Imagine That

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Awake

Or

Imagine That

            There are few differences between then and now; the differences between the haves and the had nots of yesterday and today; the repurposing of the real and of real estate; the entirety of the mad dash clash of past, present, future and the ones who’ve moved ahead and the ones that have fallen behind. “They are the same people only further from home, on a freeway fifty lanes wide on a concrete continent spaced with bland billboards illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness” (Ferlinghetti).

            I’ve changed over the years of my lives, escaping from projects and parents, side stepping prospects, prisons and poisons, pursuing professions and being always on the cusp of the finer positive points of prosperity; relying on personal progress for a peace/piece of my mind that is being continually blown by me the hungry hunter constantly being overtaken by them, the successful gatherers. Fast women, slow horses, unreliable sources.

            Folks my age, our experiences lost in the space of time and the lessons and larks that lead us from relative comfort to an eventual downsizing retirement home abandonment with one foot in assisted living and the other avoiding the slippery slope of a six foot hole; all the while hoping that the next one to go is not another one that we love or worse, we ourselves. You didn’t know me when I was a younger man and I won’t know you as an old person; the only thing an old man really wants to get is older; to get older, all you have to do is live long enough. Everything goes when the whistle blows.  Million dollar condos and high priced essentials; disposable blade shaving with a brush and a bar of soap while my taxes line the pockets of manic mansplainers telling me how good they have made life for me and mine; property values continue to become fatter and my pockets leaner; my spirit contentiously swimming against the undertow of historic mendacity concerning the salvation of my eternal soul, as if the promise of heaven will fill the bellies of hungry children while the rich donate to rebuild cathedrals dedicated to a penniless carpenter’s son who died for their sins. The picture of the ragged man sitting on his milk crate at the intersection; his sign reading: “Anything Helps, God Bless”; a benediction for a brass farthing. “Never treat a brother like a passing stranger; always try to keep the love light burning” Leon Russell

            Private jets and weekend getaways for fat cat misogynists bring bile to the everyman that knows that there is no great fortune unless there has been a great crime.   The great recession of 2018 is coming back to bite us in the behind as the bubble bursts and our credit cards get maxed out trying to rob Peter to pay Paul and finding out that Peter has been financially kicked to the curb; even the low spark of high heeled boys cannot escape the percentage we’re paying, living beyond all our means as the man in the suit buys himself a golf course with the profits he’s made on our dreams. The sound in the distance is not a dog barking but the laughter of Anubis taking our coins for our ride with Charon.

            We’re witnessing islands of plastic debris as mega companies use solar power to make fracking less expensive. They rape and we must pull up our pants and stumble on being the last generation to walk freely on this planet; the impotence of our good intentions paving the road to hell. Have another piece of reality.

            I have a neighbor who walks to the bus stop once a week to go to Walmart; he rests on the stoop next door to us and happily explains how he’s looking forward to celebrating his ninety-fifth birthday. May we all be so fortunate; from our mouths to God’s ears; walking to the bus ride to Walmart amid the chaos confusion and detritus of a collapsing planet; walking to the bus for the ride to Walmart.           

Where does it end, or rather, when did this begin? It began when we let toys spoil us; when we took the proud boasting of our elders struggles as a weakness we could overcome by inventing something to make life easier to be indolent, so that we could make extra time to glut ourselves with more material things; buy it, don’t bake it; don’t make it… take it.  Elect a clown and enjoy the circus. What fools we mortals be..

            Histrionically speaking we are screwed as a people and as a planet while millions watch television like sailors at a strip club hoping that the hero on the white horse is really really real. You’re gonna be part of the 60% of eligible voters that make it to the polls to elect the biggest bull manure deliverer? Or are you?

            People running for office will promise you whatever they think will get them elected and once in office find out that they have pitiful little power to follow through on their words. The government does not run this country and the people do not hold sway with their elected officials.  It’s big money that runs things and we just suck it up.

            Important decisions should be made by the people who will have to live with them, otherwise we have to admit that we’re all pawns and live with that.

           

Tangiers

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Moving Target

Or

Home Plate

“If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier; she left here last early spring, is livin’ there I hear. Say for me that I’m alright, though things get kinda slow; she may think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so”

--B. Dylan

        I have a musician friend who can get better gigs and recognition if he moves to Mexico City; I have an artist friend that loves her new digs in New Mexico; the culinary graduate that I helped cannot wait to get back to San Antonio; and our favorite old bartender prefers San Miguel Allende.  They say they’ve had enough; they say they can’t live like this anymore; they say life is better elsewhere. Costa Rica. Houston. New Jersey, for god sake!

