Cheesespread

Interview with a Stem Cell
What do you think of the recent furor over your existence? It’s about damn time. We’ve been getting dumped in you people’s garbage for years. You think it’s fun being medical waste? That shit is nasty.

So then you are a conscious, sentient human being? You hear me talking, mutherfu–? Damn. Just because I don’t have a brain yet and ain’t “technically conscious,” y’all treat us like silly putty. Am I a clown? Do I amuse you?

No, of course not. You have the potential to do great things that would help millions of suffering people. Are you willing to give your “self” for the greater good? Stay away from me with that petri dish, man. Y’all are some sick fools. Don’t you listen to the pope anymore? That man will tell you, it’s immoral to be saving lives with my dead ass. Next thing you know, people be donatin’ baby parts and bringing they dead back from pet cemeteries—then we got Frankensteins walking around eating people and listening to Michael Jackson. Now is that your idea of America?

No … but, they said on the nightly news that— Don’ t start lookin’ at me all sad. I ain’t doin’ nothin’ for no Christofa Reef, no Michael J. Fox—I hate that chump. Family Ties was hella corny. Y’all might as well stick to researching jacked-up mice. We stem cells got rights covered in the Constitution. I ain’t playin'. If you touch me, I’m gonna have to cut you. Shooot, If I help anybody, it’s gonna be after I talk to my attorney and my agent. Medicine is the future of big business, I’m talking like religion-big. Greed is good, greed works. Wait and see.

**In memoriam**
Friends and family are mourning heavily the loss of Adam Bodine in a recent rafting accident on the Feather River. Such tragedy defies words, and I can only echo the sentiment of others: I had the utmost respect for Adam, a beautiful human being and lover of life who always seemed to possess a calmness and friendliness about him that was truly special. Last Halloween, I ran a photo I took of him in this column, underneath the caption, “the most eligible bachelor in Butte County,” just to tease him (all the ladies found him handsome). Though he was embarrassed, he took it in stride with a smile. Yet there was truth to my joke, from what I knew and felt; he was one of the kindest people I’ve met anywhere. His exciting life and many accomplishments, particularly in the realms of anthropology and ecology, should be celebrated and admired. I will miss him very much.

Weekly props
1. The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Blue Room)
2. Gillian Welch, “Time, the Revelator”
3. Zwigoff’s Ghost World
4. Velvet Underground, The Quine Tapes