Like Holy Shit
It comes from the earth
natural processes like
the earth working
on the earth
or a still
cooking dead life
to a new drug
(num num)
petroleum
A junkie surrounded
detritus floating
an oily flotilla
ridiculous ludicrous
malleable colorful
in and out of focus
a pendulum
travesty/convenience
but there
always there everywhere
plastic/petroleum
petroleum/plastic
micro
plastics
everywhere
like holy shit
This from Harper’s Findings June 2024:
“Microplastics were found in sixty-two of sixty-two human placentas from a biobank in Texas, in half the arterial plaques of Campanian carotid endarterectomy patients; in the gastrointestinal tracts of three bottlenose dolphins and a harbor porpoise in the Black Sea; in shrimp in South Africa’s Crocodile River; in two-thousand-year-old archaeological remains buried seven meters underground; and in the gonads of adult oysters in the Mangrove Coast of the estuarine Brazilian Amazon.”
Found their way seven meters underground. And we have no idea regarding the long-term effects of microplastics on humans. We just went with it many years ago and here we are. But are we seeing it already? I read a while ago that tests on mice showed them suffering from both physical and mental maladies, and got, well, dumber. You think?
I remember skitching cars in wintertime when I was a kid. We’d have a day with a deep, fresh, icy snow pack, and we’d crouch between two parked cars (near a stop sign) and when a car drove up and stopped (and there was not a car coming behind them), we’d crawl out, grab the bumper and slide along down the street. It was really stupid* and that we were. You’d think the first face full of 70s car exhaust would have dampened our spirits.** I lost an expensive ski glove that way, too, which might be kind of ironic. Or maybe not.
I wrote a drunk song called skitching in the snow many years ago. It’s bad but maybe funny.
*Don’t do it. Dangerous. And dumb, too.
**Or did it ginger up our spirits like only huffing gas can do?*
There’s a lot of fighting going on. A lot of anger and hatred. A lot of putting down and hurting other groups of people. It’s weird. We’re tribal, most definitely. We have this ability to see a forest but not a tree and then hate on the forest, of course.
It’s weird but it’s not new. We hear more about it thanks to 24-hour access to the Internet. Which not only shows it but feeds it. That being said, I just relish watching people on Instagram videos go all dumbass hateful right into someone else’s camera and I’m right there to watch it. So there’s also a fascination, like with Trump. He absolutely fascinates. His baldfaced lies, incredible, and very vocal hatred, meanness and malice, obvious mental instability and then the fact that so many people like him, and because of these same traits. That’s fascinating! And especially if he were an evil character in a movie.
But he’s real. I wonder what will happen to his fans when he dies and that of course is not far off. He’s almost 80 now. The world shall weep as one. Just kidding.
We hate people for their hobbies. We hate people for their clothing. We hate people for their accent. We hate people for their skin tone. We hate people for their features. We hate people for their food. We hate people for their children. We hate people for their vehicles. We hate people for their difference. We hate people for the noise they make. We hate people for their worship. We hate people for their language. We hate people for their names. We hate people for their art. We hate people for their birthplace. We hate people for their current residence. We hate people for their beliefs. We hate people for their family. We hate people for their prayers. We hate people for their books. We hate people for their sexuality. We hate people for their gender. We hate people for their hatred.
A couple of people asked me what the hell this is. It’s a voice inside my head, the loser me, the guy always trying to fit in. The bit about mooching the money is not me. I don’t think. Can I just say it was very strange to write it down? And not a little embarrassing?
