Archive for January, 2008

Those of you that have been reading me for awhile, may recall that my take on the last State of The Union was titled “No babies in garbage disposals”. A not so subtle nod towards the populist pablum. Tonight was more of the same.

He still insisted on mispronouncing ‘nuclear’ six or seven times and stubbornly whipped the deceased equine carcass of social security, or “entitlements” in the euphemistic vernacular of the neocons. Fuck that. Social Security is not an entitlement. We pay in when we are young, it pays out when we are old.

More pointless and baseless saber rattling at Iran. Way Too many Democrats hauling asses out of seats for this particular round of applause. Sheezus.

I feel like an eight year old. I was bored and really, I just don’t give a mad fuck what Dumbya has to say anymore. He may still be dangerous, but his irrelavance metastasizes by the hour.

I found more intrinsic entertainment in the shifts of smirk Cheney wore behind Dumbya’s right shoulder. I was amused by the Republican lockstep of standing ovations.

C’mon you pinheads, you’ve got be fucking kidding me.

Perhaps it’s irresponsible and lazy, but to counter the address point by point would be futile and didactic. If you don’t realize how full of shit he is by now, you never will. Like I said, I just don’t care.

On a far more interesting note, Obama collected the endorsement of Senator Ted Kennedy as well as a glowing op-ed in the New York Times yesterday titled “A President Like My Father” written by Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, in case you didn’t know. Now this, is heavy.

The momentum that Obama is gathering is formidable. Although still very early, it is of a brand that could thwart the Clinton Machine. Wow. A certain degree of credit goes to Barack himself. He’s demonstrated a not so simple grace in allowing the Clintons to make themselves look bad. Zen judo. Awesome.

Time to take a walk John. Don’t go too far.

Goddamn Super Tuesday will roar at us I hope.

Drinks for my friends.

60 Minutes has been the best show on network television for a lot longer than I can remember.

My least favorite crew member has always been Scott Pelley. Ever since he clumsily hammered Ahmadinejad when he visited last year, my disdain for him has swollen. He lacks suspension of disbelief. Seems like a dipshit sometimes.

I like that Anderson Cooper has joined. I’m thinking he should be Crew Chief of The Month. Brass rectangle added to the plaque and all.

I miss Ed Bradley. He was the coolest.

I realize that Pelley was probably put up to it by some CBS swine executive for mere schadenfreude. I still loathe him for it. It was dishonest on a global level.

Anyway, Prick JR. parked one tonight with his interview of George Piro. Mr. Piro was our government’s lead interrogator of Saddam Hussein. Absolutely compelling and fascinating. Enough for me to realize I was mouth breathing. What a coup for The Columbia Broadcasting System.

It was excellent TV; that’s all I’m saying.

Now. As you now know, Mr Obama prevailed spectacularly in South Carolina last night. My skirt is lifted by this gust of change.

I said early on that a black man with a last name that rhymes with Osama and a middle name that is Hussein, has virtually no chance of being President of The United States of America. I said that because I believed America to be sicker than she was.

I’m happy to be wrong. Very happy to be wrong.

There is a very tangible possibility that America will soon have it’s first Black President. I’m excited about this because it may just mean that American heads and hearts aren’t where I thought they were. Could it be these dark days were catalyst enough for some general epiphany?

Could this just be the right man for the right time?

I am happy to be wrong.

Let me just say this. We know know that MLK wasn’t perfect and JFK was barely able to maintain orbit. Then there’s Big Bad Bill. Bill was not your run of the mill house afire. I don’t give a mad fuck about that kinda shit.

I am concerned about Barack’s potential for efficacy. I’m not concerned about Hillary’s. She’ll get shit done. I worry about just how and where and what, however.

I digress. I am pleased and excited. Good stuff going on in America and I’m confident it’s indicative of an improving state of mind and over all better mental health.

Every effort has been made to slam our minds shut for the better part of eight years and a great many succumbed. Despite all that, we seem to be waking. Minds seem to be opening.

This man Obama can certainly be the wind to blow piss back into the faces of the complacent, apathetic and ignorant. The greedy and the powerful.

Make no mistake, if America elects this man, the entire world will exhale and relax a little. They will. That’s what I’m talking about.

I can’t know how well he would govern us. But he is smart, wise and confident. I am impressed. He is as real as they get on a stage so elevated.

For what it’s worth, George W. Bush is real too, he’s just really stupid.

Drinks for my friends.

It’s all over but the shouting in South Carolina. Obama has beaten Hillary and Edwards like a pair of baby seals.

He did this by amassing over fifty percent of the vote. The demographic sweep he engineered is beyond impressive. South Carolina is over sixty seven percent white and the home state of John Edwards, who finished a distant third. It was a record turnout.

More than double Hillary’s pot and obviously, more than both Edwards and Hillary combined.

He speaks like a summer thunderstorm. A cloudburst on a sweltering afternoon. Substance and style. Grace and conviction. Thunder and lightning. His admonition of Hillary, subtlety and gravity.

It’s kind of ironic that while I was thinking that even if Obama succeeded at elevating only minorities and the poor, America would be a far better place. It’s ironic, because it was the same moment he segued into passionate discourse about unity and the fractures that exist between us, that either aren’t there or don’t need to be. All of us.

ALL OF US.

I am smiling. Were it not for the breathtaking ineptness, avarice and arrogance of the current administration and the Republican party, America would never grant audience to this first ever contest between a black man and a woman for President of The United States.

Forgive me, but hope doesn’t appear so audacious any more. It’s been a long time coming. We have endured too many years of cruelty and apathy at the hands of Republican rulers. Maybe now, instead of the lesser of two evils, America will choose the better of the best.

Oh boy.

Eighty percent of African Americans in SC voted for Obama. I still really like Edwards, but I fear it may be time for him to walk. Seventy three percent of Democrats who cast a vote tonight, did so against Hillary. This, in one of only three states with a greater than twenty percent population of black voters. Do the math, Obama desperately needs white Democrats on February Five.

Edwards says he’s still got lotsa fight left. We’ll see.

Obama and Edwards? I’d like that a lot.

Bill Bennett, asshat that he is, just compared Obama’s speech to Ronald Reagan. What a fucking retard. It occurs to me that Martin Luther King is a far more appropriate and accurate analog. Or, can you say JFK?

