Good Job!

                                 -Blame the black dude

 By now you have probably heard about the heat that Michael Steele is taking over revelations of a recent party-sponsored Republican recruiting trip to a bondage-themed Hollywood strip club. A Republican fund-raiser named Erik Brown billed $1,950 to the GOP for 'entertainment' at an adult club and the moral stalwarts at the GOP reimbursed him. Naturally, this payment was canceled  after the story broke in the media.

                                    -Republican strippers
The story has raised a few questions but I have one of my own: So what?

I don't think it's fair to strip Mr. Brown of his expense account reimbursements, nor do I think it is fair to pillory Michael Steele for letting the Republican party suffer yet another embarrassing exposure as the moral hypocrites that they are.

First off, $2,000 really doesn't go that far in a high-end titty bar, so Mr. Brown's expense charge was hardly lavish. Secondly and most importantly, choosing to entertain prospects at such a club demonstrates remarkable skill and efficiency on the part of Mr. Brown; he should be praised and rewarded by his bosses for being so good at his job. I mean, an upscale sex club is the ideal place to recruit young Republicans- why waste time and money trying to recruit from the general public when he can find the perfect demographic- male, misogynistic, moneyed and drunk- tightly gathered in one dark place? In any case, it is the perfect venue for wooing prospective party members; a strip club is a microcosmic simulation of neocon New World Nirvana:  it's a man's world where money is the only motivator, women are objects that have no say and the minorities are there to do the fighting if things get ugly. You aren't gonna find much support for that agenda on the campus of most intellectually elite universities, but you will find it in a sex club. "Join us and  one day the whole world will be like this", would be a good come-on line.

Mr. Brown simply knew where to look for recruits  and now he's in trouble for doing his job. Tsk.

And is there anyone who hasn't noticed that GOP Chairman Michael Steele is an obviously token Black Fall Guy for Everything Wrong That Can't Be Blamed On Obama? If a white man had caused half the scandal and embarrassment that Steele had, he'd have been kicked out of the Party and be working as a commentator on Fox News by now, but the GOP uses Steele's visible incompetence as counterpoint to Obama's  smooth coolness; plus the Republicans can now blame black men for destroying both major American political parties. If that were true, it would be a great achievement...but it is not true.


I wonder if the Tea Bagger party will offer to take me to a sex club?  I hope not. I hate trailer parks.

            -I wish the parties were this fragile.

Sham Poo

Ireland  was a different  place before Pat introduced the triangle to the Emerald Isle.  After that, the Irish put down their localized tribal ways and began outsourcing their spirituality to a foreign wholesaler in Rome...and they all lived happily ever after.

They lived so happily-ever-after that by 1800 one could find Irish chain-gangs laboring on three continents; four if one were lucky.

As recently as 1960, no one was certain if an Irishman could be elected President of the United States...turned out that one could, but with certain caveats.

Once upon a time I used to celebrate Irish Musician's Employment Day the time-honored way: by getting drunk. Then again, I celebrated almost every day the same way- only it wasn't really celebrating, because by the time a person starts drinking every day, they are almost invariably miserable.

The Irish have a hard-earned reputation for alcoholism, which is probably on account of  them having so much joy to celebrate.

But I'm not going to let a thousand years of history ruin my mood.

- Music! Have you checked out the new single from my band, Monday Machines?
It is called 'Ruined Morning' and is available -free!- from the widget at the top of the sidebar over yonder---->
Please give it a listen; I hope you'll enjoy it and come back when the CD is released in April.

-Company! My old friends Liz and Craig are visiting on Pagan Loss day. The first time we met, I was drunk and they were single. Now I'm sober and they are married to each other. I suspect that we are all better off now than then.

-I'm alive!



Next: Some are dead and the rest will be.

Chastity and Prudence

Flashback to a few months ago:
I'm on a dinner date with my female friend Chastity. At least I thought it was a dinner date...when we arrive at the restaurant, Chastity tells me that she had "forgotten" our date and had already eaten...oh, that's really awesome, I think, I've been looking forward to this all week and you forgot and now I have to either skip dinner or eat alone, in public, with an audience of one. I guess sex is out of the question.

Sex, Chastity informs me, is out of the question.

That's fine, I say. I mean it. It's Ok. I'm just glad for the company.

