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Misconceptions and Fear Equal Confusion

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I love mass transit. It is a laboratory. It is a rolling mental health waiting room. It is the best of us and the worst of us locked in communion.

This is my testimony.

I was gazing out the window, looking at the mountains behind man-made buildings and wondering for the #1875 time what have they witness, what came and disappeared.

I noticed a group of people waking down the street. Two by two. Focused.

There was a sign but I couldn't read it. Then a whole bunch more people started walking down the street. They appeared to be almost all white people.

"That's strange."

I thought to myself. I kept trying to look for a sign or a reason for this to be happening. Was it right-wingers or Tea Party people?

I didn't see any sheets or confederate flags tatted on anybody's body.

They weren't loud, or talkative. They just walked.




Still, I got a little twitchy. Recent events have made everybody a bit more nervous.

The gentleman in the seat behind me was beginning to freak out.

"What all them white folks walking down the street for? It is a protest or parade or something?
You know they don't walk if they don't have to; must be something bad going on!"

And then his imagination leaped like a rocket; pulling up all the recent pain and hurts. He went from zero to 60 in two minutes, getting louder and more agitated.

I'm still looking for a sign. A poster. Anything to restore the silence quo.

This is my fault. I should have had my glasses fixed. I got to I needed to be and got off the bus.

I crossed the street.
I stood on the corner.
From a small distance, I watched them go by.

It was a walk for suicide prevention. Many had tee-shirts with the phase Out of the Darkness.

Oh. Yes. People been off worlding themselves at an accelerated rate.

And then I kept looking. Where the black folks? The Asians and Latinos?

Might have been in another part of the line.

I don't know.  I was having a moment of intersectionality* between mental health, race, fear, depression, the unknown and burning desire for some Blue Moon bread.

Some days are just so dang confusing.


 *Intersectionality (or intersectional theory) is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination.



Fair Trial and Waffles

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This is an episode from Four Star Theater from 1955. The producer and star is Dick Powell.

This episode is about a lynching that happens in a small town. It is about how the town people acknowledge that the event happened and wants to forget.



It is about a reporter that had seen a lynching before and came to do battle.

For the record, it was a white person that got strung up. Television in the 1955 was willing to take on the topic but not integration.

Besides, there was still real world lynching going on the 1950s and well, no need to upset the sponsors anymore than necessary.

I'm more impressed with the storytelling of a complicated subject that gets effectively compressed into 29 minutes. I'm not shocked that there was an effort to make those people that lynched a human being "sympathetic" no matter how many times it was stated that it was a horrible, wicked thing that the townspeople shared as a mob.

Just like some of the horrible, wicked things that are passing for political discourse now days. Guns included. I can't get out of my mind the Biloxi Waffle House waitress being shot in the head because she asked a customer to put out his cigarette.

I can't get out of my mind the shoot up at Planned Parenthood that killed people by a Pro-Life person.

I can't get out of mind the support for his actions by so-called faith based people.

I can only hope that Saint Pete has got that trapped door lubed up for the posers come forth.

If you can't be safe chomping down at the Waffle House...damn.

I might turn into a Dick Powell junkie because he sang, danced, was a great hard nose detective on radio and I'm just finding out about his television work. I don't want to take refuge in the past but I might swing by for a visit when contemporary times get a little rough.

I am I little woodzy - I was a good girl tody

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Update: You know how people say you shouldn't drink and drive?  The same could be said for blogging after being drugged to have your tooth extracted.

I'm going to clean up spelling and stuff but I was so out of my head when I typed this that I don't remember doing it. 

**********

I just got back from the dentist. He listen to me. I told him my situation with other dentists.

He said he could treat me. I had to believe him, I had no choice.

My mind and mouth are still funny. I took 3x my medication than I should.
It was the only way.

Plus, I got the Novocain so it was a two for one special.

The dentist was cute. That always helps.
My mind is numb and I am really tired. So are my lips and cheeks.

I am the living incarnation of I have no-mouth and I must scream.

It is raining hard

My lips are numb.

I'm going to bed now.

