Archive for the 'Irritations' Category

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Tuesdayfunk

What an existentially lousy and confidence shattering day.

First off I’ve always had this hang up about coincidences and how seriously to take them. Today had some and if i take them literally and they are telling me something it’s not good. First off I go to pick up our own beloved Brandonicus at his work place, which also happens to be my old workplace where I met past girlfriend. We’re headed over to a local cafe because he thinks I’ll dig this girl who works there. On our way down the stairs who is coming up the stairs of the house across the parking lot but the old girlfriend who lives next door. Her new live in boyfriend is of course with her as she has no identity without a nearby penis. This immediately puts me into about a 4 hour funk that’s only broken by another girl oriented coincidence at Hannaford grocery at about 7. More on that in a minute. Another coincidence happened a short time later.

But first let me admit to a couple of George Costanza moments.

First off it bothered me that her boyfriend wasn’t appreciably less attractive than me. I wanted him to be as ugly as her ex, or maybe still current, husband who is a monstrous troll of a redneck. Didn’t get a good look at him but he appeared to be more than presentable. This irks me. Very Costanza. But that’s not it.

It also annoys me that she looked better than she ever did when we were together. Part of this may be for that same tendency on display in that Seinfeld episode where George can’t wait to get out of the relationship, it might have been with Susan but I’m not sure, and how it pains him to walk the steps to her apartment and have this pressure on him. Then he is rid of her and he longs to be walking those stairs with her when he sees her and can’t believe how much more attractive she is and starts singing “Hey, if you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world, wont you tell her…that I love her…HEY!” and so on while lounging sadly on Jerry’s couch. Then he gets her back and again just about drags himself up her stairs and feels trapped and wants out.

It’s human nature I guess. But for a moment I wanted up those steps instead of that guy. And she really did look good.

But hey I’m not stupid and I know its not so pretty a picture close up. Still I was funked for a few hours and could think of little else even as Brandonicus and I chatted at the Love Boat Cafe or whatver it was called. And coincidentally it looks as if she’ll be working across the street from where I live as I once worked at the aforementioned facility across from where she lives. More coincidence.

I mean what do I have to do to escape all this? What are they trying to tell me?

So we go over to the Love Shack Cafe to meet this girl who immediately reminds me of the girlfriend of a guy who’s good friends with the ex girlfriends brother. As I’m thinking this and feeling no spark or interest from her that friend of brother-boyfriend walks right by. He doesn’t live in that area anymore but there he goes. More coincidence.

So we head back to B dogs place with me still wearing my Tracyfunk. At this point don’t care that the Love Is A Many Splendored Thing Cafe girl goes nowhere. Wasn’t expecting anything and not in the mood after the wanton display of normalcy on those steps a little while earlier. I stay for a bit, watch some short films and flip through a screenplay book which keeps mentioning a character named Olivia in a screenplay format example. Strut and Olivia. Strut and Olivia. I keep reading this out loud while our erstwhile Brandonicus tries to ignore me. I realize it’s later than I thought and I want to get to Hannaford before the fish section closes at 7 and take off. I’m still funking, tried to drown my funk in pizza that I’ve been jonesing for but couldn’t find anyone interested, and I enter the store with all this weighing on my mind and looking for an escape.

I’ve mentioned a woman I was crushing on in posts and haiku’s on this site but I don’t think I’ve mentioned her name. Well it’s Olivia as in Strut and Olivia. And I walk into the fruit area of Hannaford and there she is. A cute little girl that is apparently her daughter is with her.

I’ve never seen her outside of her workplace except for a job related party back in the Fall. I’d hoped I would eventually. And now of all times there she is. She’s on one side of a fruit stand and I’m on the other with banners announcing prices per pound strung up between up so that I kind of had to peer around to get each other in line of sight while we said hi at each other. Eventually I come around this side, make a half assed comment about Bosc pears and I get the feeling she can’t wait to get away from me. She moves away, doesn’t introduce me to her daughter, and just generally seems less than excited to see me.

So she smiles politely, makes a half-assed laugh at my Bosc pear comment and disappears out of the fruit and produce area in a surreptitious but committed fashion like she’s trying to get out of a wake for someone she wasn’t all that close to but came to say her goodbyes to out of propriety.

Thing is she also gave off this air of loneliness and sadness, and here was someone she knows and has expressed at least professional fondness for, and she can’t wait to get away from me.

Terrific I scream to myself! Tracyfunk now all gone!

Hello to much more general and all encompassing pathetic and undesirable, the window of opportunity on you has closed funk. Much Better!

Now I’ve heard Olivia is a bit introverted, maybe even more than a bit depending on how i take it, but am I being too hard on myself for thinking her hasty retreat and lack of warmth indicate pure and unadulterated disgust or fear? Did she think it too coincidental and wonder if I was stalking her? I think she knows I may have a thing for her and I know my name has been coming up around her too much lately due to a couple of friends dropping it. But damn I’m funny and charming around her most of the time. Well at least funny and personable anyway. So what’s up with the running for the exits and snubbing me on the daughter intro?

After all this goes down I get an image of us in a movie. I see that scene at Hannaford from above as it’s being filmed by a director doing a study on loneliness and repression. I could see these two people seperated by those banners with prices which were a metaphor for the walls of shyness, hurt, fear, or whatever that alot of people put up. Two people alone in a supermarket as perhaps they are in life, and they can’t get through the banners and stands of fruit.

In the movie it would still come crashing together. The walls would crumble. Maybe just a crack at first. But a light would shine through. The coincidences would be real and meaningful if only in a deux ex machina or directors poetic device kind of way.

But this isn’t a movie and maybe coincidence is just a cigar and her unavailability and disinterest is exactly what it appears to be. Certainly there was no light shining through the cracks seperating the condiment and breakfast items aisles before we left the store as would have happened if we were writ in celluloid.

So I’m feeling funky. At least it’s no longer concentrated Tracyfunk which is good though it looks like I’ll be running into her more with her across the street and it being spring time. This still irks me as it did earlier in this post. That has not changed. I get a series of women related coincidences with an overriding message that I’m universally despised by the species. Or maybe just overlooked. Whatever. Coincidences are now on notice.

Right Now

Well my talk about quitting has an outside chance of becoming moot since I may get fired. I’ve never been fired and can’t imagine it happening over this. But due to an amazing stroke of bad luck and a possible confluence of events and forces this past Saturday it may happen. Pearl Jam is number 1. The Ryche is back, gay cowboys redux, and oh yeah Joe Lieberman and democracy in Afhganistan suck.

Ironically my job trouble is being cause by the head of Q.A. of my former agency one Mr S Ramos, where I was considering going back to work. This could have the effect of shutting me out of that job as well. As a manager in said agency Brandonicus may be able to help determine an answer to that question. I don’t want to get into details because I’m bored with it all and resent being in a position to care due to not being completely alone and independently able to destroy my life without it hurting my dad. This is also ironic seeing as how much being completely alone sucks. I want my dad here. Just don’t want to bear it all alone or stress him if things ever hit rock bottom.

Saw all of last nights Lost and I think Henry Gale is GIlligan and Mary Ann’s conniving love child raised by Ginger and Mr Howell. And yes Mr Gale they do indeed have trust issues.

Crazy Joe Lieberman is at it again. On radio show, responding to the hosts switching of allegiances for the upcoming Senator race in Connecticut due to Lieberman’s moving too close to the Bush administration and questions regarding Lieberman’s saying that those who criticized the president were basically traitors, the following exchange took place:

McEnroe: You probably know that I wrote in the Currant last Sunday that if I had to vote in the primary right now I would, with some sorrow vote for Ned Lamont simply because you have kind of drifted so far towards the Bush Administration whose policies I don’t approve of very much. Tell me why I’m wrong, tell me why I should vote for you.

Lieberman: Well I…I think that your statement just then was as ridiculous and unfair as your column was. I was really upset by it. I don’t get to hear you a lot because I’m in Washington but if you’re saying that on the air really I hope your listeners are taking it with a grain of salt.

