appeasement

Bush has just compared Obama’s willingness to sit down and talk with the Iranians (as opposed to….say…..bombing them) with England’s appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930s. Most people were appalled. Well, except for Joe Lieberman but he doesn’t really count. Bush chose to make his remarks from Israel, which is a nice place to drop the odd Nazi reference. So, essentially he’s saying that the possible next president of the US is a terrorist sympathizer, and Israel better build bigger bomb shelters or buy (from us) bigger bombs. Or something like that. Never one to shy away from trying to scare the shit out of people, he’s now working on the Israeli’s, who’ve been looking over their shoulders for 60 years as it is. They don’t need much help. And he’s saying this from outside his own country. Isn’t this…..you know…….treason?

If wearing a “Fuck George Bush” T-shirt is treason, why isn’t a remark like this?

It’s generally Cheney who makes deep, sensitive remarks about Democrats and terrorists gathering in smokey back rooms to play twister together. Or some West Wing flunky thrown onto one of the Sunday talk shows because they needed a warm body. But this is the actual President of the United States making such a claim. It’s disgusting surely. It’s incredibly offensive, not just to Obama but to all the man’s supporters. It’s below whatever dignity is left of the office itself (not much to be sure). It’s a sign of true desperation (when Joe Lieberman is your only supporter left, Elvis has clearly left the building. Lieberman has gone completely native. The man is batshit. Gone in the head). And maybe, it points to a man still hung over from his daughter’s wedding. I know this from experience. Hung over, a man is likely to say anything. Your mouth feels like the bottom of the ocean, you see things climbing on the walls that aren’t really there. And your head feels like it’s carrying a suitcase. From what I hear, the Jenna/Guy who used to work for Karl Rove wedding was a marvel. No expenses spared at a time when it seems half the country is either out of work or worrying about being out of work. I always expected Jenna, who was the drunk wild one tossed out of half the bars in Texas, would grab some tattooed beefcake and drive to Vegas, where they’d get married by an Elvis impersonator in a drive-thru chapel. But instead she marries some guy who looks like one of the Little Rascals….a guy who just happens to be a freakishly ideological right wing pinhead who only has to hate and take orders to make a great living. Just like her Dad. Can you say “arranged marriage”? I knew you could.

Bush has another daughter too, but everybody forgets her name. She’s not as much fun as Jenna. But you gotta watch out for the quiet ones. They’re just the kind that’ll bring home some subscriber to The Nation magazine named Jahangir who will ask Dad, upon meeting him, “Is there a mosque in Crawford?” I wonder how much the man would spend on that wedding? We can’t all marry Karl Rove acolytes you know. Who’d want a house filled with kids all nicknamed “Turd Blossom” kneeling in front of a Reagan picture everynight to say prayers?

It must suck to be the President’s kid. No kid agrees with his or her Dad on everything. Maybe the girls aren’t warmongering Jesus using homophobic racists with silver spoons jammed up their asses. If they’re not, they have to act like they are, or else be thrown in the Billy Carter room. Dick Cheney is one of the most evil men alive. He has no scruples whatsoever. He once called Nelson Mandela a terrorist. He nimbly managed to dodge fighting in wars but has managed to start quite a few. And each time he gets richer. And he consistently votes with the “gays are evil” crowd, even though his own daughter is a lesbian. Now that must be an interesting dinner table (”Grandpa, why do you hate Mommy?”). That swooshing sound is your breath being taken away by all this hypocrisy. When a guy with 6 draft deferments questions the patriotism of a decorated Marine who served multiple tours in Viet Nam, that’s called “having balls”. It’s also called disgusting. These fuckers can’t crawl back into their spider holes quick enough.

But at least they wear little American flag pins on their lapels. Obama doesn’t. That traitorous bastard.

How have we sunk so far so fast? I’m old enough to remember Watergate. When Nixon finally resigned it was like everybody was allowed to come outside again without a bag over their head. Everybody piled on the guy…..and in a “most hated man in history” poll taken at the time, Nixon beat out Stalin and Hitler. Of course the majority of the country had re-elected Nixon in a landslide in 72…..knowing he was slime all along. So he went from slime to a paranoid, delusional, drunken, pill-popping, sadistic, homophobic, anti-semitic should-have-been-felon slime. And all it took was two 20 something beat reporters making less than 20k a year “following the money”. Ah, those were the days.

But these current people make Nixon look like one of the Jonas Brothers.

In 2004, wasn’t Bush “appeased” by all the dumbasses who voted for him?

The Death of Joe Strummer

Been thinking a lot about rock and roll lately. What it was. What it’s become. Whether it even exists anymore as a catalyst for change. As long as pissed off kids gather in garages to blow out cheap amps, it technically exists. But where are these kids taking it? And who’s listening if they decide to take it anywhere?

For years I’ve stayed away from rock and roll. Being an acoustic musician, that’s the style I’ve mostly listened to. Woody Guthrie and his disciples. Long dead bluesmen. Lots of folks you’ve undoubtedly never heard of who are writing great songs that hardly anyone ever hears. My own music has tended to be soft, sometimes sung in a near whisper…..with the loneliest of accompaniment. Mostly just a lightly picked Gibson jumbo. I’ve raged in my own way…..over war and genocide and hypocrisy, with the occasional forlorn love letter thrown in the mix.

