our enemy – television

Television is the creative person's bane, a threat greater than most others are. Watching TV feeds the human need for companionship without ever really satisfying it and crushes creative capacity by tricking the brain into thinking it is doing something and being productive when it is just sitting idle. Creativity, power, assuredness, and passion all reside in the 2nd and 3rd chakras, the lower half of the torso that extends from the breastbone to the genitals. Look down at your own belly for a moment. Can you see your belt-buckle or waistband as it sits atop the pelvic bone? Can you feel and move the abdominus erectus, that muscle that runs from the bottom of the breastbone to attach to the top of the pelvis? If you cannot, you are not alone – more than a third of all Americans are obese, and many of these individuals carry a large portion of this additional weight in the lower halves of their torsos. The decision to sit down and watch television has disastrous consequences on the 2nd and 3rd chakras – it numbs and dulls them, confusing and stifling the free flow of energy through the regions of the core, an area central to living the best of possible human lives. Man is a gullible animal; after seeing just a few commercials related to food he will get food from his kitchen and eat that food (without focusing on what he is eating) while staring longingly into the beautiful bright lights of his TV set. If he repeats this sequence often enough he will get fat, and his increased girth will further stifle the free flow of energy through the region of his core and exacerbate the unhealthiness that stems from a lack of regular exercise and from a preference for prepackaged foods ready to eat over meals carefully and consciously crafted. Persons who wish to lead lives full of creativity and passion avoid watching television; they know that there are more constructive ways to fill their time than by staring at an electric light-box; they paint, draw, dance, or write; they make educated and intelligent decisions about what to eat and what to put through their orifices of eye and mouth and ear instead of numbing out the intestines by shoveling in as much sugary and salty and fatty foods as the gut can handle without bursting; they lead happy lives untethered from groomed and glossy but ultimately vacuous material. Downtrodden and passionless masses of the world, awake! Turn off your television sets! Humanity, and Mother Nature, need you now more than ever. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

right of way

Recently, NPR aired a show which included mention of efforts undertaken during the first decades of the Twentieth Century to teach the American public to cowtow to the automobile, explaining that Americans had to be trained to think that roads were the domain of cars, the rightful place of automobiles, and that citizens not driving cars had no right to be on them. As a velocipedist – an avid and regular bicyclist – I suffer daily of the affects of this mis-education of my fellow upstanding Yankee, who now sees the car as an almost sacred thing, whereas persons not trapped within the stifling confines of these glass-and-metal prisons are seen as bothersome interlopers upon our tens of thousands of miles of commonly-owned bituminous track.

A car is nothing more than a hunk of steel and glass and plastic with a person or persons sitting on its plush seats and being moved around through space-time by the internal combustion of gasoline, a byproduct of oil, for which our brave brothers and sister pour out their blood and tears in distant and dusty places; oil is a poisonous thing that must be pulled from deep below the earth and refined before it can be used, whereas a bicycle is a few pounds of metal and rubber that allows a person to move himself around through space-time using little more than the muscles rippling beneath his taut and ruddy skin. And yet – daily – I am confronted by at least one person who considers his souped up, gasoline-guzzling shitbox, and his business, to be far more important than the car, conveyance, or business of anyone else.

Just two days ago, in fact, as I was approaching a blind intersection on my way to the local public library, I heard a motor behind me rev up, as if the vehicle's owner intended to pass me in the scant thirty feet that separated us from the stop sign. Putting myself squarely in the lane, I balanced for a moment, waiting for a gap in the approaching vehicles before shooting down a narrow side alley. Riding squarely in the center of the alley, the impatient driver approached to within a few feet of my bicycle's rear wheel, revving his engine and making as if to pass me where there was no room to pass. Flying into the next, two-landed road (the alley ends in a yield, not a stop, sign) and barely making it in front of an approaching car, I had moved to the far right side of the lane and was approaching my next right-hand turn when I heard that same engine rev up behind me. Turning around to see what was the matter, I made eye-contact with the impatient driver, whose vehicle – a black SUV – was so close to the silver Volvo behind me that I could see neither grill nor bumper. Passing the car in front of it, the truck screeched to a halt directly next to me, restricting all north-south traffic by completely Blocking The Box, the man within it staring at me menacingly.

