Archive for April, 2009

All my windows covered with bees this morning. The alarm. It’s dark. No light. I hate this. It scares the shit out of me. What fucking now.

Straight to the bathroom and I crap like a goose. I blow loose gravy. Awful and foul. I retch. I shit blood and it’s all about new copper pennies and deep fermenting sewage. The ocean in there somehow, maybe because there’s pictures of fish on the paper towels I’m using to wipe my ass. I swear I just bought a case of toilet paper.

Nobody knows the trouble I see.

These bees know sweet, sticky blood. They get excited enough to dance.

One by one I thump the glass from inside and they fly away.  The light streams in. It feels natural.  Normal.  Like it’s supposed to work just like that. It makes no sense to me.

Well yeah. Too often things work that way and I’m not inclined to worry because I’ve solved the the problem at hand. But really, I’m getting tired of this shit. I don’t like waking up to a new conundrum every goddamn morning. I just want to be. I’d move to a city. A smaller city, far from this middle of nowhere shit. Austin or Portland or maybe Albuquerque.

I’m tired of the whistling wind and the chaos it brings.

I decide on a peanut butter and honey sandwich with banana slices. I put it together on wheat and butter the bread. I make it a ‘melt’ in a frying pan and eat it while gulping a grape soda. I feel good after I eat it. I use an elbow straw for the soda. I like the way the bread crunches against my gums. I think of the avacados and how I can rub them all over my mouth with my tongue.

I watch Oprah.

These other guys, the ones I share the house with, I don’t know them. I’m not even sure how many they are. Myrus and Paul I know, but there’s a few more that don’t have a bed. Blind shithouse crazy. The shit they leave lying around is insane.

Carcasses and parts. Makes me feel like I’m dead.

I just can’t do this anymore.

He brought my heart to me in a jar. It was Myrus but Paul stood behind him. Handed it to me suspended in a pink liquid. A big glass jar, size enough for a whole sheet of cookies. What happens when all is lost? You are what you eat. Myrus handed me the jar, he’d palmed it by it’s top. I slid the heavy glass lid aside and there was a scrape and a ring as I inhaled the smell of my own heart.

My name is motherfucking Felix.

It would be nice if we could simply choose our own channels. If I don’t pay my bill, Direct TV shuts me down in a heartbeat. I call them on the phone, arrange payment and within thirty seconds, access to like three hundred channels is restored. I don’t believe for a second that making individual choice available to customers isn’t possible.

I’d do the networks, they should be free and I’m a news junkie, including FOX, CNN,and MSNBC. Part of my addiction is to monitor the mainstream. Comedy Central, HBO and Showtime for movies, excellent series’ and boxing. One local affiliate. They all suck but I need access to at least one local news outlet. Maybe some nature channels, IFC and that other one……..

I need to step off this topic for awhile. You who read me regularly understand I am wont to do.

I am moved by this President. He takes complex questions and answers them with intelligence and nuance. He talks to us and explains himself with an earnestness and sincerity that make plain his need for us to understand. He does want to include and engage the lowest common denominator. I believe I’d be remiss were I not to point out the glaring contrast between Mr. Obama and our previous President, who catered to and exploited the lowest common denominator almost exclusively.

Our man was asked this evening, what about his first one hundred days suprised, enchanted, humbled and troubled him the most, on live television. He answered adroitly, compassionately and honestly. This is the kind of question that would never even be allowed under the Dumbya regime. Were such a question somehow allowed to slip through, trust that Dumbya would have stuttered, paused and visited abuse of malapropisms to hitherto unseen depths of national embarrassment.

He’s a primate at best.

His eyes are too close together.

I couldn’t help but remember Clinton. He would appear on television in the middle of our dark years and answer any question by framing it’s context, explaining the variables and then recommending a course of action so expertly that you knew he’d wrestled with it until he understood the issue thoroughly and had arrived at a solution that he grasped completely and had no reservations about endorsing. The man was flawed but he was whip fucking smart and he gave a shit. He was a lighthouse in the dense fog of Dick-in-Bush.

First 100 days? I’ll give Obama a B+. Not bad for his first semester midterm. About what I expected and I’m pleased. My biggest concern is the financial swamp thing. I can’t really pretend to understand it. It goes without saying I don’t have an opinion worth sharing. I will tell you that the more I learn and understand, the more I wonder about moving somewhere I can have a garden.

Those fuckers left us hanging. Cheney won’t shut the fuck up and neither will Rove but have ya heard from Dumbya? The barn door was banging at the start of the storm when those three bastards ran out. Man they were bad news.

Say our man gets us to 911 of this year without a domestic terror attack of similiar scale. Will you then shut the fuck up about your keeping America safe audacity? Allow me to date myself by saying you people sound like a broken goddamn record.

Some advice. The sky has been falling for some time now. You just looked up. You just noticed it could really crack you hard. By the way, if you did just notice all this, part of this is your fault. So anyway, settle down.

What we really need is for you mouthbreathers to be calm. Don’t stir shit up. Try not to shoot fellow humans. Stop turning out like zombies for corporate lobby funded tax protests when you’ll all do better under what you’re marching against. Have some dignity. Pull your pants up.

More of my advice to you is to wade back in. Forego ideology and sincerely look at what progressives are attempting to do here. Find fault with the policy or find flaw with the process. Stop dropping the ‘socialist’ bomb and find a way to participate. Start rolling up your sleeves and stop crapping your pants.

Hannity and Limbaugh are the clown princes of the conservative stagnation and they will be your demise.

Drinks for my friends.

Cable is out. Chose not to pay the bill.

What people fail to understand is that Obama cannot afford to even address this issue of guns, to do so would ignite an already hot pile of insanity. These fucks, these crazy zealots, are lying in a puddle of their own excrement waiting for Obama to utter the words “gun control”. It will be an excuse for them to snap.

Patient but dumb.

Wouldn’t be prudent.

Most of you are just stupid enough to not understand how dangerous you are. It really bugs me.

Sorry boys and girls. The issue of guns will see no play this season. Understandably so methinks.

Unless assholes keep shooting shit up. Give it a rest already. I refuse to to fear this.

I got comic books on the brain. I bought a thousand bags & boards and five long boxes the other day. For the last three days I’ve bagged and boarded. Surreal. Amazing nostalgia. I adore comic book art. My collection is perfectly preserved. Exactly the way I left it. Beat up books are still beat up books, but pristine ones are still pristine.

Crazy. I touch each one as I place it on a board and manuever it into a bag and I remember reading them, almost everyone of them stirs something in my head and there’s over a thousand. Damn. They were gathered with care as well as abandon. As I rember them, I understand they have informed me as much as they are going to.

They are everywhere in my apartment now. Leaning or stacked, grouped by title. Huge swaths of Ironman, Spiderman, The X-Men, Daredevil, Avengers, Fantastic Four……The Flash, Superman, Batman, The Justice League……….Star Trek, Adam 12, Richey Rich, Zoro and Archie……Boris Karloff, Ripley’s……….Swamp Thing, an assload of MAD magazines, Heavy Metal, Conan and Epic.

An amazing historical capsule. Late sixties to early eighties. The breadth and diversity of my collection affords me permission to brag and be proud because I was a child when I assembled it.

My folks are heros for packing them, storing them and delivering them to me when I bought my first house.

The way they smell and the way they look and my absolute romance with them when I barely had opinion about anything. I began to obsess when I was twelve. I was twelve.

John Byrne, Jim Starlin, Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor Smith, Frank Miller…… Jack Kirby

Life is so sticky I feel the need for a bath about every hour. Sign of the gypsy queen. As thick as an old Supertramp record.

Everything I ever did you could hear the fucking kick drum.

The kick drum is lichen on a boulder.

When I was a kid there was lichen on boulders.

Primus grooves way hard.

My sincere advice to you is to Sail the Seas of Cheese and clean your house.

A little Tommy The Cat will cure whatever ails ya. I’m also a spokesperson for Alka Seltzer and fragrant pinecones.

Anyway, today Michele “We’re Running Out Of Rich People In This Country” Bachman (R-MN), by far the biggest assclown in the US House of Represenatives, gracelessly attempted to infer that flu epidemics somehow only occur under Democratic administrations. See if you can follow her logic:

“I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter…….” -Huffington Post

The Human Shitsmear had this to say:
“[E]verywhere Obama is spreading Obamaism, there is a deadly disease taking place, either in the TARP community or in the newspaper business … Obama goes to Mexico — they have an earthquake. Obama goes to Mexico — get pig flu,” -wowwowwow.com

Awesome. Do the math. You’ve got an evil humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winning philanthropist, and our current President, a nefarious community organizer and two, count ’em two, outbreaks of flu related to pigs of all things. Oh, and, they’re both Democrats. I bet they used the same lab. It’s probably deep in the basement of some Red Cross shelter or maybe a Salvation Army thrift store.

