At a Dead Run

Summer is on!

2007-05-10T00:59:00.000-05:00

Hey all you lovers and likers, and hopes for ye haters, too.

Summer is upon us, and the Old Man is running about, rutting like a goat.

Look out@!

Frends; I shall treat you soon.

Family; soon, so soon, I shall lounge upon thy couches.

Lovers; and soon I shall find you.

I love you all (or soon will)

The irrepressible,

Tim

Something of Myself

2007-04-12T00:34:00.000-05:00

I have been a very busy boy of late. But I have never misplaced my principle driving
force. After all, I am a man who goes with connotations without number, and to irony I am no stanger, although strange. I thank God for the talents with which he imbues me, and for his grace that amazes me every day.

Preach the Word
4:1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom:
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
5 As for you, always be sober-minded, (heh) endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

I have devoted some thought to this, so,in other words, I think:

I urge you, Timothy, as we live in the sight of God and of Christ Jesus whose coming in power will judge the living and the dead, to preach the Word of God. Never lose your sense of urgency, in season or out of season. Prove, correct, and encourage, using the utmost patience in your teaching.

For the time is coming when men will not tolerate wholesome teaching. They will want something to tickle their own fancies, and they will collect teachers who will pander to their own desires. They will no longer listen to the truth, but will wander off after man-made fictions. For yourself, stand fast in all that you are doing, meeting whatever suffering this may involve.

Go on steadily preaching the Gospel and carry out to the full the commission that God gave you.

Reading Timothy always causes me to enter into self-reflection.
Where is my life headed? Where am I spiritually?
What do you, dear reader, think of, when you contemplate the divine?
Whatever your faith and understanding,
Peace be with you,
and may God show you his grace.
--Rev Dr. D

Fishing Relaxing and Reconnecting

2007-04-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

Went over to JRJ (and (GJ's) over the weekend. Got schooled fishing (no pun intended) by JRJ, and had a blast! The cookout was awesome, and breakfast was par excellence! Drank beer with some good old friends. There was a threatening fire and much catching up. Drank about 20 beers. Went on an early morning snake safari. Danger was afoot everywhere; alas, we found nothing.
Maybe for the best. Hung with people I am proud to call my friends. Didn't catch a damn thing and didn't mind one bit. Can't wait to do it again. Thank you, thank you, my friends good and true. I am really blessed to have you so close to my heart. Next time, though, I'm catching all the fish. Well, maybe.

Sure Could Use A Little Good News Today

2007-03-27T23:21:00.000-05:00

I have dream. It is a dream that is threadbare, now; and long in coming, if the day dawns that it finally finds itself realized, in my little time here on this earth.

My dream is a simple one; that we overcome our smallness, and look each other in the eye, and that we say to one another upon the morning of that great day, "Hey, you deserve as much as I do." and that the one who is told answers to the speaker in kind, and give respect. That mankind might one day forever renounce war remains a foolish ideal of mine. I still believe that in a peaceful world, the answers to countless dillemmas; disease, apathy, moral lassitude, are waiting to be found.

My dream is that we will live together in an unselfish world. This is perhaps the hardest part of all; for it is almost impossible for a selfish people to become giving, and morally correct. But my dream is for a better world that starts on the individual level, in which people abandon pointless materialism, and realize everything is temporary, and all that we leave behind us is love.

I do not believe for one instant that Humankind's problems can be solved with violence, with guns and bombs and the other matter of war.

Only the human heart and the human mind, and in that order, can be called upon to settle the problems that plague us. Maybe mine is a crazy dream; but at least I still believe.

We are all in this mess together, like it or not. Go in peace.

Rev.

Bad Liver and a Broken heart.

2007-03-22T00:43:00.000-05:00

I just ain't any good any more. My heart has been broken too many times, I am too big a turd head to absorb it and move on. Well, fuck it. I can't move on, I am 40, I got a late start, I've worked my ass off for other motherfuckers too much because was born poor, but I won the lottery, and I know it, because I was born white in the USA, and if anyone was also born white in the USA, get a clue, you have **nothing** to whine about. Black people put up with so much shit I wonder why anybody black will even talk to me.

But aside from all that, I know that I am a useless motherfucker these days. I am just existing; this has to change. I have lost a step or two. I don't even know what I am trying to say, right now. CK, you stupid fucking asshole. You are going to be spending more on alimony than Colvard is on his student loan. But who gives a shit, right? Dope.

2007-03-19T00:43:00.001-05:00

I took a lot more out of of St. Patrick's Day that it took out of me.
I think. Around dark time, things waxed sinister, people drank various poisons;
the voices of the penatent gargled from the gutters, but still the sinners quaffed.
Things quckly got out of hand; memory fails.

I do, however vaguely, recollect an almost nude woman playing a tuba,
some old guy trying to pay for whiskey with a book of postage stamps, and a huge Somoan
guy in blue spandex who kept slapping me on the back and calling me Lamar, and other wonders.
::
Somewhere around 1:00 a.m. your humble narrator was ejected from somewhere, by someone,
I am almost sure, but the police (I think) allowed
me to go back in and recover my pants. nonplussed, or at least partially plussed,
I carried on somewhere else, I forget just where, with a thick dread hanging over me.
(Insert blackout here)
Fates be praised, though; I awoke back home, don't ask me how, Jeep safely in the driveway, and
several MySpace addresses written in Sharpy on my...er, hand. heh.
Erin go....BLARGH!!
Oh, lordy. Me feels a mite puny.
But this, too, shall pass.

How to Write in 125,000 Easy Steps!

2007-02-26T23:27:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's true, and I should know; nobody never wrote a book on "How to Write Creatively" that ever did anybody a damn bit of good. Never. I'm sorry of your aunt found out you were a beginning writer and bought you Become the Next Hemingway Overnight for your Bah Mitzvah, Birthday, or Getting out of Rehab party, or whatever, but it ain't gonaa do you no good, as they say at Oxford.

There is a secret to writing, though, and none of the money grubbing bastards who write those "How to Write" books will ever tell you. Some of them are bitter. Some are, perhaps, deranged. But they are all wrong. If there is a "secret" to writing, it is this: there is no 'secret.'

Writing is a lonely task. It is a sometimes painful and irritating undertaking. No one wants to hear about what you are writing, except perhaps other writers, for validation. And if you know other real writers, you are lucky.

The only way to write is to sit down and do it. Cut the bullshit, and sit down and do it. If you have an idea worth a shit, get after writing it down. As Tom Waits sings, you gotta get behind the mule. Equip yourself with a thesaurus, a dictionary, and maybe some strong coffee (or, hey, bourbon, if that's you thing.)
and write.

That's the only way I know how to do it. If you have discovered another way, write it on a fifty dollar bill and mail it to me. But you haven't. Luck to you all. And keep writing. Don't let some dead-end asshole who thinks he's a writer and never writes anything fill you full of bullshit. Put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and let your muse speak to you.

Strange Days

2007-02-22T13:37:00.000-06:00

"Pas le moindre envol
Ma vie barque abandonnée
Sur la rive sombre" (Philippe Quinta)

While a sense of foreboding from events near and far pervades, still chances present themselves. A friend at work, who hails from Seattle, has hooked me up with another lierary magazine, after he read some of my poems. This is getting weird...I never intended to become known as a poet; but I'll take it, of course. I submitted four pieces. Update on acceptance/rejection later...hopefully the former, not the latter...but one never knows. Ah, but as they say, essai, essai, encore....

It's a Cold Hard World/Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin

2007-02-18T23:02:00.000-06:00

Yeah it's been a couple of dog-eat-dog type of years. Here it is February of 2007, and all those days of the future I wondered about as a kid back inthe 1970s have, alas, come and gone. I know that there's still hope out there somewhere; I still see a spark in some, even now.

With a certain sense of ambivalence I have tried to make logic apply to all the events that have led up to my being where I am, at this moment in time. Of course, I know that this is folly; logic doesn't not, cannot be applied, to life.