I’m too old to deal with drummers and bass players, so it’s still just me and my guitar. That’s the way it’ll always be. But I’ve noticed that I’ve been pounding the strings a little harder lately. Getting my ya-yas out maybe. All of a sudden I feel the urge to attack the strings instead of caressing them. I’m searching for riffs now…..rhythms that get the legs moving. I’ve never been a particularly good guitar player, so I never stray far from 3 chord territory. But it’s amazing what you can do with an A and a D chord when you play them violently.

I’ve only written a few songs in this spirit. In “The Only Ones” I made the mistake of not using a pick, and at the end of recording it blood sprinkles from my finger had splattered on my white paints. The pain was exquisite. It’s not a particularly good song, being an all too obvious attempt to squeeze into Quadrophenia territory. But “The Death of Joe Strummer”…..my most recent song, is more successful I think. It’s kinda where my head is at right now, both musically and lyrically (by the way, both songs can be downloaded for free at www.songaweek.com). I quite like it and plan more in this vein.

But why? I guess that’s the question I’m building up to. I’m too old for this shit. Ain’t I?

Probably. But who the fuck cares. It’s rock and roll. “Only” rock and roll as the Stones put it. And look at them. Grandfathers in the midst of a 30 year long and counting oldies review. Sure we scoff. But what would Keith Richards do without rock and roll? Work as a bell-hop? Bluesmen are allowed to grow old gracefully. Why aren’t rock and rollers?

Because it’s so physical….that’s why. Primal. Jimi Hendrix at 66 torching his guitar with lighter fluid and playing it with his (probably) false teeth would look as ridiculous as Pete Townshend does at 63 smashing his to smithereens in front of a crowd that paid $300 for a ticket. BB King now performs sitting down. Can you see Townshend doing that?

It’s a young man’s game. Why do we say that? I think because nobody I can think of in the upper echelon of rock and roll has been able to produce work in their 40s and 50s that surpassed what they’d done in their 20s. So what you’re left with is nostalgia. And nostalgia is like crack cocaine. It feels great while it’s happening. But it wears off quick. By the ride home from the concert you’ve realized that the band didn’t play a song written after 1975 all night long. You feel cheated. Until you then realize that there really isn’t a song that the band released after 1975 that you’d have wanted them to play. And so it goes. Give the people what they want. And charge them out the ass for the pleasure. They’ll pay, because they want to be 20 again as much as the guitar player does.

Which brings me to Joe Strummer. Dead at 50 of a heart attack. He could have treaded water with the Clash brand name and made a killing. But he didn’t. Instead, he gathered up a group of hungry kids, dubbed them the Mescaleros, and recorded 3 wildly uneven but sometimes brilliant records before he passed on. He toured incessantly his last few years, always pushing the new material at the expense of his Clash songs. His fan base dwindled….and he was actually reduced to hand writing flyers and handing them out to tourists on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, trying to drum up business for an evening show there. This isn’t me we’re talking about. This is Joe Fucking Strummer. You know. A member of the rock and roll hall of fame. At one time the driving force behind arguably the greatest rock and roll band on the face of the earth. I doubt he needed the money. What he needed was rock and roll. And to Strummer, rock and roll wasn’t about the past. Rock and Roll was now. Here and now. But people didn’t get it. Maybe he died of a broken heart.

Anyway, that’s how I feel. How do you feel?

It ain’t easy being green

Earthquakes. Hurricanes. Wildfires. Floods. Cyclones. I’m not even sure what a cyclone is, but I know it’s bad. Either global warming is something to be concerned about or Mother Nature is a remorseless bitch on wheels.

Recently President Bush went on the record as saying that global warming was “real”. Big step that. Republicans aren’t very big on global warming. Dealing with it fucks up the free markets. Better to pretend it’s a liberal plot and batten down the hatches, hoping the next cyclone doesn’t hit DC when congress is in session.

I’m not big on these green issues myself, although if I see another picture of an emaciated polar bear I may off myself. I’m never quite sure what it is I’m supposed to be doing. I have a smallish car. Am I supposed to get a smaller one? Am I supposed to use gas? Am I supposed to stop eating corn and start using it to power my lawnmower? And what about the ozone layer? All those horrible aerosol cans. That used to be a big deal. You don’t hear about the ozone layer anymore. Is it fixed?

What does “eco-friendly” mean? Am I “eco-friendly?” Leonardo DiCaprio just purchased an “eco-friendly” apartment in New York City. It features an indoor 50-foot lap pool, media cafe, fitness center, landscaped terrace - and dog spa. Oh, and solar panels. While I’m not too sure why is 50 foot pool is good for the environment, I’m sure Leo means well. The problem is that most can’t afford homes with 50 foot pools and dog spas. I know I can’t. I have a pool. I bought it at Wal-Mart for $130. You have to blow it up. I also have a dog. No spa though. She seems happy enough without one. After all, she is a dog.

