Prole dance and abandonment

What I wanted to say is being said

We hold ourselves hostages

Our captors: pets, plants, TVs, computers, rooms, apartments, houses, complacency, laziness, routines

Proles and philistines do the prole dance

It’s like this: one, two, three, turn, one, two, three, turn

On and on and on and on

Seconds turn to minutes and minutes to hours

We start with pirouettes on our minds

Daring free-style moves, but end up with the one, two, three, turn, one, two, three, turn

Old, and tired

Disillusioned and overweight

I don’t abandon you

I abandon cages and the captors within

Don't look up

This is for those who made the mistake of looking up

Keep your eyes on the ground, on the small pebble, on the fine grains of sand

Don’t look up; you’ll see the boulders, the hills, the mountains rising to the skies. They'll frighten you

Keep your eyes on the leaves, what nice colors and shapes! The small branches, the small capricious bush, the flowers, aren’t they neat?

Don’t look up; you'll see the sequoias, the red woods, and the immense forests of the Amazon. They'll unease you

Keep your eyes on the small details, the nuisances of your job, the grievances caused by co-workers. Worry about being on time, worry about getting off work on time

Don’t look up, you'll see the world's riches, sailing on monetary flows, and plunging right into the mouth of the insatiable beast. You'll get a glimpse of those it crushes, and you can definitely do without that sight!

Keep your eyes on your own groceries, your own TV set, your own car, your own tank of gas, your own pile of trash, your own plate of food, it’s so small!

Don’t look up; you'll see the ravaging of our planet and the indifference of the murderous millions, hypnotized. You'll see the

pollution spewed forth by the ever growing malignant tumors called cities, the trash that piles up without end, the starving children groaning under the heartless tyrants that serve us well. You might not like yourself if you do

Keep your eyes on the marvels of the time, the car – what a neat invention! The plane – wow! Computers, TVs, radios, electric lights, paper, ink – what an ingenious creature man is!

Don't look up, you'll run smack against the questions that still stand before us, and realize that the gadgets that make our life easier, don’t shed a sliver of light to reveal who we are and what we do here. You might lose your high self-esteem

Keep your eyes on your bible, the preacher, the choir, and pray to the Lord for all his blessings, listen to the message of salvation with your head bowed; if you believe hard enough you’ll save your soul

Don’t look up, you'll see the billions killed by religion, you might get a glimpse of the religious sacred-books and sacred-symbols – bearing murderers in their holy exterminations. The contradiction might make you doubt your God

Neighborhoods (Heat)

Neighborhoods behind bullet-proof glass

Neighborhoods paved with broken glass

Neighborhoods straining under the overweight

Where the word “trust” fell to the bottom of dictionaries

The phrase “common sense” fades

The word “responsibility” flickers on and off

And the word “survival” barely makes it—funeral homes are a booming business

Neighborhoods where the sky and its majestic sunsets are wasted on cell phones and cars

No control is as bizarre as extreme control

It’s not safe at night in these neighborhoods; there is really nothing to do there anyway, so don’t go out Neighborhoods where, like in mosquito infested swamps, corrosive ideas are persistent and they want to get you:

Be prepared to ward them off

Be prepare to be weary

The sky was clear when I finally left the house. It was going to be a long walk. Usually in the mornings there are clouds left from the dawn to cover the sun from time to time and give me relief as I walk the four miles or so to the public library of Detroit. The clouds usually last until a little past ten, but today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far, and the clouds evaporated early.

The temperature has been hovering around the nineties the last couple of days with the heat index making it feel like a hundred sometimes (that is in Fahrenheit).

I felt OK and went towards Michigan Avenue instead of towards Livernois Avenue, from where I turn left onto Warren Ave, and then on to the library. I went to get some chips because I knew that the two eggs with left over rice and sour cream I had for breakfast weren’t enough to hold me all day and I wanted snacks for when I got hungry.

Walking along houses is cooler because they have trees; it’s along the big avenues where the sun has no rivals and just burns. But neighborhood streets are short and they lead nowhere, so I have to take the big avenues.

