Friday, May 29, 2009

GRATITUDE

"My favorite thing is to go where I've never been." Diane Arbus,genius

aloha again, feeling a bit less miserable today.
saw an add on CNN this morning touting Sotomayor (sp?) for the Supremes. is this usual?

HAIRY PALMS?
had a bit of a scare yesterday morning, my Good Eye seemed covered with a dirty lacy overlay.was the visual honeymoon over already? after contemplating this a bit alone, i used Sherlockian deductive logic to determine that new so called Sterile eye drops were the culprit.once rinsed out my visIon soon returned to normal.WHEW!

MY BRILLIANT CAREER (sic)
years ago when Soul Mate and i lived in Bezerkeley, a white quad friend of ours wanted to join the Disability Commission, they had a vacancy-hers,we approached the staff of one of the City Councilman and was told a person of color,preferably black, was desired.about a week later, i kid you not, Soul Mate turned over in bed one morning and proclaimed "Wait a minute...you're black!"busted. so it began.
i have been down this week, {look at my last mid morning screed}, and SM requested i look at the things i was proud of... the birth of both my sons, meeting her,graduating SF State and bringing my mother west for a huge family reunion in LA and ah, something tangible.
if you're ever in Berkeley go to Dwight & Sacramento go look at the building on the SE corner then drive down to Alcratraz & Sacramento and look at the senior/disabled building on the SW corner with the clinic in the basement.i didn't build either of them but when there came time for critical matching funds from the city which would trigger greater matching funds from the Feds i championed them,i begged and bullied until they got built. i explained schematics,ADA compliance and community need then when the NIMBYs arose in full throttle protests i pointed out that i lived a mere block from Dwight & Sacto and shut them the hell up.sometimes i forget...

in other news,
Gov A*Hole wants to cut the pay rate of home care workers, the IHSS program, here in Santa Cruz the hourly rate would plummet from $11.50 to $8.oo. i am sure the Sacto Sickos think the lousy economy will provide enough warm bodies for us tottering sick old folks to survive.price of normal need things will not plummet accordingly.THIS SUCKS BIG TIME! where is the protest from the Dims,'da party of da sheeple'? not a bleat nor a whinny is heard. (disgust) also they plan to further Csh Rape cities and counties until the remaining thin Safety Net lays in bloody tatters state wide,Adult and Child Protective Services are the first things to go...and closing ALL state parks,ya gotta be kidding me!

i am very disorganized this week and can't find another crip website to give you. Google in DISABOOM for a virtual crip community, i am also a member.

namaste
semper grumpy
mega

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

CLASS WARFARE 2

"We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." Russian saying

aloha again,
in other news the new Supreme is allegedly a Type I diabetic.lets wait and see if that makes a differnce,Roberts and Alito have a history of dismantling the ADA drip by drip.

FOLLOW THE MONEY
yes Pagani,
the US Military has ever been the bloody mailed fist of US Commerce."from the shores of Tripoli" indeed, our military of the TIP OF THE SPEAR then discarded like trash. in the 60s my Texas cousin Toby joined the Army then got shot in the hip on a routine patrol in Korea.they loaded him to the eyeballs with painkillers then sent him home with a Section 8 discharge...discharge as in something spent then discarded.Toby was never the same after that,PTSD, his misguided patriotism earned him a Life in Hell.look at Gitmo and Abu Ghurab (sp?) and the "few bad apples" who took the fall. the usual suspects, the poor and working class. as we watch the unraveling of the middle class look who is buying up everything at fire sale prices THE ELITES ( just like in the First Great Depression).Bill Gates is the richest man on the planet but there are many private clubs who would not accept him.THE ELITES are the fierce sharks who are the old money inheritors of power. just try this,pick a national incident or 911 committee and follow the history of the usually white men involved. the same faces keep showing up.
i grew up in NYC,hopelessy corrupt and Mafia infested,follow the money, i lost what lil political innocence i had left when they killed JFK the day after my birthday.i did not love JFK or MLK intensely like my mother did but THEY F*CKING KILLED THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN BROAD DAYLIGHT THEN CRAMMED A G*DDAMN "MAGIC BULLET" LIE DOWN OUR THROATS!
i am still pissed at the Warren Commision and the nutbag label everyone earns to dares dispute this.if you like eating sh*t then accepted Ameerican History is perfect for you.Howard Zinn's A PEOPLES HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES is a good start towards finding the truth but its just a start.so is THE CHINESE OPIUM WARS,i forget the author.basically the Chinese were satisfied with their insular existence so the British West India Company introduced opium to China so they would have something to trade for silks etcetera, they addicted a nation on purpose.don't think the Chinese have forgotten this or other racist humiliations...we have have done this and worse.
focus focus.
THE ELITES love it when the factory jobs are outsourced and the working poor have no choice but to become cannon fodder for their various economic misadventures (see CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HITMAN).we are indoctrinated by propanganda to believe we are the product of a benovolent empire.we are swaddled in a star spangled flag of jingosims and failed hopes.we are fighting for FREEDOM of A,B or C as we invade and occupy,shock and awe,search and destroy or buy strategic bases for future oil pipelines .follow the money, the pundits estimate that we'd be paying $12 a gallon for gas (like European prices) if our Pentagon budget was halved.imagine that.follow the money,when they cut its never the cannon fodder outlets or useless but muy expensive military projects. example STAR WARS 'like hitting a bullet with a bullet'.

