Archive for the ‘News and Politics’ Category

So, The Joint Chiefs chairman tells us today we’re fresh out of cannon fodder.

Admiral Mike Mullen admitted today that although additional US troops are needed in Afghanistan, we’re tapped. We have no more personnel.

The military said, nope.

In saying such a simple thing, Mr Mullen acknowledges what we’ve all known for some time. The back of our great American Army is broken. We are left without the ability to defend ourselves. Our men and women are bogged down and tied up in the stupidest and most disgustingly reasonless war America has ever engaged in.

Looking for something to be afraid of? There it is.

Did you know there’s a movement in San Francisco to rename a sewage treatment plant after Dumbya?

We are unable to prosecute, for all intents and purposes, what has always been the more important of the two fronts on “terror”.

Well, one didn’t matter at all and the other did kinda. It matters more now.

“There are force requirements there [in Afghanistan] that we can’t currently meet,” Adm. Mike Mullen said. “Having forces in Iraq at the level they’re at doesn’t allow us to fill the need that we have in Afghanistan.” -CNN

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Fire and death were lobbed into the Green Zone. Basra and Baghdad burn and die again. Turns out, we barely have the resources to take on al-Sadr’s Mahdi army. He was merely testing us.

We tell everyone it’s Iran’s fault

The future’s so bright, I gotta wear a welding helmet. And a hazmat suit.

This thing ain’t going nowhere but worse.

The economy. Duh.

We need a leader.

It’s amazing that our Little Bootlicker, McCain is a contender. I think he should have to reveal whether or not he’s in diapers well before the general in November. I wonder if he’s wearing a bag.

I don’t know what to make of this man. I used to like him. It’s been a while. He runs down the middle and literally alienates both sides while still polling well.

I guess the middle is big too. I’d hoped they weren’t that dumb.

With any luck we can collectively understand that old rich white men in charge is a bad idea, particularly if they have too much faith. Doubtfire doesn’t seemed to be consumed with Santa, but he’s wrong on all the issues.

I have but two questions, maybe three for Mrs. Doubtfire:

#1. How exactly are you going to win this war on a broken economy AND a broken military?

#2. What on earth made you run for President, what is your answer to number one?

#3. Are you serious about maintaining these tax cuts while staring at this black maw of an economic vortex?

#4. Do you understand these things at all?

He’s lucky to be getting a running start.

I know what it’s like when you’re trying to think but nothing happens.

He does too. Way better than me.

Look, the Republicans are used to various monkeys. Reagan was a bit of an orangutang. Bush Sr. was some skinny big eared sharp chinned simian. Dumbya is a retarded chimp. Doubtfire is a goddamn reptile. They confuse him while he confuses them.

James Dobson loathes The Bootlicker and that cracks me up. This guy reaches over two hundred million a day in a hundred and sixty countries by radio alone. Focus On The Family. Yes, that megalomaniacal douchebag. It’s these bastards that I really loathe. They highjack common sense with self righteous morality and an archaic set of standards that they barely pretend to live up to.

Before they’re done they take it upon themselves to press the flesh of their hypocrisy on as many as they can find and it means nothing to them that their beliefs have no place in politics, particularly if they are to remain sacred. Those beliefs aren’t sacred, they are for sale.

Anyway. Forgive me. It’s just that despite how much this matters, it’s still really stupid.

Try really hard not to be stupid.

Drinks for my friends.

He believes the earth is a mere five thousand or so years old. Despite that, he’s a pretty classy whack job. There’s something I like about his wife. She’s not attractive in the traditional sense, but I like how she looks at him as she stands quietly just a little over his shoulder. There is the fact that he’s a musician. I like musicians.

Huckabee.

Obviously, Doubtfire has finally wrested Republican gravity from the worlds most charismatic Southern Baptist. Not so long ago, considerably less than a foregone conclusion. Interesting yet, the voluptuous Red diva has commenced to warble in tune.

Doubtfire, our little Bootlicker, would be king.

He speaks. Terrorism. Duh. I’m screeching. Douchebaggery compels me like the power of Christ. He speaks to honor, when we have lost it. He references a swift conclusion in Iraq, when he’s been quoted suggesting one hundred years may not be too long. He speaks as though a more equitable trade policy in the face of a new world economy is somehow xenophobic. He pledges better access to health care for “some” Americans. Not a bad speech though. I guess. Whatever.

Nope. I don’t really mean that. His audience is laconic. There seems to be an abundance of seniors. When he’s done, we hear Johnny Be Good. Sheeezus. Grand OLD Party you fucking A.

I can’t help but pity him and I’m not entirely comfortable with that.

Hills takes Rhode Island and she’s one for twelve. No offense to it’s fine citizens, but I’ve got hemorrhoids that occupy more real estate. I’ve got one grape of ass that has an actual Super Delegate. Try not to think of me differently.

The evening darkens for our man Obama, although he siezes Vermont. Official brainspank forecast for Ohio goes to Hills at 7:10 pacific standard. It’s a dead fucking heat in Texas.

“I told her, never in hell, no special reason.
Must a lied ’cause I ain’t leavin’.
We’re in for a very long night.” -Van Halen “Romeo Delight”

“Got one foot out the door
Tryin’ to hit the road
Ain’t no match for your mean old man
I think it’s time to roll” -Van Halen “One Foot Out The Door”

I think it’s time to walk away for a bit. I just can’t stand it.

7:59, CNN projects Hills gets the king in Ohio. They’re a little behind.

Not exactly a Phoenix from an ash heap but fuck me in the neck, I’m a little frustrated by the margin.

The talking heads on CNN are lead by Lou Dobbs and I guess I’ve been distracted because this Canadian/NAFTA flap is a bigger conflagration than I knew.

Whatever happens, this has been one speed demon of a of a whiplash of a political contest.

Holy shit, watch the tail on that thing.

She speaks and gloats with grace but I still don’t believe her.

She postures like it’s incumbent on whomever wants to win this contest, they must engage the little Bootlicker. She swings hard to shift the direction and tone of this dialog and the field it’s played on. She seeks to marginalize Obama by engaging Doubtfire.

Nice move Grasshopper.

It’s bold and will resonate. At what frequency, we shall see.

This whole “Yes We Will” sloganeering makes me want to puke. They Borg Obama. They’re assimilating his message. “Yes We Can”. Hopes and dreams etc. Barely a week ago she mocked his optimism.

This tactic gives me pause because it’s working. The Clintons are infamous for packing switchblades.

If he’s smart he will fire back.

Next, our man Obama speaks in Texas. He orates. He does. He goes right after Doubtfire. This man is so sharp. Pairs him with Hills and then wipes them both from his hands. The world and what will we show them? He turns the microscope back to you and me and reminds us that the world is watching. It is a subtle and profound sentiment folded inside powerful words.

He is literally as good as it gets.

He is why I watch.

His point and message, far above hers. Even when he loses, he somehow doesn’t.

More fun to watch when he loses.

HA!

I kinda don’t care what he or his people said to Canada. Canada isn’t a problem in the scheme of things.

See what I’m saying?

And we wait for Texas.

It’s an archaic process in a state that I sometimes think should secede and be it’s own goddamn country for the sake of us all. Two thirds of delegates awarded based on the popular vote and one third delivered by caucus.

I mean, fer fucks sake. Kinda makes the electoral college look a little less sinister.

I may have to wait for the paper.

Word to Obama. It’s the economy stupid.

I’m out.

Drinks for my friends.

She smiles too much.

It was Hills, not Shrillary on Stewart tonight.

From the latest issue of Hustler Magazine in the bathroom on the left at work, Larry Flynt calls for civil war. Maybe he means civil disobedience, I’m not sure.

Anyway, Stewart did allright.

I’ve just either had a millisecond long flashback, or my Mac just took my fucking picture. Weird. Yes, it has a camera in it.

Sorry. Stewart flirted with shades of purple in terms of obsequiousness. Ass to mouth? Yes. Copious rimming? No. A complete absence of tongue. He was deferential.

There’s a literary term I think I first picked up from Stephen King. Suspension of disbelief. It refers to the willingness of the reader to forget he or she is reading a story. Or watching a movie, etc.

Hills has none of that. I’m not here to impugn her patriotism or sincerity in wanting to do some good in America. I’m saying I don’t believe her smile, her laugh or her anger. I don’t buy it. It wreaks of calculation.

Where is Triumph The Insult Dog when you need him?

I admit, it’s from the gut. In a venue that deserves more attention from my head. I can’t help it though, there is something very very wrong about that woman. Maybe it’s as simple as all defense shields set on full.

This from yours truly, who could at least go platonically gay for our first black President, William Jefferson Clinton. Every time I hear that, it sounds more retarded.

Doubtfire will have his wrinkled and puckered ass served to him on one of those flimsy paper plates with an already bent spork. Were he to be elected, I’m positive his heart would explode in his chest like a fruit pie dropped from a parking structure before his first term begins to flop like a fish that mistook Georgia asphalt in the summer for a cool pond in the shade.

Sorry about that. I get to entertain myself at the same time.

Tomorrow night might just be the most compelling night in the history of televised politics.

