Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

There is a wineshop named Groezinger’s. 6484 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599. Groezingers.com. 800-356-3970.

When it comes to wine I can only say I’m an enthusiast. A fan and someone who’s drunk some really good wine. I do know good from bad because it’s like right and wrong. It really can be that simple. Yeah, yeah, there’s lots of grey, but that’s about flavor and varietal and other subjectve stuff. There is good wine, and there is shitty wine.

I’ve been to the Napa Valley a handful of times. Summer and fall. In the fall, after the crush, it is sublime. Not only do the trees burst gold and crimson but the vines do too. The entire valley smells like a cellar.

There’s these guys, Rick and Justin. Me and my formerly betrothed met them one day when hot on the trail for some Turley Zin. Some dickhead from another wineshop suggested they might have it while patronizing the shit out both of us.

I’m no snob. I’d read about Turley Zinfandels and we dined at a very cool restaurant that had a bottle on the list for a fair price. I got all seduced by it’s cooked plum , smoke and cedar as did my fiancee’, so we went looking for some the next day.

We ended up at Groezinger’s. Right place at the right time. I’m almost positive Sin City by AC/DC was playing when we walked in. The walls were purple and festooned with album and concert posters. The floor was littered with outgoing cases to be shipped. Turns out they had a robust mail order business.

This guy Rick walked right up and asked said something overtly pleasant. That kind of friendliness on a tourist who’s been snobbed upon all over backed me up a little. Flags went up.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Was I gonna have to punch a bitch?

I looked him in the eye and understood he was a little crazy. I began to feel a little better. Then another guy walks up and hands me a glass of wine. Not a tasting, but a full pour. I look at his eyes. He’s crazy too. His name is Justin and the wine is pretty fucking good.

Later there would be banjo. No shit.

My formerly betrothed looks at me with a fat glass of juice in her long fingers and a wicked grin only she can pull off. I will tell you, she was one gorgeous bitch. We spend the next three or four hours there at Groezinger’s. We met winemakers and locals, we tasted some serious art. They even told us where to to taste.

Rick and Justin. Two happy go lucky dudes in the unlikliest of places. Main Street in Yountville. Serious about very little other than fermented grape juice. Their acumen in that particular venue was immediately evident and unmistakable. They were very good to us.

If I leave you with nothing else, I need to impress this upon you. These guys know what they’re doing. They are at it’s center. In an afternoon we met winemakers from all over the valley with wines that were as different as any two red liquids can be. There was at least one instance where my girl and I were each asked to describe exactly what we were looking for. I tell you they served up an open bottle of what we imagined.

That’s how I remember it anyway.

I spent two or three hundred dollars that day. Rick and Justin are salesmen but they didn’t care what we were spending. Two well informed amateurs walked into their lair and they took us to school while the sun beamed in the western facing windows. I figure we drank somewhere close to what I spent and we walked with a case of excellent hooch. It was the best afternoon of juice I’d ever experienced and it wasn’t our first rodeo.

Go to groezingers.com. Read the newsletters. These guys are fomenting a culture. 800-356-3970. Call, ask for
Rick, tell him brainspank sent you. Tell him what you have to spend and ask him to mix a case for you. Tell your friends.

Drinks for my friends.

DeWitt writes:

“Fighting on the internet is like competing in the special olympics; even if you win, you’re still retarded. This is not third grade; I am an adult.
Do you never tire of being the schoolyard punk?

Perhaps you lack the ability to understand complex language, so I will be as simple and direct as I possibly can.

I come to MySpace to have a few laughs and exchange ideas with friends. You are not my friend, and I have no intention of making you one. I have no interest in exchanging insults with you or any other Obamunist on the internet. If you and the rest of your fascist ilk want to fight about it; go ahead and fight amongst yourselves. Let me know how that turns out. If you don’t like what I post, good. I wouldn’t want to think I had done anything to make your existence on this planet less odious.”

My response:

No, you’re wrong.  You post this kind of deliberately irresponsible and obviously incendiary bullshit in public and you deserve at the very least to answer for it.  This is no mere lunch conversation among friends.  You put it out there.  You want to say what you have to say?  Own it and understand that there are people like me out there who will call you on it.

It’s not the first time you’ve resorted to the simplicity of labeling me a “schoolyard punk”.  It’s one thing I can honestly tell you I’ve never been.  If anything, I’m an intellectual bully.  I hate stupidity and I loathe your lazy pronouncements and casual, convenient under informed straw man tactics.

You call me a fascist.  That’s just empty and ignorant.  A definition:  “a person who is dictatorial or has extreme right-wing views.” -dictionary.com

Hello?  Is this thing on?

I’ve got to put somewhat of a disclaimer in here.  My angst is not directed exclusively at you.  It’s your kind.  You are a symbol of the ignorance that so plagues and infects the national dialog.  It pisses me off.  Under informed, ignorant and irresponsible.  I hold no hope of changing your mind.  You’re too far gone.  My goal is to hold you to the light so that the open minded understand that you are see through.  Transparent.  Your logic is archaic and your positions are absurd.  The world has left you behind because your acuity has lapsed into boilerplate neoconservative ideology that is obsolete.

On a directly personal note;  you say, “Perhaps you lack the ability to understand complex language, so I will be as simple and direct as I possibly can.”  This would be funny if it weren’t so absurd.  I’m not merely here to tell you I think you suck.  I explain myself and my objections in detail, in language far more detailed and nuanced than anything you have ever begun to approach.  That explains why you won’t engage me as well as anything else.  You’re outmatched.  Overwhelmed.  Afraid.  You are a coward who lacks the courage of your convictions.

My advise to you is to leave the game.  Once you can no longer adequately defend yourself and your opinions, it’s time to leave the game.  Shut up and walk away.

You are bad news Dewitt.  You poison the waters of what needs to be a healthy, progressive and proactive debate.  You Sir, are the problem.  Go away.  At the very least, do us all a favor and resign yourself to regaling your fellow ignorant flat earthers with your stupid opinions and reckless vitriol.

I am here to encourage and foment forward thinking and action.  I genuinely hope for America to replace her standing as a progressive, compassionate and generous force on the world stage.  In my mind, the opposite of what she’s been and how she’s been perceived for the last eight years.  You contribute nothing.  You detract.  You are destructive and contrary.  You have no hope.  Get the fuck out of the way.  Leave.  Please.  Let us get on with it and please shut the fuck up.

Drinks for my friends.

He’s not exactly my arch nemesis but he’s fun to poke my stick at. Just ignorant enough to be a flat earther. He wrote the following on his myspace blog:
“Many of you have heard of the Mustang Ranch. It was a famous brothel in Nevada where prostitution is legal. Anyway, back in the 90’s when Bubba and Hillary occupied the White House, the Mustang Ranch was seized by the IRS for failing to pay income taxes. It’s a little known fact, but; as required by law, the government tried to operate the business but failed and had to close it down. Now you want to trust the economic security of this nation to the same morons who couldn’t make money running a whorehouse and selling whiskey???

You must be kidding. . .
Don’t even think about turning our healthcare system over to them.”

I respond:

You’ve no idea of what you speak. Big suprise. Balloons and confetti. What you don’t understand is that the last administration installed a parade of idiots. While some are controversial, this administration endeavors to employ smart qualified people. One of the ideas here is for things to run much better. Smoother. More fair. More equitable.

I’m quite sure the failing brothel’s ultimate demise was directly attributable to Bill and Hillary. Gimme a break. Joe Conforte was a charismatic criminal but not a business man. The Mustang Ranch had already been closed and dormant once. When the feds took posession it had been closed and inactive a second time.

I don’t know the government even bothered to make a go of it. Work with me here, like the Federal Government is gonna try to run a brothel. Next. It was relocated and eventually auctioned off by BLM, the Bureau of Land Management. BLM owns about85% percent of most western states on average. The leisure suited wonderkind in bolo ties at BLM wouldn’t begin to have a clue about running a whorehouse.

Now, Bubba might just be the world’s greatest philanthropist. He shakes a hand and millions of dollars go to AIDs medicine in countries that can’t possibly afford it otherwise. He walks a tarmac and water flows. Wells are dug and they produce clean water. Irrigation networks are constructed. He’s an extraordinarily effective human. What’s your guess how a post Presedential Dumbya will do?

The first comment on his blog:
“If Dennis Hoff CAN do it and the Gov’mnt can’t then yes, by all means DO NOT turn anything over to them!”

I’m from Carson City Nevada, Dennis Hof is a friend of mine. He’s decent honest man with integrity. He’s done me more favors than I can count.

For my birthday I recieved a signed and inscribed copy of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s autobiography, “The Good Fight”.

So as a disclaimer, I’m a bleeding heart pinko liberal Democrat.

Dewitt and friends, you think you know something you don’t. You think you understand something you cannot.

Your lack of depth pains even me, someone who has very little respect for you. You’re reach exceeds your grasp and allows just enough for you to be detrimental. Not part of the solution, so definitely part of the problem. Just so you know, when I engage in name calling; asshole and idiot for example, it’s merely shorthand for what I’m trying to tell you here.

Those profane sentiments made by me you choose so conveniently to hide behind as a reason for not engaging me… You are a coward. A meat puppet.

I just loathe your perspective, your intolerance, the narrowness of your mind and your lack of intellectual curiosity. A sheep in wolf’s clothing.

That you could seize on an example such as this to make some grandiose sweeping point about the future of this once great country under our new President, is just Fisher Price ludicrous. Do some homework. Pay attention. Stop grabbing at ankles from the ditch.

Such a hypocritical and selective lover of government you are. You adore the mansion the neocons and religious zealots built. If you’ve got an ounce of sack left, you’ll answer my next few questions honestly. I am calling you out.