Chastity tells me that I'm not OK with that. She has brothers and she knows how men think. She knows that I'm only after sex and I'm not getting any from her.

Besides, she continues, I am dating our mutual friend, Prudence.

This is all news to me.

"Chassie", I explain, "I am not dating Prudence. Prudence gave me the "let's just be friends" speech a long time ago...that's where we stand now."

"No", she insists, " I have seen you together. Women know these things."

Waitress! Check, please!

Forward to much more recently:

It's late at night and I'm hanging out with Prudence. We're Googling weird bands and listening to snippets of music...it's in a semi-public place and there's absolutely no sex going on.

Just friends.

In walks Chastity. She sees me sitting next to Prudence and her demeanor darkens.

Liar, I can hear her think, I knew you were fucking Prudence.

Progress Report

Tomorrow Gen. David Betraeus and American Ambassador Lyin' Crocker are scheduled to lie to the American public regarding the current state of the Iraqi occupation.

What lies will they tell? The same ones we've heard before.

They will tell us that progress is being made in Iraq.

This is true if you are a Shiite insurgent- the forces of rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr fought Puppet Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Iraqi Army to a bloody standstill last week during a poorly conceived military 'crackdown' on Sadr's private army in Basra...the operation didn't accomplish much except to prove that the Iraqi Army (and Maliki's government ) are helpless without U.S. air and ground support.
The recent battle also helped create and widen internecine divides within the Shiites themselves, thus making any future reconciliations more difficult- neighbor kills neighbor, brother kills brother...grudges were formed, to say the least.

The Iranians have also made considerable progress in Iraq, a nation which they have historically been at odds with...Maliki's Puppet Ministry is openly sympathetic to Iran's government; Saddam was not.

Gen. Betraeus and Mr. Crock will certainly point out that Mr. Maliki's government is not capable of standing on it's own and they will doubtlessly use that observation as part of their rationale for continuing the Iraqi occupation - what they won't give us is a 'timetable' as to when the civic miracle of Iraqi sovereignty will occur.

No one knows for certain when that will happen. But we do know when it won't happen. Peace won't break out while Iraq is occupied by a foreign power-Iraq will remain in a state of anarchistic violence as long as we stay there. As long as we stay, there will be war. There's no way to tell how long-or even if- a peace can be established, but it won't even start until we bring our troops home.

Imagine if you were given a project at work and you turned it in without finishing it, crying exultantly, "mission accomplished!"...five years later your boss is still asking you when you will be finished and all you can say is: "hey man, I'm workin' on it...all I need is more time. And a raise."
You'd be fired.

Five years have passed and we are still dropping bombs in the hearts of Iraqi cities.
From any perspective this is a failure and it will get worse before it gets better.

If we pull out our troops, Mr. Maliki and his Puppet ministers will probably be executed by their own people- history doesn't look kindly on wartime collaborators. Tough shit.

If force was capable of spreading 'freedom' it would have worked already- if the Persians wanted Western democracy, they could have adopted it from the Greeks two thousand years ago.
Or, more recently, from the British- we all remember how well the British occupation of the Middle East worked out, right?
Right?
Obviously not.
I mean, who could have foreseen any of the troubles that we, as the invader, have faced in the Middle East?
The Crusades went so smoothly, after all. No trouble there...man, the whole thing shoulda been a cakewalk, just like establishing Israel was...I mean, that went off without a hitch or complaint, right?

Ooops.
What I meant to say is that 60 years after establishing 'freedom' in Israel, we are still trying to stop the violence there and the best solution anyone seems to have come up with involves concentration camps, a segregated population and the copious use of armed force backed with an implied nuclear threat, three things that just scream ' freedom'...it's a wonder that the Liberty Bell doesn't shatter from the the stress of ringing out all that freedom.


Perhaps we will be told that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in power.

I challenge anyone to provide one concrete example to support that claim- just saying "he was a bad man" isn't good enough- how exactly is the world a better place? Be specific.

There were 631 reported incidents of Iraqi violence in March, up from 239 the previous month...at the time , the 'low' number of 239 was held up as sign of progress- only 239 attacks in a month, that's less than 10 bombings per day!

How many car bombs does it take to ruin one's day?