After the Super Dollar store where I bought ripe plantain and tortilla chips, I made my way to Warren Avenue and braced myself for the burn. The walk is almost nice at the end of the day on the way back when the sun is dying and dipping under the horizon, but this morning, with no clouds in sight, it behaved like a disillusioned and bitter old sun, though it was still young (at nine something in the morning).

The walk lasts about an hour and fifteen minutes depending on my pace, but this morning the pressure of the heat was annoying, and the heat of the sun seemed to want to plug my nose and not let me breathe the hot steam that passed for air. It took forever to get to the library.

I passed teenagers on bicycles circling around their neighborhood. Yesterday (or the day before yesterday), one of them asked me if I wanted some weed. There were the usual bus commuters hiding under whatever shadow they could find. Most bus stops have no protection from anything. They are only a thin metal pole stuck in the ground with a small sign on top that says bus stop.

The neighborhood after the railroad tracks has more trees and I looked forward to it. It’s closer to the Wayne State University, and I looked forward to that even more because the campus is surrounded by trees. It’s so much cooler there, literally, than the deserts of avenues -- I have to walk by some college kids here and there, but it’s a small price to pay.

Once in the library, I write the writings of an underdog that is going under. The system destroys those who don’t “get with the program,” but I don’t keep quiet about it. I raise my voice through my writings.

To who are my writings directed? To anybody in the system. These are combative writings, not bedtime stories.

This is written from the spirit of desperation coming from Detroit’s battered neighborhoods, for the ones at the brink of homelessness. It speaks for the homeless sleeping in Montevideo’s front stores, or Berlin’s parks. It speaks to the confused college student who has a hard time “getting with the program,” choosing a career, and who needs a push to follow his path. It’s written for the traveler growing older and running out of funds.

These writings let the system know that somebody out there knows what it is, and that not everybody is taken by the mesmerizing of toys (cellphones, cars, video games, computers, and the like). Not everybody is intimidated by the pressure to succeed (choose a career, at least seek middle management, entertain the masses with your writing, make money to impress your parents, other relatives and your friends). Not everybody falls for the trap of comfort (some don’t even need a bed), not everybody submit to the stigma of being poor (thinking that one is poor is at least doubly stupid. First, one accepts to be labeled, second, one agrees with the idea that having crap -- material stuff is what matters, a false assumption that for some reason people pretend it’s not), and finally it lets the system know that not everybody seeks refuge in apathy and inactivity.   

Solidification

Who knows why we do anything, or go anywhere.

Yes I walk and judge the people around me and I condemn their abuse of the car. I condemn their short vision.

I don’t think that the average neighborhood dweller in the west of Detroit makes the connection between their (his/her) consumption of gasoline and the war for oil in Iraq – they may not even realize that the war is indeed for oil.

I don’t think they make the connection between their excessive car use and their terribly misshapen bodies, and perhaps they don’t make the connection between the terribly hotness of the summer and the severe lack of trees in their city. I call that short vision, hence the “Don’t look up” piece in Da Book, aka An Account of Social Mutation.

Some may complain about the repetitiousness of what I say, but this point has to be insisted upon because people insist on acting like the drunk (or drugged up) chump clumsily stepping into a busy highway trying to cross it. He has to be told not to do it, that he’ll die if he does. 

I understand their short vision though. I had it too

I came here to start a project, but ended up with this. Who knows why we do anything.

The journey of self-discovery has taken close to 5 years now, and here in Detroit I can tell how far I’ve gone.

So I walk under the killing heat, and people look at me as if they don’t know what to make of what I am with my rolled up pant legs (for circulation of air in the legs), my cut-up running shoes (they were a little small for me when I bought them – they are so comfortable now), and my shades.

I know what I’m doing because of what I’ve realized. I’m practicing revolution. Walking seems to be an unspoken taboo in Detroit, so I rebel against that. I walk, and I walk some more. I move for miles and miles without paying tithes to car insurances, financiers, dealers, and makers. I move miles without financing directly the oil companies. Americans die by the drove from lack of movement, and yet they have the cure: miles and miles of sidewalks. What they need is a revolution.

