Well, how about that? Another politician "reformer" caught with his pants down. This one was a real surprise, just like good old Senator Larry Wide Stance, who I'd never heard of before his airport men's room fiasco. But now the governor of my home state, New York, has been identified as "Client #9" in a federal investigation of a call girl ring. What's the surprise in Eliot Spitzer using hookers? Not a thing, nothing about human behavior surprises me anymore. The surprise is that the government is still wasting our hard earned tax dollars investigating a victimless crime like prostitution. Is this what they're doing with their broad new wiretapping powers? That's my money and your money they're spending to peek into brothels. What a skin crawling, creepy disgrace! The same with Senator Wide Stance. Who was he hurting looking for love in all the wrong places? Now they're peeking into men's room stalls. That's just gross.
Isn't that bin Laden guy still running around out there, recruiting more terrorists than ever and making more videos than a rap star? And reportedly planning more death and destruction on American soil since our government has sort of left him alone since he was hiding in caves and very hard to find and besides, Afghanistan had no oil to steal. Where's the outrage over that? If Eliot Spitzer wants to part with some of his dough to fool around with a call girl in a French maid's outfit, well, let him! It's nobody's business but his and the hooker. Okay, maybe his wife might chime in with a word of dismay or two, but that's between them. There is no reason for the man to be hounded out of political office because he visited hookers. Can we just grow up around here already?
Now I don't care for Mr. Spitzer all that much, either his personality or his politics. I don't care if he resigns or not but not over something as irrelevant as his sex life. But wouldn't it be refreshing if he told reporters to keep the hell out of his sex life and didn't apologize to anybody but his wife? And kept that little piece of family contrition out of the public eye too. Oh, but he broke the law, you say? He's a baaad man! He's got to crawl to the gates of Rome is sackcloth and ashes for contrition! Nonsense. How long are we going to outlaw the oldest profession? Screw all that Puritan claptrap and legalize what's inevitable and hurts no one. Does anybody think there will be one less assignation between prostitutes and their patrons today because of this news? Even one? I doubt it. People are going to do whatever it is they need to do with sex and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent it. Is that a revelation to anybody at this point in human affairs? Either grown ups are allowed to do stuff like that or nobody can be considered an adult.
I don't care one way or the next about a governor or senator's sexuality, it's more the hypocrisy of some of these politicians that bugs me. Anybody remember Roy Cohn? He was a Republican operative and a crony of Senator Joseph McCarthy. He was also chums with Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. See where I'm going here? Anyway, like Mr. Hoover, who liked to dress up in cocktail gowns in his spare time when he wasn't busy trying to control other people's morals, Mr. Cohn had a secret. He was a gay man. No big deal, right? 5% of humanity is gay. But Roy Cohn was a rabid anti-gay crusader. Same with Senator Wide Stance, who was a big proponent of denying gay people the same right to marry the one they love as the rest of us. And then went trolling for gay sex in a public rest room an tried to deny that he did so, not having the balls he was flaunting in the men's room to tell everybody to back off of his private affairs.
Why there were police officers assigned to arrest people involved in this sad, lonely and tawdry exercise is a puzzle. Aren't there any real criminals in Minneapolis-St. Paul these officers could be investigating? And since this took place in an international airport, were there any national security issues involving gay hijackers that they're not telling the public about? Should we be profiling the guy in the lavender sports jacket and silk scarf? You know, that whole if you see something, say something slogan and all that other KGB Big Brother propaganda our government is trying to scare us with. Boy, we'd get a lot of pretty amusing police reports here in New York if that was the case. Maybe even have to add a new color to the Homeland Security alert status like fuscia, salmon or peach. Or create a Department of Homo Security and put our collective homophobia right out in the open, call spade a spade already and stop trying to disguise our bigotry against 5% of our brothers and sisters.
So while that small, petty part of my soul gets a kick out it of when these guys who want to police the rest of us get caught en flagrante, I still say it's a rotten shame that people want to control the sex lives of anybody else but themselves and their partners of choice. Get the hell over it already! Some people are gay, some people like to fool around with prostitutes, and it's none of our damned business! Is anybody less effective at their jobs because of the kind of sex they like? If you don't like what they do, then don't do it! It's just that simple. Who likes being told what they can and can't do that has nothing to do with harming anybody else? There are laws on the books in almost every state outlawing some of the sexual behavior almost everybody enjoys. Why?
What were those legislative sessions like when explicit sexual acts were being discussed? It invokes a pretty creepy mental picture, no? You have to figure that in any given state legislative body there has to be every sort of sexual practitioner represented. Were there somber debates on various sexual practices within the halls of power? Were there passionate defenses of some specific sexual acts by those in opposition to the legislation, not necessarily because they didn't enjoy intruding in citizens' lives but because the sex act in question was their own personal favorite? Did anybody filibuster over oral sex for hours on end? Did they use charts and photos? Slide shows, maybe? Was there a lot of giggling?
Which lawmaker introduced the legislation and for what pressing governmental reason? Were sexual deviants running rampant in the streets and threatening the Republic? And which of these representatives of the people actually wrote these laws? Somebody had to put pen to paper and put down in specific and legal terms just exactly what consenting adults can and cannot do with their own bodies and each other's bodies. That's pretty creepy too. And even if he or she was the most repressed and judgmental killjoy around, didn't they feel guilty paying so much attention and taxpayer money to this tawdry and titillating business at the expense of the legitimate government business they were elected to do? Knowing the arrogance of some of our politicians, I doubt it. Too many of them consider it a good day's work when they have dictated a stringent code of personal behavior to the rest of us, knowing full well they are commanding the tides, and knowing that these laws do not apply to themselves personally, what with them being powerful and all.
So Client #9 and Senator Wide Stance are the latest victims of a climate they supported. Irony is always a beautiful thing. And you have to think of that psychological genius William Shakespeare at times like this with all the hoisting on their own petards and protesting too much done by some of these gaseous hypoctrites. But lets not get all superior and huffy about it. Just because you or I don't patronize prostitutes doesn't mean it's wrong to do so. It's the laws prohibiting prostitution that are wrong. Just because somebody writes and a bill and gets it passed into law doesn't make it automatically right and it doesn't make the act the law makes illegal automatically wrong.
We once had a lot of laws in a lot of states barring racial integration and our federal armed forces were segregated as well. Was that okay? Until less than a hundred years ago women were not allowed to vote. Those were laws of the land, enforceable by the might of the state and they caused no end of trouble in this nation getting them repealed. While prostitution is an unlikely cause to get people marching in the streets, why do we need massive social upheaval to right a wrong? Can't we just recognize that the government has overstepped its authority and quietly change these ridiculous laws? Not to save the careers of the likes of Client #9 and Senator Wide Stance, a pair of two faced liars hoist on their own petards, but simply because it's the right thing to do.
President Truman ended segregation in the armed forces with the stroke of a pen nearly a generation before the rest of the nation got off their asses and corrected the inherent racial inequality that existed in America. It wasn't so easy to bring about Civil Rights in the nation at large but it was done at a great human and spiritual cost. What's it going to take to give gay people those same rights? They pay taxes and are among our most law abiding citizens. Oh, wait, I forgot, they are heinous criminals because by their nature they violate all kinds of laws designed to make them criminals because they practice so-called deviant sex acts that the rest of us do not. Well, so do our Senators and Governors when they visit prostitutes and have same-sex love affairs. Which is completely wrong thinking if you believe in the ideals of America. The way the American government was designed (by better minds than the current caretakers of it) was that the lawmakers don't have the right to approve or disapprove of anybody's religion, politics or personal behavior so long as they are harming no one else.
When human beings start making laws about sex between consenting adults there's always trouble. The former governor of New Jersey, one Jim McGreevey, built a huge fabrication of a life to conceal his true nature and had to resign in disgrace. The disgrace was not what most people think it is, that he was a homosexual. That's a neutral designation and not all that interesting one way or another. The disgrace was that he misled his wife and children and supporters as to his true nature, and misled himself too. Probably in this society he felt compelled to do so in order to succeed and do a great degree was correct in that assessment. That was a huge public scandal and led to his resignation, disgrace and who knows what kind of personal pain for his family. All in all, a tawdry rotten mess.
He did, however, break some real and sensible laws by appointing his male lover to a sensitive governmental position for which he was unqualified, potentially putting the State of New Jersey at risk. He made him the director of New Jersey's Homeland Security at a time when terror threats were real and imminent. New Jersey is the home of some very tempting targets for terrorists and our most densely populated state. To my mind, that was the only thing he did wrong legally and he richly deserved to be removed from office for that offense, not his inherent sexuality or the confused and duplicitous way he ran his personal life. Private matters, those, personal and family issues that are very complex and traumatic and not to be solved by editorials and diatribes. Outside of harming others, legislating morals is a fool's game. What's moral to you may be immoral to your neighbor and vice-versa. Who prevails in that contest, or should there even be such a contest? Putting his state at risk, on the other hand, was a very public matter and one deserving of full public disclosure and whatever subsequent outrage that crime caused.
And now the governor of New York is a criminal in the eyes of many. He's hardly that, but he did show a huge lack of integrity by apologizing for his pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence made a big deal over our right to the pursuit of happiness, and if hookers make the guy happy, well, who's business is that? Client #9 could have landed a big blow for civil liberties if he told us all to get the hell out of his personal business. Bill Clinton made the same mistake when he was called in front of Congress about his sex life. He should have informed that august body that if they were not there to discuss government business then we're done here. When the leader of the free world can't get a blow job without Congress trying to make it their business, there's something fundamentally wrong. Clinton missed a golden opportunity to tell these clowns to keep their vicarious thrill-seeking noses out of other people's pants, and now Client #9 compounds the error.
You're not a good person because you don't engage in things others enjoy, just as they are not necessarily good or bad for not doing what you like to do. If you believe strongly in your way of life and your moral code, well, isn't that enough? Or is your belief so weak that you need the law on your side in order to justify yourself? And if you set the precedent to outlaw the other guy's behavior, than what's to prevent somebody outlawing your behavior? Zero is the answer to that one. What goes around, comes around. That way you become an automatic outlaw like when Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus or when a child is born homosexual. When you teach your children what you believe you will then become guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and subject to arrest and imprisonment. Do we need to pass another law that exists for the sole purpose of hurting and controlling people? Client #9 will resign and go away without posing any of these questions publicly, more with a whimper than a shout. It's a sad day for freedom.
