Click images for desktop size: "Love Memories" by Alicia De Fritas My job has been legislated away!
This has never happened to me before. Its kind of interesting in a Chinese way. (The worst Chinese curse is, "May you have an interesting life.")
I guess the biggest surprise is that this bill to wipe out about 3,000 jobs is being driven by the Democrats. For quite a while it looked like the Republicans were going to stand around and let the Dem's pass the bill and then when the spike hit unemployment rates they'd comfortably sit back and accuse the Democrats of neglecting their constituents and general bad policy. It makes sense that the Republicans would allow the country and the people to die a lingering death so long as the Republicans got what they wanted.
But that sniveling strategy got trashed when my boss, amongst others, got organized. They started to proclaim to anyone who'd listen that this was unfair and that banning "Internet Sweepstakes" would cost the state 30,000 jobs (!?!) and at least 1 billion in need tax revenue (!?!).
They also organized a poorly conceived e-mail campaign that was transparent only in that it was bought and paid for. They tried to get me involved . . . not smart, but nothing about these guys is. My stand is simple: This is a lousy job, but the only one I can find. I make about 60 bucks a day while you net about 200,000 a week. I understand your concern but you have to understand my apathy.
So they paid me to send some e-mails. I did. They paid me to help our customers to send out their boilerplate e-mails. I did that too. I never knew I was such a mercenary.
I pointed out that it would make better sense to create a form where all the customers would have to do is fill in their name and email addresses and then push a submit button. It would be easier and
Click images for desktop size: "Red Bee" by Lou Fine permit personalization. I said I'd charge them $250 to design it and it would take about 4 hours to have up and working. That was too expensive for them.
So in the face of all this "outrage" the senate passed the bill 47-1. Pretty much a slam dunk.
The one nay vote wanted them shut down but to preserve jobs and tax revenue her plan was to have the State Lottery take over operation of the "casinos".
The general consensus was that the operators were scum whose goal was to suck all the money out of the poorer communities while giving nothing back. The owners response was that if they made them legal they'd have a rack of Gambler's Anonymous pamphlets . . .
The other contention was that the jobs they offered were not jobs that benefited the state. The owners violated all the labor laws, offered no protection, benefits, lunch breaks, rest breaks or safe working conditions.
All of this is true. So the owners response was to call the senate corrupt without offering up a clue as to who would benefit from bribing the entire legislature to close them down.
Now the bill goes to the house. The owners then decided to rent buses and force all the employees to trek along. I refused to attend this one. It was a disaster. No customers attended. Oddly the media wrote it up as a massive protest while the legislators saw it for what it was. How nouveau riche are the employers that they rebelled at the idea of making campaign contributions to the legislators who, while not supporting them, balked at the idea of losing jobs in the
Click images for desktop size: "Fergie" present economy. So instead of talking to them intelligently the owners bragged about how they set those idiots right. So instead of building up allies in a fight they managed to reaffirm the incredibly negative image they seem hell bent of justifying.
Their only hope, as I see it, is that the House decides not to debate the Senate bill until after the election. Then the owners have to throw their support and considerable extra cash behind any candidate who might support their cause.
They won't do that. They are as bad as the legislators depict them. There's no misunderstanding there. These guys whole goal is to suck up every nickel the customers have period. They have no social conscious and are not bright enough to see how faking one will benefit them. They can't even figure out to be deferential and listen and rebutting instead of dictating. I've seen it before just not as so base a level.
For me I've got a job and I'm searching for another one a little bit harder. My job sucks, dealing with sore losers, drunks, drug dealers, hookers and other creatures of the night. But even a crappy job is better than looking for work.


Click images for desktop size: "Mix" by Unknown My spare time now is spent on getting my wife into this country. It's arduous and confusing. Too many forms, too many arcane racist laws. Immigration. I want her and my two other dogs with me.

I've had to keep comments switched off. It's creepy. The spammers have made 12 attempts to hijack the site in order to post comment spam? How utterly worthless. I give Movable Type props for catching the attempted exploits. I've add to remove some of the little things I like to prevent the access at all.

My puppy is losing weight! She has her little waspish waist back! She loves me and I love her. She even tolerates the tiny bit of food she receives, I just have to pet her more.