4.5 million Iraqis have fled their homeland. I suppose an optimist could say that Saddam never would have granted 4.5 million travel visas, but those Iraqis aren't on vacation, they are wartime refugees. What sort of 'progress' creates 4.5 million refugees?

Iran's theocratic leaders were held in check by Saddam's secular regime and vice-versa- Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton all knew and understood this- the USA has a long history of supporting both sides of the perpetual conflict between Iran and Iraq because it served our interests to do so- Saddam also kept al-Queda from establishing a presence in Iraq...when Iraq invaded Kuwait during Bush 41's term, Osama bin-Laden contacted the Kuwaiti government and offered the services of his own private army to expel the Iraqi invaders; at the time, bin-Laden's Mujahadeen warriors were basking in the glow of their recent victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, (a feat they accomplished with considerable American help) and were itchin' for a fight with Saddam, who al-Queda saw as a Westernized infidel who refused to pay proper tribute to their call for Fundamentalist rule...the Kuwaiti's rejected bin-Laden's offer but there was a lot of bad blood between Saddam and bin-Laden ; the Mujahadeen were not allowed in Iraq- until we invaded and opened the door for them-
before the U.S. invasion, an al-Queada agent would have been safer in Bush's Kansas than he would have been in Saddam's Iraq.

*****************************************************
Speaking of Fundamentalist rule, I used to live in Utah, circa 1984 and this group was one of the worst-kept public secrets I've ever encountered...I mean, everyone in Utah knew what their deal was ; every once in a while they'd make the news and would be pressured to re-locate to a locale that was more inclined to ignore polygamy, rape, pedophilia and forced marriages- these areas of America are more common than I'd like to believe-first Utah, then Colorado, then Arizona...now Texas has them. They can hold 'em for all I care.

**************************************************

Speaking of progress:

-I did not and will not get a new PC anytime soon. That offer was withdrawn due to another family crisis. I can't go into that now.

-I had two job interviews last week but no job offers. I'm borrowed-out and flat broke. I need new shoes, new clothes, new food...new everything. I'm willing to work for them but no one is hiring...America just lost another 150,000 jobs over the last 45 days. In 1999 I made $25/hr...the best offer I've had this year was $8. It's a good thing that the cost of living has also dropped by 2/3 or I'd be at serious risk of losing my apartment.
I have been homeless before but it was brief and it was by my own choice...the next time promises to be neither.

- There are options to homelessness. The last time I was facing the street life here in Fallentown, I found a girlfriend with a house and moved in with her. She turned out to be a drug-dealing psychopath with shady connections to the world of professional art thieves. She also had a semi-domesticated pet wolf that was prone to killing the neighbor's pets and when we broke up she tried to 'sic' the wolf on me but I was one of the only humans it liked and I escaped unmauled.

- My ex-girlfriend once tried to kill me with a wolf. How much worse could it get?
I'm dating again, so I'm pretty sure that I'm going to find out.

Thanks

A little over two years ago I had a very unpleasant night. It started on the evening that I quit drinking.
I hadn't been feeling very well, so I thought maybe I'd lay off the booze for a week or two...but after less than a day, I started feeling ill- I had to leave work early, I could barely keep from throwing up and I was so dizzy that I could hardly speak: "sick...must go home", I mumbled and left.

Other than a beer, I only wanted two things:

1) An ice cube. For hours, I had been plagued with an indescribable thirst, the like of which I had never experienced- but every time I drank water, I vomited. A small sip of water would result in a small geyser of black, bloody bile; followed by incapacitating stabbing pains in my guts...perhaps a smaller sip of room temperature water would help...more blood and pain. Ice cubes felt good in my mouth as long as I was careful not to swallow any of the melting water- I felt hot and cold at the same time and the ice was the only consistent thing in my world at that moment, cool, always cool...me, I was sweating, shaking and shivering but the ice made me feel stable...until it was gone.

2) I wanted to die. The tearing, burning pain from my ruptured esophagus was almost as bad as the realization that I really didn't care that I was dying...I was losing blood by the mouthful and I really expected to expire at any moment- alone in a filthy apartment, surrounded by vodka bottles, beer cans and my own bloody puke, which I didn't see any pressing need to clean up.

I wonder if I'll ever understand why I changed my mind, but obviously I did.

