on one side of the street, a homeless man sleeping in a doorway

on the other side of the street, people camped out in front of best buy. at midnight. in chicago. and it's fucking cold.

the entire scene baffled me.

who the fuck waits outside in the cold to buy fucking electronics? that was probably among one of the most absurd things i have ever seen.

and naturally, i know i've seen news reports about this with people lining up to go shopping, but it was never real to me until i saw it with my own two eyes.

the sadness of the disparity: on the one hand, a gaggle of dolts with enough disposable income to purchase superfluous circuitry; on the other hand, a man sleeping in his own piss outside in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the city of chicago.

there was something intensely obscene about the whole thing.

and i know it is always there, and i fundamentally know something is wrong, but i block this shit out most of the time.

:hide:

Circuitry isn't superfluous. Depends on what you do with it. Education and hobbies for me.

we can all agree on that.

but there is a limit. no one actually NEEDS an mp3 player. or a computer. to survive, i suppose.

it's nice to have tools or toys that enable you learn more or if they entertain you. but no one can convince me that they are so necessary that you would deprive yourself of warmth or shelter for any period of time just to purchase them.

Such toys as laptops, desktops, portable hard drives, smart phones and air cards are pretty damned necessary for what I do for a living. I don't need any of them to *survive* exactly, but I do need them to do my work. My friends who work producing the games and game players, music players, and such that people are standing in line to buy are certainly glad for the paychecks. The people who work in the store selling those things to the folks waiting in line are probably pleased to have customers and commissions.

I don't see how anyone could be so excited about getting a hold of something. It is a good snapshot of our society I guess. Sad.

in public rose in me. i wanted to say something. and i would've sounded like a lunatic.

possessions are so intertwined with people's identities that they normally take any discussion of television (whether you own one or not) or consumerism as a personal attack.

I always struggle with this time of year. Very sad, indeed.

there are so many among us who show few signs of basic humanity.

i don't really care how or why someone got homeless. i'm not afraid of someone taking advantage of me. i don't care if someone buys crack with the money i give them.

but anything any person can do for someone who is suffering FOR WHATEVER REASON is the true measure of the meanness or the greatness of their spirit.

but it requires clearing the clutter in your consciousness. and it's much easier to be mean-spirited.

It amazes me sometimes the level to which people become so self-absorbed and self-serving that they see so little of what is right in front of their faces. Obscene was the correct word for it.

"It was the best of times. It was worst of times." Dickens

To get a free burger coupons from a shit ass fast food place. People hear the word "free" and they have an instant orgasm. It don't matter what it is they are giving away.

And do I have to show my receipt?

Of course, if you've got no bread and can't afford the circus, well... :grr: :cry:

say something about America.

Redstone

. . . . and only just a few years ago learned it existed. Now,if people who HAVE money to pretty much buy what they want (within reason) are waiting hours for the doors to open, how much time are they worth -- to themselves, per hour? $3.00? $20? Are they gonna save $100 by camping out on the sidewalk?

Wouldn't it be fine if they would see the homeless fella (or gal) snoozing in the doorway across the street and just hand them the money they would have saved, and go back home to their nice warm safe house and crawl back into bed and enjoy a proper holiday the proper way.

So we go to dinner at a restaurant for the heck of it and pass a couple homeless people hanging out in the hallway, where the annual free Thanksgiving dinner was being served. People I knew and gave some cash to the night before who didn't have dinner money but had scrounged up money for a hotel room just for the night just to be warm and comfortable for a change.

Thanksgiving -- splurge! Celebrate! Rent yourself a roof over your head just to see what it feels like for a day . . . I guess they were the lucky ones.

They got the hotel room for one more day the next day too. I don't ask questions about where they got the money, and I know what they did with the dinner money I gave them, but I still left feeling I didn't really give as much as I could. After all, I'm not maxed out on my credit cards yet . . . .

I'll tell you the time
tomorrow
is yesterday
wasted and forgotten
we are nothing
just like vegetables in the fridge
that are
rotten
not people
just things
bring
your whistle?

I refuse to freak out. I refuse to show up at 3am the weekend after Thanksgiving. I refuse to pay twice as much money one-bay or some hawker's site just because my kid wants it.

If he really wants it, and I can't get it; he can wait until after Christmas.

if the people in line weren't throwing shit at the homeless guy.

Not happy, but satisfied.

It got too painful to watch our society swallow itself and ask for seconds, so I lowered my standards.

nothing but pure shit, and materialism....not the way I remember it, no sir...

I DO remember the way it was before all of this shit, and the craziest thing I remember was the Cabbage Patch craze that swept the country and drove fellow man to gun down people in the parking lot that purchased the last Cabbage Patch in that particular store...oh yeah...good times were had by all.

Today? Well...I just shake my fucking head; I've seen this before, just a different animal is all

that in no way
others
descend upon me.

I don't choose to live this way.
I didn't come back from the war to say
anything.

sleeping in a doorway and hoping
not to
tomorrow

and hoping others don't
descend upon me

yesterday matters little to many, but
tomorrow matters much to me

Let me be