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Mark Driver
08/12/05
I�m Not Sure Why I Dropped that Mattress on You
(In response to whining, this column is available in full page size by clickin' here.)
It wasn�t because you were fat. I don�t give a s**t that you were fat. I may have had childish things to say about fat people in the past, but I�ve moved beyond the media-manufactured freak body image that keeps us insecure in our own skins and buying buttwash by the gallon. It sucks to be Mrs. Potatolegs in a Victoria Secret culture, especially if you buy into that s**t. I can sympathize�or empathize�.no, sympathize. Whatever having a body like Randy Quaid will get me. But it was great to see you, beet-red cheeks a�huffing and puffing, those sausage casings cranking pedal after polished pedal�out trying to get some exercise. Good for your heart. Stress reduction. One less car on the road. Can�t fault you there. That�s not why I dropped the mattress on you.
Maybe it was your bike. The shiny new bike, the expensive bike, the pristine and sparkly bike. The bike that was out on the road for the first time, fresh from the store, assumedly to be soon forgotten and garaged until the divorce. Blue and bold, sporting thirty gears�for the upcoming ascension of Mt. Vesuvius, no doubt. Yes, I think it was the bike that set me off. The bike worth ten times more than my beater Civic. You know how many bags of rice a bike like that�ll get you? I could live for a year off of what you paid for that bike. Hey�maybe this was thinly veiled class war. Could it be? Class war? Yeah, maybe that�s why I dropped the mattress on you. Maybe it was class war.
But it has to be more than that. I�m confronted daily with the excesses of income, and sure�there is a general disgust of shiny people that boils between my ribs. It�s not that I want what you have. Jealousy is not what I feel. It�s the fact that when you appear in public dripping with purchases, you carry this cloud about you like you�ve actually accomplished something. You�re like a dog with a new haircut, clicking its nails and prancing for ooohing company across the linoleum kitchen floor. A hopeful child star practicing smiles in a shopwindow reflection. You figure that through purchase of consumer goods, you can breeze through social signifiers to give us specific signs that inform us where you fit in this bizarre social hierarchy we find ourselves organized into. You think you�ve purchased the specific image of reality you inhabit. Perhaps advanced marketing techniques have convinced you that this pattern of consumer choice has elevated you to the point where you can, on your spanking new bike, huff and puff your fancy ride into an impoverished wolfman stuggling greasehaired and barefoot on the hot asphalt to wrench a queen-sized mattress from the back of a double-parked rental truck and address him as your social inferior. Bright yellow truck, flashing red hazards, beating black sun, and you�purplefaced and arrogant, inflated with irrelevant complaint.
Did you really put on eyeliner and blush before you put on that helmet? Do you think, in the scheme of things, a dash of designer perfume will help the degraded state of your palsied moral development?
Perhaps you believe society has become so tame that you can rudely approach a sweatdrenched guy who�s been moving furniture all day long, a man stinking openly of bloated corpses�you think you can roll on up on your million-dollar bike, squeeze your brakes to a stop, plop two biking booties on either side of the asphalt, and, catching your breath through the wheezing snot in your acid-battered throat, pollute the atmosphere with barking admonishments like �You�re blocking the bike lane!�
I�m blocking the ******** bike lane.
You actually had to stop? You actually had to harass me? You actually had to stop there, five feet from my struggle as your civic duty to all fatass Sunday bike peddlers and inform me that I was, shirt soaked, arms splayed, mattress arched and bouncing over my head, blocking your precious bike lane? Are those duraflame logs attached to your shellfish shoulders incapable of� rotating handlebars fifteen degrees counterclockwise? Can you not check your advanced traffic monitoring system for overtaking cars? Call OnStar crying for emergency assistance? What did your GPS system say? Was there time to check the Oxygen blog for quick celebrity galpal advice?
No. You chose to stop. And yell at me. Are you friggin� nuts?
For ******** sake, we were across the street from the Zoo! Who can be such a b***h one thousand yards from a baby elephant named Theodore? How can such pettiness exist on a street where peacocks call to penguins in the warbling ascent of each waning moon?
Do you think you�re in Elizabethan England? Menservants on your carriage, ordering we urchins around the sewer troughs on urgent pain of death? A whistle to the constable and three years in the clink? Or would Madam pref�r Steps and the String for a brutish Ne�er- do-well such as Meeself?
Obviously, you have never attempted to move a mattress by yourself. Obviously, people like you hire people like me to do things such as this.
It�s not that mattresses are inherently heavy�we�re talking issues of grip, balance, general awkwardness. Even with two people, the damn thing keeps collapsing on you. Mattresses don�t want to be moved. It�s completely against their nature. But you wouldn�t know that. You pay people to move your mattress for you. So I will tell you this in all sincerity: mattresses suck to move.
And they hurt when they�re dropped on you, I�ll bet. Why such violence on my part? I mean, I was sober. Violence is completely out of character for sober Mark. Confronted, I poured and poured over events in my past which may have triggered such reaction, repressed memories brought into immediate id-bliss upon the gleeful screams of primal Dionysian bloodlust�I envisioned your head exploding underneath your helmet, splattering downwards in an umbrella pattern of blueberry gore, chinstrap catching the top of your esophagus and slowly sliming its way to your kneefield like a slug on a saltslide�but why? Why, at that instant, did I hate you more than I hate existence itself?
Wait! I know what it was! Of course! It was your ******** SPANDEX BIKE COSTUME. Holy s**t, what are you? An IV for a sperm whale?� A three-hundred gallon water balloon? And�holy s**t�is that Lance Armstrong�s signature silkscreened across your breast? Hey! Look at you! You�re just like Lance Armstrong! You were inspired by his story! You watched the Tour De France on the TeeVee! You dutifully read the Oprah-endorsed autobiography! Thus programmed, you dutifully attended a consumer outlet to assume the physical consumer embodiment of your new inspiration and, because you�re riding a tournament bike around the ZOO LOOP three times, you need a YELLOW ******** SPANDEX RACING SUIT to suck your sleek cottage cheese torso into proper aerodynamic biking shape because EXTREME AERODYNAMIC PRECISION IS MANDATORY FOR RIDING MY PERFORMANCE MACHINE THREE TIMES AROUND THE ZOO.
Now�I own a bike. Well, own is a strong word. I�m borrowing a bike. From a girl who got sick of tripping over it in her apartment. Girl bike? No sir. Mountain bike for a mountain girl. She�s taller than I am. And hot as hell. And I�m hopelessly in love with her. But back to my point: Since it got too sticky to ride the bus, I�ve been biking a good twenty miles a day, and guess what? You don�t need a day-glow Spandex diaper suit�fluorescent pink, safety orange, urine yellow, gangrene green or otherwise. Try a pair of cut-off work pants and a wifebeater. You�ll find that the bike works just fine. Pedals go around and around, wheels roll, brakes make you stop. Astonishing, huh?
And you don�t make anyone want to drop a mattress on you.