March 12, 2008
March 10, 2008
BOB CRESPO APPEARING LIVE FOR CHARITY
HELP US HELP THE CHILDREN OF NEW ORLEANS
The Mobile Medical Van Battle of the Bands
Appearances by:
Little Sammy & The Sugar Daddies featuring Bob Crespo,
Tiberius
Rock Steady
One Less Joe
The place: The Polish American Hall, 5 Pulaski Place, Port Washington, NY 11050
The date: Saturday, March 15, 2008, 7 P.M.
Admission: $45 including food. Cash bar and neat raffles.
ALL MONIES GO TOWARD PROVIDING A FULLY EQUIPPED MOBILE MEDICAL VAN FOR THE MEDICALLY NEGLECTED CHILDREN OF NEW ORLEANS, RUN BY THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH FUND.
The Children's Health fund is a very effective charity founded in 1987 by Paul Simon and Dr. Irwin Redlener dedicated to providing quality health care for underprivileged children.
The Mobile Medical Van Battle of the Bands
Appearances by:
Little Sammy & The Sugar Daddies featuring Bob Crespo,
Tiberius
Rock Steady
One Less Joe
The place: The Polish American Hall, 5 Pulaski Place, Port Washington, NY 11050
The date: Saturday, March 15, 2008, 7 P.M.
Admission: $45 including food. Cash bar and neat raffles.
ALL MONIES GO TOWARD PROVIDING A FULLY EQUIPPED MOBILE MEDICAL VAN FOR THE MEDICALLY NEGLECTED CHILDREN OF NEW ORLEANS, RUN BY THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH FUND.
The Children's Health fund is a very effective charity founded in 1987 by Paul Simon and Dr. Irwin Redlener dedicated to providing quality health care for underprivileged children.
March 9, 2008
FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES: A MEDICAL VAN TO NEW ORLEANS
In the town of Port Washington, New York, a sleepy little bedroom community of pretty houses on tree-lined streets surrounding a nice little town, something important is going on. It's going to change the world. Not for everyone, mind you, and not overnight, but it's another drop in the bucket of right and good. The schools in Port Washington have mobilized their leading citizens, their children, to help the children of a town a thousand miles away from Long Island, a town devastated by Mother Nature, abandoned by their own government and wracked with poverty. If that place doesn't sound like part of America, guess again. The children of Port Washington want to help the children of New Orleans.
They're not selling raffle tickets or stuffing jars with coins and sending them somewhere and forgetting about the whole thing as often happens in a lot of these kinds of affairs. The Port Washington kids have something more tangible in mind. They're buying and outfitting a Mobile Health Clinic and sending it to New Orleans to give on-site medical care to that city's poor children who have been mostly abandoned by their local, state and federal governments. What has happened to this great American city is a national scandal and the list of tragedies is a long one with plenty of blame being spread around and not a lot of remedies being applied.
Port Washington's kids are not getting caught up in any of that finger pointing. Instead they want to do something tangible and effective and have hit upon a wonderful idea. Towards that end they have contacted a very effective charity called The Children's Health Fund, an organization co-founded in 1987 by singer/songwriter Paul Simon and Doctor Irwin Redlener dedicated to providing quality health care to our nation's most medically neglected children. As well as being strong advocates of children's health care they are also hands-on providers of these vital services. They work in both urban and rural communities in America targeting especially the children of homeless, transient and poor people.
This mobile clinic will be right up their alley and The Children's Health Fund applauds the initiative of the children of Port Washington and will help make their idea a reality. The children of New Orleans will have a better chance at life now thanks to their little pals from across the nation. Maybe when they grow up and someone else is in trouble these children of New Orleans will remember that somebody helped them when they were down and will do so something important to help others. No other thanks is asked for from Port Washington's smallest citizens, and that will be plenty. Helping can be contagious and the bucket of right and good needs all the drops it can get in this hard world. Just having our children learn that lesson makes every effort worthwhile.
My end of this whole deal comes by doing what I do best: singing and playing rock and roll. One of the fund-raising tools for the Medical Van will be a good old fashioned Battle of the Bands in Port Washington's Polish American Hall. I'll be appearing with my good friend and superb guitarist Gary Kroman with Little Sammy and The Sugar Daddies featuring Bob Crespo on Saturday, March 15th around 7PM. There will three other exciting bands, Tiberius, Rock Steady and One Less Joe for your rocking pleasure. Admission is $45 and there will be raffles and auctions too. There will be food and a bar as well.
The location of the bash is The Polish American hall at 5 Pulaski Place in Port Washington, NY 11050. I know very little about Port Washington except that it exists. I've been there a few times and it seems pretty nice. I probably know more about New Orleans and I've never been there. Probably everybody in the nation knows a lot about New Orleans these past four years since the place almost drowned and the government didn't throw anybody a life jacket. I seem to remember our government doing more for other nations similarly stricken by natural disasters over the years and sort of wonder what happened to America to allow one of our most fabled cities rot away, their poor displaced, ill housed and off the government radar.
Well, the kids in Port Washington are proving that the American people are just fine, it's our current presidential administration that's the problem. Bush the Younger, the front man for the biggest gang of thugs and criminals in our nation's history, led by Shotgun Dick Cheney, has nominally presided over the worst government in American history. Shotgun Dick and his gang of killers and thieves have presided over the largest transfer of wealth from the working classes to the very rich in anybody's history. They've also committed so many crimes they make the late John Gotti look like a Boy Scout by comparison.
But this this not about those punks who have no souls. This is about children helping children, Americans coming to the aid of their brothers and sisters in their time of need. Little children are leading the way in Port Washington and their schools and parents have been galvanized to help. I was recruited by Sam Fox of Port Washington who has school-aged children. He would be the Little Sammy of Little Sammy and the Sugar Daddies. Also with the band is Port Washington's Eric Salzman on drums and Larry Vedilago on keyboards as well as Gary Kroman on guitar and me on guitar and lead vocals. We're rehearsed and ready to go out and win this Battle of the Bands, something I haven't been a part of for thirty five years but the competitive juices still flow.
We plan to kick ass and take names. We're going to leave our audience in a rock-induced coma and the other bands afraid to follow our set. Like John Wayne once said: "No brag, just fact." Come on Saturday night, March 15th at 7 PM and see if the Sugar Daddies and I can back up my big talk. We'll be playing one of the songs I wrote that appears on the bobcrespo.com SONGS page, "Where You Been So Long" and some of my other compositions including my show stopper "Stormy Sky." You will also hear songs by Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Rolling Stones and New Orlean's own Doctor John. Those other bands had best be on their game in a big way or they'll be toast, even their own fans will vote for us. You hear me, guys? Little Sammy and The Sugar Daddies will be practicing a scorched earth policy and we'll be taking no prisoners! In the immortal words of the Wicked Witch of the West: "Surrender, Dorothy!" We will make you our bitches and you will like it! And we'll be eating your lunch too, punks.
Fighting words? You bet. This is a Battle of he Bands, right? And it's a fight for the children of New Orleans that America forgot. Well, Port Washington didn't forget them and the Children's Health Fund didn't forget them and Rock and Roll never forgets. So instead of spending your hard-earned that weekend on stupid crap like groceries or rent come to Port Washington and drop some dough on the kids in New Orleans who need us now, four years after their whole world fell in on them. The Government of the United States let them down, the State of Louisiana let the down and their city is still a shambles. Let's not let these children down anymore. Let them know that they are our little brothers and sisters and America cares about them. So come out, contribute to the cause and have a real good time in the process. Giving back is going to be a lot of fun that night, two reasons to feel good. I guarantee it.
They're not selling raffle tickets or stuffing jars with coins and sending them somewhere and forgetting about the whole thing as often happens in a lot of these kinds of affairs. The Port Washington kids have something more tangible in mind. They're buying and outfitting a Mobile Health Clinic and sending it to New Orleans to give on-site medical care to that city's poor children who have been mostly abandoned by their local, state and federal governments. What has happened to this great American city is a national scandal and the list of tragedies is a long one with plenty of blame being spread around and not a lot of remedies being applied.
Port Washington's kids are not getting caught up in any of that finger pointing. Instead they want to do something tangible and effective and have hit upon a wonderful idea. Towards that end they have contacted a very effective charity called The Children's Health Fund, an organization co-founded in 1987 by singer/songwriter Paul Simon and Doctor Irwin Redlener dedicated to providing quality health care to our nation's most medically neglected children. As well as being strong advocates of children's health care they are also hands-on providers of these vital services. They work in both urban and rural communities in America targeting especially the children of homeless, transient and poor people.
This mobile clinic will be right up their alley and The Children's Health Fund applauds the initiative of the children of Port Washington and will help make their idea a reality. The children of New Orleans will have a better chance at life now thanks to their little pals from across the nation. Maybe when they grow up and someone else is in trouble these children of New Orleans will remember that somebody helped them when they were down and will do so something important to help others. No other thanks is asked for from Port Washington's smallest citizens, and that will be plenty. Helping can be contagious and the bucket of right and good needs all the drops it can get in this hard world. Just having our children learn that lesson makes every effort worthwhile.
My end of this whole deal comes by doing what I do best: singing and playing rock and roll. One of the fund-raising tools for the Medical Van will be a good old fashioned Battle of the Bands in Port Washington's Polish American Hall. I'll be appearing with my good friend and superb guitarist Gary Kroman with Little Sammy and The Sugar Daddies featuring Bob Crespo on Saturday, March 15th around 7PM. There will three other exciting bands, Tiberius, Rock Steady and One Less Joe for your rocking pleasure. Admission is $45 and there will be raffles and auctions too. There will be food and a bar as well.
The location of the bash is The Polish American hall at 5 Pulaski Place in Port Washington, NY 11050. I know very little about Port Washington except that it exists. I've been there a few times and it seems pretty nice. I probably know more about New Orleans and I've never been there. Probably everybody in the nation knows a lot about New Orleans these past four years since the place almost drowned and the government didn't throw anybody a life jacket. I seem to remember our government doing more for other nations similarly stricken by natural disasters over the years and sort of wonder what happened to America to allow one of our most fabled cities rot away, their poor displaced, ill housed and off the government radar.
