It's Time to Go Underground

The Children's Crusade is over. All the genial, above-board grassroots activism of the past two years has failed utterly in removing the most rotten, corrupt, incompetent presidential administration in American history. We smiled, we met up, we went door-to-door and accomplished exactly nothing except to make the deep disappointment we feel today even more bitter. We made lasting friendships that are now a bond of shared misery.

We lost to a sociopathic pseudo-Christian pseudo-cowboy who pays lip service to the sanctity of frozen blastocysts while gleefully slaughtering dark foreigners guilty only of living over a sea of oil. We lost to a magic lantern show of terrorism that distracted us from the real issues of poverty, intolerance, economic recession, and compromised civil rights. We lost to an incestuous elite that owned the rigged video poker machines on which the votes were cast (and miscast). We lost to masters of innuendo and propaganda both overt and covert, from Fox News to those leafletting car windshields in church and Wal-Mart parking lots. We lost to ignorance, hubris, testosterone, fundamentalism, bigotry, corruption, misperception, indifference, imperfect empathy, and folly.

It is now obvious that our good intentions and honorable actions were not sufficient to counter these forces. Our shining morning faces and our pure hearts were no match for the creeping, poisonous things hiding in undisclosed locations. If we want our country, our government, and our democracy back, we will have to soil our hands and tarnish our souls a little. We will have to learn to fight filthy.

Does the other side distribute circulars at churches describing Kerry and Edwards as cohabiting sodomites? Then we must begin, now, printing up flyers describing Bush as a closet abortionist who sacrificed babies in Satanic rituals in Skull and Bones. If there is a note of verisimilitude in our accusations that appeals to the conspiracy theorist and paranoiac in every American, so much the better. There are TRUE things about Bush and Company that are more scandalous than anything they could make up about the other side. We must get in touch with our inner Karl Rove, and smear all Republican allies of Bush at every level of government--the nastier the implication, the better. We may feel the need to go to confession or to take twenty baths afterward, but I can see no other way of prevailing against evildoers except by turning their own weapons against them.

The other thing we must do is to get control of those infernal voting machines. If they can be rigged for evil, they can be rigged for good. Tech-savvy moles need to infiltrate Diebold and all the other companies now trafficking with Republicans, learn their odd ways and secret handshakes, and destroy the opposition from within.

These methods, and others like them, are not for the fastidious. (I don't even think they are for me, particularly.) But, short of another bloody American Revolution, they are the only ones that will work. If there is a fear that we become too much like our enemies by imitating them, remember that our cause is just. The eggs that we break in making this particular omelet need breaking before our society, our country and perhaps even our planet are irreparably broken.

Cheney, vice-kingpin of the Bush crime family, is proving quite the extortionist. "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again." Ya know, if you don't vote for me and my associate, a bad thing could happen. I'm not sayin' it will, but bad things have a way of happenin' if you don't do what's best for you. That other bad thing that happened--it could happen again. A vote for us is like insurance.

It's a bloody protection racket. The threat implicit in the above statement is: if we vote for Kerry, they will MAKE it happen. And, the near-unthinkable: if they could make it happen again, did they make it happen BEFORE?

I gag to think about it, but the indications are there. Before 9/11, Bush was a zilch; after the disaster, he was suddenly "Churchillian." He needed the image boost, and Americans were willing to give him all sorts of additional power. Suddenly, if you didn't "support your President," you were "with the terrorists." If there are monsters under the bed, you need your daddy, even if he is an alcoholic fuck-up. No wonder he regards America as a "10-year-old child." And HE'S the father? We need to be placed in foster care, pronto.

This is no conspiracy theory: the Bushes are ultra tight with the Saudi government--and people in the Saudi government were cutting checks to the hijackers. (And so we attacked IRAQ. Makes perfect sense to me.) Suddenly, a world-weariness suffuses me, and I yearn for an endless succession of cold malty beverages. Anything to make the hurting stop.

Better do like the man says if ya know what's good for ya.

Bush has more flip-flops than a beachwear distributor. Yesterday he said we can't win the so-called "War or Terror"--and today he asserts we can. Well, which is it? Since trying to scare the shit out of Americans is the major Republican strategy, assuring us that Osama has a nuke aimed directly at our house, this faltering could cost George a few votes. Isn't Bush the ONLY one who can save us from Osama, rampaging wedded gays, and rogue stem-cell researchers? No? Then maybe that French-looking guy with all the Ketchup money might be worth checking out.

