Back Among the Bumper Stickers

Uh-oh!

I've resettled in Portland, Oregon, and someone learned a new word while I was gone! That someone is the entire city, and that word is sustaina-motherfucking-bility.

I became familiar with the term a year and a half ago when I was learning about organic gardening methods in Georgia, and in the context of farming it makes sense. It's a correlate of organic, but applies the idea more broadly and consistently. Organic farming uses no synthetic chemicals. That is the beginning and end of it. Sustainable farming, though it can have many interpretations, generally means organic farming that is also local, well-managed, and community-oriented. That's vague, but as the USDA relaxes the requirements for organic certification and more of the organic food on US supermarket shelves comes from huge, frequently overseas, corporate farms owned and managed by large agribusiness concerns, it becomes more important to understand that there is an important and relevant difference between sustainable and merely organic, especially because organic has become such a buzzword.

But Portland, land of liberal buzzwords, has fast-forwarded past organic and gone straight to the money shot: sustainable. If it was only used in reference to farming methods, I would be like this: "Fuck yeah, Portland. Do that thing!" But, predictably, it ain't.

Door handle molders are sustainable. Day spas are sustainable. Design firms are sustainable. And this place is sustainable: Nau, Inc. If you can figure out what the fuck this joint does just from looking at their leafy, dewy, deciduousy website, I will blow you seven times. Because you can't. But perhaps you can glean something extra from their listing for a studio manager on Craigslist:

"The Nau, Inc. Value Equation

Our value equation is developed by integrating economic, environmental and social factors into the traditional business model.
Maximizing our value requires taking all three dimensions into account.

We believe that a sustainable business has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders and a moral imperative to effect social and environmental change.
And this is not just lip service.
This belief is reflected in our mission statement, and it’s written into the by laws of our business plan.

We further believe that by holding to these integrated goals, we will dramatically expand our sphere of influence.

This blending of profitability and philanthropy is the new measure of success.
We intend to assume a leadership role in corporate responsibility while providing maximum return on shareholder investment.

Our value equation is simple:
Do well by doing good."

This is not just lip service, people. After all, IT'S REFLECTED IN THEIR FUCKING MISSION STATEMENT.

(I realize I perhaps use all caps flippantly and too frequently, but it's the only way to accurately reproduce the shrill shriek of frustrated fury you'd hear were you actually talking with me in person.)

Ah, fuck it. I'm gonna go finish my sustainable Bloomin' Onion with cage-free peppercorn-ranch dipping sauce and get my ass in a hot bath of naturally-derived hemorrhoid-soothing herbs. God, I wish this burning itch wasn't sustainable.

If for Some Reason...

As I was saying, if for some reason you haven't yet seen the footage of Stephen Colbert speaking at the White House Press Corps dinner a while back, you really should. Made of solid stainless steel, they must be.

Bye Bye, Waffle House!

The following was written just before I moved. Now I'm on the highway and I saw Tom Waits in concert two days before departure. I'm still giddy with the afterglow of that experience. You can't tell from this short remembrance, though.
***

I'm moving out of the South, and I'll miss you dumb fuckers.

I'll miss the pony-riding twat who fired my girlfriend because "I don't want two alpha females in the office." (If I see you on the street, you will get a loogy square in your forehead.) I'll miss all you assimilated blacks who think you're doing something for yourselves by buying an Escalade, wearing a shitload of gold, and continuing to commodify yourselves as much as us whites. I'll miss you crackers for whom there is no greater good than the upgrading of your Firebird's sound system. I'll miss you overweight, malnourished pieces of shit who are so fucking fat on hot dogs and Mallomars that you have a handicapped pass and an electric riding cart in Kroger. I'll miss you homophobes who are raping your daughter instead of your son because that shit would be gay. I'll miss you patriots who understand (based on your bumper stickers) that freedom isn't free -- that it sometimes costs all your freedom. Oh, how I'll miss your magnetic ribbons. I'll miss your shitty cars swerving at me in jest as I run down the road I live on. Also, I will miss the empty Natural Ice tallboys you huck at me during those same runs.

I'll miss occasions like the one earlier today when I was getting my car's emissions tested (because Georgia is obsessed with ecological health, if you haven't noticed) and the girfriend and non-female buddy of the -- technician? attendant? retard? -- who was manhandling my auomobile stopped by with cookies and a CD copy containing a recent cover of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". Together, they happily mumbled a couple lines of the song, barely audible through their chaw:

"Like my father before me he was a workin’ man
Like my brother above me he took a rebel’s stand"

Awesome. Best of luck with that rising again shit. Learning to speak without drooling tar-stained saliva down your Chevron overalls might be a good first step.

Sherman had the right idea. Maybe I'll pass some dry timber on my way out of town. I'll pack matches, just in case.

I'm exaggerating for humorous effect, of course, even though all those things are true, unexaggerated, and humorous only in a sad way. I compiled a list of experiences I've had while living in the great state of Georgia and why they are near and dear to my everlovin' heart:

1. The day I pulled over on my way to work to move what I thought was the corpse of a car-struck cat out of the road and discovered it was actually the still-living body of a car-struck kitten. That was great. She was in shock and mangled internally, so I got to take her to the vet and have her euthanized. It was fun because I worked in a veterinary office when I was in my early teens and holding the body of a dying animal in my arms really took me back to my younger days.

2. The begging crackhead I saw a couple days ago in her nightgown and bright red plastic sandals. That was amusing because she really, really looked like Flavor Flav.

3. The three live armadilloes I saw one night while out running around 11 p.m. They were a fantastic surprise because every one of the 7,323 armadilloes I'd seen up to that point had been crushed and lying next to the side of the road. I haven't been that surprised since.

4. The dead pug I saw one morning on the road. Pugs are funny-looking dogs, aren't they?

5. The dead cat I saw at the base of someone's driveway for five days in a row. That made me feel good because I knew the family who owned that driveway must lead a very important and busy life to keep them from moving the decaying corpse of their or a neighbor's pet for that long. Maybe they're movie stars!

In the words of the immortal (but dead) Carl Panzram, "I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it[.]"