Hey, quick question: Do you slap your forehead and mutter, "Oh, God," every time you see an entry I've written that begins with "So I was walking down the street this morning and etc."? I ask because, in response to yesterday's deliverance of absolution, a correspondent volunteered to begin an Alex Balk Cabfare Fundraising Drive "so you don't have to see anymore sad shit on the street and we don't have to hear about it." Fair enough, I suppose; I understand how painful and wrenching it must be to read these accounts because I live them, and the burdens I bear are more painful and wrenching than any of you could ever understand.
Ha, kidding! I'm well aware that even given current conditions I'm one of the most privileged people on the planet. The great tragedies of my life are all still aborning, which is why I feel the need to project my as-yet unjustified sorrows on the rest of you. I apologize if you find that difficult or uncomfortable, and I will try to exercise a little more discretion in advancing my angst in the future.
That said, I was walking down the street this morning, and... You know those oddly conflicting simultaneous feelings of irritation, guilt, "There but for the grace of God" fear and empathy, and self-loathing at your own irritation that you experience when you are unable to dispose of your garbage because there's a homeless person rummaging around in the trash can looking for the smallest bits of sustenance that will get him or her through the next hour? There oughta be a German word for that!
Have you noticed a condition, literary or real-life, that lacks and requires a handy German word? Let us know!
PREVIOUSLY: Unnoticed Bar Mockery
Someone clearly isn't keeping up with their Balkinalia, because everyone knows that cabs are where you do your best weeping-and-then-subjecting-us-all-to-your-bullshit.
Srsly, being in a cab will intensify his feelings of middle-class guilt.
At least you weren't walking down the street and killed by a sniper or I.E.D. So, there's that.
You didn't think of *offering* your trash to the homeless person? Might be part of a sandwich in there or something.
Sorry.
You don't wanna know what I was carting around with me.
Homeless people need semi-operating sex toys too!
Or, you run back upstairs and stuff a grocery bag full of empty beer bottles and give that to him. You know the old saying: give a homeless man a beer bottle and you get him drunk; give a homeless man an empty beer bottle and you give him the opportunity to put it in his cart and drag it over to Gristedes and get the bottle deposit back.
Hold on here--I can add stupid ass e-mails to my stupid ass comment repertoire? Alriiight!
Hold the 's', stupid ass.
Balk, personally I like your "So I was walking down the street..." posts because they remind me of my 12 years in NYC and also of why I left.
Now when I walk down the street I see bewildered and/or happy tourists, drag queens, gay boys, dog lovers, fishermen, beautiful gardens, lots of bicycles, Jamaicans & Eastern Europeans (the "help"), pedicabs, lesbians with bad haircuts, the lighthouse, fog, and lots of great people who smile at my very happy dog. The other night I met a Russian couple named Anastasia and Uri, with a Pomerian dog named Wasa. The night before that I met two lovely Cuban men out on the town, looking for a place to dance and hoping to see whales on a whale-watch boat the next day. We have poor people, too, but at least they are fed by the local soup kitchen which serves free lunch and provides food to take home.
All in all, it's much easier on the eyes and spirit. I do wish the town bell would go off when a single straight man crossed the border -- then all the straight women like me can once again have hope. There oughta be a German word for that, too.
Maybe Balk and the EV Grieve guy could get together and write the New York version of this. But I don't think either of them can draw.
Where is this paradise you speak of?
Provincetown, Mass. The very tip of Cape Cod.
ps - Next week is Bear Week.
Here's a fun homelessness fact for you. Have you ever noticed that your more urban drug stores will keep the deodorant locked up, like razor blades? That's because deodorant is among the most shoplifted items in the drug store's repetoire, which is in turn because they're used as currency among homeless people, the way cigarettes are in prison. Which in further turn is because homeless people can't shower, because they're homeless, and are wholly aware that as a result they smell awful. So the next time you're all like "Ha ha, check out the smelly hobo!" just realize that they, in addition to being hungry and cold and probably either drunk/high or desperate to get drunk/high, are completely embarassed about how bad they smell, but unable to do anything about it, and would probably be willing to blow someone or worse for a stick of right guard. You know, in case you wanted your middle-class guilt to get guiltier.
Andy Warhol wanted to create a system of public showers so the homeless could wash and subsequently they would be able to mingle which would cure their homelessness. He may have been right.
That's because he's from Pittsburgh, where we had/ve 'em.
And yes, I think he was right.
Public fountains?
Furthermore, don't you think that at this point you and Choire are close enough that when he's picking through your trash you can just nicely ask him to step aside so you can deposit your refuse and get on with the important business of pitying the entire breadth of humanity?
Or God forbid we have another one of those, "cabdriver looked dead, was really sleeping, and now i pissed him off" episodes.
(I secretly like the "I was walking" posts.)
More often than not I think, "damn, I should pay more attention while I'm walking and maybe I'd see interesting stuff too." But then I'd pull out my phone, tweet about it, and probably forget to go back to "paying attention" or whatever and start sifting through Google Reader.
"Yes, Alex Balk digs this day!"
(via trying *so hard* to turn this quote into a meme:
http://io9.com/5301435/grant-morrison-tells-all-about-batman-and-robin)
All I know is if you ever come to visit my town, they'd better tarp off most of the Downtown East Side like the Chinese Olympics, because you would be INCONSOLABLE. (Oh wait, we're having Olympics here next year, so they're starting to do that anyway.)
Anyway, I will hold your (I'm guessing slightly sweaty? I don't judge!) hand and guide you past crackdancers and pants-pee-ers because there is not enough bourbon in the world to cure those sads. But just in case, I know a shit ton of bartenders.
Also, the German word? Abfallschweinmitleid. (Literally, "trash hog pity")
I love you, Charlie Brown.
This case sounds like it's somewhere between Weltschmerz and Schadenfreude.
Ach tongue.