Yeah, it was the Spandex, and the Platinum n� Pyrex Prada helmet with digital cardio readout via LED heads-up display and rearview optical photofluorescent camera, and the screwed-on Evian water bottle, and the self-inflating tires, and the Coco Chanel brakes, and the Support our Troops sticker, ********! When you went to the bike shop, did you just put your gold card on the counter, spread your arms and announce, �squires, drape me in all accessories bikish in nature! Ravish me with unnecessary accoutrements, for my low self-esteem allows me the royal ability to maintain credit debts that would stagger the common yeoman! Let no piece of third-world plastic be too small or too expensive, for I will be traveling thrice around the zoo! And he who shalt get in my way shall feel the smite of my advanced consumer wrath! Behold, peasants, for this is my mad face! Grrrr!�
Yes, unnecessary Spandex. That�s why I dropped the mattress on you. That�s why you got knocked over. That�s why we all laughed at you. Because you deserved it. That�s why. To shut you up. To correct your obnoxious antisocial behavior in a way that would make an impression on you. And it seemed to. You pedaled off in a hurry and I believe you were an even deeper shade of red. Good. If I ever see you again, I�m going to throw a stick in your spokes, enjoy your hurled trajectory, and, as I relish the thud of torn Spandex on asphault, pull the racing wallet from your Lance Armstrong fanny pack and run ten rounds of Manny�s Ale for the lads down at Duck Island. And for once, cruel existence, Victory Will Be Mine!
07/30/05
London bombings? That sucks. You know what you guys should do to stop terrorism? You should take the fight to them. That�s how you beat a guy with a backpack: deploy artillery and attack helicopters on the other side of the world. It totally worked for us. London, you may have all the hot chicks, but you could still learn a thing or two from us Yanks.
And London, I hear you made some arrests of actual criminals who may actually be involved in the actual terrorist bombings. How cute! How na�ve! But wrong, wrong wrong, and wrong. How the hell are you going to scare the public into docile submission without a boogeyman driving from cave to cave while he updates his terrorist blog? Nope. Hey�you know what you should totally do? You should arrest thousands of people at random and keep them in isolated confinement to make it look like you�re making progress in your War on Abstract Concepts, and give the Security Moms and Promise Creeper dads something to occupy their sugar-knawed walnut-veneered minds. You should come over for a visit and see how well this works! America is awesome lately! Everyone come see! We love foreigners! We rape them with glowsticks and dump their holy books into the toilet! That�s how we outsmart guys with backpacks! So it�s back to the drawing board for you, London.
And poor Karl Rove. I�m sure he and his wife are really struggling through this whole treason thing together. I mean for someone who is so adamantly in favor of imposing Christian family values on a nation, his own family must be such a strong source of support and�wait�he�s not married? He�s never been married? We�ve got middle-aged unmarried virgin writing foreign and domestic policy for our nation? He better be careful, people might start some rumors. From what I hear, there are a bunch of hot, gay ex-prostitutes who have been mysteriously given unusual levels of access to the White House. Someone might get the impression that he�s not really a middle-aged virgin, but actually a hot-to-trot c**k fox docking flocks of rock-hard jocks to knock his rocks.
Nah�we�ve just got a big, bald, pink perfectly heterosexual virgin running our country. Gay? No patriotic way. The gay issue has been disgustingly exploited to inspire the Caveman Vote and keep Team Smegma in power. No one could be that big of a hypocrite, could they?
06/8/05
Public Douchers! d***o Washers! La La La La La!
Well, that sorta sucked. Five literature classes at once is probably my limit. But summer quarter, only three more classes, and I�ll have my degree�and then I�ll finally be qualified to contextualize dominant narratives of power as defining dimensions of ideological state apparatuses for a living. How much you think that gig pays?
So what have I learned after a year of school?
I�ve come to learn that my greatest fear in life is having diarrhea on the bus and my second greatest fear is sitting next to a person who has just had diarrhea on the bus.
God. The smell of the other bus people has really been getting me down. I don�t know why the guys with face scabies always sit next to me. Urine Jones. Booze Sweat Wilson. Poopy Poop and the 400 Diapers. They always find me. And my nose. On Monday, I threw my coffee up in my mouth. It�s that crank-addict smell. Like burnt electrical wires rewrapped in green meat. SHOULDN�T SOMEONE WHO SMELLS THAT BAD BE DEAD?
Obviously, I�m overworked. And now I�ve got a week off. And though I�ve moved to an even sketchier neighborhood, and even though I sleep on a torn futon on a cement basement floor I now have a garage AND a backyard which will provide me the space needed to develop Blind Wino Industries latest capitalist innovation, The Tai Chi Missile. Yes, kiddies, this is the one I�m going to retire on. Haliburton and the Carlysle Group have already expressed interest, and the National Park Service will listen to me as soon as I get my Republican campaign contributions in order. So, what is this new weapon of minor destruction that has the death machine all a gaga?
The Tai Chi Missile Defense System is a mobile unit capable of deployment to any public place where advanced PooDollar LimpWiener Radar instantly homes in on the nearest non-Asian practitioner of Tai Chi, arms itself, and deploys a personal rocket capable of exploding a single person�a kill zone three-feet wide. I�m still tweaking it because as it is, it only recognizes fat guys with beards, but that�s like 90% of public Tai Chi practitioners, so I�m confident we�ll have plenty of interest in this little baby. No longer will beach picnics be ruined by the sagging crane position, nor will a conspicuously obvious reorganization of the body�s energy meridians ruin a spirited game of kickball in the park. Negative effects? Kid, these missiles ******** run on positive energy!
As it says in the New Testament, �Tai-Chi-B-Gone!�
I do have a week off, and my band�s doing a little West Coast tour. Next week: Portland (2 shows), Oakland, Reno, SF, and Arcada. I�m not allowed to drive the van, so stop on by and buy me Jager shots. And bring earplugs and ponchos. Apparently, we�re loud and spit beer.
03/21/05
Pant…pant…pant….ugh. You ain't heard s**t from me in months because I'm busy trying to do seven quarters of English in four, because I figured I'm so ******** smart I could pull it off, but actually, I've got a big steamy turd for a brain because anything that would put me through reading 46 books cover to cover since New Years deserves to be flushed into the Seattle Municipal Sewer System, captured by conservative operatives, and re-worked into current domestic policy.
My brain used to say stuff like:
"s**t, it's 2 already? Get two cases of beer, we'll drink it under the overpass until Teddy's opens at 6."
and
"Any idiot who joins the army after a war starts is begging to lose a head. Especially this war. The fact he had two kids means that on top of being a sucker, he's a shitty father too."
It was a good spot to be in. Real enjoyable, one might say. But now my brain says stuff like:
"Chaucer's Pardoner can be seen as a site of gender destabilization; a threat of the excluded Other that applies pressure to the narrow normative reality of sexuality and socially ascribed roles of gender identity."
and
"In analyzing Murrow's critique of the current state of poststructuralist semiotics and the ascription of its sign form to the study of post-Marxist models of consumption and production, it is quite obvious he doesn't know his Stanley Fish from his Albert Fish."
Hip hip horay! Invite me to your next party and I'll dazzle your guests with tales of recovered feminist texts and Emersonian metaphysics!
