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.
I'm re-posting a July musing of mine, partly because I'm lazy and partly because it's even more relevant today given the current political environment. Yesterday's satire and hyperbole become tomorrow's news, sadly. But still, it'll be mostly a "Re-run." That's for you late 70's TV aficionados.
It's snowing another couple of feet today after getting nailed with two feet just a couple of days ago. I already shoveled last night's eight inches of the sleet infused sno-cone filler off my walk this morning, taking advantage of a break in the storm. It's going to be mighty painful shoveling for sure, after today's blizzard dumps another foot or so, with nowhere to put this new load of frozen H2O except to the top of the piles already there (lots of back twisting and muscle spasms in my future).
Before I re-post, I have to note two things I learned last night flipping through the channels that I really didn't want to know:
Michael Jackson made a habit of peeing into bottles rather than a toilet, often doing so in front of others, even casual acquaintances, without a hint of self consciousness. Apparently, half empty bottles of his wiz littered the Jackson estate. They say it started back in his prepubescent Jackson-5 days when there were often no bathrooms within easy reach of the stage at the venues in which they performed. Thanks for expanding my Jack-o knowledge to new depths, E.
There's a product called Kitchen Guard for those people who really hate the mess left behind by traditional fire extinguishers. Damn, I saved my house from burning down but just look at all the foam on the stove! I guess if the price is right, it might be a fine addition to my kitchen essentials. Maybe it serves two purposes, a la New Shimmer. In this case, instead of being both a floor wax and a desert topping, perhaps it's a fire extinguisher and a PAM-like no-stick cooking oil (it is an aerosol spray, after all).
And now, a re-post from early July 2009, enhanced with linked references, illustrations and an updated 2010 present tense!
I figure we're in the early stages of the Empire Strikes Back if one were to apply 'Lucas'-onian ('Lucas'que?) principles to current American political reality. The election of 2008 was the attack on the death star, the climax of A New Hope. Or, more appropriately, A New Audacity of Hope. But we're a couple of years yet away from Obama losing his hand to Dick Cheney and finding out the uncomfortable truth about his lineage. (Kenya is not Wyoming? They have similar forms of democracy, I've heard.)
Joe Biden is Chewbacca (or maybe he's Jar Jar, arriving appropriately inappropriate into the wrong movie).
Or maybe I have it all wrong and Cheney is the Emperor.
The appendage, perhaps then, is due to be lopped off by DarthPalin ("Barack, I am your Mother").
Perhaps, too, I also have wrong the particular appendage that is in peril.
It sort of fits, though.
Think about it. Okay, don't think so much - feel about it - the truthiness can't be denied.
They both apparently enjoy basketball (or, in Darth Sarah's case, at least basketball analogies and how apparently all the great basketball players like to leave the game in the 4th quarter). She can see Russia from her house - he saw Russia from his mobile home (Air Force One).
You'd think that her youth would rule such a thing out, but I always thought that she had a little 'Highlander' in her ('There can be only one - please God').
This would all imply that he got his literacy, poise, and sanity from his father's side of the family.
But the opening credits have barely trailed off the screen - we have a long way to go before we have to worry about Ewoks roaming the planet, Hip waders drying in the east room, book burnings and literature lynchings, and Michelle's garden giving way to a smelt pond.
A while to enjoy things before Mrs. Maverick and her Alaskan Geese (apologies to Dr. Green) go to Washington while Jimmy Stewart does cartwheels in his casket.
And that's another movie for another time. But be forewarned: put your affairs in order while you can.
"I found America hiding in the corner of my wallet
It's a well kept secret, thought that I had better swallow it
Meanwhile, in other important television doings, Five-0's Steve McGarrett was on the witness stand on WFMZ 69 this afternoon. Steve was testifying against some super villain loan shark and talking turkey about the exorbitant interest rates in the leg-breaking business, or "the juice, as it's called in the underworld parlance." Classic McGarrett-speak. Shuffling between that and a Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi Channel brings to an end my last week on the dole, topped off with a rousing snow storm to boot.
And down the snow tumbles. I can hear all the fuckers up and down my block cackling with glee at the chance to rock and roll tomorrow with their machines of destruction. You know, I can't believe, we're on the eve of destruction. They're probably already hunkered down in their garages, greasing up their Sno-Blower 10000s for the big day tomorrow, anxious to gun the engines and shoot that snow a mile high in the sky before crashing it back down to earth all over my freshly hand-shoveled walk, erasing the fruits of my manual labor.
