Ann Coulter Equates College Students with al-Qaida

Al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida, Qaeda...call them what you will, Bushites--the bottom line is they are the enemy and they are potentially everywhere, including Texas and the other 58 states.

Who are they? Irrelevant. Towel-heads. Brown people. Taxpayers. Liberals. Nuke 'em. God will sort 'em out. Whatever.

Noted foot-in-mouther Sarah Palin must have been busy watching the wet nurse breastfeed Trig as she gagged/Twittered, because this little number was left up to fellow conservative darling Ann Coulter (Hmm...the most prominent conservatives are Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin because...they are the best?)

"They hired me to give a speech, so I'm giving a speech. I do it all the time," she said. "I speak to a lot of groups and do not endorse them. I speak at Harvard and I certainly don't endorse their views. I've spoken to Democratic groups and liberal Republican groups that loooove abortion. The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference. I'm sure I agree with GOProud more than I do with at least half of my college audiences. But in any event, giving a speech is not an endorsement of every position held by the people I'm speaking to."

(courtesy Huffington Post)

"The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference."

Who is this supposed to insult more, al-Qaida or college students? Is she really equating ALL college students with al-Qaida members? Why? Because they're getting educated and don't just take whatever you try to cram down their throats? Has she ever met an al-Qaida member? Why are we listening to this woman again? Who IS she?

Ann Coulter was born in New York City, to rich parents, went to Cornell, then to Michigan, then was a law clerk in Kansas City, before she was scooped up by a Republican party desperate for pretty faces and controversy. She writes awful books and delivers awful speeches to anybody with deep pockets.

Seeing that Ann Coulter went to not one but TWO colleges, she's pretty much Public Enemy #1, as that of course implies that she is one of al-Qaida's most sophisticated operatives. Although I am unsure of her motives in revealing this new shit to the world--is she a double agent? triple agent?--many thanks to Imam Coulter, for it is now easier than ever to spot terrorists.

They are the ones who read books and think critically--and their names and addresses can conveniently be found in the admissions department at any college in the country.

Get out your guns, people! Kill the nerds that hate your freedom!

_

Vegas, Baby

Remember all those whacked out Dungeons and Dragons dudes who used to beat you up in high school?

Well, those harmless little cuties went on to college, where they graduated to fighting each other with cardboard swords covered in tinfoil on the Quad. After college, the mighty diehards among them carried the torch all the way to Ye Olde Renaissance Faire.

Those few, fortunate rogues chosen by the very Gods above, who eventually found these hilarious affairs tortuously tame, advanced further still, to the penultimate step--killing people with "a medieval-style battle ax."

Viz:

LAS VEGAS — Sonia Lisset Castro said she pleaded for her life and that of her baby but the stranger attacking them with a medieval-style battle ax on a residential street only mocked her and kept hacking.

"I was saying in English, 'Please, please leave me alone!' But he wouldn't listen to me," Castro testified through tears and a Spanish translator Monday about the Feb. 11 attack that left her 4-month-old son, Damien, dead.

"Every time he would hit me, he would laugh out loud," she said. "I was begging him to let me go, and he was mocking me."

Castro peeled back a gauzy white scarf to show a Las Vegas judge the scars on the right side of her head where surgeons reattached her face and jaw. She said her right eye was irreparably damaged.

Montague is facing one charge of murder with a deadly weapon and three charges of attempted murder with a deadly weapon.

He is accused of stabbing his profoundly disabled sister-in-law at least 20 times in their home, then bursting outside and randomly attacking Castro as she walked past on the street with her son in a stroller. His sister-in-law, 36-year-old Monica O'Dazier, was treated at a hospital and released.

Montague told police he had no memory of the attacks, and defense lawyer Norm Reed has characterized his client as delusional and paranoid. But neither Reed nor defense lawyer Andrea Luem has sought to have Montague declared mentally unfit for trial.

A neighbor who dialed 911 as she witnessed the attack from her home also identified Montague as the assailant. Teresa Garner testified Monday that after Montague ran back inside his home, she went to Castro's aid near the curb and the overturned stroller.