I did not see Al Gore’s Oscar winning global warming documentary. I hear the origins of the film came from a slide presentation Gore was giving around the country. I never found Al Gore particularly interesting. Sitting through an Al Gore PowerPoint lecture didn’t seem a good use of my time. And turning a PowerPoint presentation into a film seemed like a really bad idea. Even for Hollywood. But it won him the Nobel Peace Prize, so what the hell do I know. I always caution winners of the Nobel Peace Prize though. Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat have one too.

I don’t know any enviromentalists. So I lack a leader. I need guidance. I’m too busy to google the right garbage bags to use. Selfish I know….what with all the skinny polar bears out there. But the world is complicated enough without me worrying about garbage bags and organic toys. And did you know that clothes can be organic? I didn’t either until just now (google). They “breathe”. I’m sure Leo’s duds breathe like a sonofabitch.

Sometimes it seems the real die-hard eco-dudes are just left-over stoners who never got over Jerry Garcia dying. A guy who looks like a Woodstock-era John Sebastian is apt not to be taken very seriously as a spokesman for anything. Anytime I’ve ever personally come across someone bemoaning the environment he or she usually smelled like pot. Hey….it’s a free country (or it used to be). You can smoke your dog’s shit for all I care. But isn’t the smoke….you know…..bad for the environment?

I’m being too cynical probably. I applaud anyone for taking on a cause, no matter what they may be on. And if the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China were indeed fueled by our own atavistic arrogance, then shame on us. There certainly seems to be a lot more of this stuff happening lately. Anybody remember New Orleans?

Surely there’s some common ground we can find. Denying scientific evidence in an effort to get pissed off dumb people to vote for you may work in the political arena (intelligent design anyone?), but it’s pretty hard to justify when 100,000 people are being swept away by a single large ocean wave. We reap what we sow…..so to speak. Is holding public office really that juicy? On the other hand, torching SUVs is probably not a good idea either. At least PR wise.

It we could agree that this is the only world we’ve got, we might have a chance. But Bush did mention colonies on Mars during one of his state of the union speeches didn’t he? No matter, nobody was paying attention anyway, having long stopped believing anything the man said.

It ain’t easy being green.

I need something so that damn lawnmower doesn’t make me deaf

Since I was a little bitty kid I’ve been listening to music. Loud. Rock and Roll. Guitars. Drums. Heavy bass. Glorious anarchy. The Who were my favorite group, not surprisingly since they were in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s loudest band. I remember reading that they were as loud as a jetliner. And there were only 3 of them. No wonder Townshend is deaf. I’ve watched hours of live video of the Who and Townshend had a peculiar habit of turning back towards his amplifier and turning it up. Again and again. No doubt you’d do the same if you had Keith Moon flailing away in your right ear. Eventually he would stop turning around, presumably because the thing was as loud as it could go. All the way to 11.

I had a summer job in 1983 painting apartments. For 3 months I slapped white paint on stucco while listening to the same live Who bootleg tape on a walkman. The walkman may seem stone-ageish these days, but back then they were glorious. Mine was covered in specs of white paint, and by the time I started my senior year in high school I’m convinced my hearing was half gone. And this was the Who after Keith Moon was dead. I’d be lip-reading now if not for Moon’s demise. I remember growing more and more frustrated as the summer wore on because I couldn’t make the thing any louder. I tried different headphones. Finally, I just ripped the foam part of the headphones off entirely and stuck the plastic directly into my earlobes. This is probably not doctor recommended, but I was pretty dumb in those days.

That was more than 20 years ago. I still consider the Who the world’s most glorious noise. And I own an Ipod, which is a listening device specifically made to render ears strictly cosmetic devices that serve only to center the face. Listening to an Ipod at full volume is like laying down inside of Keith Moon’s bass drum. At times I’ve had the thing blasting so loud that it actually made me dizzy. When I cut my grass, my 12+ year lawnmower is loud enough all by itself. It sounds like a volkswagon that just dropped it’s muffler. To compensate for this, my Ipod is turned up to ear bleed volume. And since I’m frequently listening to things like “Live at Leeds” or “London Calling” or “Never Mind the Bollocks” (you need to carefully pick out your grass cutting music….to keep the energy level up), two hours in the yard can mean at least that long waiting for my head to return to it’s normal size.

This is all crazy I know. When I was 17 I could chalk it up largely to being stupid and hung over. But now that I’m over 40, assaulting my ears like this is not only stupid, but dangerous. I’ve tried to cut back. One of the way you do this is start listening to less physical music. Not a problem for me. I’m largely an acoustic musician anyway. My Ipod is filled with the softer side of life too, so something like James McMurtry’s “Ruby and Carlos” can pump me up just as much as “Boris the Spider”. But when your head is filled with storm clouds, and you can’t seem to get your teeth to un-clench, sometimes you just need to rattle the teeth in your head. And so I find myself spinning that dial….looking to kick and the jams once more…..and forget, for 3 minutes at least…..that I’m more than half way to being dead and have specs in my hair the same color as the specs on my old walkman.