like the failed California budget and Gov. GOP Assh*le they will cut to the bone human services and kick the poor to the curb while preserving yacht tax exemptions and offshore tax shelters; follow the money ( i feel like sh*t)
follow the money.THE ELITES own whoever runs for national and often local office and they are heartless.ELIOT SPITZER tangled with Wall Street and tried to warn the country about what as going on so they caught him with his pants down, that does not make him wrong merely human and fallible like the rest of us.the GOP is the naked face of capitalism, who benefits from TAX CUTS & THE DEATH TAX??? follow the money,people from the JFK assaination ooze to the top like Jerry Ford and Arlen Spector and others i forget at the moment.follow the money,the Truth peeps out then is squashed,mangled or deliberately misinterpreted.we are ROME REBORN,we are not TOO BIG TO FAIL. we are rotten to the core, we cosume then desert our soldiers like spring wheat. i have met dozens,perhaps hundreds of homeless and severely disturbed vets over my lifetime. there are still Vietnam vers sleeping in the gutter,i invite them to scoot over and make room for Gulf War and Iraq/Afghanistan vets to come.

Thomas Jefferson once said something about loving his country but trembling that God is just.(it is nearly five ayem and i don't have the energy to search thru my quotes books to find it,turst me on this). whale oil,crude oil,woods, fruits,cocaine,heroin etc etc etc FOLLOW THE MONEY! the economy is a castle/fortress built on sand and the tide is coming in.

"When the tide goes out,you can see who is swimming naked."
Warren Buffet on the economy.
we are all swimming naked...with sharks circling,sizing us up for the next wars.
we are brainwashed, we are dipped in a mixture of God and Country and sexism and racism and a killing joke of equality.

i love my country but with eyes wide open.
we are hopelessly violent, our entertainment is bread and circuses.my children are addicted to hyperviolent video games and have electronic dreams of Glory.TERMINATOR SALVATION-is there a bloodless salvation somewhere that doesn't involve an empire armed to the teeth,with enough nukes to kill the whole planet @17 times over? think of the money wasted on bombs & nukes, we could build a house for america and offer free edcuation to all who want it. there is always money for war but never a Peace Dividend.

i am tired,in high pain,cranky as hell and still pissed as i watch the horror that our country has become or perhaps always was.PROP 8 takes human rights away from gays, what if they decide fat black gimps are next or everyone on disability? this is a HORRIBBLE LEGAL PRECEDENT. so called Native Americans are owed Billions,yes BILLIONS skimmed off by Indian Affairs and the Dept of Interior since the trail of broken treaties began.THE ELITES have gotten rich off keeping threadbare deprived reservations two centuries behind. i went to a res in Mencocino County,(where there are many), and found that casinos bareley keep them afloat as poor whites gambled away their own meager stipends for a slim chance at wealth. in Mencocino county kids aspire to the military or fast food jobs (when not gay bashing or flag waving), there is nothing else since the sawmills closed (except growing pot,pilfering firewood and exotic mushrooms).
WE ARE SHEEPLE we get sheared then slaughtered,follow the money.the myth of a classless society is BS, once and awhile an Obama or Sotomayor (sp?) is let thru then co opted, just to give the illusion of equal access, but it is the George W. Bushes of the world, and his ilk,who rule. Kerry Vs Bush, two Bonesman agree to have a battle.Gore Vs Bush, stolen without a struggle.
democracy?? or coup?all this in my lifetime,i used to sleep under the flag from my Dad's coffin until it fell apart. i consider myself a patriot.
it is to cry...

take a seat and watch our empire crumble,enjoy the spectacle.
follow the money.

find your True Love and cuddle.SIGH

Single Payer Now???

namaste
semper grumpy
mega

Monday, May 25, 2009

TEJAS

"Go west until ya smell sh*t-that's Oklahoma then go south until ya step in it,thar's Texas!" old but accurate joke

aloha again (to my dead friend Tom from Hawaii)

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT TEXAS
cowboy boots & hats,pecan prealines,horseback riding,rainbow trout at Luby's cafeteria,some of my many relatives and many beautiful but under educated women.
WHAT I HATED ABOUT TEXAS
everything else!

