I figured you all (what, Paul an Chris?) could use a shot of porn to start the week.

How was your holiday?

I’m sitting here thinking…I quit smoking yet again, and every other time I’ve sat and thought “Jesus I wish I could have a fucking cigarette” and looked up and I’m at the 7-11 pathetically buying a pack, not even really understanding how I got there. So I’m sitting here thinking, and I realize it’s coming on, the feeling, “Jesus, I wish I could have a fucking cigarette.” and part of me just snaps a little, and I say in my head “I wish smoking was fun still, but it’s not”. It’s no fun. It used to be fun, but now all I do is think “I’m going to get cancer and my kid will cry and she won’t have me when she needs me. My mom won’t have me when she needs me. My girlfriend and I won’t ever get married, or if we do I’ll be her dead husband and that much worse.” I think that and I still want a smoke. I think, “I won’t be happy or good or feel like anything other than a body smoking away like my poor grandmother did, smoking til she died on her couch.”

I’m sitting here thinking of my grandmother. My powerful, foolish, amazing grandmother, who kept me and my brother so safe and helped her disparate daughters and assloads of friends and family and acquaintances. She was so loved. She wasted away in the end. I remember hiding from her once, when I was little and we’d (me & my brother) stay there all the time because mom was working 60-hour weeks. I hid behind her couch, and fell asleep, and she was so frantic trying to find me. She worried about everything. I remember her trying to get me to eat liver…she cajoled and threatened and begged and bargained, thinking it would be good for us, because in her mind liver is good for you. I took a bite eventually, and stood up silently, walked my little 6-year-old ass to the trash and spat it out. Other kids would have gotten it upside the head but all I got was a laugh and an “I guess you won’t have any liver anymore, huh!” from my grandmother. She didn’t want to feel bad, or make others feel bad.

i’m sitting here thinking I wish I could be as loyal and strong and dedicated as my mom and my grandmother, and how I have to start right now. I have no choice in this: either I am who I think I am, or I’m not. This is not just a fight for my life…we all lose that eventually. It’s more important, in a larger view. It’s a fight for my identity, in the quiet places that are truly mine. And I will be who I am, who I think I am.

I’m sitting here thinking of my grandmother, and hoping I can be almost like her…I still miss her completely. I remember sitting in her living room, near the end, when she never got off the couch, and she would ask me to buy her smokes because my mom wouldn’t do it anymore. And we’d sit there and have a smoke. I felt all grown up at first, but a slow realization of what was happening grew. At that point she hardly got off her couch.

I don’t want to be there…I want to be almost like her. I want to be as strong and fierce as her, and loyal like her, and smart like her. That’s who I’m trying to be right now. That’s who I will be. That’s who I am.

Paul Krugman consistently brilliant. Here’s his explanation of health coverage by market forces vs. govnernment application. Market or corporate based solutions are not always the best solution. They do not always help the most people. Because we as a nation believe in social justice as well as free enterprise, state power must be vigorous. Period. And next time your libertarian friend says “But!” tell him to shut the fuck up already and go back to his fantasyland.

Weeedly widdley widdley widdley widdley widdley widdley waaaaah!
That’s called…I wanna rock your body, baby. Parantheses, til the break of dawn.

Don’t shop at Target. It sucks, I’m running out of places I can shop. I guess Target is saying, by dint of it’s actions, that women are less important than made-up rights.

I’m not going there anymore.

Like we needed to spend $30,000,000 on a special election so every single initiative would fail. Wouldn’t we have had the same result next friggin year when we did our normal election? Jesus. Fuck you Ahnold.

In case anyone was wondering, the men and women in power right now are abject liars, hypocrites, and ruthless, disgusting killers. They would chop off your grannie’s feet if it meant they got an extra nickel. I mean, literally, they wouldn’t care who died if it meant a .00001% increase in the bottom line.

