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We talk politics and religion. Celebrities and ordinary people. He’s friendly and charismatic. A quick smile and eyes that seem easy to read. I can’t help but like this man. We smoke and drink and talk. We tell each other excellent stories.

After a time, Carlo looks at me and says with some gravity, “Let’s us visit my shop, you and I. It’s just round the corner and up the street.” I tell him I’ve suffered an injury to both legs and can’t walk far. I’m conserving energy for my return to the ship, I say.

“I have a car”, he says, “I’ll get you back in time”, he flips open his phone.

Like the movies, an immaculate black Mercedes sedan emerges from around the corner. The sound of it’s slow rolling tires is something I can’t help but exalt. “Wait, bring your drink, get him a refill!”, barks my new friend, Carlo Tarcisi. Once inside the car, our drinks are passed to us through the open windows.

I’m drinking snake bites. Bad idea. Carlo sips from a tumbler of what looks like cold medicine with weeds in it. Who knows? I haven’t ordered or bought a drink since he sat down.

“I’m going to sell you a watch my friend”, we’re in the back seat, charging up a hill. He smiles big. Teeth immaculate.

“A good watch at a good price”, he says.

I don’t feel like I need a watch. I’ve had no success with them. They quit working or I lose them. I like watches. I’ve always admired them. I’m kinda broke, most likely unemployed. I say nothing. This is a bad idea. I look out the window.

Past twilight.

No shit, I’m confused. Some cosmopolitan oddity that I’ve just bonded with on a muddy sidewalk in a third world country wants to take me to his store to sell me a watch? What the fuck?

Flags go up.

How do I get myself into this shit?

Who is this guy?

I look at him and he nods his head while patting his knee. He’s composed but anxious and I don’t know what to make of it.

We get to the place and the driver puts a fedora on his head before stepping around. He opens the door for me, then Carlo.

It’s dark. There’s a single lamp at the end of a long road. It’s a spooky business district that probably evacuates just before sundown. Curbs but no asphalt. Sidewalks but no street. I swear I hear bats.

I cannot afford to succumb to fear. I can’t allow it. It’s dark.

“No worries my friend, you’re safe”, he says, looking me in the eye while he pulls out his keys.

I tell him I’m fine and remember my cane.

My shoes are noisy as fuck. His aren’t.

I’m a little light in the head and breathing hard.

Then.

The shop is a wonder. A storefront on approach, labyrinthian inside.

I see herbs and soaps and salves, potions, lotions and concoctions.

Bird’s eggs, fossils, telescopes, globes, animal fetuses in in backlit jars, glass eyes, pipes, cigarettes, cigars, lighters, maps, watches, real skulls, human bones and tusks. Guns, rusty knives and swords.

Dragon Flies, Wasps, Beetles, Scorpions and Black Widows. All giants.

Masks, odd statues, anatomy books, velvet paintings, pinball machines and an impressive array of gumball dispensers. I smell hot greasy fries and ketchup.

Everywhere I turn there’s something to covet. This place is fucking unbelievable.

Cool paintings. Old posters. Unopended model rockets from the seventies.

Look closer, there’s a beaker pale green and bubbling with a two headed rodent bobbing. Organs floating and churning in red or yellow aqueous.

Old Swamp Thing comics illustrated by Bernie Wrightson in portective mylar.

A popcorn cart.

The more I look, the more I see.

There are live owls in the rafters. Almost completely silent but not at all shy about clocking me. There’s five at least and they never stop shooting beams through me.

You know, owls are fierce predators but the biggest ones weigh a mere few pounds. I could take one out with a badminton racket easy. For five, I’d probably need a bat.

He reaches under a dusty counter for a tray of watches, and I’m dismayed. It just reminds me that I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m confused. Why would this guy bring me here to sell me a fucking watch?

I mean, Carlo Tarcisio has far more going on than selling watches to dipshit drunken tourists with an unexplained handicap. At least in my estimation.

The owls mock me.

I look deliberately at the tray of watches for the first time because I don’t know what else to do. Craftsmanship. Nice watches.

There are maybe a dozen and he goes through them with rapid grace, naming the brand and features, weight and thickness, jewels etc. He smiles while he does this. He’s proud of them and pleased to offer them to me. His hands are fast and old.

I know enough. I’ve admired exclusive watches. Bezel, band, movement, crown, case and crystal. These are gorgeous. They are real. I’m sure.

I tell Carlo that although I literally just got off the boat, I have no money. I apologize to him if I’ve somehow misrepresented myself, allowing him to think I was a man of means and in the market for a luxury timepiece. I am embarrassed and still very confused.

He calls me by my first name, smiles and says, “It’s a gift. Pay with friendship and honesty.”

This starts to confuse me further, so I tell him I’d like to buy him one last drink before I go back to the boat.

The Owls compose a very complex chord.

He beams at me and seems lit from beneath, “I would recommend this one, Swiss movement, light in weight, still detailed in a way that appeals to one or both sides of your brain and you clearly don’t favor gold.”

Just like that and it’s on my wrist.

It is silver and glistening. A black detailed face with a style that doesn’t afford contemporary simplicity any more than a nod. Despite Carlo’s words, it’s heft is still impressive.

He’s given me an authentic and beautiful chronograph for the sum of nothing. I’ve made it clear I have no money to spare.

I remind him I’m good for a drink and he says quickly, “My friend, it is time we get you to your boat.”

He tells me on the way that I wear, “the aura of troubled”. I look in his eyes and tell him I’m haunted and it’s as bad as he can possibly imagine. He looks at his old hands in his lap and says, “I know”.

I knew he knew.

“We made friends today, you and I. We are not finished”, he’s smiling. “You like your new watch?” I tell him it’s fucking awesome. “Wear it to bed”, he says.

We approach the boat and He breaks character to become nearly ferocious when he grabs my collar to say, “Tell no one you’ve met me. Say nothing of it. I will find you tomorrow.”

I barely have time to thank him and I’m hurrying up the plank without knowing why.

