A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 

new age babbit

Jim would be the first to admit it. He's a lousy husband, father, businessman, employer, citizen, human being. That's ok. It's easy to overlook those flaws because Jim has one other redeeming virtue.

In Ithaca, New York Jim is a player.

Yup, or yessureebob or whatever hick town convention of affirmation you choose, ole Jimbob has the capital or, at least, the access to capital, to set things in motion. There are people around town who depend on Jim for their livilhood. Insurance men, bankers, car dealers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, wee little clerks, dharma bums, business associates, bitter old men, guys who have been wronged by Jim, guys who are suing Jim, guys who will never step into another business Jim starts, other guys who will kiss Jim's ass and try to sell him a new computer application to run the next poorly managed, understaffed, underfinanced sprocket business Jimbob sets up. (Jim doesn't really deal in sprockets, of course. If Ez gave away too many details, Jimbob might know we're talking about him, Jim Curon, not the dowdy Everyman Jim thinks we're describing.It's gets rather complicated during a hatchet job on a private citizen even if he's a universally recognized fool --at least around Ithaca, New York.)

Jim is the product of two separate developments. First, the two hundred or so year pathetic evolution of the modern bourgeiosie from its origins in Europe to its post industrial, consumerist, politically impotent incarnation in 21st Century America. . Secondly, the marketing and subsequent product development of Buddhism in the United States. Yep, you see, Jimbob is a dharma groupie. Since his early formless tree hugging days, Jim has been enamored of the easy morality and intellectual slipperiness of California Buddhism. You know, the Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg school of Buddhism where you blow smoke out your ass and call it wisdom. (After all, Jack Jerouac was the perfect salesman for American Buddhism, an amoral, solipistic, hedonistic, drifter/drifter. Does Ez betray his distaste for the lot? Live with it!)

This is how it goes, at least here's Ez's attempt to dissect the origin of Jimness --

like cutting jello with a laser, haha.

As an endproduct of bourgeios inbreeding, Jim exhibits all the typical signs of narcissistic disturbance. He's selfish to a fault, totally focused on his own needs and the endless pursuit of the latest model Blackberry. According to the Buddha, however, it's all illusion --maya. Nothing really exists, nothing really matters, it's all an illusion. Follow so far? Add to this consciousnessness soup the modern bourgeiosie's penchant for slipping out of any kind of accountability, personal responsibility, what have you --and you have Jimbob, new age babbit. If all these other people in the universe are really just illusions, fuck them. In Jim's mind, that means he can screw them, con them, cheat them, walk all over them, undepay them, and, ultimately, bore them with impunity. (Ez doesn't know if there is anything like perfect impunity but that's another issue.)

Well, why do you think they call him Satan?

Anyway, Jim is the kind of scoundrel that always lands on top. Which means that someone else lands on the bottom. Here's a for instance. Jim borrowed a lot of money and opened up a giant amusement park on the edge of town. He suckered a lot of people into investing their hard earned money and time in franchising all the rides, carousels, cotton candy booths needed to float Jim's fun park. (Of course, Ez is playing fast and easy with the truth --the truth being less than literal.) Then, Jimbob proceeded to mismanage the place, screw the staff, literally and figuaratively, con a lot of people into slapping fresh coats of paint on Jimbob's financial sinkhole, until the day of reckoning when the money ran out and the last antique carousel horse was sent to the glue factory.

At which point, admidst the deitrus of his failed business empire, the howls of his creditors, the pain of his partners and employees, Jimbob opened up a Buddhist retreat center. Buddha babbit, dharma devil, man around town.

That's just one of the 100,000 stories in the naked village.

Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 4:04 PM

 

the hen yard

One of the rare treats in our little pocket of rural poverty is to check out the traffic on the Human Service Coalition listserv.

The Human service mafia in Ithaca, as you might imagine, is dominated by the MWCPW or the Middle Aged White College Educated Professional Woman, occasionally lesbian, but more often not a woman who has been unahppily married to an alpha male with a job at Cornell. Alpha males often stray from the nest so, not only does the MWCPW have to worry about her maintaining her place in the human service pecking order, but also about which cute graduate student the rooster is currently doing. The listserv operates like a virtual hen yard where MWCPW can hang out, cluck, broadcast their wares, defend their turf, or just stay in touch with what other MWCPW's are doing at other agencies.