First off let me go to something that really bothered me. You have this line saying that I’ve come to a point where I’m saying that those who do not parrot my support of the war are unpatriotic and then you take TOTALLY out of context something that I said in a speech that I gave last December when I came back from Iraq and I urge you to go back and look at that whole speech.

McEnroe: Okay, tell me why…

Lieberman: Let me just finish this!

McEnroe then went on to try and read the quote in question and force Lieberman to respond but Lieberman kept cutting him off, he wouldn’t have it:

McEnroe: Let me read the line to you and then you tell me how to interpret it.

Lieberman: I know what the line is! I said it!

McEnroe: Okay but the listeners don’t.

The line actually reads:

“It’s time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine the president’s credibility at our nation’s peril.”

Lieberman’s response?

Lieberman: This quote is totally out of context. You might have gotten it from the bloggers, who love to do this.

McEnroe: No actually I got it…

Lieberman: Read the whole speech, it’s below your standards.

McEnroe: Senator actually I got it from the New York Times.

Lieberman: Well that’s just as bad! Go back and read the speech, be more responsible.

Moorings sound like they’re coming loose on our former V.P candidate. Would he have been this bad in the White House if Gore had won? Let me correct that. Would he have been this bad in the White House if Gore had been allowed to take the position he won instead of being ousted by a right wing coup de tat?

Hard to say. i think maybe 9-11 shook some marbles loose in crazy Joe. Or maybe it just gave him the chance to show his true colors. I don’t know but it could have been an interesting ride in the Oval Office with him battling Gore if 9-11 had still happened on Gore’s watch.

Speaking of which Al says he’s not planning on running in 08. This probably doesn’t bother many of you. It does me. I still he think he’s one of the best qualified people out there and still young enough to be the virile figure Americans prefer. He’s changed his image some too. Not that he needed to for me. I like Gore. Always have. He might be the smartes guy in politics outside of Clinton. And I think were developing an appreciation for the benefits of having a man of some learning occupying the highest and arguably most important post in our sector of the galaxy.

Democracy is for smart people and it needs smart people to administer it.

Speaking of democracy, that process in the Middle East takes another wonderful step forward as Karzi’s-Bush backed shiny new constititution in Afhganistan is about the get someone executed for converting to Christianity. Now as sweet as an idea as that may be when you first hear it, it is of course somewhat at odds with some of the tenets of basic constitutional democracy we said we helped set up there. It’s actually kind of Taliban-esque don’t you think? It also puts Bush in kind of an awkward spot. This is his government there that he supported and wants us to believe is no worse for having an Islamist basis for it’s laws and constitution. And now they want to kill a guy for wanting to be more like Bush.

Word is the out may involve claiming that the guy is too insane to stand trial. Supposedly they are making this up. Most probably it will lead to vigilante justice as religious clerics have him hunted and killed extra-legally. But judging by the converts to that religion I’ve known, and particularly born-agains, i got to wonder if maybe those Taliban have some keen psychological insight.

I really really want to see Thank You For Smoking. I really hope it doesn’t pass this area by though. I think it is in limited release now. Everything I’ve read and the commercials I’ve seen make it sound like a brilliant satire.

Brokeback Mountain is out April 4th on DVD. Man that was fast. And you know what? I’m picking that puppy right up because damn it I miss those two fellas. They’re under my skin damnit and I may not get them out until I shed it. If you haven’t seen it yet you have no excuse now. No one will see you cry and hug yourself in the privacy of your own home. Let Jack and Ennis in. You wont ever let them leave.

Also out on April 4th is Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime II. I don’t expect this to mean anything to any of you. The bands Operation Mindcrime, that I guess I now have to refer to as I was a defining hard rock concept album back in the 80′s. I loved this band and that album was sort of a V For Vendetta anarchist, rebel story that I guess I gravitated to even then. I’m not expecting the same level of genius all these years later especially without original guitarist Chris DeGarmo, but if I could get just a bit of that feeling that created emotions and rythmns that have me still invoking them out of nowhere 20 years later, it would be sweet.

And on May 2nd one of my all time favorite bands releases their first self titled cd. Pearl Jam, not quite as out of the blue as Queensryche, actually had the #1 single last week with the new albums first single World Wide Suicide. Numver 1 singles are not very Pearl Jam like anymore but the songs seeming lack of commercial appeal certainly is. Not sure how that happened. But it will be nice to visit with old friends again in both their case and Queensryche’s.

Don’t disappoint me. You wouldn’t like me when I’m disappointed.

More Daily Stuff

Some politics and South Park stuff all god fearing people should care about.

The Washington Post hired a guy to do an opinion column who has called Coretta Scott King a commie and has a family tied to the GOP and even the Abramoff bribes. The online column is called Red States and they claim this was done to bring balance to the paper. Daily Kos We’re in the looking glass here people and Orwell is staring in from the outside at us and shaking his head sadly.

Knight Ridder is reporting on a pretty legitimate claim of an American Massacre of Iraqi women and children at a house north of Baghdad last week. Iraqi police are among those attaching their names to a complaint that seems to have some corrobarating evidence behind it.

“The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men,” the report said. “Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals.”

Alot of these reports are exaggerated but certainly there have been some atrocities committed. If this one is true it’s another Mai Lai and an example of what happens to people that have been trained to kill and often come from troubled backgrounds when they are let loose in a place without laws or order.

Helen Thomas was awesome yesterday at Bush’s press conference. That is why she goe 3 years without Bush calling on her. And why does anyone have to be called on? The president is our public servant and the media are supposed to be our watchdogs. So shouldn’t every media venue automatically get their chance to speak whether Bush or any other President want’s to talk to them? Granted you can’t have every media outlet in there asking questions. What should be done is to have a rotating cross representation that includes the whole gamut of the political spectrum with everyone in the room that day getting their chance. While we’re at it the president should have to stand before the people every month and take questions. Non-screened people without questions given to them by administration spin Dr’s.

Great to see Bush still finding the war so funny at the press conference. This idiots lack of persective or decency is a true testimony to his mother and father. What absolute atrocities of wealth and privelage they are. Yeah Jesus would have loved these folks.

Watched som School House Rock with a 13 year old today and man did it just reiterate waht geniuses the guys who put those together were. The lyrics, the music, the learning, it’s all there and comes together in a way that seems effortless and damn catchy. It’s been said that they defined a generation and that’s ok with me.

A Republican Senator on Bush and Team America The World Police: “”They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong.” Yahoo Ding Ding Ding!

South Park premiered new eps tonight and immediately dealt with Isaac Hayes departure. I don’t know how they put this stuff together so fast but man are they brilliant. Sick and twisted. But brilliant. Very clever and funny way of dealing with his absence while still ending the Chef’s storyline in a fittingly ignominious way that made clear allusions to the events of the past week that Kyle mentions and to a sick group that brainwashed and twisted the Chef’s mind. The group is a bunch of League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen type really made of pedophiles that stands in for the scientologist Kyle is clearly referencing. You have to see how they do this without Hayes and the final scenes for yourself if you haven’t. I can’t do it justice. A very fitting and clever end for a once great man and a still great show.

Hillary Clinton said the following to Immigration advocates in regard to legislation designed to stop immigration: “It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures,” Clinton said, “because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.”

Ok it’s official, not only is she dead to me, but she’s fucking Karl Rove. Revenge for Monica? You make the call.

I’m half way through tonights Lost and the only thing that’s happened is that I have confirmed that Sun is a damn sexy woman and that the islan heals people, a fact i already knew. Come to think of it I already knew both these things though the opportunity to see Sun in negligee on a 50 inch screen was much appreciated.

I really hope I’m not coming across as pathetic being at Barnes N Noble as much as I am. But considering there are 2 or 3 people I always see there, not counting the homeless woman that’s always there sleeping, my 2-3 times a week might not look so bad compared to them. It’s a safe guess they are there much more. And where does that woman go when they close? It’s cold out there.

This is far more sad than my being into a woman who works there who didn’t give me a second glance. It is also more sad than the fact that another woman who works there that is far younger and cuter but less appealing because of that, does make alot of eye contact with me.