I had to postpone my Mobile trip for a couple fo weeks, but that's OK, as it will be warmer when I do, eventually, go down. Winter is no season to be caught old in. Somehow or the other, that dashing young man about town that once I was, has survived four trying decades. I hope that I am a bit wiser for having done; and, sad to say, but I think I have lost a step or two along the way, and many many other things besides. Ah, but not to digress; the business of life, as Jonson noted, is to go forward.

***

"Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin"

I think that the rest of the world is finally waking up to the Bush nightmare. Congress is trying to put forth a fight against more money and troops for the Bush meatgrinder in Iraq. Not that I'm proud of that bunch of second-rate humanity, who only react to public opinion after they have no choice. At last, we begin to hear mutterings that maybe the war in Iraq was illegal. MAYBE? Give me a break! Where was all this valorous talk when Bush sought a vote to go into Iraq...I wonder how many of these self-righteous morons voted in favor of this trumped-up resolution then...along with John Kerry and Hilary Clinton. I've said it before and I'll say it again: nothing like "hypocrite" writ large, O my readers and only friends.

In any case, my prediction is, muddle muddle, toil and trouble. Sanctimonious Democrats will sieze the elections in faraway November; the rotten to the core bastards of the GOP will be ousted, and the poor USA will continue down the road to becoming a second rate, friendless, bankrupt nation because the vast majority of its supersized, selfish, illiterate populace cannot be bothered to give a damn! I could be wrong, mind you. But my every day experience is filled with a barrage of evidence that the citizens of the USA are the most deluded and clueless people on the face of this earth.

Pseudo-events and hyper-reality take away every genuine sensation, and distance us from our priveged access to the truth and the real. Britney shaves her head, and it is reported by every network; the announcement that five other Arab nations will soon be starting nuclear programs goes unnoticed by these "journalists." We drink "Extreme Chillberry" drinks or chew "Wild Ice" flavored gum. These things do not exist, except in Marketing. Marketing and advertising fill our heads with jarring, repetative, and ultimately pointless images every day; we do not protest.

Corporations every day take a bit more of your privacy from you, your ability to choose from you, by offering you the illusion of choice. Every day, the most gullible and partisan of news services since Joseph Goebbels held sway report radically different versions of the same set of "facts." And underneath all that felgercarb, that empty preening, those hollow and utterly valueless assessments, lurks the hard, cold truth.

We have lost our moral base as a nation, because morality has always proceeded from a spiritual connection--a real, viable link with a divine presence, a reverential connection, a fullfilling one--and the loss of God has left the land empty of a sense of itself. The people cry out for a savior, and none appears, because they have rebuked Him and his institutions, his message and its purpose. And yet He is right beside them.

Every day we continue our moral slide, and our myopic would-be leaders do nothing, because they are perhaps the most lost of us all. This paradox has symptoms that manifest themselves in economic slowdown, currency devaluation, and rampant crime. Oh yes; and a pointless, self-involved rush to war. A little man one-ups his father; Bush beats Saddam where dad could not. For this self-aggrandizement, thousands have died, are dying, will go on dying. But it is time to call the prophet to the wall, and read the words there written: your Kingdom is divided, and cannot stand ; Lo, I say unto you, your houses are built upon the sand.

Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting; thy kingdom is divided, and cannot stand

--Daniel, 5:27

Poet By Rote

2007-02-08T01:11:00.000-06:00

Well, now I am officially a published poet...in no less an august magazine than Modern Drunkard. I have joined ranks with Poe, Bukowski and Ferlinghetti...er, and maybe some other, rather more unsavory characters. I really fucking hope so. Hey, maybe I am a rather unsavory character, come to think of it. (Is there a yourrapsheet.com? internet entrepeneurs, awaken!)
Amyway. I can add "published poet" to my list of accomplishments; of course, there will be autographed copies to go around...I get a free t-shirt and one ish, and like $25 bucks, still though, it's so cool since my publisher is taking so long to come out with my first two books. Of course you will all get signed copies.

God is Great.

Laissez le Bon Temps Roullez

2007-02-01T23:15:00.000-06:00

Soon, I will be taking a trip South, to one of my favorite places on earth, Mobile, to see one of my favorite people on earth, my dear friend Mike. Mike's the King of men in my book, a well-rounded person and all around capaple and smart guy. He has turned me on to oodles of coolness in the fifteen (!) years I have known him. I can't wait to see him and his ever-growing family in the city by the sea.

Shakin' Like a Human Bein'

2007-01-27T22:20:00.000-06:00

Yeehaa! Me and Cousin Bobby went out last night (He's been worried, since I haven't been getting out and socializing) We went to a place that just opened up, the "Yellow Moon," and I danced with a few old gals and had a few brews, and, as William S. Burroughs once wrote, awoke in new flesh, the outlook different. Amen, ahem. Thinking tonight about something my old good friend Sam said long ago. He asked me what my plans were upon graduation from High School, and I said, in my callow youth and utter stupidity, "Whatever." He looked at me and said/asked, "Wherever the river carries you."

Since then I have crossed many rivers, indeed, and rode out some tough spots indeed; and now I am at a point in my life, to mix metaphors feely, where I am in the Quik-Stop, it's 11:30 something, and I am hungry, but....nothing looks good. Gen X turns 40 and that's the problem, cause we are all getting on, the Cold War is over, and nothing looks good.

But thanks Bobby, and hang in there Sam. The jury is still out on this old SOB and who knows, he's got a few moves in him yet, if the Callow young gals from the next town over can be believed. And today I choose to believe. I'm shakin', but I'm just glad the good Lord let me be here, and stick around this long, besides. Stay loose, stay cool, and keep the Faith.

The Corbomite Maneuver, Revisited

2007-01-22T12:21:00.000-06:00

We need more geeks in government! Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has obviously watched some Star Trek. I was struck by the wily bastard's face down of the Western Powers and the UN. It bore a remarkable resemblance to the redoubtable Capt. Kirk's face down of a alien vessel (captain by a bald child played by Roan Howard's mutant brother) To save the Enterprise from certain destruction, Kirk uses bluff, baravado, and a little white lie about something called "Corbomite," an erstwhile component in all Federation ships, he claims, which blows the hooey out of anyone foolish enough to successfully destroy one. This bamboozles the much more powerful aliens, who chicken out instead. Sound familiar? A geek administration would have spotted this forty-year old plot device with ease. Instead, the current Fratboy administration took the boondoggle and left this crazy Klingon bastard out their in the desert, playing brinkmanship. Beam me up, Scotty, I'm in a world of shit down here!

That's rich!

2007-01-12T08:25:00.000-06:00

Hoo-boy. I have always maintained that there is nothing quite as sweet as hypocrite written large. As this nation continues its slide out of reality and into becoming Mexico's first colony, I think it worthwhile to glory in the nonsense, self-delusion, and outright lies of the close-knit group of ninnies who would call themselves our "leaders." Read on:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's warnings to Iran and Syria to not interfere in Iraq and the arrest of six Iranians in Iraq by U.S. troops raised eyebrows Thursday on Capitol Hill, where senators warned Bush against widening the nearly four-year-old war.
Sen. Joseph Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Bush did not have the authority to send U.S. troops on cross-border raids.

To which Condi replied:

"Surely the United States is not the one being threatening," she said. "We are not the ones being meddlesome and troublesome in Iraq."

Roflmao!!!!!

Backtrack:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/11/iraq.iran/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Birth and Death and other things

2006-12-25T20:59:00.000-06:00

Well, here it is again, as Leonard Cohen famously sang, the end of December. James Brown is gone, blessed soul father of practically everything that is popular culture, gone to the God in which he so heartily believed. Rest in Peace; you were one of a kind. Meanwhile, the world has gotten a lot more dangerous, O my brothers (and sisters) and only friends. Iran is playing Nuclear brinkmanship with a American President too stupid to resist that final, fatal course...and Africa is about to burn very brightly, once again, upon the international stage. The new year dawns, with no angel present to assuage our poor beleagured world. So long, Godfather. Rest in peace, and intercede with Him for peace in our troubled world. And go brightly.

Blogito, ergo Sum.

