I Need A Dumptruck To Unload My Head

Yeah because I enjoy waking up to thirty comments left all through the blog each one of which is nothing but one big link to some kind of manga porn or some crap, and spending fifteen to twenty minutes a day deleting them through years of postings is a part of my day I really look forward to so please keep doing it you stupid little hentai whore.

Oh -READERS! - are you here? Hi. That thing above is a painting by JW Waterhouse. We have this one of his in our bedroom. I found an out of print book on the "Symbolists and Decadents" movement of the late 19th century - of which Waterhouse was part of - (Pornocrates, etched in the 1890's also comes to mind. You might want to take a second look at the weirdness that is Pornocrates and consider it was done before 1900... ahem) and can't wait to see it again. It's not a coffee-table book, it's a study of their work. Anyway the book was published in 1971 and I owned it and lost it and now I found it again. The Symbolists are somehow connected through Bauhaus to the surrealists, who are somewhat claimed as a source for magic realism though the surrealists hate that connection. What? This is the kind of stuff that's in my head. No apologies.

That painting on top is kinda spooky with all those hairy flying ladies...

The quote by Lewis Mumford - who also said "A man of courage never needs weapons, but he may need bail" - at the top of the blog is a tribute to one of my old hero-guides from the days of my yoot. Mumford was a city planner, an architect, a writer, a critic and an amazing observer whose influence I am purposefully and willfully resurrecting in my life if only because his ideas are coming back in my head the more crap I see around me. Further Reading: "The City In History" - a book that is completely the opposite of the dry and colorless shit the title makes it sound like.

I also got my book from Alibris I've been waiting for. No lie, it's a collection of biographies of anarchists through history.

Oh look, a photo of Lorri Jackson (R) & friends. I've told the story before, but I once ran a zine for a couple years and Lorri submitted a story about a girl dieing of a heroin overdose the same night she herself actually died of a heroin overdose called "And the Corpse Had Numerous Tattoos." My God, Lorri's been dead for almost 20 years already. Anyway this just popped into my head. Lorri only shows up when she knows what I'm working on is going to get finished. Bandwagon jumper.

Yes there is a common thread, suddenly visualized, in this post. Many things that were part of me - things I've mentioned here - have been set aside and I'm reclaiming them. This time I intend on not letting it overcome reason and shoot me off into a personal trajectory that will cause pain and hardship. I'm channeling it into the work. The rest of my life, which I love, stays exactly the same.

What else? Oh - I'm taking my grand daughter to the museum tomorrow where they have Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle...

(That's right, you guessed it, that room is in miniature.)

...and YOU really want to come along by now don't you? Well sorry, my wife and I are hogging Emma all to ourselves. so bleh!

But you can take the tour right here.

Pow Pow Bang Bam Pow Pow Bam Bam Pow

**

I've been in my last online political discussion. I'm officially retiring from that continually pointless garbage as of today. Cut me some slack. I've been online since the only way to communicate in *discussion* was by bulletin boards and alt.newsgroups - so I'm a veteran. And I quit.

A short list of internet laws can be found over on a UK site set up by the Telegraph. My favorite one of late is Pommer's law...

Proposed by Rob Pommer on rationalwiki.com in 2007, this states: “A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”

Yes my "air-displacement" chart has seen me lose some weight over the last week. Mostly it's the end of snack and junk food which I am much partial to, the substitution of water for other liquids at meals, smaller portions, and a run/jog/weights session of about an hour on Monday Wednesday and Friday. The scale says I'm down, but I'm a harsh critic. For all that work, even though only one week, it should have been more.

I've had a noticeable spike in people signing on to "follow" this blog. I don't track visits or check my stats or pay attention to who is following unless it comes up on the Blogger Dashboard and I just happen to click. So I'm grateful for the followings. But - if you haven't already - let me know your blog addy because I don't always pay attention to that stuff.

You know what it is is sometimes an act just wears thin on you. You've seen it all before, you notice it just stops meaning what it meant. I've had this feeling lately. I think it's good to change your habits every now and then. That was pretty enigmatic and cryptic, wasn't it?

Tomorrow or sometime this week I'm going to post a recipe from the weight watcher people for a vegetable soup/stew that is OUT of this freakin world in both flavor and that "filling" feeling yet lives like a ghost inside you. I'm making it tonite but don't have the card right here.

