There’s the old lumber storage shed. Then there’s that ancient grain silo – hasn’t been used for years. Oh, yeah… and that little room in the north corner of the foundry – forgot about that.
Oh, hi. Welcome to the land of a thousand compromises. (Notice that the word “promise” is embedded in “compromises” – coincidence?) What is it this time, you may ask? Well… just trying to accommodate a few visitors. Actually, more than a few – a whole herd of visitors. No, the mongooses have not returned… they’ve clearly found richer fields of breadfruit elsewhere. This has more to do with the various negotiations we have to engage in around this place to keep all of our constituencies happy. (It gets goddamn tiresome sometimes, I can tell you, but would you want to listen? Be honest!) You got to give a little to get a little, right? That’s our credo.
I know what you’re thinking. (I’m quite gifted that way, actually. Your favorite fruit is cantaloupe… and your favorite hooved creature… antelope.) What exactly is the 
problem with a few extra guests, right? We’ve got a whole abandoned mill to work with – surely we can find the room. Okay – first of all, we’re not talking about conventional two-legged humans, the kind that can crash on a couch or sleep in the bathtub. (As long as they don’t bathe on the couch, I’m okay.) No, no… our guests are relatives of the man-sized tuber. In an attempt to coax him out of his funk (and out from under the tool shed), we made the somewhat ill-advised promise to invite all of his living relatives over for a week or two. Now, I admit, I did not fully consider the implications of this when it left my lips. (New experience for me.)
You see, they’re all freaking plants – every last one of them. And while we’ve been able to accommodate the man-sized tuber himself (e.g. build a terrarium, provide water and fertilizer, etc.), it’s a substantial undertaking to make this place livable for dozens of his blood relatives. (When I say “blood”, I really mean something more like “sap”.) I’ve got Mitch Macaphee and Marvin (my personal robot assistant) 
working on the problem right now, though each has been busy with his own personal obsessions. (Yes, Marvin is still whirring and clicking about that Canadian space robot named Dextre… so much so that I can’t even get a shovel into his lazy hands.) Mitch has designed an irrigation system for the courtyard that could help get us through the next few days, but with more heat in the forecast, we can’t leave those suckers out in the sun for too long. Don’t want to think of what might become of them. (Some kind of casserole, no doubt.)
Well, back to our labors. Ever notice how neither Lincoln nor anti-Lincoln are anywhere to be found when there is real work to be done? Emancipators indeed!
was well worth it. Or sort of, anyway… since it’s still hard to see how Hillary can walk away with this nomination short of spontaneous combustion on Obama’s part. No matter – the race continues. In a year when a Democrat should certainly walk to victory in November, the party is inventing a way to lose against a pretty lame candidate on the G.O.P. side. Start with two parts ambition – the kind the Clintons pursue at the cost of all they claim to believe in. Certainly, I’ve never been a fan of theirs, but I would dislike them a whole lot less if they simply stuck to articulating their positions, outlining policy differences with their opponent in a civil fashion, and refrain from all the exaggerated accusations about sixties radicals, anti-American (Marine veteran) preachers, and out of context remarks worthy of Sean Hannity or Matt Drudge.
This is a principle as old as organized society. The beast must be kept in its cage. That is why the political culture minimizes or excoriates the mass movements of the 1960s and ’70s – because people were participating in our democracy and involving themselves in policy matters to a degree elites found distressing, prompting them to fret over a growing “crisis of democracy” – the crisis being that the “d” word had any meaning to it at all. It’s the reason why anytime pop culture looks at the civil rights movement, for instance, they focus on Martin King and his “I have a dream” speech, not the thousands and thousands of people who risked their lives alongside him to bring about change. No, the wealthy have no desire to see a return to that level of participatory democracy. Perhaps they understand better than we do how much they rely upon a supine working class to create value in the businesses they own, to purchase the products and services they profit from, to serve their needs in every imaginable way, and so on.
Here, boy. Heeere, boy! That’s a good boy…. come on, got a little treat for you. Over here, boy. That’s right. Over…. oh, goddamn it!
up with him. (Good thing he didn’t break down in front of the vegetable stands – he might have ended up the catch of the day for some hungry vegan.) Between the four of us (Matt, John, anti-Lincoln, and myself), we wheeled the tuber back into the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill and locked the gate behind us. No more escapes, we thought. Of course, we didn’t anticipate the option for internal exile… our tool shed has a door that locks from the inside, strangely enough, and the man-sized tuber took refuge inside, throwing the latch behind him. Why? Could be the dirt floor reminds him of mother. (I’m guessing. It’s probably a lot more complicated than that.) 
Canadian space robot whose name must not be spoken. Please… don’t say it!) And of course, the return of mad scientist Mitch Macaphee and his notorious ticking steamer trunk. (Turned out to be a forgotten alarm clock he’d borrowed from the Buenos Aires Hilton. Again… keep this to yourself.) So what the hell, we’ve been losing a few pounds a week in pure sweat over here – a little too preoccupied to notice the subtle mood swings of an overgrown sweet potato. My apologies, for chrissake. Next time I will have my litmus paper ready, just in case he gets a little less acidic than normal. (The tuber’s dropping acid again…. not good.)