Well, the kids in Port Washington are proving that the American people are just fine, it's our current presidential administration that's the problem. Bush the Younger, the front man for the biggest gang of thugs and criminals in our nation's history, led by Shotgun Dick Cheney, has nominally presided over the worst government in American history. Shotgun Dick and his gang of killers and thieves have presided over the largest transfer of wealth from the working classes to the very rich in anybody's history. They've also committed so many crimes they make the late John Gotti look like a Boy Scout by comparison.
But this this not about those punks who have no souls. This is about children helping children, Americans coming to the aid of their brothers and sisters in their time of need. Little children are leading the way in Port Washington and their schools and parents have been galvanized to help. I was recruited by Sam Fox of Port Washington who has school-aged children. He would be the Little Sammy of Little Sammy and the Sugar Daddies. Also with the band is Port Washington's Eric Salzman on drums and Larry Vedilago on keyboards as well as Gary Kroman on guitar and me on guitar and lead vocals. We're rehearsed and ready to go out and win this Battle of the Bands, something I haven't been a part of for thirty five years but the competitive juices still flow.
We plan to kick ass and take names. We're going to leave our audience in a rock-induced coma and the other bands afraid to follow our set. Like John Wayne once said: "No brag, just fact." Come on Saturday night, March 15th at 7 PM and see if the Sugar Daddies and I can back up my big talk. We'll be playing one of the songs I wrote that appears on the bobcrespo.com SONGS page, "Where You Been So Long" and some of my other compositions including my show stopper "Stormy Sky." You will also hear songs by Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Rolling Stones and New Orlean's own Doctor John. Those other bands had best be on their game in a big way or they'll be toast, even their own fans will vote for us. You hear me, guys? Little Sammy and The Sugar Daddies will be practicing a scorched earth policy and we'll be taking no prisoners! In the immortal words of the Wicked Witch of the West: "Surrender, Dorothy!" We will make you our bitches and you will like it! And we'll be eating your lunch too, punks.
Fighting words? You bet. This is a Battle of he Bands, right? And it's a fight for the children of New Orleans that America forgot. Well, Port Washington didn't forget them and the Children's Health Fund didn't forget them and Rock and Roll never forgets. So instead of spending your hard-earned that weekend on stupid crap like groceries or rent come to Port Washington and drop some dough on the kids in New Orleans who need us now, four years after their whole world fell in on them. The Government of the United States let them down, the State of Louisiana let the down and their city is still a shambles. Let's not let these children down anymore. Let them know that they are our little brothers and sisters and America cares about them. So come out, contribute to the cause and have a real good time in the process. Giving back is going to be a lot of fun that night, two reasons to feel good. I guarantee it.
March 7, 2008
SHOTGUN DICK AND THE HOLE IN THE HEAD GANG: CONFESSIONS OF AN INSIDER
The following is an account of the Bush the Younger Administration from a member of the Vice President's staff. He wishes to remain anonymous. And alive.
Shotgun Dick couldn't get elected to dog catcher and he knows it. Doesn't bother him even a little bit since he runs the Hole in the Head Gang with an iron fist and makes all the decisions and nobody argues with him. And who could blame us gang members? You never know when he's going to point his shotgun your way and besides, Shotgun Dick is making us all rich and that's the whole point of being in a gang of thieves and murderers. Sure, he lets Fredo, a.k.a. Bush The Younger, be the president, it takes the heat off the rest of the gang.
Shotgun Dick used to take his cue from the late Mafia boss of all bosses Carlo Gambino, that quietest of dons. Old Carlo was no publicity hound like John Gotti, instead wielding absolute power from the shadows. He never spent any significant time in jail and lived to be a very rich, very old man who died in his bed at home in Brooklyn. He knew what business he was in and figured low-key is best. Why shove it up the public's ass that he was a murdering thief? Why let the grandchildren read in the paper what a piece of shit Poppy is?
Well Shotgun Dick got tired of Fredo hogging all the credit and sort of forgot the lessons of the late Mr.Gambino. The public disciplining of a lower-echelon gang member with a shotgun blast to the face and chest was just one example that he's losing his grip. He has also given angry interviews defending his actions and decisions as boss of all bosses. Now Congress has introduced Articles of Impeachment against him for all the lies and corruption a younger Shotgun Dick would have been more careful to cover up or at least lay the blame on someone else. He's running out of guys like Scooter Libby to take the rap for him and I'm sure not going down for his sneering old ass.
Some of the gang are worried that all the hardware he had installed in him is starting to drive him even more nuts. The blackest heart in the business had taken a beating and he's more machine than man these days. The inside joke in the Hole in The Head Gang is "Who knew the son of a bitch even had a heart?" Of course we keep our jokes out of earshot of old Dick, who's still pretty nimble with his shotgun. But there's some grumbling in the ranks, the thinking being that they've got to prepare for when the gang is out of the White House in 2008 and Shotgun Dick's eye needs to on the ball to prepare the gang's transition back to private life.
A lot of the underbosses weren't happy with the whole government takeover gambit in the first pace, thinking they were doing just fine ripping off the public from the private sector. While they can't complain about their bank balances since the huge bonanza of the Iraqi war and the looting of the Treasury, a lot of the dons are uncomfortable being in the public spotlight. Rummy bailed and so did Ashcroft once everybody realized they didn't know what the hell they were doing. Powell grew a conscious and quit all of a sudden and now that Rice broad is actually trying to act like she's got some power, flying all over the world meeting with government officials like some real Secretary of State. Her job was supposed to be keeping Fredo in line and now his new handlers are letting the "President" say even more stupid bullshit than normal.
There's also been talk in the gang that stealing that second election in 2004 was a big mistake. Everybody knew we stole the first one but were willing to let bygones be bygones if we went away after 4 years. That was the original plan, take over the government for a term, see what we can steal and be gone before the country knew what hit them. The perfect caper, get in, get out, and we all walk away rich as King Midas while somebody serious gets to be president to fix what we broke. The only problem was that it worked so well Shotgun Dick got greedy and more than a little power mad. So the next election was rigged and Dick figured we can keep up the scam for four more years.
The only thing is, a bunch of goons and thugs like us are not presidents and cabinet secretaries and can keep up that facade for only so long. Any run-of-the-mill con man can tell you that half the battle is knowing when to get out. You get too greedy and the game is up. There's too many things that can go wrong that even the best world-class scammer can't control. Who could have figured on Hurricane Katrina wiping out New Orleans and a good chunk of the Gulf Coast? And now the country is looking at us to rebuild the joint when we couldn't give a rat's ass about all those poor suckers in their friggin' rowboats. It's not like we were legit or anything. What'd they expect?
I could have told them Brownie didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. He was appointed to the FEMA job to keep him out of the way, figuring what harm could that dimwit do over there? Well, everybody knows by now how that worked out. Not that I care, it's just that it brought a lot of heat on the gang, people were expecting us to act like a real government, That's when a lot of us really started to get nervous. We figured that 9/11 thing was a godsend, exactly the kind of huge distraction we needed to do whatever the hell we wanted. People were so afraid we could have passed a law forcing loyal Americans to wear USA baseball caps if we wanted to, that's how good of a thing that was for us. Not so good for the people who got killed, but like I say, we just don't care about that crap.
We're only here to steal money and kill whoever gets in our way. That's why we didn't do so much in Afghanistan. If there's a poorer country out there I don't want to know about it, never mind trying to make money there. Now Iraq, there was a prize, practically gift-wrapped, complete with a real rootin-tootin' bad guy dictator and sitting on top of a sea of oil. That was Shotgun Dick's finest hour, getting Fredo all worked up about it and sending Powell over to the UN with some phony documents and they swallowed it. Some of the "reconnaissance" he used to prove the case were drawings for crying out loud! Talk abut your weapons of mass deception. So before you know it we send in the army, who thinks they're doing something good and noble, that's the beauty of it, and they destroy Iraq's army in a couple of weeks.
Of course the Army is too honorable to do everything we needed done so we hired some mercenaries too, guys who right away broke all the oil meters on their pipelines and port facilities so we could pump out all the oil we wanted to and nobody could prove anything. Talk about your pot of gold! And all this time we keep raising the price of oil even though we're stealing so much of it. So a few thousand of our soldiers got killed, so what? Isn't being a soldier supposed to be dangerous? Why do you think none of us ever joined the service? Last I checked, they carry guns and fight other guys with guns, right? So that's only to be expected. When we kill somebody, it's usually two behind the ear when they least expect it, or a phony car accident. It took a while for the country to figure out that the whole thing was a scam, and this is the time we should have bailed out and lost he '04 election.
But no, Shotgun Dick got all wrapped up in that whole shadow president crap and rigged up Ohio and New Mexico and some other places with phony voting machines and had us stay in power another four years. Big mistake in my opinion. Four years is really pushing the envelope of a scam as far as convincing the marks that we know what we're doing, but eight years? Forget about it. So at that point Shotgun Dick figures screw it, we'll just be blatant about it and push our weight around as if we were the real government. What a joke! All I can say is that this country's been pretty lucky that no other Katrina or 9/11 came along during our time here in Washington. There are still a lot of people so dumb that they'd look to us to help them, and then we'd be obliged to steal some more from them and call it help. That's what we do.
So maybe it's best that we get out while the getting's good. As for myself, I'd like to enjoy my billion bucks and not have to fork over any of it to defense lawyers. Truth be told, I'd have been happy to get out in '04 with only half a billion. Shotgun Dick tells me that's the thinking of a small timer and a lousy half a bil wouldn't last more than ten generations, tops. He also let everybody know that whoever wasn't on board with the second election could say hello to Mr. Shotgun so that was that. The only guys allowed to leave were those with enough money and power in the gang to defy Shotgun Dick or those who had become too much of a liability. That's another thing, in the old days before we took office, anybody who became a liability had an "accident" or simply disappeared. Now, being so much in the public eye, the only ones you can kill off are the small fish who get out of line, the guys who nobody knows. I kind of miss that.
