Pissville

When Maggie woke up, he was already in the kitchen. She stretched and lay there for a moment trying to seperate reality from...well, everything else. She shuffled in, not knowing what to expect. After all, what do dead people eat for breakfast? It turns out that, in this case, they usually have coffee and toast. The toaster was huge and shaped like a silverstream trailer. She studied her reflection in it, the way it made her hands and coffee mug huge in relation to her hair. Her hair, by the way, was badly in need of a brush.
Mike was mostly silent. After asking her how she slept, he went back to reading a book about architecture. Then, tentatively, he asked, "What do you want to shop for first?"
"I don't know, how 'bout a brush and then some clothes"

They went down the silent streets. It was still early. He parked in a square next to a fountain. The shopping district in his neighborhood was old with narrow cobblestone streets. There were malls nearby, but he preferred this, thought it was like something from Seville, which it was. There were shops open with incense and inlaid furniture. In the small alleys were racks of rich carpets and belts. Right next to a shop selling copper trays and hookahs was his favorite store. (He still would not admit he enjoyed shopping as it was something a man of his era would never openly advertise.)
Gus and Armand had shops that blended into each other. On the one side, Gus had suits and shirts overflowing. A lot of them were western style shirts and bolo ties that Mike never had the nerve to buy, but he always lingered over them. In a corner, there was a long table filled with shoes. Black shiny wingtips like precious beetles, Old low quarter shoes in the original G.I. shoe boxes, Doc Martens loitering in agressive clusters, and in the middle, as always, the best cowboy boots in the universe. These boots were made by Gus who always took his time, because, as he said, he had all the time in the world.
Gus was tall and thin with an open handsome face. His eyes were blue and bright. When he spoke, which was rarely, he was quiet and friendly with his cowboy charm. Armand was the other side of the scale. He was huge and verbose. He had the shoulders of a wrestler and he always wore shiny pomade which made him look operatic. His suits were cut beautifully and made from material that came from the finest time periods. There was an understated richness to them. The herringbone or sharkskin was always an nth degree more textured and the colors were pure.
Mike began to regret this detour. He felt he wanted to show Maggie something secret and unique, but instead brought her to this jumble which would hold nothing of interest for her.
Armand must have sensed this.
" Oh Mike, you make my store look like a flea market when you bring a lovely woman..but no, ,I have it now, come here" he said pointing to Maggie who was tentatively smiling with a rosy blush on her cheek.
Armand showed her outfits that appeared like magic from his battered old armoires. There were classic a-line skirts and blouses that went from honest, crisp cotton to silk. When he showed her a slinky red sequined dress, she demurred. She gazed in wonder at it all. When she asked to try them on, Gus said "Go on, but he never picks a wrong one."
Finally, without being coy, Armand opened a luxurious lacquered box with dragons on it.
"My gift, for the first time customer a little nothing" She gasped. It wasn't a little nothing. It was an ivory and gold brush and comb set. "No, aw c'mon..you're pulling my leg, right?"
"I insist." It was truly a gracious gesture. Mike felt kind of outdone and foolish.
In the end, he ended up buying two sky blue shirts which he didn't need, and a pair of chinos. He swiped his card for all their swag. They walked back to the car and put the packages on the back seat. "Mike, I truly will pay you back. How much was it?"
" I don't know. It's only money and I know you will...It's OK"
They went back to the shops.
She ending up getting some blue jeans and some sweats and T-shirts. Mike wasn't sure about some of her choices. After all, women in dungarees was kind of strange to him.
The entire time, he found himself looking at her entirely too much, The way her hands flitted like birds along the fabric of a skirt, the back of her neck as she bent her head down to take a closer look at a pair of shoes. These were feelings he hadn't had since he got hit by that bus.
Maggie was only dimly aware of all this. To her, the whole situation still had that feel of a waking dream. She did consider him, though, the way she considered any decent, handsome men she spent time with, what few there were. He didn't give off the waves of horniness and selfishness that so many others did. The way he befriended her and the way he seemed to truly care for her as a person went a long way towards off setting his lumpy, awkward personality.
Still, she supposed she better get her life or whatever it was that passed for it, together before she thought about any of that.
Mike was happy, when all was said and done. He actually had a friend. He didn't want to mess that up.

When they returned, they put away their packages. She tried on her new gear, asking him for his opinion on this or that. He didn't have the heart to tell her that there was no real stringent dress code and that Jenny had once shown up wearing a grass skirt and a coconut bra. Florian did draw the line at that and told her that wearing landscaping materials and produce might be violating some corporate code somewhere.
He also felt obliged to try on his own purchases as drab as they were.
She played sudoku, which gave him a headache once he was enticed away from his crossword puzzle and tried it.
Later, they went bowling where she proceeded to school him on the art of losing.

Pissville

He sat her down in the front room, in his favorite chair, right next to the radio. He loved the radio. He turned it on and let it warm up. The golden glow of the dial highlighted the "CROSLEY" on the face. "Just have a seat" he called over his shoulder as he headed to the kitchen, "I'll fix us a drink". He came back with a couple of rum and cokes with a little ice. "Go ahead and tune something in if you don't like dance music". The sounds of big band filled the air as he left the room
He headed into the guest room. There was a low iron framed bed with a good firm mattress on it. He started making the bed quickly, tucked in the flannel sheets from the closet and did the hospital corners. The final touch was a grey blanket he put on army style, tight enough to bounce a quarter. He centered the pillow in a snowy white case. Just right.
"Ok, come on back. I think there's some good clothes for you here in the closet".
She stepped in through the doorway. "Whoa, what's with the prison bunk?.
He felt like an ass. "Uh, that's how I make a bed. "
She was starting to take on all the fine attributes of a pain in the ass, and so soon.
The clothes were much better. He wasn't much of a judge of these things, but she seemed pleased and a little amused. She picked out a nice yellow knee-length dress with little green vines and red flowers. "Top of the line vintage, really cute. "
"I'll let you get changed. I'm gonna change too....in my room.." feeling more like a jack ass by the minute, he went and put on some slacks and a t-shirt. Then he sat in the living room and listened to Louis Armstrong and sipped his drink. One of the good things about the afterlife was that you never got drunk. You enjoyed your drink. You tasted it and breathed in the essence of everything that went into it. You felt a bit mellow, but it never got to the knee walking,blind roaring drunk. The same thing with food. You didn't have to eat though. A lot of people didn't eat at all. Mike ate the occasional things like pop tarts, but he was never one to revel in the sensual aspects of food. It was more of a habit. Of course in the old style afterlife, like in Roman town, or valhalla, there was a lot of feasting, but there were no outhouses. Go figure.
She walked in to the room. She had found some high heeled shoes and had taken the time to put her hair up. Mike looked up from the floor. She looked like an illustration from the Saturday Evening Post. "You look..it looks really good"
"Thank you,but we are going shopping tomorrow...how does that work? Do I have to borrow money from you, because I'm already staying here I'm not just freeloading if I can help it....."
"Maggie, you won't need money, this isn't hell, ok?and I'm not looking to...just stay with me and we'll get you settled and I'll show you the ropes.
They listened to the radio for a while and then the first part of mystery theater came on. Now it was Maggie's turn to feel like an ass.
"Mike, do you have a T.V.?"
She said T.V. slowly and distinctly like he might not know what television was..
"You mean one of them there Farnsworth devices?..Them picture eyeboxes?"
"Dude, yeah..." She blushed a little.
" Yeah, I got a T.V. but the guys upstairs borrowed it last week. They wanted to get all the t.v.'s the could get their hands on. I'll go get it..you're right, this kinda sucks.

He went upstairs and knocked on the door. It was unusually quiet this evening. Johnny Motor opened the door. He smiled when he saw Mike, a pall mall was hanging out of the corner of his cupidinous lips. Fronds from his greasy jet black pompadour were just so dangling in front of his eyes. Johnny Motor was a handsome motherfucker. They all were.
"Mike, I bet I know why you're here. Come on back" He followed Johnny back into the huge living room/recording studio/art gallery that he and the other guys lounged around in.
He handed Mike a good sized, sleek flat screen tv.
"What the...where's my RCA?"
"Sorry, man. couldn't be saved. Hans over here perforated it with his shootin' iron"
Hans looked up mournfully from his Louis Lamour paperback. "I'm really sorry, Mike. It was a accident...." He frowned and shrugged.
Johnny continued, " Hey, if it's any consolation, we're using some of the tubes on our super amp...and it's Hans' t.v.. don't forget the remote." He tossed the equally sleek remote to him and Mike almost dropped the screen trying to catch it.. Georgie and Otto were in the corner soldering electronics in a giant armoire. They looked like twins, immensely tall, cadaverously thin twins with long hair. The only way he could tell them apart was that Georgie always wore converse sneakers, Chuck Taylors, and Otto always wore boots. They waved at him. "Sorry, Mike" they said almost in unison. Otto returned to jamming a fork somewhere in the guts of the superamp eliciting sparks, smoke and noise.
Johnny walked him to the door. "Those boys set their mind to it, they just won't turn it loose."
Mike returned gingerly lugging the new tv. He set it on top of the little table in the corner, plugged it in, and tossed her the remote.
"Try it"
She did. In the afterlife, you could watch hundreds of channels. The Albanian Shopping network was on. What the hell was Hans watching that for?
She clicked through until she found "Welcome back Kotter". They sat watching, silently, like any new roomates, satisfied with their surroundings, each not wanting to bother the other.
Finally, it was time to go to their own rooms. Maggie lay curled up in her dress, not wanting to disturb the blanket beneath her. She felt like she must be dreaming still. She thought about Mike and how she had a million questions for him.
Mike thought about the following day, and smelled the cinnamon on his fingers in complete wonderment wth the feeling that something huge might happen.