Books as Conduits of Thought

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It has been a awhile since my last post. I might get kicked out the the blogging union if there was such as thing. Wait, I think somebody tried to start one years ago but I haven't heard anything about it so maybe it isn't a thing.

I type at people I know that are on FB but I miss this. There doesn't seem to be time for thought or reflection. It is all "tell me now, feel it now, now, now, now"

Sometimes you need to shut up.

Shut up. Not in the pejorative meaning.

Shut your soul up and contemplate the universe.
Shut up with a book and be transported to another place.
Shut up and establish yourself within yourself so you don't have to run to someone else for affirmation.

Books and old, smelly wonderful books stores can help you do that; if you let them. We might have run out of time. Old smelly bookstores are going away or have gone.

This is a closing book store in New York. It is a video from the New Yorker Magazine.






Places like this nurtured me. Raised me up and helped me to survive.

What do we have now but sound bite literacy. And now we get sound bite hatred as political actions and racism, sexism and all kinds of phobias as a violent reaction to change.

Change is coming; for good or for evil. Evil is doing well and it is profitable. Good might have to stop wondering how evil is making bank and work on actually doing something away from the keyboard.

Ha, ha, ha....ha.

Maybe I should go find a book and cry on the pages.

There Is the Dance and Risk of Loss

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Yeah, the dance. Not talking about the Rumpshaker or the Electric Slide.

This is a video created by two people (not the dancers in the video) about what they got out of a song by the band Alabama Shakes.



They were inspired by the song and created a video. Apparently there was a contest by the band that fans could participate by creating an official video.

This didn't win.

Hold on.

What do you do when you create something good, with good intent?

That could be considered to violate copyright?

You hold your breath and hope for the best. I don't know how long this video will be up.

Can you have an official and permitted unofficial version of a work?

We are about to find out.

When The Life You Knew Passes You By

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One of the things about photography that I like is that it helps me see things. It helps me to remember and maybe one day prove to somebody that this is different. It is not like we thought it was.

It is the small things.



 Like seven dollars for a jar of beets.

I like beets. I like to eat them. I like to drink beet juice.
I would not like to pay seven dollar a jar for picked or non-picked beets.

That is just me. I can afford too. I have the money in my wallet.

But when did this become the norm for downtown Los Angeles?

Since gentrification. I don't see gentrification as good or bad. It is the normal change of how human see resources.

When people with money and no place to go turn their attention to poor or broke folks neighborhoods that is when trouble starts to brew.

What is bad is how humans behave when gentrification arrives. First order of business, jack up the rents and push existing businesses out.

And no matter how many times the existing neighborhood folks asked for assistance in dealing with crime and problem all of the sudden there is a police presence. The undesirables are pushed out and away.

This can include many of the same folks that spent 10+ years trying to get attention.

When people with money and no place to go start to root in poor or broke folks neighborhoods they discover stuff.

Or not. 

People and places and things are disappearing.

I'm taking notes but I'm not sure who to report back to; you see I have been told that I am no longer relevant and hurry up and die.

As always, I chose to be a contrarian.

American In the Nexus of Race and Guns Part 1

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The first movie I ever saw by myself was In the Heat of the Night. I am sure that there was a Three Stooges short and a couple of Warner Brothers cartoons in front of it. Probably one of those that had Elmer tooting a gun.

I can't remember.
I do remember this movie.


 
  

I understood about cops harassing and detaining without warrant or reasonable cause other than the color of your skin.

I absorbed the audience reaction when Tibbs struck the rich man as doing something none of us could possibly do and live to tell about it.

I felt the fear about being chased by a mob of angry young white men that had no other sport. 

I was also chomping down a lot of butter popcorn and Mike and Ike's so I may have missed a few things.

What did I learn at 8 years of age
  • Have to be careful around white folks.
  • Have to be careful around white folks with guns and chains.
  • Sidney Poitier was Superman in a suit 
  • I'm going to do my best to stay out of the south.

Looking back, I think I absorbed was the understanding that guns and power could keep you safe but if you had some brains and something that other people wanted that might keep you alive too.

American In the Nexus of Race and Guns Part 2

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My gun education was passive; meaning I didn't have to do much to be indoctrinated. Saturday mornings television had adventure, sci-fi and westerns.




