Been really down lately,
maybe for good reason,
gotta say that some days,
it seems like its just not worth it,
why do i bother trying for folks,
who lie to me and despise me,
for whatever reason,
and the reasons are many.
I'm not particularly good,
not evil either, maybe in-between,
leaving me as insubstantial either way,
so why should anyone really care,
what happens to me?
But i can't think of me,
i have a family,
two sons and a daughter,
who rely upon me,
to do what i ought to,
but sometimes getting up is a struggle.
I'm not suicidal,
don't be misled by what I've said,
but sometimes,
i just wonder,
what the fuss is all about.
This life that we all live,
what is it that we must give,
to satiate ourselves,
and any others,
that we hold dear.
And the lies they tell,
about romance and love,
given to us from above,
damn them all to hell,
these notions we must dispel.
I love, but at my own detriment,
loving and having destroy,
can't say that I don't like it,
but there again is the paradox,
love and life we cannot live without,
but whens all said and done,
i am alone, shrouded in doubt.
3.30.2007
the baht bus to Udon Thani
one of my earliest memories was of riding to town,
on the baht bus, a converted truck,
that picked all us poor suckers up,
from our meager village on the fringe,
and took us to Udon Thani,
the regional hub, notable only because,
of the road that was built by the U.S. Army,
and airbase used by the U.S. Air Force.
Bombing runs over Hanoi every day,
the first true taste of modern life for us,
paved roads and electricity,
radios and telephones and running water,
ice boxes and televisions,
in a place that still used water buffoloes,
to plow their rice fields.
I'm a product of that place,
son of an ex-Marine, working for the C.I.A.,
going over to Laos and doing what they say,
bugging every square foot of the U.S. embassy,
trying to trap someone for something I guess,
but met a lady there who would become my mother.
that sunny hot day, with my grandmother at my side,
the baht bus was stopped, by some lumberjacks,
their buddy was stuck under a tree,
after many tense minutes finally freed,
then put into the bus at our feet,
only a few metres away, gasping for air,
bleeding out of every pore it seemed,
but he lay there at our feet,
for the torturous trek to the city,
simple villagers were we,
watching him die at our feet,
I couldn't have been more than four,
but I remember still the sound of death,
gasping and choking with tortured breaths,
body broken and bloodied beyond belief,
when he finally stopped breathing, it was relief.
for him and for us, all of us on the baht bus,
on our way into town, on a merry jaunt,
nothing more, just villagers going shopping,
but I remember the sandals on his feet,
because they left them next to the street,
in a kind of shrine, to remind us that,
we never know when it is our time,
and not living your life is the only true crime.
so seize the day, carpe diem,
for tomorrow my friends,
we know not if we will have the time,
to do what we want before it ends.
on the baht bus, a converted truck,
that picked all us poor suckers up,
from our meager village on the fringe,
and took us to Udon Thani,
the regional hub, notable only because,
of the road that was built by the U.S. Army,
and airbase used by the U.S. Air Force.
Bombing runs over Hanoi every day,
the first true taste of modern life for us,
paved roads and electricity,
radios and telephones and running water,
ice boxes and televisions,
in a place that still used water buffoloes,
to plow their rice fields.
I'm a product of that place,
son of an ex-Marine, working for the C.I.A.,
going over to Laos and doing what they say,
bugging every square foot of the U.S. embassy,
trying to trap someone for something I guess,
but met a lady there who would become my mother.
that sunny hot day, with my grandmother at my side,
the baht bus was stopped, by some lumberjacks,
their buddy was stuck under a tree,
after many tense minutes finally freed,
then put into the bus at our feet,
only a few metres away, gasping for air,
bleeding out of every pore it seemed,
but he lay there at our feet,
for the torturous trek to the city,
simple villagers were we,
watching him die at our feet,
I couldn't have been more than four,
but I remember still the sound of death,
gasping and choking with tortured breaths,
body broken and bloodied beyond belief,
when he finally stopped breathing, it was relief.
for him and for us, all of us on the baht bus,
on our way into town, on a merry jaunt,
nothing more, just villagers going shopping,
but I remember the sandals on his feet,
because they left them next to the street,
in a kind of shrine, to remind us that,
we never know when it is our time,
and not living your life is the only true crime.
so seize the day, carpe diem,
for tomorrow my friends,
we know not if we will have the time,
to do what we want before it ends.
3.22.2007
smells linger
Born at the wrong time, maybe wrong place as well,
Sights and sounds of today seem so foreign,
Remember seeing everything with fresh wondering eyes,
But those have become everyday, the smells linger,
Still strong, still elicit an uncertain response.
Smells at once medicinal, jarringly sweet at others,
Flowery old lady smells, fill the offices, the schools,
Teachers and secretaries, receptionists and lavatories,
Soaps and perfumes, cleaners and fragrances,
Assaulting your nose as you enter their domain.
This strange new world that I stumbled into,
With their own language and customs,
Nothing like where I was born and raised,
Half a world away, amongst the rice fields,
Hot tropical sun burning the sky,
Dirt or muddied roads leading to town,
Kids playing in buffalo dung,
The only smells were of livestock,
Grandma’s cooking and the natural world.
Sometimes my food assaults, heavy with garlic,
Drenched in fish sauce and peppers,
An indistinct Asian-y smell that also repels,
but not as much as their cheeses or sauces,
their cured meats and casserole dishes.
Perhaps its just what you know,
What you’re raised around and with,
That determines your likes and dislikes,
But so much today I am surrounded by their smells,
Some of which I’ve come to accept,
But others remind me that we’re not the same,
Remind me that I am only visiting, for a time,
But I cannot return to my home, its not there,
Swept up by time and forced ahead,
Some better, some worse, just different.
I cling to one or the other, neither will have me,
A product of both, I came as a harbinger,
Hated for a time at home, they knew I was the future,
I was the physical proof that things would change,
Their way of life forever gone, right before their eyes.
And here, still so compartmentalized, a place for everything,
So where did I belong, I belonged to none of them,
A whole new something that happened along,
On the tail end and on the cusp, another new dawn,
Everything forever changing, nothing ever stays the same.
The smells assault me still, take me back to yesterday,
An express route to my memories, of times past,
Scared little boy sitting in the school office,
Trying to make sense of the new world around him,
Chanel No. 5 or the smell of bleach,
Take me back to those uncertain yesterdays.
Sights and sounds of today seem so foreign,
Remember seeing everything with fresh wondering eyes,
But those have become everyday, the smells linger,
Still strong, still elicit an uncertain response.
Smells at once medicinal, jarringly sweet at others,
Flowery old lady smells, fill the offices, the schools,
Teachers and secretaries, receptionists and lavatories,
Soaps and perfumes, cleaners and fragrances,
Assaulting your nose as you enter their domain.
This strange new world that I stumbled into,
With their own language and customs,
Nothing like where I was born and raised,
Half a world away, amongst the rice fields,
Hot tropical sun burning the sky,
Dirt or muddied roads leading to town,
Kids playing in buffalo dung,
The only smells were of livestock,
Grandma’s cooking and the natural world.
Sometimes my food assaults, heavy with garlic,
Drenched in fish sauce and peppers,
An indistinct Asian-y smell that also repels,
but not as much as their cheeses or sauces,
their cured meats and casserole dishes.
Perhaps its just what you know,
What you’re raised around and with,
That determines your likes and dislikes,
But so much today I am surrounded by their smells,
Some of which I’ve come to accept,
But others remind me that we’re not the same,
Remind me that I am only visiting, for a time,
But I cannot return to my home, its not there,
Swept up by time and forced ahead,
Some better, some worse, just different.
I cling to one or the other, neither will have me,
A product of both, I came as a harbinger,
Hated for a time at home, they knew I was the future,
I was the physical proof that things would change,
Their way of life forever gone, right before their eyes.
And here, still so compartmentalized, a place for everything,
So where did I belong, I belonged to none of them,
A whole new something that happened along,
On the tail end and on the cusp, another new dawn,
Everything forever changing, nothing ever stays the same.
The smells assault me still, take me back to yesterday,
An express route to my memories, of times past,
Scared little boy sitting in the school office,
Trying to make sense of the new world around him,
Chanel No. 5 or the smell of bleach,
Take me back to those uncertain yesterdays.
3.21.2007
lorraine avenue
We traveled over oceans and eons in our minds,
The physical reality was much tamer,
State boundaries, city limits, in a handful of years,
At the edge of childhood, pre-adulthood,
Loomed on the horizon and collapsed on us both.
I destroyed your innocence, begrudged you your place,
Because your childhood wasn’t full of hate,
No anxiety, no drunken excesses could I see.
From my perspective at least, but what is true,
Is known only to you, but I wanted what was yours,
Not for you, but for me to have and to hoard.
I lied to you and lied to myself, endless times,
The impact on you was negative, destroyed all trust,
But what you gave me you’ll never know,
Showed me how to be, with my own family,
A childhood surrounded by music and books.
A love of learning and cultures, yours and others,
My debt to you is enormous and will never be paid,
I tried to forget you for years, but you are stuck inside,
You told me that it was not love I felt, but I denied,
Kept playing the game, kept fooling myself.
Every mournful note I hear, every beautiful sight,
Always reminds me of you, none of it is yours,
You are blameless in this, but I never overcame,
All the shallow pettiness that was only mine,
Ever caring about other’s opinions and thoughts.
But you were not the impetuous one at age sixteen,
Beguiling and negating me at every step,
Not the one that made me throw reason aside,
You were given all their attributes and much more.
All these burdens I have placed upon you,
All the paths not traveled, the loves not spoken,
The soaring and falling, from hopelessly high heights,
But the you that is real, I will never truly know,
Leaving me holding nothing and knowing less,
Whatever and so on, forever and never, amen.
The physical reality was much tamer,
State boundaries, city limits, in a handful of years,
At the edge of childhood, pre-adulthood,
Loomed on the horizon and collapsed on us both.
I destroyed your innocence, begrudged you your place,
Because your childhood wasn’t full of hate,
No anxiety, no drunken excesses could I see.
From my perspective at least, but what is true,
Is known only to you, but I wanted what was yours,
Not for you, but for me to have and to hoard.
I lied to you and lied to myself, endless times,
The impact on you was negative, destroyed all trust,
But what you gave me you’ll never know,
Showed me how to be, with my own family,
A childhood surrounded by music and books.
A love of learning and cultures, yours and others,
My debt to you is enormous and will never be paid,
I tried to forget you for years, but you are stuck inside,
You told me that it was not love I felt, but I denied,
Kept playing the game, kept fooling myself.
Every mournful note I hear, every beautiful sight,
Always reminds me of you, none of it is yours,
You are blameless in this, but I never overcame,
All the shallow pettiness that was only mine,
Ever caring about other’s opinions and thoughts.
But you were not the impetuous one at age sixteen,
Beguiling and negating me at every step,
Not the one that made me throw reason aside,
You were given all their attributes and much more.
All these burdens I have placed upon you,
All the paths not traveled, the loves not spoken,
The soaring and falling, from hopelessly high heights,
But the you that is real, I will never truly know,
Leaving me holding nothing and knowing less,
Whatever and so on, forever and never, amen.
3.20.2007
silence the within
All the promises I made, from this day back to then,
All the same, same as before, can I say,
What was it to begin with, but I cannot,
Lies along the way, lies I told others,
Lies I tell myself, to sleep better at night.
Under the weight, bearing down,
Breaking bones, breaking spirit,
Wishing and hoping for what,
Wishing for a way, but so glad at times,
That yesterday’s wishes didn’t bear fruit.
So many of them empty, meaningless,
Ego-shrouded wants and wishes,
Self-centered clouds flouting about,
Not about me and my needs,
About the binojiinhs and theirs,
But so hard to see, to accept.
Still wanting the easy route,
Wanting and needing confused,
See my struggle, what will it say,
What will they make of all this,
When my time has come and gone,
Encased in a casket or reduced to ashes.
So I say and I so I shall, but not today,
Today I sit and feel sorry for this self,
Wishing for some kind of something,
From the other side, from somewhere,
Foundering on the shore, unfound.
Always some kind of pressure,
Some kind of drama from without,
To silence the within, attention drawn taut.
Heal the rift betwixt and between,
Searching for that which is real,
The real of the living dead day-to-day,
Torn away by something imagined,
Loving the lie above the truth.
Freedom from self and from doubt,
Marching to the drummers beat,
Finding reflection time, time to sit,
Beneath the Bodhi tree and speechless,
Free of conceptual thought.
What is a commercial the baby asked,
It’s a lie they tell on television,
To fill our lives with emptiness,
But emptiness and the void are all,
We run and we hide, accepting all the lies,
But we and they and everything is all,
Emptiness and void from within and without.