Amy Holmes, conservative whackjob that she is, is hotter than Georgia asphalt. I’d do her. She was on Bill Maher last night and I had an identical thought. Michelle O. has hips and a booty.

Meanwhile, on the darkside, Skeletor sports a giant mudhole in his ass that will be kicked dry by Guy Smiley and John McCain in Florida. Time to start looking for a rock with a vacancy underneath, Mr. Julie Rudyiani. Douchebag.

Up next, Super Tuesday. The road, still long indeed.

Drinks for my friends.

They focus on McCain and Romney and Huckabee. Somehow they need to save it from being a forgone conclusion. Probably just to hold interest.

Idiots.

It will be McCain, because Guy Smiley is full of shit and Huckabee seems like a nice guy but any sane motherfucker between here and common sense is scared out of his or her mind that a Southern Baptist Minister could be President.

I mean, I know I am. The leader of the the free world believing that the earth is like, six thousand years old? You have got to be fucking kidding me. This guy is getting a shitload of votes.

Outside it’s America.

Goddamn, the Republicans are in trouble.

Anyway.

A far more interesting contest between Barack and Hillary.

I’m so pleased by the very idea that America is choosing between a black man and a woman for the Democratic nomination.

It does speak volumes about the taste in our mouths. For nearly eight years, the only thing on the spoon has been shit. Stupid mindless Republican shit. Imagine shit with tar and rotting raisins.

The Democrats not always better but I’m happy to have this choice.

America is about to recieve a much needed Democratic President, so fuck off.

Drinks for my friends.

I just need to talk about a few things here.

First up, this retarded stimulus package Republicans and Democrats alike are toothlessly masticating each other’s genitals over. Six hundred dollars (!) for each of us grossing less than seventy five thousand a year.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

What they’re hoping is, we’ll go out and blow that magnanimous sum and the economy will just explode and all will be sunshine and rainbows.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

That’s the plan?

I’m insulted.

Six hundred bucks buys me about three hours in a Vegas titty bar with a couple of clients. Brilliant.

Or, I could score just enough booze and blow to rationalize hiring a hooker, likely succumb to whiskey dick and the subsequent ego deflation that accompanies losing one’s wood and/or never achieving it to begin with.

As a Southern California resident, were I to earmark said funds for more pragmatic utilization, it would mitigate approximately a third of my monthly rent. Less than that of a mortgage note or a month’s payment on a decent car.

Republicans and Democrats have reached out to each other for your benefit and are now offering a medium size self adhering gauze bandage for your middle class ass hemorrhage. The bastards of the beltway are powerful sorry about the diabetes they gave you and would like for you to have a cookie.

I understand the proposal also provides for “business incentives”.

I really hate these guys.

Apparently, while we spend over half a million a minute in Iraq, fiscal conservatives are wringing their sweaty hands over what this may do to the budget deficit.

Thank Jesus someone is watching the foxes play with the hens.

On a profoundly sad note, my favorite little paste eater announced he was leaving the circus today. How sad that the roaring mouse has thrown in the towel. The ONLY one with the courage, integrity and honesty to speak the truth consisitently about where we are and what we must do, is left with no choice but to save his congressional seat so that he may fight again to effect desperately needed change another day. May the powers that exist, forever favor you Mr. Dennis Kucinich. Many of us will miss your valuable contribution to what is obviously the most important political discourse thus far for all of us.

Next. From this blog on January nine:

“The Bill & Hillary machine is awesome, however. What we saw was that impressive apparatus in swift and purposeful motion at the bottom of the ninth in the second game of seven. Very impressive.

Here they come. I told ya.”

And from this blog on January four:

“I’ve alluded to to the Clintonian acumen for brawling. You’re about to see a full frontal and it will most likely get ugly. We’re about to witness how smart she really is. I can’t help but think that if she starts tossing turds, she’ll be courting the dirt nap.

Fascinating to watch Bill’s big brain churning behind his eyes as he stood to her left while she spoke. I found myself waiting for steam to to rocket from every orifice in his head.

She tossed not a single turd.”

It’s true, Bill Clinton, a man whom I celebrate and adore, needs to count to ten. I won’t address this specifically except to to say that policy is what is is germane here. That, and desperation is almost always ugly.

Last but not least, Hillary and McCain won the nod from The New York Times today. The NYT said this about Skeletor, who is fighting for third in Florida:

“The New York paper said it could not endorse Giuliani, describing the city’s former mayor as a “narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man” whose “arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking.”

Ha!

Drinks for my friends.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Vignette A Quatro.
Current mood: accomplished
Category: Writing and Poetry

We stand at the light. Waiting to cross. His cologne is fucking awful. But he’s dressed immaculate. Jacket and slacks, no tie. I see he’s thinking. I tell him to stop. He bows his head and looks up at me. I smile.

Nothing to think about I say. Make sure you stay out front on the sidewalk. Don’t approach her under any circumstances unless it turns into an action scene and there’s automatic weapons fire. He giggles a little.

Got to give him something.

Do not step foot inside without calling me first. You feel me? I tell him this. He bows his
head again and looks up at me, no worries he says, and he smiles.

I light one and with a click the signal changes, we step off the curb. Mickey moves slow.

He calls me Mikey and I call him Mickey and Mickey is
insanely fast and crazy vicious when the time comes.
He’s here today because things aren’t great for him so
I said I’d give him a buck fifty to take me over the
hill and get something signed.

I tell him we’ll go across the street after, there’s a
Fatburger. I’m all about a fried egg sandwich with
pickles, mustard and cheddar. You can have whatever, I say.

Fairly late afternoon. We move from sun to shadow. Winter in LA. He looks to his left and clocks the Fatburger. Wait here I say, I don’t want him inside.

I flick my smoke away and walk in. It’s warm and sophisticated. This woman knows her mind and her business. Nobody else in the store. She’s watching a flatscreen on the wall while propping herself up with
arms behind her on a circular couch. Beside her, two remotes, a cordless and her cell. And no shit, an open game of “Operation”.

Mickey’s wide, he’d be a disaster in here.

Who else is here, I say.

What’s up, she says. I only know she said something
because she pointed her face at me and her lips moved.
That’s what she always says even on the phone so I
figure that’s what she’s saying now.

