My unbaked thoughts and self righteous commentary on politics, pop culture or whatever else might slip out of my fingers onto the keyboard. For tech stuff, visit my technology-related blog and for bad poetry and stories, my poetry/story blog. Actually, both of these other blogs are updated much more frequently these days.
There are many sign posts on the road of life and as we continue to tick off those forty-something mile markers, many of us begin the ritual of the colonoscopy. Some of the luckier among us were plagued with gastrointestinal tract problems early in life and thus are introduced to the pleasures of this procedure well before the AARP brochures start arriving in the mail and Discovery Health channel displaces ESPN as our channel surfing Wiamea Bay.
But eventually, if we're smart and closing in on (or pulling away from) fifty, we all should probably be taking the plunge every five to ten years.
It starts with the preparation. And really, it's this, and not the actual procedure itself, that's at the heart of it all. You'd think nothing would 'top' having a cold metal scope snaked up your ass flapping in the breeze out of that goofy gown, you lying bent over in the fetal position on a gurney under bright lights surrounded by a group of old ugly doctors and young pretty nurses (or worse, old ugly nurses and pretty young doctors - usually some mix therein). To be sure, that's a highlight. Hey, baby - you and I should grab a drink sometime. How about it, sugar? You think my ass is sweet, you should see the rest of me! Wink, wink. Wince, wince. But that isn't the main course, at least not for me.
It starts with the preparation, the night before. You gotta scrub those bowels shiny clean prior to the big event. You don't get to eat anything . But you do get to drink. Primarily, Phospho soda. Some of the foulest shit you'll ever choke down, like drinking a shaker of liquid salt. They usually try and 'flavor' this poison with lemon-lime or something similar, making it all the worse. Once you make it past this hurdle, you'll be spending the rest of the evening tethered to a porcelain throne.
Gather up plenty of reading material, though be sure it's something light because your concentration for weightier material will be wrecked by the freight train roaring through your bowels into the bowl. And God (and Depends) help you should you stray very far from the john that evening. Ever eat some wickedly spicy Mexican food or five-alarm hot wings and then have a nasty case of the runs? That will have given you a taste of the fun in store for you here.
Why lead you through this? Education, of course. I'm sure many of you are on the young side of 45 and haven't taken this particular Pepsi challenge yet and I wanted you to be aware of what will soon be a regular part of preventive care for you as you drift into your golden years. And I wanted to be sure you're going into it with your eyes open. Of course, I hope for your sake not literally open - ask your doctor about the anesthesia and if he replies with "local" you fire back: "No, no, no - I wanna be in la la land, doc." I've done it both ways and strongly favor the knock out drops to singing Moon River. Sometimes there are medical reasons why you need to be awake ("Does it hurt when I do this? How about this here?"); however, that's not the norm. But to each his own.
I went through the procedure this morning and wanted to get this out there while the memories were fresh. As you've no doubt surmised, this wasn't my first: I am one of those lucky few GI tract dysfunction trust fund babies who inherited my misfortune from dear old Dad and had my first colonoscopy at 23 years of age. My doctor has me go through this misery every five years or so, depending on my symptoms.
A colleague recommended I watch Sublime, but only after the my procedure was over. Alas, I'd already caught the flick - a parable of the process gone horribly wrong (well, not exactly - the protagonist goes in for a colonoscopy but ends up on the receiving end of another procedure altogether, plunging him into a medical nightmare). An interesting film. But his advice was sound: watch it only afterward.
Indeed.
Remember, it'll behoove ya to care for your uvula. Er, sorry - wrong public service announcement. "You'll keep rollin' with a scoped out colon!" There, that's it.
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.
I don't know how it happened but somehow I forgot how much I loved to read New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd and haven't done so in a while. Maybe I figured it wouldn't be the same without her favorite whipping boy around (she had a love/hate relationship with her 'W' - she loved to hate him).
Shame on me. The Pulitzer prize winning Divine Ms. D is still wicked smart with the English language (sometimes she's wicked wicked as well, but she's never dull).