1) Do you have adequate healthcare for your age and condition? Yep, it’s a trick question.

2) Do you understand that George Dumbya Bush inherited a massive surplus from Willam Jefferson Clinton? Seriously, do you get that? Do you understand that this giant rotting swamp in the middle of a vast arid desert used to be sparkling streams rushing through a verdant landscape?

3) Tell me, without resorting to WMD, Al Qaeda or imminent threat, why we invaded the sovereign country of Iraq?

It’s a good place to start. I’ll do the same for you. Ask me three questions. Seriously and with a modicum of respect. I’ll answer them.

What we’ve witnessed here is the worst capitalism has to offer. What about a little socialized medicine and nationalization of less than half of our banking institutions? What are you so afraid of?

We are course correcting here. Greed has been completely replaced by jeopardy. So called Republicans and conservatives seem content to sit on their hands and bleat from the sidelines. Passive obstructionism. You offer few if any answers and seem content to deride and divide wherever you can. Totally in lockstep.

If I’ve never said this before, I’m remiss. I don’t imagine you to be a bad guy. I do think you lack the courage to question what you’ve been indoctrinated with and it frustrates me. And I do think you’re a fool. Fool and decent guy aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. A decent fool just gums up the works, see?

The U.S. is 35th in the world for math. According to the International Trade Centre, in 2005 the United States imported $494,477,000 worth of explosives and pyrotechnic products, or 24% of the world’s total. -rankingamerica.wordpress.com

According to a 2006 study first published in the magazine, Science, the United States ranks thirty-third out of thirty four nations (32 in Europe plus Japan and the United States) in acceptance of evolution. Iceland ranks first. Only Turkey ranked lower than the United States in the acceptance of evolution. -rankingamerica.wordpress.com

They’re talking about you Dewitt. Tell me you don’t buy into creationism Dewitt. If you do, the discussion might be over before it starts. I just can’t engage you there. It’s silly. There was no Noah. There was no Arc. There was no garden, no apple and no serpent. Sorry. Metaphors at best.

There’s no reason America should be so far behind in every way. Education and healthcare are long term issues we need to pay attention to immediately. A robust economy cannot be complete without moving to solve these problems now. Bedrock stability depends on those two issues in motion now, in five years and peaking in ten.

The culture of fear is obsolete. What we are being offered is hope. It is the the antidote.

What’s happening here is the mother of all adjustments. We do it the right way, ride it out with class and dignity and a genuine ethic of sacrifice, we’ll all be cool. Make no mistake, things will get smaller and stay that way for some time. We will be walking it back.

I really want to know what the average ketchup packet costs. It doesn’t stop there. What about mayo, mustard, relish and ranch? The nearly elegant, in the world of single servings of condiments, foil envelopes of soy with the post modern red and white. Heinz Mayonnaise is classy packaging.

Which of the aforementioned are no longer available at your neighborhood 7-11?

At what point does it cease to be cost effective to provide these delicious pillows for free? I am concerned.

Drinks for my friends.

So I’m watching Southpark tonight and it’s about the Jonas Brothers. I never watch Southpark but it can be hysterically funny, vulgar and nail on the head relevant all at once.

I guess I’ve heard of the Jonas Brothers. My brain performs some functions automatically. I’m grateful for my brain. The simplest notion of them as another boy band was was all that ended up in some tiny little neglected room full of dust and weird odors somewhere in my brain.

I didn’t understand they were Christians. Sheezus.

The scene where Mickey himself walks in, emasculates them then beats the shit out of them is a goddamn scream. Hollywood Records, bitch. At Disney, nobody fucks with the mouse. Harlan Ellison has an excellent story with the same title I think.

I need to add the following anecdote. The people from Hollywood Records whom I encountered during my time in the biz, from execs to staff producers, were quite honestly among the most clueless fucks from any business I’ve ever been involved in and that includes my teenage tenure as Der Wienerschnitzel management.

I spent eight hours one night punching the same eight bar guitar solo with a coked up CC Deville because nobody including the producer, had the balls to stop it. It was for some Pauly Shore movie, a cover of ‘Hey hey good lookin’. Julian Raymond had no clue how to run a recording session. Kaffel (Philo) was probably getting paid by the hour. Phil always looked like he’d combed his hair with a sharp rock.

Bristol “abstinence is unrealistic” Palin won’t be marrying oily variety bohunk Levi Johnston anytime soon. My sources tell me that at the same time Bristol had the epiphany about Levi being a worthless knuckle dragging dipshit, Levi realized that Bristol was merely one generation removed from elk eating trailer trash.

If they weren’t God fearing Christians, she coulda aborted that there fetus before it started thinking. Well, before the election heated up anyway. Then again, if she’d been wearing a Purity ring it mighta been different. Them Purity rings keep our kids from fornicating.

The biggest news of the day for me is Jon Stewart’s humanely brutal dissection of Jim Cramer. Jon Stewart has gargantuan balls. Jim Cramer no slouch, as after days of having his lunch punched down his gullet like a musket being loaded, he showed up on The Daily Show, mea culpa in tow.

What followed was some of the most compelling television I’ve ever seen. Cramer acquiesced while Stewart walked it forward, with class, humility and transparent anger.

Intelligent, moral and ethical clarity. Very, very impressive. Lest ye be tempted to draft this man into public office, understand he is exactly where he needs to be. He is achieving maximum good. Let us all be thankful for Mr. Stewart and The Daily Show. The most kaleidoscopic of ironies is that it masquerades as snake oil but consistently hoists the best truth there is to come by.

Well done.

Drinks for my friends.

A moment of zen?

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=169209774&blogId=475469506

My name is Paul.

I’ve been up since six.

The wind blows and it smells like rain, but I doubt it. Whistling and clanging. Sometimes things tumble. It’s never quiet unless it’s gonna rain, but I don’t think so.

What did I do yesterday?

I saw this cool nasal decongestant commercial where the whole sinus network was sorta represented by one of those vacuum systems like you used to see at banks and in old movies. All the tubes were clear so you could see all the capsules moving around. I like that kind of art. Sorta post industrial meets an ant farm/habitrail aesthetic.

I first glimpsed that technology as a kid along with the understanding that humans were the software. Workers contolled the flow of capsules and therefore the information. Data. Pretty cool. I want one.

It does describe my inclinations to a degree. I adore aquariums. Tunnels of all kinds command my interest.

I wouldn’t enter one. I grew up around the Comstock Lode. Hundreds of man engineered holes. I never went far enough into any where I couldn’t see sunlight.

My interest is exclusively microcosmic. It’s all in the diminutive. Dominance of scale. Beehives fascinate me but I won’t go near one.

I hate that I can’t remember. My hands are a little beat up.

I miss the Sears catalog. I could look at all those dioramas in the toy section forever.

Carefully, I remove layers of an ant hill with a small spade and gloves. The whole community under mere inches of desert; made ostentatious by a mound of their own participation. Like a perfect miniature volcano. I lift levels as delicately as I can. Each revealing the inside of a sand dollar.

I can’t remember what I did yesterday.

The more meticulous, the greater my reward. I am here to watch the tiny doomed scramble and panic in a labyrinth of caves and passages that had never been invaded by the light of the sun until now. Just stay upwind and most will blow the other way all while exposing the crude catacombs of the arthropods.

I’m thinking a little Iron Maiden and a grape soda.

I brought my looking glass, in case I find the queen. She’ll be plump and confused at first. I will roast her in her nest. She will writhe and convulse like an embryonic dragon. She’ll burst like a sausage casing full of blood and there will be a disgusting vapor.

The discretionary chaos of these tiny worlds is almost the entire catalyst for my enthusiasm to live a neat and orderly life. Everything in it’s place. I like right angles and symmetry. I’m both experimental and generous with angles of forty five degrees or multiples thereof.

Sometimes I get excited about insects in a morbid curious sorta way. Most bugs when divided in half exhibit ‘bilateral symmetry’. Each half mirrors the other. Crunch through the exoskeleton of a grasshopper with a scalpel and this will be your reward.

I have no regard for bugs. I loathe them. My most profound emotion is fear.

I really want a nice set of encyclopedias. I adore all the cutaway illustrations of ships and buildings and those cool translucent pages with various human body systems and structures.

My name is Paul.

Just recently Our Man announced another welcome reversal from Dumbya era policies.

Along with closing Gitmo, ending torture, bringing troops home, allowing tax cuts for the wealthy to expire and no more raids on medicinal marijuana, Obama announced a lifting of the ridicilous restrictions on government funded stem cell research.

Hoorah and in your face bitches.

I’m looking at change. I’m looking right at it.

So today, Sunday, this tool who’s been on my radar for some time, Eric Cantor (Republican Whip) had this to say, “Why are we going and distracting ourselves from the economy? This is job No. 1. Let’s focus on what needs to be done,” – CNN

Hey Cantor, how is this a distraction? Why are the economy and potentially life saving scientific techniques or methodologies mutually exclusive? What kind of simpleton are you? One who’s so clueless as to imagine himself to be fighting for a baseless retarded principle? Or, so cynical as to pander impudently to right wing Christian whackjobs by fomenting ignorance and fear?

No secret that Cantor has been one of the most shrill Republican voices pissing on any and all of Obama’s economic proposals and policies.

White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes: “Advances with regard to science and technology help advance our overall national goals around economic growth and job creation,” she said, adding, “I think anytime you make an effort to try and separate these pieces of the puzzle, you’re missing the entire picture.” – CNN

Well said.