Beautiful is an understatement. Her African skin glows like there’s sun shining on it. She gives me pause and I hope she doesn’t catch it.

Mickey with you? Mickey? She’s loud but not yelling. She gets up
moving towards the front of her store and she does the not yelling thing again.

My phone rings. Tell him he can come in I say.

He appears with a shy smile. She cups his face, kisses his cheek and leads him to a couch that allows him to see outside. She hands him a bottle of water that looks miniature in his fist.

She snatches the envelope out of my back pocket on her way back in. This what I think it is?

I nod.

All business now. She walks towards the register as she opens it and begins to read. You need time to read it over I’ll send Mickey to pick it up, I say.

She looks at me and reaches for a pen. She signs it slowly and deliberately, re-folds it, puts it back in the envelope and hands it to me with a blank face. Things are getting better, she says. I’ll have a payment soon.

Good to hear I say.

She smells her hands and looks towards Mickey. A sour look on her face as she heads off to wash up. Let’s go Mickey I say and move towards the door.

In between tearing off massive bites from his triple and wiping his chin he says, she’s something Mikey. Yeah, I know, but she lacks empathy I say. Classic narcissistic personality disorder. Least, that’s what my shrink says. Mmmm hmm, he says like he knows what I’m talking about. He draws through his straw and it makes that noise it makes in every movie. Why is it only white people need therapy he asks.

The guy who block’s out the sun is coming in the door. His grin is wide but his eyes are empty. Fuck, I say.

Mickey stands wiping his hands and without looking says that’s far enough bro.

He ‘s at least a foot taller than either of us but Mickey never even bothers to size him up. Instead he swings so fast all I see is hist fist connect with Mr. Eclipse’s adams apple and he goes down. The only sound is a big man smacking tile.

Mickey looks at me and all I can manage is a whispered whoo. Then he steps back over to wrap up what’s left of his burger in napkins. You gonna eat that? I shake my head and he begins to wrap mine up too. We need a bag he says. He steps in front of the people on line at the counter who are wide eyed and haven’t moved an inch. Hey bro, can I getta bag?

On the way out Mickey pauses, standing over Mr. Eclipse.

With a grunt he brings is heel down hard on the man’s nose. This time the sound makes my stomach plummet. I look away before I can see.

On the sidewalk he leans against a light pole to inspect the bottom of his shoe. I got paper towels in the car he says.

After cleaning off his shoe but before getting behind the wheel, he takes a gun out of his waistband and puts on the seat between us.

We drive off. Thanks I say.

Mikey, you had me along just in case he says. Well, just in case just happened to happen didn’t it?

I give him two brand new bills. He smiles but never takes his eyes off the road.

You mind if I smoke in your car Mickey? His corpulent fingers claw at the switches and my window comes down. Be my guest boss, he says. Don’t call me that I say.

I’m having deja vu.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Vignette the trifecta.
Current mood: aggravated

There’s blood, and it’s coming from my right eye. Hurts a little, yet I can tell it’s about to have a lot more to say. I’m confused, I think. Then I snort and cough a two syllable laugh.

RacerX slams on the fucking brakes and a massive gravity surge sucks me face first to the rear wall of the trunk so hard I lose my wind. Then some sort of anti-lock bullshit takes over and we violently shudder to a stop. Excellent ride. The rubber smells skunky.

Door slams. Car rocks a little. I hear, get out get out!

Heels clack short and panicked to where I am.

Get the fuck out! Trunk starts to open and I got nothing but fight or flight. Wide enough and I kick through the opening with some adrenalin and desperation. I realize that my heel just connected square with a solar plexus below what seemed to be a rockin’ pair of tits.

I scramble out.

She’s laying on her back in the dirt.

This time there IS a shiny gun in her left hand.

Fucktard! She barks.

She is slow getting up. Slow and clumsy. I’m a little confused by her lack of grace, I’ve never seen her without it in abundance.

You need to get the fucking fuck gone! She points the hand with the pistol in it across the street. I’ll be back. You’re gonna have to trust me. We are so fucked.

She takes off slow and doesn’t spin the tires because she no longer thinks it’s a movie. She’s lighting a cigarette when she hits asphalt and then she puts her foot in it.

The right quarter sphere of my skull aching, throbbing and shrieking. Dizzy, right eye useless because it’s full of blood or gone. I make my way across the street and wonder what I look like.

I take stock under a tree that has long since obscured the street marker. Fuck me! Cell phone, wallet, keys. I’m golden. Wait. No smokes. And I’m really fucking thirsty. It’s hot. Fuck me.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Vignette part deux
Current mood: depressed
Category: Writing and Poetry

She pulls away from the curb and spins the tires because she thinks it’s a movie. I finish my smoke and flick it. I don’t give a mad fuck what season it is.

She speeds and I like it.

We end up at the Daily Grill across from the airport.

The air in here is cool but more green than blue.

She orders a Pinot Grigio and me a Saphire on ice because I don’t know the bartender can make a martini.

So far she’s kinda pissy and elusive. I really don’t care, but I’m hoping to go back to the office with at least a toothless grin. Her dress is tight and the table is a shelf for her rack.

I ask about her kid. She doesn’t say much that I hear.

I think to myself that she really is kind of a bitch and she reaches for my hand.

The drinks arrive and we disengage to take a swallow.

Were in a booth, and we’ve both by habit scooted towards the wall.

A big guy shows up at the end of the table, he’s not wearing an apron, and he blocks out the sun.

He slides in next to me and he’s fucking huge. He says, I need ya ta gimme back what she gave ya.

I left it on my desk, I say.

I look across at her and see chrome coming at me out of the corner of my right eye.

She looks at me like, sorry.

I wake up in the trunk of a car that’s going goddamn fucking fast.

Friday, April 27, 2007

A different sort of vignette.
Current mood: amused
Category: Writing and Poetry

She calls on my direct line. Five people have that number and three of them are in the building. She says, Is your car out front? I say, What? She says, I’m in front of your office.

The wind is gusting and it’s hot. The ground is throwing heat at least as high as my head.

She leans on the opposite side of a black sedan facing away smoking a Camel Light.

I approach with my hands in my pockets while I stare at the ground.

She looks at me from a vacuum.

