GRAVE PISSING

I thought Pud would be happy to hear that Alfredo Stroessner had died. The tin horn dictator of Paraguay, host to Nazi fugitives including Martin Bormann and Josep Mengele, oppressor of his people, crook, murderer, and, of course, ally of the United States, died last month. Pravda provides a nice little obit.

Instead of elating, the news annoyed my friend Pudinhand Wilson. “Another goddamn grave to piss on,” he said.

Turns out Pud has a list of graves that he feels obligated to desecrate. “There’s no way these fuckers deserve to rest in peace!”

Pud feels bad—because he’s so lazy, he hasn’t gotten around to pissing on any graves yet—time’s running out and the list of sites requiring Pud’s attention grows exponentially, like the world’s population.

“You know, Pud,” I said, “there must be plenty of people just like you, who, for one reason or another can’t make it to Paraguay to desecrate Stroessner’s grave. The next best thing would be to see video of someone else doing it. That way they could rest assured that his grave actually had been desecrated. Here’s the ideal business for you—travel, pee, travel, pee, etc. I don’t know how you’d market it… I’m thinking something like Girls Gone Wild.”

“You’re a genius!” Pud said as he jumped to his feet to do his “dance of cogitation.”

“This is sensational! My mission in life has been revealed. I gotta renew my passport, cash in some CD’s, get a video camera, and I’m off.”

“Pud,” I said, “it was a joke.”

“One man’s joke is another man’s toke,” Pud said dismissively.

“What about karma?”

“You mean that hippie chick in high school, Karma McIntyre? We’re the only two guys in our graduating class who never fucked her. Man, talk about free love!”

“No, asshole,” I said, “I mean the future of your soul.

“If you weren’t such a procrastinating piece of shit you already would have done it. You don’t have to go to Paraguay to find a grave worth pissing on. There’s probably a dozen fascists buried within an hour’s drive from here.”

“Yeah, fuck you.” Pud said, “I should have let you die.” When Pud says this, it means he wants to move on to some other line of thought, thank God.

----- o -----

GARY SNYDER'S POEMS SUCK BIGTIME

In a recent post my blog-mentor sfmike covered an art opening that included a wall hanging (oversized beach towel) supposedly some famous mandala, which was contributed by “poet Gary Snyder, no less.”

I chided Michael for being impressed by mere fame, and challenged him to identify two “really good” poems by Gary Snyder.

Later I googled upon an essay about Gary Snyder, supposedly a glowing one, by Kenneth Rexroth (same challenge). Rexroth’s essay includes the following:

I once long ago said to Gary that Buddhism was the assumption of unlimited liability for the community of love, and Gary said, “The best way to put that is unlimited interiority in the community of love.” For the Buddhist vision is the empirical, prime reality. Nirvana is samsara. The world is the transcendent. Illusion is illumination. The disciple holds up a flower and Buddha laughs, and all the Buddhas of all the Buddha worlds of all the infinities of infinities light up and laugh. The point is flower. How right the interbellum culture was to make a saint of that sick man, Kierkegaard. There is no interiority there, only a horrified utter exteriority. “Who is Buddha?” “I think I’ll cook bean cake for supper.” In the necklace of Shiva every diamond reflects every other and is itself reflected.

If you think that maybe the above paragraph is anything but nonsense, then you might be able to form a similar opinion about Gary Snyder’s poetry. For me Buddha-bullshit is no more or less interesting than Jesus-bullshit or Mohammed-bullshit.

Here’s some basic stuff by Gary Snyder. This is the kind of crap that gives poetry a bad name.

So, rather than be completely negative I’ll mention a really good poet who shows up in some of the modern poetry anthologies along with Gary Snyder. His name is Jackson Mac Low. I haven’t actually read much of him, except for a few delightful anthology pieces, but for some reason his name came to mind when I asked myself, Who of that generation (besides the obvious Allen Ginsberg, Edward Field, Michael McClure) was a “real” poet.

The first thing I found on the net by Jackson Mac Low is exquisite, “9 Light Poems.” They have the same strong voice, the same command that I remember from reading him years ago, and the same wonderful shtick--exasperation rescued by playfulness.

You be the judge.

----- o -----

P. Wilson: THE BOOK OF CHRISTIAN TORTURE

I can understand a docile press, I guess, but where’s the goddamn clergy?

