Letter to Laetitia:
Love Call.


2ba_john_rah_part_02

In the next few minutes, I must definitely go to the dentist to make an appointment and go to Lidel to get some cans of gene manipulated tomatoes. It’s funny, or sad, how simple cost more. A simple tomato doesn’t exist. They are designed to take the abuse of transport. Meat, that’s a nightmare. You don’t know what antibiotics you are eating. It can be dangerous to eat fish. Think of that. It is absurd, we are ridiculous and ignorant.

But that’s not what I intend to talk about. I just wanted to say you may get this letter sooner than you thought because Paulus just called and said because the unemployment office doesn’t have any money, we all know about the 60 billion Germany pissed away, tax money, the course is delayed 2 months. I’ll be glad likely. I really would rather write now.

And I’ll try make a few pretty things for you, though I am somewhat wretched.

Mauro is going to be too far ahead of me. I’m going to have to be strong and take his pride in stride. Which isn’t hard with Mauro because you know he loves you when he tells you how great he’s doing in the course.

I’d like to go to Canada. If I could get one decent translation to do, I could afford it. I’d like to go for my mother’s 60th birthday. I’d really like it if you cam with me.

No one would know – ring. It was Richy. Where my parents live, there is no worries about the people. There are 300 of them in the town on the Bay of Fundy and they don’t jump up and down like people do in the city.

"Hi, Mom. Happy Birthday.”

She might cry for happiness if I made it a surprise. – ring, three calls in one hour. I usually won’t answer if I think I’m writing. This is just wasting time before getting up and going out in the rain.

There was a beautiful woman from France
Who fit very nicely into her pants.

Okay, forget that. The wife was the last call. She wanted to know if her glasses were here. I haven’t seen them. Let me just look one place. No. She has a very beautiful voice. I know I still miss her. I couldn’t live with her again but I could hear her voice the odd time. One can finish a marriage without finishing contact.

I saw her yesterday. She looks better than a few months ago but she still looks grim. She needs to drop her boyfriend and live on her own. There should be a law that says everyone has to live at least one year on their own with no lover. And no cable TV.

That’s a bit like what some tribes used to do. Send the boy out in the woods alone for I don’t know how long. To some it may seem harsh but it may be the best thing. Our society raves on about individuality and sure everyone is an egotistic self-centered slave to what the media dictates. Entertained to idiocy, consumed buy consumption.

I don’t know if a month in the woods would help most of the pancies in our society, but I’ve met many people who have no idea what it is to not be told what to do.

I’ll take you on a canoe trip, Laetitia. One week with nothing but what we carry in with us. the first night may seem odd but the third will be your best sleep you’ve had for years and the next day will be so clear to you, you will think you have woken for the first time.

Maybe that is somewhat exaggerated but then again, maybe not. I’ve done it often when I lived in Canada. In Europe, you can’t. And we often saw Europeans in Algonquian parks or the mountains of B.C. You could see how they ate up the naked wilderness.

Laetitia, do you know what it is like to eat a sun dried tomato and mushroom garlic and onion or something pasta with parmesan, sitting on a rock that goes down to the lake. It beats everything. Nothing else matters.

Come, we go.


_bunnie stop_


We don’t want to talk about war in book V except maybe a serious obvious point that doesn’t deserve to be mentioned. That point being; if it was a rule in war to not fight on the weekend, the soldiers might go each other and play cards and drink beer. As we become more global, war will be more and more absurd.

"Sam, I know we have been friends all our lives, but I come from Kabobistan and we are fighting your country.”

"You have to kill me.”

"Not today. But from tomorrow on, we are enemies.”

"Then let’s party tonight.”

So the next month they finally do face each other.

"Sam my friend.”

They hug and kiss cheeks.

"This war sucks, doesn’t it.”

"It’s worse for us, you guys are winning.”

"What’s the score.”

"200,000 to 125,000.”

