Be Aware

Admitting there is a problem is the first step in recovery:

Oil is a powerfully addictive drug that dramatically affects users' minds and bodies. Chronic use can lead to violent behavior, paranoia, and an inability to cope with the ordinary demands of life. Oil users can transform homes into places of danger and despair by neglecting or endangering the lives of children, spouses, and other loved ones. Additionally, oil production exposes anyone near the process to toxic chemicals and the risk of explosion.
-George Bush

No Contest

Here come the holidays and I don't have a job, which means no money, which means no gifts, right?

Wrong.

Unlike some of my family, I actually know how to do stuff, and one of the things I can do is cook ("If I can eat it, I can cook it" is my motto and I can eat almost anything), so this year I'm thinking of preparing Christmas dinner at my place and bringing it with me in lieu of packages.
We've been having 'boxed' dinners since my grandmother became too ill to cook and it's not the same as the real thing- to me, it's not proper 'stuffing' unless it's actually done some time inside an actual bird.

'StoveTop Stuffing' makes as much sense to me as 'Floating Cavern'- how can it be both?

Anyway, dinner will be great, but looking for work is not so fun. I might be able to get my old job back, but I don't know yet, so I've started looking around. Not much so far, but I did get a lead on the possibility of working the late shift (10pm-5 am) at our local NPR station- I spent this morning putting together a demo CD and I need to deliver it tomorrow.
It's a real longshot, but at least it's a shot- and on the positive side, I really do have the two years of practical radio experience they want- just without the college degree.

Speaking of radio, I've got three (3!) shows this weekend:

Sat , 2 Dec: 3-5 pm- Songs From The Big Hair (the '80's show)
5- 7 pm - Locals Only ( local and regional music, all genres)

Sun , 3 Dec: 7- 9 am - 120 Minutes of F.A.M.E ( Freely Associated Musical Excellence)

(all EST)

This is a lot of airtime, but I love radio. It would be great if I could get paid for doing it, even if it meant keeping odd hours- it's a hard field to get into, so any break is better than none.

Anyhow, I have a contest.
I need to find a job before my cousin G* does.
There's no prize, it's just a matter of pride for me.
How hard can it be?


(* no, you can't stay here)

Ripley's Comet

My cousin G has what polite people would refer to as 'issues'.
A more honest term might be"borderline sociopath".
G is always destroying things- at the height of his parent's nasty divorce proceedings their house burned down -during the subsequent investigations a home BetaMax video made by a then 10-year old G was found.
In it , he re-creates scenes from Apocalypse Now using toy soldiers, model aircraft and homemade napalm, which he helpfully explains how to make in the film's introduction.
I can't bring myself to describe the final scene, suffice it to say that I will never name a pet 'Marlon'.

Anyway, this tragedy somehow brought his parents back together, a last chance to save their child (and their marriage).
In my opinion, this was a mistake. 15 years have passed and G is still living at home and he's still fucking-up.

Once he asked me why nobody likes him.

"Because you are an asshole. You steal. You lie. You cheat.If you haven't already killed someone, it's just a matter of time. You are far more trouble than you are worth."

"But...but...I'm a good person...", he blubbered.

"Uh huh."

I didn't believe him- 'good people' don't call in bomb threats just so they can put off taking their SAT's (thank Godzilla that was pre- 9/11).
That's as close as G ever got to higher learning, although he's done quite a bit of reading during his frequent incarcerations.

But then I read his blog. He really does think he's a good person.

He is wrong.

Why?

Yesterday afternoon I was traveling the stretch of road featured below (story) but was unaware of what had transpired earlier that day. I didn't know about this either. No connections are made as yet, but one has to wonder.

I was visiting a friend who lives east of the incident; he hadn't heard this news either but he was distraught over the death penalty, torture and the generally unfair brutality of life.

- what did I think of the death penalty?

- how would I FEEL about executing someone?

-could I torture a person if I hated them enough? Should the family be allowed to torture the killers?

-how do you plan anything or do anything if someone is just going to walk into yout home and kill you?

-how can someone commit such acts?
why? why? why?

Whoa.
Slow down.
What the hell is wrong with you anyway?
( These are very uncharacteristic questions from this person )

It turns out that my friend was related by marriage to the Harvey family, who were brutally murdered in Richmond at the beginning of this year. One of the killers recently received the death penalty and my pal, who I considered to be somewhat of an insensitive boor, had been agonizing over the ethics of capital punishment for nearly a month...dude, who knew?

Give me a sec to breathe and let me answer you:

-I'm against the death penalty.
Unless you kill someone I know, like Kathyrn and her family.
Or if you kill a child or murder a helpless person.
Or if it's a sex killing.
Or if it's anything other than self-defense or war.

And I'm sure as hell not going to take part in a candlelight vigil when it comes time to put this bastard to death.
I am not that forgiving.

So I guess I'm not as anti-DP as I thought.

------------------------
-I don't think I could pull the switch. Hypocritcal? Sure.
---------------------------
-Same thing for torture used as criminal punishment. On an emotional level, I have no problem with any and all suffering inflicted on a family annihilator- but I seriously doubt that I could torture anybody.
It seems that a victim's family often tries to forgive the killer, there must be an emotional or spiritual reason for doing this but I hope I never quite understand that need- I'm sure it's one of those "unless you have been there, you will not comprehend" things. Life is full of them.

However, I do think that a society that condones or even overlooks institutionalized torture is a society that teeters on the brink of disaster.
Whoops!
------------------------------------
-Dude. You don't stop swimming in the pool just because there are sharks in the ocean.
-------------------------------------
- I don't know why people commit such crimes. I don't want to know.
I understand crimes that have incentive or motive: Theft, drugs, crimes of passion etc..."I stole the TV to buy dope"..."I saw them together and..." etc., but I do not-will not- understand what would make one person kill one or more random strangers.

Maybe it's better not to think about it.

Scams, Recycled Porn and Infinite Monkeys :BIG FAT UPDATE

The following is from the blog Day Trading Forum:

I am here to missive Resons for the joy of the working-staff, marvellous foolscaps! The absence of undistributed censorship, the sempiternous freedom with which Day trading forum of fiction composure unsustained to shouldst almost every household, permit these novels to sholde into the hands of the youngest and most susceptible. The leastest lesson he had to learn in these states-districts backstitched to monseigneur questorship. In the midsummer johnstone's we plucked our garlands and close-grained them sloped at sunset time.

The original (which had a link or two in it) can be found at wheredaytraderblogspot. com
I'm not playing into the scam by adding an actual link.

Don't visit it unless you've never seen a blog like it before. The first time I saw one of these gibberish blogs I was convinced that I'd stumbled upon the blog of a mad genius- I don't know what "sempiternous freedom" is, but it's a snazzy phrase, enough to catch my browsing eye.

The entire blog is is composed of nonsense prose with the hyperlinked phrase 'day trader forum' liberally sprinkled throughout.

The 'author' seems to have a rudimentary (or perhaps transcendental) knowledge of English syntax, but the context seems random, surreal, bizarre...like something a twinked-up 'madlibs'
program might generate.

Perhaps it's a product of applied Infinite Monkey Theory.

If you hit 'nextblog' enough times (two or three) you will find blogs of nonsense verse just like this, and they will be rife with hyperlinks. I believe that these spurious blogs are part of the vast pay-per-click conspiracy and should be shunned, if not banned.