2006-12-16T09:54:00.000-06:00

It's been a while. There have many things, dire wonderful and simply mundane, happened since my last entry here. Currently I am incipacitated at home by a "severe upper respiratory infection." I am taking Azithromycin, Cholaphenramine (with Phenlyephrine chaser) , and some Pharmaceutical (read; codiene) cough syrup that's off the chain. This means I am slightly woozy-headed, a bit like a freshman sorority girl, whilst also feeling profound, even while doing things that make no logical sense to me (like taking the telephone into the toilet and staring at it without calling anyone.) Well, I feel another strange spell coming on. When I am well and detoxed, I will blog more. Be well, Internet.

At A Dead Run

2006-11-02T01:47:00.000-06:00

Ah, yes. In these strangest of strange days, who is to say what is real and what is not? It seems like reality flitters and changes with greater frequency than the pale-faced moon. (I expect a barrage of lawsuits from white people for that usage; forfend--I am the original whitest of white nigger--I am Irish-Welsh, descended from the indentured) THOUGH: In the last few weeks, I have been enfiladed with emails from, shall we at leat say, past personalities, and other flavors strange to the tongue. Here in the death of the year, Ubu Roi sings his song louder than ever.
Ah the ruins, though, my king; they are all I still treasure.....

Slouching Towards Armageddon

2006-10-02T12:04:00.000-05:00

As October 5th approaches, upon which many thousands will boycott and protest the Bush administration's foreign policy of kill, kill, kill, I look around for voices that affirm my own position, that in a time demanding verity, flexibility, and creativity, the USA is saddled with Viet Nam era psychopaths as leaders, who want bombs, more bombs, bigger bombs, and who cling fruitlessly to Plan A, even when it is proven that Plan A doesn't work, and a Plan B is desperately needed. Kathy Kelly writes:

Gentle reader, do you realize the danger of having a president so disconnected from reality that he plots to attack Iran--a country three times the size of Iraq--when he lacks sufficient forces to occupy Baghdad and to protect the road from Baghdad to the airport?

Despite all the high profile "sweeps" of US forces through insurgent strongholds, US commanders report a doubling of insurgent attacks.

The Bush administration is insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush's impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture predictions, but World War III will please no one else.

As any reader of this blog knows, I could have written these lines myself. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Rove, have continually lied about forewarnings they recieved regarding attacks in this country prior to 9/11; Iraqi "ties" to those attacks, military forewarnings of a quagmire in Iraq; the "improving" conditions in a country almost in complete chaos because of sectarian violence; and the administration's plan to get our military out of Iraq before it is completely exhausted. Kelly does a geat job cataloguing the excesses of this administration so far. I recommmend this book to those seeking a more in-depth knowledge of the questions that face this country, and how we got here.

Can the American public--including the now decidedly small Neocon revolution, now in full retreat--step up and oust this dangerous regime before they bring wider destruction to the world, and an even more onerous alienation to our country? Can we? Or is it, even now, too late?

Why Hollywood Thinks You're Stupid Scum

2006-09-30T11:34:00.000-05:00

Why does the Hollywood machine keep churning out retarded crap starring the same aging ninnies? Why do million flock to see predictable, over-blown movies, starring the same cynical millionaires pretending to be wholesome good guys, when these gazillion-dollar epics are really nothing but these egomaniacs getting to pretend they are the best of the best of the bestest, AGAIN, at everyone else's expense? Why? Because, the people who make these movies are absolutely convinced that they have turned the USA and most of the civilized world into a Gondwanaland of ignorant sluts, closet drug addicts and alcoholics, and vapid flag waving trailer trash who don't know what real cinema is (they don't make it in Hollywood; never have) who are too busy counting what's left of their hard earned beer money after they go see this trash, to learn that there is anything better out there. Kudoes to some who fought back:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/29/D8KEPNT80.html

but notice how many people whined, being deprived of their regular immersion in complete and utter garbage, denied their Cleveland Steam of the mind. Hollywood seeks only to fill its pockets. It has nothing to do with producing art that enobles man. That's why it's such a fucking JOKE when congress puts Hollyowood actors in charge of the National Endowment for the Arts. Anything they knew about the arts, they prostituted long ago. Best leave art to the artists. Do yourself a favor; go see a foreign film.

Stupid Motherfuckers

2006-09-17T00:02:00.000-05:00

If this is the leader that you chose, all that I can say to you is this; you deserve him.

My Advice to You

2006-09-13T00:18:00.000-05:00

Keep at it. Get deeper into your own thing. Be happy with yourself. Learn to roll with a punch or, in these strange days, get back up after a sound ass-kicking. And learn that you have to earn it all, and that "it" means everything worth having. The world owes you nothing. Stay hard. And don't let the bastards drive you down. I promise I won't.

Four Decades Down

2006-08-04T01:33:00.000-05:00

Yeah, well, here I am at forty, finally. I am light a father, four fiancees, and all too recently, a brother. The ones we leave behind us we rightfully miss; with the ones who are still here with us, we better had share the joy and remembrance of those gone; the laughs, the good times, and yes, even when the departed were a pain in the ass, because that was part of them, too. Forty, it seems, is a time for looking behind, but also, for me, a time to look ahead. Ahead to tomorrow, when I go to visit my oldest friend and his dear family, and share with him what tales and memories we share in our long association.
A time to spend with my eldest brother, and my sisters and mom, too, and pretty much ask, on some level, at least, where does the time go?
And that looking ahead part? Well, I still have volumes left to write, and stories left to collect; and so much love for everyone, still gathered together in this green valley. From little brother; I love you all, and will see you soon.

The Sleeping Sword of War

2006-07-20T12:34:00.000-05:00

I found this map, and an accompanying article, at www.biblenews.com. It details the events of the Battle of Armageddon, in a handy graphical way, as detailed in the Revelation of St. John the Divine. This is truly the "Mother of all Battles," according to the words long written down. People who aren't even believers believe in the veracity of the Revelation. I was struck upon reading the news this morning, and took another look at this map. Ethiopia moved into Somalia, to fight Islamic extremists, and prevent them from taking over the fledgling nation. There are ships from the Israeli, Syrian, Russian and American navies in the Mediterranean Ocean (just where those ships are in the picture) ...and, see that dotted line, tracing the Kings of the East's path? Well, that crosses Iran, Iraq, and Syria and Jordan. Israel announced this morning it intends a total invasion of Lebanon; so far our president is all but silent, as he watches Rome burn, since his bull-headed mishandling of the world's most sensitive region has brought us to this pass; and now he does nothing. I predict that the warmongers who have his ear will talk him into a deeper involvement yet, in this most benighted realm. Where is the end to all of this? That salient question seems to never occur to the Bush team; but here before you, in this picture, is perhaps one answer. Perhaps Iran has already puchased a nuke from the starving nation of North Korea with their overflowing coffers of oil money? That, too, would be a doomsday scenario, enacted in the Mideast, but authored by the stupidity of our leaders here in the USA.
There are two dooms here, then; this part of the world is vying for not a settlement with each other, not a judgement of who is right, but a conflagration, a final battle that, in the minds of those who seek it, is the will of God made manifest by armies, well-girded or ragtag. This Gott mit uns mentality allows people to fight to the death as there cities crumble and burn around them, as their children grow up in the rubble, and, as oh, yes, their support sinks ever lower in the polls due to endless foreign wars. Those of us yet too insulated to care about all of this, one word of warning; the hand has written, and moved on, but go to the wall and see; a great battle is coming, has already started; it lacks only being all joined, and then the hawks will have what they have worked so hard for these past few years; World War III, and whatever they have planned for thereafter...

Long Gone Lonesome Blue

2006-07-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

After a false starts, my communication with a certain Louisiana college has proven fruitful...the stand-in for the usual grad chair informed me that I am free and clear to register, which means that I am free and clear to return, in pretty much the same half-assed shape that I showed up the first time, just two years older and, even if I do say so myself, quite a bit wiser for the having left. I'm in better shape than that first time, by long shot. I'm free of a lot of people, for better or ill, my social roster is lighter than ever before, and it looks to remain so.
So, back to the Atchafalaya, back to the books, and once more from these green hills to proceed. This time, (at long last) there is no return; and I will not leave the bayou until the doctorate is mine.
And, then, the world is mine oyster, which I, with sword, shall open.
To the bayou, then. Au Revoir, green hills and tangled thicket; if we never meet again, we are too long in the knowing, already.

