by Monk Eastman, New York City, USA
There is a story about Cecilio Goncz that comes to me as he rushes from the bedroom, chrome pistol in hand. It's a second-hand story, something I heard from a survivor in the Watts Refuge about three years ago.
The first wave of emergency workers descended on Southern California shortly after the Little Big One. Historically, the area known as the Inland Empire suffered the worst casualties. Nascent attempts to coral survivors into 'rescue stations' soured relations from day one. The Sharon J. Carter Center's archives have survivors' video records that show crowded camps hemmed by razorwire, without plumbing, electricity, or potable water. Security was provided by a dozen private firms, which in the days before the United Nations Private Military Oversight Committee, were quite literally at war with each other in hot zones across the globe, and only barely committed to defending the rescue effort. Such conditions made a difficult relief effort almost impossible. Movements such as the San Bernadino Popular Front, Claremont Defense League, and Twentynine Palms Irregulars were born in those days. But before Tweaks Neuman armed his first IED, or Kelvin Black organized his first slaver ring, there was the Moreno Valley riots, where BRK private security killed over 143 people, in full view of a busload of refugee children, up from Pico Union. By nightfall, those children were cycled into the camp's general population, while camp veterans were forced to pile their dead neighbors into funeral pits at gunpoint, and spray them with decompiler foam. It was all very unsubtly painted over. News was sequestered, video lost, blogs blocked by service providers. In later years, we would discover these were not isolated incidents. The ineptitude and corruption were persistent, institutional malfunctions that contributed more to the President's famous 'Southern California is no longer viable for reclamation' than the actual earthquake.
As the abuses at Moreno Valley continued, the children took it worse, without guardians or legal status. In the aftermath of the riots, these orphans were known as los polvos, dustbabies, raised on casual violence, systematic brutality, and sparse rations. Southern California had a tradition of gangsterism known across the globe, but its latest iteration, remixed in the deep shadows of the rescue stations, was perhaps its most vicious. Initiation rites were not complete until a child had taken the life of at least one person from their camp, with proof of kill. Rewards were usually meager: an extra ration bar perhaps, or a new blanket.
It is said that in exchange for a teddy bear, the sole reminder of his dead parents, a ten year old Cecilio Goncz returned one night with a guard's genitalia, removed with scalpel precision.
And that it, along with the teddy bear, is the one souvenir he left Los Angeles with when the provisional government took over.
Some take this as a tale of sentiment, or innocence lost.
I take it as a cautionary tale, of a man who knew even at ten what he wanted, and was quite capable of anything to get it.
Showing posts with label Little Big One. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Little Big One. Show all posts
12.13.2007
10.17.2007
Indigenous Resistance and the Western Socialist Uprising.
by Jeremiah Liebrecht, San Francisco, CA, USA
Little Big One?
Every time I hear what happened referred to as “The Little Big One”, my blood boils. I am a second generation San Franciscan. My grandparents had my mother there in 2007, stuck it out through the War and Second Depression. My parents lived there up until the pretremors, and moved up to the Sacramento Delta to join like minded socialist groups rallying at the Capital. We were always proud of our counter culture roots, when The City all but disappeared, I lost a lot of family and comrades, it was the biggest tragedy to hit the Revolutionary movement experienced since it was founded in 2035. I almost become violent with rage towards my comrades when I hear someone call the Quake that—it sounds like a joke, and it’s not cute.
Shortly after California’s seceded from the Union, my wife, two daughters and I joined my first cousin, Jorge’s family and a group of comrades to head towards Idaho. We were under-armed, and granted passage out of the state under the Objector’s Act. When we got to the Oregon border, we had to surrender all our weapons except a cleaning knife per adult male, and two Benelli R14 hunting rifles, with 12 rounds per gun. If we came across game, we had to be thrifty. We were also ordered to carry a white flag through Medford. We carefully fished along the random lakes and rivers as we headed to the Klamath Falls rendezvous point. Most fresh water fish were contaminated with mercury and had to be tested before consumption. Luckily, Jorge was a naturalist and his knowledge kept our little traveling clan safe. Our organization had made a trade/labor pact with the Indigenous Resistance Movement that had settled the northern Rockies. From, Boise in the west, to Laramie, Wyoming in the east, to Missoula, Montana and, Spokane in the north.
We knew the most fighting was going on along the southwest Colorado border, and Northwest, Spokane area, mostly from White Power groups. The Indigenous Resistance was born of the ancient American Indian Movement. Most of the Western Socialist Uprising, like my family, are mixed Mexican and Gringo, We had a lot of solidarity movements with the I.R.M. throughout the direct actions against the war, and the mass imprisonment of the non conformists.
What happened at the Klamath Falls train station was reminiscent of the European holocaust my Dad would tell me about. A freight train yard crowded with pacifist mixed-race socialists, being herded by U.S. National Guard for the 15 hour train ride to independent Boise. We were nervous boarding the train. I had the girls sit far forward of the freight car, huddled and hidden under a small Kevlar pancho. There had been a shaky cease fire between the U.S. and the I.R.M. for a few years, since the Union had been enveloped with the fighting along California, and Mexico. They had more or less left us to be victimized by the White Power Militias, who attacked the train relentlessly as we crossed state lines.
8.04.2007
King of the Californias Pt III
by Monk, New York City, NY, USA
Midnight at the Palma de Baía is surreal and alarming. Atop a fifty-story spire shaped a bit like a melted candle, you can still hear the artillery in East Oakland's flatlands as the Northern Republic of California continues its purge of the Deep East Side. Guandong, another breakaway republic across the Pacific, has long subsidized arms sales to NoCal in return for preferential shipping rights, and with all this money floating around, the Pacific Arms race is at full steam. Combat drones made in the factory hives of Guanzhou screech overhead like pterodactyls, dropping decompiler bombs on ghostly suburbia. NoCal's Army uses Guandong-made bioweapons and nerve bombs to 'pacify' great swaths of urban NoCal, against almost every recognized convention of human rights. And while the old men in Beijing stomp their feet in impotent rage, their dreams of Chinese hegemony stalled when the wealthy provinces quit the country. They, like their counterparts in Washington, have learned some hard lessons in modern politics the past few years. None could teach these old dogs new tricks better than Prime Minister Benny Pivens, whose Golden Bear Party made its bones reclaiming vast stretches of the country and putting them back on the grid. Yet as the country's largest city, Oakland has proven particularly difficult to tame, especially given meager police resources. While NoCal's constitution gives Pivens sweeping power to maintain order, using the Army to clear the Deep East Side seems excessive to my tender Yankee sensibilities.
Cecilio Goncz fancies himself a scholar of the human condition, and I haven't the backbone to dispute him. He thinks my outrage is cute. Amusing, even. His own human rights record consists of petabytes of footage that might convince Dante to re-write his portrayal of Hell. Goncz's former territories were among the most savagely oppressed in Los Angeles' history. He justifies this often by remarking on how his was one of the few enclaves on the island with electricity and clean, running water. People ate regularly. There was rudimentary net access. Running local newsfeeds. Hospitals. Relatively low murder rate. Lowest infant mortality rate in Los Angeles. But all that was alongside death camps and narcofactories. A burgeoning slave trade and vigorous gladiator culture, arguably unparalleled since the days of ancient Rome. To this day, the provisional government has found his the least manageable of all its cantonments. Cecilio Goncz's throne was built of human bones. In his mind, Benny Pivens is an amateur. He says so.
"If he was smart," my host says, picking at his sharpened teeth, "he'd arm a counterinsurgency. Get one of the other gangs to do his work, absorb the survivors into the police or army. It's win/win. Blooded vets loyal to the state, and you've cleared the streets of dissent."
I have nothing to say to that. Our silence is interrupted by a distant explosion that rains combat drone over Jack London Square. Rumors place U.S. military advisers in East and West Oakland, arming guerillas. Pivens' public rhetoric has heated up over the past weeks. I quietly wonder if North America can take another war.