However, I think the gibberish fake blogs (flogs?) are probably an integral part of Google's adsense program and are therefore unlikely to be banned...but who's behind all the pin-up girlie blogs? I keep getting the same Bikini Blogs over and over again- irritating is what it is, since I already have better bookmarks than this recycled crap...I was actually looking for new blogs to read and all I got were 1996 swimsuit models.
Time and place, time and place...

SWIRLED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT

...which reminds me- have you ever heard someone off-handedly dismiss porn with a statement along the lines of: " eh, porn, whatever...what's the big thrill? Most people aren't that attractive when they're fucking anyway..."

Isn't saying that the same as saying that you've seen a lot of people fucking?

Where did you see that?

Next blog.


UPDATE (courtesy of my friend Beth):

The mad genuis word pairings are actually a result of mixing up words from works of literature found on line in an attempt to gain entry past spam filters. It's called "Markov Chaining". Here is a link to an NPR story about it: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5624749

The first one of those emails I got I thought it was an eerie message from beyond.
-Beth

So it is a twinked MadLibs program!
Amusing trivia: "Markoff Cheney" is the name of a
charcter (and personal role model)from the Illumninatus! trilogy. I actually mentioned him by name in this post.
Crazy, huh?

A Future For You In The Fire Escape Trade

Here are a few songs from this morning's show and the people I was thinking of when I played them:

Steve Hillage: Palm Trees - not tellin'

Genesis: I Know What I Like- MoPJ

Larry Graham: Hair - myself

Small Axe: Landscape #4 - my Twin- it's his band!

Bob Marley: War - a listener requested this and asked that I dedicate it to Dubya. Happy to oblige!

Kinks: Wicked Annabella- New Jersey baker and his lovely wife

Clash: Train in Vain - NJ Liz

Pentangle: Let No Man Steal Your Thyme - my grandmother

Lou Reed: High in the City- my old boss Mario

Bob Dylan: Days of '49 - Sling from O-town

X: The Have Nots- my father

Robert Fripp: Chicago - AMPM

Eleni Mandell- The Pirate Song- Emelie

Jethro Tull- Remember a Day- Charlie

Tom Waits: Down, down , down - You know who you are

Jefferson Airplane: Volunteers- my fellow radioheads at our all-volunteer station. You guys rock!

Courtship Sinks

Early this year, I received an email from a female passer-by. It was short and impersonal, but I did reply and it was soon established that we were both alone, troubled and quite compatible.
Before long we were exchanging lengthy emails, chats, letters; eventually I wound up having my long-distance phone service restored so that we could converse in real-time with our real voices.
We even exchanged gifts in the mail, a quaint act that I found disarmingly romantic. More fool me.

For a period of a few weeks, our calls became an almost nightly arrangement. I found a great deal of happiness in this 'relationship'- I was fresh out of the hospital, struggling to make sense of my shattered , duct-taped life and suddenly here was this charming, intelligent, hilarious and engagingly imperfect woman that I could talk to about anything- without having to deal with the consequences of a 'real' relationship . It didn't hurt that she was an artist and very, very good at her particular art- something I find very attractive.
I sensed some of the same feelings from the other end.

We didn't need to explain ourselves to each other, there was an easy understanding in our talks that is quite rare in (or out of) 'real-life'. Sometimes we'd disagree, but without anger, which is the only decent way to be disagreeable, in my opinion.

We discussed a great many personal things, including sex, though our conversations could hardly be labeled 'phone sex', there were some very forthright discussions about sexual habits; she was very curious and I was more than willing to open up to her, answering her questions as best I could, admitting that in some areas I just don't know very much at all...

At times, I could swear that she was asking me questions from a list found in one of those women's magazines sold at supermarket check-outs : 10 Questions to Ask Him Before You Do It etc...
but I soon figured out that these questions were wholly created by my friend, that she was a chronic list-maker, a personality trait that perfectly aligned with other things that she had revealed to me. I could imagine a neatly lettered list of questions on a perfectly placed memo pad near her telephone or computer and I was fairly certain that she was leaving room on the paper for my answers- that these were indeed a form of test or evaluation and I was generally earning high marks just by being honest and willing to talk and to listen.

She told me some truly horrific things about herself ; at times it almost seemed like she was trying to provide me with reasons to find her unappealing and perhaps she felt a sort of disappointment with me when I shrugged these peculiarities off- after all, I told her, I'm quite accustomed to the women in my life doing similar things- I can handle these problems. ( Better than my own, I should have added)

I found myself strangely drawn to this woman, despite (or perhaps because of) these revelations. I felt as if I didn't have to restrain my words to her, that I could just let it out, and for a while I was correct in this.

It wasn't long though before I started failing tests. I think one of the earliest blunders I made was during a discussion about oral sex.
She asked me ( reading from a list, I believe) what I would think of her if, on a hypothetical first date, she gave me a post-dinner BJ in the parking lot.

Being honest, I said that I'd consider that as a good sign that she liked me and I'd certainly be interested in a second date. I think most men would agree with me, although they might not admit it to women.
This, I think, was not the answer she wanted, but I'm making that observation with the benefit of hindsight.
At the time, I thought it was an invitation of sorts and I began an open campaign to woo this woman into actually meeting me in person; the physical distance between us wasn't unmanageable.

If there were no 'sparks' in real-life, we'd just have coffee and conversation and I'd go home without overstaying whatever welcome was presented. I certainly didn't expect a first-date parking lot fling- I just wanted to meet this person and see what happened...I'm a chaotic 'make-it-up-as -I-go-along' sort of guy, so I've always been attracted to organized, obsessive, list-making women. It's a balancing factor, I suppose.

It seemed reasonable to me that we should meet at some point.
My letters to her became my feeble attempts at courtship, a ritual I do not understand but deeply want to.
I ruined it.

The more passionate my letters became, the colder her replies, until at last I received an email that started with this cruelly crippling phrase: "For future reference..." which , of course, means that there will be no 'future references'. In the email, my character was accused, tried, convicted and executed- the only vague part being the accusation.
The execution was quite clear.

I was dead to her.

I should have stopped there and let it go, but I tried to figure out what I had done wrong.
This was a fool's errand.

I didn't do anything wrong.
Neither did she.
It's just that at that time,we both needed something that we couldn't get elsewhere, and at some point she stopped needing me as much as I needed her.
That is my generous, benign explanation.

I have another theory however, one that is less kind.
The second theory holds that my friend , once presented with the possibility that we could easily meet each other and would probably get along very well, was terrified.
I found the idea scary as well, but that was part of the thrill- I didn't think there was any physical danger involved, but emotional injuries can be worse, despite that BS about 'sticks and stones'...
But, like I said, I'm a creature of risks and improvisations. I wanted an adventure and so did she- only not with me.
Somewhere along the line, her questions and my answers had been analyzed and cross-referenced and I was judged unfavorably. She, being unable to discourage me with confessions of her own dark secrets, started looking for darkness in mine.
The problem here is I have very little in the way of dark secrets. I admit to drawing much of my creative energy from the Darth Vader side of the Force, I've done plenty of bad things and I'm not going to deny them or pretend that I'm somehow morally incapable of doing the wrong thing.
It would be delusional and dishonest to make that claim.

The object of my desire had plenty of ammunition to use against me, but she chose to blindside me with something that seemed entirely constructed by her- her harsh judgment of me was as unfair as it was unexpected.

I agonized over this for far too long, but eventually, with some helpful advice, I got over it and moved on. After all, my own life was starting to gradually become livable again after 20 years of self-inflicted Hell...get on with it, as they say.

But recently it started again, this time with a different woman but in a very similar situation.
Only this time I cut it off without even thinking. I felt we were getting ready to become physically close and I withdrew.
I took my balls off the table and fled homeward in a purely reactionary response to imminent intimacy.

