A Muchness Of Me

It probably won't work but it's a good dream

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:47:32 -0500

Stop SOPA and PIPA and vote out the corrupt bullies who support it

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:30:32 -0500

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams Epictetus

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:43:38 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Sorcerer's Transformation" by Unknown When I was seven years old movie theaters were just starting to decay. Movie Palaces they liked to be called.
On Saturday's my mother would drop me off at the Starlight Theater. The Starlight had a Kids Matinee. They showed 10 cartoon, 3 Three stooges shorts, and some incredibly cheap Monster film. It was great. About 200 to 200 hyped up kids with only a teenaged usher for supervision!
My mother gave me a dollar. A dollar was a lot of money. It was 8 comic books, a league baseball. It was calculable wealth but it was still wealth. So, often I'd find out when the movie let out so I could meet my mother in front of the theater and then bug out of the movies to have more refined dollar flaunting fun.
The Starlight tried to live up to its name by having black ceilings that were studded with whispering galaxies made from those little white Christmas lights. In a more cynical time it was probably nothing but cheesy but in the age, the time and the fact that I was 7, it was a wondrous thing that took everything to the level of celestial purity that made the surf and the ball field seem somehow smaller than dreams.
My mother would give me a dollar to go to the kiddie matinee. I always carried the dollar rolled up in a ball, clenched tight in my fist. I carried so many gooney things in my pockets it was the only way to keep the dollar safe. I paid my admission, 25 cents, and got my 3 quarters in change. Immediately I went to the candy counter and got either a popcorn or a box of Boston Baked Beans. They were both a quarter so the choice depended on external factors. The popcorn came in a box that could be dismantled and turned into a wicked paper airplane. The plane could be launched at the screen at the appropriate moment for big laughs or for frantic boos if the plane fell short or missed some cool target, like a naughty human body part.

