"Swimming is a 'lude
Wine opens your mind
Your guitar's a race car
Sex is your best friend
What's your dirty answer ?
I don't judge people
I just watch them 'til it's time to look away
I want to look away now
Somebody's coming
I don't want to look backwards,
I don't want to even look backwards
It's not my fault
It's not my fault you don't love me
It's not my fault you don't love me
When I'm drunk
I'm wiped
I'm so tired
Carry me for a little while "
-Your Dirty Answer by Kristin Hersh
Thank you to my slave for giving me that song. Thank you, little one.
I seek strangers and interaction with them. Barring that, I love to watch them. I am, as one luminous boy in braids whom I wanted to bed once told me, a watcher.
Public transit is a wonderful place to watch people and possibly talk to them. It's a great place for eavesdropping. I've heard clandestine arrangements made, heartfelt apologies tendered, and personal confessions uttered on public busses, amongst the other audible dross.
It's as if people in public in North America think they are in a bubble of containment where nothing gets to go out and be disseminated or come in and affect them. I've noticed strangers in other countries seem more aware of their words and what affect they're having, more aware of their actions and the consequences.
Perhaps people in other countries sense a universal connection of life amongst us all. Perhaps. I've definitely noticed a more developed sense of community. It shows up in the actions of strangers.
I remember one blazing afternoon enroute to Madras from Bombay, via train. The trains windows were open as the train was not airconditioned. Every station we pulled into had hawkers of snacks and drinks rushing the windows to make a sale. Many stations had pithy sayings on signboards, likely government sponsored. This was during the height of Indira Gandhi's corrupt regime, early 1980s.
I remember one sign at a station: Cleanliness is next to godliness. Hopeful in its placement in excrement and extreme filth. We pulled into this station and sat for a few minutes while people disembarked and clambered on.
I noticed an emaciated hag in a dirty saree, worn low and barely covering her shriveled dugs which swung near her bellybutton, white hair yellowed and unhealthy looking. She was scrabbling in some debris at the edge of the station. I looked at her. I was repelled.
A wealthy man in a hurry to get on the train tossed aside a banana leaf filled with rice and curry. It landed on the pavement near the train. The hag scurried up like a rat and scooped it up. I watched her with interest.
She started calling out in a harsh voice. Within a couple minutes, the platform around her filled with urchins of all descriptions. She lined them up. She took the banana leaf and gave each one of the children some rice, making sure that not one went hungry. I do not believe she took any for herself. I cried.
And then the train pulled away.
Later: If anyone wants to see some cool artwork, check out: sonicJunky's May 16th journal which I believe is the current one.
Wine opens your mind
Your guitar's a race car
Sex is your best friend
What's your dirty answer ?
I don't judge people
I just watch them 'til it's time to look away
I want to look away now
Somebody's coming
I don't want to look backwards,
I don't want to even look backwards
It's not my fault
It's not my fault you don't love me
It's not my fault you don't love me
When I'm drunk
I'm wiped
I'm so tired
Carry me for a little while "
-Your Dirty Answer by Kristin Hersh
Thank you to my slave for giving me that song. Thank you, little one.
I seek strangers and interaction with them. Barring that, I love to watch them. I am, as one luminous boy in braids whom I wanted to bed once told me, a watcher.
Public transit is a wonderful place to watch people and possibly talk to them. It's a great place for eavesdropping. I've heard clandestine arrangements made, heartfelt apologies tendered, and personal confessions uttered on public busses, amongst the other audible dross.
It's as if people in public in North America think they are in a bubble of containment where nothing gets to go out and be disseminated or come in and affect them. I've noticed strangers in other countries seem more aware of their words and what affect they're having, more aware of their actions and the consequences.
Perhaps people in other countries sense a universal connection of life amongst us all. Perhaps. I've definitely noticed a more developed sense of community. It shows up in the actions of strangers.
I remember one blazing afternoon enroute to Madras from Bombay, via train. The trains windows were open as the train was not airconditioned. Every station we pulled into had hawkers of snacks and drinks rushing the windows to make a sale. Many stations had pithy sayings on signboards, likely government sponsored. This was during the height of Indira Gandhi's corrupt regime, early 1980s.
I remember one sign at a station: Cleanliness is next to godliness. Hopeful in its placement in excrement and extreme filth. We pulled into this station and sat for a few minutes while people disembarked and clambered on.
I noticed an emaciated hag in a dirty saree, worn low and barely covering her shriveled dugs which swung near her bellybutton, white hair yellowed and unhealthy looking. She was scrabbling in some debris at the edge of the station. I looked at her. I was repelled.
A wealthy man in a hurry to get on the train tossed aside a banana leaf filled with rice and curry. It landed on the pavement near the train. The hag scurried up like a rat and scooped it up. I watched her with interest.
She started calling out in a harsh voice. Within a couple minutes, the platform around her filled with urchins of all descriptions. She lined them up. She took the banana leaf and gave each one of the children some rice, making sure that not one went hungry. I do not believe she took any for herself. I cried.
And then the train pulled away.
Later: If anyone wants to see some cool artwork, check out: sonicJunky's May 16th journal which I believe is the current one.
VIEW 25 of 64 COMMENTS
In many ways we are all that old woman, and all the children. True enough I can walk to a super market with an outlandish even gaudy amount of food in it, and yet as a youth I often went hungry, and my mother took from refuse to feed. You account is a touching one, but not in a place most like to think about. Suffer though we do, we continue on, and are happy with what we can find.
Americans suffer a interesting malady of thinking the wealth our nation contains, and the influence it wields allows us a special place among all people. Truth is we are as likely to generate our own suffering as to bestow it explosively on others. I could go on for hours.
My thumb: Blood yes, bloody ... not really. The better part of my thumb nail is a mottled purple, and still not really useable.
yeah that animation is actually from a Monty Python website... it's funny...
yes i had only 1 cigarette today - yay for me! your a good writer by the way......
chau amiga