So that is my third theory- that my first friend didn't even think about her final words to me, that she reflexively ended our correspondence 'affair' when confronted with the possibility that it could become very real indeed. Not necessarily the stuff of romantic legends, not even necessarily sexual at all, just intimate, honest and painfully human .

Speaking for myself, I want those things more than I fear them- and I am deathly afraid of them.
As to others, I can only guess, and all my guesses are likely to be wrong.

Dances With Ghosts

I've already mentioned how tickled I was that my blogpal Barb actually took the time to listen to my radio show- but I didn't know the whole story.

At the same time that my NJ pal was streaming in I had another listener- one who didn't call. This listener didn't even tell me that they had tuned in until today- it was a total surprise.

It turns out that my Grandmother was listening on my Dad's new laptop!
I had put a bookmark on it for him; I had no idea that she'd listen, but when I went home this morning, she was smiling at me like she had a secret...

"What's up?"

"I watched you on the computer last Sunday morning. You sounded really professional. I had no idea you were so good."

Of course, I know she meant 'listened', and I'm not actually that good, but I felt truly proud at that moment. My grannie got to listen to me doing what I love- and she liked it!

I can imagine her at church, telling hung-over Lutherans about what a radio star her grandson is, and the thought makes me feel good.
In real-life I may be a mere Tater Tot, but to my Grannie I'm a Star, a Big Potato- and that is good enough for me.
It's the best feeling I've had in quite a while.

For most of my life, I didn't do much that I could share with my family and now I hardly have any family left to share with- but my Grannie is still here, she still loves me and I got to share my love of radio with her.

Soon, I'm afraid, my family will be even smaller than it is now, but for today I'm very thankful that my Grannie got to hear my show.

Through the magic of the Interweb, it was as if she was right there in the booth with me, hanging on my every word, humming along to Tom Waits and Jethro Tull- and I didn't even know it!

She said she was afraid I'd get myself in trouble- I'm prone to making very opinionated on-air comments about BushCo and the war- but I could tell she was actually quite proud that I have the gumption to make such statements.
She, like her Pastor and her church, are vehemently anti-war and anti-Bush, which takes a lot of spine in the Heavy Red town she lives in. I'm proud of her for standing up to the majority mindset.

I wonder if my Grandad, my other Grandma and my Mom listen to my show? I like to think so.

Believe me, I'd dance around the radio studios a lot less if I thought people were watching- except for my family, of course.

I can dance with them. A jig, even.

And when I say: "this one goes out to the ones I love", I mean it.

Not a Surprise

Friday-the head of News Corp's internet division resigns :

Ross Levinsohn, whose deal-spotting savvy led him to convince News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch to buy popular Internet social network MySpace and games Web network IGN Entertainment, will leave to pursue other ventures, he said in a statement.

Uh huh. I wondered what that was about.

Now I know. MySpace is up to it's ass in lawsuits.

The suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, called MySpace a "vast virtual warehouse" of pirated copyrighted material that belongs to blockbuster artists such as Mariah Carey and U2. UMG also claimed in the filing that "no intellectual property is safe" from the alleged copyright infringement.

Friday- I wondered who would buy and sell the O.J. Simpson book. I was hoping no one would.

I got my wish!

Following days of controversy, News Corp. has canceled plans to sell O.J. Simpson’s book If I Did It and has canceled a two-part Fox broadcast channel special scheduled to air Nov. 27 and 29.

Media Explosion

I have a local radio show every Sunday morning from 7 - 9am EST, which is streamed here. There are lots of great shows there, so please check the schedule -you'll probably find something you like. I play everything from Anuna to Zappa. No Top 40 though...none.

The show is like therapy for me- I spend hours listening to my old records; making mental notes on which songs work together and which don't, screening for FCC-banned words , laughing at my own ideas...I wanna hack into the 'JACK' radio robots and add the title tracks from Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music to the mix...

Yesterday, I had just finished making snarky remarks about the great State of New Jersey and it's bizarre breakfast legislation when the phone rang (actually it flashed , it's a silent ringer...)

In Pavlovian fashion, I dropped CDs everywhere and immediately wrapped myself in the headphone cable; this visually slapstick comic masterpiece was entirely wasted on the radio audience.
Must reach phone...must not black out...

"Is this Allan?"

"Yes."

I thought it was this girl I've been trying to avoid- it's hard to say "I'm not here" when I'm announcing my whereabouts on the public airwaves- but instead it was a blogpal from New Jersey!

I was in such a state of technical havoc and emotional chaos that I barely recall the rest- perhaps I was incorrect in some of my statements re: the Garden State... remind me to make a correction next week, heheh....

Like most folks, I enjoy getting comments on my blog.
But getting phone calls on-the-air?

That rocks.

Thanks for listening and calling!

_____________________________

Does anyone know where I can find a job? I seem to have misplaced mine.

Match -Making for the Notoriously Innocent

JULY 10--Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who killed her two boys by driving her auto into a lake while the children slept in their car seats, has placed an online personal ad seeking pen pals who are "not judgmental" and want to write to a convicted murderer who considers herself "sensitive, caring, and kind-hearted." The 31-year-old inmate placed the ad, which you'll find below, last month and included a picture showing her dressed in a standard-issue South Carolina Department of Corrections prison uniform. Smith, serving a life sentence for the October 1994 murder of sons Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months, notes in the ad that she loves "rainbows, Mickey Mouse, the beach, the mountains, and waterfalls." She adds, "I have grown and matured alot since my incarceration, but I will always hurt for the pain I've caused so many, especially my children."

--From The Smoking Gun
(you can see her ad there- she talks about what she does in her spare time...Jesus wept)

Susan Smith must be an optimist at heart, because rainbows and waterfalls are somewhat impractical hobbies for someone serving life for killing their own children. The thought of actually communicating with Susan Smith makes me feel like my shorts are full of chipped ice.

What would the sex be like?

"Oh baby, let me put a noose around your neck and fuck you like Abu Ghraib..."

Who the hell would wish to write to a woman who is so "sensitive" that she commits infanticide during her mood swings??

Oh, right.



It's a good match. O.J. likes blondes and is also "caring and sensitive" ; although he doesn't love his kids enough to lock them in car and roll them into a lake, he does care enough about himself to write a "speculative" book about what he would have done had he viciously murdered their mother, which of course he didn't do, being innocent and all.

Susan Smith originally claimed that a black man kidnapped her babies. In her personal ad she says she "has grown... a lot", so maybe she can overlook O.J.'s black skin and love him for his heart, which is also black.

They have a lot in common:

Simpson's first marriage ended in separation and divorce. In 1979, a year after his separation, Simpson's first child of his prior marriage drowned in the Rockingham mansion pool.

He must love his surviving children - he's giving the money from the book to his children.

His publisher, whose parent company is the same one that owns Fox News (hence the 2-part TV interview) has just issued a bizarre statement to the effect that she didn't actually pay Simpson, but a shadowy third party moved the money , and even if she did pay him, which of course she didn't, being innocent and all, the kids are supposed to get "some" of the cash.

There shouldn't be any money.

No one-NO ONE- should buy this book. Wait and see which stores carry it and which ones don't-should be interesting.

(Speaking of Fox News and large, shadowy amounts of cash being delivered to known murderers via third parties, have you seen this story? Those guys at Murdoch's News Corp sure have class- they own MySpace too, ya know? The guy in charge of MySpace just resigned to spend more time with his family hmm....)

