My Back Pages

"Why do you have porn on your computer?"

"That's not porn. That's Betty Page."

"Well, I think you're a perv and that picture is degrading to women."

"You do? Fine. I'll delete the damn thing...there...happy?"

"You idiot. I was only kidding. I love Betty Page."

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

What a week. I've been splitting time between being bored and unproductive and being manic and over-reactive. And just plain depressed.
I need radio. Lots of radio. Six hours of radio.



Thursday:


Atomic Rooster- Intro/Breathless

Grace Slick- Silver Spoon

Be Bop Deluxe- Sister Seagull

Oingo Boingo- Dead or Alive

Mike Watt- Against the 70's
Most of the songs in this set are from the 70's.

10 CC- Rubber Bullets

Larry Graham- Water

Steve Hillage- New Age Synthesis/Unzipping the Zype

Katie Lee- Will to Fail

Marianne Faithfull- Broken English
What are we fighting for? It's not my security

James Brown- Living in America

Lou Reed - America

Nina Hagen- African Reggae
Nina Hagen fled East Germany back when that meant something.

Joe Strummer- Coma Girl

Arctic Monkeys- Look Good on the Dance Floor

Spoon- Everything Hits at Once

Cardiacs- Buds and Spawn

P.J. Harvey- Long Snake Moan

Damien Dempsey- Marching Season

Neil Young- Vampire Blues

Allan - In the System
Check me out. I'm on the radio.

Peter Tosh- No Nuclear War

Kinks- Gotta Be Free

Blue Oyster Cult- Godzilla

Ray Manzarek -Begin the World Again

Gary Numan- Slow, very slow...oops

X- When our Passed Out on the Couch

Flaming Groovies - High Flyin' Baby

Polite Society- William Whitelowe
This is one of my old bands. I'm on the radio again.

Jethro Tull - Hymn 43
Amen!

Neil Young- Powderfinger

Drive-By Truckers-Ronnie and Neil
'Powderfinger' followed by the DBT's 'Ronnie and Neil'. Get it? Sigh. Never mind.


Steve Hillage- 1988 Aktivator
Dude called: "Who was that? I loved it!" I live for calls like that. Pretty sad for me eh?

Ramones- Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World

Black Sabbath - A National Acrobat

Soft Boys- Rock and Roll Toilet

Stranglers- Nice and Sleazy

Frank Zappa- Excentrifugal Forz/Apostrophe

Pretty Things- All Light Up!
I played an anti-smoking PSA and then segued into this song, which features a chorus of English schoolchildren chanting "All Light Up!" over and over again. Tsk.

Crack the Sky - Lighten up McGraw

Agony Column- Mississippi Queen

John Cale-Mercenaries (Ready for War)
Nowadays we call them 'contractors'.

Sex Pistols- Sub-Mission

Cop Shoot Cop- Two at a Time

Motorhead- I Don't Believe a Word

X-Soul Kitchen
A Doors cover- Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek produced and played on this seminal L.A. Punk album.

Paw- Max the Silent
Based on a character from Andrew Vacchs' Burke novels.

Sunday:

R.Crumb- Confessions/Wee Dog Waltz

Steeleye Span- Calling-on-Song/ Blacksmith

J.D.Steele Singers- How Can I See You Through My Tears?

Neil Young- When You Dance I can Really Love

The Kinks- Hot Potato

Cat Whatever his Name is Now- Bitter Blue

Grace Jones- The Apple...

Stranglers- (Sweden) All Quiet On The Eastern Front
This is for my TSIGF.

Can- Mother Upduff
My European vacation.

Altan-Stor, A Stor, A Gha

Pretty Things- Summertime

Damien Dempsey- Celtic Tiger

Lou Reed- Betrayed
You know, I should feel ashamed. Or remorseful. Or at least a little bit guilty. But I don't.

Melanie O'Reilly- This Place

Golden Palominos- No Skin

Steve Hillage- Love Guitar

Frank Zappa- My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama

Fiona Joyce- Long Road to Travel

Eleni Mandell- Dreamboat

Fairport Convention- Tam Lin

Tom Waits- Hoist

Jefferson Airplane- Come Up The Years

Flaming Groovies- Jailbait

Jethro Tull-Moths

Well that's all for now. I'm still unemployed, my grandmother is at home but still sick and the world continues to spiral out of control. Stay tuned.

Priorities

Dear Kids,
I understand that some of y'all might have mommies and daddies who want you boys and girls to be able to see the doctor when you feel funny. As a daddy myself, I 'ppreciate that. That is how daddies feel. Funny, but not ha-ha.
But don't you hate going to the doctor? And isn't the dentist scary?
It's nothing to be ashamed of- heck,even I was afraid to show up for my doctor visit when I was in the National Guard- that was back before you were born, but people still talk about it. Dan.

Well, you can stop worrying 'bout getting scared. No more icky doctors or yucky medicine for you!

See, y'all gotta understand something. Progress costs money. And you can't have progress without giving big tax cuts to people who make enough money in one day to pay for your insulin for life -which may be considerably shorter if I use my veto.

Tax cuts = progress dollars.

Anyway, all them progress dollars gotta come from somewhere, which got me thinking...y'know, people like to make fun of me and say that I don't read books, but them folks are wrong.

I do. I was reading some stuff by this old guy named Charles Dickens when I had this great idea:
There's nothing I want that I can't simply take from poor people.

Aha! I will use poor people to pay for my progress! And my war. Wars cost money, y'know.
I'm trying to keep this war going so that you can grow up and help spread freedom in Iraq, but some people want to cut off my allowance and take away your future job opportunities.

Well, they can't do that. I'm the Decider and sometimes my decisioning is hard work.
Hard work means sacrifice.

In the interest of progress I regretfully insist on vetoing your allowance instead of cutting mine. N'yahh!

But don't worry! I'm gonna relax those 'big-government' child labor laws so that y'all can work in our nation's coal mines- you cute little kids are the perfect size for crawling in tunnels!

In the Cliff notes to the Dickens books I read, they mention factories as being good places to give children job opportunities, but we don't have enough factories here in 'Merica to give y'all jobs. If y'all give my progress a chance, I'll make sure you have construction jobs building factories in other countries.
Heck, I'll pay you to knock them down and then I'll pay you to rebuild them. Talk about job security!

Don't go thinking that I'm some kinda lefty, book-readin' intellectual though.
I'm regular folk, just like you- 'cept your daddy might not have been President- and I get my ideas from reg'lar folks too.
For instance, take my idea of progress: I learned it from watching NASCAR.


