We close our eyes

When I was just a young boy, probably 3, maybe 4 years old, I used to run with a gang of gypsies and unencumbered artists in Southern California chasing a couple of bands around Los Angeles. When at all possible, for whatever reason, we would show up at the concerts wearing costumes.

The favorite band at the time was this one. I am not sure why I am posting this clip except that for whatever reason it resonates today. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Enjoy that spooky girl in clown makeup and a hoop skirt.

One more time, Beth must die, tragically

The message came via Skype at about 1 AM yesterday morning. A gang of marauding insurgents from the outskirts of Baghdad were ringing us up and wanted to talk with my attorney. Beth Libitard Esq is well know to insurgents, arms dealers, drug runners, investment bankers and republican presidential candidates, but for at least 6 weeks the Skype calls from Baghdad have been nonexistent.

I woke Beth up from an overdue slumber, she groggily logged onto her Skype account, LibitardExpress and took the call.

“We got Kitty, you want her back, you bring us cash and naked pictures of Paula Abdul.”

Beth listened intently and responded, “How much cash?”

“A million in unmarked bills.”

“How many pictures?”

“17, but none below the waist, we may be terrorists, but we are not insane.”

“Understood. It will take be at least 20 minutes to get the cash and the pictures, then I need to charter a plane, fly to Iraq, parachute in, exchange the money, pick up my long time lover and figure out a way to get out safely.”

“You have exactly 12 hours, then we filet the Kitty and make falafel.”

The line went dead and Beth was out of my office and running downstairs, screaming orders along the way. A plane was requested, a bag was packed, I heard some keys, a secret door was opened, she pulled out what appeared to be one of many satchels of cash and a bag that read “Abdul, Paula, pictures.” Beth is prepared for any circumstance and cash and nude pictures of an aging reality show diva would be the exact sort of thing she would have in her files.

Beth is my lawyer. A Harvard graduate, originally from Australia but she has been in this country for so long you can barely hear the accent, unless she stumbles out on the patio during the summer when we are having a barbeque and she says, “throw another shrimp on the Barbie,” then it all seems to come back.

When I was arrested last year for trafficking in stolen traffic signs, Beth was at the jail before I was, bailed me out with counterfeit monopoly money and before I knew it, we were in Mexico, drunk on cheap tequila and enjoying the good service on one Marta Portavilla, a famous Chilean artist and Mexican prostitute. That was a month I will not soon forget, not to mention 6 STD’s that I will not soon get rid of. Still, a month I will not soon forget.

I returned to my bedroom and Beth came up to bid me farewell. I told her I would see her in a few days and dramatically she said that if she did not make it back, I could keep all her illegal weapons, her inflatable Antonio Banderas Love Doll collection, the Picasso she stole from her night of passion with Donald Trump and some kibble. I kissed her on the cheek and whispered in her ear, “check the parachute my friend.”

She was dressed in camouflage and a pearl necklace because that is the way she rolls and a horn beeped outside and in an instant she was gone. It was cold and the quiet in our ghetto neighborhood was unsettling. No gunfire, no loud arguments between drug dealers and prostitutes, no screaming from Fat Momma the worst mother in the world who’s only parenting skill is to demean and cuss at her unwanted three year old child. Nothing, quiet. I looked out my window and watched as the red tail lights of the jeep faded into the darkness. I put my hand against the cold window and said, “I will see you soon my friend.” Somehow, in my heart, I knew I would probably need to find a new attorney.

Later that night Beth boarded a plane at Teterboro Airport outside of New York City on the New Jersey side and the pilot, an aging useless actor named John Travolta came back into the passenger compartment, which only contained Beth and Billy Bob Johnson, who was Travoltas long term secret gay lover. Travolta kissed Johnson fully on the lips and Beth whispered to herself, “get a room.”

“What you sayin?” The closeted gay former actor said.

“Nothing, I’m kind of in a hurry, I need to parachute into Baghdad as soon as possible.”

“I got it Beth, but really, the only time I’m allowed to show affection to my gay lover is on this plane, so cut me some slack, ok?”

“How about you two go at it on your way home from Iraq?”

“Now that’s a good idea. We can do that, right Billy Bob?”

Billy Bob nodded and Travolta traipsed back to the cockpit. The planes engines rumbled to life and soon enough they were in the air and headed to Iraqi airspace.

During the long flight super gay Billy Bob Johnson made some delicious chocolate chip cookies which Beth enjoyed. He also told her some bawdy stories of old Hollywood, when he and Travolta used to have wild times with the likes to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, David Geffin, Rowdy Randy Piper, Ryan Seacrest, Billy Bob Thornton, Robin Williams, oh the list seemed endless and Beth was tired. She slept. That is, until Billy Bob woke her and said they were approaching the jump site.

Beth sprung to action. She grabbed the bag of money, which she had also loaded with the nude photos of an aging and not so voluptuous Paula Abdul. Billy Bob gave her a choice of two parachutes and Beth looked at him like, what’s the difference? Billy Bob explained that there really was no difference, they just happened to have two parachutes available.

That may have been the big mistake right there. See, over the years, Billy Bob had grown tired of the closet John Travolta had forced him to live in and every now and then he had hoped to live a real life, one not confined to secrets and lies. He wanted to be out to his friends, his family and the editors of People Magazine. As long as Travolta insisted on living a lie, so would he. Every now and then Billy Bob would fill a parachute case with something un-parachute like, say a game of Clue, or mashed potatoes, and last time, an anvil and he would just leave it at that, thinking if the parachute was needed and his long time secret lover used it and fell to his death, so be it.

Instead, in the speed of the moment, when it was time for Beth to make that jump into the wilds of Baghdad, she grabbed the parachute, ran to the open door clutching her bag of money and nude Paula Abdul photos and jumped because the only thing she really wanted to do was save the life of her long time lover, Momma Kitty.

Instead, an anvil laden parachute bag dragged Beth hurtling into the Euphrates River at a speed that would certainly have killed her on impact, and if the high speed impact was not certain death, then sinking into the scum filled river and drowning most certainly was. Then again, if a miracle occurred and Beth was able to survive falling at high speed, landing in a polluted and toxic river and sinking to unknown depths and she was able to make her way up to the surface, she most certainly would have been eaten by what remained of Saddam Husseins trained alligator attack force. Either way, Beth is dead.

Interesting factoid, the high speed decent caused the case containing the cash and photos to break open, so all morning in Baghdad people have been finding 100 dollar bills and these disgusting nude images of aging and out of shape Paula Abdul. Hospitals around the region have been treating people for a variety of eye strain and stomach disorders associated with accidentally viewing the Abdul images. Completely understandable.

As I write this I look up and sitting on my office couch is none other than a Miss Momma Kitty, who was never in Baghdad, but was actually taking part in an elaborate New Years day prank on her long time lover. Beth may be dead, but in her death we all got a good laugh out of it, so in that respect, she did not die in vain.

The many deaths of Beth

A short book of some of the stories of the tragic and various deaths of my lawyer Beth Libitard will be available in e-book form in about a week on Amazon. That is true.

What is also true is that they are no longer available for free on this blog. I know. That is a true injustice.

There is good news though.

Apparently, because there was not a final chapter in the Death of Beth series, she had an emergency call into Baghdad last night and you can only imagine what a late night flight with John Travolta and his gay lover will lead to. I'd say, check back.

Also, there will be a link next week for the Beth book.

Happy New Year.

Acidic soil

Good news

A friend asked me this morning if I was going to do one of those end of year recaps on my blog. At first I said, of course, because it's what I should be doing, with over 400 posts, there must be scads of things worthy of review.
Then it dawned on me, this has been a pretty uneventful year. Really, nothing dramatic happened. Nothing bad, nothing great, just a fairly simple year.
So, enjoy some music by one of my favorite bands. Oh, and tomorrow, Texas governor Rick Perry sat down with me in a diner this morning somewhere in Iowa, word for word interview will be posted in the morning.

Me and Gay Nixon

Everywhere I go lately everyone keeps asking me if I’d be willing to talk with them about the time I spent with Richard Nixon. Well, the producer who called from MSNBC put it that way, the child like idiot who just rang me from London’s Daily Globe asked if I “ever did the homo nasty with super gay former president and currently dead Richard “Dick” Nixon.” I just smiled seductively and then I answered, “did you just say dick?”

I knew it would come out at some point, it had to really, when you think about it.

Here’s the facts. I was a handsome young man spending my summer with my mother and step brothers on a hot summer night in a god forsaken Baja Mexico town. It was actually a glorious time, we were all young, healthy, fun and good to be around. Then one evening in August a beautiful young Mexican woman named Marta came running down the beach calling out, “Mateo, Mateo, come quickly, Dick is leaving.”

Of course, this sounded ominous to me too, so I ran up from the beach and she was in this grassy hut, watching a small black and white television set. There on the screen sat the United States most popular president in history, one Milhous Nixon. A sensual speciman of a man, both honest and handsome. Even then I had something of a crush on him. He was speaking, but because we were deep into Baja, his voice was being dubbed in by a husky woman’s Spanish speaking voice and all I could make out was, “sey sequential por favor, me amigo esta bien todas el burrito.” Later I would learn that dear Mr. President had resigned because the evil democrats had somehow falsified documents, evidence, testimony and video that proved without a doubt that Nixon and some hired evil henchman had indeed killed thousands of innocent virgins in an elementary school in Kentucky, or something like that. It was all in Mexican and a long time ago.