1964
i graduated from HS at 16,got expelled from College,had a minor nervous breakdown and my ex brother was born to my Mother and her second husband, a vile lowlife which she soon divorced.my Mother had an unerring instinct for picking the wrong man for the job. my ex brother was her favorite,i was not.i applied for a job at the Harlem Hospital Morgue but didn't get it because i was too young, 17 at that point.my Mother decided,with her sister's encouragment to move back to Texas,so we did.
1965
shortly after arriving Mother remembered why she'd left before.she was unhappy,she was usually unhappy. she found a married man to dally with,he said he was single of course,and they had good sex while he broke her heart.after two years she went back to her seedy ex con husband in NYC and divorced him.i went to junior college and got a job at Joske's dept store next to the Alamo downtown.
Texas is a RIGHT TO WORK state (non union,Right To Starve) so when the min wage went up, my 40 hours went down accordingly.as the saying goes MY MAMA DIDN'T RAISE NO FOOLS.i gave notice in frustration and several people opined that i must be going West to California like everyone else, i had a female cousin in L.A. and confirmed that she had space on her couch and off i went.2 and a half years in Hell (Texas) & i was learning to keep my big mouth shut,belatedly.

namaste y'all
semper grumpy
mega

A BLACK GUY WHO ISN'T

"Time is the fire in which we burn." Delmore Schwarz

aloha again,
listening to the WINTER SOLDIER Hearings on Captial Hill, a Democracy Now MEMORIAL DAY SPECIAL.Congresswoman Barbara Lee accidentally let the truth slip out..'War in which atrocities are required..uh,committed.'
Kill for Peace???

somthing has been nagging at me,
other than a dream where my youngest son M mailed me a large box of sh*t. i was once referred to as A BLACK GUY WHO REALLY ISN'T BLACK.
what does that mean? any Texan or rabid racist would clearly see i was black.just because i don't use Ebonics nor do my children? okay okay, over the phone you cannot usually tell that i am black.IT'S NOT MY FAULT!
i used to stutter as a kid especially at my last grade school, the brand spanking new PS 197. reasons,probable-i thot faster than i spoke, side fx of home violence,rape-unreported and then my father died. when my fathr died my Mother got loads of emotional support but i got Zilch, not from friends and family nor from school. i was expected to MAN UP and grief alone. IT SUCKED!

rather than therapy or support i,and other stutterers, got SPEECH THERAPY.a very nice young black lady taught us basicially how to speak Proper English, i caught a lot of grief & punches for Speaking White,part of our therapy was speaking slowly & distinctly to the entire school as school assemblies. Yippee.public humilation a la carte...

so this ability cut me no slack until DE WITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL which was about 90% white.there i sounded exactly like everyone else, made it easier to fit in. okay okay, the Truth once again. i was given a choice of Two High Schools to attend. STUYVESANT a coed school for anemic listless eggeheads near Carengie Hall downtown or De Witt Clinton a rowdy all-boy school next to the Bronx Zoo.you can tell by my description why i would forgo the company of women for a site where i could stretch my wings manwise.

i did okay at Clinton until the SATS, i was told by the lazy school counselor NOT TO STUDY as "it's nothing you haven't already learned in school" LYING BASTARD! black kids,when taught Shakespeare, got only the comedies whereas white kids got only the dramas.guess which ones were on the SATS??? i learned a valuable lesson that day,don't trust school counselors! this has worked out well for me. anyway i got a second chance on the UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND Tests where i scored in the 99% percentile,yes it was That Easy,where i qualified for a lot of schools my Mother couldn't afford.i chose the most affordable,i thot, Shaw University in Raleigh,North Carolina,where my Dad was from.turns out my Mother had to cash out her insurance policy to pay even the food bill which the scholarship didn't cover plus SHAW U LIED about its facility,teachers & benefits.half the school had closed down years before but the recruiter 'forgot' to mention it.
i do not like being lied to, even today i will not tolerate it. so i began school with a chip on my shoulder. i was assigned no credits extra work with a study group, we had a 'choice' between researching Barry Goldwater or Violence in America.our group voted unamiously to study Violence but our group leader,the Dean's brother, told us that Goldwater won and we would be studying that.i declared this to be BULLSH*T and was sent to see the Dean.fresh from that i was required to write a 14 page essay, which i did from the viewpoint of a serial killer...i was Expelled and sent home.i had a way with words even then.(no mention of the bullet holes in the screens or punched out holes in the walls, none of them mine but the school counselor blamed all of us in the room.so be it)