I’m sad but I’m not homeless on a 20 degree night. So I can’t complain. I want to talk to all three of these women for different reasons but don’t know what to say. The homeless woman in particular is hard to approach because I’d just be some little pissant voyeur trying to make myself feel better by not ignoring the plight of someone less fortunate who I can’t do a damn thing to help.

This inability to talk to people and express waht I feel or take chances will all seem silly someday. Humans do alot of this inner head game stuff that wisdom later shows was stupid and a waste. We know this. And yet many of us do it. Why is that?

Your Best Religion, South Park, And My Dental Angst. (Or So you Want To Know What’s On The Dude’s Mind Besides Bush Mary Ellen)

[image:113:l] [image:114:l] Step inside, walk this way, you and me babe, hey hey.

Warning to Ulster County area people. Stay away from Dr Grossman’s dental offices. I switched there recently and boy am I regretting it. First I go in to get my teeth cleaned and they tell me I need 5 crowns, have a cavity, and then they’ll do the teeth cleaning. I was skeptical. They had been recommended by a person at work I don’t trust, but at the time was still on the fence about (see previous post regarding him). I called a dental hygenist friend to find out the reputation of the office or if in her professional opinion this sounded on the up and up. Unfortunatley I couldn’t get in touch with her during the week or two leading up the first appointment. So I tell them we can do 3 crowns on the one side but I’m not approving any more than that yet. I have it done and the guy at work chooses that time to mention that he went in there for a cleaning and received the same diagnosis. I then come to find out the same has happened for at least 2-3 other people I was later able to find out about.

If I had had that info originally I never would have let them back in my mouth. Then after the crowns are in I notice discomfort right around the area they did the work on when I chew on hard stuff. I go in today and the saw off part of the crowns the adjust the bite after making me wait an hour past my appointment time and I come to realize after leaving the teeth there now feel sharp at the edges and that the area that felt out of whack feels untouched.

I feel as if part of the reason for this is that they took no time to work with me and locate the problem because they are running a high volume business there that ushers people in and out like cattle. The place is huge, you never get the same Dentist or hygenist twice, examinnig chairs are set up either in tiny rooms or out in hallways with one next the the other with little space or privacy. The people who work there look right through you and you can tell their is no recognition of patients as anything more than a faceless and nameless commodity. It’s very impersonal there and I am developing an intense dislike for everyone assocaited with it. As I sat there in the chair in that tiny room with the saving grace of an Edward Hopper painting on the wall I saw staff outside my door giving me strange looks. I waited and waited as they peered in with sidelong glances like they didn’t want me to know they were there. And when the Dentist did his thing I could, out of the corner of my eye, catch sight of people at the door looking on like an unusual event was happening. I felt like I was in some dental horror movie where I was being sized up by dental technicians of death and their wary assistants stealing covert looks of sadness and curiosity over the next office sacrifice.

And I didn’t even get fondled like on Seinfeld.

Time to head on down to South Park and have ourselves a time. Isaac Hayes has quit the show because he’s a Scientologist that was unhappy with an episode called Out Of The Closet that originally aired in November making fun of that oh so silly religion. When the episode was set to be rerun last week it was suddenly pulled with word that famous Scientologist and subject of said title in need of coming out of a closet, Tom Cruise, was unhappy. Now consider this: Cruise, who has MI3 coming out for Paramount, who in turn is owned by Viacom, who also owns Comedy Central is rumored to have told the company he would not promote the new movie if the episode was allowed to air again. His publicist has denied this. And yet the episode was pulled. Hmmm.

True to their irreverence and brilliant sense of normalcy, Trey Parker and Matt Stone issued the following statement in regard to the decision to pull the show last week:

“So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!” the “South Park” creators said in a statement Friday in Daily Variety. “Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies… You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!”

South Park

In regards to Hayes quitting, the South Park creators had the following bit of sanity and coherence to say in response to Hayes claiming he could no longer, “tolerate the shows religious intolerance and bigotry.”

“This is 100 percent having to do with his faith in Scientology…He has no problem–and he’s cashed plenty of checks–with our show making fun of Christians.”

We had some good times with the Chef and his chocolate salty balls but it’s over. He’s dead to me and I only hope Trey and Matt find a fitting way to remove him from the show. Guys like him and Cruise exemplify the worst of religious intolerance. The more someone can’t take being hit the more vulnerable you know they are. Tomorrow a new slate of South Park’s begin with an episode being billed as the Chef’s return to South Park. My guess is it was done before all this and features Hayes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of what usually is an 8 episode run we see something having to do with the above.

Speaking of religion you can go to this site, beliefnet to take a quiz that will supposedly tell you what your best religion would be and rank according to percentage how much you have in common and fit in with a whole list of the worlds belief systems. It determines your ranking not only through answers to the questions but on how highly you rank the questions. My own number 1 with 100% was Unitarian Universalism. Secular Humanism and Theravada Buddhism ramked as my 2nd and 3rd best matches.

Frighteningly this thing has me ranked as a slightly better fit with Islam at 17% than Roman Catholicism which was last on my list at 14%.

What’s the 14% I have in common with Roman Catholacism I have to wonder? Our mutual disdain for Born Agains? A love of loose clothing?

At 23% I’m a better fit for the Jehovah Witnesses according to the quiz. Not with a birthday coming up in a month I’m not.

Scientology came in at 14 on my list with an amazing 46% match. Maybe me, Tom, and Isaac aren’t that different after all.

Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants came in at 5 at 74% prompting me to ask if there is any such thing in America anymore?

Mainline to Conservative Christian Protestants came in at 21 with 27 %. That’s a hefty difference for people supposedly part of the same religion. And I resent any poll that says I have 27% in common with George Bush or Pat Robertson. The only thing I have in common with these guys religiously is that none of us are good Christians.

I tend to think I’m more of the Secualar Humanist, not really knowing what the Unitarian Universalist are and only feeling like it sounds a bit suspicious. What little I could find out on the above site seems to have them a bit all over their place and pretty excepting and tolerant, but at the same time perhaps showing a bit too much tolerance of the Christian thing for my tastes. There is a bulletin board I’m going to check out later to find out more. If i start acting strangely in the coming weeks this may have something to do with it. If I start smiling alot, calling everyone my brother and sister, and not caring about trivialities like the upcoming Baseball season, the summer movies, or eating, please feel free to shoot me. I may protest at the time but that won’t be me. This is me telling you now before it happens. REMEMBER!

From the same packed site that you can find the home page of by clicking the above link or the following one, I also took a quiz that helps determine your spiritual type belief net II I was labeled a Spiritual Dabbler — Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed, just 1 point off of
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion, which I probably would have picked for myself if I had looked at the categories beforehand.

There are other quizzes on the site like the one judging how optimistic you are which i didn’t take because I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

These are of course very unscientific and I wasn’t always happy with the choices available. This is especially true of the later faith quiz in which I would prefer to not have had to choose any of the choices available but had to. It was not unlike my dating history.

Barry more that a Manillow night on American Idol tonight but unfortunately they didn’t do Barry tunes. He coached them through 50′s standards. Man what I would have given to see the perfect Catherine Macphee belt out Mandy. That would constitute girl on girl action wouldn’t it? Then again it kind of does when Barry does it too. I actually thought Chris is it? and his rendition of Walk The Line was pretty damn good. Good rocking version I’d actually listen to again. He’s got a good rock voice and I could easily see him fronting a rock band. Love Tyler but thought he sucked tonight. Mandissa was very good again. Pretty boy Ace needs to disappear. I don’t like the idea of him hanging around Catherine. He’s bad news.

Now that the topic of Idol has been broached and the tension regarding it’s silence on this site the past few months is hopefully alleviated let me say that I almost always agree with Simon. The man is brilliant and honest. He’s a straight guy with a lovely woman but his mannerisms and demeonor confirm my long held suspicion that all English people are a little gay.

And that’s a good thing.

