Dear Richter,
They came and took Harry away, today. There was no choice, really. He was working away, just like always, and then he started banging his wrenches on the table, like he was playing the drums. I asked him what the fuck he was doing, and he said he was trying to get the Native American "ghost dance" effect.
He said that if he could just pound out the right riff, when he stopped, he'd be in the right universe. One where his son wasn't killed in Iraq, where his daughter wasn't unemployed and desperate, and where we weren't heading back to the 1950s with weird Jim Crow laws.
He pounded on the welding bench with those wrenches, and it was actually a pretty catchy tune. He smiled at me, still playing, and said that this universe was obviously broken, and that there was a perfectly good one somewhere, and he just had to find it. He said that if he found it, he'd tell me how to get there, if he had time.
I smiled back, and said that I had a few things to take care of. I went to the office and called the police and an ambulance, of course. Harry was obviously having some kind of breakdown, and I figured I better get some help, quick.
And you know what, Richter? Tucson's emergency services are efficient as hell, because in the 5 minutes that I was gone from the shop, they had already come and gotten him. All that was left was the two wrenches sitting on the table.
Or maybe they're not so efficient, you know? Because 30 minutes later, they showed up, looking for Harry. I told them there must have been a mistake at dispatch, because he had already been picked up. They called in, and they said that nobody had been by prior to them. Sounds like dispatch messed up pretty bad. Or maybe Harry just wandered off into the desert. That sort of thing has happened before.
So now I have to arrange for a new mechanic, Richter. I'll do it on Monday. This afternoon I'm heading out to the Indian Restaurant I like so much. Hopefully, they'll be open again, what with being closed for a bit while the police verified the owner's right to be a person.
Okay for now,
Dok
Damn.
or maybe he found his way to that other universe, man.
I give up.
Harry is heading to the top floor of the big black building. He's going to be questioned why he's not proud to have his son die a hero in War on Terror, this fundamental exercise in defining what it means to have real American freedom.
Your Indian restaurant owner was in the same place for a few days, on a lower level, but not necessarily a more pleasant one. He'll probably still be exceedingly polite to his patrons, embarrassed at his ordeal despite not having done a thing wrong but make a better life for himself. He'll be polite and he won't resent that he's serving some of the very same people who voted, in one way or another, for his harassment.
Harry had every right to go stark raving mad. He may be the sane one.
Bullshit. Whatever happened, Harry got what he deserved.
People always get what they Deservetm.
Obviously, I didn't know Henry. But its better that he's gone. Better for him, sure. Better for you, defintely.
Who needs that racket, the pounding, the stupid incoherent shrieking? Who can work on keeping the Big Wheel spinning with some lunatic jabbering on about unimportant things like the loss of civil liberties or irresponible oil companies who refuse to own up to their mistakes? How does that keep costs down?
It doesn't.
You did the right thing, Dok, calling the authorites. If only more people took initiative like that, this world wouldn't have as many nagging and troubling doubts. We could charge ahead toward our bright and shining future, which I assure you is just around the corner.
Might get back to this later. My head is no longer in the space it needs to be to write.
Everyone can return to the imitation Giggles thread, now. Rong won, fair and square.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 14, 2010, 06:15:52 PM
Might get back to this later. My head is no longer in the space it needs to be to write.
Everyone can return to the imitation Giggles thread, now. Rong won, fair and square.
I'll pass.
shouldn't this have been in "or kill me?"
(sorry - that looks wrong to me, but . . . i never learned how to deal with quotation marks no adjacent to periods or commas)
Quote from: rong on May 14, 2010, 07:00:07 PM
shouldn't this have been in "or kill me?"
(sorry - that looks wrong to me, but . . . i never learned how to deal with quotation marks no adjacent to periods or commas)
We've been posting these in Apple Talk since October, Rong. We'll put them wherever we damn well please.
But now, on to important shit:
SO HOW DRUNK ARE YOU, RONG?
Dok,
it's strange you should mention that...
As i was coming home from work the other day, i had to stop for a gas fill up.
i pulled into the station and there was an awful din coming from around the side, so i went to check it out.
the clerk was standing there yelling as some lady with a green acetate jacket and a wild look in her eyes. she had what looked like a handle from a cheap scissor jack in one hand, and a small length of rusty rebar in the other. she was banging away like mad on the side of the filthy beat up dumpster filled with quickie mart refuse.
as he yelled at her to 'knock it off', and threatened to call the police, she just stared at him with a thousand yard stare, hammering out an ever changing beat that seemed to be searching in the way that you described your buddy doing.
the clerk had had enough and started walking in saying he's gonna have the cops come beat the shit out of her, because they don't give a damn about the crazy fuckers that they have to deal with in this city (we've got a tremendously high amount of people that need serious meds here that just get turned out on the street)
i saw she was moving her lips noiselessly, and it kinda looked like she was saying "this isn't it" over and over... looking at her, she seemed totally out of place because she was clean and well groomed. not at all like the typical mentally unstable vagrants we have here.
i figured i'd go into the store and stop the clerk from calling the cops, since i thought the lady may not have been an 'undesirable', but instead just be in need of assistance.
shorty after i walked into the store though, the banging stopped, and when i went outside, the lady was gone.
