November 30, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 568
A good example of poetic justice is when a shrill, preachy fitness nut gets hit by a beer truck while jogging to the health food store.
NOTE TO SELF: AVOID THESE THINGS....
Sometimes you watch life's rich pageant and gape in wide wonder. There sure is a hell of lot going on in this world, a bazillion things to do and see and taste and touch and experience, some of them really cool. Other things? Not so much. No biggie, that's why they make chocolate and Cherry Garcia. One man's meat, and all that. There are some things, however, pretty much everybody wants to seriously avoid. Things like this:
Face tattoos: What seemed like a fine idea when you were young, adventurous and blind drunk might not feel like such a brainstorm at that job interview, or your daughter's wedding.
Steroids: If you are not a professional athlete with a serious shot to make $15 million a year, taking steroids only makes you one more angry, lumpy jackass with shrunken testicles. Good luck with that whole deal.
Pacific Rim ferries: If you find yourself traveling in the Far East, avoid those 1,000-plus passenger ocean-going ferries. It seems like a month doesn't go by without one of those overloaded, under-maintained bad boys sinking with massive loss of life. There's sharks in those waters, too, so not only do you drown, you're Jaws bait.
Any "Extreme" Sport: As if snowboarding isn't dangerous enough, now you want to jump off a rocky cliff into a bottomless abyss? Don't worry,Spike, we'll send flowers.
Psychiatrists: Unless you enjoy taking powerful sedatives until you're a personality-free zombie and talking about things like "empowerment" and "finding your center" (which pretty much mean nothing at all but sound helpful), avoid these maladjusted creeps. Those people are crazy!
People delivering detailed instructions from God: Possibly the only people nuttier than psychiatrists and more full of rules for the rest of us to live by, and even more devoid of tolerance, reason or love. Take a detour around these fools, too.
Ostrich meat: Even hyenas only kill and eat those things when they run out of rotten carcasses to scavenge.
Karate lessons: If you're planning to fend off Ninja assassins anytime soon, check the calendar. Firearms were invented a really long time ago. And if you think you're fooling anyone that you're learning to fight only to "keep in shape," why not go swimming or something? Hard as it is to believe, not everyone is an ardent admirer of all that kicking and chopping.
Taking polls: Why bother to encourage people with a political axe to grind by taking one of their polls loaded with questions that are impossible to answer in a way that does not confirm your agreement with their idiotic, aggressive agendas, such as: "We should take which of the following actions against Iran: (A.) carpet bomb their cities, (B.) Kill all their leaders, (C.) Invade, conquer, pillage and build a pipeline from their oil fields to U.S. soil, (D.) poison their water supply and salt their fields, (E.) All of the above plus any other diabolical acts we can think of."
Real Estate Seminars: Life is too short to waste time on get-rich-quick schemes where the only guy getting rich is the joker you just paid 150 bucks to hear brag about his Jacuzzi, his Porsche and his retarded ex-model wife.
The Green Gestapo: While it is smart and proper to recycle, avoid waste and pollution and to respect our environment (in brief, don't shit where you eat), avoid the fanatics who would have us employed full time eating only locally grown vegetation, surrendering our leather shoes, belts and down-filled parkas while bicycling everywhere we go. Don't waste your breath trying to convince them that science and technology actually work and a varied diet of flora and fauna is what enabled us to evolve from puny, filthy and disease-ridden scavengers to robust, long-living creatures able to adapt to any conditions, even the sad state of affairs of having to tolerate their counterproductive asses.
Meals for $1.99: Usually these meals are worth every bit of the 2 bucks you fork over to swallow mystery meat and grease-sponges disguised as potatoes. The money you save can be applied to that quadruple bypass you've always dreamed of.
Jaegermeister: Whatever sort of alcoholic beverage Jaegermeister is, and no one is really quite certain, there seems to be an ingredient in it that ensures maximum embarrassing behavior to go along with its gagging-sweet taste. Have your cell phone camera charged and ready to take lucrative blackmail photos the next time you hear the phrase "shots of Jaeger all around!"
Anyone nicknamed "Bonecrusher": Odds are this is one guy you don't want to get excited.
The Joke Police: Only our black comedians had the nerve to hang onto the only good thing about racial tension; ethnic jokes, a lot of which are hilarious and insightful. The rest of them have obeyed the humorless cretins who took it upon themselves to decide what is and isn't proper to laugh at. Fuck them. We'll decide what's funny to us, and what crosses the line, thank you very much. How about some jokes about these PC assholes, like how many of them does it take to screw in a light bulb? Seven. One to actually install the bulb and six to make sure that unpleasant truth never sees the light if day.
Polka dot bow ties: Only clowns and unreasonable people wear them.
Man purses: See above.
Pre-fab homes in Florida: They don't call southern Florida "Hurricane Alley" for nothing. The next time Mother Nature huffs and puffs and tries to blow your house down you can be at least as smart as that third Little Piggie and surround your wrinkled, sun-baked ass with brick and steel, or smarter still and move someplace safe, finally figuring out that any place where you need hurricane-proof shutters and doors isn't exactly an ideal environment for creaky old codgers on Mobility Scooters. Sounds like a paradise for Extreme Weather Reporters, though, that breed of junior newscasters who love nothing more than bellowing over the howling din of nature's wrath while nimbly dodging flying retirement homes, palm trees, poodles and other small mammals.
Face tattoos: What seemed like a fine idea when you were young, adventurous and blind drunk might not feel like such a brainstorm at that job interview, or your daughter's wedding.
Steroids: If you are not a professional athlete with a serious shot to make $15 million a year, taking steroids only makes you one more angry, lumpy jackass with shrunken testicles. Good luck with that whole deal.
Pacific Rim ferries: If you find yourself traveling in the Far East, avoid those 1,000-plus passenger ocean-going ferries. It seems like a month doesn't go by without one of those overloaded, under-maintained bad boys sinking with massive loss of life. There's sharks in those waters, too, so not only do you drown, you're Jaws bait.
Any "Extreme" Sport: As if snowboarding isn't dangerous enough, now you want to jump off a rocky cliff into a bottomless abyss? Don't worry,Spike, we'll send flowers.
Psychiatrists: Unless you enjoy taking powerful sedatives until you're a personality-free zombie and talking about things like "empowerment" and "finding your center" (which pretty much mean nothing at all but sound helpful), avoid these maladjusted creeps. Those people are crazy!
People delivering detailed instructions from God: Possibly the only people nuttier than psychiatrists and more full of rules for the rest of us to live by, and even more devoid of tolerance, reason or love. Take a detour around these fools, too.
Ostrich meat: Even hyenas only kill and eat those things when they run out of rotten carcasses to scavenge.
Karate lessons: If you're planning to fend off Ninja assassins anytime soon, check the calendar. Firearms were invented a really long time ago. And if you think you're fooling anyone that you're learning to fight only to "keep in shape," why not go swimming or something? Hard as it is to believe, not everyone is an ardent admirer of all that kicking and chopping.
Taking polls: Why bother to encourage people with a political axe to grind by taking one of their polls loaded with questions that are impossible to answer in a way that does not confirm your agreement with their idiotic, aggressive agendas, such as: "We should take which of the following actions against Iran: (A.) carpet bomb their cities, (B.) Kill all their leaders, (C.) Invade, conquer, pillage and build a pipeline from their oil fields to U.S. soil, (D.) poison their water supply and salt their fields, (E.) All of the above plus any other diabolical acts we can think of."
Real Estate Seminars: Life is too short to waste time on get-rich-quick schemes where the only guy getting rich is the joker you just paid 150 bucks to hear brag about his Jacuzzi, his Porsche and his retarded ex-model wife.
The Green Gestapo: While it is smart and proper to recycle, avoid waste and pollution and to respect our environment (in brief, don't shit where you eat), avoid the fanatics who would have us employed full time eating only locally grown vegetation, surrendering our leather shoes, belts and down-filled parkas while bicycling everywhere we go. Don't waste your breath trying to convince them that science and technology actually work and a varied diet of flora and fauna is what enabled us to evolve from puny, filthy and disease-ridden scavengers to robust, long-living creatures able to adapt to any conditions, even the sad state of affairs of having to tolerate their counterproductive asses.
Meals for $1.99: Usually these meals are worth every bit of the 2 bucks you fork over to swallow mystery meat and grease-sponges disguised as potatoes. The money you save can be applied to that quadruple bypass you've always dreamed of.
Jaegermeister: Whatever sort of alcoholic beverage Jaegermeister is, and no one is really quite certain, there seems to be an ingredient in it that ensures maximum embarrassing behavior to go along with its gagging-sweet taste. Have your cell phone camera charged and ready to take lucrative blackmail photos the next time you hear the phrase "shots of Jaeger all around!"
Anyone nicknamed "Bonecrusher": Odds are this is one guy you don't want to get excited.
The Joke Police: Only our black comedians had the nerve to hang onto the only good thing about racial tension; ethnic jokes, a lot of which are hilarious and insightful. The rest of them have obeyed the humorless cretins who took it upon themselves to decide what is and isn't proper to laugh at. Fuck them. We'll decide what's funny to us, and what crosses the line, thank you very much. How about some jokes about these PC assholes, like how many of them does it take to screw in a light bulb? Seven. One to actually install the bulb and six to make sure that unpleasant truth never sees the light if day.
Polka dot bow ties: Only clowns and unreasonable people wear them.
Man purses: See above.
Pre-fab homes in Florida: They don't call southern Florida "Hurricane Alley" for nothing. The next time Mother Nature huffs and puffs and tries to blow your house down you can be at least as smart as that third Little Piggie and surround your wrinkled, sun-baked ass with brick and steel, or smarter still and move someplace safe, finally figuring out that any place where you need hurricane-proof shutters and doors isn't exactly an ideal environment for creaky old codgers on Mobility Scooters. Sounds like a paradise for Extreme Weather Reporters, though, that breed of junior newscasters who love nothing more than bellowing over the howling din of nature's wrath while nimbly dodging flying retirement homes, palm trees, poodles and other small mammals.
November 29, 2009
THE GOD COMEDIES
Is there a bigger bunch of failures in human history than religious leaders? If it wasn't for their legacy of promoting fear, ignorance, torture, oppression, murder, warfare, ignorance and suffering, they'd be hilarious. Their take on God as a megalomaniacal schizophrenic would be a comic's gold mine if not for the evil they fostered. The idea that a human incapable of comprehending the workings of the mind of a dog, or even a frog for that matter, can speak authoritatively on the mind and the intentions of God, by definition the most complex and incomprehensible mind of them all, is funny as hell.
Not only that, they would have us believe that the only reason humans have to be good to one another is that God commands it, thus rendering our inborn human goodness a forced and artificial impulse, an optional kindness on our part instead of the grave duty that it is for our survival. Now that's funny!
When the only reason to be good to people is because it's a religious rule, then if other people follow a different religion, that rule becomes more of a loose guideline, if that. Then it's only a short mental walk to burning them at the stake, conquering their land, stealing their stuff, ravaging their women and destroying their civilizations. These things are almost always done in the name of God.
Consider these contradictory teachings that only compel reasonable and moral people to leave God out of the equation when it comes to doing what's right:
•God is an all-merciful, forgiving being who loves and cherishes each of us deeply. And if you don't return his love, perform time-consuming, uncomfortable rituals and keep him on your mind at all times he will smite you with plagues and condemn you to a lake of hell fire for all eternity. Ouch. Sounds like a candidate for powerful medication.
•Here's a Promised Land for you, my Chosen Ones, a land of milk and honey that will be yours forever. Oh, by the way, there's people living there now. I'm going to need you to slay them down to the last man, woman and child, and their farm animals too, which you then can sacrifice to me in a very long, elaborate and wasteful ceremony. Then inhabit their cities and steal their farms. Be a dear and do that for me, willya, Chosen People? Those infidels are really starting to grate on my nerves.
•Jesus Christ was a Jew, often called rabbi by his disciples. He died a Jew, too, and Christianity is basically a reformation of Judaism. So, what better way to celebrate Jesus' Jewishness than by centuries of oppression, murder, and exile of Jews by Christians! C'mon, Yids, it was all a joke! Get it?
•The word Islam means "peace." A thorough examination of the Koran has so far failed to find the passage that says "Only kidding!" In the jihadists defense, however, there are no specific instructions from God not to strap explosives to your body and blow yourself up on a crowded school bus.
•The Hindu religion regards violence, even against one's oppressors, as a demonic quality. They do, apparently, make liberal exceptions in the case of the minority Muslim population in India, whom they savage on a regular basis, and the Muslim nation of Pakistan, with whom Hindu Indian armies have fought several bloody wars and uncounted border skirmishes. Now that that pesky non-violent scold Gandhi is dead, all bets are off!
•After centuries of dispersal, inquisitions, pogroms, oppression and the Holocaust, the Jews returned to Israel in 1948, once again having a place to hang their yarmulkes. But, just like the first time they showed up in the Holy Land, there were people already living there, a lot of non-Jews who had been there for many centuries. Well, no prob, Bob! We'll just co-exist, the non-Jews existing in poverty behind barbed wire while we exist in your former houses and farms, and deny you citizenship in your homeland. Don't make a tsimis! At least we're not slaughtering you to the last man, woman and child like the good old days! And you even get to keep your farm animals for transportation! Nothing warms the heart like seeing a people emerging from 2,000 years of oppression becoming oppressors themselves in a single generation. Well done, God guys!
•Then there's the real buffoons, the born-again Christian Fascists of the good old U.S. of A! Is there anyone they don't hate in the name of a loving God? Is there any nation they don't want to destroy in the name of the Prince of Peace? Is there any stronger reason to be grateful to our wise Founding Fathers for mandating a separation of church and state now that these former outcast loners and shopping mall-wandering Jesus freaks have somehow organized themselves and gotten into politics? When their leaders pray to an all-merciful and loving Christ and shed crocodile tears for the benefit of their numbskull followers, then demand that our government torture Muslims, deny civil rights to non-Christians and drop bombs on everybody, is there any better comedy theater out there? Black comedy, to be sure, but pretty funny if that's your cup of tea. Coming soon to a theater near you: "Kill Your Way To Heaven!"
Not only that, they would have us believe that the only reason humans have to be good to one another is that God commands it, thus rendering our inborn human goodness a forced and artificial impulse, an optional kindness on our part instead of the grave duty that it is for our survival. Now that's funny!
When the only reason to be good to people is because it's a religious rule, then if other people follow a different religion, that rule becomes more of a loose guideline, if that. Then it's only a short mental walk to burning them at the stake, conquering their land, stealing their stuff, ravaging their women and destroying their civilizations. These things are almost always done in the name of God.
Consider these contradictory teachings that only compel reasonable and moral people to leave God out of the equation when it comes to doing what's right:
•God is an all-merciful, forgiving being who loves and cherishes each of us deeply. And if you don't return his love, perform time-consuming, uncomfortable rituals and keep him on your mind at all times he will smite you with plagues and condemn you to a lake of hell fire for all eternity. Ouch. Sounds like a candidate for powerful medication.
•Here's a Promised Land for you, my Chosen Ones, a land of milk and honey that will be yours forever. Oh, by the way, there's people living there now. I'm going to need you to slay them down to the last man, woman and child, and their farm animals too, which you then can sacrifice to me in a very long, elaborate and wasteful ceremony. Then inhabit their cities and steal their farms. Be a dear and do that for me, willya, Chosen People? Those infidels are really starting to grate on my nerves.
•Jesus Christ was a Jew, often called rabbi by his disciples. He died a Jew, too, and Christianity is basically a reformation of Judaism. So, what better way to celebrate Jesus' Jewishness than by centuries of oppression, murder, and exile of Jews by Christians! C'mon, Yids, it was all a joke! Get it?
•The word Islam means "peace." A thorough examination of the Koran has so far failed to find the passage that says "Only kidding!" In the jihadists defense, however, there are no specific instructions from God not to strap explosives to your body and blow yourself up on a crowded school bus.
•The Hindu religion regards violence, even against one's oppressors, as a demonic quality. They do, apparently, make liberal exceptions in the case of the minority Muslim population in India, whom they savage on a regular basis, and the Muslim nation of Pakistan, with whom Hindu Indian armies have fought several bloody wars and uncounted border skirmishes. Now that that pesky non-violent scold Gandhi is dead, all bets are off!
•After centuries of dispersal, inquisitions, pogroms, oppression and the Holocaust, the Jews returned to Israel in 1948, once again having a place to hang their yarmulkes. But, just like the first time they showed up in the Holy Land, there were people already living there, a lot of non-Jews who had been there for many centuries. Well, no prob, Bob! We'll just co-exist, the non-Jews existing in poverty behind barbed wire while we exist in your former houses and farms, and deny you citizenship in your homeland. Don't make a tsimis! At least we're not slaughtering you to the last man, woman and child like the good old days! And you even get to keep your farm animals for transportation! Nothing warms the heart like seeing a people emerging from 2,000 years of oppression becoming oppressors themselves in a single generation. Well done, God guys!
•Then there's the real buffoons, the born-again Christian Fascists of the good old U.S. of A! Is there anyone they don't hate in the name of a loving God? Is there any nation they don't want to destroy in the name of the Prince of Peace? Is there any stronger reason to be grateful to our wise Founding Fathers for mandating a separation of church and state now that these former outcast loners and shopping mall-wandering Jesus freaks have somehow organized themselves and gotten into politics? When their leaders pray to an all-merciful and loving Christ and shed crocodile tears for the benefit of their numbskull followers, then demand that our government torture Muslims, deny civil rights to non-Christians and drop bombs on everybody, is there any better comedy theater out there? Black comedy, to be sure, but pretty funny if that's your cup of tea. Coming soon to a theater near you: "Kill Your Way To Heaven!"
November 28, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 566
The worst kind of genius is a military genius. The smarter the guy is, the more people get slaughtered. Even worse, he gets to be admired, and now you've got a bunch of statues of this sadistic butcher handy even when he's dead to remind us of how stupid we were to follow his bloodthirsty ass.
MOTSOSS: KILLING FOR PEACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Well, so much for the new millennium, fresh starts, new ages and all that flowery bullshit we all bought into when the calendar changed from 1999 to 2000. We're closing in on our first decade into the 21st Century and the story in a nutshell is MOTSOS, short for More Of The Same Old Shit. Better yet, MOTSOSS, More Of The Same Old Stupid Shit. Forget about any new age of brotherhood and the slight incremental improvements in racial or ethnic relations within various nations.
As a whole, the nations of humanity are hating and killing each other just as much as always, and it's only the presence of nuclear bombs that prevents us from starting another good old World War to really let each other know how much we get on each others' nerves. Nothing says "fuck you!" like sending in the Marines.
Here in America we were so proud to have finally elected a black man to be our president, but that pride is merely a refection of the shame that it should be such a big deal in the first place. We didn't do anything wonderful or progressive, we simply elected the smartest guy who was running for president that particular year, as logic and intelligence would dictate. Let's not get all weepy or get injured patting ourselves on the back over something that should be routine and automatic.
Let's see how wonderful we all are if our black president isn't such a great leader, only a run-of-the-mill president. Hell, we've elected a whole bunch of white mediocrities through the years and never gave a second thought to supporting another dim bulb with a loud mouth to replace the previous dim bulb with a loud mouth who didn't work out all that well.