in other news,
say a prayer or kind words for the dead & dying and the virutal death of the American Dream; massive foreclosures,massive unemployment,bank bailouts & AIG coddling,union card check & Single Payer Healthcare FAIL,Homeland Security,Patriot Act and wiretapping still in da hizzie.
Happy (?) Memorial Day.my Dad is buried in a military cemetary in Long Island,3000 plus miles away.SIGH.

namaste y'all
semper chubby
mega

Friday, May 22, 2009

NO JAM TODAY

"When you've them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow." LBJ

aloha again, i feel trashed this week.
wish i could blame it on drinking or hard living but i can't.

MALICE IN WONDERLAND
when Alice met the Red Queen she was informed that
THERE IS NO JAM TODAY.
YOU GET JAM YESTERDAY OR TOMORROW BUT NO JAM TODAY.
Alice replied that didn't make sense, since in really it meant you never got any jam...Exactly! this was the sensible attiude that lead to the resounding defeat of Governator Ar-Null and his phony baloney budget solutions.stealing from pre K young children and the mentally ill is not a solution.basing a budget on projected lottery revenues is not a solution and so on.
so Ar-Null,presto changeo,sez 'DA WILL OF DA SHEEPLE' want deeper cuts and no taxes EVER.WHAAAA.....???? in my spare time (sic) i am on three disability related advisory groups and i heard that the Sacto Sickos may make further cuts in Medi-Cal (Medicaid everywhere else) including pharmacy service, this will literally kill me so,enjoy it while you can.SIGH.

California is deep in the toilet,
it was preventalbe but like lemmings the spendthrift Sacto Sickos kept insisting there was no cliff in sight...then Reality raised it's hideous head.as usaulu education and health care will take the hardest hits
(if you haven't read Naomi Klein's THE SHOCK DOCTRINE please hustle out to your nearest bookstore or library and remedy this.it will explain everyhting,EVERYTHING!) this philosophy/policy is based on cold hearted market based (sic)MILTON FRIEDMAN-NOMICS beloved by the GOP,Ar-Null,Cheney & W. if you saw WALL STREET ( the movie) think of Gordon Gecko "Greed is Good!" as usual the inept Dims are bleating their condolences with promises of a new state constitution etc etc,we should all live so long :(

in other news,
go to http://www.goodguide.com/ to help lessen your carbon footprint on Mother Earth, i really gotta get out more and stop listening to so much news.it's depressing...
saw the New STAR TREK,loved it, as an absolute novice Soul Mate found it loud & confusing.still on the fence about seeing Terminator Salvation,any advice out there?

namaste y'all
semper gumby
mega

Saturday, May 16, 2009

BUILDING BETTER SLUMS

"I am a stone, I go where I am kicked." Chinese proverb

aloha again,
this is Off Topic-just a thot.

was watching CNN this morning where they showed the boy from Slumdog Millionaire has his hovel bulldozed without notice then they showed how 60 people,yes 60 inclding 20 young children lived to two cramped ramshackle rooms.
Christ thinks i, somebody should do something about that... THE LIGHTBULB GOES ON! here on the left coast we have thousands of abandoned steel shipping containers slowly rusting out. both the Senile and SF Chronicle have had articles where green architects have developed plans for converting them into housing.why not create jobs for americah workers converting these containers then create american shipping jobs taking them where needed???
so i send this idea to my Dims reps in DC and now i tell u guys.
just a thot.

in other news,
high 80s predicted the next three days here in 'Paradise'.still haven't seen Star Trek but i will..
i think this website is still good http://www.virtualhospice.ca/.