As far as better tv goes 24 has rocked lately. No deaths this week but Palmer’s brother is in trouble as he tries to get to everyone’s favorite secret service agent Aaron. And a possible bombshell regarding Audrey gets dropped at shows end. Why is Palmer going to Aaron and not Jack? Is there another mole in the administration? The VP knew he was there and then he gets hit. The smae Vp with the MArtial Law agenda now being implemented. Everyone in LA has an angle man. If 24 has taught us nothing besides the greatness of Jack Bauer it has taught us that LA sucks arse and that bad shite happens there. LA should be renamed Jack Bauer because they wouldn’t exist without him. They could shorten it to JB. People would fly into JBX. THey couldn’t stay long though. Just an hour or 2 because nobody pisses on Jack Bauer and gets away with it.

Man did Jack screw over that German agent though. Actually felt kind of bad for him. But Jack’s not German. Jack assesses things and makes hard decisions fast. That’s why they keep a clock on him. I think the German guy could be back someday and i welcome him. He and Jack shared a bond in their brief time together. “Are we still good?” Jack asked him from the backseat of the car. Secret agent manlove baby.

And Tony and Edgar are still dead.

Rumor has it that show Lost is throwing one of those, what do you call them?. . . new episodes. . . on tomorrow night. Nice of them. I don’t even remember what’s happening on that show which is strange because nothing really ever happens on it. They’re on notice and better have a scintillating last month or two of the season. Gilligan gave us more island drama than this. Something tells me Gilligan would have stumbled and bumbled his way into solving all this Lost island stuff along time ago. maybe it would been a 2 parter, I’ll give you that. He may not have understood it but he’d have exposed all so that the Professor could explain it to everyone in the epilogue of part 2.

And Ginger was hotter than Kate.

There I said it.

You know why Gilligan would have ended this all by now? He’s a free spirit man. He’s not all repressed and scheming. He’s like Forrest Gump just living and acting. Man if you had Gilligan, Forrest, and Homer Simpson on this island the Others would have bailed out along time ago. Those 3 are men of action you see. They live by the adage that you have to be in it to win it and that the times make the man great not the other way around. The man needs simply to engage with his times. These current Lost fold are disengaged. They’re caught up in their flashbacks, their insights about the island they don’t share, their lack of communication, their ennui, angst, fear, and inability to ask the obvious questions at the obvious time.

But Gilligan, Forrest, and Homer? Maybe throw Peter Griffin in there too and that’s a can do spirit that’s not going to spend half an episode flashing back or getting all worked up about a black foggy monster. Peter would suck that thing into a vacuum. Forrest would run to the other side of the island and back searching every nook and cranny of that place until he found JFK, Emelia Earhart, the Lindhberg baby, and MLK who were all part of past experiments while Homer battled the evil mastermind with dueling motorcycles. And who might that mastermind be? Wouldn’t matter to Homer. It could be the Hanso guy, Monte Burns, Dick Cheney, or Stewey Griffin. But Homer would win because Homer doesn’t mess around like these hippie castaways today.

Don’t want to get too down on the show. It still has its moments and I’ll hang in a bit longer. Jack let the button go to redeem himself, Hurley may be the first to get laid, and Sawyer is a magnificent bastard who might be funnier than Hurley. But for god’s sake advance the plot a little each week! There’s more clues and progress on websites than the actual show. It’s getting a little too much like Kiss albums back in the day. A couple of cool episodes and alot of filler to make a whole album or season. Not just Kiss I know, most bands do filler. Some shows do it too. If it continues though this show is going to start taking some hits from fans and critics soon.

But anyway they have managed to muster together something like the 3rd or 4th new episode since the end of November for tonight so enjoy. If the past and the commercials I’ve seen this week for it are any clue I’m not expecting much to happen beyond a few mind games getting us closer to the tribal divisions that I could see coming about 6 months ago. 24 and Lost are at such opposite extremes.

Please feel free to post your religious quiz results and discuss your experiences and thoughts pertaining to the test. Like to see if I have any fellow Unitarians out there. Secular Humanists are my favorites though. Just realized that in both tests taken it was my first choice that came in 2nd according to their rankings. Does this show a glitch in their test or in me?

Oddities And Incoherencies From The Middle Of The Night.

Some random stuff from around the world and my brain.

Ok check this link out. It’s about a study that indicates that talk shows and soap operas do one of two things to people. It either makes them dumber or that dumber people gravitate to these types of shows. I watched some soaps back in the 80′s and this explains alot. It also helps make Saugerties easier to understand.

The Dallas Cowboys signed Terrel Owens who onced danced on their beloved midfield star after running there from the endzone after a touchdown that didn’t get him enough attention. This confirms that both Owens and the Cowboys are evil. Now they can be evil together. Bill Parcells is now dead to me. More on that in my next post of that name.

Bush said this: “Now, it’s important to remember what al Qaeda has told us — their stated objectives. Their goal is to drive us out of Iraq so they can take the country over. Their goal is to overthrow moderate Muslim governments throughout the region. Their goal is to use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against America.

To achieve this goal, they’re recruiting terrorists from the Middle East to come into Iraq, to infiltrate its cities, and to sow violence and destruction, so that no legitimate government can exercise control.” CNN

Once again we see that this guy lies like he’s dating me. Al Qaeda has told us their objectives? When did this happen? So they moved from their previous stated goal according to this pathological liar, of destroying Western civilization and undermining democracy because they hate it, to now wanting to use Iraq as a staging ground?

And they’re recruiting terrorists to come into Iraq to do it? Funny I thought it was our hapless invasion that invited terrorists that had never been in Iraq to come on in.

And there’s not a shred of evidence any of it is tied to Al Qaeda. In fact evidence shows just how loose and uncoordinated it all is and how it’s more a manifestation of an unstable situation in Iraq that we made more unstable by tearing away their supports so quickly and haphazardly.

Bush also said about Iraq, “Others look at the violence they see each night on their television screens and they wonder how I can remain so optimistic about the prospects of success in Iraq. They wonder what I see that they don’t.”

No you ridiculous silly little slug of a man, people wonder why you can’t see the facts that they do. And is it possible that what he sees is dollar signs, an unending supply of oil, and U.S. supremacy? Obviously he doesn’t see the body bags, mangled survivors, civil war, or decline in quality of life that Iraqi’s have suffered since we bombed the holy Muslim shit out of them.

Maybe Bob can help me with this next thing. What does anyone out there know about the airline related insider dealing that supposedly went down before 9-11 and the controversy regarding the gold bullion under the towers? On the latter point the little I have been able to find out indicates that about $160 Billion in Bullion was hidden under one of the towers but was moved just previous to the attacks and that feds seemed to know exactly where to find them. I’ve also heard that alot of this gold has disappeared. This has fueled speculation that the gold is helping to fund our boys in D.C. and their incredible growing military among other things. And of course it’s part of theories that Bush’s team of traitors are so much more the vile treasonous pigs worthy of death that I’ve thought them to be and in fact participated in the events of 9-11.

First off I’m admittedly anti Bush administration. Secondly I’m also very anti conspiracy theories. Friends of mine having pushing this administrations complicity in the events of 9-11 for years and I’ve always tried to keep a cool head about it and give this group of politicians who I really think are evil the benefit of the doubt and give them credit for not being that evil.

But sometimes I ask myself why they deserve this benefit. Even if not true their actions over the past few years, actions that have included the cynical and reprehensible using of those terrible events to push forward a well known pre-existing agenda and having people look into options for putting troops into Iraq from his very first security meeting well before 9-11, have cost them any benefits more honest and competent administrations might deserve

I’ve seen how scary ideologies can be and how they can be used and manipulated to condone horrors and these are guys who really are deeply wedded to their way of thinking. It’s religious with them and religious type ideologies make people do very bad things. It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine the kind of rationalizations about the greater good that might go on in the minds of men like this when contemplating allowing something like this to happen.