Guns played a major role in almost all of them.

This is an episode of the Lone Ranger animated series; it was steampunk before steampunkers were born.

Bad guys have the Gatling gun, good guys have pistols and arrows.

Bad guys have fire rain machine, good guys has pistols and a rope.

Lone Ranger stops army of bad men.

I would not have know about Latinos or people in the Southwest. I would not have questioned an army garrison or why Tonto was so bounded to the Ranger. And why didn't the horse catch a bullet or two?"

So I would have learned:

  • The myth that one man can stop an army. 
  • Guns save a nation.
  • Bad guys are stupid, why didn't Agent Z blow up the garrison and any other military support?


American In the Nexus of Race and Guns Part 3

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Now if you want to really get down to it we'd have to talk about Spaghetti westerns.




The above trailer is the Italian version of A Fist Full of Dollars. 

One man as hero/anti-hero.

Dark skinned people as bad guys or poor preyed upon town folk.

Good and evil.

Law and Disorder.

The gun is used as a tool for respect compensation.

And in-between the JuJu Beans and 25 cent Coca Cola I learned that a man and a gun were all you needed to get by.

That messaged is ingrained in our fiction, history and cultural expression.

So maybe when we attempt to talk about gun control what we might be doing is talking about changing our belief systems.

And Americans are a loath to do that as they are to admit that there might be some structural problems that require more than sound bites to solve.

American In the Nexus of Race and Guns Part 4

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I guess one of the unasked questions in current movie fiction is can you be a strong man solving problems without a gun.




We know they can be goofs.

Con men.

Hump fiends with their own private sex shooter.

 But when was the last time a movie that did not have the male hero/protagonist without using a gun (bomb, rocket, robot, spaceship with photon torpedoes) to solve the problem or be restored whole?

I know that this movie is based on a series of books. I've never read them. It is just isn't my preferred genre. I have a choice is not reading the source material.

Variations of this poster is on every bus, shuttle, cab and transportation device. I have no choice but to see this image of a man with a gun.

Still with the Orlando shooting in my mind. Still with the most recent death by cop videos. Still with all the yakity yak about 2nd amendments vs gun control talk.

This is how I wind up in the nexus.

Because in the United States, that piece of metal means more than any one individual's life be it a child, woman or man.

And we are so connected to the gun. Attitudes have to change. How we tell stories about guns and power might have to change.

And we are not there yet.

American in the Nexus of Race and Guns Part 5

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There are photos of Jeff Goldblum moving through social media. The are mainly talking about how hot he looks for a 63 year-old man.

This fact is not in dispute. On the sexy hotness scale from Zero to 10 he is burning 13.75 and climbing.

Which puts me back in the cross hairs of being an American and gun culture. On a lazy summer afternoon I watched a movie called Mad Dog Time.




IMDB describes it as:

With his boss in the madhouse, a mobster is temporary boss of the criminal empire just as vicious rivals threaten the control of the empire.

Naw that ain't it. There is a whole lot of shoot 'em up bang bang in this movie. It is stylized. Some times shocking. Occasionally funny.

And there is Goldblum being that fine looking, up to no good and cut me a slice self. In this one scene alone you got Billy Idol, Kyle MacLachlan, Gregory Hines and Jeff Goldblum.

It is an acquired taste movie. It is stylized and mounted well but there is a whole lot of killing going on.

If you got the taste for it, it is a hoot.

Americans did not seem to have a taste for this movie.
Americans sometimes have a problem with sex, comedy and guns all in one place.  

It only opened on 18 screens and seems to have disappeared from distribution shortly after release.

It might have been one of those tax dodge movies that was popular at the time.


I don't know.

I do know that I'll watch almost anything with Goldblum.
I kind feel icky that I remember and liked this movie. 

Kinda like the undercurrent of seduction that goes on in the film and gun culture.





American in the Nexus of Race and Guns Part 6

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I don't remember if I saw Cat Ballou in the theater or on television. The second run movie house could have had it as a feature for a Saturday afternoon matinee.

It isn't impossible for me to have seen it on the big screen.






I would not have known about Nat King Cole's music career. I probably was trying to figure out why Sidney Poitier was not in the movie.