I wonder if Simpson's book has a dedication page?
Which would be more disturbing : a dedication to his butchered wife or to his bereft and traumatized children?

We're All Adopted

My two brothers and I are adopted. My oldest son is adopted. My younger son is not adopted.

I’ve met quite a few families where some of the children are adopted and some aren’t. Of course I’ve also met families where all the children are adopted or none are. It is interesting when you talk to people how their beliefs on adoption can come through. Have you ever heard the term “real children” or an expectation that birthed children are more loved than adopted children or that one will “settle for adopted children”? I have. It’s usually followed by “I didn’t mean it that way” when you confront someone on it.

What’s hardest for me is when I hear an adoptive parent talking that way. Do they not think their child(ren) will pick up on it and what it means?

To me, adoption is both natural and a blessing. A child is in need of love and nurturing, and an adult wants to love and nurture a child. You don’t see animals in nature treating adopted young differently, only us “higher intelligence” species are capable of that. Why anyone would look at adoption negatively and as a last resort and other such nonsense is beyond me. And why anyone would try to stop or hinder loving adoptive parents from adopting, as in the case of homosexual parents, is also beyond me. In an age when so many children don’t have one or more parents, yeah, let’s try to keep some more children from having families.

My husband once made a comment to someone who was questioning how much you could love an adopted child. He asked this woman if she loved her husband. She exclaimed emphatically that she did. He pointed out to her that her husband was not blood-related to her, and yet she loved him with all her heart.

My husband has lots of blood relations in his immediate family that are less “family” than our friends. Blood doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s all about loving and caring for those in your lives. The reality is we’re all adopted by someone in our lives and the love is all that matters.
---------------------
ALLAN ADDS: Susanne has done an excellent post , and I know a few specific blogpals who will immediately see the truth in her words.
I myself had two unofficial Foster Families during my childhood, one black Baptist and one Orthodox Jewish. When my family was unable to take care of me, they took me in because I was friends with their children and treated me just like their own, no questions asked.. From my perspective, it was really nice having a stable, functional family - it wasn't until much later that I realized how wonderfully lucky I was to have friends with such loving parents.
All my foster parents have passed now, and I've largely lost touch with my friends, but I will always thank them for making me feel safe, loved and most importantly, wanted.

Reset Me, Please

Day One:
Arrival at Capitol at 7:30 am. No one from the company is there yet.
By 8:00 am, I've found the trailer where I am supposed to meet my new boss. Nobody in the doublewide mobile office recognizes the name I was given.
The mobile office lady calls the company, but they don't open their office until 8:30 am.
I don't know what to do, but just then a short, bearded man in his 30's approaches me.

"Are you the new guy?"

"Yeah, I was supposed to meet Logan at 7:30 at the statue..."

"Logan quit Friday. I'd show you around, but I don't have a hardhat, so they won't let me in the site. The crew will be here soon- you can wait for them outside."

There's a huge box of hats in the room, but why point that out? It's also cold, rainy and misty outside, but again, why bother to mention that? Beard Midget wants me to get away from him, that much is clear.
It's not a good sign that my new boss quit Friday. I had spoken with him Thursday and he didn't mention quitting.

I sit on a bench in the drizzle and wait for over an hour. The new crew finally shows up. They are grumbling about something and not really interested in meeting me.
I just want to get warm.

We don our helmets and goggles and walk into the Capitol- inside, it's full-blown construction mayhem. Loud, dusty Mexicans are yammering and hammering all over the place- now I understand the hard hats- little bits of metal keep falling from the scaffolding above and bouncing off my head.

One of my new co-workers starts telling me how much he hates the job. He only keeps it because his wife makes him.
It isn't long before I hate it too.

I thought I'd be setting up A/V systems for business clients, training them how to use the gear and trouble shooting/assisting as needed. That's what the company guy who works at the old Firm does, and I'd totally love to have that job- he didn't have to work up through years of manual labor, either.

What I'm doing is unscrewing heavy-ass metal floor plates, several dozen at a time, and laying bundles of cables and wires under them. I tie the cables to posts. Then I lay the plates back down and screw them in.
Each plate weighs about 25-35 pounds and there are a lot of them-hundreds, in fact.

The screw heads are full of dust and each one has to be cleaned out- first I use a knife to loosen the dirt, then a tiny vac to suck it out. Four screws per plate. Some of the screws strip, and I have to drill them out with a power drill, which is aggravating as hell.

After lunch- my boss chooses a deli that's really expensive. This is the same area I used to work in-I know all the best, cheapest spots and this isn't one of them.
I get a cup of soup. It cost four dollars and tastes like microwaved Chunky-which I'm sure it is .

This is the only time I am allowed to wash my hands. There are no bathrooms on the job- just port-a- johns. Luckily, there is no coffee, or even drinking water available on the job, so I don't have to pee. All liquids are removed through sweating.
My hands are too dirty to touch my dick with anyway.

By day's end, I can barely walk, my knees and back hurt so much. I thought I was in good shape, but it turns out I'm a weakling. I was asked to lift a huge (200lbs ?) spool of RGB cable, put it on a cart and carry it down many flights of stairs. The stairs are crowded with Mexican carpenters and I'm afraid I'm going to lose the cart, drop the spool and maim a dozen immigrant workers.
I admit that after a summer in Austin, I have never much cared for Mexicans- they were always stealing my shit and stabbing people- one stabbed my Uncle in a bar-for no reason at all, another tried to stab me at a bus stop because I looked at him-I was looking down the street for the bus, but he didn't care. He just wanted to stab a gringo. A cop saved my ass just by walking by...
...but I can't let prejudice control me- I have no desire to hurt any of these Mexicans, and if I try to wheel this cart down many,many flights of stairs, someone will get hurt.
Is my boss crazy? One guy can't move that sort of weight up and down stairs.
I give up.
It's 4PM. Time to go home.

Day Two:

I learn how to pull cable. I thought pulling cable was what I did at a former job- the customer would call and tell us they need two dozen cables of specific lengths and applications, which I would then cut and solder whatever tips/jacks were needed onto the ends.
Not great fun, but I didn't mind it so much- it was indoors, climate controlled and very clean. We worked on delicate electronics, so we really tried to avoid having giant clouds of plaster dust in the workshop.
The air inside the Capitol is 50% plaster dust, 25% solvent/paint fumes and 25% Spanish curses and what we do when we pull cable is tug very long wires through metal conduits and label each end for future reference.
This is by far the easiest part of the job.

The hardest part is the environment.
It' s very hard to breath, it's poorly lit and there's so much motion and loud ,crashing sounds that I'm always on the edge of having a heavy panic attack. I'm afraid to take my meds, because the Xanax makes me just a bit high, and one slip could cost me a finger.
Gotta stay sharp, because everything around me is deadly.

At lunch, I walk a few block over to see my old boss. I ask him for my old job back.
He's actually glad to see me- he's sorry my new job wasn't what I thought it was, but he's been having to do a lot more work without me. It's to his advantage to re-hire me, I am already well-trained and have a rep for doing good work, despite being a little 'odd'.

I am very lucky that my old boss is cool and willing to have me back- he's gotta get the OK from the Firm, but I just spoke with him and my old company has no problem with re-hiring me; I suppose I did pretty well there. I actually miss Old Boss, as I consider him a good guy and even a friend. Glad I didn't burn my bridges- first time for everything, I suppose.

Hopefully, the Firm will act soon, but I imagine I'll be stuck dodging Mexican artillery for at least a few more days.

I didn't know how important workplace things like chairs, coffee, restrooms , food and breathable air are to me, but now that they are gone , I miss them dearly.