I thank you for your sacrifice in this time of national need.

Best,
Unca Dubya

P.S. You teens might wanna check out some of the sweeet enlistment bonuses available at a military recruiter near you! (Act now-those bonuses won't be given to draftees)

Mid-Life Crisis #99

Man. I thought these (1989-1990?) pics were long, long gone...this is me with Electric Whip, one of my longest-running bands-we lasted four or five years...I wish I had some recordings. I thought everything- including these pics- had been lost, but who knows? Someone might still have a copy. All I have are some live cassettes- muddy- sounding, but man...we had some great moments.

L to R :This is Jorge, our percussionist, who later formed a salsa band called Bio-Ritmo. Jorge eventually got kicked out of his own band and moved back to Puerto Rico. We were roomates and had some troubles, but overall, he was a solid friend. I hope he's doing well.

Bobby, our drummer, was a schizophrenic. When his madness allowed, he was one of the best natural drummers I've ever played with. Back then, giant-ass drumkits were in vogue- Bobby played a 4-piece Ludwig and made it big like Bonham. He eventually went crazy and never quite made it back home...very sad.

Greg was our bassist. He was (still is) an amazing player- he really contributed a lot to our overall 'sound'...I'd give him these totally fucked-up, impossible bass lines and he'd not only play them, but he'd improve them. Time has not been kind to our friendship, but I don't know exactly why.

Dora was our singer. She had a great voice and would sing my twisted lyrics without flinching or changing the gender of the pronouns- as a result, the local lesbians thought we were fronted by a dyke. It helped with attendance!
Her boyfriend (later, her husband) was my best friend.
He died in prison, leaving his wife and two daughters behind.
Cocaine was involved.
I try not to think about that, but it did happen. I still cry for him sometimes.
Right now, in fact.

Anyway, I'll be on the radio pretty much all-night -from 9PM to 1 AM EST - tune in and check it out. It's gonna rock!

Mythic Kitchen #23 (of 17)

"It's the best thing since sliced bread."

This expression is commonly used to express approval of some new-fangled gadget or gee-gaw, but I think it overlooks an important truth.

Unsliced bread is usually better than it's sliced kin.

For example, my local supermarket offers pretty decent store-baked breads. They are available in sliced and unsliced loaves and the unsliced loaves are almost always available at 'day-old' half-price.
They clearly don't sell as well as the sliced loaves.
We, as consumers, actually expect our bread to be sliced for us. We are lazy consumers. It wouldn't surprise me if pre-sliced cheese appears on our shelves soon.

Shopping tip: Yesterday's loaf of unsliced bread is just as fresh as today's sliced loaf. As soon as you slice it, it is exposed to air and begins to go stale.
Most commercial brands use preservatives to retard spoilage, but I like to avoid those if possible...of course, with my luck it'll probably turn out that a cocktail of sodium benzoate, disodium guanylate and THBQ cures everything.

Anyway, the bread is half-priced, but you'll need to spend an extra ten to twenty seconds per sandwich on slicing it. If you don't know how to slice bread, stop reading this.
I'm not going to be held liable for the damages resulting from anyone's fumbled attempts to slice bread with chainsaws, explosives, mallets, sabers, two-handed saws or anything else that isn't specifically designed to slice bread.

Hell, I've been slicing bread for decades and I still wear protective eyewear and chain-mesh gauntlets when I perform wetwork on dry goods...just last night, I let my guard down- I was making toast without exercising proper caution - when a sudden draft through my kitchen caused a fine mist of powdered cinnamon to waft across the tiny room.
If a small child with a life-threatening cinnamon allergy had been standing downwind from me at that precise moment...well ,who knows what might have happened?

Thank Godzilla, no such child was present- but they might have been. I didn't check. I was lucky this time, but I will endeavor to be more careful in the future.

Moral : Look both ways before you slice it or spice it.

Oops!

I have jokingly heard masturbation referred to as "safe sex".

That wasn't true for legendary underground cartoonist Vaughn Bode.

He died masturbating.
More specifically, he died because he believed (or had learned) that cutting off a person's oxygen supply at the moment of sexual climax heightens the sensation of orgasm. In Bode's case it was called auto-erotic ass fixation , which I don't really understand- from his artwork, Bode seemed like more a breast man...in any case, it was a waste of a great cartoonist.

Still, I guess if you gotta get caught with a noose in one hand and your pecker in the other, you might as well be dead when it happens.
Otherwise it could be mighty embarrassing.

Sex makes us do dumb stuff, but , crimes of passion notwithstanding, there are ways to have sex without dying. Or if it does kill you, it might take years- and I don't mean from HIV or other diseases- I mean from shame.

This afternoon I was prowling local businesses with the purpose of selling radio ads. I wasn't having much luck with that, but I was enjoying flirting with the lovely young ladies working at some of the shops- I walked into one boutique and was greeted by one of the prettiest women I have ever seen.

She smiled broadly and gave me a big hug! We were old friends, hadn't seen her in years- seven, eight maybe...anyway, she looks better now than she did then and I was thinking
to myself : I would love to see her naked, preferably with that beautiful hair spilled across the head of my bed...

Then it hit me. I have already seen that. Many years ago.
I was too drunk to do anything about it, though.
It was pretty embarrassing...there are things a guy can do to stall for time, but if the dangle doesn't get an angle, that fact is eventually going to come up, so to speak.

There should be a book that teaches one what to do in awkward social situations:

#37: A chance meeting with a good friend with whom you have had bad sex.
What to do?

-Ask them for money.
I tried to sell her some ads. It might happen.

-Mention that you quit drinking.
Find out she's got a S.O. who might be a drunk. Change subject.
Too late...we briefly and sadly discussed mutual friends who have died of drug and drink... however, this was still better than talking about the boner I couldn't get in 1998.

-Give them your autograph.
My friend actually had a copy of my 2000 CD, Extinction, sitting in the stack behind the counter. There were only a couple dozen of these made - I made each one by hand, using a DAT deck for the master and a Phillips stand-alone CD recorder for the copies.
(Time required to record a 70 minute CD? 70 minutes!)
So she asked me to sign her copy, you know, in case I get famous, she can eBay it when I die hehehe...
I was happy to oblige:

Dear xxxx,
Sorry about last time,
Allan C...

