The Godzilla Initiative

THINGS LOOK BAD FOR BABYLON AS GODZILLA APPROACHES THE ISHTAR GATE

If you click the picture above you will be directed to a really interesting 1999 article about global catastrophes- doomsday was all the rage during the pre-millennium run-up to the year 2000 -or was it 2001?
In any case, the world didn't end.
In fact, it's still here today.

Doomsday remains popular, though, and always will be, for reasons the author examines in his article,which is worth reading - or merely looking at- just for the great crayola illustrations.

Warning: the author says things like (emphasis added) :

The basic story is that an atomic bomb test on remote Lagos Island in the South Pacific awakens and mutates a dinosaur survivor into Godzilla (in one film he is identified as being in the Godzillasaurus family-this is taxonomically incorrect, however, since the proper family designation would be Godzillasauridae and would be the genus)

Well...OK... we all know that-but he does make a lot of good points, including :

-He is one of the first to make the Voltaire- Godzilla connection ( remember, this was written in 1999- years before Voltaire's long- missing brain was discovered in a Toho Studios backlot prop warehouse)

and

- Art loves bullshit. History tells us so.


Where are the Giant Radioactive Monsters when we need them? Remember how the world's leaders put aside their differences and united in the struggle against the menace of Ghidorah?



- - - GHIDORAH , THE THREE-HEADED SPACE MONSTER

Ghidorah or Hezbollah, can't something be done? Can't Godzilla fix this?

I dunno... I think Godzilla is neutral in matters of religion and geo-politics. He probably thinks of cities as "things that hurt my feet" and "God" is a nick-name.

It is folly to attempt to understand the mind of Godzilla; all we know is about it is that it is roughly the size of a basketball- pretty damn small considering how big G is- but it's not G's mind that smashes things.
It's his tail that does that. And his halitosis.

Still, Godzilla seems to have been our 'behind-the-scenes' foreign policy guy for a long time...all the way back to the little known Godzilla Initative- a really bad idea that consisted of trying to put all the Giant Monsters in one place, the aptly named Monster Island. This is documented in the 1968 BBC documentary, Where Have All The Monsters Gone?


So now we have to deal with the consequences of the Godzilla Initative, which frankly , was a really shitty idea in the first place.
Imagine that each of these monsters hate each of the other monsters:

Let's take all the squabbling monsters and force them into a small geographical area and hope they all get along peacefully.
We can give some of the monsters weapons.
We can give other monsters medical supplies in case they get hurt by the monsters we armed.

Sound crazy? Of course it is.

Our world is ruled by Giant Radioactive Monsters with Tiny Brains.

NOT Organic Boycott

I was so duped! One of my regular blog reads, Dialogic, has posted about certain companies purposefully mislabeling their products as "USDA Organic".
"In April Organic Consumers Association launched a boycott of two leading organic dairy brands and distributors, Horizon (a division of Dean Foods) and Aurora, for mislabeling their products as "USDA Organic." All of Aurora's and much of Horizon's "organic" milk is coming from factory farm feedlots where the cows have been brought in from conventional farms and have little or no access to pasture. After three months, thousands of consumers and a number of co-ops and natural food stores have joined the boycott. Now it's time to expand the boycott to five grocery chains selling bogus organic milk from Aurora Organic:

Costco's "Kirkland Signature"
Publix’s “High Meadows"
Safeway's "O" Organics brand
Wild Oats' organic milk
Giant's "Nature's Promise."

In addition OCA is calling for a boycott of Horizon's sister soy brands--Silk soymilk and White Wave tofu--which have begun turning away from U.S. organic farmers and instead importing cheap organic soybeans from China and Brazil, where labor rights and environmental standards are routinely violated."

I won't be buying Costco organic milk or Silk soy beverages anymore.

Beach Livin' is the Life for Me

Apologies that I haven’t been around lately. I’ve been crazy busy lately and went to Lincoln City Oregon for a week of chilly, but beautiful, beach.

I wanted to rent a place where we could bring our Chihuahua, Maximus, and also have a kitchen. I can not believe how much money rooms and/or houses cost. We’re talking $250 plus a night! So I’m frantically checking availability and cost a few months back and come across a motel that also has some cottages and a Vintage duplex. We can rent one of the duplex units for only $99/night. Now normally, I would be freaking at even that cost, but I’m thinking kitchen, dog-friendly, indoor swimming pool, on the beach with a great view – it’s a steal! We were on the lower level of this place with someone on the top floor only one night.


Well vintage means poorly maintained dump hehe. I’ve lived in old dumps before so I’m not caring, but the bed was painful as hell. The boys’ bed was the same, but they’re 7 and 5 so they know no joint and muscle pain yet. My husband and I were so uncomfortable we didn’t sleep well the whole trip. And that didn’t mean we stayed up all night having sex because even the sex was painful in that bed lol - we ended up using the bedroom wall a lot.

Anyway, the reason we wanted a kitchen is obvious, but also because we go crabbing when we’re at the beach and I need a stove to boil them. Crabbing is one of my favorite things to do, especially in Newport Oregon.

They have this huge dock that extends out into the bay (the pic shows a bit of the dock), and after you throw your rings into the water, you get to meet people from all over also crabbing or fishing. You walk the dock, share stories, look at each other’s catches, and watch the children have a blast with the crabs, fish, and sea stars we sometimes haul up. There are even sea lions swimming below trying to get the bait. We caught some beautiful Dungeness crab for dinner that night.

We just got back from our trip the other day and a friend sent me an email discussing the Ocean Dome in Japan. Have you seen this email? At first I was thinking that it wasn’t real and went to check the urban legends references, but it is real amazingly enough. It’s part of the Sheraton Seagaia Resort in Miyazaki Japan.

Ocean Dome has its own flame-spitting volcano, crushed white marble "sand", and it also boasts the world's largest retractable roof, providing a permanently blue sky with white puffy clouds. Temperature, wind and humidity are closely controlled. Every hour, the volcano erupts and the hi-tech wave machines start up, starting a few minutes of surfing. Entrance cost is $50 per person. You’ll notice in the picture that it’s right next to the real beach. I’ll take real beach any day, rain or shine.

Possums and Papers

Note : This blog has three types of readers:

1- You. Thanks for visiting! You know who you are. If you don't, ask someone who does.

2- Government Spies. Again, thanks for visiting . You guys shouldn't have fired me. I could have saved you a lot of trouble.

3- People from .edu and .k12 IPs doing Google research for their school assignments*- mostly about possums. I am at a loss to explain this sudden, mad flurry of possum curiosity- isn't school out for the summer anyway? If you do poorly in school, are you forced to spend your care-free summer days doing internet possum research?

I wonder if "possum" is slang for something naughty- none of my new, possum-driven traffic leaves comments- but possums posts are presently popular.


Perhaps the waters are rising. When the waters rise, the possums move uphill and gnaw holes in trash cans, garage doors and power lines, drawing unwanted attention to themselves in the process.
If you've ever seen a berserk possum running down the alley with the bumper of your car in it's mouth, you have probably been curious enough to Google "do possums attack cars"-
but you already knew the answer to that question, didn't you?

You should be calling your insurance company and Animal Control, not reading this.


---------------------------

*KIDS! If you turn in a school paper that uses this site as reference material , you will get a failing grade.

If you don't fail, you will know that your teacher does not read your work and randomly grades papers by throwing them down a flight of stairs- the ones landing closest to the bottom get the highest marks. This is known as the Gravitational Grading System (GGS) and is a lot more common than you think.

My step-mother, a high-school teacher , introduced me to this concept. She also introduced me to the idea of really cheap-ass red wine that was sold in enormous 'family-sized' jugs. This wine is an important part of the GGS process.