Last night, John McCain called Michael Moore "disingenuous." Isn't it disingenuous to pretend to be a moderate and beat the drum for the right-wing-nuttiest president we've ever had? One CANNOT be a moderate and support Bush. It's that simple. There is no longer any such thing as a "moderate Republican." The "moderate Republican" of today is actually a moderate Democrat. Why get suckered into voting for The Little Man Who Wasn't There when you can vote for someone who WAS, Swifty-Boat Judases notwithstanding?

It would be piling it on too excessively for the Republicans to again use the Rooseveltian theme "Happy Days Are Here Again" for their National Convention in September. The Late Gipper could do so, if only to counter the deep clinical depression (and stoic sense of honor) of the Carter years. "Happy Days Are Here Again" was appropriate for that era because everyone was shutting their senses to grim reality and ingesting vast amounts of cocaine. Today it would just seem ironic, in light of our (ostensibly) chemical-and-sex-free administration.

No, the Republicans need to get back to their basic principles. For their new campaign song, I suggest an up-tempo country version of "Strange Fruit," played perhaps by the Charlie Daniels Band to the tune of "Cotton-Eyed Joe."

Ronstock '04 is almost over--only the cleanup remains. The Right Wing necrophiliacs (is there any other kind?) lined up by the tens of thousands to slobber over the shrivelled remains of the man who made us all feel so good about doing bad. Ronnie took us from the Brechtian reality of the Carter years to a fantasyland that Disney would have called
hallucinagenic. The Grover Norquist brigade wants to put the Great Confabulator on the ten dollar bill, chisel his Doodyesque likeness on Mt. Rushmore, and rename the Pentagon after him.

Sure, we should put his picture--on Food Stamps. We should sculpt his face on a mountain of surplus Federal cheese, to be left on the Mall in Washington to be licked by homeless veterans and feral dogs. We should put his name on something synonymous with his policies and philosophy--the Fresh Kills Landfill, Three Mile Island, or Death Valley. We should change the unfortunate expression "senior moment" (which I detest, for obvious reasons) to "pulling a Reagan."

But why build more monuments? The National Debt he spent us into will outlast the Pyramids. The bloodbaths of El Salvador and Beirut will long live in memory--of those who lived. His sensitivity to AIDS patients was monumental, in a negative way. And as sensible for foreign policy? "Arms for Hostages," "Star Wars: the Boondoggle," and (who could forget?) "I've just signed legislation outlawing Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Plus, he made us feel great about driving really big cars again.

Despite all, I am convinced that Reagan believed all the hooey he so winningly spouted. He lived and acted and died in a state of innocence. It's just that from the greatest innocence often emerges the greatest evil. The Old Man is at peace now--I only wish that we were.

P.S. to Sandra Day O'Connor--John Winthrop was NOT a Pilgrim--he was a PURITAN. The Puritans of those days HATED the Pilgrims. The problem with all the Puritans TODAY is that they THINK they're the Pilgrims!

At the risk of turning this into "Laser Surgery Blog," I must add that the laser treatment I have scheduled for Monday is on the eye that ISN'T hemorrhaging. No mistake--apparently, my eye doctor thinks the hemorrhaging will take care of itself, but wishes to correct an anomaly in the "good" eye. Pardon me for not being thrilled.

Life is a never-ending symphony of joy, I'll tell you! God, I've missed Blogger over the past few months, including the delight of having an entire post disappear without a trace. Now that I've had laser surgery in both eyes (and have to go back for more) and have watched my presidential candidate fall ignominiously to our bastard corporate media, I am ready to start pissing and moaning again after my sojourn among my books, my music, and my beer.

I managed to read all the delightful books of Carl Hiaasen before my left eye started hemorrhaging again. I found that I had been writing in a Hiaasenesque style without even trying--and sent his highly selective agent a query letter for my unfortunate doorstop. This may be hubris on my part, but so be it.

I am resigned to voting for Johnny Haircut. He doesn't seem so bad now, especially compared to J. Fred Bush. I'm not going to any Kerry meet-ups or otherwise campaigning for him, but he has my vote--he is the only alternative to four more disastrous years of GWB and cirrhosis of the liver for me. If Bush wins, I shall use my liver to smite Naderites, once it is hard enough.