pissville

On the way home, she slept on the back seat. Mike drove down the broad streets of downtown that ran through the concrete canyons of skyscrapers and oldbildings with gargoyles and wrought iron balconies.The afterlife was populated and furnished with people and objects that had been torn down or destroyed. There is a constant jumble of architecture and styles that made no sense to the casual observer. He stopped at a light just before the freeway. It was the beginning of the long holiday and "sweet home alabama" wasblastin from the bright red El Camino right next to him. He couldn't help but groove to it. He felt kinship with his fellow commuters. Already, lights were coming on all around downtown.
After getting onto the freeway and off of it, he drove through the neighborhood. He passed by one of the newly damned, a young arab man in a green field jacket. His hands were fused to a gun, blackened, useless, and twisted. Scores of tiny black orcs were crawling all over him eating him alive as he screamed. They had already gotten to his dick and balls. So much for his 72 virgins waiting for him in the glorious heaven of jihad. The orcs mockingly screamed "Allahu Akhbar" in their tiny chipmunk voices. Mike rolled down the window. "Have a nice forever, fucking douche." Maggie stirred uncomfortably in the back seat. He turned on his favorite radio station and drove off a few blocks down where he parked his car right in front of the house. It stood inside of its picket fence with a tidy little yard and a solid porch. When he moved in, it was fully furnished and covered in the remnants of its prior occupants. There was a guest room that he planned on installing maggie in and several other large rooms beside his own bedroom. The house was full of books and pictures. The books were all in German.
Sensing that the car had stopped, Maggie rose up from her place in the back seat and looked around. "Are we there yet?"
"Yes, we are. Come on in and make yourself comfortable".He went around the car and opened her door. He escorted her up the front stairs. "There's a band that live upstairs. I hope the noise doesn't bother you."
"I'm sure it'll be fine."

Pissville

"..... I was sitting on that bench seat on the back of the bus..and then, this dark young man, I guess it was an Arab, stood up and started shooting people. There were kids on the bus. I had a sculpture in my lap that I was dropping off at my friend's gallery downtown. My car is in the shop, so I decided to take the bus to save cab fare. Here I was with about twenty pounds of bronze sea shells and fern leaves that I had worked up in my shop. He turned to me..I was about three feet away with a cinnabon in one hand and this thing in the other..so I hit him in the face with it. Then he shot me. I could feel the heat from it and then here I am., Like that. This is where I am now. Am I in a coma or am I dead?"
Mike looked down at the book on the table between them. "Neither", he said. "You aren't dead any more than I am or all the billions of people here. You just passed through one existence into another"
He paused, knowing what comes next.
"I can't be dead. What about my cat or my Mom and Dad? What about my job and the kids in my class?"
"I know what you're going through because I had to go through it too. Come along with me and I'll show you around. I'll get you settled. this is your afterlife. There's heaven and hell and the afterlife. They used to call it Hades a long time ago. We have music and art and fun and jobs and all that good stuff only no one gets sick and no one dies."
She looked around, numbly. " Why am I not in Heaven? Why? I'm a good person and I never fucked anybody over"
"Most people don't get into heaven. What religion are you?"
" I'm a Unitarian..."
"So you would be in the same category as me.."unchurched". It's all in the rule book. I was agnostic." He picked up the book and started to look for the section that he first saw when he got here.
"Besides, Heaven is a place where you lose all identity and become a thread in a huge tapestry that hangs in the vast palace of God. Apparently, it's so awesome and pure, that I can't even imagine it. Do you really want to be like that?"
"Not really, no. I just want to be me,"
He reached across the table and held her white, thin hand. "Well, here you are...."

Later that day, she slept on the black leather couch in the office that Florian had the staff bring in. He reviewed files and surfed the internet waiting for closing time. It was Friday before a five day weekend. Florian poked his head in the door. "How is she?" he asked.
"About as well as can be expected. She was pissed off at not being in heaven."
"I know the feeling, but she'll come around. Go ahead and leave early."
"Thanks, I'll finish this file and we'll go home."
Mike looked over at her nestled in the big leather jacket resting her head on his folded up blazer. Her blonde hair looked like wisps of smoke on a night sky the way it fanned across the dark fabric and on to the darker leather of the couch. He could see the curve of her ear peeking out through the strands. He found himself looking over at her more and more and less at the screen of his computer.
A loud knock shocked him out of this awkward doldrum.
"Hey! Mike. Look what I found" Jenny walked in with her new hire, a thirty-ish man with curly black hair and brown eyes under bushy black eyebrows. He was wearing a pink bathrobe with quilted silk lapels, rather awkwardly as he was at least six feet tall with the broad shoulders of a habitual swimmer or stevedore. He glanced around, taking it all in. He seemed to have the air of someone who was just walking through a dream as though being awakened after death by a red haired amazon was a common occourence.
"Horace, this is Mike. has a new hire too.."
"Hello Mike." Mike stood up and they shook hands.
" Looks like you didn't think of everything, at least MINE has SHOES"
Mike looked over the edge of his desk to see Horace wearing fuzzy pink slippers on the ends of his hairy muscular legs.
Jenny Ennyone laughed and looked over at Maggie's curled toes poking out of the end of the jacket.
"We're out. Hope we see you this weekend."
She walked out with Horace in her wake. Mike just sighed. It all seemed such a pain in the ass. He liked his space and never felt comfortable playing the host, but she had nowhere else to go and it was up to him to make sure she got settled.
He shut off his computer,filed his papers, and cleared his desk. He turned back toward Maggie only to see that she was sitting up on the couch and looking up at him.
"Come home with me. We've got a long holiday this weekend...please."
She looked at him, holding the bundled blazer in her lap, considering him, thinking about her situation.
"OK, but I need to get some clothes. I am not walking around like some barefoot flasher."
Mike smiled.

Pissville

Mike took the elevator down to the intake lobby. These were scattered all over the afterlife and no two were exactly alike. When he opened the door, he stepped into a room that looked like a doctor's office. There was glaringly white tile, a potted plant and three black plastic and chrome chairs. In the corner, his new hire was curled up into a tight ball. Its skin was pale and wet. For some reason, when you made the journey, it was freezing and there was rain or dew in the air. This is what everyone could agree on when they compared their stories. He approached slowly and calmly. The huddled shape was shakng and moaning a bit. How remarkable that this person had been alive just mere moments before...had put on clothes and drank a cup of coffeee this morning, said hi to the neighbors, pet the cat and left the house all with the expectation that they would still be alive the next morning, the next year and so on.
The form on the floor began to slowly un-curl. He was at a loss for words. She, it was most definitely a woman, began to put her hand down on the floor and steady herself. her blonde hair was soaked and hung down t her shoulders. He was just standing there, frozen. He could only remember bits and pieces of when he first got here. The muscles on her arms stood out as she struggled to get on all fours and stand. She reached for the edge of the black chair closest to her.
He unfroze and stepped forward with the coat in one hand placing the book on the seat of one of the chairs.
"Ummm, hello. My name is Mike. I'm here to help you". It sounded like a completely inadequate thing to say. He stepped forward and helped her into the chair. She sat down, but she was still doubled over. He draped the coat over her shoulders. It enveloped her and she instinctively wrapped it around her and her shivering began to perceptibly lessen.
"What's your name, dear?" In his nervousness, he reverted to talking to her as though she was a lost child.
"ugggh, uh Maggie" she looked up at him. Her eyes were blue and her face was pale with a small sprinkle of freckles. "Where am I?..what happened?" She looked around the neutral space numbly at first and then with a bit more interest. The coat was big on her and would have reached to her ankles if she were standing..
He sat down in the chair beside her. Her profile was to him and she was looking down at her pale bare feet. She was in a semi-aware state still. She slowly began to put her arms through the sleeves of the coat.
"Am I dreaming....or in a coma?"
"Well, what's the last thing you remember?" This was the first question he remembered Florian asking him.
" I'm on the bus. It's Saturday morining. We were just going past the starbucks on State street......"
The soul knew what was going on already. The rest of her was catching up

pissville

During the meeting, the department head, Florian, was looking over at Mike and Jenny and furrowing his brow. Mike scribbled and doodled like they all did, because meetings in the afterlife were even more rambling and pointless than they are in the here and now. At one point, when Bryan from accounting was talking about issues concerning the new shekel and how figures from past accounting would have to be migrated to the tables indicating...blah..blah...blah, he caught Florian doing it again. He and Jenny glanced at each other quizzically.
"Ask him" she mouthed the words.
"no, YOU" he mouthed back.
She kicked him under the conference table..
"Wanker...."
"jackass" he replied softly.
Florian, realizing what was going on hmmmphed, and wagged his finger at the both of them, just as he would have during his old old monastic days.
Finally, something from the mayors office. The demonic bureacrats would occassionally teleconference if there was reason to. The battered plastic thingy on the table started talking about current events. Now, demonic voices are almost impossible to discern at first since they use static the way we use whatever the heck it is we use to talk.
"kkkkkkk eeeeee iiii uahooo.........Thank you all for your kind attention" it went on to squawk and hiss.
"Lately, you might have noticed that the damned have been wandering around a lot more than usual. In fact, some of them seem intent on settling down by the old Roman afterlife area. As I'm sure you'll agree, they are a nuisance because they often prove intrusive and they also draw our minions....uh, orcs...(We rather like that one, yes). Truth to tell there are just so damned many of them, no pun intended, and life up top as it were is so awful and pointless and grim that, they just aren't suffering enough. By the time they get here, they are so thoroughly mean and nasty....well, I don't mean to bore you with shop talk..."
Actually, Mike was quite interested. He'd been here so long and there were always nuances and loopholes to look into.
"I just want to make sure you understand that management..and I mean local and UNIVERSAL management are going to make some changes soon and I think you may appreciate those changes....at least we all hope you will. Umm, have a nice day, everybody, Thanks so much.
Then he was out..
.Bryan used a clipboard to swat at the flames coming from the conference speaker.