Needless to say, Dick Nixon did not stick around to be kicked around, he high tailed it out of DC on Air Force Two and landed in Orange County California, rented a Ford Galaxy 500 and drove to San Clemente. The former Western White House was a shambles now, and Dick would sit there in silence for the next 3 months, sometimes crying into the night, sometimes running naked on the beach, frightening foreign tourists and scaring the surfers.

Some time later it was a day in February and I was taking a break from my studies at nearby San Diego State University. I was bronzing myself at the Cortez Bay nude beach. After about half an hour I rolled over and when I looked up there was a grumpy secret service agent in a Speedo and a holster, looking down at me with a mischievous grin on his face, “Nixon is looking for privacy, mind if he puts a towel down?” He asked. I told him not at all and soon enough I was having sun tan oil applied to my back by the disgraced former president.

What started out as a simple day in the sun soon flourished into the most magical love story anyone could imagine. Nixon was funny and shy, in fact he could not actually admit to enjoying sexual relations, he could only speak in metaphor when referring to sex. One night, after we had been apart for a few days and I knew he must really want me, he called me from his “red” phone and he said, “I really need to drive the Ford,” which was his term for me to get over there wearing nothing but short running shorts and a tank top, which was the style of the times.

Of course, dating Dick was not always Driving the Ford or Singing to Reagan, if you catch my drift, no sometimes he would get drunk and say mean things, about people I’ve either never heard of, or did not care about. I am sure historically, J. Edgar means something to someone, but to me, it was just more slurred insults about just another drag queen from the streets of DC. Long lost history that I did not care much about.

Our torrid love could not last and it fell apart one night when I stopped by the San Clemente house. Parked in front were about 20 large black SUV’s and two or three large industrial sized limousines. I slowed as I walked up the drive and noticed a cadre of secret service agents milling around. All of a sudden, as if on cue, they all listened attentively to their ear pieces and began moving toward the vehicles. The front door of Nixons home opened and the current President of the United States at the time, William Jefferson Clinton walked out, turned, kissed Nixon on the cheek and then turned again and walked to his car, where an agent was holding the door open. Nixon waved a large Cuban cigar at the President at said in a sweet, seductive tone I knew all too well, “see ya again Bill.”

I turned, crying in shame and walked away, never to return. Like so many Americans before me, Nixon had broken my heart with his careless lies and abuse of power.

Better run

The weather

Dear former vice president Gore,

I just want to thank you for global warming. As I am writing this we are in the final days of 2011 and I am in my house in Pittsburgh and it is a balmy 75 degrees outside. I am wearing shorts Mr. Former Vice President, shorts. In December. Thank you so much for global warming.

Also, again, as I said in my last email, thank you so much for the internet too.

All my best to you and Tweezer,

Matt

This

For you I say Merry Christmas

I don't understand the words. I don't understand the message of this video, all I know is that somehow this song has stuck with me from the first time I heard it and I play it often. For the non-Jews who will not be watching Tom Cruise movies today at the multiplex, Merry Christmas.

A tragic end to Hanukkah

This has been a contemplative Hanukkah for us this year, what with Professor TMI flying off to Ireland to visit his twin sister Mitzy and Sandor The Amazing taking the guest room while the circus takes their annual winter break.

Sandor has been part of our family since the early 90’s when he answered our ad that said, “babysitter wanted, must not be mean, angry or rabid.” Ironically he was most of those things, but we learned that a little too late. Sure Sandor is a circus performer, or circus freak depending on what county the circus is currently licensed in, but for the most part, he is a nice guy, with a few too many tattoos, a serious drinking problem (“not a problem as long as Sandor keep drinking,” he likes to joke) and a recent dismissal as mascot at Penn State University due to an unfortunate misunderstanding with a fury named Shantell, the mascot for the Clarke County Community College Wild Cats.

Last night, as the sun began to set, I had the Torah out and was reading the prayer and Sandor was standing in, although he is not Jewish, he was drunk and he said he thought it would be fun to “watch the money changers exchange their ill gotten gold and shit.” As he was wobbling during my Torah reading I noticed he kept spilling a little of whatever it was he had in his open flask. A little splash here, a little leakage there, almost all of it falling on the thick winter coat of my lesbian lawyer dog Beth. She did not seem to mind, she lay sleeping on the floor surrounded by me, Sandor the drunken circus freak, my Ipad where Professor TMI was beaming in from a pub somewhere in Ireland via Skype and 9 of my children. Little Timmy and his sisters Helga and Helga 3 could not make it, the Helgas are still in jail in Tuscany and little Timmy, well, we are not sure where he is anymore and quite honestly, and I am going to be real with you here, I never really liked little Timmy all that much.

I finished reading the prayer from the Torah and I asked if anyone had anything they wanted to say as part of our Hanukkah tradition. Over Skype Professor TMI asked “is Sandor the freak drunk right now?” and we all said of course and laughed, because no one has ever seen Sandor not drunk. Sandor waved to the Ipad and said, “heblo TMI, what are you doing on the TV?” and we all laughed some more, it is such fun to have drunk people over for the holidays.

Here is where I think we had a bit of a Rashomon moment.

Want to know the rest of this story?

The Many Deaths of Beth - Available on Amazon in early 2012.

Praise be

For my Jewish friends

I'd like my cake now

I went to college with a current member of congress. That is true. His name is not Congressman Dickhead, although that is what I am going to call him, because he and I remain good friends and I promised not to use his real name, mostly because he is disgusted with his friends in dark suits, red ties and fake smiles on their bland pasty white faces. So am I.

Congressman Dickhead is a registered republican, as am I, again, all true. He has been elected a few times, he is not the brightest tool in the linen closet, he thought it would be funny if I said that, he actually agreed when I told him I did not think he was the sharpest tool in the tool shed, but linen closet is funnier. We both agreed on that. He is a republican, but he wanted me to make it very clear, he is not one of those republicans.

Those republicans are the idiots currently running the idiot palace. We know who they are, they have names, but let’s just call them Shit For Brains. Yes, SFB are these stupid mother fuckers who think that by doing the exact opposite of leading, they are actually leading. This is of course, insane, but most of these middle aged white men ran on the “I’m insane, you should vote for me, because I am like you, angry and insane” ticket. They got elected and pretty soon they will be unelected, but until then, they waddle around the nations capitol being foolish and people point and giggle and it is all pretty funny, but Congressman Dickhead is filled with shame, because like the Shit For Brains congressmen, they are all from the same party and people are kind of fed up with the republicans. Kind of. Well, if you look at the polling, people are more upset with the republicans than they have ever been upset with any party in the history of the nation. So, yeah, the Shit for Brain republicans are kind of screwing up everything, especially for my friend Congressman Dickhead, who is not an idiot.

“I am not an idiot,” he says in all honesty. “This is bullshit. I mean, first of all, no matter who is in charge, why do these drama queens always, and I mean ALWAYS, have to wait until the very last minute to get anything of substance passed? You ever notice that? Here we are again, end of the year, and we are all dancing around tax and budget legislation when all of this could have been dealt with last month, or last week, or yesterday. But no, we have to get right up to the deadline, because the fake tanned god damned drama filled TV hogging bone headed mother fuckers just have to wait. These were the frat boy losers in college who were up the night before a major paper was due because they never bothered to do any of the work prior to the deadline. I hate these stupid unprepared idiots. I do.”

Congressman Dickhead is ashamed of his own party. So am I. I am not a republican who hates democrats. Some of the best people I have ever had sexual relations with were liberal democrats. Three of my best friends are democrats. My long term lover Professor TMI is a registered socialist. My lesbian dog has voted for Hillary Clinton, twice. I am surrounded by bolsheviks. Congressman Dickheads wife worked on the Obama campaign. Both he and I are not anti-democrat. We just happen to be moderate republicans, think Barry Goldwater with a checkered past, rehab and strip clubs.

“So do you think that the House leadership just don’t understand that people outside of Washington DC view them as a bunch of fake tanned pampered fuck heads?” I asked.

“I don’t think they care, to tell you the truth. Look what Newt has done. He gets tossed and fined and thrown out of the House. He was shamed out of office, no one remembers, but he was a fucking pariah, no one wanted to even acknowledge him. Last year Newt Incorporated made over 100 million dollars doing favors and hob knobbing with dick heads and ass kissers. What does he really do? He knows people in expensive suits. You don’t think every other politician looks at Newt and figures, even if the voters wise up and throw their sorry asses out of office, they won’t have a better job tomorrow? These shitheads just don’t care.”

“What do you think of Tori Amos?”

“Who?”

“She’s on the radio, some hippy singer.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Making my lesbian dog howl.”

“Turn it off.”

“Here is what I just fail to understand about the house leadership, do they really believe that doing the bidding of just the wealthy is really what’s best for the rest of the country?”

“Let them eat cake.”

“What did you say Congressman Dickhead?

“You are really not going to call me Congressman Dickhead on your blog are you?”

“Of course not, I will call you Jim Sensenbrenner.”

“Better use Congressman Dickhead, I’d just as soon not be associated with that fat piece of shit in any way.”

“Congressman Dickhead it is then, you were saying something about eating cake.”

