Wednesday, November 23, 2005

FIVE DAYS OFF!!!!

Whoowhee! After tonight, I get an earth-shattering, ass-tattering, sweet fuck all, five days reprieve from the soul's death house that is work. I wonder what trouble I can get into with that much time off? Not to mention mad scribbling done, when sobriety intrudes. Yeehaaa! You lunkheads who read this, geef me call. I shall be on the veranda, lazing and farting. Hic!

Sunday, November 20, 2005

They are still among us.


Adolf Hitler. The name conjures up racial holocaust, the iron bootheel of the state, and frightening memories of a war that plunged the world into darkness, a war that the democratic nations very nearly lost. Adolf Hitler. It seems that every day I hear his name invoked in some context. It occurs sometimes in reference to some scientific marvel or the other, that was developed by the amazing German scientific community during WWII. More often, though, his name is mentioned in reference to the glut of death that he caused among the warring nations, and the systematic murder of Jews and millions of others that he and his minions engineered. It seems that last, most horrific legacy, while reviled by any sane person, is very attractive to some.
It amazes me, just how far people are willing to go to throw hatred and disrepute on their fellow human beings. Looking into the far future, I can only see a landscape of violence and misunderstanding, in a world that increasingly bears the scars of humankind's disregard for the fate of the planet. Will we go down to the dark fate that Hitler prophecied for the world? Will we come to grips with the demons that we have conjured forth? I hate to tell you where I'm putting my money.

It's all over but the braggin'


This morning was spent reading the groaning emails of hung over friends. I recieved (and made) several inebriate hails last night; central among the subjects of several was the legendary struggle between those two eminent foes, Auburn and Alabama. The University of A went to defeat last night, but it was a noble one, as would be the case if the result had been different. And Alabama cedes to the victor the time-honored year of bragging rights. What the hey. There is always next year! Oh, my head.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

I Know a Man


I didn't know that we had lost him; this summer, that had so late a season, we lost Robert Creeley, the Black Mountain Poet, mentor of my creative writing advisor, and Great Gray Sage of the Postmodern era. He died at 78, out in the arty areas of the Midwest, while on some junket or the other. One-eyed from youth, Creeley, pictured at left in art livre, winked at a world he found a curious, dangerous, wonderful, awful place. He wrote one of my favorite poems:




I Know a Man

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.


He goes remembered.



Friday, November 18, 2005

What will they think of us?


I sometimes wonder what the top ten things that the people of a century from now will find curious about us. I like to think of myself as a bit foresighted, but I know that no one can foretell what is to come, even a year from now...some, with acute minds can foresee the inevitable. I think that one of the things, though, that people will find curious about us is the fact that our educational system is so backwards. I mean, you've been to college, right? Now, you remember those people that couldn't crunch the hard math, their minds weren't agile enough for science, and they lacked the powers of introspection and spirit of meticulous inquiry that the liberal arts required...let's see, they tried a bunch of majors, and then went into...education! Yes. That's the sad state of affairs in this country...we not only have, but require these fools to run our schools. I believe that a sweeping educational reform is needed to clean the intellectual garbage from our schools. Instead, our myopic government keeps passing meaningless requirements that just pile more work, and more man hours, on the good teachers in the system, and pile more incompetent idiots in on top of them, who probably never should have went to college at all. I went to see if I could teach English at a local school lately, after seeing that a teacher had sent home a list of "Speling Words" for her students to learn...three of which were misspelled.
I was informed that my Masters (and, let's not forget, I have half completed a Ph.D., in English...) were not the proper credentials to teach English. No sir; what was called for was a "Education degree." Which, I was happy to inform the snotty Public Servant that informed me of same, was a degree for losers and fools, and I would not wipe my ass upon, it being more intellectual than most of the recipients of said degree. Note to self: When Stalinest-style purges start, clean out Civil Service, too.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Mother Do You Think They'll Drop the Bomb Behind My Wall, Pt. II?, LLC


Remember all the hoo-hah about how Pink Floyd's eternally popular album Dark Side of the Moon synched up so eerily with MGM's Wizard of Oz? Well, leave it to your humble narrator to discover other weird and wondrous Pink Floyd confluences in the world outside. At work, (frequently bad) music is played over the intercom. This can sometimes rarely be heard above the din of the machinery. Last night, I could hear just the melody of one song, which I recognized, and was singing along with in my head...or so I thought until I moved into an area, where the words could be heard. Talk about heebee geebies...what I thought was Pink Floyd's "The Trial", was in fact...the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You!"
Hmmmm....both band's initials are P.F.? Hmmm...David (Cassidy) Partridge, David Gilmour? Shirley Jones=Mother? Uh, Ruben Kincaid, Worm your Honour? The two songs sound eerily alike, and there are detectible thematic similarlities, also. I suggest a lyrics search...nough said...RRD.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

For the Coalition Dead



I wrote this back when the coalition body count reached 500.
On CNN's list of the deceased, a young African American man,
Sgt. Acklin, was first alphabetically. Sadly, many others have
added their names to that roll, and many more will yet. But here
it is, my homage to Lowell, just as he was commenting on Tate
before him.