Mike was just about to swivel out of his chair and make dash for his office. He was suddenly very interested in his field phone and his 13....12 files. Jenny had the same idea and, since she was smarter and faster than he was, she was almost to the door.
"Mike...Jenny..a word with you both please." Florian spoke quietly and calmly and just a bit amused. The way he said their names, it might just as well have been "come here tweedle dee and tweedle dumbass"
" You two are my best workers, I want you to know that, which is why, when management asked me to pick mentors for two new hires...I just had to pick you. That and the fact is that you are so good that you are getting lazy and we can't have that."
Florian always had to mix sincere praise with humourous criticism.
Mike spoke up first, " I thought we were in trouble..."
"Well, I'm not doing you any favors, that's for sure."
"When are they getting here, chief?"
"About fifteen minutes. Neither one of you have ever had a new hire so I suggest
you actually read your employee handbook you ignored on your first day here about
forever ago"

"Damn, I never read that thing. It's propping up my monitor"
"Me neither, " said Mike,
"And, unlike you, I never had a mentor"
"Why not?" he asked.
" I'm an old fashioned Etruscan girl.In My day, you woke up by a river after you died
and started walking, either that or you got to turn into an olive tree.

Sitting behind his desk, trying to concentrate on the parchment and leather employee handbook, he remembered how he first felt in his first moments of afterlife. He was confused and kept telling himself he was in a coma or asleep in the hospital or he was just dozing on his sofa next to the radio and horror of horrors, he was dead and naked on a wooden bench like they have in train stations.
Florian's voice interrupted his reverie. "Mike, it's time. Don't keep her waiting"
He got up and grabbed the book almost spilling its loos pages on the ground.
"Oh, and Mike, don't forget my coat"
He grabbed the coat off the rack in the corner of his office by the doorway. It was luxurious, chocolate brown leather with a smooth silk lining black and loving. It was the same coat Florian had put over him when he went down to tell him all about afterlife.

Pissville

Now, he's at work. The building is modern and clean. He walks in past the security desk. There is a short elevator ride and then he leaves the lift and goes straight ahead into his office. The desk is a shiny slab of black wood like an expensive piece of chocolate. There are modern chairs in front of it and a black filing cabinet. On the surface of the desk is his laptop and, in contrast to everything else, a battered, grey and black german army field telephone, its black and stiff wires run into the sleek shining baseboard of the office. There is a small shiny red box with a little gold perforated speaker disk in the middle of it. right by his left elbow.
There was a soft knock on his doorway. He never closed his door at work. In walks Jenny Enyone. Today, she had bright red hair and freckles on her pale skin. Yesterday, she was black haired and blue eyed. She went through a phase last week where she was about six feet tall and black as licorice with corn rows.
"Hey, Jenny, that's a good look for you. How's it going?"
"Well, it's going. Do you have the Manson file?
He scoots over to the cabinet and pulls out a manilla folder about five inches thick and hands it to her.
"Glad to get rid of it. Are you taking it over for now?
"I guess so, everyone gets this damn thing eventually."
He was glad to be rid of it even though it was one of only thirteen he was actively working on.
A voice comes over the little red box,
"Ok everyone, staff meeting in five minutes..."
"Guess we better mosey, huh?" says Jenny.

Pissville

Mike lived in hell. Actually, he lived in a suburb of hell between purgatory and south central hell. The town he lived in constantly changed names as it grew and shrank due to lava flows and insanity. Currently, his town was named pissville.
Before that it was named assneck after the famous televangelist Jerry Falwell. They had a parade for him when he died and a couple of orcs continually shoved his bawling head up his own ass while they forced him barefoot along the jagged streets into hell. He had to toss his own salad just to get enough breath to scream.
Oh yes, another thing about hell is that the current slang for demons is Orcs. "Demon" sounds so medieval. Orc is kind of cool and contemporary. You would think that a place of eternal torment and damnation would be rooted in tradition, but it's not. Everything keeps changing arbitrarily at a maddening pace. It's one of the more subtle punishments especially since so many souls here are old and peevish and they hate change. Besides, like the rule book says, "if you do anything long enough you'll get used to it..and we can't have that".

Mike was running late for work as always. He didn't have time for breakfast so he grabbed a moldy poptart and bolted out the door. He lived on the bottom floor of a two story brick house. There was an industrial noise band that lived upstairs. This guaranteed that he only got four or five hours of sleep a night. Last night, they were using a desert eagle .357 magnum pistol and an oil drum to lay down a rhythm track on their new album. The house had white picket fence and he walked down the sidewalk strewn with fast food wrappers and mickey's big mouth bottles. This was a sure sign that orcs had been hanging out last night. Sure enough, there were greasy hand prints on his windshield and a ropy turd on the hood. He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and moved aside just in time to avoid two orcs throwing what looked like Donald Trump on the hood of his car laughing and shouting, "You're FIRED!! now eat that shit, beeyatch!" They were frog marching him around and his trousers were down around his ankles. They moved on.Eventually, Trump would get sucked in to hell where the real torture would start.
Mike was not slated for extreme damnation. He was an atheist who was never fully evangelized. In fact, he never heard about God and Jesus until he was in his thirties and that was mostly in a litrature class he was taking at the local community college. It never really piqued his curiosity. He led a quiet, decent life with more ups than downs and ended up getting hit by a bus while walking to the store to get his girlfriend a hershey bar and some tampons. See, a pretty nice guy.
This morning, though, he was running late for his job at the Infernal Review Service. He worked as a claims reviewer at the IRS. You see, there is a special phone deep in the bowels of hell which the damned struggle to find, and after much hardship, they reach it in hopes that their pleas for leniency will be successful. Usually they are put on hold where they are forced to listen to the most horrible music ever for ....a very..long...time. Then, they are told to leave a voice mail with a call back number and their Soul Index Number. Not one of them has a phone with any bars and no one has ever really been given their Soul Index Number. Mike is there for the ones who actually get through. He begins to tell the frantic callers how they can in fact, get their Soul Index Number and file a form to have their iniquities reviewed. It is usually at this point that the phone cuts out and the caller hs to try again and again. Of all the souls who have tried, only a handfull have gotten reviews and had their sentences reduced. This seems to be a punishment reserved for bureaucrats and health insurance executives who put people through bureucratic nightmares while they suffered and died waiting for help that the company just needed a little more time to get the right forms filed.
Mike hated his afterlive, but he had to admit it wasn't all bad.

Is wrestling fake?

Today marks 7 years since the terrible day. Now, a lot of people are putting two fingers up their asses and waving their plastic flags for the government and that's just sad. A lot of other people are squawking about how it was an inside job and the ________________, (insert wacky culprits here..ie. Jews, Masons, Bildebergers, renegade CIA agents, Bonesmen, iraqis, iranians, whatever) are responsible because they have taken over the government and that's just fucking stupid. But so much bullshit prevails about that and everything else we've gotten into like....

1. THEY HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOM-- Call Bullshit on that. They hate us because we have been supporting repressive regimes all over the region in order to keep a lid on their weird populist religious political parties. The leaders of these movements are not as mallleable as the current ones. Therefore, we help keep a lid on them and they can't do shit about it....until they spend about three quarters of a million bucks and send some assholes to drop the towers and do something with the pentagon , maybe. I still don't know what they meant to accomplish..oh yeah, dragging a super power into their own turf and radicalizing the populace against them, kinda like they did with the Soviets.

2. U.S. TROOPS ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR FREEDOM-- Again, "Ca-Ca del Toro". U.S. troops are out there doing it because they are professionals and they are the best. They raised their hands and took an oath. They are for the most part extremely honorable and dedicated to protecting the weak from the strong. Defending my freedom is MY job..and I took the same oath they did a long time ago. I still haven't UN-taken it.

3. WE MUST ACHEIVE "VICTORY" IN IRAQ-- Our troops won the campaign way back in 03. What we have here is an occupation..or reconstruction, if you will.There is no victory. We are not occupiers. This whole exercise has been tried in Iraq before. Look it up in the history books to see how well that worked.

Don't get me started on that whole fake Republican Vs. Democrat thing. At least in wrestling you might get to see some trailer trash chicks between matches.

hard times..

Worked a little lick today. Met some interesting people. Quote of the day was....

"you gotta work seven days a week to get your nuts outta the mud"


yeah, damn right.
I am amazed by how many of the men I work with are talking hatefully about the political situation. Even the most mild mannered ones I talk to are saying that we need to overthrow the government or that the government should be afraid of us and not the other way around. It makes me wonder if there is going to be a secret police set up just to keep these kinds of sentiments from acheiving some kind of critical mass.
There's only so much talk radio bullshit people are willing to listen to. You can only raise the threat level to orange so many times or talk about victory when there is no real war just an occupation and a desperate effort to keep a lid on everything that could come back and bite us in the ass after all stupid things the ivy league "deciders" have done.
There's only so many reports on how strong the economy is and how things are just about to turn the corner that people can register.

push a man and he pushes back.

Haikus for the distinguished.....

Three cheers for your red
white and blue plastic Jesus
hope you have cancer


There is not enough
hellfire to punish your ass
let's start HERE and NOW!


We just can't forget
the black stench of burning shit
die in the latrine.


always one more tree
and a chump to work for less
don't drink the water.