I still owe BRIAN a test run on the MacSpeech Dictate for a list of technical words he sent me to see if the voice-to-text would recognize them. I simply haven't had the chance to try it out, but it WILL happen. I just can't pronounce some of them, and the device is still dependent on your ability to say things correctly. Anyway it will happen. be patient.

Cover Letter

Today's date

(The agent's name)
(The agency's name)
(The agency's address)

Dear (Mr./Ms.) (agent's last name),

What if a simple man working in a warehouse and living an unobtrusive life hides the fact that he suffers from a rare disease for which there is no cure, and the only known palliative is to lay his hands on the wall remnants of a giant maze built 700 years ago that once stretched across and covered the entire country? This is the problem facing Arthur Genghis and all those who suffer from this mysterious malady.

When the progressive symptoms finally cost him his job because he must spend more time at the wall, he concocts a way to make a living off the condition. This leads him to try and pinpoint parts of the crumbling old walls wherever they may be found. It would be a fantastic success if he can make it work, but the fellow sufferers he meets along the way, who must also use the old stones to calm their symptoms, threaten the entire project with ideas of their own; one of which includes the plotted overthrow of the entire government.

Should this be of interest, (and after reviewing the first ______ pages included [refer to agent's guidelines],) the completed manuscript is available upon request. A SASE is included for your response to this query. Thank you so much for your time. I hope to be hearing from you soon.

Cordially,
(Your signature here)

(Your name printed here)

This Morning I Wrote Myself A Note

And the note was just one line. It said "on the day Adolf Hitler came to power, France had no government." It is a historical fact. France was so chaotic that on the day Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor in Germany the French government had fallen and its replacement was still "in the works". No point to it, really, just something that kept coming into my head. You know France in the 30's was a political madhouse. There was killing and fighting between the two sides that dominated French politics in those days. People died for - and what's more important to note is that people actually killed in the name of - ideas and opinions. Their own countrymen. People who spoke the same language and had the same cultural memory.

There had been a civil war in Spain in those times, Franco's Falange Party fighting against the Republicans. Brutal stuff. Each side armed by foreign powers in a kind of dress-rehearsal for what was to come later, only everybody was from the same country. You wonder how things get that out of hand.

When ideas mean more than people life gets cheap.

Someone who is a voice for one idea dies and the people of the other idea are happy. All kinds of de-humanizing language is thrown back and forth. Labels are assigned to the other side. Names. Demeaning traits. And everybody joins in. It's the average, unexceptional part of good old human nature. Not the angels part. I'm dirty with it myself.

When you stop seeing the humanity in someone it's easier to kill them.

People get caught up in the moment. Strident voices cheering this side or the other side on. Compromise is impossible because any move toward the other idea is seen as betrayal. Dogmatism trumps Pragmatism. Pragmatism carries a negative connotation. Better traits are ascribed to those who believe in the ideas expressed by your side. This idea is common sense, the other idea is goofy. This idea does the most good, the other idea ruins everything.

Bricks get thrown through windows. The sides stop talking. People start carrying guns. There is yelling, not conversation. After all how do you communicate with robots or animals or the mentally deficient?

That was France in the 30's alright. Quite a mess.

Changing gears just a little... wow, there's a big mid-term election this year. Did you know that? You know, if I was a cynical man, I'd say this was going to be a very violent year in America. I'd say someone's going to die this summer and - what's worse - someone is going to kill. I'd say it was something that had to happen because no middle ground is available to anyone. Compromise is out of the question. The idea that politics should never get in the way of our mutual defense isn't in the language anymore. There are people with ideas spoiling for a fight.

When ideas get hot, they tend to get solid.

And when communication isn't heard over all the noise, communication sometimes turns into bullets so it can't be ignored anymore. It's all over history. We duked it out once before in this country ourselves, and we STILL can't agree on what the fight was all about. And it would be a mistake for one side to think the other won't fight back. It seems everybody's ideas are solid little things right now.

But I'm not really a cynic. I'm an optimist. This is America. We drive our cars with courtesy, we listen to other people instead of just waiting for our turn to talk. We use polite language. We're better than that.

We're certainly better than France.

Aren't we?

Bullets, now with TITLES!

