Burb's Buck & Buntline Inn

Whitney

2012-02-12T13:50:00.001-07:00

"...but February made me shiver,
With every paper I'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep.
I couldn't take one more step.
I can't remember if I cried,
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside,..."

Don McClean
American Pie

I am not a person who is given over to a lot of emotion when a celebrity dies. I don’t really do that whole feely thing.

But yesterday was different. I don’t know why. I never really gave a whit for Whitney’s music and her stormy personal life. I did watch her dramas unfold and she did seem to me a person who was always struggling to keep her balance as she climbed a slippery slope. Like usual, I always gunned for her and hoped for the best,..and then quickly forgot about it as I turned the page. Then she died.

That was just one of those sobering moments. I think it’s because she was still fighting. Her career was by no means over, and she still had that appeal,…but the finality of it all was simply a rude disillusionment. It shows us the obvious. At the end of the day, you check out with nothing. Everything done on this planet doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when the lights go out. You don’t take your voice and money with you. You don’t take the servants who bow to your every need. You don’t take your limos, houses, jewellery and small dogs. You simply take yourself. Your parking needs to be validated and then you move on to wherever it is you are going. Tasks achieved in an earthly realm never amount to much at the final checkout.

Never.

I don’t mean to sound cynical about this. After all, for some reason, I did actually weep when I heard the news about Whitney. I struggled to think of anything she sang that I actually liked or wanted to listen to. I struggled to come to a realization as to why I felt this deeply about her death. It was more in the premature stillness of a voice that had more to give that really cut my soul. I suppose the same could be said of other singers who died too soon. That they had more to give.

But, in the final analysis, is that a bad thing? Maybe they didn’t have more to give. Maybe they gave all that they could and were never able to reconcile the demons that plagued them. Is that really their fault? Or is it ours? Do we place the line of expectation too high for reality?....or is that they (the collective “they”. The ones who checked out too soon) just had too much time on their hands and let the excesses that they could afford play havoc with their lives?

As usual, we have to give the benefit of the doubt until the final autopsy reports validate speculation. It’s a courtesy that must be afforded to everyone in the towers of fame. “We just have to wait before we cast that stone to shatter legacy….”. But what does it really matter? That is simply a formality. Dead is dead. Does it make it more palatable when we find out that it was a heart attack instead of an OD? Does that instantly validate their exit?

48 is still too young and age for any to die at. When it involves a younger person who dies, the intensity of the speculation becomes more visceral. More jaded.

I’m inclined to believe that there was some trouble afoot in regards to Whitney’s demise. To me, however, I simply don’t think that the way she died has any bearing on her reflection as a person. If it was due to a chemical overdose, I have a hard time being critical of it. I don’t care what anyone says, the claws of addiction are wicked in nature. One never learns to master it, one just learns to live with it,..if you are somewhat successful at keeping the hounds of addiction at bay. How many of us are that successful, truth be told? We live in a society in which we are over-taxed in our senses. We are over-taxed in the amount of stuff that comes our way. We are on sensory-overload and we have accepted this knowingly and willingly. I mean, I was told about her death through a phone call and not by anything I read on the internet. I simply turned on the computer and waited for a few minutes for the updates on AOL and MSN to kick in. This is simply the world we live in now, isn’t it? The seventies are gone and with it went a sense of naiveté.

When we lament the fallen idols and their less-than-sterile exit, I can’t help but wonder if there is a certain sense to point the finger back at us a little bit. Not in the way of responsibility. Not that at all. But do we somehow validate our existence by pointing out the flaws in theirs? I mean, let’s face it, we all took a certain element of satisfaction when we watched Lindsay and Brittany self-implode in front of our eyes. We revelled in the 78 day marriage of,…well, I won’t utter her name here,…to that basketball doofus. I mean, we made the K sisters who they are and we are the ones who can’t stand them anymore.

It’s like Colin Clive getting bored with the monster and telling him to go away. There are not a lot of options for Boris at that point.

I never really dug Whitney’s music. I never really got into it and into her as a person. But, for some strange and haunting reason, I think her death will remain with me until mine,…

Anyway,….

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth…

2012-02-02T18:58:00.001-07:00

State Of The Union - In The Red…

2012-01-24T23:52:00.001-07:00

As any of you know who have read me in the past, I am not one to write on issues in a timely fashion, most assuredly because I am just so arrogant as to prefer the Last Word over the first. But tonight, I felt compelled to hack away, as tonight, I think I witnessed the 44th President of the United States actually wake up…but did he wake up in time?

Now, to be fair, even in good economic times, most first-term Presidents come in with that Deer-In-Headlights Look, and who could blame them? I’m positive Pentagon and C.I.A. lists of who wants to bomb the U.S. today, shoved ever so politely into the face of the Commander-In-Chief, all before he’s had his second cup of coffee, would be a heart-stopper for anyone. But this position makes you the Head Chief Mucky-Muck of the Free World so at some point you just have to have what it takes to get out of bed at the crack of dawn and hit the ground running.

Historically, it used to be that a new President’s first 100 days in office were that “grace period”, you know, to allow him to meld with his team, to grow accustom to the Ins and Outs of everyday Oval Office Life and to find proactive ways to get what needs to be done, done, or rather what he promised the American people would be done, if he were elected.

Fine and dandy, said the American people. “You go get your shoes wet, you’ve got our support!”

And that’s all well and good…when all is just dandy with the State of the Union.

But what happens to a first-term President, when he adopts a union that is anything but strong, weakened either by a Wall Street fall-out or by a monstrous debt incurred by going to war on a country where it was determined the Bad Guy never was? Or both as was the case for Barrack Obama? What then?

Sure, the new Commander-In-Chief still has those 100 days of grace and the American people still have his back.

Yet those 100 days just fly by and the President who campaigned on Change is still picking up the pieces from the atomic destruction created by his predecessor and desperately swallowing advice given to him from green-horn advisers who as yet can’t see the radiation for the ash.

President Obama, the one person who more than most knew what poverty does to people, having worked with the needy in Chicago, allowed others to make up his mind for him, ignored his gut and chose to work on ObamaCare instead ObamaCareer, never thinking that healthcare would mean little to his citizens if they were hungry and homeless because they were jobless. Americans will gamble on their health but damn if they’ll indefinitely forfeit their two SUVs in their double car garage!

“Okay, heck, we get you Mr. Prez, you adopted one whack of a fiscal mess, take another 100 days, we’re a patient people, if Change, this time, takes 200, we get it, we’ve got your back!”

But when 200 days melds into 365, which moults into 1099, and now, with the threat of a lost 2nd Term, does this sitting President finally smell the coffee that’s been steaming in his face since he took the Oath of Office three years and four days ago?

With 49 million Americans on food stamps and over six million not even bothering now to look for work, not counting the 30 some-odd million who still are, three years and four days maybe just too long to wait.

How long can a country be In The Red without completely bleeding out?

President Obama’s State of the Union speech tonight was stellar, well researched and delivered, of that there is no debate. But all the while I am transfixed to my TV screen, seeing his forceful, sincere, almost aggressive stance on what he now sees as the solutions to problems he faced 1099 days ago, I could not help but wonder why this speech wasn’t his first State of the Union speech and not what could be his last…

To ask the Congress to become all Cumbaya in less than a year to get Bills Obama wants passed, now, is like Moses parting the Red Sea…it works well as a morality tale but kinda hard in the practical. I basically lost count as to how many changes he wanted to enact, all the with the, “If you send me that Bill, I will sign it.” (paraphrased) caveat.

Sure, nearing the end of this wonder oration, knowing full well how impossible it would be to ask the Sea (Congress) to “part” (come to bi-partisan agreements) on it’s own, he slipped in, “Well, with you or without you, I'll get stuff done on my own.” (paraphrased)…but is that the system of government the Forefathers of the U.S. Constitution meant to have, a President going “rogue” because there was no other way to get things done in such a short amount of time? Hardly.

I am not an American but if I were I would not have voted for Obama, not because I have a Republican slant but because I saw in his Harvard Yard “gloss” the lack of practical experience in knowing how to go to blows with the Washington crowd. He was the proverbial New-Boy-In-Town lamb to the Old-Guard slaughter. Yes, of course, now you see the maturity of age and wisdom in Obama, that no longer will the Washington elite pull a fast one over on this guy. But after a 1.5 Trillion dollar Stimulus Package that only seemed to help a small percentage of the U.S. manufacturing sector, the ever-present albatross of a double-digit unemployment rate, still no Bills enacted to regulate against another Lehman Bros. fiasco or bring to justice its white-collar perpetrators or a budget in place to pay for Bush Jr.’s useless war, is he not just asking way too much of his people now, to hang on, to hold on, for yet one more year? Sadly, I’d have to say yes.

Yet, the thought of one of these mindless, power-hungry extremist Republican candidates as Commander-In-Chief is enough to make Bush Jr.’s reign look like a cake-walk.

Tonight, more than any other night since Barrack Obama took Office, I feel for the plight of the American citizen. Mr. & Mrs. America now have a choice between a sitting President, who may have finally woken up, smelled that darn cup of coffee and now has the experience and the cajones to make the next cup, finally, better; or a choice between four extreme Right-Wing Republican candidates, the cream of the 1%ers the Occupy Wall Streeters have been protesting against (a Mormon who wouldn’t know hardship if it bit him in his 15% tax bracket; a former Speaker of the House, who, it seems every American with the long term memory of a squirrel has forgotten, annihilated Congress under his tutelage, oh, and can the American public get a $500,000.00 per person retainer at Tiffany’s too?!; an extremist Capitalist who’s sell-by date really has gone by and who’s NO government regulation plan may have worked in post WWII boom times but is hardly doable in today’s American experience; and a sweater-vest wearing, Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood wannabe Do-Gooder, who sadly, would be a bigger lamb to the Washington slaughter than newbie Obama ever was).

A completely unenviable choice.

Many, I fear, may vote ABO – Anyone BUT Obama - just because they are so very desperate for financial change, any candidate has to be better than who they have right now, will be their reprise.

Yep…that’s what Germans thought when they were lining up for day-old bread in post WWI days too…they voted ABSQ – Anyone But the Status-Quo – and they voted in Hitler.

Homeless, jobless, hungry people will often make mindless choices…go figure.

And the rest of us who aren’t American, should we care? Yep, we better, because our own countries’ fiscal health is dependent upon the health of the U.S. dollar and its’ trading might…always has been, always will be. We have to care and hope the Americans make the right choice for all of us.

Maybe the greatest fear I have tonight is that a huge chunk of the population south of the 49th may just become apathetic and will choose instead to be No-Shows come Election Night. Is it not easier just to bury one’s head in the sand rather than make the awful choice between the Devil you know and the Lucifer you don’t?

Yes, Capitol Hill was well lit up tonight but while others basked in the white light of success as the well-spun Image of the American Dream, all I saw was the Red hue of debt and danger. The Dome was bleeding and no one seemed to know where the buckets were to catch the blood.

200 days of not knowing? Fine.

1099 days…and still no buckets…not so much.

My heart bleeds for you, Mr. & Mrs. America…it really does.

Ode To The Wildcat…

2011-11-12T00:43:00.001-07:00

454 and loaded for bear,
The gas tank near empty, but who really Cares,
It turns out it IS the size of the board,
And cruisin’ these speeds, we yell out for more…
Brake stands we all win, the cop-shop for races,
We go 0 to 60 and hardly leave us no traces,
The Boys In Blue COULD catch us if tried,
But our fumes they do sniff as we wave bye-bye-bye…
Sure, the cars of today, the tanks are all full,
Or the batteries they hum on those Lilly-assed eco-bulls,
But give me a 8-cylinder 454, and I’ll give you a guy who is not surely poor.

“Give Me Tomorrow…” Was All He Asked…

2011-11-11T21:44:00.001-07:00

You might recognize the uniform…might not, sense to which war this soldier belongs…sense not, but frankly, any soldier, in any war, when his response as to what his only wish would be for Christmas, is for “tomorrow”, the vacancy in his look, that “thousand mile stare”, all men from all campaigns are one to another when the light at the end of their individual hellish tunnel is so far off…

I am so “old” now, as others have been during similar past campaigns, not young enough to fight, but oh, so old enough to suffer the hurt, the guilt of not fighting and feel powerless when actually OUR old right hook maybe more powerful with our life experience behind it.

Today, yeah, sure, TONS of remembrance blog posts out there….but to me, all that rings true is the sameness of all wars, the sameness in the hurt and the devastation, man to man, country to country, a world of hurt.

We have men, right now, hunkered down in some God-forsaken Iraqi desert dune or some high mountain Afghan stronghold, waiting for some bed-sheet wearin’ back-country, cousin-marrying beast to lash out at them…we WILL categorize them, and we WILL racial-slur them because it makes blowing their heads off that much easier.

But we all will come back to our LZ or to our MASH outpost and we WILL look like that soldier above. We may have won the battle, hell, even win the war, in the end, but we will come back “lost” and the old folks. like me, will feel immense guilt and utter helplessness to those walking wounded…

I can’t do as I once did at 21…I could lie to you and say I can…I can’t.

We – the old ones – just wait and worry and, at first, say Good Bye…

Then wait for the day when we can say Hello again…

And in the meantime, the fires rage…

the screams are felt and not just heard…

and the dead are not counted, but corded, like wood…

and as the days tick by, the toll…takes its toll.

We of the Home Front, do the Do and work the Work,

and in and out of the fray, we just all pray…

No, the sameness of war is deafening in its strength, yet, are we all, generation after generation, deaf to its lesson?

Some wars were fought because real tyrants lusted to rule the earth and wield their deadly stick of control, now, it seems, we fight for oil…

Yes, I'm no fool, the back wings of the Capital and Parliament voted Yes for money and for power, after all, War is Profit, but somehow, we started to fight for other reasons than just to preserve future Peace and Freedom.

At what cost and with who’s lifedo we fix bayonets and lunge forward?

Is the price to pay too hefty for the rewards sought?

And when do we lose our very souls in the quest?

From this sense (oh, and when you hit Play, play it LOWWWWD, Man!),

to that sense, we evermore sing the same song…

Dedicated to my Uncle, Lorne Miller, who fought at too young an age on D-Day...

“This Is Not Our Revolution, This Is Our Evolution”…

2011-11-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Graphic Photo Below!

A placard outside the downtown Los Angeles Court House today displayed the very same words I just used as the title to this piece…yet I’m fairly certain the young man carrying the sign had no idea how painfully poignant his words really were.

This post is not about Michael Jackson…

Nor about Elvis Presley…

Nor is it about any other celebrity caught in the deadly web of prescription drug addiction…and there have been many.

No, this post is about America’s urgent need for a cultural paradigm shift - to finally getting “clean” from their addiction to money over all else and becoming “sober” to the realization that the protection of their citizenry is what really makes a country globally powerful.

Yet today, it seems that Michael, heralded by all and sundry in and out of that court house, achieved “Justice” in the Guilty verdict found against his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, for Involuntary Manslaughter in his death.

But was justice really served, this time, I wonder? Was Michael’s death, at least, not in vain with this verdict?

Because the way I see it, Michael is just as stone cold dead as Elvis has been for the last 34 years and now two 20th century musical legends have been stolen from us without an ounce of justice if the American public continue to refuse to give up their addiction to Profit over Protection.

From where I’m sitting, we all should have learned a lesson with Elvis’ untimely demise and therefore Michael, most of all, should be the living, breathing embodiment of what will not happen to an addict, rich, powerful, celebrity or not, when federal regulations are in place to prevent the pharmaceutical over-distribution and/or physician/patient abuse of narcotics.

And while I’m sipping my wine in my easy chair here and blatantly pointing out the 900 lb. gorilla in the narcotic legislation/regulation room, why, when all the world has been focused on the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray for the criminal negligence of MJ, have I been quietly fuming, wondering why the flying feather no charges were ever brought against ANY of the principle players in Elvis’ death?!

NOT to any of his Memphis Mafia for knowingly allowing such narcotic abuse to happen under their watch.

NOT to any of the plethora of doctors prescribing Elvis’ narcotic medications over the years.

NOT to the pharmaceutical companies who were free to sell such quantities of narcotics to Elvis’ physicians who had no legal obligation to report where or how they were used .

NOT to the Tennessee state nor Washington, D.C. federal legislatures and their sitting Representatives, all of whom seem to have conveniently turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the issue of pharmaceutical company/physician legislation and regulation when it landed on the floor for debate well before Elvis was in deathly trouble.

NOBODY.

*sigh*…

It happened once. It was horrible. And I thought it would never happen again.

We lost a cultural icon, whether you liked Elvis and his music or not, all because he had the money to buy anyone who would say Yes rather than say No to him and his addiction, and the profitability wheels of corporate capitalism kept churning in the U.S. of A. which gave him free reign to do just that.

Not one criminal nor civil class-action lawsuit was brought to bear on the principles involved in the untimely death of Mr. Presley. Not-a-one.

We sighed, bowed our heads in shame, grieved over his death, accepted our loss and moved on…assuming such a tragedy would NEVER happen again…

I mean, how could it? How could such a huge social figure ever be again sacrificed for a prescription drug addiction? How could money take precedence over the protection of another human life after what we knew of Elvis’ last days?

Yet the math doesn’t lie;

Add 8 years to Elvis’ age + 32 years of living what we thought was a lesson learned and you get 1 Mr. Michael Joseph Jackson, D.O.A. to the L.A. County Coroner’s Office…

That’s what you get.

We all must face the fact that Elvis’ death was in vain if Michael’s went the way of E. And facing that fact is a very hard pill to swallow for this baby-boomer chick.

So while people all over the world today celebrated the judicial “victory” for Michael and his family finally felt a sense of closure, I have been sitting here Mad-like-a-Dog-on-Speed-at-a-National-Rabies-Convention…

We lost Elvis and it was horrendous. Losing Michael the same way is utterly horrific.

And after the loss of E, surely thinking our children would never suffer such a pop-culture shock, we watched in ‘09 another generation sitting in front of the TV screen, like we did in ‘77, in utter sadness and disbelief.

