Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

you can’t write this shit.

Someone should explain to the neocons that wethinks they doth protest too much. It virtually guarantees that this thing will have legs like a millipede or maybe a supermodel. I’m betting on the arthropod.

It cracks me up that they trot out former Whitehouse spokeshole Ari Fleischer. Thus far this administration’s premier prevaricator. The same douchebag who infamously warned Bill Maher ” Americans need to watch what they say, watch what they do.”

There is no doubt that he still serves at the pleasure of his President. There has never been a bigger turd in this punchbowl of blowhards than Ari. He is sociopathically obtuse.

The act is that Pasty McSquinty has gone balls mad and has no idea what he was talking about. This is not the Scott we knew, we don’t understand. He was never in the loop.

How is it that Fleischer, a man who held the very same job previous to McClellan, out of the loop as well I assume, knows better than McClellan what McClellan knows? Whatever.

I used to write a lot about these guys, back in the myspace days. I feel like I know them. Like I have good reason to loathe them. They’re both colossal fabricators of elaborate falsehoods.

They are both excellent liars that turned pro.

I can’t help but be excited about what Pasty has done here. Despite it’s overall lack of revelations, it’s more truth anyone from this administration has ever afforded the American People. He gets a gold star and a chest to pin it on.

Where’s Tony Snow? Chin herpes from being teabagged by Cheney and Rove.

Fleischer needs a name. How about The Oily Marmoset?

So yeah, keep the ponies prancing. We love it. The Oily Marmoset begat Pasty McSquinty and he begat Dana Perino. She’s gonna need a name soon.

Drinks for my friends.

the wind blows from at least three corners.

Fates and votes of delegates in Michigan and Florida are to be decided day after tommorrow. Beyond that, perhaps the fate of the Democratic candidates and therefore the country. With any luck, by the end of next week we will have selected our warrior poet and he will commence to bludgeoning the pale man sucking on lozenges and reeking of ointments.

It just begs the question. What the hell went on here? This is easily the most important election, at least thus far, of my life. I can only hope that the future holds contests far less critical than this.

We’re talking the difference between World War Three and……….not.

The difference between the Gods being able to focus a giant magnifying glass through our atmospheric holes so that we all cook like ants, and……..not.

All this, dancing cheek to cheek with the fall of the biggest economic monolith the world has ever seen, or ……..not.

So just what the fuck is up with Michigan and Florida? Why did they defy the DNC et al to move their respective primaries?

Forgive me, I don’t hear anybody else asking this question. Why is that?

They were warned they would lose at least half their delegates. Deadlines expired. Additional petitions were granted. Those expired. Both states, apparently afforded multiple opportunities to color inside the lines. Was everyone responsible a retard with crayons?

Every modern national election holds a collective breath for results from Florida and Michigan.

Why then, swinging that much lumber, would they do this? It defies logic for anyone from the Democratic party to so overtly fuck with this process in an election so crucial.

Unless they meant to. The answer to a question is most often contained in that question.

It has to do with the speed and mass of that lumber. Somewhere, some entity sought to control that power.

I’ve got some thoughts on this but I have research to do. Talk to me. Seriously. You people read but you don’t talk to me. It’s time you did.

Drinks for my friends.

I knew this bomb of a tome set sail some time ago. If I knew, they knew. Trust me. McClellan telegraphed both the book and the tone thereof, months ago when he was quoted on Plamegate.

“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. There was one problem.
It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself.”

Again, I first read that months ago. I was a little excited. Excited like Easter morning. Excited about the egg hunt, the toys and the chocolate. In my family, it was Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Why are they all acting so suprised? This train has been belching steam for months.

Some senior campaign spokeshole for the Pantsuit named Kitty or something pined away for decency, insinuated Pasty McSquinty had somehow exhibited bad form. Whined that he had committed some political and ethical faux pas. He should have at least waited until the administration was allowed to escape. David Gergen piled on a little. He bristled at Anderson Cooper’s musing that they’re there to spin and obfuscate anyway.

Let me give you my take on it. Looks like Mr. Pasty McSquinty is my new mythical rabbit. Hoppin’ down the bunny trail. This is fascinating and glorious. I used to hate this bastard. This guy was infuckingside. They used him every day. Sent him out to be a pinata. I used to howl at him. It was comedy. They sent this poor fuck out in a straight jacket, day after day, with the words “sign language only” ringing in his ears.

I said back then it looked like the worst job in the world.

He went home and broke pencils for a while. Built birdhouses. Seethed. A quiet, but accomplished man who valued loyalty. He began to realize he was the cannon fodder they intended him to be. It was a severe blow to his heart and his ego.

Eventually, he felt liberated.

He found a passion for gardening. His flowerbeds were breathtaking.

He was able to masturbate in the shower again.

Then he wrote a book.

What he’s done is gone postal in an upper echelon Executive Branch kinda way. He’s effectively crapped down the neck of Dick-in-Bush.

On a related note, the guy who composed and performed the whistling theme song for Opie Cunningham and Andy Griffith died today.

Despite that last caveat, it’s a gorgeous set of circumstances. I thinkk the official release is Monday, the second of June. It will be Easter to me. I’ll buy the book, some candy and go to a diner for breakfast. I’ll be sure to order ham. I’ll get some some pre-packaged hardboiled eggs from the 7-11.

There may not be a thing in there I don’t already know but this is gonna be good stuff.

Drinks for my friends.

Bill says his Pantsuit is actually winning the election.

He says it’s being covered up.

He’s so good, I buy it ’til I think about it.

I wasn’t aware of any of it. So help me Jesus.

We got a bleeder. The Clinton Dynasty is bleeding out. They flop and smack on tile wet with blood. It’s gruesome and disgusting. Sometimes I hear a bone crack.

Pete Townshend once remarked that it was time for The Who to dissolve before they became “parodies of themselves”.

Not a day passes without the Clintons embarrassing themselves further.

A burlesque, more vulgar every time I look.

I know this, they’d be the first I’d hire for pest control.

They keep prostrating themselves on the national stage, it may be the only gig they can get. What to do with these two? They’re like unruly children screaming and crying in the aisles at a bad neighborhood Target.

My ass would be sitting alone in the car with the windows cracked.

Where’s the vanity? Where’s the pride?

It’s easy enough to be amused but I can’t help taking offense. I may not have ever had more respect for a prominent couple than I did Bill and Hillary.

Waitaminute! Donny & Marie.

Really, I liked them. I respected them. Bill Clinton wasn’t perfect and I’m not thinking of Monica when I say that. I’m thinking of things like NAFTA, etc. Yet we prospered, vast tracts of land were set aside for protection, we had a surplus and the world liked us as much as they we going to. Oil was under thirty bucks a barrel.

Big Bad Bill became Sweet William after his Presidency. He rocked tsunami relief. He was both the carburator and computer chip on a hot running, philanthropic, V-12 engine in Africa. Hills was the whipsmart/hardworking Senator from New York who’d earned respect on both sides of the gully. Then his VP got an Oscar and the goddamn Nobel. They were the good guys.

At this point, the Clintons are just sand in the Vaseline.

With all due respect Hillary, your stumbles on the trail and the shit that’s come out of your mouth along the way, is all the evidence I need. I can say objectively and with all sincerity, that you no longer belong in this race. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been saying it for a while.

Hard to watch.

Every triple digit IQ in this country is hoping the meeting on the thirty first is at least conclusive enough for you to understand it’s time to put on a pair of jeans and some flip flops. The pantsuit looks stupid and desperate. Change your uniform. Walk the other direction. Fucking skip.

The good news is there’s new low fat/ low sodium ramen noodles on the market. Makes it ok to add butter and salt. I bought some. Haven’t tried them yet. I’ll let you know.

Drinks for my friends.

I hesitate to bore you with the facts, but today is either Labor Day or Memorial day.

That of course, means one of two things. Members of one of two groups will definitely get the day off. That’s pretty big. See, a lot of other Americans get the day off to honor one of those groups.

Thus, a lot of us benefitted from what one of these two groups sacrificed at some time in the past. I’m not entirely sure who they are or what they did for me. I’m unemployed so it really doesn’t matter. I had the day off anyway.

I think I’m channeling Andy Rooney.

So Dumbya heads to Arlington or wherever, with a wreath. Many of us dash to a head stone doing our best somber tango.

I’m pretty sure it’s Memorial Day.

