Dear Dog Owning Driver,

Why do you threaten me with your poodle?

What is wrong with you?  Why would you do that?  What have I ever done to you?  What has your poodle ever done to you?  What have I ever done to your poodle?  What are you...some kind of mental?  You, and your poodle, and your car.  You scare me.

You need to quit that.

And before you start up with me here, let me clarify right up front; I am not anti-poodle and I am not anti-dog, and I am not anti-car.  In fact, I love cars.  They move me.

And dogs are okay too, ...in general, ...for the most part.  Though I don’t care much to own one these days, what with the law that requires walking around behind them picking up their stuff.  But I suppose that simply could be a generational thing.  Back when my dogs were not dead, dog ownership was a lot less demeaning.  A lot less stool centric.  You had a dog.  You fed it.  You walked it.  Walk, sniff, squat...split.  Wasn’t anybody walking around mandated to be picking up warm poo.  That wasn’t the price for owning man’s best friend.  I don’t recall that even being an option.

But no matter.  The point is I cared about my dogs, and I can still recall the deep genuine affection that I felt for them.  And I also recall how endearing, for lack of a better word, it was when my dog hung his head out a rear window as I drove, him air-blasting his dog head senses, blowing his freaking dog head mind, as we drove along city streets trying to snag looks of desire from females of our species.  Woof.  

So I get that.

And I get too, that dogs are just dogs, and they are not so easily controlled, and that they are quite likely to just do what they want to do, which at any given moment may vary between scratching or barking or poking their head out a car window or whatever, and it doesn’t necessarily make any sense.  We can order them to pull their heads back in the car or sit down for their own safety,  or put out their cigarettes and stop playing poker but ultimately why they do what they do, is profoundly inexplicable

But you...YOU are a human being, with intellect, logic, the power of reason, maybe even an IPad, and, in theory, a shred of common sense.  ...And it’s you that is out there motoring with a poodle standing on your lap, man. 

That’s insane.  You’re going to kill somebody.  You’re going to kill your poodle.

Why do you want to go doing that?  Why do you want to go driving around population centers like that?  With your poodle hanging out all over the place?  Places where people are.  Innocent people.  People with jobs.  People who don’t want to end up dead or worse, just so you can showcase your butt sniffin poodle and how special your relationship is to it.

That’s crazy driving stuff, my friend.  That is crazy.  While you’re at it, why don’t you just go ahead and eat a rotisserie chicken and do some texting too?

Do you really think you can safely operate a 3000 pound mechanical device stuffed with steel and glass and combustible liquids moving swiftly through thickly settled population centers with a freakin poodle sitting on your genitalia blocking your vision and your steering wheel and access to all manner of operational controls?

Can that be done?

No!  

But somehow you believe, ...YES!

And in your delusion, you are not alone.  There are many others like you.  Crazy pooch wielding lunatics in Chevys and Toyotas and Fords, and we are all aware of you.  You are like a cult of dangerous poodle lap-dance-driving freaks and you are dangerous and we resent you.  We resent you because you have animal friends and maybe we don’t, and you smell of Alpo and maybe we don’t,  and you are trying to kill us and life is lonely and poodle-less and tough enough already.  And you are illegal.

Oh yes, illegal, ...you freakazoid car cur conundrum crazy person.  You are illegal.  I checked.

According to Massachusetts General Law, it is illegal for an operator of a motor vehicle to allow anything in or on the vehicle that may “interfere with or impede the proper operation of the vehicle...”

According to the Massachusetts Drivers Manual, “Nothing should block your view of the road, either ahead of you or through your mirrors.  Be careful that nothing near your feet can roll and get in the way of your pedal controls.”

“Like what?” you hiss, defensively.

Like a Chihuahua, we reply.

Like a Shit-Tzu with a foot fetish.

Like a Beagle who’s overdosed on Snausages.

Like.........A POODLE!!!!

And as difficult as it is to fathom why you would harbor such callous disregard for the personal safety of your fellow man, it is doubly difficult to fathom why, WHY, you would do it to your dog.  (You love your dog, remember?  That’s what you told that girl you met on the beach!)

Because beyond the illegality, which is clear and established, there is the moral dimension.

Because driving with a dog on your lap is a reckless, feckless, irresponsible behavior and an assault on dog/man relations.  Further, it puts a defenseless beast, to whit your precious Fifi, needlessly at risk, ...something highway safety groups like AAA, and animal advocacy groups like the MSPCA, take a very dim view of.  MSPCA spokesperson Kara Holmquist points out that the MSPCA has taken a strong stance on this and recommends “...that dogs be restrained--both for their own safety and to prevent interference with the driver.”  She also  encourages all to visit their website for a quick reality check regarding safety hazards and solutions.

