HEY JOE, TAKE A HIKE

That a loyal lackey of the ruling class could be defeated by a grassroots candidate shocked the ruling punditocracy.

“They’re acting as if the electorate turning out an incumbent is a gross aberration,” I said.

“It is,” my Phi Beta Kappa poli-sci major brother replied.

The newscasters are shocked because they too are loyal lackeys of the ruling class. They sold their souls for what they deemed a good price to a buyer who they thought could honor the deal.

They missed the spes-res ratio. The transfer of the soul to the devil (ruling class) happens immediately upon the telling of the first big lie (res). But the payoff, (job, wealth, prestige--spes) is meted out over time and is contingent upon the telling of additional, even more harmful lies.

The Lieberman loss shows that a guy can wind up without his soul AND without his job.

Lieberman claimed his loss was due to “the old politics of partisan polarization.” Wait a second! “Partisan”? This was a democratic primary, it’s all the same party. These fucks will say anything.

----- o -----

TIME WELL SPENT

On one of last week’s warm afternoons my old friend Dennis and I took sandwiches and sodas to a recreational area in the Oakland Hills that’s part of the East Bay Regional Park. This is about as close to a road trip as I get these days.

In the car Dennis applied some Coppertone tanning lotion which, I‘d forgotten, is the hallmark smell of summer vacation.

We ate at one of the picnic tables scattered throughout a stand of second-growth redwoods. Dennis said they were probably a hundred years old, mere youngsters for the species. I could get my arms around the trunks.

The air had just the slightest movement. Occasional crow (gdmf) caws ricocheted off the bare trunks. And from across the parking lot came the most beautiful music of all, the whoops and screams of little kids at the swimming pool.

After eating we lay on our backs on the picnic table benches looking up through the branches at the sky. After a while I noticed that one or two trees were swaying slightly with the breeze.

I asked Dennis why only a couple of the trees were swaying.

First, we couldn’t be sure that all the trees WEREN’T swaying, only that some were swaying differently from the others.

“Maybe those trees are a little taller than the others, so they’re catching more wind,” Dennis said.

All my friends are geniuses.

There are a couple of Quicktime movies of ROBERTS RECREATION AREA at the bottom of the page linked. Look for the movies with “Roberts” in the name.

----- o -----

PUD DONATES

He was really proud of himself:

“I just donated ten bucks to the Westboro Baptist Church,” he said. “I know you’re going to ask what the Westboro Baptist—

“No,” I said, “I’m going to ask you where you got ten bucks. You owe me twenty.”

“Ok, so it was YOUR political donation,” Pud said coyly.

Pud is such an asshole! Westboro Baptist Church is the home of Rev Fred Phelps, who leads daily protests against gay people. Lately he’s been demonstrating at funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. His point is that America tolerates homosexuality so God punishes America by having American soldiers killed.

Congress has considered legislation to restrict his proximity to military funerals, a drastic measure just to deal with the behavior of one crackpot and his few followers.

His entire point of view is GOD HATES FAGS. In fact, the home page of the Westboro BC is godhatesfags. Check it out, it’s a hoot. He actually has a counter showing the number of days that Matthew Shepherd has been IN HELL!

On one page he breaks down the meaning of each word in GOD HATES FAGS, complete with biblical references. For HATE, he supplies:

the doctrine of reprobation or God's "HATE" involving eternal retribution or the everlasting punishment of most of mankind in Hell forever (e.g., Leviticus 20:13,23, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5, Malachi 1:1-3, Romans 9:11-13, Matthew 7:13,23, John 12:39-40, 1 Peter 2:8, Jude 4, Revelation 13:8, 20:15, 21:27, etc.),

Note: per Phelps’ interpretation, God sends most of mankind to hell forever, to punish them.

“Anyway,” Pud said, “if we gay-commie-acidheads could chose the person to represent the world view we despise, Rev Phelps is it. We want more of him, not less. He’s the poster boy of the anti-gay agenda. You’re either for him or against him.”

Donations can be sent to: Westboro Baptist Church, 3701 W. 12th Street, Topeka, KS 66604.

----- o -----

QUEEN NOOR FOR PRESIDENT

Total babe. Really smart. Very well spoken. Seemingly well intentioned and non-partisan. Speaks Arabic. And she’s a damn queen. Check out her website.

----- o -----

BOOZE IN THE NEWS

In the process of getting busted DUI, Mel, I-am-not-anti-Semitic, Gibson spewed an anti-Jewish rant, including the assertion that the Jews have caused all the wars in history, which is kind of a stretch if you want to include ancient inter-tribal warfare on the island now called Papua-New Guinea, say.

The press is taking this ranting as evidence that Mel Gibson really is anti-Jew, that he was driving along thinking all sorts of nasty things about the Jews because, well, that’s what he does.

Pud has a different take:

“You know, most people have good attributes and bad attributes. Sometimes we can really like a person and other times that same person can annoy the hell out of us. Sometimes we find ourselves thinking, and even saying, awful things about a person we are very close to. Thus the old lyric ‘You always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn’t hurt at all…’

“Well, Mel isn’t always thinking hateful things about Jews, he thinks hateful and non-hateful things about all sorts of people, but on that particular night he had just heard about the bombing in Qana.”

“So what?” I said, “There’s lots of bombings on both sides.”

“But this was personal for Mel,” Pud said.

“Yeah…”

Pud lowered his voice. “If you print this it well be the scoop of the year. You should beware of the consequences. This comes from sources I truly can’t reveal.

“Mel has a booze/religion induced obsession with Qana. Qana was called Cana in the New Testament, and as you remember, was the site of Jesus’ first miracle. Jesus and his mom went to a wedding reception at Cana. It was such a great party that folks hung around and kept drinking and dancing and the supply of wine soon ran low.

“Mary went to Jesus and told him that the host, their dear friend, would soon be embarrassed by running out of wine. So Jesus changed some big old jugs of water into wine. The host was off the hook. In fact he was praised for serving such excellent wine so deep into the alcohol consumption cycle.

“But, Pud, what does this have to do with anything?” I whined.

“Everything,” Pud replied confidently. “Mel’s a boozer. At the Cana wedding party Jesus endorsed, hell, facilitated heavy drinking. So Cana is sort of a holy site for Catholic boozehounds. And the Israelis had just bombed it to rubble.

“Mel Gibson, this is the scoop, has invested a lot of time and money pursuing the left-over wine, you know, the stuff that Jesus made. Legend has it that there is still some of it around.”

“You’re a lying asshole,” I said.

“No it’s true. He’s obsessed—you know that look in his eye. People search for the true cross or the holy grail or Agamemnon’s nail file. Hell, the most beautiful building in Europe was constructed to house the supposed crown of thorns. It makes perfect sense for someone who likes alcohol to want to taste what must be the best wine ever produced. They say it’s stayed good for two thousand years because, heck, Jesus made it, it’s not going to spoil.

“Of course, actually getting hold of it, if it really exists at all, is an Indiana Jones kind of endeavor. Mel has a fucking team!”

“Is it just for the taste, or does a sip of the Cana-wine make someone powerful, or healthy, or saved, or even happy?” I asked

“Only someone with Mel Gibson’s faith and financial resources might ever find out.”

“How will he know if he finds the real stuff?”

“He can’t know until he actually tries it and feels the effects. Anyway, that’s why he has to keep drinking, and that’s obviously why he was pissed off at the Jews on that particular night. They bombed the wine, he was thinking, those asshole’s bombed the wine!

“So cut the poor guy a little slack. He’s on a mission.”

“Is this the same story Michael Jackson told the kids, you know, the Jesus-juice?” I teased.

“Can’t you be serious, just once?” Pud scolded.

----- o -----

BANK ON IT

One afternoon in the 1970’s I was at a Bank of America facility at Market and 10th Streets in San Francisco, monitoring the test-run of a training workshop I had helped develop.

We were interrupted by the delivery of a note to one of the dozen or so attendees, an Operations Officer from the major BofA Branch next door on Van Ness. OOs are to branch banking what RNs are to hospitals. The nice lady read the note and excused herself, saying something about a robbery.

When she returned an hour later she told us what happened: some guy gave a threatening note to a teller who gave him some minimum amount of money from her till. The robber then took the cash over to the New Accounts desk and told the customer service rep that he wanted to open a savings account. The guy was apprehended and no body was hurt.

Of course it’s funny and all, but in a way it’s kind of poignant. The robber’s goal wasn’t necessarily to “get away” with a lot of money, rather he really just wanted to participate in the American banking system. With the low rate of savings among Americans then and now, this guy’s impulse was exemplary. There were just some parts of the process he didn’t understand.

So I’m thinking that all the agencies involved got brownie points for catching this poor fellow. It was recorded as a “case solved” by that hitler-in-a-dress J. Edgar Hoover.

And the robber probably did some time. More time, I was thinking, than that greatest bank robber of them all Charlie Keating. There were lots of thieves who robbed S&Ls blind during the deregulation, including some Bush’s, but Keating was the king. Keating understood that to really rob a bank you don’t go to the teller’s window. My memory was that Keating, for whom John McCain (among others) ran errands in the Senate, never actually went to jail. So I asked Pud to check.

