"the revolution will not begin in your backyard because you do not have
a backyard. what you have is a back door that shits you directly onto
the streets of your city, what you have is a back staircase of wood
that resembles splintered matchsticks, it trembles each time a bus
rolls down Mission.
what you have is a patch of concrete, a splotch of weedy grass clumped
with trash and this is not a backyard. what you have is a cement slab
that pools with rainwater, that catches the tumble of beer can and
sludgy condom that falls from the apartments above you. what you have
is empty of anything green but the slugs still find a way to work it
out, inkiest green like mold breathed to life, they slide like a wet
trail across what is not a backyard. maybe you have never had, will
never have a backyard, but you still could have slugs and you will
always have the pigeons.
the revolution will begin at your curb, in the shallow pool of shade
that is your gutter. the revolution will begin with the pigeon bobbing
hungry in the street, it is now your job to love her. it is now your
job to not avert your eyes from her feet, your job to seek out and
find the one pigeon foot that is blobbed in a chemical melt, a
pink-orange glob, a wad of bubble-gum. the pigeon splashed in a pool
of chemicals laid out to kill it because so many of the people hate
the pigeons. this is now why you must love them.
we must love nature that does not make it onto the Discovery Channel,
onto Animal Planet, we must love the nature that crawls up onto our
doorstep like sparechangers and scares us with the thickness of their
feathers, their mutant feet and orange eyes.
someone could have made dinner with the rice on the corner but instead
they sprinkled it on the curb with the hope that the hungry pigeons
would eat it, that the grain would expand in their stomachs, tearing
them open, falling them in the street, plump and feathered and dead in
the gutter. i think perhaps this does not even work, because i watch
the pigeons peck and fly off on grey wings, i hardly ever see them
dead in spite of how many people try to kill them.
pigeons are doves. they are rock doves, and i wonder if we began to
call them that again if people would hesitate to hate them. as doves,
they have a history as being messengers of peace. it is true that in
my neighborhood nobody hates the mourning doves, dusky and elegant
with wings that squeak like they flap on rusty hinges. they roost on
the wires like Audrey Hepburns while the pigeons troll the ground,
tough and fat, they look like they should be smoking cigarettes, some
of them.
they look poor and banged-up, they look like they could kick the
mourning doves' asses but they are wide to the divide and conquer
tactics we use on one another, they coo wearily at the mourning doves
and waddle forth in search of scavenged delights.
what you might not know is that when you call a pigeon a rat with
wings you have given it a compliment. the only thing a rat lacks is a
pair of wings to lift them, so you have named the pigeon perfect. when
you say to me i hate pigeons i want to ask you who else do you hate.
it makes me suspicious. i once met a girl so proud to have hit a bird
on her bicycle, i swear, i thought it was me that she hit. i felt her
handlebars in my stomach and now it is your job to feel them also.
the pigeons are birds, they are doves. they are the nature of the city
and the ones who no one loves. when people say they hate pigeons i
want to ask them if they hate themselves too. does it prick the well
of your loathing, do they make you feel dirty and ashamed, are you
embarassed about how little or how much you have, for how you've had
to hustle?
being dirty is not a problem for the pigeon. you can ask it, how do
you feel about having the city coat your feathers, having the streets
gunked up in the crease of your eye and the pigeon would say, Not a
Problem.
you will now stop blaming the pigeon. it is not the pigeon's fault.
the pigeon was once a dove, and then we built our filthy empire up
around it, came to hate it for simply thriving in the midst of our
decay, came to hate it for not dying.
the pigeon is your ally. they are chameleons, grey as the concrete
they troll for scraps, at night they huddle and sing like cats. their
necks are glistening, iridescent as an oil slick rainbow, they mate
for life, and they fly."
-michelle tea
i've been listening to your music since it was called hank may. and i only had a couple songs like, hey sandy, i'm coming home tonight, and off again. i'm so glad you guys are making more music! and having it downloadable! :D thank you!
Bummed it didn't work out, I was really looking forward to sharin a stage with you. We got MYRA (Ana Caravelle/Navob+friends) to fill in. Hope you can make it out anyway.
playing at sarah lawrence would be perfect. that's like five minutes from here. when I say a lot of people I mean maybe twenty? something like that. happy halloween up in annandale
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