( 4:31 PM )
Friday, March 28, 4:49PM. Music Currently Playing: Coldplay, Rush of Blood to the Head
Outside the windows at work here I see the sun begin it's late afternoon descent and the quality of yellow light is washing everything out, turning it into the background for some cartoon. It continues to amaze me to see crows out there. This is the desert, so I would expect vultures (it's a cartoon right?) but there are always these six or eight mean old crows that perch in the mesquite tree and make grotesque threats at nobody in particular. They're big too, bigger than cats or small dogs, and they have these eyes like some tiny piercing bird abyss, swallowing all feathers and light. There is a rabbit out there, just a tiny brown Fiver who hides when the crow crowd arrives, and occasionally it pokes out its frenetic rabbit nose from underneath the prickly pear clump to see if they're still around. They're aggressive enough, the crows, I could see them picking the rabbit up and carrying it away screaming.
In case you have never heard, rabbits do scream. It's this high, shrill, piercing sound, like a small child in pain. Usually it comes at night from the dry riverbeds and is followed by the yip and yap of the coyotes who caught it. I remember as a kid cornering this baby rabbit in the clubhouse I had built behind my house with plywood I had stolen from home construction sites in my neighborhood. I crawled in there with my walkman and my wristrocket slingshot and a pulp sci-fi book I wanted to read without being interrupted my my younger sister and there it was in the corner, eyes bulging, ears flattend. I wanted to pick the thing up, touch it. It was tiny, like a kitten, and trembling, and man did it scream. I let it go when I heard that. I thought I had killed it.
On the other hand the toughness of the crows, their big black meanness, their bird-brained stupidity, is comical, somehow. I'll walk around at lunch and they'll be belching and sqawking at each other in their crow language, nipping their wings with the glistening black beaks, hopping from branch to branch. I always picture them having these weird conversations in strong foreign accents like a bunch of old men sitting at a cafe smoking cherry cigarros.
Crow1: Hey, ya', like cubism or dadaism.
Crow2: No no no, fuck dat. Abstract Expressionism.
Crow6: You no pay 'ttension. I said wha' flavor paint you like de best?
Crow5: Blue! No, red!
Crow3: Painter or paint?
Crow6: Paint. Paint.
Crow2: I steeell say Abstract Expressionism.
Crow5: Can I change? I like greeeen.
Crow4: You mean like dat guy who splatters de paint?
Crow1: Pollock. No, Rothko, Rothko. No, Pollack.
Crow2: He died you know, in a car crash. Like a splatter of paint
Crow3: Heh heh heh, I made my own little splatters of paint on de car.
Crow6: You not answer my question!
Crow5: Ok, this is de last time. Purple. Definitely purple paint.
Parliament of Rooks, Murder of Crows, Unkindness of Ravens. And so on.
Fridays always leave my head feeling fuzzy, heavy, burdended with all the stupid details of the week. I am barefoot right now, I can feel the grey, textureless industrial office carpet underneath my feet, and crumbs and electrical cords under my desk. I bought several small figurines of Las Luchas! which are the mexican wrestlers that wear those funny masks, and have placed them at strategic points in my cubicle so that no matter what direction I turn, one of them is waving at me. Coldplay is soaking into me like a dose of nyquill, soft and warm, and snoozy. I am so ready for this day to end. Tonight I will drive 90 down the interstate in the fading desert light and let the force of air coming in from the window suck it all off of me and turn into tumbleweed and food for the crows.
#
( 8:45 AM )
Wednesday, March 5, 10AM. Music Currently Playing: Calexico, Feast of Wire
So I just received another fabulous fraud from my friends in Nigeria and I thought that once again I'd share my response.
Here is a truncated version of the original email:
From: DR. GEORGE EGO - AMA
Nigeria National Petroleum Coporation (NNPC)
Federal Secretariat Building,
Suite 112, Falomo - Ikoyi,
Lagos.
INVESTMENT
I am (DR. GEORGE EGO - AMA), a top management staff
in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and I
head a seven-man tender’s board in charge of Contract Awards
and Payments Approvals. I came to know of you in my search for a
reliable and reputable person to handle a very confidential
transaction that involves the transfer of a huge sum of money
to a foreign account. There were series of contracts executed
by a consortium Multinationals in the oil industry in favour of
NNPC among which were:
1. The Supply of Y2K Compliant Personal Computers and
Accessories to the Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries.
2. Supply of Drugs and Relief materials to the victims
of the Niger/ Delta crises.
3. The construction of Schools, Hospitals and Housing
Units in the Niger/Delta Region.
The original value of these contracts was deliberately
over invoiced in the sum of TWENTY TWO MILLION, FOUR
HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS (22.4M)
which has now been approved and is now ready to be transferred
being that the Companies that actually executed these
contracts have been paid and the projects officially commissioned.
NOTE:PLEASE FURNISH ME WITH YOUR TEL/FAX# SO THAT I
COULD SEND ACROSS DETAILS OF THE TRANSFER AND OTHER
RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FOR YOUR ENDORSEMENT TO ENABLE
US TRANSFER THE FUNDS TO YOUR PROVIDED ACCOUNT.
I AWAIT YOUR IMMEDIATE RESPONSE.
Yours Sincerely,
DR. GEORGE EGO - AMA
=========================
Here, of course, is my response:
Dear Sir,
How dare you, sir. You are a liar and a fraud for *MY* name is Dr. George Ego-Ama and *I alone* am top staff at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Come now, tell me how you have obtained my idendity!?!?
Even though you are clearly a hack and a deceiver, and you cannot be trusted by a herd of hungry goats, I have been authorized by my government to offer you 2% of sums from our over-invoicing of two million dollars, if and only if you show good faith by wire transferring an amount of $10,000 USD into a wire account we agree upon. Please furnish me with your TEL/FAX#, so that I can send across the details of the transfer and other relevant documents for your endorsement to enable us to transfer the 2% funds to your indicated account.
This is surely your opportunity to redeem yourself and your lying nature and to make yourself a name of honour in this business transaction. I await your response
Sincerely,
Dr. George Ego-Ama
#
|