If I had to bet I’d still say they were just asleep at the wheel and that their willful deception of the American public didn’t happen until after 9-11 when they realized this could work really well for them. But at this point I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

If there turns out to be some truth behind the conspiracy charges than my oh my do we need a bloody and nasty revolution to take place. It will be V for Vandetta stuff kiddies. We’ll need to don our American equivalent of Guy Fawkes masks, oh I don’t know, maybe John Hinckley masks, and all meet at the White House on September 11th and burn that motehr down. Preferably with the pigs inside. If it turns out to be true. If now mere execution for treason still applies. I will settle reluctantly for impeachment though.

By the by: V For Vandetta was pretty good. Definitely timely and able to stir the emotions a bit. At least my emotions. Further review may follow soon, but if you want to see something with an anarchist political spirit, a movie with cool stuff to look at which nevertheless is a movie of ideas and not a special effects flick, and a film whcih will make you think, check out V.

On a personal note it seems there is yet one more pathological liar in my life. I’ve come across an astounding number of them since moving upstate from the environs of the city. This one is a guy I work with that’s not my boss, who as has been stated in the past, is one of those liars. I kind of knew he was a bit of a bitch, a bit drug addled, and even at least somewhat of a liar. But he just keeps going to lengths to downgrade people and upgrade himself in the moment despite on some level knowing the rest of us will talk and put 2 and 2 together. Yet he does it. Yesterday he did some silly stupid stuff and then when I left blamed it on me. I mean he blatantly told them something I watched him do and warned him not do to, was my fault. This stuff continues to boggle my mind. Are we all 10 years old that we need to lie and aggrandize ourselves to appear to be more? This is a pretty intelligent guy, but his negativity towards the guys we care for, his constant passive aggressive shots at staff not there at the moment, and his tendency to make up excuses that he can’t keep track of are absolutley amazing. He’d come in late alot last summer acting quite hung over and almost every time blame it on accidents on the thruway and cops pulling him over but not ticketing him. This is like 10 times in 2-3 months these things prevented him from getting to work on time. These pathological people really do seem to think we’re all as stupid as they are. And now he’s all tight with another staff who hates me because I wasn’t as malleable as she wished, too strong minded to play along with her and nod in agreement, and unwilling to enter into a private relationship be it friendly or more outside work. Now this guy has filled that role and the two of them have a bond that includes hatred of the guys, massive self-aggrandizing at the expense of others, and the sharing of each others pills.

It’s really amazing stuff from grown-ups is all I’m saying. None of these people are kids, most older than myself. And nothing. No recognition, no perception, no lessons learned. I’ve lied in my life, I’ve acted innapropriately at work, and even downgraded others to make myself appear more elevated. I’ve embellished my stories and life to make myself appear a greater hero or more exciting character in the story of my life. And over time I grew out of most of that. I got cognizant of the psychological reasons for it and with that awareness I could rise higher above past standards of behavior I could see were childish and immature. I realized quite naturally through observation and a modicum of contemplation how little any of this gets people. How the truth will always out us and the lie will consume us and make us its tool rather than it being ours.

I thought it was a natural growing process, but I’m seeing now that alot of people don’t really go through this process. Not everyone needs to. Some are above this and live with a natural honesty and inner confidence from an early age. It’s one of the reasons I respect and like our own Brandonicus so much. He, despite being 23ish is one of those people. Far ahead of where I was at that age. I’m not sure most of my friends were there at that age but for the most part are there now. Visible growth and maturing has taken place. This includes in other illiterati like Bob, and posters like Gantor.

But I’m really struck the past year or two how many people go through their lives without this stuff and find it hard to fathom how that happens.

Screaming In Binary

[image:98:l] I hate to whine about myself, preferring instead to whine about politics and other things that effect others who I realize don’t care about my personal stuff, but I’ve been rambling a bit more on here lately and getting used to it. Since it has its cathartic elements and is becoming one of my only forums of personal venting, I’m off again. If you don’t care by all means move on. If you’re one of the people who prefer this kind of stuff to the relevent political and cultural stuff (like a certain entity who doesn’t like me complaining about the Bush administration), maybe this is more your thing. It’s Dead To Me without a coherent theme, it’s stream of consciousness without the editing, it’s the end of another lousy day at the office. You’ve had glimpses before in Late Night Rambling and Life As A Plebe type posts, but here’s a personal welcome to the personal side of The Dude.

I’ve made it through a week and a half with an IRA fund set up. That’s 10 days closer to 60. The pressure is building. Work is not helping. I feel sick to my stomach being around so much corruption and prevarication. I’ve had this throbbing above my left eye since a little after 3 today. That’s when I opened a letter at work. The throbbing is still there. The state may take my money as they’ve taken my soul. More on this and the nature of my scream in a moment. But first some less important things that must be said.

Chicken and egg. Which came first? I never got this joke or riddle, or metaphysical conundrum or whatever it is. Don’t you need two chickens to make an egg? Is there such thing as immaculate poultry? If so is it organic so I can eat it?

If Osama dies of old age or dysentery or something does Bush get credit?

I’m just starting to admit publicly how much I dislike George Thorogood. And The Destroyers. Though the Destroyers thing is probably just by association. I’ve never told anyone this before. Classic rock stations play his long rambling psuedo-macho odes to testesterone and booze far too often. I apologize to any of you who like them, but I suspect most of their fans hang out in bars and not cyberspace so we probably are ok there.

I miss the kid saying Dude.

Baseball camps are open and Barry Bonds says he’ll retire after the year. Strikes me that after his curious knee issue last season and now this he’s purposefully trying to keep himself from breaking Aaron’s homerun record. He wants Ruth’s because everything is racial to Bonds. But he knows as he would near and break Aaron’s HR record the spotlight on his cheating, the debates, and the boos would be real bad for him. Baseball wouldn’t look to good either. Potential for real messy situation. Don’t cheat kids.

David Wright of the Mets continues to be a worthy idol and my favorite player. He now says that with his new perks as a star comes great responsibility, somewhat echoing the words of Spiderman. As my favorite superhero I’m glad he’s a Met with a guy like Delgado who takes a stand.

Speaking of taking a stand. It was great of the guy who Dick Cheney shot in the face to apologize for being shot in the face by Dick Cheney. This is what happens when you wed yourself to an ideology and the power mongers who stand in control of it. As a major conservative contributor and a man in thrall to the administration for his place in things, this Whittington fella is so cowed he’s truly sorry Cheney has had to suffer like this. Cheney who admitted to drinking a beer at lunch before shooting him in the face. Cheney who disappeared for a day before talking to authorities for some mysterious reason. When people admit to a cop they may have had 1 beer doesn’t it usually man they had like 6?

That Dutch paper that ran the mohammed cartoons that have touched off such a furor rejected some Jesus cartoons last year. This makes me less than supportive of them and their free speech/press argument. They have a right to offend but others have a right to be offended and originally their protests were lawful and peaceful. Yes they’ve gone too far and I’ve got no love for their repressive phallocentric religion but it sounds like the paper was almost baiting them as is much of Europe’s press which has some definite racial issues. For all they have going over us I’m mostly glad I dont live in Europe because in the racial-religioous area they’re still a few decades, if not centuries behind.

And run Jesus cartoons already. Or is that religion already such a cartoon it’d be redundant?

Heard something about an Israeli paper, or maybe just a Hebrew one, having a contest to beat Muslims to the punch and run their own cartoons making fun of Jews. This is why i love them even if don’t particularly like Israel. And it’s why they rule the comedy world. Jews are just funny and smart and we may as well just deal with it. We need more diffusing of this stuff with humor and self deprecation.

I really think being surrounded by 2 oceans is one of the main and few reasons we’re better off and don’t have as much upheavel and tribulation as Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. That’s why it’s hard for me to get all uppity about being proud to be an American. We got lucky. It’s what we do it with. Right now we’re not doing so good. at least as far as the whole democracy, equality, justice, and peace thing goes. Maybe it’s humanity but I think America is a country of liars more than most. It’s everywhere and it just goes through me like a spear to the skull. Particularly one to my left eye area. Maybe its that isolation afforded by 2 oceans. When indiciduals dont feel they can be called on anything they’ll take the easy way and lie their way through life. Whether it’s Cheney or my boss, it just flows from their mouth so effortlessly, like silver mercury shite pouring forth.

