How the Oppressor Expresses Remorse

Who says the oppressor doesn’t have a conscience? Evidence abounds of his attempts to express remorse and make amends to those he fucks over. But it’s subtle because the oppressor is like a spouse abuser. He apologizes not with words but with gestures. The spouse abuser beats the hell out of you and then buys you flowers. The oppressor fucks you over completely and then eventually acknowledges your nobility by allowing shit to be named in your honor.

The oppressor must really feel awful about how he fucks over American Indian tribes because look at all the shit that's named as a tribute to them. It’s everywhere. There’s Winnebago motorhomes, Tillamook brand cheese, Shasta soda pop, etc., etc., etc. There are also natural wonders, like bodies of water, named to honor tribes. How about Lake Erie and Lake Huron? (However, the oppressor continues to insist that the largest of the Great Lakes remains named in honor white people: Superior.) The oppressor must feel especially shitty about fucking over the Shasta tribe because they have a soda pop and a mountain named after them.

But notice how it doesn’t work that way for cripples. Yep, the oppressor fucks over cripples on a daily basis as well, but we receive no such symbolic restitution. Now in all fairness to the oppressor, cripples don’t have tribes, which makes it a lot harder to figure out how to name shit in honor of us. The closest thing cripples have to tribes are diagnoses. Instead of Apache, Cherokee and Sioux, we have Muscular Dystrophy, Spina Bifida and Osteogenesis Imperfecta. And nobody goes to the deli and says, “Gimme a pound of Polio brand cheddar.” Nobody spends a romantic honeymoon on the soothing shores of Lake Cerebral Palsy.

But why not? Could it be that when it comes to fucking over cripples, the oppressor feels no remorse? Or could it be that the oppressor hasn’t even thought it through that far? Maybe fucking over cripples is such a matter-of-fact constant in the oppressor’s daily routine that it hasn’t even crossed his mind that his treatment of us might officially qualify as “fucking over” and thus deserving of amends.

Or maybe it’s just a matter of marketing. Maybe there are no Fibromyalgia brand motorhomes because cripple tribes are not perceived as tribes of honor and pride. Cripple tribes are perceived as tribes of shame. And nobody wants to associate their product with that. But is that not still the fault of the oppressor? Did he not create the concept of cripple shame for his own fun and profit?

My self-esteem will not improve until I see something named in tribute to a cripple tribe. Just one thing. It doesn’t have to be anything big. It can be a pair of Lou Gehrig’s Disease brand shoe laces. I won't be picky about it. It’s the thought that counts.




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Send a Gay Cripple to Washington

It’s was the mid 1990s or thereabouts. It was Anna, my late first wife, and me. And Mark was with us. He was an itinerant activist. Tall and thin with long hair halfway down his back. He probably wore jeans with the knees worn away like he always did. He was a vegan, a cancer survivor. It seemed like every weekend he attended some “grassroots” fundraiser of some sort. And this weekend we went with him to a fundraiser so a group of gay cripples could send some people to Washington. I believe the event was in the backroom of a bar. And there was a silent auction. I know how these “grassroots” silent actions work. I’ve been a part of many a one. Some people hustle up donations from their neighborhood mom and pops. And so you end up with a lot of gift certificates from laundry mats, dry cleaners and liquor stores.

One of the auction items at the fundraiser for gay cripples was from a store called Mexican Folk Arts. Anna put in a bid for that. Mexican Folk Arts was a new place just a few blocks down the street from where we lived. She figured she could get something cool with a gift certificate from there. Another auction item was a coupon good for a free weekend at the Melrose Hotel. I wondered who the hell hustled up that donation. The Melrose Hotel was a fleabag flophouse. Weekly and daily rates. I'd like to see the look on the face of the poor sucker who won that prize when he shows up with his suitcase at the Melrose Hotel.

So after a potluck supper and some speechifying, it was time to announce the winners of the silent auction. “And the Mexican Folk Arts winner is—“

Anna! She was excited. She rolled her wheelchair up to claim her gift certificate. But the auctioneer instead reached under the card table and proudly presented her with a sculpture of a skunk. The sculpture was about the size of a dachshund. I think the sculpture was made of cement. It must’ve weighed at least 10 pounds. The skunk had a rough texture like cement. You could strike a match on it. And the skunk had a badass look on its face, like it was staring you down. It was in full attack mode, its tail raised like a curled plume, like a question mark.

“And the winner of the free weekend at the Melrose Hotel is---“

Me! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? How the hell did that happen? Mark leaned over and told me he felt bad that nobody wrote in a bid so he put me down for ten bucks.

So those were the souvenirs we took home from the send-a-gay-cripple-to-Washington fundraiser: a cement skunk and a coupon for a free weekend at a flophouse.

But it’s amazing when you think about it. When cripples go to Washington, we’re fighting against assholes that, when they need to buy politicians, hold fundraisers where people pay $10,000 for bacon and eggs. And the silent auction items are original Van Goghs.