When we can do the same with blacks, other minorities and women, maybe we'll be getting somewhere, but we sure ain't there yet. If we were, the color of the president's skin wouldn't mean jack shit, only his or her abilities and ideas would matter. Speaking of president's ideas, it's seems our current president can't figure out how to get out of a war we won eight years ago when we invaded Afghanistan, overthrew their government and annihilated their armies.
That's winning a war by anybody's definition. It seems the Afghanistan government was giving asylum and a base of operations to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist gang al Qaeda that attacked America so devastatingly on 9/11/2001. That was no army that handed America that defeat but a criminal gang, yet humanity in general and America in particular had no other response to criminal gangs other than powerful military forces wreaking destruction on a backward nation, the vast majority of whose citizens had no idea what the hell was an al Qaeda or a bin Laden.
They worried more about their goats and poppy crops than jihad, or at least they did until we crushed their government and occupied their nation for 8 long years. Now, thanks to our idiotic refusal to accept victory, there's no shortage of militant jihadists, mostly illiterate bozos who couldn't find America on a map. These are basically the same people who outlasted Alexander the Great's occupation of their nation in 330 B.C. and dozens more "conquerors" that left them unchanged as a people. Why we got it into our heads that Afghanistan can become our 51st State is a huge mystery.
Of course it didn't help that our president at the time was so fucking stupid that a year or so later he invaded another country that wasn't even our enemy simply because he believed the lies that the Big Oil corporations spread about Iraq so they could steal their petroleum. So his puppet masters fostered fear and hatred of Muslims in order to justify another invasion, another foreign army annihilated, another sovereign government toppled and a whole bunch of our own precious young soldiers and uncounted Iraqi civilians getting slaughtered.
In Iraq we even hung their leader for good measure, just in case there was a chance of getting out of there with an apology and reparations for wrecking the place by mistake. Of course, invading the wrong country is about as big a boneheaded mistake as any leader can make, but being that we are America in possession of enough nuclear bombs to destroy this planet and the rest of the planets orbiting our sun, including the disenfranchised Pluto, we had a shot of getting out of the place without any retaliatory invasion of our own nation.
But nooo, we had to disband their army and abolish every civic arrangement they had for governing their own nation, just like we're trying to do in Afghanistan, to start from scratch and try to build mini-Americas without any actual Americans or admirers of America living in these places. Could we be any stupider? Now our government wants to send more troops to Afghanistan rather that simply abandoning the place to their own devices and let them think long and hard about harboring any terrorist criminal gangs in the future.
Of course any time anybody sends in troops they say they are doing it for "peace." For peace? Armies? If you want to send in people to promote peace, the last group of people you want to send in is the Marines, dammit! Those are not umbrellas those guys carry around everywhere they go, those are high-powered rifles, for crying out loud! Send belly dancers, comedians, plumbers, accountants, anybody but the Marines if peace it what you seek. Military forces have but one function in society, and that is to fight our wars. And when you send in the Marines to promote peace, then you are saying that it is okay to kill for peace. How crazy is that?
Being that we are the leading superpower in the world, our example is well-noted by killers and conquerors everywhere, and outside of Australia and Antarctic, there are wars, hate-fueled genocide and terrorist campaigns raging on every continent and archipelago. Talk about MOTSOSS, and America is right in the thick of it by perpetuating two wars we won years ago. What, do we have to re-defeat these two poor slobs nations constantly to show what badasses we are? That's not just fucking stupid, it's plain evil.
Then there are those geniuses among us who want us to withdraw our armed forces from Iraq and Afghanistan only so we're in good shape to invade (!) Iran, another nation that is not our enemy. Presumably we'll be killing for peace there too. Probably dismantling their government and army and ensuring civil chaos and insurgency so that we can keep sacrificing a bunch more of our dedicated young soldiers for no reason at all for years to come. Anyone espousing these ideas in our Congress, the Pentagon or any of our other halls of power should be enthusiastically beaten with sticks about the head and neck until they shut the fuck up.
We've already soiled the first 10 years of our brand new millennium with all our petty hatreds and earnest butchery. Let's not completely fuck up the remaining 990 years. There's no law that says we have to keep repeating More Of The Same Old Stupid Shit until we run out of excuses not to grow up and cut out all the insane killing and hatred. Then just maybe someday nobody will send in the Marines to do a job that was meant for people who don't carry firearms. We just might surprise ourselves one of these days by growing a pair of balls and saying NO to war and hatred, and then pimp-slapping the war mongers silly.
As a whole, the nations of humanity are hating and killing each other just as much as always, and it's only the presence of nuclear bombs that prevents us from starting another good old World War to really let each other know how much we get on each others' nerves. Nothing says "fuck you!" like sending in the Marines.
Here in America we were so proud to have finally elected a black man to be our president, but that pride is merely a refection of the shame that it should be such a big deal in the first place. We didn't do anything wonderful or progressive, we simply elected the smartest guy who was running for president that particular year, as logic and intelligence would dictate. Let's not get all weepy or get injured patting ourselves on the back over something that should be routine and automatic.
Let's see how wonderful we all are if our black president isn't such a great leader, only a run-of-the-mill president. Hell, we've elected a whole bunch of white mediocrities through the years and never gave a second thought to supporting another dim bulb with a loud mouth to replace the previous dim bulb with a loud mouth who didn't work out all that well.
When we can do the same with blacks, other minorities and women, maybe we'll be getting somewhere, but we sure ain't there yet. If we were, the color of the president's skin wouldn't mean jack shit, only his or her abilities and ideas would matter. Speaking of president's ideas, it's seems our current president can't figure out how to get out of a war we won eight years ago when we invaded Afghanistan, overthrew their government and annihilated their armies.
That's winning a war by anybody's definition. It seems the Afghanistan government was giving asylum and a base of operations to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist gang al Qaeda that attacked America so devastatingly on 9/11/2001. That was no army that handed America that defeat but a criminal gang, yet humanity in general and America in particular had no other response to criminal gangs other than powerful military forces wreaking destruction on a backward nation, the vast majority of whose citizens had no idea what the hell was an al Qaeda or a bin Laden.
They worried more about their goats and poppy crops than jihad, or at least they did until we crushed their government and occupied their nation for 8 long years. Now, thanks to our idiotic refusal to accept victory, there's no shortage of militant jihadists, mostly illiterate bozos who couldn't find America on a map. These are basically the same people who outlasted Alexander the Great's occupation of their nation in 330 B.C. and dozens more "conquerors" that left them unchanged as a people. Why we got it into our heads that Afghanistan can become our 51st State is a huge mystery.
Of course it didn't help that our president at the time was so fucking stupid that a year or so later he invaded another country that wasn't even our enemy simply because he believed the lies that the Big Oil corporations spread about Iraq so they could steal their petroleum. So his puppet masters fostered fear and hatred of Muslims in order to justify another invasion, another foreign army annihilated, another sovereign government toppled and a whole bunch of our own precious young soldiers and uncounted Iraqi civilians getting slaughtered.
In Iraq we even hung their leader for good measure, just in case there was a chance of getting out of there with an apology and reparations for wrecking the place by mistake. Of course, invading the wrong country is about as big a boneheaded mistake as any leader can make, but being that we are America in possession of enough nuclear bombs to destroy this planet and the rest of the planets orbiting our sun, including the disenfranchised Pluto, we had a shot of getting out of the place without any retaliatory invasion of our own nation.
But nooo, we had to disband their army and abolish every civic arrangement they had for governing their own nation, just like we're trying to do in Afghanistan, to start from scratch and try to build mini-Americas without any actual Americans or admirers of America living in these places. Could we be any stupider? Now our government wants to send more troops to Afghanistan rather that simply abandoning the place to their own devices and let them think long and hard about harboring any terrorist criminal gangs in the future.
Of course any time anybody sends in troops they say they are doing it for "peace." For peace? Armies? If you want to send in people to promote peace, the last group of people you want to send in is the Marines, dammit! Those are not umbrellas those guys carry around everywhere they go, those are high-powered rifles, for crying out loud! Send belly dancers, comedians, plumbers, accountants, anybody but the Marines if peace it what you seek. Military forces have but one function in society, and that is to fight our wars. And when you send in the Marines to promote peace, then you are saying that it is okay to kill for peace. How crazy is that?
Being that we are the leading superpower in the world, our example is well-noted by killers and conquerors everywhere, and outside of Australia and Antarctic, there are wars, hate-fueled genocide and terrorist campaigns raging on every continent and archipelago. Talk about MOTSOSS, and America is right in the thick of it by perpetuating two wars we won years ago. What, do we have to re-defeat these two poor slobs nations constantly to show what badasses we are? That's not just fucking stupid, it's plain evil.
Then there are those geniuses among us who want us to withdraw our armed forces from Iraq and Afghanistan only so we're in good shape to invade (!) Iran, another nation that is not our enemy. Presumably we'll be killing for peace there too. Probably dismantling their government and army and ensuring civil chaos and insurgency so that we can keep sacrificing a bunch more of our dedicated young soldiers for no reason at all for years to come. Anyone espousing these ideas in our Congress, the Pentagon or any of our other halls of power should be enthusiastically beaten with sticks about the head and neck until they shut the fuck up.
We've already soiled the first 10 years of our brand new millennium with all our petty hatreds and earnest butchery. Let's not completely fuck up the remaining 990 years. There's no law that says we have to keep repeating More Of The Same Old Stupid Shit until we run out of excuses not to grow up and cut out all the insane killing and hatred. Then just maybe someday nobody will send in the Marines to do a job that was meant for people who don't carry firearms. We just might surprise ourselves one of these days by growing a pair of balls and saying NO to war and hatred, and then pimp-slapping the war mongers silly.
November 27, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 565
No one walks alone. May you have interesting company on your journey through life and be able to give and receive all the love you possibly can.
SURE ARE A HELL OF A LOT OF PEOPLE AROUND, EH?
Have you looked around, lately? Not that all that much looks dramatically different, only that everything seems, well... more so. Most noticeable is that there's a whole lot more people around these days. Seems we're closing in on 7 billion of us sharing this spinning top we call the Earth. Not that that's any sort of species record, since in any given acre of ground there's more insects than there are people in the world, but who notices all those bugs but entomologists, farmers and little boys? But as of yesterday, there's 6.79 billion humans dancing their part in the World Ballet, and that's not even counting the illegals (Okay, it is counting the illegals, but I figured I'd throw that in to see who's paying attention).
That's a hell of a lot of people, and forget about remembering everyone's first name, those days are gone. When in doubt, however, you can always call some guy you never met Mohammed or Jack, since they're the world's two most popular male names, and have the best chance of getting it right. For ladies, the #1 name these days is (!) Emma, having shoved aside Mary some time in the past decade. Since most of us don't know any Emmas, you have to wonder who's naming all those kids, and if there's a whole country somewhere where every little girl is named Emma.
Well, Emma, Jack, Mary, Mohammed or Lorenzo, we're filling up this world quick. Already one in five of us is Chinese, and one in six is Indian, with both those nations topping a billion people. America has almost 310 million, probably closer to 330 million with the illegal immigrants (officially counted or not, they're here to stay, so deal with it, Mr. Dobbs). So we've got plenty of company in this world and in this life. It's like the old blues song says: "It's the same all over, there's people everywhere you go." Might as well make the best of it, get to know the neighbors and try to get along a little better than we have been, for like, forever.
When you live in New York City, it feels like there are no foreign countries. Other countries, sure, but foreign? No way, since in this town you're bound to run across people from everywhere you can think of, either directly or by ancestry. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you find out they're okay, just regular people doing their best, trying like anyone else to get by in this world, keeping their families safe and warm and doing what's right. Then you read the newspapers and find out that we're still at each other's throats all over the world, one war after the next, and you wonder what the hell for.
Then you find out that 36,000 people die of starvation every single day on a bountiful planet and you grieve, and wonder how we can abandon 13 million of our brothers and sisters to an early grave every year, most of them small children. We don't have that many people that so many of us are spares to be discarded. What can we do about this? And the crazy wars too? With almost 7 billion people around we're getting a little too close to keep up this nonsense; the wars, the genocide and the silent slaughter of starvation. Do we chalk this up as human nature? That's a pretty depressing thought, and one that should be dismissed.
There is a better way. That better way is already within each of us and it is called love. There is no more powerful force on the planet, no more universal experience. The problem is that we apply our love selectively, as if it was a limited resource, when in fact it is limitless, renewable and easily multiplied to meet any situation. When a family who loves their children has another child, does not the entire family's love expand to include the newborn baby, to love and cherish that child every bit as much as the others? Of course they do, and when their children marry and bring their spouses into the family, the love expands yet again to include them and the precious grandchildren they bring.
We can do the same with our love regarding all of humanity, each and every precious and unique human being on Earth. We would never dream of attacking and killing our loved ones, nor would we let them live lives of disease, starvation, illiteracy and severe hardship. Some nations have the means and the personnel to help solve the World Starvation Emergency, not only the immediate task of feeding the hungry and saving lives, but providing long-term solutions through agricultural education, building lasting food infrastructures and purifying precious water supplies. There is no new technology that needs to be invented, only a new awakening of love for our own brothers and sisters, all 6.79 billion of them.
Call this a hopelessly naive notion if you like. Is the way we have been treating one another preferable to love, peace and brotherhood? Point out our grand traditions of slaughter and repression if you disagree. We've pretty much exhausted all the combinations of international cruelty, barbarity and disregard for human life. How has that worked out for everybody? Can we reach the point where we stop using the words "military" and "genius" in the same sentence? That's nuts, as loony a a notion as nicknaming those mass slaughterers "The Great." Do we keep batting our heads against the wall forever, expecting different results? That's one of the textbook definitions of insanity, and we are not an insane race of beings. We are, however, a blind race of beings in many respects, blind to our oneness and our responsibilities to humanity as a living whole.
We have evolved from contentious tribes of scavenging nomads squabbling and killing over the more bountiful tracts of primordial real estate into modern human beings living in complex, sophisticated societies capable of doing wondrous things and providing comfort and safety to individuals superior to any time in our history. And yet (there's that And Yet again!) we retain far too many of our old destructive habits and ingrained animosities. It is long past time to evolve further, to abandon the aggression towards our fellow human beings that has brought nothing but pain into our already difficult lives. Can evolution be consciously effected? Can we make it happen?
The answer to that is YES. Love is the answer, and love can help us evolve. Not love of money, or love of power or love of your idea of God. God's not weighing in on this question one way or another, and any time somebody claims to have spoken to God, the result is almost always death and destruction for hapless innocents. No God would have anything to do with killing in his name, so religion is not the solution, at least not the way it has been applied since beyond memory. More often than not it is religion that has been the cause of our killing problems, with human beings trying to prove that heir invisible God is real and the other guy's invisible God is not real, prove it by killing, torturing and brutalizing one another. Is it any wonder that God chooses to remain invisible while we behave in this manner?
But love is very real, and there is not a human being alive who has not felt its power, has not been transformed by love or who has not loved another deeply and unconditionally. Very few humans have actually taken the life of another, but too few of us have objected strongly enough to make it stop. When a soldier from your society kills, or a government from your society executes an offender, they do it in your name, and by extension, at your behest. The blood and the indifference to human suffering is on all our hands, it is our fault as a race of beings. Only love can stop the slaughter, only love will feed the hungry and only love will bring us peace. We've tried again and again and again to kill our way out of our problems, only to see them deepen. Time to stop batting our heads against that wall.
There's a hell of a lot of people around, more and more every day. Let them be born into a world that welcomes them, a joyous world that celebrates them, that cares about their well being and loves them deeply. Let us be the ones to fill the world with love. The next step for humanity is within our grasp.
That's a hell of a lot of people, and forget about remembering everyone's first name, those days are gone. When in doubt, however, you can always call some guy you never met Mohammed or Jack, since they're the world's two most popular male names, and have the best chance of getting it right. For ladies, the #1 name these days is (!) Emma, having shoved aside Mary some time in the past decade. Since most of us don't know any Emmas, you have to wonder who's naming all those kids, and if there's a whole country somewhere where every little girl is named Emma.
Well, Emma, Jack, Mary, Mohammed or Lorenzo, we're filling up this world quick. Already one in five of us is Chinese, and one in six is Indian, with both those nations topping a billion people. America has almost 310 million, probably closer to 330 million with the illegal immigrants (officially counted or not, they're here to stay, so deal with it, Mr. Dobbs). So we've got plenty of company in this world and in this life. It's like the old blues song says: "It's the same all over, there's people everywhere you go." Might as well make the best of it, get to know the neighbors and try to get along a little better than we have been, for like, forever.
When you live in New York City, it feels like there are no foreign countries. Other countries, sure, but foreign? No way, since in this town you're bound to run across people from everywhere you can think of, either directly or by ancestry. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you find out they're okay, just regular people doing their best, trying like anyone else to get by in this world, keeping their families safe and warm and doing what's right. Then you read the newspapers and find out that we're still at each other's throats all over the world, one war after the next, and you wonder what the hell for.
Then you find out that 36,000 people die of starvation every single day on a bountiful planet and you grieve, and wonder how we can abandon 13 million of our brothers and sisters to an early grave every year, most of them small children. We don't have that many people that so many of us are spares to be discarded. What can we do about this? And the crazy wars too? With almost 7 billion people around we're getting a little too close to keep up this nonsense; the wars, the genocide and the silent slaughter of starvation. Do we chalk this up as human nature? That's a pretty depressing thought, and one that should be dismissed.
There is a better way. That better way is already within each of us and it is called love. There is no more powerful force on the planet, no more universal experience. The problem is that we apply our love selectively, as if it was a limited resource, when in fact it is limitless, renewable and easily multiplied to meet any situation. When a family who loves their children has another child, does not the entire family's love expand to include the newborn baby, to love and cherish that child every bit as much as the others? Of course they do, and when their children marry and bring their spouses into the family, the love expands yet again to include them and the precious grandchildren they bring.
We can do the same with our love regarding all of humanity, each and every precious and unique human being on Earth. We would never dream of attacking and killing our loved ones, nor would we let them live lives of disease, starvation, illiteracy and severe hardship. Some nations have the means and the personnel to help solve the World Starvation Emergency, not only the immediate task of feeding the hungry and saving lives, but providing long-term solutions through agricultural education, building lasting food infrastructures and purifying precious water supplies. There is no new technology that needs to be invented, only a new awakening of love for our own brothers and sisters, all 6.79 billion of them.
Call this a hopelessly naive notion if you like. Is the way we have been treating one another preferable to love, peace and brotherhood? Point out our grand traditions of slaughter and repression if you disagree. We've pretty much exhausted all the combinations of international cruelty, barbarity and disregard for human life. How has that worked out for everybody? Can we reach the point where we stop using the words "military" and "genius" in the same sentence? That's nuts, as loony a a notion as nicknaming those mass slaughterers "The Great." Do we keep batting our heads against the wall forever, expecting different results? That's one of the textbook definitions of insanity, and we are not an insane race of beings. We are, however, a blind race of beings in many respects, blind to our oneness and our responsibilities to humanity as a living whole.
We have evolved from contentious tribes of scavenging nomads squabbling and killing over the more bountiful tracts of primordial real estate into modern human beings living in complex, sophisticated societies capable of doing wondrous things and providing comfort and safety to individuals superior to any time in our history. And yet (there's that And Yet again!) we retain far too many of our old destructive habits and ingrained animosities. It is long past time to evolve further, to abandon the aggression towards our fellow human beings that has brought nothing but pain into our already difficult lives. Can evolution be consciously effected? Can we make it happen?