The bell

Here it is. The end of Summer. The time, for us, when our oldest, our five year old enters the System. I wasn't there for the drop off, but I did go and pick her up. I was told to wait outside a set of steel mesh gates while the teacher escorted the group down a series of halls in formation. After they reached the exit, the teacher dutifully waited for each one of her charges to be picked up by a parent.
This whole process was understandably a huge deal. Still, I felt kind of embarrassed for giving my little ape a big hug and picking her up. That was until I noticed that a lot of the parents were there with huge camera rigs and some of them even had flowers. I looked at the faces of the little kids after the first day of school and a couple of them looked really tired but they all had a kind of exuberance that kids have when they meet a challenge and come out ok. Some of the hovering moms looked like they'd been crying for days. A lot of these young, soft parents had a look of almost guilt that they'd put their little darlngs in the belly of the beast. It was kind of weird.
I am glad,though, that we spent a day and all night waiting in line to get her transferred to this
school. This is a group of parents that, for all their faults, are going to be deeply engaged in helping their kids squeeze every drop of knowledge and fun that they can from their first years of education. I guess we all have a little growing up to do.

slumber

pity the unloved
they cannot ever miss
what they are missing
knowing only the feeling
of an empty ache
like some cold fibrous
shrapnel
that never works its way out
of a wound...
instead it grows larger and more
urgently heavy
first the pit of the stomach
and then the heart
and it makes its way to the
suburbs of the limbs
shoring itself up with bones
that turn to icy lead
and then it makes its way
behind the eyes
there it nests
and kills desire before it
can glow its way into
the brain or makes music
weak and broken, irrelevant
there it grows until
no thaw, no sun, can
undo the grey, icy mud.
Years from now the unloved
corpse will shit the bed after decades of toil
and neglect,
reverting to its pre-determined state.

free range americans

I'm at the beach, so I'm busy trying to keep the offspring from drowning and distracted by the shake and bake sand batter on all things delicate and sensitive.
What I just thought of today is that we are running out of free range Americans. Nobody is born at home anymore, like my Mom and Dad were and nobody damn sure dies there. There is something sad about that. I don't mean to romanticize poverty, but there was a time when we knew where we came from and we knew what we were eating and we saw each other for more than a few minutes at a time.
The people I see here at the beach are good enough. They are heavier than they should be, just like me, but they are active and they love each other. I just don't feel like these are the people who could fight off a commanche or keep floodwaters at bay with shovels all night.
They....we...are the people who are most likely to stand on our roofs in the baking sun waiting for helicopters that no longer exist. We always say, "somebody needs to do something about all this shit...." but we never mean for that somebody to be US. I miss the free range American. Perhaps they are just beneath the surface in each one of us, just beneath the XXXL polo shirt, the sunscreen and the flab.

Diplomacy

Let the respectable men take
their places and let the rest
of us look on until something more
interesting,
nudges us along.
It's when they open their dry
and polished lips
and talk of death and fire
like common household
cleaners or minor league
sports results,
that I wish we could demand
they step out on the sand
with nets and tridents or just
plain knives
and let the pulsing spray
decide who lives
and dies.

Nightmare in Ossetia

There is terrible news from a distant land. Most people never heard of Ossetia until 2004 when Chechen rebels took over a school and held all the children, teachers, and parents hostage. The siege ended in a massive storming of the school in which over 385 people where killed. That was in North Ossetia, which is an autonomous part of the Russian Federation.
South Ossetia is home to about 70,000 people, most of whom are Russified and most of whom carry Russian passports. The Ossetians embraced Christianity in the 9th century. After that, they found themselves faced with formidable enemies like the Mongols and the Chechens, Tatars, and Ingush...these latter groups were devout muslims and attacked the ossetians relentlessly. In the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th, they found a useful ally in the Russian empire. Large numbers of Chechens and Ingush were deported during and after WWII by the soviets because of their collaboration with the nazis.Later on, they tried to return to their original homes and began re-establishing their old enclaves.

Now we have Georgia, an ancient country (christian too) that is at the crossroads between east and west. They tried to take Ossetia in 1991 sensing weakness in the Russians. Now, there is a big problem between Russia and Georgia. DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR AND READ ABOUT THIS CONFLICT! That includes my own efforts. But this is not black and white, good guy bad guy. Americans love that shit, but this is not one of those situations. This is a situation involving oil and strategic control. Be warned, reports of atrocities and attempts to destroy oil pipelines need to be taken with a whole damn bag of salt.

HNIC

I would rather write about aliens with crab lice or archery instead of politics. However, it seems like my next story involves a former president who retreats to his south american lair to do various acts of nastiness and evil. This story is in development because the president in question has bought a vast tract of land in Ecuador recently. File that under "no, really,no shit".
W has also told everybody that anyone who subpoenas anyone the white house should just roll that piece of paper up and shove it up their own ass for all the good it will do them. A brave stance. A real man of principles.

He has also said " the constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper". Hell yeah.



Well, scene one is in a vast south american villa. Exterior , gleaming white walls, red tile. broken bottles on top of thick fortifications. There is a perfectly manicured expanse of green lawn with little hillocks breaking the smooth surface. There is a sign in spanish and english in the foreground with a skull and crossbones in the foreground that reminds the viewer to turn off the minefield before doing any outside maintainence. Pan over the whole scene. There are guards lounging around in black BDU's with super modern bullpup assault rifles.

Interior scene. This is a room decorated in a mixture of splendor and disarray like the home of a successful pirate. There are three bigscreen tv's and works of art that have been shot through and or vandalized with sharpies. on he center of a long mahogany table there is a huge golden cup with a longhorn logo on it. in heavy silver letters on the big rim it reads "HNIC"

Enter the President, he is wearing khakis and a brilliant white wifebeater shirt. on his feet, he has flip flops. His hair is tousled. He has a bottle of scotch in his hand. He has a bluetooth earpiece and he is talking to someone on the phone. He is flustered and keeps bringing the bottle up to take a drink and then he gets irritated by the person on the other end and lowers it.

Pres: " Hey...I know what you're going through...but...no just give it to them and
do what you can.... NO NO NO!!! Stop thinking like a bitch. It's fucking plutonium,
..as far as they know."

He puts his hand up and shuts of the phone. He takes a little sip of the scotch.
enter dick cheney on an electric scooter wheelchair. He has an oxygen tube in his nose.

Pres: (happy to see him) Pops! what the hell. You need to stay in bed.
Dick: No, I'm fine. The people here live clean and I can really feel the difference.
Pres: Shit man, I ought to start selling hearts on the open market.
Dick: I'll order a dozen...as needed.

Dick turns on the big screen with his remote.
Jerry Springer is on..

( to be continued)

dusty gum.

Sometimes love is unexpected,
and so there are no cards for
this quaint occasion
when you feel the warm stare on the back
of your neck or you are sure a
special one leans in just
a bit more than necessary and puts
that hand on your arm
to speak softly, to stay
and now arrives the moment
when you are thinking about those eyes
that you pass by a store window
or tie your shoe by a fountain you
never saw before
and see just how frail you have
become in the skin over your knuckles
or how the
lines of your striking frame have
gone more oboe than clarinet.....
No, love is unexpected and the
dumbest, saddest,
clown in town.

Dumb

I have had a rough time getting the time and energy to get in here and write something. Sorry.
Right now, I'm putting a hold on the "all the riches of this earth" story. I want to polish this crappy plastic little piece of bling and maybe send it on to Analog or something else. Suffice it to say it is a silly story involving an alien janitor, a long journey, a brothel, crab lice,vestigal antennae, balls out trippin', and the true underlying nature of desire and fame.

Today,I saw something lovely and heartwarming. I was stuck behind a car at a light. The driver of the car in front was on her cel. phone throughout the whole green arrow phase of the light. I honked politely and she continued to ignore the light. What sunk in like a hand grenade with a thirty second fuse, is that she had two bumper stickers. On the right she had one that read "WORK HARDER, millions of welfare recipients depend on you" on the left she had
"God doesn't believe in atheists"

I wonder if I could print up stickers and put them on unsuspecting bumpers some day.
like...."GEORGE W. CUNT" or "Ask me about my Fistula" "I'm pro-life and I swallow"
"my other car is a slave wagon" Believe me, there are other far more offensive stickers, but I really don't feel like poppin' them off unless somebody asks.

The riches of the earth....

Far away in the deep cold reaches of space, there lived an alien race spread out over two planets and a dozen moons. That stuff isn't really that important. They were pleasant enough and they had been out of the trees far longer than we have. By trees, I really mean the jagged rocks pointing their way out of the shallows of a methane sea. This race was..or I should say is about the same size as we humans and they have the same number of limbs we do....after adolescence anyway.They live a very long time. It's this almost-immortality that makes this a story.
Now, when we imagine an ancient alien race, we imagine a smooth, efficient bunch of creatures with great technological advancements. In this case we'd be right, but not everything is so orderly. You see, no matter how awesome a society is, i still has individuals who are brilliant, sexy, and popular and those who are just sucking wind. This story is about an alien who just couldn't seem to get any respect on his native planet of Foo. He was a maintainence engineer in the great galactic department of motor vehicles.

BORIS..final

Butch has a life-flashing-before-his-eyes kind of moment. Cinderblocks through windows, a skinny hand clutching a chockfull of nuts can full of twenties. Girls with dead eyes riding his johnson high as hell....pistol whipping an accountant turned crackhead while his ex-wife walks in the door with the kid for weekend custody drop off...
Seeing his degenerate gambler dad beg and plead for one more chance to lose more money he didn't have. Even the bookie's giant cousin had a queasy look on his face witnessing this display..Butch looked on wishing someone would kick his dad's face in..