Riding My Own Llama

Tuesday I got de-hired from my new job at the music store. I think my new boss had figured out that I was going to quit as soon as I possibly could, so he saved me the trouble and sent me home as soon as I arrived. I wish he'd spared me the aggravation of listening to how hard it was to run your own business, how none of his employees ever 'produced'- that all they were interested in was being 'rock stars' etc- and how he really needed someone he could count on but couldn't find anyone...boo fucking hoo.

For eight bucks an hour, you can count on me.
You can count on me not showing up and not giving a shit.
Double that wage and I'll work my ass off for you.
It's not complicated but no one gets it.

I'm not interested in glamor- I want a steady paycheck. Why are you complaining to me about the 'rocker' kids that you hire- who else are you gonna attract if you pay McWages? Rock stars?

I've given up on being a rock star a long time ago. I've shared a stage with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and several girlfriends with GWAR. That's closer to fame than I ever needed to be... if I need my ego stroked, I'll dedicate a two-hour radio show to myself and then go home and blog about it.

Obviously, my ego needs strokin'- so I did exactly that. I dedicated today's broadcast to me, talked about how great I am and backed it up with songs that famous people wrote just for me.

Well...I had some stuff for other people too.


When I got to the station, the robots were running the place...the morning dude had not shown up. I played a pair lengthy, spacey cuts and a couple of classics while I restored human control to the broadcast booth.

Tranquility Bass- Five Miles High

Tangerine Dream- Rising Haul In Silence
Billie Holliday- Don't Explain
I was expecting the early AM DJ to call around this time to let me know that he had overslept again- he didn't call. He was still asleep.

Bob Marley- Sugar, Sugar
It's hard to stay mad while listening to this early 60's Jamaican single. Hard, but not impossible.

Now it's 7AM and time for my show:

The New Breakfast Snob, Sunday Sept. 23

Neil Young- Ride My Llama
When we got on ship/ he brought out something for the trip He said "it's old, but it's good"/ Like any other primitive would
This is for my mother. She collected Camel cigarette paraphernalia; after she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, she modified the 'Camel' logos to read 'Llama'.
Mom had a weird sense of humor. I loved her for that.

Renaissance- On the Frontier
I'm not sure that I can like this band. Two of the dudes have mullets. The music is OK, but they have mullets...

Arlo Guthrie- Wheel Of Fortune
I am certain that I like Arlo Guthrie. No mullet for Arlo, but I sure wish he'd wear a helmet when he motorbikes...

M.H.Price/R.Crumb- Bigfoot Barefoot Stomp
From the soundtrack to R.Crumb:The Musical.
My favorite cartoonist of all time...I have his autograph- that is a rare thing!



Victor Banana- Slumber Precious
Another soundtrack based on an underground comix artist's work. This is adapted from A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Dan Clowes, who is best known for the movie Ghost World, which is based on characters from his Eightball comic series.
Dedicated to DJ Sleeper.

Kinks- Situation Vacant
'Situation Vacant' is the British way of saying 'Help Wanted'. I have been reading a lot of those ads lately. Too many.

Grace Slick/Paul Kantner- Harp Tree Lament
Here. Let me cry myself a river.

Steely Dan- Kings
This is for YDG and all my other Texas buddies...I hear that Steely Dans are illegal in your state- perhaps I should pack a few bags, head south and work as a covert door-to-door dildo salesman.
I think the Dan might be singing about King Nixon, but we still have at least one Dick in the White House.

Sweetwater- In a Rainbow
It's a 60's song that mentions 'colors'. It might be about drugs- according to people who have obviously not read FCC regulations, it is against the law to play songs that reference drugs.

Altan-Eoghainan O Ragadan
There's a ridiculous amount of FCC paranoia these days. Eventually, I'll be reduced to playing nothing but instrumentals and songs sung in Gaelic.
This song's title translates to: "Pig-Fuckers and Shit-Eaters".
(Not really)

Loreena McKennitt- Mystic's Dream
McKennitt often has themes of a somewhat paganistic, mystical sort- this, of course, makes her a raving Anti-Christian animal-worshipper ( not really)- but it's probably illegal to play her music anyway- it's that good.

Jethro Tull- Nothing is Easy
I usually play a Tull cut for my colleague, the redoubtable Mr. Jazz, but this one is for Whim.

Be Bop Deluxe- Love with the Madman
If you hang 'round here much longer
You'll be driven crazy with the wonder
of it all
(air guitar goes here)
I had an on-air contest. First caller wins a date with me!
No takers.

Steve Hillage- It's All Too Much (live)
The love I see all around me makes me feel like a starvation artist at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Not that I'm bitter.

Adrian Belew- Oh Daddy
This is for my childhood friend Ron, who was actually awake and listening.
Ron gets up early now that he is a new daddy! Congrats to R & M & A!


10 CC - Fresh Air for my Momma
For my mother. I really miss her.

Quicksilver Messenger Service- Fresh Air
Oh crap. It's another hippie song that might be about getting high...boy, I'm really pushing the envelope here. Or I would be if it was still 1970.
While I was announcing this song, the early AM guy called- he had nearly broken his collarbone the day before and overslept - dude!
Don't play football without pads.

Lou Reed- Average Guy
I worry that my liver's swollen and it hurts to the touch...
Two years ago, my liver was swollen and tender - it was unknown whether it would heal enough for me to live a 'normal' life. It did, but my life is anything but 'normal'.

Captain Beefheart- Dropout Boogie
Can't get a job, can't get a job/Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do?
I honestly don't fucking know. Keep failing until I succeed or die? Look for a couch? An alley?

Iron Butterfly- Are You Happy?
If you answer yes to this question, then I will too. That would be groovy.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer- L.A. Nights
I wanted to play The Doors L.A. Woman for Ruby, but my copy is scratched beyond playability- this at least has L.A. in the title. It's an instrumental, but a lot of people take drugs in L.A. , especially at night, so it's probably against regs to play this song.

Gong- Shamal
These devious Frenchpersons try to make you believe that the line "deep within you" refers to
the "spirit that guides"- hah!
Nice try, Frenchie!
This is obviously hardcore pornography disguised as jazz fusion; it encourage American teenagers to become stoned, pregnant heathens. Don't listen to those awesome jazz xylophone runs- those are placed there by Satan to distract you from the Truth in much the same manner that the Devil planted all those 'dinosaur' bones in the Earth 6,000 years ago to fool you into believing in Darwin.

The Who - Love Ain't For Keepin'/My Wife
Most people don't know it, but I would actually like to get married someday. Not likely, though.
I mean, killers on Death Row get marriage proposals, but I can't even get a date- I'm too much of a wimp to kill anyone- so I think my chances for marriage are pretty slim.