Quiet the mind, quiet the child,
Within and without, nothing more to find,
Enjoy and live, the only things left,
That we or I must do at this moment and place.
All the same, same as before, can I say,
What was it to begin with, but I cannot,
Lies along the way, lies I told others,
Lies I tell myself, to sleep better at night.
Under the weight, bearing down,
Breaking bones, breaking spirit,
Wishing and hoping for what,
Wishing for a way, but so glad at times,
That yesterday’s wishes didn’t bear fruit.
So many of them empty, meaningless,
Ego-shrouded wants and wishes,
Self-centered clouds flouting about,
Not about me and my needs,
About the binojiinhs and theirs,
But so hard to see, to accept.
Still wanting the easy route,
Wanting and needing confused,
See my struggle, what will it say,
What will they make of all this,
When my time has come and gone,
Encased in a casket or reduced to ashes.
So I say and I so I shall, but not today,
Today I sit and feel sorry for this self,
Wishing for some kind of something,
From the other side, from somewhere,
Foundering on the shore, unfound.
Always some kind of pressure,
Some kind of drama from without,
To silence the within, attention drawn taut.
Heal the rift betwixt and between,
Searching for that which is real,
The real of the living dead day-to-day,
Torn away by something imagined,
Loving the lie above the truth.
Freedom from self and from doubt,
Marching to the drummers beat,
Finding reflection time, time to sit,
Beneath the Bodhi tree and speechless,
Free of conceptual thought.
What is a commercial the baby asked,
It’s a lie they tell on television,
To fill our lives with emptiness,
But emptiness and the void are all,
We run and we hide, accepting all the lies,
But we and they and everything is all,
Emptiness and void from within and without.
Quiet the mind, quiet the child,
Within and without, nothing more to find,
Enjoy and live, the only things left,
That we or I must do at this moment and place.
my birthday
Thai New Year Celebration
(SONGKRAN)
April 15th, Sunday, 2007
This occasion for the celebration of the Thai New Year is to continue a beautiful tradition. Our Thai ancestors have left us this celebration as part of our inheritance.
The Thai New Year is closely connected with the Buddhist teaching which is an integral part of Buddhist life. It is not just a Thai event. This is because the Teaching makes up the roots of Buddhist culture. It is a day on which Buddhists honor their ancestors and their contributions and show respect to them by making merit in the way of good acts in their memory. We would therefore like to invite everyone to join us in this celebration in paying respects to all our ancestors and their contribution to our present day lives.
Program:
10:00 AM Receiving the five precepts and listening to chanting.
10:30 AM The monks will go on alms-round
11:00 AM Food offerings to the monks
12:00 PM Everyone enjoys a lunch (please bring a dish to pass)
12:30 PM The donation tree and goods will be offered to the temple.
1:00 PM Dhamma talks in both Thai and English
1:30 PM The ceremonial pouring of water on the Buddha image, monks and community members.
1:45 PM Thai classical and folk dancing
And afterward:
MASON! (Malcolm X went to high school there)
old man poetry
Dawn Patrol
by MadSpaniard (San Francisco)
Standing on the edge as the first light of day peaks over the horizon,
The sky lights up in various shades of violet and yellow.
The wind is cold and brisk as I pump around the deep end.
Ears frozen and hands numb the runs continue as each trick flows nicely together until SLAM!!!
There's the ground.
Damn cement hurts and 6:15am.
I pick myself up and try it again.
After a few more runs thru the bowl it's time to go to work.
Damn I'm glad I stopped by the park on the way to work this morning.
Life is good.
The Punk Show
by OldBoardBum (Virginia)
Shoulder to shoulder we stand,
feeling the power of the band.
Guitars on fire and drums beating fast.
The band's playing hard, how long will they last?
Screaming the words from the top of their lungs,
the crowd knows the words to every song sung.
A push from the back and into the pit.
Fists flying, bodys moving as if in a fit!
Combat boots, chains, Chucks, and wild hair;
tatoos and piercings, they don't have a care.
The room is smokey and there's beer on the floor.
Kids sneak outside so they can drink one more.
Been down for 20 years, probably go for 20 more.
Stamp my hand, check my I.D., 5 bucks at the door.
I remember tomorrow
by Jonno (Indonesia by way of Thailand/U.K.)
I remember tomorrow
Anticipation, knee shake, heart rate
Still now as then, pumping, fast
Woke early, Santa's horde torn bare
Red wheels, 'glass deck - Red Stone
Life lived now, started there
Dropped it down, icy morn, first foot on and
Push- glide, push - glide
Dawn breaks, heart breaks, surf brakes, no brakes and
Push - glide, push - glide
Friends pass, times pass, tresspass and
Push - glide, push - glide
Older now, wiser, stronger, hardened scarred and still I long for
Push - glide, push - glide
New place, old place, right now - my space and
Push - glide, push - glide
I remember tomorrow, dropped it down, first foot on and
push - glide, push - slide
push - carve, turn, fly
Can't die.
by MadSpaniard (San Francisco)
Standing on the edge as the first light of day peaks over the horizon,
The sky lights up in various shades of violet and yellow.
The wind is cold and brisk as I pump around the deep end.
Ears frozen and hands numb the runs continue as each trick flows nicely together until SLAM!!!
There's the ground.
Damn cement hurts and 6:15am.
I pick myself up and try it again.
After a few more runs thru the bowl it's time to go to work.
Damn I'm glad I stopped by the park on the way to work this morning.
Life is good.
The Punk Show
by OldBoardBum (Virginia)
Shoulder to shoulder we stand,
feeling the power of the band.
Guitars on fire and drums beating fast.
The band's playing hard, how long will they last?
Screaming the words from the top of their lungs,
the crowd knows the words to every song sung.
A push from the back and into the pit.
Fists flying, bodys moving as if in a fit!
Combat boots, chains, Chucks, and wild hair;
tatoos and piercings, they don't have a care.
The room is smokey and there's beer on the floor.
Kids sneak outside so they can drink one more.
Been down for 20 years, probably go for 20 more.
Stamp my hand, check my I.D., 5 bucks at the door.
I remember tomorrow
by Jonno (Indonesia by way of Thailand/U.K.)
I remember tomorrow
Anticipation, knee shake, heart rate
Still now as then, pumping, fast
Woke early, Santa's horde torn bare
Red wheels, 'glass deck - Red Stone
Life lived now, started there
Dropped it down, icy morn, first foot on and
Push- glide, push - glide
Dawn breaks, heart breaks, surf brakes, no brakes and
Push - glide, push - glide
Friends pass, times pass, tresspass and
Push - glide, push - glide
Older now, wiser, stronger, hardened scarred and still I long for
Push - glide, push - glide
New place, old place, right now - my space and
Push - glide, push - glide
I remember tomorrow, dropped it down, first foot on and
push - glide, push - slide
push - carve, turn, fly
Can't die.
lexicon devil
My wife bought me a copy of the Bushlexicon and I have enoyed skimreading it at my leisure. President Bush and I may disagree on some things, but in terms of language, I admire him very muchly. He’s a visionarist in terms of his approach to language and historianists will come to see this forthhindsightly. English is a living, non-staticcy language which continuoslynessly appropriates and regurgitates its way through the virgin forests of our minds.
What one day is nonsensilar can and will be assimilationated into the patois of the everyday. As an obnoxious childman growing about in Detroit, I never imaginated that I would be using wordphrases like “fakie”, “ollie”, “tranny”, “coping” and ‘kickflip”. I never actually do any of these things, but I throw them about lavishly in my word salads which I serve up to the OMA-brethren. Try spell-checking some of our posts sometimes-what is seened is a seahorizon of redishness.
Use it, fellow OMAsters, or alas, it will be lost in the misty winds of temporal fluxness which this spatial plane has adhered us to. The language is ours to bend, fold and manipulate any which way but loose that we choose. Language has growerings—some flower and some get triminated. This is the way of culture, of life. To laugh at President Bush is to laugh at life. So laugh and promolgatiate the lexicon, for that is what we do bestest.
did I mention English is not my foremostest language?
instasisly it is my only current language, but i didn't sprekenzi until i was fivish . . . in case you wuz wonderingly perplondered. . .
but I diverge like two paths into the wooded messiness that is my mind . . .
What one day is nonsensilar can and will be assimilationated into the patois of the everyday. As an obnoxious childman growing about in Detroit, I never imaginated that I would be using wordphrases like “fakie”, “ollie”, “tranny”, “coping” and ‘kickflip”. I never actually do any of these things, but I throw them about lavishly in my word salads which I serve up to the OMA-brethren. Try spell-checking some of our posts sometimes-what is seened is a seahorizon of redishness.
Use it, fellow OMAsters, or alas, it will be lost in the misty winds of temporal fluxness which this spatial plane has adhered us to. The language is ours to bend, fold and manipulate any which way but loose that we choose. Language has growerings—some flower and some get triminated. This is the way of culture, of life. To laugh at President Bush is to laugh at life. So laugh and promolgatiate the lexicon, for that is what we do bestest.
did I mention English is not my foremostest language?
instasisly it is my only current language, but i didn't sprekenzi until i was fivish . . . in case you wuz wonderingly perplondered. . .
but I diverge like two paths into the wooded messiness that is my mind . . .
3.19.2007
compilations!
You like compilations? I love compilations--I found some interesting ones the other day--I had a cassette of the first one, put out by ROIR from back in the day--early 80's I think . . . but the crazy thing is--I found all of these on Target.com!!!
I borrowed a Flipside compilation from M. Webb back in 84 or 85--he used to spend summers in So. Cal. with his dad--I ended up buying several more and then branched out to other comps., including a couple of ones from SST Records. They were more or less my my introduction to Hardcore Punk and alternative music in general.
World Class Punk $13.99
The underground cult classic 1984 ROIR cassette on CD! 27 bands! 25 countries! Produced by Mykel Board for Seidboard World Enterprises with the help of Flipside, Maximum Rock N' Roll and Truly Needy Magazine.
Old School Punk $11.98
Wasted Youth, Circle Jerks, FEAR, Germs, TSOL, Adolescents, Agent Orange, D.I., Suicidal Tendencies, Flipper, Channel 3, Redd Kross, and X. LA Hardcore at it's finest (almost).
Punk Comp. $15.49
The newly relaunched Zonophone label on EMI is proud to announce its first release -'Happening, Alive & Nasty', a punk compilation which truly reflects the label's ethos of 'Unheard' ('Whips And Furs' - The Vibrators), 'Unearthed' ('Ain't No Legend' - The Maniacs) and all of it 'Rediscovered'. Happening, Alive and Nasty pays thrilling testament to the brief period when the music business had no idea what it was dealing with, when the doors flung open to mavericks, weirdo's and inspired innovators. The real spirit of punk - the full glorious, ear-bashing mess - was much more exciting than anything that would be defined. The album features Generation X's debut 'Your Generation', Buzzcocks and Wire B-Sides, rarities from the Stranglers and the never issued second Vibrators single 'Bad Time'. Also has the Skidz and 999!!!
CBGB $19.98
Two CD compilation featuring 34 tracks by some of the biggest and most influential acts to play the historic NY nightclub during the rise of Punk Rock and New Wave in the mid-to-late '70s.. Includes tracks from The Plasmatics, Bad Brains, The B-52s, Television, Pere Ubu, Patti Smith, MC5, The Ramones, Devo, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground, Iggy & The Stooges, The Dead boys, The Dictators, The Cramps, Tuff Darts and even club owner Hilly Kristal!
Post-Punk Comp. $29.49
By 1977, the punk-rock movement had become a parody of itself. Rip It Up And Start Again, the book and the CD, is a celebration of what happened next: post-punk bands like The Slits, Devo, Scritti Politti, Cabaret Voltaire, The Raincoats, and The Human League, who dedicated themselves to fulfilling punk's unfinished musical revolution. The post-punk groups were fervent modernists - experimenting with electronics and machine rhythm or adapting ideas from dub reggae and disco. A veritable cornucopia of the great and the good from the late 70s/early 80s era, Rip It Up covers the postpunk spectrum from household names to esoteric cult artists. V2 Records. 2006.
Proto and Punk Comp. $61.99
There was a Revolution in the Making Back in 73 and No Way of Stopping It! Babylon’s Burning is the Ultimate Punk Rock Box Set Documenting the Rise of Such a Radical Reaction to Life and What Had Become Boring Musical Disillusionment Among the Youth at the Time. This Four CD Box Set Charts the Musical Entity that was the Roots of Punk Rock to the Explosion that was Punk Rawk. From the Early American Rumbles of the Modern Lovers, New York Dolls, Heartbreakers, Richard Hell to the U.k’s Early Evolution of the Punk Roots Dr. Feelgood and Kilburn and the High Roads to the 76 Onslaught of the Sex Pistols, the Damned, X Ray Spex to Name but a Few. Each CD Charts the Influences and Birth of this Musical Phenomenon with Many Rare and Hard to Find Demo’s Live Recordings and Studio Sessions.