Sheezus! That’s iron clad. A slam goddamn dunk! But wait. The original swine flu epidemic occured under Ford. I feel dizzy. I think I smell yellowcake uranium……my vision is clouded by pockmarks not unlike those littering the visage of George Tenet.

In late March 1976, President Gerald Ford emerged from a meeting with 27 health advisers with an ambitious request: “I am asking every man, woman and child in the country to get an inoculation this fall.” -dumpbachman.blogspot.com

It’s fair to say I love to loathe this woman. I adore her stupidity. I covet her retardation.

Why, just the other day she deigned to lecture Congress about Carbon Dioxide. She posited over and over that it’s a natural gas. She’s right about that but then so is the methane in my flatulence. What’s the point? She’s sure it can’t be bad for us because it’s from “nature”. She goes on to inform the esteemed deliberative body that there exists not a singly study proving this natural gas is harmful to humans. Five syllables Michele, asphyxiation.

She gives truth to the concept of failing upward:

In response to a question from host Chris Matthews, Bachmann said on the Oct. 17 show that she was “very concerned” that Obama “may have anti-American views” and that the news media should investigate the views of members of Congress. -Miami Herald

Hello McCarthy.

Then there’s Arlen Spector. Booya! I’ve always thought this guy to be inconsistent but obviously of his own mind. He confuses though not predictably. Maybe he actually has his own mind. Just can’t tell with these damn white collar tweekers.

Franken will get to sit and Spector makes sixty. A nice number. The Democrats, should they choose to act in concert, will have a majority immune to fillibuster. It’s something they rarely do regardless of whether they’re formidable or not. I’m not about a lockstep majority in the Senate but we need to be able to swing haymakers and roundhouses. Change won’t take unless we land some.

Homogeny is not a given among the jackasses.

Whatever. What these two stories point to is serious structural damage in the GOP. Take Mehgan McCain’s remarks:
“Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. That’s creepy, and ” Later, she wrote: “I can’t shake the fact that Karl Rove is following me-it can be creepy. So watch out.” and “Call it savvy marketing, but I find it disingenuous,” she said. “And it’s a bit weird to think his people-not even Rove himself-are following me.” -CNN

This thing will heat up. It will be a battle of the titans. Not so much between Democrats and Republicans but a contest between progressive and ignorant. Between smart and stupid if you will. Pro peace, pro choice, not fooled by creationism or abstinence, unafraid of gay people, tired of organized religion in our face rational humanists, versus desperately afraid war pigs that believe shit like Democrats are responsible for the fucking flu.

Guess who wins.

Drinks for my friends.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Stress Tests: Down the Rabbit Hole
Category: News and Politics
There were many things that were deeply disturbing about the Bush Administration, but perhaps nothing was more so than its willingness to make blatantly false statements in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. When a government commits itself to upholding obviously false positions, all rational discourse and debate is short-circuited. Once that happens, there is no limit to the atrocities that the government can commit in the name of protecting the public interest.

Whereas it is possible for reasonable people to disagree as to whether it is acceptable to use military force against a country that poses a threat but has not actually attacked us (e.g. Iraq, Iran, North Korea), when Dick Cheney repeatedly asserted that Iraq was linked to 9/11, logic and reason were left without a foothold. How do you argue with someone who states that up is down and down is up? Ordinarily we put such people in mental institutions, but when these people are our leaders, the entire country becomes a nut house. And unfortunately it seems that the Obama Administration is picking up right where its predecessors left off.

Case in point is the current hubbub surrounding the Federal Reserve’s “stress tests” of our nation’s banks. The stated purpose of the stress tests is a reasonable one – i.e. to analyze how the banks will fare in the event of a further deterioration in the economy. However, as we learn more about the methodology of the stress tests, it becomes clear that the whole thing is nothing but an exercise in fantasy every bit as divorced from reality as the most outlandish statements of Bush & Co. A careful reading of a recent article by the Associated Press highlights the many ways in which the Administration is trying to sell a blatantly false bill of goods.

In the second paragraph, the article states that, “Federal Reserve officials held top-secret meetings with bank executives to give them preliminary findings of how each bank would fare if the recession got much worse.” However, in actuality the stress tests look at how the banks would hold up under two different economic scenarios. The first assumes an unemployment rate of 8.8% and a decline in housing prices of 14%. The more negative scenario posits unemployment of 10.3% and a 22% fall in real estate. Later in the article it is pointed out that the actual state of the economy is already close to the latter case. Therefore, the original assertion that the stress tests will reveal how banks will fare if the economy gets “much worse” is obviously false.

The article then goes on to report that the Fed announced that the banks under examination would be required to raise additional capital in order to supplement their reserves against continuing credit loses. However, the Fed cautioned that this should not be taken as a measure of the “current solvency or viability of the firm”. In other words, the government has lent, and will continue to lend, hundreds of billions of dollars to keep these banks afloat, yet the public should rest assured that the companies are solvent and viable. (At the same time, banks are being chastised for their unwillingness to lend. What is glossed over is the fact that simultaneously asking the banks to increase their reserves while also increasing their lending is impossible. The two are in direct contradiction to each other. This is a level of absurdity that would make Lewis Carroll proud.)

The article concludes by discussing the possibility that the stress tests might harm the weaker banks by highlighting their precarious financial positions and encouraging speculators to bet against their survival. However, it goes on to say that, “Friday’s announcement put some of those fears to rest, underscoring that the Fed will not say any bank lacks the reserves it needs to survive (italics added).” In other words, pay no attention to logic and facts – just listen to what we tell you. And, to me, this is the most frightening aspect of the whole situation.

Regardless of whether the government is able to prevent a total collapse of the financial industry, the results of such an all-out assault on the truth could have far-reaching consequences that extend way beyond our current financial problems. Proving himself to be a typical politician, rather than the straight-shooter that we all hoped he would be, President Obama is overseeing a deliberate effort to obscure the truth about the banking industry. One can almost imagine him borrowing the immortal words of Colonel Nathan Jessup…”You Can’t Handle The Truth!!”

April 24, 2009 – Friday

Usury
Category: News and Politics
“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender”
Proverbs 22:7

“If you have lions and zebras, and the lions are eating too many zebras, you can’t tell the lions to stop eating too many zebras. You have to build a fence, the lions won’t build one themselves.”
A ditty I read somewhere that I can’t find 😉

Usury:

1. The practice of lending money and charging the borrower interest, especially at an exorbitant or illegally high rate.

2. An excessive or illegally high rate of interest charged on borrowed money.

3. Archaic. Interest charged or paid on a loan.

“What do Hammurabi, Plato, Charlemagne, Dante and Queens Mary and Elizabeth have in common? They all condemned, outlawed or regulated the charging of interest on loans. In fact, until the early 1900s interest rates in the United States were kept at or near 10%. And until 1979, loan laws provided some interest rate cap in every state.

Then everything changed. Governments and banks put profits before people. And now the lending industry is spiraling out of control.”

James M. Ackerman, Interest Rates and the Law: A History of Usury, 1981, Arizona St. L.J.61 (1981)

Here’s why:

1978 – The US Supreme Court decides that national banks may export the state interest rate law of their home state into any state where they do business. In response, South Dakota eliminates its interest rate caps. Several credit card issuing banks move to South Dakota and operate nationally with no interest rate cap.

We have gone from two types of lending in our society, legal lending, and illegal loan sharking.

Now we have many kinds, but in general I like to break them down to these three:

1. Bank lending, mortgages, car loans, business loans …
2. Credit Cards
3. Payday loans (AKA Legal Loan Sharking)

Back to history:

1980 – South Dakota’s economy was a mess. So was Citibank (Hmmmm), and they called on South Dakota. The bank had lost more than $1 billion on its audacious foray into the credit card business, and the future looked even worse. The trouble, simply put, was that the rate of inflation exceeded the amount of interest Citibank was allowed to charge its credit card customers under New York usury laws.

But the bankers saw opportunity and salvation in the plains of South Dakota. Within days of those first phone calls, a team of top executives arrived from New York with a proposal for Mr. Janklow: If South Dakota would quickly pass legislation that would enable Citibank to move its credit card operations to the state, they would bring hundreds of high-paying white collar jobs to the state.

The unlikely alliance would clear the way for Citibank to turn a money-losing credit card operation into a vastly profitable business. “All of their senior people used to say it,” Mr. Janklow said. “That South Dakota saved Citibank. I believe it did. That South Dakota saved Citibank.”

Link

What was once offered to only the best customers was being offered to everyone. The saying used to be, the loan must be paid, in 1980 it became, just keep paying on the loan. And since then, that’s what most of us do, every month, month in, and month out. Talk about a money maker.