“I think that the leadership has a philosophy of allowing the voters to eat cake while the Mercedes driving fundraisers really control the game.”

“You have become cynical.”

“This city will do that to you.”

“Do you have any plans for New Years Eve?”

“Like all my fellow republican congressman, I do not plan to be in Washington DC, I do not plan to cut the taxes for the middle class. I do not plan to fund unemployment insurance for people who need extensions. I do not plan to continue to fund extensions to Medicare and Medicaid payments to doctors.”

“So….”

“Business as usual.”

Fat hypocrites

Super sexy Jimmy Sensenbrenner, a slim former bathing suit model from Wisconsin who happens to be a congressman, because they apparently were not hiring late night managers at the Eau-Claire Wal-Mart, has opined on the important issues of the day. The rotund Wisconsin republican said about Michelle Obama, “"She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself."

That is true, he actually said that. I am a big supporter of freedom of speech. I like it, I think it is important, especially when people are allowed to speak freely and stupidly. When lazy and stupid people speak, it is almost always funny. Especially when fat and stupid people speak about things that might reflect back negatively upon themselves.

Personally I have never smoked, but my parents did, so I felt completely justified in mocking them relentlessly on their completely idiotic choices. I have actually been overweight, and I have been called a fatty McMuffin Man to my face and it made me cry, or something like that. I must have a point here somewhere. Yes I do, Jimmy the congressman is a blowhard bully. There, I said it.

A giant blob of a human being like stupid Jim Sensenbrenner, who is part of the most inept and brain dead congress in the history of this once great country, should be the very last person to comment on another persons weight. This is the perfect example of the pasty white fat stupid fucking idiotic lame kettle calling the large posterior pot negro.

Maybe the good people of Wisconsin will get on a roll in November and dump that semi-retarded governor of theirs and send old Jimmy off to pasture, or better yet, sign him up to the aptly titled show The Biggest Loser, because it seems like he’s already got the complete title definition already in place, if you catch my drift.

By the way Congressman Nonsensenbrenner, if you could muster up the energy to walk around any playground in America, chances are you would see plenty of young children already grossly overweight and if they are lucky, they are probably being cared for by the obese out of work parents who are wondering why the lazy and insane congress of the United States can not seem to pass meaningful economic legislation of any kind but can find the time to be checking out and commenting on the backside of the First Lady.

I keep forgetting

I know, if you are like me, which means you are wearing a clown suit and reading the Torah, you are wondering what sort of great gift you can get that person who is really kind of special in your life.

I have been busy of late and I have been slacking in my marketing of the paintings. If you could be so kind, please click this link right here and check out the paintings and hopefully find something that really makes you happy.

Thank you all again for supporting this site (today we again had more "unique" visitors than ever before, which has been happening a lot lately.)

Oh, this blog is slowly, very very slowly moving to Wordpress and the new Mergatroid Books site is already there, although kind of hidden. Go ahead and move your attention that way, it's a much better format and the entire experience is fun and sexy.

Life is a battle

It is officially Winter and for most of us, that means turning indoors for a few months. For me that means I have set my cycle up in my studio and I am now cycling inside. This is a good thing for me because after some terrible cycling accidents over the years I have a well earned paranoia against motorists of all kinds, but especially stupid people with cellphones.

Oh, don’t get me started with you texters and talkers. You know why the President of the United States has a limo? Because when he must take a call, which he often must, he can not be bothered to be a driver and a talker at the same time. The President is an important person. Most people are not the president, so their phone calls do not come from the 20-something pig-boy president of North Korea who now calls President Obama and says things like, “you order the shitty chicken with poke sauce?” The president takes these calls and it does not risk the life a cyclist because he is lounging in the back of a limo, which is how people should take a call if they must while on a roadway.

As a cyclist who must share the road with all sorts of bad drivers and moronic pedestrians, I consider myself hyperaware when I am riding, especially in cities. When you are riding fast in a city your brain must work overtime, just to process all the activities, people over there about to step off a curb, a young child eating an ice cream absentmindedly walking into a crosswalk, the taxi driver pulling away and asking “where to?” to his new fare and the delivery driver in the truck who could care less if he hits a cyclist. These and millions of others every single second are trying desperately to kill me. I swear they are. I have to process all of it or I am dead.

So moving my bike into my studio is a safe thing, no people, no cars, no careless haters trying to injure or kill me. Yesterday I was sweating up a storm, riding hard in a small gear, working my legs and listening to loud music plugged into my ears. I shifted into the hardest of all gears and stood up to power the bike and I felt the bike move a little bit, a slip here, a bit of movement there and the bike was sliding. This is a bad thing on a road, it is a terrible thing when a bike is on a metal stand in a studio. I wear bike tights, a t-shirt, bike cleats and nothing else when cycling indoors. No helmet and nothing to protect my body from a fall, because in all reality, I should not be falling while cycling indoors.

Yet, I fell. There is a table in my studio filled with paints, brushes and some small almost finished canvases. The left temple of my head hit the corner of that table. That hurt. Not nearly as much as my left hip, which took the full weight of my body and bike, as I slammed onto the hard wood floor. I heard something break and I was sure it was a bone, but instead, it was a wood handle on a paint brush hitting my hip. I laid there, still cleated into the bike, unable to move, wishing I could bring myself to cry, wishing I had worn some protection on my head, and my hip, ribs, knees and flooring. Slowly I uncleated and pulled my legs free from the cycle.

The bike was uninjured and I was able to get it back into the stand. I was, on the other hand, hobbled. Lucky for me, I have been injured often and I am prepared. I have a cane and bandages and sadly, plenty of pain medication. I took a long bath and some hydrocodone and slept the sleep of the drugged.

This morning I wobbled into my local grocery store, cane in my left hand, slowly making my way down the dairy aisle, in need of some Colby cheese for a lunch of turkey and Colby cheese on a corn tortilla. An elderly man was already standing in front of the selection of cheese and as I slowed, his head turned, a pair of broken wire rim glasses barely hanging on a wrinkled old nose and he eyed me with contempt, which surprised me. He too had a cane and before I knew it, he used his cane to tap mine, knocking it away from the floor and against the frozen food case. I had a quizzical look on my face, but said nothing, because I was in the process of catching myself before I fell into the Suzy Q Fat Free Desert Bombs.

“What the fuck?” I said and pushed my cane violently onto the floor to get my balance again.

“You don’t need that cane, you are mocking those of us injured in the war,” he said with an air of superiority that he either had not earned nor did he seem to understand. Again, he used his cane to swipe at mine, this time hitting it in the opposite direction, away from the frozen food refrigerator and into the open walkway. I was not expecting this and lucky for me, I did a Charlie Chaplin move, let it swing 360 degrees, it came right back down, stabilized me again and before I could ask the pesky veteran why he had such a bad attitude, I lifted my cane, smacked his cane from it’s perch and knocked it so he was now off balance.

“Touche,” he mumbled as he stumbled a bit, his slippers sliding on the linoleum floor as he almost lost his balance. He cane automatically lifting, climbing into the air and swiping towards my head, I leaned forward and it flashed past my head and around, knocking over some of Mrs. Butterworths Sticky Finger Fat Filled Strawberry Blimpy Food filled stuffy things. At that point I had control of my cane, smacking him in the knee. I could hear him scream out in pain, but not for long as his cane smacked me in the shoulder, hard.

“What the fuck old man,” I screamed, as I hit him again in the leg with my cane, as he was using his cane to pummel my right ear, which stung like you would not believe. I stood up straight, stepped back and held my cane up in a defensive motion. He slapped my cane with his, pushing it into the cheese section, “watch the Colby” I mumbled.

“Screw the Colby sissy boy, it’s on.” He hit my cane, pushing it away and he tried to stab me with his cane, but he was old and slow. As he tried to lunge into me, I grabbed his cane, pulled hard and he refused to let go, which was his big mistake. He was old and off balance, my cane pulling forced him onto the floor face first, laid out on the floor, his cane sliding out of his hand and splintering away from him across the floor as he moaned in pain. I stepped up to the cheese section, grabbed a small package of Colby and walked past him and out of the dairy section.

I think I learned an important lesson today at the grocery store. Cheese, no matter what sort or what brand, is almost always worth the battle.

Newt called by real name

Oh my. A dumb red neck used Newt Gingrich's real first name yesterday in a grocery store in Iowa just as the pudgy former house speaker was shaking hands and watching his promising presidential race fall into the gutter.

It must suck to be Gingrich, which is what I have been saying since the early 90's. It's true, go back to my blog from the early 90's and check.

Because CNN is run by a bunch of pansies and sissy men, the dumb redneck dressed as a serial killer told the rotund blow hard that he was a "fucking asshole" which is both true and disgusting. Thank you Iowa redneck, for speaking the truth and reminding me once again why I hardly ever watch Bugs Bunny cartoons any more.

Let's go to video where we see that wascally wabbit Newt take it from Elmer Fudd.

Father Christmas

For love

My computer just crashed. I had all these open Word files that had some blog entries all sitting there. All gone. I have been working on a long form tribute to Profesor TMI for a few weeks, I thought it was almost done. I think there was a time when people would write their lovers poetry. My father seemed to find great joy in bringing my mother chocolate covered cherries. I don't know why. Cards and letters, poems and songs, we are constantly finding ways of expressing to someone that we love them. So I lost this love letter for Professor TMI, but then I stumbled upon the video below and it reminded me that there is always something that we can share, in the meantime. Love is just sweet sometimes.

this is our year. from Joe M on Vimeo.