Here's a typical variant on the listserv message board:

"The Sciencenter’s 4th Annual free community event, Spooky Science, will be held this Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. Come in costume and experience science at its playful spookiest:

* Explore “tricked-out” exhibits
* Watch a hair-raising static electricity demonstration
* Touch live “lightning” inside a plasma ball
* Examine creepy clawed feet (every half hour from 6-7:30 p.m.)
* Dig into a glowing mystery substance to find small spooky surprises
* Create and take home a spine-chilling shrunken ”head”
* Make creepy crafts
* Watch cool chemistry performances by the Ithaca College Chemistry Club (6:15 and 7:15 p.m.)
* A big jack-o-lantern will take center stage in the Sciencenter’s outdoor Emerson Science Park for a messy but fun finale

Spooky Science will be held at the Sciencenter, located at 601 First Street in Ithaca. Additional parking will be available at P&C Foods.

Spooky Science is possible with the support of an anonymous donor, as well as by gifts made to the Sciencenter Annual Fund." (Why not towards cancer research or stopping global warming. Spooky science, that's what Bush believes in. Maybe Laura Bush put up the money???)

The Sciencenter is running a halloween event, cool! But why????? Does that mean that some other agency is running the science events? Looks innocent enough? Dudes and dudettes, it's some middle aged professional woman's idea of hegenomic control. She's already got her Thanksgiving, Ground Hog Day, Christmas, Easter agendas mapped out. The science of Thanksgiving, wow.

But that's typical. MWCPW's gobble up whatever they see. It's a huge turf war for resources, publicity, the best staff, calendar space, domination. The more people need, the more power flows to the mafia. Sara Pine has her little food pantyr empire behind Wegmann's, the Red Cross controls homelessness, Suicide Prevention makes sure that no one drops out of the client base without approval, TCAction makes sure people stay poor so MWCPW's keep their jobs, right down the line.

Oops, here's incoming mail:

"SAVE THE DATE!! (Not save the duck, whale, flea or pear.)

Tompkins County Prevention Point Syringe Exchange Program is having a open house. We would like to invite community members to come and check out the program.

This is an opportunity for the community to learn more about the syringe exchange program and harm reduction, and answer any questions you have about the program.

Please stop by on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

We are located at 501 S. Meadow St. (across from Wegmans in the Lama Real Estate Plaza and Thai Cuisine). The Syringe Exchange Program is located in the back of the Southern Tier AIDS Program office. Please use the back entrance off of South Titus St. (Why not the front entrance? )

*Light Refreshment will be served. (Coke?)

Please refer any questions to Meredith Zaslowe, Harm Reduction Educator, 272-4098 or mzaslowe@stapinc.org.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you,
Tompkins County Prevention Point Staf" (Not Ez's spelling.)

Holy shit, man, they've taken over the drug trade!

Ez heard the other day that the number of nonproft startups in Tompkins County is far and away outstripping for-profit startups. Now you thought the restaurant business was saturatyed. Check out the emergency food racket. If you wanted some generic powdered USDA milk, like ain't that everybody's choice for a late night redeye, you have your choice of the Starvation Army, the Food Pantry, the soup kitchen, the Red Cross, the Food Closet, the Food Shed, the Food Basket, the Cracker Van, the Food Bug, the Food Drop Off, the Southern Tier White Bread and Milk Handout Gang, Food not
Termites, Food not Taxes, and don't forget the fact that you can walk into any grocery store and just steal food. The staff behind the registers are generally too malnourished to know what's happening around them! The working poor, hell, they don't count. They can fend for themselves.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 1:17 PM

 

free speech ain't for sissies

A great American was once quoted, "the more you're able to bitch and moan, the more you protect freedom here at home and abroad. "

Actually, that was Ez's great great grandfather, George Patrick Henry Swaytze Kidder, pictured above left.

Great great grandad was personally issued off the battlefield at Saratoga. The history books aren't very specific as to the reason for his public humiliation but it was probably because he was griping or complaining about something or other. Later, he took up testing time pieces under extreme conditions as a vocation. He is most remembered for going over the American Falls in Buffalo, New York with the first wrist watch produced in the newly federated US of America. Neither grandad or the watch were ever seen again.