I do my best version of the same but realize there’s a smirk on my face.

What? I say.

Her eyes roll up as she exhales a cloud.

I light one.

She reaches into the backseat with her left hand. It’s a convertible. I realize she’s rehearsed this moment.

It’s a nickel plated Smith & Wesson and I’m on my back screaming but nothing is coming out and I smell cordite.

It’s an envelope and she begins to smirk as she hands it to me. Hungry? she says.

I say, I guess, you got time? Let me put this on my desk.

I drop my smoke in the 5 gallon bucket of sand outside the door.

I turn and it’s so cool inside it feels slush blue.

The heat is a wall on the way back out. Grab my smoke. She is leaning against the near door now, hands at her sides. She’s looking down and talking to herself. In her left hand the 357 dangles loosely as she bangs it against her thigh.

She looks up and says, Can’t remember if I fed the dog. You wanna drive?

She holds up the keys with her left hand.

I keep walking towards her.

I say, Nope, it’s all you. She doesn’t care and I know that.

As we’re pulling away, I think for the thousandth time about how unsatisfying it is to smoke in the wind.

Chelsea is hot.

I really think so.

“I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese, I really think so” – The Vapors.

Anyway.

They did swing hard. Some good stuff. We like a good dustup between mostly like and right minded people.

Obama does very well. He’s taller and tends to throw his punches down. He really is impressive.

Hills takes punches and throws uppercuts like Roberto Duran. She is tough and fascinating.

I do believe Obama’s remarks about Reagan are what they are. His point was that Reagan was a transformative president, no value placed, good or bad.

I think he was alluding to Ronnie being able to so effectively snow so many rednecks and the great unwashed. See, Reagan sucked and he was, in the contemporary tradition of Republican presidents, an absolute out of touch dipshit.

Ronald Reagan was a human hurricane for the have nots. Let me be clear here; Reagan fucking sucked.

Russia was broken on the backs of our middle class and poor. And the rich began to get richer.

Reaganomics. Trickle down. Shut the fuck up. He was an actor, and not a great one by any stretch.

Ok, sorry.

Edwards is a class act. My mother was a delegate in the Nevada caucuses and she was there for Edwards. I agree with her. He is the best of the three. She wasn’t able to make it happen. He got his “butt kicked”.

I would like to see Edwards prevail in South Carolina. A little leveling of the field would be healthy and his is a good voice in this contest. The man has integrity.

To one degree or another, I like them all. It’s not perfect, but we are lucky. This is an excellent group. Intelligent and passionate.

Then there is the big picture. The entertainment value. Not since the last time a diminutive jug eared paste eater waded in (Perot/Kucinich), has the contest for leader of the free world been so compelling.

Sometimes I wax pessimistic and realize that what we have here is the best of a worse case scenario. Our country is so broken. I understand that not one of these three may be capable or even desirous of the profound shift we absolutely need.

America is in a very bad way. Yet, despite which one prevails, it is a long step in the right direction. I really can’t afford to think about whether any one of them can do enough. Probably not.

But you know, small steps?

Drinks for my friends.

So the market executed another spectacular swan into a
bone dry pool with a thankfully thick level of bottom snot today.

A negative thousand point score on the dives
this infant year by the NYSE.

Somewhere around half of that this week.

The Fed chairman, Bernanke, warns of impending doom if
Dumbya doesn’t do something post haste.

Bernanke refuses to own the “R” word while bathing in full glare of The American Middle Class gagging on it.

What the goddamn hell is Dumbya gonna do?

Newsflash: The damage is far beyond extensive. It
will take decades. There is no band-aid big enough.
What is needed is a tourniquet, and we will loose a limb. At least.

No shit, we’re in trouble.

I’m a salesman. I talk to people in every corner of
every state everyday. They tell me it’s soft. It’s
slow. It’s really bad. More than a handful have
intimated that it’s the worst they’ve ever seen.

They’ve been telling me this for at least a year.

Anybody with a lick of sense saw this storm on the
horizon years ago.

Duh.

Once again, a conundrum provokes dismay, panic and
fear, when a solution is so obvious it makes me want
to do the chicken dance while shitting myself and
exhaling a two thousand degree flame.

Wait! Flaming shit!

Nevermind.

Let us pause for a commercial break: Are you people
aware that the Daily Show and The Colbert Report have
not missed a godamn beat since they re-appeared after
the writer’s strike?

They may be better even.

I will now pontificate with some abandon.

See, I came to understand as an audio engineer, that
the middle frequencies should be approached with great
care. Between one and five kHz is very precarious
territory.

Abuse of that land will ruin a song or an entire
record.

Young and callow practitioners of the audio arts ought
to be denied access to that real estate we all hear so well. Left to their own devices among the upper and lower registers

Learn to caress the top and the bottom. Make them
happy and accomodating of the middle. Allow
them to compliment and limelight the middle.

Get the middle on tape faithfully and you may be more than half way down the road.

Life is about the middle as well as the ends.

Salt and pepper.

Good salt.

Good pepper.

The analogy is seamless.

Stupid politicians shouldn’t be allowed any power or
influence over the middle class.

The middle allows and provides for a Republic. The
middle is the catalyst for a democratic ethic and a
free yet honest economic engine.

Forgive my flag, but America’s middle is consensus. Tolerance. And of course, passion and compassion.

The very fiber of The American Dream is the provenance
of it’s middle class.

Any candidate that even whispers “tax cuts” at this
point, better be talking about it as part of a
stimulus for the middle class and thus the economy at
large.

Even that, is likely foolish and irresponsible
pandering on part of any mouth it escapes.

Otherwise, and for any other reason, FUCKTARD should be
branded backwards on his or her forehead so he or she
can read it in the mirror for the rest of his or her
life.

More than half of them would distract you with the
notion that you should most fear an angry Arab
with a suitcase nuke.

This, while the most credible
and legitimate threat facing most of us is an
economic apocalypse.

How about we stop spending a half a million dollars a
minute on this ridiculous fucking war and spend a
fraction of it here at home to repair the damage
wrought by our aronists laureate, Dick-in-Bush?

Maybe roll back those now infamous tax cuts on the
wealthiest of Americans?

I’m a populist humanist because the American Middle is being
shat upon.

