Horror in McClelland Park

My sacrifices to Memnoch have paid off. Franklin’s dead arm is now relegated to mid-relief work. And yet the reassignment does not fill my smoke abused heart with joy. I prayed for retirement. But Memnoch, like the god of Abraham, moves in mysterious ways. The key difference between the two is Memnoch’s catholic approach to ritualistic sacrifice: anything handy will do. Not keen on slaughtering animals, I burn mutilated collection notices from Reader’s Digest. For some reason the company is under the impression that I owe $17.89 -- and have for years. Although my math skills have been described as theological, I’m guessing Reader’s Digest has invested more than $17.89 in its hopeless quest for compensation. If the supposed purchase was anything but a cookbook, I would have dashed off a check long ago -- out of respect for Ed McMahon’s sidekick repartee. There was a time when the thought of Ed knocking on the weathered front door, brandishing balloons and a poster-sized check, competed with Cameron Diaz as my favorite post-number masturbatory fantasy.

Since Ed’s death I no longer indulge in that particular strain of THC-induced auto-eroticism. The thought of opening the front door to find a decomposing celebrity is not only horrifying but the ultimate dolphin-flogging buzz kill. I suspect the penes of male prostitutes experience a similar reaction when trying to service Joan Rivers.
________________________

I opted to do my intoxicated loafing on the front porch. I usually slouch like a sack of onions on the so-called patio. But the so-called patio is a wreck. Old leaves from last fall, wind-whipped cigarette butts and jagged pieces of a battered charcoal grill litter the filthy slab; and I must have dumped the cat’s crap box much too close for comfort. The slightest breeze reactivates the feces, creating an odor so foul it induces olfactory muscle memory. I’ve had to bury my face in the rottweiler’s butt to offset the nauseating stench. Keisha doesn’t seem to mind. She’s the large boned descendent of an ancient race. Although my History degree is rotting somewhere in the garage, I vaguely recall Roman nose-to-dog butt bonding was common back when Tiberius was buggering little boys.

My lifestyle is on public display when facing east. Neighbors zooming by in their pricey imports can’t help but take a nervous peek at the disheveled freak and his disintegrating spook house, no doubt wondering why I’m determined to drag down property values. Perhaps a jaunty salute of Big Gulp encased juniper berry and juice prompts them to question their sleep deprived bourgeois existence. I’d like to think so. The neighbors should be glad that I no longer weave the Yard Man about in neon blue Speedo, love muscle jiggling, beer can in hand. The neon blue Speedo has been replaced for a sheer white sun dress. It’s cool and protects wrinkles from damaging UV rays. And I dig the way it feels. When giddy I put it on and skip around the dead maple, “I’m the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA” blaring from barely attached outdoor speakers. Who said “Going Galt” is limited to a Russian psychotic’s wet dream?

I had just settled in when Opie came bounding through the tall grass. Opie is a nine year old Jack Russell, still full of manic terrier spark. He loves cat food, and knows that I’ll eventually turn him on to some Fancy Feast if he hangs around long enough. The cats are not fond of Opie. George, the tom, is an especially dangerous character. He’s either sharpening his claws to razor-sharp perfection or hacking up bird parts. Pat, his mother, hides her vicious instincts by pretending harmless domesticity. They set Keisha straight long ago. I shudder remembering how they rode her in circles, claws extended over the terrified dog’s eyeballs. Watching this primordial cruelty, frozen in place while two beasts forever scarred my noble companion’s self-esteem, is a memory forever etched in what‘s left of my mind. Even though Opie gave playful chase, I assumed they spared him because of his size.

