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One Artist Meme

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title. It's harder than you think but it's a fun way to waste a few minutes and get the brain cells moving around.

Your Artist: Webb Wilder, the last of the full grown men.

Are you male or female: Ju Ju Man

Describe yourself: Still Water Runs Deep

How do you feel about yourself: Human Cannonball

Describe where you currently live: Nashville Bum

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Sputnik

Your favorite form of transportation: Rocket to Nowhere

Your best friend(s): Ain't That a Lot of Love?

Your dream boy/girl: Soul Mate

Your life motto: Tough it Out

If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: I'm Wise to You

What is life to you? Do You Know Something (That I Don't Know)?

What is the best advice you have to give: The Rest (Will Take Care of Itself)

If you could change your name, what would you change it to? King of the Hill

Your favorite food is: Scattered Smothered & Covered

How you would like to die: Scattergun

Alamo Goes Down

When I was about ten or so, I snatched a religious tract out from under a windshield wiper in a K-Mart parking lot, across from what used to be Harding Mall in Nashville, TN.  I knew that if either of my grandparents knew that I had it, they would destroy it, but there seemed to be something interesting about anything painstakingly stuck on EVERY car in the parking lot and emblazoned with the word "GENOCIDE" right across the front.  So I kept it, stuffed it in my pocket, and took it back and read it.

Two things became apparent to me.  One: "Whoever wrote this is not terribly literate."  Two: "These people are directly out of their minds."  Just another in the long line of Christian fundamentalist madmen who use Jesus as the bait to reel in as many fish as they can, so they can gut them and consume everything precious in them.  If you go to the website now, the grammar and presentation may have improved (though not much), but the insanity is still going strong.  40 years after Pastor Tony Alamo started infecting the world with his particular brand of soul & child raping poisonous perversion of what some people choose to believe, the Federal Government that he hated so much and accused of working with the Vatican (and the Nazis) to bring about 9/11, the JFK Assassination and a bunch of other shit, has put him away for all day.  Or in this case, 175 years.  Whichever comes first.

It is known, by this point, that I hate men like this - guys with a little bit of moxy to work the system, and a little bit more on board than the gullible flock they shear of freewill and cash, all under the banner of something special, a community, salvation, a secret truth, some unique knowledge, a more perfect understanding, a little bit of something you just won't get anywhere else.  Meanwhile, they're taking your Social Security checks, raping your children, stealing your money and pushing your combined abilities to think with your brains and react with your guts into a tiny little box surrounded by ritual, while scaring the shit out of everyone by threatening their eternal soul.

Needless to say, I hope Tony is locked away in a soundproof room where no one will hear him, and his mind can stew in the vitriol it generates until he is flushed away in a swirl of his own internal diatribes.  No voice for Tony except a gnawing, small one deep in his lizard brain, one that wonders if there is a next life, and if he will be as fucked there as he is here and now.  No peace for Tony, and a modicum of justice for the flock.

Stupid Racism

It's weird to me how often current affairs will dovetail with some element of the other stimuli I've chosen for myself - during this week of the President of the United States talking about race and stupidity, I've started watching Silverado, (which I love) where a black cowboy, played by Danny Glover, is turned out of a bar because of his race, and his father is burned off of his land for the same reason. I've also finished a tiresome book about the Bell Witch of Tennessee, written in 1934, with such casual racism evident that the author at one point reflects upon the "peculiar aroma all Negroes seem to have."  So - stupid racism in the real world, the media (which should never be confused with the real world), and in the entertainment I've chosen for myself.  Yay.

By now, everyone knows what happened to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. last week.  After being witnessed by his neighbor (who apparently does not know him on sight, despite the fact that I, or many people in possession of televisions, would) breaking into his own house in the absence of keys (or perhaps, because the door was swollen), calls the cops on Henry, who arrest him after they get into it on the front lawn.  Verbally, of course.  Henry did not spray the arresting officer with hot lead; merely heated rhetoric, most of it racially charged.

Now, Obama's on the hook for saying that officer acted "stupidly."  I must admit that when I read this story for the 1st time, my first thought was, "Man, that was stupid."  If you're going to mistakenly arrest a black man in his own home, I really can't think of a worse choice than Professor Gates, who will make sure - by shouting "This is what happens to Black men in America!" from the front lawn as he's being put into a squad car - that everyone you've ever heard of knows about the incident before it's done.  Shit, there'll probably be a public TV special about it.

