Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I suspect we’d all be a lot happier if they could.

Oh, I don’t know. Merry Xmas. Yeah, Xmas.

I hate it when people don’t understand me. It’s worse when they think they understand me. Christmas. Man, whatever. My ass is broke and even the idea of it is daunting and depressing.

I’m anxious for family and friends. I just talked to my Mom. I needed for her to remind me what Cristmas is about for us, for our family. I needed to hear her say it. It worked. It helped. I’ll book a flight tomorrow.

Why do I still dream of going over a cliff in a motorhome? Giant waves and sinking ships? We debate until the end. Conflict is thick and before you know it, all is lost. Family and friends and me over a thousand foot drop. The bottom rushes at me. I lay in bed an extra half hour for that shit movie. Perverse nightmare lunacy. Why?

I’m a mess. This is a mess. I’m flirting with the wind and the very edge. Closest I’ve ever been. The gusts dictate my balance. We all fall down. That’s why. That’s the rumpus.

Broke for Christmas. Fucking awful. I have a reputation for generosity. I will bring wine and my etchings. That will be enough. Mom said so.

I just want to see and touch them all. My family, my friends.

My definition of crazy: Not Boring.

My definition of insanity: Sometimes blue is purple…………look at that truck.

Celery and grapefruit. Red cherries on green slices of melon.

Dive in headfirst and get water all up in your face. Like snorting horseradish.

Then there’s the ghosts. They move everywhere and beneath everything. They are on your side and then not. No way to schmooze them. They don’t care at all.

Drinks for my friends.

I don’t like most people. Most of them.

Then there are those I adore. Blessed me. The wonderful people. Amazing family, incredible friends, all who’ve chosen to show me affection despite my selfishness, arrogance and narcissism. I’m no walk in the park. Yup, I’m one lucky bastard and grateful for it.

Let’s talk about something else.

Why do people you’ve never seen and won’t ever see again acknowledge you in a random public setting? Some impulse of manners? It doesn’t offend me, it does confuse me.

I can’t believe this fuckstick Cheney. Richard Bruce Cheny admits to personal oversight and approval of torture.

We hanged Japanese for waterboarding but Darth says he’s cool with it. The team of Dick-in-Bush is unholy and sociopathic. Incredibly toxic.

This is a gift that will keep on giving. It’s all fine to flog the corpse, as long as you understand it’s not a corpse. It’s a fullblown zombie that will live another two decades at least. Wandering from town to town, infecting people and crashing through department store displays.

I’m here to remind you that zombies poop. We’re not talking Tootsie Rolls here. What we are talking about is egg drop soup from the ass of a zombie. Messy. As aromatic as the bowels of an ancient sewage facility. I bet it shows up on a Geiger Counter.

You know, get used to it. I hope people still want to like America. We will find out with this man Barack Obama as our President. Americans are far better people than how they are portrayed and perceived these days. Yes, I know millions of us suck.

Understand that the stink of rot and decay from the Dick-in-Bush regime will linger for years without end. The ghost of Christmas futures. If America lasts, folklore will remember them as the Murderer and the Retard. An idiot and an asshole. I can’t believe you people put up with this.

Enough is enough. It’s high time we abandon the low road. It’s hard not to hate. Hold a grudge. Punch the ignorant.

I think we must. Retribution and revenge are not useful now. I’m not saying it would make me sad to see any of these bitches at The Hague (the ICC), but we need to fish on. Karma will not be the only reason they taste their own blood.

Worst President and worst Vice President ever. Ever.

Drinks for my friends.

Man I’m in a ditch. Can’t seem to get out of the lower gears. Like a dream where I can’t sprint. Things taste funny and I barely clean up after myself. If only I could postpone Christmas. It rushes at me like a sheet of plywood caught and flung by a desert gust.

I think I should be some kind of Special Agent. I’d be very cool.

I’d still like to live in the forties. When you slammed the phone down in those days, everyone knew it.

I admit, I’m scared of chicks.

America is the only state to ever utilize nuclear technology as a weapon against another state.

The world was far more young then. Humankind had no paradigm available for such technology and it’s use.

We still don’t.

There’s been some championing of nuclear as energy of late. Help me out here. Have we come up with a way to deal with the waste that I don’t know about? I’m guessing we haven’t or I’d know about it. Understand that nuclear power is about as dumb an idea as can be without an efficacious methodology for dealing with the byproduct. The waste. The toxic fucking waste with a half life that lasts thousands of years.

Clean coal. Two words. No evidence.

If you wanna talk to me about this kinda crap, be prepared to blow me.

Moving right along. McCain can’t bring himself to vouch for Palin. Not because she’s stupid but because they both are.

Gas broke it’s eighty six day drop today.

Gun sales are all we can hope for.

Looks like meat’s back on the menu.

What exactly are we up to?

She said “Hang the rich.” -Robbie Robertson

Yeah, oh well.

Drinks for my friends.

Bear with me. Take your time. I had a lot to say.

Little explosions of pork fat in a heavy iron skillet. The fire is hot and I’m not sure, so I pull it off. Good move. The bacon just overdone but still sweaty and fatty. No aroma like that of fresh thick bacon. Most folks like it cooked this way. I use tongs to put it on a plate.

Motes bob and dance in rays of sun, a subject of birdsong, butterflies and dragonflies.

Man has almost complete authority over his own clock. Animals, from rodents to whales, have the sun.

I drop a fistfull of white raisins. Some diced yellow onions and a little butter into the cast iron.

Next up is to smack some eggs in the fat and put the skillet back on the crackling morning combustion. Beneath a canopy of primeval. This part’s easy. They cook like that, the eggs. Smacking and spattering. Hope ya like yours yellow loose. Quick and hot. Soft in the middle with brown bubbles at the edges. They’re done. Sea salt? Tapatio?

Someone else is doing coffee. I smell it. Raw like tilled earth. Berries.

Potatos cook the longest, garlic and rosemary. Moist in the center, otherwise crispy and taut. Steaming. Glistening with butter and oil. Fresh ground pepper. With potatos, I don’t play games I can’t win. The best way I’ve found.

Everyone stares up and around. Nobody looks at their food while they shovel it at their mouths. The savour does not compete with the vista, it compliments it, the ambiance of a deciduous forest in the chill of a late summer morning.

Have some champagne.

Next up, pine trees and a good classic novel. Some Fitzgerald or maybe Jack London. Twain. Capote. Then a nice clean spot to evacuate oneself and soap and water and towels after and what not.

I bring my own ointments and salves.

Maybe an afternoon walk.

I never would have made it as some pioneer or frontiersman. Maybe if I was some version of royalty. Afforded a certain amount of privilege and staff.

I just want to live in San Francisco.

Gin and chocolate.

I believe in mankind’s right to self medicate.

There is simply no reason in a country as wealthy as ours that people should go hungry, without health care or as much education as anyone can tolerate. I can’t stand it.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and proclaim that a little socialism might not be bad for us. Not just to give the folks who fall through the cracks a leg up, but to headbutt the absurdly wealthy who have enjoyed political, social and economic advantage by virtue of obscene largess for so long, the phenomena has manifested a momentum of it’s own now centuries old.

It may also serve to highlight the perverted version of Capitalism and Democracy we have chosen to embrace. We are in a place where our adherence to and practice of “free market capitalism”, as is the contemporary model, isn’t merely foolish, it is reckless, dangerous and unconscionable.

Fear and spying, rendering and detaining, holding people indefinitely without charging them………what does that look like to you? An economy hit by a wave any fool saw coming, so strong as to temporarily capsize us despite our size, displacement and power? More waves on the way.

Rotting infrastructure and an attitude of every man for himself on twenty million lips at least.

Hated so much a journalist throws shoes at Dumbya’s melon inside the Green Zone? More on that later.

We are stupid and greedy. Not necessarily in that order.

Fuck anything that moves.

Make these prick CEO’s live in a motel for a season. Three months. Twenty bucks a day per diem. Introduce them to the miracle of cheap chunky peanut butter and applesauce on the same spoon.

Ssshhhhhhhhh!!!

I covet and admire the idea of self determination. So far, the concept and my practice thereof has allowed me to reap almost exactly what I’ve sewn. Can’t ask for more than than that. What I’d like to see is that degree of parity afforded to not just every American regardless of race, color or creed, but every human.

We could render organized religion obsolete by achieving just that. Wouldn’t that be nice? I think so.

Replace an archaic institution that withholds (religion), with a concept, maybe a mandate, far more inclusive and progressive that holds as a fundamental ideal, prosperity of the earth and it’s inhabitants simultaneously. I’m a goddamn genius. Give me a can of beer and a Nobel, bitches.

Anyway.

I honestly believe that the defining moment of Dumbya’s reign occured on this very day, December Fourteen, the year of our Lord, 2008. I’m sure you’ve seen the footage by now. To his credit, our President did skillfully dodge two well launched shoes from not very far away. We learn that this is some major insult in that part of the world. To throw your shoes.

An Egyptian reporter with a pretty good arm fired said shoes at Dumbya’s head and screamed:
“This is a farewell … you dog!” “You killed the Iraqis!” -CNN

Ha! That’s goddamn golden. Forgive me, but if he’d taken one right in the fucking face? I would have called paramedics before screeching sobbing laughter could consume me. Go ahead, picture it. Me laughing ’til I puke or him taking one right in the kisser. Sheezus. That would have been gorgeous.