Drinks for my friends.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/04/arts/Clinton-Stewart.php

So we learn today that the New York Times will publish a story tomorrow detailing alleged improprieties between Doubtfire and a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman.

I really don’t give a mad fuck whether McCain got his stinger wet or not. I didn’t care whether or not Big Bad Bill did either. It’s just not my business. It’s a serious matter, but a matter between the men in question and their families. It is just not our business. Peroid.

Get the fuck over it. If you care, you’re a loser. This message brought to you by my Council For Common sense and my Life Is Too Short……….See what I’m Saying? Coalition.

If, on the other hand favors were granted, special consideration extended, Minden/Gardenerville, we have a problem. As much as I make fun of the Little Bootlicker and doubt that his stinger has even approached tumescence in at least a decade, I have always believed him to possess a modicum of integrity. I would be happy to know these allegations are false.

Is he friends with Bob Dole?

I’m of the opinion that Doubtfire is essentially a good but profoundly misguided man. Somewhat of a dipshit. Yet still, a man with the courage of his convictions, as ridiculously stupid as they may be. I would be loathe to see this as a defining moment. To have it somehow be the pivot in the most important election in American history. It would inevitably soil the process and somewhat spoil it for me.

Although it says very little, he is the best they’ve got and I’d like to see a fair fight.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Hills has lost her mojo. She is looking more and more like a real estate agent, one I’d be happy to have, as she is an ass kicker. Less and less Presidential. Hard to watch.

They debate tomorrow night. I’ll be there. She’ll be stumbling out to a ninth round and it will be interesting to see what she brings.

She’s short, Obama likes to punch down.

By the way, we’ve proven we can blow a satellite out of orbit. It was doing seventeen thousand miles an hour while the Navy rocket was doing like five thousand. Ten second window.

I could do it. If I could practice on less important satellites for a few years.

Then I learn China has already pulled this off.

Drinks for my friends.

“calls into question the premise of his candidacy”
That motherfucking pisses me off.

I’m a writer, so is Mr. Obama. I lift from my consciousness and my unconciousness. The filter is off. I’m happy to quote someone and give them credit. I cite sources. But the filter is off.

He shared an appreciation with his friend, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, of inspirational quotes by other historic Americans. There were but two commonalities between the speeches. The aforementioned sharing of enthusiasm for phrases that should be of public domain (if they are not already), and the concept that they are not “just words”.

Well, no shit they’re not just words: I have a dream. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal.

They don’t even need quotes.

Plagiarism? Please. He was giving his buddy a wink and a nod at most.

It smacks of desperation and it’s beginning to spoil the taste of Clinton accomplishments past. It’s shrill. Sorry Hills, but yer playin like a bitch.

The latest Bill Clinton “meltdown” was not that at all. It was passion. As simple as a goddamn eye booger is, even after a shower. Sheezus.

He was being heckled by pro lifers at an event and he said, I’m just going to paraphrase here………..I gave you your answer and we disagree, you want to criminalize women and their doctors and we disagree. Then he goes on to defend his record and Hillary’s position with clarity and specifics while simultaneously ripping the dipshit who would heckle Bill Clinton into little of slices bologna on an issue as retard proof as abortion.

Passion.

By the way, the first place I found a link to the Vid was on a very conservative website. Seriously, the site is called Hillbilly white trash. It would be against my religious beliefs to post a link.

The rest of this crap, I gleaned from CNN. I don’t think of them as the end all, but for fucks sake. Slow news day?

I’m sorry children, but if there’s nothing else to do. I mean, if you’re bored, play outside, because your whining and moaning annoy me. It is the last thing we need. It’s bad enough that the Clintons are pissing on Obama’s shoes and and you give oxygen to that at all. Then, you try to sensationalize a passionate and truthful counterpunch at a fucktard heckler by spinning it as a meltdown.

Shame the fuck on you. You dirty bastards are half the goddamn problem. No sack, but a sneaky underhanded temerity for villifying and exaggerating. Days like today, I loathe your shit.

Goddamn media: -1
Goddamn Billary: -1
Obama: 0

Drinks for my friends.

The GOP members of the house had a dilemma today; whether to hold their breath until blue or take their ball and go home. They opted for the latter. The former struck them as bad form. Unseemly. Immature.

See, the Democrats of the same body were pushing to hold the most dubiously qualified Supreme Court nominee in history and replacement for the alarmingly obsequious and chronically full of shit Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, as well as notorious White House crony Josh Bolten, in contempt.

Minority Leader John Boehner said, “We will not stand here and watch this floor be abused for pure political grandstanding at the expense of our national security,”. What a dick. I don’t care how he claims his sir name should be pronounced, looks like BONER to me. BONER became House Minority Leader, replacing DeLay, after that fucktard was indicted.

It didn’t have dick to do with national security.

Miers and Bolten refused to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the nefarious firing of nine federal prosecutors for not pursuing bullshit voter fuckery against various Democrats. The White House claims executive privilege on their behalf. It is the furthest this brand of smoke & mirror subterfuge has ever been stretched.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino called the move “a partisan, futile act” that would not be enforced by the Justice Department. -CNN

Full of shit.

The Republicans were whining for the Dems to renew the surveillance bill that allows for immunity from prosecution for the the big telecom plutocrats that illegally cooperated with Dick-in-Bush in the wiretapping of innocent Americans. Yep, Dick-in-Bush don’t want to see them testify because it will conclude with both their corrupt asses being held accountable.

On the spit, maybe.

And therein lies the irony of the rub. The DOJ would be counted on to execute the contempt charges, yet it is the very same bureaucracy at the center of the scandal for the prosecutor firings

This whole thing is unfuckingbelievable.

Man I hate these guys.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that they’ve hated on each other publicly, Guy Smiley endorses Doubtfire while one of the Little Bootlicker’s top advisors, Mark McKinnon, vows to resign if Obama wins the Democratic nomination.

Obama beat Hillary the other day by a vote total of more than McCain actually recieved all night.

She did however, prevail in New Mexico today by a margin so slim her nails still look ok.

Larry Craig stopped dangling today. Yeah, check this. He got a letter today from whatever collection of dipshits appointed to investigate him. Um, The Senate Ethics Committee.

Oh man.

It seems he paid over two hundred thousand dollars in legal fees for soliciting an undercover cop for sex in an airport bathroom with campaign donations. With money that people donated for his re-election. The letter from the committee went on to say they believed he “committed the offense to which you pled guilty” and that “you entered your plea knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently.” -AP

No censure, no call for resignation. Giant spineless vaginas. Check my categories for more on this prick Larry Craig.

What exactly is going on in the Senate? They can’t even publicly decry this piece of shit? Issue a statement saying he’s a jackass and should walk? Under Mr. Harry Reid, the Democrats are goddamn ridiculous.

The republicans are swimming in shit and the wind is blowing it into their pie holes. Right into their faces.

Senate Democrats walk around with mouths wide open in stupidity at the same time.

Drinks for my friends.

Hills has been bracing for heavy weather all day. Well, much longer than that.

Barack Obama.

The Clinton machine fully expected to be holding it’s ass in front of itself by sunset here in the West today.

I know, huh?

What?

The boat of Billary is taking on water.

It’s a big ass boat, she’s begun to toss a few over the rail. Patti Solis Doyle, campaign manager, will be replaced by Mary Tyler Moore. I mean Maggie Williams.

No apologies; no shit, she’s black.

Is it a good idea to have a middle name in the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign? Oh, and today we hear of the resignation of Deputy Campaign Manager Mike Henry. What of William Jefferson Clinton?

Make no mistake. This is a contemporary dynasty on the ropes. This really is history. Goddamn this is interesting. And compelling and portentous. I hope you people are watching. I hope you’re singing along.

It is nuts. I’m really worried reality TV fucktards will smell how cool this is and start tuning in and voting. Sheezus. With an abruptness so complete it will have it’s own violent sound, The Great Unwashed will stumble to the polls and chaos will be a way of life shortly thereafter and forever.

Sometimes I can’t believe the shit I talk.

Tonight, he’s simultaneously ice blue cool and incendiary. He’s commanding the votes of women, seniors, the youth, rural, suburban, metro and every income demographic. It is amazing. The audacity of hope indeed.

Momentum. Inertia.

Momentum: “force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or course of events”.

Inertia: “Physics The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.”

Outside force, apparently not factoring in.

He is a human hurricane. Category three and gaining strength.

His speech tonight is in Madison Wisconsin. I made the biggest record of my career in that charming town some twelve or thirteen years ago. I remember thinking how nice everyone was after spending a decade in LA. They were normal and helpful and friendly. I winced when my soon to be rockstar client was rude to almost everyone we came in contact with.

He speaks with grace, humility and power. He owns just exactly where he is.

“Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom”, he says. Excellent.

CNN cuts to Doubtfire and I am struck dumb by the contrast.

He says literally nothing, save for threatening that a Democrat will compromise your values, your wallet and your safety. Yawn. Never heard that one before.

The current Republican administration has with brutal and unflinching efficacy, with malice even, harpooned America’s pockets, her pride and the respect and strength she once enjoyed under the global proscenium.

