April 4, 2009 – Saturday

I’m the President, and you’re not.
Category: News and Politics

This came out from the Politco about the meeting last week between the President and the Bank CEOs. I don’t usually do this, but I am going to quote the whole article. It is a reason to love our President.

Inside Obama’s bank CEOs meeting:

The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States.

Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees — and, by extension, to themselves.

“These are complicated companies,” one CEO said. Offered another: “We’re competing for talent on an international market.”

But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”

“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The fresh details of the meeting — some never before revealed — come from an account provided to POLITICO by one of the participants. A second source inside the meeting confirmed the details, and two other sources familiar with the meeting offered additional information.

The accounts demonstrate that despite the public comments on both sides that the meeting was cordial, the tone in the room was in fact one of mutual wariness. The titans of finance — men used to being the most powerful man in almost any room — sized up a new president who made clear in ways big and small that he expected them to change their ways.

There were signs from the outset that this was a business event, not a social gathering. At each place around the table sat a single glass of water. No ice. For those who finished their glass, no refills were offered. There was no group photograph taken of the CEOs with the president, which typically happens at ceremonial White House gatherings but not at serious strategy sessions.

“The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water,” says a person who attended the meeting. “The signal from Obama’s body language and demeanor was, ‘I’m the president, and you’re not.’”

According to the accounts of sources inside the room, President Obama told the CEOs exactly what he expects from them, and pushed back forcefully when they attempted to defend Wall Street’s legendarily high-paying ways.

Peace
J

So I’m sitting here today in my monkey suit, getting ready to go to the bank to bang out a proposal with the Evil Lance. I’ve been chasing this merchant for months. It’s a comic book shop. His name is Cat.

I was in the middle of reading truthout.org and and the place went quiet. Everything blinked off. The bastards at DWP had cut off my power.

My girlfriend walks out of the bathroom to say “You paid the power bill?”

I break a sweat. This has never happened before.

It’s really ok. I have the money. I was just being stupid frugal and retarded reluctant to pay a bill. Being poor makes you brave. Still, it’s more than a little discomfitting. My first thought is about what a dick I am because I made mad cash this month.

I go to the bank and make a big deposit. Call up DWP and pay the bastards. Call the other department of DWP and give them the confirmation number and they say by five p.m., power restored.

Get me a a couple chili cheese dogs with mayonnaise, mustard and onions. This is why poor folks are fat. I blame society. I cut a check for my rent and drop it off. The manager is this cool guy named Antonio. He smiles and shakes my hand. First time I’ve paid rent on time in months.

I go to my bank, the Evil Lance and his wife, mother in law and daughter are there, along with my significant other, the new guy we will refer to as GQ Todd, the Lovely Linda and the hot new receptionist. Ken, the head fromage is nowhere. The Evil Lance has done my homework for me. I get a folder with the proposal, the original statement and a printout of the ACH statement for money I’m being paid on a previous deal that will hit my account on Monday.

It’s a sweet chunk of change.

I threaten the daughter of the Evil Lance with cannibalism. I tell her to bring me butter and pepper. I demand a giant fork and tell her that her ankles will be chewey. She is gorgeous and I am charmed.

I come home and there’s an ominous yellow notice on the door. Mine heart doth sink. I’ve just figured out how to buy enough gin for the weekend and I felt like I may have fooled the world once again.

I walk into a dark silent apartment. I go on the balcony for a smoke and to read the ominous yellow tag. Turns out I just need to go get my security gaurd buddy to open up the meter room so we can flip the switch. After all, I’m paid up. I, we, do that. He’s the same guy who gives me the stink eye through the peephole when my shit is way too loud.

So yeah, today worked out well.

Then the news from the State Supreme Court of Iowa.

What a swell little gem. In Iowa of all places, we get a State Supreme Court stocked with Republicans to pretty much vociferously defend marriage between anybody who really wants to. The decision respected and actually honored the the concept and spirit of civil rights.

Watershed.

Iowa. The one state in the union where you dare not sell a bong. Wow.

We are changing.

Just look at the world stage today. Barack Hussein Obama and First Lady Michelle. Europe sees Jackie and Jack. They are abroad doing the absolute best they can to represent the rest of us. They are proud because we are or should be. They are humble because Americans have walked face first into humility.

Although I worry, I’m sure the ratio of smart Americans vs. stupid is in our favor. If you had to repeat that sentence to yourself, you’re not one of us.

They begin to repair the damage. The Obama’s show up in front of the people who need and want to see them. They show up at every chance they are afforded to distill themselves and what America is instead of what Europe has seen for the last eight years. Our knuckles don’t drag.

Bill Maher scores an interview with Joe The Plumber. Oh me oh my. See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

My name is Felix. I clean up.

I’m here all week. I live here. These boys are messy. I sweep, mop and vacuum. I’m here to do what needs to be done. If the windows need attention, I do the windows.

These two, Myrus and Paul, challenge me. I observe and respect the confidentiality of housekeeper and client. They do give me pause, they provide unique situations.

My teeth will grow back. Myrus says just like hair and nails.

I’m not sure I believe him but there’s work to do. Paul just stares at me sad.

These two are a handful. No one would believe what I have to deal with.

That’s why I’m here. I bat cleanup. I’m the fixer.

I keep a whole grip of supplies under the bathroom sink. I store the the bleach in the garage next to the washer and dryer. I keep a backstock of gloves, sponges, paper towels and trash bags in various places around the house.

My man Myrus shows up last night. Before I even get started he washes up thoroughly. A shower and bloody clothes in the bathroom trash with a plastic liner already in place. He’s pretty smooth. He works with me. There’s a gore and brain festooned tire iron in the trunk. I take care to deal with these items methodically and deliberately. The trunk of the car gets an exhaustive cleansing and a twiceover.

I got a burn barrel out back. I toss full cans of hairspray in whenever I find them. They sound like a shotgun blast. Of course the clothes, but then the iron after I’ve cleaned it. I pull it out the next morning before the sun and after it’s cooled. I toss it back in a clean trunk. There is no cleanse like fire.

Then I do a little shopping. Beer, whiskey, gin, tuna, good bread, tomatos and avacados. Total cereal with raisins and two percent milk.

No cat food this week. Sad. I really liked the little fucker but I’m not about to get in the middle.

Both my roomates are fucking crazy. One think’s he hears shit all the time and the other is unpredictably violent. We all like the same food though. Ballpark smoked white meat turkey franks and bowtie pasta. Classico sauce, onions, butter, pinenuts, applesauce, peanut butter, hummus, various cheeses including sharp cheddar, Ding Dongs capers and grapefruit soda.

