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I was in a casino bar in Vegas the other night.  I never used to pretend to play video poker for free drinks.  You can get double Tanqueray martinis for milking five dollars on Jacks or better.  It doesn’t get much better.  So I do that now.  I was with my new boss and he stepped away for a minute.  I didn’t notice the kid sidling up and manning his machine and place at the bar at first.  As soon as I did, I tapped him and told him the seat was occupied and pointed out the half finished hefeweizen.  Apologetic, polite and gracious he was.  We began to chat.  He used the phrase “preciate you now” a few times and I guessed out loud he was from South Carolina.  I was right.  Nice guy.

At some point, politics became a subject.  I don’t doubt it was by my hand or mouth.  By this time my new employer re-emerged and a lively discussion commenced.  The boy (26 years old) rocketed a phrase that shook and shocked me.  I’ve read all about such pronouncements and proclamations but never actually heard them uttered directed at me in person.  Just tossed off.  “So who kills Obama?”, he said.  I wanted to throat punch the skinny little ignorant fuck.  This kid who was so pleasant and unassuming.  You know that feeling when something happens with so much unexpected suddenness it tilts you enough you just can’t behave normally for a time?

He was in town for a NASCAR race not as a spectator, but actually working for a racing team.  Nationwide not sprint.

I decided to continue talking to him and figure out where that cracking lightning bolt of abject ignorance came from.

Turns out he was egregiously uninformed and surrounded by similarly ignorant people.  He had no idea more jobs were created under Obama in two years than under Dumbya in eight.  No idea that the auto industry bailout wasn’t an attempt to nationalize the industry and that most of the money had been paid back or that GM was now healthy in the black.  No idea that TARP was implemented by Bush.  No idea that unions were why he got overtime pay, sick leave and weekends.  No idea that the Tea Party was in no way a grassroots movement but rather funded by those among the very wealthiest in our country.

However brief, it was surreal.  He honestly turned out to be a nice guy.

I just couldn’t stand it.  I needed to understand from whence it came.  I needed to have my suspicions confirmed.  And they were.  He did.  He told me everything I needed to know.  Everything I already knew.  Everything I already understood.  Everything he didn’t know and everything he didn’t understand.   His whole deal was exactly what I assumed it to be.  What’s more, is he was so painfully unsure about what he was saying.  What he was so reflexively repeating.  It was simultaneously awful and affirming at the same time.

Simultaneously awful and affirming.

Awful.  Everything I needed to know.  Everything I already knew.  He was wrong because he didn’t know shit.  He had no idea what the truth was.

I didn’t challenge him, I merely pointed it out.  Without confusion.  Absent any ambiguity.

Affirming because I understood, not for the first time, that the rub was explicit.  Obvious.  Easy.  Convenient.

He’d been manipulated.  Beguiled.  Almost effortlessly bewitched.

The President of The United States is a nigger.  A Muslim.  A socialist.  A communist.  Not one of us.  Not a citizen.  A man with an overt agenda; to destroy America.

That’s what it was and that’s what it is.

As much as I knew that.  As much as I understood that.  As much as I owned that.  Here it came from an otherwise decent and respectable young man’s mouth.  As I spoke with him I began to see it in stark relief.  Somehow, as fair and polite as he was, not even he was able to see his views for what they were.  He was decent and it broke my heart.  I can’t describe how sad it made me.  I was crushed.  He was racist.  By accident but deliberate, through little fault of his own.  By proxy.  He told me he watched Fox and listened to Limbaugh because “…..they tell it like it is and will say what everyone else is afraid to admit.”

He wasn’t able to define socialism or communism when I prodded him with a smile.

America’s greatest threat lies threat lies in it’s own people.  The nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

Fucking ridiculous.

Drinks for my friends.

I’m out of town for a trade show the next few days and couldn’t find something to be pissed off enough to write about and still endeavor to bring a unique perspective.  So, have some more Dracula movie titles.  The objective is absurdity.  I urge you to contribute your own and not fear the abstract.

Dracula can’t help but worry about the towel bar in the bathroom. It appears to sag.

Dracula gets introspective in a heartbeat.

As far as you know, Dracula loves kitties.  What you don’t know is that he loves to eat them.

Dracula feels a solidarity with bed bugs.  Think about it.

Dracula was thinking about the chronic, sweet moist pineapples of ganja, when he snagged the head of his penis in his zipper.

Dracula makes a connection with the clerk at the 7-11 who wears a turban and has a weird wrap around beard.  Then Dracula has an epiphany and feels he can relate to the Jewish people.  It’s not long before Dracula starts to sample various ethnocentric cuisines.

Dracula cold cocks the woman at the toll booth.

Dracula brushes his teeth to TAPS.

Dracula is into hot dogs.  He’ll sample your dog.  Whatever you got.  Dracula likes cheese on just about any dog.  Know that.  Dracula appreciates different textures on a dog.  Bacon, tomato or pickle.  He likes to visit Wienerschnitzel in his favorite black button up shirt with the red stitched pentagram on the breast pocket.  He combs his hair and brushes his teeth and fangs.  Dracula always spots the man in charge and at least makes eye contact.  What Dracula really wants is to make friends with the man in charge.  To shake his hand.  Dracula likes to visit Wienerschnitzels wherever and whenever he finds them.  Dracula’s favorite is the chili cheese dog with mayo, mustard and onion.

Dracula’s car is custom.  Very custom.  Dracula wears the latest shoes and underwear.

Dracula has all stainless steel appliances and his counter tops are all granite.  Not marble.

Dracula absolutely covets old photographs.  It’s not just that he can’t appear in them, he really likes the smell.

Dracula is not ashamed of being bi-sexual.  He identifies with the gays and the straights.  Dracula doesn’t understand the problem.

He really is an easy going guy, Dracula is.

Dracula contemplates the viscosity of the bleu cheese in his bullet hole.

Drinks for my friends.

The goal thus far has been to hit the building across the alley with a flick of my smoked down to the filter cigarette butt.  I’m guessing it’s 25 feet.  Depending on the weather and the wind, I’m batting about 500.  I can over power petite women with my right index finger.

The new objective has become a flick and arc so expertly executed that the butt comes to rest on the window sill of that building directly opposite mine.  I believe this achievement will somehow magically coincide with a degree of prosperity that allows me to once again travel on a private jets to Vegas for no other reason than to eat expensive food, drink expensive liquor and party with loose and suggestible women.  It’s true, I’ve been there and done that.

In the meantime, the regular guy is out sick so I’ll be working the door.

I rarely applaud or speak or perish the thought, tear up at the television.  This last week I’ve found myself doing just that.

I don’t know about you but I’m fascinated and encouraged by events in Wisconsin this last week.  A portent perhaps, in opposition to something wicked which surely this way comes.  I long for this to be the real deal.  We all know the filthy and obscenely wealthy Koch brothers funded the roots of grass that became the tea party.  We should know the Koch brothers are the money behind the the Republican governors actively engaged in union busting in a dozen or more states.  We should be cognizant that it was Koch brother’s vulgar lucre that elected Scott Walker as governor of Wisconsin.  I hope we understand that unions are the very last power and money to stand behind the Democratic middle class and it’s ability to compete with Republican political action committees thanks to the “Citizens United” decision puked up by the Supreme Court late last year.  Thank you Scalia and pubic hair Thomas in particular for signing off on the whole charade.  Without mention of Thomas’ corporatist whore of a wife, thanks be to you two arrogant and conspicuously impeachable assholes for attending and speaking at events sponsored and held by the Koch brother dickheads to promote and implement their viciously avaricious agenda.

As Supreme Court Justices they should be ashamed yet there’s no imperative for them to give a mad fuck.

What chaps my ass is how they sell it.  Like it’s actually good for the mouth breathing great unwashed.  What draws blood from my calloused backside is how anxiously we buy it.

The Koch brothers.  Their own father was a founding member of the John Birch society fer fuck’s sake.  Those asshats were kicked out of the GOP forty years ago but……they’re back.  And the mutual admiration between them and the pee farty hatriots is like watching a pedophile rub one out on a public playground.  They can’t help but be aroused by the empty, unformed minds.  It’s fucking sick.

I’m convinced the Republican intelligentsia is pursuing the remaking of America into a third world country with reckless abandon.  Deregulation and lower taxes my ass, they drive hard and reckless for a one party America with two classes; a ruling elite and a working poor.  Understand that’s where we are.  More money, more power.  This is the fight here and now.  If you don’t realize and understand as much, you’re a goddamn fool.

The events in the Middle East and North Africa…….I mean what’s transpiring in Wisconsin, lends some hope.

It doesn’t get much worse than the here and now.

It may never get better.

There are strange and compelling things afoot at more than the Circle K.  Yeah, not just here, but across the globe.  Or rather not just in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia et al, but here.  See what I’m saying?  Here and now.  The world is teaching us a lesson and for once, we are listening.  Pizza has been ordered from a joint on State Street by folks in some 38 states and at least a handful of countries around the world including Egypt to feed the the non-violent protesters in Madison Wisconsin.  I’m more than a little giddy at the notion that we may be witnessing a revolution by the working class.  It’s about goddamn time.

The concentration of wealth that’s occurred in this country over the last ten years is mind bottling.  Like your mind is a bottle……..work with me here.

70,000 in Madison today and the media is covering it, unlike the anti-war protests of nearly a million people during the run up to the Iraq war when the media could be barely be bothered.  It isn’t so much that all the sudden Democrats and the people are abruptly recalcitrant.  In many ways, they’ve been there the whole time.  Certainly the people have, if not their elected representatives, who too often are so obviously without spine that it’s a wonder their heads don’t drag on the ground behind their legs and asses forcing them to pontificate up and back.  Something has changed.  Not only logic and common sense are on display but there’s an honest to Dog wind of compassion blowing not just through America but the world.  Solidarity and democracy are bursting forth.  And media is engaged.  Paying attention and covering it responsibly.  Or at least in earnest.

Might we have finally arrived at that tipping point so many of us paying attention have been pining for, anticipating, and some of us at least beginning to think might never come?

Fuck the queen, God save the honest, decent and hardworking.  They tell me he helps them that help themselves.

Here and now.

Drinks for my friends.

One big toe looks like a melting tomato with a fang sticking out and the other has an absurdly broken countenance.  I need to afford a podiatrist.

I’m so morbid, I check under the bed in my postage stamp domicile to see eyes on cats open and evidence of breathing.  I adore my cats, I raised them to be aware of world events and be polite.  Consequently they are current events adept and socially immaculate.  I just wish the rest of the world made more sense.

Fear is an astoundingly good force multiplier.

I can’t help but think that the hyper rapid, instantaneous infusion of all available information plays a profoundly deleterious role in the ignorance of the modern American electorate.  All available information means that at least half of that information is crap.  It’s become far more convenient to actually know less while believing we know more.  Social networks and cable news are an insidious culprit in a uniquely American context.  No matter what you’re predisposed to believe or willing to own ideologically, is there to be reinforced and cultivated far more fiercely with the click of a button.

That click might be on the internet or a cable television remote.

If you’re of a particular mind, all you need to do is look for it, and you will be rewarded with real time testimonials from thousands if not millions of like minded dumbasses.

No matter what Obama says or does, there are specifically actionable instructions on how to oppose it; what to say, how to think and where to fear.  Never mind how counterintuitive it so glaringly is.  Nevermind how what they would have you do and say fucks you specifically.  Nevermind.  Pay no attention to the carcass in your living room even though it’s expanding bloat blocks the view of the TV.  Nevermind.

Therein lies the rub.  No need for actual news.  No need for verifiable facts and information.  If you’re an ignorant asshole, you’re no longer alone by a long shot.

To be fair, the opposite is simultaneously true, as evidenced by events in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Yemen, Wisconsin and the portent it all surely represents.  None of these struggles and triumphs had a chance without phenomena such as twitter, facebook etc.  How cool and ironic would it be if Arab countries, Muslim populations,  serve to remind Americans of what the pursuit and sincere maintenance of freedom and liberty actually should look like?

Seriously.  How cool and ironic would that be?

That tells us exactly what they’re so afraid of.  You know, our “they”.

The same technology that just may be our demise, oppressed Arab countries have managed to harness as a formidable engine for fundamental change and justice.  Pretty goddamn cool.

I’m pretty sure now is the time for Canada to invade us.

Or maybe Cuba.

America is the dumbest fucking country in the northern hemisphere.

The only reason America enjoys any respect on the world stage is because of former presidents like Clinton and even Carter.  That and a legacy of goodwill that atrophies before my eyes.  Reagan remains a pungent, lingering shit stain and Dumbya is so much the ever present embarrassment that he can longer travel abroad without a very legitimate threat of arrest for war crimes.  Cheney was actually heckled as a war criminal at the CPAC  prom last week.  Hello.  That tickled my ass with a feather.

The fucktardian right wing is overtly fond of accusing Obama of apologizing for America.  They refuse to acknowledge the we’ve been the biggest dick on the world block for decades.  We’ve literally killed millions around the world in pursuit of  dominance for our corporations and the military industrial complex.  Truth is, we owe an apology.  We actually owe, *gasp*, reparations.  If only we could see ourselves in that mirror.  A mirror that is opaque for so many Americans because so many are so blissfully unaware of what we’ve been up to and so many more are so willfully ignorant.