The truly sad thing is, I'm having more fun with my current brain. I spend all day making up funny sentences with as big of words as possible, and then defend them with unnecessarily complex sentences, and by the end of the day I've created such an ambiguous mess of words, it all makes perfect sense and I've made some excellent points--none of which I'd originally intended to make. I'm sufficiently confusing! Give me my degree!
And now that I'm thick in the soup of schoolboy, propeller-hatted academia, I'm an expert in entirely new things. Like how much ******** bullshit I'm gonna have to eat to become an English professor, a condition enraged even more by the latest wave of attacks on college-learnin' and college-teachin' at the hands of columnist hacks who obviously bought their GEDs from shirtless guys in a doo rags. The closest these boners have gotten to an institute of higher learning is losing $1000 on the first round of their March Madness bracket (shortly thereafter penning an article vociferously decrying the social sin of gambling). Liberal my a**. Let's frame it like this:
Question from a Total Idiot: Academia is a hotbed for liberals and liberal indoctrination. Why aren't there more conservative professors in the humanities?
A: I've got a deal for you. Spend the next eight to ten years living in semi-poverty, isolated from normal human contact, spending up to eighty hours a week reading and writing on highly complex issues of borderline consequence to 99% of the human race. Pay? The gig pays nothing. And not only do you not get paid…you go tens of thousands of dollars into debt. And then, at the end of this ordeal, there's a less than 20% chance you'll end up with full-time employment in your field. Sound good?
The line starts here, bitches.
Oh wait, you mean you just want to party for four years, get a business degree, and go on to pull down $80,000 a year? Okay, Mr. Conservative. Say hi to David Horowitz for me at the next Consirvatives for Illitericy fundraiser.
What I can say across the board of all of my teachers is that they are united in this thought: any well-argued point can be a valid possibility, and, in the absence of convincing evidential proof (an issue in itself), multiple and differing interpretations can be simultaneously correct. Like, "I'll grant you the possibility that your concept of God is valid, but, to remain intellectually honest, you might want to grant yourself the possibility that the Hindus may be correct on this one."
******** it. Brain…off. Play station…on. I got two weeks until it all starts over again. Spring Break in my basement. See you under the overpass.
02/02/05
Busy. So stupidly busy.
But, on the good fun front, my band (Snitches Get Stitches) had a CD come out on Empty Records yesterday. If anyone's curious, it might be in your local record store. If not, you can check it out at the label. It's also available on Amazon. I know a bunch of you write for magazines and have radio shows and whatnot. Bug the label for free stuff. They love giving away free s**t.
Also, in my absence, the emails have been piling up from people from around the world who keep asking me the same question: What the hell is wrong with your country?
I think I've finally figured it out.
So, basically every privilege we Americans enjoy since becoming economic actors of an industrialized nation has been given to us by Government--over the protestations of business--to make sure that the laboring classes didn't revolt and overthrow the whole Federal system. The right to unionize, unemployment insurance, food stamps, welfare, labor laws, healthcare, right to sue, Social Security, etc. These were usually implemented during times of great turbulence--worker revolts of the late nineteenth century, the Great Depression, LBJ's Great Society during the 1960s--and were deemed as necessary steps to spread some of the wealth around and keep just enough of the population happy enough not to pick up guns and start offing guys in suits, as was oft to happen in other industrialized nations of the world during such times.
Well…that was then, this is now. We, as Americans, have been effectively pacified. Through a complex system of economic control based in ideology, entertainment, and religion, we have been effectively neutered as a force to be reckoned with. You've seen us on vacation, right? There is no longer any fear of serious opposition to anything done in the name of the Flag and, as such, all of our privileges are being systematically removed. Hence cuts in healthcare, pensions, overtime, student loans, education, unemployment insurance, benefits, Medicare, legal retribution, the proposed dismantling of Social Security, etc. And because there is no credible opposition, the forces of business, which have always been running the show, now get to dictate our foreign policy strategies and, after a few effective tugs at the propaganda machine, that's how we end up invading places like Iraq. And the same companies show us news reports of smiling women voting for the first time in their lives and we feel good about invading countries like Iraq. And then we wonder how the hell we're going to pay off our insane credit card bill with our shitty job that we hate.
Just a thought.
Then again, we might actually be God's chosen people, just like our President keeps saying. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants…
Oh, and a New Year's resolution: I'm done with current events. Poop is poop spelled backwards. We're doomed. There is no God. Everyone's wrong. And that makes the whole world funnier.
12/17/04
Hey all! Because I've found a way to combine finals, going home for Christmas, a big freelance gig, and moving into my friend's basement in the same two weeks, I'm gonna disappear for a bit. In lieu of anything of prurient interest in my life, I'd like to make my predictions for 2005:
* Abstinence-only education to replace biology, chemistry, and physics in all public schools.
* Bush administration takes Social Security to Las Vegas, puts it all on black. Morality Czar William Bennett drunkenly calls American people at three in the morning and apologizes for losing the country. Is then awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
* As this is a Christian nation built on the rule of God, Ten Commandments posted in every bathroom stall nationwide, along with a sweaty picture of Jerry Falwell and a 1-800 number advertising "hot Christian love."
* Media finally gives up illusion of objectivity and saves money by constructing anchor-robots to read press releases from White House.
* Due to declining dollar and skyrocketing national debt, Lincoln Memorial put up for sale and is purchased by an old Hungarian widow for fifty Forints. It becomes a pretty good goulash stand.
* McDonalds goes all the way and launches "I'm a fat, selfish d**k and I'll shoot you in the face if you touch my hamburger" ad campaign. Sales, obesity, and gunshot wounds enjoy gains throughout each fiscal quarter.
* Outraged citizens push FCC to ban Monday Night Football from using the terms, "endzone," "tight end," and "ball." And because it promotes the homosexual agenda, quarterback no longer able to put hands between legs of center. Football now passed face to face with a manly handshake.
* Combined forces of US and Iraqi armies finally defeat the Iraqi insurgency. A new, democratic Iraq emerges and becomes a beacon of freedom in Middle East, ushering in a Golden Era of Democracy that spreads to all nations in the region. Tooth Fairy elected president of Iran, Easter Bunny to head Syrian parliament.
* Bush forgets to turn off microphone and is caught referring to Kim Jong Il as that "fat little gook," resulting in North Korea nuking Boston, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. Republican attack machine blames Kerry's war record and gay marriage, but is obviously pleased to be rid of Democratic strongholds. Kim Jong Il awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom. Random Asian assigned to head Department of National Intelligence.
* Running on the issue of "values," Adolph Hitler's corpse elected Governor of Oklahoma.
* Ford launches the Remasculator SUV truck series, based on the 100,000,000-ton supertractor that pulls the space shuttle to its launching pad. Takes up entire parking lots and gets one mile to the gallon. #1 seller among suburban women because it "feels safe." Recalled in 2006 for exploding back seats, breakaway steering wheels, and chlorine gas leaks.