Other veterinary professionals are a little less diplomatic.

“It’s asinine” says one vet acquaintance who works south of Boston.  “You wouldn’t drive with a child on your lap.  This is so wrong for so many reasons!”

And with the exception of the romantically inclined pit bull, frantically trying to claw his way out the driver’s side window because he’s spotted a spaniel in heat and stretching it’s front legs on the sidewalk across the boulevard, ...most everyone else in the world would agree.

So why, why, would you do such a thing?

For one thing, you’re a knucklehead.  Beyond that, I have only theories.


THEORY #1
You’re misinformed.  You believe that dogs are made of Nerf and are impervious to the laws of physics.

THEORY #2
You’re delusional.  You think it makes you look cute.  In reality it makes you look brain damaged. 

THEORY #3
You’re a sadist, and you dream of the day when you can launch an 20lb bug eyed Pug across three lanes of rush hour traffic directly into the path of an oncoming Fung Wah bus.

THEORY #4
You’re gullible.  That guy on the corner..., the one who shouted “Hey gorgeous...With that poodle on your lap, you look like Paris Hilton!”  

He was drunk.

THEORY #5
You’re just plain, old fashioned, dumb.

THEORY #6
You relish the possibility of dying with your head stuck in the anus of a collie.


Whatever the reason, the upshot is the same:  Lap dog driving makes zero sense.  It is gratuitous, ridiculous, and it’s dangerous.  

So for the good of all of us, do us a favor:

...save lap time for the living room

...and keep your poodle 

...in it’s place.

© 2011  J. Mark Rast

(The following article was originally composed in April, 2010)


Life is all about energy.  Life is all about fuel.  

Life is all about getting juiced.

And life can be cruel.  

You’ve been there.  You know.

When you were young, it was easy.  Everything was juice.  Everything was new.  Everything stimulated.  The juice was everywhere.

But not now.  

That was then and this is now, and now is different.  Now, you are experienced, wizened,  grizzled, ...and older.  And age, it turns out, is an astringent.  It is the anti-juice.  It is the dehumidifying spirit sucking mortal enemy of creativity.  Life gets dull, because, well..., we get older, the well runs dry, the juice runs out, and so we seek.  

You’ve sought.  You seek.  I know you have.  I know you do.

Me too.  I seek.

Today was a seek day.  I took a ride today, seeking, looking for my juice.

It was out there, I believed.  

I knew it was.  

I’d find it.

I took a ride into Boston.  I went just southeast of Uphams Corner, to the Edward Everett Square area, to the site of the old Doughboy Donuts, now a Dunkin Donuts, that sits at the theoretical corner of Boston St., and Mass Ave, and Columbia Road, which is a crossroads and not a corner really, but in New England, qualifies as a corner and so there I was because it was Eddie Everett and Uphams Corner and despite all the indicators that tell me otherwise, I like to think I am a journalist, a photographer, a recorder of events and stories, and Eddie Everett and Uphams Corner are two of those wonderful horrible locations in Boston where you really should spend time if you want to record events and stories and maybe find some juice.  A lot of stories start there, or end there, or near there, or within striking distance of there, and anyway, there is coffee there, which makes the whole waiting-seeking part a lot easier, there.

Which matters.  Those places can be unsettling, but they produce.  They always have.  They are fertile places.  They are fishing holes for stories.

Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, is difficult to say.  Either area produces because it is a crossroads for all types of people in all types of situations; life, death, cowardice, courage.  And the geographic centrality of these areas provides quick access to many other neighborhoods,  many other fishing holes and many other fish.  They have long been a place where reporters and photographers and criminals and cops, pull over to the curb , light up a cigarette, and wait.  The wait is never too long.  There’s always another customer, another story, another fish.

And so I went trolling in Uphams Corner, casting in Eddie Everett, because that is where the stories are.  That is where the juice is.

The catch was trivial today, small.  Still, it was worth it.  Today I saw stuff, I learned stuff...there were characters.  There were moments of confusion and moments of clarity and little of it was in my control and that’s just the way it should be.  That’s just the way I like it.

I started with a parking space for both my car and my lazy butt, and procured myself three bucks worth of coffee.  Then Boston Fire Alarm struck a box and I chased it.  The address was a stretch, a structure fire somewhere in the Dudley Square vicinity, but with GPS it was do-able so I chased.  

