Archive for June, 2009

Current events

Michael Jackson.  I’m a fan.  Brilliant pop composer.  Tragic.  Bona fide ElvisBelushiAnnaNicoleChrisFarley syndrome.  I don’t believe he was a pedophile but he sure did some stupid shit.  I can’t but think his persecution and prosecution for child molestation tore at his most human fibers.  It really was his proverbial straw.  It was then  he began to fold.

I’d always kinda liked the music, but only in the periphery.  He sealed the deal with me when he let  Eddie Van Halen tear it up on what would be one of his biggest songs.  Brilliant move.  Gave all us naive white boys an open door.  Brave if you acks me.

He was damaged and Papa Joe is clearly a sociopath.  The face is of evil.  I see an asshole.  What disturbs me the most is the inevitable slow but hot coal lambaste by the media.  Sheezus.  Randi Rhodes and Tom Hartman were all over it on Air America today.  When it gets that deep, it’s because they hafta.

His star was likely the biggest ever seen by earthlings, despite some rather advanced oxidation.

In death as in life, more than anything else, the world’s most accomplished and beleaguered defendant of celebrity obsession.

It’s true that I am of fan, but I’m not overly sympathetic.  At the end of the day, he was the leading architect of his own demise.  I ultimately believe anyone with the aforementioned syndrome knows exactly enough of what they do to understand just exactly what they’re doing.  Add Kurt Cobain to the list.  No piss mocking of the burden of celebrity.  Fame flat out fucks with most people who end up in the light.  It fucked with Michael Jackson as early as five years old.  This end as predictable as always for people with this syndrome.

His affliction was chronic and acute.  You know what they say about walking in a man’s shoes.  Truism.

And yet, the tragedy.  There is family, friends and fans.

In other news, Samuel Wurzelbacher, in his current role as Joe The Plumber, graced us with his prowess for history today by reminding us that our founding father’s knew full well that Socialism and Communism were not at all efficacious.  Kinda hard to figure how he can say that with such conviction as neither concept was to be born for another half century.  He went on to suggest with the certitude of round headed jackass that Senator Chris Dodd should be lynched.  More than once.  Every time I see this nimrod on television I flash back to projectile vomiting as a kid with the flu.  Specifically the aftertaste of a partially digested dinner and the corrosive agents of digestion in my windpipe.

Having said that, I owe Joe.  He’s a bit player in the neoconservative production that caused me to vomit so often that I’m no longer traumatized by it.  Now it’s pretty much ‘Oh Liz Cheney is on, pardon me while I paint this hedge with the contents of my upper gastrointestinal tract’.  He’s a goddamn plebian narcissist.  And a fucking fool for thinking he has something to say.

“The Tennessee stud was long and lean
The color of the sun and his eyes were green
He had the nerve and he had the blood
And there never was a hoss like the Tennessee stud” -Tennessee Ernie Ford

I’m sticking to the current events thing.  This just in from an old friend:

Hey Mike,

I’m writing you in confidence, just to let you know what kind of trouble my ex is.

she asked me if I had ever heard of the Powerhouse. I said “NO”,

she then told me that you had told her that I was there the night the bar tender showed you her oral talents. And that we both got service on the bar.

And then she told me that you once had a cocaine problem and it’s back again.

She said that you contacted her directly by email and that Misty is also still in contact with her.

I went and looked at your blog and put two and two together.  = trouble with Capital T

later

****

I respond:

Sheezus Crap!  How’d you end up with this kinda crazy?  I’m spooked.  My stalker and you’re stalker activate their wonder twin powers.  I don’t believe I was ever at the Powerhouse with you.  Blow was never my thing.  It’s merely the wrong direction for me.  Pot and booze are my elective poisons.  I don’t mind a little xanax or vicodin.  This woman is crapping in public nuts.  Obviously when I first engaged her, I had no idea who she was.  I want nothing to do with this.  We are longtime friends ****, let me know what I can do and/or keep me out of it.

Tell the bitch we were complete blow hounds and routinely got our stingers moistened on the bar, in front of the juke, in the bathroom, the alley……..

Take care

Then there’s this:

I was in another medical marijuana dispensary today, the terminal I’d brought acted like it hadn’t been downloaded.  My name was on the box as well as that of the business.  Still had to download it twice, adjust the time and date and finally ended upon a conference call with our technology partner.  Got it done while the staff did bong rips in the back office.  I like stoned folks more than drunk folks, but even the stoned ones are a pain in the ass.  To be fair, I like these people quite a bit.

My one pair of Kenneth Cole dress shoes were fucking killing me.  My feet ached ached to my knees.  What should have taken ten minutes took two hours.  This on top of the dance I’d done with my superiors a few hours earlier to deposit funds in my girlfriends account so she can pay her state bar license, among other things, after she helped me with my rent.  This and a just now phone call telling me she’s still $400 short.  If I had a gun, I’d be tasting steel.

Anybody want Spiderman #22, X-men #94 or an original A/DA flanger?

Drinks for my friends.

A&M chapter eight

After almost too long, I needed to step up to the plate again.  I lobbied the powers that were, Mark Harvey, and got a gig in the mix room with Ggggarth Richardson, he stutters, and Joe Barresi on an L7 mix.  Garth producing.

I knew Joe and Garth pretty well.  Garth called me the demo king and later the donut king.  He insisted that would be my credit and I dared him to do it.  Joe and Garth brought consistent business to A&M and Garth was part of the Canadian contingent.  There always seemed to be a disproportionate number of Canucks in music production but I liked them all.  Randy Staub and Bill Kennedy both mentored me.  Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, The Wall) is a Canadian and he is one brilliant man.  Google him, you’ll see.  Garth did the first Rage Against The Machine record, arguably their best.

Joe became the shit.  Queens of The Stone Age.  Tool.  Google the talented bastard.  We were born on the exact same day you know.

The Canadians made great engineers and producers.  Google Bob Rock.

Garth looked at me on the morning of the first day and said with unmistakable seriousness, “Mikey, if you do nothing else on this session, I want you to set it up so that every time I hit rewind or stop on the multitracks, the audio from the hockey game comes up.”  The finals were already on the television mounted between the massive monitors.

I ran a mult, from SMPTE  time code always on track 24, from the sync head to a gate,  some fifty five milliseconds before the playback head.  Gave me a five one hundredths of a second advantage.  Trigger to open on rewind and stop, but duck on playback when the gate saw signal of a certain amplitude.   SMPTE time code was of a very consistent amplitude..  A mere threshold issue.  I brought it up on a fader.  In the interest of thorough, I strapped another gate across the insert to close while the mix was playing.  Kinda the same chain but in reverse.  I still took care to mute it when we were printing mixes.

I think they were impressed.  Didn’t think a rookie like me had the chops.  It took me about five minutes; I’d been stealth engineering on my own for some time but hadn’t ever been responsible for maintaining lock on two analog multitracks.  Ahead of the curve and behind it.  Story of my life.  Bane of my existence .

There was only one Canadian I could never muster any affection for.  Scott Humphrey.  Pro Tools hack and  pompous asshole.  His wikipedia page has him as an “American  record producer/mix engineer”.  Wore his money and privilege on his forehead.  Maybe he is an American.  That would make sense.  I’m an honorary Canadian.  This prick did nothing but look down his nose at me.  I never saw him touch a fader much less mix, engineer or produce a single note.  An expectorate absent any acuity with phase coherency.  He was a dick.

A band of Jersey Goombas was across the hall in studio D.  Biohazard.  Dipshits.  Evan Seinfeld is a consumate douchebag and  now he’s married to Tera Patrick.  One of these things is not like the other.  My buddy Rick and I had the good fortune to clown his clueless ass about a decade later.

I have a plethora of tales about the Canadians, Biohazard and L7.  It gets better.  Stay with me.  It gets better.

Drinks for my friends.