The truth, though, is this: the cop, supposedly an expert on racial profiling (which I suppose could be taken one of two ways) was, in fact, doing his job.  He investigated the break-in, and found someone uncooperative on premises.  Once he had established that he was a resident, though, and had some ID, he should have fucked off home.  It sounds to me from the report like he let Henry provoke him into a newsworthy incident, and that should never have happened.  A stupid mistake got seized upon by a smarter man in this case, and blown up into a major event.  There's no doubt in my mind that Gates took advantage of this situation to highlight racial inequalities as he sees them.  From his Ware Street address in Cambridge.

Race baiting is easy.  It's the very definition of a cheap shot.  Rush Limbaugh did it last week.  Obama fell for this stuff, too, and he's a smart guy.  The media raking him over the burning coals of his health care agenda for an off-the-cuff gaffe is ludicrous, except that he doesn't usually make them.  Wading into this (which is, of course, what I have just done) is a waste of time.  There are always going to be people who judge others by the color of their skin, just as Gates did and his arresting officer did.  What would Gates' response have been to a black officer?  Different, or would he have just been a Tom working for the Man?  Once you accept that baseline racism is just some stupid internalization that lots of people have, your only acceptable option is to loudly, and in no uncertain terms, by any means necessary, make certain that everyone knows, no matter what, that employing your personal racial biases in our society is unacceptable and has consequences.

Which is pretty much what Henry Louis Gates did.  And we all fell for it.

Chip

Lately, due to various factors, I have an enormous chip on my shoulder.

I feel insulted, in an abstract way, by elements of my recent routine, and by the fact that I must interact with certain people (and indeed, certain kinds of people) on a daily basis, while having to leave the people I would rather spend my time with elsewhere, and this is compounded by the sensation of an incredible amount of that which is unresolved, and some minor social pressure.  I am, as a result, annoyed by everything.  One recent example is the homicidal rage I experience when I hear (or read Facebook updates or Tweets regarding) parents asking, "When does school start back?  Hahaha!"  I want to smash all the bones in their idiot faces one by one.  With a tiny hammer, like the one they use on dead Popes.  Really, dickhead?  Your kids are so hard to deal with you're ready for them to be away eight hours a day?  Already?  Fuck you.  Perhaps you're ill equipped for parenting, and should seek help.  From someone besides me - they sell little hammers on the Internet.  Wishing away time is possibly the dumbest fuck thing you can ever goddamn do, and I hope you end up with less time because of it.  Shut the fuck up.

A week ago Monday, walking through a parking lot on the way to a 9 AM meeting worth a couple of thousand dollars:

RELIGIOUS NUT WITH SUITCASE: (waving small, yellow tract) Have you thought much about salvation?

ME: Have you?  (running over response) 'Cause if you had, had spent any time at all thinking about it, you would have by now realized that salvation of any worth must come from within.  It's not learned behavior that someone picks up out of a book or your pathetic fucking tracts.  Piss off out of my face with your useless drivel tract; I'm not buying.  SALVATION MUST COME FROM WITHIN, SHITHEAD!!

PERSON WITH WHOM I'M MEETING: (coming out of building) They're not supposed to be in the parking lot - we have to run them off like, once a week.

ME: Like an infestation.  Good morning.

Gas station convenience store, last week.  I'm walking in behind Father Time, one of Madison, Tennessee's most prominent homeless citizens.  As Father Time opens the door, he is blocked by a guy in a Polo shirt coming out.  Polo shirt fails to move, expecting Father Time, who's just opened the door, to hold it for him.

POLO: Excuse me - can you just move?

FATHER TIME: Fuck you.  (goes into store)

ME: You just got schooled by Father Time, man.

POLO: Oh, the homeless prick has a name, now?

ME: Yeah, he's fucking got a name, Polo, 'cause he's a person, you ass.  He's not some cock in a pink shirt expecting that doors will just open up for him on command and people will just clear out of his way.  He just wants you to fuck off and leave him alone.  And so do I.

Three weeks ago, stopped by a traffic cop on the interstate:

COP: Do you know how fast you were going?

ME: A very deliberate 60 in a 55.  This is rush hour.

COP: Well, there's a reason it's called a speed limit.

ME: There's a reason you're called a dick.

COP: What did you say?

ME:  I said, there's a reason you're called a dick, Officer Dick.  You're standing there with whatever authority gets you hard, about to give me a ticket for doing five careful fucking miles per hour over the speed limit in rush hour fucking traffic on an Interstate highway with my seatbelt on, and you want me to cower, admit fault, and tremble in fear, and I won't.  I'm a grown man with a wife and two kids and a job that I'm trying like hell to get to in my car that I'm thankful is capable of exceeding the speed limit, while you stand here on the road and do your dick thing.  So hurry up, give me my fucking ticket, don't lecture me, and let me be on my way.

