When Townes was in his early twenties he attended a party, drank a bit, closed his eyes, and walked backwards out of a sixth story window.The first Townes Van Zandt song I heard was during my Junior year of high school.  You won't find too many country songs in my iTunes library.  He came from a wealthy patriarchy in North Texas.  A few parks, numerous buildings, and an entire county bear his oil-rich family surname.  How better to pass on the geneological fortune than by dropping out of college to become a singer-songwriter?  He had numerous mental problems, fits of depression, battles with alcohol and heroin, and his work never made it big.  He grew up in Fort Worth and was buried about 25 minutes away from my house.His family wanted him to be the next Texas governor.  Instead, he wrote songs about cowboys and lonliness.  I respect his failure.  He was free, even if it meant living in a log-cabin, drinking whiskey and, writing guitar ballads.  A Fort Worthian with a bit of money either ends up a pragmatic (with social safety nets and a loyalty system) or a rogue (with the abysmal depths of solitude).  The working class aside, the hourly wage earner doesn't have time to worry about society, we see the Country Day Private School, Colonial Golf Club, West Fort Worth, Southern elite versus the I-couldn't-care-less crowd.  Sure, you have a spectrum in between, myself embodying both polar opposites, or at least fantasizing that I am counterculture at times, but I'll be the first to admit you'll find the lot of us groomed just as good as the next bitch at the dog show.  Townes shed his leash.  He didn't have time for the burden of society.  That man could write a song to make your heart beat and your body quiver.I am priveledged.  I know that.  Not many sons have a family that loves them unconditionally.  Townes's family didn't approve of his choices.  My family backs whatever I do.  Townes fucked them all, broke down, made a modest return, and then completely fell apart again.  He had a shot.  That was tragic and he's a hero for it.  Idealism gets the best of me- the well meaning man and wrong doing hands, a cliche for folks with my background.  He went for it and I am a coward until I do the same.There won't be computers that can read this in 20 years.  My parents were hippies, then morphed into yuppies, and now they are just happy.  A lot of people do not have the same luxury of feeling good.  I don't want to sell out.  Sometimes it takes me a few hours after I wake up to realize I am not sure what I am doing.  I have trouble getting to sleep at night."Me & this friend streetlife brownWe got a bottle of red and walked downtownOne hand on the jug and one on timeHe said I bet you a dollar against this next lineDon’t let the sunshine fool yaDon’t let the bluebirds tool yaDon’t let the women do yaPut your hand in mine"-"Don’t let the sunshine fool ya" by Guy ClarkMy friend's father is a middle aged Polish Jew that grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.  Similar to my own fathers circumstances, if you disregard my father's Italian Catholic upbringing, they are self-made men and captains of post-hippy America- the one they had to come back down to once they were done splitting a joint and listening to Hendrix.My friend's father used to write a beer column until a few months ago.  The US newspaper industry hemorrhages money when forced to deal with smaller print advertising revenue, blog reporters, fewer people subscribing to and reading the paper, and large corporations buying up the competition nationwide to consolidate writing and outsource design.  It's a dying business with more advertising per page than actual words.  Technology and the business environment will force the industry to eventually cease the production of news.I don't think the man is angry.  He's not that kind of guy, he just makes worried jokes.  The baby boomers didn't just see the steel and textile industry jobs packing up and boarding a ship , but the staples of American industry float away now.  There's no Woodward and Bernstein in my hometown, just a newsfeeds written halfway across the country surrounded by ads for women's lengerie and 50 percent off at the crappy furniture store on Montgomery.This is Knight Ridder country now.  You poor slobs can't even keep your own newspapers profitable, let alone write a decent local story.  Well, you know what?  Fuck you.  To hell with you country bumbkins.  The only thing this town is good for is turning a buck, and it's not even good at that.My friend's father sits late into the night typing at his computer at his house.  I see the monitor's glow on his glasses through the window as I drive by.  I'll see his work in the paper tomorrow morning, from his word document to my frontporch.  