Oi! Comp. $22.99
Digitally remastered digipak reissue of this influential album that spawned a whole musical movement, restored to it’s original track listing complete with the correct Slaughter & The Dogs and Cock Sparrer tracks. Revamped booklet includes the original sleeve notes on this seminal release that includes tracks from The Exploited, 4-Skins, Cockney Rejects, Peter & The Test Tube Babies, Angelic Upstarts and Splodgenessabounds with most cuts exclusive to this compilation. Stunning and worth every OI! 17 tracks
Punk Karaoke $15.99--and one for the kiddies to sing along to, includes "Have you ever fallen in love" and "London Calling". Target also has a RAMONES karaoke cd!
I borrowed a Flipside compilation from M. Webb back in 84 or 85--he used to spend summers in So. Cal. with his dad--I ended up buying several more and then branched out to other comps., including a couple of ones from SST Records. They were more or less my my introduction to Hardcore Punk and alternative music in general.
World Class Punk $13.99
The underground cult classic 1984 ROIR cassette on CD! 27 bands! 25 countries! Produced by Mykel Board for Seidboard World Enterprises with the help of Flipside, Maximum Rock N' Roll and Truly Needy Magazine.
Old School Punk $11.98
Wasted Youth, Circle Jerks, FEAR, Germs, TSOL, Adolescents, Agent Orange, D.I., Suicidal Tendencies, Flipper, Channel 3, Redd Kross, and X. LA Hardcore at it's finest (almost).
Punk Comp. $15.49
The newly relaunched Zonophone label on EMI is proud to announce its first release -'Happening, Alive & Nasty', a punk compilation which truly reflects the label's ethos of 'Unheard' ('Whips And Furs' - The Vibrators), 'Unearthed' ('Ain't No Legend' - The Maniacs) and all of it 'Rediscovered'. Happening, Alive and Nasty pays thrilling testament to the brief period when the music business had no idea what it was dealing with, when the doors flung open to mavericks, weirdo's and inspired innovators. The real spirit of punk - the full glorious, ear-bashing mess - was much more exciting than anything that would be defined. The album features Generation X's debut 'Your Generation', Buzzcocks and Wire B-Sides, rarities from the Stranglers and the never issued second Vibrators single 'Bad Time'. Also has the Skidz and 999!!!
CBGB $19.98
Two CD compilation featuring 34 tracks by some of the biggest and most influential acts to play the historic NY nightclub during the rise of Punk Rock and New Wave in the mid-to-late '70s.. Includes tracks from The Plasmatics, Bad Brains, The B-52s, Television, Pere Ubu, Patti Smith, MC5, The Ramones, Devo, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground, Iggy & The Stooges, The Dead boys, The Dictators, The Cramps, Tuff Darts and even club owner Hilly Kristal!
Post-Punk Comp. $29.49
By 1977, the punk-rock movement had become a parody of itself. Rip It Up And Start Again, the book and the CD, is a celebration of what happened next: post-punk bands like The Slits, Devo, Scritti Politti, Cabaret Voltaire, The Raincoats, and The Human League, who dedicated themselves to fulfilling punk's unfinished musical revolution. The post-punk groups were fervent modernists - experimenting with electronics and machine rhythm or adapting ideas from dub reggae and disco. A veritable cornucopia of the great and the good from the late 70s/early 80s era, Rip It Up covers the postpunk spectrum from household names to esoteric cult artists. V2 Records. 2006.
Proto and Punk Comp. $61.99
There was a Revolution in the Making Back in 73 and No Way of Stopping It! Babylon’s Burning is the Ultimate Punk Rock Box Set Documenting the Rise of Such a Radical Reaction to Life and What Had Become Boring Musical Disillusionment Among the Youth at the Time. This Four CD Box Set Charts the Musical Entity that was the Roots of Punk Rock to the Explosion that was Punk Rawk. From the Early American Rumbles of the Modern Lovers, New York Dolls, Heartbreakers, Richard Hell to the U.k’s Early Evolution of the Punk Roots Dr. Feelgood and Kilburn and the High Roads to the 76 Onslaught of the Sex Pistols, the Damned, X Ray Spex to Name but a Few. Each CD Charts the Influences and Birth of this Musical Phenomenon with Many Rare and Hard to Find Demo’s Live Recordings and Studio Sessions.
Oi! Comp. $22.99
Digitally remastered digipak reissue of this influential album that spawned a whole musical movement, restored to it’s original track listing complete with the correct Slaughter & The Dogs and Cock Sparrer tracks. Revamped booklet includes the original sleeve notes on this seminal release that includes tracks from The Exploited, 4-Skins, Cockney Rejects, Peter & The Test Tube Babies, Angelic Upstarts and Splodgenessabounds with most cuts exclusive to this compilation. Stunning and worth every OI! 17 tracks
Punk Karaoke $15.99--and one for the kiddies to sing along to, includes "Have you ever fallen in love" and "London Calling". Target also has a RAMONES karaoke cd!
3.18.2007
a couple of park pics...
1) the bowl, or pool, at Ranney (my local park)
2) another bowl area at Ranney
2) another bowl area at Ranney
for what it's worth
Nice laid-back weekend,
At least I think that’s what they call it,
When you have two days off in a row,
Back-to-back, seems like I never have those,
But we just watched some basketball,
Played some hoops and went skateboarding.
Also played NCAA football on my son’s PSP,
Good thing they didn’t have those,
Back in the day, when I was his age,
Wouldn’t have gotten any sleep.
Everyone’s hoops crazy,
First week of the big dance,
Even though my team just got bounced,
And my bracket’s a wreck,
After all the upsets.
Skating at the park,
I slammed pretty hard,
Shoulder, elbow, wrist still aching,
Not to mention the knee,
But that’s just gonna be,
Years to recover if ever,
Old man that I am,
Body just can’t take the slams.
Sunny but cold,
But everything is dry,
No more snow or ice,
Hopefully for a while,
But you just never know,
Probably gonna get some snow,
Before much too longer,
But the days are stretching out,
Spring is on the horizon,
Followed by summer just behind it.
The kids are wearing me out,
Playing me 2-on-1 in basketball,
If I ever manage to get in shape,
They’d better watch out,
But for now they can count on me,
Falling behind,
Running out of gas,
Gasping for air.
It didn’t always used to be like that,
But the only constant in life is change,
And change it will all the same,
For better or worse we can try,
As for me, now I’m just tired.
At the skatepark or on the court,
I give it my all and hope it counts,
For what I don’t know,
But at least I showed up,
and refused to remain in a rut,
for what it's worth.
At least I think that’s what they call it,
When you have two days off in a row,
Back-to-back, seems like I never have those,
But we just watched some basketball,
Played some hoops and went skateboarding.
Also played NCAA football on my son’s PSP,
Good thing they didn’t have those,
Back in the day, when I was his age,
Wouldn’t have gotten any sleep.
Everyone’s hoops crazy,
First week of the big dance,
Even though my team just got bounced,
And my bracket’s a wreck,
After all the upsets.
Skating at the park,
I slammed pretty hard,
Shoulder, elbow, wrist still aching,
Not to mention the knee,
But that’s just gonna be,
Years to recover if ever,
Old man that I am,
Body just can’t take the slams.
Sunny but cold,
But everything is dry,
No more snow or ice,
Hopefully for a while,
But you just never know,
Probably gonna get some snow,
Before much too longer,
But the days are stretching out,
Spring is on the horizon,
Followed by summer just behind it.
The kids are wearing me out,
Playing me 2-on-1 in basketball,
If I ever manage to get in shape,
They’d better watch out,
But for now they can count on me,
Falling behind,
Running out of gas,
Gasping for air.
It didn’t always used to be like that,
But the only constant in life is change,
And change it will all the same,
For better or worse we can try,
As for me, now I’m just tired.
At the skatepark or on the court,
I give it my all and hope it counts,
For what I don’t know,
But at least I showed up,
and refused to remain in a rut,
for what it's worth.
skate hordes
Park’s been packed for days, all the snow has melted,
Skies clear and sunny, frigid temps can’t keep us away,
Scores of street-stylers and bowl-riders came out to play.
Fruit-booters and BMX-icans paid a visit as well,
And a bunch of little tykes with plastic and walmart boards,
Cluttering the park, but welcomed into the skate hordes.
We’ll learn them, teach them what to do,
Got to raise them right, set a good example,
Don’t want them to become booters or BMXers too,
Down in the bowl, everyone is welcome,
We all take turns, queued in the shallow,
Even the kid riding the board on his bum,
Wearing a plastic hardhat looking out of place,
But he’s so young, doesn’t know, everyone gives him space.
He mimics the rest of us, complaining about his knee,
After skidding off the board, cute little guy,
So short we gotta boost him up over the coping,
Into the waiting arms of mom, so busy doting.
Told her to get him some pads, some cheap ones,
Until he gets older and better, then upgrade,
Keep the stoke alive if you can, don’t let it fade.
I tell my own son not to be too afraid to try,
You are only skating for yourself, no one else,
Life is to be lived, not to be put up on some shelf.
At the park, we watch and we talk, almost as much as we skate,
All the old-schoolers will stand around talking about the old days,
Asking the new-schoolers questions about this or that,
Or the newbies asking them about their old-school decks,
Helping them along as they help us, both sharing respect.
One of my son’s doctors used to drop his son off,
Was always worried about the crowd he kept at the park,
But we look out for each other, getting along for the most part,
Learning from each other, even though some spend all their time,
Skating in the bowls, or doing flippy tricks, no one seems to mind.
It doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are,
Where you’re family’s from or what you do,
When it comes to skating, everything’s cool,
It’s open to old and young, anyone and everyone,
And the lowest denominator is just having fun.
Skies clear and sunny, frigid temps can’t keep us away,
Scores of street-stylers and bowl-riders came out to play.
Fruit-booters and BMX-icans paid a visit as well,
And a bunch of little tykes with plastic and walmart boards,
Cluttering the park, but welcomed into the skate hordes.
We’ll learn them, teach them what to do,
Got to raise them right, set a good example,
Don’t want them to become booters or BMXers too,
Down in the bowl, everyone is welcome,
We all take turns, queued in the shallow,
Even the kid riding the board on his bum,
Wearing a plastic hardhat looking out of place,
But he’s so young, doesn’t know, everyone gives him space.
He mimics the rest of us, complaining about his knee,
After skidding off the board, cute little guy,
So short we gotta boost him up over the coping,
Into the waiting arms of mom, so busy doting.
Told her to get him some pads, some cheap ones,
Until he gets older and better, then upgrade,
Keep the stoke alive if you can, don’t let it fade.
I tell my own son not to be too afraid to try,
You are only skating for yourself, no one else,
Life is to be lived, not to be put up on some shelf.
At the park, we watch and we talk, almost as much as we skate,
All the old-schoolers will stand around talking about the old days,
Asking the new-schoolers questions about this or that,
Or the newbies asking them about their old-school decks,
Helping them along as they help us, both sharing respect.
One of my son’s doctors used to drop his son off,
Was always worried about the crowd he kept at the park,
But we look out for each other, getting along for the most part,
Learning from each other, even though some spend all their time,
Skating in the bowls, or doing flippy tricks, no one seems to mind.
It doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are,
Where you’re family’s from or what you do,
When it comes to skating, everything’s cool,
It’s open to old and young, anyone and everyone,
And the lowest denominator is just having fun.
kissed the concrete
Hit the bowl on the right side,
Started to carve, decided to kickturn,
Front foot came off the board,
Back foot stayed on, when will I learn,
Fell down sideways, landing on my side,
Hand, elbow, shoulder, even my cheek,
All together, or separate, kissed the concrete,
Heard the thud of flesh on the ground,
Just glad that no one else was around.
Left knee felt a tinge, both hands numb,
More from the cold then the slam,
No one else at the park, no one quite as dumb,
Twenty-something degrees, at ten in the morning.
Got back up, plenty pist,
City employee sitting in the car,
Chatting on her cell, visible through the mist,
Didn’t see, didn’t hear, me slamming once again.
Limped off to the car,
Lit a cigarillo and sped off,
Made it half a mile, not too far,
Drove right back, still hadn’t had enough.
Skated some more, working on a few things,
Shook off my slam, shook off the chill,
Slammed pretty hard, shoulder still stings,
But that’s what happens when you get cocky.