War. War. War. I don’t dislike McCain. He’s had the shit kicked out of him in a way that we simply cannot begin to comprehend. It makes it all the more shameful on his part that he has actually suggested publicly our occupation in Iraq should last a century. For what fuckhead? Oil? If it’s not obsolete by then, the entire world, not to mention the human race, will be facing the end of days.

For a man who’s literally had the shit beaten from him, he is full to bursting with it.

He is right on one thing. It just happens to be a very important thing. Torture. Important, too bad that’s all he’s learned.

His positions and policies on every other vital issue are underthought, intellectually dishonest and bereft of the merest modicum of common sense. Permanent tax cuts for the rich, a war without end……………….

Yes, this man is a dipshit.

Doubtfire, the bootlicker stands not a chance.

The calculus is thus: A man who is in touch versus a man who is out of touch.

Do the math.

Peace.

Drinks for my friends.

I know there were two major debates this week. One was particularly contentious and the other quite conviviial. What. Ever. Sorry. What follows is what I felt like writing about.

BITCHES:

The Gotohells, minus Gene Gene the Dancing Machine and Timmy the worlds happiest bass player, picked us up at the airport in Tampa.

The humid South engulfed my head the second we stepped outside.

Edo and Hunter.

Edo: Guitar and lead vocals.
Hunter: Drums, backup vocals and one lead vocal. Last song. Good song. Shitty vocal.

I think I’d met Edo, but Hunter and I were old friends at that point. Hunter played drums, sang and was a human holiday on the very first record Al & I ever produced, recorded and mixed. “Punkrockacademyfightsong” – Down By Law -Epitaph.

Hunter, maybe a buck twenty five soaking wet, played so hard, he took chunks out of cymbals. It wasn’t unusual for us to change snare heads after just two or three takes. Jacked up grill and losing his hair at twenty one. He could drink and he could hold his liquor. He did an hysterical impersonation of Johnny Thunders. Brutally funny, painfully bright and consistently, unapologetically, honest. Character and integrity for weeks.

I fucking loved him. Whenever he was in town he’d leave a message with the receptionist at the studio. Always the same. “Plate of Shrimp” and a number where he could be reached.

Then we’d go drinking.

There was a twelve pack of cold Bud Talls on the floorboard of the backseat. I had a couple.

They took us straight to the original Hooters. Then to a nice little motel off the highway for the first few days of our stay and rehearsals. It was a very magnanimous gesture on the part of four broke ass cracker redneck musician punks.

Rehearsals were rainy, dark and smelly.

Al and I would couch surf after that ’til the record was done.

At first, we were accomodated by Edo and a guy named Sticky, who Hunter confessed he’d take a bullet for. I had some really stupid shoes on and Sticky asked me through a nicotine stained smile if I’d made them in wood shop. I kinda liked Sticky but I don’t think he liked me.

Given his fragile constitution, Al was pretty much sick the whole time.

Picture Al, Alex, as a young and thin Dustin Hoffman.

In retrospect it’s kinda comical, but I was concerned. Al had some form of bronchitis and Sticky and Edo were content to chainsmoke Marlboros in the same room he was desperately trying to sleep in.

We also stayed with Timmy and his unbelievably happy family. We came and went at very odd hours, often drunk. We preferred Timmy’s house to that of Edo and Sticky because there were no chainsmokers and there were teenage girls, sometimes food and coffee, if you got up in time.

Hunter shared with me that it was a bad day indeed if Timmy wasn’t smiling.

There were other reasons we liked staying with Timmy’s family better.

Timmy had an excellent selection of movies along with a shit hot media setup for the time. There was the beautiful saltwater aquarium that lent tranquility to our slumber after long days in the studio and long nights drinking. Someone always had pot, Edo I think.

Timmy was a big boy, wore thick glasses and chewed tobacco. He was a terrible bass player.

We made the record in a studio called Panda. George, the owner was spindly, tall and angular. Very gracious and accommodating. He had that eighties ponytail through the back of the baseball cap thing going on and long fingers in perpetual motion. Very funny, very helpful and completely unselfconscious with his intrigue at our recording techniques and methodology.

George spent most of his time on a beat to shit couch in the back of the control room reading a book by George Carlin. He’d spew laughter and read out loud.

One of the first things that is consciously forced down your throat in life is the concept of not throwing things, especially at other people. I have to tell you, I threw a lot of things, mostly those fat Sharpies, at a lot of people back then. Sorry about that Sam.

Anyway, was his sidekick named Charlie? I think so. Charlie kept the band awash in beer and they consumed it in copious amounts. The record brought to you as much by Budweiser as by me & Al and the band.

Funny when I think about it. The band would drink all day. Al and I rarely touched more than caffeine while in a control room. The brisk clip of an eight hour day was foreign to all of us. Making records is ponderous, repetetive, intensley creative and often maddening.

Recording, documenting and then rendering music actually, is typically a twelve to fifteen hour day. It just is what it is.

At one point, consensus was reached to start the sessions earlier; reason being to get enough done to allow an hour or two before closing time to get our drink on.

I recall it being a bit of a challenge.

On the way to the studio every morning I gawked at the clusterfuck that accompanied the latest Virgin Mary phenomena. About a year before, the redneck faithful of Clearwater Florida had discovered what they believed to be the divine image of her in the reflective glass of an office building just off the interstate. The bleachers and folding chairs were filled by the hundreds every morning to stare in awe at what looked to me to be a warped window with an oilslick on it.

It was an unspoken rule that wherever and whenever Lynyrd Skynyrd could be heard, all four members of the band would remove their hats in a maneuver that struck me as not unlike synchronized swimming.

Tampa/Orlando is the lightning capital of the entire planet and we were there for the season. Late spring. Crazy. Power outages and just plain fear of electrocution forced us out of the studio a handful of times. We hung out in the parking lot, smoking and drinking beer in the warm rain.

One morning in Madison Wisconsin, me and a band called Everclear watched the clouds rotate in the sky over the studio like in some Bradbury novel. Smart Studios. Butch Vig.

Marie Osmond caught an eyeful of our roadie’s penis that day and then bounced off a glass door, but that’s another story.

We knocked off early that night.

I had a suite overlooking the state capitol building. I turned off the lights, cracked open a beer from the mini bar and watched the most spectacular light show I might ever see. Huge bolts. Not just white, but pink and blue, as they hammered the golden dome of the state capitol building.

Next morning we discovered a pair of Neve 1073’s with all the knobs melted into a puddle. Kinda sucked because one was for the vocal and the other for rhythm guitar.

Recording studios are magnets for any atmospheric discharge.

There’s no Waffle Houses in LA. I coveted cheese eggs, raisin toast and grits when I studied engineering in Atlanta. Waffle House is where I ate when I had money. Not often.

I told Hunter and he made sure we ate there a handful of times, including the morning after the last mix before they took us to the airport and after working all night. He pointed out various oddities of Waffle House protocol. The specific spot the middle aged rubenesque waitress stood to shout orders to the kitchen, for example.

Still a vegetarian back then, I loved it when the matronly woman taking my order would inevitably ask, “Honey, you don’t want any meat with that?”.

Hunter stole laminated menus for me that morning. Stuffed them under his shirt. I still have them.

Nothing mattered that day. We’d finished a record and the sun was shining. I could have punched the sky.

There was even time for a nap.

I called The Fish from a pay phone in the airport to tell her when I was landing in LA. Angry and in tears, she’d been all over LAX the night before looking for me. I had given her the wrong date. There was a schedule adjustment half way through the record because we knew we’d need an extra day. I’d forgotten to tell her.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that kind of bad. At the time I was furiously in love with this woman and I had just made the worst mistake a man can make. I had, however briefly, forgotten about her. I’d crawled into my head in the company of men while making a record, and forgotten about home completely.

I was still in that head when dialing the phone.

After that conversation, despite the damage I had wrought, I couldn’t wait to come home.

We made a very good record. I’m proud of it. No samples or technological fuckery. What you hear is what they played. I’ve been listening to it lately and it makes me smile. It rocks.

The band is The Gotohells. The record is Burning Bridges. The label is Vagrant.

Drinks for my friends.

It’s all over but the shouting in South Carolina. Obama has beaten Hillary and Edwards like a pair of baby seals.

He did this by amassing over fifty percent of the vote. The demographic sweep he engineered is beyond impressive. South Carolina is over sixty seven percent white and the home state of John Edwards, who finished a distant third. It was a record turnout.

More than double Hillary’s pot and obviously, more than both Edwards and Hillary combined.

He speaks like a summer thunderstorm. A cloudburst on a sweltering afternoon. Substance and style. Grace and conviction. Thunder and lightning. His admonition of Hillary, subtlety and gravity.

It’s kind of ironic that while I was thinking that even if Obama succeeded at elevating only minorities and the poor, America would be a far better place. It’s ironic, because it was the same moment he segued into passionate discourse about unity and the fractures that exist between us, that either aren’t there or don’t need to be. All of us.

ALL OF US.

I am smiling. Were it not for the breathtaking ineptness, avarice and arrogance of the current administration and the Republican party, America would never grant audience to this first ever contest between a black man and a woman for President of The United States.