Air Displacement

I am trying as of Monday (yesterday) to displace less air. This is the body weight equivalent (sort of but not totally) of how much water a ship displaces when it is on the sea. Kinda. It's a half-heartedly funny way of saying I'm too damn fat. as in GUT my friend. Yesterday I walk/ran two miles and did a little free weights for about fifteen minutes. There was a lot of water, an apple, an Odwalla fruit smoothie, some corn, half a chicken breast with no skin, an almond butter/apricot preserves PBJ on some very good high fiber wheat bread (I found one that doesn't taste like cardboard and even smells yummy toasting! Woo hoo...), a tomato and a baked potato, not in that order. Oh yes and a beer in the shower after the run. Let's not be totally stupid. Today is my pasta stir-fry (so-called) and two more miles. I'll get this. You just watch.

Science Geek Much?

It may seem out of character to some but I've become a rather big fan of the Science Channel. That link will take you to the list of shows it has but there's one in particular I'm surprised you guys don't already know about called "Sci-Fi Science." I won't talk too long on it but here's some shows they've done of late: How To Blow Up A Planet, How To Build A Superhero Suit, How To Build A Forcefield, and there was a real good one on Building A Starship. I'm going to assume you are already fans but just never got around to telling us because... dudes?... you need this.

Facebook Ads

So the deal is you're supposed to be able to determine what ads you do and do not wish to see on your Facebook page by clicking the X on stuff you don't want, listing why you don't want them and then the genii inside the computers that run Facebook will make sure you doan gettum no more. So I get the "Join The Tea Party" and I click offensive, and then I get "Say No To Government Run Healthcare" and I click misleading, and then I get "Draft Sarah Palin for High Holy Panjandrum" or something and I click offensive, and you'd think by now they'd get the idea. But no. I'm still getting ads for all the hair-brained neo-McCarthyite, fight the communist conspiracy hogwash being paid for by the Insurance companies that is coming from deeply patriotic everyday people. I'm going to get some electrical tape and block off the whole right side of the screen.

That's settled

After years and years I've finally had described to me what kind of fiction I write. It's dystopian except it isn't futuristic, it's now. Which is crazy, but thanks anyway Rupert. I just thought it was real life. Who knew...

They're Baaa-aaaak

Ugly build-up to House health care vote
Demonstrators hurl N-word, spit at black members of Congress

WASHINGTON - House Democrats heard it all Saturday — words of inspiration from President Barack Obama and raucous chants of protests from demonstrators. And at times it was flat-out ugly, including some racial epithets aimed at black members of Congress.

Most of the day's important work leading up to Sunday's historic vote on health care was being done behind closed doors. Democratic leaders cajoled, bargained and did what they needed to nail down the votes they will need to finally push Obama's health care overhaul bill through the House.

But much else about the day was noisy, emotional and right out in the open. After more than a year debating the capstone of Obama's domestic agenda and just hours to go before the showdown vote, there was little holding back.

The tone was set outside the Capitol. Clogging the sidewalks and streets of Capitol Hill were at least hundreds — no official estimate was yet available — of loud, furious protesters, many of them tea party opponents of the health care overhaul.

Rallies outside the Capitol are typically orderly, with speeches and well-behaved crowds. Saturday's was different, with anger-fueled demonstrators surrounding members of Congress who walked by, yelling at them.

"Kill the bill," the largely middle-aged crowd shouted, surging toward lawmakers who crossed the street between their office buildings and the Capitol.

'N-word' 15 times
The motorcade that carried Obama to Capitol Hill to whip up support for the bill drove past crowds waving signs that read "Stop the spending" and "Get your hands out of my pocketbook and health care." Many booed and thrust their thumbs down as Obama rode by.

As police held demonstrators back to clear areas for lawmakers outside the Capitol Obama's speech, some protesters jeered and chanted at the officers, "You work for us."

Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., told a reporter that as he left the Cannon House Office Building with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of the civil rights era, some among the crowd chanted "the N-word, the N-word, 15 times." Both Carson and Lewis are black, and Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones also said that it occurred.

"It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis," said Carson, a large former police officer who said he wasn't frightened but worried about the 70-year-old Lewis, who is twice his age. "He said it reminded him of another time."

Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who is black and said police escorted the lawmakers into the Capitol. Cleaver's office said he would decline to press charges, but Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail later: "We did not make any arrests today."