* Bill O'Reilly shows c**k and balls to national audience. Is subsequently awarded a Peabody and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
That's all for now. Ride your pony right, huff a six-pack of dongs, and see you under the Christmas tree!
12/07/04
Oh, Alberta! Wot a ******** blast! OK, your food sucks huge a** unless a friend buys you a $30 steak (and I have been known to eat stuff from garbage cans) but, that aside, we had quite the time in your li'l province. First across the Rockies in a blizzard where we were forced off at Revelstoke (technically BC), and, after nearly coming to blows with a bunch of drunk sledders because we looked a little funny and were quite vocal about the fact that we didn't like getting stared at by middle-management, beer-commercial losers with mustaches and burgerbellies who probably had Edmonton wives and golf handicaps…we got to be bestfriendsforever and even met up with the bastards the next morning to take some rides! (I gotta say, I'm one shitty snowmobile driver.) And I got to tongue kiss the drunkest, ugliest woman in all of Canada. All aboard the misery train! Woo hoo!
Look, any guy can kiss a pretty woman. I do it all the time. But to kiss a really, really, really awful person, ugly inside and out…that takes some ******** guts.
I am hoping my Girl will forgive me, but it was too good to pass up. She was in her late 60s and wearing gloves to her elbows, a tubetop, and Reeboks! And drinking Michelob Ultra. And smoking menthols. I know. I shoulda gotten her number. But I have a feeling she'll be there the next time we hit the Canadian Rockies. Same barstool, same toothless grin leaking blackness from death's gaping maw…
I french kissed an nasty, old, mean, wasted woman. Hell, yeah. What the ******** did you do today, punk?
Sure, the trip started out on shaky territory. I had the phone numbers of a bunch of y'all Canucks nice enough to email me--as well as a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a swimsuit, a pail of ephedrine, and some good metal for the trip--but passing out underneath the Thanksgiving table the night before, after telling everybody at dinner exactly what I thought of them…as punishment my hungover carcass was rolled into the car the next morning with only the clothes on my back. Which doesn't sound so bad, except I'd already been wearing them for a week. Somewhere around Salmon Arm, the lads took a vote and I was forced to buy Canadian jeans, which, in the spirit of true hilarity, were immediately pulled off me underneath a stall door while I was trying to take a rest-area s**t…and then thrown into a lake. Or, it might have been a river. And me, running around in sub zero weather in paratrooper boots and a pair of filthy boxers, swearing like Baptist, trying to fish them out of the slush with a stick. Now that's a picture. Thank Allah for digital cameras. Wanna see a picture? No dice. I can only hope that the beavers are currently making good use of them. (The jeans, not the digital pictures.)
Lads can be so cruel at times. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't deserve it.
So much for tourism. Here's our conversation at the border:
Border Guard: Where are you guys going?
Us: Canada.
Border Guard: Good one. Never heard that one before. Where?
Us: Calgary.
BG: Why the hell are you going to Calgary?
Us: Never been there.
BG: Let me save you the trip. It's flat. It's cold. It's boring. The women are ugly. And the only thing to do there is drink.
Us: It sounds like the rest of Canada.
BG: That's about right. Have fun. And for Christ's sake, spend some money.
He didn't even ask for ID. Good thing, too. I'm not supposed to be in Canada.
But to Revelstoke. And Calgary, which felt like a mixture of Boise and Denver, except that the average person had 50+ IQ points and was twice as nice. Because we were starving, freezing, and sick of walking, we ate and drank at some yuppie meatmarket hellhole on 17th street called Melrose. I see you folx up there got one of those generic people factories, too. They just keep stampin' out guys with crew cuts, gold necklaces, Drakkkar, and leather jackets from the GAP. And the lost women who will sullenly marry them. Bad choice for food, for sure. Shitty pigeon wings, ketchup flavored nachos...
And then to the Ship and Keel. Or Boat and Pirate. Or something along those lines. Great bar, better crowd, but sheeeet. You Calgary girls are AGGRESSIVE. Now, it's true I ain't had no female companionship for over a month now (Dear Diary, it's the longest stretch since 6th grade), but if you "ladies" think you can just walk up to a guy, breathe on his neck, and get in his pants…well, that's just not the way I was raised. You gotta be 6'2" to ride this ride. Where else? Night Gallery? Was that what it was called? Fun. Bob the Fish? Sorta stupid place, but the bartender ******** rocked. Hooked our s**t up big time when he found out we were all ex-bartenders. And, according to him, I'm only the second person to beat him at his drinking contest. I did three shots of Jager, one at a time, before he could chug a Guinness. He was pretty close, but he didn't know what he was up against. Although, in hindsight, it may have been an elaborate plot to get me drunk enough so that the lads could do something really mean to me…but it takes more than that to knock ol' Driver off his feet. We drank late there and then ended up shifting the party to some riverbank where we shivered down a case of Moosehead with icicles on our noses, spitting beer and throwing bottles at the endless stream of hard-sell pot dealers, managing to stay out until we hit the road again the next morning…but it was one of those deals where we passed the wheel off every fifteen minutes and no one got any sleep until we parked in a gas station and frozed and dozed.
So…
Edmonton wasn't quite as off the hook. We got a hotel room and napped, which apparently, is the most fun thing to do in Edmonton. Come on! Two years ago we partied in Kamloops and then tore Prince George a new one. You'd think we'd be able to raise a stink in Alberta's capital! You do, after all, have the second largest mall in the universe. You party, right? Oilers abound? Alas, no. At least not on a Sunday. The city was dead; we were dead. I blame it mostly on alcohol poisoning, hypothermia, and the ******** up thing I ate at some frozen roadside chumbucket. It was a cold pizza crust covered with roast beef covered with iceberg lettuce, tomato, and shredded cheese, covered with some sort of mayo/corn syrup dressing. Has anyone ever heard of this? Christ. Poop was shooting down my trouser leg fifteen seconds after I finished it and I had to wave away the angels who had come down for my soul. At least, they looked like angels…
So we ******** around in the boonies some more to no practical avail and then spent a couple miserable days snow camping and fishing without licenses (well...we had one)--and then we trucked it home. Got back last night, just in time to see the Seahawks blow a 10 point lead with 1:40 left to play on Monday Night Football. I swear to ******** Jesus, this is the hardest team on earth to cheer for. At least with total losers…you know they're gonna lose. Like my old team, the Browns. At least I know they're gonna lose. But the Seahawks always put up just enough fight to lift your hope, and then let it drop onto the black, jagged rocks of defeat. Always a 9-7 season where they lose the wildcard game. And they get paid millions of dollars to do it. But ******** it. Where am I going? Patriots? Any loser can cheer for a winner. America loves a winner. Me? I get mail. I know my ******** address. And I love Canada.
Go Seahawks!
Who would Jesus molest? Dude, you're supposed to wait for your 40 virgins in heaven. Duh.
