A Rip Roarin' Time ...

And the Hunter S. Hunter Memorial Intoxicated Revelry Lifetime Achievement Award for 2010 goes to ... drum roll ...  Elmore "Rip" Torn!

Mr. Torn has not only built an enviable body of work in this arena over the course of his long career but is perhaps at the top of his game today, at nearly 79 years of age, when many of his contemporaries have slowed down, retired or passed on to their great reward.

From the knife-wielding confrontation with Dennis Hopper during pre-production of Easy Rider (after which he lost the part to Jack Nicholson, even though it was written specifically for him) to his inebriated hammer fight with Norman Mailer in 1971, right up to his arrest Friday night for attempted burglary of a Connecticut bank blind drunk with an unregistered gun, he's done it all.  Admittedly, this last masterpiece appears to be unintentional (the "breaking into the bank" part, not the "get smashed to beat the band" piece): he apparently thought he was locked out of his own house when he broke in.  But that only makes his talent instinctive, primordial.  There is no pretense to his handiwork.

Mr. Torn hasn't slowed down in his golden years, having turned the streets of Manhattan into his own personal pinball machine through much of the 00's, as demonstrated through numerous DUIs there.  My favorite performance of his involved him apparently going to a bar and getting hammered after picking up a Christmas tree and then attempting to drive home from the watering hole after last call, weaving through the streets with the evergreen tied to the hood of the car. 

Maybe it's telling that he has a degree in Animal Husbandry: he's been doing research into their psyche ever since.  "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man" - Dr. Samuel Johnson.  Hunter Thompson included it in the epigram to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and often used the quote when describing his work and lifestyle.  Fittingly, Rip Torn follows its creed as well.

Oh, Rip has also managed to find to squeeze in some movie and TV show appearances to pay for what has always been his first love, revelry.  In fact, he's as much a prolific actor as he is a batshit drunken loon.  Ironically, Torn often chooses to play the stable, in-charge character on screen, in sharp contrast to his real-life John Blutarsky / Raoul Duke proclivities. 

Still, Torn's career is not yet complete.  I'm speaking of course about his obvious pairing with Rip Taylor, the crowned queen of confetti and fellow master thespian.

I'm still waiting patiently for the Vegas act of "Taylor and Torn: Rip Squared" to hit the strip.  Or maybe a series of buddy movies with the two (a Lethal Weapon/48 Hours remake, perhaps; maybe Grumpy Psychotic Men?)

Or - yes, this is it! - a further re-imagining of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with Torn as Raoul Duke - out of his mind on booze and drugs behind the wheel through Barstow, motoring toward Sin City - and Taylor as his wacky attorney Dr. Gonzo, riding shot gun and heaving ginormous bags of confetti out into the wind and onto the desert highway behind them.

Bowels and Bras and Gas - Oh My!

Today the mind is wandering as I reflect on my porcelain friend and better days gone by.  How long has it been since we last danced cheek to cheek?  Three days?  Four? No.  Five.  Five shitty days of shitlessness.

And no, I don't need your sage advice.  I've tried it all: exercise, bushels of dried fruit, oceans of spring water, enough Activia to make Jamie Lee Curtis herself run for the can, Metamucil by the shovelful. 'Super Colon Blow'-level fiber in the diet. Roughage to the point where the contents of my stomach could be used to peel paint off your walls.

Nothing.

Liquid Plumber is next on my shopping list.  I'm usually full of shit on several dimensions but I try (and lately, fail) to restrict them to the metaphorical variety.  As you can see, at the moment I'm failing.

So in search of online diversion from my offline malady, I stumbled across this wonderful article on an invention that deserves more notice than it has gotten to date: the bra that converts into a functioning gas mask!  I almost shit my pants laughing.  If only.  Sigh. I wish I had one of those bras here with me now because although my bowels may be dysfunctional, it doesn't mean they aren't functioning at all (Jumping Jack Flash, it's a gas, gas, gas).  All smoke and no fire.

But I imagine you didn't tune in to listen to ruminations on my digestive woes.

Indeed.

But I just let fly with whatever musings come running out of my head down onto the keyboard, happy I have the runs somewhere.

What really backs my pipes up is the shitstorm deja vous going on in Congress with healthcare.  I'm sick of the whole lot of them. The Democrats couldn't get a law passed against roasting baby kittens in public parks if they had a 100% majority in both houses.

