Bedtime Adventures in a Dirt Lot in The Deep Ghetto, Gene Simmons Boots for Chico-n-TigerDog and Maury Povich's War on Terror

I decided to move my bed out into the middle of a big garbage filled dirt lot in the deep ghetto of Oakland. The air was damp and it made my blankets all moist, cold and sticky but there was a strong wireless internet signal coming thorough to my powerbook and it was free. Besides, who ever said experiments had to be comfortable? The ghetto residents thought my setup was quite amusing. Most of the crackheads would just walk by on their way to buy crack and look at me as if *I* was out of MY mind. I could hear some of their conversations and I transcribed them as they went.

"Watch yoseff, dat thurr white boy is a set up, if you go nurr'm yo gunna git yoseff busted."

"I hurrd it's some kind of art school bowshit"

"Nah g, dat dood was put thurr to be a target knowwhuddamsayin? You go nurr dat dude and shit gonna FLY!"

It was hard to sleep but I wasn't really there to sleep anyway, I was mostly there to prove to myself that I could sleep amongst the garbage and filth. Also, everybody likes fresh air.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see a real gangster looking dude working up the nerve to approach me. I started getting nervous because he was obviously casing me out waiting to make a move.

Sure enough he started strolling his way through the dirt lot in my direction. I noticed all the other onlookers all start looking the other way the same way they did when I was pistol whipped and robbed in the same neighborhood on Emily's birthday a few years ago. He sped up his pace and I tried to play it cool. Seconds later he was gipping a pistol tucked in his low slung drawers.

"Aaiight, hurrs what's gonna go dan, you gonna hand over dat thurr computer and you won't get smoked."

I quickly closed my powerbook and tucked it under my arm.

"Listen negro, my whole life is on this computer. You're gonna have to kill me to take my life. But if you do kill me I will infest your brain for eternity. Trust me, you don't wanna kill me."

He was apparently not used to this response. He had a look of utter confusion on his face.

"Call fucking 911 you retards! What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

I fumbled for my cellphone completely stunned that once again the onlookers were completely apathetic.

"The fact you negroes won'lift a finger to HELP is WHY you live in the ghetto. ACT ghetto and you will BE ghetto! Don't you fucking get it?"

The dude who was trying to rob me quickly put on some thick black framed geek glasses and put in his iPod earbuds and took off running.

"Somebody call 911!!" I yelled as I took off running after him dialing 911 on my own phone.

"911 what's your emergency?"

"Some nigger wearin' horn rimmed glasses just tried to rob me and he's runnin' down lake forrest blvd."

"Did he actually rob you sir?"

"No because I wouldn't fucking let him"

"Well it sounds like you got things under control then."

"Fuck you bitch."

I hung up and began my man hunt.

I soon ran into a friend who was walking all three of my dogs plus a special mixed dog/tiger breed. We walked all over the place but soon we lost interest in finding the fucker who tried to steal my laptop. People would cower and get all nervous when they saw the tigerdog and it wasn't such a mystery why because the tiger dog had a really aggressive tiger gait and it would charge anything that came near. We walked so much I began to worry that our animals were getting blisters. Sure enough, Chico's feet were worn down to the bone. It was very sad and I felt terrible. I made him and the other dogs some shoes out of some tin foil and duct tape. When they were done they looked like Gene Simmons boots. Everyone thought they were awesome.

Maury Povich contacted me about helping him with his new "War Machine Radio Show."

"Merkley, as you know war has been privatized and I'm starting a new show called Missle Radio. Basically you aim missles at people and make them listen to you. It's gonna do wonders for the war on terror. I mean why not be entertaining about it all right?"

"Wow -- i see what you mean."

I took a look through Maury's binoculars and I could see cross hairs lined up on some kind of training camp.

"See we broadcast our show and anyone who is listening becomes available for being blown up -- now all we have to do is make a show that is interesting to the worst people. All we have to do is broadcast a show that appeals to Osama Bin Laden and boom, he's right there in our cross hairs."

I kept looking at all the things in the cross hairs of these amazing binoculars. I could see a couple of Mormon temples carved out in the side of a cliff. I thought that was unusual. Were they trying to copy the Pueblos?

On my way home I tried to take a short cut but every back alley I encountered had locked gates, presumably to lock up all the vintage motorcycles that seemed to be anywhere. I fiddled with the lock on one set of gates and this little round old man with no shoes or teeth approached me. He was holding a lit cutting torch.

"Have you ever heard the story of the thirty shoes?" he asked. One of his eyes was cloudy and probably blind.

"No" I replied as I sped up my pace and caught the next bus.

On the bus there were what may as well have been two different versions of that same dude and they both wanted to argue with me about SF politics. I wasn't interested.

"Get the fuck out of here you fucking speed freak hippies."