Sunday, January 18, 2004

Put the court justification up on its very own blog. You can check it by clicking HERE.
Also, I finally figured out how to make all of these easier for you to get around, so just click on spots you want to check out next:

Go to the appeal
Go to the book
Go to the Russian play
Go to "Ownership"

Or, stick around and check out today’s musings…

Learning to get along
I am getting the feeling that I am becoming a little redundant in this. I have been talking about the same things for so long that sometimes I get the feeling that I should have made my point by now. I think that really, in a perfect situation it would be time to go on to new things and that these episodes of the past should best be left behind, the stuff for fireplaces reminiscence.
But of course I can’t can I? I have to go and keep trying to drive the point home that what Poland did to me was an outright crime, that is was torture, and that it is still torture to this day. I have to keep going or people are going to just go to sleep on me. They are going to go to sleep and forget about things that they need to remember. They are going to go back to doing the same things they have always done even though these things are socially harmful and stupid. I know this is true. I know it.
But I keep doing these same things over and over. I jeep writing and writing, hoping that somebody will read these words and understand what it is to have your life shot out from under you for no particular reason. I don’t know that I want to point my finger at Zaremba. He is a just a tiny, tiny, tiny little gremlin of a man; a petty thief and a liar who is trying to find the easy way through life just like a lot of people. My finger of blame lies in the whole of the process. Anyone of them along the way could have done the right thing, but nobody did. It is like that game I played the other day; were they guilty of purposely screwing me over, or were they simply too stupid to allow their brains to register the facts. Or, too lazy to care. Maybe the game should be played with three results. Were you guilty? Were you too stupid to know better? Or were you too lazy to do the right thing?
According to Zaremba, I am of a fourth category. I am crazy, you see. This I suspect is different from stupid lazy and criminal. I don’t really know what this means though… crazy. I learned from a psychology teacher in high school that the accurate definition of crazy is really just someone who is not normal for society. This is basically the word for it in Polish and Russian, you know “ne-normalno”
I wrote last week about Sasha, our tupoi mechanic taking a beating simply because of who he is. And I wrote about Zaremba in one of those never read essays for the court, that he probably just had an attack of road rage. But In am thinking today that it would not be too far of a stretch of the imagination to say that Zaremba attacking me would be related to his feeling that it would be Ok to attack someone who is “ne-normalno”. Someone who is not normal. And, to be honest, I think he might have had a point: I am not so “normal” as all of that.
First of all, I prefer to ride a bike to driving a car. I prefer bikes to cars. Apparently, this is not normal. I could put up my bike arguments. I could say things like bikes don’t pollute, they are quieter, healthier, adequate for 90% of our daily transportation needs… more economical, more fun. I could argue the greenhouse effect caused by amongst other things, automotive emissions. I could talk about the money spent and effect on the overall global economy. I don’t know, I think you have either thought about this stuff already or you haven’t.
Maybe it was because I am a big guy. I am fat, you know. Of course, I am the sort of fat guy who can actually do the job of being a New York bike messenger… and write books… and do all of the other things I have done.
But Goddammit, let’s stick to the facts: I am fat and on a bike, and an American in Warsaw, and for God’s sake this is enough to declare me guilty of being crazy and absolutely gives this low rent traffic cop the right to run me down with his car. I am “ne-normalno” and Zaremba was absolutely right in his assaulting me. I don’t know why I have never thought of this before. I am so slow. I SHOULD HAVE BEAT THE CRAP OUIT OF SASHA MYSELF! THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SOCIALLY NORMAL THING TO DO, RIGHT? I mean, Poland has been saying that they have done what they have done to me so as to cure me of my social unsuitability. They have been rehabilitating me, don’t you see. I have been fighting them all along, and what I should have done was to play along. Zaremba was so right. You know what he did? He proved that he was absolutely right in doing what he did to me by going out and doing the same think again about a month and a half later. He went out and drove his car into a tree, and told the court that I should pay for that too. And they believed him, by God! They believed him because they know that this was the right thing to do. Zaremba is not a sociopathic liar, he is a teacher! He did what he did to me just to prove to me that driving your car into people and then lying about the incident and trying to extort money for it was the right way to live. HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SUCH A FOOL FOR SO LONG?
Well screw this social conscience nonsense! This doesn’t pay worth a damn. Screw caring about people, about the world about our future on the planet. Screw trying to be all smart about stuff and wondering if we have even a slight chance of our grandchildren having anything to look forward to but street violence and poverty. And 120 degree temperatures… Screw trying to care for loved ones, I say we load our prepubescent youngsters into our cars and go knock down some bikers. It will be like an amusement park ride. It will be great. And afterward, we can sit before the hearth and work with them on their stories so that they will be sure to remember when it is their time to go and practice their socially advocated extortion, that they know how to do the job right.
I am sorry, I tend to go off. I am crazy you see. Zaremba said so.
Anyway, I have to do this, I guess, so the first point I made in the appeal was:

The court had an inability to define the actual damages.
What this section was about was that Zaremba was claiming damages to his car, saying I was responsible for all of them. But at the same time, he was hiding the fact that he had had a previous accident in January, from which he had collected on an insurance claim, and also another accident after, the damages for which he also tried to pass on to me just prior to am August 30th meeting with the prosecutor.
There, I did some work on the case. I said I would do some work and work on a letter to the court, and I did. I guess I should not be so flippant. I guess I should act as though I have some respect for these people. THEY need for me to be more respectful. Apparently MY courtroom behavior was reprehensible…
I guess my heart should be bursting with pride and love for the chance to associate with such stellar human beings. I don’t know why all of this always makes be so sick. I guess I am just crazy…
I’ll try and be better tomorrow.