And everyone feels like they’re lying for a cause. Whether its the conservative ideology, making a relationship work, or the great plan to make the state agency where I work function better. Justifications abound but at its root is just people lying for the cause of their selves who are now too tied to a job, movement, clique, or what have you, that they must defend to defend themselves. Everyone’s a superhero in their own minds and superheros dont lie without the greater good being at stake right?

Bullshit.

I am only remotely calm right now because I have this Sunday and Monday off to go along with the follwoing two days I normally have off. A three day workweek suits me. Much easier to get through. After today its really a good thing or I might be going postal. I need to have fun those five days starting saturday evening. Anyone of my peeps on here interested let me know. Next week wil be different though. Anyway.

I’ll try not to get off into too much of a rant here but I got to get this off my chest.

Those in the know understand my feelings about liars and ethics and how the state agency I work for is surfeit in the former and seriously lacking the latter. Well today I walk in there after a couple of days off and get a letter saying they are eliminating my 10-6 weekend position which the letter claims does not fit the master schedule’s needs and was created due to a special need at the time. Now it will be 8-4 to suit our sceduling needs. But it just so happens that the position was created with and fully integrated in our master schedule about 6 years ago and was one of the main reasons I agreed to give in and go full time with these monolithic scumbags. In fact it is special needs that make them want to “eliminate” it. Not alter it due to temporary needs as would normally be done and as I was asked to do, but “eliminate.” But if our master schedule is changed this should call for a rebid of the entire programs schedule with me as second highest in seniority having a chance to make some people very unhappy.

But this is not what they want to do. They want to circumvent all this to make an unjustifiable change just to screw me as revenge for speaking up against their unethical O.T. practices recently and for refusing to willingly change that 10-6 to the 8-4 they are changing it to now. I told them a few weeks ago I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t trust them to keep it temporary and was in no mood to help and was in my rights to demand a months notice of the need. I said give me a mandate with my months notice and I’ll do it. But I’m not going to indefintely do so. But the civil service mafia would have none of me dictating or refusing their needs de jour so I get a taste of their hateful passive aggressive ways.

But there is no need for it. I worked over the scedule and found no way this is saving them on overtime which would be the only justification. The need that was there when they asked me is gone now. What this is is V for Vandetta and it almost made me do some bad shite at work tonight.

I’ve wanted to quit before but never been as close as I am now. Problem is I can’t afford it and have a partially dependent father to consider. This is a lesson for kids to go to school early in life and stay there until they have enough credentials to not have to put up with mediocre scumbags with so little joy and identity that they have to manufacture it through hierarchical cliques that give the illusion of elevation by squashing those around them.

And of course all their passive aggressive slights are someone elses fault. As I opened the letter today the manager of the house was already blaming someone else named Shaune, herself a product of agency insleeping and favoritism like so many, who has been rewarded with some newly created scheduling sinecure. Just like the managers stealing O.T. from staff was the coordinator and team leaders fault for making him. On and on it goes. I phoned the union and left a message. No one available until Monday. We’ll see where that goes but if history is any guide it wont help much. The manger already warned me today that our CSEA rep is close to this Shaune woman. I will mention this to my rep and tell her she is dirty if true, or more likely that Wayne the manager is playing more mafioso games to scare me off grieving this. It’s the kind of silly ass high school mentality I have to put up with regularly. And quite frankly, and maybe even arrogantly, I’m just not operating on that level and have a real hard time being around those who are, whether personally or professionaly.

Jesus people is there any one outside of a few radicals out in the wilds who want to raise the bar on our behavior, ethics, responsiblity, decency, justice, or honesty? I guess it starts at the top and when we have a political landscape like we have now, and to some extent have always had-though these guys are like caracatures-why should we think that people with less importance adn who make less of a difference would be capable of taking their game to another level. It makes me absolutely crazy! Am I too sensitive? You make the call. I just don’t know how to make the throbbing go away.

And what kind of name is Wayne for a person anyway? There’s only 1 real consonant in there since W is a consonant the way ketchup is a vegetable. It’s such a wishy washy amorphous name which fits him and his feminine energy perfectly. And the self denial is really amazing. Just a couple of weeks agao as i complained about the lack of ethics in the agency and what a manager of very disreputable history and character in another program may have done to sabotage someone he doesn’t like in our place, he sat there agreeing and shaking his head at how bad it is really having no conception of being part of the problem after the better part of two years of stealing our money, uncountable lies and contradictions to all of us, a personal relationship with a woman he’s showing very unprofessional and unethical favoritism towards, and taking our credit and making us appear incompetent to make him and this other woman appear brilliant.

But I really dont think he sees it that way. I guess very few bad people do. No one sees the bad when its them. They see the reasons. The rationalizations. I honestly think people like this are too weak minded for introspection or perspective. Sort of like our president with a small p.

Speaking of which how does he go from saying he’ll veto any blocking of the port deal with Dubai by Congress, to saying a couple of days later he just heard about this deal?

This whole deal is another piece of proof that this administration doesn’t take a terrorist threat against the U.S. seriously and has in fact been using the idea and planting the fear post 9-11 to get away with murder. 9-11 was a fluke people. They let their guard down and know normal pre Bush type security and intelligence measures will keep another such event from happening. I said it then and I’m reaffirming it now. I’ll accept your apologies later after another mountain of evidence exists to back me up.

Besides the fake terror alerts choreographed to divert attention at key times, and the fact that we took all these resources away from Afhganistan where there was an actual connection to terrorists and put them in Iraq which had none until we let them in, you’ve also got a refusal to make private airlines, nuclear reactor and port area companies take responsibility and put some money into securing these supposedly vulnerable spots and the administrations refusal to start a dept of Homeland Security that when forced to do so they employed with cronies and incompetents and seriously underfunded. But now they want to let a company from the United Arab Emirates watch our ports.

These are the same countries that supported the Taliban, funnel nuclear components to Iran and N Korea, laundered money to 9-11 hijackers, and maybe this is the only part that really matters, are major funders of our stock market and economy. A CNN poll today said respondents felt Bush puts commercial interests ahead of security to a rate of 98%. Votes from the White House and Congress could easily account for that lunatic fringe 2% who apparently think this administration has got it going on.

And get this, There was a report that Bush is all proud that he got the Arab company to agree to cooperate in any potential investigations in return for their getting the contract.

Uhhh, shouldn’t this be par for the course. We’re giving you billions of dollars and we got to get them to give a little to be subject to us cheking into whether or not they are maybe shipping Al-Queda cells into the country or laundering money back to Osama bin Laden? What kind of bitch to the Arab world is Bush? The Arab world is a large 30 to life con sharing a cell with a pissant incestual pedophile with a lisp. We call that incestual pedophile George Bush. The Arabs call him their bitch.

As Aimee Mann sang, along with much of the cast of Magnolia, It’s not going to stop until you wise up. And I’m not just talking about our country but my own aforementioned issues.

It makes me want to scream. It made me throw a chair at work. Well not throw. It was a rolling chair in the office and I slammed-slid it across the room pretty hard. Still. I’m not sure if I can stay sane amongst all these disapointing people. Maybe I’m doomed to be disappointed always because I’m too sensitive and my expectations are too high. I would counter that anyone who feels expecting complete honesty, non-hypocrisy, an ability to make rational decisions that deny self interest when others are involved, is too much, has set their own standards too low. But they’re also probably happier than i am.

But I can’t let it go. I’m disillusioned and hurt by what i see around me. I’m Hamlet without a kingdom or a false king to blame…well except for the false king we have in the White House…my sense of idealism and desire at war with my means and my birthright. I even dated a crazy person like he did. She didn’t kill herself though she claimed she stood on that bridge in Mt Marion many years ago poised to jump. But she was also a pathological liar. Seems to be alot of them around. Alot of children in adult bodies causing adult harm because they are afraid of growing up and growing old, and growing dead. I am too. But you can’t lie your way to immortality. But that’s the rationalist in me. And it feels like I’m dying alone out here.

More Late Night Rambling

Some randomness for today.