Quite frankly, even deciding to write this post was a huge decision on my part as I knew the chances of me writing coherently on this issue were almost nil; merely because of the intense mixture of venomous rage I have at the utter disregard for a human life over the need for the almighty American buck and my profound and complete despondency over what it turns out we have witnessed…again.

Assistants, confidants closest to Michael had warned their musical friend that if he didn’t try and get off prescription meds, he WOULD end up like Elvis. And of course, as all addicts do, he got upset, angry, vehemently denied he was anything like E, had anything like E’s addiction and refused to hear any talk that he himself was out of control.

In Elvis’ case, there was hope for recovery before it was too late, in the form of fired Memphis Mafia pals of sixteen years, his buddies, Sonny (left) & Red West, when they tried, albeit in a publicly embarrassing way, to get E to admit to his weakness and seek help for his addiction.

Celebrities are almost assured to die of this often swept-under-the-carpet addiction because almost no one who is willing to take their money and/or bask in the glow of their stardom, will risk their own materialistic gain by going against their celeb boss to blow the whistle on a good thing.

If I could have seen the reaction of anyone after this verdict today it would have been of Sonny & Red West.

When they tried, unsuccessfully, to get Elvis to see the light on their employment with him and other personal issues, they decided to write a Tell-All book on Elvis’ world, entitled, “Elvis What Happened?”, which included coming clean on his chronic insomnia, the catalyst, like Michael, for his prescription med addiction (Demerol being one). They forwarded an advance copy of the book to E in the hopes that he would reconsider and seek help but instead Elvis went emotionally ballistic, banned them completely from his life and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the book from going to print.

Listen to the video below…insert Michael’s name for Elvis and you tell me what has changed?

Yes, Red and Sonny had agendas beyond the drug issue but at least someone in Elvis’ inner circle had the cajones to come forward and reveal the truth before it was too late, messy delivery or not.

In Michael’s case, no one, not any of his brothers or sisters, none of Michael’s body-guards nor his close friends, no doctors, no entertainment big wigs associated with Michael, no one who knew he was addicted, ever decided to go public with that fact before it was too late for MJ.

And the plain fact that NO lawsuits were ever brought forward nor legislation enacted to alter the availability of narcotics from E’s time to Michael’s made for a nice repeat performance of an horrific timeline that if you just plain substituted the year, the age, the locale and the names, you can’t tell one senseless death from the other.

If anyone anywhere is spinning tonight, I think it’s Elvis Presley in his grave, and knowing his fiery temper, seeing the devastation wrought to another set of Fatherless kids, the sudden end to a career which was only really starting to mature, the utter waste and futility of it all, well, let’s put it this way: I think E accepted society’s naiveté about prescription drug addiction back in his day, but now, now he’s fumin’ Mad-like-a-Puppy-on-Percocet wondering why we’re all reliving his nightmare in Michael.

How many more souls, famous or not, have to die from doctors being allowed to order mass quantities of heavy narcotics for anything other than a hospital setting? How many more times do pharmaceutical companies get to profit from shipping gallons of “milk” (4.09 gallons, or 255 vials of Propofol were ordered by Dr. Murray for Michael Jackson between April and June of ‘09, sent to his girlfriend’s home address) to a mailing address other than to a hospital? How many more people, socially powerful or not, have to die too soon, their young lives and potential snuffed out, because there are no legislative checks and balances in place to regulate what a doctor can order and prescribe and what a patient can buy and ingest?

It’s one thing to be rich and powerful like Elvis and Michael but if regulations are in place so morally bankrupt physicians are legally restricted as to what they can and cannot do for their money-is-no-object patients, then those patients - no matter how much they cry, bemoan, cajole or threaten - albeit hissy and miffed - would still be alive, still be able to seek a permanent, healthy solution to their addiction over a nightly, potentially deadly “fix”.

It’s just not good enough anymore to say justice was served in the Michael Jackson case.

I get little satisfaction from seeing the perpetrator of this crime incarcerated, that Michael’s family members now have closure and that the public loss has been legally paid for by having Murray in jailhouse stripes.

Because people too close to the flame like Sonny & Red West still wonder why and still live with the guilt. And we live with the torment of what could have been for both E and MJ.

No, today, I feel more sadness and suffer more rage.

Now, all I can seem to do is sigh, set my watch to 30+ years and steel my spine for next gifted person to be stolen from us all, the ones before not a lesson learned, the ones to come heartache yet to be felt, all of them “Gone too soon…”.

On The Bridge…

2011-10-29T07:13:00.001-06:00

Dark and dank, the night.

It had been raining as it quite often does in Washington this time of year, it had stopped now, cold and damp, everything dripping, the hissing on the pavement of car tires whooshing by, the night becoming ever more quiet, t’was the wee hours now when the movers and shakers of this fast-paced city were fast in their beds.

I couldn’t sleep, had to walk, get some fresh air, clear my mind. Nights bother me now, too quiet, thoughts wander where I do not want them to go. No rest for the wicked, I guess, is now my mantra.

Footsteps, mine, my brogues making an almost clicking sound on the wet sidewalk below. Could tell I was heading for the Potomac, was I meaning to cross the river at this time of night? Nobody goes to Arlington cemetery in the dead of night, well, almost no one. Bobby had gone once, to place the now dissected brain in the casket of his famous brother John…I know all too well that sometimes, some very bad things have to be done in the dead of night, to get ahead.

Still…I had no famous brother. But I was working damn hard to get ahead myself.

My name, Ethan Hollowsmith. I’m a nobody right now but working hard, in so many ways, to become a somebody in a town chock-a-block full of somebodies. I’d “get there”, I’d make it, knew I always would, nothing and no one would ever stand in my way. Everyone who is anyone has demons to deal with in this town.

Yet I wasn’t gonna “get there” suffering insomnia; still, I felt myself walking away from my townhouse and towards the river.

The water, black as the moonless night, seemed so deep, dead quiet, flowing ever so slowly…wouldn’t want to be in that water right now, I thought, too deep, too dark…if only those currents could talk.

The clicking of my footsteps soon found me entering onto the bridge. Every footfall I made seemed to echo now, as if I were no longer alone. I stopped, sudden in my movement, and turned on my heels, but no one did I see, not even a car, it was as if all life had vanished but for me right now on this bridge, yet, I didn’t feel alone.

Turning my head back in the direction my feet wanted to go, I bumped so unceremoniously into a man, his back leaning ever so casually against the granite wall of the bridge, wearing a beige trench coat similar to my slate grey one but sporting a black fedora hat too, and although they had been all the rage of Washingtonian men back in the day, seeing any man in a hat now gave one pause…and bumping into any man when I saw no man before, gave me a sudden breathlessness awash in slight fright.

“Oh, excuse me, didn’t see you there.” I said, rather sheepishly.

“Yes, I know, I saw that you didn’t see me. You going my way?”, said the stranger.

“I’m headed for Arlington, I think, is that your direction too?” I responded, trying my best to quell the vocal quivering that was emanating from within.

“Yeah, I’m headed there alright. Try to head there every year, this time of year, this time of night.” The stranger said.

Really rather ignoring his response, I extended my hand in a typical gentlemanly greeting, “Good Evening, my name is Hollowsmith, Ethan Hollowsmith, but people call me by my middle name, Harold, and yours?”

“Everette, but people call me Howard.” was all he said, no last name in the offing, meeting my handshake as he did, his hand icy cold, not really clammy, just icy cold.

“Nice to meet you Howard. You from here, you work in Washington, you live near here, do you ?” Allot of questions came spewing forth, nervousness does that to me, and my ever-present need to get on top of any situation of which I felt little control.

“Used to work around here allot, yes, but never lived here. I would commute, you know.”

“Yes”, I said, nodding my head, sensing any further inquiry would be met with stony silence.

“Gosh, you know, you look so familiar, you sure we haven’t met before?” I had to ask, couldn’t help myself, as his steely grey-blue eyes looked so uncannily familiar.

“No, we’ve never actually met. Know of you though, we’ve travelled in the same circles, I believe.” said he as he nonchalantly clicked the lid of a silver lighter with his right thumb, igniting the tobacco within a well worn burled walnut pipe, the smoke - rising in swirls as he puffed - in front of his now sparkling eyes, as vibrant as the liquid current that ran below us.

“You up pretty late, not many up now, Washington is a to-bed-early kind of world, you know.” Howard added.

“Yes, I know, just couldn’t sleep.” mumbled, I did, in response, not wanting to divulge the reasons why to a perfect stranger.

Leaning one hip against the cold granite edge of the bridge and leisurely crossing one leg over the other, Howard said, “Been where you stand now, you know. It won’t get any better. Well, it’s really too late for better now. Not everything you do, the means to an end, will be worth it. I wonder, do you ever consider that? Sure, your actions have reached the power-brokers in the “Big House” in town but at what cost? You prepared to pay any price, are you?” Howard jibed, his ghostly-white hand adjusting more severely the angle of his fedora.

I chuckled, thinking this old man was just too old to “get it”, the scene here, what you have to do to get ahead.

“Listen, I don’t know what you mean and I have no price to pay for anything. I’ve earned everything I’ve got, don’t you worry.” as if he had just read my mind.

“You’re up, on this bridge, at this hour, tonight, and you know, sleepless nights will forever be your friend until you own up to your sins. I promise you won’t sleep ‘til you do and then, maybe not even then. You think it’s worth it, what you’re doing with your life right now, you think there is no cost?”

I’m sure my look to him must have conveyed a certain amount of shock, stunned as I was that this man, who didn’t know me from Adam, who leaned ever so casually on the bridge wall as if he owned the damn thing, looking at me now as if he were my Father catching me in the act of doing something I had no right to do.

“What do you know, old man, you don’t know me, who the hell do you think you are, lecturing me?”, defensive now as I was, ready for a debate, not ready to admit, nor to confess, no, not one bit.

“I know. I have no right. But you came here to this bridge tonight. You found me, I didn’t go looking for you. I’ve been in your stead on many a night just like tonight, to make deals with devils who forever scarred me in the end. You came here to clear your mind, to absolve yourself of the guilt you feel because of the greedy and hurtful choices you have made along the path to Power, only absolution will never be yours doing what you do. You have walked in my shoes and you will pay. Are Power and Money worth any price?” Howard’s eyes now frighteningly black, beady-eyed black and menacing.

“Hey, you don’t know me, what I do or what I don’t do, what right have you got to chastise me? Listen, I’ve changed my mind, I’m heading back home, was nice to have met you, I guess.” and with that, I reached out my hand once more in that well-worn Washingtonian gesture of shaking hands at ever turn, especially with the people you hate.

“Harold, I can call you Harold, right? Harold, sooner or later, sooner I think, you're going to learn the lesson learned by everyone who has ever gotten close to Evil, that It is the Darkness reaching out for the Darkness, and eventually, it's either you or It. Your grave has already been dug, my friend. No. You’re not going home. It’s your turn. My shift is over.”

And as suddenly as the beat of a blood-red heart, his hand grabbed a hold of mine and he tore me off of that bridge wall and down we both fell to the darkest depths of the granite arches below, cold, icy, I felt, as my body left this realm and sunk into the frozen water of the Potomac. Howard let go of my hand just in time to escape my fate, instantly transforming, did he, into the dark grey mist hovering over the river one can often see on a night like this, and I, well, I was transformed myself, materializing from the wickedly wet depths, flying upwards, taking Howard’s place on the bridge. I was no longer human but the living, breathing embodiment of Sin.

I am now one of the Living Dead.

My name is Ethan Harold Hollowsmith. The stranger who had just taken my life was the late E. Howard Hunt.

Howard’s price paid for his sins was to remain alone and lonely on this bridge until another just like him arrived to take his place. I had many chances to be unlike Howard and I ignored them all. Once his hand met mine, there would be no turning back, no chance to take back the hurt I had caused so many in my life, to right all the wrongs wrought by me.

We’d had on similar trench coats, you know, yet in the switch I now had his black hat in my hand. It was my turn to lean on the bridge and catch another man of sin, willing to sell his soul to the Devil as the price of Power in this town. In Washington, thankfully, not long do you have to wait.

Be careful, your actions, your intentions, take care your moral fibre, be sure that you have lived your life as it was meant to be lived, or heed my warning to cross this bridge on a sleepless, dark and dank autumn night, the price of sin hefty I will surely make you pay.

Happy Halloween.

The Killer In Us All…

2011-10-07T06:41:00.001-06:00

Yep.

To defend.

And for food.

We all know that…

After all, we’re animals too, survival above all else…even Mother Teresa took up figurative “arms” to prevent her “flock” from starving to death.

It’s not that type of killing to which I refer.

It’s the premeditated murderous need in every one of us…and by “us” I mean those of us who are born predatory AND those of us who have voted “Yes” to “legally” execute those who are.

~~~~~~~~~

In the summer of 1970, Canada was at the crossroads in this debate…

That year, the Festival Express train was rolling across our great land…

and those raucous singers couldn’t get enough of our Canadian Club whiskey…I guess it was rather tasty after you dropped hallucinogenic capsules into the bottom of the bottle…

Oh, and while this drug-fuelled CNR train roared East to West, ordinary Canadians had more death on their minds than music on their tongues…the “social justice” debate, raging since ‘62, was now coming to an apex…

I was only 6 years old but remember like it was yesterday…

Sitting on the floor of my Grandparents’ dining room, playing with my Barbie dolls, listening intently to all the adults therein, sitting high up on stiff wooden back dining room chairs they were, their moral standards just as high and stiff, debating whether or not we as a nation should continue to say “Yes” to legalized murder, to say “Yes” to “social justice” for our criminally lost souls…

Although I had no idea what they meant by “Capital Punishment” - their language couched that evening because a kiddie was in the room - I knew that whatever this issue was, it was a doozy…the adults were stern, passionate and mysteriously devoted to this singular topic for the entire evening. Whatever this was, I pondered, must be up to them, and Canadians like them, in the coming months (which actually turned into years, the debate so heated no decision was made until 1976), to make a very important decision for our country…

I listened intently…and like a Kodak Moment, seared it all into my brain.

The vote in the dining room that night seemed to be split:

my Father, a converted Atheist and retired R.C.M.P. Constable, and my Grandfather, a converted Catholic and a retired Civil Servant, both For the Death Penalty;
my Grandmother, a born and devoted Catholic (who could very well have become a Nun had she not wanted children) predictably Against;
my Mother, a non-practising Catholic, living in a part of southern Ontario that in those days to be Catholic made you on the right hand side of the Devil to the North-Irish Protestants who encompassed that area, predictably Undecided.

If you knew my Mother’s side of the family, to discuss anything of a controversial nature and to be publicly split on that touchy subject was like watching the water go backwards up Niagara Falls…it just never, ever happened.

Many years later, of course, I figured out what that hot summer night’s discussion was all about, but even then, without knowing the full meaning, I knew that this “angst” had to be big and widely felt if it landed in the Sherriffs’ Dining Room in the wee little town of Beausejour, Manitoba…

~~~~~~~~~

The Angst: The need to keep killers off the streets in a permanent way through the sin of committing murder ourselves.

The Story: This last little while (well, who’s kidding who here…*sigh*…), I have been focused on murderers…but especially on one (even when others are what I’m “supposed” to be writing on…)…

In 1977, one year AFTER Canada abolished the Death Penalty, Elmo Patrick Sonnier - the one half of an amalgam that was the male character in the book and movie, “Dead Man Walking” (starring Sean Penn in the movie as the convicted-soon-to-be-executed killer) - and his brother Eddie were convicted of killing two Louisiana teenagers, Loretta Ann Bourque and David LeBlanc, who were parked in a lover’s lane part of St. Martin Parish, both shot three times in the back of the head, Loretta also raped.

To this day, mystery still swirls around exactly who killed who. Eddie had confessed to the police that Pat killed both teens, so during the trials, Eddie got Life and Pat, Death, yet when Pat got Death, Eddie recanted and claimed he had been the only shooter…the recantation didn’t help take Pat off of Death Row.

Regardless, the duo had been harassing lover’s lane teens in this area for months, posing as police officers, threatening the couples at gunpoint and sexually assaulting the females. The teens were too frightened to come forward until the Brothers Sonnier upped the ante and murdered their last victims.

Sister Helen Prejean (who is portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the movie), Sonnier’s soon-to-be-drafted spiritual advisor, manages, just hours prior to his execution, to get Patrick to own up to shooting David and raping Loretta, leaving one to assume that his brother, Eddie, shot Loretta, raping her as well.

Sonnier was executed just after midnight on April 5, 1984 in the then infamous “Gruesome Gertie” electric chair housed at Angola (Louisiana State Penitentiary).

This was Sister Helen’s first brush with the issue of “social justice” – the debate over the righteousness of an “Eye for an Eye”…

Being a nun, of course, the “answer” for her had always been Pro-Life, from conception to natural death, the publicly held view of the Vatican, so Sister Helen, despite later becoming aware of the absolute heinousness of the sexual attack and murders, felt a need to seek out the worth of this man beyond his worst acts.

In the online magazine, The Catholic Exponent, (click pic for website) columnist, Marly Kosinski quotes Sister Helen thusly,

“She said she once attended a retreat in which the participants had to complete spiritual ‘exercises.’ One was on how to discern if the Holy Spirit was moving in his or her life or if there was another kind of spirit moving in their life. She said, as a general rule, if the Holy Spirit is moving in our life, even if what we are doing is difficult, there is peacefulness in it. When the evil spirit is moving us, it’s agitation that stirs us up.

‘But when the Holy Spirit is trying to move us out of a groove and into something new, there is agitation first, like the angels are trying to stir the waters before we make the move. And I recognized that I didn’t get it. And the story of my conversion is in ‘Dead Man Walking’ – the story of, first, just understanding the Gospel of Jesus and that the preferential option of being with the poor is what Jesus in his own life did. I realized I was agitated and resisting because the Holy Spirit was about to move me into something new that would change my life,’ Sister Helen said.

Sister Helen said it was while praying with David LeBlanc’s father that she realized he had been on an incredible spiritual journey to live the life God expects of all of us. She said the realization came when, in addition to praying for his family and the family of Loretta, he also prayed for Sonnier’s mother.