She was fair about it. All the papers were slipped into identical transparent binders and turned upside-down before being hurled downstairs.
This allowed aerodynamic impartiality.
No student ever received a failing grade.
There really isn't much incentive for high school teachers to give students failing grades, but there's a great reason not to: If you fail them, you may have to teach them again.

I was a terrible student, so I always got a chuckle out of thinking about my step-mom's students spending long, painful hours on their assignments , only to have her come home, guzzle a quart or so of wine, say " Fuck it!" and start throwing those precious papers around.

No wonder she insisted her students carefully bind their work- otherwise it would scatter everywhere and be difficult to reassemble. Even the spines had to be a certain color- this helped stack them by class and subject after a split-level grading session.

Twenty years later, I heard she got fired for teaching class while she was drunk- at 7:30 a.m.

This didn't surprise me- but it took twenty years to happen?
That was mildly surprising.

Cigarettes, Coffee and Bomb Shelters

Man, enough about my bad habits already!

Let's discuss the bad habits of others.
One thing all addicts do is steal stuff. To illustrate my point, I have stolen a photograph from a blogpal's site:

Obviously, what you see is coffee and cigarettes , two of the building blocks of the American Nutritional Pyramid- what could be wrong with that?
Well, that's another thing addicts do- they talk shit about everything- I have only good things to say about Barb - and I freaking love coffee- but that's my point. Addicts even mess up stuff they like.

I'm trying to hold them in, these heartless coffee comments...but I am helpless...forgive me...please...we all say hurtful things when we are in our cups.

... *sputtters*...if you read Barb's post, you will see that there isn't coffee in that cup- at least not the good ol' Joe I was raised on.
I saw the words 'latte' and 'mocha' and 'vanilla' - I know vanilla is a flavor of ice cream, but what is that other stuff?
Is it what the coffeeshop girl struggles with for ten excruciating minutes while I wait in line for my refill of black coffee?

Is it even coffee?

Doesn't sound like coffee.

Coffee should be called manly, Greatest Generation names like 'Joe' and 'Java', not 'frappe latte grande'. My G.I. Grandpa didn't trade howitzer rounds with Rommel's Afrika Korps so we could have 'grande lattes'- he commanded a Sherman tank in WWII and he drank good ol' Joe, brewed in the gunner's helmet or a spent 75mm shell casing, whichever was cleaner.
The African sun was so hot, they'd just put the beans in the helmet, add liquid and it would boil itself. They didn't have water back then, so they had to use their own sweat, which was already boiling when it left their pores. That's how Granpa and his crew invented instant coffee- he later lost the patent in a game of mumblety-peg while being held P.O.W. in North Korea, but that's another tale...
Granpa's coffee also doubled as a passable scorpion and reptile repellent - try holding a nest of frenzied scorpions or hostile pit vipers at bay with a mocha latte. Lotsa luck!

The coffee that G.I. Granpa drank would dissolve that cup- looks like one of them new-fangled thin foam thingies- in about five seconds.

In those days nobody ever asked you : " would you like room for cream in that?"
That's like the world's dumbest trick question- what they are really asking you is: "would you like less coffee?"
Less coffee is always the wrong choice.

Granpa would've recognized the Camel logo on the cigarettes, but he would've looked at the word 'Lights' and thought, " hey, what a great idea- they packaged matches (lights) with the smokes!"
He wouldn't know what to make of a filtered cigarette, much less a Light one- back then the real men (and the sophisticated dames) smoked Lucky Strikes and unfiltered Camels. The best of them developed heat-resistant callouses between fore and index fingers, allowing them to smoke the entire cigarette without leaving so much as a 'butt' behind.


See that slogan at the bottom? L.S./M.F.T.?
Back then, everyone knew what L.S./M.F.T meant.
Today, it sounds like some sort of left-wing gay-agenda flag-burners association:
Lesbian Socialists Mean Flag Torching .

In the Good Old Days, tobacco was good for you- like vitamins- and advertisers didn't waste time wringing their hands in fear of offending this or that minority or special-interest group. If you didn't smoke Old Gold, you were clearly a primitive savage with a war drum and a hacking cough.
No 'medical war whoops' from Old Gold- it was those other brands that caused cancer, not Old Golds.
If they made Old Golds today, smoking would still be safe.



The text at the very bottom reads : " For a Treat instead of a Treatment, treat yourself to Old Golds". By 'treatment' I can only imagine that they mean an early form of chemotherapy, iron-lung sessions or some equally horrific medical treatment. Unbelievable.


If you really felt the need to smoke a filtered cigarette, you used to have the option of choosing Micronite, a miracle filter endorsed by scientists and educators, Micronite was-"the greatest health protection ever-"
made with all-natural asbestos fibers- what could be safer than tobacco smoke filtered through asbestos?
The industry stopped using asbestos filters - or admitting it, anyway- in 1957.
Until then, smoking Kents was actually safer than not smoking at all.




In the event of Atomic War , you were encouraged to inhale through unlit Kent Micronite filters to protect yourself from harmful radioactive fallout particles.
Schoolchildren were issued Kents during Atomic Fire Drills. The typical American backyard bomb shelter would contain a 30 day supply of food and water, but at least 60 days worth of cigarettes- at the recommendation of the American Medical Association.



Duck, cover , reach for a cigarette- all clear!

The Best News Ever

That's pretty amazing.
Never thought I'd see that happen.
I wish I had a link or a photo or something, but I don't.

If Weren't True...

Having a drunk for a president is manageable. Having a stone bozo for a president, on the other hand, is a calamity of global proportions
-William Rivers Pitt

On Being Wrong

Here, hand me that roll of paper towels. The 'extra-ultra jumbo' roll, please.

Thanks.
Now pass that pen on over here, wouldja?
Much obliged.

I am going to use this pen to write down every mistake I've ever made. I am going to use the 'extra-jumbo' roll as my parchment and I am going to use very small handwriting- otherwise, I may run out of room.
This might take a while.
There's coffee in the kitchen if you need it. I'm on my third cup, and I don't need it.

I could fill the web with all my mistakes- except it would jam all the internet tubes , which would be a big mistake, even by my standards.

Let me explain smaller mistakes instead. Ones I often make.

I sometimes think everyone is out to get me- that there is always some ulterior motive and I'm just being used to someone else's advantage, which is almost never in my best interest.

For much of my life, this was actually true- so I'm not entirely paranoid- but I keep different company these days and I have to keep reminding myself that not everyone wants to rip me off, break my heart or otherwise destroy me.

At a recent gig, the ACB ( site updated!) paid me just for showing up- not much, but there was not much audience and I didn't expect a dime- my job mostly involved turning the PA all the way down and realizing it was still too loud. Not much to do after that. The band had some good new grooves though - working in a new drummer- looking forward to more on that...

Anyway, my point is: they paid me just for making the good faith appearance, even though my services weren't really needed. I didn't expect it or ask for it- they did it because they wanted to.

That is worth far more than the cash I received- a lot more.

----

Did I mention my sexual paranoia?
That's fun stuff to talk about- just never mention it in therapy or they will never let you out.
Telling your therapist that the word 'therapist' is a compound word for " the rapist" is a bad idea. Take my word for it.

It's hard for me to get past the feeling that the only reason women like me is to get to meet my rock star roommates or do all my cocaine- I mean it's been years since those days...you'd think I'd be able to get past that.
Sometimes I can.
More so as time passes.

Tonight I had a really nice dinner with a very pleasant older ( fooled me!) woman who is quite accomplished and intelligent- lots of degrees and things. I was arrogant and stupid enough to think she wanted more than conversation- I was wrong, of course.
I even prepared a little " let's just be friends speech"- thank Godzilla I didn't give it.
I hate that speech- it's haunted me my entire life- it's bad enough hearing it- it can't be any fun to recite..." I really like you, but..."- you know the one.
We've all heard it.

