NEEDLING

Well... I did the unthinkable, the unfathomable, I cancelled my home internet account! That’s right, I will no longer be plugged-in as of the end of the first week of next month. Why? For various reasons, one of which being financial, but also because I spend way too much time at this computer doing pretty much a whole lot of nothing instead of what I should be doing: working seriously on my various projects. It’s not like I’ll be completely out of touch, since I have constant internet connection at work, and I can always walk a few blocks to my neighborhood coffee shop with my laptop and use their free Wi-Fi connection. So I’ll still be around. I’ll still post on this blog, though my posts will be even more infrequent than they have been recently. What might happen, what I hope will happen, is this not being able to post immediately will force me to write and rewrite, think and rethink, edit my posts, and then post them. I have a tendency to write and to post and to barely look at what I’m doing. When I reread what I’ve published on my blog, I sometimes cringe with some of what I find there on my electronic screen. And anyway, I think I want to start reading the printed press once again. I miss the turning of newspapers pages over breakfast.

Last week and last weekend were crazy mixture panic, chaos, and partying. A large percentage of our customers at the liquor store had unexpected company. One woman was telling me they were five adults, six children, and ten dogs, at her house. Some people had one friend, others had several families, and everybody was drinking heavily. On Wednesday and Thursday, the supermarkets around town were emptied. The water went first. I don’t like tap water, and I usually stock up on gallon jugs of spring or distilled water. On Tuesday, I was running low, by the time I decided to get myself some water, there was none to get. Not a single bottle of water was available in the city. What people hadn’t scrounged and over-bought on, FEMA and the Red Cross had taken. Various employees in various supermarkets told me they didn’t even bother to load the shelves whenever they got a delivery. They took the pallets off the trucks and plopped them down by the front door, in thirty minutes, everything would be gone. Then by Thursday and Friday, the stores started to run out of bread, of dairy products, no more milk anywhere – I don’t drink milk, so that’s fine, and I don’t eat most breads you find around here either, so there... – then went the canned meats, the canned vegetables, and finally the potatoes and the onions. By Friday afternoon, the supermarket next to my work was empty. We at the liquor store didn’t quite run out, but we had a very strenuous week. Non stop. Busy all the time. We at least doubled our sales compared to the week before, and I haven’t quite recovered yet.

My friend’s mother lives just north east of Beaumont, Texas. Thursday, I called my friend to see if her mother had gotten out of there. What? My friend says, she hadn’t read the newspapers, watched television, nor looked on the internet. She knew there was a hurricane right off the coast, but wasn’t it landing in Corpus or Mexico or something? No, I said, it’s going straight for Beaumont or Galveston or around there somewhere. Well, my mom doesn’t want to leave. I think you’d better call her and tell her to get in her car. She left at 4 in the afternoon on Friday! It took her 6 hours to get to Austin, which is very fast, considering I’d been hearing all week from my clients and their unexpected house guests about the gridlock on the highways, that people took more than twenty hours to get from Houston to Austin, so 6 hours to get from Beaumont to Austin is exceptional. Now my friend, her mother, and their two dogs are staying in her tiny efficiency apartment for a few days.

Considering the panic which took place, even here in Austin, where the worse we could have expected was severe winds and rain, possibly the loss of electrical power for a few hours, and at best exactly what we got, beautiful sunshine with slight cooling winds, then I’d hate to see our city on the eve or during an actual catastrophe. People were fighting at gas stations, people were driving recklessly – they do on normal times, but it felt there were double the amount of crazies on the road – people were scrounging for food and water... not poor people, or hungry people, but people driving 50 thousand dollar vehicles were filling there trucks up with dozens and dozens of gallons of water, taking everything they could get their hands on. I overheard one such man on Wednesday afternoon who had literally filled the whole back of his truck with water, “you just cain’t be too ready, it’s just me and wife, but we got to get ready for the worst...” or something of the sort. One customer came into the store, a little upset, a little red in the face, but calming down, and told me about his adventure. He’d just been at the gas station, were he’d had to wait half an hour to get gas, and finally, he was at the pump, opening his gas tank and started going for the gas pump when the man parked on the other side of the pump was going for it. “What are you doing?” asked my client, “I’m getting gas,” answered the other man. “Fine,” said my client, “but stick to your side.” The other man had the pump on his side filling up his gas tank, and was reaching to the other side to fill up a truck load of jerrycans! Why would this man need this much gas?

