01/24/2007 06:47 AM -- I could never succeed in intelligibly defining stupidity but I know it when I see it
The concept of the deadbeat dad is no bogeyman, no chimerical construct invented by bitter ex-wives looking to milk some poor bastard for every dime. Unfortunately, the world is full of worthless pricks too busy looking for holes to poke and bottles to empty rather than doing the hard work of being a dad, much less shouldering the financial responsibility of raising kids. If a so-called man is willing to walk away from his children, I think he’s an idiot; if he’s willing to leave those children high and dry, he’s scum. If to get that scum to be a tenth of the man he needs to be and pay his fair share takes the state threatening jail and garnishing checks, I’m all for it. The only good deadbeat dad is a dead deadbeat dad or at least, a deadbeat dad doing a nice long stretch in county jail.
The Child Support Enforcement Agency of El Paso County, Colorado is therefore there, in their shiny clothes and neatly wrapped sandwiches, rapping ink stamps on papers, having a margarita in the afternoon, doing lots of sudoku, checking out YouTube. CSEU of El Paso County, Colorado is that lout in the office who eats alot and never does any work, loses your shit and claims it was your fault. That thing that was there before you and will remain well after you're gone, its girth oozing out into the aisles like a malignant sac of pus reeking of its self-perpetuating putrescence.
It (CSEU) knows these things, the court knows them:
X and I share custody of the kids 50/50
The "X-McQ v. Me-McQ" is a lie (it needs to be "CSEU v. Me-McQ" on the court papers);
X makes about 10 grand a year more than I do;
and yet insists that I provide documents for everything - everything it already has indisputable proof for - and then whatever else it thinks it needs (phone bills from the last three years or papers on how to sex pre-pubescent game birds).
This is Kafkaesque and I think you’ll agree. The state wants $100 a month from me. I make 9.50 an hour; $100 a month may not matter much to you but it’s a fortune to my family, the decision between camping this month or change the oil on the car and replace a tire. Yet, of that $100 a month, X gets $57 (which she applies towards daycare). The state is keeping $43 for fees and such. A tax on poor people, I guess, for not being able to afford the time it takes to get T’s crossed and such. Yet, the most absurd aspect of this situation is that the state must be ultimately losing in this case - surely the cost of maintenance on this case costs the state more than $43 a month.
To get my $100, the state is willing to pull both my driver's license and my counseling license. Take my way to get around, get to work, pick up my kids, make me pay $60 for the reinstatement and the day's wages it takes to sit and wait in the DMV. Take away my license to make a decent wage and - well, you see the infinite regress in this.
The state loses money in this; so do X and me-McQ. So who benefits? You'd think the state would ask itself that but instead there's an inexorable slog through knee-deep stupidity that sucks, sucks, sucks with every step. The whole thing about doing what's best for families gets lost in the day to day drudge of bill collecting. The forest is a blur because the trees are more goddamn paperwork. Fucking trees.
So here and then there, that’s it and nothing else; nothing here and nothing there, nothing to see here folks, move along.
No really – move along.
There is probably a million among none of you who remember that summer when I was bringing vials of Ketamine to anyone who’d have them. Just jam a milligram into a muscle and there you were, somewhere else, experiencing the life of a butterfly or realizing what some Hindu deity did in another dimension, something dirty smelling like dirt and the essence of pure light. A life of bits strewn like glitter across junk oil in a gutter, bits of another sky looking up, chipped and shimmering with chunks of glass shot into the street, sizzling and jumping and tumbling like crystal dice, screaming across the sky then burrowing through the earth, mumbling beneath the rocks, making the dirt jump with each throb of my heart, making the grass bend my way and sigh, the tiny remains scattered through other matter and the debris of ideas. Or ideals. Something spun on a nautilus path again and again and repeated endlessly, self-referential, recherché, chanted prayers and spinning mandalas, a twirling eternity spoken of like it was new and realized when it’s always been thus; this and nothing else.
Once I was standing in a Spanish Villa, in a patio. There was a fountain in the middle, the sound rushing past me and then echoing in the surrounding four walls. The tiles beneath my feet were slick with spray, slippery, dark around the edges where mildew had set in. It was a warm night and clear, stars obscured by the light of torches set around and subtle with their scent of oil. I’d stepped into the house of someone rich and meticulous – everything was exquisite, in balance – alive. Everything was as authentic as the hairs standing up damp on my neck.
And then I was spun off into something else, whatever bits were me coalesced into serendipity or spending the lifetime of a snail or being the number seven in intense realization, no me but only those things that I was in totality.
That immediate dissolution of ego, that denial of no common I, was a condition of the trip that I think made most people uncomfortable. In that summer of lost hours, I remember people embracing the vials and almost immediately rejecting the effect, the fear of losing who they were because who they were was all they’d known. To have all they’d known shown to be the sham it had always been was far too much for them to handle. A little E, some weed, big booze strewn back forcefully while kneeling in piss – all that was fine, safe. Getting ripped from here into there with no face left, well, that was intolerable.
A K-Hole is real, more real than you’ll ever know and it’s the ‘more real’ part that bothers so many people. Being a junkie just requires getting lost onside one’s self; in a K-Hole, Self is discarded with cold disregard. Poof, it’s gone and the rest of you, go there, now. Then there and there and so on. For about an hour of that and then, nothing, back to earth and feeling vertically challenged, shitfaced drunk. For about an another hour. And then everything’s fine. Unless you’re still worried about demons dancing on your soul.
It was a weird summer and things shifted in chaotic ways, convoluting across the bricks like an English Ivy. Since I don’t believe in souls or demons, everything was fine, I was having the time of my life. Go to Spain, be a number, yeah, I could deal with that. Vacation on the cheap.
10/19/2006 05:58 AM -- No!
I scream so that others may look into the dark, dusty corners beyond the Pepsi machine and desire that I might STFU.
Actually, the title is a play on my son's response to looking out the window and seeing everything obscured to a fat outline by a hefty snowfall. "No!" the inhibited, clipped, frozen nostril cadence of a Mini so Ton, the economy of air at the expense of syllables, dropping the 's' in favor of breathing or just being four.
Lots of no where I was at tonight. Sopping fat flakes of October thrown down immediately in a big whump of a storm. After I got home, I noticed my jeans were wet to mid-calf. I was lucky; my jeans could have been a lot more soaked.
The pass I drive down every night is a deep canyon cleaved by a small stream, deeply graded towards the negative, almost impenetrable by light even on nights with a full moon at its apex, all headlights and curves and tree trunks and hoping there’s no suicidal deer eager to stick its head through a windshield. Tonight the added attraction included mounds of wet snow thrown up by tires ahead all night, turned to ice.
Oh, but wait. Not only did I get mounds and pools of death but Colorado also offers this: twits who view inclement weather and dangerous conditions as a good reason to drive badly at twice the speed. Not only do these drivers find themselves in a spin directly in front of me but they ALSO give me a stupid look as you pass them by while they sit stuck in a ditch! In other worlds, you’d make $90k, $100k, $125 - $300k – to deal with this shit but in this special “real world” offer, it’s done for eight-fifty an hour. EIGHT FUCKING FIFTY AN HOUR.
Yet, my jeans were not that wet. Usually, the wreck in the ditch was some big dumbfuck in a big dumb truck, a smashed out grill grinning imbecilicaly into the chill, steam rising like a thought balloon saying “Doh!” Driving my beater down the pass with care (because the slightest ding would be catastrophic at eight fucking – yeah, you SEE), I passed some obscenely large pickups that had moments earlier gone barreling by like some drunken, rolling turd looking for a place to sink. Yee haw motherfucker, you may have had a good car but I’ll always have good karma. Laugh, laugh laugh, laugh, laugh laugh laugh laugh.
My grandmother used to say that laughter dried up tears but she was crazier than a shithouse rat. Not that I’d shed any tears for the chumps in the ditch and their crumpled lumps of tin on which they’d botched their credit. Nor had I laughed at their misfortune. Indeed, I hadn’t even considered that the morons stuck miserably in the snow probably made much more money than me. Any tee-hee from me was purely my sense that I’d soon be home in fresh, warm jeans and writing this wickedly, grill still intact, grinning like a chump at home while some dumbass stands freezing in the no, explaining to some state trooper how this, uh, came down.
Sitting here, looking out my window, I could say no. Nancy Reagan wanted me to. But, no, it’s been said, right at this window, by sweeter lips than mine.
10/12/2006 02:45 AM -- Wait is why we hate
Neil would look at the paperwork and then look at his computer screen. Then look at the paperwork and then look at his computer screen, scratch his head then look at his paperwork. Then look at his computer screen. Then look at his paperwork and maybe, get up and walk in a circle, look at his shoes, look at the fat ass of the Samoan manning the next booth, circle around like a lost moth but s - l - o - w, almost backwards. Then look at his paperwork.
Again.
All I needed was Motor Vehicle Record. The people consigned to the "renew your license" circle camped in the torture seats, starved and hollow-eyed, had a zombie stare saying "Movement... brains... eat...yummmmm."
Watching him work was like standing and waiting for my house to sink another inch into the ground; knowing it's going to happen and knowing I'd never see it happen yet having to be there to document something. Instead of doing something enriching like watching a penny jar grow into a decent weekend in Juarez.
When I was a kid, I'd capture tadpoles and put them in a big bowl out on the patio, just to watch them do tadpole things and turn into frogs. Some wouldn't make it and man, they'd stink up the entire patio. I never knew when they’d jump out and run away but for the longest time they’d just swim around and eat the flies I fed them.
The next time a Jehova’s Witness or Mormon pops up on your doorstep, you can scream at them and declare, truthfully, “I’ve been to hell and it stinks like dead tadpoles! It’s the DMV!!!”
He’d stop and try to count the change in his pockets with his fingertips and then sit back down to look at the paperwork then look at his computer screen. Then look at the paperwork, look at his computer screen, scratch his head then look at his paperwork again. Touch his computer screen and mumble, “Wait.”
“What’s that?”
“Hmmmm…”
“That.”
“Hmmmm…”
Look at his paperwork and then look back at the screen.
“Hmmmm…”
Then pause,
“Your driver’s license says you’re ‘Wilford Smith’ but the computer says you’re ‘Wil, then something that looks Daffy Duck wearing a World War One German helmet and then Ford and then Smith.”
“Hmmmm…”
Touch the screen and then look like he was really concentrating. Then rise back from his screen, hold up his finger, look, really look, a flake of dandruff that had drifted off his head had stuck itself across a zero or an eff, then think about snow and how he liked to scoop it off of things and eat it, well, except the snow with dog poop in it, definitely not that snow, especially not the snow that makes it hard to drive, no that’s bad. Bad.
Then look at his paperwork and try to remember what the point was. Then look at his screen and wonder where all the snow went.
This is Colorado after all and the snow melts fast, what with all the sun and the dry air and the crazy drivers turning snow into red pellets of death. Yelling and honking and giving him the bird, then coming into the DMV to get their shit straight only for more yelling and honking and giving him the bird.