I’m not sure if you realize this, or not, but the profit of lending money is so high, that we, Americans, have gone from being a country that investes in manufacturing to a country that invests in finances. If you think NAFTA killed manufacturing, it was already dead.

And with money, comes power, political power. Why haven’t loop holes in credit card lending been fixed? Lobbying! Money!

Today Obama met with credit card lenders, and laid down the line. Since the crash last year credit card companies have been jacking up rates. Why? They can. They can even jack it up on past due amounts. So, if you are charged one percent this month, next month they change what you owed last month.

Read that again, and tell me how that is legal. It is!

Here’s another one. Let’s say you have a $5,000 credit limit on your card. You’ve been trying to pay down your card, you’re unsure about you job, so you have your card down to $3,000. You get a letter in the mail telling you that your limit has just been dropped to $1,500, you owe $1,500 RIGTH NOW!

You don’t have it, you’ve been paying $300 a month, and think you can go a little higher, but not $1,500 RIGHT NOW.

From that day forward you will be charged a penalty on what you owe above your limit, and your interest rates will probably go up 36%. With penalties, more like 56%.

This is legal right now.

I am glad that Obama is getting involved. There is a bill that just passed the House, and the Senate has a bill ready as well.

What do you think? Should we be protected from usury? Has the finaincial industry destroyed manufacturing?

Peace,
J

I have no problem with Miss California’s answer to the question put to her on same sex marriage. I disagree, but it was an honest answer. I don’t think she was particularly inarticulate; she was plain spoken and sincere. She did the best she could, I’m fine with it.

Having said that, I’ve long maintained that the legitimacy of same sex marriage fits succinctly and logically in the context of civil rights, obviously a much broader issue. I heard Dennis Prager say the other day that it can’t be a civil rights issue because there is no difference between a black man and a white man but there are profound differences between any man and any woman. It’s not an entirely weak point, he’s on the nose about substantial biological differences at least.

But that’s easy. And weak.

What a firebrand.

Maybe he wasn’t deliberatly being intellectually dishonest, but his argument is just that. I think it’s stupid. The most salient flaw being a presupposition that homosexuals choose to be homosexuals. I’m here to tell you that they do not. They will tell you the same. Individuals have no more control over who they are attracted in terms of gender, than they do over whether they end up with an innie or an outie.

Some of these things do go together.

I cannot wait for the day when science bears this out so people will shut the hell up about it or at least look ignorant.

I want to talk about the instructions posted at the trash chute.

I started to tear the laminated sheet from above the very well maintained, door to the trash chute. Right away I knew that was a mistake. I’m no longer twenty five years old. Stainless steel handle with a locking lever handy to your thumb.

If I ever get to design my own house, I’m going to include a dumbwaiter.

The Rules:

1) All trash bags must be placed inside the chute.

2) Do not leave trash bags on the floor.

3) Do not clog the chute. Use smaller bags.

4) Do not leave recycalable boxes or bags on the floor.

I have some observations I’d like to share. First, rule #2 is really just an extension of rule #1. What they are trying to tell me is to make sure I put my bags in the chute. In addition, they caution me that my bags are not welcome on the floor. In a sense, they posit that the only place for my bags, is the chute. Well, inside the chute.

I understand and agree with where they’re going with this. It’s the only place I really want to put my bags.

I’m a bit of a rebel but so far, there’s no conflict here.

I’m just a little troubled by how fucking stupid they must think I am or maybe how dumb the people around me are. It gives me pause.

I’m not looking to go in there swinging a Hefty sack full of holes, filled with yogurt, cat litter and rotting meat. Are they worried about that? I hope not. It’s this tiny little room just off the elevator.

I’m happy to follow the rules. They make sense.

Drinks for my friends.

April 23, 2009 – Thursday

Befehl ist Befehl UPDATE: Final – Taxi to the Dark Side
Category: News and Politics

From Wiki:

The Nuremberg Defense is a legal defense that essentially states that the defendant was “only following orders” (“Befehl ist Befehl”, literally “order is order”) and is therefore not responsible for his crimes. The defense was most famously employed during the Nuremberg Trials, after which it is named.

Before the end of World War II, the Allies suspected such a defense might be employed, and issued the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which specifically stated that this was not a valid defense against charges of war crimes.

Thus, under Nuremberg Principle IV, “defense of superior orders” is not a defense for war crimes, although it might influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty. Nuremberg Principle IV states:

“The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

This defense is still used often, however, reasoning that an unlawful order presents a dilemma from which there is no legal escape. One who refuses an unlawful order will still probably be jailed for refusing orders, and one who accepts one will probably be jailed for committing unlawful acts, in a Catch-22 dilemma.

I have been watching all of the torture talk the last few days, it brings back all the talk over the Bush years. Cheney’s desire to “Go to the dark side”, Rumsfeld’s torture memo, a few bad apples, dripping water on people’s faces, Saddam and Al Qaeda enemies, but working together, …

In essence, this is what has come out thus far. After 911, people were scooped up in Afghanistan and else where, and they were interigated. Several died in custody.

Within weeks of 911 the CIA started using “enhanced techniques” that included, but was not limited to, waterboarding, electrodes on genitals, sleep deprivation for many days. A few months later, the “enhanced techniques” were run through lawyers in the Whitehouse, and the DOJ resulting in memos that were released days ago.

Essentially, these letters were used to justify what has been accepted through history, and through conventions which are signatories of. This was an attempt to legalize torture. It did not start at the bottom, the few bad apples, it started at the top.

Note, I wonder how badly Saddam wishes he had gotten a legal decision to approve gassing the Kurds. He might be in Miami today playing golf.

At least two Al Qaeda suspects were water boarded over a hundred times each in a month. I know what you are asking, if it works, why does it take hundreds of times, and after a few times, wouldn’t you think the suspect would say anything?

I don’t want to entertain what Cheney is trying to prove, and it seems most Republicans are also trying to prove, that the end justified the means. Or that the “enhanced techniques” provided evidence. The reason I don’t want to entertain it is that the end does not justify the means. Morals 101!

The most common example used is that one of KSM’s many supposed admitances (waterboarded 183 times in a single month, do you have brain cells left after being drowned 183 times in a month?) the planned attack in Los Angles. The problem with this is that the plot was broken up, if it ever really was a “GO” plot, a year before KSM was captured. But why be mindful of details, and why argue that torture is ever right.

Then perhaps the most outrageous part was what McClatchy reported:

“for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were…demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq…(former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi” and these techniques were seen as the quickest way to make the connection.

So, how many people were tortured, some to death, to prove what was not true, that Al Qaeda, and Iraq, two enemies who were actually working together.

Oh, and these techniques were perfected by the likes of Chinese Communist forces during the Korean War, and Pol Pot the de facto leader of Cambodia in mid-1975. One of Pol’s waterobarding devices is on display in the genocide museum.

Note, we should never forget about the Spanish Inquisition… or that some how this makes Obama a fascist?

I suggest that you all get on the right side of this issue. I know that when I was in the military, and went through military education, and throughout my career we were always taught that in part, if you are ever captured you give your name, number and rank. That is it. Sure, you’ll get a hard time, but in the end, you will be enprisoned until the end of the war, and treated humainly. That is what we signed up to do, and that is what we were supposed to do.

How can we ever be that shinning city on the hill, if we torture people?

Peace
J

…

UPDATE 2:

The Junta Party

This analogy isn’t close to being complete. And it doesn’t match up at every point. But where it does connect, it’s so spot-on that I must share it with you.

In former Banana Republics, in their post-transition- to-democracy phases, you’ll often have a Junta Party. It’s an opposition party whose main goal isn’t to get elected so much as to maintain the legacy of the former junta regime, defend its record of service to the state and most of all keep its former leaders from being put on trial or shipped off to the Hague. Often the party will be headed up by the former Generals themselves. But if they’re dead or otherwise occupied in the slammer or abroad, maybe you’ll have their relatives or the one-time cronies and lickspittles of this or that el jefe of the old regime filling the leadership roles.

And today, as we watched the on-going parade of Cliff Mays on TV or Dan Burton praising waterboarding as essential to the American dream, Eric Kleefeld pointed out to me that that really is pretty much the role the GOP — at least for the moment — has taken in our present politics.

Yes, Republicans have tried to distance themselves from President Bush’s fiscal profligacy. But on the core value issues of militarism and human rights violations and keeping faith with the war criminals of the previous regime they really couldn’t be more unified or on message. If you were plopped down on earth today in front of a TV set in the United States, on the testimony of the party members themselves, you might easily get the idea that state-sanctioned torture was the main policy legacy of the outgoing administration. Sort of like Democrats looked back on late 90s budget surpluses with a proud defiance in the aftermath of the Clinton years.

