Succinctly Put:

Succinctly Put:


Palin: shut the fuck up. I thought of ways to lessen the profanity without damaging the message, but my brain gave up. Those of you with tender eyes, forgive.

First Fox and now the Discovery Channel/TLC: stop profiting off crazy people. Grow some shame. The movie ‘Network” is not a primer for market growth.

Tea Party people: dunk deez.

Brick throwers enraged about “ObamaCare”: no surprise there. Exhibit cogent thought if you want to shock the populace into attention.

Enforced sterilization: starting to look better day by day. I know, I know, bad Clarence. Inhumane Clarence. Plus there’d be a mob coming at me with needles…

Insanity: is it our diet? Is that what digs America’s psychoses so deep? Can we get some international aid of vichysoisse and tiramisu?

Aspirations: often have nothing to do with success. Hit it out the ballpark; hit it long and hard to your own well-deserved cheers.

Love: where did it go?

Art: is it with love?

Truth: R.I.P.

Crap: see first 2 succinct bits.

Anger: always an unlimited buffet.

This train: stop it. Let me off. It’s a nice day. I’ll walk.

I wrote the following last year. It might still be online somewhere. More likely it’s walking:

Louis Armstrong Sings to Me…

January 20, 2009

Earth.

United States.


America. Free and beautiful, promised to all. Wintertime gets glacially cold around these parts around this time. You go east and freezing becomes a warming trend. There are a few million people standing outside around the country, particularly in Washington, D.C., our national capitol. Temperature’s about 30 Fahrenheit in D.C. Windy. Not as bad as it could be, but cold is cold. It’s Tuesday. A few million people don’t usually stand out in the cold on wintry Tuesday’s in America.




Operative word being “usual”. There’s nothing usual about today. We just inaugurated a new president, a skinny black dude named Barack Hussein Obama, charismatic as hell, professorial in demeanor but steely as a weapon when he needs to be. He’s now the 44th president of the United States of America. What’s even weirder is that he appears to love his wife and has two adorable children. Not sitcom kids, not entitled brats. That’s a trenchant indication of the man.



It’s a beautiful day. The theory of America creates the greatest country on earth. “We hold these truths to be self evident.” That all men are created equal. That’s the next phrase. Consider those words, because they’re more beautiful than anything in any bible. Inspirational poetry can’t touch it. It is an ideal of such howling humanism that, when held and viewed up close, induces the most exquisite tears. That declaration is written by every human hand. People try to avoid crying outdoors in wintertime. It’s the eyes and the nose thing. Frozen snot, not cool. Not cool on cameras when there are about another million media outlets shining down on you. But people are crying with these wide smiles on their faces. They’re oblivious to cameras. The country has decided to hold a simple truth to be self evident today. Something we haven’t held in—well, not since those words were written. Those beautiful words have become delicate, almost translucent and crystalline being over two hundred years old and unloved. We haven’t held these truths to be self evident. Even when first written they were basically a good sound bite. But some words, though, once released, become an incantation and derive a sustaining power from time itself. They bide, taking in just enough nourishment to survive. “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal” have waited a long time to be drawn from their cloistered box to feel the warmth of human hands. “We hold these truths to be self evident,” that anybody, particulary skinny black dudes (or fat ones, or chicks, or Asian ones, maybe some Native ones, and there’s always the possibility of one of those light brown Hindu brothers getting in) could and would do…anything.



Barack Hussein Obama. President.