The idiot across the street from me was revving up his monstrous contraption this afternoon before a flake had even hit the ground. It was like qualifying day at the Indy 500. Better find my headphones so I can drown out the screams of 20 Blowers doing their synchronized dance tomorrow while I'm breaking my back with the ol' faithful $5 plastic shovel. I think a little Never Mind the Bollocks on the iPod will serve as a gentle alternative soundtrack to my back breaking efforts. My body is already aching just thinking about it. Of course I covered this neighbor problem in a December post, where I swore I'd break into my each of their garages at the dawn of the next big snowfall and fill the gas tanks of their blowers with nitroglycerin. Better set my alarm early tomorrow. :-)
But who am I kidding? I'm a dyslexic misanthrope: whenever I get especially angry at someone or something, I tend to take it out on myself, no matter how much I may want to lay into the true target of my fury. It's perhaps just something ingrained into my DNA? Nah. Odds are, it was tattooed onto my psyche by off-brand byzantine parenting since recalled.
I'm going to be signing off from this blog for the most part while I get back down to the business of business. That means more postings on my technology blog at the expense of this one. I'll still be checking in from time to time but probably not at the near daily clip I'd been posting to date, tossing globs of drivel-laden keystrokes at the web and watching precious little of it stick. Which is not to say that the quality will improve just because I have a go at it less. But I'll feel more guilty if it isn't. So I'll try.
The dancing will be (mainly) verbal as John Stewart heads back to the O'Reilly Factor tonight and tomorrow for a two part taped interview between the Daily Show razor wit and the "No Spin Zone" host and resident wit of nits. Should be something to behold. Stewart was on Bill-O's show a little more than 5 years ago during an equally volatile time in American Politics (it was just a few weeks shy of the 2004 election). A good time was had by all. Gitcha popcorn ready.
To get us primed, how about a golden oldie from Bill O'Reilly back in the early 1990's ...
Leif Garrett, former 70's Tiger Beat mainstay (he of "I Was Made For Dancin'" teenybopper fame; see below), was busted for heroin possession for the second time while loitering around LA's mass transit system (Los Angeles has mass transit?!?). His previous LA transit bust occurred when he attempted to jump the turnstiles for a free ride and was caught holding. This time, Cherry Valance's evil Soc boyfriend Bob was apparently shaking and sweating up a storm on the train platform when the cops came upon him. Garrett has been dancing with Mr. Brownstone for nearly 30 years now and apparently has not quite hit bottom just yet.
I didn't fit Leif's teen idol target demographic and hated his sort of "music" but do remember his picture plastered everywhere in the late 70's and I did dig his 1999 VH1 Behind the Music special. Seems they need to write yet another chapter. He's just about my age and so serves as at least one Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Future for my generation. Which one? Depends on your perspective and outlook, but I'm hoping he's not the Ghost of Christmas Future. He's certainly one barometer of where you stack up/how far you've come since the disco days of yore. Here's hoping you measure up fairly well when judged relative to Mr. Garrett. Leif, we hardly knew ye ...
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.
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.
Ahh, a chilly Saturday with Fletch on the tube. Things could be worse.
Following this masterpiece up is hard work, but Discovery Health comes to the rescue with an update on the Mermaid Girl/Last Six Months. What a channel! Speaking of which, what was on tap in prime time this past week? Why Paralyzed and Pregnant, of course. Clearly must-see-TV. And our television overlord - Oprah - is going to shut this network down? For shame, Ms. Winfrey! Somehow I doubt the divine Ms. W's Oprah Network will feature such riveting fare.
But I have more on my mind than a continuing obsession with Discovery Health. What else could I possibly obsess on with Weeds and Mad Men on hiatus, you may ask? I was really looking forward to catching Mary-Louise Parker in Howl, but that flick's release date mysteriously slipped from January to December.
Which leaves me ... where?
On the personal front, I'm doing the eHarmony thing but still no "commercial-worthy" true love tales to be had. I thought for just a short while that I had happened upon a soul mate but after a number of weeks and a number of dates, things fizzled. Such is life. I'll keep you posted. ... well, maybe. Probably not. And if so, only vaguely, without dish, dirt, names or details.
On the professional front, I'm still exploring my options. I formed an L.L.C. - Technology Artisans. I spent a grand total of about 30 seconds pondering over the name, which probably wasn't wise but I gotta be true to my "spontaneous" nature. I hadn't even thought about it until I started filling out the online incorporation form and then - well, my session was about to expire so I needed something and this came to mind. For many years, I had planned to call my first company SML, Inc. after a Schlitz Malt Liquor promotional Christmas poster featuring a comely woman dressed in a Santa's Hottie Helper outfit. A bunch of us were renting a large, falling-apart-at-the-seams "animal house" many years ago and we had this poster hanging with pride in the living room (they were giving them away at a local beer distributor). We used to laugh and say that it would become our corporate logo and SML, Inc. would be the organization's name. A few of us talked about this for years after the poster lost its luster and found a home in the trash. But in the end, I relented.