Ever seen those electric meat carving knives? My mom had one and could slice up a holiday turkey like a goddamn samurai. Even as a kid I worried a little about that appliance. It disturbed me. I made my peace with it when I realized it was only formidable for the length of the cord.

I guess now they’re available battery operated.

After finally figuring out how to work the fucking lock on the door of my suite, He’s sitting on the end of my bed flicking one on and off. He’s in a pair of tighty whities and the blood from his eyes runs down his chest to stain them.

I back out as soon as I see him. He screams HA, but I can’t tell if it’s angry or amused.

I find a bar, I don’t know what else to do.

In the middle of the ship there’s a glass elevator that starts in the lobby, near the bar where I sit, and goes all the way up. He mocks me from it. Dabbing at his eyes to write my name on the glass with the blood on his fingers. At first he writes it backward. Then he get’s it right and he’s delighted.

I understand this will be a long night.

Looks like I’m all but forced to weigh in on this ugliness yet again. I’m doing so because well, Hillary did so today with all the panic, recklessness and shameless irresponsibility of a desperate woman who again demonstrates a glaring sense of entitlement for our nation’s Presidency.

I’m sure you’re all aware That Senator Obama delivered a compassionate, sincere and very personal disquisition on race in America last week in response to his Reverend’s sermons from the lectern. A speech that was as refreshing in it’s honesty and eloquence as was the absence of a cowardly mea culpa or spineless abandonment of a life long friend.

He took the onus off himself and placed it squarely on us. He did so by talking to us like adults.

I’m compelled to point out; a fair amount of what Reverend Wright said was true.

As she read from a prepared statement in response to a question today, she essentially said she indeed would have walked away from that church and it’s Reverend and followed up with the callow observation that we are free to choose our friends but not our relatives.

I don’t buy this shit for a minute. This, a transparent attempt to draw attention away from a blatant and chronic lie about ducking and hiding from sniper fire in Bosnia, by exploiting racial divisivness in the same breath. The only chance Shrillary has is to keep as many white people from voting for Obama as possible. The most efficient means of course, play the race card.

Hillary, you ingnorant slut.

You continue to disappoint. My own mother mentioned she glimpsed a cut-throat passive aggressiveness in you that she’d only observed in the very worst of her female bosses.

Nevermind that your efforts may ultimately be the Democratic party’s demise in a season that was once filled with possibility, potential and hope. Nevermind how proud and delighted I was to have our very first woman and our very first black man as genuine and viable candidates for the leader of the free world and for the longest time, race and gender were not at issue. Nevermind what you and your husband have done to soil what was shaping up to be a glistening Clinton legacy. Nevermind all of that and more.

Have you no shame? No integrity? Is there a line that you won’t cross in order to clutch that brass ring?

If for no other reason than your own posterity, I implore you to let it fucking go. You are embarrassing us. You are staining this process. You ARE an embarrassment to America.

Take a lesson from your own daughter, who when asked about Monica Lewinsky today, you know the intern that sucked your husbands dick, told the questioner it was none of their business. I would suggest that to be far more appropriate an answer as opposed to your obviously prepared remarks today.

And by the way, for you to allow James Carville’s cheap shot comparison of Governor Richardson to Judas without immediate repudiation is just more of the same. Shame on you. Rovian tactics indeed.

It is largely up to you whether or not this contest becomes a protracted battle in Denver this summer. If you allow that, it most certainly will be at the expense of us all. The time for you to walk away is fast approaching. Do the math.

Drinks for my friends.

No matter the situation, it’s hard to blame anyone who’s had enough.

I’ve seen the solution in my dreams. The beginning of it anyway.

Nobody knows how things end.

He hasn’t been around for awhile. You may think that’s a good thing.

I do not.

The longer he goes missing, the more anxiety I own.

I look for him harder.

It’s been three weeks now and not hide nor hair.

Nothing.

Quiet.

He performs this vanishing conspicuously. He knows what he does and so do I. If I’m not thinking about him, I’m trying to forget him. Either way, he is a monster in my mind’s eye. He sits at a grey metal desk under a bare bulb in the very back room of my dreams. He sits in there and breathes and sucks back drool and there’s fucking boars stinking and squealing.

Right now the door is closed. Not a sound. Like they left. I hate that.

I still can’t walk worth a shit. My knees and ankles are beyond sore. I fall down sometimes because if I don’t, the low note plucked by my leg travels up my spine and leaves me dizzy and sweaty and unable to stand anyway.

His is the opulent lobby to my nightmares. A cancerous entreaty to my darkest place. An invitation I’m unable to resist. I understand that half my my misery is my own responsibility. It always takes two. Do I miss him?

In absentia, he gnaws at me.

I’ve got to get the fuck out of here.

It’s the wrong thing to do but I decide to run.

I book a five day cruise to Ensenada.

Last minute, but with help of William Shatner, I get a pretty good deal.

I buy a nice cane for myself. The handle is a knife.

You’re not supposed to bring booze onboard but I’m successful with a big ass bottle of Maker’s Mark. As soon as we sail, I head down to duty free and pay a buck twenty for a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I feel like whiskey.

I look into renting one of those chairs for the handicapped. I tell them I have sprained achilles tendons. I lean on my cane. I think about flopping. I want one of these fuckers.

Ultimately they give me one, candy apple red, but express their displeasure at my not having reserved one. I tell them it just happened. Pricks.

I hole up in my suite with my knife cane and some righteous hooch. I get myself a good heat on. I play with my knife and cane. I feel armed. Prepared. He won’t follow me this far. He’s forgotten. Haven’t seen him for weeks. I drink more whiskey. I’ve got both bottles open now to compare them but there’s no fucking contest. Um, Johnnie Walker Blue?

I light a cigarette and remember I have a balcony. I can smoke pot and cigarettes on the balcony with a drink and the ocean speeding by.

So I do that. It’s wet out.

I decide to look around.

Night on the boat is windy and rainy. I explore her from stem to stern. Five floors. I leave my chair and use my cane wherever I need to. She is a floating city. Food whenever and wherever you want it. Drunk people everywhere. I’m not interested in talking to anyone. I really just want to observe. The ship is awesome. It’s huge.