He lights a little black cigarette and answers my unspoken question. "People can take anything, kid. Human rights bastards wring their fucking hands all day, but people are resilient. I mean, shit, we didn't always have electricity, the net, cars, mortgages, and a Bill of Rights. We lived a long time before that stuff. Loving, hating, fucking, killing, making babies, losing babies—the whole thing. I mean, shit, homes: you think the first caveman complained about human rights when the next guy tried to step on his neck? Hell, no. He picked up a rock and beat the guy to death, or rolled over and showed his belly. That's what it boils down to when you strip away all the fatty tissue. That's people, homey. Get yours or get got. You'd be surprised how quickly people get used to that, no matter how civilized they been brought up. They adapt to adversity. It's what makes us what we are. Our dreams are only as deep as our nightmares, yeah?"
The livetattoos in place of his eyebrows have translated into animated Japanese, kanji characters tracking across his brow: 'Only God Can Judge Me.' I ask if he's saying humanity is only as good as the evil it does. He smiles.
"Look at us, esé," he motions to the penthouse balcony overlooking the Bay. "We're sitting on top of a building that was grown out of the fucking shattered Earth, yeah? Brasilian engineers come up the coast, seeded the ground with nanocrap, and five weeks later, I have a private suite with spigots that pour any drink I want. Furniture that grows out the damned floor and changes color when I clap. That's pretty amazing, right? But flip it around. That same nanocrap goes into decompiler bombs and man-eater bullets. Side by side, homey. That's the human condition. One foot in the gutter, one on the curb."
My follow-up question is interrupted by a crashing sound from inside the penthouse. Shapes move on the other side of the balcony's crystal doors.
Goncz's alligator smile widens, livetattoos morphing to red lightning bolts above his eyes. He passes me his cigarette. "Hold this, and don't smoke it," he growls. "Pendejos found me. Only a matter of time, I suppose. Stay out here. This shouldn't take too long." He pulls a long narrow strip from his belt buckle, quiet buzz as the softknife goes rigid with electric current. A tiny pistol has materialized in his other hand.
I had no idea my host was armed with blade and gun.
Or that I would witness him use them.
Midnight at the Palma de Baía is surreal and alarming. Atop a fifty-story spire shaped a bit like a melted candle, you can still hear the artillery in East Oakland's flatlands as the Northern Republic of California continues its purge of the Deep East Side. Guandong, another breakaway republic across the Pacific, has long subsidized arms sales to NoCal in return for preferential shipping rights, and with all this money floating around, the Pacific Arms race is at full steam. Combat drones made in the factory hives of Guanzhou screech overhead like pterodactyls, dropping decompiler bombs on ghostly suburbia. NoCal's Army uses Guandong-made bioweapons and nerve bombs to 'pacify' great swaths of urban NoCal, against almost every recognized convention of human rights. And while the old men in Beijing stomp their feet in impotent rage, their dreams of Chinese hegemony stalled when the wealthy provinces quit the country. They, like their counterparts in Washington, have learned some hard lessons in modern politics the past few years. None could teach these old dogs new tricks better than Prime Minister Benny Pivens, whose Golden Bear Party made its bones reclaiming vast stretches of the country and putting them back on the grid. Yet as the country's largest city, Oakland has proven particularly difficult to tame, especially given meager police resources. While NoCal's constitution gives Pivens sweeping power to maintain order, using the Army to clear the Deep East Side seems excessive to my tender Yankee sensibilities.
Cecilio Goncz fancies himself a scholar of the human condition, and I haven't the backbone to dispute him. He thinks my outrage is cute. Amusing, even. His own human rights record consists of petabytes of footage that might convince Dante to re-write his portrayal of Hell. Goncz's former territories were among the most savagely oppressed in Los Angeles' history. He justifies this often by remarking on how his was one of the few enclaves on the island with electricity and clean, running water. People ate regularly. There was rudimentary net access. Running local newsfeeds. Hospitals. Relatively low murder rate. Lowest infant mortality rate in Los Angeles. But all that was alongside death camps and narcofactories. A burgeoning slave trade and vigorous gladiator culture, arguably unparalleled since the days of ancient Rome. To this day, the provisional government has found his the least manageable of all its cantonments. Cecilio Goncz's throne was built of human bones. In his mind, Benny Pivens is an amateur. He says so.
"If he was smart," my host says, picking at his sharpened teeth, "he'd arm a counterinsurgency. Get one of the other gangs to do his work, absorb the survivors into the police or army. It's win/win. Blooded vets loyal to the state, and you've cleared the streets of dissent."
I have nothing to say to that. Our silence is interrupted by a distant explosion that rains combat drone over Jack London Square. Rumors place U.S. military advisers in East and West Oakland, arming guerillas. Pivens' public rhetoric has heated up over the past weeks. I quietly wonder if North America can take another war.
He lights a little black cigarette and answers my unspoken question. "People can take anything, kid. Human rights bastards wring their fucking hands all day, but people are resilient. I mean, shit, we didn't always have electricity, the net, cars, mortgages, and a Bill of Rights. We lived a long time before that stuff. Loving, hating, fucking, killing, making babies, losing babies—the whole thing. I mean, shit, homes: you think the first caveman complained about human rights when the next guy tried to step on his neck? Hell, no. He picked up a rock and beat the guy to death, or rolled over and showed his belly. That's what it boils down to when you strip away all the fatty tissue. That's people, homey. Get yours or get got. You'd be surprised how quickly people get used to that, no matter how civilized they been brought up. They adapt to adversity. It's what makes us what we are. Our dreams are only as deep as our nightmares, yeah?"
The livetattoos in place of his eyebrows have translated into animated Japanese, kanji characters tracking across his brow: 'Only God Can Judge Me.' I ask if he's saying humanity is only as good as the evil it does. He smiles.
"Look at us, esé," he motions to the penthouse balcony overlooking the Bay. "We're sitting on top of a building that was grown out of the fucking shattered Earth, yeah? Brasilian engineers come up the coast, seeded the ground with nanocrap, and five weeks later, I have a private suite with spigots that pour any drink I want. Furniture that grows out the damned floor and changes color when I clap. That's pretty amazing, right? But flip it around. That same nanocrap goes into decompiler bombs and man-eater bullets. Side by side, homey. That's the human condition. One foot in the gutter, one on the curb."
My follow-up question is interrupted by a crashing sound from inside the penthouse. Shapes move on the other side of the balcony's crystal doors.
Goncz's alligator smile widens, livetattoos morphing to red lightning bolts above his eyes. He passes me his cigarette. "Hold this, and don't smoke it," he growls. "Pendejos found me. Only a matter of time, I suppose. Stay out here. This shouldn't take too long." He pulls a long narrow strip from his belt buckle, quiet buzz as the softknife goes rigid with electric current. A tiny pistol has materialized in his other hand.
I had no idea my host was armed with blade and gun.
Or that I would witness him use them.
7.26.2007
Vermont Avenue + Adams Boulevard
by Ike Moses, Los Angeles, CA, USA
"El Poco Grande," she began, carefully, with one hand commanding motorized blades and the other directing a laser. Concentration sweat laminated the faded serial number on her forehead, "It wasn't no earthquake."
"Oh yeah?" Jawan raised an interested eyebrow and urged the punchline, "What was it then?"
"Terrorismo."
Southern California remains a popular tourist destination, even after its incidental secession from the Union. Granted, most who come here really want to be in the States, but for some the Southland is as close and as far as they want to be from Sam. There are less Germans, with fanny packs full of euros, visiting the Walk of Fame; but there are more Sudanese Jihadis, full of American resentment, trying to win back the confidence of other Arabs. They were the CIA's dry-snitches for most of the Arab-American Wars, but Southern Sudan's liberation broke the alliance.
Jawan had to resist shaking his head. He didn't want that nonsense landing anywhere near his shoulders. The slightest neck swivel would fuck up his hairline, though. He ain't disagree that much. Holding very, very still, he screwed disapproval into his lips and said, "You on one, 'Maine."
"Think about it, Juan," Tremaine precisely traced the beginnings of an acute crescent above Jawan's left temple, "An earthquake is caused by friction. The friction is caused by placas going head up. They run into each other, not away from each other, 'stand me? They make mountains, not islands."
"They made this mountain fall into the pienche Pacific," Jawan didn't understand why he was getting so frustrated, "If Poco Grande wasn't an act of Allah; who did it, how, and why?"
"I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I know who," Tremaine paused, not for dramatic effect, but to review her head work, "Same fools who blew up them levies way back when."