I can’t be the only one who this resonates with. Who else has some examples?

–Josh Marshall

Torture. I come by my views on this this subject rather easily. My positions are a slam dunk to predict. Torture is wrong. I see it as a black and white issue. No gray area. A walk in the park.

The fact that we treated our prisoners of war humanely until such time as they could be fairly judged for their crimes regardless of how heinous, has for centuries been a matter of justifiable pride and distinction for all of America’s people. George Washington insisted even.

It’s also, merely by example, saved untold numbers of our own troops from unimaginable abuse and suffering.

George W. Bush repeatedly utilized every venue including live television, to tell the American people and the citizens of the world that the United States, it’s military, it’s various agencies et al, do not torture. That is a purely distilled and unmitigated lie. He knew we were waterboarding and he knew, for example, that America had executed Japanese soldiers for the exact same practice.

This blog should end here. That’s really all anyone needs to know. We had long since defined torture, we acted directly counter to that very definition and then our highest elected official lied to us about it.

The damage done to our reputation in the world is incalculable. The fact that it wasn’t the first jumbo jet of a falsehood to be uttered to Americans and the world by Dumbya, his Vice President, subordinates etc. is all the more glaringly shameful. His assertion that Saddam had engaged in an effort to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger in a State of the Union address was another Triple Whopper with extra cheese of a lie. George Tenet knew it and so did Colin Powell.

That very language had already been removed from a speech delivered by Dumbya just weeks earlier at the behest of the CIA and Tenet.

They fucking knew. All of them. And they lied and tortured and obfuscated anyway, to an end that would see hundreds of thousands of innocents dead and millions of lives affected in ways you and I cannot imagine. The dirtiest bunch of motherfuckers to ever hold power in this land.

Cheney himself whined ad nauseum to convince us that Iraq and Al Qaeda were mingling dicks.

“Sometimes heheh ya gotta CATAPULT THE PROPAGANDA heh hehe hhe heh heh”. “If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” “…when the final history is written on Iraq, it’ll look just like a comma…”

Just how wrong was Obama about some people clinging to their guns and religion? There’s a whole mess of you doing just that these days. Firearm and ammunition sales are through the goddamn roof. Threats on our President are far beyond any before him. The same ones so fond of posturing hypocrtically as outraged at the release of official government documents detailing snanctioned torture because it gives the enemy a heads up, despite a simultaneous declaration that we will no longer be engaging in such egregious acts. Moot point you fools.

Pawn to queen, bitch.

Here’s the biggest rub for the great unwashed. He’s right, he’s justified, he’s black and you are scared shitless. Meghan McCain says “Old School” Republicans Are “Scared Shitless”. I believe she also called Rove “creepy”.

Ignorant, stupid and afraid. The right wing has managed to convince you that your guns are at stake when there’s no evidence, not even a whiff of policy ideas even being floated to support that. Not because we don’t desperately need better gun control, but because Obama isn’t stupid. He realizes this concept is nothing short of a sacred talisman to stupid rednecks and the last thing he needs is for you to be any more pissed off or afraid.

It’s his third rail so everybody just chill.

All you assholes that “teabagged” on April 15th don’t understand that you’ll fare far better under Obama’s plan than any scenario the right wing ideologues have in store for you. Do you understand that the richest one percent in this country own fifty percent of the money and assets? That ratio by the way, exists in no other civilized nation on earth. We are as alone in that as we are in not having our basic medical needs taken care of by the taxes we pay.

Might be because we spend at least ten times more than our nearest competitor on weapons. Ten times. Almost forty percent of the entire world’s outlay.

He’s not doing this specifically for you. He’s doing it because he understands that no healthy Republic can exist and be competive without a robust and content middle class. He seeks to restore an infrastucture that rewards a hard day’s work with an honest days pay.

He’s looking to give you a shot at educating your children for a fair price as opposed to them be excluded from upward mobility despite individual scholarship and to prevent them from being disqualified for reasons sustained by an unfair healthcare system or family health tragedy. He wants this because he understands that America can only compete if our young are educated and healthy. As evidence, these very notions have been deliberately compromised over the last eight years and it follows that Americans are dumber and less healthy than ever. So now our economy is in the shitter and the world hates us.

Without these two very basic ideals, health and education, things that I believe are congruent with the inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, America will slide into oblivion.

His goal is to re-level the playing field for all of you.

If that’s Socialism, if that’s some sort of nefarious redistribution of wealth, I’m all for it, because it was a facist plutocracy that got us here.

And it was you people, the great unwashed, that allowed it, that bought into it like a bunch of blind drunks at an ignorant festival. I don’t care about your God or your fear of Gay marriage or your communist/socialist boogeyman. I’m tired of listening to you about it because you don’t even know what you’re talking about. Most of you could no less define those terms than the government under which you now live, which is a plutocracy, that you seek to pummel into a theocracy. You don’t understand at all that your last andministration was the closest America has ever come to to a facist regime.

You don’t know because you’re too consumed by archaic notions like creationism and resurrection. These things are your own business and we don’t seek to impugn you or ridicule them until you push them on the rest of us. I don’t care, I’m agnostic.

If I were a gay mormon Republican I’d be furiously suicidal.

You don’t understand that they seek to distract you with these things so you don’t bother to get out a fucking dictionary and start looking this shit up.

Please people, yes, there are many trees in the forest, but their is a forest and you’re not seeing it. Your people got us here. Even now they sit on the sidelines lying to you about everything.

Here’s a perfect example. Fox News is in an absolute lather because Obama failed to drop Hugo Chavez with an uppercut both times they encountered each other. See, Venezuela produces a shitload of oil. That’s pretty cool. Know what else? His entire country runs on next to none. They don’t use gasoline. Wouldn’t you at least want to talk to this guy?

Drinks for my friends.

p.s. I’m just now watching The Daily Show. I swear.

I’ve heard a cornucopia of justifications. Reasons from ratiocination to mythical fables, about why today is THE day to celebrate pot day. Makes no difference to me. Marijuana never hurt anybody and hemp fiber and oil is the answer to more of our problems than you know.

I visited a dispensary in a past neighborhood today.

This place was barely two blocks from my old apartment. In Koretown. I got a glimpse inside my old window right before we pulled up in front of a bright green door with green balloons whipping in the hot breeze. I didn’t see much, it was fleeting, but the window was dirty and that gave me pause. It was at least a hundred fucking degrees today.

I was with this guy Fred, who is a friend of Evil Lars and works with the institution now. He’s like six four and handsome. We’re in his pick-up and he has an excellent air conditioner. It was a hundred goddamn degrees today. We’re here to replace a terminal that’s gone down. It’s April twentieth, they sell pot and their machine has shat itself.

I lived here during the riots. Two blocks off Vermont and Third. There was lots of shit on fire. Heavily armed personnel in black and the reek of destruction for months after. It freaked me out. I remember convenience stores and liquor stores looking like they puked into the parking lot after being looted. That smell of burnt. The sky was black west to east from Mulholland that day.

I fled to the valley.

I left in a hurry seventeen years ago.

It was cathartic to see it on a hot sunny day today. People on the sidewalks, fruit & vegetable corners. The only thing that’s changed seems to be that it’s healed. It’s bustling.

We walk up after being buzzed in and go up two flights of stairs. There’s a nice palm or fern every six steps or so on the right under the rail. I notice Fred has huge feet and he’s well dressed. His clothes are nice. I have no idea if he’s fashionable or not but he’s very well dressed. Me, I’m a sweaty pale primate.

We’re first greeted at the top of the stairs by a smaller black guy with neck tattoos and a gun. Hindsight tells me I was moving through this place way too fast. I was following Fred and neither of us seem to have a confidence problem. We arrived behind the counters and into the backrooms pretty fast.

Fred moves immediately to do the install and I start asking for Larry, that’s who Lars said to ask for. There are two empty eyed pitbulls that keep smelling my legs. Pale blue eyes that look scared more than anything else. A frightened animal is a dangerous one. I’m telling you this now and thinking I should have been more respectful.

I should have pet the dogs but everything was going well and I didn’t want to touch them.

Fucking hot up there. This place was crazy. Not my first dispensary, but easily the most ghetto. I liked it. I was comfortable there. There was an older woman walking around with a paper cup the size of a shot glass full of water. People buzzing in and out. A small grow operation in the back. A flat screen with at least six different angles of security. I stopped short of looking for myself on the monitor.

Utensils everywhere. I swear I saw a Crouch piece on the desk. Wham. I walked out with two fistfulls of the most aromatic herbinacionous addition to any entree you can picture. Fish, fowl, mammal or mollusk. A flower for any meal.

Ipso Facto, I’m back at my car with two pinecones of earthy. I drive home.

I have the back of Evil Lars.

