Archive for January, 2009

There is mad potential to read any given face. Much to be learned by countenance and demeanor. The younger you are, the fewer arrows in your quiver, fewer bullets spent, less likely you have any idea who you are. Less to know from your face.

The older the face, the more there is to see.

Beyond all that, I’m confident the human face is relatable, despite the plethora of bias and prejudice we are consistently shithammered with by institutions of religion, politics, racism, bigotry and media. An elaborate but clumsily orchestrated indoctrination that is visible on all our faces by the time we reach forty years of age. Not just America. Any “civilized” country in the world.

That sort of assault leaves scars.

Yup. Always.

There are times I’m able to see behind people’s eyes. I always look to an eye when I’m talking with someone. The trick is to pick one and focus on it. Otherwise, the other person sees you searching back and forth and that’s never going to work in your favor. It’s also your best shot at catching a glimpse.

I was downtown in the jewelry district today, trying to seal a deal for a fellow agent. I brought papers for a man to sign and he kept lowering his eyes, almost intently staring at my throat or chest when he spoke.

Disconcerting.

I began to understand the deal was unlikely to get done this day. He had legitimate points and concerns and I was unfamiliar with the history and specifics. His reluctance to look me in the eye, particularly as he spoke to me, allowed me to see this. I’m not one to aggressively negotiate when I don’t have all the facts ma’am. I might do more harm than good.

I couldn’t help but wonder what I was doing there.

I fell back to friendly and conciliatory. Assuring and soothing. I made sure he knew his agent would eliminate all wrinkles before moving forward and left the paperwork with him after seeing he had a fax machine.

I talked peripherally. Since Christmas I’ve been carrying appraisal and gem certification documents for an engagement ring I bought in my man purse. I asked his opinion on this ring I bought some seven years ago. He was happy to help. He began to look me in the eye.

He showed me actual wholesale price sheets detailing current rates for a stone similiar in color and clarity to mine broken down by carat weight. He confessed there were newer price sheets, his were well worn. It may be worth more. We parted friends and he gave me his card letting me know he’d be happy to introduce me to the right person were I to decide to sell the stone. He shook my hand and patted me on the back as I left.

I’d done my best. I went in search of a greasy hot dog to tick up my countdown to angioplasty, preferably from a street vendor. Grilled onions, mustard and some lemonade. Looking for the real deal and I found it. Three or four blocks down Broadway under a red and blue umberella. Plenty of napkins. I ate it on a bus bench. Stayed and had a smoke after, while I watched the people.

The afternoon shadows imposed by towering spires were epic. A static parade and a moveable feast.

What I saw in their faces was astonishing. Not so much pain as indifference. Hopelessness and resignation. Not like a mall, where there is empty optimism. The malls here are ghost towns these days anyway. No trouble finding parking.

Far more organic with a much stronger pulse. What they wore in their eyes and on the fronts of their heads was far more visceral and genuine than what’s available in a mall. Nothing to hide. A matter of least concern.

Desperation was a step these people had already moved well beyond. They live and that’s all. One day, one hour at a time.

It hit me that I was simultaneously in love and in hate with the world. No ephinany, just realization. Neither good nor bad. Reality. My reality. Everyone has their own.

I loathe boxing movies. No suspension of disbelief. I like submarine movies.

Drinks for my friends.

She was an ugly woman. Homely. A tremendous lantern jaw with a prominent cleft in a hemispherical swell at the tip of her chin. Any attempts to restrain the growth of the spindly but wiry black stalks and the requisite follicles of her upper lip and below her ears, was futile.

Discolored craters in her cheeks partially filled by a face paste not nearly up to the job. She was more than uncomely.

Her legs, given the task of supporting her all but shapeless largesse, appeared impossible. Unlikely to support her bulk for an entire day’s activities. Like the stems on a giant piano that would no doubt fail to afford any ambulatory activity. Her ankles gave me specific pause. They appeared to be seconds from snapping despite being stationary.

She wore copious perfume, acrid and never adequate in masking the natural funk of her secretions. No matter the garish garment she wore, her back and under arms seeped stains and were an obvious source of her elaborate pungence.

She spoke loud, with shrieking enthusiasm. She shouted “gotdamn” because she was God fearing. Normal to her in her head. A menthol fueled guttural cough and a viscous chuckle.

Her teeth were grey, gapped and stained by cheap lipstick, coffee and cigarrettes.

She sold Avon. She was from Oklahoma. Her husband’s name was Melvin. He looked like a Melvin. He possessed a grotesque tongue. It was always on display when licking his thumbs to count money or shuffle and deal cards. An organ that escaped his maw to reveal scarring and sickly violet color. He eventually elevated himself to City Supervisor. An elected post. They lived in a trailer about a mile away off a dirt road.

She was an awful cook. Her yams were stringy and her turkey was always dry. Lumpy mashed potatos and gravy without flavor.

She was the sweetest woman you could possibly imagine. Her name was Arlene. They were hicks. Oakies. But very good people. She loved me because she loved my parents. Always very good to me. She had love in her heart.

Two daughters and a son. Mike, Barbara and Mary Jo.

I remember Mike losing part of his heel to a motorcycle. He later spent a stretch in jail. Mary Jo took it upon herself to become popular. She was a cheerleader. Possible in my hick town despite one’s lineage.

Barbara often babysat me along with her mother. Barb was smart and saw something in me I think. She read to me in Spanish and from the bible for the beauty of the language.

I always recieved Christmas presents from them but for a few years there were presents from the family and an exclusive present from Barb. Arlene was generous with Avon products intended for young men. Barb bought me board games and things she imagined would stimulate or encourage me.

I learned on my last trip home for Christmas that Barb had passed. She had abundant red hair and wisdom and humor beyond anyone in her clan. Welcome to haunt me. To be a ghost in my slumber should she choose. I always felt like we never finished.

Sometimes life is a well maintained pinball machine. Other times it’s a ball peen hammer on the glass. There’s always blood.

Drinks for my friends.

Studio City. Never seen a hooker walking the street in The Valley. Goes without saying I’ve never seen a transgender hooker in The Valley.

Suddenly, there was one in the 7-11 two nights ago buying condoms. They always have the most impossible faces. Distended in the strangest directions. Cheek implants and lips like sausages. Eyebrows drawn on over bald, or plucked into a clown arch. Femininity exaggerated into the realm of caricature.

This one was black and had the longest face I’d ever seen. Her chin was enormous yet came to a point. First glimpse was confusing but not unpleasant. The second glimpse bought me a little more than confusion. You just never see trannies in The Valley. She ambled out expertly in five inch stilletos and climbed into the passenger side of a Mercedes SUV parked just around the corner. She was soiled. Dirty. She was doing her best but she looked like she’d been sleeping outside. As neat as she could manage, but not clean under the Kelvin temperature of a convenience store glare.

Tonight I’m coming around the corner and there are four of them, including the one from two nights ago.

My first thought is they’re like animals driven from the forest of Hollywood, much less to be had there these days. Like wolves or raccoons searching for sustenance. It’s a sad thought.

None of this really bothers me. It’s more color in my life. Entertaining. I lived in Hollywood for over a decade and transexual prostitutes were just a part of the scenery. The Fish and I had a game called “Spot The Dude”, upon catching sight of one dude looks like lady, one simply uttered that phrase and it was up to the other to clock the shemale in question. The grocery store, Rock and Roll Denny’s (RIP) or the mall. Good times.

I’ve always had what can best described as a morbid fascination for personal ads. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I discovered the LA Weekly, a full bowl of personal ads. Didn’t take long for me to notice the hooker paper, “The LA Express”. It was full of personal ads with a special section in the middle for hookers and trannies in full color.

I swear I’m going to wrap presents in it someday. It’s awesome. The shemales can’t seem to spell the word ‘functional’ and the publication doesn’t give a mad fuck. The straight ones not any better. Babey, breats, mines…………. I leave it on the back of the toilet because there’s spectacularly bad articles too.

They’re enigmatic to me. Chicks with dicks. I’m not sure why. I want to talk to them but I have no idea what to say. What is their ideal? Where exactly do they expect to land? I want to tell them that as a kid growing up in a small town, I never would have imagined they existed. I also want to tell them that sometimes they try too hard. Tell them that they end up looking like 80’s vampires or aliens. Can’t they see that? Do their customers like that?

Halloween everyday.

What’s the deal? Do you want to look like that or do you have to?

I’ve seen some pretty ones but they aren’t nearly as interesting. The pretty ones are always clean. I can’t discount the idea that females are born in a male body

To this day I still peruse the personals on craigslist. I can’t help it. “I’m a intelegent women”. Sheezus. I love it.

Seems to me that those ‘Lunchable’ jobbers from Oscar Mayer used to come with some lube.
Honey mustard or some goddamn thing.

Drinks for my friends.

We made this record once. Turns out it was brilliant.

Lush and complex, with balanced flavors of spice and chocolate milk. Nestle’s Quick. Cinnamon pastries, wasabi, soy and ginger. Kung Pao and various sauces including Hollandaise, port reductions, gravy and marinara.

Flowers and rainy wind. Lazy motes in a sunny meadow.

Nevermind the textures and colors.

Nearly a decade went by, I never listened to it. I didn’t care about it. Dug it out one night to impress a girl because the acoustic tracks were pretty and I could tell by her eyes she would like them.

It’s one of the very best things I ever had anything to do with.

I barely remember making it.

Alex.

It was Alex, that little fucker made sure it was a great big lovely record. His feather gathered mass over my anvil. He knew exactly what he was doing. He walked me through it, using my anvil when he needed it. You can hear where he did it. He used a bullhorn to demand my anvil. Emasculating. I was a monkey with a hardon for a beach ball and he saw it. He began by showing me pictures of the ball. He continued with elaborate puppet theater. Towards the end, hypnotisim.

In no time at all, I was a sideshow.

The production is extraordinary and it really is there the soul of Alex.

I was lucky.

His creative musical genius for arrangement and nuance amazes me. Born on the same day, we were otherwise polar opposites he and I. He was the architect, I was the general contractor and the subcontractors were all spectacular lunatics. You can almost never go wrong when pairing eggs with cheese and champagne with fruit. Champagne with eggs, cheese and fruit.

I like brunch.

There was Betsy, leader of the lunatics, exceptionally bright, extraordinarily talented and somehow, we’d earned her trust. She sang celestial and played with terrible conviction. She composed like a vulnerable wraith.

Betsy gathered quite the formidable parade of shiny muses. Calliope and Euterpe. Melpomene to Thalia. We had a blast. I don’t know how I wasn’t in love with what we’d done or her. I remember working at a pretty grueling pace and sometimes being confused by exactly what overdub we were in the middle of.

But that shit was normal.

Michael Whitaker too. He’s all over this thing. Crazy bastard. Feedback Monarchy. Mellotron mendacity. The personalities in that tiny control room left a pastel vapor trail that would show up like smoke under certain sensors to this day.

Actually, we only did the first nine of sixteen songs on the record. Michael P. Tak of Carnival Art fame recorded the rest at his home studio, “Sweaty Elvis”. Those songs were mixed at Triad in Seattle.