For a time it seemed promising.  First truck in reported smoke showing, and the dispatcher’s voice took that tell-tale edge that cuts right through the din, his tone announcing that something worth looking at was going on.  But two minutes later it was over, ...a wash...food on the stove, over before it started, and well before my arrival ten minutes after the truck.  Once again I found myself disappointed that somebody’s house wasn’t engulfed in flames.  That tells you something about me, about the lure of juice.

Nothing to see.  Nothing to show.  I wandered back to my perch to wait.

Coming down Columbia Road, another call, this time on the Boston EMS channel.  A child had been found wandering.  The parents had not.  Being so close it was worth checking out.  Lost and found kids are always a story, emotions overflow, and any number of photo opportunities could present themselves.  I looked for the cruisers and parked.

Across the busy street a group of people were gathered on the sidewalk.  Uniformed cops moved among them asking questions.  Everyone seemed to be waiting.  Nobody seemed particularly agitated, but no one seemed particularly relaxed, either.

A cooperative cop summarized the situation for me.  He was cooperative because he was mad.  The more he summarized, the more he scowled.

Shopkeepers had found a little girl toddler wandering the Uphams Corner sidewalks alone in the middle of the day, and for the past 30 minutes, nobody had called looking for her.  That wasn’t sitting well with anyone on site wearing a uniform.  Area residents didn’t seem too thrilled either.  These are working people, family people.  Losing track of a kid just didn’t compute with them.  It seemed for a while that by the time it all ended, this story might involve handcuffs, so me and my camera, we stuck around.

Eventually the pieces began to come together and someone figured out who the kid was, who she belonged to, and who was supposed to be keeping her safe.  The parent was out of town at a funeral, it turns out, and the babysitters just lost track.  The cops conferred and the caregivers were found and invited to attend the curbside meeting.  Excuses were made and alibis offered and eyebrows were raised, but to the relief of some, to the disappointment of others, nobody went to jail.  The little girl though, ...she went with the ambulance, taken into the care of the City of Boston until the parent could be located directly, and reunited with her child.

A less than dramatic ending, after all, at least for that day.

Still, for me, for my selfish self-interests, it had been worth it.  The juice had gotten flowing, and that was good, if just for a few.  I’d gotten a taste, a reminder of why I liked to do this.   The waters had stirred, if not actually produced, and for a few minutes I’d enjoyed, at least, the anticipation of a good story rising to the surface.  But adrenal rushes by themselves are fleeting, and fickle, and very quickly they pass, and a little does not go a long way.  This story did not flesh out, and so faded off the screen.

So I’ll go back.  I’ll have to go back, back on another day for more.  For more fish and more stories and more juice. 

There will always be more.

What if Jesus had used Twitter?  


Well for one thing, he probably would have spent a lot less time on Facebook.


For another thing, he likely would’ve had even more followers.  Which is saying a lot.


And his tweets might have gone something like this...


--Check out my awesome sermon.  Total awesomeness.  Today.  Noon.  The Mount!


--40 day fast was BRUTAL.  No water..lot’s of sand...The Devil.  That bastard brought donuts.


--Two free tix, Sermon-The Mount, front row center, to the first person who can name the dude I brought back from the dead!  (OH YEAH I DID!)


--Water...wine...water...wine...  Does nobody drink Scotch in this frickin town?


--Score two, for Simon the Zealot, who correctly answered "Lazarus".  Pick em up at the gate, bro.


--OMG!  Flashmob nightmare in Cana!  ...And who booked this caterer?  Outta fish, outta bread, Jesus H. Me!  Puhleeze don’t make me do a miracle.


--It's like, to bridesmaids I’m invisible.  This is what I get for bringing a date who is my Mom.


--Render unto Ceasar, blah, blah, blah.  ...There.  Okay?  I said it.


--Just an expression, people.  Context!  Context!


--Thursday 6pm.  Local help please!  Nazareth.  Need a bistro that can take moi + 12.  Neat.  Discreet.  bitchin wine list a must!


--...and for dessert I got to wash twelve guy’s feet.  No wonder I can’t get girls.


--Anybody sees Judas, take his keys.  He is in no shape to drive.


--Evening ends badly.  Iscariot shows up wasted, tries to make out.  Cops bust ME!


--Pontius Pilate?  How about Pontius Douche Bag?


--I don’t know why they call this Good Friday.  So far it has sucked.


--Hello?  Flogger dude!  Did we not agree on a safe word?


--Friday, 1pm.  Folks are spitting.  Might have underestimated some of the anger level here.


--1st impressions re: the whole “crucifix” thing.  Nice design, but as son of a carpenter, I’d have gone with the oak.