‘He taught me the Gospel of Jesus in his own flesh, in his own life, in his own sorrow. He said to me, ‘Sister, this is how I look at it. Society thinks forgiveness is weak. That by forgiving I am condoning what those men did and I gotta be for the death penalty. But I didn’t like the way that made me feel inside. Because I have always been a kind man and I said they killed my son, but I wasn’t going to let them kill me.’ And he forgave them. Not just once, but every day of his life. And that is what Jesus wants for us – to not let ourselves be overcome by hatred.’

Sister Helen said it is easy to become outraged by the death of innocent people, but far harder to become outraged by the death of someone who is being punished for a terrible crime.

‘Where else in the criminal justice system do we let the behavior of the criminal be the thing that determines how we respond?’ she concluded.”

Quite the mouthful, and mindful, I must say…

Having been born of a Catholic Mother and a Protestant Father, who eventually opted for Atheism by the time I came along (Bill Maher, Father Catholic/Mother Jewish, he and I go to the same psychiatrist!), I feel this “Angst” possibly more than most.

The Old Testament in the Bible talks of an Eye for an Eye…The New Testament preaches Repentance and Reconciliation…doncha just WUV it when a book is schizophrenic? It’s like some kind of torturous mind-game which spews, “Make up your own mind already but it had better be the RIGHT decision or you WILL fry in Hell!”

*sigh*…

The debate of whether or not to kill killers springs anew whenever you have a man convicted of a premeditated, especially heinous murder and a Jury of his peers inevitably has to apply its’ country’s or state’s version of “social justice”.

Canada opted out of Capital Punishment after a gruelling fourteen year debate, the U.S., a country more State-run than Federally run, chooses the fate of its prisoners State by State, often the more Republican-slanted States favouring the Death Penalty.

The Manson Family,

all convicted murderers, my métier on the

(click pic for website),

deals precisely with this issue – society’s need for retribution beyond just remorse and rehabilitation. In 1971, The Manson Family were all given the Death Penalty, but by a legal quirk of fate, the California Supreme Court ruled such punishment as “cruel and unusual” and in 1972 the entire killing gang were commuted to Life With the Possibility of Parole, as in ‘72 the Life Without option did not exist.

Since then, all seven have been sitting in California prisons (Susan Atkins, 2nd in from left in the photo above, has since died of brain cancer while incarcerated), and according to the U.S. Ministry of Justice 2001 statistics, the average annual cost for an inmate in a maximum-security prison is $64,779…doing the math, The Manson Family murderers are costing the California tax-payers a nice tidy sum of $453,453.00 PER YEAR…and as published by the L.A. Times, Charlie’s “Hotel California” sojourn from ‘71 to ‘98 alone, came in at a whopping $770,000.00.

According to the (click the pic for website) the net cost per inmate for lethal injection in the State of Texas is: $86.08.

John McAdams, Political Science Professor at Marquette University and Lone Nut Proponent of the JFK Assassination states the following:

"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."

IF Capital Punishment is on the books,

The gross cost to the killer’s victims: Death…either way.

The gross cost to the victims’ surviving family members: Life without Joy…either way.

The gross cost to the killer: Death…with a chance at salvation if he repents as he nears the Pearly Gates.

The total cost to society…either way: As Yet Unknown.

When the amalgam character, Mathew Poncelet, finally admits to Sister Helen his culpability in the story “Dead Man Walking”, he transforms from a man of rage and hate to a resolute, remorseful and repentant man. His words - daring the victims’ parents to “pull the switch” on him, filled with that “agitation” of which Sister Helen spoke, naturally segued to his hope that his death would “give them all relief”.

The cost of a bad soul gone good through Death?: Priceless…maybe.

If I’m anything in my belief in God, I’m rather a believer in Reincarnation…yet, because I’m such a warped human being, my take on it is rather warped too…

I believe that we remain for eternity with the same soul but we are born, the first time, with very base desires, and with each successive “life” lived here on Earth, we learn, we grow, and as our soul continues to return to Earth, an ever loftier, more worthy human being develops…the End-Game: we achieve ever-lasting Life in a better world once we have achieved and lived the final life of a truly good human being, a pure Child of God, here on Earth…or something to that effect…

Hey, don’t quote me, I’m on my third Rum & Coke already!

The Crux: Would Poncelet, aka Patrick Sonnier, have achieved that repentance and remorse if he hadn’t had Death breathing down his own neck?

My Guess: No.

He would have remained in prison, “sucking up tax dollars”, ever the professional con, stating to all who cared to listen that he had never killed those teens…that he too was just a “victim” in all this…

Do any of us own up to our sins until we have to? Not usually. But most of us are not Mother Teresa nor Sister Helen.

Survival of the Fittest at any cost…animals are hard-wired to act this way and we humans ARE animals in the basest of forms.

The Manson Family members now, save for Charlie (as he’s as steadfast in his murderous beliefs as he always was and wisely, long ago, gave up on parole), feign remorse and repentance at every Parole Hearing they get, several having “Found Jesus” in yet another attempt to bolster their cause for freedom. Yet, every one of these convicted killers, who should have been gassed in ‘71 (San Quentin’s Green Room now uses lethal injection), still sit in prison, the tax-payers keep paying for that sit and the murderers’ “con” keeps breathing evermore.

If being accepted as a Child of God is our ultimate goal, maybe the only way predatory killers - who only had base desires as their reason for being to begin with - can achieve said is to face the spectre of death and admit to their sins in the process…

Maybe killers need to kill, then must be killed, to stop being killers.

Sister Helen doesn’t agree.

John McAdams does.

I keep watching “Dead Man Walking”, over and over again, to find the answer. To date, I have no answer…

Oh, and by the way, I prefer Crown Royal to Canadian Club and Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone killer of JFK.

D.B. Cooper…Lost & Found?

2011-08-08T23:49:00.001-06:00

Mysteries…

Some seem to linger, huh, lifelong…they don’t affect you day-to-day but they rest, unanswered, in the back of your mind, simmering away in the juices of the What-The-Heck-Happened-To-These-Dudes fry pan of Life…

Jimmy Hoffa - C’mon…wasn’t he allergic to cement dust?
Amelia Earhart – Women NEVER ask where the next gas station is…sigh…
The Crew of the Mary Celeste – Is THAT where they all went to? *snicker*

And, of course, no disappearance list would be complete without old D.B. and of late, Mr. Cooper is back in the news…

Seems the FBI may have uncovered the identity of the now infamous Nowhere Man-turned-hijacker-turned-northwest parachute jumper with $200,000 in ransom, man and money never to be seen again…they are holding their tongues until fingerprint and DNA analysis can be completed.

Yes, I know, not exactly hot off the presses, we’ve known about this new suspect for weeks now, but it’s not the news that has me down, it’s the discovery itself.

Do we hafta know?

Can’t we just not?

Can’t old D.B. remain, just as he’s always been, that mild-mannered fellow who paid his drink tab on the plane, didn’t ask for more than one pillow or blanket, left his tie on board but didn’t leave pretzel pieces on the floor, yeah, sure, asked for ransom by threatening the lives of the rest of the passengers but nary a hair was harmed?

His glasses, his suit, his haircut…a straight-laced fellow with just a need for dough and and urge to jump…

I secretly rooted for the guy in ‘71, praying the storm didn’t take him off course, hoping the Brylcream kept his hair neat and tidy as the elements overtook him in his bold bid for financial freedom.

Sure, my Dad was a cop, so I didn’t say a word, but c’mon, a guy that determined, that polite, that darn-tootin’ successful at his dastardly plan…if the dry pretzels or the watered down booze didn’t “get” him on that Northwest Airlines ride, you just had to root for the dude with the dough and the cajones to do what he did, the primal and unforgiving northwest forest underneath him be damned.

I quietly prayed for D.B. to land on a bed of feathery soft moss, beside a babbling brook…sure, all the money, those tidy bundles of American cash spewed out from his duffle bag…but the friendly forest creatures all sang as they helped him pick it back up…just like in a Disney movie…the squirrels, the bunnies, that giant grizzly bear and the man-eating wolves…yep, all singin’ a happy tune, a Blue Jay lifting ol’ D.B.’s horn-rimmed glasses off of his tired storm-streaked face to gently wash them in the pristine mountain water.

Yep, that was me and D.B. back then…and I was gunnin’ for the guy…

Sure, tons of ways to die, tons of ways to lose that cash, tons of suspects along the way…and what a long way it has been…

I’ve grown up but in my mind, D.B. is still jumpin’…

Now, science, and maybe, as always, a guilt-ridden relative, offers a way to unmask our Nowhere Man…and although I’m supposed to be happy…I’m not.

Is this him? Does he hafta be found? And worse yet, did he hafta lead just an ordinary life and die an ordinary death when I had him doing so much more?

D.B….we’re still rootin’ for ya, around northwest camp fires everywhere, flames flickering over spots you may have camped, sand bars nearby, upturned with shovels where you may have stashed your cash…we’re there, we’re singin’ and we want you NOT to be found…Cumbaya for Old D.B. Cooper and pass another marsh-mellow, will ya?

LEAVING FROM A JET PLANE

Melody - John Denver’s Leaving On A Jet Plane/Lyrics – N. Kinnin

My bag is stacked, it's ready to blow
You just do, as your told
I hate to do this to you, as you fly
But my mate is waiting, I can't be long
He probably thinks I'm already gone
So get me two hundred grand
Wrap it in an elastic band
Put it in a bag and tie it tight

Chorus 1
Cause I'm leaving from a jet plane
Your never gonna see me again
Hope I haven't caused too much pain

The cabin crew are calm I think
May I have just one more lousy drink
Make it quick then, I'll be on my way
Now I'm idling here on the aft stair
I don't have time to stand and stare
It's time to leap ten thousand feet below
Thank you God for the heavy snow

Chorus 2
Cause I just left from a jet plane
Things will never be the same
Cause I just leapt from the plane
Everyone will think that I'm insane

This is where the story ends
The rest is up to you, my friends
I can't stay, I've got to go
The police will be on my tail I know
Dream about the days to come
You know they'll be full of fun
I don't know what else to say
As I walk away

Chorus 3
(humming then fading away)

A Soft Summer’s Day…

2011-07-26T02:02:00.001-06:00

Clear, blue sky…warm soft breeze on my skin…

On the edge of a tall pine forest, I look out on to a wide isolated hill-top meadow, the hissing in my ears of tall grasses as they wave to and fro.

Alone but not lonely, I find myself in God’s Garden…a patch of perfection, for now, only known unto Him and I…I think I like it that way.

As I peer, not yet ready to pounce, I spy a chaotic pattern of wild flowers springing up in between the grasses - priests-in-a-pulpit, wild buttercups and iris, lilies-of-the-valley…

Bumble Bees buzzing about. I am not afraid of them. They fly around me on their way. They have a busy day ahead of them. Maybe I do too.

I hesitate leaving the edge of my pine canopy, for it’s cool and fresh…a known place…but the meadow calls to me…unknown but filled with possibilities…I hear a babbling brook in the distance and my need to play in water over-powers my need for shade and protection.

Shorts and a light summer top are the fare of the day, my hair tied back in an olive green silk ribbon.

I could have worn a summer dress, this picture begs for me to be in one, but the reality of me on this soft summer’s day requires shorts, for I shall bend and crouch and kneel and stoop, snooping into all nature has to offer…it’s just a shorts kind of day.

There is no path. I shall make one. I fear trampling the grasses and the wild flowers. Humans are so invasive.

One step after another, further afield I go. I hear ducklings, I think, and the odd bull frog…my water quest has to be near.

I happen upon some trampled ground, grasses long since flattened, not by Man, by beast, I think. That’s okay, I accept that kind of use. Tufts of baby-fine fur, maybe a doe and her “Bambi” baby? I cannot be sure, makes no matter to me. I lie down where they had been, just to see if I can see and feel what they saw and felt. It’s hard to be an animal of the type you aren’t. The sky is above, saying nothing, giving nothing away. It’s okay.

A daisy chain is de rigeur on a day like today, so as I sprawl, I weave…geez, is this a female God-given talent, I’ve never made one before but am I ever good at it!

Plop it goes, on my head, no one can see, who cares..but I wanna see.

Get up I do, my quest for that glassy liquid again in my mind.

As I stand once more, still, I slowly turn on my heels in a circle, checking to see I do not know…no one, nothing around to ruin the day. I am now in the middle of this perfect place and no one knows but me. I like it that way. Wonder if I’d feel the same way once nightfall arrives?

Shedding that thought as easily as it entered, I walk and as I do, some boulders, first one, than several…I am getting close.

Yes.

Water.

A slow-moving brook, just as I thought…reedy on the edges, the odd grass-hopper and black beetle…today, I don’t squirm…they look like they belong.

As I try to pull back my hair, the breeze playing havoc with my strands, I crouch at the water’s edge and gaze into the slow-moving liquid pool.

Mirror, Mirror, on the ground, if in I gaze, what will be found?

In I gaze.

Me.

Geez, I'm pretty. *snicker*

Ah nah, it’s just the daisy chain…it would make Miss Piggy look like Pamela Anderson too…

Gazing and day-dreaming…utterly in the moment…

…and then a shadow.

Looms large and complete. Is a storm brewing? I don’t feel cold…my image in the water is completely obliterated by its blackness.

I turn around, without a sound, and before me a giant Grizzly bear, glaring down at me, on his hind legs, a low kind of growl beginning to boil.

My mouth wide open, I want to scream. Nothing comes out.

He leans in with two gigantic paws placed on either side of my arms, he picks me up, light as a leaf, into a standing position. I am paralyzed with fear, my eyes as big as saucers, I’m sure, breath shallow but fiercely quick. No movement, no noise, I am catatonic with fear.

He bends to my height as I fear I am to be his midday snack, his tongue, rough, with an odd sugary scent, springs forth and licks me on my cheek.

A bear hug came next.

I’ve never had a REAL bear hug before…wonder if I’ll live long enough to tell anyone?

I survive the lick and the hug only to have his paws thrust into my hands a big box of Smarties. I look in the opened box. All there, all intact, no slobbering in or on the box at all…all except the Red Ones…the ones that everyone knows makes you smart…they are gone.

The growl is replaced by a satisfied grizzly bark and falling down on all fours he bounds away in the direction of the pine forest, using my path now as his, so fast, yet hardly making a noise, as deathly quiet as he arrived, I guess.

I hate smart bears with picky appetites, don’t you?

Napalm & Agent Orange, Then…Drone & PTSD, Now…Death All The Same…

2011-06-04T00:42:00.001-06:00

Okay…Maybe Just One More Time…

2011-06-03T23:56:00.001-06:00

Begosh & Begolly…Whodathunkit?

2011-05-23T17:29:00.001-06:00

Beauty Packaged in 24 Hours…

2011-04-22T14:07:00.001-06:00

Perfection May Be Over-Rated…

2011-03-14T22:25:00.001-06:00

Maybe…

When we fail…

We succeed…in the worst way…

Maybe when our voice fails, maybe when we don’t catch a breath, that day…maybe when we KNOW we aren’t up to par…we are…

Maybe we’ll never know when we’ve hit the Zenith…when we have…

Maybe hurt is the only way we truly arrive at perfection…in expression…

Maybe man is so lazy that it takes loss to finally recognize gain…

Maybe this girl is hurting, to the depths not seen before nor expressed…

Or maybe she knows not, and will not, until it’s too late.

I Found My Cousin…After All These Years!

2011-02-10T17:39:00.001-07:00

It’s not like I don’t have other guys to date…just so many other guys, that aren’t related to me, turn right as well as left…sigh…I get dizzy…giggle!

NASCAR Season is about to begin! Vrooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!!!

I Gave Up…

2011-01-28T02:32:00.001-07:00

What Do You Do?

2011-01-20T23:44:00.001-07:00

when…

If you’re a woman…and you want…bad…?

If you claw, and scratch, and pull and prod…and fight for something you want, need, desire…

…and you still don’t get?

Do you give up?

If you’re the Princess and the Pea type…hardly, huh?

You cry, then, you cry some more, then your lips purse and your back gets stiff…and you fight on….

Maybe Life is not about what you have, but what you think you should have…or what your mind has decided TO have…

Maybe…it’s all about being soft purple while others are hard, navy blue around you…maybe there is just no way to win…

But then why continue the fight?

~~~~~~~~

The fight continues…

~~~~~~~~

I’m starting to get it…I’m slow, you see…

The curves, of a woman’s body, that we women try so fervently to rub out and erase…well, they are what make men melt, you see….

What we women see as bumps on the Scenic Route, you men see as the View Points to Ecstasy…

I wonder why it’s taken me forever to see this?

I wonder why I am only blossoming now? Sexually? Viscerally? Wantonly?

Is this what happens to all women who enter middle-age?

Gosh..I’d HATE to think I’m de riguer about anything…special, you see…I think…I am…

Weakness…soft pale purple…

Strength…hard, dark, navy blue.

Maybe it’s just meant to be that way…

A Perfect Day…to just …Let It Be…I Think…

2011-01-06T01:17:00.001-07:00

Brought to you by two very sentimental souls…neither of whom are me…sigh…

I’ll Be Home For Christmas…If Only…

2010-12-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to ONE Bear in particular…don’t worry, your cubs, and one other, LOVE YOU…xxx

On The Eve Of Christmas…

2010-12-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

It really WAS a dark and stormy night...

Wind howling, blowing snow...

And more snow was forecasted, had fallen considerably this winter, still on the ground, a real white Christmas for New England.

I had secured all the doors and windows and had made sure all the animals in the barn were safe and warm...but the wintry howling persisted, and as I was getting comfy in my over-stuffed chair, about to take a sip of my oh, so hot cocoa, there came an awful loud bang, BANG, from outside in the yard.

Startled, I turned around to part the curtains and saw, through the driving snow and blinding black of night, the doors of the barn whipping back and forth against their hinges...how they became unlatched is anyone's guess for it was with a steel sliding bolt that I had locked them earlier...

It was a little past 11:30 p.m., on Christmas Eve, but even solace cannot be enjoyed on this night when a farmer's chattel are in jeopardy.