A shadow fills the door. Butch is barely conscious of this. Boris is here to score a bit for some shitty music fest out in the desert. He sees the gruesome scene. Shudders a bit and then he sees the bag full of cash and drugs. This is the beautiful pearl of his wishes and dreams, lying there in the blood and the glass. He goes and grabs it, then stops. An old plastic phone is on the dingy wall right by the couch. Like in the movies, he wraps his shirt tail around it pushes the buttons with only his fingernail.
"911 do you need police, fire, or EMS?"
"someone here is been shooted and dying. Other one is dead."
Boris gives the address one time and drops the phone. The dispatchers voice is still squawking at the other end. He splits with the bag full of incriminating evidence that would give Butch at least twenty years to remember rule #2 of dealing drugs..."never keep the weight where you lay your head."

Sirens and flashing lights are the next set of backdrops for Butch. He flickers in and out of this world. The doctors manage to get things sewed up and put enough A+ back inside of his carcass to bring him back.
Later, the Doctor is swimming laps at the health club. He stops to catch his breath and thinks about the scruffy gunshot he helped patch up, satisfied at being able to do something so real and important, and thinking to himself that, true to form, he'll probably see him again shot or stabbed or overdosed. He puts his face back into the silent water and kicks forward, not knowing that he is completely wrong.

Boris #4

They drove along. Tom began his story.
"I was raised by my mom and grandparents. I grew up and went into the Army. I signed up when I was seventeen so that I had about ten days between graduation and boot camp. I was a mechanic and I really liked working on anything that rolled. I re-enlisted, but in my sixth year, my leg got tore up and I got discharged. 20% disability. I worked out here in a shop and when the owner died, he left it to me. such as it was.....I got married that year to my girlfriend. She's from Louisiana and the best cook in the world. We have two daughters, Lucy, She's seven, and
Fran, she's twelve. ..Fran is short for Francesca. That's pretty much all there is to me. It ain't much, but I never wanted a whole lot. You might want to hold pressure on that wound and try to keep still. That's all I'm sayin'."
Later, they were parked in front of Tom's shop. "Meyer's Automotive". "I kept the name, because it only seemed right. I really looked up to him. He treated me like a son, no offense"
"Nah, that's cool"
It was dark now and they were sitting on the warm hood of the car. Butch counted at least three shooting stars.
"What'd you wish for? Tom asked.
" Another chance"
Tom turned slowly to face him. As though with another voice he asked, "What's the worst thing you ever did?
The falling star overhead stopped in its tracks. The world stopped and he turned his thoughts inward. He had been lying on the floor bleeding for two minutes...

Boris #3

He sits down in the passenger seat. Butch looks over at him as the car begins rolling along, crunching gravel then more rapidly they get to highway speed. The scrub whizzes by and the sun still beats down. ....
Time for small talk, Butch notices scrapes on the back of the hitch hiker's left hand. He seems to be in his thirties with tanned skin and strong features. His eyes are a deep blue which stand out like they were brand new.
"Hey, how's it goin' ?"
"Better now that you're giving me a lift and all"
"Butch" he extends his hand. The other guy shakes it firmly. He has callouses which is a good sign. That means a working man and not some convict or doper.
"Tom Grider...Really thanks for picking me up" The mans eyes never leave his face.
"Well, I kinda had no choice. The car just goes where it wants to."
"Maybe it goes where it HAS to." Tom pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He shakes one out. Butch notices that he flipped a lucky, which is something he always did.
"want one?"
"Hells yeah" says Butch. Tom hands one over. It smelled good. He flicked his zippo and the smell of the fluid was sharp and strong, like jet fuel or a cookout.
"So, how are YOU doin' Butch? "
"Pretty bad. I'm dying right now. Right now, I'm laying on a dirty floor and I'm bleeding."
"Life's a bitch. It's funny though. I mean besides that you don't have any other problems to worry about, huh?
Butch was starting to feel....comfortable. The pain in his shins was subsiding. Tom went on,
"Well, I died in my other life. But I didn't really know that I was dead. Then I got this life."
"What do you mean?"
"Well Dad, I was kind vacumed out of mom and poof. I didn't even know what darkness was. I was high as hell though"
Butch felt a deep hurt..
"No no no, what I really mean is that my life force was redirected or that the chances lined up or whatever and here I am. "
"How?"
"In one time, My Mama scored dope from a guy who was watching Space Ghost and he was distracted from cutting it right. The guy who was supposed to step on it before he got it was running late for his cousin's baptism did a piss poor job of it too."
Butch felt a small twinge of relief when he realized that he had never been all that into Space Ghost and never watched TV and chopped at the same time.
"In the other time, she got pulled over for a broken tailight with two balloons of smack in her purse and got the chain put on her. She kicked in jail and had me seven months later. In the first one, she OD'd and went comatose and I was out. The second one is what you see here Dad.
"Oh, shit."
"Yeah, you are in deep kimchi right about now."
"So, who are you besides a name, Tom...son?"

boris #2

He finds himself driving an old blue ford he used to own when he was a teenager. The seat springs poke into his back at odd uncomfortable angles. There is a searing heat that seems to come from the engine compartment or a heater vent that's open full blast. It feels like his shins are on a slow bake. The landscape outside is washed in sun. There are rocks and scrub brush and naked barbed wire on the side of the road. This has to be West Texas or another more lush state in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The dash is cracked and covered in dust. He turns on the radio, which is AM only. It only gets one station. It comes in with crackles and buzzes like far off lightning strikes. It sounds like talk radio with a fuzzy drift of Mexican music that drops in from time to time like sets of waves on a deserted beach. There is too much sun and his eyes hurt. Not even a windmill breaks the monotony. Far off, he sees a black shape standing by the road. He feels a creeping unease. A dark haired man in an old green coat and jeans has his hand out thumbing a ride. Butch pushes the accelerator and passes him by....
"What these people fail to realize is that...el gallo de cielo...no way that they are ever going..en mi corazoooooooon...a responsibility for their own....y te quiero cada vez.....it's just
class warfare.....por favor no me......completely hate america and the oil.....Bzzzzzz....
amoooooooooor....."
Miles later, he sees the same hitchhiker up ahead holding his thumb out. The car slows down and stops on its own. The man looks in the back before getting in. Butch is not in control. He realizes that this is a dream or a vision

(DRAFT--Boris gets the Bag)

This story is a road to nowhere.
There is no such thing as a ghost, but here we are able to listen in on thoughts and see what lies ahead sometimes even guide the hands of the people that we create. There are three things you know about Butch. He is what's left of a kid who grew up with no guidance and spends his time accordingly getting fucked up and making money off of other people getting high. The second thing you know about him is that he hates being alone and surrounds himself with people who are even more fucked up than he is. Finally, in the next few moments of this story, he is going to see the light. He is going to get shot and all his iniquities will be laid bare.
There's a knock on the door and he crosses the dirty floor from his old nappy couch to answer it. He opens up and sees Nacho with his dark eyes and shaved head. Nacho looks exactly like what he is. He grew up with plenty of guidance, but not from mom and dad. He tilts his chin up all cool and cholo and comes in all slow. Butch tells him to have a seat like he was one of the dozens of burn outs and tweakers that fall by to score dope or coke and end up staying high for a while on the couch. Nacho says he'd rather stand looking at the dirty chairs and couch and then back to his clean pressed dickies and checkered shirt. Butch goes to the room where he keeps the detritus of his personal life and his mattress on the floor. He picks up a yellow gym bag with the big black block letters on it spelling out "Sport Life". The irony of this has managed to escape Butch's limited mind for the entire time he has had it. In the bag is the product he hasn't sold yet and the money for all the weight he has moved already. In the business world, this is called a "feld audit". Everything should add up. He is confident of this as Nacho goes through the bag. This is rule one of staying in one piece. "Don't fuck with your connection".
Nacho squats down and counts it out. It's all there. Butch is smiling, he always makes sure to turn on the goofy surfer dude charm when he deals with these people. He always offers a bong hit and tries to be as mellow as possible even though, no because, they scare the shit out of him. Nacho stands and reaches behind him as though he's pulling out his wallet to make change. Out comes the gun. It's a .380 new back in the day when they were playing New Order in the dance clubs. Black, cheap, and thick as a brick.
Butch would have been a decent tennis player if he hadn't spent most of his time getting high in the wooded area behind school. This is relevant because just as the first shot goes into his lower abdomen, the three foot glass bong with the heavy ceramic base is hitting nacho on his left cheekbone just under the eye. The bong is really a thing of beauty from an engineering standpoint. It is a perfect cylinder of thick, heat resistant glass securely fused to a base made up of a soup can filled with concrete that has been embedded in a heavy ceramic base that has been colorfully decorated and glazed with skulls wearing party hats. There is one hole in this cylinder. In it is a rubber donut with a glass stem poking out. In that stem is a smaller, delicate glass stem with a blown bowl and a little handle for pulling it out. In the bowl is a glowing bud of sticky reefer waiting to give up its smoke.
This bong, without being too tedious, has been used and abused and superheated by Butch's crackhead girlfriend which explains why it shattered cutting the thick artery on Nacho's neck.
Both men are on the floor. Butch is screaming like a hog on the killing floor and pulls himself up Nacho's pant leg and swings the base of the bong onto his face like a gavel. The gun is just out of Nacho's reach and he feebly tries to pick glass out of his neck. Things are not supposed to be like this. He starts to fade out. The irony of the skulls wearing party hats is completely lost on him. There is bong water on the floor and a smoking wad of pot on his checkered chest.
At some point, Butch realizes he has shit his pants and he can't get up and didn't feel much like getting up anyhow........ (to be continued)