Then take one more look at the flake and carefully place the flake back on his head.
In my field, I have to provide criminal background checks and I can get those can be had for six bucks on line - in a tenth of the time it takes to examine a flake of dandruff. “Murderer, yep. Rapist, uh hmmm, yep al queda, sure. Shoplifting, too.” All on line and quick as electrons can fly (depending on your internet connection, of course). Painless and requiring no patience. The last time you got caught speeding or that bogus ‘failure to use turn signal’ ticket is another matter; laying in a lake of fire and having your genitals flayed is apparently the only punishment for those sins.
“Hmmmm…"
"Dandruff."
Eventually the earth would shift, East Africa a little closer to the Indian Ocean, and Neil would call the next stone in line. The stones sang and they sounded like this:
“Hmmmm…"
10/01/2006 05:12 AM -- Direct experience proves String Theory
So, correct me if I'm wrong. Quantum particles aren't just particles but waves and well, strings or something that meander off into God knows where but are continuous instantiations of their essence - dependent on the dimension they're expressed.
Is that so? Do you ever ask youself that? Do you wonder why mathamatics so elegantly describe the universe up close but the rules go ka-flooey when totality is held up to the light? Really, is that so?
Or are you worried about the next big dinosaur-killing comet? Trenchcoats in the restroom, wrenchcoats in the testroom, creepy street people and corporate clowns? The Next Big Thing that will turn us into fertilizer? Is the Brown People threatening our way of life or are they our kind of folk just eager for the opportunity to clean the swimming pool? Because by God ya gotta remembah tha hep, speshully on Xmas. Give em sumpin shiny shuh-gah, fascinates em for dais.
Anyway, we were discussing doubts or skepticism or sting theory of fears or something dumb and that's just why you come here, right?
A little fear and string theory on the grill - ksssssssss....
All my fear is about the unknown; some unknown threat leading to losing something I already have (i.e. my life, after some loon in a hockey mask hits me in the jugular with a hatchet) or not getting that which I think I deserve. And that's it. Think about it too and I doubt you'll come up with something outside that.
Really, I've thought about this for about 15 years and have yet to find that anything else composes my fear. Some junkie was on a nod in my bathroom and I wanted to understand his need for obliteration, his need to jam a spike in his veins and go, essentially, out.
"No fear," he mumbled, shook his head and smiled, "no fear."
"That's it?" I asked, "Just that - no fear?"
"That's who I am, man, the man won't let me be anything else."
It was one of those Zen stick in the head type moments the awakening that masters call that Zen stick in the head type moment. His, ours, mine, all our fear summed up in two simple concepts. I've continued to wonder, almost daily, whether there's anything outside not getting ours or losing what we already got.
As far as string theory, I have no clue, figure it out for yourself.
If you could get your hands on any ticket, who would you see? What music defines you?
My answer is over there but I thought I’d elaborate here by reaching deep into the memory sack (carefully – never know what’s lurking within) and whip out a soiled page from my own version of On the Road. It’s scene from the early 80s
In that sordid chapter, I landed in Missoula, Montana and though didn’t raise a crop of dental floss, I ended up helping my uncle move the yield of a much more lucrative (and fun) product. Though my mohawk, studded leather jacket, and multiple piercings identified me as “that punk guy” for several hundred miles around (thus, with necessary discretion lacking, prevented me from making stacks of cash), I was able to make enough to pay rent, shoot pool, and stay drunk most of the time.
The thing about being a penny-ante dealer is that it’s feast or famine and it was an unfortunate twist of fate that I’d hit a long dry spell when word got to me that The Clash would be opening up for The Who in Seattle. Damn, I thought, I’d spent all my cash on rent like some super responsible yuppie shit; stiffing my roommate for rent would have made sense if it meant seeing The Greatest Rock n’ Roll Band in the World opening for the band that had once held that title. If I’d acted more like a punk and less like a pimp I’d have been able to pop for tickets but the cards had been dealt and it looked like I’d be sitting out the hand. By the time I was back in business (half a Hefty Bag full of shrooms), the show was sold out.
Seattle’s a straight shot west on I-90 from Missoula, a six-hour drive (less if you’re really hauling ass) and I figured fuck it, I’d find a way and see if I could score some scalped tickets. Just after dawn on the morning of the show I got my roommate to drive me out to the interstate, my backpack stuffed with extra clothes (mostly to hide an ounce of magic caps) and enough cash in my pocket to pay double-price for a ticket, a tour shirt, and a few beers. I stuck my thumb out as I held out the cardboard sign I’d drawn up the night before in bold block letters, “Seattle – THE CLASH!”
It was holy crap cold out on the road, Canadian wind wet with sleet brutally slashing my face and freezing my fingers. Although I’d dropped my punk gear for clothes more suited for the weather (an army surplus cold weather field jacket I’d picked up for $5) my nads were still tiny, tinkling ice-cubes. Four years in Hawaii hardly prepared me for my first autumn in the Pacific Northwest.
It took about a half hour to finally score a ride (some old guy who took me as far as Couer D’Alene and kind of creeped me out) but as the day turned nicer, my spirits rose. My next ride got me to Spokane and there I hooked up with some hippies who took me all the way to the Kingdome, sharing their dope while we argued about the merits of punk and the Grateful Dead.
I was there almost three hours before showtime, plenty of time to score a ticket. Fishing my second piece of cardboard out of my backpack (“NEED A TICKET!!!”), I stationed myself strategically in the parking lot and waited for that magic spare, waving madly as cars full of fans blazed by, found a space and took their happy asses inside. Car after car passed by with no luck, no extra tickets, no scalpers looking to take my ill-gotten gains.
As showtime neared (T-Bone Burnette opened, I think), I edged closer to the arena doors. Too close to cops for scalpers but the lots were too full of empty cars to hope I’d snag a Lucy and so the steps into the stadium seemed like the obvious place to stand. The older fans (there for The Who) walked past and looked at me like I was pathetic while The Clash fans (younger, many wearing jackets like my own) showed a power-fist or flashed a peace sign, “Hang in there, brother!”
Faint strains of the opening band’s performance rolled across the front steps as I paced furiously, dejected, clenching hard on the cardboard, curling the sign’s edges with my fingers. Drum and bass vibrations prodded me, adding to my annoyance, a soft mist falling from the Seattle night sky and giving my jacket a slight metallic gleam. Steamed and shivering, I lit a cigarette and walked to the bottom of the steps considering what my next move should be before my long trek back to Missoula darkened with dashed hopes.
Not ready to give up, not yet, not after hitching 600 miles, I decided to circumvent the arena thinking maybe I’d find some passed out partier with a ticket conspicuously dangling from his pocket. Scuffing my boots across the wet pavement, hands stuffed hard into my pockets (I’d ditched my sign back at the steps), I made my way past the sides of the arena, service entrances and tour buses, meandering clear and wide of the security contingent (considering I had an ounce of shrooms in my backpack) checking every shadow for any hint that I might get inside.
Shrouded in the mist ahead, black and huddled against the arena walls, appeared to be a crowd of people sheltered against the light rain beneath an egress walkway. As I drew closer I could hear the band inside as clear as if the music had been piped outside. It was a sizable crowd, more than 50 but less than 100, gathered at an air vent that apparently sat just off stage left (and several swore, the best sound to be had inside and out of the notoriously acoustically-deficient Kingdome). A sweet cloud of superior BC bud smoke billowed out into the cold Pacific air, a buffer against the chill and a bond that helped us forget that there was only one place we’d rather be.
Most of the people I met were like myself, dedicated to seeing The Clash but shitty at scoring a ticket, settling for second best but as things settled, not too worried about losing out. A few were just there for the party, no pretense of seeing the show at all but familiar with this little nook and what it could happen as the dedicated gathered. Not surprisingly, the few had brought the beer and were doing well at a buck a bottle.
After a couple bowls, I set my pack down, snatched out my shrooms, crammed a handful into my mouth and then stuffed the rest of the bag into a deep pocket T-Bone (I think) had finished and crowd sounds inside mixed with the sounds of the crowd keeping warm in the concrete cave outside. As I made my way to one of the beer guys, I reached into the bag and cupped a handful delicately, as if I carried a baby bird. The coolers were full of schwag, Miller and Olympia, but there was no shortage of buyers. Yeah, I had cash but I wanted to save it for the trip home, every dollar. Holding out my hand, I offered the beer man a trade. He asked how many beers I wanted for trade.
If they’re any good, I told him, I won’t want many, will I?
I made my way back into the crowd and tilted the beer up, down, into me, the cold draft on my throat mediating the psilocybin sizzling beneath my skin. Eyes blazing, I scoped out my next mark, a chick with blue hair and a nose ring who had earlier packed me a bowl of fat, sticky bud. And another taker. By the time the unmistakable lights-out roar filtered outside, I was down to about an eighth.
Suddenly the opening chords of “London Calling” blasted above and then through, percussively, the shock propelling everyone skyward and back like droplets in a pool pierced by the biggest damn rock ever. At that moment nothing else mattered in the world but being there, that music then, the shared feeling that at that moment, nothing else mattered. Bobbing heads shot into the air sending shockwaves into the atmosphere, neon colored waves that ebbed into themselves and their instantiations of “green” or “yellow” or “orange” or… who knew?
The universe was shifting, becoming something altogether different than what anyone else anywhere else perceived it to be. Some of us stopped jumping during “Should I Stay or Should I Go” to stand still, look around and see each other thinking the same thing then laugh hysterically, laugh until we cried. Laughing in the knowledge that this was love and because of that the ground would not give way into some void, that we would not fall laughing like idiots into the emptiness of space.
The set was too short (an estimate made in retrospect by counting back the songs – it could have been five hours long for all I knew) and we settled back into being just us, talking, tripping, looking into the mist and smiling till it hurt. Bodies rubbed together, a bubbling mass of fun bathed in light and wonder. And though The Who’s (wisely picked) opening - “My Generation” - got everyone going again, we soon settled back into our diffuse and synchronistic groove that had evolved during the break. It’s not that The Who sucked (from what I recall, it was an excellent show) but by that time most of us were enraptured by what was going on around us. I don’t think we were so much apathetic as but just way too stoned to really appreciate everything The Who had to offer. I don’t even remember the encore or the end of the show or even the masses of people making their way to their cars. Eventually the cops came and told us it was time to move on and that was that.
Somehow I managed to finagle a ride all the way back to Missoula, cuddled up with some girl in the back seat, blissfully asleep the entire ride. She kissed me goodbye when I got dropped back at my place and I never saw her again. I went inside and made myself breakfast. I remember thinking, stirring eggs in a pan, I’d just returned from the best time I’d ever had at the best show I never saw.
And what music defines you? What's the best show you never saw?
07/29/2006 04:36 AM -- Mea culpa, mon amis
Mixing ignorance of languages (dead v. nearly dead) works for me almost as much as mixing metaphors. If that doesn't work for you - why the fuck are you here?!?