Click images for desktop size: "King Features Christmas Card" The Boston Baked Beans were more introspective, they could make a pretty nasty sounding kazoo but that was a one note joke and lacked nuance. It was in the eating that they shined. I could nibble off the candy and then save up a handful of the "beans" for dual snack age fun. I also got to debate whether they were some strange bean I should coerce my mother into buying or if they were, in dull reality, stale peanuts. And if you'd ever had my mother's Sunday bean dinner you also would prefer stale peanuts flavored beans.
We all loved the cartoons, especially Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons. The theater would get quiet when they were on then get raucous again when they put on a Deputy Dawg or a Heckle and Jekyll. For me it was incredible seeing the cartoons on a big screen, an enormous screen.
I've never been blown away by IMAX movies. If you asked me how big the screen was at the Starlight, the Old Egyptian, or even the old Cinerama Dome, I'd have said it was as tall as an angel and as wide as an angel's wingspan. I always thought the IMAX screen was as tall as an angel and as wide as an angel's wingspan and a bit more.
In London there used to be a Cartoon Theater in Piccadilly Circus. It was only a pound so I went hoping to recapture some of the scents of the Starlight on a Saturday. It was disappointing. The screen was small and high above the crowd. They showed some Warner Brothers stuff but it was all the made for TV stuff. It kept cartoons far too life sized.
The Cartoon Theater is gone. I think there's a McDonald's there now or a Wendy's or some other American bastion of domination. It really doesn't matter much which one it is now. At least not as much as what it once was.
The Boston Baked Beans would last me through the cartoons and get me to the Three Stooges shorts. My next course of action was predicated on what 3 Stooges they showed. For a "Curley" I would not move. It was too much fun then. We all laughed if not at the movie itself than at all the great Curly impressions that would go on around us. For a "Curley Joe Rita" there would be pandemonium. We all hated him as an impostor, a ne'er do well who encroached on our sense of order in the universe. The sight of 7 to 10 year olds in near riot agitation must have terrified the theater manager enough that anything other than Curley or Shemp was a rare occurrence.
There are many Shemp fans out there. Some who consider Shemp a more mature flavor of Stooge. They point out that Shemp was actually in "real" movies. that Shemp stood up to Moe and tried to hold on to his place and individuality in life.
I'm not one of those. Without Curley the Stooges were a mere nostalgic craze, a dim memory of what greatness once was and what greatness would seldom be again.
If a Shemp Stooges came on screen I would go out to the lobby to construct the greatest concoction
Click images for desktop size: "Astronomerd" by Gerrit Dou ever devised by the 7 year old mind.
I would go to the soda machine and get a cup of coca-cola without ice. Then I would go to the ice cream machine and get an ice cream bar. On the east coast I've heard them call an ice cream bar an Eskimo Pie and other heathen slurs. it doesn't matter as this was my invention and as such I claimed the right to name the ingredients appropriately and correctly.
Each ingredient was a quarter. Fifty cents was a fortune to me but is still cheap for the joy and pleasure it would soon construct. I mean, for fifty cents I could buy a pint of strawberry ice cream and two comic books from the drug store on Sunset Blvd and then go to the beach and stare at the waves while I waited for some gremmie surfer to lose his board so I could run out grab the lost stick and ride some shore break before the gremmie could yell at me. And yet, I insist my invention was better even than that!
The first time I had the stroke of inspired genius that led me to this creation was when the movie was "The Astounding She Monster!" was showing. It is appropriate that this piece of neglected cinema should have inspired other acts of genius. It was also a day we'd managed to smuggle my dog, Alex, into the movies. The pandemonium was such that after we got him into the theater, past the teenaged ticket taker we were totally safe to enjoy ourselves.
"The Astounding She Monster" was about a blonde alien woman who wore silver skin tight spandex (or whatever it was they used in the pre spandex days), with over plucked eyebrows and dark lipstick. She glowed and glittered!
Aside from the over plucked eyebrows she was as perfect a woman as had ever been imagined. Except she had one serious problem: Everything she touched on earth died.
A dog barked at her and she went to pet it and the poor thing died from the terrible radiation that coursed through her.
Everything of beauty, everything she might love was doomed to die at her touch. The tragic denouement had the "heroes" tracking the wracked creature by rolling her footprints, footprints that burned themselves into the grass.
This is pretty profound stuff for a kid. And you wrap profound messages up in a glowing glittering blonde and wrap it in sparkly spandex and you've opened up a path, a neural road to forever.
It's too bad "The Astounding She Monster" wasn't a better movie. Instead it's just a semiotic film that allows access to the better past and dreams of children who dream of making themselves better than their parents, the establishment and the world.
But it was during this movie that I learned to love story telling and it was during this movie that I learned my great kid secret and made my great kid invention. The first thing I had to do was eat the chocolate coating from the ice cream bar. This is very important as if any chocolate touches the other ingredients the chocolate becomes poison.
Trying to neatly nibble the icing off an ice cream bar in the dark while intently watching a monster movie while surrounded by 400 rowdy shouting running kids is no easy task. But, like many mundane chores, it has to be done. At least in this chore there's a payoff.
When the ice cream bar is denuded it has to be inspected and not dropped. This is especially important when your dog is with you. Dogs love ice cream. At least all my dogs love it. International
Click images for desktop size: "Wings" by Boris Vallejo is clear that anything that falls on the floor is automatically the dog's.
By now the ice cream was pretty drippy, which made my hands sticky, the dog excited and those gray shadows of despair were allowed to creep in. Everyone else was having fun and I was involved in experiments as deranged as the mad scientists on the screen. Great moments should always be thus.
The next step is not scientific, that means it must be art. In my world there is only science, art and faith.
You had to study the coke and study the ice cream - by now you have probably figured out what the invention is, if not its only because it is so mind snapping that you can't believe the simple genius invested here - and you must not account not only for the volume of the ice cream and the displacement of the coke but the variable that creates art - the foam! The foam that makes what happens next the pinnacle of greatness and not just another kid screwing around and making a mess.
When things were just right you plunged the ice cream into your paper cup of coke and there, as inconceivable as it might seem you were in possession of a portable black, the elusive coca cola float!
And after you had stirred the mix you still had the ice cream bar stick which your dog would enjoy eating until it was time to leave the movie.
I've told all of this because my wife has just gotten her visa. She can come and live and work here in the IS of A. So can giant dog and gentle dog and the new addition, aggro dog, can all come and live here and we can be a family once again. We've always been a family but now we get to live as one.
After nearly 2 and a half years it's over.
Al the money, all the paperwork and fretting and worrying and cursing and doubting is over. All the begging for letters of reference and being held prisoner to some whacko government standards of life are done. We're free.
And on hearing that my wife had gotten her visa the only emotion that compares is that time when I was 7 and I invented the portable black cow.
As I sat in the dark and watched my monster movie, my dog at my side while I sipped the aphrodisiacal sweet and foaming creamy concoction that I had made with my own two hands is about how I felt when I heard my wife and my family were going to be together with me again until the end.
Not that I would consider my wife an "Astounding She Monster" except maybe sometimes to keep things interesting. Although I do think she'd look great all glittery and glowing. But she probably wouldn't do that. She's like that.

Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will Nelson Mandela

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:15:05 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "La" by Boris Vallejo I think Obama has let us all down. There's no change and no hope. Somehow he turned into a Republican.
There's no defense for his retracting the EPA rule that would have save the lives of about 1.5 million kids and saved suffering for millions more. It's unpardonable as is his excuse for doing this is a pure Republican fabrication: It would be too expensive for cash heavy corporations to stop killing children ergo children have gotta go.
And the word is that his job program is to ape Georgia. He's going to implement the Republican ideal and force people on Unemployment to work for free.
Georgia has 19 people enrolled in the program and 16 have gotten jobs from the program. Sounds like the perfect solution if you're determined to be incredibly ineffective.
So far the only people Obama has pleased are the RIAA and the MPAA, He's not fought a single battle and won. I don't think he's won a fight at all.
He's allowed the rise of scum like Rick Perry and morons like Palin and Bachman.
He's the worst leader since Bush.
What a disappointment. I voting for the Green Party.