Picture it.

In any case, it was just so perfect. Vicariously cathartic. This really should be the swan song for the dumbest man to ever be President of America. We should remember him forever as the guy ducking shoes thrown hard by a journalist at a press conference in the “Green Zone”, the safest place in Iraq.

Bush Sr. had, “Read my lips…..”, Clinton had “I did not have sexual relations with that woman……”, Nixon had “I am not a crook”. Dumbya, among all the other ridiculous shit he’s said and done will nonetheless be remembered for his physical adroitness in ducking angry shoe leather in contrast to his profound lack of any kind of mental acuity in any shape or form.

He still doesn’t get that he’s an idiot.

Meet your legacy you stupid sonofabitch. Beet the Meatles.

I just want him to know what a complete loser he is. It’s not just angst. Hundreds of thousands died because no one in this man’s life had sense enough to teach him banjo and take him to the river everyday. They took him to school instead. Millions of Americans made the same mistake and now we’ll pay for it.

I went to hand her the remote. She said put it next to me dear, I’m scratching my butt right now. I looked and she was. So I did.

The Holidays. Weird. Didn’t have the Christmas I was used to last year. The old man was sick. Very. Spent my time at the hospital or sleeping because I’m a pussy and that’s what I do when I’m afraid. He’s so good now I want to punch him in the mouth.

To know my old man is to understand that he’s the shit. He’s only afraid of one thing. It has nothing to do with him. If you’re smart you’ll guess it.

My brother in law, Todd, a man I’ve known of since we were boys, lost his Mother just a few months before. Her name was Dixie and I really liked her. She was a writer. I see her face.

Here it is again. The Holidays. I’m expecting something different this year. It will be somewhere between now and then. Holidays are always a little step back in time. We may all have a similiar lense for this one. I hope so. I’m looking for the love and warmth of family unmitigated by illness and sadness. He is well now. I think it will be big and special.

My ass is broke so the only gift I have is my etchings.

Not being able to buy Christmas presents used to scare the crap out of me. It nightmared me. I was a fairly prodigious giver. I’ll bring really good wine.

Life is good.

Here’s the thing. A well worn theme for me, forgive me if I bore you. The difference between humans and animals is not the ability to reason. It’s not love or compassion. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to share your life with an animal you loved, you feel me. The difference isn’t even a sense of humor. Every cat I’ve ever shared a house with has been funny as fuck and tragic all at once.

The difference is art. Animals don’t make art for the sake of art. Humans do.

I sit telling you this, one of my cats is high up in a ficus tree I’ve had for twenty years that has been dead for at least a year. My other cat sits next to me on a dilapidated red velvet sofa staring at her. If only they could talk and I could understand them.

Happy Holidays.

Drinks for my friends.

My Old Man told me once that some people are dumber than dirt.

Joe The Plumber.

Fuck me.

Douchebag.

Think Progress reports that Joe Wurzelbacher isn’t a huge fan of the man who made him famous. He told conservative radio host Glenn Beck that he felt “dirty” after “being on the campaign trail and seeing some of the things that take place.”

Asked why he didn’t leave McCain’s campaign if he was “appalled” by the candidate, Wurzelbacher said, “Honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more.” -The Huffington Post

The faux plumber felt dirty.

Touted and foisted on us as some kind of average American, Joe The Plumber, first name not Joe and not a plumber, fooled a lot of the people a lot of the time. The really dumb ones. Seems there’s an assload of them.

Us. Turns out, he represents.

He’s in the mirror.

A cro-magnon arbiter of what is everyman in America.

Even if he were genuine, how well would that work? This guy is uninformed, simple and stupid. It does reflect badly on us that a cartoon character so lame as to barely occupy two dimensions in black & white, is so adept at inspiring so many open mouths on blank faces. I mean to say that this man is an idiot and you might be too.

Watch for his book soon.

I’ll take two, one to shit on, the other to cover it up with.

While Wurzelbacher was critical of McCain, he gushed about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal,” he said. -The Huffington Post

See what I’m saying?

After all is said and done, Wurzelbacher bought Palin’s schtick hook line and sinker.

Douchebag.

Only in America.

To assess the phenomena of Joe the Wurzelbacher, one would have to approach from an intellectually honest, learned sociological perspective. I’m far too sedentary for that shit. I will tell you this. He represents the zeitgeist of archaic and lazy minds. Millions of them. Tens of millions.

Frightening.

Despite this recent grandiose display of wisdom and common sense presented to you by the majority of the American electorate, there are still an incomprehensible amount of fucktards out there. What exactly to do about this I have no idea.

Drinks for my friends.

Just by talking.

Who is this fuck from Illinois? This Governor. An idiot. Rod Blagojevich.

Forgive me, it’s a stupid name. Just this side of pornstar without the requisite cheesy moustache. Too bad. Low hairline. Good enough. I’ve barely ever heard of this guy. He looks a little like a complete dipshit.

We likes us some Patrick Fitzgerald. Same prosecutor who smoked Scooter Libby. Subpoenaed Darth Cheney. This guy I admire. Big cubes and what seems to be a an absolute lust for truth, justice and the American way. Not pretty at all, just matter of fact. His reputation is thus: Don’t fucking lie to him.

I’m pretty sure this dickweed, Rod Blagojevich, lied to Mr. Fitzgerald. That pissed off this special prosecutor. You won’t like him when he’s angry.

Our Man should promote him. He may be compelled to.

I imagine this take down was a little easier than the Plamegate clusterfuck. The level of douchebaggery was far less sophisticated. Four of the last eight Governors of this state have been ignorant prideful dipshits. This guy, a Democrat no less, might just be the world’s premier idiot.

At least this week.

I’m not some patsy. I understand Democratic politics in Chicago. It goes back before JFK. I know. I know.

I hate hubris.

Seriously, how big of a megalomaniac must one sonafabitch be to assume he can sell a United States Senate seat to the highest bidder? I mean, the seat at play has been vacated by a President Elect. Are you fucking kidding me?

The asshole in question has an impressive pedigree. Northwestern, Pepperdine and a hardscrabble early life. I wonder if that’s why he thinks he’s someone or something he’s not. However he arrived at that notion, I loath him for it. Throw his ass on the fire. Never even talk about him again.

Rasmussen called him “America’s Least Popular Governor.” He’s a low hairline gangster. How does this happen? This is regoddamndiculous.

I understand the culture of corruption in Chicago to be pervasive but come on. Seriously. Who does this fuck imagine himself to be?

Today Our Man asks him to walk away. Dick Durbin too. To go as far away as he can get. True to form, the idiot stays and plays the idiot, turns his back instead of taking a walk. The giant vagina move. Trust me.

I honestly can’t give a mad fuck what this guy’s party affiliation is. Where do these people come from? How do they get elected? Yes, he’s a Democrat. But he’s a sociopath first. Just like Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Kwame Kilpatrick and Larry “widestance” Craig. All ridiculous people at the end of the day.

Then an absurd populace right there in the mirror. C’mon. That’s what it is. We are responsible. Not me. Heh. The people of Illinois, the people of Sugarland Texas, Tennessee and Detroit. I wouldn’t be suprised if each one of these losers has access to the water supply of their respective constituencies.

It’s either that or most Americans are simply retarded.

Me, I think it’s some embarrassing ratio that math would demonstrate is almost exclusively absurd, somewhat retarded with a distant third being crazy.

How do Americans stay hopeful with this shit in the headlines?

We’re working on it.

Drinks for my friends.

I never actually bleed when I’m sick.

When there is pain, there is no blood.

When I’m sick, the bleeding stops.

An ear closes and the blood stops.

It will return when I feel better.

The bleeding.

See, the insistent periphery of my enduring malaise only rises to the occassion when other issues are at a minimum.

To remind me that no matter what, I’ll never be well.

Normal is out of my reach, and therefore, so is peace.

My cross to bear, for whatever reason.

Who, besides a fool, trusts the universe?

Drinks for my friends.

Biscuits and gravy baby.

Glazed ham. Mint Jelly and foul smelling lamb. Men in porkpie hats and seersucker jackets.

People who refuse to understand.

Me, I like to plumb the depths. Best way to go. People are always interested in the bottom. As am I.

Because I can’t stand it. So many men are boys and that confounds me. Dumbya is one bewildered little boy. He had no idea what he was getting into and no doubt he’s not even remotely cognizant of the damage he has wrought. Absolutely tragic.

I could tell you things. Crazy shit. Fishmongers. Surgeons. Sausage kings. Cigar aficianados. Whistle punks and excellent shovelers.

Sometimes I like to pile on, make something out of nothing, call a spade a goddamn spade. Always ends up being the absolute truth.

I gotta tell ya, craziness is pervasive. It’s everywhere.

I don’t like people or dislike them. I love them or hate them.

We are all just dust in the wind.

Matty is a punk.

He believes he’s funny. He is mistaken. I may need to wash my hands.

It’s as though he anticipates the worst place to put a foot when the time comes.

It burns burns burns, that ring of fire, that ring of fire.

Between me and mine. Stupid fuck.

Things are awful among those I know. Just awful.

I see their faces and I know to worry.

On the other hand, untruths. Bad ones. Ones that give me pause.

What to do now? This is fucked up.

Eddie Money’s first record is as pure a pop masterpiece as ever has been. Genius production and songwriting. Gorgeous. It rivals the Foo Fighters “The Color and The Shape” and Green Day’s “American Idiot”, in terms of butter flavor and bursting nuggets. We’re in Roger Miller and Neil Diamond territory. Don’t even look at me.