--Snag number 2, assembling the cross.  “You make it!”  “No, you make it”  I can tell this isn’t going to end well.


--These freakin things weigh a ton.  Need a donkey.


--Can’t get donkeys to stop.  ...It’s cuz I’m black, isn’t it?


--Total props to Simon of Cyrene...good dude!  (How much do you tip a guy for carrying your cross?)


--Yo Veronica...thanks for the wipe, babe!  Send me the cleaning bill!


--Thorny crown, edgy look.  ...Might be a little too butch.


--Tuff venue!


--Getting a lot of major ‘tude here.  No way this burg is messiah friendly.


--Show time.  Looks like the rest of the day I’ll be one handing it.  (At least I'm getting top billing)


--Ugh!  Fell for the old “vinegar sponge” trick.


--Man, this is endless.


--Duh, ...Barabbas!  ...WINNING!


--Gonna wrap it up now.  ...But I’ll be back for the retweets!








©  2011 J. Mark Rast

Everyone wants a piece of the pie, right?


So it is with almost comically absurd hyperbole that the accelerating dispute between the National Football League team owners and players is being continually referred to in the press as a “labor” dispute.  Fewer things could be further from the truth.  A more appropriate term for describing the situation would probably be “lab experiment”, for what we are witnessing here are the long term effects of unnatural environments and toxic stimuli on certain sub-species of the human animal.  To be exact, tunnel visioned, over indulged, culturally spoiled jocks living in hermetically sealed bubbles of adulation, hero worship, self importance, and denial.


A labor dispute, though technically a phrase that in it’s simplest definition can be used to describe virtually any disagreement between an employer and his employee, is most commonly understood to apply to more acute situations where workers are organized and energized and validated in pursuit of basic worker rights:  i.e. life sustaining fair wages and safe, dignified working conditions.  The dispute arises when each or any of these is contended by the labor organizers as being denied to them by their employer.


In this current NFL owner/player situation, however, what we have are over indulged and cruelly misinformed adolescents, who actually believe that they are deserving of the attention, praise, fanfare and special treatments that have constantly, recklessly, and cynically, been heaped upon them.  Because they hear it every day, (most often and most forcefully from those very ones who seek to exploit them), they actually come to believe the sycophantic nonsense diet that they are fed.  They believe that they are special gifted beings, knighted vessels bearing and protecting some national treasure, a task for which they, and only they, are qualified.  This imagined knighthood, bestowed upon them by the manufacturers of beer, shaving cream, pickup trucks, and financial services, has completely gone to their heads.   And why wouldn’t it?  Who inside their bubble ever tells them otherwise?  


And so now, imbued with a sense of self-importance that is rapidly crossing the line into self-destructiveness, they see themselves with an inherent right, not just to the nearly obscene compensation levels that for most Americans, stagger the imagination, but now, in the twisted culture of Reagan American entitlement thinking, to actually review and judge the ledgers of the organizations that employ them.  Thus implying that up until this point, even with their multi-million dollar salary contracts, their endorsement deals, their get out of jail cards, that they have never the less, been victimized.


So let’s be clear:  What we are not talking about, are laborers disputing conditions that prevent them from making a reasonable and safe living.


What we are talking about are circus clowns, suing to run the circus.


It is difficult for the ground level observer, (laughingly known as “fans”)  to just shrug and accept all this, because that requires accepting the notion that there are actually creatures out there that could be so self-centered or shallow or greedy or spoiled or delusional, or simply out of touch with state of economics in the real world.  It is difficult to accept because any rational reasonably grounded person living in the real world would never think like that.


But we’re not talking about reasonable grounded people.  We’re talking about man/child entertainers living in suspended adolescent animation.  We’re talking about guys who get fireworks and cheerleaders just for walking on to a field.  We’re talking about guys who live in spandex.  


And so, it does happen.  It does.  It’s happening now.  And it’s really obnoxious.


So do us a favor, Mr. Sportswriter.  Stop insulting those of us who actually labor for a living wage.  Open up your dictionary, open up your thesaurus, open up your joke book, and find another phrase to hang on this silly, selfish argument. 


A labor dispute is a worthy endeavor.


A pie fight is for clowns.











©  2011 J. Mark Rast

I, have been pondering.

Recently, an annoying occurrence, the nature of which is of no particular importance and really doesn’t matter here, caused me to mutter to myself (as I often do), “Please Lord, ...just kill me.”  This in turn caused me to contemplate my own mortality, it’s meaning, and the randomness of the circumstances that will eventually bring it all to an end, and so, I began to ponder...If I die of a heart attack...