I should know better than to think there aren't plenty of inflated egos for her to pop just because Dick and George and Karl have been relegated to the dust bin of history. It's probably the most target rich environment ever now that the "loyal" opposition has finally had enough with this Obama guy. You mean he's still President?!? A couple of months is fine but he hasn't been impeached or shot or quit yet?!?
This is becoming increasingly the attitude and it's getting to the point where I'm starting to fear for the President's safety. The nuts are actually whipping up a huge dust cloud of fear into what's becoming an increasingly large mob. Fear and Loathing, indeed. I worry that we've only seen the tip of the iceberg on that score.
There were torches and pitchforks down the streets of DC over the weekend and judging by the signs, none of these "patriots" could decide exactly what they thought Obama represented. I mean, can one person simultaneously be a Commie Fascist Kenyan Muslim? And the Joker?
I know what their biggest fear is, and though they haven't yet articulated it explicitly, it lives as an undercurrent to everything they stand for: clearly Obama will next be demanding a Government take over of that most sacred of American institutions, the Klu Klux Klan. Damn socialists! We'll have to stand in long lines and fill out unnecessary forms just so we can be issued defective nooses, flame retardant flaming crosses and yellowed robes and hoods. Probably manufactured by illegal immigrants! And after that? God forbid - NASCAR?!?!?
Anyway, sorry. Got off topic.
I promise not to stray again, Maureen! This week's column was right on and funny to boot (per your norm). I'm now going to get caught up on what I missed.
Why is everybody so up-in-arms over Joe Wilson's "You Lie!" outburst during Obama's health care speech to congress the other night? I'm a hemorrhaging heart liberal and unabashed Obama supporter from way back, but I found the shout out rather refreshing. I didn't agree with the content, of course (he and I likely couldn't agree on today's date) but wasn't perturbed by the conduct. Besides, his remark only helped reinforce the president's point regarding the seeming lack of civility in the health care debate. Of course, at some level, that's exactly what I like about the health care discussion. Not as a concerned citizen, mind you, but as someone looking for a little extra comic relief out of the daily news cycle.
We're way too polite and regal in this country when it comes to official government traditions and ceremony. You wouldn't think that would be the case given our country's genesis, borne from the tyranny of the British crown. Ironically it's the Brits that it it all over us now when it comes to dispensing of civility and ceremony (well, at least when it comes to their civility - they still dress like royal dorks).
Perhaps Wilson's faux pas might be our start down that boisterous road toward British 'parliamentary procedure'? I hope so. We need more Animal House and Jerry Springer in the hallowed halls of congress and less pomp(ous) and circumstance. Enough yielding of the floor to "the Gentleman from the Great State of Yada Yada" ( I didn't realize the floor was moving such that it needed to yield, or is it just that they're all so regularly drunk it just appears to be?)
I'd like to hear just once, 'The chair recognizes Joseph Wilson, the gentleman needle dick from South Carolina, the shit hole state best known for slavery, rebel-yell Nazism, incest, pedophilia and pestilence. Herr Wilson, you represent her well in that regard, you fascist pea brain." As an example.
And what's with the ridiculous rituals for a presidential address to congress? The endless announcements of the major players by the master-at-arms, as though this was the NBA finals. And their glad-handing on the way down! Enough, already. Finally, enough with the 55 applause cycles before the man even starts his speech. Come on! Give 'em a hand - one round of polite applause. Either that or go whole hog Beatlemania on him with swooning, screaming and whatnot. Enough of this middle-of-the-road shit.
Can't we just have Johnny Olson tell them all to "Come on Down, you're the next speaker on the Address To Congress"? After all, Joe Biden kinda looks like Bob Barker and Nancy Pelosi is surely the spitting image of at least one of the 70s Price Is Right prize models today (one who lived life hard through the 80s and 90s but then was reborn through an addiction to plastic surgeries). Maybe she even was a Price Is Right model for all I know.