Click images for desktop size: "Total Eclipse" by Unknown When I was on the different chemo's one thing I noticed is that I never got bothered by bugs or mosquitos. Something in the chemo put something in my blood that scared the bugs away. It's the only good thing about some of the more virulent chemo's.
There's a woman who comes into where I work. She's mean. Just a bitch. As the night goes on she gets meaner and meaner. She comes in with her daughter and they manage to harmonize their meanness till you can't stand either of them.
They're short. Each of them is about 150 pounds overweight. I'm probably being kind there. They tended to the rude and hateful. Not that much different from any of the other customers but they were noticeable for being a couple and for staying 12 to 14 hours at a stretch.
She didn't come in for a couple of weeks, just the daughter. Finally I asked where her mother was. "Oh, she's getting chemo." Then she waddled away, back to playing the game.
The mother and daughter came in again, about two weeks later. The mother was wearing a wig. I couldn't tell if she'd lost weight or not. Reflexively I went to talk to her, she had the deep fear of death on her face and the gray crust of nightmares collected in the skin around her eyes and jowls.
She told me she had leukemia. It was a different kind them mine. My leukemia is the one kids get, (got leukemia 14 years old looked like 65 when she died~Jim Carroll). The mother had the kind old people get. She wasn't that old but her body showed enough abuse for it to think it was that old.
I told her about my experience and that I was still alive. Being alive is all that matters. She held my hand and cried a bit then she went back to playing the game.
They keep coming in, almost nightly. If they're not where I work they're probably at one of the other joints. I find myself being inordinately kind to her, even as much as I dislike her. I don't think about
Click images for desktop size: "The nerve" by Psychopulse why. It's probably because I hate the disease and I hate for people to be afraid, even people I hate shouldn't ever have to be afraid, certainly not that kind of fear.
Of course she senses the kindness and is taking full advantage of it, more so as she's feeling better and better.
She can't help that. The sort of people who gamble always think that kindness is just a sign of weakness. They have no courage or strength themselves so they can't see it any other way.

Today I read that Tony Jaa has entered a monastery. He's decided to become a monk.
He's, without question, the biggest star in Thailand, probably the most famous Thai in the world.
When I told my wife she said it was inevitable. I can see that. I mean the man who takes time from an interview to state that the elephants who live on his land are not pets, that they are his family, ranks close to saint hood in my eyes already. That Jaa can fight like he does, has perfected his body to such a mad extreme I guess there is no place left for him to go.
I re-watched "Ong Bak 2" and "Tom Yum Gum" recently. Ong Bak 2 is good when Jaa is moving even when the film is not totally satisfying. "Tom Yum Gum" is a masterpiece and each viewing
Click images for desktop size: "Gene Kelly" raises it in my opinion. Right now I can make arguments that its one of the 5 greatest films ever made. Because its a martial arts movie the people who care so much about their top ten lists would be appalled with the assertion.
I've railed about the movie before but it bears repeating. The first 15 minutes of a 90 minute movie is a love poem to elephants. The bad guys kill Jaa's father but it is the theft of the elephants that rings as the greatest tragedy.
The first shot we get of Jaa in action is of him flying through the air, crushing a man's chest and yammering, "Where are my elephants?!"
When Jaa goes to Sydney to search for them he tells everyone he is looking for his brothers.
Technically and stylistically the movie is a tour de force. There is one breathtaking sequence, a 10 minute single take of Jaa climbing to the top of the restaurant searching for his elephants. If it had been made by Antonionio it would have been hailed as a classic shot in cinema history. As it is it is all that and it is exhilarating, beautiful and violent. A more complicated set of logistics I can't
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Unknown imagine.
The director makes it function but its the performance and sheer physicality of Tony Jaa that makes it work.
"Where's my elephant."
Giving a gift like that to the world makes it easy to see and comprehend Jaa's decision. Whether he'll make movies again or if he's even thinking about making movies his religion is important to him and my wife is right, he wouldn't be the dynamic person he is if he were not above all true to himself and his family.
I'll miss him.

I'm updating the film catalogs over the next couple of days. I've upgraded to the newest Movable Type too, but haven't had time/energy to rebuild the site to show it. I took a day off of work to go fight with people about my drugs and to write affidavits to bring my wife down here. And to just have time with my super slim down to 71 pounds puppy.
My little girl is so happy to have me around. She's my dog and wants to be with me. I'm her boy and love being with her. She's still on a diet though.
Now if we can sort out USA immigration and get my wife and my other two dogs down here we'll have some glimmers of happiness again.
Its a lot of work and produces a lot of tension. There's no one to talk to, no one to fight with or to beg. There's only us. I'm not small but I worry if I'm big enough still. I'm not wuitting and I haven't sold out any of my principals so it will be alright whatever we discover together.

