Archive for February, 2009

Our man has delivered a budget. That word reads so simple. A budget. It’s more than that. A philosophy. He has huge balls. He’s not here to fuck around. It’s a lot of goddamn money. An unbelievable, unimaginable amount of money. Three and a half trillion at least. History will repeat itself like pi before you and I can realize a number like that.

Hoo ya!

“In keeping with my commitment to make our government more open and transparent, this budget is an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go,” Obama said at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House before the budget was officially released. He said previous budgets have “not told the whole truth” about spending and that “large sums have been left off the books,” including war costs that have been funded by separate emergency supplemental appropriations.

“And that kind of dishonest accounting is not how you run your family budgets at home; it’s not how your government should run its budgets either,” Obama said. -truthout.org

It’s spooky ambitous and ideological even. It’s visionary. The symbolism of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is not lost on me. Long term thinking as opposed to thumb in the dyke stop gap chicanery. He’s made the very bold and cold shower honest move of including the cost of our wars in the official accounting of our government’s spending. The first time since we began to wage this unjust war. It begs the question of why it hasn’t been included so far. Did they think we didn’t know? Did they think we didn’t understand they were spending more money than you and I can make?

That all the while the rich were getting richer and we didn’t know?

“I have serious concerns with this budget, which demands hardworking American families and job creators turn over more of their hard-earned money to the government to pay for unprecedented spending increases,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. -truthout.org

That is a lie. He is a Senator and he is lying. He sucks. His lament was for the wealthy. He presided over what will be the bulk of your debt for the last eight years. He’s an asshole. Google him, you can tell by looking at him. He was the kid you beat up for trying to tax Jello or maybe sell you gum by the stick.

These asshat Republicans have forced us to double down. They act like they left us a pile of chips. They left a pair of red panties on the green felt. Cotton granny drawers XXL.

Get out of the way while we play bold because it’s the only option you left us. Peniswhipdrinks. Go sit by the pool but you can’t put your drinks on your room.

We intend to use the rollback of tax cuts to the absurdly wealthy as our marker. Spreading the wealth around indeed. 80% of the world’s wealth in the hands of 1% of it’s people. Socialism my ass. Looks entirely equitable and ethical to me. Again, you haven’t left us much choice.

Here lies some proof in the moveable feast of the pudding. We spend ten times more than our closest competitor on guns, bombs, missiles and fighting men & women. America is responsible for forty percent of the entire global outlay of guns, bombs, missiles and humans. It’s ridiculous and obsolete. The single biggest component of that expense is humans. The world has changed. The ideology and geography of huge human armies is obsolete. Wars like this are no longer sustainable. If they prove to be viable at all, we will lose them. Good Morning Vietnam. A lesson we should have learned forty years ago.

“WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama Thursday unveiled a 663.7 billion dollar defense budget, up a modest 1.5 percent on 2009, but projected a sharp decline in spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming years.”

Somehow under the new administration, it’s ok to photograph and reproduce images of coffins containing our dead service members. You may call the changes so far symbolic, I call them substantial.

We’re not in Kansas anymore. Kansas is no longer Kansas, despite how bad the people who live there want it to be. The world has changed and continues to do so. Pay attention. Nobody is in Kansas anymore.

We need to be as fierce in battle as we are gentle in friendship. I stole that but I don’t remember where.

Maybe next we’ll talk about education and health care.

Drinks for my friends.

My best friend is named Suede. His real name is Rod but that’s gay so we call him Suede.

My name is Myrus. Rod also gets called Def Leppard and Dave Mustaine from time to time. His name is Suede.

I get home and it’s so goddamn quiet. I’m clomping around the place because I’m pumping and it’s too fucking quiet. I hate the quiet. Maybe I should get another dog but it never ends well. I regret beating a man sometimes, but dogs make me cry. I’m really not so good with animals and suffering.

I can’t have them around.

I fire up a little Maiden. Grab me a PBR.

That’s how it started but not where it’s ended up. Human’s make me glad. Animals don’t know. People do. Even the most innocent human wears far more sin than any of God’s other creatures. Animals are innocent.

Human beings are guilty.

The wind should shut up.

I hide my rings and wash my clothes.

I’m Myrus.

I like to look people in the eyes. I will look you in the eye. It’s important to me. On the street, I come up on you, you don’t nod back you don’t respect me so I don’t care about you at all. Fuckhead.

My name is Myrus.

The wind whistles through my house.

All the time.

I won’t paint you for that. We just have no reason to respect each other. Neither of us has earned anything from the other. Understand that if you look at me like that again, I will not stop until you’re on the ground and I’m kicking your head. You lost me at hello.

I can’t believe there’s no grape soda. I like Glenn Miller. I keep my hair pretty long. I find it makes me stand out. I don’t dress to stand out. Clothes are a simple choice, there’s no commitment. They fit so you wear them. I don’t care about clothes. I like cologne.

You look at me like that. Again. I tilt my head roll my eyes, stare you in the face and smile. I walk at you with my left hand behind my head and my right extended for a shaking.

I take your hand smiling, I pump it friendly, pull you to me while I chop with my left fist for as long as I can hold you up. I draw blood right away because I’m wearing my rings. My rings give me confidence. I beat you so bad you fold. The blood is exhilarating.

It happens pretty fast after that and I realize I’m in the Country Store. A bar. Local dickheads like to answer their phones and shout to their wives they’re at ‘the store’.

I look at Cecil behind the counter and his grizzled stupid fucking chin that looks like a pair of tiny balls. I loathe his chin. He tries to smile to reassure me but I see his stupid teeth and swing right at them with a fake marble ashtray. Overhand right.

It ended up in my hand. I don’t know where it came from. I fucking nailed him right in the mouth with a brick.

I use my left hand and the rings.

I’m sure I break everything on the front of his head. Cecil goes down gulping and bleeding. I fucking hate his chin and stupid fucking grey Members Only jacket. He wears it over his sawed off flannel, he rolls up the sleeves of the dumb jacket and puts the pussy collar up.

Douchebag. He has an elastic sweatband around his head sometimes.

His name is Cecil. My name is Myrus.

All I can remember is that I wanted to kill myself. I wasn’t in any kind of pain at all. I was looking forward to it. Clean linens on a warm cloudy bed with my belly full. Bliss. An end to misery.

That’s all I can tell you.

I was tired. I’d never been that tired.

When I get tired I take a nap or go to bed.

Was I at my absolute lowest? Yes and no. I’d given up. Material posessions hadn’t mattered for quite some time. I was about to lose a molar but I was kinda cruisin on the blissful relief of vicodin and surrendering entirely to not giving a mad fuck.

There’s oceans of freedom in giving up hope. The first body of water is huge. The Ocean of Day to Day. Twenty four chapters, each an hour long.