Taken to task by Bocast for my post per 6/17/06, I thus qualify my gripes by saying that the Chris-ter (not to be confused with the "Christ-er") has his fingers in more pies than I know how to count. And not in a "lead guitarist dude gots his fingers in lots of pies" kinda' way (wink x 2, nudge x 2). No, he's producing music and elevating minds and busying himself in ways that makes an indolent turd like myself shudder. Whilst shaking his busy finger in my face (and keeping it out of my pie, I should add), we discussed one of his many projects, mixing a book-on-tape version of St. Augustine's Confessions, agreeing that Augustine did more to destroy Western thought than a trunkload of dead Dobson fetuses.
We would have discused more but he had a gig to play and I had gratis Boonie beer to consume (and thank ye' Darren, beloved).
Likewise, I managed to grab a few minutes from John, taking him away from his laptop where he was composing a paper meant to put icing on the cake that is tenure. So it's not like Boonies are sheer slugabeds, they actually have lives and real jobs, feathering their nests in case the band continues to not take off. I trust their contingencies are not driven by a lack of faith.
The gig went well - much better than the July show - although the high point of my evening was the after-party at my place. It had been YEARS since I hosted one of those wake-up-the-neighbors affairs and it was a wonderful return to having stoned Dogglers sitting on stained pile carpeting discussing post post-modern palaver. My latest mix was a huge hit (the song list to be posted 8/1 on my so-called Daddy blog), I met a few new friends but I have to say that the high point of my morning had to have been both Boonie Goddess gracing my space with her fine mind (it had been TOO DAMN LONG since Marni and I had real conversation!) and the exquisite Gretle complimenting me on how clean my house was.
And I have a job, again. Not a great job but a steady paycheck. Though I don't need Boondoggle to pay for my drinks, it'd still be nice considering the artwork I do (BTW, check out the August flyers on the bitching board and vote for your favorite - even though no one really gives a shit what you think).
Oh wait - my writing here probably cancels that inferred debt out. Never mind. :-)
Finally (if you've followed this thus far), some talk was scattered about my place that "Boondoggle" was dead (as a name) and maybe the band ought to consider a name change. I concur and I'm on record saying that I never liked the name anyway (it's somewhere in the archives). Since Jeremy has never gotten around to programming a comments function here, I suggest you spam the Bitching Board with your name suggestions. William suggests "Marni & the Boots" but I can't figure that one out except that he figures it would ride the current garage-band wave that will be passe quicker than you can say "The Racontuers". However, I have to admit that as bad as William's suggestion is, I don't have a better alternative.
Get creative, amis, amat, amor.
07/20/2006 11:21 PM -- A very very modest proposal
I really want to see Boondoggle Saturday night, I really do. Except I'm out of work and dead broke. Penniless, a pauper, not a pot to piss in.
I've never asked for any payment for coming up with killer flyers but I think I will go ahead and scrape and beg this time. I think that's fair.
So how about 2 drinks from each band member on Saturday night (the only night I can make it - I have the kids Friday night). That would make 10 drinks all night, enough to get me good and shit-faced. No top-shelf shit or anything, just 10 decent drinks.
Fair enough? I think so - see you at the show?
PS - if Boondoggle concurs with my proposal, email me!
07/19/2006 8:42 PM -- 'Anonymous' = 'Dumbshit'
About a year ago I decided to go with moderated comments at my 'Daddy Blog', mostly to eliminate spam ("Great blog you have here! You might want to check out this link on refinancing your home!") but also to put the kibosh on a stalker who, apparently lacking a satisfying life and in dire need of a hobby, felt inclined to post incredibly incoherent messages meant to entertain none but the voices in her head. Suffice it to say, the moderated comments worked. The spam stopped immediately and the stalker found something else to do (probably learned how to fold that aluminum foil cap into a stately swan). Since then, most of my moderating has involved deleting redundant comments from the same poster; I've deleted only one comment and that was so astonishingly stupid I imagined the poster sitting on a porch somewhere in the far reaches of Appalachia, typing drool when not strummin' on the ol' banjo.
Thus, when I checked my email tonight to find this comment for this post at Patriside, my first thought was to send it off into oblivion and give it the fate it deserved. However, the more I read (and considered), the more I realized that a vicious beating was in order. The comment in question:
If its not your country ...than move. Sad story, tis true but dont blame the whole fucking country. I didnt do it.
By Anonymous, at 5:26 PM
First of all A, let's deal with matters of simple grammar, sweep that issue aside before we graduate to more serious skull thumping. A, it's "If... then" not "than". If you'd said, "You should leave rather than stay," then your statement might have made sense (doubtful, as you will see). However A, your inability to master simple punctuation tells me the then/than distinction is beyond your comprehension.
My guess is that the reading comprehension portion of your SATs came up with a big zero, A, since the concept of "This is not my country," amounted to nothing more than a loud whooshing sound as it whizzed several feet over your head. "This is not my country," was not a declaration qualified with "Because my country is Buzov" or "France" but this is not my country because what happened in Delaware betrays the promise that our country holds. The pointy headed religious bigots who drove a Jewish family to exile through threats and intimidation (going as far as publishing the family's address and phone number on the Stop the ACLU web site so every pointy headed religious bigot in the country could harass them) are the dark, ugly underbelly of our country, shameful examples of the worst of America. Having said that, it should be obvious that I didn't "blame the whole fucking country" but only a few knuckle-dragging buffoons. The rest of my readers got that so it's not as though I was being obtuse or vague. No, the misunderstanding is all you, A, not just being an idiot but being the kind of idiot that other idiots can only aspire to by huffing gallons of gasoline, headbutting the grill of a Ford F-350, and drinking Clorox.
As to your argument A, the whole "If its (sic) not your country ...than (sic) move," is so 1968, not only stale and uninteresting (though I consider the source) but also utter nonsense. It's the same as me saying, "Sweet mother of God, this house stinks," with you responding, "Well, why don't you move?" Except you wouldn't use punctuation or bother with grammar. The point is, a useful response would be, "Then (not "than") take out the trash, do your dishes, open the windows, spray some Febreze around, and get rid of that damn dog!" Unfortunately, I suspect you're not big on complexity A and that you'll be moving soon enough once the kitty that crawled into the dryer starts to get ripe.
A final word for you A, advice from someone who has been blogging for about 4 years and has been on the internet for almost 20 years: 'anonymous' commenting not only identifies you as a troll - a cowardly troll - but gives you exactly zero credibility. No one takes you seriously, no one respects what you have to say, and you've only accomplished making yourself look like an incompetent boob.
Sure, I've just wasted an entire post kicking a mangy cur but anonymous comments, especially anonymous comments from a barely literate meathead, wastes my precious time. Sometimes it's appropriate to slap the ninny silly, knock him conscious, and hope that serves as fair warning for the other anonymous numbnuts aching to post half wit comments. Scant hope, I know, but sometimes hope is all we have.
07/07/2006 02:12 AM -- This is not my country, goddamit
Usually, I go to Jesus' General for a good laugh and a decent dollop of snark. It's a milk-through-the-nose kind of place. Unfortunately, it was not milk coming through my nose that was coming up the last time I went to Patiot Boy, but me being honestly sick when I read this quoted at his site:
A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit.
[...]
On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meeting. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.
The complaint recounts a raucous crowd that applauded the board's opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him "take your yarmulke off!" His statement, read by Samantha, confided "I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy."
...A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. She disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.
The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to "go back up north."
In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby.
You can read the General's snark here and here. You can also read pastordan's reasoned outrage here - really, you need to go read these links to get the full story.
Really, I don't care what you think about the ACLU. I haven't been behind all their causes (I wish we were as laid back as the Europeans about religion - "Yeah, it's a big cathedral and we've always let our tax money pay for its upkeep but whatcha' gonna' do? Let's have a drink..."), but overall, I think they do good work. As an atheist, I'm not intimidated by anyone's religious beliefs, they don't make sense to me. However, it's amazing to me that American evangelicals are so insecure with their beliefs that they feel the need to toss tantrums about not getting their views (whatever those are) spray-painted on every curb in America.
Yet, when the scum who run the Stop the ACLU published the address and phone number of this family on their site in an effort to "expose ACLU plaintiffs", lines were crossed. Imagine if you wrote something on your blog that some pinhead extremists didn't like and they published your personal information on a website to incite kooks to prowl around your property (or do worse).
This is not my country, goddammit, not when shit like this goes down. It's a fucking embarasment. And the worst of it is, the fucknuts who did this seem to forget that Jesus was a Jew.
06/19/2006 9:30 PM -- Get busy, push for Net Neutrality
Imagine, some day soon, that you try to open boonie.com only to find that access is blocked. For whatever reason, your ISP isn't letting you in. Now, you know the site is still up and running (friends say they can get on) but you can't get there from wherever you are. Weird...
So you go to your friend's house and lo and behold, there's boonie.com on their computer. What's the deal? Turns out your friend has a different ISP, an ISP that's not blocking the boonie site. Sucks, huh?
Since it's been awhile that you've visited boonie.com (due to your ISP blocking the site), you see Boondoggle has a new song on the site and you're dying to hear it. However, your friend won't let you download the song because their ISP is going to charge them $5 for the download. Boondoggle isn't charging for the download - the ISP is charging. Ya' gotta' pay for those services, see?
On top of that, when you go to some music site to download songs Boondoggle has put up in order to promote their latest CD but the downloads take foooor-everrrr... not so other downloads but Some Shitty Band has paid premium prices to make their downloads quick as opposed to poor, impoverished Boondoggle who couldn't afford to pay the rates for "quick" downloads.
You pay to blog, you pay to maintain your myspace page, you pay for instant messages, you pay for each email after 100 per month. You pay extra for your once-cheap VoIP because your ISP favors its own (crappier) VoIP service.
This isn't Science Fucking Fiction, folks, it's what is about to happen to the internet if the Big Telcos get their way and defeat Net Neutrality this week. This isn't shrill, alarmist, sky-is-falling rhetoric, it isn't anti-free market socialism. It's about protecting your rights that have been in place since the internet began - rights the big Telcos are poised to take away for the sake of big bucks and their own political agenda.
Many of you have probably heard that corporate shill Mike McCurry had his ass handed to him on Friday by Amazon.com's Paul Misener at a debate hosted by George Washington University. If you haven't watched the debate, you can see the entire video at Politics TV (or just watch the Q&A where McCurry really gets slaughtered). You can also read ">some the transcript at SaveTheInternet to see how the Telco's argument does it's counter-clockwise spiral down the bowl but the entertainment value of seeing McCurry get soundly spanked is worth watching.
If you're unsure about how the Net Neutrality goes, here's the down & dirty talking point. The big Telcos (AT&T, Bell South, Verizon, etc.) claim that unless they can run the internet their way, innovation is dead, and the internet will suck forever. The big Telcos are calling Net Neutrality "regulating the internet".