I'm joining the Lane Kiffin Must Go movement too. Even though USC beat Minnesota is was a shameful exhibition. Five bonehead plays that would have gotten a high school coach called on the carpet are inexcusable in an elite program.
Going for 2 point conversions twice and failing? Going from the shotgun on 4th and 6? A non-existent running attack. Linebackers in disarray and a soft Tampa 2 that delights opposing OC's? It was clear
Click images for desktop size: "Frost" by Ankhammentu he was giving an inferior team every chance to win the game. He was playing inane NFL football in college football. It has never worked and it's embarrassing to see it being shoved down these loyal hardworking kids throats. The kids are winners the coaches are not.

I got my puppy's blood taken today to do a full blood panel. I worry over her. Gentle dog is having a bad allergic reaction. I think it is due to this hot weather. Things are blooming that are not supposed to and producing things that negatively effect us all.
He'll be fine but the medication hit him pretty hard. Poor guy.

Yesterday's Hero

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:36:16 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Doc Savage-Man Of Bronze" by Baum

I bought a Switch on Woot. Cost two bucks. I got it because I needed extra Ethernet connections. Wireless N does't always cut it for streaming movies. Hard wired connections always seem to work. So right now I've got seven connections.
It's worse with my USB. I've got a powered hub with 10 ports and they're all filled. So is my FireWire port.
I need a new computer.
I want to go post-PC, surviving with my iPod and my hacked nook but there are still a few jobs I need a desktop for.
I wanted to get it next paycheck but I want my puppy to get some bloodwork done.
My puppy and my trophy wife are more important than a computer.

You can lead a man to knowledge but you can't make him think "Return of the Ex-Girlfriend" by Loveless

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:44:25 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Heidi Klum" Happy birthday to me.
I spent the eve of my birthday playing with amps, capacitors and resistors. It was fun. Plan to do the same tomorrow.
Mailed a surprise present to my wife. Mostly handmade electronical present. I'm certain that when she opens it she'll appreciate the artistry, the thought and the hard work and she'll have no idea what it is or what it does. Isn't that great!?!
The hurricane was a bust. The earthquake was cooler and it was pretty dismal in its way. My puppy and I were out with out pennants too.
USC meets Minnesota in the opener in one week!
Football is nearly here.
AND
Shonen Knife - Osaka Ramones Get it. Play it. Love it.

Prosperity is full of friends Euripides

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 19:26:38 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Decoration" by WH Robinson My bank has named by checking account "Lifetime Free Checking". It's important to know this or else the rest seems pretty normal.
I got a letter and then an email this week. They both said the same thing: On November 1st your "Lifetime Free Checking Account" will be moved to "Everyday Checking". "Everyday Checking" will cost you only $7.00 per month.
My first thought, before I got angry, was that banks and I have different definitions for either Lifetime or Free or perhaps we see both words differently. I was slightly mollified by reading that because I had direct deposit on my account the fee would be waived. That was short lived as the next line stated that I would be charged $5 per month for my Debit/Checking card!
I'd been reading about the banks plans to pull this stunt some months ago. I thought it had been disallowed as common sense but also as unfair, disruptive and exploitive. I mean, hundreds of millions spent advertising free checking cards forcing people to rely on and use them while earning billions in extortionate fees from merchants and now the banks need to extort more money from us.
I was foolish. I believed that Congress and the President would protect us from the greed of the banks. The greed that has brought our country to its knees.
I was an idiot to rely on government to do the right thing.
I have to decide, unfortunately about whether to change banks and get stuck eventually for the same fees and deal with the present where a new bank would end up costing me more than $5 a month is usurious ATM fees.
These are not decisions that a citizen in the USA should have to make. I blame the government for ignoring the people and helping the banks violate basic human decency.

Hope for the best but expect less

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:44:58 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Superman" by Dc Comics

I made the final payment on my wife yesterday.
Actually I made the final payment of the immigration lawyers fee. I just like to say that stuff about

owning her free and clear because there's nobody around to cuff me on the back of my head.
My wife should have her interview in Oct/Nov, then if everything rumbles along as it should, she should be here before Christmas.
My puppy is very happy about this as she thinks it is too much work keeping me in line all on her own.
Me; I'm just looking forward to a whole other set of anxieties: Job, buying a home etc. Real world stuff. Who needs real world stuff when happiness is so near?