By no means do I intend to impugn the fallen or loved ones who survive them. The wounded, the maimed, the broken, the burned, the limbless or the permanently fucked in the head. Not at all. When I think of all of you, I just can’t stand it. It’s tragic and the epitome of unfair.

“And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did,” -Doubtfire via USA Today

“At issue is an expansion of the GI bill that would guarantee full college scholarships for those who serve in the military for three years.” -USA Today

As you may know, I don’t covet oversimplification. This one however, seems ripe for an Alley Oop. Check me here, but it’s seems McCain is declaring that only those who have volunteered for our nation’s military have a dog in this hunt for equitable treatment of our troops and veterans.

For the sake of argument, let’s go with that for a minute. Why don’t we allow those very same people the Little Bootlicker believes are the exclusive group worthy of voice in this matter, to indeed be the ones to decide?

Let our troops, veterans and if you’re feeling generous, their loved ones, determine the fate of this bill.

Ha! What do you think they’d have to say? I’ll give you one painfully obvious swing at the softest of pitches. Hint: Doubtfire would miss it for the same reason he can’t comb his own hair.

I’m saying he would guess wrong because he’s pretty much on his own planet. His planet is moving away from our sun.

The Little Bootlicker sat out the vote. He’s on record as opposing it. Courage of his conviction?

Our man and the Pantsuit: In favor, and showed up to say so.

Used to be, you served, you got taken care of. I guess we can’t afford that anymore.

Republicans as a rule, stand on the shoulders of our armed forces pretending to champion them while shitting all over their heads and shoulders. They always have. I hesitate to bore you with facts, but you’d do yourself a favor to do a little research into what our men and women are coming home to these days. A fate largely allowed by a Republican majority in congress and endorsed by the stupidest President in history.

Our Executive branch, as well as the entirety of the legislative branch, appear to have a healthy, albeit draconian, work ethic. So far, they seem perfectly happy to send our soldiers back to hell six or seven times. Feet, hands, eyes and ears is all they need to send you back to work until you can’t or you’re dead.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Happy Fourth of July.

Drinks for my friends.

The quote:

“[…] and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama. Um, uh, Obama. Well them both, if we could.”

Convenient that it happened on Fox. Sure.

Do yourself a favor and watch the entire clip for context.

Liz Trotta was speaking colloquially.

I believe what she meant when she used the word “we”, she was speaking as the Pantsuit and intended that she, the Pantsuit, wouldn’t lose much sleep over both Osama and Obama disappearing. Yes, a witheringly dark sentiment, despite my still not believing that Hillary is in fact, hoping for an assassination.

I doubt that she, Liz, was hoping our man would be killed either.

Perhaps I’m naive, but I still prefer my opinion. The Pantsuit stepped on her dick, said something astonishingly stupid and transparently out of touch. The profound disconnect is still very much in place. Further proof that she really does suck.

What I want to talk about is the HBO film that premiered this evening devoted to the two thousand Presidential election. Well done. Well acted. Good production. Can’t go wrong with Kevin Spacey. The guy who played Baker rocked.

“Recount”.

Salt in a wound still open and bleeding. To revisit that vileness and corruption. That dark basement before a dungeon, before a chamber of medieval surgery with screams of subjects without anesthetesia reverberating , was visceral and palpable.

Goddamn disturbing. Man I hate these bastards.

Forgive my drama. As I watched it live in two thousand, I knew we were fucked and that justice had taken a holiday.

To watch it again, seven years and after it turned out to be far worse than I imagined, is not unlike searing hemorrhoids and abrupt, bloody diarrhaea on a a gorgeous Sunday morning when you don’t dare have coffee or a damn muffin.

The mere thought, that this should have been a different conclusion. I shudder. After all we’ve seen and been subjected to, by a man who should never have been king and his mob of the stupid and sinister never allowed to loot and rape at will.

I’m gonna get all cheesy on you and remind you of something extraordinarily important.

ONLY YOU, CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES.

See what I’m saying?

Did ya hear hear Conyers subpoenaed Rove?

Drinks for my friends.

Festooned: Covered in. Dripping in. Shit.

Harbinger: The shit is on it’s way.

Egregious: Potential for making the the thing in question shittier.

Deleterious: It will turn the thing in question to shit.

Quantum: I don’t know shit about this.

Pugilist: Someone who will beat the shit out of you.

Magnanimous: Someone who is probably full of shit.

Vituperative: Someone who talks a lot of shit.

Naive: Someone who doesn’t know shit.

Callow: Friends with the guy who doesn’t know shit.

Ubiquitous: This shit is everywhere.

Unconscionable: The legal equivalent of “This contract is bullshit.” or “Nigga Please”.

Earlier Friday afternoon, she told the editorial board of the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Argus Leader that “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said. -CNN

Let’s talk a little about the Pantsuit stepping on her dick today. I’m a little conflicted because I don’t really give a shit. Wanna buy a bridge?

Did she literally mean she’s staying in the race because our man Obama might be assassinated? I honestly don’t know. She did say virtually the same thing back in March.

Robert Kennedy Jr. said, “I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband’s 1992 race, both of which were hard-fought through June,” he said. “I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense.” -CNN

I can only say this. Regardless of her intentions. It was an incredibly stupid thing to say. I apoligize for thinking she was smarter.

It reminds me that she’s been bitching about being victimized by sexism in the media.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

At the very least, it belies a breathtaking degree of disconnect. Over and over, her desperation surfaces like a fish unable to right itself. I am weary of the spectacle.

My father is prolifically fond of pointing out the size of the lie she told about drawing sniper fire in Boznia. He’s the best judge of character I know.

Go away Hillary. If it’s in the cards for you to be VP, so be it. Please, for now, hide thyself. The only thing you accomplish now, is the collection of scorn. It will only get worse. America deserves for you to tip the fuck out the door.

Drinks for my friends.

The wave crests, then breaks, the national media plays a mind.

In the two thousand election, Doubtfire labeled Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance”. I liked him then. I bought that “Maverick” crap.

Bush and Rove served him overdone on a platter. It was ugly and egregious. I pitied him. He walked into a buzzsaw spinning in hot feces. Despite his time as a POW, he’d never encountered anything remotely like the diabolical bacteria and machinations of Karl Rove. Or, the blind stupidity of Dumbya. Then he hugged him on national TV.

He may have still been a good man before that experience.

He’s not been since.

By two thousand six, McCain was delivering a commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University.

Today, after chronic rumblings in the gut of our media and percolations that turned into a harbinger of copious liquid excretions, the rectum of our mainstream media had a spasm, barfed out John Hagee and thrust him into the political toilet. You know, under the lights.

He stinks. He’s ugly and he looks stupid.

This punk Hagee has been credited with among other things, likening Hitler to a purveyor of the will of his Christian God and declaring Katrina was punishment for the Gays planning a parade.

An asshole thrice the size of a vagina.

Doubtfire worked tirelessly for this neanderthal’s endorsement for over a year. Today, of course, he denounced him and rejected his endorsement.

Good stuff. You can’t write this shit.

Will this tempest have the legs of say, the Jeremiah Wright conflagration?

Nope.

Hagee merely lied about Jews and Gays. Neither one a sizable political bloc. He didn’t tell the truth about rich white men like Jeremiah Wright did. Doubtfire didn’t belong to the douchebag’s church. Pretty fucked up, but still the way it will play.

He did impugn Catholics, but that’s ok in my book, as probably a fair number of them understand the depth of their own hypocrisy. I know I do.

Let’s all take a minute and reflect on how just insane this all is. Let it sink in. John McCain is the best Republicans can do after a disaster of epic proportion named Dumbya. I still can’t believe anyone is taking this guy seriously.

It really is no wonder the rest of the world thinks America is a land of idiots and jackasses.

There are times when I just can’t stand it.

Drinks for my friends.

I have a good friends. It’s that simple. It’s a fabulous blessing.

I’ve been invited to Marin County by a woman, married with children, whom I’ve known since she was a girl. She’s got a couple two masters degrees in literature and writing. When the first draft of Man In Picture is finished, her offer is to go through it with me page by page over wine and food. I’ve adored her since we first met and her husband is about as cool as really smart guys get.

His band was terrible. Don’t tell him I said that.