Sidney was in dang almost every movie I could think of in the 1960s.

I did like my westerns with the shooting and and killing of bad people. I was heavily invested in the killing of bad people.

But change came. New ideas were seeping into the general consciousness. I remember being in the audience with John Wayne type movie.

There comes a point when the Union army general or scout refereed to Native Americans as savages.

The audience, 99.5% black responded with jokes and booing. When the indigenous land owners were killing up said Union army there was cheering.

So that is probably why there was a whole lot of Clint Eastwood movies at my local cinema. Less wear and tear and not so much popcorn boxes chucked at the screen.

I digress.

Kat Ballou wasn't that kind of movie. It was a western comedy.

Plucky young woman returns home with her dad only to find out that a bad man is causing trouble.

Still got your Native American in service and white guys doing pretty much what they want.

And if you think about it the movie does kind of carry the meme that the only power anyone has it is the power of the gun to invoke change.

You want justice, do it yourself.

You want wealth, take it.

You want self-respect in an unfair land, fight for it.

Cuz real good so-called G-d fearing/loving citizens don't give a damn about anything other than their own self interests.

Yeah, yeah. I'm putting too much into it. Just a comedy movie.

The Flag May Be Grand But the Anthem Is Another Story

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I've watched people grumble about having to stand up and sing the anthem. I've watched them talk non-stop as they ignore it being played. I've seem them stroke their phones, chow down on a dog and do all kinds of what-nots while that song is being played.


What So Proudly We Hail | DOCUMENTARY from Duane Saunders Jr on Vimeo.

This is a video that talks about the history of the lyrics, the Africans that fought and fought hard to be free and one man licking his wounds who got inspiration to craft some words on a piece of paper.

This past week I've have also seen so-called loyal to the bone American call a football player the N-word, the B-Word and all kinds of other words.

I've said it once and I'll say it again it is open season of the emancipation of the bigot.

There is so much American history that is not taught. Not expressed to those that need to make an informed decision about how far to take the promise of what America said it wanted to be.

The full lyrics of this song is a big ass lie and the person that wrote it was a slave master.

I have limited interest in being called names because, for multiple reasons, it gets harder to see my place in the American culture.

I can see my place in the time line of history. Basically the ancestors are telling us to hang on in their, it will work out.

Black Folks Should See Moonlight - They Probably Won't

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The only reason I know about this movie is that there was a trailer before the Obama date movie while I was munching on an overpriced hot dog.



From the trailer it was real oblique about what the movie was about. Then I sat with it abit and then I understood.

"Oh, wow. Huh? Oh."

Below is a clip from a British Film Institute presentation about the movie Moonlight.



It looks beautifully mounted. I would like to be proven wrong.

There are a lot of reasons why folks may not show for the film.

They don't know about it.  The have seen more about the Madea Halloween movie than this one.

Their faith based house of worship tells them that homosexuality is a sin.

It seems to be ok for the pastor to have relations with multiple members of the choir.

It seems to be ok to proudly proclaim that women have no place in the pulpit or in church leadership.

It even is tolerable to use shame and bigotry to enhance your political alliances but we don't want to talk about our gay sons and daughters.

Unless we cuss them back to the cave.
Unless they are doing our hair, our food or our comedy.

Then they are acceptable so long as they are out of sight when the door closes for the night.

By the way,  this is just my opinion about the attendance of the movie. 

Don't come drive by rolling up to tell me your house of faith is different or that scripture says.......

I don't care. I have seen and smelt the shit that passes for faith.

Some of y'all would let a person die of hunger before you step a foot forward to help but run ragged to put a coin in a rich man's pocket.

I care about real people.

Even Jesus, who I have a on-going non-aggression agreement with (I don't blame him for the dumb ass shit that humans do in his name and he loves me or not but accept me for the human I am) would be shaking his head about the implementation of his statements.

What else? Inadequate sexual education. Biology. The true diversity of human beings that has been hidden and suppressed.

Toxic forms of masculinity.
Toxic forms of survival as rights of passage.

Distinction between sexual exploration and exploitation.