11/25/04
"It's a Thanksgiving miracle!" is today's catchphrase. Use it as much as you can. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Thanksgiving is my favorite drinking holiday--right before Easter, of course--and today me, the lads, and all the stragglers whose families are far away or evil will sit to a lush table of deep-fried turkey, tequila, egg rolls, French fries, green bean casserole, and Swedish meatballs, just like our founding Pilgrims did all those years ago, right after they ate the Indians' shared harvest, and right before they started burning down their villages in thanks. I've called my editor--this year's host--and he's confirmed a nuclear arsenal of generic liquor and five boxes of white wine and, as per our agreement, I've secured the Thanksgiving fireworks! For those of you in the neighborhood, there will be quite a show on Capitol Hill tonight. It's a Thanksgiving miracle!
And as for my impending roadtrip, many of you from Calgary wrote with the putrid details of that city. It's a Thanksgiving miracle! We leave late tonight and apparently, I will need to pack my snow spurs and my polar Stetson, as Alberta is arctic cowboy country, a real down-home spread of corporate juke joints and strip malls--all this says to me is "World Class Poutine." And Tim Horton's. And White Spot. And they say Canada's done nothing great for the world. Three words: All Dressed Chips. It's a Thanksgiving miracle!
And, as a reminder, Kwanzaa is right around the corner, and I've got 80 first-edition books left. Signed. Kissed. Spooned. Fondled. Whatever…I need to buy presents this year too. So, consider the gift of spite this holiday season. Let's have a real Thanksgiving miracle!
Go Flames!
11/19/04
"Who dat b***h dat sing like me? Oh yeah. Judy Garland." --Old Dirty b*****d.
Big Baby Jesus 1969-2004
Now You Rappin' 4 God
I don't give two poops for hip-hop, rock, punk, metal, country, new age, or adult kkkristian contemporary. 70% of the s**t is soap, toothpaste, boner medicine, pizza, military enlistment after a war starts, political parties…simple units to sell to gullible idiots. Duh.
The next 29.98% of the s**t is a bunch of sisterpumpers prayin' to their fake shiny Jesus to get noticed enough to make themselves into soap. If you get a chance to housesit, like I recently did, turn on MTV2. It's REO Speedwagon with moussed hair and spike bracelets. Loud beginning…breakdown verse…oh oh…here comes the big chorus…now breakdown verse…now GRRRR! IT'S THE BIG CHORUS! LOOK AT ALL MY HIGH SCHOOL EMOTIONS!…ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Frankie Valli and the Punkrocking Punx! Did you see all our tattoos? The sweatbands? The haircuts? Our Taco Bell tie-ins with Tomb Raider 3: Tomb Raiders in Paradise?
And…
Oh wow, these rap kids are around a pool! And they've got a catch phrase! ******** YEAH! APPARENTLY, THEY'RE HAVING SEX! WITH WOMEN! HUMAN WOMEN! AND ALSO THEY EARN ENOUGH CASH MONEY TO PURCHASE RETARD JEWELRY! THANK YOU ART! EXISTENCE MAKES TOTAL SENSE TO ME NOW! ******** JUSTICE…GIMMEE A LEXUS! ******** COLLEGE…GOTTA KEEP ME IN SKINS 'N' LEATHER! NO ONE CAN ******** YOU BETTER…
Than the record industry. Mmm. Eatin' images soft and smooth like ice cream 'n' factory fudge. Feeling cool? Okay, work the hair product in. Put on your puffy jacket. Check your face in the mirror. You're late for your shitty job.
And…
.02% of music sneaks through and makes the world immeasurably better, makes us sad sacks way happy, forces a space in bleak reality we can inhabit beautifully--even in passing blasts--and it doesn't matter what genre it's in. And it's never consistent, because genius hits on albums and disappears. What albums? Who cares. It's different with anyone who really loves music. I gots mine. You gots yours.
The point:
ODB put out one of my favorite records of all time. *****, Please. Sure, there's a bit o' crap on the record, but it's 4/5ths staggering genius. This is the sound of a brilliant and damaged human being falling apart. Listen to the way it's pasted together. Last gasps. Raw desperation. Pain. Inspiration. Bad acting. Fading pride. So sad. So good. Real as ********. The true hip-hoppers discarded it, rekkid critics decried the fall of Our Lady b*****d, I proclaimed it great from the first time I listened to it, but nobody would ever listen to me…even though my review got published in numerous rags (I know, I got the $190 in royalties to prove it). It's the best 12"s of vinyl since Geto Boys turned pubescent murder fantasies into dancefloor classics--hands down.
And now he's dead, so leave some clean needles on the corner and burn a disc from a friend.
"Jesus, I'm rollin' wit' you… Jesus, I'm rollin' wit' you…now gimme all my ********' money."--d**k Cheney, as paraphrased by ODB.
+ + + +
Hey! In our 3rd annual Thanksgiving Trip to Canada, (assuming I can still get in with my arrest on the '03 visit) me and the lads will be tripping up to Calgary in attempts to get into a spirited argument about soft timber imports. We've never been, so if there's anyone with a ******** clue of what to do in Stampede Country while we're there, drop me a line. Anyone who wants to snort poutine and drop a few twoonies on the bar with us is welcome as well, although I must disclose the fact that we might all be suffering from the flu. The "We're Coming to Calgary to Break the Hearts of the Six Cute Girls That Live There" flu. Yeah! And there's only three of us! Take that, more socially advanced nation to our north that we actually like a lot!
Seriously. We're T-Bird fans, but are the Hitmen in town? Do they need a PK line? We're big. We want to help. We're from a Blue State. We'll bring our pads, but we might need to borrow some skates.
11/15/04
Okay, false alarm. I'm fine. Turns out I wasn't getting enough sleep. Turns out you need more than three hours a night. Though my productivity has been severely limited, I am no longer being stalked by dead teenagers. The organs in my fridge were fried and ground into a semi-edible dip and brought to a party of Tier 4 Friends (Level: Casual Acquaintance/Wouldn't Pick Me Up From The Airport/Don't Know Any of Their Stupid, Boring Friends) where I claimed ingredient immunity as Grandma's Secret Recipe.
"Is it vegetarian?"
"Um…there's a tiny bit of chicken broth in it."
Oh, and also the entire digestive tract of a ******** dead cow.
You know how parties go. By the end of the night, everything's eaten.
"Hey Mark, do you want your Tupperware?"
"You can go ahead and keep it. I'll get it next time."
Like I wanted to clean that s**t.
Oh, adult parties. Take the bus there and then wait until someone gets drunk enough to drive you back across town. There's always good liquor and food, and the beer usually lasts past midnight. It's not free though. You have to pretend to listen to people talk about things you don't care about, and occasionally say things back to give the appearance of conversation. If I ever say, "that's ********, dude" to you, chances are you've been tuned out and I'm thinking about what kind of lunches I'm packing for the week. Also, if I ask what cologne you're wearing…there's no doubt. I'm making fun of you.
But I did bring a new game to the work-a-lots. Between balding guys in shiny black jackets comparing Blackberries in the kitchen (oh, I could have gotten the death ray option, I just didn't want to carry around an extra adapter) and the painful painful sound of an investment banker loudly proclaiming that Modest Mouse has sold out(once you make over six figures a year, you should really slow down on the whole calling someone a sellout thing), while slipping into a coma on the couch, I introduced the living room to my favorite new pastime, "How Slow Can You Get Your Heart to Beat?"