Far too often the resistance is due to a bunch of unrelated pork that slips in.  But when the resistance is due to right wing rabble-rousing or even just philosophical differences (as is the case now), why can't the Dems just say, "fuck you, we won, deal with it!"  They're not going to get any support anyway so why not pass something useful?  But nooooo, that's just not their way, the weaselly worms.

A healthcare bill of some sort will pass in the end, without any support of the Republicans and without any of the provisions that would make the legislation useful (that is, actually providing healthcare to those who cannot currently afford it). The right-wing fearmongers did a great job in dredging up a small but vocal outcry by those who live in terror that any sort of government expansion means the drum of Soviet-style communism beats not far behind.  Strangely, these same folks have no fear of the expansion of the military (in their eyes, the DOD can't grow fast enough).   They know people in the military.  They aren't government!  They're 'us'!  All said without a trace of irony.  Yo, Charlie - the government is us.

I'm a libertarian liberal (some would label that an oxymoron but I've been called worse).  That means I believe there are hundreds of government entities that should be disbanded (many, but certainly not all of them, belong to the DOD).  That said, a public option for healthcare is both innocuous and essential, in my opinion.  I'd have some respect for the Dems in congress if they disagreed with me but the fact is they don't - they just haven't had the political spine to follow through on their own convictions.

I only wish Hunter was still around to riff on all this idiocy.  Guess I'll just have to be satisfied with Maureen.

But enough focus on these swine, time to watch Washington dismantle the Rudy-less Notre Dame Drunken Irish.  Go Huskies!

'I was born in a pool, they made my mother stand. And I spat on that surgeon and his trembling hand. When I felt the light I was worse than bored. I stole the doctor's scalpel and I slit the cord'

"A good fuck is much better than TV!"

Oh, Spam, is there nothing you can't teach us?

Words as wise as any fortune cookie just waiting to be cracked open and pulled out of my email filters.  This truism is just the latest in a long line of tidbits, parables and proverbs I regularly receive from the great spam slicer in the sky.  Many are wise in ways the sender likely didn't intend.

Often it's hard to tell exactly what the author's original intent might have been.  For example, the sex/television comparison promised in the subject line of the aforementioned email was in fact not provided: neither sex nor TV is mentioned in the message body (from what I can tell, it's an excerpt from a badly written sci-fi short story parsed from somebody's livejournal entry).

That spells disappointment for this television addict, with so many questions unanswered. Better how?  Better than Mad Men?  Better than Weeds?  Better than the mid-90s-era Simpsons?!? What defines a 'good' fuck? Is there a 'bad' variety?  Sadly, I got a no-such-address bounce-back when replying with these follow up questions to the originator, one 'Candice Farrell '.  Oh well. Pity.

Even as I was pondering all this, a friend let me know that Jim Carroll died on Friday.

The news hit me harder than I would have thought.  After all, I hadn't heard from the man regarding new material in quite awhile (to the point where I'd been re-re-reading his earlier work for lack of the fresh stuff). When did he last release an album?  A book? I couldn't tell you (though I could look on his Catholic Boy website, had I been of a mind to).  And frankly he'd been admittedly living on borrowed time since his first days as a prepubescent junky.  Making it to the ripe old age of 60 was quite an achievement, given the appetites he was loath to deny over the long term (he was, as he put it, more inclined toward shadows).

But as I said, Jim's passing hit me hard.  I read Basketball Diaries when it was first published in 1978 and it ignited this Seattle boy's love affair with New York City, along with my latent discovery of Mean Streets, Ramones and Velvet Underground that same year.

Jim's prose had an immediacy and sly intelligence to it that spoke to me like nothing I'd read to that point (I hadn't yet discovered Hunter Thompson or Lester Bangs).  It was Carroll's 16 year old voice coming at me from those pages, remember. It felt like he was talking to this 16 year old as though 1965 was 1978, instantly obliterating the 13 year gap from pen to publication.

It took Jim's death to bring back my adolescent memories of a lasting epiphany: a realization that words themselves were pure joy when you put them down to paper in interesting ways.  Paper might have given way to bits and bytes, but the feeling remains. 

Why had Mr. Carroll slipped off my radar in ways that Thompson and Bangs hadn't?  I guess the fact that he wasn't the most prolific writer had something to do with it. Working on a novel since at least 1991 (the year he first performed public readings of material from it), it was finally due to roll off the presses this year, at least as reported by Catholic Boy back in Feburary. Boy, that was fast! :-)  I'm crossing my fingers that it was truly 'done' enough to be published posthumously. And that's the thing too: this is his first novel. Apart from Basketball Dairies and Forced Entries, Jim's output was pretty much exclusively poetry with maybe the odd short story, while I've tended to prefer the narrative form.  But still, he's right there on my literary Mount Rushmore beside Thompson, Bangs and F. Scott Fitzgerald. It took his passing for me to climb back up there and kick the dust off his likeness to recognize the face again.