namaste
reckless eyeballin'
mega

Thursday, May 14, 2009

GLADIATOR HERMIT

"TRAIN HARD,FIGHT EASY." Marshall Suslov, the Red Army "Hero of Stalingrad" WWII

aloha again,
where were we?
Fredrick Douglass JHS,still in Harlem. they took the girls away.in the Gladiator School ghetto they took the female humanizng/socializing factor of girls away and put us in an all boy school. to compensate they made us were ties,everyday,ties. if u forgot your tie they gave you a brightly painted wooden cut out labeled TIE.
the school was old big & scary.
there were kids there on the 5th floor who would never graduate,too hard core dumb & thuggish, they had to stay until they were old enough to be legally released or join the Army. these guys were adult sized and played aggressive basketball all day in the outside courts.
the first day of school Theodore Hellinger,a chubby slum kid with a big mouth mocked our gym teacher Mr.Churchill. a short tough thuggish drunk ,we did not know he was the school Enforcer. "hey Mr.Church on the Hill." as Mr.C was walking by, without breaking stride Mr.C spun around and delivered a crushing blow to Hellinger's chest which sent him moaning to the floor. Zero Tolerence was in effect. for every minor infraction you got punished, not the Principals Office laddy NO. they,our mostly female teachers, had us roll up our pants legs to expose our bare calves then you held onto a desk,facing the class so they could see you whimper and mock you mercilessly, while she whacked you across the calves with the brass edge of a wooden ruler.( THIS IS SPARTA!) getting rapped across the knuckles was a normal penalty for not paying attention.

side note, my next door nabe in the ALP was a corrupt NYPD cop with a closet full of guns.he confirmed or answered many of my questions about life after my father died.yes several 'suicides' off the building roof were really murder but nobody cared.yes, if you took a bicycle spring and put it inside a rubber hose you could break bones without bruises and yes the huge thick NYC phone book made an excellent 'tenderizer' and yes u did not want to f*ck with the NYPD under any circumstances.at the YMCA up the street i got physical training from K.Leo Swanson who had been fired from the NYPD for Brutality,what exactly had he done? i never knew.
back to JHS,
somehow we got a spotty education.we were now tough enough to withstand most threats from thugs our age and often older.by then the Silver Age of comix had arrived and at a dime a comic i was in hog heaven. i was under House Arrest after some of my earlier exploits and since my mother worked until late at nite a nabe would call or come over to verify thaat i was actually at home.

i began relish solitude,
i had a radio for rock & roll and around JHS i got a small portable TV for almost everything else.when i was a child i drew on the wrapping paper from the Chinese laundry,then drawing tablets from Woolworth's (where everyone learned to shoplift,esp. girls & cosmetics) then i switched to typing paper.i am a self taught artist,i never read an art book until i got to SF in 1971.as i got older the leash was loosened and i could go to the local libraries on weekends.one was two blocks away and the other half a mile away, i walked to both and within years had exhausted their resources.(one of the benfits of living in NYC is the downtown iconic NY Public Library, i was thrilled to find that my flimsy library card from Harlem granted access to this holy of holies).

when i had lunch with my friend DOUG two days ago i told him how my mother had bought me a World Book Encyclopedia and i head read every page of every volume,i didn't know any better. they were books and u read books. when my Dad was alive and at home,usually banished by Mother for being "a weak alcoholic" (PTSD = battle fatigue), on Sunday we would get up early and walk to the news kiosks next to the subway exits on Lenox a long block away.we would purchase the Daily News,NY Post,NY Mirror,the Journal American,Herald Tribune and later the NY Times as my last grade school required us to submit reports on the NYT every Monday. then we would take our shopping bag to the Cushmans bakery for cupcakes or anything else that looked good before returning home to cook Mother breakfast in bed and start Sunday dinner. we would have my fave waffles then spread the papers all over the floor where i would try to copy the comix before reading what i could understand.( a trio of local thugs saw my routine in later years and assumed i was selling the papers to lazy Sunday nabes so the robbed me at knifepoint ONCE inside the claustrophobis elevator {it was working for a change} the second time i was in a less accomodating mood and i kicked two of their asses witn my martial arts training and i chased the leader until my lungs gave out.
my friend DOUG a warm devoted father semi normal white guy confessed that he had never been in a real fight. i regaled him with the time in the ALP i had to fight 6 or 7 guys after my buddy ran off, he later returned and they fled.the trick is keeping your back to the wall, take out the best fighter first then throw people in each others way until they tire then disable them.easy huh? each bldg of the ALP had its own thugs and they resented trespassing.)

anyway my Dad died and i was left with Sherlock Holmes & Batman as faithful father figures.Mother called me The Hermit (like on the Tarot Card) because even when i wasn't under House Arrest i preferrred to stay in my room with my books & drawing tools.soon i began to walk every Saturday from Harlem to Battery Park (near Wall Strret) a lil over five miles.i would walk to Battery Park and sometimes walk back to stop for trashy movies in Times Square (double and sometimes triple feature for next to nothing,free blowjobs available in the balcony).a block from the rotten heart of Times Square was 8th Avenue and the Port Authority Bus Terminal where failed thugs who'd become junkies sold their souls for cheap sex & a quick high.many of my younger nabes wound up there, some later made it home again.Mother delighted in writing me,once i fled to California to get away from her, how many of my thug cohort died in Nam or subsequently of acquired heroin habits. when i saw the mini Nam Wall with Korak in San Jose, i found that i knew most of my cohort only by nicknames and thus could not mourn properly DAMN.

