Your Firing Technique Stinks

I think our new Area Manager, Mr. Hole, must be one of the slimiest, stupidest weasels I have ever had the displeasure of being terminated by. He is the sort of guy who lies even when he doesn't have to- he isn't satisfied with being a weasel, he has to be a skunk too.

For example, he's been firing the office temp for two days now...the temp is a great worker and she's a lot of fun to work with, but she's just a temp. You don't have to give excuses to temp workers when you lay them off- you just tell them that the job is over and notify the employment agency that the assignment is done. It's simple. I've been on both ends of the process.

But Hole seems to have missed this crucial management lesson. Instead of simply telling Tempy that the assignment was over, Hole dragged her into a private conference Friday. He told her that she was finished in one week, the he gave her a long speech about "growing the company".

If you are getting fired, the last thing you want to hear is how much better off the company will be after they stop wasting money on your paycheck. Tempy was no exception.

Tempy, who I am gonna miss working with, told Hole to stop talking.
Please, she said, you don't need to explain. I understand.

He ignored her and went on for forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes.
Tempy is a big woman and she said she was finding it hard to keep from knocking Mr. Hole on his ass.
I laughed, yeah, I know...so what did he say, I asked?

"He said you and Tom were the problem and I was "guilty by association" but the fucker refused to say' guilty of' what."

"Really? He told me that I was guilty by association with you two. He also copped-out when I asked what I was G-by-A of...I asked about the Warcraft site, it wasn't that."

Mr. Hole told us not to talk to each other about what he said- it was one of the first things we learned when we compared notes. He was trying to play us against each other but he's so bad at it that instead he has united us in our loathing of him and his crew of stooges.

This morning, Hole just couldn't leave it alone. He called Tempy into his 'office' again and told her that she shouldn't smoke near the windows where the client could see her. The outdoor smoking area is public and it's all visible from the window, so Tempy sarcastically asked if maybe she should walk around the corner and hide behind a bush.

Hole said that would be satisfactory.

Then he asked her if she could find a way to cover up her (neck, arms) tattoos. She's very dark-skinned and you can barely see them. A lot of the younger , prettier white ladies have small, visible tattoos, it's important to note, and none of them are getting in trouble. Our dress code is supposed to mimic that of the office, and small tats are OK.

After she told me all this, I asked her if she thinks she would have got so much grief from Hole if she was white, cute and stupid; not black, obese and three times as smart as him?
I pointed out that it sounds to me like she is being discriminated against, that no one else has been asked to smoke elsewhere and that you can see three tattoos on this floor alone- all on white skin. He must certainly be following some hidden agenda, otherwise why not just say: thanks, the job is over, have a nice day, g'bye etc?

Why all the explaining?

Hole hasn't given me my notice yet, but it's just a matter of time. Right now I'm the only trained employee they have so they can't fire me until I train my replacement. Our attitude conflict has escalated to the point of silent avoidance. If Hole has a question for me, he has to use a proxy, as I no longer acknowledge his presence.

I can't believe he doesn't fire me for that.

Weak.

Put The Spin On

Friday morning Mr. Hole gave me a lecture on perception and attitude.

"The way you walked out yesterday gives me the perception that you have a negative work attitude."

Huh? With rhetoric like that, who needs grammar?
Translation: I walked out yesterday and it gives him the impression I don't give a shit about my job.

I shrugged and walked out of his office. I imagine I'll be fired any day now.

That's OK. Yesterday I told Mr. Hole that I was pretty disappointed that they had fired my boss, but that if someone was going to replace him, it should have been me. When they bypassed me, it sent a pretty strong signal that I wasn't considered for the position at all and , by extension, had no upward future with the company.

I put it into words that he could understand:

"I get the perception that I am stuck in a permanent dead-end job."

I'm training my replacement next week.

Fuck it. I'll probably have to go back to office temp status again. Who knows? There isn't much that stresses and depresses me as much as looking for work, but I got some good news yesterday too- my grandmother is out of the recovery home and back at her real home!
When she went into hospital the docs said she didn't have a chance but she surprised everyone but herself and got better.
Funny thing, in 2005 the doctors told me they were sure that I was dead , but I wasn't. Three times I died, they said.
I don't remember- I wasn't alive at the time- but I got better.

I guess I got that stubbornness from my granny.


Only one show this weekend:

The Beatles- Across the Universe
God damn it all! I walk in this morning and there are no headphones. It's very hard to do a live radio broadcast without headphones. Calm down...
Nothing's gonna change my world...

Steve Hillage- Saucer Surfing
Listening to Hillage made me spend a lot of money on digital delay FX. It was worth it.

Supertramp- Sister Moonshine
Crisis? What crisis? Nothing's gonna change my world...

Pretty Things- The Letter/Rain
When I got to our meeting place
I stared into empty space
No one here for me
This is a two-part intro to my nine-part trilogy of heartache songs in the second hour of the show. Make sense? Good.

Pete Droge- Find Yourself a Door
Screw doors. Give me a bridge and a can of gasoline.

Brian Eno - Burning Airlines Gives You So Much More
Oh. No.

Point Records Sampler- #4
This is from a Point promo CD. The first 3 tracks are Phillip Glass but the sleeve says: "Includes 5 bonus tracks from the Point catalog."
Nowhere on the sleeve or disc does it say who the bonus tracks are by. Strange way to promote bands- anonymously.

Damien Dempsey- The Jar Song
Ah, Damo...

Led Zeppelin- Dazed and Confused
After all this time, this still sounds great.

10 CC- The Hospital Song
This is for my grandmother, who is no longer in the hospital!

Lou Reed- Satellite of Love
Sigh...

Bruce Cockburn- World of Wonders
Tip o' the dish to the Rube for pointing me at Bruce Cockburn. Let's travel overseas to Canada...
Too bad Bruce sings "fuck" on the first cut- it's awesome.

Rickie Lee Jones- The Real End
This song is dedicated to all my Scorpios, past present and future.

Pentangle- Mirage
This reminds me of something that was too good to be true. This is 120 seconds of aural bliss, then it's over, leaving you wanting more. How could it only last two minutes?
Part one.

Captain Beefheart- Too Much Time
Part two.

Fairport Convention- I'll Keep it With Mine
Part three.

Fiona Joyce- Cry Over You
Part four in my trilogy of heartache, loss, lies and betrayal.

King Crimson- The Night Watch
Where are the headphones?

Eleanor McCovey- Whisper and a Prayer
Part five in my trilogy of heartache, loss, lies, betrayal and unrequited love.

West of Eden- High Ground
You are looking for "total authenticity" on internet dating sites? Good fucking luck with that...part six.

Jethro Tull- Back To the Family
I think you had to be there.

Jefferson Airplane- Come Up the Years
This one is for my teenage Swedish internet girlfriend. Part seven.

Claanad- The Other Side
Sometimes I love this band. Sometimes I don't. I don't know why.

Blonde Redhead- En Particulier
This is for Petra, last seen on a beach in Southern France. Where did you go? We last spoke on my 40th birthday and my emails were never returned...sigh. Eight.

Steeleye Span- One Night as I Lay On My Bed
I have no idea what this song is about. Am I trying to depress the fuck out of myself? Nine.