"I saw the baby lying in the street, dead," sobbed Garner, a 52-year-old disabled former hotel worker. "I saw the mother, her face was completely gone ... bleeding profusely."

Garner said she later suffered an emotional breakdown and spent seven days in psychiatric care. She said she continues to take several prescription anti-anxiety medications daily. After appearing to fall asleep for a few moments during questioning by Luem, she said the medications make her drowsy.

On the 911 call, which was played for the judge, Garner is heard shrieking, "Oh my God! Her face is split open where he hit her with the hatchet!"

Police have said the ax had been hanging on a wall in Montague's home before he used it in the attack.

Montague's wife, Erricca Montague, testified that Harold Montague spent several sleepless nights pacing the floor, wasn't eating well, and appeared dehydrated the day of the attack.

Harold Montague had served since 2004 as the primary caregiver for O'Dazier, who Erricca Montague said has cerebral palsy and mental retardation, suffers seizures and can walk only a few steps with assistance.

Under questioning by Luem, Erricca Montague said her husband has smoked pot but never took other drugs or drank alcohol. She testified she didn't feel her husband was a danger to her, their three children or her disabled sister.

(courtesy Huffington Post)

One would hope that had fair young Harold realized the final step was 'execution by obese former high-school football players poured into correctional-facility uniforms' he would have humbly duct-taped his weapon back onto the otherwise-blank wall above his Playstation/masturbation chair and played with something for a while instead.

Even if it could have been colored as cowardice, it would have been a much more fruitful way to take his mind off how dreadfully boring his life is these days (ie, every day since he was born).

But we all know those guys were never actually very smart, so, you know, here we are...sitting in a chair somewhere, wishing his mother would have had an abortion all those years ago...

_

The Unspoken Evil In the Housing Market, Country

(photo courtesy Sally Ryan/New York Times)

The New York Times printed an article today about the house next door to that of the Obamas (pictured above) being put on the market recently. It was an interesting article for many reasons, but hidden amidst the facts and figures is a phenomenon that is sadly not getting enough attention:

Very few people I know--college educated, with jobs--can afford to buy a house, regardless of record-low mortgage rates and falling home prices. Some of them have settled for overpriced condos, some have moved into farm country and face ridiculous commutes, most are prepared to stay in rental apartments far longer than previous generations ever did.

This is not healthy for our country, as we are now firmly on the path to becoming a two-class nation--working-poor renters and fabulously-wealthy landlords, the modern-day equivalent of ever-toiling serfs and their wealthy land-owning lords.


For Your Consideration:

The year is 1973. The house next to the Obamas, a beautiful 17-room mansion on the south side of Chicago, sells to a young couple for $35,000. The median household income for that year was $12,051; assuming they were average, the house cost 3 times their annual salary.

The year is now 2009. In 36 years, their house is now worth in the neighborhood of $1-3 million--an increase of between 28 and 85 times the original purchase price and a fabulously lucrative investment. In 2006 (the last year figures are available), the median household income was $58,407; the same house would now cost the new owner 17-51 times their annual salary.

[Also, keep in mind that the inflated 2006 figure reflects double-breadwinning households, which was not common in 1974, so the difference is even greater than it appears.]

And you wonder why so many people took out bad loans? They felt they deserved to live in a house, as hard-working, gainfully-employed couples--and they were right--but the market was such that there was actually no way they could afford to pay for one. Between greedy real estate developers, corrupt politicians, predatory bankers, insatiable real estate trusts, real estate speculation, and bidding wars, prices became artificially, unsustainably high. Wannabe homeowners forced their hand and they lost. Big time.

The Man: 9,941,994, Men: 0.


Meanwhile, the bleeding doesn't stop there, of course.

Real wages (adjusted for inflation) have remained stagnant since 1974, despite enormous increases in productivity and work hours. In other words, while costs have risen dramatically, you are making the same amount--or, in most cases, less--than your father did in 1974, when gas was $0.55 a gallon and a beer at a ballpark cost ten cents. A beer at a recent LA Dodger game set me back $12, or 1/12 of my daily take-home pay.

In the last 36 years, health care costs have skyrocketed, retirement benefits have dwindled or disappeared, and the cost of a private university education has gone from $10,000 a year to $32,000 a year (for public universities, costs have increased 37% in the last 10 years alone).