I think folks should pay attention to this movie. Could be good. Could be flawed. But is is one of the first mainstream American movies to deal with a coming of age story of a young boy that grows into a gay man.

The movie will come and go. Maybe folks will watch it on Netflix or Amazon.

Maybe.
Maybe
Maybe.

Being Dragged to Pleasantville Against My Will

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Trying to make sense of a different reality. Sometimes you have to look back to see a forward path. Or maybe I'm grasping at anything to help me understand why this has happened.

Once upon a time there was a 1998 movie called Pleasantville. A modern young man is fixated on a television show from the 1950's called Pleasantville.

This is the trailer for the movie.





It is a good movie and even though the trailer telegraphs the movie I still recommend it being seen.

But back to why I think it is relevant.

I kept hearing during the election that people want  to take their country back. What if they meant back to Pleasantville?

A time where you did not have to consider the other. There was no other?

No African Americans
No Latinix
No Asians
No LGBTQA
No other places, no other countries, nothing but themselves and each other.

You would have a class system.
You would have strictly defined culture roles
You would have permanent employment.

And all would be right with your world.
Because it would be a simple place.
A simple time.

So I heard people saying take American back, make it great again.

Back when? Who is included?

In Pleasantville, not me.

Not ever me.

But you say that is just a movie. I'm making too much of this. I have no proof of 21 century people wanting to return back to the 1950's.

Well, I kinda sorta do.

I can post a photos of people showing up at a veteran' parade in Petaluma, CA with the Confederate flag. I won't post it here.

I could point to the KKK parade planned for December 4, 2016 in North Carolina to celebrate the election of P45 not to mention the resurgence of their participation in mainstream society. Or I could point you to the one in Anaheim, CA.

I could ask a friend or two that moderate comment message boards how much hate speech has increased since the election. A lot. A whole freaking lot.

I could post news articles about the increase in racial profiling and attacks on elementary, high school and college campuses.

But facts and empirical proof doesn't mean anything anymore.

As I have been recently told,  I am promoting hate rhetoric.  My feelings are not important. Get over it.

So yeah. I am being dragged to Pleasantville where there is no place for me.

By y'all say wait. Give it time. "It won't be as bad as you think it will be."

L7 babe. The square root of nothingness.

All I Know for Sure Is In Real Life

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There is a commercial for a drug that make it easier for cancer patients to endure chemotherapy.

It is a beautiful house. There is a loving husband. I think there is a loving dog too. And the woman is able to center herself and be. Just be.





And let me say that if there is a drug that make it easier for people to deal with chemo or radiation therapy I'm all for it. Probably couldn't afford it if I needed it but I begrudge no one that needs or has access to the medication.

Like I said, what little I know for sure is grounded in real life.

There is a woman. She has cancer (not me). She is going through chemo. She is also going to work.
There isn't a choice for her. There is no insurance. There is some support from the public health system but it is catch as catch can.

There is a husband. And a child.  And in the best of times she and the family are  scraping by day by day. There is a small chance she might beat it.

But I see her. Willing herself to work because she doesn't want to worry her husband.

Wants to take care of her child. I watch her going to work.

I say a prayer ever time I think of her.

I knew a man. He was a professor. Stone academic kinda fellow.
He got sick. Lost his home. Lost his job. Everything.

If you asked him he would go into detail about what is wrong with healthcare and this was back in the 80s. There was nothing academic about his feelings.

He lived it. Scraped by on Social Security.

There is another side. The people that yell that they do not want single payer. The ones that feel that each one take care of his own and responsibility stops at their front door and no further.

If you die too bad so sad, not their problem.

The ones that say it is a state's rights issue and then you go look at that states health system. There is bare bones emergency care if you can find it.

There are people called objectivists. The definition of objectivism is:

Objectivism is the philosophy of rational individualism founded by Ayn Rand (1905-1982). In novels such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged , Rand dramatized her ideal man, the producer who lives by his own effort and does not give or receive the undeserved, who honors achievement and rejects envy.
And there are a whole bunch of them in Congress right now.

There is philosophy.

There is reality.

There reality is that real people are being injured for and unsustainable philosophic wet dream. But there are people jerking off in anticipation of making it a reality.