Before I could reach down and give Opie a welcoming rub, he spied George crouching near the holly. In a flash he darted toward the deadly creature. Unfortunately for Opie he misjudged his lunge. George reached out and swiped his right paw across the terrier’s turned head. The sound Opie made was supernatural. Blood spurted from his ravaged ear, instantly besprinkling his white coat with bright red. The little guy was in shock, staring at me with glassy eyes. On wobbly legs he shook his head from side to side, blood spraying in all directions. George watched his evil handiwork with smug satisfaction. Because I was drunk, my reflexes were akin to bullets fired from Mike Nelson's underwater revolver. By the time I figured out how to defy gravity and escape a lawn chair, Opie was tearing off for home. The only thing to do was call Bob, Opie’s dad, and give him the bad news.
______________________

Dénouement: Opie’s right ear was sewn back together; he’s reasonably okay. Bob said he’s never been so quiet.

serious people

The last time I posted frozen snow blanketed the ground. Two months later oak pollen is thick, grass is high and Ryan Franklin has already blown four saves. And people ask me why I drink. I’m going to instigate a frank discussion with the Cardinal’s front office: If Franklin stays I want $300 -per-month to cover my liquor bill. Had I followed sound advice, a law degree would come in handy when enhancing a clear-cut case of emotional distress with personal injury. (There are infinite ways a drunk can hurt himself if surrounded by sneaky cats).

Ah, politics. What a steaming pile of horse shit our public discourse has become. I wish the fascists on the right would just cut to the chase: Let poor people die and force the middle-class into indentured servitude.

Candy Crowley: Congressman, left-wing radicals are up in arms at your proposal to kill everyone making under $30,000 a year. Even some billionaires are worried about the lack of fast food employees, trash collectors...basically all those losers who do things we’d never do.

Congressman Ryan: Well, Candy, killing a large segment of the population puts those of real economic value on the path to prosperity. America can only become the nation it never was if the rich can force skilled laborers and service providing professionals to work for peanuts. Our Founding Fathers wouldn’t know the Social Contract from a micro-wave oven. Think about it, large areas of unsightly housing could be burned and then turned into golf courses and private parks. There would be no health care crisis. Why? Mooches and deadbeats are dead! And it would be the employer’s decision to offer medical care. If the employee generated cash flow or didn’t complain about their squalid conditions, maybe he or she might receive life-saving treatment. Of course, Social Security and every other entitlement program would be axed immediately after we take back America. Employees would get to keep every penny they earn -- except for those who live in company owned houses and obtain their food from company stores. So much a month would be automatically deducted from their paychecks to pay for these perks. My favorite proposal allows those who feel confined by traditional roofed housing to live in tents; the more gastronomically adventurous could save money by foraging.

By the way, page six of my proposal allows for a contingent of white boys and girls with good teeth to work in fast food, wait on tables, pump gas, etc. We’re not depriving wealth-producing Americans of their Happy Meals.

Crowley: Rabid liberals have denounced your program to rid the country of Mexicans, those of Mexican descent twice removed and all blacks not in professional sports or the entertainment industry. Pro-homosexual churches....

Ryan: Wait, wait a second, Candy. It’s a lie that my plan would forcibly expatriate Mexicans twice removed. I want to set the record straight on that.

Crowley: What about Asians and Native Americans?

Ryan: I love sweet and sour pork, and the Native American community is essential for maintaining lucrative kick backs via their casino gambling operations. Since the rich pay no taxes, local officials where casinos are located can pocket ten percent of the take. That will save the Koch Brothers from writing unnecessary checks.

Crowley: What about the millions and millions of dead bodies?

Ryan: I’ve factored that in, Candy. British Petroleum and Halliburton have agreed to collect and then dump the corpses in the Gulf of Mexico. Prison labor will do the collecting. After Phase One is complete, the criminals will be pushed out of airplanes during an invitation-only Fourth of July celebration. Oh, and The Club for Growth will finance the killings through another Wall Street orchestrated credit default swap scandal.

Crowley: Thank you, Congressman.

Ryan: My pleasure.

Anais Knot

Thanks to an old amigo burrowed deep within the bowels of commercial publishing, I’ve snatched several excerpts from Bristol Palin’s upcoming memoir. The budding young celebrity is carving out quite a career. Snagging a coveted spot on “Dancing with the Stars”, Bristol wowed TV addicts with stiff caterwauls about the gaudy studio without inflicting permanent testicular injury to her arm candy. Although an uncouth (and jealous) liberal sniper compared her moves to that of a “dancing cartoon cow”, Bristol’s gamy attempts to tango wooed viewers who love Jesus and His flock of precious zygotes. It’s a god damned shame that she didn’t win the shiny silver ball. Christians are a persecuted minority.