Happy Holiday.

In other news, the truth is bubbling to the top about America’s role in torture. Regardless of your position, you were lied to on national television by your dipshit retarded President about it. America has tortured. And as The Daily Show so adroitly pointed out, all we can do is be outraged over the secret getting out.

Weak. Fuck me.

I can’t believe these retired, retarded fucking clowns on television trying to mitigate the fact that we torture. We prosecuted the Japanese for waterboarding. Were we more morally advanced back then?

Fuck me in the neck.

Drinks for my friends.

I felt compelled to share this. It really is remarkable.

Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for John McCain while speaking to Log Cabin Republicans today, had this to say:

“There is a sound conservative argument to be made for same-sex marriage,” Schmidt, who was McCain’s campaign manager, told the group. “I believe conservatives, more than liberals, insist that rights come with responsibilities. No other exercise of one’s liberty comes with greater responsibilities than marriage. In a marriage, two people are completely responsible to and for each other.”

He added: “If you are not willing to accept and faithfully discharge those responsibilities, you shouldn’t enter the state of matrimony, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if you’re straight or gay. It is a responsibility like no other, which can and should make marriage an association between two human beings more fulfilling than any other.” -CNN

Gorgeous. Eloquent, fluent and beautiful.

This kind of thinking and honesty is precisely what the Republican party owes America.

Yep, I said “owes”. Given the damage the Republicans have wrought the last three decades and particularly the last eight years, well, I feel they are beholdin’ to the rest of us.

Mr. Schmidt also had this to say:

“If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party,” Schmidt declared. “And in a free country, a political party cannot be viable in the long term if it is seen as a sectarian party.” -Huffington Post

Hallelujah! Pun intended. Wow. This is one man who understands what the future of the GOP will look like if it has one. I am impressed. Social issues such as these, as opposed to those of policy, are our biggest divide. To table such concerns, might could be an envelope for allowing vibrant philosophical debate to once again rise to the watermark of legitimate. Without such violent and vigorous clouding and muddying of what is actually an important and vital set of issues, this country stands a real chance of moving forward and so then, does the rest of the planet.

America was never intended to be the world’s police anymore than it was to be the world’s moral arbiter. We’ve become mired and lost in that as a nation and have as consequence, lost our way on the world stage. It is exactly because of this that we are estimated by every other State to be anything from silly to hypocritical to lethally wreckless.

Guilty as charged. We are all of those things.

Far too long we’ve neglected tragedies that demand our attention and devoted it instead to situations that were barely our business. A lumbering giant, recklessly careening, who’s size and stature shrinks by the day.

A modicum of humility is therefore in order.

But wait, there’s more:

Hugo Chavez said to Obama today, “Eight years ago I greeted President Bush with this same hand. I’d like to be your friend.” -Fox News

Let the record show it was an interlocking opposable thumb shake. A ‘bro’ shake. I like this guy Chavez, he called Dumbya “The Devil”.

On Cuba, Obama said:

“decades of mistrust” must be overcome, but noted that he has already loosened restrictions that limited Americans from traveling to visit relatives in Cuba and from sending money to them.

Obama lifted all restrictions Monday on the ability of individuals to visit relatives in Cuba, as well as to send them remittances.

That may be just the beginning. “I am prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues — from human rights, free speech and democratic reform to drugs, migration and economic issues,” -CNN

This comes a day after Cuban President Raul Castro said he was prepared to discuss “everything, everything, everything” with the United States. -CNN

The neocons will no doubt bristle over this. I anticipate high comedy for my witness. Yet, this is the change we voted for. The one we Americans turned out in overwhelming numbers to endorse. We are beginning to understand that saber rattling is far from our only option. It’s stupid to assume that’s all we have to offer countries in our own hemisphere who pose no military threat to us whatsoever.

We could probably kick Venezuela’s and Cuba’s ass on any Thursday afternoon. That’s not the point.

The same way our opinions about our own citizens must change, so does our thinking about the rest of the world. Our bigotry and bias has led us to this precarious point in human history. America has within her reach, the potential to allow itself and the rest of humanity to progress beyond and above where we find ourselves now. If we can only learn to accept and tolerate a little more ourselves and then, the rest of the world.

See, I’m not here to endorse torture, terror, fascism, dictatorship or anything resembling. I’m trying to tell you that we’ve been going at this assbackwards. Archaic and absurd.

All good change comes from inside. We are all people, humans. We all bleed and suffer. It’s time to abandon the notion that to prevail, other humans must suffer and bleed.

Mr. Steve Schmidt has said and done a wonderful, cognizant thing.

Drinks for my friends.

Don’t get me started. Nevermind, I’ve begun. I commence.

I am in awe. Gun and ammunition sales are through the roof. Mass murders by paranoid, delusional, right wing nut cases are all over the news and what’s worse, the foment, nay, the naked encouragement, is supplied by mainstream media. Can you say Fox News? Reckless irresponsible pricks.

Just what the hell is going on here? These asshats are shouting slogans they would’ve accused the left of being treasonous for merely whispering. Secession and revolt. Socialist and facist. They don’t understand the difference between any of these words. Stupid enough not to realize these terms can be mutually exclusive. One of these things is not like the other, like on Sesame Street. A long history of Republican conservatives manipulating the great unwashed into acting counter to their personal interests is coming to a very frightening head.

Reckless irresponsible pricks.

Where do they get these people and how do they manage to fire them up so? Oh, and have they no shame?

It’s crazy and dangerous, here’s why. They are perfectly within their rights to protest and bellow spittle lubricated invective all they want. It’s a little unnerving because it makes no sense whatsoever, but oh well. It’s the absence of logic disturbs me.

I can’t shake the feeling that we are helpless in anticipation of the other shoe dropping like a Rhode Island sized chunk of arctic ice falling into the ocean and spawning a tsunami twenty stories high. Timothy McVeigh. Oklahoma City. We know there’s a bomb and we even know where it is, yet, we have to wait for the detonation before we can do anything. We wait for the crime. The inevitable violence. We know it’s coming. We know it will be bad.

This phenomena will be the goddamn Hindenburg. It’s not just the hydrogen, it’s the aluminium skin. A powder keg. A conflagration. Oh, the humanity.

Reckless irresponsible pricks.

By the way, allow me to let you in on a personal theory. Remember all that rhetoric about financial institutions et al being too big to fail? See if you can guess what America is now. It’s a zit. Get it? Actually, it’s a volcano. We owe too much for China or any other state holding our debt to call in the marker. We go down, they go down. The casino implodes. The entire world reels in despair and confusion.

How do you like me now?

Reckless irresponsible pricks.

Drinks for my friends.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

NASA Sucks!
Category: News and Politics

For those who haven’t been following the evolving NASA/Steven Colbert controversy, let me briefly recap. NASA recently decided it would try to increase public interest in the International Space Station by holding a contest to allow people to vote online and choose a name for a newly built section of the space station. Brilliant self-promoter that he is, comedy-show host Steven Colbert mobilized his large viewing audience to try to get the section named after him. At the end of the contest period, “Colbert” had the most votes by a huge margin. However, the contest rules stipulated that NASA reserved the right to name the section themselves, and last night they rejected the public’s wishes and instead named the section “Tranquility”.

I’m sorry, but I’ve got to call it like I see it. NASA is a bunch of pussies! What possible harm could be done by naming the section “Colbert”? Instead the end result of the whole fiasco will be to reinforce the stereotype of NASA as being filled with a bunch of self-important, humorless eggheads. And what could be better calculated to decrease public interest in the space agency than to run a contest soliciting public opinion and then reject the overwhelming public choice? Come on guys, its not rocket science…

A trifecta of issues have been chapping my ass of late.

ITEM ONE:

Is there a more appropriate term for the completely contrived “protest” by whackjob flat-earthers other than “teabagging”?

Methinks not.

“the insertion of one man’s sack into another person’s mouth. Used a practical joke or prank, when performed on someone who is asleep, or as a sexual act.” -UrbanDictionary.com

I love this shit.

In effect, they will protest the single largest tax cut on America’s middle class, working poor and impoverished in our history. They will actively lament an increased tax burden on America’s wealthiest five percent that still ends up being less than what their sacred small government charlatan Ronald Reagan imposed.

These people are idiots.

Not only does it pervert and vulgarize the original defiance by colonists who orchestrated and participated in The Boston Tea Party, it’s a knock kneed, anti-intellctual parody of genuine patriotism. I’m here to tell you these fuckers heads are as round as the average potato. Think pineal.

The lockstep conservatives have chosen the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. They are retarded and unable to wipe their own snot bubbling noses and drool weeping, recessed chins. Pathetic.

No one but Fox News seems to notice. Can you say ‘marginalized’?

