foucault’s pipe

what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward the boston marathon to be born?

Jasper Wilcox

Before the dust settles in Boston let’s not forget that wars have casualties.

There is certainly a possibility the bombs were planted by right-wing or white supremacist organizations but for some reason I doubt it.

The United States has been in a perpetual state of war since its inception. War against anything that stands in its way. War against Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam – war against Native populations – war against women, blacks, gays – war against the natural environment and war against animals.

These wars have always been one-sided. These wars have always been hideous, illegal, atrocious, violent and evil. For so long we have been taught to see the “enemy” as something that exists entirely in our periphery. Our enemy is always somewhere else – just slightly too far away for our myopic sense of morality to ever see clearly.

Is it such a surprise now to see the war at home? Is it such a surprise now to see the dead and maimed on the streets of Boston? This is such a common sight in Iraq, in Palestine, in the ghetto in every valley on the West Coast of the United States that it’s no longer even shocking.

When we say the United States is wrong to cluster-bomb Baghdad, are we too cowardly too say we hope the United States loses that war?

When we say the United States is wrong to fund the Israeli genocide that occurs every day in Gaza and the West bank are we too cowardly to say we hope the United States loses that war?

Are we too cowardly to say “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander?”

I’m not.

Jean Paul Sartre was not a popular person in France when he said he wanted them to lose the war in Algeria. Sartre was not a popular figure anywhere in the west when he said he threw his hat in with the enemy.

I will not be popular in the United States for saying I hope America loses the war in the Middle East. That right might prevail some blood will surely flow in the homeland.

There is always a possibility these actions were taken by American right-wing terrorists – and if so that’s not my war to fight. But if that is indeed the case, whose fault is it the political atmosphere has become so polluted that we here at home – we starving, jobless, uneducated – have no idea who the real enemy is? Whose fault is it we have grown so bereft of any decent set of values that we throw our rage at the first perceived enemy we see?

That innocent people are dead or injured hurts me. But it is little more than a thimble full compared to the all-out bleeding of innocent people in the middle-east – innocent people in Indo-China – innocent eco-systems – innocent African-Americans – innocent Africans – innocent animal species. This war is truly one-sided and Americans at home never have to see the gory aftermath. Americans at home never have to see the naked lunch that exists at the end of their silver spoon.

And now we do.

And twelve years after September 11th, we’re still shocked at the violence of it.

Margaret Thatcher died!

Jasper Wilcox

The New York Times just reported that ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died. Who’s up for a dead fascist party? You bring the jell-o shots I’ll bring the tea n crumpets.

I would love to be a fly on that wall in hell – Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher eating the corpses of dead babies and reminiscing about South African apartheid – ah, the good ol’ days.

Violent

Enter video caption here

Jasper Wilcox

I almost got in a fight yesterday.

I was walking west on Yamhill, past the mall and I witnessed something really bizarre.

A white homeless girl with pink hair asked a young Asian woman to use her cell-phone. The Asian girl didn’t necessarily say ‘no’ she just shook her head as if to say “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The young lady in question clearly didn’t speak very good English.

I kept walking and I thought nothing of it. I stopped at the cross-walk (because real tough guys don’t jay-walk). Then I heard this:

“Learn English, bitch. We speak English in this country. Let me use your cell-phone, bitch. Go back to China. Go back to South Korea. You want to get punched, bitch? You want to get fucked up? Fuck you you slant eyed gook bitch.”

I was really embarrassed by this as an American but I wasn’t going to stop and intervene because, whatever, shit happens… The homeless girl was probably crazy and I’m not going to get slapped by a feral Portland street-bum.

But then I noticed she had a male friend with her and he started to chime in also. It was then I decided I had to do something… I felt sort of responsible to do something.

I said nothing, just stood uncomfortably close and watched. I casually observed, leisurely eating a bag of flaming-hot peanuts. The young Asian girl was clearly becoming upset. She, fortunately, had a rape-whistle hanging around her neck (I shit you not). She tried to blow on it once but it didn’t work. It didn’t really make any sound.

“That doesn’t work in America, bitch,” said the pink-haired girl. “That shit doesn’t work in America. Take your whistle back to South Korea dumb bitch.”