I jumped from my cozy corner and went to the foyer, put on a dark olive-drab winter coat and matching mackintosh galoshes and steeled myself as I unlatched the front door for those frigid and frozen environs.

As the door opened, the wind took over and it slipped through my fingers to bang loudly against the side wall. This was a vicious storm, one that could not be tamed in time for Christmas I felt but one that I had to address to protect my flock regardless.

As I lowered my face to steal myself from the oncoming wind and sleet, I was pelted with icy crystals that hit me so hard it felt like a thousand tiny daggers attacking my very soul.

Farmhands gone home early for Christmas Eve, I only had myself to count on and my animals needed me.

As I fought against the vicious storm, bending down and forward, every foot I advanced I felt like I took two feet back, but eventually made it, I did, to the old weather-beaten double doors. With all my might, I pulled and stretched my body to grab them and put them back into place, eventually, successfully, securing them, with me now on the inside of the sheltering barn to see if all was well with my furry flock.

I heard a mass of mooing and whinnying, all my beloved creatures were understandably upset. With the wind and snow at bay, thanks to the now re-latched barn doors, they calmed down a might as I lit a hurricane lamp with a stiff wooden match, all set aside on an adjoining shelf for this very situation.

As the darkness dissolved with the growing glow from the flickering wick, my eyes regained their sight and I walked towards the stalls, visiting each in turn, to pet my flock on the brows of their heads, assuring them with my calmed voice and the warmth of my hand that I was there and all would be well. They soon, all horses and cows and even my big old mother sow, settled down, all knew I was there and that all would be well.

But, as I made my way around the barn, I heard a sporadic kind of grinding, a kind of scraping, scuffling sound, a worrisome noise. It was coming from above, way above, as I gazed towards the source. My heart skipped beats, thinking I was not alone. I grabbed at the ladder which made access to the loft, and as I gingerly made my feet climb, I feared for what I would find.

Laying back on my heels, expecting the worse, I lifted the lamp to view the surrounds. Nothing, nothing at all...just dry hay and silence, no movement, no sight. I had begun to think that what I had heard was not real, but just my mind racing with the howling of the wind.

I lowered my lamp and myself, breathing calmly once more..and as I made my way to the barn doors, that scraping sound was heard yet again...an awful, rash, raw sound, loud and repeating, from still up above. I decided it must be the branches of trees hitting the outside of the barn roof, convincing myself that my imagination was not helping to relax and realize and rationalize the night.

Amid the still unrelenting wind and wild snow, I used all my might and determination to finally get the barn doors to latch on the outside once more. My animals were safe and I was headed for home.

The lone, bare light bulb overhead of the barn doors gave me enough light to see my way to the house, the hurricane lamp once again doused and laying on the inside barn shelf. As I fought through the storm and got half way across the yard, I saw, to my surprise, the front door of my house wide open, whipping wildly in the wind, yet I was sure I had properly secured it upon my leaving.

I rushed as best I could, to reach the porch, to regain control of the door and to throw myself inside it’s warm environs, leaving the wild weather outside.

Pushing with all my might, the door hit its latch, and locked it, I did, once more. Wet and cold but relieved, I regained my composure and headed for the kitchen, my original cup of cocoa surely cold by now.

As the kettle simmered on the stove, I reached out and grabbed my big butcher knife to slice up some summer sausage and cheese for a sandwich…hard work fighting the elements and I was famished.

CREAK, CREAK, GROAN!…

Was all I heard…and I froze into place. MY butcher knife still very much in my hand as I wheeled around on my heels to see nothing and no one behind me. The kitchen was empty… but for me.

SQUEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Went the kettle, and I jumped at the noise. Berating myself for letting my imagination riot, I regained my composure, made my second cup of cocoa and retired to the parlour once more.

Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock, went my hall Grandfather clock…it was nearing midnight now. The weather outside was frightful but my fire was so delightful, as the saying goes, my animals all tucked in safely for the night…it would be a peaceful Christmas after all…

CREEEEEEEEAK!

“Who’s there?!” I yelled. Someone WAS inside my home! I just knew it! I HAD latched that front door when I went to the barn, I just knew that too.

As I got up yet again from my comfy chair, I picked up the fireplace poker for reassurance and scoured the house. As I took steps, I was sure someone did also behind me, but when I would turn around, no one was there. I toured, up and downstairs, even gingerly canvassed the basement, to no avail. Tired, stressed, I returned to the kitchen to reach for the whiskey bottle in the cupboard, thinking a shot might help my nerves, and upon entering, my eyes spied the difference right away…

The butcher knife was gone from the cutting board! Vanished. I furiously looked around to all the counters, the kitchen table, even the butcher block where it was housed and the kitchen sink…no where…it had disappeared! And it did not walk away by itself…I wasn’t alone!

PLUNK, KERPLUNK, BANG, SCUFFLE!

Were the noises that I heard next, originating now from the parlour and I was frozen with fear.

I crept back to the entrance of that room and spied around the corner, all was as I had left it, save for my cocoa and sandwich, which were now all gone, all drank and eaten, only crumbs left on the plate, this person who was unknown and too near to me was playing with me and now I was in fear for my life.

Running for the front door, I had had enough. Truck keys, poker, still in my hand, I wrenched open the door and as the wind howled and the snow spit in my face, a huge shadow graced my porch and covered me and I almost fainted from the sight.

“Here you are, Barbie.” as He handed me the butcher knife, “Tried to find the appropriate tool in your barn, couldn’t. Had to cut the ice off around Rudolph's hooves, his overweight hooves made for a bad landing on your barn roof, I say, meant to hit your house roof, but these things will happen. Your fire prevented me from climbing down the chimney anyways, hope I gave you what you wanted, Dear, thank-you for that lovely snack, I was starving! All your well-deserved gifts are now under your tree in the parlour. Ho! Ho! HO! Merrrrrrry Christmas!”

Before I could catch my breath and recover my composure, He was gone, like a flash. A white light streamed across the sky and jingle bells could be heard from the sleigh as his reindeer team alit from my barn roof.

Pokers and butcher knives are strange objects to hold, on your porch, on the Eve of Christmas….

The Orgasm In Danny Screaming To Get Out…

2010-12-12T18:51:00.016-07:00

It’s not your fault, you know…Danny…

We all need “release” of some kind.

Women - possibly your vegan types, although I don’t see those types as being very passionate, but what the hell do I know – often crave chocolate as their internal orgasm stimulus…

(Oops!! Can I say “orgasm” on this blog? Hmmmm…you know, I have no ugly Blogger glaring blue and orange on horrendous white background Content Warning Disclaimer page..for legality purposes, heretofore, I shall use the phrase “Big M” when referring to said…wouldn’t want to get sued for the countless maxed-out credit card bills I have, you know…whew! Yes, the “Big M”…

Well, there IS a rather x-rated story that goes along with that phrase but then I’d HAVE to have one of those ugly Disclaimer pages and they are SO ugly, sooooo, you know, story best left in the Tickle Trunk of Time!)

Yes, women often have chocolate.

Why then can’t Danny have hamburger?

Both aren’t good for ya, “They” say.

And by the way, just in case you’ve been wondering all your life who “They” are, well, they are short, rotund, bald guys, twins actually, in sky-blue button down shirts with white plastic pen guards in their breast pockets…they’ve always worn horn-rimmed glasses, you know, the heavy, industrial type sooooo attractive in the 70s…I mean, where would all our political leader memories be without those babies! Anyhoo, yes, two bald twins, their slacks a dark navy covered in dust and not been ironed, well, never have been ironed, their leather sole brogues (and if you’re too young to know what a “brogue” is, leave B3 at once! You will die here!) scuffed and worn well beyond the Nixon Administration. Yep, those guys are “They”…

And who are they, those “They” guys, who say chocolate and hamburger is bad anyhoo? It’s not like people get hugely fat from both and die of massive coronaries by their mid-forties…(oh, wait a sec…strike that last comment…frig! I HATE when those “They” guys are right! Makes me wanna scream to the nearest all-niter drug store and buy a double layered box of Whitman's Samplers (chocolates for you ill-educated on the finer fare that can be purchased at a 24 hour pharmacy, late at night, when just another viewing of “An Officer and A Gentleman” cannot be done without the mysterious goodness of just one more sugary-over-the-top cheap ass chocolate!)

Okay, okay, so you can die from yummy stuff, well, hell, like this world is manageable without yummy stuff at all…I say nay on that premise!

It’s yummy stuff that gets us through the icky shit in life (can I say “shit…oh geez…man, inching ever closer to that freakin’ Disclaimer page…shit! Oops! Said it again…sigh…hey, by the way, can I say “freakin’”???)…soooo, if Danny needs to get his rocks off with fast food burgers while his kick-ass vegan wife is AWOL, is that really HIS fault?

I think not.

We all need internal “Big M” stimulus from time to time…you know…as a substitute for the external “Big M” we may not be getting from time to time…

And yes, unfortunately, those internal yummies often push the bar, as it were, on the successful completion of said button into said button-hole…I mean, who of us don’t have a size 10 AND a size 12 pair of Wrangler jeans that are ageing in one’s closet because the Jaws of Life couldn’t get one’s ass in them? (Oh……hang on……..no one is putting their hands up but me…oops…frig! Can I say “frig” on this blog without a Disclaimer Page and does anyone know where I can buy a used Jaws of Life from a fire department station that’s, say, closing its door maybe ‘cause of budget cuts…just wondering…sigh…)

Yes, Danny, we ALL have that need, you know.

Now, some of us may feign an attempt at exercise, God knows you can’t use that stair-climber as a laundry dryer ALL the time, friends might talk…and I just HATE that - talking friends - that’s like water to a cat for MsBurb…honestly!

Never been a Teamster myself, Dan, sounds like a heavy burden…all that pension stealing, mafia-stronghold power grabbing, fixed ballot union voting…it’s enough to make your head spin in your cement grave, right next to old Jimmy H. I wonder of he ever ate hamburger or a sugary goodness from a Whitman’s sampler? Hell if he is now though, boy, being neck-deep in the cement foundation of an old Datsun plant on the south side of Tokyo Bay! (Oh, heck….did I just type that out loud? Sorry. Was supposed to keep THAT a secret…well hell if I’m ever gonna be made a Teamster now boy! sigh…)

Yep, Danny, it’s all okay. You can’t climb stairs like you used to, button the top button of your favourite jeans and have less energy to let “Little Danny” out for a naughty stroll as much as you’d like…but you dream, right, of the night when your vegan Goddess pulls out that cooking tray and whacks on it a HUGE hunk of ground cow, with Tabasco and Lipton’s Onion soup mix…THAT night, boy, “Little Danny” doesn’t need to be told twice to come out and play I bet!

No, you keep eatin’ and bein’ you, Dan, we all love you for it…just don’t die ‘cause none of us know what we’d do without ya if you did.

As for that internal “Big M” we get from eating hamburger and chocolate…hey…hamburger and chocolate do NOT need batteries, okay, and we don’t have to buy them in stores whose windows are covered over with brown paper, with large “XXXX”s splattered all over them, do we? We’re basically improving the environment one yummy, fattening mouthful at a time!

Or, that’s how I’ll see it tonight when I grab my car-keys and head to nearest all-night drugstore looking for my edible orgasm, I mean “Big M”…oops, did I JUST open my big keyboard mouth again?! Ah, WHO CARES! Disclaimer pages don’t look THAT ugly, do they?

The Fat Ass Chronicles

2010-12-11T12:38:00.001-07:00

"If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding!
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat"!?

Pink Floyd

Another Brick In The Wall Part 2

"Roly poly.... poly poly,...poly poly roly poly,....man."

Donovan

Hurdy Gurdy Man

Brief moment of panic yesterday.

I went to put on my favorite pair of jeans and had a hard time getting the button to close.
This should probably be expected but came as a total surprise nonetheless.

The reason that this should be expected is because I have been eating like a sow during this holiday season. The friendly, local sandwich vendors have dropped their prices so as to reel in the yuletide shoppers.

By my count, I have eaten no less than three quarters of a dozen Whopper Jrs this month. I also tend to order from the bar when the fancy strikes me.

(Ordering from the bar is always good because I don't have to tip AND it gets delivered to me with all the hot, fresh goodness that only bar food provides....)

I should probably not keep up this practice because people have been known to drop dead due to these kinds of Charles-Laughton-as-Henry-The-Eighth eating habits.

I tried to think of how many Big Macs I have eaten in my entire lifetime......by my count,.... if I have eaten,... say,.... two a month on average,.....that would be,....from the time I was eight,....800 Big Macs....give or take a few.....(Ok, ok,...give a few,....so let's say 900)

900 Big Macs since the time I was eight and I'm still alive, right? No worse for wear....

Why do they say McDonald's is so bad for you then? They have done us a great favor by standing guard and replenishing our famished nation. We owe McDonald's a huge debt of gratitude, don't we?

I saw that movie, "Supersize Me" and I, for one, happen to think that the propaganda that is bein' bandied about by nay-sayers and militant lesbian vegans is nothing but the bunk. You can't begin to believe that sort of stuff because that is exactly what those pinko commies want you to believe.

They had that whole scene where the guy was havin' a hard time walkin' up stairs and his girlfriend was complaining about their sex life and my answer to that is,....well, maybe because you're such a militant lesbian vegan,....maybe that's why he don't have any drive. Maybe if you made him a meatloaf every once in a while, maybe then he would get the hots on for you. Maybe it's because he was so happy that he was eating McDonald's every day instead of the tofu that you made for him...and he knew that you were just waiting for his experiment to come to an end....so you could feed him bulgar wheat again.....maybe that's why he was so bummed out and draggin' ass.....

Didn't think about that one did you?

My militant vegan makes me a meatloaf every once in a while and, lemme tell you,...THAT'S HOT!

It's all meatful dense joyness with the hint of Tabasco and Lipton onion soup mix with all-mashied up potatoes with brown gravy and maybe some asparagus with Hollandaise sauce and chocolate cake for dessert. With a candy bar perhaps. And some type of Little Debbie snack confectionary cake

I know that my girlish frame is fading to the wayside. No one needs to tell me this,....but,....if you think about it, I AM a Teamster and the pre-requisite for bein' a Teamster is the "Teamster Gut".....plus, I can blame it on all the medicine that I'm on.....medicine does that, you know. It can cause your weight to fluctuate and there's nothing you can do about it,....except exercise,....but,.... realistically, kids....we all know that's not gonna happen.....because when you exercise, you sweat....and the thought of sweating to a Teamster....is like the thought of a bath to a cat.

The only exercise I get is on Saturday mornings when I’m dancin' to Ike and Tina Turner's rendition of "Proud Mary"....while makin' a pot of chili or a big ol' joyful pot roast.

I guess there is no point that I'm tryin' to make with this except that the human body is very resilient.

I'm still wonderfully and gloriously alive.....for now.

Anyway,…

T’was The Night Before…In Hell…

2010-12-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

From Sleeping Soldiers, Tim Hetherington, Photography by Ronit Novak

A very special personal Christmas message

T'WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRIS TMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE,
MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.

I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY,
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO,
IN THIS HOME, DID LIVE.

I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.

NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES,
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.

WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT,
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.

FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.

THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR,
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.

THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED,
A TRUE BRITISH SOLDIER.

WAS THIS THE HERO,OF

WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A POCHO,

THE FLOOR FOR A BED?

I REALISED THE FAMILIES,
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS,
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.

SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE,
A BRIGHT CHRIS TMAS DAY.

THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM,
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.

I COULDN'T HELP WONDER,
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRIS TMAS EVE,
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.

THE VERY THOUGHT BROUGHT,
A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES,
AND STARTED TO CRY.

THE SOLDIER AWAKENED,
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
"SANTA DON'T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;

I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS.."

THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.

I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL,
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED,
FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.

I DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE,
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR,
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.

THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRIS TMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."

ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,

AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
"MERRY CHRIS TMAS MY FRIEND,

A ND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."

This poem was written by a Peacekeeping soldier stationed overseas. The following is his request. I think it is reasonable

PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favour of sending this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to all of the service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

Lennon Is Dead…

2010-12-08T23:59:00.001-07:00

…30 years ago tonight…and 30 years ago tonight, I was 30 years younger and he was still alive and older than me…
…now I’m older than him and he’s not…
You can climb all the New York gallery ladders you want and just because you read “Yes” doesn’t mean it is Yes.
John Lennon is dead. And I’m 30 years older and not.

People back then asked WHY?

I said why not? So would have John.
Life.
Death.
Climb the ladder yourself…it says No.

Money Can’t Buy It…

2010-12-08T23:31:00.001-07:00

The Reason

2010-12-05T20:57:00.007-07:00

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,

Jack Frost nippin' at your nose.

Yuletide carols bein' sung by a choir,

and folks dressed up like eskimos,..."

Johnny Mathis

The Christmas song

Christmas Season.

That time of year when we get suckered into buyin’ crap that people don’t need for people who simply don’t care. That time of year when warm handshakes replace the cold twisting of the knife into the backs and necks of our co-workers. That time of year where waitresses devilishly greet your table wearin’ a push-up bra and a Santa hat.

That time of year when it’s all inclusive. It doesn’t matter one whit if you’re Christian, Jew or Misc.

It has been diluted down so it’s palatable for everyone. You could be a Satanist and still reap the benefits of Christmas. It’s turned into a generic holiday,…like Labor Day. I have yet to see a Satanist turn down a Christmas bonus or free turkey on principle. I have yet to see a Muslim reject a gift certificate to Sear’s because it doesn’t go along with his turbaned belief system. It’s simply a time of year that everyone can get behind because it’s that time of year where we have been suckered into caring for a fellow man “just a little bit more”.

That’s all fine and good. We always could use a little more caring for our fellow man. There’s not enough of it the other 11 months out of the year. I’m diggin’ that. But in this day and age of political correctness, we have watered it down to “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”

I guess my point of contention about this whole thing is that it has become something that it shouldn’t be. It has become a bit of a placating drug for the Fritz Lang Metropolites who simply go along with it because everyone else is goin’ along with it. It gets thinned out into pure nothingness, for the sake of political correctness, so as not to offend any of the rebellious individuals who are not matrixed enough to have a brief, cogent thought as to the reasons why their waitress is accenting her breasts while wearing a fuzzy, white and red hat.