Now that I am through with my laser treatments and other medical distractions, it is time for me to declare war on stupidity--in particular, the brand of idiocy exhibited by my middle-aged friends who seem actually immune to common sense. Susan and I have been handholding one such chum who, through extreme denseness, manages to sabotage every potential relationship that falls into his lap. He spent months pulling a Prince Hamlet number wondering whether he was attracted to one particular young girl (about half his age) and was on the point of declaring his interest in her last weekend. Unfortunately, he decided to invite a few other people over to his apartment at the same time, including one not very pleasant young woman who overstayed her welcome and forced her way into his bedroom as the real object of his affections lay asleep on the couch. This would not have been so bad if this interloper had not taken the contraceptive device they shared and placed it in the middle of the kitchen floor the next morning as a crude way of marking her territory. My big dumb friend tried to distract the girl of his preference with some clumsy situation comedy manoeuvers, but to no avail. She left in tears--and the big lug had HER drive the Trojan Horsewoman home. Susan and I were supposed to have dinner with the friend and this girl, but she was (obviously) not having any of it. I urged him to call the girl and say that something like, "We really need to talk." He called her and said, "Hey, come on over! Plenty of food! Chili! Chili! Beer! Beer!" So much for romance.

So, how do you fight stupidity that profound? Unless my friend manages to grow up and smarten up, he will just wind up as an increasingly lonely, weird old man. He's 43 now and already visiting neighboring planets, and I don't see him improving any time soon. (His apartment is crammed with his own surreal artwork consisting of glass eyes stuck on otherwise commonplace objects, which are arranged in disturbing juxtaposition. He makes Joseph Cornell look like Norman Rockwell.) I really don't have time for this horseshit, but I can't seem to look away. It's like a bloody train wreck--except that my friend doesn't seem to feel a thing.

My experience at St. Lizzie Borden's was not at all bad except for the 500 or so laser shots I received in my right eye. My regular eye doctor did the procedure, and since he knows what he's doing, I sailed through it, more or less. In fact, the doctor and his assisting nurse remarked on my "stoicism"--yeah, sure it was weird and painful, but I got most of my bitching out of the way before arriving at St. Lizzie's. It felt like someone was trying to shoot holes through the back of my head (via my cornea) with Flash Gordon's ray gun, or like having a tooth drilled (under novocaine) except it was my eye. Naw, I didn't complain. It's the British in me--stiff upper lip, and all that. (My inner Polack was screaming like a sonofabitch.) I felt woozy afterward, and still have the vestiges of a headache. And, just think--only two more sessions to go! Hot damn!

BUT, OH MY BROTHERS! What joy I have to relate, in contrast to this former item. I met the shipment of the elusive SARANAC PILSENER, and have FILLED MY PANTRY THEREWITH! That's right--there's PILSENER IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT! (And, Boy, do I need it now!) The Discount Beverage man having tipped me off in advance, I was able to swoop down and procure 11 cases--264 bottles--of the Golden Nectar for my personal delectation! At this writing, 11 more cases remain in stock--and we may buy more. But at this moment, I am in direct possession of more Saranac Pilsener than anyone else in the United States of America! I am the real, the only PILSENERMAN, able to drink long into the night with a single beverage! This time I mean it--HOT DAMN!

Impending doom is getting me down. Tomorrow I am scheduled for my first laser treatment at the "hospital" that botched my appendectomy 27 years ago. I can't tell you how distressed I am to have to step back into that filthy abattoir for ANY procedure. These are the sons-of-bitches that let my appendix rupture in my body over Christmas vacation--even helping the process along with an enema--in 1976. That was about as much fun as being gored by a bull. I stayed in a month and left with a huge disfiguring scar that embarrassed me so much I couldn't take off my pants in front of a woman until I was 26. We incurred a huge debt--my chickenshit father was afraid to sue the "hospital" for malpractice lest it interfere with his failed political aspirations--so we had to endure collection agencies calling at 11:00 at night until we finally went bankrupt. I have to go back to that butcher shop?

When Sue called the doctor to set up the surgery, the receptionist heard me swear when I heard where it was taking place, and was "terrorized." Please! I'M the one shitting my pants right now! I have to be there in less than five hours to check in for the treatment--and we just had our first major snowstorm of the season. So I have to go across town to St. Lizzie Borden's through six to eight inches of slop just to give those assassins another crack at me. Balls!!

