[297] Screed City

[297]

09/02/2024 Monday. Papers box. CRISIS HQ. Ridgewood, Brooklyn/Queens.

Note: Doing a reading at KGB bar in Manhattan tomorrow if anyone is around. See flier attached. Get real for once please.

I went camping a couple days ago. Once a year I go camping, which is one time to many if you ask me. I used to love camping. I grew up in Wyoming where camping is an honored endeavor. Almost sacred. Something available to the poorest among us. All you need is a car, a tent, gas money, a sleeping bag, food, mosquito spray, sun block, extra socks, a jacket, a coat, a cooler, a rain jacket, a tarp, days off, money to pay the camping fee, wood, a portable gas stove, camping chairs, a shovel, an ax, ice, gallons of water and beer, disposable cups, plates, bowls, paper towels, toilet paper, plastic utensils, tinfoil. The list is truly endless. I mean, it used to be you'd get somebody twenty one to buy you and your buddies a case of beer, buy a few packs of Camel Wides, grab your secret stash of ditch weed and a blanket and head up to Leigh Creek for a couple days. Or wherever, The Boulder. But not anymore. And its not because we all sold out. Got weak or whatever. Camping sucks and it gets harder and harder to do with every passing year. The idea of camping never changes, but the reality of camping is a very long awakening. Its uncomfortable and miserable and unless you are camping for a very specific reason, like you are climbing a mountain or hunting a moose or something, all camping is is just a reminder of how awful life used to be before things like running water and beds were invented.

I say these words, they feel familiar coming out. I have heard this rant before. It is very common and universal. It is common and universal because it is true. I know exactly three people who actually like camping; my brother Charley, my sister Megan, who is my brothers wife, go figure, and Steve "Magic Fingers" Cuiffo. The rest of us tolerate it at best. For me, personally, my teenaged years aside, camping is a mockery. Homeless cosplay. I was joking before when I said it was for the common man. The proletariat, the hoy palloi. I am not saying it is for the rich, but if you have ever been homeless, unhoused as it were, washing your balls in a plastic bucket because you dont have a shower, if you have ever had somebody get up from the bench you are sitting on and move because you smell so horribly because you cant afford to do your laundry the idea of reconniving with nature is ludicrous. I dont think anyone truly understands how close we are to societal collapse at any moment than somebody living without a home. And then, ironically, on Labor Day everyone is like, "You know what would be great? Lets pretend what its like to be really poor for a couple days!" And then what? Thats what really galls me. Really, and shame on you! Shame on all of you! What gets me is that there is an opportunity to take a look around, and say, "You know what? Housing is a human right! This is fucking hard what we are doing here! Come on, folks! Lets get involved!"

I am not stupid, exactly. I am foolish, sure, but not stupid. I have the same thoughts as everyone else the second I get back from camping: Take a shit, take a shower, brush my teeth and forget it ever happened. It is easy to forget hardships the second they are over. Which speaks to the human spirit. We call all go through anything just as long as we know that one day the pain will be over. The suffering will be over. But when you dont know the suffering will ever be over, well, let me get to the real subject of this essay: The Holocaust.

Just joking. I mean, I am not joking about The Holocaust, I just think the idea of a middle aged man complaining about going camping somehow leading to an understanding of what evil things humans are capable of is pretty funny. In a sense its true, but what I already know has nothing to do with a few hours of discomfort in Upstate New York.

I wasnt always going to go camping. It was 50/50 as the bridesmaids say. The last few weeks have been slightly saucient. Between a week long trip to Wyoming with a very spicy old man who was living his best life and then consequently, due to what I can only consider hubris, leading to him landing in the hospital, and, instead of working I was in Vermont and New Hampshire, being worried and doing my best to be helpful, the idea of driving for two hours from Queens to Pleasant Valley, New York did not seem very appealing. And like all things unappealing, it was New Jersey that made the choice for me.