I used my last twenty minutes of consciousness to drive myself to a fairly distant hospital - the same one I was born in, in fact. I live across the street from a hospital, but I didn't want t go there- I once spent 12 hours in their ER waiting room and I didn't think I had 12 hours to wait...it was late -not much traffic- I ran a few lights, sorta hoping to get pulled, but not caring- any cop would see that I was sick...anyway, I made it into the emergency room with a few minutes to spare. Just a few.

A gauzy figure asked me who they should notify. I probably wasn't going to live and they needed a next-of-kin. I wanted to say something but I don't know much after that...it was all tubes, machines, masks and bright rooms full of worried people...and then nothing.

A few minutes later, I woke up in an unfamiliar bed. A stern-looking man in a white coat was standing over me...I was in a hospital. There were things inside my nose , my mouth, my arms...other places. I immediately wanted to be somewhere else.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital..."

"Do you know what day it is?"

I told him. I was wrong by three days.

For three days I had suffered a series of grand mal seizures brought on by my sudden alcoholic withdrawal- after years of daily drinking, my body wasn't capable of running properly without alcohol...at various points it looked as if my heart, kidneys and/or liver were going to quit altogether, but luckily, they did not.
All told, three surgeries were required to repair the physical damage done by decades of alcoholism. The emotional damage is a different matter. That is something that I am working on at this very moment.

After I was told what had happened to me, I knew that I wouldn't drink again, but convincing my therapists and doctors was not so easy...one woman told me that statistically, most people who arrive in my condition don't live more than a few months- they usually drink again as soon as they are released and die shortly thereafter. Given my personal history and family background, she was not at all optimistic about my chance of recovery- my liver was starting to break down and it was too early to tell if it would recover (it did)...I was advised to start getting whatever affairs I had in order.

Fuck that. Football season was getting ready to begin and my 39th birthday was right around the corner...my previous plan of "dead by 40" didn't seem so appealing...I didn't know dying would hurt so much. I was in no hurry for more pain.

During those days I learned to love ginger ale, though I seldom touch it anymore.

Ginger ale meant I was getting better- one straw full, sip...wait...take another, smaller one...in an hour you can have another sip. Maybe.
Tiny sips of ginger ale and an IV full of Valium sustained me for several days...eventually, I convinced my keepers that I wasn't suicidal and that I could be trusted to go home unattended. If I'd been insured, I imagine that I'd have been placed on the 5th floor psych ward...but I wasn't insured, so I was freed.

I didn't have much to come home to. I had lost my temp job during my absence and had spent what little money I had on medical bills and Nexium. My car was a 'rolling total', an '87 Honda in worse shape than I was...at home, all the blood and mess from that dreadful night was still there, dried and caked onto everything...

For two years after that, I left a little blackish spot of dried blood on the wall behind the toilet- I pointedly avoided it during my rare cleaning episodes- I left it there as a reminder to myself as to how goddamn fucking lucky I am to be alive and that one drink could put me right back behind the toilet.

Last week I cleaned that speck off. I don't need it any more.

I was going to make an "inspirational list" of things that I am thankful for, but honestly,
the one thing that I am most thankful for is the fact that I am still alive.

I spent today in my kitchen.
My grandmother has been too ill to prepare a 'real' dinner for many years- for a while we made do with the store-box type, which are awful- but after I sobered up, I took on the job of preparing our holiday family meals.

With Grandma, my Dad and my Uncle all in bad shape, I have to face up to the fact that each holiday may be the last one. There's nothing I can do about that except try to make sure that we have the best dinner possible... today I prepared homemade stuffing, laced with cranberries and fresh rosemary leaves- sadly, parsley, sage and thyme were of the dry variety- I boiled, peeled and mashed five pounds of fresh russets, adding just a touch of cream, white pepper, fresh roasted garlic and olive oil...mmmm...so good...and finished with a rice pilaf, using just a touch of cumin...a recent experiment showed that this blends exceptionally well with traditional gravy and stuffing-important life lesson: don't be afraid to take chances when cooking! Some odd combos work nicely... mangoes and goat, for instance.

Anyway, I don't need a list of things to be thankful for.

I have only one thing to be thankful for.

I'm thankful to be alive. That covers everything.

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.

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.