Ha ha! It’s fun to be with you guys, I mean, that’s obvious! We’re just like, ‘hey, man’ and ‘what’s going on’ and stuff. Just chillin’. Everybody’s all ‘wha?!’ you know? ha ha! So, what is up? Wanna go to one or your guys’s cribs? Check it out, you know, ‘what’s up?’ Be all ‘sweet crib!’ Yeah, no, we could go to my place but it’s so small, we’d be all over each other, I mean, and we’re buds but not that kind! ha ha! Man, especially, anyone got any brews at home? That’d be sweet! We’d be all ‘wha?!’ Hanging out and shit! Drinking some brewskis! Ha. Hey! Shit. I was gonna ask, I left my wallet at home and if anyone can front me five bucks, that’d be sweet! I’d be paying it right back, I’ll be all, ‘what’s up?’ be like, ‘cash on the barrel head, bitches!’ right? so if anyone can, just let me know. Later’s cool! Ha. So are we going to hang out? That’d be sweet. A bite to eat. That rhymes! ‘that’d be sweet, a bite to eat!’ We’re all like, ‘wha?!’ be hanging out and stuff. Anyone hungry? Grab a little nosh? ‘what’s up?’ ha ha. Not to use a big word, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t invite you guys to my place in the very near future! It’d be sweet, be all, ‘wha’s up? want to par-tay?’ Hell yeah! So where do you guys want to go? There’s some good movies out nowadays. We could get some tix, poppycorn and bevies? ‘what’s up?’ be all, ‘I’ll take the biggest tub you got, homey!’ ha ha. So, movie sound groovy? Ha! I’m a freaking poet! ‘Four score and …’ wait! no! shit! That’s not poetry – it’s the Constitution! Damn! Everybody’s all, ‘wha? make up your mind, dumbshit!’ how many times I’ve heard that – my mom and my dad, that is, when he’s actually home, but, oh, shit! What am I doing? You guys are all like, ‘what about your dad, you loser!’ ha. Anybody got any brothers and sisters and shit? Hey! We gonna head out or what? Not that I don’t love hanging out here in the freezing cold – ha ha – you guys all got real winter gear. This beauty’s a wind breaker and it ain’t breaking any wind! It’s freaking cold out here! Wait a minute, isn’t breaking wind like farting? I mean, doesn’t it mean it? That’s hilarious! Good news, guys, my wind breaker ain’t breaking any wind! But someone here is! You all smell that? Be all, ‘Damn dude! That’s rank!’ and shit. Let’s roll! I mean, get on the road. ha ha it’s cool hanging out with you cats! Ha! Cats! You all be all, ‘you hang out with cats, dork?’ ha ha Then my cat will just disappear one day – poof! from the backyard. Dad didn’t bother to look for her. It was his day off. Ha! Just joshing! Be all, ‘I’m fucking with you!’ If you pardon my French! Ha! Damn. So, if anyone does have five buckaroos, that’d be sweet! I mean, I could probably get by with a little less, but, I mean if no one’s sporting a fiver, I totally understand. But one of you fuckers must be able to spot me! Ha! I’d pay it right back, I’d bring it right to your place – special delivery! So, I need the cash for medications for my mom who’s totally wondering where the heck I am! I’d be all, ‘Put a lid on it, old lady!’ ha. ‘wha?!’ But I should probably skedaddle – anyone able to… Naw, I get it. I’m totally cool with… Where are… Okay! Cool! See you guys! Cats! ha ha. cats.
The author, Edith Wharton, who has written ghost stories herself, once said: “No, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them.”
Right? I’ve seen enough ghost chaser shows to know that there probably ain’t no ghosts. No one’s been able to properly photograph or record any sort of ghost-like phenomena, even in the ghostiest places. One doesn’t read about people being murdered by ghosts, just other people. So all actual evidence must lead one to believe that there are no ghosts.
Then how come I get scared by weird unexplainable sounds in my house? Why do I get all goosebumpy when someone tells me their own ghost story? Why did a huge flash of beautiful golden light fill the room the night my friend buried her mother? Not that we were afraid of the golden light, mind you, but we definitely got the goosebumps.
I suppose that, like being scared watching a horror movie, where we suspend our disbelief, we just might suspend some disbelief with ghosts, too? At some level, fear must feel good, although we’d need to define good in that particular statement.
I was walking around Lake and Hennepin in Minneapolis with my girlfriend back in the 80s and we watched an expensive BMW come around a corner. The trunk popped and a young man, dressed in ratty shorts and t-shirt with old flip-flops, and shaggy messy hair, jumped out of the passenger seat, opened the trunk, pulled out a beat-up skateboard and skated off.
A while later and a block away that same young man came skating up to us and asked, “Hey, man, you got a quarter?” I said, “Hey, man, you got a ‘Beamer?” And he rolled off.
Was it the hippies who inaugurated what my dad referred to as, “faux poverty”? Dad was a surgeon back then and he just loved to mock the very idea of people with plenty of money dressing like they had none at all. He had a field day with the new trend of pre-torn jeans, produced, marketed and actually torn by huge, multi-national, highly profitable corporations.