I get a snifter of good cognac and step out on the bow. It’s beyond some theater and down some stairs. Completely dark save for a veiled moon. I say a toast my rabbit Watership. My tears mingle with the rain and are taken by the wind. I throw the glass into the sea.

I’m glad no one can see me climbing these stairs. I am fucked up.

Back to my suite I order room service.

A grilled cheese sandwich. I hope the sandwich has an impaled olive and a pickle on a toothpick cause that’s what I picture. I kinda wake up when she asks if there’s anything else and I say, chicken nuggets, a side of bacon and some chocolate milk.

I watch an interesting program on the ships engines.

I remember answering the door and smelling the food. I’m not sure if it was the boat or me but gravity was a motherfucker. I know I was still dressed.

Black olives stabbed through the sandwich with a green plastic sword. Cool.

I wake up kinda slow. The ship isn’t moving. I look out the window at what must me Ensenada. I go outside to smoke to make myself puke so I can get that over with. It’s a nice view.

On my walk back in, a humid and cloying cloud of whiskey does the trick. All I’ve got is bile and it emerges with violence as does the snot from my nose. I’m used to it. I’ll rehydrate and get some protein and a little fiber. Some grease.

No sign of him the first night.

I’m on my first Gin Mary by twelve thirty. Haven’t eaten shit. It’s overcast and a little drizzly but warm in the tourist section of Ensenada. Strange place. Stray from the obvious path and it gets weird in a hurry. Flies on meat and shoeless kids selling chiclets.

I left the chair behind. My legs are killing me until I find a place to sit but I look around and see that it would have been an embarrassing clusterfuck in that chair.

I can’t help but pay attention to how heels click on the muddy sidewalks.

When in doubt, wear boots. I did.

There’s a man who’s feet make no sound although his shoes appear ordinary enough. He strides with an umberella as a walking stick and I’m sure he’s not an American.

He wears a trenchcoat and his hands are very old. He wears a simple ruby in a gold band on his right middle finger. His suit underneath the coat is the color of vanilla ice cream.

Both pant legs clean, even the cuffs.

I see him walking across the street. Again and again. Back and forth. He has Colonel Sanders facial hair yet his face is very young. Hardly any lines at all.

I’m nursing the mother of all dumbovers.

Eventually he makes eye contact and acknowledges me though I can’t say he smiled or anything.

Within just a few minutes, he’s at my table extending his hand and asking to join me. Despite the weather it is crowded. I invite him to sit. He says his name is Carlo Tarcisio. I wonder if that’s Northern Italy. I can’t tell by looking at him.

I tell him my first name.

After the very third drink, I forget all the rules. What time thew boat leaves etc.

The ring on his finger constantly sounds the same note against his glass.

Carlo doesn’t mind buying and we seem to be hitting it off. I barely think about the boat and how hard it’ll be to get back on two half useless legs while shithammered. When my mind does wander there, I feel like dropping a deuce, so I table the notion for further examination once I’m back on the boat.

I dream of a knife. It’s not the first time. The hilt is steel. The blade is hollow glass. Inside is a liquid. It looks like absinthe.

Our man Obama’s been getting the shit kicked out of him this week. It’s been anything but pretty. Anything but fair.

Finally, CNN takes it upon itself to provide a more thorough context to the sermons by Reverend Wright they’ve bludgeoned us with all week ’til we’re torsos with tubes sticking out the tops of our necks. Turns out, he makes a little more sense than we’ve been allowed to glimpse thus far. Big suprise.

If you think injustice doesn’t exist in this country you’re an idiot and probably a racist. Just reminding you to think about a walk in his shoes.

But you already knew that.

You’re aware, if you read me regularly, that I’ve no patience for this kind of crap. I vehemntly object to events of this nature being injected into my politics. Not by a long shot do the least of my reasons include the conviction that religion has no place in a any political contest under any circumstances ever. I’m more than confident that any of the candidates are vulnerable and easily impugned based on something as inconsequential as who their goddamn pastor is and what he or she has to say.

In the instance of McCain, our little bootlicker, can you say John Hagee? If Hagee isn’t an evangelical whack job, I’ve never even smelled one. I know I have, because they stink like rotting flesh. This guy Hagee is a human shitsmear.

Hot on the heels of that, is race. The eight hundred pound gorilla that our obsequious and recalcitrant mainstream media refuses to stop reaching for the backs of our necks in order to get us to stare at. Once again, an issue that deserves no purchase whatsoever in this contest.

Doubtfire even considered an invitation to speak at Bob Jones University and endorsed a white supremacist running for Lt. Governor of Alabama, George Wallace Jr. in ’05.

See what I’m saying?

Today, Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, former Presidential candidate and Clinton machine consort as well as Democratic super delegate, endorsed our man Obama.

He said:
“Senator Barack Obama addressed the issue of race with the eloquence and sincerity and decency and optimism we have come to expect of him,” he said. “He did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths. Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility.” -NYT

“The reaction of some of Bill Clinton’s allies suggests that might have been a wise decision. “An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Hillary Clinton.” -Austin Statesman

Whatever the eventual fallout, Mr. Richardson has effectively locked the door behind him on the idea of running with Hills. I’m gonna go ahead and look at that as brave and wise. He knew he was on the short list for assistant manager.

There is a chance that the fever has broken.

Forgive me, but I’m here to urge you once again to move on from this collision of toddlers on tricycles. There’s really nothing to see. Don’t mistake the ruptured ketchup pillows for blood. It’s the twenty first century, they all wear helmets.

Move along.

Drinks for my friends.

Oh my.

No fierce and fiery delivery today.

It begins with a brief history of race in America. Not at all didactic. It is conversational and sincere. Very real.

He talks about himself. His family and heritage. I am moved.

He is brilliant. He runs at it head on. Brave and with dignity.

He does what he needs to to do and he does relish doing it.