Al these items work pretty well for me despite my not having a tooth in my head. I like shopping but everyone in town looks at me weird. I imagine it’s because my lips are folded funny on account I have no teeth.

We all like salad but it makes each of us shit like a goose.

What I do is hold up my end. I pay bills, answer any correspondence, scoop the catbox when Paul gets a new cat and stay way out of the way. Paul’s been freaking out in the garage lately and Myrus has been killing everything he sees.

You can only see one other house from the kitchen window. It’s but a shack about a quarter mile down the road. I don’t think I’ve ever seen who lives there. The wind gets to blowing and you can’t see any evidence of civilization at all. Cars still rock down the two lane blacktop doing eighty plus.

Sometimes the wind inhales and whatever goes by shakes the house.

The telephone poles sway like loose teeth in an infected socket. I can feel the poles rocking back and forth in my gums.

It rained last night enough to muddy the windows.

I’ll be busy all day.

Welcome to the show.

He’s got huge arms that look like hams. Tattoos. Piercings and a long ZZ TOP beard. He’s loud and full of himself. A braggart. I loathe him immediately. Whiskey after whiskey, man this guy can drink. He’s a big boy. Ronald Reagan was our best President ever. I get him to despise chick drinks with me. We start ordering them. Sex On The Beach. Scorpions, Stingers and Grasshoppers. Creme de menthe, Goldschlagger and Jägermeister. I drop a couple percosets into the big bastard’s snakebite.

He’s stumbling and slurring as he tells me he’s gotta piss. I steer him away from the men’s and towards the back door. I hid the tire iron so no one would steal it. I look at him and tell him he’s hammered. I tell him he needs a bump. He looks at me like yeah he knows.

I give him my bullet and he hits it. He hands it back to me and his eyes begin to cross. I see his ankles twist and I swing up on his way down. I hear meat. I feel meat. I tell myself mine is a star studded existence. I just broke this prick wide open. I hammer at the base of his neck. I kick his fucking torso and walk the few blocks to my car.

I feel better. I am festooned with gore. I’m still sad about that cat, but it will never happen again. I feel better.

I am Myrus.

There will be blood.

I promise.

People need to understand there are consequences. For their actions I mean. You can’t just walk around doing and saying what you want.

I like myself. I’m secure.

I hate faggots or people who act like them. It’s not natural for a man to covet the the ass of another man. I’m not on board with that shit. I don’t trust niggers. They hate us as much as we hate them. We gotta spook for President. What does that tell you?

I’m a good guy. People should like me more. When was the last time you had butterscotch pudding?

I think his name is Paul. He leaves bowls and forks in my sink. He brought a cat home the other day. Black with a white face. It was friendly in a disgusting way. Always licking itself and cowering.

Small and helpless. It smelled like broccoli or maybe cauliflower.

It didn’t like me. It could see me. At first it looked at me and then it looked through me.

It licked my fingers and toes. I held it’s head in the toilet until it stopped squirming. Amazing how strong such a tiny critter can be. I kept my fingers around it’s neck and my thumbs on it’s head. He’s not about to bring home another senseless animal. I felt him screaming inside while I did it. He’s pissed.

He’s entirely welcome to go fuck himself.

I can tell you about other things I’ve done. I hate animals because they’re stupid and helpless.

I like bugs. I like to catch them and have them crawl on me. They are so stupid. I can trap them on my belly and chest for hours. I hate bugs with wings. I kill them right away. Some beetles have wings like an afterthought. Like evolution or some crap gave them the ability to fly fifty years ago. I hate them the most. They fly around bouncing off everything, you can knock them out of the air. Like airborne crunchy turds. They smack on the floor, hobbling on weak legs until I pop them underfoot. My naked big toe. They squeek more than pop.

They are shiny, I think about eating them.

I fucking hate them. Greasy. Shiny. Crunchy. Like a glistening peanut.

Found some pretty good tuna salad in the fridge. Don’t remember making it but I can make good food. I’m having this sandwich on a french roll with a grape soda and I think of that cat. It never did a thing to me. Why did I do that? I can’t believe I did that. Fuck. Who am I? What have I done? My head burns and my brain itches. I would kill another human for the same thing.

Fuck.

I understand I did it to make myself feel something. Like I’m in a cloud unless something big happens. Sometimes I have to do something large.

This time. What I did sucks and it makes me awful.

I will find people to kill until one kills me.

I hate my fellow human.

It felt good and I was powerful. Now I can’t stand myself. I see what I’ve done over and over and it’s ugly. Who am I? I’m panicking. I feel it coming.

I’m dizzy and in despair so sharp I can’t breathe. I think about whiskey and head to the kitchen. I’m on my knees and vomiting with a bottle of Maker’s Mark between my thighs.

The first sips go down painful because of the acid still in my throat. Burns all the way down. Puke and whiskey. The humanity.

I’m sure I should quit this earth. I have Tums.

I have done a very bad thing. I can’t fix it. No one will ever know and it doesn’t matter. I know. I remember.

The only way to repair it is to take down something bigger and more deserving. Something thinking and guilty. Anyone who’s done something bad. Easy. They’re everywhere.

They see me, I’m like five foot eight, one sixty five soaking wet. But I’m mean and strong. I will hit you first and hard. If there’s a bottle handy I will cave the middle of your face in. I will run you over. I will kick your head until it’s a broken ugly shell spilling blood and brains.

I hate you because you’re human.

I can’t stand what I’ve done so I’ll fix it. I’ll take one down. A Mouth breather. I’ll find some big stupid shithead at a truckstop. I’ll get his trust and he won’t be threatened because I’m so small. I’ll tell him I have blow and we should go take a piss. I carry a ball peen hammer in my back pocket.

It will be easy.

My name is Myrus.

Bill O’Reilly, who’s likeness appears along side the definitions of both ‘hypocrite’ and ‘blowhard’ in the most reputable dictionaries, said in an interview today that he boycotts any film in which Sean Penn appears because of his political views. In the words of Snoop Dogg, “Fuck Bill O’Reilly”. And, “He’s a motherfuckin’ prick”. And, “Suck my dick”. And, “so I can kick his motherfuckin ass when the show is over with”.

I don’t really have anything to add here.

In other news, I thought it was pretty cool to hear that the CEO of GM, Rick Wagoner, was walking away at the behest of the Obama administration. That is, until I read the greedy bastard could tip the fuck out the door with as much as $20 million. Excuse me, there seems to be some sort of canker on my penis. Does this look infected to you? It’s like deja vu all over again.