Ah, How Quickly We Forget

2006-06-21T12:13:00.000-05:00

A Message From the President:
In light of the terrible events in Haditha and elsewhere in Iraq, this administration has decided to distract you with bread and circuses, naked emotional appeals, and more outright lies. This disturbing image represents the Mobile Biological Weapons Production Facilities, used by Saddam's evil regime. They have lots of them, staffed by Sandmen and Jawa renegades. They patrol the limitless wastes of Arrakis, and are trying to stop Spice production, and destroy Disneyland, and the American Way. Iraq, AmWay, and the Jehovah's Witnesses represent an Axis of Evil, that only a gang of old GOP cronies like this administration is morally equipped to deal with.

Never mind Colin Powell's whitewashing of the My-Lai massacre, when he was sent to investigate in Viet Nam. Never mind Dick Cheney's multi-billion dollar collusion with Haliburton in Iraq. Never mind we were going to invade Iraq, anyway, before 9/11 ever happened; never mind any of those pointless things--look at this picture!!! Just look at it! Why, the safety of our sons and daughters comes first...unless, of course, I want to send them to Iraq..then they become martyrs (oops) I mean, heroes...anyway, their sacrifice, is well, hell, how am I supposed to fight a war without getting some people killed? Heck fire.

...now, we may have determined, after four years, that these here vehicles never even existed, which sure makes you want to ask, who drew this thing? Where were they getting their ideas, and information? Well, we'll just sweep that under the rug with the rest of it. Go watch American Idol, or survivor. Yeah, that's it, go back to sleep. Now that you're used to the idea of war, I got a doozy planned for you. It's called World War Three! You'll really like it. It's got China and North Kora in there, and the rest of the Mideast, too. Hell, everyone's invited...just don't go reading 1984 or The Sheep Look Up. Nothing but crazy ideas in them books. Global warming; endless war... What a laugh!

You got to love a society where you don't have to censor dangerous books, on account everybody's too dumb now to read 'em. I know I am! Oh, well. Just remember when you are crouching in a city swallowed by rioting, or clutching your rifle in some blameless foreign land, surrounded by dead buddies and crazed native scum hell-bent on your death, Freedom demands sacrifice; and I am free to demand yours!
May God continue to bless America.

Good night.

Alas, Babylon

2006-06-14T12:40:00.000-05:00

Here, on the edge of a ruined landscape, in the shade of the dead city, that we sold everything to build, so that we could in the end tear it down; here, in the evening of my kind, the clock of our era almost run to a stop; here, let me set a few words down, for those who might come after, if this tired planet will ever again bear fruit.

We went insane. We became so blase about our own killing of each other that we could watch, dry-eyed, while the images of the slain were paraded before us as entertainment. We could eat our Subway snadwiches, that were somehow magically supposed to make us thin while making us fat, talk on our cell phones and sleep with people we met online about whom we really knew absolutely nothing, kill each other over traffic mishaps, and let our children grow into ruined and helpless human beings so we could have fun until a later age.

We went insane; we spat out three generations in a row that couldn't see the point or the value in any of the institutions, values, and intellectual exercises it took to give them Game Cubes and Email, iPod and Grand Theft Auto. The forward momentum of our culture all but ceased. People who do not know the value of a thing, ultimately will lose the thing. It was long ago written, and it is true, "make yourself a sheep, and the wolf is ready."

So we let it slip out of our grasp; the barbarians were before the gate, and we had long ago given them the key. The infidels stole into the temple, and the temple fell. Metphors from a lost civilization at the end of an age. So, if you ever read this, future people, take heed; never let your children grow into insolent, uneducated, small-minded adults with no propensity for anything but their own instant gratification.

There, in that selfish little urge, lies the end of centuries of toil; of ill-picked leaders, of rampant crime; apathetic hordes who care nothing for law and order; of people who care nothing for education, so that the lamp of knowledge gutters and dies; so that other people from other lands must do your work for you, since you no longer know how. Beware; this is the warning from a civilization long gone to dust.

Days of Future Past

2006-06-10T03:40:00.000-05:00

Where are you, Paul Wicklund? Where are you, Philip Wheeler? Where are you, William and Marty, and where are you, my long lost youth. Oh, I know, well enough. You spent yourselves out like a fisherman's line, every sweet face, sharp comment and adolescent dream; and beneath the shoulders of the green hills we all dreamed, some of cosmic battles, some of simply leaving, and it was the cosmic fighters who took too long to realize that the great plateau upon which the godlike battle would be raged lay inside, and in no other place.

If you find this little missive, this message in a bottle, my Long Lost Ones, pray that those of us still looking find a light, after so much darkness. And be well.

Back off, man, I'm a blogger

2006-06-01T10:16:00.000-05:00

Hey, I have a blog on the Internet, so I must be a deep-thinking, well-informed, renaissance man, who knows everything, right? Right? I mean, you realize that every opinion I post here is the correct one, okay? If you don't, you must be some kind of noob, or uninformed idiot, or something that only cool guys like me know the insult for, right? ...and just remember, in my plan for world domination, everyone gets a free t-shirt.

The Age of Violence

2006-05-17T10:45:00.000-05:00

Rioting is the new free speech, it would seem, if Brazil, Mexico, France, and oh, yes, New Orleans and other cities of the USA are any indicator. And why not? When the "leaders" of the most powerful nation in the world can find no other way to address problems and greivances than sending in the troops? Send them to Iraq! Send them to Louisiana! Hey, uh, send them to the border! Violence begets violence, it was long ago written down; this is true. It begets itself and seldom little else. With death and mayhem becoming so prevalent in every sphere, it seems that the world is headed, not for another world war, but for a conflagration; tensions are a high in Asia, in Africa, and smouldering in the East of Europe and the old USSR; the Middle East is a powderkeg surrounded by madmen with torches. Those fierce torches seem to be the only light in that benighted land. In Venezuela and Iran, North Korea and Beiing, sabres are being rattled; in Somalia and Darfur the death knell is never silent. The world seems terribly adrift in a terrible and stormy sea, and the end, no one can foretell.

Things are looking up in NEAL

2006-05-14T02:10:00.000-05:00

Yeah, man; I think I'm like, gonna totally try to keep this blog at least on, like, a weekly basis, y'know? Cause that's what it's all about, man. Keeping the public, like, tuned in and happy, you dig? Far out.

Jeep will be all fixed Monday, which means I will be able to get motivated and go check on everyone. Also, I can begin my strategic withdrawal from NEAL, and make real plans to return to SWLA, after all.

Persephone Returns

2006-05-02T12:22:00.000-05:00

No angst-ridden monologue, no hungover insight, no earth-sundering political prediction or condemnation...just Tuesday, opening of May, slightly sunnier and slightly warmer than it was just a couple of months ago...I love May, and Spring in general because it is a promise of impending Summer, a promise that you know will always be kept. The birds have started their concert series, and the frogs and cicadas are warming up for their evening ensembles. Someone once wrote, it is a hard heart that does not love May, and I think he was right.

I am lost

2006-04-29T04:07:00.001-05:00

I wish I was not so lost.
It all seems like bullshit and so evil.
Gotta call from my budddy Mike.
Think he's worried about me.
Shit, what a guy. Dying here.
A door out. Thanks, Mike.

Gilligan

2006-04-29T04:07:00.000-05:00

..and of course that is what Gilligan meant to us all. We were lost.
We are still lost. I don't understand. We are confronted with more information than the human mind can assimilate. Bollocks to that.

News of the World

2006-04-26T02:35:00.000-05:00

I used to think that we were headed for World War Three; I now amend my earlier analysis of the international scene; I no longer believe that we are, as a race and as a planet, headed in the direction of war; I think that we are racing headlong toward a conflagration. The fire next time, is almost certainly at hand. Never before in all human history, have so many, been led, by so few, who were all the wrong leaders, at all the wrong time.