Clyburn, who led fellow black students in integrating South Carolina's public facilities a half century ago, called the behavior "absolutely shocking."

"I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus," Clyburn told reporters.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, said protesters shouted "abusive things" to him as he walked from the Longworth building to the Rayburn building. "It's a mob mentality that doesn't work politically," he said.

Step toward communism?
Inside House office buildings, protesters made their views known by visiting lawmakers' offices and chanting at legislators walking by.

Among the demonstrators was Delane Stewart, 65, of Cookeville, Tenn., who had come with her husband, Jesse.

"You know what's coming next if this happens?" she said, referring to the health bill's passage. "They're going to come after gun control."

Retired businessman Randy Simpson, 67, of Seneca, S.C., also said the health bill was just a first step.

"My concerns are about the health care bill, and the direction it takes us is toward communism, quite frankly," he said.

At a daylong meeting of the House Rules Committee, members of both parties squeezed into a tiny hearing room traded accusations in a session that was often a shouting match.

"You all in the minority know what the American people think," Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., said loudly and mockingly at Republicans repeatedly saying the public overwhelmingly opposes Obama's health care bill.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said a tricky voting procedure Democrats had been contemplating "corrupts and prostitutes the system" and would "unleash a cultural war in this country."

My dear Mr Barton if it is cultural war you want I, for one, will be most happy to indulge you.

Let's go.

Lemmee Get This Straight Now......

You will no doubt notice that even if you run your mouse over these pictures and/or click to enlarge the blogspot way, none of them are going to reveal anything more than a shoulders-up shot of these women.

I am not only being a good boy, but I also want to make a point. And that is that it really isn't necessary to go hunt down the naked-celeb pics or even the willfully provocative, purposely-staged cheese shot to demonstrate that these women I am listing here are truly beautiful each in their own way. And that there isn't really any need to go for the tawdry snapshop to post here to make my point.

Nor am I going to post a link for all you neo-luddite cavemen out there. I'm just going to post four nice looking faces and that's really all we're going to need.

There is a famous poster most guys have seen in any gas station / tool shop / locker room / public men's room or whatever have you that I'm sure you boys have seen before. It depicts a stunningly gorgeous young woman dressed down revealing rounded curves, tightly perfect thighs, the bottom third of a taunting nipple peeking out below something that kind of looks like it might be clothes. Her legs are in a wide stance and she's in heels that must really hurt so her calf muscles are pouted out just so. Her hair goes wild across half her face and it looks for all the world as if it really is too warm where they are taking the picture and any minute now she's going to just rip everything off and go dive into the water that's behind her, waiting.

And across the bottom of the picture that takes up maybe 85% of the printed surface is a line, in quotes, that reads "Just remember, somebody somewhere has to put up with her shit."

And we get it. You know the one. We read it and nod ruefully. Because quite a few of us can vouch for the fact that we've either experienced personally, or at least have witnessed, the uber-chick acting like a total bitch to her date or boyfriend... every time they are ever seen in public... continually. Or else there are legendary stories about her impossible nature and egotistical disposition to the point of laughing at starving Ethiopian children while she hunts down her crack pipe. We know of the type, at least.

So it's one thing to put up pictures of beautiful women and enjoy them for what they are but we then usually sit back at some point - if the subject turns to it - and say "yeah, too difficult on the whole, so goodbye to that and no big whoop." And though there may be some truth to it we must also admit that this is a convenient cop-out because deep down inside we KNOW something like that isn't going to be bothered with something like... well... this. Either way we put it out of our mind, and justify the potential hardships as a good reason not to ever bother. Yeah right.

But just think for a second.

Halle Berry gets cheated on by a male model nobody ever heard of whose last name was probably G Washington something or other before he changed it and for all his ability to pose he certainly wasn't really all that. Tiger Woods cheated on Elin and I suppose you could say - yeah alright he's got billions of dollars and though he dressed like a forty-nine year old shlump he's got a game on. But he'd just be the exception that proved the rule because... Hugh Grant? After the fuckin eternally boyish British charms yadda yadda yadda you must see that he continually plays the exact same post-adolescent witty private school guy in every. last. movie. he. ever. did and couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. Besides which he dumps Elizabeth Hurley for a skanky hooker. I mean sweet bloody Jesus!