What a crock of shit. What the big Telcos want to do is create a monopoly for themselves, rake in money on services that are currently free (by setting up "toll booths" for those services - such as blogging, video streaming, etc.) and potentially determine which content will be provided to users. In order to argue this, McCurry and the Telcos have resorted to outright lies, claiming that Net Neutrality is an issue advocated by the far left and that if the Net Neutrality amendment passes, traffic on the internet will bog down in an increasingly overwhelmed network.
Both claims are nonsense, desperate words to cover fatcat asses. Net Neutrality is supported across the political spectrum, as Eli Parser points out,
As Craig Fields of the Gun Owners says, when the left and right agree on an issue like Internet freedom, "it's been my experience that what Congress is getting ready to do is basically un-American." On the proposal to destroy Net Neutrality, most Americans would probably agree.
The canard that internet traffic will slow to a crawl (and will squelch innovation) is a laugh, pure and unadulterated bullshit. In fact, there is so much infrastructure in place, the companies decades away from using it all. As Fiber Optic Association (FOA) president Jim Hayes said to streamingmedia.com,
"The backbone was terribly overbuilt. Ninety-three percent of all the fiber that’s been installed is still unused."
The bill goes to committee this Thursday; Colorado voters don't have a dog in this fight at that point. However, should Net Neutrality pass the Commerce Committee, Senators Allard and Salazar need to be urged to support the Snowe/Dorgan amendment AKA “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006." Good local coverage of this issue is over at Coloradopols (where I got this contact info and directions):
them.
Contact Senator Ken Salazar: Click here to email or call:
Phone: (202) 224-5852
Fax: (202) 228-5036
Contact Senator Wayne Allard: Click here to email or call:
Phone: (202) 224-5941
Fax: (202) 224-6471
If you email, be sure to click the ‘High-Tech/Telecommunications’ choice so that it is directed to the correct place.
As I mentioned, there's good coverage of this over at Coloradopols; you'll also want to catch what's written over at Squarestate.net as they have more information and some lively discussion in the comments.
It's your internet - for now. If you don't call or email, you have no one to blame but yourself if you start getting charged "tolls" and find that you can't access your favorite site. You have the power but you have to fight to keep it.
Let Allard and Salazar know you're watching to see whose side they're on: the side of Big Business or the side of ordinary citizens.
06/17/2006 04:31 AM -- Saw them too, how bout So Brent was on vacation and the Townhouse was run by some OCD nazi with more concern for French Doors than fucking money - and fuck him. The sound sucked and should Brent's replacement get shoved over to the Mariner's morning shift, he deserves his hours with badly shaven McCormick drunks. Wish I hadn't even tipped the nitwit.
I'm too drunk to remember what song it was I walked in on that was soooo fucking cool. Chris said it was another one written by the guy who wrote "Texas" - definitely not a "Ben feel good" holdover - and although that particular groove made me think, once again, this band might go somewhere, it also made me aware of the paucity of their original material.
Led Zep covers (no matter how well they're done), don't save you; this band is heading in a very positive direction but they need the material to sustain them in the long run. Killer material, not just "we've been on the road working it out" shit (like Rusted Root or The Vines) but HAWT in-your-face-nobody-else-is-doing-this that I know this band is capable of doing and for whatever reason seems too lazy to do (or too afraid to do).
We all remember a Boondoggle that hat had no fear - where are them?!
06/10/2006 04:07 AM -- Defrosting my freezer and having random thoughts about anything BUT the task at hand
Errrr, hmmmmm, well...
"Huck Finn Day" tomorrow, something sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club in which "fishing safety" lessons are taught by handing out cane-poles to 3-to-14-year olds while cranky old guys walk around with snips to remove hooks from eye-lids and ear-lobes. Of course my brood will be there because I figure they're going to get pierced eventually, and well, we might as well do it on the Kiwanis' dime.
If I can get my hands on a digi-cam, you'll see carnage in full techno-gore. My own digi-cam seems to have evaporated into the ether as if Karma determined it was never mine to begin with but there you have it.
OK, what else? Movies I really want to see. I still haven't seen "The Da Vinci Code," but I'm sort of "so what" on it. I read the book and it was an OK beach read; my problem was that I kept solving the riddles about 10 pages before the so-called "experts" could figure them out and found myself screaming (in my head), "WTF, ya' numbskulls, get a goddamn clue!". To be fair, I'd read Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" several years before, a much superior novel (if a little prolix at times) and so a lot of what Dan Brown was getting at was old news to me (I'd also read Robert Anton Wilson's hilarious "Illuminatus!" trilogy many years before so, yeah, I had both arms filled up with wacky conspiracy crapola).
Not "wacky conspiracy crapola" (despite what the Dunce Confederacy at Faux News says - notice how they attack Gore and not his facts?!?), my dance card is checked when it comes to "An Inconvenient Truth". Unfortunately, I have to wait until June 30 before it opens here and then, judging by per-screen tallies, I'll have to camp out for a ticket but I'll be there. I have to be there beacause, as Roger Ebert said in his review,
In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.
"An Inconvenient Truth" opens (here) the same day as "Superman Returns" and although Zeke is HUGE into Superman (I showed him the trailers online which has resulted in daily encores, ad nauseum), he's still only 3 and can wait until well past the madness of opening night. Besides, we can satisfy him and his sisters with a trips to see "Cars" and "Over the Hedge" - heh, wisdom comes with age, dontchaknow.
I'm also dying to see "A Prairie Home Companion", somewhat because I love to listen to it on NPR (which, BTW, GOP scum want to do away with - along with PBS - while they hand BILLIONS back to people who don't need that money, anyway; I tell my kids, "Bush and the Rethugs want to KILL Elmo and Big Bird!") but mostly because I *love* Robert Altman and I'm certain he's done another "Nashville" with this movie.
The Fridge? Came home from a long weekend of playing handyman for The Babe and found the milk spoilt, no cold at all (and I needed that after a long weekend with The Babe!). Tweaking the thermostat a bit didn't help; a can of coke was luke warm and the mayo went into the trash (along with several other items that had turned ugly in the heat). I turned the dial to "freeze? we got yer freeze right here" and that did cool things, somewhat, yet not enough to feel like I'd be safe holding onto milk a couple weeks past its 'sell by' date. At that point, there was nowhere else to turn but to my friends at Google.
Considering that the freezer was still working and I could hear the compressor humming, the site I landed on advised I defrost the fucker and clean the coils beneath the refrigerator. As I type, everything's packed into a couple of Coleman ice-chests while pans of hot water simmer in the freezer compartment. I went out and bought a coil brush (who knew that a brush was invented just for cleaning the dust of your coils?) and cleaned tons of dust from beneath the fridge. I'm not exagerating - TONS. Dust balls bigger than my fist, big-ass grenades of dust. Ugh.
Then again, the pile of magnet-letters, crayons, and kid's artwork that got blown beneath the fridge could have also have been at work at killing the cool. We'll see. The ice is out of the freezer, everything's wiped down, the fridge is plugged back in and hopefully, the big white box in my kitchen is something more than some big stupid, metallic coffin.
That's a sincere hope. My landlady is - oh, Christ, that's a whole other post - in no position to replace my fridge. She's in no position to change a tire but as I said...
But who am I to talk? I'm still not ready to give a "theme" for mixmania! (which should culminate in August) but I'm thinking "Dog Days" or "Beach Music" - any input here? I plan to make the announcement Monday or Tuesday so get busy with the comments. Let me know what you think and hope my fridge gets chill.
No Boonie fix tonight (for obvious reasons) but I will be there Saturday night, Townhouse, save me a spot at the bar, yo...
I'm not saying that mid-western notions of the anti-choice and anti-gay agenda are in play here but, as the Church Lady used to say, "How conveeeeeeeenient!"
How inconvenient, though, that the religious right can't seem to pull together a coherent argument for the legislation they hold so dear (they ought to just declare "We're ignorant bigots - there," and be done with it). Our local wingtard, Wayne Allard (a cretin most of us would agree has all the charm of gum on your shoe with half the intellect), manages to illustrate why FMA not only failed but failed to get only one more vote in the Senate than when the piece of shit was introduced back in 2004:
[Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.)] held a news conference Monday at which the speakers said they wanted to reduce the "epidemic level of fatherlessness in America."
"How would outlawing gay marriage encourage heterosexual fathers to stick around?" was the first question. Allard skirted the question by saying that "laws send a message to our children."
The moderator, Matt Daniels of the Alliance for Marriage, tried to find a question on another subject. But when reporters continued to press Allard on the link between same-sex marriage and deadbeat dads, Daniels blurted out: "All right, you know what? We're going to call this press conference to a close."
For those of you suffering from CRI (Cranial-Rectal Inversion), Pinhead Allard represents our district here (also home to Daddy Dobson's Focus on the Family) and it's well known the Senator kneels and plays felatrix to Dobson whenever Daddy clucks. One would think Allard would have paid attention to the print ads FotF had been running across the country, "Why doesn't Senator [fill in the blank] believe every child needs a mother and a father?" Continuing their lack of logic, FotF's ads went on to explain:
"It is a painful but very real truth. Homosexual marriages intentionally create motherless families or fatherless families. But a compassionate society would not deliberately deny a child a mother or father."
Well, that makes about as much sense as a huge landscaped cock in downtown Des Moines. Maybe I drink too much but I can't recall a single instance when the thought of hot man-on-man sex made me consider dropping the kids off with their mom to prance off to Key West or wherever (not that I spend much time thinking about hot man-on-man sex). In fact, my marriage ending was due mostly to heterosexual sex on the sly. No gays or lesbians involved at all.
Watch out, Des Moines - I suspect marriage is in trouble, there. That's a capital 'T' which rhymes with 'G' and that means "Gay".
06/06/2006 04:37 AM -- Thankee Jeebus - Operation: “GAAAAAH!!! FAAAAAAGS!!!" rolls on and we can ignore more trivial issues Lilly's best friend is an adoptee from China. A beautiful little girl, bright and funny, a typical 7-year old into Disney princesses and soccer, her prospects are certainly better in the US than if she had been left in an orphanage in China. Some might say she is "blessed".
Then again, those who say she is "blessed" might reconsider. Lilly's friend has two moms, lesbians who have been commited in a relationship for over 15 years. Both moms are respected members of our community, one a Doctor and the other a successful Real Estate agent, both involved in PTA and instrumental in getting out local Farmer's Market going every Wednesday.
So what am I going to tell Lilly when her friend's moms can't get benefits that us straight folk take for granted (when we can get those benefits), how do I explain that one mom can't visit the other mom in the hospital? How do I make sense to Lilly other than people in this country are full of hate?
My 7-year old has no concept of hate; it makes no sense to her. To her young mind, no one should hate, kill, or harbour anger beyond the 5-minute problems of the schoolyard. Indeed, she's a bit jealous that her best friend has parents who are loving and commited while her own parents are divorced. The hate of Daddy Dobson et al makes no sense to her.