There’s been a ton of discussion about US treatment of international detainees (not to mention domestic police practice) in the news lately. Much of the discussion centers on whether the US is bound by international laws and treaties. Another part of the discussion is whether specific techniques amount to “torture.” The third consideration is whether it is advisable in the long run for the US to employ torture. Bringing up the rear is any thought of whether or not torture is moral.

On this last issue we’ve heard barely a peep out of our Christian nation’s Christian clergy. I’m going to end that, by compiling definitive opinions from representatives of any and all Christian denominations currently operating in the United States.

It’ll be pretty simple. The table of contents will be a list of interrogation/torture techniques currently in use around the world.

For each technique, e.q., electrodes clipped to testicles for electric shocks, clergymen would answer just three questions: Would Jesus do it?, Is it ok for a Christian minister to participate? Is it ok for a regular Christian to do it?

We could rank the various torture techniques from mildest to most extreme. So we could see at what level each denomination drops their approval. Some sects might approve holding a gun to a prisoner’s head, but would disapprove actually killing him.

This would also pertain within a particular technique. Some sects might approve sleep deprivation by blasting loud music, as long as it’s Christian music. Other sects might say any music was ok. Or, when it comes to throwing uncooperative prisoners out of helicopters, most ministers would agree that the number tossed to their deaths should be limited to what’s necessary to extract cooperation from the remaining prisoners.

Of course there would be a really juicy appendix of torture techniques actually employed throughout history by Christian denominations. This will ensure perv-sales.

Interested agents, publishers, contributors, please reply by comment to this post.

----- o -----

PUD'S IMPEACHMENT ADVICE

You dumbfuck democrats talking about impeaching Bush:

The impeachment of Clinton was a colossal parody of what impeachment should be. It wasted money and time and attention. I want my congresspeople to spend their time making life better for us, not fucking around with impeachment. Of course, there is sufficient cause to impeach Bush, but is there necessary cause? I think you have better things to do with your time. Please, give us bread, not circuses.

However, if you really must do some impeaching, impeach Cheney. Almost everybody hates that fucker, as opposed to Bush, whom some people seem to like personally, perhaps because he’s not threateningly cerebral.

So, the line is: Bush is a good guy who was betrayed by his vice-president. It was Cheney how got us into Iraq, Cheney who ordered Abu Graighb, Gitmo, and rendition for torture. Heck, it was Cheney who picked Rumsfeld and together they undermined that nice light-skinned Black man Colin Powell (we’ll forget that Powell told lies to the UN that got thousands of people killed, apparantely in exchange for x-billions of AIDS help for Africa, figuring, I suppose, that death is death).

Who the heck is going to step forward to defend Cheney? People voted for Bush, not necessarily for Cheney. Cheney’s going to die soon anyway, God willing. And Bush is just a beer stain on the pages of history, he isn’t even worth impeaching. Going after Bush is like impeaching Howdy Doody and letting Buffalo Bob go free.


Look it up, Congress can impeach any federal officeholder, not just the president.

There’s your marching papers, you puling excuses for leaders. Why does it take some dopey slacker with the name Pudinhand Wilson to think this shit up for you?

----- o -----

ONE TWO PUNCH

"I'm getting tired of the blues."

Pudinhand Wilson

Pud wants me to the help Democrats by telling them a useful word to use in the upcoming campaign. He wants me to write it a hundred times.

Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less Warrant-less.


So I'm thinking: why don’t the Dems press the Repubs on this? It’s so obvious. Nobody on the face of the earth is opposed to wiretapping. Equally, none of us wants to give the cops blanket permission to enter our homes without a warrant, which is Bush’s program exactly. The administration has never explained why FISA warrants can’t be obtained.

So I'm thinking, What IS the relationship between the Democrats and the Republicans? Finally, after watching my five-millionth episode of Law and Order, it dawned on me—good cop/bad cop.

The Republicans are the bad cops, the Democrats the good cops. They work together to extract from the citizenry not a confession but their consent to be governed, and of course, taxed. That consent is expressed in the vote.

By this logic, those who don’t vote, at least here in America in 2006, are the one’s who have wised-up

Alexander Cockburn’s recent piece deals with the pathetic hope that electing democrats will somehow do some substantial good.

----- o -----

WHAT'S NEW?

“All important issues are re-examined and re-debated every generation, and a new generation is born daily.” Pudinhand Wilson.