We are all theoretical scientists today. Why? Because we wanted to be. That’s all it took. Credit where credit is due, people. All those millions of faces? They’re not all black. Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but it’s not a black day. For those who don’t know, MLK Day is not a black holiday, because MLK had no interest in just being black. Martin Luther’s spirit traveled back in time to help write that famous preamble to the Declaration of Independence. It’s all about being human. The dinosaurs were here for millions of years. We haven’t even been here long enough to call this our world, but we treat each other as though we’re all long-standing enemies. This kind of enmity can’t be sustained for millions of years. Millions of those faces enduring the cold January wind were white men and women warming the most beautiful words in millions of hands, not just white but every race America can proudly claim. We took the theory, we tested it, found proofs and supports, and realized that the only thing that’s sustained those words since their inception was the fact that truth empowers. Even though we haven’t lived up to the words, the words themselves contain a perpetual ember inside that in hands around the world today we’ve gently blown and watched catch higher and higher. We wanted light today. We wanted to see what we knew to be true.


There was an older white lady crying on the shoulder of an older black man. There were black kids hugging two white girls, the whole group being hugged in turn by everyone around them. A busload of white college types were enrapt on every word and nuance of this very historic day. History is not the past. It is life. It extends. Barack Obama is the first black president, but he might just be the first president to inhabit the office and title utterly and completely. This is why people are smiling. People the world over are smiling. Not everybody. But enough. Change brings joy. Not surface change. Presidents come and presidents go. Political hacks don’t change anything. There’s a sense with Mr. Obama, though, that not only sincerity but logic and drive direct the man. An air of truth surrounds him. We see he’s a theoretical scientist. We see he has ideas and he’s willing to share them with us. We see that he actually shares a lot of our ideas. Common sense over greed. Greed is its own downfall. Of America—and the world, whom our new president has reached out to in the most sincere of addresses today—it should be said that we are ready to rise. We have to believe it’s getting better.


Somebody prophetically sang a song saying “it can’t get much worse,” even though he knew it could, but you’ve gotta hope. Gotta hope. Gotta keep it alive.

That’s a truth we hold self evident.


And I think to myself, What a wonderful world.

And, Yes, Vice President Biden, This Is A BFD

...words, sir, for the ages.  No shame.

Your fellow countryman,
Clarence Young

Draconian Loss

"We have failed to listen to America. And we have failed to reflect the will of our constituents. And when we fail to reflect that will -- we fail ourselves and we fail our country. Shame on us. Shame on this body. Shame on each and every one of you who substitutes your will and your desires above those of your fellow countrymen. Around this chamber, looking upon us are the lawgivers -- from Moses, to Gaius, to Blackstone, to Thomas Jefferson. By our actions today, we disgrace their values. We break the ties of history in this chamber. We break our trust with Americans." --House Minority Leader John Boehner, who certainly wishes people pronounced his name Bayner or Bonner but not Boner.  It's sad that the naming of things can sometimes be unfortunate.

I don’t mean to get serious because that’s certainly not why any of us are here (in the grand ironic scheme and particularly the internet), but clean, beautiful words led me to this place. Beauty is eternal. Keep that in mind. Beauty is intrinsic. I’ll include a link to the writer’s site at the end. Till then you’ll have to make do with me.


Imagine you don’t have anything. Imagine you’re not some politician going on about the unraveling of the American dream while pretending to give a damn about the vague, amorphous mass called the public. Not in a “there but for the grace of God” vein, you’re just you in your house and you don’t have anything beyond what you see turning your head side to side. Then imagine needing help. You’re sick. Not illness sick but the kind of sick people refer to as a “health issue”. Stopped dead in your tracks and you realize, dammit, you’re mortal. Your lovely bones will gleam only because they’ve been picked clean, not because you’re all that and a bag of chips. You never were all that. You were just you. The whole time, you were just you and we were just us.

Now you need help.

What are you going to do? A fifteen minute ambulance ride costs a thousand dollars. The time spent in ER on an IV will run you two. By the time a bed is freed for you and a doctor’s diagnosed then sent you home to await further instructions you could have attended college for a year. Your mortgage with all its attendant insurance scams and add ons requires the bulk of your monthly income. Miss those payments and say hello to America. The free market consumes whatever income is left. You think you have a right to energy? Please. So what do you do? Keep a roof over your head complete with utilities and enough food to forestall social service visits on behalf of the kids, or go to the hospital? Keep in mind: whatever is wrong with you is on the inside where it can’t be seen, so it just might go away.

