dispatches from a reckloose

I just found this on a forgotten disk: Last year I wrote
a letter to the editor of the San Mateo Times to protest
Liberty Bank of South San Francisco for their parking lot
morals, or lack there of. It never ran. Maybe I forgot to
send it. I am that special kind of moron.



Once a year Peninsula Neighborhood Services, located
on Linden Ave. in South San Francisco, facilitates a
Christmas Aid program in which families in need within
San Mateo County receive not only food for the upcoming
holiday, but are also given gifts for their children to put
under the tree. This modest and subsidiary program helps
bolster those less fortunate than us, so they can celebrate
the holidays in the way most of us take for granted.
Across the street from this social service center is Liberty
Bank, who has been serving the community of South San
Francisco for the past 21 years. Now like most banks, there
is a parking lot for its customers, with concomitant signs
announcing the specific rule of employee/customer parking
only. Makes sense. You want your customers to have a
hassle free environment when they patronize your place of
business, and walking short distances from your car to the
front entrance is surely par for the course. If you were to peer
outside one of bank’s windows on Thursday morning, you
would have undoubtedly seen a phalanx skirted along the
perimeter of Neighborhood Services; men, women, and
children waiting humbly in the rain for their largesse. You
also would have noticed that the parking lot had all of 5
cars in it; two of which were being towed. Now parking in
downtown South San Francisco during the week is scarce
to say the least. Exacerbated by the rain, not to mention
over a hundred people converging onto Neighborhood
Services, you get yourself a virtual parking debacle. Like
most of Liberty Bank’s customers, these people saw a
large (and mostly empty) parking lot, where they could
park for a moment while they took care of their business.
Now I’m not advocating that people park their cars without
regards to rules and laws, but what I do find disturbing is
Liberty Bank’s austere reaction. Especially when taking into
consideration the nature of the situation. They contacted
their towing services and began to tow these people’s cars.
People who can’t afford to put Christmas dinner on the table,
let alone pay to pull their cars out of a tow yard. Obviously
the onus lies with the people who illegally parked their cars
in Liberty Bank’s parking lot, but I can’t help to wonder why
Liberty Bank couldn’t proffer some arrangement with these
people. It seems like quite a nubile deal; one that reflects
the charitable spirit that is supposed to be at the core of
this Holiday Season. Fittingly the word ‘liberty’ when looked
up in the dictionary gives us the following definition: “an
impertinent action or attitude.” Liberty Bank could have
been more gracious and let those people park in their lot
for a few minutes. It didn’t have to be a city announced
edict. Perhaps just a little de facto philanthropy.

I drove down to San Jose two weeks ago, had a few drinks,
was ignored by the general female population, and stayed
over a friend's house instead of driving under the influence
of alcohol and misanthropy. I received a parking ticket from
parking overnight on the street. I sent the City of San Jose
this letter contesting the ticket:

San Francisco, Ca 94122
October 24, 2003

The City of San Jose
P.O. Box 11023
San Jose CA, 95103

Dear City of San Jose:

On the evening of October the 11th I had the pleasure
of visiting your fair city; catching up with an old friend,
and browsing for some of the excitement I’ve heard
touted from its citizens and some arbitrary transients
who often feel compelled to invoke irrational harangues
to unsuspecting passerby’s. Now rumor had been spread
that your city’s uniformed enforcers mean business and
that they run the proverbial tight ship. Streets are reported
to be littered with police officers starting around 1:30 a.m.
to aid in the subjugation of ‘clubbers’ and their alcohol fueled
loitering. There has also been admonitions indicating the
existence of checkpoints and barricaded streets to prevent
drunk driving, which I may add, is good city planning. Here
is where the contesting of my parking ticket plays in. Now,
I admit that I didn’t notice the sign indicating that overnight
parking would not be tolerated. That said, I would like to
pose the following question: In a city that is obviously very
regimented and aligned towards preventing drunkards from
getting into their cars after a night of tippling and dancing,
why are the streets a silent enemy preventing responsibility
and sleepovers? In other words, I decided that, although
I only had three drinks during the course of the evening, the
safe thing to do was to stay over my friend’s house instead
of driving home at 2:30 a.m. I would like to think that the city
would foster an environment that allows these situations to
see fruition without penalty and fines. Perhaps my ignorance
of the city layout prevented me from seeking asylum within
these avenues, but again I am only a humble visitor trying to
be a responsible citizen. Please consider this when reviewing
my case. I know that I will be acutely aware next time I park
overnight in your city.

Best Regards,

Tim M. Cordell

My friend Alexandra wrote:

good evening

...due to the inevitable generosity of hotmail
introducing me to helpful folks with such offers of
debt consolidation, penis enlargements and young naked
girls, i'm changing my email address.