ITEM TWO:

Looks like the GOP is resolute in blocking the release of actual legal opinions produced by the Bush administration’s OLC (Office of Legal Council), regarding torture. There are in fact three such memos issued by the OLC, one of the highest legal offices in the land, permitting and allowing for, under the auspices of American legal authority, the sadistic treatment and physical violence upon captured individuals in violation of Geneva Conventions as well as human decency and longstanding American ideals related to the treatment of prisoners of war.

Actual legal opinions proffered by the Bush administration that are apparently so profound and disgusting that Senate Republicans are willing to engage in blackmail to prevent their being released to media and the public.

“A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward…” -Scott Horton, The Daily Beast

Fuck me running.

They all stood right in front of us and swore up and down that America does not torture. That we don’t kidnap and “render” to countries that attach electrodes to the genitals or nearly drown “detainees”. That we don’t beat and humiliate or emasculate. They are fucking liars. And now, sitting members of the Senate, the world’s ‘greatest deliberative body’, openly engage in foul and despicable brinksmanship designed to keep the official sanctioning of that truth from our citizens.

Fuck you John Yoo. Fuck you Alberto Gonzales. Fuck you Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. There is nothing and no things any of you could possibly do to right this wrong you all so willingly and zealously fomented and encouraged. The stain you leave will be visible for centuries and the damage you have wrought will be your legacy long after worms have consumed your rotting corpses and shat them into soil.

ITEM THREE:

Al Franken.

Hey Norm Coleman. Shut the fuck up and start looking for a job. Al Franken didn’t clean your clock but he won. Have some dignity or maybe some vanity. Sheezus. You lost. Everyone agrees. Have you no shame? A whip smart comedian bested you in a public contest. Ten out of ten dentists agree, time to look for a job. Maybe you could be Michele Bachmann’s pool boy.

This shit is ridiculous.

Drinks for my friends.

Bill Maher had Gore Vidal Friday night. I was punched in the mouth by the American treasure this man is.  Much like George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain. All men impervious to bullshit and fierce patrons of the truth.  Read them.  Every word they ever committed to a published tome.

Forgive me but Gore Vidal is the shit.

“Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television”.  -Gore Vidal

I read “Lincoln” not long after high school and it left a massive impression.

There was a conversation about homosexuality in the Roman era that was unbelievably fascinating.

When Maher asked Vidal what he thought about Sarah Palin, he said something like, “I don’t. And she doesn’t appear to think either”. Maher asked about the relative intelligence of contemporary conservatives and their apparent embrace of intellectual adversity.  Maher referenced the traditional conservatives like William F. Buckley and the contrast of Sarah Palin and how they used to be so much smarter and Vidal said “Well, everybody is”.  The anti intellectual trend that conservatives are so proud of.  What the fuck is that?

So I was reminded about how important American icons are.  Patriots.  Steadfast to the actual ideals on which America was founded.  Any one of the four aforementioned gentlemen could and would clean the clock of a Limbaugh or Hannity, yet would not countenance being shouted at or over.  I doubt any would deign to entertain even a polite conversation.

Yesterday I bought an overstreet guide for comic books.  The price guide for vintage comics.  It was my bible when I was thirteen.  I have a pretty extensive collection starting from the late fifties and ending in the early eighties.  I went to garage sales and flea markets buying everything I could find and afford.  I can be rather single minded and my adolescent obsession with comics was an early example.

I had them all stacked in the closet of my childhood home.  No light, artificial or otherwise.  Upon selling our house, my parents were careful to pack and store them as best they could until they delivered them to me when I bought my first house decades later.  Sealed in boxes for at least twenty five years until yesterday.

I was at best, an unusual child.  I would set up my pup tent in the backyard and take my comics out there with me.  I’d camp out.  After the sun went down, I’d bury some valuable possessions for no other reason than anticipating digging them up weeks or months later and rediscovering them all over again.

Yesterday my girlfriend and I began to open those boxes and that sensation of something old but new again blocked out the sun.  The comics themselves were pristine.  Exactly as I had left them some twenty five years earlier.  It turns out that many of them are worth mad cash.  The whole excitement of treasure hunting is brand new again.  It feels the same as it did back in the day.  Before I began to play the drums, entertain the notion of being a rockstar and eventually decide I would be a recording engineer/producer.

The contents of these boxes reminded me of the tremendous force of my dreams before I began to contemplate adulthood.  Magic.  Magical.

Things have changed.  I bought them then with the conviction that I would have them to read forever.  It is how I defined there worth back then.  The value of my treasure.  The cynicism of adulthood allows me to view them now as a way to pay the rent.  Things have changed.  Now I want for people to read me.  I made records.  I produced and engineered them but now I want all of you to listen to me because I have lots to say.

It goes without saying I’m confident my voice is important and you all should listen.  I’ve been around.  I’ve been there.  I’ve seen and done things most of you can’t imagine.  Trust me, I’m special.

Of the four men I talked about, all but one are dead.  I know many more.  Do yourself a favor.  Listen to Mr. Gore Vidal before he dies.  He has plenty to tell you that you may benefit from.  He is one of our last magicians.  My old friend Gary Myerberg reminded me that magic is only possible when magicians are in the building.  He can tell me this because we both witnessed the wizardry that can transpire under the right conditions.

Happy easter.

Drinks for my friends.

Obama bowed before the king of Saudi Arabia. Clearly, he was willing to pleasure him. Michelle Obama gave the Queen of England an erotic massage. Oh, the humanity.

Before that, Our Man admitted America’s arrogance to the French. Then he agreed to talk to Iran directly, *gasp*, about it’s nuclear energy program. Word has it it he indicated to Muslims that Jesus is just allright with him but Muslims ain’t heavy, they our brother.

How could the Obamas possibly be the children of our Christian American God? They’re negros you know.

What new devilry is this?

What it is, is after eight years of unilateral obstinance and yes, arrogance, it’s a modicum of humility. A signal that diplomacy is back on the menu. Shut the fuck up all you jingoistic loudmouths. All you ridiculous hardons that can’t explain your objections but can only scream and stomp.

Obama’s going to destroy America because he has no regard for the Constitution. Your calling card is the second amendment. You clown us with that while you ignore Dumbya’s assault on the very same document in every other way. The irony is that there is no agenda to mitigate your ability to own whatever weapon you want.

This saddens me because what we need to to do is keep the dangerous shit from the grasp and clamor of the retarded zealots without a cause.

No one cares. Build a fort or some kind of compound, then your government will show up with guns on…….

At the very same time, Habeas corpus and Posse Comitatus have been rendered silly. I would think these things would set fire to the panic buttons of the great unwashed. Really, why aren’t the idiot rednecks in a bloody lather over this shit?

It’s because they’re stupid and merely receiving instructions.

He went abroad and didn’t embarass us. He was welcomed. He talked to the people of the world the same way he talks to us. Like adults.

Yeah, I’m a little tired of America being Saudi Arabia’s bitch, the same way I’m tired of us being Israel’s bitch. Or England’s bitch for that matter. None of this is Mr. Obama’s doing. He’s just working with it.

I’ll tell you something, it’s true he went seeking help. Money for the financial crisis and military support in Afghanistan among other things. It’s true he was shut down. You know what? If him or someone like him had been running the show for the last four or eight years he would have gotten what he came for and this clusterfuck would not even be approaching the conflagration it is now.

You know what else? If he keeps this up, he’ll begin to get what he wants and what we, by that I mean the world, need.

By the way, this is all serves as further proof that organized religion is a mere example of humankind’s callowness and that spiritual belief of any kind has no place at all in the compassionate governance of the world’s citizenry.

hu.man.ist
1. A person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity. -dictionary.com

Kurt Vonnegut was a humanist. So am I. There is no reason anyone in the world shouldn’t be able to at least aspire to this ideal.

I think I’m done here.

Drinks for my friends.

Preface:

I need to issue a bit of a disclaimer here. This is a very big story of which I can only endeavor to tell a small part and that is because my part was very small. Inevitability conspires with the march of time to guarantee that details will be wrong or left out entirely. So many huge and profoundly unique personalities make it a sure bet that some will be neglected or even forgotten here. Rest assured that my nearly nine years inside this asylum masquerading as a recording studio is worth as much to me as any other experience in my life thus far.

I was first allowed in the door to provide janitorial services and walked out of it a multiplatinum recording engineer and producer. It would not have been remotely possible without the most amazing collection of brutal, ugly, inspiring, crazy, insane, magical, thoughtful, compassionate and even nurturing individuals that I can’t help but wonder could have existed in any other place in that space and time.

The art and science of sound is something I’ve had an appreciation for longer than I remember. Within in those walls, I learned almost everything I ever wanted to know on the subject as well as how to manipulate it in almost any way I ever dreamed of. For over ten years I was a kid in a candy store. I came back often after leaving it’s employ.