The answer to that is YES. Love is the answer, and love can help us evolve. Not love of money, or love of power or love of your idea of God. God's not weighing in on this question one way or another, and any time somebody claims to have spoken to God, the result is almost always death and destruction for hapless innocents. No God would have anything to do with killing in his name, so religion is not the solution, at least not the way it has been applied since beyond memory. More often than not it is religion that has been the cause of our killing problems, with human beings trying to prove that heir invisible God is real and the other guy's invisible God is not real, prove it by killing, torturing and brutalizing one another. Is it any wonder that God chooses to remain invisible while we behave in this manner?
But love is very real, and there is not a human being alive who has not felt its power, has not been transformed by love or who has not loved another deeply and unconditionally. Very few humans have actually taken the life of another, but too few of us have objected strongly enough to make it stop. When a soldier from your society kills, or a government from your society executes an offender, they do it in your name, and by extension, at your behest. The blood and the indifference to human suffering is on all our hands, it is our fault as a race of beings. Only love can stop the slaughter, only love will feed the hungry and only love will bring us peace. We've tried again and again and again to kill our way out of our problems, only to see them deepen. Time to stop batting our heads against that wall.
There's a hell of a lot of people around, more and more every day. Let them be born into a world that welcomes them, a joyous world that celebrates them, that cares about their well being and loves them deeply. Let us be the ones to fill the world with love. The next step for humanity is within our grasp.
November 26, 2009
HAPPY THANKSGIVING, 2009
Here's wishing a happy Thanksgiving to all my readers, my friends and my family. Thanksgiving is that most unusual of holidays, marking no religious celebration, a day set aside for everyone to give thanks. Thanks for what? That's up to the individual. We all have things for which we are grateful, some universal, some very idiosyncratic and personal. That's the beauty of a day without hard and fast rules for what exactly is being celebrated, you can make it about what is important to yourself and your loved ones.
Without going into the oft-repeated and conflicting stories of the origins of Thanksgiving, it is today an American tradition falling on the last Thursday of November, as decreed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. There wasn't a whole lot to be thankful for in America in 1863, what with the nation being torn apart by a bloody civil war. This was the first truly modern war, using the deadly new technologies of highly mobile and accurate heavy artillery, machine guns, rockets and repeating rifles, producing an unprecedented death toll made even more horrific by the fact that both armies were killing their own countrymen. America's perverse grip on slavery had to be pried loose only at gunpoint.
Perhaps Lincoln figured we needed a day to count our blessings, such as they were, recall better days and hope for peace and brotherhood once again. Whatever his thinking on that, Thanksgiving as a national holiday was one more great idea from a man full of great ideas, so maybe one more thing to be thankful for is Abraham Lincoln, who didn't instruct us on how or what to be thankful for. As for myself, this year will be a no-brainer as far as being thankful, even if it is painful. On November 13th my mother died, so this will be my family's first Thanksgiving without her in our lives, so that's where the pain comes in. The thanks I will give is for having my mother in the first place, a very special human being with many gifts that she shared with everyone she met without a second thought.
Mary Elizabeth Prunier Crespo was a gentle, kind, loving, generous and patient person, both by nature and by conscious effort, since her four children tested her patience and kindness daily, and the world in general tends to wear people's goodness out if you let it. Mom never let the bastards wear her down, an she remained until her last breath a loving and generous optimist who brought out the best in anyone who came into contact with her. Her brother, my Uncle Joe, put it best at the funeral of his big sister: "She was the smartest of us, and had the most talent, but she never rubbed it in..."
And Mom had plenty of smarts and talent, returning to work when her children were in their teens and rising to become a senior budget analyst for the City of New York. As far as talent, she was a gifted oil painter, and left our large extended family plenty of artwork to beautify our homes and remind us of her always. She also played the guitar, created needlepoint images and built elaborate dollhouses with tiny furniture with working drawers and hinges the size of a fingernail clippings. She was a voracious reader, a habit she instilled in her four children. Her politics were liberal and highly moral, demanding of American leaders an adherence to the best American ideas and ideals.
A child of the Great Depression and World War 2, Mary Crespo knew poverty and national trauma and always sided with the better angels of the human spirit, hating no one, encouraging all to be the best they can be, and loving the cultural cornucopia that is New York City. And she was a giver, giving of herself and her gifts freely, quietly donating to charities and spending time with anyone who sought her out, and who always came away feeing better about themselves and a world that could produce such a person. She was not only my mother, but the best friend I ever had.
Today I give thanks for the outrageous good fortune to have known such a person, and better yet, having been her child, her student and her admirer. This first Thanksgiving without her in our lives will be hard, but none of us will skip the celebration of this Holiday that she made so memorable to so many. When we were young, our house was filled to bursting with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, laughter, Scrabble games (she still regularly bested myself and my sister in our weekly Scrabble games) and most of all, love. And since you get to pick just what it is you are thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, this year I am profoundly grateful to have been the son of a magical human being, one who's lessons will always live on (including that it's okay to cook some chickens instead of that dry-ass bird turkey on Thanksgiving), who's fierce love and unquestioned support will prop me up until my own final breath. Happy Thanksgiving, Mom. It was an honor and a great privilege to share your life.
Without going into the oft-repeated and conflicting stories of the origins of Thanksgiving, it is today an American tradition falling on the last Thursday of November, as decreed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. There wasn't a whole lot to be thankful for in America in 1863, what with the nation being torn apart by a bloody civil war. This was the first truly modern war, using the deadly new technologies of highly mobile and accurate heavy artillery, machine guns, rockets and repeating rifles, producing an unprecedented death toll made even more horrific by the fact that both armies were killing their own countrymen. America's perverse grip on slavery had to be pried loose only at gunpoint.
Perhaps Lincoln figured we needed a day to count our blessings, such as they were, recall better days and hope for peace and brotherhood once again. Whatever his thinking on that, Thanksgiving as a national holiday was one more great idea from a man full of great ideas, so maybe one more thing to be thankful for is Abraham Lincoln, who didn't instruct us on how or what to be thankful for. As for myself, this year will be a no-brainer as far as being thankful, even if it is painful. On November 13th my mother died, so this will be my family's first Thanksgiving without her in our lives, so that's where the pain comes in. The thanks I will give is for having my mother in the first place, a very special human being with many gifts that she shared with everyone she met without a second thought.
Mary Elizabeth Prunier Crespo was a gentle, kind, loving, generous and patient person, both by nature and by conscious effort, since her four children tested her patience and kindness daily, and the world in general tends to wear people's goodness out if you let it. Mom never let the bastards wear her down, an she remained until her last breath a loving and generous optimist who brought out the best in anyone who came into contact with her. Her brother, my Uncle Joe, put it best at the funeral of his big sister: "She was the smartest of us, and had the most talent, but she never rubbed it in..."
And Mom had plenty of smarts and talent, returning to work when her children were in their teens and rising to become a senior budget analyst for the City of New York. As far as talent, she was a gifted oil painter, and left our large extended family plenty of artwork to beautify our homes and remind us of her always. She also played the guitar, created needlepoint images and built elaborate dollhouses with tiny furniture with working drawers and hinges the size of a fingernail clippings. She was a voracious reader, a habit she instilled in her four children. Her politics were liberal and highly moral, demanding of American leaders an adherence to the best American ideas and ideals.
A child of the Great Depression and World War 2, Mary Crespo knew poverty and national trauma and always sided with the better angels of the human spirit, hating no one, encouraging all to be the best they can be, and loving the cultural cornucopia that is New York City. And she was a giver, giving of herself and her gifts freely, quietly donating to charities and spending time with anyone who sought her out, and who always came away feeing better about themselves and a world that could produce such a person. She was not only my mother, but the best friend I ever had.
Today I give thanks for the outrageous good fortune to have known such a person, and better yet, having been her child, her student and her admirer. This first Thanksgiving without her in our lives will be hard, but none of us will skip the celebration of this Holiday that she made so memorable to so many. When we were young, our house was filled to bursting with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, laughter, Scrabble games (she still regularly bested myself and my sister in our weekly Scrabble games) and most of all, love. And since you get to pick just what it is you are thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, this year I am profoundly grateful to have been the son of a magical human being, one who's lessons will always live on (including that it's okay to cook some chickens instead of that dry-ass bird turkey on Thanksgiving), who's fierce love and unquestioned support will prop me up until my own final breath. Happy Thanksgiving, Mom. It was an honor and a great privilege to share your life.
November 25, 2009
VINNY VISA JACKS UP THE VIG
Today's guest blogger is Federico "Freddy Fees" Carbone, a member of the Credit Card Cartel and underboss to Vincent "Vinny Visa" Vitale, the undisputed Don of America's largest organized consortium, who exercises authority over the heads of the Five Families: Visa, Master, Amex, Discover and Slate.
Freddy Fees here, giving you the inside dope. Not like it's gonna help you, but just to let you know who's boss. Lots of you suckers have been getting little pamphlets in the mail from your credit card companies, letting you know that the vig is going up, way up. Only we don't call it the vig anymore (short for "vigorish," a Yiddish word by way of Russia, meaning "winnings," but used to figure a loan shark's or a bookie's take, always a hefty rate). We call the vig an interest rate these days, compounded hourly or by the second or however they do it lately, we got computers for that stuff. Just figure it to be plenty, pushing 30% or more plus "hidden fees," the kind of thing the government used to put guys like us in jail over. No more.
Us gangsters finally wised up and went mainstream and now we're running all the major credit card companies. We got Vinny Visa to thank for all these hikes in the vig. Vinny's the Boss of All Bosses in the credit card racket and what he says goes. And Vinny says you suckers are gonna get squeezed just a little bit more, or a whole lot more if you read the fine print.
See, the Feds are cracking down on the rates credit card companies can squeeze out of working stiffs, but as usual they gave us fellas in Vinny Visa's corporate gang plenty of notice, so we had time to jack up the rates moon high, so that when the deadline comes for lowering them, we can roll them back to sky high. In other words, right back to the backbreaking levels that got the Feds all worked up in the first place. Lucky for Big Credit, Vinny Visa has lots of well-placed "fixers" in Washington, only he calls them lobbyists these days. Sweet.
A fixer is a guy who knows where the bodies are buried, knows what kind of girls (or boys) a Senator likes to fool around with, who's in big debt to his bookie or some casino, who likes to travel first class and don't care who's paying the freight, who has a junkie kid or wife they don't want advertised, and who likes cash and expensive jewelry in hand in exchange for their vote. Washington's lousy with fixers, and Vinny Visa's got ours working overtime these days. Makes us wonder why we didn't get into this racket a long time ago instead of working outside the law. We still get a huge vig, and nobody's going to jail for loan sharking.
Not only that, but you wanna talk about respect? We got it in spades, the best seats in the best restaurants, luxury boxes at any stadium you can name, private jets, limos, big tax breaks and bonuses up the wazoo. You flash the name Visa, Amex, or Master Card on a business card with some fancy title and chumps are falling all over you, opening doors, lighting your smokes, standing you drinks, whatever. Women? Forget about it, they're all over a made corporate man! And these days we get to put our houses and all our other swag in our own names, no ballbreaking detectives or D.A.s confiscating what we earned.
Funny thing is, we're pulling the same crap we always pulled, adding extra fees, upping the vig whenever we feel like it, and we still get to grab assets from the stiffs who don't pay, only this time the cops and the marshals do it for us, all legal and legit. No more leg breaking and bombing joints, which was a waste since you can't collect from no burnt-down business or a guy in the hospital. Only rarely do we have to whack a guy these days, and we take extra care to make it look like a heart attack or an accident.
Me, I kinda miss putting two behind a guy's ear to send a message, but Vinny Visa don't want nobody gettin' a whiff of the mob being behind the credit card scam. He don't want nobody to blow this sweet gig, especially after a bunch of his boys went a little crazy with the phony mortgage scams in '08 and almost killed the cash cow we all been milking. Funny how some guys get handed millions and millions for doing practically zip, more dough than they'll ever need, and then they want more.
Me, I was all for whacking the bunch of 'em before they turned rat, but Vinny cooled us down and told us he'd handle it. If you noticed, a few of the main bums died of "strokes" and "heart attacks," and some others are doing major time in the slammer, and nobody's talking to the D.A. or it's the poor house for their whole family. Vinny says that put the other dopes in line in a hurry, and so far the Feds are none the wiser, even handing us more billions of you suckers' tax dough to make up for what those dopes blew. Go figure. I gotta admit he's got a point, but I'm kinda old school and woulda liked taking a few of those greedy punks for a little ride.
Now things are looking peachy again, at least for us, and even with the rate limits coming, our fixers are making sure we got plenty of loopholes in the new rules; transaction fees, membership dues, transfer charges, and a whole bunch of other shakedowns. All legal, too. Once you buy a bunch of Congressmen and Senators, there's no need to pay off judges and every cop on the beat. Hell, these guys are giving us things we didn't even ask for! I think they're a bigger bunch of crooks than we ever were.
Anyway, suckers, don't go looking to Uncle Sam to get your credit card vig knocked down. He's on our side, now, and the same amount your vig gets reduced is what we're gonna stick you with in "handling fees." Just get used to paying and paying and paying and never getting off the hook. Dream on about ever paying down the principal, it's gonna be all vig every month, and even when you don't buy nothing, your tab still goes up. It's a beautiful thing, and gravy for Vinny Visa's boys. And don't even think about switching credit card companies. He had a sit down with all the bosses from Amex, Master, Discover, Slate and all the smaller credit gangs.
Vinny laid down the law and made sure we're all charging the same killer vig and piling on the hidden fees. He don't want any wars between gangs. Bad for business and only attracts heat from the law. Anybody wants to go to the mattresses, he tells 'em there's a stroke or a heart attack waiting for them too, and foreclosure on the wife and kids' houses. No one wants to go back to the old days of being public enemies, even though that's what we still are. Just as long as people think otherwise, we can go on ripping 'em off like we always done, and as far as I'm concerned, always will.
The best thing about this racket is that credit is just as addictive as heroin without having to deal with the crazy Afghanis on the one end and the desperate junkies on the other, all the time dodging cops and other thugs every step of the way. The longer we can keep this recession going, the better our business is. Hard times make for desperate suckers, and they even start buying groceries on their credit cards, so they'll be paying for those Cheerios and hamburgers for years to come. This racket is just too sweet to quit.
Freddy Fees here, giving you the inside dope. Not like it's gonna help you, but just to let you know who's boss. Lots of you suckers have been getting little pamphlets in the mail from your credit card companies, letting you know that the vig is going up, way up. Only we don't call it the vig anymore (short for "vigorish," a Yiddish word by way of Russia, meaning "winnings," but used to figure a loan shark's or a bookie's take, always a hefty rate). We call the vig an interest rate these days, compounded hourly or by the second or however they do it lately, we got computers for that stuff. Just figure it to be plenty, pushing 30% or more plus "hidden fees," the kind of thing the government used to put guys like us in jail over. No more.
Us gangsters finally wised up and went mainstream and now we're running all the major credit card companies. We got Vinny Visa to thank for all these hikes in the vig. Vinny's the Boss of All Bosses in the credit card racket and what he says goes. And Vinny says you suckers are gonna get squeezed just a little bit more, or a whole lot more if you read the fine print.
See, the Feds are cracking down on the rates credit card companies can squeeze out of working stiffs, but as usual they gave us fellas in Vinny Visa's corporate gang plenty of notice, so we had time to jack up the rates moon high, so that when the deadline comes for lowering them, we can roll them back to sky high. In other words, right back to the backbreaking levels that got the Feds all worked up in the first place. Lucky for Big Credit, Vinny Visa has lots of well-placed "fixers" in Washington, only he calls them lobbyists these days. Sweet.
A fixer is a guy who knows where the bodies are buried, knows what kind of girls (or boys) a Senator likes to fool around with, who's in big debt to his bookie or some casino, who likes to travel first class and don't care who's paying the freight, who has a junkie kid or wife they don't want advertised, and who likes cash and expensive jewelry in hand in exchange for their vote. Washington's lousy with fixers, and Vinny Visa's got ours working overtime these days. Makes us wonder why we didn't get into this racket a long time ago instead of working outside the law. We still get a huge vig, and nobody's going to jail for loan sharking.
Not only that, but you wanna talk about respect? We got it in spades, the best seats in the best restaurants, luxury boxes at any stadium you can name, private jets, limos, big tax breaks and bonuses up the wazoo. You flash the name Visa, Amex, or Master Card on a business card with some fancy title and chumps are falling all over you, opening doors, lighting your smokes, standing you drinks, whatever. Women? Forget about it, they're all over a made corporate man! And these days we get to put our houses and all our other swag in our own names, no ballbreaking detectives or D.A.s confiscating what we earned.
Funny thing is, we're pulling the same crap we always pulled, adding extra fees, upping the vig whenever we feel like it, and we still get to grab assets from the stiffs who don't pay, only this time the cops and the marshals do it for us, all legal and legit. No more leg breaking and bombing joints, which was a waste since you can't collect from no burnt-down business or a guy in the hospital. Only rarely do we have to whack a guy these days, and we take extra care to make it look like a heart attack or an accident.
Me, I kinda miss putting two behind a guy's ear to send a message, but Vinny Visa don't want nobody gettin' a whiff of the mob being behind the credit card scam. He don't want nobody to blow this sweet gig, especially after a bunch of his boys went a little crazy with the phony mortgage scams in '08 and almost killed the cash cow we all been milking. Funny how some guys get handed millions and millions for doing practically zip, more dough than they'll ever need, and then they want more.
Me, I was all for whacking the bunch of 'em before they turned rat, but Vinny cooled us down and told us he'd handle it. If you noticed, a few of the main bums died of "strokes" and "heart attacks," and some others are doing major time in the slammer, and nobody's talking to the D.A. or it's the poor house for their whole family. Vinny says that put the other dopes in line in a hurry, and so far the Feds are none the wiser, even handing us more billions of you suckers' tax dough to make up for what those dopes blew. Go figure. I gotta admit he's got a point, but I'm kinda old school and woulda liked taking a few of those greedy punks for a little ride.
Now things are looking peachy again, at least for us, and even with the rate limits coming, our fixers are making sure we got plenty of loopholes in the new rules; transaction fees, membership dues, transfer charges, and a whole bunch of other shakedowns. All legal, too. Once you buy a bunch of Congressmen and Senators, there's no need to pay off judges and every cop on the beat. Hell, these guys are giving us things we didn't even ask for! I think they're a bigger bunch of crooks than we ever were.
Anyway, suckers, don't go looking to Uncle Sam to get your credit card vig knocked down. He's on our side, now, and the same amount your vig gets reduced is what we're gonna stick you with in "handling fees." Just get used to paying and paying and paying and never getting off the hook. Dream on about ever paying down the principal, it's gonna be all vig every month, and even when you don't buy nothing, your tab still goes up. It's a beautiful thing, and gravy for Vinny Visa's boys. And don't even think about switching credit card companies. He had a sit down with all the bosses from Amex, Master, Discover, Slate and all the smaller credit gangs.
Vinny laid down the law and made sure we're all charging the same killer vig and piling on the hidden fees. He don't want any wars between gangs. Bad for business and only attracts heat from the law. Anybody wants to go to the mattresses, he tells 'em there's a stroke or a heart attack waiting for them too, and foreclosure on the wife and kids' houses. No one wants to go back to the old days of being public enemies, even though that's what we still are. Just as long as people think otherwise, we can go on ripping 'em off like we always done, and as far as I'm concerned, always will.