That’s one thing I did. I saw that one coming, and I filled up my car on Tuesday evening last week. But that’s it, I didn’t stock up for the next three weeks!

People are nuts.

It’s the great big exodus. It’s fucking biblical. A million or so people are evacuating and driving through town. Glenn was getting off of work in Giddings – 100 miles from Houston approximately – and there was no taking 290 East – the principal highway to get back into Austin. The cops have turned all the red lights off all the way down from Houston, and the cars are driving out bumper to bumper. I don’t know where they’re going. There’s a major international music festival in town this weekend and every rentable room in town has been rented for weeks. The Governor told everybody to go to Dallas, San Antonio and For Worth. All day today I had customers coming into the store telling me relatives where coming over for the weekend. The H.E.B. next to my work ran out of water in the early afternoon. After class tonight, I stopped by my local H.E.B. and the parking lot was fuller than I ever seen it. I decided that I’ll go in early tomorrow morning. The storm should hit and totally destroy the coast-line, and it might still be a hurricane when it gets to us, they say. In any case, we should expect extreme winds and extreme down pour. We should expect massive amounts of trees breaking and flying. We should expect electricity to go out for a long time. We should hope real loud that no tornado will form out of this storm. Glenn, Kari, and I haven’t prepared at all yet. Tomorrow, we’re buying lots of water, some food, and loads of booze.

One of my beer delivery guys is in the National Guard. He told me today he’d been called in, and tomorrow he’s on the way to Houston for several days. In two months, he’s on the way to Iraq.

“I got a guy to cover for me for the next couple of days, this way it’ll all be cool.”
“But... they can’t fire you right? How does that work anyway?”
“Naw, dude, that’s part of the deal, whatever they call me to do, I can’t loose my job over it. Matter fact, it looks like I’ll be making less money in the next few days by going to Houston, so they’ll cover the difference.”
“Shit, man... and they can call you to go to Iraq too, right?”
“Yeah, matter fact, we’re supposed to go in two months.”
“I’m sorry, dude, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
“You know, man, when I joined I figured something like that might happened, and at first, when it all started to go down, I was like, shit, dude, it’s an experience...”
“Yeah, but, dude, that’s not no experience you want...”
“Yeah... I don’t, man... ever since I saw that movie 9-11 or whatever, I’m like, fuck this shit, what the hell... I want to defend my country and all, but not this shit...”
“I’m sorry, dude,”
“You know, if they call me, I’ll go, because I signed up, but man I don’t want to... I’m not scared or nothing, I just don’t want to go over there and fight for their lies and... shit...”
“Dude, good luck tomorrow...”
“All right, man, I’ll see you later.”

It’s a weird feeling. People are freaking out. Nobody knows what’s going to hit them. It’s a massive exodus coming from the coast. This man walked into my store, and I’d just been checking out a man who was saying that everybody was all freaking out, going all out of proportion, that we’re in Austin, and nothing’s gonna hit us except some hard rain and some strong winds, why buy all that water? What’s those people thinking? And he walked out.

The next guy in line was a small guy in shorts and a wife-beater. He had lots of tattoos, a dark working man’s tan, and a rough edge like he’d worked ever since he could walk on his own.

“I don’t know nothing about no water shortage or nothing, but I live down there on a boat, or should I say, I lived on a boat, and that boat’s my living.”
“I’m sorry, man.”

He wasn’t melodramatic, he wasn’t mad, he wasn’t upset, he was just like: I live on boat which in two days will no longer be, I’m buying some booze to help me ride this shit out, other than that, I’m fine, dude.

I’m stranded in this country
not knowing the first thing
being in my thirties all ready
I am...

It’s a different thing all together
being this age when I was here before
I was young, illegal, and uncaring
dropping acid in the dried out
canal
looking at the brick bridge
over 30th street
seeing dancing illusions of death
and birth.