The trouble with a kitten is that when it grows up, it's always a cat Ogden Nash

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:56:08 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Smith

Purple Chick Music has just released "The Complete Shangri-Las". And, boy, is it ever complete. On 2 CD's and a DVD they've managed to present every burp hiccup sound smile and frown the Shangri-Las ever made in front of a microphone or camera.
If you feel that Mary Weiss is one of the greatest quixotic talents of all time this collection is already flowing through your blood and enraging your beleagured hormones. If you don't feel that Mary Weiss and the twins are a devastating tour de force to be reckoned with and not merely enjoy then I don't think I know you.
The DVD is exquisite. It starts with excerpts from the 80's documentary "The Rock & Roll Era" and includes the cool snip where Cynthia Weill tries to explain her fear of and sexual attraction to the Shangri-Las.
"These were tough girls. The way they talked, the way they popped their gum. They were tough street girls. We'd never seen anything like them before."
She didn't understand that the Shangri-Las were girls you'd bust up a party for a chance to talk to alone for just a few minutes. Every song they sang, every dance move said that they understood and that it didn't matter what you did for a living or if you were battered and bloody, it only mattered that you were true to yourself and true to them.
Back at the carnage of the party, even if you struck out with Mary their were still the twins who just broadcast fun and games. The Shangri-Las were all that. The kind of girls you'd scheme to just get them to notice you.
The video has the group on all the old rock shows, sharing the stage with The Bryds, Lloyd Thaxton, The Righteous Brothers, pop stars, TV stars and movie stars and the Shangri-Las always hold center stage, they commanded and ruled the stage.

Click images for desktop size: "Weird Tales 1933" by Brundage The final oddity is a news clip from the 80's when the Shangri'Las came out of retirement to sue some disco type chicks who were advertising themselves as the Shangri-Las! Mary Weiss used her married name on camera. The rumour I'd lived with was that she'd dumped raock and roll and married a truck driver that she stayed devoted to. I hope it's true.
Mary looked pretty much like she does now, judging from the TV appearances promoting her solo album a few years ago. She's still a heartbreaker who understands what an audience is and how to stop a show with a whisper or a scream.
The CD's have all the hits, including odd little studio chatter and freaky little fragments of songs and operatic dialogue. It's essential and it rocks. Not having this and "Myrmidons Of Melodrama" is to be masochistically nursing a hole in your heart.

I discovered my puppy can wake me just by staring at me . . . I have no idea what that really signifies.

I'm not finished yet

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 01:31:59 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Wally WoodI'm fatigued, nearly as bad as leukemia fatigue but not as all encompassing as that.
It's the heat. The walking to work everyday and drenched in sweat. 3.1 miles and 3 miles of it wiping the sweat from my eyes. Then I stand on my feet for 8 hours, I don't get a break or a lunch hour. Right to work state means the employer can abuse us all he wants. No holidays, no days off and no vacation, just drudgery and abuse.
My glutes are sore, my hamstrings tight, my calfs throb and my feet swell up to almost twice their normal size. They have me on diuretics for the swollen feet. And my legs are fit. It never seems right that you can be fit and in fatigue pain at the same time. There should be a rule.
I'm tired and it takes almost all by brain just to keep pushing me to take that next step, get through the next hour, next 15 minutes.
It takes my sparse energy to deal with my loving puppy and my loving wife. After that I've little left for much else. I go hungry some nights because I didn't have the energy to tote home groceries or if I did I don't have the energy to prepare anything. I take my pills. Do my shot of insulin. Collapse and sleep a sweat filled jittery kind of sleep with a few hours of death in there but mainly I'm just trying to fall asleep.
To push me to sleep I listen to podcasts. I really only listen to two types: Dogs and old time radio. My current fascination is with "Our Miss Brooks" which is so dated and cruel towards woman I listen in fascination.
I saw the doctor for my annual check up. With all my negatives I'm fine. Tough, tight skinned (I've no idea what that means but they keep mentioning it). I still look healthy. I remind myself that doctor's spend most of their time looking at sick people so I can't put a lot of value to their well meaning assessment. I guess it means that I'm a mess but I sure don't look it. SoCal style, "Its better to look good than to feel good."
I have to add another insulin. Three more shots a day. Toughness is sometimes the ability just to go through each day and not remember.
Click images for desktop size: "Beezlebub" by Unknown We're moving closer to getting my wife a green card. I try not to look forward past this. I'm ignoring the future as best I can: The move, trying to find her a job, trying to find a house the usual rubbishthat can come up and become dramatic. The immigration process is aggravating enough and every small bight spot seems like a celestial explosion of giddy lights and slashing comets.
I've mixed feelings about the NFL lockout ending. The same way I think that Congress needs to be severely punished for the cruel government they've been imposing on us I think the NFL owners need to be punished for the stupidity of the lockout and the absolute disregard they've shown for the fans and spectators. How do you punish billionaires who treat us with the contempt they feel we deserve?
The prejudiced incomprehensible actions of the NCAA have tainted the joy of USC's upcoming season, but as practice has started this week I still find myself excited and looking forward to Troy destroying everything put in its way. My job still sucks. I dislike being manager and realize I was right to avoid it for as long as I did.Surprisingly I've gradually increased revenues by 30%/. Rah.
Of course I can't get through my little idea of small bonuses to the staff to thank them for the extra effort and extra work. When a staff of 6 are generating $15k plus a week net profit it seems more than churlish to not give a $50 or even $20 bonus for a job well done. Instead of threats, which is all we get, they think praise is wasted and that everyone is just trying to rip them off. Self fullfilling prophecy that. Hungry people gotta eat. And the unappreciated have no cause for loyalty. There's no reason to be grateful when you do your best and receive nothing but threats for uncommitted crimes.
The only good part of the managerial bit is that I get to fight for common sense and decency. The little extra money helps too. Its not much but even $20 a week can make a difference especially when your self worth demands you be honest.

