head	1.2;
access;
symbols;
locks; strict;
comment	@# @;


1.2
date	2011.06.04.00.39.08;	author baccala;	state Exp;
branches;
next	1.1;

1.1
date	2011.06.03.23.44.42;	author baccala;	state Exp;
branches;
next	;


desc
@@


1.2
log
@*** empty log message ***
@
text
@The day after Thanksgiving 2010, I got on a plane to Los Angeles, and
the next day took a plane to Hawaii.  I came here to overthrow the
government.  I came here to find freedom.

I lived for years in my mom's basement studying math.  I won't go
back.  I was just wasting my life away.  I should be in some big R\&D
shop figuring how to make computers speak English, or how to automate
our automobiles, or how to pump oil out of a volcano.  But I won't do
it for capitalists.  I won't hand them my intellectual property
for a paycheck.

After two nights in a Waikiki youth hostel, I sought out the
Benedictine monastery on Mt. Kaala and stayed there for a week.  I met
one of their regular church-goers who had a room to rent in Haleiwa
and that's where I spent the winter.  I bought a surfboard for the
first time in fifteen years -- hell, it was a five minute walk to
Ali'i Beach, the first leg in the Triple Crown!  How could I not get
a board?

There were jobs I'd do.  I applied to teach in the public schools, but
they don't want me because I never finished a college degree.  John
Benedetto tried his utmost to push me into it, and it almost worked.
He arranged for a government contract to actually pay me to do math
and I spent $5,000 on classes that I never attended because I already
knew the material.  Why?  _Why?_ Why would anyone spend a penny on
"tuition" to "learn" what they already know?  This is your school
system.  I'd never accept the degree now if it was offered.  So I
can't teach.  Go to hell.  And you say I wouldn't work.  To hell with
you all.

I went to church.  Not at the monastery; I went to an old
Congregationalist church a block away from my house.  The
second-oldest Christian church on Oahu, Liliuokalani Protestant Church
was founded by New England missionaries and patronized 125 years ago
by the queen whose name it now bears.  When I received the last
paycheck from the contract, I computed a ten percent tithe and split
it equally between the monastery and the church.

I didn't quite finish the novel.  I could have.  Could have worked
harder; I only wrote for three hours a day or so.  Smoked a lot of
weed; was in the ocean almost every day; spent a whole month working a
math problem that I found interesting.  After all, I knew that it
might be the last winter of my life, and it was truly the best!

Haleiwa had a Christmas parade; the highlights (for me) were Santa
driving a convertible and Surfing The Nations.  STN is a Christian
mission manned by young surfers.  They have an office in Wahiawa and
three-story apartment complex behind it.  They have a major drive to
feed the homeless and you see them all over the place helping with
outdoor church services and the like.

Around the end of April my money ran out.  It always does.  I gave my
landlady an extra $1,200 because she asked.  One of Haleiwa's cronic
homeless asked me for money to buy a plate lunch; I gave him ten
dollars.  Someone else asked me for five dollars -- all I had was two
ones and a twenty; I gave him the twenty.  I filled up my roommate's
gas tank; I bought my landlady a washing machine and made no attempt
to deduct it from the rent.  And, of course, I no longer had a paying
job.

I went to church on the first of May and asked around for a place to
stay.  Someone was flying to the mainland for a month; she offered me
her room until she got back.  Once we got there, she then wanted $200
of my last $300 for a room she couldn't possibly rent because it had
all of her stuff in it.  I agreed, and also informed her that I was a
legally registered medical marijuana patient in the state of Hawaii;
she raised no objection.

The next day this story changed.  One of her other tenants was
applying for a job that required a security clearance; I got a door
slammed at me the first time we met and then had my money returned to
me and was put out on the street.  After a few days in a youth hostel,
I was completely broke and turned to the minister.

He drives a car, probably lives in a house, never invited me to
dinner, never offered me a place to stay, and instead pushed me off
onto social services and their homeless shelter with no shower, no
electricity, just a mat and a pillow in a gymnasium and you're back
out on the street at 7:30 in the morning.

The monastery was no better; I asked to stay there and was told that
they "weren't set up for that".  Surfing The Nations turned me down
cold with a bunch of bullshit about how they had an application
procedure and needed references to keep out thieves.  Mind you, I had
applied to a hostel in Honolulu that also needed references --
references that they checked and then accepted me the next day.  Did I
mention that STN's interns pay to go on their mission?

I blew.  I went into the church a week later, walked up to the pulpit
at the end of the service and lambasted them with Amos 3:1-2 at full
volume!  A cynical capitalist bitch trying to squeeze some of my last
money from me and an utterly indifferent minister that does nothing
but talk -- that's their brand of "Christianity".  Did I mention that
they got a half tithe and then some -- every time that collection
plate went around I put in a ten or a twenty.  The money itself isn't
important; the point is that when they asked for my help, they got it,
but once my money ran out and I needed theirs...

I've now realized that their religion is not mine; they're Christians1
and I'm a Christian2.  I didn't understand this, not really; that's
why I got so angry.  For me, "give to all those who beg of you" isn't
an option; it's a commandment, same as "thou shall not steal" and
"thou shall not kill".  I saw a begger on the streets of Honolulu and
he asked for a twenty; I gave it to him.  If I pass a hitchhiker and I
have room in the car, I stop.  There's hardly any choice; it's a
commandment, and Christians2 are persecuted under capitalism as surely
as Christians1 were persecuted under communism.  The rest of you
"can't live that way" because you're enslaved.

So I've been living on the street, sleeping on the beach, carrying
bags around everywhere because I had no place to store them, no place
to stay, no place to work, no place to write.  I decided to kill
myself, or at least to throw myself to the ocean and to the Lord,
paddling out on my board and then just paddling and paddling and
paddling.  Did I mention that I'd taken up surfing again?

They have a Ten Percent Religion.  The most righteous among them give
ten percent to charity and cram the other ninety percent into their
own coffers.

I'm done with sham Christians.  Sit behind your pews and do nothing.
Carry on with your Ten Percent Religion.  Whip your own into line.  I
won't get in line, and I'm done being whipped.

I'm inspired!  Inspired, I say, inspired!  For the first time since
I've been homeless, I can write!  I'm writing on the beach, now; I
could soldier on.  I have mosquitos flitting all over me; the laptop's
battery will be dead again tomorrow; it's starting to rain, but I
could soldier on.

I won't do it.  I won't work under these conditions.  I will not stand
behind a counter and refuse to feed a man, and I won't sleep on the
beach and finish _Icarus_Wing_ in the Coffee Gallery.

So, there's only one way you'll get this half-ass, unfinished novel,
and that's the way you're getting it now.  I refuse to finish this
book.  Ever.  And I know where I'll be by midnight.

This is your sick "freedom".
@


1.1
log
@Initial revision
@
text
@d108 1
a108 1
"can't live that way" because you're enslaved under capitalism.
d117 8
d132 2
a133 3
behind a counter and refuse to feed a man if he can't pay, and I won't
sleep on the beach and write in the Coffee Gallery.  How can I make
this point more forcibly than with my own life?
d136 2
a137 2
and that's the way you're getting it now.  I know where I'll be by
midnight.
@