The best thing about this racket is that credit is just as addictive as heroin without having to deal with the crazy Afghanis on the one end and the desperate junkies on the other, all the time dodging cops and other thugs every step of the way. The longer we can keep this recession going, the better our business is. Hard times make for desperate suckers, and they even start buying groceries on their credit cards, so they'll be paying for those Cheerios and hamburgers for years to come. This racket is just too sweet to quit.
November 24, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 563
No one on their death bed ever regretted not spending enough time in New Jersey, Canada or in karaoke bars.
HOSTING THANKSGIVING
Sometimes things happen around the Holidays, odd things. Nothing to be done about it either. Can't fight City Hall or outrageous fate. You can tear out your hair over it, rend your garments, get busy with the wailing and gnashing of teeth routine, or you can roll with the punches. And when it's life that's doing the punching, there's no one to blame, no one to defend yourself against or from whom to seek retribution. It's just life, and that's the way it goes sometimes. Nothing personal, just your turn in the barrel. It's random. We might wail "Why me?" The answer might be; "Why not you?" Sometimes things just happen, things like this:
You have a Thanksgiving gathering in your home, first time you get to host the big event for the entire extended family. It seems your parents have gone on a second honeymoon this year, and the honors are yours. The pressure is enormous, the comparisons to other family members' memorable feasts are many. You prepare for weeks, you and the lovely wife, polishing every stick of furniture, even painting the place like you've been meaning to do for the past decade.
Then you shop for enough food to feed a regiment. You don't want to get too creative and mess with the traditional Thanksgiving menu, so you go the turkey, yams and cranberry sauce route, plus about a dozen other things in huge amounts, more than everyone you've ever met could eat in one day.
And you pull it off somehow, first time out of the gate! The house looks great, the food is perfect and when the table is set it looks like that Norman Rockwell painting. Only trouble is, that it's not the Norman Rockwell family sitting down to the feast, it's your family. By the time you serve dinner, Uncle Charlie is roaring drunk and telling dirty jokes, Aunt Rose is kicking him under the table and 22 year-old nephew Joey, your big brother's kid with the dozens of face piercings and death-motif tattoos announces he's a strict carnivore and will eat only meat, preferably raw beef.
His teenage brothers and sisters, two sets of boy-girl twins, have been smoking pot in your garage and can't stop giggling. Your 92 year-old grandfather decides to lead the family in saying grace and forgets the words halfway through. Four times. Granny, who's nearly deaf, shouts to all that she hopes Gramps doesn't soil himself like he did at the 4th of July barbecue.
The meal finally starts and your 5 foot, 2-inch tall, 300-pound Aunt Millie starts critiquing each dish, usually in a negative way, and just to be absolutely certain she doesn't like anything you cooked, fills her plate several times. Uncle Charlie slips your 9 year-old kid a 5 spot to keep the ice cubes and bourbon coming, and teaches him what the words "douche bag" mean.
Your thirty-something, thrice-divorced sister-in-law Mildred who gets very tense around the holidays has solved that little problem by taking a handful of tranquilizers and is now hanging all over Cousin Joey as he chews on a raw steak he thawed out in the microwave, telling him she doesn't care one bit if everybody thinks he's a maladjusted little shit, she thinks he's one sexy freak show of a man. Joey grunts between bloody mouthfuls and slips a hand up her dress.
Your 15 year-old daughter is sitting next to them, rolling her eyes and texting a blow-by-blow account of the dinner to her friends. Your brother Rick the know-it-all blowhard who married a woman who's father created a lucrative do-nothing job for him at his import-export business is drinking egg nog and brandy concoctions and repeating the political theories of Rush Limbaugh louder and louder as if he made them up himself until his wife tells him to shut the hell up a dozen or more times.
Your son announces that Uncle Ricky is douche bag and Uncle Charlie tells another dirty joke while Cousin Joey and Mildred disappear into your son's bedroom. Your daughter abruptly announces that she hates you all and wishes she were dead and disappears into her own room in a huff while Joey's siblings go back to the garage to smoke more pot.
Your son calls his pothead cousins a bunch of douche bags too while he fetches more ice cubes and bourbon for Uncle Charlie while you and the lovely wife clean up dinner and prepare for dessert. It turns out that the pot smoking teens have already devoured the lemon meringue and coconut custard pies with their bare hands and are wiping themselves on the curtains. Luckily you have about six other things for dessert.
Your wife is crying silently as you shoo the teenagers back to the garage and put on the coffee. Your daughter emerges from her room and drags your son into the kitchen to help, then starts hugging your wife and crying along with her in the kitchen, telling her that Joey and Mildred are making a racket in your son's room, at which point the kid makes a beeline to his bedroom and flings the door wide open and snaps on the light before you can catch up to him, with everyone from the dining room table right behind him.
You hear your son yell; "Whoa, cooool!" while your Uncle Charlie tells Joey to give her a good one for him, Aunt Rose kicks him in the shins again, RIck tells no one in particular that this is President Obama's fault for tearing society apart and Gramps starts singing the national anthem when he hears the word "President." You shut the light and the door and herd everyone back to the table for dessert. Now Grandma's in the kitchen with your wife and daughter crying with them and you drag them to the table too. It's time for coffee and dessert, and there's still pies, some peach cobbler, candies and brownies.
The marijuana crew loads their plates with sweets, as does Aunt Millie, while Gramps falls asleep in his plate of pumpkin pie. Joey and Mildred emerge from your son's room, grab their coats and announce they are off to Vegas to elope while your son screams at them that they made his bed all gooey and they're a couple of douche bags. Uncle Charlie drinks a toast to the young lovers and gets yet another kick in the shins from Aunt Rose.
Your wife and daughter are silently weeping into their coffee and dessert and the stoners are sucking the laughing gas from the whipped cream canisters, and then they go to your computer, change all your settings and download a bunch of creepy video games. Your brother Rick's wife is telling him to shut the hell up and go watch some football or something and all of a sudden Gramps wakes up and makes a dash for the bathroom, not quite making it in time, earning a "stinky old douche bag" from your son. Your parents' sudden decision to go on a second honeymoon doesn't seem so surprising anymore.
The double sets of stoned twins raid the fridge for leftovers while Uncle Charlie and Aunt Rose argue over the car keys. Aunt Millie packs a giant doggy bag as Rick and his wife collect their teenagers and say goodnight. Then Grandma loudly announces that this was the best Thanksgiving ever, and that you should be the permanent family host for Thanksgiving every year from now on. Now you wonder just how hard it is to fake your own death. Happy Thanksgiving!
You have a Thanksgiving gathering in your home, first time you get to host the big event for the entire extended family. It seems your parents have gone on a second honeymoon this year, and the honors are yours. The pressure is enormous, the comparisons to other family members' memorable feasts are many. You prepare for weeks, you and the lovely wife, polishing every stick of furniture, even painting the place like you've been meaning to do for the past decade.
Then you shop for enough food to feed a regiment. You don't want to get too creative and mess with the traditional Thanksgiving menu, so you go the turkey, yams and cranberry sauce route, plus about a dozen other things in huge amounts, more than everyone you've ever met could eat in one day.
And you pull it off somehow, first time out of the gate! The house looks great, the food is perfect and when the table is set it looks like that Norman Rockwell painting. Only trouble is, that it's not the Norman Rockwell family sitting down to the feast, it's your family. By the time you serve dinner, Uncle Charlie is roaring drunk and telling dirty jokes, Aunt Rose is kicking him under the table and 22 year-old nephew Joey, your big brother's kid with the dozens of face piercings and death-motif tattoos announces he's a strict carnivore and will eat only meat, preferably raw beef.
His teenage brothers and sisters, two sets of boy-girl twins, have been smoking pot in your garage and can't stop giggling. Your 92 year-old grandfather decides to lead the family in saying grace and forgets the words halfway through. Four times. Granny, who's nearly deaf, shouts to all that she hopes Gramps doesn't soil himself like he did at the 4th of July barbecue.
The meal finally starts and your 5 foot, 2-inch tall, 300-pound Aunt Millie starts critiquing each dish, usually in a negative way, and just to be absolutely certain she doesn't like anything you cooked, fills her plate several times. Uncle Charlie slips your 9 year-old kid a 5 spot to keep the ice cubes and bourbon coming, and teaches him what the words "douche bag" mean.
Your thirty-something, thrice-divorced sister-in-law Mildred who gets very tense around the holidays has solved that little problem by taking a handful of tranquilizers and is now hanging all over Cousin Joey as he chews on a raw steak he thawed out in the microwave, telling him she doesn't care one bit if everybody thinks he's a maladjusted little shit, she thinks he's one sexy freak show of a man. Joey grunts between bloody mouthfuls and slips a hand up her dress.
Your 15 year-old daughter is sitting next to them, rolling her eyes and texting a blow-by-blow account of the dinner to her friends. Your brother Rick the know-it-all blowhard who married a woman who's father created a lucrative do-nothing job for him at his import-export business is drinking egg nog and brandy concoctions and repeating the political theories of Rush Limbaugh louder and louder as if he made them up himself until his wife tells him to shut the hell up a dozen or more times.
Your son announces that Uncle Ricky is douche bag and Uncle Charlie tells another dirty joke while Cousin Joey and Mildred disappear into your son's bedroom. Your daughter abruptly announces that she hates you all and wishes she were dead and disappears into her own room in a huff while Joey's siblings go back to the garage to smoke more pot.
Your son calls his pothead cousins a bunch of douche bags too while he fetches more ice cubes and bourbon for Uncle Charlie while you and the lovely wife clean up dinner and prepare for dessert. It turns out that the pot smoking teens have already devoured the lemon meringue and coconut custard pies with their bare hands and are wiping themselves on the curtains. Luckily you have about six other things for dessert.
Your wife is crying silently as you shoo the teenagers back to the garage and put on the coffee. Your daughter emerges from her room and drags your son into the kitchen to help, then starts hugging your wife and crying along with her in the kitchen, telling her that Joey and Mildred are making a racket in your son's room, at which point the kid makes a beeline to his bedroom and flings the door wide open and snaps on the light before you can catch up to him, with everyone from the dining room table right behind him.
You hear your son yell; "Whoa, cooool!" while your Uncle Charlie tells Joey to give her a good one for him, Aunt Rose kicks him in the shins again, RIck tells no one in particular that this is President Obama's fault for tearing society apart and Gramps starts singing the national anthem when he hears the word "President." You shut the light and the door and herd everyone back to the table for dessert. Now Grandma's in the kitchen with your wife and daughter crying with them and you drag them to the table too. It's time for coffee and dessert, and there's still pies, some peach cobbler, candies and brownies.
The marijuana crew loads their plates with sweets, as does Aunt Millie, while Gramps falls asleep in his plate of pumpkin pie. Joey and Mildred emerge from your son's room, grab their coats and announce they are off to Vegas to elope while your son screams at them that they made his bed all gooey and they're a couple of douche bags. Uncle Charlie drinks a toast to the young lovers and gets yet another kick in the shins from Aunt Rose.
Your wife and daughter are silently weeping into their coffee and dessert and the stoners are sucking the laughing gas from the whipped cream canisters, and then they go to your computer, change all your settings and download a bunch of creepy video games. Your brother Rick's wife is telling him to shut the hell up and go watch some football or something and all of a sudden Gramps wakes up and makes a dash for the bathroom, not quite making it in time, earning a "stinky old douche bag" from your son. Your parents' sudden decision to go on a second honeymoon doesn't seem so surprising anymore.
The double sets of stoned twins raid the fridge for leftovers while Uncle Charlie and Aunt Rose argue over the car keys. Aunt Millie packs a giant doggy bag as Rick and his wife collect their teenagers and say goodnight. Then Grandma loudly announces that this was the best Thanksgiving ever, and that you should be the permanent family host for Thanksgiving every year from now on. Now you wonder just how hard it is to fake your own death. Happy Thanksgiving!
November 23, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 562
Contrary to poplar belief, no rock&roll stars ever knew the secret to life. Surprisingly, this secret was entrusted to the late Marcel Marceau, the famous French mime, who mistakenly thought he could impart it through his silent mime act, forgetting that most people really hate mimes. Hopefully, the next person entrusted with the secret will lay off the tights, striped shirts, invisible boxes and silly makeup and actually speak to us.
SOME SAD SIGHTS
Is there a sadder or more pathetic sight than Senator Joe Lieberman's face? No cartoonist could create a sadder sack of a caricature than his real-life features. It is said that as a person ages, one's face more and more becomes a reflection of their personality. Could it be possible that Senator Lieberman is anyway near as sad and dour a human being as his face indicates? And does the Guinness Book of World Records have a category for impossibly sad sights? If so, maybe the following could be in line for consideration:
A wallet full of photographs of one's dogs. What, none of the goldfish? While most people like dogs just fine, the idea that anyone is eager to see pictures of your overbred, nervous little pooch dressed in dopey doggie sweaters is just a tad delusional. And sad.
An aging gay man with a cold. Sorry, old gay brothers, no disrespect, but an aging queen with a bad cold is pretty pathetic to behold.
What's sadder than Glen Beck fancying himself a one-man political movement? And an educator, no less! Hasn't this dimwit embarrassed himself enough? Well, it seems the guy's got a plan for his America. It's unclear if "his" America is the same America the rest of us enjoy so much. Let's hope not. Nothing worse than an angry moron with "a plan." Those things never work out all that well for anyone but the angry moron.
People who used to be famous appearing on "Dancing With The Stars" is pretty sad, too. Unless of course they fall down, in which case it is funny.
A skinny department store Santa. Creepy, too.
An old guy trying to figure out how to actually make a call on the iPhone his daughter gave him for his birthday.
A really drunk guy desperately trying to look sober. Even sadder, a really drunk woman trying to look sober. Another double standard? Yes, yes it is. Fairly universal, though.
A kid who's ice cream cone just hit the pavement. Bummer.
Senior citizen outlaw bikers. That blurry, elongated "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo doesn't seem all that menacing when tearing down the sidewalk on your Mobility Scooter.
Dancing bears and tamed lions. Fearsome predators drugged, de-clawed, whipped and chained for people's amusement are sad sights, except every so often when they slay their trainers in a rage. For that one shining moment they are the majestic predators they were born to be, at least until the police come along and shoot them down. Then they are sad sights once again.
A melting snowman. Frosty, we hardly knew ye!
A three-legged stray dog. This poor mutt's picture isn't in anybody's wallet, but nine times out of ten is more dog than any pet, getting along somehow on 3 legs and his wits.
Famous faces Botoxed into immobility. That's the best plastic surgeons can do these days? Some of their patients (victims?) are almost unrecognizable, looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy's extended family, exhibiting zero character. Might be a good idea for Senator Lieberman, though.
Coal miners. Has there ever been a happy looking coal miner anywhere ever?
Empty houses. Seems to be lots of them around lately, abandoned in a hurry, with reminders of family life strewn around weedy yards; swing sets, barbecues, maybe an old doll dropped in the grass. The houses themselves seem to be sighing, hoping someone will move in and bring them back to life.
Flag draped coffins. Yet another generation weeps and wonders why.
A wallet full of photographs of one's dogs. What, none of the goldfish? While most people like dogs just fine, the idea that anyone is eager to see pictures of your overbred, nervous little pooch dressed in dopey doggie sweaters is just a tad delusional. And sad.
An aging gay man with a cold. Sorry, old gay brothers, no disrespect, but an aging queen with a bad cold is pretty pathetic to behold.
What's sadder than Glen Beck fancying himself a one-man political movement? And an educator, no less! Hasn't this dimwit embarrassed himself enough? Well, it seems the guy's got a plan for his America. It's unclear if "his" America is the same America the rest of us enjoy so much. Let's hope not. Nothing worse than an angry moron with "a plan." Those things never work out all that well for anyone but the angry moron.
People who used to be famous appearing on "Dancing With The Stars" is pretty sad, too. Unless of course they fall down, in which case it is funny.
A skinny department store Santa. Creepy, too.
An old guy trying to figure out how to actually make a call on the iPhone his daughter gave him for his birthday.
A really drunk guy desperately trying to look sober. Even sadder, a really drunk woman trying to look sober. Another double standard? Yes, yes it is. Fairly universal, though.
A kid who's ice cream cone just hit the pavement. Bummer.
Senior citizen outlaw bikers. That blurry, elongated "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo doesn't seem all that menacing when tearing down the sidewalk on your Mobility Scooter.
Dancing bears and tamed lions. Fearsome predators drugged, de-clawed, whipped and chained for people's amusement are sad sights, except every so often when they slay their trainers in a rage. For that one shining moment they are the majestic predators they were born to be, at least until the police come along and shoot them down. Then they are sad sights once again.
A melting snowman. Frosty, we hardly knew ye!
A three-legged stray dog. This poor mutt's picture isn't in anybody's wallet, but nine times out of ten is more dog than any pet, getting along somehow on 3 legs and his wits.
Famous faces Botoxed into immobility. That's the best plastic surgeons can do these days? Some of their patients (victims?) are almost unrecognizable, looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy's extended family, exhibiting zero character. Might be a good idea for Senator Lieberman, though.
Coal miners. Has there ever been a happy looking coal miner anywhere ever?
Empty houses. Seems to be lots of them around lately, abandoned in a hurry, with reminders of family life strewn around weedy yards; swing sets, barbecues, maybe an old doll dropped in the grass. The houses themselves seem to be sighing, hoping someone will move in and bring them back to life.
Flag draped coffins. Yet another generation weeps and wonders why.
November 22, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 561
The easiest sort of genius to be is a math genius. 2 plus 2 always equals 4, and anything else you come up with must reflect reality. You don't get to make stuff up, discover new numbers, or put your own personal stamp on mathematics. Mathematicians basically point out the obvious.
DOPOTO REPORTS: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE STRANGE
The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) has been keeping busy, as usual, performing our only function: observing events and pointing out the obvious. It is often a thankless task, since many humans enjoy interpreting reality to suit their own philosophies, even though the truth has been getting severe sprains from all the contortions it has been forced to bend itself into. Naturally the Department's frowns on this sort of activity, but also notes that it is fairly harmless. The sky is no less blue than it was yesterday when someone emphatically insists it is green.
Be that as it may, researchers at DOPOTO have been noticing a few trends of late; good, bad and strange. The good development is that several United States Senators have suddenly remembered their job description and have decided to vote on potential laws before them in the Senate according the their merits and for no other consideration. A thorough scan of Department archives confirms that this has not happened within recent memory, with even the rescue monies for the 9/11 attacks and the Hurricane Katrina disaster having been loaded with "earmarks," a polite euphemism for political patronage and earnest treasury-looting.
The law in question is the Health Care Reform Bill, which was subject to a great deal of overloading with pork in the House of Representatives. This reassuringly sleazy behavior of the Representatives was fully expected to be repeated in The Senate. Several Senators have instead thrown a monkey wrench into the process of political observation by acting ethically and responsibly, one even going so far as to question the wisdom of political action committees spending $3 million on advertisements in her state opposing the health care bill.
She wisely noted that the debate is in Congress, not Arkansas, where lawmakers actually review the proposed legislation and speak to one another face to face, negating the need for media advertising campaigns to familiarize themselves with the facts. The advertising campaigns reflect what the Department considers a bad trend, with various organizations spending untold millions of dollars in media and print ads to attempt to make voters feel that they have some input into running the government beyond casting their votes for the candidates of their choice.