It all comes down to the same thing it always has.  Personal responsibility.  Intellectual curiosity and accountability.  People must still have their own minds.  People need to understand that their own minds are the most important thing they have.  Now more than ever, Americans must think for themselves.  Who sane among us believes that current middle eastern upheaval is fomented by the left wing in America?  That it’s some socialist/communist agenda propagated by liberals?  Glenn Beck.  Rush Limbaugh.  Various other idiots.  Ha.  It’s profoundly and egregiously ridiculous.  The impetus for it all is glaringly conspicuous.  Wholesale paranoia and consummate fear of any genuine change in or for our very own homegrown plutocracy.

It’s all grassroots these days.  It’s all ball bearings these days.

Fear is one helluva serious force multiplier.

Last I heard, America was supposed to be the stalwart, the bulkhead, against aggression.

Yeah, right.  Yeah write!

Instead we stand by while they wage war on the planet and our environment, our people and every other people.

It’s why we suck.  It’s why we are no longer able to lead by example or might.  We’ve reached the point where we are a mere parody of our former selves.  A nation of shepherds reduced to sheep.

Sorry kids, we are a joke that keeps getting funnier and the world is starting to laugh with abandon.

If you’re not embarrassed, you’re not paying attention.

I am disgusted.

Drinks for my friends.

So today is my birthday. I received literally hundreds of happy wishes from FB friends and I am humbled. Really, I’m startled and stunned. Thank you so much all of you. To my personal friends, and you know who you are, thank you so much but I don’t have time to respond to all of you so I hope my thanks here is enough.  I don’t like most of you but love all of you.  I love you all so much that I’m going to share some Dracula titles with you. My close friends will understand and the rest of you will be confused. The joke, for those of you not in the know, is very simple. Potential titles for new Dracula films. We’ve been doing this for 25 years. We even give them as Christmas gifts.

AT FIRST GLANCE, DRACULA APPEARS AS HAPPY AS A PIG IN A POKE.

IN THE INTEREST OF PROFESSIONAL DECORUM, DRACULA SHAKES THE TONER CARTRIDGE BEFORE COMPLAINING THE COPIER IS OUT OF INK.

DRACULA SMASHES EVERY BUD VASE HE EVER ENCOUNTERS ON THE FUCKING SPOT.

DRACULA THINKS HE LOOKS COOL BRANDISHING A BILLOWING, AROMATIC BLUNT WHILE SHOOTING NINE BALL AT THE LOCAL YOUTH CENTER.

DRACULA SLATHERS HIS COCK WITH A1 SAUCE BEFORE CALLING THE TOLL FREE JAMAICAN PSYCHIC.

DRACULA RELAXES WITH MACRAME, KIDDIE PORN AND WATERMELON SMOOTHIES SPIKED WITH GREY GOOSE.

DRACULA MAINTAINS A FEELING OF FRESHNESS BY SWIPING HIS ASS CRACK WITH BLISTEX.

DRACULA GRINS IMMACULATELY UPON FURNISHING THE MIDGET CHILDREN WITH YO YOs.

DRACULA LIVES IN MORTAL FEAR OF EARWIGS AND LOBSTERS, YET HE STILL EATS EARWIGS.

DRACULA COOKS WITH TONGS. DRACULA ONLY COOKS WITH MOTHERFUCKING TONGS.

WHEN DRACULA WAS A BOY, HE LONGED TO BE A COWBOY BECAUSE HE WAS SO ENCHANTED BY THE FRINGED BUCKSKIN WARDROBE THEY FAVORED.

WHENEVER THE OPPORTUNITY PRESENTS ITSELF, DRACULA DINES WEARING WHITE GLOVES, A GARISH PINKY RING AND YOUR MOTHER’S BEST HOOP EARRINGS.

DRACULA COVETS PUSHING THE ENVELOPE BY TIPPING OFF THE FCC THAT HE’S ABOUT TO CALL RUSH LIMBAUGH AND USE SEXUAL INNUENDO AS METAPHOR TO DISTRACT THE DRUG ADDLED FAT FUCK INTO STUMBLING OVER HIS OWN WORDS WHILE FORCING HIM TO ADMIT HIS PENIS IS NO BIGGER THAN A THIMBLE AND HE WANTS NOTHING MORE THAN TO ENJOY THE CHARMS OF A COMELY YOUNG SOUTHEAST ASIAN ADOLESCENT BOY DRESSED AS HIS VERY OWN GRANDMOTHER.

DRACULA CAN’T WRAP HIS BRAIN AROUND WHY THE EXCELLENT SUGARY PASTE IN THE MIDDLE OF OREO COOKIES ISN’T SOLD AND MARKETED BY THE QUART IN GIANT OPAQUE TUBS.

DRACULA PINES AND LAMENTS. PINES AND LAMENTS.

DRACULA CONSIDERS SUPERGLUE TO BE HUMANITY’S FINEST HOUR, SECOND ONLY NASA’S APOLLO PROGRAM AND THE POST-IT-NOTE.

DRACULA WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO CHANGE HIS NAME TO MARCUS.

Happy birthday to me. Thank you all. I hope I’ve offended you.

Drinks for my friends.

I guess if you read Twain, you’re inclined to think things have always been this crazy.  Perhaps they have.   I mean most of the things he had to say are totally applicable and completely in context for and of contemporary society.

I remember this episode of Bewitched where Samantha Stevens, pre-adolescent fantasy that she was, conjured Ben Franklin up and into the then modern world.  It’s a scenario that has persisted with me since.  I still drive clogged Los Angeles freeways thinking about explaining modern life and society to someone like Benjamin Franklin.  Like I’m in my Audi doing 75 miles an hour or 25 depending on time of day and how he’d be frightened by one speed and terrified by the other.  Or how I’d discuss current affairs with him and he’d be nonplussed on one hand but full to bursting with sagacity on the other.

If I could indeed reanimate a founding father like Jefferson or Adams or Franklin, I wonder how horrified would they be.  I’m anxious about how fascinated and in awe of technology they would surely be.  I’m really enchanted by the idea of exposing them to it and explaining it.  I wonder and would obviously covet the view they would have of our world today.  I can’t shake that.  It would be so cool.

What would they have to say about a woman’s right to choose?  What would they make of the conflict between a woman being able to choose her own life over that of her unborn fetus being influenced by a physician with archaic religious beliefs?

Despite all the absolute crap fomented by the religious right to the contrary, proof in thick tapioca pudding is clear that we were not born in any sense of the word, a Christian nation.  These dudes were smart and aware of the dangers therein.  They knew beyond the endorsement or adaptation of any particular denomination or specific set of beliefs that most of it not all of it was quite likely bullshit and the biggest mistake would be to go there at all.  Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you as evidence of thus, the first amendment to the Constitution of These United States:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So Reagan’s centennial is being championed and celebrated.  The Gipper stumbled over his own pudenda not for the first or last time.

“To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.” – Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States

No shit, Ronnie got it wrong.  One of the few reasons righty zealots are so goddamn in love with him even though he wouldn’t last a day in tea bagger hell or heaven.

Reagan was wrong.  It was written to protect the people from religious tyranny.  They wrote that very thing because they’d just had their asses cheese gratered by religious tyranny and intolerance and discrimination and profoundly unfair judgment and bias and bullshit based entirely on righteous indignation and divine entitlement and the like.

Ronald Reagan was a clueless dickhead whether you’re liberal or conservative.  I don’t doubt he had Alzheimer’s in office.  I love to point out how gay the conservatives are for Reagan despite how politically incorrect it is because they all are gay for him, yet they hate homosexuals.  There’s just a chili, lime bittersweet and therefore irresistible irony there.

He raised taxes 11 times.  He presided over 10.8% unemployment after the one tax break he was so lionized for.  Government spending, deficits and over all size erupted like the bowels of a fat drunken redneck 90 minutes after a six pack of chili cheese dogs with mayonnaise, mustard and onions.  Then there was Iran contra; 14 convictions and more pardons than blow and vodka confused hookers and porn stars on Charlie Sheen’s birthday.  He vetoed comprehensive anti-apartheid legislation and was efficaciously complicit in the creation Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, the latter casting a lethal pall over foreign relations that may yet end in nuclear nightmare.  Arguably most egregious in terms of legacy, is the culture of deregulation and dismissal of accountability on behalf of  big corporations, industry and financial institutions that ended up as catalyst for the worst global recession in history, an avaricious precipitation to power of a world plutocracy and the consignment to oblivion of the American middle class.  And by the way, he didn’t do shit for “Family Values” or social conservative causes much less those espoused by Teabagger blowhards.  They would have run Sharron Angle against him today.

The guy wasn’t just an idiot, he was an asshole.

But I digress.  Puh.

The madness continues.

Enter HR. 358.

Again the irony.  Introduced by some Republican dickhead from Pennsylvania Joe Pitts (big surprise) and called “The Protect Life Act”.

It would grant hospital emergency rooms and doctors the legal right to refuse an emergency abortion to save the life of a mother and subtract the existing obligation to send the mother to a facility that would perform the procedure to save the mother’s life as exists under current law.  They began by attempting to redefine rape as essentially only occurring if the female victim had obvious signs of having the shit beaten out of her (HR.3).  I understand that died on the vine just like some fetuses do.

But still:

The Pitts bill effectively turns all hospitals into arms of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  In other words, your health care is now fully subject to fundamentalist religious ideology.

The so-called Protect Life Act is one of a slew of pieces of legislation that seek to effectively ban abortion in the United States, establish personhood of fertilized eggs, and outlaw contraception.

In short: Fertilized eggs are people; women are not.  -RH reality check.org

Fucking Catholics are the last people who should have say in anything.  Evil hypocrites.  Phony disingenuous bastards.  Hopelessly dishonest and willfully self delusional.  I loathe Catholicism.  I’d like to think I hate all religions equally, but I hold them to a lower standard in particular.

Much of the language is based on the now infamous Bart Dickcheese “Stupak Amendment” and co-sponsored by all the usual suspects like Bachmann,  Bachus, Barton, Broun, Gohmert, McClintock, McCotter, Paul (of Ron), Pence,  and Sessions.  I doubt a more ridiculous cavalcade of stars has ever joined the national parade of mental invalids.

How much more proof do you assholes need about the difference between Democrats and Republicans?  Let me know how I can help because I’m sick to puking with your incessant whining.  Oh yeah, Democrats are fucked up too but shut the hell up.  No Democrat would ever take it upon itself to introduce or sponsor such vaingloriously abominable legislation.  Nope.  No fucking way.

Drinks for my friends.

There’s no wind in the alley between my building and the next one over.  I can flick a butt and hit it.

It sails downward but sparks against the brick on the other side.

The least I can do.

I wish I could spit that far.  With volume and velocity befitting a camel.

I’m on the ninth floor.

I’m sick of the view.

I walked it the other night and it was insane.  So many flower vendors just southeast of here with funeral wreaths out front so I wondered about the amount of death.  I passed a few shelters with men my age smoking cigarettes.  That was odd.  You see more people smoking in public downtown LA than any other place I’ve ever been.  I read a book once I liked  called “Everybody Smokes In Hell”.  I was looking for a bottle of gin.  The crappiest liquor store I’ve ever been in just south of 8th on San Pedro.  No credit cards, cash only.  An elaborately worn ATM.  I didn’t buy the hooker on a bike who offered to suck my paste despite her nice big ass.  I wanted to get home for the state of the union speech.  Pink, blue and golden twilight.

Downtown LA is weird about hooch.  It’s either behind the counter or locked behind glass requiring the assistance of a salesperson with a key.  I ended up with some Seagrams.  It’s over flavored like a diet soda in a creepy urine hued, mottled bottle.  I like Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray but I’m not affording that these days.

Sometimes, I hate everything.

“…..There’s nothing on earth that can’t be improved by adding either Jesus or Bacon……Sarah Palin knows fewer words than Koko the gorilla” -Bill Maher

I’m broke but today I treated myself to a tuna melt on rye and an iced tea at this little diner on my block.  I splat a pool of ketchup on the plate for dipping.  There’s just no denying the excellence of ketchup as a sauce.  Catsup; which spelling do you prefer?   I really enjoy eating out.  I’ve found that a sandwich is almost always better if someone else makes it for you.  I’m pretty good about making sure I have something to read.  I carry a book and or magazines in my briefcase sometimes for months.  They’re like unopened presents until I’ve read them cover to cover.

I like how crime fighters on TV can commandeer cars from innocent citizens.  They used to do that a lot more, at least on TV.  Events always seem to climax in cemeteries, shopping malls, churches or banks.  People diving for cover as the chase commences and opposing forces brandish and discharge weapons.  Television would have us know that all cops and criminals are in Olympic shape but can’t shoot worth shit.

I like A1 Sauce on fries and eggs with feta, cherry tomatoes and green onions.

Sometimes I wonder how much longer I can be interested in life when life doesn’t seem to be interested in me.

What scares me the most these days is revision of history.  From the word nigger being removed from one of our most famous of tomes to the Bachmann  full up past the calf planting a foot fat pump in a runny shit deal.  Sheezus.  She tried to sell that the founding fathers eliminated slavery.  While she stared hard at the wrong camera.  Pukes of plenty going straight after history.  I know it’s old news at this point but don’t let it get lost on you, this woman is an idiot.  I think Meghan McCain called her something like the poor man’s Sarah Palin last week.