I’ve never legally worked
for a living before.

I’m not used to it.

It’s been a long day
trying to filter out the mundane


Remembering the Slovak church lunches
in Paris I had to walk past the railroad track
take a left, a couple of rights
and there it was abandoned it seemed
in that stark neighborhood
not far from Porte de Montreuil
a church
locked behind the chain fence
we would walk in after the service
was just over
me and my Slovak friend
starved the both of us
not a penny in either one
of our pockets
we attended the after-service lunch with glee.

He took care of the priest
in Slovak
and I was the interested French friend
who loved central European cultures
but spoke not a word.

We rarely paid more than a couple of euros.

We were always the center of attention.

My Slovak friend always paid
because I was even more broke
then he was
and my dad wasn’t an ex-soviet undercover cop
turned private inspector
and he seemed to have infinite funds
available to him
upon proper demands.

Broke as we were.

We are all guilty. With the evidence available, none of us could stand trial. We’re all good for the guillotine. Bourgeoisie in spite of ourselves. And if we’re not guilty personally, our parents and or our grandparents certainly are, which makes us guilty by association. We’re all good for the gallows! To the lions we go! The whole bunch, lets get the games started! Don’t know what I’m talking about. Raised strict Catholic by non-believing parents who have through the years become more and more the church goers, I am not your regular atheist. Matter fact, I am not an atheist at all, though I have been accused of such many times. I believe in life, in responsibility, in consequences, in the spirit of life, in the mystery of life, in the world in which we live in, from which we are an inseparably part... I believe that I am God, as well as every other person which I meet or not, any other person which lives or has lived, we are all part of the same machine, the same struggle, the same love, the same hate... we’re all dirt, crude oil to be, full of energy and spirit, part of a whole mother earth which is us and we are her or him... or whatever. The White Goddess, by Robert Graves, deserves a looking into.

I like Gypsy music, and that’s what I’m listening to right now. Romanian epic poems sung through my little cheap computer speakers. I don’t understand them, but I know I am them, that they sing about me and my family, about my grandparents, my great-grandparents, about myself somehow. I know.

I have come from the depths of drunkenness, I have spilt everything which could have been spilt anywhere in my house, I have slumbered on and off from restless sleep to somnambulistic meanderings... I am the barely awake of Sunday morning. My kitchen is a mess, the laundry room seems to be at a standstill, the washing machine broken it seems, the dog all about the place going insane, I spill a brand new bag of dog food into his water bucket and onto the floor, the cleaning process is halfway successful, I skater mud and debris all over the house, water spillage, I try to recover as much of the dog food as possible running it through the colander... all the water soaked nuggets of expensive protein intense big puppy food finds its way into my refrigerator. There’s a weeks worth of soaked food in my bean casserole, the only dish big enough to hold all the wet dog food and fit in my cold box. I need to cook beans today for the rest of the week. This is a pain in the ass, and it’s only just the beginning, the rising from bed, the trying to have a more or less normal Sunday. Maybe what I need is a bath. Last night, my next door neighbors invited me to a doggy party. Zep, their dog, turned 4, and thus they invited lots of people with lots of dogs. All graduate students, scientists, chemical engineers, and computer programming experts. I felt about as smart as the dogs. At one point, the conversation turned to wine and spirits... finally, something I could talk about... and then, no matter how smart all those folks certainly are, once you get enough alcohol in any person of any level of intelligence, the conversation seems to always fall into more or less the same themes: past alcohol induced feats, exaggerated, and sex, or the lack of, the raunchy jokes, et cetera. Basically, a fun evening all around. Talked with one fellow about his Hungarian and Lithuanian origins, he talks neither languages of his parents. His mother when a little girl, jumped on a train right after church one Sunday many years ago, with her parents, on a day the Soviets guards had forgot to put a sentinel on the train heading to Austria. The train sped towards the border not stopping for anybody else. A whole bunch of folks in Sunday clothes with their Sunday suppers slowly simmering on their kitchen stoves, all bunched up on the coal wagon speeding towards Austria with the Soviets shooting bullets at the train trying to get it to stop. And that’s how, I was explained, his mother started her journey to America. I wonder what happened to all those meals simmering in all those kitchens? Did the village go up in smoke? Did the Soviets eat the meals? Did the priest jump in the coal wagon as well?