How are we supposed to live like this? How are intelligent people who have a soul--and, therefore, did not become shady bankers, selfish corporate executives, or lawyers--supposed to afford to buy a house somewhere that could be classified as 'non-bumblefuck?'

Homeowners’ equity fell to 41.4 percent of the total value of household real estate at the end of the first quarter of 2009. This percentage has decreased sharply since the end of 2005. It first fell below 50 in the fourth quarter of 2007 – marking the first time that homeowners’ mortgage debts exceeded their equity in their homes since 1945, when the Fed’s data begins.

(source: American Institute for Economic Research)

There you have it, folks--sixty-four years of 'progress' has resulted in a net-loss of equity. Thank you, corporate America, for shipping all the wealth not in your own pockets overseas.

Are we reaching a point where intelligent, rational people are going to start moving off the grid in droves and repopulate depressed rural areas in their quest for an affordable house? Will we all have to live in factories abandoned by 'patriotic' corporations who moved all their non-executive jobs to China? Where will all these newly-rural people work? How far will they have to drive to shop somewhere that isn't evil-incarnate WalMart? How are they supposed to afford to send their children to school?

Or, since everyone has a college degree these days (thanks, University of Phoenix!) and a diploma doesn't even guarantee a job at Starbucks, will people eventually stop sending their children to college?

I know that sounds crazy, or at least illogical, but if we look at the matter honestly, and perform a simple cost/benefit analysis, at some point the costs will outweigh the benefits. Who wants to graduate college $100,000 in debt, with an ever-dwindling prospect of gainful employment and the looming fear that they will need to locate another $750,000 just to buy a house in the city they grew up in?


It wasn't even 100 years ago that most intelligent, productive people got their education in the real world, unable to afford a college education. They got menial or entry-level jobs and worked their way up from there.

However, what with unemployed PhDs fighting each other over janitorial jobs these days, another, more exotic option is becoming increasingly enticing, and probably as useful:

Formerly an option only for wealthy members of the aristocracy, these days a high-school graduate could choose--instead of going to college--to live, frugally, in a string of major European cities over a four year period, immersing him/herself in language, culture, and the arts. This would not only provide a well-rounded liberal arts education and--shockingly, but truthfully--be cheaper than attending a 4-year American college, but it also comes with free, top-o-the-line health care! Invent a time machine and sign me up!

Time to dust off your Grand Tour brochures, travel agents!
(If the Internet didn't kill you all slowly...)


You may think this is all a joke. You may think these ideas are radical, ridiculous, and ill-informed. You may be right, you may be wrong, but the way I see it, this is the very real, human side of the matter, one that is rarely discussed in the media, or over the dinner table.

The exorbitant cost of a comfortable, quality life in the United States these days--now more unattainable than ever--is the dubious result of three main factors:

1. Decades of unnecessary, harmful real estate speculation by wealthy American freelance speculators, deep-pocketed real estate trusts, investment organizations, and corporations.
2. The insatiable hunger for profit that defines the modern corporation.
3. The fact that our government has failed to act on behalf of its less-moneyed-yet-vastly-more-numerous constituents, failed to step in with laws/oversight/restrictions, and is therefore complicit in allowing the situation to spiral out of control.

For all their blustery talk about America being the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, the rich and greedy oligopoly has created a country its own hard-working citizens can barely afford to live in.

What, may I ask, is the benefit of that, aside from the pieces of silver lining their pockets?

_

What the fuck is this all about?

More importantly, what the fuck is that picture all about? Are only kissy-face teenage moms eligible for this program?

Is this some sort of uber-expensive, 'target demographic of one,' special-interest/family-sponsored advertising campaign/intervention to get Jamie Lynn Spears back to school or something?

Is aspiring Ross Perot Jeff Sessions behind all this malarcky?

Or is it that other Republican senator from Alabama, what's-his-face, the one who's always doodling, bored as hell, and never looks at the camera...Richard Shelby, that's his name.

[Confidential advice, pricks: throw in a free liposuction if you really want to lock it down.]