The Powerhouse

I’ve just discovered Oscar Mayer cheese dogs.  A big delish.  I eagerly anticipate test driving them with a variety of condiments including Claussen dill spears and of course, Big Bob’s Bleu.  Countdown to angioplasty.  Harbinger of heartburn and a guaranteed culinary delightful.  I need to buy an onion.  Excellent texture and authentic whang.  Got me plenty of ketchup and mustard.

Can’t always afford those smoked white turkey franks from Ballpark.  I’m a whore for good tasting nourishment.  Will need to explore cheap asian noodles again soon.  Another jar of peanut butter.

I’ll need a glass of Woolite, a glass of Kim Crawford sauvignon blanc.  The Crawford is the shit.  Very grapefruit with good acid.  Order salt & pepper calamari and the seared ahi appetizer at PF Changs.  If they don’t have the Crawford, throw a fit and opt for the Estancia pinot grigio.  Trust me, I know how to gamble.  Do this by yourself and bring a book.  Sit at the bar, it’s lovely.

I have an odd fascination with Ernest Borgnine.  I named a room in my house after him.  I like when he’s spooky, he has the creepiest grin.

Drove by Pink’s today.  Marveled at the line.  Romanced by the aroma.  Lovely perfume guaranteeing a gastrointestinal malaise.  I’ll suffer that but not the absurd volume of zombies waiting online.  I hate them.  Ordinary people.

My first and last hang in Hollywood, The Powerhouse.  On Highland just north of Hollywood blvd., on the east side of the street.

When my session ended before two am, you could find me there.  They were cool enough to put my records on the jukebox.

Bartenders were, SJ, Steve, Gary and Tracy.  I’ve long been a compulsive hand washer, so upon entering, I’d head straight to the bathroom to sate the sticky handed urge.  More often than not I’d emerge to find a giant, dry as the desert Bombay Sapphire martini, three olives up at least, in a punchbowl of a pina colada glass waiting for me.  I usually had something to read.

You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here,  shouted just before two, accompanied by a ringing bell.  I was exempt.  Once the door was locked, the onus was on me to make my own drinks.

Never cut to the guy getting pasted by the train at the end.  That’s chickenshit.

Old wooden bar on the left, red naugahyde booths on the right and shitty green shag underfoot.  Pinball and a juke at the back end.  Steve was a musician, Gary an aspiring comic, SJ a Republican from Texas and Tracy had amazing oral skills and a very nice rack.  I brought the Gotohells with me one night after a gig at Al’s Bar along with a journalist from Flipside and the six of us drank all night while the journalist conducted her interview.  Whiskey and pitchers of beer.  The bill was twenty four dollars.  Quid pro qou, I left a hundred on the bar.

Got my dick sucked on that bar with a nickel plated .38 snub nose above my head.  Tracy had mad skills and a gun.  It was her birthday and she wore some ridiculous hippie buckskin bra with feathers.  Ridiculous but it stirred my loins.  She locked the door and only her and I were left.  One thing led to another.  Paradise by the jukebox light.  Mad skills.

I actually got up and did a short set on drums with some band one night.  Gesticulating the best I could.  Killing myself softly.  I was a shitty drummer.  I’m lucky to have sucked because it informed my engineering and production skills.  My own suckage was positive stuff.  Invaluable.  A seriously penis whipped drink.

My goal is a deluxe apartment in the sky.

My Sharona is as close to a perfect pop song as it gets.  Great production.  The solo rips.  Fuckin slays me.

Listening to Primus lends me largesse in the form of gristle.

I visited the Powerhouse a few years back.  Despite the fact that Joe Power had finally  sold the place and it had been remodeled into strip mall austerity, I was with a lovely woman and had a swell time.

But it was absent vibe.  You can never go home again.  My heart sank a little.  My start yanked a little.  Nostalgic for the salad days.  I just remembered how much I like snowglobes.  My eyes have begun to fail me.  I need reading glasses.

I want to be Walter Matthau when I get old.  It’s a good goal.

Drinks for my friends.

Walk with me…..talk with me

I ain’t askin for much.

I always liked the word gendarme so I looked it up.  Big disappointment.

I’ve long since recognized the appeal of wealth.  I admit, I like shiny things.  Actually, I like handsome objects.  Artful globes to leviathan machinery.

Used to be I coveted wealth.  Then I made a little money and indulged myself a little.  Bought a nice car.  Developed a taste for caviar and champagne.  Good wine.  A ridiculously expensive stereo.  A house.  Vacations.

It all kinda fell apart, slow enough so the way down wasn’t crazy in my face but just enough to make me puke now and then.

There are magazines still reasonably popular, devoted to things most of us can’t afford or wouldn’t, even if we had the scratch.

I don’t covet the pretty things so much as the freedom.  A nice lunch.  Healthy food is more expensive.  I like tomatoes.  Sauces.  Appetizers and good wine.

I want a condo in the sky above the dirty streets.  My life’s trajectory has been odd at best.  One of the things we’re supposed to do here is distinguish ourselves.  I feel I’ve done that but would like to continue.  Cook up some pork maple sausages, dip them in Big Bob’s Bleu and you’re courting intestinal methane pressure.  The antithesis of fiber and nature’s broom but still an efficient evacuator of the colon with many a loud report.

My two biggest questions are why are we here?

And are we really here?

I often think one’s life is either a good mosaic or a bad one.  Subject to trends and popular opinion.  All of us beholding to what is vogue  What is not.

I’m trying to point to how closely we dance with chaos.  A true economic implosion would have families and entire clans grouping and sharing resources.  There’s a chance that’s not a bad idea.  It could just be the most important skill my mother can pass to me is how to grow and preserve produce.  Agriculture is about to become more important.  Dad taught me to shoot but I need a refresher.

Imagine a world without glutinous salad dressings.

I want to talk about bars now.

I feel obligated to start with the Whitehorse.  Dark and sinister.  Late eighties, early nineties.  Just north of Sunset on Western, east side of the street across from an OSH.

Pretty crazy neighborhood, rather insane clientele.  Pimps, prostitutes, trannies and drunks.  Drug dealers, criminals and musicians.  Not odd at all for a cockroach to skitter down the bar dodging the cheesy candlelit, white plastic net wrapped red glass candle holders.  I figured it was the light they feared, not the heat.  “There goes another cola nut”, I’d say.  Diane, the lovely but flawed bartendress who always wore rosewater perfume, would smile and bat her eyes while protesting she hadn’t seen it.  Had never in fact, seen a single bug on the bar or anywhere else ever.

D.S. Morey.  Adorable.  Lying to me for sport.

She was gorgeous.  Blue pools for eyes.  Voluptuous.  Serious tits and a Coop Girl frame.  Smart clever and vulnerable.  Gorgeous tattoos on pale skin.  Blond with a yellow tooth at the very front of her head.  She was a reformed meth addict from Traverse City, Michigan.  We got very close.  She put my records on the jukebox.  I believe we were afraid of each other.  She was fragile and I was timid.  We went on a few actual dates.  The first one, she watched me get drunk and I took her to Denny’s, the second I took her to see Naked Lunch and tried to kiss her.  She resisted my overture and politely insisted that I not embarrass myself.

I was crushed.

A few weeks later she took a lover and told me I just wasn’t mean enough.

I wondered a long time before I understood what she meant.  I drank cheap whiskey in those days.  Long neck Budweisers.  I recorded punk rock.

There was a framed picture on an end table in her apartment from her days as an addict.  She and another woman on a rooftop at dawn.  The sun breaking behind them as they celebrated how fucked up they were.  Her hair in braids and colorful ornaments.  Christmas on a summer morning.  Huge awesome smiles.  A light blue sky and clouds pink and orange.  I asked about it and she had nothing to say.  She was ashamed of it and that’s probably why it was there.

It was so very sublime to me.  Finally, I actually asked for it.  She told me no way could I have it.  Not long after, her apartment late at night, the photo in the same place but the glass was broken and the picture torn.