Turning after having made the appropriate hand-signal (I signal all turns, and am loathe to ride at night without running-lights fore and aft), I glanced back again, laughing at the impatient man and giving him a little fare-thee-well hand flick. These egregious actions caused the man to reverse his vehicle very quickly (on a one-way street, into oncoming traffic), whereupon he, with squealing tires, raced down the road toward me, screeching to a halt next to me on the sidewalk where I had taken refuge near a tall brick building. “You're a real tough-guy, eh?” the man said, pushing his finger against some sort of box on his throat. Scrambling to keep moving, I bounced down the sidewalk and started to pedal onward, glancing back and noticing the black car had a Harley-Davidson front plate. The man pulled into a gravel lane, threw open his door, jumped out, and began to stalk toward me, chest puffed up and face fixed in the tortured rictus of a man whose heart is calcified with fearful hatred. Seeing that I had bruised his ego, and knowing the human ego to be one of the most terrifying and murderous of foul things ever to grace the planes of our fair Universe, I kept moving. “You're a real tough guy, eh?” the man said again, to which I responded with a shouted, “Slow down!” The man, of course, shouted back, “You slow down!”, touching a finger to his tracheal collar before speaking, each time.

A number of things became clear to me during yesterday's altercation. First, the man's business was so inconsequential (even though he seemed in a terrible hurry) that he could take time out of his schedule to run down and harass a bicyclist who had dared to retain right of way. Second, the man considered himself more important than anyone else on the road, riding everyone's ass and generally being a poor sport about things. Third, seeing that his belly resembled a beer keg and that his throat was perforated with a plastic speaking-collar, the man had ruined his health and body by eating too much, smoking too much, and drinking too much, which had obviously filled his heart with such frustration and self-loathing as to make him a Danger To Others. And, finally, he had allowed himself to be brainwashed into thinking that roads were made for cars (or, at least, for vehicles with gasoline-combustible engines), and that roads were the domain of nothing else, causing him to menace persons who happened to have left their own homes a few moments before he did, putting them, unwittingly, in his hateful path, riding, of all fucking things, bicycles.

To persons who insist on driving cars everywhere they go (even though, of course, buying gasoline puts cash in the pockets of Saudi Arabians, who use our money to fund terrorist groups such as al-Qaida), please remember that bicyclists are simply persons who have freed themselves from the prison-like confines of internally-combustible vehicles, flinging off the foul fat-folds of sloth and moving their bodies around using only muscle power. So, dear friends, please give other persons the right of way, even if they are not burning as much oil as you are burning while out-and-about; and, of course, please share generously of our common roadways, byways, highways, paths, alleys, lanes, and streets; but, most importantly, keep a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and your head on a fucking swivel. Mahalo.

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a federal browbeating, et al.

The following story is true.

Thai Airways flight 794 from Bangkok banks away from the approach vector that planes coming from the west usually take when landing at LAX. It passes over Hollywood and around Downtown to approach the airport from the east. The stewardesses are tense, and the mood is hostile within the plane. It lands well, all gears touching smoothly, nary a flutter along its long axis. It is nine fifteen in the evening. We taxi for an unusual amount of time as police cars escort us with lights blazing to a secluded section of asphalt.

For nearly an hour we sit. About half of the passengers are from south-east Asia. Elderly Indian women make frequent sorties to the restrooms, but any time a man threatens even to rise from his seat, the stewardesses – thin, elegant Thai women – scream at him to sit back down. People begin to ask questions, demanding to know what is going on, requesting an explanation for our unexpected and unexplained delay. I am near the rear of the aircraft; I have not used the restroom in more than seven hours. I am in considerable need of making water since I purposefully dehydrate myself during flights to cut down on disturbances to my neighbor, a strange older man whose English sounds non-native. I find myself digging around in my right cargo pocket (where I always keep a pen and at least one permanent marker), but not knowing what is going on, I pull out and switch on a portable gaming device.