An extraordinarily courageous piece of work. We’ll most likely watch it for decades.

David Gergen called it the best speech of the campaign.

He speaks of Reverend Wright as being not part of the big picture and he’s right. The man is not perfect. He disagrees with him. He tells us that he knows far more of the man than those endless fifteen second soundbites.

Five goddamn days of this shite.

It’s magnificently ridiculous. What exactly are you people doing? The American media is an embarrassing stain. Let it go you fucking fucks. Stop. Knock it the fuck off. What Geraldine Ferraro said is far worse than anything this guy had to say.

Most of what I’ve heard him say is ugly but true. You guys scared of ugly but true?

Look at me. It’s not like Reverend Wright is lying. We are ruled by rich white people who don’t give a mad fuck about anyone else. Most black people know this. White people need to wake and smell the goddamn flesh burning.

He talks about his church, the noise and the peace. The flaws.

He points out that this man married he and his wife, and baptized his two children. He has no intention of walking away from the man and we should all put his remarks in the context of the life he’s lived as opposed to our own experience. Reverend Wright lived a life of humiliation, doubt and fear. Of anger and bitterness. The agony of generations of defeat.

He tells us that we cannot hope to walk a mile in this man’s shoes.

He points out the dangers of both black and white dogma.

His message is honest. It is eloquent.

He speaks the truth. It’s beauty is simple

I cannot tell you. Perhaps you should watch it.

Forgive me, still figuring out the links thing. Cut and paste bitches.

Drinks for my friends.

Like somebody snapped their fingers, I’m awake at one thirty seven a.m. He’s been here. I smell the pigs. Their breath and sweat. Raw intelligence. The steam of their violence.

Ice trays filled. Toilet paper on the roll. I don’t need to check.

A gob of pungent semen on my pillow and on my cheek.

Fuck!

I can’t fucking stand it. I really can’t fucking stand this.

I throw the bloody linens in the laundry with bleach in a gust of disgust and escape to my shower. The water is as hot as I can stand it, shocking the gash in my face when I step in front of it. My split plumb. Reflex, I lower my head. Blood pools at my feet. It’s coming from my face, but also from just above my knees. Something is carved into the flesh above each knee cap, underneath the meat of the thigh.

I can’t make it out. The blood and water simultaneous, make it impossible.

Still faded, this development makes me dizzy. I grab the nozzle with both hands so I don’t go down.

People say their lives are a nightmare, they have no idea.

Where do I go? Who do I tell?

The only blood around here is mine. A white plastic pawn with my hands all over it. I’ve just poured bleach on his DNA. Random and surreal but I’m losing my breath. I can’t breathe. Crazy. No police.

Can’t even picture that.

Man, I miss the good doctor Wednesdays at ten thirty. I doubt I could tell her. Either way she’d think I’m full blown dancing with myself.

I mean, maybe I am.

I’m not sure.

After that? Paranormal services like Ghost Busters? An exorcist?

See? How fucked I am?

Where would you go? Who would you tell? Tell me.

The carvings in my legs have numbed parts of my ankles and calves. I begin to let go of the nozzle and seem to be able to support my weight. I wonder how I’ll walk.

I soap and wash, over and over with one hand on the nozzle at all times.

I’m a senior citizen getting out of the shower.

Yer pretty fucking ambulatory!, I shout at myself in the mirror. My feet feel funny. Like I’m floating but literally tripping on them across the bathroom floor.

I begin to understand. Both my achilles tendons. They’re kinda numb. They still work, but I’m walking like a drunk with broken toes. He didn’t slash the actual tendons because he wants me mobile. I don’t kid myself that he could have.

Then there’s the symbolism of that particular tendon. Achilles. Greek Trojan war icon.

I understand that this insane liquid oxygen rocket fueled poltergeist has me on fucking defrost. He’s just playing. I’m his Sunday stroll. I wonder how many others he doing this to or has done it to.

I trip around the bed, putting on fresh linens.

I can’t wait to get to the office in the morning. I may have to pass on that. Whether I show or not, no good can come of it, they’re all so close to done with me.

An Ace and a Club, the two black suits. On my knees. Lotion stops the bleeding long enough to see.

Clearly, the Bible is a period piece, but I can’t help thinking about finding some creepy old cleric or maybe a shaman. What I’m up against here is light years beyond the archetypical antagonist.

For the twentieth time I tell myself I have no choice but to be his doom.

I have no choice. No other option. No other possibility.

No one one can end this but me.

The thought brings fear and frustration.

Just how the fuck am I gonna do this?

I’ve been thinking about a crossbow. Grenades. A shotgun.

Anybody know a white wizard?

They just refuse to release this limb of racism they’ve finally managed to sink their rotting canines into. The gaping, stinking maw of a vociferous and audacious media.

Here it is. Full frontal racism. They couldn’t wait to give us what they want. They warmed us up with Geraldine and Samantha Powers and Farrakhan. So now, with intrepid glee and gore, they serve it up. It’s disgusting.

I tend to favor CNN, at least over other mainstream news sources, and Anderson Cooper in particular. I imbibe because as a news network, it seems to attempt to not exclude the middle. After watching tonight however, I doubt I’d pass on an opportunity to deposit crap in Mr. Coopers mouth, if only to remind him that shit does come out of it on occassion.

This is so fucked up. I can find a racist friend or uncle in every white person’s circle despite the size of their hearts. I know them. I’ve spent time with them. They have broken bread with us. With my family. It’s no less ugly because they are loved and otherwise good people. Often they are an unfortunate product of indoctrination. My point is, you’re a goddamn fool if you think such disfigured dogma is exclusive to any race or skin pigmentation.

Allow this point; who among us cannot forgive any black man or woman, they having been on the recieving end of evil for centuries, to embrace a similiar set of beliefs and convictions? Victimisation to one degree or another is part of the culture. They didn’t make it that way. There is tons of horrifying ugliness there. Lynchings, burnings and profound humiliation.

The cliche about walking in a man’s shoes definitely applies.