Loreena McKennitt- Never-ending Road
Sometimes it seems like the never-ending road is a fucking hamster wheel. I'll try not to think about that...maybe a quiet song will calm me down. It's too early for a goddamn panic attack, but thinking about... and...and ...well, it's messing up my head.

Anuna- Sleepsong
How about six minutes of ambient choral music? Better than pills!

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

Have you ever tried to explain blogging to an 87-year-old woman? How'd that go?

I haven't told my grandmother about blog and how much it means to me, but I did tell her that a lot of my friends have been sending their get-well wishes and prayers to her. That made her happy.

She says thanks and so do I . Thanks!

Send the What?

When I returned from lunch there was a man from the Company waiting to see me. He ushered me into an empty office normally used by visiting attorneys.

He introduced himself. Ray Hole, the new area manager.

Shake hands. Hole handed me his card, shut the door and took a seat behind the desk.

"Did Tom (my boss) talk to you on his way out?", asked Mr. Hole.

"No. Why?"

Well, explained Hole, the Company has been 'put on notice' by the Firm. If we didn't address certain 'problem areas' our contract would not be renewed.
The first thing they were doing was firing my boss. Immediately.

This didn't make any sense. Tom did a good job. There haven't been any blunders or missteps that I'm aware of.

" Why did you fire him?"

"Well, we need to put a new face on the Company."

"I don't know what that means."
I actually had a pretty good idea where this was heading, but I wanted to hear it from Hole's mouth.

"Um, well, Tom is a great guy but we need someone who can better sell the Company."

"I don't understand. We charge a flat rate and we already serve all the Firm's offices. What is there to sell?"

He gives a long-winded sales pitch about document management.

"But we already do all that. What is the problem?"

"Perception. We need emphasis on perception. It's important to send the right perception. Perception is everything."
He stands up and paces past me to illustrate his point.
"Imagine that I'm the client and I walk by and see Tom playing a video game. What kind of perception is that sending? "

I wanted to tell him that it's not a video game, it's the Warcraft forum, but I really don't want to admit that I know my boss spends his spare time on Warcraft sites.

"Oh. I see."
Tom has pissed someone off and they have complained to the boss and now he is getting fired. It's a personal vendetta. Seen it plenty of times.

"Look, you can trust me," intoned Hole, " ask anyone who knows me. I'm straight-up. I won't lie to you."

Suddenly I feel like I'm in a cheap TV movie or a bad comic book. Did he just say "ask anyone...I'm straight up?" As a rule I distrust persons who tell me I can trust them. Ask anyone? What did he want me to do? Call his friends for a character reference? What a weird thing to say.

" I heard you and the temp...what is her name?...talking when I came in earlier. You were laughing."

I am flummoxed. Yeah, maybe we were- we sit two feet apart and do speak to each other. Duh.

"Yes."

"Now, you aren't in trouble ( really? thank god I'm not in trouble for laughing) and I want you to stay with the Company team, but if I can hear you laughing, then other people can too, and what kind of perception does that send?"

"That we like our jobs?" It's a chatty office- it's not at all unusual to hear someone laugh.

"Well, we need to put on a more positive face around here. Let's curtail the laughing."

"That shouldn't be a problem. In fact, I doubt if I'll ever laugh again."

This is the wrong answer. Hole glowers at me. He has pegged me as hostile.
After a moment he says he has to make a call. Dismissed.

Later I am introduced to my new manager and her stooge. Her stooge is transferring in to replace the temp and I strongly suspect she's a corporate narc.They set about inspecting my work area, looking for ways to optimize the processing to maximize the productivity- basically they were looking for ways to make us look busier than we actually are by turning simple tasks into logistical nightmares.

New plans:

- Remove all the furniture except our desks and use the space to store boxes. The boxes will send the perception that are really, really cramped and barely have room to maneuver.
"With luck", said an enthusiastic Hole, "we can have two hundred or more boxes in here. Look at all this wasted space, he says, indicating the blank wall above my desk.
We can put up a pair of heavy-duty shelves and put two rows of boxes there."

Those twin shelves will send the perception that I am having a constant low-level attack of claustrophobic anxiety.

The workroom is already far too small for two people and we have a storeroom down the hall. A lot of the boxes we retrieve are 10 or 15 years old and musty as fuck-all. Sharing a room with two hundred of the fuckers is going to send the perception that I am having severe asthma attacks.

- Move the two workstations to a side-by- side position with both screens visible from the hall. Currently, my monitor is angled just right but now it'll be wide open- and the Stooge will be sitting next to me- I am much more comfortable with someone working across from me, not next to me. I don't like people sitting next to me when I work. It fucks with my personal space.
Plus I can't blog at work anymore.

- Make a "non-compliance" list of all the typos that we catch( transposed number, mis-matched client # etc) and who made them and submit a monthly report to the Firm. We process thousands of documents a day- when a number doesn't match it only takes a second to figure out why- it's almost always a typo. I just fix them and move on- I'd feel like an asshole if I told a paralegal that matter # 17262.001 is really 17262.0010 every time I saw something like that.
Filling out a detailed report on exactly who made what simple error and then turning them into the Firm is a not a job I want. I don't think pointing out the typos of the legal assistants is going to maximize our productivity. I think it's going send the perception that I am a rat and make me into the most-hated man in the office.

I bet they fire me as soon as I train the Stooge.

Tomorrow is gonna be a long day.

Remain Calm (Five of Four)

DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!

Despite issuing a bulletin calling for vigilance at airports concerning
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) Tuesday, officials with the Transportation
Security Administration said airline passengers should not worry.

The bulletin said that airport security has taken four items from passengers since September. It said the items were taken at airports in San Diego, Calif., Milwaukee, Wis., Houston and Baltimore, Md.

The confiscated items included wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances -- including a block of cheese, said officials.

Why would the TSA issue this bulletin? It seems to say that airport security has only confiscated four items- nationwide -in the last ten months or so, and some or all of those confiscations were of harmless objects.

The items listed:

1) 'wires'- no need to be specific. Any kind of wire is certainly a bomb.

2) 'switches'- again, no need for clarity. Everyone knows 'switch' is synonymous with 'bomb'.

3) 'pipes or tubes'- it was either a bomb or a bong. In either case, the quick-thinking TSA saved us from onomatopoetic booms and burbles.

4) 'cell phone components'- These can be cleverly hidden inside a cell phone.

5) ' a block of cheese'- This is item #5 ( out of 4) and it says a lot about the credibility of TSA bulletins. I'm guessing that this item was intercepted at the Milwaukee airport.

In 2006 I flew to Chicago shortly after the TSA issued a ban on cosmetics, lotions and water bottles. All I had was a carry-on bag. As the TSA screener rifled through my bag's outer pockets, I was filled with sudden dread: Oh shit. I have a tube of toothpaste inside my bag. And nail clippers. Maybe some floss. Dental floss is a garrote-in-a-box. I'm in trouble...how could I have been so stupid?

"Sir, you cannot carry matches on board", said a plump uniformed woman as she handled my bag. Sure enough, I had overlooked a book of 'souvenir' matches from a no-tell motel outside of Columbus , Ohio; the guard held the green cardboard up, chastising me before briskly tossing them into a white contraband basket with the words "Property of United States Postal Service" printed on the side.