Forgive me, but hope doesn’t appear so audacious any more. It’s been a long time coming. We have endured too many years of cruelty and apathy at the hands of Republican rulers. Maybe now, instead of the lesser of two evils, America will choose the better of the best.

Oh boy.

Eighty percent of African Americans in SC voted for Obama. I still really like Edwards, but I fear it may be time for him to walk. Seventy three percent of Democrats who cast a vote tonight, did so against Hillary. This, in one of only three states with a greater than twenty percent population of black voters. Do the math, Obama desperately needs white Democrats on February Five.

Edwards says he’s still got lotsa fight left. We’ll see.

Obama and Edwards? I’d like that a lot.

Bill Bennett, asshat that he is, just compared Obama’s speech to Ronald Reagan. What a fucking retard. It occurs to me that Martin Luther King is a far more appropriate and accurate analog. Or, can you say JFK?

Amy Holmes, conservative whackjob that she is, is hotter than Georgia asphalt. I’d do her. She was on Bill Maher last night and I had an identical thought. Michelle O. has hips and a booty.

Meanwhile, on the darkside, Skeletor sports a giant mudhole in his ass that will be kicked dry by Guy Smiley and John McCain in Florida. Time to start looking for a rock with a vacancy underneath, Mr. Julie Rudyiani. Douchebag.

Up next, Super Tuesday. The road, still long indeed.

Drinks for my friends.

They focus on McCain and Romney and Huckabee. Somehow they need to save it from being a forgone conclusion. Probably just to hold interest.

Idiots.

It will be McCain, because Guy Smiley is full of shit and Huckabee seems like a nice guy but any sane motherfucker between here and common sense is scared out of his or her mind that a Southern Baptist Minister could be President.

I mean, I know I am. The leader of the the free world believing that the earth is like, six thousand years old? You have got to be fucking kidding me. This guy is getting a shitload of votes.

Outside it’s America.

Goddamn, the Republicans are in trouble.

Anyway.

A far more interesting contest between Barack and Hillary.

I’m so pleased by the very idea that America is choosing between a black man and a woman for the Democratic nomination.

It does speak volumes about the taste in our mouths. For nearly eight years, the only thing on the spoon has been shit. Stupid mindless Republican shit. Imagine shit with tar and rotting raisins.

The Democrats not always better but I’m happy to have this choice.

America is about to recieve a much needed Democratic President, so fuck off.

Drinks for my friends.

I just need to talk about a few things here.

First up, this retarded stimulus package Republicans and Democrats alike are toothlessly masticating each other’s genitals over. Six hundred dollars (!) for each of us grossing less than seventy five thousand a year.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

What they’re hoping is, we’ll go out and blow that magnanimous sum and the economy will just explode and all will be sunshine and rainbows.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

That’s the plan?

I’m insulted.

Six hundred bucks buys me about three hours in a Vegas titty bar with a couple of clients. Brilliant.

Or, I could score just enough booze and blow to rationalize hiring a hooker, likely succumb to whiskey dick and the subsequent ego deflation that accompanies losing one’s wood and/or never achieving it to begin with.

As a Southern California resident, were I to earmark said funds for more pragmatic utilization, it would mitigate approximately a third of my monthly rent. Less than that of a mortgage note or a month’s payment on a decent car.

Republicans and Democrats have reached out to each other for your benefit and are now offering a medium size self adhering gauze bandage for your middle class ass hemorrhage. The bastards of the beltway are powerful sorry about the diabetes they gave you and would like for you to have a cookie.

I understand the proposal also provides for “business incentives”.

I really hate these guys.

Apparently, while we spend over half a million a minute in Iraq, fiscal conservatives are wringing their sweaty hands over what this may do to the budget deficit.

Thank Jesus someone is watching the foxes play with the hens.

On a profoundly sad note, my favorite little paste eater announced he was leaving the circus today. How sad that the roaring mouse has thrown in the towel. The ONLY one with the courage, integrity and honesty to speak the truth consisitently about where we are and what we must do, is left with no choice but to save his congressional seat so that he may fight again to effect desperately needed change another day. May the powers that exist, forever favor you Mr. Dennis Kucinich. Many of us will miss your valuable contribution to what is obviously the most important political discourse thus far for all of us.

Next. From this blog on January nine:

“The Bill & Hillary machine is awesome, however. What we saw was that impressive apparatus in swift and purposeful motion at the bottom of the ninth in the second game of seven. Very impressive.

Here they come. I told ya.”

And from this blog on January four:

“I’ve alluded to to the Clintonian acumen for brawling. You’re about to see a full frontal and it will most likely get ugly. We’re about to witness how smart she really is. I can’t help but think that if she starts tossing turds, she’ll be courting the dirt nap.

Fascinating to watch Bill’s big brain churning behind his eyes as he stood to her left while she spoke. I found myself waiting for steam to to rocket from every orifice in his head.

She tossed not a single turd.”

It’s true, Bill Clinton, a man whom I celebrate and adore, needs to count to ten. I won’t address this specifically except to to say that policy is what is is germane here. That, and desperation is almost always ugly.

Last but not least, Hillary and McCain won the nod from The New York Times today. The NYT said this about Skeletor, who is fighting for third in Florida:

“The New York paper said it could not endorse Giuliani, describing the city’s former mayor as a “narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man” whose “arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking.”

Ha!

Drinks for my friends.

Chelsea is hot.

I really think so.

“I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so” – The Vapors.

Anyway.

They did swing hard. Some good stuff. We like a good dustup between mostly like and right minded people.

Obama does very well. He’s taller and tends to throw his punches down. He really is impressive.

Hills takes punches and throws uppercuts like Roberto Duran. She is tough and fascinating.

I do believe Obama’s remarks about Reagan are what they are. His point was that Reagan was a transformative president, no value placed, good or bad.

I think he was alluding to Ronnie being able to so effectively snow so many rednecks and the great unwashed. See, Reagan sucked and he was, in the contemporary tradition of Republican presidents, an absolute out of touch dipshit.

Ronald Reagan was a human hurricane for the have nots. Let me be clear here; Reagan fucking sucked.

Russia was broken on the backs of our middle class and poor. And the rich began to get richer.

Reaganomics. Trickle down. Shut the fuck up. He was an actor, and not a great one by any stretch.

Ok, sorry.

Edwards is a class act. My mother was a delegate in the Nevada caucuses and she was there for Edwards. I agree with her. He is the best of the three. She wasn’t able to make it happen. He got his “butt kicked”.

I would like to see Edwards prevail in South Carolina. A little leveling of the field would be healthy and his is a good voice in this contest. The man has integrity.

To one degree or another, I like them all. It’s not perfect, but we are lucky. This is an excellent group. Intelligent and passionate.

Then there is the big picture. The entertainment value. Not since the last time a diminutive jug eared paste eater waded in (Perot/Kucinich), has the contest for leader of the free world been so compelling.

Sometimes I wax pessimistic and realize that what we have here is the best of a worse case scenario. Our country is so broken. I understand that not one of these three may be capable or even desirous of the profound shift we absolutely need.

America is in a very bad way. Yet, despite which one prevails, it is a long step in the right direction. I really can’t afford to think about whether any one of them can do enough. Probably not.

But you know, small steps?

Drinks for my friends.

I just need to take a minute to praise Jon Stewart.

Were he sitting here with me on my red velvet, claw shredded and cat hair festooned couch, I’d take a hit and blow it straight up his tiny little Jew ass.

He rocks.

I’m not sure what the deal is over there but I understand he has no writers?

I assume the writers want money for their work appearing on the internet but the internet is a herd of leeches on the genitals of the big entertainment companies. That’s all I know.

The big guys are probably culpable.

Whatever.

Anyway. Tonight Stewart delivered the most brilliant and toxic dissection of mainstream media coverage of these last two political contests; an intellectually adroit comedian cracking balls over the fence as though practicing.

Subtlety and nuance not just amplified but cleverly exploited.

I understand why people would naively push such a man towards public service. They don’t understand that he is doing exactly what he should be doing.

Jon Stewart does the Lord’s work.

At least, he does the work of my Lord. Common Sense.

I hearken back to a few years hence, when our man Jon, fed Tucker Carlson a swift and salty load on his own goddamn show (“Crossfire”). Cost that smug prick Carlson his show and and his ridiculously schticky bowtie.

See, not unlike Hillary a few days ago in New Hampshire, Jon stewart has found his voice. Although much to our great fortune as Americans, Mr. Stewart discovered his voice nearly eight years ago.

Emmy and Peabody winning and goddamn funny.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the perfect man for his job. We can only hope to be the richer, the longer he chooses to do it.

Just had to share that, even though most of you know it already.

Drinks for my friends.

Hillary prevails because the women of New Hampshire saw her tear up. Obama carried women in Iowa. He didn’t in New Hampshire.

Who carried the Gays?

Stay with me.

I do wish Edwards had somehow been able to maintain the trifecta. Here, the difference of deep pockets glares at us. Shame on you New Hampshire. He is clearly the best of the three, at least in terms of message.

Ralph Reed is on CNN. What the hell is he doing there? I loathe this bastard. Christian Coalition fucktard. But wait, he just said what I said about Hillary. What should I do with that? Does’t matter, he’s a dickhead.