Peace go with you.

Summer summer summer summer...

2006-04-20T12:54:00.000-05:00

...You turn me upside down. Time to mow lawns, to clean thos ecobwebs away, to hunt the highway, to put things right, to ride south, and cram into our mouths the steaks our winter lacked.

Time to seek out a few friends and soem warm evenings and to finish projects long overdue...

Welcome back, summer, and all the life-giving powers over which you hold sway. goodbye to a long intractable winter that held so many ills and bad feelings. To work; hopefully, this weekend, much will be made right.

The Divine Messengers Three, and Their Words...

2006-04-20T00:49:00.000-05:00

Thinking cosmologically, I noted this morning, in reading the Koran, that Jesus is mentioned by Muhammed and referred to as "The Redeemer." I was reading this book, because I had heard that Muslims acknowledged Jesus (Isa) as a prophet, but not the Messiah--the book of Sulah in the Koran provides a readin that I found compelling, wherein Muhammed refers to Isa as "The Redeemer," after a miracle that Isa performs...my point in all of this is that the two religions are in no wise mutually intractable, no more so than are Judaism and Christianity. All three believe in the same diety--ie., the God of Abraham (and the Arabic people, in fact , consider themselves Abraham's descendents). In fact, all our differences are monetary and political. We mustn't forget that, or allow diatribes of any ethnicity/office/extemity to blur our all-too similar beliefs into the basis of some ill-advised and maniacal crusade, which will only steepen the bloodshed in a world, in which the blood is almost up to the bridle, already. Go in peace, and God be praised.

By the Sword

2006-04-15T15:10:00.000-05:00

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'" -

- Abraham Lincoln

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

- Ernest Hemingway

Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

- Hermann Goering

I don't see how you can lead this country to succeed in Iraq if you say wrong war, wrong time, wrong place. What message does that send our troops? What message does that send to our allies? What message does that send the Iraqis?

-George W. Bush

Words quail. Simple phrases and clauses cannot describe the
human suffering, the waves of devestation that flow outward
from each little disaster, that forms the cataclysm, the violent
and explosive rent in the fabric of reason, that is war.

Let us never forget, though, that there are two wars being waged in the word today, by the USA. One is the war that was brought to our doorstep
by Islamic extremists who longed to pull the US of A into a protracted
and bloody war on their own ground, so that they could finally bring the spotlight of the international media to their theater of complaint--

The United States of America responded to this attack vociferously and justly. This is the war that is being waged in Afghanistan, and in Indonesia, and in other parts of the world, today, over four years after the 9/11 attacks.

And then, there is that other war--the War in Iraq--the one that turned International opinion against the Bush Administration. The war that so bitterly divides American domestic discourse. The war that the media focuses on, relegating the War on Terror and the men and women who fight it to "oh, yeah, by the way," status.

This is Mr. Bush's war, the vendettas of the father taken up by the son, the war he blindly and deafly pressed upon a nation, never let us forget, largely and vocally against its coming.

I would say to all the young republicans out there who still adamantly refuse to see that the emperor has no clothes, that the Bush regime's legacy will be one of a failed foreign policy that will haunt several of his successors.

Now, we are confronted by an upheavel in the country's domestic policy that matches what the the million mistakes in Iraq have cost the US; 23 million illegal aliens that the country is helpless either to deport or assimilate, who intend to put America over a barrel. The ever-nebulous Bush seems eager to cave in to this extortion; The has also quite clearly articulated that all that he has wrought wil be left at the feet of his successors, whoever they might be.

In a three more years, then, Bush will wash his hands and walk away;

but this leaves one hard fact, disturbingly clear; the Bush legacy is one of strife, of need, of betrayal of values, and of human pain, and it is one that will endure long after this administration is fading, dusty history.

God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
--from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

--George Herbert, Dune.

Never let Your Guard Down.

2006-04-14T01:18:00.000-05:00

They are lying in wait for you. Expect an enemy counterattack at any time. If, like me, you have equipped yourself with suitable provisions, you might be able to outlast them. As of Friday, April 13, 2006, I have equipped myself with the following provisions:

A quart of gin.
A bottle of cheap, dry, white wine; never buy Vermouth; it is a marketing ploy for the ignorant.
Two moist towellettes found in my pocket after a drunken trip to the local diner.
A half-gallon of gin.
Another half-gallon of gin.
Two towels; one lima green, the other…white?
Black Velvet Painting of some dogs drinking gin (Painting, Ebay, $23.43).
Radio that runs off the power of human thought waves. See above.
Indispensable, purple cover with yellowish type paperback copy of The Catcher in the Rye.
Rye Whiskey (Half Gallon)
Seven new White T-Shirts (no pocket)
Two pairs underwear.
Army Survival Guide; canteen full of gin.
Six-pack of Heineken.
24-pack of microwavable burritos, bean flavor.
Two Pabst Blue Ribbons I found on the sidewalk (now chilled)
Bottle of 100 aspirin
1993 Penthouse Pet of the Year Runners up issue (Good condition)
Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
Ace bandage.

Thus fortified, I expect to repel any boarder, mugwump, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, excepting the most determined. Those who make it past such formidable defenses, I am sure, will be disposed to a mutual and hard-won fellowship, if initially begrudging, with their former adversary, as we are now brothers in arms. That is, as long as they keep their hands off my alcohol. The bastards.

::

2006-04-07T01:15:00.000-05:00

god blesses us/curses us with different sorts of shit.

Ah...Weekend of blissful indolence....

2006-04-06T23:58:00.000-05:00

Nothing much to do, but; go to work (hung over) tomorrow; get off work and put bed together and re-arrange room; work on car (long overdo) fix Jamie and Bobby's PCs; mow the grass; and set up that bar I'be been thinking about. Gotta go see mom and sisses, and my brother-man. Think that about covers it, except for what all I am forgetting. But I digress.

April Fool, Mothafucka

2006-04-01T16:20:00.000-06:00

Oh, this ain't no April fool. William Shatner and ( long-time friend) Ben Folds have put together what might appear as no more than a validictory album for the 75 year old Shatner; but, oh, no; it is much more, sublime, groundbreaking, and heartfelt. I applaud this album; go buy it, and listen to it, and listen to it again, every ten years or so. Like William Faulkner once said, "great literature must grieve upon universal bones." This is great music, and it obeys the same rubric. It will survive the ages, oncew Star Trek is long forgotten. Hey: Listen to this.

Days of Future Past

2006-04-01T02:43:00.000-06:00

Ah. Staring down forty and wondering what to do with the time still ahead. I am not morose, though, nor do I want to rush out and get married, or buy a sports car and start dating younger women (Not that I have ever stopped dating younger women.) Still, the old internal clock keeps a steady remind that time, precious and irrreplaceable is slipping into a black hole from which it may never be recalled, and I am no where near where I planned to be by this time in my life. But such is the way of things. I was recently listening to William Shatner's Has Been online teaser/interview, and I was deeply impressed with the rang of emotions and depth of thought that he and Ben Folds brought forth in this newest work. There's a great message there for people who have long since said goodbye to their salad days.
Has been... just might again. Rock on, Shatner.

So long, Buck

2006-03-25T22:51:00.000-06:00

Well, as Shakespeare once wrote, man must bear his going hence. In the last few years, though, I must say, the march of time has taken dear presence after dear presence from my life. I thought about you just the other day; ah, well. We all have to go, I reckon. So long, Buck, this unread, unraised generation shore ain't who you were singin' to. Rest easy.

I reminisce

2006-03-18T12:53:00.000-06:00

I awoke this morning murmuring the words to a song that I haven't heard in years, and this left me with a strange, nostalgic air that is hard to shake--just had to jump on the Internet and look up the lyrics to that 1975 Tanya Tucker hit, "Lizzy and the Rainman," to see maybe what Freudian mechanism was at work in my frail mind...maybe it is the positive message of the song; the magical solution to a real world problem that has left people bereft of hope--maybe the song's insistence that, if things are to get better, we have to believe in something. So, step back non-believers, or the rain will never come; someone keep that fire burnin', somebody beat the drum...look a yonder, here comes the rain.

