issue66doyouknowthat

                                                      ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM

***BIO*** Joel Van Noord: Author is a man doing things. He is concerned with action and results. If you are interested taking things apart, he can be reached at polyrgam@hotmail.com

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DON'T YOU KNOW THAT YOU'RE TOXIC

by Joel Van Noord

   On May 13th, 2005 I flew to Los Angeles with my dad. We drove out from the regional city of LAX and south to Laguna Beach, I talked to him about the farce (show) with that title on MTV –he hadn't seen it.
Our lodging was the 500 dollar a night Ritz Carlton on the edge of the Pacific, where PIMCO had gathered their high-end clients, mostly those Chief Investment Officers with control of at least tens of billions of dollars; together we gathered and sipped wine.

    On a sunset veranda with a Pacific breeze I shook a short and balding man's hand. His wife was Russian-born and four inches taller than he, probably 20 pounds heavier, and 10-20 years younger. This bald man started his own investment firm that now managed some trillion dollars of others peoples' and states' monies. I shook his firm hand and I was supposed to know who he was.

    "He's been in space." My dad said and I looked back at him, still pumping his small hand. The short bald man had paid the Russians 20 million dollars for an orbit or two in near-space.

     Dumfounded. So many questions but the mouth only drops a little as the brow furrows and looks disgusted, intrigued, shocked, and bewildered… Absurdity boils the brain with dank presumptions.

     This powerful hand-shake-man dropped my calloused fingers and turned to another caveat of conversation. My window closed for asking the perfect question to a man who spend 20 million to launch into space with the Russians. The only impression I left was my ambiguous look.

     The key-note speaker was retired Army General, Secretary of State, Colin Powell. The night before was Jay Leno.

     Picture: Grandpa Powell, sitting by his pool in a beach-chair, shirt off with a Foreign Affairs magazine, waiting for his grandkids to show up. He picks up the phone. It's Spain. There's an island in the west Mediterranean with Spain's name on it. They observed the Moroccans, though, with a flag claiming it in the European tradition, and now it's in dispute. Spain calls Grandpa Powell. "They took our island."

    Barren rocks. Not even a goat. "We need you to draw up a peace agreement." Spain says to Grandpa Powell.

     Long story short, Grandpa Powell does and the king of Morocco's out in the desert and they find him and it's a humorous anecdote. The rich, mostly republican crowd laughs. But let's get serious folks, I paraphrase, America's still respected in the world. Still sought as a leader and a voice. The administration is not the country. Where the tension comes from is a clash of personalities from the administration. It's temporary. But in the meantime, Grandpa Powell, I think, what's happening in the meantime... It may only be my youth that screams with such urgency. Screams that things need to change and need to change now! …It's also scientific evidence, for the most part.

*    *    *

     On July 11th, 2005, a handful of misfit, university educated, British terrorists drove -or took a metro- south to one of the postcard, economic, social, capitals of the world: London, and rocked four tube stations… death, hysteria, and a stoic British American-esque reply that had something to do with: 'what's up fuckers, remember the IRA? Do you remember our history, colonialism? We'll do what the fuck we want, when we want, and how we want.'

     Ok. So I was reading Chomsky at the time and resigned to the idea (through Chom's insatiable drive for what decent people call truth and 'successful' people call, 'collateral damage') that England is just America's little buddy, their "junior partner" in the rueful words of one senior British official.

     Anyway. the price of plane tickets to the UK had dropped precipitously as the American tourist cowered in fear of another 9.11. "We won't let them change our way of life," I heard Blair, eerily familiar with that message .

      I bought a ticket with my friend, coincidentally an Arab-American who finds his home and roots in American hip hop; a kid from Detroit, rocking Eminem and M[other] F[ucking] Doom with a Tigers cap twisted and pants dropped low on his waist and so forth. He was my friend because he was smart and we shared the most in common. We'd gone to the University of Michigan together and he majored in Philosophy; we'd discuss Sartre and Nietzsche and walk our campus in elaborate discussion, then traverse the bars in pursuit and practice of our existential thought. His name was Hussein and he'd periodically receive a chorus of SADDAM from Big Ten frat boys –I don't have to make this stuff up.

     Tickets were only 225 for a round trip, out of Dulles airport, near where I was working at the time; it was 450 for a flight to San Francisco where my brother worked as a trauma surgeon. Foolish not to go with those prices. We ended up buying a package with 5 nights in a Holiday Inn and round-trip airfare for 450. Near Russell Square where the tube was temporarily derailed.

     The most vivid memory of our short jaunt and the terrorized aftermath of London was in a bar when I first introduced my Arab friend to Absinthe and we were tossing them back with an irresponsible, American abandon; watching as thick cataract-like layers developed over our perception and caused everything to take on a rather comical and safe aura; like we were wearing thick rubbery suits and everything was padded for us to gently bump into and experience.