Ron Paul wrestling with Skeletor for fourth makes me grin like a poor kid with a new bike.

Looks like Richardson will take his ball home. No big loss but a good man.

Record Democratic turnout and Republican voters are actually down. The poor kid with the new bike just got a new bell and a sparkly gold banana seat.

Wolf Blitzer sucks.

Edwards is tired and so is his speech. It is true, righteous even, but tired. No original chords or melodies. Yet still, good populist stuff. Honest. The best message out there. He tells us he’s staying in the fight. That’s good news. He is the best of any of the horses running with the remotest chance of winning.

I’m afraid my favorite little paste eater is unable to hide the fork sticking out of him. Oh well. So much for massive balls and complete honesty. If the upcoming Democratic administration has an intellectual conscience, Kucinich will have a place in it. I’m not holding my breath.

The Associated Press has just forecast Hillary as the winner. There’s lots to be said for inertia. Momentum.

It may be premature, yet as I say this CNN is owning it. I’ve watched enough elections to agree.

Obama speaks. Very well. This guy is good. Really good. This time he actually references MLK. This man, is a goddamn rockstar. Confidence, charisma and composure. Half the reason I watch is to see this guy play.

Blue eyed murder in a sideswipe dress.

Hillary speaks. She has aged before me. She is metered. Measured. Following Obama is a bitch. No pun intended. She’s virtually Stepford after a master orator. She’s kinda plastic. She kinda sucks. Weak finish.

The Bill & Hillary machine is awesome, however. What we saw was that impressive apparatus in swift and purposeful motion at the bottom of the ninth in the second game of seven. Very impressive.

Here they come. I told ya.

The content was significantly more populist in both Democratic speeches.

You aren’t stupid. I know this because you’re here. I’m sure you can imagine me pulling the lever for whatever Democrat rises to the surface of this contest.

And that’s just what I’ll do.

It’s not that the Democrats are so great, although a few are, it’s that the Republicans suck so fucking much. McCain can’t even comb his own hair. Poor bastard. He’s the best they can do? He’s got a hard on for the war for painfully, and I do mean painfully, obvious reasons and I imagine he has some degree of PTS.

Dick-in-Bush snuck up behind and sucker punched him in 2000. When he woke up he was finished and bitter. Who wants this guy on the switch?

Hustler magazine has this regular feature where they render a photo of a female celebrity with a huge cock in her mouth. It’s hysterical. I know some folks over there and I’m going to call and request that they do the biggest blowhard on the planet, Mitt Romney.

Then there’s our man Skeletor. Fuck him.

Forgive me for not being able to take these assholes seriously.

Drinks for my friends.

The New Hampshire debates are nothing if not entertaining.

Really, it got a little ugly between the Democrats, still, they stayed germane to the most important issues. They all did well. It’s an excellent field.

Hillary is starting to swing and we like that. Nothing untoward, she just rolled up her sleeves and demonstrated she was ready.

I missed Kucinich and Biden.

The biggest gaff for me was Richardson’s pounding near the base of his mic to emphasize his sluggish and doddering message about his message about being a governor and a two time cabinet apointee.

This guy is cabinet worthy for sure but he’d suck as President. He’s smart and probably very capable but he’d bore me in a bar.

See what I’m saying?

I wonder if all the sudden Edwards is bucking for assistant manager or maybe just using some camaraderie with Obama to pinata Hillary a little. I like this guy. He was interesting and I’m a sucker for his populist rhetoric.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch the Republicans. Saw a clip of Guiliani saying that the difference between his party and the Democrats is Democrats want to raise your taxes and he wants to lower them.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

We are in an economic cluster fuck of shitstorm proportions and this absolute dickhead wants to talk about tax cuts. I fucking hate this guy. He and Fred Thompson both (who seems to have gone the way of the Do Do, thankfully), are almost invisible when they turn sideways because they’re constructed entirley of paper.

Never mind that what is being talked about is reversing the cuts given to the wealthy over the last seven years, who’ve gotten wealthier by the way, and finding ways to eliminate the government sponsored drain on the middle class, who are sinking by the way.

Then on Fox tonight I see Huckabee and Romney shoulder to shoulder attempting to out obfuscate each other about…………..

Wait for it.

That’s right.

Fucking taxes.

I really hate these guys.

I picture Napoleon Dynamite slapping his head.

The contrast is so acute, it is simultaneously comic and egregious.

I watched it tonight on CNN and again, somebody had travelled forward in time, observed my reactions and then travelled back to put my impressions in the mouths of CNN talking heads.

Frustrating. Anybody hiring?

Drinks for my friends.

Guiliani is an arrogant fool for taking a pass on Iowa. Bill Clinton didn’t wade in either, however. Bad Bill knew what he was doing and is at least twice as smart as Skeletor. Maybe four or five times. Really.

And yes, this is an entirely different ballgame.

Nothing from nothing means nothing.

A paradigm shift, nay, an upheaval, occurs while Skeletor cools his heels in Florida.

Change.

“The fierce urgency of now”.

Hillary loses by a tampon string to Edwards and both lose to Obama.

Huge.

Huckabee leaves Romney to regain consciousness with dirt in his mouth. Good. Romney is a douchebag.

All, nothing but good news.

I’ve alluded to to the Clintonian acumen for brawling. You’re about to see a full frontal and it will most likely get ugly. We’re about to witness how smart she really is. I can’t help but think that if she starts tossing turds, she’ll be courting the dirt nap.

Fascinating to watch Bill’s big brain churning behind his eyes as he stood to her left while she spoke. I found myself waiting for steam to to rocket from every orifice in his head.

She tossed not a single turd.

She was smooth.

Edwards, my beloved populist, was excellent. I’ve always been a sucker for his “Two Americas” theme.

Obama invoked a cadence not unlike MLK. He did shine. I was impressed. Is he a leader? I really don’t know. He is a fucking rockstar though.

Some guys like football. This shit mezmerises me.

We’re off to New Hampshire. I can only hope it will be as compelling.

Clearly this contest won’t end exactly as I wished. Yet, I must agree with the talking heads on CNN. The Americans in Iowa are telegraphing a profound desire for change.

See, this isn’t about a black man vs. a woman against an evangelical and/or a complete dipshit who believes in sacred underwear. This really is about a certain absolute thirst for as much change as we can get.

The best we can do is the most change we can realize. This gives me hope. I am optimistic and sanguine.

Encouraged, at the very least.

Oh boy.

Drinks for my friends.

Iowa less than twenty four hours away.

The Republicans are reeling.

They’re to the point where they’re taking an evangelical with bad teeth as seriously as an asshole who wears sacred underwear and
is completely full of shit.

Kinda funny. A man named Huckabee duking it out with
a man named Romney. President Huckabee?

Rudolph “Skeletor” Guiliani runs a cold third. For
this we should perhaps be grateful as this is a man
barely more intelligent than Dumbya and maybe more
arrogant. His own children campaign against him.

This guy has to be a dick.

So yeah, meanwhile, the Democratic field doesn’t suck
nearly as much. I have varying degrees of like for
most of them. I’m no Hillary fan, she worries me.
Her hands are in too many pockets that seek to empty
my own.

But is she playing? The Clintons know how to fight.
It’s a pretty serious braintrust between the two. She
understood that a woman of even her caliber, would
need vast resources to be taken seriously.

Is there a chance she’s hell bent for leather so she can then do at least some of what needs to be done?

All I know is that it’s close and that’s a good thing. I doubt you’ll see any of the top three, Obama, Clinton or Edwards, emerging as running mates or even VP hopefuls. They run too hard. It is a horserace and we benefit.

Poor fucking Republicans. HA!

What we need is, the most change we can get. Just think for a minute about the difference in potential for change between Edwards and Clinton. Then think about the difference between Kucinich and Clinton.

Huckabee’s suits are hiding a lot of loose skin.

Fucking Republicans.

See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

I admire drummers who can swing a beat. They’re onto
something. Life should not plod or march. It should swing. It should speed up and slow down.

Carson City, at the base of the Sierra mountain range and near to a mile high, has peaks to the west that jut majestically over four thousand feet above the valley floor.

Lake Tahoe at some sixteen hundred feet deep and a surface elevation of sixty two hundred hundred feet seems barely contained by the monoliths to the left.

The wind blows every day. Carson City whistles all the goddamn time.

He left home at thirteen. Sixth grade education from a
one room school house. Hunted deer with a twelve
guage loaded with slugs instead of shot. He rode the
rails and stole produce from the fields along the way
to survive.

Lied about his age to work for the Forest Service.
After that, the mines, with an epileptic partner and explosives. I believe it was during this time he married my mother.

His father played semi-pro baseball and cards. Never
took a drink or smoke of anything. He died at age
eighty nine from colon cancer.

Killed an elk a mere few years before he died and drug it out
of the woods by himself. Probably sent me the teeth.
He sent me a lot of teeth from animals he killed, typically in
an envelope inside a shirtbox of fairly salty peanut
butter cookies baked by Grandma Douglass. I think she died at a hundred and one.

His son, my Dad, has been in the hospital for too long
now. He is seventy five years old.

