Joy.

Thirty million more Americans will have health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act, which the Supreme Court upheld today.

No insurance company shenanigans about pre-existing conditions or, "Sorry, Pal, you've reached your lifetime limit!".

Just sensible, compassionate, and utterly practical steps towards a better life for Americans. One where they concentrate on getting better if illness befalls them, not spend energy stressing about obtaining care.

It all sounds so wonderfully patriotic to me.

What a splendid way to celebrate the Fourth.

Ciclavia 10-10-10

1. To Church

A meditation on pleasure tinged with nervousness. A new experience , riding Carmella to church. Olympic, Crenshaw, Venice, then Hoover with it's blessed bike lane.

A meditation on ascent, on descent, and the illusion of "flat". Subtlety.
A meditation on fortune, on the gift it is to even be able to pedal, to sense grade , to shift gears. The thrill of firm thighs.

A meditation on the Americans with disabilities act wherefrom every curb is friendly, inviting for riders, too.

A meditation on how fast cars go,
On what kind of people swoosh past like you are an obstacle,
Drivers who open their doors full on, oblivious to you, to all. Wondering who am I when I'm driving.

A meditation on fossil fuels and war,
Sniper fire erasing humans and dwellings. Fittings for an artificial leg.

A meditation on obesity in America,
Rolls and innertubes and love-handles and spare tires, On Michelin children, their little eyes sewn shut with adipose. Expressionless.

A meditation on my riding partner,
His sweet glimpses back to see how I'm doing ,
That wild left he made from the center lane, like a car! Like a frigging car!

A meditation not on boredom but on those moments when there is nothing to do but continue.

A plane descends in the blue over Vermont Boulevard, heading to LAX. homecoming. Arrival at the bike rack, then a moment to absorb what has transpired.

2. Ciclavia
Ten minutes up Figueroa,sw then a right turn onto 7th street:
The day apartheid ended,
That weekend when the wall came down.

A meditation on pure joy,
On child-like exuberation as you bike goes through an intersection,
Safe safe safe.

A meditation on seeing what's in a block--
This shop, this stand, these little places to eat that are invisible at 35 miles per hour.

A meditation on City Hall, it's soft undulating green lawns that belong to me, the people all around, whose bikes are tilted softly against the trees while they eat their sandwiches, sip their water.

A meditation on we the people who have the right to decide on every day being ciclavia, or at least a day safe for bicyclists.

A meditation on how that would feel, how would that day feel.

Bankruptcy Court (Los Angeles, Anywhere)

The address says Figueroa
Yet the door's around the corner, on Seventh.
An additional insult, needing to ask strangers where.
We know what they want before they stop us.
They ask us wearing sweatpants and sneakers on a business street,
Their flannel shirt jacs, their canes.
Chubby grandkids are afoot as the desperate oldsters tilt their undyed hair backwards, scanning the tops of the skyscrapers, their hands a shield against the glare.
"Where", I imagine, is the last question they ask, the last words they speak all morning.
Upstairs, on a greige decor floor,
The dead air hangs heavy with ancient laws,
With Latin cognates that pre-date Crawford Texas and Herbert Hoover and Dickens;
Rules that formed those primordial seasons
When the vegetables did not thrive
When the skinny animals shivvered and fell.
My friends today will sign what they're told to sign,
Fold up the grimy xeroxed sheets into tattered manila envelopes.
When they leave 725 their hearts will beat slowly, the rhythm altered forever by the private Vesuvius that crashed down upon them, that brought them low.

Heh Heh Heh Culture

Strangely, these two very annoying print advertisements were at the same bus stop.

The first ad was for some kind of liqueur.  The scene was a party with all of the leggy, pouty young women wearing white outfits except for one woman – a famous for being famous person whom I won’t dignity by naming here.  She was melted into a green dress.  “Dress” might be an exaggeration as the outfit left nothing to the imagination.  Most of the other women had bland expressions that bordered on catatonia.   A couple looked at the ad’s protagonist with a “Who does she think she is?” sneer, as if it were a still from the Maury Povich show.   The main, perhaps only, male in the ad wore  a white suit but appraised Ms. Green Dress with lusty approval. 

The beverage being promoted is colored green, thus the color of the woman’s dress.  I believe the caption was something like “Stand Out.”  Anyone’s Cockatoo’s Baptist upbringing  sadly disallows us from being able to comment on the quality of said product.  Still, we must confess that the idea of consuming a mass-produced green liquid does not appeal.

But, cat fights? Dressing full-on bimbo to “catch” a guy and make all of the other women hate you?  In this day and age?   One wonders how they could not have noticed the gender of the last few Secretaries of State.  It’s an ad that could have come from the mind of a right-wing radio aficionado, someone who believes with all of his aggrieved mind that women have a quiver full of tricks to gain power. 

Heh, heh, heh.  You know how them dames are.

The second billboard has only been up for a couple of weeks; it just feels like it’s been longer.  The image is of a quite lovely, solitary tree.  Beautiful branches all thick with leaves.  Harmless, right?  Except for the word “bano” in large letters above it.  “Bano” means bathroom in Spanish.   Lower down, “Es facil ser hombre” – It’s easy to be a guy.  The product being sold here is for a brand down-market beer; our Baptist upbringing is becoming more precious to us by the day. 

“It’s just a joke.  Nobody would actually go against a tree just because of this ad.  No one would take it seriously.” 

Heh, heh, heh.

Maybe if I consumed a few cans of the product I’d find the ad to be a knee-slapper.  Sober, though, and longing for a summer break outside of the city, it my reaction is just disgust.  Yes, there are people starving in the world, and abandoned animals are being put to sleep.  How can I waste outrage on behalf of a tree? 

I can’t move past the implcations of the ad, the assumptions.  Domination.  Assault against nature.  Indifference to the next person along the trail, to the creatures big and little situated nearby.  The mentality of “What I want is what I shall have.”  It aims for Kerouac-ian freedom but just lays in its own puddle, greedy and reeking.

Which is just how the corporations want us to be.