The above picture is Sgt. Michael D. Acklin Jr., of Lousiville Kentucky.
May he rest in peace.

POSTSCRIPT: By a strange coincidence, I notice today (Nov. 16) that I posted this
poem on the two year anniversary of Sgt. Acklin's death. An odd occurence,
that serves in just one more way to put our lengthy, costly 'involvement' into perspective.


For the Coalition Dead

For Sgt. Acklin, and all who follow him


Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam



Once I passed through his town,
A fish in an aquarium
I did not even stop for gas
I remembered the song
“Eight more miles to Louisville,”
The radio did not oblige.

In the median, a statue
(Facing neither North nor South, for
Kentucky had not known that war)
It must have been Korea or Viet Nam

(There have been so many)
I saw new buildings going up
I thought, “This town is growing”
A foolish thought as though

I’d known its former size
The face of the weathered soldier
Dignified and fearless beneath the
Pigeon’s white tribute to so long a peace.

I passed on to other climes, and forgot
The soldier stuck in traffic
And then, in a list of names,
I found a native

He, like the other soldier was stuck perpetually,
Straight as a ramrod,
By accident of alphabet,
He is first in line forever

His young face is smooth, serene, and does not blink.
He is some former slave’s great grandson, perhaps,
Dead for college money or lack of direction
He must have been a hell of a soldier, though;

Sergeant at 25; but we cannot know him now.
He has chosen the risk, and paid his price.
He and hundreds of his brothers and sisters,
Lettered neatly A to Z.

In a thousand small towns throughout the land,
Church bells ring for the slain and the returned.
When others languish and die to lie beside him,
Their names will be added, the solemn bell tolled.

I wonder if Sgt. Acklin would have wanted a monument.
But no; for his is a war with no
Monuments, for his age cannot be motionless;
It must rush off too soon, to fight, to die

Though it does not know or even wonder why.
But Louisville slid past me; I want to hope
That other men will remember that young,
Unflinching face, that cannot die alone.


Timothy C. Phillips

March 5th 2004

Monday, November 14, 2005

And good riddance, too....

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Alabama Legislature votes against Rosa Parks Day


Bitch if you want to...
I don't give a shit, I've lived here 40 years.
I know what time it is:
In this accursed place, it's time to change.
This place is as dead as daddy's disco.

You gotta love livin' baby, cause dyin's a pain in the ass.


Here was the man, the C of the frikkin B, and yeah, he had it all figured out, sugar. Here's two fingers of Maker's Mark, that I wish we could have shared. Salut, and let the fugazis stare in wonderment; yours was the world and everything that was in it, and what's more...but you knew that one.

Hard-Boiled, Baby.


Yeah, I've got another dot com. In a folder crammed away somewhere on this very PC, I have a huge, bulging website, ready to surge forth. But not just yet. Every little thing has to be hunky dory, before I pop a cap into the Internet again. But yeah; it's devoted to my crime writing, now that the damned belated book is finally making its appearance in the real world. Hey, they signed me for number two. The third installment is getting there, too. So, I'm trying to build a public interest before the books appear. We'll see.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Plastered, not stirred.


Oh, yeah. This past Thursady Night, I was at a local drinking establishment with a couple of buddies after work, when, to my surprise, I was paged to the bar. No, it wasn't free drink time, or some long-ago, multi-million dollar bar tab discovered during the annual cleaning; (to my relief) it was, instead, a friend of mine who had been scouring town to find me, knowing that my Keith-Richards Mark VII liver was reliable in any drinking emergency. I was duly summoned to his domicile, where the drink of choice shifted from Killian's Irish Red to the even more red (and decidedly less Irish) Cabernet Sauvignon. In keeping with the International motif of the evening, (or early morning, by this point) his lovely fiance then proceeded to fashion, for little old me, the perfect Vodka martini. (shaken or stirred, I cannot remember) which I pretended was less than perfect, in true Oscar Wilde fashion, so she would make me another. Ah, perfection. I love you both. A wonderful evening. The next day at work, however, was curiously l o n g. But worth every second. Hope to see you again , soon.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

End of the year blues....