She tried to blow the whistle again and again it just didn’t work. Again the white girl said: “That shit doesn’t work here, bitch. Learn English.”

Finally, I decided to say something. “Oh no, it works.”

The two bum kids took their attention from the young Asian girl and focused on me. Fortunately (at least) the Asian girl used this opportunity to flee.

The pink haired girl and her young male friend approached me and I was sort of shocked to see that the young man was a Latino, blooded-up like a Norteno.

“You got a cell-phone I could use?” The little Mexican dude asked.

“If I did I wouldn’t let you use it,” I said casually and ate a handful of peanuts.

“You want to get punched?” The little slob asked me.

“Not really,” I said. “Fortunately you’re not going to punch me.”

He stepped closer to me and I took a step back. I smiled and ate some more peanuts.

“People get hit,” he said. “It’s a fact of life.”

“Well, that’s true,” I said. “It’s also a fact of life that if you hit me you will spend the rest of your days in Portland regretting the very fuck out of it.”

Just then (of course) another dude showed up. Now instead of a fair fight I was about to get stomped. .

During the course of this interaction something really strange happened. I kept thinking. I kept thinking things like “well, this guy’s Mexican, is it really racist? Surely this bitch is racist but I can’t punch this bitch with all these cameras here.” I then thought about the cameras. I was standing at a MAX stop (the train). What if this kid was under-age? I wasn’t really thrilled about the prospect of catching a charge – in fact, even if I was just booked and released on my O.R. I still didn’t want to spend the day getting booked into Multnomah County Jail.

Ultimately, I didn’t run away – I walked away in as condescending a manner as I could.

I walked to the courthouse and sat down, watching this little bastard and his stupid friend and his dumb white-trash girlfriend trying to start fights with everybody. A cop drove past and stopped at the light and I literally thought to myself: “I should go get that cop and tell on them.”

At this point I was disgusted with myself. I felt old. My back hurt. I was about to talk to a cop.

And I thought: “Nah, man – you don’t talk to cops. You sit here and you wait for that little bitch to go somewhere dark and you wet his pussy ass up.”

I had a big chain with a lock in my backpack and I wrapped it around my fist and I shoved it into my pocket and I waited patiently for the kid to start walking away. I would follow him from a distance (because I know how to do that) and when he got somewhere there weren’t cameras, that’s it… I would break his fucking jaw.

Instead of walking away he got on the train and I just sat there, like an old jerk and thought about all the misogynistic crap that had gone through my brain. I thought about how I associated weakness with femininity and how I associated the feminine with negative terms like “bitch” and “pussy.”

Then I decided that I hated myself and the stupid wussy voice that goes through my head when ten years ago I would have socked that asshole in the goddamned face.

It took fifteen minutes for every theoretical, revolutionary idea I’ve ever had to go right out the window.

The eco-feminist called this Mexican guy a “pussy bitch.” The guy who sometimes (when he’s pissed off) advocates using violence can’t throw a punch because he’s scared of the law. The dude who hates cops “more than anybody in the world” almost ran to the cops and turned bitch.

The young, impetuous person who grew up in gangland was now a middle-aged old rationalist who couldn’t fight through his own self-doubt much less throw a punch on some slob asshole who totally had it coming.

With that said, I’d like to wish Camille Marino and Steve Best all the best of luck with their revolution.

Rednecks are dicks and vegans are wussies

Jasper Wilcox

I’ve never been very squeamish when it comes to blood and guts. When somebody kills an animal and guts it in a totally cruel way I just shrug really and get on with my day. Maybe it’s because I’ve killed animals before – and not just for food either, but senselessly. Lots.

My cousin Cody has killed more fish than Himmler killed Jewish people. It might be untrue but rumors are starting to circulate that the fish are organizing a resistance to Cody. And I hope they win.

He doesn’t even eat the fish – he hates fish – he gives them to people (and if he kills a whole bunch he gives ‘em to the Mission).

One of the most vegan people I know used to walk around Spokane at night with a bow and arrow and shoot stray cats.

When I was a little tiny kid me and my friends used to wrap alka-seltzer up in bread and feed it to birds then scare them off to see how long it took them to fall “plop” out of the sky.