I’ll do my best not to embarrass you.

Here’s a tip: Crunchy brand Cheetos and Tostitos Salsa con Queso.

We move on from one place to another. Nobody notices.

My girlfriend is gubernatorial. Ever seen the movie “Excalibur”? It’s like three hours long and she knows every single word. “Gubernatorial” therefore being long for “goober”, as in geek. Who knew?

It’s crazy how we watch the the world literally atrophy while waiting for Our Man to assume the position. I suspect the attitude dividend will at least afford a glimpse at blue sky again. I’m counting on it.

Sometimes my own breath smells like an ass packed with gorganzola.

Reagan, what an anti-intellectual joke. George Dumbya is the labotomized brain on Reagan drugs. The Republican agenda. The post modern conservative doctrine. Trickle down bullshit. Stupid. Forgive me but Republicans are dipshits. Assholes. Idiots. Mouth breathing, crystallized snot festooned faced, barely distinguishable from the unfucking dead, unrepentant helmet wearing riders of the short bus to the goddamn mall.

To believe what they believe is a deformity. A genetic flaw that no amount of truth and/or physical therapy can correct. It makes me sad to tell you that they should probably all be institutionalized. This, for their well being as well as our own.

Here’s the thing. I found this Der Winerschnitzel that has beer on tap. Told ya about that already. The thing is this: my girl and I have discussed it; we can afford to explore the menu. It’s doable.

What I’m trying to tell you is that an open mind is optimum and essential. Don’t be afraid to combine various flavors. Combine Tater Tots with bacon, sour cream and avacado. All the sudden you’ve got trailer park nachos. The key is an open mind. Sometimes you’ll shit gravy and sometimes you’ll achieve a pinnacle of white trash cuisine. A palette of flavors deserving the accompaniment of wine from a chilled glass bottle.

At the end of the day, what’s to lose?

The other thing I’m trying to impart to you, in all seriousness, is that my significant other, much to my embarrassment, is a taco head. There are times where that is challenging in public. I worry. She has special needs. Certain ointments and protective gear.

I once knew a chronic masturbator named Sam. He was a damn good guitar player.

Sorry I couldn’t do any better Hunter. It’s all I had. This one’s for the lovely Ella. All six pounds and thirteen ounces of her innocence. Blessed be her red head. Welcome to earth. Peace to you and yours.

Drinks for my friends.

I actually discovered a Der Wienerschnitzel today that has beer on tap. In Burbank right there on Alameda and Olive. Fuck me, that’s genius. C’mon!

So we’d been drinking, we’re outta smokes so we so we go down a flight of stairs and we’re out the door and in the 7-11. It’s right next door. The guy behind the counter is new. First time either of us have ever seen him. Jesus Christ look at this guy’s hair I say to my girlfriend.

His hairline started just above his eyebrows and he’s got the thickest black pompadour I’ve ever witnessed. I can’t help it, I clock these things and they crack me the fuck up. I think of the phrase “shock of hair” and nearly piss myself. It looks as though it’s bursting from his skull. Ever seen the cover of Bad Music For Bad People by The Cramps?

In other news, I think about this whole hemp/marijuana issue and I’m disgusted. You know, the solution to a considerable amount of our problems could be contained in this right here. Oil, fuel, textiles. It’s one of the strongest natural fibers known to man and a renewable resource that can be turned around as often as every twelve weeks. So far we’re talking about a crop that wouldn’t get you high if you smoked a bale of it.

Production thereof originally outlawed by virtue of the influence of nineteenth century oil and paper magnates. Think William Randolph Hearst and the Rockefellers.

Then they demonized the weed by distributing propaganda where evil black jazz musicians smoked it and raped clueless unsuspecting white women. That shit happens all the time. Everyday. Whatever.

Did I tell ya I’m addicted to Viennna Sausages?

It’s completely ridiculous. All these people facing foreclosure need merely to be given the opportunity to renegotiate their loans. Forty years instead of thirty. An interest rate that isn’t usury. The bank still makes it’s money and people get to live, plant gardens and mow the goddamn lawn.

Frustrating because it’s so simple. Gimme a fucking break.

Four years ago today we found Tondaleo Bean The Negress dead on the floor. Today I was given a picture of her in a handmade frame. It was a sad day in general. I absolutely adored that cat.

Drinks for my friends.

Is a man at least as crazy as I am and I think maybe more so. Couple things about him. He’s an excellent artist who’s work I purchase whenever I have money and he paints something brilliant. He’s the most soft spoken honest man I’ve ever encountered. I’ve seen him shirtless, he has little wings between his arms and his torso.

He’s a little creepy but very friendly. His wife, LZ, is very similiar.

If I were rich, I’d purchase their son and hire them to hang out with me. I like these people. Friends for decades. You can’t imagine my affection for this man, his wife and their son. That son part is a little phony because I don’t really know him but I like what I see.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Chris Hataway

1. What is your occupation right now?
Artist, Cook, Handyman, Garbage man, Papa, Satan Worshiper, Doll stabber, dime store hood, bit part player in the play called life. Card carryin’ Loon

2. What color are your socks right now?
Socks? We don’t hafta show you no stinking socks (Sierra Madre answer)

3. What are you listening to right now?
Dogs Fucking. Yarn balls ageing. Mountains forming. It’s so quiet, I can’t hear myself not think…

4. What was the last thing that you ate?
Turkey nachos. Steamed shoe laces.

5. Can you drive a stick shift?
I can drive a stick through Draculas heart

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
Piston Remington, the famous soap box derby king

7. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
No, not one bit, I sent it to myself.

8. How old are you today?
Old enough to be your punching bag

9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV?
Is cooking a sport yet? Midget pole vault. Yard Flailing

10. What is your favorite drink?
Free booze. What you do is, you take a jigger of Virgin Blood, two tablespoons battery acid, a thimble of cocaine, one goat milk ice cube, a pinch of grave dirt, shake well and strain into a highball glass with an eye of newt at the bottom, give it a float of nitro glycerin (light it), garnish with bat wing. It’s called Draculas Awkward Flatulence

11. Have you ever dyed your hair?
My stars, yesterday I dyed it race car orange and then back again. Once I dyed my hair Purple because I really wanted the carpet to match the drapes.

12. Favorite food?
Dog. Denver Omelets. Leftover surprise. Nachos. Carne Asada Super Burritos. Pasta whathaveyou. More turf than serf, but serfs ok too. Sausage. Savory over sweet, but sweet treats come in handy sometimes.

13. What is the last movie you watched?
Dracula Jack-knife I-80, the Trucker Fuckers. The true answer is an oddity from 1974 called Prime Time. Television parody sketch comedy. Very non PC and pretty damn funny. One of many from the box I just bought called 50 Drive In Classics… Tonight I think I’ll be watching TNT Jackson. Before Prime Time,I fell asleep to The Bad Sleep Well. And before that I watched Shine a Light, the Rolling Stones concert film. Leslie and I just re-watched Lord of the Rings, it took us five days… Dracula VS. Mecha-Draczilla (why hasn’t anyone made that one?)

14. Favorite day of the year?
I like that one day when you wake up and you have a mission, a task, a plan, and you have all the tools you need and all the supplies, or if not all the supplies, you know where to get them, and when you get them, the traffic flows your way and you get back to the project and set to it and everything goes smoothly and if you hit a glitch you brain your way around it and keep on going until the task or the list of projects are all complete and the sun goes down and you can feel good about your day, job satisfaction ho! That happens once or twice a year…

15. How do you vent anger?
Kick Vents. Pop off at strangers. Stab kittens. Run my head into fence posts. Tell the Lord to go fuck a dust speck. Saw through Otter pops and toss curses to the wind.

16. What was your favorite toy as a child?
Rubbers.

17. What is your favorite season?
White Pepper. Sprong, Summner, Oddum, Winner. To every turn, thing- thing- thing-, there season is a, thing- thing- thing-, and to all turns, a heaven, under purpose…

18. Cherries or Blueberries?
Former Pie-ward, latter Flapjacks. Cherries are sexy, Blueberries sad

19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back?
Fuck no, thems a bunch o’ meanies

20. Who is the most likely to respond?
To what? Probably loud mouth Billy

21. Who is least likely to respond?
Trevor Rabin

22. City or country?
I like crappin’ outside.

23. When was the last time you cried?
Last time I crapped outside. Why, just this morning I cried over spilt milk. I don’t cry, I weep. I’ve been weeping for a few years straight. Last time I cried was when I couldn’t stay up all night to watch the Ten Commandments on TV when I was seven…

24. What is on the floor of your closet?
Gay skeleton bones

25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to?
Jesus of Nazgul. You read me Jesus? I’m a-sendin’ Got yer ears on good buddy? See, the friend I’ve had longest that I’m sending to… The Earl of Cunt. Get thee behind me Santa

26. What did you do last night?
Tied myself up and threw myself over the falls. Bent over backwards for people. Read three Curious Whore-Hey books front to back, back to back.

27. What are you most afraid of?
Bags of chips. My brain turning on me. The world catching on that I’m totally full of shit. Aliens with chips on their scrawny shoulders. Vengeful Dinosaurs. Pole-shift. A-bombs. Horny teens.

