Cancerous Zeitgeist

A Different Kind of Hate -- Newt Gingrich

2012-01-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

Rarely has a politician lived up to his name like Newt Gingrich. His first name speaks for itself. His last name sounds a little too much like "grinch," as in the guy who stole Christmas. And yet, despite his long, undisputed record of personal failings that seem okay only when he's engaging in them, South Carolina Republicans love him.

South Carolina is important to Republicans. It is a "Red State." More importantly, the person who wins the primary there goes on to win to Republican nomination historically. Gingrich understands this, and when his ex-wife came out saying that, essentially, Newt loved the ladies, he knew this was going to come up in the debate.

Gingrich loves to hold others up to ethical scrutiny. He does not like to be held up to the same standards. He does not think he should be called a hypocrite for going after Clinton (and in a sense he has a bit of point, as you can read here). At the very least, however, he should've come clean and/or reclused himself from the attack. But his affairs isn't the only unethical thing he's done.

In 1997 the Washington Post reported that Gingrich, South Carolina primary winner, used tax-deductible for political purposes and then gave investigators "inaccurate" information about it. In other words, he stole money and lied. After being caught, Gingrich admitted he had violated House rules. There are those who say he was just reckless, but make no mistake. Gingrich is not an idiot. He knew what he was doing and he took steps to cover it up. That's not reckless. That's intentional.

Gingrich plays fast and loose with ethics, both personal and financial. He pays lip service to a lot of things, but his personal philosophy is, "Do as I say, not as I do." And when he gets called on this, he acts indignant, blames others and plays a victim. I would not go so far as to say he is mentally unbalanced, but he is manipulative, and South Carolina showed it loves manipulation.

This God-fearing man, the one who has engaged in affairs and has lied to investigators (another comparison to Clinton), continues to blame the "elite media," and people are lapping it up. This is a man they think would make an ideal president. He has all the personal failings of one, but I would suspect that if people really started to think about what they were doing they may find that they want more.

Remember this, Gingrich has admitted to his failings ... but only after being caught, and only after he has tried to hide them. Well, at least he's not black, right?

Human Hand Grenade -- Ricky Gervais, The Golden Globes, Idiots and Me

2012-01-13T06:33:00.000-08:00

I am, if nothing else, an example of restraint. There are times, however, where that restraint starts to become restraint, and like a dog with a choke collar, I get upset when I'm at the end of my leash and want to get within striking distance of the one who has transgressed against me. I let a lot of things slide. I have long ago stopped holding people to the same standards I hold myself as that is an exercise in futility that I don't have time for, but there is one thing I have an extremely difficult time dealing with in a "zen-like" way. Stupidity ... especially when that stupidity has a negative effect on me. If someone's stupidity is going to cause me grief, then I like to head it off as quickly and cleanly as possible. I usually go above and beyond what needs to be done, but that's only because I want the problem to become extinct as quickly as possible.

I don't act without warning, though. To me, that would be unfair. More often than not, however, these warnings go unheeded. At that point I do what any reasonable person would do -- I act. I'm not one of those who subscribes to the "turn the other cheek" philosophy or "kill them with kindness." Neither of those solve the problem. I act more like the US in Vietnam. I spray Agent Orange everywhere and gather ears for a necklace.

Sometimes I have used biting humor to silence a fool. I have used logic to shame someone into silence. I have used violence. I have done all of those things with ample warning. Don't do X or you get Y. At the end of the day, I'm still left with one nagging question: Why do people seem hellbent to exploit their stupidity to the nth degree?

The argument can be made is that idiots are too dumb to know they are idiots. I think this is a valid argument. To buy into it you have to admit one thing. They are also too dumb to learn from prior experience. To be that stupid you either have to be willfully ignorant or there is something seriously wrong. At that point the question becomes: Why are these people allowed to vote? To drive? To have children? A job? Why aren't they relegated to a place where their actions will harm as few people as possible? Why are they walking among us? Why are the zombies mixing with the humans, and why are we letting them?

Ricky Gervais is hosting the Golden Globes again this weekend. If you recall his last stint there, you'll remember that people got pissed. He cracked jokes that had people feeling downright uncomfortable. It was funny, and it caused the kind of controversy the mainstream media loves (aka, Much Ado About Nothing). His reaction to his critics was simply incredible. He didn't back down. He didn't apologize. And, quite frankly, he treated the offended as they should have been treated -- like dumb herd animals that needed everything spoon-fed to them because they couldn't find their mouth with a GPS device. He is hosting again, and while the first time may have taken people by surprise (though it shouldn't of), they can't say they weren't warned or aware of it this time around.

Gervais uses my favorite way of dealing with stupidity. Laughing at it. Making others laugh at it, too. It's hard to feel any sort of pity for a target when you are spastic with laughter. Comedy is an equalizer, and a damn good one at that. It exposes stupidity with such clarity that people often don't know how to deal with it. The target is left gasping for air and wondering why they are suddenly the joke they don't understand.

I don't know if I'll watch the Golden Globes this time around, but I'm sure I'll hear about it after. Another silly controversy over words meant to take the piss out of people. They won't get it, and that's okay. They don't have to. The rest of us can laugh at them. When you can't make the morons feel the real outcomes of their actions, you do the next best thing. You turn them into your own personal entertainment center. And even the fools know that being the butt of a joke is better than being thrown into the mass grave where they surely belong.

Occupy Eureka Has Bombs(?)

2012-01-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

If you've driven past the Humboldt County courthouse any time in the past few months, you've seen Occupy Eureka. The 1/12/12 copy of the Times-Standard, Humboldt County's paper of record, ran a front page article (under the fold) by Grant Scott-Goforth. "County emails outrage members of Occupy Eureka," the story's byline reads.

To note: The Eureka Police Department has made it quite clear that it is fed up with the Occupy Eureka movement. On the local NBC affiliate (KIEM), Interim Police Chief Murl Harpham even suggested that he had been told by some demonstrators that they were "paid" to be there, thus discrediting an entire movement that is largely already discredited in many people's eyes. Of note is the fact that Harpham has said time and time again in various media that he supports people's right to free speech. Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos has said the same thing, including the article in the 1/12/12 paper.

Whatever your opinion of the various Occupy movements across the country (or the one in Eureka, California), the article deserves some attention as to its unveiling of how the minds of Humboldt County's justice system think.

As well see, logic takes a back seat and rational thinking is nowhere to be found.

The article concerns a series of e-mails that Gallegos wrote that were "part of the discussion that led to police action against the Occupy Eureka encampment." These e-mails, obtained by an Occupier using the California Public Records Act, were never meant to be public.

According to Goforth's article, on 11/2/11, Gallegos wrote to "county officials" that he believed the "continued presence of tents outside of the courthouse presents a profound public safety risk." What is that risk? Gallegos continues, "While I do not suspect that any of those tents contain any explosive or other dangerous materials, I cannot confirm that they do or do not and I do not believe that we can allow the risk of such an occurrence to continue." Again, this is the District Attorney. A man who tries cases. By his logic, any kind of police action is acceptable in almost any sort of situation because if you "cannot confirm" something, you can't "allow the risk" of something happening. One cannot confirm whether or not Gallegos has cocaine and guns in his car, therefore it should be searched ... or so one would think by following Gallegos' logic.

The article continues with "Gallegos siad he did not think that any Occupy protesters had explosives." Perhaps not, but he planted the idea in officials heads that it was a possibility and should be acted upon. "He said, as with natural disaster planning, it was his and other officials' responsibility to prepare for and prevent worst case scenarios" such as, presumably, a dirty bomb on the courthouse lawn.

Gallegos, who stated he did not believe protestors had explosives, wrote on 11/18/11 to 3rd District Supervisor Mark Lovelace, "Having tents outside our building pose an immense public safety risk. All you need is 1 McVeigh guy." Gallegos goes on to say that enclosed tents or trucks (the very thing that "McVeigh guy" used to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City) wouldn't last three minutes in front of a federal building. Perhaps he is right, but his concern only seems to be tents. Even as of today, vehicles, including trucks, were parked on all four sides of the courthouse building. Any one of them could've contained explosives, something that Gallegos could or could not confirm. I have yet to hear of any reports of any of these vehicles being towed for being threats to public safety. A brief history of rogue terrorist bombings shows that vehicles and people, not tents, are the most popular methods of transport.

None of this is questioned in the article, though protesters were reported to be "outraged" and express concern over the idea that if the Occupy movement "was associated with terrorism" that it would put a severe limit on dissent. That is a valid worry.

Gallegos insists he has the protesters best interests in mind. Goforth reports that Gallego was "worried that it was possible for people not directly associated with Occupy Eureka to use the group as cover for illegal activity." One presumes the illegal activity in question is bomb detonation based on prior e-mails. Something that on the surface seems absolutely ridiculous and not based on any Occupy history so far. Gallegos, in citing McVeigh, knows how easy it is for some to infiltrate a group, as McVeigh received all his training in the military while harboring radical views and later worked as a security guard much like the kind employed by the Humboldt County courthouse. One wonders whether Gallegos was referring to them infiltrating the Occupy movement.

Gallegos has stated that the e-mails were not meant to be public, as if that somehow makes it more acceptable. Regardless, they were used as impetus to arrest members of the public engaged in civil disobedience. In case anyone thinks Gallegos is some sort of anti-freedom District Attorney he points out that he supports the Occupy movement. "Unfortunately," he is quoted, "here it has been somewhat co-opted locally by our local protesters." For someone who supports the movement he shows very little understanding for what it entails. Why would non-local protesters engage in an Occupy Eureka movement when they have their own in their own hometowns? Is it a case of "not in my backyard," or is he so removed from what is going on that he has little understanding of what makes up the movement. One imagines it's the latter.

Gallegos has a telling quote toward the end of the article. "I find that most hyperbole doesn't warrant a response." Or at least that is what he hopes ... especially when it is one's own hyperbole linking a largely peaceful (though disruptive) movement to terrorism and Timothy McVeigh. There would be nothing better than for this indiscretion to go away, and that seems very likely to happen.

The Times-Standard article reported this on what seems like an unbiased basis. Gallegos, however, was given more print space and was able to defend his actions, while protesters were given far less column inches to air their concerns. If the reporter would've actually challenged Gallegos on his own delusional statements, one could reasonably say the paper was attempting to maintain some journalistic integrity. Instead, this article was printed with a straight face and easily avoided questioning a public official who is supposed to uphold the law, not randomly speculate. The article states that "more than 50 people" have been arrested in connection with the movement in the past few months. How many of those arrests were prompted by e-mails like the ones uncovered by the movement?

Regardless of what one thinks of the protesters, Gallegos' words are important. They show that the man charged with upholding the law thinks nothing of fear mongering. What's more telling is that this speculation wasn't shared with the public, though it was important enough to Gallegos that he called it out in various e-mails. The press release (read it here) makes no mention of the possibility of bombs hidden in tents or terrorists infiltrating the movement. Those are very serious charges, and if one believes they have any merit they should have been made public. Instead, Gallegos did it secretly and police used it to help justify arrests. There is never any good to come out of public decisions reached in secret, and one can only hope that is something Gallegos will learn first hand ... though one doubts it will be a lesson dealt out by the paper.

Pregnant Demon Thing

2012-01-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

Far be it from me to judge, but I was pretty sure the baby gestating inside its mother would've been better off being raised by wolves. The "mother" (a term I use because "incubator" seems harsh) was outside the post office. I was tempted to take a picture with my cell phone, but I don't think it would do her justice. And, quite honestly, if she saw me capturing her image I could only imagine the hell she would try to bring my way. I figured it would sound like a lot of screeching and those growling things coming out of Linda Blair toward the end of The Exorcist. Yes, the woman looked a little bit crazy. But just a little bit.

Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail. Her eye makeup looked as if it had been applied by short circuiting robots. Her black "wife beater" barely contained the bun in the oven and exposed a real nice pot leaf tattoo that looked like it was the best money could buy from a Walkman-style gun. On her other arm was the name (in cursive and most likely by the same gun) "Andre." The pajama bottoms (Raiders, of course) completed the picture. She had one child in tow. That little girl looked unhappy. The baby in the stroller (sex undetermined) seemed content to be in oblivion. While yammering away on a cell phone, the woman, in an act that would make the judges on any reality show proud, managed to not only suck away at a cancer stick (so good for baby), but also tell her little girl what an "annoying shit" she was. What was the girl's crime? No idea, but I think it had something to do with being born.

I never understood parents who called their children such vile names. I can't imagine how that feels as a child to hear the person who is in charge of your protection calling you a "shit." Whether or not you know what it is, you know by tone it isn't good. And somebody thought it was a good idea to get sperm up inside of all that. Not to torture myself, but I couldn't picture that being a pleasant experience.

Those kids were probably going to grow up miserable. Mother would never have enough patience or time for them. They will feel like burdens more often than not, and when they forget what a burden they are, mom will be happy to remind them. She'll go from man to man to man. Some of those men will be nice. Those are the ones who go as quick as they came. The mean ones stay longer. Some of those may take a little too much interest in the children. Mom, the protector, may or may not turn a blind eye. Every once in a while, mostly on holidays and birthdays, mom will tell them she loves them. Within twenty four hours she'll be screaming that she wishes they were never born. They won't question why she didn't get an abortion or put them up for adoption. They learned early on what it is like to take a slap across the face. They don't like having their hair pulled and heads slammed into the table next to their bowl of buttered noodles.

In time, the oldest will have to make a decision. She can be like mom, or she can act human. If she's like mom, she'll be smoking by 11, sex by 13, pot and pills at 14, child at 16. The circle of life when you are unwanted and unloved. If she decides to act human, she'll keep her head down, look out for her siblings, and do her best to make peace so mom doesn't fly off the handle. If she needs to, she'll take the heat off the others and get "mouthy" with mom when she's had too much to drink. She knows how to take a hit by now, and besides, if mom pisses her off too much there's a tube of Crazy Glue in the drawer. One drop in the corner of her eye while she's sleeping is sometimes the only thought that gets that girl through the day. She'll keep her grades up and apply to "every fucking college" she can think of in order to get out. And when she leaves, she'll feel guilty as hell. She hopes and prays she's set an example for her brothers and sisters. She hopes they follow her path. She's told them about the glue. She's told them how to keep the doors locked for when mom's boyfriends come over.

So there Mom was outside of the post office. Screeching into the phone about how she had to get away for a weekend. Yes, life is so stressful when you don't give a fuck about the kids you got and there's another one on the way. Cancun calls, and they'll be happy to see you there. I walked away wondering, though, why the woman even bothered.

She looked too dumb to follow any religion to any point it mattered, so abortion wasn't the moral evil it would be with some people. I was sure she thought about giving her kids away more times than she could remember, so adoption was an option with which she was familiar. So why have them? Why keep doing something that makes you stressed out and unhappy? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this day was an anomaly. Maybe she was Mom of the Year material every other day but today, but I doubt it. People who call their children a "shit" don't just pop out with that. That comes from a long line of disgust and hatred. So why bother?

As I drove away I looked in my rearview mirror. Mom had moved on toward the corner, cell phone still attached to her ear. The oldest child was lagging behind. Mom realized it and screamed something at her. The child didn't move any faster. Would you? No. Neither would I. Someday that child will get it and maybe even ask her mother, when the alcohol has run its course, "Why did you have me?" Mom, depending on level of coherency, will give some rehearsed answer. She's said it over and over in her head all those times she's asked herself that very question. Why? "Because I love you." They'll both know it's a lie, but mom will want to believe it and the kid will cling to it as it is so rare to hear. The real answer is a lot more telling and truthful, though. Kid, your mom had you guys because she's a selfish bitch who puts herself first and looks at you as a burden. She had you because that is all she knows. Eat, drink, breed. She put as much thought into having you as she put into birth control, and she was too lazy to take care of her "mistake." The question isn't why she had you. It's: What will you do when you are old enough to leave? Take my advice. Walk out that door and don't look back. Take your mother as an example of what not to be, how not to act, and what not to do. When/if someday you have a child of your own, do your best to make up for every single mistake your mother made. Do your best to be the parent you never had. You didn't have the best example growing up, but you knew what you hated. Don't be that. And don't call your child an "annoying shit." Remember how it felt. Your mom forgot, and look what she turned into. Don't make the same mistake. And if you do, spend the rest of your life making up for it.

Lunchtime Blues

2012-01-05T19:52:00.000-08:00

School days ...

I popped into Big Pete's for lunch today. Spur of the moment type thing. I was in an incredibly bad mood and I didn't feel well. I figured a couple slices of pepperoni would hit the spot. I rarely go for lunch during the week because I love the place and it seems like a tease when I have to go back to work after. How can something so good be followed by something so bad?

As I entered, I saw someone I was not expecting to see. In fact, we were both taken aback. It was Big Pete's employee extraordinare and all-around cool girl, Jackie. She asked what I was doing there, as she thought I should be at work, and I asked the same as I thought she should have been in school. Long story short, she joined me for lunch and a great conversation ensued. (Admittedly, though, a lot of it was me stating how much the day sucked so far and how it didn't look like it would get better. Shock. It didn't.)

Elementary school was WAY better than high school.

The topics were of the usual mix. Stuff we want to do with our lives, dwarvesploitation, idiots and so on. Before that started, though, she told me she got caught reading this blog during class. That struck me as kind of funny. She should've been doing some of that "learning," yet she was engrossed in my online ranting about people masturbating over the arrival of Walmart. I wonder which was more interesting and which provided a better learning experience. I remember high school. If you left knowing how read, write, do basic math, and socialize without actually turning into a serial killer you not only made it out with flying colors, you made it out with about all the experience will really lend you. Now there are some classes that were interesting, but that was not the norm. Instead, high school felt like a prep course for all the things that don't really matter in life. Cliques. Mindless repetition. Football. Scattered in that, however, were things that were wonderful. Whirlwind romances. Adventure. Friends. I wouldn't want to relive it again, but nor would I not want to have some of those experiences. With high school most likely being far worse now than when I went back in the late '80s (just the fact that everyone is so afraid to offend anyone makes me wince in pain), I can see why someone would be reading my blog instead of listening to someone drone on about the importance of test taking (or whatever was being discussed).

High school failed Russell Williams

So, lunch friend, I hope your day looked up. I hope your sick friend felt better. I hope the cookies you and your boyfriend made turned out delicious, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation as much as I did. My day went exactly as I thought it would. A lot more of the same, really. Tomorrow? Well that remains to be seen, but I imagine if today was any indication for either of us the weekend is looking mighty good.

Walmart Creeps On In

2012-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

Walmart has been trying to get into Eureka, California's pants for years. First it made overt attempts to move in by the bay. Citizens, as to be expected, spoke out against it and eventually halted the retail giant's tumorous growth. You had to be daft not to think it would try again ... and try it did. Now it is coming to the Bayshore Mall, where it doesn't have to go through zoning issues and whatnot. Instead, it just enters the cavity Gottschalk's left behind. You can imagine the reaction.

The pros are: more variety, more jobs, more income, better prices, on more place to safely wear your pjs in public without the threat of ridicule. The cons: what happens to local stores, the homogenization of America, what happens when the local stores close, the jobs created won't be very good.

Yawn.

I've written about local businesses versus corporations before. I'm not going to get back into it here as my thoughts on the matter have not changed. Eureka likes to think it's pretty elitist, but a quick look around shows that there is really nothing substantial there. Eureka also likes to support local businesses no matter how crappy the service, how high the prices and how little variety there is. That is fine. Walmart will change none of that, though it may force a few businesses to change how they operate or face going under. The end result is still the same, though: If you don't like shopping there, don't go. Enough people don't go and the store will be forced to shut down. My guess is -- that won't happen. As much as people like local stores, there is a certain primal consumer draw to cheap condoms.

I've never stepped foot in Walmart and probably never will. It's not that I'm anti-box stores. A big business is just as greedy as a small one. It's that I don't feel the need to and based on the people I've encountered who love that place ... well, I wouldn't want to be around them when they see a sale sign on some four-year-old Will Ferrell movie. I sense a trough-like mentality among the faithful, and that always scares me.

Welcome to Eureka, Walmart. Remember, we've got a lot of activists here, so check your locks and make sure you've got plenty of store security. As for the consumers who have been masturbating daily since the corporate giant's arrival was concerned -- more power to you. The lesson to be learned here is that if you pray hard enough your dreams, no matter how small they are, may one day come true.

Keyword Search Fun Time Again!

2011-12-04T07:30:00.001-08:00

Every so often I check out the search terms that bring people to this blog. As always, it is as fascinating as it is terrifying. This time is no different. Pedophiles, lone wolf rejects, armchair Nazis -- they flock to this site looking for companionship, masturbation material, and blueprints for mass destruction. I hope these lonely souls find exactly what they are looking for, and it fills me with warmth knowing I may have made their lives a little better. Gag. Here we go ...

Ponygirl: The ponygirl searches continue. Sex Pony Teen. Film Japanese Ponygirl. (Not sure if they want a film about a Japanese ponygirl or want to find out how to film one. I say get a saddle and a bridle, hop in the car and find yourself an Asian prostitute. Don't forget the camera.) Human Ponygirl Cart. (I love the fact that these folks not only want to find ponygirls, but also accessories.) Poney Sexo Homan. (Proof aliens are looking for ponygirls.) Pony Fuck Human. Pony Girl Fucked. Pony Girl Meeting. (I think they meet at Eureka's Chapala restaurant once a month or so.) Pony Swastika. (I was conflicted about which section to put this under.) Sexshop Ponygirl. To Be Ateenage Pony Girl. (Let the mind wonder.)

Humboldt: Humboldt County Sex Pussy. (Because who wants a Humboldt County non-sex pussy? What would you do with it? A change purse? Hand warmers? I'm clueless.) Big Time Rush Bayshore Mall. (Really? Did someone actually think the most dreamy boy band and Jerry Sandusky wet dream, BTR, would be at the Bayshore Mall? What would they be doing there? Eating at that greasy "Chinese" restaurant? Checking out the cell phone accessories at that kiosk worked at by the woman with that highly erotic foreign accent?) Eureka, CA And Drugs. (If you are looking for that here, you are doing it wrong. Here's how you find drugs in Eureka. Head into Eureka. Throw a rock. That person you hit? Drugs.) Humboldt Girl Fucking. (Because who wants a Humboldt County girl who doesn't fuck? What would you do with it? A change purse? Hand warmers? I'm clueless. That's funny for those who are paying attention.) Tree Maps Humboldt County, CA. (This isn't weird, but it makes me happy that someone looking for that ended up here. I can only imagine the reaction.)