Rough start. I was thinking I’d try again tomorrow. Go to sleep. Get drunk, go to sleep again.

Wake up in my drafty little house next to the quiet highway. My place faces east so my bedroom looks west and there’s a mountain range up close. The afternoon sun bothers me the least we can manage and in the spirit of cooperation, the wind whistles through my house.

Man I was tired.

Black cumulonimbus sentient over the mountains. No rain would come. It never does. I think I can smell it.

Shit day.

Customers pissy over the selection. What you see is what we have. No backstock. I hate having to repeat myself.

My name is Myrus. When I first started they had me as a greeter three days a week. I hate having to repeat myself.

My name is Myrus.

I’m referring of course, to Rush Limbaugh. I know it’s old news but…….

I had the pleasure of viewing “Right America Wronged”, an HBO documentary examining American Conservatives during and shortly after the last election.

Within just a few minutes I was treated to charming vignettedotes like these:

One man was asked if he felt two Americas were emerging and he said, “There’s gays and there’s working people”

When asked what the most important issue of the campaign was, several responded with a mix of abortion, homosexuals and fear of losing their guns.

“……..We’re gonna let this world know there is only one God, there’s only one way to heaven and ya better sit up and ya better take notice and ya better start listening.”

“I hope there’s enough Christians in the world to save us.”

One campagne worker who claims to be working for God, is dismayed to discover an Obama yard sign. She then discloses in a whisper that the house belongs to two lesbians.

The whole time they bray toothlessly about the ‘liberal media’. It is the second month of the third week of the year of our Lord, 2009.

A dumptruck full of bowling ball mechanics. Sheezus.

Yes, I concocted the word ‘vignettedotes’. Mark your Aztec calendar. It’s pronounced Vin-yet-a-dotes.

What is so compelling is how overtly and thoroughly the McCain Palin campagne utilized American churches as a surrogate army for their message. I was aware of this but not at all cognizant of how pervasive. A message that pivots on abortion and The Gays. A man inside a First Baptist Church at a lectern shaped like a cross urging the congregation not to vote for Obama. His message is one we understand all too well. Abortion and the nomination of every judge in the orchestra on up to the Supremes and Diana.

The irony is, to my dismay, Barack Obama is demonstrably more pious than McCain.

Recently Bristol Palin said on television that abstinence was unrealistic. No shit?

“Set me free, why don’t you babe”

Second issue but hardly least, is of national security and American troops in Iraq; that they won’t be safe under an Obama administration and neither will we. These people unaware that of the two, it was Obama with the wisdom and a promise to get our men and women home as soon as possible. If you rednecks are worried about your people over there and you can read, you might be a little less worried than last year.

And the idea that the more we do over there somehow amounts to less they will do to us here is goddamn stupid. It’s the exact opposite. 180 degrees out. You think they can’t spare ten dudes to light us up? What if we had an extra couple hundred thousand battle trained soldiers back on our own soil? You guys are dumb.

Somehow they’re not getting the memos. Maybe they can’t read them. Buy a vowel people, or learn what one is. I can’t apologize for my flying spittle here. I thought about this. I’ve been sitting on this blog. The people in this documentary embarrass me. I’m not over reacting when I tell you I was embarrassed to be white. These people are fucking idiots. It was horrible to watch.

I came away with reinforced belief that our differences are far more about class than race or any other factor. What lies between almost all of us is socioeconomic. Keep your hands on your undies lest they bundle up. Race is huge. Obviously class and race are mutually inclusive.

The very real issue of racial discrimination in America still has a full belly and a big head of steam. It has torn us apart in bloody and spectacular ways. It still does. What rips hardest at us today is the disparity between rich and poor. I know minorities are disproportionately poorer than us white folk. Class and race are symbiotic.

The top one percent own eighty percent of the world. It’s that simple. It’s that bad. Worst in history. America is not courting socialism, it is rushing , meth and steroid lubricated, towards a medieval caste system.

Looks like there’s going to be a troop surge in Afghanistan, I’m not sure I like it but maybe it will save some American lives. Too late for much more than that. Seventeen thousand troops will not fundamentaly change this game. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the Hydra, a Wild Card and Rogue Nuclear State all in one. But wait! There’s more! Act now and you get one billion pissed off Indians with nukes just to the right on the map.

India, allegedly the world’s largest Democratic country, along with China, are making giant strides in the implementation of humans as currency.

They said it’s all gonna end over there anyway. If the region from Iraq to India was anywhere near like it is now, in terms of mind wrenching turmoil, conflict, poverty, war, slavery, death hatred and desperation, back then it was a pretty safe bet. I think most authors of the First Testament were in the area at the time. They must have known something we still know now.

This effort has to be economic, diplomatic, adroit, intelligent and humane. Notice I didn’t say transparent. Forgive me, but that’s just stupid. Not gonna happen. Don’t even ask for it.

Several men at a Nascar event are asked whether they’re ready for a black President. They all admit they’re not.

A man is asked what he thinks of Obama. “I’m not too partial to blacks.” The interviewer is incredulous, “What do mean? C’mon this is 2008, you can’t say that.” His reply, “Why can’t I say that? I’m in the South.” He also didn’t believe women should have the right to vote.

Asked who he’s going to vote for, a man says, “I’m gonna vote for the white man, McCain.” The interviewer asks why, “I ain’t voting for no nigger”, he says turning away. He stops and faces the camera to repeat himself.

They say he’s a Muslim, a terrorist, he’ll swear in on the Koran, he’s not full blooded American. Didn’t salute the flag, doesn’t wear a flag pin. He’s a socialist, comparisons to Hitler, 666, he’s the Anti-Christ. The whole time they moan about the liberal media.

Don’t ya hate when you vomit so violently it comes out your nose? Sometimes you puke so hard you poop a little. Sometimes you fill your britches.

What astounds me most is yet another irony. Those people who wail so vehemently against ‘The Liberal Media’, those who are so adamant about their side of the story not being told, are the most egregious victims of media bias and manipulation in this country. I mean, if you had to guess where they got all this disinformation, all these lies, what would you say? Where would you point? Fox News. They even said as much.

It’s not like they read.

Where do we go from here? By the scale of all human tragedy this certainly isn’t defcon four but it’s beyond that greasy turd in the punchbowl. It is tragic.

Can they be helped? I doubt it. They certainly aren’t willing to be helped. They’re already marginalized. I believe them to be a lost cause. Not worth the time or the trouble.

It’s all about the children.

I’ve decided that CSI Miami has the best visual production on television. Brilliant set design, costumes, locations, lighting, cinema photography……………..and the worst acting, writing, script, plot, storyline I’ve ever seen. A very high watermark on the television without substance as a vehicle for mindless entertainment scale. I like it as background without sound. I only watch it with the sound off.