The main thing the GOP has gotten away with is a myth that it is competent. Nothing could be further from the truth. The 5+ years of Bush, and the 15 or so of ascendant GOP legislators, has been nothing but failure after failure after failure, with one thing connecting them all…a willingness to blame ANYONE, ANYONE AT ALL (ref.: Grannie’s chopped-off feet, above) but themselves. Who can hear a rightwinger say “Well, it’s the liberal media bias!” and not laugh out loud? WHAT LIBERAL BIAS, you cocksucker? They control the executive, legislative, and judicial brankches. They appoint industry insiders to regualtory agencies to regulate the industries they work for. They lie unceasingly, without hesitation, and without remorse.

Here’s some things to remember…Katrina. Failure. Afghanistan. Failure. Iraq. Failure. North Korea. Failure. Protecting the middle class…total failure. Making the world safe. Failure. 9/11. Utter, abject, disgusting, tragic, FAILURE. Those 3000 people are dead because the Bush team did not do their jobs. Do not ever forget that. If you think it’s “just politics” I have fucking news for you…these scumfucks are killing people all over the world with their “just politics”. They’re killing our brave kids in the armed forces, and just plain children with white phosphorous in Fallujah, bombs in Basra. They are murderers.

This is the the Repugnant Age we live in. The most disgusting turds are floating to the top. Just try not to swallow any if you manage to tread water, and try not to get flushed away with ’em if we ever find that handle.

I feel like shit that I didn’t note this recent date’s passage, but here it is: on October 25th, 2002, a small plane carrying Senator Paul Wellstone, of Minnesota, his wife, and several close aides and friends, went down, killing all aboard.

Wellstone’s memorial was hijacked by rightwingers like noted pill-popper Rush Limbaugh, former animated corpse speechwriter Peggy Noonan, and utter fucking tampon-smear Sean Hannity as a rampant partisan event, using the harshest language, accusing the speakers at the near-impromptu event held in a 16,000-capacity arena and televised (20,000 people showed up) of trying to use a man’s death for political purposes. All of those pundits, of course, hadn’t watched it, or been there, because they’re lying fucking assholes. Hopefully they’ll one day have to look at themselves in the mirror and just break down.

Paul Wellstone lived his life to help others. Warning: the wiki entry there basically gives credence to every bullshit theory of Wellstone’s life, so take it with a little grain of salt. It does have lots of good links though. Including this one: Wellstone Action!

Go read it and figure it out yourself. The Insane Right in this country hated Wellstone because he wasn’t a tool of invisible racist fake god, or of corporate dollars. Funny how that works out isn’t it? Don’t, whatever you do, read anything about how many fucking Democrats have been killed in plane crashes…it might make you paranoid.