Ready for a subject change, Jawan called out to the shop, "Who winning?"
A group of men shielded the wall-screen, only allowing Jawan to see the ball occasionally fly over their unshaped-up heads from his chair. The game was broadcast live from the Coliseum, about a mile south, so Jawan was unsure if the audience roars he heard came from the speakers or the stadium itself. Somebody shouted back, "It's tied. One up."
When Tremaine finished, Jawan surveyed his dome in the mirror, stretched, and brushed phantom hairs from his clothes. He tipped the barber in won and pesetas, grasped her hand, leaned an elbow into her chest, and said, "A'right 'Maine. See you next viernes."
Once outside, he heard the parlor explode with disappointment and celebration. Some asshole held a "Gol!" shout for like 45 seconds. Jawan didn't turn around to see the replay. He hopped on his bike, checked there were no trucks or tanks approaching, and swerved across all four lanes of Vermont Avenue, dodging opposing cyclists as he headed southbound. He didn't mind coming out this way for a cut, no matter how many foreign 'hoods he had to pass through to get here. He needed a Friday ritual: the weekly round-trip to Tremaine's shop and back gave the day some meaning. Besides, it was difficult finding a barber he could trust. Tilt your head back into the wrong sink and you'll sit up without it.
Jawan sprint-cycled until his bike was charged, then sat back to cruise, going easy on the twist grip. He tried, unsuccessfully, to find a pattern in the neglected asphalt's alligator cracks and potholes. At the corner of Exposición Bulevar and Vermont he was forced to yield to the drunken mob of 'stizos and negros that trampled Expo Park, the streets, and the reappropriated Universidad del Sur de California campus. He hated having to stop there, with the emerald dome of la Mezquita de Omar Iban Al-Jattab noticeably absent over his right shoulder.
He remembered the night it happened. Not just him, everyone who wasn't in the masjid that night remembers, because everyone was looking. Angelenos used to give stars jaded regard, but now stars made them anxious. The lights and the smog keep the heavens far away from the City of Angels, so if you see the sky, the sky is falling. That night the star came from the east, just above the palm tree horizon, and grew in intensity for a couple minutes. The star didn't come from heaven, of course, but from a coastal town that used to be Bagdad, California. It was the first American ballistic missile in a brief campaign that caught sleeper cells while they slept.
According to Sura 2:160, Allah is the relenting, the merciful. But Jawan needed a relentless, vengeful god. His faith had collapsed with the dome to his right, and this intersection was where the failed structures of his life stood, or laid, or whatever that mostly demolished building was doing. Instead of sitting there thinking about another missed Jumu'ah, he decided to slice through the crowd of cerveza-fueled football fans. Agitated by Jawan's intrusion, some spectators threw food and drinks at him. He caught a little with his shirt and khakis, but they missed his head, so he didn't really trip.
"El Poco Grande," she began, carefully, with one hand commanding motorized blades and the other directing a laser. Concentration sweat laminated the faded serial number on her forehead, "It wasn't no earthquake."
"Oh yeah?" Jawan raised an interested eyebrow and urged the punchline, "What was it then?"
"Terrorismo."
Southern California remains a popular tourist destination, even after its incidental secession from the Union. Granted, most who come here really want to be in the States, but for some the Southland is as close and as far as they want to be from Sam. There are less Germans, with fanny packs full of euros, visiting the Walk of Fame; but there are more Sudanese Jihadis, full of American resentment, trying to win back the confidence of other Arabs. They were the CIA's dry-snitches for most of the Arab-American Wars, but Southern Sudan's liberation broke the alliance.
Jawan had to resist shaking his head. He didn't want that nonsense landing anywhere near his shoulders. The slightest neck swivel would fuck up his hairline, though. He ain't disagree that much. Holding very, very still, he screwed disapproval into his lips and said, "You on one, 'Maine."
"Think about it, Juan," Tremaine precisely traced the beginnings of an acute crescent above Jawan's left temple, "An earthquake is caused by friction. The friction is caused by placas going head up. They run into each other, not away from each other, 'stand me? They make mountains, not islands."
"They made this mountain fall into the pienche Pacific," Jawan didn't understand why he was getting so frustrated, "If Poco Grande wasn't an act of Allah; who did it, how, and why?"
"I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I know who," Tremaine paused, not for dramatic effect, but to review her head work, "Same fools who blew up them levies way back when."
Ready for a subject change, Jawan called out to the shop, "Who winning?"
A group of men shielded the wall-screen, only allowing Jawan to see the ball occasionally fly over their unshaped-up heads from his chair. The game was broadcast live from the Coliseum, about a mile south, so Jawan was unsure if the audience roars he heard came from the speakers or the stadium itself. Somebody shouted back, "It's tied. One up."
When Tremaine finished, Jawan surveyed his dome in the mirror, stretched, and brushed phantom hairs from his clothes. He tipped the barber in won and pesetas, grasped her hand, leaned an elbow into her chest, and said, "A'right 'Maine. See you next viernes."
Once outside, he heard the parlor explode with disappointment and celebration. Some asshole held a "Gol!" shout for like 45 seconds. Jawan didn't turn around to see the replay. He hopped on his bike, checked there were no trucks or tanks approaching, and swerved across all four lanes of Vermont Avenue, dodging opposing cyclists as he headed southbound. He didn't mind coming out this way for a cut, no matter how many foreign 'hoods he had to pass through to get here. He needed a Friday ritual: the weekly round-trip to Tremaine's shop and back gave the day some meaning. Besides, it was difficult finding a barber he could trust. Tilt your head back into the wrong sink and you'll sit up without it.
Jawan sprint-cycled until his bike was charged, then sat back to cruise, going easy on the twist grip. He tried, unsuccessfully, to find a pattern in the neglected asphalt's alligator cracks and potholes. At the corner of Exposición Bulevar and Vermont he was forced to yield to the drunken mob of 'stizos and negros that trampled Expo Park, the streets, and the reappropriated Universidad del Sur de California campus. He hated having to stop there, with the emerald dome of la Mezquita de Omar Iban Al-Jattab noticeably absent over his right shoulder.
He remembered the night it happened. Not just him, everyone who wasn't in the masjid that night remembers, because everyone was looking. Angelenos used to give stars jaded regard, but now stars made them anxious. The lights and the smog keep the heavens far away from the City of Angels, so if you see the sky, the sky is falling. That night the star came from the east, just above the palm tree horizon, and grew in intensity for a couple minutes. The star didn't come from heaven, of course, but from a coastal town that used to be Bagdad, California. It was the first American ballistic missile in a brief campaign that caught sleeper cells while they slept.
According to Sura 2:160, Allah is the relenting, the merciful. But Jawan needed a relentless, vengeful god. His faith had collapsed with the dome to his right, and this intersection was where the failed structures of his life stood, or laid, or whatever that mostly demolished building was doing. Instead of sitting there thinking about another missed Jumu'ah, he decided to slice through the crowd of cerveza-fueled football fans. Agitated by Jawan's intrusion, some spectators threw food and drinks at him. He caught a little with his shirt and khakis, but they missed his head, so he didn't really trip.
7.25.2007
King of the Californias pt II
by Monk, New York City, NY, USA
With the promise of trials at the Hague's High Court of Human Rights, Los Angeles's warlords seem finally to have run aground. Recent captures of narcoterrorist Willis "Grip-Up" Tollridge in his Brentwood fortress, and Ricky "Tweaks" Neuman of the notorious San Bernadino Popular Front have stricken powerful blows to LA's infrastructure of violence. With elections around the corner and international aid pouring into the provisional civilian government, the beleaguered island nation seems finally to have found its footing, after close to thirty years of continual bloodshed. But even with these victories, many claim the war-torn nation of 12 million cannot truly begin its healing, as war criminals such as Kelvin Black, Lucien Cree, Darlanda Stuart, Jesus Cruz, and Rolando Montoya are loose. The infamous 'Inglewood Five' have been sighted as far away as Vanuatu, luxuriating in wealth generated over decades of brutal exploitation and oppression. And while the provisional government works tirelessly to rebuild and reconnect Los Angeles's diverse communities, they do so knowing the funds to effectively perform their job are sitting in banks on the other side of the globe.