But all we did was have dinner and talk.

Nobody got ripped off or humiliated.
Even the waitress got 20%.

Maybe it's not such a fallen world after all.

Competitive Depression Pt. 2 - Loneliness

I miss liquor.
Not enough to start drinking again, but I miss the feeling that a new bottle of Vodka gave me- the solace of knowing that in a short time I'd be so drunk I'd forget how lonely and unhappy I was.
If I needed human company, it wasn't that hard to find- the world is full of lonely drunks. Go to the local bar three nights in a row- you will see the same faces all three nights. They aren't bad people- maybe- but they are lonely and miserable and if you want to be like them, well, that invitation is always open.

C'mon in, sit and sip , rest in pieces....

But all that's different now that I'm sober.

Sort of.

There's a giant hole in me that used to be filled with beer and drugs. I didn't even know that hole was there until I drained all the old poisons out of it- but it's there alright.

The problem is, I don't know what is supposed to go in that hole.

Is that where people keep their happy relationships?

I don't know. I've never had a happy relationship. Just holes for me, thank you very much, Herr Freud.

Maybe this hole is where people keep God.

I wouldn't know about that- I'm not the faithful sort. When I think of God and holes, I think of bullet-holes in babies who get caught in the cross-fire between religous lunatics who see nothing wrong in killing the infidels- the infidels being everyone else. I see the Dark Ages, a period of physical suffering and intellectual stagnation forced on the world by that most obsolete of institutions, the Roman Catholic Church. I think of Jesus, who certainly must have thought "why can't we just get along?" as the Centurions put holes in places where there shouldn't be holes.

I know there's Art in this hole, but when I try to fill it, the Art tends to fall into the hole and vanish, leaving a shadow of an idea and a vague longing for what could have been. What might have been...if things were different. If. Only.
One day, perhaps I will realize that some things are better kept on a shelf than in a hole, but for now I don't have any shelves.

I don't even have a wall strong enough to support a shelf.
My walls can barely support paint.

That's when that old son-of a-bitch Loneliness starts acting up. Some people have imaginary friends to help avoid Loneliness- not me.

I have imaginary enemies- except they aren't imaginary. They live inside of me and they will gladly allow me to destroy myself if I let them.

So I don't let them.
Pretty easy , huh?

If it's so easy, why am I so tired - exhausted - all the time?

It's the fighting. War is everywhere- why shouldn't I be at war with myself? Everyone's fighting each other, but I'm so lonely I don't even have anyone to fight- except myself.

It's not hopeless. I know I can make someone else happy- if only for a moment- and that is something very valuable to me.
Perhaps I can learn something from those moments and somehow stretch it into a day, a week- even a new lifetime- and that someone will choose to be with me, not because we are miserable together, but because we draw happiness and strength from each other.

You mess with one of us, you mess with both of us. We are on the same side.

Except there is no we. Yet.

So maybe there's more to love than the filling of holes ( shut up, Sigmund)- maybe there's things like:

-Trust
-Loyalty
-Sharing
-Safety

I don't know.
I'm sure that that my list is incomplete.

Incomplete is Lonely's best friend.

Competitive Depression Pt. 1- Doomsday Scenarios

Sorry guys. Even the tube worms must go.


The alert reader may have noticed that the world is in a terrible state. Even a cursory review of the daily news is enough to trigger any number of latent emotional disorders- these are interesting times.
Not good, just interesting.
Fascinating , disturbing and depressing.
Interesting.

I think that we should wait until the next giant meteor or Gamma Ray Burst
wipes out all the life on Earth; until that happens we should try not to destroy the planet , ourselves and each other- but noo....it's all war, bombs, disaster...all the time. I can barely keep myself from self-destructing, much less save the world.

So, if the powers that be must destroy the world, please let them make it as quick and painless as possible, because the idea of a long, drawn-out East-West WWIII followed by Apocalypse- ( natural, man-made or divine) - depresses the hell out of me.

So I have a plan.
Instead of an East vs. West conflict based on religious insanity, why not just shift the war to North vs. South and base it in on some other sort of insanity- one not involving religion- let's base our doomsday on equatorial physics.
I'm sure you have heard how water in a swirling drain will circle in one direction in the Northern Hemisphere and in the opposite direction in the Southern- this makes everyone who lives South of the equator different from everyone who lives to the North.

Clockwise or counter-clockwise flushing?
Certainly that is an irreconcilable difference worth dying for.

Why not fight about it?
It makes more sense than killing in the name of god.

We can take all the nuclear weapons on the planet and divide them between North and South.
The bombs will then be moved to their respective owner's Pole , buried in the ice caps and detonated.

This will cover the planet with a roiling cloud of radioactive steam- and generate two enormous waves- one heading North and one heading South. If timed precisely, these waves can meet at the equator and finish WWIII forever.

The only witnesses will be a handful of astronauts on the ISS.
Imagine watching the world go BOOM! from outer space.
You'd probably be too busy fighting with the guy from the Other Side over the last oxygen tank to notice that nobody won the last war.

Clockwise or counter-clockwise. Let's fight about that.

Why not?

Progress Since 1911

I recently inherited a new PC at work- one that runs on an 'operating system' known as 'electricity' . The old one used a system of springs, gears and wires and was 'booted-up' by turning a hand-crank for several tedious minutes each morning.
This is how automobiles were started back in my childhood years, but shouldn't something as futuristic as a computer have an internal, electronic 'ignition' mechanism? Like a button you could press or something?

Here is how a car was started back in my day, except instead of a smiling maiden doing the cranking, it would be me; standing barefoot in ankle-deep mud:



Look at the date: Sept. 1911. By 1911 , advertisers were already using sex to sell cars - a technique apparently discovered before the invention of the automobile battery and 'hot-wiring'.
There is nothing accidental in the erotic composition of this picture, but please don't make me explain it.
I'm already distracted enough.

Check out what Crank Babe is wearing- in 1911 America had some really bizarre standards of dress for women- a repressive puritanical desire to cover everything.
Not at all unlike current Islamic standards, really:


Hmm...a little ankle , but no sash to emphasize the waist and I like the white gloves on the American lass better...
I have a crush on the model from that ad. I wonder what she's doing today?
Here she is in another ad.
This 1911 advertisement starts off by insulting the reader- "Are You Lazy ?" it screams at them in the text.
If that ad were produced today , it wouldn't ask that question.

Today, we are all lazy and we all know it, so why should we waste what little energy we have asking rhetorical questions?

Today the text would promise to help you lose weight or overcome depression.
It would sell.


Again, there's nothing accidental about this pic.

Tomorrow

If you'd like to hear me struggle with FCC regulations for two hours, I'll be playing crap-ass 1980's records -the big, vinyl kind of records- from 3 -5 pm East US time. You can listen here if it pleases you.
Doing a live FM radio broadcast is a lot of fun. It's a dying art, but I love it.

It requires a lot of focus. I need that right now.

I am too tense to function- almost.

I finally did what I had to do.
I talked to my father and told him if he didn't stop drinking -now, right this second- he was going to die.

Do you understand me? , I asked. This is important, but I'm not saying it again, so it's important that you listen to me.

I'm 39 and I'm talking to my 60 yr -old father as if he is an incorrigible teenager. I'm doing it because someone has to tell him. It won't do any good , but maybe it'll ease the inevitable crushing guilt I'm going to feel when he dies.

I promised my grandmother I'd talk to him.
So I did.

You will die if you don't stop. It will be the ugliest ,most painful, humiliating death you can imagine and it will last for hours. I know because it almost happened to me.

Do you understand me? Do you understand how serious I am?


He said he did, he was getting help... but I don't believe him.

Part of me wishes he would just go ahead and die so I could clean up his mess and move on.
I hate that part of me.