I did not get a ticket.  I cannot explain this, or recommend the technique, such as it is.  Being an angry fuckhead works, I guess.

Nearly Perfect Day

Today was a nearly perfect day.

Got up too early with my daughter, and hung out for like, three hours watching cartoons and reading and dozing intermittently.  Ate some cereal & toast with the kids, and around 10:30 or so, Rich and Ula called us from the road, randomly in town on their way to Florida and Poland from Bloomington.  We hung out for a while and watched the absence of ducks, who apparently did not understand that when I leave them bread, the agreement is that they will be there for my guests.  Instead we flung rocks into the stream and enjoyed the unseasonably cool weather.  We had some solid Greek lunch, and they hit the road after a couple of hours and change.  It was great to see them, and I am convinced that more research needs to be done into the tourist attraction of Bloomington.  I will be looking into this.

Abby threw a huge tantrum, spoiling her afternoon nap, but this eventually culminated in some snuggling and more cartoons, so that worked out okay.  C went on a short boat outing with some friends, & I took the kids to Home Depot and got some PVC to make marshmallow guns (pictured).  Big ups to Brandon for very patiently cutting the lengths we needed for no extra charge.  We also bought spray paint and candy bars.  We hit the grocery after that for marshmallows, natch, and brats and fries and soda and ingredients for a special baking project I dreamed up.

Actually.  In my dream last night / this morning there was a cooking show, and they made this thing, so I tried making it, conveniently forgetting this thing of, "hey, sometimes people speak Russian in my dreams - that doesn't mean I speak Russian."  Anyway, it turned out kind of okay, and now my kitchen looks like the victim of a violent crime.  Read some more after that, smoked a Partagas and watched a movie, hanging out with my lovely wife and talking into the wee morning hours.

Now I let Archie Shepp play me out to sleep.

The Way it Was

I am not old enough to properly eulogize Walter Cronkite.  As a Kennedy Assassination aficionado, however, I stumbled across this piece of footage about two years before I saw it in Oliver Stone's movie about JFK.  This, to me, personifies a completely different era of reporting the news - not a lot of analysis (that would come later, during Vietnam), and not a lot of bells and whistles, an as close to zero bullshit approach to delivering the news as is possible.  Cronkite was the voice of the news during an era when a 24 hour news cycle was simply not available, and his was the voice that imparted the important things to a nation at a set time every evening, allowing people to compartmentalize their intake of the rest of the world - most of which didn't impact them very much anyway - allowing them to focus on their actual lives, secure in the knowledge that Uncle Walter would have the facts for them when they got home.  I always looked forward to his pieces on NPR after he retired from the idiot box, and his explanation of Watergate is video not to be missed.

To die at 92, one of the most trusted men in the world?  This is not a tragedy.  Merely a sign-off to a great life.

The End of an Idiot

In the recent panoply of media-reported deaths, none thrills me as much as the demise by goring of young Spaniard Daniel Jimeno Romero, who was gored to death by a bull during the fourth day of the annual parade of fuckwits known as the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.  Truly, I wish I could feel sorry for his family, or lament at the loss this is anytime a young life, with so much potential and years ahead of him, is snuffed out - but really, I keep thinking what a lucky thing this is for the global gene pool, and how Daniel just must not have had anything in his life worth living for, since stepping out in front of a bull is just about the stupidest fucking thing you can ever do.  One has to sincerely hope that Sr. Romero is buried in a bull pasture, and that his marker, which will spawn the best magic mushrooms in the world from its platen of bullshit, is inscribed, "Como grande ahora es su chile, Danielito?"

Big ups to the Pamplona Bulls this week, though, for breaking a 14-year losing streak and popping their first kill in a while.  The franchise has been on a good run all week, some solid lung hits and ankle fractures - injuring some Scots and other Spaniards, one Texan (though not the one you're hoping for) and one Frenchman, which is especially impressive, due to their skill at running away.  It'd be much more impressive if they weren't all being run through the streets only as a prelude to their eventual deaths in the ring at the hands of skinny pricks with pointy sticks.  One bull was quoted as saying, "Snort, snort, snuffle...moo.  MOO!"  After that, there was a lot of cud chewing.

For past thoughts on the yearly goring of morons, see this.

Pack of Ghouls

Let me make a few opening statements about how we as a race of humans deal with death.  I like a nice graveyard.  I like the tranquility of the place, the opportunity to wander around what is essentially an historic park with little markers scattered throughout which track specific lives and human experiences.  I do not believe that there is anything sacred about the cemetery, except inasmuch as other people revere it.  I respect that.  I don't like the current custom of hermetically fucking sealing people into boxes inside of vaults inside the ground, so that we can never contribute to the system again after death.  I would choose to be cremated and my ashes blown into the eyes of my enemies.  In short: While I do not have a high level of comfort with the ritual that surrounds our process as a culture of dealing with death, I understand, respect and even find utility with aspects of it.  I do not step on headstones, attempt to maintain the graves of my honored dead, and usually keep to myself when in a cemetery.  Cemeteries seem very literary to me, very dramatic in their construction, purpose, form and function.