Our assistants were Bamford, Srebalus and Sperger. Bamford ended up playing bass on the song True Fluid and he fucking nailed it. He engineered a Weezer record a few years back. Srebalus has produced a documentary film. Sperger is a bathroom attendant in a Vegas titty bar.

Somehow, I didn’t really get it by the time we were finished. I was still upside down.

Al often shined (sic), but never more consistently, never so inspired, as on this record.

He had fun. There was a point where I surrendured the entire thing to him. Maybe it was early in the mixes, but I think it was well before that. He knew exactly what we were all doing. I did the best I could to be a shit hot engineer.

We ended up bringing in an auxilliary console for some of the mixes. Eight channel Neve broadcast consoles on wheels we called “Sidecars” for submixing etc. A ton of experimenting and ludicrous methodology. Backwards tape and lotsa flangers. Those days, A&M studios was a mall for gear sluts. We were prostitutes just inside the mall’s main entrance.

We earned a decent living and never wanted for gear.

Betsy slept in the live room. Not because she had no place to go. She was owning it.

She gave me a first edition Steinbeck, “Tortilla Flat” with the sweetest most honest letter I’ve ever recieved folded in it’s pages.

She was effusive with fruit. Ask me about it sometime.
She brought in a machine to make us lattes.

“incidents and accidents…….hints and allegations…..”

I’ve spoken to her a few times in the last few years but I’ve been a little self involved and have no idea how to reach her now. She has no idea of my sheer joy with this record. I started to tell Alex but I need to finish. This piece will help.

The bottom line is this. If you don’t like this record, the fault lies with Alex as he took it upon himself to rest his nutsack on my left cheek and all the while I allowed it. He was driving. I rarely remember taking the wheel.

It get’s worse. He then took the best I could possibly do and directed it towards his own vision. He used me. A kind but insidious man.

His hands were always much larger than his feet when it came to mixing. He’d have this schedule of mutes and fader moves we had to perform perfectly before we could go home. Just about every record we did was manually mixed. I was there to make things girthy and/or pretty. Once I did that I was thinking about whiskey and noodles in that order.

Al was way more musical. He was the doctor and I was the monster.

I liked making cymbals sound like silver air. Drums like mountains. Guitars like giant vibrating walls of electricity and dirty oil. Bass guitars taste like chunky peanut butter on mayonnaise covered popcorn with a side of maple syrup. Brass, woodwinds, strings, harmonicas, concertinas, banjos, percussion, all tasting like cheese from mild to sharp or fruit from sweet to sour. Sourdough toast with butter and orange marmalade. Best job ever. Except it never leaves you.

Do it right and you end up with a very drinkable wine.

You can take words but never even attempt to borrow a concept.

Drinks for my friends.

January 26, 2009 – Monday

I WON
Category: News and Politics

At the end of last week, President Obama invited Democratic and Republican legislators to the White House to talk about the stimulus package. Hmmm, I don’t remember Bush doing to much inviting, or listening to the other side.

Let’s not put Obama on a pedestal, he did take a swipe at Republicans. In an exchange with Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the proposal he had for the stimulus (don’t tell, more tax breaks?), the president shot back: “I won,” according to aides briefed on the meeting.

A side note on Rep. Cantor’s wife. She works for a privately held bank which just before Bush left office received $267 Million dollars in TARP money. You’ll love this, the bank is called, New York Private Bank and Trust, and bills itself as a “haven for wealthy individuals and families.”

Maybe that’s why Cantor is so big on tax cuts for the rich, they are his constituents and his wife’s employer.

Obama also took a swipe at the hard right in general:

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,”

Ok, I think I just felt that “tingle up my leg” that Hardball’s Chris Mathews was talking about. Yea, maybe he deserves to be on a pedestal.

I watched all the Sunday news shows. What an interesting round up. Let me share my views, and the views of Jason Linkins from the Huffington Post:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY had John McCain. John doesn’t like the stimulus package. He doesn’t notice that a huge part of it is given in tax cuts exactly the way Obama said he would, as well as tax cuts for small business, which John McCain was for in his run for the president.

No matter, John went on to say that Waterboarding is torture, good for him, but he also said that we should be forward looking. So, if you get pulled over for a traffic violation, and smoky walks up to your window, let him know, “Hey, let’s look forward, and not back. After all, while I’m sitting here on the side of the road I’m not speeding anymore …

Brit Hume believes that we’ll one day realize that “enhanced interrogation techniques” really did help America in the seven years after 9/11. I would like to say that I believe Hume will one day realize that NOT USING these techniques really did help America in the seven years after the first attack on the World Trade Center, and, past that, Presidents should take their Daily Security Briefing seriously. I’d like to believe that, but this is Brit Hume we’re talking about.

FACE THE NATION had VP Joe Biden on for the half hour. Biden was relatively gaff free, but he is so knowledgeable about everything foreign policy. I feel safer now that Dick is gone.

MEET THE PRESS had I believe the best show of the weekend. I really like David Gregory. He had Larry Summers, and John Boehner (Boner) on the show, but not at the same time. That would have been a real show.

Remember, Boehner (Boner) said last week, after the Obama meeting:

“You know, I’m concerned about the size of the package. And I’m concerned about some of the spending that’s in there, [about] … how you can spend hundreds of millions on contraceptives,”

“How does that stimulate the economy?”

So a guy named Boehner (Boner) is concerned about the package size, and wonders how contraceptives stimulate? Lol!

Back to the show, Summers really lays out what the Obama administration is going to try to do. The reason why all the money won’t be spent in 18 months is because the way the economy is going we will need stimulus for years beyond 2010.

Boehner (Boner) wants more tax breaks, you know because they have worked so well over the last 8 years, and questions giving so much of the money to the states. I’m not sure about this, but by states, aren’t they talking about the 50 states we, you and I, live in?

Summers wants the Bush Tax Cuts to go away, sooner rather than later. Why? We can’t afford it, and it hasn’t done anything for the economy. Remember, thus far Bush’s tax cuts have cost the treasury over $1.3 trillion dollars.

Gregory, points out says that Americans aren’t spending or borrowing, they are saving their money, and doesn’t that make the government the spender of last resort? Boehner says no: “If you give the taxpayer back more of what they’ll earn, they’ll either save it, spend it, or invest it, all of which are good for the economy.” THIS ELIDES OVER THE QUESTION GREGORY ASKED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Americans will ONLY SAVE THAT MONEY. And that is a good idea! For the individual American! But it doesn’t defibrillate the economy. Also, it just proves that individual Americans are not going to eschew their own self-interest to save the economy, either.

I’ll break it down in short hand. Boehner (Boner) wants tax breaks, put money back in peoples hands, but not poor or middle class people, though they will spend it quickly. Summers spelled out tax breaks for the middle/lower classes, and for small businesses. Summers also spelled out spending programs on infrastructure, green energy, and other investments in America.

ABC This Week had Nancy Pelosi on. I am happy to hear her put bipartisanship in context. She doesn’t seem to care too much about what the Republicans want. She has allowed them to put forward ideas to be voted on, but beyond that, ummm, they need to get real. There is a reason the Republicans are not in power any more. Their ideas have not changed, though the current conditions have.

The round table was most interesting. George had Carly Fiorina, Paul Krugman, George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson. I love to hear Krugman straighten out Carly and Will on economics, neither seemed to understand that the banks in America are grossly over leveraged.

Yes, we have put tons of cash in the banks, but they are still over leveraged, and until that changes they will not lend money, they will instead beef up their leverage. Plus, if we want to tell the banks what to do, we need to nationalize them not buy stock that has not vote.

Which leads to my theory on the economy, I believe even more strongly now than ever, that we should have taken the first $350 billion dollars should have been put in individual’s bank accounts for one year before the money could be removed. That way the banks get the leverage, and the tax payer gets to keep the money in the end.

That’s my round up, in addition to the great week our nation had, I am very hopeful that things have changed for the good, finally!!!

Peace
J

Last night I was full to bursting with ideas, things I wanted to tell you about. Sinister and lucid. Piss and vinegar. Last night my adorable cat Beddy (short for Bedhead – nom de Fish), successfully executed her new hobby of tipping over any liquid bearing vessel into my wireless keyboard. Dead in the water. Pun intended.

Gin may have faired better due to the lesser electrical conductivity of alcohol. Beats me.

Tonight I got nuthin. Tonight, my goddamn Direct TV is out so I can’t count on television to piss me off. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with something, I always do. It will be the inaugural voyage on my new, really cool, post modern Mac keyboard. Excited? Good. Me Too.

I got sock radar. If there’s two clean socks in this place, I will find them in minutes.

Excuse me while I smoke some pot. I like pot. It’s like a push up bra. It makes an already good thing better.

Good. Now, I’m pretty stoked over the bold moves Our Man has made in his first few days. I’m impressed.

New White House press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated the Obama administration’s commitment to overturn the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy on the change.gov website. No time table but pretty cool. The positive rhetoric in a number of Obama’s campaign speeches regarding gays and lesbians, particularly in the context of minorities was like a lighthouse to us bleeding heart lefties. No, I’m not gay, but I welcomed it as evidence that our man sees the plight of the gay and transgender communities as a black and white civil rights issue.

Again, pun intended.

He’s so cool.

Broad and profound ethical, even moral implications. Precisely why government should abstain from any involment or policy here. Our military will neither discriminate nor favor any group based on ethnicity or sexual orientation. You hypocritical conservatives who pine for smaller and less involved government must have blown expensive post lunch single malt out of your cake holes over this one.

Obama reversed the “Mexico City Policy” as well. First enacted by Reagan, it prohibits any family planning organization that recieves American money from offering abortion services or abortion counseling. A really dumb Christian ethic to impose on third world countries. We should be bombing Africa with condoms and birth control pills.

Our man called it a “political wedge issue,” and said he had, “no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.” -CNN. Another move so disconcerting to the neo religious conservative dickheads, that they called for a man named Bob to to sponge their collective square pants.

Then there was this:
“As of today, lobbyists will be subject to stricter limits than under any other administration in history. If you are a lobbyist entering my administration, you will not be able to work on matters you lobbied on, or in the agencies you lobbied during the previous two years. When you leave government, you will not be able to lobby my administration for as long as I am president.” -Rachel Maddow

Wow. The collective pucker and panic over that one most likely impacted the carbon footprint of the entire beltway. There were some cries over Our Man’s near instant plea to bend the rules for a former Raytheon exec. he wants for Deputy Sec. Def. Campbell Brown got a little indignat and weepy over it but she would do well to realize that if this were Dumbya and friends, we wouldn’t ever have known about it in the first place. We still don’t know who was on Darth Cheney’s energy task force or even what they decided.

Limbaugh and O’Reilly quacked liked ducks and crapped like geese this week.

Bill O’Reilly had this to say:

“Besides his lack of experience, Panetta opposes many of the CIA’s anti-terror measures. He’s against any kind of coerced interrogation, wants the FISA overseas wiretap law repealed, and would completely disband the rendition program whereby the CIA sends captured terror suspects to be held and interrogated in other countries.