Let it Ride

2006-03-15T23:07:00.000-06:00

Argh. Time is still having its way with me. Finally got the web site up and running, so now that German guy can keep paying me for advertising. I still have yet to get my Jeep fixed so I can get around and visit my friends and go hang out with my brother, which is something I need to do every so often to stay sane. I was supposed to get the required parts last week, but who should show up but a representative from the Power Company (fascists) apparently me roommate had forgot to pay the power--I had to cough up abotu $400.00 bucks to avoid getting the power cut off that day. That left me kinda broke. Anyway, When I get paid again, everything should be caught up, so I can finally get motivated again. In a strange sidenote to the story, my cousin was dating this gal who has a (broken down) jeep, same make and model as mine, and she offered to give me the aforementioned part. The night prior to the whole POwer company fascisto thing, though, she came by (drunk, at 2:00 am, no less) and proclaimed that it was really me that she had wanted all along. I sent her on her way, I has have never been the low-down, chick snaking type. I figured that she just needed some sleep, anyway. I'm so noble. Sometimes.

The Republican Dream

2006-03-10T00:03:00.000-06:00

Make a deal, any deal, as long as it makes you money.
If someone else doesn't have something, they don't deserve it, because they haven't worked hard enough. If people are unhappy with the way things are, they are obviously just wanting a handout. Or, worse, they are dreamers. If people don't agree with the government, they are guilty of treason. Never tell the whole truth, because the truth is too much for the masses. Privilege is worth preserving, at any cost, if it is your own.

This is the Republican Dream, and the reality of the Bush years!

Woe unto the next president that inherits the Bush legacy...and, moreover, woe unto the country that does the same.

Sign seen leaving Tampa

2006-03-08T12:12:00.000-06:00

Tell me, is there balm in Gilead?

2006-03-06T00:24:00.000-06:00

Is there a way back from here? Global warming, shrinking polar ice caps, El Nina's return; Iran pushing Nuclear brinkmanship, a war in the Mideast that threatens daily to explode into a protracted and horrific Third World War, and every ill seems to weave together in some Dune-like tapestry of St. John's Revelation. The ghost of Malthus is everywhere we look; disease, starvation, genocide, gigantic crimes against the human spirit that cry for redress and go unanswered. We all want reasons, action, in short, answers, but the man on the hill isn't giving any. And meanwhile, the sheep look up.

Unrhyw 'n hen cacha

2006-03-04T23:33:00.000-06:00

I bleidleisio yn Gymraeg cliciwch yma?
Ai dybi dyma 'n esmwyth ach 'n debygol mo ferwina, 'n grai ddyn.

Back in Black, Baby

2006-03-02T13:50:00.000-06:00

I have shucked off all the bad stuff. Shed my skin. I will set out toward the Southern horizon with a new perspective. Like Burroughs once wrote, have awakened in new skin, the outlook different.

Here's to the new era, and letting go of a lot of crap.

Going Down South Again

2006-03-01T13:46:00.000-06:00

The news came today and it was official...I have been unconditionally
readmitted as a PhD candidate in good standing at a certain college down
Louisiana way. This is news, of which I have bided many months in anticiptation. So the way is no longer shut to me, as once I feared. I can go back now and be called Dr.______ by students until such a circumstance comes to be. And thanks again, ye powers, for giving me a second chance...I won't leave the bayous again until the matter is settled.

Feeling Antsy

2006-03-01T00:37:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah I'm still working this dead end motherfucker of a job here in NEAL (North East ALabama for those mercifully and blissfully uninformed) my car is broke and things really sick, but I am slowly and patiently putting a formidable armada together, which will sally forth and lay my enemies low when the time is nigh.

Shit, I didn't get to go see my buddy Mike, I miss Mobile so badly...I missed Mardi Gras altogether this year. Bummer.

I'm not going to dwell on the negatives, though, the levelling wind is beginning to blow, and I believe that good things will be borne my way upon it. Yes, this I still believe. As the picture's story shows, a rough spot in the road...is not the end of the road. Far from it. So, to the road ahead.

Pwnz

2006-02-18T18:06:00.000-06:00

Yeesh, another cold and rainy weekend in NEAL.
I would rather be passing the balmy e'ens away in SWLA.
It seems that perhaps when summer wains, that is where I
am to be, to pick up the traces where I left them at the end of '04.
Either way, when I skip this town, I vow to be in better shape
financially, physically, eomtionally, spiritually, and psychically
for what lies ahead...and oh so happy to leave this place behind for once
and for all.

Don't Try

2006-02-17T18:10:00.000-06:00

Charles "Hank/Buk" Bukowski was the toughest motherfucker to ever live. I am the second. Like him, I have survived:

Dysfunctional parents, horrid boils, playground bullies, ulcers, insanity, insane women, squalid houses, fights in allies and barroom brawls, cat fights with girlfriends, a nagging case of hemorrhoids, cheap rooms, alley rats, jail, the draft, politically correct poetry and fiction editors, Chicago freeways, mad friends, poets musicians and writers befriended, ghetto mobsters, humanity, cops, jail, groupies, scars, rejection slips, Canada, silverfish, cheap booze, more jail, barflys, Washington DC freeways, park benches, bad running cars, decades of mind-numbing jobs, stupid ass and dull-headed co-workers, at least five grad schools, New Orleans whores, and all that other shit that kills ordinary, run-of-the-mill humans.

Yeah, so today is my international Bukowski day for one, writing and drinking and laying out from work and just generally not giving a solitary damn.

RIP, Buk.

High Noon

2006-02-14T12:48:00.000-06:00

Alas; the pivotal moment, long awaited, at last has arrived. Gary Cooper's Roman au clef performance has personal signifigance for me. The time is migh when I will leave this green prison once again, and grapple with the forces that stand between me and my dreams. The struggle is always there; we must just find the strength to rejoin the fight.
--Rev.

The Prophecy is upon U.S.

2006-02-01T09:20:00.000-06:00

Was Frank Herbert a seer, a prophet of things to come? No; what he was, though, was a great, far-sighted science fiction writer of the first rank, a latter-day Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, who, like him, were astute political and social observers, as well as creative geniuses.

Something that I pointed out in a paper I wrote while working on my Masters in Political Science, was that, like Edward Bellamy, the Author of "Looking Backward," Herbert was able to look at the world around him, its trends and its dangers, and set down a warning for the generations to come. Mr. Herbert in Dune has made a startling accurate, and alarming roman a clef
prediction for the U.S.A.

Consider these ideas as symbols:
Spice=Oil
Arrakis(Dune)=Iraq
Terms that crop up with similarity are Shaddam (Saddam) Fedayken (Fedaye'en)
...but what is most apparent is that Herbert foresaw that if anything troubling ever happened in Arrak (heh) that the Emperor (President) would be forced to commit his highly advanced, heavily armed troops (Sardukar/US Armed Forces) to fight the more spiritual, rag-tag zealots that peopled the desert, and controlled that most vital of commodities, without which (space) travel is impossible.

This piece of literature is a vital insight into what is transpiring in the Middle East today, and it is chilling if one reads the entire series, and takes Herbert's vision into account, and places in that context...for he saw Western involvement in the Mideast as meddling, internicine, and ultimately, fatal for the powers that intervene there.

It is indeed ironic that fate has placed us in the hands of a president who has probably never read a book. The one lesson that history has taught us, and that Mr. Bush's late address made abundantly clear that he had missed; while he pledges repeatedly that "America will not leave until the job is finished," America's foes learned thirty years ago, that you do not have to beat America to win. You just have to keep her from winning, any dirty way you need to, and you might just win when they tire of your crummy little country and at last go home.
Was Herbert right? Had he seen the coming Mideastern struggle, even as the ashes of Viet Nam still smoldered? Time will tell.

The oil must flow.

And Once Again, the Lost Highway Beckons

2006-01-28T01:35:00.000-06:00

I'll be taking a few days off from work. I'll be getting out of town. I'm going to try to put the universe back into order, those pieces that will still fit somewhere. The others, the ones with no fit, I must part with for good. But first, the long and lonesome highway lies before me, an increasingly familiar companion on my journey from one alone to another. So to the highway. Again.