Housing, Energy and Retail suck. A virtual guarantee
that we are about to be caught in the toilet’s swirl.

This is going to suck.

Drinks for my friends.

I could be wrong, but Skeletor’s towering hubris, virtually sitting out the first three contests of the primary season, is going to take a chunk out of his puckered worthless ass.

Tonight he finished a distant seventh in Michigan.

I’ll bet his cheeks are all mottled and yellow.

He holds one card. One claim to fame. He was the lame duck mayor of New York City when all hell broke loose. If it weren’t for that day, you wouldn’t know his name. What did he do that was so special?

If you ask the NYCFD, they’ll tell you just how special he is. They’ll tell you he’s a coward and a liar and an opportunist and that he sucks.

Guiliani is perhaps the least qualified Republican to ever run for the highest office in what was once the world’s greatest land. He’s never been a governor or a member of congress.

Imagine LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in this race. Sheezus.

His own children loathe him and campaign against him. He literally cheated on his last wife in public.

Ha! The bastard finished seventh.

Fred Thompson and Ron Paul handed him his ass.

God is whispering that Rudy’s fucked.

I’m thinking that even if he arrives on steroids in Florida, he’s got nothing but fumes in his tank of American give a shit.

I really hope I’m right because I really hate this guy.

Romney, douchebag that he is, won tonight over McCain, douchebag that he is. McCain is crazy and Romney is a clumsy lipped blowhard that you should do your best to picture in his sacred underwear.

A lot of people hold religion as sacred or at least exempt from public ridicule.

I’m calling fuck that on that one.

In this instance, I single out Mormons, but I’m an equal opportunity maligner. Every organized religion I can think of is at best, silly and at worse, corrupt and evil.

And they don’t have to pay taxes in America!

We’re so fucking progessive.

Anybody notice Huckabee needed a shave?

Skeletor will be lucky to place or show in Florida. And he’ll get an uppercut ballpunch in South Carolina on Saturday.

Can you guys see the fork?

I swear to a Savory Santa Day that if one of these idiot fucking human train wrecks ends up as President, I’ll start a militia up in the desert with only smart people.

We’ll figure it out.

Drinks for my friends.

This is my response to a woman I’ve met only once regarding a very old friend’s birthday celebration and her gracious invitation:

Where does he live? Does he have a nice TV?

Ice maker?

Smoking area?

What’s the menu?

I can’t do oysters, asparagus, things like that.

I like to be catered to. I like to feel welcome.

You should probably have a small gift for me.

I wouldn’t spend more than seventy five to a hundred dollars. Just something thoughtful and classy that let’s me know how happy everyone is that I’m there.

I also like toys and props and games. I need things to pretend to be occupied with when I discover that everyone is boring.

I only drink the best hooch. I love Bombay Saphire, but if you have a premium vodka, I can probably do that.

If you see me grinning like a dumbass jack-o-lantern, know that I’ve smoked too much pot and I’m not following the conversation I’m having with the person in front of me.

At this point, you should approach me slowly, put your hand on my arm, pretend to talk to me and lead me to a dark corner where it’s unlikely I’ll compromise myself further.

If I came with a woman and seemed to like her, try to find her for me. If I was avoiding her, tell her I left.

At the end of the evening, I’ll thank you each profusely, irritatingly and ad nauseam. I’ll break something on the way out and borrow twenty five bucks for a cab before I get in my car and endanger the thousands I’ll encounter while driving home.

You might think about calling me around one the next day to pick me up for a champagne brunch. Just the three of us. I’ll get the tip.

By the way, I really like a mildly spicy gin mary with celery, capers, green and black olives and cherry tomatoes along with a cold Pellegrino and lemon. It goes very well with shrimp and champagne.

Sorry, DVR locked up so you got the full eye.

There once was a band called The Ape Hangers.

Actually, when we started the record they were called
Throttle. In the middle of the record, about
the time the lead singer/guitar player’s brother died,
they had to change their name.

He never missed a step.

They were a trio.

We did the record over the Holidays. It ended up
being one of the three or four best records we ever
made.

We, is me and Alex.

One of the biggest reasons it turned out so good was
because they could goddamn play. The groove was nice and slippery but there were no leaks. They could play. No air escaped.

Another reason was Pete, singer guitar player, could write a motherfucking song. He had a charisma on the mic unlike I had ever seen or heard in a not yet rockstar. One of the very best rythm guitar players I’ve ever recorded. A consumate musician.

He bought me a bottle of Jim Beam and a copy of Leg Show for Christmas.

There wasn’t any click tracks, protools fuckery or razor blade abuse. No computerized consoles for the mix. All manual and hands on. Recorded and mixed in studio “C “, the redheaded stepchild of what was the world famous A&M recording studio complex.

Conventional wisdom was you couldn’t make a record in that room. It was for demos and overdubs. Me & Al made quite a few very good records in that ten by twenty space with the ridiculously low ceiling.

What most of them didn’t understand, was the little thirty two input sixteen bus API was by far the best sounding console in the place.

Even better than the Neve across the hall in “A”, built for George Martin with the basketball sized tracking room.

Fools.

By that time, Al and I had figured out how to squeeze every last drop of sound out of that woman. Nobody could do what we could do in there. We ate it and slept it.

The most manipulation the Ape Hanger record saw was Me & Al cutting the master sequence together. Al did an excellent job and I was present.

We’re talking master mixes here and I hated cutting tape. It caused my manhood to atrophy.

Al has had his own genius on most of the time.

I don’t know what Al would say, but it was probably the easiest
record we ever made. I say that because I can hear it
in my head and it sounds marvelous. It cracks and
soaks and chunks and bathes and bites.

I heard it in my head as we made it. During basic tracks I could here the vocal effect I would use. I owned it.

It’s true. We were good. Alex and I thought
differently about a lot of things. Born on the same
day, a few years apart, and nearly opposite in most
ways.

But a crazy understanding between us. I
brought an anvil and he came with a feather. I was the barbarian and he was the diplomat. I still regard him as a geek savant. An impressive intellect, and a very sweet man. Funny as fuck.

His feather was as awesome as my anvil. The feather
and the anvil were a good mix.

It’s true, Al had mad skills. He also brought an encyclopedic knowledge of virtually all music.

So we made this record, and we made others. Damn
near every record we made was quite good.