She knows gay partners had nothing to do with her parents ending a bad marriage. As such, my 7-year old daughter has much more wisdom than the twits feeding into fishist stupidity.
As I write this, I'm out another $50. Not for a concert ticket or a sack of weed or a family night out at Red Lobster, not for new shoes or dishes, not for CDs or books to enrich myself and my family nor a half-decent date with The Babe but merely to fill my gas tank. Fiftyfuckingdollars, folks. Last year at this time, I thought $30 a tank was too much and now I'm spending $150 - $200 more a month on driving to work, ferrying kids here and there and just going to the grocery store. Not driving to the mountains to camp (not when it runs $50 just to get there) or taking the kids anywhere fun - not on this budget.
Yet, I'm told that queer marriage is the biggest threat to my family, more than no healthcare, more than not being able to afford vacation and time in the woods, more than Osama Bin Laden still on the loose. More than the $200 a month that I'm paying for gas that I haven't been compensated for in wages.
Preznit Pissypants and his Gooper fellow-travellers know that families can't make ends meet and that Osama is still at large so all they have is to throw some hate at gays. Considering how well throwing hate at brown people went over, it's all they got. Hate is the gas in the tank of the GOP. Even though they know they can't make an amendment work, they'll raise the spectre of less-than-human to energize their base (the basest of their base). Pathetic, yes, but if you haven't been paying attention, the GOP has lowered the bar on all kinfs of shit.
For those of you reading me who take humbrage to being associated with Hate - accept it, get over youselves - you're a bigot. Christ wouldn't be howling about same-sex marriage, Christ would be standing on the side of the least of our brothers (and sisters), wondering why a society as enriched as ours can't provide for all of Go'd children. Read your bible, you nitwits, Christ had plenty to say about the downtrodden and the poor and NOTHING to say about queers.
It's an unfortunate irony that Lilly's friend had to come all this way to find out that our country is chock-full of stone-age thinkers no better than despots in China. My hope for her - and Lilly - is that a new generation evolves and learns that the stupidity of their elders does nothing to make this planet a better place to live.
05/31/2006 3:01 PM -- Talkin' books ya' illiterate rabble I must think I'm something else if I'm presenting an "open thread" (a place to post discussion for you newbies - discuss it on the if you need to). However, since I'm taking my imps Northahere to visit The Babe (as Trusty so appropriately called her in comments for the last post on my own blog), I figured I'd throw something up since I may not be posting until Sunday.
...the Book Review's editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years."
The results were:
THE WINNER: Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
THE RUNNERS-UP: Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy (1985)
Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels, John Updike
American Pastoral, Philip Roth, (1997)
THE FOLLOWING BOOKS ALSO RECEIVED MULTIPLE VOTES: A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (1980)
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson (1980)
Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin (1983)
White Noise, Don DeLillo (1985)
The Counterlife, Philip Roth (1986)
Libra, Don DeLillo (1988)
Where I'm Calling From, Raymond Carver (1988)
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)
Mating, Norman Rush (1991)
Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
Operation Shylock, Philip Roth (1993)
Independence Day, Richard Ford (1995)
Sabbath's Theater, Philip Roth (1995)
Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy (1999)
The Human Stain, Philip Roth (2000)
The Known World, Edward P. Jones (2003)
The Plot Against America, Philip Roth (2004)
I won't comment much here - I'll follow up on any comments you, dear reader, leave for this discussion thread. Do you agree with the list for the most part? Any glaring ommissions? Have you even read any of these books? What would your #1 be if you don't agree that Beloved was all that terrific (or why was it also your choice)?
I have no illusions that the bitching board will rise much above its usual level of anarchy and peurile invective but it would be interesting to see if anyone actually discusses books....
05/30/2006 04:54 AM -- Have a nice Meme-o-real day, muth a fuck ahhhhh It's been a wonderful weekend so far, watching my parent's house, spending half the time with the kidlets (like last year, X and I have flipped the schedule) and almost the entire time with my new love.
New love and I took the brood out to "Territory Days", a kind of street fair in Old Colorado City that's an annual excuse to cram too many people into a really small place so that everyone's forced to brush up against booths hawking overpriced crap - for the most part, crap that jingles in the wind, creates wind, and/or is largely as forgettable as the wind. Nonetheless, with painted faces stuffed full of cotton candy, the wee ones wandered through the rabble without insisting they needed they needed this or that or they wouldn't, rabble be damned.
Time and time again, I saw that strategy used on other parents (and the saps feeding into it) but I have to say my lil' ones didn't attempt it even once. Must have been the cattle prod...
My love did fold on me and my "oh get me that, oh get me that, oh get me THAT," and bought me this COOL Australian hat (but only because it looks soooooo good on me!). I post the pic as a two-fer and satisfy Crystal's desire for moobs.... god, I hope ya' haven't had yer Wheaties yet...
As you can tell - I got nuthin'. Sans anything, I'll fall back on a meme (via Sarah at Anon Y. Mass). Sometimes you just gotta' unzip it and let it flow all over some stranger's front quarter panel, there's no reason to wait. Especially if no one's looking.
What time did you get up this morning? 6:20am
Diamonds or pearls? Pearls - or Mother-of-Pearl - inlaid on a fret board
What was the last film you saw at the cinema? The Celestine Prophecy
What is your favorite TV show? Law & Order: Criminal Intent
What did you have for breakfast? Oatmeal and too much coffee
What is your middle name? Ragale
What is your favorite food? Sushi
What foods do you dislike? Fast food
What kind of potato chips do you like? Vinegar & Sea Salt
What is your favorite CD at the moment? Sterling's Evil Mix and EvilMommy's Evil mix
What kind of car do you drive? 1997 Audi A6
Favorite sandwich? BLT
What characteristics do you despise? Dishonesty (and all its facets but mostly, hypocrisy), vanity, greed, and stupidity
Favorite item of clothing? Chuck Taylors
If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Some remote South Pacific island
What color is your bathroom? Piss yellow
What is your favorite brand of clothing? Anything not involving slave labor
Where would you want to retire? Some remote cabin in the mountains
Favorite time of day? NOW
Where were you born? Cut Bank, Montana
Favorite sport to watch? baseball
Who do you least expect to answer this? Landismom
Person you expect to answer first? Anne (she owes me)
Coke or Pepsi? Coke (with something mixed in it)
Are you a morning person or night owl? Night owl
What size shoe do you wear? 8 1/2 - 9
Do you have any pets? No
Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with everyone? I posted
What did you want to be when you were little? Bigger
Is the glass half empty or half full? Half, what? Where's the goddamn bartender?
What is your best childhood memory? Morro Bay, California
What are the different jobs you have had in your life? delivering papers, mowing lawns, landscaping, babysitting, busboy, waiter, bartender, frame carpenter, finish carpenter, cabinet maker, general laborer, maintenance at an asphalt plant, laying asphalt on a road crew (in Alabama, in the summer), reprographic printer, writer, PCB fabricator (fired for creating a board with "Bombs = Oil" written with components on USAF contract during first Gulf War), internet marketer, web designer, graphics designer, therapist...
What color underwear are you wearing? gray and blue stripes
Nicknames: Weed, McQ, Daddy
Piercings? Yes
Eye color: green
Ever been to Africa? No
Ever been toilet papering? Yes
Love someone so much it made you cry? Of course
Been in a car accident? Yes
Croutons or bacon bits? Depends on the salad
Favorite day of the week? Sunday
Favorite flower? Iris
Favorite ice cream? Pralines & Cream
Disney or Warner Brothers? Disney
Favorite fast food restaurant? The one they're turning into a used CD store
What color is your bedroom carpet? Baby-shit brown
Failed your drivers test? Yes
From whom did you get your last e-mail from? Bill Winter for US Congress - I'm a volunteer, hoping to unseat the racist Tom Tancredo
Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Amazon.com
What do you most often do when you are bored? I'm never bored
Bedtime? When I'm tired
Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire? Trish
Last person you went to dinner with? Trish
Lake, Ocean or river? Ocean
How many tattoos do you have? One
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Egg
Buy me a drink, bitch, you got my info now and you're all set up to... heh.
05/29/2006 11:58 PM -- R.I.P. Desmond Dekker I was 7-years old the first time I heard “Israelites”, on a beach near San Diego, its haunting, ethereal chorus floating from the tiny tin mouth of a transistor radio while I looked out past the dunes and watched the surf. Funny how certain memories from childhood remain vivid and clear while the bulk is washed out and buried deep, sunk beneath leagues of a lifetime. The exact moment I was introduced to Jamaican music is as clear as if it happened last Friday while I could not tell you name of my second-grade teacher's name despite the most excrutiating torture.
So who really taught me something, way back when I was 7-years old? Ms. Whatshername or Desmond Dekker? At the time I didn't know the song was 'ska' or 'reggae', just that I recall it was novel and beautiful and every time I heard "Ooooh, oooooh, me Israelites," my skin tingled. As years passed and I became an adolescent, jaded, depressed and oh-so-serious, that reprise would slip back into my subconsciousness to remind me that I was not so far from my childhood's wonder and that life was not an endless road of suckitude.
It was 1981 when I rediscovered Desmond Dekker, another beach (this time in Hawaii), a chance encounter with an album at the Hickam AFB BX. Though fully immersed in English punk, it was obvious that reggae was a big part of that scene (uh, The Clash folks...) and so I bought a copy of "The King Kong Compilation" out of some allegiance to my fellow funny haircut mates. I didn't know what I was getting, it was one of those purchaces where I walked into a record store out of habit and then figured it was better than anything else (certainly better than the Gino Vanelli they were blasting out on the sound system).
The album was a godsend, in so many ways. In the midst of my punk pose, my hard-nosed view of humanity, I heard a whisper from my past, as if an echo bid me out of a dark tunnel to breathe. More than that, the disk (a brief compendium of producer Leslie Kong's masterful work) acquainted me with more DD as well as some of the most memorable music of my life*.
Just one more lame eulogy for a man who meant so much to me and not only helped me discover eclecticism but also represents more of my childhood than any fluffy animal. Goodbye, Mr. Dacres, you mattered to me in so many ways.
05/24/2006 00:20 AM -- Day Fourteen or whatever and I feel... um... SOMETHING... It was two weeks ago today that I officially quit and with the exception of a couple of slips, I've been smoke-free. With those brief lapses, I was reminded of one reason I wanted to quit. The smoke was harsh and the taste was bad; it just wasn't a joy anymore.
In the past, in more half-hearted attempts to quit, I couldn't deny that I loved the taste and enjoyed how good a relaxing smoke made me feel. But in the past six months, all the pleasure was gone, none of the taste, none of the bliss, just a heaviness in my lungs that usually led to a hacking cough. More often than not, I'd find myself lighting up only to experience an existential dilemma, "Why am I doing this? Why do I have to do this?!?"