A good old friend in New York invited me to come stay. A sweet man I’ve known since the eighties. We were hired around the same time at A&M. We’ve been talking online for a time. He had just moved back to NY. We ran into each other in Vegas about a year ago. He had a serenity in person that impressed me. He’s married to a comic and has a son around sixteen.

Unfortunately, his son is a musician.

I fucking love New York. Last time I was there it was our birthday. Seriously, my old producing partner shared the same birthday, though a few years apart. We were working but still managed to see the city. Empire State Building, The Village and jazz, Little Italy, the works as best we could. We walked as much as possible.

Another excellent friend, the drummer from two different bands we produced, has invited me to Florida. He’s a chef now. Beautiful wife and kids. We had a code for when he blew into town. The message would read “plate of shrimp” and a phone number. It meant we would be drinking sooner or later. Call. One of the very best drummers I ever worked with. More here

Two of my very oldest friends with the same first name I’ve been in regular but not enough contact with, invited me to their homes as well. Northern California up around Bodega Bay and San Francisco proper. These guys and their significant others are among the heavyweights in terms of spiritual and intellectual prowess I’ve been lucky enough to encounter in my life. I’ve known the two with same first name since we were kids. They and their families are luminous to me.

All on this list are original and independent thinkers beyond what one can find on any given day. I’m proud to know them and gratified they think of me now and then.

I’m craving hot dogs. Gotta get some smoked turkey franks, cheap white buns, Tilamook cheddar slices and squeezable mayo. I got regular mayo but need it to squirt it like the ketchup (catsup) and mustard. Need to get an onion and some pickles, maybe some turkey chili.

I’ll shit like a goose.

There’s a pocketful of others I’d at least debate taking a bullet for, I just wanted to mention these ones for now.

Drinks for my friends.

You know, gently, when a foot slips from beneath the sheets?

Change is inevitable. Unavoidable. Hard.

I left a job I’d been at for almost a decade. I had to. I hear they replaced me with a ringer. That’s good.

Some days are productive and sometimes I never shuck my robe. I try to always brush my teeth. And write. My robe stinks.

Obama parked a dozen balls tonight with a Gibson Flying V plugged into a wall of Marshall Amps. Iowa. People with televisions heard it all over the world. The grace he exhibited when talking about the pantsuit was mesmerizing. It’s already been said and it will continue, yet I must; Barack Obama is as fine an orator as seen for generations. If he means what he says, and I believe he does, he will be the finest President in generations.

I try not to fire up the plasma too early. It’s been warm and she runs hot. It’s an anesthesia I need to monitor the consumption of anyway.

Bad news about Teddy huh?

My mother is so cool. She packed a grocery bag full of food for our train ride back from Yuma. Chicken salad sandwiches with fresh lettuce, water, juice, stawberry pie with an Oreo crust, rhubarb cake and potato chips.

We hung out under the awning of a palatial coach and a bigger thing on a slab with a structure of steel and a skin of white aluminium siding. We grilled and ate. We cruised the neighborhood in a Subaru to look at my uncle’s properties and where their friends live. Cocktailed and watched election returns. We drank good wine with stellar pork chops and a fantastic corn casserole. We drank better wine with a giant tin of Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese and Cesar salad.

There’s a bay on the side with a sliding platform. It has a refrigerator full of beer and sodas as well as my brand of gin. There’s satellite tv.

A three legged black lab named Billy who never met a man she didn’t like. She’s about as sweet as a domesticated animal gets. I think of her as Tripod. She enjoys licking and tug of war with toys.

Maybe we’re not supposed to live as long. After the age of fifteen or sixteen, how pure can your soul be?

We all lost consciousness. The train was to leave Yuma at 4:15 a.m. She must have been up for the better part of an hour. Everything in individual ziplocks or perfectly sized tupperware packed neatly into a grocery sack with a pristinely folded top. I have to tell you, that was the least of her kindness. My mother is very much the matriarch. She takes it seriously. She does whatever she can possibly do to help her children, her husband, her brothers and sisters and their children.

She will cook, clean, do laundry and ride a white horse over the horizon waving a broadsword.

She decides where everyone sits in the car.

I had a scrape with the law twenty years ago and could very well have ended up in prison for possession. She bailed me out of jail, took me home for a shower and change of clothes and we got down to business. Within a few hours and after a pleasant meeting with a very prominent attorney, my worries were over.

Too bad it made the front page.

My old man had that paper in his hand when he hugged me and told me he’d done a lot worse. My folks rock.

My mother is whip smart. An intellectual without the hubris of her son. She and my father are ardent NASCAR fans. Democrats who pay attention. She can cook. All her sisters can cook. Her brothers are awesome whackjobs. She comes from a family of eleven, all good people.

The in-laws are somehow crazier. Just about every man or woman selected by my mother and her brothers and sisters is arguably even crazier than his or her mate. Family reunions are an absolute blast. The amount of chaos is impressive.

By the way, my sister can really cook. I mean really.

She once showed up at my house with her entire family for Thanksgiving. They drove five hundred miles on a few days notice with an entirely prepared Thanksgiving meal save for the turkey languishing in brine.

In my family, if you get sick, you won’t spend a day alone in the hospital. If you’re down and out, someone will take you in and help you find a job. Be a shithead, and all will be forgiven.

These are my people.

It’s intimidating. I think I might be the lamest of the bunch.

Drinks for my friends.

I can’t help but be in awe of the intellectual dishonesty by the Pantsuit when she claims to actually be ahead in the popular vote by virtue of Florida and Michigan.

Two contests we’re all aware, simply do not count. They talked about moving up the primary and were made aware by the DNC if they did so, the delegates would not be counted. Not seated. The candidates signed off on it. They did it anyway. Game over.

I understand the Forida Legislature has a Republican majority, but jackass Democrats voted for it too.

How then, can she with a straight face and toxic smile, claim the delegates should be a factor? In Florida, our man did not campaign. Michigan, he removed himself from the ballot.

Unless both states can be effectively re-polled, and it’s naive to think they can, damage done. I repeat. Game over.

This scenario begs an honest question: Hey Hills, what the fuck are you smoking?

You were a distant fourth for me when it was open field running and everyone thought you had a lock on it. You’ve done quite a few things to tarnish what was once a glistening legacy along the way. I’ve been dissapointed quite a few times. A lake of water has passed under the bridge since I went from amused to disgusted, though nothing compares to this kind of fuckery.

You hinted at it for a brief time and now you insist upon it. Seriously, what gives? You yourself agreed to these rules. Unless it’s part of your strategy to appear braindead, dishonest, a sore loser or desperate, indeed, even if any of these perceptions are deliberate, it is abruptly clear you are not fit to be Commander in Chief of the America we all so furiously hope for.

The America we deserve. One that you cannot deliver because you lack the integrity. You lack honesty. You lack ethics. You are morally abject.

You should be ashamed. Have you no pride at all?

Judgement? Talk among yourselves.

It is the official opinion of BRAINSPANK that Hillary Rodham Clinton sucks.

You are incapable. It saddens me to say it. Your best move is to stop pissing up that rope and take the high road. Show us some class. Think about dignity. I still like your husband somewhat. Can I keep that please?

This whole thing is like a conspiracy with chaos as the only impetus.

Drinks for my friends.

Morning.

Pale and bright and.

Pristine somehow.

Peace.

Out the window, blue ocean forever overseen by massive cumulonimbi with acreage enough to turn the sea black for half an hour. They roar over the boat heading the opposite way only slower. Enchanting. Impossible.

I’m good. Energized, optimistic.

An incredibly satisfying crap.

A meditative shower and shave.

Fresh fruit, english muffins and champagne on the balcony. I savor food, drink and Rothko blue water all the way to the horizon. The morning paper is a bitch in the wind. I stuff it under my thigh. Impossible white giants dominate the sky. The slowest motion explosion ever, cruising the atmosphere, punching at the roof. Tall enough to ignore gravity. All of pink and purple violence beneath.

It’s a little chilly so the sun takes it’s turn. Nice.

The Boat docks at noon.

I take my time. Gather my things. I’m anxious to put this chapter behind me and I don’t know why. Some violence, good times and more peace than I’ve had in months. How sad.

It comes to a close, I’m reluctant to turn a page. In my mind’s eye there is a finish line. I don’t look at it. I can’t yet. I’d like for it to stop haunting me before I confront him. I get that’s unlikely.