So now that our time is getting short here, a lot of us are getting our accounts in order, hiding a lot of dough all over the world and making sure we have proper security in all our homes. I've got five pretty swanky houses myself and have my own private army to guard me, so that billion and change I swiped isn't really all that much when you consider my expenses. And does anyone think that private jets fuel themselves? I'm thinking maybe I have to siphon off a few more hundred mil from Iraq before I'm out of here. Fredo's more than ready to get out from under, that's for sure. All he hears lately is what a friggin' retard he is, and even though it's true that's got to bother a guy. The idiot can't put two coherent sentences together anymore, which is really no surprise since that's always been about his limit of cogent thought.
He's the guy I feel most sorry for because he thinks he's really been a president all this time. No one has the heart to tell the clown that real presidents don't take their orders from their vice president. His little nest egg of 4 or 5 billion is being handled by his wife since he'd only blow it on amusement parks and cowboy outfits. As for Shotgun Dick, I don't know what his plans are and don't really care. I'm hoping he drops dead sooner rather than later in case he has anything else crazy in mind, like the idea he was toying with the other day of staying for four more years as McCain's Vice President. And if McCain loses, old Dick was trying to figure out a way to create another national emergency so he could void the election results and continue the Bush The Younger administration for another four years. If that happens, my palace in Costa Rica is looking better and better. Enough is enough, even for thieves and murderers like The Hole in the Head Gang. As much fun as it's been, all things must pass. And America, do yourselves a favor in November: Think before you pull that lever.
Shotgun Dick couldn't get elected to dog catcher and he knows it. Doesn't bother him even a little bit since he runs the Hole in the Head Gang with an iron fist and makes all the decisions and nobody argues with him. And who could blame us gang members? You never know when he's going to point his shotgun your way and besides, Shotgun Dick is making us all rich and that's the whole point of being in a gang of thieves and murderers. Sure, he lets Fredo, a.k.a. Bush The Younger, be the president, it takes the heat off the rest of the gang.
Shotgun Dick used to take his cue from the late Mafia boss of all bosses Carlo Gambino, that quietest of dons. Old Carlo was no publicity hound like John Gotti, instead wielding absolute power from the shadows. He never spent any significant time in jail and lived to be a very rich, very old man who died in his bed at home in Brooklyn. He knew what business he was in and figured low-key is best. Why shove it up the public's ass that he was a murdering thief? Why let the grandchildren read in the paper what a piece of shit Poppy is?
Well Shotgun Dick got tired of Fredo hogging all the credit and sort of forgot the lessons of the late Mr.Gambino. The public disciplining of a lower-echelon gang member with a shotgun blast to the face and chest was just one example that he's losing his grip. He has also given angry interviews defending his actions and decisions as boss of all bosses. Now Congress has introduced Articles of Impeachment against him for all the lies and corruption a younger Shotgun Dick would have been more careful to cover up or at least lay the blame on someone else. He's running out of guys like Scooter Libby to take the rap for him and I'm sure not going down for his sneering old ass.
Some of the gang are worried that all the hardware he had installed in him is starting to drive him even more nuts. The blackest heart in the business had taken a beating and he's more machine than man these days. The inside joke in the Hole in The Head Gang is "Who knew the son of a bitch even had a heart?" Of course we keep our jokes out of earshot of old Dick, who's still pretty nimble with his shotgun. But there's some grumbling in the ranks, the thinking being that they've got to prepare for when the gang is out of the White House in 2008 and Shotgun Dick's eye needs to on the ball to prepare the gang's transition back to private life.
A lot of the underbosses weren't happy with the whole government takeover gambit in the first pace, thinking they were doing just fine ripping off the public from the private sector. While they can't complain about their bank balances since the huge bonanza of the Iraqi war and the looting of the Treasury, a lot of the dons are uncomfortable being in the public spotlight. Rummy bailed and so did Ashcroft once everybody realized they didn't know what the hell they were doing. Powell grew a conscious and quit all of a sudden and now that Rice broad is actually trying to act like she's got some power, flying all over the world meeting with government officials like some real Secretary of State. Her job was supposed to be keeping Fredo in line and now his new handlers are letting the "President" say even more stupid bullshit than normal.
There's also been talk in the gang that stealing that second election in 2004 was a big mistake. Everybody knew we stole the first one but were willing to let bygones be bygones if we went away after 4 years. That was the original plan, take over the government for a term, see what we can steal and be gone before the country knew what hit them. The perfect caper, get in, get out, and we all walk away rich as King Midas while somebody serious gets to be president to fix what we broke. The only problem was that it worked so well Shotgun Dick got greedy and more than a little power mad. So the next election was rigged and Dick figured we can keep up the scam for four more years.
The only thing is, a bunch of goons and thugs like us are not presidents and cabinet secretaries and can keep up that facade for only so long. Any run-of-the-mill con man can tell you that half the battle is knowing when to get out. You get too greedy and the game is up. There's too many things that can go wrong that even the best world-class scammer can't control. Who could have figured on Hurricane Katrina wiping out New Orleans and a good chunk of the Gulf Coast? And now the country is looking at us to rebuild the joint when we couldn't give a rat's ass about all those poor suckers in their friggin' rowboats. It's not like we were legit or anything. What'd they expect?
I could have told them Brownie didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. He was appointed to the FEMA job to keep him out of the way, figuring what harm could that dimwit do over there? Well, everybody knows by now how that worked out. Not that I care, it's just that it brought a lot of heat on the gang, people were expecting us to act like a real government, That's when a lot of us really started to get nervous. We figured that 9/11 thing was a godsend, exactly the kind of huge distraction we needed to do whatever the hell we wanted. People were so afraid we could have passed a law forcing loyal Americans to wear USA baseball caps if we wanted to, that's how good of a thing that was for us. Not so good for the people who got killed, but like I say, we just don't care about that crap.
We're only here to steal money and kill whoever gets in our way. That's why we didn't do so much in Afghanistan. If there's a poorer country out there I don't want to know about it, never mind trying to make money there. Now Iraq, there was a prize, practically gift-wrapped, complete with a real rootin-tootin' bad guy dictator and sitting on top of a sea of oil. That was Shotgun Dick's finest hour, getting Fredo all worked up about it and sending Powell over to the UN with some phony documents and they swallowed it. Some of the "reconnaissance" he used to prove the case were drawings for crying out loud! Talk abut your weapons of mass deception. So before you know it we send in the army, who thinks they're doing something good and noble, that's the beauty of it, and they destroy Iraq's army in a couple of weeks.
Of course the Army is too honorable to do everything we needed done so we hired some mercenaries too, guys who right away broke all the oil meters on their pipelines and port facilities so we could pump out all the oil we wanted to and nobody could prove anything. Talk about your pot of gold! And all this time we keep raising the price of oil even though we're stealing so much of it. So a few thousand of our soldiers got killed, so what? Isn't being a soldier supposed to be dangerous? Why do you think none of us ever joined the service? Last I checked, they carry guns and fight other guys with guns, right? So that's only to be expected. When we kill somebody, it's usually two behind the ear when they least expect it, or a phony car accident. It took a while for the country to figure out that the whole thing was a scam, and this is the time we should have bailed out and lost he '04 election.
But no, Shotgun Dick got all wrapped up in that whole shadow president crap and rigged up Ohio and New Mexico and some other places with phony voting machines and had us stay in power another four years. Big mistake in my opinion. Four years is really pushing the envelope of a scam as far as convincing the marks that we know what we're doing, but eight years? Forget about it. So at that point Shotgun Dick figures screw it, we'll just be blatant about it and push our weight around as if we were the real government. What a joke! All I can say is that this country's been pretty lucky that no other Katrina or 9/11 came along during our time here in Washington. There are still a lot of people so dumb that they'd look to us to help them, and then we'd be obliged to steal some more from them and call it help. That's what we do.
So maybe it's best that we get out while the getting's good. As for myself, I'd like to enjoy my billion bucks and not have to fork over any of it to defense lawyers. Truth be told, I'd have been happy to get out in '04 with only half a billion. Shotgun Dick tells me that's the thinking of a small timer and a lousy half a bil wouldn't last more than ten generations, tops. He also let everybody know that whoever wasn't on board with the second election could say hello to Mr. Shotgun so that was that. The only guys allowed to leave were those with enough money and power in the gang to defy Shotgun Dick or those who had become too much of a liability. That's another thing, in the old days before we took office, anybody who became a liability had an "accident" or simply disappeared. Now, being so much in the public eye, the only ones you can kill off are the small fish who get out of line, the guys who nobody knows. I kind of miss that.
So now that our time is getting short here, a lot of us are getting our accounts in order, hiding a lot of dough all over the world and making sure we have proper security in all our homes. I've got five pretty swanky houses myself and have my own private army to guard me, so that billion and change I swiped isn't really all that much when you consider my expenses. And does anyone think that private jets fuel themselves? I'm thinking maybe I have to siphon off a few more hundred mil from Iraq before I'm out of here. Fredo's more than ready to get out from under, that's for sure. All he hears lately is what a friggin' retard he is, and even though it's true that's got to bother a guy. The idiot can't put two coherent sentences together anymore, which is really no surprise since that's always been about his limit of cogent thought.
He's the guy I feel most sorry for because he thinks he's really been a president all this time. No one has the heart to tell the clown that real presidents don't take their orders from their vice president. His little nest egg of 4 or 5 billion is being handled by his wife since he'd only blow it on amusement parks and cowboy outfits. As for Shotgun Dick, I don't know what his plans are and don't really care. I'm hoping he drops dead sooner rather than later in case he has anything else crazy in mind, like the idea he was toying with the other day of staying for four more years as McCain's Vice President. And if McCain loses, old Dick was trying to figure out a way to create another national emergency so he could void the election results and continue the Bush The Younger administration for another four years. If that happens, my palace in Costa Rica is looking better and better. Enough is enough, even for thieves and murderers like The Hole in the Head Gang. As much fun as it's been, all things must pass. And America, do yourselves a favor in November: Think before you pull that lever.
March 6, 2008
GURUS AND MENTORS! HOT AIR! OH MY!