I opened a Roth IRA. Cost $1000 to start up. It’s a kind of retirement fund for those not familiar. I can’t get it and future contributions until I’m around 60. That is unless I close it for certain special needs like first time home buying or college tuition. But the idea of having done this fills me with dread. Now i feel more pressure to live to be 60 and beyond, in order to enjoy some benefits from it. Being as optimistic as I am and prone to stressing such things, this makes me more sure than ever that I wont live to be 60.

That would mean that the money will have been wasted like a lifetime in a convent. Not only that but right now my mom and dad are the benefactors if I die. After that there is no one. This means that not only am I horribly alone but that one of two things will happen if I don’t make 60. One is that they will die before me and then if I don’t make 60 that fund will go to the state. I work for the state. They have taken my soul. I don’t want them to have my money too. They already have my ERS 401k type retirement fund I get through work. They’ve taken enough of me.

The other thing is it now puts pressure on me to die before them in order to have somebody benefit. But it won’t be worth much for a long time and my dad, with his emphysema is for all intents and purposes, dying (aren’t we all I guess?), so unless my mom can hang in there well into her 70′s we’re all screwed here. But I guess at least what’s in there when I die can be taken after closing the account by one of them. Not sure how that part works. But it’s alot of pressure and from the moment I wrote the check to a very hot financial investor at Banc Of America, I felt like I may be clogging arteries, developing an aneurysm, and or having heart palpatations. Of course the latter symptoms could also have been precipitated by the hottie investor. Investor-financial people shouldn’t be allowed to have bodies like that. I can’t talk finances under normal conditions. i need that kind of pressure too?

I did ask if I could make my benefactor a charity or something worthwhile and she said i could. So at least there’s that. Accept I don’t trust charities. I could leave it to Scientology as a joke. Maybe ask for a shout out in the acknowledgements of future editions of Hubbard’s Mission Earth series. Not that they’ll need my money. Neither would the Bush family but i could leave them as benefactors, with the express instructions that W has to suck my cold dead dick to collect it. Obviously he wont, but the point is they’ll have to offer, and he’ll know I told him to suck it even after I’m gone. It would be nice if my dick could reach beyond the grave like that and be more in death than it was in life.

God that last comment amused the crap out of me. I had to stop for a minute to laugh. I’m laughing now. Feels good. Hell it feels immortal. I’ll outlive all you sons of bitches and sip pina colada’s on the beack throughout my 60′s until I download my brain into a clone or android.

But still it would be nice to have someone to benefit if I don’t quite make it. So from here on in I’m taking applications for the role of my benefactor. You may not cash in big time but you’ll get more than you’d have anyway and all you have to do is act like you like me.*

And where’s the damn Hockey in the Olympics. how much friggin snowboarding are we gonna get before someone plays a real sport? Man that Curling is sweeping the nation isn’t it? Literally I mean. it’s bloody sweeping. I don’t get it. Never have. There’s something really wrong there and i think people are afraid to ask questions for fear of looking stupid. Curling gets by for the same reasons Opera survives. People are afraid pretentious people will snark haughtily at them for not getting it. So they watch, or allow it to exist, without acknowledging to each other that it sucks arse. Well I’m putting it out there people. Curling is stupid. More stupid than Opera. Some Operas are even ok. at least parts. But maybe I’m afraid to say otherwise.

And opening ceromonies in the Olympics are just gay. G…A…Y…GAY!

Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face this weekend. Alexander Hamilton was the last Vice President to shoot a guy. It was during a duel. It was with Aaron Burr. Cheney mistook a real guy’s face for a bird. So he says. I guess it’s possible. He mistook Iraq for Iran. N’s and Q’s and all that. I think Jack Abramoff was involved somehow. He may have lobbied against this guys face. He and the V.P. were close. Cheney can do whatever he wants apparently. If there was ever any doubt about that it is now gone. Don’t criticize this administration or he will personally shoot you in the face.

Rob Corrdry’s take on the Daily Show was awesome. Basically it goes like this. After learning he shot the guy in the face Cheney insisted it was the right decision, and he would again, shoot the man in the face. In a post 9-11 world America expects decisiveness like this. Daily Show is having much fun with this tonight.

On edit here is the whole Cordry-Stewart exchange:

Jon Stewart: “I’m joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: “Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

“And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington’s face.”

Jon Stewart: “But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?”

Rob Corddry: “Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak.”

Jon Stewart: “That’s horrible.”

Rob Corddry: “Look, the mere fact that we’re even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know ‘how’ we’re hunting them. I’m sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little ‘covey’ of theirs.

Jon Stewart: “I’m not sure birds can laugh, Rob.”

Rob Corddry: “Well, whatever it is they do … coo .. they’re cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: “Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?”

Rob Corddry: “Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man’s face. Let’s move forward across party lines as a people … to get him some sort of mask.”

Daily Show is so indespensable to my life and sanity now and really for the past 5-6 years now that I think about it.

Ms Pac Man continues to task me. All these years after her birth, she has a hold on me. I can’t quit her.

I’m reading Assasin’s Gate” America In Iraq. Great blanced look at the ideologies leading up to the invasion and both good and bad of the occupation. However nefarious the motivations of the loons in charge were for doing this there was a chance that good could have come of it but gross incompetence, and lack of scope or vision really turned many Iraq’s against them. Still I get a sense that there is a chance, but it will come at a far greater price, as it already has, due to the rigid and limited thinking of Cheney, Rumsfeld and alot of lasser known names that had alot of power to shape these events and were chosen mostly for their ideology and not their competence or credentials. Or rather chosen, or already part of the team because they shared an ideolgy that told the powers in charge what they wanted to hear and reiterated what they wanted to believe. It’s not unlike many of us who like to be around people who think like us. Problem is when you make a decision to take on great power or responsibility you should be prepared to rise above those needs and honor the systems of checks and balances and foundations for debate and dissenting opinions the founding fathers gave us.

From the White House on down to the agency I work for I just don’t see that. There is no ability to seperate themselves from personal goals and beliefs and be manifestations of justive and democracy. They are not hanging out at a diner. The higher up you go the more you need to have a broad spectrum of opinions and expertise.

This is not really what they book is about per se but it’s one impression I get as I reach its halfway point. May or may not do more comprehensive review on site but for anyone interested in history, only here its taking place now, and who wants a balanced, even at times complimentary look at America that does actually make some decent agruments for having gone into Iraq, I highly recommend this dense but very readable book.

Check out the Illzine people. Bob worked like a savage on it and it looks good. But we need your contributions. Not money. Your creative exploits. I wish i had more time to write and less of a cluttered mind. Or could find much of the shorter stuff I’ve written. Hopefully I can manage to squeak stuff out there that wont embarrass the Dude name. A short story titled Zombie Jesus in an expanded mode from what those who have already read should be up in next week or so. Brandonicus and Bob have a little something on there now. Short but amusing in Bob’s case, and short and a little sad in B’donicus’s. Maybe I will make them my benefactors someday though I’d rather have one I want to sleep with and have romantic nights in Manhattan with. And as cuddly as Bob may be, or as good of a kisser as donicus is, I just don’t see myself with them in that way long term. Sure we’ll always have our Brokeback Mountain moments over the years. But society is against our kind of love. Mostly just because its not pretty and shouldn’t be condoned. I’m against it too.

For those of you eligible women out there not to worry. Both Bob and B’don are straight and we’ve never cuddled or kissed. But B’don is taken. Lovely lass named Megan has stolen his heart. They are engaged even. he is a power monger who would destroy you anyway as he destroys the low life’s of those who work for him. you are better off. Unless you are part of his secret society.

Bob is, to my knowledge, single. Have a go at him and tell me what you think.

Arrested Development’s final 4 eps all buried this past friday by the almost dead to me Fox network, were brilliant. Did a great job tying it up quickly with wit and symmetry. Truly great show. The stuff with nellie references and Tobias were awesome. Bumped off mondays for celebrity ice sating (dead on arrival to me), they even got a shot in when Gob said Celeb skating was his favorite show. Lots of cool in-jokes right up until the end when our beloved narrator finally got some screen time and threw out an interesting suggestion. Arrested Development the movie?