The Whitehorse was completely destroyed in the ’94 earthquake.  It had been my bar of choice because the bartender was lovely and fascinating and the bars in my neighborhood were no place for a big long haired white boy.

Oh Diane Morey.

Drinks for my friends.

I think I know

The salient point I’m about to serve up is not original.  It is not mine, I just happen to enthusiastically agree.

Names have not been changed to protect a single asshole.

Off we go.

If I hear another Republican dipshit criticize Obama’s reaction to the the Iranian election clusterfuck, when they all know as well as anyone else, for us to intervene or interfere anymore than we have is counter to foreign policy 101, with a country like Iran who’s history we’ve meddled in disastrously, I’ll projectile puke.

Shut up you idiots.  Our Man’s course of action is obvious, informed and reasonable.  What would you have him do?

Ridiculous and absurd.  Their own people asking us not to wade into their affairs again.  They are grateful for our support.  Yet they understand better than the royal “we”, that any influence perceived as American fuel in this struggle will dilute it and ultimately disease it.

Duh.

Iranians and Americans cannot afford for American government to be a component of this struggle.  It would ruin it.  It’s that simple.

The douchebags that persist in shouting that crap from the roof tops aren’t doing favors for anyone.  McCain, Bill Bennett, Lindsey Graham and Newt.  A message that only falls on the ears of the great unwashed.  The lowest common denominator.  The deaf.  The stupid.  The under informed.  The arrogant jingo assholes who think it’s our duty to force our bullshit on every other camper.

Work with me, it was this exact thinking that got us into the trouble we’re in now.

I’m here to tell you that terrorists will not be killing you in your bed.  They really are the least of our worries and even that’s an accident.  If you’re on a list as a suspected terrorist, your biggest problem will be boarding a commercial airliner.  The least of your inconveniences are buying guns or explosives.  If you are an evil doer (love those two words), your best bet is some destruction at home as opposed to interstate travel.  Our advice to you is to shit where you eat.  The current terrorist watch list of more than a million members, does not prevent anyone from purchasing guns or even explosives, interstate travel however, is far more difficult.

You bet.  Yeah baby we’re on it.  Fear not, the NRA has your back.

It’s a goddamn joke and we are pigs.

God has not even dick to do with it.

An election was stolen from the Iranian people.  They are indignant and I understand.  I think they just might be an example to us.  C’mon.  Their bravery is awesome.  We have been giant vaginas.  Forgive the gender aspect.  I’m just saying.

We should stay out of it for obvious reasons and let them show us how it’s done.

I’m getting tired of American hubris.  Who the fuck do we think we are?

Drinks for my friends.

Nervous and weird

More than a little pensive.

The citizens of Iran have a profoundly legitimate beef.  One of the best kind.  Noble and justified.  An obviously rigged election.  Blatant.  Ridiculous.  The turn out was over 120%.  Bullshit is the given.

Tomorrow may inform us of eventual fate.  The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,  deigned to wade in today on the Sabbath, by vehicle of his scheduled sermon.  Just another day of worship.  He was clear:  Those who “take wrong measures which are harmful, they will be held accountable for all violence.” He called President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “the absolute victor” in last week’s election…..”  -CNN.com

This sucks.

I’m spooked.  The difference between these human events and Tiananmen Square for example, is that despite the Iranian government’s game face and perseverant campaign to control information, this revolution just may be televised.  Forgive my trite.  I’m not here to obviate something so big and ripe.  I fear what happens next.  Both sides are more than aware that the entire world watches.

The chances of a fistfight are always multiplied by an audience.  Always.

The Ayatollah didn’t merely draw a line in the sand.  He came out with serious lumber.  He tells the people of Iran that they are welcome to test his bat.  He tells them it will be ugly.  I’m really afraid of that.  I think it’s quite likely.  Man, I hope not.  Did you know that Iran is arguably the most pro-American country in the entire region?  These people are in trouble and I doubt they will walk away.  There will be blood.  There already has been.

Iranians are not pussies.

Our Man’s facility with it all has been pitch perfect.  He understands that any movement in Iran perceived as being fomented or even endorsed by the US government is a guarantee it will sink under that weight.  The asshat Republicans shouting jingoistic bullshit from the rooftops are posturing with lamentable irresponsibility.  Man I hate these pricks.  No compassion, zero sensibility, reckless abandon in pursuit of grandeur.  Shut the fuck up.

Iran is a modern society.  It has a vibrant and youthful population, progressive by regional standards.  Amazingly, a huge chunk of them don’t hate us.  Really.

My fear is that the Iranian people will suffer for whatever they do tomorrow.  For years.

It is the covert option that most media fails to talk about.  I’m afraid they will be picked off at random, regardless of participation, until, you know, morale improves.  I don’t see tanks but I do see terror.  For years.  They know full well, both sides get it.  Tomorrow is going to be interesting.

See, we’re all just citizens of the world.  After the sun impregnates the horizon and the stars come out, the day is done and we are all the same.  We really are all the same.  I live in a big city so ethnic diversity is but a part of my coat of many colors.  Whether your thing is prayer or the power of positive thinking, it’s time to do a little dance.

Wisdom, safety and support to the people of Iran.

And, um, fuck the Ayatollah.

Drinks for my friends.

I walk the line

Today I learned of the existence of baconnaise.

This brought courtesy of The Daily Show.

I’m broke as fuck but I’m headed to Ralph’s first thing to get me some.  I’ve still got quarters.  Sounds like the world’s ultimate condiment to me.  Oh my.  The possibilities boggle.  With french fries or on a sandwich.  Combined with sour cream and chives for dipping.  Inside a doughnut.  Fish & chips?  With a squirt of lemon?  This shit is huge.  Could be the best thing since Bob’s Bleu Cheese Dressing.

Nevermind I said that.  Blasphemy.

Sheezus, I’m ashamed.

So you know, I’m pretty sure the Bob’s gave me the crapanacious the other night when I combined it with generic Doritos.  We’re talking volume and velocity.  I was impressed.  Prodigious thrust.

Baconnaise.  Fuck me.  Gonna be a really big show.

More important was a segment that succeeded in contrasting the reality of the Iranian people with what we’ve been sold and bought under Dumbya.  Most of us were already aware of this despicable gulf between a dictated perception and actual opinions of the people and the events on the ground in Iran.

Don’t forget the great unwashed.

McCain infamously sang the bomb, bomb, bomb……bomb bomb Iran song while campaigning for President just last year.  The Bush administration had an embarrassingly obvious hard on for Iran for at least it’s last four years.  The same kind your Black Lab or Irish Setter wags in front of everybody at every gathering you ever  host.

I like girl cats.

This is why they fear Obama.  It’s hope.  And fear.  And no more of that other shit.  With dignity and wisdom he stays out of it almost entirely.  Has the State Department ask Twitter to reschedule some maintenance hours.  He’s on it and staying out of it.  Nice.

The net effect really does reflect the quality of cheese in hand.  Smooth.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Then a successful communication because of a complex humiliation.  The previous administration is really hoping we don’t remember glimpsing their lipstick penises at picnics.  Iran is not a monster.  They want the same things we do.  To live long and prosper.  In peace.

The unwashed loathe Obama because he’s seen their penises and they haven’t seen his.  They would have him be the Bull in the China shop in Iran.  They pretend to not understand how stupid that is.  To not remember the chaos that was wrought from their ludicrous lockstep loyalty to the biggest collection of assholes in history.

Refuse to remember how we were on the verge of war with yet another nation the represented no threat at all to us.

Goddamn these guys are stupid.

All this illumination for the masses from Comedy Central.  As opposed to any news network.  That really is my point here.  So much energy spent to dehumanize these people and they show us in a flash that they may just be more courageous and sincere than we can boast of being.