Damn. Those were my favorite matches.

When the guard tried to open the main compartment of my American Tourister, a loose piece of clothing became stuck in the teeth of the bag's zipper. The guard tugged, but it wasn't budging. She glared at me.

"I think it's a sock", I said stupidly.

More glare.

Tug. Glare.

Don't glare back, my inner voice warned. You will lose a glare-down.

I meekly offered to help, but Mistress Suitcase ignored me. She took a pair of confiscated-looking cuticle cutters and neatly trimmed a hole in my rogue sock.

You bitch! You just cut a hole in my sock! Don't say anything...

The sock was released, but it left enough of itself behind to keep the zipper stuck fast. My sock-stabbing nemesis pulled the three-inch opening as wide as she could and peered inside.

I could see the white gleam of the toothpaste tube from six feet away. Miss Case gestured with her hand. I thought she was summoning the National Guardsman who was standing behind me, but she was waving me through, all clear. All clear?
OK!

Once the plane was in the air, I requested some water. Then I snuck into the bathroom and surreptitiously brushed my teeth. I was grateful for the fresh minty breath, but it sorta left me with a feeling that airport security is a joke at best and malicious at worst and that if you really wanted to, you could get pretty much anything at all on board.

After 10 months, they have only found four ( or five) suspicious items? I had almost that many in my bag. I wonder how often they miss stuff? Bad stuff.
It scares me to think about it.

And why didn't my matches didn't make the list of taken items?
Were they not properly suspicious? Maybe I should have taped a block of cheese to them.

Boil Away

I once worked in a Big Insurance office that was being closed down. I was working as a temp, processing claims from Hurricane Isabel, and was one of the last people to actually occupy the building. One of my final tasks was to box up all the office supplies left over from the Isabel Catastrophe operation (which once consisted of 300+ workers) and arrange for a company truck to take them back to the Catastrophe Team Warehouse.
Some items were deemed disposable - too expensive to ship back and re-distribute- and were to be discarded.
One of those items were the loose ballpoint pens. There were three Zip-Loc freezer bags full of pens- probably 1,500 or more- and it didn't feel right to throw away so many perfectly good writing sticks.
I had been reading a website that was collecting "care packages" for the troops in Iraq and one of the Army chaplains had written an email on behalf of the local schools. He said something akin to :
" We need pens and paper. Entire classes are sharing a single pencil and there is no paper. "
There was a military APO to send stationary and supplies to.

I thought it would be a great idea to send these pens ( and pads, pencils, staplers etc) to this chaplain in Baghdad- I mean , we were gonna throw 'em away- so I told my boss what I was doing.

"No! You are not doing that."

"But why? It's a good cause."

"I'm not debating that. But those pens all have the Company logo on them and if one of those pens winds up inside a terrorist car-bomb, it'll be my ass that gets hanged."

I thought he was being a bit paranoid, but I saw his point about the logo. A few people were starting to realize that the war was going badly and the boss was a bit leery of putting the Company in a position where it looked like it was sponsoring the war.

So I sorted out the 100 or so pens that didn't have the logo on them and sent them anonymously to the chaplain. The rest I kept, gave away or donated to the radio station.
I had forgotten all about it until I read about the Executive Order signed by Bush on 17 July:

"I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people."

The new Executive Order authorizes the Sec. or Treasury to seize the property and economic assets of any American citizen who is "threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq...undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq..," or those who "have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of...[people who do bad things].

(It's interesting that the European press caught this story but the American media has ignored it. It's also a bit ironic that Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, had his assets frozen for trading with the Nazis in WWII.)

Under this new order, I would be afraid to send those pens to the chaplain - what if one of the pens fell into the wrong hands and the ballpoint spring was used to create a detonator for a roadside bomb? My vast fortune would be seized by the Treasury Dept.

But the real target of this order are anti-war groups and organizations. It will be interesting to see if BushCo invokes this New Order to punish Cindy Sheehan for having the temerity to publicly point out the obvious. Sheehan, you may have heard, was arrested yesterday after being told by John Conyers (D-Wuss) that Congress "doesn't have the votes" to impeach Bush.
I would submit to Mr. Conyers that the Founders intended for us to exercise the checks and balances built into our Constitution - use 'em or lose 'em- and that impeachment is needed right now- but I digress.

Speak out about the war? The right-wingnuts often call that "undermining" the efforts, so it's possible BushCo might try to freeze the assets of Sheehan and any group ( CodePink, AfterDowning Street, Move On et. al.) or individual who assisted or supported her in any way.

If that Executive Order isn't scary enough, read this:

Just last month new legislation was signed which declares that in the event of a "catastrophic event", the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.

The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which also places the Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic "security", was signed on May 9th without the approval or oversight of Congress and seemingly supercedes the National Emergency Act which allows the president to declare a national emergency but also requires that Congress have the authority to "modify, rescind, or render dormant" such emergency authority if it believes the president has acted inappropriately.

If you follow the link above, you will find the official White House release. At the end , it chillingly notes that the rest of the Order is classified- by Executive Order.

Rep. Peter DiFazio (D-OR) recently asked the White House for access to the classified Bush plan of action in case of another terrorist attack. DiFazio, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, had his request denied.

The White House didn't want to admit that it had a secret plan, and now that we know it exists, the Bush administration won't tell us what it is.
I wonder if it involves these Halliburton-built concentration camps?

Republican Ron Paul said this in 2005, regarding a Bush proposal to declare martial law in case of an Avian Flu epidemic:

"To me it's so strange that the President can make these proposals and it's even plausible. When he talks about martial law dealing with some epidemic that might come later on and having forced quarantines, doing away with Posse Comitatus in order to deal with natural disasters, and hardly anybody says anything. People must be scared to death."

To me it's strange that Bush is still President. He has recently declared himself and Cheney to be above and exempt from the law:

Domestically, they're no longer even trying to hide their aversion to democracy and the Constitution. With his new Executive Order on "executive privilege," for example, Bush openly proclaims that he is untouchable by the rule of law; now there are only two branches of government-- the Legislative Branch is ignored as irrelevant -- and Cheney/Bush more or less control them both. More on this issue [here].

So without consulting Congress or notifying the public, BushCo has signed laws that , in the case of certain events (such as a terrorist attack), gives the President unchecked power over the entire government- he becomes the the government- and if you don't like it, you might be "undermining" the war effort and have your property stolen.

Stephen Pizzo calls this the "boiling the frog" method of destroying our Constitution. You place a frog in a pan of water and slowly turn up the heat. By the time the frog realizes the water is lethal, it's too late to jump.

Soup's on!

Stall Genie

Got a tough question? Need some covert advice?

Ask the Stall Genie.

No query too large, no questions too small ,the Stall Genie answers them all.

So stop stalling and start asking.

Who Knows?

Oh no.
My worst nightmare realized.
I forgot to reset my alarm after last night's brief power outage- it's exactly 7 AM. I have to be on-air in zero seconds. I call the studio and ask DJ KB to give me 15 minutes, on the way, etc...
(Thanks K)
Then I realized I hadn't put my show together- I was gonna do it in the early morning hours- so I just grab the first box o' crap I see and bolt.