Recently, I was hanging out at a great ice cream parlor with the wife and kids. There's a big shade over the patio, a diner next door that sells delicious burgers with sweet potato fries, and a huge playscape dotted with painted concrete cows. The boy loves to run around and play in the dirty cypress mulch on the ground by the slides. Thing 1 likes to climb stuff. In a space crowded with ladders and tubes and steps, she chooses things like the rickety fence bordering a busy street or a pile of rubble with re-bar sticking out of the ground. Like always.
At a group of tables next to us, there was a little group of kids having a birthday party. The guest of honor was a 6 or 7 year old boy. His mom fluttered around him, waiting on him incessantly. He was dressed in a cowboy outfit, not the kind we used to get with the stitching around the brim of the hat and a shiny plastic badge. He had on an expensive looking western shirt, a little black stetson, boots,jeans, and he sported a plastic winchester rifle with the muzzle painted red (so no cops would mistake him for an outlaw and plug him full of lead). None of the other boys had on any cowboy gear. After all, his mother must have thought, today was his special day and no one elses. I couldn't help but take it all in. His mother was a pretty woman,with a good tan and good shoes. She looked like she was well taken care of. The others were variations of her with progressively lighter hair and different grades of jewelry. All tanned, rested and probably not working too hard if at all. The boys were named the kind of fucked up names the smug upper middle class chooses for its sons, Birthday boy was Tyler, his buddies were Carter, Hunter, Wyatt, and Beckett. No, seriously, no shit.
I went over to my boy to see what treasure Thing 2 might have found in the filth. He showed me a popsicle stick. Like a dumbass, I went to go grab it and he pulled it away angrily. It was on now, mofo. I made it a fun game to try to take it away from him, letting him poke at me with it all the while
Finally, he gave it to me willingly and hugged me around the knee.
A little later on the playground, I notice Tyler the dickhead cowboy and his little fag posse are gathered around my boy. One of them pushes him, and he laughs and pushes the wispy little fucker back. Thing 2 is only two years old and thinks it's cool that they want to play with him. Thing 1 goes over there before I do and says the words I taught her to say " Leave my brother alone or I'm gonna kick you in the penis!" She says the words, clearly and loudly, the moms hear it too. I went over there and said "I want all you guys to break this up.Now, move your butts", I point at my two kids next and say, " You two, don't go near those boys again."
The moms are watching intently, as I would too. I start bringing the kids back on to the patio. I have my back turned to the group of frat boy incubators. One of them, I don't know which one, starts with a bitchy prelude...."Umm excuse me..." I just wave my hand dismissively without looking back and say..."Whatever...I don't wanna hear it." She shuts the fuck up, probably because she can't imagine a complete stranger not caring about what she wants to say because most strangers in her world are paid to care and respond accordingly.
We police up our table for trash. We leave directly. On the way back, I reflect on the differences between them and us. These boys have advantages my children will never have. They will be able to travel in a safe little bubble, meeting kids just like them. No one in their experience will want to kick their asses for being who they are. When it comes time for them to go to college, they will have built in safety nets. They will never have to question their sense of belonging. Then it came to me. Not one of them had a Father that cared enough about them to show up and play with them. Not one of those boys with their trendy yuppy names had a dad that would frolic and goof with them or teach them about kicking penises. Perhaps some day a Tony, or Juan, or Eddie will beat their asses good. It may make them better men for it.

A great American..

George Carlin is dead, or, as he would have put it, he no longer has an address in this plane of existence. That is not to say that he ever expressed any profound belief in the para normal or extra normal. He was a helluva guy. I didn't know him, but I have heard him in interviews and I have heard him crank out hours of thought provoking comedy. It is too bad that all they have managed to come up with as his signature routine was the "7 words you can't say on T.V.." It's a pity when you realize that it caused such a splash because he said Fuck and not because he posed the question, why do we give such words so much power?
I especially miss him because this is the time we need such a gadfly. In one interview, he said "everybody thinks people who believe that conspiracies exist are kooks and that they don't have a grasp on reality. What if I were to say that's right on? For instance, I don't believe that powerful people get together to manage outcomes that benefit them. I don't believe that secret government operatives have people killed and then cover it up. I don't believe that powerful interests don't co-opt the political process through huge contributions. In fact, I believe that powerful people always play by the rules. Now, who's the fucking kook?"
Yeah, he was a funny man. I can't help thinking that he knew what was up and so many of us are just sleepwalking. With all the theft and manipulation going on in our country, this one line makes me think deeply. He said, "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it."

Assholes who need to die.......

Now, I don't think I should have put a bullet through somebody's skull tonight. Fucking with me doesn't warrant me emptying my $59.00 bitch gun into your back windshield...but I really wanted to. Sound like incoherent ramblings of a impotent madman? yeah, well maybe so, but let's start at the beginning.
There I was tonight, just minding my own. I was riding my bike. I had front and back lights on, just clipping on down a moderate slope. I took notice of a beat up old blue car coming toward me. Suddenly it slowed, I skinny white arm arced out of the passenger window. I heard the word "pussy!" just as I got hit really hard on my left side. I looked down and it was a busted egg. I whipped my bike around. If you can imagine my big self hitting the brake, putting my foot down and bringing the bike in a sweep, you can understand it's like a rhino break dancing. All this while yelling..."muuuuuthaaaaafuuckaaaaaaa!! on a dark street. They sped up and I started chasing them. They did a u turn and I rode toward the driver's side and they took off. I chased them through a red light on Justin lane and they went really fast. I saw them turn down a side street far off in the distance. I heard asshole #2 shout, "come on, fat ass!" I huffed and puffed. I had a huge grin on my face hoping that they would stop. In the back of my head, knowing that if they stopped, they would beat my ass the same way me and my friends would have done when we were younger..and drunk. I'm experienced enough to know that 2 on 1 are shitty odds. I don't care what black belt you think you have or what special warfare school you humped your way through. When two guys have something to beat you with, you're going to get hurt...but still, if you've ever been in a fight, it feels real. It's like getting laid and stealing a bag of money at the same time. for just a split second, you don't notice that your cheekbone has been broken and your shin has a dent in it that will always be there and remind you that it's cold outside. You get to punch someone else in the throat and feel how it has something hard inside of it, or you can just grab an arm and throw them down and start kicking. your toes get bruised and hurt like fuck and you just keep kicking them... SIGH......
Of course they didn't stop. After calling me pussy and fat ass they were the ones who ran from an old fat man on a bicycle. I stopped behind the grocery store thinking they might pull in there to lay low and drink boones farm or something. I picked up a 2X4 and started riding slowly back. I went down a few dark streets. I saw a couple of teenaged boys riding their ridiculously small bikes. I said..."hey, what's up?..you seen an old blue car around here?"
They looked at each other and then my piece of lumber..."I saw an old blue car when we were by the train tracks. They were talking shit and telling us to get off the road." They went back to looking at me like I was crazy and retarded. "Oh well," I said, as I threw the lumber down on someones lawn, "I guess I better head on home."....

sweetness and AIPAC

Lately, I've been thinking about whether or not my new found unbelief in the invisible superjew is constructive. I go back and forth with myself thinking that religion is ok and then consigning it back to the trash heap as just so much thought control and blind obedience. On the one hand, I have met a lot of religious people who are kind and decent and intelligent. On the other hand, many people of that stripe seem to radiate hatred and resentment of anyone who does not and will not agree to share their complex, fantastic world view. There is always some other group of people they despise whether it's muslims, jews, homosexuals, hindus,christians etc..
Sometimes I find myself making excuses for these people by rationalizing their unique repulsiveness..."there are good and bad people in every group"..
Well, it seems like the bad ones rise to the top like raw sewage in Venice. They insist on speaking in tongues or wearing special garments. They advocate genocide and then they complain to the empty heavens when anyone so much as bruises their own brethren. They expect every one to bow down to their own exceptional glory and regard everyone else as less than human. We will build our temple here and no one better say boo. This mosque will be built in the middle of your town. We will blast the call to prayer and mad dog anyone who looks in our general direction. I say fuck em all. open up a pool hall on the temple mount and start stocking it with strippers and hot tubs. They're operating fan clubs for a hollow barney suit. There is no invisible man in the sky who gives a shit about you or who you fuck or how you cut your foreskin or facial hair. If you don't want to eat pig meat or shrimp because it's nasty, then mazel tov..it IS nasty, but don't be laying a trip on anyone else about it.
There is no 24 hour pussy mart in the sky for martyred muslims. There is no such thing as a chosen people, sorry, but deep down inside, you know it's true. There is no sex in the champagne room. There is no reason for snake handling baptists to believe in the second coming.

INK

Well summer is here and it's time to go swimming. I don't have big bucks, so that means public pool time. That means maximum sunburn fun and extreme sideshow action for me and my
tattoos. Here in Austin, everybody has tattoos it seems. But most of them are the flower on the ankle...barbed wire armlet or celtic butt crack halo. I enjoy looking at these tats. They are beautiful reminders that the mom chasing Hunter or Tyler or Jordan around the playscape used to be a party girl in college. Mostly the sorority type. Then their mates, the dudes, have some really rugged suns and cocapeli tribal shit on their formerly jock torsos. I'm a stay at home dad, so I end up being the only guy in the joint. In I walk with my 330 pound self, looking like Bluto in 3D. A lot of my work was done with a model car motor and india ink at the kitchen table. It seemed like a good idea at the time and we were all out of beer at that point. What the fuck, it's not like it's forever. The raised super black stuff only looks cool because it's scar tissue. The ex-cons I work with have better stuff than me. Sure, they did it in a cell with ashes and a staple, but they really took their time. It was a labor of love. I have real basic stuff for the most part. I'm especially proud of the really professional A+ on my rib cage..
"Did you get good grades?" children would ask. I would reply..."no, it's my blood type"..."what's that for?"..."No, actually I'm kidding. I really like school..a lot"
Huge, terrifying biblical pictures are emblazoned on my back too. Violent, apocalyptic imagery.
I often wear a t-shirt, but I must admit. I have a bit of pride in not looking like the horrible blob guy with a back hair sweater that tries to cover his man tits by wearing a shirt in the pool. I end up taking it off. I ain't going out like that.
Still, I should have gotten a hot vespa chick tattoo or a japanese character for "peace" which actually means "soy cracker". I really feel left out.
Oh well, If I can make a few bucks and not spend it on bullshit like children's shoes or dental care, I can get a really bitchin' cocapeli on my ankle.

