Cannibal State
Saw Nixon last nite with the Kevster. Don't know how i'd overlooked that movie before. Oh wait, i remember, i spent most of 1995 completely medicated. Well, in the movie Nixon was pretty much fully medicated too, so too bad i didn't catch it then. It was still pretty compelling watching it in an even-more-removed-from-Nixon decade. And Kevz dad was CIA back then so it was interesting, if a little creepy, to hear his perspective.
Weirdly, when i think honestly about what kind of president i would be, i come up with something that is a cross between Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt aspiring to be Thomas Jefferson but never quite making it... Wait - is that actually Bill Clinton?
Anyways, i had an odd moment, realizing that my parents were, like, 19 and 20 when Nixon was president. No wonder they always displayed a distrust of the government. I mean, i can't imagine for instance, if Kent State had happened when i was 19. My god, no wonder my parents did heroin.
And growing up, after they'd kicked, they still had a solid aversion to the 'state'. They flew under the radar. Bent rules in the backroom to make it by. Moved to remote locales like La Jara, New Mexico, where we couldn't even get a TV signal. Scraped by and just stayed the fuck out of it.
Not that they weren't informed, and didn't have opinions. But nothing they forced on us kids... there was just the random reference - brief glimpses into the past of their own youth... those that came home in boxes, and those that came home with pieces missing.
My dad counted himself lucky. His time semper fi was deployed in okinawa, C-130 loadmaster, moving supplies to the field and refueling jets midair. The stories were never political. They were about the most wikked hangover he had that day they got sent up on an emergency refueling mission, and how he passed out, and his eardrum nearly burst when they landed b/c he wasn't awake enuf to pop his ears and C-130s aren't pressurized. Stories about how he nearly died when he crashed his motorcyle trippin on LSD. We'd watch slide shows of the pictures he took, rice fields, monkeys, wildebeast loooking things, he and other GI's smoking reefer and drinking korean rotgut. My favorite was the portrait of him and four friends in a huge field surrounded by waist-high cannibis plants, bloodshot eyes and silly grins.
I want to emphasize that my dad is a patriot. He's a frikkin eagle scout - he did his duty. He didn't take any easy way out. But still, what Vietnam taught him was to watch his ass, and to escape in any way he could, whenever he could. I would be 19, myself, before he and mom would find bill w, get sober and be present.
And I wonder about these days. About IEDs, midnite raids, hidden enemies, and the overall sustained tension - constantly knowing in the back of your mind that you may be in someone's crosshairs.
God help them, and god help their families.
Cab Ninja
A month or so ago i was trying to get cross town one evening. I was waiting for a cab on Ave B when this semi-inebriated couple turns up across the avenue from me... There are certain unspoken rules for cab hailing in nyc, that you just know after spending some time here. First sign of someone being new to the game is that they try to hail off-duty cabs. I don't know if this couple were tourists or simply drunk, but this was what i saw them try to do.
Soon after, an on-duty cab appeared, heading towards us, but on my side of the street (ave b is a two way)... Unspoken cab hailing rule #2 - it is best to be on the same side of the street as the cab you are hailing. Not that certain ambitious cabbies won't occasionally cut across two lanes of traffic to get to your side sometimes, or make U turn on a less crowded avenue, but itz technically illegal. And given the option of a pick-up on the side they are on, vs a pick up on the other side, usu the side they are on wins unless there is at least a stoplight between them. All-in-all, like guys in a bar, it seems that closest and easiest is the cabbie pickup preference.
And true to custom, this is what transpired, the cab stopped for me. The drunk/tourist couple didn't get that somehow. And the guy ran across the street after i had gotten in and opened the yelled in the window, "Just so you know - this was my cab!". The cabbie freaked out, because i don't think he saw them on the other side of the street at all, and suddenly here was some new unidentified ped attacking his car. And he yelled, "get back - get away!"
I was pretty stunned but i nearly floored myself when i spontaneously replied "Crymore n00b!"
I guess that might be a sign of too much WoW.