Needed to pay attention up on the wall,
Can’t change your mind in the middle of the stall,
Carve or turn, whichever one you decide,
But commit and do it, anything else is suicide.
Started to carve, decided to kickturn,
Front foot came off the board,
Back foot stayed on, when will I learn,
Fell down sideways, landing on my side,
Hand, elbow, shoulder, even my cheek,
All together, or separate, kissed the concrete,
Heard the thud of flesh on the ground,
Just glad that no one else was around.
Left knee felt a tinge, both hands numb,
More from the cold then the slam,
No one else at the park, no one quite as dumb,
Twenty-something degrees, at ten in the morning.
Got back up, plenty pist,
City employee sitting in the car,
Chatting on her cell, visible through the mist,
Didn’t see, didn’t hear, me slamming once again.
Limped off to the car,
Lit a cigarillo and sped off,
Made it half a mile, not too far,
Drove right back, still hadn’t had enough.
Skated some more, working on a few things,
Shook off my slam, shook off the chill,
Slammed pretty hard, shoulder still stings,
But that’s what happens when you get cocky.
Needed to pay attention up on the wall,
Can’t change your mind in the middle of the stall,
Carve or turn, whichever one you decide,
But commit and do it, anything else is suicide.
3.15.2007
3.12.2007
old time hockey
I have not seen all the footage--didn't see the check from behind that he was retaliating (no cable, sorry . . .), just the aftermath . . .
Kind of funny--the 4-year-old (Little E) just started taking ice skating lessons--
Chris is a distant cousin of my wife's . . .
The NHL has had a number of rule changes since the lock-out . . .
they have been trying to limit the fighting—and to speed the game up a bit. The new rules also favor the scorers, resulting in higher scores, or at least that was the intent.
Chris didn't get in trouble for fighting--he took a swing at another guy's face . . .with his hockey stick...it looked like he was playing t-ball with the dude's head . . . someone told me it looked more like a bunt.
Chris is Ojibwe from Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario . . .
his dad is a famous artist in the First Nations community--
I'm a big fan of his father's work . . . he's got a studio on the reservation, overlooking the bay and the North Channel--beautiful spot . . .
Chris, as a person, is a certain way—he’s a good guy, has always been active with the Native community (hockey camps, etc . . . ) but he's expected to be an enforcer . . . or at least was--this is his sixth suspension--in terms of games, its the leagues longest (if you don't count the McSorley suspension during the lock-out).
For every Chris there's a thousand other kids who didn't make it to the NHL . . . but could have--but they couldn't overcome their demons for whatever reason . . . the whole thing's got me a little bummed. . . they have a little in-house league back in Wiky--they usually field something like 8-10 teams and half the teams are chock full of ex-college, ex-junior, ex-minor-league players . . . so its not just about Chris, and I'm sure he knows that . . .
I still can't believe the Wings picked up Bertuzzi . . . but Gary Bettman, a.k.a. Captain NBA (current NHL comish, formerly the NBA commish) has really messed with the game--he wants to make it Euro-style. . . I miss the old days . . . old-time hockey!!!
SLAPSHOT--Best hockey movie ever!!
and the Hanson brothers remind me of buffer Joey Ramones . . .
I think a couple of the wife's cousins played in the East Coast league--
pretty rinky-dink back in the 80's . . .
Kind of funny--the 4-year-old (Little E) just started taking ice skating lessons--
Chris is a distant cousin of my wife's . . .
The NHL has had a number of rule changes since the lock-out . . .they have been trying to limit the fighting—and to speed the game up a bit. The new rules also favor the scorers, resulting in higher scores, or at least that was the intent.
Chris didn't get in trouble for fighting--he took a swing at another guy's face . . .with his hockey stick...it looked like he was playing t-ball with the dude's head . . . someone told me it looked more like a bunt.
Chris is Ojibwe from Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario . . .
his dad is a famous artist in the First Nations community--
I'm a big fan of his father's work . . . he's got a studio on the reservation, overlooking the bay and the North Channel--beautiful spot . . .
Chris, as a person, is a certain way—he’s a good guy, has always been active with the Native community (hockey camps, etc . . . ) but he's expected to be an enforcer . . . or at least was--this is his sixth suspension--in terms of games, its the leagues longest (if you don't count the McSorley suspension during the lock-out). For every Chris there's a thousand other kids who didn't make it to the NHL . . . but could have--but they couldn't overcome their demons for whatever reason . . . the whole thing's got me a little bummed. . . they have a little in-house league back in Wiky--they usually field something like 8-10 teams and half the teams are chock full of ex-college, ex-junior, ex-minor-league players . . . so its not just about Chris, and I'm sure he knows that . . .
I still can't believe the Wings picked up Bertuzzi . . . but Gary Bettman, a.k.a. Captain NBA (current NHL comish, formerly the NBA commish) has really messed with the game--he wants to make it Euro-style. . . I miss the old days . . . old-time hockey!!!
SLAPSHOT--Best hockey movie ever!! and the Hanson brothers remind me of buffer Joey Ramones . . .
I think a couple of the wife's cousins played in the East Coast league--
pretty rinky-dink back in the 80's . . .
sexuality is what you think you see
Addicted to the very thought,
The touches and smells,
Sights and sounds,
Imagining and fantasizing,
Excited and awash with desire.
The flames dance higher,
Uncontrolled, barely controlled,
Semi-state of consciousness,
Slips from dream to reality,
And back again before its over.
Its not what you really see,
What you really touch,
Its all that and much more,
Dwelling in the mental realms,
Imagination overwhelms.
The touch of flesh,
The smell of desirous action,
Legs, blankets, sheets intertwined,
Just this side of magical,
So close to being insatiable.
So much, but how much,
Becomes too much,
Moth immolated by the flame,
Too close, destroying self,
Surrendered and released.
At which point does it stop,
Endless wanting, seeking,
Becoming slaves to pleasure,
Taken measure by measure,
For its own sake and no other.
Insatiable lusts carry them,
Over the edge, into the chasm,
For a moments worth of release,
Heavenly, otherworldly,
Slipping the bonds of this earth.
But after the sweat has dried,
After moments of regret,
Crashing back to earth again,
Relegated to unknowable pain,
Guiltless or not, all the same.
The touches and smells,
Sights and sounds,
Imagining and fantasizing,
Excited and awash with desire.
The flames dance higher,
Uncontrolled, barely controlled,
Semi-state of consciousness,
Slips from dream to reality,
And back again before its over.
Its not what you really see,
What you really touch,
Its all that and much more,
Dwelling in the mental realms,
Imagination overwhelms.
The touch of flesh,
The smell of desirous action,
Legs, blankets, sheets intertwined,
Just this side of magical,
So close to being insatiable.
So much, but how much,
Becomes too much,
Moth immolated by the flame,
Too close, destroying self,
Surrendered and released.
At which point does it stop,
Endless wanting, seeking,
Becoming slaves to pleasure,
Taken measure by measure,
For its own sake and no other.
Insatiable lusts carry them,
Over the edge, into the chasm,
For a moments worth of release,
Heavenly, otherworldly,
Slipping the bonds of this earth.
But after the sweat has dried,
After moments of regret,
Crashing back to earth again,
Relegated to unknowable pain,
Guiltless or not, all the same.
3.10.2007
janky stuff
I felt the temps creeping into the forties,
Took the 4-year-old outside to get some air,
Went to the skatepark to have a look around,
Street area almost skateable, bowls covered in snow.
E started running around, sliding on his butt,
Runs up the tranny pulling himself up,
Is it four feet or five,
I can never quite tell exactly how high.
We found a plastic tray stolen from McDonald’s
Tried cleaning up the beginner’s area,
Snow on top was slushy and loose,
But the ice underneath didn’t budge.
I was hoping the tennis court was dry,
So he could practice rolling on flat ground,
But everything was under snow,
Told E we’d be back soon.
Headed back home a little blue,
But optimistic about the upcoming thaw,
Temps near fifty toward the end of the week,
Will have to wait for everything to dry up.
We started out shoveling snow at home,
Chopping at the stubborn ice in the driveway.
Next was the garage, stuffed to the rafters,
Final resting place for all the household discards;
broken toys, a couch, appliances, rugs;
we starting moving and organizing.
In the middle of that, E found a box of nails,
Asked me if we could build something,
I ended up pulling out an old dresser,
Took out the drawers and reinforced with 2x4’s,
Pulled some 1-inch, ½ inch plywood stacked in the back.
Next we found bricks and cinder blocks,
Threw everything together,
A bit janky but rideable just the same,
E had his Tony Hawk action figure try it out.
Toy Tony gave it the thumbs up,
So away I went, kickturning and fakies,
E riding on his butt, laughing and giggling,
Couldn’t wait, so excited, kids were still in school.
E told them we had a surprise for them,
Told me not to tell them, wanted them to see,
But poor boy was so tired, fell asleep,
After picking both of them up.
Z-man and I kept adjusting, raising and lowering,
Swapped out the plywood a couple of times,
Tried it behind the house, tried it in the street,
Moved it back into the garage and skated some more.
It’s awfully small maybe too much so,
I feel twice, landing on my wrists,
Make that thrice, landed on my shoulder also,
Ankle’s a little sore as well.
Z-man struggled, getting better,
Almost had it but suffering from fear,
Told him to bend those knees,
Keep his weight on the back trucks.
Messed around some more today,
Tried ollieing and planting off the ramp,
At one point did an axle stall,
From a foot off the tranny.
Landed that sucker on the second try,
But we need to secure the tranny,
But fun having some mobile jankiness,
To throw up on a curb or a cinder block.
This is just the beginning, tip of the iceberg,
Warm sunny days are just days away,
Need to work on that cardio,
Strengthen my arms and legs.
Gonna build a quarter-pipe next weekend,
Nice having some tranny out your backdoor,
Learning and growing on your own turf,
When the weather won’t cooperate.
The days with the kids seem numbered,
Various activities pulling them away,
Z-man gonna play football and wrestle,
Nan doing cross-country and E playing hockey.
My heel keeps hurting and knee gets sore,
But I don’t plan on pushing much anymore,
Dropping and rolling into the bowls,
Take it day-by-day, see how it goes.
Took the 4-year-old outside to get some air,
Went to the skatepark to have a look around,
Street area almost skateable, bowls covered in snow.
E started running around, sliding on his butt,
Runs up the tranny pulling himself up,
Is it four feet or five,
I can never quite tell exactly how high.
We found a plastic tray stolen from McDonald’s
Tried cleaning up the beginner’s area,
Snow on top was slushy and loose,
But the ice underneath didn’t budge.
I was hoping the tennis court was dry,
So he could practice rolling on flat ground,
But everything was under snow,
Told E we’d be back soon.
Headed back home a little blue,
But optimistic about the upcoming thaw,
Temps near fifty toward the end of the week,
Will have to wait for everything to dry up.
We started out shoveling snow at home,
Chopping at the stubborn ice in the driveway.
Next was the garage, stuffed to the rafters,
Final resting place for all the household discards;
broken toys, a couch, appliances, rugs;
we starting moving and organizing.
In the middle of that, E found a box of nails,
Asked me if we could build something,
I ended up pulling out an old dresser,
Took out the drawers and reinforced with 2x4’s,
Pulled some 1-inch, ½ inch plywood stacked in the back.
Next we found bricks and cinder blocks,
Threw everything together,
A bit janky but rideable just the same,
E had his Tony Hawk action figure try it out.
Toy Tony gave it the thumbs up,
So away I went, kickturning and fakies,
E riding on his butt, laughing and giggling,
Couldn’t wait, so excited, kids were still in school.
E told them we had a surprise for them,
Told me not to tell them, wanted them to see,
But poor boy was so tired, fell asleep,
After picking both of them up.
Z-man and I kept adjusting, raising and lowering,
Swapped out the plywood a couple of times,
Tried it behind the house, tried it in the street,
Moved it back into the garage and skated some more.
It’s awfully small maybe too much so,
I feel twice, landing on my wrists,
Make that thrice, landed on my shoulder also,
Ankle’s a little sore as well.
Z-man struggled, getting better,
Almost had it but suffering from fear,
Told him to bend those knees,
Keep his weight on the back trucks.
Messed around some more today,
Tried ollieing and planting off the ramp,
At one point did an axle stall,
From a foot off the tranny.
Landed that sucker on the second try,
But we need to secure the tranny,
But fun having some mobile jankiness,
To throw up on a curb or a cinder block.
This is just the beginning, tip of the iceberg,
Warm sunny days are just days away,
Need to work on that cardio,
Strengthen my arms and legs.
Gonna build a quarter-pipe next weekend,
Nice having some tranny out your backdoor,
Learning and growing on your own turf,
When the weather won’t cooperate.