"You have more woman and children in the front lines though, maybe it will even out a little.”

"Well, I hope so.”

"I actually have to kill you.”

"I have to kill you as well.”

"Should we draw straws?”

"We could do Russian roulette.”

You get the point. My question is, what would I do. I am Canadian living 6 years in Germany. In Canada, everyone has friends who are foreigners; 33% of the people in Toronto are foreigners. Canada is made from foreigners. I’m a foreigner in Germany so by default, know a few foreigners. Even from lands that could be at war. It doesn’t work anymore. Many people have that problem. Chinese women marry German men. Japanese men marry American women. If this goes any farther, who will fight whom.

I think it’s okay like that but think of the poor Americans depending on war. The country would sink into a huge recession if they couldn’t sell war.

That’s why they have to support the KKK and Neo Nazis. The hate and chicken brained ignorance must live on so America can have a high standard of living. So they can father rape and destroy the planet. So that they can be free to be slaves to their totalitarian shopping mall dictatorship.

But that is a tired subject. As long as I agree America is great, maybe I won’t get shot. Perhaps I fancy being assassinated. A hero’s ending. Like Jesus. Or the Anti Christ. I could be the Anti Christ. It could be a religious assassination. The Vatican has some pretty expert killers.

I don’t like to say I admire the Mafia. I think there are some things that are too hard. What I do like is that there is no secret that if you fuck around, you will die. You hear that people get shot by the Mafia; that’s normal. Sad but normal. You don’t hear who else is shooting whom. And there are a few accidents that aren’t accidents. Politics and big business include death. One way or another. Fact of life.

And as you see, it is time to wrap this all together. Unfortunately, I can’t be pissed to do it.

How about. Let’s admit we are a pack of murderous greedy psychopaths, all equally as demented and deranged. Once we realize that and see the thing clearly, we can go about looking for solutions. As long as we think we are the top of evolution and masters of our minds and the universe, we are living, killing and dying in one fucked up illusion.

There is no us and them. No clean race. No superior culture. We are all full of shit. And all wrong as hell and all making a mess of our lives and the other creatures on the planet.

Believing someone is shittier than you is both an illusion and a step away from a solution. The Global Village may fuck us up, but not being a Global Village will kill us.


_bunnie stop_


It is my belief that policemen who cut down marijuana plants on balconies of private residences are supporting the black market trade. If the police do not make money on the black market trade, which they do, it would be counter productive to make it illegal to grow pot on one’s balcony. It would be like making beer illegal and making the criminals who aren’t in government rich. Which of course doesn’t matter. As long as we stay confused as to the hows and whys. People smoke pot. It is a reality. Making it illegal does not make it go away. It makes more criminals. Cutting down homegrown pot is putting more pressure on the black market that already has trouble keeping up with demands.

I don’t want to always have to deal with the black market. I mean, a little is fine. But I like paying taxes. I want to be able to pay taxes when I buy pot.

"Next topic.”

"Espresso and smoke.”

"You don’t smoke.”

"No, I burn clean. This is just an experiment. I’m going to see if something happens. Adox Huxley wrote a book about eating mushrooms. I’ll try one page on smoking a joint.”

"I suppose, even Bill Clinton smoked it and admitted it.”

"He said he didn’t inhale.”

"Like making a coffee and not drinking it.”

I forget who was me and who was me but not because of the drugs. But let’s be honest, I’ve smoked a few thousand joints over the years and I can say it’s different than alcohol, I find it better, but it isn’t like morphine.

"And how often have you done morphine?”

"Once in the hospital and it was great.”

"But you won’t do it again.”

"Not likely. I’m a friend of pain. Not that I want pain, it’s just that I trust pain more than morphine. Pain is real. Either you accept a little pain in life or you take drugs to hide it. But it is only hiding it. It does not make it go. As with any drug, one has to know when not to use it.”