Part of me wants to think it's not too late for him, that's there is still hope.

I feel like a fool every time I mention hope- or even think about.

I'm embarrassed by my hope- it proves I'm not as smart as I think I am, because any idiot could see that this situation is hopeless.

Dignity

Blitz Massage.

A Fun Book

"Lying about the future produces history."
-Umberto Eco

Books find me when I need them- it's uncanny how often the book I'm reading ties into my real life. I started noticing this in February, when a then-new blogpal sent me a copy of Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which was, at the time, the perfect book for me. I had a few months of sobriety under my belt and my thoughts were changing and becoming new and difficult to deal with- all my defenses were gone and ugly truths and ugly lies had to be faced and dispatched.
This was a very frightening change for me and I was having some real problems with adjusting to my new self.
I don't know if my new friend sensed this fear and knew I needed to read that particular book, or if it was mere coincidence, but the timing was perfect. It calmed me down just enough to stay sober.
I will always be grateful for that.

Currently, I'm reading Umberto Eco's Baudolino; although it's set in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, the following passages seem quite relevant to recent events and personal observations.

"Niketas looked at his...interlocuter , appreciating the delicacy of his expression, the restrained rhetoric...and asked himself what sort of creature he was facing, capable as he was of using the language of rustics when he spoke of farmers, and that of kings when he spoke of monarchs.

Can he have a soul, Niketas wondered, this character who can bend his narrative to express different souls? And if he has different souls, through which mouth, as he speaks, will he tell me the truth?"

I wonder if I have a 'soul'? I've been trying to do the right thing since last fall, but if I have to TRY to do what is right, doesn't that mean I am , at heart, a bad person?
Which mouth will I use to tell the truth? What truth will I tell?
My heart and my mind seem to disagree on everything...my mouth is helpless in this conflict, but hardly neutral.
It's on every side.
Everything it says is the wrong thing.

Last week , it was the right thing.
It's the same thing, really, it's just that now it's wrong, which means I was wrong.
Which makes me bad.

I mean, doesn't a good person do the right thing instinctively?
Do 'good people' agonize over everything they do?
Is there even such a thing as good and bad people?

But this is a fun book, so I'm not going to dwell too much on the twisty logic of my own confused mind.
I'm even going to forget that it was only a day or so ago that a pretty woman snubbed me and the book - especially the book.
Hmmmphh! I am indignant, but I am going to let it slide.
How dare she slam Eco!
Her name should be Philistina, but I'm not letting it upset me.
This is a fun book.

Here's a teacher's words to the young Baudolino from early in the novel : "...everyone is accustomed to saying the human community is based on three forces: warriors, monks and peasants. This may have been true until yesterday. "

He was referring to the spread of knowledge and learning that would , after much time, evolve into the Renaissance...BUT LOOK!
Some fucker has crossed out-in pen- the word "forces" and written the word "classes" in the margin of the book. A library book, no less!
No respect! Who would deface a book with such a presumptous 'correction'?

I imagine it's a dipshit college student who was recently forced to read Plato's Republic and had their head filled with classist crapola about philosopher-kings , soldiers and artisans.

I say screw Plato and the horse he rode in on ( who of course was named Socrates). Plato had no use for the Arts, but he loved to talk...
Eh, maybe I'm just mad because Socrates was a 'better man' than I am. I would have chosen exile over hemlock...

BUT...this is a fun book. I'm not letting philosophy ruin it for me.

Later in the story, young Baudolino is sent to Paris to study, in order that he may attain a ministerial position in Frederick's Empire.
At this point, poor Baudolino has developed a hopeless love for the Empress Beatrice, a beautiful, educated woman - literacy was quite unusual in that time, especially so for women.
By all accounts, Beatrice was an extraordinary woman, as evinced in a contemporary poem; in 1194 it was unusual for a woman to be praised for her intellect- smart women were as likely to be burned as witches as they were to be praised as below :

"Venus did not have this virgin's beauty,

Minerva did not have her brilliant mind

And Juno did not have her wealth.

There never was another except God's mother Mary

And Beatrice is so happy she excels her."

In the novel, Beatrice, enchanted by the wonder of correspondence, orders poor lovestruck Baudolino to write to her about the distant city of Paris.

Remember- she is the Empress and he is but a former peasant lad- a request from her
to write is tantamount to a command from the Emperor and Baudolino is compelled to obey.
He is not slave to the Empress, but neither is he entirely free. His love for her is his most terrible secret, not to be shared with anyone.
This causes our hero considerable torment:

"Immediately upon his arrival, Baudolino, who could hardly wait to obey the empress, wrote her some letters. In the beginninghe believed he would allay his ardor by fulfilling that request , but he realized how painful it was to write without being able to tell her how he truly felt..."

Poor Baudolino.

He's a professional liar who desperately wants to tell the truth, even though that truth will cost him his life.

This is as far as I've read, but I believe it's the author's way of developing the lead character by placing him in a situation I believe must be almost universal to human experience-

Have you ever really, truly , felt a compelling need to tell someone something- something you believe to the core of your being - even though you know that telling them is going to cause huge problems , even destroying a friendship or relationship?

Of course you have. We all have.

Did you say it?

How did it work out?

But- this is a fun book. I am reading it to take my mind off of some thoughts that make me very uncomfortable.

Wrong thoughts.

Right thoughts.

They are getting mixed-up in my mind and what I really need is a good book to lose myself in.

This is a fun book.

September 2005: Epilogue of sorts

I was really sick last September. I wound up driving myself to the ER in the middle of the night and within 72 hours I was stable and medically "out-of-the -woods"- but I wound up staying in hospital for a week. This was at least partially due to a particular test result.

I barely remember the test, but at some point during my first few days there, I took an "emotional assessment" questionnaire - I vaguely recall thinking " Ah! I am so happy to be not dead that I will answer these questions with fearless honesty!"

What a mistake that was.

I think I earned a few days of 'observation' with the family history - depression? check! alcoholism? check! suicide ? check!- and 'suicide ideation': " of course I think about suicide- I thought about it all the way to the hospital."

Most of my visits were from the nurses who adjusted my tubing and monitors , but sometimes a counselor/therapist type would drop by and ask me how I was feeling.

I was feeling trapped, helpless and totally alone.
I was.
I was tied to a bed and hooked into machines- I couldn't even scratch my own ass or look over my own shoulder.
I had a bedpan , for chrissakes. How was I supposed to feel?

"Fine!", I would say.

"Blah", the Feelings Person would say, " blah blah...I see your uncle recently commited suicide- has that been bothering you?"

Not really.
I'm amazed there's anyone still alive in my whole family. We are skilled in the arts of self-destruction. I had to do an intervention on my mom when she tried to kill herself, which was a useful learning experience because years later I had to do the same thing for someone else. They didn't kill themself , but my actions killed our friendship forever. So I don't know how things turned out.
And I never will.
Just like I'll never know why my uncle pulled the trigger.
None of this was bothering me.

I was drinking twelve beers and a fifth of vodka every day because I was so not bothered by things.


" Yes, a little. But I've had some good talks with our family pastor..."
I trail off intentionally, not wanting to add that my good talks were mostly about my grandmother, my father and the Pittsburgh Steelers. ( I like our pastor- he knows I don't believe, but we get along fine)
At this point I hadn't talked much about Steve's suicide and I didn't feel like starting.

Feelings Person seems to latch onto the word 'pastor'. It occurs to me that I used that word as bait and FP has taken it.
I'm a rotten person.

" So you are getting spiritual counseling? That's good. Continue that- now let's talk about your drinking..."

Spiritual counseling? The last time I saw Pastor we talked about the Super Bowl.

"...do you plan on drinking again?"

This is a useless question.
The answer , of course , was 'no'- but if it were 'yes', I would have lied and said 'no' anyway.

