Saturday, March 17, 2012

Another Day On Michigan Ave.

 
Economics has influenced Americans' morals, easy money making their behavior crude. This is unfortunate. The usual attitude is: if you give me free, then I will take extra portion. OK? Please? May I? Also known as: gimme gimme gimme

I have been in Starbucks, I admit this.

And I have used the toilet in this place, which will henceforth remain nameless unless it is called by its code name, "Estonian Café"


I have been "à la toilette," as they say in France -- there is no "occupied" sign on the outside  (I don't know why; maybe it seems radical for them; nobody can think of something that complicated), when somebody wants in, the competing hominids simple grab the handle roughly. It is abusive and horrible! A breach of manners and a direct contradiction with that very same elegant atmosphere the Eastonian Cafe tries so hard to project. It is sad, and it makes you want to cry.

I have had the experience more than once that some asshole who thinks he has an actual right to to use the same washroom as me just comes up to the door and just grabs the handle impatiently, and with terrible immediacy. It's bad. It is not distinguished behavior. This is bullshit; and, what is this country coming to?

I have written a poem for this occasion that is a short version of Alexander Pope's "Rape of the Lock."

 Give me more
"Give me more," they say:
 And then they shake the handle
 of the door

(this is a shorter version of "Rape of the Lock," which originally referred to a lock of hair, but he never knew what would happen, in the ensuing 150 years or so after his day. Alexander Pope is really pretty great. He saw the problem with fame, way before Entertainment! T. V. He knew the way fame and notoriety screws up a guy's life. The story is always the same: surviving western civilization is near impossible. Certainly, Pope would agree with me about that. The problems in the U.S. today, of course Pope never heard of. It didn't exist at that time; he was certainly a most gentle and non-crude gentleman.)

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