An ad hoc poem I wrote in some time in some where? An exercise with the Tumblewords Project? No idea. But here it is, about a real-life experience at some dance function, in which I was trying to learn how to dance something. My guess is that it was a contra dance thing.
Two clothespins in his hair.
What am I to make of this?
An eccentricity?
A clever hack?
A genius' forgivable befuddlement?
I can't concentrate on the dance instructions
Which are befuddling enough, like a confounding algebraic word problem about orbiting, colliding bodies on a wooden floor.
I burst into laughter ...
... at the clothespins in that man's hair ... or the Alice-in-Wonderland instructions for the dance?
I don't know.
I wonder ... Can I escape?
Just leave the floor?
Abandon my dance partner? (What's his name again?)
James Drake, Falling Birds, El Paso Art Museum, Texas. November 2016.
Born in 1995, founded by Donna Snyder, the Tumblewords Project
is a writing workshop that occurs every Saturday at the Memorial Park
branch of the El Paso Library. Each week, a workshop leader suggests
writing prompts to the participants; the prompts usually follow a theme
the leader chooses for the session. Everyone is enthusiastically
welcomed. If you're just passing through El Paso and happen to be in
town on a Saturday afternoon, go! My related posts here.
One of my workshop efforts below. Writer and artist, Sandra Torrez, led the day's work, offering Edgar Allen Poe as our inspiration.
A Brief Love
I'll look at you
While you sleep.
I'll touch your sternum, press
Down with the pad of a finger
Like a push of life.
I'll find your pulse, rest
My finger there, and linger,
To absorb your beat.
I'll leave you then.
Push out into
The cold and
Not look back
You might not think of tithing as a "creative life" sort of thing, but:
I don't want to create a whole new category of stuff on Living Rootless; and
Tithing - my tithing - is, in a sense, a creative endeavor.
My decision to tithe sparked in a moment, like menopause, but that one moment was just the final ball drop after this bystander's bobbling and bumping along her twisty path.
The moment occurred while I sat in my daughter's church on a Sunday morning this year. The pastor delivered a pitch on church tithing, and things clicked for me during his sermon.
Ah, tithing. That's the envelope that had been missing from my little collection of ideas about how I wanted to give financial support to others.
What would it be like if I gave 10% of my monthly income to whomever or whatever I deemed a "worthy cause"? Can I afford it?
Certainly worth a try.
Oliver Lee State Park, New Mexico - Pennies on campsite table. September 2012.
In fact, something like this is on the bucket list I typed up decades ago. At that time, I wrote:
"Give some money or goods anonymously each month to a person or family down on their luck - a different person each time."
At the time I wrote this goal list - it was before there were such things called "bucket lists" - I was, myself, down on my luck. Indeed, toward the top of this list it said:
"Be above survival level ..... "
I wrote the list just a few months past the height of the unemployment rate during Ronald Reagan's trickle-down era. I was a single parent; my daughter was only barely four years old; I had just started back to school at a community college - possible only because of financial aid. Thank goodness for aid such as:
Food stamps
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Head Start
Pell Grants
Subsidized housing
Yeah, folks like to shame those who receive financial aid. I am not embarrassed at my need. I was one of the lucky ones. Albeit poor, I was not generationally poor, and that made all of the difference. I knew things were better out there. I knew I could climb out of poverty. Not all of us are so lucky.
When I was very down and out, so many decades ago, my maternal grandmother sent me a check every month for $25. I don't remember how long she did this; maybe a year, maybe less. That's not a whole lot of money, but gosh, it sure made a difference to me.
It's not in my nature to disburse money to others. It's a behavior I've had to learn, and it still doesn't come entirely easy to me.
I began my tithing a few months ago, though it's taken a bit to actually get up to the 10% mark. This month (October), I'll be making up for some of that with several hefty (for me) donations to local classrooms.
To maximize my limited resources, I intend to focus on three areas:
Educational support for schools in low-income neighborhoods
My newly-born earrings. Columbia, Missouri. April 2018.
The stars and planets aligned recently in Columbia, Missouri, with the announcement of a jewelry-making class.
I would be in Columbia on this particular weekend.
I had some earrings in need of repair.
Although I'm not a pink sort a gal, I've been having an envie for pink earrings.