I still have to figure out what to do with the site. I want it, need it. But, clearly, I can't keep it going the way I want it. I average around 200 visitors a day, for whatever that's worth. I have a vision of how I want it to be. Some of it's just not possible: A combination of my technical limitations and my lack of energy.
I'm making moves to be able to change some of the things I want to change. It's more a matter of content and rapid shorter posts. I think it can work.

Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by MacGeek I'm still getting bombarded with spam. That ticks me off. There are about 150 spam comments an hour. I like the comments. There's a fellow who keeps correcting my errors in artist's name. It's important to me but it's too tedious to go through emails and track down the offending caption. A comment would link me straight to it. And of course I worry about who might be trying to reach me and I worry that its important to them. Still need a solution to that.

Indecision may or may not be my problem Jimmy Buffett

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 14:42:20 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Ambrosia Studies" by Olivia It's been an eventful week. Mostly depressing but with a bright spot that hints at glories to come.

My job just keeps getting worse. I piled up over 13 hours of overtime and, even with taxes, got a check that will ensure I'll be able to pay the immigration lawyer on time. No small thing.
I hate being the manager. Responsibilities for people who I would not choose to hire but with the wages being offered it is probably the best I can hope for.It doesn't help that my regard for the owners is low so I can't work up any concern for my co-workers ineptness even if they do make my life difficult and ungainly.
Yesterday I got a panic call because the toilet was out of order. Three hours later, and thinking why am I in here, sweating and doing plumbing repairs? That stint pushed me over 40 hours for the week and I took off 8 hours to go to the doctor!
They call me constantly. I keep telling them that they should be able to figure out most of this stuff themselves but, clearly, they figure for the pittance they receive (especially in comparison to the income they generate) thinking is an additional skill that isn't being paid for.
That was exacerbated by passing out an "employee manual" that lists 4 pages of reasons to fire us and two pages explaining that they don't do business over state lines so we are not protected by Federal labor laws (a strongly debatable point, actually a bold lying interpretation of the business) As a right to work state we have no right to paid holidays, sick days, vacation days, coffee breaks or even lunch breaks. Real inspiring stuff. Great laws too.

The doctor was depressing even though it was basically pretty good news. Nothing much has really
Click images for desktop size: "Running Buffalo" by Charles Russell changed. I still need to take a diuretic or else my feet swell up and the skin gets so taut it hurts! This is because of the lyrica, a drug they've decided I'm allergic to. As this is one of the known side effects I'm disgruntled that claiming it's an allergy that did me permanent damage is somehow my fault. A weakness and not some drug company pushing out a dangerous product and advertising it on TV.
The depressing bit was that I now have to be on two types of insulin for the diabetes (which was a known side effect to the first chemo I had - I like to tell people I'm allergic to sugar). The Lantus is the long term insulin, one shot is supposed to last 24 hours. The new one, also ungodly expensive, is short term and I have to shoot myself up every time I eat . . . It is hard to get excited about sticking needles into your stomach four times a day. For me the hardest part will be keeping the little vial straight and not over or under injecting myself with the wrong stuff.
The doc said I look good, still no indication I'm as sick as I am. Which is good. The people I work around have a propensity for attacking the weak. I still tacitly terrify most of them.

The bright spot is that my wife finally spoke to the immigration lawyer. She thought he sounded sexy. I still have no feminine side so I couldn't think of how to confirm or deny whether he is sexy!
I was surprised to discover she was afraid of talking to him. They spent a jaunty twenty minutes deciding if she was a secret commie war criminal trying to enter the USA to avoid prosecution for genocide and other war crimes . . . I feel secure that Homeland Security and Obama are wasting our money protecting us from these guys.
The end result is the lawyer sees her having no problems with the interview and he submitted the applications and now this week we'll get the date for our interviews. They have to be separate so we can't get together and practice our answers or write crib notes or something else that the USA needs protecting from . . . The lawyer nearly promised (as lawyers are wont to do) that my wife and I would be together before Christmas and he seems determined to make it happen.
Cool.