Velvet Underground- Oh Sweet Nothing
Um.

Eleni Mandell- Man in the Paper Hat
Eleni gets it. Tin-Foil hats are like wearing an antennae on your head- a paper hat is much better suited for deflecting mind-control rays.
I have a crush on Eleni but she doesn't know I exist.

Pentangle- Once I had a Sweetheart
If you think this about you, it probably is.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NFL Note: Enough with the goddamn throwback uniforms- I keep thinking that it's Saturday and I'm watching college ball...you are fucking with my head, maaaann...

Sharpton Weds Gay Cops

JENA, LA- Thousands of cheering supporters today attended a public ceremony presided over by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who this morning performed Louisiana's first mixed-race, homosexual marriage on the steps of the Jena, La. (pop. 225) Courthouse.

The grooms, Louisiana State Police officers Rufus Downs, 35 and Rupert Low, 32, then joined the crowd of well-wishers in a parade along the tiny township's Main Street. The throng, an evenly-mixed group of blacks and whites estimated by police to number over five thousand, sang a rousing medley of 'We Shall Overcome/Give Peace a Chance' while showering the departing newlyweds with handfuls of white rice and black beans.

Messrs. Downs-Low declined to announce their honeymoon plans, simply stating," We never thought we'd see this day. God Bless America!"



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

Of course that didn't happen.

This is what really happened.

We have a long way to go.

Roots of Bitterness

This is the school paper of Warren County High School, circa 1984. I was on the staff of the paper but my teacher didn't like any of my ideas, hence I rarely participated in class.

My first proposal was to change the lower-case 'o' in the masthead to upper-case and remove the useless dash between 'Co' and 'HI': WA-CO HI-LIGHTS.

It's still an eyesore and illiterate as fuck-all , but at least it's a little more symmetrical.

Better yet, we could change the name to anything but 'WA-Co' - howza 'bout 'The Warren Piece, or Warren Speaks', you know, a pun on the book...by Tolstoy...that one. No, we don't have a copy in the school library...in fact , our school library is a 'hand-me down' collection from the old, shuttered middle school and is largely comprised of juvenile fiction and textbooks from the 1950's and 60's.
I would like to do a news article about our suck-ass library.
May I do that?

No.

May I write an article questioning the validity of my 8 am American Government class? Most mornings we watch a live broadcast of the Phil Donahue Show until the bell rings. I suspect that my teacher, who is also the girl's basketball coach, knows absolutely nothing about American Gov't and I think that the student body is poorly served by her lack of knowledge.
May I interview her and find out just how much she does know about the subject she allegedly teaches?

Yes, but you can only ask her about sports.

Oh. Well, may I do a series of articles on how to play hooky without getting caught?

No.

May I write a 'fluff' piece about fuzzy animals and how cute they are?

No, because Melissa is already writing one. But that is a good idea.

Can I buy ad space in the HI-LIGHTS and use it to sell my old term papers and book reports that I wrote for my other schools?

Are you trying to get me into trouble?

No, I'm looking for a story. I don't have any assignments. Can I at least re-write some of these articles?- they are wrong. Even the layout is a mess.
(Note: This was an Honors class, not the "special needs" project that it looks like- I think the headlines speak for themselves)
Look:


Have you read this part? , I asked. It's nonsense.


This doesn't mean anything. Even in high school, this sort of sloppy writing drove me nuts...
I recall pointing out just a few of the flaws in the 'editorial' piece" quoted above:

-How can the something be both "elementary" and "not basic at all?"

-The " basic needs" are food, water and shelter. Those have never changed and they never will.

-"Thousands of years ago, Greek and Latin were the basics..."
I thought they taught History here at Warren County...'thousands of years ago' is absurdly vague, but if you were lucky enough to have been 'educated' then , there's a good chance you were instructed in Hebrew, Tibetan, Sanskrit or hieroglyphics...and isn't Latin essentially a Roman corruption of Greek, the latter being the last of the Hellenic tongues and the former being the first of the Italic ?
( Please, no umbrage from the Umbrian crowd)

There should be classes for this stuff, I opined without welcome.

- "Instead of the basic needs being reading, writing and arithmetic, we need more computing, communications and calculations to succeed."
According to my calculations, your communication fails to compute. If writing and arithmetic are NOT communication and computing/calculating, then what exactly are they?
Please don't use words to answer that question, as you obviously do not understand words.

-There is no such thing as a fractional high school diploma; one cannot obtain a "diploma in fractions."

Can we please publish some articles that don't make us look like we just fell off the DogPatch turnip truck?

I am getting frustrated with your attitude.


I was at least as frustrated as my teacher.
Every time that I said something that was true, correct, or made sense, I would be ignored , laughed at and/or shunned.

The class was called Journalism. Weren't we supposed to be concerned about facts, accuracy and truth? Boy, I sure did have some dumb ideas back then...

All I was really doing was pointing out the obvious, but that was enough to separate me from my classmates- they even did an article on me:

I didn't have many friends at that school, but I did have a mustache that allowed me to buy beer for the kids with money.

Eventually, I became bored and stopped attending class altogether and started spending my days drinking beer in the woods with the same illiterate rednecks that I mocked in my interview.

After a few weeks of absenteeism, I was called into the Principal's office , where I was told that my chronic truancy was a show of disrespect for my teacher and for the school in general.

I asked my teacher if he had ever read his own paper. If he had, he'd have seen that the Feb. 1984 issue contained an interview with me in which I insult the school, the students and the entire town- my disrespect is public record-any 'real' journalist should know that.

After that I didn't have to attend Journalism Class any longer. I was given a grade of "D-" and banned from the newsroom. I was told that I was not to communicate with my teacher for the duration of the school year.

That D- grade knocked me off of the Honor Roll and ruined my dream of writing a series of self-help articles tentatively titled: "How to Make Honor Roll Without Attending Class."

That same year, I traded my Atari video game to a classmate for a cheap electric guitar and a Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal. I lost interest in computers and starting writing angry punk rock songs about my classmates.
That trade may have been the biggest mistake of my life. Had I not done that, I'd probably be richer than Bill Gates instead of being an unemployed guitarist.

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

Next: My First Gig.

