throwing rocks at me. Some kind of Swedish custom I guess.
Paving sidewalks and cross walks with this colored soft rubber stuff would increase the visibility of crosswalks, cushion it for walkers, reduce all that cracked concrete and stumbly brick stuff, and recycle a few billion old tires.
They'd be cheaper to install and repair and would insulate pedestrians from those nasty electrical shorts from power substations beneath sidewalks. Crosswalks could be raised a few inches higher than the road surface. Lay more of them in high pedestrian areas to serve as slow speed humps. Have built in lights that go off when pedestrians step on them. Make portable ones to use for special events.
Then I thought up reflective vests/backpacks as a fashion statement with my new Look Twice for One Less Car logo. Came up with a folding walking stick/talleywhacker with pepper spray handle in a handy, fanny pack for fending off dogs and muggers. It was almost painful, having so many solutions pouring in.
"There is one thing", Peter continued, "that every boy who serves under me has to promise, and so must you."
I decided I would add all these pedestrian improvements together with the SafeyCycle! and CycleTrain! for a comprehensive transportation plan. Now for some publicity. I was tired of being self-congratulatory only. Security booted me from the Washington Times, before I even got warmed up with the receptionist. Moonies weren't always this suspicious of a scam. Must be 9-11 paranoia.
Around the back of the building I saw a line. As luck would have it, Wild Bill, the last guy before I joined, told me Wednesday was free baloney sandwiches on wonder bread and all the Kool-Aid you could drink. A Reverend Moon faith based initiative. Is America Great, or what?
Derailed in Washington, Be the Change!
June, 2005
I almost became a Moonie, after I got in that line for a free baloney sandwich and strawberry Kool-Aid dinner. Sugar Rush. I'd been tired and hungry with no money in Washington D.C. There was one really cute Moonie Goddess who almost talked me into getting married, This was after the educational movie about Reverend Moon.
I didn't know that he was the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ, but actually a little more great, a brighter Sun, this time around, but it made perfect sense. After all he is a lot wealthier with more followers while he's alive than Jesus. The president's father is a Moonie, she said.
Sure there was that little moneychanger/tax fraud thing, but Reverend Moon served his time, paid his fine. The CIA thought he was bona fide. She had me ready to sign on for a while when she told me about Moon's famous mass marriages.
She seemed to imply that we could get in on it if I could have produced an American passport. and worked hard selling flowers. The hours were killer, though. I'm susceptible to cults, but they usually don't want me. The fund raising position in the Moonies sounded sketchier than Hare Krishna farming, longer hours with worse food.
"It all comes from having a dog as a Nurse.
She decided to roll the shadow up and put it carefully away in a drawer. "
It's kinda weird how my mind works, but it's gotten me out of more trouble than it's gotten me into, so far. Somehow it had gotten me into my current situation. Flat broke, still hungry, now with painful gas and my ideas to save the country still needed to be shared with the powers that be.
My racing thoughts haven't given me any sleep for a while now. It's not easy solving all the Really, Really Big Problems of America. Maybe I never should have made that New Year's Resolution. I was just so fed up with the doom and gloom of overwhelming problems everywhere you read, I decided to be all Solution Oriented.
Of course, I've never kept a New Year's resolution into summer before. Maybe it was time to give it up as a lost cause, like being more organized. Sink into a deep Depression about how hopeless everything is, instead of trying to make things better. I was starting to feel really miserable and sorry for myself, while blaming the World for not appreciating my Genius. All I wanted to do was help. I trudged along, one foot in front of the other, contemplating my failures, my flaws, my history of grand plans gone awry.
Slumping along the concrete sidewalks of our nation's capital, dressed darkly, jaywalking frequently, treating traffic like traitors. Then a blast of insight, like a blaring horn with high beams blew me onto the sidewalk.
"No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it but he always forgot it. That was the real difference between him and all the rest."
I'd been all wrong. I wasn't a Loser, a Bottom in the Economic Woods. I was the wave of the American Future. Another Brick in the Wall. Homeless, Uninsured, Clinically Crazy. Eligible to get on disability, with free psych meds. I could always sell those.