(Notice the subtle underlying theme of going on the wagon.)

His grandfather worked for Ford Inc. as a machinist in the factories in Cleveland, Ohio, for 25 years.

“He was an incredible man,” is all I was told.

Being a Hungarian soldier during the Second World War, he fought for the axis powers. He was made prisoner by the Americans, and interned in an American run concentration camp located somewhere in France. For months, they gave him nothing to eat. The prisoners survived by eating grass and leaves found on the campground. And still, in the mid-fifties, when they escaped the Soviets, America is where they were headed. During the war, his grandfather was an interpreter of Hungarian for the Germans. Because he was an intelligent man and spoke both languages with great aptitude, he ended up in some dangerous circles. Such people as Heinrich Himmler used his services when the Germans walked into Hungary.

I can’t even begin to imagine finding myself in such a situation. Once, when I was eighteen, I landed a job as an interpreter for this Californian millionaire who had the idea of starting a black truffle ranch in West Texas. He brought the biggest mind on the subject to Texas, paid them handsomely, and hopped to get as much information from them as possible. These truffle specialists, scientists and such were all French. This is where I come in. One of these scientist in question was a horrible man, and being the interpreter I was stuck in the middle, having to translate what he was saying without changing the meaning of his words. There were times when I was ashamed of what this man was saying. The man who had hired me, the millionaire’s brother in law, for whom I had worked earlier that summer helping him build stain glass windows told me after that horrible man was put back on the plane, that I had done a great job, and that they all knew these words were not mine own, that I had done my job as an interpreter, and that was what I had been hired to do. Pancho was an artist who lived in the hill country, he was poor, an ex-hippy from the sixties, a wonderful man who happened to be related to a very rich Californian. This French scientist lived in what had been Vichy France during WWII. He was one of those French who had been more than happy to see the Nazi’s coming in. There were many more than most would admit today. He collected Nazi memorabilia such as uniforms, medals, photos and such, but also guns, specially automatic guns, which are highly illegal in France as far as I know. He explained that one of his favorite games was to invite unknowing friends to his place, set them up in his living room with a drink, and then disappear for while. He’d come back in the living room dressed up as a high ranking SS officer with a loaded automatic gun and scare the living shit out of his guest. This is part of the stuff I had to translate, which wasn’t so bad. He kept telling these types of anecdotes which I translated to his hosts, my boss and Pancho. This man was a sick man, and I hated him, even more so because this man was French, and in my silly eighteen year old mind, I was afraid my hosts might think all French people were like this man.

When our work was done, and that it was time to take this asshole back to the airport, we had a few days left and we asked him if there was anything in Texas he wanted to see. There was. He had always wanted to see the Confederate Air Force – now the Commemorative Air Force – an organization which collects old WWI and WWII airplanes, fixes them up, and flies them on a regular basis. At the time, they were located in South Texas, and we traveled all the way to the valley, to my parents’ distress since I was at the time an illegal alien, and if stuck in an Immigration Check Point, I could have been taken into custody. I went anyway. I looked and sounded American, and I had a driver’s license. We were driving on those long highways. We would see whole family of poor people walking on the sides of the roads. At one point, our scientific asshole friend said to me... this was at the time of the first Iraq war, the one Bush Sr. started... “we should gather up all these people, put them on a plane and make them walk hand in hand, every single one of them, parents, children, the whole bunch, in front of the American Marines in the desert to clean out the mine fields. It would save us a lot of money, and at least these people would serve a purpose instead of just being parasites.” When he said this to me in French, and the millionaire and Pancho were looking at me for a translation, and the French asshole was egging me on to translate what he’d just said, and we were traveling down the highway passing all these poor people walking down the side of the road, I looked at Pancho, whom I liked and respected, and translated what the scientist had just told me. I was angry and almost in tears at having to say such a thing.