At 7:10 I'm signing on. It's a good thing I live near the studio.

Lou Reed- What's Good?
This album, Magic and Loss, was gift to me from my mom as she was dying of cancer. For years I couldn't listen to it without falling apart but now I fall back on it when I need strength.
This morning I fell back on it when I needed an opening song.

Jefferson Airplane- Other Side of This Life
It always looks better here from over there.
I'm a big fan of the Airplane family and this live LP is one of my faves- those guys could really tear it up on stage- none of that polished Marty Balin Starship crap that came later...

Larry Graham-Hair
I cut the hell out of myself while shaving my head yesterday- had blood running down my face like Sissy Spacek in Carrie-well, it wasn't quite that bad. It was more like a few drops, but it's more dramatic to describe it as 'torrents'.

Tom Verlaine- Down on the Farm
As heard in Television- from his solo LP, Mr. Blur. I found this in a box of closet junk- cool find!

King Crimson- Heartbeat
I need to land sometime...right next to you.
This LP, Beat , and the following one, Three of a Perfect Pair, contain some unusually sweet and accessible love songs by Crimson standards. After they broke up, singer/guitarist Adrian Belew released a couple of solo albums celebrating the wonders of fatherhood and domestic bliss, so I guess the Crimson tracks were a form of foreshadowing.

Tangerine Dream- Little Blond in the House of Attractions
Right now I need a song that's seven minutes long. Maybe longer. The radio in the bathroom is broken...much time is left? Aaaaaaa!
This should be titled : Little Bald in the Outhouse of Spasms

Pentangle- Hunting Song
This group is better than a dozen Xanax. Their recordings have a timeless, hypnotic clarity to them. I haven't had any coffee and I start drifting off...pretty guitars...sweet voice

Stranglers- Golden Brown
Bad choice- I love this ballad, but the faux harpsichord and airy harmonies are puttin' me to sleep. La lala la...

Loreena McKinnet - Mummer's Dance
If I'm gonna lapse into dreamland on-air, I might as well play McKinnett and hope that I fall into a shamanistic trance state. Those are educational.

Clannad- Love and Affection
Why is this so hard to find? The song asks, but doesn't answer.

Fiona Joyce- The Juggler
One of the few new Celtic CD's received recently. I like Joyce a lot, hard to find in the stores though.

Bob Dylan- Mighty Quinn/ Little Sadie
When in doubt, a double Dylan will do. From Self-Portrait.

Damien Dempsey- Celtic Tiger
Swift would like this song. A lot. If you can find Dempsey stateside, buy it.

Marianne Faithfull - Broken English
I love this LP. My favorite song contains some of the most beautiful profanity ever recorded. Too bad I can't play it.

Hot Tuna- North Wind Rise
Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen from the Airplane Family.

Lucinda Williams- I Lost It
Hahahaha...I love this song! Finally starting to wake up. LW is my new coffee!

Patti Smith - Free Money
Wanna know how to make free money? Hmmm? No one? Aw.

Robert Fripp- Chicago
I love the muted howling of the guitar in the background...it reminds me of sitting on my brother's shady Chicago back porch. It's calm and peaceful, but in the distance something loud is always happening.

Alan Parsons Project- Don't Let It Show
Sometimes I feel like this song. Not sure that's a good thing.

Soft Boys- Positive Vibration
Keep it positive! Manic happy!

Flaming Groovies- Comin' After Me
Ten headhunters with a buzz-saw! Not that I'm paranoid or anything...

Clash- Brand New Cadillac
When I was kid, I listened to the Grateful Dead. When I got older I listened to the Clash.
I still listen to the Clash.

Quicksilver Messenger Service- Gold and Silver
This jazzy dueling guitar instrumental should be a nice intro to the next show, which is called Be-Bop and Beyond- it's hosted by a former New Orleans DJ, Mr. Jazz, and his theme song is by jazz great Horace Silver- done special for Mr. Jazz! Hep!

Damn...why am I so tired? Oh yeah. I know why I'm so tired.

Sweet dreams and have a pleasant valley Sunday!

Cindy in the Park

This afternoon Cindy Sheehan gave a speech in my front yard.
There was a peace rally at Byrd Park, which is only a few blocks from my apartment, so I braved the perfect weather and went to hear her. At first , I thought the event was canceled because I didn't see the gathering on the other side of the artificial lake.



No cars on this side of the lake.
Lots of cars on the other side.
Where is the rally?


Not here.
I hear a bongo drum in the distance. Bomp. Once.
Maybe over there?

Here it is.

The last I heard, Sheehan had 'retired' from marches and rallies, but she's been stirring it up lately. I didn't know that she had been banned from the Daily Kos for threatening to run as an independent against Nancy Pelosi for her seat at the House of Representatives or that she recently moved an appearance in Charlotte because of concern over violence from a pro-war group called "Gathering of Eagles."

On the GoE website one person left this comment in reference to Sheehan: "Eagles have been known to kill rodents". Another comment claims that the "vast silent majority of Americans" support the war.

Really?

I'm sick of war.

How about you?

Peace.





Out.

American Death Watch

My boss just told me to get get busy blogging.

Uh. OK...any special reason?

Yes! Because I want someone to use my line!

And that is?

"It's about time an American citizen got to ream Bush in the ass instead of the other way around!"

That got my attention. Sure enough, Bush will be sedated and anally probed tomorrow and Dick Cheney will become President of the United States for two or three hours. Comforting, eh?

If I were Bush, I'd ignore my doctor's advice and put this off until 2008. Sure, he did this in 2002 without a hitch, but the time wasn't right for a Cheney power-grab then. Cheney's power was unchecked by Congress and unquestioned by the media , he didn't need to usurp Dubya's throne- he already had control. Now, I wouldn't put it past Cheney to plan an "accident" which would simultaneously put him in the White House and solve the GOP's Bush problem.

Consider this: As it stands now, no matter who the 2008 GOP candidate is, they are going to lose and they are going to lose because of George Bush. They can only distance themselves from him but so far and still remain in the same party- and it would take something very dramatic to transform Bush into a sympathetic character.
I can think of one thing that might suffice, and if I can think of it, so can Dick Cheney. I'm not a murderer, but Cheney...well, all I'm saying is that I never thought I'd be sending warm wishes to Bush for a clean ass report and a speedy recovery from his butt probe, but I am:

Dear Mr. President,
Please, for the sake of America- don't let the docs sedate you. Stay conscious and take your anal probe like a man.
Anesthetics involve risk- and do you really trust Dick Cheney with your life?
I wouldn't.
I wouldn't trust Cheney with someone else's asshole- and you are our asshole.

-best wishes,
American Citizen

Get In Now!

I posted this link in one of my first-ever posts. At the time, I had a temp job that was so slack I had nothing better to do than spend entire days researching weird animals.
One of my enduring favorites is the hagfish, which is a really fascinating creature.
Did you know that the hagfish can tie itself into knots and cover itself with slime? It can.
Anyway, I had a brief period of hagfish-driven wistfulness, eventually moving on to the snakehead fish, the giant squid and other beasties ...but I kept drifting back to the hagfish and wondering...