We have no Texan heroes, just good guys of European decent getting ready to retire soon.I bought 50 bucks worth of electronic components.  One set of red LEDs, three sets of mixed color LEDs, two sets of mixed transistors, a 555 ICU timer, 20 feet of 18 gauge wire, and two medium pre-drilled PCP boards.  The clerk ringing me up felt embarrassed for me.  A high school kid buying all these hobby items... what a life he must live!  Yo, bro, lets drive around my neighborhood for two hours and drink.  Nah, sorry, dude, I found a blinking light schematic online that I really want to finish tonight.  But, bro, it's Friday night!  Yeah, I know, dude, but trust me, I'll have a good time.  Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...oh god, there's more.... beep, beep, beep.  That will be $53.28.Like churches or god, if you need a Radio Shack, you will find one.  Like Coca-Cola, as Andy Warhol said, all Americans visit the same place to buy 1/8th inch mini audio connectors, small solar powered calculators, and personal AM/FM radios.  It wasn't always like this, though.  People used to buy walkie talkies here, and before that Trash 80's, and even before that quality leather goods.  Consumerism, since 1919, America's brand name for Capitalism.  Walking around the store- the stacked but messey merchandise, the same products at every franchise location only in different aisles, the same guy who's been working there for five years- you want to look where to kneel, take communion, face east, and cry quietly as I wait for Ganesha to relieve me of this burden.Hi, um, I think I need to connect my female RCA audio plugs on my speaker system to one of these male 1/4th inch mono plugs on my CD player.  I just know when the sound feels right, and these cords aren't doing it for me.  Hmm, well it doesn't look like you have any 1/4th inch cords man enough for the job- all of them are female.  Maybe we can coerce some of these other adapters to get things... going, huh?  Yeah, just stick that long Male gold tipped 1/8inch jack right in there.  Ohhh, that fits so well.  I hope you don't charge extra for this.Bacteria that can survive inside of volcanoes and in the Artic circle could not compete with ruggedness of a RadioShack store.  From over-crowded kiosk shops in Manhattan to Suburban mega-malls in the middle of the desert- the sand brick and vanilla mortar and CamelCase red font, 2.24 billion dollars in cashflow running between them through the aether.  CEOs resign, the company sells their newly built headquarters downtown to a German investment group, and every quarter is always in the red, but Radio Shack lives on in the name of generic electronics.My father used to leave home on Sunday nights and return Friday evenings.  Every waking hour of Saturday and Sunday was action packed for me.  My parents weren't divorced or separated, but that's what it looked like to the outside world.  He'd fly three hours every Sunday to his office in Chicago.  From there, he would visit five cities in four days.  The chicken pasta entree with the stale roll in between two fat businessman.  They make good pillows as long as you don't drool.  Don't check bags, don't idle in the security line, try to snag three empty seats to sleep on for the red-eye.  "I am just trying to earn us some pizza money, don't worry about me, I'll be home soon."  His dad died when he was 12 and he grew up in a modest neighborhood.  It sucks worrying about money, he says.  As his children, we are provided for, and then some.  He has more than a million miles on three different airlines.  We moved to Texas so he could be home Thursday through Monday.  I can't think of many men that bring tears to my eyes.I often fly Southwest Airlines to school since a Dallas Love (JFK's last stop) to T.F. Green Providence ticket goes for $99.  DFW ain't that bad.  I-35 to 121 to 183, and bam, 25 minutes later you're on the tarmac.  59,784,876 passengers a year.  I've been to New Zealand, Colombia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Chile, Hungary, Ecuador, many places in between, but I always come home.  In the 8th grade we held a Future Business Leaders of America meet at the DFW airport hotel.  I knotted my tie, made coffee at 6AM, watched porn with my schoolmates, and took third place in the FBLA Bylaw FAQs competition.  I often dress up a bit to get on the airplane, I like to look a put together while in front of strangers.  I flew for one year without a driver's license and had to go through double security to board a plane.  I feel happy when I pick my dad up from the airport on Thursday nights during the Summer.When a wife comes home from work to see her spouse, or when a child comes home from school to see his sister... they just don't smile as much as when it happens at DFW.  