It’s Wednesday evening and I’ve had a long day. Couldn’t sleep last night so I was out of bed around 4am reading Love’s Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain – who also wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice - which I rightly finished... loved it, but then again, I’m a sucker for those kinds of books, and Cain, though it’s been many years since I’ve read anything by him, is often pretty darn good. By 6h30 there was nothing left to do, I’d drank some hot tea called De-Tox, which didn’t do anything for me, so I’d drank the two last beer in the fridge while reading the last few chapters in the book, that didn’t do anything for me, so I walked to the local supermarket and bought a melon and a grapefruit, walked back home, sat on my couch, still tired as hell but not sleepy one bit, that wasn’t gonna do it, so I took a long hot shower, and still nothing. There was nothing left for me to do but to go back to bed. I did. Nothing doing. No sleep. Rolling over, having weirdo nightmares, half awake, half drowning in my own silliness, I was trying desperately to get some sleep. 7h15, the alarm went off, or rather, the alarm on my cell phone went off, I changed it to 8h30, and went back to sweating it out all by myself rolling around wanting needing to catch any kind of descent snooze. Nope, wasn’t gonna happen. 8h30 I rolled out of bed, put some clothes on not looking whether they came from the clean pile or the dirty pile, and my eyes barely able to function, I drove my thirty and some minutes to work, my melon by my side. I arrived at work early, didn’t clock in, but sat at the back desk, cutting my melon in half and starting eating it. I hadn’t taken two bites that somebody was all ready beating on the back door. I looked at the clock, it wasn’t even 9h20 yet, ten minutes before I’m suppose to clock in. My shirt open, my clothes totally disheveled, I grunt to the back door, open it to a surprised delivery guy.

“You here all ready!? I wasn’t expecting to see you here this early, man.”

It’s one of my favorite delivery guys, so I can’t be pissed at him, but I do give him a little hell anyway.

“Hey man, I ain’t even clocked in yet, what’s the idea?”
“Sorry, man, don’t know why they put me on your stop this early.”
“Shit... I was eating breakfast and all, trying to relax a second before having to start my day.”

Took that order. He left. So I sat back down, finished my melon rapidly, and went to go sit on the shiter for a few minutes, my first bowel movement of the day, the most important one, when, I’m barely through doing my business that here it goes again, somebody knocking on the back door.

And that’s how my whole day’s been going. During class tonight, watching Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau, I could barely keep my eyes open, my head falling backwards, catching myself before falling off into lala land. I was afraid I was going to make some stupid comment, because I couldn’t always tell the difference between what was happening on screen and what was happening in my head.

It’s 22h56 now, I’ve been home a while, I made myself some simple diner, had myself a couple glasses of white wine, watched The Killers a short film by Andrei Tarkovsky, his first – I watched Robert Siodmak's (1946) version a few nights ago – all based on Hemmingway’s short story, and I figured I should visit my blog before going to bed.

(Today is an average day for me these days, just to show you why I haven’t been writing much here as of late.)

My man is stuck at the end of act one, he’s met the girl he’d like to spend the rest of his days with, but she doesn’t really care one iota about him (not until she realizes she can use him to free her boyfriend, but that’s not till way into act two)... right now, we have a situation of cross border unhappiness – Texas / Mexican border – with my hero wanting to go home – another country all together, France to be exact – and his boss not wanting him to go home – the boss holds the key for the hero to go home – and the daughter of the bad guy dropped in just for bad luck with whom the hero falls in love with – unrequited of course – though he’s just about to get his window of opportunity to get the hell out of dodge... if he gets involved with her and takes on her complicated life on top of his own - which he's bound to do - then there’s a big chance he’ll miss out on his ticket back home. What to do? But right now, I’m barely at the end of act one when boy meets girl.

Decisions... decisions...

Silence. I’ve been silent now for a week. I’m sorry. It’s been difficult to find anything to say these last few days. Everyday reading the news, seeing the devastation down south, all those people displaced, all those people who’ve died, and little me over here totally powerless to help. So I sit at my desk on Sunday, yet another Sunday, another week ended, a new one about to start over again... day after day, I go to work, I work these long days which comparatively to some aren’t long at all... and I don’t do much of anything else except go to school two nights a week. My personal time has been reduced drastically. It’s been one month now since Marvin and myself have been just the two of us at the store, in a store which really needs three full time employees, and we’re both getting tired of the situation. When I get home in the evening, instead of reading, I turn the television on and go blank. My brains are turning to mush. In the morning, I turn the computer on and surf the various news sites and blogs instead of writing. None of it is any good, and I believe I’m about to get rid of my internet access here at home, so that my computer becomes once again a work station rather than a brainwash brain-dead station.

