Plymouth Crock

I hate Thanksgiving. In fact, I give thanks that I am one of the few people around who sees through this holiday for what it really is, namely the systematic diversion of thanks from those who truly deserve it to anything or anybody else.

Take the original Thanksgiving Dinner. Who deserves thanks for that? Who has always deserved thanks for it, ever since it happened? We all know the story. It was the prior residents of Plymouth Rock who generously provided food from their own storage to the starving Pilgrims, right? But do they get the thanks? No!

Think about it. How would you feel if you gave, say, your lazy good-for-nothing brother $15 so he could eat pizza for a change, as opposed to the dead bugs he finds in the couch he never gets his butt off, and instead of saying “Thank You” to you for the pizza money, he turns his eyes to the sky and thanks God for the “miracle” of having turned your cold heart warm? And there are still people today who wonder what set off the so-called Indian Wars. Those weren’t Indian Wars; they were Ingrate Wars. At the very least, they should now be called the White People Wars. That would show some overdue perspective.

It isn’t just Native Americans who don’t get the thanks they deserve. There are millions upon millions of innocent people who suffer silently through this dreadful holiday, and don’t ever get the thanks they deserve for not turning it into an occasion for mass murder.

I will illustrate my last point with the case of Pekingese Woman.

I call her Pekingese Woman because whenever she spoke to me I could imagine her yapping like a Pekingese Dog. After warming up to any new topic, after the first couple of sentences, she would stop taking breaks, not even to take breaths. So conversations with her would degenerate into interminable yapping sessions.

Pekingese Woman never thanked me for letting her yap. Not only that, but, knowing that I was poor and starving at the time, the horrible ungracious windbag invited me to join her and her friends at her house for a big Thanksgiving Dinner.

I knew Pekingese Woman had an ulterior motive. She wanted my everlasting soul. I told her I would go on these three conditions: 1) she can collect her damned friends’ souls, but not mine, as I was sick and tired of always having my soul saved from me wherever I went, 2) she would not subject me to her cult (some obscure abominable sect with a name like “First Church of Christ, Overlord”) except for the unavoidable “grace,” and 3) the grace would have to be mercifully short. I said if she could not promise those conditions I would stay away and willingly starve. She promised them!

So I entered her lair at the appointed time. And what do you suppose I got? First, I got A TWO HOUR SLIDE SHOW OF HER RECENT EXTENDED TRIP TO THE HOLY LAND NARRATED NONSTOP BY HER INFERNAL YAPPING. I am not lying when I tell you that she had to change the slides a thousand times, and that she didn’t stop yapping about her tedious trip EVEN WHEN SHE WAS RELOADING THE PROJECTOR. She had a different slide for every single rock and bush along the Sea of Galilee.

Then, rather than one quick, sharp, grace that would only hurt for a second, she made everyone around the table say a separate, individual grace. Out loud.

When it was my turn I said, “Thank You God for not making me think that You put all this food here because we love You so much, because then I would have to think that the people in the world who are starving are going without because You are punishing them, and I know that’s wrong.”

Pekingese Woman never thanked me for not just screaming and running out.

A Side of Maslow

You alert regular readers may have noted that I am now peddling Real Change T-shirts in an ad in this rag. And you may have also troubled yourselves to read the copy of that ad, written by Timothy "Pith Personified" Harris, our director, and wondered what was meant by my "geeking it up with my internet writer buddies."

I'll be getting to that, but first I want to talk about Maslow.

Mention Maslow to the average homeless person and he/she will probably guess you are talking about a city in Poland, or a new side dish available at KFC. He/she will not imagine that Maslow has any connection to his/her life.

Oh but he does. The theories of the psychologist Maslow as taught and *understood* by sociology students have an huge influence on how the homeless are treated by social service workers. The trouble is, they don't understand Maslow's theories. They take his ideas regarding the "hierarchy of needs" (that lower needs, such as for food and security must be met before a person can pursue higher needs) and apply them without any real comprehension. This is where the inane idea comes that all that the homeless can use are food and shelter, *they are not ready for anything more*.

So anyway, here I am, HOMELESS, geeking it up with my internet writer buddies, ACTIVELY pursuing higher needs for friendship, self-esteem and creativity. Gosh, maybe I should go back to school and learn my place in the Socio-Scientific Universe?

A Poem From Hunger

(A Sarcasm In Four Verses)

I have nothing to say!

I haven't eaten all day!

Yeah, I AM a starvin' man!!!

Can't deal with stress nor feet

Till I get me somethin' to eat!

Please!! Feed the starvin' man!!!

I cannot do art

No poem can I start

Until after I'm fed, man!

And I could have nothing to say,

in any self-expressional way,

because I am a poor pathetic starving man.

So what do I do with my internet writer buddies? Well for example, recently the question came up among them, "What is poetry? How is it distinguished from prose?" Actually the question arose three different times on two email lists for writers. Each time I offered variations of this.

Poetry and Prose

by © Dr. Wes Browning

Poetry and Prose:

the oranges and yellows

in a jumbo box of crayons.

There are poetry and prose and prose poetry and poetic prose

and prosish poetry and stranger things with odd names like

rants and chants and marigold and corn.

Lay them all out.

Arrange them by rules

See them change gradually

from left to right.

Blend them.

Then arrange them randomly.

Then start over again,

pretending it's all new.