Flying on an AA 767 doesn't give you the Buddhist religious experience the Beatniks were looking for in 1950's, but damn, it feels good to be home."She came in on the redeye to dallas-fort worth.All the way from sunny taipei.Skin the color of a walnut shell,And a baseball cap holding down her black hair.And she came here after midnight.The hot weather made her feel right at home.Come on in, we haven't slept for weeks.Drink some of this. it'll put color in your cheeks."-"Color in Your Cheeks" by the Mountain Goats15 angry teenagers board the bus home after a 2-1 loss to the worst team in our district.  Empty Vodka bottles clank against each other inside our soccer equipment bags.  As the only Freshman on the team, and at 14, I was still scared of changing naked in front of a mirror.  How could I tell these people what they were about to do was wrong?Bueno (the Mexican team captain) did not pass the ball to a wide open Raleigh (the White team captain) in front of the goal post during the final minutes of the game.  Instead, Bueno took a low-percentage shot on goal and missed.  As usual, the Whites sit in the back of the bus and the Mexicans in front.My soccer team was composed of eight “Whites” and eight “Mexicans” (or this is how we referred to ourselves) split out of a single quasi-unified team, each with their own captain.  We stretched and warmed up as two teams, sat on different sides of the bench, spoke in two different languages, and bonded as two separate entidies.Whispers and harsh looks float from one player to the next once on board while I sit with my head phones on trying not to intervene with what I know is going to happen.My school was actually split into two different schools: the AP-Honors school and the “regular” school.  The AP-Honors program mainly consisted of white, middle/upper-class students in an accelerated academic track, while the regular school consisted of mainly Hispanic, low/middle-class students that made up about 80% of the school body.The freezing air inside of the bus is heating up, the windows fogging over, I squeeze my eyelids and crank up my CD-player full blast to ignore the finger pointing and the sharp chattering of teeth and voices.  We all know it is coming.There were many exception to this division, but it was ubiquitously apparent in every classroom setting, every school clique, and every event.  While sports were normally the only deviation to this unsaid social formality, the school divide made its way to our soccer team.Teeth sneer and pupils grow wide with each passing second in the moonlit interior of the bus.  My heart beats faster.I obviously hung out with the AP-Honors kids: I was dropped off at school in my mom's Volvo, I went to SAT Test Prep summer camp, and I played for an expensive club soccer team in Dallas; however, the fact that I knew there were two different schools within one and I still ignored the “regulars” kids for the sake of trying to fit in made me sick.Raleigh says something while looking in Bueno's direction.  Bueno taunts back something in Spanish.  Immediately the entire bus rises like a giant ocean wave.Even while often playing against ourselves rather than the other team, the high skill of our players left us with a pre-season record of 4-1.  This did not last for very long as players became cocky.  They passed the ball less, showed no work ethic during drills, and began to drink very heavily before the games.  Our district record plummeted to 1-5.  The players argued more and stopped showing up for practice.Each player jumps from their seat to find the nearest teammate to smash his face against the window.  I duck down immediately into my seat and feel knees and heads smack against my back.  Young men scream and thrash at each other, bodies thump against the green, plastic bench-seats in the middle of the night on a bus traveling down a deserted highway.Two minutes....  Their limbs tire now and the players breath heavily with their white eyes devouring their faces.  With mouths still fuming, we sit in complete silence the rest of the trip back to school.That night I witnessed 15 human beings fight because they hated each other.  We were supposed to beat the odds, unite together because of our differences, learn to respect each other, and work for a common goal.  Instead, we just drunkenly beat the shit out of each other.  I knew nothing about real life.I glanced over a picture of a dead Iraqi in the online edition of the New York Times this morning.  The composition and color of the dead body wasn't particularly interesting, so I was about to click to the business section when I noticed that on the large piece of shrapnel protruding from the left side of the corpse's belly, a small note was written in English.  