oh, dear.

Maybe soon I will figure out why I spent all of November 16, 2004 doing this:

[]6'

Rescue Excursion: Sheepshead Bay

November 2, 2004


I exited the B train at Sheepshead Bay Rd. holding a small, tan animal carrier with the name "Ludlow" written on masking tape on the top.

As I stepped on to the platform, a young lady approached me excitiedly and tried to get a glimpse inside the carrier.

"What is in there?"

She had an accent. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that Sheepshead Bay was a community populated by Eastern Europeans. This assumption was based on the fact that I know that there is a Russian Community in Coney Island and some Bulgarian youngsters came into the restaurant where I work and told me they lived in Brighton Beach. So, in my head, I simply inverted and rotated a map of Eastern Europe and Russia to fit the Brooklyn shore!
So, Sheepshead Bay is most likely . . .Albanian! Score.

"There's nothing in there now, but I'm going to get a kitten." I said.

"A what?

"A little cat. A kitten."

She still didn't understand.

"A cat. Meow Meow!"

Apparently make the same sound in Albania because she instantly recognized the noise and was delighted at my venture.

"Good Luck!" She said as we left the station.

"Thanks!"

I tweaked this photo of a street in Sheepshead Bay to look like an album cover for an imaginary Albanian-American alternative band called Bill Brown Sq.

The second of November in the year of our Lord and Saviour, Two-Thousand Four is an abstract and ominous day in history.

This photo that I took of a picturesque Catholic steeple against a cloudy blue sky looks almost Apocalyptic, doesn't it? Crazy.

Anyway, I found my way to the address I was looking for and a lovely Albanian-American woman named Marlene beckoned me inside. Perhaps she was wary of the dark energy that was beginning to o'ershadow the earth. Who knows what would have become of me had I been kidnapped by the depressing shade of death that was working as a force to block the vital rays of the sun!

Thankfully, Marlene knew a little more English that the other Eastern European that I had met in the neighborhood.

Inside this safe house, I was given viles of elixers and tonics that would revitalize my soul and protect me from the end, perhaps though karma, by helping another suffering spirit.

This is Professor. We're in this together. He typed the title for this entry!

It's raining.

graduation

Hey you guys!

Guess who spoke at my college graduation?

I though he was such a poseur! He was totally trying to be cool, and the Sons and Daughters who were born in oil wells and who were nursed by cattle lapped his shit up like there had been some kinda candy drought!

This is from the SMU Daily Campus.

My thoughts are in red to suggest anger.

"Tuesday, May 25 1999

Texas governor delivers Commencement address
Speech: Bush urges graduates to make a difference in the world
By Jackie Kelly
News Editor


'Texas Gov. George W. Bush was greeted with a standing ovation as he rose to speak to an audience of SMU graduates and their families and friends at commencement exercises May 15.

After thanking the SMU community for the invitation to speak and extending special thanks to graduates for their gift of a plaza included in the Laura Bush Promenade, Bush hailed values such as respect for oneself and others, individuals' responsibility for their actions and the importance of family.

"The best decision I made in life was to marry into the SMU family," Bush said, referring to his wife Laura's graduation from SMU in 1968.

SMU is a TOTAL family. I realized this first when during the first week of school--I mean FAMILY-- the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity next door (they were my brothers, too) threw bricks through the windows of the arts dorm (my nursery, in family terms) where I was living as they drove by and yelled, "go home theatre fags!" WOW! So that's what it's like to have siblings!!! YAY!!

As for the class of '99, they would take with them memories of The Green Elephant and draining fish bowls at LuLu's, Bush said, as well as the sexually transmitted diseases slide shows and "digging into a delicious plate of tuna tetrazini at Umphrey Lee." Graduates laughed and nodded in agreement while Bush moved on to issues close to the hearts of everyone on campus.



The Green Elephant was a bar.
Lulu's Bait Shack is a bar that closed down halfway though senior year. I only know this because Artemis dressed up like Jon Benet Ramsay for halloween senior year and won free drinks for a year by winning their costume contest. We were the only ones who ever went there, and then it closed, leaving us free-drink dry.
WHAT SLIDE SHOW???
No one ate tuna tetrazini. The girls at SMU ate lettuce. I don't think the guys ate tuna. I could be wrong!
No we did not laugh and nod! That is hilarious! We were all like, "I wonder which student got to write the speech?!!"



"Today marks the culmination of many years of hard work ... and many years of circling this campus, looking for a place to park," Bush said. "I congratulate you for your accomplishments. Now go out and get a job and pay those parking tickets."

Was that a metaphor?


Despite the uncertainty of Bush's own future as a potential republican candidate in the presidential election of 2000, he offered advice on an array of topics, including baseball.

Ha. Remember humility?

"Baseball should always be played outdoors, on grass, with wooden bats," he said without a trace of appreciation for the video versions of the game popular among students today.


Okay, Cool. Now we know that the writer of this article, News Editor Jackie Kelly IS NOT the student who wrote the commencement speech.


Broadening his speech to include the impact of the global community on graduates, Bush said that amid a politically, economically and socially evolving world, job competition has grown to include graduates from across the globe.

Like the job of RULER of the UNIVERSE?? IS THAT THE JOB THAT YOU HAVE TO COMPETE FOR AFTER YOU GRADUATE FROM GOVERNOR???

"Free trade is creating new economic opportunities in our own hemisphere," he said. "People worldwide are courageously saying no to tyranny and government oppression and yes to democracy and the marketplace."

Yes sir. A hemisphere is HALF of a sphere.

Even if you're outdoors, on grass, you can't hit a half-sphere with a wooden bat.


Then in an unexpected moment of religious reflection despite the continuing tide of political correctness, Bush said that "God exists today, and God will exist forever."

Yay! Finally a spokesperson for God!

"I am convinced," Bush said, "that to truly change America, we need a renewal of spirit in this country, a return to selfless concern for others, for duty and for country."

Bush urged graduates to "make service to others a priority" and to do something to make a difference in Texas and the world.

"The strength of a society is not measured by the wealth it amasses and the technology it develops, but by the values its citizens share," he said.

Oh, shit, we're being measured.

The nation must move forward, he said, "to a culture based on upon individual responsibility and shared values ... love your neighbor, give an honest day's work for an honest day's wages, don't lie or cheat or steal, respect others and always remember you are responsible for what you say and what you do."

He spins ethical candy from the sugary yarn of Aesops Fables and plaques in grandma's kitchen and weaves on a molasses fairy-tail loom the cotton-candy blanket that will lull us as our blood sugar drops and cover us in the dreamland hospital as our diabetes is mis-diagnosed as illegal insanity and we are incarcerated.

Bush also included some words offered by Abraham Lincoln on facing challenge and maintaining ideals: "Let us not mind the meteors," Lincoln said, "but let us keep our eyes on the stars."

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS!

Bush concluded by saying he hoped that graduates would follow their dreams, keep their eyes on those fixed stars and always be proud of what they see when they look in the mirror. "

You know what? Seriously, I'm just happy to be alive. I'm still going to constantly remind myself of my own vitality. I'm gonna keep dancing like crazy. Indoors, outdoors, on grass, on cement, in a house, on a mouse, with a cat, with a bat, deal with THAT, stupid hat.