        Over 15,000 last year; 9,000 the year before--left New Orleans metro area. They’re movin’ out. Why? What is so alienating? Who are these turncoats? Why did they treat us so thoughtlessly; how could they do this to me?

        Here’s some of the reasons I’ve heard: Cost of living and housing prices; economic opportunities (better elsewhere) and the big one: (violent) crime. Other than that they’ve pointed out there’s sub standard education here; lack of infrastructure; ineffective government and overall condition of our streets. Also, flooding, storm possibilities, power outages and price hikes on everyday expenditures such as electricity, gas, food, clothing, insurance and entertainment. Salt water intrusion. Margaret Orr retiring.

         I say “is that all? It’s always been like that on Plantation New Orleans!” And, here it comes: the ‘Get A Clue Phone’: ring, ring…. Get a clue. The challenge is not that New Orleans has gotten to be a worse place to live in the last twenty-five years; it’s that it hasn’t gotten any better.

        It’s like you’re on a path going; it’s a hike, the hike of life. You got your ups and downs but you’re headed for home, a quiet space, a happy place; the road is a little rough but you’re going on and on because that’s just what you do: you travel that path, watching your footing, friends along and going in the same direction; you’re singing, you’re laughing, maybe even dancing.

        Then you notice that it’s not only not getting easier, it’s, in fact, getting harder and you’re getting tired. Some of your friends are dropping out to take easier routes; some have left you all together. Somebody passes you a note: “P.S. your cat has died.” You’re having second thoughts.

        I love New Orleans, that faded starlet, that tipsy vaudevillian, that sly old fox wrapped in her muddy old river stole. I’m at home in her arms and we’re lovers.  I’ve resided in over a dozen cities and towns and visited a score more. I’ve hitchhiked and driven the length of this country more times than any normal person should. I’ve ‘Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made’ and been willin’ to keep movin’.

        “I’ve been all over the world” he said; “I’ve been to North Carolina.”

        I first came here in the 60’s and spent seven years. I returned from my travels in 1999, coming to the conclusion that the other places that I wandered in and out of were fine; however, they were not New Orleans.

        I drove back into town in a twenty foot U-Haul on a 2,300 mile road run and left the freeway as soon as I saw the skyline and realized that I was, in fact, back home. The first thing I did was swing low, park that chariot and get me a bowl of gumbo; the waitress was not impressed with the poor boy’s return and exuberance just to have my feet planted again on this firmament. 

        I glanced out the café window and spotted two boys on three bicycles and mused on how sweet it was that kids were still stealing bikes; until I hipped that this was thirty years later and the kids I saw were children or even grandchildren of the kids that had stolen my bike the last time that I lived here. I remember thinking “you mean, we still haven’t taught our kids that it ain’t right to take someone else’s bike?”

        Reality check. Things have not gotten worse living here; things have not gotten any better.

        I’ve roamed all over town here since my return and I’ve been reminded of the poverty, abandon and general demolition of spirit and property by neglect. I’ve seen how manufacturing jobs have disappeared. I see a ‘For Rent’ sign on the Coca-Cola bottling plant; condominiums in the CIVIC Theater; homeless camps under the I-10 overpass. I’ve witnessed the two edged sword of short term rentals that flip sub standard housing and re-energize residential neighborhoods at the cost of dislocating residents.

        And still, as Lafcadio Hearn wrote: “I wouldn’t trade it for the whole state of Ohio.”

        Debbie and I bought a house here, first time home owners; the note is about the same as the money that we’d be paying in rent here; added expenses of owning are sometimes daunting. Owning comes with its own challenges and it’s a bear keeping up with them all. It’s tough living here; but I wouldn’t live anywhere else (at least not in this country) and neither would she. Did we want to have to buy a house at our age? No. Are we going to be able to live out our thirty year mortgage? Odds are against it; but, my spirit was born here and I know New Orleans, the then, the now and I’m still in love with her nebulous and evasive character.

        Sundown yellow moon, I replay the past; I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast. If she’s passing back this way, I’m not that hard to find, tell her she can look me up, if she’s got the time. (more Dylan)

         

       

Murphy's Law

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Newspeak

Or

Murphy’s Vocabulary

        Paranoia is the suspicion that the world is out to get you; it’s antonym, confidence, is when you assuredly know that it is.

        Murphy’s Law says that ‘anything that can go wrong, will go wrong’ and it’s antonym Yhprum’s Law (Murphy spelled backwards) says that ‘anything that can work, will work’. Of course, Murphy is the one we believe most often and if you’re a Murphy-phile you can even take your outlook a step further with Finagle’s Law which says that ‘things will always go wrong with the worst possible outcome at the worst possible time’. BTW, there’s Sod’s Law as well, but things, at this point, are starting to confuse me, so we’ll skip over that one.