But somehow, the cripples who go to Washington have managed to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed and a whole lot more. So whatever we’re doing, it works, so far. I don’t know how or why it works but who cares? It works.




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Baby Chick Ass Wipes

Well hell, now that the election is over, I’m going for it, goddammit! I’m going for it all!

And I don’t give a sweet flying fuck what anybody thinks! Why should I? I got this great business idea not long ago. It was a brilliant idea but it was vulgar. I held back moving forward on my business idea because I thought maybe it was just too vulgar to fly. But after that election, shit, I feel like nothing’s too vulgar anymore! Vulgar won big from coast to coast. Vulgar is cool. Vulgar is hip. Vulgar is chic. The more vulgar the better. If you’re not a graceless, self-indulgent, pathologically self-absorbed prick, you ain’t shit.

The people have spoken! So fuck everything. I’m going for it! I see now that the reason my business idea is so beautifully brilliant is precisely because it’s so beautifully vulgar. So I’m investing all my money in live baby chicks. And at just the right moment, I’ll kill them. Now before anybody gets all blubbery and outraged about killing baby chicks, I’ll have you know that I plan to kill them humanely. I’ll inject them with honey or something. I don’t know. I’ll figure that part out later.

And then I’ll immediately pack the freshly-killed baby chicks into special refrigerated containers that’ll look like fancy hat boxes. And I’ll quickly ship the dead baby chicks off to the richest people on earth, so they can wipe their asses with them.

Yep, then we’ll all know a truly classy bathroom when we see one. A servant stands outside the entrance and opens a hat box.

“Baby chick, madam?”

“Are they fresh?”

“Oh most definitely, milady. They were flown in this morning.”

So then the rich shitter carefully selects just the right baby chick, maybe two, maybe three. It’s okay. Servants are sworn to secrecy. After performing her duty, madam feels the luxurious stroke of baby chick down, so exquisitely sort and absorbent. So deliciously vulgar. But most rewarding is the rush of superiority she gets from exerting her Biblical dominion over the animals.

I’ll mark up the price of my baby chicks a thousand percent, maybe even ten or twenty thousand percent and I bet the rich fucks will still happily pony up. Because apparently the way to get ahead in the new world order is to be the most vulgar shithead of all. They won’t want to be left behind.

And soon I’ll be more rich than any of them. So fuck it! I’m going for it! Who cares anymore?



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As Long as I'm Still Entertainable

I doubt that I’ll ever reach a state where I think life is not worth living. Because to me, the purpose of life is to be entertained. Even if you’re and entertainer, the person you are ultimately entertaining is yourself. There would be no point to being an entertainer if you didn’t find entertaining others to be entertaining.

That’s how humans are. That’s all we’re doing here. We’re all just trying to be entertained. Life consists of those moments when we find ourselves entertained and all the stuff in between. The blessed life is the thoroughly entertained life.

That’s why I feel sorry for the bungee jumper types. Something about them creeps me out. They’re not happy unless they’re jumping off some high cliff in Cypress. It must be sad to be so hard to entertain. I hope I’m never that way. On the other hand, I also feel kind of creeped out when I see nursing home people sitting around the day room playing bingo or something. It seems like those poor folks are clawing more desperately for a nugget of entertainment than the bungee jumpers. I hope I’m never that way either.

I find a lot of things to be entertaining so hopefully that will help me handle whatever bullshit the future may hold. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to give up and pull the plug until I’ve reached a state of utter and complete unentertainability, which means there is no entertainment left in my future. I don’t think that’ll happen.

What if I end up in some state of infirmity where pretty much all I do is sleep all the time? That’s okay. I find sleep to be very entertaining. Sleeping is my favorite hobby. I’ve gotten to be really good at it.

What if I have to eat through a stomach tube? Now that’s a tough one because food to me is vastly, wildly, endlessly entertaining. The prospect of never tasting food again would be pretty depressing. But it hardly seems worth killing myself over. What the hell would that prove anyway? With whom would I be getting even? And besides, even if I have to eat through a stomach tube I still might be able to drink beer. I knew a guy who drank beer through a stomach tube. He’d just fill up the feed bag with beer. And he’d get pretty buzzed. So if I could still drink beer that would expedite the feeding tube adjustment process a lot because drinking beer is highly entertaining.

What if I’m in hospice? Well, when my aunt was in hospice they gave her what they called a “comfort kit,” which was a variety of painkillers. Taking those drugs seemed to provide her with some entertainment. It made me wonder what other stuff I would have in my comfort kit to entertain me if I was in hospice. I know for sure I’d include the movie Blazing Saddles. Even though I’ve seen that movie a million times it always cracks me up. And if I was in hospice, my hospice team would definitely include a belly dancer. I’d have her on 24-hour call in case I have an emergency need for entertainment and she can come shimmy around my sick bed.

And even if all these things cease to entertain me, I’ll probably keep going anyway just to say fuck you to death. There’s got to be something entertaining about that.


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