The cops here are pretty efficient too, i guess.
we demanded it, but this is probably more efficient than we wanted...
i guess you have to be careful what you ask for, huh?
Ippie,
The problem with Harry, and this lady you describe, is that they have the wrong values.
This is America. Harry should be PROUD that his son was killed in Iraq, to make the world safe for no-bid contractors. He should be helping his daughter find a door-greeter job at WalMart, to put that teaching degree to work. That woman should have been back at the office, putting in unpaid overtime, so that her bosses at the bank will be able to keep more of their bailout money where it belongs.
Wherever they went, I'm glad they're gone. People like that give other people ideas, which only makes them unhappy. And we DO want everyone to be happy, right?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 14, 2010, 07:01:41 PM
Quote from: rong on May 14, 2010, 07:00:07 PM
shouldn't this have been in "or kill me?"
(sorry - that looks wrong to me, but . . . i never learned how to deal with quotation marks no adjacent to periods or commas)
We've been posting these in Apple Talk since October, Rong. We'll put them wherever we damn well please.
But now, on to important shit:
SO HOW DRUNK ARE YOU, RONG?
DUDE - I'M SO DRUNK - I DRUNK MY DRUNK. LOL
SERIOUSLY - I ONLY HAVE ONE BEER LEFT. I BETTER GET BUSY SO IT WILL LAST.
I'M SO DRUNK!!11 I'M ACTUALLY POSTING A PEEDEE!!
THAT REMINDS ME, I GOTTA PEE. LOL - BRB. LOL - B RHYMES WITH PEE.
WHEEE!
And this is why I'm now done with the psycho letters, at least at PD. There's no point posting anything resembling content anymore, as 3rd rate 4Channers like Rong will simply come along, tell you you're doing it wrong, and then babble like the wet-brain drunks they are.
While I'm all about fluff threads, when they fuck up the content threads because some alcoholic twat has no sense of fucking proportion, then putting in any effort on a thread is basically a waste of time.
You may now return to the drunken rambling thread of your choice, already in progress.
Dok,
I think you're right about that.
all day, i've had the image of that lady stuck in my head, and the beat she was banging out.
it was catchy, but i can't quite remember it...
i've been siting in my cube typing away at my spreadsheets, but my mind keeps wandering and my fingers start tapping on the keyboard searching for that rhythm.
the boss walked by and noted my absent look and the idle tapping and cocked an eyebrow at me. he's not one to get askew of!
but now i find that, as well as the tap tapping, my lips were moving. 'this isn't it...this isn't it... this isn't it' and the thought crossed my mind that maybe i should walk out to that park across the highway where the kids play on those monkey bars and the green bench sits under the shady tree, so i can figure out what she meant.
can you imagine!?
on a weekday?
like some bum?!
man.
i gotta go get another cup of coffee.
get my head in the game, not thinking about that crazy lady. (glad she's gone!)
and focus on what's important.
these spreadsheets aren't going to fill themselves out, y'know...
Damn, this one was really fun to read. Too bad we're all so caught up trying to build a better asshole to just appreciate good stuff.
Quote from: Sigmatic on May 14, 2010, 07:34:35 PM
Damn, this one was really fun to read. Too bad we're all so caught up trying to build a better asshole to just appreciate good stuff.
Rong has to show us all how irrelevant we are.
Bump, because I really liked this piece.
Good bump, I missed this one when it appeared.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 14, 2010, 07:16:50 PM
Ippie,
The problem with Harry, and this lady you describe, is that they have the wrong values.
This is America. Harry should be PROUD that his son was killed in Iraq, to make the world safe for no-bid contractors. He should be helping his daughter find a door-greeter job at WalMart, to put that teaching degree to work. That woman should have been back at the office, putting in unpaid overtime, so that her bosses at the bank will be able to keep more of their bailout money where it belongs.
Wherever they went, I'm glad they're gone. People like that give other people ideas, which only makes them unhappy. And we DO want everyone to be happy, right?
This thing about having the wrong values has always stuck out in my mind. It makes me wonder if I have the wrong values (probably), and how long I can either pretend to have the Right Values™, or be useful enough to get away with the wrong ones. Thing about college is, they think having the wrong values is really cute, and they sort of encourage it with a nod and a wink. I can't help but think if they do that to weed out the dangerous ones, kind of like an agent provocateur, but in the form of an institution.