A few days back, I sat in the dim light of the night’s
middle in a hospital and looked at him. I spent the
night with him. It was hard. Highways of tubes
everywhere, draining and feeding. I fed him ice chips
every half hour or so.

He pooped and farted that night, which was brilliant, yet
his hands shook as he gripped the door jam to the bathroom.

The thing is, long after his body has ceased to be
tough, his mind still very much is. He is fearless.

Vessel and carcass to be durable again soon enough.

First day I walked into his room in the
cardiac wing, I clocked a tube sucking putrid green
lungbutter and what looked like shaving cream, from
his nose and into a jar mounted and hanging from a
cabinet.

A trio of beeping machines were connected to him and
mounted on a chrome tree with wheels. There was a sensor on his right hand he referred to as ET.

On the same tree were bags of protein, glucose and
painkillers.

He didn’t look too good at all. The color of
snow and ashes.

He was himself though. Blowing kisses and flirting
with the nurses. They all adored him because he was
such a good patient.

My Old Man is a motherfuckin class act.

A few months back my mother arrived at the conclusion
that it was time for my father to have a colonoscopy.
Last one was about twelve years ago.

Turns out he had close to a ten inch tumor in his
small intestine. A big ass mass. When Mom
said over twenty five centimeters, my heart sank.

It had to come out no matter what.

It was the biopsy that loomed.

They could only access the front of what I imagined in
my minds eye to be a malformed and hairless rodent.

Benign. So far so good.

Still, the doctors told us, these types of rodents
always turned malignant and it had to come out.
Otherwise, it would metastasize and the world would tilt.

The first surgery, a laparoscopy, went routinely. They took the bald rodent and lymph nodes.

Routine. No big deal.

Subsequent biopsy was negative. Thanks be to the powers that be.

A few days and things began to turn. No appetite.
Not passing anything, even gas. Pain. A few more
days, keep feeding him said the surgeon. We all agreed. A
decision we would all come to regret.

Because his stomach’s cargo had no other road to
travel, he began to vomit violently. Bring him they
said. A second far more invasive surgery they said.

My sister, rockstar that she is, spent nights with my
father and worked during the day. She runs marathons
you know. I’m pretty sure she could kick my ass.

My sister’s husband, a man I respect, admire and
adore, lost his mother just suddenly enough to be
cruel, barely two months ago.

Yet he came.

My father’s best friend besides his bride of fifty two years, a man who once bit another man’s finger off
in a fight, is a man named Pat. He fretted over my old man like a stoic woman.

His other best friend is a three legged dog he inherited from his oldest grandson. Her name is Billy Jean.

The only thing he fears is anything at all happening
to someone he loves. This shit happening to him now
is Fisher Price. He’s merely waiting it out.

I’ve witnessed his bravery before. All of five foot
six, he’d go after the biggest fucker in the room and
then kick his ass. He’d already lost an eye in a
barfight before I was even born. A concrete
foreman and somewhat of a legend in his local labor
union.

A legend because he’d out work you, out drink
you, maybe kick the shit out of you and then be a
perfect gentleman to your wife.

Both eyes were black for my sister’s wedding photos.

That brand of bravery was foolish, compared to
what I see now.

I am so very grateful for how tough he is. Two
surgeries in the space of a few weeks. The second of
them elaborately invasive. We’re talking opened wide
up and disembowled. Crazy amounts of pain.

He smiles and tells you about the turd he just
dropped.

I am in awe of this man’s courage and life force.

We talked politics in the dark hours before dawn. We
talked about how the better a candidate is, the less
chance he has.

We laughed about how special it was for a father and
son to share the moment of his first post surgical
crap.

My mother. Everyday she tells me, makes an Italian
soda. In a tall glass with an elbow straw, she mixes
ice, sugar free cherry syrup, club soda and Mocha Mix.

I tried it. It was quite good. Tonight I poured a
healthy amount of grenadine in to a diet Pepsi. It’s
working.

Today was his first full day home. I literally slept
all day.

Can’t go down Endmunds or up Nye. Viking is
completely out of the question and so is Lompa. I’m
gonna need to stop in somewhere. Have a nap. See
what’s up. I’m no longer from around here.

Small chunk of a nightmare. Sorry.

I drove the first half. Through the high country
beginning with Topaz Lake, past Mono Lake and over the
Sierras down into Bishop. After that, The Fish drove
and I was able to gawk at the southern end of the
Sierra Mountain Range as it conducted it’s daily
finale with the impossible jaggedness of Mt. Whitney
as the sun sank behind.

I came home to a Christmas Tree where there hadn’t
been one. To a clean house where there had been a
disgusting one. To gifts wrapped in shiny paper. Oh
my.

Sort of an epilogue:

He’s pooping. All systems are go. Sat at the kitchen counter today and watched a little TV. Tam, Todd and the kids came as well as cousins Derek and Marlow. They had Christmas.

The canine tripod named Billy Jean is back. My father’s favorite underdog has returned.

Sometimes I feel like my life will walk away from me
if I let it.

Drinks for my friends.

Most of my regular myspace readers are aware that I’ve
been shamelessly teasing the pending debut of a
website called brainspank.org.

At the behest of one regular reader/contributor, I’m
here to give a little backstory.

Let me just begin by telling you that I’m so goddamn
proud of this website that I weep openly at the drop
of an aircraft carrier.

It’s hubris I guess. Long before I passed forty
thousand blog reads on myspace, I decided it would be
a good idea to go indie. So I got myself a couple Pit Bulls and
leased a yard.

Thanks be to my friend and colleague Warren for
accepting a paltry remuneration for the cracking
design of brainspank.org.

The image you see is an actual portrait of me by a guy
named Dave Lehman (sp?). All the rest, including
logo, fonts, graphic design, registering of domain name etc were rendered from the brain of my man Warren.

Warren has the soul of a geek but he’s one of the
coolest geeks I know. And, he can hold his liquor.

Thanks buddy. I got fifty bucks burning a hole in my
pocket to inspire you to figure out how to let people
subscribe or at least be alerted every time I choose
to piss and moan. Can we do that?

Anyway, I’ve discovered that I have a lot to say and
that despite how remarkably cool myspace has been in
granting me an audience and allowing me to find a
voice, I need to lose the training wheels and see what
I can accomplish on my own.

I want to be taken seriously.

Thus, brainspank.org

Yes, this is my blog. It is MY box to elevate my MY
opinion.

I wrote this at the end of my inaugural blog on
brainspank:

“This may read a little gratuitous and probably even
cheesy, but it’s the truth. I like to write. I like
to pontificate. I like to rant and rave. I’ve a
predilection for distillation.

I’d also like to illuminate and clarify.

I tend to eschew obfuscation.

I believe my perspective to be be valid or I wouldn’t
be here at all.

I’m not just here to beat my chest. It is my hope
that you listen to me and then think.

I swear I’m not here to fuck around.”

So now you know. Questions?

Drinks for my friends.

Last night I discovered the ass end of a smoked turkey
frank in my pre-packaged tub of mediocre guacamole.

I’d left it as a sort of a subliminal gift for myself
the evening before.

When I first removed the lid it appeared like a human
digit. Coulda been a toe.

Then I traveled through time to when I left it there
the night before. How cool am I?

Any way, I gotta dump the shit box, take out some
trash and start some laundry.

You guys want a little rip?

Done kinda. Gotta line the trash can with the Hefty
stretch bag. Love those things, they always last
until the trash chute.

Seems like people are getting friendlier. I doubt
that will last.

Jack In The Box fish & chips are among the best
available. They don’t drop those bastards ’til you
order so there always piping hot. It’s good tartar
sauce and they have malt vinegar. I hardly ever eat
the fries. Worst fries in the industry.

How was your day?

Mine was pretty random. Went to
Chin Chin for lunch. Had shrimp toast, pan fried pork
dumplings, gift wrapped chicken and a glass of
sauvignon blanc. Read about Dumbya. Interesting
book.

I had them wrap up what was left……

The book of course, “Dead Certain” by Robert Draper.
Fascinating in it’s own way. There is less raw meat than I’d anticipated and to be honest, hoped for.

What it seems to be, is an honest and objective account that on the surface is somewhat vanilla. Very little moral estimation on Draper’s part. He walks a beguilingly non- judgemental line.

Draper does reveal both an extraordinarily disciplined administration and an appallingly inept one. In doing so, he lays bare a disciplined and inept chief executive who may not be the puppet the cynical among us believe him to be.

In many ways George W. Bush is a goddamn fool. Most of the ambulatory among us knew this. Yet we are left with the impression that he means well. No real evil in this man, merely a man in far over his head.

Here is a man with a falsely elevated sense of pride and entitlement, bolstered by a gang of sycophants that range from the obsequious to the greedy and right on through to filthy of heart and soul.

He thinks he’s leading effectively.

George W. Bush weeps often, yet otherwise buries self doubt and ethical imperative in a brutal exercise regimen and personal insecurity in a near religious optimism based entirely on candy coated clowns.

He has always been ambitious. He’s still an excellent cheerleader. He would have been far better for America had he stayed in baseball.

There is just as fine of a line between clever and stupid as there is between courage and stupid.