I say all this only somewhat tongue-in-cheek and mainly as a reaction to the over-reaction by my fellow travelers on the left. Let Wilson's impulsive act stand on its own demerits - sort of like (and apropos to) Dr. Strangelove's impulsive 'Sig Heil'ing and 'Mein Führer'ing at the end of that movie. The incessant whining about it is turning this guy into a martyr for the nutso right wing rabble-rousers. That is, to people just like Joe Wilson. More specifically, to people whose ideology appears to run just to the left of Adolf Hitler (or maybe it's just to the right - that's a tough call). There are a lot of his ilk out there in our land of milk and military industrial honey.
Let's do what we can to marginalize these wackos, not popularize them. Christ, if we had just left the wolf huntress of the Yukon alone and not called her on her illiteracy and schizophrenia at every turn, she might have faded back into the governor's igloo without haunting us further. Neither is necessarily a barrier to becoming Vice President, after all. I read the constitution and it doesn't mention either literacy or schizophrenia even once (well, maybe there's something about 'sound mind' in there, but it's debatable what that implies).
Look, Grandpa Munster didn't stand a chance at president once he picked her, she did all the work of ensuring that and certainly didn't need any help from the left wing attack dogs (yes, we have 'em too - they're just not nearly as polished as our counterparts growling over there on the other side of the plane).
Joe The Plumber Beck Limbaugh O'Reilly Cheney. These scary monsters thrive on attention and all subscribe to that age old adage "the only bad publicity is no publicity."
As someone who was subjected to the "care" provided by that institution for the better part of a week a few years ago, I can't say part of me isn't at least a little pleased by this turn of events. Hopefully the hospital is liable for this and the bank can put the screws to them much like they did to me.
Their caper nabbed them 96 grand, eh? Oddly, that was roughly my bill for sadism ... er, services rendered at that medieval butchery barn.
Not that I'm bitter.
On to the world stage, this week feels a bit like the 60s: the Beatles are the hottest thing in music and we've got an escalating war in Asia that once had a very narrow, very specific purpose but whose goals now seem anything but clear. The question on my mind? Is ObamaLBJ or is he RFK minus the tragic demise? The entrenched president bird dogged by a meandering, unwinnable war without purpose or the guy who would liberate us from such entanglements?
I thought Bush was playing the role of LBJ in this bit of revisionism, with Iraq filling in as his Vietnam understudy. (The analogy is not fair to Johnson: LBJ didn't get us into Vietnam, certainly he didn't invade the country on a foundation of lies and God-bestowed self-righteousness. But you get my point.)
Obama certainly seemed every bit the early 21st century Robert Kennedy on the campaign trail, but things are looking a bit less clear nine months into his administration. However, it is only nine months and he was given a heaping helping of domestic shit to work through as well, so he deserves another year before I start pinning the Johnson badge on his chest. Bobby had the 'advantage' of never having to fulfill those lofty expectations. And to be sure, dying prior to taking office is the ultimate advantage in this narrow context.
Obama really isn't superman, though, despite some media attempts to color him with that brush. He can't simply make Iraq and Afghanistan go away in a blink of an eye without suffering the consequences (real and political). I just hope he realizes that it's not 'anything goes' now in Afghanistan simply because we had some justification going into there eight years ago. Define the mission - do it fucking fast and make it really clear.
In the end, historical comparisons are easy but they're also cheap and false. It's 2009 not 1969. I know, the clock on my desktop tells me (and I'm not at a desk). Also, the music on the celestial radio sucks.
We went into Afghanistan for one reason and one reason only: to hunt down and kill/capture bin Laden and other Al Qaeda operatives. The Taliban were secondary, a means to an end. Can we ever eradicate them from a leadership position in that neck of the woods? Not through military means. We should just head into the mountains of Tora Bora from both sides (hello, Pakistan) and be done with it (likely that's what we've been doing on the QT in piecemeal fashion, but it hasn't gotten us anywhere).