Looking back over the past two weeks, I've been blessed that the cravings have been minimal and brief. Putting my mind to not lighting up by seeking some distraction has helped me work through the worst. The stop-smoking supporters I've heard from in the comments and in emails have assured me that I'm past the worst of it. Agreed, the cravings are less insistent and persistant. Oh, there's still the two or three dozen times a day that I think about having a cigarette (especially when I see someone smoking and goddammit, they're EVERYWHERE) but that's better than the two or three dozen times an hour a week and half ago.
Cravings aren't the problem. What's bothering me (and the reason I haven't written much the past two weeks) is the loss of concentration. I swear, quitting smoking has lowered my IQ by 30 points. As someone who has always prided himself on a better than average vocabulary and decent grammar, the past couple of weeks has been a haze of stupidity, slack-jawed and drooling, like I'm some NASCAR numbskull or Republican. With my head full of clean air, I haven't been able to write an independent clause, much less a coherent sentence. I grasp for words that I know but the tip of my tongue seems to flail helplessly in a futile search. Conversations with me go nowhere; chances are, I'll forget what I was going to say. This senility is driving me crazy.
So, supporters of the non-smoking me (and who are ex-smokers), have any of you experienced this? Does it get any better? Tell me it does, please... if not, I'm going back to smoking.
02/21/2006 06:05 AM -- Big, dangerous words to boggle small minds In my last post I overtly challenged the tiny-minded weasels at the NSA to come lock me up for "seditious" words, words those dimwitted fucks no doubt needed to consult a dictionary in order to decipher. Considering I'm now on their radar tighter than their deoderant (honestly, fellas, think about personal hygeine a bit, k?) and obviously in their pock-marked faces, I figured I'd attempt to expand their horizons a tad and continue with the "word power" exercise. Hey, we all need it. When I was reading Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, I discovered the following words and wrote them down on my bookmark (an unpaid parking ticket) so I might flesh out my vocabulary a bit.
That last word is what I've been accused of, for good reason, although I have nothing on Bloom in that regard. Still, considering the fact that I went to the trouble to write the words down and look them up gives you an idea how I got where I am and I yam what I... yeah, yeah.
However, this post is for the edification of those NSA ciphers who are taking a look-see at this spot on the blogosphere (and you know you are, asshole... btw, how's that male enhancement drug working?) and making little notes for their nazi stormtrooper colleagues; perhaps they'll use some of these big, dangerous words in their reports to confuse the hell out of the entire division.
Why am I so shitty with you sppoks? Because I assume you grew up learning about the same vision of the US and its principles that I was raised with but you were led astray, either by confusion or cupidity, and you've sold out.
If suckered, scared by swarthy men with bombs and scarves, you're more confused than you know. The terrorists don't win by body count, the terrorists win by having you listen in on phone calls, read emails, or send people up the river for no reason other than suspicion. You're allowing the terrorists to destroy much more than real estate, the confidence of shaky psyches and, God forbid, a few lives, you're allowing the terrorists to destroy 200-some years of freedom.
If, on the other hand, you're doing this for the jay-oh-bee, you're a whore. Although, I suspect I'm not telling you something you don't already know. Most likely your mother is/was a whore and this is part of a tragic legacy, whether you're here or walking the streets or working as a spammer. Whatever, hooker, you're used to taking it in the poop chute with or without lube and in some twisted way, you like it.
However you manifest justification for your meretricious little task, consider your place in history: a shit spot in the diaper of a president not fit to run a company much less a country. "Grampa, what did you do in the War on Global Terrorism?"
"Why, I spied on Americans."
What a fucking embarasment.
02/21/2006 05:42 AM -- Oh, the weather outside is frightful Some snow yesterday, some today, some tomorrow they say, just some and not a moment too soon. This season has been a skimpy one for Colorado's eastern slope, scant amounts at best. Although there's a couple of months left to make up for the shortfall (with March and April being the wettest months, too), the pittance we've received so far is hardly the start our water table needs.
In the midst of this, I've heard whispers of global warming. From this tiny corner of the earth, I'm not so sure that what's going on here is due to global warming, strictly speaking. This June I'll have been in Colorado 20 years and in that time I've seen some extremely whacky weather (or whacky extreme weather) and this Colorado winter hardly seems exceptional compared with other winters I've experienced the past two decades.
That's not to say I'm not concerned about global warming. Hearing the other day that
Greenland's glaciers melting at twice the rate previously suspected, has me more than just a little freaked out. Even though in the Global Warming debate there is little disagreement that there has been a substantial rise in average global temperatures (since the Industrial Revolution), the fatuous argument that we aren't 100% certain of the cause seems rather thick-headed. Strictly speaking, we can't make a causal connection between smoking and lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, etc., but damned if I hear the Cato Institute pooh-poohing the hazards of smoking because tobacco farmers would be economically disadvantaged due to uncertain science.
Considering that Polar Bears are drowning due to diminished arctic ice and they're expected to be extinct by the end of the century, concern for corporations seems a bit specious, at best. After all, who benefits when corporations pocket more profits - you? Get a goddamn clue, the big three auto makers in the US laid off almost 100,000 workers last year while Mercedes Benz (and other luxury car) sales went through the roof. A few people are getting by just fine and many people are sinking. Change the weather, in a big way, and many more people will sink, whatever the cause. Bring on global warming and the poor will get poorer at a much faster rate while the rich will - get tanned.
Despite the Christian Right's adoration of the mongrel murderous thug they elected,
some are beginning to see the madness - and unchristian-like destruction of the planet - enough to say, well, enough. Not only are they calling for christians to follow the mandate to be stewards of creation but recognize the economic and environmental desolation that will come with global warming. Renews my faith, it does.
Unfortunately, local hieratic hacks like Jim Dobson and Ted Haggarty oppose the call to action, they being bigger fans of Bush than Christ. Vermin like Haggerty and Dobson are more concerned with their Wal-Mart churches (and the mammon produced therein) and have little interest in Christ's real message. They're making a bundle off their theology of hate and remaining corporate shills serves their purpose more than actually practicing a Christian message. Besides, they're safe here in the Rockies and have little to worry about when the deluge hits the coastal lands.
Good for them. When my children are dealing with refugees from the coasts, they'll know where to point their guns. Because, I can assure you, when global warming makes its full effect known, changes in climate won't be the only tide turning here and elsewhere.*
*That last paragraph written as a certain "Fuck You" to our Glorious Leader and his anti-American sack of shit snoops.
01/18/2006 04:13 AM -- Mixmania! - MARCH!!! Listening to: A Boards of Canada mix Mamacita sent me… MMMMMmmm YES!!!
One of those worthless posts that say nothing (unless you’re interested in the next mixmania!) but fulfills my obligation to keep you all updated and me from freaking out because I haven’t written shit to speak of (ain’t that what blogging’s all about?).
So… another dual disk mixmania! because I’m such a lame-ass taskmaster. In my months of hosting this tiny little party, it’s my experience that the double-disk schnooks are the ones truly dedicated to making this work. So, your assignment, should you decide to accept it is this:
Disk One: Guilty Pleasures – a mix of songs you’re ashamed to admit that you love but, there you are, you can’t help it. Brittany Spears, Reuben Stoddard, Budgie, Fear, Marilyn Manson, Sonny & Cher, whatever, you get these earworms digging into brain and can’t get them out because, well, you just like the songs. Heh. You’ll be screwed (especially after you post your lame list) but we’ll know you for the human you are.
So you’re asking, “Why the fuck would I want to receive a disk of utter SHIT from someone who has questionable taste in music?”
Ahhhh…. So here’s the brilliance of the twist. Because Disk Two is:
The Proverbial Desert Island Disk: You know what I mean. You have a Diskman and ONE disk and you’re about to be stranded forever on an island. What music would you put on that disk? I ask my clients to give me a list of Ten Things I Want to do Before I Die (hoping it will motivate them to actually do something with their lives) and I’m asking you to consider a similar situation – if you only had one disk to listen to, for the rest of your life, what would you put on that disk?
Yes, a tough task and I’ll give you until March 1 to figure it out. If you have a blog, please – PLEASE – give me mention and wrangle some other players in the mix. I think this is a pretty cool mixmania! and worthy of rabble. If you’re unsure of the RULEZ, GO HERE, fuckin’ A.
As far as the other stuff, well, aren’t you glad you voted for Dubya you FUCKING MORON? Alito is about to be confirmed and he’s going to sit on a court that will take away your rights and will royally screw your daughters.
Nice, dipshits. Dubya was supposed to make you safer and now he, apparently, can listen in on your phone calls and read your emails, with impunity, wipe his ass with the Constitution and call it a day. In the meantime, Osama is where? Zaqari? Afghanistan is how much a Democracy? Iraq is a what – a clusterfuck? Feel better about that paycheck?
What the fuck has this idiot done?
Right, greased a right-wing nut into the seat of reason on the bench because, God knows, faggots are simply fucking up everything, rearranging shit because it looks good but oblivious to the fact that we’re in a bygod War on Terror. If we outlaw faggots, the terrorists will go away; if we outlaw abortion we’ll be given a Golden Sword with which to smite our enemy who will run away, afraid, eyes spit out and rolling on the ground from fear of our huge, golden phallus.
This from the folks who brought you Intelligent Design.
Yee haw, ya dumbfuck. You thought you were voting for Uncle Jesse and you got Boss Hawg. Alito is Cooter but you get the point, Einstein. Just as you thought Dubya wanted to protect you, you're realizing that all he wanted to do was get in your business (unless you’re a major corporation, of course, because them guys want your business as well, derrr yup).
That old joke about a nuclear attack, shove you head up to your ass to kiss it goodbye? Well, it’s time to pull your head out of your ass and realize you’re no safer and as little bit poorer. Take a look around and recognize who’s taking money or making money.
Then vote.
09/12/2005 01:51 AM -- Townhouse, Manitou Springs, September 10, 2005
Holdouts from a benefit show didn't hurt, especially since the season's over; the place was packed when I arrived (during break, after the first set), SRO.
The weird symbiosis of the Townhouse and Boondoggle has always escaped me. Although one expects Manitoids to maintain a certain open-mindedness, in reality the scene is a little staid, fogey-ish - especially at the Townhouse. The Boondoggle groove would seem a little outré for the Townhouse crowd (it certainly is for Colorado Springs sheep-clones) but somehow it works. There's always room for astonishment.
Loving crowd aside, I was soundly astonished. It was as if the band was kicked with a nitro-burst, even if the engine was not entirely prepared to handle the RPMs. A little shaky but after only two rehearsals and one previous live set (Friday's show, which I missed), some rattling on the motor-mounts is to be expected when you red-line.
For you whiny-ass shits on the bitching board, this is not a complaint, by any stretch. When Chris took over on guitar, the band found a level of acceleration that had been merely unpredictable in previous permutations (Charlie had the spark but his pyrotechnics lacked Chris's control). Still, without enough power in the bottom, without adequate thrust, there's not much to expect at the finish.
