Archive for January, 2015

Doesn’t it seem crazy that the most of the folks who believe in life after death are at odds with the theory of evolution?

Scripture spewing theists railing against abortion while pining away for more capital punishment, even more guns and jerking health care out from under the feet of the people who need it the most?

Does that make any sense?

They believe that we as a species are so special, so unique as humans that we just must have been created by one God’s design. We didn’t evolve. We were planted with all our grace and humility intact as the pristine flowers we so obviously are.  This all happened about six thousand years ago.  Then we had that huge ass flood and everything.  And it was then that our species saved every other species we now enjoy today.

You know, the whole Noah thing.

We are exclusive and divine.

We deserve everything.

Dominion over all of it.

Good God, organized religion is such a load of crap.

I don’t doubt that a lot of what is attributed to humans as virtue is actually virtuous.

But they are mistaken in thinking that these virtues don’t exist anywhere else. 

They do.

Animals never have to compete with the inherent lethality and avarice of technology and commerce, therefore the kindness and compassion of animals when domesticated is pure and their endeavors toward survival in the wild are nothing but efficient and completely absent malice.

If only humans would aspire to as much.

Our failings as a species are breathtaking.

There is so much more dignity in being other than human on this planet.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s all the proof of evolution anyone should ever need.

So, wouldn’t it be awesome if they all came back as cats?

Drinks for my friends.

Does it occur to anyone else that the Joni Ernst story about bread bags on her shoes has to be complete bullshit?

She’d wear holes in them on the way the to goddamn bus fer crying out loud.

I read on the internet that you’re supposed to wear them over your socks.

Sometimes I think of Barack Obama as a Dungeons and Dragons character.  You know, he’s only got so many spells and potions and magical weapons.  So many charisma points.  So many wisdom points.  His political capital is finite.  We don’t know how much he actually has.  Maybe he’s actually being resourceful.

I think like this sometimes.

It was a great speech.  I hear.  I didn’t watch it.  Well, I watched the post game.

I watched the fuck out of Joni Ernst though.  Did ya catch the gummies in the corners of her rictus?

She’s awesome.

She could be better than Bachmann.

She’s a senator.

It’s a good trade.

Thing is, this woman is just not bright.  Totally Stepford.  And she’s a fucking hypocrite.  Her stump story is bullshit.  Her family received all kinds of government farm subsidies and if she actually was poor it was under Reagan.  To republican men, she’s a token.  On the other hand, she may end up the heat and light that Palin never had a shot at.  Palin was too stupid and they were desperate for a woman.  At least she didn’t let loose with that ridiculous goose laugh.

The poor woman is going to be briefed and debriefed relentlessly on what to say when there’s cameras and microphones.

I can’t wait for her to go rogue.

When is the GOP gonna figure this out and at least foist a woman with intelligence?

They do it on purpose.  The set the bar really low, they anoint a token dingbat and out of one side of their mouths they are pro women and out of the other side they tell the shriveled up white dudes that everybody knows the bitches can’t be trusted.  Republican men view all women besides their mothers as whores.  I’m being fair here by judging them on their policies.

I think like this sometimes.

Or, the republicans really do suffer from an ideological myopia so profound and disgusting.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

I can barely tell the difference between democrats and republicans anymore.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

What I can tell you is that republicans are just so ridiculously obvious.  Shameless.  They take the gullible and the ignorant for granted.  They count on them.

I’ll also point that about half of us buy into it and the other half buys into that.

Two men say they are Jesus, one of them must be lying.

What if there is no Jesus?

Drinks for my friends.

 

 

 

It was 35 years ago and I was sixteen.  After a stint at KFC, I was finally old enough to not have to lie about my age to get a real fast food job.

I applied at Der Wienerschnitzel and was hired by a color blind man named Jerry. He had a face like a melted bag of caramels and a vague east coast accent. Everything about him was the color blue. His suits. His ties. His car was a sky blue El Dorado with a navy blue vinyl top.  I don’t know if that was the only color he could see or what.

He looked and sounded like a gangster to me.

I had a hard time taking him seriously.  He was a stereotype.  A caricature.

Jerry took me back into the kitchen where the magic happened and introduced me to a beefy guy named Dave.  I would learn later that Dave was an aspiring bodybuilder.  Dave’s corpulence challenged his managerial uniform in every imaginable way.  Shirt buttons barely winning,  a too short tie that looked to be asphyxiating.  His brown polyester slacks glistened like fresh sausage casing.  He wore braces on alarmingly aberrant teeth.  Dated 70’s disco afro.

Dave told me to report the next afternoon, after school, to the tallest and ugliest motherfucker I would ever see.

He told me his name was Allen.

That’s what he actually said.

He was perhaps the tallest and ugliest motherfucker I’d ever seen, but he was cordial.  He showed me to the stock room and casually suggested that I practice punting old corn dogs against the ceiling for awhile.  He pointed to a 5 gallon plastic bucket and said he would be back to check my progress.

Allen stood about six foot six and was 4 or 5 years older than me.  He was slope shouldered, pigeon chested and very long of limb.  His face was pocked and pitted.  Lantern jawed with a smile that was nothing if not threatening.  His voice was cavern deep and despite his awkward stature, he was sinewy and there was unmistakable power in his presence.  He was pretty fucking scary the first time I laid eyes on him.

After an hour so, he came back.  I’d done the best I could.  The floor was random with ruptured corn dogs, wrappers, the wooden sticks and somehow, there were mustard stains on the ceiling.