The days with the kids seem numbered,
Various activities pulling them away,
Z-man gonna play football and wrestle,
Nan doing cross-country and E playing hockey.
My heel keeps hurting and knee gets sore,
But I don’t plan on pushing much anymore,
Dropping and rolling into the bowls,
Take it day-by-day, see how it goes.
3.08.2007
Barley Academy of Higher Conciousness
I knew I was at an important crossroads—I felt like I was on the cusp of something momentous. But I chose to allow myself to sink into depression. I closed myself off from life and remained cocooned in a drug-addled haze. There were so many chances and opportunities for me to grow, to experience life in a genuine way. I chose the path of least resistance almost every time. Vagrant’s was the one exception—it was painful to be there, but I stayed because I knew it had something to teach me.
At the very first, I ran away from opportunities—I crashed at Mark’s place for about a week or so. I mostly just slept. I remember lying down and falling asleep during a jam session a bunch of them were having in his basement. It’s a little fuzzy now, but I felt out of my element, didn’t feel like I belonged in that world.
Mark and his buddy lived in the city, a couple of miles west of campus, right across the street from a party store. It was a run-down neighborhood and I think Mark liked the sense of danger, but it reminded me of Detroit. I wanted to get as far away from Detroit as I could get, physically and emotionally. Mark and his friends would stay up late talking about music, literature art—all the things that really mattered to me. But I couldn’t converse with them—I felt like a fraud, a pretender.
Another friend contacted me because he was trying to sublet his room and I jumped at the chance to move out. Steve’s room was one of eleven rooms in a large, unwieldy house a block away from campus. Something felt wrong about the whole thing from the start—Steve seemed too anxious to get out. But I thought I was doing him a favor and I really needed to get away from Mark’s.
It turned out that Steve had to leave because he was grappling with depression. He would end up being hospitalized by the end of the school year—he would send us all origami cranes from the facility in Indiana. I had gotten the sense that he wanted to escape the house, to stay with friends—I figured it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The house did seem haunted after awhile, but it was haunted by the living as well as the dead.
I would cross paths with Mark through the rest of the spring and we would touch base—I told him of my troubles at Vagrant’s, of my near-catatonic silence. He laughed and pondered my situation—commented when appropriate, but he knew that I had to found my own way out. So many of the guys at Vagrant’s were friends or acquaintances of my friends, but none of that seemed to matter.
Looking back at that spring, I think of the chances that I missed. I went to shows at the Barley Street house or visited whenever I was kicking around town with Mark, but I remained an outsider the whole time. Barley Street became the nexus for the whole East Ottawa crowd and I strolled in and back out like it was nothing to me. Everyone else was discovering music, literature, sexuality, freedom—but I chose to remain a zombie.
It’s ironic that some of those same people still managed to cross paths with me. My wife and I probably brushed past one another at one of the shows in the dank basement on Barley. My friend Ash was good friends with my brother-in-law and he also worked with skateboard legend Eric C. I just met Eric earlier this year and befriended him, but think of the skate sessions we could have had back in the day. Eric was good friends with a number of other skaters and punks and even spent time down in Detroit and Ann Arbor.
I turned my back on all of those associations and experiences eighteen years ago. Now I’ve started skating again and I’ve started writing again, but why did it take me so long to start living? I don’t regret most of the same things people regret. Financial security would be nice, but if I had forced myself to push through, what would I have done? Could I have achieved that on my own terms? The D.I.Y.-ethic still runs through my veins and I’m picking up where I had left off so long ago.
At the very first, I ran away from opportunities—I crashed at Mark’s place for about a week or so. I mostly just slept. I remember lying down and falling asleep during a jam session a bunch of them were having in his basement. It’s a little fuzzy now, but I felt out of my element, didn’t feel like I belonged in that world.
Mark and his buddy lived in the city, a couple of miles west of campus, right across the street from a party store. It was a run-down neighborhood and I think Mark liked the sense of danger, but it reminded me of Detroit. I wanted to get as far away from Detroit as I could get, physically and emotionally. Mark and his friends would stay up late talking about music, literature art—all the things that really mattered to me. But I couldn’t converse with them—I felt like a fraud, a pretender.
Another friend contacted me because he was trying to sublet his room and I jumped at the chance to move out. Steve’s room was one of eleven rooms in a large, unwieldy house a block away from campus. Something felt wrong about the whole thing from the start—Steve seemed too anxious to get out. But I thought I was doing him a favor and I really needed to get away from Mark’s.
It turned out that Steve had to leave because he was grappling with depression. He would end up being hospitalized by the end of the school year—he would send us all origami cranes from the facility in Indiana. I had gotten the sense that he wanted to escape the house, to stay with friends—I figured it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The house did seem haunted after awhile, but it was haunted by the living as well as the dead.
I would cross paths with Mark through the rest of the spring and we would touch base—I told him of my troubles at Vagrant’s, of my near-catatonic silence. He laughed and pondered my situation—commented when appropriate, but he knew that I had to found my own way out. So many of the guys at Vagrant’s were friends or acquaintances of my friends, but none of that seemed to matter.
Looking back at that spring, I think of the chances that I missed. I went to shows at the Barley Street house or visited whenever I was kicking around town with Mark, but I remained an outsider the whole time. Barley Street became the nexus for the whole East Ottawa crowd and I strolled in and back out like it was nothing to me. Everyone else was discovering music, literature, sexuality, freedom—but I chose to remain a zombie.
It’s ironic that some of those same people still managed to cross paths with me. My wife and I probably brushed past one another at one of the shows in the dank basement on Barley. My friend Ash was good friends with my brother-in-law and he also worked with skateboard legend Eric C. I just met Eric earlier this year and befriended him, but think of the skate sessions we could have had back in the day. Eric was good friends with a number of other skaters and punks and even spent time down in Detroit and Ann Arbor.
I turned my back on all of those associations and experiences eighteen years ago. Now I’ve started skating again and I’ve started writing again, but why did it take me so long to start living? I don’t regret most of the same things people regret. Financial security would be nice, but if I had forced myself to push through, what would I have done? Could I have achieved that on my own terms? The D.I.Y.-ethic still runs through my veins and I’m picking up where I had left off so long ago.
brightly taunting
Sun shines brightly taunting me,
Only weeks away now,
As long as the rains hold,
Concrete is dry-encrusted with chalky rock salt,
The thaw will start within days,
Toxins washing into the river,
Washing away my despair,
My winter blues-
I’ve been tightening my bolts,
Loosening my trucks,
Brushing off the dogshit from my griptape,
Doing squats to test my knee,
Lying to myself about doing cardio,
But so hard to do anything,
Underneath the frozen metal grey skies,
I only want to sleep and dream,
Of possible tomorrows,
Carving away the pounds,
Carving away my cares and regrets,
Under a burning summer sky,
The endless horizon beyond,
Hinting at endless possibilities,
The sacred and profane,
Wrapped into one,
On wheels of urethane,
And seven-ply’s of maple.
Only weeks away now,
As long as the rains hold,
Concrete is dry-encrusted with chalky rock salt,
The thaw will start within days,
Toxins washing into the river,
Washing away my despair,
My winter blues-
I’ve been tightening my bolts,
Loosening my trucks,
Brushing off the dogshit from my griptape,
Doing squats to test my knee,
Lying to myself about doing cardio,
But so hard to do anything,
Underneath the frozen metal grey skies,
I only want to sleep and dream,
Of possible tomorrows,
Carving away the pounds,
Carving away my cares and regrets,
Under a burning summer sky,
The endless horizon beyond,
Hinting at endless possibilities,
The sacred and profane,
Wrapped into one,
On wheels of urethane,
And seven-ply’s of maple.
leave it
Leave it on the field, leave it on the track,
Cheesy sayings from my days as a young athlete,
Never meant much to me,
Just some stupid crap the coaches always said.
But now today, I leave it on the page,
I write down the blood and guts,
Spill my sorrows and regrets,
For all to see, but then walk away.
I let it go, no longer strangles me,
Painful and pathetically funny,
But here it is, as real as can be,
For at least this moment, at least in my mind.
Just like that, with simple strokes of the keys,
I write it down and I move on,
I document the me that is, that was,
For an older me to read and understand.
See the patterns, understand the mental traps,
Set for myself, by myself, patterns repeating,
Time trudges on, me spinning in circles,
Hoping for some kind of deliverance.
Deliver me from my self,
Oh supreme being in which I do not believe,
Break me of my bonds, self-wrought,
Tied down by loathing and fear.
Fear of living, fear of failing,
Fear of being found out as counterfeit,
By what, by whom, it is never known,
But here I am, chasing my self again.
I will leave it on the page, giving my all,
Nothing left to carry on, empty at last,
Leave it and let it grow, let it rot,
Either way, just need to get it out.
Cheesy sayings from my days as a young athlete,
Never meant much to me,
Just some stupid crap the coaches always said.
But now today, I leave it on the page,
I write down the blood and guts,
Spill my sorrows and regrets,
For all to see, but then walk away.
I let it go, no longer strangles me,
Painful and pathetically funny,
But here it is, as real as can be,
For at least this moment, at least in my mind.
Just like that, with simple strokes of the keys,
I write it down and I move on,
I document the me that is, that was,
For an older me to read and understand.
See the patterns, understand the mental traps,
Set for myself, by myself, patterns repeating,
Time trudges on, me spinning in circles,
Hoping for some kind of deliverance.
Deliver me from my self,
Oh supreme being in which I do not believe,
Break me of my bonds, self-wrought,
Tied down by loathing and fear.
Fear of living, fear of failing,
Fear of being found out as counterfeit,
By what, by whom, it is never known,
But here I am, chasing my self again.
I will leave it on the page, giving my all,
Nothing left to carry on, empty at last,
Leave it and let it grow, let it rot,
Either way, just need to get it out.
red veedub
Red veedub sits in the drive,
Leaning to the right on the front side,
Blown out tire, blown out panel,
Rust starting on the rim and spreading.
Do I call the insurance, call the tow truck,
What will this cost, in the final analysis?
I will pay one way or another,
Either up front or down the road,
But now I let it sit and rot,
Hoping that it mends itself.
I do nothing and hope it works out,
Took me two weeks to decide,
Still haven’t done anything about,
But maybe tomorrow I’ll give it a try.
So how do I explain the lapse,
Avoidance due to guilt, but its not mine,
Not this time, but I sat on my hands,
Hoping and praying for an escape.
Full on, all out, no doubt,
Someone needs to do something,
But why does that someone,
Always have to be me?
I have to tackle the behemoth,
Endure the red tape, to get it done,
Do what I need to do, no choice,
Suck it up and find my voice.
Tired of arranging rides,
Leaving early, staying late,
Even took the bus once or twice,
But I miss the stereo most of all.
Booming down the street,
Punk rock blasting from speakers,
Got four-on-the-floor, can’t be beat,
Twelve years old, capable of much more.
I’ll do it for her if nothing else,
Obviously, I won’t do it for myself,
Get her running and gunning,
Even if I have to lie and lie some more.
Candy apple red, punctuated with rust,
Adorned with skateboard stickers,
It leaves the wife’s Saturn in the dust,
Stick-shift heaven and good mileage to boot.
I keep having to make statements,
More to myself than to anyone else,
Have to sort it out in my mind,
After its down on paper, I find.
So here I go with more of the same,
Need to state my purpose, share the blame,
Must fix my car in the most expedient way,
Decided I’m gonna make Progressive pay.
Leaning to the right on the front side,
Blown out tire, blown out panel,
Rust starting on the rim and spreading.
Do I call the insurance, call the tow truck,
What will this cost, in the final analysis?
I will pay one way or another,
Either up front or down the road,
But now I let it sit and rot,
Hoping that it mends itself.
I do nothing and hope it works out,
Took me two weeks to decide,
Still haven’t done anything about,
But maybe tomorrow I’ll give it a try.
So how do I explain the lapse,
Avoidance due to guilt, but its not mine,
Not this time, but I sat on my hands,
Hoping and praying for an escape.
Full on, all out, no doubt,
Someone needs to do something,
But why does that someone,
Always have to be me?
I have to tackle the behemoth,
Endure the red tape, to get it done,
Do what I need to do, no choice,
Suck it up and find my voice.
Tired of arranging rides,
Leaving early, staying late,
Even took the bus once or twice,
But I miss the stereo most of all.
Booming down the street,
Punk rock blasting from speakers,
Got four-on-the-floor, can’t be beat,
Twelve years old, capable of much more.
I’ll do it for her if nothing else,
Obviously, I won’t do it for myself,
Get her running and gunning,
Even if I have to lie and lie some more.
Candy apple red, punctuated with rust,
Adorned with skateboard stickers,
It leaves the wife’s Saturn in the dust,
Stick-shift heaven and good mileage to boot.