You need deep breaths, a stopwatch, and someone to check your pulse. If you're smart enough to invent the game, you make sure you're sitting next to a nice-smelling girlie-girl when you show everyone how to play. I won. Twenty-four beats in a minute. That's what the drunk checking my pulse claimed anyway. It was about half as slow the nearest competitor, although I was probably the only person in the entire city not doing coke on Saturday night. Nevertheless, I managed to pass twenty minutes of party time.
"Is there a trick to it?" someone asked.
"I was in Nepal," I explained. "The monks taught us boredom coping techniques."
I wish.
11/12/04
Two weeks without my girl and everything was fine--lonely but fine--and now I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure that everything is fine.
It happened yesterday. I read too much Walt Whitman and developed an insane craving for organ meats. Pancreas. Aorta. Bladders. Lungs.
I went to the store. They don't sell bladders and lungs at QFC and the Pimplebot behind the glass will blink at you if you ask. So I bought some kidneys and some liver and ten marrowbones and two kinds of tripe--all this s**t should have been cheaper--and now the spell of the open road has worn off and all these organs are sitting in the syrupy bottom drawer of my fridge and now I'm afraid of them.
Except for the marrowbones. I've eaten like ten. Marrowbones are the new pork rinds. Marrowbones are beef butter. I crafted a marrow spoon out of a broken penknife. I packed a marrowbone in my school lunch and forgot my spoon. Bone on bone. I think I broke a tooth and people pointed and stared but it was absolutely worth it.
And then today I read more Walt Whitman. "The Sleepers." He travels into sleeping people's brains. And then he goes into dead people's brains. And I started thinking of those organs in the darkness of the refrigerator. It seems like the inside of a refrigerator is an awful place to be when the door is shut. Wrapped in plastic. Dead black. Cold. Moldy ochre stains and that recirculated-air stink. And then I started thinking about dead people dreaming and then I started thinking about dead people dreaming about me. I have lots of dead friends. One dead girlfriend. I dream about them all the time, like a time machine, and maybe I'm not dreaming about them; maybe they're dreaming about me. Maybe they don't know they're dead. They all died pretty awfully. Suffocation. Car wrecks. A stabbing. A shooting. How many suicides…eight? Ten? And starvation. That one will creep me until I join them. Starvation. The girl starved herself to death. No small feat. She shows up a lot at night. I still remember how she looked in the last days. Swollen elbows, sunken eyes. She looked dead even before she died. She looked better after she died. At least they shut her mouth, at least she didn't keep trying to get up from the bed and couldn't because her body had cannibalized its muscles, at least she stopped making those rattled honking noises, at least she stopped giving us those terrified empty eyes. She knew she was dying. It took forever. Yeah. Jodi has to know she's dead.
So why won't she leave me alone?
It's probably nothing to worry about. I bet I just need a hug.
11/08/04
So Nixon got reelected. Big deal! How bad can things get? We're training the South Vietnamese army to take care of their own security, allowing us an eventual pull out of American troops and a new era of Communist-free democracy in SE Asia. And I think the rumors of bombings in Cambodia and Laos are just that…rumors spread by the anti-American liberals. We should trust the guys in charge. Liddy. Kissenger. Nixon. Poindexter. Good Americans, just like me. I like the cut of their sails.
People have faith in our President, and now, after thinking about it, so do I. It's a matter of values. So imagine how pissed I get when I read stuff like this:
"By thoughtless devotion to money, our citizens are willing to destroy our great nation. Our leaders' minds are unjust. They cannot contain their greed. Their wealth depends on crime. They seize and steal at random without regard for the public good or the sacred foundations of justice. Their deadly infection spreads throughout our city, rushing it into slavery, which wakens internal strife and war that kills so many beautiful youths."
Hippy bullshit.
Hold on…let me see where that quote is from…some homo named Solon…594 BC…in response to the crumbling of something called "Athenian democracy"…Athenian democracy? Like Greece? s**t, they can barely get my omelet order right at the corner diner…and they tried to have a democracy? Hah! Nice try bozos! Now fix me a gyro!
+ + +
Speaking of homos, apparently some states in this nation don't want all you fags and dykes renting their apartments, shopping in their stores, frequenting their restaurants, or buying their houses. Your higher than average household income is not wanted in these cities and states, so why waste tax money somewhere where your neighbors want to see you beheaded and impaled for sin? Move to the states that want you! Revenues here in Washington State are way down. We could use an influx of cash…um, I mean we're all very tolerant here. You're even allowed to hold hands in public without drowning in frowns! Like the Pilgrims, set your ships for new lands and immigrate away from the oppression that will not let you openly practice your beliefs. There are still parts of America that are free! And the bistros here are fabulous!
11/03/04
America isn't a country. It's a nursery school. We're fat. We're terrified. We're easily confused. And easily convinced.
The only cities to actually get hit by terrorists voted against Drooling. Every real American city voted against Drooling.
But, look at the Idiot Curtain, red as a splattered Marine. Not a chance in hell the boogieman will hit Branson, and still they cower. Pussies. Burn the entire ******** Midwest down. Let it spread to the Plains. The South. Show them a picture of god. Send them off to war. Show them a picture of god. Kill their jobs. Show them a picture of god. Close their hospitals. Show them a picture of god. Poison their wells. Show them a picture of god. ******** their children. Show them a picture of god.
Show them a picture of god. Show them a picture of god.
America deserves whatever it gets.
10/28/04
The next time we meet, a new president will have been elected; we will have chosen which millionaire we prefer ******** up our otherwise perfect lives. Obviously, I lean towards the lies of Kerry over the lies of Bush, and would suggest to my superior, cynical readers that you all actually show up and vote for Horsehead, and if not for him, then against the smug and cheap fascism of the Chimp in Charge.
Of course, there is the nihilist in me that wants four more years of the Bush junta--pure intellectual curiosity to see how bad things can actually get, both for the people of this country and the brown, other-religioned people around the world we can't keep ourselves from messin' with. Body counts. Tanks in the streets. Another big terrorist attack. Martial law. Re-education camps. Sean Hannity telling us all that it's patriotic to inform our block supervisor of any prospective enemies of the State. ******** it. I don't have any kids to worry about. Let the blood run red in the streets! Four more years! Four more years!
I don't know why Kerry would even want to inherit our upcoming Iraqi defeat; if our country survives four more years of Bush, the Republican Party will be completely ******** for the next twenty years. Unless Kerry tears open his suit to reveal an "S" on his chest, we're probably looking at four and out for Democrats.