So it was that, following a morning hike at Three Creeks Conservation Area, a lackluster lunch, and a grand spillage of liquid onto my hiking pants (Note: Do not put a carbonated drink into a thermos and expect to open said thermos without theatrical consequences), I walked into the Heart, Body, and Soul Center for a jewelry-making class by Ms. Addie.
I'd brought my broken earrings with me. To create new earrings, I selected two pink stones and two tiny, gentle-green pebbles. I only spilled the contents of one container onto the floor.
Ms. Addie showed me how to make little wire curl-ettes at the bottom of the pink stones, to keep the stones from slipping off the wire. She pointed out how each of three tools at my little station - all of which looked like generic pliers to me - served different functions: cutting, turning, and moving.
She showed me other smooth moves, too, but like dance steps, I haven't retained them. So I will likely, as she suggested, seek tutorials on youtube.
The above photo shows five kinds of pliers. Above my pay grade, but you can learn more about jewelry-making implements here.
Ms. Addie especially likes making jewelry out of found items. Hearing her story of re-purposing pearls she'd inherited from her grandmother inspired me to make something new from my own grandmother's heirlooms. Some day.
An author friend recently introduced me to the works of the poet, Audre Lorde.
Ms. Lorde had a few things to say about fear:
“I want to write down everything I know about being afraid, but I’d probably never have enough time to write anything else. Afraid is a country where they issue us passports at birth and hope we never seek citizenship in any other country. The face of afraid keeps changing constantly, and I can count on that change. I need to travel light and fast, and there’s a lot of baggage I’m going to have to leave behind me. Jettison cargo."
“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” From The Cancer Journals
“and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive”
― Audre Lorde, The Black Unicorn: Poems
"Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Born in 1995, founded by Donna Snyder, the Tumblewords Project
is a writing workshop that occurs every Saturday at the Memorial Park
branch of the El Paso Library. Each week, a workshop leader suggests
writing prompts to the participants; the prompts usually follow a theme
the leader chooses for the session. Everyone is enthusiastically
welcomed. If you're just passing through El Paso and happen to be in
town on a Saturday afternoon, go! My related posts here.
One week, the writing prompt was to write about thoughts on poetry.
Here's what I wrote (edited a bit for this post).
Poetry
A bore a snore. Often
Crashing.
Slumbering.
Numbing.
Saccharine, sing song.
So wannabe
PROFOUND.
I nod my head and
Mutter mmm, yeah, so good. And
Look erudite. Look creative. Look linked in.
Sometimes, though.
What's that?
That twist of idea? That flutter
of feather tickling my cheek
Making me turn my head
To listen, look more.
That cascade knocking me
Down with gut pain
Gushing out of the
Poet's mouth, taking my
Breath away.
That flash flood of warm brown water
Pushing past, exposing
Bleached bone
Salted and sanded, scooped out from
Where it had been buried before the surge swept through.
Poetry.
Mostly harmless.
In Between
In between the spaces of words
White space for aesthetes?
Or things unsaid?
Or things shouted, but into a
White hole that swallows sounds.
Or to be heard, but
Only
If the reader can see what's
Not there.
Born in 1995, founded by Donna Snyder, the Tumblewords Project
is a writing workshop that occurs every Saturday at the Memorial Park
branch of the El Paso Library. Each week, a workshop leader suggests
writing prompts to the participants; the prompts usually follow a theme
the leader chooses for the session. Everyone is enthusiastically
welcomed. If you're just passing through El Paso and happen to be in
town on a Saturday afternoon, go! My related posts here.
One week the writing prompt was about something mundane. Like salt. ... Salt?! Did someone say salt?
Salt
Crystalline, cut,
Diamond crunch.
Salt, you
So maligned, so falsely accused as an
Agent of death
When you are of life, real.
"The little bite," or maybe the French would call you
"The little death" - oh, wait -
That's something else.
Deer, cows, horses, and I
Lick you up
From brown blocks or
Red tomatoes or sweaty hands or
Rims of cups.
If I were on the Atlantic, sailing,
Slapped by saltine spray,
Wouldn't I lick
My upper lip and then my lower to
Collect the salty residue,
That which
Jumps with life, absorbing your
Biting salinivity* and the
Sloughed DNA of the sea life you saturate?