We are far from real.  Not even close.  The Iranian people show us.  Hundreds of thousands marching silently.  When the guns of the government appear, they sit where they stood, in silence.   Tens of thousands.  Hundreds of thousands.  Awesome.

The disparity between  Mirhossein Mousavi and Ahmadinejad is far narrower than between  Obama and McCain.  Forgive me, at least on the surface.

The most compelling aspects are not on the evening news.  Most of US don’t even know.  A whole row of teeth that will be given away here.  Twenty million people will chew wrong if they don’t play this game exactly right.

One way or another.

Courage be to you people.

I am impressed.

Drinks for my friends.

Orange whip?

I keep dreaming I’m going over a cliff in something.  Every night.  Sometimes it’s not a big deal and sometimes I’m gonna die.  I’m always going over a cliff.

The scariest thing about “Man In Picture” is that he just keeps coming.  He never stops.  Once he begins, it never ends.  He is always there.  Relentless.  Nothing to do but deal with him directly until I win or lose.  You should look it up on this very blog under that title in quotes.  “Man In Picture”.  On the right hand side under categories.  It’s the first draft of a novel I intend to start a rewrite on very soon.

It’s crude and raw with an under developed plot and narrative.  The bones are there though.

It was disturbing for me when I wrote it.  I’m going to make it a book soon.  Now would be a good time for you all to weigh in and tell me what you think it needs.  I’m pretty sure I already know.

The worse sensation I can imagine is of thick ropey hairs bursting through my dermis.  Sharp muscular rigid worms.  I see it happening slower than in a movie.  Way slower.  My flesh opens at a rate that allows me to hear it.  The sound of knuckles popping, Rice Krispies and heavy wet fabric tearing.  Canvas, maybe burlap.

Blood flies and floats because it’s happening so slow.

It sears, aches and itches.

It burns.  It crawls.

Sometimes it toggles between hard pleasure and soft pain before it talks me in and out of a waking nightmare.

This happens to me in a hospital bed under a dim blue light.  I’m there for another life threatening reason.  Flesh eating virus.  I’m already horrified as the disease eats it’s way up my torso.  Now this.  There’s a sheet over me but with each smack and crackle the linens bloom red.

Saw something hanging from his ear until I realized it was the zipper on his coat.

Join me.

Drinks for my friends.

We hardly knew ye?

Today the DOJ, in support of the DOMA  (Defense Of Marriage Act), issued a brief using language invoking pedophilia and incest, eerily reminiscent of the vituperation vomited by the religious right ad nauseum since the dawn of the cerebral cortex.

Puns intended.

So much for change.

I don’t care if Obama was aware of this or not.  The only acceptable action here is swift, unambiguous refutation.  Obama and his administration need to get in front of this crap like yesterday.  It’s not just bullshit, it’s madness.  Best case scenario is Obama talking about this before I get out of bed.  The time difference alone gives him a hell of a head start.  Time to show me something Mr. Fierce Defender.

Enough.

Let this pass at your peril.  Hope will turn to doubt.

While we’re on the subject of Our Man, I was none too thrilled by the glaring omissions in his remarks in front of the AMA today.  It was a good speech, but no substantive reckoning that big pharma and big insurance are hopelessly infected by avarice and therefore ground zero for reform and regulation.  No mention of what an inefficient, bureaucratic clusterfuck the FDA is.  These items are at the very root of the problem and no reform has a chance at efficacy without force being brought to bear on them.

Blowing up balloons with holes in them.

The sad truth lies in the why.  Along with the AMA, pharmaceutical and insurance companies are championed by some of the biggest and most influential lobbying cabals in Washington.  If there were stars on K street or Pennsylvania Avenue like Hollywood Boulevard, two thirds of them would be dedicated to these filthy bastards.  For all you sniveling morons who live in such fear of communism, here is a bonafide  Red Menace for you.

Welcome to the plutocracy.  This thing is way bigger than just stubborn Republicans.

Along with energy, campaign finance reform and the military industrial complex, these are the windmills I expect Our Man to be tipping.  That’s why I voted for him.

We loves us some Bill Maher.  Maher said the other night in his New Rules segment:  “…..I’m glad that Obama is president, but the “Audacity of Hope” part is over. Right now, I’m hoping for a little more audacity”.

Me, I’m looking for those balls of zirconia  I thought I glimpsed on the campaign trail.  Dude, please don’t Jimmy Carter us.

Remember how I was pissing and moaning about pumps on lotion and soap bottles not long ago?  Well, for the record, adding water to any of the soap dispensing ones is pretty viable.

Sometimes I think all Americans are either corrupt or stupid.  Often both, but rarely neither.

Drinks for my friends.

Incredibly good stuff

Good evening.

Bill Clinton gave the keynote speech to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee yesterday.

I’m cutting to the chase here with direct quotes.

“Global cooperation is crucial for the survival of mankind…..”

“If we have a chance, it has to begin by people accepting that they can be proud of who they are without despising who someone else is,”

….”we are genetically “99.5 percent the same……..”

“From time immemorial, people have fought over identity rooted in that (half percent),” Clinton said. “We should have spent more time thinking about that other 99.5 percent of ourselves.”

“You teach your children their ethnic heritage; their religious heritage; their cultural heritage with no negative reference to anyone else because it’s the only shot we’ve got to make the most of our interdependent world,”

All quotes from CNN.com

You’ll have to forgive me but these sentiments strike a real chord with me.  Beyond that chord, is a three part harmony and a choral ethereal behind it.  With a Hammond B3 through a tube Leslie cabinet and some tympanies and strings.  Some brass and wood.  French horns and Oboes.  Oooh, and a Moog.

“Teach your children well,
Their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you’ll know by.” -Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

These simple notions explode in my heart.  If we could just live by them, we’d enjoy so much more peace.

John Lennon beseeched us gently to imagine.  To imagine an entire world with no religion, no hell and just the blue sky above.  No country.  No nationalism or even patriotism.  No reason to even covet wealth or profit from famine.

“A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world” -John Lennon

That’s big stuff there.

Then there’s proof we’re almost outta rope.  This is such a simple thing but the climate is getting ever more polarized and violent.  While the right wing frolics in it’s own pudenda, evangelicals are snug as a bug in a rug with the idea they are somehow among the righteous and will somehow live forever.

These folks are stupid.  These folks are mean.  Sheezus.

As cynical as I am, I’m still an optimist.

The latest xenophobic diatribe from the asshole club foolishly denounces the concept of being a citizen of the world.  Newt the Salamander (new nickname alert), mocked it last week in a speech before rotting doddering sycophants.  That’s dumb.  I don’t care what backward crap you subscribe to, if you are reading this, you are a citizen of the world.

Some of you don’t like it.

Tough shit.

Newt the Salamander cracks me up.  The hair of a robust but premature gray talk show host, the face of a caramel and Scotch addicted bigot, the grill of an octogenarian who’s still got some baby teeth.  Thinks he’s got a shot at the head office.  The way he’s shoveling sewage, he doesn’t have shit to say.

Whatever he does say smells like ass.  He packs his jowls with feline fecal tootsie rolls to lend his face symmetry.  I’m really happy I just said that exact thing.  I don’t care much for the Salamander.

Nattering nabobs of negativity want to know Newt’s languor.  How does the Salamander balance the warm rock and the cool water?  Plump and bellicose.

I’d like to have him over for drinks and duct tape him to a space heater.  Make him watch CSI Miami.  Feed him nothing but Slim Jim’s and Dr. Pepper.  He would change his own diapers whilst suspended by a chin strap.  Morticians would be allowed to practice on his pale countenance and somewhat alien bone structure.  I could invite some NBA size trannys.