Or better still: just forget bin Laden and his ilk. He's not worth it and this whole eye-for-an-eye thing smacks of fifth grade, in my book. He's much more influential among radicals as a martyr, killed by the great Satan. Leave him to die quietly of old age or, more likely, the various maladies he reportedly suffers from. If we do kill him, I hope to hell we don't reveal it. Maybe we already have. No, we don't know how to keep a fucking secret to save our lives (in this case, literally). We gotta be the braggarts, showing off our spoils of war. I hope I'm wrong.
So, nothing particularly funny here today. I'm in a funk to the point where even California Republican Assemblyman Mike Duvall's pornographic chatter about his trysts with female lobbyists, actually uttered during a legislative hearing, couldn't lift my spirits.
One thing that just might stamp out the blues is the launch of Monopoly City Streets. Finally an online game I want to play! And I will. At least once they iron out their scalability opening day jitters.
Let's tie this all together and play Afghan Monopoly. How many hotels can you buy on the road to Kandahar? Careful not to land on the - well, land mines as you negotiate your way around the "board". Draw a "card" now. Oh, too bad! The Americans have napalmed your poppy crops - you lose a turn. Sounds like a 'blast'. I'm in as long as I can be the armored Bradley fighting shoe.
Man, I wish he had been 'my' Governor. So entertaining. Pennsylvania chief executives tend to be boring from that perspective, though we've had a few mayors in Philly that could have given Hot Rod a run for his money (Street and Rizzo come to mind).
'Ahoy' Blagojevich has defiantly wrestled baldfaced corruption and two faced self-righteousness from the clenched fists of Republican state chief execs, demonstrating that Democratic deviancy in office is not limited to that of a sexual nature. Those of us on the left are so proud!
I can't wait for Rod's trial and vindication and definitely plan to pick up his book, The Governor. It's so clear to anyone with eyes that this visionary peacemaker has been railroaded and I for one want to know the nitty gritty details as to how and why.
In the meantime, Rod, since I hear you're strapped for cash, you'd make a great replacement for Billy Mays. Don't like that? How about you and ShamWow Vince as a team? There's a thought. Or - now hear me out - you could become the spokesperson - the exclusive face of the brand - for Active Men's Depends, the new bowel and bladder control product specifically designed for men still in their wage earning years: "When the shit hits the fan, it doesn't hit the floor." You might actually make adult diapers cool to wear for the working professional.
The scene is set in some faceless corporate break room. Dean and Stan, two young marketing executives, are talking over early afternoon coffee. Stan is very clearly wearing diapers under his dress slacks.
Dean: "Stan, you're looking a bit 'puffy' in the behind - he, he. What gives?"
Stan: "Yeah, Dean. I'm rocking my new Depends Blagojevichs. Hey, we both had the prune pasta for lunch at Olive Garden - guess which one of us will make it through our big presentation to the CEO comfortably this afternoon. Remember, we're slotted two hours and we haven't prepared a thing for it yet. Lots of tap dancing! It'll be BS time on all fronts, but I'll be set, knowing I have honest Rod smiling at me from behind: his picture is on every pair!"
Dean: "Rod Blagojevich has put his name on adult diapers? Wow, that makes you think twice about bladder and bowel control for us working stiffs."
Stan: "You bet. You know he wouldn't back anything that wasn't reliable. And they come in several refreshing deodorizing fragrances. If you get a whiff of lilac, that's my 'Blags' going to work!"
Dean: "Ahh, Geez, Stan, that's awful smart of ya - you'll be tap dancing good and thick without pause while I'll have to excuse myself to run off to the boys room. What'll the boss think of me then? I'd better duck out to the store and pick me up some Depends Blagojevichs pronto!"
Stan: "Don't worry, Dean. I always keep extras in my left desk drawer. Now let's figure out where we can steal a quick marketing report presentation out on the Internet ..."
