someone else now

We left early Sunday morning, just after dawn. The drive to the station was uneventful, and we arrived with a half hour to spare before our train departed. Each of us had a few discs with him, enough to play at least 18 holes. I ate first, and so they kicked in for me first, but one of the other guys ate more and therefore felt a heavier initial surge. Thankfully, we weren’t in the quiet car, because our giggles came on strong enough to make heads turn. By the time the train reached the City of Brotherly Love (and Sisterly Affection), our pupils were dinner plates greedily sucking up stray photons. We climbed up into the 30th Street station and paused briefly to marvel in wonder at its vaulted ceiling and vast marbled-clad spaces. Mere feet from the doors to the outside, the other two decided they needed to find a restroom, whereupon they went to relieve themselves. I waited for them in the hallway near the bathroom and pretended to peruse a restaurant menu while the world around me quietly exploded.

Then we were out in the wind and in the sun with our phones out trying to open applications and figure out how to get visual maps and audio guides going that would lead us to our first destination - the Sedgley Woods disc golf course. We walked, of course, following the river until we hit a police roadblock at a major intersection. At that point we turned north and left the course of the river, climbing a hill and following a shady tree-shaded trail that lead along crumbling old walls. At the top of the hill, in the middle of a field, sat a lone camping tent, which we decided not to enter. Then we almost got killed crossing a major road intersection that didn’t have a pedestrian crosswalk, climbed another hill, made a left, and arrived at our destination. We hadn’t barely figured out how to approach the first tee yet when we met a pair of local guides, two gentlemen who were smoking cabbage and knew the lay of the land. After playing 27 short holes together on the wooden urban course, we took their advice and went for fried chicken at the gas station across the road, which we ate with them, breaking bread together on a rotting park bench under a struggling tree.

With not a minute to spare we arrived at our second destination, a hip brewery in Fishtown. After touring it, I went out to photograph graffiti while my friends stayed inside and kept drinking. Once I was finished we exited into the hot afternoon sun and started for a gin distillery nearby. Along the way we ate more, of course, finishing the bag. At the gin mill we were sipping death in the afternoon when the second round kicked in, prompting us to head for the next brewery. And then the next. The day got sweaty, what with one of us hauling around two filled growlers and another of us trying to enter each abandoned building we passed along the way. We were having a bit of trouble fitting into society but finally made it back to the station with fewer than five minutes to spare, only to find that our train was delayed indefinitely. It left 45 minutes late, long enough for us to fully appreciate each contour of a gorgeous marble panel named The Spirit of Transportation (1895), by Karl Bitter, and for me to get a girl’s contact information.

She’s seeing someone else now, by the way.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

man finds calling

Having returned from a trip to the big city with a sack of powerful drugs, area whorphan Solomon Erasmus Hendrick rediscovered one of his passions in life. With cabinets full of food and a heart drained of pride, he spent nearly a whole week curled up on the couch in the living-room smoking the drugs he had purchased, eating the food he had stockpiled, and watching repeatedly the first season of a television show named Community.

While he was hiding from the brutish realities of life, he kept telling himself that he was merely taking a break from the writing and the artistic processes and that he would return to his duties once the drugs were gone. So far, on this first day Post Binge, he rose with the sun, did a full and proper yoga session, ate a light and sensible breakfast, and is now back at his desk, writing; so far, he has been able to keep his mind on his task and off his yearning for More.

For many years, Mr. Hendrick was convinced that he could only live one of two ways, either fully twisted or completely sober. The success of his recent experiment indicates that with a modicum of discipline and a shred of self-respect he can move from one mode to the next – from being creative to slacking and back to being creative – without losing himself in either process. Compared to the near-total paralysis in productivity that usually happens when he gets his hands on some drugs, recent developments indicate that maybe, just maybe, Solomon is figuring himself out. Huzzah.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

belligerence holds sway

Citing a distinct lack of threats clearly and presently endangering the wellbeing and safety of the American people, that nation's own federal government stepped into the breech. “We have all these resources just sitting around, which if we don't use, we lose,” said a spokesperson for the inaptly named Department of Justice (DoJ), who asked that her name not be used. She went on, saying, “Therefore, we shall continue to rob Americans of their liberty until the violent crime rates rise again, there's a nation-wide epidemic of carjackings, or a similar situation arises to justify spending mountains of tax dollars on our existence.”

The DoJ is ratcheting up its efforts to prosecute and imprison Ynki civilians who insist upon exercising rights granted them in the XIV Amendment to their Constitution. “I smoke weed because I decide what to do with this body,” said upstanding citizen and small business owner Dwainn Robert Whittlewood, 36, of Detroit, Michigan. “And since a judge has never banned me personally from smoking that sweet sticky weed, the fourteenth Amendment protects my right to spark it up, toke it up, and smoke it up.” The National American Association of District-Court Justices (and their Spouses), an advocacy group, approached the situation more gingerly. Said their spokesperson, 54 year-old Wailandt Jane Hoffstedt, “Our jobs depend to a large part on busting people for stupid shit like smoking or possessing marijuana. It wasn't always like this – back before the federal government launched the longest war in our history, our foolhardy War on Drugs, we used to pass judgment on people who were truly a risk to themselves, or to society. Now, though, the cottage industry consisting of parole officers, privately-run prisons, lobbyists, and overseers has become so massive that it has taken on a life of its own, constructing policy and thriving on the death of individual liberty and the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. Something has to change.”

There is no clear sign when the federal government might start protecting liberty instead of destroying it, although the courageous citizens of Colorado and Washington dealt clear blows to state-sanctioned oppression by passing laws that legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Perhaps, as some point this century, the rest of America will grow some balls and stand up the bullies in D.C. who harass us and deny us our liberty, this nation's lifeblood; we shall soon see, however, just how tyrannical our federal government has become, and just how far it will go to enforce unjust laws from bygone eras. (While researching this article, the author's trash was twice searched by federal agents, who at one point backed their car over his cat in their haste to flee direct, verbal confrontation.)

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

read this, smokers of tobacco

  Additional cigarette-smoking permits available – act now, limited numbers available. The California Department for the Restriction of Freedom (CDRF) has printed additional permits for persons seeking to smoke tobacco in public. It is illegal to simply light up, and citizens interested in sparking that cancer-stick on the street are advised to initiate the proper paperwork necessary to start the arduous process of obtaining one of these permits.

  In a press release issued today the CDRF stated that it restricts the liberty of the tobacco-smoking population in this fashion in hopes of silencing complaints from marijuana smokers, those violent and vociferous vagrants who grovel gladly before the CDRF for permission to pursue their Happiness. To insure the domesticTranquility and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to all citizens equally, smokers of any type of tobacco must henceforth obtain permits before they shall be allowed to smoke in public their preferred substance.

  The elected leaders of the State of California and the appointed heads of the Department for the Restriction of Freedom began using the permit system when they discovered they could deliver vast profits to their prison-owning cronies by outlawing the use of addictive substances other than those sold or regulated by the State itself (prescription medication, alcohol, sugar). In addition to printing this batch of new tobacco-smoking permits, the CDRF is accepting applications from individuals seeking to drink coffee in public, from people wishing to gain or to lose body-weight, to cut their own hair, or to prepare their own food, and from citizens seeking to possess and to read books. Act now – limited numbers available.

  - reporting for The Violent & Vociferous Vagrant is HELLO MY NAME IS WHORPHAN

Spes Mea In Ratio Est | 場黑麥