"No. That would be suicide"

Damn! Why did I say that?

The talk returns to suicide and depression.

" I see you've been treated for depression and anxiety and underwent some counseling after your mother's death...have these things been useful to you?"

None of that shit worked for me. I'm not chemically depressed- I'm just a bad person and I see bad things.I live in a bad world. I think bad things. It makes me angry, cynical and depressed.
I can act OK if I have to , though. I'm not dangerous to others.

"Oh, yes. I've been feeling good lately- I'd actually decided to quit drinking right before I got sick."

This is half-true. I hadn't been feeling good at all lately. I could feel something was wrong with my guts and I was pretty sure that whatever it was that my heart was feeling, it wasn't happiness. I figured I had about a month to live.
I had planned on quitting the booze, though. That much was true.

" That's what made you so sick- you went into alcoholic withdrawal. Your body went into shock and you almost died."

This IS news. I didn't know that quitting 'cold turkey' could be fatal.
FP could tell I was surprised to hear that. I get a discomfiting analysis of how long-term alcohol abuse effects you on a cellular level.
I don't mean drunken rants into a mobile phone- I mean the cells that comprise your body.
Yuck is what it does.

Sometimes we talked about moods. I was always in a good mood.
My optimism knew no bounds.
I was brimming with hope and couldn't wait to get back to the world.
I gave a positive, if somewhat cautious, spin on every topic.

"Never say never..." , I would say, "but I don't think I'll ever do..."
and
" Nothing is ever certain ; nothing is over while hope lives on" - this sorta slipped out and the Feelings People considered it a good sign, so even though I didn't believe it I said it a lot.

Since then, I've started to believe some of it, perhaps too much so...as a recovering addict I can totally understand how people get the 'Born Again' thinking, the 12-step programs , the cult mentality.
It's a vulnerable and lonely place to be and we naturally want to fill that space with things that protect us from our pain.
That was my whole reason for drinking in the first place-block out the bad stuff.
Ignore it until it kills you.

It is a lot better now, although I still have some very bad moments.
Sometimes I get completely overwrought by crap that shouldn't bother me at all, at other times I think I'm missing everything- as if I've molted and I am now my own discarded skin, wondering where the rest of me has gone.

I also have some very good moments. There aren't as many as I'd like, but I'm lucky to have any at all.

Nothing is certain. Nothing is over.

My Luck Runneth Over and Out

The other day I was at the market, ordering some cheese, and the deli girl starts talking to me - she says I look familiar- do I know this person or that person? Have I ever been to this or that place?
Hmmm, I think. She's hitting on me. I like that.
I do know one of the people she mentions. I don't like that.
In fact, I hate that person, but I keep this to myself.

She's that person's roommate; that's where I know her from, she wasn't making that up, but I still think she's using it as an excuse to hit on me. That's fair- I've used lamer excuses.
She uses a marker to write her number on an empty zip-loc deli bag. That pretty much clinches it. She wants me to call her.

I'm not at all interested, but I am flattered. I almost forget who I'm really thinking of-but only for a moment.

"Well, I'm sort of seeing someone..." , I lie, thinking how many times I've been on the other end of this conversation.
Lots of times.
I don't want to hurt her feelings, she's nice enough, just not my 'type'.

"Call me anyway", she says.
Oh, it's like that.

But I've been through all of that, and while it's fun to fool around, I really think I'd be happier with only one person. Full-time, you know.
So I throw out her number.
Plenty of herring in the sea, as they say...

----------

This morning I'm sharing an elevator with a beautiful woman I don't recognize.
Red hair, ah- one of my myriad turn-ons... she's a bit taller than me and I can't help notice that her nipples are pointing right at me through her storm-grey blouse.
Oh my.
Hooray for air-conditioning!

" Do you like his stuff?", she asks.

His stuff? I'm staring at tits. What's this talk about "his stuff?"

Oh. My book. I'm carrying a copy of Umberto Eco's Baudolino and she's looking at it.
Whew! Thought she caught me staring!

I experience a split-second of infinity, for a moment this lovely woman and I are sitting on a blanket on a pure white beach, reading passages from Eco's works to each other between lingering kisses...kisses of promise.

Have you ever done that?
Read aloud to a lover? Man, it rocks...anyway...
In my fantasy she's reading the pinball passage from Foucault's Pendulum to me...I've already got our future planned, she'll be my agent and I'll write many masterpieces for her...our life together while be a living dream, all beaches and travel, music and poetry.

A sexy, literate redhead with excitable nipples and a good job.

Who would think I'd meet the perfect woman in an elevator at work?

I hate elevators. I hate work. But this...this is good.

" I tried reading Name of the Rose , but I couldn't get into it. I think he's hard to read."

Huh? This is not in my fantasy. She just dissed one of my favorite writers!

We get out on the same floor.

"Look", I start to explain, using Baudolino as an example, " Eco often challenges you at the beginning of his works- it's a method of introducing you to the mind of his protaganists, who are always very complex and well-realized characters. Once you understand the character, you start to understand why he is giving you the details he does- as a bonus, his research is so meticulous and scholarly that it's like getting a free trip in a time machine..."

I don't even get to finish. She's turned and walked away from my erudite exposition without saying a word.
She enters her office- a new attorney, I note- and shuts the door.

Our future is ruined.

It was fun while it lasted.

Sober Dates

I recently tried the 'sober date' for the first time.

Don't laugh.
I started drinking early in life, and alcoholics have very different 'dating rituals' than non-drunks, so I am new to the whole thing.

Drunks just find a drinking partner and drink until they sleep together. This can take hours or it can take years, but it always ends with a fight about something utterly stupid.
I can remember one drunken argument, my ex smashed a giant mirror- we started fighting in the stairs of my building, screaming at each other, throwing smashy, glassy bits... much later, on better terms, I asked her what it was we were fighting about that night.

She had no idea. We both thought that was pretty funny, and it was- years later, anyway.

So I haven't been on many proper dates- the kind you have with someone you don't really know- so the 'getting to know you thing' is new to me. I like it.

It's not the big scary deal I thought it would be. I was afraid that the fact that I'm a drunk who quit drinking was going to be a real problem to most women, but after listening to three or four divorce stories and all the problems with those; I can report that I am happily surprised to find that my alcoholism isn't considered to be especially heavy baggage.
It's better than having an ex-wife and kids.
Much better.

I hadn't thought about it like that before.
By the time a woman's done with her second or third marriage , she's seen so much bullshit and bad behavior on the part of men that a mere drinking problem isn't such a big deal- as long as I don't drink I am actually a decent guy. Yay me!

Stupid - I have been convinced that no one would want me because of my lousy past. How foolish - we all have icky parts in our pasts... a good woman (or man) will deal with it! Just gotta move on and be ready to accept them too.
Brave words.
I have yet to do this.
I can write about it though- maybe that's a start.

On my most recent date, I wasn't sure if the drinking thing would come up- she knows, I think- but it didn't. Instead, she told me all the things husband #2 was doing and how #2 and #3 were business partners and are both claiming ownership of property she says she owns, so it's a big court mess...and there's two sets of kids...I dunno...even if I could make sense of it I wouldn't put it here...
Not my affair- I couldn't follow the details- I can't really find anything in my experience to compare it to. It doesn't sound good, though. I doubt there will be a second date , but that's my decision to make.

-I've never been married, I've never had kids, so I don't know what that's like.
(I'd like to , I think, but I'd hate to have a terrible divorce like that)

- I haven't seen a divorce up-close since I was a teenager.
It was my mom and my step-dad. My memories of their divorce are not exactly clear, nor are they pleasant or objective.
I don't think about those days.

I know divorce is not easy. I've seen the damage. It can ruin people.