For the better part of modern history, it has sucked to be black. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is older than most of us and I’m sure has had a far more brutal experience with events than most of us.

I said this in a previous blog on this subject:

“We all, regardless of race or gender, have our own issues with race and gender. I’m no fool. I believe the idea is to recognize them and endeavor to change them. Being accountable for your own sets of bias or prejudice should be the beginning of humility.”

How long will it be, what will it take, for us as Americans to rise above this archaic nonsense? I’m starting to wonder and it’s pissing me off.

You know what I think? I think church and organized religion is as stupid and at least as dangerous as racism. Yet, as an agnostic, I suffer these dipshits in every aspect of my life everygoddamnday. Still, I have genuine affection for a great many of them.

Of course, like the foolish Americans we are, we cannot reisist the comingling of religion and politics. Church and State. It is here that we tumble head first down the stairs. So many of us play along but then we all fall down. It’s always embarrassing.

Issues kids. Stick to the issues. Hint. These are not issues. Work with me here. Issues are about policy and ethics, all the rest is an attempt to moralize and that’s not where this campaign belongs and neither do we.

Don’t get distracted by this shiny shallow thing.

Drinks for my friends.

Seven days a week. I know all of their faces if not their names. Some look at me with questions, a few with some concern. Long story, my hand up every time I say it. I take my iced venti drip, dump a little, glug half & half into it, stir it with the straw and leave.

$2.65

I sweat in the car and the air conditioner feels like a hose on my face.

At work I stop to put my briefcase and coffee in my office and head down the hall to greet the boss.

I’m self conscious. I begin to sweat and my face throbs. I own that I look like a pile of shit.

You wanna shut the door? He says. He’s alarmed, his eyebrows are up, friendly and neutral.

Nope. I actually fell down the goddamn stairs, I say. I was hammered, I say. I look at him embarrassed because I am. The stairs to my parking garage, I say.

My nose feels like a sliced plum as he stairs at it. I try to breathe quietly through my mouth. It’s not really working.

Sweet Jesus, he says. That’s gotta hurt like a bastard.

It does, I tell him. I tell him if I tear up it’s because it smarts and it’s not because my vagina hurts. He laughs but he’s still looking at me.

His nose barely wrinkles and I understand he knows I’m bullshitting him. It sucks.

I drop with care in my chair, it squeaks like a riot of cats in a sack, turn the computer on, grab the reciever and realize that even the phone against my face is fucking killing me.

They all do the double take when they pass my office.

Mattie’s office is across from mine and he can’t stand it. By lunch he’ll have his angle. He’s six four with a fauxhawk but today I will kill him. I feel fucking mean. Nothing to lose. I will beat him to death with the goddamn fax machine. I picture it and crack a smile. My face hurts so bad tears well up.

The morning is pain and humiliation. No one has really liked me for awhile. They’re all confused and afraid. I can’t blame them. I’ve been confrontational and antisocial for months. Today I show up with my face split open. Like that works.

Put yourself in my shoes. How do you even begin the conversation? We’re pretty close, all of us. But I don’t even hope to tell any of them the truth. This shit is crazy and that’s all they’ll get from me if I open my mouth. They’ll come away thinking I’ve lost my shit. I hate it, but it’s true.

Lunch is cool. Mattie has decided to forego the canyon in my face as a topic. After the first few minutes, I understand this and I’m grateful.

Not cool though. Everyone uncomfortable. Best friends and coworkers are beside themselves because of me. They try to include me in conversation, but look at me with cloudy revulsion and confusion. They have no idea what to make of me and there’s nothing I can say that will put them at ease.

I’m a fucking mess that keeps getting worse in all eyes.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this.

I want to scream that you people have layed awake worrying about how to pay a vendor, while I’ve been fistfighting a fucking demon every night. His eyes bleed and he drools. Fuck me, that’s not the half of it.

Then I go home.

To sleep.

To dream.

I get drunk first. On good gin.

I realize that my flat plasma throws heat because I feel it on my nose.

I go to bed.

I reach to turn off the lamp and on the nightstand, a white plastic pawn.

I’m so tired.

Fuck me. The sheer indignance for her to suggest she’s being persecuted for her remarks because she’s white is astounding.

“Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?” -Geraldine Ferraro

You have got be fucking kidding me.

They’re attacking you because you’re a stupid bitch.

Geraldine Ferraro has without reservation or mitigation stepped into a flaming pile of shit. World Class Stupid. To not apologize or even attempt to show remorse for the way her words have even been percieved, is really fucking dumb. Barack Obama is “lucky” to be black, and that he would not be where he is today “if he were a white man” or “a woman.” These words coming from the first ever female candidate for Vice President of the United States.

Irresponsibly incincendiary and egregiously thoughtless. It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that Shrillary attempted to make meat and potatos of Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement of our man Obama. An event that he handled gracefully and with aplomb on live television.

Shame on you Hillary, for allowing this brand of aspersion to glimpse another news cycle without anything but resounding denouncement. After you, without hesitation, condemn tactics by your opponent as being out of the dirty politics of Karl Rove’s playbook not long ago, over criticism of your health care plan.

Baby, you’re starting to really suck. As much as your husband embarrassed you, you have become a desperate humiliation to his legacy. Keep reaching down instead of up and you will find both hands empty as a result of your tragic willingness to squander.

I used to like you. You have become as transparent as a cellophane wrapper over the head of an asphyxiated toddler. That’s pretty rough, I know. What I’m trying to say here is that the blue toddler is a metaphor for hope. Yeah, that smacks of pollyanna. Fucking sue me.

We as a nation are actually responding to hope. It’s gorgeous.

On the other hand, I can’t stand what’s going on here.

We all, regardless of race or gender, have our own issues with race and gender. I’m no fool. I believe the idea is to recognize them and endeavor to change them. Being accountable for your own sets of bias or prejudice should be the beginning of humility.

I guess that doesn’t happen to everybody.

Geraldine Ferraro should go blow Elliot Spitzer.

Drinks for my friends.

My first reaction, who cares?