This is a Mirror

This guy loves famous people.
See his hat? " I 'heart' Famous People"?
That would make a wonderful epitaph:

America
1776- 2007
We Loved Famous People

"I love famous people" is a more than a peculiar statement, it's a perverse new theology, the product of a highly irrational society, one that kills the fatted calf in bizarrely exuberant celebrations of the return of our prodigal children to the media spotlight while simultaneously ignoring events that we really should be paying attention to.
By qualifying our love of people with the word "famous", we have used semantics to tellingly, albeit unconsciously, acknowledge that we have turned our backs on our self-proclaimed national 'Christian' faith-you know, the one which adjures us to love poor (and presumably unknown) people? That one.

It also points to the corruption and downfall of language as a means of communicating ideas. If words no longer mean what they are supposed to mean, then communication will break down- and every endeavor that requires human communication will suffer as a consequence.This pretty much includes everything that people do, so it's a serious problem. Politics and policy are a good example of just how disastrous believing in lies can be .
Our political system has been crippled, perhaps slain, by the wounds inflicted by words with false meanings. "Freedom" = surveillance. Peace is war., etc etc...
George Orwell rolls over in his coffin and says "told ya so", but there's six feet of dirt and decades of stupidity muffling his admonishment.

I can hear the interred voice of Edgar Allan Poe, warning us, " Hey guess what? The only time those famous people even notice you is when they take time out of their famous day to hate you. Or rip you off." (Maybe that was Dorothy Parker- I always get the two mixed-up)

In this case, Mr. Famous Love is apparently ignorant of the difference between fame and infamy.
If you are best-known for setting records (since broken) in professional sports, you are famous.

If you later become a household name because you decapitated your ex-wife, your prior deeds are eclipsed and you are now infamous. You will be loved only by drooling half-wits and your high-powered attorneys, because frankly, no one else can stand to be around you.

Ah, if only that were true...instead, Mr. Famous Guy inadvertently* points out another sign of our national malaise- our prideful , yet ignorant and apathetic approach to our own national politics- many times I have heard people tell me "I NEVER vote because all politicians are crooked, it's all the same, it's boring etc etc."
This is often said with a perplexing defiant, defensive pride. If Al Gore had gotten one vote for every time I've heard someone boast about not voting, we wouldn't be in Iraq right now.

Well guess what? This country is in a mess - arguably the worst ever- and it's because you and you and you didn't vote. Or if you did, you believed the obvious bullshit and voted for the wrong man-twice. Even Diebold couldn't rig enough machines to skew the results of what should have been a landslide in 2000...and 2004. But fear and ignorance won the day- twice.

Fooled twice? Shame on you.

Yeah, tell me that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq..uh huh...it's quite possible that if Gore had won, Osama bin Laden would have called off the 9/11 attacks- the primary goal of the attacks was to goad America into a mis-placed and ill-considered war of savage attrition and it's very unlikely that Gore would have invaded Iraq- quite likely, he'd have finished the job his boss started by catching or killing Osama bin Forgotten - instead , the attacks led to an pointless, soul-killing war predicated on lies and an unquestioning national devotion to our sanguicolous leaders, a cabal loyal only to itself and driven by profits reaped on the harvest of war ; we allowed them to lead us blindly into a war that should have been obviously unjust and unwise to anyone NOT wearing a hat proclaiming their love of famous people.

Oh yeah, we love famous people. Again, I will use Mr. Famous Guy to illustrate just how utterly enervated and atrophied our national political will has become. MFG, unlike many celeb-gawkers, is politically active. Check out his choice of candidate:

Believe it or not, there are people who would be worse as President than George W. Bush. For example, I wouldn't want Charles Manson as President...or O.J. Simpson in any office that doesn't include steel bars, a stainless sink and a metal cot.

OJ [in] '07. That's how far we have fallen.

We love famous people. Godzilla help us.

------------
* I have been told that Mr. Famous Love is a prankster, in which case his garb is a wickedly pointed jab at what ails us- what ails us is us.

Don't Count Your Puppies Until They Hatch

I got offered a job today. I even started it, but I don't know if I'll keep it. The manager wasn't sure what my pay rate was- eventually we reached the owner on the phone and he informed me that my hourly wage was $8, which, multiplied by 40 and zapped by taxes is roughly 1/3 less than I need to survive- rent , bills food etc, much less live.

I was speechless.

I haven't worked for under $10 an hour since...I dunno. High School?
Yeah, if I sell a $2500 amplifier, I'd have a decent check- that week- but that doesn't happen every week. I'm leery of the idea of commission sales. I love to bullshit in person and on-line, but somehow it just never lends itself to making money. I'm just not a good salesman, I am afraid.

Today I sold a pair of drumsticks. That's about 35 cents commission, think.
I need to have a talk with my new boss.

All I'm really interested in selling is my time. I'm think of revising my resume to read:

Objective: To sell my time to the highest bidder. My time is available in 40-hour weekly blocks on a self-renewing basis. During these purchased block of time, I will do anything reasonable that is asked of me and I will do it well. In return for doing that, I would like to receive at least $500 per 40-hour block and, oh yeah, some health insurance.

Is that too much to ask?

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

Geez, the e-search continues to haul in a bounty of spamourus come-ons...this most recent one even admits to being illegal (comments mine):

... On August 4th of 2003 I returned from vacation to discover the company I had started 9 years EARLIER would be 100% out of business on August 25th!

My company was in the business of faxing a daily comic relief news fax to about 8,000 offices in the Virginia Beach area. Offices loved to read it with the morning coffee (they did? we used to hate spam faxes), and we made good money selling advertising on it. But the Federal Communications Commission's new regulation made it "unlawful" after August 25th, 2003.
.

Coincidentally, the FCC passed regulations banning unsolicited 'junk' faxes from being sent to unwilling recipients on Aug 25th, 2003. If the offices were enjoying the morning fax so much, they could have signed up for it- the fact that they didn't leads me to conclude his ' comic relief' faxes were unwanted, ad-based spam.

Fax spam was "unlawful", i.e, illegal- this guy's business was sending 8,000 spam faxes a day and selling ad space on the spams -probably counting every fax # as several 'readers' when quoting circulation figures to client/dupes.

The FCC made the practice illegal because it was tying up business fax lines; wasting gobs of paper, time, productivity and resources etc...eventually enough businesses complained and the FCC was forced to act.

The spam lobby tried and failed to defeat this regulation, and they did get an extension until 2005, by which time the rise of email had rendered fax spam largely irrelevant...anyway, I , like most folks, detest spammers- and this guy is asking me to 'work' for him!
By paying him to send spam for me!
What a great deal.