I come from rednecks and backwater Mexican people.

I’m from the northwest and we call wild animals “game” here. I can’t think of a vegan from the Northwest who hasn’t gutted a fish. The smaller the town you’re from the more likely it is you killed a lot of animals in your life. You get used to it. I know Vegans who see a video of a slaughterhouse and they look like they’re about to puke. I sort of understand that reaction but, jeez – I can’t believe they get so weird about it. A lot of my friends growing up were corn-fed white kids with a big hard-on for fully automatic weapons and dead game. I was never a big fan of venison (gamy) but I sustained myself throughout my early life by eating the crap.

Where I come from, when the Mexican kids had a big party they killed a pig, dug a big hole, started a fire, let the coals get hot, then they threw the whole damned pig into the pit and when it was done they ate it.

I ate it.

I loved the shit.  I miss it…I fuggin love pork.

Fortunately, my ideas about the nature (and value) of life have changed. So I don’t eat dead animals anymore and I don’t kill them either.

I’ll smash the shit out of a spider and in the corner of my bedroom there’s a honey-trap out for ants (because that shit’s getting ridiculous). I don’t really value the lives of ants or spiders (or flies or cockroaches or Juggaloes).

So, lately there’s this YouTube video online of a big redneck dude shooting a horse in the head and cutting it up and the whole Vegan world just goes insane with outrage.

It sucks that it’s a horse because for some reason our society values horses more than pigs or ants or water-bugs, but at the end of the day, who cares?

Slaughtering horses should be illegal – what that redneck dude did should be illegal.

Everything else is just noise.

Apparently this redneck dude looks at the camera before he shoots the horse and says “Hey animal rights people – fuck you.”

I think that’s what pisses the animal libbers off the most. It’s like a gang thing.

Where I come from if Javier made a YouTube video and said: “Hey, Nortenos – fuck you,” there would be a huge gang war and people would die… lots…

Some of the pacifist vegans (bourgeois vegans) get all weird about violence.

I think violent rhetoric is stupid too – they don’t have that where I come from… Say for example Javier says “fuck you scraps” on Vimeo – there’s not a flood of violent comments on his Facebook page.

That would be incriminating.

Where I come from they just load up into a car and shoot guns at Javier’s mom’s house. Or my personal favorite they go to Javier’s favorite bar and when he’s walking to his car they stomp his fucking brains out in the parking lot.

But I’m going to warn you guys (and gals) – that big redneck dude on the horse-slaughter video probably comes from a way tougher gang than the vegan kids who are crying into their motza ball soup right now.

Vegans are kinda wussies… How are you going to win a gang war if you can’t kill a pig?

Nah, Vegans have to win by being clever.

Or else, seriously, do some push-ups…

You can fuck somebody’s life up with a thing of Super Glue if you’re smart enough and you can steal that shit from the Dollar Tree.

You could sneak into his house and poke holes in all his condoms.

But you’re not going to win a fight with that dude – vegans have no idea how to use guns. As an experiment you should go to where Vegans hang out and try to score a gun.

It’s friggin impossible. Even if you get one it’s probably going to suck.

You’re never going to convince rednecks to stop being rednecks. But it would be a lot of fun to slash all the tires on his mobile home.

But, dude, that guy’s from New Mexico – he would shoot you dead if you went onto his property. Then he’d probably post it up on Youtube and we’d be right back in the same situation as we are now.

I sort of empathize with that guy – I love offending hipsters – that’s why Animal RIghts people hate me.

If we weren’t all indignant and morally outraged all the time the guy wouldn’t have ever made the video in the first place.

We need to think of better ways to solve the problem. Moral outrage is corny.

Big Joe & Phantom 309 by Tom Waits

“Whose streets?” a play in one act

Jasper Wilcox

Call: “Whose streets?”

Response: “Our streets!”

Call: “Whose streets?”

Response: “Our streets!”

Cops: “Alright, back on the sidewalk or we’re kickin your ass.”

Chorus: “Yes, officer….”

Chorus: “All Cops Are Bastards! ACAB…”

(God, I want all of you people to fucking die.)