28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers ?
Bacon Cheeseburder ga’dammit. Gimme the Awful-awful

29. Favorite dog breed?
Foot long trouser dogs. With jalapeños, kraut, mustard, catsup, red onion, and pickles. Give or take Mayo.

30. Favorite day of the week?
Monday, in your face joe workforce. Favorite day of the week… I’ve got to turn that one over to Janus Jop: “It’s all the same fucking day, man.”

31. How many states have you lived in?
Pretty much just one- confusion. Let’s see, 5 if you count up to ‘em on one hand, which I did.

32. Diamonds or pearls?
Shiny rocks or oyster tumors. I’ll go for pearls cause they come from the briny snot-monsters and then look so damn moonlighty. They cut your hand off if you steal diamonds from down the mine.

33. What is your favorite flower?
The Dragon Dungweenie. The Michalob Back-stabber. Bloom Bloom OutGoDaLights.

I’ve seen a spring.
I have.

We used to hike through the simmering sand and sagebrush to the closest mountain. Not far really, inside of a few miles. Other side of the airstrip. Hot and bright. Snakes in mind. Not much for a northern Nevada mountain. Maybe a thousand feet. Maybe.

Enough to pucker my starfish at ten years old.

The west face was closest, that was the side we climbed. A rockslide almost all the way up. Mostly volcanic I think. Pretty treacherous. The top was high enough to be cold with wind enough to make your jeans flap. It furnished an amazing view. Enough to put a choke in your neck when thinking about the same way down.

Scared the crap out of me.

The base of the mountain ended in a shallow canyon between it and a much smaller hill. Just behind the mouth of the canyon was a spring.

I clocked it’s greenery on the way up and wondered.

Very happy to be there after the way down.

Water pushing desert sand along with itself from a dark, half dollar sized hole at the bottom of a small pristine pool. This pool feeding a larger one under trees with cattails, reeds and grass growing lush. There were rabbits and birds and snakes.

Yellows, greens and blues with much sun and sky.

I had an epiphany that day. Frogs. The climb was the scariest thing I’d ever done. There was a gust of relief. Synapses lit up and dancing as I grasped the little oasis in a single swipe.

What I suddenly understood floored me.

We spent a little time. Maybe forty five minutes. Grateful to be there. I soaked it up. Moss, bees and dragonflies. Sunflowers and bubbling.

Was I a little late? I don’t know. Life’s complexity and requisite for balance began to reveal itself. An improbable ecosystem in an unlikely enviroment. Yet it thrived and sang. It vibrated and I knew why. I could see how and why it worked. It made sense to me. Scared me a little.

Pow.

I emptied a quart of sand from each shoe that day. That night I stared at the sky. I never stopped dreaming about that place one way or another. It allows me to contemplate the universe.

It frightens me now. It informs my nightmares. I’m sure it’s a scarier place today. Polluted.

The first time I remember my gaze landing on the big picture. The powerful gift of cognizance despite the self.

See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

“We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
We don’t take our trips on LSD
We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street;
We like livin’ right, and bein’ free.” -Merle Motherfuckin Haggard

We can target you by your cell phone and vaporize you. Level the entire block you’re on within ten minutes. A half an hour tops. Almost anywhere in the world.

Your mother was here. She didn’t have much to say. She left abruptly. Poor woman. Tragic underbite. Find her a stock car racing dentist. Ha. I know at least one.

We can’t pay our bills.

People run and just can’t seem to hide. Sometimes I have to get involved. Know them as I open them. Like books of blood, wherever you’re open, you’re red.

I stole that. From a master.

It just keeps coming.

“Boil, boil, toil and trouble”.

Canned tomatos.

“Ring around the rosy,
A pocketful of posies.
ashes, ashes.
We all fall down!.”

Everything’s fine. We’re doing great here. Who’s asking?

These days it’s like driving a beater. Nothing to lose. Park it anywhere. Abandon it if you need to.

As an undead, it’s comfortable. Anonymity is currency. Ignorance is bliss.

The DOW plummeted today like the breasts on a ninety year old mother of sixteen with double D cups upon being released from her bra. Like hanged men. Golf balls in fishnets. Get it? Fishnets?

India and Pakistan have long been less than fond of each other’s smell. So of course, terrorists from Pakistan really stiirred the shit in Mumbai last week. Just so you know, both countries have nukes, they hate each other and America hasn’t provided any incentive or example to behave at all.

“Things are great. Couldn’t be better. Better, start this again.” -Agnes Gooch

My idea of comfort food these days is Vienna Sausages and Cheetos. I like that cranberry juice without the high fructose corn syrup.

In the meantime, Our Man is assembling what was known in the 70’s and 80’s as a “Supergroup”. A dream team if you will. Hillary and Bill as Secretary of State? That’s good shit right there. They wonder aloud whether he can harness and control a stable of such strong and talented runners. Horses. I have not a single reservation. Not a single doubt.

He will make mistakes. Not yet though.

Big Bad Bill acquiesced a dowry and nine points to get his wife this gig. Obama gets to check Bubba’s ass if he wants. He can ask for a cough while he cups Bubba’s balls. He will request more than one deep breath.

This is a man that knows exactly what he’s doing.

Flat earthers that would lament the number of personnel invited to serve from the Clinton administration should be advised that those years were of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Literally, like nothing America had ever seen. Those who aren’t interested in that as a jumping off point can blow me.

The days of Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Mike Brown, Henry Paulson, Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer and George Tenet, incompetent sycophants all, are over. Clearly not as concerned about his own ego as he is the future of his country and our world. The wind of their wake on your face as they leave the gate.

It is competence above all else. All the big brains that the ignorant love to make fun of. You will not be invited to join this team unless you’re whip smart. Unless you can bring it, you can’t come. It will be a formidable braintrust.

Who knows? The climate is mad. Hell may experience it’s first frost on inauguration day.

Everything seems to be falling apart and coming together at the same time.

Oh boy.

Drinks for my friends.

I want to take The Swirly with me to Denny’s. There’s no way she’d be cool with it. Still, I wish I could.

All she’s gonna want is a small bowl of water with some tuna juice in it. She has never shown the remotest interest in anything besides IAMS and Fancy Feast.

Human food is barely on her radar. She no longer goes out of her way to even smell it.

If only she could accompany me so we could exchange glances and knowing looks while we people watch.

You can take dogs anywhere. They’re dogs. Dumb and overly optimistic. Most won’t bite. Far more likely they’ll try to nuzzle your genitals. I really hate that. Not so much for being violated but more for the dog snot on my hands after pushing it off my junk. No cat has ever done anything nearly as invasive. Except for peeing on me.

You just can’t take a cat to Denny’s.

If you bring your goddamn dog to whatever restaurant I’m in I might stab you with a pen. Maybe your dog. With a fork. Both of you. With a fork. Cat’s have enough sense to realize the craziness of any given human. Cat’s don’t give humans the benefit of the doubt. Cats are smart.

They don’t come running. Even if the only two faces to walk in your front door in like six months are the only two faces to walk in your door in that time, they still give you the up and down. I’ve had to let my oldest smell my drivers license. They let you know they’re happy you’re home at their own pace. Might not be until the next day.

I do wish I could just buckle a harness on Beddy and have her strut urgently to the 7-11 with me. Strutting urgently while looking back is her default. I hope she’ll talk to strangers as much as she talks to me. It would be fantastic if she would yell at others the way she yells at me when she’s cornered me in the kitchen. I’m there for a drink. She’s there for treats.

Did I tell you she’s got a real chip on her shoulder for the Latin homosexual and transgendered community? It’s pretty funny. I think it’s from me leaving the Hooker Paper on the bathroom floor.

Otherwise she’s a very classy broad. A lady.

Here’s what else:

1) I’d like to not ever have to scrub my shower. I’ve been kinda broke and decided to forego the magic defunkifying spray and it’s more than a little uh, calcified in there.

2) I need more info on these new LED lightbulbs.

3) I’m really tired of having things to do. I no longer want to have any scheduled activities. I’m exceptional at filling my waking hours with things that please me.

4) I’ve often thought that justice should be more poetic. Ironic. Limericky. There’s always a pay off in a limerick. What if a friend of Dick Cheney’s shot him in the face, and then Dick apologized publicly to his friend for the inconvenience his being shot in the face must have caused? You can see where I’m going with this.

5) I no longer wish to be burdened with the fear of cell phone radiation. I keep my shit far from my sack.

6) Here’s who I do not wish to hear on the radio ever again. Top of the list is the fucking Chili Peppers. I’ve come to hate them. The mechanicals alone pay them mad cash. “Highway Star” by Deep Purple. I hate that song. Any song by Cream. Clapton is way over rated. Oingo Boingo, I hate them. The Doors, fuck The Doors. I can’t really talk about contemporary music. I don’t dislike it, I just don’t know their names. We may have to come back to this.

7) I’d like for people who’ve never seen me before and never will again to stop acknowledging me. When I do that, it’s because I’m feeling confrontationally obnoxious. Why are they doing it?

8) Hot women should walk slower.

9) I’d like too see candy become a lot more nutritious and far less caloric. Science has proven that you can’t make food taste good without too much salt, sugar and fat so we really need to get going on this one.

10) Ok, this one’s big. No coincidence it ended up being number ten. Let me ask you something. Do you like this shit? You dear reader, do you like it? Are you entertained? Informed? Amused? Honestly.