Now there's this Jesse James shithead or whatever the hell his name is. I have no fucking idea what he ever did in the world or why he's famous or why I should give a shit about his whatever career (I guess)... but he can't possibly have a smidgen's worth of cash in comparison to Sandra Bullock and - to be honest? - looking at him and who he ended up with on the left here is - I'd say - enough to give younger shlump versions of me hope. But... yeah... he dumped her. And he did it in favor of a girl with the ugliest mess of tattoo shit you'd ever want to see. And tattoos are so usual now - I mean - big deal... soccer moms have them for cry eye, so who are we crappin?

I heard a high school kid say "no tattoo is the new tattoo." Seriously. Change is the only constant... But I digress.

The thing is, even those of us who are happily married and couldn't imagine being with or doing things with anyone other than the generous and charitable (well, LOOK at us) people we have married must ask... you trade these in?

These are trade-ins? Dude. Excuse me but... lolwut?

Somewhere along the way I must have missed a memo. I thought these women could only make you look better. And I don't mean to say their beauty may circumvent a nasty, ugly, personal streak but COME ON.

The poster said "somebody has to put up with her shit.": It isn't saying "USED TO put up with her shit."

Now does it?

Another Fookin St Patty's Day

Well sorry but the simple truth is that the Irish-Irish (from Ireland) are generally not very similar at all to American-Irish (from here). And I think it was the little time I spent actually in Ireland that convinced me of that fact.

There's nothing like Ireland in the whole world. I could drop all this here right now and go live there in an instant if they'd only have me and I had a way to make a living there. It is truly a lyrical, beautiful, and special place on this Earth.

And as much as the Irish-Irish are proud of their American cousin's accomplishments, I must say I did meet a small percentage over there that were glad that part of the family was over here. As it were.

I think - and they thought - the reputation the Irish have for being huge drinking fart monsters is mostly an American-Irish concoction and design, by and large, truly steeped in some kind of greenish testosterone poisoning. A kind of O'Frankenstein cross between a leprechaun and Billy the O'Kid.

The Irish-Irish I've met did not seem all that enamored with the stereotypical caricature the American-Irish like to think is the way you're supposed to be when you're, you know, an American-Irish person.

That said.... then there's Shane MacGowan.

Anyway...

in honor of St. Patrick's Day, and all the erins who will go braless because it's March 17th and they will therefore feel compelled to pour beer over their little Irish titties, I give you the band that - between U2 and them - is the better one.

You will no doubt at some point of this video remark that Shane's "teef" are quite astounding. But he's been this way since the 80's and if you aren't used to them by now then you never will be. Don't let it distract you from this glorious song.

And be on the lookout for the gurl bass player here, by name Cait O'Riordan, for whom I had an unGodly crush on - though I was married to MrsRW and Cait was about to marry Elvis Costello - in that time in which we were all settling down from the wildass punk days. And it's not like we knew each other but.... you KNOW what I MEAN.

Back in the Day we used to say the Clash was "the only band that mattered." And the collaboration that ensued in the years following between the Pogues and Joe Strummer post-Clash made for an Irish twist on the better moments of that little post-punk world.

Here's the link if you don't see the video... CLICK THIS THEN DAMMIT.

From the album titled "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" - ladies and gentlemen...

The Pogues...

No Actually, They Are Idiots...

I know it isn't politically correct to point out that the general demonstrated intelligence level of the closet bigots honorable and legitimate Tea Party Movement is a little on the low side. If you get all up in their face about how they're dumb and just a little goofy the wise men of the Pundit Channel will cry or point their fingers or strike a match on your forehead to light their cigar, and tell you THEY "would never call people demonstrating their constitutional rights as goofy"... so the onus comes back to ME for saying such a thing. Though - please don't ask them what they felt about the peace marchers against the invasion of Iraq m'kay?

But... Jesus, dudes...

I'm constantly amazed how people who say the bible is a closed and not a continuing revelation keep getting new messages from it regardless.
(for the record, not a tea party sign... but I couldn't resist)

OH wait alright. YEAH... here we go...

This is the guy who starts hitting real early in the proceedings. Either that or he is not going to be celebrating St. Patrick's Day any time soon.

Yes, well, there you have it. We don't want more socialized care because the socialized care we already have is so good. Or something...

