SHE'S MY LOBBYIST

In my time of need, she is there
in her power black polka dot skirt
and spartan high heels.

As the middle class folds in on itself
she's at the table with the gorgons
of several mirror manufacturers.

Then, she's flossing her rhetoric
at the no-taxes conference, rereading yore-orators
un-contextualizing Jeffersonian snippets.

Later, much later, she's up early to file motions
and throng the halls with snide press releases
that put people on high, color-coded alert.

She's dancing on tables with the daughters
of the losers of the Revolution, and battleshipping
lines with them in chic, metallic powder rooms.

She's fashioning cyanide bullets
for Albanians with pizzerias on the Concourse.

She's interpolating the fluoride in toothpaste
with radiator fluid, and selling it in dollar stores.

My lobbyist is throwing performance artists
into endless interrogation holes for questioning
the auguries of The Filter Politburo.

She's fundraising with Christian mercenaries.
She's toppling welfare caliphates.
She's fasting with Shiite and Sunni heroin herders.

EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE LETTER

9/15/2011

Mr. J. Bha%@^%h
yusu&.bha%@^%h@________.com


Yago S. Cura
#$%28 Venice Blvd
LA, CA 900&*


Dear Mr. B__________


On Saturday September 10, I opened a business account with Chase for the first time. I am a switch-over customer from the days of Washington Mutual, and love the Chase service but am not crazy about the Chase fees. I am the proprietor of a small press and online journal and have been needing to open a separate business account for some time now, but have been precluded from doing so by our horrendous economic times.

I am writing today to you to notify you of the excellent customer service given to me by J_______ Br_______. I have been offered many promotions though Chase and to date have taken advantage of zero of them, but after Ms. Br______ took a look at my personal checking account, she offered me several good reasons why I should take the plunge and open a business account with Chase.

I am a part-time librarian and part-time publisher of literature and part-time interpreter, and a full-time dad. I like when people take time out of their day to explain to me in simple dollars and cents. This is something that Ms. Br_____ did for me, and it is something remarkably difficult to cultivate with employees.

I have been a teacher for most of my professional career and it has taught me a simple truth. Theories concerning things are sometimes useless because if your teacher knows the theory but can't transmit the content then that's a bad teacher. Likewise, just because you know what the price of gold is in the morning, doesn't mean that you can provide expert customer service.

Ms. Br______ knows how to do both, and she knows how to talk to people like people, which is a very difficult thing to do and almost impossible to learn. I'm afraid it's a no-theory kind of thing. Either you got it or you don't. Ms. Br_____ clearly does. I appreciate your time, and look forward to a long and salubrious business partnership with Chase. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance

Thank You Greatly!

Yago

NYC AS THE NYPD STATE

I moved to New York City the summer after 9/11. I was born in Brooklyn, but raised in Miami, so it was a return of sorts. The city was still visibly stunned and the country was astir with its color-coded thing; "Ground Zero" had stopped smoldering months ago, but the clean-up was well under way. Thousands had died which meant that hundreds of thousands were being directly affected which affected the millions grinding it out in the city. A deep sense of distrust, especially towards Arabs and East Asians, descended on the city like some medieval plague. The summer after 9/11 jobs became scarce as state and federal monies were put on hold so that our "response" might become apparent (nation building price tag and all). The Department of Ed and City University of New York had freezes; this or that Association was only hiring internally. The summer after 9/11, New York City still reeled from the pelagic psychic pain and ultra-deep remorse inflicted by those two planes.

Truth be told, the blackouts of 2003 left a much larger imprint on my experience as a New Yorker. I had not survived the simultaneous attack on the Towers that day so I could not rightly say that 9/11 had directly affected me, but being left without electricity for three days in 2003 is my infinitesimally small 9/11. Especially since, everyone completely assumed that the blackouts had been caused by another terrorist attack, and not overheated, overtaxed utility and power generator stations. The blackout of 2003 was an exercise in controlled chaos because many of the people that I encountered those three days were convinced our republic had imploded. The summer after 9/11, the subways were thronged with anti-terror police in body armor, scaring the shit out of everybody. Of course, though, it was for your safety, so unless you were heading up your own cell you shut your mouth and shared the platform with the swat squadron.

We were told numerous times a day that it was the new price of freedom. According to the Daily News, by 2008, the NYPD was already "reinventing itself as an intelligence and homeland security agency" as well as "the nations largest police department". As the country's hawks played with smoke and mirrors at the United Nations to obtain legitimacy for their eventual invasion of Iraq, New York City became one of the safest and best patrolled cities in the world with "37,000 officers," and "tens of millions of dollars - much it from federal grants - on an array of high-tech security measures designed to thwart threats." This is the reason that the NYPD is the only police force in the world with an international presence as many of its officers work in conjunction with Central Intelligence Agency analysts.

I lived in New York for a total of 8 years, the last 5 living in a Harlem enclave (Striver's Row) in a neighborhood were I stuck out like a thumb because I was Latino and not Black. I have lived in an attic on Church Ave in Brooklyn, and right on third Ave in Spanish Harlem; I have lived in a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood where the world would shut down on Friday evenings in preparation for Shabbat. And I have been out and about to the wee hours of the night, intoxicated and stumbling, bumbling through wind-slapped city streets, industrial zones, and hipster kingdoms. And nothing has ever "happened"; I have never been mugged or pistol-whipped or knifed in the gut or taken advantage of in a violent and aggressive manner. I also taught high school for three years in the Bronx in a poor neighborhood with a large gang presence. So, I have seen fights, melees, and minor bar brawls, but I benefited directly from the safety and surveillance of a post-9/11 heavy police presence.