” George W. Bush left office with a public approval rating under 30 percent. Less than 30 percent of Americans currently describe themselves as Republicans. The amalgam of evangelical Christians, hardcore gun-rights fanatics, anti-tax, anti-immigrant and anti-choice voters who make up the base of the Republican Party amount to less than 30 percent of the overall electorate.” -William Rivers Pitt, truthout.org

Salient point of ensuing article by Mr. Pitt is that it’s own base is reason for the GOP’s demise.  The Sarahs, salamanders and Huckabees are prisoners of their own device.  The once muscular, hard right base of the Republican party, the guns and God crew, are essential for candidates to be allowed to sit at the table, but now a virtual guarantee they’re exempt from being dealt a winning hand.

My synopsis: These guys are fucked and it’s all their fault.

Will Pitt rocks.  Like a hurricane.

As much as I loathe the great unwashed, I sincerely wish they’d wake the fuck up and smell the world along with America’s place in it.  They nearly screwed the pooch when they were in power last time and now they are poised to do their worst despite being the minority.  Irrational fear, ignorance, prejudice and unwillingness to judge a man based on the content of his character, but rather his religion, political affiliation, culture or social beliefs, has the whole movement flirting with obsolescence.

The Republican party is a parody of itself.

They have begun to eat their own.  They drag their party moderates toward a house still fully engulfed instead of even entertaining the idea they are less than absolutely right about everything.  Frustrating to watch.

It has always been true, always an imperative, but now it’s damn near an emergency; we must get along.  Share the world.  Humankind can no longer afford to relinquish reality and truth while clinging to individual interest and willful ignorance.  The fomenting of hate by right wing media is not just reckless and irresponsible but is literally a menace to society.  I’m not here to suggest we revoke the first amendment rights of fucktards like The Human Shitsmear (Limbaugh), Hannity, Coulter, Glenn Beck, O’Reilly or even the Cheneys.

Fight fire with fire by using your own rights under that same amendment to drown them out.  How hard would it be for every American who loathes Rush to storm his phone lines regularly?  Sunday afternoon in the park.  We could do it from facebook and myspace.

What then, of the example by the Iranian people this weekend over the travesty of their national election?  They took to the streets.  I understand that the chronic malfeasance of our ’00 and ’04 elections was not nearly so obtuse.  We are guilty nonetheless, for behaving.  Not nearly enough ‘what the fuck?’

They are furious and showing courage.  Point to me the American who doesn’t cheer this struggle.  These people are ass pissed as they should be.  This is incredibly good stuff.  Anybody looking for inspiration or even an example?

As I write this I watch dickheads go swine stupid downtown over a goddamn basketball championship.  Now that’s blind shithouse irony.

I have it on mute but LAPD are going paramilitary and scaring the crap out of them.  Herded like cattle and KCAL9 cuts to commercial.  Lean it up against what’s happening in Iran right now, that’s all I’m saying.

Drinks for my friends.

A&M Chapter Seven

I must tell you about the Magic Snot.

As  janitor King of the Fruit, I was accountable  for the appearance and cleanliness of the entire studio.  Tens of thousands of square feet.   King of the Fruit; the onus was on me more than anyone else.  Five bathrooms.  Two public restrooms inside the complex.  One for men and one for women.  Five bathrooms total, three with showers in the private lounges of studios A, B and D.

Lounge bathrooms were to be stocked with shampoo, conditioner, razors, shaving cream, toilet paper, soap, tampons, paper towels, tissues…….

All five control rooms required full dispensers of denatured alcohol, windex, tex wipes, Kim Wipes, a certain number of blue, red and black medium sharpies, grease pencils, sharpened pencils, ballpoints, splicing tape, canned air, red tape for reels stored head out and blue tape for reels stored tails out.  Red heads, blued tales.  At least two empty half inch, quarter inch and two inch reels.  Labels to fit any tape box size, track sheets, patch sheets for 72 channels and templates for documenting outboard gear of at least 50 different kinds filed alphabetically, blank cassettes and dats……

Of course the aforementioned pots of fresh coffee, decaf, cold water, hot water, and then tea, sugar, non dairy creamer, sweet & low, cocoa mix, honey, stir sticks, plastic spoons, forks and knives, paper plates, salt & pepper, napkins …….

Then ice chests with half & half, milk, ketchup, mustard and an identical accompaniment for each refrigerator in four lounges.  Fruit baskets etc…..

I did my best to ensure those bathrooms, control rooms and lounges appeared  clean and sanitary.  Sort of.  I didn’t take it any more seriously than I had to.  I was adept at maintaining appearances.  Randy Wine taught me to stoop and pick up imaginary flotsam when passing authority in the halls.  Greet them and smile while bending to retrieve imaginary refuse, then make your way to the nearest trash receptacle and out of their periphery.

We did mop the floors, clean the toilets and urinals, windexed the mirrors and took out the trash at least twice a day.

It was there and then I became a compulsive hand washer.

The day shift was a hump but it was only nine hours.  We ate when we could.

Years of my life were spent cleaning up after drunken , drug addled rock stars and don’t give a shit producers and engineers.

The night shift could be a grind.  Cleaning up after five, spoiled and self indulgent rock bands who ate their meals off real plates using real flatware.  All of which had to be transported down to the runners closet to be washed in a single sink that you couldn’t even see because of the shelving in your face if you were taller than five foot six.

It fucking sucked.

The worst part was the waiting.  Waiting for the rooms to go down in the early hours of the morning knowing the work that was waiting for you.  Work that would challenge my janitorial acumen.  My capacity for giving a fuck.  It sucked.

As a runner, I was exploited, taken advantage of, discounted and dismissed.  It was a goddamn nightmare.  I remember sitting in my piece of shit ’69 VW Bug outside some shop in South Central LA in the pouring rain to procure obscure vacuum tubes for the amp of a semi famous studio guitar player.  I was already wet and about to be soaking.  Sitting there, asking myself just what the fuck I was doing.  The wind making my bug rock and the rain drumming on it’s thin metal shell.  My hands and feet were freezing.

I would ask myself that a lot.  I was to be in that place over and over.

I drove that shitbox everywhere.  From Malibu to Oxnard, Beverly Hills to Manhattan Beach.  Before it was over I would drive Shelly’s cars back and forth between Tahoe and LA.

If you lasted in that place longer than six months you were probably at least a little crazy.  More than two years, you were for better or worse, a member of the asylum and it might be the best place for you.  I put in over eight years, which is easily twelve in human chronology.

I need to explain to you the Magic Snot.

There was a brass push plate on the door of the public men’s at the end of the first long hall.  Past studios B, C and A.  One day I glimpsed a curious thing.  I can’t be sure how long it took me to notice it.  Once I clocked it, I couldn’t be sure how long it had been there.

A smear of mucus on the upper right hand corner of the brass door plate to the bathroom inside the privileged and exalted environs of A&M recording studios.  It looked a little like Italy. Maybe a half an inch.  That was it’s shape.  Boot and all.

It seemed impossible for such an obvious anomaly to survive in an environment of turborcharged anal retentivity for very long.  For awhile there was a stunted black whisker lying flat, half inside and half outside it’s shape.

I could have eliminated in seconds with a variety of tools.  My thumbnail even.

Yet there it was.  A booger.

A Magical Mucus Smear.

Albeit a tiny one.  It’s edges blackened over time.  It became more disgusting.

But it was holy.  Sacred.

Hallowed by a singular audience.

I came to ascribe all manner of superstition and outrageous fear to the Magic Snot.

I grew to covet and admire it’s unlikely existence in the face of impossible odds.  It was my champion and I became it’s benefactor.

I protected it.  I preserved it.  After years, yep years, I came to regard it as the signpost of my future.  I never mentioned it’s existence to a single other person.  The Boot Shaped Booger came to represent not my hardship, but instead my survival.  My symbol.  My metaphor of eventual triumph..

It became my Mascot.  My Talisman.

I was even assigned the men’s room one weekend with nothing but a toothbrush.  With that mere toothbrush, I did my damndest to demonstrate my devotion to the institution that was A&M recording studios, yet I took care to preserve the Mystical Booger.

