…more than a couple of weeks ago now, was the homeless news, best news of the week, really, about the Golden Gate Park denizen who spotted those murderous L.A. fugitives in the Whole Foods parking lot at Haight and Stanyan. When he pointed them out to some conveniently adjacent cops [they were all headed for coffee at MacDonald’s at the time] one fugi ran straight into the Park Station police station parking lot…the homeless guy subsequently disappeared into the park and unrelenting Stupor Bowl news cycle, never to be seen on TV again. Nor, we assume, rewarded.

Saturday, on the other hand, this Mark ll of immaculate rarity appeared fully formed in the Benicia Safeway parking lot;

…on a morning enjoyed variously by many;

…including Benicia Mallards, celebrating diversity.

I fortuitously lit up the TV just in time to catch the delirium of SB50’s halftime show careening to its climax with hardcore choreography and staccato beats that might as well have been from Mars [I found out later they were; Bruno Mars] accompanying a bunch of guys leaping about in what looked to be flowing suits of black vinyl suddenly upstaged, down on the field, by a phalanx of mega-thighed [R. Crumb, were you watching this?] black Amazons even more aggressively lunging about who then swarmed onto the stage, commingling with the guys as fireworks and smokebombs exploded irrelevantly.  Suddenly a tall anomalous caucasian, dressed in white with random appliques looking like those decal tattoos little kids favor, inserted himself into the fray and commenced crooning until the persons in black [Mars and the lady with the massive thighs who turned out to be, yay, Beyonce!] jumped in to bail him out, the cameras panned back triumphantly and amid more explosions I went to make dinner. It was exceedingly weird.  I found out later the dweeby guy was the alleged headliner, Chris Martin, and that the real performers had been brought in last minute when it dawned on some genius up in Management what a mistake THAT invitation had been.   Beyonce’s dancers and self were sending out an homage to the Black Panthers for Black Lives Matter, which they do.  Well, good on that, for sure, and for her powerful video that dropped the same weekend.

The SB extravaganza inspired me to revisit Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 “Triumph des Willen” to which, as a belief system reinforced through manipulated mass hysteria, it bears considerable resemblance, even unto the end of the coverage when the anchors thanked the Army “for keeping us safe”.  Of course if said Army wasn’t deployed by the powers that be to antagonize most of the rest of the world by attempting to enforce the belief system of consumerist “Democracy” we might not need to employ them so extensively for our collective protection here in the Homeland.  “Thank you for your service” they said, implying, I guess, that SB50 could have turned into a bloodbath at any minute but thanks, no doubt, to the radical militarization of the Bay Area for the Duration, didn’t.

Things were definitely “safe” for the Duration up our way, too…and all calm come the weekdays.

First time I saw this, oh forgive me, I thought the truck was full of those little potato deals the Europeans call “American Fries.” Or, as Marx* pointed out, “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana”…and freedom flies loaded with destructive ordnance while we, a couple of aging pups with a couple of aging pups, enjoy it as a calm walk along the water every morning…

…and those lunches in the yard;

Then Wednesday, a hazy day;

to the coast to visit brother Kirk for lunch and a GoPro tutorial…

…before the onslaught of Maverick’s, the Red Bull commercial, coming Friday, surf or no surf.  No public access either, thanks to new management known as “The Cartel”…hmmmm.  I departed, negotiating the afternoon traffic in just a bit under an hour more than it had taken to get down there, happily entertained by our very own National Propaganda Radio.

And so to home, in the Homeland.  Can someone from here in the so-called “United” States tell me what the “L” in ISIL means when the propagandists denigrate the “so-called” Islamic State?  Youth wants to know.

*[Groucho, not Karl]

mas anon, anon…

 

M