Sound has it’s own language and mindset. By the time I’d made my last record, I spoke it fluently and understood it intuitively. It was a magic castle I worked in.

I grew up the first time in Carson City Nevada.

I moved to Atlanta to study music and engineering. A kid from a small town in the desert. Culture shock and humidity. I worked very hard and never scored below 99% on anything I did. I blew the the curve consistently.

I came home for a summer before moving to Los Angeles to be a recording engineer. I spent that summer working in the only record store in town. I remember getting our first shipment of compact discs. That October, I packed up my shitbox VW and drove it to LA.

Somehow, I got this guy who went to the same school I did, to meet me at a pub called the Cat & Fiddle. He was the other best grauduate they’d ever seen. We had a few drinks and went to his car, a piece of shit mustard Monte Carlo, to smoke pot out of a quarter inch jack housing. He told me he’d put my resume in the right hands and that was all he could do for me. I would later understand that his makeshift pipe was the reason that no faucet at A&M Recording Studios ever had a screen in it.

His name was Bob Vogt. May he rest in peace. One of the smartest and funniest people I’ve ever met.

On January first, nineteen eighty eight, I began a job at A&M Recording Studios as a ‘runner’. I quit my job at the bookstore, the clothing store and the weird mug shop in the mall. I’d lived on my own in a galaxy far away but I was still fresh off the mothership. Your average dipshit.

Then I grew up again at A&M Studios. If can call myself a man, it was there that I became one.

Twenty one years old. The third or fifth time in my life I ever set foot in Hollywood was the day I started that job. One other day was for the interview. I had a perfect 4.0 and recieved an oustanding graduate award. The first time I walked through that monolithic wooden door and down those long halls I understood I had no business doing anything but taking out the trash in a place like this.

The technology was awesome. The studio itself was still under construction. I stole glimpses into the edges of the known universe as I walked down the hall to my interview with a man named Mark Harvey. What I’d seen intimidated me so much I’m sure I was a deer in the headlights by the time I sat in front of him for the interview.

That’s all I remember.

I was selected out of twenty plus candidates. I found out pretty fast that I was a janitor unless I was picking up some rockstar’s food, parts for their bathroom sink or taking the Porsche for a bath. I didn’t mind, I knew I was in over my head. I bought a Thomas Guide. Remember those? Before Computers?

I would concentrate on the job at hand. I would be an excellent runner.

The first year of my life was spent in fear of being fired. The culture was pure bootcamp. People, particularly runners, got fired every week. The guy who showed me the ropes the first day, I was his replacement. They called him G-Joe. Much later his cousin and I would partner up and make records together.

Within just a few weeks I got a call on a Saturday evening from this horror show of a woman in the front office telling me I was fired. Sherry Lazurus. Recording studios ran 24/7. I’d worked the front office phones that day and a guy named Paul Hewson called for Jimmy Iovine. Jimmy wasn’t in so I took a message and put it in his slot. I had no idea how important Jimmy Iovine was and no idea that Paul Hewson was actually Bono from U2. No way of knowing they were in negotiations for Jimmy to produce U2’s next record.

I didn’t understand the facility I was employed by was among the finest on the planet. Not yet anyway.

I survived, but that kinda shit hung over your head for a while.

It was awful. Every face you even looked at was your boss. Not only were we janitors but we worked for the janitors. Every morning starting at eight, the runners would brew some fifteen or sixteen pots of coffee, the same number of thermoses of both hot and icy water and deliver them all over the lot. Seven ice chests stocked with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, half & half and milk plus whatever special requests the band or artist had. No refrigerators in control room to avoid the inevitable sixty cycle hum. Seven fruit baskets at least, with fresh fruit from the Mayfair market down the street purchased with money from petty cash. Five studios and two mastering suites.

Hand pick the fruit, get good stuff, if the grapes look good, get them, apples and oranges and make sure they’re ripe. Bananas. Green stems meant they’d last more than a day. Strawberries. Strawberries were very important. Select them one by one for at least seven baskets. Then there was a list of condiments etc. to gather. Eight bags of groceries in my ’69 Beetle.

It’s where my future partner met his wife, that Mayfair market. Her name is Xantipa. His is name is Alex.

As soon as that was done we began to fetch and deliver breakfast to the early arrivals and/or those needing a boozemop. We also had a concierge who showed up around nine. Her job was to tour the studios and lounges and find things for us to clean or fix or make better somehow.

I’m not sure if we ever had a decent concierge other than Nicole. There was a woman named Rita.

If you were adept at all, you stayed on the best side you could of the concierge. All but a handful were clueless women there to amuse the clients and make us miserable, thus amusing management. After a time, we organized and no bubble headed bleach blonde was able to last long against eight to ten testosterone leaking phalluses dangling between the legs of some pretty determined and competitive young Greeks. Geeks.

Before we were done we managed to get the bad ones fired fairly easily.

Drinks for my friends.

April 7, 2009 – Tuesday

Sure, crazy people do crazy things.
Category: News and Politics

“And, of course, when you point out that certain individuals with all their talk about “revolution” and “armed insurrection” are inciting this kind of behavior in unstable people, you will get howls of protest about the 1st Amendment and what not. Sure, crazy people do crazy things. But that doesn’t make it responsible to encourage them, which is what a lot of really foolish people are doing right now for purely political reasons.”
John Cole

This from the reports of the Saturday Shooting of 3 Pittsburgh Police Officers:

A man opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

Three officers were killed, said a police official at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Police spokeswoman Diane Richard would only say that at least five officers were wounded, but wouldn’t give any other details.

One friend, Edward Perkovic, said the gunman feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.” Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said he feared that President Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he “wasn’t violently against Obama.”

Perkovic, a 22-year-old who said he was the gunman’s best friend, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, “Eddie, I am going to die today. … Tell your family I love them and I love you.”

Perkovic said: “I heard gunshots and he hung up. … He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot.”

Vire, 23, said the gunman once had an Internet talk show but that it wasn’t successful. Vire said his friend had an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum.

He feared an Obama gun grab? Gee, I wonder where he could have heard that.

Indeed, a story replete with NRA-style fearmongering about the looming “grab” — which has been fueling a run on guns at local shops — ran just three days ago in the Pittsburgh Tribune.

Over the last few weeks, as most of the country has fomented over AIG Bonuses, the rewarding of failure, the fring right has taken a swift turn to oppose the make believe assult on their guns.

A person sent me a video of a Fox reporter dispelling what Hillary Clinton said about Mexico’s weapons coming from America. She said that 90% of traceable weapons come from the United States, but the Fox reporter notes that only a percentage of the guns are traceable, so those that aren’t must be from somewhere else, like China.

First of all, who cares how many come from the US. The fact is you can’t legally buy weapons in Mexico like you can in America, so we should stop the flow of illegal guns to Mexico. No matter if it is 90% or 10%, it’s still against the law.

We have moved to a state where no matter what the gun issue is, it can’t be true, and under all of it remember, Obama wants to take your guns.

Since Obama was elected guns sales have gone through the roof. How many more police killings will we see from this explosion of gun ownership? How many of the fring right will be incited to violence by the crazy ravings of loons like Glenn Beck, or Sean Hannity?

But as the populace movement of pitch fork welding Americans attempts to lynch those that were at the center of the economic crisis, the fring right is fomenting “President Obama’s eeeeevil plans for taking away Americans’ guns — no doubt just the first steps that will eventually lead to eradicating the Second Amendment, rounding up gun owners and placing them in FEMA camps, and installing a blue-helmeted United Nations dictatorship in America.”

Crazy you say, yep, but there are people that believe it. Heck, the guy that shot the police officers in Pittsburg once had an internet radio show. Hmmmm, maybe he was a myspacer too? I can think of a few that fit the profile.

As usual, it’s not the Obama administration that is talking about going after guns, it’s the fring right. Look at Obama’s agenda. See anything about guns? Nope!

I am retired military, and I can tell you, if you want to protect your country, don’t buy an assault weapon, don’t join a militia, join the United States Military.

A student paper in Buffalo manages to ask the pertinent question here:

“It’s all well and good to talk about the sanctity of constitutional rights, but when our constitutional right to possess AK-47s ends up arming a bloodthirsty criminal organization in a neighboring country thanks to the strength of the American business ethic, doesn’t that make us the bad guys?”

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

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I Almost Regret Voting For Obama
Category: News and Politics

The “almost” is due to my firm belief that electing John McCain would have led to World War III. That being said, in terms of the economy, I don’t believe McCain could possibly have done worse than Obama is doing.