Cantor also said: “Frankly, federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research can bring on embryo harvesting, perhaps even human cloning that occurs,” Cantor said. “We don’t want that. That shouldn’t be done. That’s wrong.” – CNN

Fear, ignorance and proof that Cantor either doesn’t know what he’s talking about or at the very least, doesn’t think Americans do.

Government has very little judicature to be palavering over the morals or ethics of scientic research, save maybe for defense and national security. See how I just bitch slapped you with the irony? Did you like it? Call me daddy.

We would do well to remember that history provides plethora example of scientists and philosophers jailed or executed for telling what they knew to be the truth. We are not the center of the universe. We are not the center of the solar system, the sun is. The earth is round. Germs are really small.

I will paraphrase the local NBC affiliate coverage by telling you that opponents of stem cell research fear the destruction of human embryos and that the government will now be responsible for loss of human life.

Here are the motherfucking facts. We’re not even talking about embryos, we’re talking about blastocysts. I microscopic ball of about thirty cells, four or five days fertilized by in vitro fertilization only. In vitro fertilization is about numbers. The more eggs sperm conquer the better the odds. What I’m trying to tell you is that the blastocysts that don’t get used are discarded. Thrown away. The ones we want for research, end up in some strange receptacle with a scary symbol on it.

The entire controversy is over what has been biological waste until tomorrow.

Eric Cantor, fucktard that he is would have you believe that he’s not the one doing the distracting. Methinks he doth protest too much. Me also thinks he’s a jackbooted, lockstep Republican who’s just stupid enough to not see his base eroding.

Why behave in public if you’re living on a playground? – DLR

Two names: Bill Frist and Rick Santorum. Mumbling stumbling fucks, welcome to the clubhouse Mr. Cantor, sodas are free.

Drinks for my friends.

I’m not writing tonight. I’m pimping. What’s really going on here is that readership is way down.

My alter ego has sprung into action. As of now it spreads justice while protecting my secret identity.

I carpet bomb craigslist with my banner by state and then city. I launch missles into myspace. Comment on blogs. Try to pick fights with idiots.

If you like my shit, put my banner on your page. Pimp me to your friends. I like to write like I’m swinging a hammer. My therapist told me that once.

Comment you bitches.

Participate.

I’d really like to court advertisers…………

If you read me regular, you owe it to talk me up.

Think of all the good I could do if I was getting paid. I would change lives.

Drinks for my friends.

There was a gargantuan black tranny and a nearly catatonic homeless guy at the 7-11 tonight when I went in for my Chelada.

The tranny was at least six foot and built pretty thick. She had a pierced face and was sitting on a side counter thumbing a glossy tabloid. She was spectacularly dark and her dress was dayglow green. It was like a lightshow. The homeless dude was in the exact same spot on the way in as on the way out. His mouth was working but there was no sound and he was ever so slightly rocking back and forth.

This is a nice neighborhood. I’m not offended or anything. It’s a sign of the times. It’s an indication that things are pretty fucked up. I wonder how many homeless there are in Kansas or Oklahoma. Are they on street corners? What about those places where they cling to guns and religion?

You know the homeless population is going to explode and it won’t be like the 90’s when most of them were at least a little crazy, these will be sane but destitute folks, many with families. They will look like you.

A big part of rolling with the punches will be helping your fellow human as much as you can. Like if your a codger alone in a giant mansion, you could house a family. If you’re like me you could give people change and aspire to give them paper dollars someday. Learn about cultivating vegetables and then teach it.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this I just needed to write something.

Never.

No, Always.

Keep a trash bag in your car.

When it gets full you can toss it out the window. -Steve Martin

I’m not sure how to tell you this so I’m just gonna say it. Two nights ago, I bought a small pillow of pork rinds with a packet of salsa inside along with a Chelada.

Tonight, despite the amazon shemale and the drooling homeless dude, I secured my second clear plastic pillow with the festive green and red ink, filled with as crude and neanderthal of any mass produced foodstuff there is save pickled pigs feet. Along with a Chelada.

I feel pretty good about it. I was a vegetarian for almost a decade. These days I eat just about anything but the tongue, brains or intestines of any animal. Two hot dogs at the 7-11 for $2.22 all in with all the fixins. Mayo, mustard, ketchup, onions, pickles. processed liquid yellow cheese product and somewhat flavorless chili with a friendly color.

Foodie? I hate that word. Food enthusiast? Fuck me. I like caviar, and sushi, both best with the right champagne. Deviled eggs and french fries, olives and stinky cheese with port, fresh tomatos with salt and pepper, pasta-sauce and a big ass Zinfandel. Then there’s a chili cheese dog with mayonnaise, mustard and onion from Der Wienerschnitzel with a diet coke and the greasy but above average fries.

I tried to tell that I didn’t really have anything to say and here you are. No worries. I wrote all this crap.

Who had a better time?

Drinks for my friends.

My question is, what’s wrong with this picture?

So we’re in the middle of an economic clusterfuck. Um, no shit.

The housing bubble erupted like a volcanically abscessed cow and deflated into a crater with a bottom below sea level. Tragic. I saw it coming. Twenty five percent annual appreciation in home values was unsustainable. Duh. I understood housing sales and speculation to be the last pole standing underneath the tent of our economy.

I was at the table, bought a brand new house in ’94, sold it in ’96 just after I no longer had to worry about capital gains. In and out at the last minute. I was lucky.

The consistent erosion in value of the dollar against foreign currency was troubling. Dragster fueled gold prices were an omen. Unemployment began to walk up a precipitous ladder. Then there was a deficit ballooning like a hemorrhoid after a dinner of habaneros, jalapenos and horseradish. A senseless war we couldn’t begin to afford.

I was and am a salesman, I talk to people all over the country everyday. I saw it coming.

Jon Stewart made a hysterically funny point tonight about how CNBC, a self proclaimed financial network, just missed it. Didn’t see it coming just like Alan Greenspan didn’t. I don’t know about CNBC, but Alan Greenspan is a liar.

How is that? You know, Greenspan turns into an idiot overnight and entire network devoted to the economy has fiscal Down Syndrome?

I predicted it. Read my old blogs. Am I a genius? One could argue it as a purely academic exercise, but that’s not the point. I am as clueless as the next Joe in most matters financial.

Shhhh! We’re hunting wabbit. See what I’m saying?

Here’s my point. We’ve got 90,000 troops in Europe, almost a hundred thousand in Asia and various amounts in twenty or thirty other countries. We’ll be spending well north of six hundred billion this year for “defense”. More than ten times as much as any other country.

Economies expand and contract. America’s economy is contracting at about the same rate as that of the planet. Our actual vulnerability in terms of national security are more congruent and even symbiotic with world economic fortune than any other facet of anything we do here on the blue marble.

Time to reckon and then contract. Not saying we should get all xenophobic at the bacchanal. How about we shrink some of our imperialistic aspirations around the globe? America must sacrifice her codependent love affair with the military industrial complex. If we don’t, we’ll fold like the Soviet Union for the same reasons and in the same way. Trust me.

It will be chaotic, noisy and there will be food lines.

Drinks for my friends.

We are barely thirty days in and already a legion of Guy Smiley conservatives are pinning the tail of the demise of America on Obama, our shiniest donkey. Our best hope.

They piss and moan about the deficit like they didn’t oversee the most gargantuan one in world history. Like they didn’t inherit a massive surplus. See kids, the first rule of business is you have to spend money to make it. You guys spent it foolishly. Now, we need to spend more money because you assholes did it wrong. Shut up. This is your fault. You’ve left us no choice. Shut up.

Bill Clinton wasn’t Jesus but he was Elvis.

Wall street is tanking. Frightening indeed. World markets are falling towards the most spectacular faceplant we may ever see. It sucks. It’s bad.

But, I’m not willing to let the most concentrated army of irresponsible greedy speculators be some sort of barometer for our economic future. They surf economic waves, they straddle inflated bubbles. They knew housing was gonna pop like a greasy zit. Of course they’re not happy with current stimulus effort because it’s not about them. At least not in the short term. They will have to wait. Every damn one of them has let the phrase ‘long term thinking’ escape their pie hole. Time for some of your own serum you fools.

If you’re looking to the stock market as any indicator at all about this administration’s potential for edible bacon, you’re a damn fool.

They love to gripe about tax increases. They never even bother to mention that damn near every workaday American will see their tax burden reduced and that any increase will only be for the top one percent. One percent that owns eighty percent of this country’s money and assets. We’re talking about ninety five percent of us who will spend that money because we need to as opposed to the richest folks on the planet that will never experience the onus of spending a single dime more on anything. When the bottom line sags, they cut jobs. They tip less. They trim their own nose hair. Sometimes, they fold their own socks.

This trickle down economic theory hatched by conservative birdbrain/icon Reagan has done nothing but shovel fuel into the engines of the ridiculously wealthy to steam us further and faster towards an endogamous caste system. We’re already a plutocracy. It’s a really bad idea that has been exclusively antithetical to the American Dream of economic equality and social parity.

Trickle Down Economics is an anathema to the American Middle class. After almost forty uninterrupted years of said philosophy, the once strong back of the American middle class is all but broken. It’s never been harder to simply work for a living wage.

They would have us believe that any and all spending on infrastructure is pork. Nevermind that everything from electrical grids to bridges and hospitals are crumbling like dirt clods in the hands of fourth graders in an arid desert. Nevermind that these projects will create jobs immediately that cannot be outsourced. Nevermind the dignity and self respect it will restore to men and women that want nothing more than a job that contributes in a tangible way to their own communities and pays the bills.

Nevermind FDR and The New Deal.

What about this doesn’t make sense to you greedy bastards?

Drinks for my friends.

