The magnetic attraction of dicks and bellingham

Ahh, Bellingham, Washington. My dad was born and spent his early years there before his family moved down south to Seattle.  His stepfather was but one of a plethora of Buzzards concentrated in the vicinity, many associated with the venerable Buzzard Iron Works, an icon of sorts for a time there.  The aforementioned Robert Buzzard, Jr. was a miserable SOB by all accounts, someone who cursed us with the vulture moniker by adopting my dad after marrying his widowed mother.  I have no Buzzard blood and would otherwise have been Steve Finnegan.  Fuck wad.  (Grammar question: is fuck wad one word or two?)

Ironically,  ol' man Bob apparently acted like he resented having adopted my dad (or perhaps he was just disappointed in the mess Chuck later made of his life).  I wish he'd have gone with his instincts.  I personally remember little to nothing about the guy (we didn't visit all that often and when we did, I don't recall him there).   There's a little burb at the end of this obit page that lists several notable dead Buzzards from Bellingham, including my step-gramps (and his father).

Anyway, there was a story online today that got me thinking of Bellingham.  Some guy in a store reeked of a foul odor and when a worker there tried to tell him so in as tactful a manner as one could muster under the circumstances, the guy threw batteries at him and punched him in the face.  Somehow the story had, for me, Bellingham written all over it.

Speaking of dicks, it's simply amazing the percentage of ads (and spam) across all spectrum of media related to the core issue of erectile dysfunction (now universally known as ED; I think even young kids are taught this in school).  I feel sorry for those afflicted who also "take nitrates for chest pain," since they apparently can't avail themselves of Viagra, Cialis, et. al.  Presumably if they take nitrates for other reasons, they're golden.

To Slur with Love

Ahh, Courtney - my favorite human train wreck is in the news again with word that her daughter's finally had enough of the babbling head-on collisions, opting to live out the waning months of her life as a minor with her paternal grandma. Better known as Amy Winehouse's AA sponsor (she wishes!), Ms. Love has lately taken up roost on Facebook, hammering out head scratching non-sequitur-laced status post/rants from her computer keyboard like Cecil Taylor pounding free jazz from the ivories. Well ... perhaps not so much. More like what I would imagine Captain Beefheart might write were he to put pen to paper immediately after being beaten senseless with a baseball bat. Or maybe Allen Ginsberg shot through Andrew "Dice" Clay suffering from advanced dementia with a touch of LA Law's Benny Stulwicz. You get my point: batshit lunacy and scatterbrained linguistic scats.

But I say all this with love in my heart for the gal. I'm serious about that. She just seems so little-girl-lost that it's hard to get pissed at her antics. But I imagine it's a different story from the vantage point inside the eye of her particular storm. And she's certainly managed to marginalize what could be a considerable artistic career, were she to shake off the shakes long enough to want that.

I'm serious when I say I think Courtney Love's got mad skills. She did more than a fine job as an actress when she put her mind to it (see The People vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon). And I think Hole's Live Through This is a great fucking album. One of my absolute favorites. And that's largely her doing. She's no "Yoko Ono", for sure. Of course, Yoko Ono wasn't really a "Yoko Ono" either - after all, the B-52s are indebted to her innovations. Now Linda McCartney - she was most definitely a "Yoko Ono."

Of course, what's Courtney done in the decade of the "00"s? I'm not sure even (or perhaps especially) she knows the answer to that.

Good luck, Frances. I hope you make it out of childhood in repairable shape - I feel a kinship with you. In an odd way, we had a similar set of parental units. Now, to be clear, my Chuck and Ruth were hardly Kurt and Courtney. But they did share a surprisingly similar brand of addiction and dysfunction. And, I imagine, myriad ways to embarrass.

It could always be worse. Sounds like your granny's got your back and just think: your name could be Lohan - now that would be a bitch, eh?

Tripping

I just had to comment briefly on a strange chat William Shatner had back in August with Rush Limbaugh, to air on the biography channel this Saturday. Shatner, I'm sure you all know, is a master thespian, free love musician and acclaimed beat poet. But you might not be aware that he also hosts his own talk show on basic cable. It's called "Raw Nerve" and often lives up to that title (though perhaps "Weird Non-Sequitur" would be more apt). If you can't wait until Saturday, I've included it below.

As I've recounted in these pages, Shatner recently interpreted Sarah Palin's Twitter Tweets, enhancing her words with a crazy beatnik beat. He also gave equal treatment to Levi Johnson's twitter verbage. Yah, daddy-o. It was, like, way out. Much like his music. But taking on the Rush is something else again, sort of My Dinner with Andre with a healthy side of psilocybin mushrooms. Rush all strung out on Oxy-fueled Ego and Shatner all strung out on - well, Shatner. (I trip just watching him so I can only imagine what it's like being him, his heart pumping lysergic acid through his bloodstream 24/7.)

The actual content of the Shatner/Limbaugh summit is almost beside the point. It's the idea of these two yakking - the concept of it all - that's most interesting.

Anyway, children, put on Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow - or Shatner's own Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - dim the lights, plug in the lava lamps and groove ...

Madmen Drummers Bummers and Indians in the Summer

One week away from another season with the boys and girls at Sterling Cooper.

Rolling into 1963, just a little less than a year from the Kennedy assassination. Not far then to the Beatles arrival, Dylan gone electric and the beginnings of the birth of "The 60s." One last season to bathe in the glow of fading innocence and bid adieu to its numbing viciousness as a black and white world turns to color (on a number of different levels).

For me, an excuse to lust after Betty Draper on Sunday evenings. All pastels and skirts and smokes, suits and booze at the office and beatniks on the fringes. Not yet for the avocado kitchen appliances and living room shag carpets.

I was going on three months of age at the dawn of 1963, so first-hand memories are a hazy shade of nothing. But then again I can say the same for most of the 60s and 70s. I seem to have clear memories from that period only of the Brady Bunch, Land of the Lost, the Watergate Trial and the day my Dad died (just couple days before Elvis kicked, 32 years ago this Tuesday).

Speaking of Dad, he wasn't exactly a 'Mad Man' (though going by the show, he drank like one). He sold plumbing supplies when he worked. Not quite Don Draper. More Don Birnam. And Mom wasn't Betty Draper. She was closer to Norma Desmond. They attempted every once in a while to Be The Drapers. But the Drapers out, not the Drapers in. We were at the core a Salvation Army family living in a JC Penney neighborhood and didn't do a lot of entertaining (at least not of the Draper variety).

Still, with Mad Men there is something oddly familiar. About the setting, the clothes, the mannerisms. Not exactly comforting, but ... contemporary. The present day by comparison seems dated.

So, Betty on Sunday and Nancy Botwin on Monday. In my own private Idaho ('get outta that state you're in!' - thanks, Fred, but I think I'll stick around).