Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo

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christopher@30seconds.org

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Hi. So it's one more year down, right? Yeah. One more year away. Been out and about saying hello and goodbye to people for the past couple of days. I had one person tell me that she was mourning the passing year (she was wearing an all black gown and scarf). What a joke! The year isn't for mourning. The year couldn't care less. Time couldn't care less. It is we that give it meaning by placing definition on it. Why is it we feel the need to see these once a year folks? To keep tabs on what they're doing. To let them know that we're okay despite the fact we haven't heard from them in a fucking year! And the other way around. I guess I get a little bitter when these folks come around. Like they want something, like I owe them something. Hell I don't know. I feel drained by these end of year parties, and not because of the drinking but because these people take something from me.

But nothing I don't give of my own free will, right? This much is true. But I was given a question at one of these parties and I'll ask you to answer. My address is at the bottom. It goes something like this.

A while ago I wrote a piece called the collected. Now this piece is directly related to the question put to me. In Greensboro there is an old hotel called the Dixie. Built in 1921 it is a historic building rotting away in a bad part of town. When the walls cave in they replace it with sheet metal. No shit. It's a waste. It's a hole where junkies and young punks squat. It is also the home of the self named intelligent under-achievers. This is how I know the place.

You meet this crowd through friends of friends, etc, etc... They don't want to be there but they don't care to try to be anywhere else. It is enough. Fine. One of these people knows the building very well. Intimatly. This individual offered to take me to the basement through a first floor apartment. The basement is filled with the abandoned things of evicted people, dead people, and vanished people from 1921 until now. The condition on my going there. Being shown the way is this. I can't take anything. Regardless of what I see. Nothing leaves the basement.

Do I go?

I mean we're talking about a place noone cares about. A part of town in which people are shot. But not so when the Dixie was built. No, for a long time it was respected. There are nice things in this basement no doubt. Do I go and leave them to rot? Can I not go?

I don't know yet. I do know I wouldn't take anything for personal gain. That's not my style either way. Not to sell. Not for profit. But can I watch whatever I might see go to waste?

What would you do?

goodnight 1.1.98