Click images for desktop size: "Attack!" by Lavakillu I've had to turn off comments on the site.
I was getting about 3,000 spam comments a day. I don't have time and energy to write. Burning off some of that to deal with deleting huge globs of nonsense was exasperating and exhausting.
It appears to be coming from one BotNet coming from a furniture store in Nebraska. Blocking that just bounced around to other Windows networks mainly small retail joints in the midwest.
Love that all these Windows guys have gotten their broadband hijacked. Great OS.
My wife complained about me having comments turned off on our fifth anniversary. (Anniversary of meeting, not of marriage.) I turned comments back on for an hour or so and got hit with 65 spam comments. She didn't post her comment. She was mad at me about something. Probably me not remembering the anniversary but maybe for something else.

Everything else has gone as well as can be expected. Feeling pressured to deal with the US Immigration to get my wife down here.Coping with that as best as I can.Did the big annual dog walk with my puppy. She hates her diet but she's starting to look magnificent. She attracted her share of stares and coos.That's something because there were we'll over 500 dogs on the walk, everything from Italian Greyhounds to Chinese Crested. They all seemed like good dogs to me.
Before the walk and even after my puppy has been extremely happy. I'm not sure why or if the why matters. She's just laughing about everything and enjoying being with me and tormenting me as much as possible. Although I think she feels like I'm tormenting her.


Click images for desktop size: "Always With Honor" by Unknown They've jacked the price of my drugs 325%!!
I wasn't alone on that. At the clinic pharmacy there's been a lot of violent disturbance because of the price increase. A sense of entitlement I guess. Some of it probably just fear. I felt fear, trying to figure out how I could pay for it all. I take 12 pills a day plus the insulin.
I managed to save some money by going to different pharmacies. The $4 generic works for one of the drugs, and another is normally $44 but I found one doing it for $10.
The scary prices are on the Plavix (the most profitable drug in the world at over $200 a month) and the insulin (Lantus) which goes for about $200 a month.
Health care reform - who needs it right?

I'm incensed that our government has gotten so corrupt that they're letting Comcast, Time Warner et al own the internet. Comcast already blocks sites that disagree with their illegal tactics. Obama is so busy trying to criminalize children for downloading music that he's forgotten one of his main campaign promises, an open and free internet.
Instead he is abiding by the wishes of the corrupt Republican Senators and the corrupt dog Democrats in the house (all whom have received MASSIVE chunks of cash from Comcast and Time Warner.

Click images for desktop size: "Tony Bennett" They wrote a "bi-partisan" (hey, corruption and greed know no party lines) letter demanding the FCC ignore their mandate and care for the money grubbers. Obama clearly agrees with them and is letting it happen.
This seems small compared to the fact that Republican policies are leading to the end of the world down in the Gulf of Mexico, but as the internet gets shut down there's a chance, a real good chance, that we'd never even have known about the oil spill and BP's ignoring of it.
Again Obama, instead of declaring it a disaster and sending in the troops to blow the hell of the leak and stop it, he lets BP dilly about and make money.
There's a sadness in the world.

Hit with overwhelming tiredness. Want to talk about the new music I've been listening too.
Later.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Unknown I'm getting a lot of mail and questions. Some from strangers, some from people that I love. "You dead?" to "Did you give up blogging?"
No.
I'm just tired. Hard tired.
Everyday thoughts go through my head; since I can't write them down, get them from there to here, they stay in my head.
In my skull thoughts get crowded. They swirl around until they form a primordial mélange. Working nights leaves me constantly sleepy. After work, in the morning, I care for my puppy; dose myself with my drugs; stick myself in the belly with insulin needles; answer as many emails as I can (more for my puppy than myself - it's more important that the kids know she, my puppy, is fine and swaggering); look for another job; deal with things I have to deal with and then fall into disturbed and anxious sleep.
I toss and jumble myself while trying to rest. And the thoughts settle into their confused sparking mélange and the past stays merged with the present.
The job in the Quasi-Casino has disrupted the undemanding plan for my life. Survival; traded my life plan for survival. We have to do that too much.

There are things I can't forget that need remembering.

I was walking with my puppy in the dark, before work, on a warm and windless night, when we heard a strange noise. Can't describe it. It wasn't noise it was just a sound, a vibration in the ground. Then by street lamp and moonlight we watched a 35 foot tree snap off the trunk 8 feet off the ground and crash to earth.
My puppy and I were enchanted. The owner of the tree's backyard came running out. Ruined a bit of
Click images for desktop size: "Betty Page" by William George the atmosphere. All I remember about our conversation is that he said "wow" a lot.

