F to the you see kay E dee

You love trains.

You always have. The first "serious" poem you ever wrote was about a train...or at least had a train in it. You know this is true, think about it. Ok, maybe your first serious poem was about flowers or rainbows.... But, trains are part of the American subconscious--at least they were when you were growing up. Now you're all growed up...yet still...

Still there is nothing quite like that sound in the middle of the night when everyone and everything else is dead asleep except you and that train off in the distance. You know where those intermittent whistles and that familiar screeching of brakes comes from. Those sounds come from down in the train yard, miles away, but you can hear them, because you're listening. Maybe you think you want to see them, those trains, in the middle of the night. Maybe you've never seen a midnight black train lot lit up by the blinding light of an oncoming train. Maybe the ding ding dings aren't the fractal resonances meant to warn you to stay away...maybe they are the aural luminescence of your Siren's call. Or...maybe you just want to hear the muffled yells of the workers down there, in the yard, barking out against the din of locomotion. So maybe one night you get in your car, let it warm up a bit while contemplating whether you really want to do this. It is kind of weird you know, your fascination with trains. Maybe trains represent some mesmerizing metallic alliteration and as you watched one pass many years ago, you know, the clunk and blow, the careening machine, the twin steel pall, the audible raucous caw of awe...you wondered...you had to wonder: What's inside those compartments? You pondered with every passing car and with every elliptical gap between them... Rocks... Shopping Carts... Cotton... Hay... Computers... Car Parts... A Hobo... Ben Gay... A shipment of wigs and/or synthetic toupees? Maybe the allegorical spirit that feeds your love and fascination with trains is a reality. Maybe it's forced. But then, maybe this is

ALL

totally

wrong

and you really,

really,

hate trains.

You hate them because they are stinky.

They are loud.

Greasy.

Obtrusive.

Rusted. Dilapidated. Eyesores. Stupid. Dumb. And bleeped.

Yes, trains.

Are bleeped.

They make you late for work.

That's bleeped.

They cause traffic jams.

Totally bleeped.

The graffiti isn't even like it used to be.

F to the you see kay E dee.

And they are old...like, really, really old. The concept is old. Tired. Tired and all kinds of bleeped.

After all, they are relics of a time gone by. Now when you think of trains all you can think about is Hitler. Go ahead, think about trains. Hitler, amIright?

Hitler. Trains. Ok, I apologize for that. Think about Thomas the Tank Engine, then. That'll make it all go away. -------------------->

And that's a shame, because when you think of trains you SHOULD be thinking about Benito Mussolini. Go ahead. Keep thinking.

Keep thinking. (hint at the bottom of page...)

You with me now?

See, it's bleeped.

Alright, if the name Eichmann is swashing around in your head, you get a cookie. Now shut up.

Fine, we'll have to concede a certain romantic allure: a train is that quintessential serpentine, that steely asp, and symbolic catalyst for some fancy shit you don't want to understand. Don't have time to understand, you're late for work. So bleep trains. Bleep trains! You hate the bleep out of trains.

Alright, alright. Calm down.

Yeah.

But...

What really blows the steam out of your whistle is that in third grade the teacher asked you to draw that picture of what the future was going to be like. And do you know what? Not one kid--not even the brace-faced dufus in front by the window drew a train. NOT ONE TRAIN TO REPRESENT THE FUTURE! What did they draw? Well, duh, they drew spaceships and jetpacks and astronauts...that kind of stuff. Jetpacks. Where's my bleepity bleep jetpack?

You don't have a jetpack, do you?

A train? This is what we get? We get a...a...a...train?




I want you to remember this day. Because this was the day you look at yourself in the mirror and realized. This place is bleeped! Trains! The sadness ensues...




Alas! Fear not! Real Hope is on the Horizon. And everything is not bleeped.



That's right boys and girls. The free market will do what the government cannot and will not do. The government can go ahead on and expand their fascist grasp on Florida for all we care. Let the Disney moguls lie in bed with the Obama administration and build their silly little train. We don't care. Let the Obama administration outsource NASA. We do not care. Private entrepreneurship will take us into the future--or back to the future we knew was ours...way back in third grade.

Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say "But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time." * Ronald Reagan.