I think I'm the only one I know in my age group who has never been married- or divorced. Being an ex-drunk is not such a great thing,but at least I'm not divorced.
Hey, I'm a good designated driver AND a great cook who won't pass out and set fire to the kitchen!
These are good 'selling points'- or at least I hope they are. I'm probably wrong.

So I've been worried that I was deemed unlovable because of my past, but that's not it at all. That was just my insecurity and paranoia. I'm OK, just impatient.

My dates have just been nice dinners, nothing serious to mention , really. Just good company when some was needed, but no Big Heart Leap. We both knew there was no 'spark', but no harm done either.
Nice to have someone to talk to, really.
Just talking about trying to get over things.

We all need someone to talk to, even if no romance blooms.
Everyone's recovering from something. It's a hurting world.
All sorts of wounds to heal- there's probably even a recovery group for twelve-step addicts- sheesh...

I thought I was marked Damaged Goods, never to be touched again.
It's a big club, the Damaged club, but there's no shame in it. One day I'll get touched again.
Perhaps I'll be 'touched' by the Damage Club in the same way that a baby seal gets 'touched' by a club, but ya gotta take those chances.

We are all Damaged.
Accept it or don't, but that doesn't change the truth.

So I've got problems. So what?
So do you. We all do.
I don't mind that.
You can learn a lot by listening to someone rationally explain personal problems.
Maybe you can help, maybe not, but you can learn. It can be a warning.
In time, someone may actually take an interest in you and care about what you are doing.
Maybe they can help you, maybe not.
But it's nice when someone cares.
So care.
Be nice.

It's worth a try.

Maybe one day... but that's later.

Encouraging Bits

This is good news:

In the end, Voter Action agreed to drop its New Mexico lawsuit when the state stopped purchases of the machines and reverted to paper ballots that would be electronically scanned for results.

In the case above, dropping the lawsuit is the same as winning, as it achieved the same result- the absence of unreliable and easily manipulated electronic machine in New Mexico.

My hat is off to the good folks at Voter Action.

There's much more going on, Brad Blog is probably the best source for news on the grassroots fight against electronic machines- the preceding link points out the fact that the mainstream press just doesn't do it's homework-
Proving my point- a new voting story just now in...

But I'll give the media a break- it's an extremely busy news cycle.

More good news:

Ms Plame says Mr Cheney and others took revenge on her

It is an extraordinary development: the vice-president of the United States and a dozen other administration officials accused, in court, of deliberately leaking the identity of a classified CIA operative.

There's slim chances of winning this, but it had to be done-
the Bush Administration leaked valuable anti-terror intelligence
to the media- something that we need to remember when the
wingnuts start labelling the New York Times as 'treasonous'.

White House: Civilians Not Human

"We think it's important that, in doing that, they try to limit as much as
possible the so-called collateral damage, not only on civilians but also on
human lives," Snow said.

No, I didn't alter the quote.

Six Shoe Screw-Up

I own three pairs of shoes:

- One pair of old sneakers, black.

- One pair of new sneakers, also black.

- One pair of hiking boots, brown.

This morning I somehow put on one new and one old sneaker, left and right respectively.

I think I own too many shoes.

Chances Taken

A few days ago I recorded a talk-show 'demo' for a new volunteer at the station- I am very glad I did- the show is about writing and the host, of course, is a writer.
The guest was a real joy- her name is Joy- and I found myself raptly listening to the discussion, which was about the process of writing memoirs and touched on how difficult it can be to do so- ...wow, I thought, this is very similar to the internal conversations I have with my 'other personalities' about blogging- can I say that? will this hurt so-and -so? Am I even remembering this event correctly? and a thousand like questions...lately my #1 self-question has been " what am I doing wrong?"
So I did something that I was afraid, at the time, might be somewhat uncouth- I told the host that I had been doing some writing myself and wanted to share it with someone, preferably another writer...anyway, I didn't get the crippling fear and self-doubt that usually prevents me from saying "Hey! I do that too! Can we talk about this?" to someone I don't even know. I just sensed that this new volunteer was someone I could relate to, although there was very little actual conversation between us.

What do I write?

Um, er, well...I've got this blog, see....except it's not even a proper blog, it's just this giant mess...but some of it is good, I think...I'll send some samples...

Oh. I keep forgetting that a very large portion of the 'writing world' is somewhat disdainful of blogs- there are some really great writers on blogworld but it can take a while to find them, so I can see where this attitude comes from- couple this contempt with my own insecurities and I'm usually too timid tell people (in real-life) that I blog.

But I let the 'B' word out, and didn't get slapped down- I had this instinct, see, and I followed it.

I'm terrible at labelling myself, so I took a deep breath and sent her a half-dozen links, expecting to get no reply at best or perhaps a restraining order at worst...I mean, I hit on some heavy topics in this blog and that's a lot to dump on anyone, especially a total stranger.
I don't like rejection or revulsion much, and an unsolicited offering of my work (music or words) tends to lead down the "eeeewwww, get away from me" path- some notable exceptions are to be found amongst my tiny readership, for which I am very grateful *wink*- but usually I'm left feeling unwanted and unwelcome.

I didn't get either of those feelings.

I got an email that I wish I could have bronzed and hung upon the wall above my non-existent mantelpiece.

I was amazed at the the time and thought she put into reading my work. No one outside blogworld had ever done that before - I mean, I can't even get my own Twin to read my stuff, and my friends who read it almost never leave comments ( except one from Jerry that I'd also like to have bronzed, so nice it was) - so having a total stranger take a long , objective look was like a rain of pure manna.
My new friend was able to very clearly pick out various themes and concepts and see that I was working towards something (or things) bigger- (I'll spare you the details. It would sound like bragging, which I guess it is, sorta...)

I didn't know that I was doing all that, but she nailed it. Dead-on. From the outside, looking in.

I think she'd be a great editor, although I'm honestly not sure what an editor does. I just think that she'd be great at it.

( I also didn't know what a music producer does until I found out I'd been doing it for years, so maybe I'm an editor too. I doubt it. I'm too emotional)

And she's right- there's a pattern and a reason behind most of it, but it's not something I was aware of- I have this stubborn unwillingness to see the good parts of what I do-it's much better now that I'm not drunk, but I still have this fear that requires a lot of effort to get past.
I'm not alone in that. In her letter, she confided that her 'secret dream' was to record a music CD- she sings, plays and writes - (I never told her I played music) but she had band-type problems and had put the music on hold for a while.

Yeah, I can totally grok that.
That's my story too, you know.

I am very aware of just how much it takes to stand in a small room with people you don't know and sing - it takes some guts to do that, and she has those guts.

Then I read her writing samples.
They were great- but I lack the skills and education to analyze and dissect writing in the way that she can- I can only say that it really clicked with me.
We share some of the same memories.
Hah! Those are vivid images! Funny, scary, touching, yes, yes, yes!

Things are coming together- I've got a band to work for as sound engineer (and perhaps guitar#2 as well, although I may be in over my head in that sense; I've got to try first), the station is doing very well, and I'm starting to see some hope in putting a new band together-I have no idea what it will sound like, which (to me) is the best approach- don't go into a band with the idea that you will sound like so-and-so or such-and-such; just toss out some chords and words and let the players play.

If it works, great.
If not, you'll know. It often doesn't work, but that doesn't imply anything negative about the players- it's a 'chemistry' and attitude thing more often than a talent issue. I should know- I used to have a bad attitude and a lot of bad chemicals and these things almost killed whatever talent I may have.
That's the past. Leave it be, I say.

My point is; I wouldn't have any hope at all, however vague, if I wasn't out there, doing things- trying to get noticed.
Pushing it.
Standing up for myself a little, you know?

Ike, Bill and Dubya

Reality sure does take the fun out of making up fake news stories; I'll stick to the facts on this one:

It reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have written: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.”