What The Fuck Are You Thinking?: This is proof that not everyone knows how to use a search engine. Yes, sometimes vague is fine, but other times you really have to be more specific. PG&E Gate Combination Lock. (What gate? Where? Man, if you are looking to break in, you have to give a location.) Art That Sends A Message. (Could you be any vaguer? How about "Art Stuff That Stuff Stuff"?) Doorbusters. (If you looked for that with the idea of finding sales and ended up on my site, you deserve that uneasy feeling you got in the pit of your stomach.) Eye Tattoos. (Tattooed eyes, or tattoos of eyes?) I'm Not In A Good Mod. (And you can't spell. Why on Earth would someone look this up? Did you think you would find out why you weren't in a good "mod." I have the answer for you. You realized you're a fucking idiot.) Ironic Shocked Face. (I'm trying to picture what that would look like. I'd Google it, but I'd end up here. Surreal.) Mind Bordering Picture. (Umm ... what?) Outside Hallmark Store In The Mall. (What mall? Where? Were you looking for Big Time Rush?) Pussy At The Center Of The Universe. (Yes, vaginas are great things. They're fun to play around with, and according to what I wrote earlier, they make good change purses and hand warmers. But at the center of the universe? Come on. Are they really that important? Oh, who am I kidding? Of course they are. I just wonder's whose magical man trap was found there. My guess? Octomom's. She gave birth to a universe of children.) Thank God Its Doomsday. (It's not doomsday yet, moron. You got another year to go. Sorry to disappoint, but there is always the suicide option ... which you should look into.)

Creepy Folks Looking For Creepy Things: "Parents Are The Worst Thing To Happen To Children." (Based on what I know, yes they are.) I Love Nightmares. "I Love Having Nightmares." (I think this is the same person.) About Love Nightmares]. (Yes.] Amerikan Modal Girl. (I love Amerikan Modal Girls!) Fondel To Erect Horses Penis. (I think this person means "fondle." I also think they were looking for tips. If a horse penis works like any other penis, all you have to do is touch it, my friend. They kind of erect themselves.) Ghost Face Blood Images 1600. Innocents Bound. (Peter Sotos has stopped by!) Mickey Mouse Art Crucifx. (For the new Bible-themed Disney ride.) Sharon Tate Dead Body. (Now I know why the investigation was reopened.)

Nazis: Everyone loves to hate these snappy dressers, but that doesn't stop people from looking for them. Nazi Slut. (Oh, you wouldn't be calling her that if she were Rommel.) Child Nazi. ("Looking for gift ideas for your Nazi Child? From the makers of the Easy Bake Oven ..." I'm going to Hell for that one, but it really wrote itself, and you were thinking it anyway.) Japanese Symbols Hate. (Not quite Nazis, I know, but it didn't fit in any other category.) Nazi Hello Kitty. (It makes me see all that Hello Kitty stuff at Eureka's Target in a whole new light.) Swastika Design For Mandir. (Not sure on that one.)

Sex: Bridge Masturbating. (Soon to be an Olympic sport.) Cartoon Face Girl Ballgag. (I think that's in an old Disney cartoon.) Caught Masturbating Under A Bridge. (Is this a really common thing?) Mature Mexican Asses Nude. (Talk about a specialized porn search. Why not add "on Tuesday"?) Open Lips Of Shaved Pussy. (I bet that didn't result in a lot of search results.)

Shirley Temple: And finally, here is Shirley Temple. I didn't even list all the searches for here name. Here, however, are the best. Shirley Temple Cannibal. (This is my all-time favorite search subject. The images it conjures up. The sheer brilliance of it. The idea that someone made this connection. This is "art that means something.") Shirley Temple Now Naked. (Are you really sure you want to see that?) Shirley Temple Slut. (When I think "slut," Shirley Temple immediately comes to mind.) Shirley Temple Teenage Naked. (From the person looking for current nude pictures. He's making a montage set to the Talking Heads' "Sugar On My Tongue.") Shirley Temple Was A Slut. (When he couldn't find current information on Temple's slut status, he delved into the past, eager to prove his theory.) Shirley Temples Boobs. ("She put the sugar on my tongue.")

And so it ends. Another round of how people end up on my site when they look for fucked up things on the Internet. You have to admire people's absolute willingness to type in the most insane things thinking nobody really knows what they are looking up. Sublime.

Humboldt County -- Come for the Drugs; Stay in a Dungeon

2011-12-01T20:16:00.001-08:00

There are a few Humboldt County blogs I follow on a casual basis. About a week ago on one of them there was a posting about a girl who went missing in Southern Humboldt. The Garberville area, if memory serves me correctly. A picture of her was posted, and it gave me chills.

The area she was last seen. Her blonde dreads. It was eerily similar to a scene I wrote in my sex and violence manuscript. That's neither here nor there, though.

The girl had been missing over a week and calls to her cell phone went unanswered. Myself and a few other posters mentioned the fact that Humboldt was not exactly the best place for a missing teen girl due to its dark underbelly ... one I find worse than any other place I've lived. We all hoped the girl would be found safely. Few of us believed she would.

And then we were taken to task.

Now, I can understand people wanting to keep hopes up. I think that's natural. Others did not feel that way. We were called "negative" people who said "mean" things. Those people who called us that wanted the father of the missing girl, who happened onto the blog at some point, to know that Humboldt was a safe place for a missing teen and she was probably sleeping on someone's porch or some such nonsense. It should be noted that while "negative" is a meaningless term used to label someone who says anything that challenges one's point of view, nobody said anything that any reasonable person could call "mean." That didn't stop these people, though. They were very quick to offer what could only be false hope. After all, they didn't know whether or not the girl would be found unharmed, but they were quick to promise she would be. Myself and others merely stated that things tend to be grim in that situation.

The girl, incidentally, was found alive and presumably safe, though I didn't read why she was out of contact with her parents for so long, or why a young girl was up here from the Bay Area unescorted by an adult. It didn't matter, though. We were mean, negative naysayers who dared to muddy Humboldt's pristine reputation.

Humboldt does have its dark and weird side. It's not all tie dye, pot and people who still pick up hitchhikers without the expectation of sex. We've got bestiality, parents pimping out their children, murder-for-hire schemes on teen girls, drug houses like you would not believe, pony girl trainings in the woods, a ripe underground porn industry, serial killers, parents scoring dope with their kids, murdered hookers, alleyway inseminations of lesbians looking to have children, group sex parties in run-down motel rooms with heroin addicted local media stars. Hardly the Disneyland many would like you to believe, but how does it differ from other places? Well, that's easy -- it's ignored and in some cases accepted.

I've lived in other places where bad, strange things happen. But they happen either so deeply underground that you never hear of them, or they are met with scorn and disgust and eradicated. Here, people are either gleeful to turn a blind eye (to do anything else is to risk being called "mean"), or condone it openly or through silence. It is kind of sick, and anyone who has had any dealings with it on any sort of level knows it is there and knows exactly what I am talking about.

I once heard a woman say that Eureka (and it could be said of Humboldt in general) was like a small town with big city crime. I corrected her. "It's like a small town with country crime." Country crime is different. It's weird. It's off. It's a previously used ball gag shoved into your mouth and a video camera mounted on a tripod as a German Shepherd is led into the room.

We weren't mean on that blog. We were realists. Some may have been a bit more dramatic than others, but we were realistic. No parent wants his or her child to end up missing, and no sane parent would feel safer with their child being last seen in Humboldt. If that's negative and mean, I'll cop to it. But I flat out fucking refuse to be some wide-eyed lobotomy who thinks Humboldt is the epitome of the throwback commune where everyone is about peace and love, and strangers are fed without any evil agendas. I've seen and heard too much to think that, and I have far too much common sense to believe that is even close to reality. Sure, there are some people like that ... but wait until you see what they have hanging in the shed out back.

Eureka's New Safeway -- The Unfortunate Beast

2011-11-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

Forget the controversy that the new Safeway in Eureka, California didn't hire local builders and contractors. With so much of our population having all sorts of illegal substances swirling around their veins, that seems almost excusable.

Forget the fact that closing the Safeway near Winco caused those customers without cars to now give their business to the most frustrating store in Eureka.

Forget the fact that last Sunday the music being piped through the store's PA was the theme from The Exorcist. At least that seemed fitting, though perhaps something from Goblin's Dawn of the Dead score would have been far more symbolic. After all, the shoppers wandering the aisles, mouths agape, looked much like the mall-roaming zombies in Romero's classic film.

No forget all that. That isn't why the new Safeway sucks. The reason it is such a stick in the eye is that it is a vast, vacuous beast that is a hideous looking as it is pointless.

Shoppers who frequent the Northcoast Co-Op and Eureka Natural Foods (ENF) will instantly recognize the new Safeway's decor. It screens "organic." It looks "healthy." It is supposed to remind you that the Fritos you are buying are somehow good for you. The Safeway Organics brand is meant to make consumers feel better about their purchases. Does it work? You tell me. I'm not buying it.

I've shopped at Safeway. I was there last week picking up habaneros for yet another potluck at work. I didn't have time to run to the Co-Op or ENF, so I ended up in Eureka's new slice of Hell. People seemed excited to be there ... and it was real excitement. Not just commercial fake excitement. That, too, is typical for Eureka. Throw anything new into the mix and people flock to it like perverts to a bukkake shoot. They all want to get a chance to get a little "happy." It's why when Jack in the Box first opened it took forty-five minutes just to get in the door. My experience in the Safeway was no different. Here were people discussing how great it was for Eureka to have a "real store." Erect and wet, I expected people to any moment start dry humping a bagel display. Nobody, it should be noted, seemed to be aware that the music overhead was from the movie where a young girl masturbated with a crucifix. (Really, who hasn't?) It was surreal. Guy Debord would merely have to nod in the general direction of the large wood (real or not -- I didn't feel) pillars outside the store's doors to get his point across.

According to my daughter, the Safeway in Eureka is set up much like the one in McKinleyville, which I have never visited. If it was, that does even less to explain Eureka's erotic fascination with the store. It isn't even that special if that is the case.

I probably won't be back to the new Safeway any time soon. I was never a huge Safeway shopper, as I found the items to be far too overpriced without the quality to back it up. If I want to pay high prices, I go to the Co-Op of ENF where I know the quality is good and worth what I'm paying. I'm sure the Safeway will do well enough without my dollars, though. Eureka has plenty of zombies with little else to do.

The Entitled Bastards -- Occupy Your Street

2011-10-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

The 1% atop his spoils.

There they are, outside the Humboldt County courthouse. Placards raised. Banners flapping in the wind. It's part of Humboldt's very own Occupy Wall Street movement, and it's right on 101 as you head north out of town.

Reading comments to local news stories and blog posts gives you a clear sense that some people feel that these fine folks exercising their First Amendment rights (look it up) are nothing more than whiners who won't get jobs and who feel like they are entitled to something.

The national mainstream media isn't much better. As soon as the movement got too big to ignore, the media was reporting it and putting it down. Mystified by the lack of leadership. Stumped by the entire process. Looking for a single soundbite message. Fox, of course, was quick to say the Occupy Wall Street movement signaled the end of the world. All the usual suspects have chimed in with their two cents as well, and they are saying exactly what you would expect of them.

I am here to say the protesters are whiners, they need jobs, and they do feel entitled.

They are whining about what corporate America, in league with the Federal government, has not only done to the U.S. economy, but to the world economy. They need jobs, too. That's why they're out there. They want sustainable jobs for a sustainable future. When corporations outsource everything, and businesses sit on money that can be used to create jobs, and the unemployment rate shows little signs of deflating -- yes, people need jobs. Listen to them, critics, they are telling you that. If you are telling them they need to get jobs, you also need to tell American businesses they need to start hiring. Pretty fucking fair, wouldn't you agree?

I also agree that they do feel entitled. They feel entitled to a future that isn't destroyed by corporate greed. They feel entitled to have the people who helped tanked the economy behind bars. They feel entitled to have the FCC be on the side of the people instead of corporations. They feel entitled not to be kicked out of their homes due to faulty paperwork and rubber stamping. They feel entitled because they spent their lives playing by the rules, knowing the deck was stacked against them. They spent their lives paying into a system they thought had their best interests in mind. They want justice to be served because if they pulled off the same stunts that the people in corporate America have pulled off, only on a smaller scale, they'd be in jail. Yes, they feel entitled, and they have every right to feel that way. After all, the people at the top of the food chain also feel entitled, and they have the actual power to act on it, which they do, and this is what we get. Occupy Wall Street is saying, "No more."

Maybe it's time to put the 1% to sleep.

Humboldt County is a pretty unique place. Any day of the week you can find someone protesting something somewhere. Marijuana drives our economy the same way logging used to until the greed that manifested itself as clear cutting caused activists to go into overdrive. We have just as many liberals as we have conservatives, and yet banks aren't being burned down, and businesses are rarely boycotted. Maybe that should change. Not just in Humboldt, either, but throughout the country.

Warren Buffet acknowledges that this is class war. It's something many activists have known for decades. The Class War group came out of the United Kingdom, but its activism style needs to be adopted here. The 1% is starting to worry. It should be worrying. If this keeps up, things will be very bad for those people. They are starting to worry they may need to make concessions. If they don't, concessions will be made for them. There is strength in numbers, and Occupy Wall Street exemplifies that strength. If those people in New York suddenly turned violent ... wow. 700 arrested on a bridge could easily turn into 700 office buildings destroyed. 700 brokers hung by light poles. 700 business web sites hacked. Take the lessons learned from Class War and turn them up to 11.

Goldman Sachs -- Another fucking parasite.

The protests have been fairly peaceful as of this writing (I don't have the news on, so I could be wrong). But that may eventually change. If the government won't agree that the engineers of this financial crisis need to face some sort of penalty, and not another bail out (reimbursed or not), maybe a peaceful movement will grow angry.

Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Bank of America. Occupy Fox News. Occupy Goldman Sachs. Occupy the Pentagon. It's class war. Treat it as such.

Deep in the Bowels of the Eureka Police Department

2011-10-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

The reason as to why I was there is less important than the fact that I was there ... or at least outside of there. But there I was, nonetheless. Right outside the Eureka, California building that houses the Eureka Police Department. It's a nondescript brick building that looks like it was built in the '80s. As I stood outside its doors, I hesitated. Going in filled me with a small sense of dread. If you had my past, you'd feel the same.

I was tempted to go to the front desk and say, "I'm here to report a murder." Humboldt is no stranger to this kind of confession. It's how the world learned of Wayne Adam Ford. I didn't do it, though. I went in, stated my business and then had a seat in the empty lobby.

I waited just a few minutes until a woman came and got me. "Follow me," she instructed.

She led me through halls that were lined with photographs of police officers. Some I recognized. Some were before my time here. Eventually the halls became more sparse, and I was at my destination.

It was a cold room with a high ceiling. Its walls, unlike the rest of the building, were red brick. It gave it an almost medieval in feel. What was against the far wall made it even moreso.

There were three cells with thick metal doors. In the upper center of each door was a single window with a metal pane that could be pulled across it. Each door had a little color-coded symbol on it. The doors looked like they could withstand a bomb blast.

"Do you want to look inside them?" the woman asked.

I walked over to the first cell.

"Don't let the door close behind you," she warned.

I wasn't going in. I feared the worst if that happened. I peered through the window, though. The walls of the cell were the same red brick as the rest of the room. This was a given. Since it was a cell, though, the brick took on a different feel. The cell itself was small. There was a bed attached to the wall and a steel sink and toilet. The only comfort in the room was a roll of toilet paper on the sink.

"It looks like a home for Hannibal Lecter," I commented. A million ideas were running through my head. I would be using these in a story sometime.

"We don't use them much," the woman told me. "We'll often just use them to hold someone here for questioning, or if we have a juvenile we'll keep them in there until their parents get here. Scares them a little bit. Their parents usually get here pretty quick."

"Oh, I can imagine," I said. I had been in that situation one too many times. A lot of parents freakin' fly to the police station once they learn their kids are there.

My business finished, I left the building and sat in my car across the street, right under a sign that said, "Parking for Police Business Only." I looked one last time at the building I have passed hundreds of times in the past. I wondered what dark business had happened in those three cells. The Holy Trinity of the police department. What violations had occurred? What blood had been spilled? Now that the police could easily transport people to the jail downtown, the cells would only have to be used for "special" occasions. Special occasions, indeed.

Best Phone Center Service Call ... Ever!

2011-09-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

For the entire day, this symbol has appeared on my phone: +1. I have never seen it before. I couldn't figure out what it was. I looked on the web. Nothing. I called my service provider. The first guy I talked to was utterly baffled, so he put me through to someone else. This is when it got good.

I gave my type to the guy and explained the situation.

Phone Service Guy (PSG): What kind of symbol is it?

Me: A small plus sign and the number one.

PSG: I'm afraid I don't understand.

Me: A plus sign ... like a little "t."

PSG: It's a "t" and a one?

Me: No. A plus sign and a one.

PSG: A plus sign?

Me: Like one plus one. A plus sign.

PSG: Are you using the calculator?

Me: (Now I'm pissed.) Am I using the calculator? No. No I am not using the calculator. Does anyone use the calculator on their phone? It's worthless. Are you familiar with a calculator, though?

PSG: Yes, Sir. I am. I am trying to help.

Me: Okay. Picture the calculator in your mind. Say you want to add two and three. That button you would press to add them? That's the plus sign.

PSG: Okay, Sir. That's a plus sign and the number one?

Me: Yes.

PSG: Is it red?

Me: No. It's white. Would red be bad?

PSG: I just need to know the color.

Me: Okay. Why don't you tell me what the different colors mean for this symbol.

PSG: I am trying to find out what the symbol means. I think it is related to the 3G network. Can you get on the Web?

Me: Should I just try Facebook?

PSG: No! Just Google something?

Me: (At this point I did try Facebook. I had it running in the background, which is weird because I never do that. I exited, and it took care of the plus sign. I was so irritated by this guy, however, that I decided to keep the call going to amuse myself.) Can I Google Facebook?

PSG: Please just Google something.

Me: Not Facebook?

PSG: No, Sir. Not Facebook. Just Google something.

Me: This is a lot of pressure.

PSG: I'm trying to see if you have a 3G signal.

Me: Okay. I'll Google. I always wanted to learn about black magic. Learn about black magic. [I then started to spell L-e-a... I got to "B."] Shoot. I messed up. Want me to try again?

PSG: No, Sir. You were on Google?

Me: Yes.

PSG: So your phone has a 3G signal.

Me: Oh! On my phone! I was using my computer. I thought you wanted me to maybe look up what the symbol was on my computer. I did that. Nothing came up.

PSG (Now he's getting a bit exasperated with me.): No, Sir. I need to see if you have a 3G signal.

Me: On my phone?

PSG: Yes, Sir. You called about your phone.

Me: Yes. My computer is working.

PSG: Sir, can you Google on your phone?

Me: I've never tried.

PSG: Can you try?

Me: Yes. Can I Google Facebook on there?

PSG: Yes, Sir. Just try to access Google.

Me: What should I look up?

PSG: Do you have Google on your phone, Sir?

Me: Not yet. I want to have a game plan. If I can bring it up, I want to know what to look for so I'm not thinking of something. Your time is valuable.

PSG: I'm helping you, Sir.

Me: Thank you.

PSG: You're welcome. Do you have Google?

Me: On my computer ...

PSG: Do you have it on your phone?

Me: No. Should I look up the symbol?

PSG: Just try to access it on your phone?

Me: Trying to type 'learning about black magic' took too long.

PSG: Okay, Sir. Just get Google.

Me: Okay.

PSG: You have it?

Me: No. I was just agreeing with what you were saying.

Silence.

Me: Okay, it's looking for Google.

PSG: Searching for it? Your phone is searching for it?

Me: Well, I'm looking for it on the phone screen.

PSG: Do you know how to Google on your phone?

Me: I assure you I know how to do it.

PSG: Can you do it then so I can see if this is a 3G issue, Sir?

Me: Maybe it's my calculator ...

PSG: We already determined it is not that, Sir.

Me: Right. Right. Google. Got it. It's up.

PSG: On your phone?

Me: On my phone.

PSG: Not your computer?

Me: I have it on there, too. Should I shut that off?

PSG: No. So you have 3G.

Me: I don't have a 3D phone.

PSG: 3G, Sir. It's a-

Me: Oh, God! You know what this is?

PSG: What, Sir?

Me: It's not a plus one symbol. It's a little 't' and a one.

Silence.

Me: Do you know what that means?

PSG: Is it a 't' or a plus symbol?

Me: A 't.' Positive. Do you know what it means?

PSG: No, Sir. It's not for 3G. I don't-

Me: Well, no worries. A plus one would've been bad. A little 't' and a one is okay dokie by me, artichokey.

PSG: Happy to help, Sir.

And so our dance ended. Well, actually he gave me a website for the phone company and said a survey would be coming my way. I think that guy is going to go home and get thoroughly drunk on Mickey's.

If Thy Eye Offends Thee ...

2011-09-15T21:54:00.000-07:00

Going into the post office tonight I was greeted with the sight of a woman blocking access to my postal box. I didn't want to be rude and shove her out of the way, as she was trying multiple keys in an attempt to get her box open.

I've been to many post offices in my life in various locales. Eureka, California's 5 and H branch seems to get a lot of idiots. I'm not talking about the general idiots who ask questions about international delivery. I'm talking about the ones who come to the window with a shirt folded in their hands who tell the clerk they have to send it to Minnesota and then act surprised when they are told they have to put it in a box or envelope. Not only are they surprised. They are sometimes offended, and then will say something like, "But I don't know the address." Yes, I've seen that happen.

So this lady tried key after key. Not a single one was working for her. "They all say 'post office,'" she muttered to herself. Great. I feared that any minute she would ask me which key was the proper one needed to open her box. She was something like 68 years old. Keys get confusing.

Instead of engaging me in conversation, she stepped to the side to hold her key ring up to the light. Perhaps that would help her identify the proper key. Perhaps she was looking for divine inspiration. Either way, I leaped at the chance to get to my box.

I opened it and, leaving my keys dangling from the lock, started to take out my mail. Then I heard her gasp.

She was standing right next to me staring at my keychain.

"That offends me," she said.

The "that" she was referring to was my Pussy Wagon keychain. If you don't know what the Pussy Wagon is, watch the first Kill Bill movie. Apparently she couldn't work her DVD player any better than she could a lock, as she didn't know what the hell it meant.

"It's from a movie," I said, taking my keys from my box.

"I don't care what it's from. It offends me."

I didn't care that I had a keychain that offended a woman who couldn't figure out how to open her post office box. It was on the very bottom of the list of things I give a crap about. I made a mental note that if she were in a life-threatening situation and my keychain was the only thing that could safe her, I would refrain from doing so, lest I offend her. Instead of telling her this and engaging in a conversation that would only leave me wanting to put her through a window, I walked away. Well, let me rephrase that. I started to walk away.

My box is close to the door. Just a couple of steps away from it, really. Before I could go more than two steps, she said, "Did you not hear me?"

