More Conversations With Terry Gross
7/16/2007, 8:58:26
You wouldn't think that Terry Gross would be willing to sweep aside the masses of one-liter empty seltzer bottles to sit in my passenger seat. See the Oakland garbage union is on strike, and while garbage collector's central call the landlord every day to assure him that trash and recycling is being picked up as usual, we have eyes. We can see it isn't happening.
Nonetheless Terry Gross has been taking much needed time off her work interviewing the important people in the world, to join me on my commutes. It takes about 40 minutes each way, maybe longer in the morning when the rush hour traffic shows just how stupid the civil engineers are when they designed these cascading freeways. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you merge four lanes into one, there will be lots of fucking traffic. Also, if you design a freeways so that every single lane exits over the course of a couple miles, adding lanes on the left side doesn't really help. Everyone has to take four steps to the left. In case you haven't noticed, people are not just stupid. If you make absolutely everyone on a freeway change lanes, some drivers will be selfish ruining it for everyone else.
The other day Terry took a break from her vacations with me to talk to Carol Muske-Dukes, an author who wrote a novel about her 70's prison writing workshops. Women were writing for their lives, and Terry couldn't understand, kept asking what it meant. Even the author didn't seem to understand this drive, to organize the overwhelming cacophony of emotions. It made me want to smack their middle class heads together in frustration.
I know right now you are imagining that all these travels with Terry involve the radio in my truck, but the last thing that Jay did as he relinquished the vehicle I had paid for months earlier, was to use a knife and a screwdriver to wiggle free the car radio. It had a CD player which was the whole reason he bought the truck in the first play. That it had a diesel engine which gets 37 mpg is something he didn't find out until later.
Last month Jay called me at 11pm on a weekday. My name was in a stack of papers he was randomly rifling through and he wanted to see how I was doing with my truck. Also, he found some essential parts. When I told him that the car was now running, he exclaimed the great impossibility of this given the nature of the missing parts in his garage. He wanted me to come over and get them right now! I proclaimed it a bad idea and then he got to reminiscing:
Apparently when I had so much trouble getting the truck from him, it was all his wife. She was giving him lots of trouble then but now that the cops have picked her up again for heroin she is going away for a long time. He is just now getting back on his feet thinking about dating. He doesn't want to fall in love or anything. He is just trying to be practical.
So, then he says, "How about it? You still living on that boat? You know I can give you half this house: a master bedroom, your own bathroom. I never use the kitchen, you can have it all. The rent would be real reasonable ... say $200 a month. And I need help getting my stuff organized because I have deeds and shit from my father who died. I don't know where any of that shit is, but I have been getting paranoid and when people come over to visit, I start yelling at them about what they have stolen. Then I search them. People are getting a little wary about coming over.
"I just need someone to organize my stuff. I have a whole room that is nothing but black trash bags full of dirty clothes. I have a brand new washer and dryer ($1500, Maytag) that I have never used. I just don't like doing laundry. I wear them and then put them in the bag. Then I go to Goodwill and get more clothes. Except underwear. I buy those new. I just need someone to organize my stuff. I was thinking you would be real good at that. You would be perfect. And I am not looking to fall in love or anything, just an occasional, you know.
"You are a lesbian? I love lesbians" And having gotten a word in edgewise I used the opportunity for education because that is always so useful when talking to a hyped-up drug addicts. I said, "No, you love bisexuals, because you have never had sexual contact with a lesbian ... that is the whole point. They don't have sex with men." Then he proceeded to tell me that I am real pretty, so he is sure I am not a real lesbian.
"I don't' have a problem with gay people. I sell meth to this gay couple, and I always say their money is green just like everyone else's." Then he is back on me about getting laid. So I explain that me having sex with a guy would be like him taking it in the ass from some gay guy. Would he ever do that? There was a long pause, where I recoiled in horror. Then he described this one time he had a threesome with his wife.
The other day I was talking to Terry. We don't talk about these kinds of details, although they would be interesting material. We talk about my inspirations, the logic of a sex positive attitude, what I want to do next, how I am a renaissance man, yes man. So, the other day I was wanting this endless chatter in my head to end, and I thought "I just should have blown Jay to get my radio."
Missed A Beat?
Now you can read the whole horror story since the beginning: GENESIS!. Just missed a recent beat? Here is what has been happening lately:
I go on tv with bad hair to protest Chevron, after risking felony volunteering for a nonprofit. All is good in the name of civic duty, right?
5/31/2007 10:52:36 - Dream And Drink
Tales of artists in America with careers to sustain them and drinking to subdue the dreams.
5/29/2007 18:39:32 - Cracker Dykes
PMS or a proliferation of frustration cause fighting with male strangers that almost leads to violence.
5/13/2007 13:32:03 - The Ground Where I Stand
Boobjob is back from the undead. Work is going the worst kinds of wrong. Then there is an explosion in the office. Things can only get better with alcohol.
5/8/2007 9:41:29 - What Comes Around Goes Around
Shipwrecks, cat worry and community service come and go around.