Monday, January 30, 2012

P.S. 61 Revisited, or First Day of Kindergarten Blues


"You could feel the old world go, and the new one beginning."
Bob Dylan Chronicles.

They've got me seated next to this kid named Harry, who keeps asking for his mommy and checking to make sure he's still got his bus pass. I bet he's never been stoned a day in his life.

School is a room full of uptight midgets and a squint-eyed queen in charge. The queen says we have to call her Mrs. White and tell her what we want to be when we grow up. Harry wants to be president. But when I raise my hand, she acts like being a free-associating singer/songwriter isn’t a real career.

"Bobby, don't you want to write songs people can understand? How will you support a family if you sound like someone who's talking in his sleep?"

America the Beautiful where the poets have to be in bed by 8 and the transportation freaks grow up to be president. Where the inmates aren't just running the asylum. They're renting it out for parties.

In this place, if you have some ideas of your own, want to do things the slightest bit differently, they brand you as a troublemaker and write your name on the blackboard. Then if you still don’t want to sit in their circle and play their mind-control games, they'll up the ante by sticking you off in some corner by yourself, then calling home and finding out they've got the wrong last name up there on the board.

The folks will say it should still be Zimmerman. No one gave you permission to change it or knows a thing about you reinventing yourself as some kind of "modern-day troubadour."

Am already sure if I ever do meet someone interesting around here it’s going to be on the blackboard.

At recess asked if anybody was into Woody Guthrie or Big Bill Broonzy, but the kids are still listening to "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Row,Row, Row your Boat." They're the ones living in a dream world.

Top 40 is all they play is in this one-radio-station town. After lunch the squint-eyed queen has her assistant Jezebel, Miss Betsy, take out her guitar and make us sing a song about some spider crawling to the top of a waterspout.

When I said the song wasn't very different, in fact, sounded like a lot of other stuff out there and that "itsy bitsy" wasn't exactly the language of field hands or striking coal miners, Miss Betsy became all upset. She told me the song was about persistence and not giving up. I said she should really be singing about the Spanish Inquisition. Those guys with their thumbscrews didn’t give up either.

She said at least her song rhymed as if a future free-associating singer/ songwriter wouldn’t know how to do that. I said that if she wanted rhyme –

Ma, I'm too young to die of boredom
Please don't send me back.
All day at Club Inquisition
Just down from the railroad track.

That made Miss Betsy lower the neck of her guitar. So I added a few more verses: about how kids were being shoved into boxes and mailed off to Never Never Land, how Picasso and Houdini were hiding under their desks during bomb drills, how somebody had kidnapped Mary's little lamb and was keeping it locked up in afterschool detention along with the rest of the misfits:

And somewhere the Queen is smiling
While her trigger-finger is dialing
The number to say, “He won’t be home no more.
Ma, he won’t be home at four.”

That's as far as I've gotten with it, but Harry and this other kid started to cry. And after the whole hootenanny was over, Mrs. White took Miss Betsy aside for a long private talk, then came back with some news.

They're skipping me a grade.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Suburban Train Times

Suburban Train Times

“Attention Mountain Creek:

Due to downed electrical wires and slashed budgets, we may be experiencing some disruptions on our westbound lines. At this moment it looks as if the only trains affected will be the 7:59 to Pine Ridge and the 8:15 to Glenwood, which will be arriving in reverse chronological order. But in the past we have also had problems with trains switching to a weekend schedule even though it is only Monday. We thank you in advance for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

The 7:59 to Pine Ridge has fallen very far behind indeed. Passengers hoping to reach Pine Ridge are now being urged to walk the short distance to West Strayton Boulevard, where it is our understanding that they can catch a cab. Otherwise, they can wait for the 9:30 to Hinleyton Arms and transfer at Little Falls station, which we are hoping to renovate someday.
Again, we thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”


“Attention Mountain Creek:

We deeply regret if any Pine Ridge passengers have already set out on foot for West Strayton Boulevard. It has just come to our attention that the distance is a good 4 or 5 miles and cabs are expensive.
More gloomy news is that the 9:30 train to Hinleyton Arms does not seem to be going there after all. Or if it is, it is taking a very roundabout route, making none of its usual stops. We will let you know as soon as we have more information.
One last time (we hope) we thank you for your patience and -- well, you know the drill.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

In a development that has even surprised us, the 9:30 train to Hinleyton Arms, if that's what it ever was, has gone AWOL, taking with it the 9:24 train to Morris Plains. If anyone has seen either of these in the last ten minutes, we would appreciate a text. The good news is that the 7:59 train to Pine Ridge is catching up to up to the 8:15 to Glenwood. As of now, they are both due to arrive at the same time on the center track.
We thank you for your inconvenience and apologize for your patience.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

No status change. The 9:24 train to Morris Plains has been reported in the vicinity of Tyler Springs. We are actively investigating.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

A train is now boarding on the center track. We will not bore you with all the details. We will only say this. It may be going to Pine Ridge or even Timbuktu, for all we know. (Hey, sometimes we get frustrated too.) But we would be pretty surprised if it were Hinleyton Arms or Morris Plains.”

“Attention Mountain Creek:

False alarm. There is no train boarding on the center track. We repeat: no train that we know of is boarding on the center track. Passengers boarding on the center track do so at their own risk. Passengers are advised only to board on a track where they see a uniformed conductor. And a train. That is important too.”