I couldn’t believe for all that time, no one noticed the sacred Italian Mucus Smear.

One day, in a sort of semi obsessive compulsive routine that had manifested itself over time, I saw the Magic Snot had vanished.  I was able to detect that it had been scraped off with what was likely a razor blade.

In my mind’s eye I pictured it’s abrupt removal.  Flaking away and wafting in the sun spilling before gravity claimed it’s feathery mass.

Razor blades were plentiful in recording studios in that day for the editing of analog tape.  The entire plate and been polished to it’s full sheen of brassy potential.  It glowed and I admit, it was beautiful as it shone beneath the morning rays streaming through the windows of the rear studio entrance.  My stomach flipped and my heart pounded in my ears.  Some over zealous runner had forever deleted my secret charm in the self interest of janitorial acuity.

I was reckless that day.  I got Marcus Miller’s Porsche up over eighty between two stop signs on the way to a car wash down De Longpre.   Got it up to a hundred down Highland ………

I had been asleep.  It was time.  I was to make happen what I heard in my head or fail.  Time to relinquish childish things.  I waded in up to my chest in a vicious current and started swimming against it.  Stand still, you die.

Stand still you die.

Drinks for my friends.

Cacti in my anal cleft

If I don’t close a few deals tomorrow, we all may be killed.

Gotta pay the rent and peanut butter by way of index finger is getting old.

Meanwhile the asstards of the GOP have decided that Sotomayor is so very experienced, possesses such an elaborate history of jurisprudence, that her confirmation must be delayed until after the end of the Mayan calendar, as they need to study her every move.  They prefer her confirmation hearings begin sometime after the world ends in 2012.

What exactly do these men of lust, greed and glory hope to accomplish here?  Don’t know about you, but they look like dickheads to me.  She’s gonna be confirmed you assholes of the flat earth society.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, another right wing, homophobe, bigot loses his shit and goes off on innocents with a gun.  This guy’s done time just like the last uniquely American tumor.  You know by now DHS distributed a report a few months back warning against this specific conflagration.  The Republicans piled on and forced an apology out of Janet Napolitano.

How rigoddamndiculous does that dance look today?  Looks like under Obama, DHS might have a chance at efficacy.  Might just be the most prescient and important thing they’ve ever done, you know, that report that predicted all of this.

Fucking Republicans. Can’t figure out why they’re not embarrassed.

The frontline of the GOP is the Human Shitsmear, Sarah Palin and some human salamander named Newt.  The bench is Guy Smiley (Romney), McCain and John Voight.  Can’t figure out why they’re not embarrassed.  Rounding out Republican leadership is Michele Bachman and John Boehner.  Mr. Everglow and Mrs. Dipshit.  I understand now why Republicans pretend to stay right with God.  Hypocrisy is in their blood and they are not then, easily embarrassed.

Still can’t figure out why they aren’t embarrassed.   They have become parodies of themselves.  Not a single original thought, plan, strategy or policy.  Nothing but anti.  Nothing but no.  They just don’t get it.  The weight of circumstances and the gravity of right now is barely in their periphery.  They wander through fields and ditches without any concept of consequence.  Not a single Republican is thinking about anything beyond itself.

Rome is dry.  Rome is a tinderbox.  Rome is about to burn and you assholes can barely be bothered to get off the phone.

Wake the fuck up you Republican moderates.  You think you got no place to go other than Independent?  A lot of us will be inclined to join with you or at least work with you if you can behave.  We’ll hold it against you but we won’t throw it in your face.

Let’s get on with it.

Drinks for my friends.

Not next to nothing

So Newt Gingrich declares he’s not a citizen of the world to applause by the most prominent collection of misfit toys ever to gather on an annual schedule.  John Voight, the same whackjob who melted down on public airwaves a few years back over his superstar daughter Angelina Jolie’s estrangement, called Obama a false prophet and told us America is weaker.

Newt also told them the brand new economic plan has already failed.  This, despite news today that ten banks are set to repay almost ninety billion in stimulus money.  This,  despite it being way too early to tell.

This blog is for you Lo.  I understand that Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.  The big picture is far more convoluted than most of us know.  It is far greater than the sum of it’s parts.  Both sides have bodies buried and there’s no innocence in Washington; I am not a Nuclear Playboy.

It’s just that people like Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich, whom I adore, have no real chance at influencing seminal policy, much less posturing for the highest office in the land.

You see this administration as a glass half empty.  I’m not ready to go there yet.

When was the last time a President of the United States told Israel in front of the world, in an Arabic Muslim nation, that her actions were intolerable?

You graciously offered an article on the similarities between Bush and Obama for this particular context: http://www.internationalpoliticalwill.com/2009/06/heard-it-all-before/

Ironically, it’s context that Will is ignoring.  Just about every speech by Bush that Will cites took place inside our own borders.  I commend him for his research acumen, as he’s painstakingly culled all these examples of congruence from over six years of lexicon, far more muted and less specific than that of Obama’s single speech in a Muslim country delivered to Arabs.

It’s a manufactured duck and weave befitting a high school research paper.  No score here Lo.  Your man Will has written a fluff piece.  I’ve taken it upon myself to post an edited version of this critique on his blog.

You know I hope, that I have immense respect for you.  Thanks be that you’re far better informed than most.  I wonder if you haven’t taken the wrong fork on your philosophical/ideological path.  You’re energy and intelligence is lost on wanna be demagogues  like Ralph Nader who only run for office out of hubris and the obstreperous notion they may upset a close election.  If Ralph Nader truly wanted to make a difference he would position himself politically to do so.  Perhaps an earnest and sincere attempt at a cabinet position or a prominent non-profit.

Ralph Nader may be as full of shit as the next guy.

And you my dear, would be better served by getting on board with a society and an ethic that is changing.  Just because I support Obama, doesn’t mean I can’t bitch at him.  It gives greater license to do just that.  See last night’s blog.

I’m not, by any means, hook, line and sinker.  He’s not perfect, I own that.  But in a few short months he’s managed to fundamentally change the way the rest of the world looks at us.  Take the recent elections in Lebanon as an example.  The amount of influence he brought to bear is debatable but there’s no denying he brought some.  This is big stuff.  He’s the best thing we’ve had in a very long time.  Work with me here.

Don’t look away, there’s plenty to see.

Drinks for my friends.

Yeah well…….Ain’t that America

I gotta tell ya, Obama’s absence on all issues gay, specifically Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, is pretty disappointing.  He was unmistakably upfront about being a fierce defender.  He’s dropping this ball.  A civil rights ball that he needs to account for.  This is big picture stuff.  Us heathens deserve to know.  No free pass here, dude.

The sand dollar is underneath the stairs.  The blue juice is in the pantry.

So this is how it happened.  I gather they wanted Palin first and her staff gave the nod.  The fundraising dinner for the Senate and House Republican campaign committees.  The premier GOP money event of the season.  I don’t know if they have another name for it or not.  Anyway, they then discover somehow that Palin was never made aware of the invitation.  Um, yeah, allright, so then, they can’t get a confirmation from Palin.  So they ask Newt.  He jumps on it.  Newt goes on to immediately stick his own ass in his mouth by calling Sotomayor a racist.  They walk it back a little but can’t get word from Palin.  Newt walks it back too by saying he shouldn’t have called her that because he doesn’t know her.

So, Newt’s back in because Palin is being a cocktease, so Newt goes on television and says that Sotomayor might not be a racist but says racist things over and over.  Then he says she’s a “racialist”.

They work out some deal where they both will speak.  Then, Palin delivers some speech that was blatantly plagiarized.  Sheezus.  The GOP announces finally that Newt will be Mr. Keynote and Sarah will hopefully be in attendance.  They went on to acknowledge that Palin could maybe eclipse Gingrich in a popularity contest.

I got a degree in cartography.

