The Blog The FBI Doesn't Want You To Read
In 1860, Chinese immigrants looking to pad their New American living while working on the RR all the live long day could forfeit their five-minute "sandwich in the shade" breaks to scratch the backs of horses used as props for a notion of mail delivery romanticism from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. The additional wages were small, but if you excuse the phrase, kicks were big. No less than five of these back scratchers were killed a week due to unpredictable horse jolts, which to be fair, was less than fatal accidents caused by errant spikes and steel hammers lacking the appropriate amount of pine tar.
Ten Chinese fingers, with nails meticulously maintained at varying lengths and shapes, were the Swiss Army Knife of the 19th Century. (Indeed, Edward Scissorhands is based on the mythic John Henry who in turn was based on a mythic Chinaman who bewildered labor advocates everywhere.) It wasn't even certain that the horses benefited from this itchy exercise before a long haul across the Western states carrying leather bags filled with get-well-soon letters, but it was cheaper to pay the unquestioning workers two bits than feed them roast beef on rye.
This brings us to today's modern mail delivery system with promising advances in bubble wrap and Bat Man stamps. Yesterday I found two such gifts in my mailbox. One from California, the other from New York City's midtown. If delivery times were a function of need, the West Coast package would have arrived twenty years ago and the inter-city prize patrol would have taken a detour to an abandoned rowhouse in Baltimore.
As the winner of Datehole's "Knocked Up" contest I was sent a DVD of prego-pornography, the cousin genre of defecation sex. My gag reflex hasn't been put to a test in quite some time but the cover was barely half exposed when I - no gag or joke - did throw up in my mouth. Thankfully I was in spitting distance of a bathroom and regurgitated sushi is rather easy to contain. I would curse the people of Datehole but they also made a $20 donation to Planned Parenthood of New York in my name (printed receipt was included as proof) and for that they are saints, albeit disturbed ones.
In a very different aisle of supermarket causes, I was very happy to receive Sherman Austin's "Silence Is Defeat" CD. It's been a while since I listened to hip hop that wasn't misogynistic, homophobic or glorifying thug life. The man has words, listen to them. Raise the Fist, both of them, and dig the subtle 80s-style keyboards on "We Multiply" (especially the ones that kick in halfway) which I'm pairing with The Evens "All These Governors" to signal your first gasp of breath for the day.
Ten Chinese fingers, with nails meticulously maintained at varying lengths and shapes, were the Swiss Army Knife of the 19th Century. (Indeed, Edward Scissorhands is based on the mythic John Henry who in turn was based on a mythic Chinaman who bewildered labor advocates everywhere.) It wasn't even certain that the horses benefited from this itchy exercise before a long haul across the Western states carrying leather bags filled with get-well-soon letters, but it was cheaper to pay the unquestioning workers two bits than feed them roast beef on rye.
This brings us to today's modern mail delivery system with promising advances in bubble wrap and Bat Man stamps. Yesterday I found two such gifts in my mailbox. One from California, the other from New York City's midtown. If delivery times were a function of need, the West Coast package would have arrived twenty years ago and the inter-city prize patrol would have taken a detour to an abandoned rowhouse in Baltimore.
As the winner of Datehole's "Knocked Up" contest I was sent a DVD of prego-pornography, the cousin genre of defecation sex. My gag reflex hasn't been put to a test in quite some time but the cover was barely half exposed when I - no gag or joke - did throw up in my mouth. Thankfully I was in spitting distance of a bathroom and regurgitated sushi is rather easy to contain. I would curse the people of Datehole but they also made a $20 donation to Planned Parenthood of New York in my name (printed receipt was included as proof) and for that they are saints, albeit disturbed ones.
In a very different aisle of supermarket causes, I was very happy to receive Sherman Austin's "Silence Is Defeat" CD. It's been a while since I listened to hip hop that wasn't misogynistic, homophobic or glorifying thug life. The man has words, listen to them. Raise the Fist, both of them, and dig the subtle 80s-style keyboards on "We Multiply" (especially the ones that kick in halfway) which I'm pairing with The Evens "All These Governors" to signal your first gasp of breath for the day.
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