I love these bitches of the right but they make me sad for women in general.  What I’m trying to say is that I adore women but loath these two in particular…..but I love them for the comedic fodder they unwittingly supply.  Because they are stupid.  I love these two because they keep proving just how goddamn dumb they are but one quarter of the people still adore them no matter what.  I love them in the most cynical of ways because they are so inexcusably dumb.  I love the people that love them because they are no different and that’s why they are there.

My love is conditional.  Stupid is as stupid does or I won’t love either of them anymore.  I want them to remain dipshit, deer in the headlights, clueless.

Drinks for my friends.

Friday night, watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann I heard and saw him announce it would be his last show.

“There were many occasions, particularly in the last two and a half years, where all that surrounded the show, but never the show itself, was just too much for me,” -Keith O

Mental double take.

Then a half triple. I was only trying to keep my cat’s butt away from my drink.  That’s all.

I first discovered Keith Olbermann six or seven years ago on the internet, before the birth of brainspank.  Youtube I think.  Special Comments if I remember right.

I was in awe of his ferocious conviction and adroit articulation.  This guy says what I think better than I can, I thought.

Since then, people have said the same to me and about me and it’s always occasion for my own humility.

There has been no greater influence on my writings and style than Mr. Olbermann, save for the somewhat more existential specter of Hunter S. Thompson.

It goes without saying that I am saddened and dismayed.

I’m kinda pissed off.

I bet he would have said fuck a lot if he could.

I was fond of thinking of Keith as Edward R. Murrow but understood it was intellectually dishonest because Murrow was, out of necessity and protocol, far more impartial and absent an agenda.  Yet Murrow didn’t have a faux new agency like Fox News to contend with.  Indeed, the rise of MSNBC was doubtless possible in a big way because of Fox News.  The appropriate analog might be of Walter Cronkite in the context of the Nixon administration and the Vietnam war.  I’m old enough to remember the the musty smell of vacuum tubes and the visage of Cronkite on the black and white Zenith console television.  I’d like to think I remember Cronkite declaring that the Vietnam war was “unwinnable”.  I remember Apollo moon shots.  It coulda happened.

Lies propagated by the the media now are on a scale that Murrow and Cronkite would not have even been able to comprehend.  Prolific, profligate and insidious.

According to Politico, Lawrence O’Donnell will be filling the slot.

Rachel Maddow was on Real Time and had nothing to say.  Bill Maher didn’t hesitate calling bullshit on it.

I hear there was a four year contract two years still fresh.  They fired him.  Anyone seen Zucker?  They fired him.

Yes, Keith Olbermann was ostentatiously guilty for various forays into hyperbolic invective.  Still, he never failed to illuminate.  He never failed to tell the goddamn truth.  The fucking truth.  And with a confident hand, established the identity of what was a callow flailing would be cable news network.  America was in need of it.  Fearless, daredevil courage with unmitigated honesty and some sloppy catcalls were the fuel for his rocket.

I’ll bet he’s a dick.  I’m sure he is unless he likes you.

It should be noted that he was suspended in November in part for his campaign contribution to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords; she of the remarkable recovery so far of a bullet through the head.

“The man who sees absolutes where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning is either a prophet or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.” -Keith O

Don’t doubt for a minute that it was the fight he fought that led to his walking away.  He probably tipped out the door as he was getting axed.  Out the door of a house that he built.

The very vacuum of intel or reason obviates events as they are being described.  Comcast’s acquisition of all things NBC is a cheeseburger and a road map to Keith Olbermann’s departure.  COO of Comcast Stephen B. Burke, a ‘Bush Ranger’, raised at least $200k for Bush in ’04.  -Democraticunderground.com

Burke is definitely a dick and we all may be in trouble.

Keith Olbermann spoke truth to power.  It was his specialty.  He took obvious delight in it.  I crap you negative when I tell you that’s why he’s gone.

I am sad.  He was by no means perfect.  But he filled the holes left gaping by progressive passivity with righteous anger and he will be missed.  We needed him and we still do.  He’s a champion.  I’m waiting to see how MSNBC intends to do better.  O’Donnell is quite good but it’s hardly the show or the spectacle that Olbermann masterminded over the last eight years.  Respect him much for the firebrand he is but understand that he’s pretty damn funny and an intuitive master of ceremonies.

This is stupid.  It was my favorite show on television.  I hated it when he had guest subs.  But I like them all now.

Crap false equivalency between the O’Reillys, the Hannitys and the Limbaughs as opposed to the Olbermanns, the Maddows or the O’Donells these days.  Bullshit.  The difference is elementary.  The former pursues an evil agenda with lies and obfuscation and the latter pursues an agenda with truth and clarity.  Yes they both get carried away.  Get over it.  I mean, they shoot horses don’t they?

“Moral? It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers,” -Thurber via Olbermann

“Good night and good luck,”

Drinks for my friends.

I like her. I can’t help it.

She’s just so bold.  Brash.  Fearless.  She calls ’em like she sees ’em and she’s just so authentically American.

I like how big politicians don’t intimidate her.

All the Republicans fear her.

And she’s a fighter.  Not afraid of a dust up.  Never walks away from a fight or even entertains the notion of apologizing.  She’s got a winning smile and a pit bull wit.  A folksy, classy charisma.  When she enters the room, she controls the oxygen.  I’ve only ever seen her on the TV but you can see people running out of air.  And you can see other folks all puffy with too much of the air.

She doesn’t care about the status quo.  She’s got talent and she’s not embarrassed to know she’s right.  She says and does unpopular things but she knows she’s right.  I admire her certainty.

She has moxie and confidence.

She could be our next President of The United States.  She’s running you know.  They keep showing her dodging the question.  I think she’s just being coy.  Noncommittal.  But I heard her say it tonight.  I think.  On the TV.

There was a Vanity Fair article about fifteen years ago where she said she liked having her hair pulled while she got fucked in the ass.

Roseanne Barr.

Drinks for my friends.

My best friend tells me he’s always thought of me as Spiderman.

The other day I was on my way to work and my car died one lane right of the fast lane just past Coldwater heading west on the 101 to Calabasas from downtown.  Rush hour like it can only be in Los Angeles on her freeways.  Traffic came to a stop and so did my ten year old Audi.  My car died so silently it took me a minute to understand I was dead in the water.

I don’t do helpless very well.

There I was paying my cell phone bill so I could dial 911 as I sat in morning rush hour traffic at a dead halt.  Tires literally screaming to a stop behind me while I listened for myself on the radio for my fifteen minutes of fame as the latest asshole foolishly attempting to commute in a jalopy destined for mechanical failure in the human race to process the grist.

To say it sucked would be my personal contribution of understatement for the new year.

Eyes glued to the mirrors.  I watched them swerve recklessly.  They came to a stop behind me and hesitated too much in trying to steer around me.  They came upon me suddenly and slid to a stop.  They careened.  They cursed and blared horns.  I didn’t dare do any damn thing but sit there in neutral with my seat belt on.  I “fingered” them as they jerked around me to speed by.  I knew I wasn’t out of gas.  I knew my battery was good.  I understood that whatever had happened was most likely serious as in seriously expensive.

Turned out that was true.

Timing belt.

A $60 part.

When the timing belt gives up on a fairly expensive German car, the valves tend to bend themselves in the confusion and chaos.  Can’t just tow it because it’s all wheel drive.  Gotta have a flatbed.

Took the free freeway service about 45 minutes to even show up.  He sat on the shoulder and gestured at me to put my car in neutral and stay strapped in.  I did my best to gesture back that I understood and that I already had.  So the tow truck appears and I tell him he can’t do anything more than get me off to the side because I’m basically four wheel drive and he’ll do more harm than good if we go any further.  He left me on the side of the freeway to wait for a flatbed.  I had ample time to reflect upon when I had money and a warranty.

The free freeway service guy insisted upon pouring a gallon of gas in my tank and trying to jumpstart me.  I let him even though I knew it was futile.  He told me it was maybe two hours wait for a flatbed and pointed out that it was a pretty nice day.  He said at least it’s not raining.  I lit a smoke and examined the early morning freeway architecture.  The sun was bright, fat and glared hard.  The wind blew and I was was one of those poor fucks you see on the side of the road with a hopeless look on their face.  Ever been in that scenario where you know you’re completely upside down and it’s just about waiting for it to play out to a worse case inevitability?

I get to the repair shop and they confirm it will be thousands of dollars.  Thousands that I don’t have.  They tell me it could take five days.  I take some minutes to remember times when I had money and how this would have merely pissed me off.  I spend less time realizing that although I’ve managed to gain back some self sufficiency, my ass is still broke.  I think hard and begin to call anyone I know who has money and think about the losers who owe me money.  There is one woman who owes me enough to buy a pretty good used car.  More than enough to pay for this shit.  That woman will pay me if it’s the last thing I ever do or she ever does.

I worked it out.  I can’t say how save for some people think I’m worthwhile.  I turned onto a few dead ends before that.  It was pretty ugly.  Heart fracturing and skull crunching.

I tried to understand how it could have been worse.  I just came over the Sierras a week ago and it would have been a nightmare then.  White knuckle driving anyway.  Had it happened then and there, in the wind and snow, well, that would’ve tested me.  I’m agnostic so I have no business praying.

A few days prior to this nightmare cape, I obtained my medical marijuana recommendation from a certified and official physician.  Told him I had insomnia and carpal tunnel I thought from playing the drums.  They gave me some important looking letter sized certificate with a gold seal and for an extra nominal fee, an official ID card.  I didn’t have  to pay for any of it.  Employment perk.

I rented a Hyundai.  I don’t have an actual credit card but the owner of the shop put his card down for me.  How cool is that?  For what it’s worth, the dealership quoted the job at $6,600.  I sped away in my silver automatic Hyundai.  Is it Korean?  It only has 17,000 miles on it.  The radio is lit blue.  The AM reception is excellent.  I like blue lights.  The repair shop told me it would be about half as much as the dealer quoted.  The torque of the Hyundai is glaringly anemic.

I did my best to have a lemons into lemonade afternoon.  I had a late lunch at a place in Hollywood I used to adore.  Excellent gravy for the noodles.  I went to a dispensary for my first time to buy some green leafy medicine.  It was warm.  An almost hot day in the middle of January.  I couldn’t stop thinking about my yesteryear tiny apartment in the Hollywood hills.  The view and the Fish moving in with me and then the Bean.  A wonderful woman and a magnificent feline.  Simpler times.

The Bean died prematurely and The Fish dumped me after ten years.

All I want is for things to be simpler and enough money for when they get more complicated.  I can’t stand when things are beyond my control.  I hate not being able to impose my will in my own life.  I’m pretty good at what I do and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do it again after a few really long, challenging years.  It’s still pretty jacked up.  I need to see a dentist and a doctor.  I drove the silver Hyundai to Walmart to pick up my prescriptions.  It’s too far but they’re so cheap with the pharmaceuticals.   Thirteen bucks as opposed to thirty five anywhere else.

Yeah well I understand I’m feeling sorry for myself.

But I think about all these people with all these cars.  One smog certification or check engine light away from living on the street after that car stops dead.  After it’s only movement is because of gravity or a tow truck.  How many like that?  Poverty is up.  The new normal.  Buy stock in Ramen noodles.  One or two more rivets pop in this economy and we’re flirting with a tsunami.  I could be learning to grow vegetables in the harsh northern Nevada climate by spring.

I wonder about buying gold.  Gas is way up.  Write your congressman.  Make him tired of you.

Today I learned that my base salary was to be doubled and a bonus structure was being implemented that would remunerate me for what I know how to do well.  I sell stuff.  I’m good at it.  I’m old enough to understand that taking anything for granted is foolish.  I’m not prevented however, from feeling pretty damn good about today and my efforts not going unnoticed.  I’m grateful, but I earned it.  Humility and confidence are not mutually exclusive.

It was that kind of day that only southern California affords.  Gorgeous and warm.  Spring in the middle of winter.  And my new employer gave me the chance to show my stuff a few months ago.  I showed it and they recognized it.  Today they showed me.  On top of it all, I’m being payed to write.

I wish all of you the kind of day I had today.

Drinks for my friends.

Remain calm.

Everybody just take a breath.

Look people, the guy was blind shithouse nuts.

These days they tend to blame homicidal crazy on video games or movies or Satan worship.  When I was a kid they blamed Dungeons & Dragons, rock and roll or Satan worship.

I really don’t care what they discover about this guy.  It simply doesn’t matter if they discover he ritualistically rubbed one out every morning at dawn to Sarah Palin or had a bedroom festooned with Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter paraphernalia.  He did what he did because he was fucking crazy.  Sometimes life and death is precisely that random.  Get over it.  It sucks but get over it.

Sorry, it’s not Sarah Palin’s fault.

I reserve the right to advance the theory that she’s a stupid, albeit brilliantly opportunistic bitch but, can’t hang this one on Caribou Barbi.

The callow and feckless eruption by short attention span circus of 24 hour media to somehow define or even refute his actions based on some political calculus is just ridiculous.  Hinckley and Chapman were profoundly disturbed whack jobs and so is Jared Loughner.  It is what it is.

It’s our fault.

For being sheeple.  For being aloof.  For being oblivious.

Kinda.

The lesson here, the takeaway if you will, is that we have to figure out how to keep guns away from crazy fuckers.  And I dare anyone to justify for any regular citizen, much less an aspiring candidate for the booby hatch, to be able to purchase, possess and wield a goddamn Glock with a magazine of thirty rounds.    Shut up uncle F and cousin R or Ted Nugent, no one’s looking to compromise your often absurdly interpreted 2nd amendment rights.  That is, unless your certifiably insane.