See, deep down, he's a soft-hearted , sensitive guy who cares about his people:

About one week into shutting down the company, my office manager was crying at her desk, I tried to encourage her, but all she could mumble was, "there aren't enough jobs out there, I can't afford to work for $8 an hour (I know), those are the only jobs I'm finding"

I felt responsible, so I came up with an idea, "Suzy, give me your resume and cover letter and I'll fax it to all the offices that get our comic relief fax" We faxed it to all the offices (that was over 8,000 offices) and we were blown away by the response!

He spammed all the offices that it had become illegal to send ads to, but he didn't send ads- he sent his employee's personal info instead.
I need a job really, really badly, but I'm not sure I want to spam 8,000 offices with unsolicited copies of my resume.

According to Fax Man, you can expect 1 phone call for every 100 faxes you pay him to send out. He suggests sending at least 5,000.
He gives discounts for quantity.

5,ooo fax spams, with a cover sheet on each, wastes at least 10,000 sheets of paper on the receiving end. That's two cases of paper. I'm no Ed Begley, but I am uneasy with such a cavalier waste of paper in my name- my name printed on each sheet!

Is this what 21st century job-searching is all about? Paying spammers to put your resume on their mailing lists? I'd bet that your own info gets placed on a 'for-sale' mailing list as soon as you sign up.

Yep, he will send your resume to one of his many mailing lists. For a nominal service charge.

I'm not even sure if this is legal, I guess it is, but it seems phishy to me... according to his site, the fax will appear to have come from YOU...I wonder if that makes you complicit should it actually be a crime?

I'm sick of all this. I want to work, not send my phone number to 50,000 strangers.

Hmmm...I wonder how much it would cost to fax a Xerox of my ass to 100,000 office drones? That almost might be worth it.

Wake and Snake

Yesterday was my 41st birthday. I spent most of the day waiting for someone who never showed up; eventually I took a chance and drove my faltering car to the supermarket. Sometimes it takes a looong time to start, so I brought a book with me, just in case.

Good thing that I did.

The weather was nice- I hung out in the Kroger parking lot, ate 'day-old' pastries and re-read a few chapters of Schrodinger's Cat. After a while my car decided to co-operate and I made it home in time to meet my aunt and uncle, who took me out to dinner. I have been living off of oatmeal , beans, rice etc. for weeks now, so I said fuck a bunch of healthy shit , give me some goddamn ribs!

Mmmm...a long-lost blogpal once informed me that the word sarcasm literally derives from ' rending of the flesh' (true!)- my meal was deliciously sarcastic! Dripping, it was!

This morning I had a guest in the studio- 'Schlep', who found my blog by Googling 'Snakefinger'
It turns out that not only does Schlep listen to a lot of the same music I do, he also lives in Richmond- one block from my house!
Part of my volunteer work involves finding and training new people for the station, but I never thought I'd be recruiting DJs via my blog- Schlep graciously brought coffee and muffins- if you think my coffee habit is exaggerated in this blog, it's not.
Now I have a witness.

Last week sucked. All I posted was a bunch of filler and a hastily spewed (and since revised) short story- but I forgot my playlist.
Oh well.
(If anyone cares, my playlists are also posted here.)

Anyway.

Here's this week's list:

The New Breakfast Snob, 9/15/2007

Dude. Your show is over in 45 seconds- you just started a four-minute song. A four-minute Contemporary Jesus song, no less- not on my time, you ain't...it gave me great pleasure to guillotine that motherfucker in mid-verse. Praise and Hallelujah!
Dude. If you think I'm just sore because your Redskins beat my Dolphins, you would be 99% correct...now excuse me while I kill your song and replace it with:

Gong- Sprinkling of Clouds
Last night was the first time I've eaten red meat in weeks. This song is nearly nine minutes long...

Loreena McKennitt- Kecharitome
And this one is eight minutes...

Point Music Promo - Track #8
I wish I knew who the artist is...it's a 'promo' CD without any info on the artists at all...what kinda promo is that? I love this eastern-influenced string and percussion piece, whatever it is.

Steeleye Span- Johnny was a Shoemaker/ Lowlands of Holland
My guest, Schlep, is also a Fan of Span. Cool beans. Potatoes. Whatever.

West of Eden-Hide and Seek
From 2007. How unusual.

Altan- Stor A Stor A Ghra
I want more of this band.

Marian Bradfield- Please Don't Set Me Free
This is what happens when you start talking to things that aren't the microphone. In this instance, the thing was a person- I forget what I was saying, but I played this song by mistake.
This song wipes ass and we had to suffer through nearly the whole thing before I could find a fade point...I think. It was so traumatic that I've already repressed the memory. Sorry.

Claanad- Gathering Mushrooms
Meadow muffins and misty mornings...

Jefferson Airplane- Rock Me Baby
Bring it back home with some Blues- this live cut showcases Jorma Kaukonen and sounds a lot like early Hot Tuna... I wonder why?

Savoy Brown- Poor Girl
Ooops. I meant to play a different song- I guess that's appropriate , since this album is in the wrong cover...I purchased it that way and didn't even notice until I got home...tsk.

Big Brother & Big Holding Co- Keep On
This is after Janis...poor girl.

Snakefinger- Haven't Any Hay
From a 1984 live show, CD courtesy of Schlep.

Fiona Joyce- Cry Over You
Another 2007 release...ding.

Pentangle- Bruton Town
I'm shamrockin' out today!

Daevid Allen w/ Robert Wyatt- Memories
Memories will hang you up and haunt you...for instance, you might wind up spending your birthday alone in a heightened state of regret and anxious remorse.
Or a parking lot.
Or both.

Jethro Tull- Journeyman
By request. And yes, I set the freekin' satellite frequency thingamabob already...sheesh.

Fairport Convention- My Girl The Month of May/Million Dollar Bash
Sorry, didn't have any Dylan for the other request- I snuck in a Dylan cover instead.

Neil Young- Don't Let it Bring You Down
When I was a kid, I'd self-medicate my depression with this song. From this very copy, in fact...I never thought I'd be playing it on the radio for the same reason. Life is weird.

Aphrodite's Child- Good Time So Fine
It's all Greek to me.

Stranglers- Ships That Pass in the Night
One day I'm gonna do two hours of Stranglers. I can't wait to play Bring on the Nubiles...

10 CC- Sand in my Face
These guys listened to Frank Zappa and the Mothers.

Zappa and the Mothers- Happy Together
These guys are Frank Zappa and the Mothers.