You hope it goes away. That is precisely and exactly and unerringly and so very damningly what you do, will do, have done, and once again are. I don’t care what color you are or your pretend political stance, if you’re here that’s what you’re doing. One plus one plus one is three. You need health care. You can’t afford it. Me, the Wife’s job provides an insurance outlet, mine doesn’t. But I work everyday. I have worked my entire adult life. We try to keep ourselves healthy but in the world of Kraft, come on. If she loses her insurance, don’t let a cold virus get in our house ‘cause we will lose our minds. We’ve got cable TV, computers, video games, checking and savings accounts, and a new lawnmower. We are not unwashed and poor. But without the subsidized health coverage she and I consider the norm we would have the mortal cliché staring us straight in the face: health or hearth. Hearth would get it. Health is inside. Can’t be seen. Whatever’s wrong, it might go away.

President Obama signed a health care reform bill yesterday. America needed it. Don’t let anybody convince you otherwise. Don’t let me convince you of what I’m saying either. Just think about it. Ignore silly Draconian capitalism; it’s disingenuous. It’s voracious. You are its food. Think about it: what’s so fundamentally wrong with human beings receiving human medical care for human ailments? Isn’t there enough in our lives to worry about without adding something as basic as what do I do if I get sick? The Hippocratic Oath is not “First check for credit.” Other countries manage to figure ways to treat people as people. Why haven’t we? No, let me amend: why are we so resistant to the change?

In a word, greed. Listen, I’m happy about this attempt at reform. Obama can’t wave a wand and get all the big ITS done…but damn if the man ain’t making an honest attempt to get under the skin of America and heal a few things from the inside out. Something about slavery and indentured servitude appeals to this country. Let’s appeal instead to healthier reason.

For every Joe Blow out there bleating angrily: the guys you think are standing up for you are laughing at you behind more money than you’ll ever see, and you’d damn well better not knock on their door when you find yourself with nothing, because it’s at that rather singular point that you won’t be one of them. You’ll be an us.

Read Ms. Ru Freeman’s words here; treat yourself to some of her backlogs. Buy her book and read it. It’ll do your health some good.

http://rufreeman.com/2010/03/healthcare-in-america-as-it-is-in-sri-lanka

Think about today. One day, someday, yesterday, today…

Think about the future. It doesn’t get here without today.

By the way, my sister died from cancer about 5 years ago.  She had to fight with her insurance company nearly every step of the way.  I heard a lot of those conversations.  It's not right being put on hold or being transferred 2 or 3 times after a chemo treatment.  Ain't right at all.

This is my sister.  She liked mysteries.

The Magic Headband

There are times when a woman is on the go and doesn’t want to be bothered, so she’ll throw a headband on and ask if it looks Ok. Nod and say yes. Bite down if you have to. Yes, she looks utterly ridiculous with that bozo poof of hair sticking out behind the headband. And yes, you have to be seen in public with her. Those are givens. Also given, she does not care what you think about her hair. You are a man. To her, if she doesn’t have long flowing locks and isn’t wearing high heels with nary a piece of clothing in between then your mind is out of whack. That’s what women think we see at any given moment. Doesn’t matter if the lady is wearing a moomoo or a parka, she thinks we see long hair and heels. How erroneous. Bald and barefoot works just as well. Also, butt naked is fine but there’s a reason Victoria’s Secret rakes in more money for drawers than most countries do for vegetable produce: the mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Monkeys ain’t the only ones that get excited when a banana gets peeled. A peep is priceless, a reveal divine. Etc…


So she bounces out of the house looking like Bozo with a skirt, headband holding fast to those two or three inches of hair around the forehead, that hair just laid down and tight, looking as good as it wants to be. Once you hop that picket fence: squirrels. Squirrels and the silent command to you to uphold that vicariously sexy image of her she knows you keep on file, and by upholding it (like a man trying to hold back a dam against God’s hellacious, damning truths) convince the rest of the world that in the time it takes the Wife to go to Kroger, stop off at Rite Aid, and maybe do a Tim Horton’s run, she has never once looked anything other than respectable, because she’s a grown-ass woman, and grown ass women do not go out in public looking like a hell sammich. Hell sammiches are shunned. A headband makes all the difference.