I keep having to make statements,
More to myself than to anyone else,
Have to sort it out in my mind,
After its down on paper, I find.
So here I go with more of the same,
Need to state my purpose, share the blame,
Must fix my car in the most expedient way,
Decided I’m gonna make Progressive pay.
in the land of ceasar
a first person narrative,
in the cadence of the mind,
the actual metric of the everyday,
of songs that I sing to myself,
in an adopted language...
checkered low-top Vans,
seemingly out of place,
maybe his boat shoes were misplaced,
forty-something van driver,
not much older than me,
but miles away otherwise...
longstanding, unchanging,
as days drag past,
same place, same feelings,
this is now baseline,
has been for years...
unloosen the constant focus,
my endless obsessing,
always thinking of the negative,
no escape, no alternative,
must take life as it comes,
only in the moment,
only in the now.
all focus and thinking,
and nothing else,
a pathway to sanity,
tackle the rest in increments,
in stages, not overwhelm, overtake,
only here, only now,
every moment one at a time from here.
in the cadence of the mind,
the actual metric of the everyday,
of songs that I sing to myself,
in an adopted language...
checkered low-top Vans,
seemingly out of place,
maybe his boat shoes were misplaced,
forty-something van driver,
not much older than me,
but miles away otherwise...
longstanding, unchanging,
as days drag past,
same place, same feelings,
this is now baseline,
has been for years...
unloosen the constant focus,
my endless obsessing,
always thinking of the negative,
no escape, no alternative,
must take life as it comes,
only in the moment,
only in the now.
all focus and thinking,
and nothing else,
a pathway to sanity,
tackle the rest in increments,
in stages, not overwhelm, overtake,
only here, only now,
every moment one at a time from here.
3.06.2007
scribblings
This is very very rough draft of something I've been working on--
none of it is really in order and there's stuff that's totally unrelated-- taking it out for a test ride, more or less--
KH--need to hear from you on this one--let me know what you think so far--
gonna try to do a short story--this is really the bare bones...
I felt shattered. I believed in nothing. Everything that I had been taught, everything that I had believed to be true—they were all lies. Life was nothing to me. Just eating, sleeping, shiitting and screwing. No meaning, no future, no past, no God, no nothing. Just a hollow man living an empty life in an empty and meaningless universe. A randomly generated sequence of events that shat me out into the void. A great cosmic accident, a great cosmic joke.
The feeling of utter and complete meaninglessness was so severe that to act in some way—to commit suicide, to fall in love, to try to believe in anything—would be to acknowledge that it did have meaning. So I didn’t kill myself. I didn’t believe in anything. Didn’t fall in love—though lust was something I couldn’t quite hold off. Because I didn’t care that much. I continued to live, albeit in an empty and meaningless way, because to do otherwise would be admitting to myself that there was meaning.
The place is named Vagrant’s Feast, but everybody just called it Vagrant’s. It had been an institution in this college town for the last seventeen years. It was the favored haunt of governors (former and current), state senators and lobbyists; it was a direct shot four miles down Grand Avenue from the state capitol, right across the street from State University. It was probably named after the album by the British-invasion rock band, but it was also the name of an eighty’s alternative label, also out of Britain. My friend Mark, had friends who had worked there before and it sounded like an interesting place to work.
I was a mess. My world had crashed in around me after the arrest and my psyche had disintegrated. I lost my apartment, my job, was now separated from all of my friends. To make matters worse, I was dropping acid and getting high at every opportunity.
After starting to work for Vagrant’s, I found himself overwhelmed and I receded more into my own mind. The head chef, Bill Thomason (BT), and the other cooks would talk about me or talk around me, but I paid no attention to anyone.
At one point, Thomason was discussing Maslow’s theory of Self-Actualization and Hierarchy of Needs and said pointedly “you can’t just bury yourself in a monastery anymore, you have to engage.” I turned around from my dish machine and looked at Thomason.
I was damaged, destroyed—could barely feed myself. The other dishwashers took pity on me, taught me how to do the most basic and menial of tasks. Showed me that there was an abundance of good food on the dirty plates. Cyclops, as he was called, perhaps because he was Greek, but perhaps just out of spite was into the I-Ching and equated it to the proper way to clean dishes. “Cirlces rule the universe,” he told me.
He often spoke of going to Greece, someday, but I had a feeling that it would never happen.
It was like me going back to Thailand—something that sounded romantic and exciting, but not something that would come to pass.
The other cooks were Meat, Casey, Brooksie and Loomox. The night cooks were an even stranger bunch, with Mofo leading the way. Also on nights were Squido, Joey Cannelloni, Spanky and Pottsy. Mofo was the bass player for the punk band, the Cruciflux, who opened for harcore icons the Dead Kennedys on their last major tour. He also did all the guitar work on the group’s second album—simply named, Cheese.
I started there at about the same time as Q-bert and Seether—I think they were both a year younger than me, fresh out of high school.
Seether was obnoxious—I seriously thought about beating him up a few times, but the guy must have weighed about 110 lbs. He was constantly talking, commenting about everything—sometimes what he said was entertaining or even funny, but usually he would be making fun of somebody or imitating them in a bad way. He was like a bald-headed parrot with big round wire-rim glasses constantly squawking and repeating everything.
Mofo’s father was the head of the Sociology Department at State U. and he went to high school at East Ottawa. There were a slew of prep cooks—the main one being “Big Dave”—the guy must have been 350 lbs.—you had to move out of the room for him to get past you in the aisle. There was also John (another 300 pounder), Damien, Chewie and Morgan. I wondered why some guys didn’t have a nickname—maybe they had more of a personality, they had earned the right to use their real names.
John was the exception; maybe the utter lack of a personality prevented them from giving him a nickname. John lived right next door to Stony in their eleven-room house. He only saw maybe four of the fourteen residents ever, but at night, he could hear John whimpering and crying himself to sleep. He was from a small town north of the college and had moved to town to attend the community college and study theater. Theater? He barely speaks to anyone—how the hell was he going to become and actor?
I got a new nickname when BT got a call from Macy’s to do an in-store cooking demonstration. BT wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of teaching some bored rich housewives how to cook on cookware that they would probably never use. He started poking fun at the whole idea and said—“Yeah, I’ll do a whole Hawaiian theme—I’ll even take my Man Friday—Stony with me.”
“Friday?! Oh that’s rich!” blurted out Casey from the far end of the kitchen.
“Friday? F-U” I thought, but from that point on, they all called me Friday.
Big Dave was a vegetarian (a 350 lb. vegetarian?!) so Mofo and Spanky liked to throw bacon strips on his windshield before he left for the day. They were always pulling stupid pranks on someone. It was funny watching Big Dave trying to run after a beanpole like Mofo (who was about 6’4” and maybe 170 lbs at the most).
Stacia ran into the kitchen to announce to everyone that her now-defunct band, 23 CaveDogs had the number 8 dance single in Germany.
BT: “Do you get money for that?”
Stacia: “Something like fifty cents a spin, I guess.”
BT: “So are you guys gonna go on tour?”
Stacia: “we broke up.”
BT: “You’ll have to do a German reunion tour.”
Meat was from a rural town to the south. He used to be a highly regarded tennis player. Number three in the state or some garbage. They called him Meat because they all figured he had been taking steroids to bulk up. He was extremely homophobic, so everyone would make jokes and innuendos about his sexual orientation.
Casey did a play-by-play of anything and everything going on in the kitchen throughout the shift. He wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular—more to himself, but loud enough for most to hear.
I thought he was hilarious. You would do or say something and Casey was right there with a “Schweet!!” or some such comment. He seemed to be utterly devoid of an ego, though—never once heard him talking about himself in the first person. Often, his own actions were fodder for his ridicule, just as much as anyone else.
Squido was the bassist for a jam band that played the college bar scene. His brother, Philsy was the main dish guy at nights. Their father was also a professor at the State U., also in the Sociology Dept. Philsy was a guitar virtuoso, who had been publishing variations and tablatures for years. I could not figure out what the hell he was doing at Vagrant’s.
But Philsy wasn’t much of a people person. You knew he was pist at you by his grumbling and the racket he made by slamming the pots and pans around.
Squido was more outgoing, but could be pretty gruff. When I was training to be a cook, Squido announced to me, just after the dinner rush, “Hey Friday—I got a gig downstairs. I’m outta here. Sink or swim mofo, you’re on your own.”
BT’s current love interest, Lolita, was plain looking—she had curly hair, which reminded me of a poodle. She seemed nice enough, but strange at the same time. She would stare at me and not say anything—I figured she was trying to mirror his own quietness, but I just ignored her. One day when BT was up at the bar, Lolita walked in and started chatting with the other cooks.
Meat: “so what kind of lover is BT?”
Lolita: “oh, he’s very attentive.”
Meat: “how about stamina?”
Lolita: “oh, he’s got great stamina—just the other day we were doing this thing on the love seat where…”
I walked out of the kitchen at that point, to put in his required 15 minute break on the toilet. Mofo had informed me that it was not a full work day otherwise. Mofo was also nice enough to put some interesting graffiti on the wall as reading material. Most of it concerned Meat and his sexuality. Mofo signed all of his work, though—there was no denying he did it.
To celebrate another job well done, the owners, Bob and Betty Adams, ordered a round of drinks for everyone. Friday got a shot of Tequila—he didn’t know what else to get. After slugging it down, I went outside to get a breath of sweet fresh air. Half the kitchen crew was outside passing two joints around. I took a couple of hits off them, just to be polite.
I came back into the kitchen barely able to think—
Loomox: “So Friday, what did you study at State?”
Me: “Journalism”
Loomox: “Journalism? That’s cool—like TV and stuff? You’d get to travel.”
Me: ”No, print journalism.”
Loomox: “So you’re writer, huh?”
Me: “Nope.”
Loomox: “So what do you want to do, want to you want to be?”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Jaz was the mother hen for the rest of the waitstaff—who the kitchen rats referred to as “waitrons”. They were robotic in their niceties and attention to the patrons. They also had a low opinion of most of the kitchen staff and made quite a bit more money due to the tips.
One day there was a scared looking girl standing at the back door, asking for Jaz—I went and got her and then went to the employee “lounge” to get changed.
The lounge was a ten-by-ten space surrounded with cubbies, reaching almost to the ceiling. The lighting was dim and I felt claustrophobic whenever I was in there.
Jaz had decided to take the girl to the employee lounge as well and it turns out she was this girl’s A/A sponsor. Crap. Come on, Jaz, couldn’t you talk to the human wreckage somewhere else?
It was a little awkward hearing this woman’s life history while changing my shoes. She had fallen off the wagon again and needed support from Jaz. I was of two minds on this—1) she was weak and could be taken advantage of . . . 2) I know what you’re going through--at least you have the courage to admit it . . .
Isaiah: “Didn’t you used to hang out at Dobie’s?”
Me: “Yeah, my buddy Daver worked there.”
Isaiah: “You used to have a shaved head didn’t you?”
Me: Yeah. “I was tripping on about four hits of acid; a pint of tequila—wiped out skateboarding and somehow ended up shaving my head while looking for band-aids at some girl’s house.”
Isaiah: “So you’re not a skin?”
Me: “How could I be a skin? I’m Asian and American Indian.”
Isaiah: “I got beat up pretty bad by some skins back in Philly, they can be total asses.”
Me: “Yeah, I knew some jerks like that. So why do you shave your head?”
Isaiah: “I guess I like the aesthetics. It’s an anti-fashion statement.”
I was putting pots and pans away behind the cook’s station and walked past the radio. Someone had put a Bob Dylan tape in and the opening strains of “Like a Rolling Stone” hit me as I headed back to the dish machine. I stopped in my tracks. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen through the large window on the eastern wall. The scene before me took on a crystalline lucidity which I’d never seen before.
Oh my god—the song is about ME.
How pathetic—of all the songs in the world—I have to relate to “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Mofo would find a cassette-single by the Yugoslavian industrial band, Laibach, with a cover of “Like a Rolling Stone” and the Beatle’s “Dig It”. In typical Mofo-fashion, he would play the tape in an endless loop until someone finally complained about it.
Mofo: “So you like the rap?”
Me: “I like Public Enemy…”
Mofo: “Public Enema—they’re not bad.”
Me: “I like the mixes, they jump out at you—and the lyrics… it’s like Black History Month back in Detroit Public Schools, all rolled into a song.”
Mofo: “I went to East Ottawa, we didn’t have any culture there.”
Me: “Yeah, but you guys had a punk scene, though--“
Mofo: “But it’s dead now. I remember seeing Minor Threat back in ’81 in some dude’s basement. Those were good times. Real Punk Rock. There’s a Punk Rock Sock-Hop going on this weekend at Barley Street. You gonna check it out?”