“Shocking, absolutely shocking!” Pud has this little dance he does when under the influence of cogitation.

“Charles Keating actually spent four and a half years in prison before his conviction was overturned. That’s the good news.

“But, get this,” Pud was trying to pace himself, “he was a goddamn Catholic who led a fucking anti-pornography crusade. This asshole wanted to take away our money AND our pornography! Well, fuck him.

“And you think it can’t get worse?” Pud asked, arms splayed to the universe, “this fucker was in cahoots with Mother Teresa, the most evil woman of the twentieth century!

“That’s right. He gave her a donation of 1.2 million dollars and she wrote a letter to the judge in his favor. Where the fuck did she think he got the 1.2 million dollars?”

“Pud,” I said in my calming voice, “Mother Teresa is dead.”

“Ding dong,” Pud said, “none too soon.”

“Oh, and did you see that Bernie Ebbers’ conviction and 25-year sentence were upheld by a Federal appeals court?”

“THAT asshole!” Pud said, “Good!”

“Keating and Ebbers will be completely forgotten by history, Mother Teresa’s name will live on as a trivia answer.”

This made Pud smile. “Good,” he said, “along with Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.”

----- o -----

MEA CULPA #2518

An old friend asked me recently what the word smarmy means. I use it and I like it for its huge onomatopoeic value.

I always figured the word indicated a general moral or aesthetic unwholesomeness, with hygienic or sexual connotations.

I was wrong. Smarmy refers to a particular kind of unwholesomeness. It means overly ingratiating.

The Online Etymology Dictionary gives us this.

smarmy
"ingratiating, unctuous," 1924, from smarm "to behave in a flattering way" (1920), variant of colloquial smalm, smawm (1847) "to smear, bedaub" (the hair, with pomade) of unknown origin.


So I need a new word. Pervy comes close. Of or pertaining to a perv.

----- o -----

LOOK!

I lucked out and took a poetry writing class from Stan Rice, (late husband of Anne Rice), at SF State in the late 1960’s.

He was the most intense lecturer I ever witnessed, with the possible exception of Brother Antoninus. (BTW: When it comes to poets, Brother Antoninus/William Everson was the real deal.)

Stan would put some notes on the teacher-table at the front of the room then start pacing, alternately searching deep space, then referring back to the table, as if it held a large, possibly dangerous animal from a newly discovered species.

He would attempt to describe this new entity with deservedly new language, which he was making up ad lib. He was in a trance-state like the swingers at Delphi. And the words came out in trickles, spurts and gushes, all original stuff.

Anyway, the one piece of advice I took away from his class is:

When you have trouble finding the right word for a thing, focus on the thing, not on the words. If you look hard enough, long enough, at the thing itself, the word(s) will come.


He referred to this as “vision.” This is the most important thing I learned in college.

Stan Rice died of brain cancer. Everyone who knew him assumes it was caused by overuse.

I wonder how much of Anne was Stan. An English professor at SF State wrote a scholarly book in 1969 about vampires in literature. This professor was having an affair with a roommate of mine so I got to know him at the kitchen table, me a true snot-nose.

I was coming out gay and exploring sexuality at the time so I was happy to discuss my interpretation of vampirism with Leonard. My roommate, who proofed his book, says I’m quoted in it.

Anne’s first vampire book came out in 1973. So we can’t discount the notion that I somehow influenced her and through her popular culture. If I ever read a word Anne Rice wrote, I might know if this would be a good thing.

Seems Anne went for Jesus after Stan died. Had he lived he never would have let her go down that shameful path. The main page of her website has “Ave Maria” playing in the background. See/hear for yourself.

Stan Rice liked my stuff. He gave me an A minus. On the final evaluation he wrote, “You have conquered your tongue, now you must conquer your heart.”

Heavy, hunh?

----- o -----

P. Wilson: RICH CHRISTIANS

Pud speaks:

There is no such thing as a rich Christian. Anyone who mildly peruses the New Testament understands this. People become rich and stay rich only if they consistently fail to follow Christ’s teachings.

So, rich people might go to church, but they don’t really believe any of it. Basically they want poor people to follow Christ’s teachings—it makes them more docile while the rich people rape and pillage them.

----- o -----

gdmf CROWS

Sausalito is a quaint, picturesque hillside “village” just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. A joke I heard as a kid (ca 1960s):

Q. How do they separate the men from the boys in Sausalito?
A. With a crowbar.

I don’t know if Sausalito did or does have a high number of homosexuals, but the place is definitely fruity. I’m finding the word fruity more and more useful. It has a sort of anti-pc punch because it used to be a slur. Now it’s simply descriptive, of male behavior that is annoyingly un-masculine. So it’s a put-down, but not a slur.

“So why do they call it a 'crow' bar?” Pud asked.

“Do I look like Google?” I replied. (Current events in the Middle East have me sounding more and more like a New Yorker.)

Since I started my blog, Pud’s been telling people that he’s doing “research” (sitting on my couch) for a “publisher” (me), so I figure he can start looking things up himself. He did and I’m proud of him.

“It’s not totally obvious,” Pud reported. “It appears around 1400. The nail-pulling end probably resembles a crow’s foot. Or, get this, it might be from Old French cros, which is the plural of croc, meaning ‘hook.’”

In the last ten years, or less, there have been a lot of big black birds in our ocean-beach neighborhood of San Francisco.

I notice them because I don’t like them. They’re large and nasty looking. They have the same defiance about their ugliness that hyenas have, like “What are you looking at—fuck you!”

So I’ve been asking people, “Have you noticed we’ve had crows around? We never used to have crows…”

People mostly don’t care.

Aren’t crows a symbol of death? Certainly Poe’s raven. There’s the caw caw caw at the end of Ginsberg’s Howl, or is it Kaddish?

Anyway, we got crows, we didn’t used to, and we hate them. Their droppings are enormous!

So I made Pud do some more googling and guess what—I'm not crazy. There ARE a lot more crows around these parts these days, as counted by some very nice folks just south of here.

“Crows belong to a family of asshole birds, called Corvids, which also includes ravens, magpies, jays, and nutcrackers.

“You know,” Pud went on, “the metaphor of ‘family’ doesn’t work with me. When a prospective employer says that the work group is like a family—that’s a red flag. Family members say and do horrible things to each other, things that mere friends or acquaintances, or certainly co-workers, wouldn’t dream of doing.

“So next time I hear some prick say ‘we’re like family around here’, I’m thinking—yeah, and the name of your family is Corvid.”

----- o -----

DEATH COUNT

Pud is pissed.

“I try to be a good citizen,” Pud says, “I try to pay attention to the casualty reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, but the numbers just swirl around in my head.

“It’s the fucking twenty-four hour cable news and all the stuff on the internet. Plus the time difference is really difficult.

“Like, you check the internet on Monday night and read about a market bombing in Baghdad that happened Tuesday morning. Now there’s a mind fuck. And you make a mental note that 20 people died, mostly Shiite women, plus a roadside IED killed two American soldiers. Oh, and another of Saddam’s lawyers was assassinated.

“Then, you wake up the next morning, and you hear very similar sounding reports, like, a market bombing killed twenty-five Shiite women—and you think, is that the same market bombing or a new one? Or, when they say another of Saddam’s lawyers has been killed you think, ANOTHER one, or are they still talking about the last one?

“It’s the medium,” Pud says, “it’s like, hey, Microsoft Office is a SUITE—Word for prose, Excel for numbers. Prose is a really fucked up way of presenting statistical data. We need spreadsheets!

“At the very least, the vertical axis would be time. Each row representing like a day, or week, or month. Then each column could represent a type of casualty, broken down by theater (Afghanistan, Iraq, other), nationality (American, coalition, terrorist) and type (dead, maimed, other).

“As a public service they could make the statistics down-loadable, so that anyone with standard spreadsheet software could sort, subtotal, and create piecharts and Venn diagrams up the wazoo.

“With the distribution of computing power to homes and public libraries, the electorate is ready for it,” he concluded with his statesman’s voice.

So, that’s Pudinhand Wilson. While the rest of the nation is quietly downloading porn and recipes, he wants to download casualty statistics.

“And the national budget,” Pud sparked, “hell, everyone has Quicken!”

BTW: I’m trying to get Pud set up as a team member on this blog so that he can create his own posts. He told me to wait while he works on some “identity issues.”

----- o -----

BALL RETURN

In tennis, when a point has concluded, there is usually one or more balls that have to be retrieved and delivered to the person who will serve the next point. In the pros, as we see on TV, errant balls are retrieved by “ball-kids,” nee “ball-boys,” who scurry around and try to be invisible.

But for us, who retrieve our own balls, the manner in which an opponent delivers balls back to the server says much.

My standard, and, I believe, the civilized standard, is an obvious application of the Golden Rule: return the balls to your opponent in a way that is easy and convenient for your opponent. This means waiting until he is looking in your direction and is more or less expecting you to return the ball. Then, you tap the ball so that it gets to your opponent on one big gentle bounce.