okay, i think that's all for today.

in other news,
WWW.SINGLEPAYERACTION.ORG
do it now before we get 'fooled' again (The Who).

namaste
semper grumpy
mega

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

GLADIATOR SCHOOL

'WE,WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE,SALUTE YOU!" Gladiator pledge

aloha again,
was thinking about my mother for Mother's Day.

until the day she died my mother went shopping on weekends with a sharpened can opener or a can of caustic oven spray.let me explain..
i grew up in Harlem knowing nothing about its history.i grew up in the dead center of Harlem,135th & 5th avenue (the northern black ghetto park of the famous 5th avenue). they bulldozed about 12-16 blocks of the worst slums and built the upscale Riverton House for the black middle class across 135th from the working poor in the Abraham Lincoln Projects, there was a brass statue of Lincoln with a lil pickaninny child that i didn't understand until much later.

i was born in 1947 and lived in a slum near the famous Apollo Theater,, my first vague memory was attempting to pet a rat i thot was a cat...the ALP opened in 1948 and my family was among the first to move in. we lived on the twelfth floor of a 14 floor brick building (perfect for jumping).i do not think of myself as a Hard Man, i was among the more moderate of my generation.nevertheless i expected to kill a man and die before i was 21...we all did.

Gladiator School.
my building had two elevators, unlike the short 6 story buildings which only had one, every weekend the local thugs would disable one or more often both elevators.just to add a lil zest then they would break all the light bulbs in all the floors knowing no white maintenence people would come into the ghetto until Monday.then they would lay in wait...
point of information,
the local thugs trained in assault,robbery and rape in the Projects before graduating to richer white people in Central Park south of the ghetto (110th street) the cops job was to keep them caged up in Harlem,often as brutally as possible.
so imagine absolute & total darkness, straining your ears for the swish of a fist or bat for twelve nerve wracking flight,both ways-up & down every single weekend for years...while carrying groceries. PTSD ? poor black people invented it.until i got full sized (over six feet tall and @185 in 6th grade) i got routinely terrorized by bullies.in my second grade school,if you didn't have any lunch money to steal they took your pants and humilated you.i never lost my pants but i soiled myself more than once afraid to use the bathroom where thugs were smoking.
everybody carried a weapon. like the Viet Cong we made our own . ZIPGUNS were hand made and deadly,often the user would lose a hand if the wood or tape couldn't contain the force of a .22 shell.zipguns were like knives,only good for close up killing.under the wing of an older thug Charles Cain (yes that was really his name),i stole money from a teachers purse to buy the components of a zipgun so we could rob local stores,luckily we got caught before it went too far. i then went to my third and last grade school, i was in the fourth grade by then.i was not among the worst.
when NYC started the STOP & FRISK laws, where a cop could legally grab you,slam you up against a wall & go thru your pockets for weapons (something our schools did routinely) like the ancient Chinese we turned to marital arts. we literally became weapons,each of us chose a discipline,i chose hard style karate-self taught from books we found in the Bronx (a white Jewish enclave mostly).i got bigger,i got stronger, i got harder.i kicked a lot of bully ass! (spent a lot of time in the Principals office but it was worth it) i did not become a bully, it was not in my nature.i earned respect from the local thugs,which was something for a bookish comix devoted semi nerd like me.then i got raped,at knife point, in a summer day camp stairwell and never told anyone (until a dear friend of mine died of AIDS in SF), also about this time my Dad died...(thank u Pagani for the honesty of you own bio)

back to my point,
now you understand why my mother,a tough strong woman who never moved, carried caustic oven cleaner to go shopping before facing the perils of the stairs.

in psychobabble terms, i became a Type T action junkie. i never thot of myself as tough or unusual until i went to mostly white schools after Junior High and found out their world was not the one i grew up in.they were the audience, they expected to grow old peacefully and not be rotuinely mugged or terrorized.imagine that.

in other news,
don't forget to vote by May 19th.
we're counting the deck chairs on the Titanic and calling for more ice...SIGH.