Sounds like I’m a Theist, don’t it?...Atheist?...Agnostic?

None of the above. I will simply state for the record that I am a Christian in my belief.

I simply state this for the record, not as a matter to be debated or argued….because that is not the import of this post. The import of this post is about the Christmas season itself.

I find there are certain aspects of this season that I fail to comprehend. One of the most glaring is this Jekyll and Hyde nature that we humans tend to engage in immediately after the Thanksgiving Day bird carcass is on its merry way to the garbage dump. There is a convoluted metamorphosis that takes place in which we actually demonstrate the fact that we don’t hate each other as much as we would like people to believe…of which this fact is none more apparent than in the yearly appearance of the Salvation Army kettles and bells that pop up in doorways of fine local merchants. We throw in a buck to help those less fortunate,…like Tiny Tim and Mickey Rourke,…and it makes us look good to the sheer volume of rabid holiday shoppers who are in search of great deals on a “good” aftershave like Stetson.

This is the time of year that we drag an artificial tree out of our attic and assemble said tree in our living rooms…so as to impress our friends and relatives with our tree adorning acumen….and nobody sees anything wrong with this seemingly mentally unstable behavior.

(I know, I know. The religious implications are there. Martin Luther was the first one to do this. But!,…if it was first done by Martin Luther, why are so many Catholics into this ritual? And, more importantly, why did Martin Luther do this in the first place? What does it denote? Why do I have to put a tree in my living room one month outta the year?)

This tree,…this fake tree that is relegated to it’s very own space in our attics or under our basement stairs,…is pulled out of its cardboard home every year and, after it is opened, we are left with the same despairing feeling that we had when we put it in the box last year. It’s like a time machine. The ornaments are wrapped in newspaper pages, the origin of which was almost to the day of when the box was last repackaged.

We are reminded about the year past and generally it’s really not a good feeling. We know our healthcare is going to go up. Relationships falter or grow,…and strange hairs appear where there were none last year. The dog may have had to have been replaced and that transmission might’ve finally given out. This is usually not the time to count one’s blessings….nor is there time to do so because your hands and mind will soon be consumed with the arduous task of having to untangle the miles of Christmas tree lights that have somehow gathered themselves into a twisted mess in spite of the delicate and careful nature in which you stored them last year. It’s as if, during the course of the year past, these lights slowly wormed and squirmed their way into a tangle while sitting inanimate in a box designated for the storage of such spiteful electronics.

We pull out the ornaments that mean something to us. Usually the ones from childhood,…because that is truly the last time we were innocent and carefree,..and it’s these ornaments that we want visible because they still somehow mesmerize. Not the ones which were handed out as souvenirs at the last work Christmas party,…the one in which your boss made a drunken pass at your wife….handmade by a craftsman in the Philippines.

We, the collective we, engage in this asinine ritual that has little or no meaning to the true nature of Christmas. Yet we continue to do this, year after year, in spite of the lack of reason afforded to it.

I simply don’t understand, I guess.

It’s usually right after Thanksgiving that the radio stations declare that there is gonna be non-stop Christmas music until Christmas. I always wince when I hear that. It’s not because I'm a Scrooge, it’s more because the adult-contempo music scene is rife with people who want to put their own spin on a classic that should never be screwed with. Let’s leave “White Christmas” to Bing, “Blue Christmas” to Elvis, “The Christmas Song” to Johnny and “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” to Bruce. Everyone else, I’m afraid, pales in comparison. There is no point in Kenny G tryin’ to pull off “Carol of the Bells” on his tiny little girlie-man sax. All that succeeds in doing is irritating Christmas shoppers who are already irritated as it is.

Shopping, lunches, lights, trees, eggnog, ornaments, gifts, family, friends, tinsel, holly, ivy, reindeer underwear, socks, sweaters, TV specials, receipts, busty waitresses….

Enough!

And when you look to the world of spirituality for a brief respite, you find that there is none.

Church services also tend to go where the lack of reason is painfully apparent.

As the Christmas season approaches, churches tend to ruminate about how their services can become grander than the year before. The band has to be bigger, the lighting has to be better, and the choir has to be on full tilt. The thought of a fog machine plays out as a rational possibility as plans are made for the dramatization of the birth of Christ.

“We must have a state of the art manger! Spare no expense!...who’s playin’ Mary? Can she sing falsetto?,…what about the drummer boy? Can we get Stig from out behind the kit to really wail on that sparkly snare he has?...Call the Smiths. They just had a kid. See if we can get them to let us use it for our baby Jesus…”

I mean, it almost borders on the insane. The churches become as decked out as the shopping malls, complete with the lack of explanation about the freakin’ tree in the lobby, man. I mean, if every church has a tree, in some way, shape or form, isn’t a little explanation about the origins of the tree,…to dolts like me,…in order?

Aside from Martin Luther deciding that he was gonna put a tree up in his house, where are the origins of such an act?

I think,…I’m not sure,…but, plain and simple, Christmas is about the birth of Christ, right?

(Hence the name Christ in the word Christmas,)

That’s it. That’s all. And for me, that’s enough. No sparks, no fanfare needed. No lights, no eggnog, no Mel Torme’, no roasted chestnuts….(but I will take some of that Peppermint Bark ice cream you got over there…)

I dunno.

Joseph and Mary just got married,…right? I don’t think it was in the plans Joseph had for himself…to marry a woman who proclaimed she was a virgin while simultaneously sportin’ a baby bump. I know Joseph had to be tryin’ to come up with a reason to divorce Mary. I know I would be….but the reason was as plain as the bulge on her belly.

He was not without just cause, mind you,…but then the angel came to him while he was asleep….and loused everything up.

“Joseph!,…wake up!,…while still maintaining your sleep! I am the angel of the Lord and you shall listen to what I have to say!...while you steadfastly maintain your slumber….like you did in math class when you were a kid. Listen to me, Joseph. Mary is a good woman. The bestest of the best. She’ll make a fine ol’ wife for you, my good man. She didn’t go steppin’ out on you, Joseph…. I know it looks that way. Believe you me, I REALLY know it looks that way, man,…but the child she is bearing is the Son of God. Don’t worry about a thing. Name him Jesus…. Ciao.”

Joseph wakes up and begins to rub the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He thinks to himself,

"Ya know,…I really don’t need this crap right now.”

Caesar Augustus then decreed that he had to count everyone on earth (for whatever reason),…so he made them go and be counted.

Joseph then sighed and thought to himself,

“This is total bull****, man”

Joseph had to take Mary and go get counted. She was due. They loaded up and headed towards Bethlehem,…because that was home base due to the fact that Joseph was of the lineage of David.

Think about that journey. They were probably fightin’ all the way there. Mary getting’ that plum spot on top of the ass while Joseph was havin’ to pull it behind him. Getting’ lost because of construction,…and losin’ valuable time on top of it…all because some douche said they had to be counted.

Then Mary says,

“Joe, baby?....ummm, Joe, baby?.... I think it might be time”.

Joseph pauses. He turns and looks at his wife in disbelief.

“Unbelievable”, he thinks to himself, “totally un-freakin’-believable,…she’s gonna drop that kid now?,…freakin’ unbelievable, man…for Caesar’ssake, Mary, gimme a freakin’ break, babe”.

Joseph then begins to look for a place to stay. No vacancy signs are everywhere. No McDonald’s, Waffle Houses or I-HOP’s for as far as the eye can see….and all the gas stations were closed due to the impending holiday,… the weather is crappy. Mary is miserable and Joseph is thinkin’ that this is a fine how-do-you-do from the Creator of the universe….

Joseph looks to Heaven and mutters to God, “You promised you’d be here, man”.

But then he is taken with his pretty wife’s face. She is in pain…and he loses sight of the fact that this was a Divine deal to begin with. It was just him and her now. That’s all there was. He feels like that’s all there ever was. Whatever was told to him from the angel became a thing of the past. A fancy of the imagination,…because there was obviously no one present now ‘cept him and her,…and the kid.

She hurts and he begins to hurt for her. He simply wants to make her pain go away. He stops and lets her rest from the movement of the donkey. As she rests, he begins to rifle through his pockets until he produces a small bag of miniature pretzels that he had stashed in there before they left the house. He offers her some. She shakes her head no and says,

“No,…thanks,..really not hungry right now, Joe. Thanks, though…you eat ‘em”.

He stands for a moment, silently munching pretzels from a tiny bag.

He covers her with some of his clothes and kisses her on the forehead, in a vain attempt to stop her tears,… and then they continue on. They were on a road, after all, and there was no place for them to stop. Thieves tended to line the roadside and lay in wait for such as these. Easy marks who have no real defense and their youthfulness more than betrayed the fact that they were probably not worldly wise.

It is a road traversed in silence. Just the sound of the donkey’s footsteps in the dirt and Joseph and Mary’s labored breath. No talking. No laughing. They were alone in the very literal sense of the word. Joseph’s hands become calloused and sore from the donkey pulling one way and another. Mary tries,… prays…for stillness.

The labor intensifies.

They continue to walk in the cold stillness of the night. Nothing more is said. Mary begins to grow light-headed as they step into the outskirts of town.

There was an inn on the side of the road. The blue neon sign said “Vacancy”,…for a brief moment,…until the proprietor flipped on the contrasting red “NO” sign….as the six Parker kids clamored out of the wood-panelled station wagon that was parked in the front of the lodge….they then, not using their “indoor voices”, began running and yelling and screaming down the front of building, with little or no regard to the tenants who might have been sleeping there.

Joseph scratched his head as he drank the rest of the pretzel powder out of the tiny bag.

“Hey, Mary?...I’m gonna see if they could hook us up. I mean, what the heck do we got to lose? Don’t say anything. Let me do the talkin’”

Mary, her head resting on the mane of the donkey while looking really pale and ill, says,

“I won’t. Just make sure you show them your triple A card because we don’t want to get finagled into some “user” fees…..and make sure you tell them that we only need it for the night. I don’t want them to run the credit card for another day….and only take one of the card keys and make sure that they don’t make another one because your credit card information is on that card….and make sure that the room isn’t by those kids,…”

Her voice trailed off as Joseph began walking towards the front door. He opened the door and a jingle bell sounded to announce his arrival.

A man in a turban stepped out of the back room. CNN was blaring from the sitting lounge to the right of the desk. A table stocked with bagels and cookies stood next to a large brochure display stand that contained fancy brochures of all the neat sites to see in “Amazing Bethlehem!”

Joseph began to speak.

“I know I just saw your light go on and all,…but my wife is about to have a baby and we were wondering if you could help us out. We hoofed it all the way from Nazareth.”

Joseph then pulled a twenty out and subtly flashed it for the proprietor to see,…without bein’ overly anxious,…letting the sight of cash do the talkin’.

The turbaned man just shrugged his shoulders and declared,

“I wish I could. We’re packed to the gills. There's not a room to be had within twenty miles. If you woulda called and placed a reservation, I coulda held the room until midnight,…but you gotta bear in mind that it’s Christmas Eve. What can I do here?”

Joseph began to plead with the man.

“C’mon, man,…ain’t you gotta garage or somethin’? We’re dyin’ here. What about that feeding stable back there? Can we stay there?”

The man responded, “Well,…seein’ how it’s Christmas Eve and all,…yeah, you can stay back there. I won’t even charge ya”

Joseph thanked the man profusely and retreated to tell Mary the good news. Mary, excited at the prospect of stretchin’ her feet out, breathed a sigh of relief and asked Joseph if he had any more of those pretzels. Joseph pretended not to hear her.

As they rounded the corner to the stables, Joseph paused and looked out over the horizon. Bethlehem was pretty this night,…with all the houses that were intermittently lit up with brightly colored lights that flashed and twinkled in the dark.

Quietly, he turned and led Mary and the donkey to a dark, abandoned stable….the three of them alone once again.

Christmas.

What God meant when He said,

“Don’t you kids make me come down there!…”

Anyway,…

What’s New Pussycat…snicker………..

2010-12-02T22:04:00.001-07:00

Reincarnation & Channelling…Some People Just Do…

2010-11-30T22:11:00.001-07:00

Cate Blanchet…Katherine Hepburn…

Joe Mantegna…Dean Martin…

Harry Connick Jr….Frank Sinatra…

It just happens, doesn’t it, that once in a long while, the personalities of the past, that were so strong way back when, have to find a way to reappear, their auras were so vibrant that mere death couldn’t do them asunder…

This is a wee tale of one such reincarnation and channelling, as I see it, one that has been haunting me of late…in my mind, by way of a certain song, bringing back a time and a place, filled with innocence and joy but also such deep sorrow, not only for me but for many of us, who, when we had him, never truly appreciated him…until he was gone…just the way we humans are, I guess…we just never “get it” until it’s too late…

John Stamos…Dennis Wilson.

Yes, this reincarnation/channelling isn’t like the others I’ve mentioned. There is no visual familiarity and quite frankly, I'm not sure anyone on the face of this Earth could be as warm, welcoming and naively wild as Dennis Wilson…but for a time, when they needed help, John filled the emotional and musical shoes of Dennis for The Beach Boys, on stage, and I’m fairly certain, off stage as well.

John, like Dennis, has had marital and celeb problems, who doesn’t in Hollywood when you’re naturally attractive, warm-hearted and gifted. Many have poo-pooed Stamos for his stint on the TV series “Full House” but hey, I defy you to show me any celeb who hasn’t started off with less than stellar credentials…

Sadly though, for Stamos, it was rather a downhill slide after “Full House” but happily, his love and talent for music gave him the celeb boost that he needed and it basically came with a once in a lifetime chance to sit on the stool Dennis Wilson would have sat on, behind a drum set Dennis would have preferred to use as a shield more than an instrument, and for a time, as The Beach Boys toured in the late 80s/early 90s, John allowed Dennis to be reborn in him, for his band mates, for Dennis’ surviving brothers and for Dennis’ still-loyal fans…one last glimpse at what could have been…if only.

I myself, was personally apart of this experience, on one fine summer’s day in Calgary, Alberta Canada, when The Beach Boys were scheduled to play an outdoor sports venue we call Canada Olympic Park.

It was the summer of ‘91, only two and a half years after the Calgary ‘88 Olympics, and I was NOT going to miss this concert, no how.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I, of course, had seen The Beach Boys play in California, way back in the 70s, but at that time, I was too young to appreciate much more than the cool 3D experience of singing Little Surfer Girl while being one at Surf City, Long Beach or La Jolla. It was about summer fun back then, like the Wilson Boys said, not about watching history slowly ebb away.

The Summer of Love, technically 1967, still strongly held it’s grasp on southern California well into the 70s, but after the Monterey Pop Festival, The Manson murders, Woodstock, and the death knell at Altamont, somehow that feeling of the care-free easy-going California life-style was dying in everyone’s minds…no one could resuscitate that Summer of Love, just like no one could resuscitate Dennis after he drowned at his former sloop mooring site, three days after Christmas ‘83, on that fateful winter’s day at Marina del Rey.

Some things, no matter how good they are, no matter how hard one tries to hang on to them, just, by Providence, usually ebb away. It’s just how it is.

Of course, after Dennis’ death, The Beach Boys kept playing and touring but there had been such problems with Brian well before, and then with the loss of Dennis, well, I wasn’t a fly on the synthesizer stand on stage but I think if I had been, I would have sensed The Beach Boys having a hard time of it, emotionally, spiritually, performing that fun-loving music when so much less-than-fun-loving experiences had befallen the group…

Rock band producer, Terry Melcher, helped The Beach Boys get back on top with their first Top Ten single in years, “Kokomo”, and that injected life back into the band. Yet, in my humble opinion, they had always had trouble filling Dennis’ drum-playing shoes, yes, for his talent, but more for his spirit, the only Beach Boy, after all, who could say he actually surfed.

John Stamos fit the bill, “Kokomo” was the excuse and The Beach Boys were off and running once again and on top of the music mountain that had so eluded them for many years…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flash forward to that soft summer breezy day in Calgary, where, for at least a while, my world met with theirs…

My boyfriend at the time proposed to me at that concert. I said yes. We lived a happy life for fifteen years and he too, like all good people, died young, far too young…but that summer never left me…probably never will.

John did one heck of a job on drums that day…and he really seemed to be enjoying himself. Yes, my photos of that concert are small and faded but I can still hear the beat John made like his life depended on it. Brian’s synthesizer was unplugged, had to be, because back then, he would play one song while the band played another.

At one point, right in the middle of a song, Brian just left the keyboard and walked off stage, his handlers gently guiding him back on again. The other boys looked tired, strained, probably worried for Big Brian…they all did a terrific job and I’m sure the young kids in the crowd saw nothing amiss…but I did…I saw the ebbing away of what was left, save for the spirit of Dennis Wilson alive and well behind those drums in John.

That “Kokomo” Tour was The Beach Boys swan song, I guess…you never know when you’re witnessing the fading of something monumental…not the dying of, necessarily, but the fading of…like General MacArthur’s famous farewell speech to the U.S. Congress in 1951, where he uttered those prophetic words from a then famous barracks song “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”

From old generals to famous rock stars, to all of us in between, who have lived more the fading of people and places than the dying of same, not better words could have been spoken about The Beach Boys or Dennis Wilson, or for that matter, the good aspects still in our hearts from the 60s and that Summer of Love.

John Stamos has gone on to revive his TV career and you can still see him popping up once in a while on red carpets with rockers and celebs of all kinds; though how he managed to garner a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is still a mystery to me.

The Beach Boys, of course, are still rocking, geriatric though the remaining ones are.

Brian Wilson recovered what was left of his cocaine-addled brain and by all accounts is quite content now, the searing heat of the limelight pressure-cooker of fame pretty much off his back now, the way he always wanted it to be, even back then.

