Greg Locke from Old Dirt Road

 

Dear you,

Be very glad you are anywhere but in the Panhandle beach scene now.  The crowding, anxiety, and general bad attitudes have reached all time highs; I guess I should say lows.  I dashed over to the west end of Panama City Beach to get a trim today and one of the stylists told me hotels are charging up to $700 a night now and through the July 4^th holiday.  $700 a night for PCB?  It is really trashy there, even more than here on 30A. Chatty haircutter also told me her phone is blowing up, “friends” calling from Georgia, begging for a place to crash.  Georgia, again, the Marjorie Taylor Greene type of Georgia, coming in hard and steady.  Them, and of course Tennessee guests, disembarking by the truckload all over the place.  These TN visitors may or may not be devotees of that state’s demented pastor, Greg Locke, featured above with our favorite pillow guy.

Locke is in the news because of his latest sermonette-rant informing his audience that Pence is Judas, VP Harris is a “jezebel demon”, and Biden is a sex-trafficking “mongrel, he’s of the left, he ain’t no better than the Pope and Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks and the rest of that wicked crowd.”

Oh. Dear. God.

Who is stupid enough to believe this man?  His church, Global Vision Bible Church, is located in Wilson County, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville.  As usual, I suggest you use your Google, check out the organization and their website littered with mission statements like “we believe the Bible is the perfect Word of God.”  Greg, Greg, Greg, ever hear of the Council of Nicea and Emperor Constantine, the clever creator of Christian theology brain-twisters like:  Jesus is the son of god but not God-god, but still all blended in with god because, you know, one substance, so same but not because the Holy Spirit is included in the clump as a ghost that is holy, not like Casper zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sorry, I tend to doze off when overwhelmed by bullshit.  But I can promise you whoever god is, she is really getting tired of these holy roller jackasses making stuff up. But back to Pastor Greg.  The website also posted his church address.  It is on Old Dirt Road, Mt. Juliet, Wilson County, Tennessee.

Old. Dirt. Road.

So, as I do my daily power walk around the complex and check out the license plates of current guests, I will be on the lookout for Wilson County, Tennessee.  I will inspect their tires carefully and see if I can spot a lot of “Old Dirt”.  Then I’ll know what areas of the complex to avoid this week.

I hate it here.

Love,

Your wicked, Jezebel demon Joyce

Bad Pants

 

Dear you,

Juneteenth and Father’s Day, a combo weekend of looking back and looking forward while celebrating whatever the present is.  Before Juneteenth, I was thinking about labor again, prompted by constant complaints from our vacay crowds who slouch into Seagrove Beach relentlessly demanding service. There aren’t enough people to serve their food, clean their rentals, or ring up and stock product at stores they patronize.  I checked employment sites online to see what gigs were posted the most in my county. As expected, restaurant cooks, servers, bussers, hostesses and retail everything were in demand.  In the retail area, I saw a post by Lululemon, the infamous “yoga-inspired” athletic-wear company.  Our Lulu is west of me in Grayton Beach.  They need “educators”.  What?  Teachers?  Fitness trainers?  Why educators?

I found out.  This is yet another company with a hocus pocus mission.  Buy our stuff and be better.  Buy our stuff and be spiritual.  Buy our stuff and be John Galt, Ayn Rand’s model for self-interest.  The ad was long and filled with strange contradictions like this:

“You integrate fun and joy as a way of being and working (aka you don’t take yourself too seriously).”

“You lead with courage, knowing the possibility of greatness is bigger than the fear of failure.”

Okay.  The first descriptive wants the Lulu salesperson to be bubbly and chill; hey, we just sell stretch pants here so whatever.  But then the second suggests the Lulu salesperson should be like Rosa Parks or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, serious people doing serious things, not just sales pitching lycra.  When the ad is edited, the job comes down to this:  you must be available any day and any hour; you must render geisha-like customer service while answering phones, restocking, and cleaning out dressing rooms; you must man the point of sale device while doing all that; you must do inventory; you must close the store, open the store, clean the store (toilets too), and take out the trash; you must prepare garments for hemming and pinning etc., etc.

In other words, you are working retail darling. Where does the educating thing come into play?  Oh, here:

“You are an expert in creating world-class guest experience in our retail stores.  You deliver this experience by connecting with our guests, sharing top-quality product education, and speaking authentically about our community and culture.”