Desperate republican phone calls

I am not sure why I still have an Iowa phone number. For a few weeks last year I was dating an Iowa State University cheerleader and at that time it made sense to have a cellphone from Ames, and even as I write that I shake my head and think, why, and I can’t for the life of me answer it. Still, I have the Iowa cellphone and the cheerleader was long ago dumped because I was too old and the cheerleader was too stupid. Case closed.

Still, the phone rings and my heart beats a little faster and without looking at the screen I answer. “Hello,” I say, breathlessly, hoping, with want and need and maybe a touch of love, and then I hear a familiar gravelly voice coming through.

“Well, hi there, this is Ron Paul callin’ again, please don’t hang up this time. I just want to talk to you and I know it’s after midnight, but I am alone in Des Moines and I am callin’ people who might want to caucus in January with me.”

“Ron, you are old enough to be my grandfather.”

“I know that, and you know that, obviously, cause you just said it, but I want you to know that I’m serious. Heck, that’s why I’m callin’. See, this country is off the rails. I think I’m the only serious candidate who can really get us back on track.”

“Wait, this is not phone sex?”

“Well, not really. Unless you find foreign policy sexy.”

“Was that a joke?”

“Kinda.”

I hung up on Ron Paul, again. He calls often, usually late at night, never for phone sex, and in some ways that is good, but mostly it is not. Mostly if you call on my Ames cellphone after midnight, it should be about phone sex. Why, just last Wednesday at 1AM my cellphone rang.

“Hello,” I said.

“It’s me, Marcus Bachmann.”

“Oh man, are you calling to tell me that if only I could find Jesus I’d be happier?”

“Not at all. What are you wearing?”

See? That’s how it’s done. That is exactly how it’s done. Not that dear sweet Marcus Bachmann won me over to the dark side, although with his nasty talk about sexy times in Minnesota and promises of some sort of leather cuffs and spankings, I am pretty sure he would be the best “first lady” this country has ever seen.

Lately my Ames cellphone has been ringing all the time. Sometimes it is sweet, because the desperation of the Republican presidential candidates can be down right adorable. Also, the psychosis of Newt Gingrich has been spectacular. A month ago Newt called and promised me one thousand dollars cash if I would show up to the caucus in January and support him. I laughed and hung up and a second later the phone rang. His whiney and drunken voice was outranged.

“You know what, fuck you, I can do this without you. I’m god damned Newt Gingrich, I was the god damn Speaker of the House, I don’t need you. What are you anyway, some doofus from Ames? What the hell? Why do I even bother with you fucking bozos? Hell, I only joined this circus to sell more books.” Then the phone went dead.

Then, somehow, Newt became the media darling and he was on top of the polls and about a week ago, I got this message in my voicemail. “Hey, it’s me, Newt, looking forward to seeing you in January and would welcome your continued support in my move to the White House, because it’s pretty obvious that is where I am heading.” If you viewed the polls two weeks ago, Newt’s inflated ego seemed to be well placed. Then everyone started paying attention and remembering Newt Gingrich is insane and the polls started to dip and last night, during the Monday Night Football game, an obvious high Newt Gingrich called me again.

“Hey, it’s Newt callin”

“I’m kind of watching the game.”

“Oh? What game?”

“Newt, you are so gay. Why are you calling this time?”

“Well, as you know, I could really use your support in the January caucus and I am reaching out to people who have shown an interest in my campaign.”

“But Newty, I have never shown an interest in your campaign.”

“But your number is in my recently called list.”

“Right, well, a couple of those were drunken calls, two were butt dials and one was a late night phone sex thing that was off the wall kinky.”

“That I can explain.”

“Don’t bother. Right now, Newt, I am officially undecided.”

“What would it take for you to caucus for Newt Gingrich?”

“If you were to drop your third wife right now and find a newer, hotter one tonight, marry her immediately, I’d think about it.”

“Seriously?”

I hung up. The former speaker can get desperate and it is never pretty. About a minute later I got yet another call from Rick Perry. It started like all calls from Rick Perry have started over the past few weeks. I don’t even get a chance to say hello.

“Who’s this?” The Texas governor spews, bewildered.
“Well, you called me, as you saying you don’t know?”

“Hell no, I don’t know. Why you calling me?”

“Governor Perry, I did not call you, you called me.”

“If I called you Mr. Smarty Pants, how do you know my name?”

“I have caller ID and you’ve called me every night for the last two weeks.”

“Now that ain’t true.”

“Is too.”

“Ain’t not.”

“Is too.”

“Ain’t not.”

We go on like that for a while and then I hang up. He is usually drunk or stoned or has just finished having a threesome with Newt Gingrich and his fifth wife. I get confused.

Yesterday at noon I got a call from rowdy Rick Santorum. He always starts his calls by apologizing for his last name and I accept that, then I ask him why he is still running for president.

“Have you seen my family?”

“Actually I have not.”

“I have over 12 children and at least one wife. It’s hell on earth. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife and the majority of my kids, but I can’t take it. I don’t have a job, I used to be a senator, but then the voters in Pennsylvania realized I was insane, now I don’t have any job skills, so when I am not running for president, I am at home with my wife and all those damn kids. You have any idea what that is like?”

“No, I do not.”

“It is hell on earth.”

“So you are running for president to get away from your family?”

“That and spend quality time with Marcus Bachmann.”

The doctor is in

As anyone who has been paying attention, it must be obvious, I have been doing a lot of therapy lately. Well, maybe not a lot-lot. I don’t want to parse words, I think it depends on what an average persons definition of therapy is and what going to see a therapist a lot of times would be. I know some people who have never in their lives been to therapy, and I know some people who go daily. Either of those examples would have a skewed definition of a lot.

Plus, the therapist I have been seeing, Dr. Benzo Meesvian, only requires one visit. I have seen him 3 times, not that once was not enough, it was probably about 40 minutes too much on that initial visit. The last two visits have been for the magazines. I show up early, sit in the waiting room and catch on Us Weekly, People Magazine, Sports Illustrated and I read the cartoons in The New Yorker. I’ll be honest with you, even when I have the time, I rarely read the articles in the New Yorker, I am not sure why.

The second time I went to see Dr. Meesvian he was actually surprised to see me in his waiting room. “Catching up on your readings I see,” he said to me as a way of introduction and then he saw it was me and he said, “hey, it’s you.”

We went back to his office and he again explained the fundamental aspects of his therapeutic approach, that is since he has yet to invent a time machine, anything in the past can not be fixed, can’t go back and kill the molesting uncle or the roofie using frat boy or the mom who just could not show enough affection, so “forget about the bullshit of yesteryear.” That’s what he says.

The rest of that initial hour is generally spent talking about baseball. Dr. Meesvian is much more than a fan of the game, he is an addict. He is a big stats guy, knows scores, team averages and even travels to games in distant cities to watch games he finds of importance. I found this disturbing, but he is the therapist, I am just a guy who likes to read magazines.

During my second session we talked basketball. Dr. Meesvian hates Labron James with a passion I found a little disturbing. I don’t care one way or another. After about 40 minutes of talking about basketball, the good doctor looked at his clock, said something about how it looks like we need to call it a session, hoped that everything would be OK and took down all my insurance information and validated my parking. As he walked into the waiting room, he greeted the young woman sitting there reading People Magazine with “Catching up the your reading I see.”

I once dated a woman in Los Angeles who could have used hours and hours of intensive therapy, for she was burdened with all sorts of demons, from a drunken mother who honestly hated her, to a brother who found her sexually compatible. Some of these things could never have been dealt with in an hour of Dr. Meesvian’s office and she was one of those people who smiled a lot and said she just did not believe in therapy. In retrospect I laugh at people like her, kind of like people who don’t believe the world is round. Why?

If she could just avoid therapy, avoid confronting those demons and working around the damage inflicted by family and others, she could continue that plastic smile and a life filled with false relationships and a search for emptiness. I know a few people like this, waddle through life and pretend that the muck that is slowing them down is not muck at all, or it is the muck everyone else is waddling through, even when it is painfully obvious it is not.

Then again, I know the polar opposites too. I have a friend who seeks therapy in offices, at group sessions and at AA meetings, even though she has been “clean” for over a decade. At this point, while I am sure she considers herself still under the spell of the evil disease of alcoholism, what I think she really likes to do is talk about herself. Her new addiction is talking about every aspect of the minutia of her life and since her life is all about therapy and meetings, it’s not all that interesting, so when I do bother to meet her for a dinner or something, I am almost always bored because her story has become one long drawn out soap opera of therapeutic poop, dumped onto whatever plate I happen to be eating off of.

Which is the other reason I enjoy the sessions with Dr. Meesvian. Sure, the magazines are what draw me in, but it is also the reality that the past really is the past, and without that damn time machine, it remains unassailable. What I have often found remarkable and ironic in my life is that someone like friend one who could use almost 24 hour a day therapy to remove herself from a childhood of neglect and abuse, but finds a smile and an attitude of moving forward more convenient as a coping mechanism. On the other hand, friend two spends a portion of her daily existence in either therapy or therapeutic meetings discussing the minutia of her very existence with such glee and a lack of honesty that it is almost certainly not having its intended affect, which only makes me shake my head, pick up the issue of People Magazines Sexiest man alive and forget the reason I am once again the waiting room of Dr. Meesvian, brain healer and shoe salesman.