Drinks for my friends.

7-11 has gotten pretty aggressive with branding of late. The products seem to be of quality and affordable. I tripped on a canard though. I bought some trail mix labeled “Swiss Trail Mix” that contained M&M’s. How can it be Swiss, if it’s most delicious ingredient is an iconic American candy? Not only do they contribute to the palatability of the recipe, they are the backbone in terms of contrasting flavors and textures. In concert with, but far beyond, the raisins.

It’s not a stretch to view this instance as an analog for the salt and pepper of Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Actually it is, but bear with me, there’s a tragic flaw. These two elements are not mixing with any sort of shared purpose. Too bad, ever had sea salt and ground pepper on calimari? Far less pepper is required than salt.

The Republicans are pepper.

No unity. Zero cooperation. What should be a symbiotic relationship, is the furthest thing from it. A contemporary example of the classic conundrum; the pot accusing the kettle of blackness and all the internecine feline agitprop.

Ladies and gentlemen we have a blog title.

I gotta stop buying those Cheladas.

Childish, churlish and obstructionist. They are the body designated and elected to serve our best interests. We The People.

“Watch for the classic tactic of American rightwing propaganda: Always accuse one’s opponent of doing the very thing that one is doing, especially if one has been caught or exposed while doing it.” -from my friend J’s blog

It’s what they accused Democrats of over and over when they were in charge. Obstructionism, when they encountered opposition to silly irresponsible tax cuts to the very rich. Fiscal irresponsibility is at the top of their lungs now, though it was the Republicans who ran the deficit up to a trillion dollars with chickenshit tax cuts and senseless wars.

Nothing proactive there. Our man understands he’s steering into deeper waters. He’s not happy about it but he understands that any way he turns the wheel, people on this boat will piss and moan. He’s got a very smart crew. They think the sea might be more manageable where we’re headed. He’s chosen course as best he can because we have to keep moving. Stand still you die.

Just who the fuck are these guys? Identity and principle have never been less important to the GOP. The tragedy is that in times so breathtakingly dire, they still think it’s 1994. They still think it’s a goddamn game.

They don’t see America. Criminals, pimps, whores, fastfood workers and union folks. We want to address the malaise at this point. Lawyers and midgets. Philanderers and microbioligists. Those chicks who paint you up at Macy’s. We all want it to work.

We’re a mystery to them. They know not what to make of us. See how they walk around with their mouths open?

I’m still fond of the notion that our government benefits from some modicum of parity. A ballast to power absolute. Checks and balances. It’s just these jackasses aren’t up to the ideal. Virtuosity for the sake of virtuosity perhaps. They’ve praticed a black art with such facility for so long that they now practice it exclusively for the sake thereof. Completely absent any regard for the people, their constituents. They have no moral or ethical imperatives. They have no center.

Like balloons in a thunder storm. No power against the Earth’s whipping wind. Notice how they keep falling? Have you seen the debris? The wind has no regard for faith. Faith is centered in the Midwest. So is wind. Huh.

You know why I like Biden despite him being such a loose lipped cashier? He’s the least wealthy member of the Senate and probably most of Congress too. The Guy’s broke despite having been there forever. The only guy in debt. Just like the rest of us, he’s got a mortgage. Now he’s the Vice Goddamn President. Not much speaks louder than that.

As near as I can tell, Our Man has done more in a month to reach across the aisle than Dumbya did in eight years. Magnanimous. Refreshing. Futile? Naw.

I think it’s important for this administration to continue being the better man. Extend a hand and when you get a fist, walk away. Spit over your shoulder. Maintain transparency and clarity all the time. Have the cameras rolling and the microphones on. Play us like they did, only in the right direction. There’s no sin in that.

Let the record show who played good honest ball and who didn’t bring a decent game. Who subsequently lied, obfuscated and willfully assumed ownership of the Sore Loser Trophy. All the Republicans are willing to offer is business as usual. I don’t need to point out they’ve screwed the pooch at the expense of the middle class for not just eight, but every year since Reagan. They would have us believe tax cuts to be the key to the Rapture.

Innocence in America ended with the assassination of Jack, Bobby, Malcom and Martin. Corruption enjoyed a nascent emergence with Nixon. Ford fell down the steps and Jimmy fell up. Corruption became an institution with Reagan and Iran-Contra among other things. 41 was hapless but not evil. Definitely a prick. Barbara was and still is, a platinum haired sasquatch. I bet she stinks like bad deer meat.

Clinton was almost exactly what we needed. He stepped in shit but it was mostly his own. Not ours. And forgive me, but he beat them back, they were at the gates brandishing torches and he sent them home. Rockstar.

It all became business as usual with the Dumbya administration. An administration so corrupt, it’s towering incompetence was overshadowed by ghoulish moral depravity and malignant avarice. These guys fucking sucked.

One last thought on this subject: Let’s not forget, despite the gale, it’s in Barack’s best interest to deliver this vessel into more pleasant waters.

By the way. The Cartoon in the NY Post? Fucking racist.

Now they’re shrill about all the humor comparing Bush to a monkey because he was a dipshit. See, that was legit in my mind because it was the truth. The funniest shit is almost always the most truthful. Nothing to do with racism. Whenever blacks have been degraded in this country to the point of dehumanization, monkeys have been used as overt and shameless imagery.

A dead chimp and the caption: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The Post is owned, along with Fox, by Rupert News Corp.

That may be all boys and girls. I had to get that out.

Make sure you check him before he wrecks him. Our Man. Stay engaged. Think globally, act locally. Judge not lest ye be.

I mean, don’t do what I do, do what I say.

Drinks for my friends.

Sheezus! I just deleted the most self indulgent piece of whiney crap. I was a little sad you see. Every once in awhile I go back and read my shit and this was a train colliding with a power plant. Sorry about that. I promise to never do that again. Sorry about that, I’m embarrassed.

It’ll rock, there’s a ton of ice. Then we’ll make hot chocolate and hoover a giant rail of pinkish petrochemical smelling meth. We’ll drink PBR and vodka from plastic. Straight.

Ann Coulter was on Larry King last night and she was remarkably cunty. Larry not in. Joy Behar gave excellent spar. Good at the smacking around a little without vitriol. Minus obvious disdain even. Smart broad.

Remember the end of Jaws where Roy Scheider Blows up the giant fake shark? That was cool.

By the way, this crazy bitch that had eight kids? That bitch is crazy or insanely, deviously smarter than most of us including me. I don’t buy the latter. Fourteen kids total, all under eight years. Octomom. Sheezus. Give her a goddamn cape.

I’m not all that worried about what she will cost me personally. Not all that worried about unwed mothers with multiple children and what they might cost me. The obvious insanity of it all does give me pause. Sorry, but her attic is taking on water. She’s not right with her Jesus.