I Really Would Like to Get the Hell Out of Here, Pt. II

2006-01-21T17:10:00.000-06:00

I miss the Coast. As the days pass, however, something tells me that the place I was once, I am never to know again.
I am cut out to be a teacher; I know this about myself. It is the one thing that I do well, the one thing that I have my head on straight about; the one thing that I long to do. So many of the people who call themselves educators or incompetent, or simply serving some agenda of their own, with no care for their students, or for the truth.
So, I must ask myself, and take hardf stock of my answer, why am I not lecturing somewhere?
I have to get busy with the business that lies before me, and, as always, as there have been, and will always be, there are hurdles to be overcome. So I must get to it.

A Pause for the Cause

2006-01-20T20:04:00.000-06:00

Got a surprise day off from work. Going to take some time for just me. Going to sit here in the house and do...not too much today. Gonna drink a few beers, and think some thoughts. Play some games and keep it light. Listen to some tunes and dream some dreams. Tomorrow is tomorrow's worry. Trying to baby this new year and see if it turns out to be something. We'll see. But not today.

Shout out to GSR in Sin City

2006-01-09T23:07:00.000-06:00

My buddy of many years is out livin' it laughin' it lovin' it on The Strip, bumpin' with porn starlets and exuding effortless cool. He is graciously calling to keep me posted on his exploits, and we are already planning a return trip for this April when the leaves are ripe and the ladies are dressing more...casual. No problemo, as far as the Rev. is concerned. Can't wait to get my knuckles kissed by the requisite lucky redhead; here's to the man, and I can't wait to see you bro, upon your return. Keep the Faith.

Free Manuel Bartsch !!!!

2006-01-05T10:31:00.000-06:00

THIS
is an outrage! A European highschool student here in the USA, who thinks he's a US citizen, just like you and me, is in jail because his "step-grandfather" didn't fill out some paperwork years ago.

...what the hell is going on here? The kid in question is of German descent. I want the person who put this kid in jail, in jail. I want to attend this kid's graduation. I want this never to have happened. This is the kind of retarded stuff that goes on in W Bush America, and the reason that people like me dreaded its coming. I'm sorry, kid. This is not the America that my father fought to save.

I'm embarressed and angry. I wish that there was more I could do.
Good luck to you. Anybody who reads this, get pissed off and make a noise. Show this kid that the USA is better than this.

Good News Bad News

2006-01-04T13:39:00.000-06:00

It's a heavy world, man; once you are in the race, you get to know people, get to know things, see the way it all works, and just when you are ready to settle in and start living, everything blows up in your face.
A dear friend of mine's mom passed away recently, and due to the fact that my @#$&! phone is playing hooky, I didn't hear until she and JR came by, days later to let me know. Phone's still out; made me miss new year's calls from everyone else, too. Trying to get in touch with Bellsouth today. Of course, the bastards still want their monthly charges, even if their service sucks and I haven't been able to use it for a week. Oddly enough I am still online...?
The pic at left is from a Richard Cheese album cover. If you haven't heard "Down with the Sickness," man you don't know what you're missing. So come one, get up, get down with the sickness....................................................

We are met at the dawn of a new day

2006-01-01T20:07:00.000-06:00

A new year begins! A new year is always a time of great ambivalence, since we get to look behind us, but the future is a blank space, a dark tunnel, an empty highway. We cannot know what new faces people our tomorrows, what new sight awaits, just out of our range of vision. We can only stumble on into the darkness, and hope that it leads us to a light. The adventure of life is to walk into the unknown, and after all, every morning is a door into the new, like the man said who stood at the gate of the year said. So tomorrow, we arise anew to what new visions, no one can say...

In the New Year, There Will Be a Great Visitation of Energy

2005-12-31T00:37:00.000-06:00

List of things that aren't important:

Celebrities, gossip, drama, things that might have been, spam, TV offers, bargains you don't need, bullshit, superficial shit that idiots think important, the best cell phone plan, how much money you might have saved, that new thing that everyone is blathering about, what any asshole thinks of you, stupid sluts like those pictured, whatever happened to you X years ago, a little wait, a longer wait, a bill or two overdo 'cause you don't have the money, the past.

List of things that are important: The friends you have left, your family, your plans, your dreams, what you do with the time you have left, and the talent and light that God has given you. And the always undreamed of tomorrow, the miracle that comes to us every day, and no one sees. And love. Like the lad said, it is all that we have.

Goodbyes

2005-12-20T23:30:00.000-06:00

They are never easy things. As I sit here, 2330 hrs, in the death of the year, I am ready to say my goodbyes to the year, to the things it meant, and to the things that I leave forever behind with it. So, Goodbye, 2005. This nameless, rootless decade is halfway done, now, and it has brought me no farther than where I started, after all. Goodbye, Lafayette, I fear that I will never see you again, and I am awakening to what that is to mean to me, only now, in cold december, 700 miles away. Goodbye, Barbara; goodbye Carey; Goodbye Jason, and all the other names that might so easily fall from me. Let me leave them here, at last, in this ethereal realm of ones and zeroes, so fitting a repose for such a dreamlike year. Let it contain you, for I can no more; and let this be my time capsule to no one, never to be unearthed, as it will never know the soil. I tried to say goodbye. I fought the good fight. It is, after all, the only thing that I do well. So to all of it, and all of you; So long.

Keeping a Sense of Perspective is Sometimes Difficult

2005-12-20T00:14:00.000-06:00

Oh, yeah, I'm home from work, later and longer than I wanted, a couple of days in, and the old warhorse is still running with the colts, after all. So I am looking at going over the water and teaching the English to willing recipients of same. Nothing left for me in this dirty old town but a grind that I don't belong in, and a bunch of phantoms, and I have got more than enough of them to keep me company. If anybody asks you, just tell 'em that you saw me down in Birmingham, sleeping in a boxcar going by, and that you would like to tell them a better tale, but then you'd have to tell them a lie...

Bastards Compell Your Humble Narrator to Return to Work

2005-12-16T13:34:00.000-06:00

Still feeling like week-old afterbirth, but the rotten conditions at work include the shitty rules governing people still under probation demand that I return to work, regardless of how I feel, or the fact that I am (quite likely) still contagious. This is going to be a very, VERY long night. But this is, after all, I realize, just God's way of reminding me that I should be doing something very different, very far from here.

And so it goes...

Plague strikes your humble narrator

2005-12-15T20:19:00.000-06:00

After a couple of days with some dear friends, I returned home to nap and awaken...deathly ill!
Unable to get out of bed the next, day. I have now been away from work three days. Chills, soreness that is downright hard to believe, and wooziness. Have to take frequent breaks from even sitting. It took me an hour to work up the strength to enter this post. Ugh. Doctor tomorrow morning. Feel like death.

I Really Wish I could Get the Hell out of Here, Pt. 1

2005-12-11T23:15:00.000-06:00

Old friends have cast me aside. They won't call or write or anything. I made a terrible mistake, sure, and now I can't seem to get back to where I want to be. Where I need to be. The relationship didn't pan out. It went to hell when it failed. Whatever happened, though, it was my own decision that led me into it, so I have no one to blame. If I ever get back to Louisiana (and the highway has many, many turns) I'll know better. Hell, I knew better before I left. My tender years are long behind me. It's cold here in Dixieland, a hell of a lot colder than I like, and this place is everything that H.L. Mencken called it, a cultural Sahara, for me become an island on which I toil alone. There might not be a way out of here, just yet. But when it comes, there's no looking back, this time. Mixing my metaphors freely, I'll just say that I think of it as the last exit on a lost highway that I am very, very anxious to leave, at last. I wish I wish. I wish things had turned out better with B. I wish that friends hadn't made me make the choices that I had to make. I wish that I had never left Louisiana. I wish that I had gone there, in the first place, years ago, and never come back to this green valley that was my prison for so long, and is my prison, today. I am looking for a light. I pray that I find it soon. I have stored up some patience in these almost four decades of waiting, however. My time will come around again. Not like I envision today, probably nothing that I have even thought of thus far, but I am patient and time always tells. The wheel still turns. People have moved on, and we cannot blame people for cutting us out of their lives. We all have to nake our own decisions. And men, well, we have to be men.