Oakland, in particular, seems to have a lot of loose cash these days.
Ask anyone out West, and they'll tell you the monsters of Los Angeles made off with billions, leaving their countrymen in squalid, sometimes medieval conditions. Where have they gone? The nations of CariCom want nothing to do with them. The United States, Alaska, Canada, Brasil, and Quebec have all issued warrants to seize on sight anyone from the High Court of Human Rights' wanted roster. Hugo Ranieri's capture in Buenos Aires last month effectively flushed out the war criminal populace of Argentina. For the discriminating fugitive, the Western hemisphere has all but shut its doors. Yet nestled between Canada and Federal Mexico, the Northern Republic of California has taken a stance that has made it enormously attractive to Los Angeles's oligarchy-in-exile. With no official stance regarding the upcoming international tribunals, nor any existing extradition treaties with their neighbors, Prime Minister Benny Pivens has eliminated even the possibility of extraditing admitted war criminal against their will. And so Oakland, NoCal's largest functioning metropolis, has become haven to some of LA's wealthiest absconders. Paramilitaries, gangsters, murderers, narcotics cartels, and slavers have found new homes in any of the twenty luxury hotels to spring up in downtown Oakland these past three years. With all this new money pouring in, new banks pop up almost daily to accommodate new offshore accounts, and the Californian peseta is currently one of the most traded currencies on the international market.
Money, they say, makes the world go 'round. And that is the topic du jour as evening falls on Oakland's Palma de Baía hotel, where we watch the sun set from Cecilio Goncz's private rooftop suite. Overlooking the gutted shell of Goldengate Bridge Memorial, Goncz has set aside his trademark sunglasses, revealing milky white eyes behind nictitating membranesm installed for protection against pepperspray (and worse).
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages," he says, inhuman eyes set on the Bay. By the time it dawns on me that he's quoting Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he's facing me, looking for some kind of response.
The worse part about his eyes is you can never tell exactly where he's looking. When the silence becomes awkward, he chuckles, grafted alligator teeth adding signature menace to his smile. Goncz's mythology swirls with tales of missing journalists. I sip my mochatini and smile back, trying to look impartial, unshaken, never happier in my life than for the tracking culture injected before I left Chicago. I ask about his money.
"Money?" he smirks. "Homey, I don't have two centavos to rub together. Money implies income, and baby, I have none. I spread it around. Charitable causes. Rebuilding efforts here in Cali. LA didn't want me anymore, hey, peace. Move on. That's life. But this?" He motions to the Bay. "This is California. Home."
I remind Mr Goncz politely that by his own admission he technically only lived in California for a few years before the Little Big One separated Greater Los Angeles from the continent, and devastated the rest of the West Coast. And that one night at the Palma de Baía costs two weeks my salary.
"You don't get it, do you?" he asks sadly. "California, that was the American Dream. 'Go West, young man.' Cowboys. Indians. The Gold Rush. Hollywood. Blondes. Money. Fame. Live fast, die young. All that shit. When you reached the Pacific, you knew you'd achieved something, you'd made it. The earthquake broke something fundamental, you know? In people's hearts. We felt that shit in LA, homey. Believe that. When the Little Big One hit Cali, that was the American Dream got strangled right there. Now, I can't fix things in LA like I want to, so I brought my money here. And yeah, I got a nice pad, but like I said, I'm paying to fix a lot of broken things."
I mumble something about nobility, which I hope isn't taken too snidely as I want to live to finish my drink. Then I ask how that relates to his quoting Smith.
His trademark smile resurfaces, tone reminiscent of the journalism professor at Northwestern who flunked me. Twice. "No one cares how the job gets done, homey, or where the money comes from. Just so long as it gets done, and the money's there."
With the promise of trials at the Hague's High Court of Human Rights, Los Angeles's warlords seem finally to have run aground. Recent captures of narcoterrorist Willis "Grip-Up" Tollridge in his Brentwood fortress, and Ricky "Tweaks" Neuman of the notorious San Bernadino Popular Front have stricken powerful blows to LA's infrastructure of violence. With elections around the corner and international aid pouring into the provisional civilian government, the beleaguered island nation seems finally to have found its footing, after close to thirty years of continual bloodshed. But even with these victories, many claim the war-torn nation of 12 million cannot truly begin its healing, as war criminals such as Kelvin Black, Lucien Cree, Darlanda Stuart, Jesus Cruz, and Rolando Montoya are loose. The infamous 'Inglewood Five' have been sighted as far away as Vanuatu, luxuriating in wealth generated over decades of brutal exploitation and oppression. And while the provisional government works tirelessly to rebuild and reconnect Los Angeles's diverse communities, they do so knowing the funds to effectively perform their job are sitting in banks on the other side of the globe.
Oakland, in particular, seems to have a lot of loose cash these days.
Ask anyone out West, and they'll tell you the monsters of Los Angeles made off with billions, leaving their countrymen in squalid, sometimes medieval conditions. Where have they gone? The nations of CariCom want nothing to do with them. The United States, Alaska, Canada, Brasil, and Quebec have all issued warrants to seize on sight anyone from the High Court of Human Rights' wanted roster. Hugo Ranieri's capture in Buenos Aires last month effectively flushed out the war criminal populace of Argentina. For the discriminating fugitive, the Western hemisphere has all but shut its doors. Yet nestled between Canada and Federal Mexico, the Northern Republic of California has taken a stance that has made it enormously attractive to Los Angeles's oligarchy-in-exile. With no official stance regarding the upcoming international tribunals, nor any existing extradition treaties with their neighbors, Prime Minister Benny Pivens has eliminated even the possibility of extraditing admitted war criminal against their will. And so Oakland, NoCal's largest functioning metropolis, has become haven to some of LA's wealthiest absconders. Paramilitaries, gangsters, murderers, narcotics cartels, and slavers have found new homes in any of the twenty luxury hotels to spring up in downtown Oakland these past three years. With all this new money pouring in, new banks pop up almost daily to accommodate new offshore accounts, and the Californian peseta is currently one of the most traded currencies on the international market.
Money, they say, makes the world go 'round. And that is the topic du jour as evening falls on Oakland's Palma de Baía hotel, where we watch the sun set from Cecilio Goncz's private rooftop suite. Overlooking the gutted shell of Goldengate Bridge Memorial, Goncz has set aside his trademark sunglasses, revealing milky white eyes behind nictitating membranesm installed for protection against pepperspray (and worse).
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages," he says, inhuman eyes set on the Bay. By the time it dawns on me that he's quoting Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he's facing me, looking for some kind of response.
The worse part about his eyes is you can never tell exactly where he's looking. When the silence becomes awkward, he chuckles, grafted alligator teeth adding signature menace to his smile. Goncz's mythology swirls with tales of missing journalists. I sip my mochatini and smile back, trying to look impartial, unshaken, never happier in my life than for the tracking culture injected before I left Chicago. I ask about his money.
"Money?" he smirks. "Homey, I don't have two centavos to rub together. Money implies income, and baby, I have none. I spread it around. Charitable causes. Rebuilding efforts here in Cali. LA didn't want me anymore, hey, peace. Move on. That's life. But this?" He motions to the Bay. "This is California. Home."
I remind Mr Goncz politely that by his own admission he technically only lived in California for a few years before the Little Big One separated Greater Los Angeles from the continent, and devastated the rest of the West Coast. And that one night at the Palma de Baía costs two weeks my salary.
"You don't get it, do you?" he asks sadly. "California, that was the American Dream. 'Go West, young man.' Cowboys. Indians. The Gold Rush. Hollywood. Blondes. Money. Fame. Live fast, die young. All that shit. When you reached the Pacific, you knew you'd achieved something, you'd made it. The earthquake broke something fundamental, you know? In people's hearts. We felt that shit in LA, homey. Believe that. When the Little Big One hit Cali, that was the American Dream got strangled right there. Now, I can't fix things in LA like I want to, so I brought my money here. And yeah, I got a nice pad, but like I said, I'm paying to fix a lot of broken things."
I mumble something about nobility, which I hope isn't taken too snidely as I want to live to finish my drink. Then I ask how that relates to his quoting Smith.