The fighter.

There are few things I hate as much as holding a screaming child at the doctor. Yesterday Ed got tubes in his ears and a sliced up toungue. He proved that he has the potential to become a mean drunk. When he came back from recovery and the anesthesia was wearing off, He started crying, then yelling angrily and punching and kicking. He even threw in a couple of head butts for good measure. Being an experienced bouncer, I recognized these actions for what they truly were. He was disoriented, bloody, and pissed off. I have had the same feelings after "just one more" tequila....dizzy, beaten, and ready for payback. The only difference between him and me is that he was in a surgical center not a police station in San Angelo.
The upside is that for hours and hours after we brought him home, I would find him going around the house just listening to things in amazement. He actually can listen to you when you tell him things. No, he can HEAR you. Not listening is a family trait that I'm sure he will continue to display.
Today, I noticed him picking his arse and grimacing. I've been concerned about some fire ant bites on his gluteus maximus and now it looked like one had gotten infected. (Yes...I am that guy now, the one who talks about his kids disgusting ailments on the interweb.) Anyway, I got an appointment with a doc within 30 minutes cause I'm afraid this looks like MRSA. This skinny blonde chick who looks like a high school cheerleader is his doctor today, not his regular doc. She asks a few questions, gets me to drop the diaper on the boy and squeezes this fucking robins egg sized abcess until it gives forth. Meanwhile, I have to hold him in a bear hug and he's pulling my eyelids and hair and making cauliflower of my ears. He basically gives me every dirty move there is except the scrotum twist. All the while he's yelling out baby babble which starts to sound like real words..."sumbitch let me go! I'm gonna punch you in the nuts when you get outta the shower for this you muhfucka!"
It's a MIRACLE!!.
Anyway, he's been through too much in a short period of time. Just to be safe, I'm going to start wearing a cup around him.

Bliss

There is room here for two
and more between them
they are in the car surrounded
by their own memories
he looks out the window into the
narrow dark ditches lined with weeds and
thinks about the chain gangs
that cut them and the snakes
that call them home.
He looks through the waning light for
bigfoot and sees only dull ziploc bags
and styrofoam in the saplings
She is driving, teeth grinding not wanting
to look at this man who she
no longer knows, this millstone
with back hair and a paunch
she prays for a blown tire
or an act of nature
to end this trip she is on
not caring which trip
as long as he is not there.
He looks at her and wishes for
the same thing.

Comic book justice.....

There are so many things to write about these days...more of Ron Paul's book, the fact that I just cracked open a copy of John Stuart Mill's "on Liberty" which seems as though it could have just been written five minutes ago. how completely cool and badass Ironman was...etc.
Now, Ironman is a good way to kind of glide into this rant. Remember how villains in comic books had some kind of bizarre plans to control the world or some such? They were obviously villains because they were deformed or at the very least talked funny. Then we got older, and villains became foreigners like Russians or Arabs.
No, The world has never been that clear or that clean, until now. Now there is a real collection of people that need to be hunted down and made examples of. A report done by children international cited numerous sexual abuses of children by U.N. peacekeepers and humanitarian workers. It's not enough that these children had to live through all the hellish things they had endured up to that point, they have to be forced into having sex with these bastards in order to receive the food that we donated to feed them. They are worse than Kipling's lesser breed without the law, lower than the animalistic hordes. They are shells that look like men, but have no souls.

Creative writing.....

I've been looking for another gig to turn a few ducats here and there. Process serving is a drag, because everyone hates you and the gasoline prices are a killer. Grading essays is over, and so I am cast adrift looking for a way to turn a buck where you don't have to clock in like a worker bee.

I saw this one thing on craigslist today, looking for a part-time creative writer for a home decor store. Part of the app is to submit descriptions and images of three things found in your home. I looked at their website and saw that they have stuff like $25.00 place mats and a wall mirror for $250.00. All nice things though, and unique. I felt intimidated, but wrote down descriptions of a big canvas painting done by a friend of mine, a painted cat I bought in Italy, and a cool afghan my sister knitted for me.

This was too fun to stop at just three things, but I need this job so I decided to put some of the fun stuff down on my slog.


1. Old Dog: This venerable canine can be used as a throw rug or a self-starting litter box
cleaner. Ideal for homes with little or no activity, this malodorous cur from the
wastelands of the South will add rustic charm to any home. Comes in yellow,
Off-yellow, and dirty yellow. $10.00

2. Custom Wall Treatment: Add a touch of artistry to any new home decor. Abstract
designs done with found objects and discarded pens turn your expensive home improvements into gardens of expression and provacative new textures.
Shown here, modernized, costly paint surface modified and enhanced by scribbles of magic marker and refried bean paste, entitled "Eddie did it!!" By Libby Love studios. $899.00

3. Hip tunes floor mat: After a thoroughly messy session of sprinkler play and endless games of "Can we fill it with mud?", keep the party going by drying off with this unique towel, floor mat, sofa stainer, and cool vintage punk rock t-shirt that daddy got from his really cool friends in the band. Totally versatile and completely un-goddam-replaceable. (sob) $2.00


I really should open my own store.

WallFly conversation #1

A wallfly conversation is a dramatization of stuff most of us don't get to hear. It's based on all the times you've heard somebody say, " I wish I was a fly on the wall listening to THAT"


President: So, what are we gonna call this new effort in Iraq? How about Iraqi Freedom?
General #1: Uh, we already used that sir. We could use freedom again though.
General #2: Well, back in the old days, we would just generate random word combinations like
"Zebra Knife" or "Burning Drum"....
Pres: Wait those don't make a damn bit of sense. That second one sounds like V.D..
General #2: We would use them as kind of like code so no one could figure out what we were up
to.
General #1: We need something that really pops, like "Freedom Fist" or "Victory Eagle".
Pres: That first sounded kinda porno-ey. But I think you're on the right track.....
General #2: If we're going to come up with flashy names for this, let's try to figure out what
we're really trying to accomplish this time.
Pres: I think...well, you must really hate America to keep on bringing that up.
General #1: It's just as well you're on your way out. You might want to take your retirement
a little sooner.
Pres: I know! we'll call it "Super double kick-ass America up your ass"
General #1: That's great!! But I don't think we should use "Ass" twice in a sentence.
Pres: Well shit, you're the one who went to A&M, go ahead and fine tune it...and I want a
T-shirt with it on there too.
General #2: Hey, I have an idea. How about "Drive around until you get your ass lit up with
no way out for a hundred years?" does that work?

shiny shiny bright bright

Lovely day. This town is one of the best places to live in the U.S...but not for long. The Californiacators are moving in covering the land with shopping centers and big pressboard and vinyl box houses with no distance in between. I'm not from here, but I can tell the locals apart from the new arrivals and I can understand how the locals feel about these assholes with their new cars and their complete inability to say howdy. I took the kids to a discovery science center today and spent damn near six hours there. This is a small town but their science displays put ours to shame. There was an entire room dedicated to electrical devices and a table where kids could put together rudimentary circuits and they could see how much power their little legs could generate on a stationary bicycle. There was a huge informative show on insects and interesting facts about the pleistocene age.
Give it time, and if they aren't careful, they'll be up to their asses in McScience and creationist assholes trying to tell them what to do and say
On a brighter note, I think we are starting to get used to the cold and dry weather. In fact, it beats the living hell out of hot and wet. Plus, there aren't any allergies to speak of here.
Too bad, I don't have any super high tech skills...oh and Texas is the best place in the entire universe, nodal, string, ether, einstienean, or otherwise.

damn

The children are behaving horribly. Everything is expensive and they're predicting snow, even though it's mid may. Of course, we're from Texas and we only packed a couple of sweaters. Awesome. It's still a pretty good place to be. I just feel sorry for the other guests.

Road Trip

Going to Colorado with the fam. One week, two kids and a motel room. If they don't hate Texans by now, they will by the time we leave. I just hope Eddie doesn't hurt anybody too badly. They have a bicycle library in Fort Collins, so I have to try it, because I am a nob like that. I really hope it's all ok.

Cui Bono?

Here's another piece from yet another misguided Ron Paul supporter. I got a copy of The Revolution, a Manifesto by Ron Paul and I have been reading it, growing more determined and more convinced that it's time to start talking with other people about the simple truths that he lays out in its' pages. The first chapter is about foreign policy. It is astounding that we have troops stationed in over 130 countries. More baffling still is the fact that we have had troops in Europe and Asia for over fifty years. Nobody is willing to have a sincere debate over whether or not we should even be bearing the financial burden for all of this. Our military budget is huge and byzantine. Non interventionism is not isolationism. It's just pure common sense. He paraphrases a columnist who states, "We are borrowing from Europe in order to defend Europe. We are borrowing from Japan in order to keep cheap oil flowing into Japan, and we are borrowing from Arab regimes to install "democracy" in Iraq.".
He goes on to say that.."There is an alternative to national bankruptcy, a bigger police state, trillion dollar wars, and a government that draws ever more parasitically on the productive energies of the American people. It's called Freedom."
The final part of his preface states that "These ideas cannot be allowed to die, buried beneath the mind-numbing chorus of empty slogans and inanities that constitute official political discourse in America."
It's big talk. It's a simple set of ideas which seem almost quaint given the way things are being run right now, but it's very big medicine as our aboriginal cousins would say.
After being exposed to this book, I can no longer stomach the talk radio anuses that I used to listen to for cheap amusement. That is because I begin to suspect their already shabby motives and I am starting to catch a faint reek of propaganda..the bad kind. After reading this book, I am filled with a sense of outrage, impatience, and resolve mixed with a faint feeling of hope.
We must put ourselves in the position of the quiet, insistent common man who tugs at the sleeves of the powerful and asks plainly, "who benefits from this?..Who will pay for the promises you have made?... and more directly, almost mechanically ask "Why and for whom?"

