The Propagation

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May 15, 2005

laawndri

Sometimes—and this is not the first time I’ve picked up this thread—it’s simply the little seeming contradictions that are the high, the unexpectednesses, the unfamiliar combo meal, the image not yet worn and tready. Like what? Oh…I don’t know…like…a crackhead—yes, cracked out throughout, as the motto goes—doing his laundry. And then at home, hanging his shirts with snappy, deliberate concern. And then attending to the bed, shaking out the sheets over the mattress, smoothing out the wrinkles with an open palm, his lighter-torn and -discolored thumb catching on the nap. It’s kind of tender, isn’t it?

But really. That is certainly not why I smoke crack—to generate/fabricate/facilitate these odd mixes—okay, I probably do smoke for a complex nexus of reasons realized and subconscious, and this little fringe, if you’re taking every little thing into account, must surely be suffocating somewhere in that dog pile, sure. But I smoke first, always, and forever because I enjoy it. By ‘it,’ I mean that feeling.

However: the lovely little contradictions are, I think, a major reason why I’m writing, documenting, yea, even…uh…blo…g..g.i…..n.g…. Those contras, my little lovelies, and this whole whole enterprise, for their gracing it, tuck right in neatly with one of my major…tenets…beliefs…pet peeves…points of contrarianism…issues with people and the world, helpers toward understanding and accepting, preventing and educating, waging a global nuclear peace over oceans and ‘round again…. And that is, put simply, that the world is so black and white as you think. It’s such a complicated world. The norm is not as normal as you might think. The possibilities are more numerous than we had inventoried. And they are more eager to be recognized and taken than a puppy in the window. And that, above all else and in the final analysis, There but for the grace of God go I.

We can’t afford to be smug. Anything can happyen [stet] to anyone. Everyone is capable of everything. It’s titillating and frightening as hell. Because it applies not just to the person bumping shoulders with you on the trainm but it applies to you as well. And it applies not just to you, but it applies to the person Bumpy Bump as well. And your husband, your mother, you hero, your daughter, your barber, and the zookeeper that picked up the drippley Styrofoam hot chocolate cup you dropped after you in the Natural Recreated Riparian Zone, thus saving the frog-billed tufty the cup’s sure lodgement in her throat, subsequent death, and then, of course, the extinction of the species on your hands.

Okay, I don’t want to get carrieder awayer, and I definitely don’t want to lose you, dear. You get the point. And just in case, the point is stop being so sure, don’t be so quick to make a judgement, your well guarded opionions don’t deserve that so lofty a level of cherishment from you—cut them down to size! If you can’t always see both sides of the story, you’re not seeing the whole, big picture. It’s an earthstill that should rustle the bejeebies up from out of the oil pans shoe’ed up under our doily-draped souls, because the Earth is under a constant quake, a continual collective shiver-me-timbers, a tooth-to-toenail trembling at the terrifying truth. Do you see that here, long long ago, we decimated stereotypes, assumptions, cliches, and so on in the Hickory Farms beef and cheese sampler. Smashed. Not that I’m the first-ever white-collar crackhead, I know. Still.

I work to undercut always, always; it’s the asshole position on the team. But the flipside of that is that I’m always rooting, cheering, bet-making, and leering for the underdogs. Hmmm….Always the devil’s advocate, always root for the underdog. Interesting. Of course, the devil is the underdog in traditional Judeo-Christian faiths and, even if only to serve the purposes of myth and metaphor, theological conceptualization. Traditional thinking is always also traditionally challenged to scared by their successive generations, in whom the trad system places suficient power, autonomy and myopia, that the underdog, you devil you, might just could pull off a last minute (yea, midnight!) at-the-buzzer, tongue out and all a-swagger, some-nappy-headed-nigger-guard-all-up-in-your-business, all-sail-no-flail beauty toss, nuthin’-but-net three pointer upset. But then again, God is God, right? What skills he lacks, particularly those in the team player category, are erased. All-powerful? Is it just that he’s spending a lot of time in the batting cages, preparing himself for his minor league debut?