Wise beyond her twenty years, Bristol’s memoir could very well rejuvenate the Family Palin brand. If the yet untitled memoir is anything like the sneak peaks, I predict a bright future for America’s most famous unwed mother and ambassador for teen sexual abstinence.

__________________________

Willow and me went to Clay’s party. Clay’s a dick, but his dad keeps beer in the garage. Clay’s dad is a dick, too. Carl’s always copping a feel when he pretends to hug me. Yuk! What an asshole. Levi said Carl asked him if we were fucking. That pissed me off. So I cornered Carl and got right in his stupid face. Carl’s such a faggot. His face got all red and shit. He won’t even look at me in church.

Levi and me were boning. Mom shouted through the door, “Hey, you two better be ‘doin homework in there!” Levi was stoned and started giggling. I started giggling because Levi was giggling. Mom said, “What so funny?” I said, “Math.” Levi said, “Yeah, we’re ‘doin multiplication.” And Mom said, “What’s that?”

I couldn’t believe I was knocked up. I was so pissed. Mom and Dad were like, “great, way to go” -- like it was my fault! Dad really yelled at Levi, and called him a dipshit. Mom shoved me into the kitchen and was saying stuff like, “Is he too cheap to buy rubbers? Really, Bristol, you couldn't just give him a hand job or BJ.” And then I got all mad and said, “Why should he have all the fun? Most of the time he pulled out. Besides, Levi said rubbers made his dick hurt.”

When I was really bored, I’d count the times Cindy McCain blinked. We called McCain, Gramps McCreepy. I can’t believe nobody noticed him staring at Mom’s ass when she was giving a speech. Once, he came into the hotel room when I was watching MTV in my underwear. I’m like, hello?, I’m in my underwear. He tried to pretend he wandered into the wrong room. I said, “Take a picture next time, it lasts longer.” Snap!

Thoughts on Mubarak

The blizzard came and stayed. There’s so much sub-zero snow outside that the rottweiler really doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind. I’m encouraging her to pee and shit outside. I even put on actual clothes, boots, gloves, black ski mask the rottweiler carried home several years ago, and shoveled an area big enough for her to squat down without exposing her butt and doggy poon to what Lutherans call Schnee. The things we do for love.

When I write “actual clothes”, I mean garments not associated with debauched lounging. I’ve become so comfortable in my daily sloth that I think nothing of engaging in small talk with the occasional guest wearing dirty sweat pants, ill-fitting pullover and what can best be described as very cheap house shoes. To complete my look, I omit shoving into place Dr. Benway’s handmade upper dental partial. Wearing the porcelain prosthetic feels unnatural, like drinking coffee after 7:30 AM with no pick me up. Every now and then a Jehovah’s Witness pays their dues. Imagine if Larry David wrote the scene where Clarice Starling meets Jame Gumm. They usually make a hasty retreat when I insist that they listen to the audio version of Nimoy’s “I Am Not Spock” as a token of my appreciation for the free Watchtower.

Run! It's an old liberal!

Don’t feel like ex-Texas Ranger John Reid if you’ve never heard of Frances Fox Piven. Neither had I. Blessed with a ‘Caldwellian’ IQ so high that I’m virtually unemployable, somehow Frances Fox Piven escaped my ginormous butterfly net. Reluctant to make excuses; let’s just say I wasn’t up to speed on burning sociological issues in 1966. Although a precocious nine year old, I failed to read Professor Piven’s The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty. I was probably too preoccupied trading Beatle bubble gum cards with Mary Alice Turley. (Mary Alice was ape over Paul and I was obsessed with Ringo, correctly deducing that he was the brains behind the operation).

