Hi Hopi,
I'll call Bodhi if I hear of any housing but that is a low probability for a
homeless person like me. Shamaar, who will be 22 on October 4th, is moving on
Thursday. I think it would be all right to give you her new phone number to
pass on to Bodhi. [520 770 1577; after 8/12, until then it is:628 1868] She is
busy with moving, Summer Session finals and private flying lessons (funded by
the Air Force) but she is more likely to be helpful than Aurora.
Aurora, who is 19 and about to begin her sophomore year in Art History, has
radically short hair henna'd to an impossible color when it's not blue, orange
or green. Her eyebrow rings and such look painful to me. She won't return my
emails but might be more friendly with Bodhi. I don't know her phone number.
She's rather pissed at me for my inexcusable expressions of frustration with
corporate culture that seemed to hurt her more than anyone and certainly more
than I intended. But intentions are irrelevant to what is. And I could have
done a lot better if I had been a little more sensitive to the pain I was
causing others and less selfishly absorbed with my own suffering.
Sylvia owns the "House of Pottery" on Speedway near Rosemont. She has mostly
Mexican pottery, antiques, knick knacks and some cast and some carved stone
sculpture and wood carvings. Her home phone is 520 571 3689.
My friend, John, was non-committal in his reply to me concerning visiting EAC.
He jokingly suggested I teach 6 hours there and six at PCC and move to Wilcox.
I think he feels some loyalty to Mauro Paralta, the head of the tech department
at PCCW. Mauro is a corporate clone who brought to his position a $500,000.00
check from Intel Inc. He likes to have a glut of adjuncts to keep the prices
down and his power and control up. I don't have a good attitude. I told John
that EAC may be no better but an area with less population density is likely
to produce less confrontations with stupidity and downright evil.
I hope you see the humor in all this even if it's a bit dark in places. I'm
not in a particularly good mood at the moment. My brother was killed in a car
accident on Wednesday the 4th, and I just heard about it this morning about 10A.
I talked to my sister in Cincinnati and since the service was scheduled for 1P
our time it was decided I would try to be there for a second ceremony, to
scatter the ashes, at his farm in Indiana. He was a lawyer with a practice in
Cincinnati and was killed by an 82 year old driver who swerved left of center
and hit him head on as he was driving to his office. He was eighteen months
younger than me.
On April 4th, Easter Sunday, this year, my baby sister, age 40, was killed in
an accident on a private cable tram at her home on Lake Travis, near Austin.
Her four children range from 13 to 6. Of my four siblings my older sister and
myself remain. To say I'm stunned is an understatement.
As I was eating my bag lunch at Santa Rita Park near S. 4th and 22nd Street
about noon two drunken Mexicans walked up and the larger one tried to take my
bicycle, claiming it had been stolen from him. I told him in a certain tone
that he was mistaken but his partner moved behind me and my gun wasn't loaded.
I jerked the bike out of his hands while telling him he was "full of shit". He
was taken back for a second by the ferocity of my rage and that gave me enough
time to jump on the bike and go. He recovered, though, in time to punch my arm
as I began to pedal off. He was aiming for my head but couldn't, no doubt, get
through the steel in my stare. There is no swelling but maybe a little redness
that could turn into a bruise. The pain is bearable. I don't think there was
anything personal involved and they probably won't remember by tomorrow. I must
have looked vulnerable because of my mood and the fools just saw an easy victim.
Just like the average manager. An attitude that is part of the "real" education
of all Americans.
I hope I'm not being too negative but if so, rest assured, I'll regain my
sense of humor soon.
Catch you later,
Greg
Hi John,
The 16th is a monday. The new faculty orientation should be going on all
week so the veteran faculty should be available to talk to. Hopi is a [Sharon]
Fitz-William, which I infer to be Scotch-Irish but I'm not sure. She is not a
Native American but is a very natural person. I think PCC benefits unnaturally
and inhumanly from a glut in the labor market that is deliberatly manufactured,
via cold blooded downsizing, by the corporate culture and its thralls. I doubt
that EAC is any better but the area is less populated therefore the probability
is that one will be confronted with less stupidity and downright evil.
The wannabe jocks you work with are undoubtly cousins by marriage and by
birth of the business majors that are running the economy into the ground with
their fatuous greed and specious economic theories which are really
rationalization hidden in circumlocution. But enough of humanities problems I
have my own.
This morning I discovered my little brother was killed by an 82 year old
driver who hit his car head on on highway 46 in Indiana. He was a lawyer in
Cincinnati on his way to the office from his farm near Batesville, IN. As I sat
in Santa Rita Park, eating a bag lunch from the Guadalupe Mission, pondering the
deaths of both my younger siblings within four months (to the day: 4/4 and 8/4)
two drunken Mexicans walked up and the larger one tried to take my bicycle,
claiming it had been stolen from him. I told him in a certain tone that he was
mistaken but his partner moved behind me and my gun wasn't loaded. I jerked the
bike out of his hands while telling him he was "full of shit". He was taken
back for a second by the ferocity of my rage and that gave me enough time to
jump on the bike and go. He recovered, though, in time to punch my arm as I
began to pedal off. He was aiming for my head but couldn't, no doubt, get
through the fierceness of my stare. There is no swelling but maybe a little
redness that could turn into a bruise. The pain is bearable. I don't think
there was anything personal involved and they probably won't remember by
tomorrow. I probably just looked vulnerable because of my mood and the fools
just saw an easy victim. Just like your average manager. An attitude that is
part of the "real" education of all Americans.
I don't expect to miss any work next week but the labor office has no more
loyalty to me than does any other part of corporate culture. In other words I
don't give a flyin' fuck for their desires or needs. I'll get as much as I can
while it is convenient for me. Being a suckass and a "good boy" will earn you
nothing but contempt in the long run. The extra day or two of life it might buy
(and there is no garauntee of that) isn't worth the loss of dignity. The best
way to assure survival is to know when to cut and run and when to stand and
fight. I know that post-modern propagandists (or psychologists as they call
themselves but they have no souls to study) have addressed that issue but they
always twist everything into promoting the behavior that is desired this week by
their corporate masters.
But enough negativity. I hope you do get a chance to go to Graham County and
visit EAC with me. My memories of my life in that area (1976-1983) are mostly
pleasant and Hopi is an expecially good remenicence. We may not get to see her,
though, because she is currently spending a lot of time with her mother and 96
year old father in Tempe.
See you soon,
Greg