See, we’re spending about a half a million an hour to kill people we can’t even know for sure are our enemies.

We are in roughly the same shape fiscally as a country, as I am personally. Be very afraid.

America needs to focus and so do I. We both need to be more active but you all need to read more. Here we are, all post technocratic, and so many still don’t even read. If you listen, read and watch you’re able to sort of triangulate and pretty soon you’re eyeballing more truth than you bargained for. Reading is books, periodicals and the internet. The antibiotic trifecta that remains free or real cheap.

Same with watching and listening, free or real cheap but far more insidious. Think of it as a hidden cost.

Any media who’s conduit is primarily audio or audio/visual cannot impart or convey the entirety of what you need to know. Two dimensions. Height and width.

No depth. For that, You must read.

Our President went to Canada. Did you know that? He made nice. They like him.

They don’t like us. We’re violent crazy bullies that teabag them at every opportunity. If I was Canadian I’d want me to stay south. They got sick of Americans when we still had a draft. They’re not excited about a shitload of us getting fed up and moving there. I don’t blame them. We’re fucking nuts. All I have to do is leave my house to own that.

Housing/Stimulus:

It’s a trunk full O’ groceries more than the last administration did, despite the crackheads being overtly cognizant of a rapidly gathering supercell. They knew something wicked did this way come. Trust me, they knew. Greenspan says he missed it. Bullshit. Ask yourself why a man of his ilk, with the towering respect he’s afforded, ask yourself why he’d lie about something like that.

He saw this tsunami coming in stop motion. Whatever his reason, it serves an awful thing. You can bet it was a Lucifer at the Crossroads kinda deal. I mean, I fucking saw it coming. I knew it was on the way before the horizon began to swell and long before the animals knew.

Anyone with opposable thumbs saw it coming in slow motion. Prehensile even.

My youngest cat is sublime I’m thinking of buying her a cape. At first I thought shiny red, then I knew it had to be a pearly and sparkly white. I’d like to get my oldest a tiny monkey with an outrageous hat and a saddle. I’d like to give the primate some kind of gun to fire but I know the Swirly Girl will be beyond reluctant were that to be reality.

Are you guys ready to move in with your parents? I’m not but this shit is serious. I’ll move in with my sister and get a job at Arby’s. Works for me. I’ll start reading comic books again. I’ll commit to Cheladas and forego and abstain from the Satan that is Bombay Saphire. I’ll only emerge after sunset. It comes early in that part of town. There on the west side and almost up against the Sierras.

Hey Tam, I know I said I’d take Chloe’s room. What I want is the rec room minus the pool table. We’ll need some sort of kitchenette right away and as soon as possible we’ll need to plumb a toilet and shower. That long closet on the right will be ideal for my coffin, you might want to get all your shit out of there. Can we build in some kind of chute? So I can change soil like a litterbox?

While on the subject, can we put down a wood floor? I remember not liking the carpet.

10.6 percent unemployed in Michigan. We get very close to that in half our states and shit will begin to go downhill fearfull fast. Just like hitting a fan pointed at the floor. The part that sucks is far from over.

The stats tell us we’ve got at least five million unemployed. I’m sure it’s twice that.

It’s true, we’re fucked. Even if you urinate for a living.

We have a sociologist for a friend. Don Carlson. I think he and I should be in charge of the green house. He’s probably less horticulturally inclined than I am but we could hang out and drink. I figure we’re smart enough to make it work.

I wonder if he smokes pot. We could grow some.

Drinks for my friends.

There are the weak.

Two are named Justin and Jose. It’s a story in itself. They worked in the warehouse. I reached out to both of them. Tried to help. They were shit before I met them and I’m not sure it was their fault. Nonetheless, they were shit.

I understand that one or both of them abused my cat. The Swirly Girl. For eight years or so she was the warehouse cat, until I brought her home. I am the most trusted entity in her life. We know each other very well. I’ve always been her dad. Still, she sometimes ducks my hand. My hand, that is never extended or even opened unless to pet or feed her. occasionally she cowers a little.

She’s been struck by a human hand. They never forget that. It would have been Justin or Jose.

I imagine it was Justin and if I ever lay eyes I will hit him in the face with all that I have because I know. Swirly Girl is beautiful, soft and sweet but she is scarred. Some dickless angry human abused her. Hello Justin. How are you? Miserable bastards always meet their fate. We reap what we sow.

Ever notice the way the grass yellows underneath a child’s pool or an overturned wheelbarrow?

“I heard the news today, oh boy.”

I stood next to Paul Stanley today at the 7-11. I reminded him I’d been an engineer on Kiss Alive III. What I didn’t tell him was that I faked not knowing the lyrics to “Detroit Rock City” and was therefore able to get him to hand write them for me so I could punch in and out of record in order to replace the live vocal. I still have it somewhere. Both he and Gene were fun to work with. Nice guys. Very smart. I did tell him that.

His teeth were pristine.

Pretty cool. I got that record, “Destroyer”, and a skateboard for Christmas when I was twelve. Best record KISS ever made. Probably because Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd The Wall) produced.

I worked with Garth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine) and Eddie Kramer. Eddie Kramer was the single most incompetent producer I’d ever worked with. I spent my time on that record cleaning up his mistakes, propping him up and keeping him from looking like the idiot he was in front of his clients. He had no ears and zero facility with the technology in front of him.

His claim to fame was Hendrix. Listen to his Hendrix records. The playing is brilliant but they sound like shit. The production and engineering is amateur hour. I despise imposters. Eddie Kramer was an imposter. He fucking sucked.

By the way, Garth was and is a sweet talented man who fathered me through it. He made me an honorary Canadian. A class act. He kept me from swinging on the pretentious English prick and likely saved my job and career. You’re a good man Garth.

“Same as it ever was.”

I gotta tell you, I don’t like most people. Some I used to love, I now hate. Even the very best ones end up disappointing me in the end. Their hearts blackened by their own fears and jealousy. They walk under our sun feeling they are justified and righteous. They reek, as they are no longer whole. The tragedy is not that they are unaware of what they’ve become, but rather, that they are. They have succumbed. All energy is devoted to maintaining the facade for what they believe is their own sake.

They rot and it stinks.

Callow, spineless and almost always aspiring towards Machiavellian.

“I never promised you a rose garden.”

Sometimes I’m amazed that I can walk into a store on any given day and find fresh untainted bread on the shelves. Of course, things aren’t always what they seem. Maybe that bread isn’t fresh or untainted. It just might be that it’s slowly poisoning me. Were I to discover as much, it would no longer suprise me.

“Who are these men of lust, greed and glory? Rip off the mask and let’s see. Oh no, but that’s not right, what’s the story? There’s you and there’s me.”