Okay.  Describe the stretch pants.  And testify about our “culture” like a cult member.

We really need to be freed from this kind of bullshit labor.  If you want to buy (or sell) a decent pair of stretch pants, you can get them at Walmart for less than $20; they will last a long time and the cashier who rings you out is now being paid a decent wage without having to speak big love for Wally.  Plus, she doesn’t have to clean the bathroom at closing. Or “lead with courage”.

Dear Lulu, leading with courage is something Juneteenth celebrants understand for real.  As do all our good fathers.  So, drop the act and own what you do.

You sell stretch pants.

Happy Juneteenth! Happy Father’s Day! (Even to the vacay dad I encountered yesterday who was flagrantly peeing in the parking lot.)

Love,

Joyce

Long hot summer headline haiku . . .

 

Dear you,

I asked my friend Eric for an assignment yesterday, something schoolish and diverting.  He said do a crossword puzzle and pick three words from it for a haiku.  This would satisfy one of my basic needs to create order out of chaos, shape something into a disciplined form.  I know I am not alone, feeling rattled by the cacophony of current events. Like Yeats said, “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”.  With that in mind, I adjusted the assignment a bit; instead of a crossword, I would use the news as a base.  Headlines read like poetry sometimes, dry facts delivered with cold concision, like Morissettte’s jagged little pills. 

So, here are my adapted headline haikus, honoring the 5-7-5 syllable form (minus referencing nature):

From The New York Post:

Last night mass shootings

Stoke fears in three shaken states

A bloody summer

From The Hill:

                China takes a stand

                “Days of small groups ruling world

                Are very over”

From CNN.com:

                Trump’s tariffs haunting

                Kentucky’s whiskey makers

                Red state self-destruct

From ABC News:

                McDonald’s patron

                Spits at one poor worker bee

                Then shoots another

From NBC News:

                She is like my Mom

                Says Biden post tea party

                With iconic Queen

From Joyce News Wire (a.k.a, the voices in my head):

                In Floribama

                Sunburnt anxious souls acting

                As if pain is fun

Another from Joyce News Wire:

                In spite of all this

                Earth on fire and dissonance

                My cat naps smiling

And to close, I mimic the famous words of newsman Walter Kronkite as he signed off every night:

                That’s the way it is

                This good Sunday June Thirteen

                Twenty Twenty One

Haiku, over and out.

I may not be able to adjust the reality of current events, but at least I can mush them into a 5-7-5 pattern.

We do what we can.

Thanks, Eric!

Joyce

Pride, look for the rainbow . . .

Dear you,

Happy LGBTQ Pride Month! 

Hot pink: Sex

Turquoise: Magic/Art

Red: Life

Violet: Spirit

Orange: Healing

Yellow: Sunlight

Green: Nature

These are colors that can be found in versions of Gilbert Baker’s rainbow flag.

I went bopping around the condo complex looking for those colors on balcony flags or even on bumper stickers.  Well, you know where I live; the odds weren’t good. I went from building one to building fourteen searching for that rainbow or any progressive symbol.  Other than the occasional innocuous “Honor Student on Board” or “Adopt a Rescue Pet” stickers, I didn’t find much.  At least those messages made me smile.  But then I saw this on somebody’s rear window:

How lovely. Is this like a patriotic fetish thing or something? I wasn’t sure what this flag skull was all about, so I turned to the ever-useful Google for basic information.  I learned this image is based on the Marvel Comics Punisher character.  The creator did not intend it to be used as it is these days, as a sign of support for ultra-conservative, far-right movements.  Salon.com, 2019, featured an article with this headline: “The Punisher skull: Unofficial logo of the white American death cult”.  A bit from that article by David Masciotra: “One of the impetuses for its popularity was a reactionary objection to the Black Lives Matter protest movement.  Thoughtless defenders of police amid allegations, or even video evidence, of unethical use of fatal force, adopted the Punisher skull as a sign of loyalty to the unbreakable ‘blue line’.”

The Skull flag. A symbol of violence, literalism, death, callousness, disease, ignorance, and nihilism.

The Rainbow flag. A symbol of sex, magic/art, life, spirit, healing, sunlight, and nature.

Considering the contrast, the rainbow wins. Simple math:  Rainbow Flag > Skull Flag

Saluting everything that is “greater than” during this LGBTQ month, year, era . . .

Love,

Joyce