If you are any of the above, and I sincerely hope you are, I’m asking for your support. Pimp me. Tell your friends. Post my banner on your page. I’m specifically encouraging pretty girls and hot bitches to post my banner.

Shut up. It makes sense.

Only you, can prevent forest fires.

The deal is this. The more readers I have, the better I look to advertisers and that’s easily the best way for you to get to continue to read me for free. See? It’s perfect. Symmetry. Help me out here.

11) Health and Human Services for us all. Happy Holidays.

Drinks for my friends.

There was a shooting in a Toys R Us somewhere down here today. Palm Desert. Not gang related. It was “an argument between two groups of shoppers” -WSJ.

Well now, that’s encouraging. Fighting over what? Toys? Two people dead, so probably at least two dipshits ambling slowly down the aisles of a goddamn toy store carrying guns.

This makes complete sense. If I had kids, I wouldn’t even start planning a shopping trip for them unless I was wearing a firearm and extra clips in my pockets. I’d arm any over twelve going with me.

Sheezus.

Now I understand how so many people voted for McCain.

Americans are in serious need of a bitchslap and it’s on it’s way. That’s the good news. The other news is what’s on the way is more serious than an open backhand. What we have here is a vicious hook.

Just count to two and you’ll be bouncing off something. As per normal, the legitimately stupid and those who spend all day in the short attention span theater will be bouncing on floors.

Man. Why are we so fucking stupid?

I’m confident the most salient reason is a lack of empathy and an abundance of apathy. Everyone is guilty. I, will not be bouncing off the floor, however.

The best thing to do is get involved and stay involved. Even if it’s just paying attention. Reading and listening as opposed to just watching. Take a poll. Write a letter. I hate the idea of sermonizing, but at the very least, pay fucking attention.

Look, if you really stay on top of it, American politics and world events are as compelling and isidious as any daytime drama. Dumbya’s last gasp is to about escape his puzzled countenance and it will stink of pardons and all kinda smelly fuckery. In like a lamb and out like a a rotting bovine tongue.

“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process,” Bush told his sister in an interview released Friday by the White House. “I came to Washington with a set of values, and I’m leaving with the same set of values.” -an interview of George W. Bush conducted by his sister Doro Bush Koch, lifted from chron.com

Poke this idiot out of a dead sleep and he’ll wake up singing Happy Birthday.

He’s just as fascinating as Ozzy Osbourne and only a little less articulate.

Let’s review: Two assholes killed each other in a toy store today, the day after Thanksgiving. The media tells us there was an “argument”. Lesson learned. Always bring your gun while shopping in America. Don’t forget that Dumbya has not compromised his values or sold his soul. He said so.

By far the stupidest man to ever sit in that chair.

We suck.

Drinks for my friends.

What exactly is that? I’m thankful I’m not some random dumbass. Happy I’m cognizant and able to react and able to self determine to a degree.

Love in my life. Good family and good friends. Fuzzy loving critters. Animals are to your hands and heart what delicious pie is to your mouth and stomach. Try to have at least two wandering around at all times. Trust me.

A few days back my ex called me and asked if I wouldn’t mind not attending what has become the annual Thanksgiving dinner for the misfit toys. Those of us not from here and without geographically convenient family. A burgeoning tradition. She was bringing her boyfriend and was concerned about his comfort level.

In the interest of diplomacy and respect, I agreed not to show.

In the days since I gave her my word, I’ve begun to regret it.

These are my friends. Before they were her friends. The house at which the dinner takes place belongs to one of my very best friends of some two decades.

I smell chickenshit.

I’ve made other plans, I’ll be fine.

The more I think about it, the more it irks me.

She’s met my girlfriend. As a matter of fact, she met her for the first time at last year’s Thanksgiving dinner for the misfit toys. I realize I’m walking on ice here but I’m pissed off enough to flirt with indignant.

They’re about to move in together and he’s not comfortable enough to meet me with my friends and my girlfriend?

Then the very worst occurs to me. She’s embarrassed. Of me. Maybe it’s her and she doesn’t want him to know me because she’s ashamed. Maybe my friends agree. What an awful thought. Any part of that idea would crush me.

Sheezus, that’s ugly. I’d rather go with the idea of him being a gigantic vagina.

She could knock on the door of any member of my family on any day and be invited in, loved, engaged and fed under any circumstances. She could bring her man and not a single eyebrow would be raised.

My family adores her. Her family thinks very little of me.

This sucks. I’m pissed.

Thanksgiving day:

I had an extraordinarily pleasant evening in house full of people I’d never seen before. Nice, normal friendly folks. Excellent food and I brought excellent wine because that’s what I do. Wonderfully moist turkey, home made mac n’ cheese. String beans and red potatos with bacon, dressing with apple, pecans and onions. Serious cornbread prepared by an actual matriarch.

Lemon cake, peach cobbler, pumpkin pie cheesecake.

I’m not sure where we were but we drove around downtown. Way around. It stayed on my right. Downtown. We collected my girlfriend’s son in a place called Cerritos. One of the craziest houses I’ve ever been inside. Giant murky fishtanks everywhere. Wierd. Dark and bubbling.

He’s an awesome kid. At first he was detached and uncommunicative, but we were brawling openly by the time we got to where we were going.

I bought him a jar of ham glaze for his sixteenth birthday.

We stopped at a place called the Liquor Bank on Crenshaw for cigarettes. He and I sat in the car. He advised me to stay in the car despite my superpowers. This place was amazing. I need to go there again before I can tell you about it. She thinks as long as I’m cool, nobody would think twice.

Before it was over, he steadfastly refused to believe I could defeat a dragon with a fork. My point was show me a dragon and hand me a fork.

Warm people, good food. My girlfriend’s friend is awesome. A strong woman with one son in college and another bound for it.

We talked politics and we talked Barack. A well informed group of people. Skeptical and honest.

At the risk of sounding gratuitous, I was the only white man there.

Drinks for my friends.

I got nothin. I’m rolling the bones, hoping I can come up with something. Sometimes it works.

Where is everyone on wind chimes? Love hate for me.

I never wear bright red. It’s a dumb color on a man no matter what.

It’s raining. Excellent.

She was a class A cruiser aspirated by an engine that took her to warp in under an hour. I just wanted to write that sentence.

Here we go.

I think the rules for fluids in your carry-on are preposterous. If there just happens to be a regular sized tube of toothpaste in your luggage, it will be seized. Confiscated. It’s because of the barbarian terrorist hordes who storm our train stations and airports every day with ordinary toothpaste tubes filled with high explosives and containers of over four ounces filled with socialist DNA and yellowcake uranium.

Hint: Pay special attention to any retard trying to light his shoes on fire.

Ignore that shit at your own peril.

There are specific rules about the size of your Ziploc. Before you know it, you’re taking off your shoes and trying to remember when you last cut your toenails.

This, while we barely bother to pay attention to over ninety percent of the 20 x 8 foot shipping containers that show up by the tens of thousands on our shores everyday.

Here’s the deal. If they want blow up an airliner or use it as missle, they will. They can poison your water or your food. Nothing we are doing now in terms of security, policy or protocol is even remotely efficacious. Doesn’t even address the problem.

By the way, the bad guys haven’t tried any of that for awhile if ever.

It’s kind of analogous to the saturation of cars with alarms in LA. They pollute the atmosphere everywhere. No one even looks. Mine could be going off within yards of me and I wouldn’t know. It’s an archaic and obsolete solution to a problem that is far too unimportant to warrant the industry that’s prospered around it.

See what I’m saying? These are things they’ve implemented to show you they’re doing something and make you feel better but still afraid. What you should feel is insulted and pissed off.

I’m here to tell you that forcing Americans to study the cubic or liquid volume of their various toiletries is not paying out any dividends in terms of enhanced security. I’m saying it’s really fucking stupid.

See, Ziploc freezer bags make ultimate sense for one’s personal creams, potions and lotions. More than big and durable enough to contain all of ones necessary liquids while protecting the actual luggage from leaks and oozings propagated by the pressure differential that occurs in the cabin of any commercial jet.

Just how dumb are we?

Let me think of another one.

I thought of another one. It’s a really good one. The ultimate in absurd. It’s really big. One of the biggest devices embraced by the Great Unwashed. Gen Pop. Perhaps the most insidiously self defeating institution ever endorsed by humankind. The world’s largest bureaucracy of shame, guilt and hypocrisy.

Starts with an ‘R’.

We’ll save that for another time.

Drinks for my friends.

Fuck me.

So there was this piece on CNN tonight about how Michelle Obama has a chance to alter the stereotype of black women as overwieght, loud and ignorant. Guess what footage they used? Eddie Murphy as his fat obnoxious wife, Rasputia, in “Norbit”.

What?

Blackface.

How lame is that?

I share with you that I’ve dated black women and I’m in a relationship with a black woman and how that stereotype isn’t one I even understand, but what I want to know is, how many of you clueless cracker mouth breathers buy this shit?

Did I mention our new First Lady is the epitome of poise and dignity? Crazy smart and in possession of wisdom and composure beyond her years? Our fortune is not merely about the man.

And, she’s hot.

Fuck you CNN.

Goddamnit.

Anyway.

Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing”.

A review. An assessment.

An analysis. Bitch. Oooh.

Excellent film.

Prescient.

Mookey, played by Spike Lee, is far from stupid. He chooses the path of least resistance consistently. Willfully ignorant. A pussy. Not a bad guy, but plagued by his own weakness. Lead antagonist in a movie full of them. Angry?