I’m not here to hold myself as some example. I’m as flawed as anyone on any sidewalk anywhere. I do my best however, to take stock. To be honest with myself. I try. I attempt to avoid being the biggest douchebag I know.

Good men die and bad men live every goddamn day. The only thing we have is to do the best we can. That’s all there is.

“Who the fuck are you?”

My Uncle Larry had surgery yesterday to remove a mass of cancer. He’s already very sick. I didn’t hear from my Mother. That worries me. She was supposed to call. My plan is to get drunker.

I really can’t stand most of this. It’s all way too much. There are times, and they are increasingly more frequent, I resent the idea that I’m supposed to carry on in light of it all. Despite it all. It makes me very angry. I feel like a five year old on a merry-go-round and I just want off.

I know I just turned fourty four, but inside, I’m still barely thirteen.

“So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.”

There were times. Very rare. Fog would envelope my desert neighborhood. Only in the dead of winter. I was comforted by the quiet and isolation. Today, I long for it.

As always, the Swirly Girl rests at my side. This moment, as good as moments get. No creature do I adore more.

She is the end of my nightmare.

“You can always judge the distance by the company you keep.”

Drinks for my friends.

Astounding. The richest country on earth. Yet, in so many ways we have so much less compared to almost every other industrialized, modern nation as well as an alarming number of the impoverished third world variety.

I’m talking about things like healthcare, education, infant mortality rates and life expectancy.

Humanity. I’m talking about our humanity.

Why?

Incarceration of non-violent drug offenders swelling our prisons to the point where we jail more people per capita than any state on earth. An annual defense budget well north of half a trillion. An expenditure far more than twice that of the entire European Union. Ten times greater than that of any other individual country in the world. Our debt has surpassed the entire world’s gross domestic product, while people starve and die on every continent including our own.

Disgusting.

Our drug war rips Mexico and handfulls of South American countries asunder as I write.

The paradigm has changed. A United States of America bristling with rockets, missiles, guns and bombs is obsolete. The military might of another state is no longer any kind of legitimate threat. Red Dawn will not happen in our, or our children’s lifetime. America’s demise will knock at her door from inside her own house. That house is of eye popping contemporary design and constructed entirely of cheap playing cards, paper and children’s paste.

Eisenhower, a four star general and President of this once great country, warned us about the folly of an all powerful military industrial complex. He was beyond prescient and we failed, tragically, to heed.

We have embraced a sensibility replete with greed, excess and entitlement so pervasive and cancerous that we have lost sight of the important things so consumately, we no longer even understand what’s happening to us. We have done this to ourselves in as much as we’ve allowed it be done to us.

Have a Coke and a smile.

To this day, more than half of us believe creationism to be more plausible than evolution. We fear gay marriage more than pedophiles. We still can’t see God and religion as the medieval superstition it is.

Apathy and ignorance. Willfull ignorance. America is lost.

We are no longer a society with the grit to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and collectively forge ahead in order to better our circumstances and rise above despair and destitution. Our sense of ‘we’ has long since been replaced by the culture of ‘me’. We are not the same people we were in the post depression, WWII era. The Greatest Generation.

No longer respected, no longer revered. Nobody even likes us anymore. Most hate us. For years we’ve traveled abroad telling people we’re Canadian. We torture, and kill indiscriminately. You and me, it’s done in our name, we are complicit. The era of America taking what she wants because we’re the biggest kid on the block are at an end. We no longer have the resources. Broke, broken and morally bereft.

We are on the verge of losing at least one, maybe two wars. This, while we contemplate a third that will be more disasterous than than the previous two combined. I don’t care. Bring them home and stop the killing. The idea of victory in either of these conflicts is nonsense to me.

The chronic and archaic caterwauling of the evangelicals, born agains, rednecks and the far right have never been so dissonant. Their message at best, anachronistic. Fearful and stupid.

Things are going to get worse. The inevitability of it stinks like a sewage treatment plant on a brutal summer day. How much worse is anybody’s guess.

Worst case scenario, America wakes to find itself as an agrarian society again. Or is that best case scenario? Perhaps that will be the impetus for us to regain focus on what really matters.

Us. We. Not me. Not you. Not America. The world. All of us.

A homeless guy told me today that prostitutes can have their cake and eat it too. He also said he’s got nothing to sell. His dick ain’t long enough and he ain’t pretty.

Drinks for my friends.

I’m no economist. Neither are you.

There comes a time to trust our leaders and the attendant experts. That time is now.

We are bleeding jobs from our asses. Understand, even if your job is safe, this phenomena is about visit to hardcore suckage on you.

There is an imperative, an overwhelming reason we elected this man. A major component of that reason is that we learned the hard way that the previous administration, it’s policies, philosophies and rhetoric could not on any level be trusted. We came to understand that not only were they clueless, they were lying to us and they never, even briefly, had our best interests at heart or even in mind.

Another, full to busting reason for the clear and unmistakable support we saw fit to lend this man Barack Hussein Obama, is that he talks to us. Not like children. He talks to us, I sense, the same way he talks to Congress. He’s not here to fuck around. I thought his press conference last night was magnificent. I did not doubt his conviction. I’m confident he has our best interests at heart and in mind.

As near as I can figure, the fight over the stimulus bill centers on spending for programs that hover somewhere in the neighborhood of two percent of of the whole goddamn thing. Well, that and more tax cuts as opposed to spending on objectives like infrastructure. Roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and other stuff we use everyday that crumble like moist chalk as we we speak.

We do know, those of us with mind enough to pay attention, that tax cuts to the wealthy are not the answer. They are in fact, disastrously short of efficacious for anything other than the prevailing trend for concentration of wealth in this country. Trickle down economics is a lie. History from the Reagan era until now bears this out in full technicolor.

Trust the assholes that espouse this as remedy at your peril.

Senate and House Republicans embrace this archaic ideology the same way they worship Reagan. Like a bunch of homo worker bees around the Queen. Forgive the analogy, I’m no homophobe, but methinks the drones doth protest too much. I can’t help but believe that it’s way of life for them that’s enriched their wealthiest constituents and thereby kept them in power in one way or another for decades. Legislative, executive and to some degree, judicial. It’s all they know; it’s served them well and they are loathe to walk away from it.

I suppose I can’t blame them from an undiluted empirically, analytical perspective. It has after all, worked smashingly well for the greedy power hungry fucks for a very long time. They simply don’t see it the way the rest of us do. In the light of day, the emperor is buck naked with an infinitesimal puss leaking phallus and hair festooned man tits.

The dipshit Republicans can’t get enough of that.

It’s Bedtime For Bonzo.

Drinks for my friends.

Our Man’s press conference tonight was impressive. He did very well. Serious. Not here to fuck around.

I understand that this piece is not exactly timely. I began to write it some five days ago before my account was suspended for lack of funds. I’m still pretty pissed about the subject matter, so tonight I finished it. Here we go.