OK, so...... I'm guessing not a shaver? (Hereafter known as Epic Pubic O-Face Girl)

lol internet

I've uncovered an eternal verity. People who hold internet grudges, make mean little comments and leave their name unlinked, imagine offenses against them where none were intended, serially instigate or participate in cyclic rounds of internet blowups, seem to never move away from any favorite prejudice they have nourished over time, and willfully travel to places online they absolutely know are going to upset them so they can start shit as if out of the blue, somehow usually turn out to be either...

A. ...an overweight middle-aged woman with a history of very little personal accomplishment when all is said and done,

or

B. ...a really funny-looking guy who lives alone, usually needs a bath, and has guns he's actually never fired.

This is not to say that because you are an overweight middle-aged woman with a history of very little personal accomplishment when all is said and done or a really funny-looking guy who lives alone, usually needs a bath, and has guns he's never actually fired, means you are automatically that kind of internet personality. No indeed. But I am saying that it has been my experience, after being online for many years, that that troublesome internet personality type mentioned at the start almost invariably turns out to be an overweight middle-aged woman with a history of very little personal accomplishment when all is said and done or a really funny-looking guy who lives alone, usually needs a bath, and has guns he's never actually fired.

Why would a person make a point of going to an internet locale they know is going to trigger a negative reaction in them? To purposely go where they absolutely know they are going to be upset to some degree. or that will re-engage their ill temper? And then why do they feel compelled to post something there? And why are they then so obsessed with the drama of it they return to the discussion a hundred times just to see if somebody commented back to them, and make an enemies list of anyone who dared to challenge them?

The internet either created these kinds of people, enhanced the behavior of people who already had a penchant for these kinds of behaviors, or things have always been this way except that now the internet is just allowing the commonality that always existed to be seen by a wider audience.

I can't tell which. And I don't get it.

Brainfart

Well? see what happens with all that rich food?

I was really concerned... well not concerned but it bugged me... to think that something like the "Tea Party" phenomenon was going to stop the hopeful reversal of Bush's catastrophic 8 years based on some kind of populist grass roots thing. But I'm OK now that it is 1. helping to tear apart the GOP and 2. starting to talk about 9/11 conspiracies. Thank God for idiots. They has me worried for a sec.

Over the past year I've taken to smoking an occasional pipe. Tobacco, you cretin. Sheeesh. And I am astounded by the pleasant and positive reaction of usually strident anti-cigarette people to the scent of a pipe in the room. coughcoughmydaughtercoughcough. To the point of sticking their nose way down into the humidor and rolling their eyes in something that looks a lot like love. Did you know that they actually have a grading system for "room quotient" or something when grading pipe tobacco? And NO I am NOT a cigarette smoker. BLEH!!! See...? You need me to be your friend.

There isn't a food on Earth that pairs with absinthe. Forget about it. That's that.

I have absolutely got to get back into shape. I have a gut that embarrasses me every morning. It's starting to hang over my belt. This is pathetic. I have got to stop looking at myself in the mirror when I shave. That's all there is to it. God I'm an ugly fucker...

For some crazy reason the other day I got all worried about my grand-daughter not having the kind of substance in her life that I worked so hard to give my daughters. Something about her manners and her ways that just seemed ultra-shy and uber-reserved, and an answer she gave when I innocently asked her 'what do you and your friends talk about at lunch' - a shrug and a cast-down gaze - (she's in 1st grade) made me wonder if she's developing along as she should. And then her Mom (oldest daughter) came to pick her up and she brightened up with a great big smile and threw her arms around my daughter when she saw her. Yeah OK I'm a dolt and will shutup now.

I'm starting to think we made a mistake stopping The South from seceding. And Texas too. Next time they want to break off...? Give them a loan to help them do it. Because, God damn, Wal-Mart, complaining about Godless communist Muslim Presidents and NASCAR, people. Jesus my ever loving Christ, yeah???

A psychic shouldn't have to ask you your name.

Ghosts. Alien spaceships. Crop circles. Literal Bibles. Obama's birth certificate. Templars. The tri-lateral commission. The conspiracy to kill JFK. Astrology. Edgar Cayce. Atlantis. Angels. An image of the Virgin Mary in your poop being sucked down a toilet. Scientology as a "religion". Heaven. Hell. Past Lives. The end of the world in 2012. Nostradamus. If we spent half the energy on real life that we do on chasing bullshit like this we'd be a lot better off. At what point do we say PROVE THE FUCKIN HYPOTHESIS and demand intellectual rigor about it, and have that demand be somehow OK? I ask you.