Yep. No legitimate malice. His circumstances are his own.

Sal, Danny Aiello’s character, ultimately plays bitch to his pride instead of his obvious capacity for compassion.

Sal’s internal conflicts shaped as metaphorical characters and played by his two sons. Each is a side of the war inside him. An ugly day in the life. He’s not necessarily a bigot but circumstances keep piling on. Eventually he is presented with a choice and blows it. Instead of doing the right thing, he chooses the wrong thing and chaos blasts through like a tsunami.

Mookey makes a choice at least as pregnant with bad circumstances and events descend into a maelstrom.

What Lee took pains to show us is the difference between doing the right thing and ignoring it. At the onset of the defining conflict, Sal could have merely invited the dipshit antogonist to bring some pictures of black heros for the wall. At the behest of one black customer, but a gesture everyone from the block would have welcomed, regardless of color or ethnicity.

Simple.

It’s a moment that hangs briefly and then rolls from one unfortunate escalation to another. Hard to watch as Lee does his level best to show us how it can happen and how ridiculous it often is. In the end, the Korean grocer plays by example. He tells the angry mob sincerely that he is black, just like them, and they understand. His life and business are not demolished in front of his eyes.

The scene defines the the movie and the message as much as any other. Sal on his corner for decades and the Koreans across the street for less than two years. Reactions dictate fate. Life goes on. Sal loses.

Powerful stuff.

My hero is Ozzie Davis. “The Mayor”. The Mayor embraces humility just after saving a boy’s life by risking his own. He sees what’s coming and does the best he can. The protagonist is Sal. As innocent as a man can be in a morality play such as this. Same as Mookey, until the end of the film where they both fail spectacularly. The antogonist is the neighborhood, the police and racism from every side.

The antogonist is a malaise.

The catalyst is the heat.

It’s a fascinating film that looks like a play. It is a play. I became a Spike Lee fan today.

My girlfriend who just happens to have her ethnicity enhanced by blackness, you know, African, says this, “Spike played the character Mookey and that’s one letter different than Monkey -Spike Lee is annoyed by the willfully ignorant black man.”

Then she tells me something far more interesting. She tells me Our Man’s chances of achieving what he has would have been substantially reduced were he a descendant of slaves and the product of black mother and white father. She tells me this would have been a result of the way he saw himself and of little consequence in the way we saw him.

How interesting is that? That’s racism. The hidden, ugly, pervasive head thereof. Damn. A special brand of vulgar.

Makes it obvious we’re not even close.

Still, beauty to be had. America has chosen a liberal black man to lead us. We didn’t choose him because he’s black. We chose him because he looks to be our best chance.

Begs the question, what’s next?

So many Americans aren’t ready for this. It’s my guess the midwest has shat itself, if only from confusion. I’m hoping the rednecks have crapped themselves moistureless and moved on to iced coffee and some goddamn sense. You don’t have to order a bagle or a muffin. You can have toast.

Forgive me, but I worry. We need to sail over the torpor and wash it it out of our mouths. Spit out any violence. Everybody. Not just us. All of us. Look at me. All of us.

Conventional wisdom seems to have out shouted cognitive dissonance. Nice.

From your heart try to be respectful at least once or twice. Sometimes it gets heavy. Trust me I have.

Do your best. Walk right out into a brand new day.

Stop being such pussies.

Drinks for my friends.

I’ve got to tell you how strange my life has become.

I don’t work anymore. Car and apartment dirty. Filthy. Full of unnecessary things, copious refuse and random detritus. Grime. Disgusting. Can’t bring myself to care. Keeping an eye out for bugs.

They knock at the door all day. They knock and check the knob. All goddamn day. They rattle it. In the afternoon, they pound. They hammer and that upsets me. It suprises me. I’m startled and so I have to clean up. Clean myself up. I shave and shower. Bag some trash.

Sometimes I dust and vacuum.

I leave my toilet a mess.

When I look through the hole it’s always at the instant they are turning away.

I hate them.

Short blonde women, tall dark men.

Short blond men. Tall dark women.

I get angry.

At night they wear hoodies up.

Many wear a blue apron but I can’t read the logo or the slogan. I think there’s a pig on it.

It’s a fisheye parallax view kinda thing. Can’t make it out.

I either make people like me or I don’t. It’s simple so I just do it. Whoever you are, I can make you like me.

What do you think of that? It’s totally true.

Really mad. I get super pissed.

I have a unique view from my balcony. I leased the place sight unseen. I saw that it had twenty five to thirty feet of uniterrupted tiled deck outside and signed the lease. I can see three stories up. It’s like a canyon. Everything reverberates. The click of my lighter. My foot steps even in slippers. At night sounds multiply.

From the balcony I see common areas, like where the elevator spills my neighbors. One of three jacuzzis. I got a letter on my door today about the jacuzzis telling me they were to be replastered this month. Great. Can’t wait.

Sometimes I see them from my balcony on the floors above me not really talking to each other. Their lips move. They touch a lot. It’s subtle. They never look at each other.

They always see me. Always. They look right fucking at me. They don’t exactly point with their fingers.

It begins. A clatter, some rustling and then some random knocks. After that, pounding, rapping and bell ringing. So loud! I get angry and charge the eyehole. Sometimes I yell at them as they turn away. Sometimes just one. Often groups. I feel better screaming at the groups.

I pound at my door as they scatter.

I never open it. That would be crazy.

Sometimes, I peer out the hole in the middle of the night and they go by in boats, the hallway a rushing river. Torches burning. Backs paddling away from me. Hoods up. The water is violent and green. My feet are wet and river water splashes the skin of my feet and ankles.

I dream of portals and portholes.

Morning, there is no evidence of a river, yet I wake with rashes on my feet.

They leave things at my door. Minature boxes of cereal, deflated balloons and wrinkled party favors. Glitter. Plastic champagne flutes. Soggy candy cigarettes. The hallway smells like leather and the sea.

Weeds and insects.

Everyone I encounter that day looks like they’ve been swimming. Dry skin, red eyes, wild hair.

Fucking grasshoppers careening, leaping abberantly in front of me wherever I walk.

People don’t know what I know. They can’t see what I see.

Every time I go to the 7-11 after sunset, one of the bastards opens the door for me. I recognize them all.

Crazy is everywhere you look. Color outside the lines. Be creative. Kill people.

This last one was old and chapped. His face was ruddy and he moved rheumatic. I usually try to give them something. Who knows what power they have. I hate when I’ve got no cash and say as much on the way in but they still ask again on the way out.

I’ve been avoiding it lately. Always bugs in the condiments at The Hot Dog Buffet. Only buy stuff that is prepackaged. Always bring home mayo packets.

They mingle by the elevators. They whisper. They always drop a few Crackerjack prizes when they gather. On the floor in the common areas. Little red striped envelopes with a semblance of a sailor in blue. Like where the mailboxes are. Sometimes I pick them up off my balcony. That spooks me. What bugs me most is when they’re beside my car. Sometimes all around my car.

Dozens. That spooks me.

There’s always a guy who’s balding wearing corduroy with bad teeth. Sometimes tall, sometimes not. An elegant redhead in black who maintains her youth by eating nothing but grains and raw vegetables. Children in costumes. An over perfumed elderly fat woman dressed immaculately. A guy I can only describe as Karl, The Mortition, and a handful of others. From the girl at the drycleaner to the hairy guy in a stupid shirt at the mall who kept walking in front of me.

I see the goats and hear the monkeys. I never see the monkeys and hear the goats. Never.

There’s a window outside of my apartment, in the hallway, that opens onto my balcony. That’s how they’re getting in. I close my shit up before I sleep no matter how hot it is.

A woman in the elevator the other night had what looked like a hamster cage. It looked heavy but she still held it high. Yellow plexiglass, the smell of woodchips and sour rodent turds. There were tiny frogs inside. They kept leaping against the sides, making me flinch. They slid down, leaving smears. It sounded awful. Smacks and whisper moist scrapes. She had a moustache. Sideburns. Her dress was a smock of burlap somewhere between lime green and pastel robins egg. It was morbid against her skin and the simian coating of black hair on her arms.

Burping amphibians with huge eyes. A woman named Halgromson, moles erupting with thick and ropy whiskers.

Sheezus!

Once in a while I smell crazy. Smells like dust. Smells like rocks and rotting flowers. Penetrates everything. Sweet but cloying and dense.

Smells like cabbage boiling with a fair amount of porkfat. Get used to it. Come to Daddy.

Drinks for my friends.

We’re fucked.

In the past few months the market has lost forty seven percent of it’s value. Unemployment is a vertical dragrace. A precipitous ascent. These two items represent America’s testicles. The market and jobs is our nutsack. Balls meet vise.

There’s probably not a single business in this country that could weather a near fifty percent reduction in revenue and stay afloat. America, and the globe, are in huge trouble. We are in a free fall. I’m glad I have a place to go. There’s room for my stereo. Barely. Limited growing season, but that might change.

Bill Maher said that he always knew Dumbya had one giant fuck up left in him. Here it is on a platter. The mother of them all. Saved the worst for last. Where are the neocons on this anyway? Where the hell is Dumbya and Darth? Fucking clowns aren’t gonna do shit. They’ll wait it out and then take a walk.

A long time coming. Decades. Any fool with common sense understood our lifestyle wasn’t sustainable. The raw material we consume. The resources we exhaust and the pollution we spew.