So the Wife’s in church, and she was looking like Sideshow Bob, and the magic headband just made things that much worse, plus she was bouncing and fidgeting (she’s in the choir), so the overall effect was I married a crazy woman. Christ’s love can’t touch me when I’m sitting there thinking the entire church clearly sees I married a crazy woman. (Granted I got burned by holy water once but it was old water, likely full of bacteria and Jesus algae; folks should really freshen up the holy basin every once in a while. Christ hasn’t given up on me.) So… the Wife’s magic headband is deflecting Christ’s love, which annoys me since I could have still been in bed, plus it starts creeping forward on her head, having the effect upon her frizzy hair of a red-jacketed hunter, astride a horse, shouting, “Release the squirrels!”

The choir kicks it up a notch.

All that bobbing and weaving forces the plastic headband to hold on for god and country in an effort to save the queen. There’s a quarter inch of hair held down flat but by damn that hair will not surrender! The squirrels surge forward with gusto but the wife is happily oblivious. The music’s tempo is such that it requires a tambourine. I slink down.

When you use a tambourine you shake your head. That’s evolution, that’s physics, it’s gospel. The deeper you get into it, the more rhythmic the motions. Wife was jamming. I’m pretty sure everybody in the church knew it was just a matter of time.

That sumbitch plastic headband goes flying past the choir director, describes a perfect arc over the sacrament table, pauses in both time and space midair then immediately picks the most elderly person in the front row to bean right in the forehead.

I am an orphaned, widowed leper raised in absolute solitude by wolves at this point. Don’t know her, am barely conscious of my surroundings, have amnesia, and am guaranteed the quietest car ride home in a long time. The one thing the Wife sees in that embarrassingly eternal headband flight is the half snicker I don’t quite squelch. How the hell was I supposed to know her eyes would beseech me at that precise moment of divine comedy? I can project beauty and nakedness all she wants, but that’s trumped ten out of ten by beaning one of the matrons of the church. My powers of mental persuasion were focused intently on convincing people that I only married her out of pity. Jesus loves a sacrifice.

Thankfully with a kid nearby there was someone who knew to assess such situations and come up with the most effective, lightning fast response. The kid laughs. Keep in mind the choir’s still singing. A lot of folks don’t know what’s going on. This kid suddenly laughing draws attention. At which point the choir director looses it.

He’s a jolly fellow.

Meanwhile with the beseechment: Bet she’s wishing I had a sword now. But hey. So I sit there and act like nothing’s happened and nor do I know her. This is a pretty loose, informal church, so it’s not like she’ll be shunned for ringing one off the old lady’s head. Everybody thinks the Wife’s crazy already anyway. And who’s told her time and again that the magic headband doesn’t automatically make her flowers grow and Coke drinkers drink Pepsi? Me.

Dammit.

Binga, the jungle boy.

Of course her V-neck-sweatered twin sister sitting next to me has her head thrown back in giggle fits. Again, I do not fancy the sister’s boobs but they were out, and in church of all places. On top of being absolutely useless to the Wife’s beseeching I can most assuredly plan my evenings around not having sex the foreseeable duration.

Magic headband my ass. Would it have killed her to wear a wig?

Q Tips

Being slow on the general uptake, I finally and concretely realized something today: it’s 2010, when the Jetsons said we’d have personal robots and space cars, but we are still primitive. We still try to poke one another with sharp things. We still throw rocks at one another. In 2010 we worship the lights in the sky.