Yet they look at me strange. How can the average Detroian understand my disappointment at their churches, their leaders, their TV programs, and themselves, who failed to do these simple but crucial tasks: encourage people to plant trees, encourage people to live decently regardless of their income, and to have pride in themselves for the simple reason of being humans.

I don’t know what is being taught to these people nowadays, but whatever it is, it isn’t what I’ve said above, and if it is, something is fundamentally wrong somewhere because it’s not getting across.

If everything goes well, I’ll be flying to Berlin on the 29^th of this month, and the next project will be the construction of an earthship.

The real me (City trekking)

 Aluminum, does that say anything to you?

The wild weeds close their flowers and fold their leaves

Evening dinner smoke dwindlings crawls out of stacks from crooked buildings

The wild grass advances forward and around abandoned broken houses

Stories of sadness and artificial failure

I write the last gasps of a dying man

Drowned by the sounds of passing internal combustion engines

Nobody hears, nobody notices,

Nobody reminds anybody

Our skewed views won’t change the world

The lamentations of the fool, “we could’ve worked it out,” loops

The layers will strip away and reveal the real me: a bum

The day before yesterday, Tuesday, somebody stole my bicycle from the bicycle rack of the main public library of the city of Detroit.

I always wondered about thieves. How does a person become one? Is it because they can’t get anything themselves? Do they do it out of maliciousness or out of necessity, and if out of necessity how did they get to the point where they felt compelled to take somebody else’s stuff. I personally dislike thieves. They destroy trust among strangers, a very poisonous thing to do, so thieves are poisonous.

I am partly at fault because although I locked my bicycle, I didn’t use a chain to tether it to the bike rack. This incident adds to my dislike of the city of Detroit.

It’s always a strange feeling when one realized that one’s been robbed, especially when one is not a thief oneself. I was mad at the thief, whoever he/she is, and I was mad at myself for not taking the right precautions. It was a good bike. I especially liked the tires which seemed to be filled with the compound that prevents easy flats. The bike was also so light, and fast.

After wishing the thief bad luck, I tried to find meaning in the act. Why did it happen on that specific day? Nothing happened before, and I’ve locked it the same way.

Maybe, I thought, it was the day I was going to be hit by a car and the forces that guide us took it from me to prevent the accident. I felt foolish thinking like that, but why not? Who’s to say? That explanation is more fun than the average I would get: it happened to teach me a lesson: get a chain next time and lock your bicycle properly in a city that is apparently full of thieves.

Today I walked towards the pawn shop where I got my first bike meaning to get another one, but I grossly underestimated the mileage, and after three hours of walking I was only half-way there. It was already after 5 in the afternoon, and shops usually close at 5 around here. There was no use in going all the way, so I walked back to the room after going to the supermarket to buy ingredients for my dinner.

In other times I would feel as if I wasted a whole day, and in fact I did, but then I thought, how was it wasted? I walked a good number of miles. That counts as exercise, and exercise is always good. I could’ve done other things with the time I spent walking but that is always the case with whatever we do: we can always do something better.

Because of the slow speed of walking I got to look at a section of the city up close, which means good thought fishing:

Oh clouds have mercy on me and block the sun while I’m on the depressing streets of Detroit. Give me patience as I walk by tire shop after tire shop, junk food joint after junk food joint, beauty shop and beauty supply stores, nail salons, liquor stores (not a bookshop in sight, not a work of art anywhere), check cashing-in-advance joints, auto part stores, and cell phone kiosks by the hundreds it seems.

Make me tune out the ridiculously loud booming sounds from passing EDUs (earth destroying units, AKA, cars), and ignore people’s abysmally self-destroying ways. The worshipping of EDUs is so very strong here, it’s maniacal.  Didn’t their god tell them not to worship false idols? – I’m so close to label them one of the stupidest beings on this planet.