Without those tools, which former CIA Chief George Tenet and others say have been very effective in uncovering terror plots, the agency’s ability to disrupt potential attacks would be gravely damaged.” -freerepublic.com

There was more but I need to stop this fucking pinhead right there. George Tenet is a clueless, inept mouthbreather. No better than Mike Brown of Arabian horse fame and the former head of FEMA. You really want to keep your stock in a retard like Tenet instead of giving a smart accomplished guy like Panetta an initial benefit of the doubt? You sir, are an idiot. A buffoon. I suspect your penis barely functions.

Limbaugh pulled that little string and this gusher ensued:

A week after saying he “hope(s) he fails” about Obama, Limbaugh this week said, ”We are being told we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to grab our ankles…because his father was black, because he’s the first black president,we’ve got to accept this.” -MSNBC.com

I’m barely employed so I have very little to lose. I’m thinking I might move to Florida, discover the Human Shitsmear’s most favored eateries and rub my dick on everything he eats.

They are over. Both of them. Read my lips.

In the meantime, looks to me like he’s walking straight at it. His name is Barack Hussein Obama, he’s from Chicago by way of Hawaii and he’s not here to fuck around.

Drinks for my friends.

God is good, God is great, thank you for the food on this plate.

My three favorite words: Former President Bush.

What sort of populace gets behind a John McCain and a Sarah Palin? Sheezus.

Barack Hussein Obama is our new President. A lovely, classy and intelligent wife, Michelle Obama, is our new First Lady. Along with Malia and Sasha we have a shining new First Family.

Kinda golden.

Already so much light and hope against such obvious contrast of our last First Family and the politics of fear the entire administration breathed and exhaled. Dark, evil bastards. Insert stir sticks into each of their penises because they all sucked so bad. Yes Condi too.

Pricks.

The pooch could not have been screwed any harder, more egregiously or with any more violence. History will judge, in a matter of fact fashion and the administration of George W. Bush will either be seen as the catalyst for the end of humankind or the worst in in American history. Pray for the latter.

With all my anticipation, hope, skepticism, doubt and excitement, I still can barely believe this is happening. Such a profound accomplishment, such a miraculous turn of events. I’m only able to liken it to some monumental but individual achievement. Lance Armstrong or Michael Phelps. Unbelievable humans but it really is so much bigger than that.

Exponentially larger.

The thing is this; one man has inspired an entire nation more than enough for it’s people to move in concert with a singular purpose.

Surreal indeed. Huge. In the context of world history, in the course of human events, massive, a gravity all its own.

So very disillusioned, disenchanted and disgusted with my fellow Americans, I wasn’t able to imagine a day like today. There were times so long and bleak, I assumed we were lost. Too far gone. Eight long years with every bigot, redneck, head in the sand ignorant bastard, gleefully but unwittingly complicit in America’s demise. The great unwashed appeared to have prevailed. All the good and the just forgotten and those who had dared pay attention could no longer be bothered to care. Stupidity and apathy ruled the day.

I championed Kucinich for his outrageous honesty. I still adore The Little Paste Eater. Then Edwards for his sincere populism and what I saw as enough charisma to make him electable. I will tell you that a year or so ago, I didn’t believe Our Man had a chance. I never doubted him, I did however, underestimate the American people. Forgive me, I had every reason.

Best mistake I’ve ever made. As thrilled as I’ve ever been to be completely wrong.

He began to remind us that this thing was not about him, it was about us. He was right. Unmistakably. That really is the short answer to how this happened. It was his confidence, composure, intelligence and cool. It was his message, his conviction and the unmitigated, egalitarian truth of what he was telling us.

The other thing is this; he does not hesitate to remind, this is about us. In other words, if we fail to stay engaged, forget to pay attention and participate, we will be lost. Exactly how we got this far is how we will succeed. Nothing less will do. He tells us without reluctance that he will falter. He says as much to let us know that when he does, the onus is ours to rise up and be heard.

He’s does not merely ask us. He’s telling us.

It is obvious that Our Man is antithetical to the last man we called leader. One hundred eighty degrees opposite. Phase shift complete. A crisp, abrupt and elegant reversal of ideas and approach. Above all, inclusive as opposed to exclusive. The size of government matters far less than whether or not it actually works.

He stands and he will deliver. He is extraordinarily capable and adroit, but each of us must assume responsibility. Individually and collectively.

He’s telling us this won’t work unless we are right here with him, his family and all the lawmakers and bureaucrats around him. Without you and I, America executes a pristine belly flop, an immaculate face plant, an end of times as we understand them.

Let me explain something else to you. Real Blues music is there to make you happy, not sad. See, they sing and play about hard times but The Blues is about performance and passion. If it’s real you walk away with a smile and your heart is a little bit lighter.

If it’s real, it’s like putting your hand in rich dark soil and coming up with an onion or a fat carrot.

I’m here to tell you that since there is no rest for the wicked, there is barely a lungfull for the rest of us.

Miles to go before we sleep.

Drinks for my friends.

The most elaborate and imposing apparatus ever constructed to paint a room.

Lit like a boxing match.

See it from a mile.

A ridiculously grandiose set of circumstances.

The wall of one room removed for a live cutaway. My house. Where I grew up. Tree in the front yard. Moon in the backyard. Pancackes, pot roasts, dead cats, snow, rain, early mornings and late nights. Genuine random. One constant was the smell of my feet. Another was my drumkit. Comic books. Chewing tobacco and dark beer. My house dissected like science fair project. Absolutely impossible yet it all took place.

An enormous, convoluted steel and hydraulic apparatus for the painting of one small room. It stretches through back yards and occupies most of the block well before it begins to even labor and pump. Thrust, grind and mash. Pulverize and obliterate. It’s huge, smoking and steaming and spewing.

Workers scurry, pound and shovel. They shout and signal among themselves. I’m wearing a hardhat. Eye suffocating goggles that relentlessly shift from yellow to green to blue. Some mask for breathing. Feels like I’m in deep sea gear.

Illuminated like the scaffolding at midnight on a twenty four hour casino job.

Sprawling and archaic. I explain the deed can be done easily with aerosol cans or a rented compressor. Rollers and pans, brushes and cans. So much easier than this. They won’t hear me. So much simpler.

I’m so angry I choke the ends of my sentences.

They don’t listen. Not as though they can’t. Much more like they won’t. It spooks me.

They keep building. Assembling with machines themselves the size of houses. Monstorous vats filled with molten metal and boiling concrete, bubbling like simmering sauce. Cauldrons baking the damp earth in my chilhood back yard.

Splattering sparks and startling discharges of air and steam. The periphery of my senses kept busy with all things making me flinch.

I’m trapped here and there, now and then, by the giant engines and the things they are building. Malicious, mindless. Climbing out while watching for sudden tons of movement or keeping distance from an industrial dragon gone senseless.

Madness and they won’t listen.

I make it to the bathroom in time to witness all water pissing on every book I’ve ever owned. Hundreds, maybe thousands. My bathroom. Familiar. No soap. No shower curtain. No valve for the water. Nothing to do. The water slows pissing and stars gushing. I haven’t stepped foot in that bathroom in almost twenty five years. It haunts me, that bathroom.

Dad is on the roof hammering so hard the noise is from a cartoon.

Construction continues so before I know it I stand in the middle of what appears as a refinery Sunlight from the west glances off it’s gleaming spires. My boots are dry but caked and heavy. Wild iron contrivances looming like Vegas billboards along the 15, the size of office building skeletons without yet any concrete or glass for skin.

Bristling with cranes and open elevators, lifts and chutes.

Equipment dangles and sways. Before I know it, everything commences to swing and twirl like carnival rides and it’s all I can do to keep from getting crushed by the whipping insect head of an oil pump or sliced to ribbons from braided steel blown and slashing by an impossible tempest.

It’s these machines I fear the most as no human sits atop them.

Death is everywhere until a young latin boy in a tailgated old Chevy shows up on a construction elevator with hot dogs, tacos and flan but no onions or clean napkins. I see the front of his facade is a regular food truck and we’re dealing out of the back. I speak spanish to him but he ignores my requests or acts as though he can’t understand me.

I know better than to ask for mayo.

Just then, one of our forklifts is completely obliterated by a heavy metal object orbiting with abandon from a crane broken loose for reasons I can’t grasp or even see. I watch it’s arc and hold my breath at it’s apogee until it comes all the way down. The violence of it is breathtaking. It obliterates the dense little appliance like a wrecking ball vs. an ice sculpture. The forklift explodes and I see a man’s head cave like an egg filled with berries and pale pudding.

It’s chaos and massive amounts of burning steel lands like munition everywhere but where I stand. Destruction so sudden and extreme I can’t run.

The smell is is metal and fuel exhaust, fossil lubricants and the grit that finds it’s way into your lungs and under your nails. And burning. Burning. Tar. Constant fire.

The irony is not lost on me as it’s all for a very small thing. A task for two humans for an afternoon, maybe two.

At this point, I begin to wonder why my mind is playing me this movie. It’s not the first time it’s done this sort of thing. It’s crazy, my mind. It does this sort of thing. It plays me really weird movies.

It’s not who you are but where you are. Waitaminute. Not where you are but who you are. Something like that.

Who wants to go sledding?

Drinks for my friends.

I’m gonna tell you something and I’m not sure why.

I’m not religious at all. I have nothing but disdain and disgust for any organized religion. It’s a joke. All of it, Santa in the sky with diamonds for adults just about anywhere. People really should know better. That’s not a picture of God in that book, on that candle or in that fresco.

What it is, is mankind’s single most pervasive and insidious problem.

The concept of sin is a different matter. It’s not as simple as not believing in or caring about your God.

I’m well acquainted with sin. I do my best but I falter. Yesterday, a lifelong friend; one who has stuck by me and never let me down. I let him down. I disregarded him, his loyalty and his concern merely because I was able to solve my problem without him. Stupid and thoughtless. Nevermind the anger, the pain in his voice was humiliating. I know sin.

He knows I’m sorry but it’s not enough right now and I understand.

A good man with shoeboxes of integrity in his closets. I took him for granted. Huge stupid thing to do.

I’ll make it right. I have to. Not just because I depend on this man, but because he deserves it. I can explain some of it so it’s not the worse thing he was thinking, but it is ultimately my thoughtless mistake. Not entirely thoughtless because I was thinking of only myself.

Among the worst sins, are self involvement.

Sin.

I’m disappointed in me and so is he. Sometimes close friends are a mirror, actually, most of the time they are. They allow you to see yourself and hopefully you’re able to return the favor. If each of you are so lucky, you don’t always like what you see. That’s the gift and the tragedy of letting someone inside. No free lunch, but when it’s just a cheeseburger, sometimes it tastes like a juicy pork chop wrapped in bacon with shrimp and a nice zinfandel.

I’m not gonna dwell on it but I got hit in the face with a serious lesson yesterday and I totally had it coming.

Sometimes, I’m still a dick. It happens less these days but seems to matter way more everytime.

It’s of the utmost importance to figure out who you are. You will struggle with it constantly and you may never figure it out completely, but you really must keep trying. Sooner or later one must own one’s self. You cannot even begin to estimate another until you begin to understand yourself. Do the math.