There is a branch of tennis theory and practice (actually all sports) called gamesmanship. This means how to conduct the non-tennis aspects of the match to maximize your chances of winning. One such piece of advice is to NOT be polite in delivering balls back to the server.

So, when I’m the server, at the conclusion of a point, I might be facing away from the net, going back to the baseline, and two balls whiz past me, one on either side, all the way to the fence and I have to exert myself to retrieve them and pick them up.

When this happens I know that my opponent is either a dumbshit who was never taught how to act, or is deliberately following this gamesmanship advice. In the former case, which is rare, I might attempt to educate my opponent.

In most cases I respond in kind. But I don’t return the ball when the asshole’s back is turned. I wait until he is looking straight at me, then I hit the ball so that it misses him by twenty feet. Of course, I follow that with, “Sorry.”

The opponent either modifies his behavior or we have a very slow match. Either way’s fine with this old guy.

----- o -----

POOR PEOPLE? IN MEXICO??!!

This Reuters headline and teaser appeared on my Yahoo start page. I fantasize that some young reporter or grizzled editor resigned rather than write this story.

_______

Mexico’s Calderon says to focus money on poor: report

The conservative winner of Mexico’s contested presidential election said he would pay more attention to the poor after the race showed wide support for promises to fight poverty, he said in a newspaper interview.
_______

The story has about as much information value as our guy Bush saying he is going to be more compassionate, or a report in 1939, that Hitler says “The safety and comfort of the Jews is my personal highest priority.”

Nobody in their right mind believes in the integrity of a Mexican election. The problem is that fewer and fewer people believe in the integrity of American elections.

Globalization is touted as the eventual exportation of a First World standard of living to the Third World. But, rather, it’s about the importation of Third World conditions to the First World.

Now Stephen Hawking says that human life on earth will probably come to an end in less than a millennium. Colonization of space seems unlikely and no fun. So, the question becomes not, “Where are we going?”, but “What should we do with the time we have left?”

So some schmuck at Reuters, who’s probably really smart, and probably paying off a student loan, finds him or her self writing straight-faced stories about the self serving pronouncements of scoundrels.

It's a job, but it ain't journalism.

----- o -----

WHITE CITIZENS COUNCIL

Fifty years ago the rape charges against the Duke lacrosse players never would have been filed, at least not in any southern town. Why? Race, pure and simple. In those days a white person’s word was worth more than a negro’s. A white person’s life was worth more than a negro’s. In the south, fifty years ago, we should remind our young readers, black people were NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO VOTE!

That a negro woman would bring rape charges against privileged white boys was inconceivable. Heck, white juries in the south acquitted white guys who bombed little negro girls in Sunday school, and everyone knew it.

Sure, things have changed in the south, at least on the surface, but at a price to poor white people, a fact that liberals simply ignored. The improvement of the lives of black people in the south resulted in a net loss for their poor white neighbors. At least that is the solid perception among their poor white neighbors.

These days, political correctness has stifled the expression of poor white resentment, but not its existence, thus Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” and today’s solid Republican south.

So, that’s why Fox News and other right wingers are so vehemently defending the accused Duke students, not because of the particular merits of the case, (we don’t know the merits of the case yet), but as a reminder to resentful white people of a better day, when negroes could be messed with no problem. Ergo, vote for reactionaries.

Norman Mailer consistently alerts us to these mainly psychological hidden issues. Years ago, in his book Why We Are In Vietnam, he told the story of white guys on a bear hunt in Alaska. Or, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Mailer pointed out that lots of voters secretly favor invasions and conquest and the spilling of blood in general.

Now, one of the Duke defendants has been convicted of a crime of violence in a separate incident. Collin Finnerty was apparently out drinking with some buddies and they were looking for a fight. The victim in this case was white.

Poor Collin has some sort of sex problem.

Normal young heterosexual males on a Friday night would be expected to seek the company of, and physical contact with, attractive females. Collin and his buddies were seeking the company of, and physical contact with (in a fight) other males.

To make things smarmier, during the assault, Collin was yelling gay slurs, even though there were no indications of anyone being gay or any indication of any gay anything, it’s just what came out of Collin’s mouth.

Now poor Collin has to face the gang-rape charges. Gang rape has always seemed to me to have a lot of gay content. Like, do they watch their friends actually fucking the victim? Do they look at their friends’ erections? Do they gaze at their friends’ ass cheeks clenching?

When you think about it, being a Fox News cause celebre was the last thing the Finnerty’s wanted for their son. I’m sure they wish it could have quietly gone away, even if there were some criminal penalty. But being associated with the vile White Citizens Council that is Fox News is a smudge on the Finnerty name that won’t wash out for generations.

So Collin is a victim. He’s a victim of our society’s fucked up attitudes about sex.

And his high priced lawyers can't do anything about that.

----- o -----

BARRY AND THE BIG DIG

So, what exactly does Barry Bonds’ cheating and lying have to do with the collapse of a tunnel in Boston that killed a young automobile passenger?

Both stories involve cheating. Bonds apparently cheated with steroids. The Big Dig tunnel collapsed due almost certainly to corruption in its construction and inspection.

Substandard materials, counterfeit parts, non-spec construction, bribed (or extorted) building inspectors—whatever criminal activities led to the collapse all involve cheating in order to make a buck. And each of those instances of cheating should now be a charge of felony murder.

To all those who condone Barry Bonds’ cheating—take a drive through the Big Dig.

San Francisco has its own public-works-substandard-concrete scandal in the press these days. Here’s a more direct connection. Barry Bonds’ fans will have to dodge even more axel-snapping potholes on the roads leading to the ballpark.

So, cheating isn’t about some detached, lofty, moral standards. It’s about how we get through the day, with potholes, and tunnels collapsing, and our sweet high school kids killing themselves with steroids.

----- o -----

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!

Pud advised me not to vituperate against that lying, thieving, piece of shit Ken Lay for at least a day. “Don’t speak ill of the dead for twenty-four hours.”

“Would it be ok to suggest that the world would have been a better place if Ken Lay had never been born?”

“That would be ok,” Pud said, “but only marginally true. Just don’t call him an asshole and stuff like that, until the little hand has gone around twice.”

“How about if I advocate that his wife and kids be forced to give back all the money he stole?”

“Of course,” Pud said, “there is no justice until Ken Lay’s estate is reduced to zero. His wife and kids are entitled to nothing, except maybe the equal opportunity promised to all our citizens, and the protection of the minimum wage laws.

“Every fucking dime! They have to give it all back.”

----- o -----

AMERICAN CHEESE

Pud cooked for the holiday. Burgers, dogs, Doritos and watermelon. Pud is adamant about Doritos. They sound foreign but Pud says they’re 100% American, “Like the Gadsden purchase.”

Potato chips, according to Pud, are the most insipid food product ever foisted on a great people. “Our forefathers sacrificed, they fought, they died, and it wasn’t for goddamn potato chips!”

He can be doctrinaire. Pud does tortilla chips, Pud does Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. He has awful things to say about Tennessee whiskey, “No self respecting transvestite would go near that shit,” or, “It killed Janis Joplin, it’ll kill you, too.”

Same stuff every Fourth. The big change this year was we had the very finest American cheese slices. Pud was proud, he wanted us to eat our first burgers before we got too drunk, so we could appreciate the rich, full body, and dry non-oily texture of the real thing.

“There are different grades of fake cheese,” Pud expounded, “and they fall along a spectrum. One end of the spectrum is ‘cheese’ and at the other end is ’fake’.

"Actually, the various grades are based on the main ingredient. At one end of the spectrum the main ingredient is cheese. The product at this end is called ‘pasteurized process cheese’. At the other end of the spectrum the main ingredient is petrochemicals. At that end the product is called ‘imitation pasteurized process cheese food’.

“You’ll notice that the good stuff is packaged in one stack. The cheap stuff comes in individually wrapped slices, as oily and slick as the cellophane wrappers. The reason they’re wrapped singly is because they’re an unstable chemical suspension. If you put all the slices together, the slightest exposure to air would turn them back into a lump of coal.”

Pud held up a bottle of Old Grand Dad and pointed at the drawing, “I wouldn’t serve this distinguished gentleman that slimy crap on his burger, so I ain’t gonna serve it to you guys. You are great Americans.” [Actually the usual motley group.] “And you deserve great American cheese.

“Happy fucking Fourth!”

----- o -----

TAILS OUT OF CLASS

The parents of Collin Finnerty showed up on TV the other day supporting their son’s defense against rape charges in the Duke/Lacrosse scandal. Collin is the defendant who has a previous case pending for gay-bashing.

The parents were certain that their son did not rape the stripper. No one seems to deny that these college jocks hired a stripper. No one seems to question the propriety of college students hiring strippers. No one, that is, but Pudinhand Wilson and I.

“What’s up with students hiring other students to be strippers?” Pud asked.

“If there are fellow students in such poverty that they would consider degrading themselves by stripping for cash, it seems that these fine young men, as we’ve heard they are all fine young men, would have found a way to help such fellow students, and not have taken advantage.”

“I thought that’s what being a Christian nation is all about.”