The Best Laid Plans

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:02:45 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Woman Wailing For Her Demon Lover" by Hannes BokSo, I've been manager for two weeks and it sucks . . . What makes it worse is that the customers like me so business is up about 7% and about 20% on my shift, which means I'm even busier in a job I hate which really sucks.
It didn't help that I put in 50 hours last week and no day off. I was told I was going to get a "write up" for working too much overtime. That makes so little sense to me I don't want anyone to explain it to me.
Maybe things will be better when I get the next paycheck, but I doubt it sincerely.

Some fundamentalist Christian stranger went to a bit of trouble to get my e-mail address to chastise me for criticizing St Thomas Aquinas. I thought only Catholics recognized Saints. Shows a lack of knowledge of other religions on my part I guess.
So the church made him a saint. They took away St Christopher's sainthood but I still have his medal. The church says the Pope is infallible but they took away St Christopher's sainthood. I'll stand by my opinion.
My memory is that Aquinas was the first guy ever canonized with no miracles to his claim or credit. And I also remember that he wasn't canonized for his inane opinions about animals having the soul of a table, he was sainted for teaching and setting up the seminary process to churn out more and better priests. And the Catholic Church is reaping the benefits of that today.
There's also no mention of how Aquinas survived with his contemporary who proceeded him into sainthood, St Francis. Francis proclaimed not only did animals have souls but that all creatures were his brothers and sisters in God and Christ. He preached to birds, wolves and dogs so that they might
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by John R Neil also have redemption and enter heaven.
So when it comes to saints I'll still to the fallen Christopher and St Francis and look at Aquinas as a political creation.
Once I lived with 4 dogs, 2 rabbits, a cockatoo, finches, a rescued sparrow and hummingbird (they'd fallen from their nests and refused to be released to the wild). When I'd come home they all had to come to me and meet me at the door, primarily to complain about the others in the house.
The sparrow liked to climb into my shirt pocket and have me tote him around. The dogs were always the most upset. The birds loved to take baths in their water dishes which drove the dogs insane and the rabbits. Well, I was convinced that the rabbits have more intelligence then most think or have the courage to accept. The rabbits would wait for the dogs to fall asleep and then they would stalk them on tip toe (!). Then when they were close enough they'd spring in the air and land right on the dog's stomach!
In the ensuing commotion the rabbit would run for all he was worth with the dog in hot barking pursuit. The rabbit always went for the bed. He 'd go under it. When I looked under the bed what I'd see was the dog desperately trying to get at the bunny. For his part the bunny was munching calmly and contentedly on a piece of alfalfa he'd previously placed there; munching about 2 inches from the dog's grasping jaws.
I have no idea why the rabbits thought this was a great joke and I also know that the dogs held no grudges as they would often sleep with the rabbits sleeping tightly against the dog's stomachs.
Now I still think that the dog's ability to forgive both the birds for using their water bowls as bath tubs and the rabbits for their violent practical jokes show that they have souls. If forgiveness and loving other creatures aren't the foundations of having a soul then what good is a soul at all?

My puppy remains happy. She wants things that I don't always understand. I'm lucky she can be patient with me, in an impatient way of course. She hasn't made up her mind about how she feels about my new schedule. She likes me being home at night but misses me being there during the day. Another consideration of our future I guess.

And I've been having a wonderful time hacking my nook. I've added an email client to it. I tried it as a full fledged Android tablet and was not impressed. I prefer the Nook but with added features! Right now I've been rereading "Lone Wolf and Cub" I'm on volume 10 of 28!

To kill the Bhudda you must be a Bhudda Kazuo Koike

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 06:18:22 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Eerie 1967" by Frank Frazetta I was watching "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and there was this really ancient guy who they're debating whether he was killed or suicided. The solution was that he couldn't have suicided! He took 14 pills a day! That was the only fact they needed.
I take 14 pills a day.

My puppy got a bath on Friday. She spent all of Friday hating me and blaming me. Of course she waited until I had rescued her from the sadistic groomer! Then its safe to hate me.
Can't blame her for that.
She looks great. She's been blowing coat in this maddening heat. They got her all brushed out, nails trimmed. She's just as beautiful as I imagine her.
I can never get over how easily she forgives me for the wrongs, and the perceived wrongs, I've done her. My puppy cares about me, rejoices in me.
It's reciprocal.

I suppose the biggest deal this week though is my job.
They fired the supervisor for theft. I was surprised and disappointed by that. And then shocked by the depth and amount of the theft, as well as the duration.
I've successfully avoided any sort of supervisor/management responsibilities at this job but this time, as much as I tried to avoid it, I'm stuck.
At first I thought I was going to get out of it easily. Thier initial offer of a promotion would have entailed a fifty cent an hour DECREASE in my current salary. Somehow they were unaware that I already earned more than the mamgers and supervisors.

Click images for desktop size: "Flux" by MX Steel They fixed the offer and made a few other concessions so now I'm it.
The major thing for me is going back to working during the day. I start at 8:00 AM now instead of midnight. I'm hoping this does something to fix my constant fatigue. Maybe not but who knows.
It will be an adjustment I figure. No longer moving quietly through the dark nights and no longer dealing with crack heads and drunks with a violent attitude. Or at least not dealing with them when they're in full roar to their addictions.
I figure the little bit of extra money will go to the immigration lawyers.