We are the most thoroughly armed citizenry in the world.  90 guns for every hundred of us.  We kill more of each other and ourselves with guns and wound more of each other and ourselves with guns than anyone else.  We don’t let children play with matches but we consistently allow the obviously disturbed among us to compile virtual arsenals so that the arguably stable among us might have our own armories?  For what?  Fuck me.  This is unimaginably stupid.

And it keeps happening.  Over and over.

The hold that the gun lobby, the NRA, has over American policy is vulgar and despicable.  They prevent sensible regulation of any kind by scaring every gun hobbyist into thinking that the government wants their guns in order to be able to enslave them.  It’s a distraction and it’s a lie.  The war against us is being waged on an economic field that has no chance of being level, or fair, or commensurate, or equitable and so they are winning.  They count on guns and religion to be a distraction, a placebo, an opiate, for the genuine fuckery they are getting away with everyday.

Twenty two cents per bullet.  Per victim.

And it keeps happening.

Over and over.

Give it three to nine months and it will happen again.  Hold your breath, it could be next week.  It happens everyday fer fuck’s sake.  Maybe no one famous will be a target or die.  But people will lose their lives without ever seeing it coming.  Yup.  Count on it.  And count on the media to ask all the wrong questions and count on the rest of us throwing our hands up in dismay and horror.  Gobsmacked.  Count on it.  Count on war and man’s inhumanity to man.  No bookie in his right mind would ever lay odds on it.  No casino would ever get in on this action.  It’s as inevitable as death and taxes.

Maybe next time it will be political.  A mosque or an abortion doctor.  What’s the difference?  Anyone who would take it upon themselves to commit such an atrocity is mind bendingly absent any sense or decency.

Round and round she goes, where she stops, everyone knows.

Yeah yeah, if we severely restrict gun ownership then only criminals will have guns.  Bullshit.  We can do this and still let our half suspicious but still well intentioned relatives keep their stupid penis aggrandizing firesticks.

Humanity has never been a match for technology when it copulates with violence.

Look at it this way, we killed at least a hundred thousand innocent civilian Iraqis for no good reason whatsoever.

Context is a bitch.

How do we like us now?

What exactly is “crazy”?

Drinks for my friends.

In my very last blog I wrote, “Yes, racism is still breathing giant lungfuls of air in America.”

I meant it.

In order to confront racism realistically and efficaciously, it’s essential to realize it’s inherent.  Yeah, that’s gonna leave a mark.  Gonna be pretty controversial.  Gonna piss some of you off.  Kinda analogous to how so many of us believe in monogamy while we know that the imperative of procreation has been hardwired into us by the impetus of survival long before we became “civilized”.  I don’t proffer my theory as an excuse for either manifestation.  It is what it is.

We are after all, animals.  Mammals.  Human beings last but not least.

All that separates us is not reason but art.  Creativity.  That’s big.

Racism is not and never has been the exclusive province of the majority. We are all tribal.  Yes, as instinct it’s obsolete.  As a world view, it’s archaic.  As  dogma, it’s evil.  The object is therefore to look inside ourselves, recognize it, and with vigor an indefatigable consistency endeavor to mitigate it.  We owe it to ourselves to do so.  It’s a moral imperative.

I’m completely confident upon witnessing anyone declare themselves free of racism, that I’m in the presence of a liar.

It’s lamentable to observe that far too many subscribe to and practice bigotry and chauvinism without consciously meaning to.  There is however, no one to blame but the self for a lack of self awareness.  ‘Some of my best friends are homos’.  See what I’m saying?  That shit is bullshit.

I know and have known many otherwise good people who are or were embarrassingly guilty of being indefensibly racist.  Willfully ignorant jackasses.  A few are uncles, some were friends.  As much affection as I have or had for them, they are completely without excuse, much less reason.  To be sure, particularly in the case of relatives, they have deliberately limited experience with anyone different.  Not of their own tribe.  I don’t doubt they have done themselves an odious disservice.  I know they weren’t raised that way.

Why is it that the most self proclaimed God fearing ‘family values’ pontificating assholes are most often the most shameless and frighteningly prideful in their backward ass views and beliefs?

Fear.

Fear is a great force multiplier.

I’m afraid of cancer and car accidents.  Not so much vampires and snot oozing swamp creatures.  There’s plenty to be afraid of.

I grew up among my own kind.  White people who loved God or pretended to by worshiping at least semi regularly.  Thereby absolving themselves of any and every indiscretion, be it sexual deviance, financial malfeasance, discrimination, hubris, avarice and/or substance abuse.

I’m agnostic.

Fear is the shared, pervasive malaise of every specie on this planet and probably the entire universe.

If we were able to exert control over our own fears, I don’t doubt we’d be much better off.  Instead we exert control over our own facts.

Fear of humans different than one’s self is a convenient and lazy one, especially in contemporary society.  It requires little effort.  There is precedent and tradition easily relied upon.  As Americans we have a rich tradition of slavery, discrimination and insensitivity.  A commodious litany of among other things industry to justify our own special brand of hate, prejudice and fear.  It’s a little too easy for the unenlightened in this country to embrace nonsensical bullshit by branding it nostalgic.

It’s kinda what pisses me off the most.  It’s too goddamn easy.  Dipshits that think nothing of appearing in public hoisting a likeness of our president with a bone through his nose.  How simple are you if this your fear and how you choose to communicate it to whomever you might encounter including national television?  Paint loser on your forehead backwards so you’re able to read it in a mirror.

Fuck you.

This brings us to what I really wanted to talk about.  The soon to be published version of Huckleberry Finn with the word “slave” replacing the word “nigger”.

I’m a huge fan of Mark Twain or Samuel Clemens.  His work is still so very powerful and subtle.  Elegant and witty.  Sublime.  I’m absolutely sure he knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to use such an egregious slur over two hundred times in what is perhaps his most seminal work.  To edit it in any way is an artistic delictum.  There is no one, despite any scholarly qualification, with the right or privilege to alter the work of any artist alive or dead save for an editor or producer at the time of completion with obvious consent.

The dehumanization of the word slave is not as vile as the dehumanization of the the word nigger?

It’s a sterilization.  An unnecessary compromise.  A muting of the intended impact from a genius who sought to teach us with what he knowingly understood to be brutal honesty.   I loath that the work in question has been redacted from curriculum ubiquitous since it’s initial distribution for that very word.  Tough shit.  It’s the truth about the way it was and maybe the real rub is about how it really still is.

We have a president that at least one of my own uncles has admitted that his problem is that he’s a nigger.  He’s not alone.  Nevermind that he’s half white.  I’ll never look at that uncle the same way.  He’ll forever be a punk in my mind.

We distrust anyone but our own for no good reason.

Time to get over it.

Long since.

Drinks for my friends.

I’ve been away on a grueling, albeit rewarding, business trip for the last handful of days and therefore involuntarily blacked out from news and all things political.

I first got wind in an airport bar late the other night.  I welled up a little while reading the crawl at the bottom  of the screen as I nursed my double Hendrick’s on ice.  I smiled to myself.

What I had begun to regard as nearly impossible actually happened.

The opportunity for reason to take pride in my country has been fleeting of late.

On  December 18 2010, the senate voted 65 to 31 to repeal the efficaciously ludicrous policy of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’.

Wow.

LBGT  equality is the defining civil rights issue of contemporary American society.  The obstreperously obstinate opposition to them by Senators John McCain and Kyl  will forever define them as archaic, absurd and obsolete at least in my mind.  Poster codgers if you will, for what’s wrong with this country and it’s most esteemed deliberative body.  Further proof that bigotry and intolerance are and will inevitably be mitigated and forever eroded by social and emotionally intellectual evolution.  If you’re a frequent reader here, you’re familiar with this theme.

Then there’s this asshole in Virginia:

“It’s a distraction when I’m on the battlefield and have to concentrate on the enemy 600 yards away and I’m worried about this guy whose got eyes on me,” the lawmaker, Delegate Bob Marshall (R), told WUSA9. “If I needed a blood transfusion and the guy next to me had committed sodomy 14 times in the last month I’d be worried.” -TPM

Yeah dude, you know how fags and dykes want, can and do ass rape or molest every other human being, regardless of sexual orientation, age or degree of consent, godless heathens that they are.  As opposed to good Christians who never even entertain the notion of fucking anyone or anything they are forbade by their god to fuck or fondle.  As an unapologetic heterosexual, I say to you Mr. Marshall, blow me.  You ridiculous self righteous goofcock.

Yes, racism is still breathing giant lungfuls of air in America.  Not just racism, but nationalism, chauvinism, jingoism, discrimination, misogyny and an abject systemic sclerosis still enjoy way too much gravity and far too many headlines but it is all in a state of atrophy.  Dinosaurs like McCain, Kyl and Marshall are just that.  Soon to be political fossils for us to study and learn what went wrong and why they didn’t evolve and subsequently survive.

They push as hard as they do, they insist so adamantly and vehemently, because they see the writing on the wall.  They refuse to own their own their mutually assured extinction even though their reptilian oblongatas recognize it and instinctually scream for the cortex to do some goddamn thing.  Anything.  And that is why as a group, they so often appear to be such complete fucking idiots.

Jeff Sessions’ opinion on the 111th congress:

“I think it was a disaster” -Countdown With Keith Olbermann

Idiot.

A reporter for CNS News had the temerity to ask Barney Frank about military personnel showering with homosexuals:

“Showering with homosexuals! What do you think happens in gyms all over America? What do you think happens in the House of Representatives?”  “What, what, what do you think goes  wrong when  people shower with homosexuals? Do you think it’s the spray makes it catching?”  “………..I mean, uh, we don’t get ourselves dry-cleaned.” -examiner.com

Loves me some Barney Frank.

I adored Obama’s pride and elation upon signing it today.  “This is done”, he said, pounding his hand on the desk.  Change we can believe in indeed.

“For we are not a nation that says, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ ” Obama told 500 guests at a signing ceremony at the Interior Department. “We are a nation that says, ‘Out of many, we are one.’ ” -politico44

The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is an authentic manifest.  Significant like nobody’s business.

Wow.

It gives me hope I honestly didn’t anticipate.  It appears that the rush of profound legislative accomplishments (START and funding for 911 first responders and repeal of DADT), occurring over the last few “lame duck” days may have been the intended brass ring I among many saw as a sellout tax deal.  Maybe he does have long game after all.  He’s managed to hand the Republicans an embarrassingly onerous lunch buffet.  Fuckin’ A.

From nonplussed to pleased.

Excellent chess Mr. President.  Good for you.

Happy holidays to you and your lovely family.

The same to all of you who read this.

Drinks for my friends.

I gotta tell ya, I feel for this guy.  The President of The United States. He gets his ass kicked by friends and enemies from the time the alarm goes off to a never so gentle goodnight every damn day.

On the surface his legislative accomplishments are impressive.  Health care.  Financial reform.  He absolutely saved us from a depression and damn near all of it has been payed back.  Yet he has capitulated too early and far too often.  A mandate to purchase health care without a public option, prematurely ejaculated off the table, was just absurd.  Indefensible.  Not good enough.  Financial reform that began as not so John Wayne looking and ended up missing a respectable grill for even a photo worthy grin.

Then there’s the inexplicable and embarrassingly unjustifiable clusterfuck of Afghanistan.  Ridiculous controversy manufactured for things like unemployment benefits, social security and lower taxes for the pigs at our trough but we never talk about the stratospheric defense budget.  Billions spent to kill for no fucking reason.  Proof that too much of America’s politics and policy are dictated by the military industrial complex.

Makes my teeth ache.

My impression is of of a thoughtful and principled man with heart and courage but no real desire to swing as hard as the opposition.  When the Republican thug drops his hands in confusion and surveys the crowd for his mob rule constituency and bullshit moral equivalency, our man checks himself and does not throw the vicious uppercut and go to the body.

He stops swinging altogether.

The truth is the tax deal, the “compromise”, is a little more vanilla than bad or good.  It’s just there.  Ambiguous.  Ambivalent.  Business as usual.  Same fecal.  Same dais.  Different day of year of your Lord.  I am confused as to why the Democrats have chosen to erupt just now.  I mean it’s not what we need but that means it’s the same as every other hollow victory.  Like anybody couldn’t see this one coming.

Still, why does this president keep rolling into the wet spot?

His instinct is kind.  He doesn’t covet the spill of blood.  He does not possess the eye of the tiger.

When his pause gives way to a fusillade of blows landing on his own countenance, he glares from his corner between rounds at his supporters for not appreciating his blinding skill but implores their disgust for not swinging hard when it matters.  It’s telling.  This for an instance  evaporating, his crowd, his majority, to be thinned before the fight is over.  He lost the midterms dramatically and decisively.  The people that put him in the ring smell his weakness.  His opponents taste it.

Chum in polluted water.

The fight is about to double in ferocity and stupidity as Boehner assumes control of the house.

Do your teeth hurt?

It’s not as though he’s not tough or smart.  It’s just that he’s not mean.  My father told me, and I’m sure he’s right as he was quite the brawler and very wise, it’s not the toughest or the most skilled man that wins a street fight, it’s the meanest.

And that’s where we are.