Deep breath. Deep, calming breath. "I heard you. I chose to ignore you and not make you feel bad for not knowing how to use your keys." I turned again.

She started to talk again. My God! I just got off work. Did not have a good day. Had a lot of stuff to do at home. And now this lady wanted to give me commentary on my keychain? Just how far up her ass was her head? Did she want me to unleash Hell on her? Would she not be satisified until I somehow acknowledged her offended nature and placated her with words signifying that not only was I repentant, but would also do my utmost best to rid the world of Quentin Tarantino-inspired keychains? Is that what she wanted?

"I think-" she started to say.

I couldn't listen to it anymore. I couldn't hazard a guess as to what was passing through that mind of her's. I didn't want to hear it, either. There wasn't anything she could possibly say that would be of interest to me. Not a single word.

In a quiet, calm, low voice, I asked, "What makes you believe I give a fuck about what you think?"

That, as noted by the look on her face, offended her more than the keychain.

I left the post office as she started to sputter some kind of ill-conceived response.

I don't know what it is about that place, but it attracts the strangest people. Half the time I'm in there I think someone is playing a prank on me because there is no way these people could be real. They seem to be operating in a reality that is somehow on a different level than the one I inhabit. They don't understand things like postage, envelopes or etiquette.

I've always believed that more easily one is offended, the less intelligent they happen to be. I can't prove it. It's not science. But I do think there is something to it. If a simple keychain offends you, I doubt you're working on a cure for cancer or being consulted for the next NASA mission. Instead, you're probably writing nonsensical letters to the editor of the Times-Standard (you know what I mean if you read those things) and doing your best to make sure Hot Topic in the Bayshore Mall goes out of business like that den of sin known as Borders.

There are plenty of things to get offended about in the world. The fact that pro golfers make more than teachers. That the Tea Party Parrots almost drove this country to default. Or even the idea that child molesting priests can be shuffled around without any fear of criminal prosecution. Those are tangible things to be offended over. It makes sense to be offended by those things. By a keychain, though? You don't have a lot of room to be offended by it if you can't even figure out how to use the things attached to it, can you?

Meet the New Boss ...

2011-09-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

There it was, sitting silently in my mail tray. Mocking me. Daring me to slap it around and call it "my bitch." A questionnaire. Not just any questionnaire, though. One that would see if I was a good fit for Federal jury duty.

Seriously.

I had just gone through Federal jury duty not five months ago -- almost to the day -- back in May. (I served 5/10-5/13. I received this new questionnaire on 9/14/11. Read about the original experience here. It is a fascinating tale.) I sat on the jury. I came to a verdict. I was told I'd be excused for the next year. Prior to that we were told they they hardly ever had trials in Humboldt. I've been here about twenty years and now I was being asked for twice ... within five months.

Remember, folks, this is the government that made you "safer" after 9/11. The same government that seems to know what you should be allowed to watch in your movie theatres and in your pornography. This little "gaff" had me wondering if the Tea Party Parrots had already taken over the dog and pony show. How could they get this so wrong? Was there not a database that showed who served when, and wasn't it cross-referenced? I know I'm on government databases somewhere. You can't write an article about firebombing churches and not come to its attention. So how the hell did this happen?

In the next few days I will take a few moments out of my busy schedule and fill out the questionnaire ... and include a long letter as to why I shouldn't be serving again. (I'm tempted to print out my original column on the experience and send it with the paperwork, but I sense trouble brewing that way.)

It would be funny if it wasn't so frustrating. I have to waste my time. Tax payer money had to be wasted. And for what? Something a simple database check could've taken care with no fuss, no muss, and not a drip of candle wax. Our government at work, folks. If only you did your job so well ...

12/21/12 -- Doomsday

2011-09-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

I find it oddly disturbing that more people I know think 12/21/12 will be the end of the world then think humans are causing some climate changes. It makes sense if you think about it, though. Fake planets, ancient calendars and "solar tsunamis" are things nobody can do anything about. Climate change, if caused by man, can be controlled by man. It's always easier to worry about things you can't do anything about because then you're off the hook. If you worry about something you can control, then you have to take actions to control it or you look like some kind of an idiot. People will always choose to look foolish believing in things they can't prove as opposed to things they can. It goes hand in hand with taking zero responsibility for your actions.

The 12/21/12 phenomenon is much like all the other end-of-the-world scenarios that have come before it, and in some ways very different. This one combines "science" (there's a planet coming into our solar system which will disrupt everything) with prophecy (the Mayan calendar ends). Granted, none of this actually holds up under scrutiny. This mysterious planet, Nibiru, was supposed to be visible to the naked eye two years ago. Nobody has seen it yet with a telescope let alone their peepers. And, of course, our calendar ends, as well. 12/31/11. It also taps into a bit of the "savage" scenario. Since we are an "advanced" culture, any cultures before ours couldn't possibly know things about astronomy and whatnot, but this Mayan culture seemed to have magical powers and advanced science, so they must have been right. It all makes for Hollywood movies and interesting press, but is little more than science fiction that far too many people are taking as science fact.

We've had our end-of-the-world problems last year with some people claiming the date was given in the Bible. People quit their jobs, slashed their kids' throats, and took to the road to let people know the end was nigh. It wasn't. Jobs stayed lost. Throats stayed slashed. Motorhomes remained painted with poorly written predictions. And then there was Y2K. You know, all the computers were going to crash, stop lights wouldn't work, and gold would be the only currency worth anything. That was another bit of prophecial dysfunction, as disappointing as whiskey dick. The only thing that came true was that gold got hoarded and those who sold bulk seeds made a killing.

But all of that is ancient history, forgotten, as we forget so many other things, when something newer and bigger comes along. The idea of the Earth cracking in half and lava bursting up through our living rooms during So You Think You Can Dance? has such cool special effects built right in that you can't help but swoon. Couple all that with some earthquakes that got a lot of coverage, leading many to believe there is more activity than normal, and the scientists theorizing that solar flares will peak (in 2013, but that's no small matter), and you get a television-ready special event movie that wil prove to be disappointing and then forgotten. A new scenario will, of course, take its place (a virus? a black hole bomb? the Tea Party Parrots getting the White House?), and a new round of fear and exploitation will occur.

All of this would be fine if people didn't act on these made-up threats. They do act on them, though, and they do so negatively. Do I care if some moron jumps out his window because he thinks the end of the world is ten minutes away? Only if I happen to be walking underneath him at the time. I do, however, care, when parents end up killing their kids. I do care when a group of believers sends nerve gas through a subway hoping to pre-empt the end of the world. People who believe insane shit like the end of the world (each and every time it's supposed to happen) do insane shit. They are capable of doing insane shit. (It should be noted, however, that much with the way people live their lives, many people who claim to believe 12/21/21 is the end of the world are doing very little to actually prepare for that. It goes to show how beliefs are important ... until you actually have to do something about it.) If you know someone who believes this sort of thing -- or any other such nonsense -- you should question their sanity. (Maybe not to their faces. They are nuts, and if they believe in fake planets, they can just as easily believe you are an alien and stab you in the throat.)

Lunatics -- is there anything they aren't capable of doing?

Sinful

2011-09-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

He looks at her from across the table. The restaurant is packed, but they don't notice any of the other patrons. To them, they are the center of the universe. Nobody else even comes close to existing.

She looks, to use an overused word, radiant. Black dress. Cut low. Cleavage. Cut deep. A hint of eye shadow. Lips look natural. Hair perfect. Dark. He knows that under that dress on each thigh is a tattoo. The left one is a water dragon. The right one is an ice dragon. He knows because he's seen those thighs. He's been between them many times.

He looks as he normally does. Shirt with two buttons open. Jacket that looks like he slept in it. Hair is unkempt. His khakis creased in a road map pattern. He hasn't shaved in seven days? He's lost count.

The food is secondary. Pasta for both. His has clams. She's not into seafood or veal. Both make her gag. Neither has eaten much, but they've both been through two glasses of wine.

"What are you thinking?" she asks.

He smiles at her. She knows what he's thinking. It's the same thing he's always thinking. What he says, however, is, "Why do we go through this dance every damn time?"

Now it's her turn to smile. "It's fun."

"You and me ... we have different definitions of that word."

"It's still fun."

"Are you wearing anything under that dress?" he asks.

"Do I ever?"

He shakes his head ever so slightly. He appreciates her nude form, but he appreciates her clothed form even more. It leaves more to the imagination. He's seen her sans clothes dozens of times. He can trace her body in his mind, as he has committed it to memory. But nothing gets him more excited than picturing her without panties under that dress. Well, that and the way she moans.

"Where are we going to go?" she asks.

"Anywhere your boyfriend isn't."

She rolls her eyes. "Right now I'd say he's stuffing dollar bills into the panties of some beggar stripper in Vegas. Typical male bonding before the night of a wedding."

"Do you think he'd be doing that knowing what you and I are going to be doing later?"

"Yeah. I do."

"Sinful," he says. "He's left a woman as marvelous like you home alone to fend off the wolves."

"For the last time," she says. "This is it. We're done after tonight."

He leans forward. "What? What do you mean 'this is it'? When the fuck did you get a conscious?"

"It's not that. He and I are moving. He got a job offer in Sac, and I'm going to go-"

"No. Bullshit. This does not end this way." His finger jabs at the table with every word. Now he notices the people looking at them.

"Let's not make a scene."

"Then don't make fucking declarations like that."

He is silent for a moment. Then, "What we have is good."

"No. What you have is good. What I have is a problem explaining why it hurts to walk for two days and why I can't fuck him."

"I do more damage than I should."

She agrees with that.

"But you like it," he says.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

"Should we go?" he asks.

"You have someone lined up?"

He nods. "That I do. Craig's List is filled with young ladies looking to get kinky for only $100 an hour. I've assured Barbie -- not her real name, I'm sure -- that it would only be an hour, and that the level of kink was nothing out of the ordinary."

She laughs. "And did she believe that?"

"She says she's eighteen. Her picture says twenty. Either way, she's about as smart as a fourteen-year-old, so I would say she believes it."

"Will she have security?"

He shakes his head. "She told me, without prompting, that she operates solo. She wanted me to know all the money goes to her for her 'education.'"

"Oh, she's in school?"

"Yeah, she's a college student, and I still have my medical license. Let's go. I'll call her from the parking lot."

They take their individual cars to his place, at which point she gets in his car, her dress riding up her thigh. "Where are we meeting her?"

"Parking lot of Target," he says.

"And then to the cabin?"

He puts the car in drive. "Where else do you think we'd go for this?"

They pick her up. She sits in the pack of the Prius. She is quick to tell them she's only done "it" with girls "like two or three times."

"That's not an issue," he tells Barbie. "You don't have to do a damn thing but watch."

"Really?"

"Yes," the woman in the passenger seat says. "We fuck. You watch. We like to get rough sometimes, so don't be surprised by that."

"Okay," Barbie says. This was not the kink she was expecting.

"You know what that makes this?" the driver asks.

"No," she responds.

"The easiest hundred you ever made."

As they make their way through the hills, they engage in the usual small talk. It doesn't take long for the man and woman to figure out that Barbie is not a college student. Nor is she much of a conversationalist. All attempts at anything other than the basics are met with silence or mumbled answers. He starts to suspect she's on pills of some sort. His partner doesn't care.

"Can I smoke?" she asks.

"No," the driver answers sternly. "The car already smells like your shitty perfume. I don't need the odor of Camel Lights adding to it."

"Hey," Barbie says, hurt, "it's expensive perfume."

"Still smells like shit," he tells her.

They get to the cabin. It is the only one in sight. He has left a light on inside as well as the porch light on. "This is it," he says, getting out of the car. "Casa de Depravity for the next hour. You get to watch me do this lovely lady in all the places God forbid, and all you have to do is keep your pretty little mouth shut."

They take her to the bedroom and point to the chair in the corner where she is to sit. "No talking," he reminds her. "No masturbating. No texting. No updating your Facebook status. You watch this like you are watching your favorite show, got it?"

Barbie nods and settles into the seat. For the next half an hour she does nothing but watch. She doesn't say a word. Not when he pulls her hair. Not when he takes her from behind and she screams. Not when he chokes her or punches her in the stomach. Barbie is thankful for the fact that it is the other woman that is on the bed and not her. The man was right. This was the easiest hundred she ever made.

At minute forty-two, everything changes. The woman, who is underneath the man, makes eye contact with Barbie. "You like ... this?" she pants. The man is thrusting into her hard. Sweat is dripping from his face. He bends his head down and starts to bite her nipple. The woman screams, and Barbie lets out a single word. "Damn."

The action on the bed stops. They both look at her. The mood interrupted. "What the hell?" he says.

Barbie points to the woman. "Her nipple is bleeding."

The woman pushes the man off her and marches over to Barbie. Three quick slaps land on her face. Then her throat is grabbed. The woman's face is close to her's. Too close. "You were told to keep your damn mouth shut. College girl not know what that means?"

Barbie was afraid to say anything. Wasn't even sure she could.

"Answer her," the man tells her, "or I'll take out your teeth."

"I know ... what it ... means," she gasps.

The woman pushes her back into the chair. "Strip," she says. "Get up and strip."

"I want to go home."

The man walks over. He calmly says, "We paid you for an hour. We have fifteen minutes left. What's the worse that can happen?"

Forty-five minutes later they are in the car heading back to Target. Barbie is in the back seat. Silent. Tears are drying on her face. She is holding her left hand. It is wrapped in a towel loaded with ice packs.

"I'd drop you off at the ER, but they have cameras," he tells her as he takes the car onto the highway.

"I can drive ... I hope," she says.

The woman looks back at her. "The bruises will heal. The bite marks will go away. That small patch of hair will grow back. But you'll want to get that hand looked at. I heard at least two of them break."

"You'll both be going to jail," Barbie tells them. Again, she proves she's not the brightest.

"Do you have someone lined up?" she asks him again.

He seems to register the question. The restaurant is still packed. "What?"

She sighs. "Jesus. Are you even listening? Do you have someone lined up? You know, for our usual."

"Oh," he says. "I did. She backed out at the last moment." He shrugs. "Something about studying for finals." He is lying. She didn't back out, but he's not going to pick her up.

"What the hell is wrong with you? You're acting weird."

He smiles at her. "I was just lost in thought. Picturing what life would be like without you, I guess."

She signals for a waiter. "I don't think I can do this if we don't have someone watching. You know how I feel about that."

"Do you and your boyfriend have an audience?"

"No, but he's not beating the shit out of me, either."

"And you're asking what's wrong with me."

The waiter gives them the check. He gives the young man his American Express card and watches him walk away. "I'm sure it will be fun without some young whore keeping silent in the corner."

"I doubt it. This is a horrible last date."

He is erect now. "Oh, I'm sure I can figure out a way to spice it up." He is thinking of the hacksaw in the shed next to the shack. He'll tie her up, blindfold her, and then get to work on her leg. Two inches above the knee.

"And how do you plan on doing that?" she asks.

He pictures heating up a fork on the stove and then shoving it in her mouth. "I don't know," he says with a playful smile. "Leave the shades up for the deer to watch? They won't say a word."

The waiter returns the card and they leave the restaurant. She gets into his Prius. "I'm still not into this idea," she says.

"How about we make tonight just about us then? No hooker watching. One last romantic evening ... our final one together. What do you say?" He starts the car and looks at her.

"It sounds boring," she tells him. "If I wanted boring, I'd wait for Lyle to come home and get on top of
me."

"I promise I won't bore you," he says, patting her thigh. "I promise this will be a night to remember."

He pulls out of the parking lot and starts heading toward the cabin.

"Okay. Deal. But no rough stuff. It feels weird without someone watching."

He smiles, but she can't see it in the dark. "Don't worry. We'll make do. I promise."

We Have A Resting Place For The Likes Of You

2011-09-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

Borders. Bayshore Mall in Eureka, CA. Everyone seems to know that Borders is going under. If you haven't been paying attention to the news, signs plastered across the front of the store have a daily countdown. As of yesterday, there were six days left until the store in the Bayshore Mall sold its last young teen vampire book. As if to emphasize a point that needs no emphasis, the shelves are nearly bare and all the fixtures are up for sale. You'd have to be an idiot to not know what has been going on.

Enter the idiot.

My daughter and I were trying to make our way through the aisles when we encountered her. Actually, we were only held up by her and her words. The man blocking our aisle was the one held up. He and his partner. The man who was being questioned by the woman had a large cooling unit of some sort on a hand cart, and this woman was blocking his path. This woman was in her forties and had a teen daughter in tow.

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked the man.

"Sure. What is it?" he countered.

This is where things went weird, and my daughter and I got front row seats to it because we were trapped in this aisle.

"Well," she said angrily, "if you put that down for a minute I'll ask you."

"He can't put that down," his partner said.

"I can't put it down," the other man, who was obviously struggling with the weight of the object, added.

"Why not?" she asked.

The man with the handcart said, "I don't work here, you know."

She immediately smiled. "Oh, I am so sorry. Everyone says I'm rude."

"You are," I said, but she ignored me.

"I didn't mean it," she continued.

"No worries," he said, moving past her.

She was not ending this, though. She turned on the partner. "Can I ask you?"

"I don't work here, either." It was obvious to me that the men had come to buy some of the fixtures. I think it would be damn obvious to anyone ... except this self-described rude lady.

She didn't care that he didn't work at Borders. She wanted to be heard. And heard she would be. "How long has this been going on? What is this?"

Now I was just sticking around to hear this. It was fascinating. There were signs everywhere saying what it was. They were yellow and black. Huge. They used words like "closing" and phrases like "going out of business." It wasn't the fucking Da Vinci Code.

"It's been going on about a month or so," the man said. "It's a going out of business sale."

"When did this happen?" she pressed.

"I don't know the exact date. It was all over the news."

"Why is this happening?" she asked.

The man rolled his eyes. "I don't know. A lot of people said it was the Internet, but I don't think so."

The woman then said, and I am not kidding. "No. It's not that. I know what it is. Do you want to know what it is?"

Okay. Think about this for a second. A woman who made it obvious she had no idea Borders was going out of business, had no idea how long the proceedings had been going on, and had no idea that a blatant going out of business sale was a going out of business sale suddenly knew the answer as to why the store was going out of business. If it were me being asked, I would have taken that opportunity to shut the woman down and make a quick exit before any of her stupid rubbed off on me. Not so for the man she stopped. He actually asked her what she thought!

I left at that point, telling my daughter that if I ever acted like that woman she had every right to push me out of a moving vehicle. I was not going to stick around to listen to what I now determined to be Dumb and Dumber discussing the state of Borders. Even I have my tolerance levels when it comes to amusing stupidity.

In a perfect world, a just world, the willfully ignorant would be made to suffer the outcome of their actions. They wouldn't be placated. They wouldn't be given anything other than a passing glance and perhaps a shove out of the way. As I walked away from her, I couldn't help but think, perhaps wrongly, that she was probably part of the Tea Party Parrots. Cocksure of nothing. Positive that their views, based on God-knows-what, were right no matter what evidence spoke to the contrary. It was wrong of me to think that, but the mindset of that woman is what drives a lot of those Tea Party Parrots. I've witnessed it firsthand. I've seen it in their signs ("Government out of my Medicare"). So proud of their ignorance. So sure of their stupidity.

So if there is anything to remember on this day that many in the media are calling a "Day of Remembrance," it's that there are a lot of dumb asses out there and no amount of tragedy in the world is ever going to get them to open their eyes.

Keyword Fun Time Super Happy Extended Edition (Humboldt Pony Girls and Shirley Temple Naked)

2011-08-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

Regular readers know that about once a month I like to see what has drawn people to this blog, which has probably the most diverse and strange readership of all my blogs. So, without further ado ...

Let's start with disgraced crazy Congressman Daniel Wu, the man who dressed like a tiger and sent e-mails that supposedly came from his kids. People are interested in this cat, and here's what brought them here: daniel wu tiger; tiger wu; congressman wu tiger (which sounds like someone's real name); "david wu" tiger; +wu + tiger; congressman tiger; congressman wu fucked her (apparently someone wanted to see what kind of gal a human tiger with a drinking problem likes to sink his teeth into); and david wu in tiger (if there is a David Wu out there I feel kind of bad for him). I wrote one post on this guy, and he's still bringing me readers. Thanks, Crazy Congressman. Send me an e-mail sometime (from you, not your kids). Maybe we can do an interview.

Random searches. These are just the ones that aren't creepy and aren't sex related that keep popping up. They are usually so random and exact that I can't really figure out why anyone type that into a search engine. Taco Bell now hiring Juan (did Taco Bell have some huge "Juan" hiring drive?); japanese war mouth satan open mouth tattoo (that is a mouthful of Satan); "I love nightmares"; Adam Levine bulge (looks like my mom is on the computer again); child spanking art (yes, she is back on); dolphin mall live anchor
(I cannot imagine what this is); fight the power shirley temple (Shirley Temple comes up in a ton of searches that results in hits on my site; again -- one post does the trick); make your teeth show when your mouth is open (I must admit that Internet has really proved helpful for people who don't understand just how their bodies work); nih male researchers in drag; pg&e gate combination lock; planet terror shooting; police use scare tactics on drug dealers; sick step vans for sale; and finally woman with open mouth makeup. Troubling.

When it comes to sex searches, pony girls have a whole separate group of their own for searches (like Shirely Temple). The pony sex store (located on 101 just north of the carousel!); teen ponygirl stories (I think I may write some for my Kindle publishing venture; probably a bigger seller than the starvation fetish story); spanking ponygirl (bad pony!); sex shop pony (aisle five right next to the Shirley Temple dolls); ponygirl starter kit (I am in the wrong fucking business); ponygirl puppy (you are mixing your fetishes); pony girls working; pleasure pony (this may have nothing to do with pony girls, but I'm including it with the thought that it is); humboldt ponygirl (some people come for the redwoods, some the pot, others for the pony girl -- and, yes, there is one I know of); human pony girl carry man; free sex human pony girl (can you get her with blue money?); filmy human ponies (I like my human ponies not covered in film); where can I girl human pony (you can learn that in the classroom next to the English as a Second Language room); and pony girl walking (Really? This is what you want to see?). There are a ton more searches for pony girl sex shops and human pony girls (instead of the alien ones). Kind of depressing when you think about it.

Pure sex searches have their fans, too. After all the pony girl stuff it's enough to make me feel normal. Blood come girl lips in love (I actually like the way the words play off each other); masturbating under a bridge; artwork naked woman fucked by horse; girl masturbating under the bridge (his first search brought up the wrong results); human chick sex; humboldt county girls getting fucked (Have you seen a lot of the Humboldt County girls? A quick trip to Southern Humboldt will cure any desire to see this sort of thing.); masturbate during labor (I bet this is the first thing ladies are thinking about during labor. "You know, this would be a great time to rub myself."); Mickey Mouse naked; realty amateur porn (the real estate market is very known for this); and video porno teen ager al sex shop (oh, the spelling). Thank you, perverts.