“It’s like the parents are saying, ‘We raised our son to always show respect to the sex workers he hires’.”

“Illegal immigrants, college kids hiring strippers,” Pud made his grand two-armed sweep, “it’s about slavery. The desire to own slaves is alive and well in the heart of man.”

When Pud and I were in college we barely knew where our next bag of dope was coming from let alone having the wherewithall to hire a stripper. The kids we hung with were more likely to do the stripping than the hiring. I feel this same dichotomy even now when I’m taken to a fancy restaurant: I identify with the serving staff much more than with my fellow diners.

I guess that’s how I wind up with friends like Pud.

Thank God!

----- o -----

WEAK IN REVIEW

“In Miami, Mission Impossible takes on Amos ‘n Andy.”
P. Wilson

When Pud disappears we speculate that he’s in rehab. He always claims he’s been in de-hab. “Re-hab, de-hab,” Pud says, “it’s still the habs versus the hab-nots.”

One of his favorite spiels is how marijuana is proof of some form of benevolence in the universe. Not a God necessarily, not even net-sum hospitableness, but at least not total agony for all. Outer space, so far, doesn’t seem all that hospitable to humans. And the social environment and biological burn here on earth drives many to suicide, or worse—long useless lives. But with all the bleakness, marijuana, with weedlike tenacity, reminds us that all is not bad—there is some good. This according to Pudinhand Wilson.

Now he’s saying that citrus fruits might stand the same witness. (Recently Pud’s been drinking low-acid pulp-free Tropicana from my refrigerator.) How could you say that the universe is malevolent when it includes the wonderful flavors of orange, lime, and pineapple?

Then he disappeared. Two days later he returned with bad news about pineapples—they’re not citrus after all.

“They’re goddamn bromeliads,” Pud whined.

“But they still taste good…” (why was I consoling him?)

“And they got this weird number thing going,” he said. “Ever hear of Fibonacci numbers?”

“Do I want to?” I asked.

“No, but you’re gonna. In a series of integers beginning with zero and one, each succeeding Fibonacci number is the sum of the previous two numbers. So the Fibonacci numbers are, after zero and one,

1,
2,
3,
5,
8,
13,
21,
34,
55,
etc.”

“So what does this have to do with …?”

“In a pineapple you can count the rows of little fruitlets in three directions: up and down, sideways, and diagonally. The numbers of fruitlets in each direction: 8, 13, and 21, are all Fibonacci numbers.”

“And…”

“Here,” said Pud, “I’ve gone through my whole fucking life. I’ve learned a few things. I know that Charles Frederick Rogers delivered the head shot from the Grassy Knoll. I know that the Kodiak bear is the largest land mammal in North America. I know that the zoo stopped selling marshmallows because I was tossing them to the Kodiak bears and they were catching them in their mouths.

“But all this time I thought that pineapple was a citrus fruit. And I never knew shit about Fibonacci numbers. Is it a fruit-in-general thing, or a bromeliad-thing? Can I possibly afford to go down that path? Nope, no matter how much I ever learn I’ll always be a stupid asshole!”

“Come on, Pud,” I said, “It’s not about you, it’s about citrus fruit and goodness in the universe, and all.”

Pud was disconsolate. “And citrus fruit isn’t nearly as good as marijuana,” he said, defeated.

----- o -----

DONOR EQUALITY

Leave it to Pud—he saw the word “anonymize” and just went off.

This time it’s campaign finance reform. He’s pushing a “Donor Equality,” law. Pud’s law would create a clearinghouse to receive all political donations and pass them along to the candidate with no donor information attached.

There would be no restriction on the amounts that US citizens and organizations could contribute. The only restriction would be on communication between the donor and the candidate about the gift.

If a political donation is made because the recipient is judged more qualified to do a good job (as defined by the donor) there is nothing wrong with that. In such a case there is no need for the donor to identify him or her self. This is the position of most Americans—we don’t expect to curry any personal favor with our $100 donations here and there.

But when a large corporation wants a particular piece of legislation it will donate to both candidates with the expectation that, whoever wins, the corporation will get what it wants. These donations are obviously not anonymous, and they are obviously corrupt. To give money to an officeholder (or seeker) with the expectation of any reciprocity is a bribe.

For an officeholder to treat a large donor better than an anonymous donor (like you and me) is corrupt. So, we require that all donations be anonymous. (Actually, all real donations ARE anonymous; bribes aren’t.)

Oh gee! It would be so complicated! People would cheat!

Pud says, “Stop sobbing. Get off your fat ass!”

----- o -----

DAN RATHER: LIAR

One of the major American assholes of my lifetime is reportedly being bounced by CBS. The next news I want to hear about him is that he's dead.

This guy was the one newsman allowed to view the Zapruder film in the days and months and years after JFK was murdered. He reported to the world that the fatal shot caused Kennedy's head to move violently forward, consistent with the bullet coming from the depository sniper's nest, and consistent with the Warren Commission version.

We all know now that the fatal shot caused Kennedy's head to move violently back and to his left, consistent with a Stockade Fence shot.

As far as I'm concerned, Dan Rather is an accessory after the fact to JFK's assasination and should be behind bars.

----- o -----

INTERNET RADIO

I always feel dumb recommending a new discovery. It usually turns out that everyone already knew about it and I was the last to find out.

There are many radio stations available for free on the internet. They are streaming stereo (and mono) feeds that play in RealPlayer, or iTunes, or Windows Media Player.

I enjoy listening to music while I work as well as when I relax, mostly classical but I’m also enjoying jazz more and more. Call me lazy or cheap or both, but I hate acquiring and playing music (inserting the cds, removing them, putting them back in their cases—we’re talking lazy). Radio is perfect for me. It costs nothing and requires almost no effort.

A great resource for classical internet radio is CLASSICAL LIVE ONLINE RADIO. This site seeks to include all the classical stations available on the internet.

Here I found a Netherlands station that plays nothing but baroque and style galant. (Pudinhand Wilson promises an “expose” on style galant which he says “equals” the western European “ear.”) Obviously you don’t want baroque 24/7, but when you do feel like it, their baroque playlist is much deeper than that of an all-era classical station.

The stations are from all over the world. The other day I was listening to a couple of announcers chatting on an Australian Public Broadcasting station. When the man complained about something his female partner told him to “stop sobbing.”

I finally bought a decent speaker system for my computer, $80 at Radio Shack, and I’m astounded at the sound quality. The technology continues to get cheaper, and smaller.

Most of the stations I listen to are all music, with very little voice, and no commercials. My new speaker system reminds me of my pet peeve regarding FM radio—the announcers boost the bass gain on their microphones. So you’ve just finished listening to a rousing symphony at a volume that the neighbors can tolerate, and the announcer comes on with a voice that shakes the entire building like pedal notes.

A low voice is highly prized in broadcasting and real life, and I guess for a radio announcer every performance is an audition, so they use technical tricks to make their voices sound low and full, but it’s really annoying and I’ll continue sobbing about it.

BBC-3 continues to be extremely satisfactory.

----- o -----

P. Wilson: ZERO

My friend, Pud, was all excited about zeroes.

“Where would we be without zeroes?” he said, as if responding to an attack. “Last night I was watching Chinese TV, and—“

“Why the fuck were you watching Chinese TV?”

“Best thing on.” Pud said, annoyed. “So they had all these Asian language subtitles, you know, all that noodle-stuff,” (Pud loves to assert a connection between the written Chinese characters and uncooked Top Ramen), “and I noticed that I could easily read the numbers. They use fucking Arabic numerals!’

“Here we are belittling and bombing the Arabs and all the time we’re using their goddamn numbering system! Can you imagine where Western civilization would be if we were still using Roman numerals? Like, you’re trying to buy some meds on-line and you look at the keyboard and there’s no number keys. Talk about jonesing!

“They say the great Arab contribution was Zero. The idea that you could have something, a zero, that stands for nothing, is kind of a stretch. Like, the ink that forms the character is something, it is certainly not nothing, yet it means absolutely nothing.

“How does one depict the absence of something? Most of the universe is empty space. And molecules are mostly empty space. Drill down and you get quarks and charm and all that shit. And the fucking Arabs recognized this. So good for them.”

“But what does this have to do with anything?” I gently queried.

“Remember, in the fourth grade,” Pud said, “when the kids used to call me ‘zero’?”

“That was when you were trying to get zeroes on multiple choice exams.”

“Yeah, I did it twice,” Pud said proudly, “problem is you sort of have to know the right answers in order to avoid them, and that meant, like, studying.”

“And…,” I prompted.

“So, I was like, eleven, and I was already hip to the whole Arab thing, you know, zeroes and stuff, so give me some fucking credit!”

----- o -----

TWO DEGREES FROM THE UNIBOMBER

One of my favorite brags is that a guy I worked for, named Marcus Powell, actually knew the Unibomber when they were both on the math faculty at UC Berkeley.

I believe that the capture happened during a tax season when I was typing taxes for Marcus and his partner Marge. It was Marge who reminded Marcus, “Didn’t you know a guy at Berkeley named Ted Kaczynski?”