I think of a smoke shop instead. One with comic books, porn, stereo and science magazines. The smell of two dozen pipe tobaccos collect and make a perfume of raisins, apples and burning hardwood. There’s candy and cigars smelling of cedar and vanilla. A small white fridge full of fish bait rattles in the corner. Beef jerky, lighters and tiny ampules of ginseng at the counter. A yellow cardboard display of of tobacco pipes with lime green text. Saran Wrapped cookies in a basket and Flints and pens with floating things inside. Behind the counter, whiskey and cigarettes. Some plastic bongs, some ceramic ones, a little fimo and lots of cheap imported metal. People I’ve known for years behind the register.

Some temporary buoyancy I’m nurturing.

I know what’s coming.

The molar back left begins to ache.

I haven’t checked baggage since they started putting wheels on suitcases. The tome and dagger is secure among my clothes in the carry-on. I thought about opening the box. I didn’t.

A few minutes to finish up and get organized.

My molar begins to visit a pounder on me.

I pop a couple vikes and dry swallow.

Out the sliding glass for a last smoke and it starts to throb with my pulse.

A swallow of champagne left. It’s coming on fast.

It hits me hard. I’m stepping right back into hell. This is going to suck. A lot. I’m returning to take him on. One way or another, it’s on.

I have no choice. Carlo was relieved he didn’t have to convince me of that. Glad I could see it for what it is.

I’m really not built like this. I’m not a tough guy. I barely know how to fight. I can’t picture it. I can’t even picture it.

My jaw kicks the covers off to show me what it brings to the party. Pain as fresh and old as you can imagine, rips up the side of my head. The skin on my left face is baking off. The deepest ache with a frosting of coals hot enough to melt fat. I stagger.

Two more vikes, another dry swallow and I grab my shit and head to the main bar. All the pantsuits are lining up to file out when I get there.

Wierd. I thought it was a little after noon. I ask the bartender for the time and he says a quarter til. The watch Carlo gave me says noon straight up.

I order a double Sapphire mary.

The woman next to me is festooned with impossible amounts of makeup and perfume. Probably a wig. I look at her watch and it says ten til. I look at mine again and see straight up noon. Her smell makes my tooth scream. I want to cave her head in.

She sports the most beehive of bouffants, resplendently ridiculous. What do I do now? I can tell she collects dolls. Her jewelry and costume clink and rattle. I loathe her.

Spit collects in the corners of her mouth. There’s foam between the point of her upper lip and where it meets the lower. It looks like an elastic band as she talks about not a goddamn thing. I can smell her armpits and vagina over the dense mist of her perfume.

She stinks.

She notices me staring and wincing. She gawks at me wide eyed. The vikes begin to kick but I get that she’s mocking me. Rouge on her cheeks and turquoise in abundance around her eyes. I smile and ask her if she’s ever danced naked with her uncle with a pickle in her mouth. She frowns at me confused and asks me what I just said.

I say nothing. I stare. I wink. I dig for a booger. She turns away.

Pissedoffedness rears it’s horned head and I flick at the back of her hive with my middle finger. She wheels around pretty damn fast. As far as I’m concerned, my startled laugh sounds like a hiccup. I tell her it was a wasp. She frowns but bats her lashes.

Whore.

I spit on the floor.

The entire side of my head bulges on fire. I’m sweating. My balls itch. I’m furious about everything. I think I want to grab the back of her head and pound her face into the bar. Over and over.

My drink comes and it tastes like lunch. It’s the beauty of any sort of bloody mary. Like a breakfast bar. Eat the olives and the celery and you’ve got a balanced offering. There’s the bar nuts and tomatos too.

Then, like gossamer, vicodin saves the day. My rage and confusion subside. I decide I’m in no condition to go far. I grab a cab and get a room. Some chain with a cocktail lounge. Room service. I stop for gin on the way. Fill my ice bucket first thing after I turn on the lights.

Pour one. Wash up. Hit the lounge.

Two things:

I’m housed.

I think my watch stopped.

Every once in a while, a genuinely good thing happens in the world and I find myself smiling. Guess what kind of day today was?

This, after a pretty good day yesterday.

Today the California Supreme Court ruled overwhelmingly that same sex marriages are well within the protection of our state constitution. Keep on rockin the free world. Some pundit mentioned that California was among the first, back in nineteen forty eight, to declare the very same protection for interracial couples.

Look at us. We’re so goddamn chiquita.

A societal fundament.

Big news. A major civil rights victory. Huge.

The Outtake Bistro had the tomato tarragon soup with chicken. I chose to pair it with a blanc de blanc. We started with mixed greens and a miso dressing.

“I was just a little pup
And it was derby day

Was dad and me and darrell
Out in san pablo bay

Taco flavored doritos
And my orange life vest

Dad caught a hundred pound sturgeon
On twenty-pound test

Now he fought that fish for an hour
And a half

Darrell’d say “jump ya sons a bitch!”
And he grabbed for the gaff

When we got him in the boat
He measured six feet long

I was so danged impressed i had
To write a song called

Fish on” -Primus

Then Dumbya, after declaring solidarity for all the troops waiting to die and those who already have, by allegedly giving up being photographed playing golf, opened his dumbass mouth again while speaking to the Israeli Parliament.

It was like a warm buttermilk biscuit on my doorstep. A packet or two of honey and that butter flavored stuff.

This guy is the pointy part of a turd above a white collar and a red tie. What a dick.

In front of The Knesset, in the lamest way one can imagine, he swings a limp pecker with conviction that can only come from some dissociative fantasy based on his dick actually being hard.

For all intents and purposes, he called our man Obama a Nazi sympathizer. Doubtfire waded in like a pasty faced zombie. He shat in his bag and began to explore his nostrils with all fingers.

Rove called the pixilated residence of Darth Cheney pleading for someone to put a leash on the goddamn monkey as he was really hoping to spend his sunset years destroying somebody.

Biden erupted in his inimitable way by saying “This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,”

I understand they caught him coming out of an elevator. We likes us some Joe Biden. We likes him more when he’s pissed.

My point is this:

This administration’s foreign policy is a debate any immigrant 7-11 clerk could hand Dumbya, or McCain for that matter, their asses on.

Hey, how’s that not talking to anybody working out for you assholes?

Are you guys aware that your own Secretaries of State and Defense advocate talking to these nations?

Sheezus!

It’s like Darth and Dumbya ride ponies around in the basement everyday playing cowboys and indians. They come up for lemonade and head right back down. Darth stuffs his pockets with moon pies. Dumbya’s got a flask. They’re both on lithium and sleeping in coffins.

I just saw a backlit mystery stream spray a home pregnancy strip and a woman was ejected by her bed to an opulent lobby. TV on but no sound.

Drinks for my friends.

So yeah, Hillary takes a steamer on our man Obama’s forehead last night with the help and complicity of just about every toothless hillbilly in West Virginia. It was an ass whooping for sure, albeit by a demographic for whom the most common and prominent skill might just be the ability to play the banjo or make Ned Beatty squeal like a pig.

My point is this. West Virginians do not by any means, represent white America.

Despite all this, it’s too bad she’s unable to revel in the best bowel movement she’s had in months, even for a single twenty four hour news cycle.

Ya’ll know I likes me some John Edwards. I damn near did the potty dance when he arrived on a white horse in Michigian today to endorse our man Barack. In the words of that famous philosopher and arbiter of contemporary zeitgeist Bart Simpson, Ha Ha!

So much for testicular fortitude, huh Hills? As a male, I have a grasp on just how disastrously uh, moist, the concept of pissing in the wind could be. I can only imagine that for a woman, the potential for a soaking increases exponentially.

How long does she intend to flirt with such an obvious calamity?

I reclined sanguine in Yuma Arizona last night with my parents, we mused about the possibility of the Pantsuit as a running mate while sipping Turley zinfandel in a motorhome far nicer than my apartment. I took the opportunity to posit again that I thought that was precisely what she was up to and floated the idea of Edwards, despite his overt statements to the contrary.

That’s what they all say, I observed.

My mother is quick and sharp. She said he’d be a dream Attorney General. Damn she got me.

After the twin turbo charged disaster that was Gonzales and Ashcroft, and the current trainwreck of Michael Mukasey, who’s unable to wrap his brain around waterboarding, Edwards would be far more than a breath of pristine atmosphere. He’d be a sustained gust powerful enough to scour our constitution of all the shit the Republicans have spent the last seven years smearing on it.