Nazis and National Socialists have gotten a lot of search hits on my blog, too. Whats the meaning of swasticas weird (yeah, "swasticas" are weird); swastika 8 bit; nazi symbols and naked girls (I think this was me accidentally hitting up my own site); nazi slut (again, me); nazi girl art; nazi children torture sex (all the disturbing words rolled into one smooth search); naked nazi girl (back to me); national socialist pedophilia; and finally, child star nazi (that fucking Dakota Fanning comes up everywhere).

Last, but not least, are the searches that kind of give me the creeps. Yeah, some of the sex and Nazi ones are creepy in their own right, but people are weird, so I get it. These searches, though, just kind of send a chill down the spine. Martyrs Doug Brunell (I've written about this film a lot, but if you've seen it the last thing you want is your name being associated in a search for it); bloom county strung folks like me up by their intestines (Wow. Just wow.); creepy magic mountain clowns (fairly redundant search); I saw my boss dead body (This did happen to me, but why would someone else be searching for this?); lesser devil girl's high school (awesome title for a movie -- if it isn't one already); telephone "choking"; and the last one, the coup de grace: the strange case of dad's missing head.

The Internet is full of wonderfully strange shut-ins with far too much time on their hands.

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me a commission.

The World According to Humboldt Hippies

2011-08-07T08:21:00.000-07:00

Seen in a park in Arcata. Poor horse.

According to some, I'm a bit harsh on Humboldt hippies. The reality is: I'm harsh to all hippies, save a select few. They are throwbacks to an age when hygiene and ideas weren't all that important and it was all about "vibes." My favorite hippies lived out in the desert and got all creepy crawly. In my opinion, Manson's happy little group also signified the "end" of the hippies. A public, already distrustful of the longhairs who discarded their draft cards and bras, now had every reason in the world to believe all their fears. Hippies would kill them and leave something witchy in their wake.

In Humboldt County, we've still got hippies. They're in Eureka, Garberville, Arcata (especially Arcata) -- everywhere. They are like Tea Party Parrots: carrying poorly worded signs, spouting nonsense, living off trust funds, and calling for the downfall of the government while living off it. That's actually not why I dislike them so much. It's because so many of them are so fake, in a transit period between high school and becoming insurance salesmen. They sit on the corner with their dogs, their acoustic guitars and a plea for help. Perhaps they sell overpriced hemp jewelry and say things like, "Have a blessed, sunny day."

And the music really sucks.

Turn on, tune in, stab repeatedly.

When I see them walking around town with baggy, patchwork pants in three different earth tones, dog at their side held in place by a hemp rope, I wonder what drew them here. Yeah, it's the pot, the organic foods movement and the perceived liberal attitude. I believe it's also the sense of escape. They come to a place on the far edge of the country, a place that accepts them and their ways. We do, of course. We accept most people here who aren't overly violent. Seeing them at the farmers markets doesn't even warrant a second glance. Old people smile at them, finding them quaint. They have forgotten about a pregnant Sharon Tate stabbed to death, her blood used as a warning and a catalyst for a race war. No. These youngin's are tree hugging, bong loving throwbacks, and we love it. It's part of what makes Humboldt Humboldt. The way I see it, though, the Manson incident isn't that far fetched or unbelievable. Like the Tea Party Parrots, when you believe odd things, you do odd things. Hippies belief that all is peace and love on the planet goes against every law of nature. It's a nice pipe dream, but it leaves you open to attack and persuasion. The actions of Manson and the government proved that.

The hippies have been credited with many things: the rise in STDs, the end of Vietnam, the popularity of patchouli. They had their hand in all those (well, patchouli they pretty much owned). There is one other thing they and the times they came from have been credited with that hasn't gotten as much coverage as it should have. The rise of pedophilia in the Catholic Church.

"Let me put on a little Country Joe and the Fish."

That's right, the Catholic Church, in a study it requested on the rise of sexual abuse of children by its priest places the blame squarely in the lap of the '60s counterculture. The permissive attitude in the country that called for free love, questioning authority and dropping acid also apparently called for priests to fuck children. I believe that sparked the People's Park incident. It all makes perfect sense when you see how the '60s influenced the church in so many other ways. The tie dye robes the priests wear. The playing of "Age of Aquarius" during Mass. The smoking of pot. Yes, it all makes perfect sense.

I don't dislike the hippies because they like to stab pregnant girls or inspired priests to fondle children. No, I just really hate patchouli.

Humboldt's Internet/Telephone Outage Leaves Four Dead

2011-08-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

I was in Garberville (much more on that later) manning an outstation. It was hot. I was in pain. The odor of sweat and pot wafted through the air. I had pulled into town with Nashville Pussy's "Struttin' Cock," which was appropriate. Now it was after lunch (during which time I had tripped on the uneven sidewalk while walking to get a burrito) and it was hotter ... and the computer program I was using went down. I called into the Eureka office in attempt to see if they were going through the same thing there. All the lines were busy. This was not good.

By the time I made it back to civilization, I learned that the Internet and phone service was out for most of the county. I first heard it was due to solar flares. Later it was tied to those fuckwads at AT&T. Figures. My cell phone is still down, though I've heard various reasons as to why. My other phone and Internet is back up, however. In the meantime, nobody could get through to 911, you know, in case grandma keeled over or something. As far as I know, four people didn't die, but it's only a matter of time before one of these outages does leave someone dead. A lot of people don't have land lines anymore. Even if they did, and Suddenlink was their provider, they had no phone. If you can't call out, you can't call 911. If you can't call 911, you run the risk of dying. Perhaps the psychotic ex, the one you have a restraining order against, comes barging in and you don't own a gun and aren't good with a blade. Maybe you feel your chest tighten and have just enough strength to get to the front door. Maybe you're waking up from a nap and the right side of your body has gone limp. Maybe your kid starts going into convulsions and you don't have a car. Either way, it's obvious Humboldt County needs some alternatives to one lone fiber optic line. It's the equivalent of two cans and a string, and it's not working.

Hey, if I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say between this and the chemical exposure at Kay Jewelers in the Bayshore Mall it would seem like a dry run for a terrorist attack. At the very least, the fiber optic line is a good target for anyone looking to cripple the county.

The Internet is back. Most phones are back up and running. And this incident will soon be forgotten ... until it happens again in a few months. Humboldt needs to stop relying on AT&T and start looking at other alternatives. AT&T can't keep customers more than a few months, let alone run efficient fiber optic lines. I got rid of the company a few years ago. Here's to hoping the people of Humboldt decide to do the same.

Give 'Em More Rope

2011-08-05T06:51:00.000-07:00

After the debt ceiling debate collapsed into a frenzy of masturbation climaxing in the orgasm brought on by a head trauma victim casting her vote, you'd expect there to be some sort of fall out. We weren't rioting in the streets demanding action, but you'd have to at least hope that Americans weren't placated by the fact that a committee of 12 overpaid, corporate whore cocksuckers were overseeing the future of America's financial security. When you don't have a riot, you find the anger in one other place: the polls.

Various polls are showing people are pissed at all elected officials, including those happily ignorant Tea Party Parrots. I'm tempted to send them mini-nooses and razor blades with a note implying that the only thing they are good for is business at the funeral parlor. After all, part of the reason this debate went on so long is that the Tea Party Parrots acted like little kids at the playground, unwilling to compromise and pissing their pants. The honorable thing to do, the right thing to do, is immolation on the steps of the Capitol. The black smoke, the stench of burning meat -- hell, I'd be roasting hot dogs on the flames. If we won't hang them (and they won't do it themselves), the least they can do is burn. It seems only fair. Senior citizens were terrified of being cut off, with reason, too. Scaring old people is something for the nightly news to do, not elected officials. Before this all they had to worry about was Regis Philbin retiring, leaving that "hussy" Kelly to hold down the fort.

The polls, of course, mean nothing. As a nation, we are quick to forget. As a people, we are loathe to take action. We're more concerned with where Tiger Woods has placed penis than we are over our financial futures.

Of course, there's always sabotage to show your disapproval. These elected officials have people working for them. They buy food at restaurants. They get their mail delivered. Never underestimate the power of one person with the urge to right wrongs. One man planted one logic bomb in a computer system at Bank of America which caused payroll to disappear and supervisors to lose their jobs. Imagine the fun to be had with your representatives.

Chemicals in the Mall

2011-08-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

There is a general complaint that nothing exciting ever happens in Humboldt County. There is some validity to that complaint. We have a population of pot smokers who love reggae. How exciting could it possibly get when that is your demographic? A bong breaks or there's a protest over homophobic lyrics or something. Breathtaking. Today, however, the lack of excitement reached new lows of boredom with an incident that could've been ripe with possibilities.

A hazmat team. The Bayshore Mall.

No, Al Qaeda didn't strike. (Though, if you folks are looking for targets, I have a list I'd like to give you.) F.Y.E., that poorly named "entertainment hub," wasn't running some kind of promo that went south. Instead, two people near the Kay Jeweler store (jewelry for boring middle class folks) reported some kind of exposure to chemicals that left them with rashes and sore throats. The Times-Standard, your home to stories on pedophilia, reported this around two, while KIEM (the network Jim Bernard built) mentioned that it was an exposure in Kay Jeweler to something that may have been pepper spray, and that a few people needed medical attention.

Yawn. A chemical scare in a shopping center should always be a somewhat exciting story, but this happened with all the passion of a Masterpiece Theatre introduction. There wasn't even any good speculation. An angry customer spraying the display cases. A disgruntled employee sending off a shot or two into the air ducts or swabbing the door knob to the office. A political protest against blood diamonds. Anything! Instead, there is the usual collective shrug of the shoulders and the incident will be forgotten about in a week or so. Oh, who am I kidding? Pot. Short term memory loss. People have already forgotten about it.

Irritants, both organic and chemical, are great ways to send a message. Be it hot sauce gently placed on the door to the men's room, or a piece of raw chicken hidden somewhere in a room. They can wreak havoc and be hard to detect. By the time anyone realizes they are there, it's too late. Just ask Japanese subway riders. They can tell you. Well, some of them can.

Instead of worrying about this, though, the news is reported with little in the way of how the hazmat response was or what the cause could have been. Accident? Attack? Revenge? It doesn't merit a mention. In fact, a chemical exposure story that brings out a hazmat team and requires medical attention (warranted or not) is reported on the same level as an announcement from the rotary club.

The exposure was probably nothing. Not a test run for terrorists. Not a customer pissed about being overcharged for bland jewelry. Not an employee upset over a performance evaluation. It was probably just a mistake. A woman bumped her purse against a counter and some pepper spray went off. For a moment, though, upon hearing the news, I thought something exciting could've been happening. Not earthquake exciting or even Wayne Adam Ford exciting ("Hi. I'd like to turn myself in. I've been offing women. Here's a breast."), but exciting nonetheless. Protesters over the proposed Wal-Mart. An out of control going out of business sale at Border's. For a scant few seconds I thought, "Finally. Something of interest. The hazmat team gets to actually do something other than clean up a meth lab. The mall gets covered in the news for something other than a store closing. And Humboldt now possibly gets to join the ranks of places like Halabja, only on a smaller scale." Reality came back to me, though. Even if it were some kind of attack, our local authorities would be too dumb to realize it, and our reporters too lazy to cover it.

Eh, it's Humboldt. Nobody cares.

Teeth Marks in the Face

2011-08-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Two hours of sleep. A lot of coffee. A ton of editing (doing my review of The Kingdom of Survival). Job hunting. Waffling on deleting my Facebook account. News. Very surreal. Outside, earlier, I could hear the whisk of the tires of passing cars on the wet pavement. I love that sound.

Watched Made in Britain last night with Girl. Good, angry movie. Tim Roth as a sixteen-year-old British skin. Defiant. Stubborn. Stupid.

In my editing and writing during the wee, dark hours of the morning, I was researching the usual stuff I research. In this case, a lot of butchered bodies so I could get my descriptions right. I realized from reading some comments posted on them, that there are far too many people who view the autopsy table and its remnants as little more than pornography. Should give all those single ladies out there a little shudder.

Newport Beach. Symbolic. A teen at the beach digs a deep hole. The hole collapses around him and he is buried alive. After thirty minutes he is dug out and lives to dig more holes. Defiant. Stubborn. Stupid.

Last week on the early version of Today, a female newscaster said she wasn't being a "good consumer" because she hadn't seen a film in the theatre in quite some time. When you call yourself a "consumer" you aren't being a good human. Thanks for commodifying myself. You saved corporations the trouble of doing it for you. At least you know your place.

Watching the applause for the debt ceiling fiasco should've driven a point home that had been made perfectly clear in the weeks leading up to it: The people in charge play fast and loose with the futures of the people who put them there because they can. They are not to be trusted, and they should not be employed. But really, who is going to win the World Series? That's the important question, right? Blah. If there is one collective thought running through the surprisingly empty heads of our elected officials it is: Thank God our citizens aren't Greek.

Ignorance and Faith

2011-07-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

Ignorance and faith are a powerful combination. It is what is keeping most of this country from worrying and rioting over the debt ceiling debate, which must be solved by Tuesday or their will be dire consequences. Hell, there's actually been consequences already and more are sure to come regardless of whether or not an agreement is reached, but people haven't seemed to notice.

I bet our leaders are real glad this isn't Greece or the masses would be at their doors demanding their heads ... and they should be.

As of this writing, the stock market has seen a six day sell off. Earlier in the week Wall Street's movers and shakers were saying "don't worry," and I was saying that when that was said was the time to worry, and investors did. Six days of pulling money out of the stock market because they fear Washington won't reach an agreement. Others are confident a deal will be reached. Why they are this confident is unknown. What they base this on other than ignorance and fear is also unknown. But let's pretend for a moment a deal is reached (and one may be, but I see no solid evidence of that happening and neither do investors), in some ways it really doesn't matter.

If a deal is reached by Tuesday, America gets to keep paying its bills. Forty percent of its bills are paid for by credit, so that 40% will be solid. In other words, your grandmother keeps getting her Social Security checks, the VA doesn't shut down, soldiers will get paid, doctors who accept Medicaid will be reimbursed. If a deal isn't reached, all of those things are up in the air and more. But if a deal is reached, the stock market has already declined, a slowly growing economy is growing even more slowly, and it looks like America's credit rating will still take a hit because the people elected (mainly Tea Party Parrots whose negotiating skills are learned directly from children, and Republicans who let their closet racism get in the way) decided to play bullshit games with something the rest of the world finds very important, particularly one of our biggest lenders, China. If the credit rating is lowered, interests rates go up. That only really effects people who have things like credit cards, or are buying a house, or sending a kid to college, or are borrowing money.

Ignorance and faith are keeping people from storming the gates, but they aren't keeping people from pulling their investments and buying gold and silver. Maybe when their credit cards skyrocket and their retirement disappears they'll care, but by then it will be too late, and those people who said everything will work out (they were so sure) will say, "What the fuck happened?" The writing is on the wall, and if the debt ceiling is raised for a short six-month term, we're going to face this all over again in an election period. If things are this difficult now, imagine how bad they will be then.

California, in a rare step of forward thinking, has borrowed five billion plus dollars to offset the financial crisis that will arise if the government defaults. California rarely does anything on time or with long term planning. This time, however, it has, and it could save our schools from closure and those on Medi-Cal from being denied services. I have not seen reports of other states doing this. Maybe they are part of the group that believes all will be well come August 3, the day after an agreement must be reached.

I don't have a crystal ball to see into the future. I know the debt ceiling debate has never reached this point before. I don't expect the leaders to make everything all right because I don't have faith in them. I'm also not ignoring this very important subject. I've been watching it like a hawk because it will effect my life. I'll leave ignorance and faith to the ignorant and delusional. When the banks limit your withdrawals and your credit card bills suddenly take 200 years to pay off, you can get mad. In the meantime, though, continue watching reality TV. That "reality" seems much better than what is playing out in Washington.

More Sabotage in the American Workplace

2011-07-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

United Continental (which still operates as two separate companies at the moment) is experiencing a sickout right now due to what some would say is a labor dispute. More power to those pilots.

Sickouts, work slowdowns, strikes, following orders exactly as written -- they are all things workers (mostly unionized since it's easier to get the word out) do to protest working conditions. Some steal from their jobs, blackmail or destroy important paperwork. There are thousands of ways one can disrupt work as usual, and each is unique to the job at hand. Strikes and mass actions are usually a last resort, whereas individual activism is typically an ongoing process.

The sickout at the individual airlines of United Continental is disrupting a small number of flights, which makes me think it is more of a warning than a mass action ... for now. It could be the sign of something bigger. It should be taken seriously. For those concerned with labor issues, pick another airline to use as long as this is in action, and let United Continental know why you are doing so.

These two airlines together have almost 10,000 pilots. They do close to 6,000 flights a day. If United does what it did two years ago, it will go to a judge to force these pilots to go back to work. United won on appeal. Imagine a judge forcing you to work. How would you react? If that were to happen again, staying away from United Continental would be even more important, though if you were forced to fly it for one reason or another, you could do your best to disrupt business as usual.

The vacation season is here, and I'm sure United Continental is well aware of how this could blossom into a widespread sickout at but a moment's notice. The company shouldn't be heading to court, though. It should be heading to the negotiation table. If workers are willing to risk their income and defy a court, don't you think the prudent business person would hear them out? They often don't, however, and that's why sabotage will continue to exist. If you're a flyer who supports the company, I hope you feel safe flying in those planes. At least the mechanics are happy with their jobs, right?

Bring on the Meat Show

2011-07-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

This week I took a trip to Hell. Actually, I went to Garberville for my job. It was not the best day of my life.

I figured the trip would cause my back to flare up, but I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. By the time I made it back to work on Wednesday, I was in so much pain I could barely see straight. I even left work early because of it. Those who know me understand that is something I almost never do.

I went home, threw up, took a pill (also something I almost never do), did a super hot soak that boiled me like a lobster, then used a heating pad for quite some time. I did nothing that night. For me to do nothing, well, that's a big deal. My manuscripts don't edit themselves, and I don't have a maid come clean the house.

The pain is still there, and probably will be for another day or two. On Thursday after work (yes, I went back -- see, I never stay home due to pain) I started doing some massive edits on the cannibal manuscript. Maybe it's because of the pain and the medicine that is in my system, but I got somewhat meaner with the entire thing. I also realized how nasty the original work happens to be. It is written to be like an early '70s exploitation/horror film where nothing good ever happens, and it definitely comes out that way. For all the people asking me about this, I hope you won't be disappointed. I also hope you'll understand that while this came from my mind, your children are still safe around me. They won't be eaten. I promise.

I described a scene to Girl on our morning break. A scene I actually did a lot of research on. I had to learn how people used to tan hides, and I found out some pretty interesting things. In writing the scene, I added my own little twist (you will know it when you read it, and if you've read the first draft it is still there). It got the reaction I thought it would, which was of surprised disgust, but I thought, "What if she didn't know me and read that?" I think she would seriously question the mind of someone who could write such a thing.

Melinda, a short story I like, but that is tame for me, has generated a few sales on Amazon. It's also gotten me a few e-mails from men who have this fetish for starving women to death. These are poorly-written e-mails (I think both are from Britain, too) most likely written by men still living at home with mom and secretly masturbating to anorexia porn in the wee hours of the morning. The e-mails aren't disturbing. They are actually quite polite. They just want to know if I have anymore stories like that one. I don't. It isn't a topic I write about on a regular basis. What I find odd, besides that fetish, is that readers may think I have some kind of fetish myself for starvation. I don't; it's a story. When it comes to cannibalism, however, I am fascinated with it, and that along with my love of horror movies from the '70s and '80s caused me to write this manuscript as a way to "let the love flow" as it were. (And before someone asks, no I am not a cannibal.)

Cannibalism is a social taboo in most cultures. Our's included. (I do find it oddly funny and disturbing, however, that when Dahmer was finally stopped, a lot of people I knew were more disturbed by his homosexual serial killing than his cannibalism. It shows how backwards our society really is. He wasn't a cannibal who was homosexual. He was a homosexual cannibal.) When it occurs throughout the world it is either social (as in tribes), psychological (as in Dahmer) or due to survival (as in the Donner Party). It is one thing humans do that still manages to shock and disgust, even in this world where videos of girls eating vomited feces and men squatting on jars that break in their rectums inspire t-shirts. The eating of another person reminds us that while we love computers, the lottery and Harry Potter, we are still animals and to some of us we are food. Rape is a horrible crime that fills people with fear. The thought of being captured and eaten? That fills you with dread.

Once I publish the manuscript, I will probably go into great detail on my book blog about what inspired certain scenes and why I wrote what I did. In the end, however, unlike Melinda, this manuscript comes from a place of child-like fascination with an act that causes most people to throw up in their mouths a bit. It doesn't come from a dark place like the one I'm currently writing a first draft on. It comes from that same place that thinks looking into your backyard at one a.m. and seeing a clown is terrifying (this is a vivid childhood memory of mine, and he let firecrackers -- more on that sometime later), a place where remote places in the mountains inspire fear and imagination. Melinda was just an idea. The cannibal manuscript is a theme that runs through my life. (When I finished the first draft I got John Lopez of Carl Hanes Tattoo to do a tattoo of a teeth bracelet around my wrist in celebration. I also have a section on my book shelf dedicated to cannibalism, and one of my favorite movies of all time is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So, yeah, this isn't a one-time idea that I ran with and wrote about. This is something I've studied for years.) Because of that, I think the tale comes across as more terrifying. In some spots I am absolutely gleeful (such as the tanning scene) with the perversity and violence. Of course, that's just my take. I'll let the readers decide.

I can only imagine what e-mails I'll get in after it gets published.

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Full Moon Over a Dead Earth

2011-07-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

Last night. Humboldt County. In a recliner. Open window with the sounds of people enjoying the evening filtering in. Heating pad burning a hole through my back. Flesh and Blood Compendium being read. I caught it out of the corner of my eye. So bright, so big that at first I thought I was hallucinating.

A beautiful full moon.

Clouds sometimes obscured it. So much so that while on the phone with Girl I mentioned that, again, I thought maybe I had hallucinated it. It's a rare day when I take pain meds, so they have quite an effect on me. I get a little ... loopy.

I wasn't imagining it, though. It wasn't some sort of CGI (Cerebral Generated Image). It was a full-on, larger than life moon. The kind of thing our knuckle-dragging ancestors would've worshipped when not splitting skulls and breeding. It was one of those wonders of "nature" that puts me in awe, like silicone drops on a bed of water on a vibrating table or the ocean.

A werewolf moon.