You must die! I alone am best! Yor Chun "Wutan Swordsman"

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 14:21:36 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Minnesota Canning Company" by Andrew Wyeth Life has been a chore lately. Debilitating heat and sweat mixed with hopeless rage and mercurial hopes.
Its like not much to walk 6 miles in a day but, nowadays, ending and starting your outside world day with that long walk and for it to be that way for 2 years is a feat, a testament to toughness and a gateway to helplessness. Independence comes at that cost most of the time.
My days have become tossing and turning in baed for 10 hours trying to get 4 hours of sleep. Then I walk around near zombie-ish for the rest of the day while I head into trying nights at work. It's a living.
So, I've been spending my idle thought cycles contemplating dogs. My puppy in particular and the species in general.
It's not that complicated. I'm not really capable of that complicated a thought process, pretty much like dogs. I'm reading this book about the emotional life of dogs: "For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend" by Patricia B. McConnell, PhD. -whew- that's a mouthful and so is the book.
It gets pretty laboured at times especially when it tries to justify things that we intuit are right and good but really have no apt words to describe. The greatest pleasures in the book are when they codify, justify and give weight to things we already knew about dogs but were generally met with derision or at least sceptism by people who don't have it in them to be able to love another species.
I've never been able to grasp why not being able to love another species is considered cool, especially in the Judeo Christian ultra religious circle. Maybe loving an abstract that depends on faith wears out all their brain pan so they the synapses are too fatigued to love something that is standing at their side watching them with loving eyes. (I blame Thomas Aquinas a lot for this and
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Unknown the endless tripe this ancient bastard spewed out that became accepted as dogma. His whack job insistence that dogs had no more soul than a chair leg is so mean spirited and cause for so much cruelty that one can only hope he's wandering the same circle of hell as child rapists.)
I guess the best part of the book are those chunks that make you go, "HAH! I knew it!" I, for one, always enjoy being able to toss around a book with actual words that defend and protect my position on abstract and obscure matters.
I don't think that the book will convince the animal haters or move the stupider or shake the faith of those who condemn dogs to the same role as furniture and fashion accessories. It might convince doggie agnostics but just might. One thing that's annoying is that McConnell works most often with working dogs and justifies the working dog as the pinnacle of doggie achievement. My puppy is a working breed and I still feel that is hog wash. Dogs are dogs and selective breeding (further proof of evolution?) might have certain purebreds crazier than others, and selective breeding may have distilled certain traits, in my experience dogs are dogs. While I might find acclimating to a Belgium shepherd easier as I know what to expect from specific breed traits there is no doubt that each of the Belgiums who've I've met and have lived with have been as different as human beings are different.
Environment, expectations and education have a greater impact than fur or skin color.
I also think McConnell comes close to but shows the timidity of all
Click images for desktop size: "Brenner & Kerr" over academic thinkers. She comes close to but shies away from the logical conclusion that dogs have a certain amount of reasoning and rough intelligence. I think that all emotions and their grade and intensity are predicated on intelligence anyway.
Sadly the idea that an animal has the ability to reason, that they have an ability to discern the difference between right and wrong is earth shattering and controversial. Rah! It isn't. I mean that mutant weasel who shot Congresswoman Gifford was found unfit to stand trial as he couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong (although he was sane enough to buy and own powerful hand guns??). I think my puppies are all capable of that sort of numbskull decision. The fact that they don't bite and crush our hands when they don't get the treats they want is proof of that.
Animal behaviorists like to ascribe that complicated thought process to simple learned behavior. Which is scardey cat twaddle or it can be put down that all humans are simple behavior machines. I reject that theory out of hand, except in the case of mutant weasels.
Like the giant dog has a joke. He likes to go to the door and act like he needs to go outside to go to the bathroom but as soon as you get to the door he spins around and jumps up on the couch and
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Unknown laughs and laughs.
It his joke. It's not a great joke at all but it's nearly as good as the jokes 4 and 5 year old humans have inflicted on me.
It also knocks the behaviorists theory for a loop. The only thing giant dog gets out of his joke is that he gets to laugh at you for getting up out of the chair. He gets satisfaction from convincing us he had to go to the bathroom. He gets no food, no treats, no physical satisfaction at all except the ability to laugh at us.
As to thought he had to imagine the result. He had to desire that result and logic out a way to arrive at that result. This is a creative complicated thought process with the payoff being laughter and amusement.
I wish the joke were better but he's just a dog.

