Category: Capitalist swine
Wheel estate
Some vortexes suck more than others, I guess.
The Guardian has picked up on a story I saw earlier in The Washington Post, basically the same ol’, same ol’, about how some of The Beautiful People in Sedona would rather that the Help did not share their ZIP code.
It seems Sedona, like Santa Fe, Taos, Aspen, et al., is a few rooftops short of affordable housing for the worker bees who keep their fauxdobe hives filled with organic, free-range, GMO-free honey. Thus, some of the folks who fluff Swiss chard at Whole Foods or pillows at resorts keep getting rousted from local parking lots, state parks, or the national forest, where they live in their cars between shifts in the barrel(s).
One short-term solution being considered is a “safe place to park” program that would accommodate 40 vehicles (belonging to Sedona’s unhoused workforce, not itinerant bands of Travellers, meth cooks, and hookers). The idea is to provide bathrooms, showers, and a fixed location for workers who are already living in their autos wherever they can find a place to park them. A social-services organization would vet the “tenants” to make sure no Irish were sneaking in.
Jodi Jackson, who lives in an RV and works at a local coin laundry, told The Guardian: “We may not be housed and living in town, but we’re the ones who are doing your laundry, working at your gas stations, working at your restaurants — all of the lower-wage jobs – delivering your pizza, for God’s sake. We’re not bad people. We just need a little bit of help.”
Don’t we all, at some time or another? When I was a pup I occasionally brushed up against the rough edges of capitalism, newspaper style. It’s why I declined an offer of “casual labor” on the copy desk of the San Jose Mercury News — “casual labor” meaning “We don’t know exactly when we’ll need you, but it won’t be 40 hours a week with the usual bennies.” It’s why I decided to settle in Española instead of Santa Fe when I got the gig at The New Mexican.
As regulars here know, I don’t mind kipping in my auto now and then. But all the time? It was grating enough to watch the People of Money (© Ed Quillen) strutting around the Plaza when I had a roof over my head that didn’t come with wheels under me arse.
As I noted above, Sedona’s a familiar story: tourist town, short on affordable housing, long on Airbnbs, rising rents, and exploding home-sale prices, possibly overstocked with POM© and the sort of self-satisfied simp who muses over his venti green tea frappucino with a strawberry smoothie base, two pumps of caramel, three espresso shots, whipped cream and a caramel drizzle about how nobody wants to work anymore.
They want to work, all right; they just want homes to go to when the shift’s over, like everyone else.
• Editor’s note: The headline is lifted from “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat-Moon, who during a stretch of personal and professional difficulty kipped in a 1975 Ford Econoline while motoring around the country to see how other people were getting along.
Go run. Or not.
The weather was supposed to be taking a turn for the worse after a short stretch of sunny skies, and so I had planned to go for a short trail run this first day of February.
Instead, the sun leapt out from behind the clouds, the temp shot upward into the mid-50’s, and I called an audible: “Ride today, run tomorrow.”
I’ve had the old Steelman Eurocross out twice this week, and it was leaning against the Subaru just waiting to have another go, so I grabbed it and did a quick 90 minutes on the foothills trails, which have finally firmed up a bit since last week’s rain and snow.
It was just the ticket, especially since I was feeling unkindly toward running after reading about the Outside Hyperactive Currency Furnace’s latest scheme — to transform the ridiculously simple act of putting one foot in front of another into a mighty revenue stream through the miracle of MarketSpeak®.
Running is one of the most basic acts imaginable, and humans have been doing it since we first came down from the trees, which is starting to seem like a really bad idea. As soon as we hit the deck we were running toward things we wanted to kill, eat, and/or fuck, and away from things that wanted to do likewise to us.
Like I said, basic.
No longer. According to a press release whose author(s) should have “The Elements of Style” tattooed on their foreheads with a jackhammer, we runners have been blessed with a new “Running Media Platform” intended to meet us on our running journey and elevate, empower, build community, and disrupt through a one-stop shop of iconic brands delivering gender-equitable and inclusive best-in-class, world-class content.
Or something very much like that. I don’t know for sure. I blacked out somewhere in the middle of it and when I came to I was butt-ass nekkid with blue paint on my face and a big knife in one hand, shrieking and dancing around a fire built of old running shoes.
I showed the press release to my buddy Hal Walter, who has been running for something like 45 years, everything from 5Ks to marathons to the World Championship Pack-Burro Race in Fairplay — he guesses maybe some 65,000 miles all told — and he was immediately unimpressed.
“Jesus,” he said. “Go run for fuck’s sake.”
SpaceXAcme, LLC
I see Wile E. Musk is fucking up the fishing off Boca Chica again.
I happened to glance at The New York Times homepage about 90 seconds before launch, saw the live coverage from the X-Man’s spin doctors, and stuck around to see what happened.
Boom, is what. Actually, more like boom boom.
How long before Wile E. blames this latest “rapid unscheduled disassembly” on the Jewish space lasers?
Meanwhile, who’s ready to go to Mars? Show of hands? Anybody?
Stocks and bombs
You know, without having to be told, that conversations like these take place.
Nevertheless, reading the actual words is something of a stunner.
Q.: “Hamas has created additional demand, we have this $106 billion request from the president. Can you give us some general color in terms of areas where you think you could see incremental acceleration in demand?”
A.: “I think if you look at the incremental demand potential coming out of that, the biggest one to highlight and that really sticks out is probably on the artillery side.”
— from a General Dynamics third-quarter-earnings call on Oct. 25.
“Lord Death is a real big eater,” as Jim Harrison once wrote. And His shit is pure gold.
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