His trademark smile resurfaces, tone reminiscent of the journalism professor at Northwestern who flunked me. Twice. "No one cares how the job gets done, homey, or where the money comes from. Just so long as it gets done, and the money's there."
7.22.2007
The Man who woke the Panther—Mason Dickson
by David W Parrish, Jr., Ft. Worth, TX, USA
The organ rose and signaled for everyone to get quiet. David Parrish, III, his son David Parrish, IV and his grandson, David Parrish, V rose for the tribute to Senator Mason Dickson, the first African-American to serve as Mayor of Fort Worth, TX and the former junior Senator from Texas, again the first African-American to hold the position. It was at that moment the cybercast emanated from the big screen in the sky.
"Senator Dickson was arguably the most important Politcal Figure in the State of Texas in the 21st Century. Dickson was a former church pastor who took the Texas political scene by storm by coming from out of nowhere to win the Mayor's race in 2015. A task he accomplished by harnessing the power of the Web…which had been freed from the grip of Big Cable and The former Bells by Former President Obama.
Mason Dickson won his first election by knocking on the door of each and every resident of Fort Worth and explaining to them what his goals were. He talked about the years of Fort Worth and Tarrant County sleeping in the shadow of Big D, Dallas. He talked about how the Cowboys and the Rangers were already in Tarrant County. He talked about how most of Tarrant County's newest residents were former Dallas County residents. He reminded them how much positive press had come from a wildly successful hosting of Super Bowl XLV. His daily podcasts were entertaining, his position papers on how to move Fort Worth into the forefront of not just the Metroplex but the entire Southwest.
Once in office, Mason realized how powerless the people really were. He took the oath of office on a Monday and by Thursday he was awash in proposals from the big money establishment interests trying to build on the success of Tarrant County's tourism and natural gas proceeds to elevate the national profile of Fort Worth. While in the past, such objectives would result in ruthless gentrification, Mayor Dickson utilized the vocal nature of his constituency to hedge his bets. While detractors would say that he was in the pocket of big business, the reality is that after an entire history of neglect, never had a Fort Worth mayor even attempted to cash in the favors he garnered from even the side deals he brokered with developers and use that money to elevate things like mass transit. Fort Worth went from having one of the worst mass transit systems in the country to one of the best, despite having insufficient topography for underground transit. It was the risky move of utilizing the Solar Hybrid Bus, a technology that leaked out of a newly opened Cuba that Mayor Dickson embraced fully and without compromise. He arranged for a spinoff of Bell Helicopter to build the buses in the city of Fort Worth by exchanging tax breaks for a high school program that trained workers in high school and transitioned them right into college in exchange for a 4 year commitment from the company to work the assembly line. From there the development flowed fast and furious all over the county.
From there, the legend of Mayor Dickson lingered under the radar. In a national media still transfixed by scandal and celebrity, Mason Dickson stayed about the business of wielding the Sword of capitalism for as much good as possible. Aside from the Obama administration, the federal government had been on a non-stop descent into oligarchy, where the Dow stayed on the incline at all costs and no job was safe from outsourcing. The earnings divide between the rich and the poor went from a gulf to a canyon. Those in the underclass who could get their Evel Knevel on and jump the canyon did so by any means necessary. The middle class existed by sheer force of will. You had those in the middle class who scraped by just well enough to be included in the American dream, and you had those who were treading water, but had no hope of retirement.
Mayor Mason Dickson transferred his popularity with the big money interests and the people to a romp in the US Senate Race of 2028. Even on the National Stage, Senator Dickson kept Fort Worth Close to his heart, orchestrating similar exchanges to benefit both ends of the economic spectrum. Senator Dickson took the opportunity of the national stage to voice the importance of bringing Southern California back from the brink of complete anarchy. Mason Dickson was never an ideologue, which drove members of both parties crazy. He was a darling of the Independents, who never did get organized enough to start a third party, choosing instead to straddle the fence in either party as it suited them. While over the course of the 21st Century, politics grew to be more and more like bloodsport for public consumption, in reality, certain figures navigated the vast territory between the two extremes to provide enough leadership to accomplish enough basic reform to stave off the long rumored decline and fall of the United States empire. Very little was made of his race, despite the fact that race relations remain a flashpoint for much of society. Fort Worth and then Texas came to view Mason Dickson as a GOOD Black man, to be trusted, as long as nothing bad happened. That left Mason Dickson the unenviable task of navigating THAT divide as well, the divide between Blacks and Whites and others and the internal Divide between Blacks who had achieved and Blacks who hadn't.
While it should be noted that the United States on many levels has devolved into a hodgepodge of Hyper-materialism and strife between neighbors, The nation still stands tall as an ideal of democracy even as we approach our nation's tricentennial.
It is therefore on this the 22nd day of July, 2057 that we honor The Honorable Mason Dickson, Mayor of Fort Worth, and United States Senator from the State of Texas for his contributions over the past 50 years."
At that precise moment, a laser billboard lit up the sky in his memory….scrolling his accomplishments across the Fort Worth skyline.
The organ rose and signaled for everyone to get quiet. David Parrish, III, his son David Parrish, IV and his grandson, David Parrish, V rose for the tribute to Senator Mason Dickson, the first African-American to serve as Mayor of Fort Worth, TX and the former junior Senator from Texas, again the first African-American to hold the position. It was at that moment the cybercast emanated from the big screen in the sky.
"Senator Dickson was arguably the most important Politcal Figure in the State of Texas in the 21st Century. Dickson was a former church pastor who took the Texas political scene by storm by coming from out of nowhere to win the Mayor's race in 2015. A task he accomplished by harnessing the power of the Web…which had been freed from the grip of Big Cable and The former Bells by Former President Obama.
Mason Dickson won his first election by knocking on the door of each and every resident of Fort Worth and explaining to them what his goals were. He talked about the years of Fort Worth and Tarrant County sleeping in the shadow of Big D, Dallas. He talked about how the Cowboys and the Rangers were already in Tarrant County. He talked about how most of Tarrant County's newest residents were former Dallas County residents. He reminded them how much positive press had come from a wildly successful hosting of Super Bowl XLV. His daily podcasts were entertaining, his position papers on how to move Fort Worth into the forefront of not just the Metroplex but the entire Southwest.
Once in office, Mason realized how powerless the people really were. He took the oath of office on a Monday and by Thursday he was awash in proposals from the big money establishment interests trying to build on the success of Tarrant County's tourism and natural gas proceeds to elevate the national profile of Fort Worth. While in the past, such objectives would result in ruthless gentrification, Mayor Dickson utilized the vocal nature of his constituency to hedge his bets. While detractors would say that he was in the pocket of big business, the reality is that after an entire history of neglect, never had a Fort Worth mayor even attempted to cash in the favors he garnered from even the side deals he brokered with developers and use that money to elevate things like mass transit. Fort Worth went from having one of the worst mass transit systems in the country to one of the best, despite having insufficient topography for underground transit. It was the risky move of utilizing the Solar Hybrid Bus, a technology that leaked out of a newly opened Cuba that Mayor Dickson embraced fully and without compromise. He arranged for a spinoff of Bell Helicopter to build the buses in the city of Fort Worth by exchanging tax breaks for a high school program that trained workers in high school and transitioned them right into college in exchange for a 4 year commitment from the company to work the assembly line. From there the development flowed fast and furious all over the county.
From there, the legend of Mayor Dickson lingered under the radar. In a national media still transfixed by scandal and celebrity, Mason Dickson stayed about the business of wielding the Sword of capitalism for as much good as possible. Aside from the Obama administration, the federal government had been on a non-stop descent into oligarchy, where the Dow stayed on the incline at all costs and no job was safe from outsourcing. The earnings divide between the rich and the poor went from a gulf to a canyon. Those in the underclass who could get their Evel Knevel on and jump the canyon did so by any means necessary. The middle class existed by sheer force of will. You had those in the middle class who scraped by just well enough to be included in the American dream, and you had those who were treading water, but had no hope of retirement.