All that must be added to this (if you hope to understand what's in my head): The many wonderful horror comics (many of them in 3-D) of my youth taught me that people who disturb graves, those that would traffic amongst the remains of the dead with seemingly no thought to whose ribcage they might be tromping around in, are ghouls.  They respect nothing and no one, and so everyone's back should be turned to them, including that of Mother Nature.  There are physical prices to pay for being a ghoul.  Ghouls are condemned - so certain customs would have you believe - to have their skin tighten and turn grey, devoid of any normal healthy color, their to teeth fall out, and their eyes bug and strain against their corneas as they become sensitive to light and unable to deal with others.  These thoughts comfort me more than the ritual of burial and remembrance we maintain in reality when I read about shit that we do to each other, even in death, like this series of repugnant acts recently committed just outside of Chicago, in the Burr Oak Cemetery, resting ground for the bones of Emmett Till and Willie Dixon, among others.

Once again, it seems, a group of opportunistic fuckheads has taken advantage of two groups least likely to defend themselves; the dead and the recently bereaved.  They distubed graves, dumped coffins and bodies, shifted bones, double buried corpses, and even stole money from local people under the guise of an "Emmett Till Memorial Fund" started shortly after his exhumation and re-burial.  I'll not re-hash all of the details here, instead filling this last little space with a suggestion: They need to be taken out after trial finds them all guilty of not being able to properly respect others and laid over a stout rock or tree trunk (I like the idea of a trunk because you could count the lines to see how old it was) to have their heads bashed in by a stocky man carrying a maul.  If luck and justice are in attendance, discarding the sharpness of the axe would make it take several tries to do the job right, then their ghoul-fuck corpses could be dragged through the streets to be tossed into a mudhole before being pissed upon and then buried, finally, in an unmarked spot.

Fuckin' people.

Pastor Fuckface Is God's Mouthpiece

Apparently, Pastor Wiley Drake of the Fuckholt Church of the RightWingnut has the voice of God, speaking right into his otherwise cavernously empty melon head, telling him to go on the radio and Internet, and ask for the death of Barack Obama, if that be His will.  Previous things asked for by Pastor Drake include the deaths of IRS employees, and some kind of action against Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.  Pastor Drake is careful to stress - probably to avoid a plague of black helicopters circling above the rock out from which he slithers each day - that he is asking for nothing save the will of Almighty God, but if he ends up on lists because of it, so be it.

A couple of things here, Pastor Drake.  Just some things bugging me, niggling at me, vying for my attention whilst I listen to your waste of breath and cells polluting the world; First, Why exactly would it be the will of God to put Barack Obama into the White House and then subsequently kill him?  Because it's God's will to have Joe Biden in charge?  Come on - no one believes that.  Second, why is it God only speaks violent shit to you?  Are you sure you're not listening to the nasty, drunken Old Testament God who was always throwing down on people, raining fire, floods, boils, and plagues, making bets with the devil and slaughtering firstborns?  I thought New Testament God was kind of God-by-proxy-through-Christ, sending Holy Spirit doves and shit.  But then - I'm not a pastor, I'm only a simple man, and there are perhaps things I don't know.

Finally, why is it you fucking people seem to have a monopoly on God?  Why does God only talk to crazy idiot fuckwits who then turn and spew their filthy gibbering mouths' effluent out on all of us?  Why can't God talk to the Squidbag?  Wait - I'm getting a call from God right now, and the connection's a little shaky, but it sounds to me like he's saying - wait, okay, yeah - SHUT THE FUCK UP, WILEY!!!

I mean - that's just what it sounds like to me.

Nocturnal

10:48 this morning, Saturday, the 11th of July:

ME: (bounding into Max's room, enthusiastically) Wake up!  It's almost eleven, it's time to get up, we got stuff to do!  I'm going to feed your fish before they eat each other!  Get up!

MAX: Why?

ME: You're only still in bed because you were up past midnight reading comics, and we need to get Sean a present, and his birthday party's today, and we might have time for one of the HowToons experiments, and you're missing a Phineas & Ferb right now.

MAX: I'm trying to become nocturnal.

ME: That's not going to work, because then most of us would never see you.

MAX: You would see me sleeping like an angel.

ME: I'm going, now.