But, if he is elected, we're going to see a great shift in the media. Instead of criticisms of a "War President" coming across as anti-American, we will see an attack machine scrutinizing every breath and heart palpitation. Unlike Smirky who can attack a country for no good reason at all, kill 1200 Americans, and lie about it without any serious consequences, Kerry will be impeached for taking an extra apple in the White House cafeteria. We will be subjugated to the messy details of a night in the Holiday Inn Milwaukee where Kerry got peanut butter on a pillowcase and refused to pay the laundering charges--a case taken up by a special prosecutor who will conduct a $10 billion investigation into Kerry's seedy past while Congress cuts school lunch and Head Start programs to pay for it. Prepare yourself for Muffingate, Haircutgate, Gravygate, Ketchupgate, and everything else that the slime that want to rule this country can throw in his way to impede him.
At any rate, I'm sick of politics. So, that's it. No more talk about it. If another person with a clipboard approaches me, I'm gonna trip her and stab her in the neck with her little greasy pen.
Barring massive terrorist attack (I'm dressing up like a zombie, I hope that won't dissuade any first responders from treating me), I'll be Halloweening in NYC this weekend, accompanying The Girl on her move to the Windy Apple, making sure she keeps her money in her shoe and doesn't get swindled by the Three-Card Monte dealers at the subway exits. Manhattan, don't mess with my baby. She's got metal teeth and she kicks like an ostrich. Ugh, long-distance relationships. It's gonna be some long, lonely months. Why couldn't she have waited until sweaty summer, when sleeping alone is much more preferable? It's dark and rainy here! Who's gonna sleep until noon with me?
Cue in on Driver, standing in the open door of a battered yellow New York City taxicab on Avenue A. He is with The Girl, holding her as traffic honks behind them. He pulls back from a long, emotional hug and tucks a shock of brown hair behind her right ear. Tears are running down the face of The Girl. She can't look at him. He softly pinches her chin and brings her face up to his. He looks her in the eye.
DRIVER: Girl, I'm gonna miss the s**t out of you.
THE GIRL: Don't forget me, promise?
DRIVER: Girl, I'm gonna remember the s**t out of you.
They kiss. The taxi honks. Driver sits in the back seat and shuts the door behind him. Driver puts on his headphones. Slayer's "Angel of Death" is brought up to a deafening volume. A Gatorade bottle full of corner-store chardonnay is chugged. The taxi pulls into traffic…the camera pulls out…the city expands before us…we lose him in the traffic.
(Update: Turns out the E train is about $30 cheaper than a cab from the Lower East Side to JFK )
On the other hand, maybe I'll finally get some ******** work done…
10/15/04
What's up with all the safehouses in Fallujah? It seems like we're blowing up like, what, fifteen of them a day? Can you just bomb anything, hide all the bloody burkas, and then call it a safehouse? AND WHAT ARE OUR LEADERS DOING ABOUT ALL THE SPIDER HOLES?
Okay, I'll listen to European email horrified at the American electorate's stupid gullibility--no s**t, it's pretty horrifying, at least you don't share the highway with these bozos--but I'll be damned before I let anyone wave their crumpet and jam at American football. There are but three sports on earth and this is the order of their importance: American football (played in America. I don't know what's up with the ******** Barcelona Dragons), hockey, and…pulling up the rear…oh my god it's been eighty-nine minutes and nobody's scored yet…oh look…the Doritos are playing the Sonys…wait…the forward has totally flopped in the box…now he's holding his knee and writhing in pain…I think he might be dying…no wait he's taking the penalty shot…and there we have it…Sherpenshire 1, Gaggenborough nil…soccer. Period. But I'll tell you what, as soon as you monarchy-having, warm-beer drinking Continental bonerbreaths stop booing black footballers every time they get the ball, THEN AND ONLY THEN can you comment on any aspect of the two superior sports.
Speaking of booing and the best sport on earth, my editor was kind enough to buy me tickets to the Seahawks game last weekend, and (before it all went horribly, horribly wrong) during the obligatory pre-game nationalistic bullshit (Join the Seahawks and local Boy Scout Troop 187 as we salute the Neutron Bomb!), with a hundred-yard flag fluttering a foot above the field, the name of our fearless president was invoked…and BOOOED. By a stadium of football fans, the most reactionary, blindly patriotic cannon-fodder to ever trudge the large snack aisle of a Wal-Mart. True, it's ******** Seattle, but I didn't see too many Subaru Outbacks in the parking lot.
Whose Democracy would Jesus ********? Anyone involved here should be shot for treason. I'm absolutely serious. Shot in the stomach, on national television. Thousands of people are dying on all sides of war as we're supposedly bringing democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, AND THIS IS THE EXAMPLE OUR LEADERS PROVIDE. This company is funded Republican National Committee and led by Nathan Sproul, a former Christian Coalition headlizard AND a former Republican leader. ******** everyone, win.
And speaking of combining lizards and national television, I'm sure you've all heard by now that right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting is forcing all of their affiliates to preempt local programming right before the election to run a 90-minute Republican infomercial. But did you know that president and CEO David D. Smith was busted earlier this year for not being able to convince anyone to put their mouth his d**k without paying them? Oh yeah...I got the family values right here...underneath my old sweaty balls.
Yes, sir. No, sir. ******** you, sir.
GO SEAHAWKS!
10/08/04
Okay, a week of college down. How ironical that Rodney Dangerfield dies the week Driver goes back to school. So, 'cos I thought I was a genius, I took on eighteen credit hours of literature classes. Hey, how do you feel about reading 250 pages a day? I love it! Oh yeah, how about four papers due a week? Five pages, double-spaced? ***** please, I can crap out an A+ paper on the busride to class, on the back of a bar tab, with a golf pencil, sitting in a pool of bum piss. Maybe.
Ahh, the bus. Back on the bus. If you don't ride the bus in your city very often, let me enlighten you to a certain economic reality. When a bus goes from one poor neighborhood to another poor neighborhood, they give riders the poop bus.
At the Metro station:
"Sir, I just can't get all this caked feces off the seat! The dried vomit has formed a second floor, and rats have set up a checkpoint in the back three rows and control the entire rear of the bus. It's really hairy back there, sir!"
"Don't worry about it. We'll run it between the Central District and the university. What are they gonna do? Complain to the mayor? HA! HA! HA! HA! (Demonical Laughter, Thunder, Lightning.)"
So, I'm back in school again; it's been ten years. This time, Pac 10 instead of Big 10. What have I learned so far? Well, when the prof puts "CLASS PARTICIPATION IS 25% OF YOUR GRADE" in big letters, up front on the syllabus, you should run as fast as you can to the registrar's office and withdraw immediately. Holy s**t. It's like sitting through the worst office meeting ever, where the two most useless people in the company raise points merely to be noticed. I give you the dutifully recorded minutes of Wednesday's class.
Professor: Before we begin, are there any questions?
Mouthbreather: "I think that Clytemnestra killed him because she was mad at him."
Professor: Okay, we'll get to that. Are there any questions over the material we've already covered?
Mouthbreather 2: "At the end of the play--"
Professor: We haven't even begun talking about the play.
Mouthbreather 2: "I think the eagle symbolizes freedom."
Mouthbreather 3: "In Indian mythology, the eagle symbolizes something like peace or something."
Mouthbreather 4: "The eagle is our national bird."
Mouthbreather 5: "I like birds. They're funny!"