It was time for my puppy's annual physical. She was fine. The vet gives you a little sheet detailing all the various tests and things. At the bottom Dr K wrote, "She IS great!" with "is" double underlined.
My puppy is always so happy. She makes me happy even when she repeats her same old jokes a dozen times a day.
There was a fairly recent report revisiting the intelligence of dogs. They now figure dogs can remember over 250 words and have a general intellect comparable to a human 3 year old.
That's easy to accept. A combination of better testing techniques, evolution and better breeding practices.
The AKC used to start their description of Belgian Shepherds with the unequivacable statement, "the most intelligent breed."
Politics costs Belgians that statement, but politics can't take away their dark chimp like eyes and unyielding affections.
My puppy loves her kong. That's a hard rubber toy. Two years ago my puppy lost her kong in a snow drift. My puppy loves her kong; not any kong only her kong.
There was a snowstorm recently. At the height of the storm my
Click images for desktop size: "Lucille Ball" puppy got frantic. She insisted on going out. She ran to a pile of snow, dug for a minute and came out of the hole with her kong in her mouth. She trotted inside, giving me the eye as she brought her outside toy to the inside. It had to be inside, she had to know it was safe.
What impresses me is that she pulled an event from 2 years ago; saw it as a problem and came up with a solution.

Went to the doctor. Part of my heart is dead. Not the part that hates or the part that loves.
Got the bill for my emergency room visit: 20 minutes - $4,780. Yeah.
We don't need health care reform. Hospitals are as trustworthy as Wall Street Banks.

I saw one of the best pro "rasslin'" matches ever recently. On this alternative show, "Ring of Honor."
The show is cool. Kind of gritty, kind of cheap and highly entertaining. It's not as comic book-y or stupid as the generic WWE bizzaro world.
ROH does less talking and more yelling. They play the little dramas faster and with more intensity.
In the last WWE show they talked for 30 minutes before the first match started.

Click images for desktop size: "The Mighty Thor" by Jack Kirby The ROH match that blew me away was The American Wolves vs The Young Bucks.
it was great. In its best moments it was as exhilarating as Chan Cheh Venoms movie with bodies flying through the air at breathtaking speed and landing and launching from impossible angles. It wasn't the sophomoric soap opera slowed down treacle sports entertainment, it was four guys pretending to beat each other up really really well. It was sweat infused art.

Some where around here I got married. It was actually March 17. The date had no significance to me before. All I did was agree to it.
There was no big decision for me. The only thoughtful part was being certain I wasn't marrying to have someone put roses on my grave.
The ceremony was okay. There were good dogs in attendance. My wife got all the dogs sparkly green bow ties. All the dogs kept them on, even my puppy. Gentle Dog started to lead a cheer during the vows and my puppy who was circling the altar had to go tell him to shut up until it was time and then we all had to whistle and stomp our feet. I liked their participation plenty.
The food was good if a bit too vegetarian for my puppy and me. But it was good. Good music. Good friends etc.
My new "mother-in-law" said something that made me bristle. She's always been obnoxious and rude to me. I don't care much about that. I tend to just ignore her, but she said one of the nastiest things I've ever heard at a wedding to my wife. I still feel like snarling every time I think of it. Her attitude explains a lot.
We got lost returning from the wedding. It bodes well that we got out of it with no big hassle and that dogs kept sleeping quiet in the back.
We did a second wedding the next day. It was out in the woods by a rushing stream. The first "legal: wedding was done by an okay Methodist minister who kept to his own wedding agenda. In this one we got to spout off a lot more. My wife said a lot of pretty words. I kept watching Giant Dog start to amble down the stream. When it was my turn I said my words from memory until Giant Dog got himself into trouble, so then had to stop everything and resuce him until he decided that was good fun and proceeded on a faster clip to get himself into trouble again . . .
I still liked the second wedding better.
It was sad when they left. Even my puppy was sad.

Click images for desktop size: "Haiku On Hanami" by April Joy E Jasmin My mother used to be terrified that she, being only fifteen years older than me and divorced, was going to deprive me and traumatize me. The only book, the only resource for new mothers then was Doctor Spock. She couldn't go to her mother for advice. My grandmother hadn't talked to her since my mother's divorce. So my mother fumbled around and did the best she could figure out.
Sometimes this entailed taking me to work with her. When she was working at the concession counter at the drive-in movie theater going with her was very cool. I would sit at a picnic table on a concrete slab by the projection booth, right next to a blaring metal loud speaker and float into the movies while my mom's teen co-workers inundated me with sugar-y soda, popcorn and ice cream.
It was in that state that I first saw "Godzilla". A warm California night, the sea breeze and eucalyptus scenting the air and sixty feet of city munching reptile destroying everything adults hold dear. Perhaps my still holding love affair with Japanese jidai-geki movies has more to do with remembering a mother's love than it does my fondness for giant lizards and men in rubber suits. I wouldn't know. I'm more Adlerian than Freudian.
I liked monster movies. So did my mother but she worried so her next big plan to keep me from being deprived was a subscription to The Children's Book Club.
This was some weird thing, probably from an ad in "Teen Mom's Weekly". For fifty nine cents a copy your child, meaning me, got a hard cover classic of children's literature.
They were cheaply printed things. Thing I remember most were the super ragged edges of the pages. But I liked the books. I liked the stories in them. Classics is a pretty broad term. There were Hardy Boys stories, strange science fiction and "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland". I really liked that book at age 7. I liked the pictures and I liked the horrible things that happened to the little girl.