The opposition is mean enough to lie, obfuscate and distort the truth to their own people.  They do it ALL the time.  Their own constituents reflexively vote against their own best interests in support of policies, practices and ideologies that consistently result in their own suffering only to be led by the ridiculous bastards they support without question into blaming it all on the other side.  It’s brevity is fucking brilliant.  Talk about cutting to the chase.  What a way to keep them guessing just enough.  Foment fear and confusion and the world is not merely your oyster.  It’s your baby killer.  Your socialist.  Your godless pagan.  Your Muslim, Jew or Catholic depending on the decade and the agenda.  Your nigger, spic, chink or wop, depending on the century.  Your lazy unemployment beneficiary, welfare or medicare recipient today.  Your homeless bum child molester smelling of piss and costing us all money with the shopping carts they steal and the food stamps we give them.

Fuck that.  The average American wants to work.  For the dignity, the self sufficiency and the money.

Our man is not nearly mean enough.

They would have you bring an assault rifle to a peaceful exchange of political ideas.  They won’t condemn or even admonish your bursts of violence against anyone not like you, provided you’re a white Christian.  They will applaud and celebrate your words of hate and intolerance as long as they are patriotic by their very narrow definition.  They will absolutely praise your lack of intellectual curiosity and willful ignorance.

They themselves are afraid.  That’s how they do it and certainly how they justify it.  Fear.  They want to share their fear and distrust.  So they do.  They want to make you just like them.  Afraid.  Confidence is bad.  Thinking for yourself is communist.  Your own mind is, well how can it be your own mind?  What right do you have to your own mind when the axis of evil wants to kill you and your children in your beds just like the latest weather pattern on a slow news day?  You know, the terrorists.

Thank God we have high radiation body scanners that allow TSA agents to laugh or marvel at my package.  I breathe easier knowing that if they can’t see pictures of it they get to touch and fondle it for themselves.  Yes. in some cases the pictures will lead to a groping.

The restrictions on your personal fluids and the size of ziploc you use in order to fly commercially these days will never ever stop a single terrorist and are fucking absurd.  Never.  Ever.  Stupid is as stupid does.  We are all stupid.

America.

What a country.

Is there anything left in that bottle?

The very people who endorse and support this shit have not a goddamn clue about concepts like personal freedom, privacy and liberty and they are somehow piloting our national discourse.  The filthy stinking rich are about to see their completely unjustified, fiscally disastrous, tax break extended into a presidential election cycle where chances of it being reversed are even more remote and we’ll be borrowing even more foreign lucre to pay for it.

I’m okay for borrowing for the middle class and the poor……….but doing as much for the rich and the wars kinda chaps my ass.

I dare anyone to justify the extension of the the George Dumbass tax cuts to the wealthy.  The people who can’t be bothered to allow their largess to trickle down.  The people who don’t need it and don’t deserve it.  The people who have far more to do with a desperate condition than them that suffer from it.

When are we gonna call bullshit?  Our man at the top clearly lacks the sack, but he’s not entirely culpable.

We are the problem.  We are the answer.

The moral and ethical fabric of America is fraying, but it’s not godless liberals that are responsible, it is without a doubt the self righteous, family values, overtly pious and zealous hypocrites that tirelessly wear at it in the name of preserving it.  How do you trust them that would lie to themselves?

And we are just not mean enough.

Know what a teabagger’s worse nightmare is?  A liberal with a gun and a brain both bigger than his.

Let’s get this party started.

Drinks for my friends.

The electorate.

The whole diverse aggregate gives me pause.

Lots of dipshits.

Exactly what kind of country are we when our elected representatives can even stage a fight about continuing the egregious enrichment of the already too wealthy via a government complicit in unconscionable concentration of wealth long since institutionalized, while simultaneously getting away with jerking the carpet from beneath our middle class when they very simply cannot find a job because the jobs just aren’t there?   Five people for every one job. Every dollar in unemployment remuneration is an immediate dollar sixty spent in local economies while every dollar given in tax breaks to them that have plenty amounts to about thirty cents for our national economy.

The tax cuts for the rich have already cost us dearly and will add $700 billion to the deficit over the next decade.  Our wars cost us at least ten billion a month.  But we demonize the unemployed, unions and teachers without ever talking about our insane megalomaniacally drunken defense spending.   It never comes up that we damn near outspend the rest of the world.  Instead the dialog is driven by “Entitlements” like Social Security and Medicare.

Proof of stupid is our war economy.

Fareed Zakaria said something like it’s not policy, it’s math.

Exactly.

Trickle down economics my ass.

If you buy any single argument in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy while opposing the extension of unemployment benefits for those they deliberately victimized, your entire head resembles a dirty ass to those of us with any amount of common sense and compassion.  You’re quite likely dumb as a stick, willfully ignorant and I loathe you.

It’s true the difference between Democrats and complete assholes narrows by the hour.  Democrats are fond of seeming to stand for something while vehemently pontificating in favor thereof.  Yet they’re infamous for caving and compromising to gain nothing while willingly playing a zero sum game and selling out or at the very least acting worthless and weak.  Stumbling leadership.  Wholesale lack of efficacy.  Disorganization.  Absence of conviction or courage.  Embarrassing inability to legislate with even a modicum of authority despite a majority in both houses and the presidency.

Losers.  Punks.  Low T.

Okay, that’s not entirely true but perception is nine tenths of reality because Democrats couldn’t sell ears to the deaf.

Republicans on the other hand are consistently able to be stupid, contradictory and hypocritical.  Yet they still steer wheel with foot firmly on the gas of our national agenda.  Republicans routinely sell binoculars and telescopes to the blind.  They blaspheme in unison.  They applaud each other and delight in doing so.  It’s like they know they suck and they don’t care.

Democrats suck but at least they make a show of giving a shit.

Are Americans stupid?  Yes.  Are we fools?  Yes.  Are we paying attention?  I seriously doubt it.  Do we believe just about everything we see, hear or read?  Apparently.

What’s that spell?

Campaign finance reform.

What if each and every candidate had the same amount to spend, the same amount of media access and were somehow held more culpable for the truth of their message?  Could a fortuitous artifact of that be the great unwashed being forced to be more accountable and responsible for their own opinions?  What if it forced them a little further down the lane of paying attention?  Like reading and understanding The Constitution before claiming to be all about it while demonstrating abject ignorance of it to the obvious end of actually denigrating it?

What if all the lobbyists lost their jobs?

That wouldn’t suck.

What if it forced a potential player into some amount of shoe gazing introspection about qualification and intention?  At the very least it just might preclude the Meg Whitmans from the already vulgar burlesque.

What if the media was somehow inspired to be more, dare I say, fair and balanced?

I have this Utopian notion about a Utopian notion.

Like the media would take it upon itself to be a little less sensationally  streptococcus because  some sweeping new campaign finance reform passed.  I’ll be on the front porch carving my first name into my left foot ’cause I’m right handed.

The thing is, this issue of of campaign finance reform should be the issue of the day.  It is the antidote for at least a cod piece load of this bullshit.  The corruption and avarice of our elected mannequins won’t ever be eliminated but can it be mitigated?

It could be.  It has huge potential gravity for a following of the sensible but pissed off.  That would be me at least.  It really is of the nucleus of everything that’s jacked up about how we’re governed.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

See, it just can’t be about wealth.  It can’t have anything to do with it.

Solve this one and it has tentacles.  Legs.

I’m waiting for monkey’s to emerge and then launch from my butt trailing fire and plumes, cackling and whooping.

C’mon.  Are you sick of this shit?  There are at least four health care lobbyists for every elected representative on the hill.  That’s just one of a myriad of special interests that are there to give anything but a mad fuck about what we Americans need and deserve.  There are tens of thousands of them.  I guess this all makes me a socialist.  Forgive me, I just don’t have a problem with that.

Drinks for my friends.

Well that sucked.

We just witnessed a bunch of under informed, corporate manipulated, over zealous right wing neanderfucks collectively take fists to to their own genitalia.  I’m always in awe when witnessing the great unwashed vote against it’s own interests and therefore those of the rest of us.  Makes me reach for the bottle.  The advent of the Tea Party alone has turned me into a stumbling, mumbling, albeit self righteous, inebriate this campaign season.

There’s copious tragedy to be had for sure.  How many gratuitous witch hunts, baseless persecutions and attempted impeachments does it augur?  A midterm toxic gift that will keep giving for some time.  A harbinger of doom.  The gastrointestinal of every logical, compassionate and sensible American is about to be challenged and no doubt frequently compromised into violent spasms of the peristaltic kind.

Rachel Maddow nailed it the other night when she pointed out that Democrats by and large have spent the last eighteen months pursuing policy over politics.  This much to the chagrin of the party faithful, some of whom regard it as weakness.  I confess I have seen it as such from time to time, though I was legitimately chafed over the absence of will to defend those policies.  Too much timidity by not vehemently and adamantly running on them.  Excellent and earnest policies.

Democrats too often enjoy the distinction of being fierce pussies.

President Obama rightly lamented the loss of some bold and courageous public servants yesterday.  He didn’t name names so I will.

Joe Sestak One of the highest ranking military officers to ever serve in the legislative branch (rear admiral), Sestak also earned a Master of Public Administration and a PhD in political economy.  One smart dude.  He’s pro choice, pro education, pro middle class, pro environment, pro health care reform and pro medical marijuana.  I have a soft spot for socially liberal military guys like Sestak and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark.

It bears mentioning that this one stung because his opponent, Pat Toomey is a complete tool.  He ‘s a dumbass.  He headed the Club for Growth, enough said.

Alan Grayson An outspoken man with an indefatigable courage for his convictions. Defeated by a goofcock teabagger. The man who famously characterized the Republican health care plan on the floor of the House and on national television as “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.”  He defended his comment and in a House Floor speech stated, “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”  He founded a website called NamesOfTheDead.com to “memorialize Americans who die because they don’t have health insurance.” and read stories submitted to it on the House floor.  He said of those attending the Glenn Beck rally to “restore honor”, “These are people who were wearing sheets over their heads 25 years ago.”  Grayson introduced legislation this year that would allow Americans to buy into medicare.  Then there’s this ringing endorsement from Sarah Palin, “It’s okay if the Republicans lose every seat in the Senate and the House except for one. As long as that one is Alan Grayson losing.”  I love anyone or anything that stupid bitch loathes.

Hard to find fault with a loudmouth who isn’t full of shit in cesspool of ones that are.

Russ Feingold He did his damndest for campaign finance reform and that is perhaps my number one issue.  He was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act because he actually read it.  He’s returned some $70,ooo in pay raises that he vowed not to accept. Since being elected to the senate in 93, Feingold has returned $3.2 million to the treasury from his office budget.  He voted against authorizing President Dumbya to use military force in Iraq in 02.  In 05, he was the first to call for troop withdrawl from Iraq.  Twice he introduced resolutions to censure Dumbya.  He favored and fought for single payer/universal health care.  He was one of the handful of Senators to openly support same sex marriage.  He actually walked out of a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting before a constitutional amendment vote to prohibit same sex marriage.  No soft money, very little corporate money, voluntarily capped his own campaign budget, discouraged lobbying groups from campaigning or spending money on his behalf.

Hey McCain, yo Palin, this is what a real goddamn maverick looks like.

I sincerely doubt the United States Senate will ever again enjoy such an honest and principled member as Mr. Feingold.  He has without question served his state and his country with a brand of sincere and honest integrity that’s been allowed to deteriorate into the archaic and all but obsolete.

Russ Feingold was defeated by another teabagging douchebag named Ron Johnson with no political experience but assloads of cash and  support from Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks.  Shame on you Wisconsin, you lose and so do the rest of us.

The new, less improved GOP, emboldened by the ignorant and even more cash infused by the plutocrats, has prevailed this inning with their slow pitch game of xenophobic jingoistic vitriol, distraction and deception.  However, metaphorically speaking, it is but a mere inning in a series of games the latest of which began sometime between 06 and 08.  What I’m trying to tell you is the ninth inning isn’t likely to occur until after 2012 and we’re still ahead.  We got our asses handed to us in a brutal and bloody battle but nobody’s won the war yet.

With any luck and a little serendipity, these fresh fools will stumble onto to the stage and wither under the lights.  And maybe Mitch McConnell’s stated goal of ensuring Obama is a one term president, as opposed to jobs and some meaningful and palpable sense of increased prosperity among the electorate, will further reveal him to be the one note dogmatic fool he so obviously is and lay bare the obstructionist avaricious priorities of the entire conservative/teabagger clusterfuck cabal.

But lest ye forget, you can’t fix stupid.

Fear can be on hell of a force multiplier, provided it’s impetus is the right one.  We can now justify being afraid.  Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to get your fear on.  It’s long since time you got your mad on.

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” -Hunter S. Thompson

Drinks for my friends.

There is no question that the current crop of crazies contending for office, masquerading as Republicans, are dangerous, stupid and evil.  Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell,  Carl Palladino, Rich Iott and Rand Paul to sport a mere hand full.  Angle believes the government should force a child to bring a baby to term despite that baby being the result of incest and rape.  But she opposes government control of just about anything else.  O’Donnell is woefully unqualified as well as a chronic liar who believes among other things that people shouldn’t masturbate because it’s the same as adultery.  Angle and Paul are closely associated with a group of jerk off physicians (AAPS) that posit abortion causes breast cancer, that it’s evil and immoral for doctors to participate in Medicaid or Medicare, that tobacco taxes harm public health, that electronic medical records would be a form of “data control” similar to efforts of East German secret police……Palladino is a raging homophobe bigot and Iott gets his jollies prancing around in an SS/Nazi uniform.