Why Technology Artisans? To quote Bluto from Animal House, "Why not?" Anyway, I formed the company mainly so that I could negotiate corporation-to-corporation consulting agreements, if I even end up going that route. On that front, I have a multitude of consulting opportunities on the horizon right now and determining which of them I want to pursue is the challenge. But that's kind of dry shit for a blog and I've already rattled on far too long on the subject ...
Well, what's in the news???
J.D. Salinger died, but there have been more than enough gushing tributes piled on elsewhere concerning the reclusive writer. Like most young people of a certain age, I read The Catcher in the Rye and identified with its protagonist, Holden Caulfield. So did everyone from Bill Clinton to Mark David Chapman. I have nothing interesting to add. It's not like ol' J.D. was all that prolific, and Rye isn't particularly close to the top of my list of favorite books. That said, a lot of the works enshrined into my particular literary hall of fame are by writers who in turn were strongly influenced by Salinger. So he's a favorite by proxy. Again, a quick googling of Salinger will lead you the way to numerous platitudes and eulogies far more eloquent than I could manage.
Politics was as hot a topic as it's ever been this week. It started with the continuing coronation of Scottie "Centerfold" Brown while the donkeys continued to stumble over their own ineptitude, quaking with fear over the elephant party's new "super minority." The highlight of the week, though, was surely The State of the Union, featuring a big "fuck you" tossed to Sammy "Davis, 'cause I see only one side of evil" Alito and the Supremes. Of course there were plenty of "fuck you"s to go around in the speech, as John Stewart pointed out. Obama tossed them out like candy at a parade, and popped more than a few into his own mouth to boot. It might have been the best one I've heard in my 30 some years of paying attention to this annual applause-athon, if not exactly the most inspirational.
The politico week-that-was came to a close with an "Obama versus the mighty Elephantiasis of Congress" steel cage match debate. Sort of like the final fight scene in Kill Bill, Vol 1, with the Prez channeling Black Mamba and the Repubs standing in for the Crazy 88. From all accounts, it ended in similar fashion (perhaps not so convincingly and, alas, with a bit less finality). BTW, no racial inference should be made of the Black Mamba reference (replace it with Beatrix Kiddo or The Bride, if you'd like). The Prez is, after all, "post racial." Chris Matthews, that speed-freak, rat-a-tat-tat, speak-before-I-think, stream-of-consciousness MSNBC mouthpiece originally coined "post-racial" as it applies to Obama. Chris is great. We have similar political sensibilities but the guy is certifiable, a living/breathing cartoon. Analyzing the State of the Union, he exclaimed "I forgot the president was black for an hour." As John Stewart so aptly put it, "Chris Matthews is one scotch away from becoming Ron Burgundy."
We're not, by the way, in a "post racial" era. Many on the right - even some in the "mainstream" right - are clearly still bummed out that a black man was elected President. These folks throw out terms like "arrogant" and "narrow-minded" to describe Obama in a manner so blatantly consumed in a subtext of racism that they might as well have been calling him an "uppity boy" who surely still doesn't know his place. He's not arrogant, he's President. And I think - I hope - he's starting to get comfortable in knowing his place: the leader of the free world. In my opinion, the failures of Obama over his first year in office have largely occurred because he wasn't quite at ease with this (or at least didn't appear so, which is just as bad). The State of the Union speech sort of showed - at least to me - that this might be changing. Good. But that's the very thing sticking in their craw. The thing that the "arrogant" and "flippant" code words betray.
Okay, time to get off my high horse.
Not bad for an "off-season" week in politics; however, like everything else, better captured elsewhere. The Daily Show perhaps best of all, where Stewart has become just a bit less biased these days and is aiming his razor wit at both wings of the American political clown college that is our government political leadership.
So, is there anything left? Boy, I've written a lot of dreck here in order to say I've got nothing to say. Which is par for the course: I've got terminal diarrhea of the keyboard (to counter balance those parts of me that are somewhat less regular in their movement).
On that note, I'll sign off with my sincerest apologies to anyone who's made it this far ...
The squirrels living above my headboard on the other side of the glass were restless last night, their home blown asunder by Mother Nature's strong winds. They'd worked their furry tails to the bone last year building a leaf-based shelter on the ledge off my bedroom, using the air conditioner I'd never bothered to remove from the window as a lean-to. A newlywed couple made their home there and have since brought two kids into the fold: your classic all-American nuclear family.
