While laying half asleep tonight, I noticed something move to my right. something small and black. I jumped slightly and as I did I noticed a mouse I swear to fucking God run across my blanket with a Frito corn chip in its mouth. I jumped up. I had never seen a mouse before. how cool. what I wanted to know was where it got that Frito. I wish I had found it first.
A real mouse. That’s great. Never saw that before. of course I didn’t sleep for hours. Just waiting for that thing to jump on top of me again. Yes you see this in New York. other things too. the other night at about 4 in the morning, I was sitting out the stairs in front of my brownstone smoking and writing and this guy stumbles up to me obviously wasted on something, just tripped out. and he comes right up to me and touches my computer with these glassy eyes. I looked at him and said very loudly and deliberately as if I were speaking to a little kid, “laptop.” He acted like he wanted to play with it. but I stared him down. And then he stumbled away. I see a lot of people stumbling by in the wee hours of the morning drunk off their asses. Just Stumbling all over the sidewalk. Wonder how they make it home. wonder why they get so drunk. you see many hunched over men and women looking very sad in the streets and subways of the city. People who have forgotten about their lives. People who life has left behind. For the moment. they can come back if they want to. I keep that candle burning for them in my heart. I carry my leftovers from my meals with me in my laptop case so I can give them away whenever the opportunity rises. When someone asks me for money I always just reach into my pocket and give them a bill and keep another for myself, unless I only have one; then they get that and I get nothing. The other night I whip out 6 bucks. “Well I guess that’s a fiver for you and a one spot for me you lucky bastard,” I tell the guy. You wouldn’t believe how happy that can make someone. What’s really funny is when an hour or two a later I go to get a burger or something and reach into my pocket and realize that I only have a dollar and I have to go away hungry. That can make you laugh at yourself.
I think that it is a noble mission to have on the side as you are building your empire. Give away a little everyday. Allow God/the force to use you as a conduit or a missionary so to speak. Just always be in the right place at the right time for those in need. since I don’t really choose to make the time to volunteer or anything, which I feel awful about. cause I know people do and I envy their dedication to that. but I figure that if I prefer to just focus all of my time on working hard to build my shit up then I will have so much money then I can just give a lot of it away and that will be my way of giving. I know its easy and not doing that much, but I still think it does something, even though its small. I think God kind of picks us out and knows what each of us can do for the other. I picture him/her whispering in a homeless persons ear, ‘turn down this street now; there’s this long haired kid sitting on some stairs typing on a computer. Ask him for money. he’ll give you whatever he has in his pocket.’ And that’s my way of fitting in to the whole complex mechanism of it all. I have still not come to terms yet as a man with some of us having food and shelter and some of us not having that. it freaks me out and makes me sad.
I do not see it in our future. I have to be honest. I believe that man will one day rise to a state just beyond modern capitalism, of which I am very fond of to be quite honest, unlike many of my activist comrades; a kind of socially conscious capitalism so to speak. Someone told me yesterday that some 30,000 children die everyday of starvation. I don’t know if this is true but I will check on it. if this is even close to being true than we have far indeed to go in our evolution as a species. America is a great example of our species still being caught in the middle. We certainly give more than any other great empire of the past, but obviously not enough, since so many people are still hungry and in need.
Last screening: life and debt. Story of Jamaica and their heartbreaking struggle to make it in the global economy. They complain about the global economy and how hard it is to make it because of the world bank and the IMF. More free trade, globalization stuff. But honestly, in the free market system if a country can’t raise itself out of its financial problems, they should just feel lucky that there is a bank they can go to to lend them any money. I mean, from a very non socialist viewpoint, who says that any other country has the obligation to help any other countries. I mean if yo uare to look at it purely from a logical standpoint. Hard to do though at the same time. but this is must see if you are a socially conscious person. the global economy powers that be have really fucked over the Jamaicans in a big way. destroyed their country in twenty years. unfortunately America had no small part in it. destroyed every money making industry they had going and loaned them money at ridiculous interest rates so now they are slaves to the United States. Tommy Hilfiger had a big hand in it. so did the Dole and Chiquita fruit companies. Hardcore capitalism. At its most fiercest and heartless. Again, I’m not going to cast the first stone, because I make my living from the capitalist ways so I can’t really say anything. It’s the free enterprise system after all. like I said, we have to let all the old war dogs of the old capitalist system die out and then sneak in there and make things a bit more fair for the peeps that aren’t doing as well.
I always wonder Why the turkey is called with the name of my country.
Let’s read the article;
Talking Turkey: The Story of How the Unofficial Bird of the United States Got Named After a Middle Eastern Country by Giancarlo Casale
How did the turkey get its name? This seemingly harmless question popped into my head one morning as I realized that the holidays were once again upon us. After all, I thought, there?s nothing more American than a turkey. Their meat saved the pilgrims from starvation during their first winter in New England. Out of gratitude, if you can call it that, we eat them for Thanksgiving dinner, and again at Christmas, and gobble them up in sandwiches all year long. Every fourth grader can tell you that Benjamin Franklin was particularly fond of the wild turkey, and even campaigned to make it, and not the bald eagle, the national symbol. So how did such a creature end up taking its name from a medium sized country in the Middle East? Was it just a coincidence? I wondered.