Mayor Mason Dickson transferred his popularity with the big money interests and the people to a romp in the US Senate Race of 2028. Even on the National Stage, Senator Dickson kept Fort Worth Close to his heart, orchestrating similar exchanges to benefit both ends of the economic spectrum. Senator Dickson took the opportunity of the national stage to voice the importance of bringing Southern California back from the brink of complete anarchy. Mason Dickson was never an ideologue, which drove members of both parties crazy. He was a darling of the Independents, who never did get organized enough to start a third party, choosing instead to straddle the fence in either party as it suited them. While over the course of the 21st Century, politics grew to be more and more like bloodsport for public consumption, in reality, certain figures navigated the vast territory between the two extremes to provide enough leadership to accomplish enough basic reform to stave off the long rumored decline and fall of the United States empire. Very little was made of his race, despite the fact that race relations remain a flashpoint for much of society. Fort Worth and then Texas came to view Mason Dickson as a GOOD Black man, to be trusted, as long as nothing bad happened. That left Mason Dickson the unenviable task of navigating THAT divide as well, the divide between Blacks and Whites and others and the internal Divide between Blacks who had achieved and Blacks who hadn't.
While it should be noted that the United States on many levels has devolved into a hodgepodge of Hyper-materialism and strife between neighbors, The nation still stands tall as an ideal of democracy even as we approach our nation's tricentennial.
It is therefore on this the 22nd day of July, 2057 that we honor The Honorable Mason Dickson, Mayor of Fort Worth, and United States Senator from the State of Texas for his contributions over the past 50 years."
At that precise moment, a laser billboard lit up the sky in his memory….scrolling his accomplishments across the Fort Worth skyline.
7.14.2007
Ma’Marie
by Nichole Perkins, Los Angeles, CA, USA
“They wanted more boys, you see,” Marie began, cradling her steaming cup of green tea like the treasure it had become. It was one of the bribes I had to use to get her to talk to me today.
“The war in Iraq, the Little Big One, all of it took so many of our boys, our men, and then the water became infected. Men started dying. Women began having…” she looked around, even though we were the only ones in her studio. “Women began having periods for months on end.” Her forehead folded on itself, the wrinkles hiding the ruins of her former identification number.
“I was 20, maybe 21. Had really started enjoying sex the way it should be, you know, and then I got my period and the shit just lasted and lasted. The third month, I cried myself sick for a week. They’d started rationing tampons!” She looked up at me, and for a moment, I saw panic in her wide eyes before she remembered the now. She lowered her untouched tea and reached out for the basket of peaches—another convincing gift—with her left hand, a hand with four tallies sliced onto its back.
She noticed my glance and tucked it beneath the table.
“Four miscarriages,” she confirmed flatly and turned her head to the window.
I waited, unwilling to speak. Her eyes chased dust motes dancing before the glass pane. I jumped when she abruptly pushed her chair away from the table and approached the window with a salt shaker from the makeshift lazy susan. She layered the grains against the windowsill before returning to her seat.
“The witches—they have to count the grains of salt before they can come in to steal your babies,” she advised, a tilt to her head.
I kept my face neutral. She sipped her tea.
“The bleeding stopped during the fifth month. They came for me during the sixth. My room was very nice, very comfortable. I yielded three, but there were four who knew the best way. They’d give us a month to recover when we lost one. Everybody lost one. So many girls killed themselves that they shortened it to two weeks, but then we’d die from bleeding. So they gave us a month again.”
Marie traced the final notch carved into her hand.
“I ran away after I lost Bliss. One of them—he liked me. I had to kill him, but I think I liked him, too. I made it to Refuge, in former Watts. It took three weeks. There were a lot of Sisters with eraser burns across their foreheads. I was home.”
She picked up her tea, and I knew the interview was over. It was as much as she was willing to give and more than I thought I’d get.
As I climbed onto my bike, I looked back and found her sprinkling the doorstep with salt.
“They wanted more boys, you see,” Marie began, cradling her steaming cup of green tea like the treasure it had become. It was one of the bribes I had to use to get her to talk to me today.
“The war in Iraq, the Little Big One, all of it took so many of our boys, our men, and then the water became infected. Men started dying. Women began having…” she looked around, even though we were the only ones in her studio. “Women began having periods for months on end.” Her forehead folded on itself, the wrinkles hiding the ruins of her former identification number.
“I was 20, maybe 21. Had really started enjoying sex the way it should be, you know, and then I got my period and the shit just lasted and lasted. The third month, I cried myself sick for a week. They’d started rationing tampons!” She looked up at me, and for a moment, I saw panic in her wide eyes before she remembered the now. She lowered her untouched tea and reached out for the basket of peaches—another convincing gift—with her left hand, a hand with four tallies sliced onto its back.
She noticed my glance and tucked it beneath the table.
“Four miscarriages,” she confirmed flatly and turned her head to the window.
I waited, unwilling to speak. Her eyes chased dust motes dancing before the glass pane. I jumped when she abruptly pushed her chair away from the table and approached the window with a salt shaker from the makeshift lazy susan. She layered the grains against the windowsill before returning to her seat.
“The witches—they have to count the grains of salt before they can come in to steal your babies,” she advised, a tilt to her head.
I kept my face neutral. She sipped her tea.
“The bleeding stopped during the fifth month. They came for me during the sixth. My room was very nice, very comfortable. I yielded three, but there were four who knew the best way. They’d give us a month to recover when we lost one. Everybody lost one. So many girls killed themselves that they shortened it to two weeks, but then we’d die from bleeding. So they gave us a month again.”
Marie traced the final notch carved into her hand.
“I ran away after I lost Bliss. One of them—he liked me. I had to kill him, but I think I liked him, too. I made it to Refuge, in former Watts. It took three weeks. There were a lot of Sisters with eraser burns across their foreheads. I was home.”
She picked up her tea, and I knew the interview was over. It was as much as she was willing to give and more than I thought I’d get.
As I climbed onto my bike, I looked back and found her sprinkling the doorstep with salt.
6.28.2007
King of the Californias
by Monk, New York City, NY, USA
Cecilio Goncz favors the Indian side of his Ecuadorian heritage, sort of an ageless quality trapped in his high cheek bones and almond-shaped eyes. His neatly-trimmed mustache is his only facial hair, livetattoos in place of his eyebrows. This week, they read 'Solamente El Dios Puede Juzgarme', solid animated monobrow in pulsing Old English type. His head appears recently shaved, beads of sweat popping between veins and faint wrinkles. Dressed in an informal black linen suit, matching cowboy boots, he sits on the balcony of one of Oakland's thousands of bistros, overlooking the twisted graveyard of the Goldengate Bridge, coolly sipping a blood-orange martini. I make sure the recorder sits prominently on the table so there is no impression of guile on my part, frame him generously with Bay over his shoulder, and listen, translation services running to keep up with his pidgin of Spanish, English, Korean, Tagalog, and Russian.
"I was maybe ten when the Little Big One hit," he says. "We lived in Pico Union back then. Few of us. Came up for work, ended up spending most of our time hiding from Customs, Immigration, Homeland Security. Little Big One hit, everything south of Santa Barbara became its own real estate. I mean, they say SoCal actually took it light, you know? Ended up an island overnight. NoCal's the one got screwed. Nothing left standing. Frisco...well, you can look at Frisco from here. Nothing pretty anymore."
When I ask Mr Goncz about the Inglewood Five, he smiles, showing off the seven-hundred thousand dollar organic alligator tooth graft that has become his trademark. When he doesn't answer, I ask about what most newsfeeds refer to now as The Shadow Years. The killings. The dictatorship. The narcotics factories. Rape camps. Slavery. Goncz chuckles, drains the rest of his martini, looks out at the Bay.
""It was bad days, right? Lot of bad days. The Fed pretty much walked away, right? 'Southern California is no longer viable for reclamation,' the President said. Well, I mean, yeah. Bad days and all, but we made it. And yeah, some people got stepped on along the way, and I'm not going to say they didn't, but ordo abchao, right?"
I check the translation services. Mr Goncz lays a callused hand flat on the table and looks at me. "Order out of chaos."
I ask about his diplomatic status now that Los Angeles has had its first democratic elections in twenty-plus years. He drums his manicured fingernails on the black matte table and looks out at the Bay. "U.S. wouldn't take me, but NoCal still got love for me. Put a lot of money into rebuilding up here. Californians know how to show appreciation."