A crusader against corporate influence as the Attorney General of The United States? Awesome.

Brilliant brinksmanship. Talk about a counterpunch.

In related news: Travis Childers visited a whooping in Missafuckingssippi while facing a full frontal assault from the evil blackhat Republicans wielding their most racist broadsword. He may be a bit of a nut but BOOYA MOTHERFUCKERS!

Drinks for my friends.

I love that the other day Obama got in trouble for saying Doubtfire had lost his bearings. The McCain camp reacted with incredulous melodramatic zeal.

Are you saying he’s old?!?!

Um, did you say all of Hamas wishes Obama to be President so he can have beers with them, touch their pee pee’s and give them nukes? After all, that’s what he was responding to.

So much for an above board campaign.

Fuck you Little Bootlicker. And for the record, YES. You would be the oldest man ever elected President and we’ve already seen you lose your grip on the ball of cognisance live on TV a few times.

It is profoundly naive for me to hope the general election hinges on issues as opposed to this kind of twatspeak.

I’m in awe of Joe Six Pack’s reluctance and/or inability to recognize the battle has ceased to be about race and has since become a war on class. The war on drugs. The war on terror. The war on Joe Six Pack.

Joe, dude, they hate you, but they know you’ll vote for them.

We imprison more people per capita than any other nation. How many would you guess are wealthy?

It’s an evolution of prejudice. A refinement. A correction. What they meant to do all along. Distasteful, sure, more palatable though. Far better than owning up to racism, because the poor and uneducated are all the same and that’s ok. We need them. They deliver our produce and our pizzas.

Many of you, us, may become them. Actually, many of us will. Just watch. The rest of us are them.

I’m just gonna say this. It will be the stupid and afraid that vote for McCain. This country has been run by old white men for the better part of her history. Look around. How’re we doing with that?

Duh.

The Republican machine will go after our man’s lack of experience like a pack of abused and emaciated pit bulls.

So?

It’s a big fat plus in my ledger. Every year you’ve done business inside the Beltway is just that much more corruption squishing around in your monkey suit.

We got West Virginia on Tuesday. Something like ninety six percent white in an Appalachian gravy. A state where Newt Gingrich is polling at six percent and he’s not on the ticket. The third most suffering economy in the country. It’s hysterical to me that the Pantsuit is gonna hold this one over her head like a boxing belt.

There’s a ton of fucking crackers in this state and she can’t wait for the polls to close.

The irony is that this very group I’ve just endeavored to insult have more in common with our man Obama than either of the other two by about a light-year.

Wow. News flash. A lot of us don’t know what’s good for us. Fuck me. Seriously?

I almost bought a chocolate Hostess pie today at the 7-11.

And by the way, after looking at the actual numbers, even if half of Shrillary’s supporters walk away, Barack can still hand Doubtfire his ass. There’s just about twice as many Democrats voting as there are evil nazi blackhat Republicans. The math is compelling.

I’m a jack ass but I hope not a fool. West Virginia will bathe in ignorance and fear of pigmentaion and ear size. They will select the Pantsuit because it’s what they know. Yet she will not be President.

No matter what the people of West Virginia do, Barack Hussein Obama will be their next Commander in Chief.

That makes me smile.

Drinks for my friends.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Top Ten Reasons to off one’s self
Current mood: fickle and gratuitous
Category: fickle and gratuitous Writing and Poetry

10) Tired of wiping my ass

9) Sick of waiting for a green light.

8) I don’t like most people

7) Dust

6) Girls shaped like boys. Boys shaped like girls.

5) Dentist. The very word.

4) Residual urine

3) Ball and/or clam sweat

2) Toenail trimming

1) Having to write a hot check for Bombay Sapphire at Rite-Aid.

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Thursday, May 08, 2008

Ten more reasons to self induce the dirt nap
Current mood: Rotisserie
Category: Rotisserie Writing and Poetry

10. There’s these really cool overhead lights in my bathroom. Five of them and they’re enclosed in in like soffits in the ceiling. Well, one is blinking and clicking. I kinda like it but I wish I could only turn that one on and then I could take a shower and sing Sayonara.

9. Unless I beat them to it, my cats will travel before me.

8. Kids these days.

7. The inevitable decline in our human condition, what with global warming and America becoming a third world country and all.

8. I’m drunk. I meant six.

6. Boy hair cuts on girls. C’mon! Unless, you know.

5. I’ve been driving around with a thousand dollars worth of Christmas ornaments in my car for over a year.

4. Just the other day, my credit card was declined at a drive-thru.

3. Women seem to be interested in dancing again.

2. freecredit.com commercials.

1. The way people look at you when you stumble into the 7-11 right before two a.m. and you buy everything but booze.

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Thursday, May 08, 2008

Ten more reasons to covet shaking off the mortal coil
Current mood: Cunty
Category: Cunty Writing and Poetry

1. When someone notices you have a booger before you do.

2. Sean Hannity is still on TV.

3. People who walk around in public with a blank stare while mouth breathing.

4. When there’s not quite enough sushi left for the beer remaining, so you order more sushi and then run out of beer.

5. Cell phone talking dickheads that make you have to wait a whole ‘nother cycle while trying to make a left.

6. When individually wrapped slices of cheddar begin to harden around the edges because the ziplock packaging you purchased them in malfunctions.

7. Tattoos that mar the beauty of otherwise lovely cleavage.

8. “All Scratched Up” by Down By Law. I’m as responsible as anyone for that record but I can’t listen to it. Really, I just tried. “Punkrockacademyfightsong” rocks though. Dave Smalley sings his ass off in front of the best band he ever had.

9. Marty Feldman tits. Think about it.

10. Anything sticky on my fingers. Syrup or honey or even jam. Drives me fucking crazy.

Drinks for my friends……………

Shrillary got her clock cleaned last night in North Carolina, she was able to come up long enough for a gulp in Indiana.

Today we learn she’s loaned herself another six million plus.

The other shoe fell from forty stories in slow motion and made a nuclear racket that no amount of movie theater subwoofers could hope to reproduce. George McGovern, a very loyal and long time Clinton ally, flopped all over the Pantsuit today. He withdrew his support, threw it behind Obama and humbly suggested she take a walk.

Obama talked to us last night and was brilliant. Give this man a microphone and he will park a ball with it.

I popped a vike and spent some time smoking and drinking and engaging in somnambulance while the Pantsuit bleated.

I watched the highlights, but they confused me. She was conciliatory at first, I actually guessed out loud that she was conceding at one point. Chelsea’s chin was wrinkling and she looked to be on the verge. Bill’s face was a bad news shade of crimson.

I was like, hmmmmm. Cool.

She did the strangest thing then, she revved her motor and left the line tires smoking. She hollered no brakes ’til 1600 Pennsylvania. Showed up in West Virginia fifty minutes later, motor oil on her face. Wierd.

Think she’s bucking for assistant manager?

Could very well be a power move.

They, Billary, are too smart for it to be hubris alone.

She’s determined to collect support and voters while consolidating as much power and influence as she can. She will continue until she can’t. She’ll then take those tools and present them as a chip with which to bargain. Or she’ll wield them as leverage. It’s possible she will brandish them as weapons.

I could be wrong. I just got to thinking.

Whatever she does, the imperative is to be gracious. She WILL exit. That is unless, somehow she’s able, in the next three weeks, to catch him raping an underage white woman. It’s sick that she’s willing to wait for that.

She absolutely must walk away with dignity and class. Campassion, courtesy and humility.

There is no doubt he will handle her concession with decency, aplomb and a sincere lack of vanity.

So now you know what I’m looking for, the way I hope it plays.

Whatever her move is, so be it. She ran hard but she is the second horse in this race and the time for her to act accordingly is nearly upon her.

Drinks for my friends.

What we have here is a failure to illuminate. No effort to elucidate. Goddamn media. Big suprise.

I don’t want the goddamn bunny, I want that mirror with the Pabst Blue Ribbon logo………how many balls I gotta buy?

Anyway.

She’s ever weaker in both contests tonight after a gritty brawl. A fight she picked. Nonsense she perpetuated.

He picks up more delegates and another net gain of the popular vote.

She collects another nail in her pine box. Dust yet to land.

The official Brainspank forecast:
She sports a giant fork, it wags and sways from her back as she walks hunched and bleeding. She is done. She cannot win.