Yeah so, today Michael Phelps was suspended by USA Swimming from competing for three months and Kellogs Co. jerked his advertising contract. I would imagine these are but the first two dominos to fall given the archaiac and victorian sensibilities America still clings to so hypocritically and irrationally.

All this because he was photographed doing a bong rip. I shit you not.

The war on drugs is an even bigger joke, albeit without a punchline, than the war on terror. That’s a mouthfull. The war on terror has no punchline either.

Guess what America? Drugs won.

Mankind has sought to self medicate for thousands of years longer than the “War On Drugs” has even been a concept. America incarcerates more people per capita than any nation on earth. In large part, this phenomena is attributable to the jailing of non violent drug offenders. Ordinary people caught using or possessing marijuana. Soft drugs. We do this at a stratospheric expense, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

That would be you and me.

It goes without saying that if they aren’t criminals when they go in, they are by the time they get out. Unbelievably wrongheaded. Counterproductive. Counterintuitive.

You know what? I don’t give a mad fuck whether Michael Phelps smokes pot or not. He’s a smart and astonishingly accomplished young man. If he wants to smoke pot, who am I, or you, or anyone else to object, much less punish him for it? He won eight fucking Olympic Gold Medals.

None who read this or any who would judge him will ever come close to such accomplishment (s).

The salient question is, who really cares? I guarantee if you’re at all disturbed by his behavior, it’s the least of your problems.

I smoke pot. Regularly. I’m not ashamed to impart to you that most of my musings and diatribes are delivered to you here under the influence of El Bush De La Diablo. Well, that and Bombay Saphire (on sale last week at Ralph’s for $28.88, fucking A!).

It’s not unreasonable at all to assume that our past two presidents as well as the current, have availed themselves of the sinister shrub. Two out of three have admitted it. The middle one obviously had a brainwreck brought on by drugs far more serious than mere foliage. Either that or he’s retarded.

Maybe it was booze, more dangerous by the way, try to mitigate your children’s access. Talk to them about it. Don’t be so foolish as to expect they won’t be exposed to it before they’ve existed for at least eighteen years. They will have porn, pot and booze made available on a precious metal platter long before they graduate high school. Hope that’s all they have to contend with.

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

I was arrested once, for possession. Booked, fingerprinted and given an orange jumpsuit with plastic slippers. I was home home on vacation. In the passenger seat of a car going so fast we didn’t know we were being chased by the Reno Police. Sometime after 4 A.M. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill in Carson City, there were at least five cars waiting for us. I was searched illegally, never read my Miranda rights and ended up on the front page of the local paper the next day. “Visiting Record Company Personnel Net Drug Charges”. I had a thimble full of shake in the bottom of my back pack.

At that time, some twenty years ago, the drug laws in Nevada were among the most draconian in the country. A conviction meant prison automatically. I was fucked. I wasn’t driving, I’d done nothing wrong or illegall and I was looking at prison.

It was the worst day of my life.

I was lucky. My family, although not wealthy, was well connected. I expect a signed copy of Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s book for my birthday this month.

Drinks for my friends.

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Executive Compensation
Category: News and Politics

The more I hear about the specifics of the new bailout/stimulus package, the more I fear that we are squandering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make badly needed changes in our fundamental economic arrangements and are instead indulging in an expensive exercise in populism and pork.

I suppose in any spending bill of this size, a fair amount of pork is unavoidable, but the blatant (and misleading) pandering on an issue like executive compensation is not only a distraction from more important issues, but it is also dangerous.

Prior to the collapse, the best and brightest in the banking industry could hope to earn millions (or even tens of millions) if they made it to the top of their field. Disregarding for the time-being the ethical/moral dimensions of the pursuit of mega-riches, let’s consider the practical consequences of capping executive compensation.

In a society that worships fame and fortune, the financial markets represent one of the only fields in which those not blessed with exceptional athletic abilities or good looks can hope to achieve success comparable to that of professional athletes or movie stars. For an ambitious college senior surveying the landscape of career options, there is an array of possible choices. Those who desire financial comfort but who also value stability and job-security might choose a career in law or accounting. Success in these fields is more attainable than in banking, but compensation is commensurately lower. A good accountant might make a couple hundred grand a year, never a hundred million.

Again, my point is not to judge whether it’s a good thing for the smartest members of our society to be motivated by the hopes of earning big bucks. The point is that the potentially outsized rewards ensure that the banking industry is able to attract people of the highest caliber.

If we now arbitrarily pass a law stating that bank executives’ compensation cannot exceed $500,000 per year, we will drastically affect the incentive structure facing the talent pool available to the industry. If a top-tier financial professional is faced with the option of running a bank with a salary of $500,000 or working for a hedge fund and earning $10 million, its not hard to see that banks will be unable to recruit and hold onto the most talented people. It is beyond foolish to expect that we can make such a change without causing a deterioration in the quality and performance of banking executives.

Furthermore, while the amounts of money earned by top banking executives seem excessive relative to what people earn in other fields, they are not out-of-line in terms of their impact on the bottom lines of their companies. Let’s imagine a bank that makes a profit of $5 billion and pays its CEO $100 million. If having the very best person in the position of CEO is responsible for a 10% increase in profitability (relative to a less talented CEO), the impact of the star-CEO is $500 million, so paying $100 million for his services is a good corporate decision. (Likewise, in an environment where we are seeing banks lose tens of billions, if a top-notch CEO is capable of paring losses even by a few percentage points, it is a good decision for the corporation to pay that CEO whatever it takes to prevent him from accepting some other highly lucrative form of employment.)

Yes, it is infuriating to see bankers taking expensive boondoggles to Monte Carlo or auto execs flying in corporate jets while their companies hemorrhage money, but this should not cause us to hastily make policies that will only further impair the ability of these corporations to recover. Simply capping salaries at $500,000 will only guarantee that we end up with less talented executives trying to deal with the most difficult banking environment of our lifetimes.

All of this is not to say that executive compensation is not in need of fundamental reform. But the simpleminded, populist fix of arbitrarily capping salaries is not the right solution.

The most glaring problem with compensation in the financial field (as well as others) is that tying bonuses to a company’s reported earnings in any given year creates dangerous incentives for executives. On one hand, it rewards reckless risk-taking, since if a gamble pays off the executive responsible can make a pile of money, while if it doesn’t, he can just walk away and get another job. Additionally, it creates incentives for executives, auditors, and ratings agencies to present fraudulent numbers in order to boost short-term rewards. Many of the problems that currently threaten the very survival of the country’s largest banks stem from these pay-related incentive issues. But to just deal with a complex and thorny issue with a simplistic and politically expedient fix like capping salaries at $500,000 is foolish and potentially harmful.