Cecilio Goncz favors the Indian side of his Ecuadorian heritage, sort of an ageless quality trapped in his high cheek bones and almond-shaped eyes. His neatly-trimmed mustache is his only facial hair, livetattoos in place of his eyebrows. This week, they read 'Solamente El Dios Puede Juzgarme', solid animated monobrow in pulsing Old English type. His head appears recently shaved, beads of sweat popping between veins and faint wrinkles. Dressed in an informal black linen suit, matching cowboy boots, he sits on the balcony of one of Oakland's thousands of bistros, overlooking the twisted graveyard of the Goldengate Bridge, coolly sipping a blood-orange martini. I make sure the recorder sits prominently on the table so there is no impression of guile on my part, frame him generously with Bay over his shoulder, and listen, translation services running to keep up with his pidgin of Spanish, English, Korean, Tagalog, and Russian.
"I was maybe ten when the Little Big One hit," he says. "We lived in Pico Union back then. Few of us. Came up for work, ended up spending most of our time hiding from Customs, Immigration, Homeland Security. Little Big One hit, everything south of Santa Barbara became its own real estate. I mean, they say SoCal actually took it light, you know? Ended up an island overnight. NoCal's the one got screwed. Nothing left standing. Frisco...well, you can look at Frisco from here. Nothing pretty anymore."
When I ask Mr Goncz about the Inglewood Five, he smiles, showing off the seven-hundred thousand dollar organic alligator tooth graft that has become his trademark. When he doesn't answer, I ask about what most newsfeeds refer to now as The Shadow Years. The killings. The dictatorship. The narcotics factories. Rape camps. Slavery. Goncz chuckles, drains the rest of his martini, looks out at the Bay.
""It was bad days, right? Lot of bad days. The Fed pretty much walked away, right? 'Southern California is no longer viable for reclamation,' the President said. Well, I mean, yeah. Bad days and all, but we made it. And yeah, some people got stepped on along the way, and I'm not going to say they didn't, but ordo abchao, right?"
I check the translation services. Mr Goncz lays a callused hand flat on the table and looks at me. "Order out of chaos."
I ask about his diplomatic status now that Los Angeles has had its first democratic elections in twenty-plus years. He drums his manicured fingernails on the black matte table and looks out at the Bay. "U.S. wouldn't take me, but NoCal still got love for me. Put a lot of money into rebuilding up here. Californians know how to show appreciation."
6.25.2007
3rd + C
by Monk, New York City, NY, USA
Avenues A through D. Used to call it Alphabet City, until every Puerto Rican, Ukrainian, Jew, and Chinaman from Union Square to City Hall got cooked up and served at the same buffet. Chomp-chomp-chomp. New moneyed bastards filled their plates with refurbished tenements that cost millions of dollars per room or those glass and chrome things you wouldn’t wish your mother should live in. Weird little guys from the middle of nowhere. Middlebury, Connecticut. Webtoe, Minnesota. Pigsfoot, Virginia. Moved right in, never blinked at the cost, and set up shop. Natty little graphickers and webpeople at their little cafe’s with clever names, paying a fortune to live in gut-renovated slums. I lived on 3rd and C back then. My parents owned Hunan Cuisine, just downstairs, fourth generation Lower East Siders, second generation Alphabet City. Of course, the newbies already called it The East Village by the time I had short hairs, but we used the old name. Rent went up, of course. Happens when that type moves in. Broke my dad’s heart when he had to close the shop. Replaced it with a salon or something, Sold very clever t-shirts. Neat thousand dollar haircuts.
Anyway.
We were set to move, you know? Same as everyone else. Dad was all ready to open Hunan Cuisine II out in Sunset Park when the Little Big One hit. I know people say it’s bullshit, but I distinctly remember the tremors here in New York. Biggest quake in human history, so why wouldn’t I feel it all the way over here? Cracked California right off the map, they say. I know we like to talk about New York like it’s its own little world, but let me tell you, I felt it. One of the biggest economies in the world out there, wasn’t it? Kept the country afloat for a long time. Little Big One took all our Pacific ports, entertainment industry, links to Asia, Silicon Valley. Never mind the human cost. Economy crashed, yeah? All the pretty graphickers on Avenue A suddenly didn’t have jobs. And what were they going to do, move in with their parents? The ones whose pensions and social security just took a collective nose dive into the Pacific Ocean? Hell, you remember all the homeless senior citizens once the foreclosures started? No, sir, they were stuck with the rest of us.
They stayed right where they were, in those half-finished glass tower thingies. Squatters, yeah? I mean, the renters, they all got kicked out in droves. Whole blocks went empty. Boarded up. Those unfinished buildings? No one cared. Money wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, so barter kicked in. Jewelry, gadgets, clothes. Hell, to eat, people were trading time with their kids. BAD time, if you know what I mean. We saw a market, so we stayed. American way, right? Capitalism at its finest. Hunan Cuisine and Pawn Shop.
Twenty years, right here on 3rd and C.
Same as the squatters.
Avenues A through D. Used to call it Alphabet City, until every Puerto Rican, Ukrainian, Jew, and Chinaman from Union Square to City Hall got cooked up and served at the same buffet. Chomp-chomp-chomp. New moneyed bastards filled their plates with refurbished tenements that cost millions of dollars per room or those glass and chrome things you wouldn’t wish your mother should live in. Weird little guys from the middle of nowhere. Middlebury, Connecticut. Webtoe, Minnesota. Pigsfoot, Virginia. Moved right in, never blinked at the cost, and set up shop. Natty little graphickers and webpeople at their little cafe’s with clever names, paying a fortune to live in gut-renovated slums. I lived on 3rd and C back then. My parents owned Hunan Cuisine, just downstairs, fourth generation Lower East Siders, second generation Alphabet City. Of course, the newbies already called it The East Village by the time I had short hairs, but we used the old name. Rent went up, of course. Happens when that type moves in. Broke my dad’s heart when he had to close the shop. Replaced it with a salon or something, Sold very clever t-shirts. Neat thousand dollar haircuts.
Anyway.
We were set to move, you know? Same as everyone else. Dad was all ready to open Hunan Cuisine II out in Sunset Park when the Little Big One hit. I know people say it’s bullshit, but I distinctly remember the tremors here in New York. Biggest quake in human history, so why wouldn’t I feel it all the way over here? Cracked California right off the map, they say. I know we like to talk about New York like it’s its own little world, but let me tell you, I felt it. One of the biggest economies in the world out there, wasn’t it? Kept the country afloat for a long time. Little Big One took all our Pacific ports, entertainment industry, links to Asia, Silicon Valley. Never mind the human cost. Economy crashed, yeah? All the pretty graphickers on Avenue A suddenly didn’t have jobs. And what were they going to do, move in with their parents? The ones whose pensions and social security just took a collective nose dive into the Pacific Ocean? Hell, you remember all the homeless senior citizens once the foreclosures started? No, sir, they were stuck with the rest of us.
They stayed right where they were, in those half-finished glass tower thingies. Squatters, yeah? I mean, the renters, they all got kicked out in droves. Whole blocks went empty. Boarded up. Those unfinished buildings? No one cared. Money wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, so barter kicked in. Jewelry, gadgets, clothes. Hell, to eat, people were trading time with their kids. BAD time, if you know what I mean. We saw a market, so we stayed. American way, right? Capitalism at its finest. Hunan Cuisine and Pawn Shop.
Twenty years, right here on 3rd and C.
Same as the squatters.
48th Street + Avenue of the Americas
by Monk, New York City, NY, USA
Some call him the International Man.