Carl, of course, joined Dennis in the Big Studio in the Sky, after a courageous battle with lung and brain cancer that was finally lost to him in 1998, some fifteen years after the tragic death of his younger brother. I often wonder if Carl’s cancer had allot to do with the pressures associated with two very emotionally disturbed brothers and the pressures of being the last remaining in-tact Wilson Beach Boy. Often the middle child gets the brunt of everything, you know.

And, well, you know, pretty much all that can be said, has been said about Dennis, some accurate and good, some not so, so I shant add to the murky waters that were what he last saw himself, diving alone in the sloop at Marina del Rey, looking for mementos of his past, as we all do, from time to time…like I’ve just done now.

The reincarnation and channelling continues…

“The Little Match Girl”…A Personal Fear…

2010-11-27T21:24:00.001-07:00

Don’t we all have lifelong fears…born into us as children, that stay with us through adulthood and haunt us to our death bed?

I do and have had…all these many years…

It was a hardcover book my Mother bought for me, to read to me at bedtime, only this book and it’s stories were hardly bedtime fare…too depressing, too fearful, too upsetting for an overly sensitive, overly imaginative creature such as I…

Soon, because I was too smart for my own good, I morphed beyond the bedtime story, read by my Mother, to take on the hard-cover book on my own…but the stories never got less upsetting, and one in particular, stained my consciousness, from then, until now…

“The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen…

Since I first knew of it’s existence, I had a deep-seated fear that I may, some day, be that girl…yet, I was born to a well-healed family, having a life and surroundings far removed from any girl who may have had to survive by selling matches on the street corners of East London at the turn of the 20th century…

But still…

The haunting in me remained…

And at 46, there is, most definitely a risk, as with many people of my generation, who are just a paycheque away from The Little Match Girl…

Maybe it’s just a fairy-tale…maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks as it often does…but this year, this New Years Eve, when your Christmas tree is lit and your children and relatives are stuffed full of turkey, remember that many are not…and just one, one tiny girl, could be shivering under your spruce tree, in your well-endowed yard, in the dead of night, watching the glow from your prosperity touch her not as she shivers to her close…

In this vein, I bring you “The Little Match Girl”…so that you may pause, for just a moment, and gaze out from your picture window, to see the reality that lays just beyond the glass…

It was the last day of the old year. Light spilled generously from every window and the cheerful sounds of laughter and music filled the night. Sometimes through an uncurtained window came the glimpse of silk-gowned ladies and the sight of tables sparkling with silver and glass and laden with succulent meats and sweets. All over the city people were gathered together in families and gay parties to hail the birth of the New Year.

Outside, the death of the old year was mourned in cold dark streets, their empty silence mocked by the merriment of the revellers within. Snow fell thick and fast as one little barefoot girl wandered, lonely as a shadow, through the deserted streets.

Snowflakes clung to the fair hair that lay like a pale cloak about her shoulders, and her wan cheeks were wet with tears. She was cold and hungry, tired and frightened. Still her hands, numb and sore, clung tenaciously to the little bundles of matches which she had been trying all day to sell. But no one in that hurrying, excited crowd paused for even a moment to look with pity at the poor child who stood, with outstretched hands, pleading for one single copper for one of the bundles of matches which she clutched in her tattered apron.

There would be no customers now. But even wandering the streets was preferable to going home to the beating that she knew would await her if she returned with her matches unsold.

Her cold limbs aching, she sat down in the corner of two houses, drawing her feet up under her for warmth. Gratefully she dropped the pathetic bundles of matches to her lap, easing her cramped fingers.

She still shivered. Mechanically she counted the little bundles…until a thought struck her. The light of even one match might warm her frozen fingers.

Drawing out a match she struck it against the wall.

It flared with a bright warm flame and the child gazed at it in fascination. There was something magical about the glow, as she looked into it she saw a firelit room, cozy and warm. She could almost feel the heat of those blazing logs enveloping her.

Then the little flame flickered and died, and now she was back again on the snow-swept street, a burnt match in her hand.

Eagerly the child struck a second match. Again she was back in the firelit room and this time she saw a table in one corner, spread with a white damask cloth and laden with party fare.

But just as she stretched out her hand towards a plate the flame died out.

The light from the third match seemed even brighter than the others. Now she was sitting under a tall Christmas tree. The green branches were laden with bright baubles and gaily wrapped packages tied with tinsel, and the tree sparkled with tiny winking lights.

The child stretched out her hands in delight…and in that moment the light of the match was quenched.

But, as she sat with upturned face, the Christmas lights burned brighter and brighter above her, shining stars in the night sky. As she watched, one star fell, the light streaming behind it like a fiery tail.

“Somewhere someone is dying,” whispered the little match girl. Her old grandmother – the only person who had ever been kind to her and who had died long ago – had once told her that whenever a star fell from the heavens an immortal spirit returned to the God who had created it.

The child struck another match, and now in the flame she saw her dear grandmother again. She was smiling, gently and tenderly, as the girl always remembered her; but now she looked younger and happier.

“Grandmother,” cried the child, “do not leave me when the flame dies away. Stay with me, dear grandmother, for I am cold and lonely.”

Hastily she lit all the unused matches in the bundle, lest her grandmother should disappear. They burned with such a blaze of glory that the child sat in a bright pool of light.

Bending down, the grandmother grasped the child’s cold little hand. Together the flew, higher and higher, joyfully and gloriously they flew. They never paused till they reached Paradise, where neither cold nor hunger nor pain could ever touch the little match girl again.

The bells rang out the old sad year; then joyful peals told of the New Year’s birth.

In the cold morning light the child was found: She had frozen to death on the last night of the year.

She sat crouched in the corner of two houses, the unsold matches in her lap, one bundle of which was quite burnt out.

“Poor child, she was trying to warm herself!” thought the people, as they passed by.

But they were puzzled by the happy smile on her lips. Not one of them guessed the sweet visions she had seen before she sped, so eagerly, to a happier home.

Hopelessness…

2010-11-20T23:22:00.001-07:00

Is there ever been a moment in time when you have felt that no matter what you do or say, there was no way out, no way to win, just no winning for trying?

I’m gonna assume there was…for you...as there has been for me…because I’ll assume the obvious, I will die, alone…all alone...one of many unknowing…

Do you, have you. ever met someone, the epitome of life, the essence of living, that when in their presence, your existence is dwarfed by comparison?

I have.

Have you?

Maybe some of us are just not meant to be as gifted, huh, as special, as rare…maybe some of us are just wasting oxygen on this earth while others breathe every breath as golden, as sweet, as pure, as every breath they take…

For those, I bow, in front of me, for I feel ashamed…for the lesser of us, for most of us are lesser than we should be…

If there was one way of those of less less gifted, who could pay back those of us that were, maybe then those of us less gifted would feel better about breathing oxygen more deserving…

Maybe the lesser of us, my job, is to point out the very lesser of us, who are, to validate the greater of us, when no one does…

Maybe, when all is said an done, the greater will meet with the lesser and we will mesh to a bigger substance than neither one of us could have done alone…maybe

If not, I am left in the dark, alone and crying, for a meaning to my life, when all else fails…when all else fails…

Do you know more than I? I wonder.

There Were Roses…

2010-10-26T20:18:00.001-06:00

Pure Unadulterated Beauty…Do YOU Know What It looks Like?

2010-10-14T00:35:00.001-06:00

There are homely people, ugly people, jaded people, those especially, who were never homely and yet once very beautiful…and then there are the true, pure beauties of this world, the ones who were born with sunshine on their brows, who never were told not to feel that golden feeling over their heads, who shone as bright as any light on a dark and clear summer night…

These, those ones, are very few and far between…but they do exist…and even as they grow old, they shine on….

One…in particular… Jennifer O’Neill…

The Dorothy character in the classic, iconic World War II historical drama, “The Summer of ‘42”

Man…wow…nope…no woman, not even Liz Taylor, can hold a match to this beauty…or am I just prejudiced to Irish lasses…okay, well, Hell, maybe so…but damn if we don’t rock?!

I don’t think you can manufacture innocence or purity or naiveté or a Joie de Vivre…its just born into you and sustained in you, til you die, and that, that essence, shines for all time, on your face, and in your heart, golden, soft, sincere, vulnerable, yes, but worth the risk, to shine everlasting, in spite of it all.

As time goes by for myself…maybe because I am forced to face reality, I'm realizing that sexuality, sensuality, true beauty, doesn’t stem from an iconic lust image but from within, the beauty you had as a kid playing soccer on your school yard, your rosy cheeks, your laughing smile, those agile thighs, with never a thought of how you were getting your next breath….

Maybe those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, with Nat King Cole on your parents “Hi-Fi” singing the same, your scrawny legs lazily waving in the cool Pond water, is what differentiates a true beauty from a made-up one…

Maybe the kid who ate snow on the bank of that in-the-dead-of-winter Pond skating rink, who thought nothing of, nor an un-lady-like doubt, that to wipe her runny nose on her her sleeve in a heated game, was anything out of the ordinary. Maybe that Tom Girl ended up being the true making of a female beauty, the type who knew never the need nor purpose for make-up, the need nor purpose for attracting the opposite sex, who only knew that if Bobby didn't get out of her way as she held that puck on her stick to the goal, he would not father future children in his stupidity…sigh…yeah…smile…uh-huh….

Maybe…when she got older, her ice skates safely tucked away, Nat King Cole’s version of

“Unforgettable” just made more sense.

Yeah, she’d see her parents dance close to that song, at the end of one cocktail party or another, in the 60s or 70s, thinking that they were indeed truly dedicated morons…yeah…smile…geez…

Now…wow…frig…how come that song now just brings tears to my eyes…?

Man…beauty…uh-huh…Unforgettable…

People either have it or they don’t, right? And seldom does it have to do with any whimsical, physical traits…somehow, their heart, their soul, their passion, just bursts through, like some sort of atomic ray…so piercing you have little time to debate the issue…

The people who don’t have it, spend a fortune trying to get it, especially in their later years, when all the time, if they had just seen the merit of hunting tadpoles in ponds close to where they lived, on the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, as a child, that such inner beauty would have been achieved through just pure and innocent joy, on their faces, and in their hearts…forever shining though…

Yes…

In the end, Dorothy, in The Summer of ‘42, gets that feared telegram, telling her that the love of her life has just died in WWII, as so many new wives received back then, that so many new wives, of the Iraq/Afghanistan war, are receiving now…

And because of that trauma, are we ever to judge Dorothy for her sexual transgression then, when life, as she knew it in the end was so tenuous, and her life, as she knew it all along, was still so young and new, her needing a physical connection to the past, her needing just to be wanted…

Even in the midst of grief for her one and only true love…beauty can and will shine though…

Sometimes the end result can be seen as tawdry when the process was anything but…please don’t judge Dorothy…lest we all be judged.

If, per chance, you happen upon an older woman, yes, maybe beyond her lustful prime, but still full of inner beauty and outer grace, stop, say Hi, give her your hand across that curb…she may have been your Grandfather’s first love on a weed-strewn Long Island beach, that very summer in 1942, the ultimate essence of beauty, for Him, Heaven on Earth in female form, the lines on her face only an echo of the breezes she felt off the Atlantic ocean, waiting only for Him…

Dangling your scrawny legs in a pond, or in the ocean waves…yes…that’s how you can achieve true , unadulterated beauty.

Pearl Harbour Meets Ground Zero…

2010-08-24T13:10:00.001-06:00

You know…I'm NOT a blogging fashionista…but geez…

The events of late are just making my mind ZOOM back to December 8, 1941.

Noooooooooo, I didn’t get that wrong…December 8th, NOT December 7th…

On December 8th, and the days, months and years to follow, I don’t know this for sure, but damned if I EVER read that the Japanese planned to build a Shinto Shrine right beside the USS Arizona War Memorial…do you?

And for the umpteen decades since, yep, nooooooo Shinto Shrine has ever been proffered as an idea, much less a reality, at or anywhere near the Pearl Harbour War Memorial…go figure huh?

Could it be because the humble citizens of Japan have always felt that the blitz that day on Pearl Harbour was not the thing to do, even in war time? Yes, there are no rules in love and war but maybe, even the Japanese had enough love in their hearts to eventually taste the bitterness of that day for themselves…if even to admit that their one-day greediness was enough to bring down an entire Empire…

Hmmmmm….

September 11, 2001…

The SECOND day which will live in infamy, right? Like the first one wasn’t enough.

Ground Zero maybe a tad more political extremist connected than Pearl Harbour but death and destruction is death and destruction, no matter how you pry the pulverized bodies from the wreckage, right?

Flash forward some sixty years and we have an “enemy” that doesn’t seem to care one bit about the rules of engagement or their means to an end, no matter how crass and bestial they may be.

Again, I keep repeating myself these days, but THIS is what happens when you let cousins boink cousins! The fruit of those loins come out as Jihadists who think the end-all and be-all is in the Muslim faith because if they kill in the name of it, these horny buggars will get 70 virgins as their celestial reward…sigh…

And, in the meantime, slapping us North Americans in the FACE by building a mosque at Ground Zero is the next best thing!

And, you know what? The States elected a black President, from the “X”s on the ballot slips marked by the ill-educated black citizen American voters, who thinks he has the power to force this mosque down the throats of truly intelligent North American citizens.

Harken back a wee bit…would Roosevelt have allowed a Shinto Shrine to be built at Pearl Harbour, do you think? I won’t waste any binary bytes answering that now for ya…

Yesterday, HAD to love yesterday, when the New Yorkers came out in full force, hard-hats at the ready, willing to sign any goddamned petition out there that promised NO union worker would be willing to work on that mosque building job site!

And yes, the Sharia freaks came out in full force too, with their own crafty ideas, some still secret no doubt, that their political will, will just allow for imported workers to build it instead…answer me this>>>

How long will it stand before there’s a mysterious arson fire blowing through its roof, do you think?

Oh yeah, you betcha.

I'm only Canadian, but if there’s a line-up for who gets to light that match…I’ll camp over night at Ground Zero just to be one of the first in line, Man!

If I weren’t so busy being raging mad at this insane proposition, I'd be crying in my Guinness or retching from my gut!

Can we as a North American society have dipped so low as to NOT see the painful and tragic irony of this proposal?

How many times do the victims and surviving family members of 9/11 have to suffer and how many times do the rest of use have to stand by watching it all, feeling utterly helpless?

And how utterly inbred are these Middle Easterners that think that this idea of some sort of religious “bridge-building” has any moral merit???

You blow us to Kingdom Come and we’re supposed to welcome you with open arms?!

Good thing I’m not King of the World, because the day you buggars blew us up, if you weren’t born in North America, your ass WOULD have been in an internment camp awaiting deportation, simple as that. And since then, there would have been a complete BAN on all Middle Eastern immigration. You don’t like my thoughts, then be happy MsBurb ain’t King of the World!

But seriously, a MOSQUE at Ground Zero?!

Jesus…

Yeah, I said Jesus…NOT Mohammed, by the way…sigh…

You wanna pray to “M” instead of “J”, dress your women up in full length curtains and beat the shit out of them if they so much as LOOK at another guy, then sobeit, what you do in YOUR country, I have, and do not want, any control over…

You come over here and try that shit with our NON-INBRED, advanced and evolved citizenry and when we don’t comply to your backwards, bestial desires, you decide to blow us up instead? Then, I have a problem with you…!

And when all your destructive games still don’t work because we know your religious and cultural crap IS crap, you decide that building a mosque, with the political backing of a part Muslim US President, is a good third step towards making us acquiesce to your freaky ways…

JUST TRY IT! COME ON! I DARE YA!

Even Yamamoto, after Pearl Harbour, knew that poking a finger at the American Sleeping Giant would come back to bite Japan in the ass…and it did, eventually, and in a BIG way.

Well, you inbred camel herders, guess what? You didn’t read your WWII history books probably because your education system wouldn’t allow for studies involving the “Infidels” (aka North America), and because of your ignorance in that vein, you have never really got to know us, despite your zeal to use our technology (i.e. using Motorola cell phones to start IEDs), so maybe you have just poked at this Sleeping Giant one too many times.

Oh, and by the way, the ONLY reason why you’ve had a second and third kick at our can is because you have something we want and no, its not sand, it’s oil, so we keep letting ya poke at us when we only allowed the Japanese just ONE try. Well, maybe this last poke is going to finally hit home despite our addiction to oil and we’re just gonna poke right back at you!

Just try and build this damn mosque…just try.

I’d venture to say that there’s not ONE naturally born North American that will let that freakish building stand any longer than it took you people to fall the World Trade Towers, blow to smithereens US Airways Flight 93 or to melt the rebar in the Pentagon on 9/11.

Try it. We’ll let ya. Just so we can watch your face when you fail…THIS time.

Always………….

2010-08-18T08:51:00.001-06:00

If you’re not laughing, you’re crying, man, right???

Have A Penny, Leave A Penny

2010-08-01T20:33:00.006-06:00

"You're a bully and a clown,
You made me cry and put me down,
After all that I've been through,
You'd think i'd hate the sight of you..."

Dresden Dolls
The Jeep Song

There is nothing more disconcerting than the realization that you get ripped off on a regular basis.

First of all, lemme just say that the whole vending machine industry is a scam. They ply their trade and poison to the masses who are worked so ragged that they forget to eat,...and their mere presence in the workplace is nothing short of being an oasis in a desert to the common joe.

I have made various empty pledges to myself not to take advantage of their tempting and tasty treats....bein' fully aware that I don't even LIKE what they have to offer. I actually began a serious regimen in which I made a concerted effort to bring, in my little backpack, cottage cheese and tomatoes, bread and cheese and other earthy hippy,...umm,...things to eat.

In any event, back to the vending machine scam,...

I had made the somewhat disastrous decision to purchase a Hostess Lemon Pie last Friday night. Not the end of the world for my girlish figure, right?

I can have a lemon pie every now and again.

I pay one dollar for a lemon pie that was purchased from the close out store down on Harvard. The reason I know it is from the close out store is because the top of the package is denoted with a black magic marker strike. This means that this particular pie has seen it's day and the next step, if it wasn't sold to the vending machine company, was the trash.

The black mark says they bought it for 17 cents.

I agree to pay the mark-up price of a buck.