The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

You mean that all that DHS payola is being handed out as political favors that have nothing at all to do with Homeland Security?
Well, no kidding!
The Dept. of Homeland Security is part of what Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about- in 1961.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Perhaps I'm an uncharitable soul, but I have a difficult time imagining the U.S. citizenry-in general- as "alert and knowledgeable" about anything, except perhaps celebrity gossip and professional sports.

Ike was right about a lot of things. Ike was a regular Nostradamus:

"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

Too late. We've let that horse out of that barn- and now the barn's been torched. I suspect that Ike was keenly aware that the Cold War was enormously profitable , and should that War end, the Military-Industrial Complex would be forced to create a new one.
He said:

"Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight."

Of course we went from the Cold War to the first Gulf War , which wasn't quite popular enough to keep the Republicans in power. Clinton was bad for the war-profiteers-they tried very , very hard to remove him; as you recall, I'm sure.
Of course we had terrorists then- the first attack on the WTC- the one in 1993- and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing being good examples...but Clinton had a much different approach to fighting terrorism than BuschCo has.

You see, Clinton's people hunted down, captured, prosecuted and punished the terrorists responsible for those acts. Not much money in that, but there was justice. It was carried out without invading and occupying Iraq.
For awhile, America didn't have a "National Boogeyman" to fear.
Who were you afraid of in 1998? Did you even know who Osama bin Laden was in 1998?

Bill Clinton did- when he launched cruise missiles at one of Osama's bases, the GOP accused him of attempting to divert national attention away from really important issues like oral sex.

BushCo uses the war on terrorism and the DHS as reason and means to launder our tax dollars into the coffers of good corporate citizens like Halliburton, Bechtel and Exxon/Mobile.

It's not as if they've been subtle about it. The current rulers are accountable to no one- as long as they stay in power.
And they will do anything to remain in control.
Anything.

I don't think Ike left office with a " definite feeling of disappointmentent" as he stated. I am afraid that Eisenhower left office with a truly terrifying clarity of vision at the precise nature of the threat presented by the rise of the War Merchants.

Remember- Eisenhower was a conservative Republican and had no small experience in military affairs, and his philosophy is much , much different than that of the current GOP. Ike wasn't the most eloquent Prez, but if you read his farewell speech, you get the feeling that the man had humility and a conscience; he really did love his country , not for it's excesses, but for it's ideals.

I think Eisenhower would absolutely fucking hate George W. Bush.

Get off my Shroud/ Banana Splits Reunion

It's hard for me to write when I'm happy- I'm usually busy doing whatever is it that makes me happy and by the time I'm done with the happy-thing my mood has changed to something between mere maudlin longing and the hopeless, suicidal despair of the chronically heartbroken poet.

But the truth is, I'm about as happy as I've ever been- which is not very- but at least it's a little bit happy.
It's vast improvement over the old Allan, a miserable wretch who knew full well that he was drinking himself to death and didn't care.
Yeah, that's right. I was fucking killing myself and I knew it, but every day I bought a new bottle- I'm sure those shooting pains in my gut will stop if I can keep this vodka down...
take my advice: If you must kill yourself, don't drink yourself to death. It's too much heartache for the people around you. It's not pretty.
Don't use a gun either.
Rub yourself down with herring oil, fill your pockets with stones and leap off the deck of a cruise ship in shark-infested waters. Let nature do it's work and you'll save your survivors a bundle in funeral costs. Plus, you'll make Headline News.

Or not. I'm just sayin'- don't let me talk you out of it, but at least have some consideration for the people you leave behind.

Why do such a terrible thing anyway?

What you should do is accept my offer of a ride in the country. Yes, I know that gas is expensive, but it's worth it for an afternoon of relative sanity and bright, sunny cheer.
I'll make a great picnic basket and we can sit in the shade near ( I know a spot) and laugh at how stupid our daily grief really is.
Have some wine, if you like- I'm driving.

I won't kiss you unless you want me to.

Maybe you will feel like kissing me after I show you what I keep in my car's glovebox.

Huh? What were you thinking?

Go on- look... see?

It's full of bubbles!

It really is- there's bubblewrap and bubble-blowin' soap in there. Dig in!
AND...
A BONUS...

Listen!


I have arranged a Reunion Concert by the one-and-only Banana Splits, who will serenade us as we share a romantic and nutritionally sensible meal down by the water's edge.

How can you resist?
You can't.
I can fail to ask though.
I'll ask.
Rejection doesn't sting as much when I'm sober.

Besides- I know how to play this song- and I've got a box of bubbles to go with it!



Tra la la, tra lala la, tra la la.....



One banana, two banana, three banana, four
Four bananas make a bunch and so do many more.
Over hill and highway the banana buggies go
Comin' to bring you the Banana Split show
Makin' up a mess of fun, makin' up a mess of fun
Lots of fun for everyone




Four banana, three banana, two banana, one
All bananas playin' in the bright warm sun.
Flippin' like a pancake, popping like a cork
Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper an' Snork





Two banana, four banana, one banana, three
Swingin' like a bunch on monkeys, hangin' from a tree.
Hey there, ev'rybody, won't you come along and see
How much like Banana Splits ev'ryone can be


with thanks to
and also

Perhaps

Photograph by Joan Kalyan-Curtis

That's a fire-dancer from The River City Burners in the foreground and the Anthony Curtis Band in the background. You can't see it it the pic, but there was also this huge searchlight overhead, sweeping the clouds all night. It was quite the spectacle.

I didn't know that there were firedancers on the bill- when I got to the space I saw a group of men and women wearing what looked like low-key black rubber fetish gear and doing these rhythmic , swinging exercises with what I thought were some sort of padded nun-chukkas- I had never seen firedancers warming up before.
There were parents with kids and balloons and some musical performance by local kids...some things that struck me::

- A teen-age black kid got on the stage with a guitar. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that the first thing I noticed was that he was wearing the 'uniform' of a local crack-gang, something I think was coincidence , as it consists a stocking cap, a mumu-size white t-shirt and pants so large they must be designed to be worn around the ankles; all standard fare for kids here, black and white.
If I was dealing drugs on the street, I'd want pants that didn't fall down when I had to run from cops.
But I am shamefully stereotyping- he wasn't a gangbanger.
He played guitar; the kid was obviously a beginner, but he'd been practicing and was able to to play some nice sounding classical excercises. He was really shy and seemed surprised by his own ability to make beautiful sounds.
I think if more kids were given a chance to make a beautiful sound, then perhaps they wouldn't be so likely to fall into the hopeless, angry and often violent pit of despair that is the urban America ghetto. Maybe they'd see some hope and find something good and wonderful in themselves- because there is no other place for them to find it in the ghetto. Maybe they can use that self-love to get out.
Perhaps I'm hopelessly naive in this thought.

- It didn't strike me as the least bit odd to me that there would be a group of (seeming) mild S&M enthusiasts mingling with a small crowd of adults and children , black and white alike.
Maybe it's because I've had step-families ranging from southern black Baptists to Yankee Jews, perhaps it's the four days I spent , lost in a vast New Orleans dungeon...I dunno. It just seemed normal to me, the dancers and kids, BBQ and balloons ... why wouldn't it?
I'd like to tell myself that I'm this remarkably open-minded and tolerant person, and that I don't think of people in terms of color and sexual orientation, but I think the reality is that I'm so jaded that almost nothing surprises me anymore and my indifference to race and sexuality is just part of my overall indifference to many things that most people consider important.
Perhaps I'm hopelessly cynical in this thought.

Dick's Impossible Mess

There's this real estate lawyer named Dick, see?
See Dick get in trouble.
See Jane from accounting totally freak out when she discovers that Dick has hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding unpaid fees. That's just the tip of Dick's iceberg.