PAGANI P.S. Type II no wht brd products, healthy mostly organic diet.no apettite due to two years of antibotics,for Lyme.
i know i know, 6 meals? not happpening,lucky to cram down three.eat meat one meal a day for five days only.my PCP has faith i can overcome insulin resistance with self control (martial arts legacy) and exercise,we'll see.i am not a Brittle diabetic.

namste
semper grumpy
mega

Sunday, May 10, 2009

BIRD FLU ON CSPAN

"Life is pleasant.Death is peaceful.It's the transition that's troublesome."
Isaac Asimov (genius,scientist & prolific author)

aloha again,
CSPAN is running a recap of the book FLU by a NYT reporter (Kaluto?) from a few years ago.i found it timely & interesting.
this may be TMI for some of you so just skip to past or future blogs.

bird flu is usually BENIGN in birds and lives happily in their guts. wildfowl can spread this flu easily to domestic fowl and then onto to pigs and sometimes humans...in 1997 a UNIQUE BIRD FLU hit Hong Kong,it was fatal to BOTH HUMANS & CHICKENS.this was the prototype of a Pandemic. Hong Kong took notice.

the Chinese like their chickens fresh really fresh.u pick a bird and they kill it in front of you.Hong Kong destroyed over 1 million live chickens to stop the bird flu in its tracks,it worked. this is why the appearance of new bird flu strains in Southeast Asia is making flu specialists uneasy.this is also why everyone was caught flat footed when this new Swine Flu emerged from Mexico ( southern proviences of China are usually the incubators for new flu strains).so,as the late Paul Harvey usedta say,Now you know the rest of the story.

in other news,
the California Special Elections looms.
it's like a choice between many fatal poisons 1A-1F.
the local DIMS are counting on a Dim Obama for the next Governator to clean up this Unholy Mess. speaking of Unholy Mess, check out the Paul Krugman column (Nobel winning economist) on the fraudulent bank stress tests.i believe the last words of his article are ..."be afraid,be very afraid." the Bible has some verse about not building your house on a base of sand or maybe bank corruption? Krugman posits that the Obama Dims are tryiing to fix Frankenstein's monster (u knew a movie reference would pop up sometime) so it can run amok again and terrorize the peasantry (namely us).think of the line from Jurassic Park 'just because we could,doesn't mean we should'. so anyway, check the net and ready your pitchforks & torches, the undead monster is ready to rise anew from the Ponzi scheme graves of Wall Street.

PAGANI,My Vulcan Buddha
1.Parental Guilt like PTSD & Survivors Guilt is often irrational.
2.diet control (unchanged) vs. apparent growing "insulin resistance"...
3. i just forgot what three was...anyway Soul Mate likes your paintings but is confused,as am i, by your logo project???

i think that about covers it for today.
namaste
semper grumpy
mega

Saturday, May 9, 2009

EROS AND CIVILIZATION

"THE FUNCTION FO THE ORGASM" by Wilhem Reich

aloha again,
just got a happy call from Z Man that his surgery went well! SIGH! :)

don't know why this topic popped up as i was luxuriating in bed all morning with Soul Mate...
HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY
u may have never heard of Wilhem Reich, he and Carl Jung were both acolytes of Siggy Fraud and his claustrophobic view of human pyschology before branching out on their on.HERBERT MARCUSE (Eros & Civilization) wrote what i feel is the definitive analysis of WR and his work.WR posited that if mankind were Happy we would all be naked nomads screwing our brains out.basically,that's it stripped of all the scientific finery.men build cities (the Mark of Cain?) and wage wars because they can't have babies. fertility must conquered or appeased,both the land and womankind. the purpose of Society is to strangle and redirect the Libido so that it can be utilized to fuel Society's needs,thru laws or advertising/consumerism.just look around you at this whole Gay Marriage/Abortion flap.

we send people into space,have telescopes that see the far reaches of time in the universe yet the US divorce rate is still 50%.we need classes in Loving,not just the mechanics but the emotional/psychological compnents too. WR posited that if mankind truly followed the Orgasmic path that Society would crumble. for this sage advice the US Govt burned his books & threw him in prison.just like Siggy Fraud WR was a meteor heading towards Earth, he would not deviate from his position or try to lessen his impact there is more about ORGONE BOXES,ORGONE RADIATION, DEADLY ORGONE RADIATION & weather control,Google all this if your interest is piqued...

i reminded Soul Mate that i half fell in love with over the phone,our first five hour conversation, and when i saw her in person the next day i thot "THANK U JESUS!" (odd thots 4 a Buddhist). i told SM that she was The ONE and i knew immediately.she called me ARROGANT for thinking i could know so quickly ( 17+ years ago now). now i used to be a very smart guy and have had my share of emotional scarring so i thank My EX (*) and all past GFs for educating me but how are less brainy people supposed to find TRUE LOVE??? water seeks its own level and all that but as the BUSH CRIME FAMILY sez "mistakes were made".heartbreaking and sometimes lethal mistakes. we are naive when it comes to matters of the heart,often dangerously so.