The Republicans have been putting on quite a show lately.

It is with limp wristed Liberal delight that I watch a cavalcade of blowhard conservatives stumble over their own dicks. I should point out I’m wearing my frilly liberal blouse to give you a better visual. No boots but a handsome silver tiara.

RNC Chair Michael Steele used the words “Ugly” and “Incendiary” when discussing Rush Limbaugh on D.L. Hughley this weekend.

Did I mention my artfully encrusted codpiece?

It speaks volumes about the current state of the Republican party that Michael Steele says what he thinks in a candid moment about Rush Limbaugh and then back peddles, getting tangled up in his own phallus while attempting a mea culpa for the pleasure of the notorious Human Shitsmear.

Weak and stupid.

Some suggest we only launch against the Shitsmear for the sake of ‘strawman’ tactics. Villify Rush and prove our priorities have nothing to do with substance and policy. Nope. Ring the buzzer. We are here to expose him for being full of shit. He’s a loose lipped caricature stomping the stage to regurgitate talking points and rigid ideology back to the great unwashed like a carnival barker.

He is here for the stupid. The base.

Rush Limbaugh wields more influence and therefore more power than any single other Republican. Think about that. He’s not a journalist, he’s not a pundit, he’s not a politician, he’s an entertainer. When a disingenuous, hypocritical bloviating drug addict speaks…………..wandering clueless Republicans listen.

Then there’s the notion that Republicans can contemporize conservative ideals by by applying them to “….urban-suburban hip hop settings.” -Michael Steele/The Colbert report. The show went on to include Michelle Bachman (R. MN.) telling Steele that “You be the man”.

Sheezus. This is fucking pathetic.

After nothing less than renting our once proud nation asunder, the Republicans are desperate to remake themselves in any way, by any means possible and put as many miles as possible between them and their wreckless sins of avarice and division.

News flash. The likes of Limbaugh and Coulter cannot possibly lead you people out of these woods. They are your problem, no chance of them playing part in a recipe for the magic poultice. Their baseless vitriol, the fundamental components of which are hate and fear, will only further poison your message and perception. We are encouraged by them to view all Republicans like racists still clinging to the mantra of seperate but equal.

The Human Shitsmear obviates that you just don’t get it.

You people are idiots.

Drinks for my friends.

I hate reality television but I love a trainwreck. Donald Trump is a douchebag. He doesn’t even drink. I’m a little intrigued by Dice Clay, Rodman and Tom Green. I couldn’t possibly care any less about Joan Rivers or the other women.

Joan does look like a particularly bad movie vampire/transexual. A caricature inspired by less than elegant impressionism. I look at her and wish my penis was detachable. The bitch is scary ugly.

I hate it already. It’s insipid. I made it to the first commercial break. Thus far the only redeeming aspect of the entire egregiously contrived clusterfuck is that it will benefit various charities.

An adversarial demarcation is drawn between chicks and dudes. I’m confident it would have been more compelling to mix gender. I’ve made it to the second commercial break. The teams have been charged with the task of making and selling cupcakes. How inspired.

The drama ensues. It’s riveting. I wonder what I may be missing on another channel. I think about my toenails and how they’re getting a little long.

The tension and suspense is so thick I begin to wonder if the sushi joint across the street is still open. If not, the little Mexican place probably is. Can’t get a beer at the Mexican place though. Then I understand I’m not hungry.

I decide to smoke a bowl. I learn Dice is a blowhard and Rodman is a moron. Enlightenment.

I think about calling my mom but I just talked to her yesterday.

Chicks win, dudes lose. Dice gets fired. I will admit the end sucked me in a little. Now I feel dirty.

My mom and I are pretty close. I admire her. Both my parents have a work ethic I’ve rarely ever even glimpsed in another adult. Both in their seventies, open minded, generous and compassionate. It’s not like I grew up Brady but I consider myself pretty lucky. Good people, excellent parents full of love.

So I turned 44 a few weeks ago. Over Christmas when the prodigal son was home, the subject of my birthday did surface. My mother comes from a family of eleven siblings. My father from four but he left home when he was twelve. Birthdays were never a big deal in my family. Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter were Mardi Gras by contrast.

Sometimes I wake up on my birthday and don’t realize what day it is until half way through. I usually get a card from my folks with a few passages underlined, a sincere handwritten note from my mother reaffirming my parent’s love and a check enough for a decent bottle of hooch. When I was a kid I got a good book or two, H. G. Wells or Jack London and a cake. My sister calls early and leaves a voice-mail singing an off key happy birthday.

Anyway, like I said, it came up over the holidays. I told my mother, in all seriousness, what I wanted for my birthday, was an autographed copy of Harry Reid’s book “The Good Fight”. My mother and Harry are old friends. She worked for him back in the day when he was an Assemblyman in the Nevada State Legislature. He went on to be Lieutenant Governor of Nevada under Governor Mike O’Callaghan. O’Callaghan’s daughter babysat my sister and I for a time. He, the Governor, actually had a wooden leg.

She smiled and said she’d see what she could do. I knew she had taken me seriously.

Harry’s was the very first political campaign I worked in when he ran for United States Senator of Nevada.

He lost to Paul Laxalt by barely six hundred votes.

Harry Reid is now the Senate Majority Leader. One of the most powerful men in Washington. Laxalt, a Reagan crony, took the dirt nap some time ago. Harry’s from a little town called Searchlight. He used to box. He’s a Mormon.

My mother has since retired from politics but she still dabbles. The Nevada State Legislature still has bi-annual sessions. Mom took a job this year at the front desk for the Assembly side. She loves it. She is seventy three years old, she knows these people and she is so happy to be involved. She works hard and is beyond dedicated.

She’s been the administrative assistant to the Governor and headed up the economic development commission. She took me to DC when I was a freshman in highschool while she worked on a Bureau of Land Management issue of particular concern to western states; the ‘Sagebrush Rebellion’.

I had access to Nevada’s legislature as a boy. I was allowed to sit in the gallery when the Senate and Assembly were in session. All manner of bills and legislation were available to me. I had run of the library.

I eventually worked as a bill clerk before I left home to study.

I can’t get over how tickled my mom was when she told me about it all.

Harry was scheduled to speak a week or two ago. My mother sent a brief note through proper channels saying that we’d always been supportive (not entirely true), that I’d worked for him when I was eight years old and that I’d asked for an autographed copy of his book for my birthday.

On the day he was to deliver his address, a Sargeant at Arms mentioned to my mom that someone had been by her office asking for her. My mother is a busy woman even if she’s not. It fascinates me that she never stops. When she does, she wraps a sheet around her forearm and pulls it over her head like a bat. Three to five hours later, she’s done.

A little while later an aide of Harry’s appeared to tell her that the Senator would like to see her. She was escorted into a private room and they talked about personal matters for fifteen or twenty minutes. Just the two of them. Uninterrupted. They caught up. No politics, somewhat to my dismay, but he already had a copy of his book with an inscription and an autograph for me.

He called for a photographer.

Later, as he entered the legislative chamber, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries much like the President did last week, he bent and kissed my mother on the cheek on live television. When she told me the story she was just a schoolgirl.

Such is the magic of my mother. A sample of the blessing I enjoy from wonderful parents. To have played a part, to have been any kind of impetus at all in that day makes my heart sing.

Life is good.

Drinks for my friends.

Oil and pot. One syllable, three letters each. What’s the only difference? One’s legal and one’s not. People die, get kidnapped and beheaded at the behest of both. A simple product. A commodity. The bad people get rich either way. The terrorists are just as sexy.

Among the most dangerous and foolish of games.

The prison industrial complex. Mexican warlords. Where the money goes has not changed since Nixon. The only significant change has been the amount of money. Can you say exponential? The gleaming city is underwater. The levees have failed. The cash overflows. America’s Drug War is the second or third stupidest thing we’ve ever done. After slavery, Viet Nam and Iraq.

It may be the second or third most expensive.

Then there was The Pet Rock, The Osmonds and Spam as meat.

Lives lost and innocent imprisoned in numbers staggering and shameful. Pigs at the trough, persecuting, prosecuting and killing their own while they horde the filthy lucre. You want terrorism? It’s on your southern border and it’s blowing the fuck up. Terror not mutually exclusive with the North American continent anymore.

It’s state sponsored, by your state, by the US of A. As we speak, it spills over. Civilians slaughtered. Juarez, Tijuana, El Paso and San Diego. Every American city bends and groans under the weight of our archaic policies and a draconian incarceration non-solution.

Enforce, enforce, enforce.

We learned in the thirties that prohibition is wrongheaded and the furthest thing from efficacious mankind could possibly muster. Stupid then, stupid now. It gave rise to a brand of crime we came to call ‘organized’. I wonder why we called it that. Seems kinda non-nefarious. A non sequitur. What it is today, is bad news. Organized crime like this, is American made. Homegrown like Jazz and The Blues. Just like a gorgeous and unique art form, we are worldwide with the violence and the ignorance.

I worry about my parents. They winter in Yuma. They have the world’s best insurance but they still cross the border to save money on a few things.

This is where we are. This is what we’ve allowed to happen. It’s sick. The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. The conversation with my mother will be about their safety on the border, because of The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. Because they could be killed on a lazy Sunday.

This is bullshit. We need to shut this nonsense down. We reap what we have sown. Did you know Reagan dealt drugs? He also dealt arms to folks we’d all decided as a country we couldn’t do business with because they were brown and kinda socialist. Or was it the other way around? I forget.

Even in my world the clouds part.

Then there’s Our Man’s choice for Drug Czar (head of the ONDCP), Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. I don’t know much about this guy yet but he looks to be pretty progressive. Alternet calls him “a relatively enlightened cop.” Seattle is goddamn liberal. They’ve lowered marijuana as an enforcement priority and have needle exchange.