        On language: I’m sure that bards and poets roll and roil in their ghostly graves and cringe in their monolithic mausoleums listening to the butchering these modern times and mentalities have inflicted on our expansive and handsome language. Expletives and our use of modern idiotic catch phrases, euphemisms, and the uses of spelling and punctuation proliferate as if people had primary school educations in Outer Mongolia and were left back for not shaving and are grist for the mill.

        Short bursts of expletives plague our linguistic existence—here’s a question--what generally is the expletive that kicks into our brain pan and escapes our thoughts and mouths when someone speeds up from the right lane, cuts us off to make an illegal left turn at a major intersection, while on their phone (and it’s not a cop) and the traffic and weather is moderate to fricking challenging? Yes, it’s the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot reaction; WTF or What The F*ck! and not something like “you Goddamned, motherless, pox-faced, Neolithic mutated dim-witted scrotum; you unsightly, moronic, product of incestuous semi-primal inebriated sludge gastropod gnomes; may syphilitic goats defecate primordial mucus on your tent floor should the occasion of your next undeserved life’s possible positive achievement occur!.”  No, just WTF! (warning: that other stuff will get you sent straight to HR).

        Other arresting thoughts and reactions are: “Nobody Warned Me! (UH OH!); “Why Didn’t I think of THAT?” (DUH!); “I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This” (Face Grimace); “Oh My Frikkin’ Stars!” (Eye rolling) and finally “Nice Turn Signal F**kface!” (Banging on the steering wheel).

        Fact: your grandparents lived in a world where plastic was a novelty. They also lived in a world where recreation was an outdoor activity. Also, on the not so positive side, a world that disposed of its waste indiscriminately (which they then passed on to you).

        You could also understand every word they used verbally as they issued Shakespearian-like threats: “Oh thy vile troublesome blackguard of a rodent, thy dodge is a bitter sweeting to my patience; canst you naught attend patiently my deepest furies, cease the undoing of my goings and cast me not as a fool whilst I harry with alacrity the smote of aspen sapling against thine alabaster fundement”

        Or as they would say in my family: “keep it up, you little twerp and I’ll break off your arm and beat you with the bloody end” or “I’ll knock you so hard your head will ring like a ten-penny nail hit with a greasy ball peen hammer”

        Another thing is acronyms and initialisms; Okay, believe it or don’t: two days ago I read an article in the NYT (No More FOMO for Plus-Size Travelers 7/8/2023) telling the world that fat people on these particular vacations (and these bipeds were referred to, blatantly, unapologetically and repeatedly, as ‘fat’) no longer had to worry about FOMO. “The poor bastards, I hope it’s not contagious” I thought, “is FOMO some kind of fat affliction?” No, for those as uninformed as I, FOMO is short for ‘Fear Of Missing Out’. The article was complemented by photos of fat folks having a grand time because these fat people no long had to worry about accommodations, connections and whether there was shopping where they were going in case their fat luggage was lost or delayed.

        Further investigation in to this FOMO thing hipped me to MOMO or the Mystery of when you think that you’re missing out on something but you aren’t sure what you’re missing out on. And then I saw that further still there was the FOMOMO (!) and with that, I yelled “well, WTF!”-- shot the computer, set my hair on fire and regurgitated in the waste basket.

        Initialisms like snafu, fubar, and bohica (look ‘em up) came long before omg lol lmfao fs ltr sfw and hmu and have, I think, greater panache thn thir cnterpts. I think it’s kind of lazy to write ‘wr ru?’ or omw or “dm me?” C’mon, in my day (when actual composed letters were the thing) a guy might write on the envelope HOLLAND or SWAK or here’s one from a girlfriend “CHINA!” (come home I’m naked already!) See, YAKS (you ain’t know shyte).

        All in all, it’s a perfect BOGO BYOB Catch 22 NIMBY. Fact: as far as correspondence goes, we actually don’t write letters anymore (maybe a few do). No one actually ‘writes’ anything, we use the computer, we use our cell phones, we text, post, emoji and send pictures; sometimes we talk. And, we counter in kind with another emoji or a like (thumbs up), a heart, care-hug, sad-face, laugh or angry; and that says it all. I have almost 600 ‘friends’ on FB that I only see on screen and I don’t know half of them. We send our holiday, birthday, congrats and condolences over the Ethernet (IEEE 802.3.) and we’re caught between Scylla and Charybdis with only Hobson’s choice as a result. Let this be a lesson.