A phrase came into my mind. Be the Change! Don't just talk about it, or consider it as an intellectual exercise. Become what you want to change. Wait that's not right, that's why the 60's revolution petered out, rebellious youth were assimilated into the mainstream with a giant sucking sound of the chameleon beast.
I pulled out my research bible, Massive Change by the Institute without Boundaries. One sentence made it all clear where I'd gone wrong. "The old fashioned notion of an individual with a dream of perfection is being replaced by distributed problem solving and team based multi-disciplinary practice. Problems are taken up everywhere, solutions are developed and tested and contributed to the global commons and those ideas are tested against other solutions." In a "distributed, plural collaborative." Whatever that means. I'd just have to find one.
I'd been trying to do it all on my own, how narcissistic, flowering into full blown bipolar disorder. I was gonna help the mentally ill with stress reduction, natural foods and nutritional supplements, now I was one. Talking to myself, without a cell phone. I was actually quite interesting. It's so hard to have a good conversation these days. I kept walking as I turned this over in my head, while balancing Massive Change on my head. This calmed me, a soothing koan of a conundrum, wrapped inside an enigma trapped in a maze.
"Peter was such a small boy, that one tends to wonder at the man's hatred of him. True he had flung Hook's arm to the crocodile."
When negative thoughts started to intrude, I'd snap my fingers three times and bark like a dog. Works every time. I reflected on how I'd gotten into this mess. Since January, I've been trying to solve the problems of America with really great ideas. I had no problem whipping them up.
I'd figured out how to solve the health care crisis by outsourcing medical treatment to cheaper countries. Affordable Housing was solved with my concept for retrofitting trailers with reinforced concrete to make them hurricane/fire/earthquake resistant. My hypothetical CrapKrete, made from recycled trash and carbon dioxide, will erode landfills and reduce global warming.
My CycleTrain! and SafetyCycle! were going to improve Americans' health and fitness with human powered transportation, reducing noise and pollution. Better sidewalks by making them out of dyed, shredded tires with raised crosswalks as speed tables (really wide speed bumps). There was a bunch of other great ideas,
Ideas are like seeds, the morphogenetic vibration of the idea sends roots into consensus reality. But if you cast them on asphalt, the seed ain't got a chance unless it's an invasive species. A Viral Meme to penetrate the narcoleptic mind.
"They called Peter the Great White Father, prostrating themselves before him; and he liked this tremendously, so that it was not really good for him."
So I took my comprehensive Solution Oriented plan to Washington where invasive species thrive. Turns out that think tanks, the corporate press, even his Holiness Reverend Moon aren't really interested in making things better. They are doing just fine with things as they are.
So now I was what I had tried to change. No health care, no housing, no transportation except shank's mare. Be the Change. It was like a curse, not a blessing.
I had wandered near Foggy Bottom, Dick Cheney's underground fortress at the Naval Observatory. There was a steady stream of wellfed politicians and lobbyis
ts walking by me to another fundraising dinner. Luckily I had condensed my Comprehensive Plan for Integral Improvement into a small folded booklet.
I'd gotten the idea from my friend the Prophet in the Wilderness, who had put out his Agenda for World Peace in one. He was mailing them to random celebrities and progressive politicians, but there's nothing like face to face.
You could call it aggressive panhandling, or lobbying, but I mingled with the powerful and told them to Be the Change! I didn't bore them with the details of my grand ideas, just gave em a booklet and moved on to the next one. They were all overweight so couldn't get away.
I knew I was onto something when they started handing me cash. Promised to write it into federal legislation. They might have had me confused with an Indian Gamer. Before long I had enough for cab fare to get out of this corrupt swamp of a capitol.
Just take me to the Rainbow Gathering in West Virginia, for a plural, distributive collaborative was the last thing I remember saying before collapsing in the back seat. I hadn't slept in days. Luckily it was a Rainbow Taxi. Woke up in A Camp. Now that's a Welcome Home.
New Years Resolution: Solve Americas Biggest Problem, End up Bitter and Cynical Page 8