With John on drums, the bottom end has been tooled to give the top end the torque it needs. The Townhouse regulars were primed for the ride, up for the thrill. The covers were superb, tight, ballistic, brilliant segues for the covers, enough Boondoggle to leave an indelible mark on the crowd (a crowd that walked out at closing time with wind-swept hair and bugs in their teeth), enough cover material to keep the crowd clamouring for more Boondoggle. Time flew in that milleu; not the first time I've felt like the band had dragged me along for an intense ride but the first time for too long that I felt the pedal had been pressed to the floor with the supreme confidence that the bitch would scream, sing, that the Host of Angels was not in the promise of some spectacular crash but on the shoulders of those who would let caution whip past in the determination to see what the shit would do if you took it out and really ran it as hard as it could go.
Considering the lack of tuning, it was an amazing performance, with breakneck G-force relatively free of knocks or stutters or hesitation. An almost seemless ride, thrilling, exhilerating.
The ride's not over yet, folks, and it just gets better.
09/09/2005 10:53 PM -- How to answer pro-Bush talking points while yer chillin at the Townhouse and groovin to great music and trying to ignore the idiot next to you Considering my kids are here with me tonight, there's no way I can get to the TH for Dogglin', dollin' (even though it's all of 150 yards from my house), and I wish I could pop in for even a quickie. However, I will be there Saturday night, my Boonie shoes sizzlin' fo' sho' hizzlin'.
Having tipped a few in the Townhouse, I can tell you that the place is not exactly monochromatically in a state of Blue (like much of Manitou). I stopped in there the other night for some suds and a Jaeger-bomb and was gang-sacked for my anti-Bush rant regarding the Katrina debacle. Unfortunately for the ditto-headed (and frankly, racist) nitwits who showed up at that knife-fight with soggy Twinkies, I had cold-hard facts (finely honed and razor sharp) while they were armed with only a booze-fueled determination that, if they could shout me down, they'd be right.
It was a rout and delicious to walk out of the place with the knowledge that I'd spun a few pointy little heads into fairly servicable corkscrews (might as make those otherwise worthless craniums useful).
Anticipating that an angry Marni may mouth off about an uncaring administration that put people behind political posturing and her rant may bring out the chest thumping of a few neanderthals, I offer these tidbits bound to baffle even the most adept BushCo parrot:
The idiot talks: "Those playing 'the blame game' are anti-Bush leftists."
You answer: Considering the latest polls have said 67% of Americans say Bush fucked up, that's a pretty far-fetched contention. And if you want to call the likes of the editors of the New Hampshire Union-Leader (widely agreed to be the most conservative newspaper in the country) and The Washington Times, along with several commentators at The New Republic, and usually lockstep Bush cheerleaders such as Bob Novak, Michele Malkin, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Fox's Shepard Smith, and Bill O'Reilly (etc., etc.), all leftists, it's difficult to imagine how you position your own right-wing views; are you getting your opinions from Stormfront.org?
The idiot talks: "Louisiana Gov. Blanco (or Mayor Nagin) didn't call for Federal help until after Katrina hit and then, insisted on local countrol over the National Guard and Federal troops."
The whole "Blanco demanded control" canard is utter fiction. Every governor knows that, once you request Federal assistance, you're turning control over to the Federal government. Both these lies continue making the rounds among rightards even though the statements are patently false. Just tell your idiot, "I can't help it if you prefer to repeat a proven lie but no matter how many times you say it won't make it true."
The idiot talks: "Gov. Blanco/Mayor Nagin didn't do enough to help the people in New Orleans (didn't stock the Superdome with food/water, didn't get city-owned buses moving to evacuate people, didn't evacuate hospitals, didn't have a plan, blah blah blah)."
You answer:Evacuating citizens, supplying shelters (i.e. the Superdome), instituting order and disaster plan are all the domain of the Feds - WHAT THE FUCK IS FEMA FOR, ANYWAY?!? In fact, those functions have never been part of a municipal/state government's duties, on a large scale. Never. Ever. Check any previous disaster and no one expected those local governments to carry out functions like those on such a large scale.
Why is this argument being made now? Because Bush and his incompetence have been come so clearly to light and the hard-core zombie hoards don't cotton to that.
Sure, mistakes were made at the state and local level but nothing nearly to the extent of the Federal fuck up.
The idiot talks: "Corrupt NOLA cops... LOOTERS!..." (where the rightard's argument begins degrading into a Straw Man").
You answer: The corruption of the NOLA cops is legendary; so why didn't the Feds consider that in their disaster plan? And looters were unique to NOLA? I think not; looting has been a problem in every disaster.
BTW, Louisiana and NOLA had been run by Republicans for decades until just recently; Democrats aren't entirely to blame for corruption down there.
The idiot talks: "FEMA couldn't have known the extent of the damage that Katrina wrought."
You answer: My tax dollars are paying for - what? Are you telling me FEMA ignored the NOAA predictions (which were uncannily accurate) from Saturday, August 27? How do you explain FEMA Director Brown's not knowing anything about the Convention Center until Thursday? Do you think it would have been incumbent upon FEMA to have a map of NOLA? Do you think FEMA lacks a television, considering every major news network was reporting on the Convention Center 24 hours before "Drownie Brownie" made his criminal incompetence abundantly clear?
The idiot talks: "Bush was perfectly capable of handling things from anywhere in the US, criticizing him for staying on vacation until two days after the hurricane rolled through NOLA, a day after the levee broke."
You answer: Yes, what a brilliant response to what was, arguably, the largest natural disaster in US history, hanging out on vacation with rich donors to give the impression that he didn't give two shits for Americans too poor to evacuate. Sweet Jeebus, a lesser President would have actually been in the White House giving Americans the impression that he was actually concerned and in charge and making sure the political cronies he'd appointed to keep America safe wouldn't display such unequivocal ineptitude.
The idiot talks: "Why didn't Blanco/Nagin tell the Feds the levees were going to break days before Katrina hit?
You answer: Um, you mean the Feds weren't aware of numerous reports (including FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers) that the levees were vulnerable to any Category 3 hurricane, studies available since the 1970's? In fact, the Feds ignored those studies and funds allocated to shoring up those levees were diverted for the Department of Homeland Security (as were other diaster-related funds) since 2001, to fund... what?
If there are any other arguments, well, you know how to reach me. However, I think I have your ass covered (the nitwits I argued with had less than half these arguments and resorted to standard racist crap) but I'm positive that, armed with my answers, if the idiot talks, the idiot walks,
"...See the idiot chalk up his name
on the blackboard;
See the robot walk
See the robot talk
See the robot write up his name
on the ballot;
They say this is all i need to get by
the truth is baby it's a lie..."
----------------------
Blogging at:
http://ninothemindboggler.blogspot.com/ http://www.fatherknowsnothing.blogspot.com/
09/08/2005 04:55 AM -- All the news that's fit to what?!? MSNBC - "BREAKING NEWS!!!" - three nitwits breaking into some hotel. Really. "Breaking news". Where was MSNBC when my tires were slashed?
I wonder how "breaking" that news would be if three shitheads were breaking into a hotel (or liquor store or a Ford Fiasco or Stop-n'-Dump) around here. Holy shit, MSNBC wouldn't have a moment for Tweety or Dan "I'm flacid unless it's a celebrity" Abrams or even - God forbid - Olbermann was interrupted every time a few criminals decided to bust a lock and grab some goods.
Guess we're going to get "breaking news!!!" when a meth-head holds up a Kwiki-Mart with a tire iron in Butte, Montana...
09/04/2005 05:43 AM -- A whispered scream from the Great Beyond My eyes are burning. Tonight's group drained me, shook every last particle of energy out of my cells and slammed me to the mat. Whatever goes down here is me clawing my way towards meaning without anything but momentum to carry me to some dumb conclusion.
Sometimes things happen in a therapy group that remind me of how chaotically close we spin towards one another and how, sometimes, we crash - violently. How the fabric that binds us is ripped while we cruise along our individual trajectories, how the shards of glass, sprayed like buckshot from the collision, reflect our grimaces staring in morbid fascination at the carnage.
The group I ran tonight is a crew I picked up from a counselor who could not, for whatever reason, handle his responsibility. He was a good counselor (despite his faults) and his clients had become attached to him, a situation that added to my apprehension. Had he been proudly puissant or pedantic, I might have walked in with my White Knight gear on and been a savior but his clients appreciated his loose and empathic style and I knew that, no matter how chummy I tried to be, I'd be the invading force; no use in attempting to stage tearing down his statue.
Knowing my situation, I kept my strategy simple and somewhat mercenary: be low key, up front regarding my trepidations, and let everyone go early. We'd just get to know one another and given everyone's story (and level of motivation), I could proceed with what was organic, appropriate. Figuring that playing the "good guy" during my intoduction to the group (letting court-ordered clients go an hour early is always a big hit), I could endear myself, somewhat, to the group and pave my way for the following week.
The plan I had tonight was vague enough to not make long-time group members feel a tectonic shift, specific enough to bring newer group members on board with my agenda. Clever fuck that I am, I knew my plan would pan out and our little corner of the universe would be tidy and safe. As I checked my clients in for group, there was no other truth other than the one I had written down for the night's itinerary.
In the midst of writing down names and taking payments, John* showed up. I didn't have his file and he admitted that he hadn't been to group for the past month. Given that information, I told him that he'd probably been discharged and suggested that he contact the office manager in order to get re-enrolled so that his probation officer could be notified that he was back in compliance with the terms of the court. As a courtesy, I asked him why he'd been out of group for so long, why he hadn't called to let us know why he couldn't come in. Frankly, I was expecting generic replies or excuses.. One gets easilly jaded in my field.
"Yeah," he answered, matter of fact, "My daughter was murdered a couple weeks ago"
Oh man, I said, said as I looked at the desk top and fiddled with a pen, looked across the room, looked for anywhere I could focus other than into his eyes, that's harsh, I, uh, let me call over to the office manager, let me shed my skin and pretend I'm not nearly as reptilian as I appear to be.
"Yeah, we discharged him weeks ago," the voice on the other end of the phone said, "He needs to come down here and get re-enrolled."
I cupped the phone, told him what I'd been told. John looked at me, long and desperate, "I just need to be here."
Some clients "need" to be in group because they've fucked around too long and their time is up, probation has lost patience and jail is the the next step. It happens all the time. Strangely enough, despite being court-ordered, some "need" to be there because they need to dump, to talk it out amongst their peers.
I uncupped the phone, "Re-enroll him, his daughter was murdered." The so-called "great counselor" had failed to pass that little tid-bit along but this little bit of information shifted everything.
"Oh. Yeah. Let him in group."
Group started as it should have, clients doing their "check in" (reporting on their week), what we did, what we felt, and hey, it's your turn. After everyone's turn, we got back to John and what happened. The brutal honesty, the horror, the stuff that made everyone in the room squirm in their seat and choke back their tears.