I slid my dollar into the dollar slider catchy thing and rotate the carousel to the enticing lemon pie.

The door negated to open when I slid it back. The digital readout flashed that the door was, indeed, open.

I just got ripped off.

There is nothing more infuriating than when this sort of hi-jinks plays out. I actually see red because the vending machine company, in it's quest to attain my hard-earned farthings, can't even demonstrate the aplomb to keep their pre-Vietnam War era machines in proper working order.

After I calm down from this,...ugly turn of events, I go and find a pice of scrap paper, and was about to write my name on it, when I see, out of the corner of my eye, an envelope from the vending machine company in which the front was emblazoned with strict instructions that the form be filled out, in it's entirety, or they will not grant a refund.

I dutifully scratched out all the pertinent information.

I then, to underscore my anger, filled out the remaing white area with the following:

Mother's maiden name
Dog's name
Soc Sec Num
Birthday

(All lies, of course)

I then wrote the following:

You now have the advantage. You have the money and the pie. Release the pie and this outrage will be forgotten. You have compromised our agreement. This is no longer about the money.

I wait with baited breath as to whether or not I will receive a response.

I then went over to the other machine and decided that I would purchase a small bag of "Famous Amos" chocolate chip cookies,...so as to assuage my sweet-tooth.

I got my bag and tore into it.

It wasn't twenty minutes later that I realized that I needed more.

I went and got another bag.

This, too, is a scam of the worst degree.

Do you realize that the cookies in the vending machine have a denser chocolate factor than those in the boxes at the store?

It's true. They have more sugar and chocolate than the cookies in the boxes at your neighborhood Wal-Mart.

I can't stand these people. They should be ashamed of themselves.

All I can say is Helter Skelter is comin' down fast for these people. They better get ready because the judgement day is at hand.

It's comin' down fast, man.

Anyway,....

It Was A Different World…

2010-07-29T20:56:00.001-06:00

…wasn’t it?…………

Dedicated to the…Irish in us all…maybe more for one than the rest (wink, wink!)…

“White Swan” Love Affairs…The Celebrated Kind…

2010-07-26T21:08:00.001-06:00

Some of us are born to be “white swans”.

We mate for life, and when that particular partner is gone, although we may love again, we are never really ever the same, our white downy feathers just not as happily plump.

Some are and some aren’t. This is a post about eight, who were…

Liz & Dick

There were many I could have chosen on whom to write. But for me, and because of their stormy on-again, off-again 60s and 70s passionate love affair, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have to be at the head of the pond.

If you notice any similarity in intensely passionate couples, it must be how very similar they are as soul mates. Basically the female and male counter-part of each other. As if to find oneself again, by merely looking into a mirror. Liz and Dick were each other’s mirror.

Tempestuous, fiery, moody, addictive, obsessed, perfectionists, gloriously beautiful and horrendously damaging.

Their fights were legendary. if only to be a drunken fly on their walls! And their bickering knew no global bounds. From California to England, from Wales to Mexico, these two you only hoped had as intense love-making sessions afterwards as their fighting sessions were before.

Vicious tongues on the pair of them, we’re led to believe. The movie “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” a piece of artful fiction…but who could have played in it any better?

Oh, and by the way, IF you’ve been living under a rock, inside a cave, and have NOT seen this movie, rent it, grab a tumbler of hard booze, sit down and hold on, you will NOT forget the ride!

Theirs, of course, like so many tumultuous affairs, usually do end in divorce, and for them, more than one reconciliation and split were needed, not so that torture could wield its ugly head, just because neither ever stopped loving the other, the final split saddened them both, saddened Richard ‘til the day he died, but was a reality they both knew had to be, if either one would have any emotional peace.

Stephanie & Bill

This attachment may not be as well known to most, but its intensity never diminished because of it.

Stephanie Powers and William Holden…quite an unlikely pair.

No one could deny what Bill saw in her, at least visually, for Stephanie was, and is, most definitely, a classic beauty.

But, I think, it was her gutsy personality and raw laughter that may have held Bill’s grasp upon her longer.

For her, in him, there was a quiet kind of inner strength, marred only by his weakness for alcohol, a monkey on his back that led him to an early grave and for her, to an early life of loneliness, without him.

They travelled the world, primarily Africa, went on safari after safari and through them, raised funds to protect the wildlife they so both dearly cherished.

Their affair was never consummated into marriage and their trials never publicly aired but I do believe there were many trials and tribulations as the effects of alcoholism wore down and then eroded all the good Bill had so offered to her personally, and, of course, to us, publicly, through his great acting talent.

The movie-going world did lose a great actor when Bill died, and Stephanie, the love of her life. Others have sought her since and she would begin a whole entirely new romantic life. But we all know she remains a virtual widow in her heart, even to this day.

Hepburn & Tracy

Much more well known, for the good and the bad that it caused.

Spencer was already married, and a devoted Catholic to boot. And, back in the day, a Catholic marriage may never have been any more perfect but damn if it wasn’t more fiercely permanent, to most.

Katharine had been wooed by the best. Howard Hughes springs to mind. She dallied with his advances but never really took them, or others, very seriously. Hell, she was a strong, independent woman in her own right, the affections of a man were nice, but not needed.

Then came Tracy. Irish. Strong. Stronger than her.

She was a kid compared to him and at the first, I do believe that was how he looked upon and treated her. No drooling affections for her, from him, no, not this time. This life-long love affair could have started out as an enjoyable challenge to her, but the last laugh was on herself, because she fell, forever, Irish Catholic hook, line and sinker.

Their courtship was publicly scorned in those days. Hepburn became looked upon as a Home Wrecker. Tracy asked for a divorce, eventually. None was in the offing. They would stay together, unwed, sinful, in some eyes, an affair that was natural and beautiful, but an affair nonetheless.

There was alcoholic problems with Spencer too. Talk of belligerent rants, possibly Katharine being hit on occasion. She kept stoic and kept being kept. He felt awful, deep down inside, never voicing his feelings publicly, one way or another, possibly never revealing even his weak side, to her. But loved her for staying with him, right up until the end.

After his death, she publicly spoke little of the man but even at the mention of his name, you could see, washing over her, a feminine weakness that the world rarely saw from her any other way.

“E” & Ann

No alcoholic forays. No public scandals, per se. No lengthy time attached either, but white hot when it “was”.

Ann-Margaret was touted as the “Female Elvis Presley”. If this motto was made before they met, it was divine deliverance just the same.

Purely physical, sexual, to begin with. Even in their first meeting, in preparation for the silly little B-rated movie, “Viva Las Vegas”, it was said the room was filled with electricity.

If Pricilla had been in his mind before they met that day, doubtful if she was thought about much after.

He in his signature black slacks with no underwear. Her in an A-line skirt. His “Mafia” were there and possibly agents for her but the room could have been empty for all they cared.

The filming must have been a sight to behold, for the movie itself, we all forget the silly little plot, but never do we miss the hold they had on each other on that Big Silver Screen.

She introduced her family to him. He even had her meet his relatives and friends. They would ride motorcycles together (hers specially designed by Steve McQueen, with the world’s first push-button engine start, because she was just too tiny to use a kick start) and be together in E’s Hollywood home when JFK’s assassination came on the TV one fine November day.

When Priscilla wasn’t there, Ann would visit Graceland. It was only Priscilla’s well documented fight with E that brought the whole house of cards falling down, that, and the Hollywood gossips mags touting an eminent marriage. E didn’t liked to be forced into anything, with any woman.

They would soon split but never quite completely. She would see his Vegas shows or visit him in his suite afterwards. He would send her, like clockwork, a guitar-shaped floral arrangement for her opening Vegas gigs. The last to come a day after Elvis died, no one thinking to stop the order.

Many, many years later, Ann-Margaret was interviewed on The Charlie Rose Show, and revealed more than before, her feelings toward The Man That Got Away…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If there is one over-riding thread through all of these affairs of the heart, it is the magnetic pull these people had on each other, that even time or circumstances never seemed to erase.

We are not all “white swans” and maybe that’s a good thing.

Because if you happen to be, and you per chance find your match, your life, although bursting with atomic passion, will be leaking eventually with abysmal pain.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head…

2010-07-17T22:50:00.001-06:00

LeBron Who?

2010-07-09T11:02:00.014-06:00

"I'm the king of the highway...."

T-Rex
Rip-Off

I’m from Cleveland. I was born and raised here. If there is one thing to be garnered from that fact, it’s that we are used to disappointments.

I am not a sports fan for that reason. I have watched the Browns fall to the Pittsburgh Steelers too many times not to become jaded in the belief that things will ever get better. We have watched Art Modell move his team to Baltimore. We have watched the Indians in their pathetic last minute blown clinches.

And now we have to endure this.

I don’t fault LeBron James for going his own way. I just don’t appreciate the way he did it. There was just always something to be proud of these past seven years. It was a little thing, granted, but it was a thing that Cleveland could actually wrap their arms around. The fact that we had someone as graceful as LeBron wearing a Cavs jersey,…well,..it didn’t make living here all that bad,...if only for a moment.

It could be said that we are boo-hooing our lost fortunes.

Trust me,…take it from a Clevelander. It’s more than that. This was a town that embraced him and for him to go on national TV and humiliate us, well, it just leaves a real sour taste in our mouths.

It's not that you did it. It's the way you did it.

Let it be known that us Clevelanders now say good riddance.

I mean, it’s not our fault that your teammate was doin’ yo’ mama. Blame her. Comin’ from Northeast Ohio, you should know that this kinda dysfunction is integral to our very existence. This is what we do here.

Be that as it may. You slapped us in the face. This type of petulance will not soon be forgotten. We will never forget. You are a spoiled, self-centered outrage, sir.

The fact that your mural that now has to be guarded is demonstrative of the way we feel. I’m just surprised that it wasn’t painted over by 9:45 last night. Considering the way you did us, I’m sure Dan Gilbert will have paint crews scrambling to do the job for free.

I, for one, shall not look back. The graceful shots that you made will be deleted from my ipod. The number 23 is now revolting to me.

I can’t say that I wish you well in South Beach…but just remember this. South Beach is full of refined pussy...and I really do hope all that great pussy is your downfall.

I really do hope all that great pussy bites you back.

We are all witnesses,...to what a complete douchebag you really are.

Fuck You, Lebron.

Fuck You.

I shall waste no more breath upon you, you spoiled piece of shit.

(Only two famous people came out of Bath, Ohio. LeBron James and Jeffrey Dahmer. Right now they are running neck in neck in popularity....with Dahmer getting the edge.)

One more thing, LeBron,...

Fuck You.

Anyway,…

Hopper, Choppers and Fodder…For MsBurb…

2010-07-06T13:55:00.001-06:00

I guess all humans go through these mental growth spurts but it is strange that what I once thought of as scary or edgy is just plain quaint or romantic to me now…

Hey, I'm human like the rest of you, you know…

In the 70s, my family had a beach resort and our manager/caretaker was a former biker (Yeah, I know, long and freaky story!). In his trailer at the end of our property, I used to see many a magazine called Easyriders. It was a man’s man biker mag that usually featured a pretty broad on the front cover.

One issue in particular stuck in my mind because this one had a topless biker chick holding on to a biker as they both road down the highway…(okay B3ers, calm down, this ain’t getting X-rated here!).

This one spoke to me Big Time because a) I never KNEW girls actually DID this! (Hey, give me a break, I was young, okay!); and b) This “lifestyle” awareness just confirmed how utterly afraid and how utterly attracted I was to alternative lifestyles…and that feeling never really left me, only my FEAR preventing me from ever becoming the NEXT bare-breasted chick on the cover of an Easyriders mag!

From thereon out, I made it a secret ambition to watch/read anything with an edge, so that even though I was too chicken to ever be the next Easyriders chick, I could at least live it vicariously through what I saw and felt. And what easier way for a country girl like me to do this than to watch Hollywood movies from the ‘60s and ‘70s, right?

Because of my age, what was considered a “re-run” in the early 70s was a first-time cultural experience for me…that most things that were of the 60s were experienced for me in the 70s, having by then a mature enough mind to absorb and remember what it was I was actually seeing…

And so, to that end, many of my first forays into the edgier side of Life came through the so-called “Hippie” movies of the 60s. They were a cinematic and cultural adventure for me.

And one remarkable enough to remain in my mind ‘til now, not for its cinematic excellence but for the message I knew it conveyed, was simply the one that so accurately depicted, to me, what I had seen play out as the real thing, in California, back in the day.

No introduction is needed if you’re a Baby-boomer…and if you aren’t, then STOP reading this post because it’ll be a waste of your time…

If there ever was a movie that epitomized everything I feared and fantasized about, this movie was it!

And even in my youth, it seemed all the more plausible a scenario because Hank Fonda’s little boy was in it, giving us “normal” kids hope that living on the edge could really become a reality…if we weren’t so damn chicken about it, that is…

This movie had it all…unwashed ruffians, bitchin’ bikes, California desert, smoked-filled conversations about Life and a breath-taking moment of death…yep, except for the missin’ bare-breasted broads, it had it ALL, Man!

And at the centre of all this debauchery was a little rather unknown man at the time, one Mr. Dennis Hopper.

If there ever was a man who epitomized everything good and decent people FEARED, it had to be Hopper! Let’s face it, as far as I was concerned, he could have been as “bad” as the law would NOT allow, just had not got CAUGHT for it yet!

Handle-bar moustache, tough-looking with a tougher attitude, a rep that said he had been there, done that, and SHOT the goddamned T-Shirt already!

Yep…

Bone-chillingly scary…and DAMN attractive!

This dude did NOT wear a tie nor use Bryl-cream like my Dad, I’ll tell ya!

Nope, and on top of it all, even through the marijuana denizens of discussion had all throughout the movie, Dennis seemed to have had the answers to EVERYTHING back then…yeah, I know…I TOLD YA I was young!

But even if you go back today, with an adult’s ability to assess, was he ever that very far away from the truth?

And setting that aside, how in the Hell did Peter F. get to be such a bad-ass anyhoo???

No wonder Papa Fonda practically disowned the little dude there for a while…!

Nope, Easy Rider was, for me, the epitome of everything bad - and alluring - that I had seen for my very eyes in the late 60s in CA, despite knowledge to the contrary that going to the extremes in this realm could get you a ticket to Spahn Ranch and a date with Charles Manson!

And yet, despite what might have been arrogantly assumed otherwise, the years DID go by, and Dennis Hopper did one bad-ass movie after another, never quite achieving the same stellar performance as was his Zenith in Easy Rider. It’s not his fault really, what do you do for an encore AFTER you’ve scaled Mount Everest, right?

But we all knew he was still there, still being a bad-ass even in real life, and, of course, we secretly cheered him on for it, knowing full well that as we slept in our own middle-class, suburban beds, SOMEBODY was, at least, living Life on the edge, even if we didn’t have the guts to do it on our own.

Then, somehow, without really noticing, we ALL got older and moments melted into decades and some forty years were tallied up, like so much burnt cigarette paper off of an antique roach. And in amongst everything, Mr. Hopper grew old, and then frail, and then died, when as a kid, I was damn SURE that if anyone could beat mortality, it would be him…

Especially when he seemed to be such a darn GOOD bad-ass in the real world!

Married, divorced, married, divorced, married, divorced…are you gettin’ the gist ‘cause I’m gettin’ dizzy here…!

Got into and created fights were there weren't any before. Made enemies out of people who dearly wanted to be his friend. Held on and didn’t die so that he could piss off his latest gold-digger, I mean “wife” for that much longer!

He even managed to pull off an investment firm commercial some years back that told me if Dennis Hopper is talking about saving for retirement, boy, has the world ever gone to Hell in a hand-basket since ‘69!

This post isn’t an announcement of his death, or a real tribute to his life…it’s just me wondering where all those years went…and where the Hell one can purchase the latest copy of the Easyriders magazine…? Can you BE 46 and still go topless, I wonder?

Goodbye Mr. Hopper…and thank-you…

for everything….

Way to go slick!

2010-06-10T13:01:00.001-06:00

I suggest he get a name change from Peno to Pendejo.

It would be more appropriate.

Suspect At Courthouse Robbed Cars, Police Say

MYFOXNY.COM - Connecticut police say a man who was at court to answer to criminal charges used a break in the hearing to break into several cars in front of the courthouse.

It happened at Rockville Superior Court. Rockville is east of Hartford.

Thomas Peno was at the court on larceny charges. Police say that during a break he went outside the court and started breaking into cars. He allegedly stole a GPS unit out of one car and apparently inadvertently tried to sell it back to the actual owner.

Judicial marshals at the court re-arrested Peno. He was being held on $25,000 bail.

It was Peno's 40th arrest.

My Lai…Will It Happen Again?

2010-06-10T11:18:00.001-06:00

Maybe it’s my age.

Maybe it’s because I was too young then to know what I know now.

Or maybe it’s just the times in which I find myself.

But more and more, my mind keeps wandering back to the Vietnam Years, when I try to make sense of the Middle Eastern two-front war we’ve got ourselves into now.

You know, not since WWII has North America fought in a campaign, in-country, that the enemy has had cultural similarities to our own. Despite the losses and the list of “horribles” associated with Hitler and his Final Solution, our fighting men then fought in streets and on land against an enemy whose basic cultural background and social customs were akin to ours.

And ever since WWII, we have not decisively won any war into which we have entered where that cultural similarity has not been present.

“…Know Your Enemy…” was a wisdom Sun Tzu sent down to future Generals in the 6th Century in his book “The Art of War”. And if it has ever been offered as mandatory reading to Cadets at West Point since then, those cadets that are now our modern-day Generals must have gone to the Indigo Book Store and read the Cliff Notes instead!…

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperilled in every single battle.

It is with this thought in my mind these days, that the question of whether or not we as a warring people have succeeded in accomplishing this task now, in Afghanistan and Iraq, when history has so clearly demonstrated that we did NOT accomplish said in Korea and Vietnam.

And ONE clear example of our failure to do so shines out above all the rest…

My Lai.