Why not?

Private health insurance companies are what most of us middle class people depend on to make sure we get health care. As long as you're in good health, and you keep your job, you're OK. The premiums are still big, but manageable. If you lose your job and you have health problems, then you might find your self in deep kimchi pretty quick. Especially if you have to try to make COBRA payments with no income.
Now, I understand the insurance industry. Ignorant people think that you pay your premiums and the money gets pooled together and services are paid for out of the premiums collected. NOT TRUE. Those premiums are invested and insurance companies are known as "institutional investors" like pension funds. Vast amounts of money are shoveled around in an attempt to grow the reserves of the company. It is out of these earnings that claims are paid. Stringent guidelines are set in order to control the claims and limit expenditures. Doctors find themselves answerable to the insurance companies and this will sometimes mean that they have to work without some of the tools they might need to help their patients who are unable or unwilling to pay for additional tests or proceedures.
Case in point, I went to a clinic because I had a very high fever. The doctor asked me about how long it had been going on and if I had trouble breathing sometimes. They gave me a chest X-ray which revealed a possible mass or scar tissue in my lung near my heart. I had to go to my doctor and get her to approve a CT scan. The insurance company told her that they wanted aother set of xrays instead. She told me that she was sending me for the scan, but warned me that the insurance company would probably refuse to pay a large part of it. I ended up paying somewhere around $400.00 or more and some additional money on top of it. I could tell she felt pressured into pushing the xray, but went ahead with the scan recommendation. I can imagine that she might get dropped from their list of PCP's or whatever if she did that sort of thing alot.
I'll have to go in for another one soon, I guess, because catching a hint of cancer now could give me a shot at beating it. It's very possible that it could take decades to develop, but by then, I wouldn't be their problem.
Meanwhile, executives of these companies reap huge bonuses and draw salaries that would make a burmese drug lord blush. They have golden parachutes and stock options. Health insurance is a major profit earning industry. We live in a time where questioning this arrangement puts you in the same category of Marx, Lenin, and carpet chewing liberals.
It does not have to be so.
There is another possibility. The major banks have to contend with credit unions. Credit unions used to be regarded as podunk bastard cousins by the major banks. They catered to poor and working class people. Now we see them making major inroads into the market share of the banking industry. Credit unions have a quaint, intoxicating business model. Account holders are not just customers, sheep waiting to be shorn, they are members of the credit union. They at least titularly have some power within the organization. The people that run them, do so for far less than bank managers and directors and they seem to do a better job of it.
Why not have health care unions or cooperatives and let them be run along the same lines as credit unions? You could call them anything you like, Health Mutuals, Health Co-ops etc. They would insure the members and there would be quarterly reports issued on claims paid and investment earnings and executive salaries. Perhaps a few doctors could be place on the board of directors. Perhaps local partnerships could be formed with clinics and hospitals. Patient complaints could be given more weight. Doctors could actually speak to other doctors regarding policies or even individual cases/claims. We wouldn't need vast government bureacracies besides the same small departments of insurance in each state which are already in place. (we'll have to be careful). Of course, these mom & pop insurance co-ops will have a hard time getting lobbyists and soft money to the right politicians, so maybe this will never happen, but I can dream can't I?

a wide ranging fear, an everpresent hope

(written 2 years ago)

Being clever, doubting God
Being sorrowful, hoping he exists.

Now, of all the mindless bleating
howling and thumping,
parchment mumbo and jumbo
not one tiny atom of evidence,
but this
on a drowsy morning
they played mozart and
my
little one
began to dance
and spin
graceful arms describing flight
dipping and ascending
part clown-ery, and a piece
of sublime
Why would beasts make such sounds?
and why lowly mammal brutes
hold such grace?

Dusty kids

I have been seeing a lot of footage of military folks lately. Under their baggy uniforms and layers of dust and smoke, most of them look like kids. I look at them and they just seem so young as though they are in a high school production of "all quiet on the Western Front" redux and updated with cooler shit and bigger explosions.
This makes me think of my own U.S.A.F. service back in the 80's. I look at pictures of us and also think that we were in an amateur play. Maybe national lampoon's European Vacation. Only in this instance, we were just kids playing at soldiers every now and then in the heart of southern Europe. I remember the superb food, the Adriatic smooth as glass, and the lovely Italians. If there were any moments of terror they were a direct result of our own shennanigans. I look at us in our crappy looking steel helmets and our plastic rifles with Mattel stamped on the stock (which we only took out of the armory once or twice a year.) We would take silly group pictures of us in our condemned chemical protective suits and gas masks shooting the finger, grabbing our dicks, simulating unnatural acts, taking a piss. Hmmmm. I don't think these kids would get the jokes.
I remember the scuba classes, skydiving classes, language courses, martial arts classes etc. that we could take for very little or no money. Shit, I even remember taking a class on "healing touch massage" which could definitely improve your ass chances.. if you know what I mean.
I don't think these kids get that. If they get classes, it's probably the kind that are absolutely no fun.
Understand, I'm not even talking about the kids just in the Army per se. I just think these young ones are getting the purple shaft. B.O.H.I.C. was a military colloquiolism which means "Bend Over, Here It Comes" which is probably something these kids will get.

Global Warming....Conspiracy?

I know this sounds like more wackiness from the interweb, but give this a chew. There has been much squawking of late regarding global warming. Every day, it seems, another pseudo intellectual celebrity is out there talking about global warming and how it spells our doom and that not eating meat or not spewing tons of filth into the atmosphere can help avert a disastrous future. Sometimes, the noise comes from the other side of the fence. Right wing assholes like Rush Limbaugh insist that global warming and environmentalism is a new commie plot to redistribute wealth. Even Neal Boortz ( I hope I spelled his name right.)..a guy who says a lot of unpleasant, but true things, calls global warming a scam.
In all this hullaballo, no one has devoted much time at all to wondering why there are so many nasty chemicals in the water or why so many kids have asthma. Instead, the big show gets all the attention. It seems as though the wedge issue has chained itself to any expression of concern for the environment.
We all know that temperatures have been trending upward since reliable records have been kept, but we haven't been keeping records for much more than a century. As for reliable, global data, that has only been possible for a short while. The entire hypothesis that human activity can be directly related to a dangerous warming trend might be impossible to prove. Impossible, especially given the fact that the current administration has had almost eight years to hamstring almost any research that might have been done on the matter. So...the outcome is this..
Can't prove that stinky old coal plats make it hotter? Fuck you, get out of my way! We'll keep on building them just as filthy as before, because we have the free market on our side. Can't prove that reducing emissions might keep the big ice shelves where they are? Screw you, we'll keep on building them like we did back in the 80's. It's cheaper for us and that's what the people want. When it all comes down to it we'll blame China and India for all this stinky smoke, even though they're making stuff for U.S. companies by our standards.
When you raise a fuss, they talk about cow farts and volcanoes to try to make any objections look ridiculous.
Meanwhile, we know that the rain is dissolving ancient land marks and we can see our streams and rivers becoming so filthy that the medicines we ingest start showing up there and that toxic chemicals are in places they never used to be. We can see more and more asthma and some kinds of cancers. There is a spot in the Pacific Ocean about as big as Texas, that is literally choked with mountains of floating plastic garbage.
Still, all our energies are devoted to figuring out how hot it's going to be and why. We are fighting a war for the future, but we are fighting the wrong battles. What we should be fighting for is air we can breathe and water we can drink and land we can live on. And we'll never get anywhere if we don't stop talking about the weather.

New lyrics

Signs and wonders light up the sky
we get choked up when we see the preachers cry
ordinary sinners are just trying to get over
and advertise their dreams "for sale by owner"
everyone wants to be somewhere else
don't we all deserve a little help?

It's a dustbowl that's comng down
the waters rising on the edge of town
either way you're gonna choke
either way you're gonna drown

Now they're up there printing money
and they start to pass it round
the bankers don't come running
they have to leave it on the ground
you can't cry about what you never had
you can't keep spending what you don't have

It's a dustbowl that's coming down
the water's rising on the edge of town
either way you're gonna choke
either way you're gonna drown

now the same people begging for a handout
are the same ones who put you down
they ridiculed your little place
in the common part of town
you got to give in to temptation
and throw those mothers out

it's a dustbowl that's coming down
the water's rising on the edge of town
either way, they're gonna choke
either way, they're gonna drown.

Giving it up....

We all have little things we like to do. I like to smoke. I've cut down in the past. I've even quit for a year or so, but I haven't been able to shake it for long. It keeps coming back at me like a really shitty, dysfuntional relationship. I used to say it's because I smoke to give shape and form to my day or it's a habit that keeps my hands occupied. I would sometimes get closer to the heart of the matter, by saying that I smoke when I'm in a nervous situation.
All Caca del Toro, as we say in bilingual America. I smoke because I am a stone cold junkie.
When I don't smoke, I want to kick random people in their genitals. I am nervous and unpredictable. I get headaches and worst of all, I can't sleep (or drop a georgie).
I feel like shaking people violently and saying mean shit to them. I don't want to keep going through this. I hope I either give it up all the way or get hit by a bus.