He may be bright and driven, but I doubt many women see him as a looker. Muted nasal trumpet honk, jug ears and male pattern baldness.

He can afford to indulge himself. He’s smart enough to know that contemporary evidence points to just one time around. So be it.

He chooses the long way home. It looks like he sucked at it. When the feds know all about you and you’re a former AG, you might be stupid.

Then, there is his wife standing beside him today. That poor woman.

Then there is the hypocrisy.

He portrayed himself as a moral and ethical crusader. Mixing morals and ethics is a path for fools.

What the man has done to his wife and family is not our business. It is sad. There is betrayal here, but it is not our business. Leave it be. It is a tragedy that should remain private.

The early word is that this guy is done. Fair enough. For his hubris in throwing stones while residing in a glass house.

I hope you have enough sense to go away Mr. Spitzer. I hope you can pick up some pieces. I hope you don’t drag your wife on stage again. That was pathetic.

If there is any truth to what they say, and I believe there is because of your brief remarks today, don’t hesitate. Just do everyone a favor and walk.

Drinks for my friends.

So this idiot Republican congressman, Steve King, shows up on local Iowa radio yesterday to talk about how fair it is to make a big deal out of our man Obama’s middle name. Next thing you know, old Jed’s a millionaire. It goes national. CNN’s foulest morsel so far tonight.

Allright, to begin with, this guy’s a fucktardian douchebag. He’s a congressional representative from the fifth district of Iowa. It is among the most Republican voting districts in the country. The Family Research Council adores this prick. He is one very scary white man. By the way, he was unable to pronounce the word ‘Islamist’ on national television.

” DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa Republican congressman said Friday that terrorists would be “dancing in the streets” if Democratic candidate Barack Obama were to win the presidency. Rep. Steve King based his prediction on Obama’s pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, his Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein.

“The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror,” King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer.”

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Man, I hate these fuckers.

I want to debate this idiot. Somebody tell him that I’ll fly to Iowa and appear live on the radio with him. It’s a fair bet he’s friendly with the penis of Newt. Wikepedia tells me he’s a fan of McCarthy. This is why I want to debate him. It would be like inviting evangelicals or Jehova’s Witnesses into my home after they’ve rung the bell. It’s fair because if you knock, I get to say my piece too.

I have lots to say.

I’m pretty sure I can make this guy cry in front of his friends.

I’m just so offended by every angle of this thing. It’s not newsworthy. It’s relevance is singularly incendiary. And yes, Iowa’s cup runneth over with jackasses. What’s new pussycat?

Forgive me, but sometimes it’s hard to be confronted with facts like these. Facts like these people do exist. Facts like they are the consumate product of fear mongering and as such, they see their duty as to spread that fear.

These facts depress me. These facts discourage me. Ultimately, these facts piss me the fuck off.

So this guy, Steve King, is a human shitsmear. The scariest part is this. He probably believes, with ignorant frightened intensity, everything he spews.

What an asshole.

Drinks for my friends.

I open my eyes and there he is. He chuckles softly and sucks back some drool. He holds out a cheap plastic chess pawn. I can’t help but take it.

I see he’s wearing overalls with players from Hee Haw all over them. Buck Owens. Roy Clark. Minnie Pearl. Big titty country blonds.

With the same hand he punches me hard in the center of my face.

Whoohooooo! Where you been boy!?

My nose is erupting. Gotta breathe through my fucking mouth.

I kick as hard with my right heel as I can and actually land on solid meat underneath his pigeon fucking sternum. The smack sounds wet.

I may have his attention.

I’ve no fucking idea.

His pigs squeal a cacophony of lust. They smell my blood and think they can taste it. Dark and greasy tonight with red eyes and they scare me bad. They adore the violence about to occur.

I’m spooked enough to shit myself, I can’t help it. I shit myself.

He comes back to the bed and He’s pissed and confused. I swing hard at his facefull of tombstones.

Big mistake. His teeth lacerate my right fist, the venom they wear stings and infects me.

Twice though, I’ve knocked him back. Real flesh. Meat and teeth.

I think about the lumber on the other side of the bed.

I’m on my back in my own shit and I can smell it.

My fucking hand is throbbing.

Then I think, I want to live somewhere else. In the midwest. A small town next to a big town. I can’t help but imagine this. Not far from St. Louis I guess. Some place different. Maybe Portland. I see a window box filled with bright tulips outside a brick apartment on a city street under a very blue sky.

A cart full of flowers in all colors passes.

He’s bouncing around my bed. Crashing around my bedroom. He’s giggling. He twirls into the bathroom and spins the toilet paper roll. He says, Fuckin A. Over and over.

He moves to the kitchen counting in 3/4, pirouettes along the way. He’s humming a polka as he opens the freezer.

He slides the ice trays out one by one and ends every fourth bar with an Uh Huh. It’s three syllables. The same way The Romantics woould sing it.

The door clicks behind him and I hear his key turning the lock.

I’m so very tired but I’m screaming at myself to remember to understand something.

He pulled the sheet to my neck before he left. Sticky with my blood.

My right hand is screeching at me.

I wake up with the pawn in my right fist.

I crap you negative cowboy.

Florida and Michigan.

It was the Florida Republican leadership, executive and legislative branches, that advanced the polling date, rendering the Democratic primary a zero sum beauty contest.

Charlie Crist, Governor of Florida, is a pretty and pointy charismatic scumbag.

He pines on network TV that this is democracy in action and the way it should be, despite the rules of his own fucking party. He’s a frat boy Methodist. I don’t like this guy and he’s bucking for assistant manager under Doubtfire. He’s all grey too.

I will tell you this. Not a single delegate should have a chair in Denver unless there’s been a thorough and rigorous re-polling of every willing voter in both states.

This whole Super Delegate thing has got me spooked. Talk about a potential firewall against public opinion. It’s the mini-me of the electoral college.

No more unaccountable delegates, no more goddamn loose nukes.

Anybody see a pattern here? Again with fucking Florida.