But, for now, world, I must impress upon you that this is mere hearsay--wait for Ms. Spears' rep to deny it and then you'll know it's true.

Developing story...

_

"I think you won--let me just make a phone call to find out."

Not that I care all that much about the sanctity and entertainment value of collegiate athletics, but this is pretty depressing:

At Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., the women’s swim team held a “virtual swim meet” with Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, about 112 miles away. Each team swam in its home pool, then compared times to determine the winners. (“We probably saved $900 on bus travel,” said William G. Durden, Dickinson’s president.)

(courtesy nytimes.com)

$900.00? First of all, y'all gotta look into a different bus company. Or just drive yourselves:

Bryn Mawr and Dickinson are 112 miles apart; that's 6 gallons of gas per car x 5 cars x $3/gallon x 2 (round trip)= $180.00.

But that's all beside the point--it only took $900.00 to degrade competitive swimming to a mere time trial? Why bother having the 'meet' in the first place? Why not just swim each race 5000 times over the course of a year and turn in your best score and buy yourself a used trophy on eBay?

I cringe for the future.

_

Let's Be Realistic

If universities are going to be relieved of their tax-exempt status, so should churches. Or should they just be allowed to continue to amass wealth unchecked?

Regardless of the fact that universities do much more for the community, in terms of education, research, and truth-seeking--not to mention the countless jobs and customers for local shops/restaurants--than churches, treating them the same seems a fair compromise.

Will it happen? Will it even be suggested by anybody else?


Mr. Magic Eight Ball says "doubtful."

White Hen Pantry

It was the year 2000. Cars were flying across the sky, then folded into briefcases and carried into work. Robots were sassy, and not yet empowered.

It was a heady time to be in college.



One night in the fall--Homecoming Weekend, whenever that was--I was drunk at a house party and decided I needed a Hostess Cupcake. I shared my craving with everyone in earshot and a couple friends joined me for the expedition to the White Hen Pantry around the corner.

Not three minutes later, I bit into the first of the two cupcakes in the package, standing a few steps back from the register, waiting for my friends to select something before we headed back.

Two young black men entered the store--we'll call them Shorty and Tallboy--and were immediately under constant surveillance by the Cashier behind the counter. I watched as Shorty and Tallboy headed down the next aisle and started stuffing items into their jackets. Tallboy stared down the Cashier and held up a fist.

It looked something like this, but not quite as erect:

The Cashier--also black--stared daggers at them and shook his head as if to say, "Not on my watch you don't." He picked up a cordless phone and dialed 911.

Tallboy did not like this reaction. He held his stare and then made a sudden move, as if to lash out at the Cashier, who flinched. Tallboy laughed.

"Ha! Look at the little bitch!"

Shorty began slowly dragging Tallboy toward the exit, pulling him by his jacket.

"Come on--let's go. Let's get out of here. Come on."

A box of Ding Dongs fell out of Tallboy's coat and everybody stared at it. Tallboy made another sudden move toward the Cashier, who again flinched.

"Awww---the little bitch is scared. Poor little bitch..."

Shorty tugged on Tallboy's jacket again, knocking a few smaller items out of it. He scooped them up and put them inside his own coat, then resumed pulling Tallboy along.

At this point, the two thieves were standing right in front of me. I'm not sure, in retrospect, why I never moved from my post. It was as if I were a scientist studying the mating rituals of animals inside a thick glass cage.

As Tallboy continued his one-note taunting/staring contest with the Cashier, Shorty gave one last tug on Tallboy's jacket and pulled him out the door with him. Problem was, this last effort actually removed Tallboy's jacket from his body and it fell on the floor of the store.

The Cashier raced around the counter and snatched the jacket off the ground.

"Ha! Got your coat!"

He immediately retreated behind the counter and continued waiting on hold for 911.

Tallboy returned and went straight behind the counter. As soon as he got a hand on his jacket, the dispatcher must have picked up and the Cashier shouted into the phone.

"White Hen! White Hen! Man behind counter!"

About five seconds later, as the two men struggled for possession of the jacket, a 120 pound black Evanston police officer rushed through the door, reached over the counter, grabbed Tallboy by the collar, somehow yanked him up over the counter with one hand, threw him on the ground, and stuck a gun in his face.