Also, thirty thousand pythons as long as twenty feet are threatening to go forth, multiply and overrun Florida and there’s a million pounds of pistachios out there that will kill you in your bed.

The world is an increasingly perilous place and I’m almost out of pot again. It’s legal here in California as long as one suffers from a serious and/or chronic malaise like ingrown toenail, sebaceous cysts on one’s genitalia or say, brewer’s droop from drinking beer.

A prescription costs between a hundred and a hundred fifty bucks. My fridge is broke.

I watched a comic tonight on Comedy Central. Josh Blue. Self deprecating, brave, honest and very funny. He suffers from cerebral palsy. Walk a mile in another man’s shoes but never forget about the man with no feet.

I’m an agnostic. My position has more to do with the abject silliness of just about every organized religion on the planet, as opposed to some sort of soaring epiphany. Honestly, I owe my stake more to the vacuum of logic that exists in every dogma fomented by people of faith on up to, but not exclusively, the goddamn Pope.

For example:
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (March 17) – Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV. -AOL news

Don’t lose sight of the fact they boink all the little boys and girls they want.

Good luck with that crap you pointy hatted pontiff. I’m not sorry to tell you that Catholicism just may be the most egregious and archaic “faith” practiced in America certainly, and under the world’s proscenium without a doubt. I will be as blunt as possible here. Catholicism encourages me to root for Satan. Catholics are fools. So are Baptists, Mormons, Anglicans, Protestants, Muslims and especially Evangelicals and Born Agains.

They are all petty children in the eyes of the universe.

My sincerest apologies if I left any one out.

Buddhism occurs to me to be the only discipline that bothers to address the existential nature and uniqueness of the human condition. I just can’t help but appreciate a fat guy with a shit eating grin in the context of all the other tragic and sometimes stigmatically bleeding religious icons.

Most of it is about guilt and non intellectually curious blind shithouse faith. What I mean to say is it’s spectacularly dumb.

You gonna eat that?

Drinks for my friends.

I sold my microphones today. I’m more than a little delighted to look these young engineers in the eye. The enthusiasm and excitement is infectious and more than a little nostalgic. Palpable. I remember buying each one of these items and how excited I was. Each chosen with care and for a precise need we encountered when working in different studios around the city and across the country.

I always bought the best gear I could possibly afford.

This guy’s name was Dudley. He brought his own mic pre, his own cans and an XLR cable to test my wares. He was English. I did my level best to describe what they were best for and how best to use them. I made a lot of records with these mics. I told him how to point one on acoustic guitar and that he should be mindful that the AKGs should be equidistant from the floor when used as overheads on a drumkit. It’s a phase issue. I also sold him an ATM25. An excellent kick mic as it takes tons of signal but still has a nice cardioid proximity bump in the low end.

I’ve got the next few months of rent covered and the new gig is starting to really pay.

I may finally be making lemonade.

I’ve been reading Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s book. Far more fascinating than I imagined. By the way, my copy is autographed and inscribed. My mother is an old friend. A reputation for being somewhat recalcitrant, he is is still soft spoken and almost taciturn at times. He talks about people I know or at least know of and so it is all the more compelling for me.

Michael O’Callahan, the Governor of Nevada when I was a kid. He had a wooden leg and he’d kick your ass if you asked for it. He did that, he beat the shit out of people.

It was my first time on the front page of the Nevada Appeal, a picture with the infamous Michael O’Callahan.

Harry himself growing up in a boomtown gone bust at the southern tip of Nevada in a house with no plumbing and parents without teeth. Searchlight Nevada. This guy didn’t come from nowhere, he came from hell. Morals and ethics were gotten from the town pimp, or “whoremonger” as Harry writes. He never saw a bible until he was a Sophmore in Henderson. O’Callahan was one of his highschool teachers.

He grew up in a town damn near ghost, in one of the most inhospitable climates in North America. His nickname was ‘Pinky’.

You can’t write this shit. I can’t help but hold up where this man is and point to where he came from.

In other news, I watched Celebrity Apprentice again. I really can’t help it. Rodman is the worst kind of trainwreck. I know that guy. I mean, I know the very same guy. At the end of the day, what would you do with him? More importantly, what should I do with him? That’s how he behaves, that’s the kind of shit my friend says.

He is an unhappy man and I’m the best friend he’s ever had. I should add for context, that I’ve had it with his shit. He owes me money, it’s not a lot but I’m not swinging from the trees these days. He’s a notorious drunk. For years I’ve been escaping before he slides into the dark. I learned to do that only after getting vortexed way too many times.

For years I struggled with my loyalty to this man while he waltzed through my intestines.

We’ve literally been at war the last few months, exchanging blistering, often cruel and always searingly awful e-mails. I’ve come to loathe him. I despise big chunks of time I spent with him. Very smart women including my significant other are saying walk away. Leave it alone. They begin to understand I’m only doing it to light him up, to get him to dance furious.

Guilty. I heard that. Makes me chuckle because I’m so good at it.

Then he calls me shitfaced the other night. Tells me he’s sorry. Tells me he’ll pay me. When I ask him why he did all this he asks me if it wasn’t kinda fun. I tell him yes and tell him to call me when he’s sober.

Drinks for my friends.

I’m fourty four years old. Sometimes I think about that and it impresses me. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve done a lot.

I’ve seen a kid on a bike launched by a car doing sixty. I’ve seen people splattered and dying face down on warm asphalt. I’ve been rushed to the hospital bleeding in an ambulance. I’ve met governors and senators. I’ve seen comets and eclipses. Managed a Der Wienerschnitzel. I’ve rolled end over end off the side of mountain in a Subaru. I had a knife pulled on me. Been to a whorehouse and ridden miles above in a giant balloon. Lost my mind on hallucinogenic drugs. Got booked on a felony and made the front page of my hometown paper.

All by the time I was twenty one or twenty two.

I always wonder how many other people flirt with insanity as much as I do. I don’t think I’m going crazy or anything but I wonder about everyone else. Imagine working in a hospital. People with there shit hanging out or infected with insidious diseases. There are so many professions I’m automatically excluded from because of my prejudice for gore and human or animal excretions be they voluntary or not.

I am grateful to be an American. Despite her flaws, copious and profound, I’m happy I was born here and not anywhere else. They call India ‘the worlds largest democracy’, yet the caste system in India allows for a man’s only employment prospect to be diving in the crude sewage system to clear obstructions. These poor fucks have little beyond facemasks, gloves and snorkels. They climb out of manholes covered in shit.

Fuck me.

Welcome to Planet Earth.