Quote from: Cainad on July 21, 2010, 02:41:06 AM
Good bump, I missed this one when it appeared.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 14, 2010, 07:16:50 PM
Ippie,
The problem with Harry, and this lady you describe, is that they have the wrong values.
This is America. Harry should be PROUD that his son was killed in Iraq, to make the world safe for no-bid contractors. He should be helping his daughter find a door-greeter job at WalMart, to put that teaching degree to work. That woman should have been back at the office, putting in unpaid overtime, so that her bosses at the bank will be able to keep more of their bailout money where it belongs.
Wherever they went, I'm glad they're gone. People like that give other people ideas, which only makes them unhappy. And we DO want everyone to be happy, right?
This thing about having the wrong values has always stuck out in my mind. It makes me wonder if I have the wrong values (probably), and how long I can either pretend to have the Right Values™, or be useful enough to get away with the wrong ones. Thing about college is, they think having the wrong values is really cute, and they sort of encourage it with a nod and a wink. I can't help but think if they do that to weed out the dangerous ones, kind of like an agent provocateur, but in the form of an institution.
Since 1970.
Could swear I replied to this. I'ma check other boards and my backlog.
In my neck of the woods there's a lot of pain and confusion as well. People are out for blood down the bayou and it's only going to get worse. These people found out the hard way what it's like to stop working for yourself and start working for the Man. Once they fully realize that they're not going to get rescued, the shit is going to get real down here. I may even be here to report on the "Other BP Cleanup" when things go south down here. In a manner of speaking.
I don't know the guy, but I hope he made it to that parallel universe. It sounds like this country took way too much from him, and it would be reassuring to know at least they could not have him.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 14, 2010, 04:57:01 PM
Dear Richter,
They came and took Harry away, today. There was no choice, really. He was working away, just like always, and then he started banging his wrenches on the table, like he was playing the drums. I asked him what the fuck he was doing, and he said he was trying to get the Native American "ghost dance" effect.
He said that if he could just pound out the right riff, when he stopped, he'd be in the right universe. One where his son wasn't killed in Iraq, where his daughter wasn't unemployed and desperate, and where we weren't heading back to the 1950s with weird Jim Crow laws.
He pounded on the welding bench with those wrenches, and it was actually a pretty catchy tune. He smiled at me, still playing, and said that this universe was obviously broken, and that there was a perfectly good one somewhere, and he just had to find it. He said that if he found it, he'd tell me how to get there, if he had time.
I smiled back, and said that I had a few things to take care of. I went to the office and called the police and an ambulance, of course. Harry was obviously having some kind of breakdown, and I figured I better get some help, quick.
And you know what, Richter? Tucson's emergency services are efficient as hell, because in the 5 minutes that I was gone from the shop, they had already come and gotten him. All that was left was the two wrenches sitting on the table.
Or maybe they're not so efficient, you know? Because 30 minutes later, they showed up, looking for Harry. I told them there must have been a mistake at dispatch, because he had already been picked up. They called in, and they said that nobody had been by prior to them. Sounds like dispatch messed up pretty bad. Or maybe Harry just wandered off into the desert. That sort of thing has happened before.
So now I have to arrange for a new mechanic, Richter. I'll do it on Monday. This afternoon I'm heading out to the Indian Restaurant I like so much. Hopefully, they'll be open again, what with being closed for a bit while the police verified the owner's right to be a person.
Okay for now,
Dok
You know what still bugs me about Harry, Dok? He just wanted out. No consideration for his wife, daughter, or anyone else, just wanted to bang the bench and let the universe un - fuck itself around him. Now if there's one thing I've picked up about gods, parents, management... Anything that falls into that category, you never expect it to square shit up around you. It doesn't matter if you're right, they'll just hear the beef or the noise form one person and figure a one - person solution will do. One person solutions well...they go from band-aids to the treatment Harry got RIGHT quick. Maybe you could say it worked for him. He DID drum himself right out of the situation he thouhgt was so bad. He's just in another now, though, no guarantees to like it any better.
(I could get all deep and point out that if you set in to move a mountain, at least you can get a couple loads done before you have to stop. If you expect the mountain to move for you because it did you wrong, you'll be there awhile. Did Harry have a mountain? Who knows. Diff'rent levers and places to stand for different worlds, Willis.)
A buddhist might tell you Harry actually getting out would have been worse than Harry getting drug away. See, if he IS out, he sure never came back to tell us how he did it. Not that it would make everythign perfect or extinguish suffering, but he could at least clue us in on what he found useful. Guess boddhisatva is about as effective an ideal as justice, some days.
Anyways, how's that Indian joint, are they open again? The folks that go around slapping productive businesses and hard workers in the name of Immigration Laws are worthy of the special hell in my book.