Hey, man, this blog ain't about Ez imitating bad Dave Barry or P.J. O'Rourke pieces. It's about a revolutionary new concept --the community bitch blog. Finally, here's a chance and a space to complain about the manager of Now You're Cooking, the pasty faced asshole with the snooty attitude who overcharges on everything from a can opener to a Waring blender that you can get $50 cheaper at Target. Or take a potshot at your shift supervisor At Target. Hey, you compose the diatribe, Ez will take the wrap.

We're talking Democracy with a capital "D." Get back at those fuckers for making your world, your country, your state, your city, your home, your job, your shopping experience, your ride to the drycleaner's, your whatever, a miserable, humiliating, frustrating, god I wish I had an Uzi, type of experience. Broadcast your opinion where everyone can read it. Hell, most of the time the Ithaca Journal or the Ithaca Times won't publish your letter to the editor. The system is rigged. The newspapers are all in bed with the bosses, the politicans, the guys with the fat pocket. This ain't a fucking democracy. Not when the little guy doesn't have the wherewithall to express his opinion. That's what grafitti is for, after all.

But you don't have to sneak out after dark to spray BUSH IS A NAZI or MAYOR CAROLINE PETERSON SNORTS COCAINE OUT A JELLO MOLD on the wall of the Fleet Bank Building. Don't take a chance of getting your ass hauled up to Sheriff Pete's new jail. Just send an email to Ez. He'll put your beef right up on the World Wide Web, baby.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 2:55 PM

 

sheriff pete

Pete Meskill keeps the blueprints in a locked drawer in his office.

Yep, Sheriff Pete's dream jail is a real beaut. Modelled on the Federal Supermax in Florence, Colorado, Sheriff Pete Meskill's detailed plans include a huge glass panopticon tower in the center of a wagon wheel-like maze of cells with totally automated doors, wall nozzles for remote control water cannon, state of the art surveillance and inmate monitoring cameras. The latest Star Wars lock-up technology for drunks and wife beaters.

Sheriff Pete estimates that he can bring in his new county jail for something over $17.5 million. That that eyebrown wrenching amount may account for the entire yearly budget of Tompkins County, New York doesn't phase the Sheriff one bit. He has aleady prepared a detailed proposal for a 150 year bond float. It's comforting to know that the new jail would be entirely paid for by 2156, down to the electrified moat.

And Sherrif Pete's got the land for the new jail all staked out and surveyed by his friend, Bruce Shickel. Turns out the land is in Bruce's name too. But that's no problem. Bruce is related to Sheriff Pete by marriage. That's the way things are done up in these here parts. What do those city slickers down in the flats know with their graduate degrees and fancy titles?

Now, the man on the street might wonder how a dinky little upstate county like Tompkins would consider building a $17.5 million facility for 75 random alimony cheats, marijuahana growers, serial fall-down drunks. Well, Sheriff Pete has that all figured out. He's been padding the headcount at the old jail for the last 8 years.

When he's not locking up members of his own rather large extended family, Sheriff Pete has been importing winos from as far away as Schuyler and Lewis Counties. Meskill read once that the His or Her Majesties' Royal Navy used similiar tactics to flesh out their crews -- patrol the gin pots in every port city and round up all the drunks. When some poor prolifigate would wake up in the morning with a royal hangover, he'd find himself staring at the lights off the coast of Calais. Or in the case of someone unfortunate to end up in Sheriff Pete's clutches, a rather naked aluminum toilet.

Sheriff Pete has kept the jail population overflowing for years. You do your crime in Lewis County, get arraigned in Tompkins County and then, thanks to overcrowding, get farmed out to do your time in at the calaboose in Tioga Couny.

Meskill has made the construction of a new jail his number 1 priority, And, it shows in the numbers. Since Sheriff Pete came into office, routine traffic violations logged by county law enforcement has decreased 95%. Speeders don't pay. Unless you're nabbed for DWI, DUI or hit and ru, you get off with a ticket and a fine. And most of the fine gets split betweem the municpality you've stopped in or the state. Not a penny goes to the construction budget for Sheriff Pete's new jail.

The roads of Tompkins County have become the new Wild West. There ain't a cruiser in sight. All the deputies hang out at the jail, playing cards with Sheriff Pete's cousins from Arkansas, all decked out and friendly in yellow TCCJ jumpsuits. Watch out for the Dukes of Slaterville, pardner.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 2:56 PM