Marcus had been a professor at Berkeley. He says he was mostly working on NASA contracts, programming the directional controls of space probes when he came upon a problem that involved “set theory.”

Marcus asked around the department for someone who was up on set theory and was referred to a new faculty member, Ted Kaczynski, who had just arrived from Chicago where he’d done his dissertation on the subject. So, according to Marcus, he had many cordial meetings with Ted.

I asked Marcus the obvious question, “How did you go from being a Math professor at a prestigious university aiming space probes to being a tax preparer?” (To be fair, Marcus was a high-end tax guy.)

“The actual programming was not a very creative activity,” Marcus explained. “There were issues to be resolved but there’s only one correct answer per question. Working on taxes is much more creative, there are more than one correct way to tell any financial story. I’ll wake up at night thinking—I should have done this or that differently on a return. That never happened with the NASA work.”

“So what you’re telling me,” I said, “is that the tax code is more complicated than rocket science.”

“Way more,” Marcus said.

Click HERE for an amusing expose by Alexander Cockburn: Ted Kaczynski had been a CIA/LSD guinea pig.

----- o -----

NEW to me POOP on the POPE

I guess that one step in the grieving process is to nominate the deceased for sainthood. So our current pope, a former Hitler Youth, wants to fast track the sainthood bid of his predecessor, John Paul II. This despite growing evidence that the two of them both protected a notorious (accused) pedophile priest, pictured below, who apparently set up his own religious order that specialized in recruiting young boys.

Read one view of this shocking story HERE. For more, google “Marcel Maciel”.

After years of outcry, the Vatican issued orders restricting the tasks Fr Macial could perform as a priest. He's no longer allowed to preach, say mass publicly, and it seems, show his face. However the Vatican has acknowledged no connection between their actions against Maciel and the molestation allegations.

----- o -----

LAY, BABY, LAY

Mr. Lay, if Dan Petrocelli can’t get you off, you’re guilty as hell. P. Wilson

Houston: Motherlode of pollution and corruption. P. Wilson

I’ve been away, taking care of my friend, Pudinhand Wilson. For many people the news of Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling’s convictions was cause for joy. Pud's celebration was life threatening.

I’ve heard of the two-day hangover. And I’ve heard of death from acute alcohol poisoning. Pudinhand walked the line, surviving a ten-day hangover. And I'd been appointed by fate to nurse him.

Back in his “wild days,” Pud extracted a solemn promise from me—that I wouldn’t let him drown in his own vomit. It had something to do with a talking-to he’d gotten from his mother.

Given his lifestyle, Pudinhand could turn up dead anytime and it would surprise no one. Pud says he likes it. “So many people have written me off," he says, "I’m practically a ghost.” Still, I’d hate to tell his truly innocent mom that her son had died inhaling his own barf.

When Pud regained consciousness (day six), I expected his usual “Where does a guy get a drink around here?” This time Pud’s first words were, “Skilling and Lay, they were convicted, right?”

When I responded affirmatively Pud got this scary glint in his eye, “Cheney and Bush are next,” he said.

----- o -----

ASTERISKS

An accountant colleague of mine, when our discussion about compliance in general turned to Barry Bonds in particular, said something I hadn't heard before, probably because its so obvious and so inconvenient.

"If they're going to put an asterisk next to Barry Bonds' home run record, they should also put an asterisk next to Ruth's, because Babe Ruth played against only white players. The exclusion of Black people and Latinos has to be a bigger taint on any statistic achieved, or even partly achieved, during baseball's segregation, than any players' use of drugs to improve their performance."

There's another asterisk you could enter for recent home run achievements: until recent times there was no rule against a pitcher throwing at a batter. The only inhibition was fear of retaliation. When Willie Mays hit a home run, the first pitch of his next at-bat would be a fastball right at his head. It was very common to see batters flat on their backs as a result of avoiding beanballs.

The best home run hitter of all time? Bill Mazeroski. It ain't how many you hit, it's when you hit 'em.

----- o -----

BOSENDORFER

Many years ago a boss of mine who prides himself on knowing and consuming only the best, I guess you could call it a kind of snobbism, was anxious to demonstrate some new found knowledge. “What’s the best brand of pianos?”

“No such thing,” I said, “it’s a matter of personal pref—“

“Bosendorfer,” he blurted.

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s one of the top brands.”

“It’s the most expensive, and most exclusive,” he said.

So I told him about a recent documentary on Vladimir Horowitz’ trip to Moscow. It was some big deal politically or historically or something. But noteworthy for our discussion: Horowitz brought his own piano, that he plays on every day in his Manhattan livingroom. They showed the Maestro playing on the piano in his home. Then they show it being boxed up and hauled out. Then, later, they show Horowitz on the Moscow concert stage, half a world away, playing the very same piano.

We’d expect a violinist to bring his own instrument along. But moving a huge piano, is it really worth it? Well, why would a violin be different from a piano? Each individual instrument has its own voice. A performer seeks an instrument with a voice that supports the performer’s musical world view. These are subtleties available only to highly accomplished artists and generally involve the more expensive brands. But even within a brand, at the high end, each individual piano has its own voice.

“By the way,” I said, “Horowitz’ piano is a Steinway.”

----- o -----

FOUR STAR FASCIST

General Hayden made this unchallenged statement today in Senate testimony, regarding his performance at the NSA:

“Clearly the privacy of American citizens is a concern constantly. We always balance privacy and security."

No, general, it is not the duty of the NSA to "balance privacy and security." That is not even the job of the Executive Branch. The Legislative and Judicial branches have this responsibility. Your duty is to pursue your mission with all diligence within the confines of the law.

The Bill of Rights has relieved you of the responsibility to balance privacy. You don’t have to balance anything, just obey the law. In case you don’t quite understand the law, that’s what the Judicial Branch is for.

In the clip I saw, his stars were sparkling like diamonds.

----- o -----

THREE GOOD NEWS STORIES

“Ecuador moves against oil giant.” Latin American and South American oil producing countries are nationalizing their own fossil fuel resources. It used to be that the US would send Marines to overthrow such uppity regimes. And that isn’t happening this time, yet. It seems to me that the name of the company that pumps Ecuador’s oil should have a Spanish or even Indian name, not “Occidental Petroleum.” What—the folks in Ecuador don’t know how to drill oil? Good news.

“Mayor vetoes Saturday park road closures.” While it would be ideal to have no cars in Golden Gate Park, simply banning them, without accommodating auto traffic some other way, causes lots of problems for lots of people.

A few years ago San Francisco voters rejected a ballot measure to close some park roads on Saturdays (they’re already closed on Sundays). Now the Board of Supervisors has voted to enact the proposal the voters rejected. What outrageous arrogance! If they think the outcome would be different they can resubmit the measure for another city-wide vote. Instead they chose to violate the express will of the voters of San Francisco.

Lucky for us we have a native-born mayor who understands that signing the road closure bill would cost the City millions in litigation, there would eventually be another plebiscite, and the outcome would be the same as the last one.

The ideologues on the Board don’t understand that thousands of San Franciscans work at regular Monday through Friday jobs, and that they do errands on Saturdays. The Saturday road closure would have many of them sitting in jammed traffic for an extra 20-30 minutes every Saturday. So, thank you, Mayor, for your good sense. More good news.

Another story enhances a previous report about a Bausch and Lomb contact lens solution that promotes a rare fungus that causes blindness. The particular product has been removed from store shelves. Today’s report says that Bausch and Lomb executives withheld data regarding 35 cases of the fungus associated with their product occurring some time ago in Singapore. These fuckers calculate the profit for each day the product is being sold. So if they can delay the safety recall by a few weeks, they’ll generate enough money to pay for litigation, and, as a last resort, compensate the “small” number of people who actually lose their eyesight.

B&L are the folks who marketed the exact same contact lenses in three different boxes at three different prices. One box referred to the lenses as “one-day disposables” and recommended that they be worn only once, for one day, then be discarded. Another box referred to them as “14-day disposables,” at a higher price, and another as “30-day disposables” at an even higher price. Exactly the same lenses! It was a Sixty Minutes story. B&L actually sent some stooge to answer tough questions, and the poor guy wound up blathering to a national audience.

Even the fungus story is good news, at least that the assholes got caught, and in the sense that it helps with decision-making. I’ve pretty much decided to avoid all B&L products. I’m sticking with store brands. If blindness is the outcome anyway, why pay more?

----- o -----

RETIREMENT

In just a few weeks I’ll be retiring from UCSF after completing the minimum five years required for vesting in the retirement plan. Some of my colleagues call it early retirement. At age 57, I’m not ceasing all gainful employment, I can’t afford to. But I am returning to semi-retirement, my wont, after five years (plus nine months that didn’t count toward vesting) at a straight, full time job.

At UCSF a person isn’t retired until they have filed an “election” regarding retirement benefits. The major choice is lifetime monthly payments versus an immediate lump-sum cashout. The lump-sum amount equals the total monthly payments I’d receive if I lived to my actuarial age. I did the math, and they figure I’ll die around 71 or 72. Because the monthly payment would have been so small, and because I don’t trust the state’s promise of lifetime payments, I elected the lump sum.