Mouthbreather 6: "Maybe Clytemnestra represents a bird!"
Professor: If we could just get to the first line of this play.
Mouthbreather 7: "In the middle of the play, there's this one line…hold on…I can't find it…um…about…um…an eagle…"
Emerson…take me away.
The debates. People have asked me what I think of the debates. First of all, they ain't debates. They're silly media events staged to keep spontaneity at arm's length. Regardless, if you saw Bush speak and still trust him to operate anything more complicated than a snow-cone machine, he indeed should represent you as president. Cheney…well, like I said before, his big attack against Kerry was that Kerry voted against defense programs…programs that Cheney voted against, too. Feh. And then Kerry voted against Bush's ridiculous military spending bill, which offered absolutely no restrictions on how the money would be spent. Congress later approved a more reasonable bill--if there is anything reasonable about an $80 billion spending bill to wage war on a country for no good reason. Somehow, this is "voting against the troops." Feh. These guys are morally dead. Butchers. Liars. Profiteers. Bush tried to cut combat pay for soldiers after launching the war. If that doesn't tell you anything, I certainly can't.
I get a lot of inarticulate "you ******** liberals are all blah blah blah," but I'm not on the party payroll. I love my guns and hate my government as much as the next Southerner and I'm no fan of Democrats…but, I am a realist. Politically, I'm in the mood for a home-cooked meal, and though the Democrats look like a dirty water, street-cart hotdog, the Republicans look like a half-eaten bag of Fun Yuns with thirty dead caterpillars at the bottom.
Feh. 150 years ago, during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, two candidates packed an entire field of farmers and laborers in Illinois. They talked from eight in the morning until noon, and then took a lunch break. They debated all afternoon, until dinnertime, and then everyone took a break for supper. And then, after dinner, the entire crowd came back and listened to them debate for another three hours. If you take the time to read the transcripts, you can see a masterful crafting of arguments, civil disagreement, and a gentlemanly, scholarly appeal to the intellect and reason of the audience. Politicians took the voters seriously, voters actually listened--for hours--and then made their decision, based on well-reasoned arguments. It was serious business all around. Though small and localized, perhaps one of the finest moments of American Democracy. Makes me think that the decline of our candidates can be tied to the decline of the constituency. Television has killed our patience to understand; pop culture and propaganda have done the rest. If we let someone else make our decisions, we deserve whatever we get.
I just want some adults in charge again. That's all.
Oh, and these rumors about the draft? Sure, they've been downplayed (and satirized in Congress), but all you youngins' should know that draft boards countrywide are quietly being reactivated. Now, the guv-ment says this is a normal thing to do in wartime, but the last time they rocked this option was in a little-known conflict I like to call Vietnam. And, if that wasn't cheery enough, a provision of the No Child Left Behind act gives the military direct access to records of public high school students. "Hello, Timmy. You got an "A" in Mrs. Johnson's physics class. Smart kid! How would you like to learn how to disable roadside bombs? We'll throw in a free haircut. Hey mom, be sure to pack some body armor in his knapsack!"
But a draft. Isn't that good news? All you brownshirts who write me death threats because I think the war is worse than useless might get to go fight for real now. You can actually kill your imagined enemies! In fact, I've forwarded all the email addresses I've collected from you war-loving folx to the draft boards and told them how much you support the war. I've been assured you'll be put on the top of the list! Now, you will get the opportunity to leave your family, lose your job, and travel to a desert to defend corporate profiteering and a bullshit bureaucrat's theoretical social-engineering doctrine. And, if you actually make it back home, you'll have enough uranium in your nads to spawn an army of club-footed Mongoloid babies, and you'll probably be killed by a "rare" cancer before you're fifty! How's that for patriotism? USA! USA! USA!
Remote Control President?
9/23/04
Hey Seattle, looking good! Nine schools in the Seattle Metro area are testing positive for toxic levels of lead and cadmium, and, because taxes are evil, there's no money to fix the problem! And, despite the fact that the water coming out of the drinking fountains is the color of green Gatorade, school administrators have declared that that everything is fine. Damn the evidence! Nothing needs fixing. Let the teachers bring jugs of water for their students. They're already buying the pencils.
Oh, the effect of lead on developing brains? Reduced information retention and decreased intelligence. No big deal. It will save the kids the braindeath that occurs once they become working adults.
In reaction, local conservative groups, led by former Seahawks disgrace and interception machine Jeff Kemp, have begun a campaign, based in the wealthy suburbs, to alter our state's constitution and ban gay marriage. The amount of money that is going to be spent on bringing this VERY IMPORTANT issue to ballot is surprisingly similar to the amount of money needed to start ripping out all the school pipes and replacing them with ones that would stop poisoning public school children.
Physical poisoning of children with industrial, brain-destroying chemicals vs. possible moral discomfort. Actually helping human beings or using their existing modes of government to ram your narrow beliefs down their throats?
Throats, please!
Which is the modern face of American religion. Actually helping people in need is akin to communism (after all, none of this nasty poisoning would be happening if these kids were in private Christian school), but codifying one's first-century supernatural beliefs into social policy is a higher calling.
Hell of a belief system you got there. Shall I dust off the gallows? Alert Cardinal Fang that his skills on the rack will be needed to teach the heathens to accept Proper Christ-inspired love into their hearts? Have you heard the Good News, brothers? The King Bush version of the Bible will be shaped like a d***o and shoot cash from its tip!
When are you real Christians (you know, those of you who actually live by the teachings of peace activist and leper advocate Jesus Christ) gonna rise up against these Born Again Bozos and fix your religion? You've got an entire generation of khaki-pansed power mongers wearing your savior like a diaper and shitting on the bedrock of your belief every time they open their a**s-like mouths and evacuate their bowels into a microphone. They're in your White House, they're in your Legislatures, they're on your TV, they're in your bedroom, and they're ******** with your record collections. They have declared moral war on secular (i.e., interesting) culture, and will not stop until all 583 cable channels are showing Christian puppet shows (although Fox News, already quite a puppet show, will remain on air to report upon the upcoming War Against the Worshippers of False Idols). The very foundations of your spirituality are being filled with blue suits, feathered hair, dogmatic fascism, impatient rapturists, corporate profiteers, and Pepsi Edge. Your "brothers and sisters" are no more than a mentally handicapped proxy army, used by the wealthy to squelch justified social dissent that should be rocketing the mob. I give the legitimate denominations another thirty years. After that, corporate-based worship groups will be in charge of America's soul, assuredly pulling in a tidy profit as whatever nonsecular freedoms are snorted up their "I Gave Up Coke and Booze and Now I Get High on God" noses.
I'm mad for you true believers, even if I follow an entirely different religion.
I do, however, believe in football. GO SEAHAWKS!
* * *
Whew, not only was Janet Jackson's n****e punished, Cat Stevens has been officially banned from US soil. Now, if we can just change the word "insurgent" to "happy-time hug machines," we may win this War on Terror after all!
* * *
Big ups to Sean in Albany for
 Anarchist Miracle · Thu Dec 13, 2007 @ 05:28am · 0 Comments |
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