...I hope it’s a real good one.  A real chest clutcher.  Lurching around the house, or even better, someplace public, like a fancy restaurant, knocking over tables and lamps, face turning purple, eyes like ping pong balls, arms flailing, pointing at my heart, maybe even grabbing somebody, ideally a random stranger or perhaps that neighbor I’ve never liked, or best of all the jackass sitting in front of me on the plane who just HAD to suddenly recline their seat so they could take an all important 10 minute nap on a 30 minute flight.  And there should also be lots of moaning and wailing and maybe even falling down some stairs just for effect.


And if I die of a gunshot wound, I hope it’s a real dramatic one, with lots of noise and muzzle flashes and blue smoke and ricochets and guys wearing all kinds of hats, including fedoras, getting temporarily blinded by gunpowder and flying chips of cement.  The kind of shooting where everybody stops and looks and dives under the nearest table and people are screaming and grabbing their kids, and people hiding under tables get ketchup dripped on them that makes them think they’ve been hit.  And I hope that nobody really gets hit by a bullet, but if they do, I hope it’s the asshole sitting in front of me on the plane who just HAD to suddenly recline their seat so they could take an all important TEN MINUTE NAP on a THIRTY MINUTE flight!


And if someday I die from choking, I hope it’s on an expensive piece of Kobe beef that somebody else is paying for (like a client), and that it’s only one or two bites into the meal so that the rest of the meal is totally ruined for everybody else in the place, especially the snobs across the way and the delusional guy at the next table who has brought his 39 year old girlfriend out for a big night so he can propose, partly because he knows no one else will ever have sex with him but mostly because he wants to get on her health plan.  And furthermore I hope I panic and run around the dining room or maybe the first class section of the airplane cabin hysterically but silently (because I am choking after all) slapping everybody I see until finally somebody finally gets up out of their needlessly reclined seat to try and give me the Heimlich maneuver, which they fail at because they’re so stupid that they keep trying to do it backwards, you know...face to face, and there I am, dribbling out little bits of au jus from the sides of my mouth, eyes crossed, until finally just before I go I crap my pants and pee myself while they’re holding me, and then because of my massive middle aged girth she falls back trapped under me into her unnecessarily reclined seat,  which is reclined because she just HAD TO TAKE A GOD DAMN NAP, BITCH!


Yes!


And if, per chance, I die of food poisoning, I’d love it to be on a Sunday morning at a brunch at a hoity-toity downtown hotel;  one of those asinine romantic “theme” brunches jam packed with yuppie trolls and sycophantic desk assistants and hedge fund wannabes or maybe it should be at The Country Buffet,  or maybe at a Republican fundraiser while sitting at a prominent table with a room full of gluttons staring at me with a heaping plate of food in front of me so that everybody there knows that, just like them, I tried a little bit too much of everything.  But if it doesn’t happen there, then I hope it happens on a 737 at 30,000 feet with me trapped by the beverage cart into my coach class undersized middle seat so that I can’t get out, so that I have no last act available to me but to projectile barf, up and over and on to the person in the seat in front of me.  ...The seat that is conveniently, ...and ironically, ...and selfishly, ...AND UNNECESSARILY.........RECLINED!!!


Then again, maybe I’ll fall off a cliff.  And that could be cool too, as long as it’s a really huge, huge, Elvis Presley “Fun In Acapulco” kind of cliff, like 200’ high and perched right over a tiny little nude beach where people who don’t have a life go to get naked because it’s the only chance they’ll likely ever have to get naked in front of other people, and SPLAT!...there I land, slamming the sand and sending shock waves through the seaweed and the cellulite and seriously injuring and ruining the vacation of the ass lick who at that exact moment just HAD to recline her beach chair, right into my trajectory.  HA!  Just like she HAD to recline that airplane seat spilling my drink and jamming my laptop into my solar plexus, just so she could take a freakin TEN MINUTE NAP!!!  ON A FREAKIN THIRTY MINUTE FLIGHT!  And as she lays there all sun burned and stunned, I hope the last thing she sees before she blacks out, is my arm, sticking up out of the sand, extending my middle finger, in it’s full and upright position.


You know what?  


I’m starting to think this essay isn’t about mortality.  Maybe it's about seating.  Or naps.  Or courtesy.  Or a lap full of ice cubes and cola.  


...Or, maybe, it's *&%@#$% JACKASSES!!! WHO HAVE TO TAKE A TEN MINUTE NAP ON A THIRTY MINUTE FLIGHT!!!



I'll ponder that.









©  2011 J. Mark Rast