I thought we were done with gurus once the sixties ended. Guess not. They've just put on business suits. For those too young to remember regular gurus, they were long-haired bearded guys from India who wore robes and went barefoot. They made their livelihood telling gullible people obvious truths. It wasn't quite as simple as all that, but that was their game in a nutshell. They had followings and disciples and the like and a lot of people made fools of themselves paying these guys to learn that it was better to love your neighbor than to hate him. Well, yeah , guess so, but was it necessary to travel to India and chant some dumb slogan to find that out?
Anyway, the Beatles made this guy Maharashi Mahesh Yogi famous by checking out his teachings. Even though they realized he was a phony jerkoff and dropped him pretty quick, the damage was done and he was all of a sudden some famous wise man with all the answers to life's mysteries. On the plus side, while they were in India they got influenced by some pretty cool music they incorporated into some of their albums. As for the rest of that stuff, only George Harrison converted to an Eastern religion, but one having nothing to do with the Yogi guy. But before you could say Sergeant Pepper a whole bunch of these guys turned up in the Western World preaching transcendental meditation and other Eastern philosophies, seemingly all of them involving people rejecting anything that interfered with the cash flow to the various gurus.
Seemed like a lot of mumbo jumbo and chanting and dressing up funny and eating what he told you to eat only for the purpose of pointing out common knowledge. A lot of people thought it was pretty amusing and harmless enough so what the heck, let these people sit in the lotus position and spend their hard-eaned on lessons they already learned when they were children. No skin off anybody else's nose. Me, I figured if the wit and wisdom of India was so damned profound the place wouldn't be a country where some people cripple their children in order to make them more effective beggars while their government invests in nuclear weapons. Today's India, even with the influx of high tech jobs and a rapidly growing economy, remains a place where half of their billion-plus people scramble for limited food, housing, sanitation and even the most rudimentary education. Whatever else may be their shortcomings, Western nations solved these problems a century ago. So maybe their abundance of wise gurus weren't all they were cracked up to be. There's a lot of great things about India and its culture, but in my humble opinion these guys don't rank up there with the Taj Mahal or the great Mahatma Ghandi, a guy in robes with real ideas and accomplishments to his credit.
Well, fads being fads, thankfully these answer men eventually went away, the only remnants of their influence being the lunatic Hare Krishna chanters with the shaved heads and the orange robes you see begging in airports and city streets, and even they are pretty rare these days, what with most of them having come to their senses and all. But the word guru and the concept behind it has stuck, the idea that one man can supply all of life's answers if you follow his simple program. And pay his fees, of course. Gurus have to eat too, and American gurus seem to like to drive around in Jaguars and live in fancy homes as well. They also dress pretty sharp too, expensive suits and leather shoes and whatnot. And just like the various gurus from the east, most of them are basically full of shit.
We've got financial gurus, internet gurus, fitness gurus, business gurus, stock market gurus, something called wellness gurus, weight loss gurus, marketing, engineering, administrative and graphic design gurus as well as a lot of left-over spiritual and religious gurus still trawling for the dollars of the spiritually insecure. They go by different names sometimes; mentors, life coaches, advisors, guides, anything but what they really are, scammers and charlatans preying on the gullible. Well, I hate to let all the earnest seekers of truth down, but there isn't anybody out there with all the answers. There's God, maybe, but he's not talking. So as far as our earthly pursuits are concerned, maybe it's best to learn all we can about what we want to know and draw our own conclusions.
There's always been certified experts in every field and gifted teachers too. There are books and magazine articles about every topic under the sun and now we all have the internet on which to learn things, the greatest reference library ever assembled, right here at our fingertips. So I'm not saying don't seek out teachers and books and experts, it would be foolish not to in one's quest for knowledge of any sort. Just don't let anybody tell you he's got the foolproof answers to all of life's riddles and has all the answers you'll ever need to know to live your life. And just maybe you've got something to add to the general body of knowledge, some new insight that has escaped the gurus.
But if you were a dedicated disciple of one of these gurus and came up with an original idea that would make you a heretic and your important idea would get ridiculed and squashed. At least until you were out of the room. At that point the guru would announce your idea as his own and sell to the rest of his disciples. For a hefty fee, of course. At that point you might realize that you've got a decent brain yourself if you only give yourself permission to use it. Or you might seek a new guru if you're a real insecure jerk. Why? Have some faith in yourself, dammit.
There's lots of people with great ideas and a lot of people from whom we can learn a great deal, and you just might be one of them sooner or later. There isn't a single one of them who has all the answers for your situation, just like you'll never have all the answers for everyone else. Besides, having answers implies questions, and self-proclaimed gurus frown on questions, preferring instead to provide pat answers to questions and problems that they pose, not you. Gurus have no interest in the opinions of others. They've worked out a scam and expect their marks to follow it to the letter. Uncomfortable questions and ideas only serve to interrupt a good scam.
Legitimate experts and teachers, on the other hand, welcome new ideas and unusual questions, and encourage students to think for themselves. People who possess a lot of knowledge know enough to realize they don't know everything. Sometimes a student asks a question or offers an opinion that opens the floodgates to new avenues of inquiry or alternate solutions to accepted practice. A legitimate teacher rejoices at such occurrences while a guru recoils when it does not fit into his carefully constructed scheme. Where would Galileo be if he accepted the prevailing wisdom that the sun revolves around the earth? His teachers certainly thought that was the case.
Fortunately, the man had enough faith in his own mind and the plain evidence in front of his eyes to explain our solar system in a different way than the gurus of his day. And he paid dearly for thinking for himself, since the gurus of his day were the officers of the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church, who banned and burned his books, threw him into prison and forced him to deny his work. But he had the last laugh. His work is considered groundbreaking to this day and the Church of Rome has long been exposed as a bloodthirsty and repressive tyranny that hampered human progress for centuries. His name is far more famous than the pope who censured him or any of the barbaric inquisitors who hounded a genius for telling the truth and laying the foundations for modern science.
History is full of gurus who were complete assholes and misled millions of gullible fools. There were also a lot of anti-gurus, people who learned things, drew their own conclusions and spoke their minds, thus changing the world in the process. Gandhi comes to mind, so does Martin Luther King, who was a student of Gandhi's work and ideas. JFK was also a radical thinker who changed a lot of minds in the face of a lot of opposition. All three of those guys were killed for their troubles, but their work lives on for the benefit of untold millions. How about Einstein, Newton and Copernicus? They were scientists whose ideas defied all the scholars of their day and they all turned out to be right.
What about Bill Gates? Any business guru would have told him he was a fool to drop out of college and start a computer software company out of his garage with a nutty name like Microsoft. No expert could talk Elvis Presley out of recording "race music" and changing popular music and culture forever. What if Woodward and Bernstein hadn't asked a lot of uncomfortable questions about the Nixon Administration? None of the people mentioned here followed the formulas of any guru or guidance organization. They learned their trades and followed the truth instead, mostly working on their own, no gurus, no committees, no bowing to accepted wisdom. Many met with a lot of opposition and disapproval. Well, boo-hoo, disapproval. Get over it. Bob Dylan did, and produced some of his best work. A lot of people opposed the Emancipation proclamation, thinking Lincoln had gone too far. He didn't give a crap, he knew he was right and "a lot of people" had their heads up their asses. Judging by history, the greater the disapproval, the closer to the truth one must be.
So take all your Doctor Phils, your Scientologies, your success seminars, your narrow-minded TV preachers, your paid programming get-rich-quick scammers and your bona-fide experts on everything under the sun and stick them all where the sun don't shine. If it was that easy everybody would have all the answers and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Find your own way, ask all the uncomfortable questions you can think of and solve your own life situation. If you need help, and we all do from time to time, by all means get it. Follow any sound advice you might receive and ignore any advice that doesn't ring true. Trust yourself on that one, you're not an idiot so don't act like one.
After all is said and done, though, it's up to you to make your own decisions. There's plenty of people willing to decide for you, so if you don't mind living someone else's life go find yourself a guru. For a fee you can get out of taking responsibility for your own life, deciding how to raise our own children and deciding what's what in this world. It's easier that way, it really is. So if easy's what you're looking for, I can recommend a good how-to-live-and-think seminar run by a bona fide answer man guru who will welcome the control over yourself that you hand him along with a good chunk of your dough. Good luck sleeping at night,though, wondering what might have been if you used the balls and the brains you were born with.
Anyway, the Beatles made this guy Maharashi Mahesh Yogi famous by checking out his teachings. Even though they realized he was a phony jerkoff and dropped him pretty quick, the damage was done and he was all of a sudden some famous wise man with all the answers to life's mysteries. On the plus side, while they were in India they got influenced by some pretty cool music they incorporated into some of their albums. As for the rest of that stuff, only George Harrison converted to an Eastern religion, but one having nothing to do with the Yogi guy. But before you could say Sergeant Pepper a whole bunch of these guys turned up in the Western World preaching transcendental meditation and other Eastern philosophies, seemingly all of them involving people rejecting anything that interfered with the cash flow to the various gurus.
Seemed like a lot of mumbo jumbo and chanting and dressing up funny and eating what he told you to eat only for the purpose of pointing out common knowledge. A lot of people thought it was pretty amusing and harmless enough so what the heck, let these people sit in the lotus position and spend their hard-eaned on lessons they already learned when they were children. No skin off anybody else's nose. Me, I figured if the wit and wisdom of India was so damned profound the place wouldn't be a country where some people cripple their children in order to make them more effective beggars while their government invests in nuclear weapons. Today's India, even with the influx of high tech jobs and a rapidly growing economy, remains a place where half of their billion-plus people scramble for limited food, housing, sanitation and even the most rudimentary education. Whatever else may be their shortcomings, Western nations solved these problems a century ago. So maybe their abundance of wise gurus weren't all they were cracked up to be. There's a lot of great things about India and its culture, but in my humble opinion these guys don't rank up there with the Taj Mahal or the great Mahatma Ghandi, a guy in robes with real ideas and accomplishments to his credit.
Well, fads being fads, thankfully these answer men eventually went away, the only remnants of their influence being the lunatic Hare Krishna chanters with the shaved heads and the orange robes you see begging in airports and city streets, and even they are pretty rare these days, what with most of them having come to their senses and all. But the word guru and the concept behind it has stuck, the idea that one man can supply all of life's answers if you follow his simple program. And pay his fees, of course. Gurus have to eat too, and American gurus seem to like to drive around in Jaguars and live in fancy homes as well. They also dress pretty sharp too, expensive suits and leather shoes and whatnot. And just like the various gurus from the east, most of them are basically full of shit.