Click images for desktop size: "Purple Vectors" by Unknown At that stage of my life torturing little girls was a major part of my entertainment. Not real torture but stuff like dropping snails down their backs, stealing the heads from their dolls. Typical stuff. The one girl who thought it was cool and fought back instead of shrieking and threatening to tell on me became a life long friend.
So I liked that all the animals yelled at Alice, picked on her and tormented her. It kept my interest up.
I read that book and re-read it then got on with surfing, torturing little girls etc. In high school someone gave me a copy of Martin Gardener's "The Annotated Alice". I don't remember who. It took me a long time before I started reading it. When I did start to get into it I was enthralled. It started my trek into Lewis Carroll fandom.
I recently got a copy of Jenny Woolf's new book, "The Mystery of Lewis Carroll". It's a bit dry but it attempts to debunk some of the more bizarre suppositions about Charles Dodgson like that he was actually Jack the Ripper. It also attempts to tackle the issue of his being a pedophile. That has always driven me crazy. I've read some persuasive arguments for it being so and I've tried to accept that he was a pedophile who never actually improperly touched or harmed a child.
That goes against my knowledge of pedophiles. When I took my training to help abused kids part of it was attending group therapy sessions and listening to child abusers. I think the plan was to get us trainees to have some compassion and empathy for the offensive
Click images for desktop size: "Audrey Hepburn" offenders.
It didn't have any such effect. I have been alone with thrill killers, reputed Mafia hitmen, drug addicts, prostitutes and movie stars. At some level I've always felt a bond of humanity. Sometimes it was tenuous and difficult but it was always still there.
Prior to my meeting the child abusers the group I felt most distant from were the hard core crack addicts. They were so lizard brained that any cloudy memory they had of being human was only called on to try and manipulate.
Child abusers, the ultimate victimizers, didn't have even that. To me they were an alien insect race that would be best served with a claw hammer and a room draped in plastic.
They have no control over their actions. They must abuse. So sordid and ingrained is their delusion that they speak often and in agreement that children are sexual seducers who lure them into the abusers horrific attacks and fantasies.
The thing is that they were all like this, all out of control. Even chemical and physical castration has not deterred child molesters from attacking children.
No matter how convincing the arguments it was hard, nearly impossible for me to put Dodgson in
Click images for desktop size: "Rise on an Angel" by Titusboy this category, this misshapen lump. I could not even accept that he was a pedophile who had somehow managed to NOT harm children.
Ms Woolf's book tries to address this issue while presenting an image of Carroll full and deep. She uses a few newly discovered letters, gets some interesting interpretations of available data from MD's and such and uses a unique and solid bit of hard evidence.
She uses forensic accounting. Recently discovered are the complete bank records for Dodgson. From the first penny he spent till the decimation of his estate at his death. Financial records.
It seems odd. But so did bringing down Al Capone's empire based on his financial records. It paints a picture of Carroll and Dodgson that I am much more in agreement with that any other previous. Meaning it jibes most closely to my own perceptions of a major part of my pantheontology.
Woolf's writing style is a bit dry and prosaic but her observations are keen, her conclusions are only pedantic when strongly supported by evidence. It makes a good read and provides at least for the fans, which I am, a nice amount of dream time considering Dodgson/Carroll. My only complaint is that a bit too many words are spent rejecting some of the more inane conclusions about Dodgson.