The ego is a curious thing. The id is a walk in the park. Not really, but my best advice is to get a grip on the id. Duh. Grab it by it’s skinny goddamn neck and wail away. I did. I didn’t kill it, I established dominance. I’m better for it.

No matter how old you get, there’s still growing up to do

It’s allright, but I still do things I shouldn’t. I try not to tell anybody.

People are people wherever you go.

Drinks for my friends.

January 16, 2009 – Friday – 7:21 PM
Peace with whom?
As I watched W give his farewell address to the nation last night I was struck how through some form of weird twist W seemed to still hold on to his overriding theory that elections and democracy can transform a region. That a region that sorely lacks the institutions of democracy through the simple task of a vote will some how find tolerance, and peace with itself and it’s neighbors.

It has been this simpleton view of the world that has wrought destruction through the Middle East these last 8 years. In Iraq where Sadr’s Mahdi Army and Sadr’s political party share the same course, and can some how find legitimacy through votes counted at the point of a gun. In Lebanon, Hezbollah a militia, fully backed by Iran, with the stated goal of the destruction of Israel and death to the Jews, now is the reigning political party in Lebanon. Gaza, the West Bank, and the plight of the Palestinian people. Fatah, once known as the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), took the early mantle for the Palestinian people. Fatah became known more for their zealous rejection of Israeli’s right to exist, and their corruption than actually doing anything for the Palestinian people.

Eventually Fatah negotiated land for peace, softening their anti-Israeli stand and accepted the two state solution.

Then in 2006, W continued his spread of democracy to the Palestinian people. With no working institutions of government, was it a surprise that Hamas would win the majority of seats? Well, maybe to Condi Rice, but to the rest of the world, the cry was in unison, “Don’t hold elections, not now!”

After Hamas won they cleansed Gaza of any remaining Fatah politicians (cleansed as in murdered), and started a concerted effort with Hezbollah to destroy Israel, and the Jewish people.

So, I know that by now you all think I lost my mind. That J, he really is a NEOCON, he’s a nut, he thinks that it’s ok to kill babies, that he can’t see that peace is the only way. I believe in peace, but not with Hamas. Why?

In addition to watching W’s speech, I also read an excellent article by Jeffrey Goldberg. I found his opinion piece in the NY Times to pound home my thoughts on W’s simpleton view of democracy and the world effects.

Goldberg has spent a lot of time talking to Hamas officials, and his reporting speaks volumes. During a conversation with a Hamas leader the following came out:

I asked him the question I always ask of Hamas leaders: Could you agree to anything more than a tactical cease-fire with Israel? I felt slightly ridiculous asking: A man who believes that God every now and again transforms Jews into pigs and apes might not be the most obvious candidate for peace talks at Camp David. Mr. Rayyan answered the question as I thought he would, saying that a long-term cease-fire would be unnecessary, because it will not take long for the forces of Islam to eradicate Israel.

My stand is that you can not negotiate with people like Hamas. They firmly believe their religious rhetoric. They are stoked in it. Though Israeli officials believe they can bomb Hamas into moderation, they can not do that either. They can perhaps deter them for a time, but in the end, Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness.

No, Hamas does not want free trade across it’s borders in Gaza. It does not want a better life for the Palestinian people to live. Hamas wants one thing, and one thing only, to cleanse the region of Israel and the Jews.

So, where does peace begin? Not in Gaza, but rather in the West Bank. To quote Goldberg:

The only small chance for peace today is the same chance that existed before the Gaza invasion: The moderate Arab states, Europe, the United States and, mainly, Israel, must help Hamas’s enemy, Fatah, prepare the West Bank for real freedom, and then hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas, see the West Bank as an alternative to the squalid vision of Hassan Nasrallah and Nizar Rayyan.

LINK 1

I pray for the Palestinian people, and I also pray for the people of Israel. For years there was a concept that there could be peace for land. Israel withdraws to the pre 1967 borders and the state of Palestine will be rewarded for the peace that would ensue. However, the entrance of Hamas into the equation has made the opposite true. By withdrawing from Gaza Israel has become less safe, as Hamas from the time it won the 2006 elections has been dead set to destroy Israel, and with the new longer range rockets finding their way into Gaza, how long will it be before Hamas rains down rockets on Tel Aviv?

It appears that we are close to a peace treaty in Gaza, but what kind of peace will it be? Will it be a peace marked by the further martyrdom of the Gazan people? Will the US step up together with Egypt to help halt the flow of rockets into Gaza? Finally, will the Palestinian people finally find the representation they so urgently need?

I believe that a focus on a full withdrawal in the West Bank, open borders, and real freedom for the Palestinian people will entice the people of Gaza to fully reject the extremists and with enough monitors, and support by the US, Europe, and moderate Arabian nations, a real lasting peace can result.

Peace
J

What I don’t understand would fill volumes. Shelves. Fucking municipal libraries.

There are days when everything I encounter confuses me. On those days, at the ends of those days, I am nearly mad.

Then there are days, when I have the entire universe by the tail. Far and few and once again, lots of real estate between them.

I’m not about to bitch. I’ve been up, I’ve been down.

I can’t stand it. The space between.

I’m thinking about faking my own death. For the money. Gotta figure out how to make money on it first. Ha!

I saw someone today I’ve known for nearly two decades. I can’t describe it. Studied, well thought out attire. A disaster though. Not a good look. As I approached this person, to do the hug and hello, I was doing the mental ‘what the fuck’. I’m no fashion maven, but it was a trainwreck in technicolor. Tragic.

Anyway, did ya see where Dick Cheney slipped and fell into a transexual today? It’s all over the news. Afterwards he tried to beat her. Thank the powers that be for the Secret Service. Google it. Dumbya choked out again on the couch. Fell on the floor. Pissed himself. This time it was a hot dog. They say there was a half empty bottle of cheap whiskey in the room.

Serious journalists everywhere wondered if the bottle wasn’t actually half full.

Also today, Condi Rice was photographed in the midst of a tryst with her oral hygienist. No word on the hygienist’s gender. Reports are conflicting, she appears to be a very submissive but masculine female with an excellent record of dentistry. An aspiring oral surgeon with an emphasis on cosmetic procedure. Hobbies are weight training and curling. Boxing and cello.

Scooter Libby, although not facing prison time, was ass raped recently by a gargantuan Samoan. No word on gender. The stock market rebounded and a nice cake was served at Gitmo. Minorities across the country were lighthearted.

A similiar fate met Roberto Gonzales today. All accounts appear to indicate Rudolph Guiliani as the masculine part of the duo and it seems this conjoinment is at least somewhat consensual. Apparently, Gertie was willing. Eager. I’m guessing he’s not down with long and uncut.

It’s all true. Really. Mimes are hanging out with rodeo clowns. Middle class Republicans are beginning to realize they’re gay. It’s all leading up to something. Soon there will be log cabin villages where there was once forests. Plants are about to be burned as fuel like you can’t believe.

I can’t remember the last time I owned a toaster. Did you know most folks don’t like mushrooms? I didn’t either. I just made that up. Nobody likes colostomy bags though. Nobody.

Are there ghosts? Of course. Are you alive? Yes? Then there are ghosts. Simple. A walk in the park. Lemonade and hot dogs. Dew on the grass. Sun in the trees. Somewhere a fire. Rain on asphalt. Ghosts.

You want God? Way harder. Far more complicated. Disgusting. Might just be ridiculous. Seriously, who wants to know? Trust me, it’s beyond us. That’s the point. Don’t be stupid.

Humans are so profoundly flawed. So weak and helpless as we grow, forge relationships and figure out who we are. Only the very best among us achieve anything resembling notoriety. Fame and infamy are as often as not, hurricanes or tornados. Hot and cold collide, people drown or get blown away. Survive that and you’re Howie Mandel, Jewish Canadian.

Gotta get that pumpkin soup recipe from my sister.

Lately, the weather in Southern California has been such that I only require a flannel sheet for a gentle goodnight. I’m an active sleeper. Just ask the women. I get most of my exercise while unconscious. Inevitably, slumber is interrupted by a chill as I’ve twisted my sheet around one leg into a giant DNA strand that makes me dream of pythons and asphyxiation.

Logic dictates I find two corners and kick until covered anew. Odd visits the middle of the night however. Upon extinguishing the last light, my sheet ceases to be a rectangle and morphs into a triangle, thereby making it impossible when grasping two corners to cover my feet. What devilry could cause my flannel shelter to transform from parallelogram to delta?

I’m insane or the world is.

Yeah, I know it’s both.

I can’t find my pillowcases. My rate of sock loss, considering that I have washer and dryer in unit, is absurd. Somewhere there is a giant beach ball sized wig of linens in my apartment. All balled up and tangled. Ever hear about those huge tumors inside people that have hair and teeth? I can’t find the beach ball sized wig growth because it can move on it’s own.

Sheezus.

I’m of the opinion that mayonnaise is one of life’s essential lubricants.

Betcha thought I was gonna write about Dumbya’s speech. I listened to it. Otherwise, I can’t be bothered to give any less of a mad fuck. Good riddance you inept, clueless arrogant prick. You had no business running my country. I knew it long before the Supreme Court handed it to you. I’m still so frustrated so many others couldn’t or refused to see it. If I could leave you with one last thought, I’d have to tell you, you really sucked and I wish you had the capacity for shame and disgrace.

Hey. What’s the difference between Sara Palin’s mouth and her vagina?

Wait for it……………..

Only one retarded thing has come out of her vagina.

Drinks for my friends.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 – 2:07 PM
“Pushing on a String”
Most people had probably never heard this phrase a year ago. It refers to the monetary phenomenon whereby the financial authorities find themselves powerless to stimulate the economy via the normal expedient of cutting interest rates. Ordinarily, interest-rate policy is a viable tool for speeding up or slowing down the business cycle. If the economy is sluggish, interest rates are lowered, and economic activity picks up. If the economy is too active and inflation looms, interest rates are increased, and the economy slows down.

There are times though where the efficacy of interest-rate policy falters (or disappears entirely). If sentiment is extremely negative, it doesn’t matter that businesses and individuals can borrow money at low interest rates; they will still refrain from spending and investing. This is precisely the situation that our economy is in right now. Regardless of how much money the Fed pumps out, the economy stubbornly refuses to respond.

Interestingly, despite Dick Cheney’s recent assertion that “nobody saw this coming”, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a now-famous speech in 2002 anticipating precisely this set of circumstances and outlining how the Fed could respond to it. The speech earned him the nickname “Helicopter Ben”, after the most extreme monetary measure he described, which was to literally drop money out of helicopters.

What Bernanke didn’t foresee was that sentiment could get so negative that people won’t spend even if money is dropped from helicopters (which is more or less what the Fed has been doing for the last several months). And – a point which virtually every mainstream economist, government official, and media commentator has failed to note – this is not a failure of monetary policy; it is a failure of money itself.

Banks, corporations and individuals are behaving in a perfectly rational manner when they choose not to spend or invest. After all, if you expect continued economic stagnation, why would you invest? And if you expect prices to fall, why would you spend?

Thus we are faced with a tragic paradox – i.e. just at the time when we most need the people who have money to spend it, they face the strongest disincentive to do so. And the reason why this is so is because money as we currently know it is improperly designed and fundamentally flawed.