We've got financial gurus, internet gurus, fitness gurus, business gurus, stock market gurus, something called wellness gurus, weight loss gurus, marketing, engineering, administrative and graphic design gurus as well as a lot of left-over spiritual and religious gurus still trawling for the dollars of the spiritually insecure. They go by different names sometimes; mentors, life coaches, advisors, guides, anything but what they really are, scammers and charlatans preying on the gullible. Well, I hate to let all the earnest seekers of truth down, but there isn't anybody out there with all the answers. There's God, maybe, but he's not talking. So as far as our earthly pursuits are concerned, maybe it's best to learn all we can about what we want to know and draw our own conclusions.
There's always been certified experts in every field and gifted teachers too. There are books and magazine articles about every topic under the sun and now we all have the internet on which to learn things, the greatest reference library ever assembled, right here at our fingertips. So I'm not saying don't seek out teachers and books and experts, it would be foolish not to in one's quest for knowledge of any sort. Just don't let anybody tell you he's got the foolproof answers to all of life's riddles and has all the answers you'll ever need to know to live your life. And just maybe you've got something to add to the general body of knowledge, some new insight that has escaped the gurus.
But if you were a dedicated disciple of one of these gurus and came up with an original idea that would make you a heretic and your important idea would get ridiculed and squashed. At least until you were out of the room. At that point the guru would announce your idea as his own and sell to the rest of his disciples. For a hefty fee, of course. At that point you might realize that you've got a decent brain yourself if you only give yourself permission to use it. Or you might seek a new guru if you're a real insecure jerk. Why? Have some faith in yourself, dammit.
There's lots of people with great ideas and a lot of people from whom we can learn a great deal, and you just might be one of them sooner or later. There isn't a single one of them who has all the answers for your situation, just like you'll never have all the answers for everyone else. Besides, having answers implies questions, and self-proclaimed gurus frown on questions, preferring instead to provide pat answers to questions and problems that they pose, not you. Gurus have no interest in the opinions of others. They've worked out a scam and expect their marks to follow it to the letter. Uncomfortable questions and ideas only serve to interrupt a good scam.
Legitimate experts and teachers, on the other hand, welcome new ideas and unusual questions, and encourage students to think for themselves. People who possess a lot of knowledge know enough to realize they don't know everything. Sometimes a student asks a question or offers an opinion that opens the floodgates to new avenues of inquiry or alternate solutions to accepted practice. A legitimate teacher rejoices at such occurrences while a guru recoils when it does not fit into his carefully constructed scheme. Where would Galileo be if he accepted the prevailing wisdom that the sun revolves around the earth? His teachers certainly thought that was the case.
Fortunately, the man had enough faith in his own mind and the plain evidence in front of his eyes to explain our solar system in a different way than the gurus of his day. And he paid dearly for thinking for himself, since the gurus of his day were the officers of the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church, who banned and burned his books, threw him into prison and forced him to deny his work. But he had the last laugh. His work is considered groundbreaking to this day and the Church of Rome has long been exposed as a bloodthirsty and repressive tyranny that hampered human progress for centuries. His name is far more famous than the pope who censured him or any of the barbaric inquisitors who hounded a genius for telling the truth and laying the foundations for modern science.
History is full of gurus who were complete assholes and misled millions of gullible fools. There were also a lot of anti-gurus, people who learned things, drew their own conclusions and spoke their minds, thus changing the world in the process. Gandhi comes to mind, so does Martin Luther King, who was a student of Gandhi's work and ideas. JFK was also a radical thinker who changed a lot of minds in the face of a lot of opposition. All three of those guys were killed for their troubles, but their work lives on for the benefit of untold millions. How about Einstein, Newton and Copernicus? They were scientists whose ideas defied all the scholars of their day and they all turned out to be right.
What about Bill Gates? Any business guru would have told him he was a fool to drop out of college and start a computer software company out of his garage with a nutty name like Microsoft. No expert could talk Elvis Presley out of recording "race music" and changing popular music and culture forever. What if Woodward and Bernstein hadn't asked a lot of uncomfortable questions about the Nixon Administration? None of the people mentioned here followed the formulas of any guru or guidance organization. They learned their trades and followed the truth instead, mostly working on their own, no gurus, no committees, no bowing to accepted wisdom. Many met with a lot of opposition and disapproval. Well, boo-hoo, disapproval. Get over it. Bob Dylan did, and produced some of his best work. A lot of people opposed the Emancipation proclamation, thinking Lincoln had gone too far. He didn't give a crap, he knew he was right and "a lot of people" had their heads up their asses. Judging by history, the greater the disapproval, the closer to the truth one must be.
So take all your Doctor Phils, your Scientologies, your success seminars, your narrow-minded TV preachers, your paid programming get-rich-quick scammers and your bona-fide experts on everything under the sun and stick them all where the sun don't shine. If it was that easy everybody would have all the answers and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Find your own way, ask all the uncomfortable questions you can think of and solve your own life situation. If you need help, and we all do from time to time, by all means get it. Follow any sound advice you might receive and ignore any advice that doesn't ring true. Trust yourself on that one, you're not an idiot so don't act like one.
After all is said and done, though, it's up to you to make your own decisions. There's plenty of people willing to decide for you, so if you don't mind living someone else's life go find yourself a guru. For a fee you can get out of taking responsibility for your own life, deciding how to raise our own children and deciding what's what in this world. It's easier that way, it really is. So if easy's what you're looking for, I can recommend a good how-to-live-and-think seminar run by a bona fide answer man guru who will welcome the control over yourself that you hand him along with a good chunk of your dough. Good luck sleeping at night,though, wondering what might have been if you used the balls and the brains you were born with.
March 5, 2008
HITTING THE SPEED LIMIT
Turned 55 the other day. Who knew I'd live this long? Go figure. And no, 55 is not the new 30, ladies and gents. It's the same old 55, especially when you live the way that I have. I look every second of my age, thank you very much, and earned every line in my face. Regrets? Hell yeah, who doesn't? And what kind of lukewarm life do you have to lead not to have any regrets? Some of them were a lot of fun until it all blew up in my face. There's not a damned thing you can do about that crap now so I don't dwell on the past. Unless of course that involves sweet memories, and I've got plenty of those. Quite a lot of memories pile up in the old memory banks by this age and sometimes they're hard to sort out, but I manage.
55 is kind of an oddball age, not the big milestone that 21, 30, 40 and 50 are, which is basically a bunch of nonsense anyway. My milestone birthdays came and went and I don't remember any huge revelation or change in my life. Maybe I had a nice party for a few of them, people in my life that I love made a fuss and I got to feel special, yeah, that's always nice. But of course you wake up the next day, life goes on and the only thing that's changed about you is the number you fill in on any form you fill out requesting your age. For the younger milestone birthdays that was somewhat of a disappointment, but what the hell, I was young and didn't know any better. It takes a while to learn that life is a process, not an event.
But learn I did, lots of times the hard way, that's just how it goes sometimes. Getting older is pretty cool in a lot of ways. You actually do gain a measure of wisdom and a sense of perspective with the piling up of the years. You almost can't help it with all the experience you gain just by living your life, whatever kind of life that may be. Sure, you learn a lot of hard lessons and find out things you wish you didn't, but mostly it's a joy to know a lot of things about life and people and the world in general. You're still capable of bonehead mistakes, which is actually refreshing when you think about it. Life would really suck if you had all the answers. There'd be no challenges and no fun if things didn't blow up in your face every now and then.
The older you get the easier it is to handle disappointment, and it's also easier to see why things went wrong, as long as you're willing to admit that just maybe the problem was you. Maybe it wasn't, but that's always the best place to start when one our beloved little schemes we make for out lives go kablooey. That's something else you learn, things about yourself, maybe some of them not so pleasant. You get more honest with yourself as far as recognizing your own strengths and admitting your shortcomings. Some things you don't like about yourself you can change, others you simply cannot. Knowing the difference is the beginning of wisdom.
When it comes to life, there is damned little you can control outside of yourself, and even that's no walk in the park at times. That's not a piece of knowledge that comes with age for a lot of people, they just never get it. That would be the type of people I pity the most in this world; control freaks. That must be one hell of a frustrating affliction is all I can say. By definition a control freak can never be satisfied. I mean, it does rain sometimes, and that's only one small thing we can't control. Try controlling other people and life itself sometime and let me know how you make out. Odds are, not so good. If you're a control freak, though, you never stop trying if you live to be a hundred in spite of a lifetime of evidence and hard experience that tells you it's a fool's game.
I'm not criticizing these unfortunates since I understand compulsion all too well, just commiserating. I've spent my fair share of time banging my head on a different kind of brick wall with pretty much the same results. My compulsions have not left me, I just don't act on them anymore. My liver and kidneys send me thank-you notes all the time for not trying to preserve them in alcohol anymore. Everybody's got some kind of hurdle to jump before they reach the finish line. Never met any exceptions from any walk of life.
So what is 55? It's not old, it's not young by any means, so people call it middle age. I sure hope so, since that means I'm going to live to 110. That would be a shock. It's shocking enough to be 55. I guess it's the age when you start thinking about this kind of crap. I never was one for much reflection, but a 10-year old kid asked me the other day how it feels to be 55, which to him, I suppose, is ancient. I felt the same way when I was 10, and there's only one difference as far as I can see: I know exactly what it's like to be 10 years old and he can't imagine what it feels like to be 55.
To be sure there are many other differences, but an average 10 year old is pretty much equipped with all the life lessons he'll ever need to get along in this world and that's the stuff his mother taught him. What happens for the rest of your life after that is basically field-testing Mom's wisdom and it always turns out she was right. When you follow her simple rules of conduct things go smooth. When you don't, things get rough. Sometimes life is just that simple. There are, however, always the rainy days and other calamities of greater magnitude that we will all encounter sooner or later in life, but if you pull out your mental handbook of Mom's lessons you'll recall that she warned about these things too and told you to do the best you can and be the best person you can be under the circumstances. She had it pretty much covered.