Both states a compelling mix of crackers, bigots, rednecks, racists and I hope a significant ballast of good people, directed by common sense and not too susceptible to hysteria. I hope.

I’m shining a light on it. The fuckery has begun and it threatens the natives of both states with a pyroclastic flow. I’m kinda hoping since this isn’t their first rodeo, they can hold on a little better this time. A little longer. Maybe they’ll do more than breathe through their mouths and watch.

We’ll see. I refuse to hold my breath.

One thing is for sure.

Fuckery has commenced.

Drinks for my friends.

Absolutely nuts that the birth of this nation condoned the ownership, exploitation and abuse of men, women and children.

How do we explain that?

Ignorance among people unable to think for themselves?

Nope, not entirely. Economics. The filthy fucking lucre. Slaves were the economic engine that drove this country into the nineteeth century. Slaves. Slaves harvesting tobacco and cotton.

Revisionist history would have us believe that our nation was rent asunder over this practice a mere century later. Not entirely true.

Again, there were prevailing economic issues as well.

Slavery was the root and the rot but not the flag.

The enslavement of humans was the moral imperative. As long as one believed that those of a darker pigmentation were somehow inherently inferior and ought to be supine, well then, we had a difference seperating us worth killing for.

That, and all the jobs were going north.

There were a lot more stupid rednecks back then.

Crazy. We killed over a half a million of ourselves.

There were heros on both sides.

Even though right and wrong were as clear as black and white, pun, forcefully intended, that ridiculous fucking flag lives on. That, Confederate flag.

Then we commenced killing natives and every goddamn buffalo we saw. Another story, probably just as bad, but we killed most of them so you don’t hear much about it.

We give them casinos now.

Can I tell you what I think happened last night?

Texans figured they had more stomach for a white woman than a black man. I can’t help but believe the same happened in Ohio.

And there we are.

He took cities, she took counties. Forgive me, but it was the rednecks versus the um, informed.

I realize how thin the ice is underneath me.

I’ve always felt that catering to the rural vote is tactically arduous but strategically simple. That is where Billary went, because they had to. She saw her own hide start to smoke and she got on with it.

That is where our man Obama went too. Same idea, opposite direction. He went to the cities. Sights set too low, perhaps as a result of a campaign not used to being flush with cash. A mistake.

What they may have done here by accident, is begin down a path that is as much about a white woman against a black man as it is about anything else.

They have begun to divide.

Not yet guilty, both poised to make matters worse if they’re not careful.

I do think that’s what happened.

I think it sucks.

Drinks for my friends.

He believes the earth is a mere five thousand or so years old. Despite that, he’s a pretty classy whack job. There’s something I like about his wife. She’s not attractive in the traditional sense, but I like how she looks at him as she stands quietly just a little over his shoulder. There is the fact that he’s a musician. I like musicians.

Huckabee.

Obviously, Doubtfire has finally wrested Republican gravity from the worlds most charismatic Southern Baptist. Not so long ago, considerably less than a foregone conclusion. Interesting yet, the voluptuous Red diva has commenced to warble in tune.

Doubtfire, our little Bootlicker, would be king.

He speaks. Terrorism. Duh. I’m screeching. Douchebaggery compels me like the power of Christ. He speaks to honor, when we have lost it. He references a swift conclusion in Iraq, when he’s been quoted suggesting one hundred years may not be too long. He speaks as though a more equitable trade policy in the face of a new world economy is somehow xenophobic. He pledges better access to health care for “some” Americans. Not a bad speech though. I guess. Whatever.

Nope. I don’t really mean that. His audience is laconic. There seems to be an abundance of seniors. When he’s done, we hear Johnny Be Good. Sheeezus. Grand OLD Party you fucking A.

I can’t help but pity him and I’m not entirely comfortable with that.

Hills takes Rhode Island and she’s one for twelve. No offense to it’s fine citizens, but I’ve got hemorrhoids that occupy more real estate. I’ve got one grape of ass that has an actual Super Delegate. Try not to think of me differently.

The evening darkens for our man Obama, although he siezes Vermont. Official brainspank forecast for Ohio goes to Hills at 7:10 pacific standard. It’s a dead fucking heat in Texas.

“I told her, never in hell, no special reason.
Must a lied ’cause I ain’t leavin’.
We’re in for a very long night.” -Van Halen “Romeo Delight”

“Got one foot out the door
Tryin’ to hit the road
Ain’t no match for your mean old man
I think it’s time to roll” -Van Halen “One Foot Out The Door”

I think it’s time to walk away for a bit. I just can’t stand it.

7:59, CNN projects Hills gets the king in Ohio. They’re a little behind.

Not exactly a Phoenix from an ash heap but fuck me in the neck, I’m a little frustrated by the margin.

The talking heads on CNN are lead by Lou Dobbs and I guess I’ve been distracted because this Canadian/NAFTA flap is a bigger conflagration than I knew.

Whatever happens, this has been one speed demon of a of a whiplash of a political contest.

Holy shit, watch the tail on that thing.

She speaks and gloats with grace but I still don’t believe her.

She postures like it’s incumbent on whomever wants to win this contest, they must engage the little Bootlicker. She swings hard to shift the direction and tone of this dialog and the field it’s played on. She seeks to marginalize Obama by engaging Doubtfire.

Nice move Grasshopper.

It’s bold and will resonate. At what frequency, we shall see.

This whole “Yes We Will” sloganeering makes me want to puke. They Borg Obama. They’re assimilating his message. “Yes We Can”. Hopes and dreams etc. Barely a week ago she mocked his optimism.

This tactic gives me pause because it’s working. The Clintons are infamous for packing switchblades.

If he’s smart he will fire back.

Next, our man Obama speaks in Texas. He orates. He does. He goes right after Doubtfire. This man is so sharp. Pairs him with Hills and then wipes them both from his hands. The world and what will we show them? He turns the microscope back to you and me and reminds us that the world is watching. It is a subtle and profound sentiment folded inside powerful words.

He is literally as good as it gets.

He is why I watch.