“So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests……For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” -JFK

He said that nearly a half century ago. How far have we come? We’ve elected our first bi-racial or racially mixed President. A very high watermark. To my dismay we are still coated in fear, willfull ignorance and graceless stupidity. Still so disasterously handicapped by institutions and insipid indoctrination. People actually lament the end of Dumbya’s dynasty. Millions still believe reproductive rights to be a priority beyond any other issue. Millions still have mullets and poor dental hygiene. They all listen to Rush Limbaugh.

We can’t ignore these bastards. They used to just be stupid. Now they’re mad. Not a welcome development. Seems like the only thing to do is marginalize them. Zeitgeist appears to endorse that notion. The pendulum is in motion and it’s arc seems to favor sensibility. I don’t trust these zealous fuckers, they may be mad now but they’ve always been insane, that’s how it all happened in the first place. It’s been welcome to the monkeyhouse for eight goddamn years.

“…..in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity….”

I just have to say this. As fucked as we are, these dipshits want to stand at every hole we attempt to fill stomping and screaming about how we shovel or what we use to fill the hole. The Republicans, after all this time pissing and moaning about the budget, finally produce a document we’ll have to call an alternative. We can’t call it a budget because there are no goddamn numbers in it. I haven’t read the whole and I refuse to. I have neither the time, the patience or the humor. It’s a joke.

And another thing, most of the people who manage to get a degree in this country end up owing an assload of money. In their early twenties they are desensitized to the idea of humongous debt. So, duh. No wonder so many are so confused. They were working and now they’re not. They had savings and now they don’t. They were living check to check and now they live hand to mouth. They lived in their cars and now they live on a sidewalk.

Another indicator of just how bad the shit is hitting the fan is conflagrations on our southern border. Juárez is occupied by the Mexican military. Thousands dying every year. Far more than our wars across the globe. It is blowing up. This shit is fucked up and it’s because of our senseless, pointless, compassionless and thoroughly ineffective ‘War On Drugs’.

Evil, draconian policy arriving home to roost. Hillary showed up, I don’t know what she did. People who buy pot, smoke pot or even sell pot should not be behind bars anymore than people who buy booze, drink booze or sell booze. It’s that simple. It’s that regoddamndiculous.

My cat Beddy likes to sit on my back while I take a dump. She let’s me know with her eyes and one of at least ten variations on the sound of a pigeon. She’s petite but I still need to lean forward a bit. She turns every direction of the compass. Otherwise she doesn’t approach me in the bathroom much. She’s transfixed by the water closet however. I call it that because of her. It’s a story for another day.

It’s just that we are still so plumbing the depths.

I no longer buy bottled water.

This is the strangest place I’ve ever been.

Drinks for my friends.

They are sprinting. The entire executive branch are running like there’s only a few hundred yards in front of them. They tackle or block almost everything in the way. The pace is impressive. It won’t, it can’t last forever.

Our Man will see some time on the bench. I will worry, along with Paul Begala, if they’re still running this hard in six or nine months. For now, they are impressive.

Don’t talk to me about minutiae. What they’ve done here is hit the ground running. What they’ve done in sixty plus days is impressive even if only for the sheer volume of work spent and tasks accomplished. If you disagree with every single policy issue, you still must admit that these folks have been burning it hot at both ends.

They are on this economy like sauce on wings. As far as I can tell it’s bold. Code for risky.

So many second guess. They example past economic scenarios that I can’t help but wonder might be obsolete. This is serious business. So many of them are full of shit.

It’s not like the Republicans have even floated a turd. I half believe they actually served us the turd, smoked and on a gilded platter. Cocktail forks and horseradish. Champagne they’d pissed in.

They just might have Huck Finned us into this Presidency. If that’s the case, I wonder how long they knew they had a turd on their hands. Gingrich knows. So does Frist and Santorum. Pricks.

On the other hand, I very much like what Obama has to say. Long term thinking our leadership has been bereft of for eight years. Education, energy and health care must be part of any plan for long term, not necessarily prosperity, but lack of abject poverty and widespread toothlessness.

You know what? This guy is talking to us. He’s taking questions. You know what else? He’s fucking smart. This guy has a command of facts and information that is dazzling. He talks to us and tells what he knows and he knows a lot. He does questions in a way that give you more than just an answer, but some background as well. Reminds me of Clinton, a President who was nearly impossible to stump unless you asked him where his dick had been.

Man, I’m so grateful to have a President who can answer questions without dodging and then go on to actually illuminate the average American. He is sharp and he is good. Masterful.

Dumbya could not have handled a tenth of this.

He took all comers, from Ebony and Politico, to ABC Radio, Washington Times, Agence France-Press, Univision, Stars & Stripes as well as CNN. A tour de force in terms of Presidential press conferences. Lungs full of fresh air and intelligence. Awesome.

Goddamn this guy works hard. He is so smart and I am so proud.

If they don’t applaud his acumen in the reviews tomorrow, we will learn something about the measure of our post election contemporary press.

I understand this guy is hanging his ass in the wind. He’s riding the lightning but he’s not kidding. Barack Hussein Obama is not here to fuck around.

Drinks for my friends.

I blink and there are stars overhead.

Only when I close my eyes. But then it’s like the inside of a giant blue black nightime balloon. The fire of galaxies, stars and supernova. I feel a little crazy. I’m weak.

I understand something is about to happen. I’m excited.

I close the door behind me and sit down in the tiniest of rooms.

There’s a change of pressure, like an airlock and the room groans like a wooden ship.

The most intricate and elaborate shelving you can imagine. Right angles and curves, sloping and graduated, square and circular slots. A porthole of a window at the top of the wall on my right. Desk, chair and architecture of an order that speaks to my sensibilities as fast as my eyes can move.

The leather is creaky. Like it’s old or maybe really new. Like I’m being whispered to. Rolled parchment, tied with ribbon. Red wax seals. Small jars. delicate corks. Coins and watches. Maps on the wall. Globes high up in the corners. Protractors and compasses. They turn when I’m not looking. I hear them squeak and scratch. Beakers and scales. The wind blows outside. I smell cinnamon and cedar.

Rows of drawers, like a library card file. Grids like a post office. Boxes and cartons. Thick green glass in stainless steel. A perch for birds bearing messages and all sorts of chutes and tubes. Chaos on a scale for the singular brain.

Pedals at my feet, switches at my fingers and overhead screens coming into view. Keyboards. Headgear with elaborate receptacles. Things I don’t recognize. Shapes that touch me back. Holographs trying to tell me something.