This is not you father’s Republican party.  These people are outta their goddamn minds.  Crazy as shit house rats and as festooned with the gore of  hypocrisy as any human walking erect.  They pine and wail about the Constitution while they seek to impugn and mitigate it over crap notions like “anchor babies”.  They suck and they are as dumb as they are deranged.

What the fuck happened?  Fuck me.  How anyone could identify themselves with the Republican party and not be embarrassed is beyond me.  How anyone could promulgate that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans leaves me breathing open mouthed and leaking copious spittle.  Sure, Democrats suffer the malaise of corruption egregiously but if you can’t see the difference you shouldn’t be allowed to vote because that difference has never been so sharp and so obvious.

Republicans play and feign at reluctance, but still insist upon abandoning the center.  No matter the reason or the circumstances, they do and they do.  It’s proof that the principled among them are overwhelmed and the weak are well, weak.  Look at what a cartoon McCain has become.  No matter the angle or perspective, they have acquiesced.  They’ve given up on intellectual honesty and forsaken morality and ethics in a single campaign season with the goal being to simply to prevail in this one contest.  This one cycle.  Short term gratification as opposed to long term thinking.

They do it because they’ve grown afraid of themselves.  They’ve confused patriotism with nationalism and jingoism.  They’ve made this mistake because they aren’t used to thinking for themselves.  They are willfully ignorant.  They fucking suck.

I’m fascinated and confounded.  These are the craziest fuckers I’ve ever seen in politics yet they remain in play.  My confusion is not merely a result of their abject insanity, what really baffles is how they remain competitive and therefore viable in light of the fact that their whole movement, lack of cogent policy not withstanding, remains as influential as it does despite my absolute certainty they are archaic and obsolete.  As generations die, socially conservative principles and constructs die with them.  They can kick and scream, yet it’s all over but the shouting.  The viewership of Fox News is remarkably geriatric and there’s no generation to replace them.  The fate of the contemporary mad as fuck hatter movement is doomed by an empirical actuarial.  Most of these assholes will be dead soon.  What happens to Fox News when it’s core audience is all up in the dirt nap?

Short term damage but long term atrophy because America grows less and less concerned with issues defined by socially conservative assholes like this cavalcade of clowns and asshats like Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Louie The Gollum Gomert.  Them that seek a perverse brand of disingenuous bullshit political gentrification.

We are evolving and in the not too distant future, these assholes will all be fucking dead.  It’s absolutely true. Younger generations simply don’t care whether gay people can marry or whether a woman should be allowed to choose her destiny.  They don’t see color, because unlike their parents, they’ve grown up with people of a different color and a different accent and they don’t feel or see the difference beyond the superficial.  They aren’t even activists, they just don’t care.  Kids believe more and more in live and let live and I’m sure it’s more a function of being bombarded by horseshit ideology and demagoguery than anything else.  Younger generations are over it.  These asstards can scream and shout as much as they want; their cause is lost, intellectual evolution will erase it sooner than they know.

They are prisoners of their own device, architects of their own demise.  It won’t last.  Humans evolve in thought and deed as well as physiology.  It’s not like we can afford to wait, to not oppose with vehemence and adamance is reckless and ill advised, but this will pass.  It’s inevitable.

Fuck these guys.  They are dinosaurs.

A hand full of assholes that take perverse delight in pissing in the wind.

Drinks for my friends.

For too many decades, our culture and our politics have been dominated by fear.

We like to be afraid.  We adore roller coasters and slasher flicks.  We welcome any form of television that instills fear and we love our serial killers, rapists and murderers.  Count on us to be enthralled by the sick and sadistic.  Watch us embrace the macabre.   As zeitgeist, there’s nothing new here.

This is different.

Perhaps the most disturbing manifestation of an insidious and overt effort to make us afraid of terrorists, viruses gone pandemic and various minorities is the modern American fear of it’s wealthiest.  Certain well funded political movements would have us believe that if we don’t afford the ridiculously wealthy obscene tax breaks, egregious exemptions and impossible to justify advantages, they will somehow forsake us and prevent any possibility for even modest prosperity for what is now the working poor.

Somehow, we’re all in.  Somehow so many of us buy this crap.

“The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans now have a larger share of total income than they ever have in records going back nearly a century — an even larger amount than during the Roaring Twenties, the last time the US saw such similar disparities in wealth………..an updated study (PDF) from University of California-Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez shows that, in 2007, the wealth disparity grew to its highest number on record, based on US tax data going back to 1917.  According to Saez’s study, which Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman drew attention to at his New York Times blog, the top 10 percent of earners in America now receive nearly 50 percent of all the income earned in the United States, a higher percentage than they did during the 1920s.  -Raw Story

Rampant capitalism and they call me a socialist.  Wealth like this simply does not occur organically, you know, from smarts and hard work.  Read it all:  http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/15/concentration-of-wealth-in-hands-of-rich/

The nation’s official poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008 — the second statistically significant annual increase in the poverty rate since 2004. There were 43.6 million people in poverty in 2009, up from 39.8 million in 2008 — the third consecutive annual increase.

Meanwhile, the number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 46.3 million in 2008 to 50.7 million in 2009, while the percentage increased from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent over the same period.  -US Census Bureau

One in seven of us now live in poverty as citizens of the wealthiest nation in the history of humankind.  Something is very wrong.

See, the rich have never given a mad fuck about the middle class or the poor.  This is history and history repeats itself.  No break they’ve ever been afforded has ever translated to a break for the everyman.  Never has and never will, yet stupid mouth breathing “activists” (tea party ignorants and lockstep Republicans) are absolutely convinced, despite damning recent history to the absolute contrary, that it’s not only saved us from tyranny and preserved the constitution but that they’ve always benefitted from the rich getting richer and if you don’t believe they will again, Jesus is not your savior and you’re a goddamned communist who wants pedophiles to run free and wish lazy minorities didn’t have to work.

For what it’s worth, these folks are the most afraid and it’s because they are spectacularly dumb and woefully gullible.

Don’t fear the brown man.  Don’t fear the reaper.  Fear the greedy white man.

Historically, there has always been a quantity of lamentable deference for the rich in any society.  They’ve always somehow been able to command a modicum of respect from the masses and it is perhaps because the average holds hope to become one of them someday.  A rather notorious and painfully hopeless vanity on the part of the great unwashed.  This despite a consistent effort to exploit any advantage over the average worker to heap more on their pile of filthy lucre.  Still, it’s always been there.

Yet this is new.  It’s alarmingly sudden that so many of us are so complicit.  That so many of us are anxiously willing to vote against our own best interests because we find ourselves in a shadow that we can’t see, hear or smell, but that they keep telling and describing everyday.  They, the media, are relentless in reminding us that if we keep fucking around and disrespecting the fat fucks that deserve our worship and respect, they, the ridiculously wealthy, will gleefully drive all that we know into a ditch and we’ll be at the mercy of homeless shelters and soup lines while our hearts dare to beat over and over.  The thing is this; we continue to let them get away with such Machiavellian machinations, it’s exactly what we’ll get because it’s exactly what THEY want.

If you listen to the Republicans, it is exactly what they’d have you believe.  And it is bullshit.

They don’t care.  They ARE NOT Americans.  They are chronically avaricious citizens of whatever country they can exploit the most.  To them, loyalty is only a word understood in the context of self.  Theirselves.  Themselves.  Yet so many Americans clamor to support and defend them.  Why?  Because they’ve been indoctrinated with a fear of them.  Not all wealthy people are bad.  Not all Republicans are racist.  But if you’re racist, you’re probably a Republican and if you’re wealthy, it’s a least likely you’re a greedy bastard.  Most of us aren’t concerned with copious wealth.  We’re otherwise directed.  Family, friends, love and respect are the things we pursue.

We have before us the issue of the Bush tax cuts that were passed via reconciliation and therefore had to expire or be voted on to extend within ten years because of their profoundly deleterious affect on the deficit.  Some trillion dollars or so that along with the unjustified wars we’ve been fighting for near a decade represent more than enough money for us to put every American to work on infrastructure while not losing a teacher, a fireman or a policeman and provide health care for us all. The answer to this glaringly explicit canard is to allow the cuts to the wealthy to return to Clinton era levels where we were left with an actual surplus and job creation was seven times what the Bush policies produced and keep the rest for those of us that need a break and just can’t seem to get one.  Do the math.  It’s a walk in the park.

Yet it’s still up for debate.  The polls are pretty solid but Democrats, in true sackless fashion aren’t willing to force a vote before the midterm elections.  The biggest reason we’re here is Democrats lack the courage of their convictions and Republicans are full to bursting with vulgar nonsense to fit any size.  Democratic leaders spend their time at home changing their adult diapers and availing themselves of tissue while Republicans wake up to wipe or wash away the copious disgusting discharge from Viagra abuse.  Democrats run around in panties soiled by Don’t Ask Don’t Tell or Pat Boone mastering ceremonies at the latest Tea Party clusterfuck while Republicans bump, rub or charge anything they oppose or fear with priapismic dicks and purple blue balls.

And we all lose.  Over and over.  It’s magically delicious!  Maddeningly ridiculous.

But we are complicit.  We ARE afraid.  Fear is a formidable force multiplier and it works both ways.  We have become stupid while the stupid are on the march. We fear the rich while the stupid embrace them.  We fear the rich because our own vanity allows us to wish to be them.  We fear the rich because we’ve allowed them to become very scary.  It is our fault in so many ways and on so many levels.

“I turned around and she said
“Why do you always end up down at Nick’s Cafe?”
I said “I don’t know, the wind just kind of pushed me this way.”
She said “Hang the rich.”  -Robbie Robertson “Somewhere Down The Crazy River”

So hang the rich or let us eat cake?

Naw.  Maybe, but what if we just let them be rich and agree to stop helping them be richer because they’re already rich?  Checks and balances.  You can’t check the rich unless you have a middle class and America’s middle class is starting to fossilize.

I’m not necessarily a Democrat and as sexist as it sounds, the Democratic flag has vagina on it, and I relate to mine own organ so……….

FDR once met with a group of activists who sought his support for bold legislation. He listened to their arguments for some time and then said, “You’ve convinced me. Now go out and make me do it.” -Huffingtonpost.com

Drinks for my friends.

Okay, so now I’m forced, out of grudging respect, to redact all references to the website and controller thereof who is the the subject of this piece, because said individual does not have the courage of “their” convictions and isn’t interested in being held accountable or responsible for “their” beliefs, suppositions or opinions.  I am profoundly disappointed in this individual but I’m forced to comply as I never intended to visit harm on “them”.  Just like an extreme right wing entity, this extreme left wing entity does not wish to be exposed for “their” contributions to the bile and bullshit “they” contribute and therefore pollute with.  How sad.

So, I took it upon myself to leave a special comment at the end.  A letter in response to the multiple private emails I received from “they”.

Five or six years ago, long before I birthed brainspank, I only posted my blogs on myspace, after 40,000 reads I decided it was time for my own blog and that’s another story, except that one person I met on myspace had started “their” own blog and invited me to become a featured writer.  If memory serves correct, I was “their” very first featured writer.  That blog was *************** and I was both thrilled and flattered when asked to contribute.  The ******** who masterminds *********** was and is wonderful.   “They” would quietly point out spelling and punctuation errors and with restrained discretion, shortcomings of syntax.   “They” were my inspiration for brainspank and I’m grateful.  I would urge you to visit “their” site often as it has become a cornucopia of all things left.

Anyway, somehow *********** escaped my periphery for a few years.  “They” often objected to my rough language and “name calling”, I was respectful despite no one ever entertaining such criticism of brilliants like Matt Taibi, PJ O’Rourke or the Godfather of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson.   Trust me when I tell you I’m not by any means equating myself with these rock stars.  But it is perhaps for those reasons that I was eventually eclipsed permanently from “their” purview.  So be it.

I stumbled on **********just recently and took it upon myself to ask if “they” might still be interested in submissions from me.  “They” answered thus:

I’ve had to, out of respect and discretion, remove the actual quote from her letter after “”they” took pains to remind me that there was a privacy disclaimer attached.  What “they” said in essence was that “they” weren’t interested in my opinions if I was still a merely a Democrat.  “They” stated that “they” were far more interested in viewpoints of a Socialist or Marxist nature and that “they” refused to support any Democrats until they become more left.

“They” also reminded me that “they” always objected to my name calling and that in light of these two conflicts, “they” weren’t interested in posting my pieces.  “They” did ad that it wasn’t personal.  It pains me to have to redact the actual words of the subject of this piece but I must…….

I began a letter to “them” that I’ve since decided made for a better piece here.  “Their” name is ***** and “they” is a dear.  Of course, I intend to share this with “them”:

The world swirls in compelling ways and I find it odd to be denied a voice because I’m not far left enough.  I respect your stance but respectfully and with no small amount of conviction disagree.  Change is what we all desire and need without a doubt, but I fear that those of your stripe fail to understand that no matter what your actions, change will only come incrementally at best.