Sarah shows up and commands copious limelight.  Steals the show by all accounts.  By the way, the speech she plagiarized?

Wait for it……

She lifted it from an article co-authored by Newt Gingrich in ’04.

Fuck me running, not even I could write this shit.

These are the stars of the Republican Party.  Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.  The new Arsonists Laureate.  Their best and brightest.  The party of Lincoln.  That’s sick.  These two are empty.  Shallow, callow and retarded.  They have no idea what Americans want or need.  They don’t care.  That they haven’t bothered to figure it out is evidence enough.  That this is the best they have is outrageous to me.  Newt and Sarah are a low budget slasher flick that isn’t even funny on any level.

The good news is that more people label themselves Independent these days than Republican.  I got no problem there, at least until we see what they  become.  It could go either way.  From not so judgmental libertarian to deranged, fascist, Lutheran Nazis.  The great unwashed are migrating and that is cause for concern.  We must track them.  No need to shadow them in their own habitat.  No tranquilizer darts or tags with chips.  The science and technology of demography is now at our fingertips.  No chance we’ll lose sight of them.

This country’s bowels are percolating.  We may be on the verge of giving a shit.  I’m more than inclined to applaud the demise of the Grand Old Party but they will show up somewhere.  There’s that and the truth that chaos covets a power vacuum.

These are interesting times.  Better pay attention.

Drinks for my friends.

The blind leading the deaf, a fluff piece

I like to have more gin than I can drink in one night on hand at all times.  Same goes with pot.  I don’t like to have to budget my recreational drug intake inside of  a 24 or even a 48 hour cycle.

This particular ideal is not necessarily a good one.  And that’s ok, because it’s an ideal I can rarely live up to.  What happens when I’m back in the saddle?  I don’t rightly know.  For now I manage to keep a steady supply of one or the other.

I get my brain to relax in the right way, manage to turn the noise down, and I’m golden.  Can I do that without a better living through chemistry mentality?  Maybe, but not consistently I fear.  Forgive me, it gets loud up in here.

Refreshments are welcome.  Maybe mandatory at this point.

There’s this great Mexican place across the street.  Nothing fancy but flavor perfect.  I’d put the cheese enchilada plate against any for the price.  Hard shell chicken tacos?  Say hello to my little friends.  The grease to freshness ratio is rudimentary culinary perfection.

I’ve grown to appreciate that frontal lobe burn brought on by just enough wasabi in your soy sauce.    And then a cold cold beer.  A little albacore and some salmon, some ginger here and there and you’ve got uncle who goes by Bob.

Ever notice the lack of cheese in any Asian cuisine?

The way white pills and cotton look inside bottles of apothecary brown or green glass soothes me.  Like the way an orange creamsicle tastes.

I tried to write a poem once about hot corn dogs and mustard, that greasy yellow glass on old popcorn makers and the colored lights of carnivals and gave up after six months.  Most poetry sucks because poetry is so damn hard to write.  Far more poetry in life than on paper.  Pick a flower.

Boxing is brutal poetry.  Ultimate fighting is brutality minus the poetry.

I’m sure people who wear sunglasses on cloudy days or inside are jackasses.

I do appreciate girls, but I adore women.

Kinda curious about Kentucky grilled chicken.  My first real job was at KFC you know.

Life is so goddamn slippery.  Rich or poor.  Black or white.  One day you’re the master of your destiny and the next day everything is whirring like a demonic gyroscope and completely outside of your grasp.

I hate that.  I like to have control of my shit.

We have a mutually beneficial relationship based on  individual prosperity that we share with each other.  Wonder twin powers are activated.  She thinks I’m Y chromosome impaired.  She’s wrong, of course.  I’m actually Y chromosome advantaged.

I really like chunky peanut butter.  I like the oily natural kind.

Music informs me.  it is my elixir.  It informs me.  A constant gift.  The power of music is unique among all of the artistic mediums.  There is no more immediate artform  than a single good song.

Man I lament stupidity and I hate willful ignorance.   Twin tragedies.  A friend of mine challenged my championing of Obama’s speech in Cairo the other day.  She called me out on facebook.  I invited her to bring it.  I didn’t hear back.  They never come at me.  I invite them but they don’t.  This woman is my friend.  I’m quite fond of her.  She’s smart and I want to know her mind on this.

What I get instead is wingnuts and whackjobs like Ralph and that asshole Trueblood from a year ago.  Nobody rational.  No big brains.  Where the hell are you who would engage me with intellectual honesty?  Retards like Ralph are entertaining but I tend to covet dialog more substantiative.

Lo, from Dandelionsalad, hasn’t posted anything of mine for at least a year.  My piece on Obama in Cairo she turned down because she is not an “Obama supporter”.  I wrote her back to say so what, it was a historic speech.

What I’m doing here is pissing, moaning and pining for responsible opponents.  I can’t be coming so correct as to intimidate legitimate contenders.  It does get lonely.  Talk to me.  I won’t bite, unless you’re  super dumb.

Somebody get Liz Cheney a ball gag.

Drinks for my friends.

Excelsior!

“And I’m also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum.” -Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America.

Awesome.

Honestly, I teared up.

I am so very proud of my President and my country.  Our Man was amazing today.  He said things no American President has ever said.  And they were all true.  I was transfixed.  Enchanted.  Slack jawed.  I’m grateful I was alone, just in case I drooled.

It’s worth pointing out that in light of the elaborate smear effort to paint him as some sort of extremist Muslim conducted during the Presidential  campaign, his speech in Cairo today was goddamn courageous.  Beyond that, it was an overt in your face to his neoconservative right wing Christian critics. You know, the ones that so desperately want you to believe that we’re in the middle of some war that is ultimately about our God being able to beat up their God.  The ones for whom ridiculous dogma and apocryphal ideology trump compassion, reality and common sense.

“More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.”

“So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.”

Oh man.  That’s the shit right there.

“As the Holy Quran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.  That is what I will try to do today — to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.”

There it is.  We are all just people.  Humans first and foremost.  How breathtakingly refreshing.  How important and authentic.

Obama quoted John Adams: “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.”

This notion, so widely held, that America is at war with a religion or an ethnicity or even a geographic region is so very wrongheaded, so perspicaciously misguided, that most Americans, along with too much of the world, have no realistic understanding of just exactly what is happening and why.

It’s understandable, given the litany of lies we’ve been force fed, and our own failure in laziness and apathy to not even bother to investigate for our own edification, the absolute crap the media has foisted upon us so irresponsibly, so relentlessly and for so long.  The failure of journalism in America is mirrored by the doppelganger of breakdown by Americans ourselves, to question what we’re told, to challenge what we are led to believe.  Exactly why we are in this mess.

Willful ignorance.

“The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism — it is an important part of promoting peace.”

As an agnostic,  I am moved  to say Amen.

“Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world……….Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: “I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.”

Sheezus.  Wow.  In Cairo, Egypt.  An incredibly bold admission about the abject failure of American policy.  I can’t tell you how impressed I am at this honest confession by Our Man on the world stage.  It’s true, America fucked up by invading Iraq.  We screwed the pooch.  Shame on us.

“And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles. Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.”

Of course I was aware of these steps by Our Man, but his restating of them beneath and behind the proscenium of a stage in front of the entire world is nothing less than golden.  And again, the admission of just how far this once great country has strayed, is so brave and nakedly honest, that I am at a loss for words.

He recounts these events, these egregious mistakes, because his intention is to put them behind us by reconstructing our integrity and pride with honesty and transparency, whenever and wherever possible.

Then, he swung the mother of all haymakers:

“On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years they’ve endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations — large and small — that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.”

“It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.”

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”

Unbelievable.  Finally.  A sitting American calls Israel on it’s shit.

This is change.  I can’t speak for you, but this is why this man earned my vote.  It is why I didn’t hesitate to hope.  I believed him then.  I believe him now.  I believe in him.  As I write this, I am inspired and awfully proud.