I’m going to go watch 24 now at 2 a.m. and hope Jack commits some atrocities for me tonight.I have a sinking feeling Kim may be on tonight. I dont watch previes for this or Lost anymore, nor do I look for internet stuff about them. I find it much more enjoyable for everything to be new and a surprise. But I did manage to hear something about Kim coming back, though I don’t know for how long and last week Jack asked Audrey to phone her once he made the decision to come out fully and aid Logan in stopping the terrorists. Audrey left messeges on her machine. Kim wasn’t home. She’s probably caught in a Lion’s cage at the Zoo or trying to get control of a car with no brakes. Sooner or later she’ll get to the phone though and Jack will have to save her. hopefully she’ll be wearing a tight sweater when it happens.

I liked her in Girl Next Door by the way. Decent little flick that reminded me of Risky Business which i loved in teh 80′s before Tom Cruise died. And her cameo in Love Actually was cool. I love and hate her, but for better or worse Kim is coming and may god help innocent bystanders.

*women from Saugerties are exempted from this offer.

My Life As A Plebeian (Or My Name Is 51514 And I’m A Civil Servant).

Recently two friends advanced to managerial status in the field I work in. One for my old agency and the other for my current one. The old one had offered me similar opportunities a few years ago that I chose not to accept due to pay scale issues and union activities, which though they didn’t prevent me from being welcomed by management, i felt presented an inherent conflict of interests that I had to make a choice on. There was the inner circle of administration which beckoned and winked, telling me I was wanted there. And there was the rank and file where friends, dates, and union inspired purpose lay. I chose the latter. To quote Gob Bluth, I may have made a horrible mistake.

Even as I railed against management cabals, knowing full well how they looked down on us, suspecting their denigrations, shared secrets that went on in their meetings and closed ranks, a part of me has always identified and sympathized with some of their sentiments. It’s why despite my union activities I was liked my management, and its why I presented a balanced voice during contract negotiations. I’ve never been one for extremes. Sometimes I think I may have gone too easy on them and should not have fought for some executive priveleges that I and mainly two others fought for. Other times I think i should have joined their ranks.

Now two friends, including one of my best friends, walk among them. They have partially confirmed my suspicions about the exclusive meetings huddled around semi-circular tables laughing at those of us outside the circle too weak and stupid to enter. Though i may exaggerate and I have no real confirmation that they do all this in a smokey room as they are lit from underneath and cackle maliciously singing songs like the Stonemasons on the Simpsons relishing how they fix every Oscar race and Super Bowl, there was something to my suspicions. They make jokes I and friends in the field have ourselves made about the general state of the staff. I admit this. But in their generalized diminishment I am a target and not in on the joke.

All that is left to me is to build an army and destroy them.

I may not do that but the motivation for it comes from a similar place I think Lost’s Jack’s army building designs come from. Being dissed by a girl.

You see there is a girl I’ve crushed on and Haiku’d about on this very site. She is part of the inner circle one of those friends is part of. Together they plotted the Steelers amazing upset over the Colts on Sunday, Alito’s confirmation, and the escalation of relations with Iran. And all without me. So I ask myself if I’d be happier as Diabolical Dude, with potential new dating pool and job responsibilities, or as Aloof Dude, the truer and perhaps natural manifestation of my skill set?

There is little doubt that position, power, and responsibility, as well as education, provide access to a different gene pool when it comes to the dating game. Now it’s not coincidental that though I had some chances to date from within that agencies administrative set in past years, my dating over that time has come from women in my current position as rank and file lower case employee. That has not gone well. There is something to our professional and economic means being intertwined with the kinds of women we date and have access to. Ends and means are not quite coming together and its making for a very frustrated and meloncholy Dude at times.

Back to the woman. She now stands as a symbol of what could have been, and her seeming indifference mixed with professional appreciation of me as employee (I work at old agency part time to this day), haunts me as a good friend enters into the inner sactum that was once mine to enter if I so chose. At least through him I experience a vicarious nearness to a power of unimaginable levels, and through him I hope to find succor from the capricious and destructive decisions he and his brethren shall enact in the name of their untold and ancient agenda. But her indifference to me and my growing distance from anything novel or challenging is an open wound that oozes regret. I am one of the unwashed to her. An employee, perhaps a bit wittier and cuter than most of hers, to be sure. But still nothing more than an employee without ambition. A source of occasional amusement leaving funny messages on machines, dropping by for a moment or two of clever bon mot dropping before letting her and her partner return to their sinister machinations. A clown prince of the rank and file. The sad clown that might have moved her emotions and shook her world now set aside in a side ring to do no more than warm up the crowd for the acrobatic excitements of the Flying Darwinian Family, naturally selected to entertain you best and impregnate your sisters and daughters.

So I ride my tiny bicycle of civil service with an agency that ironically pays me more than she probably makes but where I dance and cavort less for a crowd that only wants to go home. Here I am appreciated by some, get on very well with a select few, disliked by a more select few, and indifferent to most. And this is how I feel towards them. Here too there may be opportunities of a non cost effective and minutely fulfilling nature to enter into the sanctum sanctorium. But I do not want to be part of their rank because of their corruption, the lack of youth or intelligence, charm or hope, in their circle. Maybe it’s because they are civil servants and part of N.Y. State. A monolithic entity that dehumanizes, assigns us all numbers (I am 51514), and has an administrative structure that is so vast and yet so decentralized. It’s the same dead end job and it pays better but here it’s a career that people retire from. There is security. There is safety in all the vastness as so many hide their shortcomings and get lost in the shuffle. This is not appealing…And she is not among them.
How little of human progress was accomplished without the motivation of impressing a girl?

I know better and yet I yearn for her attention, her acceptance, a reason to believe these latest decisions weren’t as bad as the ones I made so long ago. To know great love to a great woman can happen despite everything. To know that past choices can actually lead to something good, including the choice of letting things slip away with past girlfriend holding tenuously to the belief that someone better, someone like this one though I don’t know her enough to really say that, could want me as much as the other did but healthier, and completely on all levels.

But all questions hang in doubt now. Choices have been made and I have little time for school, just a bit more to write, little joy at work, home, or socially. I can not quit or move with a dependent priority in my Dad to consider. I laugh less for stretches, escape more, feel my mortality and its insignificance more, sleep less, sleep too much some days. I only absorb and remain unabsorbed myself.

So I have I made more bad decisions? Am I doomed to life as a subordinate? A plebeian nobody constituting a disposable cog in an uncaring machine? Am I an obsolete model? Despite caviar tastes will I always have cheese whiz means and ride a Ritz cracker into obsolescense?

All this was on my mind as I read and finished the novel Neverwhere and continues into my follow up post/review about that book.

Dude Haiku’s For The Day III

Sad to lack Croutons
Bread turds ferrtilizing me
Salad without hope

Tax time nears for me
Duty as a citizen
Stop blowing things up

The nurse laughs with me
Always get along with them
This ones taken too

Immune to your barbs
Implications turned around
I look deep do you?

Should I stay or go?
Train in vain I look for you
Tea can’t cure the pain

Sleepwalking through life
Alert to need to change this
Want to get more sleep

Clowns haunt from inside
funny until they kill you
tears are painted on

Sickness in the air
Caughing caughing everywhere
When it stops what next?

Aliens in heads
Left by galactic warlord
Tom Cruise is crazy

Dude Haiku’s For Today II

New year to begin
Stop this and start again now
Again and again

Still I feel she longs
Introverted and needing
She longs not for me

Interprative law
Flexible morality
This is how Bush wins

Expectations met
Giants need win no more games
At least Eli sees

Eli and defense
can not win now, seasons end
need win no more games

Pain of works return
Searched for escape in the dark
Five days to wipe ass.

Medicate their pain
Work to make the numbness mine
Depakote smells good.

Stupid girl is smart
Stupidly ignoring me
How stupid am I?

Lies for all to eat
Regurgitate his thoughts
See god in the puke.

Listening for us
Destroying them to save them
Evildoers here.