'Bred Crumbs
11.29.02
11.27.02
Scenes From the Richmond BART Station
I
A young woman is taking a surprising amount of time boarding a taxi. Even though she is walking all around the cab as if she were inspecting a rental car for dents, she heaps the blame for the time consumption on a small boy, no older than 4, presumably her son, who is a little unenthused about the goings-on but doesn't seem to be delaying anything.
Loud enough to be heard at coversational levels 30 feet away, the woman yells at the child, "If you make me late for this interview, I'm gonna kick your ass!"
Wow, with that kind of aplomb and control, who wouldn't hire her?
II
Waiting for the bus, two young black men are arguing at length, in street volume and cadence, about an issue of a DC-vs.-Marvel comic book. It becomes quickly apparent that the two men have seen completely different issues, but that doesn't stop the argument.
"This one you read," says the younger of the two, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with an angled view of a red-white-and-blue star-centered shield on the front and the words CAPTAIN AMERICA down one sleeve. "Where was the ending?"
"New York," says the other man, probably in his 30s, whose clothes bear no superhero branding.
"No, the Grand Canyon!" Captain America shouts.
The older man insists repeatedly that at the end of the story, "Superman hit the Hulk so hard he turned back into Bruce Banner." But the other guy counters that in the finale, "The niggaz fightin' was Superman and Spiderman."
The argument veers to other points, like one match where, it sounds like, Superman lost on a technicality; the older man seems to consider that a true defeat, but, says Captain America, "You ain't listenin' to what Superman's sayin'."
Finally, they approach a peculiar kind of consensus. Captain America – who seems particularly put out that one Marvel hero was defeated by Aquaman, whom he clearly has no use for – declares that "DC characters are all gay," going on to call them "fags" a couple of times to underline his point.
The other man says in response, "Marvel characters are ghetto."
Then, boarding the bus, they start arguing about how Superman was created (dreamed up by someone watching a bird out a window in Kansas vs. stolen from Marvel). Captain America pulls a Secret Origins magazine out of his backpack as if to back up his intellectual-property-theft argument, though he never really finds his evidence.
A few seats in front, I think about how I would have answered if Captain had insisted to me that DC characters were all gay. I settle on, "Nah, they're not that cool."
11.24.02
An unexpected birthday present last weekend was the return of my naughty neighbor, who regularly pleasures himself and anyone with a view of his condo. He had been absent for months, and I assumed he had moved or been arrested or needed restoration surgery. Then suddenly, he was back, getting busy on his balcony just as before.
Enter my new camera, which it turns out has an unadvertised "automatic tasteful censoring" feature. Thus, attempts to capture the action focused instead on my window, resulting in a somewhat arty photo. But even thought its explicitness is heavily blurred, the activity is still discernible, so to see the photo, you'll need to go to another page.
· · ·
Speaking of vaguely suggestive images – every time I go to Robbie's place, I am greeted at the first stairway landing by this:
I have no idea what's really on the other side of that glass.
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