Quicksilver Silver Messenger- It's Been Too Long
Great 60's guitar band -this album was produced by Nick Gravenites, who also sings on the Big Brother cut played earlier...some shoes are just to big to fill, ya know?

Pretty Things -She's A Lover
For Alexis B. I'm sorry.

Capt. Beefheart- Tropical Hot Dog Night
Dig the horns.

Pretty Things- Trust
Really. I am.

It's my Birthday and I'll Blog if I Want to

Bitter Moon

Harvest Moon wanted revenge.

Her anger originated from before the day she was born, June 23, 1970; Harvest's rage went back to the day she was named. Her parents, a pair of Jewish hippies who were married at a commune they inhabited outside of Eugene, Oregon, had chosen what they considered a very clever name for their first (and only) child. They announced it at their wedding, a ceremony of dubious legality performed by the captain of a Portland-based fishing vessel.

The marriage took place two weeks before Harvest's birth; on that day the young lovers decided upon the name Harvest The Moon, in hopes that their daughter would one day grow up to become a NASA astronaut and live up to the somewhat unreasonable expectations of her birth certificate.

That is what her parents told her. She believed it.

One night when she was eleven years old and her parents thought she was asleep upstairs , she overheard her father, Ruben "Blue" Moon, explaining the story of Harvest's name to a small gathering of stoned, giggly guests in the downstairs 'group-space'.

"...well, back then Naomi and I would sneak out to where the old garden used to be- there used to be an old fence around it, y'know?...anyway, the night we think Harv was conceived, we were high as motherfuck and we were looking up at this big-ass moon, right?...and it was like, lighting up Naomi's ass like it was a second moon, and I felt like a farmer..."

"Blue, you rat!", giggled a stoned Naomi Moon, "stop right now!"

"Anyway, it was like a double harvest, y'know?" A flutter of spacy laughter followed this remark.

"Ha!", chortled a male voice," she's lucky you didn't name her 'Cabbage Patch'." More hazy guffaws erupted.
It was at this moment that Harvest had her first adult thought.
It was: I have been fucked-over since before I was born.

Moments later, she made her first adult decision: I will never get high as motherfuck.

It was then that her paisley-skirted mother rounded the corner and saw a blank-faced Harvest standing at the top of the wooden staircase. There wasn't enough light for her to see the single, betrayed tear running down the young girl's face.

"Harvie, go back to bed. Go to sleep."

Harvie went back to her room, but she didn't go to sleep. She began studying.
And plotting.

By the time she was 16, Harvie's academic over-achievements had garnered her countless awards and a half-dozen offers of full scholarships from the best universities in America. She chose one in the Northeast and graduated after three years with a double major in astrophysics and criminal justice. Two weeks later her parent's once-spurious prophecy was realized and Harvie was recruited into NASA's astronaut training program.
As was her custom, she finished at the top of her class.

That same year, serving as her own counsel,she won a 950 million dollar settlement against a defense manufacturer that had developed an inexpensive and extremely heat-resistant polymer suitable for insulating everything from plumbing pipes to re-entry spacecraft. The company had appropriated the chemistry for this material from one of Harvest's 10th grade Science Fair projects.

Harvie had placed second in the Fair, losing to a fidgety boy named
Mick Mudd who had used a mail-order 'Ant Farm' to demonstrate his theory that ants were biologically programmed to be Marxists. When the panel of corduroy-clad professors announced the winners, Harvie mentally added Mudd's name to her already-lengthy shit-list. The teachers had been on it since her first day of classes.

After the settlement, H.T. Moon stayed with NASA, becoming the world's first female millionaire astronaut. It was on her second Space Shuttle mission that she made the most momentous decision of her short but eventful life. Harvie was performing a routine spacewalk, repairing damaged insulation panels of her own design , when she looked up/down at the hypnotic blue Earth above/below her. She paused in her work and pondered.

I am rich beyond belief and I am allowed to fly spacecraft. I could destroy this planet or I could save it.
I am high as motherfuck.

Harvest Moon wanted revenge.

Return of the Fling -or- The Devil is in the Decals

Today I had to report to the Employment Commission for a "re-employment interview."
I thought that meant that I would have to provide all the contact info I had collected from my job search, but it turned out to be just a formality- all I had to provide was ID in order to update my contact info- they had an old address on file and some letters they sent never reached me. I spent days making sure that I had my Peas and Queues in order, but the Jobs Lady never even asked about that- I was given a few pamphlets with helpful job-seeking tips (Show up on Time! Wear Clean Clothes!) and dismissed a few minutes later.

The strangest thing about the visit was the location of the office itself. The new Virginia Employment Commission office is located in the old State Farm building where I used to work.
Today's interview took place in the very same cube that used to belong to my ex-drinking partner 'Lenore'; the actual cube walls and filing cabinets were all still in place, the cabs even had the State Farm tags on them.

I could swear that the cube still had a trace of Lenore's tangy musk on it; a blend of Orangina soda, Stolichnaya vodka and sex. I used to love that smell... I hadn't thought about her for a long time... right now I'm tempted to call her, but I won't.
It would end badly, again. Lenore was married.

Pictured above is the very cube where I started this blog in 2004. The photograph to the left of my monitor is of Voltairine de Cleyre, a 19th Century feminist, anarchist and poetess. I had a hopeless crush on de Clerye in 2004 - hopeless because she died in 1912. Some of my first posts are about her...it was, and still is, typical of me to have a hopeless, unrequited crush on a dead anarchist...

On the weekends I was usually alone in the building- sometimes Lenore would drop by and we'd go to the Cold Harbor Inn for beers and then go back to the office and fuck around. Other days I'd just sit and watch DVDs that I rented from the shop down the road. I've had worse jobs.

Today, there is a 'job-seeker' computer kiosk where my cube used to be and the area is bordered by the VEC reception area- it's not nearly as much fun as it was in 2004.

Speaking of no fun, I've decided that I'm not doing myself any favors by being publicly hopeful or optimistic about anything. Ever.
Every time I say that I think something good will happen, it doesn't. It's a pattern of jinx.

It wasn't long ago that I was blogging that I thought I had a job lined up; that I had also managed to sell some radio ads and that I had repaired my vehicle. I even speculated that my grandmother was to get out of the hospital in the near future. I also had some private hope that I was nurturing...

I was wrong about everything.
-The job at the music store fell through.

-My radio client balked at the last second.

