Un Terlude

You beautiful Monster!
Terrifying as a dream
Vibrant, Azure as all human moments are
Between the yawn and the scream
Between pedestrian and ruin
Angels call us Architecture
You call us something more profound

Prejudice is Behavior

It would seem by now, I suppose, that Time would heal. Tens of thousands of years of civilization (and even more so with the pre-human era) has slowly, patiently, in the unwary cusp of Time's hands, brought us to this point in which we are all living. Now we're in the 21st century and showing signs of settling in, yet no avenging of purposeful human evil and fewer memories of its victims dead or alive. If any mention opportune itself, the human being is immune to Time's healing properties; a species of mammal that can form concepts, language, learn/adapt, imagine possibilities and remember has learned to turn Time into a device which both alienates and binds us to the industries of human endeavors.
Humans have been here a long time and the wounds are still fresh. Prejudice has withstood the influence of Time. We all see it. We all have a little of it repressed within. For most of us it becomes "behavior" or habit.
Above is an aesthetically unremarkable photo of a man seated at a table. he appears to be focused on the novel before him; older than fifty, younger than seventy. This kind of man might live in your neighborhood or apartment complex. You might even open the door for him or offer your seat to him if you're riding the bus. A harmless looking man.
He came in after I did. I already had my food and was reading a book called: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton. I was there of over an hour, too wound up from work to go home, let alone cook. So In and Out was my saving grace. When I had finished, I cleaned after myself (a habit from Mom), threw my trash away and left. As I was bicycling away I happen to see This man rush from his previous spot over to where I sat, carrying a handful of napkins. What I witnessed stunned me. I couldn't believe what I saw: The Old man scrubbed the table with the napkins. I mean, scrubbed hard! He scrubbed the table top then all four edges of the table top, under the table. Stopped briefly to fill his cup with water at the soda fountain. Returned and scrubbed the seat detailing every inch of it. It didn't end there. He poured the water on the floor and used the napkins to scrub where my feet were. It was probably the most disturbing sight I've seen in recent years and the most hurtful. He turned away the helpful employees trying to assist him and used the remaining napkins to retrieve the trash and threw them away. After this he finally sat down. The whole event took about fifteen minutes. Prejudice is behavior, not always accusation, not always stereotypes. We both had our books. We both ate our burgers. We both shared the same space yet I was considered inferior and unclean from a man that may have been tasked with the unfortunate duty, in the golden years, of scrubbing the pool after we used it or mopping the floors after we walked on them...
It would seem that Time doesn't live long enough to heal human beings of this kind of behavior. Six hundred years is still not enough to encourage extinction of human evil. My only prayer is that this man dies with all his hatred. Our world has more than it will ever need.

Moments Before The Dawn

It started as a fleeting moment, on the eve of a new day, I sit in front of the this monitor typing away at, what I hope will be the final draft of a story I've been working on and off for a number of years. That "fleeting moment" pulled me from my work and I sat back in remembrance...

I was invited to dinner by a well-to-do friend of mine I've known for years. He didn't "want o be with these snobby kids" alone (it was friends of the girlfriend fresh out of graduate school). It was an interesting catastrophe Various topics briefly rose and fell until one comment hit the table. His name was Charles and he studied business and real estate investments (classic textbook Yuppie child). He just inherited his father's real estate firm and already butting heads with the seasoned subordinates. "They're talking behind my back and challenging my decisions! They don't like me even though I'm paying for their livelihoods..." My friend and I looked at each other. It was sad. I work for a "kid" like this one and it embarrasses me to admit this.
"For one," I began. "you inherited the family business because you happen to be the son of the CEO and you are up against many who earned their positions and I suspect it took some of them a number of years to get there with a great many sacrifices, none of which you've made yet-" I didn't want nor cared to insult the guy but at this point he began defending himself with arguments based on his frequent visitations to the business, his studies and grades which almost made me laugh. "the point is," I said. " you did not earn your way. You did not get your hands dirty with hard decisions or the field work necessary to complete certain aspects of the job; concepts like 'duty' and 'work ethic' are completely alien to you; concepts your team live by, and I suspect you never took the time to get to know your team or their job descriptions, what successes they had, their goals and so on. There's nothing more insulting than giving an assigned task to a staff member and having no clue whatsoever as to how it gets done or having no education to check or follow-up on the task. They'll sneak mistakes by you and watch you struggle, laughing at you all the while..." I kept a pleasant demeanor, I mean, I didn't know this guy or cared much for him but his situation is common among his class and upbringing. I, myself, would have been in this position hadn't my father changed his beliefs. It makes me angry at times to be involved in commentary like this, even by the ones I call friends. They go through college without paying a single cent then off to graduate school and afterwards straight into a job they never earned, all the while never holding an honest job in their lives, never understanding the daily struggle of earning one's way, of clocking in and clocking out, of having to do what others tell you to... They always seem baffled when they are not immediately respected. The arrogance and belligerence of these people defies reason especially when "power without effort" comes into their snobby, little hands.

The sun's coming up. On the eve of a new day less than three pages away from finishing my story, a fleeting moment distracts me...

I have no regrets.

The Hidden Society

In the City that spawns more Demons than Angels, a wall exists between Los Angeles and Downtown (Downtown is becoming more Los Angeles as gentrification slowly encroaches on the the existing community that has survived for decades there). On this wall are layers of meanings and conduits of subversiveness that tastes of ripe fruit but in the end there is the seed and each seed carries with it a moral/ethical dilemma: is it Art or ranting? Is it aesthetics or politics? Is it social criticism or ideology? Is it a statement of culture or is it culture?

The City is my religion, the Streets are my faith. people are the physical manifestation of the two yet a complex, myriad interpretation/expression, almost evangelical! These walls are barriers to some, passage-ways to others and its views are divine!