See this $5,000 check?
It was meant to cover the closing costs on a home purchase, but it's dated 2004 and probably can't be cashed.
Where is the Title to the property? Who knows? That's a $5,000 question, multiplied by forty boxes.

We know where the check is. It's where it shouldn't be.
Cached.
Uncashed.
It was found inside a box of papers Dick left behind.
Dick left at least 40 boxes just like it - they had to bring in some temps to help sort through it all- I feel sorry for the poor bastards in the Xerox room who have to scan all that crap- it's bad enough having to sift through it all looking for specific documents- but scanning it? Shudder.

Lunch is a firm-wide panic picnic as Dick's misdeeds are discovered- literal misdeeds- it seems that money was exchanged for dozens, even hundreds of home purchases that Dick never finished the legal paperwork for, meaning that there are dozens or hundreds of people living in homes that they don't legally own- it's such an enormously egregious set of offenses that I would have thought it impossible to get away with -had I not once worked real estate loans at Bank of Generica and witnessed the cut-throat industry avarice firsthand.

Did I mention it was grossly incompetent cut-throat avarice? Extremely confused and grossly incompetent cut-throat avarice?
Agents would tell me that they had the customers verbal consent and could I just please close the loan now so they could get their commission before the next quarter? They'll FedEx the signed copy real soon... my standard reply: " I'm a temp and I get twelve bucks an hour and I don't give a damn about your commission- I need a signature."
I saw a lot of loans closed that shouldn't have been- but I kept my shit clean- I don't want my name attached to real estate fraud charges in any way, even as a temp. The Bank should never had used untrained temps to process and review contracts anyway- I had a pretty good aptitude for it, but it was very, very hard and a lot of the temps could not keep up . I became accustomed to young women leaving in tears- it happened all the time.
I didn't cry. I was stronger than that.
I drank myself into Intensive Care instead.

My first day at the Bank, the Boss pointed out a cheerful sign- This Month's Customer Satisfaction Rating Is 74%! My first thought was: that's a pretty fucking dismal satisfaction rating for people who are the business of financing something as important as a person's home - but I was told that 74% was actually considered good. Very good.
Dick would have fit right in at the Bank- that place was full of Dicks.

What a mess...as one partner said ,"It looks like a hand grenade went off in Dick's office."

I haven't seen a Dick fuck up this badly since Watergate.

I'm trying to figure out the legal aspects of two parties believing that a home deal has been closed, when in fact it hasn't- who pays the taxes, for instance? The insurance problems alone seem nearly infinite... I'm surprised someone hasn't already tried to sell one of the homes - doing the Title work would reveal that the ownership was questionable at best and fraudulent at worst.
Maybe that's how Dick got caught.


I wonder where Dick is?
Maybe he's hanging out in Costa Rica with the conveniently dead Kenneth Lay.

Not 1962

Would someone please tell our 'mainstream' news that there is no such thing as
a "North Korean Missile Crisis"; that this is not 1962 and the fate of the world does not hang on a deadly standoff between two superpowers?

Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?
October, 1962.
Russian missiles ninety miles from Miami. Missiles that actually worked properly.
An overlooked tidbit: America attempted one of the least-covert secret coups of all time
less than a year before the discovery of Russian nukes in Cuba. Those missiles didn't get there by accident. They were meant to prevent another invasion. The Cold War was very, very hot back then.



Calling the Korean problem a "Missile Crisis" is akin to calling a stopped-up toilet an "Environmental Catastrophe". It's a bit of exaggeration, to say the least.

Lil' Kim whipped out his tiny dick, made a big show off pissing about and got exactly what he wanted- the breathless attention of the American media.
Oooo...big bad Lil' Kim.
Let's all be afraid of Lil' Kim and North Korea- jesus, I know bouncers who could kick North Korea's ass...oh ...nevermind.
Those bouncers are unavailable.
They are stationed in Iraq right now.
Do ya think Lil' Kim would be doing his pecker-dance if we hadn't blown our international credibility by invading Iraq ?
No, he wouldn't.
If we hadn't invaded Iraq under false pretenses, the world-at-large wouldn't give a rat's ass if we sent a couple of Cruise missiles into Lil' Kim's bedroom.
He is not a popular man, this Kim.
Now?
Not an option. For some reason America is not as popular as it used to be.
A nation like, oh I dunno, China , let's say, might fight back.
Financially, not militarily, of course. People will die regardless.

Still, let's be realistic. We are talking about North Korea and SCUD missiles, not global nuclear conflict- NK is one of the poorest, most isolated nations on Earth- it took Lil' Kim many years to get a pitiful handful of Soviet-surplus crap rockets together - and they didn't even work properly.

Some 'Crisis'.


In 1962 we were this close to real-life, honest-to-gosh WMD warfare. The kind with real mushroom clouds and fallout that is more than political.

How do you think George W. Bush would have handled the Cuban Missile Crisis?

I think we'd be living in Gamma World.


I'm afraid one of Kim's 1960's vintage SCUDs might land in the Pacific and accidentally kill a whale. That's the extent of my fear of North Korean missiles. Maybe we should fight the SCUDS in the Pacific so we don't have to fight them in Kansas...fuck, you'd be lucky to hit Kansas with a SCUD if you launched it from Missouri.
Those are some seriously obsolete missiles, dude.



Oooo.... SCARY!!!


I used to wonder how demented goat- fuckers without a scrap of ability or charisma managed to become leaders of nations, heads-of-state etc... but that was before 2000. And 2004.
Nowadays, nothing surprises me.

Not even this.

The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

"The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are more trouble than it's worth," said Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. "This is a fragile agency, all of the competent operatives have either been 'outed' by the Bush administration or have long since resigned in disgust. The decision to disband Alec Station was made to ensure greater availability of funds and resources to protect America from more pressing dangers, such as gay marriage, flag burning and the estate tax."

(Note: If you are going to announce a truly mind-boggling change in foreign intelligence policy, don't have someone named 'Millerwise Dyck' act as your spokesperson. Not sure how Dyck is pronounced, but either way it's hard to take seriously)


The same administration that blew a gasket when the New York Times leaked a story about a the government tracking of international banking - a "secret" plan that was public knowledge already- has now decided to publicly disband the CIA unit assigned to track Osama bin Forgotten.
I can only wonder at what the reasoning behind this is- I'm tempted to think it's part of a larger dis-information/ mis-information campaign- which it surely is- but to what ends?
To lull Osama into a false sense of complacency?
It's painfully clear that Osama is either:

a) A hell of a lot smarter than our entire CIA

OR

b) Under the protection of somebody powerful. Somebody a lot more powerful than Lil' Kim.


How about this:
-Osama is wealthy.
-Lil' Kim has more money problems than Michael Jackson.
-Kim has something Osama wants.
-Osama understands how missiles work.

That is scary.

The Isle of Solitary Art

Imagine if you were arrested and convicted of 'Art Crimes' and your sentence was this:

You are to be placed , alone, on a deserted island. You'll have food, water, shelter and various other survival sundries- but you'll be alone.
Forever.

You can only bring one 'Art Thing' with you. This can be most anything- except the judge has ruled that any form of transportation -lifeboat, hot air balloon, milk-jug raft, etc is not considered 'Art'. (First thing I thought of- the Art of Sailing...)

Will you:

-Bring a book? Which one?

OR

-Opt for (limitless) pen and paper, although you know that no one shall read a single word you write, ever?



- Bring a music recording ( player included) ? Which recording?

OR

- Opt for a musical instrument, although no one will ever hear you play it?

These questions can be re-written to reflect any and all artistic pursuits, so don't limit yourself to the examples given.


( Note: Supplies are not an issue- paints, pencils- even welding tools for sculptors are permitted- as long as you don't build a pontoon boat and escape...)