I’ve often struggled with it and this is the conclusion I’ve come to.  Despite endorsing a degree of socialism, I’ve come to understand that it’s not the sum of inaction and a lack of sincerity by the left that somehow manifests the prevailing contemporary malaise, but rather the perversion, vehemence and ignorant vitriol consistently fomented and deliberately foisted by the hard right and the ridiculous left that is the existential threat to freedom and liberty.  A phenomenon that’s succeeded in making those very words dirty to any cognizant patriot.  You will not ever in your lifetime get another president as well intentioned or as efficacious as Mr. Obama.  Trust me, it’s our last, best shot and we are fucking it up.  For fuck’s sake, wake the hell up.  The way things are trending, your beliefs and the message you seek to propagate are dangerously demagogue congruent with the loony right and they will only continue to fall on ears more and more deaf until they are marginalized into extinction.

Or, such chronic and insidious ideology will rent us asunder.

I’m hoping for the former.

I hate to tell you this, but the sublimation you seek to advance is dead in the water, particularly when the entire American zeitgeist of pendulum is swinging so egregiously opposite of where you are.  All it accomplishes is the whacking of the hornet’s nest.  Politics, like it or not, is both the science and art of compromise and those of you that insist on staking out the socialist and/or Marxist positions are as deleterious to the advance of America’s progress as your diametric counterparts.  In too many ways, extreme right and extreme left serve only to pollute what otherwise might be a vital and viable national discourse.  I appreciate the spirit and understand that your intentions are good but you have become as big a component of the problem as the problem itself.  You’re not doing anybody any favors and your efforts are naive at best and often more corrosive to a scenario that is rapidly becoming one of worse case.

Yep, I still call them out and I still call them names.  I still do that because it’s not far beyond as very much as I can do.  A fucktard is a fucktard.  An asshole is still an asshole.  Forgive me for saying as much but it too seems to be a systemic flaw in how all of our movers and shakers conduct themselves.  Polite isn’t about to get shit done. Polite doesn’t make a difference, it doesn’t accomplish anything and no one pays attention.  It hasn’t for a long time and I’m not sure it ever will again.  Sarah Palin is a dipshit.  Sharron Angle is an abject idiot.  John Boehner is a deliberately disingenuous dickhead, Newt Gingrich is a goddamn lying piece of shit political opportunist, and Christie O’Donell is fucking embarrassing.

Take exception to that.

You know I hope, that I respect you ******, you were one of the very first people to amplify my voice as a featured writer back in the early days of ***********.  I have grown and it’s obvious you have too.  Sincere congratulations to you.  You’re a smart ******** and I can’t help but admire your altruism; I know and understand that you are the real deal.  If only there were a million more like you.

But there isn’t, and that is the salient point.  The segment of American political society you endeavor to represent barely exists at all.  The fight you choose to fight is an honorable one but you do more harm than good.  Discretion is after all, the better part of valor.  It just doesn’t work the way you wish it would or think it should.  When you come from the left with the very word “Marxist”, you inevitably compromise anything and everything.

I would only ask that you allow the more pragmatic among us to lend a voice to what you do.  Yes, I’m a Democrat, but my reasons are far more practical than ideological.  I want change and I’m willing to bet I want it as bad as you, I honestly think I realize something you don’t.  An admitted Socialist/Marxist bent will get you nowhere in this country, particularly in the context of the current racist and rampant phobic fervor.  That position, as stated, will automatically guarantee an ignorant, pissed off, recalcitrant reaction.

I honestly think you are blowing it.

The Beverly Hillbillies think we’re all communists and it’s because of you.  You overestimate them and they’re scared shitless of you and the rest of us that just want health care and for the wars to end and for us all to have a goddamn job.

I’m not so much about my position as as I am about attacking the other side.  Yep, I’m a Democrat, but what I do is tear away at the plutocrats and the corporatists.  I loathe them. They disgust me.  What you entertain is too far left to ever even aspire for difference. What it is is Utopian and unrealistic.

I am here to tell you that you’re part of the problem, you cannot help or hope to effect change.  Throw the words “Marxism” or “Socialism” in front of any group of Americans, any at all, and you lose before you begin.

Good luck with that.

This once great country has become lamentably polarized and it’s the twin engines of the far right and left that supply the horsepower, unless that is mitigated and calmed somehow by those under the aegis of courage to occupy the center for the sake of the greater good, we all lose.

Sometimes it requires bigger balls to fight fire with reason as opposed to more fire.

Drinks for my friends.

THE PROMISED LETTER:

---

It’s hard to spot if you’re not looking for it.

The positions taken by the GOP as a whole in the last two years, just might win them a short term game.  They’ve never been adept at long term thinking anyway, so yep.  On the wrong side of Civil Rights for example.  Social Security, Medicare…..I could go on and on.  Contrary to widely held belief, they’re shitty with budgets too; they make Democrats look Fisher Price.

But now they’re a new kind of crazy.

They’ve been infused.  The hopelessly corrupt even further corrupted.

Their policies aren’t just short term, they’re next week.  Something has changed.  You all know what it is because you keep seeing more of it and it’s disturbing.  Often it’s just a vague intangible fugue that you lose a little sleep over or it gnaws annoyingly at you during your commute.  Just as often it is so in your face you can’t wait to wipe your glasses or clean your windshield.

But you have to look for it.

Some forty plus percent of Republicans now believe Obama is some kind of secret Muslim after attacking his alleged brand of Christianity just two short years ago.  Like it makes one bit of difference.  I don’t give a mad fuck because organized religion is nothing more than Santa Clause for adults.

This time they don’t care that it will be short lived.  It doesn’t matter that their actions will come back on them soon.  How many of these fuckers are all about an apocalypse now?  Teabaggers led by the nose by the faux religilous/ corporate avaricious.  So loony, they even creep out their surrogate party.  There is a fracturing and neither is worth a shit without the other.  Harbingers of divide and demise.  I believe they’ve begun to understand that although they can seize power, they can’t hold it so it’s a race to gain as much control as possible before what they think of as The Ultimate Conflict and their own inevitable dissolve.

They speed for the bottom because they forget to breathe through their noses and they are willfully ignorant.  Because they hate and they’re good with that.  Distrust of anyone different and discrimination as comfort food.

Maybe you don’t have to look for it.

Sounds crazy but I’m not kidding.  These people are dead nuts.  When they sit in chairs in an emergency room or even a free health clinic they think of red white and blue on foil flags or handlebar streamers or one of those giant plastic cups you get at a fast food joint.  Nationalism, which doesn’t sound nearly as bad as socialism.  Or racism.  And Jesus.  They never fail to invoke Jesus even though they are the biggest hypocrites and most egregious liars to ever leave a foot print.

Oh shut up.  I realize there are good people from both faiths.  Good and evil.  Democrat and Republican.  Get it?

Just because you’re a Republican doesn’t mean you’re a racist, but if you’re a racist, I bet you’re a Republican.  Same thing kinda works for religion.  They all wear patriotism and religion like it’s a flag.  Who they are and what those concepts mean are mutually exclusive.

“When fascism comes to America, will it come wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross?” -Sinclair Lewis

They would burn the Koran and prevent a community center that includes places of worship for all faiths including Jews and Christians.  A community center that’s not even visible from ground zero while they conveniently forget that people from all faiths, including Islam, lost their own that day.  They ignore that there was a Mosque in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.  I guess they own the patent on grief and bereavement even though their very own murder doctors in churches during services.

I guess maybe you don’t have to look for it.

But seriously folks, this new germ is not here to play in the street.  The same people that march vigorously with vacant eyes and open mouthed aplomb for our constitution and lower taxes openly challenge our first and fourteenth amendment while exploiting the second, can’t wrap their heads around the fact that they themselves are taxed at rates from a half century ago.  They are incredibly fucking stupid but they are dangerous.

It’s quite possible I tell you, in my best Rush Limbaugh conspiratorial tone, that the tea party seeks dominance because it wants to hasten the end of times.  Everyone one of them will claim at least to be the religiously zealous goofcocks they are.  I’ve made my case.  It’s rather obvious don’t you think?  Brought to you from the covert left wing of the EIB Network, home of the Human Shitsmear.

The generic GOP politico wants to be just that and they have all been so leaderless and rudderless that they were easily hijacked by a group of intellectual bed wetters (I swear I didn’t steel this from Bill Maher).  Now the chronic urinators walk the hen house.  It’s ridiculous.  The generic GOP politico doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind.

They all fucking suck.

All of them either stupid or coward or both.

Yet here we are again, the whole vulgar act being taken too seriously by dumb ass Americans that pride themselves for the opposite.

Goddamn people are stupid.

Drinks for my friends.

There’s no question that this fucktard down in Gainesville Florida who wants to burn the Koran is an abject idiot.  There’s no doubt that such an empty headed and bigoted stunt will inflame anti-American sentiment and therefore increase the risk faced by all our troops and even citizens of this country abroad and at home.  His “church” has less than fifty members.  That he matters and is able to somehow command worldwide fascination concusses my gag reflex.  The man is an egomaniacal  dipshit.

But still.  We’ve all got our panties in a self righteous bunch over the danger he represents to us all when it’s our own actions and policies that built the stage and carpentered the proscenium for this bullshit to occur on top of and underneath.  This is fucking stupid.  Islam didn’t start this.  Terrorists who happened to be Muslim did.  Ask yourself where we’d be if they were the same stripe of Christian fundamentalists who murder innocent abortion providers in churches in the name of God and Christ.  Think about that because they are all the same.

Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate for the masses.  Oh shit, he was a commie.

Defense Sec. Robert Gates called whackjob Terry Jones personally and General David Petraeus waded in as well as the pointy hatted Pontiff hisself.  This is absurd.  For Patraeus and Gates to pay or lend attention to this charlatan is bad enough.  For either of them to pretend that he’s one microbe worse than either of them should insult the intelligence of anyone paying attention.  The war in Iraq was wrong.  Hundreds of thousands if not more died because we lied to ourselves or allowed ourselves to be lied to.  The war in Afghanistan accomplishes nothing.  It is in fact, an egregious human deficit.  We make it worse by by being there everyday.  Hundreds of thousands will die and we will have accomplished measurably less there than we did Iraq, if that’s even possible once the shouting is over.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Duh.

These wars and these men prosecuting them are our most exclusive and challenging petard.

They would have us believe that this goofcock would mitigate American interest in peace more than them?  Blow me.

As for the Pope, who gives a mad fuck?  Like he or the Catholic church could possibly be trusted as the arbiter of anything.  Morality?  Ethics?  Decency?  You’ve got to be fucking kidding.

They are all merely a punchline and this is all incredibly stupid because we are the joke.  If you’re paying attention, you get that.

Drinks for my friends.

America has become her own sin.

Two wars.  One for no reason at all and another who’s reason is lost.

The richest country in the world can’t pay for itself, but she she can still afford to send her children to die and kill.

While her people can’t find work.

There are five people hoping for every job available.

I know a woman who’s childhood friend is days or hours from dying.  Cancer.  She has two sons in college and no father.  She tells me she can’t afford to pay attention.  I get it.  But she is it.  It’s not me.  It’s her.  She is gorgeous.  She’s tough, but she doesn’t know who or what the speaker of the house is.  She should, but she doesn’t care.  She’s not at all concerned that a dickhead like Boehner might be in charge and how that will impact her life and her ability to keep her boys in school as well as maybe her own health insurance.

She is it though.  It’s not just the youth vote, it’s the vanishing middle class.  If they don’t engage, it’s all over but the shouting.

Life can be bullshit but that doesn’t stop a single one of us.  Humans never stop pushing and pulling.  We can’t help it.  Men are dicks and women are bitches.  We are all so foul.  Dirty.  polluted.   Infected.

The disconnect widens and deepens because regular Americans believe they have no hope of making a difference.

It’s hard to blame them.

Ask yourself what you want.  Think about what happens if you get it.  If you win, who loses?

Say for example you get a high paying job with a military industrial contractor.  You feed your kids.  Your wife drives a Volvo and you speed around in an Audi.  The Mexican gardeners get paid.  Your parents are proud.  At the end of the day, you kill brown people for a living.  People like you.  People just like you.  Your neighbors and business associates share their holidays and their children’s birthday parties with you.

Or, you drive a beat to shit Honda and people like you.  People just like you.  You have parties at your house with a cake from Costco and you get your prescriptions from Walmart.  You hate that redneck Republican in the next cubicle but he’s a nice guy and he makes one helluva bean dip.

Where are we?  Who are we and what have we become?

The worst of us host events where the Koran will be burned.  The worst among us seek to prevent a community center being built on private property in the city of New York despite the obvious provisions and express intent of the very first and arguably most important amendment to our constitution.  The same idiots  think our president is some secret Muslim Socialist out to destroy America.  The willfully ignorant and the chronic, untreatable and stupid.  I cannot begin to describe how I loathe such people.  My disgust is profound and complete.

My disdain robs me of my own breath.  If you’re reading this and you merely flirt with any of these concepts, fuck you in the neck.

I understand that America has it’s life to live.  I get that you need to get through the day.  I understand that most you have children and families.  But you still are the most privileged, spoiled people on the planet.  Black or white, brown or callow.  Maybe we don’t deserve our largess.  So be it.  Keep tolerating this shit.  Maintain that straight face.  Look away.  Let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer while the middle class evaporates into the ether.  By the time you cannot possibly afford tuition for your kids, by the time you get cancer from the chemical company dumping glowing shit in your water supply because of deregulation, by the time you can barely drive a road or over a bridge in your fossil fueled car because of it’s egregious disrepair, by that time it will be too goddamn late.

Your earth will be too hot, you government will only pay for the wealthy to be protected from you because you want to storm their gates while your gums bleed and your teeth are loosening in their sockets and your pockets are full of BBQ sauce.