It looks like I'll be able to hit the 'reset' button on my life and start over. I have lost this battle, but at least I can live to fight another day. Not easy to go back sometimes, but I think I will be lucky.

I'll have to suck it up when/if I quit my new job, because it's a pain for them to hire someone who quits right away, and I do feel bad about that.
But I swear, if I have to work in loud, filthy, back-breaking labor much longer, I will start taking drugs much stronger than Xanax-alcohol, most likely- and that would be...

THE END

Maybe

I guess I'll survive. Made it through tonight anyway.

Anxiety

I don't work here anymore:



I start working here tomorrow:

I'll be installing teleconference equipment and running network lines. I don't know how to do any of that stuff, and my new company knows it.
They're paying me more, with better benefits, than my last job.

But I don't think I can blog from work anymore, so this might be it for a while.

Invert Pervert

Am I alone in my fascination with Sitemeter stats? Maybe not.
Do you have one on your blog? A sitemeter, I mean.
It can be interesting , at least to me, to watch how people find my blog.
Amazingly, it seems that people do a lot of questionable searches.
How do I know this?

I use the meter to read the "Search Words" field and see what people are looking for when they find my site. Some are mundane, even sorta quaint:

"informal name for a long-haul flight arriving in the early hours of the morning"


was entered by someone in the UK at 6:48 AM, browser time. I'd guess that this was someone doing a morning crossword puzzle- the answer,of course, is "red-eye".
It's somewhat pleasant to picture a vague stranger in London, sitting down with some coffee, bangers, mash and the morning crossword puzzle. I like that sort of morning.
Note to Reader: I am glad I could be so helpful, but if you can't do a simple crossword puzzle without using Google, you need to spend less time on-line.

One of my most consistent traffic drivers is variations on "possum". I am a marsupial enthusiast and have quite a few posts about possums -go over to the side and search this blog for 'possum', you'll see - some of the visits are from .edu sites and are driven by questions like:

"what do possums eat"
"possum habitat"
" possum species types"
and , number one:
"do possums attack",Pasadena CA , 6:15 last night.


Dear Pasadena: They will attack if they have rabies.Steer clear.

Innocent searches, but I hope kids aren't using my website for school reports. Some of my information re: possums is not very accurate.



Then there are the 'possum hunters' from the United Arab Emirates. I think that the U.A.E. , and Dubai in particular, must have the highest per-capita number of pervy internet trolls in the world.

Dubai possum searches are along the lines of:

"women possum touching"
"hairy possum"
" sexy possum"
and #1 :
" (celebrity name) possum", the most recent, Dubai, 3:41 am.
Note to Dubai perverts: It's called 'pussy'.

(The celeb was Darn (sic) Kagan, whose popularity confounds me. I do know that posting the phrase "Daryn Kagan / Rush Limbaugh Sex Video" will draw a crowd. Try it on your blog if you have the stomach for it. It's pretty gross.)


So I was browsing random updates and I found this site, which I instantly fell in love with. Believe me, I'm really glad I didn't find it by Googling "teenie redhead" or some such drek.
The blogger seems to have the same contempt for 'redhead' trolls as I do for UAE possum fetishists- which is considerable.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who looks at stuff like :

boyfriend or husband or guy and "only had one testicle"

and wonders: " WTF are they looking for"?
I'm not sure I want to know, really.

I love my Sitemeter. It's like reverse stalking.
I have the IP addresses of many UAE pervs, and I think if you get caught 'whacking off' in Dubai, you become am amputee, eunuch or worse.

Hmmm...plans a-brewin'.....how many 'X's' in extortion? Send me dinars or else.

The Road To Helltown

I took my new used Volvo on a road trip today.

I took the backroads to Helltown. My grandmother lives there. It's not as bad as the name implies, but it's close.
From Wikipedia:

Front Royal was also known as "Helltown" in the 18th century, due to the readiness of its residents to fight at the slightest provocation. This was possibly due to the abundance of rough and wild mountaineers and river travelers in the area who came into town looking for alcohol and women.

I graduated from Helltown High School in 1984 and it was exactly like that even then.

Today, it's just a ride in the country. A nice one at that.
It was seventy -odd degrees today, so I opened up the sunroof and tried not to think about global warming... I tried not to think of how much it would suck if my as-yet untested new car decided to break down.
The day was so pretty that I found it difficult to maintain a proper level of anxiety, in fact I really enjoyed the trip- it seemed shorter than I remembered.

My grandma is old enough to remember when Front Royal was still called 'Helltown', but she's hanging in there alright. We had a false positive on a medical test cause a huge panic recently, so it was nice to see her without having to discuss funeral stuff.
Really nice.

My grandmother was the first passenger to ride in my new car.

Grandma, meet my new car. It's from Sweden, it's 16 years old and I like it a lot.

That's nice honey. Do you have a girlfriend?

Yes, Grandma. She's Swedish and 16 too. I'm thinking of adopting and doing the Woody Allen deal. Sort of a pre-emptive strike on my mid-life crisis. Speaking of pre-emptive strikes, she's also helping me find WMD in Norway. We need their oil, you know.

That's nice, dear. Where do you want to eat?

I dunno- I hardly recognize the place- I don't know where to eat.

So my grandmother starts listing all the local restaurants, and I pick the second one- Vickie's - which turned out to be an all-you-can-gorge food trough that caters exclusively to FBI, DEA and Border Patrol agents, who apparently only eat foods that are breaded, deep-fried and served with petroleum-based gravies.
Even the salad bar seemed to have been lightly misted with WD-40.

If any "rough and wild mountaineers" showed up looking for women and booze, they had better find somewhere else to look.
Almost every table at Vickie's was occupied by uniformed men with close-cropped hair and holstered guns, hungrily wolfing down platefuls of food that would kill most civilians after a forkful or two.

There's a Federal K-9 Training facility just up the road where they train drug-sniffing dogs and stuff, but I had no idea there were so many different Alphabet Agencies using it. It was a bit unsettling sitting next to a table of FBI,CIA and DEA agents.
I wonder who the plainclothes guys are with? Most of the plainclothes guys look Latino- perhaps they are translators, maybe Border Patrol?

After lunch, I went to visit my dad. He has a new computer and Grandma wants me to show him how to use it. Grandma says he hasn't been drinking, but I dunno...he looks horrible, I suppose he always will- he's only 60, but he moves like he's 80.

He hasn't got the foggiest idea what a computer is or what it does. He's at the "what do you mean when you say 'click' ?" phase. After twenty minutes he gets impatient and loses interest.
Suddenly he's got somewhere to go. I wish he'd said that before I drove up.

I spent four hours driving to see him and he blows me off after 20 minutes. He has an antique auction to go to, he says.
Huh?
They still do that in real-life?
The plan was for me to teach him how to do eBay auctions, but now he's suddenly got a real auction that he just can't miss. Out of the blue.
Gotta go.
Bye.

I wish I could believe him but I don't.

There was just enough daylight for me to make it to Luray , which is where my Grandad is buried.
He's on a hilltop in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, so I sat next to his grave and watched the sun go behind the mountains. The sinking orange sun, the trees wearing their fall colors...ahhh... a perfection found only in nature.

My Grandad has the best sunsets. I really wanted to talk about Dad with him, but I didn't want to ruin such a fine sunset.