Oh, yeah - let's not forget: Jim also put out some pretty good music with the Jim Carroll Band.  Catholic Boy is still one of my favorite records.   When the City Drops Into the Night and the title tune - songs rarely get better than that.

Rest in Peace, Jim.

It was 40 years ago today, I was told to go outside and play (or to shut the hell up, you little shit - maybe both)

My thoughts are especially scattered and unfocused this week, not sure what might be causing it. Is it the fact that Nancy Botwin has packed her bags and flown south for the season? Or that age 47 is standing there waiting for me less than two days hence, the cold hand of death lurking in the shadows behind it?

Perhaps that's a touch dramatic, it's probably just the cold hand of an AARP representative lining up to welcome me to the fold. Perhaps the midlife crisis I thought I had averted has finally caught up with me?

Last night I had a dream Dr. G was chasing me around the office with her big rib separators, screaming "Time for your standard 'Y' incision, Stevie!" That's gotta mean something. Well, something besides the fact I watch way too much Discovery Health programming. Which in itself tells you a lot - I'm just prepping for my new demographic.

How the hell did September get here? Hell, it's late enough in the year that they might even be burying Michael Jackson soon. I hear tell its tomorrow, at Forest Lawn in a suitably creepy crypt beside Gable, Lombard and Harlow. Talk about rushing a guy into the ground - I guess his "Summer at Bernie's" is coming to a close. Time to take him down from out front of Joe Jackson's Used Furniture Shack, remove the "Blow Out Summer Sale" sign pinned to the back of his head, dust him off, hose him down and slide him in.

MJ gets a dignified send off and I get Dr. G hunting me down in my dreams like Freddie Krueger. Where's the justice in that?

Christ the time just flies by, what is it about this year in particular?

Maybe it's all these 40th anniversaries that have been popping up. Woodstock, Moon Landing, etc. Now we have Momar celebrating 40 years of repressing a people, terrorizing neighbors, all while looking fabulous. Seems like just yesterday he was Major al-Gaddafi with only one way to spell his name. Not sure how anyone could live like that.

Do you remember where you were when Colonel Khadafi took power? I was almost 7 but can't say where I was or what I was doing. I'm sure we celebrated as all patriotic Americans did. Lynn, you're the one with the photographic family memory - where were we when Quadafi claimed Libya as his? Say, wasn't that the time Dad got really drunk? No help? Doesn't narrow it down?

Hell, even Sesame Street turned 40 this year and I was too old to have ever watched the thing except as a goof. That's the definition of old.

Now it seems the Cookie Monster has fallen from on high. Strung out they say, freebasing Bakery-grade Chocolate-tar 'dough'. That's bad shit, flowing across our border thanks to an army of nefarious Amos Cartel cookie mules. But I have to say, it's what you get for hanging around with Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss. And Mrs. Fields. Act your age, man.

Good thing Cookie wasn't one of my heroes growing up, I'm already top heavy with self destructive role models. Hunter Thompson, Lester Bangs, Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, F. Scott Fitzgerald. And that's just the first room in the literary wing of the Buzzard hall of fame. Most of my heroes are dead, done in by their own hand for the most part (directly or otherwise). Time to hitch my wagon to a new generation of degenerates.

Of course, Cookie was hardly the first of that lot to develop feet of clay (well, feet of felt, as the case may be). Gordon, the father figure of the neighborhood ended up decked out in purple plumage and backslapping sadism as Tyrone, Donna Beck's abusive Pimp on All My Children in the late 70s. And we all know the stories circling around Ernie and Bert, not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, of all the characters, those two might be the most believable (other than the Snuffleupagus, of course). Speaking of Snuff, what the hell is the presence of this sort of character saying to kids? The horror.


Something wonderful and evil happened 40 years ago today - The first ATM opened for business in the US. Certainly the advent of the ATM opened up a world of convenience for folks who until then had go to the bank when in need of the paper stuff. But for those of us who have danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, ready access to cash at 1am on a Saturday - or a Wednesday for that matter - is usually not a good thing (well, not in the long term, anyway; it was a wonderful thing indeed 'in the moment').