I knew we were doing something in there because the
opposition kept growing. Our contemporaries had begun to treat us differently, to look at us with different eyes and faces, and we could feel it.

I was coming off Everclear’s “Sparkle And Fade” debut on Capitol. I co-produced it with Art Alexakis (lead singer and guitar player) and engineered. It yielded a couple top ten singles and the album ended up in the Billboard top ten.

We had the president of A&M dancing and playing air guitar in the control room on his sometimes daily visits. He often came with David Anderle, an A&R legend among other things.

The promotion dept. had landed two songs on two different soundtracks and tracks in two different movies starring the likes of Liv Tyler, Renée Zellweger Andy Garcia and Christopher Walken. Empire Records and Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead.

We made an excellent record.

Empire Records was to be a high profile release with a major promotional push. Somehow, that never happened. It wasn’t a great movie but it didn’t suck. Must not have tested well.

We were told we’d be guests at the premier.

I think it went straight to video.

The band was a formidably cool hang.

Dennis, the drummer with the wandering eye. One of the funniest motherfuckers I ever met. He would drink with you until you were done. He would ride in the back of Rick’s piece of shit red Mazda without even being asked and he channeled Keith Moon constantly.

He played fucking brilliantly.

I understood that Dennis would follow you into hell because he’d already been there more than a few times. If you knew him, you knew that about him.

Then there was Bob. Bob played bass. Very well. I’m thinking he had a kick drum for a prostate. Very nice, a little dark, and I’m guessing more disturbed than the other two. I adored Bob, It’s just I knew him less.

These guys, along with Al and whatever assistant the studio may or may not have given us for the day, made up an absolute holiday of humans.

Really good times.

Pete eventually let me know I’d burned a hole in his pristine white carpet with a cigarette.

Either Bob or Dennis or maybe both, bought me a plastic candy cane tube full of mini bar booze that year.

Then it seems, everyone forgot about it.

Everyone involved.

They pulled support for the movie, so it tanked. Then, the entire tiny rustic lot of my record company forgot about it. They all walked away from a record they had either been on fire about or ordered to be on fire a few months prior.

They actually played live on that lot one hot afternoon, every employee was invited. It was catered by In & Out. I was sure Dennis would die that day.

No matter how good the record was, it hadn’t cost them a dime. To scrap it meant less than nothing. We were paid salary from the studio and the record company paid me thirty five an hour as an engineer.

And that was it.

All I can tell you is it’s a great fucking record.

Drinks for my friends.

I just need to take a minute to praise Jon Stewart.

Were he sitting here with me on my red velvet, claw shredded and cat hair festooned couch, I’d take a hit and blow it straight up his tiny little Jew ass.

He rocks.

I’m not sure what the deal is over there but I understand he has no writers?

I assume the writers want money for their work appearing on the internet but the internet is a herd of leeches on the genitals of the big entertainment companies. That’s all I know.

The big guys are probably culpable.

Whatever.

Anyway. Tonight Stewart delivered the most brilliant and toxic dissection of mainstream media coverage of these last two political contests; an intellectually adroit comedian cracking balls over the fence as though practicing.

Subtlety and nuance not just amplified but cleverly exploited.

I understand why people would naively push such a man towards public service. They don’t understand that he is doing exactly what he should be doing.

Jon Stewart does the Lord’s work.

At least, he does the work of my Lord. Common Sense.

I hearken back to a few years hence, when our man Jon, fed Tucker Carlson a swift and salty load on his own goddamn show (“Crossfire”). Cost that smug prick Carlson his show and and his ridiculously schticky bowtie.

See, not unlike Hillary a few days ago in New Hampshire, Jon stewart has found his voice. Although much to our great fortune as Americans, Mr. Stewart discovered his voice nearly eight years ago.

Emmy and Peabody winning and goddamn funny.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the perfect man for his job. We can only hope to be the richer, the longer he chooses to do it.

Just had to share that, even though most of you know it already.

Drinks for my friends.

Hillary prevails because the women of New Hampshire saw her tear up. Obama carried women in Iowa. He didn’t in New Hampshire.

Who carried the Gays?

Stay with me.

I do wish Edwards had somehow been able to maintain the trifecta. Here, the difference of deep pockets glares at us. Shame on you New Hampshire. He is clearly the best of the three, at least in terms of message.

Ralph Reed is on CNN. What the hell is he doing there? I loathe this bastard. Christian Coalition fucktard. But wait, he just said what I said about Hillary. What should I do with that? Does’t matter, he’s a dickhead.

Ron Paul wrestling with Skeletor for fourth makes me grin like a poor kid with a new bike.

Looks like Richardson will take his ball home. No big loss but a good man.

Record Democratic turnout and Republican voters are actually down. The poor kid with the new bike just got a new bell and a sparkly gold banana seat.

Wolf Blitzer sucks.

Edwards is tired and so is his speech. It is true, righteous even, but tired. No original chords or melodies. Yet still, good populist stuff. Honest. The best message out there. He tells us he’s staying in the fight. That’s good news. He is the best of any of the horses running with the remotest chance of winning.

I’m afraid my favorite little paste eater is unable to hide the fork sticking out of him. Oh well. So much for massive balls and complete honesty. If the upcoming Democratic administration has an intellectual conscience, Kucinich will have a place in it. I’m not holding my breath.

The Associated Press has just forecast Hillary as the winner. There’s lots to be said for inertia. Momentum.

It may be premature, yet as I say this CNN is owning it. I’ve watched enough elections to agree.

Obama speaks. Very well. This guy is good. Really good. This time he actually references MLK. This man, is a goddamn rockstar. Confidence, charisma and composure. Half the reason I watch is to see this guy play.

Blue eyed murder in a sideswipe dress.

Hillary speaks. She has aged before me. She is metered. Measured. Following Obama is a bitch. No pun intended. She’s virtually Stepford after a master orator. She’s kinda plastic. She kinda sucks. Weak finish.

The Bill & Hillary machine is awesome, however. What we saw was that impressive apparatus in swift and purposeful motion at the bottom of the ninth in the second game of seven. Very impressive.

Here they come. I told ya.

The content was significantly more populist in both Democratic speeches.