Some dreams should stay on the other side. The French Revolution happened for complicated reasons like taxation, lack of food, the powerful oppressing the weak,

Once the fuse it lit it is mighty hard to snuff out.

Be careful who and what you light up.

It might be a grown-up that remembers what his mom went through.

Trailer for Baa Baa Land

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It has been awhile since I've posted anything. It is rough. Not the reality I want but it is the one that I have.

One thing about reading about history. Whole nother thing experiencing it as it happens.





Still working on the Anxiety Road Podcast. Not where I want it to be but slogging on, slogging on.
So if you are feeling tight and need some dull action, try the trailer for Baa Baa Land.

It can't hurt. Cuz it is just slow moving sheep.

Sometime Reaching Across Lines Is Filled with Peril

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I was on the bus, minding my own business deep in my shallow thoughts. Woman interrupts me asking me do I know the woman hugging up on P45.

I'm civil but I respond, "No I don't."

I turn away from her.

She asked again about another photo.

I then recognize her being the aunt of ML King.

She then proceeds to show photos of members of the King family who are with P45 during an MLK celebration at the White House.

"They are are rich and prosperous."

I'm really trying to reconnect with the Plexiglas window.

Then she wants we to look at a blog with a famous African American historian who explains that MLK was and would have remained Republican.

Then she commented "This has nothing to do with slavery. Do know about slavery? "I just wanted to educate you and other people about how MLK was a Republican."

That about ripped my last nerve.

"That may or may not be the truth, there is a spectrum of political participation in the African American community; some liberal, some conservative and some centrist.

I will not take the word of some woman on a blog about it. I am not conservative and I am not interested."

She then got on the phone and told somebody to paint the washing machine and that a prospective tenant was angry because the two bedroom apartment wasn't.

I immediately went to the store and bought a box of Orange Creamsicles.
I didn't fall of the wagon. I ran into the store and bought them. I can't do this sober any more.

She Was Tweaked But She Was Not There

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I have often said that if you are a writer you need to ride public transit.  You will never lack for ideas.

Daisy got on the bus. She had no purse. She had no wallet and very few coins.

She was clean but kept holding on to herself and rubbing her skin as if ants were on it.





"I'm trying to get to downtown."

Metro buses pass through a number of cities with downtown areas.

"Where do you want to go?" the drive asked.

"The Valley."

The Valley is not downtown.
She fake fumbles for looking for change as she puts one or two coins in the box.

The driver, seeing this type of behavior before has to make some quick decisions.

He could throw her off the bus.
He could let her beg for a fare donation.
He could tell her to sit down.

He tells her to sit down.

Daisy goes to sit down but she doesn't stay down for long.

Three stops later, asked the driver how to get to 6th and Broadway.

The driver says he doesn't know.
Cuz, there are more than one.
It is that city thing.

Daisy gets upset with him.

"How do you not know? You are a bus driver. Why don't you know all of the routes of Metro?"

For those of you that drive, do you know each and every street in Los Angeles County?
What is on each street? How many Broadways there are in which city?

The driver asked again, "Where do you want to go?"

"6th and Broadway but I don't see why you don't know how to get there! That is ridiculous."

He opens the doors and she exits the bus to a city street that is not near 6th and Broadway or the Valley.

Still holding herself.
Still scratching.
Still lost.

It Become Real Only When You See It

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I went to a convention. I had a little time so I walked around the neighborhood of the hotel. 

This is what I saw:




Old school newsstands were wooden and filled with magazines and newspapers. Maybe some chewing gum to help you break a dollar for the bus. 

If you wanted to know who got whacked or the story of the day you either went to a grocer, a box or a newstand. 


And this is what it is now, one or two copies of the Daily News and Inquirer.

I felt bad. 

Like a ghost passing through time.

But where do I get my news?

Where I live there are no newstands. Almost all of the news boxes are gone. There are some retail places that sell the Sunday papers. Places I rarely shop or visit.

I subscribe to one newspaper online but have to remember that I do have a subscription. It is my friends and relations that alert me to new stories that I check out.

Yet, something indeed has been lost. The solitude of reading at your own pace and reflecting on a story. 




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