T for Texas, T for Tennessee
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anybody remember that old Jimmie Rodgers tune? ... the Blue Yodel:
Well, 'T' for Texas, 'T' for Tennessee
'T' for Texas, 'T' for Tennessee
'T' for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me
Gonna buy me a pistol, long as I am tall,
Buy me a pistol, long as I am tall,
Gonna shoot po' Thelma, just to see her jump and fall.
If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
'Cause I can get more women than a passenger train can haul.
Well, I'm going where the water drinks like cherry wine
I'm going where the water drinks like cherry wine
'Cause this Georgia water tastes like turpentine.
I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log
I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log
Than to be here in Atlanta, and get treated like a dirty dog.
Women make a fool out of me
If you're ever down in Mobile be sure to look me up
If you're ever down in Mobile be sure to look me up
And if you're ever in Atlanta tell Lucille to go to hell.
off the air for a few days while I fled here from Houston, I swore I would never come back this way ... goes to show you, something, I am not sure what yet
by the time I left I was well into the paranoid delusional phase - imagining travel fraught with peril, as a Canadian - who may therefore be sent to Syria without recourse, and doped up on Indocid because of a stress induced gout attack - hence a bit woozy and giddy - who may therefore be shot by federal marshalls, hahahahah, not to mention arriving in a Canadian winter with no coat
instead I wound up talking with three security guards at the Toronto airport, a Pakistani woman who smiled back at me when I smiled at her, "no shoes this time?" I said to her, and she said, "keep them on it's cold here", and a tall Sikh man on the other side of the metal detector, who caught the end of my smile for her and smiled as well as I came through the arch, and a shorter man who sounded maybe Spanish, they were deep in a conversation about something, but stopped to look at me and I said to them, "can I ask a question?" there was no one else there for the minute you see, it was a smallish corridor and the four of us were more-or-less alone, and they said "yes", so I said, "did you ever catch anyone?" and they didn't want to say, but we still had the crazy smile going and finally they said "no, never, not one, nothing in three years we have been working here", and i looked at them, it was late and I was tired and freaked out at suddenly finding myself unemployed and on the run again, three smiles for me, three cultures, three shades of brown, and we had a bit of chat, I said "I thought so", and he said, "you mean you thought not" and we were laughing, I looked at her legs, slim and young, and she was still smiling when my eyes came back up to hers, but soon there were other people coming, and I said "thanks", they got ready and I got my stuff out of the machine and went off
do you know Oscar Wilde's story, something about a statue and a nightingale who sings? and when God asks for the most valuable things on earth it turns out to be the bird's heart? was that it? anyway, I will treasure a memory of those three people for a long time
I was mistaken, it was a Swallow not a Nightingale and the story is The Happy Prince. and it is the hearts of the Prince himself and of the faithful Swallow that are exalted.
I was going to call this post "I came to Texas and all I got was this moustache!" and, you know, take a picture of it, and put a picture of the little park in front of the building where I worked in Houston, which I nicknamed "not-a-level-playing-field" as I stood there smoking quite a few cigarettes
you can see, if you look carefully, how it is subtly rotated and sunk at one end to accomplish this, to me, rather remarkable, metaphor.
they neglected to put a drain of course, so when it rains the thing fills up with water, for a city in which it does rain from time to time, it is truly surprising to see how unprepared they are for it.
the girls on the strip, and my sceptical brasilian anima, are telling me I am simply crazy, stupid.
Doido!
Louco!
O Que!?
Está fazendo O Que?!
and I thought of a segway into the american preoccupation with self, which is sorta at the root of my failure there, it is a long story and maybe I will get to it later
I only met two people in Houston, a tall black man from Memphis, a taxi driver, and a small woman from Equador with golden eyes who did my laundry, they opened up to me, just a little, and I looked forward with anticipation to each of our meetings, like the fox in The Little Prince, I will tell you a little about it, what did he call it? the verb that the little fox used to describe how frendship is? I have not unpacked my books, I will look for it later, oh, I remember, apprivoiser, yes
apprivoiser
Friday 13th
A Good Thing:
ok, enough with this whining over unjust histories, maudlin lonliness, petty (and petite) bourgeois sensibilities being trampled and what not ...
what is a good thing to do?
what are the possibilities?
- go be house father for the girls in Rio and start an IT school?
- go help wazzizname, Michael Meegan, with AIDS victims in Kenya?
- suicide?
- a guerilla recycling project?
- stay here and wait for one more deux ex machina?
- update my skills and build computer programs for the oil industry?
- volunteer as a poll watcher in the Haitian election?
Sunday 22nd
- sell this house, which is after all entirely vulnerable, and buy a place out around the bay somewhere?
Wednesday 25th
- geothermal home unit?