I swallowed my last bite of cupcake and stared, aghast, from a few feet away, as the Officer struggled to handcuff Tallboy with his only free hand, in disbelief that he had his gun drawn for no reason.

Unsurprisingly under the circumstances, Tallboy was able to struggle free and bolt out the door. The Officer immediately pursued and, a few seconds later, I heard what sounded like a little firecracker, followed by low grunt/exhalation.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

I walked outside and found Tallboy slumped against the wall of the White Hen, a bloody hole in his shoulder, a smear of blood indicating the path of his slide down the wall. He couldn't move. Or wouldn't. He just sat there, staring into space, saying "Ohhhhhhh..." every time he could muster the energy.

I went back inside to see what was up with my friends. More police officers arrived on the scene and came in for free coffee.


I found my two friends face down in the frozen foods section. They stood up and dusted off their hands.

"Did you see that?"
"Nope."
"No? What do you mean? You didn't see that?"
"As soon as we saw those guys come in, we hit the deck."
"What?!"

A police officer walked over.

"You guys want some coffee?"
"No, thanks--I don't drink coffee."

Another one walked over.

"You want some coffee? It's free."
"No. Can I have something else instead?"

He walked away without answering me. I followed him and overheard the following gem as he talked with a fellow officer:

"Man, he just got off suspension, too."
"For what?"
"Shooting himself in the foot."
"Haha..."

'Fucking trigger-happy motherfucker,' I thought to myself. I mean, Tallboy was a prick, no doubt--and a not-so-successful shoplifter--but he was unarmed and if the Officer hadn't been so keen on sticking his gun in the guy's face, maybe he could've actually cuffed him and nobody would have gotten shot.

"You want some coffee?"
"No!"
"Okay. So, you guys are going to have to come down to the station, answer some questions."
"When?"
"Now. They're sending a car over."

Long story long, they took us to the police station and left us all in some weird conference room for a couple hours. The three of us were all in an Action Movies class together, so the topic of that day's lecture was fresh in our minds--Is Rambo Gay?


The other two argued back and forth about it, rehashing the evidence presented in class, the tenets of the action genre, etc. I simply stared at my remaining cupcake, until the following slipped out:

"I ate one cupcake and a man got shot. What happens if I eat the other one?"
"Just eat it."
"No. I can't. Something bad might happen."
"I'll eat it."
"No!"

Some police officer eventually came and took us to wait in three separate rooms--"so you can't get your stories straight."

What the fuck? Not only were we clearly not part of some conspiracy, but you already left us in the same room FOR TWO HOURS!


The next two hours were even more mind-numbingly torturous. Every ten or fifteen minutes, somebody would come by and offer me coffee. The rest of the time I just stared at the wall, slowly becoming hungover.

Somebody finally came in and asked for my version of the events. I told him. He didn't believe me.

An hour later, his superior came in and asked for my story. I told him. He didn't believe me.

An hour later, HIS superior came in and asked for my story...you can see where this is going.

Finally, around 8am, the Assistant District Attorney came in, freshly showered and ready to go. I told him my story--the same one--and he either believed me or didn't give a shit. He said I could leave.

As I rode home in the back of a squad car, at 8:30am on Homecoming Sunday, disapproving old alumni stared at me from the sidewalks on their way to breakfast, clucking their tongues, wondering what sort of endearingly-youthful trouble I had gotten up to last night. I wanted to punch them.


Mostly, however, I was super pissed-off that, instead of being able to sleep after this whole ordeal, I had to immediately walk two miles back to campus and sit in an editing room for the next twelve hours or I would have to take an incomplete in one of my classes.

Over the course of the next TWO YEARS, I would occasionally get a phone call from a lawyer, asking me again for my story, then telling me I would have to come to the trial. They even said they would fly me back from Boston, which I found surprising.

It never happened. Tallboy pled guilty; to what, I'm not sure--being shot? Attempted shoplifting? Being an asshole? Excessive use of the word 'bitch?'

Needless to say, every time I see a Hostess Cupcake or enter a White Hen Pantry, certain strange memories creep into the ole noggin.