I went for my stress tests on Wednesday. Interesting stuff. They made the mistake of leaving me alone in a room too long. I found a remarkable plastic model of a heart. It was dumped behind some boxes in a cupboard. I coveted it and considered stealing it. I didn't. Not because of any high handed moral arguments or out of fear but because it occurred to me that it might only appear to be discarded and might be of service to some other poor slob stuck in my kind of hell.
The stress tests themselves were not all that difficult. The first one was on a treadmill. I was out fitted with all the ekg terminals and an x-ray machine was pointed at my chest.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Wally Wood It was hard getting my pulse over 100. Not that I'm that fit but because the treadmill didn't offer up enough resistance and I was ordered to not bend over too much to accelerate so that the x-rays would hit the right spot.
After that we went to the stair masters. Due to my chemotherapy history they eschewed x-rays. Didn't want to blast me with too much radiation in case I turned into a super hero I bet. So this time I climbed the unending staircase and was monitored by electrodes and sound waves. I could see the sonogram as I worked out. It was so incredibly cool looking at my heart beat. In motion I was trying to control it and make it do interesting things. That got me yelled at.
Don't have all the results yet but what there is is good. My heart has healed. There are abnormalities but they have to be looked for rather than appearing as distorted lines and squibbles.
My vitals are all good. they doubled my blood pressure meds. Rah. My BP was 120 over 60, but they decided they want it even lower! Part of this is due to the congestive heart failure I had with the Lyrica. Then my BP was hovering around 190 over 80 due to all the fluid in my chest compressing everything. Getting my standard BP even lower will enable me to endure a real congestive heart attack (that's what killed my grandmother when she was 98 . . .) They said I was on an extremely minmal dosage anyway and this would still have me below average.
Now I just wait for the rest of the results and the fitness and fury.
Just wanted to mention my puppy. She's continued to be wonderful. She's crazy and calm by turns. When I'm feeling more under the weather than usual she's protective. When I'm feeling better she's bossy and obnoxious, demanding her way. She's my friend.
She's been on a diet. She hates it. But we went to the pet store yesterday and she has lost nearly TWO POUNDS! Bringing her weight down to 71! Only six more pounds to go till she is her ideal weight!
She could care less about ideal weight. She'd rather have ice cream at all of her meals.

Click images for desktop size: "Fairy Tale Land" by Monica Corduneau "I've never said this to a white man before. I love you."
I don't get nervous about things being said to me like that. It was a customer as I counted out her $3,200 winnings. She didn't give me a tip.
Nowadays most people don't understand the use or the power of words. Crack, meth, liquor and TV have minimized the impact of everything but mostly words have come to mean less and less.
The sounds of words get used to mesmerize and manipulate. The clarity and evocative power of words and sentences has been lost to soundbites, which tend to be meaningless emotion grabbers without depth.
Sarah Palin, who used to faqscinate me until she quit the job she insisted she craved so that she'd be free to be greedy. She uses soundbites. She doesn't even bother with words. She makes up sounds that sound like they have portent. It seems like the grunting of a caveman in a 10 thousand dollar suit.
Frank Capra made a movie. It was called "Meet John Doe". It was one of those great populist dramas. Gary Cooper was "John Doe" a baseball pitcher who blew his arm out. In the middle of the great depression that meant he was now a hobo, riding the rails, looking for a days work. Barbara Stanwyck is a newspaper columnist who just got fired. In an act of spite Stanwyck publishes a shaggy dog story about how John Doe was mad about the state of the world. John Doe is so mad that he plans to commit a Zen Bhuddist protest and throw himself off of City Hall on Christmas Eve.
Gary Cooper gives radio speeches that barbara Stanwyck writes for him. They're populist speeches that hold a pure clean vision for America. Mainly the populist themes of the times: employment, self esteem, distrust of the decadent rich, distrust of elected politicians who forget their constituency.

Click images for desktop size: "HAL 9000" by Maurico Fernandez Rosino Gary Cooper's character becomes a national hero. Clubs, form up: "The John Doe Society". They agree with Cooper and the clubs form to collect signatures begging Cooper to not commit suicide.
The John Doe Clubs keep springing up all over America. Then Eddy Arnold comes forward. He's a rich guy and begins to bank roll The John Doe Society. He turns a grass roots organization into a powerful political third party. He spends depression millions creating the clubs, controlling the people. He plans to ride them into the White House, making himself a ruler. A ruler not with populist ideals but with fascist Stalinist principals that insure the success of white upper crust Americans while grinding the poor and the middle class into a bloody stew to grease the corporate wheels of his personal progress.
Eddy Arnold rests by building his own private army and by installing the movie world's best ever Christmas tree.
There's a lot more plot to the movie. Cooper finds out about Arnold's plans and plans to expose him. Arnold, rather than be exposed, destroys Cooper and the John Doe Society. If he can't use it. He writes it off as a loss.
It all reminds me too much of Sarah Palin and Roger Ailes. Except there's no Gary Cooper around to save us from them. And, like they say, there's a sucker born every minute.
Palin has no mystery. She's just a greed machine who couldn't even finish out her sworn term of office because she was too greedy and feared her flame flickering out before she struck true gold. She's the
Click image: "Marlyn Monroe & Jane Russell" Paris Hilton of politics.