If you ask an economist for a definition of money, it will typically be described in one of two ways – i.e. either as a medium of exchange or a store of value. In other words, money is expected to facilitate the exchange of real goods while at the same time serving as a tool for storing and preserving wealth.

Although it may not be apparent at first glance, these two functions are not fully compatible. As the German economist Silvio Gesell observed, it is impossible for money to serve as an effective medium of exchange if it is also designed to serve as a store of value. Money that is designed to serve as a store of value will systematically fail to serve its more important function as a medium of exchange.

To see why this is so, let’s consider an everyday phenomenon with which every human being is familiar – i.e. the fact that things decay. Virtually every type of physical matter deteriorates over time – some more quickly than others. For this reason, every producer of real goods and services is under a natural compulsion to sell their wares. Of course they will try to get the best price they can, but when push comes to shove, they have to sell. Just imagine a dairy farmer who refuses to sell his milk because he thinks the price offered is too low. In a couple weeks his product will be worthless. The compulsion to sell is so strong that he will ultimately have to sell his milk even if he takes a loss by doing so (since the loss would be even larger if he held onto his milk).

Money, on the other hand, is under no such compulsion. Holders of money suffer no penalty if they delay their purchases. As Gesell colorfully describes it, “Demand enters the market proudly confident of an easy victory; supply appears dejected like a beggar… On the one hand compulsion, on the other hand freedom; and the two together, compulsion and freedom, determine price.”

In other words, money enjoys an unfair advantage over real goods and services in the marketplace. And it is precisely because money is intentionally designed to serve as a store of value that this advantage exists. If money was intended to serve solely as a medium of exchange, it would be designed in such a way as to subject it to the same compulsion to circulate that applies to all other goods and services. It is the absence of this compulsion that causes money to systematically withdraw during times of uncertainty, thereby exacerbating financial crises. If money was subject to a “penalty to hoarding” just like all other goods and services, supply and demand would meet on a level playing field, and holders of money would not face an incentive to hoard their wealth just at the time when society needs them to do the opposite.

In order to achieve this result, Gesell suggested designing money so that it deliberately loses value according to a predetermined schedule of depreciation. This would create an incentive for holders of money to “use it or lose it” in both good times and bad. (In his time, Gesell proposed accomplishing this by requiring people to purchase stamps which would need to be affixed to paper currency periodically in order to maintain its full value. Given modern computer technology, a far more efficient and less cumbersome method could be designed.)

Obviously all of this would require a fundamental adjustment in the way we think about money. Up until now, money has been viewed as a form of wealth and has been regulated by the private banks that make up the Federal Reserve system. As Richard C. Cook observes in his book “We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform”, money is a creation of the state and ought to be viewed as a public utility, not as the domain of private interests. Just as we have seen how allowing private corporations to control the distribution of electricity can lead to harmful abuses, the same holds true for money.

And, to bring the discussion back to where we started, we should also note that money designed in such a way would eliminate the problem of “pushing on a string”. With money as it currently exists, there is virtually no way for the financial authorities to compel its circulation, as we now see with the Fed Funds rate near zero and the markets still failing to respond. If money were designed along Gesell’s lines, monetary policy would be far more effective in terms of its ability to compel money to circulate. In a crisis like the one we’re currently in, the government could simply increase the rate of depreciation of money. In that way, unlike our current system in which holders of money are behaving perfectly rationally by hoarding money, they would no longer have an incentive to do so. The ability of the government to adjust the rate of depreciation would allow the “penalty to hoarding” to be set at whatever level was required to compel money to start circulating again. The government would then be pushing on a ramrod rather than a string.

You know, I’ve been kicking this guy forever. Honestly he’s got it coming. Ridiculous. A “maroon” in the words of Bugs Bunny.

I would teabag him in a heartbeat. Brand a giant L on his forehead. Shave his eyebrows. Shit in his bed.

If he would simply show some remorse. Some regret. For the hundreds of thousands of deaths, nevermind ethnicity or country of origin. The suffering, carnage and profound horror. He’s an idiot and a sociopath.

Flippant. Nonchalant. Arrogant. Clueless. Never any indication that he’s fucked this whole thing up worse than anyone in American history. It’s like he’s not remotely cognizant of how how bad things are and how directly culpable he so obviously is. It is astounding. His ignorance is breathtaking.

He has soiled the institution. What country or individual now has any confidence in the President of America or it’s people? The answer is none. They hate us.

What the electorate did in response is exceptional. Not because Our Man is half African American, notwithstanding that fact at all. We overwhelmingly launched this man into an office that has been transformed into a mere titular head of the free world. We did so, in part, because we hoped he could reverse phase and morph it once again, into the most important and prestigious position in the world.

We are trading the dumbest guy in the room for the smartest. We have done a very good thing.

Did you see the the smirky snarky little bastard on Larry King tonight?

He says he sleeps well at night. Don’t know about you, but rent keeps me awake pretty regularly. Senseless death does too. Weird huh?

Unbelievable. Surreal. He’s sleeping ok. I’d be contemplating suicide. It’s one thing to screw up a job. It’s another to be responsible for lives lost by virtue of sheer hubris.

The truth is, he was the worst public figure for the job. He manifested as the worst person ever at that job.

He says we don’t torture. No pause whatsoever in our treatment of prisoners. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay. Live on Larry King he said that. That statement, translated into truth, can mean only one thing. George W. Bush thinks you are stupider than he is. Somebody get me some whiskey.

Look under Stepford in the dictionary and there is a picture of Laura Bush. If you watch his eyes while she talks, he’s like a ventriloquist. He’s got his whole hand way up her ass. Her mouth was crackling dry, like a dog in the company of only strangers. Nervous and afraid. Fear and loathing.

“big national outfit”, “cold blooded killers”, “seize up”, “big time”, “my favorite color is blue and I love enchiladas”, “thank ya darlin'”

He doesn’t know if we’ve ever even come close to finding and capturing Osama. Seriously, says he doesn’t know. Sheezus.

A stark disconnect with acres of landscape in the between.

Obstinate on the subject of pardons. Methinks he has more controversy yet up his sleeve.

By the way, he says, “I have enjoyed it (being President)”.

I would like to link you to Helen Thomas for a retrospective on this Presidency. I’m lame so I’ll have to ask you to cut and paste but it’s worth it. She is one of the best journalists still alive. She rocks: http://www.truthout.org/011309B

Dumbya is 180 degrees out, the kick drum and bass disappear. Me, I’m still at 90. Do the math. It’s only 25 percent. 50 for Dumbya.

Drinks for my friends.

I remember when I had my first beer.

Instead of the Hostess cherry pie my father usually bought for me at the Country Store on the way back from the dump, Dad furnished me a Bud tallboy. We came home, I opened it, set in on the fence and started mowing the lawn. I don’t think I finished the the lawn or the beer. Suddenly, I needed a nap.

GOP Senator George Voinovich from Ohio announced today that he won’t seek reelection in 2010. Kit Bond from Missouri, Mel Martinez of Florida and Sam Brownback from Kansas are all walking away. All Republicans. Salt in the wound, Jeb Bush, “the smart one” says he won’t be running. Thereby proving he’s at least somewhat smarter.

Forgive my cynicism, but what I think is going on here is that the proverbial fat lady has sung. The GOP knows this, they got theirs, oh boy did they get theirs. Now it’s stage left and a pile a filthy lucre. Bush, Cheney et al. can’t wait to get out and with a little luck and black cancerous evil, they will all somehow avoid prosecution for war crimes.

These are very bad men.

Ask yourself how you can let this happen. They are dirty filthy bastards. Criminals. Scum. Sewage. Picture Cheney’s face. Dick-in-Bush should be consigned to an 8 X 10. A glossy and a cell. Dumbya is in good health. He’ll last forever. Cheney has five years, he will expire from a huge greasy black hole in his useless heart.

Dick Cheney is an asstard. He sucks. I want the glossy, autographed.

A familiar refrain I know; but we’re fucked. The planet is fucked. The economy is as fucked has it’s been since it was the most fucked ever. 1933 through 45 or so. The world hates us. Our rights to privacy and everything else constitutional are fucked. Civil liberties out the goddamn window. We fight unjust wars and then torture those who would object along with anyone else. The rich are richer and the poor are poorer. This administration has orchestrated and overseen the largest redistribution of wealth in the history of man.

Check it out uncle Tyke, it’s true.

The Republicans were evil and the Democrats were pussies.

Now, one by one and in groups, they will walk away. Gleefully and without remorse, they will leave this new generation of hope to shoulder a burden of filth and impossible moral turpitude. Events and policies that stain the perception of a once great country for decades.

A new generation with a moral and fiscal defecit.

Now I’m going to give you some culinary advice for the dark days to come. There is no actual nutrition to be had here. Merely a greasy, very satisfying gut bomb that will not end in you shitting like a goose.

Two packages of Top Ramen and a half stick of butter. In a smallish four quart pot, bring water, copious amounts of salt and hopefully some olive oil to boil rapidly over the highest heat. Violently. Plunge the noodles. Have a smoke. After a while, when the noodles are pasty and gluey, drain the water so that it barely covers the noodles. Add dry suace packets and sesame oil if you have any. Have another smoke. Make a short phone call, check out some free internet porn, watch a little of the Daily Show. Whatever.

Use your ears. It will begin to smack and splatter.

Wash a shallow bowl and a big fork. Drain almost all but a little bit of the water from the noodles and add the butter. Reduce the heat to about half. Add some canned peas or maybe some supermarket brand deli mustard, whatever you got, but be conservative. At this stage, the noodles are delicate and will absorb flavors like a sponge.

You’re frying over pretty high heat so stir vigorously.

Once the water is boiled off, upend the pot into the bowl and eat in front of a fan. The fan cools the noodles to an optimum temperature before you shovel them into your maw. Try to take really big hot steamy bites. It is a most satisfying density into one’s gulliver for less than three dollars. You’ll sleep well if even if you’ve been drinking. No need to worry about morning mud unless you flirt with hot sauce or canned vegetables, delicious but their may be consequences.

Now, back to the future and the legacy of the GOP. Expect the exodus to continue. They can’t possibly face their constituents after the ass rape they’ve subjected them to. They will walk away quietly. Clever but not smart, greedy shallow men. Horrible people who lack a mad fuck about anyone. I can’t stand it.

We’re about 90 degrees out. The world may have caught up with me.

Drinks for my friends.

I can’t even tell you.

My dick is in the dirt.

Anyway.

I’ve got a poem for you all but I can’t finish it. I’ve only been working on it for four months. It’s about a corn dog. In the Fall.

If you want to help, send cash and pills. Xanax, percocet………

Starbuck’s cards. Pretty good sandwiches if you stop by the 7-11 for packets of condiments.

I’ll bet this economy will see the disappearance of the mayonnaise packet. It’s so fancy and such a luxury. I adore it, being able to squirt the right amount on each bite.

The only mayo in a jar is Best Foods (Hellmanns), the only mayo in a squueze jar is Best Foods (Hellmanns), but the best mayo ever is only available in attractively packaged silver fuselages from Heinz. You can take as many as you like from the 7-11.

Or so I thought.