February 5, 2009 – Thursday

The Action Americans Need
Category: News and Politics

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Every day, our economy gets sicker — and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.
Barack Obama
The President of The United States
(Yea, he writes op-ed pieces too)
LINK 1

Barack Obama, yea that guy, wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post today, taking his message to the people. So, not only does our president apologize, he writes op-ed pieces to speak directly to us, the electorate.

He knows how critical this time is for our economy, and the future of our country. Two wars, infrastructure in the worst shape in decades, capital markets collapsed, job loses continue at record pace.

With all of this, the answer I keep hearing from the small loud obstructing party (GOP) is the same we have heard for the last 25 years. Tax cuts!

I actually had a Republican tell me (ok, he claimed to be a libertarian, whatever 😉 that one example of tax cuts that work was the Harding-Coolidge tax cuts of the 1920s. Never mind we found ourselves in the great depression within 5 years of passing the cuts. Look at the $1.3 Trillion dollar tax cuts of BushCo, and look where we are now. Look at the Reagan tax cuts, and the recessions we had both in his administration and in Bush I’s.

I watched Representative Barney Franks on Sunday remind us all that no tax break every fixed a bridge, never educated a student, never built a road, never paid a fire fighter, never brought new teachers to education.

Is the congress’ stimulus bill perfect? Hardly! But watch it when it comes out of the Senate. It will have a lot of things cut out, a lot more infrastructure spending, and will gain some support from Republicans. Those that don’t vote for it, well I hope they go home and tell their constituents that they fought hard to NOT bring jobs home, and did all they could to ensure that the rich get richer, and the public web that binds us together crumbles further.

I’m with Obama on this one. I did not like the whole tax mess with several of his appointments, but for the first time in 8 years, the president said “I screwed up”. Wow! There is change in the air, and if you can’t get behind it, get out of the way.

Peace,
J

Twain hated opera and loathed Wagner as do I. Ride of the Valkyries is kind of a shit piece if you ask me. Twain sought to disabuse the people of nonsense. He did so. Eloquently. Old school Hunter S. Thompson style. Magicians both.

Then there was Poe. Madness and genius. Same as H. P. Lovecraft. A volatile mix. Most likely killed while voting. Seriously.

Capote, Steinbeck and Fitzgerald. Vonnegut, Irving, Bradbury, Banks, Updike and Robbins. Faulkner was always a little too deliberately obscure and symbolic for me. I did record his cousin though, Jason Falkner. Nice guy. Extraordinarily talented. Among the handful of Hollywood musicians I had reason to believe were were aliens. Extraterrestrial. No way could he be from this planet.

Not many female writers come to mind. Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy was remarkable and Ann Rice was certainly firing on all pistons early on.

I have to wonder about the origin of genius. Can’t help it. I’ve certainly witnessed it. Right in front of me, mostly in recording studios and books. What impresses me is consistency. The good ones just keep doing it until their flame goes out. They produce art because they can’t help it. They are compelled. They simply must. Among all the things I don’t understand about brilliance, this is one thing I can relate to. It’s a compulsion. I can’t not. This I understand.

“Life is a comedy for those who think… and a tragedy for those who feel.” -Horace Walpole

We can’t all be geniuses. I’m sure the chances for divine inspiration are even more remote. Heh.

Two things I know. I’m no genius but I believe I can spot it. I’ve known a few geniuses I can’t like, I’d be just as happy to hit them in the face. Two more things: Despite years of service, my toilet plunger still wears it’s original price tag. Whomever is responsible for that adhesive might just be a genius. Life is huge. Um yeah, two things.

Let’s talk about the rest. A painting that hangs over the mantel. No matter how often I look, I still like. It’s why I hung it there. A melody, a solo or a bridge you can play over and over after years of playing it over and over. Movies and books. Al used to say there’s a fine line between clever and stupid. The line between crazy and brilliant is pretty thin as well.

I can’t remember breasts ever making a single sound. This, despite the time they spend in my mind.

Artistic geniuses always bring you to a profound place. Good or bad. They remind you while they move you. It’s that ability that is the hallmark. The ugly people know who they are. There’s a possibility it’s the rest of us that are out of are minds. I’m thinking it’s quite likely.

Perhaps the artists are sane.

I wondered about the creative process and thought about how I’ve often been able to see what I’m doing before I’m done. So I called two of my best artist friends to get their take on it. What they told me was consistent with what I already know. I can see it but not completely. I don’t see it finished. Sometimes I think I do but I’m lying. Often it changes almost completely. There were times though, that I saw it almost completely. Those occasions were really cool.

Dennys gave away free breakfasts yesterday. Had to be there by two. Missed it. Hmmm.

Kobe scored sixty one points the other night. Another art.

This guy Chris Hataway called me a little while ago. He’s a genius. One of the two I polled for this piece. He called to wish me a happy birthday. He missed it by three days but at least he was early. I was happy to talk to him. I bet he still hasn’t read my book. Prick.

The Fish did me a solid today. Thank you. Friend.

Drinks for my friends.

Our Man admits he “screwed up”.

One word. Wow. Or maybe, fuckmerunnin.

I’ll state the obvious by pointing out it’s the first time we’ve heard any thing like that in about eight years.

Geitner’s imbroglio was one thing but Daschle’s had become a flaming sack of canine fecal matter on very well known doorstep. Quite another thing, see. I’m confident Our Man ordered it removed. He’s not stupid. He’s doubled the IQ of previous occupants of the big White House on his own.

Sucks cause I really like Tom Daschle. He would have been very effective. Big loss. I think that’s where the rubber met the road here. Obama, being the erudite individual so many of us fell in love with, realized that Daschle was one of the few individuals with the respect and gravitas to spearhead genuinely efficacious healthcare reform. A player.

He knew he was perhaps the best man for the job and therefore America’s best shot at equitable, decent and affordable medicine.

Sad. Daschle screwed the pooch. He did it to his own self. He mayhap would’ve rocked.

This business about Michael Phelps potentially arrested for being photographed doing a bong rip is absurd. Leon Lott, the sheriff of Richland county South Carolina is rather obviously a publicity slut. I like the message, however inadvertently, Phelps is sending. Even record breaking olympian athletes can and should smoke the Devil’s foliage if they want to.

If more Republicans did they would be less inclined to wipe their dicks on their own drapes.

It’s fine with me if you don’t as long as you take no exception to those that do. I should point out that if you read me regularly, you understand that I’m fond of beelzebub’s garden. Yes, I’m on the pot. I also like Bombay Saphire ($28.88 this week at Ralph’s), Vicodon, Percoset, Cheladas and Xanax roughly in that order.

We’re gonna go ahead and nickname him ‘Leon The Lott’ in case he’s stupid enough to pursue this.

I’m trying to make a point but nothing happens.