This speech will no doubt be read, remarked upon and lauded for decades.

This guy is so fucking cool.

Drinks for my friends.

Finnegan begin again

I hope you’re not yet tired of me railing against all things Dick Cheney.  I know I’m not.  History will will estimate him to be nothing more than a misanthropic war criminal.  Besides that, I admit again that it’s morbidly cathartic.  What began as an effort on his part to rewrite history and burnish his legacy, has morphed into a risible rhythmless boogie of dodging bullets fired at his feet by truth empowered gunslingers.

Today he tells us that there was never any evidence of a connection between 911 and Iraq.  Um, no shit.  This despite his persistent insistence that there was ample evidence, long after it was thoroughly discredited. He said:  “pretty well confirmed” that a 9/11 hijacker met with Iraqi intelligence officials before 9/11. -thinkprogress.org

Understand how deliberate this dog and pony show was.  In the ’04 Presidential election, over 70% of people who voted for Bush/Cheney believed that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the attacks on 911.  One could rightfully argue that these two assholes were re-elected by and large because Americans believed their lies and the spell of fear they so successfully instilled.

You gotta love the great unwashed.

He also tells us that those memos he wants declassified don’t necessarily prove, as he claimed just days ago, that torture saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousand of lives, but rather the entirety of the interrogation program did.  What the hell does that mean?  Olbermann wondered if he was referring to instances like the fact that we gave sugar free cookies to a diabetic terrorist.

Then, he has the audacity to blame his lies on George Tenet.  That’s right, the infamous dickhead in charge of the CIA at the time, who said that making a case for invading Iraq to the American people and the world was a “slam dunk”.  As if to say, it wasn’t his fault because that’s what Tenet told him.

After months of pressure and obtuse harangue by Dick truly and his mob.

For his part, Tenet received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It’s gets better.  He now claims we missed 911 because of former terrorist czar Richard Clarke.  I suggest you read Clarke’s book on the matter.  One of the very first insiders to be overtly critical of the reckless and ideologically driven Dick-in-Bush administration and the Keystone Cops approach they took to every single circumstance after that fateful day.  If Clarke is to be believed, and I believe him, he had been ringing the bell since day one.  The book is titled “Against All Enemies” and it’s a page turning indictment of the whole crew, from Condoleezza Rice, on up.

While you’re at it, pick up of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s book, “The Price of Loyalty”.  An astounding glimpse into the pre-911 days and the Bush administration’s determination, even then, to to invade Iraq.

What baffles me is how so many talking heads, Dan Rather included, seem wont to purchase that at the very least, Cheney is sincere, that he believes what he says.  No sale here.  He’s a charlatan and should be tried and convicted for war crimes.  Every prediction has been wrong.  Every “fact” he’s ever foisted has been a lie.  The idea that this prick is able to command a single American’s attention on any public airwave, makes me want to puke in technicolor.

Here’s where we are.  No WMD.  There never was and there remains no credible reason to tell Americans it was…..was.  No connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.  No connection whatsoever between Saddam Hussien and the events of 911.  Again, never was and no credible reason to tell Americans there was.  Nothing, no symbiosis between a secular dictatorship and an extreme religious movement.

No was.  None.

Here we are.  Not a single fucking reason for invading a sovereign country that posed no threat to us or even it’s neighbors in the foreseeable future.  No reason for killing hundreds of thousands if not more than a million innocent people.  No reason for displacing millions of innocents.  No reason for the deaths of thousands of proud American men and women.  No reason for the incalculable grief visited on millions and millions of fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers across the entire planet.  No goddamn reason at all for any of it.

No was and no is.

I usually endeavor to bring a little humor to you the reader, while drawing your attention to the horrible events that surround us all in this world.  Forgive me, this just isn’t funny.  There’s nothing funny about it.  It’s all tragedy kids.  A long slow, brutal and still developing nightmare that will disturb the world’s sleep for decades because Richard Bruce Cheney was somehow allowed to have far too much influence on the course of human events.

More than any other human, Richard Bruce Cheney is responsible for a consummately unjust war with Iraq.  More than any other human, Richard Bruce Cheney is responsible for the abject and utterly reprehensible torture America visited with malice and viciousness on America’s “enemies”.  More than any other human, Richard Bruce Cheney is culpable for America’s woefully reduced standing in the world.  More, than any single other human fucking being, Richard Bruce Cheney is responsible for the hole that we are now at the bottom of.

One of the prevailing messages of the Obama administration is to look forward and therefore not dwell too zealously on our recent past.  It is ever more apparent to me that however wholesome and well intentioned such sentiments are, they are naive and for lack of a better adjective, simple, in an increasingly complex world.

Richard Bruce Cheney shits where he eats.

Hold Dick Cheney responsible.  Show the world that accountability is still a respected idea in America.  Prosecute this prick.  In so doing, we will demonstrate the best we have to offer as a first step, to ourselves and the rest of the planet.

Fuck this guy.

Drinks for my friends.


Domestic terrorism?

Fuck that shit.  CHRISTIAN TERRORISM.

Timothy McVeigh was a domestic terrorist.

Whackjobs like Scott Roeder, who assassinated Dr. George Tiller yesterday in his own goddamn church, what should be a sanctuary, do so in the the name of their Christian God.  No surprise here that Roeder was a homophobe as well.  Christian Terrorist, nothing less.

Thank God I’m agnostic.  I crack me up.

“A man named Scott Roeder was convicted in 1996 of criminal use of explosives and sentenced to 24 months probation….” -CNN

Imagine this man was Muslim and he was known to stalk and then kill a Rabbi or a politician.  Think about it.  Really.

Like it or not, George Tiller was engaging in a legally protected activity.  Do these assholes really think these women simply wake up, watch an episode of Maury Povich and decide to seek a late term abortion as a matter of convenience?  I’m not even going to look it up, I’m confident that’s not the case.  Shut up, I will not entertain the issue.

Enter the glowering spectre of egregiously irresponsible “journalists” like Bill O’Reilly.  How much blood on his hands?

“Tiller, O’Reilly likes to say, “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000.” He’s guilty of “Nazi stuff,” said O’Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. “This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union,” said O’Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006″ -salon.com

As of today, no apologies from O’Reilly.  In it’s stead, Bill the pinhead offers that: “The far left is exploiting the death of [sic] Dr. Tiller to stifle any criticism of abortion.”  Note the euphemism “death of” in the the place of what should rightfully be “assassination”.  As though, “Tiller the Killer” some how expired or succumbed to natural causes.

There is no doubt in my mind that O’Reilly and his ilk are responsible in some degree for so recklessly fomenting the hate and fear for which such tragedies are an inevitable conclusion.  Inevitable, you douchebag.  Time to man up, you penisless reptile.  Do you imagine your useless vitriol to be without consequence?

To quote Snoop: “Fuck Bill O’Reilly.”

Man I hate these guys.

In other news, I’m thinking Sonia Sotomayor has benefitted  from the magic of rhinoplasty.  Good decision methinks.  She used to have a honker like a potato.  Seriously, she’s hot, smart and exotic, at least to me, self confessed trailer trash.  I’m saying that under the right circumstances, I’d hit that.

For the record, my current significant other is very smart and way hotter.

I gotta tell ya, I think Barack taking Michelle out for dinner and a show in New York is unbelievably cool.  He loves his wife and so do I.  Class and glamor.  A little Camelot for us all.  I am only able to muster a mere modicum of amusement at the FOX news talking heads invective over the cost of the outing.  Vainglorious and vituperatively disingenuous valor on part of their talking heads pretending to give a mad fuck over the expense to you, dear reader.  Did they complain, on your behalf, about Dumbya’s record amounts of vacation time to clear brush in Crawford?  I think not.

Assholes.

Man I hate these guys.

Drinks for my friends.

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