I’m a little pissed my generation has to bear the burden. It matters not where the bodies are buried. If your at all curious, check your own backyard. Pervasive.

No one single action will solve this debacle. There is no magic bullet. We are in for a very long night.

Get ready, things are about to change.

Having said that, we need to tip the fuck out of Iraq and seriously slash defense spending. Pay the troops, take care of the vets, maintain infrastructure and walk away from everything else. Sounds drastic and it is, but once the DOW dropped below eight thousand and stayed there, the theoretical bottom disappeared.

This will take a decade at least.

Our Man is bequeathed a shitstorm of extraordinary magnitude. A cat five economic hurricane. I worry that he’ll spend his first term putting his fingers in holes as opposed to being able to move us forward. No matter what, the blood will make it to the stairs. Americans are impatient and stupid and I worry they’ll see it as an ineffective Presidency.

Bleak, bleak, bleak.

I’ve got ER on the plasma with the sound off and see that it’s pretty much the same. I learn US Attorney General Mukasey took a dive at the podium in front of the federalists. I see that gas prices are looking for bottom. This is not good news. Bear witness as the harbingers of doom testify.

It’s not just that we’ll be poorer. My ass is broke. I’ll find my own way out. I can deal with that. It’s the inevitable atrophy of society that gives me pause. Crime and corruption will enjoy a renaissance. We will be less safe from ourselves, never mind the mythical terrorists.

Get ready for an army of homeless. Abandoned vehicles. Fire. Food shortages. Fuel shortages.

See, I’m not looking to lower expectations, it’s just that the complexity and severity of what we all face is a long fast moving train with brakes that will take awhile. We might just aspire to counting ourselves lucky if we’re treading in the same water we are today four years from now. It may just look like a victory come 2012.

It’s bad.

Official brainspank prediction is that markets rebound enough tomorrow to prevent mass suicide this weekend. At least a few hundred points, probably four or five. Get ‘er up over eight.

See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

In my country, this will be the national anthem:

This from earlIsebella.

“I am 22 years old and my sex imply has gone down to all but nothing.
Sex with my boyfriend of 5 years has eternally been excellent and I possess eternally had an orgasm.
I habituated to to masturbate and dont drawn do that anymore. I dont dig what’s come to grief with me.
I old to every seem to be like sex and now I look for ways to get out of it,
but the transmute in my sex predilection is counterfeiting my relationship.
Am I lacking vitamins or nutrients that sham my sex oblige? What can I do to fix this problem?”

If I could write like this, I would.

It is quite simply, the finest prose I’ve ever read.

Peace.

Drinks for my friends.

Damned if we do, damned even further if we don’t.

I agree with Our Man and Ben Stein even.

If we weren’t in an unprecedented economic clusterfuck, gaining speed and momentum while heading down the rapids towards a mile high waterfall, it might be different. I’d be inclined to say say fuck ’em. Talk about obtuse mismanagement. These CEO’s should all be thrown over a clothesline with their dicks tied together.

Particularly GM Stud Duck, Rick Wagoner. An eater of lead paint chips in charge of the retarded.

These guys suck. In a more perfect world, they should be placed on a park bench, allowed to fondle themselves and get thrown in jail for lewd and lascivious behavior. Blueblood induced retardation.

Maybe that’s what’s up here. Too much inbreeding of what was once the Intelligentsia. Now candidates for Down’s syndrome and systemic organ failure. No longer the smartest guys in the room.

Fortunately for them and unfortunately for us, we allow their implosion at our peril. That blows, but it is what it is.

With the loss of jobs at a precipitously precarious point, we simply cannot afford to let this proliferate. Sorry about that.

So, let’s figure out what’s needed to put these monolithic companies back on track. Make sure the emphasis is on green technology, reasearch and development. Start the eco-friendly foundation for America’s new infrastructure right there. The auto industry. Nice cornerstone. Symbolic even.

That sounds like a really good idea to me. Seriously.

Next, we take the top brass from all three, place them in low income housing in Bakersfield, limit their grocery alternatives to convenience stores, no cable, no air conditioning and the only booze options being Pabst Blue Ribbon and white zinfandel. What the hell, they get toothless whores and access to bad biker speed that reeks of petrochemicals and has a pinkish hue.

Board games and cards. They’ll be shanking each other within weeks.

I’m not without compassion you know.

Seriously, this should be an official government program. All executives from every financial institution that fails should be forced to live in the same complex under the same circumstances.

All there would be left to do is fence it off, put up some razor wire and hire guards with a history of violence and opposition to authority. Make sure they’re well equipped and have the latest weaponry and armor at their disposal and we’re done here.

All Bakersfield all the time.

See, the neoconservative maxim is, accuse your opponent of exactly what you’re shoulders deep into. This isn’t just fisting. That’s how they arrived at the ‘socialist’ and/or ‘terrorist’ smears this time around. They have terrorized the American people for decades and their policies will force us into a kind of socialism, at least temporarily, to save ourselves.

Bet your ass, while we go about pursuing change and righting the wrongs, the better we do, the louder they will scream those very things. Fucktards. Idiot mouth breathing soldiers of willfull ingnorance.

Fuck me. Fuck them. Fuck anything that moves.

Drinks for my friends.

We would ride our bikes to school. Fifth and sixth grade. All the way across town.

The schoolbus was far more convenient, yet riding a bike to anywhere wasn’t far when I was thirteen. Time was a factor. It was fascinating. From east of town. From sand, weeds and sagebrush to old oaks, cottonwoods and pines of the west side. Six or seven miles apart. Always a headwind blowing from the west. Always. Everyday. Every goddamn day.

Like it blew to keep us away.

Gliding through office and government building parking lots I would later work in or have cause to enter. Jumping curbs and sending shopping carts careening down loading bays.

Eventually, we stopped going to school on the days we rode our bikes. We just explored. I learned the beginning of everything back then. Time no longer a factor. I began to spectate. I understood it was important to observe. Watch and learn.

Nothing too serious. A few days a month. Sometimes we took a cab. We earned money by visiting his mother at the grocery store. She gave us cold currency for the coupons we clipped. Completely illegal but she took it right out of the register. She was every bit as confused as we were. Not at all a good mother.

We’d walk away with twenty or thirty bucks a piece. Mad cash for a twelve year old in the 70’s.

I remember smoking pot for the first time with him and his mom. We watched Carrie and the first Rocky movie on cable. All of twelve years old and we were doing bong hits with his mom while mother and son passed a Benson & Hedges menthol back and forth. She was the first woman to cause me to notice misdemeanor eyebrow tweezing abuse.

Not a bad woman, just not equipped to deal with two teenagers on her own.

There was an older sister with huge boobs named Tammy. The third girl to live on our block by that name, my sister being the first. In the middle was a girl belonging to Tim and Mary but overseen by Fred and Mary. I actually kissed her once while she was in hypoglycemic fugue. The third, not the middle. We stole a bottle of Ten High whiskey out of a truck at the end of the block and she drank most of it. We all made out with her.

Then there was the stepfather, Bill. A large unpredictable man with a baby face and a history of being institutionalized. It was a four bedroom trailer and he had his own room. It was always locked. Cool Budweiser poster on the door.

I was smart enough to be wary of the man. I avoided him. I understand now he was bipolar. Effusive and friendly one moment, red faced and raging the next. He wasn’t always around. Sometimes he was in the “hospital”.

It being a trailer with weak internal doors, my friend and I soon figured out how to access Bill’s room. What we found was fascinating.

Guns and ammo. Lots of guns and lots of different kinds of bullets. Everything shining. Neat as a pin. Beer posters and porno mags. It was his paradise. He smoked a pipe and there was evidence everywhere. Cleaners and scrapers and multi-tool instruments that looked like nail clippers. All the attendant paraphernalia……

There was a twin bed and somehow his pillowcase was the same as mine. It was the exact same Star Wars pillowcase as on my bed.

I lifted bullets and powder from that room for my own experiments. I think he even had blasting caps. Drove a lime green faux wood panelled station wagon. It was the the impetus of my pyromaniacal season. It ended up being a long season. I wanted my own fort in the desert filled with porno mags and guns.

I ended up blowing a lot of shit up.

To this day he is one of the most dangerous and unbalanced men I’ve ever met. But a giant vagina nevertheless. I always knew that if things went south to black, I could call my old man at the other end of the same street. Realistically, there was six to eight inches between the two and probably sixty to eighty pounds.

Dad would have shown up in his workboots and his concrete caked hard hat, he never took it off until he showered before dinner. He would have kicked the big whiteboy’s ass or scared the living shit out of him. The next morning, well before the sun, he would have read the paper while smoking a cigarette on the toilet in our only bathroom. lit the furnace, and gone to work pouring concrete on some highrise in the dead of winter in the high desert.

I think it’s pretty obvious why I hung out there. The most interesting lives on my block.

We’d steal chewing tobacco and donuts from the blind man stands in the government buildings. A few times we found kitchens in office buildings and helped ourselves. I can only guess there were no security cameras in those days. I remember being fascinated and somewhat in awe of the amenities provided to office workers. Cool.

Somehow we avoided real trouble. I think because we became excellent thieves. We were shitty liars so we did our best to not end up having to lie. It was only when we had to lie that we got caught. We stole all the mail on our block once. I think we both ended up talking to Carson City’s finest on that one.