They are so fast in their capsules but move so slowly when they get out of them: engorged ticks out to engorge themselves even more.

It’s a good thing I’m OK with myself. I can spend days and days alone. There was a time when I went from task to task, from anticipated event to anticipated event, from weekend to weekend, party to party, relationship to relationship, and the gaps in between were filled with entertainment: movie theaters and television. I never had time to really be with myself.

Most people I see around here are like I was years before. I see them as undeveloped mes. I don’t think I want to talk to the me of years ago. I was a moron.

Detroit (Mosquito-like, bothersome ideas)

Detroit, not much creativity round these parts

Type-cast city choked by cars and strangled by avenues of desert where one can die of thirst and carbon monoxide

Your population is silly

Clutching Bibles with eyes closed

“I’m Black so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, talk like this”

“I’m White so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, speak like this”

“I’m Mexican so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, and talk like this”

“I’m Middle Eastern so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, and behave like this”

But they all pray to thee, oh mighty Chrysler, oh omnipotent Ford, oh all-knowing GMC

Is there anybody cool in this whole town?

Does everyone belong to this battalion or the other?

You’ve been scarred, Detroit

Your west side crumbles, but your east side doesn’t care La, la, la, la, la, they go

You give me a heavy heart, city, and remind me that indeed, nothing is forever

It may be the right sun but not the right setting


Most of the abandoned buildings are in areas where the poor lives.
Being poor is a state of mind. We make ourselves poor.
"The system," (or, if you are uncomfortable with that term, the interplay of different institutions, businesses, and organizations), may be designed (or it may coincidentally function) in such a way that some people will end up with few material possessions, but just because we have a small income does not mean that we are poor.
We become poor when our creativity is blocked, when our vision is blurred, when we give up our right to live our lives as human beings can and should live. Once we become poor we begin to dislike ourselves, and a series of destructive behaviors pin us down.

The project I had in mind would be out of synchronization with the nature of the city and its inhabitants. It was to take place among people like this, in an area where creativity and initiative have been sucked out, where there is hardly a community; in fact they are only neighborhoods, places where people live because they can’t live anywhere else. There is hardly any kind or organization in these places, excluding churches, of course, but the power of churches seems to be very limited. The ravishing of neighborhoods goes on in spite of them.

These are places where McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, the local chain Coney Island, (of which there is one that opens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week around where I’m staying), do extremely well, and leave on their wake bloated bodies, like overfed ticks, that thank their cars for their mobility.

These neighborhoods are made up of people who are workers, or were workers, and the simplicity of that lifestyle shows. There aren’t any small parks where one can go and sit for a while to temporarily take a breather. I’m thinking of Berlin now as a counterpart. These neighborhoods were made to be navigated by car, and the few parks in this big city are places where people can go once in a while, after driving for some miles. Every lifestyle that did not support the working routine was done away with. The lack of trees in the city is terrifying.

At night people in these neighborhoods lock themselves in their houses. There is very little to do at night there anyway, and groups of restless teenagers roam about, and cars with loud music to do the same.
The art of living is practiced differently here. Where I stay, the TV is on almost constantly. In places like these, certain ideas are persistent, and one has to be prepared to constantly ward them off. The idea that one has to have a car, and that to go anywhere one has to drive, is one of them. The idea that one's income determines one's worth is another, the idea that one has to have a job to have self respect, the idea that one has to be rich and famous, that one should dress in a certain way, that one should build only in a certain way, and have a certain amount of furniture, are only a few examples.

.

Behold (Resistance)

Behold that person across the street

She is nice when she talks to you

She greets you warmly on her way to work, but wait, what is this?

She is getting into a car, and it seems like it’s hers

Yes

She owns an EDU (Earth Destroying Unit)

She is nice but she pays for the killing of people and for the destruction of the planet

I’m sorry my friend, this may be uncomfortable, but it’s a fact

She is a subsidizer of wars, and a planet destroyer

(Ironically, to pump gas, to fuel up, she pulls a trigger)

The experiment was to build something from scratch, or in this case to rebuild something without applying for a grant or a loan.