Whoops, slipped off the track up there a touchy tad. Here, I have a couple quick examples that I hope will illustrate a bit of the above.
Ex.1)Mother’sMisconceptions-I never expected crack to live up the the media’s, politicians, and educator’s hype and hysteria over it. Been around that block a few too many times, there. The public’s perception (general, received) is that a user will more likely than not by a long shot, will be come addicted after the first time smoking crack. Heh. The reaction to the word crack from my open, accepting, and very drug-experienced, especially coke experience as well as ecstasy, and guitless about it, too, is either a dismissive, scoffing laugh or an actual anxiety-tinged shrinking back at the horror. Considering their use and abuse, I find that hypocritical and almost comically, irritatingly absurd since crack IS coke. The only thing added to it is that pathetically inert (psychoactively: in this case, it plays a catalyst part) household staple and regular on Toll-House Chocolate Chip cookie ingredient lists the world-over. My mother’s misconceptions—though admittedly neer interviewingly culled—must be in a separate catagory altogether. I’d put decent money—and the Vegas bookmakers are surely with me on this one with an ungainly but surefire spread in my favor—on her harboring the notion that when a subject smokes crack, he (yes, he) wastes no time at all falling into a slumped, near comatose position in the ratty armchair, let’s his mouth drop open and his tongue wag out, and there remains for the better part of a couple evening hours enjoying the hell out of his own inactive stupidity.

And the falsity in all three of those demos, I resist. I couldn’t help it if I tried. I’m very knee jerk like that, but not unthinkingly so, because, look, there’s no way I’m going to defend the stuff, say it’s all the good, soul-n-body-nourishing mana sent by God to let us in on his dirty little secret: that heaven is psychedelic and you better come with a flower in your hair and love in your heart, and the understanding of gravity’s role in a deep space black hole that marijuana, and only marijuana, can give you. That’s the key. No, I don’t think any of that bullshit. Crack has fucked up my life in a lot of ways. And it’s highly addictive. But it’s not as addictive as people think. It’s not so different than other people’s beloved white buddy coke. (See previous discussion wiht Michelle on the subject in which I argued that the horrific problems found among crack abusers and in crack neighborhoods is more blameable on race and class-based structural inadequacies and injustices, that if coke was sold as cheaply and easily, she’d see the same problems or nearly.) AND, bringing it around full-circle to why I like to do this writing (besides the geeky pleasure I derive from it) is to show that, sure, maybe I write some goofy things and exhibit a little ADHD in these posts, these ramblings, but I’m far from the half-unconscious, totally uncomprehending of his surroundings like the subject in her drug den diorama. < Look, one of the most noticeable handicaps or mind-alerations< So,,,,,even though I know first hand quite well the problems it can cause one, my impulse (conviction-driven as they are….) is to defend the drug, or no, more liek debunk and dispel the mistruths (what an ugly word, dear GodLordJesus). and I guess that more than just segues us nicely into my other bullet point, which now that I’m here seems to turn out to be the or nearly the same thing. Which is
Ex.2)Bi-polarPersonalPosition-Yeah. Just to recap. Drugs are bad. Crack is especially dangerous. But it’s not so bad as you think. In fact, it’s sweet and good at it’s pure (chloride-free!) heart, and it’s just us imperfect and flawed humans that can’t handle its charity and simply (can do no more than) melt at its feet (after washing them with our hair, of course).

Kind of funny that Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” came on the radio while typing that post. It’s their super-duper harshly anti-coke song. Another incongruity as far as the likes of the PMRC are concerned. I like to point: “Hey, look! Hard rocker, long-hair, gravelly voice is telling your children how bad cocaine is, how it will control you, kill you. Not glamorizing in any way. Is it?” I like it. Even though it’s calling me out. But it’s not news to me. You learn to let that stuff just slide right off. Or, I don’t know if I even had to learn it. It just does. Funny.

Posted by peligrito at May 15, 2005 5:18 PM

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