¾ part black-currant liquor otherwise known as Crème de Cassis, 1 part citron vodka, fill with ice and ginger-ale, shake, and pour into glass, ice and all. Should fill a pint glass. Drink like cool-aid. It’s called the Kir Dévasté.

People smarter than myself speak: TonyPierce, Whiskey Bar always has some intelligent words to ad to the lot, his essay The Potemkin President hits a few nails right on the head, Anne Rice is pissed, thanks to Looka for the link, though I’d read her piece in the NYT earlier, the Holywriter tells us what he thinks, and Bob Herbert is very direct and right on in his op-ed which he starts with:

"Neither the death of the chief justice nor the frantic efforts of panicked White House political advisers can conceal the magnitude of the president's failure of leadership last week. The catastrophe in New Orleans billowed up like the howling winds of hell and was carried live and in color on television screens across the U.S. and around the world.

The Big Easy had turned into the Big Hurt, and the colossal failure of George W. Bush to intervene powerfully and immediately to rescue tens of thousands of American citizens who were suffering horribly and dying in agony was there for all the world to see."

It’s Sunday and I ain’t gotta be at work
it’s the Lord’s day they say
them that say it’s the Lord’s day
but I don’t believe it for a second.

Sunday’s my day, people
Sunday’s my day, folks
Sunday’s the day I get to not go to work
because the big boss man says
because the big boss man says.

He won’t give me any other day off
says it’s the Lord’s day
and I can’t work on that particular day
on the Lord’s day
and only on that day.

I guess that’s fine by me
he can say whatever he wants to say
because I know Sunday’s my day
it’s my day to stay home
it’s my day to not go to work
even if I know this ain’t no more the Lord’s day
than mine own
I’ll have a beer anyhow
and get ready for the next week full of days
which aren’t the Lord’s days
because the big boss man says
because the big boss man says.

Gawker has a few things to say. Chapati Mystery is right on. The B.B.C. coverage is excelent, thanks to Bicyclemark for the B.B.C. reminder. Shrub comes in way behind schedule, as usual. Maureen Dowd tells us what she thinks.

When the president says this:

"This week we've all been humbled by the awesome powers of Mother Nature. And when you stand on the porch steps where a home once stood, or look at row upon row of buildings that are completely under water, it's hard to imagine a bright future. But when you talk to the proud folks in the area, you see a spirit that cannot be broken."

He should probably also look into this. It ain't just Mother Nature that's the problem, Shrub. Thanks to Chapati Mystery for the National Geographic link. We should all be humbled by the awesome greed of certain people.

inadequate laments
from safety
a home standing still
inside which
a man sitting alone
from others
crying not because he thinks
but because he feels
inadequate to lament
adequately.

unable to act
and help those
even poorer than him
he sits there
and watches them die
miles away.

is it cowardly?
or the truth of the situation?
unable to move
imprisoned inside walls
so thin
like careless sticks yarned around
the room
wooden matches
stuck with glue
built as if a wall
a grid
of strewn toothpicks.

33

emptied.hills.listen.
,not,alive,trees,dream(
ev:ery:wheres:ex:tend:ing:hush

)
andDark
IshbusY
ing-roundly-dis

tinct;chuck
lings,laced
ar:e,by(

fleet&panelike&frailties
!throughwhich!brittlest!whitewhom!
f
 loat?)
          r
            hythms

(copied from the collection e.e. cummings complete poems 1913 – 1962 page 416)

I sit in front of my screen this morning surfing the bad news which seems to be the only thing going theses days as I drink the remaining two third of a beer I apparently didn’t finish last night, and I tell myself there’s really nothing I can write about. There’s plenty of much more talented people out there writing about the tragic state we find ourselves in, and me here in front of my screen rehashing what’s all ready been said is of no use to me or anybody. Next week is my birthday, I will celebrate by eating way too much pizza and drink way too much cheap beer. I will do this with a few friends after I get off of work and I will go on through the wee hours of the night like a bumbling idiot.