Maybe there’s potential.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed he will not be pursuing DEA raids on medical marijuana clinics. A policy shift that’s precisely 180 degrees out from the previous administration. It’s a waste of time and money and it foments distrust and fear. Smart move. Makes me smile.

Pretty big deal the aggregate of these issues alone. The departure they represent, despite them not being secondary or even tertiary to the electorate these days, it’s awesome. Forgive me but it is. It reveals a compassion and pragmatism people won’t recognize because it’s been so long since they’ve seen it.

Trust me, this is big.

My sincere hope is that it’s harbinger of things to come.

It he tells us he’s closing Gitmo, ending torture and the war in Iraq. Gonna wind down the defense budget a little, spend lots on infrastructure, healthcare and education. He seems to understand this is a long term deal. This is not your father’s President. His short game looks good too. Aggressive and decisive. Perhaps we should do something to revive the patient as opposed to speculating ad nauseum over what will be it’s demise.

If we could just stop spending money to kill people or be able to kill them better in the future. Not forever. Maybe for a few years. You know, a three year moratorium would just about get us out of this mess. It could work pretty well in the short term.

End the drug war, stop killing folks. Stop putting them in jail. Let the masses self medicate and get off your asses and allow America to cultivate hemp. Oil, nutrition and textiles in a crop requiring no pesticides that can be turned around every twelve to sixteen weeks. It’s illegal because it scared the shit out of Hearst (paper) and Rockefeller (oil) back in the thirties.

Good green bud has Pfizer horrified and vomiting.

Life is not a game and we’re not necessarily here to compete all the time. But when people succumb, when they become overly cynical and bitter. They have lost. They are losers on the human stage. They may succeed in some ways, but when they lose in important ways, nobody gives a damn.

Drinks for my friends.

Our man has delivered a budget. That word reads so simple. A budget. It’s more than that. A philosophy. He has huge balls. He’s not here to fuck around. It’s a lot of goddamn money. An unbelievable, unimaginable amount of money. Three and a half trillion at least. History will repeat itself like pi before you and I can realize a number like that.

Hoo ya!

“In keeping with my commitment to make our government more open and transparent, this budget is an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go,” Obama said at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House before the budget was officially released. He said previous budgets have “not told the whole truth” about spending and that “large sums have been left off the books,” including war costs that have been funded by separate emergency supplemental appropriations.

“And that kind of dishonest accounting is not how you run your family budgets at home; it’s not how your government should run its budgets either,” Obama said. -truthout.org

It’s spooky ambitous and ideological even. It’s visionary. The symbolism of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is not lost on me. Long term thinking as opposed to thumb in the dyke stop gap chicanery. He’s made the very bold and cold shower honest move of including the cost of our wars in the official accounting of our government’s spending. The first time since we began to wage this unjust war. It begs the question of why it hasn’t been included so far. Did they think we didn’t know? Did they think we didn’t understand they were spending more money than you and I can make?

That all the while the rich were getting richer and we didn’t know?

“I have serious concerns with this budget, which demands hardworking American families and job creators turn over more of their hard-earned money to the government to pay for unprecedented spending increases,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. -truthout.org

That is a lie. He is a Senator and he is lying. He sucks. His lament was for the wealthy. He presided over what will be the bulk of your debt for the last eight years. He’s an asshole. Google him, you can tell by looking at him. He was the kid you beat up for trying to tax Jello or maybe sell you gum by the stick.

These asshat Republicans have forced us to double down. They act like they left us a pile of chips. They left a pair of red panties on the green felt. Cotton granny drawers XXL.

Get out of the way while we play bold because it’s the only option you left us. Peniswhipdrinks. Go sit by the pool but you can’t put your drinks on your room.

We intend to use the rollback of tax cuts to the absurdly wealthy as our marker. Spreading the wealth around indeed. 80% of the world’s wealth in the hands of 1% of it’s people. Socialism my ass. Looks entirely equitable and ethical to me. Again, you haven’t left us much choice.

Here lies some proof in the moveable feast of the pudding. We spend ten times more than our closest competitor on guns, bombs, missiles and fighting men & women. America is responsible for forty percent of the entire global outlay of guns, bombs, missiles and humans. It’s ridiculous and obsolete. The single biggest component of that expense is humans. The world has changed. The ideology and geography of huge human armies is obsolete. Wars like this are no longer sustainable. If they prove to be viable at all, we will lose them. Good Morning Vietnam. A lesson we should have learned forty years ago.

“WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama Thursday unveiled a 663.7 billion dollar defense budget, up a modest 1.5 percent on 2009, but projected a sharp decline in spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming years.”

Somehow under the new administration, it’s ok to photograph and reproduce images of coffins containing our dead service members. You may call the changes so far symbolic, I call them substantial.

We’re not in Kansas anymore. Kansas is no longer Kansas, despite how bad the people who live there want it to be. The world has changed and continues to do so. Pay attention. Nobody is in Kansas anymore.

We need to be as fierce in battle as we are gentle in friendship. I stole that but I don’t remember where.

Maybe next we’ll talk about education and health care.

Drinks for my friends.

My best friend is named Suede. His real name is Rod but that’s gay so we call him Suede.

My name is Myrus. Rod also gets called Def Leppard and Dave Mustaine from time to time. His name is Suede.

I get home and it’s so goddamn quiet. I’m clomping around the place because I’m pumping and it’s too fucking quiet. I hate the quiet. Maybe I should get another dog but it never ends well. I regret beating a man sometimes, but dogs make me cry. I’m really not so good with animals and suffering.

I can’t have them around.

I fire up a little Maiden. Grab me a PBR.

That’s how it started but not where it’s ended up. Human’s make me glad. Animals don’t know. People do. Even the most innocent human wears far more sin than any of God’s other creatures. Animals are innocent.

Human beings are guilty.

The wind should shut up.

I hide my rings and wash my clothes.

I’m Myrus.

I like to look people in the eyes. I will look you in the eye. It’s important to me. On the street, I come up on you, you don’t nod back you don’t respect me so I don’t care about you at all. Fuckhead.

My name is Myrus.

The wind whistles through my house.

All the time.

I won’t paint you for that. We just have no reason to respect each other. Neither of us has earned anything from the other. Understand that if you look at me like that again, I will not stop until you’re on the ground and I’m kicking your head. You lost me at hello.

I can’t believe there’s no grape soda. I like Glenn Miller. I keep my hair pretty long. I find it makes me stand out. I don’t dress to stand out. Clothes are a simple choice, there’s no commitment. They fit so you wear them. I don’t care about clothes. I like cologne.

You look at me like that. Again. I tilt my head roll my eyes, stare you in the face and smile. I walk at you with my left hand behind my head and my right extended for a shaking.

I take your hand smiling, I pump it friendly, pull you to me while I chop with my left fist for as long as I can hold you up. I draw blood right away because I’m wearing my rings. My rings give me confidence. I beat you so bad you fold. The blood is exhilarating.

It happens pretty fast after that and I realize I’m in the Country Store. A bar. Local dickheads like to answer their phones and shout to their wives they’re at ‘the store’.

I look at Cecil behind the counter and his grizzled stupid fucking chin that looks like a pair of tiny balls. I loathe his chin. He tries to smile to reassure me but I see his stupid teeth and swing right at them with a fake marble ashtray. Overhand right.

It ended up in my hand. I don’t know where it came from. I fucking nailed him right in the mouth with a brick.

I use my left hand and the rings.

I’m sure I break everything on the front of his head. Cecil goes down gulping and bleeding. I fucking hate his chin and stupid fucking grey Members Only jacket. He wears it over his sawed off flannel, he rolls up the sleeves of the dumb jacket and puts the pussy collar up.

Douchebag. He has an elastic sweatband around his head sometimes.

His name is Cecil. My name is Myrus.

All I can remember is that I wanted to kill myself. I wasn’t in any kind of pain at all. I was looking forward to it. Clean linens on a warm cloudy bed with my belly full. Bliss. An end to misery.

That’s all I can tell you.

I was tired. I’d never been that tired.

When I get tired I take a nap or go to bed.

Was I at my absolute lowest? Yes and no. I’d given up. Material posessions hadn’t mattered for quite some time. I was about to lose a molar but I was kinda cruisin on the blissful relief of vicodin and surrendering entirely to not giving a mad fuck.

There’s oceans of freedom in giving up hope. The first body of water is huge. The Ocean of Day to Day. Twenty four chapters, each an hour long.

Rough start. I was thinking I’d try again tomorrow. Go to sleep. Get drunk, go to sleep again.

Wake up in my drafty little house next to the quiet highway. My place faces east so my bedroom looks west and there’s a mountain range up close. The afternoon sun bothers me the least we can manage and in the spirit of cooperation, the wind whistles through my house.

Man I was tired.

Black cumulonimbus sentient over the mountains. No rain would come. It never does. I think I can smell it.

Shit day.

Customers pissy over the selection. What you see is what we have. No backstock. I hate having to repeat myself.

My name is Myrus. When I first started they had me as a greeter three days a week. I hate having to repeat myself.

My name is Myrus.

I’m referring of course, to Rush Limbaugh. I know it’s old news but…….

I had the pleasure of viewing “Right America Wronged”, an HBO documentary examining American Conservatives during and shortly after the last election.

Within just a few minutes I was treated to charming vignettedotes like these:

One man was asked if he felt two Americas were emerging and he said, “There’s gays and there’s working people”

When asked what the most important issue of the campaign was, several responded with a mix of abortion, homosexuals and fear of losing their guns.