Despite the kitchen sink relentlessly visited over and over on the face and teeth of our man over the last few weeks, he delivers a thumping in North Carolina and as of this writing, far more of a squeaker than was anticipated in redneck Indiana.

Impressive in North Carolina without a doubt. The margin in Indiana is more significant.

A gap of two percent.

Two percent in the analogy of a boxing ring, is a split decision. Sixteen percent in North Carolina is a tenth round knockdown and a TKO.

Indeed, he outspent her. However, that money did not come from the plutocracy. It came from us. Do not forget that.

No sudden nation wide epiphany. Merely the slow, incremental advance of a determined and intelligent man who would be our first black AND white President.

The pundits whine and wring hands over the great unwashed and our man’s inability to win them over. To touch their hearts, or at least appeal to their shriveled genitalia.

I gotta tell ya, this particular stratum has been beyond the grasp of thoughtful, intelligent political contestants since the Republicans exploited racism in the South in the sixties. Democrats have won and lost, often pivoting on this demographic since then.

Yep, most of these fuckheads will vote for Doubtfire despite whomever claims the Democratic crown.

Lake County Indiana may well be the harbinger of doom for the Pantsuit and The Little Bootlicker.

Looks to me as though our man’s stock is way up. He smiles when he’s fighting. We like that.

I can’t shake the gut telling me that Hillary is about Hillary and McCain is about McCain.

Obama is more aware of us and where America is in the scheme of things than other two combined.

Pink pantsuits are visually arresting. I just really can’t deal with a pink pantsuit on any level. I just can’t.

It’s ok, she’s done.

Drinks for my friends.

Back to the boat and Carlo has a little left to say.

“It will be soon. Aim high on his chest and stab as hard. It’s fragile, but plunge and pull down.” He wrings his hands a little.

“Do not get any of the green on you, clean yourself if you do. It is toxic.”

He starts talking staring straight ahead. By the end of a few sentences, his eyes search my face.

“Do it right, he will die. One chance. Be willfull and determined. See yourself killing him. Picture it.”

“Let me tell you this.” He touches my arm. Book and box between us.

“It is his nature is to be aggressive and foolish. Same time, he is at least afraid of you as you are him.” He nods at me but I can’t see his eyes, his head backlit by the setting sun through a half open window.

The ocean in my nose.

Brine on my tongue.

“He will come to you unless you prevent it. Despite his fear, it is his nature.”

“Try to make it otherwise. You have an advantage. He does not know what you have. He is aware you possess it, he does not understand it. His imbalance of late, is because you leave this place with something you did not come looking for. He is confounded by that.”

“That, and he is uncomfortable. Out of his element. He does not like it here.”

I think about Gollum.

Deja vu, the car slows to a stop and I listen to tires meeting damp asphalt ever slower. There’s a light rain. I see the weapon I carry and a green plastic sword in a grilled cheese sandwich.

He kisses at both cheeks and pulls back. His eyes glisten. “Be aggressive. Pursue. Take the fight to him. End it soon.” A rough hand on the side of my face. “Luck is bullshit. I believe in fortitude.”

Determination, I say. No worries, I assure him. I thank him as briefly and sincerely as I can and slide towards the door.

Time to get on with it.

It opens, I stand and Driver hands me my things. I realize he’s Asian, maybe Samoan. He’s huge.

Carlo’s window drops silently. He looks smaller in the waning sunlight. “By all means, pay attention, be aware. He will call on you soon.”

I tell him the meanest man usually wins.

“Well, you don’t swing hard enough to do it with one punch.”

I smile. He’s taunting me.

I board the boat, stop at the bell desk check my bag and find the first bathroom. I gotta piss like a racehorse. I’m in a hurry, I straight arm the door.

There he is. Standing with his ass on the first sink. Gore streams from his eyes, nose and ears to collect on his chest. It spatters between his feet. He waves a snub nosed revolver, grinning and sucking back drool.

Giggling and drinking whiskey from a tumbler with a pinky out. He’s fucking drunk.

Wearing an actual a suit. Black, white shirt, skinny black tie. Kinda sixties.

Still, Puma Clydes.

What an idiot.

I had to piss so bad, I put the box and book in my bag and left it at the bell desk for me to call on after a piss and a drink. Say that fast.

I’m thinking about how stupid I am, he hits me in the mouth harder than I’ve ever been hit. I go down. The back of my head bounces off the marble floor.

Not out but I can’t think. I can barely see. He’s kicking for my gut, he’s connecting with my legs. One of my feet gets purchase somewhere so I push away.

Confusion and pain tie the knot and we have rage boys and girls. Searing. Seething. I think of his stupid electric fucking knife. Then comes Shirley from Alaska, then comes a rabbit. It comes on rails at the speed of sound and I am overwhelmed. I throw a fucking rod.

I’m biting my own tongue. I’m tasting my own blood and I like it.

Up on my knees, I make a fist and swing overhand for his crotch. Somehow I score a ballseye. A wad of flesh craters beneath my punch.

That fucking hurt.

Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!

Only the sound of trying, not quite able to suck air, and his head makes a very cool sound against the brass plate at the bottom of the door.

He flops a little. He’s got no wind.

Heh.

I struggle to my feet and start to kick. I’m dizzy and not connecting as well as the choir in my hate filled brain screeches for. I stomp with my heel. Feels better. The choir agrees and begins to crescendo.

He starts to cough and pant.

I’m doing some damage.

The choir rages.

Heh.

Some liver spotted senior pushes the door open enough to get his head and hands in.

My boy on the floor flops forward.

I’m standing, kicking a man and my face is bleeding. So is the man’s face I’m waling on, only he’s on the floor.

I shriek at him to find another bathroom you idiot, and I keep fucking kicking.

I focus on my boy’s head for a minute before common sense pays a visit and a decision is reached for Elvis to leave the building.

He seems to be out. I piss. I wash up.

I literally kick him out of the way and leave the bathroom checking my hands and wiping my nose for blood. I stuff a pocket with paper towels.

That old guy’s hands and forehead looked like desert camouflage. Poor fucker. Hope he was wearing a diaper.

I sweat like an over exerted drunk because that’s what I am.

I head for a bar at the other end of the ship. My legs are elastic. Like I’m on something. It’s happy hour packed when I find it. Still, I find a seat at the end. I’m grateful. I don’t know this fool can make a martini and it’s busy, so I order two double Sapphires on ice with a twist.

He tells me he can only serve me one cocktail at a time. I tell him to watch my glass then.

I see mostly blue and red plastic swords.

I finish the first, order a second, go out for a smoke, and return to notice blood leaking from my face into my gin.

Exploratory diagnostic napkin wielding reveals the flow is from my lower lip.

I smear some on my nose to look like a nosebleed and pull out a credit card to inspire the bartender to get me a check. I gesticulate with a napkin like I’ve got a random bloody nose.

Trickier than you might think, to pretend you didn’t just kick the shit out of some zombie in the bathroom, rather just experiencing a random moist climate induced bloody nose …………

I drink my own blood mixed with gin and ice in an elevator accompanied by a gaggle of geese speaking German or Austrian or some other throaty, ugly tongue. They look odd. Out of place, but happy to be so. One of the men actually has a feather in the brim of his stupid hat. Another wears tweed.

I know they don’t speak english because I ask them about their vaginas and whether Karl Rove smokes a mean pole. I tell them an anti-semitic joke. They smile, ask my name and if I’m enjoying myself. I tell them no. I smile back. I tell them I’m locked in battle with a furious demon.

They all buy the random bloody nose act and clearly understand nothing else.

The doors open and they hold up their cameras and make friendly faces indicating they want me to take pictures. I can’t help it. They’re so damn nice. The men pat me on the shoulder and the women smile close mouthed and wave their flippers at me.

I get back to my room, call for my bag, order a grilled cheese sandwich with fries, buffalo chicken strips with bleu cheese, side of dill pickles, chocolate milk and two diet cokes and a side of mayo.

I pour a drink.

My bag with the book and the box shows first. I open it enough to verify precious cargo and take it with me to the bathroom.

My shoes are bloody so you know there’s some on the pants. Over the side.

Quick shower.

You know what makes the best grilled cheese sandwich? Velveeta. Campbell’s tomato soup to go with it. Lime jello. Grape drink.

The food shows and I’m in awe of the fried, buttery, vinegary bouquet. It’s got that low down pungent off the strip casino room service smell too. I adore that smell. Fuck me I’m hungry.