Finally we begin to deplane. I bow to the stewardesses on the way out, thanking them in their native tongue like a good boy who has learned his manners. Dozens of U.S. federal agents line the mobile staircase asking each man as he passes to see his passport. "Are you Russian?" one agent asks me as he scans my documents rapidly. I say no. A helicopter flares its rotors low over our heads. We pass through a phalanx of airport police, TSA agents, and people wearing FBI counter-terrorism jackets, to board buses that we hope will take us to the distant terminals.

I am in the back of the third and last bus to depart. My hair is poorly kept and bleached nearly blond from three weeks of Thai sun and surf. My clothes, of which I only brought one pair, are ripped and stained with sweat. The tattoos on my arms and chest are clearly visible. My bag, a cheap Nike knockoff purchased in Chiang Mai, is also ripped. We are packed tightly in the bus with TSA agents sewn heavily among us. The men are hyper-aware, scanning faces with wide and greedy eyes, looking frantically from person to person as if they were trying to puzzle out who is looking at whom, changing location at times to get a better view of whomever they are trying to find. A man behind me asks when we will have the chance to use the bathrooms, as we were not allowed to on the plane, and as there are none on the bus. The TSA agents answer sporadically, sometimes not at all. Having no knowledge of what is going on, and knowing that speaking unsolicited to law enforcement is a bad, bad idea (because it is the job of law enforcement officers to punish citizens, not to help them), I stand quietly between a short man with bad breath and the window, and enter a semi-trance so as to pass the time and to control the pressing need to void my bowels.

After nearly another hour we are allowed to leave the bus for a terminal building. Agents shout angrily as they direct us toward a bank of metal detectors, through which we pass, jostling with other passengers who are eager to board their departing flights. More agents direct us through a maze of narrow hallways into a seemingly long-abandoned waiting area. As one of the last to enter, I have no seat, but I find a space against a wall where I stand at parade rest (legs shoulder-width apart and arms clasped above the buttocks). My torn bag is at my feet. I reenter the semi-trance, eyes fixated on the far wall. I do my own time, as they say in prison, minding my own business as would a good boy who has learned his manners. FBI agents rush back and forth clutching clip-boards and generally stirring the mood into a lather. They are normal looking, often unattractive people you would never be able to pick out of a crowd.

A tall man with a concave chest approaches me, sweating under his counter-terrorism wind-breaker. "Did you notice anyone acting strange on board? Was anyone visibly upset?" he asks me. "I can't say I did, sir," I respond. "Someone wrote a threat against the airline in one of the bathrooms," he says. "So I need to know if you saw anything suspicious." I tell him I was asleep most of the flight, and that I cannot say I saw anything. He nods and walks away. At that moment I piece together that I am suspected primarily for having done whatever was done on the plane. The realization churns my innards but the semi-trance holds, and I resume to wait patiently for whatever is going on to end. I ramp up my peripheral vision and enter Type 81, that state in which I see everything but appear to look at nothing.

A graceful, lithe female approaches from my right. I allow her to pass before I glance at her perfectly-shaped rear end. She talks with the concave-chested agent who had approached me initially and glances over as I am staring inappropriately at her buttocks through the fabric of her immaculately tailored gray suit. "Would you come with me?" Concave Chest says. "We need to ask you some additional questions." I am led to a secluded area piled high with rows upon rows of discarded airport seating. The TSA agent, whose name I shall not here mention, introduces himself politely. He asks me about my life, about my travels in Thailand, about my primary source of income, about my activities on the flight, about any past military training, and about where and how often I went to the bathroom on the plane. I answer his questions. We chat amicably. After nearly twenty minutes, the lithe female with the perfect ass walks over, waiting until we have concluded our pleasantries.

"Where did you get those tattoos. Were you in the military?" she says in a condescending tone. I tell her that I wasn't, but I do not explain why I have an American eagle and a Shield of the Union inked boldly into my left forearm. (It is because I love my country, because I am a Son of the American Revolution, and because I consider myself a patriot.) "Why are you so calm, and why were you standing against the wall like that," she asks. I explain that my father was a Navy man who taught me how to stand correctly. I explain that I strive always to act like a gentleman. I also mention that, as an unofficial American ambassador to the Thai nation, I had been on my best behavior throughout the trip. "Oh, well, sweet tatts," she says before turning on a heel and storming off.