NOW

Now you can make $30k-$50k a month, in your spare time, raising hagfish. I started with a motley collection of wading pools that I stole from suburban backyards and just this month I signed a 10-year contract with The City to convert their soon-to-be unfunded Municipal Swimming Pools into a series of hagfish hatcheries. I can barely find the time to write this, hurried as I am by meetings with my perpetually breathless team of expert helpers-even now we are lining up some other Big Cities and boy, let me tell you, they are ponying up some juicy incentives to help us annex their burdensome and unsanitary Public pools.

I can't tell you the details, since it's mostly illegal, but trust me-it's a sweetheart deal!

Big cities, not dead-end towns, but Big Cities- the kind you read about in the papers- are jumping on the Hagfish bandwagon faster than slimed lightning.

You can do more than read about the Big City hagfish goldmines- you can own one of them!

NOW IS THE TIME

The hagfish stands poised to break out of the muck and into the Fortune 500. The hagfish is a critical player in the booming North Korean marketplace and now you can bring a little of that Asian zest to your hometown.

The Koreans have been eating hagfish for centuries- more so now than ever, since the 'hag's' food of choice is dead fish, which Korea's polluted waterways produce in abundance. The hagfish thrives in an environment of untreated sewage and raw industrial waste, lending credibility and hope to the once far-fetched Utopian ideal of the world's oceans becoming a global hagfish paradise.

In N.K. there's not much to eat but hagfish and sewer cabbages, meaning that North Korea is actually thirty to forty years ahead of the rest of the planet, not fifty years behind , as some speculate.

WHY ?

Face it-the meat market has seen better days. First there was the Mad Cow scare; now an Avian Flu pandemic seems inevitable- I mean, migratory birds as carriers? That's frightening. The possibility of a world-wide decimation of poultry livestocks is a very real one, and it could cause an epic shitstorm in the Big Food markets.

Of course any domestic outbreaks would be covered up at first- or blamed on Canada, or both - but eventually it'll get out and then-no more chicken or turkey, goose or duck, pigeon or vulture, etc. No more eggs.

No more omelets or holiday bird feasting. What a fallen world it will be for the wretched masses who aren't ready to seize the future. The ones who didn't invest in hagfish when they had they chance. I'd pity them, but I'm too busy counting my money. When the chicken disappear, they're gonna leave behind a mighty big hole. I intend to plug that hole with hagfish.

HAGFISH IS THE NEW CHICKEN

Like me, if you've ever worked the 'C' shift at a frankfurter factory , you know that anything can be converted into a product that the majority of people will treat as if it were edible. This includes hagfish. Modern food processing technologies allow the entire fish, rudimentary skeleton included, to be pulped, pasted and formed into a variety of consumer-friendly shapes- why just last week, I signed a deal with Disney Inc. to manufacture a series of hagfish nuggets in the shapes of beloved Disney characters!

Q: What looks like Donald Duck, tastes like chicken franks and flies off of supermarket shelves?

A: Hagfish Nuggets!

As a bonus, hag's hide can be fashioned into small, versatile articles such as those that would normally be constructed of leather- a belt, a wallet, or a pouch that a child could use to carry marbles and a pitiful handful of coins collected from passers-by. These items can be cheaply manufactured overseas by unpaid orphans, stamped with a look-alike designer logo and sold on cable TV and parking-lot "flee" markets for a ten-fold profit.

Even better, the copious slime that the fish produces when stressed contains the same proteins as egg albumen, making it a perfect substitute for eggs in many dishes, especially baked goods. Remember, after the chicken is gone, so is the egg.

THIS EVOLUTIONARY THROWBACK IS A MONEY TREE!

I've even taken the financially prudent step of registering "Hulafish" as a business trademark- 'Hagfish' as a brand name has fared poorly in our focus groups, but everyone one loves the old-fashioned, yet hip sound of 'Hulafish'- it's similar phonetically to tunafish, which gives the consumer a "comfort platform" from which to encounter my product. Your product.

Our product.

I NEED YOUR HELP

That's a lie. I need your money.

A mere $50,000 will grant you semi-exclusive Hulafish farming rights in one or more specially selected zip codes. Some of our carefully selected regions are so desolate and inaccessible that they are virtually uninhabited, making them prime areas for intensive development- you can recoup your initial investment with just one mass spamming, selling sub-farms and franchising sweatshops for the production of "Hulaskin" shoes.

My friend, if you can't sell a product named "Hulaskin" on the Web, you should be living in a Marxist collective, not investing in my product.

URGENT

Unless I can get $50k soon, the City will withdraw it's offer- and the hagfish will never save the world. Instead of millions of dollars in subsidized profits , myself and my fellow visionaries will have only our broken dreams and the pained expression on our faces as we once again tell our teary-eyed and malnourished children that this Friday, as every Friday before, there will be no Hulafish on our barren plank of a table.

Don't let this happen.

Send money NOW, before it's too late.

For the children.

I Just Said "No"

The only thing I fear more than death-by-loneliness is being stabbed to death in my sleep by a deranged girlfriend...no, that's not true. I'd rather be murdered in my sleep than endure a lifetime of bad relationships, so at the moment I am alone. That's a choice. I've actually had several overtures recently but I walked away from them all for reasons ranging from prejudice to self-preservation.

It's amazing how much you can learn about sex by not having it- the absence of humpage seems to encourage thought and reason.
Maybe I'm smarter now.
Or maybe I'm just picky.
Or scared.
Or all of the above.

In any case, I wound up giving my version of The Speech ( Let's Just Be Friends) again lately and it's starting to bother me; I am accustomed to being on the receiving end of The Speech, not to giving it- and after giving it, I realize that no matter how well-intentioned, The Speech has a tendency to be a bit disingenuous. Especially the part about remaining friends.

I have a friend here who drinks. Heavily.
Last winter, she reached out to me for help with the drinking. I can't do anything, I said, that is up to you. All I can do is listen and I will- call me anytime but don't call me if you are drunk.

She didn't call for months.

Then we bumped into each other a while back and started talking , she seemed sincere about quitting, she wanted to talk more, in private.

OK. I am cool with that.

So she invited me to dinner and when I arrived, she stank of vodka. Alcoholics like to think vodka is odorless and hence undetectable, but that is a fallacious assumption. Vodka has a strong odor and anything that's 80 proof will noticeably impair you and this woman was impaired. Wobbly drunk.

I got angry. Usually, it doesn't bother me very much to be around people who are drinking, but this was different- we were supposed to be talking about sobriety, a useless conversation to have with a drunk.

Look. I like you but I can't be around you like this.

Don't you think I'm attractive?

I should have said "no, not at the moment", but I was too nice. She is very pretty and I told her that - the next thing I knew she had slipped her distillery tongue into my mouth.

Aughh!

I swear, I could feel a 'contact drunk' from that stolen kiss. I wanted her (or at least my body did) but I knew what would happen if we slept together- I would convince myself that I was in love with her (I'm not) and try to 'rescue' her, which would fail and lead me back into drinking just so I could be with her.

I know this because I've been through it before.

To repeat my mistakes would be insane, so I did the next craziest thing, which was actually
the only sane option- I gave her The Speech.

Dickless asshole!

It didn't go over well.

Rule #1 : Don't date drunks.

