on the corner of the street
i saw a sign: "fear god"

and a guy was screaming through a bullhorn
how everybody in gainesville, florida was going to hell

he paced back and forth as the two other people with him
glared with dirty looks, eyebrows furled in some kind of anthropomorphic grimace

they glared at the traffic and the people going by
and screamed at them, "repent!"

i thought, if these are the repenters who have found the way
of god, do i really want to join them on the street corner

screaming at the traffic and the people going by--
a bunch of insane psycho ape-people, screaming

about the fear of god and how afraid we all should be
of the love of jesus christ...

i'd rather skip it all and die in the ground like normal.

not for me
or for whom i've loved and lost

but for all of us
and what we do to each other and ourselves

bringing sorrow and regret
before the end

the universe blinks
we peek with childlike wonder

at the blue earth, ocean and sky
before the curtain is drawn

and memories remember themselves
as if they ever happened

as if they ever cried

not for me
or for whom i've loved and lost

but for us all

A balmy day before Christmas - Location: Maude's Cafe, the known center of the universe - One Pabst Blue Ribbon in hand / The 'Punk of Beers'.

Red dog here, Dan Kahn's friend, scratching the fleas and keenly observing by all senses the other dogs. He's eating bugs out of the air, love bugs. Chomp! Chomp! Scratch. Looks like the life to me.

An enthusiastic round of applause for the poems. Louder, maybe they'll come out to play.

A kind of r&b disco music plays over the loudspeakers. Very 70s with a bit of a BeeGees frosting. Lyrics are, "Naaaaa naaaaa naaaaa." Very easy to sing. Phil Godwin is in a hoody reading something subversive...it's got a picture of a guy with devil horns...trying to read the name: Looks like "Beet Patton Lies". I ask Phil, "Hey Phil, what's the name of that book?"

Phil: "Bret Easton Ellis - Imperial Bedrooms."

That's not "Beet Patton Lies" at all. Phil tells me it's all about Cocaine and Hollywood. I really enjoy one of these.

Dan is writing a press release for Galileo of Gainesville, an artistic dramatic piece he's directing at the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre. Many of the collaborators on this piece are homeless street people. Should be a good show. It already is.

I'm wondering about these love bugs...none of them are fucking. They are just flying around solo, dropping one-way into wine and coffee drinks...dropping to their death. Ah, love at Christmas time.

A car slows down and there are a bunch of redneck suburbanites looking at us like they are in a drive-thru zoo. I imagine shitting on the hood of their car and putting on an animal performance, something they can take home with them. They pass along. I'm not in the cage, they are. It's not a drive-thru zoo and we are the animals. It's an animal parade with cages on wheels that go by, and we can admire the lions, bears, and monkeys.

I prefer the roach.


--TM

Maude's Cafe. Christmas coming. Not Christ, mind you. But Christmas. That's the big red guy now. It's malls and guilt and money money money. It's poor people curling up into little aardvark balls hoping they will be seen as dead, and then maybe the cops would move along...

I promised not to be bitter, but to embrace the magic in all its manifestations of spirit. A Charlie Brown Christmas really puts things into perspective. That poor little tree...

Create a conversation that might occur between Simone de Beauvoir and Angela Merkel if they were to get together to watch a Madonna video. Your answer should demonstrate your knowledge of the historical role / importance of the characters as well as the connection between what the characters stand for and Madonna.

-----------------------------------------------------

Simone de Beauvoir and Angela Merkel Analyze Madonna’s, “Like a Virgin” Video
A Script by Tom Miller – Student 5600-4501

The Scene: An apartment in Manhattan. The décor is urban contemporary, sparse. Seated on a comfortable couch are Simone de Beauvior and Angela Merkel. There is an antique Philco television up-stage left, model 22D5102-123. The lights dim, and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” video plays in its entirety. At the conclusion of the video, the lights come up.

Merkel: Hmmmm.

Beauvoir: Yes?

Merkel: (In a stiff German accent). It’s vulgar. Why such vulgarity? What does she mean to show by it? And why must she put religion with the sex? As a Christian, I find it offensive.

Beauvoir: Yes, perhaps. But that is precisely the challenge to the status quo, don’t you think? She shows us power. She embraces her feminine attributes shamelessly and confidently. It is theatre, darling—spectacle! Why do you have to be such a prude?

Merkel: Simone, one does not become Germany’s first female chancellor without power. Yet have you seen me flaunting myself like a prostitute on the streets and shaming God? No! Intellectualism is the manner of accomplishment for women, and a healthy respect for the divine.

Beauvoir: Oh Angela, let your hair down. Where is the fun in intellectualism? You know I’m married to Jean Paul Sartre, it is true. But do you think we just talk all the time? I give him all the religion he needs, and he worships me for it.

Merkel: Naturally as an existentialist, you are Godless. When I played a primary role in negotiating the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration, do you think I gave a moment’s thought to sexuality?

Beauvoir: Well you know I am oriented to literature and the arts. I think Madonna is brave to assert her sexuality so aggressively, as a man does. I think she claims for all women the power to be sexual and powerful, as well as intellectual. I promise you, she is much shrewder than you can possibly imagine. Do you know how much money she makes? She has been with the most powerful men and she casts them out like fishing worms. Even Warren Beatty is a Madonna has-been.

Merkel: All I hear you saying is that Madonna is a whore—a whore for men, and a whore for money.

Beauvoir: You know it’s a love song, don’t you? We all want to be like a virgin again, don’t we? When I wrote “The Second Sex”, it was no accident my book became a pinnacle moment for feminism. I argued for equality of the genders. I showed that even in homosexuality, there are gender roles and inequality. Does not Madonna finally express that a woman can be powerful and successful just as a man?

Merkel: Madam, Forbes magazine listed me as one of the most powerful women in the world. Do you know who you’re talking to? You won’t even be recognized as a philosopher in your own right until after you die. Meanwhile, you stand in the shadow of your husband’s accomplishments. Where is the equality in that?

Beauvoir: (She pauses…) Let’s have some wine, bitch.

Maude's Cafe = Dec. 3, 2011

School almost over...finals...gotta' make my vampire killing kit for shop class...bought a coffee with the last dollar on my PayPal card...waiting for friend to loan me $1,000...could be a game changer...save my credit and feed my cat, maybe...hungry...was doing truth tables for logic math...found out sometimes stuff is true...been doing the play "A Christmas From Heck" at the AcrossTown Theatre...story about a dysfunctional family...I play a character named Austin, but really I'm playing myself...it's type-casting...why "dys" instead of "dis" in dysfunctional? Doesn't make any Goddamn sense...wondering if he still loves me or if it was all a gag, or maybe a misinterpretation--I mean, a 'mys'interpretation...spellchecker gags too...got an empty coffee cup here...put it out on the FaceBook that I was accepting free coffee all day...been here all day...got an empty coffee cup here...well will you look at that, sometimes stuff is false...