"Do you have any writing instruments on your person?" my TSA guardian asks. I remove me permanent marker and pens from my pocket. "Oh," he says upon seeing the marker. A wide and joyous smile threaten to fill his features. "You had better sit down and get comfortable – this is going to take a while." The bathrooms are quite close to where I am sitting, but I decide against asking to use them. The agent asks if I have had any trauma in my life recently, and I tell him that my father died not long ago. "You must still be pretty upset about that," he says. I tell him No, but he does not seem convinced. Soon thereafter, Concave Chest and a uniformed airport policeman walk over and ask me to follow them.

I round the partition to a sea of staring faces. Every single person who was on the plane, flight crew included, is staring at me. Some are staring with the after-affects of shock, but most are looking at me as I were wearing a necklace strung with severed baby's feet. Flanked by federal agents, I fix my gaze on a point at the far end of the long hallway and walk calmly and steadily toward it. A unmarked door opens, and I am led into a large room. Two burly and armed men sit along a far wall with their elbows on their knees looking at me with poorly-veiled bloodlust. "This way," someone says, leading me into a smaller, glass-walled room that sits within the larger room. Seven FBI counter-terrorism agents are waiting for me, including Lithe Female. I sit in a cheap folding chair at a cheap folding table.

“This is federal property," Concave Chest says, gesturing at the four walls. "This room is wired for recording, and we can search anything we want, here." "Fine by me," I say, shrugging. Since I have not yet passed through customs, I know that I am in international waters where I have few, if any, rights. I stay calm and control my breathing with the remnants of the semi-trance. My mind is utterly still and focused to a razor sharpness. Every passing second bears tremendous weight, and as the agents lean toward me with pens poised above notepads, I relax in the knowledge that I have done nothing wrong.

Concave Chest says his name and the name of another agent, a short, ugly man whose face looks like that of a Tolkien troll. I force myself not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, since my mind is constantly comparing what is going on to every beautiful, dashing agent I have ever seen grill a suspect in a spy movie. "Do you have a camera?" Concave Chest asks. I give him my camera, and as he is rifling through it, the Tolkien-Troll-looking man asks me which cities I visited in Thailand, with whom I associated, where I stayed, if I met any shady or unsavory characters, and if I participated in any sort of military training. I answer truthfully while forcing myself not to look over at the three agents who are emptying my torn Nike bag and carefully fingering its seams.

"You have a lot of pictures of graffiti and tagging in this camera," Concave Chest says. "Thailand is chock full of amazing street art," I say. "I never would have thought that there would be so much beautiful graffiti there." My zeal has little impact on their stony demeanors. "Have you ever done any tagging yourself?" he asks. I say that I have not. "Are you willing to answer that under polygraph?" I say that I am ready take a lie detector test at any time. "Well, the thing is,” he says, “we have your customs declaration here, and, while we're not handwriting experts (those guys will be here in the morning), we do see a fair bit of this sort of thing, and, again, we're going to have to run this past the handwriting guys, but the way you wrote the letters O and P on your customs form is very similar to the Os and the Ps used to write the note. Again, we're not experts, but when the Os and Ps are similar, it pretty much indicates a match."

"OK," I say, nodding and waiting for them to proceed. "Did he have any writing implements on him?" Concave Chest says. Before I can answer, my cordial TSA guardian pulls my marker from his pocket and places it on the table. Concave Chest's face lights up with excitement. "So," he says, "we have the pictures of graffiti in your camera, and we have your marker, and we have the handwriting match on your customs declaration. It would be best for you to just get this over with now. If you admit to anything later on, before a judge, things will go far worse for you. So, you should probably just get it over with now."