This is how representative government works; the actual elected representatives get to do the legislating. In other words, doing the job they were hired to do for their terms in office. If the voters are displeased with their representatives' job performance, they can always fire them at the next election, but meanwhile must live with their choices. If they feel that their Senator or Representative isn't doing their job properly, contributing money to lobbying organizations to formulate advertising campaigns designed to benefit only those lobbying organizations doesn't help their cause.
Other than enflaming the sizable segment of society that is easily enflamed by just about anything, the ad campaigns are basically exercises in "alternate reality," which is something that does not exist. But once one accepts the possibility of alternate realities, then it is but a short leap into bald lying and slander, and then calling lies and slander something else. The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious cannot refrain from pointing out that calling a hyena a lamb has never made a single hyena anything but a hyena.
While we welcome these several Senators into the realm of seeing the forest for the trees, long observation by DOPOTO cannot help but wonder how long this burst of integrity will last. Traditionally, when asked to behave morally and ethically, most elected officials are willing to give it a shot as long as there is something in it for them. As a class, they are deservedly famous for "not getting it," and have earned their nation's mistrust. Senators deviating from this norm are worth noting. The Department will keep a keen eye on these anomalous developments.
In the Strange Trends category, DOPOTO researchers and senior observers have noticed that the campaign for the living deification of Sarah Palin is quickly losing steam, well before the usual expiration date of these sorts of things. Apparently the American public has seen enough of her and has decided that she really is a dim bulb not worth wasting any more time over. Always a person of below-average intelligence, Ms. Palin swiftly rose to iconic status in the minds of many when she was picked to be the Vice Presidential candidate in the 2008 election.
When she did the unprecedented by becoming the first defeated vice-presidential candidate to remain a viable political presence, America's disgraced right wing politicians believed they had found their savior and their ticket back into national power. While veteran observers of the obvious could only note what a lightweight and bizarre individual they had chosen as their poster girl, the woman was catapulted into even greater national fame by quitting the job of Governor of Alaska, essentially telling the people who elected her that they do not matter in the grand scheme of things.
Her lack of intelligence, her sleazy behavior and her dedication to alternate reality made her a natural in the Perverse Idol Worshipping Sweepstakes that has become a hallmark of American right wing politics since the curious elevation of the amiable but dim B-movie actor Ronald Reagan into the Pantheon of Great Statesmen, all reality be damned. And it worked splendidly, even to the point where they succeeded in getting George Bush the Younger elected president twice, even though he was so dumb he once attacked the wrong country.
Which leaves the Department wondering what went wrong with the Sarah Palin juggernaut. She is at least as dumb as Reagan and smarter than Bush The Younger (who isn't?), so it is curious to observe that this natural for Right Wing Sainthood is seeing her star dim before its time. While DOPOTO would like to claim credit for people being able to see the obvious, senior analysts here feel that Ms. Palin has simply derailed her own train by actually speaking candidly once too often, revealing the painfully obvious even to those who scrupulously shun the truth.
Which, in a sense, is too bad. There was still a lot of mileage left in the pure entertainment value of Ms. Palin's ascendancy, and the potential for a huge and embarrassing flameout. We here at The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious feel that she is cheating the American public by simply petering out into being an odd footnote in American politics before she had a chance to do anything truly bizarre. This is what it must feel like to be a voter in Alaska.
This was a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.
Be that as it may, researchers at DOPOTO have been noticing a few trends of late; good, bad and strange. The good development is that several United States Senators have suddenly remembered their job description and have decided to vote on potential laws before them in the Senate according the their merits and for no other consideration. A thorough scan of Department archives confirms that this has not happened within recent memory, with even the rescue monies for the 9/11 attacks and the Hurricane Katrina disaster having been loaded with "earmarks," a polite euphemism for political patronage and earnest treasury-looting.
The law in question is the Health Care Reform Bill, which was subject to a great deal of overloading with pork in the House of Representatives. This reassuringly sleazy behavior of the Representatives was fully expected to be repeated in The Senate. Several Senators have instead thrown a monkey wrench into the process of political observation by acting ethically and responsibly, one even going so far as to question the wisdom of political action committees spending $3 million on advertisements in her state opposing the health care bill.
She wisely noted that the debate is in Congress, not Arkansas, where lawmakers actually review the proposed legislation and speak to one another face to face, negating the need for media advertising campaigns to familiarize themselves with the facts. The advertising campaigns reflect what the Department considers a bad trend, with various organizations spending untold millions of dollars in media and print ads to attempt to make voters feel that they have some input into running the government beyond casting their votes for the candidates of their choice.
This is how representative government works; the actual elected representatives get to do the legislating. In other words, doing the job they were hired to do for their terms in office. If the voters are displeased with their representatives' job performance, they can always fire them at the next election, but meanwhile must live with their choices. If they feel that their Senator or Representative isn't doing their job properly, contributing money to lobbying organizations to formulate advertising campaigns designed to benefit only those lobbying organizations doesn't help their cause.
Other than enflaming the sizable segment of society that is easily enflamed by just about anything, the ad campaigns are basically exercises in "alternate reality," which is something that does not exist. But once one accepts the possibility of alternate realities, then it is but a short leap into bald lying and slander, and then calling lies and slander something else. The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious cannot refrain from pointing out that calling a hyena a lamb has never made a single hyena anything but a hyena.
While we welcome these several Senators into the realm of seeing the forest for the trees, long observation by DOPOTO cannot help but wonder how long this burst of integrity will last. Traditionally, when asked to behave morally and ethically, most elected officials are willing to give it a shot as long as there is something in it for them. As a class, they are deservedly famous for "not getting it," and have earned their nation's mistrust. Senators deviating from this norm are worth noting. The Department will keep a keen eye on these anomalous developments.
In the Strange Trends category, DOPOTO researchers and senior observers have noticed that the campaign for the living deification of Sarah Palin is quickly losing steam, well before the usual expiration date of these sorts of things. Apparently the American public has seen enough of her and has decided that she really is a dim bulb not worth wasting any more time over. Always a person of below-average intelligence, Ms. Palin swiftly rose to iconic status in the minds of many when she was picked to be the Vice Presidential candidate in the 2008 election.
When she did the unprecedented by becoming the first defeated vice-presidential candidate to remain a viable political presence, America's disgraced right wing politicians believed they had found their savior and their ticket back into national power. While veteran observers of the obvious could only note what a lightweight and bizarre individual they had chosen as their poster girl, the woman was catapulted into even greater national fame by quitting the job of Governor of Alaska, essentially telling the people who elected her that they do not matter in the grand scheme of things.
Her lack of intelligence, her sleazy behavior and her dedication to alternate reality made her a natural in the Perverse Idol Worshipping Sweepstakes that has become a hallmark of American right wing politics since the curious elevation of the amiable but dim B-movie actor Ronald Reagan into the Pantheon of Great Statesmen, all reality be damned. And it worked splendidly, even to the point where they succeeded in getting George Bush the Younger elected president twice, even though he was so dumb he once attacked the wrong country.
Which leaves the Department wondering what went wrong with the Sarah Palin juggernaut. She is at least as dumb as Reagan and smarter than Bush The Younger (who isn't?), so it is curious to observe that this natural for Right Wing Sainthood is seeing her star dim before its time. While DOPOTO would like to claim credit for people being able to see the obvious, senior analysts here feel that Ms. Palin has simply derailed her own train by actually speaking candidly once too often, revealing the painfully obvious even to those who scrupulously shun the truth.
Which, in a sense, is too bad. There was still a lot of mileage left in the pure entertainment value of Ms. Palin's ascendancy, and the potential for a huge and embarrassing flameout. We here at The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious feel that she is cheating the American public by simply petering out into being an odd footnote in American politics before she had a chance to do anything truly bizarre. This is what it must feel like to be a voter in Alaska.
This was a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious.
November 21, 2009
FREE SHORT STORY TODAY
Bobcrespo.com is still caught up with the crespo.com family, still in town and clinging to one another in our loss and grief over the death of our mother, Mary Crespo (.com). Business as usual is suspended here as we four siblings and our broods spend time together, share good memories and try not to get on one another's nerves too damned much. The reasons why a couple of them moved really far away don't seem so mysterious anymore, and one absently wonders if there's room for them on the moon, but only sometimes. No matter the distances involved, we're still a close family, even if only one us (ahem!) resides in a proper city, Brooklyn, where we were spawned. Being so busy physically, emotionally and socially with houses full of relatives and friends, I can't write much but a couple of Life Explained bits, so today we peruse a short story. I'll be selling these things soon on bobcrespo.com, so enjoy this one on the house, courtesy of my Mom.com, who always liked this one.
MISS DRU, ELVIS AND ME
Late 1970's. Living with Miss Dru in Brooklyn’s Park Slope in a huge apartment we barely used. She was in publishing. At that time there was a great deluge of books about Elvis Presley, what with him being newly dead and all. Naturally the place where Miss Dru toiled had their fair share of instant biographies of The King. His death was something of a sensation due to his relative youth and the shock value of the completely unexpected. Like all kings, his death rendered him unto history, for better or worse.
Miss Dru comes home from work one day and drops these tickets on me, courtesy of the great publishing house. Elvis Presley Convention, Statler Hilton Hotel, Manhattan. Merchandise, mementos, Elvis books, a performance of his music by his very own band, all leading up to the highlight of the evening, "The Unveiling of the Sweating Mannequin." The what? Of course we had no choice now but to attend. It's not every day of the week one gets to view the exclusive first unveiling of The Sweating Mannequin.
So one fine evening off we go to the convention. Merchandise aplenty. Elvis Presley Birth Certificates, $12. Death Certificates, $18. Elvis Presley matching quilts, sheets, curtains, pajamas, slippers, robes, throw rugs and lampshades. Presumably one could outfit one's bedroom so that all that wasn't Elvis-imaged would be one's own face, and their were plenty of Elvis masks to be had to rectify that omission.
Peacock suits. Scarves. Elvis plates. Records. Books. Paintings. Statues. Photos. Lunchboxes. Leather Jackets. Ankle boots. Glassware. Watches. Jewelry. Every item of apparel imaginable for humans and pets too. Anything that could bear a likeness of the King was available, from thimbles to pickup trucks. One man displayed scores of hand-carved wooden images of Elvis, each piece a unique marvel of artistic craftsmanship, none of which he would sell, explaining that he did it for the love of the man and sought no greater reward.
And so it went, booth after booth of Elvis memorabilia, all of them except the talented wood carver doing a brisk trade. The sales booths were so numerous that they filled several ballrooms and spilled over into the hallways of a couple of floors of the hotel. Those in attendance were a mixed crew, with everyone from blue-haired matrons with their quiet, manly husbands to punk rockers to small children, the only common bond being a fascination and/or dedication to the late Mr. Presley. Many actually worshipped the man and made no bones about it.
What struck one as quite unusual, and it dawned only gradually, was the large number of disabled people in attendance. The hotel had ramped all public areas to accommodate wheelchairs and, indeed, there were many. Almost equal in number, however, were the gurney patients, bed-ridden people with catastrophically disabling conditions. They were accompanied each one by an attendant and, more often than not, a machine attached beneath the bed for life support, purring quietly as the patients were wheeled about. Some had their mental faculties, many did not. Some could speak only in unintelligible moans and others were in obvious great physical pain. There were forty or more such people there, evidently a night out for some hospital. That day, not a single one of these tormented souls was unhappy.
Miss Dru, being as sensitive a soul as any born, drew me off to a secluded corner to weep for these people. I told her you wouldn’t want anyone crying over you on your one big night out in God knows how long, maybe forever.
"I know, I know, I just need a minute. They're such good people..."
"Sure they are, baby, they're just hurtin'…"
Then, displaying that great strength of character lavishly praised in a man but taken for granted in a woman, she composed herself completely. "Okay Ben, let's go" she said.
So off again we went, perusing the scene and meeting some unforgettable people. Martha from Georgia was a second cousin once removed of Vernon Presley, the King's Dad, and so naturally sold Elvis Presley family tree scrolls. Her name was on it, for sure. Miss Hettie Winston, eighty-five years young, sold homemade "Elvis Pretzels" shaped roughly like The King's silhouette, and darned tasty too. We met Wayne the Tennessee wood carver who wouldn't sell his work.
"My display is more of an exhibit. A tribute to Mr. Presley, God rest his soul."
"How do you afford this?"
"I have had some contributors and I've laid some money by, so I'm okay for a while…"
Interesting man. An amazingly lucid, candid man. His obsession with Elvis Presley, like that of so many people there that night, is something to be taken for granted, like being left-handed or tall. Unlike most fanatics, theirs is a quiet, humble fascination. For the most part Elvis admirers are rock-solid, God-fearing working people. The real "Working Class Hero" of the John Lennon song turned out to be Elvis Presley.
The loyal come from all walks of life, often having little in common save the love of a poor Southern truck driver who rocketed to the top and changed the face of American pop music forever. The fact that he remained that mannerly southern boy even in the Fellini-esque world he would inhabit for years was to his further credit, they reasoned. He was a good Christian who prayed and recorded gospel songs his mother had taught him.
Sure, he lost his way here and there, but like his contemporary, Muhammad Ali, Elvis was always making dramatic comebacks. No one had entirely written him off. His live shows were sellout events. The potential for another smash hit was never out of his grasp. Also like Ali larger than life, his young death stunned the entire world and, apparently, spawned an industry. Used to be that painters were bigger in death than when they breathed. Now it is Elvis. World famous while he lived, one of the most celebrated and innovative musical artists of the twentieth century and most publicly documented living beings ever, Elvis somehow got even more famous in death.
The ultimate comeback. He'll never get old and wrinkled or hoarse of voice. He will in the minds of most forever remain that impossibly handsome and polite young southern boy whose hips shook the world.
By and by we took in an excellent music revue by the Elvis Presley Band and Singers, then an exciting half hour by Wayne Fontana and the Mind Benders. A lone, unmanned microphone draped with a white scarf stood center stage throughout both shows. Afterwards, an announcement was made to go to the main ballroom for the main event. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you please, kindly assemble in the main ballroom where we will be honored to present The Unveiling of the Sweating Mannequin. Thank you. Thank you very much."
Alright, the main event in the main ballroom. Nothing less for the King. In the center of a huge ballroom on a raised dais was a giant cube covered by a heavy black curtain. There was a Master of Ceremonies manning a baritone microphone, warming up the crowd. Arranged innermost on all four sides of the cube were the bed-ridden, machines purring contentedly. Next came the wheel chairs. Behind them came the rest of us, standing in loose circles listening to the MC's banter while the room filled. Looking around, it seemed all the vendors were in attendance also. I wondered who was minding the store. This, it seemed, was an auspicious event. Fifteen months in the making and a marvel of modern technology, we were promised the experience of a lifetime, the next best thing to seeing the real Elvis.
Show time. The lights cut out completely, throwing us into black velvet darkness. Music played and the announcer outdid himself for manly booming tones: "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Please direct your attention to the center of the room. You will see a sight never before seen by any man, woman or child. You will see with your own eyes ELVIS and hear him SING for you! And you will SEE HIM SWEAT!"
Colored lights and smoke suddenly bathe the cube and "Hound Dog " blares out of the PA system. The curtain remains motionless amid the light show. Song over. Right into "Don't be Cruel" while the smoke and light show resumes. Song over. Silence and complete darkness, interrupted only by the soft purring of the life-support machines. After 10 or 15 seconds of this, the light show resumes and the music begins again. "Return to Sender" this time. In the corner of your eye you see technicians flitting about in the dark whispering urgently to one another. I'm thinking "Wizard of Oz" at this point, half expecting a stern announcement from a glowing face in the center of the cube not to pay any attention to the pathetic little man in the control booth.
"Return to Sender" ended just in time to let the whole room hear one of the technicians say in a loud stage whisper: "The mannequin is not sweating!" Before disgruntled mumbling from the audience got a chance to get up any steam, the MC deftly assured the crowd during the intro to "Suspicious Minds" that, indeed ladies and gentlemen, that the King would surely sweat for them tonight. The problem was being handled. That song ended to the muted purring again and it was a full minute in the pitch dark before anyone had the wit to crank up the music and light show again. "Burnin' Love", always a crowd-pleaser, did the trick, as did "Love Me Tender." Still no sweating Elvis. After "Love Me Tender," the silence was broken by people in the front row sobbing and soon many people were sobbing, the stricken and able-bodied alike.
"In the pitch dark in a hotel ballroom with Miss Dru and sobbing people waiting for the unveiling of a sweating Elvis Presley mannequin is where I am," I had to remind myself.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth was getting out of hand when the announcer suddenly boomed out: “Ladies and Gentlemen! Ladies and Gentlemen! It pleases me to announce at this time that THE MANNEQUIN IS SWEATING! THE MANNEQUIN IS SWEATING! ELVIS IS SWEATING! ELVIS IS SWEATING!" (The repetition presumably adding to the drama.) At that the curtain was whisked by unseen apparatus into the ceiling in the blink of an eye, revealing a huge glass cube containing a life-sized wax statue of Elvis in his peacock-suited prime, striking a dramatic singing pose.
The statue spun so all could view the phenomenon. He didn't appear to be sweating, but halfway through "Jailhouse Rock" the intrepid MC directed our attention to the King's forehead, and sure enough, it was melting, I mean sweating. Either way, the wax thing was a huge hit and afterwards the wailing reached crescendo heights, drowning out music and baritone announcer alike, only this time they were tears of joy. Later, in the harsh glare of the chandeliers, no one tried to hide the fact that they had been weeping. This was a piece of Elvis they shared, their grief and unconditional love as real as that for a brother, a lover, a son. He never was a father figure to anyone but his daughter, it seems.
I felt as if a religious miracle took place around me and I missed it. Even Miss Dru was misty-eyed. I was too stunned to speak, and we filed out to the soft sounds of the machines and the ecstatic groans of one bed-ridden young woman clinging to a photo of Elvis in her palsied, deformed fist. This young adult who had obviously had a lifetime of grievous torment was at that moment excited and alive and weeping with joy. She'd had herself one whale of a good time. I wondered how many days she'd ever felt like that.
Outside dozens of ambulances and other special vehicles waited to take these special people home, whatever place that could possibly be.
For once the crowd had left the building before Elvis. Miss Dru and I, normally a chatty pair, said very little on the subway ride home, each preoccupied with private thoughts. We stopped in for drinks at a saloon near home and played Elvis songs on the jukebox until closing time, then walked home swaying arm-in-arm while singing "Blue Suede Shoes." The King is dead. Long live The King.
Copyright 2007 R.R. Crespo
MISS DRU, ELVIS AND ME
Late 1970's. Living with Miss Dru in Brooklyn’s Park Slope in a huge apartment we barely used. She was in publishing. At that time there was a great deluge of books about Elvis Presley, what with him being newly dead and all. Naturally the place where Miss Dru toiled had their fair share of instant biographies of The King. His death was something of a sensation due to his relative youth and the shock value of the completely unexpected. Like all kings, his death rendered him unto history, for better or worse.
Miss Dru comes home from work one day and drops these tickets on me, courtesy of the great publishing house. Elvis Presley Convention, Statler Hilton Hotel, Manhattan. Merchandise, mementos, Elvis books, a performance of his music by his very own band, all leading up to the highlight of the evening, "The Unveiling of the Sweating Mannequin." The what? Of course we had no choice now but to attend. It's not every day of the week one gets to view the exclusive first unveiling of The Sweating Mannequin.