A year later The Monkees replaced The Fab Four’s hold on Mom’s pocketbook. Hopefully this doesn’t sound too boastful, but I was Oakland Park’s only fifth grader to own authentic Monkee Wear. My tight striped pants and extra wide black belt (with equally wide buckle) distracted the usually shy Terri Combs away from the fraction’s dark mysteries. She whispered, “Muck, you’re so mod.”

The next day Billy James, Dale Knottraub and I formed a band. Although neither Billy nor Dale owned authentic Monkee Wear, both wore pointy black Beatle boots. Pointy black Beatle boots were cool but cumbersome if participating in recess activities, like running down girls and kick ball. Always the trend setter, I wore Chuck Taylor All Stars, even if the canvas icons could not be seen because tight, striped, pocket-less and very flared Monkee pants covered my little feet.

Billy was half Gypsy and half Oklahoma Indian. He marched to a different tom-tom. It was Billy’s idea to name our band The Comanches. I was looking to incorporate words like groovy or far out; Dale didn’t care as long as he was the lead singer. Mrs. McCune let us lip-synch I’m a Believer during music class. It was The Comanches' first and last gig. Billy moved on to pellet guns; Dale soon developed an all-consuming passion for rocks. After an afternoon of soul searching, I finally admitted that wearing Monkee pants greatly inhibited physical activities -- such as bike riding and bending over. As for my musical career, my parents made me take Hammond organ lessons from a giantess. I was later granted a pardon when I said the organ sounded like “dead people groaning.”

Had I traded my usual reading/ogling -- Mad Magazine and Dad’s not-so-cleverly stashed Playboy(s) -- for The Nation, maybe Professor Piven’s ungodly leftist assault on America’s economic system might have made a lasting pre-pubescent impression. Glenn Beck, who was two when Piven published her traitorous article, was obviously the wonder of Mt. Vernon, Washington. The future Victoria Jackson of progressive conspiracy theories pegged Professor Pevin as an anathema the same year high school freshman Rush Limbaugh could finally make poo-poo in the stool.

But it is odd that infant shock jock prodigies like Beck always time travel back 40-plus years to warn right-wing extremists of current left-wing extremism. It’s been some time since the Weather Underground planted bombs or the Black Panthers freaked out whitey. The SDS hasn’t overrun campus property since Maude made her sassy television debut. It’s scary to think what dirty deeds Glenn knows (God speaks through his chalk) the Grange have planned. Could be that 1893 will be a living hell for fat cat bankers and railroad men.

an ongoing conversation II

The Fox News narrative is coming together. It goes like this:

The massacre in Tucson that left six dead and thirteen wounded, including Congresswoman Giffords, is the act of a lone madman. Efforts by liberals to politicize the shooting are grossly unfair. Attempting to cast Jared Lee Loughner as a rightwing extremist is absurd; if anything, Loughner is a lefty. His Face Book page listed the Communist Manifesto as a favorite book, along with Mein Kampf, We the Living and Peter Pan. And he smoked pot. When you combine Marx, Hitler, Rand, Barrie and Tommy Chong you get the typical communist/anti-communist fascist Objectivist druggie, who is quite possibly a pedophile; in other words, a typical liberal Democrat. Loughner’s only redeeming quality is a fondness for semi-automatic handguns with extended round clips; (he must have acquired this positive trait from reading Hitler and Rand). However, had Loughner’s library included Going Rogue or rightwing propaganda published by Regency Press, drawing conclusions from what a madman wrote on his Face Book page is an irresponsible rush to judgment.