That time is today.  We are here.  It is now.  Or vote Republican………….

Drinks for my friends.

Let me tell you something.

So I mixed a song.  For the first time in ten years I darkened a studio door and wrestled a creation into what I think is palatable for the masses.  It’s what mixers do.  We polish and hopefully enhance an earnest, artistic musical effort. I had to do it.  I was scared.  New technology.  Tapeless.  No comforting whir of analog multi-tracks.  No printing the mix to a Studer half inch and editing with a razor blade if necessary.

None of that.  Archaic and obsolete.  Old school.

Hit the space bar and the track starts over.  Click in the box and enter the frequency you want to manipulate via the numeric keypad.  Pull the curve up and down with the cursor.  Write cuts visually.  Dial it up or down with the mouse after you’ve selected the “Q”.  Enter reverb and delay times consistent with note value based on beats per minute.  I didn’t touch a single fader and the only knob I fingered was the gain knob for the system I was monitoring on.

It was all about the mouse on a Mac.  Weird.

For what it’s worth, I produced, recorded and mixed my first record when I was twenty seven years old.  It sold a hundred thousand copies.  I had my first top ten multi-platinum hit before I was thirty.  I started as a janitor for A&M studios at twenty years old and was making records for the label long before the age of twenty nine.

But it’s been awhile.  A long time.

I was a little worried about a lot of things.  What if I couldn’t figure it out?  I’ve never been the most technical guy on the planet.  I worked with plenty of absolute geniuses and understand my place in that hierarchy.  Honestly, my biggest question and fear was whether, despite the entirely new tech, if I could still pull it off.  The extra added pressure, this was for my best friend since childhood.  We played together when I sucked and he was brilliant.  The engineer who’s studio it is and who cut the tracks, I’ve known since pre-school, the drummer I’ve known since his early teens and the guitar player has been my very best friend since we were thirteen.  I’ve only known the bass player for the last year but he’s a whip smart guy with no shortage of humility or musical ability.

They are an excellent band.  They can play.  They play anything they want, with an ease and level of musicianship that is rare.  I tell you this but you must understand that I know the difference.  I’ve worked with the best players.  Often.  I don’t wanna name drop, but I have to so I won’t.  I’ve been there. Over and over.

I co-produced and engineered Everclear’s “Sparkle And Fade”.  Art Alexakis should have let me mix it.  My mix of “Santa Monica” slays the mix that appears on the record.

I’ve been around but it’s been awhile.

These guys can play and they can write an excellent pop song.  I’m trying to tell you that I know.  I know the difference between shit and shiny.  They call themselves the the Atomic Giants and they are the best band that Carson City has ever offered.

Ten years I guess.

It is an awesome and sobering fact to me.  I might just still have a handle on this.

It’s not finished yet, but I trust them.  What follows is a letter I’ve written to them of my advice on how to bring it home.  I’m leaving town in just a few days to get back to my life so I can’t put the finishing touches on what I’ve wrought.  I want you to be interested enough to read my blankmanship in the context of the track that I hope I’ve figured out how to let you listen to.  There should be a link that takes you to it.

Davey V. plays drums and he has the grease.  My best friend Sean plays guitars, we have shared many a comic book, Chocodile, Rondo, Kiss and Van Halen record and he is my personal Jesus.  My new friend Greg plays bass and my new old Friend Mike Sarceno gives it throat.  They don’t suck at all.  Tom is the engineer of merit and receptacle of my thanks and gratitude.  A very sweet, very talented and capable man with really good ears and a nice pate.

Here’s my letter to the band:

Part four of something I didn’t imagine having four parts.  I suppose I could end it here.  I’ve no idea where it’s going.  Scroll down and read them in order,  all called “sketch” and there’s three previous.

She ends up at my place. I’m not sure if I pulled something off or if it was her idea.

My whole life through her eyes while she overtly inspects my cave.  She wrinkles her nose and flicks her fingers at the cat box.  Wincing at my messes and squinting at my possessions.

It’s drama, but I don’t care.

I just washed the entire house so with the exception of a few piles I know I’m good there.

She looks at me and demands to know why she’s here.  I remind her she’s here as opposed to just over there.  I tell her I want to sell her a lifestyle.

She takes her time and then she blinks.

I confess I have no idea how she ended up here.

She doesn’t blink again for an hour.  So it seems.

I’d just made a clean sweep of my ingrown toenails.  All four corners of my two big toes.  Dug it all out.  All four corners.  This is big for me.  Usually I get pretty loaded and tear them out.  This morning I’d had enough.  Second best time to tear at your toes is fresh out of the shower.  I screwed myself up and did it fresh out of the shower.  It wasn’t not painful.

It hurt like fuck.

So I was good there too.

Things had deteriorated by then.

Probably because I talked about my toes.  I know it was a mistake.  It’s just that it’s usually such an incredibly painful ordeal that can go on for days, so when you get all four corners in a not unpainful sweep but without substantial bleeding, it feels like a lucky spring day.  A mist and clouds until afternoon.  Not too hot, not too cold, the porridge steams a little in the morning light.

Still, she sits in my lap facing me, topless.  I’m burning with the smell of her sweat under scent.  Hands on naked hips.  We get as far inside each other as we can get and it’s good and sweaty.

I begin to dream of a white T-shirt.  It’s on a man too large.  In my dream I marvel at the whiteness of the t-shirt.  It’s almost blue like from the moon.  Out of place on a torso so substantial.  Levi’s and black boots by then.  Then it’s me and I am uncomfortable in the white t-shirt.  It’s too tight and wherever I touch it, I soil it with my hands.  With my fingertips.  It fits tight around my neck.

It’s what I have left of the dream I was having.  She lies next to me with a cream sheet pulled over her flared waist.  A gold chain glistens across her hips where they’re not covered.  There are rings on her toes.  The end of her landing strip is exposed and I remember the taste because I can still smell it on my hands.  I want her name to be Daisy and it has nothing to do with any woman named that I’ve ever known before tonight.  If I had a flower, I’d put it in her hair.

She arches her back in her sleep and I’m smitten again.  She arcs and the moon settles in and plays one side of her face.  One breast glistens under an exclusive with the light of the moon.

Her skin.  I run my hands over it and it makes no sound.

Not wearing a white t-shirt.

I get back to it.  Dreaming again.  The shirt was gone but it’s back.  It itches.  It pinches and binds and confuses wherever I have hair.  I’m sure I look stupid in it.  I’m wearing it and every important person ever is here.  Old bosses, women I’ve dated and politicians.  I cross my arms and talk to them from over my shoulder.  I want a drink and a cigarette.  I have both but I can’t taste them.  Nothing works and I just want to leave.  I think about Yosemite Sam.  That helps.  I can’t just take the shirt off.  I know I’m dreaming but it’s like I’m being held down.  I’m late for class and I don’t know where it is.

Now the moon shines into the bedroom like it was the sun.  She’s on her side while shoulders and hips curve my horizon.  It’s so bright I can’t tell if she faces me or not.  I think I see a smile but I can’t be sure.  She flops a leg over my thighs and pulls me into her.  Within nothing she is over me and on me, breathing, sucking back spit and I am way inside her, hard as a fucking nail and she is up and down so hard our skins smack.

I wake up and it’s only sun in my eyes.  She’s not here.  I can’t smell her on my hands.

I only remember her perfume and it is fleeting.  Fast.

On the pillow, a pumpkin colored beetle on it’s back and kicking.

I don’t know her name.

Drinks for my friends.

I am reluctant to embroil myself in this one that has irresponsibly, recklessly come to be known as the “Ground Zero Mosque”.  Nomenclature at it’s most absurd.  It’s stupid.  I didn’t want to because it’s stupid.

That and what else could there possibly be left to say?

Let’s start with the indefensible hijacking of the issue by hard right demagogues and the various porcine zealots of faux patriotism and vicious jingoism.  The shit regurgitated from these mouths is as inexcusable as it is calculated to exploit fear and racism.  For Newt Gingrich to equate the placement of a COMMUNITY CENTER, that happens to devote a small portion of it’s proposed 13 story architecture for worship of the Islamic faith, a COMMUNITY CENTER that will not be built at ground zero or even viewable from there, for that loathsome hypocrite to suggest the intention here is no different than putting a swastika next to the Holocaust Museum, chaps my ass like a cheese grater.  For him to say we should not allow such effrontery until there are Christian churches in Saudi Arabia…….this from a man who left one wife while she was in treatment for cancer and cheated on another while leading the charge for impeachment against a sitting president for lying about a blow job……why would any sentient being listen to such a hypocritical douchebag?  Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion, but what makes Newt’s worthy of broadcast?

Fox News does.  Fox fucking News is nearly half owned by a Saudi Arabian prince named Alwaleed bin Talal, a prince from a theocratic oligarchy where brutal misogynist Sharia law is absolute.  Irony irony irony.

*I’ve since been corrected on this point.  The aforementioned prince owns 7% of Newscorp and they own 9% of his largest Arab entertainment company, Rotana.  I posit the relationship is still nefariously symbiotic.  This is interesting: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/01/cairs-honest-ibe-hooper-caught-boasting-about-getting-saudi-money—-which-he-has-denied-getting-in.html

I could say a lot a about Newt, he clearly lacks for any moral or ethical imperative of any kind as well as well as being demonstrably bereft of compassion, what he does not lack is brains.  Newt Gingrich is a frighteningly adroit, modern Machiavelli.  He knows exactly what he’s doing.  He’s whipping the great unwashed, the willfully ignorant, into froth and frenzy by employing those by now, tried and true GOP archetypes of fear and racism.  He’s not the only one, the Palins and the Boehners and the Cantors……..have all fallen in line to manifest the inevitably hysterical Greek chorus.  In the key of indignant.

These people don’t realize they are embarrassing themselves and I don’t care.  What matters is they embarrass the rest of us.  Sometimes I wonder if the appeal of the whackjob demagogue is their inherent self loathing.  You know, as common denominator or perhaps ice breaker when they gather.  For fruit and seltzer.  Drugs, prostitutes and their lust for money and power.

It’s to be called the “Park 51 Community Center”.  Not a Mosque by definition, but even if it were it would be among 400, attended by some 600,00 Muslims in New York City alone.  There are Mosques in every state and major city in this country and they have been there for a very long time.  Common sense dictates that it shouldn’t be any big deal.  There is far more logic in protesting Catholic churches anywhere near public schools.  It’s all so goddamn fucking stupid.

There’s a Mosque in the goddamn Pentagon you idiot fucks.

The single most salient tragedy here, and it’s deliberate and hypocritically intentional, is how this nontroversy is more than mere catalyst for the devolution of national discourse over just about anything into fear by way of racism and bigotry.  The terrorists would like nothing better than for ordinary Americans to see the war on terror as an existential conflict between Christianity and Islam.  Such demagoguery hands them the advantage they would most like to have.  A rudimentary Us vs. Them vaulting horse.  Those that would foment as much seek to convince us that we are a Christian nation as opposed to what we are, a nation of Christian majority.  It’s a slow pitch game of xenophobia for the mouth breathing neanderthals that would have sucked up McCarthyism with a pastel bendy straw.

What’s new?  The GOP preying on the minds and sensibilities of the mentally and morally compromised.

Just yesterday, two polls revealed that either one fifth or one quarter of the citizenry believes that our president is a secret Muslim.  It’s evidence of just how hard and far they reach.  This begs a lot of questions.  My first one is so fucking what?  Who cares?  I happen to have equal disdain for all organized religion.

“I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name,” -Franklin Graham/abcnews.go.com

Conundrum?  None here.

Some of them blow themselves up in the market square and some of them shoot abortion doctors in church.  The rest of them hate on various levels.  These people all need to get fucking handle on it.  Their own insecurities and fears are why they act, never for the right thing but a result of what is wrong with themselves.

Equally disturbing is how obsessed we’ve become with what just doesn’t matter and should not ever.  I realize this is nothing new but just how far back are we gonna slide?  The color of skin, ethnicity or religious belief.  These fermented under Dumbya but they are exploding under Obama.  These things are not and were never intended to make a mad fuck’s difference when evaluating character or worth and they suddenly do, more than ever it seems, at least since I started watching television.

They are throwing this shit in the air at an amazing pace.  The whole immigration conversation has gone racial.  Why does it have to be racial?  If that question confuses you, you might be a redneck.  There is a quid pro quo between the fucktards and the GOP.

The framers of our Constitution went to great lengths to avoid such a clusterfuck.  They were clear to exacting on this very specific concern and the first amendment is proof of that.  This whole thing is stupid on the surface but profoundly important underneath.  What pokes out of the water is manufactured controversy.  I’m sick and tired of non-issues dominating news cycles and public dialog.  What’s underneath is the right of people, whomever they are and wherever they come from,  provided for in the very first amendment to our constitution.  There is no evidence whatsoever that the people attempting to exercise this right are doing as much to be provocative in any way.  It is merely an innocent effort to bridge whatever cultural and/or religious gaps that still exist between people from the Middle East and North Americans, between Christians and Muslims.  We attacked and wrought untold devastation on an entire country. completely innocent of what we invaded them for.  Everyone will be allowed in this proposed COMMUNITY CENTER, to be named “The Park 51 Community Center”.

It’s all about the first amendment and that means we are done here.  No debate, no objections.  Shut the fuck up.

And stay off the 14th amendment too.

We are done here.

Drinks for my friends.