It's time for a third installment of brief on-the-street interviews and snapshots taken around Divisadero by our friend Dijon of Souls of Society. You can view parts one and two here and here, respectively.
“I’m a social anarchist with a healthy disdain for authority.”
"How does that manifest itself in your life?"
"Martin Luther King said that power is never voluntarily relinquished by those who hold it, certainly not on moral principles. So to give a little vitality to George Orwell’s Animal Farm the world should be repopulated with man eating tigers."
"Was there any defining event that made you think this way?"
"No, I think everybody in this country raised on pop culture and promises of the holy land, and chariots to carry us off to create glory don’t end up where I’m at. I think it was the French symbolist poets who told us ‘We don’t ascend to our heights, we’re eaten away to them’. It’s a series of tearing away of myths and illusions about what our society and culture is really about."
"I know what you mean."
"Perhaps. I wish you did ... I think in this country the hope of any real fundamental changes in the way the structures of power in society work aren’t ever going to happen because it’s just too easy to get numbed out on stuff. Too easy to get blissed out on stuff. Pain isn’t tolerated in this society. I think that kind of pain is allied with principles that bring about change. I myself eat a lot of chocolate, but there’s not enough chocolate in the world to numb out what I’m going through. Hershey’s should come out with some opiated chocolate bars, that would help the masses."
"Do you want to share what you’re going through?"
"The specifics you mean?"
"If you want."
"A lot of things, mostly things that people don’t wanna believe. Even your friends don’t believe. If you were to believe it would make you question how things work and what’s real and legitimate in the world. No one wants to acknowledge what’s really going on. Things have to get almost unbearably bad before people overcome their ability to deny things.”
“Do you remember what it felt like when you first connected?”
Him - “Oh absolutely, pretty much she walked into a bar and I got the wind knocked out of me. I lost it the second I saw her. To the point that I was staring at my buddy who was sitting next to her, waiting for him to get up so I could talk to her. As soon as he did I went over and was like, ‘Oh hello’ or whatever cheesy horrible game I threw at her.”
Her - “It was very cheesy.”
Him - “But it worked!”
Her - “It did work."
"What’d he say?”
Her - “Within the first 10 minutes of us talking he said, ‘It’s just my goal in life to be a good husband and father’.”
Him - “I think I heard her ovaries sing.”
Her - “I was like, ‘First of all you can’t possibly be for real, and second of all…what?!? How many times have you said that to girls’?”
Him - “And I told her, ‘Never in my life’. Which was true. And now she’s soon to be my wife.”
Her - “After that bar we went to some really fun jazz club that stays open 24 hrs, it’s a music foundation in Kansas City, it got like grandfathered in-“
Him - “The bar is closing down and I’m not done seeing her so I’m like, ‘Come to this place’!”
Her - “And my friend is like, ‘Come with us Casey’ and I’m like ‘I don’t know if he likes me’ and she’s like ‘He want’s to have your babies!’ The truth is, I liked him from the moment I saw him, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s my husband’.”
Him - “I convinced her to come visit me in San Francisco, turns out 3 days before we had that conversation she had already bought a ticket to come here even though we had only spoken once. First date was a weekend long first date. It was a whirlwind.”
“What are your passions?"
"I like kite flying for personal and…you got me…"
"I’ve never met anyone who likes to fly kites, how’d you get into that?"
"Hanging out in South Bay Berkeley, seeing people fly kites. You know, that’s a simple question but it’s a real difficult question too. When you ask about passion, you have to really think about it."
"Digging deep is good I think."
"Yeah, my passion in a simplistic way…sharing sunshine with friends. Seeing how things change because life is in flux.”
“You seem like a man with some inner peace and wisdom-“
“It depends on the day."
"Do you have any advice on how to achieve equanimity?"
"You have to slow down and open up your eyes.”
Left - “We are sisters! I’m visiting her from the south of France."
"What have you been doing since you’ve been here?”
Left - “Mostly eating and drinking!"
Right - “And biking and walking."
"Where’d y’all eat? Did you take her to Nopa? or BBQ?”
Right - “I took her to Nopa, she found the BBQ all by herself.”
Left - “I’m getting fat."
"Well…you’re on vacation.”
Left - “I’m a cook so I have to taste everything.”
Right - “She’s a chef."
"What do you like to cook?”
Left - “Curry."
"What’s special about cooking to you?”
Left - “Magic, the flavors, the colors, and the texture, and the smile on the faces of the people who are eating the food."
"What do you like to do?”
Right - “I’m studying UX Design…voila!”
“What’s one of your favorite things about your sister?”
Right - “She’s super nice. She’s a sweetheart. Her job is to make people happy, that says a lot I think. And I like her eyes, she has really pretty eyes."
"What about you?”
Left - “She’s so funny. In French we say, ‘She has some peps’."
"Peps?”
Left - “Like Pepsi. You know when you open the-“
“Like carbonation?”
Left - “Yeah."
"Ok, I just learned something new, thank you.”
For more of Dijon's profiles, visit the Souls of Society Facebook page. And stay tuned for future installments here on Hoodline.