Next night at work was the night of the crack heads. There's an armed security guard who works with me. Most of the time he just sits and plays the games, he gambles almost 8 hours straight. I don't know if he was absorbed in gambling or intimidated by the crack heads. Either's possible. There were 14 of them in 3 cars: an Escalade and two Cadillac coupes. They were the sort of scum who couldn't afford Caddies but sold enough crack to make a big enough down payment.
It didn't mean anything to me. I kept them in line. They'd get aggro but aggro and bragging don't impress me. I know tough. Been around plenty of scary people in my life. These jerks were just loud and used to scaring little old ladies. After each confrontation they'd come up to me and wanting to make friends. Like I'd want a coward for a friend.
No head cracking ensued. Mainly because taking even one of them out probably would have killed me. And mainly because I'd look at them and just feel pity. I hate the drugs. I hate the lizard brained monsters crack turns people into but I feel saddened that crack was all they have and turning them into lizard brains was the best choice for them, as they see it. Because creeps like Sarah Palin want to take away any dream of a future and leave all but their select few as despairing multitudes begging for just a little more.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Marek Okon The next night was worse, worse than crack heads. There seems to be a type of woman who hangs around these places. Usually they seem pretty harmless to me. They beg for gambling money.
They scam and hustle but its pretty harmless stuff to my mind. Its more their gambling addiction than purer forms of poverty. Usually they "borrow" a couple bucks in exchange for bringing the fatties money to me. As in, "Eighteen bucks on Miss Ambrose's account and two on mine," while they hand me a crumpled twenty. For many of these women the effort of standing up and walking 6 feet is worth 2 bucks. Or "loan me five and we'll be partners and split anything I win."
I don't like that stuff but it's better than robbery. I've talked to a few women about it but it doesn't seem to have any impact. It annoys most of my co-workers, these people. I don't see why. They only bug me when they get rude but most of the time they are only obnoxious to me.
There's one of this group who fairly attractive i.e. not fat. She's pretty low life. One of the security guards was hitting on her as was one of my co--workers. In the introductory conversation she always swings it around to her time in prison and how proud she is of her mother who is like Queen of the Yard.
Depressing stuff.
The girl talks but she comes off as just a tease. She's just playing things out for the money and the attention.
So Thursday she's working this dude, Ronnell. He's a tall guy, a wanna be pimp sort. Wears tiny braids and a derby hat! In 2010 a derby hat looks pretty stupid to my eyes.
So the girl hustled him for a whole five bucks. It made me nervous because I dislike this guy Ronnell and get the idea that he thinks he's suave and dangerous, in a way a guy who's never set foot out of a small town can think he's suave and dangerous. Too many movies, too much TV and very little life other than street corners.
Ronnell decided to collect on his "investment". Fortunately caught him when he led the girl outside and slammed her against a wall and pressed hard against her. Fortunately stopped him before it
Click images for desktop size: "My Home" by Unknown went any further than that. Sexual assault is slightly less disgusting than rape.
I asked the girl about calling the cops. She was startled. She was upset but nowhere near as upset as I'd expect. She hung around a couple of more hours.
The next morning my boss didn't fight me about banning the guy permanently.

I was supposed to see the neurologist on Friday. I got an email canceling the appointment and rescheduling it for April 21!!
I think I'd rather have a slightly worse doctor who was a little it more available.
I called the office and found out the guy was sick. Occupational hazard style sickness.
This Wednesday I get to see the cardiologist. I have some high hopes here. It's the stress test. I'm hoping to find out that the heat attacks have healed. I'm also hoping that the damage done by the Lyrica was only transitory.
So the weekend is nearly over and all I've done is recover physically enough to go into work tomorrow night.
It's going to be a short week. I'm taking off the night of the stress test and then the next night as well. I want to pass the stress test and be deemed healthy.