The building would’ve been one of those abandoned ones that the city can’t think of anything to do with except to demolish it. We would’ve taken possession of it, clean it up inside and out, gone around the city collecting unusable tires, built the outer walls the same way earthships walls are constructed, following the contours of the old building, and depending on how big the building was (one or two story), the new walls would’ve been the foundation from which the second floor was to be built (or the roof of the first floor).

If more load bearing walls were needed we would’ve simply built them out of the same material as the outer walls.

The inside walls would’ve been built the same way as earthship inner walls, out of discarded bottles, aluminum cans, and a mixture of mud cement and plaster.

The walls would have cost very little to build. The wiring and the plumbing would’ve been more challenging and perhaps cost more, but I don’t think an average person cannot learn to put pipes together, or to lay out wiring after studying a couple of books and asking a couple of question to the experts.  

I don’t know how the city would’ve reacted when asked to give up one its dilapidated buildings. I would’ve liked to find out. Perhaps it would’ve been easier if we would register as a non-profit organization, which in effect we would be.

I also would’ve liked to find out if anybody at all would’ve joined me.

I imagine that only the ones who share my idea of independence would even consider joining such venture. It sounds simple but it actually wouldn’t have been. Physically, it would’ve been very demanding, and then we would have to explain to perplexed spectators what we were doing without getting into an argument, a psychological burden.

I’m not sure if we could’ve passed the construction off as a place for anybody to live, but that would be its primary purpose. We could have constructed rooms to rent, and be perhaps the cheapest place to stay in the city.

It would’ve been a center of resistance to the accepted practice of virtual slavery modern economics run on, with its interest rates financing. Think of a thirty yearlong mortgage.

The building since it would’ve been donated wouldn’t have been mortgaged. We would pay utilities, which according to the concept of thermal mass would be a whole lot less than a conventional building. Property taxes and regular maintenance would’ve been the main costs.

Budget crisis of sorts

$15	Dinner (Jamaican food)
$14	Dinner (Mexican street food)
$8	Luggage storage
$88	Greyhound bus fare
$9	Popeye Chicken
$60	Corktown Motel
$14	5 Guys Burger
$32	Tech something Motel
$6	Arby’s
$5	KFC
$10	Burger King
$3	Chips and peanuts
$32	Tech Motel
$165	Laptop
$20	Schwinn Bicycle
$53	Phone service for a moth
$10	KFC
$32	Tech Motel
$9	Taco Bell
$275	Room for rent
$5	Miscellaneous (lock for bike, batteries, etc.)
$25	First food shop (Wal-Mart)
$11	USB cable for camera
$14	Shaver (forgot US-Europe adapter)
$12	Bus fare
Total
$927	Total spent so far from the available budget
-$320	Money I had prior to the trip
Total
$607

As you can see, I have actually gone over the budget. I would have only $73 until the end of the month if I didn’t have the $320 from the month before.

Technically I should have ended this month with a $320 surplus.

In hindsight, I see a couple of ways in which I could have saved money. If I had skipped the motels and gone straight to a room (provided that I had made arrangements prior to the trip) I would have saved $156 (60+32+32+32). Perhaps I would have also saved part of the money spent on junk food, about $40 (excluding the money spent in NYC) had I started cooking my own meals earlier.

 Rounding it up, I would say that $200 could have been saved with a little more planning.

This was of course a networkless affair. It is cheaper if there are contacts in the area one is going to buffer the shock of the first few days, but that is not always possible.

This has been a car-less affair. I always make a conscious effort to use internal combustion engines as little as possible. Somebody I know calls the EHDUs (earth and human destroying units) – MEHDUs (medium earth and humans destroying units) OEHDUs (oversized).

Detroit is crawling with those things and I look odd riding my bicycle. I can tell they think it’s a strange thing to do when there are cars which are faster and more comfortable to get around with. I think they are the strange ones not knowing the cost of using those things. I went to war because of them, but that’s a different story.