According to the eye surgeon, I'm not going to have to throw away my books just yet. I am still going to need some laser treatments to clear up some of the new blood vessels that have grown in, but I'm not going blind any time soon. This is a great relief, certainly--I spent a week in real turmoil. Having more information, modern medical procedures, and (especially) health insurance at my disposal help considerably. Still, I was in such a state of emotional exhaustion when I got home after the appointment (and a nice dinner) that I sat in a chair immediately and fell asleep for three and a half hours.

For diabetics, the passing of time is palpable. There is no chance of complacency when you actually feel yourself falling apart, however gradually. I still don't have any time for horseshit, not in this life. None of us do.

Speaking of horseshit that one doesn't have time for, that sociopathic turd Rush Limbaugh was back spouting his hooey today. Out of the basest sort of curiousity I tuned in to the first hour of his marathon, and he at least spared everyone a Jimmy Swaggart-style meltdown--his "treatment" apparently consisted of amplifying his selfishness beyond endurance. (He intimated that he turned to opiates because he was too worried about what other people thought of him!) So much for the hope he might have discovered some humility while in rehab. His robotic listeners heaped praise and (unrequited) affection on him, blessing the Lord that Rush was back to save them from "liberals" like Hillary and Ted Kennedy. It was just the same old phony misdirection and bluster. Hillary is hardly a "liberal" and Rush is hardly a "conservative." The battle between "liberals" and "conservatives," Republicans and Democrats (DLC Democrats, at any rate), is little more than a jockeying for position among opportunists. It's as theatrical as Professional Wrestling--and just as fixed. The fun part is getting the hoi polloi to take it seriously--and that's what glorified disc jockeys like Rush are hired for. That he and his ilk are regarded as anything other than hack polemicists and vapid clowns is what is most disturbing about American politics. What surprised me most about Rush was that he didn't just IMPLODE once the drugs were out of his system. As far as egomaniacs go, he must be cast iron.

There's blood in my eye. Literally. When I was at the eye doctor last week, I started hemorrhaging in my right eye as I was being examined. I don't know if it was as a RESULT of being examined, but it happened there. I've had a nasty floater ever since. In four days I'm going in to see a laser surgeon to learn the extent of my problem and to ascertain whether there is anything that can be done to correct the situation. So much for the illusion of invulnerability. I've had Diabetes since 1974, and this is the first real inkling I've had that I'm deteriorating. Well, I've had a good run. I obviously don't have any more time for horseshit--nor do I have the patience for it. "Horseshit" is listening to my middle-aged friends talk about their cocks, and wondering if any of them will ever grow up enough to settle down and get married. One friend keeps chasing after some little 22-year-old slut who openly laughs at him, but gives him just enough tail to keep him interested. Another saves his pennies so he can go up to Canada a few times a year "where the hookers are really nice." I can't bear to hear about their pathetic adventures when I have a house full of books that I probably won't be able to read in a couple of years.

Tonight when I was getting a slow haircut, Susan ran to the Price Chopper to buy some cheese. While there, she happened to meet a former foster-child of ours who had grown to manhood; he was there with his girlfriend and her two little girls. Sounds cute, right? It ain't. This disgusting wretch was a multiple sexual abuser, a pathological liar and a textbook sociopath. When we lived in an apartment nearby, he drilled a hole in his bedroom wall into the bathroom so he could spy on us. He used to break into our bedroom and watch movies--whatever he could find that he though was salacious. And his history of taking advantage of young children (of both sexes) was sick-making. Sue, being true to her inability to think on her feet, didn't get "Larry's" girlfriend's name so we could locate her and warn her of his "little problem." I'm sure he isn't any better--the fact that the girl told Sue that "Larry is better with the girls than their own father" sent chills down my spine. I know I'm going to stay awake nights worrying about what that sick freak is going to do to those little girls. If I ever find he's done anything to harm those kids, I'll find him and make him wish he'd never been born.