And I never ate the other cupcake, by the way, which is probably why you haven't been shot yet.

_

Life on the Crescent

It’s amazing how much time there is in a day when you have no friends, you’ve read all your books, you don’t have a TV, and you don’t have two coins to rub together. I’d already worked a mindless 9-5 at an insurance company downtown and spent another two and a half hours in my booth at the pub afterwards, writing a script and nursing a glass of Coke til it got too loud. Dinner was a can of clearance Godzilla-shaped spaghettios, so that didn’t last long, and bedtime was still hours away. Nothing left to do but stare out the window.

Appropriately, my affordable housing did not afford me a remarkable view, so I was forced to people watch. And then I saw her. She was standing on the sidewalk across the street from me, moving as if tethered to an imaginary stake in the ground, occasionally launching unintelligible remarks at passersby, sipping from a can of beer. She was overweight and unattractive, but dressed mildly provocatively, if shabbily. It dawned on me.

“Is she a--“

“Oi! What you lookin’ at?!”

She stared right at me; I panicked and jumped back from the window. Holy shit--she was a prostitute! A real, live prostitute! I had never seen one before. I wanted to look again, to watch her, to study her, to see what they were like, what the transactions were like; I was bursting with curiosity. I slowly stepped back up to the window, just as she looked back up at it.

“Oi! What the fuck?!”

I jumped back again. I closed the curtains, so she couldn’t see me; she could see me. I turned off the lights and peeked through the curtains; she saw me. Each time, she looked up at just the right moment; each time, she shouted at me with renewed vigor. This prostitute had eyes like you wouldn’t believe--or did she sense heat? I went over to the bed, the only piece of furniture in my room, and stretched out. A prostitute... I might as well have seen a mermaid flapping around on the sidewalk singing La Habanera.

It was July, I was nineteen, and I was in Boscombe, England, a downmarket suburb of Bournemouth, a sleepy seaside resort town-cum-thriving center of non-London business. I came here because I wanted to see if I could write a feature-length film script, to see if I had it in me, and I thought it’d be easier if I didn’t know anybody.

The Beach in Bournemouth

My arrival could not have been more dramatic. On my deathbed for several weeks at the end of Spring, with some vague non-mono, but fiercely mono-like, illness, my summer in England was officially canceled. All that sacrifice for nothing! And then, one day, I suddenly felt better. My parents were in London, coincidentally, where my father was giving a talk, so I bought a last-minute five-hundred-dollar ticket and surprised them there.

I immediately decided I had to be near the water. London was too crowded, too hectic, too expensive. According to my Dad’s local sponsor, Mick, “Brighton’s dirty and full of...poofs. You should go to Bournemouth--it’s beautiful. Jill and I go down there all the time, when we go to see the ponies in the New Forest.” I took the train two hours to Bournemouth.

I hailed a black cab at the station and set off for the Hotel Miramar, clutching the full-color brochure, staring at the stately old mansion on a cliff overlooking the sea, dreaming about my life there. I would live in the servant quarters, be a bellboy, meet interesting strangers, and write on the lawn after work, staring at the rolling waves, only occasionally getting embroiled in the drama of the endearing, archetypical lifers on staff.

The cab dropped me off and I entered the lobby, suitcase in hand, backpack on back.

“Checking in?”
“No--I’d like to apply for a job.”
“Ummm...I don’t think we... Let me check...”

They didn’t have any openings. Neither did any other hotel in town. Nobody did, in fact. Or, at least, not for a Yank with a three-month work permit. I hadn’t expected this; I never expected to leave the Hotel Miramar grounds, in fact. My funds dwindled to time-to-go-home-lad levels before I stumbled upon the blazing blue door to Reed Temporary Services. I remembered hearing that Americans are miles ahead of anybody else when it comes to computer skills, so I went in and walked out an hour later with a six-week job at Royal and SunAlliance Insurance Company, as a data-inputter in the Boots the Chemists® Travel Insurance Unit.

NA is the way and the light

Job-in-hand, salary on the way, I went to look for a flat. My income and time in the country limited, I signed up for the only place available. It was weeks before I realized it was a halfway house for parolees attending court-ordered Narcotics Anonymous meetings. I wondered why it seemed like I was the only one with a job and what the hell everybody meant by ‘the meeting.’