His point and message, far above hers. Even when he loses, he somehow doesn’t.

More fun to watch when he loses.

HA!

I kinda don’t care what he or his people said to Canada. Canada isn’t a problem in the scheme of things.

See what I’m saying?

And we wait for Texas.

It’s an archaic process in a state that I sometimes think should secede and be it’s own goddamn country for the sake of us all. Two thirds of delegates awarded based on the popular vote and one third delivered by caucus.

I mean, fer fucks sake. Kinda makes the electoral college look a little less sinister.

I may have to wait for the paper.

Word to Obama. It’s the economy stupid.

I’m out.

Drinks for my friends.

She smiles too much.

It was Hills, not Shrillary on Stewart tonight.

From the latest issue of Hustler Magazine in the bathroom on the left at work, Larry Flynt calls for civil war. Maybe he means civil disobedience, I’m not sure.

Anyway, Stewart did allright.

I’ve just either had a millisecond long flashback, or my Mac just took my fucking picture. Weird. Yes, it has a camera in it.

Sorry. Stewart flirted with shades of purple in terms of obsequiousness. Ass to mouth? Yes. Copious rimming? No. A complete absence of tongue. He was deferential.

There’s a literary term I think I first picked up from Stephen King. Suspension of disbelief. It refers to the willingness of the reader to forget he or she is reading a story. Or watching a movie, etc.

Hills has none of that. I’m not here to impugn her patriotism or sincerity in wanting to do some good in America. I’m saying I don’t believe her smile, her laugh or her anger. I don’t buy it. It wreaks of calculation.

Where is Triumph The Insult Dog when you need him?

I admit, it’s from the gut. In a venue that deserves more attention from my head. I can’t help it though, there is something very very wrong about that woman. Maybe it’s as simple as all defense shields set on full.

This from yours truly, who could at least go platonically gay for our first black President, William Jefferson Clinton. Every time I hear that, it sounds more retarded.

Doubtfire will have his wrinkled and puckered ass served to him on one of those flimsy paper plates with an already bent spork. Were he to be elected, I’m positive his heart would explode in his chest like a fruit pie dropped from a parking structure before his first term begins to flop like a fish that mistook Georgia asphalt in the summer for a cool pond in the shade.

Sorry about that. I get to entertain myself at the same time.

Tomorrow night might just be the most compelling night in the history of televised politics.

Drinks for my friends.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/04/arts/Clinton-Stewart.php

He slips inside. The key is smooth, the knob twists. He enters and shuts the door behind, very quiet.

He throws the bolt.

I see it in my head. The bolt.

I smell lamb and garlic.

Then I breathe shit. Overwhelming. No air in these fumes. He smells homeless. He smells like piss and puke and shit and sweat. It’s a stench so monstorous.

I gag.

I’ll retch. I’m sure.

I hear him begin to fill the empty ice trays on the counter. He turns the faucet off after the first one and he whispers….. too full. Very slowly he poors a thin stream into the sink.

He moves to the bathroom.

I see the spring loaded roll snap into place as I hear it.

My eyes are crusted. He’s rolling away from me. Out of my bed.

Crusty eyes and blurry vision.

Out of my bed.

What?

The front door closes.

My rabbit is dead.

His name was Watership and I adored him.

He’s been sprayed on the walls of my apartment.

His skin is on the floor. The carpet. Ears and all. He was my boy. His velvet nose.

He slept in his cage at night. His water bottle smashed on the marble mantle. He was so sweet and docile. Above the fireplace is a crude scrawl in his blood. It looks Japanese.

I think of that song by The Vapors.

There is fur in the wire around the door of his cage, he liked his cage, he came and went willingly, so I undersand he struggled violently.

He was soft and cocoa brown. His eyes were kind and he shuffled to rub his face on me.

Ever heard a rabbit scream? I have. Sounds like a baby human.

I break all the way down. Collapse. Fold. Fall. Lose it.

I scrape his remains.

Thoroughly. I collect them, all I can get or lift, and deposit them in a ceramic pot I made in grade school.

I don’t know what to do with bowl so I cover it in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. I’m disgusted by it but it’s all I have.

His name was Watership, I adored him.

As I sit here, I miss him. He was innocence.

There’s a big piece of lumber always propped against the wall by my trash chute. It’s handy for forcing fat bags of trash down the maw. It looks vaguely nautical, like it should be on a medium sized sailboat. It’s been here for the two years I’ve been here.

I take it with me. Back to my apartment.

Hours after dawn and I still smell his fucking pigs.

I will wait forever for him.

He is fucked.

I’m not sure what he is. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill him.

I’m kinda loathe to piggy back on issues raised by journalists or pundits. I’m making an exception because tonight I was reminded of something that really chaps my ass.

Tonight, Bill Maher raised an issue relevant, for it’s irrelevancy; steroids in baseball.

I just don’t give a mad fuck.

But.

Since when are performance enhancing drugs somehow the provenance of our elected officials in the House of Representatives? Jurisdiction notwithstanding, how could it possibly be a priority?

Hello? DEA?

Of all the people who have stood in front of congress and lied, refused to answer or flat out refused to even be questioned under oath, Darth Cheney and Dumbya included, how on earth can the insouciant persecution and indictment of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens be justified or somehow in our best interest as a nation at war?

Congress seeks to convict these mere entertainers, of perjury.

Yes, they lied to you.

Everybody lies to you.

All the sudden you care?

About this?

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Of all the people who’ve stood before them and lied, and they knew they were being lied to, The American Congress, the cream of our legislative crop, chooses an attempt to make an example of Major League Baseball players.

I say attempt, because how much you wanna bet that they come up with a shit sandwich?

Every time these asschimps whack off or take a bribe they either get caught or everyone knows about it. They are Keystone Cops in fast motion with that whacky Benny Hill music.

By the way, Barry Bonds is an asshole replete and Roger Clemens is one sorry lilly livered loose lipped motherfucking lip licking cashier. Douchebags both. Baseball is stupid.

Sometimes I can’t stand it.

Drinks for my friends.