Joe,
Your work hurts too damn much for my own good but like anything worth doing in life, etc. Anyway, I caught the Rhino piece and I just wanted to let you know that those ugly buggers have had coastal affiliation for many years here in California. You think you live in God's Own Rhino Habitat?
Out here we have perfected the ability to camo rhinos as clean cut yuppies and other slick Jesus based types who though pleasant to look at and to hear from a distance, are the same filthy, coarse haired brutes up close. To wit: I was recently at a confab of a progressive non-profit org in San Diego (They give me money, they don't beg me for it) and after a day of feelgoodspeak I got drunk on their tab and wandered around the "Old Gaslamp District", an area recently blighted by urban renewal when the old neighborhood got thrown out to be replaced by such high toned joints as Larry Flynt's Hustler Club and a billion over priced "martini" bars, bistros, and chain stores.
So, I can't find a quiet place to have a beer and nurse several festering grudges. All were closed by 11 pm, and I end up at TGI Fridays, a fairly neutral crap factory that makes fish-bowl sized drinks and lavishes on the fried foods. I sit down to enjoy my drink and sandwich. I flirt with the bartender, a local college girl who wants nothing more than to get out of San Diego alive and with a license to join the herd, and me only wishing to get my head together for the next day, when I notice a noisy threesome wander in the bar, guy in a Microsoft cap who looks like he had done well in his young life, in tow were two non-descript women, a blonde and a brunette, they order drinks. A conversation arises, well conversation being Mr. Microsoft pontificates, while one woman looks bored and the other clings to his every word hoping desperately he might consider her for a mate.
OK, so they talk and Micro begins some post-apocalyptic rant that stirs me out of my own pre-rhino reverie. "What was that guy's name, you know the dictator in South America, I think it was Chile." My ears (being more canine than rhino) perk up as he continues, "they had the right idea there, they lined up a few thousand liberals and executed them, and the country has never had a problem since. It has prospered ..." etc, etc. I think you get the drift.
I sat there wondering where the hell I had wandered in, all I wanted was a drink. He tried in vain to remember the heroic dictator who murdered his way into the hearts of Chileans everywhere and I mumbled loudly over the din of ESPN, "Pinochet, his name was Pinochet."
"That's it!" the Rhino declared, "that's the guy."
Not wanting to miss a chance to throw a spear into his tough hide, I respond, "He killed my Uncle."
Now Joe, this was a bit of a falsehood considering the closest I have ever been to Chile is at my local Mexican restaurant and my wife's garden, but I wanted to try it on for size. The spear, having not been one of truth, merely deflected off his hide as he looked away and continued to expound upon the virtues of extermination as social policy.
Well that is merely the tip of the iceberg, Joe. Your herds are out here, the descendants of proto-rhinos who migrated from back east over the last few generations and have evolved into a new breed. Being a poor Mexican kid from a rural area who trusts nothing since he went and done got educated, I am truly scared shitless as the herd passes. I am also sad that you are leaving, but I too am planning to be closer to the border as the days grow darker, and ready to flee for the hills from whence my own folks came.
I'll be damned if I ever thought that Mexico would stand as a bastion of freedom, but in a land of beasts, the man with the whip is sometimes your only friend. If you happen to be passing through California on your way out, please consider yourself invited to my home and to speak to as many unlike minded people that we can scare up.
Thanks for your damn fine work. It will stand as a warning to the rest of us who are too stupid, sleepy, or just plain rhinoish to learn for ourselves.
R.G.V.