Flashing clouds, Sunset Heights, El Paso, Texas. August 2017.
August 2017
Born in 1995, founded by Donna Snyder, the Tumblewords Project
is a writing workshop that occurs every Saturday at the Memorial Park
branch of the El Paso Library. Each week, a workshop leader suggests
writing prompts to the participants; the prompts usually follow a theme
the leader chooses for the session. Everyone is enthusiastically
welcomed. If you're just passing through El Paso and happen to be in
town on a Saturday afternoon, go! My related posts here.
Below are two of my poetic attempts in response to the writing prompts that one week's leader gave us. Gosh, I wish I were more meticulous about writing dates and workshop leaders in my notes. I am embarrassed at the oversight.
Outside My Window at Night Train. Two blasts. Mockingbird. Sweet syrup song. Dogs. Bark Bark Bark Bark.
I Am the Center of the Universe
I moan in the pain. A rosebush leaps from the ground to see what is happening. Which is as it should be. When I am in pain, it is about me and me and me. Clouds gather and darken and Shed angry tears and Shout epithets and shoot spears of Shocking lasers. All in alliance with me, my pain. The wind, my El Paso sister, Calls at my windows and door, Swirling and screaming and Sissing at my sorrow. The unfairness of it all! She agrees. The soil of the earth Arcs up and around in Twists of infantile fury to Show its Fealty to my woes. The stars refuse to come out at night. The moon grants only a slice of light. The sun pulls his cover over. All eclipse to Signify their Loyalty to me and my Moan.
Graffiti, mural, Tbilisi, Caucasus Georgia. May 2012.
Born in 1995, founded by Donna Snyder, the Tumblewords Project
is a writing workshop that occurs every Saturday at the Memorial Park
branch of the El Paso Library. Each week, a workshop leader suggests
writing prompts to the participants; the prompts usually follow a theme
the leader chooses for the session. Everyone is enthusiastically
welcomed. If you're just passing through El Paso and happen to be in
town on a Saturday afternoon, go! My related posts here.
Chauncey Low, a wildly talented writer in the Tumblewords Project, led the workshop one Saturday.
I can't speak for the others in our group, but for me, he cracked open a smudgy window to let me peer into a hidden room.
The underground is inviolate. It is not a street, a neighborhood or a certain city. It is a metaphysical space located where bohemia intersects with the demi-monde. Not everyone from bohemia can descend into the underground just as not everyone in the demi-monde can find their way to either bohemia or the underground.
If you do not have a functioning criminal class in your art scene you have academia and while academia is a reflection of the art world it can never be the art world.
The Lower East Side of New York used to be filled with poets, writers, actors, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, junkies, whores and weirdos. Now it's filled with college students pretending to be poets, writers, musicians, actors, photographers, filmmakers, junkies, whores and weirdos, in other words the ten most popular kids from every high school in the world are now living in downtown New York. Those are the people who most of us who ran away to New York came here to get away from! Nobody who was popular in high school can ever be hip. It's not possible. If you were popular in high school, that was your peak. Be satisfied.
Am I Mad At You?
Then there was an outrageously wicked, terrible-licious, no-boundaries poem by Vampyre Mike Kassel:
Am I mad at you? Of course I’m not mad, whatever gave you that idea? Just because I’m sitting here pushing pins Into a little wax doll With a lock of your hair in it? Just because I burned the panties you left here And buried the ashes At the crossroads at midnight? Just because I sent the nude pictures we took of you To Cattle Breeders Digest? Just because I welded the doors of your car shut?
I’m not mad, whatever gave you that idea? Just because I wrote your name and address On the men’s room wall Of every biker’s bar from here to Bakersfield? Just because I made three hundred copies Of your apartment key And handed them out To every junkie and wino in the Tenderloin? Just because I switched your birth-control pills for Ex-Lax, Spiked your shampoo with Nair, And hid an electric cattle prod inside your favorite dildo? Just because I pitchforked your mother, Got your kid sister ten-dollar tricks, And strung out your cat on speed?
No, I’m not mad. And, by the way, Have you got a dollar?
.... which Chauncey followed with his own, equally wicked version.
Then we workshop acolytes took a turn at dysfunction. Here's mine, taking a more passive-aggressive tack:
Pistachio Ice Cream
Did I remember to bring you your pistachio ice cream?