This was my last vodka cranberry I swear.

May As Well Let My Freak Flag Fly...

I know, a lot of the folks on my blogroll don't get Tom. So OK. Don't click. It's OK. It's just I have to let my inner reprobate free every once in a while or I'll go fucking crazy.

Here's the link to it you don't want.

It Might Be Giants

There has been a character name in stories I've written that never saw the light of publication. The name has existed now for almost forty years. I came up with this name - God knoweth how - all those many years ago. The name of the character has never changed in my head in all that time. And I keep using it, maybe by now in over twenty different places and twenty different false starts. I have no idea what the name means or where the hell I got it. But I've never been able to shake it, nor (sadly) has it ever been able to stick in something that worked. All the stories it was mentioned in have been discarded or shelved for lack of fire or the appearance of what seems to be a terminal blind alley.

The name appeared in a story again this morning, because I couldn't think of another, and I found myself thousands of words into a story in which I have no idea what is happening or why it is happening or where it is going.

I have been here before to no avail, so it may be nothing. But I've had a few sleepless nights ahead of this experience, so the signs are intriguing, if nothing else.

One Big Union...

I'm not a huge coffee drinker and when I do make coffee for myself it's in my very elitist little French press and mostly on the weekend (you got a PROBLEM with that, cupcake?). So it's odd for me to do what I did this morning; stop into a local Speedway gas station on the way to work (it's 99 cents - to hell with Starbucks) to get a super-big 24 ounce fully caffeinated whatever-they-had. And I walk in at 7:02 and there's my boss with a 16 ounce fully caffeinated whatever-he-found from the Speedway in his direction waiting for me, because he's the kind of person who if you can't work for him you can't work for anybody and YOU are the one with the problem. So by the time I'm through (I haven't started the 16 ouncer yet as I type this) I will have swallowed 40 ounces of fully-caffeinated coffee and the next thing that will happen is a visit to the john. Ahem...

We then proceeded to sit around and go over the business we had for the day and - sad to say - there isn't a whole lot of it. There hasn't been a whole lot of it for quite some time. In fact if I were to do all I had on my plate today all in one big clump and right now, by 10:00 I'd be twiddling my thumbs. I've got to find a good price on some poplar and oak, find out where the hell the beech we ordered TWO DAMN WEEKS AGO is, dodge a couple vendors we've gone out 60 days on, and explain to the awesome-looking Russian personal trainer woman why we haven't started her beech stairway yet. And besides doing my usual 14 calls to people we have bids out for - which will all end in the daily "leave a message" and take about twenty minutes, I'm done.

Hence the writing and construction of this post without any guilt or fear of it hurting production. In fact, the guy I work for now honestly doesn't care if I work a standard 8 or not, just so long as everything I had on my plate for the day was done. I mean my God - if I blow my nose twice he's saying "don't worry, go home if you are sick" - and I don't even have a cold. So yeah he's a pretty good guy. But in exchange for all these daily benefits and open-ended independence, I have to accept a salary that isn't even half of what I made for the old place that let me go a few years back, just when the housing bubble burst and my numbers plummeted. I wonder if they still see me as the reason sales were down? Knowing them I'd say they probably do... even though they've fired the guy they replaced me with because... uh... his numbers weren't good. Coughcoughcough. Hmm...

(Here's where I start the 16 ouncer)

But the last thing I'm going to do is complain about the salary. The chances it doesn't move from where it's at for several more years is high, and every day is a hassle with suppliers looking for payment, our customers who don't pay us, and every five out of six people I see all day only speak Polish. But the plain fact is that I know of guys who have been applying for jobs for two years who are still out of work, and there are people who can't afford their house anymore, and some folks who were always happy to see you pop over sort of blanche at the thought of company coming because chips and dip just aren't in the budget anymore. So, in effect, the guy I work for is basically allowing me to hide out in his office until this building bust bottoms out and we return to some kind of normalcy. If we ever do. So I am not ungrateful, I will not complain about the salary, and I stay the full 8 every day in the hopes that just one walk-in can be sold on using us for their stair work and the handful of builders I brought to the firm as customers keep starting new projects. So I am a lucky bastard. Truly.