Me: “I was planning on O.D.’ing on Ecstasy by myself this weekend.”
Mofo: “Watch out for Bluto—he hates the rap. If we got it on and he’s cutting through the kitchen, he’ll be cussing and swearing the whole time he’s in here. Stay out of his way, he’s like a mad elephant and he’ll stomp on you.”
I often felt like I was sitting in on some kind of talk show. The level of sarcasm and cynicism was quite high—more Letterman than Carson. BT worked the cook’s station like Letterman would his desk and the rest of us were vying to be his Paul Schaefer—foil, sidekick, yes-man. Nothing was sacred on BT’s show—everything and everyone was a target for ridicule. BT moved me up quicker than Seether or Q-bert, maybe because I was an easier target or maybe because I took the abuse better than them.
I suffered physical, verbal and mental abuse as a child. This was nothing. I could take it and ignore it. I could be their little beotch. Mostly because I didn’t care, or convinced myself that I didn’t care. I hated them and their world and I wasn’t about to let them scare me off. Ignoring them and their comments took all the concentration I had—I focused on what was in front of me, nothing else.
I needed their nasty job because I needed to eat. If nothing else, they fed me really well, or at least allowed me to feed myself really well. I ate the London Broil with egg noodles every day for a month straight. They made the mistake of making a squid salad one weekend—I’m pretty sure I ate most of it myself.
Isaiah: “Watcha got in the delivery bag, Friday?”
Me: “Books and P-Rock tapes.”
Isaiah: “Where’d you get that bag? I see a lot of people with those messenger bags.”
Me: “I don’t remember. I think I stole it from an ex. She got it at the Gap or some crap, that’s why I tore off the emblem and wrote some song lyrics on it.”
Isaiah: “Pretty stylin’.”
Me: “I used to skate to and from all my classes—it was less bulky than a backpack.”
Isaiah: “Watcha reading, Friday?”
Me: “Zen Buddhism.”
Isaiah: “You like the Buddhism, Friday? You don’t dig the Nietzsche or Sartre? Did you see Psycho Dave at the party this weekend? He wrote “Sartre” on the flipped-up bill of his cap.”
Me: “I can’t get with the dead white guys, no. Psycho Dave is just flat out weird.”
Isaiah: “I haven’t read much Zen—what do you think of it?”
Me: “It’s cool, but . . . I don’t know—it’s like mental J.O. (masturbation)—nice brain candy.”
Isaiah: “Brain candy? Hahaha . . .”
Me: “Maybe it’s just me, it just seems to get in the way of living—too much thinking, not enough living. But then again, I’m high all of the time . . .”
I became the salad guy. My area was at the end of the cook’s station and I would throw salads together as needed. It was a step up from Prep Cook, although I still did quite a bit of prep work when things got slow. BT always listened to NPR leading up to and through the dinner rush.
I was standing there listening to a report about the air quality in Mexico City—something about traces of fecal matter being found during a recent test.
“Not only can you not drink the water--you can’t even breathe the air.” I said almost absent-mindedly to BT.
Mofo: “Friday, you gotta eat better. I’m not saying to eat a N.Y. strip or a filet mignon every night, but you can treat yourself to one at least once a week.”
Me: “But I like the London Broil.”
Mofo: “But you eat that stuff EVERY DAY. Make yourself a sammich or something.”
Me: “Nothing else sounds good.”
Mofo: “You are in a rut, my friend. Get out of your rut.”
Me: “But I got this itch . . .”
Mofo: “An itch you can’t scratch? Even though you keep scratching and scratching?”
Me: “Exactly.”
Spanky: “Aren’t you Isaiah’s brother?”
Isaac: “Yeah, I am.”
Spanky: “Holy crap, dude, you talk less than Friday.”
Isaac: (blank stare)
Spanky: “They used to call him Stony due to his stony silence.”
Isaac: (another blank stare)
Spanky: “We used to think he had taken a vow of silence or something-isn’t that right Friday?”
Me: “Felcher.”
Spanky: “You wish I was. (To Isaac) You and you’re brother are pretty different, aren’t you?”
Isaac: “Yeah.”
Spanky: “That’s cool. We’ll look out for you. You’re brother was tres cool.”
Isaac: “Yeah, he is.”
Spanky: “What’s Isaiah been up to?”
Isaac: “He moved to Portland with his girlfriend.”
Spanky: “Is he still dating that hot Goth princess?”
Isaac: “Yeah.”
Spanky: “Lucky bastage. I might be moving to Portland—my old lady’s been talking about it. What do you think, Friday? Should I go to Portland?”
Me: “Yeah, good riddance.”
Spanky: “You know you’re gonna miss me, I’m the anti-Friday—the antithesis of everything that you are. You know what antithesis means, Friday?”
Me: “No idea, Spanky.”
Spanky: “How the hell do you not . . . how did you get into college, man? They’ll take anybody these days, won’t they?”
Me: “Anybody but you, apparently.”
Spanky: “Touché, Friday, touché. Your not gonna have me to kick around much longer.”
Me: “Pottsy’ll be happy to hear that, I heard he’s making the moves on your fat neighbor that you used to bang when you was fourteen.”
none of it is really in order and there's stuff that's totally unrelated-- taking it out for a test ride, more or less--
KH--need to hear from you on this one--let me know what you think so far--
gonna try to do a short story--this is really the bare bones...
I felt shattered. I believed in nothing. Everything that I had been taught, everything that I had believed to be true—they were all lies. Life was nothing to me. Just eating, sleeping, shiitting and screwing. No meaning, no future, no past, no God, no nothing. Just a hollow man living an empty life in an empty and meaningless universe. A randomly generated sequence of events that shat me out into the void. A great cosmic accident, a great cosmic joke.
The feeling of utter and complete meaninglessness was so severe that to act in some way—to commit suicide, to fall in love, to try to believe in anything—would be to acknowledge that it did have meaning. So I didn’t kill myself. I didn’t believe in anything. Didn’t fall in love—though lust was something I couldn’t quite hold off. Because I didn’t care that much. I continued to live, albeit in an empty and meaningless way, because to do otherwise would be admitting to myself that there was meaning.
The place is named Vagrant’s Feast, but everybody just called it Vagrant’s. It had been an institution in this college town for the last seventeen years. It was the favored haunt of governors (former and current), state senators and lobbyists; it was a direct shot four miles down Grand Avenue from the state capitol, right across the street from State University. It was probably named after the album by the British-invasion rock band, but it was also the name of an eighty’s alternative label, also out of Britain. My friend Mark, had friends who had worked there before and it sounded like an interesting place to work.
I was a mess. My world had crashed in around me after the arrest and my psyche had disintegrated. I lost my apartment, my job, was now separated from all of my friends. To make matters worse, I was dropping acid and getting high at every opportunity.
After starting to work for Vagrant’s, I found himself overwhelmed and I receded more into my own mind. The head chef, Bill Thomason (BT), and the other cooks would talk about me or talk around me, but I paid no attention to anyone.
At one point, Thomason was discussing Maslow’s theory of Self-Actualization and Hierarchy of Needs and said pointedly “you can’t just bury yourself in a monastery anymore, you have to engage.” I turned around from my dish machine and looked at Thomason.
I was damaged, destroyed—could barely feed myself. The other dishwashers took pity on me, taught me how to do the most basic and menial of tasks. Showed me that there was an abundance of good food on the dirty plates. Cyclops, as he was called, perhaps because he was Greek, but perhaps just out of spite was into the I-Ching and equated it to the proper way to clean dishes. “Cirlces rule the universe,” he told me.
He often spoke of going to Greece, someday, but I had a feeling that it would never happen.
It was like me going back to Thailand—something that sounded romantic and exciting, but not something that would come to pass.
The other cooks were Meat, Casey, Brooksie and Loomox. The night cooks were an even stranger bunch, with Mofo leading the way. Also on nights were Squido, Joey Cannelloni, Spanky and Pottsy. Mofo was the bass player for the punk band, the Cruciflux, who opened for harcore icons the Dead Kennedys on their last major tour. He also did all the guitar work on the group’s second album—simply named, Cheese.
I started there at about the same time as Q-bert and Seether—I think they were both a year younger than me, fresh out of high school.
Seether was obnoxious—I seriously thought about beating him up a few times, but the guy must have weighed about 110 lbs. He was constantly talking, commenting about everything—sometimes what he said was entertaining or even funny, but usually he would be making fun of somebody or imitating them in a bad way. He was like a bald-headed parrot with big round wire-rim glasses constantly squawking and repeating everything.
Mofo’s father was the head of the Sociology Department at State U. and he went to high school at East Ottawa. There were a slew of prep cooks—the main one being “Big Dave”—the guy must have been 350 lbs.—you had to move out of the room for him to get past you in the aisle. There was also John (another 300 pounder), Damien, Chewie and Morgan. I wondered why some guys didn’t have a nickname—maybe they had more of a personality, they had earned the right to use their real names.
John was the exception; maybe the utter lack of a personality prevented them from giving him a nickname. John lived right next door to Stony in their eleven-room house. He only saw maybe four of the fourteen residents ever, but at night, he could hear John whimpering and crying himself to sleep. He was from a small town north of the college and had moved to town to attend the community college and study theater. Theater? He barely speaks to anyone—how the hell was he going to become and actor?
I got a new nickname when BT got a call from Macy’s to do an in-store cooking demonstration. BT wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of teaching some bored rich housewives how to cook on cookware that they would probably never use. He started poking fun at the whole idea and said—“Yeah, I’ll do a whole Hawaiian theme—I’ll even take my Man Friday—Stony with me.”
“Friday?! Oh that’s rich!” blurted out Casey from the far end of the kitchen.
“Friday? F-U” I thought, but from that point on, they all called me Friday.
Big Dave was a vegetarian (a 350 lb. vegetarian?!) so Mofo and Spanky liked to throw bacon strips on his windshield before he left for the day. They were always pulling stupid pranks on someone. It was funny watching Big Dave trying to run after a beanpole like Mofo (who was about 6’4” and maybe 170 lbs at the most).
Stacia ran into the kitchen to announce to everyone that her now-defunct band, 23 CaveDogs had the number 8 dance single in Germany.
BT: “Do you get money for that?”
Stacia: “Something like fifty cents a spin, I guess.”
BT: “So are you guys gonna go on tour?”
Stacia: “we broke up.”
BT: “You’ll have to do a German reunion tour.”
Meat was from a rural town to the south. He used to be a highly regarded tennis player. Number three in the state or some garbage. They called him Meat because they all figured he had been taking steroids to bulk up. He was extremely homophobic, so everyone would make jokes and innuendos about his sexual orientation.
Casey did a play-by-play of anything and everything going on in the kitchen throughout the shift. He wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular—more to himself, but loud enough for most to hear.
I thought he was hilarious. You would do or say something and Casey was right there with a “Schweet!!” or some such comment. He seemed to be utterly devoid of an ego, though—never once heard him talking about himself in the first person. Often, his own actions were fodder for his ridicule, just as much as anyone else.
Squido was the bassist for a jam band that played the college bar scene. His brother, Philsy was the main dish guy at nights. Their father was also a professor at the State U., also in the Sociology Dept. Philsy was a guitar virtuoso, who had been publishing variations and tablatures for years. I could not figure out what the hell he was doing at Vagrant’s.
But Philsy wasn’t much of a people person. You knew he was pist at you by his grumbling and the racket he made by slamming the pots and pans around.
Squido was more outgoing, but could be pretty gruff. When I was training to be a cook, Squido announced to me, just after the dinner rush, “Hey Friday—I got a gig downstairs. I’m outta here. Sink or swim mofo, you’re on your own.”
BT’s current love interest, Lolita, was plain looking—she had curly hair, which reminded me of a poodle. She seemed nice enough, but strange at the same time. She would stare at me and not say anything—I figured she was trying to mirror his own quietness, but I just ignored her. One day when BT was up at the bar, Lolita walked in and started chatting with the other cooks.
Meat: “so what kind of lover is BT?”
Lolita: “oh, he’s very attentive.”
Meat: “how about stamina?”
Lolita: “oh, he’s got great stamina—just the other day we were doing this thing on the love seat where…”
I walked out of the kitchen at that point, to put in his required 15 minute break on the toilet. Mofo had informed me that it was not a full work day otherwise. Mofo was also nice enough to put some interesting graffiti on the wall as reading material. Most of it concerned Meat and his sexuality. Mofo signed all of his work, though—there was no denying he did it.