Of course, I did. Why are you using that accusatory tone? I bought it and I paid for it and I personally witnessed the cashier putting it into my reusable bag, You know the one, that lavender and green one? Oh, you've never seen that bag? Well, it's my favorite. You never notice anything I like. I put it on the passenger seat right next to me.
It was such a fine day and I rolled the windows down. And so I was driving home and I stopped at a red light. I had my favorite song on, You know the one. Oh you don't? Well that figures. All of a sudden, A hand from nowhere Reached in and took the bag!
With your pistachio ice cream in it.
The Real Me
Chauncey presented us with a poem by another contributor to the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Kathi Georges (now using Kat Georges). Title: The Real Me.
I am laughing at myself because The Real Me is so in-your-face (ahem) that I feel sheepish about posting it here. It startles, but then one - "one" being a woman, specifically - gets it, and says, "Yeah." At least metaphorically.
But you can read it over here, where Chicano Poet has shared it without any bashfulness.
In addition to being a poet, Kat Georges is the co-founder of an independent publishing business called Three Rooms Press.
Art or Commitment?
Chauncey also re-introduced me to Bob Flanagan, the artist who nailed his penis to a board.
Bob Flanagan, who died in 1996 from cystic fibrosis, used intentional pain to master the involuntary pain associated with his physical disease.
Here is Mr. Flanagan singing an explanatory song that he put to the melody of Mary Poppins' Supercalifragilistic:
He frequently pauses to clear phlegm while singing the song.
So the unoriginal question: Is public self-harming, such as when Mr. Flanagan nailed his penis to a board, art? Or is it self-harm that is a function of a mental illness, like cutting, and which calls for an intervention?
Maybe it's the intention that pertains? I have proclaimed this as art, therefore it is art. Versus I am hurting myself because I am in pain and I don't know what else to do.
Or maybe it isn't the performance of the act that is questionable, but the decision to make it public and call it art that presents the puzzle. Can one defecate in public and call it art?
Born in 1995, founded by Donna Snyder, the Tumblewords Project is a writing workshop that occurs every Saturday at the Memorial Park branch of the El Paso Library. Each week, a workshop leader suggests writing prompts to the participants; the prompts usually follow a theme the leader chooses for the session. Everyone is enthusiastically welcomed. If you're just passing through El Paso and happen to be in town on a Saturday afternoon, go! My related posts here.
Below is my output (since edited) from one Saturday. The binding threads are illusion, delusion, and acceptance.
Highway 371, Navajo Nation, New Mexico. May 2013.
Loess
We were pretty smug
In our specialness,
Our quick wit,
Our close-knittedness,
Our uniqueness among the rest.
Handsome and pretty, they said.
Smart as whips, they said.
Ready, always, to advise, solicited or no.
Analytically confident about others' lives.
Such good mothers, good fathers,
Good siblings, good children,
Good wives, good husbands.
Shimmering heads atop a grassy hill,
Breeze ruffling through thick hair.
Eyes alert, clear, penetrating the valley
Below.
We stood atop a grassy hill
Of loess.
We thought our foundation firm.
But it was just windblown dust.
Fresh and faded, Carencro, Louisiana. February 2015.
Evidence
I look in the mirror.
The evidence is there,
Undeniable.
I'm a woman of a certain age.
Not always fair, how it turns out. But
Inevitable.
No use to rage.
Radical acceptance? .. to flaunt the
Inevitable!
The silver bespeaks a sage?
I see the not-so-beautiful parts,
Undeniable.
But I am here, so smile, girl.
Accept.
Not untrue
I won't not tell you
If you don't ask me
But if you ask me
I'll not not misinform you
Of how it might be if
I were like this and
You were like that
Or maybe I mean
If I weren't who I am and
You weren't who you are
The Tumblewords Project didn't hit my radar until June. A pity. Because with my very first mid-day Saturday attendance at the weekly writing group, I lamented silently, "Why didn't I discover this before?!"
It only got my attention the first time because of the magic words Smeltertown. Where did I even see the phrase in connection with Tumblewords? The library? Social media? An upcoming-events email? No idea.