Creepy Feelings, Inc.

2005-12-09T03:01:00.000-06:00

I dunno. Somebody has decided to die, or maybe they are busy having an accident, or they have planned a spectacular accident that will cripple them forever. I know, somehow, and I call them and let them know...

When the Djinni lets me.

Too Much Time on the Internet

2005-12-08T12:32:00.000-06:00

Hoo, boy. I play CoH, CoV, web design, blog, too;
let's see. Maybe I should get myself a new hobbie...
I'm contemplating beermaking. I invented a NEW SLEUTH, and I am writing a short story that I am
currently excited about...hmmm...uh, I found this cool picture...yeah, really sums it up. Wish it was warmer. 27 bloody degrees, and here in the South, at that. Friends from Louisiana called to say it was "down in the 40s". Losers. I'll be where it's warm again, some day...haven't been to Hell yet, after all.

Hangover of the Gods

2005-12-04T10:25:00.000-06:00

Ugh. Hangover bad! Feel like about 2 dollars and 17 cents. Blarg. Now, that's Keira Knightley, the actress. She's hot. I mean, I'd like to hang around with her, in bed maybe, and say, hey, Keir, check that out over there. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I'd be like, you know baby, not right now, I have a hangover, and she'd be like, aw, let me give you a hug, dahling. So fine. Cool. Oh, my head.

Avarice and Neglect

2005-12-01T09:29:00.000-06:00

When I read the transcript of the President's remarks on his "Plan for Victory" in Iraq, I heard a lot of statistics recited, a lot of hoo-hah about Iraq's phantom military constantly making strides toward seizing the reins from a beleaguered American military, and of course, ubiquitous pats on the back for his cronies (that all his speeches seem written to contain); but I didn't hear anything about an, ahem, plan for victory. At this point, I just want to ask my President, what is "victory" in this precarious situation? Of all of our stated reasons for being in a foreign, sovereign nation to begin with, i.e., the removal of weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Hussein regime, one proved false prima facie, and the other has been accomplished...the one reason that our president vowed to us he would never, never use American troops for, and that is nation building, is now our only goal. History teaches this is a failed mission; no project the likes of which we are attempting ever leaves anything but generations of misery. And this in a region that is only now beginning to emerge from the hangover of British occupation that wrought the Palestinian/Israel dilemma. Mistakes that we seemed "Planned to Repeat."

FIVE DAYS OFF!!!!

2005-11-23T11:24:00.000-06:00

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!

They are still among us.

2005-11-20T15:35:00.000-06:00

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'

2005-11-20T11:14:00.000-06:00

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.

I Know a Man

2005-11-19T11:01:00.000-06:00

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.

What will they think of us?

2005-11-18T10:57:00.000-06:00

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.

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

2005-11-17T12:10:00.000-06:00

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.

For the Coalition Dead

2005-11-15T01:30:00.000-06:00

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

And good riddance, too....

2005-11-14T13:42:00.000-06:00

Alabama Legislature votes against Rosa Parks Day

2005-11-13T22:08:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-11-13T20:36:00.000-06:00

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.

2005-11-13T16:21:00.000-06:00

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.

Plastered, not stirred.

2005-11-12T12:43:00.000-06:00

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.

End of the year blues....

2005-11-10T09:09:00.000-06:00

::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.

Earth Needs Dreamers

2005-11-08T13:41:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-08T01:03:00.000-06:00

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.

Ah, yes...

2005-11-07T10:18:00.000-06:00

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.....

November 6th, 2005

2005-11-06T14:47:00.000-06:00

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!

Redeye whiskey for the pain

2005-11-02T16:18:00.000-06:00

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

2005-11-02T09:48:00.000-06:00

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.

It's halloween again...

2005-10-31T11:32:00.000-06:00

well, it's the feast of All Saints today; All Souls Night beckons. It's also Monday. CoV and Beers, most likely ofr me, after a rousing 8 hours in the old workplace. Reworking The Zoo, after all this time. Funny, funny stuff. Dark, but funny.

Poor Richard's Government

2005-10-29T15:11:00.000-05:00

Just when you thought it was safe to get back onto the Internet.

This girl was hanged in Iran for talking back to an Islamic judge. She was on trial
for having committed adultery. Her crime was telling the judge that she should be allowed to speak. Her name was Atefeh Rajabi, and she died for the cause of freedom. She was 16 years old.

How many people left in this country would do the same? For the want of ten.....

Benjamin Franklin said it best:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

And the clock is ticking.

And remember, when all hope seems lost, what he also wrote:

Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.

:: Do what you think is right, and let no one fault you.

Rev. Dr. D

October and the Rushes

2005-10-29T14:09:00.000-05:00

The grass, blind to the season, crawls at me through
the glass, the tiny thin glass, strange convention,
the window, fragile portal held in by strips of wood
as old as Germany.

Wind batters, and this is important,
because wind and Winter have sense of time,
summer is for lovers, and breezes have no memory.

The death of summer is no true death.
Only Winter coughs and nags like the slow pains that
come with the reckless accumulation of the years.

Mercury sings high in the spheres, though its earthly
namesake shrinks to a red dot on the stoop.

Winter speaks, winter reminds, the careful midwife of a million cares;

This is the last year that I will wipe the slate clean.
This is the last time the cold will not bite so.
Next year, next year, sweet infant,
You will wear the clothes of the old.

Dread my coming.

--October 29, 2005.

Republicans take heed!

2005-10-29T09:58:00.000-05:00

All the facts on the GOP are here, Onion-style. My favorite "Pundit" is the roman a clef Kathleen Kuntly. Check out her bio! Simply Hilarious Rodham Clinton.

http://www.republicanpress.com/

Il n'y a aucune réponse

2005-10-28T09:01:00.000-05:00

Friday. Halloween weekend beckons. So much unrequited in the last weeks. So much still unknown. At least I have the comfort of knowing that I am moving forward, that I have resumed my goals. Karma will have to take care of the dharma.

His Silver Skin Laced with his Golden Blood, inc.

2005-10-27T10:31:00.000-05:00

I seems that none of my heroes lived long enough for me to meet them. The last of my giants died February 20th of this dying year, reportedly at his own hand. Hunter S. Thompson, famed author of such works as "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail," and the similarly named ode to a lost week in Vegas, apparently commited suicide because he felt life had run out of fun for him; he laft a letter, of sorts, which indicated that for him, the wine was just no longer sweet, and the complaints of old age had begun to nag. He put a period at the end of his life, like Hemingway before him; and, whatever your feelings on the subject of suicide, I gave his decision a quiet nod. Alas; now the weenies have seized hold of HST's death, and have proclaimed, (as they do, with tiresome regularity) ...the CIA done did it!

a final word on the matter....

2005-10-26T13:05:00.000-05:00

It seems that a lot of people were upset, or prepared to be upset with me,
when I returned here from Louisiana...I had seemingly abandoned my PhD program in the pursuit of a woman. No doubt, now they will feel justified, in that that relationship failed, and so miserably, at that. As is true for all of us, though, I alone pay for my mistakes, and they are therefore necessarily mine to make. Regrets? Not a one; I did what my heart told me. Through the tapestry of my life run many such threads, and all threads have a beginning, and an end, and so be it.

*** *** ***

Since I am always quoting it:

Cry For Love

___ ___ ___ fnord.

The Demands of Fashion; or, Is it cold in here?

2005-10-26T10:36:00.000-05:00

Getting cold outside, so out come the winter clothes that escaped calamity at the hands of my ex. Enough about her; I have banished her to the nether regions of the phantom zone of my mind. Speaking of other universes, or, at least, other worlds and other possibilities, I always find it intriguing when a noted scientist advances a theory that challenges complacent and conservative minds in the field. Check this out, if you are interested in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and have an interest in astronomy:

http://www.anomalist.com/reports/probe.html