When I start to hear the room it shocks me. A giant lump of fear settles in my pelvis, in my intestines. It’s starts with old recordings, radio addresses and big band music. In no time it’s black and loud and panicked. Then old video game sounds and music, music, music. Fax and modem bleeps and even more music and speeches and noise. It changes channels back and forth all the while getting louder.

It shakes me, my fucking bones rattle and vibrate. I’m sweating. It screams so loud my head feels like an egg shell cracking.

It stops.

I linger for a minute but I’m so confused. It’s like I can’t focus my eyes.

Leather and oil on wood opulence. Polished metal. Brass and copper. It smells just like that.

I need to step out. I feel overwhelming deja vu. I reach for the slim door and end up on the floor of my garage. It’s night. The door barely clicks behind me. My car doesn’t tick but it’s huge and sleek. Outside the wind is giant inhales and exhales. I hear whales. I feel drugged.

Inside, the microwave clock tells me 3:15. I have to think about what I’ve seen.

I’m panicky. I need a drink.

I like to imagine department stores when I’m confused. There’s an order that comforts me. A certain retail gust that makes me feel safe. The idea of old grocery stores comforts me immensly. The scents of produce, bread, solvents and cleansers under white fluorescents with the chill of a Fall Sunday morning.

See it. Smell it.

I can go to a public place, the scent of textiles or a mall, popcorn and the click of heels, lose my shit and they will get me to my parents. Break down in public and you will get all the help you need. I’m thinking about the Bay Area or Seattle.

I don’t care what day tomorrow is.

A girl named Julie told me once that if I didn’t watch a particular network medical drama, I couldn’t possibly understand medicine. I thought about how a television show could possibly help me to understand medicine.

I’m telling you this because I have to.

I’m Paul.

It’s me Paul.

I made the best tuna salad today. I diced red onions and Vlasic dill pickles. Lotsa garlic, lotsa mustard, lots of mayonnaise. Celery. Maybe some mild green peppers, maybe some paprika or cayenne. There’s other things I can’t tell you, like when to squeeze the lemon or maybe you should consider lime and mint with a sweet relish and a whiskey mustard. Cilantro? Capers baby. Barbecue rub? Tuna is the ultimate white meat. Any and all greens must be crunchy fresh. Either way, use chewey bread. The high fiber kind or rye. It’s about the texture. Ground pepper.

Toast it fer fuck’s sake.

Cheese, yep. Swiss if it’s decent. Otherwise, it’s a quality of life issue. Bring on the Velveeta.

I had a couple cold tall boy Cheladas. They went down smooth.

Mom called, I told her of my recent successes. We talked about the Democrats and how Dad is doing.

I don’t have a fence but I know where my property ends. There are markers. Sticks with faded ribbons. My backyard is the desert and I like that. I wake up at three a.m. and put on my slippers. Next thing I’m eating a Ding Dong a couple hundred yards from my back door. The wind helps me to imagine rain.

It never comes.

The moon lights the desert like it’s a sister.

The county tries to make me put up a fence that will blow down. They ask me if I don’t want to be protected and I tell them fences don’t stop bugs or snakes and fences blow down.

Other than that, it’s not so bad.

I’m in what you would call a modest house. Living and dining area with an open kitchen. Seperate living room with a gas fireplace. One and a half baths. One bedroom. I got some sort of wood laminate on the floor in the kitchen and a nice dark tile in the entry and around the dining area. A nice cream colored carpet that hides the dirt pretty well everywhere else but the bathrooms.

I like to vacuum.

Behind the water heater in the garage. There’s a door but it’s very narrow. When I first noticed it my mind pictured the word ‘slim’.

I like to sweep. I like gathering the soil into the pan. I like looking at what I’ve collected. I found some sort of shrimp once. Must have come from a Cup O’ Noodles. It’s the only possible explanation.

That’s what it was, a skinny door. Took me three or four months to realize it was even there. Even after I first clocked it, weeks went by.
I thought about it quite a lot. I dreamt of it. Then I forgot about it.

It came back around. This last Saturday afternoon I turned the knob.

My name is Paul.

I was in a Popeyes Chicken the other day and there was a was paraplegic parked in front of the self serve soda fountain. A young dude inked up and seeming less than coherent. You never can tell.

We ordered the new chicken bowl. It sucked. Full of gristle and bone. I actually couldn’t finish it. I was disgusted. I have a slightly broken molar bottom left that has a jagged edge. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I discovered a giant wad of chicken cartilage lodged in it, so I spat it onto Vineland Avenue as I sped away.

We waited at an unwiped table for too long for a tiny shitty bowl of gruel. During that time the guy in the chair asked for my help in fastening his watch. I think he said, “Hey Bro, can you help me with this?” I didn’t mind. I helped him. It ended up on the inside of his wrist and I wondered if he wanted it turned around so it sat on top. He told me no.

I started thinking about him and imagined he was some sort of gangster who’d gotten lit up pretty messy.

I met a guy the other day that within just a few minutes was lifting his shirt to show me ugly scars from being stabbed by some guy on meth that owed him money.

People are strange wherever you go.

Today I sold a piece of audio equipment that was pretty close to my heart. The Cranesong STC8, was the most brilliant stereo buss compressor I’ve ever used. Last stage before the two track. I liked to plug the output of the console into it, the Cranesong, and then it into the half inch via XLRs. Nostalgically melancholy. Oh well, I’m up $2k.

Those of you I offered it to privately should be ashamed you didn’t bite. It went to a good home. A passionate engineer from Mexico who’s company is called Pigsound because he likes a fat sound. I left him in the lobby with the gear while I went back up to my apartment to get a business card. I let him know I trusted him so he knew he could trust me. I came back down with my card. Then he paid me.

We bonded a little. It was a lucky day for both of us. It is an exceptionally musical piece of gear that will now be making Latin music. I checked him out. He’s got talent. Cool studio. Nice gear. My advice to Fernando is more tubes. A certain amount of harmonic distortion is a good thing. Don’t forget that very bottom toggle switch, it’s key.

I told Fernando I’d call him to make sure he was happy. Maybe then I’ll ask him if he wants to know about distortion. He doesn’t need my input but I could show him a few things. Distortion can be anyone’s friend. It’s merely electric dissonance. Dissonance makes the heart grow fonder.

A beautiful woman has given me sincere advice that I have no idea what to do with.

For the first time in months, I have rent before it’s due. Cool.

Drinks for my friends.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Intentional Destruction of the Dollar
Category: News and Politics
There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about the economy these days. The situation is so mind-numbing that an increasing number of Americans seem to be opting to simply ignore it all in the hopes that it just goes away. Most people I know have stopped looking at their account statements, and “bailout fatigue” is nearly universal.

