Adrift

We will bend and we will suffer
We will close our eyes and obey
We will silence the truth tellers with our cowardice

I walk through rivers of spent syringes glowing grey white
Like the skin of the breathing corpses on either side of me
Offering the needles to their necks, the tender skin under their knuckles
Deliverers of death that will be their only grave stones

I have been evicted from my business
I have no way of making a living
I have been evicted from my home
I live in my car
Each morning I stretch painfully
Working out the arthritis
I take a whore’s bath
I put on a coat and tie from the trunk
I smear deodorant under my arms
I chase away the horror so I can survive the interview

There is hope
There is hope
There is hope

I see the same look on their faces
Every time I walk through a door
Too old
Too much of the truth to look at today
Let alone every day
I walk the long miles back to my car
The bus is expensive
There is an empty space where my car was parked
Waiting for me
Waiting for me

There is hope
There is hope
There is hope

A utility company blows up a neighborhood
To save money
It is convicted of six felonies
No one goes to jail
The fines to be levied are dropped from six hundred million to five
The company appeals
And raises its rates

We will bend and we will suffer
We will close our eyes and obey
We will silence the truth tellers with our cowardice

Chancellors at a world renowned public university
Raise their salary and raise tuition
Every year
Millions are spent on their personal security
Tax money and private donations
Are invested in private online universities
That they own majority stock in
Their president is former head of
Homeland Security
Professors are adjunct contract workers
Employees salaries are halved
Students are enslaved in debt
With no way to pay is off
Unless they code

Code and you
Eat sea urchin roe on a bed of truffle quinoa
Drink thirty year old scotch in an artisan cocktail of cucumber juice and coco puffs
Spend $500 on a pair of torn jeans
Rent a two bedroom apartment for seven grand
Ride a private bus to work
Start an app
With an angel investor
That writes a simulation of a birthday card to your grandma
Takes a picture of your dogs droppings
Delivers artisan pizza to your door
Cleans your toilet
Washes your feet
Disembowels the middle class

We will bend and we will suffer
We will close our eyes and obey
We will silence the truth tellers with our cowardice

They have innovative palates

                                                 They have innovative palates
.
Most said the pizza delivery was fast and they appreciated the no tips policy.
Baking en route means more customers. A truck makes 56 stops. That replaces a lot of expensive pizza delivery employees.
Most employees realize that hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour will mean fewer jobs and more automation.
Those folks deserve to continue to get skills and resources to progress through their careers. We sponsor educational opportunities for our line cooks.
On how to make better pizzas faster for less wages.
Ten million in venture capital start up.
A service economy that is fueled by a few elite who have gotten rich by bleeding the productive  economy dry and turning the middle class into proletariat slaves who serve the elite and the few managers of the service economy whose ultimate goal is to develop AI and robotic replacements for their line cooks.
And their delivery truck/pizza oven drivers.
And all the other drivers.
And all the other cooks.
And all the other waiters.
And all the other salespeople.
And all the other grocery clerks.
And all the other house keepers.
And all the other proletariat slaves.
No more slaves!
Free! Free at last! God Almighty, free at last!

Please Explain

Please Explain
The oligarchy’s venture “philanthropists” breed and feed their spawn, CEOs of the unicorn startups, from UBER to Munchery, and spread the cancer of the on demand economy throughout the world. As it metastasizes, both creator and created are so poisoned with power, they are an almost unrecognizable caricature of themselves. Everything around them, their fellow citizens, their wives, even their pets become gilt couture play things to wear and discard while the power that drives them, technology glowing in the perfect metaphor of the cell phone has turned from a liberating promise into a gilded dagger that eviscerates the rest of us. All that sustains us, from the food we eat, to the jobs that once gave us a way of life, to our democracy, to our planet, to our very humanity falls out of our bodies into a steaming pile at our feet.
(I’ll be speaking this Sunday outside of the Brown Jug Saloon on the corner of Eddy and Hyde)