hmm seems i have derailed my train of thot somehwere in this screed.anyway,ENJOY SPRING & SAVOR LOVE. now go frolic or whatever.

namaste
semper gumby
mega

Friday, May 8, 2009

REGRETS

"Sell your dog and do your own barking." Stuttgart saying

aloha again,
i feel guilty.

my eldest son Z Man is getting shoulder surgery today in San Francisco (90 minutes away, 3 hours round trip) and i am not with him.
i tell myself i should Not feel Guilty but i do. since my 2 CT Scans this year my blood sugars have been erratic ( i am a diabetic) yesterday my blood glucose was 64. a number my books and two doctors have assured me is borderline STROKE OUT & DIE IN YOUR SLEEP!

still i feel guilty.
yesterday was food shopping day.Soul Mate's normal daily cough is harsh enough to startle a drowsy elephant and taking her to an enclosed supermarket during this Swine Flu scare...you get the idea. i was woozy then, i am woozy still. no matter what i ate i could not seem to get it together yet we were out of food so...somehow i waddled to the car,opened the windows and drove thru the BEAUTIFUL DAY to the market.
at times,in the recent past, i have run out of gas (physically) while shopping and have had to eat in the parking lot before going home. this was different,this was like back in the 90s when i often felt FRAGILE & BRITTLE & VULNERABLE.once again my stamina has vanished,never to return???

SORRY Z MAN I CAN'T BE THERE FOR YOU. LO SIENTO...(My Ex (*) please tell him that.

in the past i have done feats of ridicuclous endurance but that was then...now i am 61 fat & frail.enuff about me.

in other news,
THE LESSER EVIL???
the DIMS in DC have killed a bill which would have allowed bankruptcy courts to CRAMDOWN mortgage rates and keep over a million Americans in their homes.rivers of cash for AIG & corrupt banks but ,as usual,taxpayers get the shaft! if you can be bothered PLS write your congress sheeple,i will.

also 8 Taxpayers were arrested in DC yesterday protesting Sen.Max Baucaus (Dim Montna) stacking the deck with 15 insurance empire lobbyists on a hearing about improving US Healthcare,(which kills about 20,000 uninsured annually) but not one Single Payer advocate.Baucuas has stated that Single Payer is "off the table" (we gotta smash that goddamn table!) in a long and rambling pronouncement you can find on the Democracy Now website.
when they can get past the SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM crap 62% of polled americans favor Single Payer.u want SOCIALIZED MEDICINE? look at the V A & US ARMED FORCES! if its good enuff for them...?
SIGH.
big headline in The Senile today (our local rag) Gov Ar-Null plans to cash-rape local cities & counties if the upcoming Special Election of his fails,polls say it will. i can safely say that Howard Jarvis & Ar-Null have done to California what W did to the USA, a festering pox on all their houses.plus if there are DEEP FAT FRYERS IN HELL i hope two are reserved for Micheal (Weiner) Savage {autism denial } & Rush Limbaugh {Parkinsons denials} for all eternity.
GROWL & HOWL!!!
its Spring & i am feeling my fragile mortality, so it goes.

PS PAGANI
at least Ebola kills u quickly, unlike Lyme.read that bestseller from a few years ago.the name escapes me...by Laurie Garrett maybe? you are a Buddha,SM asked for your websites.given.

namaste
semper gumby
mega

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

NOT DEAD YET...

"If you intend to die,you can do anything!" Frank Miller's RONIN

aloha again, anybody out there?
a minor correction, Dr.Marola on his webste posits that 50-100 million died of the Spanish Flu in 1918 ( @1/3 world pop) not the 40 mil i mentioned. {oddly enough my father was born in 1918...}

i watch too much TV,mostly "news" and i am addicted to the internet,so why am i NOT scared witless over this Swine Flu since i am old and infirm???
i do my homework and am time tested as being cool under pressure...
so far no SF in "Paradise" as yet (as of this ayem) but i anticipate this changing duirng the upcoming Memorial Day weekend with the influx of huge coolth seeking crowds..
in other news,
91 ADAPT protestors were arrested after chaining their wheelchairs to the White House fence. you read about it right? http://www.adapt.org/ "Nothing about us,without us!" if i can ever get 5 to 10 bodies together i am co chair of the authorized Santa Cruz branch.no big...

am keeping this short today due to increasing tremors & spasms almost everywhere. wonder if other Chronic Pain sufferers are as lackcadaiscal about looming Death as i am?

y'all party now,it's Spring.
namaste
semper gumby
mega