Click images for desktop size: "Hollywood" by Unknown Rain and snow here. They're not used to it. It locks the whole town into a deep panic. Strange. Two plow trucks with salt spreaders would make the whole thing pretty much a non-issue in a few hours. They do nothing despite dozens of accidents and fatalities. They do nothing and people keep driving. Except me. I keep walking.
The nasty weather makes being ordered to stay at home a bit easier to take. I saw the doc on Wednesday and got ordered to take it easy, to take off two days of work, to let my body heal.
My blood pressure is still high 144 over 80. Doc says it's because of all the fluid in my chest. She was going to give me a lecture about walking out of the hospital but stopped when I said it was mainly because of the money. the hospital said I left because I wanted to go home and feed my puppy . . . that's true but not all that's true.
She also said, "The emergency doctor doesn't understand how tough you are. Your previous doctor made notes all over the place but its hard to believe. I've been seeing you for six months and I barely believe it myself."
There's not much there for me so I let it lie. I don't much like people thinking I'm so tough I can endure all the pain.
She sent me off to get more x-rays. I'm probably going to have to go to a Pulmonary doc. The Lyrica damaged my lungs some but there seems to be some calcification already present. The doc was under the impression I'd tested positive for TB!! I told her I thought I'd remember if I had.
I was worried, In London I had to get tested for TB every six months. I worked with a group called Blue Cross. I'd go out at night with a veterinarian to the homeless enclaves and we'd treat the dogs many of the homeless men and women kept for protection and companionship. Tuberculosis runs rampant in the homeless communities of Europe so I had to get the little skin pop test and chest x-rays far too often.
It was noted in my file that I had tested positive in one of those skin pop tests. The doc checked the computer records pretty quickly and found the positive for TB notation. A few years ago I needed a chest x-ray for Canadian immigration. It seems that the radiologist couldn't think of any other reason that I would need an x-ray other than having tuberculosis so she checked a box on some
Click images for desktop size: "Ferrari" form or other.
I don't have TB. I'm pretty glad about that but resentful about spending time having to think about it.
I got my chest x-ray and picked up my prescription drug refills. I'm going to hold off on any more neuropathic medicines and just deal with the pain with ibuprofen.
I'm supposed to see the neurologist on the 19th of this month. I decided I could survive the hurt until then. I don't care for my neurologist much but he's got a pretty fantastic world class rep. He'll have to deal with the sudden breaking down of my bodies electrical system.
I have to say though, that other than taking one longish walk to the bank I've been pretty docile and being docile has gotten my leg under control. I haven't taken any ibuprofen today at all.
I've gotten to listen to a lot of music. I like that. There's four pretty special albums I've liked. All new but two are brand new and two are new collections of old stuff.
Alkaline Trios "This Addiction" is fine. So good it almost makes me forget how they are the worst group I've ever had to endure live. Nearly forget but not quite. Every song is tinged with the memory of that horrific performance.
I'm also surprised by the Rob Zombie "Hellbilly Deluxe II". Parts of it are savage and totally deluxe, like "The Devil's Rejects" and "Halloween" were brutal savage celluloid dreams of evil. The other parts are like . . . Well, there's a track, "The
Click image for desktop size: "Cyd Charisse" Man Who Laughs" which starts out great then suddenly devolves into a totally inept 5 minute drum solo! Still, what's great is very cool and what sucks can be ignored. Think "Halloween II" enacted on disc and you'd be pretty close to what the album is.
The release of The Blasters "Testament" is a surprise. Their complete Slash recordings. Slash was a music mag in LA that evolved into a record label pushing out 45's and the occasional LP. I had a lot of contact with Phil and Dave Alvin for some reason or other. I thought the Blasters were a great band and that Dave was more into Buck Owens (which was are main point of camaraderie) than Little Richard. It was Dave who wrote the songs and Phil who promoted the band.
Getting bands to work is a miserable job. It can turn you into a miserable person. But Phil could sing and front a band for sure. And there's plenty of evidence in these two CD's that The Blasters should have been the saviours of music. Maybe they were.
Finally there's the six CD collection from Buddy Holly. "Not Fade Away-The Complete Studio Recordings". Someone pointed out that Holly's "From the Original Master Tapes" was the first CD that showed what CD's were sonically capable of. Prior to that disk most CD's stuck to that insulting
Click images for desktop size: "Ancient Japanese Art" by Unknown format of just using the old RIAA eq'ed for phono cartridge or cassette master tapes. They were pretty offensive sounding. Holly has never offended my ears.
The complete recordings has all the hits, some weird little tid bits, like Holly recording different versions of "That'll Be The Day" inserting a different DJ's name. I'd heard them before but never in what I guess you'd call a prestige collection. All the hits are there and they all rock like we're all going to be young forever. There's a lot of weird country stuff, complete with Texas fiddle stylings that are only of interest because Holly's playing guitar.
My enforced vacation ends on Super Sunday. Coolness.
I've lost the picking games contest to my friend. Even if she picks the evil mechanized Colts I can't overtake her. Small victory for her which only proves she's a cheater.
I'm picking the Saints for no other reason than the beauty of it. Little Dru Brees vs the evil Payton Manning. Hey, don't believe those sweet and funny commercials. Payton Manning is evil. Would a nice guy ruthlessly carve up a defense like he has?
The Colts are boring and will probably win. That's a shame. I like the wild uncontrollable offense the Brees directs. I like the flying by the seat off their pants defense the Saints throw out there. All the Colts offer is perfection. Perfection is boring.
Who dat think they gonna beat them Saints! I'll be saying it and watching the game and hoping.
The Who for a halftime show?? Maybe 20 years ago . . .