Those who read my blog regularly may have noticed that despite supporting Obama in the election, I quickly became critical of him when he took office. I felt somewhat bad about doing so – as if he deserved some kind of “grace period”. So, although I made a number of criticisms, I felt conflicted – like maybe I was being a little too hard on the guy. As of now though, I am convinced that Obama is either a) incompetent, or b) a bought-and-paid-for stooge of the banking industry.

The new Geithner Plan is an unmitigated disaster. I haven’t heard one reasonable defense of the glaring injustices at the heart of this plan. In essence, the plan boils down to an illegal subversion of Congress in order to improperly transfer wealth from the general public to large financial institutions. There are two aspects of the plan that ought to outrage every citizen of this country. The first is how the plan works, and the second is how the Administration is using the FDIC to circumvent Congress.

The essence of the plan is to encourage large financial institutions to make enormous bets which, if they turn out well will earn giant profits, and if they turn out badly will dump the losses on the American public. The plan selects a few large institutions and allows them to buy the so-called “toxic assets”, but it only requires them to put up around 5% of the purchase price (while the companies and the government share the profits 50/50). The government then guarantees that it will absorb 90% of any losses on these investments. (Keep in mind, this opportunity isn’t available to you or me – or even to medium-sized banks – its only for the very largest institutions.)

As an analogy, imagine that I was offered the opportunity to bet $100 on the Super Bowl, but I only had to put up $5 of my own money. If I win, I get $50 (the other $50 goes to the bookie), and if I lose I’m only out my original $5. With such ridiculous terms, I don’t need to be a football expert to make a profitable bet. In fact, I don’t even need to know who’s playing.

So, of course the Geithner Plan will generate a lot of enthusiasm among financial institutions. They are being offered the bonanza of a lifetime. But the truly disgusting aspect of the plan is the way it is implemented at the governmental level.

As everyone knows, the FDIC has one basic function. It insures depositors against bank failures. The Geithner Plan gives the FDIC a function that it was never intended to have. It uses the FDIC as the agency that will backstop the $1 trillion in toxic-asset purchases. The reason for doing so is that it enables the Administration to guarantee the asset purchases without the approval of Congress.

And hey, what about the recent talk of the FDIC itself becoming insolvent? How is a nearly insolvent agency supposed to backstop over a trillion dollars of highly questionable assets? Well, obviously it can’t, but we all know what will happen if push comes to shove. If the FDIC runs out of money, Congress will have no choice but to recapitalize it. The alternative would be financial Armageddon.

Truly, this kind of disregard for our system of checks-and-balances is every bit as blatant as the abuses of the Bush Administration. All I can say is, Mr. Obama, I am very disappointed in you.

We are not Gods. We are ants.

Every few seasons there occurs one of the most baffling and almost exclusively American phenomena. Some furious, disaffected asshole goes on a rampage with a gun(s) and kills a grip of unsuspecting and otherwise faultless saps for no reason other than a self perpetuating hate and a far too loose access to lethal weaponry.

The answer lies in preventing the asshole from acquiring firearms.

Invariably they are oppressed, fundamentalist, disenfranchised, extreme right wing idealogues that are sometimes racist, white supremacist or religious zealots. Heads up as to why the the problem is so uniquely American.

They come in clusters, these incidents of horror. Monkey see, monkey do. Whackjobs being more impressionable and susceptible and all that.

The answer lies in preventing assholes from acquiring firearms.

We are but spectacular fools. I tell you this because there’s an ethic that allows this sort of chaos and it’s the same one that the far right enjoys thoroughly as a catalyst for instilling fear and hate among the great unwashed.

Unbelievably stupid.

I’m a liberal for serious lack of a better definition. I don’t want to take your goddamn guns away and neither does Obama so shut the fuck up. The second amendment is just as solid and safe as it’s ever been. It’s only the brazen fomenting on the right that elevates it into an issue at all. It’s methodology 101 for whipping the ignorant into a “from my cold dead hands” frenzy.

It makes me sick.

A curriculum that includes a ‘pro life’ agenda, a God and country syllabus and a ridiculous culture of fear and loathing featuring communism, socialism, fags getting married and an inevitable social decay so profound that men and women will cease to marry or reproduce, thus bringing about America’s eventual surrender to all things evil like gooks and/or the French.

They encourage you to shoot people because you may soon no longer be able to.

It’s a distraction. How does it feel to have your strings pulled?

If you’re feeling that tug from the puppet master, you’re a dickhead.

The answer lies in keeping the human cartoons from getting their hands on AK47s.

There is however, an even dirtier bottom to this. Almost always it’s the social retard, the guy who keeps to himself. That guy that can’t seem to hang. He was quiet they say, or he kept to himself. When pressed they tell you he was a little odd. There’s a myriad of reasons these people exist in this unique American society.

Could it be be we are cruel, judgemental, superficial and far too materialistic? Racist, biased and unsympathetic? Rubbed raw but simultaneously lacking any capacity for compassion?

Could it be we just can’t stop being afraid? Could it be that there is nothing to fear but fear itself?

My fellow Americans, it is a distraction. Feel free to move about the room.

Thought I’d check in to see what condition our condition is in.

Drinks for my friends.

Did you catch Joe The Plumber on Realtime? I’m still in awe. For the sake of posterity at the very least, his name is not Joe and he’s not a plumber. Sam Wurzelbacher is a douchebag. He said things like it’s a “mute” point and Obama is a socialist. He then demonstrated that he, like all the rest of the great unwashed, don’t understand what socialism is. Morals and values he says.

Sheezus.

He’s a cartoon.

I don’t give a mad fuck what the pundits say, Obama acquitted himself with aplomb in Europe this last week and Michelle was the epitome of grace and class. As an American, I am grateful we are no longer suffering the palpable embarrassment of being represented by the Beverly Hillbillies.

Sam Donaldson declared nuclear power safe on Bill Maher tonight. This particular issue doesn’t take a rocket scientist to dissect. The process itself may very well be safe but until we figure out what to do with the goddamn waste, the entire idea is tragically flawed. It’s just that simple. We can’t just bury it in the desert. Fuck me, why doesn’t that come up?

I like the idea of my brain being inserted into a robot vessel until such time as an actual flesh and blood one comes along. I hope that someday soon, twisted but excellent brains like mine can be preserved for the benefit off all living creatures except certain kinds of bugs and religious zealots. I picture it like a VCR slot in the head of a robot. Just get somebody too slide your gooey brain through the little horizontal door……..

Celebrity apprentice update. Joan loses it and The Black Hat is is, um, fascinating. I’m not sure how smart he is but I suspect he’s in possession of some modicum of mental agility. It’s his composure that impresses me. I’m not sure how it happened but now he’s on the chicks team.

So yeah, the dudes ended up with the poker chick and Joan’s daughter. Something like that anyway. Oh wait. The teams are mixed now. The chopper guy is the only one here who’s conducted himself without shame so far. Football guy is less than articulate, naive, but maybe not stupid.

The drama kicks into high gear. Joan is pissed, and The Black Hat is a bit of a prick. Chopper guy and his team seem to be very happy with their effort. They show both projects and they both suck. But, wait. An inspired twist. Perez Hilton is consulted. Let’s watch!

This guy’s hair is ridiculous. His clothes are a nightmare. Some sort of powder blue jacket over a cobalt shirt and tie of the exact same color. And it’s a button down collar. Very high gayness.

I guess owe it to finish this.

Joan loathes Black Hat and so does her ridiculous daughter. They both lose because corporate hates both presentations. The Donald intructs Black Hat and Creep Melissa to bring two people each as he’s going to fire two. Let’s watch!

Trump blows it. What a tool. He fires the woman who volunteers to risk her head on the block for her team because she believes they have all kicked ass. You don’t fire that woman. You keep her. She’s all about team. He then fires another woman over some bullshit moral imperative that has zero to do with the premise of the show.

We’re done. I’ve been played. Cheated by the glass teat. Crap is crap and that was crap.

In other news, boys will be boys, we should all take stock and one man’s something is another man’s something or other.

Drinks for my friends.

April 4, 2009 – Saturday

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

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

Inside Obama’s bank CEOs meeting:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace
J

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

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

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

I break a sweat. This has never happened before.

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

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

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

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

It’s a sweet chunk of change.

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

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

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

So yeah, today worked out well.

Then the news from the State Supreme Court of Iowa.

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

Watershed.

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

We are changing.

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

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

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

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

Drinks for my friends.

My name is Felix. I clean up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It rained last night enough to muddy the windows.

I’ll be busy all day.

Welcome to the show.

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

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

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

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

I am Myrus.

There will be blood.

I promise.

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

I like myself. I’m secure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s entirely welcome to go fuck himself.

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

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

They are shiny, I think about eating them.

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

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

Fuck.

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

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

I will find people to kill until one kills me.

I hate my fellow human.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hate you because you’re human.

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

It will be easy.

My name is Myrus.