At first, these fuzzy beasts annoyed me but all my attempts at trashing their little home went for naught as they calmly rebuilt the thing each time in a matter of hours. I thought of calling pest control but in the end didn't have the heart. Or was it that I'm just an incurable procrastinator? Either way, I've grown used to sharing my nights with this crew (they live literally less than two feet from where I lay my head on the pillow each evening). Generally, they're pretty quiet. When the "kids" arrived into the world and the noise picked up, I'd just tap on the window and they'd usually pipe down pretty quickly. So we'd reached an agreement of sorts and they stayed put. Through rain, sleet and snow, resolute and steadfast. Until last night.
Last night the wind gusts reached epic proportions, blowing the squirrel home's load-bearing leaves to kingdom come. Now, as I mentioned, I'd done similar damage to their hovel back when they first moved in, but that was in the early autumn when replacement leaves were plentiful. It's the barren dead of winter now and the Squirrel Home Depots are closed for the season. What's a Tamiasciurus to do?
Ahh, they're tenacious fuckers - they'll make do. They've got a whole community of scurrying, scampering fellow travelers. They're a bit like the Amish in that regard and I wouldn't be surprised to see a squirrel "barn-raising" taking shape to replenish the requisite leaves in due time.
In fact, in the time it's taken me to write up this post (admittedly, a word every now and then over the course of more than 12 hours), I see that the home is already half repaired, with five or six neighboring squirrels helping to scavenge leaves from various adjoining yards. I'm surprised the female squirrels aren't there with lemonade and refreshments, because it's otherwise eerily like the Witness barn-raising scene. Only furrier.
Deep Vein Thrombosis. It doesn't sound pleasant, though it would make a great name for a rock and roll band. In this case, I refer to it as one of a litany of side effects possible when taking Yaz, the Happy Fun Ball of prescription birth control medication and inspiration for the Saturday Night Live's Annuale (back when SNL was at least occasionally funny).
Why would I be concerned with this, you ask? I'm not, really. It's just that I've been inundated with Yaz class action come-ons by various ambulance chasers advertising on Discovery Health the past few months. Like a bad commercial jingle, I can't get it out of my head. Judging by the deluge of similar pitches on this network, Oprah's killing of Discovery Health in 2011 will mark a dark day in law offices across these United States (at least for those attorneys who keep their actions classy). I've never seen so many shysters hawking so many lawsuits against so many different entities in the healthcare industry than on this network. Of course, they're playing to a picture perfect target demographic: hypochondriacs of all stripes.
Requip is a prescription medication used to treat Restless Leg Syndrome and whose known side effects include Compulsive Gambling and Sex Addiction. Now to be fair, Requip is just one of a number of dopamine antagonists that research has shown can trigger these "adverse reactions" in a small percentage of users. Of course, these side effects are printed on the label and rattled off along with their more conventional cousins in the ads, so full disclosure gets them off the hook for current litigation (though I imagine they got nailed hard early on).
To be sure, Restless Leg Syndrome is a very real and potentially painful ailment, despite the goofy name. I have family and friends that suffer from its debilitating effects to varying degrees and it ain't pleasant. But still, it does have that goofy name, making it sound so innocuous. And sex addiction? Gambling?? These sound more like a couple of the more common side effects of the drug Ethanol (I can attest to the veracity of this connection having conducted several research excursions to Vegas and Atlantic City under its influence).
Perhaps Tiger Woods' extra marital relations - supposedly the sad ramification of a sex addiction - can in fact be attributed to Requip. After all, his legs seemed at peace of late on the golf course but perhaps that wasn't the case early on (back when he wasn't screwing anything that moved). Check out video of his play back in the late 1990s, it's like he's got ants in his pants. Did he really have knee surgery in 2008 or was it something else?
As for gambling? Well, a percentage of those that have lost their job, house and car to gambling debts can possibly take comfort in the fact that when Louie the Loan Shark's musclemen come to collect, they'll be breaking very well rested legs indeed.
Me? I'll make it a point to avoid Yaz, even if my doctor insists. I've always had a suspicion that he'd be a true believer in cinema classics like Junior and Rabbit Test, so I'll keep a watchful eye. Rabbit Test - man, I haven't thought about that masterpiece in years. Joan Rivers had only one turn in the director's chair and this was her "baby." Clearly, judging by this work, she could have been the female Scorsese had she kept at it ... or perhaps a latter-day Ed Wood (apologies to Mr. Wood for that last crack). Somehow, Billy Crystal survived. I can say that I saw this in the theater during its initial run in 1978 and recall enjoying it. Though I was only 15 and likely close to legally insane, I was not otherwise impaired so I can't blame it on drugs. I can say that I caught a bit of Rabbit Test recently (as much as I could take) and have had a change of heart.
And as for my Restless Leg Syndrome, I'll stick with the black tar heroin. That seems to do the trick just fine.
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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