So some illegal immigrant lady, who is under court order to report for deportation, has flouted the judge’s order and is holed up in the storefront church of a Chicago Methodist congregation, having accepted their offer of “Sanctuary.”

I remember learning about sanctuary in fifth grade World (actually European) History. The principle of Sanctuary applied in Europe when the church, the Roman Catholic Church, had authority superior to that of any political entity. And it was used exclusively to protect high level courtier types who found themselves on the political outs locally but were still favored by the church.

When I’m in charge, the Methodist bishop of Chicago would already be in jail for harboring a fugitive.

The judge who had Boy George do a community service sentence in full public view (street cleaning) should be voted out. America needs less not more of Boy George.

Pud thinks Boy George is all about heroin. It’s the sort of music he could perform on the nod. And the junkies listening to it would say, “He’s just like us and he’s making millions of dollars!”

I suppose he had something to do with androgyny or sexual identity, but what a bad exemplar! You’d have to go pretty deep into real perversity to find anything as unwholesome as the marketing invention that is Boy George.

So good for Jon Benet Ramsey, America’s favorite fantasy-molest, her death was not in vain. The arrest of a suspect today should keep Boy George out of the news for a while.

A few juicy twists in the Jon Benet case, followed the capture of Osama, should occupy the news through October, and, throw in a couple of terror plots, the Republicans CAN retain control of both houses come November.

And reporters in prison! The two Chronicle reporters are currently under threat in the BALCO case, and Josh Wolf is actually in jail. This is bad and painful. But almost as painful is having to listen to the arguments, once again, for why we need a free press.

BTW: Josh Wolf, according to his website, was almost visited at his Federal Correctional Facility, by Judith Miller. The mention treats it as some sort of validation. In fact, Judith Miller is a scumbag, a disgrace to professional journalism who is morally drowning in Iraqi blood.

Her visit was “almost” because she wasn’t an approved visitor. I’m sure she knew this in advance. Lucky for Josh that a meeting with Judith Miller didn’t soil his resume.

With news like this I can sort of understand why terrorists would want to make their own.

----- o -----

from MY MUSICAL EDUCATION

A wiry, sort of nervous guy named Raymond Ojeda had a little wind-only sheet music shop in the Tenderloin in the early 1970’s.

The couple times I, a TSN (true snot nose) flute student, bought music there I also received some professional musician perspective from Mr Ojeda himself.

Ray was a bassoonist for the SF Symphony but he wasn’t a totally happy camper. The way he talked he was always about to be fired, or about to quit. There was politics that went way over my head.

One of Ray Ojeda’s rants was about the goddamn German repertoire they’d been playing in recent years (I think Josef Krips was conducting then). “And,” he said, “it’s all because of the Jews. The fucking Jews out-German the Germans.” I guess “the Jews” were major benefactors, darn them.

“Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven. They’d make us play a Beethoven symphony on every program if they could.”

Then he’d extol the glory days of Pierre Monteux, who played plenty of French music.

“The difference between French and German music is the same as the difference between French and German food,” Ray said.

From my point of view it would be great to be a professional musician. What’s to complain about? My mom, who grew up around some musicians understood the precarious financial circumstances of most of them.

When we moved back to San Francisco when I was ten, we had some weather stripping done by a carpenter who used to be a violinist in the SF Symphony. His story was that he had to get away from his deadbeat musician friends. He, the carpenter, had made a decent living with the symphony and lessons and all, but his musician friends were always broke and always wanting to borrow money from him. So he became a carpenter.

So much for high art.

BTW: Pud googled Raymond Ojeda. He died in 1989, the notice said, shortly after retiring from the SF Symphony. Probably bitched the whole time.

----- o -----

SPIRAL ARMS

Hurricanes and galaxies both have spiral arms. Pud is comforted that there are repeated patterns, that everything is not random.

I wonder what the force is?

Pud says he expects there are spiral arms at the atomic or sub-atomic levels

Pud looks it up. Great web site. The essence of science is admitting what you don’t know.

Voila—no relation between spiral arms of hurricanes and those of galaxies.

Pud is encouraged—it shows a paradigm, spiral-armedness, that exists at a level higher than the forces creating hurricanes and galaxies.

Like tree trunks and volcanos share going-upedness.

----- o -----

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?

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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!”

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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.

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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.

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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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