That's pretty remarkable when you think of the twenty-something year old girl that was pretty much everybody's Mom. Their fierce love and gentle, homely life lessons have shaped everybody in the world forever and their record is a pretty good one considering the fact that almost everybody you meet everywhere is a very decent person doing their best in a hard world. Which upon reflection led me to have a lot of respect for women, who know a lot more at a lot younger age about life than men. That's the facts, Jack. You don't have to like it, men, but that's reality. Is there anyone out there who thinks the world would be a better place if it was us guys giving the life lessons to the kiddies instead?
Bad enough the crazy notions we men fill kids' heads with at every opportunity, all that macho violent bullshit and labeling the slaughter of other human beings as an exercise in honor and glory. What a load of shit! With us as their Moms the world would be full of raving lunatics at each others' throats. Or at least more so than it is now. Probably the only reason we haven't all slain each other to the point of extinction is the restraining hand of women. The real honor and glory is in living your life as the best person you can be, enduring whatever hardships are visited upon you and harming no one else in the process. There are many more measures of success that battlefield victories.
If more of us had listened to Mom there'd have been a whole lot less carnage in our history. And perhaps if women and not men had written the Bible, the Koran and other religious textbooks there'd be a lot less of that whole "slay them down to the last man, woman and child" mentality when it comes to dealing with people who are different from us and who believe different things and a lot more "live and let live" for the kiddies to learn about in religion classes. I look at men as more Old Testament guys, eye for an eye and tooth for a toothers, while women are more New Testament love thy neighbor types. Sort of a simplistic view, but that's my business, and I really don't think the New and Old Testaments can be possibly talking about the same God and that's a whole other story altogether.
Besides, what do you think is better advice, "share with others" from Mom or "don't take any crap from anybody" from Pop? As you get older you realize that you have to put up with a lot of crap in this world and to learn which of it to let slide and which of it to never let slide. You go around ranting and raving and fighting at every mouthful of bullshit you hear you won't have time to do much else but scream and fight, and that's no kind of life at all. There's too much joy in this world to waste time on fighting what you don't need to fight. There's plenty enough battles to be fought without seeking more. There's none of this that I told that 10 year old boy.
I told him that being 55 is like being 10, only more so. That didn't clear things up for the kid but I figure why clog his brain with stuff he can't understand anyway. Let him be a kid because that magic time is for being a child and all that entails. He'll take his own journey, learn his own lessons and draw his own conclusions. My only advice to him was to listen to his Mom, enjoy every day because they're all different and try to learn something new whenever you can. Have some fun and get to know some people because they're all pretty different too, and almost every one of them is fascinating and good to be with. Those that are not, just pass them by. No sense wasting chunks of your life you'll never get back trying to change unpleasant or evil people, that's just not going to happen. Go towards the light. That's where the action is and all the fun. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...
55 is kind of an oddball age, not the big milestone that 21, 30, 40 and 50 are, which is basically a bunch of nonsense anyway. My milestone birthdays came and went and I don't remember any huge revelation or change in my life. Maybe I had a nice party for a few of them, people in my life that I love made a fuss and I got to feel special, yeah, that's always nice. But of course you wake up the next day, life goes on and the only thing that's changed about you is the number you fill in on any form you fill out requesting your age. For the younger milestone birthdays that was somewhat of a disappointment, but what the hell, I was young and didn't know any better. It takes a while to learn that life is a process, not an event.
But learn I did, lots of times the hard way, that's just how it goes sometimes. Getting older is pretty cool in a lot of ways. You actually do gain a measure of wisdom and a sense of perspective with the piling up of the years. You almost can't help it with all the experience you gain just by living your life, whatever kind of life that may be. Sure, you learn a lot of hard lessons and find out things you wish you didn't, but mostly it's a joy to know a lot of things about life and people and the world in general. You're still capable of bonehead mistakes, which is actually refreshing when you think about it. Life would really suck if you had all the answers. There'd be no challenges and no fun if things didn't blow up in your face every now and then.
The older you get the easier it is to handle disappointment, and it's also easier to see why things went wrong, as long as you're willing to admit that just maybe the problem was you. Maybe it wasn't, but that's always the best place to start when one our beloved little schemes we make for out lives go kablooey. That's something else you learn, things about yourself, maybe some of them not so pleasant. You get more honest with yourself as far as recognizing your own strengths and admitting your shortcomings. Some things you don't like about yourself you can change, others you simply cannot. Knowing the difference is the beginning of wisdom.
When it comes to life, there is damned little you can control outside of yourself, and even that's no walk in the park at times. That's not a piece of knowledge that comes with age for a lot of people, they just never get it. That would be the type of people I pity the most in this world; control freaks. That must be one hell of a frustrating affliction is all I can say. By definition a control freak can never be satisfied. I mean, it does rain sometimes, and that's only one small thing we can't control. Try controlling other people and life itself sometime and let me know how you make out. Odds are, not so good. If you're a control freak, though, you never stop trying if you live to be a hundred in spite of a lifetime of evidence and hard experience that tells you it's a fool's game.
I'm not criticizing these unfortunates since I understand compulsion all too well, just commiserating. I've spent my fair share of time banging my head on a different kind of brick wall with pretty much the same results. My compulsions have not left me, I just don't act on them anymore. My liver and kidneys send me thank-you notes all the time for not trying to preserve them in alcohol anymore. Everybody's got some kind of hurdle to jump before they reach the finish line. Never met any exceptions from any walk of life.
So what is 55? It's not old, it's not young by any means, so people call it middle age. I sure hope so, since that means I'm going to live to 110. That would be a shock. It's shocking enough to be 55. I guess it's the age when you start thinking about this kind of crap. I never was one for much reflection, but a 10-year old kid asked me the other day how it feels to be 55, which to him, I suppose, is ancient. I felt the same way when I was 10, and there's only one difference as far as I can see: I know exactly what it's like to be 10 years old and he can't imagine what it feels like to be 55.
To be sure there are many other differences, but an average 10 year old is pretty much equipped with all the life lessons he'll ever need to get along in this world and that's the stuff his mother taught him. What happens for the rest of your life after that is basically field-testing Mom's wisdom and it always turns out she was right. When you follow her simple rules of conduct things go smooth. When you don't, things get rough. Sometimes life is just that simple. There are, however, always the rainy days and other calamities of greater magnitude that we will all encounter sooner or later in life, but if you pull out your mental handbook of Mom's lessons you'll recall that she warned about these things too and told you to do the best you can and be the best person you can be under the circumstances. She had it pretty much covered.
That's pretty remarkable when you think of the twenty-something year old girl that was pretty much everybody's Mom. Their fierce love and gentle, homely life lessons have shaped everybody in the world forever and their record is a pretty good one considering the fact that almost everybody you meet everywhere is a very decent person doing their best in a hard world. Which upon reflection led me to have a lot of respect for women, who know a lot more at a lot younger age about life than men. That's the facts, Jack. You don't have to like it, men, but that's reality. Is there anyone out there who thinks the world would be a better place if it was us guys giving the life lessons to the kiddies instead?
Bad enough the crazy notions we men fill kids' heads with at every opportunity, all that macho violent bullshit and labeling the slaughter of other human beings as an exercise in honor and glory. What a load of shit! With us as their Moms the world would be full of raving lunatics at each others' throats. Or at least more so than it is now. Probably the only reason we haven't all slain each other to the point of extinction is the restraining hand of women. The real honor and glory is in living your life as the best person you can be, enduring whatever hardships are visited upon you and harming no one else in the process. There are many more measures of success that battlefield victories.
If more of us had listened to Mom there'd have been a whole lot less carnage in our history. And perhaps if women and not men had written the Bible, the Koran and other religious textbooks there'd be a lot less of that whole "slay them down to the last man, woman and child" mentality when it comes to dealing with people who are different from us and who believe different things and a lot more "live and let live" for the kiddies to learn about in religion classes. I look at men as more Old Testament guys, eye for an eye and tooth for a toothers, while women are more New Testament love thy neighbor types. Sort of a simplistic view, but that's my business, and I really don't think the New and Old Testaments can be possibly talking about the same God and that's a whole other story altogether.
Besides, what do you think is better advice, "share with others" from Mom or "don't take any crap from anybody" from Pop? As you get older you realize that you have to put up with a lot of crap in this world and to learn which of it to let slide and which of it to never let slide. You go around ranting and raving and fighting at every mouthful of bullshit you hear you won't have time to do much else but scream and fight, and that's no kind of life at all. There's too much joy in this world to waste time on fighting what you don't need to fight. There's plenty enough battles to be fought without seeking more. There's none of this that I told that 10 year old boy.
I told him that being 55 is like being 10, only more so. That didn't clear things up for the kid but I figure why clog his brain with stuff he can't understand anyway. Let him be a kid because that magic time is for being a child and all that entails. He'll take his own journey, learn his own lessons and draw his own conclusions. My only advice to him was to listen to his Mom, enjoy every day because they're all different and try to learn something new whenever you can. Have some fun and get to know some people because they're all pretty different too, and almost every one of them is fascinating and good to be with. Those that are not, just pass them by. No sense wasting chunks of your life you'll never get back trying to change unpleasant or evil people, that's just not going to happen. Go towards the light. That's where the action is and all the fun. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...
March 4, 2008
I GOT RIDDLED WITH HOLES
I'm glad to report that I'm none the worse for wear after having about a dozen holes punched in my back the other day. Drilled, punctured and pierced. A person came to my house and did this, why I'm still not sure. The lovely wife was getting a treatment from an acupuncturist, a lovely young lady from Russia who makes house calls. Now, I really didn't have any specific complaints to offer her, no symptoms of anything dire or any nagging conditions. While that state of affairs was somewhat disappointing to a hole-punching healer, it didn't stop her from offering a general treatment, sort of an all-organ maintenance thing with treatment for my lower back tossed in as well.
I'm happy to announce that it was at least as good as skipping it altogether. Outside of a tiny bit of soreness in various locations on my back I'm just fine. Whether or not she cured anything or prevented anything, well, who cares? She was kind of hot and had an exotic accent and was very feminine and gentle. How many regular doctors can you say that about? She explained a lot of stuff about acupuncture, none of which made much sense to me, but so what? Like I said, she was hot and had an exotic accent. What more did I need to know?