::Plans within plans. setting up new website, and looking into advertising for the book(s). Ach. Spent part of the day yesterday in orientation, as I have now been hired on full time, with all the rights and privileges apertaining thereunto...had to fill out my Life Insurance policy. I realized that I had no one to leave it to. Swell feeling. As usual, my nephews are never far from my thought, those two eldest who, like me at their age, need as much help as they can get. If some punk gets lucky and shoots where it works, those two should each get enough to put them through college somewhere...or for one crazy summer in the Bahamas. If it comes to that, enjoy, lads.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Earth Needs Dreamers


Count on a friend to send lovely notions via this wonderful electronic medium that we have made from the centuries of philosophy, intellectual endeavor, and the literary plumbing of ideas, all of which our benevolent despot remains the Zen master of utterly ignoring...if only the universe that bore these headlines were our own...Earth 2 Superman, where are you...?!

I wish that I knew


The word on the street is that the VP-led cabal set this whole thing up to fill fat business cat's pockets with lucre for favors of temps perdue The bastards have absolutely no faith in the intelligence of anyone in this country; of all of the goddamned cynical bullshit that the citizens of this country will turn a blind eye to, the daily blast of shite these guys level at the country amazes me, but the bleeting apologists for the Republican New World Order are in a class that defies logic and comprehension, no matter how idiotic the policy, you find poorly informed minions willing to defend them. Sinister pundits abound who serve as throng masters to keep the encephalic masses harping the party slogan: "If you don't have it, you don't deserve it!" "If you don't agree with us=you don't agree with the president=you don't agree with Amurka=You are an Al Kader!" Jiminy Cricket.


I thought Joseph McCarthy was dead. Well, we still have Karl Rove, and that's just as bad, right? After all. Who needs Edie Weisenthal when you have Ann Coulter? One harpy to scream the party slogan per era, please. Right this way, Miss Coulter. Satan is waiting in the wings. He'd like an autograph...and, to buy you dinner.


Ignorant sluts of the ages, unite! If you can't crush mankind, I guess it's a pleasure for certain types of people just to lick the boots of their overlords, as we all lose what is left of the light that remains to us.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Ah, yes...


A new Monday! The new week beckons, full of uplifting news
to restore our delirious faith in humanity. The terror level is yellow, the server status is green, and Hank Williams is on the radio, and he is oh, so, blue. Hope that all is well with all my homies out there. My personal website got over 21,000 hits this week...! I hope that reflects interest in my book. Oh, but that would be exquisite and cool. Anyway, that cat is out of the bag, another is in the bag, and I am still laboring hard to catch another one to stick in there. Here, pussy, pussy, pussy.....

Sunday, November 06, 2005

November 6th, 2005


Ah, at home and working again. Went to visit a few friends-some success there, some misses-more on that later. Went over to the old neighborhood where I was accused of much villainy, though, truth be told, it was I who was in reciept of monstrous villainy. Oft we gang aglay, indeed.

Well, I am sitting here writing on an old project, and I have found around 14,000 or so handwritten words that should "jump-start" the project rather handily.(heh) Still laboring to complete the third of my detective novels, under the shadow of the first being released in the new year, and the second already contracted for publication...(!)

But, not that I am complaining. If nothing else, I am looking forward to pimping the book, at long last; the book signings, the lecture tour, the balloon rentals, the flying robots...wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyways, enough fooling around. I've got work to do!

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Redeye whiskey for the pain


Whew. Home from work due to a broken wisdom tooth; have to have it out asap, however, I am in the hiring process, and not yet full time (next week) therefore, no insurance. Thus, in our benighted land, as Bono sings, 'the rich stay healthy, the sick stay poor.' Ouch. Luckily, and in a vicious plan only the truly myopic will not instantly see, my next logical destination was...the liquor store! Evil masterminds put all of this into place long ago, I am sure. Bastards. Here's to them, for now. But my time is coming. A black day for the old powers, when the new ones arise. That, too is another cycle, and a far older, and greater one.

November

Strange month, Novena of the year, a year marked by fate as a strange one for your humble narrator. Still trying to recoup the damage and put my plans back into force. A long way up the road, indeed. Rewriting some old things, finishing some projects long overdo, and some new ideas are coming into focus. The creativity remains. After changes, we are more or less the same, after all.