i guess i write sometimes

What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.

—James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket

Somebody left little plastic Jesus figures all over one of the woodland trails I like to walk. They have big, cartoonish grins, white robes, and brightly colored sashes in a variety of colors. I’ve been picking them out of knotholes and tree-forks for days, dropping them in the recycling bin by the parking lot.

At first, the whole thing just made me very angry. It wasn’t just litter; it was litter that felt like an invasion of my own sacred space with a cheap, mass-produced icon that felt like the sacredness-equivalent of empty calories.

Honestly, it made me furious, my rage directed at a kind of deeply American-feeling religiosity that is sold in packs of 72 for $29.99 (I checked). Religion as cheap, brightly-colored, disposable eyesores littered somewhere quiet and gentle and authentic. Religion that is colorful and easy and leaves a mess behind for somebody who actually gives a damn to clean up.

Perhaps worst of all, I suspected that somebody thought of scattering the little figures everywhere as a moral act.

I’m still not happy about it, but my anger has cooled through many walks and the imaginative empathy that always arises from my long contemplations. I reasoned that it was probably a child (encouraged by adults). I reasoned that I wasn’t always respectful of wild places when I was a kid. I reasoned that there is huge, institutional religious machinery at work that seems designed to shrink participants’ worldviews down to a pinhole.

So, my anger slowly resolved into sadness.

And I’m left hoping that whoever tucked trash all over one of my favorite woodlands meets with some moments of clarity and self-reflection. I hope they consider the real value of plastic sacredness sold in bulk. I hope they consider the usefulness of virtue expressed as litter. I hope they question who they expect to comfort or convert with mass-produced trash that smells of a chemical tang, trash abandoned to block sunlight from a tiny patch of moss or wedged in tree-bark like a pebble in a shoe.

I hope they awaken to the symbolism of dropping something inert and obstructive in a place that otherwise grows and breathes and provides.

Still in pursuit, we followed the ball toward a small lake in Motor World that had been earmarked for a fleet of tiny bumper boats for children. The area wasn’t open yet, but the empty boats were being tested and floated on the surface. The ball soared over the grass and smashed into several of them, scattering the others with rippling waves from the impact, which launched some of the boats several feet in the air.

Charlie and Ken waded into the water looking for the hatch. After some difficulty, they got it open. Charlie pulled Frank out by grabbing him under his armpits like a baby. Frank crawled up the bank, coughing and sputtering. He splayed across the grass as we all stared at the ball, which bobbed in the water like it was attached to a fishing lure.

We did not ask for the inspector’s report, nor did we ever hear of one being filed. Ken Bailey returned to Canada. The snow-makers cleared away the PVC. Told to dispose of the Bailey Ball, they rolled it into the woods, where it remained for many years."

PUNK PLANET ISSUE #4 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1994

Not in a romantic way, not even in a remotely normal way. He's in love with him the way a creator is in love with his masterpiece. He so carefully and lovingly shaped him, pushed him to his boundaries, built him into the key to achieve his vision. And he's fascinated by how perfect Jon turned out to be. He's obsessed with him. He needed him to rule the world beside him. Jon is the only one Jonah wouldn't have tried to step over or get rid off, he wants him there.

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.