Flem in Iowa

If you're like me, and chances are you are not, but if you are, then you are wondering, how has Jasper Flem been polling in Iowa. I wonder how everyone has been polling in Iowa. A week or so ago, I believe we, the readers of this blow, were treated to an Iowa voter, describing her thought process for picking a republican presidential candidate. One of the things she did not mention was whether or not she had even bothered to think about Jasper Flem, who I just found out, does not think too highly of Iowa, both the state and the people who live there.

Lucky for all of us, the Flem campaign seems to work late on Sunday nights. Link is here.

Updates - link to blog

Yesterday I got the news that I had been admitted to Graduate School. As a writer. So I thought I should share this news with a friend of mine, so I sent her an email and in the subject line, of course I wrote, “it’s offocial.”

In the past, the first few days of our family celebration of Hanukkah had been simple, but needed, gifts. These have generally been socks, gloves, underwear, candles – necessary items that were useful. This morning I realized I have nothing for anyone for Hanukkah. Instead, I have added a new lock to my bedroom door.

A neighbor has a beautiful dog named Champ. Sometimes Champ goes missing, he is a wild boy and enjoys his freedom. When Champ goes on one of his holidays, his so-called “owner” will walk around the neighborhood calling out “Champ” but he rarely pays them any attention. I tend to enjoy the mornings when I hear the chanting of Champ because just for moment I allow myself to think I have somehow been part of the World Cup team and my fans are outside waiting for autographs.

About 15 years ago I began painting clocks. I would buy 10-15 clocks at Ikea, bring them home, remove the hands and paint the faces, replace the hands, put a battery in the now wildly painted clock, and put the clock on the wall in a small downstairs bathroom in our house. At some point we counted all the clocks ticking away in that small room and it was 112. If you found yourself alone in that room, sitting quietly doing what people do in small bathrooms sitting quietly, it was like a symphony of ticking; tick tick tick, sometimes overwhelming, mostly whimsical, surrounded by these crazy clocks, not one actually telling the proper time.

Time Magazine named a faceless protester as “Man of the Year.” A few years ago I was directing a documentary on the collapse of the American Economy and at one point I found myself in the Time Magazine offices in Manhattan, interviewing their chief business correspondent, and while he was gathering some information, I was blown away by the fact that we were surround by dozens of empty cubicles once filled with working journalists, now, just empty desks. I wonder who actually voted for this unknown Protester.

You all know that this blog is dancing to a new space, yes?

A bike

The t-shirt conundrum

This past summer I was recovering from some sort of Nazi medical experiment that left me both weak and delirious and I found myself unable to accompany my daughter on a college visit to New York City. Instead, she took a bus and stayed with one of my oldest friends who I will call Mayonnaise Bill.

Mayo-Bill and I met about 30 years ago, which is odd because in various parts of this blog I claim to be 28 years old, but for the sake of complexity, I will leave that part a mystery. Mayo-Bill and I are like brothers, except that we are not. He is a talented artist, a free spirit unencumbered by neurosis and happily married. I am none of those things. What we share in common is a deep and true love for one another.

What we also share in common is a competition for sending one another t-shirts that sometimes have meaning, but often times are just a way of expressing that one of us is thinking of the other, or wanted to show the other that we are here or there, or that one of us was in a scummy thrift store in a city that has scummy thrift stores. Those shirts were usually sent by me to him, but he has sent me care packages of t-shirts that were previously owned from places where t-shirts were not well respected.

Mayo-Bill is a photojournalist, so lately, he has had the upperhand in finding t-shirts from exotic locales. When I was a working journalist, I would send him shirts from interesting places, say the Exxon Valez clean-up site, or from a member of the Green River Task Force. I sent him a signed Jesse Jackson for president t-shirt from 1984, beat that.

We have a long history of this and to be honest both he and I are truly competitive people, in art, in stories and certainly in t-shirts. Sure, I often find myself in seedy thrift stores and when I see a t-shirt that looks particularly disgusting, I think, I will package this up and send it to my friend Mayo-Bill and he will smile. Sometimes I will get a small package and the return address will be Brooklyn and I will know it is something special. Last year when the earthquake ruined Haiti, a few months later I received a package out of the blue, with a couple of t-shirts for restaurants in Port Au Prince. He had been sent there to cover the mess and cleanup and had somehow managed to scavenge some shirts.

This past fall I found myself in Seattle, which to me is nirvana for strange and wonderful t-shirt pickings because there are a lot of unique companies and events that happen there and a lot of people who seem to refuse to accept the gift t-shirts that companies give away as promotions. If you happen upon some of the cities thrift stores, you will find bins and bins of new t-shirts from companies like Amazon.com and Microsoft, new shirts, never worn by their spoiled and pampered employees, too good to wear the shirts that proudly proclaim, “Amazon, a super place to send shit to Obese people in Kansas”, or something like that.

So, while there, I found my good friend a veritable lifetime of classy shirts. I had outdone myself this time, seriously. In the past I had sent shirts that were torn, or abused, or ruined in some way, but I thought he might find them useful. In the latest offering, there were some great shirts with great messages and all were in amazing shape. To top off the great finds, before I sent the package I had a film to shoot in Washington DC and while working I stumbled upon a church bizarre and found a “combat photographers” t-shirt for sale for a dollar. I included that in the package. I knew I had stepped up my game and since he had recently somehow accidentally fathered a baby of some sort, I knew he was too busy to compete, so after 30 years, I could finally claim victory in the t-shirt competition.

I sent it off a couple of months ago and I never heard a word. No thank you, no screw you, no nothing. Now, don’t get me wrong, neither of us have ever really acknowledged the others t-shirt gifts. Over the years, we might say something like, “you’re going to Paris? I expect a shirt.” Something like that. A few years ago he flew with the Vice President to Iraq and I of course, a bit jealous said, “my friend flew to Iraq with the vice president and I did not even get a god damned t-shirt.” I never got a t-shirt. A few months later I did get a t-shirt from Afghanistan, as if that would somehow make up for the lack of an Iraq shirt. It was from a soldier, still sweat stained and kind of disgusting, but I pinned it to a wall and I keep it there to remind me of something more important than t-shirts and silly competitions.

Yesterday I was out cycling in the icy cold and when I got home there was a package laid out in front of my door. It had a return address from Brooklyn and my heart raced. I went inside and opened it and immediately I pulled out some sort of skanky rancid shirt that had some sort of greasy stain on it and when I held it up to light I could see small holes already in the fabric and I thought to myself, this is how you compete with what had to have been my best t-shirt package ever? Then I reached in and pulled out the second shirt.

”Dammit,” I said loud enough to wake my daughter who was again passed out on the kitchen floor, which is starting to become worrisome, no so much that I will do anything about it right now, but I will make a mental note of it and possibly email her mother and see if she would like to set up a time in the future to discuss possible treatment therapies. Out of the package came a pristine Occupy Wall Street shirt, a simple silk screen original piece, with a protester perched on the Bull from Wall Street. Simple. Beautiful. Classic.

I stepped back from the package and thought that quite possibly he had stepped up his game. I set the Wall Street shirt down and reached back into the package. Out came another white t-shirt, this one with a political polemic about the American injustice system and how it abuses those with no money. It is beautiful in its poetry. Plus, it is not stained or beaten in any way. Damn, I thought. Two shirts, both somewhat political, both undamaged by the riff and the raff and both of a caliber he is unknown for and certainly deeply in competition with any of the silly jingoistic pablum shirts I had sent from corporate Seattle.

There was another shirt in the package.

I took a breath and reached in. My hand grasped a mesh fabric and I will stop right there. One unwritten rule with my dear friend is cotton only. Unless I am sweating in it, I don’t wear fabrics made from some sort of nuclear reaction or however they make those sorts of lycra inspired clothing. I just don’t. I have never sent Mayo-Bill a blend of any sort, nor has he, until I pulled out a soccer jersey from Cameroon and lost my shit.

Quite possibly the best shirt/soccer jersey ever made, certainly the best one I have ever touched/laid my hands on and now, all of a sudden, I am at a loss for words. It is a green jersey, from the small nation of Cameroon, where Mayo-Bill’s beautiful wife is from, so dammit, I am going to guess there is some authenticity to it, which is going to drive me deeper into despair.

I am a cheater at heart. I believe we compete to win and winning is everything. For 30 years my friend Mayo-Bill and I have had a pretty subtle competition, the t-shirt war as I am sure it will soon become known by future historians. Sure, I have sent him shirts with various DNA samples and he has sent me shirts from crime scenes and war zones. All were sent with either humor or love, so we could forgive one another any sort of infection or disgrace. When my drunken daughter saw the green jersey and lusted after it as though it was yet another iced vodka tonic, I knew Mayo-Bill had basically not only shot the game winning swish, but turned, got in my face and said, “you got anything to say, sucka?”

Well, Mayo-Bill, actually, I do have something to say. As you know, as a young boy both my parents worked very long hours at the Clinic for Orphaned and Circus Freak Children. Because they were gone all the time, they hired a fat teenaged boy to guard, feed and teach us Latin. We called that slobby maladjusted boy Aunty Newt because all he ever did was tell us stories of the brilliant Barry Goldwater and feed us these god awful cookies called Fag Newtons or some such.

