Porkopolis, Part 1, Appendix: Socks

"Eat your dirty laundry." - Don Henley

"You can be a week beyond the need for a good bath, your clothes can be rags, and you could look like an extra from a zombie movie. But if you're wearing clean socks, you just feel like better." - Parsons Revised Rules For Living


So, my best laid plans on this Monday morning were waylaid by dirty socks.

That's right. As I mentioned in The Third Thing, I only brought four pairs of socks with me... that's three, plus the pair on my feet. The same goes with underwear. And one of those pairs of socks is actually a pair of wool socks... which are only wearable when it's very cold. And today, of all days, I ran out of clean socks... except for the aforementioned wool ones, and it's actually too warm to wear them in Cincinnati. (Huzzah!) So I have to wash my clothes. Luckily, I  have access to a washer and dryer, albeit space age ones that look more like Star Wars Escape Pods than home appliances.

"Look Sir! Lord Vader's dirty undies! I knew they were here somewhere! I can tell it's them from the oily skid marks!"

My original plan was to go back to the storage unit and get further along on emptying it out. I made good progress on that yesterday... and I will write about that at greater length in Porkopolis, Part 2: The Return of Creepy Louis. I was then going to maybe catch a metro bus downtown. I still plan on doing that... though I may not get to the storage unit today. I'm hoping to cross paths, at the very least with Aaron K, a friend and former colleague, at which point much beer will flow.

Not me. And not Aaron. But we both like our liquor.

The socks -- and indeed, the rest of dirty laundry -- are in the escape pod looking dryer. So that's progress.

But that's not what I really wanted to write about in this blog post. What I really wanted to talk about... again... is Greyhound Bus Lines.

Yesterday, in a conversation thread on Facebook, I made an allusion to... actually I came right out and said... that Greyhound hires psychotics to drive their buses.

I would like to state here and now that I was JOKING. Most, if not all Greyhound bus drivers have been nothing but professional in their behavior towards me during my various trips over the years. They're NOT psychotics. (In fact, I suspect the TSA snaps them up too quickly for any other company to consider using them.)

(Don't be afraid, ma'am. I was in a sorority in college.)

I would like to point out, however, that a recent article at addictinginfo.org reported that a bus driver left Occupy protesters stranded in Amarillo, Texas because he didn't agree with the OWS Movement.


I would also like to point out that I've been to Amarillo, in the Greyhound station. Being left there isn't as bad as, say, being dropped into Afghanistan, or working in an American factory in Juarez, Mexico. But at 1 AM, when the streets around the bus depot are are dark and you hear the rustling of 10 gallons hats and the rattling of wallet chains... be afraid. Be very afraid.

(It's probably not a bad place. And to be honest, that driver probably mistook  the protesters for Mexicans)

My point is this: In the wake of the public relations nightmare at the Amarillo Depot, Greyhound Bus Lines needs a champion... or, at least, someone who will make them seem less odious. And I humbly submit myself to CEO David Leach as a willing candidate.

(It gets easier each time. Can't ye tell??)

Scratching the Itchy Foot

The first part of the trip will be to go visit my daughter, Stella. It's been a couple of years since I've seen her and I want to make sure she's not taller than me. Stella is 17, focused on getting out of high school alive as well as intellectually and psychologically intact. She's also starting to look at colleges and is looking for a job.


That used to be an easier thing: finding a job. When I was a kid, all you had to do was go fill out a McDonald's application and you could have a job. There was poverty, there was unemployment -- but a kid who wanted to earn money and begin that lifelong love and hate relationship with the IRS had a reasonable shot at finding some sort of demeaning, dignity impugning, soul killing job that paid very little and left none of  the feelings of satisfaction often talked about in pre-employment literature.


Right now in America, there's 4 people for every available job. And that doesn't include the 15% unemployment rate for veterans returning from the wars they fought to keep Halliburton in business. Unemployment benefits are stretched, and there are those -- we call those sons of bitches REPUBLICANS -- who would cut off unemployment insurance and let people starve. We also have some folks -- we call those assholes DEMOCRATS -- that are going along because their mommies keep their balls in a silk bag in the back of an armoire. Right now we're living in a country where we have The Haves and The Have-Nots. Right now we're living in a country run by politicians who are signing away our freedoms. Right now, the banks and corporations have taken over.


Right now, it's only getting started.


And right now, there are stories to be told. Someday, we'll have historians explaining to our grandchildren what all this recession bullshit was really about and what the long term impact of shrinking civil rights and banks on the national tit was. Or maybe we won't. Maybe we'll have talking heads and history memes on social networks, lost in the shuffle between the Two Girls, One Cup video and the latest free social networking game that eats up computer speed and distracts people from seeing the world for what it is.


Re:visionary is my way of trying to tell the real story in real time. There are stories to be told, songs to be sung, poetry to be written. Re:visionary means,  for one, revision. Life, like a poem draft, often  requires revision.


For another, it means Re(garding) Vision. How I envision my self, the country, other people, the world. 


And I'm hoping you like what you read.