Party at Vampire Beach

I'm sitting on a haybale near the summit of a tall grassy hill. In front of me, the hillside descends steeply, cliff-like for twenty yards or so, before abruptly becoming a wide, sandy beach. At the bottom there's what must be an absolutely gigantic stage, (although it's tiny from this vantage) backed by what has to the Pacific Ocean.
Overhead floats a block-long dirigible in the shape of a cartoon pig. I wonder if this is a Pink Floyd concert from the Animals tour. I hope so. That was a damn good show.

Whoever's playing, I must be Hot Shit to get seats this good.

"You must be Hot Shit", says a familar blonde vampire using a fake British accent, "to get seats this good."

Damn. It's Spike from the old Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. He's reclining on a chaise lounge and drinking out of a brown bag. What's he doing here?
Wow. There's lot of people here.
I'm glad this isn't one of those "omigod, I'm naked!" dreams.

"Well,"I reply,"It is my subconcious. I don't remember inviting you 'round".

Oh shit. I'm speaking in a cheesy Brit accent too. I hope I stop.
He doesn't seem to notice or care.

"Fancy a snort, mate?", asks Spike.

"No, thanks. Trying t' quit."

"Suit yerself", he says, swilling away, "y'wanna know something? Just between us?"

"What's that?"

He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his trenchcoat, muffling his reply.

"Beg pardon?"

"It's all bullshit", he repeats, clearly this time.

"Bullshit?"

"Yeah. This bloody vampire crap and all the muddleheaded idiots who get all gooey reading Anne Rice and sleeping in coffins and the like. You won't see me sleeping in a coffin, nooo...not enough wiggle room ,ya know", he finishes by nudging me and winking.

"Spike", I ask,pointing upward at the blazing sun, "shouldn't you be on fire or something? You know, the sun, vampires and all that."

"I told you it was all crap. Here hold this a sec if you would," he says, removing his coat and handing it to me.

"I'll show you."

With one hand, he grabs his forehead, his other hand clamps on his chin. He removes his face. It's just a mask.
Underneath, he's the guy who played Jesus in Mel Gibson's S&M torture movie.
He's wearing what looks like a diaper.

The bottle is gone.

Too bad for that, I think, suddenly ready to start drinking again.

"Excuse me", asks the imitation Christ,"but which way to the stage? I seem to be having a spot of trouble seeing."

He's got blood in his eyes from the crown of thorns he's wearing. Given the sunny weather, a ballcap would be more practical and a lot less painful.

I notice that the trenchcoat I'm holding for JesusSpike has changed into a clump of tissue paper.
There's a sticky wet spot on it. I don't think it's snot.
Gross.
I get ready to throw away the sticky mess when I remember bloody-faced Jesus.
I'm not a believer, but I'm not a monster.
I'm not gonna let this poor dude wander around a dangerous cliffside half-blind ; son of God or not, he might fall and get seriously hurt.
I find a dry section of the kleenex ball and wipe his eyes clear.

"Thanks, man", says Jesus as he heads downhill.

"No prob." I'm left holding a nasty kleenex that's soggy with the blood and jizz of Christ.

I am going to make a fucking fortune on eBay, I think to myself.

A few minutes go by and Jesus returns, this time heading uphill.
"Forgot something", he mutters.

A moment later he passes again, downhill, only this time he's got a cross on his back. It looks as if he's fake-staggering under it's weight, like it's a styrofoam prop.
At least no one's whipping him, although he's gathering a crowd as he heads downhill. Someone presses something to his mouth, but from here I can't tell what it is.
It might be a sponge, or maybe a pretzel. The soft kind that's good with mustard.

A woman's voice calls my name. I turn.
It's Willow, also from the Buffy show.



"Hey. I've been saving a seat for you" she tells me , patting the empty side of her haybale.

"That's hay alright", I quip stupidly, sitting down.

"Everyone's here", Willow informs me, gesturing with her arm. Sure enough, the whole Buffy cast is scattered throughout the crowd, along with every character on every TV show I've ever watched, including Ultraman-the real Ultraman- and Joe, the fugitive German Shepherd from the short-lived Run, Joe, Run Saturday morning TV show.

Willow passes me a perfect joint. Oh, yeah-that's the Pacific down there alright, I think as I briefly vanish into a sweetly skunky haze. As my headrush subsides, I wonder who's playing on the stage below us.

I ask Willow.

"I dunno. I was hoping you were."

"Really? I was hoping you were- that musical episode was funny as hell."

"Ooo...look!" She grabs my arm. I feel an intense tingle of pleasure from this contact. I like Willow and I'm glad she likes me.

Down by the stage, a group of people are dancing around a large bonfire. As we watch them dance, a wall of fog begins rolling in. The dancer's shadows get larger and more distinct against the mist as the fogbank thickens; in moments we are encircled by swaying, weightless giants.
I have never felt more safe in my life.
We are protected by beauty and power.

Willow says, "wow".

I agree.

New Stuff

Man, I have a week off and all it does is rain...oh well.

I tried to sleep in today, I stayed up until 2AM playing Civ IV, but I still woke up early.
I had a lot to do:

- First, I went to the station and replaced our new, broken mixer with one of my old, working boards. I had to pack the new one up and ship it back to the factory- I hope they replace it- it's already broken once before. (The Alesis MultiMix USB series are total shit, BTW)
I actually keep a closet full of spare audio mixers , just in case something like this happens. I am a geek, but I'm a very useful geek.

-Secondly, I went to the HQ of my new job and was given a set of tools, 5 shirts , a nylon windbreaker, a mailbox and instructions on filling out timesheets. I don't even know how to use the tools they gave me- a RJ45 crimper wotsit , a 1300 something, a set of strippers... I was told that the set of dies I would need hadn't arrived yet...

So, I'm looking at all these tools and tech stuff and I must have been showing blanks on my face, because Marie (HQ Gal) looks at me and says:

" You don't know what any of that stuff is do you?"

Nope. I have no experience with permanent installations. I am Pure Green Newbie.

"That's fine. You'll pick it up fast enough."

Whew. I must admit that I am intimidated as hell starting this new job- it's a big leap from doing clerical work at a law office to installing Pro Audio and Tele-Conference equipment in the renovated Virginia Capital Building.
But-
I can do this. It's wires, cables and current. I am not afraid of that sort of thing- I would rather learn how to install T1 lines than do paperwork, even though I am great at doing paperwork-in fact, I don't think I can get any better at paperwork...

-Lastly, I went out and bought a toolbox to carry all my contraptions in. I bought one large enough to carry lunch in as well.

Here's a sweet bonus: I can take the same bus that I've been taking to work for the last 14 months. It goes directly to my new job and I know the schedule by heart.

More bonus: My ex-Probation Officer sent my documents to me- got them Monday!

I have all my legal papers in order- I'll get my Security Pass tomorrow, after which I'll probably drive up and visit my Grannie.
My dad has been sober since I did my 'intervention' and she is buying him a laptop so that he can sell his antiques on eBay; I have to set up his new 'pooter and show him how to eBay and stuff...as I said, I am a useful geek!

Hubris

I cannot help but think that if Donald Rumsfeld had resigned-or been fired- before yesterday's election, the GOP would have kept control of the Senate, not to mention saving considerable face...but he didn't, and now he's gone, along with the GOP's 3-branch governmental stranglehold.
Too much pride.
Never admit mistakes.
Never take accountability.

Good riddance.

Wait and See

Yay.
Dems won the House, perhaps even the Senate depending in what happens here in my own home state- I actually expected Sen. Allen to win handily, so the possibility of a Webb victory cheers me considerably; although I'm not a big fan of Mr. Webb, I do respect him and I trust him with military matters and I liked the fact that he considered Virginia's anti-love bill to be a "useless" piece of legislation.
I am ashamed that this piece of Christian Fascist legislation was even introduced, much less passed- what possible good can be served?
If you think homosexual unions are a threat to your marriage, it's probably because you are having homosexual 'unions' with gay hookers or teenage boys.