Well, Mayo-Bill, game on, because Aunty Newt is now the Republican Nominee for president of the United States of America and dammit, unless he wants me to tell the world of his teenage maturbatory habits, I am going to score me some Surpreme Court t-shirts and win this god damned competition once and for all. Just know going in, there is no way in hell I am touching Clarence Thomas t-shirt with a ten foot pole.
Game on. Sucka.

Yes, please ban the cellphone

In America – The NTSB (no doubt a communist organization inside our very own United States Government) has proposed a national ban on the use of cellphones while driving. That means no calls or texting while driving. There is even a proposal that would create some sort of device that shuts off cellphone signals when a cars engine is running, so no one in an automobile would have service. I am shaking my head, I hope you see me shaking my head. I am just like you, fed up with big government telling you and me both, what we can and can’t do, and when we can and can’t do it. They will take my cellphone out of my hand when I am cold and dead after hitting a tree in my car because I was texting and talking and not paying attention while driving at a high rate of speed, possibly drunk.

As many of you know, I am the proud father of 17 children. Sometimes I am driving our ultra-deluxe minivan from here to there, following the directions of the British woman’s voice from the GPS mounted on my windshield, as I am both angrily sharing my opinion on the latest congressional boondoggle with our local rabid radio talk show host, and texting my ex-wife and telling her I disagree with this new religious guru she has living with her and influencing children 7-13 on both prayer and diet, but I am too busy to really focus on those things because the plumbing truck in front of me has just dropped a new sink, box and all, onto the road and I must swerve, meaning I have to quickly put down the bread I was about to finish slopping with peanut butter, and grab the wheel and swerve out of the way of the careening white porcelain sink, which is now moving quickly into my lane, and the radio host is now saying into my ear that my own congressman voted to resurface the highway with tax dollars that could have been used to pay for a winery in my hometown and what did I think about that and with my free hand I grab the phone and look in the rearview mirror only to see baby Jedidiah free from his sturdy child car seat, wildly dancing to Lady Gaga that the kids have blasting in the back speakers of the minivan, and I’m screaming into the phone, just as the front tire misses the sliding sink, “you know what I think, Mel, I think this country needs more wineries, seriously, it’s time we started to think a little more like a more mature country thinks and stopped worrying about roads and missiles and stupid things like that and got our damn priorities straight and started to think about the people, the people dammit and I for one would appreciate a new winery.” With that I hung up and accelerated so I could get a couple of the kids to school on time.

A cellphone ban? Do the people at the NTSB have any idea how important it is to have a cellphone in today’s modern society?

The Marine Corps killed my dog

Her parents were not originally from this country, Australia is what I have been told, and you could see in her attitude that she never really understood how to be a good American.

As most of you who watch Fox News already know, the shootout lasted about 17 minutes, so I am not going to recount those bloody details and as a person who respects and honors both local law enforcement and the United States Marine Corps, I will only say that I had no idea she had amassed such armaments nor did I know she knew how to use them with such proficiency.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Her parents were Australian, that much is clear, but no one is certain how they got here or when. They got it on in the way parents do these things and they had twins, Bella and Beth and everyone saw Bella as this evil bitch and to be honest she really was. She was a killer from a young age and no matter what anyone would say or do, her basic goal in life was to mess things up, piss people off and kill other living animals.

Want to know the rest of this story"

The Many Deaths of Beth - available on Amazon - early 2012.

A letter received

Oh my.

I just received an official correspondance from the United States Department of State asking, no begging, no pleading, no DEMANDING that I do not go forward with my plan to insult the entire country/nation of Australia.

First, that is really unfair Harvey Finkelstein, unofficial undersecretary of International and Subintercranial Affairs and Australian Insult bureau. How dare you my good man make a preemptive strike against a blog post that has yet to even be made, although to be honest it is in a word document on my other computer. I do wonder how you might even know about it, but I may get around to that later.

I was checking the "stats" for this blog earlier "today" and noticed that there are quite a few viewers from the small island nation of Australia which is also the home of not only Scurvy but the so-called parents of one Beth Libitard, Esq, my lawyer, my friend, my dog.

Then this letter from the United States Department of State demanding that I give up any chance I might have to reunite my lawyer and her precious family. It is all so sad. I am torn, really I am.

So, I will do what any reasonable American would do in such a dire situation. I will drive to Home Depot early tomorrow morning, hire an illegal alien and have him post the defamatory blog post for me. Problem solved. See you tomorrow Harvey.

It's a fish eat fish world

Nice courthouse

I was not going to say anything about the Jerry Sandusky case, the Penn State assistant football coach who has been charged with a shitload of child sex abuse offenses, but I saw a picture of the courthouse yesterday where he was to plead at his preliminary hearing this morning and I had a flashback.

A couple of years ago I was doing some courtroom technology setup for a defense attorney from Harrisburg. The case was to be tried in the same Centre County Courthouse that Sandusky would plead at this mornings hearing. I had arrived in State College the day before the trial, scoped out the old courthouse and met with the attorney and sat with him for an hour or so and discussed what he would need technology wise to show the jurors his evidence. The courthouse is ancient and there have been a few updates over the years, but nothing modern, so there are no flat screens, no TV's of any type or wireless connections for jurors to view any sort of transmissions. Everything would have to be projected onto a screen, which I was going to have to set up in the courtroom itself.

Because there was a case being heard that day, I would not be allowed to set up anything until 7AM the day of the trial, so it was kind of stressful. Since I had worked in State College a few times before that, I had a couple of friends in the area, one a college instructor, another a long distance cyclist and we all got together that night and we all worked out ways to alleviate not only the stress of the next day, but also the upcoming state elections that was on everyones mind.

I ended up sleeping at the cyclists house and at 5 AM I was out and in my hotel room, showering, dressing and gathering all the equipment from computers and projectors to the actual diagrams and evidence that would be needed that day in court. I pulled into the parking lot at the old courthouse at about 6:30 and everything had to go through an elaborate security procedure for god knows what reason. This is a courthouse literally in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, until the Sandusky trial, I doubt that a TV camera crew has been there, ever.

I got to the courtroom, the same one Sandusky spent about 15 minutes in this morning, probably wondering if all those years molesting children could possibly be worth dying in prison as an old and frail loser, and I was alone, setting up computers and technology that would no doubt influence a jury to rule in the favor of the attorney I would be helping. I had massive amounts of cables and screens to set up. There was a high quality sound system that had to function perfectly, in fact, from the start of the trial, everything had to run flawlessly, so while I was there hours before anyone else would enter, I was nervously checking and re-checking everything to make sure it was all perfect.

Courts and lawyers and laws and legal stuff are interesting in that they are never interesting in the way that they are depicted on TV. Nothing is fast, nothing is dramatic and no one ever gets caught lying on the stand and then just as quickly admits guilt, is carted away and locked into a cell. It just does not happen that way, sadly. This morning, that sad dog of a pathetic human Jerry Sandusky waddled into court and waddled right back out, quickly passing on his preliminary hearing, accomplishing nothing if not saving himself the disgrace of hearing grown young men describe what it was like to be young boys being sexually molested by a sick and twisted monster.

No, Jerry walked out. Just like that. Justice will find him and he will go to jail to die. That much is clear. In the meantime he will spend the holidays with his enabling wife thing and whatever family he pretends to have.

The court case I spent house preparing for? The sweet little attorney walked in right before the trial was set to start and all my technology was up and working perfectly, he pulled me aside and said, "they settled." They never do that on TV either. What took me hours to set up took about 20 minutes to dismantle. I stopped by my friend the adventure cyclist and we went for a coffee and talked about sports, cycling and ironically enough, Penn State Football.

Holiday cheer

Because the millions of you who read this blog and cooler and smarter than I, and have more time on your hands, you have seen this SNL video, I had not, but when I did, I knew I should share it with the one or two shut ins who also happen to straggle along and find this blog on the off chance I say the word penis.

Gays and artists make it better

If you read this blog with any sort of consistency you know that a few years ago we packed up our bags in the middle of night and high tailed it out of New York and moved to a Ghetto of Pittsburgh that would become our home, all completely by accident.

That is true, painfully so. A quick recount. I had started a business and at some point my business partner absconded with the profits, just like that, leaving me and my children damn close to penniless. Lucky for me, I was the part of the business that had the skills, so I was able to dance and sing and make some cash, which I quickly used to purchase a home for cash off the internet, sight unseen. Oh, sure, you must be thinking to yourself, with little cash what sort of home could someone purchase? Keep in mind, the phrase "sight unseen".

I wish I had taken the time to ask myself that very same question. The answer, is of course, a run down, no plumbing, funky home in a sketchy ghetto with the door barely hanging on and the neighbors proudly acting out their various drug and alcohol addictions. While the kids would stay weekends in New York I would drive countless miles to the ghetto home and do repairs and soon enough we had ourselves a livable, functional home.

Still, the entire downtown of our new little village was blighted. All these wonderful old classic brick buildings stood empty. Where once stood furniture stores and tuxedo rental shops, now stood empty store fronts, and a lone Chinese restaurant that served substandard fare for even a ghetto Chinese restaurant without a single cat or dog to be found for blocks, if you catch my drift.