After I made my purchase tonight, I went back over and scooped a wad of Heinz mayo envelopes into my ridiculous purse sized plastic bag. It’s always this tag team of Middle Eastern, South East Asian and Latino clerks. So the indian guy follows me out after I scoop this kinda fearless wad of mayo into my purse.

I turn and stare him up about ten feet down the way.

I spend money there almost everyday.

It’s clear it’s nonconfrontational, but then I realize there’s no cigarettes in my pale plastic purse. It was a pretty warm night.

Symmetry. Phase in motion and a pretty sound lock.

The man who would confront me, he gave me the look, sees me walk back in with my receipt straight to his station. I reach over his register and flick him hard on his nose. Then I bitch slap him and begin smashing things.

Just kidding. Not really. I did show him the receipt though. He was all cool and acquiescent. Gave me my smokes. I gave him knuckles. We parted friends. It’s advantageous to be on the good side of your local grocer.

It’s really bad out there and pretty bad in here.

Both men and women have a taint you know. The area between your starfish and your gonads. Other than that, we have very little in common. Things like a fondness for a certain kind of cookie or Kung Fu movies don’t really count. Stay away from women that like Kung Fu movies or women that go nuts for ultimate fighting. There’s a chance they’re not women at all. They are most likely broads.

“And I see lonely ships upon the water
Better save the women and children first
Sail away with someone’s daughter
Better save the women and children first

I hear music on the landin’ an’ there’s laughter in the air
Just could be your boat is comin’ in
Yeah you’re leanin’ back an’ yeah, a foot tappin’
Ain’t got your head right
There’s a full moon out tonight. Baby, let’s begin

And she said “Could this be magic? Or could this be love?” Uh, oh
An’ I said “Could this turn tragic? You know that magic often does” -Van Halen

Another thing, I loathe the tit tattoo. Why introduce graffiti onto an otherwise lovely decolletage? Stupid. Misguided.

I’m just one guy, but if you have creamy cleavage or nice shoulders, no need to distract me from that loveliness.

When I see people with tattood faces I can’t help but wonder what happens if they lose their job.

There was a time when ink meant something. Now it’s just an indication that you were a pussy in high school.

People try awfully hard to belong to something. Anything.

I gotta tell ya, I’m not a big beer drinker but I’m addicted to these “Cheladas”. Budweiser and Clamato. Genius. Really. I do wish they came in a smaller can. 16 oz. is just too much for me. Maybe with sushi. Or pizza.

I myself wish to distinguish myself as a writer. See, in my own mind, I think I’m a bit of a genius. That may not be true but the the idea of it has served me well so far. I understand that at the very least, I’m not stupid. At the end of the day, that works for me.

I mean, as long as I’m not a member of the great unwashed.

It has become a tragedy to those who feel and to those who think. The world’s collective consciousness teeters on the brink of a third world war. Einstien said he couldn’t guess at the weapons for such a war, but the fourth world war would be fought with sticks and stones.

I understand he was a pretty bright guy.

Maybe Joe The Plumber will hook it all up. What a douchebag. This guy has no humility. You can bet I’ll be tuning in to the Pajama network or whoever hired his dumb ass. I’m anticipating red asphalt and carnage at the end of a bloody smear. Gore and eggs, weird shaped pasta, some teeth and some hair. Bones, thrombus, the gore and detritus of a dipshit’s consanguinity.

Why does this piss me off so much?

It’s because he’s such an all American jackass. He asked a hypothetical question and ended up being the straight man for an out of context soundbite that McCain ground his knuckles against while attempting to make it an issue. Sam Wurzelbacher landed on the stage without a single goddamn idea in his head and now some of you still care what he thinks.

That’s my problem. Until Americans can take fifteen seconds to estimate the measure of someone like Joe The Plumber, and decide he’s not worth of anyone’s attention, and as a reult of our apathy he fades, until then, we suck.

We are just under 45 degrees out.

I’m still flirting with 90.

Drinks for my friends.

It was the dog farting.

2.6 Million jobs lost. 11 million looking for work.

I cannot think of a single person in my personal life who’s not struggling.

Two, that’s right two, virtually unwinnable wars.

This, as we contemplate another. With a country twice as strong as the last two.

Anyone with a lick of sense understands that the Sunni awakening and the fact that we’re paying over a hundred thousand “insurgents” not to fight us has far more to do with the reduction of violence in Iraq than the goddamn surge. The surge was an after the fact stroke. Ice cream, no cake.

Without similiar conditions, a troop surge in Afghanistan will result in nothing more than a breathtaking faceplant.

Any possible solution to the absolute horror we’ve manufactured in either country will never be one of military dominance.
We really need to understand this. Afghanistan kicked the shit out of Mother Russia for crying out loud. The fourth most impoverished country in the world handed the the Soviet Union it’s ass. We underestimate them at our peril.

I hate this shit. I always paid attention, studied the issues and voted for the right guy. It’s not fair. I did my best.

Then there’s Israel and it’s romping in Gaza. Are you aware that the U.S. gives more aid to Israel than the rest of the world combined? All the famine, rape and genocide on the continent of Africa and the United States Government deems Israel somehow more deserving of our help?

Forgive me, but just what the fuck is going on here? This is bullshit.

How did we get here?

For those that would accuse me of antisemitism, piss up a rope. I got nothing against Jews, so shut the fuck up. I don’t have anything against Palestinians either. I object to my tax dollars being spent in this conflict one way or another. I hate that we’ve chosen to endorse Goliath over David in a conflict we have no intrinsic interest in anyway.

I think Israel needs to try harder to get along in a region in which it has only fomented hostility. It’s American hardware, wielded by Jews, killing Palestinian civilians. They get away with it because of the twin biceps of America. I for one would be fascinatinated to observe just how Israel would handle this without American money.

They would seriously and legitimately consider a peaceful resolution. They would have no choice. I’m sure it’s naive, but let’s pull the funding and send instead an army of diplomats. We’ve done nothing but piss fuel on this fire for decades. It’s not working.

No more my dad can beat up your dad.

Time to hit that polarity button. Time to shift phase.

The world seems to be around 55 degrees out. Me, I’m rapidly approaching 90.

Drinks for my friends.

Once again, I got nothing. So I figured I’d get started.

I like the word Gonad.

As I write this, Feline Beddy is all over some plump bodied winged insect that I can’t identify. I loathe bugs. Especially ones with wings. I’m counting on her to prevail so I don’t have to worry about said insect ending up in my mouth while I sleep.

I worry about the gargantuan clusterfuck this new administration is inheriting.

Can you imagine subsisting on potatos and cabbage for an entire winter? Man. Seems like everyone in history was way tougher than me. I worry I’m not so sturdy. That I’m fragile. Having inhabited this vessel for forty three plus years, I know I can be very vulnerable.

Angela Bassett is hot, Gotta do something about the hair though.

Beddy is still on the case, manning the spot where she last observed the beast.

It’s an evil bug. It just now lit on the fluorescent fixture in the ceiling of my my kitchen. Both girls are on it now. A vigil. I looked at it. It’s an ugly prehistoric bastard. It’s brain can only be the size of an eye booger or smaller. Part of my fear is that they’re so obviously amazingly stupid and random. Entities far too dumb for their size. I loathe bugs.

A fat clumsy thing with wings. Smacking and bumping. I hate it.

Disappointment is a huge thing. It looms large. Not a day goes by. Not even yesterday. Not even today.

The beast is now inside the light fixture. It will die there. I will stare at it’s shadow for days. Maybe weeks before I figure out something to step on so I can reach high enough to dump it out. The least violent end to a situation involving two soldier felines.

I’m grateful there won’t be bug on their breaths in the morning.

Can’t believe the hole, the whole I’ve dug.

Today I’d say we’re about 46 degrees out. Me, I’m about 70.

Drinks for my friends.

Larry Flynt and Joe Francis lead the charge for a five billion dollar government bailout of porn today.

Joe The Plumber goes on his way to Israel.

Fuck me runnin.

Only in America.

The headline should read: Clever Porn Kings Mock Government Bailout While The Epitome of Stupid America Visits The Most Explosive Region In The World.

A really good phase shift is totally unpredictable. Usually sounds pretty sweet though. Not this time.

Goddamnit. We really suck. Really. Today, January Seven two thousand nine, the year of our Lord, will live in infamy. You people are killing me. Some of the smartest guys in the room are Porn execs. No disrespect intended, I hold Mr. Flynt in the highest regard. Like him or not, he is an outstanding American; one who’s paid a heavy price for his convictions.

Now, Joe The Plumber shouldn’t be allowed to visit Vegas even. His name is Sam Wurzelbacher, he’s not a plumber, he’s a loser. If I were from Ohio, I would have to object to this idiot representing my home state in the beautiful but strange enviroment of Las Vegas Nevada.

What happens in Israel, does not stay in Israel. His idiocy will be on the world stage.

I don’t know what to make of this Blair House thing, but it occurs to me that there was obviously gonna be a new sherriff in town, seein as how there weren’t no incumbent in the contest. See what I mean? They shoulda knowed it would be disrespectful.

Dick-in-Bush are cranky.

Sarkozy’s over there with everyone else except Dumbya. Dumbya’s done. He left us more fucked than even I imagined. He’s spanking it to brush clearing and mountain biking. He’s launching a bootlace over drinking again. The worst President in our history and over fifty million people voted for him the second time. He can’t wait to get oot of there and play with Legos again.

A quick Dewitt update:

Dewitt:
“You’re still in third grade punk. Your obscenities declares your ignorance. I don’t engage in debate with schoolyard punks who think they sound tough if they can say all the “cuss” words in the English language.

If you wish to have a conversation with adults try talking like an adult.”

Admin:
“You know very well that my use of expletives in well written and thoughtful rebuttals et. al. does not declare my ignorance. I’m far better informed and probably a great deal smarter than you.

Your characterization of me as a “third grade punk” or schoolyard punk” is laughable and transparently disingenuous. Despite my “cuss” words, I out write you and out think you.

You my friend, are afraid to answer for your irresponsible vitriol. You are hiding. Defend yourself or you are a coward who only shows up long enough to take cheap sleazy shots and then run away.

Your positions and ideas are far more vulgar than any obscenities I may choose to utilize.”

I’m a pompous bastard. I have a real bug up my ass for this douchebag but that’s a little embarrassing. Ah well, fuck him. He’s a penis whipped drink.

The night is young and I’m feeling desperate. I’m guessing the world is about 57 degrees out of phase.

Drinks for my friends.

I used to try to get out of the house before I got too fucked up. Now I get as hammered as possible before I leave. It’s crazy. The strategy of poverty.

I’m contemplating the 7-11.

Always employ the interior of the wrapper as a resting place for your processed food in between bites as opposed to it’s exterior, a fuming petri dish of virulent germs. Never use condiments from the condiment bar at the 7-11 for the same reason. Me, I can’t help it. Don’t do what I do, do what I say.

I’m not shy about grabbing a fistful of napkins.

You know what? That iced coffee from McDonalds isn’t too bad as long as you get it unsweetened. I got Starbuck’s gift cards for Christmas.

