Bad Master

"No wonder they all trembled; no wonder their nights were bad. They served—and knew it—a bad master."

—Philip K. Dick, The Penultimate Truth

Ahem

I guess this means I'm back in LA, at least halfway

Oh the bright bougainvillea!
The jasmine is still kind of blooming too.
Oh the clean, shiny cars!
And the traffic lights so wise.
Oh the supermarkets, the vitamin aisles, the organic produce arena!
Why are not these peaches individually wrapped?
Oh the footwear, the facial hair, the accessories for wrists and throats and ankles!
Forgive us for we are nakeder than ever.
Oh the handsome dogs and those who walk them!
Anaheim Anaheim Anaheim.
Oh the mountains!
The mountains don’t need a second verse so I’ll say Anaheim again.
Oh the public radio station!
The calming hum of garments rending.
Oh the official spokesman!
Lay garlands at his loafered feet for his is the truth and the word and the light.
Oh the sweet, cool sky at night!
The helicopters soothe, a bright eye floats above us, and those aren’t gunshots or grenades, they are firecrackers, they are enthusiasm, they are joy itself.
Oh the boiling sun!

The other night

I hefted the garbage can into the trunk of the car, drove it out to the end of the road, out by the mailboxes and the speed bump, for pickup in the morning. Lightning lit the sky. And again. A storm somewhere out over the Gulf, miles north. I turned off the headlamps, opened the door. The noise was almost too much: buzzing, singing, screaming. Frogs and bugs and who knows what else, dancing and screwing and eating. The planet exploding with life.

Had to let him go

Not sure how, where to begin, if this counts as beginning. Back in the Homeland for four days now. Maybe five. Staying as secluded as possible without actually starving. (Publix a 25 minute drive, approx. the size of an entire city block squared, cherry pie, mildly burnt: $5.99, and so many cleaning products!) Batman? Really? Twelve dead? Okay. That’s how we do in these parts. Home of the free and whatnot. Been staying up late watching Iron Chef America, Pawnshop Wars, that show about Kardashians. Does the food constructed by Iron Chef Americans bear the same relation to the food Americans actually eat as our image of ourselves (…whatnot…) relates to our actual (ahem) selves? And that Bruce Jenner sure is loopy! Peach pie from Murray’s up the road costs twice as much, tastes at least 28 percent better. And the crust isn’t burnt. This time of year, even the Publix peaches are delicious, dripping and sweet. Exciting new show premiering soon about people who survive (survive? thrive!) by bidding on abandoned luggage at airport auctions. Bottomfeeder capitalism all the rage. On CNN they talk about Obama. Who? Rom-something. Surveillance blimp hovers in the sky, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, always up there, spying on the sharks. Only the hermit crabs can hide. My first day in Ramallah last month, still dumb with jetlag, I thought for a moment that the local surveillance blimp was a parachutist, tumbling in. Our blimps here look more like blimps. Overdetermined classic cartoon dirigible shape. Don’t want to alarm the locals: Cuban air invasion. Or the Iranians again! Can’t they just leave us alone?