No, I'm not a huge fan of werewolves. I can see, however, how this can inspire such tales. Me? I like to think of it as a huge, cataract-laden eye looking over a dying planet. Unblinking at the misery below it. Where once it was worshipped, now it is just forgotten, a body to be landed upon from time to time if only to figure out a way to extract whatever resources we can from it. A once majestic god above creatures who had no real working concept of fiction to a monument of failure in people who are nothing but fiction.

It was heady stuff for someone on medication who could barely text properly.

I'm sure quite a few other Humboldt residents saw it staring down on them. The people in our county seem more in tune with nature than say the people of Los Angeles. I'm sure there was more than one Humboldt County soul who thought something similar (after all, so many of us are medicated at any given time that it's amazing the drinking water isn't making us all zombies). Then again, maybe nobody noticed. Maybe they were all so wrapped up in the firing of the Eureka chief of police as a sure sign of Armageddon that they failed to take note of that eye in the sky. Full moon over a dead Earth. Kind of fitting.

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Why I Love Nightmares

2011-07-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

I used to think I loved nightmares because of the story ideas they gave me. Now, there were some nightmares I loathed, but for the most part I enjoyed them. This, of course, led to a serious inner-debate titled, "If I Love Having Nightmares, Can They Be Called Nightmares?" The answer was: Yes. They could be nightmares, and I could enjoy the hell out of them.

Last night, that all changed. Waking up, I had a new reason why I loved nightmares. It had nothing to do with the story ideas. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

I woke up feeling refreshed. This is, sadly, not natural as of late. I woke up feeling absolutely giddy with happiness. And it was all due to a dream I had been having. What this dream was is of no interest to most people, so I will skip it. It was wonderful, though.

And then real life sank in. I realized the dream was a dream, and it wasn't reality. These things I experienced in sleep were complete fabrications. And that is why I love nightmares.

Good dreams, pleasant dreams -- they fool you. Those moments of bliss are manufactured and are as mentally deflating as finding out those medical test results are worse than suspected. They are the hot girl that flirts with you and then you find out it's because she had a bet with her friends. Good dreams are a joke. Nightmares don't lie.

Nightmares seemed designed by nature to scare you. You don't want them to be real. You want them to be gone. When you wake up, you are relieved that what you experienced isn't real life. You are thankful and grateful. You are humbled. Nightmares don't pretend to give you hope. They don't flirt with you. They assault you and make sure you know it. Nightmares don't trick your soul. Nightmares are the sharks of the subconscious. I respect that. I respect that a lot. I don't respect the made up reality I went through this morning before waking up to face a lie. How could I?

I used to not care when people said they loved having these good dreams that had nothing to do with real life. I didn't care because I figured they were just dreams, and what harm was there in having them or even having the desire to have them? Now I know these people are delusional. They are being fooled, and they like it. They are cashing in on a momentary bliss built on a foundation of clouds. Better them than me. I don't want that "reality." I want the truth or something so terrifying it makes me thankful for the life I lead. Anything else is unacceptable ... even if it produces a momentary bliss.

On the Road to Arcata ...

2011-07-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning. Heading toward Arcata. Highway 101, the main artery between the safe haven of Eureka and hippie-central Arcata. Off to the side of the highway, parked like a silent sentinel, was a large white pick-up truck. Nothing out of the ordinary ... except for the large black letters across the back of its cab.

"Show Me Your Tits."

Several inches high, as bold as its statement. This driver, who was male, was encouraging other drivers (I'm assuming females, but he may like hefty guys for all I know) to expose those objects of many a man's affection. It was crazy enough to work, I'm sure. Much like the "Girls Gone Wild" franchise works. Much like telling a woman exactly what she wants to hear. I'm sure this has gotten this desperate driver more than one or two nipples. It would be kind of cool if one woman decided to show him a little more.

She's a passenger. Her girlfriend (not lesbians, but they've been known to make out with a little wine in them) is driving. Her window is down. The air feels good. It's the beginning of summer. They are on their way to Oregon. They are in the left lane. "Show Me Your Tits" pulls up and past.

"You see that?" her girlfriend asks. "What the fuck?"

She laughs. "Pull up next to him."

"Seriously? You can't be -"

"Come on. A quick flash. What can it hurt? He'll probably love it and go off the road or something."

"Yeah, when he starts jerking off." But she pulls up next to him anyway. Now they are both speeding.

She lifts her shirt and bra. The driver's got a big smile. He likes these. If he ever got the chance to describe them to his friends he'd say "heft with just enough perk to make your mouth water." He'll never get that chance, though. That smile becomes a look of unpleasant surprise as he sees the handgun come up and the shirt come down. Next thing he knows, his lower jaw is in chunks across his dash. A large portion of his tongue explodes in a red mist, and the bullet sinks itself into the passenger door. The force of the shot causes him to jerk the wheel and go off the shoulder.

"Hope you liked them!"

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Give Me Fire

2011-06-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

The air outside has a slight chill to it. No trace of a breeze. The sky is just starting to brighten. It's about 5:17 in the morning. Friday. I'm outside taking in the silence, coffee cup in hand. I haven't turned on the cell phone or the computer. I haven't done any of my usual morning rituals other than the coffee. I'm just taking in the silence, thinking of how I would so very much like to live in a world without the sounds of cars, planes and people whining about Obama or how excited they are to see Green Lantern.

A truck goes by on its way to Safeway. I hear this truck almost every day. The illusion is destroyed. Time to go inside and take a shower, boot up Pinhead and my cell and try to get some writing done before I go to my job. I encounter an e-mail from a female friend telling me she likes when I run pictures of women with weapons. Here's a throat-slitting one for you, from The Road Warrior, a great film that has yet to be matched in pure spectacle.

A line from the e-mail catches my eye. "You're always fun to read when you write something when you're angry." It's an awkward sentence at best, but I get the meaning behind it. I've been told that before. Anger inspires greatness, I guess. Give me fire, right?

There's plenty to be angry about these days. Politicians who make better speed bumps than legislators. A capitalistic world that seems dangerously ignorant of the path it is taking when it comes to the environment. Libya. The attacks on unions. The debt ceiling. People who claim every earthquake is yet another sign that 2012 is real. The list goes on and on.

I've been fairly silent on most of these things lately. It's not that I don't care about them. I do. I just have this "sit back and wait" attitude because I get this funny feeling that some of this shit is going to bite people in the ass, and that actually cracks me up a bit. (In all fairness, I have been encouraging people who believe in 2012 to give up their jobs and possessions. I figure if they fall for prophecies they'll fall for anything and why not speed up their extinction.) I do take some perverse pleasure in people being made to pay for their follies. Schadenfreude. Beautiful word from a beautiful language.

I'm sure the anger will return, and knowing me it'll be back in no time flat. Today, though, I don't have the energy for it. Lack of sleep and some nasty allergies have taken the piss out of me. Bitterness and sarcasm, my allies, will be back in full force in the very near future. Until they return, however, I'll be satisfied by mere observation.

Choking on a Telephone Line

2011-06-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

I bought a new phone. That's really not what I wanted to write about. What I wanted to write about, I won't out of respect for the people involved. All I'll say is that the lives of two very dear friends have changed, and all I could think about while talking to the one half of the couple was that line in one of Rollins' songs. "Life will not break your heart/It will crush it."

Instead I'll write of the phone.

I'm not a huge fan of cell phones, smart phones or "your little vibrating friend in your pocket" (you know what I mean, ladies). They cause distractions while driving, interrupt work, give assholes an inflated sense of self at the movies and in restaurants. They have their uses, however, and one of those is uses is to send topless pictures of yourself to some guy who will inevitably post them on some website he thinks you'll never see (and you won't).

They're also good for when your car breaks down.

I needed a new one. My cell phone battery wouldn't hold a charge for a call, and I couldn't receive topless pictures. Now, I could buy a new battery, and I tried. I went everywhere, including that little kiosk in the mall run by some woman from an Eastern European country. Nothing. They no longer make batteries for my rotary dial cell phone.

I called my provider to find out if I could stay on the same plan. He informed me I could if I bought a certain phone, so I set out to find that phone. That phone, it should be noted, has been discontinued. So not only was my cell phone old, but so was my plan. So old, in fact, that the only phone it would work on was old.

Which leads me to the Rumor Touch. This phone, which sounds like a strange, arty porn film, was the only one whose price didn't cause my testicles to pull up inside my stomach. As the box assured me, though, I could do just about everything with it. Everything except get my provider to activate the fucking thing.

The sales clerk offered to do it at the store, but I had no time for such nonsense. I proudly declared I'd "do it at home, mofo." And I tried. I tried doing it online. I got an error message for all my troubles telling me to call the provider. So I did. After navigating through a phone tree system that would cause Columbus to get lost, I learned that the service center was closed (apparently there are some giant companies that don't operate a 24 hour service center these days) and that I should try to activate my phone on the web. It was almost like I was stuck in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure written by an obsessive compulsive crack addict.

I tried the web again ... and it worked! Shit the bed! Well, at least it looked like it worked. I could place a call, take a call, and messaging has been sporadic ... I think (my peeps don't always respond in a timely manner, yo). I took a picture. That worked. I haven't tried to go on Facebook or receive a picture yet, but I expect no problems.

So I have a new phone. A Rumor Touch, which fits my lifestyle of touching things and vibrating. The best part? I can get those topless pictures ... I just hope my mother, who has recently discovered the joys of texting and sending pictures through the phone, doesn't accidentally send me one of those. If she does, I'll make it her contact picture and show all my friends.

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Family and Other Threats to a Child's Health

2011-06-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

Recently, McKinleyville, CA was shocked by a crime. A woman is found wandering around naked with abrasions. She is incoherent. Doesn't know how she got to where she was or why she was naked. (This is actually not the first time something like this has happened in the area, by the way. The rest of the story is new for our region, however.) The police suspect she has a child, but there is no child with her. They found the woman's vehicle, and they found items that appeared to have been tossed out of it over a ten mile stretch, including items belonging to a child.

Police begin searching for the woman's daughter. The woman is of little help at first, but then memories start coming back. Soon the two-year-old girl is found, dead in a river. Her mother drowned her. Obviously, this is disturbing. Jump forward to this weekend.

I'm with my daughter as she preps to march in a parade. I'm marching with her. Another parent is at the meeting place with her daughter. Eventually the mother says, "I'm going to go off to find a vantage point for the parade. Can she just stay here with you?"

I didn't say "no," though I was stunned a mother would just leave her daughter with me, a stranger. Oh, the mother never bothered to get my cell phone number ... or my name. She had known me all of twenty minutes and had said all of eight sentences to me before she got the wonderful idea to leave her child in my possession. My daughter thought it was strange, and I had to assure her that I would never leave her with a stranger like that.

Am I wrong in finding this odd?

I'm not one to abuse a child. This woman didn't know that, however. She didn't know my name, where I lived, anything. Suppose I had done something to her kid? What would she tell the police? "I left her at the flagpole, officer, with some guy. No, I don't know his name or his number or where he lives. I can give you a description. Middle-aged, white, shaved head, goatee." That's the description of just about every white criminal out there. That would be fun for the cops trying to figure that one out.

Strangers are obviously a threat to children. I think we tend to ignore that family is a huge threat, too. They are an even more insidious threat because your family is supposed to keep you safe. When the people you trust with your life and safety turn on you it's terrifying.

The McKinleyville woman who drowned her child has mental problems. It's not an excuse for doing the crime; it's the reason. I feel for the child's family, but I have no sympathy for the mother. People can question what happened and why all they want, but it doesn't change the outcome one damn bit. The woman at the parade was lucky (as was her daughter) that I'm not a pedophile or murderer. She took a chance, though. A huge chance. She trusted the safety of what should be the love of her life with someone she had zero clue about. All for a good seat at the parade. If that isn't the definition of reckless, I don't know what the word means. I just hope her kid questions her about that someday. I'd like to know what answer the mom would give. To me, there is no justifying it. There's only apologizing and being thankful her little girl didn't end in a bad way, too. What are people thinking?

The Dying Light

2011-06-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I'm sitting in a recliner by my window. The sun is going down. A few stray birds are out in the tree making noise. Every once in a while I vehicle drives by, tires hissing on the road. I've just spent the past hour or so working on the cannibal manuscript, getting it ready for Kindle. The two short stories on there sell, not a lot, but they sell. I think the novel will do better.

I had music playing while I edited it. Old blues. Very old blues. It didn't totally fit the story, but the songs can be creepy, and that did fit the vibe. Old country music would've been better, but I don't exactly have that sitting around.

The novel was with a publisher for quite some time. In the end, it was with it for too long, and I yanked it. A six month wait time had grown into a year, and when I put it on Kindle I not only eliminate the middleman, but I'm also free to continue to shop it around, which I may do depending on sales. Selling a few thousand copies will be splendid. Even a few hundred will cause me to celebrate. Sell enough, and I'll be able to focus on the writing one hundred percent. No, Kindle is not ideal (especially since I don't own one and have no desire to change that), but it does make the work available, which is the main goal.

The light outside continues to die. My back, thanks to a run-in with the recycling container, is screaming at me for a hot soak, which I think should happen. I want to forge on, though. Get this novel up and available. I'm finding it hard to concentrate, though, as my back is at a pain level of twelve and feels quite unlike its normal pain, which has become a hard friend over the past decade or so.

Maybe I'll soak soon. Water as hot as humanly tolerable. Jets on. Muscles fighting to relax. I'm at a good scene, however. A scene where a legless man describes just what type of hell my protagonist is in for. It's one of my favor encounters in the story. It was also the part I had the hardest time writing. Maybe I'll mull it over as my skin turns lobster red. Or maybe I'll just press on ... and hope I can get out of bed in the morning.

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Abattoir: The World as Religion's Slaughterhouse

2011-06-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

I long ago stopped arguing religion. I put it into my personal dustbin and decided that debating the merits of organized religion was up there with debating the reality of Stephen King's Christine. In other words: utterly pointless. Fact won't change fate, and after a while I had no interest in trying. I actually don't care about people's faith or lack of it. Religion bothers me, however, when it starts to become policy. When laws are made around religion, and groups are ostracized (or worse), is right when religion needs to be debated and dragged kicking and screaming into the era of rational thought and logical laws and policies.

Recently, some geriatric preacher predicted the end of the world in a proclamation that was like porno for believers. He had predicted it something like four times before, and the last time the prediction didn't come true he claimed he had messed up the dates. When the world didn't end on 5/21/11 he rationalized it away with the same lack of logic. All well and good, except people slashed their kids throats, jumped from buildings and quit jobs and left families because some AARP reject said the end was here.

It's a claim that's been made time and time again. The end is nigh. On X date the world will end. A book tells us so. A vision tells us so. Some guy in a bad suit said it, so it must be true. Honestly, I don't care if people believe this crap. Some guy jumps off a building because of the random mumblings of someone he doesn't even know, well, the world is probably better off without him. Kids getting their throats slit is horrible and tragic, but since we, as a society, has agreed that such a strong faith is a reasonable thing .... How can you expect any less?

When people have faith (a belief) in something they can't prove exists, you run into these situations. I think faith can be a powerful thing. It does lead to good sometimes. It gets people through hard times. It also makes them susceptible to behavior that is utterly insane to the rational-minded. You believe one crazy thing, you'll easily fall for another, and once you are lock-step in the psychotic swirl, you accept the values of that swirl all the more readily. You believe in God, you start to believe you can be punished for certain thoughts or behavior. You start to believe that, you start to believe a society can be punished. You start to believe that, and then you start to believe you don't want to be around for that punishment. You start to believe that, and slitting your kid's throat so that they won't have to around for it, either, seems humane. That is logical, and it makes perfect sense ... if you follow a flawed path. It won't happen to everyone (not everyone is a leader, but the majority of the population are followers and even apologists), but it happens to enough people. Faith leaves the door open, and anything can get in. Just ask the followers of Charles Manson. They were nuts, right? How does that differ from any other religion? The amount of bloodshed? Check your history. The fact that they were hippies? Check your idols. The fact that Manson said the end was coming and tried to hasten it along? Yeah, religion never did that.

Again, I avoid arguing religion. I don't care that people have faith. I'm actually happy that a lot of people do. It keeps some of the rabble under control. If the faith turns their lives into their own personal abattoir, then that's fine with me, too. If it allows them to build houses in Mexico, that's just as good. Once it starts to invade my life, though, I start to take it a little personally.

Come October, the new end of the world, we'll probably see much the same thing. The creepy old preacher from Poltergeist 2 will be spouting his nonsense. The people who fell for it last time will fall for it again. More people will quit their jobs. More people will deplete their savings. And more moms will slit the throats of their young. It's all pretty harmless, right? Yeah. Until they get their hands on some nerve gas and decide to speed things along ...

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me a small commission and herald in the end of the world. Click away!

It's Search Engine Fun Time!

2011-05-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

I truly love looking at the search words people use that leads them to my blog. It's terrifying, surreal, erotic and humorous. I'll break them down into categories.

Erotic: The one that gets me the most traffic is "Larry the Cable Guy. You may not find him sexy, but there are a lot of people who do. I just find it amusing that they end up here. Next is the five billion variations on "pony girl." There's "human pony girl," "pony girl," "sexy human pony," "dirty sexy girls on girls as human horse," "driving a human pony," "girl pony sex," "girl with human pony," "girls playing games in sex like human horse," "horsetails inserted into asses of ponygirls movies," "human pony girl start up kit," "human pony sex tail inserted in ass," "jewish ponygirl," "man riding sex pony girl," "nude women who are harnessed to pull carts as pony girls," "ponny [sic] girl teens," "pony zoo sex," "prone movie of girls use as human pony" (I have no idea what that is), "story ponygirl breeding," and so on. That's not even the complete list of the pony girl ones. The erotic list continues.

"Teenacher Biem Sex" sounds like a cross between a Jewish self-help book for teens and an Asian dish. I'm not sure what it is. Someone also finds "tap out girl sexy." I'm sure that was a narrow search. Someone was also looking for the "most sexual point of human girl." I hope he found it and wasn't misled to a site offering the most sexual point of an alien girl. You don't want to get those two points confused. Someone also actually typed into Google "man seen in bush masturbating." Why? Were they thinking, "Did anyone else see that today?" Another one was "girl using penis as lipstick in mouth." Lipstick is used on the lips, not in the mouth. (I imagine this guy -- only a guy would type something in so stupid -- engaging in some lovin' with his lady. "Here, babe, let me paint your teeth and tongue with my lipstick penis." Dolt.) Enough of the erotic.

Terrifying: These searchs, if thought about too closely, bring chills to one's spine. "Children trained to be ponygirls," "human sex with teenager girls," "project looking glass entrapment," "sex shot with teenager girl," and "when the knife hits the bone." People are sick.

Surreal: I can only imagine what is going on in someone's head when they are searching for the following: "wierd [sic] manson in Eureka, Ca," "twist-in bolt penis," "make money with amateur porn," "daniel wu masturbate," and "8tracks growl fluid." The last one is a great name for a band.

Humorous: "Jesus fun." I'd love to see the face of the person that went here looking for that. ("What the? This ain't Jesus, and it ain't fun!") "Male pervert wanking in car video." (I picture that searcher being very upset by the idea, but also being really, really curious. "I watched it eight times! It's horrible! He's just pulling on it and pulling on it. Anyone can walk by!") "Old man depressed." (That actually seems like the most obvious reason to end up here.) "Pictures of Larry the Cable Guys baby." (Do you want to see if it has a hat on?) "Steal PG&E." (I second that.) "The rapture joke." (Kind of redundant if you ask me.)

If you run a blog or a site, you have to check out what drives people to you. It is as fascinating as it is a little scary.

The Rapture is Coming And I Hope it Takes These People

2011-05-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

There are a certain group of people (quite large if you believe the numbers in this article) who enjoy something called "planking." (One of them has thankfully died.) Planking means ... well, just look at the picture at the left. It pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

This is apparently pretty popular amongs the same group that engages in mass e-mails and social networking wars. In other words: the idiot masses.

The man who died doing this (seems unlikely that such a non-activity would cause death) was planking on a balcony on a high rise when he tumbled off. I wonder if his last thought before he splattered on the sidewalk was, "I'm a dumb ass!" I hope someone got a picture of that.

I understand that people engage in pointless activities every day (it's called work), and I understand that many get a kick out of it. It's cute, like flash mobs with less movement. But when you start declaring this an "alternative sport" and join a Facebook page for it where you can post your own planking photos ... well, there may be something wrong with the gray matter between your ears.

I will say, however, that the idea that people will mimic a board seems quite fitting to me. They are about as interesting as one and have as much intelligence as one. If I see a planker, I'm going to grab a handful of nails and a hammer and get a little Roman on them. Then I'll see if I can start a Facebook movement for that.

The Rapture is coming (this is science FACT) on May 21 ... or so (the guy who is saying this has been wrong a couple of times in the past, but he's not wrong this time ... maybe). Here's to hoping it is real and it takes these people up into Heaven where they can plank between clouds or on the the backs of angels. It fills my heart with warmth just to picture it.

A Locked Room and the Truth

2011-05-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

Men in nice suits with badges escort me down the hall. Marshals. I'm placed by myself into a room. In this room is a long table with several chairs, a few locked doors, a bathroom, and a window. The door is closed behind me. I go to the window and open it. It's large, not easy to open. This is the means of escape, however. I'm on the second floor, and if I were to exit via any of the unlocked doors I would find myself surrounded by marshals and correctional officers. This window is it.
There is a small ledge which I could use to make my way around the building. Not a likely option. Too slow. There is a building across the alley, but even if I had room to make a running start I would be unable to clear the distance. That leaves leaping. The alley below guarantees one thing: I'd be lucky to break both legs. No. I'm trapped. This is going to be my home for the next few days. This is Federal jury duty.

The Federal Courthouse in Eureka is on the second floor of the downtown post office. Before the case I was summoned to possibly sit on, it had seen three other cases in the past eight years. To give you an idea of how little this place is used, the men's bathroom at that end of the floor has these tiny stalls with wooden doors. The wood is old. On the inside of the door, the part you'd face if you were sitting on the toilet, is the requisite graffiti. In the one stall this was carved into the door: "Stop the draft." I kid you not. I looked around to see if I could find anything urging me to vote McGovern.

Not exactly a hub of activity.

I had received my summons last month, April. I was to be on call for about eleven days. At that point I could be picked to be a juror. I'm never picked, though. All the other juries I've been on have found me dismissed because I have a big mouth and a lot of opinions. On Tuesday I got a call telling me to show up.

There were over 40 of us there. The plaintiff sat toward the front of the room. He was a black man. His team of lawyers (not counting the possible two that sat behind them the whole time) were two men and a woman. All about fifteen years old. The defendants were two men in suits. Man one was a tall white guy who looked to be in the military based on his haircut. Man two was a round Native American who was decidedly older than the other one. Their lawyers were two men. One never spoke. The other spoke with the ease of someone who had done this thousands of times, perhaps before television cameras.