So yeah. Old people like me like their music loud because, far from hoping we die before we get old, we really want to live without ever ageing. And when I hear Strummer and Jones screaming, “London is drowning and I live by the river!”……I don’t feel 41 anymore. I feel like that kid painting houses again. And, for the most part, those were good days. I miss them.

But a fresh look. Joe Strummer dropped dead of a heart attack 6 years ago. Fifty percent of the Who is dead from excessive excess. I could go on and on but you get the idea. Rock and Roll is a young man’s game. One need only to see the Rolling Stones limping around the stage cranking out yet another version of “Satisfaction” at yet another stadium to yet another bunch of 20 something drunken yahoos to be reminded of this. What the hell am I doing pouring this stuff into me at my age? Mick Jagger is not only old enough to be my Dad, there’s a small statistical possibility that he’s fathered half the US population.

I feel old. Gotta keep the demons at bay. Fight them. Roll around on the floor with them. Or simply try to drown them out with volume. It doesn’t really work, but I still think the time I spent downloading 2 records by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros was time well spent.

The grass continues to grow. I need something so that damn lawnmower doesn’t make me deaf.

Mom

Mother’s Day is special. Everybody knows Mom’s make the world go round. My own Mom and my wife are tied in the greatest Mother ever contest of course. One took care of me then, and the other takes care of me now. And for that, they get flowers and taken out to breakfast once a year. It really isn’t enough. But Mom’s say it is, because they’re Mom’s, and have a habit of knowing the right things to say to their underlings.

Mom’s are so good that Father’s day is a huge letdown. Some politically correct day set aside so we can lay on the couch and watch sports surrounded by power tools….and not feel guilty about it. A kid is way better off with both parents to be sure, but if you had to throw one back, most Dad’s would be swimming with the fishes. It’s just the way things are. Mom’s fix things. Dad’s look into the problem, and then say, “where’s your Mother?” Kids know this. They know that I’m dumb enough to say yes to things that my wife will say no to, so they’ll come to me. Half the time they’re asking I’m not even paying attention to what they’re asking me for (a father trait). So they run off with huge grins, and eventually get caught by Mom doing or eating something dumb but don’t get into trouble because I said it was Ok. I’m the one that gets in trouble, which is one of the reasons our kids love us to much. Our obtuseness saves their asses over and over.

Mother’s Day invites all the gushy flowery Mom tributes. All well deserved to be sure. But they miss the mark. Mom’s don’t need these. They don’t expect them. And hearing them from a one who did his or her best to drive her batshit for 20 years probably adds a surreal quality to the words as well. Moms are the definition of low maintenance. They hold you when you’re shaking and wipe your tears when you cry and chase the monsters from your closet and help you with your homework and put band-aids on your knees and explain the dead dog in the middle of the road. They are psychiatrist, psychologist, doctor, boss, co-worker, friend, and grand-high exalted mystic ruler all at the same time. And they get no salary. Dad’s, on the other hand, are just “Dad”. The big galoot who walks around the house like a bull in a china shop breaking stuff and forever talking about cutting the grass. He means well, so he’s generally tolerated. In some cases, he’s an absolute necessity. To reach things in high places, for instance (he’s generally taller and has longer arms). When Mom is not around, it’s like she takes the foundation of the house with her. It’s all Dad and the kids can do to hold up the walls until she gets back.

My Mom never hit any of us kids. She rarely even raised her voice. But we still feared her. If she said be in at 10 o’clock, that’s when we came in.  If we didn’t, we’d be grounded. There was none of the negotiating that goes on with kids today. There were rules. You knew them. You might not agree with them, but they were clear as vodka. If you abided by them, things went along swimmingly well. If you didn’t, you spent weekends in the house watching the Knicks on Channel 9 while your friends partied and groped cheerleaders. It really was that simple. My Dad never said much, but he’d back her up. He knew if she said you weren’t going out this friday that you did something that merited not going out this friday. After a hard day at work, he really didn’t give a shit what you did. He just knew that Mom said so….and that was that. It was like when I used to get beat up by the nuns. I’d come home and say, “Mom, I got beat up by Sister So and So.” And my Mom would say, “well, I’m sure you deserved it.” End of story. A much simpler time back then.

There was less give and take. Actually, there wasn’t any give and take at all. My kids sucker me on a daily basis. I never sucker my Mom. I can never think of any instance when she wasn’t fair. And for an authority figure, there’s no highter praise than that. Dad’s aren’t all that interested in fairness. We prefer quiet.

I’m not nearly as good a parent as my Mom or my Dad. But I’m working on it. I owe it to my own kids to reach for the level of their grandparents. Even if my arms don’t feel that long most of the time.