        It doesn’t get any easier and I’m getting more flummoxed by the day; I think I’ll just go outside and eat some worms.

         

New Years 2024

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Happy New Year

Or

Other People

        “Well, sometimes you have to moan, when nuthin’ seems to suit-cha; but, nevertheless you know, you’re locked toward the future” (Cat Stevens: On The Road To Find Out)

        Ask Uncle Charlie (Dickens) for the illustration from A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge sits, just like you and me, getting hipped to the fact that where he was, led him to where he is, and will determine where he will be if he maintains the trajectory of his behavior and existence. His moral compass and the consequences of his actions will reap what has been ‘sowed and growed’. The Butterfly Effect; The Chaos Theory, will remain unchanged unless a change in course is made. I believe, in our hearts, that we all want to change for the better; that’s why we make New Year’s Resolutions, eh?

        Rush hour Thursday evening; traveling Poydras Street; three lanes up and three lanes down traveling at the speed of hope-to-get-the-f*ck-home. Like frantic captives tortured by their terrorist employers, the cars, SUVs, vans and pick-ups are escaping, racing away from all the misery their occupations heaped on their souls and spirits that day and into life’s personal beating that awaits them at home: spouses, offspring, rents, mortgages and the grass that is dying in the draught; hoping Margaret Orr will predict some rain and wondering why the home team got their asses kicked again. The cool taste of that first beer that goes down so easily.

        I’m hugging the right lane going up towards Galvez Street and I spy the vehicles veering out from the center lane going left and right at forty miles an hour avoiding something. The something that they are avoiding is an old man in a wheelchair stopped in center lane like a Grateful Dead set: no way forward and no way back. And no one is stopping to aid his plight… or even slowing down.

        Except some guy (me) in a beat up ’97 Lincoln Towncar who pulls over (still in traffic) turns on his flashers and jumps into traffic for a stranger in need of help.  

        I’m still in my cook’s whites, waving my arms like a sailor at a semaphore convention and getting to him, ask ludicrously “do you need help?” Of course he does! At this point I don’t know which direction he’s heading and when I find out… here we go crossing 5 lanes of rush hour traffic! When I’m in I’m in.

        “Did you just--leave your car?” He asks “you shouldn’ta done that” “I’m goin’ right there; okay, thank you I can take it from here; ya got a couple of dollahs you can spare?” He points to the Super Dome and tells me “there used to be a grocery store, right there.” I inform him that that grocery store ain’t there no more and off he goes. End of story. How do I feel? I’m frickin’ livid!

         I’m mad as a wet hen; cursing even, not at him, but at the entire race of humans that cannot, will not, for one brief miniscule heartbeat consider another’s dilemma that may at best be temporary and at worst life threatening. And now, I consider that incident an allegory for the state of the world. Listen: with any luck at all you have three blessings.

1. You wake up in the morning.

2. You’re kinda in your right mind and health and

 3. You have options.

        You can consider, like old Ebenezer that where you were--and where you are--is leading you to a very predictable future if you but stay your course, direction and pace.  It sounds so simple. 1 and 2 are biggies and are really important to pay attention to; 3 requires consideration or not. Ignore 3 and you will get to where you’re already headed.

        Now, you can consider that the world and its challenges and problems; its destructions and die-ings; its equities and inequities did not just start today or yesterday but are a series of steps and missteps that are in essence already set in a motion and movement (centuries ago) that some say are undoubtedly leading the world to its imminent demise. Some say that it’s too late to change course; that things already are out of anyone’s control. I say that it’s a mindset and conditioning brought on by media, politics and religion that at best has to be overhauled from the ground up like an existential rebirth/epiphany and I don’t see that as happening… ever in my lifetime (or yours). The Prince of Peace is not returning; Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today, Madam.

        It’s too late to be an example to others. It’s too late to fight the greed compounded by mendacity that is ruling the planet and our lives; souls hang on by a thread with a prayer and a song. “We were talking about the love we all could share; when we find it, to try our best to hold it there. With our love, with our love, we could save the world; if they only knew” (George Harrison: Within You Without You).

        I don’t know what to say. Happy New Year? This year will be better? Our lives are predetermined; led by coincidence? Is there such thing as free will? Can we unstick the mind f*ck? Maybe and maybe not (probably not). Certainly we can only find peace in ourselves ourselves. Certainly we can only practice compassion, empathy and kindness in ourselves until it becomes our natural behavior. Certainly it is only we that can change our behavior for the better. We have to see that as where we’re going. Or not.

        There’s an old man in a wheelchair sitting in six lanes of fast traveling vehicles.