I grow weary of politics and all things political. Politics is like eating old cigar butts. The shrill, polemical diatribes exchanged by both sides are tiresome; that I know one side is better than the other does not allay my impatience with either. Conservatives are supposed to be proponents of enlightened self-interest; our so-called "conservative" administration is not enlightened, and, if you look at the long view, hardly self-interested. Unless one is empathetic to others, rather than slamming down the portcullis and raising the drawbridge once a suitable hoard of goods have been obtained, one does nothing to encourage the open-handed civility which makes for gracious living in any society. The siege mentality (as practiced by so-called "conservatives") destroys society and ultimately most human relationships. "Democrat" and "Republican" are team logos, and have been co-opted by corporate forces far out of the hands of those of us sitting in the bleachers. Who could be a cheerleader for sociopathic capitalism? Who can root against his own best interest, and against the best interest of society at large? At present I'm pulling for the Democrats, particularly Howard Dean, with the faint hope that they are not as defiled as the side Now Controlling the Ball. Conservative and Liberal are meaningless epithets: who can we trust, at last, not to be an Asshole?

What is there to say that is truly astonishing? Rush is a pill freak and Arnold is going to be governor of California--real life is turning into an episode of The Simpsons. Forget about the "Death of Outrage" (that old thing trumpeted by Bill "Slot Monkey" Bennett)--what we are experiencing is the Death of the Surreal. If EVERYTHING is normal, what then? How will we know we are "out of whack" when we don't even know what "whack" entails?

I express outrage at people cutting keys off old typewriters to make tacky costume jewelry because that's the level of outrage I can deal with. Anything worse is too horrible to wrap my mind around, and so it flows over the dam, so to speak. Which is not to say that it doesn't register. It does, but I cannot express my reaction to it. If I started crying, I don't think I'd be able to stop. Every time I hear Ethel Waters's recording of "Travelling All Alone" it runs over me like a truck--it's schmaltz, but it kills me. Someday I'll hear it at just the wrong time and probably just explode.

Neo-Conservatives are the lowest form of life on this planet. Crafters are the second lowest. Both are dedicated to destroying the past for their own short-sighted amusement or monetary gain. Whether it be old growth forests, foreign civilizations, or antique typewriters--they destroy, and they destroy irrevocably.

Today was better, for some reason. I managed to repair the large-font Remington with steel epoxy putty, which gave me a great deal of satisfaction. Even before that--since Friday night, in fact--my prospects have been improving. I think my consumption of several beers triggered the upturn. They were Saranac Lights--not the lamented Pilseners--but they had to do. After those are gone, I am strongly considering not bringing any more Saranac products into the house. What would be the point? Pilsner Urquell is increasingly available, and it is the finest beer brewed anywhere. If I drink less, I can drink better. Much better.

THE MOST IRRITABLE MAN IN AMERICA, PART TWO

As if yesterday weren't lousy enough: the Saranac Brewery no longer sells the only domestic beer I truly delight in. They just stopped making Saranac Pilsener, just like that. The man at the discount beverage place said that he will getting a few cases in toward November, when the Pilsener makes a guest appearance in their Christmas sampler. But that's it--all gone. I am trying to think of a reason to keep living.

THE MOST IRRITABLE MAN IN AMERICA

Or so I would have to describe myself, at least today. In the mail was a broadly comic short story I sent out ages ago--I had forgotten it was still under consideration by anyone. (A slap from the past, from an editor who does not appreciate broadly comic stories.) Also was a BIG BOX that I had to chase down the mailman for--and which I did not have time to open since I had an appointment to go and get yelled at by my physician. It wasn't that I am now officially too fat to weigh in on the office scale--it was my goddamn blood sugar, and the fact that I couldn't be bothered to take decent care of myself. What with waiting in the office and the haranguing we didn't get away until about six, too late to get a table at any of the restarants that we would have preferred--I was already in a seriously foul mood. IHOP was okay, but coming home and opening the BIG BOX turned out to be the crowning disappointment--a large font (it types HUGE) Remington typewriter with a piece of the frame broken off in transit. I swore at Sue as she made all sorts of helpful suggestions and tried to console me. (I then remembered I had to fix the washer in the upstairs bathtub.) After two hours of sulking, I answered a forwarded joke email from my friend Alex with a bitter, uncalled-for diatribe. I then alternately screamed at and apologized to Sue. Right now I am listening to WQXR, trying to lower my blood pressure.

I know there are people in this world who have real problems such as the kid who is dying of leukemia at age 22 (the real reason for my doctor's outburst at me today, as it turns out)--but everyone is his own hell. I am thankful not to be bleeding in the street, but I just kind of wish at least one thing (the typewriter) would have gone right today. That would have made up for all else.