Part 9: Anthony Bourdain Stole My Idea!

My next stop

First things first. Apartment living is really suiting me well for the time being. I love the impermanence of it while having the privacy I never could have at the W. My plan is to move every six months to a different set of lofts around Dallas. Fort Worth has a booming market for upscale living so maybe I'll try them too. After that, who knows...

I still don't know what to think of my situation. After my suicidal free fall into oblivion, now I'm just...not feeling. Which is pretty scary. Just not gonna deal. Worst part is I can feel the Woman Of Fabric out there hating me and loathing me into withering dissipation. She's firmly convinced I didn't have feelings for her. I know part of her has to tell herself that in order to justify cutting me off wholesale. I know I have to live with that part (even if I can't) but it would mean the world if she understood it wasn't a lack of feeling I was hiding but the depth of it, of being wholly dependent.

Speaking of Bourdain, he passed through Austin a while back and checked out Franklin's BBQ, calling it "transcendent". I've yet to partake in that because I won't wait in line for three hours for anything (well, maybe for Maria Sharapova). Locally we have Pecan Lodge, a cult favorite at the Dallas farmer's market now moved to larger digs in funky Deep Ellum. Unhampered by a work schedule, I can minimize the wait time to enjoy a very tasty moist brisket.

It was the most relaxed I've been in a while, reading an interesting article in the Observer giving two police chiefs' perspectives on what cops face and what they expect of recruits, to be "guardians not warriors" as the article titled it. But I found this point particularly refreshing:

[Former Dallas Chief David Kunkle] said, "Some kid drops out of high school still not able to read, sells dope, gets caught, goes to prison. Whatever trade he learns in prison is a bitter joke, because when he gets out he finds out he's not allowed to have a real job, ever, because now he's an ex-con. We basically tell that young person, 'Go away, your life is over.' He hooks up with a zillion other guys on the street who are in exactly the same shape. And then we tell the cops, 'Hey, go down there and take care of that situation, will you?'"

Brown said, "Society expects a police officer to resolve all the broken social service safety nets. We are the social service of last resort. It's up to us to resolve the lack of mental health funding and every other social problem."

People who try to bury racism are wrong. I think KKK meetings should be videotaped and broadcast for everyone to see. It's the slick fuckers who know how to hide their treachery who are truly scary. Get a few hundred mil and join the tenth of one percenter club and it's just like a KKK meeting where all the masks drop and you see the real faces. These people make no bones about wanting rip apart any safety nets society has. They somehow see them as some sort of intrusion on their lives! And they speak as if they are taking an alleged moral stance. If only I could broadcast that!

They say shit like, "True slavery is being dependent on government handouts." These are the same cocksuckers lobbying to wring every last cent out of the government in subsidies and tax abatements. But their real guilt is knowing they want people kept as slaves, their lives thrown away like the police chief said and then using the police to hide the victimization. All this shit can be connected if anyone chooses to do so. But we turn our heads away. Reading this really got my blood boiling. It was great to think of something other than myself.

Problem is, it's when I forget myself that I remember myself.

Involuntarily, right in the middle of a thoroughly tasty meal, I broke down. Tears start rushing down my cheeks as I panic trying to hide them from the other diners. Just shoot me before anyone sees me and asks, "What's wrong, honey?" Luckily no one did but a rare enjoyable moment was ruined and I was forced to realize just how much the hollowness of my existence affects me. I managed to semi-hold it together to finish my food but it was difficult stuffing it down to my knotted stomach. Just let me out of there!

So back to Bourdain. I saw this article the other day and it was a kick to the nuts: Anthony Bourdain to open giant Blade Runner-themed food market in New York City. Wow, just wow. Maybe I had been on the right track a few years ago, after all. I referenced this in a previous post:

The closest I ever came to doing anything was trying to recreate my own personal Blade Runner set in the abandoned warehouse district south of downtown Fort Worth. It would have been so cool, right down to the matching neon! (Yes, I really do have that much money. Thank you, oil speculators!) The zoning assholes wouldn't hear of it, though.

I felt a tad guilty about not fighting harder for it, like I was more interested in feeling sorry for myself than making a stand. Mine was not going to be a commercial endeavor, but done only for my own amusement. Later I figured I might sell out to someone who'd want to commercialize it in some way eventually turning it into a trite tourist destination. But that would be only after I had my fill. Maybe I should have fought harder or maybe because I wasn't making money for other people it was simply doomed. Regardless, Bourdain has struck upon the same idea and will most likely do it right. Damn, that really hurts.

*****

Rain keeps coming down here. Some call this bad weather but I call it good. I stroll around uptown and downtown during the day in a veil of raindrops. The Woman Of Fabric works downtown so that gives me a vicarious, frustrating connection. That does me no good, of course. In these quiet private moments in public, though, I have the gumption to realize that truth is I have no real connections at all. The mist has cleared from my eyes. Oh my, what a horrible sight to see...