He raised an eyebrow above milky glasses and muttered something about my lack of enthusiasm but seemed satisfied enough and introduced me to the deep fryer.  His instructions were terse.  Pay attention to the drive thru grease board, listen to the orders broadcast on a PA from the front register and anticipate.  There were two timers.  One for french fries and one for corn dogs.  Don’t cook too much and don’t run out.

Men had failed before me.

There was a guy we called French Fry Bob.  He worked the day shift.  He had some obscure degree in something he assured us.  He never made it past the fry station.  He must have been good.  I can’t remember much about him except that he was pear shaped and seemed to last longer than he should have.

I’d never met anyone remotely like Allen Hamilton and my guess is I never will.

I don’t know how other less legitimate fast food outfits were back then but when you pulled up to the window to pay and collect your delicious meal at Der Wienerschnitzel, you were afforded a full view of the kitchen and it’s workers.  Nowadays you’re lucky to get a glimpse of a cash register and the drink station.  There is no choice in remembering the shock on customers faces when they caught an eyeful of this gaunt giant, in nothing but an apron and boxer shorts, spatula in hand, flipping patties and grinning while assembling the delicious meal they had just ordered twenty feet back.

He was difficult to know.  He didn’t suffer fools.  He had a dark, sometimes vicious sense of humor but he was still very funny.  It was obvious that he was troubled but even those who knew him well barely saw it.

There were marathon Dungeons and Dragons sessions at Allen’s place fueled by meth and liquor.  Allen was of course, the dungeon master.  For a time, his circle of older friends and my circle of younger ones converged.  There were always some pretty shady characters in and out.  Characters that inspired instinctual caution.  Jack, who dressed like a 50’s greaser, pegged jeans and all with a constant rapid, involuntary wink.  RJ, with an overbite that left him on the verge of whistling when he talked.   He was nearly as tall as Allen but beefier and not nearly as smart.

I liked Allen and admired him.  He was painfully bright.  He had composure.  He always seemed to be a step or two ahead of me and everyone else.  He was calculating and manipulative.  Just a little more dangerous than anyone I’d ever met.  People who didn’t know or understand him were at least a little afraid of him.  He could be intimidating and he knew it.

You could reasonably expect to find his trunk full of medieval weapons.

He was a good friend to me and my friends. He challenged me in conversations. I flirted with trouble far more serious than I would have on my own.

A good friend to me and my friends, save maybe one.  His name was Pete and we were friends.  He was a year older but I was his boss.  We took his ’67 Cougar over Donner Summit to see the Who and The Clash at the Oakland Coliseum in 1982.  I made mix tapes for the trip.  We ran out of money on the way back and resorted to a dine and dash at a Denny’s in Vallejo.  We left our last money as a tip.

Pete Thought the rest of us were keeping a secret from him.  He was convinced that Allen was controlling his mind.  We would would catch site of him by the side of the highway scribbling in a notebook.  Eventually he refused to have anything to do with any of us.  We all experimented liberally with a variety of pharmaceuticals back then and I’m sure that was at least a component of Pete’s demise but there must have been more at work.  I heard he’d married Allen’s sister.  Allen had nothing to say about it but liked being asked.

He liked cocking an eyebrow and saying nothing.  He did that a lot.

The last time I saw Allen was early November of 1992.  I was in town for Nevada day.  We spent a late night drinking tequila and ended up at my parents housein the Carson valley.  I remember him in the back yard putting out a cigarette and looking for a trash can.  The sound of his primer gray ’69 GTO lumbering off.

Ten or so years later I heard he was dead.  From a mutual friend, who was a notorious drunk, and drunk and sullen with the news.

 

Part  II

Fast forward to the present.  Two days after Christmas and I’m in Lake Tahoe for my niece’s wedding.  I’m sitting at a table with my wife and kids and mostly people I recognize except one tall and lanky girl.  I know her boyfriend Mike pretty well but I can’t remember the last time we had a conversation.  I like Mike.  We start talking and his girlfriend joins in.  Valerie.  She’s bright and funny and self deprecating.  I like her.  She’s pretty behind big glasses.  At one point someone asks how tall she is and I don’t remember her answer but think it’s an odd thing to ask.

Not long after, she stood up.

I discover I know her mother.  We dated.  She was beautiful and crazy.  We rolled a car off the side of a mountain road end over end in a blizzard.  Her mother was driving.  If it wasn’t for seat belts, we both would have been killed.

I ask her a question about her father and literally get the one answer I never would have thought before this exact second when I’m thinking it.  She is saying the same thing my brain is saying at the same time.  Allen Hamilton.  My long dead friend and her father are the same man.

It makes sense.  Marfan’s syndrome.  She looks like him.  She’s built like him.  She tells me she’s already had open heart surgery and a doctor told her once that most people with Marfan’s don’t live past thirty.  She tells me this haunts her.

She says she just has a few vague memories.  She doesn’t know anything about him.  She’s never met anyone who even knew her father other than her mother.  We talk about him a lot.   Neither one of us are prepared for this.  I’ve rarely been in a situation where I know less how to act or have less of an idea what to say.  We orbit. We exchange contact information because we understand the conversation is far from over.  We hug and she cries.  She is lovely.

On the way out, her boyfriend Mike tells me he is glad it was me.

I think about this for awhile and decide I’m glad too.

A few weeks later I get an email from her.

“………………There are so many things that I want to know that I don’t know how to ask. If I could ask just one question it would be, was he ever happy? Happy with himself, or happy with his life? Did he know heart-swelling joy, or just fleeting moments of non-sorrow?”

I answered that she had thrown me a pretty wicked pitch.

She seems all of the good and none of the sorrow.

I wrote her back but this is my complete answer. 

Drinks for my friends.