A man from San Francisco came out to explain things to us. This was a Federal civil case. We would be treated better than we were at state level jury duty because they were the Feds and the Feds were fast. ("Shabby" is how he described the proceedings at the state level. He is right.) The case would deal with the Constitution. A minimum of six were needed for the jury. Eight would probably be picked. My odds just got better.

The judge came in. He was an easy going guy. After we were sworn in he gave a speech about the importance of what we were doing, tying in the jury system in America to a lack of a jury system in places like the Middle East. (His speech was stirring and patriotic, but also had one or two inaccuracies.) It was meant to instill a feeling of importance and duty. I'm not sure it worked. Then he told us about the case. The plaintiff, the black man who didn't rise when the judge came in, was accusing the defendants of violating his 4th Amendment rights by use of excessive force, force which led to injury. The defendants were cops.

Names were then called at random. They were going to fill the jury box and the first two rows of seats. I was called into the jury box, seat six. After we were all seated, the questioning began.

The judge asked each of us the same set of questions. Sometimes he did a little follow-up if he felt it was merited. The questions were exactly what you'd expect. Do you know any of the people? Occupation?  Any law enforcement background or anyone in your family with it? Any run-ins with the police? What, if any, sources of news do you look at and read?  Could you listen to the testimony of someone convicted of a crime with no biases? Could you hear this case without bias?

When he got to me I already had my answers at ready. I had heard five other people respond. I knew what I would say. I told him about my day job (there were two other people in the courtroom I had worked with or did work with, and another from the same branch of the government I work for) and my writing. I rattled off a series of news sites and magazines, including Z, which I had on me. Then he asked, "Have you ever been pulled over or been arrested, or have any of your close family been pulled over or arrested?"

"In my younger, wilder days I had many encounters with the police," I said. This generated quite a few laughs. (People are desperate for laughs in a courtroom. I'm a simple entertainer.)

No follow-up. Usually that answer led to follow-up. I figured the lawyers would do so. At that point I would explain my experiences, say I could still be unbiased (which is true; I'm a very fair and balanced person when it comes to those sorts of things), and I would be dismissed. I'd be back at my job before noon.

I answered the rest of the questions, noting I could be unbiased. The judge finished off the questioning, including one young woman who said she thought all police used excessive force and one man with a military background whose answers were just about as unclear as one could get. Now it was time for the plaintiff's young lawyers to start their questioning. "Here we go," I thought. "They always start with me."

"Mr. Brunell," the man began. I was right. "About your writing ..."

There are a few times in life where my writing makes me uncomfortable. It's not when I'm threatened with a lawsuit. That has happened so many times that it's almost funny (and the reason I'm not naming names here).  The times that are really the most uncomfortable is when a family member asks about something I wrote or when people involved in the justice system bring it up. I had no idea if these lawyers had read anything I wrote, but I was now prepared to defend myself. Yes, I've been critical of both cops and people, but I think if you go back through everything I've written, I've shown nothing but a strong sense of fairness and doing the right thing ... even if it sounds insane.

"... can you tell me a bit more about your fiction writing?"

What? Seriously? So I did. I explained that I wrote primarily horror stories and thrillers. The judge had asked if I was published, and I had replied I was, which seemed to impress him. I told the lawyer I had just published two short stories to the Kindle. He asked if the book I had mentioned to the judge was fiction, and I had to explain that it was not. It was an online poker book, which was non-fiction. He then asked, "So it was published online?"

"No. It's a print book. It's about online poker."

"Oh, like tips and strategies you would use in online poker?"

"Sure. Yes."

And now it was coming. What kind of non-fiction did I write? That was going to be fun. This whole courtroom was going to be exposed to what one friend called my "unending stream of hatred for humanity and enough sarcasm to kill off an entire population."

"Can you tell me a bit about your job with the county and what you do?"

Okay. I guess the defense would ask what every other lawyer has always asked me in this situation. The defense did not. In fact, the defense lawyer didn't ask me any direct questions at all.

The judge dismissed us back to the hallway for Starbuck's coffee and pastries while he talked to the lawyer. A few minutes later we were called back in. "Ladies and gentlemen of the court," he announced, "we have a jury."

Oh. Dear. God. They hadn't questioned over half of the crowd. My odds for being picked were suddenly sky fucking high. They wouldn't pick the "activist" girl who was never really asked to defend her position. They wouldn't pick the ex-military guy who couldn't formulate a thought and was asking people on our break if they understood his answers. They wouldn't pick the man who said he wouldn't give the testimony of a man convicted of a crime the same attention as someone who hadn't been convicted of a crime. That was three gone in an instant. Still, I had a shaved head and very visible tattoos (human teeth on the wrists, a girl with a gun, a naked demon lady). No, the defense wouldn't want me.  They would look at me as a "risk."

I was juror four.

We were ready to roll by right about ten o'clock. Sweet Rhea Perlman, the Feds do move fast.

The plaintiff's female lawyer began her opening argument. She looked like an old friend of mine, and she had the last name of a current friend of mine.  He would actually make a good lawyer, so I found the shared last name kind of interesting.  I'm going to paraphrase what she told us, leaving out the names. [It should be noted that I write this a day after the trial ended. There was so much conflicting evidence that even my story won't be straight, and I'm sure I screwed up the multiple timelines we got. I'm not asking you to make a judgment call on this case. I'm just explaining the process we went through because it makes for good reading. In no way is what I'm writing supposed to be taken as factual for case merit purposes.] Cop One is the white guy. Cop Two is the Native American. The plaintiff is ... the Plaintiff!

"The Plaintiff was driving home down Lake Boulevard [I may be changing names of places here, too] at a little after one in the morning. He passed by a motel where Cop One and Cop Two were sitting in their cruiser.  Cop One was in training, and Cop Two was his Field Training Officer. Cop One was at a phase in his training where he had to show Cop Two that he could act independently.  The Plaintiff was not doing anything wrong. The speed limit was 25 through their and you will hear Cop One and Cop Two testify that the Plaintiff was not speeding, and nor did he violate any traffic laws. This is undisputed.

"Cop One and Cop Two followed Plaintiff to his home, and apartment complex, where Plaintiff parked his car. Cop One and Cop Two pulled into the parking lot, made a u-turn and parked behind Plaintiff, blocking him in. Again, he did not violate any traffic laws. The defendants wanted to establish a consensual contact. This is not disputed by either parties.

"Plaintiff gathered up his things. A cell phone, a pager and a fanny pack. He got out of his car and locked the door. At this time, Cop One asked from the cruiser, 'Do you have a license to drive that thing?' Plaintiff did not, and he did not answer. He did not have to.

"Plaintiff began walking toward his apartment when Cop One yelled, 'Freeze, nigger!' Plaintiff froze, afraid for his life. Cop One got out of the cruiser, put Plaintiff in a rear wrist lock. Plaintiff cried out in pain, and Cop One reached around and choked him."

The story continued where Cop Two then got out of the car and continued the choking. The plaintiff blacked out and woke up in the back of the cruiser with paramedics shining a light in his eyes. At some point it was determined that the plaintiff was on parole and had a parole (possibly) ID. He did not have a drivers license, another undisputed fact. The rear wrist lock and the fact that hands went on the throat are also undisputed facts, as is the fact that the ambulance arrived.

Cue dramatic music. Actually, don't. There is no dramatic music in the courtroom. All the drama comes from a limited number of sources. The testimony, the lawyer's reaction to the testimony, the judge's reaction to the testimony, and body language. There is not music to cue you in on the sad parts, the angry parts, or that piece of damning evidence that is present in ever courtroom television show and movie. That piece of damning evidence actually really doesn't exist. It's a fictional device like lightsabers and Irish people. Fake things to add tension to a tall tale.

The defense then brought out its opening argument.

The defense stated that the police were following the plaintiff simply by being on the road at the same time. Cop One decided to make a consensual contact with the plaintiff when he pulled into a parking space in the apartment complex. The police didn't pull in behind him. Cop One asked if he could talk to the plaintiff and the plaintiff agreed and stopped walking at that point. Cop One asked if he had a drivers license and the plaintiff stated he did not. He did, however, offer that he had a California Department of Corrections ID card. He was asked if he were on parole, and stated he was. Cop One then did a pat down search. As he was doing this the plaintiff took a baggie from his pocket, palmed it and put it in his mouth, at which point he began to chew it. Cop One put him in a rear wrist lock and Cop Two got out of the car. They feared it was narcotics that could be destroyed and swallowed, so they told him to spit it out. He didn't. Cop One had handcuffed the plaintiff and tried using a c-clamp technique on the plaintiff's neck so he couldn't swallow, and at one point Cop Two did the same. Eventually the baggie was spit out and paramedics were called not because the plaintiff passed out, but because the officers feared he had swallowed some narcotics and would die. The plaintiff was convicted of possessing rock cocaine with transportation and more tacked onto it. He was also found with at least $1,300 in small bills on his person.

Cut and dry? Not really. The main three witnesses were the two officers and the plaintiff. Under questioning by both legal teams their stories showed flaws. Plaintiff denied having any drugs at all. Cop One stated he never said "nigger" and had never used any racial slurs. When the latter was pressed he continued to deny it until the plaintiff's lawyers asked him if he ever used the term "wop." Suddenly he remembered that and had to explain the situation (it was back in his college days). None of them could agree where the police cruiser was parked (the two officers agreed on and remembered little of the same things). Timelines were loose at best. (The plaintiff insists he was choked for ten minutes. In delibrations I pointed out that would probably have killed him.) Nobody remembered who called dispatch, and the actual medical records of that night were unobtainable. The paperwork the officers filled out was filled with errors and nobody could figure out who filled out what. Policies and Procedures for the police department weren't followed.

It got worse when the defense put up its witnesses. All but one had no direct contact with the case. The one who had anything to do with it was a doctor who examined the plaintiff's medical records, but not the plaintiff. (Incidentally, this expert witness had to come in from out of the area, as did all of them. For that he charged a day fee to the defense. His normal fee was $1,000 an hour of testimony. His research fee was $600 an hour. His day fee was $10,000. He made around $15,000 for this case. He was on the stand for about ninety minutes.)

The plaintiff's lawyers offered no other witnesses. Not even a doctor who examined him.

Most people dislike lawyers. They are sharks who are greedy and nit pick things to death. Most people would rather not associate with them ... until they need them. Then the lawyer is your best friend. Lawyers have earned the reputation of being cutthroat motherfuckers, and have done little to challenge that with the exception of pro bono work for some good cause. When you have to obtain a lawyer, though, you want that cutthroat motherfucker who is going to point out all the flaws with the other side's story. You want them to nit pick and challenge every little thing. You want them to sway the jury. You want that lawyer to be a samurai, and not just any samurai, but the best samurai. You want Lone Wolf.

The testimonies went from Tuesday to Thursday afternoon, at which time the lawyers did their closing statements, which, after hearing all the testimony and seeing all the evidence, were a little less impressive and dramatic then their opening arguments. We were then given a sizable list of instructions by the judge on how to decide this case: what we could and couldn't use evidence-wise; how we had to rely on memory, and not our notes (for those that took any); what factors we could utilize; what parts of the 4th Amendment we needed to look at; what facts were agreed to by both parties (quite a few, actually); what definitions of legal terms were; and more. It was quite daunting and a bit overwhelming. We had heard everything from how many lanes a road had to learning how the shoulders work and what constitutes injury versus condition versus symptoms and how impingement affected in that area. We learned of the different bone types and names and shoulder could have, and we learned a lot about Use of Force policies and the extensive training police officers go through.

And then we were locked in a room to make our decision. All eight of us with different backgrounds. Different opinions. Different politics. Different memories of what we had heard. Different points of view on criminals and police. Different ways of arguing. Different ideas about everything under the sun. We were eight people who had no contact with each other outside of this incident, and we had to decide the fate of three people we had even less contact with in our lives.

I find debate to be kind of sexy and a mark of intelligence. During this trial I realized I have surrounded myself with people in my life who can debate issues and debate them quite well. Anyone who can't debate both sides of an issue and do so effectively are, in my opinion, a little less intelligent and more than a little dangerous on a jury. If you can't get excited by digging into word definitions, recollections and law, you should excuse yourself from being on a jury. What is even more interesting is that you don't even know how important this is until you read your verdict. A vigorous debate of merit is kind of like porn to me. This was a vigorous debate with absolute merit. It was an argument involving the Constitution and it would change people's lives ... and not just a little bit, either. This incident happened in 2003. The first deposition took place in 2010. This had tied up all their lives, and everyone wanted an outcome in their favor.

I like to play devil's advocate, and I also like to delve into word definitions and how things are written in order to interpret things. In this case we had a series of questions we had to decide. The first of which was whether or not the plaintiff's 4th Amendment rights were violated by the use of excessive force in his seizure. After that we were to decide upon injury and damages both nominal and punitive. If we answered the first question as a "no" for both defendants, however, it was done. Do not pass go. Screw your nominal and punitive damages. The first question was key to everything else, and as to be expected, people argued just about everything but that at first.

When it came to the first question, there were three points that were made. The first two weren't in question. The second of two was that the plaintiff was seized. That's important. "Seized" means he was stopped. The third point, which was the debate for both parties, was that his seizure violated his 4th Amendment rights due to excessive force. There are two definition in there that are important. "Seizure" and "excessive force." Both were defined. "Excessive force" had a criteria of six guidelines that we had to look at in order to determine if excessive force had been used. "Seizure" meant his arrest. Did his arrest involve the use of excessive force? Very basic question that is loaded with problems.

The first problem is that whenever you have a group of people, you have to reach some understandings. Eight of us needed to get focused. We needed to agree to use the proper terms as outlined and not as our understanding of such. That's hard. We argued about injuries and we argued about merit of seizing the plaintiff. We argued about credibility. All of these things were important, and I engaged in the debate, too. But they didn't get us any closer to answering that first question.

I do believe one juror's mind was made up, and he was sticking hard and fast to his belief. I believe he also wanted to hit me. (Especially after I laughed when he started a sentence with, "I've seen Cops...") We worked out our differences. I eventually told him I agreed with him, but that he was missing some key points. He apologized to the group for being hard-headed (though we all eventually agreed with him), and did agree with me when I said, "You would want us arguing the same thing for you."

That is all good, though. That is needed in a debate such as this. You need someone to be a rock. It becomes a focal point. It becomes something you can push against or anchor to. What I wanted from the group was a general understanding of the terms. People kept stating that there was no injury so excessive force wasn't used. I pointed out that the six points stated nothing about injury and that excessive force doesn't need to lead to injury. That's why we would possibly determine whether or not there was injury later after we determined if excessive force was used.

Jurors stated the police were using a c-clamp method to keep the plaintiff from harming himself. I pointed out that the justification for using such a thing would have to fall under whether or not the plaintiff was a threat to the officers or others, not himself. In fact, the listing on that specifically went out of its way to exclude the plaintiff in that list.

Then it was argued that the plaintiff could be seen as trying to evade arrest by swallowing the evidence. Awesome point ... unless you read the rest of that directive. It is evading arrest by flight. Chewing and swallowing is not flight.

I argued points on the seizing, stating that I really thought the combination of stories was the most likely, but that the seizing really didn't matter, as we were concerned with the seizure and not the seizing, as that was agreed upon by both parties as being kosher. I also argued that I thought the lack of a doctor on behalf of the plaintiff, coupled with other evidence, showed that there was no injury. That didn't matter, either, though. What mattered boiled down to this very basic argument, which could only be determined by whose story you believed: Did the police use the c-clamp and wrist lock because the plaintiff tried to chew and swallow a baggie, or did Cop One use a rear wrist lock just to detain the plaintiff and then used a c-clamp to get him to stop screaming out in pain? (A c-clamp, by the way, is just something you do with your fingers on the throat.)

We agreed on the the six points to the most part. We found that two or three of them were iffy, at best, but we could see the police being justified in doing what they did under the scope of the six points (such as the time elapsed in using the force and whether or not there were better methods available that would require less force). The problem was that it was only justifiable if you bought the defendants' stories, and those didn't match up.

The plaintiff's story didn't make sense, either.

I put forth a theory of what I saw as happening, which involved views from all sides of the story, and my peers agreed that sounded plausible. But that was my theory. What we had to look at was what we heard and what the evidence was before us (which was actually very little.)

We came up with our verdict. It wasn't easy. The scope of its depth wasn't even realized until we read it. You've probably come up with your own opinion by this point. Your opinion is wrong. It's wrong not because it's not what I think, but because it is based solely on what I wrote coupled with your experience and beliefs. You don't know what the evidence was, and you don't know all the testimony we heard. All you know is my version of the events. All we got was other people's version of the events, too, with evidence we could see and read. We weren't there that night, and you were even further removed.

As we made our way into the courtroom, everyone stood. That is standard procedure. We presented our verdict in a sealed envelope. The courtroom had never been more silent.

A woman from the court was asked to read our verdict. She did so. Slowly. Deliberately. She didn't miss a word. Her voice never faltered. She had done this before, and every time it was just as important.

Neither officer was guilty of violating the plaintiff's 4th Amendment through the use of excessive force.

When Cop One's name was read, there was a gasp. I couldn't look at anyone at that point. When Cop Two's name was read, there was another gasp. Then sobbing. At that point I looked at the defendants. Two men who had been tied up in a nightmare for eight years. Think of that. Your life with this hanging over your head for eight years. The possibility of not only your reputation on the line, but the potential that you may have caused millions of dollars in damages. Your co-workers wondering about you. Your credibility being pulled through the mud. Eight years. The tears I saw in their eyes were real. Cop Two used a white handkerchief to wipe away the tears. It was a brilliant white. Possibly washed that very morning. They clasped each other.

I couldn't look at the plaintiff.

We were polled. Did we all agree to this? Yes, we did. We were told the lawyers may want to talk to us. It was our choice. I didn't want to say a damn word.

Back in the room we all agreed that was far more emotional and harder than any of us thought it would be. Even the rock got emotional. He was thankful we looked at everything. The case had kept him up all night, like it had done with the rest of us. (We finished our deliberations on Friday.) We were shaken, and I wasn't sure I liked that.

The judge came in and thanked us. He wanted to know if there was anything they could do better in the future. He wanted us to know the court appreciated our time. Everyone did.

Making our way out into the hallway, I was stopped. Some of the jurors had started talking to Cop Two and the defense lawyer who had presented the case. The slick guy. The guy with the voice made for this kind of work.

"Make no mistake," the lawyer told us, "you did the right thing. Plaintiff is a real bad guy. We couldn't present that in court." And then he told us the list of charges against this guy, and why he was never getting out of prison ever again. He repeated that we had done the right thing. That now the officers could sleep.

Cop Two still looked stunned and relieved all at the same time. He was thanking us. "It's hard to hear people call you a 'liar.'" And then he said something that will stick with me for a long time. "We're good cops." He took my hand and shook it. Thanked me again. I patted his shoulder and said something like, "Get your life back." I'm not sure my exact words. I just wanted to be gone.

And then the plaintiff's mother came.

She had been at the trial the whole time. Seated with other family members. She was well-dressed and used a cane. She walked between us. The people who had called her son a liar. She kept her head up, her gaze ahead. She always looked unhappy to me. Today was no exception. Out of respect, we were silent as she made her way down the hall. I still wanted to be gone.

On my way out, the plaintiff's lawyers thanked me. One juror was talking to them. I wanted to tell them to do a better job next time. It was important work. Honestly, though, I think they did the best job they could working with what they had. They're young. They'll learn. The other lawyer treated them with respect despite getting water spilled on his evidence and dealing with their lack of nuance. He respected them, though, because he respected the system we were operating under, a system I think is still flawed and leaves much to be desired. That's a different story, though. That has nothing and everything to do with this case.

I sat in my car. I did not want to go back to work. I was drained. Emotionally done. As we had walked out, we talked about how hard it was to do that. How we didn't realize how important an effect it would have until we heard the verdict read. The simple "yes" or "no" that would forever alter lives. A simple "yes" or "no" rendered by eight people who weren't there, but who had hashed out all the evidence and all the definitions and all the facts and all the fiction. The preponderance of the evidence.

I imagine that on that Friday night, Cop One and Cop Two slept differently than they had the previous nights. I imagine they felt a peace they hadn't felt in a long time. I don't think the case was on their mind every day through the last eight years, but I think it dominated the last two. As the defense lawyer told us when we came out, they got worried at the two hour mark. They thought we were figuring out damages. If we were doing that we had found at least one of them guilty of violating the plaintiff's 4th Amendment rights. At that second hour mark, by my estimate, we were finishing up the debate on the merits of each witness' story. For those two officers, though, we had already found at least one of them guilty in their minds. I imagine that was painful in ways I hope to never fully understand.

"We're good cops." They may have said that often in the past. Now they could prove it.

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Death Comes A Calling

2011-05-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

I had just finished watching a film for review for Film Threat when I heard a familiar noise. Someone was trying to open my gate. (Those who have tried know it is a noisy bastard that isn't exactly easy to do.)

I peered through my peephole, ever so mindful of the random home invasion or -- even worse -- religious types offering me the sweet salvation of whatever deity they believed in.

It wasn't a thug with a shotgun or someone clutching tracts. It was a witch. Well, to be fair, I didn't know if she was a real witch, but she looked like you'd expect one who shows up at your door unannounced to look like. A thin dusting of facial hair on the chin. Strange eyes that looked ahead three minutes into the future. A head the shape of a wide pumpkin. Hair cut close to her scalp. She was dressed in a heavy coat. It wasn't that cold out.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

"I was having trouble opening your gate."

"Yeah. It's tough."

She indicated to her left. "Do you know if anyone lives next door?"

"Yes."

"They do?"

"Yes." I had no idea where this was going, but it felt surreal. I had half the notion she was going to tell me something very dark and very sinister. Something about how the walls wept blood and things in the walls made slithering sounds whenever the moon went behind clouds.

"They had a yard sale."

I nodded. "Yes they did."

"They were selling furniture."

I nodded again.

"I don't think anyone is home."

"They may not be. I don't know."

"I bought some furniture from them. A young woman. She gave me her cell number. I've been calling, but nobody is answering." Now she sounded indignant.

"I can't speak to that," I told her.

She looked over toward the house and then back at me. "I don't think they're home."

"I don't know their schedule." Now I was a little irritated. This was taking up my writing time. I wanted to get the first draft of the review done while it was still fresh.

"I thought maybe they don't live there."

"They do."

"I thought maybe they didn't."

"Well, they do. I don't know if they are home. I don't know why she doesn't answer. Do you want me to take your number."

Now she got upset. "She has it! She isn't answering. I've left my number several times."