About five-foot-three, built like an overgrown badger: most of the mass in the upper third of his body, especially around the neck and shoulders. He's seen a lot of life in his time, and almost as much death. Formative years in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, then when that fell apart, in the Counterrevolutionary Army. When that fell apart, he joined an Azeri ethnic insurgency cell, picking Iran's carcass like the rest of the jackals. When the scavengers grew too thick, he snuck into Azerbaijan and got a cousin to vouch for him. His next five years were spent in the Doorkicker Squad of Baku's police department, breaking up terrorist and slavery rings, before rushing to the front lines in the Nakhchivan Secession. When the Federalists lost and the country split, he found himself in the oil-impoverished half of What-Was-Once-Azerbaijan. On the road again, this time to a cousin's house in Gush Katif, where he got a job as security in an an international shipping company. His legs got blown off in a botched hijack, woke up in Beth Israel Los Angeles. He liked the meat on his Mexican nurse's backside, and decided to stay. One day he just wheeled himself out the front door, and the next, he was staying with her in a one bedroom shack in South Los Angeles, just in time for the Little Big One, which wrenched southern California out of the continent's pelvis and tossed it like a severed penis into the Pacific toilet. Like most refugees, he ended up in Phoenix. Not exactly content with the gelatin quality of the air, he used his last three gold fillings and the sale of his slightly pickled kidney to fly him to Paterson, New Jersey, where he stayed with the brother of his dead Mexican nurse. After the first week, they opted for separate living arrangements, what with the knife he'd buried in his roommate's chest. His time in the overcrowded prison was mercifully short given he wasn't technically a citizen. But, then, there wasn't a whole lot of paperwork confirming his citizenship anywhere, so when the New Jersey State Police delivered him to the Azerbaijan Embassy in Manhattan for formal diplomatic eviction, there wasn't a whole lot the ambassador had to say.
New Jersey didn't want him.
There was no Azerbaijan to ship him back to.
Properly vested in purgatory, the International Man got himself a room in Rego Park, Queens from a Bukharanian woman with terrible scars on her face and neck, but full heavy breasts and thighs you could crush aluminum girders between.
The International Man has seen a lot in his time, but not with his own eyes. Those were blow out back in his Counterrevolutionary days. These were re-grown for him in a lab outside Isfahahan, along with most of his jaw. His ears haven't worked in eighteen years, function replaced by a second-rate cochlear implant implanted by an unexpectedly skilled surgeon in backalley Baku, recently expatriated from Nigeria. Well, loosely Nigeria: most of Africa was desert these days, and the borders were more than a little blurred. All that mattered was the surgeon's steady hand, and the tinny quality to the cochlear implants were better than no quality at all. His right arm is mostly short-string polymer and fiber optic cable, plugged indelicately into a mauled shoulder socket after a rocket attack on the warehouse in Gush Katif. Built somewhere in a Tel Aviv factory, with the same warranty as a Yugoslavian ultracompact car. His legs below the knee are noticeably darker than the rest of him. That's probably because they were salvaged from someone of African-American descent, and transplanted hastily in a West Los Angeles hospital by a Korean-designed surgical robot. His biological arm is something of an art piece: animated tattoos from a carnival of anonymous donors, some in Farsi, some in Arabic, some in Hebrew, some in English, dancing languidly across his skin like a sun-scorched movie screen.
His English is pretty thin, but he's mastered the epithets. I'm a bit of a pussy, by his reckoning, using my cellphone to check my mail, the news, weather. He points to a new glowing tattoo on his forearm that streams news from Al-Jazeera, Ha'aretz, the Daily Wallstreet Post, and a bunch of esoteric feeds I've never heard of. He refers to my phone as a 'woman's purse' and my only argument is that I hate the idea of live tattoos, because of all the GPS crap embedded in them. I ask him if his right arm is the only thing made out of pipestem parts, or if maybe he'd had the optional upgrade done below his waist as well. He flips me the pincer-equivalent of the bird.
Which is polite compared to the nearby street vendors, who call him 'Blackfoot' because of his mismatched limbs. When I see him, it's the same lop-sided ceramic smile, pat on the shoulder from his tri-pincered arm, and offer of high-octane diesel coffee and stale baklava. Sometimes fresh halvah from a store in Kew Gardens, cut into slices from a turd-shaped loaf wrapped in wax paper. Always the same fare: tin carafe burning sugar, coffee, and distilled tap water over a small upright propane burner. Buck-seventy-five for coffee and a pastry.
Some people call him the International Man.
I just call him the coffee cart guy on 48th Street.
Some call him the International Man.
About five-foot-three, built like an overgrown badger: most of the mass in the upper third of his body, especially around the neck and shoulders. He's seen a lot of life in his time, and almost as much death. Formative years in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, then when that fell apart, in the Counterrevolutionary Army. When that fell apart, he joined an Azeri ethnic insurgency cell, picking Iran's carcass like the rest of the jackals. When the scavengers grew too thick, he snuck into Azerbaijan and got a cousin to vouch for him. His next five years were spent in the Doorkicker Squad of Baku's police department, breaking up terrorist and slavery rings, before rushing to the front lines in the Nakhchivan Secession. When the Federalists lost and the country split, he found himself in the oil-impoverished half of What-Was-Once-Azerbaijan. On the road again, this time to a cousin's house in Gush Katif, where he got a job as security in an an international shipping company. His legs got blown off in a botched hijack, woke up in Beth Israel Los Angeles. He liked the meat on his Mexican nurse's backside, and decided to stay. One day he just wheeled himself out the front door, and the next, he was staying with her in a one bedroom shack in South Los Angeles, just in time for the Little Big One, which wrenched southern California out of the continent's pelvis and tossed it like a severed penis into the Pacific toilet. Like most refugees, he ended up in Phoenix. Not exactly content with the gelatin quality of the air, he used his last three gold fillings and the sale of his slightly pickled kidney to fly him to Paterson, New Jersey, where he stayed with the brother of his dead Mexican nurse. After the first week, they opted for separate living arrangements, what with the knife he'd buried in his roommate's chest. His time in the overcrowded prison was mercifully short given he wasn't technically a citizen. But, then, there wasn't a whole lot of paperwork confirming his citizenship anywhere, so when the New Jersey State Police delivered him to the Azerbaijan Embassy in Manhattan for formal diplomatic eviction, there wasn't a whole lot the ambassador had to say.
New Jersey didn't want him.
There was no Azerbaijan to ship him back to.
Properly vested in purgatory, the International Man got himself a room in Rego Park, Queens from a Bukharanian woman with terrible scars on her face and neck, but full heavy breasts and thighs you could crush aluminum girders between.
The International Man has seen a lot in his time, but not with his own eyes. Those were blow out back in his Counterrevolutionary days. These were re-grown for him in a lab outside Isfahahan, along with most of his jaw. His ears haven't worked in eighteen years, function replaced by a second-rate cochlear implant implanted by an unexpectedly skilled surgeon in backalley Baku, recently expatriated from Nigeria. Well, loosely Nigeria: most of Africa was desert these days, and the borders were more than a little blurred. All that mattered was the surgeon's steady hand, and the tinny quality to the cochlear implants were better than no quality at all. His right arm is mostly short-string polymer and fiber optic cable, plugged indelicately into a mauled shoulder socket after a rocket attack on the warehouse in Gush Katif. Built somewhere in a Tel Aviv factory, with the same warranty as a Yugoslavian ultracompact car. His legs below the knee are noticeably darker than the rest of him. That's probably because they were salvaged from someone of African-American descent, and transplanted hastily in a West Los Angeles hospital by a Korean-designed surgical robot. His biological arm is something of an art piece: animated tattoos from a carnival of anonymous donors, some in Farsi, some in Arabic, some in Hebrew, some in English, dancing languidly across his skin like a sun-scorched movie screen.
His English is pretty thin, but he's mastered the epithets. I'm a bit of a pussy, by his reckoning, using my cellphone to check my mail, the news, weather. He points to a new glowing tattoo on his forearm that streams news from Al-Jazeera, Ha'aretz, the Daily Wallstreet Post, and a bunch of esoteric feeds I've never heard of. He refers to my phone as a 'woman's purse' and my only argument is that I hate the idea of live tattoos, because of all the GPS crap embedded in them. I ask him if his right arm is the only thing made out of pipestem parts, or if maybe he'd had the optional upgrade done below his waist as well. He flips me the pincer-equivalent of the bird.
Which is polite compared to the nearby street vendors, who call him 'Blackfoot' because of his mismatched limbs. When I see him, it's the same lop-sided ceramic smile, pat on the shoulder from his tri-pincered arm, and offer of high-octane diesel coffee and stale baklava. Sometimes fresh halvah from a store in Kew Gardens, cut into slices from a turd-shaped loaf wrapped in wax paper. Always the same fare: tin carafe burning sugar, coffee, and distilled tap water over a small upright propane burner. Buck-seventy-five for coffee and a pastry.
Some people call him the International Man.
I just call him the coffee cart guy on 48th Street.
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