I check the balcony and throw all the locks.

He won’t be around tonight, I handed him his ass.

Ha!

Stainless cover off a plate still steaming. Excellent. Two green plastic swords pinning two black olives to two wedges of grilled cheese sandwich.

I go to bed happy.

It’s not so simple.

See, the war in Iraq is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the elevator. We wage this obtuse war on credit. The thick residue of it’s flesh, lives maimed and lost, and insane amounts of money will all be borne by families, taxpayers in and of the future.

You and your children, for a very long time.

It’s dumb. Egregious. Irresponsible.

One half of one million dollars a minute.

The dumbest shit I’ve ever paid attention to.

I paid $4.33 a gallon for gas today. Sixty fucking dollars to fill it up.

Two of the assholes running for the highest office in the land are endorsing a suspension of federal gas taxes for the summer as long as you don’t attempt to fill up while wearing white. An idea that would further jeopardize the rotting infrastructure in this country as well as as jobs that rely on federal contracts generated by those taxes. In the scheme of things it will save you enough to buy an extra loaf of goddamn bread.

One candidate points out the folly of such a suggestion and says it’s not a policy that will save you money, but rather a gimmick to make the other two more electable. They piss back by saying it’s further proof of his elitism.

How fucking stupid are you America? One candidate is straight with you and the other two pander shamelessly.

I paid $990 dollars for a root canal today. It was a molar and it felt like I was getting my head pierced. Over two hours in the chair and I still have to go back. We’re not done drilling and filing in my skull. Next time you’re feeling down about your subprime loan, sit with your mouth open like you have a flip top head for two hours.

I did get some vicodin out of the deal.

Foreclosures are at the their highest rate since the Great Depression.

There was a time when we were the smartest, most progressive and wealthiest country on the planet. In seven short years we have re-emerged as the dumbest country in the most rapid economic and ethical decline on that same planet.

I have long aspired to maintain an open mind. Only now, I’ve developed an ever increasing empathy for those “liberal elitists” that simply walk away from a conversation that begins with any extolling of the virtues of one George W. Bush.

The failings of this man and his administration have become a litany so considerable, to document it would be an exhaustive and agonizing career; suffering the worst and most unaccountable human idiocy, day after day. A really pissed off life. Biographers of Dumbya are about to own the highest suicide rate. Over dentists even.

I’ll do it for $50k. Seriously. In a heartbeat. Bitch.

Five years ago yesterday, “Mission Accomplished”. What a retard. What a gaggle of roundheads. How’s Louisiana? Anyone?

And then we come to today. Just like yesterday. John McCain is alive and well and still running for President. He is a hundred and eleventeen. His wife is an appallingly rich, steely eyed fembot from Stepford who’s face has been in the garage more often than any AMC Pacer still on the road.

Dumbest car ever, by the way.

Forgive me. What I’m trying to get to is this. How the fuck is Doubtfire a legit contender? This guy is a doddering ass with indefensible positions on the very policies Americans scream about in poll after poll. Could it be that the Democratic panoply under the big top is what’s somehow infusing his carcass with buoyancy?

Well, that would make us jackasses, wouldn’t it?

Drinks for my friends.

We have a situation here.

An issue I’ve struggled with for some time.

It concerns someone who’s not necessarily welcome here. On this blog.

An interloper, if you will.

I dislike the idea of censoring anyone. But this guy is not only relentless, he’s agonizingly redundant. He’s a bigot. A racist. Incendiary for the sake thereof and some kind of narcistic asswipe.

I’m pretty confident he’s not serving any public good. Nothing beyond or above prurient. He does not desire to enrich or enlighten. His impetus is to damage. He cares not to inform because he has nothing to say.

What do I do with this fire on my stove?

Did I mention he’s an insufferable dipshit and I gave up actually reading his comments some time ago?

Anyway, here we are.

I get hundreds of reads a day on average, but not many comments. This will require your participation. What would you have me do? You have three choices.

You need to actually vote by commenting. I’m not kidding. I want to hear from you.

*If you find yourself unfamiliar with this subject, it would behoove you to read the comments left by an individual calling himself Trueblooded on just about any of my political blogs in the last few months.*

Ahem:

A. Kick this dickhead out of the pool, he just stands there and pisses. Are we gonna wait for him to shit himself?

B. Fuck it. He’s an asshole, but let him have his daily vomit on your blog.

C. I cannot be bothered to give a mad fuck. Bitch.

D. Bacon tastes good. Kill him.

Talk to me.

Drinks for my friends.

Oh fuck.

Bloodiest month in Iraq since September of last year. It’s Iran’s fault, they tell us. It’s not that the surge is no longer working, they assure us.

It’s that it never did, I assure you.

Stupid idea. Too little. Too late.

A band aid applied with the hope it would staunch the wound long enough for Dick-in-Bush to make a getaway. It was a matter of time until the dam breached itself by an artery that just wasn’t able to contain the pressure of all that blood.

They don’t have another one.

In what may be the cruelest and simultaneously most hysterical whirling dervish of irony I’ve ever witnessed, our nation has an immediate and affordable solution to the shattered back of our fighting force. The numbers are somewhere between twelve and twenty million. It’ll be a little less logistically efficacious if we decide to build that stupid border fence, but still doable.

Just think, we could all sleep a little easier knowing that we’re finally justified in paying them a fair wage as well as covering their medical needs etc.

See, they’d be dying for us while we sleep and have barbecues on Sunday. Well, not us, but the military industrial complex.

Draft the illegals!

I feel comfortable playing the race card.

Not really.

In other news, our Little Bootlicker pissed all over a bill that sought to mandate equal pay for women because he feared the lawsuits that would emerge. Um, isn’t that the point asshole?

Don’t forget, Doubtfire is on record as in favor of permanent tax cuts to the wealthy while we are facing perhaps the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Rice is being rationed in America for fuck’s sake. He’s cool with us staying in Iraq for a hundred years and it explains it with the example of our presence in Germany or South Korea.

Anybody remember any American soldiers dying in either of those two countries in combat in say, the last three decades?

Both Shrillary and McCain are in favor of a moratorium on federal gas tax for the summer. Great idea. Profound and inspired despite it’s being another goddamn blatant and pandering populist band aid to demonstrate how they feel our pain.

Never mind the jobs and money lost to our highway and bridge repair infrastructure, it won’t save you shit.

Check the crab in a bucket metaphor from the last blog.

Another suggestion along the same lines would be a mandate that all children, everywhere walk to school. Not even parents can drive them. They must get there under their own power. Can you imagine the money that could be saved?

We should go back to making everything out of wood. Soft drink containers and dashboards and polyester pants for fat people as well as the the stylistically challenged. Lenses and guns and amplifiers. Imagine a wooden computer.

You could safely use Pledge on it.

Why, it’s a renewable resource.

In America, the lights are on, but nobody’s home.

How did we become the stupidest and richest country on earth?

Wait. I know

Lust and greed?

Beer?

Gin!

Tonight on CNN, Michelle Obama said of the Wright controversy, she was finished talking about it. as is her husband, and that the issue would only die when the media diegns to acquiesce. I shouldn’t be allowed to say it after that last sentence but. WORD.

Every once in awhile I wonder if we all aren’t just stupid enough to not realize we are pell mell towards either the sun melting us, or a demise of our own.

Like the sun melting us.

I can see the world on my plasma TV. I communicate with all of you via a MAC. I have hand held devices that I can talk to the world with or control the signals beamed at me from a satellite in orbit.

I don’t see much progress. So far, no big picture shared by a majority of our species. It’s still neanderthal. Set huge fires. Everyman for himself. Get yourself a woman. Bacon is good.

Drinks for my friends.

A fat spider hangs in it’s web. Patient and unbelievably plump. Dense and thick. Enough weight to scare any man by crawling across his torso.

Racism in the land of plenty. We know not what we do.

I have a biracial friend who describes Reverend Wright as a “crab in a bucket”

To her it means tearing down your own who succeed. Crabs in a bucket will pull each other down in a zeal to escape.

She tells me it’s regrettable for a man such as Jerimiah Wright to sink to the the role of a crab in a bucket.

We share a disgust for the media; for it’s willingness to supply fuel as well as ignition to what’s become a crab festival.

Republicans are already feasting.

Meanwhile the bigots can’t decide if Barack is a nigger or a sand nigger.