When I was a little boy, four or five, I ran away to the local Safeway. I figured they had everything I needed. My parents were more than willing to help. I didn’t feel as though my needs were being met at home. I wanted more freedom. They dropped me off after hours. I couldn’t get in. Already there was a flaw in my plan. Thankfully, they took me back.

I really don’t understand overly spicy food. I like for the wasabi to cause my nose to run or break me a little sweat but I can do that by peeling an orange or standing outside too long. I like a little Tapatio in my noodles. Any thing beyond that confuses me at best. Pain in the interim. Then there’s the aftershock of the assfire morning constitutional.

Forgive me. I just really like to pick at this guy. He’s perfect.

How’s that for a segue?

More Dewitt:
“I deleted your idiotic comment from my blog. If you would like to re-post something a bit more respectful and less retarded have at it, but stop blog-dicking. Put it in line like everybody else.”

Admin:
“I like that I may have gotten under your skin a little. My purpose is to shine a light on your bottomless ignorance and fear, so either block me or I’ll be coming at you on the first page when I have something to say. Coward.

Come to my blog, I won’t censor you.”

Dewitt:
“Grow up. Third grade was a long tima ago, and you’re still a school yard punk. I have no desire to read anything you have to say. If you post obscenities on my blog they will be deleted.”

Admin:
“I’m no punk. I’m well informed, educated, have the courage of my convictions and most importantly, an open mind. Your’s closed a long time ago.

I thank the powers that be my parents aren’t anything like you.

You consistently object to my “obscenities”, yet never exhibit any inclination to engage me on any issue I take exception to in the crap you spew.

That’s cowardice.

Of course you have no interest in reading anything I have to say. It all flies in the face of your fear driven beliefs.

The truth is, you are are archaic and obsolete. You no longer matter. The world is changing without you. You are being left behind.

Honestly, it makes me sad.”

Moving right along.

Sheezus this Burris thing is odd.

In my mind the Democrats look like pussies. They knew who they were dealing with. Blagojevich. This guy is an arm’s dealer fucking peacock who’s got ice in his veins and a hairstyle that leeches intelligent thought to sustain itself. Have you looked at his eyes? Like binoculars in reverse, you can see what’s behind him only way smaller.

Shave the little bastard’s head and he’ll drop. Kinda like Sampson.

Still, the fucking Democrats couldn’t man up enough to smite this boy down in time to prevent him from swinging his own sword with precision.

He appointed a Jr. Senator for his state as he was not only privileged but required to do. What did they think this guy was gonna do?

Today they turned Roland Burris away. Shameful. I’ll be the first to admit this guy Burris is a little more than a little loose, but this was embarrassing nonsense. The newly sworn in Senate fucked this up. They should never have allowed it to get this far. Yes, Burris is a joke, but he’s an accomplished joke. The new Democratic leadership cheesed this one. Stepped on their dicks. Good job Mr. and Mrs. Reid-Pelosi.

The other side should be ashamed as well. You dickheads tried to turn this into some sort of racial imperative. I count on these assholes to do the wrong thing and they just keep doing it. Race. Sometimes it’s like mammals against reptiles. The big lizards are gone and the rest are small and stupid. Fuck you guys. How stupid is that? How fucking irresponsible? It makes me furious.

The body politic still disappoints, misleads and makes a hot mess of things. Yet it’s not even close to a push. Let’s just see what we can do. Really. Stay in the game.

Drinks for my friends.

Jan 6, 2009 9:56 PM
Change I Can Believe In
We used to be a country of laws, not of men. We used to dismiss those that claimed, if the president does it, it’s not illegal. Over the last 8 years all of that changed. Reversing that became the change we all looked for.

Underneath the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the handling of combatants taken off the battle field, the interrogation, rounding up, and holding of American citizens without due process, underneath all of this were decisions made by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). This is an office in the Department of Justice that by definition is supposed to tell the president what he can and can not do legally.

Over the last 8 years, BushCo found a friend in the OLC in John Yoo. He wrote the torture memo, which declared that the President’s power to torture detainees is virtually limitless. Backed by Cheney’s long time attorney and advisor, David Addington, as well as Gonzo, were all part of the team of lawlessness.

Well, yesterday President Elect Obama named a few people to his new administration that in and of itself show change I can believe in. He named Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC. Johnsen is a Professor of Law at Indiana University, a former OLC official in the Clinton administration (as well as a former ACLU counsel), and a graduate of Yale Law School. She’s become a true expert on executive power and, specifically, the role and obligation of the OLC in restricting presidential decisions to their lawful scope.

She was a vocal critic of BushCo, and the OLC in particular. Here are a few quotes from articles she published over the last few years:

I want to second Dahlia’s frustration with those who don’t see the newly released Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) torture memo as a big deal. Where is the outrage, the public outcry?! The shockingly flawed content of this memo, the deficient processes that led to its issuance, the horrific acts it encouraged, the fact that it was kept secret for years and that the Bush administration continues to withhold other memos like it–all demand our outrage.

Yes, we’ve seen much of it before. And yes, we are counting down the remaining months. But we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power. Otherwise, our own deep cynicism, about the possibility for a President and presidential lawyers to respect legal constraints, itself will threaten the rule of law–and not just for the remaining nine months of this administration, but for years and administrations to come.

OLC, the office entrusted with making sure the President obeys the law instead here told the President that in fighting the war on terror, he is not bound by the laws Congress has enacted. That Congress lacks the authority to regulate the interrogation and treatment of enemy combatants. . . .

John Yoo, the memo’s author, has the gall to continue to defend the legal reasoning in this memo, in the face even of Bush administration OLC head Jack Goldsmith’s harsh criticism–and withdrawal–of the memo. Not only that, Yoo attempts to spin the memo’s advice on presidential power as “near boilerplate” . . .

I know (many of us know) Yoo’s statement to be false. And not merely false, but irresponsibly and dangerously false in a way that impugns OLC’s integrity over time and threatens to undermine public faith in the possibility that any administration can be expected to adhere to the rule of law.

Far from “near boilerplate,” recall that the last President who took the view that “when the President does it that means that it is not illegal” was forced to resign in disgrace. . . .

Is it possible John Yoo alone merits our outrage, as some kind of rogue legal advisor? Of course not.

As Dahlia points out, Bush has not fired anyone responsible for devising the legal arguments that have allowed the Bush administration to act contrary to federal statutes with close to immunity–or for breaking the laws. In fact, the ones at Justice who didn’t last are the officials (like Goldsmith) who dared to say “no” to the President-which, by the way, is OLC’s core job description. . . .

The correct response to all this? Marty has several good suggestions to start. And outrage. Directed where it belongs: at President Bush, as well as his lawyers.

About the Bush administration’s violations of FISA she wrote:

I’m afraid we are growing immune to just how outrageous and destructive it is, in a democracy, for the President to violate federal statutes in secret. Remember that much of what we know about the Bush administration’s violations of statutes (and yes, I realize they claim not to be violating statutes) came first only because of leaks and news coverage. Incredibly, we still don’t know the full extent of our government’s illegal surveillance or illegal interrogations (and who knows what else)-despite Congress’s failed efforts to get to the bottom of it. Congress instead resorted to enacting new legislation on both issues largely in the dark.

About the serial lawbreaking she wrote:

I felt the sense of shame and responsibility for my government’s behavior especially acutely in the summer of 2004, with the leaking of the infamous and outrageous Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel Torture Memo. . . .

The same question, of what we are to do in the face of national dishonor, also occurred to me a few weeks ago, as I listened to President Bush describe his visit to a Rwandan memorial to the 1994 genocide there. . . .

But President Bush spoke there, too, of the power of the reminder the memorial provides and the need to protect against recurrences there, or elsewhere. That brought to mind that whenever any government or people act lawlessly, on whatever scale, questions of atonement and remedy and prevention must be confronted. And fundamental to any meaningful answer is transparency about the wrong committed. . . .

The question how we restore our nation’s honor takes on new urgency and promise as we approach the end of this administration. We must resist Bush administration efforts to hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims that openness will empower terrorists. . . .

Here is a partial answer to my own question of how should we behave, directed especially to the next president and members of his or her administration but also to all of use who will be relieved by the change: We must avoid any temptation simply to move on. We must instead be honest with ourselves and the world as we condemn our nation’s past transgressions and reject Bush’s corruption of our American ideals. Our constitutional democracy cannot survive with a government shrouded in secrecy, nor can our nation’s honor be restored without full disclosure.

This appointment is different than most other appointments made by Obama. In the other appointment, like Secretary of State, or of Defense, those positions take the lead from the executive, or Obama is the change that they must follow. In the OLC though, once appointed, they read the law, and tell the executive what they can, and can not do. So, unless Obama pulls a Bush (or Cheney) and co-ops the OLC by finding one with low morals like Yoo, we will see the change we all hoped for in the new administration.

Is it January 20th yet?

Peace,
J

Slow news day, with the exception of Al Franken as the “provisional Senator” from Minnesota, the slaughter in Gaza, Roland Burris as maybe the new Senator from Illinois and Leon Panetta picked for the CIA.

Other than that. Yeah.

There’s an idiot on myspace that I just can’t help but fuck with on occassion. If you read me regularly you may be familiar. I’ll give you a URL at the end in case you want to wade in. I couldn’t be less concerned about increasing his numbers, you people need to to know about people like this.

From his latest blog:

“Thanks to the lame stream media’s unwavering commitment to national socialism, B. Hussein Obama has been elected POTUS and will be making appointments to the Supreme Court in the near future. If any five members of that august body agree that your 12 year old daughter has the right to obtain an abortion without your knowledge, or that Adam&Steve have the right to become husband&husband, or that those pesky Islamic terrorists currently housed at Guantanamo Bay should be released in your neighborhood, well; you get the idea” -Dewitt

Heh. You’re a jackass. You’re worried about this stuff now? You must be kidding. Really. Clowns can’t even get work these days. You must be retardedretired. The worst of what you speak is about to be over. Forgive me, these things have your panties in a bundle today? This kinda shit keeps you up at night now?

Adam & Steve? Notwithstanding that it’s clearly a civil rights issue, exactly what about this frightens you so much? I can honestly tell you that were my religion to take exception to homosexuality, I wouldn’t give a mad fuck. You my friend, could better spend your time pissing up a rope. We have much bigger fish to fry.

I have giant boner gay naked rage for your ass to be penetrated now. I’m simultaneously completely heterosexual.

By the way, no worries here, I’m agnostic.

Sheezus! Islamic terrorists from Gitmo in our neighborhoods? Do you honestly buy that crap? Are you really that far behind the curve? Your shit is ridiculous.

Last but not least; twelve year old girls having access to abortions without parental involvement? If those other two ridiculous scare tactics didn’t make me spew Bombay Saphire and nearly squirt creamy fecal pudding………….

Then this, from a blog he posted but didn’t write:

“Mine was a people’s campaign. I was the surprise candidate because I had emerged from outside the traditional paths of politics and was able to gain widespread popular support. I offered the people hope that together we could change our country and the world. I spoke on behalf of the down-trodden, including persecuted minorities, but my actual views were not widely known until after I became my country’s leader. However, anyone could have easily learned what I really believed if they had taken the time to read my writings and question those people with whom I associated, but they did not. Then I became the most powerful man in the world. And the whole world learned the truth.”