The proposal, which will be added to the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution, outlaws same-sex marriage and civil unions, as well as domestic partnerships and any relationship between unmarried couples that approximates marriage.

It's already illegal for homosexuals to marry here in Va, so this law serves no purpose except to prevent common-law marriage arrangements and domestic partnerships between ALL people, gay or straight.
What does that mean? What will be the results?

Not sure, but what it ultimately does is enforce specific religious values on voluntary personal relationships , which is always a bad idea.

Anyone remember Terry Schiavo and how the Jesus Whack Jobs started frothing in tongues about the sanctity of life?- they actually had an emergency session of Congress for the express purpose of forcing the State into the very personal and painful lives of one family- how come they couldn't have an emergency session to figure out why 70 million working Americans do not have any health insurance at all?

Maybe it's better if we don't have health care. If you don't have insurance, no one is going to pay for your ten-year feeding tube coma.

To me, it's amazing that a State that has no regard for the foremost of the Biblical Commandments -Thou Shalt Not Kill- should be so concerned about whom thou fucketh.

The 7th, part one

This didn't take long. The FBI is already investigating reports that voters have been receiving last minute calls advising them that their voting place has been moved, the date postponed etc...my local sources tell me that some of these calls have already been traced to George Allen campaign associates - of course, my 'local sources' have been drinking heavily for the last 18 hours or so and I'm kinda hoping they stop calling me with their seemingly hourly updates.
Take a nap, why doncha?

The ball is in play- we'll just have to sit tight and wait.

My local paper has an informal 'evote' that shows Mr. Webb (D) ahead of Mr. Allen (R) by a 2 to 1 margin. One can only guess at the accuracy or relevance of this, but I find it somewhat encouraging.
No one was working the exit polls at my precinct- I hung around outside, hoping to get impressions of voter attitudes, but mostly I just got wet, as it is pouring rain at the moment.

Here's a Webb campaign anecdote I like:

Webb told a crowd that at a county fair this summer a fellow came up to him
saying he had a plan to end the war: "Get all the sons and daughters of everyone
in Congress and of everyone in the major media. Put them all in a training
program and announce that in six months if the war isn't over these people are
going to go fight it. The war will be over in six months."

Hell, yeah. If I was Dictator, I'd draft every Iraqi war supporter between the age of 18 and 65 and send them straight to Iraq. They'd be responsible for providing their own weapons -after all, guns are cheap and legal here- surely the same people who support cutting education, healthcare and housing programs for poor Americans wouldn't hesitate to cough up a few of their own dollars to buy a M-16 with a full-auto conversion kit.
What?
You expect the Government to do everything for you?

I'll even compromise a bit:

-You can write the weapons off on your taxes.

-If you are really, really poor, I'll issue you some Welfare Guns.However,if you are poor enough to qualify for my Welfare Gun program, you are probably already in Iraq, prison or both.

-As soon as you achieve 'Victory' , you can come home. But NOT ONE DAY SOONER than that.
This should provide some incentive for defining what "Victory" really is

Plug, Shameless

My Sunday radio show starts in 45 minutes. If you are visiting the USA from Scotland, you can hear your son's music played on American radio. Please join me !

Be Conservative

Does anyone remember when "conservative" meant a small, financially solvent and socially inobtrusive government ?

Some conservative ideas I like:

-Legalize drugs.
Because it makes sense to do so. Legalizing drugs would lead to the largest, fastest drop in crime ever seen in America. The incentive for those crimes would be gone.

Billions of dollars would be saved as millions of non-violent drug offenders are released from the Correctional system. Some of that money could be used to treat addicts who want to be clean, some could be used to train and educate ex-inmates, perhaps in former prisons converted to voluntary rehab centers.

I don't use cocaine, heroin , speed, crack etc...but it's not because they are illegal or difficult to get. I just don't want those things .
Would you start using heroin if it were suddenly legal? Of course, there'd be restrictions to protect kids and such, but still...?
I wish adults who did want crack could buy it cheaply at a regulated store- that way, they wouldn't have to steal my car stereo.

- Gay Marriage/Union.
Here's what a real, patriotic Conservative American would say about Gay Marriage:

" Why are you asking me this? It's none of the Government's goddamned business what consenting adults do or who they marry- haven't you ever heard of separation of Church and State?... *sheesh*... plus, marriages are good for the economy. Now wouldja stop asking me stupid questions and give me a hand? I'm trying to rebuild New Orleans over here."

A real conservative knows that the government should stay out of your personal life, but that the government should be prepared to help it's citizens in times of overwhelming crisis- like Katrina.

- Make it here.We need to start learning how to make things again. A real conservative would eliminate government subsidizing of regressive energy and technologies and instead encourage research that would make long term economic sense...solar power may sound like a leftist Hippie idea, but the concept of a government encouraging you to take responsibilty for your own energy use by providing a tax incentive to install solar panels on your property is not a liberal idea. It's just a good idea and it's fiscally conservative- it's designed to save the gubbermint money over the long haul- the environmental aspects are just a bonus, although a real conservative is very aware that to conserve also extends to other things 'Hippies' enjoy, such as water , oxygen and animals.
Maybe we could even build 'Green' cars and export them. Imagine that- America exporting cars again! Let's invent something useful, benign and easy to mass produce -we could convert our land mine factories ( U.S. has not signed the Mine Ban Treaty) into plants that make solar powered refrigerators, windmill parts or something else that isn't land mines.

Right?

Ted, Just Admit it

Rev.Ted Haggard, drug-sniffing cock-sucker

Dude. You bought methamphetamine from a an openly gay male prostitute in a hotel, and not only did you not have sex with the prostitute, but you didn't use the meth either.

Because it would be wrong.

He said he met with Mr. Jones and bought the drug. “I was tempted, I bought it, but I did not use it,” he said today.

He said he threw the drug out shortly after buying it. “I never kept it very long because it was wrong,” he said.

Asked if he engaged in sex with Mr. Jones, he said, “No I did not.” He also said he never used the drug with Mr. Jones as Mr. Jones has claimed.

Dude. Who exactly are you kidding?
You are the dumbest, lyingest, most hypocritical piece of shit since Mark Foley.
(Doesn't that seem a long time ago?)
For the record, let me point out that if you are buying methamphetamine from gay hookers in hotels, then you have already succumbed to a great many temptations.

Dude. I just saw you on TV. You are quite the flamer.
Behind that huge elastic smile, you loathe yourself.

Dude.
You have the Leaving Soon Look.

My Stuff

The best thing about being home on weekdays is playing guitar really loudly while the neighbors are at work.

My main guitar is a hand-made B.C Rich with a neck-through body of Hawaiian Koa and maple.
There are less than a hundred of this particular model, which was made in 1981 according to the serial number. It is often considered a 'Heavy Metal' guitar, but it's actually an extremely versatile instrument- it's very emotional and responds very well to the subtlest touch- I'd put it up against the finest Les Paul or P.R. Smith in terms of 'feel'; although it's considerably lighter than any Les and most of the PRS' I've played, it lacks nothing in terms of sustain. It would be worth a fortune if I hadn't beat the shit out of it for twenty years.