Professor Curly loves the beach. Because she is a freckle on two legs, I find this hilarious. Its like if a turtle loved stock car racing. We have been together for nearly a decade now and I have never seen her with a tan. I am squinting and holding my hand up to block the sunlight reflexively as I think about her alabaster skin exposed while she dives into the ocean right now. Just the other day she went to the doctor to do a check up and the doctor was like, "You have such great veins!" She told me this afterwards. Bragging. I said, "Your veins are just normal, Tuna, what she meant was that you are translucent." She scoffed at me and said, "Nuh-uh! I asked if she wanted to take and x-ray and she said there was no need to, see! She drew me a picture!" She handed me a chalk drawing of a skeleton. I didnt know if I was looking at an x-ray or some Halloween decorations.

We drove to the Jersey Shore to meet some friends. Professor Curly was conflicted because she wasnt sitting in front of her computer doing things that I dont even know what they are. Modern work confuses the hell out of me. As a carpenter. She was feeling guilty because her father was still in the hospital. He wasnt dying though. His hubris was not terminal this time. There was only so much she could do and taking a moment for herself seem perfectly legitimate to me. New Hampshire is a five hour drive from Queens. We could go to the Jersey Shore twice, if the traffic was good, before we could make it to the hospital he was recovering at. Not only that, but the poor guy kind of spent most of his life either sitting down here, or there, or lying around, or watching things or reading things. I mean, he is a hilarious dude that is quite fun to be around. His last thing before we left New Hampshire and drove back to the city was telling us the nurses were giving him showers topless. And then he picked up the phone and ordered two slices of cheesecake from the cafeteria.

We went to the beach. We hung out with friends. Nobody was poor or unhoused. There was a swimming pool in the back yard. We watched Brewster’s Millions. It was pleasant and fun. Nice even. The ocean was salty and the next day we drove back to Queens and Professor Curly went right back to work doing whatever the hell she does. Nothing that involves hearing protection or a fall arrest.

Her guilt, though, unnecessary, is different with respect to me and my guilt. I work by the minute. In a few days I am going to get on a plane and fly down to Florida and get on a cruise ship and do god knows what for five days and then fly back to the city. Right now I have almost nothing else going on. And this camping trip, the thing that happens once a year, the thing that should happen less than once a year if you ask me and the bridesmaids, is something that I have no excuse not to go to. Especially if you consider the fact that my teenaged kid will be there. Especially if you consider that fact that the same amount of travel is necessary as going to the Jersey Shore. I would be an asshole if I didnt go. I would regret it if I did not go. There was no excuse for me not going. And because I was saucient before, I was saucient when I chose to force myself to go.

I remembered what it was like camping as a teenager. I packed an extra pair of socks and a clean shirt. My electric toothbrush and two pillows and a blanket. I stopped for gas and bought a twelve pack of corporate Ticklers by myself because I am quite a few years older than twenty one. I didnt buy any Camel Wides, but I did ask the man behind the counter how things were going. He said, "I don't know, its fucking slow as shit. Nobodys been coming around all week. Its weird." I told him it was a holiday, and that I was here. He didnt care. He was securely annoyed. I loved it though. His attitude. It was one of those things that actually only happens in New York. He was clearly the son of immigrants. Or not. Maybe, like me, he came out east from somewhere in the west, like Wisconsin, but he spoke like a sailor and had an accent. And it was good, and this idea that American culture is somehow superseded by immigrants is pure bullshit. America is America because America is America. I, personally, love America because of the possibilities. We are a nation of possibilities. And, artistically, the American flag is top notch. Looking-wise. We have a good flag. I think we have a good looking flag.

I pledge allegiance

To the flag

Of the United States of America

And to the republic

For which it stands

et cetera and et cetera

The camping was good. Okay even. Kind of. An amazing thing happened. It was quite fun. When I pulled into the campground there was a baseball team lineup of good friends who didnt expect me to show up. We hugged and told each other, "Good game." Steve "Magic Hands" Cuiffo spent hours trying to make fire with wet logs. Tacos were orchestrated and two teenaged boys helped me make tortillas, one of them kept telling me, "We're cooked, bro." Whatever that means.

We might be cooked, bro. It is possible, but I am feeling optimistic. Like a fart in a skillet, camping is lousy enough that maybe collectively, as a society, we will avoid it at all costs in the future and instead just go to New Jersey when necessary.

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