Friday, March 17, 2006 - St. Patrick's Day
Le Petit Prince of St. Exupery watching over his Baobab trees as I remember, roses too of course. Here are some Baobab trees. They have many uses apparently, nutritive and medicinal; you can check it out at Wikipedia, and go from there if you are interested.
anybody remember that old Jimmie Rodgers tune? ... the Blue Yodel:Well, 'T' for Texas, 'T' for Tennessee
'T' for Texas, 'T' for Tennessee
'T' for Thelma, the gal that made a wreck out of me
Gonna buy me a pistol, long as I am tall,
Buy me a pistol, long as I am tall,
Gonna shoot po' Thelma, just to see her jump and fall.
If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
If you don't want me mama, you sure don't have to stall
'Cause I can get more women than a passenger train can haul.
Well, I'm going where the water drinks like cherry wine
I'm going where the water drinks like cherry wine
'Cause this Georgia water tastes like turpentine.
I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log
I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log
Than to be here in Atlanta, and get treated like a dirty dog.
Women make a fool out of me
If you're ever down in Mobile be sure to look me up
If you're ever down in Mobile be sure to look me up
And if you're ever in Atlanta tell Lucille to go to hell.
off the air for a few days while I fled here from Houston, I swore I would never come back this way ... goes to show you, something, I am not sure what yet
by the time I left I was well into the paranoid delusional phase - imagining travel fraught with peril, as a Canadian - who may therefore be sent to Syria without recourse, and doped up on Indocid because of a stress induced gout attack - hence a bit woozy and giddy - who may therefore be shot by federal marshalls, hahahahah, not to mention arriving in a Canadian winter with no coat
instead I wound up talking with three security guards at the Toronto airport, a Pakistani woman who smiled back at me when I smiled at her, "no shoes this time?" I said to her, and she said, "keep them on it's cold here", and a tall Sikh man on the other side of the metal detector, who caught the end of my smile for her and smiled as well as I came through the arch, and a shorter man who sounded maybe Spanish, they were deep in a conversation about something, but stopped to look at me and I said to them, "can I ask a question?" there was no one else there for the minute you see, it was a smallish corridor and the four of us were more-or-less alone, and they said "yes", so I said, "did you ever catch anyone?" and they didn't want to say, but we still had the crazy smile going and finally they said "no, never, not one, nothing in three years we have been working here", and i looked at them, it was late and I was tired and freaked out at suddenly finding myself unemployed and on the run again, three smiles for me, three cultures, three shades of brown, and we had a bit of chat, I said "I thought so", and he said, "you mean you thought not" and we were laughing, I looked at her legs, slim and young, and she was still smiling when my eyes came back up to hers, but soon there were other people coming, and I said "thanks", they got ready and I got my stuff out of the machine and went off
do you know Oscar Wilde's story, something about a statue and a nightingale who sings? and when God asks for the most valuable things on earth it turns out to be the bird's heart? was that it? anyway, I will treasure a memory of those three people for a long timeI was mistaken, it was a Swallow not a Nightingale and the story is The Happy Prince. and it is the hearts of the Prince himself and of the faithful Swallow that are exalted.
I was going to call this post "I came to Texas and all I got was this moustache!" and, you know, take a picture of it, and put a picture of the little park in front of the building where I worked in Houston, which I nicknamed "not-a-level-playing-field" as I stood there smoking quite a few cigarettes
you can see, if you look carefully, how it is subtly rotated and sunk at one end to accomplish this, to me, rather remarkable, metaphor.
they neglected to put a drain of course, so when it rains the thing fills up with water, for a city in which it does rain from time to time, it is truly surprising to see how unprepared they are for it.
the girls on the strip, and my sceptical brasilian anima, are telling me I am simply crazy, stupid.
Doido!Louco!
O Que!?
Está fazendo O Que?!
and I thought of a segway into the american preoccupation with self, which is sorta at the root of my failure there, it is a long story and maybe I will get to it later
I only met two people in Houston, a tall black man from Memphis, a taxi driver, and a small woman from Equador with golden eyes who did my laundry, they opened up to me, just a little, and I looked forward with anticipation to each of our meetings, like the fox in The Little Prince, I will tell you a little about it, what did he call it? the verb that the little fox used to describe how frendship is? I have not unpacked my books, I will look for it later, oh, I remember, apprivoiser, yes
apprivoiser
Friday 13th
A Good Thing:
ok, enough with this whining over unjust histories, maudlin lonliness, petty (and petite) bourgeois sensibilities being trampled and what not ...
what is a good thing to do?
what are the possibilities?
- go be house father for the girls in Rio and start an IT school?
- go help wazzizname, Michael Meegan, with AIDS victims in Kenya?
- suicide?
- a guerilla recycling project?
- stay here and wait for one more deux ex machina?
- update my skills and build computer programs for the oil industry?
- volunteer as a poll watcher in the Haitian election?
Sunday 22nd
- sell this house, which is after all entirely vulnerable, and buy a place out around the bay somewhere?
Wednesday 25th
- geothermal home unit?
Friday, March 17, 2006 - St. Patrick's Day
Le Petit Prince of St. Exupery watching over his Baobab trees as I remember, roses too of course. Here are some Baobab trees. They have many uses apparently, nutritive and medicinal; you can check it out at Wikipedia, and go from there if you are interested.