So one fine evening off we go to the convention. Merchandise aplenty. Elvis Presley Birth Certificates, $12. Death Certificates, $18. Elvis Presley matching quilts, sheets, curtains, pajamas, slippers, robes, throw rugs and lampshades. Presumably one could outfit one's bedroom so that all that wasn't Elvis-imaged would be one's own face, and their were plenty of Elvis masks to be had to rectify that omission.
Peacock suits. Scarves. Elvis plates. Records. Books. Paintings. Statues. Photos. Lunchboxes. Leather Jackets. Ankle boots. Glassware. Watches. Jewelry. Every item of apparel imaginable for humans and pets too. Anything that could bear a likeness of the King was available, from thimbles to pickup trucks. One man displayed scores of hand-carved wooden images of Elvis, each piece a unique marvel of artistic craftsmanship, none of which he would sell, explaining that he did it for the love of the man and sought no greater reward.
And so it went, booth after booth of Elvis memorabilia, all of them except the talented wood carver doing a brisk trade. The sales booths were so numerous that they filled several ballrooms and spilled over into the hallways of a couple of floors of the hotel. Those in attendance were a mixed crew, with everyone from blue-haired matrons with their quiet, manly husbands to punk rockers to small children, the only common bond being a fascination and/or dedication to the late Mr. Presley. Many actually worshipped the man and made no bones about it.
What struck one as quite unusual, and it dawned only gradually, was the large number of disabled people in attendance. The hotel had ramped all public areas to accommodate wheelchairs and, indeed, there were many. Almost equal in number, however, were the gurney patients, bed-ridden people with catastrophically disabling conditions. They were accompanied each one by an attendant and, more often than not, a machine attached beneath the bed for life support, purring quietly as the patients were wheeled about. Some had their mental faculties, many did not. Some could speak only in unintelligible moans and others were in obvious great physical pain. There were forty or more such people there, evidently a night out for some hospital. That day, not a single one of these tormented souls was unhappy.
Miss Dru, being as sensitive a soul as any born, drew me off to a secluded corner to weep for these people. I told her you wouldn’t want anyone crying over you on your one big night out in God knows how long, maybe forever.
"I know, I know, I just need a minute. They're such good people..."
"Sure they are, baby, they're just hurtin'…"
Then, displaying that great strength of character lavishly praised in a man but taken for granted in a woman, she composed herself completely. "Okay Ben, let's go" she said.
So off again we went, perusing the scene and meeting some unforgettable people. Martha from Georgia was a second cousin once removed of Vernon Presley, the King's Dad, and so naturally sold Elvis Presley family tree scrolls. Her name was on it, for sure. Miss Hettie Winston, eighty-five years young, sold homemade "Elvis Pretzels" shaped roughly like The King's silhouette, and darned tasty too. We met Wayne the Tennessee wood carver who wouldn't sell his work.
"My display is more of an exhibit. A tribute to Mr. Presley, God rest his soul."
"How do you afford this?"
"I have had some contributors and I've laid some money by, so I'm okay for a while…"
Interesting man. An amazingly lucid, candid man. His obsession with Elvis Presley, like that of so many people there that night, is something to be taken for granted, like being left-handed or tall. Unlike most fanatics, theirs is a quiet, humble fascination. For the most part Elvis admirers are rock-solid, God-fearing working people. The real "Working Class Hero" of the John Lennon song turned out to be Elvis Presley.
The loyal come from all walks of life, often having little in common save the love of a poor Southern truck driver who rocketed to the top and changed the face of American pop music forever. The fact that he remained that mannerly southern boy even in the Fellini-esque world he would inhabit for years was to his further credit, they reasoned. He was a good Christian who prayed and recorded gospel songs his mother had taught him.
Sure, he lost his way here and there, but like his contemporary, Muhammad Ali, Elvis was always making dramatic comebacks. No one had entirely written him off. His live shows were sellout events. The potential for another smash hit was never out of his grasp. Also like Ali larger than life, his young death stunned the entire world and, apparently, spawned an industry. Used to be that painters were bigger in death than when they breathed. Now it is Elvis. World famous while he lived, one of the most celebrated and innovative musical artists of the twentieth century and most publicly documented living beings ever, Elvis somehow got even more famous in death.
The ultimate comeback. He'll never get old and wrinkled or hoarse of voice. He will in the minds of most forever remain that impossibly handsome and polite young southern boy whose hips shook the world.
By and by we took in an excellent music revue by the Elvis Presley Band and Singers, then an exciting half hour by Wayne Fontana and the Mind Benders. A lone, unmanned microphone draped with a white scarf stood center stage throughout both shows. Afterwards, an announcement was made to go to the main ballroom for the main event. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you please, kindly assemble in the main ballroom where we will be honored to present The Unveiling of the Sweating Mannequin. Thank you. Thank you very much."
Alright, the main event in the main ballroom. Nothing less for the King. In the center of a huge ballroom on a raised dais was a giant cube covered by a heavy black curtain. There was a Master of Ceremonies manning a baritone microphone, warming up the crowd. Arranged innermost on all four sides of the cube were the bed-ridden, machines purring contentedly. Next came the wheel chairs. Behind them came the rest of us, standing in loose circles listening to the MC's banter while the room filled. Looking around, it seemed all the vendors were in attendance also. I wondered who was minding the store. This, it seemed, was an auspicious event. Fifteen months in the making and a marvel of modern technology, we were promised the experience of a lifetime, the next best thing to seeing the real Elvis.
Show time. The lights cut out completely, throwing us into black velvet darkness. Music played and the announcer outdid himself for manly booming tones: "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Please direct your attention to the center of the room. You will see a sight never before seen by any man, woman or child. You will see with your own eyes ELVIS and hear him SING for you! And you will SEE HIM SWEAT!"
Colored lights and smoke suddenly bathe the cube and "Hound Dog " blares out of the PA system. The curtain remains motionless amid the light show. Song over. Right into "Don't be Cruel" while the smoke and light show resumes. Song over. Silence and complete darkness, interrupted only by the soft purring of the life-support machines. After 10 or 15 seconds of this, the light show resumes and the music begins again. "Return to Sender" this time. In the corner of your eye you see technicians flitting about in the dark whispering urgently to one another. I'm thinking "Wizard of Oz" at this point, half expecting a stern announcement from a glowing face in the center of the cube not to pay any attention to the pathetic little man in the control booth.
"Return to Sender" ended just in time to let the whole room hear one of the technicians say in a loud stage whisper: "The mannequin is not sweating!" Before disgruntled mumbling from the audience got a chance to get up any steam, the MC deftly assured the crowd during the intro to "Suspicious Minds" that, indeed ladies and gentlemen, that the King would surely sweat for them tonight. The problem was being handled. That song ended to the muted purring again and it was a full minute in the pitch dark before anyone had the wit to crank up the music and light show again. "Burnin' Love", always a crowd-pleaser, did the trick, as did "Love Me Tender." Still no sweating Elvis. After "Love Me Tender," the silence was broken by people in the front row sobbing and soon many people were sobbing, the stricken and able-bodied alike.
"In the pitch dark in a hotel ballroom with Miss Dru and sobbing people waiting for the unveiling of a sweating Elvis Presley mannequin is where I am," I had to remind myself.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth was getting out of hand when the announcer suddenly boomed out: “Ladies and Gentlemen! Ladies and Gentlemen! It pleases me to announce at this time that THE MANNEQUIN IS SWEATING! THE MANNEQUIN IS SWEATING! ELVIS IS SWEATING! ELVIS IS SWEATING!" (The repetition presumably adding to the drama.) At that the curtain was whisked by unseen apparatus into the ceiling in the blink of an eye, revealing a huge glass cube containing a life-sized wax statue of Elvis in his peacock-suited prime, striking a dramatic singing pose.
The statue spun so all could view the phenomenon. He didn't appear to be sweating, but halfway through "Jailhouse Rock" the intrepid MC directed our attention to the King's forehead, and sure enough, it was melting, I mean sweating. Either way, the wax thing was a huge hit and afterwards the wailing reached crescendo heights, drowning out music and baritone announcer alike, only this time they were tears of joy. Later, in the harsh glare of the chandeliers, no one tried to hide the fact that they had been weeping. This was a piece of Elvis they shared, their grief and unconditional love as real as that for a brother, a lover, a son. He never was a father figure to anyone but his daughter, it seems.
I felt as if a religious miracle took place around me and I missed it. Even Miss Dru was misty-eyed. I was too stunned to speak, and we filed out to the soft sounds of the machines and the ecstatic groans of one bed-ridden young woman clinging to a photo of Elvis in her palsied, deformed fist. This young adult who had obviously had a lifetime of grievous torment was at that moment excited and alive and weeping with joy. She'd had herself one whale of a good time. I wondered how many days she'd ever felt like that.
Outside dozens of ambulances and other special vehicles waited to take these special people home, whatever place that could possibly be.
For once the crowd had left the building before Elvis. Miss Dru and I, normally a chatty pair, said very little on the subway ride home, each preoccupied with private thoughts. We stopped in for drinks at a saloon near home and played Elvis songs on the jukebox until closing time, then walked home swaying arm-in-arm while singing "Blue Suede Shoes." The King is dead. Long live The King.
Copyright 2007 R.R. Crespo
November 20, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 559
Atheism is just another faith, one that can be neither proved nor disproved. Like any religion, it has a system of beliefs with devout followers who draw spiritual comfort from its teachings, and must be respected. Faith is very important to people, whatever they believe. It is arrogant and callous to dismiss another's religion. Besides, God disapproves of intolerance.
MY INTERVIEW WITH MICK JAGGER
From bobcrespo.com, September, 2007:
That living legend, Mick jagger, lead singer of The Rolling Stones and one half of the legendary song writing team Jagger/Richards has agreed to sit down with bobcrespo.com for an interview. Mick has taken time out of his busy touring and recording schedule to grant this interview and for that I'm grateful. Along with his band mates Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood, Mick and the Stones have recently set a world record for the highest grossing tour by a rock and roll band ever. This an an amazing feat considering that The Rolling Stones have been on the scene since the early 1960's, somehow managing to do what no other band has done before; stay relevant and popular and continue to fill arenas all over the world for over forty years.
These guys have been around so long that their bass player Bill Wyman actually retired a few years ago, cashing in on the generous severance package provided by the most successful Rock & Roll band ever. Mr. Wyman, being several years older than the other band members, opted to take the pension and enjoy life, figuring he's pushing 70 and if something's going to kill him he'd rather it be trying to keep up with his teenaged wife than the rigors of touring. He'd already witnessed one of their original members Brian Jones die a young death and his replacement, guitarist Mick Taylor, leaving the band for fear of sharing Mr. Jones' fate. Having beaten the long odds, Wyman cashed in rather than crapping out.
Still the Stones soldier on, making great music and defying the odds by not only staying alive but getting better and better as a live act. Keith Richards is a marvel of good genetics and astounding luck, the only possible explanations for his continued survival after a lifetime of hard, wild living. He even survived falling out of a palm tree onto his head recently and rejoined the tour to play some of his most electrifying shows in a decade. Bill Watts, perhaps one of the two or three greatest Rock & Roll drummers ever, is starting to resemble somebody's Granny but he's still out there laying down the muscular beat that has always driven Rolling Stones songs. Ron Wood, their other guitarist who has been with them for more than twenty years now seems to be in a constant duel onstage with Keith Richards, not only with their guitars but with which of them is the uglier man. This fan calls that one a toss-up.
Mick Jagger keeps himself in great shape and is a still the epitome of a Rock & Roll lead singer, a dancing, whirling dervish and a consummate entertainer. He's all over the stage, dancing and interacting with the band and the audience and is still in fine voice. He arrived by limo at the offices of bobcrespo.com looking every inch the rock star, fit and tanned and dressed in a fire-engine red blazer, dungarees, sandals and a black t-shirt. He had a small entourage, a personal assistant who is the most beautiful woman I've ever met, and also a hairdresser and a make-up artist for the photographs they figured I'd be shooting, the second and third most beautiful women I've ever met. Damn! I knew I forgot something besides the refreshments. The batteries in my wife's digital camera are dead and I forgot to recharge them. The beautiful assistants seemed awfully disappointed. Well, nothing to be done about that now, so I'll just plow ahead with the interview.
BC: "Mr. Jagger, thank you for giving bobcrespo.com this interview. This should really put me on the map, er, I mean it's an honor and a pleasure, sir."
MJ: "Call me Mick, mate."
BC: "Thanks, Mick, you can call me Mr. Crespo. I've been a fan of yours since your first records and TV appearances in the early 60's..."
MJ: "Showing your age, Mr. Crespo."
BC: "Can I finish my intro here, pal? This is my first interview and I'm a little nervous..."
MJ: "You're first interview?"
BCDC: "Yep, now can you do me a huge and keep your trap shut? I have this whole big intro written out."
MJ: "Well, excyooose me!"
BC: "No problem, Mick. Well, here goes: In his first ever interview with a major website, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones has come to the offices of bobcrespo.com for an exclusive one-on-one with Bob Crespo. Mick and the Stones have just completed a record-breaking world tour and are currently reviewing tapes of their shows for a possible live album to be released in time for Christmas. Word has it that the Stones are so musically rejuvenated from their tour that Mick and Keith are collaborating on a new batch of songs that could land them in the studio for another album of originals in the very near future...."
MJ: "Who told you that rot? We're bloody exhausted after that tour. I've been lying around the Caribbean not doing much of any..."
BC: "Whoa, caviar-breath! I thought I asked you not to interrupt!
MJ: "But that's all nonsense, mate. You're making all this up!"
BC: "Hey, Mick, I've gotta tell my viewers something! It's not like your big shot Rolling Stones Incorporated Office provided me with a fact sheet or anything..."
MJ: "What viewers? I thought this a web site and you write a blog?
BC: "Well, I'm taping this for a possible pod-cast. It's not everyday that a Mick Jagger sits down and..."
MJ: "But there's no camera here!"
BC: "Guess again, pal. See this computer? It's an I-Mac and it has a video camera built right in. That's why you're sitting in that chair. Check it out!"
MJ: "But that mostly shows you!"
BC: "What, you haven't had enough publicity on your lifetime, Mister Look-at-me-look-at-me-I'm-a-rock-star? Can't a guy get a break here?"
MJ: "This wasn't part of the deal, Bob! No broadcasts, or pod-casts or whatever it is that dinky James Bond spy camera does! You arranged for an interview and that's all! No one prepared me for a telly broadcast! Now get on with your questions, will you, and forget your barmy introduction or I walk out right now!"
BC: Okay, okay, no need to get so testy over here, Senor Sensitive. Alright then, here's my question: Mick Jagger, let me get this straight, you say it's only Rock & Roll but you like it?"
MJ: "What? That's it? That's your question?"
BC: "Should I repeat the question?"
MJ: "The answer's yes, you bloody idiot, it's only Rock & Roll but I like it! Next."
BC: "Next what?"
MJ: "Next question, of course."
BC: "But I don't have any."
MJ: "But that first one wasn't even a proper question!"
BC: "Too personal?"
MJ: "You mean to tell me you don't have any other questions you'd like to ask me? Nothing?"
BC: "Well, Mick, now that you mention it I probably should have prepared a few more. I figured you're this big shot rock star with the exciting life and you'll just pull out some fascinating anecdotes and stuff...."
MJ: "That's not how interviews work, you bloody wanker! You ask me questions and I answer them. Got it?"
BC: "Hmmmm... Okay, here's a good one: Mick Jagger, did you ever manage to get any Satisfaction?"
MJ: "Okay that does, it, I'm out of here! Come on, people, this was one royal waste of an afternoon."
BC: "Hey, it's my first interview, give me a break here..."
MJ: "Take your dot com and stick it, you jackass!"
BC: "This is Bob Crespo, live at bobcrespo.com, thanking Mick Jagger for visiting our offices for his first ever internet interview, an exclusive for bob crespo dot co......"
"MJ: "This will not be broadcast or you'll be hearing from my attorneys, and shut that stupid thing off! And what bloody offices are you talking about? This is your bloody living room! Who arranged this interview? Whoever it is is fired! Out on their arse! Out, you hear me..."
That went well. I suppose Mick is right in suggesting that I need to tighten up my interviewing techniques a drop, maybe even do a little preparation next time. Well, live and learn, eh? But not bad for my first interview ever. It's not every day one gets visited by a superstar and his three beautiful assistants. I even have a photo of Mick and myself together that I managed to snap with the i-photo feature in the computer. Maybe I can do a little photo-shop retouching so he doesn't look so pissed off at me, maybe make that fist he's shaking at me look like a high-five. If not, no biggie. I still have many special memories to cherish for my whole life of the time I interviewed Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in my very own home, I mean, rather, that is... the offices of bobcrespo.com.
That living legend, Mick jagger, lead singer of The Rolling Stones and one half of the legendary song writing team Jagger/Richards has agreed to sit down with bobcrespo.com for an interview. Mick has taken time out of his busy touring and recording schedule to grant this interview and for that I'm grateful. Along with his band mates Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood, Mick and the Stones have recently set a world record for the highest grossing tour by a rock and roll band ever. This an an amazing feat considering that The Rolling Stones have been on the scene since the early 1960's, somehow managing to do what no other band has done before; stay relevant and popular and continue to fill arenas all over the world for over forty years.
These guys have been around so long that their bass player Bill Wyman actually retired a few years ago, cashing in on the generous severance package provided by the most successful Rock & Roll band ever. Mr. Wyman, being several years older than the other band members, opted to take the pension and enjoy life, figuring he's pushing 70 and if something's going to kill him he'd rather it be trying to keep up with his teenaged wife than the rigors of touring. He'd already witnessed one of their original members Brian Jones die a young death and his replacement, guitarist Mick Taylor, leaving the band for fear of sharing Mr. Jones' fate. Having beaten the long odds, Wyman cashed in rather than crapping out.
Still the Stones soldier on, making great music and defying the odds by not only staying alive but getting better and better as a live act. Keith Richards is a marvel of good genetics and astounding luck, the only possible explanations for his continued survival after a lifetime of hard, wild living. He even survived falling out of a palm tree onto his head recently and rejoined the tour to play some of his most electrifying shows in a decade. Bill Watts, perhaps one of the two or three greatest Rock & Roll drummers ever, is starting to resemble somebody's Granny but he's still out there laying down the muscular beat that has always driven Rolling Stones songs. Ron Wood, their other guitarist who has been with them for more than twenty years now seems to be in a constant duel onstage with Keith Richards, not only with their guitars but with which of them is the uglier man. This fan calls that one a toss-up.
Mick Jagger keeps himself in great shape and is a still the epitome of a Rock & Roll lead singer, a dancing, whirling dervish and a consummate entertainer. He's all over the stage, dancing and interacting with the band and the audience and is still in fine voice. He arrived by limo at the offices of bobcrespo.com looking every inch the rock star, fit and tanned and dressed in a fire-engine red blazer, dungarees, sandals and a black t-shirt. He had a small entourage, a personal assistant who is the most beautiful woman I've ever met, and also a hairdresser and a make-up artist for the photographs they figured I'd be shooting, the second and third most beautiful women I've ever met. Damn! I knew I forgot something besides the refreshments. The batteries in my wife's digital camera are dead and I forgot to recharge them. The beautiful assistants seemed awfully disappointed. Well, nothing to be done about that now, so I'll just plow ahead with the interview.