It’s hard to put your arms around what’s happening in Burma

It’s hard to put your arms around what’s happening in Burma. 100,000+ dead. Much needed aid is literally at their doorstep. Yet the nation’s military rulers refuse to let relief workers into the country, insisting instead on distributing the aid themselves, which is junta-speak for “stealing.” Paranoia runs rampant in a totalitarian regime. The problem with taking over a country by force of the gun is that you’re constantly worried somebody is going to sneak up behind you and shoot you in the fucking head. You know. Do to you what you did to them. Sitting around an opulent palace sticking fake war medals on your uniform while surrounded by a cadre of stoned 15 year old bodyguards armed to the teeth….with nothing to look forward to other than the odd execution or two…..is not exactly living a full life. It’s no wonder these clowns are so paranoid. And when they finally step outside to look around all they see is a bunch of peaceful monks walking around. That must suck. Burma is likely a bad choice for a dictator. Which is why the monks parading down the street asking for basic human liberties were dealt with so harshly. Rebellion by the serf’s is what these thugs live for. Even if it’s….well…..just some monks walking down the street. But still, it’s a way to get on the news. Kind of a military junta’s way of saying “hi mom!” into the camera like a guy who just scored a touchdown.

And now they have a chance to steal shit from other countries and sell it on the black market? A cyclone is the answer to these guy’s prayers. The only problem is that dictators need people to dictate to. Cyclones have a tendency to reduce that number substantially. A cyclone here….a tsunami there….maybe the odd earthquake or two….and suddenly you’re stuck torturing each other. That’s not much fun.

Make no mistake. More will die. The arrogance and greed of power will end up killing more than mother nature. The pictures coming out of Burma are heartbreaking. People are beginning to starve. Children wander….wondering where their parents are. Dead bodies piled up trash awaiting pick-up. Strange….but the nations of the world always seem to take a break in hating each other when things like this happen. The aid has been coming from everywhere. The United Nations, who normally could fuck up a piece of toast, seem calm, rational, and prepared. The Red Cross is doing what the Red Cross always does. But all this, apparently, in vain. What must the Burmese people think watching planes loaded with food flying away? First a cyclone, and now this? All that groveling to Buddha and this is what I get out of it? Dysentery, typhoid, malaria, dengue fever, diarrhoea, and worrying about being bitten by snakes? Great. Thanks for nothing Buddha.

What now? People desperately want to help. But they know that any money earmarked for Burma is gonna end up in the hands of some pseudo-General with deep pockets. You might as well piss on your money and then burn it. And Burma, unfortunately, doesn’t have any oil. So “spreading democracy” there is a non-starter. Not that our “spreading democracy” in oil rich states is going well. I’m just saying. In this day and age, you are what you’re standing on. And unless you can sell what you’re standing on for about $120 a barrel, you’re pretty much on your own. We feel bad but mud and dirt and sand are worth….well…..shit. Listen to me….sounding all republican. Reminds me of Bob Dole’s response when asked why we weren’t doing anything to stop the Rwandan genocide. “It’s not in our own best interest to do so.” So there. If they were massacring the Rwandan gorillas the world (and Dole) would have been fucking scandalized. Poor black people? Not so much.

So what? We just sit and watch them die?

I think that’s what we do, yes. There doesn’t seem to be any other options. Unless the ruling junta does an about face and opens the doors to help, the help will get tired of waiting and go home. So, in effect, the Burma government is in fact practicing a sort of genocide on their own. Is it a crime against humanity to allow people to die? The hands don’t get bloody, but the end result is the same. How about snatching a few of these crusty old relics and dragging them to the Hague? That would give ‘em compassion real fast.

It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to cry. The best and worst of mankind on full display….locked in a sort of deadly stranglehold.

And even though they’re vastly outnumbered, we’re still feeling that the worst is going to prevail in Burma. Maybe we’re not as good as we think we are.

After all the extraordinary acts of kindness that hurricane Katrina inspired……and after the window of the indomitable human spirit we were allowed to peer through was finally covered up with other things, gulf coast residents are still left with asbestos filled FEMA trailers, and George Bush is busy planning a lavish multi-million dollar wedding for his daughter. Who or what won down there?

Sometimes I really wonder. Do you?

Tomorrow is another day

Feeling angry wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t make one so pissed off. Some days just start bad and get progressively worse. Like today for instance.

Nothing has gone right since I woke up. My dog pissed and shit on the floor. My kids missed the bus. My phone has been ringing off the hook all day at work…..and not once has it been anybody saying anything nice. I’ve been so frazzled that I didn’t shower. I’m wearing the same clothes I had on yesterday. I can actually smell myself. You know you stink when you can smell yourself. My grass is about 8 feet high, and I just cut it 5 days ago. Cutting the grass is actually what I have to look forward to at the end of the day. I hate cutting grass, especially grass when it’s wet, which is what it is now of course, since it’s been raining off and on all day. What’s a shitty day if you don’t end it trying to cut wet grass? And then getting screamed at when you’re done because you’re tracking it all over the house? If it were up to me I’d rip the grass up and put in astroturf. Or concrete. Of course it’s not up to me. Nothing is up to me, which is why the day has been so horrendous. If things were up to me, I would never have gotten out of bed in the first place. I’m increasingly feeling this way. Getting out of bed is not just hard to do, it seems so downright……stupid. I don’t physically flog myself. Why do I get out of bed?