You aren’t stupid. I know this because you’re here. I’m sure you can imagine me pulling the lever for whatever Democrat rises to the surface of this contest.

And that’s just what I’ll do.

It’s not that the Democrats are so great, although a few are, it’s that the Republicans suck so fucking much. McCain can’t even comb his own hair. Poor bastard. He’s the best they can do? He’s got a hard on for the war for painfully, and I do mean painfully, obvious reasons and I imagine he has some degree of PTS.

Dick-in-Bush snuck up behind and sucker punched him in 2000. When he woke up he was finished and bitter. Who wants this guy on the switch?

Hustler magazine has this regular feature where they render a photo of a female celebrity with a huge cock in her mouth. It’s hysterical. I know some folks over there and I’m going to call and request that they do the biggest blowhard on the planet, Mitt Romney.

Then there’s our man Skeletor. Fuck him.

Forgive me for not being able to take these assholes seriously.

Drinks for my friends.

The New Hampshire debates are nothing if not entertaining.

Really, it got a little ugly between the Democrats, still, they stayed germane to the most important issues. They all did well. It’s an excellent field.

Hillary is starting to swing and we like that. Nothing untoward, she just rolled up her sleeves and demonstrated she was ready.

I missed Kucinich and Biden.

The biggest gaff for me was Richardson’s pounding near the base of his mic to emphasize his sluggish and doddering message about his message about being a governor and a two time cabinet apointee.

This guy is cabinet worthy for sure but he’d suck as President. He’s smart and probably very capable but he’d bore me in a bar.

See what I’m saying?

I wonder if all the sudden Edwards is bucking for assistant manager or maybe just using some camaraderie with Obama to pinata Hillary a little. I like this guy. He was interesting and I’m a sucker for his populist rhetoric.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch the Republicans. Saw a clip of Guiliani saying that the difference between his party and the Democrats is Democrats want to raise your taxes and he wants to lower them.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

We are in an economic cluster fuck of shitstorm proportions and this absolute dickhead wants to talk about tax cuts. I fucking hate this guy. He and Fred Thompson both (who seems to have gone the way of the Do Do, thankfully), are almost invisible when they turn sideways because they’re constructed entirley of paper.

Never mind that what is being talked about is reversing the cuts given to the wealthy over the last seven years, who’ve gotten wealthier by the way, and finding ways to eliminate the government sponsored drain on the middle class, who are sinking by the way.

Then on Fox tonight I see Huckabee and Romney shoulder to shoulder attempting to out obfuscate each other about…………..

Wait for it.

That’s right.

Fucking taxes.

I really hate these guys.

I picture Napoleon Dynamite slapping his head.

The contrast is so acute, it is simultaneously comic and egregious.

I watched it tonight on CNN and again, somebody had travelled forward in time, observed my reactions and then travelled back to put my impressions in the mouths of CNN talking heads.

Frustrating. Anybody hiring?

Drinks for my friends.

Guiliani is an arrogant fool for taking a pass on Iowa. Bill Clinton didn’t wade in either, however. Bad Bill knew what he was doing and is at least twice as smart as Skeletor. Maybe four or five times. Really.

And yes, this is an entirely different ballgame.

Nothing from nothing means nothing.

A paradigm shift, nay, an upheaval, occurs while Skeletor cools his heels in Florida.

Change.

“The fierce urgency of now”.

Hillary loses by a tampon string to Edwards and both lose to Obama.

Huge.

Huckabee leaves Romney to regain consciousness with dirt in his mouth. Good. Romney is a douchebag.

All, nothing but good news.

I’ve alluded to to the Clintonian acumen for brawling. You’re about to see a full frontal and it will most likely get ugly. We’re about to witness how smart she really is. I can’t help but think that if she starts tossing turds, she’ll be courting the dirt nap.

Fascinating to watch Bill’s big brain churning behind his eyes as he stood to her left while she spoke. I found myself waiting for steam to to rocket from every orifice in his head.

She tossed not a single turd.

She was smooth.

Edwards, my beloved populist, was excellent. I’ve always been a sucker for his “Two Americas” theme.

Obama invoked a cadence not unlike MLK. He did shine. I was impressed. Is he a leader? I really don’t know. He is a fucking rockstar though.

Some guys like football. This shit mezmerises me.

We’re off to New Hampshire. I can only hope it will be as compelling.

Clearly this contest won’t end exactly as I wished. Yet, I must agree with the talking heads on CNN. The Americans in Iowa are telegraphing a profound desire for change.

See, this isn’t about a black man vs. a woman against an evangelical and/or a complete dipshit who believes in sacred underwear. This really is about a certain absolute thirst for as much change as we can get.

The best we can do is the most change we can realize. This gives me hope. I am optimistic and sanguine.

Encouraged, at the very least.

Oh boy.

Drinks for my friends.

Iowa less than twenty four hours away.

The Republicans are reeling.

They’re to the point where they’re taking an evangelical with bad teeth as seriously as an asshole who wears sacred underwear and
is completely full of shit.

Kinda funny. A man named Huckabee duking it out with
a man named Romney. President Huckabee?

Rudolph “Skeletor” Guiliani runs a cold third. For
this we should perhaps be grateful as this is a man
barely more intelligent than Dumbya and maybe more
arrogant. His own children campaign against him.

This guy has to be a dick.

So yeah, meanwhile, the Democratic field doesn’t suck
nearly as much. I have varying degrees of like for
most of them. I’m no Hillary fan, she worries me.
Her hands are in too many pockets that seek to empty
my own.

But is she playing? The Clintons know how to fight.
It’s a pretty serious braintrust between the two. She
understood that a woman of even her caliber, would
need vast resources to be taken seriously.

Is there a chance she’s hell bent for leather so she can then do at least some of what needs to be done?

All I know is that it’s close and that’s a good thing. I doubt you’ll see any of the top three, Obama, Clinton or Edwards, emerging as running mates or even VP hopefuls. They run too hard. It is a horserace and we benefit.

Poor fucking Republicans. HA!

What we need is, the most change we can get. Just think for a minute about the difference in potential for change between Edwards and Clinton. Then think about the difference between Kucinich and Clinton.

Huckabee’s suits are hiding a lot of loose skin.

Fucking Republicans.

See what I’m saying?

Drinks for my friends.