There are plenty of people my age who’ve been working for UCSF for twenty years and are planning to continue for at least another five or six. They frequently check the retirement calculator to see how much they’ll receive per month. I used to envy the idea of retiring at 75% of one’ highest salary.

But consider, a man who works till 65 has an average of seven years of retirement. And at least some of that is spent dying. For many career employees, disease catches up with them even before they retire. More commonly, for others, a stultifying career has extinguished any aptitude for real fun and they vegetate, bored and boring. Delaying gratification until retirement is a sucker’s bet.

I don’t agree with Baudelaire that evil is better than boredom. But a short, interesting life is definitely preferable to a long boring one. Longevity is the most boring goal of all. Those who seek it can’t possibly know what to do with it.

Then good old Mr Wilson bursts in all excited. Usually when my friend, Pudinhand Wilson, waves a newspaper (or web printouts) he’s ranting about the lack of good news—concerning recreational drugs. Today he’s got a point. He’s put one and one together and come up with… well, you count.

First he’s outraged by the front page story of concrete contractor fraud on the new, screw-the-poor-black-people, Muni light rail line. They provided cheap, weak concrete, not the good stuff required by the contract, and paid for by the city.

Or as Pudinhand put it, “What kind of concrete did they use for Jimmy Hoffa? Some crappy stuff with old ground-up bricks? Hell no! Only the very best shit to bury Mr Hoffa’s ass in! That’s one fucking bridge they don’t want falling down.

“But for the black folk at the end of the new line—even when they get their downtown jobs, they can’t get to work because the weak-ass trackbed is busting up and the streetcars are derailing daily.

“And,” he said, flipping a page, “there’s been an upsurge in fatal alligator attacks in Florida. There’ve been three in the last week. And those are the ones they’re talking about.”

Then he raises his forefinger in a gesture of utter seriousness, which he trots out infrequently “to preserve it’s credibility,” and declares, “Mark my words: the Bushes are going to turn Florida into one big alligator farm, with indigent aging baby boomers as the feed.”

“Of course they’ll start off slow. One or two attacks here or there. Eventually people will be inured to the idea of retirees getting picked off by alligators. The scale of course, like the final solution in Germany, is hard to imagine at first. But likewise it’s difficult to predict how unbearably annoying, not to mention expensive, the boomers will be who survive into their eighties, and how relatively numerous. It’s unnatural for the young to carry such a burden.

“More natural is for the aged to fall prey to natural stuff. So, the standard, at least in Florida, will be foot speed. When you get to the point where you can’t outrun a gator, or jump away from its lunges, well, maybe it’s time for recycling. Instead of being hated burdens on society, aging boomers would become high end belts and handbags.

“Mark my words,” he repeated solemnly, “twenty years from now, everyone will know what it means to say, ‘Grandma and grandpa went to Florida.’”

So I had to ask him what this has to do with faulty concrete. He was exasperated by my dullness:

“All over the South they got roads cutting through swamps and the swamps are filled with hungry gators and those roads got bridges and those bridges are supposed to be concrete but who knows what kind of shit they put in there and you’re driving across and the bridge gives way and all of a sudden the goddamn alligators are ripping your ass to shreds.”

Pudinhand read the bafflement in my face.

“So make your fucking plans accordingly,” he said, “Mr Retiree!”

----- o -----

LOGIC FUCK

The recent Patrick Kennedy single car accident flap pissed me off.

The lesser issue exposed was the legal impunity accorded the powerful. Joe Blow in Kennedy’s place would have been arrested, booked, and alcohol-tested. A black Joe Blow would also have kissed some asphalt. Kennedy got a ride home.

This kind of incident only breeds disrespect for the law. It amounts to either bribery or extortion. Whoever decided to drive Patrick home did so in consideration of the potential consequences of pleasing or angering the powerful Kennedy’s.

What bothers me a lot more is the acceptance by the press of the Kennedy’s patently illogical explanation of events. It’s like accepting a balance sheet that doesn’t balance.

Here’s the Kennedy story:

1) Patrick took a prescription anti-nausea pill, in the prescribed dosage, in the afternoon.
2) Patrick took a prescription sleeping pill, in the prescribed dosage, later that evening.
3) Patrick had no other drugs or alcohol in his system.
4) At three in the morning Patrick got out of bed and sleep-walked through the episode that ended in the car crash.
5) Patrick committed no crime—the episode was caused by an adverse reaction to medications that were legally prescribed and used only as recommended. Patrick wasn’t even conscious.
6) Patrick would be immediately entering a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.

Whoa!

Points 1 through 5, whether true or not, make sense and tell a consistent story. Point 6, however, seems to be a non-sequiter.

If you follow the logic, Point 6 should read, “Patrick will immediately discontinue the use of both medications and will consult his physician regarding possible substitutes.”

Accepting that the rich get special treatment renders the law absurd. Accepting gross illogic renders everything absurd.

Maybe something else is being covered up. Absenting oneself is a useful tactic in such a circumstance whether one is seeking treatment or just lying low, you know, "stay out of town ‘til it blows over. "

Just for fun:

Mary-Jo Kopechne: But what if I get pregnant?

Ted Kennedy: We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

The above pictures come from Fatboy, a truly fun site dedicated to Teddy.

----- o -----

TYPICAL

A really nice person I work for is an M.D. radiologist from Austria (or Germany). He has been doing mostly clinical work with some consulting on other researchers’ projects, but he is expanding his research effort and starting to lead projects of his own.

Yesterday a nice co-worker asked if I’d be a Guinea pig for one of my guy’s clinical trials that requires healthy-man-my-age knee scans. I gave her a hard time, but she met my requirements—that it take place during my regular work day, and that the MD radiologist review the scans for any obvious pathology.

So I spent the last two work hours in the Imaging Center downstairs in comfy hospital gown things, and most of that time flat on my back with my eyes closed, listening to the compelling aleatory music of the 3-T MRI machine—thumps, clangs, knocks, and hums in various competing rhythms and all ridiculously loud. Earplugs are required. Many actual patients need to be dosed for claustrophobia, so the controlled opportunity to deal with my own claustrophobia is an additional benefit. It really is reason over reflex.

The opening starts wide. You can see that it narrows. The actual scanning gets done deep in the dark narrow tube. I've always gone feet-first. The guy in the picture is about to be slid-in head-first--they'd have to knock me out with a sledge hammer.

This afternoon my MD radiologist called me into his office to talk about my scans. He seemed kind of concerned. He said I had significant edema (swelling, I guess) in two places. He asked me if I had any knee pain and was surprised that I said no. He asked about my tennis (my being an “active” 50-something made me an ideal Guinea pig), if my knee felt sore after playing. I said, no not at all.

I mentioned that I’d had some foot problems, some plantars fascitis and a little tennis toe, but even after twenty years of softball and seven years of tennis, I had no knee pain at all. He still acted very surprised. He had drawn a simple diagram of where the edema showed up, and explained why it could (should) be painful. Then he wanted to show me the actual scans.

I pulled my chair up to look at his computer screen over his shoulder. As he moved through the first series (the process produces 2-d images of the object from hundreds of angles—the effect of moving through a series of images is that of walking around a statue, or turning an object in your hands) he again expressed surprise.

What he saw was a perfectly healthy knee, no pathology whatsoever. Turns out he had originally looked at only a few printouts he'd been given in a folder. The printouts he'd seen were of another person’s knee. Somehow there'd been a mix-up. After verifying that the scans on the screen were my true scans, he seemed relieved. Apparently the (wrong) scans he had looked at that morning contained some fairly bad news.

He apologized for causing alarm. “As long as we caught it before the amputation,” I quipped.

Actually I hadn’t felt alarmed. If there had been a real problem I was lucky to find out about it. MRI scans are expensive and would normally not be available to me. Then, learning that my knee is actually ok, that’s fine, too. Full speed ahead.

But it’s a valuable cautionary tale. When it does it come time to amputate something, I’m going to make damn sure they’re looking at the right scans.

----- o -----

NECESSITY

The illegals say, “We are not criminals, we only come here to work so we can support our families.”

This attempts to justify an act (illegal residency) because of the goodness of the motive. Ok, supporting one’s family is a good motive. We might quibble with the word support—Jack Grubman felt it necessary to trade millions worth of insider info for a place for his son in an exclusive kindergarten. And, what about the millions of families south of the border that are getting by, somehow, without money from the USA?

When a motive is used to justify an act, we have to ask if there are any acts that could not be justified by that motive? For instance, is it ok for me to murder your family so that my family can survive? Can I push your family out of a lifeboat so my family can take their place?

I flipped past a Board of Supervisors meeting on the tube and heard one supervisor state, “No matter how strong the laws against public urination, the necessity defense will still apply.”

It’s great that the law recognizes that kind of necessity. Ultimately there is no such thing as plain old necessity. It is not necessary that the universe continue to exist. And likewise it’s not necessary that any person or thing did, does, or ever will exist.

Necessity is conditional.

- If I don’t want to pee my pants, I have to pee in the bushes.