Food for thought, Rod. The book'll only get ya so far. On the off chance you're convicted, someone might get the bright idea your 'memoir' is allowing you to profit from your crime and attempt to recoup the proceeds. I'm sure you're off-shoring the jingle jangle but it never hurts to have multiple income streams going.
I'm still mad for Mad Men four episodes into the third season.
I think it's getting better, actually.
There's no attempt to make any of the characters either sympathetic or into bad guys, though some tend to lean in one direction or the other. But no one's one dimensional. There are certainly no saints, everyone has flaws. And the ambiance is, as ever, pretty much perfection. This show on ad men is light on interruptions by actual advertisements, which is also nice. Sometimes, like last week, they actually work those real-life interruptions into the spirit of the Mad Men universe by prefacing them with historical trivia regarding the particular brand's first appearance on the boob tube.
But I rarely spent a lot of time here fussing over TV I actually like.
Besides, I have a bone to pick with Oliver Stone, back here in the 21st Century (much as I hate to make the trip back to the present from the cozy world of 1963).
I actually think your new documentary South of the Border might actually do a lot of good in helping to heal our relationship with the people and leadership of perhaps a few countries in Central and South America by giving them a voice and a bit of dignity that we as a nation always seem to be in offical short supply of for their ilk.
But the ends (almost never) justify the means.
I know clown boy W. and his evil Lord Cheney loved to heap shit on him and that crowd. I also realize that the US has a shameful recent (and not-so-recent) history of propping up tin-horn dictators with ease down south of the border while demonizing anyone who even ever so faintly smells of socialism. But Chavez seems like so much of a punk in every interview I've caught with him.
I can't really say I'm surprised or that I expected better from Oliver. He is, after all, just being Oliver. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. After all, we need folks like Oliver to counterbalance the yahoos on the right. Anyway, to those yahoos, I'm pretty indistinguishable from Ollie (or Chavez for that matter).
I'll reserve judgment on the flick until I see it. After all, it's not only about Chavez, though he figures the most prominently, I hear. And maybe he's an okay sort. He really does seem to despise Bush after all, so he has that going for him. Of course, his personality reminds me a lot of Bush, too. A 'true believer' with the permanent smirk plastered on the kisser.
Ollie did apparently cover a lot of other ground in the movie throughout Central and South America, talking to a half dozen or so leaders in addition to Hugo.
My concern isn't with the film so much (how could it if I haven't seen it?), it's with Stone's performance at the Venice film festival and particularly his glad handing/backslapping with Hugo on the red carpet. Sort of tosses out any pretense of impartiality.
But then, the word 'unbiased' is not really in Oliver's vocabulary anyway, is it?
Enough with Oliver and Hugo, on to Doctor G, Manson and Hoarders.
No, that's not a new music act (though that would be an excellent band name), that's my channel surfing A.D.D this evening.
Doctor G is in her usual first-run slot (alas, a rerun tonight), Manson scores a History Channel prime time slot , though it's nearly a month past the 40th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders (maybe it's 40 years since he was first indicted or some other such mile marker). And finally, a Labor Day A&E Hoarders marathon is underway (though I missed most of the day's festivities).
No new Y incisions to make with Doc G and I'm thoroughly sick of that punk Manson at this point, so I'm mainly rocking with Hoarders this evening. I was going to get some work done. But then I came to my senses.
I toil in the murky world of software development and architecture for my supper, a frustrated writer who fell into the technology game quite by chance.
My humor is usually parched and pitch black (if you don't squirm, it's not funny), aimed often at the brilliance and sublime idiocy in politics and pop culture.
Finally, at the end of the day I'm really just a devoted student of life with failing grades who keeps registering for new classes with the fervent hope that he doesn't get expelled this semester.
The opinions expressed here are my own (and they usually don't qualify as that for very long). They are not to be construed as opinions of my employer, my dead dog, the Pope, Richard Nixon's ghost, or Paris Hilton. (Well, maybe on occasion, Paris. I think that - like me - she's student of life at heart.)
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