And as I complete this, Bill Clinton appears on a Jon Stewart rerun.

Oh man, this guy is something else.

I’m fresh off CNN and the internet and lotsa Dumbya clips.

The thousand foot cliff of contraposition beams like one of those giant fucking lenses shooting light into the night time pollution at a mall opening.

I don’t care where you stand on Bill Clinton, he is absolutely brilliant. Just how did we end up with unCurious George after eight years of William Jefferson Clinton?

Lucid, engaging, charismatic and sharp as a fucking tack.

Now he’s out there with his old friend and Nobel laureate Al Gore, doing their damndest to save the goddamn world.

Dumbya may not be a bad guy, his family might be pretty nice people.

Whatever. It’s just that despite any of that, they fucking suck.

Oh, and his reign has been at least the worst thing to happen to America since the agrarian age. I mean, his Presidency has been a nightmare of injustice, reckless spending, discrimination, reckless aggression, egregious disregard of the Constitution, secrecy, wiretapping, torture, violent rape and pillage of the middle class……….man I hate these fucks.

Anyway, I just imagined hiring a Saudi Royal to kidnap Ann Coulter and deposit her in a secret prison. I arrive at the undisclosed location and begin teabagging Ms. Coulter. Before long I close off her left nostril with my left index finger and piss up her right nostril with force sufficient to make the horse apple in her throat bob like a superball at the end of a rubber band being whipped by a paddle.

Drinks for my friends.

I sometimes wonder how close the human species is to
a precipice of absolute demise.

How lucky am I to live at the end of days?

Is this a good thing, reaping all the rewards of
technology/media and really good readily available yet
nutritionless food?

Am I, are we, being swept along in a foolish
march towards the end of humanity?

I really can’t say for sure, but it appears none too
swell.

Our government is relentlessly aggressive in fomenting
violence against countries that pose no threat to us.

We’ve killed about a million so far in this
“conflict”.

Tens of thousands of our own either dead or perhaps
worse, barely surviving, after coming within a
candle’s flicker of having their own lives ripped from
them and not until after their limbs have been torn
away.

Wading any further into these waters will likely end
with whole countries, swaths of continents even,
turned to glass.

The crackle of glass underfoot only to be
experienced by those properly equipped for the furnace
of radiation left behind. They will be there to
extract the only commodity left from entire global
regions.

Texas Tea baby.

An obsolete fuel with nothing but
archaic means to render into energy. At a cost now
hovering around one hundred dollars a barrel.

A hundred dollars for a mere barrel of ancient
dinosaur liquid.

Can you imagine the cost when only fools in special
suits can fetch that juice for us? Four syllables.
Exponential.

Clinton oversaw crude prices under thirty dollars a
barrel. I’m just sayin’.

The surface of the sun is some eighteen thousand
degrees farenheit. Her energy speeds towards us
relentlessly at over one hundred eighty thousand miles
a second.

This one female causes tides and the wind. We have
yet to harness the sun in any meaningful way.

We’re up to our necks in these waters and still very
few humans seem cognizant at all. Another few steps
and either our lungs adapt to turn shit and toxic
waste into oxygen, or we drown.

I hate to be “The sky is falling guy”, but I need to
tell you, we’re probably closer than you think.

Our economy is a giant sucking chest wound. Poverty,
unemployment, budget & trade deficits as well as the
uninsured, all way up.

Median income down but way more billionaires!

The middle class is being hunted. Successfully.
Niether a Democracy nor a Republic can sustain
without a vigorous middle class.

Welcome, to the machine.

Housing, once a a bubble, is now a crater. Millions
losing or about to lose the roof overhead. Record
foreclosures point to a citizenry in as far over their
heads as their assfaced government.

We owe China while China bends us over and makes toxic
food for our pets and toxic toys for our kids.

Ha!

The Chinese killed the poor bastard in charge of pet
food. Executed him. We stood around and wrung our
hands because we’re their economic bitch.

Have you seen the goddamn dollar? Against the
Canadian dollar or the Euro?

A giant, empty eyed, lumbering, pasty, corpse of an economy.

The American Zombie now spends about a half a million
a minute in Iraq. A MINUTE!

It really does go on and on.

We are standing before an unprecedented level of
financial fuckedness.

Then, we take stock of the planet itself. I don’t
know if Mother Earth is sick or pissed or both. It
matters not.

What she is, is sick and tired of us.

I’m sure she liked it better a few hundred years ago
when their weren’t so goddamn many of us. I don’t
doubt she’s in the throes of solving some, if not all,
of the conundrum that humans are for her.

As long as we continue to burn and pillage her forests
and vomit pollution into her air and water, she will
starve our droughts of moisture and dump waterfalls
and tsunamis on already drowning populations.

The ice will cease to be.

This is Mother Nature we’re talking about here. Look
what she does every spring just to thin the herd of
Coulter and Limbaugh disciples in the midwest and
dirty south.

Her arsenal includes fire, volcanoes and earthquakes.
Hurricanes, tornados and don’t forget precision
lightning.

She may just decide to piss rain on your town for a
month.

What are we doing?

We walk around like none of it is happening.

I really like electricity and TV, computers, the
internet!, running water and a clean place to crap.

I love that as I wrote this I communicated with
others, hundreds, even thousands of miles away on a
hand held wireless device and at the same time
researched every fact I’ve foisted upon you while writing and that it will be read across oceans and continents.

Ironic that the power of an individual has never been
greater yet, we can’t seem to get the bastards to
march the other way.

There is no water where they go.

It’s the other direction.

They are either too lazy or too stupid to pay a mind.

Fools.

“Don’t want no class reunion, the circus just left
town Why behave in public if you’re living on a
playground?” -Van Halen “Fools”

Literally, another few steps and we will begin to
drown. It is asinine.

This may read a little gratuitous and probably even
cheesy, but it’s the truth. I like to write. I like
to pontificate. I like to rant and rave. I’ve a
predilection for distillation.

I’d also like to illuminate and clarify.

I tend to eschew obfuscation.

I believe my perspective to be be valid or I wouldn’t
be here at all.

I’m not just here to beat my chest. It is my hope
that you listen to me and then think.

I swear I’m not here to fuck around.

Thank you very much for reading this far.

Welcome to brainspank.org

Drinks for my friends.

Merely the events of the day as reported by CNN are enough to inspire one to spray precious liquor.

As they come around the first corner, all presidential candidates, republican and democrat, are pulling ever closer to even as they break sweat for Iowa and New Hampshire.

They are stallions regardless of sex and even the ponies out front are beginning to bite and kick.

Methinks this is a good sign as it reveals an electorate that is unhappy and pining for change.

Soon, Oprah begins to stump for Obama. Interesting. A sociological laboratory in real time.

I gotta tell ya that the only republican that isn’t an absolute dickhead is Ron Paul. The rest of these guys are appallingly worthless. Guiliani and Romney are spineless, absent even nascent conviction and overtly hypocritic.

Save for Mr. Paul, this is a low gene pool walking the dog group of talentless insincere asshats. Empty suits all.

By the way, Cheney’s black Darthheart had to have a kickstart this morning. Ha! He’s recovering at home this evening after “electroshock therapy to jolt his upper heart chamber back into a natural rythm.”

Then Dumbya had to do the photo op with Gore for the Nobel Prize thing. They both looked like they’d just smoked a choad, but Dumbya’s gaze was beyond compare.

It was clear that his sack had wrinkled. His testes had retreated. He did not swing low and in fact, had no swing at all.

I saved this next one for last because it’s my favorite.

Dennis Hof, brothel entrepreneur, shameless and therefore efficacious self promoter and a friend of mine, has made national news by declaring his support for presidential candidate Ron Paul.

He says he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is.

I know Dennis. We’re not close, but I know the man and I grew up in Carson City Nevada. And yes, he owns The World Famous Bunny Ranch.

I don’t doubt for a second that he is absolutely sincere. Mr Hof, in my experience, is a man who does what he says and says what he does.

Not only that, he takes my calls and when he calls me, he tries to convince the receptionist that he’s calling because he found my credit card in a house of prostitution.

I need to add here that I’m also friends with a mayoral candidate for the city of San Francisco. He’s a crossdressing bodybuilder republican who owns and operates the most notorious and infamous sex club on the west coast.

Sometimes, one has to stop and smell the roses, pay attention to real people and real things.

Drinks for my friends.

Caught up on all matters media today.

Sometimes I just need to run and hide for a few days.
After the fires, I had to go. La Sabbatical De
Brevity Con Media De Anger. Whatever it was, it was
good while it lasted.

It’s true I’m having a splendid time watching the
Republicans implode. It’s spectacular. Not unlike
skulls melting in some action adventure horror flick.
Comedy too. They just can’t seem to keep their
reptilian dicks from getting caught underneath their
reptilian shod feet. I really can’t help but bray
like a jackass, whistle and spray gin at the screen.

I mean, Fred Thompson is a complete dipshit. Haggard, stupid and inarticulate.

All the kings horses and all the kings men have either
forgotten to dance a certain linedance lockstep or
have lost faith. They are alone. As individuals,
they wither from the storm’s wrath as rapidly as the
lonely Dick-in-Bush.