Part of the reason for our collective denial is that we don’t want to come to terms with our diminished circumstances. When the average American’s life-savings has been cut in half, its understandable that people would be reluctant to face the new realities. However, I would argue that there’s something deeper going on. Not only does a clear-eyed appraisal of the situation require people to come to terms with painful facts, but it is also threatening to their basic sanity. How are we to make sense of the idea that the way to solve a crisis caused by excessive debt is by taking on even more debt? Faced with such counterintuitive notions, the rational mind simply turns away.

The latest insanity announced by the government is a plan whereby the Fed will buy over $1 trillion of government bonds and mortgage backed securities. In other words, the government is going to print money and then loan it to itself.

Likewise, on the same day that the Congressional Budget Office released staggering projections of the largest deficits in history, President Obama repeated his claim that he will halve the deficit by the end of his first term. This is double-speak that even George W. Bush would be proud of. Its no wonder that people choose to tune out rather than try to make sense of such absurdity.

There is, however, an explanation for the government’s actions which is logical and straightforward but will never, ever be officially acknowledged.

It is increasingly clear that we have dug ourselves into a hole that we can never hope to dig ourselves out of. Individuals, corporations, and government have borrowed more money than they can ever hope to repay. In such a situation, there is really only one option left open to policy-makers – i.e. devalue the currency.

Currency devaluation (i.e. inflation) is a way of transferring wealth from creditors to debtors. When a nation finds itself so in debt that it can never realistically hope to repay, there is a strong temptation to simply crank up the printing presses and inflate the debt away. An extreme case of this was Germany after World War I. The Treaty of Versailles imposed financial obligations on Germany that it could never possibly meet, so they did the only thing they could do – they printed enormous amounts of money. By the end of 1923, one pre-war Mark was worth one trillion post-inflation Marks. If we did likewise, we could eliminate our entire national debt for about ten dollars.

The actions of the Treasury and Fed make it clear that the government is willing to print any amount of money it deems necessary. A year ago a trillion dollars was an unheard of amount. Today it seems that every week the government pledges another trillion to the latest bailout/stimulus plan. It is the most basic common sense that you can’t print money indiscriminately without destroying its value.

My guess is that all of this is crystal clear to the President and his economic advisers. The destruction of the dollar is already a fait accompli. Its just a question of when. We have poured so much gasoline into the flooded engine of our economy that when it finally does fire, the whole thing will go up in a massive inflationary conflagration. Viewed from this perspective, it is completely understandable why the government would continue to print trillions upon trillions of dollars. If the destruction of the currency is already a certainty, why not print as much of it as you can as long as there are people dumb enough to take it? As long as the Chinese are willing to take our worthless paper, why not let them have as much as they want? As John Maynard Keynes observed, “The creation of legal tender has been and is a Government’s ultimate reserve; and no State or Government is likely to decree its own bankruptcy or its own downfall so long as this instrument lies at hand unused.”

Those who hold US debt are in a catch-22. If they don’t continue to lend us even more money, the value of their holdings will evaporate. So, for the time-being they have kept the money flowing. But even now there are ominous signs relating to the long-term health of the dollar. The Chinese Premier recently cautioned the US government against policies which will further erode the value of the dollar. (The very fact that he’s saying so publicly is highly significant.) Meanwhile, the UN is discussing replacing the dollar as the world reserve currency with a basket of national currencies.

So far, the game of hot-potato continues, but the music will eventually stop, and when it does, anyone holding dollars will have to pay the piper.

It is with mild trepidation that I wade in on the AIG debacle. I’m no economist so I don’t pretend to understand the nuances and compelexities of what is obviously a convoluted and contentious imbroglio.

Honestly, I wouldn’t pretend to grasp the big picture any better.

Still there are things worth pointing out. I think it’s at least salient to acknowledge that the $165 million in bonuses aren’t even equivalent to the drop in ones pants following a protracted post urinal dance after an evening of copious beer consumption. The number itself really is much ado about nearly nothing. Having said that, I’m well aware the symbolism here as an indicator of the morally as well as ethically bereft culture we fight simultaneously along side the fiduciary malfeasance and overt criminality.

AIG sucks. Fucking crooks.

Through the revolving door only to emerge on the other side. I’m not at all comfortable with this idea of an excise tax, whereby the Feds step in and take 91% of the contractually (pre-Obama) negotiated bonuses. It’s a little too punitive for me. It feels knee jerk and it solves not a goddamn thing.

What I’m trying to tell you here is this is a soap opera on a black and white TV while a live championship rodeo is full tilt boogie less than a hundred yards away.

With most of us so broke we can only afford to pay attention, should we spend any more currency on this? It’s two beetles fighting in a jar while the Hindenburg slow motion bellyflops on the tarmac of infamy. Sheezus!

Our Man said “it’s on me”. He implied that it’s done and he’ll do his best to mitigate it but there are far bigger fish to fry so shut up and stay with me here. Fifty some days in and I’m losing you people? To this? $165 million is a fiftieth of what we spend before the first drop of Presidential urine plummets into the cool water of an ornate White House throne on any given morning.

In a perfect world, AIG would have been so ashamed, we’d never hear of any of this. They would have shut these greasy executives down. They’d have said “in a pig’s ass”, or, “here’s a keychain, how’s the wife and kids?”. They would have been asked to leave early in every sense of the word.

Yeah right. These are the 30 to 1 geniuses. If these assholes own calculators they don’t use them.

So anyway, that didn’t happen.

Did the Obama administration drop the ball? I suppose they did. So many people, Republicans in particular, are so loathsomely and disingenuously concerned that our man has his fingers in too many pies. He’s trying too hard. He needs to focus. Most of those very same people are flogging this issue like the carcass is even breathing.

The AIG bonuses are simply not germane to the big picture. Our man understands that. Many of you do not.

Just about everything I see this man do speaks to me of both short and long term thinking. The big picture.

Sixty days. He’s been here sixty days.

Today, Obama talked to Iran, “the promise of a new beginning” that is “grounded in mutual respect.” -CNN

That gesture of profound reason and noble diplomacy was eclipsed by Sarah Palin pissing and moaning that Obama had compared his bowling skills to that of a Special Olympian on The Tonight Show”.

“This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world,” Palin said in a statement released Friday. -CNN

I will leave you with this: What’s the difference between Sarah Palin’s mouth and her vagina? Only one retarded thing has come out of her vagina.

Drinks for my friends.

A massive swing of the pendulum to the right along about 1999. A percieved, albeit shallow impetus had been in place since Newt Gingrich fell from grace. Republicans got out outfoxed by Bubba. Clinton spanked their faces with bricks. They were pissed.

