Reading Notes

Aaron Huey 2002 coast to coast walk 

journal entries

http://www.aaronhuey.com/walk/pages/aaronhuey/walk_index.html

Poverty is a crime that carries the death penalty.

Entry 27: "Down the street still sailing, James sits by a shopping cart, pulls me in for a word or two. Homeless, his wife raped and killed, he lost his mind and his children taken away. You cant pay your bills when you’re crazy so he lost his house, lost his job, and when you really hit bottom like that how can you come back? Shelters full of drug addicts and drunks and fights or full of Christian propaganda force fed and he is not interested, so he is here on the streets until he dies. I want to take his photo but he does not want it to be taken. In his cart are a baseball bat, a golf club, and a crowbar, all wrapped with blue grip tape for swinging harder. I want to know more but the twitching scares me."

It's not just the individual penalties for not paying the man. You can't get back into normal life, because you never have enough means to pay for the clothes, housing, health services, etc you need to make any money.

It's like playing Monopoly when you have to sell all your houses and mortgage most of your properties after landing on another player's hotel. You're never gonna get that money back. You have no means of income except that $200 at Go, which is so far away and booby trapped with hotels between. Each trip you take costs you more than the income you might receive, if you don't end up in jail first. You're done. Game over.

Reminds me of this moment from what else, but The Simpsons, my one and only reference citation for all things Americana.

The figure of God emerging from the smoke is a pimply squeaky voiced teen. God is telling you life ain't no game, and if you ain't got quarters to pay, you might as well get out - life is an establishment for paying customers. Nietzsche be proud. God is dead. God now works for minimum wage.

Some other observations on the episode's rich social commentary:

King Kong is a Hispanic man. The Arcade game has a picture of Uncle Sam vs the Mexican. The foreigner is a misrepresented and unwanted beast. Probably portrayed as an illicit substance abuser too, with president old Bush (?) kicking him while he's down... 'Winners don't use drugs' ... even though affluent white people can't get enough of the stuff.

It's fashionable and posh when you use 'designer' drugs, but you probably bought what at some point passed through the hands of the some dirty lookin 'low-life' drug dealer that befits more the colored, the scum of society rotting our nation from its roots. Such a hypocrisy of a double standard.