The real victims are Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and every other rightwing pundit exercising his or her rights to incendiary free speech-for profit. Of course, brief condolences to those the Democrat lunatic murdered.
__________________

This is the reason I stopped satirizing conservatism -- or whatever the fuck Fox is peddling. It’s certainly a constant drum beat of fear and loathing. I’m only half-joking when I write that it would be a seamless transition should Ailes replace Glenn Beck’s Woodrow Wilson/Progressive Fascism conspiracies with Manson’s Helter Skelter. Nuts is nuts. How did the party of Reagan become the party of Limbaugh? At what point did the Republican Party decide to let Clear Channel and Rupert Murdock run the show? There’s no rational explanation why national Republican leaders should fear pissing off a radio shock jock with a well-publicized arrest for prescription drug doctor shopping. What’s Limbaugh going to do if a Republican Congressman refuses to apologize for being truthful about the self-proclaimed Emperor’s nakedness, fire him? The subservient relationship between Limbaugh and supposedly serious lawmakers is a combination of Conrad’s Lord Jim and Kingsly Amis’ Lucky Jim. Thomas Pynchon is the only writer alive who could capture Republican Party politics with the right touch of post-modern absurdity and dense complexity.

The brandy must be refreshed -- and there is always more dirty laundry.

an ongoing conversation

I did something today that I haven’t done in seven months: I listened to Rush Limbaugh.

I stopped tuning-in because of a personal commitment to consciously limit my exposure to mendacious propaganda. I couldn’t do anything about the dark overtones that permeates political discourse, but I could tune-out premeditated malevolence. I’m embarrassed to admit that I wasted so much time wondering what lies the Father Coughlin of modern American conservatism would weave. Even though I knew Limbaugh was too clever to openly espouse his racist contempt against minorities or overtly encourage violence, I kept hoping for an unguarded Lonesome Rhodes moment when his inherent ugliness would be impossible for devoted sycophants to ignore. I forgot that two decades of dehumanizing human beings have anesthetized his brainwashed self-loathing audience.

Because Limbaugh -- and others who have traded decency for lucrative careers in dog whistle politics -- have saturated civilized conversation with divisive contempt disguised as “intellectual honesty” there is no longer a clear line separating acceptable from unacceptable speech. Hiding behind the First Amendment, the purveyors of what Dave Neiwert has labeled “eliminationist rhetoric” cry foul if called out for insinuating an existential enemy known as liberalism seeks America’s destruction. The traditional media gives them a pass, pretending there is a false equivalency between rightwing violence-laded language and what little remains of leftwing mass communication. Conventional Beltway wisdom insists on pretending “both sides do it” whenever an obvious example of unscrupulous venality becomes too toxic for easy dismissal. Bill O’Reilly was never held accountable for his constant slurs against the late Dr. George Tiller. Referring to Dr. Tiller as a “baby killer” for providing women legal abortions, O’Reilly played the victim card after Scott Roeder, a seriously disturbed pro-life fanatic, executed the doctor in his church -- for Christ's sake. After all, O’Reilly didn’t actually pull the trigger. He was simply exercising his rights to free speech by describing Tiller as a mass murderer. Who could argue that Joseph Stalin and Dr. Tiller didn’t share the same monstrous history? Only “pin headed” liberals would take “cheap shots” at O’Reilly for drawing such an obvious conclusion, right?

I listened to Limbaugh today to hear how the godfather of hate radio blamed last Friday morning’s carnage on me, a gun-adverse liberal. Like the rest of his well-financed “intellectually honest” true-blue patriots, Limbaugh is worried the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords is focusing unwanted attention on how he made his fortune. Because he and every other so-called conservative flame thrower share a common lexicon, Limbaugh is nervous public outrage could cause Beltway enablers to abandon the “both sides do it” equivocation. Worse yet, nervous Republican politicians might distance themselves and stop providing legitimacy for his stock-in-trade: vituperative personal attacks. Because Limbaugh has never been anything but a semi-educated shock jock/provocateur, he has always needed the veneer of establishment political power to embellish non-existent credentials. Without elected officials pretending he is Bill Buckley’s intellectual heir, the Wizard of Oz self-constructed persona floats away.

It is a dilemma he shares with Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, ad nauseam. I doubt if they could write a book, much less debate policy issues with any discernable expertise. Remove them from their hermitically-sealed cocoons, and the most widely admired conservative icons would be more adept at remaking the “Road to Bali” than addressing the country’s vexing problems.

I’ll continue this discussion tomorrow. It’s late and I need to finish laundry before Beloved slides home. Writing is a hobby; housework is my vocation.