“……..We’re gonna let this world know there is only one God, there’s only one way to heaven and ya better sit up and ya better take notice and ya better start listening.”

“I hope there’s enough Christians in the world to save us.”

One campagne worker who claims to be working for God, is dismayed to discover an Obama yard sign. She then discloses in a whisper that the house belongs to two lesbians.

The whole time they bray toothlessly about the ‘liberal media’. It is the second month of the third week of the year of our Lord, 2009.

A dumptruck full of bowling ball mechanics. Sheezus.

Yes, I concocted the word ‘vignettedotes’. Mark your Aztec calendar. It’s pronounced Vin-yet-a-dotes.

What is so compelling is how overtly and thoroughly the McCain Palin campagne utilized American churches as a surrogate army for their message. I was aware of this but not at all cognizant of how pervasive. A message that pivots on abortion and The Gays. A man inside a First Baptist Church at a lectern shaped like a cross urging the congregation not to vote for Obama. His message is one we understand all too well. Abortion and the nomination of every judge in the orchestra on up to the Supremes and Diana.

The irony is, to my dismay, Barack Obama is demonstrably more pious than McCain.

Recently Bristol Palin said on television that abstinence was unrealistic. No shit?

“Set me free, why don’t you babe”

Second issue but hardly least, is of national security and American troops in Iraq; that they won’t be safe under an Obama administration and neither will we. These people unaware that of the two, it was Obama with the wisdom and a promise to get our men and women home as soon as possible. If you rednecks are worried about your people over there and you can read, you might be a little less worried than last year.

And the idea that the more we do over there somehow amounts to less they will do to us here is goddamn stupid. It’s the exact opposite. 180 degrees out. You think they can’t spare ten dudes to light us up? What if we had an extra couple hundred thousand battle trained soldiers back on our own soil? You guys are dumb.

Somehow they’re not getting the memos. Maybe they can’t read them. Buy a vowel people, or learn what one is. I can’t apologize for my flying spittle here. I thought about this. I’ve been sitting on this blog. The people in this documentary embarrass me. I’m not over reacting when I tell you I was embarrassed to be white. These people are fucking idiots. It was horrible to watch.

I came away with reinforced belief that our differences are far more about class than race or any other factor. What lies between almost all of us is socioeconomic. Keep your hands on your undies lest they bundle up. Race is huge. Obviously class and race are mutually inclusive.

The very real issue of racial discrimination in America still has a full belly and a big head of steam. It has torn us apart in bloody and spectacular ways. It still does. What rips hardest at us today is the disparity between rich and poor. I know minorities are disproportionately poorer than us white folk. Class and race are symbiotic.

The top one percent own eighty percent of the world. It’s that simple. It’s that bad. Worst in history. America is not courting socialism, it is rushing , meth and steroid lubricated, towards a medieval caste system.

Looks like there’s going to be a troop surge in Afghanistan, I’m not sure I like it but maybe it will save some American lives. Too late for much more than that. Seventeen thousand troops will not fundamentaly change this game. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the Hydra, a Wild Card and Rogue Nuclear State all in one. But wait! There’s more! Act now and you get one billion pissed off Indians with nukes just to the right on the map.

India, allegedly the world’s largest Democratic country, along with China, are making giant strides in the implementation of humans as currency.

They said it’s all gonna end over there anyway. If the region from Iraq to India was anywhere near like it is now, in terms of mind wrenching turmoil, conflict, poverty, war, slavery, death hatred and desperation, back then it was a pretty safe bet. I think most authors of the First Testament were in the area at the time. They must have known something we still know now.

This effort has to be economic, diplomatic, adroit, intelligent and humane. Notice I didn’t say transparent. Forgive me, but that’s just stupid. Not gonna happen. Don’t even ask for it.

Several men at a Nascar event are asked whether they’re ready for a black President. They all admit they’re not.

A man is asked what he thinks of Obama. “I’m not too partial to blacks.” The interviewer is incredulous, “What do mean? C’mon this is 2008, you can’t say that.” His reply, “Why can’t I say that? I’m in the South.” He also didn’t believe women should have the right to vote.

Asked who he’s going to vote for, a man says, “I’m gonna vote for the white man, McCain.” The interviewer asks why, “I ain’t voting for no nigger”, he says turning away. He stops and faces the camera to repeat himself.

They say he’s a Muslim, a terrorist, he’ll swear in on the Koran, he’s not full blooded American. Didn’t salute the flag, doesn’t wear a flag pin. He’s a socialist, comparisons to Hitler, 666, he’s the Anti-Christ. The whole time they moan about the liberal media.

Don’t ya hate when you vomit so violently it comes out your nose? Sometimes you puke so hard you poop a little. Sometimes you fill your britches.

What astounds me most is yet another irony. Those people who wail so vehemently against ‘The Liberal Media’, those who are so adamant about their side of the story not being told, are the most egregious victims of media bias and manipulation in this country. I mean, if you had to guess where they got all this disinformation, all these lies, what would you say? Where would you point? Fox News. They even said as much.

It’s not like they read.

Where do we go from here? By the scale of all human tragedy this certainly isn’t defcon four but it’s beyond that greasy turd in the punchbowl. It is tragic.

Can they be helped? I doubt it. They certainly aren’t willing to be helped. They’re already marginalized. I believe them to be a lost cause. Not worth the time or the trouble.

It’s all about the children.

I’ve decided that CSI Miami has the best visual production on television. Brilliant set design, costumes, locations, lighting, cinema photography……………..and the worst acting, writing, script, plot, storyline I’ve ever seen. A very high watermark on the television without substance as a vehicle for mindless entertainment scale. I like it as background without sound. I only watch it with the sound off.

Drinks for my friends.

7-11 has gotten pretty aggressive with branding of late. The products seem to be of quality and affordable. I tripped on a canard though. I bought some trail mix labeled “Swiss Trail Mix” that contained M&M’s. How can it be Swiss, if it’s most delicious ingredient is an iconic American candy? Not only do they contribute to the palatability of the recipe, they are the backbone in terms of contrasting flavors and textures. In concert with, but far beyond, the raisins.

It’s not a stretch to view this instance as an analog for the salt and pepper of Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Actually it is, but bear with me, there’s a tragic flaw. These two elements are not mixing with any sort of shared purpose. Too bad, ever had sea salt and ground pepper on calimari? Far less pepper is required than salt.

The Republicans are pepper.

No unity. Zero cooperation. What should be a symbiotic relationship, is the furthest thing from it. A contemporary example of the classic conundrum; the pot accusing the kettle of blackness and all the internecine feline agitprop.

Ladies and gentlemen we have a blog title.

I gotta stop buying those Cheladas.

Childish, churlish and obstructionist. They are the body designated and elected to serve our best interests. We The People.

“Watch for the classic tactic of American rightwing propaganda: Always accuse one’s opponent of doing the very thing that one is doing, especially if one has been caught or exposed while doing it.” -from my friend J’s blog

It’s what they accused Democrats of over and over when they were in charge. Obstructionism, when they encountered opposition to silly irresponsible tax cuts to the very rich. Fiscal irresponsibility is at the top of their lungs now, though it was the Republicans who ran the deficit up to a trillion dollars with chickenshit tax cuts and senseless wars.

Nothing proactive there. Our man understands he’s steering into deeper waters. He’s not happy about it but he understands that any way he turns the wheel, people on this boat will piss and moan. He’s got a very smart crew. They think the sea might be more manageable where we’re headed. He’s chosen course as best he can because we have to keep moving. Stand still you die.

Just who the fuck are these guys? Identity and principle have never been less important to the GOP. The tragedy is that in times so breathtakingly dire, they still think it’s 1994. They still think it’s a goddamn game.

They don’t see America. Criminals, pimps, whores, fastfood workers and union folks. We want to address the malaise at this point. Lawyers and midgets. Philanderers and microbioligists. Those chicks who paint you up at Macy’s. We all want it to work.

We’re a mystery to them. They know not what to make of us. See how they walk around with their mouths open?

I’m still fond of the notion that our government benefits from some modicum of parity. A ballast to power absolute. Checks and balances. It’s just these jackasses aren’t up to the ideal. Virtuosity for the sake of virtuosity perhaps. They’ve praticed a black art with such facility for so long that they now practice it exclusively for the sake thereof. Completely absent any regard for the people, their constituents. They have no moral or ethical imperatives. They have no center.

Like balloons in a thunder storm. No power against the Earth’s whipping wind. Notice how they keep falling? Have you seen the debris? The wind has no regard for faith. Faith is centered in the Midwest. So is wind. Huh.

You know why I like Biden despite him being such a loose lipped cashier? He’s the least wealthy member of the Senate and probably most of Congress too. The Guy’s broke despite having been there forever. The only guy in debt. Just like the rest of us, he’s got a mortgage. Now he’s the Vice Goddamn President. Not much speaks louder than that.

As near as I can tell, Our Man has done more in a month to reach across the aisle than Dumbya did in eight years. Magnanimous. Refreshing. Futile? Naw.

I think it’s important for this administration to continue being the better man. Extend a hand and when you get a fist, walk away. Spit over your shoulder. Maintain transparency and clarity all the time. Have the cameras rolling and the microphones on. Play us like they did, only in the right direction. There’s no sin in that.

Let the record show who played good honest ball and who didn’t bring a decent game. Who subsequently lied, obfuscated and willfully assumed ownership of the Sore Loser Trophy. All the Republicans are willing to offer is business as usual. I don’t need to point out they’ve screwed the pooch at the expense of the middle class for not just eight, but every year since Reagan. They would have us believe tax cuts to be the key to the Rapture.