Somewhere in this time I had a bully. His name was Ron Dalton and I’m still confused as to how or why I let him push me around for as long as I did. Skinny little prick with a sour face straight out of a Beavis and Butthead episode.

I stood up to him one day and that was it. He was a giant vagina. It was that easy. I burned way more angst over it than I should have. I was a giant vagina too. I should have just beat his ass. Years later, his older brother pulled a knife on me and a friend we called Thos B. Right there in CC in the House of Ormsby.

Somehow it was a walk in the park to shut him down. He was at least as dumb as his brother. I actually got him out in the parking lot and got it away from him. We didn’t struggle, he gave it to me. Ask Thos B.

Anyway.

My friends place was filled with cheap paneling, avacado colored appliances, gold shag carpeting, bad linoleum, macrame, orange plastic ashtrays and knitted stuff.

Plenty of juice in the fridge and granola bars in the pantry. Far less supervision than my house.

If you lived in a Double Wide in that era, there were two huge windows at the front of your trailer facing the street. The windows were bisected by an architectural artifice intended to conceal where the two halves were joined. These windows were always so big as to bathe the forward most chambers with as much ambient light as could be.

When I was twelve, I put my hand through one of those windows and lost a chunk of flesh from my right wrist and muscle from my thumb. It all took place at my good friend’s trailer. He called the ambulance but sent them to my house. Told me he was looking to get in as little trouble as possible. This, despite the front of his trailer sporting the random graffiti of my sprayed blood.

We wrapped a roll of paper towels around my wrist and hand and pointed our bikes towards my place.

The ambulance ride was something.

There’s a lot more I want to tell you. Ketchup packets are an enviromental disaster but it’s the best ketchup there is. I’m now forty three. These events were thirty years ago. I imagine there’s plaque in my arteries and my teeth are gonna start falling out eventually.

I have no children and that’s ok because I never really grew up.

I entertained the notion but it’s just not for me.

I twisted and cheated but mostly in my younger years. I spent some formative years way off the map. I am flawed. I have regrets but I don’t lose sleep. I never really fucked anybody. Not nearly as hard as I’ve been, for what it’s worth.

I bought a house once. It was beautiful. Me and my fiancee lived in it for over two years. It makes me sad to think about it. The Bean died there. We painted and landscaped to make it our own. I still smart when I think of that cat and that life. I think her death was pregnant with things I could no longer avoid.

The whole thing certainly seems to have marked the end and the beginning of many things.

It’s always ending and beginning.

What to do with melancholy on any given day.

Sometimes I wish I could start over. I’ll bet that’s not uncommon.

Did I tell you about the five cars waiting for us at the county line and being issued foam slippers and an orange jump suit? Making the front page of my hometown paper?

Um, there’s plenty more. Lots more. Yep.

Life’s been good to me so far.

Drinks for my friends.

I go back and forth with this guy once in awhile. Sometimes I have to go looking for something to make me mad. Trust me it’s rare.

This is what set me off:

“Never once have I felt it necessary to impugn the character or the intelligence of the writer of a blog I visited. But then I’m not a liberal moron. . .
I also don’t understand the compulsion felt by so many of the liberal persuasion to post such obscenities as to embarass a drunken sailor on shore leave. But, as I said, I’m not a liberal moron.” -Dewitt

He’s referring to me.

Here’s my response:

Here’s where your problem starts: “liberal moron”. Many of us think you’re a “conservative moron”. For what it’s worth, it’s more insulting than something like ‘dipshit fucktards’.

You think that you’re somehow not subject to, or deserving of criticism because you shy away from expletives and therefore enjoy some immunity from being called rude or ignorant or hateful.

The truth is, I’ve read some of the most shallow, hateful vitriol and blatant generalizations on your blogs as I’ve read anywhere.

See, I think you’re a narrow minded old man that is both afraid and confused. Having said that, I don’t imagine you to be a bad guy, just tragically misguided.

Hot bigot love.

In his next blog he says:

“No matter how noble Obama’s intentions, the world will not respond nobly, and we shall learn once again that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Bad things will happen in the next four years.

Obama’s “Peace At Any Cost” foreign policy will be a monumental disaster. Folks in the middle east are already dancing in the streets. Al Qaeda has not struck US territory for seven years. That will change. Soon.” -Dewitt

Translation: We’re on a highway to hell and an attack is imminent because we elected Obama.

By the way, this will be different from the first year of the last two administrations how? Sooner or later we’re gonna get hit again, with any luck, this time our own government won’t be complicit.

Then, douchebaggery ensued:

“My fellow Americans, on November 4, 2008 a sizable majority of you went into voting booths across America and elected Barack Hussein Obama; a black man who had made a career of race hustling, who sat in a racist church for twenty years, who actively worked with domestic terrorists committed to the destruction of the USA, and whose election campaign was to a large degree based on White Guilt and accusations of racial intolerance.” -Dewitt

Translation: You elected a slick talking racist nigger, who seeks to destroy America and he got past you by playing to your enormous guilt for being white, priveledged and superior.

I gotta tell ya Dewitt. That’s fucking disgusting. One hundred eighty goddamn degrees out of phase. You suck.

But wait, there’s more:

“The final bastion, that last vestige of institutionalized racism in the USA, is the black community itself. (The very existence of a “black community” proves it’s racist nature.) Isn’t it time to outlaw the Congressional Black Caucus, the United Negro College Fund, and the NAACP? How long shall we tolerate these obviously racist constructs with their blatant prejudice against white people?” -Dewitt

Is it just me, or does He just not get it? Is it just me, or is Dewitt an asshole?

He responds:

“You just can’t speak without profanity and insults can you? You really do need therapy!” -Dewitt

No shit, that’s what he said.

There’s all kinds of them out there.

Talk to me.

Drinks for my friends.

Seriously. Secretary of State. I’m on board. She’s a junior Senator under Chuck Schumer, looking at a long road to affect the kind of change to which she clearly aspires.

In a heavy drawer, rattling and gleaming with talent, HillRod might just might be the sharpest dagger.

This, a window open, a glance makes it obvious what potential stirs inside. An instance where Hillary and yes, Bill, could impact and influence the shape of the world to come. Who better to do such from that office? A necessity if we are to survive, much less prosper. The depth and breadth of influence and expertise team Billary would bring is huge. They blow into the casino with an intimidating pile of chips and all the dealers happy to see them.

The world knows it and you do too.

I beseech you, oh Billary, to take this gig. Your country needs you. Several months ago I wrote a blog detailing my cabinet picks for an Obama administration. Among my choices were Big Bad Bill for the most venerated of posts.

I stand by that. The Clinton brand being appointed to Secretary of State is second perhaps only to that of Our Man being elected Commander in Chief in terms of gravity around the world and whatnot. I don’t believe I’ve ever even typed the word “whatnot” before. Weird.

The official brainspank endorsement for Secretary of State goes to Hillary Clinton. C’mon Hills, you wanna change the world or not?

Dan Savage is becoming a celebrity. Good for him.

Now is not the time to fuck around. No ego, no hubris. On the other hand, think of the Clinton legacy if you must. Just take the gig. You would rock it.

Guess what? Barack Obama has been elected and he’s so fucking cool!

“Take that Canada……….your head of state is a boring white dude named Stephen Harper, and mine is a kick ass black ninja named Barack Hussein Obama!” -Bill Maher

It’s getting better all the time.

Drinks for my friends.

*new nickname alert

We shall overcome.

The difference in hard numbers between those who voted against fair and equal rights for gays last time around and this time, prop. 8, is staggering. Encouraging.

20 plus points in two thousand as compared to four points this time. Talk about a shrinking violet. You thinking what I’m thinking? Do the math.

Progressives need to start pushing for a ballot initiative post haste. We need to get one on the ballot every election cycle. It’s a matter of time. The seismic upheaval we witnessed in this election has not begun to run dry of portent. Nope. As of this writing, it grows and gains strength. The downtrodden realize that their voice is legitimate and vital.

Fight fire with fire. Watch the jaws of the bigots drop as we push to put this issue on the ballot over and over until enough die off and allow us the majority we need for one of the last and most important civil rights issues to prevail.

Walk right out into a brand new day.

The tyranny of a majority is near to being obsolete.

The irony of Mormon culpability in all this rocks my planet. That these sick, sacred underwear wearing fucks, take it upon themselves to inject their archaic moral standards into modern American life is beyond audacious. What possible reason could such pious idiots have for the steaming hardon they brandish exclusively for homosexuals?

Just who the fuck do you think you are?

The extreme ends of their cult, the sick and disgusting fringe of their dogma, would make your average Southern Baptist blush and run to refill his flask. Revoke their tax exempt status for the role they played. They waded into politics and it should cost them. I’m sick and fucking tired of religion intruding into public policy and politics.

There is no religious bureaucracy in this country that isn’t guilty. They should all have their tax exempt status jerked away. I will tell you that the very idea religious institutions in this country deserve to enjoy any autonomy at all is ridiculous.

Money may be the root of all evil but money and religion are synonymous.

Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council is an asshole. He and his ilk are a dying breed. The racism and discrimination he and his organization espouse are near obsolete. I’m not reluctant to share with you that I despise this prick and all his misguided minions.

Organized religion is mankind’s single biggest mistake.

The single most positive thing human beings can accomplish in my lifetime is to walk away from this absurd idea of Santa in the sky.

“Two men say theyre jesus one of them must be wrong” -Mark Knopfler

Drinks for my friends.