John sat directly in front of me. As he unfolded his story, his anguish, his rage, it took every bit of my strength to maintain my lock on his face.
Look into the eyes of a man whose daughter was raped, tortured, and murdered, see those doubts, that guilt of not being there to save her, hear his voice crack at the equivocation of executing, by his own hand, the son of a bitch who did that to his little girl, listen to his pain and anger and grief and then tell me you understand. Tell me you understand so I can call you a liar. I sat in that room with him for almost two hours and despite my training and experience (the loss of my own son), his sense of loss is completely unfathomable to me. The depths of that grief is incomprehensible.
Other clients tried to apply their own grief to his situation (no one had dealt with murder), hoping to help him, to at least alleviate some of his pain. I knew nothing mattered, resounded, resonated. In my experience, of my own past grief, I had been oblivious to any words offered in comfort. I knew he appreciated our efforts but I also knew that, to him, our words were hollow.
The only client who seemed to reach him was a Marine who had served in Iraq and watched a childhood friend get his chest blown away (for lack of body armour, thank you Dubya for those tax cuts!). The Marine latched onto the theme that he felt he was supposed to protect his buddy, that it was his fault, that he was supposed to have been there to keep his friend from harm but he couldn't. He also said that he still had not gotten over the sense that he had failed his friend.
"John, you couldn't have been with her to protect her," the Marine said, "Accept it. I had to do the same thing. I had to accept that I couldn't be there to save my friend."
"Your anger and grief is like a big bubble and one of these days, you'll poke it and it will pop. And then it will come back and you'll poke it again and it will pop again, and you'll see that it got smaller - but no easier to pop. The bubbles arise out of nowhere, when you least expect them, and they get smaller as time goes along. They become smaller bubbles but the thing is, they don't get easier to pop. No matter how small they are, when you poke them, it hurts just as much as the biggest bubble."
John suddenly realized what the Marine was saying. And although he hadn't popped any bubbles yet, it was evident that his grief wouldn't get any better, just easier to handle.
John wept throughout the group, expressing anger, rage, hurt, apologizing for his pain, his tears, his domination of the group's time, his weakness. Group members said, "let it out, cry, grieve, be real," almost all of them construction workers, tough guys, guys I guarantee you wouldn't want to fuck with, many of them wiping their own tears away.
They knew that John's grief was beyond them but their own grief for him - and anger and frustration and confusion at his tragedy - was valid in that moment. I'd hate to have Hannity or Limbaugh or O'Reilly comment on that scene because they would have dragged it into derision and made fun of it - so-called "Red State" men going to pieces over a brother grieving his murdered daughter. Ann Coulter would have had a field day questioning those guy's masculinity.
To John's credit, he doesn't want to see his daughter's murderer executed. Oh, he'd kill him with his own hands but he can't see the state doing it for him. "I hope he sees my daughter's face every minute he's in prison, for the rest of his life," John said, "An injection would be too easy for him. And I can't see how the government taking his life will make up for him taking my daughter. I just can't see that."
The Marine backed John up, wondered how his government could kill with indifference and to no discernable positive outcome. He saw his friends die and wonders what was accomplished because, as he said, it had nothing to do with 9/11. He doesn't see that anything we've done over there has made a difference. "They're going to vote in a consitution where women can't vote? Women can't divorce an abusive husband? I didn't fucking fight for that."
Both John and the Marine said Bush can't look Cindy Sheehan in the eye and say he understands her pain. I can only go from what they said. I spent just two hours in the room but I can say given that, as their therapist, I could never comprehend their pain - or their humanity. As I said at the start of this essay, I'm clawing my way towards meaning.
So is John, so is the Marine, so are most of us.
Please, Mr. Bush, give us, them, John and the Marine, some meaning. Quit lying to us. I have not only have clients struggling to understand what the fuck this country stands for but friends and children and family, and you have left all of us wanting. Yeah, some of the folks I advocate for are in therapy for a DUI but then - hey, Mr. President - you had a couple of DUI's yourself! So quit the pretense and come clean.
Or remain a coward. As I tell my clients, it's your choice.
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*Name changed to keep his anonymity.
09/02/2005 01:09 AM -- Well.... Yeah, it been awile... like anyone cares. I have two other blogs I write and well.... nothing against Boondoggle but this just seemed silly after a fashion. But I felt I ought to throw stuff up here. So I'm cross-posting and MAYBE I'll add site-specific content when the spirit moves me. Hmmmmm.
Until then, the disaster in the Gulf is too fucking important to be glib or cute about shit. If you saw today's entry on Everything You Know Is Wrong, I think this could be the start of class warfare. God, let's hope so.
I don't know if it was just me but the scope of the disaster in the gulf didn't hit me until today. Now I'm appalled, numb, angry. My government has betrayed me. More than that, it has betrayed the lives of countless thousands.
The Right, as embodied by Limbaugh, Frist, Bush, Hastert, DeLay. They would move heaven and earth to save the life of one White Woman in Florida to combat the very idea of euthanasia (which technically it was not). A woman that a decade earlier had lost her ability to so much as ask for help, much less have coherent thoughts about the quality of her own life.
And they would sit on their ass and watch as tens of thousands of poor men, women, children, babies, and elderly bake in the New Orleans heat surrounded by water, sewage, gasoline and an abandoned city, now devoid of anyone with the means to have escaped ahead of the storm.
This is the culture of life. The culture of life wants to save brain dead white women and unborn children. The culture of life wants you to watch endless non-news about the disappearance of one white teenager in Aruba. The culture of life wants you to support your nation as it kills tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in its Quixotic quest against a non-threat. The culture of life wants a zero-tolerance for looters policy to sound authoritative as babies die of dehydration. The culture of life expects you to take care of yourself, and if you can't, then it is your own fault for getting into that situation in the first place. Fuck off. You had your shot. Station in life, where you hang your hat, and whether you have the $40 at the end of the month to pay for the overpriced gasoline to get out of that home in time is all up to you.
Always I have argued with Republican friends--the reasonable ones--that not everyone was dealt the same cards on their original Birth Day. Not everyone has been given the same gifts by God, friends, family, or luck. Always those Republican friends believe that they deserve where they have gotten in life, and that no one, including the government, should be asking for their hard-earned cash to help the less affluent. It is always the fault of the lesser-affluent themselves. Circumstances are irrelevant in all cases and constitute class warfare if the question is raised.
Bullshit.
But that's their thing. That's how they see the world. They earned everything they got. Their parents might have given them a nudge, but nothing more. Get a fucking clue.
Bush came away from his mega vacation one day early...Wednesday. Hastert doesn't know why we should rebuild. Condie Rice went to the show on Broadway.
All of these people support the Culter of Life. But none seem to support American Culture. New Orleans, as much as any city, represents distinctly American Culture. A melting-pot of language, music and revelry unlike any other. But it is desperately poor. Over 50% of the children in the state live below the poverty level. But no matter. Mostly black folk down there. They shouldn't have lived there in the first place. They should have gotten out while they had the chance. It's their own fault.
Michael Chertoff was interviewed on NPR this afternoon. He was asked if he had heard of thousands of people at the Convention Center in New Orleans, without water or food or sanitation. Elderly dying. Little girls being raped. Mr. Chertoff was eloquent in his cluelessness. Completely unaware of what had been on the television all day long on both MSNBC and CNN. Unaware that he, at the top of the agency charged with bringing relief to the affected areas, had not been informed of something every American with a remote already knew. That the situation there was desperate. That people needed help. And that noone seemed to be providing it. The man in charge was not in charge at all, folks. It took the Bush Administration 4 years since 9/11... 4 years of chasing ghosts and old demons in Iraq to not do a fucking thing about stateside preparedness. To gut the national guard's responsiveness by sending so many of them overseas. To cut funding for the levee system that allowed Lake Ponchartrain to roll into the city. To put someone in charge of Homeland Security and FEMA that is eloquent, but so impossibly incompetent that he is incapable of establishing a staff capable of letting him know the worst of a situation so large.
Mr. Chertoff said, that he had not heard of such things. That you couldn't believe every rumor from the streets of the area. That he wasn't in a position to argue about what the NPR Reporters had witnessed.
Get the people to our staging areas, he stated, and they can get water there.
03/09/2005 8:49 PM -- Buh Bye Bugs? If anyone has wondered where I went to (and I seriously doubt that's been an issue with ANYONE), I have been boycotting this site, somewhat.
Tired of getting posts booted out of the POS server hosting this site, I wanted to make sure that these issues were resolved. I'm still not sure everything's back on track but I'm taking the risk. Besides, tain't nuthin' to copy/paste these things into a word file as has become my custom, having been far too acquainted with the stupidity of Blogger. However, many of these posts are dependent on the moment and it's silly to re-post something next month that shouted out about a protest this week.
To wit:
This is to communicate the final details of the counter-protest on Friday March 11 against the hate group Westboro Baptist Church. (Their website pretty much explains why their awful www.godhatesfags.com)
The hate group has its picket set for 7:15 am, so we are planning to get there at around 6:30am. This way we can fill up all of the good sidewalk spots before they even arrive.
Here's the thing: This group makes a good amount of its income by suing people who assualt them. That means that no matter how mad they make you, you CANNOT get tricked into physically throwing, hitting, shoving etc... because you will only be helping them to keep this kind of crap up.
There is a lot of community involvement popping up and Colorado College has offered free coffee, tea, and doughnuts at the McHugh Commons (on CC about 6 blocks away) from 6 am to 6:30 if anyone is interested.
The protest is at Palmer High School on the corner of Nevada and Platte, downtown. (There is a parking grage on Cascade and Tejon a couple of blocks away if you can't find a spot near the school.) As far as a meeting place, we have not designated one because it isn't that big of an area. If you want to be specifically with SSJ (and who wouldn't?) look for a big banner. Bring your own signs and banners if you like!
Email any questions you have to ssj@uccs.edu and we look forward to a big turnout.
Too damn early in the morning, I know, but I'll be there with a handful of valium to keep me from being the defendant in a lawsuit. If I'm going to rant about these hateful shitheads like I do here with perseverative pathology, I'd better be prepared to walk my talk.
What was that line in Blazing Saddles, Gene Wilder to Clevon Little? "Simple people, the salt of the Earth. You know -- morons...." Christ, what an understatement. I'm thinking my sign will read "God Hates Ignorant Hayseeds. Obviously, Look How Ugly They Are!"
I know there's no redeeming these fuckwits. Go to their web site and you'll see they can hardly compose a coherent sentence so it's obvious that simple reasoning is beyond them. No, it will be enough to stand in their way and remind them what a repulsive little bunch they are.
God is Love, right? It's sickening to me that so many - Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc., get it so wrong. They've confused "God" with "tribal identity" and their stone age view of the world.
My tribe says it's time to put stuff these inane superstitions back into the whitewashed clapboard shitholes from whence they arose and nail the damn thing shut. I hope I'll see some Dogglers there, I really do.