I've also added a new guitarist to my pantheon. Evan Foster of Boss Martians, Mystery Action and a stunning solo Surf album.
The Boss Martians are his main band but he's bursting with so many riffs that he starts as many side projects as Jack White! But Evan is cleaner and edgier than White. At first its not obvious how stunning Evan's guitar skills are. He believes, like me, that the song is the main thing, so his riffs are designed to make your jaw drop, they're designed to serve the song and let the tune rip your heart out. Avoid him at your peril.
His twisted cover of Link Wray's, "Fire And Brimstone" shows he has chops to better anybody, while his album "Instrumentals" is a maniacal take on reverb drenched excess.

One bright dot on the landscape is that I'm broke. Broke because I gave all my money to an immigration lawyer who seems very confident that my wife will be an American green card holder before Christmas.
That still makes me feel buoyant and happy.
Now it just has to happen and I will be happy.

Words mean exactly what I want them to mean Humpty Dumpty via Lewis Carrol

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:20:29 -0500

Click images for desktop size: "Route 163" by Kuba Klewaniec Just finished re-reading Steinbeck's, "The Grapes of Wrath". Great book, great story.
What's crazy is that a rare masterpiece of a book was actually made into a masterpiece of a movie.
I'm used to a masterpiece being decided as much by the medium as the content. I can think of great books making good movies and great movies being made from decent books, But almost no great movies coming from great books.
I think its a testament to John Ford that the hardest thing about reading the book is shaking the near indelible images from the film. And its a testament to John Steinbeck that it doesn't take long for Tom Joad to be talking in his own voice instead of Henry Fonda's, and for the Preacher to become something big and real instead of a creation of John Carradine's.
They're both great works and they stand independently without complimenting each other. They remain unique and special each unto themselves. I think this is mainly due to the brilliance of the story. Stories about people finding their own way in a terrible land full of promise, promise withheld from the people, are always the stuff that fires up my imagination, It's the sort of story that creates values and gives a vivid purpose to morals.
The book is what's in front of me now. We know the story, the dust storms and the banks that created the depression. The rich bastards that perpetuated the depression for their own self serving purposes.
In the book the enemy is spelled out plain: "when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the oppressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great
Click images for desktop size: "The Stranger" by DC Comics owners was directed at repression."
One of the things that sets literature apart from fiction is the ability of the writer to touch a stone and to see that stone from the gravel pit and into a future that exceeds his own generation's lifetime.
Steinbeck in telling the simple tragedy of the Joads driving a clunker 2,000 miles has set the stage for myth and metaphor. The simple plight of one family is amplified through it's present into ours so that people become symbols and names fail the reality and the names become us.
Explicit in "Grapes of Wrath" is the rise of the Populist movement in America. Populism terrified the big owners. They had to brand it with false names calling the adherents commies and reds. They were no such thing.
Populism believed in keeping people alive. It believed in self government , in supporting yourself and each other. It believed in feeding the children and in giving a man the dignity befitting a human being. Not very lofty ambitions.
The billionaires called the populists, reds, thugs, they called them an evil that would destroy America and they refused to let them alone and worked their hardest to destroy them. Steinbeck summed it up, "And the great owners, who had become through their holdings both more and less than men, ran to their destruction, and used every means that in the long run would destroy them. Every little means, every violence, every raid on a Hooverville, every deputy swaggering through a ragged camp put off the day a little and cemented the inevitability of the day."
See, the Koch Brothers haven't done anything new. They learned a few things. They appropriated the populist moniker and replaced swaggering deputies with racist young people and soft frightened old people. They used fear to motivate the people who don't have enough to arm them against the people who don't have anything. Then they went after the unions, the workers, while they acquire and force out the small businessman while telling the small businessman it is all the fault of those other guys. The Koch
Click images for desktop size: "Russ Tamblyn" Brothers and their allies scream: It's the Chinese or the Koreans or the Japanese and its your next door neighbor. It is everyone but me. And all we do we do to protect you until you become one of them.
Populism was bought with blood and gunfire and some of the blood was that of starved to death babies and all of it was from people who just wanted to work and have a home and enough to eat to stay alive. What we have today are the jack booted owners appropriating a name in an effort to side step the real suffering they are causing.
A better example of Tea Party faux populism is seen clearly in the film, "Meet John Doe" which is related to Steinbeck in its populist views and its view of the many by exploring the plight of the few. In "Meet john Doe" a genuine populist movement is financed then used and abused for personal gain by Eddy Arnold. Of course, in the movie as in real life, the populist characters survive the horrid abuse and exploitation because the faith in fellow man is greater than the faith in governments and establishments.
The book "Grapes of Wrath" is bleak because a world controlled by people who have forgotten their humanity in favor of acquisition is a terrible and bleak thing. The world of Ayn Rand jerks is a desolate and an unrich place not fit for habitation even by her adherents. Deeper and of great beauty is the life of those poor who struggle along and learn to live together with each other who see life as a small chance at pleasure and happiness.
"Grapes of Wrath" is a great book, meaning it's entertaining, lively with a story to tell about people.When you tell a great story about people you manage to become pretty all encompassing, not sodden or turgid but inspirational even in despair.