- If I don’t eat, I’ll die.

- If I don’t work, I won’t get paid and my family will starve.

- If I get fired my family will starve.

- If I tell the truth I’ll get fired and my family will starve.

- I had to use a corked bat in order to hit enough homeruns to earn the bonus so my family won’t starve.

Necessity is a physical sensation. Cells want to live. Cells want pleasure. Cells want to reproduce. Cells pine for past states of well-being.

For example:

My mom, who had been sliding toward demise for years, had an acute illness that doctors predicted would kill her within a day or two. My mom was beatific. It may have been the novelty of the morphine high, but I think she felt she was going to have a quick death.

She had talked a lot about suicide but found she couldn’t bring herself (her cells) to do it. She had however, documented her desire that no extraordinary means be used to prolong her life.

The only treatment for her condition, a blocked intestine that ballooned her belly like a starving baby, was surgery, and my mom refused. Good for her. Now she was delighted to know she’d be dead within forty-eight hours.

She survived. Against high odds, her condition partially resolved, and she survived another six weeks. She’d had a slow growing form of lung cancer for three years. The hospice nurse reluctantly whispered a prediction of “about a month.”

After going home and seeing her tummy go down, she got bored with the waiting for death routine and wanted to make plans for the rest of her life. She didn’t really eat, so regaining strength wasn’t going to happen. But the cells don’t want to die.

She never got out of bed or removed her catheter or her fentinyl patch. She was on nearly constant oxygen. She died about seven weeks after the onset of the blocked intestine, in a nursing home where I put her after three weeks of home care.

She went to the nursing home as a prerequisite, so we discussed, to deciding on a more permanent placement. The agreement was for a month, to see if she could regain some strength. This was pretty much bullshit, but we couldn’t discount another miracle. (As it turned out, both lungs were full of cancer and there wasn’t any chance.)

There are moments when life-themes trump cell-selfishness. This was the case when my mom first entered the hospital and was told she’d die soon. But it’s hard to sustain for any length of time. The cells are planning to live. For the cells survival feels necessary, even when they are part of an eighty-six year old woman who can’t maintain consciousness despite the oxygen machine pounding away to the max.

What kind of necessity was there that my mom survive another day, another hour, and at the end, another breath? The cells, so unrelenting, are cruel. Let’s face it, life doesn’t care about you or me. It cares only about itself.

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THE FUTURE AS ENEMY

This weekend a pundit mentioned that our war-on-terror enemy is Islamic fundamentalism. It struck me as bold and non-pc, and this was a vanilla-voiced kind of guy. I wondered: why did it seem strange, why don’t more people state this obvious construct?

Because, I figured, our country is run by Christian fundamentalists and they don’t want us to make the connection. I, and I’m sure, poll-wise, most Americans, don’t support either kind of fundamentalism. What we see is one kind of fundamentalism battling another. It’s a dreary drama when you can’t identify with either agonist.

Both fundamentalisms oppose the future. Christian fundamentalism deals with the future by keeping it from taking place, that is, by precipitating Armageddon. The Islamic fundamentalists seek to bar their people from entering the future by denying them new behaviors.

Liberals have been silent on fundamentalism. We shouldn’t fault those who hate the future unless we ourselves can describe some version of the future that’s both plausible and fun. Given population, resources, and aspirations, our species seems headed for a major die-back. The future belongs to those for whom survivalism is enjoyable.

Bush is like Slim Pickens, whooping as he rides the nuke like a bronco, into oblivion. The liberals are at the back of the plane, the engine roar drowns out whatever it is they’re saying.

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KISSING

I don’t know about other families, but, growing up my brother and I kissed our parents first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and at major departures and arrivals during the day. And there would be random kisses. Both parents equally.

So when I was getting to be twelve or thirteen I started to feel a little uncomfortable kissing my dad on the lips three or four or five times a day. (I think my brother must have just stopped doing it.) Finally I screwed up my courage and broached the subject. Of course, it’s all embarrassing for pubertal boys.

I don’t know who or how we came up with the solution, but my dad and I agreed that in circumstances in which we used to kiss on the lips, that instead my dad would pat me on the head. After a while it became know as “taps.”

I would lower my head toward him, definitely a submissive posture, and my dad would tap, sometimes with this fingertips, sometimes with the flat of his hand, the top of my head. Each instance had an unpredictable number of taps or pats, and they would be delivered in unpredictable rhythms.

It was an unspoken joke—that the number and rhythm of the taps was somehow tailored to the meaning of the particular situation. Sometimes two taps, sometimes twelve, sometimes major delays between taps. I knew the session was over and I could lift my head when my dad would say, “Now be a good boy.”

This ritual endured for the rest of my dad’s life.

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P. Wilson: IRAN

Q. Would Jesus drop a nuke?

A. Yes, as many as it takes.

Pudinhand Wilson

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CATHEXIS

What does it mean to love someone?

At the very least, when you love someone:

Your heart goes out to them when they suffer.
You feel genuine joy when they succeed.
You worry about them more than they worry about themselves.

These feelings are easy to see in a parent’s love for a child, less so in a child’s love for a parent. These feelings can be seen in the love between two friends, And those feelings are all that exist in the Greek agape which is fellow-feeling among our species.

These feelings can be more difficult to find in the relationships our culture most strongly associates with the word “love,” sexual love.

Sexual desire isn’t really associated with the three feelings listed. Male sexual desire, (as I experience it), can aim at people never met. The mere sight of someone can initiate measurable sexual response. Then as I draw closer the someone’s posture and movements give clues about potential sexual movements. Then there’s voice, and smell. All entering the calculations of how pleasant a sexual interaction might be with the someone. Both people do it and if no impediments arise mating behavior begins. I hope what I’m talking about is “object cathexis,” meaning the focus of one’s sexual desire on particular individuals. Object cathexis means, “I want to have sex with that person.”

Complicating is “act cathexis.” Act cathexis says, “I want to have sex, period,” or “I want to do this particular sex act.” While object cathexis has produced much high art and low pop songs, dependable old act cathexis, I bet, is responsible for our species’ populousness.

Really great is the mutual confluence of these two aims, when each finds the other highly attractive and each enjoys accommodating the particular things the other likes to do sexually. Then, the two people can have lots of sex fun. They’re a sex fun team. I’m not sure exactly what you call this.

The hours each month during which (hetero) intercourse could result in pregnancy are few. Frequent intercourse over a period of time increases the likelihood of conception. A documentary showed lions fucking every five minutes during the fertile time.

So how does this relate to the other meanings of love? Certainly this sphere of activity is not exempt from the golden rule. We’re supposed to be nice to people, even when we're fucking them.

When two people wish to maintain their sexual love they build a relationship that extends beyond the bedroom. In doing this they develop the kinds of feelings associated with parent/child love and with the love between two friends. I think the parent/child thing is a big part of it.

From allwords.com:

cathexis noun
cathexes 1. psychol.
A charge of mental energy directed towards a particular idea or object.

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ART JACKSON

In my first couple years of Gay softball (men’s slowpitch) I played shortstop. I had enough skills and knowledge to do an adequate job but my main contribution was field generalship. The biggest failing of once-a-week softball players is that they throw the ball around too much.

The classic play is the miss-hit dinker in front of the plate that the catcher (usually the worst fielder) throw wildly past the first baseman. When the right fielder (usually the second worst fielder) finally retrieves the ball the batter-baserunner is on his way to third. The right fielder makes a terrible throw past or over the third baseman, and the batter-baserunner scampers home. Ill advised, inaccurate throws are the bane of a softball defense.

I used my loud voice and extended arms to demand the ball from the outfielders, then turn, show the ball to the ump, and request time-out. The only time I’d make a throw was when there was nothing to lose. The most important thing was to preserve the force at second. Force-outs at second base are the foundation of good softball defense.

In the early days of Gay softball, this was 1980, many teams were formed around some affinity, and terrible players played next to pretty good ones. This particular year Tommy Shirk was trying to put together a powerhouse, and of course he wanted me.

Then, there was word that Art Jackson was recruiting a team to play out of the Pendulum bar, which catered to black guys and those who like black guys. Art was able to recruit a couple of key black players, including a recent major-leaguer, from Tommy’s team and suddenly Art Jackson’s became the “stacked” team. They invited me to play third base. I decided to go to one practice, even though I felt kind of committed to Tommy. Art understood that I was “just coming to a practice.”

I played plenty of third base in my softball career. Twice I was involved in my favorite third-base play, which is rare partly because the catcher is usually the worst fielder on the team. Situation: bases loaded, less than two outs. Third baseman playing even with the bag gets a two or three-hopper, steps on third, then steps back into the field, throws home and yells, “Tag him.”

I hadn’t focused much on Art Jackson. I mostly remember he was short but commanding. I saw him again years later at a memorial gathering for Glenn Burke. Glenn had died of AIDS after a downhill slide into drug addiction. Glenn had played for the Dodgers and the A’s before become the best Gay softball player in the country. He told me that he’d hit the ball out of every park in the major leagues (in batting practice). His career was short, his stats weren’t great, but Glenn will be remembered as the originator of the high-five. Check this page, scroll to the bottom. Glenn started in center field in the world series for the Dodgers—I’m impressed. Glenn had defected from Tommy's team and would play shortstop for Art.