Sub-Rule #1a: Don't date drunks who call you "dickless asshole."

Anyway, I must be putting out major pheromones, because a few days later I was getting a ride home from a woman I don't know very well and she asked me if I wanted to go back to her place and get high- sure, I said, why not?

I know her husband, so I assumed he'd be home and that this was just a social visit- I really should have known better. As soon as we sparked the first joint, she started talking to me about her impending divorce...man, I shoulda seen that coming. I've been there before too.

Most guys would probably have just fucked her and vamoosed, but I am not wired like that. I know what would happen- I'd wind up convincing myself that I was in love and it would end in humiliation and tears when I found out the feeling wasn't reciprocal.

Stupid, but I can't help it. It's how I am. I have an extremely naive and idealized notion of romance- it's as if my emotions stopped growing when I started my drinking career in high school and have only resumed progress now, twenty-odd years later.
I don't know where I get my ideas from- I certainly didn't grow up around well-adjusted relationships- I think my ideals are the merely the reverse of what I saw as a kid.
In my perfect world Daddy comes home at night and Mommy doesn't play with guns.
That's pretty much as far as I get with the details of my expectations.
Useless. Dreamer.
I wonder how many hopeless romantics come from broken homes?
Anyway.

So again with The Speech.

Don't you think I'm attractive?

Yes, yes I do...but I like you too much for this...which was a lie, because I don't know her very well at all. This lie made me feel bad, so I compounded the harm with honesty.

Look, I've been through this before and I'm just not emotionally suited to having affairs. I'll get hurt. You'll get hurt. Stop.

Man, I should have stuck with my lie. To her, I think it sounded like I was confessing to bedding every married woman in Virginia except her, because I somehow found her less attractive than all the other women- which wasn't true at all...I buried myself in a deep verbal hole and handed her the shovel. Instead of a spadeful of soil, she tossed this poisoned rose into my freshly-dug grave:

My husband won't touch me anymore.

Try walking home alone late at night with those words echoing in your head.
On second thought, don't.
It sucks. Take my word for it.

Rule #2: Don't sleep with married women.

Rule #3: Don't be a plot device in someone else's revenge drama.

The third rejection slip was the easiest one. It's much simpler to reject someone if you aren't interested in the first place -a gay acquaintance made an awkwardly polite move on me...dude, that's flattering and all, but I'm not gay. I didn't have to give The Speech at all, I just said "no , thanks."

When I was in my late teens I spent two or three days lost in a New Orleans dungeon.

It was during Mardi Gras and I don't remember how I got in or how I got out , but it did dispel any lingering adolescent doubts I had about my sexual orientation. It's a one-way street.
If a three-day absinthe and cocaine binge in a French Quarter dungeon doesn't bring out any hidden peccadilloes, nothing will.

Still, I thought it was kinda flattering to get hit on- most of the gay guys I know are very particular about appearance, clothes and general hygiene, so being hit on by one must indicate that I'm reasonably attractive, well-dressed and unfunky. That was rarely the case when I was drunk, so I guess I'm making progress.

Progress.

Did I tell you about this girl that I really like?

No?

Good.

Everybody's Doing It

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Sexual abuse of children is not just a Catholic Church problem and other institutions should take steps to acknowledge and deal with such "wickedness" within their own ranks, the Vatican said on Tuesday.

The deal settles all 508 cases that remained against the archdiocese, which also paid $60 million in December to settle 45 cases that weren't covered by sexual abuse insurance.

Under the latest deal, the archdiocese will pay $250 million, insurance carriers will pay a combined $227 million and several religious orders will chip in $60 million. The remaining $123 million will come from litigation with religious orders that chose not to participate in the deal, with the archdiocese guaranteeing resolution of those 80 to 100 cases within five years, Hennigan said. The archdiocese is released from liability in those claims, Tamberg said.

Several religious orders in California have also reached multimillion-dollar settlements in recent months, including the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Jesuits.S. church since 1950 to more than $2 billion, with about a quarter of that coming from the Los Angeles archdiocese. A judge must sign off on the agreement.

The Los Angeles archdiocese, its insurers and various Roman Catholic orders have paid more than $114 million to settle 86 claims so far.

I didn't know there was such a thing as 'sexual abuse insurance'.

I do know that if you build a house on the slope of an active volcano you will have a hard time finding an insurance carrier, and rightly so , because there are 10 million tons of boiling, roiling magma in your backyard and it's headed for your porch...so who the hell would insure Catholic priests against sexual abuse? That's a loser's bet.

It's come up again and again that the Vatican's policy of prohibiting it's priests from being married is somehow at the root of the Church's long history of pedophilia , but I don't think that is the cause of their woes- wouldn't a normal, healthy man just masturbate and/or have unmarried sex with a consenting adult? Yeah, I know the Church doesn't approve of those practices either, but wouldn't it be a lot cheaper than paying the premium on $227 million in sexual abuse insurance? As far as I know, Lloyd's of London doesn't offer 'wanking insurance' , nor are the hymens of nuns insured against breakage.

I would submit that the 'no-marriage' clause does not turn healthy ( read: non-abusive) men into sexual predators, it simply encourages deviants to enter the priesthood while simultaneously discouraging healthy men from joining. A sexual abuser, who cannot publicly disclose or indulge his fetishes anyway, is much less likely to be dissuaded by a vow of chastity than a man who prefers fornication of a consensual, adult kind.

The huge settlement seems to indicate that the no-marriage rule has become counter-productive. It was originally instituted to ensure that Catholic priests didn't produce heirs, as the heirs would inherit property that would otherwise remain in the Church. The chastity rule has nothing at all to do with morality and everything to do with economics, so it follows that if it's costing the Church hundreds of millions of dollars to protect child-molesters, it must still be cheaper than the cost of allowing priests to marry and leave estates to their potentially heretic children. That, I believe, is the main reason the Church remains inflexible on this issue- the entire patriarchal economic power-structure would have to be deconstructed and rebuilt at the expense of those enjoying the benefits of the current system. Hold your breath and wait for that to happen.

I'm contemptuous of the Church's attempt at misdirection:

...other institutions should take steps to acknowledge and deal with such
"wickedness" within their own ranks, the Vatican said ...

but sadly, there's also truth in it. Child-molesters are on quest for power and control, and what better position to find power, control and rationalization of criminal misbehavior than as head of a church?

There's always politics.

It Never Stops

Good news first, then everything else: I made a road trip without breaking down or colliding with car-killing quadrupeds. My grandmother looks good and she feels better, more so than anyone but her expected- she may even be allowed to return home in two or three weeks if she continues to do well with her therapy. It's a cause for celebration.

At least it should have been.

I didn't get home until late last night and when I did, I had a phone message from my brother. Call him right away- it's important. So I did.


It turns out that the man who got our mother pregnant has started drinking again. If I had taken the time to visit him, I might have been able to stop what happened from happening, but I didn't do that and as a result , things at home have gone from better to worst in less than a day.

Yesterday, dad apparently fell down the stairs at the family house and tumbled into my grandmother's most precious piece of furniture - her glass China cabinet. He completely destroyed it, along with many of her most cherished and fragile items...a porcelain doll that Granpa carried back from Okinawa after WWII...plates that belonged to her parents...glassware gifts from relatives no longer with us- I don't yet know the full list of losses or all the details of the accident. I'm sitting at work waiting for and dreading more information.