We've started drawing to the end of the ATM era recently, I think - the register itself playing that role nowadays at most places. I don't carry cash much anymore. But it will be a very long, very slow death as there are still a great many places, people and things insistent on negotiating in hard currency. So happy birthday, you gloriously miserable piece of enabling technological convenience. And good riddance to bad rubbish.

Hey, Altamont is coming up on 40 in December, wonder what sort of magical reunions people have planned for that? Are the Angels going to show up there and nostalgically stab some folks?

Finally, though, I'll remember 1969 (in particular, its summer) as the inspiration for that insipid Bryan Adams song. If for no other reason than that, the year should have its calendar privileges revoked.

'My friend works for the national health, Doctor Robert. Don't pay money just to see yourself with Doctor Robert'

Boy the mob is up in arms over the imminent arrival of socialized health care.

It seems an odd mixture of dumb-as-post salt-of-the-earth types, pitchforks and torches in hand, coupled with the occasional flat out loons screaming like banshees at any microphone within reach.

Their empty heads filled no doubt with fearful grainy black and white images of endless lines of the sick snaking around the block, waiting for their turn to see 'the doctor' at the Government 'facility'. Perhaps having first traveled across the country simply because they were assigned to a medical facility alphabetically, per Government directive 181.1120-2..1102201-1234, page 10832, para. 2. Like a scene out of 'Pink Floyd's The Wall' or '1984'.

Finally, their child on death's door, they get to see one of the 'doctors'.

Ahh, yes, 'The Doctors'. The Polly Peabrains and Nick Numbskulls no doubt envision a faceless army of GS-9 grade civil servants with perhaps only a couple of high school biology classes under their belts, former DMV and IRS workers 'retrained' as medical health care providers through a two week correspondence course followed by a grade 'C' school on 'advanced' surgery for the brightest bulbs (those who manage to put their own clothes on in the morning).

Yes, locked and loaded and ready for surgery - once you've dotted all the 'i's and crossed all the 't's on a mountain of forms, each of which is written in Kiswahili. So you better invest in Berlitz language training and deal with the carpal tunnel if you want that transplant for your kid.

All this as Barack Hussein Lenin Obama, the first Kenyan Communist President, finally lowers his veil and raises the hammer and sickle over the White house lawn, chuckling at the fine precision of it all.

"Muahhh, muahhh, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Obama rubs his hands together and howls with devious laughter, super-villain style before issuing the evening 'death pronouncements' on TV in fluent Kiswahili.

Yes, we all listen intently to the nightly Death Pronouncements: the ceremonial rattling off of the list of folks who'll be marched into the incineration machines the following day, sort of a mixture of the 'renewal' Carousal machines of Logan's Run (Farrah's greatest role til she burned that bed) and the 'death by forced LSD overdose' in the 'old people' commune-prisons of 'Wild In the Street' ('14 or fight!' with a very young Pryor).


Wild in the Street's acid prisons are the more apt analogy for the incineration machines to come. That movie has some chilling parallels to present day events, culminating in the election of a very charismatic, young 'rock star' president. In other words, stick out your tongue and prepare to get dosed - happy traveling to psychedelic insanity, my fellow true 'free market' Americans. The commies have truly won and Hollywood has been planning this since 1968.

But what's with the Kiswahili, you ask?

Why it's the newly mandated official language of the Socialist Kenyan United States of America (SKUSA), ratified by the Central Committee and enforced under the penalty of death by Rahm Emanuel's Radical Left Wing Blogger Boot Cops (sort of a new age techno-savvy KGB/Storm Tropper/SS style outfit).

It seems so clear.

If it all wasn't a pile of paranoid shit with no basis in fact.

Yes, it is all very grand to make fun of these folks, and the Daily Show is having a field day with 'Healther Skelter' and Government run 'Death Panels' and what not but even Mr. Cool is growing tired, it's clear, of having to constantly deny the ridiculous.

But deny he does and this very act unfortunately lends at least a sliver of credence to the fabrication. In 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail', Hunter Thompson recounts a story to make a point regarding this political reality: LBJ, during an early campaign, apparently instructed his campaign manager to start a rumor that his opponent had had carnal knowledge of his farm animals. When his campaign manager objected that no one would believe it, LBJ said he realized that. 'But let's make him have to deny it anyway.'

But it's health care, and people are passionate.

As Thorton Melon said in 'Back to School' about batshit crazy Professor Terguson: 'Good teacher. He really seems to care. About what I have no idea.'

And that's the problem with getting any kind of health care bill passed that isn't so watered down it floats away and/or filled to squealing with appeasement pork. The pitchfork/torch, batshit crazy/banshee wailing constituents put The Fear into the boys and gals on the hill.

