scary white guys.

those of us who are from here know what i’m talking about.

the white guys in suits that have cherry red faces and can be set off at a dime over anything. YOU LIE! says this scary white guy.

the white guys who are quiet, don’t have a lot to say. stand in the corner together with beers in the hand…looking. looking. when they go to the woods to start their bonfires and crank their country music, they’re already drunk enough to agree to anything a leader tells them to do.

the white guys who are young. who stand in front of their greek house. with their beers in one hand. watching. judging. laughing and mocking as you walk by. when they come back from the bar and the game that night, they’re already drunk enough to agree to anything a leader tells them to do.

the white guys who are stuck in the 80′s. the libertarians. the ones who love their dogs and their guns and post signs all over their yards about ‘getting the u.s. out of the united nations!’ the U.s. first! Love God! Touch my gun and I’ll shoot you! Over my dead body!

the white guys that have gone one step further. with their guns and their beer. they sit in the woods. on the border. and talk about vietnam. and the ‘hordes’ that won’t stop coming.

we all know these guys around here. the scary ass white guys that teach you to fear a cherry red face and the beer. the beer in the hand.

we all know them.
and I fear them.

I went to a concert last night. one that I probably shouldn’t have gone to. but I went anyway. (Yes, I have contacted him as suggested, and you should too!)

it was an amazing concert.
but as usual, it was hard for me to stay focused straight through the entire time. i love to look at people in the audience. one of the most beautiful sights i’ve ever seen is the back of a single woman standing alone in a huge audience, dancing. she couldn’t contain herself. so she danced. and she was so beautiful.

it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive!

last night, amid the awesomeness, W* and I couldn’t help but notice…there ain’t a lot of colored folk at a bruce springsteen concert. but oh, my, there’s hordes and hordes of those white men. those scary white men.

i was standing right in front of a few of them. both of them wearing their light khakis and white tennis shoes and cherry red faces…both of them on the phone most of the night and drinking vodka the rest of the night.

yakking yakking yakking all night. what a great concert this is, hey just calling to let you know i’m at the bruce springsteen concert! this is so great, well, janey told tommy about the deal in mexico and now were’ not sure….oh, hold on i’ve got a call!

all night.
but how do you tell cherry faced white dudes to shut the fuck up?

but in front of me, a few rows up, was another white guy. a country white guy. a white guy with long blond hair that’s still, after twenty years, feathered at the top. the jersey and the blue jeans. the beer in the left hand.

the highway’s jammed with broken heros….

this dude never sat down once. like the woman who couldn’t contain herself, when other’s sat down during a slow song to get a rest, this guy stood, his beer in his hand, singing along, throwing his head back, raising his hands in the air, the music flowing into his fingers and building his body into a writhing twisting glorious mess.

a record company Rosie!

I’m used to seeing writhing twisting maleness at macho concerts. Aerosmith. Metallica. Suicidal Tendencies. writhing and twisting so that you don’t kill later. or so that you can kill later. nobody really has decided yet.

I’ve never seen a man, a white scary man writhe and twist along to hope, pain, tenderness, vulnerability. I’ve never seen a white scary man stand alone in front of the world and cry out hard times come, and hard times go, and come and go and come and go and come and go….

and it makes me wonder if bruce springsteen is doing in a three hour show what ‘anti-racism’ hasn’t ever and probably never will be able to do.

that man never sat down once.
writhing
twisting
holding the woman he was with
in his arms
as he poured his own music into her ear…

and it didn’t make me suddenly love scary white men. I had the cherry faced men in back of me to keep me from getting too attached to a moment.

but for a few hours, for a few songs …the world showed what could be…