Well, I have responsibilities….that’s why. Don’t we all. You know what I say? Fuck responsibilties. Well, I say that…..but I can’t actually mean it…..because I have 2 kids and a wife and a dog (albeit one who shits and pisses on the floor). But it feels good to say it nonetheless. How nice it would be to just lay around with absolutely no worries whatsover. I’d watch the grass grow until it blotted out the sun. I’d eat Fritos and Swedish Fish until I was the size of the 1980s version of Brian Wilson. I wouldn’t shave or cut my hair or pay my bills or return any of my library books. I’d sit in my kid’s fort in the yard and sing old English murder ballads and drink pints of Guinness until it was coming out of my ears. Then I would re-bottle it and drink it again. I’d listen to the Firesign Theater on my Ipod and learn to play the flute. I’d spend an entire weekend watching nothing but Woody Allen movies…..even the ones that nobody (including me) has ever heard of. I’d hit golf balls out of my yard and over the trees so they landed on the land of the defense company behemoth across the street…..and then blame it on al Qaeda (or however they’re spelling it these days. They can’t agree on where these clowns are, or even how many there are. But you think they’d at least settle on one common spelling.). I’d eat Eskimo Pies for breakfast. I’d never wear any other shoes but my high top green Chuck Taylors……even at funerals (they look smashing with a black suit). I’d buy a gun so I could shoot the TV, just like Elvis (does anybody know what Elvis was watching when he shot the TV? Now that would be useful information).

I think I’ve swallowed too much Nyquil actually. I’m beginning to get all lightheaded. The above warbling was fun while it lasted though. That yellow brick road promises all sorts of pleasures….until you realize there’s some old coot behind the curtain busting your friggin’ balls. Ain’t that always the way?

It’s time to knock off methinks. It’s taken me all day to get this far. In between paragraph 4 and 5 I cut the grass and showered and got yelled at by a bunch of people at work. So on the plus side I no longer smell like a barn. But there’s part of cutting the grass makes me think of making the bed. Or not making the bed as it were. Why bother cutting the grass when it’s simply going to grow again? We make the bed so we can rip the covers off in 16 hours and unmake it? Wjo made these rules? But guys think like this. I don’t know why I have to shovel snow either. It’s not like spring isn’t gonna come some year. As Casey Stengel said….”you can look it up.”

Tomorrow is another day. I hate when people say that. What does it mean? No shit tomorrow is another day. Sniffing glue will get you stoned too…..but how does tomorrow being another day relate to how shitty this day has been? What if instead we put the accent on a different word in the phrase. Like….”tomorrow is another day.” That sounds closer to the truth.

At least now it does. It is another day though. Could be better. It’s been known to happen.

Mental health

Mental health. We all have it. Some just have more than others. I’m pretty convinced I’m crazy, but at a manageable level. As long as you don’t get too close to me, or talk too loud, I can function in normal society. But then I see people mumbling to themselves…..and talking to people and things that aren’t there. And outwardly, these people look completely normal. They’re wearing the latest fashions and carrying the latest handbags and driving the latest gas guzzlers. They clearly have jobs. Most likely they’re actively breeding. And yet they’re clearly insane. You see these people every single day. Visit a mall. Or the grocery store. They’re everywhere. It’s gotten to the point where some guy standing in the middle of a check-out line talking out loud to himself doesn’t faze anybody anymore. It always seems to faze me. Shut the fuck up. Go gobble pills. Do something. If you’re sick in the head, stay home. You wouldn’t vomit in a check-out line would you? Then why would you curse imaginary little men in while waiting to pay for a pack of gum? Can’t you curse at them later? Maybe I’m being too hard on crazy people who talk to themselves. But I think the world is loud enough with people carrying on normal conversations. We surely don’t need the volume amped up by guys conversing with their inner selves.

Give ‘em a pill. That’s what we do. I’ve taken a pill or two in my day. Some of them even legal. The only ones that “work” are the ones that make you want to take a nap. To me, that’s a good pill. If a pill is gonna keep me awake, I don’t want it. I’m already awake. And without sounding too much like Tom Cruise here…..I’m suspicious of any pill that’s supposed to fix up your brain so you don’t act all weird anymore. The only things I’ve ever taken that have fixed up my brain are 6 packs of Yuengling, or an entire box of Fruit Loops. True veterans of mind control can try both at the same time, although I wouldn’t advise it without first consulting your doctor or drug dealer. The Yuengling is self-explanatory…..although it’s not exactly a long term solution. The Fruit Loops, on the other hand, contain enough sugar to spur you on to things you never thought possible. The eventual crash can be frightening, but while the high lasts, it’s better than a fist-full of pixie sticks. As of this moment, Fruit Loops are not classified as a narcotic. I’d stock up if I were you.