I zoomed in on the note and it read, "To any terrorist fortunate enough to greet this missle upon death, please thank God that, if at least you weren't born on American soil, at least you were killed by American steel."Now that last story wasn't true.  People in Fort Worth don't hate people in Baghdad.  Most people in my town have never actually met an Iraqi.  The average American doesn't loathe the enemy to such an extent: we work in white cubicles, drive Japanese cars, and make love to our partners with both passion and apathy.  We couldn't care less what an Iraqi thinks of us, let alone care enough to go out of our way to insult one.  This is a free-market war- we vote with our dollar and we kill with our taxes.  Everytime we punch in for work we build a collective weapon of mass destructive, and in all honesty, we don't give a flying fuck.  As long as I pay off my mortgage, support my kids through school and have a little something left to live on once I retire.Fighting on the battle fields of tomorrow means typing in an extra 500 lines of code today.  I killed 20 terrorists when I optimized the weapon system targeting algorithm.  150 more ragheads went down when I brokered the newest government contract.  Hell, every-time we gain a buck per share, you better hope some of those damn American haters will end up in a bloody grave.  Don't watch CNN to see how good or bad the war is going, it's easier to watch the Dow go up and down.The plane assemblers, the aeronautical engineers, the corporate executives- they are people too.  They came from the same wombs, the same schools, and the same God.  They don't talk politics at work, they have to memorize company mottos, they go on leadership building retreats, and they are publicly traded commodities.  They never forget who they are working for.  Neither should you.You can see the metalic shards and scraps spread out on the floor.  The smiling Gen. Roger Ramey kneels above the debris.  Most people looking at the picture don't care about Gen. Ramey.  Instead, they look to his right and see Col. Thomas Dubose.  Dangling from his left hand, a telegraph.  Oh, shit.I am scared of aliens.  When I first moved to Texas, I knew they would abduct me from my new home.  I was safe in my old house back in California, where I'd just gotten my best friend to believe in them too.  Every night I'd crawl into my parents room and sleep on the floor up until Sophomore year of highschool.You can't kill an alien.  I've read books about their sexually devious ways... worse than weird porn.  How the hell are you supposed to talk with that tentacled fucker?  The extraterrestial Christopher Columbus.  Somebody's getting probed and I am not the first specimen of the species to volunteer for that medical examination.  ET go home!  Gringo, green go!Kill an Indian or a Mexican?  Does it matter?  He's done 'em both and it's the same cat, different skin.  At least the Mexican's are half civilized, which isn't saying much.  Texas isn't their land any more than it's ours, but we have power.  From the calvary to an atomic bomb, that's how we let people know this is MINE.  Those bastards should thanks us for not committing total genocide as far as I am concerned.General Worth was lame, a merchant, and a reformed Quaker.  Holding a gun takes guts, praying to a vengeful God takes smarts, and Imperialism takes common sense.  Shoot a man in the leg once, shame on him.  Defend your nation from the wrath of God, shame on you.  Can you not see the military-industrial complex?  New England ship builders, Western pioneers, Southern plantation owners, and Midwestern missile silos.  The cycle works, you break.  The damn red-faced-dark-skinned-wet-backed Communists stay off of "this land is MY land."My hate and violence are no different from General Worth's.  Prejuidices breed from complexities.  He doesn't know that his hate is wrong; however, I do.  I have WMS- White Male Syndrome.  Confessions don't cure, they relieve guilt.  I share European ties with Worth, the blood that dripped on his hands has now crusted on mine.  The burden of white man's burden, the hypocritical hypocrite.  I grind my teeth in my sleep.Worth was a broken man at best and a Texan hero at worst.  Value, valor, villain, Vaudeville, a cowboy, not a vaquero.  Did he cry when the grapeshot sank into his thigh at Lundy's Lane?  Did he taste the Gulf saltwater off of Veracruz?  Did he ever want to kill a Muslim?I introduce you to the father of my hometown, General William Jenkins Worth.My first date was at the museum.  The dead artists and the dying oil paintings give a hormonal relationship the benefit of the doubt.  Youth accepts failure, cannonical works only take Visa or AmEx.  Perusing through gigantic abstract strokes of red, green, and blue against a cloudy white, we pointed out the familiar shapes and figures we saw on the canvas.  Motherwell's affinity for penguins, Rauschenberg's love of refrigerators, Flavin's fascination with UFOs.  