Senators and Congressmen have for the most part not been known for their intestinal fortitude or for having any sort of balls. As in 'having hootspa (nerves, guts)', not as in 'tea-bagging Congressional Pages' or 'dangling under an airport men's room shitter stall as mating signal' - they seem to have plenty of balls for those sort of activities.

So all you aspiring MDs slaving away at the DMV and the IRS might still have to complete an accredited medical school and some form of residency in order to get a license to practice 'your craft' on people in this country. At least for a time.

But keep a sharp eye and a loaded gun, fellow Freedom Riders!

We must at whatever cost protect our free market private health insurance, such as that provided by fine companies like Old Glory. Does The Government really think some civil servant is gonna protect our senior citizens from the onslaught of medicine-fueled robots? Hell, the malevolent metal ones likely sprung to life from a screw up at some over priced government run research program in the first place.

Sista Sarah, oh Freedom-lovin' Angel from the Yukon - wing down to the lower 48 and stop 'em 'fore they legislate ...

'Why so Serious, Son? Let me put a Smile on that Face of Yours!'

I figured that I should slip in a somewhat more coherent post in the midst of my goofy drivel.

I'm sure those inane attempts at satire or slapstick are likely positively confusing and confounding to those that aren't familiar with my particular sense of 'humor' (which I fully understand might not qualify as such to many).

I figured if anyone happened upon this blog and were either confused, bored silly, or offended by any of my scribblings, they've long since gone away never to return.

Then I said to myself, 'Well, there are likely a lot of masochists out there in the wide, wide web of sports. Maybe they stuck around. And I don't know their safety words.'

So, for you all ...

Know that my literary gods are Hunter Thompson and Lester Bangs and I regularly rip off both of them in equal measure as they spin uncontrollably in their graves.
[I have quit attempting to emulate their extra curricular activities once I figured out that a.) those things did not, contrary to popular belief, fuel their writing and b.) I might like to stick around on the planet a few more years and maybe even write a little if only for my own amusement.]

That should frame pretty much anything I write. Be forewarned.

I also admire (and therefore attempt to steal from every chance I get) a number of other writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Kennedy Toole, Chuck Klosterman, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Maureen Dowd, Joseph Heller, Kirsten Bakis, Truman Capote, Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Tom Wolfe, John Irving, Martin Fowler, Bob Woodward, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Clemens, James Frey and Ralph Ellison come to mind. Some of these guys are very prolific but several only popped to the surface with one or two amazing pieces of work.

From the world of screenwriting, I'd add to the list David Mamet, Diablo Cody (Juno is the start of something special I think), Charlie Kaufman, Quentin Tarantino, Billy Wilder, the Cohen Brothers and Woody Allen. And the Marx Brothers. And Orson Welles.

From the world of TV writing: Larry David, all the writers associated with the Simpsons through the 1990s, Michael O'Donoghue, Tiny Fey, Christopher Titus, John Stewart, David Chase. And Chris Carter, David Lynch (Twin Peaks! Yeah, he's done movies too, but ...), Ernie Kovacs, and Danny Arnold. And perhaps most especially Rod Serling.

From the world of music specifically as it relates to their words, see Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Liz Phair, Velvet Underground (Lou Reed), Clash and Gang of Four.

Why list all these folks?

In the spirit of full disclosure.

Disclosure of what for godsake!?!?

Disclosure that I'm a thief and a sponge (an absorbent crook). The Depends of Bloggers. Somebody else's Depends. Get the picture? No, not that one. Don't be so literal - the analogy. Geez.

Oh, and speaking of crooks, I forgot one of my biggest 'influences': Richard M. Nixon. The biggest Dick the world has ever known. I'm sure he's looking up at us now and smiling. Throw another log on the fire, Beelzebub, looks like Dick is gettin' chilly!

Anyway, primarily a thief. In case you vaguely recognize something but it just doesn't seem right - like maybe it might be an overripe version of something from someone of note but that it's now past its expiration date and there's a faint odor emanating from the general direction of your browser.

So, primarily a thief and not to be taken seriously. Or taken at all.

I relate perhaps most of all to that Groucho Marx line, "I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member."

Finally, Congrats to the newest Supreme Court Associate Justice, Sonia Sotomayor! Here's hoping that Scalia and Thomas for some reason opt for early retirement in the next couple of years. And Roberts, isn't it time you left? Come on, it's been over three and half years now!