I am theoretically now under the influence of THC. Perhaps a handwriting analysis could detect it. Since my dad doesn’t approve of THC, I won’t ask him. I won’t tell a Jahovah Witness to smoke pot. I won’t tell anyone to do it. I won’t recommend it. It isn’t for everyone. Either you like it or you like something else.

Ring.

One side effect of pot is you sometimes feel like having a ten-minute lay down. I’m leaning in this direction now.

Should we give Connie and Stan a go?

"I don’t know, Pig.” He waited to see Pig’s reaction.

"Well, I suppose you don’t either, but that’s okay. She’s a lovely woman. It’s just that my senses tell me she is trouble.”

Stan got out a joint that he had rolled before he left his apartment. He took the leash off Pig and let him do his tree pissing at his own pace. He knew the dog was friendly but somehow couldn’t get over the fact that it was a big black bag of muscle and jaw. it almost looked like a black bear.

"Saluto, Pig.”

The owner had been Italian. She still was, just that she was dead.

"Pig.”

An older woman walked by with a barking toy tearing at its leash to attack Pig. Pig pretended not to take notice of it.

"That beast should be on a leash.”

Stan looked at Pig standing like a statue then at the little white rat working at choking itself to death. Its barking was an unbearable pitch. Like a street car going around a curve and the metal wheels biting the rails repeatedly.

"Yes Mam, you’re right.”

Stan might have liked to have a pleasant argument with the woman but he hadn’t the head for it. The sooner the woman was gone, the sooner Stan could work on some of the details. He was pleased to see that his response had made it to uncomfortable for the woman to try to gain a little more support for her belief in how things should be. It was agreed. She couldn’t ask for more.

Unless she expected Stan to put the leash on the dog. He had to look. the woman was looking back. She wouldn’t come back now, she was too far, Stan could just watch her and not move. But he couldn’t. He bent down and called Pig to him.

"Pig, come here.”

Stan took Pig by the collar and looked back to the woman who looked away. She wouldn’t look again. To make sure, he held Pig for a minute and talked to him.

"Pig, she’s right. I give her that. I mean where would we be if we didn’t keep dogs on leashes? You could have attacked and killed her dog in half a second. Had you been trained to, I could have told you to. I could have said, ‘Kill’, point at the screaming rat, and you would have killed it thinking you were protecting me.

The woman wouldn’t have liked it though. You can’t just go around killing other people’s rats. If no one wants the rats, well, it’s okay to kill them. That’s the story, Pig. You have to know if someone owns the rat before you kill it. Since that’s so hard to know all the time, it’s better not to kill any. Okay?”

Pig seemed to agree, so Stan let him go and concentrated on smoking the rest of his joint. He understood that the woman and her rat had stolen too much of his time.

"What was I thinking about?”

"I don’t know.”

"What?”

Stan looked beside him to see a little boy on a bike.

"What colour was it?”

"I think it was green.”

"Grass.”

"That’s it, you got it.”

"It’s an easy game,” the boy said and rode on a little farther.

He stopped.

"What was I thinking?” he asked.

I’m thinking you think I’m stoned and you want to fuck with my head. You aren’t really a little kid talking to a stranger smoking a joint, you are the reality police checking to see if I’m stoned. I’m not stoned and I know what you are up to. Please don’t bother me, I have some work to do.

"What colour?”

"Red.”

"Cherries.”

"No.”

"Apples.”

"No.”

"I give up.”

"Michael Schuemacher’s car.”

"Oh, of course.”

"You’re not so good at the game.”

"Not as good as you.”

The boy didn’t smile, he just gave an agreeing nod and rode the other direction.

"Stan,” Stan said.

He had to get thinking. He would have to find out about Connie’s husband, he would have to know about Steinholz Oil. he had to look into the family background, the companies holdings, the politics behind their African countries. The one’s owned by Oil companies.

"No I don’t.”

he remembered that all he really had to do was find evidence that Mr. Baker was having an affair It was the same procedure as usual. Sitting around with a telephoto lensed camera, spying into a stranger’s life.