I first learned about Smeltertown when I took the guided hike up Mt Cristo Rey. Then I saw an announcement about a photographer with an exhibit of her photos at Smeltertown, but because of a scheduling conflict, I couldn't go. So when I saw the third reference to Smeltertown, I had to check it out.
This article isn't about Smeltertown; it's about the Tumblewords Project. But the leader for this particular Saturday's meeting - Carolyn Rhea Drapes - took us, in our imagination, to the Smeltertown of her youth. Like:
"La Smelta."
"Every morning abuela would hang her canary cages on the branches of the cottonwood tree."
Tiny houses as big as an efficiency apartment.
Some people had electric, water and gas.
For a long time, had communal toilets.
"Everything felt caked in sulfur."
"Those yellow smells had no chance of entering [abuela's] kitchen."
###
Tumblewords describes its process thus:
The format involves preliminary announcements, the presenter speaking for maybe ten minutes, writing on the spot, and then going around the room and each participant reading aloud. We like to have three rounds of writing and reading aloud, but depending on the number of participants who show up any one workshop, there may only be time for two rounds or even one. Presenters are given free range to present however or whatever they want, as long as the primary amount of time is allocated to writing and reading aloud. Some presenters read the works of writers they revere, show slides of their art work or the art of others, bring in visual art, play or perform music, or read their own work. The participants are free to write in whatever form or on whatever topic they choose, notwithstanding the topic of presentation.
Some rules:
You write and you share what you write.
No whining about the quality of your work; at most you can say: "This is shit." But then you gotta read it aloud anyway.
No critiques.
The goal is to write. Simple as that.
Donna Snyder is the founder and matriarch of the group - it's a remarkable feat to have nurtured a writing group since its birth in 1995. A succinct synopsis about Donna: " ... a lawyer by profession, an activist by inclination and a poet by
compulsion, has an extensive list of published work to her credit ... "
I always feel welcomed and supported at the workshops.
And holy moly, there is huge talent in that library room every Saturday!
###
Getting back to this day's work, as led by Carolyn Rhea Drapes:
From Carolyn's sharing about Smeltertown, the canaries in the cottonwood tree pricked my senses.
In two writing sprints, I created the following (since edited):
First sprint:
In the time of the killing in the lushness, the richness of Rwanda, did the birds continue to sing? Is it true that the foreign tamarisks crowd and kill the native cottonwoods, usurping their space and water like they say they do? Of what use is this man-made border over which the giant Christ looks with his arms outstretched, which separates sisters, but which birds and tamarisks and cottonwoods flaunt with impunity?
Mt. Cristo Rey, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.
Of what use is this wall that hems El Paso, choked like the Rio Grande, cobbled and parched? Does the big Christ not shake his head in bemusement when he looks at the rusty wall that separates the sisters he made?
US border between El Paso and Juarez. November 2016.
Some of abuela's canaries died and they were not replaced.
####
Portal, Arizona. March 2013.
Second sprint:
Outside the red library in Portal, New Mexico, bird feeders hang from leafy cottonwoods. Books in a cart enjoy the air outside. It is fine to sit in the shade of the cottonwoods and listen to the birds sing.
Because the workshop was mostly in Spanish, I didn't follow all of Mare's words - maybe most, even - but I followed enough to know I was in a room with a woman whose life force is galvanic.
Mare Advertencia Lirika, Cafe Mayapan, El Paso, Texas. March 2017.
Mare lives in the city of Oaxaca in Oaxaca state, Mexico. Her family is Zapotec, an indigenous Mexican ethnic group.
Below is a half-hour documentary about Mare, "When a Woman Comes Forward" (with English subtitles). Mare shares her philosophy about how hip hop gives a voice, not just to individuals, but to the community.
"We are the majority only when it comes to statistics."
"Our voice has been taken by other mouths."
Mare is a hip hop artist, a poet, a singer, a human rights activist.
In her work, she flashes an unblinking, brilliant light on inconsistencies between the so-called "respect" for women and oppressing them. One graphic illustration is how she notes the societal furtiveness with which girls and women experience menstruation and menstrual blood, but the cavalier display of the blood of murdered women.
Below is a video in which Mare shares the evolution of her creative and social activist evolution in Oaxaca:
Mare is a woman of power. I feel so lucky to have been able to attend her workshop.