Innocence in America ended with the assassination of Jack, Bobby, Malcom and Martin. Corruption enjoyed a nascent emergence with Nixon. Ford fell down the steps and Jimmy fell up. Corruption became an institution with Reagan and Iran-Contra among other things. 41 was hapless but not evil. Definitely a prick. Barbara was and still is, a platinum haired sasquatch. I bet she stinks like bad deer meat.

Clinton was almost exactly what we needed. He stepped in shit but it was mostly his own. Not ours. And forgive me, but he beat them back, they were at the gates brandishing torches and he sent them home. Rockstar.

It all became business as usual with the Dumbya administration. An administration so corrupt, it’s towering incompetence was overshadowed by ghoulish moral depravity and malignant avarice. These guys fucking sucked.

One last thought on this subject: Let’s not forget, despite the gale, it’s in Barack’s best interest to deliver this vessel into more pleasant waters.

By the way. The Cartoon in the NY Post? Fucking racist.

Now they’re shrill about all the humor comparing Bush to a monkey because he was a dipshit. See, that was legit in my mind because it was the truth. The funniest shit is almost always the most truthful. Nothing to do with racism. Whenever blacks have been degraded in this country to the point of dehumanization, monkeys have been used as overt and shameless imagery.

A dead chimp and the caption: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The Post is owned, along with Fox, by Rupert News Corp.

That may be all boys and girls. I had to get that out.

Make sure you check him before he wrecks him. Our Man. Stay engaged. Think globally, act locally. Judge not lest ye be.

I mean, don’t do what I do, do what I say.

Drinks for my friends.

Sheezus! I just deleted the most self indulgent piece of whiney crap. I was a little sad you see. Every once in awhile I go back and read my shit and this was a train colliding with a power plant. Sorry about that. I promise to never do that again. Sorry about that, I’m embarrassed.

It’ll rock, there’s a ton of ice. Then we’ll make hot chocolate and hoover a giant rail of pinkish petrochemical smelling meth. We’ll drink PBR and vodka from plastic. Straight.

Ann Coulter was on Larry King last night and she was remarkably cunty. Larry not in. Joy Behar gave excellent spar. Good at the smacking around a little without vitriol. Minus obvious disdain even. Smart broad.

Remember the end of Jaws where Roy Scheider Blows up the giant fake shark? That was cool.

By the way, this crazy bitch that had eight kids? That bitch is crazy or insanely, deviously smarter than most of us including me. I don’t buy the latter. Fourteen kids total, all under eight years. Octomom. Sheezus. Give her a goddamn cape.

I’m not all that worried about what she will cost me personally. Not all that worried about unwed mothers with multiple children and what they might cost me. The obvious insanity of it all does give me pause. Sorry, but her attic is taking on water. She’s not right with her Jesus.

See, we’re spending about a half a million an hour to kill people we can’t even know for sure are our enemies.

We are in roughly the same shape fiscally as a country, as I am personally. Be very afraid.

America needs to focus and so do I. We both need to be more active but you all need to read more. Here we are, all post technocratic, and so many still don’t even read. If you listen, read and watch you’re able to sort of triangulate and pretty soon you’re eyeballing more truth than you bargained for. Reading is books, periodicals and the internet. The antibiotic trifecta that remains free or real cheap.

Same with watching and listening, free or real cheap but far more insidious. Think of it as a hidden cost.

Any media who’s conduit is primarily audio or audio/visual cannot impart or convey the entirety of what you need to know. Two dimensions. Height and width.

No depth. For that, You must read.

Our President went to Canada. Did you know that? He made nice. They like him.

They don’t like us. We’re violent crazy bullies that teabag them at every opportunity. If I was Canadian I’d want me to stay south. They got sick of Americans when we still had a draft. They’re not excited about a shitload of us getting fed up and moving there. I don’t blame them. We’re fucking nuts. All I have to do is leave my house to own that.

Housing/Stimulus:

It’s a trunk full O’ groceries more than the last administration did, despite the crackheads being overtly cognizant of a rapidly gathering supercell. They knew something wicked did this way come. Trust me, they knew. Greenspan says he missed it. Bullshit. Ask yourself why a man of his ilk, with the towering respect he’s afforded, ask yourself why he’d lie about something like that.

He saw this tsunami coming in stop motion. Whatever his reason, it serves an awful thing. You can bet it was a Lucifer at the Crossroads kinda deal. I mean, I fucking saw it coming. I knew it was on the way before the horizon began to swell and long before the animals knew.

Anyone with opposable thumbs saw it coming in slow motion. Prehensile even.

My youngest cat is sublime I’m thinking of buying her a cape. At first I thought shiny red, then I knew it had to be a pearly and sparkly white. I’d like to get my oldest a tiny monkey with an outrageous hat and a saddle. I’d like to give the primate some kind of gun to fire but I know the Swirly Girl will be beyond reluctant were that to be reality.

Are you guys ready to move in with your parents? I’m not but this shit is serious. I’ll move in with my sister and get a job at Arby’s. Works for me. I’ll start reading comic books again. I’ll commit to Cheladas and forego and abstain from the Satan that is Bombay Saphire. I’ll only emerge after sunset. It comes early in that part of town. There on the west side and almost up against the Sierras.

Hey Tam, I know I said I’d take Chloe’s room. What I want is the rec room minus the pool table. We’ll need some sort of kitchenette right away and as soon as possible we’ll need to plumb a toilet and shower. That long closet on the right will be ideal for my coffin, you might want to get all your shit out of there. Can we build in some kind of chute? So I can change soil like a litterbox?

While on the subject, can we put down a wood floor? I remember not liking the carpet.

10.6 percent unemployed in Michigan. We get very close to that in half our states and shit will begin to go downhill fearfull fast. Just like hitting a fan pointed at the floor. The part that sucks is far from over.

The stats tell us we’ve got at least five million unemployed. I’m sure it’s twice that.

It’s true, we’re fucked. Even if you urinate for a living.

We have a sociologist for a friend. Don Carlson. I think he and I should be in charge of the green house. He’s probably less horticulturally inclined than I am but we could hang out and drink. I figure we’re smart enough to make it work.

I wonder if he smokes pot. We could grow some.

Drinks for my friends.

There are the weak.

Two are named Justin and Jose. It’s a story in itself. They worked in the warehouse. I reached out to both of them. Tried to help. They were shit before I met them and I’m not sure it was their fault. Nonetheless, they were shit.

I understand that one or both of them abused my cat. The Swirly Girl. For eight years or so she was the warehouse cat, until I brought her home. I am the most trusted entity in her life. We know each other very well. I’ve always been her dad. Still, she sometimes ducks my hand. My hand, that is never extended or even opened unless to pet or feed her. occasionally she cowers a little.

She’s been struck by a human hand. They never forget that. It would have been Justin or Jose.

I imagine it was Justin and if I ever lay eyes I will hit him in the face with all that I have because I know. Swirly Girl is beautiful, soft and sweet but she is scarred. Some dickless angry human abused her. Hello Justin. How are you? Miserable bastards always meet their fate. We reap what we sow.

Ever notice the way the grass yellows underneath a child’s pool or an overturned wheelbarrow?

“I heard the news today, oh boy.”

I stood next to Paul Stanley today at the 7-11. I reminded him I’d been an engineer on Kiss Alive III. What I didn’t tell him was that I faked not knowing the lyrics to “Detroit Rock City” and was therefore able to get him to hand write them for me so I could punch in and out of record in order to replace the live vocal. I still have it somewhere. Both he and Gene were fun to work with. Nice guys. Very smart. I did tell him that.

His teeth were pristine.

Pretty cool. I got that record, “Destroyer”, and a skateboard for Christmas when I was twelve. Best record KISS ever made. Probably because Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd The Wall) produced.

I worked with Garth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine) and Eddie Kramer. Eddie Kramer was the single most incompetent producer I’d ever worked with. I spent my time on that record cleaning up his mistakes, propping him up and keeping him from looking like the idiot he was in front of his clients. He had no ears and zero facility with the technology in front of him.

His claim to fame was Hendrix. Listen to his Hendrix records. The playing is brilliant but they sound like shit. The production and engineering is amateur hour. I despise imposters. Eddie Kramer was an imposter. He fucking sucked.

By the way, Garth was and is a sweet talented man who fathered me through it. He made me an honorary Canadian. A class act. He kept me from swinging on the pretentious English prick and likely saved my job and career. You’re a good man Garth.

“Same as it ever was.”

I gotta tell you, I don’t like most people. Some I used to love, I now hate. Even the very best ones end up disappointing me in the end. Their hearts blackened by their own fears and jealousy. They walk under our sun feeling they are justified and righteous. They reek, as they are no longer whole. The tragedy is not that they are unaware of what they’ve become, but rather, that they are. They have succumbed. All energy is devoted to maintaining the facade for what they believe is their own sake.

They rot and it stinks.

Callow, spineless and almost always aspiring towards Machiavellian.

“I never promised you a rose garden.”

Sometimes I’m amazed that I can walk into a store on any given day and find fresh untainted bread on the shelves. Of course, things aren’t always what they seem. Maybe that bread isn’t fresh or untainted. It just might be that it’s slowly poisoning me. Were I to discover as much, it would no longer suprise me.

“Who are these men of lust, greed and glory? Rip off the mask and let’s see. Oh no, but that’s not right, what’s the story? There’s you and there’s me.”

I’m not here to hold myself as some example. I’m as flawed as anyone on any sidewalk anywhere. I do my best however, to take stock. To be honest with myself. I try. I attempt to avoid being the biggest douchebag I know.