None of which has anything to do with the logo of the IWW that adorns this article, but had everything to do with the fact that I'm about to finish my 40th ounce of coffee and I have to take a leak.

So there. Who says I don't write about personal stuff on my blog?

HaveaniceweekendIgottaGO...

ON EDIT: 8:45 AM... the boss just walked in with the whole crew from the shop (three guys), a box of donuts and.... yeah... more coffee. Today is his 23rd anniversary of coming to America. We have serious problems... he's in the lunch room laughing.

brb, horseshoe up my ass...

No... This Is MY Brain... On The Floor (on edit)

(not an absinthe dream)

Well... actually...
WELL WELL WELL.... seems as though I bought the farm. Having touted these features as done "in miniature" is exactly what they wanted me to believe, and I bought it hook line and sinker. This is my mistake and I'll play the fool for it. What Cityshrinker does is take photographs of real city scenes and then photoshop to make them look miniature. See here now! And there's no fakery because Mr Cityshrinker never said they were anything else. I am der shlep off der day.

OK. This one's on me. But... he sure did a good job then eh!!

(ho boy...)

BUT then there's THIS guy.

So you're calmly walking along the sidewalk minding your own business when something at ground level catches your eye...

Too much in a hurry you note it but move on. Just another one of those urban anomalies. Happens all the time.

Until you notice something else further down the way...

Still, time marches on. You have to keep moving.

Until it happens AGAIN, and this time - despite what it looks like - you get down on all fours to take a close-up look at what these little flashes of color are. And you see this...

Which you someday come to find was titled "They Aren't Pets, Susan!" and the whole long trail of little people busy living in your city are the work of Slinkachu, whose combination of miniatures, found art and street art produce an alternative city right under your feet. He makes them, photos them, and walks away.

And these ARE miniatures.

I just had to share.

OK. Carry on, then.

Bullet Points. Now With Tag Lines!

OK - I want to see movie tag lines on your next bullet point post or you're staying in the minor leagues forever, pilgrim.

You know your job is getting ridiculous when your biggest bit of excitement is buying plywood for 84 cents less a sheet since the last time you bought it. "...this business of nickels and dimes and spending all your life trying to figure out how to save three cents on a length of pipe...I'd go crazy. I want to do something big and something important."

Being on a high school reunion committee has it's good parts. It's funny to see the look on people's faces, or the exclamation marks in their emails, when you show up after they thought they'd never see you again. "Hell, I even thought I was dead once - turned out I was just in Nebraska."

So money is tight and not flowing around like it should be in this down economy. But it occurs to me that everybody walking around thinking they aren't going to spend any money on big ticket items because of the down economy are actually self-perpetuating the down economy. Amirite? "I would like to address your attitude of hopeless negativism--consider the lilies of the goddamn field...or hell, look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope."

The creative process is a fragile thing. You get all fired up about a project and then it just sort of simmers a little on the back burner, and then there it is again. I think I've started this last project a minimum of 32 different ways. Hopefully 33's a charm. It would be something to figure out the mechanics of that. "There has to be a mathematical explanation for how bad your tie is."

Every hour somebody calls me while I'm at work from some bogus "business enterprise" giving away free chiropractic sessions or selling ads in the high school program, or lists of outdated leads you can't possibly sell to. They come from all over the country. So if you call here with a strange area code - you're ignored. My boss is from Europe and I don't think they have that over there, so early on - before they had me to deal with the gringos and con men - they must have fallen for a few scams, judging from the sheer amount of stupid calls. It pisses me off when good people get run over. "The Germans wore gray, you wore blue."

Even though I love the first feel of oncoming winter after a hot summer and pray expectantly for snow on Christmas (absolutely required) I admit that by March I'm starting to get a little antsy for more pleasant temps. Still, no matter how much people are now going to tout where they're living and ask stupid question of me like... "snow? What's that?" I can't imagine living anywhere else. Born in Chicago. I will probably croak here. And that's not so bad - weather or no weather. "The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts."

Ever have something stupid or mean you did long ago (and already beat yourself up over once) pop into your head, years and years after you'd done it, and get to experience that uncomfortable, unforgiving, wracking pang of conscience all over again? I hate when that happens."He'll regret it till his dying day, if ever he lives that long."