I’m guessing it was the hippies, but no doubt it was a statement about poverty and our consumer society for them. Hippies liked to make statements and if you look back over time, they were pretty much always right. But they made it cool and it made its way to artists, musicians and the like, who were then aped by those who adored them.
Like me. The surgeon’s kid. That’s how I dressed as a teenager (and I still do on occasion but mostly when I’m painting). The only difference back then was that you couldn’t yet buy ripped jeans so we had to wait for ours to fall apart or wear the oldest pair we had. It staggers the imagination just how quickly a teenager can wear out a pair of jeans, by the way. You could have a properly ripped knee in a few months. On another note, it was the seventies and I had jean shorts that were cut so high that the only thing between my legs was the seam. The pockets, often filled with bubble yum (or a film canister and pinch hitter), would hang down and out from beneath the material. Lovely.
And it’s still going on, of course. But you do grow out of it. You realize you look kind of stupid (unless you’re in a rock band) looking that way. I wonder just how many rock bands shot their gritty black and white photos in industrial areas, junk yards and abandoned buildings. (I was involved in a shoot like that, too.) Then you skedaddle back to the shag-carpeted, split-level home with a comfy bedroom featuring a Marantz stereo system with glowing blue dial, Magnaplaner speakers, black lights and rock posters of poor looking, exceedingly wealthy rock stars.
Why do we do that?
From the NYT.
I didn’t respect them.
But I did respect respect others. I respected many others that said the election was rigged.
My instincts are a big part of it.
That’s been the thing that’s gotten me to where I am, my instincts. But I also listen to people.
There are many lawyers. I could give you many books.
It was my decision. But I listened to some people.
This is all George Carlin as quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly (sign up and support it if you can), which is an amazing publication bringing in old and new writings on a quarterly theme, and in this case, Freedom:
“I found a very liberating position for myself as an artist. And that was I sort of gave up on the human race and gave up on the American dream, and culture, and nation, and decided that I didn’t care about the outcome. And that gave me a lot of freedom from a kind of distant platform to be sort of amused, kind of to watch the whole thing with a combination of wonder and pity, and try to put that in words…Not having an emotional stake in whether this experiment with human beings works.”
Then: “I root for the big comet, I root for the big asteroid to come and make things right…I’m rooting for that big one to come right though that hole in the ozone layer because I want to see it on CNN…Philosophers say, Why are we here? I know why I’m here. The show. Bring it on… We’ve seen a lot of comedians who seem to have a political bent in their work, and always implicit in the work is some positive outcome, that this is all going to work. If only we do this, if only we pass that bill, if only we elect him. It’s not true.”
“It’s circling-the-drain time.”
Wow. And don’t it feel just like that sometimes? I watched the most surreal thing I’ve seen in years of the Tennessee, I believe, House of Representatives, kicking three of their members out for disrupting for a moment during session (then they called recess) but continuing on arguing that they, the house, needed to deal with children being exploded into flying flesh, bone and brain, with AR-15s. These were two very young representatives and they made the point that this is their future and deserved for it to be looked at in terms of Tennessee gun laws. Instead, the republicans tossed them – threw em out. Well, at least one, when I last looked. No due process, no, like, okay, you’re going to be stripped of your committee assignments. The Tennessee legislature with a something like 70/30 republican to democrat hold, tossed three dems, two of which were young people of color, for using a bullhorn and, well, telling the truth.
How can we live in this world without feeling just like George Carlin? I’ve been watching for decades and more recently watching the Republican Party unravel into some sort of angry group of victimized, fearful and fear-mongering tribe. They did it and with pride (hubris) and a sense of goodness. What would Jesus say? That should be enough for any sitting republican. Are you doing what Jesus Christ would do?
But I can’t go so far as the brilliant comedian has. I’m still pissed watching them undermine all of our sacred laws, our constitution and everything else to soothe their fragile egos. It’s sad. It’s like some sort of movie about some kids who were dissed by the cool kids and so now are into their revenge. Not cool, republicans. Not cool at all.
This from an obituary I recently read: “_______ had a love of family, cars, motorcycles and Fox News. Headstrong and decisive, he had no patience for foolishness.”
But, well, never mind.
Luke Soiseth 