On the way to work today a police car almost ran me off the road. Right by my building. Lights suddenly flashing, no siren, with the cop skidding to an angle and hopping out with the quickness. With my heart jumping, my almost-first thought was not his devotion to high ideals, not the indispensable service he was performing--what hit me was the gun he had his hand angled near. What hit me was that after millions of years on this planet, we find ourselves constantly having to throw rocks at someone. That cop, bless his necessary ass, was part of an organization of rock throwers, not that police throw willy-nilly but that they have to do it at all (if they didn't I’d be writing and you’d be reading from the cramped confines of our personal bunkers; you, favored third reader, may be evolved, but your neighbor Clete is not).


The Planet of the Apes was a redundant movie.


My second thought was: another bank robbery. It happened a few days ago in my building. Small branch of a major bank. It gets robbed fairly often, I imagine as part of a customer recruitment campaign (“Banking so easy it’s criminal!—Hotcha!”). Then I thought: mugging, which doesn’t adhere as much to a schedule like the bank; some punkass had robbed somebody using a gun or a knife—and to threaten somebody with a knife means you’re willing to poke them with pointy things till they bleed, which is not as easy as fiction makes it seem. Skin is not tissue paper, it is resilient. Poking is a particularly primitive notion, not far removed from beating someone with the flailing backs of your hands. Even the word mugging sounds like something presupposed by an excess of knuckle hair.


Since my absolute first thought, as the car forced me to access my inner Nascar and I whipped the Wife’s car (my car died some time ago; I drive the Wife’s car) to the side of the road, was God damn! I realize how important the lights in the sky remain to this little blue marble. Religion walks about all the time, doesn’t it? Last night there was a bright full moon and the stars were like ice. We still worship the lights in the sky, one way or another, calling the constellations Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, Jewish, Amish, Mormons. Naming the constellations Faith. Proclaiming the constellations Belief. In our heart of hearts we call the constellations God. As if we’ve always known God by name. Over the weekend I saw an early morning bible show. A young guy with gleaming teeth and perfect hair spoke to a group of eager thousands, huge monitors showing his every staged smile, every devotion, every gleam in his eye. Scared the minty beejeezus out of me seeing all those people in one place intractably tuned into one charismatic thought. (By the by, charisma is the new elite; see Sarah, plain and tall.) With all the shaking the earth has been doing of late I expect the number of his followers to grow grow grow.


A little less primitively—but definitely the precursor to our impending robot overlords-- scientists are within sight distance of quantum computers. That sounds extremely cool to me…until it hits that androids will be physical extensions of cell phone companies. Why walk the dog when your app can do it faster? Cool advancements become marketable annoyances. Just ask the woman I almost thunked in the throat for getting on an elevator with me and neglecting to discontinue her loud phone conversation. I figure, look for God, look to science. Not that science is just, like, all that. But damn. Break it down to the simple: the fact that the encyclopedia Britannica can now fit inside a tiny plastic rectangle no bigger than half my pinkie is bloomin’ bloody amazing. Consider science a friend. The Question (and that’s the best way to consider God) didn’t make us smart for no reason, if you wanna get all Intelligent Designy. I could spend days studying fractal geometry’s patterns and shifts. Wouldn’t understand a bit of it but somewhere inside my gray matter a couple neurons would smile, cuddle closer, and get to know one another, if you know what I'm sayin'.


Juxtapose the drift with me, mein freunds. God’s a smart kid wishing there weren’t so many dumb kids to play with. We’re cheating beauty when we throw rocks and poke. Devo was a great group for the eighties. As a general trend, though, one step forward then getting knocked four steps back is not my cup of tea.


This blog brought to you by the letter Q.

Plug For A True Writer

Is everybody out there reading Chris Moore's stuff yet?  Yes?  Good.  I picked up his latest, Fool, in paperback (not a rich, published author yet, dammit.  Paperbacks are spam; hardcover, Canadian bacon), and have laughed out loud several times since.  Just from recalling something in the book.  That's power right there.