One of the things I’ve found out about people is that if you talk to them long enough, they’ll eventually tell you what medication they’re on. I don’t know why this is. It just is. It’s like they want you to know. It’s a badge of honor. “Look at me. I used to be ALL fucked up and then I started taking Prozac and now I’m COMPLETELY normal except for this huge rash on my arm and excessive sweating.” One of my favorite side effects of Prozac and Paxil and the like is “Anxiety”. You gotta love a drug that could cause the very thing you’re taking it to prevent. It’s like “massive pain” being one of the side effects of Tylenol. We’ve come a long way haven’t we? Well….not really. And don’t get me started on kids and Ritalin. Used to be, when I started to bounce off the walls as a kid, my mother would throw me out of the house and make me play whiffle ball or something. Now, they give you a pill that, hopefully, turns you into a zombie who’ll shut the fuck up long enough for your mother to make supper. I’m not saying that shoving a pill down a kid’s throat wouldn’t be mighty tempting sometimes. It’s just that it seems wrong. I don’t know. A kid should be a kid. If he’s too rambunctious, send him to Catholic school and have a nun beat him up. Or teach him to read. Now there’s a thought. I know it’s old fashioned and all that….reading. But it’s pretty hard for a kid wrapped up in a good Harry Potter book to break things. I’m just tossing ideas out there. And if he insists on playing video games, club him over the head like a baby seal until he sees the error of his ways.

Drugs are good though. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t lie to doctors and visit shithole neighborhoods to get them. That’s the problem with drugs. They make you feel good. If they made you feel terrible, the government wouldn’t make them illegal. Some drugs, like crack, might only make you feel good for a few minutes….and then kick your ass right back to reality, where you go dumpster diving for dinner and hang around the salvation army waiting for dibs on rich people clothes that don’t fit anymore. But what a few minutes it can be.

I’m afraid of drugs though. I remember how I took to booze (like a fish to water actually), so chances are if you put a drug in my hand I’d gobble it up and then break into your house a few hours later trying to steal money for more. So I don’t do them. It’s a cowards way out. Gotta face the world with a clear head. No matter how ugly it can get.

I’m not going to write about politics today

I’m not going to write about politics today. I don’t know why I ever write about politics. It certainly doesn’t make me feel better. It makes me feel like I need to take a shower.

As if the place didn’t have enough problems, a cyclone just hit Burma (I refuse to call it “Myanmar”). There are reports of 22,000 dead. This makes hurricane Katrina look like a spring shower. The UN has weighed in, calling it a “major crisis”. Gee, thanks UN. I guess the cyclone is way more major than Burmese monks being killed by their own government for demanding basic human rights. I don’t recall exactly what the UN did about that, but I do remember that it was next to nothing. The UN is good at doing next to nothing. They do, however, issue dandy press releases.

When a tragedy of this scale hits someplace else in the world, you get a sense for how insulated we are as Americans. And, dare I say, how self important. Can you imagine 22,000 dead Americans in the wake of a cyclone? September 11th killed a fraction of that number and has entered the lexicon as one of the darkest days in human history. I’m certainly not minimizing it. But the rest of the world has been dealing with horrific events too, on a much large scale. We somehow managed to either ignore or failed to notice one million dead Rwandans back in 1994. This wasn’t a secret thing. Cameras were on the scene, and were capturing grisly images of the genocide, sometimes as it happened. One million people. Killed in a little over 3 months. Granted, this was in the midst of the OJ trial, but still.

A fucking cyclone. Isn’t that lovely? God or Buddha or whoever is good isn’t he? Or she. Or whatever. Yes, the Burmese people sure have lots to be thankful for. Get on your knees boys.

And I’m sure the government of Burma will kick into humanitarian overdrive now. There’s already been reports that the army has been through certain towns clearing the roads but ignoring the people. Armies are good that way. It will be interesting to see if the brutal military junta that rules Burma using terror and murder can measure up to President Bush’s non-response to hurricane Katrina. The man set a high bar. After all, he ignored the people along with not clearing the roads. So, Junta 1, Bush 0. But there’s a long way to go. At least Bush didn’t club monks on the head.

You would think something of this magnitude would be front page news in the US. But you would be wrong. The leading story on Fox News is the Hillary/Obama tussle……followed by what promises to be a major story about how a woman with severe allergies managed to get addicted to nasal spray. I love Fox News. If you ever question your own intelligence, just turn it on. You’ll feel a whole lot better.

Look at that. Here I am, writing about politics again. I can’t stand it. This is not a political blog. It’s just bird droppings from my head when I get bored. Or when I should be doing something else and need an excuse not to do it. Thinking about politics is bad for your health. It raises the blood pressure, and reminds you all over again how mentally unhinged the majority of the country is. And it also puts the spotlight on our “mainstream media”, who cover things like presidential elections with all the dignity of a Paris Hilton stake-out. I hate the press. Most of us learn to write when we’re about 8 or so. Then we move on to other things. Not these clowns. It’s all about “balance” now (Fox excluded of course). If they’re interviewing someone who says that North Korea’s Kim Jong-il is a psychopathic dwarf, they feel the need to find someone else to counter that the guy is really quite tall and loves puppies. All stories don’t have 2 sides. But don’t tell that to Wolf Blitzer and his merry band. The press is jam packed with some of the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet. And it just so happens that the absolute lowest level of intelligence always seem to be White House correspondents. Is it any wonder that Bush was able to trick these guys into cheerleading for his war? Just the fact that you could be outsmarted by George Bush should cause massive amounts of self-reflection. But these people just grin and bear it. How they sleep at night is beyond me. Although, if my head was emtpy I’d probably sleep like a baby.