-I paid a Volvo mechanic 85 bucks to diagnose my car's problems.
His advice?
"Drive it until it dies, which will be soon, then sell it for parts. "
It's a rare car, a 1990 Volvo 780, and the seats are worth more than the engine, which is worthless. If I sold the seats, I could pay for the engine repair, but then I'd have nowhere to sit. Fuckity.

-My grandma's parts are all worn out and it's impossible to find replacement parts for a 1920 Appalachian. She's a rare car, my Granma- and a tough one too- but the repairs she needs are likely to kill her- her heart is too weak for more surgery and for the last few weeks it's been a terrible rollercoaster- one day she sounds good, has color in her skin and a strong heartbeat, the next day she's unconscious and being given blood almost as quickly as she loses it. As long as she has recurring hemorrhages, she has to stay in hospital, and she's not gone two days in September without needing a transfusion. The docs have been quite frank with us- this year has been incredibly hard on her, she's too weak for much more and there isn't any good outcome possible, only the inevitable. It's just a matter of time.

Of course, she was given a similar prognosis in 1990...and '92...and '93...and '96...you get the idea.

As for my private hopes? They didn't work out ...sigh. Perhaps I'll call Lenore and see if she's divorced yet...nah.
That fling is flung.
It was a bit discomfiting sitting in her old cube though. I knew the appointment was in the same building, but in her cube- with all the same furnishings? Even the same decals? Unfair, says I.

I can smell her now. I'd better cut the cord on my telephone and fill the wall sockets with caulk because that thing is becoming mighty tempting...

Led This Be A Warning -or- How We Got Here

I walk into the office and the usual suspects are discussing Bush's plan to invade Iraq. The consensus seems to be that Saddam is gonna get what he deserves for attacking us on 9/11.

I know it's useless to point out how wrong my co-workers are, so I join them instead.

"Hey, didja hear about Jane Fonda?" , I ask the room at large. Mentioning Jane Fonda always perked up the Rush Limbaugh crowd.

What? Yes, tell us what that bitch has done now!


I start improvising.

"Well, it turns out that Hanoi Jane is the one who blew up the Hindenburg in 1969 and made us lose Saigon during the Tet Offensive. After it blew up, the French got scared because it damaged their precious Eiffel tower, so they pulled out of Viet Nam and left us high and dry, the bastards. I heard it on the Mike Savage show."

That cunt! I knew it! Mike Savage is the man! Fuckin' French! SURRENDER MONKEYS!

Not a single person pointed out that the Hindenburg exploded in New Jersey and that it happened in 1937, not 1969 and that it had absolutely nothing to do with the Viet Nam War, Jane Fonda or the French. They were too busy repeating Bush/Cheney's obvious bullshit to question my own obvious bullshit.

I was making fun of how ill-informed my colleagues were and they were too ignorant to know they were being mocked. What I was saying was utter bullshit but it fit their needs so they didn't hesitate to believe it. Hell, if it involves the French, Jane Fonda and Viet Nam it must be true...goddamn gook-lovin' commie bitch, hope she gets what's coming...it was scary hearing that hateful rhetoric coming from people who weren't even born until after the Nam was over- where do they learn this bullshit?

Later, one Office Dude asked me privately:
"Hey, didn't the Hindenburg thing happen during WWII? I saw a movie about it a long time ago and it had Germans in it. World War Two Germans."

"No, dude, that was just a movie. The real explosion was in 1969. That's why it's on the cover of the first Led Zeppelin album."

"Dude, I have that album...I need to check the cover."

The next day Office Dude was excited.

"Dude! You were right! I checked the record and sure enough,1969! The Eiffel Tower is even on the damn album cover! Goddamn fuckin' French! Jane Fonda should be arrested and hung!"

Of course that was before we found out about John Kerry's role.

Answered!

Do possums attack people?

According to Google , there are 87,400 answers to this question and answers #1 and #2 are both provided by this blog.
My site meter tells me that, on average, three people per day visit this site asking : do possums attack people?

The answer is : No.

Unless they have rabies.
Or are cornered. Or hungry.
Or mutants.

Why are they asking this question anyway? It's the sort of question most people would only ask when confronted with a snarling possum; by which time it's usually too late to cry for help, much less go on-line and Google "do possums attack people?"

I mean, have you ever seen a possum snarl? Of course not. No one living has.

According to one expert , human encounters with possums lead to over 2 million fatal attacks per year. These attacks are almost invariably fatal only to the possum.

In one of his lesser-known experiments, Nik Tesla discovered that possums possess an acute sensitivity to minute changes in the Earth's magnetic field, such as those produced by solar flares on our own sun.

Shortly before he vanished while demonstrating a prototype 'time weapon' to the U.S. military, Tesla established a link between increased solar activity and unusual possum behavior. He observed that during periods of flare-ups, the possums outside his squalid New York boarding house would engage in otherwise unheard of behavior, such as devouring automobile tires and holding strange marsupial orgies involving ceremonial headgear and human sacrifice. He speculated that possums could be exposed to a combination of solar radiation and negative energy and transformed into 'electro' warrior-animals designed to act as advance troops in the obsolete art of trench warfare.



This idea was rejected by officials from the U.S.A., England and the Soviet Union, who were more interested in developing tanks, planes and artillery. Tesla's research into weaponized possums was lost when he vanished nearly two years later.

So, no. Possums don't attack people. But they very well could have.

What Rhymes With Petraeus?

Imagine waking up in a strange hospital bed, staring straight up.
You have no sensation from the neck down.
Standing over you is Army Gen. Petraeus. He tells you it'll be a week before he can give you all the information, but the good news is : " We were able to save your toes." He obliquely refers to some other, not-so-good news, but you'll have to wait on that. He has to get his diagnosis approved by his boss first. His boss, who is neither a soldier nor a doctor, is the decider in your case...

Then he leaves and you are left to wonder: My toes? Which ones? How many? What about the parts of my body that are not toes? May I please have some Valium?

Writing to his troops, the top U.S. commander in Iraq emphasized that violence there had diminished in eight of the last 11 weeks. But while "many of us had hoped this summer would be a time of tangible political progress," Petraeus said in a letter addressed to "Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Civilians" serving in Iraq that "it has not worked out as we had hoped."

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

Violence has decreased? The US suffered 18 combat deaths in the first six days of September alone. At that rate, we will lose 90 men and women this month. If a body count of under 100 per month is considered "progress", I'd have to say that we are well and truly fucked.

Of course, as Petraeus suggests, we always could wait six more months...we've been "giving it more time" since 2003 but hey, maybe the 4,000th time is the charm.