In my life I have lived in some pretty sketchy neighborhoods. I lived in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles when it was me, Mexicans and coke addicted porn stars. My sideways move from there was the Lower East Side of Manhattan long before the hipsters and the frauds moved in and made it cool. No, when I lived there, the only way for me to get home late at night safely was to run down the middle of Rivington because if I was stupid enough to walk on a sidewalk I would get mugged. Honestly. The only good partt was William Burroughs would show up to score heroin every Thursday. For a while, when I first moved to Seattle, I lived in a warehouse across from the Kingdome. True, a warehouse, no walls, no bathroom, no shower, just a huge open space. For an artist it was grand, for a person who needs to shower to use a restroom from time to time, it was oppressive. Soon enough though, other artists, hipsters, musicians and assorted wanna be's moved in and everything got better.

There has been a constant in Los Angeles, New York and Seattle. In all these places I have lived, in the dumps and the dives and the pissed in and on places I picked up for cheap, soon enough artists moved in, and then the thrift stores and the book stores and the coffee shops and then the yuppies and the guppies and the gentrified law firms seeking the exposed bricks and the cool atmosphere and by then I did not know what happened because I had moved on to a new slum.

Just now I was out on my afternoon speed walk and I decided to include a little jaunt through the downtown section of my rundown village and I was shocked to find not one, and certainly not two, but five new thrift stores. A flotilla of gays have arrived to reinvigorate the area and not a moment too soon. Now, generally, in my experience coffee shops are first, but I am not one to bicker, although to be honest, I could use a good cup of Joe. What I noticed is that some of these old storefronts are now beautifully filled with wonderfully strange thrift stores and older gay men prancing around, proud as a graying peacock, showing off their wares to the addicts and whores, the fierce and fleas and the fast walkers who took the time to smile, say hello and promise to be back.

I have seen this before. I know this story. It probably will not have the exact same ending, because we are not in Manhattan or Los Angeles or Seattle, but we are close to a major city, and the entire country is looking for ways to survive and reinvent and one way I have seen ailing economies awake from a self inflicted catastrophe is by allowing small, strange funky businesses to come in and prosper. Gay men with your thrifty stores - I salute you.

Gay wrongs making things right

So, you have to ask yourself, if you are for equal rights, you know, like letting black people vote, or allowing women to ride in the front of the bus, and at some point you think it would be quaint to let those pesky gays get all married and everything, well, then don't we all get the same rights? The blacks and the women and the gays and just, well, just about everyone?

I think so too. I mean, if I were supreme ruler I would not allow anyone to have rights, but then I would be supreme ruler and you would not be allowed to complain, such would be my all powerful nature.

But when almost robot Mitch Romney sat down with a Vietnam war veteran and his husband (I know, try getting used to saying that) and someone uploaded the video, you can almost see Barack Obama picking out the new curtains for the White House.

Previews

Look here, a tease.

Coming up in the next 2 weeks, real journalism. Where the term fracking gets explained by people who both love and loath it.

The t-shirt wars get both creamed on and in. No, wait, Jesus, that sounded so wrong, I will delete that and start over.

The t-shirt wars, finally get stained. Again, that just sounds obscene. I'll change that too.

The 30 year t-shirt wars come to an end with a win by Cameroon.

Professor TMI, a love affair from Yale to Kent State and now, a ring, a poodle, three children named Bugsy and a new big screen TV.

There are numerous signs that my dog may die, yet again.

And finally bad and sad news, even under the constant threat of a number of serious lawsuits, there are 3 more Becky stories.

That is all that is left and then an end of the year wrap up hosted by Sketchy the Addict and the blog will be brought to the vet and put to sleep.

The comments and the people who make them

Damn you people piss me off. Listen up and listen good. I am this close to closing down this entire circus and it will be because of the actions of the few, ruining it for the, well, a few more, but still, it's the thought that counts.

Here's the problem. Once again someone posted something in the comment section of this very blog and a friend emailed me and said, someone seems to be plotting to kill you. So, I had to wake up the squirrels and fire up my laptop and read your god damned comments. Do you have any idea what a chore that is? I should shut them down, what a mess. The comments are like Newt Gingrich's thought process, now and then something worthy, and then a frothy mixture of idiocy and diet coke.

So, I've had to call the police yet again. The sultry detective Sid Invective is now taking this seriously because I was crying. There, I even admitted it in public, some damn fool commentator said something so mean that I cried, that and he/she threatened to kill me and "an yer god damn lesbo dog". So, instead of just shutting down the comment section completely, which I am still this close to doing, I am forcing all you hide behind the anonymous button to come on out of the closet and find a new persona to hide behind.

Of course if you want to create an online person, you could use some of the names I have tossed around in this blog, but be careful, my lesbian lawyer was informed just this past week we can expect to see some paperwork from at least 45 Becky's and one "Sketchy the Addict" - a class action filing on behalf of the defamed, the slandered and the libeled. I expect that will be good reading.

So, readers of this blog, and readers of the bible, I beg of you, if you must read this blog, if you must comment on whatever it is you must comment on, if you must threaten the life of either me or my "lesbolicious dog" at the very least identify yourself.

Live blogging the Repblican Debate - again

First, I promised to live blog the republican debate tonight to you, my dearest blog reading know nothings, who trust me for their political information, which is your first big mistake. Then I realized I was running late, I sat down at my computer and fired up the debate and instead some BDSM website came on, but because I was trying to log on to this site to begin to blog and my computer is running slow, the BDSM site began to auto-ply some sort of video and I thought that was the republican debate and for a second I thought that Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann were finally playing out the conservative passions I had often thought were right under their pressed white shirts.

So I am sorry, we now can go to the live blogging the incredibly boring republican debate somewhere midstream.


Rick Santorum; Bottom up...(maybe I am still in the wrong site.) Flip flop bad. Consistant conservative. Gay evil. Blah blah.

Michelle Bachman; I am a leader. My husband is gay. No one likes me, I may be insane. I sat on my hands and then I forgot where they were, is that weird? People ask me, what is up with yoru eyes and I say, whats up with my hands? Hah. I will pre-lobby, and that way, people will not know who is lobbying who, hah.

Rick Santorum; I am different and a minority. I am white and stupid. So there. Shut up, y'all. Hey, look at me.

Some blonde woman is talking now, wait, they are going to a commercial. My lord, she is kind of strange looking, what is she? A robot? Oh, a commercial. I too will be right back, there is a BDSM site I must be checking in on.

Oh my god, I just noticed, instead of going to a commercial, online there are these blow dried "experts" talking about the debate. My lord, I hard to put the BDSM site up again and leave the sound from the debate know nothings so I would not miss the start of the returning debaters, but these political retards make me want to puke. Oh, one used the word subtext and groping, so they actually do fit the BDSM site. And were back.


Des Moines Iowa - Live -

Question - Should voters consider marital fidelity important, or something.

Ricky Perry; Made a vow to god. Stronger than a handshake in Texas (drunk). I think voters already know I am an idiot, so what I am saying does not matter at all. Hey, have I stumbled yet? Who cares, I am a silly little bean, right? What's the question Wolf?

Rick Santorum; First, do not google my name, thank you. Did you just google my name? I hate when people do that. Now, Newt Gingrich fooled around with a lot of sexy women, which is bad, but not men, which is gross. I hate gays. Gays want to marry, and so do goats. If you let goats marry, then gays will too.

Ron Paul; Stand back, put the paddles on my chest please, I think my heart is not working right. Paddles please? Clear. Whew. That's better. OK. I like the constitution again. Cut the budget. Bring back gold. Smoke heroin. Let America be free.

Wild applause.

Mitt Romney; I have a family, like everyone else. I have 6 wives, 27 children and I love America. Who would make a better president. If I could have slaves, I'd do that too, I am an American. Me, America, see? I am a job creator. I am Mitt Romney, love me. Everyone loves me, except Newt Gingrich, who has quite a few wives, but as many as I do.

Michelle Bachmann; Whooooo hooooo. Watch me, I can dance and sing. I'm sorry, people say to me, at least the one's singing inside my head, they say, Michelle, we love love love you. I say, everyone shhhhh, I'm unashamed. I am faithful. People, shhhhh. Ask me about my gay husband, shhhhh. Measure the man.

Newt Gingrich; People like the fact that when one of my wives get sick, I will drop that bitch faster than I would poo on a rock in the desert. Look, as president, you want me in the hospital worrying about my sick wife or sore kid? No, my wife gets sick, she is history and I marry a secretary.

Question - Something about immigration. What can we do about all those undocumented crazy Mexicans?

Newt Gingrich; I am using a lot of government speak right now, trying to ramble and not make sense, anyone paying attention? Good, because I am not going to answer this question, got that? See, the point is, if I ramble and speak in terms no one will really pay attention to, I can speak, make no sense, and we can move on, got it?

Question - But you don't seem to be saying anything.

Newt Gingrich; I am still going to refuse to say anything.

Question - You seem to be full of shit.

Newt Gingrich; I like hamburgers.

Question - Fuck you Newt. Governor Romney, what should we do with people who are not white like you?

Mitt Romney; I am wearing magic Mormon underwear. Look, I like illegal aliens who cut grass, not smoke it (wild applause). What we need to do is secure the border, then we should kill people who I don't like, or do something else. When we talk about America, I think we are talking about America. I love America, you love America, America is America. Rah rah rah.