So after Art's first practice we go back to the Pendulum for a drink (or ten). At one point Art gives me raffle tickets to sell for a team fundraiser. By disposition and upbringing I loathe selling raffle tickets. So that was annoying.

A while later Art gestured for me to come join him at the bar. He was sitting on a stool looking away from the bar. When I got close enough to hear him in the noisy room, he said something about me being a good ballplayer and reached around and grabbed my ass with both hands, squeezed hard, and pulled me toward him. I gracefully extracted myself. Ass grabbing in SF gay bars circa 1980 was as shocking as gambling at Rick’s.

At the time I was a dashing 32 year old, in really good shape, and it seems that some people found me attractive. And, I was a highly desirable softball player. I think what turned me so off about this incident was the completely demented idea Art must have had about our power relationship. In almost every way I had the power. And Art didn’t realize it. I wasn’t embarrassed or particularly offended. I guess it was surprise, that Art, who seemed like a smart guy, could be so wrong.

When I called Art to tell him I was sticking with Tommy-Lee’s team there was some discussion of my returning the raffle tickets. I just threw them away. The next time I talked to Tommy he said he’d heard I was playing for Art. “Of course not, “ I said, “I just went to one practice.” Still, Tommy was disappointed about the defections. So, we had the second best team

Art’s team, starring Glenn Burke, was the best Gay softball team, people said, ever assembled. Despite being a little shaky at third (meow), Art’s team had a perfect record including local Gay Softball League play, two out-of-town tournaments, and the Gay World Series. They were the Gay Softball World Champs. They won every single game—except one.

It was a best-of-three post season playoff between Art’s team and Tommy’s team. I was playing shortstop and batting third for Tommy. In the last inning of the second game (Art’s team won the first) we faced elimination, behind by three runs and with two outs. Then yours truly gets up with two runners on base and hits a towering home run to tie the score. Tommy still mentions it, even twenty years later, when I run into him, calls me Clutch. We held on and finally punched across a run after holding Art’s team scoreless in two extra innings. This was truly a glorious moment for our whole team, and for Tommy.

Glenn was so pissed didn’t come out to shake our hands (actually high five). Art actually had a cooler of champagne on hand, but it remained unopened. They had to wait till the next day for the third and decisive game, which they won. They went on to be otherwise undefeated World Champs, but the bloom was off the rose. So, Art, I thought at the time, that’ll teach you to grab my ass.

I’m smiling right now, thinking about it. Earlier today my friend Michael called to say that Art had died. Michael suggested that this story would contribute an additional edge to Art Jackson’s cubist obit.

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A SIMPLE RULE

It was a USTA (tennis association) team match between my gay team and a team from Golden Gate Park. This, and USTA sponsored tournaments are the most “official” matches players at my level can play. Records are kept. Winning teams go to post season play leading to a national championship. Individuals’ playing-level ratings go up and down based on a computer’s analysis of results.

Early in my doubles match my partner hit a ball that went way past our opponents’ baseline, but, before it landed, it hit one of our opponents. He looked up with a sheepish expression.

“If that hit you, it’s our point,” I declared. He started to ask for me to cut him some slack, but I insisted.

It’s a well known rule. Frequently we see pros, well behind their baseline, jumping or contorting themselves to avoid a ball that’s going long. Afterward, I discussed with one of my teammates who said that given the circumstances (the opponent standing in “out” territory) it might have been good sportsmanship to concede the point.

What I hate about this point of view is that it’s more complicated than simply following the rule. There are enough judgment calls without adding another. And there are enough rules without having to remember a whole bunch of unwritten exceptions.

Or, if there are some aspects of some rules that “everyone” knows are chickenshit, let’s state them so we all know they aren’t in effect.

Getting hit by a ball when you're in out territory rarely happens. It's kind of basic, like not falling for the hidden ball trick. It happened on my court once before. People didn’t know the rule. The only other time I witnessed it was an Open Division men’s singles match. One guy had a weird flat serve that sort of sailed, like a fastball. One of his long serves hit his opponent in the foot. No argument, both knew the rule. Server's point.

Ok. If it’s my six year old niece who’s already crying because the ball hit her, I’m not going to lean over and say, “And by the way, you lose the point.”

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ILLEGALS

Do I have cheating on my mind? Or is it just so much in the news?

Hundreds of thousands are demonstrating to reward illegal immigrants. I like the folks who say, “It would cost billions to deport all of them.” Wait. Why don’t we just tell them to leave and get in line behind those who have applied and are waiting for legal immigration? Because they won’t leave. Just the kind of people we want as citizens!

Shame on everyone who talks about “jobs Americans won’t do.” Rather, it’s salaries Americans won’t accept. For the same salary and benefits I’m getting now I’d much prefer cleaning hotel rooms to my current work.

As is becoming increasingly clear, our invasion of Iraq was a war of choice, launched for reasons yet to be revealed. But Bush is portrayed as mistaken! Wait a second. Invading a sovereign country that isn’t threatening your country is a crime against peace. George Bush, and Cheney, and all those fucks are war criminals. The complicity of both (sic) political parties is likewise criminal.

So we have to accept the “facts on the ground.” We have totally destabilized Iraq so we have to stay there. We let millions of illegal immigrants into our country, now we have to legalize them.

So, tell some ghetto kid to play by the rules? Like who? And tell all foreigners thinking about illegal immigration, “From now on we’re going to strictly enforce our immigration laws. And this time we really mean it!”

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FIRST LADY

On January 14, 1968, Martin Luther King addressed a rally at the gates of Santa Rita, an old Army camp that had become Alameda County’s prison farm. In addition to the usual inmates were 250 or so demonstrators who had blocked doorways at the downtown Oakland, CA, induction center during Christmas week. For a few hours the business of that facility, processing draftees for the horrors of Vietnam, ceased. The penalty for the non-violent civil disobediants, I among them, was 20 days at Santa Rita. For us, tumultuous 1968 began in jail.

We 150 or so male demonstrators were segregated into two contiguous barracks buildings out on the edge of the housing compound. The commies in the group wanted to be in general population so they could proselytize the real inmates. I wonder how I would have fared on the yard. For the prison administration keeping us together was the easiest way to handle this additional burden.

Dr King came to Santa Rita ostensibly to visit Joan Baez, one of the women prisoners. Joan, besides being an avid proponent of non-violence, was a major donor to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She also used some of her money to found the Institute for the Study of Non-violence. For this I salute her. She put some of her money where her mouth was.

The notion that governments must replace violent with non-violent means of settling disputes seems obvious, how that’s going to happen less so. As a political technique it has proved useful. As a matter of law, we are mostly required to live our lives without resort to violence. For most who espouse it, non-violence is a moral position. At the very least, development and promotion of non-violence can’t do too much harm. So Joan did a really good thing, I think, to use her fame in such a way.

A long time mentor to Joan Baez who also knew Dr King quite well was Ghandian scholar Ira Sandperl. Ira was housed in the other men’s dormitory so I saw him only a little. In my building was Roy Kepler who employed Ira in his bookstore and plenty of smart, interesting men--the Who’s Who of Bay Area pacifists and draft resisters along with snot nosed kids like me. The picture below is my only Ira Sandperl Google image result, taken in 1965. Closest to the camera is Ira, then John Lennnon, then Joan Baez, then someone whose identity seems to be in dispute.

Advocates of violence were vying for leadership of the civil rights movement, and many anti-war activists thought of themselves as violent revolutionaries. The non-violent sit-in at the induction center was day one of Stop the Draft Week. The remaining days were for those who wanted to battle the police. So turning out for non-violence directed a message at the world at large, but also at the non-non-violent demonstrators. King was planning a major campaign in DC that summer and he definitely wanted to keep it non-violent.

In his speech, Dr King praised us imprisoned demonstrators. Then, as he was doing those days, he slowly explained why his commitment to justice and non-violence compelled him to oppose our war on Vietnam. Seems logical enough today. He was killed less than three months later. Many think Dr King was assassinated because of his anti-war stance. Some say all five were Vietnam related—two Kennedy’s, King, X, and Wallace. Certainly all were Hoover jobs.

For me the most extraordinary visit we received during our stretch was in the wee hours of Christmas morning. I was awakened in total darkness by a commotion, mostly loud whispers and laughter, things like “How’d you get in?” and, “There’s a special pack of Marlboro’s.” And they were gone.

Some friends of some of my fellow demonstrators had broken into Santa Rita and into our barracks and delivered a bag of goodies: cookies and candy bars, but best of all cigarettes, two cartons. Those days most people smoked, me included, and our group, because of our segregation, were denied tobacco, and had to make do with two or three puffs, two or three times a day of rollyourown that somehow got to us. Marlboros, two cartons! Actually, 19 packs. The 20th pack held what looked like Marlboro’s but were carefully filled with marijuana. Merry Christmas!

All during this time, the US Air Force and Navy were bombing the shit out of Vietnam.

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