Baratashvili, Tbilisi, Caucasus Georgia. May 2012.
Breaking a few cinquain rules here.
Baby Tucked in, hidden Sleeping, startling, waking She cries when giants come near her Belly Soft, unhardened Stretching, tight'ning, taut'ning To be a trampoline and push Back
My dwindling stock of beloved sci-fi, Alamogordo, New Mexico. February 2013.
This past year I've tried to up my writing game by participating in some writing groups. The seed for this was planted in South Louisiana by an interconnected group of people and events, specifically:
Each of the above wowed me in some way with their creativity in the spoken or written word, or in their advocacy for local artistry.
Dennis, Agnes, John R., and I engaged in a brief writers' group before I left South Louisiana. What a warm hum of energy that was. PoeticSoul's Lyrically Inclined presented a writer's workshop one night.
At the writer's group, the Lyrically Inclined workshop, the monthly Music & Mic, and Festival of Words, I heard works that sparked whatever neurons govern illumination of what can be done to express ideas with words, body language, and tone of voice.
In Colorado, I sought writers' groups despite only being there for a month, and was pleased to attend two or three sessions of a group in Longmont.
Apparently, rubbing shoulders with writers can be a good thing for one's own practice. I will do more shoulder rubbing.
But this post is about bad writing.
Many years ago, I entered the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Very Bad Writing contest (a la Bulwer-Lytton; said contest now defunct, I believe) with this:
But before his soaring mind fully registered what his myopic eyes saw, which, when the spectacle did register, would change both his life and that of the world's in one crashing, careening, chaotic moment, he, Ned Richardson, thought back to the previous moon-gilt night when he shared an exotic Tibetan repast with his exotically beautiful and ravishing accountant, Monica Greenwell, she of the astonishingly glossy raven tresses and red rocky mountain high-heeled shoes with that loamy-Ieathery-powdery scent that Ned loved to pull into his quivering nostrils as he ran his noble probiscus caressingly along the length of them, causing those silken caverns to flare like the wings of a majestic skate from the ocean's azure depths in complete, remorseless ecstasy.
"Oh, what a feeling!" Ned thought dreamily, as he jumped out of sheer joie de vivre, which was fortuitous, since by doing so he scarcely missed placing one of his well-formed and stylishly clad feet into the warmish effluvia of a be-ribboned, snorting shi-tsu that now was maliciously occupied in pulling at the neon shoestrings of its hennaed mistress, all the while yip-yapping in bored agitation, finally causing that hapless matron to fall heavily to her Cabbage Patch-dimpled knees with a "whumpf!" on the winter-pocked sidewalk. A ululating wail emerged slowly, opulently from the woman's throat and through her lipsticked mouth and out into the startled air and up and up, scraping across the inscrutable faces of the hulking urban edifices. This siren's call, rather than jolting Ned from his delicious reverie, merely insinuated itself into his mind's meanderings; the almost melodic cry gently pulled him out of Monica's wondrous stilettos and into the sweet beckoning of an ambulance's song, offering the promise of lucrative lawsuits on behalf of the metropolis' modern-day gladiators within those strobe-lighted chariots of mercy. "Ah, but life is good," thought Ned - just one more glorious courtroom victory, his law firm's senior partner, Richard "Bob" Aldeburgh, had vowed, and Ned would get to do the firm's next TV commercial.
Ned pictured himself leaning casually yet powerfully against a massive desk (mahogany? teak?), surrounded by dark paneled walls and shelves lined with heavy tomes. A green-shaded banker's lamp would add the final touch of elegant, Old Guard ambiance. Should he fold his arms across his chest as he spoke sonorously and with quiet authority? Or hold a heavy law book in one hand and his glasses in another, perhaps using the latter hand to emphasize his mellifluous words?
And then, finally, Ned really saw what was before him. And his brain screeched to a halt, as a train does when suddenly presented with an obstacle on the track: a steel-melting, spark-flying, screaming stop.
"Will they never learn from their mistakes?!" cried Ned in an anguished sob. And he crumpled into a broken heap as the red-swirled billboard proclaimed its message: "Coca Cola --- New Formula!"
Goddammit - so many years and it is still such gloriously good bad shit. I shoulda won. But I didn't even get an honorable mention. Was it the shoes?