Forgive me, but that is the low bar of discourse in this country. How fucking sad. To think our best chance of turning this ugly thing our country has become, into something better, pivots on ignorant bullshit like that, breaks my heart.

We have gone nuts.

Perhaps we’ve always been.

I’m sure it’s the latter. But this is our best chance.

Obama said today that this man does not speak for him or his campaign and he does not speak for this man.

“saddened by the spectacle.” -CNN

“What particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing,” -CNN

The very instance of this bull wreaking havoc in this shop of china owes it’s impetus to the goddamn media. This giant load of fresh moist horseshit is courtesy thereof. Steaming, from an ignorant and shameless platter.

Even Bill Moyers was willing to take shovel to shit.

This specific Frankenstein would never have walked if it wasn’t for the goddamn mainstream sonofabitching media. I cannot believe that in this century we’re even remotely concerned about what some egotistical and narcistic pastor has to say and that some of us are more than willing to put his words in the mouth of another man.

A man who did not utter those words. A man who is running for President of The United States.

Nevermind that the party of the first part still speaks the truth. Too many of you can’t wait to believe that the party of the second part uttered those words. Furthermore, you can’t contain your glee after committing to that lie, in painting my man Obama as some sort of reverse racist radical.

Idiots. Fools. Dipshits. COWARDS.

You purchase this shit at your peril. I doubt most of you can wrap your pathetic cleft brains around that notion. Much to the detriment of us all.

Forgive me. I’m just so sick of this.

It has nothing to do with why anyone should vote for this man or not. If I, as an agnostic, were to consider someone’s religious conviction when making a decision as to who to vote for, I could not, in good conscience, vote.

I wouldn’t even have any friends.

I think it’s time for me to stop giving some of you retards the benefit of the doubt.

I’ll tell you this. If we don’t opt for change, as much change as we can get, we’ll get caught with our pants around our ankles, screwing the pooch. All of us.

Drinks for my friends.

He’s always angry at the oddest of times.

Now, for example. I can’t imagine why.

Is he pissed ’cause I puked?

I didn’t leave a mess.

I see he’s trying to be serious as he begins to talk. Maybe that’s all it is.

I finger my mug and eyeball the pomegranate.

“You are in a bad way. What you have seen and struggled with, most do not have reason or facility to even consider. Why this evil has visited you, I cannot say. I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I have an idea that I can be of some.”

“Help. I mean.”

I take care to deposit pomegranate rubies in my mouth slowly.

I tell him I hope so and not to forget I’ll be tripping the light fantastic on my own in a few hours. Time is fleeting and I’m anxious to see and hear what he’s got. I thank him again for his hospitality and friendship. I’m feeling like I need to get the fuck out of here.

This party needs to be over.

Yet, I need to hear him out.

And I need to get out of here.

He brings the box from the counter and sets it on the table.

“A battle is brewing. Time to prepare. I wish I had more for you. I am giving you all I have that can possibly help you. Time to listen.”

He beams at me. His eyes glisten as he reaches for my hands. His are the rough of a laborer, his grasp confirms it.

“Excercise, if only to clear your head and get your wind up a little. Do not drink so much.”

Bottom left, a molar begins to ache.

I ask if there’s any avacado left.

“You are at the sixth chapter. I mean to say, read the sixth chapter.”

“War is upon you.”

“Take that volume from in front of the couch.” He fixes me with a stare, lifts a finger and says, “Seriously, fetch it now.”

I do, and return to the table. The heft impresses and it’s perfume of leather and library linger.

“Chapter six”, he says.

“Show up in places that make him nervous. Nervous enough, he’s headlong to defend them. It means of course, being the first one there and a guarantee of some confrontation. I’ve got something to help you with that.”

His hand goes to the box.

“Find the weak points and exploit them without putting your own in the wind. Divide and conquer as best you can. Every vulnerability you can discover from your adversary leaves him with more to defend. Spread him thin if you can. Unnerve him if you can.”

The molar throbs. I remember breaking a piece off a month or so ago.

“Keep your mouth shut. I cannot know what he knows or guess at what he can hear. There is no one that can help you with this save for me and thus, no reason talk about it to anyone. You would only be putting that person in jeopardy. I cannot put too fine a point on this. Talk to no one.”

“Not even your Mother.”

He sees behind my eyes as I stumble over how any of this applies or how I can possibly apply any of it.

Smiling, he says, “Do your level best to adapt to whatever circumstances shit all over you.”

I hoover another sausage, gulp on the world’s finest coffee and grab at some bread to slather fruit on.

I can’t help but smile.

Without looking, he reaches to slide the box between us. A dirty rectangle. Maybe half the size of a bathroom scale.

My ears ring, not sounding wooden as he slides it over the table. It sings a little. I look closer and see it’s copper without any edges, all rounded. Oxidized green and brown, rust brown to black.

Old.

“I saw him years back. When I first laid eyes on you, there he was at the same time. It spooked me. I’d almost forgotten, it had been so long. Perhaps a century. Maybe a little longer.”

Looking at the box until his last sentence, he locks eyes with me.

I don’t think I flinch.

What he just said makes me need to crap. My tooth begins a prison riot.

“I fashioned it for him or most anything I saw like him at the time. Back then, they were everywhere. Not so many now, but much more powerful. Smarter, you see.”

Somewhere in my periphery, my tooth rages and I need to piss. He holds my gaze and attention.

“It was the best I could do at the time. I had more influence then.”

He pulls the box to him and and opens it with both hands from either side. The inside lid gleams as though it were polished yesterday. There is no better color than gleaming copper and it smells like a sweaty handfull of pennies.

I understand it hasn’t been opened in a very long time.

Nestled in fine straw or what appears individual strands of pale burlap, is a dagger. The hilt glints like chrome but has the milkiness of silver. The blade is serrated and a bright emerald green.

Carlo pushes it toward me, I see the blade is hollow glass, filled with brilliant green liquid.

“A toxin.” He says.

“Meant for your kind of monster.”

Sheezus motherfuckin.

She is death as she rises and settles

Ominous, tip of a spar in seas always violent

An impossible vessel

I’m afraid to board her

I know I wont be able to get off

Ever

She is mostly underwater.

Narrow decks sit above above a vicious ocean.

A small town of precarious platforms
to be pounded by gigantic swells

A wind that will ripple your face.

She cannot dock in a typical port

She is too deep
She parks well out to sea, beyond the shallow shelf

Crazy ladders and insane slick polished tubes to
take you below

Way below

Tunnels originating in closets

twisted escalators
with claws

Impossible angles and hard to believe machinery

Almost all of her is below the surface
I worry at her buoyancy.

She rises and falls with a very deep ocean and I
understand the dream is about death.

Death blows across my forehead.

She’s swift enough to make her own wind

It’s an impossible vessel.

Impossible, as she is death.

There are wrenches at the end of poles that open
narrow ways to go beneath.

All topside is fraught with disaster

Underneath the waterline is slow sticky death

Hatches and portholes for no reason
She’s fast enough you could be swept off without time to cry out

Below the waterline is comfortable sticky death.

Deeper and deeper with staircases and narrow passages that taper
and taper

The food is warm but the chefs can’t explain it.

They smile as their teeth disintegrate

The white curved walls, the steel reveals the deep and the cold.

It’s an utterly impossible vessel.

A fin that barely breaks the surface with hundreds of
happy dead below the waterline

She speeds on
well ahead of the wind
making her own

The emaciated movie star calls me on the phone, he tells me how great I did coming down that one ladder in the whipping and gusting wet ocean wind

Everyone yelling at me

Another one like every
single other one that leads to comfortable sticky
death.

We dock and brush up against safe places but I cannot
get off her.

They beckon from the white sand but I must wash or
clean or maybe cook.

Always a reason

Below they consume white meat in dark sauce off
pewter and are merry with their flat brown ale.

They are sticky and horrifying.

Their heads have no eyes.

Then this song plays and all is well………

“Caviar and cigarettes
Well versed in etiquette
Extraordinarily nice

Chorus:
She’s a Killer Queen
Gunpowder, gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Anytime ”

Do not think or talk over the solo.

Ha ha ha. Fuck me! Welcome aboard! Death can be
sticky.

And then………

“Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer
Not a trace of doubt in my mind.
I’m in love, I’m a believer!
I couldn’t leave her if I tried.”………….

Woke up and took a shower with my mouth open.