notes from a 2003 Philly stroll

The cars were at high tide – parked way up the street, the rain sewers were gushing.

The daffodils moist, brown at the edges, and droopy.

A German Shepherd clutching a red ball in his jaws.

A woman walking an enormous, white dog, a big, fluffy Something-or-other, bigger than she was, bigger than me, like a gigantic, cuddly stuffed toy. I was wondering if it would be any less terrifying to be attacked by something so fluffy.

Of the very few people out walking this morning, I’m the only one not walking a dog.

I see a Friehofer’s truck, with a huge photograph on the side of slices of bread, with a slogan that said, “the pride of the neighborhood”. The driver was a tough-looking, wrap around sunglassed, tattooed, unshaven, smoking young guy. . .i thought it’s probably not such a bad job; all you have to lift is bread.

I go to heartily kick a stone, and my foot passes completely over it. I laugh, foiled again.

I see a tennis ball in the gutter and i imagine a German Shepherd can’t be too far away. I move to the other side of the street.

(note to musician half of brain from business half): I should tell people, when they’re giving tips to the guitar case, to take a sticker or a fridgemagnet.

There’s something brahminical-ish about playing for tips—you’re living by begging, and people are being theoretically pious by giving money; at least if the “brahmana” doesn’t use it for something selfish and stupid.

As the buildings get closer to Lincoln drive, they become more row-house-y, paint-flakey, and trash strewn-y.

Saturday New York Times are rolled up in their plastic bags at the foot of the driveways. I notice one headline: “Human Guinea Pig Commits Suicide”. But I don’t stop to read it—intrigued though I be—thinking that it’s just too undignified and unseemly to stand in someone else’s driveway reading a rolled up newspaper about suicidal human guinea pigs..

I see a goateed, twenty-something, sunglassed guy, walking his dog. His dog has a cast on one of its front legs, yet is loping along in sort of a half run, half hop on the other three. The guy doen’t smile.

The material body is like a photograph of the conditioned self.