“Are you going to the meeting?”
“Where’s Bobby? I didn’t see him at the meeting...”
“He’s not here--said he’d talk to ya after the meeting.”

After the old guy--the ‘father’ of the house, for sure--taught me to put salt in the water when boiling pasta and another made me my first curry, as he reminisced about his childhood in Glasgow, I finally felt confident enough to ask about the meeting. To his credit, Kenny told it to me straight:

“We’ve all been to jail for drugs and now we’re livin’ on the dole, goin’ to Narcotics Anonymous meetings or we wind up back in jail.”

Kenny was a good guy. He used to be a bad guy--a very bad guy--but he gave that up. I believed him. His will to be good and surrounded only by good was impressive in its strength.

Example:
One day, I was reading a book in the tiny park by our house. I called it Penis Park, due to the unbelievably lifelike, if grossly oversized, phallic stone monoliths peppered around the lawn, each surrounded by shrubbery at their base. Kenny picked me up off the grass by my shirt collar.

“What the fuck?!”
“What the fuck’re you doin’ here? Nobody’s in this park unless they’re buyin’r’sellin. Jesus Christ...you coulda been hurt...”

I looked around--the only other people in the park were a handful of teenagers loitering around a park bench; they could have been dealing drugs, sure, it’s not impossible to imagine, but they were hardly dangerous. Kenny was huffing pretty hard, though, as if he’d been worried about me, as if he’d narrowly rescued me from a dire fate, so I relented and finished the book in my room.

Royal Crescent - Bath, England

The street we lived on was called Boscombe Crescent. In Britain, due to the popularity of the Royal Crescent in Bath as an immediate architectural touchstone, these sorts of things sprung up everywhere. A crescent-shaped street that detours from a main drag before rejoining it, lined by buildings of a similar architectural style opposite a small D-shaped park (sometimes filled with penises).

The Boots the Chemists® Travel Insurance Unit at Royal and SunAlliance Insurance Company was a relatively young, hip group of suits. The woman who trained me and the other four temps was a totally lovable twenty-five-year-old babe; I have fond memories of her teaching me what “full-stop” and “zed” meant. There was another woman, Claire, who was a purebred, stone-cold fox. Each time I saw her getting dropped off at work by her Italian boyfriend on a growling Ducati motorcycle, my heart skipped a beat; I could only maintain eye contact with her for about one second before my brain went into self-imposed cryogenic suspension; it was a delicious dream and no more.

I was somewhat of an oddity--not only did I travel around their island more than they did (“You’re going to Edinburgh? Oh...I’ve always wanted to go there...” “It’s only a nine-hour bus ride...”)--but I was American. Not too many Americans work in Britain, I guess, and certainly not as a temp in a place like this--and, as such, enjoyed a minor celebrity around the office. Sadly, it was not enough to get me into any pants. Not that I tried. Not that I didn’t want to--Lord, I wanted to--but I had no idea how to do that sort of thing. British girls don’t exactly melt at the sound of an American accent; they don’t return the favor.

One of the four other temps, the sexy one, oddly the only one whose name I can’t remember (serves her right!), became the more-realistic-than-Claire object of my affection during my stay in England. I have two lasting memories of her:

We were walking to the park one day, because I always brought my lunch, and Mark Griffiths (I even remember his last name, and I can’t remember her first) nearly broke his neck to get a longer look at a sexy girl walking by.

“Cor, that’s a fit bird...”

I laughed. What a phrase! Sexy Temp Girl laughed, as well, and looked me square in the eyes.

“What would you call her? A ‘hot’ ‘chick?!’”

She broke into childish giggles, the kind that you just can’t help. I melted from a mixture of lust and embarrassment.

“Uh, yeah...”

I guess you could call it a cultural exchange. The other memory is less colorful. I told her how I would love to buy an old Mini, bring it back home, fix it up, and drive it around.

Austin Mini, pre-BMW takeover

“You want a Mini? Ugh. They are so uncomfortable. And loud. No girls would want to ride in it. I hate Minis.”