Vampires at dawn.

Meanwhile, Hills continues to run like she’s already
got the Democratic nod, courting the hawks and
rednecks and religious zealots who pine for the
apocolypse, by carressing them with tough talk on Iran
and otherwise whispering to the middle.

I gleefully waltz through her intestines with impunity
for her audacious voting record on the war and the
vast amounts of money she draws from the evil elite
like a succubus with a vacuum powered coke straw.
Sorry. I’ve been drinking.

She’s not as bright as Bill, but she doesn’t fall
asleep to dream of clearing brush and nursing a bottle
of Beam either. Very smart, this woman and I like
that. But it’s uncomfortable watching a woman pursue
the art of horseshit so adroitly.

I understand what she’s doing and she does it with raw
expertise and more than a modicum of grace. Yet, what
comes out of her mouth of late gives me fits of
consternation, panicked doubletakes and frequent
pause. Yep, all three.

Sometimes, it’s like a seizure.

Best case scenario is that she can’t show her cards
because she needs to get elected first. Where does
that leave all of us that used to like her? Do we
need faith?

Blind faith?

Us that used to like her have our man Bill. That’s
all she’s got. It’s not going to be enough for
our vote. We’re still a year and half out from the
General, not enough legs there to hold all of us
until then.

It’s time to talk to us because you’re gonna
need us.

And we really like Kucinich.

What if he goes third party?

Take a page out of the Dick-in-Bush playbook. They
actually lost both elections but managed to look so
good, nobody cared. They never forgot their base.

They dumped them just the other day cause they’re done. No longer necessary. Obsolete.

Kinda comical to see the faithful looking for a political party.

See what I’m saying?

A benefit of the doubt because of your significant
other will not carry what is still a very long day.

We’re not stupid. We understand that you have to
dance with devil in the pale moonlight. But you are
gonna need to reach out to us. Better to do it before
sundown, that’s when we start drinking.

A little less chit chat. A little more chop chop.
Somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of us really pay
attention and you’re gonna need us if it’s close. My
guess is it will be close.

brainspank.org COMING SOON!!

Drinks for my friends.

I’m delivering this one to you in a suit and tie.

Nixon had an approximate approval rating of 25 percent
when he was forced onto the plank. That quarter of
America is forever lost to ignorance and the politics of manipulation by fear.

Different faces. Different generation. Identical mindset. Count on
the stupid. They will always show up.

There is another quarter that are inclined to willfull
ignorance. Deliberate stupidity. This quarter is intellectually
lazy enough to pay less than requisite attention to
make up their own goddamn minds. They have the
capacity, but are too distracted and self involved to
think for themselves.

When challenged or confronted, they tend to embrace jingoistic sentiment and lash out at those of us who laugh at them by accusing of us hating America and undermining our troops. Dickheads.

It’s just how they roll.

Most people aren’t stupid, they just don’t pay attention.

The aware, and they that know their own minds, are thus required to
begin every contest with a deficit of at least one fourth of the potential pie.

The opposing rangers toxic, enjoy the whole pie as potential, due to chronic lack of intellectual curiosity and a morbid desire on behalf of the populace, to have the shit scared out of them.

This is what we are up against. The last two presidential elections were stolen. It’s no wonder that fact hasn’t been allowed to prevent such an egregious level of fuckery to seep into the periphery of mainstream consciousness.

Stolen. They fucking took them. Doesn’t that scare you? If it doesn’t you are an idiot.

Notwithstanding how predictable and obvious our attitude for such criminality is, the whole thing still makes me want to puke spicy Asian cuisine on the shoes of runway models and amazonian transexuals.

The Dude does not abide. A paradigm shift is essential.

Sometimes, simple isn’t beyond common sense. Sometimes it’s the specific poultice for a general malaise.

Fight fire with fire they say. I just might agree.

The words “World War Three” jettisoned G. Dumbya’s lips the other day.

It occurs to me that if they go there, then so should we. If they want to trot out mushroom clouds, perhaps we ought to as well.

I would never foment such for spite. See, what they shake in our faces as inevitable consequences of liberals somehow prevailing, are the exact consequences to be visited on all of us if they prevail.

Yep. World War and mushroom clouds. They think Iraq is a party.

So, I think we might just want to start fucking talking about that.

See what I’m saying?

“I told her Never in hell, no special reason
Musta lied ’cause I ain’t leavin’
We’re in for a very long night
Heard a vicious rumor from your mama’s tongue
You a desperate woman, need a man with a gun
High crime zone, in the city o’ lights

Baby please, can’t take it anymore
Ah! Baby please, can’t take it anymore- Van Halen “Romeo’s Delight”

Drinks for my friends.

This just off the API and UPI wire, dateline Burbank 10/16 10:56 p.m. EDT:

LEADING MEDIA COMPANY BACKS CONSERVATIVE SOAP OPERA.

A media representative from FOX NEWS spoke under guarantee of
anonymity today and let slip, “One of the big
five will do the reveal soon on a primetime drama with
a story line that reflects more traditional family and
patriotic values than what has become standard fare on
contemporary network television”.

He also intimated that the working title for the
series is “As The World Turns Back To The Right”

A White House spokesperson applauded the move and quipped “The Lord knows and understands that this great nation could certainly use some programming that is both wholesome and rich in violence against brown people as well absent any uh, activities relating to procreation or masturbation”.

He also assured that the planet does indeed, spin left, “if one looks from the top down”.

This reporter had a grip of conversations with all
kinda folks in the business. Caterers, drivers, union
officials and chauffers.

This reporter learned that the protagonist of the
series is an affable dickhead named “Horhay Shrub”. To be
played by George Hamilton, also, an affable dickhead.

Our hero is Mayor and Sheriff of his small backwardass town as well as editor in chief of the local paper. The people, they love him.

There’s always a sidekick, who in grandiose
sitcom tradition, is the occasional antagonist. This
reporter has it on good authority that Ann Coulter
will play the role in drag. As a dude. Her character’s name will be Richard Bruce Coxcunt, Deputy Mayor.

An advisor to the series commented that “Miss Coulter
is a natural. We cut her wig, put her in a man’s suit
and had makeup emphasize that horse apple in the middle of her longish throat while we made sure she used her freakishly simian hands a lot as she delivered her lines. He really is believable”.

Apparently, our hero/protagonist has another trusted friend, who’s
name begins with a K, and will be played by the ghost
of Larry Bud Melman-the late great Calvert DeForest. Little is known about this character but that he sometimes takes over Mr. Shrub’s
brain for fun and profit. Hallowed Beltway chicanery ensues!

This reporter also gleaned a handful of plotlines from
various convenience store clerk/writer-entrepreneurs
around the city. Loose lipped cashiers as it were!

Por Ejemplo mi amigo: Shrub, Dick and K hear rumors at a church
barbecue about an “ethnic” guy across town who buys a
lot of fertilizer that could be converted into weapons
grade yellow nukyalar cake and equally dangerous frosting. They immediately spring into action and commence fomenting distrust and ignorant bigotry on their own block about the other ethnicities and religions across town.

Wait til you see what happens then! That’s only the
pilot!

There’s conflict and passion. The whole story arc of
the very first season is spectacular in it’s breadth.
Lives are lost, neighborhoods are leveled and one
begins to imagine the smoking destruction if the
ethnic people with the crazy religion on the other
side of town continue their obstinate insubordination and defiant willingness to live.

Triumph and then tragedy, as all but the trusted side
kick Dick, abandon our hero Horhay. His weapons
dealer, his lawyer, his Casperesque brain and even his
gardeners and servants walk away.

Then, best bud Dick has a coronary attack so severe
that his organ explodes in chest like a huckleberry
pie packed with C4! Like fireworks with juice!

Even more tragic, this reporter learned that while his chest cavity erupted, Dick was attending a preschool event for his lesbian daughter’s toddler. Sources indicate that the proceedings were some manner of play/pageant and as a result, dozens of little girls were festooned with the Deputy Mayor’s fluids.

By the end of the first season, which is actually the
second, you’ll see, our hero stands alone. All he has
is his own moral compass and his principles. His
steady hand with a six shooter and his conviction.

It is at this, the most crucial of times, that our man
Horhay experiences a crisis of confidence. He finds
himself at a critical crossroads. No longer does the
racket in his ears, formerly pissed in by those who have seen
fit to relenquish him, distract our patriot.

He is a man confronting the dawn with no friends and
all his enemies allied against him. He is afraid. He
is ashen and his lips quiver and spray. His knees buckle as he strolls the once propsperous neighborhood. He simply had
no idea that listening to these fuckheads would bring
him this much grief.

He pinches his nose and walks to the volcano’s edge.
But then, he smirks and walks back, a twinkle in his eye.

The season comes to an end. It’s not TV, It’s
Hammer Of The Gods.

“Some silicone sister with her manager’s mister told
me I got what it takes
She said, “I’ll turn you on, sonny, to something
strong if you play that song with the funky break”
And Go-Cart Mozart was checkin’ out the weather chart
to see if it was safe to go outside
And little Early-Pearly came by in her curly-wurly and
asked me if I needed a ride”-Springsteen.

Drinks for my friends.