When you’re having a crappy night.
One thing after another.
Life is beating you with a one-two combination punch.
And a couple of jabs.
You must go to your contingencies.
When the situation is not good, you must move forward.
No laissez faire nor wu wei at this point.
So you push on.
And everywhere you go you get lame. Rudeness. Snobby. Ageist.
Walking on hot coals for capitalism.
Which is to say that the two Starbucks I visited tonight were worse than lackluster.
Starbucks chokes the American market.
But there is variance from store to store.
There are a lot of problems to be witnessed.
As a daily customer.
With no better options.
But Starbucks isn’t improving. They are happy where they’re at.
And so they are ripe to be made obsolete.
How would that happen?
Who?
What ideas?
Most importantly would be to hire Mr. Bean.
Not the actor. But the real guy. The character.
The inspiration. The gaggle which became one.
And please test in San Antonio.
Because our fair city is lethargic and uninspiring.
We never have what we need.
How can we remain happy?
Mr. Bean.
I remember a time in my life that was so fair.
Humorous. Laughful. Lifefilled.
A time when a girl’s laugh meant ANYTHING IN THE WORLD’S POSSIBLE.
She’s married now for a second time. Was never my wife.
But something much more. A love. A love for which Rembrandt or Van Gogh would have fought.
And so I must tell myself that maybe someone in this world will find me charming.
It’s a sad clown to be used up.
Limelight.
This is, of course, a great episode of Mr. Bean.
They’re all pretty damn good!
Nobody’s like him.
And nobody’s like me.
But I’ve been beaten.
You know the law enforcement dealing with the burkinis?
They are fashion police. Not completely unprecedented.
But never nearly as absurd.
I’ve been beaten up. And so I have a little pile of clothes.
The machinery has ripped into my forearms and tendons and screwed up my hands.
I already needed something happy.
And then it got bad.
And bad progressed to worse.
But I fought the good fight.
Reading in the dark.
Prussian blue. Watteau. Niantic.
Keyhole. In-Q-Tel. NGA. KH recon. Corona.
Pokémon Go. And Google at every stage.
John Hanke. “Foreign Service”.
School of hard NOCs.
Twigs dipped in Marmite.
-PD
paulydeathwish 