If there is one thing my love of horror has taught me it is this: Don't piss off old women who look like witches. They'll shout something at you in Romanian and spit in your eye. Next thing you know your testicles start to turn to fluid and people start forgetting your name. Not cool, witch ladies. Not cool.

"I don't know what to tell you," I said, making my way to my door.

She looked at me one last time and then made her way down the sidewalk. I wrote my review ... and then she came back.

I heard the gate being pulled again. Wood screaming as the witch tried to pry it open.

I opened the front door. "Can I help you?"

She could barely see over the top of the gate. "I keep calling! She doesn't answer!" Her eyes are about twice their normal size with anger. "She's not answering."

"What?" I ask. I'm annoyed and it shows. Fluid testicles or not, this woman has now ticked me off.

"She's not answering her phone!"

I get that older people relish the phone. Every call was a cherished event when they were growing up. Grandpa was coming. The first lightning bugs of the season are out. There's a dead whore down by the creek and Bobby's got a stick. Whatever. I get that every phone call was eagerly awaited and just as eagerly answered. What the witch apparently didn't realize is that not everyone answers their damn phone. Maybe my neighbor stays off the phone when the kids are up. Maybe the battery was charging. Maybe she forgot it at work. I have no clue. To this woman, however, none of that mattered. All that mattered is that the phone wasn't being answered, and this was some kind of personal slight that I had to somehow rectify. So I did the only thing I could think of doing.

I said, "Maybe they're dead."

The proverbial "they" states that a picture is worth a thousand words. If I could've taken a picture of the witch (impossible, as they don't show up on film), this one would've only been worth seven. "Oh shit, I didn't think of that." That's what the caption would've been. That would've said it all.

She straightened herself out, the wind gone from her wicked, ancient sales. She gave me one last glare, apparently forgetting the Romanian curse that would turn my testes to watered down pudding, and then turned away and slowly made her exit down the sidewalk toward the street.

I can pretty much guarantee that the family's death was not the answer she was expecting to hear. I would go so far as to say she did not probably try to call them again. But ... when they finally get ahold of her, I bet the witch's heart jumps a bit. Are ghosts coming to call? Is the furniture she purchased haunted? Did I even exist?

I may or may not be an asshole. I'll leave that up to others to decide. I will admit, however, to taking a certain bit of pleasure out of screwing with people's perceptions of reality. Anyone who has hung out with me a bit knows I do it often and do it fairly well. I get people to accept some of the most interesting things. (The post office lady, for example, believes I get packages and phone calls from my dead mother and order DVDs of Oprah's private bathroom moments.) It's like performance art, only I'm the only one who gets any enjoyment out of it or knows what the hell is going on. This witch may have been ignorant to what I was doing, but I guarantee she won't forget that moment, and I'd like to think she'll never be that eager for someone to answer their phone again.

For the Ladies ...

2011-04-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

I was in line ordering a sandwich. Behind me was a table with four females ... all in their early to mid-twenties. They were giggling, having a grand time telling tales. And then one told this one.

"So get this: Ron [I don't remember his name, but Ron seems about right] was out in the living room drinking with Brandon and Tia last night. He comes into the bedroom about three-thirty drunk and tells me he's going to the store. I say, 'You're drunk.' He starts bitching and leaves. Later he comes back in, bends over by the bed and farts in my face three times [I must stress at this point that I am not kidding -- her friends, by the way, are laughing]! [She then makes the standard flatuent sounds like you hear in the movies.] Three times! I told him to knock it off, and he just laughed at me. He gets into bed and keeps doing it! [The friends are really laughing now.] And then I feel something weird on my hand. He shit the bed! [Guffaws all around. Not sure why. It's digusting.] It's on the blankets, my hand, and then somehow it gets in my hair. I tell him he shit the bed, and he laughs some more. So I get out and show him the sheets with shit all over them, and he keeps laughing. When I tell him I'm sleeping in the other room he just says, 'I'm sorry, baby.'"

Okay, ladies, if this seems normal to you, or if you don't see much wrong this picture, let me state something: You are setting your standards too low. This is not normal behavior. This is not acceptable behavior. Why this woman didn't flip after her "man" passes gas in her face three times is beyond me. I would've stabbed him. No joke. Stabbed. In the stomach. Deep. Why she doesn't kick him out when he defecates in their bed is also beyond me. I can buy that she may have been tired at first for his inital assault, but shitting the bed? No. At that point the wind-breaking, bed-shitting motherfucker would have been out on his ass, and he wouldn't be coming back. Why was this accepted? Because he was drunk? So what? You know who can crap the bed and get away with it? Babies. Really old people. Sick people. That's it. Drunks aren't covered. And if you do something like that and laugh? Jesus. What is wrong with this woman?

She's not partners with a man. She's partners with a three-year-old in a man's body. Only a kid would do that sort of thing and think it's funny. Why didn't her friends say, "Wait. Why are you still with this dumb waste of flesh?" Is it because they would accept that sort of thing, too? Maybe. I don't know. They were laughing as if they had all experienced it before.

I've had great relationships, and I have had not-so-great ones. In none of those did anything like this ever happen. Drunk or not. I don't find bodily noises all that amusing (unless, of course, it's the gurging that accompanies the slit throat of a bed-shitter), and expelling solid (or liquid) waste where I sleep is not even an option. Listening to her tell her story it seemed that the only thing surprising to her was that this happened on a Saturday morning instead of a Sunday morning. How pathetic is that?

When I looked to see who this pathetic woman was, I was horrified. I had had conversations with her in the past at her job (which is food service, incidentally -- hope she washes the shit off herself before he next shift), and while she has never seemed all that intellectual, she never came across as that bad. I had to wonder what a guy would have to do to get her really upset? Urinate in her corn flakes? Once you shit the bed, the sky is really the limit, isn't it?

To all the ladies reading this, please listen to me. If you have a man like this in your life -- leave him! That relationship is never going to get better. He will not suddenly mature. He's not going to wake up one day (preferably in a clean bed) and think, "You know, breaking wind in my girl's face is rather rude. So is shitting the bed. I think I'll stop." You have a better chance of hitting the lottery than you do of that happening.

Believe me, you can do better. And if not ... well, a life full of solo dinners and masturbation is far better than a life with a guy like that.

Eureka, CA Mother and Son Love Their Drugs!

2011-04-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

If a family duo is arrested in Eureka, CA you can bet it either has to do with prostitution or drugs. This time, as reported here by the Times-Standard, it was drugs. GerriAnne Schulze and her son, Damon Patrick Wright, were busted in their motel room with items typically used for drug consumption and sales. The article even cites "meth pipes." Why this even made the news is beyond me since when it comes to Humboldt, drug use never falls far from the tree.

I'm a firm supporter of the legalization of all drugs. I don't care what someone puts into their body. If they are breaking into people's cars to feed their addiction, then I care. Otherwise, I think legalization puts people on the recovery track and frees up resources to fight other crime (like white collar crime that led to our financial meltdown). Yes, drugs are insidious, addictive and are far from good from you, but so is Pepsi. Of course, I don't know the last time someone prostituted themselves for a 2 liter, but some things are more addictive than others.

Eureka, as is most of Humboldt (at least until harvest season) is a depressed economy. The blight we see in Eureka is partially the result of this depressed economy. Fishing is about dead. Logging is dead. Nothing has replaced those things. (Not saying they should come back in full force, either, but the economy is an ecology in and of itself, too. Take one thing away and it must be replaced or the imbalance becomes too great.) When the economy fails, people do what they can to make money. That's capitalism! They will fill a need. Drugs are profitable. Just ask the makers of Viagra, a legal drug (such distinctions mean little to me). This mother and son team filled a need. It's not how I would make a living, but it is so common here in Eureka that I'm surprised it warrants a mention even in the terror-filled Times-Standard. (Almost every day you can read some AP piece of horrible child sexual abuse or murder. It's almost like those Mexican death magazines.)

Humboldt has many newsworthy things happening every day. Familial drug dealers is not one of them. Taken out of context, with no background, this story just feels exploitive. There was no delving into the duo's past. No mention of what brought the police to the motel room initially. Nothing other than the facts. In this case, the facts are no different than what goes on every day in motel rooms throughout the county. What the paper thought was special was that was a mother and son team. What those of us who keep our eyes open know, is that the only thing different about this one is that they got caught.

Under The Bridge: Masturbating Perverts and Junkies

2011-04-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Eureka, California has this large bridge. The Samoa Bridge. Under it is a dock for launching boats. Before it is an under-utilized park where a blues festival is held every year. It's also home to assorted perverts. I wasn't always aware of this, however.

When I first moved here, I had no idea what kind of insanity lurked under and around the bridge. I was exposed to it (pun intended) when I took my bike on a leisurely ride along the bay. As I got to the the end of the line, I stopped to look at the boats, when a rustling sound in the bushes behind me caught my attention. No, it wasn't a sea gull shredding the remains of a hamburger. It was a man. More specifically, a masturbating man. Broad daylight.

I didn't stick around, but since then the bridge has been a constant source of inspiration in my various stories. (Melinda actually utilizes the location in a way that mirrors what I actually witnessed a few years later.) Since that masturbating bush man incident I've visited the bridge about once a year, sitting in my car and people watching. I haven't seen such a flagarant display since then, but I've witnessed the junkies, the homeless, the hookers and the men looking for other men, as well as the dog walkers, the fishermen and the bicycle riders who have (presumably) yet to be exposed to the delights of exhibitionists and their shortcomings.

I suppose every town has a place where the civil laws of society sort of fade to the background and it becomes a free for all of sexual delights and substance abuse of every sort. Picture Burning Man without high ticket prices and kinetic sculptures. And though I find it a source of inspiration, I also find it kind of sad. The homeless, the dope slammers, the closeted men, the ladies looking to make five bucks -- it's a Norman Rockwell painting that he always wanted to do but never had the guts to actually pull off. It is the people society would rather forget about, and that's why those places are always sort of out of the way. You don't see them. They don't exist.

In time I imagine the area around the bridge will be developed and the fringe riders will have to find a new place to congregate. They will, through some weird signal system that only they understand, alert others of a similar ilk to their whereabouts. Until that day arrives, however, you tourist types now know of a place that isn't in any of the Eureka guide books. If you need some black tar heroin, a hooker of questionable age, or a hummer from a guy who will go home to kiss his wife about a half hour after he's done with you -- you now know where to go. Or you can just go to the zoo like all the other tourists. Where's the fun in that, though?

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Up Against the Wall Motherfucker

2011-04-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

Paying my monthly Friends of AK Press contribution always makes me feel pretty damn good. I'm reading Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority currently, which I got through my monthly contribution. Right now I'm at the section that deals with Black Mask (later known as Up Against the Wall Motherfucker!). I wasn't around to experience those heady days of busting into the Pentagon and "shutting down" the Museum of Modern Art, but that doesn't mean I can't be giddy when I read of Black Mask's exploits. A perfect fusion of art and activism meant to destroy the very society Leftists apologized for and Right Wingers sought to protect at all costs. Again -- giddy.

A lot of Black Mask's activities had the air of theatre and pranks. The group challenged everyone and everything. The very first issue of its magazine said this on the cover: "We assault your Gods ... We sing of your death. DESTROY THE MUSEUMS ...." How can you not love a call to arms like that? As Chumbawamba sang, "What we need is a break from the old routine."

These days, anything close to Black Mask/Up Against the Wall Motherfucker is looked at as a terrorist organization to be infiltrated, disorganized and eventually penalized. After all, the government can't have people running around threatening to throw bombs, or even -- God forbid -- really throwing bombs. That's its job!

My small contribution to AK Press every month helps to keep it afloat. At a time when publishing houses are so scared of the written word that they refuse to print anything that could be deemed "controversial," AK Press, along with a handful of others, knows no such fear. In fact, AK Press looks at preserving history as one of its jobs. Radical history, yes, but that's the only kind of history that's really changed things.

What we need is a break from the old routine.

What I think we're getting is anything but. I wonder how Black Mask would deal with that these days? What would its challenges be? What would it target? Back in the late '60s it targeted everything under the sun. It's goal was no less than total annihilation of the sacred cows, though the members admitted they knew no such thing would happen. They wanted disruption. The starting members embraced anarchism and used that as a platform to threaten chaos. In those days people were receptive to the ideas put forth by Black Mask. Today? I'm not quite sure, but I know that many of the things that appear quite radical are nothing more than variations on the themes they propose to abolish.

Still, I can't help but smile.

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We Mobbed Over and That's How We Roll

2011-04-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

The Subway by Winco in Eureka, CA is the home of many fascinating cartoon-characters. The more cynical side of me says they are placed there to let me know we really are living in a computer generated reality. The realistic side of me says people are just really cardboard cutouts with no real sense of self and even less sense of purpose. Case in point, the man I call Dawg.

I call this man Dawg because that's what his hat said. Dawg. A purposeful misspelling of "dog," something that humps your leg and shits on the floor when you aren't home. Something they eat in foreign countries. Dog. Dawg.

A shock of red hair was under that hat. A TapOut shirt (of course) clung to his torso. Baggy jeans and sandals completed the picture. The usual assortment of bad tattoos that were, oddly enough, pot related, dotted his arms. He looked to be about thirty-five-years-old, but he could have had a hard life and was maybe fifteen. He sure as hell talked like it.

He was ahead of me in line and on his phone. He was talking loud. I don't know if it was because his reception was bad or because he thought he was the center of the universe and all those little planets around him wanted to hear his conversation. His conversation was not about the situation in Libya or the legal stand-off in Wisconsin. It wasn't even about the Giants or the NASCAR race that was getting started. In all honesty, I couldn't understand what it was about because I don't speak Moron.

"Yeah, we mobbed over and that's how we roll."

That was the only line in the conversation that was anything more than two words strung together and accented with a "fuck, dawg." "Yeah, we mobbed over and that's how we roll."

If you're over fifteen and say things like "mobbed over" and "that's how we roll" in a way that isn't meant to be ironic, you don't deserve to have anything you say taken too seriously.

What really completed the picture was the arrival of his lady and, from all indications, his child (a five-year-old boy also in a TapOut shirt who is doomed before he started). They "mobbed" in, not bothering to meet the eyes of those who wanted to marvel at the kind of woman who would accept Dawg sperm. She wrapped his arms around Dawg's waist. The boy looked hopeless.

"My old lady's here. Later." (She looked ten years his younger.)

When their turn came to order, Dawg, Mrs. Dawg and Dawg, Jr. proved their grasp of sandwich ordering wasn't much better than Dawg's grammar. Maybe it was their first time in Subway. Maybe they were just naturally undecisive. Maybe they couldn't read the fucking menu and the accompanying pictures were just "too damn complicated, Dawg." What should've been a quick and easy order, quickly became anything but. "What do ya mean, 'footlong?'" "If ya toast it, how crunchy does the bread get?" Mrs. Dawg funneled all her requests through Dawg, who should not consider interpretting as a new career choice. Her constant tugs on his shirt and corrections to the orders he was giving threw the guy off. He constantly had to correct and get items taken off her sandwich. That's how they roll.

The woman who was the "sandwich artist," as they used to be called, was doing her best to maintain her cool. She was Asian, a fact not lost on the ever-observant Dawg. At one point he told his old lady who was younger than he, "She don't understand me." This was accompanied by him putting his finger at the corner of his eye and pulling it to the side. I imagine he was trying to show Mrs. Dawg his Asian impersonation, which, since he used one eye was, in his world, really the mark of being half-Asian. Luckily, the employed woman (Dawg's employment was questionable, but I know which side I find myself on) had her back turned at the time.

I must have muttered something out loud because Dawg turned to me and said, "I know, right? She don't know." Oh, I think she knew, all right. Then he noticed my septum piercing. "That is tight. Where'd you get that at?"

Tight? It is tight? I'm sorry. I don't speak Dumb Motherfucker. Well-versed in Sarcasm and Fuck With You, though. Very well-versed.

"I don't know. Got all messed up on PCP and woke up with it, yo."

He kinda laughed at that. Then he told me he was thinking of getting it done, but wondered if it would hurt too much. "Tats ain't nothing, but that's sticking a needle through your skin."

Brilliant.

"I wouldn't know about that," I said, crossing my arms, which have a few tattoos on them.

With that he turned back to complete his transaction. Arm around his old lady's shoulders, kid forgotten, but in tow, they made their way from the restaurant. I watched to see if God would do the world a favor and have an Escalade plow into them at 45 mph, but God was apparently too busy mobbing somewhere else. The happy family, someday Harvard bound, made their way toward Winco unscathed by Social Darwinism.

I ordered my sandwich with far less difficulty. The Asian sandwich artist seemed relieved to be done with the Dawgs. "I'm going to tell you something very scary," I said to her as she placed my bacon in a microwave.

"What's that?"

"They may continue breeding."

She laughed a bit nervously. Like she knew she wasn't supposed, but it was funny.

"That's one dog that definitely needs to be fixed."

Human Pony Girl: A Missing Teenager, A Sex Shop, and The Manuscript

2011-03-28T22:22:00.000-07:00

Back in the day I worked at the Pleasure Center. For those not in Humboldt County, the Pleasure Center, before it went corporate, was this little shop that catered to people's various sexual desires. The owner at the time, Bill, designed it to appeal to women ... mainly because he called himself a lesbian trapped in a man's body who routinely sexually harassed the women who worked for him and the female customers who stopped in. (He's dead. I found his body. For the shit he, or to be more fair -- his corpse -- put me through that day, I think I can fairly call him that. I'm not exaggerating. I witnessed him hit on women on a regular basis. I occasionally said something, but most of his attempts were so lame and weak that they were far more pitiful than menacing.) One of the items we carried was this dildo-like object where one end of it resembled a horse's tail.

You can imagine where it was to be inserted. You'd be right.

It was while working at this place that the seeds for the manuscript I'm currently working on really started to germinate. At the time a teen girl went missing, and while there was plenty of speculation on her whereabouts, nobody really had a clue as to what happened to her. The most that could be figured was that she got into a white car and was never seen from again.

Humboldt, for those of you who don't know, has a pretty open sexual community. There's the Imps, regular wife swapping, bestiality, and plenty of fetish-based prostitution. There's also an undercurrent of the dangerous, though. Many places have this. Humboldt has it in spades, and I got to see plenty of it. People who wouldn't/couldn't associate with the more open people because even the most open-minded wouldn't accept them. Then there were the ones who just didn't care to associate with the sexual counterculture because, like most countercultures, you have to wade through a lot of crap to get to the gems.

The Pleasure Center branch in Eureka, where I started working, attracted those who traveled below the underground ... as well as the more prominent citizens. One of those customers was someone involved in the investigation of the missing girl. His sleaze of choice? S&M videos. At that point I started to wonder if the missing girl were tied up in his basement, a bucket to the side for bodily functions, a camera on a tripod before her. That idea bounced around in my head without a home until about a year ago, when I started the manuscript.

Walking around with that image popping up from time to time can be distracting at best. I knew it was a good image, and I knew I would use it eventually. (To be quite honest, however, it merely inspired this manuscript. The actual story I want to tell about that will probably be next after this book is written.) The image sort of made it into the manuscript in passing. (Some of you have read some scenes from it. The feedback has been generally good. I've been doling it out piecemeal, though, so a complete picture cannot be formed.) It is a strong image. Strong enough to inspire a totally different story. You have to respect that power.

Working at the Pleasure Center had its moments. Great characters. Strange pornography. Solid co-workers. The inspiration that came from the place cannot be undervalued. I learned more about Humboldt County working there than I have ever learned from our local news station or newspaper. I met newscasters whose toy of choice was Jenna's Twat Twister, and men who liked to be tied up and urinated on. I met girls who thought they were being dirty by buying pretty little vibrators, and men who bought videos where the cover girls resembled their daughters. (Yeah, Humboldt County has plenty of perverts that are borderline dangerous.) It served as a spring point for many story ideas, including one I've been toying with that involved finding Bill dead.

The missing girl has never been found. Some say she ran away. There was a rumor she was being held captive by meth addicts for whatever sick games they had devised. Others said she was working a carnival up in Oregon. Me? I had my ideas. I never really believed her disappearance was anything other than a crime of opportunity, and for some reason I think she got buried out in Samoa someplace. Not by meth addicts, or twisted cops, but by a kindly stranger who convinced her to get in his car and maybe party a little bit. She was game, and soon she found herself in over her head, regretting taking a ride from that proverbial stranger. And when she found his fingers in her mouth, she really knew she was not going to make it out alive. She fought, and he had to explain those scratches on his arm and face to his wife, kids and co-workers ... maybe his brother or something. For weeks he worried. What if someone saw him? They got the car color wrong in the media, but what if someone remembered? What if someone put two and two together? The missing time and the scratches? What if a dog dug her up? After a few months, though, when there was no loud knock at the door -- the type that cops are trained to do -- he realized he got away with it. Clean away. Free. And the thought scared him. He wasn't going to it originally. Just wanted to cop a feel. Things got out of hand, and he had to kill her. He had no choice. She would tell. There would go his job, his marriage, his family. He would lose everything. He felt bad about it, for sure. He even threw up. When he realized he got away with it, he wasn't relieved. He was scared. What if he did it again? No. That wouldn't happen. But now, when he's alone driving, and he sees a teenage girl walking, he inadvertently slows down his car. He fiddles with the crotch of his jeans. They are tighter. He drives by, his eyes going to the rearview mirror. He sees those headphones all the kids wear. Her head tilted down as she watches the sidewalk. For a moment he wonders if he looks like her, and he remembers the fingers in the mouth. He goes home and kisses his wife. The kids are gone now. Off to college. His wife never suspected. He will never stop for the walking girl ... or so he tells himself.

A missing girl. A porno store. And a single video rental. It set off a string of thoughts that hasn't ended to this day. Funny how those things work.

FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on my affiliate link, which is actually my Kindle short story, will net me a commission. This is not the manuscript I'm talking about. It was not inspired by the Pleasure Center, either, but is kind of twisted in its own way.

Exploiting the Dead: Scavenging the Japanese Graveyard

2011-03-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

Warren Buffett, that financial guru who tells you what to do with your money and you listen because he has your best interests at heart, doesn't let a tragedy like a major earthquake coupled with a killer tsunami and topped with a bit of radioactivity slow down investment. In fact, he sees the tragedy in Japan as a "rare opportunity" to invest in Japanese businesses.

This is all done under the guise of helping out a struggling country while getting a little return for your buck, and it does do that. Make no mistake, though, this about being the fastest and biggest vulture on the block. Capitalism has ensured that when markets are worthy, they will get the funds needed to rebuild. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't read about Buffett making the same claims about Haiti.) Japan will recover, and if you get in now, you can get a piece of that pie ... and help them out a bit.