"Someone’s got to do it, Pig. Are you with me.”


_bunnie stop_


I have a new invention. It is a pen holder that keeps the pen on the index finger so that I don’t have to press the pen against my middle finger so hard. This may seem silly until you start writing hours and hours. It gets to a point where it hurts. Usually it’s okay. I can go do something else for a while and come back later. But it’s nice to have the option. It makes the writing just a little easier. That’s what technology is about. And why not make simple things work for you as well. This device is just a piece of leather. Four holes. The two near the ends small enough that the pen fits snugly, the two toward the middle big enough for the index finger to fit comfortably through. The leather should be soft, not super thin but not so thick that it isn’t pliable. This is my patent and I give it free to the world.

"No one needs it.”

"Writers do.”

"Writers use computers.”

"No, writers write, typers use computers.”

"That’s just a joke, no.”


_bunnie stop_


With the new K36, custom pen holder you can write for hours and avoid the pain from tired muscles in your hand. Your fingers, that all important middle finger, will thank you.

Available in black, brown and screaming pink.

One limerick, then I go back to the kitchen to see how my new invention works when writing at a table rather than on my lap sitting on my coach. Strangely enough, I never write at my desk. My desk is practically useless. Even if one of my computers was working, I have a different desk. A thing I made for my wife really. She didn’t want it. It’s just sitting on IKEA legs or something cheap like that. I think there are 3 or 4 different kinds of wood in it. Oak, beach, ash and I couldn’t tell you what the other one is. I’m not a wood expert, just a handy man with a feel for the material.

Funny really. Like Jesus, he was supposedly a carpenter, though I think that’s over done, he was a teacher, I don’t think he taught carpentry, so he might have learned a few things with his dad. Big deal. I’ve made some pretty cool things as well.

"Topic?”

"We were thinking of doing a limerick.”

"Oh, yes, I can give you one.”

I was going to say when I write. I write some here on the coach. Not too much. It’s not so good to sit like this. Although with the all new K36 finger pen holder, it is more relaxed than usual. No danger of the pen falling when one loses one’s grip. While waiting for an idea, one can relax all muscles. Pen stays on your finger.

Laetitia. This is a cool invention. I mean sure it’s a joke but super practical. Impossible to patent and laughed at by the higher paid inventors who couldn’t think of it.

The other places I write are in bed, not so good for more than a two hour stint. We’ll see how the K36 pen holder changes that. And the kitchen table. Where I go after the limerick. Or on a bench in a park or under a tree on a blanket.

There was a fine man from the west
Who thought his idea was the best.

Wait, I know now. I’ll do it big time. Kill some cows and make leather and make the K36 PH and sell then door to door. And wholesale them. Harlequin romance writers will love it.

"No one writes with a pen.”

"Good point.”

"Could you finish the limerick?”

He slept on the floor
Sold K36 PH door to door.
And was booked for being a pest.

"One more, the we go have a coke and a smoke.”

"You can, not me.”

One has to be careful how much one pretends, a point Kurt brought out in Mother Milk.

"That wasn’t the title.”

"Sorry. But all his books are good; just read them all.”

Anyhow, he suggested one should remember, and he isn’t the first or last to say this, my guitar teacher told me the same, you become what you pretend to be. If I pretend to be a brilliant writer that is somewhat paranoid schizophrenic, and can’t spell, then eventually, it will hang on me. I’ll be the only person who knows that that isn’t really me but no one will care one way or the other.

"There’s the crazy writer, don’t worry, he’s an artist.”

They do that. They hang it on you and you want it. You want them to pretend with you, and they do. Pretend until the illusion is more real than what’s real.

"And what is really real.”

"What is is what is and what isn’t is what isn’t.”


_bunnie stop_


by Joanne B. Washington

read on. 2ba_john_rah_part_03



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