My lover was beautiful.This time before time occurred before I knew behind every painting hid a seven figure price tag.  Instead, we just moved through space.  Where wide brushstrokes meet canvas, lovers tip-toe on the ends of the bristles.  We dipped our lips in the white, melted glaze and inhaled the roses, jasmines, gardenias, and honeysuckles of oil.   We waltz into Wilde's desire, we jaunt around inside a world of bourgeois aesthetics.  How mundane and prefabricated the experience was when I look back on it?  How enchanting it was at the time?  Like watching my first Wes Anderson movie or listening to my first Neutral Milk Hotel song, I was in love with post-industrial capitalism.What the fuck am I thinking?  At the heart of love, even at the final perspective point in art, emotion exists.  Pouncing these keys out on a MacBook doesn't quell the feelings contained in my words anymore than carving this out on a two hundred year old oak.  Tadao Ando was a fine architect and you can't discount the 2,600 pieces hanging on the walls and hidden in the basement stacks.  Over 70 years of high culture lounging around in the middle of the former beef capital of America.  We kiss inside the 50 foot high steel vortex on the lawn outside the museum on a scorching Summer night.  I can feel that.Welcome back to the Saturday edition of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know on 90.1.  I am Jeff, you host, and let's get to the calls!Let's see, a question from... Pam.  "Where can I go horseback riding with my friends around Fort Worth?"  Nick writes and asks, "Is there  a way to remove the patina, the natural green buildup on a bronze statue, without damaging the statue?"  I don't know if you want to do that, but we will ask.  Angela says, "I'm interested in buying a new lawn mower and want it to be the greenest lawn mower possible.  We have both bermuda and St. Augustine grass, and they are both small areas of grass.  I've searched the internet for reel mowers- the push kind that spin as you push it- but have not found one that is recommended for both.  I'm thinking of an electric mower, and that might be my best bet.  I'm looking for any ideas on the best reel mower, or possible electric mower.  You know the number to call, 1-800-933-5372.Let's talk to Pat in Fort Worth.  Hello Pat.  "Yes, sir.  A couple of quick suggestions for vacation places, like things to take a tour of.  A lot of people mentioned a mint.  In North Fort Worth, there's the American Ironhorse Motorcycle, the company that builds complete motorcycle, where they are all custom choppers.  I worked there a couple of years and Friday afternoon I used to give tours from, like, 3:30 to 5.  It's free and it's really interesting.  They do the whole thing, like, make the wheels, they do the paint, assemble the bikes and everything."  And just to refresh everybody who is listening, the question was, 'Are there factories or assembly places where they can take kids on tours?'  And the Fort Worth Mint was by far the most frequently received answer on that.  And so tell me again, the place is called?  "American Ironhorse Motorcycles.  It's on the corner of Blue Moutain Road and Mitchem Blvd.  in North Fort Worth.  It's Friday afternoons from 3:30 to 5 o'clock, I believe.  They build really nice custom bikes and have really nice custom paint.  It's  pretty neat."  Thanks very much, Pat, I appreciate your call.Hunter in Fort Worth asks, "Why does the state execute convicts at 12:01AM?"A zoo is a place for an animal to shit in captivity.  It doesn't captivate my attention.  My high school biology teacher used to work at a zoo.  He helped rare birds have sex.  I never heard much about his own erotic romps, but I assume they were just as successful.  If he could turn on an endangered species, womankind stands no chance.  God help us if he met an orthonologist.  He was handsome, and he once told me your testesteron levels increase if you work out.  I used to see him lifting weights in the gym during soccer practice.  He is the only adult I've ever seen work out in my school gym.  Well, my soccer coach used to lift weights in that gym too, but that is a whole other story with an entirely different set of motives."The oldest continuous zoo site in Texas, the Fort Worth Zoo was founded in 1909 with one lion, two bear cubs, an alligator, a coyote, a peacock and a few rabbits...."  It is a commodified piece of junk.  Exhibits from the past 10 years: "Cheetos Cheetahs," "FUJIFILM Komodo Dragons," and "Terminix Insect City" (N.B.: an insect exhbition sponsored by a pest control company).  We also have other zoo atrocities such as "Texas Wild!"- an exhibit filled with more restaurants, kiosks selling stuffed animals, and shoddily constructed Hollywood sets than actual animals, eventhough all the animals are local.  