     It was these Dutch South-African girls we somehow met and ended up deeply into a conversation with. These gorgeous girls –tall and blonde with blue eyes, ancestors directly shooting their lineage to slave ships and colonialization and the worst humanity had to offer. But, they were nice and one said:

     "You could have the best standard of living in the world. If you only wanted to." This 5-7 Dutch girl kept saying. The 'if you only wanted to', was interesting to me. The words were like a splash of cold water that sobered me up a little, at least enough to become cognizant of my surrounding. Enough to slow down my racing brain.

     "Baby, I do want to." I pleaded, well aware of how silly I was.

     "No, I'm serious." She'd repeat in her unique bottom-of-the-world accent. "You American's have such great potential, you could all have health insurance and all that. Cuba, a third world country, has better coverage for their nation."

     I didn't know whom she thought she was arguing with, preaching to the star pupil of the choir –so to speak. I mean, did she see the chocolate tint of my hip-hop friend? "400 billion a year." I told her in a voice that was stealing a little British.

     She looked on, confused.

     "Think about that, counting the annual defense budget and Iraq and Afghanistan… and soon Iran and Syria!" I slurred, "Around a billion a day… we spend. On huge guns and helicopters and soldiers and night vision and Hummers and tanks and nukes and ammunition and helmets and B-52's and combat boots and bombs and missiles and shells and… all that shit. Isn't that hilarious?"

     "Hilarious?" She leaned back pondering. It obviously wasn't, especially from her vantage tucked down at the bottom of the dark continent, clear from the dizzying lights of endless civilization and its blessings. It was sad and depressing. But when you live under the umbrella of such blatant disregard for humanism, sanity, and an environmentally sustainable world, you develop a callous, apathetic shield against the absurdity.

     "But, what about our musicians and artists?" I asked her. "They're the best. Right? I haven't heard one non-American pop-song yet in London."

     She had to agree with that, the only British musicians they played were Sting and Coldplay and they were more American now than anything else now.

     "That's just because you're just such a fat bastard country and have so much more money to put that shit on tv and radio and plaster our cities in propaganda." She explained.

      I laughed because just that day I was riding an escalator up the tunnels of the Tube and saw 50 Cent, the hack that he is, sitting back with his feet up on the control panels of a studio advertising his new brand of shoes. SHOES! He's an MC. Not a basketball player… but in these America-days what's the difference. "I don't really like it either." I leaned back, admitting temporary defeat.

     "But you American's used to be a hope for the world, democracy and popular movements and all that, being able to change. And now all you do is fuck with everybody and make the world a more dangerous place. George Bush is more dangerous than Saddam Hussein ever was." She told me and I listened with a distant Absinthe smile.

      "I'll let you in on a secret." I leaned in, almost dropping my heavy head on her massive breasts. I inhaled and she smelled delicious. "Well… since you mentioned Cuba… It's been US policy for nearly 60 years now to one day get Cuba, turn it into Puerto Rico… and we got that embargo and it's comical, the massive US afraid of tiny little Cuba, smaller than Miami. But Cuba and Castro are threatening because… I'll tell you. This is official US documents released from… years ago, under the Freedom of Information Act, 'Castro is like a virus, his idea of "taking matters into your own hands and having social change in one generation" is dangerous and could spread throughout Latin American causing…' freedom for them… problems for us." I stumbled through it, but impressed myself nonetheless recalling the speech in the state I was.

      "And democracy?" I continued, swaying on my feet, leaning close to her porcelain-like face, "At least spreading it. That's another myth. In Latin America and the Caribbean, especially Guatemala and Haiti, whenever there is a democratically elected president, we enter the country and support some right wing coup to overthrow him and install a friendly dictatorship."

     She shook her head. I think I surprised her. She'd wanted to tell me something about my great country and I let her, then I took her hand and we jumped off the deep-end together. "You could just have such a high standard of living if you only chose to." She said again, re-focused. As if my speech threatened to overwhelm both of us into a state of hopeless stupor.

      "You got to remember who America is, baby, it's not American's, who are steadily losing jobs and earning less than they did in the 70's. America is the richest 1% of the population which owns 50% of the stocks and 40% of the wealth and the richest 10% who own almost everything else. America is a taxpayer subsidized faceless corporation, with workers in Mexico and India earning pennies, keeping its money in the Cayman Islands and their strategic headquarters on the outskirts of emptying urban areas.... That's America, baby." I said feeling good about our conversation. I thought for sure I'd be in her white Afrikaan panties.

     Then I turned and pulled the shoulder of my Arab friend, brining him to where he stood under my shoulder, "this is American." I said and pointed at his startled face, squeezing his shoulder into mine. The stupid brown bastard that he was, like me, with a marginal job and no health insurance and little job security.

      It was too funny. I couldn't help laughing at my own greeting-card statement and let out a few stinking belts of Absinthe-laughter. The girls just looked at us, smiling at them, as I held lamely to the shoulder of my best friend and his Arab, hip-hop personality.

South African boyfriends soon arrived and put their hands on their girls' shoulders and smiled wide at me and my fellow American as we nodded and walked away. I stumbled onto the dance floor as a DJ-mixed version of Britney Spears began blaring out of the speakers, "…you know that your toxic."

Aug. 2006