Tallahassee (cont'd)

I was a demolition laborer on the renovation of
the Old Capitol, and made less money than a green helper
on a construction site throwing scrap into the basket of
a front-end loader to put in a dump truck and haul away.
I had almost a PhD and five years experience as an archeological
field worker. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
Demolition is historic preservation. WPA art is art. The Reich Ministry
of Culture versus Entartete Kunst, or Degenerate Art. I was an enemy
of the state. I'll just update the WPA Guide to Florida without
a Federal Writers Project grant. The boat ramp on the Chipola River
at Clarksville with the concrete picnic tables. Good place to eat
a sausage sandwich. Strickland's IGA in Bristol. My short sleeve shirt
and Key West tie. The bombed-out wrecks on the Crawfordville Highway,
lined up like Easter Island megaliths.

I used to wear a cotton tie in a floral pattern
and a short sleeve shirt to job interviews,
big half-moons of sweat in the armpits.
Mr. Natural. I knew a woman who had a job
as a receptionist that required her to wear
pantyhose. She didn't shave her legs.
She looked like Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape
in drag. But a man shouldn't try that. We don't have
a dress code means we do, but we won't tell you
what it is. You'll have to find out the hard way.

One giant chain,
from coast to coast,
I think it's wonderful.
It meant the end of china shops,
of course. But...well--and:
when's the last time that
you saw a bull.

A cultural ecology of the mullet culture
looks at the adaptation of the displaced fishermen
to the net ban constitutional amendment and the
governmental agencies established to ease the transition to
flat broke, shit outta luck, zzzt wrong, Gong Show.
Chuck Barris was a trained assassin. Jaye P. Morgan
showed her tits to a national audience. One step ahead
of a shoeshine, two steps ahead of the county line.
Fear of the sack keeps modern, Western man
in line, George Orwell said. If they can do it to him,
they can do it to me. How does a person say
"I'm lovin' it" in French, Spanish, German, and Russian?
Pardon me, boss--but ain't you pissin' in my pocket?
No logo. I might be a banker, I might teach your kids,
I might see you at the VD clinic, I might be a psychiatric
social worker. I might go asiatic and marry a war bride.

I remember seeing the Lewis Family
at a high school auditorium in Blountstown, Florida.
Little Roy looked at me, from the stage, and winked.
Shine your shoes for the fat lady in the audience.
He knew I was Owen's daddy. I remember when one of
the Rice boys high-hatted Owen at The Pearl, a beer joint
on Capitol Circle with raw oysters and bluegrass music.
"The last time I saw him," Owen said, "he was laying in
a pool of hot-picker vomit with cocaine in his mustache."

One time Manfred and I
were in the elevator, going back
to the press office of the Secretary
of Commerce when four women got on
in power suits, well, a business suit
from Jacques Penné. "Three,"
Manfred said. One of them looked
confused, one was pissed. Like,
"How do you know where
we're going?" Ain't you educationists?
Board of Regents, third floor.
Now they have their own building.

Lingerie. Mezzanine. La Guardia. La Guardia. JFK.
Ronald Reagan. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
My fellow Americans. Four men from Bangladesh in silk ties
on a State Department grant to promote tourism. Tidal wave
just killed a million people. "Any breakthroughs?" Manfred would say.