girlfriend: " no dumbass! they live in the bamboo forests of RUSSIA!"

this other lady in a huge fur hat knocked out my sign window and shoves 3 zoolights passes at me. as the tickets print, i start voiding them and she starts yelling at me "can you do that writing later? i have a PERFORMANCE i cannot miss" (oh you mean that lady playing harp in the visitors center?)... whatever. thank god for glass and a mute button on my headset.

Getting screamed at by a mom who insists her kid NEEDS to see the Christmas Train.

if i ever get a WGAR loyal listener card, shoot me. especially if i have the nerve to show it to people to get a discount.

a guy got hit by a tram. i felt like scum because i'm supposed to sit there and just print out tickets and take people's money while a guy's lying unconscious and his grandkids are freaking out. someone had already called 911 and all that.

another guy tried to intimidate me and let me give him tickets even though he didn't have enough money. i told him i'd be screwed because my drawer would be off and he's like 'well just overcharge the next person."

ended up working 10-5 today. easiest job in the world. answer phones, transfer crabby people to other departments, take packages. i walked around on break and looked at the baby seal and the tiger. i got this one package by fedex from malaysia. it had some kind of exotic bugs in it. cool.

this one creepy guy was hitting on candace today at work. what made it so weird was that he was a cleveland public school teacher who was there with his third grade class or something and he was doing it in front of the kids. he asked her to marry him and kept on coming back trying to get her phone number. We made up a fake stripper name (Kandi Boomer) and gave him the number of the cleveland zoological society because it looks like a legit phone number.

candace got a redneck with a confederate states of america belt buckle that was HUGE. i also saw a guy in an art bell sweatshirt. he looked really paranoid and was wearing dark sunglasses.

we're not allowed to read in the box office anymore which isn't cool because that's how i keep my sanity when things are slow. however, they didn't say anything about not being allowed to write...

saw a random t-shirt today on some lady.
Latvia : where storks are storks and the frogs are nervous

work wasn't too bad for a monday. it's faster for me to walk up the hill at closing time than get a ride because traffic's so backed up. we've had so many weird random people there it's kind of been like monday everyday. there were these rebellious amish teens that came through my line yesterday. they were all smoking and the boys had their shirts all the way open. i think they thought it made them look sexy but it just looked bad.

i saw this little girl, she had to be about 7 or 8 and she was in a school group. she had the worst mullet i've ever seen. i'm talking rod stewart or joe dirt, like with it all bushy and spiky on the top and really long too. i felt so bad for her.

this new agey lady wearing all these crystals and stuff comes up to me to buy tickets for the dinosaurs and i do the usual "here's the tickets and such and such in change." she gets this weird mystical look on her face and says "this isn't change. change comes from within. you should tell people that instead of giving them change. because it comes from inside you." i mumbled something like "ummm yeah," and moved on to the next person.

we were watching the seagulls fly around the ticket plaza and were hoping they'd pop one of the balloons. dan was talking about being on ecstasy and seeing visions of lions and how "brewery" is such a hard word to say.

i laughed outright at a customer at work yesterday. she came up to my window, this old lady wearing this really expensive necklace with this orangy pendant thing on it and dan goes "dude, is that lady wearing a lifesaver around her neck?"

work with dan and patty was good. it was busy today, like every day last summer and it went really fast. i had this crazy guy who didn't know what he was talking about and he thought i cut him a deal on his tickets so he started praising jesus. i wanted to tell him that jesus wouldn't have appreciated him coming back and yelling at me, not to mention lying to me about the ages of his kids.

they were trying to give away KISS/Poison tickets at work. you couldn't pay me to go to that.

did the back lot today with tiffany. we were bored and sweltering and played around with the paint program on the computer. i did cartoons with pirates and dinosaurs eating zoo patrons and robots taking over the world. the robots had slogans like "doom is at hand," "just say no," "there's no 'i' in team," and tiffany and josh contributed "let's boogie," and "sit on it." i get really weird when i have too much time on my hands and it's way too hot outside.

i felt bad for the polar bear because it was sleeping and it looks about as comfortable as you can get at the zoo on a hot August day and these stupid little daycare kids were throwing rocks and yelling trying to wake it up.


And the cranky pissed off side of me...

For some reason people kept on asking me if I was hung over. lots of dumb jokes about jello shots.

I didn't even feel like smiling or being nice because I was so tired and fed up with stupid people. or just nasty ones. some lady demanded that I give her a discount because she lives right behind the zoo. Like I care.

i've tried so freaking hard this year. my drawer hasn't been off in two weeks. i've never called off or even shown up late. i've come in when i didn't have to and sure as hell didn't feel like it. and believe it or not, i'm actually nice to people. nice to everyone. even customers who tell me i'm a stupid punk who can't do anything, complicate everything, make fun of my jewelry, whatever. i've been the perfect nice little cog in the machine to make some money for college, most of which goes to the city of cleveland to be blown on rich people's ballparks.