To her credit, she was very knowledgeable about the human body and asked a lot of questions specific to my age and circumstances. She seemed relieved that I didn't want to stop smoking and I was relieved she didn't press the issue. We smokers have to endure no end of lectures and death warnings from just about everyone who doesn't smoke. Health professionals are among the worst offenders, but at least you know what you're in for when you tell a doctor that yes, you smoke cigarettes and no, you have absolutely no desire to stop doing so. The wrinkled brow and the solemn warnings are pretty much a given in those circumstances, but we smokers are a resilient lot who really don't give a rat's ass what others think of our smoking. As soon as we leave the doctor's office we light one up, enjoying that one perhaps more than most.
It's the untrained everybodys that get in your face about your smoking that are most vexing. I often wonder if they do the same to overweight people, berate perfect strangers for their eating habits, something I would never do. I was raised with the idea that you don't bring up the personal habits of people or challenge them out of the blue for seemingly no reason. It is rude and a serious character flaw. As long as no one is harming you or yours, I was taught, live and let live. Luckily, my pretty little acupuncturist had a proper upbringing and contented herself to only punch the holes in me that would not interfere with my smoking pleasure. So I lay on my belly and let her stick needles all along the sides of my spine and stayed there for the requisite 20 minutes or so.
My wife and I were to report any changes in how we felt until she comes again. The lovely wife feels great and is ecstatic about her treatment. I think belief and enthusiasm is half the battle in pretty much any endeavor, so good for her. As for myself? Well, truth be told, hottie or no hottie, good manners and exotic accent notwithstanding, I don't feel any different at all. Which I suppose is all I can expect since I wasn't sick or injured in the first place. She at least lived up to the primary Hippocratic dictum for the medical arts: "First, do no harm." So I suppose you can say my puncturing was a rousing success. I'm still my irritable, cantankerous self in the morning and still grow more likable the further I get from waking up.
I'm not a bit more reasonable than usual, which is to say fairly stubborn and unreasonable, but not to a ridiculous degree. At least that's as far as I can say since I don't have to deal with me, others do. I have a sneaking suspicion that knowing yourself is different from being known by others. You never really observe yourself in action, so to speak. You try to be consistent, understanding and nice to others and hope for the best. So far, so good. People seem to like me okay which is a relief since I like almost everybody I meet, even people who come to my house for the sole purpose of punching my lovely wife and me full of holes.
Would I do it again? I mean, she's coming to treat the wife again soon and I'll sort of be handy, what with it being my house too and me kind of being there a lot. Do I submit again just to be nice and keep the domestic peace on an even keel? It's not a free service, after all. And parting with my hard-earned for a curiosity is not an ingrained habit. If it helps the lovely wife, well, I'm all for it, but I think I'll save myself the trouble of more hole-punching and lying still until I have a valid complaint. I mean, how else can I gauge its effectiveness if there's nothing wrong with me to begin with? But our acupuncturist is so nice and polite and very earnest. The polite thing for me to do would be to injure myself or develop some sort of chronic condition, but that seems a little extreme, no?
Anyway, it's a decision I don't have to make for another week or so. Right now I'm leaning towards "No, thank you, but thanks for the generous offer to punch me full of holes to cure something I don't have." As it turns out, this service can be paid for by medical insurance, and if that's the case, then it will be a freebie. Still, I think I''ll go with the thanks but no thanks strategy. Unless I develop something dire in the meantime, I think I'll just go with my usual coffee and cigarettes health routine. It's gotten me this far in the pink of health. Why ruin a good thing?
With Acupuncture, there's a whole body of Chinese medical practices and applications you ought to be aware of, I suppose, but that sounds like a lot of work. I've heard it said that you have to believe in Acupuncture for it to work properly and I'm thinking, wait a minute, in regular medicine you don't have to believe in anything one way or another, that's the doctor's job. Whether or not you believe in whatever medicine or procedure the doctor prescribes is irrelevant. If you think antibiotics, X-rays and CT scans are phony they still work, with or without you on board in the understanding or believing departments. I never really had to consider my state of belief or disbelief in these things. You got sick or injured, you went to a doctor and they did what they did to heal you and you took your medicine and that was pretty much that.
It's always worked out and no regular doctor ever tried to treat me for something I didn't have. Not that I think every one of them is a genius or that they have all the answers. I've met some lousy doctors here and there and also realize I sort of have some responsibility to try no to live too haphazardly. Been there, done that, paid the freight. So I eat right, stay away from booze, exercise a little bit and take some vitamins. I try not to smoke as many cigarettes as I used to, and see a doctor on a timely basis. So now I 'm told acupuncture will cure all ills. Well, I just wish I had some so I could test that theory. But I figure there's no rush. Stuff happens to everybody from time to time, and when that time comes, if the doctor can't cure me I'll ask the pretty Russian lady to punch more holes in me. First, do no harm, right?
I'm happy to announce that it was at least as good as skipping it altogether. Outside of a tiny bit of soreness in various locations on my back I'm just fine. Whether or not she cured anything or prevented anything, well, who cares? She was kind of hot and had an exotic accent and was very feminine and gentle. How many regular doctors can you say that about? She explained a lot of stuff about acupuncture, none of which made much sense to me, but so what? Like I said, she was hot and had an exotic accent. What more did I need to know?
To her credit, she was very knowledgeable about the human body and asked a lot of questions specific to my age and circumstances. She seemed relieved that I didn't want to stop smoking and I was relieved she didn't press the issue. We smokers have to endure no end of lectures and death warnings from just about everyone who doesn't smoke. Health professionals are among the worst offenders, but at least you know what you're in for when you tell a doctor that yes, you smoke cigarettes and no, you have absolutely no desire to stop doing so. The wrinkled brow and the solemn warnings are pretty much a given in those circumstances, but we smokers are a resilient lot who really don't give a rat's ass what others think of our smoking. As soon as we leave the doctor's office we light one up, enjoying that one perhaps more than most.
It's the untrained everybodys that get in your face about your smoking that are most vexing. I often wonder if they do the same to overweight people, berate perfect strangers for their eating habits, something I would never do. I was raised with the idea that you don't bring up the personal habits of people or challenge them out of the blue for seemingly no reason. It is rude and a serious character flaw. As long as no one is harming you or yours, I was taught, live and let live. Luckily, my pretty little acupuncturist had a proper upbringing and contented herself to only punch the holes in me that would not interfere with my smoking pleasure. So I lay on my belly and let her stick needles all along the sides of my spine and stayed there for the requisite 20 minutes or so.
My wife and I were to report any changes in how we felt until she comes again. The lovely wife feels great and is ecstatic about her treatment. I think belief and enthusiasm is half the battle in pretty much any endeavor, so good for her. As for myself? Well, truth be told, hottie or no hottie, good manners and exotic accent notwithstanding, I don't feel any different at all. Which I suppose is all I can expect since I wasn't sick or injured in the first place. She at least lived up to the primary Hippocratic dictum for the medical arts: "First, do no harm." So I suppose you can say my puncturing was a rousing success. I'm still my irritable, cantankerous self in the morning and still grow more likable the further I get from waking up.
I'm not a bit more reasonable than usual, which is to say fairly stubborn and unreasonable, but not to a ridiculous degree. At least that's as far as I can say since I don't have to deal with me, others do. I have a sneaking suspicion that knowing yourself is different from being known by others. You never really observe yourself in action, so to speak. You try to be consistent, understanding and nice to others and hope for the best. So far, so good. People seem to like me okay which is a relief since I like almost everybody I meet, even people who come to my house for the sole purpose of punching my lovely wife and me full of holes.
Would I do it again? I mean, she's coming to treat the wife again soon and I'll sort of be handy, what with it being my house too and me kind of being there a lot. Do I submit again just to be nice and keep the domestic peace on an even keel? It's not a free service, after all. And parting with my hard-earned for a curiosity is not an ingrained habit. If it helps the lovely wife, well, I'm all for it, but I think I'll save myself the trouble of more hole-punching and lying still until I have a valid complaint. I mean, how else can I gauge its effectiveness if there's nothing wrong with me to begin with? But our acupuncturist is so nice and polite and very earnest. The polite thing for me to do would be to injure myself or develop some sort of chronic condition, but that seems a little extreme, no?
Anyway, it's a decision I don't have to make for another week or so. Right now I'm leaning towards "No, thank you, but thanks for the generous offer to punch me full of holes to cure something I don't have." As it turns out, this service can be paid for by medical insurance, and if that's the case, then it will be a freebie. Still, I think I''ll go with the thanks but no thanks strategy. Unless I develop something dire in the meantime, I think I'll just go with my usual coffee and cigarettes health routine. It's gotten me this far in the pink of health. Why ruin a good thing?
With Acupuncture, there's a whole body of Chinese medical practices and applications you ought to be aware of, I suppose, but that sounds like a lot of work. I've heard it said that you have to believe in Acupuncture for it to work properly and I'm thinking, wait a minute, in regular medicine you don't have to believe in anything one way or another, that's the doctor's job. Whether or not you believe in whatever medicine or procedure the doctor prescribes is irrelevant. If you think antibiotics, X-rays and CT scans are phony they still work, with or without you on board in the understanding or believing departments. I never really had to consider my state of belief or disbelief in these things. You got sick or injured, you went to a doctor and they did what they did to heal you and you took your medicine and that was pretty much that.
It's always worked out and no regular doctor ever tried to treat me for something I didn't have. Not that I think every one of them is a genius or that they have all the answers. I've met some lousy doctors here and there and also realize I sort of have some responsibility to try no to live too haphazardly. Been there, done that, paid the freight. So I eat right, stay away from booze, exercise a little bit and take some vitamins. I try not to smoke as many cigarettes as I used to, and see a doctor on a timely basis. So now I 'm told acupuncture will cure all ills. Well, I just wish I had some so I could test that theory. But I figure there's no rush. Stuff happens to everybody from time to time, and when that time comes, if the doctor can't cure me I'll ask the pretty Russian lady to punch more holes in me. First, do no harm, right?
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