Good men die and bad men live every goddamn day. The only thing we have is to do the best we can. That’s all there is.

“Who the fuck are you?”

My Uncle Larry had surgery yesterday to remove a mass of cancer. He’s already very sick. I didn’t hear from my Mother. That worries me. She was supposed to call. My plan is to get drunker.

I really can’t stand most of this. It’s all way too much. There are times, and they are increasingly more frequent, I resent the idea that I’m supposed to carry on in light of it all. Despite it all. It makes me very angry. I feel like a five year old on a merry-go-round and I just want off.

I know I just turned fourty four, but inside, I’m still barely thirteen.

“So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.”

There were times. Very rare. Fog would envelope my desert neighborhood. Only in the dead of winter. I was comforted by the quiet and isolation. Today, I long for it.

As always, the Swirly Girl rests at my side. This moment, as good as moments get. No creature do I adore more.

She is the end of my nightmare.

“You can always judge the distance by the company you keep.”

Drinks for my friends.

Astounding. The richest country on earth. Yet, in so many ways we have so much less compared to almost every other industrialized, modern nation as well as an alarming number of the impoverished third world variety.

I’m talking about things like healthcare, education, infant mortality rates and life expectancy.

Humanity. I’m talking about our humanity.

Why?

Incarceration of non-violent drug offenders swelling our prisons to the point where we jail more people per capita than any state on earth. An annual defense budget well north of half a trillion. An expenditure far more than twice that of the entire European Union. Ten times greater than that of any other individual country in the world. Our debt has surpassed the entire world’s gross domestic product, while people starve and die on every continent including our own.

Disgusting.

Our drug war rips Mexico and handfulls of South American countries asunder as I write.

The paradigm has changed. A United States of America bristling with rockets, missiles, guns and bombs is obsolete. The military might of another state is no longer any kind of legitimate threat. Red Dawn will not happen in our, or our children’s lifetime. America’s demise will knock at her door from inside her own house. That house is of eye popping contemporary design and constructed entirely of cheap playing cards, paper and children’s paste.

Eisenhower, a four star general and President of this once great country, warned us about the folly of an all powerful military industrial complex. He was beyond prescient and we failed, tragically, to heed.

We have embraced a sensibility replete with greed, excess and entitlement so pervasive and cancerous that we have lost sight of the important things so consumately, we no longer even understand what’s happening to us. We have done this to ourselves in as much as we’ve allowed it be done to us.

Have a Coke and a smile.

To this day, more than half of us believe creationism to be more plausible than evolution. We fear gay marriage more than pedophiles. We still can’t see God and religion as the medieval superstition it is.

Apathy and ignorance. Willfull ignorance. America is lost.

We are no longer a society with the grit to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and collectively forge ahead in order to better our circumstances and rise above despair and destitution. Our sense of ‘we’ has long since been replaced by the culture of ‘me’. We are not the same people we were in the post depression, WWII era. The Greatest Generation.

No longer respected, no longer revered. Nobody even likes us anymore. Most hate us. For years we’ve traveled abroad telling people we’re Canadian. We torture, and kill indiscriminately. You and me, it’s done in our name, we are complicit. The era of America taking what she wants because we’re the biggest kid on the block are at an end. We no longer have the resources. Broke, broken and morally bereft.

We are on the verge of losing at least one, maybe two wars. This, while we contemplate a third that will be more disasterous than than the previous two combined. I don’t care. Bring them home and stop the killing. The idea of victory in either of these conflicts is nonsense to me.

The chronic and archaic caterwauling of the evangelicals, born agains, rednecks and the far right have never been so dissonant. Their message at best, anachronistic. Fearful and stupid.

Things are going to get worse. The inevitability of it stinks like a sewage treatment plant on a brutal summer day. How much worse is anybody’s guess.

Worst case scenario, America wakes to find itself as an agrarian society again. Or is that best case scenario? Perhaps that will be the impetus for us to regain focus on what really matters.

Us. We. Not me. Not you. Not America. The world. All of us.

A homeless guy told me today that prostitutes can have their cake and eat it too. He also said he’s got nothing to sell. His dick ain’t long enough and he ain’t pretty.

Drinks for my friends.

I’m no economist. Neither are you.

There comes a time to trust our leaders and the attendant experts. That time is now.

We are bleeding jobs from our asses. Understand, even if your job is safe, this phenomena is about visit to hardcore suckage on you.

There is an imperative, an overwhelming reason we elected this man. A major component of that reason is that we learned the hard way that the previous administration, it’s policies, philosophies and rhetoric could not on any level be trusted. We came to understand that not only were they clueless, they were lying to us and they never, even briefly, had our best interests at heart or even in mind.

Another, full to busting reason for the clear and unmistakable support we saw fit to lend this man Barack Hussein Obama, is that he talks to us. Not like children. He talks to us, I sense, the same way he talks to Congress. He’s not here to fuck around. I thought his press conference last night was magnificent. I did not doubt his conviction. I’m confident he has our best interests at heart and in mind.

As near as I can figure, the fight over the stimulus bill centers on spending for programs that hover somewhere in the neighborhood of two percent of of the whole goddamn thing. Well, that and more tax cuts as opposed to spending on objectives like infrastructure. Roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and other stuff we use everyday that crumble like moist chalk as we we speak.

We do know, those of us with mind enough to pay attention, that tax cuts to the wealthy are not the answer. They are in fact, disastrously short of efficacious for anything other than the prevailing trend for concentration of wealth in this country. Trickle down economics is a lie. History from the Reagan era until now bears this out in full technicolor.

Trust the assholes that espouse this as remedy at your peril.

Senate and House Republicans embrace this archaic ideology the same way they worship Reagan. Like a bunch of homo worker bees around the Queen. Forgive the analogy, I’m no homophobe, but methinks the drones doth protest too much. I can’t help but believe that it’s way of life for them that’s enriched their wealthiest constituents and thereby kept them in power in one way or another for decades. Legislative, executive and to some degree, judicial. It’s all they know; it’s served them well and they are loathe to walk away from it.

I suppose I can’t blame them from an undiluted empirically, analytical perspective. It has after all, worked smashingly well for the greedy power hungry fucks for a very long time. They simply don’t see it the way the rest of us do. In the light of day, the emperor is buck naked with an infinitesimal puss leaking phallus and hair festooned man tits.

The dipshit Republicans can’t get enough of that.

It’s Bedtime For Bonzo.

Drinks for my friends.

Our Man’s press conference tonight was impressive. He did very well. Serious. Not here to fuck around.

I understand that this piece is not exactly timely. I began to write it some five days ago before my account was suspended for lack of funds. I’m still pretty pissed about the subject matter, so tonight I finished it. Here we go.

Yeah so, today Michael Phelps was suspended by USA Swimming from competing for three months and Kellogs Co. jerked his advertising contract. I would imagine these are but the first two dominos to fall given the archaiac and victorian sensibilities America still clings to so hypocritically and irrationally.

All this because he was photographed doing a bong rip. I shit you not.

The war on drugs is an even bigger joke, albeit without a punchline, than the war on terror. That’s a mouthfull. The war on terror has no punchline either.

Guess what America? Drugs won.

Mankind has sought to self medicate for thousands of years longer than the “War On Drugs” has even been a concept. America incarcerates more people per capita than any nation on earth. In large part, this phenomena is attributable to the jailing of non violent drug offenders. Ordinary people caught using or possessing marijuana. Soft drugs. We do this at a stratospheric expense, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

That would be you and me.

It goes without saying that if they aren’t criminals when they go in, they are by the time they get out. Unbelievably wrongheaded. Counterproductive. Counterintuitive.

You know what? I don’t give a mad fuck whether Michael Phelps smokes pot or not. He’s a smart and astonishingly accomplished young man. If he wants to smoke pot, who am I, or you, or anyone else to object, much less punish him for it? He won eight fucking Olympic Gold Medals.

None who read this or any who would judge him will ever come close to such accomplishment (s).

The salient question is, who really cares? I guarantee if you’re at all disturbed by his behavior, it’s the least of your problems.

I smoke pot. Regularly. I’m not ashamed to impart to you that most of my musings and diatribes are delivered to you here under the influence of El Bush De La Diablo. Well, that and Bombay Saphire (on sale last week at Ralph’s for $28.88, fucking A!).

It’s not unreasonable at all to assume that our past two presidents as well as the current, have availed themselves of the sinister shrub. Two out of three have admitted it. The middle one obviously had a brainwreck brought on by drugs far more serious than mere foliage. Either that or he’s retarded.

Maybe it was booze, more dangerous by the way, try to mitigate your children’s access. Talk to them about it. Don’t be so foolish as to expect they won’t be exposed to it before they’ve existed for at least eighteen years. They will have porn, pot and booze made available on a precious metal platter long before they graduate high school. Hope that’s all they have to contend with.

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

I was arrested once, for possession. Booked, fingerprinted and given an orange jumpsuit with plastic slippers. I was home home on vacation. In the passenger seat of a car going so fast we didn’t know we were being chased by the Reno Police. Sometime after 4 A.M. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill in Carson City, there were at least five cars waiting for us. I was searched illegally, never read my Miranda rights and ended up on the front page of the local paper the next day. “Visiting Record Company Personnel Net Drug Charges”. I had a thimble full of shake in the bottom of my back pack.

At that time, some twenty years ago, the drug laws in Nevada were among the most draconian in the country. A conviction meant prison automatically. I was fucked. I wasn’t driving, I’d done nothing wrong or illegall and I was looking at prison.

It was the worst day of my life.

I was lucky. My family, although not wealthy, was well connected. I expect a signed copy of Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s book for my birthday this month.

Drinks for my friends.