I wouldn't call the pound a zoo, but if the Fort Worth Zoo could make a buck off of admission, they'd try to annex the local animal shelter.When I was in fourth grade I loved field trips to the zoo.  We teamed up in groups of four and separated from our teachers for hours to taunt the gorillas, eat our sack lunches in the picnic area, and watch the monkeys go at it.  Primates are the most interesting animal for a human to watch.  It is hard to relate to a shellfish.  There used to be a large aquarium tank holding 7-foot-long fish from the Amazon and South African penguins.I heard on a Radio Lab podcast titled the "Zookeeper's Dilema" that zoos are trying to install live video feeds in the farthest regions of the world to allow people to watch nature in the wild while not dragging nature to the zoo.  I go to the zoo and see the sun bears layingout on the large rocks.  We are separated by a divide.  I watch the imprisonment of a comical looking bear.  We relate as spectacle.  The animal's unhapiness, it's indiference to the life of the zoo, I know that's where I will be after I graduate from school, but they will call my cage my kingdom, my rock my imported Italian couch, and my unhappy smile a mild case of depression.Zoom, kaboom, my hard ass shakes, her small tits jiggle, clomp, clomp, clomp, get the hell out of my way old man!  Who's the man now?  You tired little girl?  How about you run behind me for a few miles?  That's right, those designer running clothes can't help you beat me.  I BEAT you.  Zam, zam, flap flap, the ripped guy flexes.  Water?  Don't drink too much.  Breathe.  Breathe.  I feel no pain in my left calf, no pain.  Breathe.  That's right, bitch, get back there with the rest of them.  You want a piece of me buddy?  See you at the finish line.  Boom, boom, my legs smack, my dick flops, my chest wobbles, my throat sucks, my head freezes.  This is my town.  My race.  I don't even train and this is my race.  One more mile to go.  Pump it!I see my father after I shit my brains out at the portable restroom.  He has a beer in one hand and a bowl of chili in the other.  Good race, pops!  We nod.  Our legs feel high, our brains tired.  Nobody talks.  We sit in the car.  Seatbelts click.  Classic rock on.  Key, drive, wheel.  Home.I sleep.PLACE    NAME                  AGE  SEX   CITY               TIME   PACE   83    Sebastian Gallese      16    M   FORT WORTH         43:55  7:05      We studied APs, SATs, Final Exams, and love on the on the grass field.  The best of Satchmo, Gershwin, Mozart, the Beatles, and Swing float over our ears.  Fireworks at 9PM, mosquitos at 6PM, picnics at 7PM, drinks at 5PM, dancing at 8PM.  Jesses's mom told me the homeless sleep there at night.  The coifish eat catfood.  Prom couples take pictures in the rose garden.  Our second date.  I am a part of her.  She is a part of me.“I have a gift for you.”“Really?”“I made it today.”“What is it?”“Let me show you.”We walk towards the middle of the park.  I open my hands and reveal a small box with a Christmas light sticking out of the middle.“It's a firefly attractor.  You press this button here to light up the LED there.  I couldn't get the exact shade of orange down, so I hope it works.  A firefly attracts a mate by flashing in a specific rhythm.  If a potential mate is interested, they flash back."	She takes the device in her hands and presses the button a bit.  She looks up and smiles.  The light doesn't work.  I smile too.  We kiss.Three headed catfish, low water flow, a short damn, dangerous pH levels, the city water supply, I've see a canoe there once (they were probably from out of town), water colored the bad kind of green.  You'd never think you could float it all the way to the gulf.I found the ultimate sunrise spot.  You just continue down Trinity Trail until you meet a little parking lot, you'll make two rights.  You'll go past the bridge with large rails and you'll get near 5th street.  I don't think it's the best of times to go here at 6:30AM.  I saw a man in a jumpsuit pushing a wheel chair but nobody was in it, and another man looked at me pretty strangely while he was reading a magazine at the duck pond.  There's a clamor of ducks at the duck pond battling it out, and two actually chased me back to my car.  Luckily I had a vehicle to escape in.  There's this bench and it overlooks Forest Park Rd. up into downtown and it's looking directly at the sun, which is something you don't find very often with benches since most of them stare at a 45 degree angle away from the sun.  I'll make sure to continue checking this spot, and there seems to be a lot of people coming here at 7 o'clock in the morning, which is really weird, and most of them are alone, which scares me as well.  Ah, thank you.