I admire drummers who can swing a beat. They’re onto
something. Life should not plod or march. It should swing. It should speed up and slow down.

Carson City, at the base of the Sierra mountain range and near to a mile high, has peaks to the west that jut majestically over four thousand feet above the valley floor.

Lake Tahoe at some sixteen hundred feet deep and a surface elevation of sixty two hundred hundred feet seems barely contained by the monoliths to the left.

The wind blows every day. Carson City whistles all the goddamn time.

He left home at thirteen. Sixth grade education from a
one room school house. Hunted deer with a twelve
guage loaded with slugs instead of shot. He rode the
rails and stole produce from the fields along the way
to survive.

Lied about his age to work for the Forest Service.
After that, the mines, with an epileptic partner and explosives. I believe it was during this time he married my mother.

His father played semi-pro baseball and cards. Never
took a drink or smoke of anything. He died at age
eighty nine from colon cancer.

Killed an elk a mere few years before he died and drug it out
of the woods by himself. Probably sent me the teeth.
He sent me a lot of teeth from animals he killed, typically in
an envelope inside a shirtbox of fairly salty peanut
butter cookies baked by Grandma Douglass. I think she died at a hundred and one.

His son, my Dad, has been in the hospital for too long
now. He is seventy five years old.

A few days back, I sat in the dim light of the night’s
middle in a hospital and looked at him. I spent the
night with him. It was hard. Highways of tubes
everywhere, draining and feeding. I fed him ice chips
every half hour or so.

He pooped and farted that night, which was brilliant, yet
his hands shook as he gripped the door jam to the bathroom.

The thing is, long after his body has ceased to be
tough, his mind still very much is. He is fearless.

Vessel and carcass to be durable again soon enough.

First day I walked into his room in the
cardiac wing, I clocked a tube sucking putrid green
lungbutter and what looked like shaving cream, from
his nose and into a jar mounted and hanging from a
cabinet.

A trio of beeping machines were connected to him and
mounted on a chrome tree with wheels. There was a sensor on his right hand he referred to as ET.

On the same tree were bags of protein, glucose and
painkillers.

He didn’t look too good at all. The color of
snow and ashes.

He was himself though. Blowing kisses and flirting
with the nurses. They all adored him because he was
such a good patient.

My Old Man is a motherfuckin class act.

A few months back my mother arrived at the conclusion
that it was time for my father to have a colonoscopy.
Last one was about twelve years ago.

Turns out he had close to a ten inch tumor in his
small intestine. A big ass mass. When Mom
said over twenty five centimeters, my heart sank.

It had to come out no matter what.

It was the biopsy that loomed.

They could only access the front of what I imagined in
my minds eye to be a malformed and hairless rodent.

Benign. So far so good.

Still, the doctors told us, these types of rodents
always turned malignant and it had to come out.
Otherwise, it would metastasize and the world would tilt.

The first surgery, a laparoscopy, went routinely. They took the bald rodent and lymph nodes.

Routine. No big deal.

Subsequent biopsy was negative. Thanks be to the powers that be.

A few days and things began to turn. No appetite.
Not passing anything, even gas. Pain. A few more
days, keep feeding him said the surgeon. We all agreed. A
decision we would all come to regret.

Because his stomach’s cargo had no other road to
travel, he began to vomit violently. Bring him they
said. A second far more invasive surgery they said.

My sister, rockstar that she is, spent nights with my
father and worked during the day. She runs marathons
you know. I’m pretty sure she could kick my ass.

My sister’s husband, a man I respect, admire and
adore, lost his mother just suddenly enough to be
cruel, barely two months ago.

Yet he came.

My father’s best friend besides his bride of fifty two years, a man who once bit another man’s finger off
in a fight, is a man named Pat. He fretted over my old man like a stoic woman.

His other best friend is a three legged dog he inherited from his oldest grandson. Her name is Billy Jean.

The only thing he fears is anything at all happening
to someone he loves. This shit happening to him now
is Fisher Price. He’s merely waiting it out.

I’ve witnessed his bravery before. All of five foot
six, he’d go after the biggest fucker in the room and
then kick his ass. He’d already lost an eye in a
barfight before I was even born. A concrete
foreman and somewhat of a legend in his local labor
union.

A legend because he’d out work you, out drink
you, maybe kick the shit out of you and then be a
perfect gentleman to your wife.

Both eyes were black for my sister’s wedding photos.

That brand of bravery was foolish, compared to
what I see now.

I am so very grateful for how tough he is. Two
surgeries in the space of a few weeks. The second of
them elaborately invasive. We’re talking opened wide
up and disembowled. Crazy amounts of pain.

He smiles and tells you about the turd he just
dropped.

I am in awe of this man’s courage and life force.

We talked politics in the dark hours before dawn. We
talked about how the better a candidate is, the less
chance he has.

We laughed about how special it was for a father and
son to share the moment of his first post surgical
crap.

My mother. Everyday she tells me, makes an Italian
soda. In a tall glass with an elbow straw, she mixes
ice, sugar free cherry syrup, club soda and Mocha Mix.

I tried it. It was quite good. Tonight I poured a
healthy amount of grenadine in to a diet Pepsi. It’s
working.

Today was his first full day home. I literally slept
all day.

Can’t go down Endmunds or up Nye. Viking is
completely out of the question and so is Lompa. I’m
gonna need to stop in somewhere. Have a nap. See
what’s up. I’m no longer from around here.

Small chunk of a nightmare. Sorry.

I drove the first half. Through the high country
beginning with Topaz Lake, past Mono Lake and over the
Sierras down into Bishop. After that, The Fish drove
and I was able to gawk at the southern end of the
Sierra Mountain Range as it conducted it’s daily
finale with the impossible jaggedness of Mt. Whitney
as the sun sank behind.

I came home to a Christmas Tree where there hadn’t
been one. To a clean house where there had been a
disgusting one. To gifts wrapped in shiny paper. Oh
my.

Sort of an epilogue:

He’s pooping. All systems are go. Sat at the kitchen counter today and watched a little TV. Tam, Todd and the kids came as well as cousins Derek and Marlow. They had Christmas.

The canine tripod named Billy Jean is back. My father’s favorite underdog has returned.

Sometimes I feel like my life will walk away from me
if I let it.

Drinks for my friends.