So, it had been brewing despite their growing power, not because of it. Slow but deliberate and venemously vengeful at the behest of the most unimaginably foul people. Like a bow being drawn. Weird. I ask myself about the hang time. I wondered how long circumstances and zeitgeist would favor such momentum. Rules of inertia and gravity dictated it would swing back, but social will and thorough retardation of the great unwashed can effect more than the laws of physics.

How is it a grown man pulls off the name Newt? He’s a bit of a baby face.

Years go by. Dark and horrible years. Death, destruction and redistribution of wealth on a biblical scale. Richard Bruce Cheney. Karl Rove. Unimaginably foul people.

Then, seems like it’s been forever, but the arc of the bob is once again in motion. It grows larger. It steams towards us. It’s path is to the left by way of East . After years of near suspended animation, the air displaced as she gains velocity goes from a whistle to a howl. I worry about apogee and thrust. Seems she’s coming too fast.

The initial violence of the movement could send the bob swinging violently over the top. Three hundred sixty degrees. It’s that nine o’ clock position I worry about. No need to go far past there on the dial. Ninety degrees.

Sad and regrettable that events so odious as an economic implosion were the only catalyst with mass enough to dislodge the bob from it’s parking place in the neoconservative lot.

From a howl to a scream.

Ah well, here it comes and this is America goddamnit. Religious adherence is down, correspondingly, common sense is up. The pious right revealed as the shallow, callow, two dimensional fucktards they are. Credibility across that side of the spectrum in severe disrepair.

Republicans are flailing in a vast puddle of human excrement. Yes, their own shit.

Ann Coulter and The Human Shitsmear Rush Limbaugh bleat incendiary expletives between gags on authentic Red White and Blue liberal American cock. Cheney shows up on TV specifically to say thet we’re already less safe because we don’t torture. Just tell me what has to happen to shut this quacking, rounheaded, corpulent fingered fucking penguin the fuck up.

Booya! Bitch!

Are you getting the sense this is an angry sort of hit piece? I gotta tell you I’m feeling it. I really hate these bastards. I’m not even sure what I mean about that American cock bit, but it speaks to the spirit and depth of my rage somehow.

This is an opportunity for progressive thinkers to pay it forward. Foment and supply the kind of disciplined thinking, politics, and ethics America has been so deliberately starved of for so long. Pushback. Give to the ignorant and fearful in equal measure what they’ve so successfully crammed down our gullets for the last eight years at least.

They can all blow me.

Go ahead with the truth. It is more than good enough.

Drinks for my friends.

March 19, 2009 – Thursday

Gambling with no money
Category: News and Politics
Insurance is a bit of a gamble. If I am an insurance company I am betting that what I insure against will never happen, and if it does, the risk will be spread out amongst other insurers.

So, if you insure homes in fire prone areas in California you had better not be the only insurer, and you had better have insured homes in other areas of the nation, as a nation wide fire or natural disaster is a risk you can accept.

AIG insured the financial markets, almost all of the markets, and they burned down.

If my name is Bernie Madoff, and you gave me all of your money, and I told you I was going to invest it, and pay you interest on your money based on the investments. However, I took the money and paid you interest on the money with the money the next person gave me, and spent the principle instead of investing it, I would be a criminal, and guilty of the largest Ponzi Scheme in history.

If my name is AIG, and I insured your financial transactions, and I told you I was putting money aside to pay for what I insured. However, I took the money you paid me for your insurance, and I gave it to my stock holders, and brilliant employees, not keeping any money to pay for the insured financial transactions, thinking they will never need to be paid, I would be too big to fail and bailed out.

In Bernie’s case, those that invested in him are out their money.

In AIG’s case, those that bought insurance for crappy investments (liar loans to name a huge number of them!!!) are having those insurance policies paid for as those crappy investments fall apart, starting with the Lehman Brothers’ investments. Going on to Goldman Sachs …

AIG entered the unregulated CDS market insuring anything that Wallstreet threw together. Put their AAA rating on those investments through insurance, and are now forced to pay out the losses in the markets.

Sure, the bonuses are wrong, and they should be clawed back, but what the hell was going on on Wallstreet? What was going on at AIG?

Most people would agree that when Lehman Brothers fell, September 15, 2008, the market crashed right along with them. I wonder how far the market would have crashed if AIG went bankrupt? When the true lose is known…

When Lehman Brothers went under the gambler was exposed. What was insured came due, and the gambler had no money. What happens to gamblers with no money? They usually get their legs broken…

I found this gem yesterday. I guess Glenn “Punch me in the face” Beck went on a tear filled gyration on air, ending in this:

“Believe in something — even if it’s wrong. Believe in it!”
Glenn Beck

Please, believe in something, but make sure it’s right, and stop believing the lies.

Peace,
J

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
Category: News and Politics
Sad to say, but with each passing day President Obama looks less like an agent of change and more like the latest installment in a never-ending series of Washington powerbrokers. This is doubly disappointing, since if there is a silver lining to the current crisis, it is that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fundamentally change the way things are done. So far, all indications are that the Obama Administration lacks the courage and integrity to deliver upon the hopes they raised during the course of the campaign.

Case in point is the omnibus spending bill that the President signed last week. Despite promising repeatedly to veto any budget with earmarks, Obama signed this spending bill containing over 8,000 earmarks. Granted, it would be much more difficult to cobble together a congressional majority without the sweeteners that these earmarks represent, but this is precisely the kind of situation that tests the mettle of a leader. Does he have the strength to hold the line, or will he cave in to the status quo when push comes to shove? Obama could have stood up to the corrupt leaders of his own party (Pelosi, Reid, Frank, etc.) and refused to sign the bill, but he didn’t.

Another example of failing to lead is this week’s populist pandering over AIG bonuses. Yes, it is infuriating for the American public to see executives being rewarded after the enormous amounts of public money that have been pumped into their companies. That being said, the bonuses in question are microscopic in comparison with the real story. In the context of the trillions of dollars the government has already used to prop up the financial system, $165 million is completely insignificant. By turning it into a public firestorm, our leaders are cynically exploiting the public’s inability to comprehend the magnitude of the amounts of money currently being thrown around. $165 million, $20 billion, $1.5 trillion, what’s the difference? They’re all staggeringly large numbers. That being said, there’s a very big difference between a hundred million and a hundred billion, and our leaders are counting on our inability to tell the difference.