Here's his website  http://chrismoore.com/



Ok, see y'all tomorrow.

Things To Admit To

(filed under Can You Doubt We Were Made For Each Other)

In anticipation of the bitter aftermath of my seduction under the insanely passionate wiles of Rosario Dawson, actress and joi de viver extraordinaire, then found out by the Wife, who will pretend to not understand but, come on, it’s Rosario Dawson, I shall get a few things out of the way:

Did I disappoint my fans and family? Hell no. It’s Rosario Dawson. High fives all around.

Am I sorry? Not as much for getting caught as for having to act like it wasn’t Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride times eleven.

I admit that Tiger Woods is a bazooganaire, so poon is basically chiclets, so screw him for being a corporate puppet and flagellating himself so we can have the Last Temptation of Gillette played out in 30-second spots nationwide. Hell, he can’t act anyway. In any commercial. A “darker, edgier” Tiger will be able to act even less. Skeezes don’t give poon to charity, folks, so let’s call everybody out. Get the skanks a podium and let’s call it a media event!

I admit to wanting to grope certain teachers through the years. Hotcha! There was one that, as I think on it, reminds me of Rosario Dawson.  I never realized the connection before.  Fate is not to be laughed at or fickled over. There’s more danger in ficking fate than admitting to consequences once caught up in it.

This may sound way too generous, but I admit that Ms. Dawson is so close to perfection I need to go suck her daddy’s dick. Forgive me, Rosario, but it's true.  The sentiment itself is not original to me. I think it’s in the bible, and is about the most heartfelt sentiment a woman will ever hope to hear from a man. It is deep. Cherish the love.

In trying to determine whether I’ve let down my faith and core values: is heathen a religion yet? What if I start a Religion of the Unzipped Fly? In that case I’ve kept up the faith as the zip goes down. Praise and hallelujah.

I admit that not being rich, no one wants me televised, apologizing or otherwise; however, let me remind you all: it was ROSARIO DAWSON. Or will be.   If I'm apologizing for future indiscretions we have to start somewhere.  Rosario, send me an autographed picture. For you sick bastards out there, no it’s not for a shrine. I’ll tape it to the headboard above the Wife’s pillow. Hey, she’s got an autographed photo of the Temptations in craning distance of our bedroom in her home office. Judge not lest ye be judged.

Ma? I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. (For all the mothers out there truly ashamed of this unpublished, piddling--and here you have to spit the word--writer.  Not even an author, yet he suckles our time as at a teat of Mountain Dew.)

Lastly I apologize for the damning limitations of static reality. Once I get a handle on the multiverse you’d best believe there’s an entire world populated with Rosario Dawsons…and I’ve got the only movie script.

And please understand: at no time did the Wife try to club me with anything other than her hands. She’s a tactile person, not a slave to this machine age we live in. She will be blameless in this tawdry aftermath, stoic even as, after much ass-kickery her to me, she finally meets the other woman face to face…and stares into Rosario’s elf-queen eyes…and the lips, the ripe, full lips that treat every word and smile like sweet fruit…tugged into her sphere, feeling the desire mount and being afraid of it, but at the same time relishing that fear and daring it to increase, daring Ms. Dawson to prove herself, to surrender wholly and totally to the Wife’s carnal demands until Rosario begs (begs!) forgiveness for being brash enough to even think she was woman enough to engage in pleasing her Boo.

Yeah.

You get her, Babe.  (Wait for the deadpan eyebrow wiggle)

… There it is. Goodnight.

And sweet dreams. Not yet brought to you by Gillette, Buick, Nike or the company that plans to make curling (the "sport"…with the brooms…and the ice…and the sweeping) edgy and dark next year.

But they’re working on it. You’d be amazed what an unlimited budget can do.