Here's what I know:


Sharon, who is a friend of Grannie's from church, had stopped by the house to feed the cat and check up on my dad, who can't be trusted, him having a long history of relapsing and fucking up. Sharon used her key to let herself in and saw blood and broken glass everywhere- but no dad. She was calling 911 when my blood-soaked parent returned from the store, carrying more beer. According to my second-hand info, he had a number of serious cuts but refused to seek medical attention- he was more than a little abusive to Sharon, who really does not deserve such treatment, and she left him to stew in his own demise.


After talking to my brother, I actually tried to call my dad. Of course, there was no answer.


I hate myself for making that call. I need to stop caring.


I have tried to care- I had fooled myself into thinking it was possible- I had thought that I had reached a sort of peace with my father and that this peace might possibly lead to forgiveness.


Instead, I am humiliated for wasting so much time and energy on such a lost cause- and my grandmother not only feels disgraced ( it's a small town and everyone knows about my dad) but when she heard about the accident her blood pressure sank like a stone. My father is killing himself and he's killing his mother at the same time- she has undergone weeks of grueling therapy; tests; rehab sessions and life-training classes just to learn that her adult son has smashed what few belongings of hers he hasn't already stolen and sold and is currently lying in a puddle of blood, piss and beer. The puddle he is occupying is on her new carpet where her china cabinet used to be.

When he relapses, her health fails. It's a cycle that's been going on for decades and I have done everything I can think of to break it but I can't. He has to stop drinking or he will die and he knows it - but he doesn't care. He doesn't care if he kills his own mother in the process.

He told his mother that he wants to die.

She has been fighting for her life and her son tells her that he wants to die, that being dead is better than having to take care of her.


If he lives, his actions will kill his mother.


If he dies, his death will have the same result.


I have once again given up all hope for my father. My brother, who has been considerably more loyal than myself, has also given up. My father's younger brother is hardly any better than my dad, he's a daily drunk in a deep state of denial, so there's no help to be had from him.

So the cycle starts again. My dad is a wounded fugitive from reality, a menace to every noun he can reach , and my grandmother is literally worrying herself to death over him and there isn't anything that can be done. The local police don't care what dad does as long as he keeps it off the road and dad has repeatedly turned down our Pastor's very generous offer of a church-funded 28-day rehab clinic. He needs to be locked up and forced to change- it is never going to come from inside him.
I don't know if there is anything left inside my father at all. I don't think he can come back from the place he has chosen for himself and that's where the pain really hits- that he has has chosen this life for himself.
People like to say that alcoholics lack willpower, but that is incorrect. It takes a lot of willpower to cut yourself into ribbons and still manage to limp to the store for more beer.
That takes serious determination.

You would think that no store would sell beer to a man covered in blood, but obviously that is also incorrect. After I hit a deer on Independence Day, I was forced to buy paper towels and cleanser at a crowded gas station and I had deer's blood all over me. Deer blood, for those without large-scale roadkill experience, looks exactly like human blood; over the course of an hour or more, only one person bothered to even ask why I was covered in blood.

Why should they care? Why do I care?

I am trying really hard to not care. I don't want to care. I am tired of the pain of caring and I am weary of the burden of false hope, but what else is there?

It would be so easy to start drinking again. Soon, all my problems would become other people's worries- on top of the frantic phone calls about his father, my brother would also start getting emergency calls regarding myself.

I like to tell people that it's fear that keeps me sober, and in a large part this is true. I know what will happen if I drink and it involves pain , bleeding and a slow death by self-torture.
That scares me away from the booze, but there's more to it than just that; this never-ending trauma with our father is having terrible emotional effects on my brother and I love my brother too much to inflict any more unnecessary, tragic alcoholic bullshit on him. I can't say as how I'm especially fond of myself right now, because I am not- but I love my Twin and the thought of causing him any more pain makes me feel as broken and torn as the deer that I killed two weeks ago.

So I'll add love to my short list of reasons to stay sober.
It will be enough. It has to be.

Five

Cruel Virgin has started a sort of personalized meme; she is providing bloggers- on a voluntary basis- with 5 custom "interview" questions. I will pass the meme along to the third blogger to request an interview (hey, I'm a DJ, I like caller #x stuff ).
Below are the 9 questions that I received, along with my replies, which may or may not constitute answers:

1. Is there another human being who can equal or even top you in musical knowledge (professional musicians excluded)? What would they have to do to know what you do?

A) I am not sure exactly what "musical knowledge" means (rock trivia, musical prowess, theory etc) , but in any case the answer is a resounding Yes. There are DJs at the station who have encyclopedic musical memories that shame me and I have friends who can not only play more instruments than I , but they also play them better. Some of the DJ's concentrate on one or two specific genres and are deep experts in those fields- I am more of a dilettante. I know almost nothing about music from 1995- 2007.

B) Do? I don't know. It's not something you "do" consciously, It's a passion that finds you. You have to really enjoy listening to music. I do. I think a lot of it comes from growing up in the era when the release of a new album was a social occasion and people would get together in person and listen to new records together in a party atmosphere. Perhaps this still occurs and I just don't have any friends, but I suspect that one of the unfortunate drawbacks to digital musical ubiquity is that music can lose it's virtue - art becomes corrupted, even usurped by commerce and henceforth falls into decay. I have heard songs by band like the Buzzcocks, Stranglers and Jimi Hendrix used in adverts for products and service affordable only to the upper-middle class and higher- today it seems as if hit songs are hyping product as soon as released, if not sooner.

2. You once wrote on my blog that if you believed in God, you would keep it a secret. Would you explain that statement?
I can't recall the context of the comment, but this sounds like an allusion to my opinion that many, if not most, Christian "leaders" who publicly proclaim their faith ( meaning mega-churches and gov't podiums- not community temples, homes, personal blogs etc) must certainly be atheists at heart, because their actions belie their professed values - if they were true believers, they'd be more careful with their souls.
I should have added "unless specifically asked under proper circumstances" to that statement- I generally try keep my ideas about faith publicly muted for the same reason I don't tell most people what I think would really happen if Superman fought Thor- people tend to get bored and/or offended and it makes me sound crazier than I already am.

3. What really pisses you off about American society, minus the current governmental regime (I know that does limit you.)?

The acceptance of mediocrity as the norm bothers me. The celebration of the insipid and the vacuous outrages me. Incurious makes me furious. Why are we, as a society, only now waking up and smelling the dog food that we've been eating for six years? If We the People had been paying attention we would already be minus the current regime.

4. If you could sit down and have a heart to heart with the President, name three questions you would ask him? What do you think would be his reply?

The trick here would be to ask questions that he might actually answer. Any direct 'tough ones' (was the war worth it?, etc) will be spun into deflective rhetoric. By appealing to his egocentric, baser self -the dominant aspect of his personality- it might be possible to gain some insight into whatever it is that happens between his ears.

A) What would you name as your single greatest accomplishment as President?

I ask this because I can't think of a single positive example. His pick would be telling...vetoing legislation supported by the majority of the public? I doubt that he'd pick Iraq.