Denny’s gave away a free breakfast today and I can’t believe I missed it.

Drinks for my friends.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Say It Ain’t So, Barack!
Category: News and Politics

I had a strange experience today. For the first time ever I found myself agreeing with Sean Hannity. It was not a pleasant experience – in fact, it made me feel kinda dirty. But, when he rails at President Obama for standing behind Tom Daschle (nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services), unfortunately Hannity is right on the money.

Daschle failed to pay over $100,000 in taxes resulting from private limousine services he received. Daschle only remedied the situation once it became clear that Obama would be President and that Daschle might have a chance to serve in the Cabinet. Regardless of whether this was a legitimate mistake, it looks terrible and undermines the credibility of the new Administration.

Given the enormous expectations that swept Obama into office, it was inevitable that some necessary disillusionment would set in. That being said, I’m shocked that the President would expend valuable political capital defending an establishment Democratic Party mainstay like Tom Daschle. I was willing to overlook Tim Geithner’s little tax hiccup, but Daschle’s is more glaring and indefensible. At a time when the American people are being asked to make painful sacrifices in order to put our country back on track, seeing a fat-cat like Daschle skate through a confirmation process simply because his party controls Congress just screams business-as-usual.

As someone who has high hopes for our new President and genuinely wishes him well, it is tempting to give him the benefit of the doubt. But it would also be a betrayal of the principles that Barack Obama built his campaign upon to overlook the fact that lately he is starting to look more and more like a typical Democrat. Where is the new blood in this administration? Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Tim Geithner? And now we’re being asked to overlook a serious tax violation by a man who personified the divisive partisan politics of the last 20 years. Please, Mr. President, don’t make me agree with Sean Hannity. I don’t want to feel dirty anymore.

February 2, 2009 – Monday

If Jesus Had a Trillion Dollars
Category: News and Politics

“I think we need to exercise some discipline here and I think it may be time for the President to get a hold of these Democrats in the Senate and House who have rather significant majorities and shake them a little bit and say look, let’s do this the right way.”

“if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and you spent a million dollars every day since then you still would not have spent a trillion dollars.” adding that, “it is more than we have spent on all the wars since 9/11.”

Senator Mitch McConnell Republican Senate Minority Leader

If Jesus had a Trillion Dollars, what would he spend it on? I think that is what Senator McConnell was asking, right?

As I write this, the current cost, Budget Authority for the Iraq War is over $629 Billion dollars, not including interest. Senator McConnell was making a comparison to the stimulus program, which currently sits at $820 Billion. It is well accepted that Iraq alone will cost in real dollars a minimum of $100 Billion a year for at least the next 2 years.

So, if Jesus had a Trillion Dollars, do you think he would spend it on infrastructure, schools, health care, green energy, and tax breaks, at $1 million dollars a day for 2000 years, or would he spend the money invading a nation killing tens of thousands, and maiming hundreds of thousands, all in less than 6 years?

Just wondering,
J

PS: Let’s not remind him that the Bush Tax Cuts which the Republicans rammed through cost over $1.3 Trillion, left us with the lowest job creation ever for a two term administration, and an over all 30% loss in wealth in the stock market, $700 Billion in bail out funds, $ Trillions $ in Fed money, and a real loss in earning of the middle and lower class…

Title courtesy of Jon Stewart.

Subject: The stimulus bill.

He didn’t invite them to his table, he sought to sit at theirs. He told them what he intended to do and solicited their contributions. He asked them for their ideas. He made concessions. Diluted his ideas with theirs in the spirit of bipartisanship.

Despite such pointed magnanimity, every single Republican in the house walked away. Irresponsible, single minded, tunnel vision afflicted pricks. Shameful and embarrassing. How ridiculous. Yes Virginia, Republicans are not only assholes, but deaf, dumb and blind assholes.

He knows better than they do that he doesn’t need them. They’ve been marginalized by their own actions. They are fools and he understands this better than they do. He didn’t do this to them, they are prisoners of their own device.

He walked straight at them with hands open and they chose instead to piss into the wind. Let the record show they are damp and they stink.

Like soldiers stranded on remote islands with no evidence the war is over.

Punks. Dipshits. The most clueless union of fucktards to ever inhabit our government since they were the most clueless union of fucktards ever in power. Children.

“Why behave in public when you’re living on a playground?” -David Lee Roth

Stay with me.

Are we to expect this sort of partisan obstinance to continue? Did they not get the memo? Do they not understand that they are over? Ignorance does not always prove to be bliss. Led by House Minority Leader John Boehner (Boner), The Repugnicunts marched in jackbooted lockstep. Lemmings. They haven’t even bothered to wet a finger and hoist it. They still think it’s 1992. Chronic insouciance.

Boner quotes:

“This Was a Bipartisan Rejection of a Partisan Bill” Um, what? How can it be a bipartisan rejection when it was a single party exclusively doing the rejection? Spot the retard.

“I’m just a Congressman, so I have no opinions about what the government does. My opinion on waterboarding is classified information.” -WEBCommentary

John Boehner is a clueless dickhead. The poor dumb saps from Ohio got him as substitute teacher after Tom DeLay was forced to walk the plank.

I say slash every concession out of the bill, every unecessary tax cut and let them eat goddamn cake. Our man should take full advantage of the bully pulpit and otherwise let be what will be.

There is no tangible difference between House Republicans like Boner and the CEOs that rode corporate jets to to Washington to beg for money. No different than the megalomaniacal Wall Street captains that took tax payer money for bonuses in an awe inspiring display of ostentatious avarice.

I gotta give it to Claire McCaskill for proposing legislation that would cap salaries for Wall Street execs of firms recieving TARP money at $400k, the same as President of The United States. “These people are idiots. You can’t use taxpayer money to pay out $18-billion in bonuses… What planet are these people on?” -Daily Kos

Couldn’t have said it better myself. How many of the aforementioned would you guess are Republican? I imagine the answer would delight me.

I’m reasonably sure that this style of creep is on the verge of extinction. I’d like to believe that anyway. One thing is certain, they are no longer at the wheel and that is encouraging. Fools. Insidious fools.

If House Republicans are in any way representative of the future of their party, it may be time for them to contemplate the most flattering diorama they can afford in backward ass country fuck museums across our great land. Dinosaurs anyone? Neanderthal. Cro-Magnon at the very least. Reptilian perhaps. Assholes without a doubt.

The diorama itself would have to depict various men and women in obvious sartorial business splendor fellating a variety of other similiarly attired beltway professionals with wheelbarrows of filthy lucre at the ready and nearby. The obligatory backround matte painting would include poor folks suffering from hazardous chemical contamination, non US citizens impoverished and displaced by war and The Constitution being defecated on et al.

Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya you miserable bastards.

Drinks for my friends.