Maybe they’re all stoned on nasal spray.

Maybe this is a political blog. If a political blog in the woods falls down and there’s no one there to read it, is it really a political blog? Or something like that. I feel lightheaded all of a sudden.

I should be writing about music.  I like music a lot more than I like politics. Yesterday I heard “Won’t Get Fooled Again” referred to as a “conservative anthem”. The horror. The horror. I nearly lit myself on fire, as a sort of monkish protest. But even though I love “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, I am sick to death of the damn thing. If the National Review wants to take it over….have at it I suppose. As long as I don’t have to hear it every 6 minutes on FM radio (sandwiched between “Layla” and any piece of shit that Pink Floyd ever warbled). Besides, Townshend would probably sell you the damn thing if you gave him enough money. He’s turned into quite the whore in his old age.

Maybe I should just go write a play. Or a song. I could actually work. But that would depress me more than I already am.

Is there anybody out there? Help me out of this funk. Where is Hunter Thompson when you need him? Oh right. He’s dead.

Israeli-Palestinian talks

Condoleezza Rice was in Jerusalem yesterday, pushing for more Israeli-Palestinian talks. It always makes me a bit squeamish when we send someone like Rice or Cheney over there to lecture the Israeli’s about “peace”. Forgetting for a moment that Rice and Cheney are two of the architects for the senseless war raging in Iraq, and recall that Israel is largely able to keep their boot on the neck of the Palestinians because we finance the shoe. If we really wanted things to cool down, we might consider giving the Israelis less lawyers, guns, and money. But then that would make us “anti-semitic” wouldn’t it?

I’m afraid that Israelis killing Palestinians and Palestinians killing Israelis is now so ingrained, it’s like watching Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” play out day after day. But on a large scale. The US has been trying to broker some sort of deal for decades, and we appear no nearer to a breakthrough now than we ever were. So clearly we suck at diplomacy, and we need help. Putting aside for the moment the fact that we’re arming one of the two sides (geez, I can’t imagine why the Palestinians wouldn’t trust us to be fair), why is it always our ass twisting in the wind trying to get these people to stop blowing each other up? (guilt perhaps?) If it takes a Dick Cheney to get them to sit down at the same table and talk, it might be said that things have progressed from dire to fucking hopeless. When Dick Cheney, a guy who relies on war to jump start his heart and pay his bills, becomes the voice of reason, it’s time to reevaluate. When I first heard Cheney was heading over there, I was actually hopeful. I had visions of Palestinians and Israelis falling all over each other laughing at the absurdity of it all, and agreeing to bury the hatchet once and for all. Didn’t happen though. Neither side wants to give ground. And now we send someone over who once had an oil tanker named after her. Gee. Where might her interests lie? Neoconservative pinheads get all in a snit when an actual peacemaker like Jimmy Carter inserts himself into the process, but with a clear conscience they’ll send over a war criminal and an oil industry shill to give morality lectures to suicide bombers and people who think a man in the sky promised them specific pieces of sand. I can’t imagine why none of this is working. Help anyone?

Last I heard the Brits were pretty tough. I don’t see them getting involved in the “peace process”. Or the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Russians (ok…maybe not a good idea). Or the Koreans. Or the Federated States of Micronesia. How about the Canadians? They’re a decent folk. Surely Canada can send a delegation over there and calm things down. They’re good at that. After all, they’re forced to live next to us. They’ve been rolling their collective eyes but still acting nice to us for years.

But we gotta open up a big can of Hubris and take charge. That’s our way. God forbid they make peace themselves without having our best interests at heart. To echo Nixon, we want “peace with oil”….er I mean “peace with honor”. We also want Israel to win.

There’s enough blame to go around. Israel rolled into Palestinian territory and sat it’s fat ass down, refusing to budge. In the process they broke about 1000 international laws. Then they rammed their own “settlements” down Palestinian throats, a massive “fuck you” if there ever was one. In the process, with their American-made firepower, they managed to kill untold numbers of Palestinians, some who may have even been guilty of something. The Palestinians retaliated, which is not surprising. Nobody likes to see their homes bulldozed. But the groundswell of support they’d gathered for being the oppressed in this drama quicly evaporated when they started strapping bombs to their chests and blowing up innocent Israeli children. Dead innocent kids are bad PR, no matter how valid your grievances are. Now to much of the world, the Palestinians are blood thirsty savages who need to be kept down. And the Israelis are just doing their part….keeping us “safe”.

It all sounds very simplistic….no? Throw in the fact that religion has poisoned the well for thousands of years, making Jews the enemy of Islam and Islam the enemy of the Jews for reasons that don’t really matter anymore. It’s like asking them why the sun rises in the morning.

And with the holocaust still being the elephant in the room, when nutcases like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad question not only the gas chambers, but also Israel’s right to exist at all……clearly that’s not very helpful to the Palestinian cause. Pissing off the heavily armed guy roaming your supppsed friend’s neighborhood is never a good idea. With friends like these….

And so it goes. There’s no end in sight. Not in my lifetime anyway.