Question - Governor Perry, what should we do with illegal aliens in the military?

Rick Perry; Secure the border. Enforce the laws. If you elect me as president, I promise to keep this cool haircut and I promise years of silly speak in the form of George Bush kind of spoke and had and people liked and stuff for 8 years, am I right?

Question - Foreign policy question.

Ron Paul; Here is what I think, America should shut the hell up. We need to close the door to the world and leave everyone else the hell alone. We need to colonize the moon. I am tired of this crazy talk. I need water, not a tomato.


Newt Gingrich; Look, here I go, I am going to babble and talk a lot and not say a damn thing, keep up and it will be fun, or go potty, now would be a good time, because I ramble and stumble over a bunch of words that may or may not make sense, and then in the end I will smile, pretend to have said something profound and collect a check from someone, it is how we do it at Gingrich Inc.

Mitt Romney; I am pretty. I am. I think we can all agree that I should be a J. Crew model, maybe for their older mens series of slacks and dress shirts wore casually, but if you look at me, you can see I am a man who can wear a dress shirt casually. Seriously, look at me. Then, look at Newt, he is a fat scary little monster. You want him waddling around the oval office? Seriously.

Newt Gingrich; Let's make things difficult for Israel, that should be funny.


Michelle Bachmann; I have been in Israel. I learned to dance Jew dances and those people are funny, naturally funny. It is a funny place, Israel. I kept asking those Jews, why are you people so funny? And they would make these terribly funny Jew jokes, and I kept thinking, if only I could marry a gay man, and then, within a week, I married me a gay man and now, here I am.

Rick Santorum; Why am I here? Seriously, first, did someone just google my name again? Jesus, please stop doing that. Wait, did you just change it do if you click on my name, it goes to the google definition of my name? OK, now, that is completely unfair. This debate is unfair. I am upset now. I am a white man, in a white world, married to a bland white woman. Santorum.

Rick Perry; This is by far the best scotch I have ever had in the last week. Serioulsly when I was in Detroit last week, I said, you juss wait, cuss I'm a debatin and I'm a kick some ass. So shus up.

Question - Middle class struggles from YAHOO - when was the last time any of you incredibly wealthy republicans had a financial problem, not you Newt, stop laughing. Online the "experts" are back to talk about the debate, but they are boring me, so I am going to do some yoga.

And we're back.

Question - Hello wealthy candidates, have you ever had to give up anything because of financial difficulties?

Ricky Perry; I was young once, and then I was on a radio station. I grew up in a house. At some point I went to college. There was a time I did not know the word lexicon. Now I am not even 27 years old. Social security. I am sure I am stupid and pretty sure ya'll agree. Did I mention how good this scotch is? Damn good. Seriously, if you elect me, I will share this scotch with you.

Mitt Romney; I am rich. Fuck you. I grew up with a dad. He was poor at some point, but not when I was a kid. Then we were rich. Still, I am rich now. And handsome. Not like Newt Gingrich, who has married 3 different women and fornicated at least 500 others, and 12 men. I am running for president because I am rich and pretty, Newt is short, fat and scary.

Ron Paul; I am crazy, can we all just god damn agree on that? I was alive back before we had money. When I was a kid we traded dirt for rocks. Then, we would kill a dinosaur for dinner and everyone would shut up, we should get back to those days.

Rick Santorum; I am a dumb white man and people tell me I am white and I had two parents, a mother and a father, not gay people, not goats, not a drunk governor from Texas or a 50 time married former speaker of the house who no one really likes. I am a straight man, but if I could get some of Perry's scotch in me, I swear I;d kiss Mitt Romney on the lips right now.

Michelle Backmann; Yeee haaaa. I hate Wall Street and I love pretty dresses. So does my husband, is that strange?

Rick Santorum; Sure does.

Michelle Bachman; Here is a link to Rick Santorum, you figure out what Rick Santorum is all about. Look, I am running for president, and I am crazy and a bat on acid, you think that is easy?

Newt Gingrich; I used to be poor. Now, I have swindled zillions of dollars by selling influence. So screw you, and you and, hey Mitt, fuck you. Yeah, I am complete whore, but I am a proud American, I hire illegal aliens and I am scummy, but I lead in the polls, so kiss my lilly white ass.

Question - People want to know more about healthcare mandates.

Mitt Romney; Leave states alone. If states want to do healthcare, fine. If they want to do anything, let them do it. Except sell pot, that we don't let states do. I know, that makes no sense. But seriously, hypocrisy is a messy business and unlike Newt Gingrich, I am not good with details.

Newt Gingrich; Here I go again, I am going to ramble and bramble and stumble and bumble, I am going to numble and bimble and kindle and dindle.

Mitt Romney; (whining) He is not saying anything.

Newt Gingrich; I would slandle and candle, and I would linger and finger, I'd blindle and shindle...

Mitt Romney; You can't just let him talk and not make sense, that is just not fair.

Question - More healthcare, I stopped in at a pharmacy and I was told that people in Iowa are fat and lazy. What should the government do to make people not be stupid?

Ron Paul; Let American people be slow, stupid, obese and idiotic. (wild applause). The government should not force people to do anything. People should be allowed to do any damn thing they want. (wild insane applause).

Rick Perry; Let's the steaks get cooked, and bring me another scotch. Cause, listen, I disagree with the way people are sick of Washington DC. If I was not wasted right now, I'd continue (sleeps).

Another break.

Experts chatting again in some sort of piss me off online forum. See, I don't get this. Anyway, I am sure they are going to continue, but to be honest, they are all starting to bore me and if you need to know more about these pathetic candidates, google Santorum yourself.

The Jews of Nascar

This girl and I were driving this morning at a high rate of speed on a cold and almost empty road and I got to thinking, I know almost nothing about Nascar. I made a mental not to come home and learn more about motor sports.

I have yet to do any research whatsoever, but here is the gross generalization I am comfortable with so far, there are no Jews in Nascar. That much is a given. What I found fascinating with this fact that I made up is that Jews are incredibly bad drivers, as witnessed by a recent conversation with my incredibly neurotic and self hating non-Jewish Jewish brother.

“How is Florida,” I asked.

“I hate it here,” he complained in that whiney way that only Jews can get away with. I asked him why and he said because he can not drive fast and again I asked why and he said, and this is key, so pay attention, “all the old Jews in their big cars, driving 15 miles per hour.”

I had one of those Ah-Ha moments and I said ah-ha and he asked me why I said Ah-Ha but I hung up the phone. It’s always important to take a moment in the midst of an Ah-Ha moment and enjoy it alone. I did that and then I took out my little notebook that I take everywhere with me and noted that Jews drive slowly in Florida.

This morning I was driving super fast and probably dangerously so, when I noticed a beautiful cross on the side of the road. I said to the female passenger sitting next to me if she too had noticed the beautiful cross on the side of the road and she said she had not. By that time another one was approaching, this one even nicer than the last. The first one was actually kind of slummy compared to this new one, the first being a couple of pieces of wood and some flowers, this one more permanent looking one, I am guessing it was constructed of cement and adorned with some sort of inlaid memorabilia, but because of my high rate of speed and lack of real interest, I can not attest to the authenticity of the cross other than its existence.

I pointed out the nicer one and my passenger said, “that is a nice cross.” I almost stopped. It had slowly dawned on me with the first one, but the second one, the one made of cement had ironically cemented it for me. “Have you ever seen a Star of David road side memorial?” I asked my passenger

No she had not. Neither had I. I began to wonder. In my life I have probably driven close to a million miles, maybe 17 million in total, who knows these things? Really, at this point I was onto something big and the amount of miles I had accumulated in my lifetime was meaningless. I called my friend Moishe, a Rabbi in Brooklyn who is not allowed to answer his cellphone on Saturdays because he is all seriously a Jew, unlike me, who is a Jew by circumcision and not much else, although when the new Nazi’s come hunting, I am pretty sure my scared penis will be enough for entrance in the new improved camps. He answered on the first ring.

Me; “I thought you did not answer your phone on Saturdays.”

Moishe; “I saw it was you calling, I figured this was important. Lately when you call, it is a tumor, a disease, a dead child, a murder spree, or your cat is having kittens.”

Me; “Important stuff again. Have you ever known of a Jew to create a roadside memorial after a tragic automobile accident?”

Moishe; “What are you talking about? Have you been in such an accident?”

Me; “No, not everything is about me.”

Moishe; “Usually when you call, it is always about you.”

Me; “Not this time, praise Jesus.”

Moishe; “What did you say?”

Me; “Nothing. Accidents. Anyone you know, any Jews you know, fatal accident, do they create roadside memorials?”

Moishe; “Why?”

Me; “What do you mean why?”

Moishe; “Why would we do such a thing?”

Me; “Did you just answer a question with a question?”

Moishe; “Did you?”

Me; “You did it again.”

Moishe; “Are you driving and calling me at the same time?”

Me; “I am.”

Moishe; “When you crash and die, would you like me to create a road side memorial including a Star of David?”

Me; “No, of course not, that would be so crass.”

Moishe; “My point exactly.” And he hung up.

I called back immediately and he answered, strangely enough, without it ringing.

Moishe; “ What?”

Me; “Have you ever heard of a Jewish Nascar driver?”

Moishe; “What is Nascar?”

This time, I hung up.