BC: "Mr. Jagger, thank you for giving bobcrespo.com this interview. This should really put me on the map, er, I mean it's an honor and a pleasure, sir."
MJ: "Call me Mick, mate."
BC: "Thanks, Mick, you can call me Mr. Crespo. I've been a fan of yours since your first records and TV appearances in the early 60's..."
MJ: "Showing your age, Mr. Crespo."
BC: "Can I finish my intro here, pal? This is my first interview and I'm a little nervous..."
MJ: "You're first interview?"
BCDC: "Yep, now can you do me a huge and keep your trap shut? I have this whole big intro written out."
MJ: "Well, excyooose me!"
BC: "No problem, Mick. Well, here goes: In his first ever interview with a major website, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones has come to the offices of bobcrespo.com for an exclusive one-on-one with Bob Crespo. Mick and the Stones have just completed a record-breaking world tour and are currently reviewing tapes of their shows for a possible live album to be released in time for Christmas. Word has it that the Stones are so musically rejuvenated from their tour that Mick and Keith are collaborating on a new batch of songs that could land them in the studio for another album of originals in the very near future...."
MJ: "Who told you that rot? We're bloody exhausted after that tour. I've been lying around the Caribbean not doing much of any..."
BC: "Whoa, caviar-breath! I thought I asked you not to interrupt!
MJ: "But that's all nonsense, mate. You're making all this up!"
BC: "Hey, Mick, I've gotta tell my viewers something! It's not like your big shot Rolling Stones Incorporated Office provided me with a fact sheet or anything..."
MJ: "What viewers? I thought this a web site and you write a blog?
BC: "Well, I'm taping this for a possible pod-cast. It's not everyday that a Mick Jagger sits down and..."
MJ: "But there's no camera here!"
BC: "Guess again, pal. See this computer? It's an I-Mac and it has a video camera built right in. That's why you're sitting in that chair. Check it out!"
MJ: "But that mostly shows you!"
BC: "What, you haven't had enough publicity on your lifetime, Mister Look-at-me-look-at-me-I'm-a-rock-star? Can't a guy get a break here?"
MJ: "This wasn't part of the deal, Bob! No broadcasts, or pod-casts or whatever it is that dinky James Bond spy camera does! You arranged for an interview and that's all! No one prepared me for a telly broadcast! Now get on with your questions, will you, and forget your barmy introduction or I walk out right now!"
BC: Okay, okay, no need to get so testy over here, Senor Sensitive. Alright then, here's my question: Mick Jagger, let me get this straight, you say it's only Rock & Roll but you like it?"
MJ: "What? That's it? That's your question?"
BC: "Should I repeat the question?"
MJ: "The answer's yes, you bloody idiot, it's only Rock & Roll but I like it! Next."
BC: "Next what?"
MJ: "Next question, of course."
BC: "But I don't have any."
MJ: "But that first one wasn't even a proper question!"
BC: "Too personal?"
MJ: "You mean to tell me you don't have any other questions you'd like to ask me? Nothing?"
BC: "Well, Mick, now that you mention it I probably should have prepared a few more. I figured you're this big shot rock star with the exciting life and you'll just pull out some fascinating anecdotes and stuff...."
MJ: "That's not how interviews work, you bloody wanker! You ask me questions and I answer them. Got it?"
BC: "Hmmmm... Okay, here's a good one: Mick Jagger, did you ever manage to get any Satisfaction?"
MJ: "Okay that does, it, I'm out of here! Come on, people, this was one royal waste of an afternoon."
BC: "Hey, it's my first interview, give me a break here..."
MJ: "Take your dot com and stick it, you jackass!"
BC: "This is Bob Crespo, live at bobcrespo.com, thanking Mick Jagger for visiting our offices for his first ever internet interview, an exclusive for bob crespo dot co......"
"MJ: "This will not be broadcast or you'll be hearing from my attorneys, and shut that stupid thing off! And what bloody offices are you talking about? This is your bloody living room! Who arranged this interview? Whoever it is is fired! Out on their arse! Out, you hear me..."
That went well. I suppose Mick is right in suggesting that I need to tighten up my interviewing techniques a drop, maybe even do a little preparation next time. Well, live and learn, eh? But not bad for my first interview ever. It's not every day one gets visited by a superstar and his three beautiful assistants. I even have a photo of Mick and myself together that I managed to snap with the i-photo feature in the computer. Maybe I can do a little photo-shop retouching so he doesn't look so pissed off at me, maybe make that fist he's shaking at me look like a high-five. If not, no biggie. I still have many special memories to cherish for my whole life of the time I interviewed Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in my very own home, I mean, rather, that is... the offices of bobcrespo.com.
November 19, 2009
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 558
Sometimes life kicks your ass, but don't forget that you're still around to tell the tale. If it wanted you gone you'd be gone, but for some reason you're still here. Think about that awhile instead of getting all huffy about it.
THERE'S JUST NO PLACE LIKE BROOKLYN
Author's note: While I ease myself back into the swing of running my mouth, I figure I'll recycle this old blog about Home Sweet Home. Just back from more than 4 months on Staten Island, I'm savoring my surroundings and happy to be back in the zip code where I've lived 98% of my life. Seen other places, sure, and they're nice enough and some real cool locales where I had some good times. Other than New Jersey or Canada, I have nothing bad to say about them. It's just that I'm spoiled, and now I celebrate my return from my brief, sad stay on the Elba called Staten Island. God, it's good to be home:
Sure, everybody's favorite place is where they grew up, their favorite cook is Mom and they root, root, root for the home team. And that's fine. No sense denying who you are and forgetting about your roots. Nobody likes a phony. Which brings us to Brooklyn, where phonies have a hard time maintaining their cover. It's not easy in a town where even a ten year-old will see right through you and tell you to get over yourself and be real already. See, nobody really minds who or what you are around here as long as you're not hurting anybody else. Or pretending you're something you are not. There's so many different sidewalks acts going on at once in this place that people just sort of assume that if the next guy might seem a little unusual, well, so what?
We're all God's children and as long as someone's not trying to shine anybody, odds are they're okay. Besides, who knows how strange you might seem to others? There's so many different kinds of people in Brooklyn that even the racists reform themselves rather than trying to tackle hating that many varieties. They'd need a whole lot more than one lifetime for that. Especially when the annoying sons of bitches turn out to be okay 9 times out of 10 when you have dealings with them, and in a place like this you can't help but rub up against each other all the time. No wonder most of them move to the suburbs. It's just too hard to keep a good hate on when your neighbors turn out to be good people, which tends to ruin that whole Master Race experience. At a distance you can hate anyone and never be disappointed by their goodness. Well, they can have our share of that lunacy and we're better rid of of those clowns. More room for the rest of us, people who love this town and all the crazy people in it.
There's cities and towns and villages everywhere, most of them really nice places, no doubt. They're just not Brooklyn. Sorry, Everywhere Else, but the coolest place on the planet is Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. of friggin' A! There's around 3 million people here, not counting the illegals, and we're sure as hell not going to turn them in. Even those of us born here for a generation or two probably had somebody somewhere back in the family tree who came here under the radar (Probably the only lie my grandmother ever told was when immigration officials asked her if she ever had tuberculosis.). The point is that they came here, had the nerve to move heaven and earth to make it happen for themselves and their families and are now part of America, doing their jobs, buying pizza, going to Coney Island and not stepping on anyone's toes.
Lou Dobbs can drop dead. Most of us would rather have an honest immigrant neighbor than live next door to a mean old fat blowhard like him. Even if for no other reason than to hear some exotic music once in a while rather than anything that fool might listen to. Probably polkas and John Philip Sousa marches and the like. Living in Brooklyn, odds are you have a lot of immigrant neighbors with a lot of cool stories to tell and great food to eat and a different slant on things. You can learn a lot about the majority of the countries in this world without traveling, and can share your own experiences of being a lifer in this city to some people who love hearing it. And we sure do love to talk around here, sometimes all at once, and you pick up the skill of taking it all in, different accents and all, and they in turn learn to negotiate your Brooklynese, no prob, Bob. After all, their kids have that distinctive Brooklyn accent too, no matter where Mom and Pop come from.
You have to be pretty sharp to keep up here, and that's another bonus, there's not a lot of dummies or dull people. When you get the hang of Brooklyn, your mind is sharp as a razor and you develop a pretty pungent personality. There's no shortage of characters here, and some of the quickest and sharpest minds around. Sometimes when you go visit other places you might be a little too much for them, and they might be a little not so much for you. Nice enough people and places, no doubt, but that buzz is what's missing, that electric current that seems to run through the air itself in Brooklyn and makes us what we are. While you can enjoy yourself anywhere you go (might as well since the only alternative is not enjoying yourself, and that doesn't make any sense), it's always good to come back to the sublime chaos of home sweet home.
Another beauty of Brooklyn is that we're part of New York City (the best part), that citiest of cities and the modern center of the universe. Rome had its day, as did London and Paris, but these days New York is Rome and all roads lead here. Is there any other city where the United Nations should be? The Statue of Liberty welcoming the wretched refuse? Hell, the population here is a United Nations of former wretched refuse, and a whole lot more united than the official U.N. We're New Yorkers and we wear the name with pride.
The very many cool places to see and fun things to do are only part of what makes this city so special, but the very best part is the people, tourist attractions in and of themselves. There's nobody quite like us, and Brooklyn people are the best of good lot. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, rain or shine, we wouldn't trade our town for all the castles in Spain. Drop in some time, we'll talk, have a little something to eat and show you around. You'll be amazed and glad you came to Brooklyn. We'll keep a few million lights on for you, no problem.
Sure, everybody's favorite place is where they grew up, their favorite cook is Mom and they root, root, root for the home team. And that's fine. No sense denying who you are and forgetting about your roots. Nobody likes a phony. Which brings us to Brooklyn, where phonies have a hard time maintaining their cover. It's not easy in a town where even a ten year-old will see right through you and tell you to get over yourself and be real already. See, nobody really minds who or what you are around here as long as you're not hurting anybody else. Or pretending you're something you are not. There's so many different sidewalks acts going on at once in this place that people just sort of assume that if the next guy might seem a little unusual, well, so what?
We're all God's children and as long as someone's not trying to shine anybody, odds are they're okay. Besides, who knows how strange you might seem to others? There's so many different kinds of people in Brooklyn that even the racists reform themselves rather than trying to tackle hating that many varieties. They'd need a whole lot more than one lifetime for that. Especially when the annoying sons of bitches turn out to be okay 9 times out of 10 when you have dealings with them, and in a place like this you can't help but rub up against each other all the time. No wonder most of them move to the suburbs. It's just too hard to keep a good hate on when your neighbors turn out to be good people, which tends to ruin that whole Master Race experience. At a distance you can hate anyone and never be disappointed by their goodness. Well, they can have our share of that lunacy and we're better rid of of those clowns. More room for the rest of us, people who love this town and all the crazy people in it.
There's cities and towns and villages everywhere, most of them really nice places, no doubt. They're just not Brooklyn. Sorry, Everywhere Else, but the coolest place on the planet is Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. of friggin' A! There's around 3 million people here, not counting the illegals, and we're sure as hell not going to turn them in. Even those of us born here for a generation or two probably had somebody somewhere back in the family tree who came here under the radar (Probably the only lie my grandmother ever told was when immigration officials asked her if she ever had tuberculosis.). The point is that they came here, had the nerve to move heaven and earth to make it happen for themselves and their families and are now part of America, doing their jobs, buying pizza, going to Coney Island and not stepping on anyone's toes.
Lou Dobbs can drop dead. Most of us would rather have an honest immigrant neighbor than live next door to a mean old fat blowhard like him. Even if for no other reason than to hear some exotic music once in a while rather than anything that fool might listen to. Probably polkas and John Philip Sousa marches and the like. Living in Brooklyn, odds are you have a lot of immigrant neighbors with a lot of cool stories to tell and great food to eat and a different slant on things. You can learn a lot about the majority of the countries in this world without traveling, and can share your own experiences of being a lifer in this city to some people who love hearing it. And we sure do love to talk around here, sometimes all at once, and you pick up the skill of taking it all in, different accents and all, and they in turn learn to negotiate your Brooklynese, no prob, Bob. After all, their kids have that distinctive Brooklyn accent too, no matter where Mom and Pop come from.
You have to be pretty sharp to keep up here, and that's another bonus, there's not a lot of dummies or dull people. When you get the hang of Brooklyn, your mind is sharp as a razor and you develop a pretty pungent personality. There's no shortage of characters here, and some of the quickest and sharpest minds around. Sometimes when you go visit other places you might be a little too much for them, and they might be a little not so much for you. Nice enough people and places, no doubt, but that buzz is what's missing, that electric current that seems to run through the air itself in Brooklyn and makes us what we are. While you can enjoy yourself anywhere you go (might as well since the only alternative is not enjoying yourself, and that doesn't make any sense), it's always good to come back to the sublime chaos of home sweet home.
Another beauty of Brooklyn is that we're part of New York City (the best part), that citiest of cities and the modern center of the universe. Rome had its day, as did London and Paris, but these days New York is Rome and all roads lead here. Is there any other city where the United Nations should be? The Statue of Liberty welcoming the wretched refuse? Hell, the population here is a United Nations of former wretched refuse, and a whole lot more united than the official U.N. We're New Yorkers and we wear the name with pride.
The very many cool places to see and fun things to do are only part of what makes this city so special, but the very best part is the people, tourist attractions in and of themselves. There's nobody quite like us, and Brooklyn people are the best of good lot. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, rain or shine, we wouldn't trade our town for all the castles in Spain. Drop in some time, we'll talk, have a little something to eat and show you around. You'll be amazed and glad you came to Brooklyn. We'll keep a few million lights on for you, no problem.
November 18, 2009
A HUGE THANK YOU FOR KINDNESS AND LOVE
I would like to thank everyone; family, friends, readers of these pages and well-wishers who seemed to spring out of the woodwork, for their kind words, their reassuring presence and most importantly, the boundless love they have shown to me and my family to help us through the death of my mother. Bobcrespo.com gets back to business today, minus my most loyal reader, my biggest fan and the best friend I've ever had. What you read here and what you hear in my songs is only possible because of a magic woman and a true artist who taught me everything I need to know. A huge piece of Mary Crespo informs everything I do, say and think and all I strive to live up to. Thank you all for your love and kindness. - Bob Crespo
PEOPLE THAT DON'T MATTER
Why is anyone worrying about circus clowns? The media seems to be going ape shit over a whole lot of marginal political celebrities whose impact on the average Joe and Jane is zilch. While many people might enjoy going to the circus, few come away from the experience wondering what the jugglers and the clowns think about anything other than juggling and clowning. Which is not to say that they don't have a place in society. Good entertainment is a treasure, and even poor entertainment can be a riot when it is especially overblown and campy.
In this age of 24/7 cable outlets desperate to fill all those hours with something even marginally meaningful, and the explosion of alternate news and opinion sources on the internet, it is inevitable that the jugglers and clowns who find themselves with such unprecedented high exposure start to take themselves quite seriously. Which makes them even more entertaining once they cross the line between fantasy and reality.
When you watch Bull O'Really, it is obvious that the guy really believes that he's a person of gravitas and intellectual substance, which makes his act even more hilarious. This is no reason, however, to actually take the guy at all seriously. When a baboon thinks he's a college professor, that makes him a baboon who thinks he's a college professorperiod. Which is why, all the hoopla notwithstanding, the following people don't matter even a little bit:
Sarah Palin: A moron, plain and simple. Why this upsets anyone is a mystery. People are allowed to be morons. Villages have their village idiot, towns their town drunk and nations have their laughingstock. She's as good as any other, and kind of cute too.
Glen Beck: Who?
Rush Limbaugh: 5 million listeners? Howard Stern has a whole lot more, and nobody's calling him any kind of influential political philosopher or a threat to the established order of things. Before anyone gets excited about this guy's intellectual prowess, remember he failed every subject in his very brief college career, including ballroom dancing. To his credit, however, he did become a decent self-taught pharmacologist.
Lou Dobbs: This guys is really funny. Having failed at being a TV financial guru, he switched tactics to become Bull O'Really Lite, and got so caught up in the legend in his own mind that he abruptly quit CNN cable news to "get involved in policy decisions and problem solving." It's a beautiful thing to behold. Somehow the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations, The Obama Administration and the World Bank have yet to make him an offer.
Keith Olberman: This guy is convinced he's the guardian of morality and ethics in America. Okay, Keith, if you insist, knock yourself out. You've got plenty of company here in America on the Moral Police Force. Once a decent enough TV blowhard, his ego has gotten almost as large as his head, a grand pumpkin of a noggin that rivals Lou Dobbs' humongous coconut. Funny how giant heads don't translate into giant intellects.
Rupert Murdoch: So the guy bought a bunch of media outlets and does his level best to enflame Americans over American flag lapel pins and other equally important political issues. Big deal. So what if he tries spread fear and questions the wisdom of having a Bill of Rights? Americans in general don't seem all that enflamed or fearful no matter how many nut job fringe groups his media outlets champion or how many blowhard ministers of propaganda he hires. While Americans may be awfully pissed off lately, their anger is directed as much towards irritating jerks like Murdoch as anywhere else. The guy is just another creepy old billionaire with a creepy agenda, not the first or the last one around here, and one without even an engaging personality to boot, a real handicap in the delusional would-be puppet master department. We like our whack job billionaires to be creepy and funny instead of just plain creepy. Sort of like Donald Trump, perhaps.
Nancy Pelosi: Her power as Speaker of the House of Representatives is noteworthy only in the fact that it is held for the first time by a woman. Unfortunately, a decidedly weird and screechy sort of woman, all immobile Botox face, molded hairdo and desperation. She comes across as more interested in maintaining her power than in crafting important legislation, just another hack leading a bunch of other hacks. It is difficult to take this woman seriously, a pity since she holds such an important government post. When the Speaker of The House is a laughable person who doesn't matter, that's not good. Entertaining in a strange and cloying way to be sure, but that's what Barbara Walters is for.
Joe Biden: Who?
John Boehner: The House Minority Leader actually makes Nancy Pelosi look like a thoughtful, serious public servant. How much of a buffoon do you have to be to accomplish that? This refugee from a game show is only vaguely familiar with the founding documents of the United States, and even though he claims to carry copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, he can't quote either of them accurately. One supposes that carrying them and actually reading them is two different tasks, one easy, one requiring a little bit of effort. He's pretty good at leading fellow morons in chants of meaningless slogans, though, so he's not completely without entertainment value. Too bad he's an important legislator and not an actual entertainer, which would make his lack of substance okay.
Rudy Giuliani: At this point, this fraud is merely a waste of a good suit.
Rep. Charles Rangel: The fact that he is still in office is a testament to his acute acumen in knowing where the bodies are buried. A guy with incredible political survival skills and actually in possession of some good ideas, his lack of ethics and questionable finances makes him more of a liability than an asset. He might have mattered once. No more.
Bill Maher: Once an intelligent progressive with a refreshing independent streak, Maher has joined the pompous blowhard community with his arrogant dismissal of opposing points of view, maybe figuring his background as a stand up comedian makes him more qualified than your average bloated talking head to provide us with thought-provoking political entertainment. He may have a point, but his hair stylist does an admirable job of hiding it.
