A fine specimen looking on from the lower left...
...as if to say, Get me out, please...
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Ridiculosity
The anniversary of ridiculosity. A couple hundred strong near the steps of City Hall to commemorate five years at war, if you don't count Afghanistan. What was I thinking?
A fine specimen looking on from the lower left...
...as if to say, Get me out, please...
A fine specimen looking on from the lower left...
...as if to say, Get me out, please...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Selling it...
I awoke this morning at the beautiful hour of 9:30 am without qualm or worry for a day of duty to the man. Thursday, my Friday, I arranged my absence for a top-secret job interview downtown with the City of Oakland. In evading the boss-man's know of my being still on the market, I told him of an appointment but said no more. Luckily he didn't ask for details and so I didn't lie.
I shaved and got my face real close to the mirror to inspect for cleanliness and made looks of sincerity and honesty in preparation for my interview. A three-person panel would do the questioning again... just like last time, three months ago. I showered and then combed my hair with my fingers and put on the only shirt I find semi-respectable and hurried out the door.
I left the car a few blocks away and found my building heading up to the third floor. At the proper desk I announced my arrival and took a seat. After a few minutes a woman named Joyce informed me that my interview had been canceled and that a message had been left for me. Back in her office we checked the telephone history on her computer (which was pretty hi-tech, I felt, considering the junk-show I was experiencing in HR). On the way out I found myself in the elevator with a young spruced up businessman; we headed down to street level together in deafening silence. With the ding and the doors open we both hesitated offering first departure, psyching each other out a few times, Two polite people... we'll never make it in this world! he shouted after me.
Out on the street I felt a little better. It's funny when you catch yourself thinking of the money you could be making in your free time. That's what I was imagining... the two-hundred bucks I could've made today, instead of wasting my time in dressshoes downtown. Time is money. I always disliked that saying. How do people find so many opportunities to use it? I tried to think of something smarter.
Down half a block I waited for the walk sign and the loud chirp that now signifies it. A leather clad motorcyclist pulled next to the curb wearing a keffiyeh about his neck. He put his gloves on the seat and helmet on the handle, knelt to the rock and tar of 12th street and bowed toward the Pacific Ocean. The electronic bird began chirping in my ear and I headed across the street. I looked back from the adjacent corner and found him still praying, his head only feet away from the wheels of traffic.
I shaved and got my face real close to the mirror to inspect for cleanliness and made looks of sincerity and honesty in preparation for my interview. A three-person panel would do the questioning again... just like last time, three months ago. I showered and then combed my hair with my fingers and put on the only shirt I find semi-respectable and hurried out the door.
I left the car a few blocks away and found my building heading up to the third floor. At the proper desk I announced my arrival and took a seat. After a few minutes a woman named Joyce informed me that my interview had been canceled and that a message had been left for me. Back in her office we checked the telephone history on her computer (which was pretty hi-tech, I felt, considering the junk-show I was experiencing in HR). On the way out I found myself in the elevator with a young spruced up businessman; we headed down to street level together in deafening silence. With the ding and the doors open we both hesitated offering first departure, psyching each other out a few times, Two polite people... we'll never make it in this world! he shouted after me.
Out on the street I felt a little better. It's funny when you catch yourself thinking of the money you could be making in your free time. That's what I was imagining... the two-hundred bucks I could've made today, instead of wasting my time in dressshoes downtown. Time is money. I always disliked that saying. How do people find so many opportunities to use it? I tried to think of something smarter.
Down half a block I waited for the walk sign and the loud chirp that now signifies it. A leather clad motorcyclist pulled next to the curb wearing a keffiyeh about his neck. He put his gloves on the seat and helmet on the handle, knelt to the rock and tar of 12th street and bowed toward the Pacific Ocean. The electronic bird began chirping in my ear and I headed across the street. I looked back from the adjacent corner and found him still praying, his head only feet away from the wheels of traffic.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Transplantation
We're on the steps of Mount Diablo, a beautiful four-thousand foot bump overlooking Walnut Creek and the Bay Area. Dow AgroSciences are blessing us with a 125 gallon concoction made of Transline, an herbicide for the control of broadleaf weeds. The enemy in question is yellow starthistle, which blankets the grasslands of northern California and ruthlessly strangles out native vegetation. Starthistle arrived via alfalfa seed contamination from the Balklans and now rules many miles with little hope of letting up.
That's my gloved hand there letting out the four-hundred foot hose to work a stretch of rangeland. The ground is tore up pretty fierce in some places where feral pigs, also introduced (obviously! from the Russians and Spaniards), have ripped the shit out of the earth with sharp cloven hooves. Further down the ridge wild turkeys are gobbling loudly cos it's mating season and the gobblers are all tricked out trying to attract the positive attentions of some hens (also introduced by the Spanish, thanks! with an origin of yes! Turkey!).
And so we have the generator on and pump running, spraying out gallons of blue-dyed herbicide into the grasslands. A few coyotes are hanging out by a rabbit hole down the trail, very unconcerned as to what we're doing. The Bay's spandex community of bikers are drudgingly climbing the mountain, each with a million-sponsored jersey and every conceivable gadget, up-to-date in every possible way as they time their heart rate and circuit length on this, their 800th ascent of Mount Diablo. I love biking, but there's something severely perverted about today's techni-decked road bikers on $5,000 jobs financed by the stock market. Sometimes I get the feeling that simplicity is gone and won't return anytime soon.
I also think about nativity and subsequent homeland ownership and find that I struggle formulating an opinion on who holds the rights. Sometimes I think of the Holy Land, but rarely, and then of America a nation of once non-native immigrants. And more, the originally occurring flora and fauna of the lands I know, fighting the fight with non-natives and invasives.
How long does it take before we're home, before we belong? Take all the pride of one with generations back in the same place, is that really something to brag about, or is it more to unease the veritable newcomers? I can feel the pride... though my roots don't go much further than the bend. I can also see... there's a light in the immigrant eyes that we misplaced long ago.
That's my gloved hand there letting out the four-hundred foot hose to work a stretch of rangeland. The ground is tore up pretty fierce in some places where feral pigs, also introduced (obviously! from the Russians and Spaniards), have ripped the shit out of the earth with sharp cloven hooves. Further down the ridge wild turkeys are gobbling loudly cos it's mating season and the gobblers are all tricked out trying to attract the positive attentions of some hens (also introduced by the Spanish, thanks! with an origin of yes! Turkey!).
And so we have the generator on and pump running, spraying out gallons of blue-dyed herbicide into the grasslands. A few coyotes are hanging out by a rabbit hole down the trail, very unconcerned as to what we're doing. The Bay's spandex community of bikers are drudgingly climbing the mountain, each with a million-sponsored jersey and every conceivable gadget, up-to-date in every possible way as they time their heart rate and circuit length on this, their 800th ascent of Mount Diablo. I love biking, but there's something severely perverted about today's techni-decked road bikers on $5,000 jobs financed by the stock market. Sometimes I get the feeling that simplicity is gone and won't return anytime soon.
I also think about nativity and subsequent homeland ownership and find that I struggle formulating an opinion on who holds the rights. Sometimes I think of the Holy Land, but rarely, and then of America a nation of once non-native immigrants. And more, the originally occurring flora and fauna of the lands I know, fighting the fight with non-natives and invasives.
How long does it take before we're home, before we belong? Take all the pride of one with generations back in the same place, is that really something to brag about, or is it more to unease the veritable newcomers? I can feel the pride... though my roots don't go much further than the bend. I can also see... there's a light in the immigrant eyes that we misplaced long ago.
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