For all intents and purposes, a direct and overt comparison of Our Man to Adolph Hitler. This guy is a world class pencil neck douchebag.

If you’re just spewing this shit without owning it, you may be a sociopathic, redneck dickhead.

If you believe it, I hope you wear a helmet and have supervision in public.

Either way, you suck bad and should always be monitored by the government you’re so desperately afraid of. You ARE the problem.

I would never endeavor to censor you, but I would urge you to shut the fuck up. You’re a goddamn fool. If you were next to me in a cubicle I’d throw shit at you all day long. Steal from you. Piss in your chair. Rub my balls on your phone.

If you were my neighbor, I’d perfect a powerful short range catapult.

Can’t you just go somewhere?

Drinks for my friends.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=132557808

To not see a man’s eyes is hardly ever a comfortable thing. Take off your sunglasses if you want me to talk to you.

Giving is receiving, yet people are people wherever you go.

Forgive me for getting didactic on your ass, but I’m about to.

Electricity always goes to ground. So automatically, being “grounded”, looks like a bad thing.

I’ve lifted the ground, flopped the phase and inverted polarity. I have a friend who invented a device that allows for the shifting of polarity at any point along 180 degrees of the protractor. Other than that, I’ve devoted very little effort and much less time to the idea.

Fuck that. As a former electron director, I was obsessed with phase. Still am. Enough to feel guilty. I was a phase fag.

I dreamt about it last night. I wasn’t good at it. Woke up despondent. Cold feet, sweaty brow. Today kinda sucked.

It’s a tricky thing. It borders on Voodoo. Put the batteries in the remote incorrectly, effectively opposing the crest to trough relationship on which the appliance is designed to operate, and the circuit functions not at all. Drag. Might take you awhile to figure out if you’re baked.

Tesla invented the polyphase motor, making alternating current (AC) far more practical, efficacious and safe than Edison’s model for the distribution of electricity, direct current (DC).

Had Edison prevailed, it would have really sucked. We’d all been killed.

Mustard and pickles always on a grilled cheese. Always.

Flop the phase on the kick drum or bass guitar right before you print and sometimes the bottom end of the mix blooms or at least tightens. Sometimes Pandora’s box yawns long into nightmare. Polarity can be a drum of serpents.

I can’t tell you how many engineers I worked with that had no concept of phase. Any given piano in any given contemporary recording is at least forty five to ninety degrees out. If you reverse polarity and can’t hear a difference, you’re probably ninety degrees out. Do the math.

Wanna hear good phase on a piano? Fiona Apple, “Tidal”. That’s a large piano.

Well paid engineers, with two microphones literally facing each other and never even looking at the button on either module. That used to kill me.

I promise I’m going somewhere with this. Can you tell I like my subject?

Word has it the earth’s magnetic field may be inversing. The last such event, the “Brunhes-Matuyama reversal”, occured some 780 thousand years ago. Planet earth may be on the verge of reversing it’s polarity. It’s like the world is changing it’s own mind.

Speculation as to the effects are exploding. Migrating birds, fish and mammals suddenly unable to find their way. Dogs and cats living together. Republicans voting Democrat. Photomats making a comeback. Seismic events. Volcanic stuff.

I don’t worry about it because there’s nothing I can do.

On the other hand………

Almost without reservation, I welcome the rather dramatic shift in American politics that’s manifested over the last few years. Americans, indeed people in general, are reluctant to change, much less throw everything into reverse.

Now, with what appears to be a near consummate abruptness, people seem willing at least, to subsume drastic new direction. A can of beer for each of you.

No secret there, it’s because it’s all so completely fucked up.

Change is hard and not always good. Don’t doubt that it can be necessary. This movement is beyond necessary. It is vital. Our last best chance? We have long since lead the world in cutting off our noses, to spite or perhaps despite , our own faces. Incredibly reckless and self destructive behavior.

Fucking stupid.

We’ve behaved like dope fiends. An appropriate metaphor for how difficult, Herculean, this change will be, is that of a crackhead. Time for rehab kids. If you’re successful, you’ll alter your entire intellectual construct in order to exclude this addiction. You will change your own mind.

It will not be without considerable sacrifice and pain. The most pious and indoctrinated among you will suffer the most. It will, however, touch us all.

With that, some luck and hope or maybe your God, the crests and troughs will begin to align with more congruency, coherence and maybe cooperation. See what I’m saying?

Forty five degrees to right of north on the old oscilloscope.

For those of you who don’t understand or haven’t yet busted a move; “phase” is the best analogy. The simplest. This way or that way. Allowing greed, “values” and fear to dominate our very conversations about how we should and would be governed has been Democracy’s biggest mistake. As I write this, it is exactly why we are so fucked. Time to hit that button and walk the other way.

It’s trite, but one definition of insanity is performing the same action over and over while expecting a different result.

This one’s for Don Carlson.

Drinks for my friends.

What’s the rumpus?

So yeah, the Xmas vacation.  Pretty cool actually.  I brought the best bottles from my dwindling stash. Leonetti and Pejut.  Pedestrian tongues drank Two Buck Chuck or beer and they were happy.  I’m only selfish with my grapes to the extent of anyone’s ability to appreciate them.  Know and understand what you’re drinking and you can have all you want. I will only share my wine with them gullets that can appreciate it. I’m a dick like that.

Some still call me The Cock.  

I was asked to say grace at Christmas. Heh. I took it upon myself to thank the powers of the universe for family, friends and health, as well as the wisdom of the American people in their overwhelming support for Barack Obama as President Elect of The United States of America.  The caveat intended for my beloved uncle Tyke, an unapologetic Republican. 

At least they laughed. I’m sure they saw it coming.    

Dinner was excellent.  Culinary rockstardom visited upon us by my sister bearing an extraordinary mixed green salad with pomegranate seeds and an absurd pumpkin soup.  Dear cousin Marlow played an excellent solo with her fresh green beans, almonds and ham melody.  Otherwise, an excellent medley of turkey, mashed a’ tatas, gravy and various appetizers. Oh, and cauliflower in cheese sauce.

It was all I could do to not rub it in my hair.

Then there was the bloody roast beast with horseradish. Had to look away.

Among the pies were chocolate, pumpkin and a perfect pear and cranberry with crust to die for from my mother. She tells me she nails grandma’s crust better than any of her sisters. I don’t doubt it. I wonder if they know that.

Extraordinary people looking a little Norman Rockwell, yet moving at the speed of real life. Sharp, funny, pointed, loving and respectful. No matter where the day took me, no matter the people I was with, there was not just a glue of shared experience, but the bond of loyalty and acceptance. Dialog, debate and discussion almost all optimistic. Hopeful.

The first white Christmas in Northern Nevada in twenty years.  

Christmas eve, a study in silliness and inebriation.  I always have a party, but my father’s illness and the weather over the Sierras have conspired against it for the last two years.  I ended it at the house of my cousin’s Marlow and Derrick on the eve.  No worries.  I found myself in bed with cousin Derrick as well as Uncle Tyke.    

Decidedly outta hand.  Gorgeous.  Good to love and be loved. To be tolerated even. 

Visited the Madame. She was classy gorgeous.  

My sister the city planner, has changed the entire face of downtown Carson City in a handful of months and she’s managed to put an ice rink right on top of the town anthole. The rink thrives.

I’m here to talk about Uncle Tyke. Roland Emil. Sometimes I worry his eyes may be too far apart but he’s a crafty bastard and I can’t help but adore him. An excellent man despite being a shameless Republican. Uncle Tyke’s wife is aunt Bobby and she’s the shit as well. A devout Catholic who still manages to be completely honest and very funny. I adore them.

She was my smoking buddy but she quit. Replaced by daughter Marlow.

So, they begat Marlow and she chose Derrick. They all four rock. Marlow has gorgeous completely, an enormous heart, sweetness and honesty. Her husband Derrick slays me. I think he gave me the benefit of the doubt because of my father. I’ll take that. The respect he has for my Old Man, they for my people, makes my heart swell. I try to do my best towards them all.

This is a subject. These folks are real.

Derrick says, Hey you fat bastard, first time he lays eyes on me. Inside is the beautiful house he built with my father, his father and father-in-law-uncle Tyke. Inside, my little shit cousin Marlow puts out a delicious Christmas Eve spread. The salt in my ocean. No shit.

I ate with my hands. That just occurred to me. Hope I wasn’t offensive. Everyone else was doing paper plates. I’m sure I was loud and drunk but I’m just as sure I wasn’t the only one.

My feet stink like broccoli. Like babyshit. Lysol.

He drives a race car and can build just about anything this side of a nuclear reactor. Derrick. They tell me he’s pretty good. I don’t doubt it. He’s both fearless and egoless. I couldn’t take him down without a bat or a shovel. If I didn’t like him so much, I’d crack him with either.

My brother in law Todd worked up some powerful anticipation over three dollar roast beef sandwiches and dollar beers at The Carson Station. He did do the most remarkble thing by arranging to have Don Carlson meet us for drinks and then he and my sister held him there while I enjoyed pork chops with my folks. The overwhelming priviledge. Awesome. Marvelous. Thank you both.

My sister, who can best be described as a house afire, has taken it upon herself to broker my birthday present in the form of the brainspank logo on cousin Derrick’s race car. I understand the near matter vs. anti matter dynamic here. But to have my logo on a my cousin’s fucking race car. My sister, I still call her Pissy, is a genius.

Trust me when I tell you that she’s changing downtown Carson City at a rate that is making the old guys look really bad. She’s really starting to floor me. I’ll have to get published or this sibling rivalry thing might be over. I’ve been coasting on a gold record for a decade. It went triple platinum but that horse is dead.

She’s wicked, my sister. It’s not that she’s exceptional. It really is that she’s almost always exceptional. Goddamn Tam. Enough is enough. I’m here to warn you that your brother is comfortable as second superhero in charge. I’m reminding you that you may never enjoy the respite of second most accomplished sibling ever again.

I may choose to rest on my laurels.

You, as most accomplished sibling, have the burden of higher expectations. More Superhero stuff. I intend to get by with a few flourishes and self sufficiency.

I cannot believe the amount of food in my parent’s refrigerator and pantry. One can choose between a handful of different kinds of cereal, soup, crackers, chips, nuts, vegetables, fruit, sauce, spices, grains, pastas, vinegars, oils, syrups, mixes, dressings………….

The pantry is a huge closet with a divided glass door. Somehow it’s light is the most comforting in the house.

Three appliances. My guess is the one in the garage is long term parking.

I checked out Tam’s larder. Very impressive as well.

I spent more than a few evening’s end with the Tripod named Billy Jean. A sweet black Lab who lost a front leg while training with my house afire sister for a marathon. She assured me she would stay happy and spread it as best she could to all involved. She included a special promise for my Mom and Dad.

I made her swear.

I get home to discover my handsome refrigerator ceases and desists. The upside of being broke is that there wasn’t a damn thing in the freezer or the fridge. The downside will be a repair bill. It’s rough all over.

I hear that despite all logic, the universe continues to expand.

Drinks for my friends.