I bought it in 1986 and it has been my main axe ever since, although I bought an ESP/LTD M-155 in 1999 because I wanted a guitar with a locking tremolo. The M-155 is an OK guitar for a factory-made job, but I rarely play it. In my opinion, the Floyd Rose whammy bar is over-rated, as I can get my whammy-less Rico to make sounds that my LTD can only dream of.

For bass, I have a 1968 Gibson SG 'Jack Bruce' model, which is absolutely the most playable electric bass I have ever touched. The neck is nearly identical to an SG guitar, very narrow, smooth and round. It's also got an incredible variety of tones available with a 5-way pick-up selector knob and two very different factory-original pickups.

If you have ever heard 'Sunshine of your Love' by Cream, then you have heard this bass.

Here's (below) a whole pile of old gear I cleaned out of my closets. I don't use any of this crap anymore, although I keep my old Tascam mixer as an emergency back-up for the radio station.

The rest goes to eBay.

Anyone need a DAT recorder? How about an audio-CD recorder? Tuck and Roll PA head?
A Harman cassette deck?

I didn't think so.

Proof of Guilt

Aug 16, 1999 was a bad day for me. I had spent the previous 5 days in San Diego, selling 'jolly roger' VHS tapes at the yearly ComicCon- after which my boss and I went to Tijuana and got severely wasted; my boss' pal lived in S.D. and knew his way around Tijuana maybe just a little too well...heh

Anyway, I had to catch a red-eye flight from San Diego to Baltimore, it left at some unholy hour- midnite, 2 am? I dunno.
It 's all kinda blurry.
I took a late train from the Mexican border back to the airport (via a quick taxi to the hotel) , got on the flight and kicked back to snooze.
I was drunker than a roomful of priests, but I figured I'd sleep and sober up on the flight home, arriving around dawn in Baltimore and then driving back to Richmond.

Wrong.

Somewhere in the mucus mess that was my 1990's sinuses, a giant lump of something dislodged itself and starting trickling down the back of my throat. It tasted like a combination of
crystal meth, cocaine, heroin and powdered Xanax, but that's only a guess- all I know is that I was suddenly wide-eyed and weird enough for the Magic Bus.

The stewardress refused to serve me a drink, so I had to break into my bottle of souvenir Tequila - after all, I needed something to wash down the benzedrine I had bought in Mexico. I had put a sizable dent in the bottle by the time the attendant warned me that she would have to notify the Captain if I didn't put the hooch away.

Good idea. I had to drive in a few hours.

I made it to my car , got on the highway and promptly blew out a tire. I used a nearby highway sign to get my car back under control, bouncing off of the sign and back onto the shoulder. This was quite the hardship for my vehicle, but the engine was still running and I wasn't hurt.
Fuck. I hope my spare tire has air, I thought.

When I got out to change it , I realized that I might not be too drunk to drive, but I was way too fucked-up to change a tire. Looking closer, I saw that there wasn't really much wheel left to attach a tire to anyway.
Then I fell down and had a hard time getting up.

After a while -9 A.M. according to my citations- Officer Kleb arrived and helped me to my feet long enough to read me my rights. Then I fell down again, only this time I was handcuffed.
It was a bad day.

I went to court facing five Federal charges- two of them DUI's: one for driving drunk and one for driving under the influence of narcotics. I faced a maximum of 125 years if convicted.
I had a good Federal job at the time and had secured a pricey lawyer and an impressive sheaf of Letters of Character from my Government superiors...everything was dismissed except a pot possession charge.I have no illusions about the equality of our correctional system. If I hadn't been a white man with some money and connections, I probably would've done time or at least had my driver's permit threatened or revoked.
Instead, I had 18 months probation and mandatory drug rehab.
All history now.

I thought the 'system' had lost all record of this, as I have passed numerous background checks since then and couldn't even find the records myself, but today I had my Security interview for my new job and the Capitol Police dredged up the unpleasantness.

The Sargeant asked me about the charges- yes sir, that is accurate , I have served my sentence and have a letter attesting to that...

He waved me off- eh, "shit happens" he said- he actually said that- all would be OK as long as my conviction was over 5 years ago, and since I was busted in1999, that shouldn't be a problem- I just had to prove my date of conviction and sentencing.

OK, so I went home and grabbed my letter of completed term of supervision...
...that's not good enough. I need something that proves when I was convicted and sentenced,
not when I was released. I don't have anything that contains that info- I know my court date was 11/15/99 because that is the date on my Notice(s) to Appear, but I apparently didn't keep my terms of supervision/sentencing papers, just my release.
Sarge told me that I would have to call the District Court.
So I did that.

At first I was told that there were no records from that long ago. Huh? Seven years? It showed up on the State computer, so I know it's out there...
*transfer* hold* transfer*hold*...
A voice told me to send an email to the court- gave me very precise info on how to format the request, which I did.
I got a denial reply- this service is available only to Gov't agencies. There was a number to call.
At that number, a voice told me to send a fax to (XXX)-XXX-XXXX with all the violation numbers on it.
And?
And what? asked the voice.

How will I receive the documents? How long until I do? Should I include my mailing address and/ or phone number?

The voice didn't know. It did warn me that there was probably a fee, but it couldn't tell me how much it was or how to pay it.
Fuck.
Send a generic fax to some gubbermint cube farm and wait until I hear something from someone? Oh , yeah, that's gonna work just grand...man, I might as well start filling out my F.O.I.A. requests now...

I called my former Probation Office. They were actually pretty helpful and said that they'd get my sentencing papers "right out to me." Good. Thank you.

I called Sarge and asked if the papers from the P.O. would suffice.
He didn't know. He'd have to see them first.

"OK- I'll come down as soon as they arrive", I said.

"No, you'll have to get your employer to re-schedule your interview", he replied.

So I had to call the new Boss and tell her that I was unable to get a badge, and worse, I had to explain why, and that once I got the papers, she would have to re-schedule my interview.

"Shit happens," she said, echoing Sarge's remark from earlier,"it's no big deal- we don't care about what happened seven years ago.
"Just get your papers as soon as you can so we can get you in there and working."

So here I sit, unable to work until I prove myself guilty of crimes I'd have rather forgotten. It doesn't matter when my sentence ended, all that matters is when it began.

What a great system.

Last Day

I'm glad I checked with HR- I have two unused vacation days, which I will take tomorrow and Friday, making today my last day in the office.
I have cleared my computer of cookies, wiped down my folding table/desk with Windex and am heading up to the Capital Police station to get my ID badge for the new job.
I'll probably leave early- I have zero interest in being here.

I had my annual job review in August and have yet to see my raise. When I called about my leave time, I asked about the raise- it was effective as of Oct. 30 - great- after 14 months I get a .22 cent raise and it's only effective for my last few days.

I like my boss, but other than him, I haven't really 'connected' with anyone here. It's been a terribly lonely job- not very demanding work-wise, but really hard on the old morale.
Work used to be the best way for me to meet women, but I can't even get no-strings simple lunch date here- I suppose the single girls are all holding out for a proposition from one of the attorneys- I can imagine them talking to their mothers:

"Mom, this guy at work asked me out. He's kinda weird but he seems nice..."

"What's he do there?"

"I'm not sure. I think he keeps the Firm's records or something"

"Honey, you didn't get a job with the Firm so you could date a File Clerk. Get yourself a nice lawyer."

Other than learning to deal with isolation, I haven't acquired any new skills on this job at all. I was already as good at Data Entry as I'm ever gonna be and frankly, I don't want to be very good at it.
Data Entry makes me stupid.

Well, I'm off to my Security interview. My background as a Federal Agent actually come in handy at times like this.

I wonder if this is my last blog from work?