Charles, Marie, Garrett and yours trooly went to the Jumping Turtle to catch a show, a band called the Ergs, which rocked so hard I bought a CD, SNMNMNM, which had a tuba player, and the one and only mc chris, rapper fuckin extraoidinaire, who’s mug you may remember from last month. The show was part of the “Revenge of the Nerds Tour”, with dates available on the mc chris’ site.
We got in at about 530 in the evening, which was early, but we were bored. The Ergs were doing a soundcheck when we walked in, and the drummer was whacking one drum over and over again to get levels. There was a dude in a Packers jersey yelling at him “Shut it down! I put money in the jukebox to hear this song!” The drummer, hilariously, completely ignored him. James Brown was singing “I Feel Good” on the jukebox, and the drummer and bassist started a rousing rendition of it to placate the drunkard. It didn’t work, but it was hilarious. We were hoping Des could make it, but it didn’t happen til too late…she did get a special surprise, though.
The place is kind of a shithole, but not as bad as some joints. The sound got decent review from the front from Garrett, but a thumbs-down from Charles. Marie and I stayed out of the way in the 21 and up section. It’s all-ages til ten PM, and the show ended about ten til. Chris explained “because of the stupid fucking curfew”. I couldn’t really hear the vocals too well on the first two bands.
The Ergs are exceedingly skilled. They played at a frenetic, hopping, near-frenzy pace. The drummer was doing the majority of the singing, while the guitarist hopped around with everything from the classic scissor-step to the Angus Young duck-hoppy thing. The guitarist has a sizeable keister that was basically pointed right at me for the whole show, and he had plaid shorts on, so I may forever associate plaid with this band. I bought the CD afterwards, which gives you an idea of what I thought of this band. I’d see them again in a heartbeat.
SNMNMNM was a good, tight, pop band, with clever songs though I had a problem understanding what the lyrics were and that seems to be part of the band’s appeal. The tuba in place of a bass guitar was awesome, it’s a very expressive instrument. Overall I liked them, though I’d recommend a name that’s easier to pronounce. Apparently it’s the initials of all of the band members.
mcchris came on almost exactly at 9 and rocked for 50 minutes. He didn’t just rap, though, it was a standup comedy show too. As soon as he got near the stage people began crowding in close…I’d bet by the time he got on there were a couple hundred people in. He’s about 5′ even, standing on box, and pretty approachable. He had a Cubs hat and a Slayer shirt on, as well as an Adult Swim hoodie (ironic people were missing Adult Swim). At one point he thanked the WoW players for coming out of their bedrooms for the first time in six months, said “I was in Time magazine…FUCK TIME, I was in last month’s NINTENDO POWER!” He sucked on an inhaler all through the show, drank O’Douls, and air-humped the amplifier. He was funny, self-deprecating, and sly…for a small guy on a rather wide stage he filled it up nicely. He seemed to really enjoy entertaining, which always will get fed back to you from a crowd. He played Fett’s Vett to open, and again to close, did Cookiebreath, Hijack, White Kids Love Hip-hop, The Tussin, DQ Blizzard, and Fuckin’ Up My Christmas. There were two other songs I didn’t know. The crowd was loud and raucous and completely into the show, with nerds, hipsters and, well, me and my friends leaping around and spilling beer. From time to time I looked at Charles and we both had the same shitty grins on our faces…we’d both sung most all of these songs to our monitors so many times, it was bizarre hearing them live, and made us giddy idiots.
After the show we got signed shirts and hung around outside with the bands and various hangers-on, though the Ergs had taken off. A few people promised to email pictures because I’m too stupid to take my own. The mc came out and chatted while admirers shared some…medication (we are in California). I have to say, Chris was about as easy to chat with as you can imagine. He paid attention when you were talking, and was polite and friendly, which rules. He dropped a super-bomb, like the one where you knock out all the on-screen enemies, when Desi showed up…she’d missed the whole show, and came around back when she got there. Charles, who’d already bugged mc about fifty times prior to this, ran over and asked him to say Hi to Des, and instead he dropped a little freestyle rap on her (I think he was hitting on her a little, but that’s cool, it’s mc chris). She was a little flustered, but had a similar shit-eating grin to me and Charles and Marie. So that was cool.
I’m kind of amazed to say it, but October 30th 2005, at the Jumping fuckin Turtle of all places, was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I am still in a tizzy, and we have percolations of hauling ass up to Bakersfield, I’m not kidding, and catching tonight’s show. When the mc calls, you gotta go.

did anyone see that spot for the show “Trading Spouses” with the giant fatty losing her fucking mind in it? She yells, apparently in an attempt to get someone out of her house, that they’re “gorgals (gargyles?) and “slykicks” (psychics??). And don’t forget, she does it in the craziest fucking screeeeeeaming trailertrash voice of all time. Damn I wish baseball wasn’t on Fox…my life is permanently scarred by that thing. I’ll see if I can find anything online…wow, a google for “crazy trading spouses fat chick” scored right away. I claim no responsibility for anything else on that site.

I thought you’d all like it.

The radio hosts and TV talking heads may be furiously tut-tutting the black folks for their uppitiness, but let us not forget the actual factual fact of the matter: the majoirty of those in the path of Katrina were black, poor, and not Bush voters. Somehow, the lack of response from a Bush crony appointment in the face of a disaster his Bush fundraising didn’t prepare him for doesn’t seem so farfetched does it?

“Hell, no one will care what happens to a bunch of niggers too stupid to get out of the way”, sez George the Younger.

The dead have no voice but ours. Yours and mine. Talk loud.