I responded:

Alex,

Without such offers I would have two broken legs, an
infant's penis and I would be dating grannies who
never took their clothes off, so before you prophesize
your antipathy think of my improved lifestyle.

sincerely,
timothy

In most businesses there are never enough ways to tell
someone that they're an idiot. That in itself validates my
word-a-day calendar for the misanthropic if it were not
for my refusal to participate in such idioms. Shoppers
want to be coddled and convienced and chastise those
brave enough to mutter the word sloth or beast. I
haven't worked retail myself in several years, but spent
several hours today lost in the goddamn maze they
ironically have named the "Mall." You do get a great
sense of the word, albeit I opt to drop one of the 'L' in
favor of a 'U.' Out into the bleaching sunrays, from that
air conditioned hive of landfill guilt, I walk towards my
destination. I stop of at a Starbucks in the homogenized
perimeter surrounding the tire center at my local Sears,
hoping my vehicle is resting on it's new Goodyears. The
old ones will soon be on their way to some factory in
Mexico to be melted down into padding for our children's
jungle gyms or sewage systems. I order a double
espresso and another chapter in the book I'm reading
is quickly finished. My pace quickens. I hum a tune for
all those insatiable pricks out there in pursuit for bigger,
faster, and esoterically knobbed, but my mind roves in
splintered directions. Goddamn caffeine. Instead I try
to create a theme for these jerks on my piano when I
get home. One they can dance, drink and shit themselves
to. It's usually an upbeat tempo that gets them weak in
their ambition-stained knees. I have been banging away
at my piano for too long now, trying to figure out this ego
forsaken tune. Every time I close my eyes, all I hear are
fragmented notes and a voice telling me to pour another
bowl of Cocoa Pebbles, but we all know one a.m. is no time
for a second helping of vitamin-fortified sugar. It's like some
goddamn tug-o-war. One the victor would need to be insane
to accept the spoils.

Arnold is our Governor, and aside from the moniker, 'The Govenator'
I see nothing amusing about this turn of events. I keep waiting for
Rod Sterling to walk forward as a camera pans away from this voter's
salvo, with a smoldering cigarette gripped between his two fingers
to introduce his cautionary tale. "California, a state afflicted with a
misappropriated budget deficit, propagated by myopic revenue
projections, energy speculation, and cronyism, consolidates under a
banner of votary paparazzi; tonight, on the Twilight Zone."

- On Multi-Culturalism -

"I don't understand how they can call me anti-Latino,
when I've made four movies in Mexico."

"After watching mulattas shake it, I can totally understand
why Brazil is devoted to my favorite body part, the ass."


- On Past Indiscretions -

"Bodybuilders party a lot, and once, in Gold's--the gym in
Venice, California, where all the top guys train--there was
a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her
and took her upstairs, where we all got together."

"I think that I don't remember the details. I just know that
the '70s were outrageous kind of a decade, that we promoted
bodybuilding, that we said outrageous things in order to get
the attention and all that stuff, and I have the utmost respect
for women and I have not meant to hurt anybody or anything
like this. I don't even know what it says. I've not read the
article." [on the 1977 Oui interview]

- On Family Values -

[on why he was speaking at an event] "Since I had nothing
better to do. I can't get any jobs and my wife is too pregnant
to fool around with"

"My mother would spend time with me, saying read out loud.
When I stopped, with a yardstick, she would hit me over de
head. Do you know how fast I read again? I was reading so
fast, let me tell you."

- On the Status of Women -

"Whatever I thought might hold me back, I avoided. I
crossed girls off my list -- except as tools for my sexual
needs."

"But no one that has been around me would believe that
a woman would be complaining about me holding her."

"It was a handful. I never know if my wife's watching. I'll tell
her it was a stuntman." [after touching British TV host's
breast on air]

[discussing a scene in T3, in which he pushes the female
cyborg's face into a toilet bowl] "I saw this toilet bowl.
How many times do you get away with this -- to take a
woman, grab her upside down, and bury her face in a
toilet bowl? I wanted to have something floating there ...
The thing is, you can do it, because in the end, I didn't do
it to a woman -- she's a machine! We could get away with
it without being crucified by who-knows-what group."

Join Arnold huh?

Still, she danced there in a white dress that left the need
for imagination rotting in some children's playground. My
mind, deeply mired in sexual perversity, managed to
displace the descent exterior I had managed to lobby earlier
in the night. All in all I gave up and stood transfixed by her
presence: Some possible high school drop-out with
great legs and a penchant for dancing on stage in a
bizarre rhythm that gestured both sexuality, and the need
for a hair cut. As we walked outside the club, cigarette
butts, empty beer bottles, and some pornographer’s wig
littered the street as vestiges of tonight's performance.
Everyone seemed to be honoring some unspoken curfew,
which kept the local Protestants off the street until dawn.
The soulless grab-ass of daily existence went without debate in
the absence of flesh. I told my friend that I would
severely harm the next person that was willing to risk
walking down the same dark alley we were occupying.
He wanted me to restrain my emotions, but it was too
late for that now. I already had one too many
concoctions that would have been better off locked
away high on a shelf; out of arm's reach. Whatever
the case was, I knew the tribunal would hold me
accountable for any movement after such words were
threatened. No jury nor judge would pass sentence on this
bravado. Only cockroaches and feces to remind me that
subsistence was consigned to such depravity.