Of the money that has been pumped into AIG, over $12 billion has gone to Goldman, Sachs, the company once led by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. The President and the leaders in Congress have nothing to say about this, while they make an enormous stink about bonuses that represent less than 2% of that amount. This is a deliberate and cynical error of omission and emphasis. By making a spectacle out of a relatively insignificant issue, our leaders are hoping we’ll be distracted enough that we won’t notice the hundreds of billions that are being allocated according to a process that is both opaque and riddled with conflicts of interest. In other words, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…

I hope you don’t think this is lame but I’m kinda having fun here. I promise this will be the last time I visit this soap opera upon you. But you know, Dewitt fired back and I couldn’t help myself.

He said:
“My mother said never argue with a fool; those listening may think it a discussion among equals.

Please try to understand that when I say you are stupid, rude and disrespectful, what I really mean is that you are stupid, rude and disrespectful. You have stalked my blogs for more than two years now, countering whatever I post with profanity and mindless obscenities. Not once have you agreed with anything I posted. That is not the behaviour of anyone with whom I choose to engage in meaningful adult dialog.

You are no “intellectual bully.” You are merely a schoolyard punk intent on silencing any and all with whom you disagree.

For the benefit of others who may be following this exercise in stupidity: both Fascism and Nazism grew out of the Democratic Socialist movements of the countries of their origin. Obamunism is no different from those failed ideologies of the past.”

Well then. I had this to say:

This is the best you can do?

I sincerely doubt those ‘listening’ would imagine this to be a discussion among equals. Who does nothing but hurl insults? No facts. No logical refuting. No substantiative pushback on any level whether it be issue or mere theory. I’ve insulted you all along because I can’t help it. I mean to say you’re a jackass.

But I’ve always visited you on your own territory with facts and evidence. Items for you to counter or find flaw with. Yet, you never do. Never ever. The deeper I plunge into your basement of bullshit, the less sense you make when trying to defend yourself. You are a paper tiger. Full of shit.

Look at me, I’m talking to you, not stalking you. Don’t flatter yourself. You are a random, convenient fool when I can’t find anything in the news to piss me off and I feel the need to write. Thank you for being so consistent in that regard. You’re an excellent dunce for my blog of nearly a hundred thousand readers. You say, “countering whatever I post with profanity and mindless obscenities.” Yeah, plenty of profanity for sure. It’s kinda the way I do it. But, I have never in my adult life uttered a mindless obscenity. At least not in print. Like I said, I always come with informed opinions. I cite sources and provide details. Facts.

Bitch.

Then you say for the umpteenth time, “You are no “intellectual bully.” You are merely a schoolyard punk intent on silencing any and all with whom you disagree.” I must admit you’re not entirely wrong here. The thing is this. I want you to shut up. You’re full of shit and I want you to shut the fuck up. You’re a frightened aging man who might have the capacity to understand the world around you if you stopped jumping at all the shadows you’ve been indoctrinated with over your sixty plus years. If you stopped being so angry. If you stopped being so scared. If you stopped being so goddamned ignorant.

Until you can do any of that I’m having a tough time coming up with any sympathy for you.

Shut up.

Here’s something for you just for fun. I know you won’t have anything intelligent to say but I’m laying this trap for you and telling you I’m laying a trap. Remember I asked you those three questions? No answer. Scaredy cat. Same deal here. Given that you’re so obsessed with life and control of reproductive rights, how would you, how could you justify the murder of anywhere between 100,000 and a million Iraqis in a war we waged without reason or provocation?

That’s your America. That’s your red, white and fucking blue.

Shut up.

Your people got us way deep into this clusterfuck, my people are here to try to get us out. You are in the way.

Shut the fuck up.

Drinks for my friends.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Was I gonna have to punch a bitch?

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

Later there would be banjo. No shit.

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

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

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

That’s how I remember it anyway.

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

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

Drinks for my friends.

DeWitt writes:

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

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

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

My response:

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

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

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

Hello?  Is this thing on?

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

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

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

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

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

Drinks for my friends.

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

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

I respond:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drinks for my friends.

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

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

I didn’t understand they were Christians. Sheezus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well done.

Drinks for my friends.

A moment of zen?

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

My name is Paul.

I’ve been up since six.

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

What did I do yesterday?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can’t remember what I did yesterday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My name is Paul.

A colleague and I had a mildly intense but friendly conversation about politics the other day. I’m hoping I disabused him of few ridiculous notions but I doubt it. Maybe I gave him pause on one or two matters. I may never know. Interesting guy. Very bright, very calm and very friendly.

I really like my little department at the bank. It doesn’t suck that Skippy’s gone.

So, same colleague tells me he agrees with Warren Buffet’s remarks this morning. I wasn’t aware of what he said but told my friend that I thought Buffet was a bright guy. He characterized what he’d heard as Buffet saying that the Obama administration should limit it’s focus to issues economic and stop using the power of majority to ram a liberal agenda down the throat of congress.

I thought to myself, less than fifty days in, and we’re being accused of precisely what Republicans have been audaciously guilty of for the last eight years, plus twenty.

Oh the humanity.

Here’s what Buffet said:
Warren Buffett, an Obama supporter, famously described the economic crisis as an “Economic Pearl Harbor” — but now says Congress, especially the GOP, has failed to adopt an appropriately unified “Dec. 8th” mentality. -politico.com

“The minority really do[es] have an obligation to support things that are clearly designed to fight the war in a big way,” Buffett said. “I think the Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and realize you need one leader… I think the [Democrats] should not use it … to roll the Republicans.” -firstread.msnbc.msn.com

I asked my friend if he thought Obama’s executive order today lifting the ban on federal funding for stem cell research was an example of the gratuitous Liberal agenda. His answer was, “absolutely”.

In other news:
The daughter of Republican Sen. John McCain called President Obama “the hippest politician around” – then complained that being a member of the GOP is “about as edgy as Donny Osmond” and blasted conservative commentator Ann Coulter as “offensive” and “radical.” -nypost.com

This sort of betrayal pleases me to no end. I wonder how long before she’s forced to walk it back a little. It won’t be long before daddy starts to forget.

Doesn’t Meghan McCain have a big rack?

Also, the practise of organized religion is on the decline. Some 86% indentified themselves as religious in 1990. These days it’s around 75%. Salient point here is that’s a long way to go. We need it closer to fifty-fifty. I’d feel better.

Last but not least is Our Man’s signing of the executive order today. Not only is it an economic opportunity and therefore part of a much bigger picture, but it’s intended to help “restore scientific integrity in government decision making.” -whitehouse.gov

“Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.” – President Barack Obama -whitehouse.gov

See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

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

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

Hoorah and in your face bitches.

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

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

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

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

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

Well said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drinks for my friends.