People who have something to say: The Interdictor, BAGnewsNotes, Whiskey Bar, Michael Moore.

Some of my customers have once again proven their great sense of humanity. As I’ve said before, I work in a predominantly republican neighborhood. Most of the people who come into my store drive large gas-guzzling SUV’s, and have consistently fought any sort of public transportation to come into this part of town. You know, so that people like myself don’t have to spend their entire salary on their vehicles, and to keep the riff-raffs away. These people, when they’re not working, are buying booze from me and going to the lake to float around all afternoon. I wouldn’t mind doing the same thing every once in a while, but there are few to no public accesses, public parks or public picnic grounds are inexistent. Unless you own a boat, or you own property right on the lake, or you have friends that do, then you’re stuck far away from the water. Blablabla, I digress.

One of my regulars, a white man in his early fifties, came in as he does just about every day to buy his pint of Jack Daniels, a couple diet cokes, and a pack of cigarettes.

“Have you seen what’s going in New Orleans?” He starts, as if anybody anywhere close to the south or anywhere in the United States doesn’t know what’s been happening in the gulf region in and around Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. “And those looters, isn’t that just terrible.” Then with a grin on his face, bending over, lowering his voice, speaking “white to white” – I hate it when people, just because of what I look like decide to include me in their usually unpleasant little worlds – said “I’m not prejudice, but I didn’t see a single white face in the bunch.”

“Well, sir, New Orleans is a predominantly black city, and people there are so poor, it shouldn’t even be allowed to be that poor in America. You’ve never seen such poverty.”

I wasn’t trying to excuse any looting. First of all I’m not there and I can’t even begin to understand what it’s like, but this man with his racist allusions, was really starting to get on my nerves. On top of it all, he was including me, as if it was understood that I thought and felt just like he did. Don’t assume I’m a bigot just because you are.

As he walked out the door, not really understanding that poverty could even exist in America, this man furthered himself in his idiocy showing his true colors, by saying: “I guess they’re stealing a microwave, or whatever, so that when the whites come back, who no longer own a microwave or whatever, they can sell them the microwave and make a little money, since they’re so poor.” And he walked out the door. I really don’t know if he was being serious – I think he was – or whether he was so hateful and insensitive, that he thought he was being funny and or ironic.

Anybody who starts a sentence with “I’m not prejudice, but...” or “It’s not that I have anything against woman drivers, but...” “I’m not racist or anything, but...” “I’m not homophobic or nothing, but....” or whatever, there are thousands of such examples, is basically admitting exactly what he or she is claiming to not be. Yes, you are prejudice, would you ever have had that conversation with a non-white? With a black person? No, probably not.

The next customer who walked in was a black man in his forties. I really wished he had come in just a few minutes before.

(I don’t want to keep repeating what I read in “leftist” blogs all the time: that racism is mostly an older white man’s problem. You know, The Old Big and Fat White Man is now the stereotype for everything that’s wrong in the world... and like all stereotypes, it’s completely wrong. Racism and bigotry comes in all shapes, colors, and sexes.)

Later on, another customer walked in. This time a white woman, probably in her early forties. She started telling me how her ex-husband was from New Orleans, and that her ex-husband’s family was now crashing in Austin at various relatives. She then told me how, when she was married, they’d visit New Orleans several times a year, “and really, you know, that place was sooo dirty, it really needed a big clean-up.”

She was standing at the door about to walk out, waiting for some kind of approval from me. I was simply in shock at what I’d just heard. She saw this and tried to justify herself before walking out. “But the streets were so dirty, full of drugs, and violent crimes...”

I wasn’t budging. I guess I’m a coward, I should have told her how terrible a person she was for thinking such a thought.

Finally, I said, “I’ve lived in New Orleans, and let me tell you, New Orleans is a great city, and I love that city.”

She left.

(For news stories related to New Orleans, go on NOLA.com.)