During one 1968 Tet Offensive in the south-central Vietnamese district of Son My, the village of My Lai was identified as an area of particular danger and VC infiltration, known to the grunts on the ground and the Generals in the war rooms as part of Pinkville,

an area of Vietnam seeing more American blood-shed than all others.

If you are a war history aficionado at all, I need NOT retell the details of that horrid little offensive, as you well know it stands out as one of the more colossal and embarrassing feats in the entire Vietnam campaign.

And because it was found out, politically, lower echelon heads had to roll to appease the American voters and the Washington High Mucky-Mucks, who wanted NOT to be seen as approving such an action, or allowing such an action to be swept under the Pentagon carpet as the collateral damages of war.

Never mind that the VC in that area had literally, incessantly tortured hundreds of American soldiers with utter barbarous booby traps and endless sniper attacks, but if you go out and obey your orders, and women, babies and the elderly are killed, YOU, not them, will have to be seen as the Devil.

No mention was made of the fact that these civilians, less the babies, of course, had regularly supported the VC in that area since the beginning of the war. Hardly a mention was made of the fact that information was given to the GIs before entering the area that ALL persons seen in that area were to be considered enemy combatants and therefore to be killed on site. Hardly a mention was made of the fact that the leaders of that offensive that day were told that ALL innocent civilians HAD been removed so all that would remain would be the enemy, plain and simple.

The grunts on the ground were given the order to shoot and kill ANYTHING that moved. Period.

Nope. The citizens of the US only saw the now infamous photos taken that day and the babies that were gunned down for no other reason than to be the children of Vietnamese mothers who HAD long ago supported the VC infiltration of their village.

Flash forward some 42 years and we have the same accusations bearing down on our American GIs again, in certain areas of Afghanistan and Iraq, where natives have been shot down, needlessly, it has been estimated, by some.

Maybe not to the same extent as My Lai, as yet. But the Middle East conflict has, in my opinion, only just begun.

If you take a soldier, put him in-country and do NOT teach him to properly know his enemy, massacres will inevitably be the outcome when the tide turns against a possible win and far greater loss of life to the GI occurs. Soldiers DO have their breaking points, and as yet, maybe our contemporary soldiers have yet to meet theirs, save for the Abu Ghraib debacle.

Maybe our armies today are better informed and more knowledgeable in how to avoid such wanton massacres… but I wonder…

Have we reached our breaking point with these 3rd world religious zealots as yet? The longer our troops are over there, the better the chances of seeing another My Lai, as I believe we know NOT our enemy any better in the Middle East than we ever did in Korea or Vietnam.

We have got ourselves in another war with people wholly unlike ourselves, in a two-front campaign that generals before us, and even Hitler found out, was the death-knell of any tactical success. If the Allied casualties mount to that of the Vietnam “police action”, and our GIs are pummelled day after day with similar bestial tactics, how long do we expect they can hold their own psychologically, and will we treat these fighting men as badly as we did the grunts on the ground at My Lai that day?

I shudder to have to find out, but the clock IS ticking and the body count, though we rarely get to see those bodies for ourselves, IS mounting…

Don’t be too surprised if March 16, 1968 becomes March 16, 2011 or 2012.

Paddy rice for thought…

How To Survive Inside a Horror Movie…

2010-05-19T00:21:00.001-06:00

You know, I never realized that a talent in this area could be useful…

I mean, anything CAN happen, right? And, by accident, you may find yourself thrust inside a horror movie…for real…stuff like this happens all the time…

Soooo, I took a quiz, you see, to see if I could survive…

Sigh…(blushing…)

Yes, B3ers…MsBurb, the Queen of literary Murder & Mayhem became the FIRST to die!

I didn’t mean to die right away…but you know how it goes…just because you write on murder doesn’t mean you’d survive one yourself, I guess…how FREAKIN’ embarrassing!

So, with that horrifyingly pathetic thought still lingering in my brain, I thought I should do my civic duty and give you, my good readers, the benefit of my vast experience in this vein…well, yes, my veins are now empty of blood thanks to that killer dude who got me…but even in death, MsBurb can still rage on in a blogging sort of way…

So without any further ado, I present to you my pointers on how to survive inside a horror movie…take notes, there WILL be a test at the end of this blog (okay, there won’t be a test but you may want to carry my pointers around in your back pocket from now on, you know, just in case…)…

Pointer No.#1

IF you find yourself in a house which begins to whisper in a very low, raspy voice, “GETTTTTTTT OWWWWWT!” – Do NOT debate the issue with the house, nor analyze why you’re now having a relationship with an inanimate object, just GETTTTTT OWWWWWT!

Pointer No.#2

IF you are a white female, with bleach-bottle blond hair and an extremely large set of knockers, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT find yourself in a horror movie whatsoever! NOTHING will save you. You WILL be the first to go! Your boobs WILL be exposed for all to see and then they will be covered in blood from your head being lobbed off cleanly by that machete the killer dude was carrying, silently, behind you…sigh…

Pointer No.#3

IF before you find yourself in a horror movie, a disembodied voice asks you if you’d like a weapon and offers you your preferred choice, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT respond by saying, “What weapon?” – I did this, and well, I’m DEAD now…do you see a pattern here?

Personally, IF you are a tree hugger, or a Canadian, or NOT a card-carrying N.R.A. American, you, like the bleach-bottle blond above, you just have no business being in a horror movie in the first place. Your Hippie Daisy-Chain, Kumbaya, Peace & Love ideals will get you “offed” right after the opening credits.

Pointer No.#4

IF, while you’re inside the horror movie, you begin to hear eerie music, something akin to this>>>

Don’t stand there and think to yourself, “How do they make those screeching sounds anyhoo? Isn’t that a base cello I hear? Damn, that musician is great with it ‘cause I KNOW it’s tough to learn to play the cello!”

Instead, run, don’t walk, to your nearest exit, and run away from and not towards the music’s origin. If the music is getting louder, you’re running the wrong way…

Do NOT scream when you hear this music as your yelps will drown it out, confusing you on its location and therefore make fleeing said that much more difficult, you know, as you run AWAY from it!

Oh, and by all means, do NOT wait for a pause in this music, because, well, the silence you’re about to hear may be permeated with your own death knell cries. Not to mention that all the blood gushing from your veins that the killer just popped open because you ran right TO him may make running a kind of slippery, slimy exercise in futility…

Pointer No.#5

IF others along side you have survived up to this point, it’s definitely a good idea to take them along for the fleeing portion of the movie. “Because you want to save them too, right MsBurb?” Well, you know, that was my first instinct, and, of course, it’s another reason why I’m talking to you now from my horror movie grave.

Nope.

You take them along with you as bait for this maniac, that if by chance he catches up with you idiots, all you’ll need to do is just trip the occasional petrified person beside ya, so he or she becomes the killer’s next “project”…better him than you, rrright?

Pointer No.#6

IF by chance you manage to lay into this dude with what you think is a fatal blow, there is a definite Do and Don’t Decorum to follow;

Don’t walk up to him and kick him to see if he can kick you back. You know most horror movie maniacs are like that pink bunny. Unless you laid into him with a nuclear bomb, assume the dude is still breathing.
If your weapon of choice was a handgun, Do empty the clip into his head and jump into your car and run over that head twice, just for good measure, or until you see his cranium crack and squish like so much Halloween pumpkin. Conservative as I am, yet in these situations, I believe there is never enough “over” in the word “overkill”.
Don’t walk up to his body to lift up his hood or mask. Yeah, I know, we all want to know if the “Butler did it” but it might just be the very last thing you’ll know for sure before you stop breathing.
Upon fleeing after the flailing, Don’t take your leave of this dude by stepping over his body to do so. Baaaad idea. I’ve never seen a stepped-over-killer stay stepped over for long, and quite frankly, you may need your legs to escape so having them chopped off with his machete as you have your back to him may be counter-productive.
Don’t drop your weapon after using it. Yeah, I know, you’re disgusted with yourself for killing a living being but you’ll get over the guilt real soon when he attempts an encore run at your jugular…and he will…you KNOW he will.
IF you’re a girl, Don’t start crying. I swear these horror movie killer dudes rejuvenate just from the scent of sissy-girlie tears alone. I think they’re like some sort of killer hormone accelerant for maniacs, not to mention they make running away through the dense forest, you KNOW you’ll eventually be in, pretty damn difficult to manoeuvre.
Do laugh an eerie, creepy laugh after you’ve annihilated him. Sure, it may not help you to survive in the end but it might make you feel more empowered as you run screaming for your Mommy.

And finally…

Pointer No.# Last

IF you think the movie has ended and you feel like you’ve survived, think again.

You KNOW horror movies, if they’re worth their weight in gold, don’t end until attempt number three. Soooo, keep running, keep your weapon locked and loaded and keep the tears at bay, at least until you see the production credits scroll up your body.

It ain’t over ‘til the Fat Lady sings, or dies, whichever…

Good Luck!

Dan Post #773

2010-05-13T08:58:00.012-06:00

"There he is,...above my head,
hanging by a little thread....

Creepy-crawly,...creepy-crawly...creepy, creepy....crawly, crawly"

The Who
Boris The Spider

I was setting up the 6417 at work the other day.

It's a big, ol' evil fixture that was made in the 40's or somethin'. It's .060 out of flat and .010 out of round. It's a new contract but an old job.

The part itself is nothing spectacular....but it is a money maker.

I got the thing up with the crane and then over the other fixture that was already there. I labored for about two hours getting the thing flat and restrained within .005. It took a lot of effort and muscle to get it in....but I finally did it and got a good first piece.

I loaded the machine up with parts,....and then went and got some Dorito's out of the vending machine and took a walk to the back door....while listening to the machine do that good burn thing it does when things finally go right.

I had Annie Lennox's "Bare" album on....and settled in for the quiet, downhill slide of the rest of the night.

I stood at the back door and looked out over the horizon to the North East Ohio skyline. It was just about to get dark and I couldn't help but notice what a nice night it was.

Across the back garage door we have a locked spider gate. It is there too for security....to keep the scrap poachers out of the building....but gives one the illusion of bein' locked in a cage or jail when you are on the inside of said gate.

The actual "normal" door is right next to it....but one can't help but get a confined feeling when looking out of this caged garage door.

I became drawn to the gate itself,....as I stood there with my nose about two inches from it.

There was a rather large spider in it,.... weavin' it's web.

I studied what he was doin',...while eatin' my Dorito's,....and couldn't help but become more and more fascinated as I watched this spider craft this web.

It was like watchin' a master knitter. It's legs were goin' every which way in a certain repetitive rhythm.

I do not know if he noticed me,....and if he did, I don't think he (or she) really cared that I was watching because it seemed that he needed to get this thing done due to the fact that he was probably pretty hungry.

He had made this prototype of a web and was putting the missing pieces in. It's like he made the outline and then busied himself with putting the frosting on it.

All lines symmetrical. All bars spaced evenly apart.

He worked swiftly and I could tell he took pride in his work because he would stop to fix things that weren't "just right".

A co-worker noticed that I was spending more time than usual at the back gate and came over to find out what was so interesting on a run-of-the-mill Wednesday night.

I pointed out the spider and he, too, was taken with it.

At about ten o'clock at night, he was finished....and I was wrapping up a pretty good run on my machine.

He sat in the very center of his web and was waitin' for somethin' to get stuck in it....so he could get dinner.

I finished up my work and went home,...hopin' the spider would have somethin' to eat by the time I was in my living room,....downing my own burger and fries.

The next day I went to work and walked over to the gate at about the same time I did the night before.

There he was.....only about a foot higher,....weaving another web with the same intensity he had shown the night before.

It dawned on me that the gate gets opened about 15 times durin' day shift,....due to forklifts and deliveries and whatnot,....and I had come to the conclusion that the web he had spun the night before was not long for this world,....so there he was,....doin' it again.

We were now gunnin' for him.

At lunch time, a wicked storm moved in. As I sat there eatin' my cheese and crackers, I wondered how the spider was faring through this intense gale that enveloped our plant.

I walked over and saw him hangin' on for dear life, as a cold, wet wind blew, and I noticed that what he had worked on all day was now gone.

I wanted to help him....but I knew that was impossible.....because helpin' him would mean touchin' him....and I wasn't about to do that.

I mean,....it's a spider, right?

I don't wanna touch no spider. I gave up with playin' with spiders when I got out of sixth grade.

I told him to get inside until this thing blew over. That's about all I was willin' to do.

Give wise counsel.

He finally got a foothold and pulled himself into the nook of the gate. I went back finished my cheese and crackers and Kool-aid.

Since what I was workin' on that night was a quick run, I didn't pay a whole lot attention to him the second night.

I was busy. He was busy.

At break, I went over and checked on him.

He was curled up, waiting for the gate to dry off.

I stood there watching him for a bit. Then the other guy came over and we watched him together.

It occurred to me that the company had recently installed cameras at all exit points.....and there was a camera directly behind us, mounted high upon the wall.

(They were put there because some smart ass, who no longer works there, decided he was gonna unload all the company's scrap and put the profits into his own pocket,....hence, the installation of cameras.)

It dawned on me that the company COULD be watchin' me standin' there....watchin' a spider.

The irony of it all was sobering.

They're watchin' me work....while I watch the spider work.

I couldn't help but notice the parallels.

I labor. They watch. He labors. I watch. I won't help him. They won't help me. I hope for the best. The spider hopes for the best. I bust my butt to have it all torn down at the end of the day. The spider busts his butt to have it all torn down at the end of the day. I work. The company watches. The spider works. I watch the spider. I eat. The spider eats. They watch. I watch. The spider watches me. I give wise counsel. The company thinks it gives wise counsel. I won't give the spider what he needs. The company won't give me what I need. The spider ignores me. I ignore the company.....ad infinitum.

I guess now the ending of the Who song makes more sense now....more than it would had I put it at the top of this post.

I can't help but come to the conclusion that we are destined for the same fate.

"He's come to a sticky end,
don't think he will ever mend.
Never more will he crawl 'round,
he's embedded in the ground".

Anyway,....

Warfare Dream Team…I Want’em All Back!

2010-05-06T01:23:00.001-06:00

Okay, maybe I’m just becoming one of those angry old coots you remember as a kid.

You know…

The old woman you knew down the street, that your Mom MADE you visit because this lady had view visitors, most probably because any conversation she had only centred around complaining about the Present while fawning over the Past, on events long since gone and on people long since passed.

Yeah, MsBurb may becoming that old crazy, but Hell if lately she hasn’t wondered what life would be like IF certain people were brought back to life, to handle what our contemporary leaders seem incapable of handling today.

When the US said they wanted the “tired and hungry, huddled masses” and when Canada proclaimed itself an “Humanitarian” nation, neither country, I imagine, ever envisioned 3rd world invaders who had no regard for our immigration laws or our cultural morays. That to cross our borders any way you can or to attempt to blow people up from a SUV car bomb in the middle of Times Square would be considered by natural-born North Americans socially acceptable at any time…sigh…

Hence, with the latest terrorist attack in New York and with all the political ruckus over illegal alien issue in Arizona, MsBurb’s mind wandered back to who she’d REALLY like to be leading our North American military and government these days…

Yep, this is HER Dream Team…and she wants’em all back!

We need

Harry S. Truman back as the US President!

“A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.”

“Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything.”

“Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skilful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.”

Anymore bullshit from Pakistan or Afghanistan and old Harry woulda dropped another

“Fat Boy” on them as fast as you could say “Shut the Hell up!”

Oh, and with Harry on our side, we wouldn’t be losing a wink of sleep wondering if that freakish dictator,

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had the wherewithal to create an atomic weapon, because old Harry woulda dropped one on him first!

We need

George S. Patton back too!

"Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom."

"I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!"

"There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change; it is, 'To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time."

Yeah, I know, his mouth and his ego were as big as all outdoors but no one could amass a tank assault like this hardened General could, so the border hassles we have with the Mexicans in the States and with the untold illegal aliens landing in Canada from the Middle East, would be an issue no more, ‘cause old George woulda strapped on his side arm once again and lined our borders with Sherman tanks instead of wimpy fences. Try crossin’ our borders now, you 3rd world freaks!

And we all know about his infamous leather glove slapping of that shell-shocked soldier in WWII. Maybe a little less talk from Obama and Hillary and a few more leather gloved slaps to the leaders in Mexico and the Middle East and we’d all be further ahead!

We need

Douglas MacArthur back too!

“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

“The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle: the roar of the crowd on the one side, and the voice of your conscience on the other.”

“You are remembered for the rules you break.”

Nobody could orchestrate an invasion like old Doug, corncob-pipe and all…

If we had him back as General, Iraq would never have had a chance to amass insurgents in the first place and that caveman bin Laden would have been bombed out of his hole years ago. When old Doug knew who his enemy was, he always kept his promise “to return” and get the rug-rat. Nothing was too outlandish or too offensive for old Doug in that quest, as he always viewed Life as an “Us” versus “Them” scenario. His confidence to get “His Man” was so over-inflated, I could see this old warrior postin’ signs up all over Pakistan and Afghanistan that would read,

Doug wouldn’t give a damn, as long as the message enraged his enemy enough to have him crawl out from inside his hole and be captured.

We need

Dwight D. Eisenhower back too!

“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.”

“It is far more important to be able to hit the target than it is to haggle over who makes a weapon or who pulls a trigger.”

“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”

The American Joint Chiefs of Staff need an organisational fire lit under their asses these days if they intend on winning the almost impossible feat of a two-front war with Iraq and Afghanistan. And who better to accomplish this feat than the man who envisioned, produced, and directed D-Day and Midway, defeating both the Nazis and the Japs in less time than it takes to build walls to keep the Mexicans out or to wax diplomatic to keep the Middle East extremists from blowing us up!

Yep, this old coot, MsBurb, wants those men back to teach today’s wishy-washy leaders what is not acceptable to North Americans on a national as well as global scale.

Hitler and Hirohito never listened to diplomacy. What makes you think the leaders of our marauding countries will listen any better?

Besides, all this “talk” is being drowned out by the stampede of terrorists and illegal aliens crossing our borders as we live and breathe…

An atomic bomb is initially loud and destructive but damn if it doesn’t bring decades of peace and security afterward, right Truman, George, Doug and Ike?!