Variables flash through my mind and I think, 'Shit, if I mess this up, I am looking at three to five years in a maximum security federal prison. Just. Stay. Calm.' I nod and look around at the assembled agents leaning forward expectantly. Concave Chest repeats himself, again telling me that I should just get it over with now before I reach a judge. "Look," I say, pointing at the items on the table, the camera and the marker and the form. "I realize that all these things probably indicate to you that I am somehow involved with..." (here I pause, for the agents have all perked up and leaned forward and strained their ears to hear exactly what I am about to say, thereby indicating just how important my next words are) "… that I am somehow involved in Whatever Happened On The Plane, but I refuse to confess to a crime I did not commit."

"That is your right, here in America," Concave Chest says, thus enveloping me in the awesome and comforting blanket of the Constitutional protections. "Will you repeat your preceding statements under polygraph?" "Absolutely. I've been on a plane for sixteen hours, and my internal clock is way off sync,” I say, “but if you need me to polygraph tomorrow morning, at eight a.m., I shall be there. I went to the bathroom once, just once, on the right-hand side of the plane forward of my seat." "So you didn't go to the bathroom on the left-hand side of the plane?" he says. "No, I did not. I did not even set foot on the left-hand side of the plane. I was in seat number ###C. Compare the fingerprints on that seat to the fingerprints in the bathroom. You will find none of my prints in the bathroom where whatever happened occurred. You will find my prints in the bathroom nearest to my seat, on the right-hand side of the plane, and in the vicinity of that seat."

"Will you repeat these statements under polygraph?" he says. I again assert that I am ready to polygraph at any time. Again he tells me to, "Just get it over with now because it will be better for you in the long run." Again I tell him that I refuse to confess to a crime I did not commit. "As a matter of fact," I say, "take my permanent marker. Run a chemical analysis on the ink in my marker against the ink used to write the note. You will find they are not a match." I sit heavily into the chair and stare at the assembled feds while I force my breathing back to normal and the anger within me to abate.

"Well, we have your phone number, and we know where and for how long you'll be in Los Angeles, so, we'll be in touch," Concave Chest says, rising to his feet. "Do you have a criminal record?" he says, offhand. I shake my head and say No. His eyebrows rise incredulously. "Thank you all very much for your time," I say politely as I turn to follow an agent back out into the waiting area. I sit next to an elderly Japanese gentleman. He looks at me and says, "What is going on?" "They think I am a terrorist," I say, smiling. He laughs until he shakes in his seat.

I take a bottled water from a passing pushcart and, after a few minutes, walk with the rest of the passengers through a warren of forgotten passageways to the customs area. While I am waiting in line (and getting stared at constantly by hovering federal agents), my unpleasant neighbor during the flight keeps giving me strange looks from his line a few lines down. But before I can make anything of his glances I am called to the customs desk, where a stone-faced agent dutifully stamps my passport. Having no checked luggage, I walk calmly through the baggage retrieval area toward the exit, but, halfway there, my former TSA guardian, he whose name I shall not mention, stops me short. "You don't have any checked baggage? You traveled alone, to Thailand, without checked baggage?" "I like to travel light," I say, "it cuts down on time and all but eliminates the likelihood of airline error." He attempts to engage me in conversation, but I have had enough; I keep my answers short and my eyes fixed on the ground. It is nearly one in the morning. He bids be farewell and I exit into the main arrivals hall without further delay. After urinating for what seems like an eternity, I call my lawyer to let him know what just transpired. Forced to remove cash from a highly priced ATM (because both my prearranged ride and the cheap bus have stopped running), and sick of being shadowed by uniformed officers, I count my twenties, hail a taxi-cab, and speed off into the night, a free man.

p.s. If a law enforcement agent tells you to confess, claiming that it would be better for you to "Get it over with now rather than later," he or she is more than likely bluffing, he or she wants you to sacrifice your rights, he or she is your enemy and an enemy of Liberty, and he or she wants only to send you to prison. Please do not ever – EVER – forfeit your rights and protections. Thousands of good Americans have died to guarantee those rights. Educate yourself, and fight tyranny and oppression wherever they might raise their ugly heads.

p.p.s. I never received a call, and I have been not questioned nor approached subsequently.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est

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