Dick Cheney: Once the Dictator of America, this Johnny-one-note bore would have us believe that we can torture our way out of every predicament. Like Rupert Murdoch, old Shotgun Dick's public persona suffers from an excess of bland. The suspicion here is that his personality has been surgically removed to make room for the machinery he keeps having installed to prolong his life, such as it is. To his credit, he is a remarkably talented straight man, never once cracking a smile while defending his record as dictator, during which time he made not even one correct decision. Sort of like Bud Abbot trying to hornswoggle Mr. Fields, figuring everyone's as gullible as Lou Costello. Fortunately for us, there are more Mr. Fields in America than Lou Costellos, so few are buying his tedious line of bullshit. A year removed from his salad days as the Undisputed Dictator of America, Dick (head) Cheney is just one more of the many jugglers and clowns who Do Not Matter.
In this age of 24/7 cable outlets desperate to fill all those hours with something even marginally meaningful, and the explosion of alternate news and opinion sources on the internet, it is inevitable that the jugglers and clowns who find themselves with such unprecedented high exposure start to take themselves quite seriously. Which makes them even more entertaining once they cross the line between fantasy and reality.
When you watch Bull O'Really, it is obvious that the guy really believes that he's a person of gravitas and intellectual substance, which makes his act even more hilarious. This is no reason, however, to actually take the guy at all seriously. When a baboon thinks he's a college professor, that makes him a baboon who thinks he's a college professorperiod. Which is why, all the hoopla notwithstanding, the following people don't matter even a little bit:
Sarah Palin: A moron, plain and simple. Why this upsets anyone is a mystery. People are allowed to be morons. Villages have their village idiot, towns their town drunk and nations have their laughingstock. She's as good as any other, and kind of cute too.
Glen Beck: Who?
Rush Limbaugh: 5 million listeners? Howard Stern has a whole lot more, and nobody's calling him any kind of influential political philosopher or a threat to the established order of things. Before anyone gets excited about this guy's intellectual prowess, remember he failed every subject in his very brief college career, including ballroom dancing. To his credit, however, he did become a decent self-taught pharmacologist.
Lou Dobbs: This guys is really funny. Having failed at being a TV financial guru, he switched tactics to become Bull O'Really Lite, and got so caught up in the legend in his own mind that he abruptly quit CNN cable news to "get involved in policy decisions and problem solving." It's a beautiful thing to behold. Somehow the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations, The Obama Administration and the World Bank have yet to make him an offer.
Keith Olberman: This guy is convinced he's the guardian of morality and ethics in America. Okay, Keith, if you insist, knock yourself out. You've got plenty of company here in America on the Moral Police Force. Once a decent enough TV blowhard, his ego has gotten almost as large as his head, a grand pumpkin of a noggin that rivals Lou Dobbs' humongous coconut. Funny how giant heads don't translate into giant intellects.
Rupert Murdoch: So the guy bought a bunch of media outlets and does his level best to enflame Americans over American flag lapel pins and other equally important political issues. Big deal. So what if he tries spread fear and questions the wisdom of having a Bill of Rights? Americans in general don't seem all that enflamed or fearful no matter how many nut job fringe groups his media outlets champion or how many blowhard ministers of propaganda he hires. While Americans may be awfully pissed off lately, their anger is directed as much towards irritating jerks like Murdoch as anywhere else. The guy is just another creepy old billionaire with a creepy agenda, not the first or the last one around here, and one without even an engaging personality to boot, a real handicap in the delusional would-be puppet master department. We like our whack job billionaires to be creepy and funny instead of just plain creepy. Sort of like Donald Trump, perhaps.
Nancy Pelosi: Her power as Speaker of the House of Representatives is noteworthy only in the fact that it is held for the first time by a woman. Unfortunately, a decidedly weird and screechy sort of woman, all immobile Botox face, molded hairdo and desperation. She comes across as more interested in maintaining her power than in crafting important legislation, just another hack leading a bunch of other hacks. It is difficult to take this woman seriously, a pity since she holds such an important government post. When the Speaker of The House is a laughable person who doesn't matter, that's not good. Entertaining in a strange and cloying way to be sure, but that's what Barbara Walters is for.
Joe Biden: Who?
John Boehner: The House Minority Leader actually makes Nancy Pelosi look like a thoughtful, serious public servant. How much of a buffoon do you have to be to accomplish that? This refugee from a game show is only vaguely familiar with the founding documents of the United States, and even though he claims to carry copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, he can't quote either of them accurately. One supposes that carrying them and actually reading them is two different tasks, one easy, one requiring a little bit of effort. He's pretty good at leading fellow morons in chants of meaningless slogans, though, so he's not completely without entertainment value. Too bad he's an important legislator and not an actual entertainer, which would make his lack of substance okay.
Rudy Giuliani: At this point, this fraud is merely a waste of a good suit.
Rep. Charles Rangel: The fact that he is still in office is a testament to his acute acumen in knowing where the bodies are buried. A guy with incredible political survival skills and actually in possession of some good ideas, his lack of ethics and questionable finances makes him more of a liability than an asset. He might have mattered once. No more.
Bill Maher: Once an intelligent progressive with a refreshing independent streak, Maher has joined the pompous blowhard community with his arrogant dismissal of opposing points of view, maybe figuring his background as a stand up comedian makes him more qualified than your average bloated talking head to provide us with thought-provoking political entertainment. He may have a point, but his hair stylist does an admirable job of hiding it.
Dick Cheney: Once the Dictator of America, this Johnny-one-note bore would have us believe that we can torture our way out of every predicament. Like Rupert Murdoch, old Shotgun Dick's public persona suffers from an excess of bland. The suspicion here is that his personality has been surgically removed to make room for the machinery he keeps having installed to prolong his life, such as it is. To his credit, he is a remarkably talented straight man, never once cracking a smile while defending his record as dictator, during which time he made not even one correct decision. Sort of like Bud Abbot trying to hornswoggle Mr. Fields, figuring everyone's as gullible as Lou Costello. Fortunately for us, there are more Mr. Fields in America than Lou Costellos, so few are buying his tedious line of bullshit. A year removed from his salad days as the Undisputed Dictator of America, Dick (head) Cheney is just one more of the many jugglers and clowns who Do Not Matter.
November 14, 2009
TAKING TIME OUT TO GRIEVE
Mary Crespo, beloved mother of John Crespo, Bob Crespo, Beth Crespo and Nancee Brown, passed away on November 13th. She was 78 years young and all you could hope for in a human being, a friend and a mother. Our extraordinary luck for having her in our lives was a blessing beyond words, and there will be no new words here for a few days. Our hearts are full; with fierce love, with joyful remembrance and with all that she taught us, and we taught our children, and they will teach theirs. Goodbye, Mom.
LIFE EXPLAINED, PART 556
If you're not really wealthy, you don't get to have an entourage. Not even a modest posse. The rest of us are stuck having to be a friend in order to have friends, which is just fine. They stand by you no matter what, while entourages and posses evaporate when the money does.
WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE!
Captain's log, Star Date 30620.1. Reporting, Captain James Tiberius Kirk, in command of the Star Ship Enterprise, somewhere on the far side of the Milky Way. The situation is an odd one for Star Fleet, what my smart ass Science Officer Spock likes to call "an anomaly," the uptight Vulcan douche bag. He couldn't get laid in a Venusian pleasure palace with a fistful of Star Fleet Credits. But I digress, and the situation at hand is perplexing. The Enterprise has encountered the exact twin of Planet Earth, my own home planet, right down to the Great Wall of China, a stinky New Jersey and a boring Canada. It is uncanny.
There have been rumors, myths and legends of Earth's doppelganger stretching back into the mists of human antiquity, universally dismissed as superstitious speculation and bad science. And yet... there it is before our eyes, our scanners having mapped every square inch of this planet, and reconnaissance teams from the Enterprise led by myself and other senior officers have visited and seen for ourselves. The only difference is that on this "Twin" Earth it is still the early 21st Century, some 310 years ago by our reckoning.
It was a time before warp drive was developed and humanity ventured into deep space and started hanging out with alien races, fighting the ugly ones and trying to bang the beautiful aliens, over a century before the United Federation of Planets was founded. Our history books inform us that it was a traumatic time for Earth, a time of strife, uncertainty and transition. If this is indeed a mirror image of Earth, this is a golden opportunity to fill in history's blanks, yet in keeping with the Federation's policy of non-interference with non-space faring planets, our studies had to be undertaken in secret.
Towards that end, we then beamed many teams to the surface of the Twin Earth to collect as much data as possible. At first we found it to be identical in every way to the Real Earth of that fascinating historical period, but soon found that the following people and occurrences on Twin Earth could never have happened on Real Earth, circa 2009:
The most famous person on the Twin Earth was someone called "Vince the Sham Wow Guy." We weren't there long enough to analyze his policies or assess his potential impact on their history, but apparently he was a powerful person of global authority in the area of commerce.
There were people around who believed Twin Earth was only approximately 6,000 years old, when our sensors confirmed it was the same age as Real Earth, around 4.5 billion years old. We're fairly certain this could not have happened on Real Earth during this relatively sophisticated era.
On Twin Earth, the internet was fairly new just like the same period on Real Earth, but they had a feature called Twitter where some people sent one another very short messages detailing every mundane moment of their day. We don't know if this was some extreme religious cult, but found it disturbing.
Twin Earth also had some very odd home entertainment, having televisions just like Real Earth but watching something called "Reality Shows" where stupid people yelled at each other for half an hour, or plotted betrayal. Spock speculated this may have had something to do with Twitter.
We discovered that The Twin United States was involved in a 6-year war with the nation of Twin Iraq only because the previous president invaded it by mistake (!), confusing it with a nation that actually had attacked the Twin United States. Not only that, the war had been easily won years earlier when Twin U.S. troops wiped out the Twin Iraqi army and hung their leader, but for some reason no one told the troops they could go home. If I hadn't seen this with my own eyes I would have never believed it, even in the light of some of Twin Earth's other peculiarities.
For example, on Twin Earth at that time in history, members of different political parties refused to listen to any ideas put forward by their rivals, no matter how good an idea it might be. That impeded progress enormously, something that would never happen on Real Earth.
On Twin Earth, the nations of the Western Hemisphere forgot how to manufacture consumer goods and electronic devices, assigning that activity almost exclusively to Twin China, a nation they didn't like all that much. Odd indeed, and I may have to concede the "anomaly" designation to Spock after all, that prissy know-it-all. Mr. Sulu was kind of upset that discover that Twin Japan only made cars, sushi and something called karaoke machines, which as far as we could ascertain, are devices used in a mild form of public torture, another inscrutable Twin Earth practice.
The S.S. Enterprise Medical Officer, Dr. Bones McCoy, was fascinated with the primitive medical techniques of Twin Earth, especially something called "chemotherapy" where cancer patients were poisoned nearly to death over long periods of time, betting they would kill the cancer before they killed the patient, with doctors (and their hapless patients) losing that wager in the majority of cases. He also noticed that many citizens of Twin Earth's wealthiest nation, Twin U.S.A., actively campaigned to deny medical care to millions of their fellow citizens. McCoy's theory is that they wished to protect them from the chemotherapy that was decimating their own ranks, a humanitarian gesture that makes sense. But that may not be the case, since McCoy told me emphatically: "Jim, I'm a doctor, not a whacky theory guy!"
Our Chief Engineer Mr. Scott was sorely disappointed that Twin Earth was resisting the transition from their dwindling reserves of fossil fuels to more modern energy-producing methods, with giant energy companies bribing politicians to suppress new technologies in spite of severe shortages and extreme pollution. Hard to believe human beings could do that to one another. He was even more disappointed that single malt scotch, Twin Scotland's namesake whisky, was being consumed mainly by trendy yuppies who thought it was some sort of expensive wine to be sipped and commented upon rather than enjoyed. Star Fleet military police had to rescue Scotty on a couple of occasions when he started throwing punches at "Scotch tasting" parties after showing them how scotch was meant to be imbibed, jeopardizing the secrecy of our mission.
The first lady of the Twin United States, Michelle Obama, the wife of the first black Twin American President Barack Obama, is a dead ringer for our Chief Communications Officer, the lovely and alluring Lieutenant Uhura (Ahem! Yeah, I hit that.). History books inform us that this is the exact same as on Real Earth, and Lieutenant Uhura was mobbed on a reconnaissance mission in New York City and adroitly handled a potentially explosive situation by ordering her party to act like Secret Service agents and signing hundreds of autographs as Michelle Obama, then expertly covered her track with a shopping spree on Fifth Avenue. Star Fleet is still giving me grief over the expense account for that ordeal and insisting that Uhura stop wearing the stiletto heels while on duty, over my strong objections.
All in all, this has been a fascinating discovery for the Star Ship Enterprise, even if Old Pointy Ears Spock keeps insisting that Twin Earth is really an exact mirror of Real Earth in 2009. I for one find that hard to swallow, figuring there's no way my ancestors would place more votes for hammy and semi-talented singers on "American Idol" than they did in their political elections or give a half dozen TV shows to a bloated ego in human form like Donald Trump. As Spock would say: "this is highly illogical." (God, I hate that smarmy bastard!)
Be that as it many, Star Fleet has decided to send a clandestine science mission to Twin Earth to further unravel its mysteries and perhaps shed some light on Real Earth's history. The Enterprise, meanwhile, has been ordered to resume our 5 year mission to go where no man has gone before, maybe run into some more anomalies and fight some more ugly aliens. But just between me and the Captain's log, I plan to keep a sharp eye out for Twin Vulcan, see how that dickweed Spock likes airing out his planet's dirty laundry. Kirk out.
There have been rumors, myths and legends of Earth's doppelganger stretching back into the mists of human antiquity, universally dismissed as superstitious speculation and bad science. And yet... there it is before our eyes, our scanners having mapped every square inch of this planet, and reconnaissance teams from the Enterprise led by myself and other senior officers have visited and seen for ourselves. The only difference is that on this "Twin" Earth it is still the early 21st Century, some 310 years ago by our reckoning.
It was a time before warp drive was developed and humanity ventured into deep space and started hanging out with alien races, fighting the ugly ones and trying to bang the beautiful aliens, over a century before the United Federation of Planets was founded. Our history books inform us that it was a traumatic time for Earth, a time of strife, uncertainty and transition. If this is indeed a mirror image of Earth, this is a golden opportunity to fill in history's blanks, yet in keeping with the Federation's policy of non-interference with non-space faring planets, our studies had to be undertaken in secret.
Towards that end, we then beamed many teams to the surface of the Twin Earth to collect as much data as possible. At first we found it to be identical in every way to the Real Earth of that fascinating historical period, but soon found that the following people and occurrences on Twin Earth could never have happened on Real Earth, circa 2009:
The most famous person on the Twin Earth was someone called "Vince the Sham Wow Guy." We weren't there long enough to analyze his policies or assess his potential impact on their history, but apparently he was a powerful person of global authority in the area of commerce.
There were people around who believed Twin Earth was only approximately 6,000 years old, when our sensors confirmed it was the same age as Real Earth, around 4.5 billion years old. We're fairly certain this could not have happened on Real Earth during this relatively sophisticated era.
On Twin Earth, the internet was fairly new just like the same period on Real Earth, but they had a feature called Twitter where some people sent one another very short messages detailing every mundane moment of their day. We don't know if this was some extreme religious cult, but found it disturbing.
Twin Earth also had some very odd home entertainment, having televisions just like Real Earth but watching something called "Reality Shows" where stupid people yelled at each other for half an hour, or plotted betrayal. Spock speculated this may have had something to do with Twitter.
We discovered that The Twin United States was involved in a 6-year war with the nation of Twin Iraq only because the previous president invaded it by mistake (!), confusing it with a nation that actually had attacked the Twin United States. Not only that, the war had been easily won years earlier when Twin U.S. troops wiped out the Twin Iraqi army and hung their leader, but for some reason no one told the troops they could go home. If I hadn't seen this with my own eyes I would have never believed it, even in the light of some of Twin Earth's other peculiarities.
For example, on Twin Earth at that time in history, members of different political parties refused to listen to any ideas put forward by their rivals, no matter how good an idea it might be. That impeded progress enormously, something that would never happen on Real Earth.
On Twin Earth, the nations of the Western Hemisphere forgot how to manufacture consumer goods and electronic devices, assigning that activity almost exclusively to Twin China, a nation they didn't like all that much. Odd indeed, and I may have to concede the "anomaly" designation to Spock after all, that prissy know-it-all. Mr. Sulu was kind of upset that discover that Twin Japan only made cars, sushi and something called karaoke machines, which as far as we could ascertain, are devices used in a mild form of public torture, another inscrutable Twin Earth practice.
The S.S. Enterprise Medical Officer, Dr. Bones McCoy, was fascinated with the primitive medical techniques of Twin Earth, especially something called "chemotherapy" where cancer patients were poisoned nearly to death over long periods of time, betting they would kill the cancer before they killed the patient, with doctors (and their hapless patients) losing that wager in the majority of cases. He also noticed that many citizens of Twin Earth's wealthiest nation, Twin U.S.A., actively campaigned to deny medical care to millions of their fellow citizens. McCoy's theory is that they wished to protect them from the chemotherapy that was decimating their own ranks, a humanitarian gesture that makes sense. But that may not be the case, since McCoy told me emphatically: "Jim, I'm a doctor, not a whacky theory guy!"
Our Chief Engineer Mr. Scott was sorely disappointed that Twin Earth was resisting the transition from their dwindling reserves of fossil fuels to more modern energy-producing methods, with giant energy companies bribing politicians to suppress new technologies in spite of severe shortages and extreme pollution. Hard to believe human beings could do that to one another. He was even more disappointed that single malt scotch, Twin Scotland's namesake whisky, was being consumed mainly by trendy yuppies who thought it was some sort of expensive wine to be sipped and commented upon rather than enjoyed. Star Fleet military police had to rescue Scotty on a couple of occasions when he started throwing punches at "Scotch tasting" parties after showing them how scotch was meant to be imbibed, jeopardizing the secrecy of our mission.
The first lady of the Twin United States, Michelle Obama, the wife of the first black Twin American President Barack Obama, is a dead ringer for our Chief Communications Officer, the lovely and alluring Lieutenant Uhura (Ahem! Yeah, I hit that.). History books inform us that this is the exact same as on Real Earth, and Lieutenant Uhura was mobbed on a reconnaissance mission in New York City and adroitly handled a potentially explosive situation by ordering her party to act like Secret Service agents and signing hundreds of autographs as Michelle Obama, then expertly covered her track with a shopping spree on Fifth Avenue. Star Fleet is still giving me grief over the expense account for that ordeal and insisting that Uhura stop wearing the stiletto heels while on duty, over my strong objections.
All in all, this has been a fascinating discovery for the Star Ship Enterprise, even if Old Pointy Ears Spock keeps insisting that Twin Earth is really an exact mirror of Real Earth in 2009. I for one find that hard to swallow, figuring there's no way my ancestors would place more votes for hammy and semi-talented singers on "American Idol" than they did in their political elections or give a half dozen TV shows to a bloated ego in human form like Donald Trump. As Spock would say: "this is highly illogical." (God, I hate that smarmy bastard!)
Be that as it many, Star Fleet has decided to send a clandestine science mission to Twin Earth to further unravel its mysteries and perhaps shed some light on Real Earth's history. The Enterprise, meanwhile, has been ordered to resume our 5 year mission to go where no man has gone before, maybe run into some more anomalies and fight some more ugly aliens. But just between me and the Captain's log, I plan to keep a sharp eye out for Twin Vulcan, see how that dickweed Spock likes airing out his planet's dirty laundry. Kirk out.
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