B) It is well known that you have a history of alcoholism and as a fellow alcoholic I would like to congratulate you on your personal recovery. Well done.
How long has it been since your last drink?

Feint with the empathetic kudos, then riposte with the real question. I imagine he'd stumble, indicating dishonesty.

C) The 8th step of the AA recovery program states: "Make a list of all the persons we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all". This is based on the Christian idea of Redemption. If you could only be forgiven for one sin, which sin would you choose to be forgiven for?

I doubt that Chucklehead is capable of admitting to any sin, which is in direct contradiction to his professed faith, which states that we are all sinners. I imagine I'd be waterboarded at this point.

5. You live in some part of the South. What do you think of us Yankees? Is it true that the South is talking about seceding from the Union again? (Just a nasty rumour I heard.) Is there a state in the US that you wouldn't miss if it said bye bye?

First, I must take some umbrage with sweeping generalizations like "us Yankees" ; my own biases and prejudices are much more specific. I dislike New York but not New Yorkers and I consider Chicago as my home away from home...to choose one generalized difference between North and South, I would say that Yankees have a sense of urgency that I sometimes find frustratingly lacking here.

Second, were the South to secede again, I wouldn't know until it was too late. I am not in that loop.

Third, no. Washington D.C. is not a state.

Blue Man Grope

I feel your pain and it's starting to hurt, so wouldja just get better already?

I had eight and a half hours of airtime this weekend- three two-hour shows as DJ and one show as engineer/producer. I was so impressed with myself that I took my own picture so that you, the reader, could admire me as much as I admire myself. Actually, I was trying to examine the sunburn on my scalp but I won't post those pics... suffice it say that next time I go for a drive with the sunroof open I will wear a hat.

Anyway, six hours of music is about seventy-five songs- plus the 30 minutes I picked up from the 6am DJ who overslept- usually I post and narrate my playlists, but this is 75 fucking songs- who the hell would read that? Better yet, who would write it?

Me. But without the details this week.

First, Zendo Soundsystem. DJ Ras-Bob usually mixes it up with modern flavor, but my groove music collection tends towards the WayBack Machine and the Mothership Connection- (and a few cuts from South Park):

Cameo- Word Up
Funkadelic- Freek of the Week
Talking Heads- I Zimbra
Curtis Mayfield- Little Child Runnin' Wild
Master P- Kenny's Dead
Average White Band- Schoolboy Crush
Papa John Creach - Enjoy
Red Hot Chili Peppers-If You Want Me To Stay
Funkadelic- I'll Stay
Steve Hillage-Unzipping the Zype
Parliament- Big Bang Theory
Little Feat- Spanish Moon
Big Brother & the Holding Co.- Funkie Jim
Tower of Power- I Gotta Groove
Grace Jones- Inspiration
P-Funk All-Stars- Funky Kind( Knock it Down)
Isaac "Chef" Hayes- Simultaneous
Marvin Gaye- Come Get To This
Troublefunk- Woman of Principle
Kool & the Gang- She's a Bad Mama Jama
Rick James & Ike Turner- Love Gravy
Ray Manzarek- Begin The World Again
Stevie Wonder- Superstitious
George Clinton - Kredit Kard
Chris Spedding- Breakout
James Brown-Living in America

Saturday I spent four hours in gridlock and barely made it to the station in time to host Songs From the Big Hair, our weekly 1980's show. I had the pleasure of being assisted by my "trainee" Fontaine, who added some fresh air to my stale records. I used the air-quotes because Fontaine has been a DJ at another station for many, many years- in fact, she trained me as her summer substitute over a decade ago... by the end of the program she was running the show while my assistant Eric and I set up the studio for our musical guest - the wonderful Lauren Kendall - who played four fantastic songs on keyboard, voice and cello accompanied by her man Blake on percussion. Not only did they sound great, they also came prepared with gear and good-natured humor that helped soothe my white-knuckled nerves. Kudos to musicians who carry microphones with them- special thanks to L&B for the cables and to Fontaine for the tunes!

Big Hair:

Danielle Dax- Inky Bloaters
Gary Numan- Engineers
King Crimson- Model Man
Fleshtones- Girl From Baltimore
Opal- Magick Power
Crack The Sky- Lost in America
Dead Kennedys - Viva Las Vegas
Bad Brains- Re-Ignition
Sonic Youth- Hotwire my Heart
Siouxsie and the Banshees- Arabian Knights
XTC- Wake Up
Tom Tom Club -Genius of Love
Mission of Burma- That's When I Reach For My Revolver
King Crimson- Elephant Talk
X- White Girl
Tupelo Chain Sex- The Revolution Will Be Televised
Snakefinger- Kill the Great Raven
Talking Heads- The Great Curve
The Soft Boys - I Got the Hots
Keith Le Blanc - But Whitey/Einstein
The Cramps - Garbageman
The Blasters - I'm Shakin'
Pere Ubu - We Have the Technology
Magazine - The Honeymoon Killers
The Fall - Copped It
Pixies - Tony's Theme
Dream Syndicate - That's What You Always Say
Run DMC - Mary, Mary
Udokotela Shange Namajaha - Awungilobolele

By the time I was finished with Lauren's show I was exhausted and starving, having not had a chance to eat all day, so I said fuck the diet- I got myself some fried chicken and went home, did bongs and watched the Sci-Fi channel. Maybe it was the weed, but does Sci-Fi's original programming consist entirely of monsters eating bikini models? I didn't even notice when one movie ended and the next one began- all I know is that if you hike in the rain-forest wearing a g-string you will be eaten by dinosaurs.

I wanted to dream about the g-string models-sans dinos- but I barely had time to sleep at all before I had to rush back down to the studio at 6:30am to fill in for he-who-shall-not-be-named, who had * ahem* overslept.
Then, of course, my own weekly show.

The New Breakfast Snob:

Raput & The Sepuy- Up, up and away
The Scramblers- Mister Hot Rod
Circle Makers- Circles
Eleanor McCovey- Whisper and a Prayer
Victor Banana- Stall Genie-Gooseneck Hollow
King Crimson- Thrak
West of Eden- Hide and Seek
Rosemary Woods- Everywhere I Go
Clann an Drumma- Visedail
Velvet Underground- Sunday Morning
Fiona Joyce- Cry Over You
Siobhan Skates- Short a Penny
The Kinks- Village Green Preservation Society
Grace Slick & Paul Kantner- Ballad of the Chrome Nun
Loreena McKennitt- Caravansrai
Claanad- Why Worry?
Briege Murphy- The Sea
The Stranglers- Midnight Summer Dream
Marianne Faithfull- Witch's Song
Pentangle- Springtime Promises
Jethro Tull- Fat Man
Jefferson Airplane- Rock Me Baby
Little Feat- Fat Man in the Bathtub
Slick & Kantner- Fat
Captain Beefheart- This is the Day
PrettyThings- Goodbye/Going Downhill
Graham Central Station- Ole Smokey
10 CC- Sand in my Face
Mike Watt- Against the 70's
Tom Verlaine- Always
King Crimson- Ladies of the Road
PJ Harvey- Workin' For the Man
Can- Soup


Now for my next trick: some serious nap inaction.