The romance didn’t quite take off, as you might imagine.

One night, one of only four nights I consumed any alcohol--I love the stuff, but I was broke--a friend of this girl drove us all home after a post-work pint. Her friend couldn’t believe where she had to take me.

“You live in the Crescent? Shit, mate, you know you live on the most dangerous street in the most dangerous neighborhood in Bournemouth?”

“No...”

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the urban U.S, where people have guns and no health care, but I just found it hard to believe. Well, I believed it--but that didn’t mean that it was actually dangerous. The worst neighborhood in Harmlessville is still harmless.

It was a good two miles from work to my place. I walked it twice a day, too broke to pay fifty pence for bus fare, despite the fact that I would defeat the purpose of my shower by getting to work sweaty, despite the fact that I only brought three nice shirts and could only afford to do laundry once the whole time I was there, despite the fact that my boots were literally falling apart.

I brought two pairs of footwear with me on the trip: an old pair of boots and a brand-spanking-new pair of sexy, electric-blue suede Nikes with an orange swoosh. Those were beautiful goddamn shoes. I took a picture of them, they were so beautiful, and it was a good thing I did; they were stolen from the tiny communal bathroom while I was in the shower at the Surfer Hotel. I only wore them a few times and that picture is all I have left.

The Surfer Hotel was so-named because the surfing in Bournemouth is legendary. The only surfers I ever saw came out during the only storm I ever saw and the waves were still hardly any bigger than those in tranquil Lake Michigan, so the legend remains a mystery to me. It was a truly atrocious bed and breakfast. It was grotesque, decrepit, infested...and all the other two-dollar bad words you can think of. Nobody lived there but me and maybe some as-yet-undiscovered corpses. The brunt of their business was stag and hen parties from London on the weekend. Those were trying evenings for me, I must say.

I moved there when money got really tight, when I had been there for weeks without a hint of future employment. I had been staying at a nicer bed and breakfast with clean sheets, an edible breakfast, and a working TV, where all my hotel rejection letters were sent, where the women who ran it worried about me like her own child, despite the fact that I had never spoken to her beyond “Hello” and “Thank you,” but I had to give it up. I criss-crossed the city looking for the dirtiest place I could find, assuming it would also be the cheapest, and tried to settle in without touching anything.

Five minutes later, my shoes were stolen and I had to make do with the boots. Not long after they became my go-to pair of shoes, they broke into many pieces. I bought a tube of all-purpose super adhesive and used that to glue my shoes together every night. I had to carry the glue with me at all times because every day they fell apart again.

Money

Toward the end of my stay in Bournemouth, as I approached the Crescent on my walk home from work, I saw the prostitute again. I hadn’t seen her since that night she hollered at me. She was leaning into the window of a Lexus stopped at the traffic light on the near-end of the Crescent. I stared at her from across the street as I waited to cross.

“Well, it’s ten quid for a hand job.”

I heard this loud and clear. From across the street. I had always wondered what that sort of thing cost. I’m not sure if Kenny heard it, but I don’t think he cared about the details; he saw her and he knew what she was up to. He raced across Penis Park, shouting.

“Oi! Get the fuck outta my neighborhood! This is a family neighborhood! Full of good, hard-working people trying to live decent lives! We don’t need your fucking trash around here! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! NOW!”

The driver of the Lexus slammed on the gas as soon as he heard the word “Oi.” The prostitute attempted a rebuttal, but quickly realized its futility. I got a lot of satisfaction from seeing Kenny put her in her place, after the way she shouted at me that one night, but as I watched her sulk off in pursuit of some other john, on some other crescent, I also felt sorry for her. And the john.

Why can’t two people conduct a little business together? They’re not hurting anybody. Who is Kenny to say what can and cannot happen in this neighborhood? Just because Krooked Kenny done gone straight doesn’t mean he’s some sort of moral authority. And even if he was, who is hurt by that hand-job? She gets ten pounds, he gets a good time.

I walked past Kenny, into our house, up the stairs, and into my room. I closed the door, plucked a magazine off the floor, and leafed through it for probably the tenth time.

It was only six o’clock--what the hell was I going to do for five hours?

_