To celebrate another job well done, the owners, Bob and Betty Adams, ordered a round of drinks for everyone. Friday got a shot of Tequila—he didn’t know what else to get. After slugging it down, I went outside to get a breath of sweet fresh air. Half the kitchen crew was outside passing two joints around. I took a couple of hits off them, just to be polite.
I came back into the kitchen barely able to think—
Loomox: “So Friday, what did you study at State?”
Me: “Journalism”
Loomox: “Journalism? That’s cool—like TV and stuff? You’d get to travel.”
Me: ”No, print journalism.”
Loomox: “So you’re writer, huh?”
Me: “Nope.”
Loomox: “So what do you want to do, want to you want to be?”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Jaz was the mother hen for the rest of the waitstaff—who the kitchen rats referred to as “waitrons”. They were robotic in their niceties and attention to the patrons. They also had a low opinion of most of the kitchen staff and made quite a bit more money due to the tips.
One day there was a scared looking girl standing at the back door, asking for Jaz—I went and got her and then went to the employee “lounge” to get changed.
The lounge was a ten-by-ten space surrounded with cubbies, reaching almost to the ceiling. The lighting was dim and I felt claustrophobic whenever I was in there.
Jaz had decided to take the girl to the employee lounge as well and it turns out she was this girl’s A/A sponsor. Crap. Come on, Jaz, couldn’t you talk to the human wreckage somewhere else?
It was a little awkward hearing this woman’s life history while changing my shoes. She had fallen off the wagon again and needed support from Jaz. I was of two minds on this—1) she was weak and could be taken advantage of . . . 2) I know what you’re going through--at least you have the courage to admit it . . .
Isaiah: “Didn’t you used to hang out at Dobie’s?”
Me: “Yeah, my buddy Daver worked there.”
Isaiah: “You used to have a shaved head didn’t you?”
Me: Yeah. “I was tripping on about four hits of acid; a pint of tequila—wiped out skateboarding and somehow ended up shaving my head while looking for band-aids at some girl’s house.”
Isaiah: “So you’re not a skin?”
Me: “How could I be a skin? I’m Asian and American Indian.”
Isaiah: “I got beat up pretty bad by some skins back in Philly, they can be total asses.”
Me: “Yeah, I knew some jerks like that. So why do you shave your head?”
Isaiah: “I guess I like the aesthetics. It’s an anti-fashion statement.”
I was putting pots and pans away behind the cook’s station and walked past the radio. Someone had put a Bob Dylan tape in and the opening strains of “Like a Rolling Stone” hit me as I headed back to the dish machine. I stopped in my tracks. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen through the large window on the eastern wall. The scene before me took on a crystalline lucidity which I’d never seen before.
Oh my god—the song is about ME.
How pathetic—of all the songs in the world—I have to relate to “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Mofo would find a cassette-single by the Yugoslavian industrial band, Laibach, with a cover of “Like a Rolling Stone” and the Beatle’s “Dig It”. In typical Mofo-fashion, he would play the tape in an endless loop until someone finally complained about it.
Mofo: “So you like the rap?”
Me: “I like Public Enemy…”
Mofo: “Public Enema—they’re not bad.”
Me: “I like the mixes, they jump out at you—and the lyrics… it’s like Black History Month back in Detroit Public Schools, all rolled into a song.”
Mofo: “I went to East Ottawa, we didn’t have any culture there.”
Me: “Yeah, but you guys had a punk scene, though--“
Mofo: “But it’s dead now. I remember seeing Minor Threat back in ’81 in some dude’s basement. Those were good times. Real Punk Rock. There’s a Punk Rock Sock-Hop going on this weekend at Barley Street. You gonna check it out?”
Me: “I was planning on O.D.’ing on Ecstasy by myself this weekend.”
Mofo: “Watch out for Bluto—he hates the rap. If we got it on and he’s cutting through the kitchen, he’ll be cussing and swearing the whole time he’s in here. Stay out of his way, he’s like a mad elephant and he’ll stomp on you.”
I often felt like I was sitting in on some kind of talk show. The level of sarcasm and cynicism was quite high—more Letterman than Carson. BT worked the cook’s station like Letterman would his desk and the rest of us were vying to be his Paul Schaefer—foil, sidekick, yes-man. Nothing was sacred on BT’s show—everything and everyone was a target for ridicule. BT moved me up quicker than Seether or Q-bert, maybe because I was an easier target or maybe because I took the abuse better than them.
I suffered physical, verbal and mental abuse as a child. This was nothing. I could take it and ignore it. I could be their little beotch. Mostly because I didn’t care, or convinced myself that I didn’t care. I hated them and their world and I wasn’t about to let them scare me off. Ignoring them and their comments took all the concentration I had—I focused on what was in front of me, nothing else.
I needed their nasty job because I needed to eat. If nothing else, they fed me really well, or at least allowed me to feed myself really well. I ate the London Broil with egg noodles every day for a month straight. They made the mistake of making a squid salad one weekend—I’m pretty sure I ate most of it myself.
Isaiah: “Watcha got in the delivery bag, Friday?”
Me: “Books and P-Rock tapes.”
Isaiah: “Where’d you get that bag? I see a lot of people with those messenger bags.”
Me: “I don’t remember. I think I stole it from an ex. She got it at the Gap or some crap, that’s why I tore off the emblem and wrote some song lyrics on it.”
Isaiah: “Pretty stylin’.”
Me: “I used to skate to and from all my classes—it was less bulky than a backpack.”
Isaiah: “Watcha reading, Friday?”
Me: “Zen Buddhism.”
Isaiah: “You like the Buddhism, Friday? You don’t dig the Nietzsche or Sartre? Did you see Psycho Dave at the party this weekend? He wrote “Sartre” on the flipped-up bill of his cap.”
Me: “I can’t get with the dead white guys, no. Psycho Dave is just flat out weird.”
Isaiah: “I haven’t read much Zen—what do you think of it?”
Me: “It’s cool, but . . . I don’t know—it’s like mental J.O. (masturbation)—nice brain candy.”
Isaiah: “Brain candy? Hahaha . . .”
Me: “Maybe it’s just me, it just seems to get in the way of living—too much thinking, not enough living. But then again, I’m high all of the time . . .”
I became the salad guy. My area was at the end of the cook’s station and I would throw salads together as needed. It was a step up from Prep Cook, although I still did quite a bit of prep work when things got slow. BT always listened to NPR leading up to and through the dinner rush.
I was standing there listening to a report about the air quality in Mexico City—something about traces of fecal matter being found during a recent test.
“Not only can you not drink the water--you can’t even breathe the air.” I said almost absent-mindedly to BT.
Mofo: “Friday, you gotta eat better. I’m not saying to eat a N.Y. strip or a filet mignon every night, but you can treat yourself to one at least once a week.”
Me: “But I like the London Broil.”
Mofo: “But you eat that stuff EVERY DAY. Make yourself a sammich or something.”
Me: “Nothing else sounds good.”
Mofo: “You are in a rut, my friend. Get out of your rut.”
Me: “But I got this itch . . .”
Mofo: “An itch you can’t scratch? Even though you keep scratching and scratching?”
Me: “Exactly.”
Spanky: “Aren’t you Isaiah’s brother?”
Isaac: “Yeah, I am.”
Spanky: “Holy crap, dude, you talk less than Friday.”
Isaac: (blank stare)
Spanky: “They used to call him Stony due to his stony silence.”
Isaac: (another blank stare)
Spanky: “We used to think he had taken a vow of silence or something-isn’t that right Friday?”
Me: “Felcher.”
Spanky: “You wish I was. (To Isaac) You and you’re brother are pretty different, aren’t you?”
Isaac: “Yeah.”
Spanky: “That’s cool. We’ll look out for you. You’re brother was tres cool.”
Isaac: “Yeah, he is.”
Spanky: “What’s Isaiah been up to?”
Isaac: “He moved to Portland with his girlfriend.”
Spanky: “Is he still dating that hot Goth princess?”
Isaac: “Yeah.”
Spanky: “Lucky bastage. I might be moving to Portland—my old lady’s been talking about it. What do you think, Friday? Should I go to Portland?”
Me: “Yeah, good riddance.”
Spanky: “You know you’re gonna miss me, I’m the anti-Friday—the antithesis of everything that you are. You know what antithesis means, Friday?”
Me: “No idea, Spanky.”
Spanky: “How the hell do you not . . . how did you get into college, man? They’ll take anybody these days, won’t they?”
Me: “Anybody but you, apparently.”
Spanky: “Touché, Friday, touché. Your not gonna have me to kick around much longer.”
Me: “Pottsy’ll be happy to hear that, I heard he’s making the moves on your fat neighbor that you used to bang when you was fourteen.”
3.04.2007
so far left I'm almost right
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference before an overflow crowd on Friday, Ms. Coulter said, “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”
I got dragged into a debate about Ann Coulter—I usually steer clear of that kind of thing, but this friend got me all riled up. This is my response to an on-line debate—I had to edit out all the other comments, due to explicit language . . .
that ANN COULTER is a royal beotch...
we can have differing opinions, that's what makes this country so great--
but to label people who don't agree with you as "unAmerican" or traitors is cowardly. she's dissed 9-11 widows, war vets, anyone and everyone that disagrees with her . . .
shiite, disagree-- but come off your high horse . . . and stop attacking people for their beliefs—
I've said it before--they're all full of crap-- what I can't stand is the US vs. Them mentality that the right seems to be perpetuating.
I'm not right or left-- I don't hold an allegiance to either political party-- why is it that we only have two major parties here anyway?
Neither of them speaks for folks like me... but as far as the b.s. factor-- come on, the right's got that hands down.
The left's got their issues as well, but they don't seem so proud of their shite--at least they don't try to drape the flag around every bogus thing they come up with.
What the hell are you talking about?
Moore is just some fat bastard from Flint as far as I'm concerned and Rather? he was a bloated wind bag. Franken--I thought that was all part of some Saturday Night Live shtick and Carville is his own walking parody.
IMAGINE this just for a moment . . .
I DON'T TRUST ANYONE in mainstream media--
OR GOVERNMENT . . .
you can diss the left all you want-- you're not going to hurt my feelings one bit, because they don't speak for me at all...
maybe I'm so freakin far left I'm almost right...
and we've gone around and around on the global warming issue--
WTF? What's wrong with being more responsible toward the planet--the environment where we, our children and all of our descendents have to live.
What pisses me off is the fact that people like my father and my uncles volunteered to go to places like Vietnam/Laos and fight for this country and chuckleheads like Rush and Coulter have the nerve to question other people's loyalty?
Where the hell were they? What have they done other than shoot their mouths off?
And as far as double standards...O'Reilly gets busted for sexual harassment, but everything is swept under the rug . . . Rush is an oxy addict and . . . what?
Money talks, ennit?
I got dragged into a debate about Ann Coulter—I usually steer clear of that kind of thing, but this friend got me all riled up. This is my response to an on-line debate—I had to edit out all the other comments, due to explicit language . . .
that ANN COULTER is a royal beotch...
we can have differing opinions, that's what makes this country so great--
but to label people who don't agree with you as "unAmerican" or traitors is cowardly. she's dissed 9-11 widows, war vets, anyone and everyone that disagrees with her . . .
shiite, disagree-- but come off your high horse . . . and stop attacking people for their beliefs—
I've said it before--they're all full of crap-- what I can't stand is the US vs. Them mentality that the right seems to be perpetuating.
I'm not right or left-- I don't hold an allegiance to either political party-- why is it that we only have two major parties here anyway?
Neither of them speaks for folks like me... but as far as the b.s. factor-- come on, the right's got that hands down.
The left's got their issues as well, but they don't seem so proud of their shite--at least they don't try to drape the flag around every bogus thing they come up with.
What the hell are you talking about?
Moore is just some fat bastard from Flint as far as I'm concerned and Rather? he was a bloated wind bag. Franken--I thought that was all part of some Saturday Night Live shtick and Carville is his own walking parody.
IMAGINE this just for a moment . . .
I DON'T TRUST ANYONE in mainstream media--
OR GOVERNMENT . . .
you can diss the left all you want-- you're not going to hurt my feelings one bit, because they don't speak for me at all...
maybe I'm so freakin far left I'm almost right...
and we've gone around and around on the global warming issue--
WTF? What's wrong with being more responsible toward the planet--the environment where we, our children and all of our descendents have to live.
What pisses me off is the fact that people like my father and my uncles volunteered to go to places like Vietnam/Laos and fight for this country and chuckleheads like Rush and Coulter have the nerve to question other people's loyalty?
Where the hell were they? What have they done other than shoot their mouths off?
And as far as double standards...O'Reilly gets busted for sexual harassment, but everything is swept under the rug . . . Rush is an oxy addict and . . . what?
Money talks, ennit?
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