I'm sure the Japanese will appreciate the help, but I'm also sure they'll realize the greed behind it. They are capitalists, too, afterall. They aren't strangers to voodoo economics and trickle down myths, but unlike us, they are a bit more realistic about it all.

The Nikkei went nuts after Buffett's words to the elite went out. Like Jesus walking on water, Buffett had arrived to save the Japanese citizenry like a white-haired Gamera. "Buffett, Buffett! He's our man! His words are going to save Japan!" Like Charlie Sheen, the Japanese stock market went a little crazy, and like CBS, Japan may have to embrace a little crazy in order to bounce back.

Buffett doesn't even call it a "tragedy" or "earthquake." It's an "extraordinary event." Imagine the kind of world you must live in to see everything as a matter of simple economics. A world where thousands dead from a natural (and soon to be unnatural) disaster is an "extraordinary event" and not a disaster. I picture Buffett sitting on his couch, his well-manicured and smooth hands fondly his shriveled penis. CNN is playing its usual loop of disaster coverage. The tsunami starts throwing vehicles around as if they are paper cranes. His penis starts to twitch. It's getting harder. Stoic Japanese faces fill the screen. Look at them. Going about their business without all that troublesome looting so epidemic in the West. Harder now. He is stroking. Faster. Look at those roads. They'll have to be rebuilt. The power plants? Them, too. That'll take a lot of money. Boom! His orgasm is over. A trickle of clear semen moistening his elderly fingers. He imagines it tastes like money. Everything does.

What an extraordinary investing opportunity. Imagine the possibilities if those reactors thoroughly explode? Now that will be a proper economic orgy.

Usual FTC Disclaimer: Warren Buffett did not pay me to write this positive piece about his masturbation habits. If you click on my Amazon affiliate link in this post, however, and buy the anarchist book, I'll receive a slight commission, which I may or may not use to invest in this extraordinary event.

Palin Visits Israel. Is She Lost?

2011-03-21T06:23:00.000-07:00

CNN reports that Sarah Palin is visiting Israel! Holy shit, Batman! She's on a fact-finding mission to find out how they deal with those pesky Palestinians so that when she gets "elected" back in the good ol' US of A she can do the same to liberals. This has "international incident" written all over it.

Palin likes to present herself as a person just like you or me. And she is. I've been governor of Alaska, and I've also had my own TV show. On a whim I can visit foreign leaders and pop onto to Fox News to spout nonsense. So, Palin is just like me ... and you. Nothing special about her. No way.

Or so she thinks.

A lot of those Tea Party Parrots love her. Worship the ground she walks upon. Would gladly sacrifice their own first born (but not in the womb) for her. They want her to be president. They don't need another hero. They need a savior. And that is why Palin is going to Israel. She wants to see where all that "Bible stuff" started. She wants to see Ground Zero for the Holy of the Holiest. If she can't lead them to freedom from stone throwing, bomb-wearing terrorists, nobody can. (Except, of course, some U.S. supplied weapons.)

Where I really want to see Palin go is Africa. Deep in the heart of Africa. Unaccompanied by photographers, body guards and her dancing daughter. I want her meeting with gun-toting maniacs in Rwanda, and then I want to hear her report on it. That's the kind of move I expect out of presidential hopefuls. Israel, as they say in Delaware, is for pussies.

Wisconsin Businesses Fight Back! Still Hope They Lose...

2011-03-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerece, a pro-business group issued some strong words against the boycott of Wisconsin businesses that supported governor Scott Walker in his 2010 campaign. Wisconsin businesses apparently don't like losing money any more than public servants do. Guess what, though? If you take away the ability of someone to make money, you take away their ability to spend it, so ... why spend what money you do have at businesses that supported the man who took that money away? James Haney, the president of that pro-business group, must think union members are as dumb as he is. I support continuing the boycott. In fact, here's the next business ...

AT&T!

My old enemy (you can find many posts on that company by clicking on the label below), through the AT&T Wisconsin Employee PAC donated $21,000 to Walker's campaign in 2010 from its headquarters on the 13th floor (how appropriate) of 722 North Broadway in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (If you live nearby, you should stop in and see them.) My hatred of AT&T is well-known. The company is run by idiots and has some of the worst customer service in the business. If you are a union member and the actions of Scott Walker righteously pissed you off, now is the time to drop your service plan and let the company know why. Yes, an employee will try to talk you out of it, but stand firm. Remember, an attack against one is an attack against all.

If you want to read the rest of the boycott list, this is a good website to go to.

Happy business busting!

Targeting Wisconsin Businesses -- Fun, Fun, Fun!

2011-03-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

We have all heard the news. Well, at least those who pay attention to the news anyway. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a lickspittle to his corporate masters, promised to bust unions and has done so with the help of his Republican drones. The man who proudly believes girls who are raped by their uncles shouldn't be allowed to abort, wiped out collective bargaining for public unions ... except firefighter and police unions because they supported him (way to go, my union brothers). Walker wasn't only aided by cops and firefighters, though. He had plenty of business support.

The website Scott Walker Watch has a list of businesses that have donated money to the governor's 2010 campaign. Think of it as Megan's Law type site, but instead of sex offenders it's really crappy businesses that hate organized labor. While I feel sorry for the employees that work for them, I don't feel sorry enough not to target them in effort to make them lose money and ultimately go out of business. First on the list is ABC Supply Co..

ABC's site is handy and bland. It helps you find stores near you, so you can go protest. If, like me, you are fortunate not to have a store nearby (and hopefully never in my neighborhood), you can e-mail them your feelings on businesses that support such candidates. There's even a phone number you can call! 608-362-7777 gets you in touch with its National Support Center. ABC is, according to the site, America's "largest wholesale distributor of roofing, siding and windows." Hey, somebody's gotta do it. With some well-timed protests, some creative sabotage and bad press, ABC can go from America's largest wholesale distributor of blah, blah, blah to "the first business to fall due to Wisconsin's anti-labor Republicans." If ABC wants to support a man who hates labor so much, maybe this company that caterers to laborers should feel the effects of its actions. Any of you union construction workers should look to make sure you aren't dealing with materials bought at ABC.

Touchingly, and without a trace of irony, ABC posts its core values on its site. And here you thought the owners only wanted to make money. ABC has "American Pride." "We pay tribute to our country, believe in the American Dream and all it stands for, and honor and respect the men and women who serve our great nation." Unless, of course, you are a public servant union member (cops and firefighters excluded). Perhaps it's time to add, "Fuck the unions. We support Walker and his attacks on unions and women's rights!"

And if any of you readers happen to work for ABC and feel just as disgusted as I do, I offer you to anonymously send in any kind of incriminating memos or documents you have, and I'll post them here if they are newsworthy or even mildly interesting. Got pics of your boss in blackface or sleeping with a tranny? I'll post those, too. Fuck ABC.

Charlie Sheen -- Why the Hell Do You Care?

2011-03-04T23:32:00.000-08:00

I had this amazing conversation with someone about Charlie Sheen. She was upset because if he continued the way he was going, he would "die."

"Porn stars, drugs and alcohol? Who wouldn't want to go that way? Would you rather he die a long slow death from some disease? Perhaps you'd rather see him shot or die in a car accident instead of doing something he enjoys."

The person was appalled I'd even say that, but I'm fairly sincere about it. Unless you are a close friend to Sheen, why would you even care what he does with his life? Does Two and a Half Men mean that much to you? If so, you may want to re-evaluate your life. Are you afraid he won't be around for a Hot Shots! Part Deux reunion at some convention? If that's the case, you may want to find something else to be concerned about, like weeds in your yard or something.

It's not like Sheen has contributed in some wonderful way to our culture. He's on a CBS sitcom. That's what? A step above a PBS show? And yet far too many people are way too concerned about his sex life, drug intake and rants on radio shows. California is heading for a total shutdown which will fuck up the rest of the country. Billionaires backing politicians have openly declared class war in Wisconsin. And you are worried about CharlieNavy SEALs Sheen. You know who has every right to be concerned? Martin Sheen. If you didn't play the President of the United States on NBC, your concern rings kind of false.

Charlie Sheen comes across as the braggart who, once you get him in a private setting one-on-one, will ask to borrow a few bucks off you with the promise he'll pay you back tomorrow. He then asks you not to tell anyone, and you know the whole time you won't get the money back. He's not a great actor. He's not even mildly amusing. But give the guy a break. If he wants to make his life a trainwreck, at least let him go out in the crash. Hey, it's not like he has kids with him to keep him occupied. He's got to do something. Why not porn stars and crack? He may never see his kids again. He may even die. At least we won't have to worry about a sequel to Terminal Velocity.

Hey, Wisconsin! Fuck You!

2011-02-25T06:27:00.000-08:00

Dear People of Wisconsin,

If you are tired of watching the working class and union members have their lives treated as throw-aways, I've got one word for you: Egypt. Your Republican servants obviously don't give a shit about you. Why not return the favor? They are attacking your very livelihood. They are attacking everything you've built up over the years. Do you think a little yelling and banging on a drum is going to get them to stop? Hell no. You've got to, as I used to say, fuck shit up. General strikes. Wildcat strikes. Boycotts to businesses that support them. And if that doesn't work, get louder and louder. They will only understand the loss of money and violence. That much is proven. If that prank call that circulated earlier is any indication of what you union folks are up against, you've got to ratchet up the protests. Be careful to keep the public on your side. Most people don't get that after they dismantle the public servant unions they will go after the general unions and then things like OSHA. Big business is doing its utmost to dismantle labor. It's time to return the favor. Those billionaires who like to fund the Republicans -- show them what strength in numbers really means.

And as for you Democrats in hiding -- good job. Your peers on the other side of aisle are nothing but lickspittle motherfuckers who can't even see when they are being played. They will do anything in their power to render even themselves useless and beholden to corporate America. Don't give up on this one. Hang them with their own rope.

Negativity and the Art of Blowing Things Up

2011-02-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

When you are told you are being a "negative" person, it's often by someone who is afraid of truth. It comes from a place of wishful thinking where if you don't point out the negativity the problem will either magically disappear or people will forget about it. It's the same mindset that let child sexual abuse and domestic violence occur for years with nary a mention in the media or polite society.

People who are truly content with whatever another person is being negative about won't even grace the so-called negativity with a mention or thought because it will be out of the realm of their possibilities, or -- gasp -- they will discuss it without labeling it "negativity." It is only the people who truly don't believe the shit they are slinging that will get defensive about it.

Why rock the boat? Why upset the apple cart? Why speak ill of something? Why point out flaws? I can't speak to everyone who does these things, but I can say that when I am doing them it is in the hopes of making things better. You bring up the shortcomings so that solutions can be reached. I called it being "realistic." Some people would rather just daydream.

I know plenty of positive people who try to say something equally positive about everything, and that is totally fine by me. Many of these people, when confronted with perceived negativity, embrace it well and want a discussion (after all, you just can't be negative without offering solutions -- it's like being accepting without being able to explain why -- you just look like a simpleton). There are others, however, who think that "never is heard a discouraging word" is a mantra to live by. It is the symbolic plugging of the ears with one's fingers and chanting, "Naaa, naaa, naaa. I can't hear you!" Comical at best. Destructive at worst.

I watched the news earlier (hence this post) where the "man on the street" was being interviewed. The "man" this time happened to be a woman looked like she really loved her credit cards and Macy's. The reporter asked her what she thought of gas prices going up due to unrest in the Middle East. Her response? "Why can't they leave well enough alone?" Why be negative? Why protest? Because well-enough isn't good enough, and that reporter should have called her out to explain her take on the Middle East so the viewing public could see her for the fool she is instead of letting her get away with such a statement. Why must they complain? It bums me out.

We live in a culture where speaking one's mind is fine ... as long as it goes along with the status quo. Stray from that well-trod path of least resistance and you slapped down by people who have never quite managed to see the road ahead. Why can't you leave well enough alone? The answer is simple: It's that attitude which made "well enough" a living Hell for anyone with anything that resembles an active mind.

Sometimes you have to throw your hands in the air and let the chips fall where they may (try working for any kind of corporate or government organization and you'll be doing that a lot if only to keep your sanity). Sometimes you have to be vocal. In those times, when you speak out for what you perceive to be wrong, and people label you "negative," well -- stay on course. It means you're onto something. It means you've hit a hot spot. It may not be worth it in the end, and at some point you may just want to let people drown so that you can smugly sit back and one point and between fits of laughter say, "I told you so." But until you hit that point you need to not let the wide-eyed lobotomies turn you into one of them. Or you need to shut the hell up and enjoy the show.

Terror Threat Level High: Eureka is Being Invaded by The Man!

2011-02-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

There's an old joke about cops. You can never find one when you need one, but dodge a red light and hit a pedesterian and they are all up in your grill. Finding a cop will be a hell of a lot easier tomorrow if you are in Eureka, CA. We're getting about 1,000 of them into town (and ex-hippie governor Jerry Brown) to honor Thomas Adams, 24, a California Highway Patrol Officer (remember Chips?) who was killed in a collision right around Piercy.

Today I drove by the church the memorial is set to be held at. There was a gathering outside, including some uniformed people who may have been officers. Orange traffic cones lined the side of the street the church was on for several blocks. I was in the lane closest to the church and was about to pass it when one of those uniformed guys stepped out into the street for some random reason and indicated I should move over into the center lane, which me and the three people behind me did, cutting off all those cars in that lane and almost causing an accident. Brilliant. The memorial service was a little less than 24 hours away. Were they practicing? No matter. I did as directed and got on with my day.

Adams was a local boy. He apparently grew up in Fortuna. He didn't have a wife or kid (at least not from what I read), but tomorrow there will be close to a thousand of his peers honoring him.

I'm fairly sure that myself and most people reading this will never have a thousand people at our memorials. It's kind of rare when that sort of thing happens, and I can't help have some respect for that. Hell, if I died in the course of duty at work (a likely possibility these days), if more than ten people show up at the service my ghost will be impressed. Adams, as mentioned before, is even getting an appearance from the governor. My guess is that if the governor is involved with me in any way it will be some sort of trial situation.

Those expecting something sarcastic are slowly finding themselves disappointed, I'm sure. The guy died doing his job. The idea of police is against most of my political beliefs, but it's not like the officer was part of the elite ruling class. He was an average working joe, and to die on the job kind of sucks no matter how you look at it.

I can't help but wonder, though, how all of Eureka's many, many tweakers are going to react to this influx of authority. They're already a paranoid bunch. Seeing them witness a parade of thousand in uniform could prove highly entertaining.

Eye of the Tiger: The Strange Case of Daniel Wu, Congressman and Nut Job

2011-02-20T00:06:00.000-08:00

This clown is more trustworthy than Wu.

Oregon. Known for haven for Califorians, highbrow Shakespeare festivals, the filming of Kindergarten Cop and a city with a ton of strip clubs. Now it has something else to add to its fame: a nut-ass Congressman.

David Wu. Democrat. Oregon's finest. He makes Lindsay Lohan look coherent. He's the reason I love politicians.

Confrontations with his staff. Bizarre speeches. Interventions. Strange e-mails sent to his staff either from his children or from Wu posing as his children. E-mails sent with a picture of Wu dressed as a tiger.

No shit. If you acted like this at your job, you'd be fired ... or promoted to management. You wouldn't get re-elected. Wu did, though.

Wu's staff tried to get him help. Whether they were concerned or had visions of the campaign going down in flames is really neither here nor there. One member was quoted as saying the only thing worse than losing would be winning. You can almost see the hand wringing and the misty eyes.

An e-mail sent to Wu's staff at 1:38 a.m. had the subject line "wasted." It was supposedly sent by Wu's son. It read, “My Dad said you said he was wasted Wednesday night after just three sips of wine. It’s just that he hasn’t had a drink since July 1. Cut him some slack, man. What he does when he’s wasted is send emails, not harass people he works with. He works SO hard for you … Cut the dude some slack, man. Just kidding.”

5150? Cosplay nerd? Congressman? Your guess is as good as mine.

If this was Wu's son, Wu, Jr. is just as shithouse batty as his old man. Note, this e-mail arrived minutes after another e-mail landed in staffers' inboxes -- this one apparently from Wu's daughter! Who does that? The guy who dresses like a tiger, that's who. (Yes, that is Wu above.)

In Star Wars Ben Kenobi asks Han Solo who the bigger fool is. The fool or the man who follows him? I would ask: Is it the fool or the people who elect him? Oregon: This guy represents you! He's playing hide and seek with your tax dollars (when he's not sipping wine and making fart noises into a microphone, that is). Was it a pity vote? Were you that unaware? I can see not knowing about the e-mails and Tigerman get-up, but apparently his behavior was well-known. And you still handed him the keys to the public policy. Gotta love it. No wonder people from a state that elected two sucky ex-actor governors love spending dough and driving badly in your state. It's like we were made for each other. Hell, if Wu came from CA I could actually accept his behavior. (Eureka, my city, gave Larry Glass a seat on the city council. He's no Wu, but fuck ...)

Wu has sought medical help, which is par for the course. He has blamed the stress of the campaign, the death of his father and raising two kids (who apparently love sending out e-mails to his staff at all hours of the morning, those scamps) solo on his behavior. He did not blame wine or toxins caused by his Tony the Tiger get-up, however. Whatever the reason, be it campaign stress, raising two e-mail happy kids by himself or a bad batch of Peruvian blow, Wu has got problems that need addressing. He could be voting on healthcare or on whether or not we should be invading some Middle East country that just got VHS players. I don't want his kids (or him pretending to be his kids) sending some dictator an e-mail saying something like, "dude we are so gonna blow your ass back to dinosaur times. that's not the wine talking. that's good old American kick assness. the attached file is a picture of me dressed as natalie portman in black swan. i want it to be the last thing you see before you suck down a nuke. later dude."

Thank you, Oregon. I guess we should all just be thankful David Duke wasn't running in your state.

2011-02-18T07:51:00.001-08:00

Long live the New Flesh. *Sol Invictus*

Let Chaos Be Your Calling Card

2011-02-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

Some random thoughts to brighten your day. (I'm in a "mood." My back hurts.)

I've been thinking of shaving my mustache like Michael Jordan and Hitler's. Hitler obviously ruined it, and Jordan brought it back. It's a look that worked for both of them. Now, I have no basketball skills, and I have nothing against Jewish people, but I'm still slightly afraid people will take it the wrong way.

People in Humboldt County are really upset about the PG&E SmartMeters that are being installed. These SmartMeters transmit your energy info through the air via magic to PG&E voodoo houses for billing purposes and, if you are to believe some people, mind reading. If people are that upset they need to leave dangerous animals around their meters or steal PG&E trucks and dump them in a river somewhere. Non-violent protest only gets you somewhere in Egypt. These days, you have to hit people over the head with a hammer to get your point across. To be clear: They only understand violence or the loss of money. Protest is quaint like the doillies your grandmother still uses. It's so Sixties.

Never underestimate the power of a well-placed Out of Order sign. Especially if something is not broken.

Also never underestimate the power of a good prank. Not only can they change reality and expose the naked emperor, they're just plain fun. I've pulled off many, and I've got another big one brewing. It feels good. Kind of like when you first discover masturbation ... only it never gets old!

Next time you see one of those people who has a funny, pro-shopping key chain or bumper sticker (like the kind that says something like, "Hold me back! I'm going shopping!" or "Addicted to Shopping") point it out and happily say, "My God, it's like you're sexually assaulting the mall." Let that image be associated with their novelty sayings for the rest of their lives. Always smile when you say it, though. Everyone loves a smile.

Not everyone loves a clown ... in makeup.

Calling people's sexuality into question in a positive way, especially if you are claiming the opposite of what he/she is (i.e., you're a guy and say this of a fellow male, "He's awesome. He really likes to hug a lot. I like it. It's nice. You don't get many men expressing their feelings this way anymore."), often times shows your foils for who they really are. Especially if they are homophobic but are afraid to admit it in these PC times. Homophobia is ridiculous, like buying coffee by the cup every morning or thinking Taco Bell uses real beef.

The Sex Pistols taught me a lot. They asked concert goers if they ever felt cheated (who hasn't?), and they claimed to be the poison in the human machine. Words to live by.

The Soft Spoken Lies of a Psychopath

2011-02-09T07:34:00.000-08:00

Working on the manuscript the past few days (not as non-stop as I'd like, but more than I've been doing) has been a lot like getting a glass of water after wandering the desert for three days. Refreshing and a little overwhelming. I'm on the symbolic and literal chapter 13, and I realize I've written more pages are in the last book I read (Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks for those keeping score at home).

I'm getting to a point where I lost the original manuscript, and things are definitely going south for the characters. It is screwing with me less on a mental stage this time around, and a lot of the nastiness is at such a ... wet... level due to the stress at my job. Writing it is as much a relief as it is a foundation, and I'm finding myself enjoying it more this time around. I realize that getting it published is as long a shot as they come, but self-publishing has not been ruled out for it or any of the other manuscripts I have floating about. It will cut out the middleman, and I can negotiate things on my own terms that way. Ideal? No. This manuscript, however, may dictate it. The marriage of sex and violence done in such an unapologetic way may leave even the most jaded publisher a bit cold, I imagine. (And while the manuscript is not porno by any stretch of the imagination, the porno publishers would never touch it in a million years due to the subject matter.)

So where does that leave me? Fired the hell up, that's where. And now, as I get ready to go to the insanity that I find myself consigned to for the time being, I can't help but think that the end result of this manuscript and the drive to make the blogs succeed financially will be beneficial in almost every way possible in the end. Dreams of a mountain compound away from all but whom I want to be around and the knowledge that future is not only seizable but conquerable keep me sane.

Of course, I could be wrong ... but I would never dream of going off course as that is the ultimate kiss of death.

Love You With a Razor

2011-02-04T06:16:00.000-08:00

It should be a good week when both Enter the Void and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (American version to star Owen Wilson!) show up at your bidding. That was tempered, however, by a stressful week otherwise that has me digging up all kinds of old editors and trying to figure out how to make a blog generate a few thousand a month in income. Not an easy task because I'm not writing about HDTVs or foreclosures.

I've even considered taking those two Amazon Shorts, which I now have the rights to again, and making them e-content for the Kindle. The only problem is, I would never use a Kindle or any other e-reader, so why would I expect others to use it to read my stuff instead of pushing it in print form. A bit of popular advice is that if you are going to buy stock, buy it in something you use. I think the exact opposite is true, too. Don't put stock in something you don't use. I don't use an e-reader, so I'm not making something exclusive to that.

There are, of course, other options. There always are. I'm not ready to go those routes yet, as they are not the backup plans I want to engage. Self-publishing is still in the picture, too, but I'm still not sure that is the way to go.

With the editorial change at the North Coast Journal I wonder if there is a bigger place there for me. The article I did on Willow Creek paid well. I've been told it is looking for more critics, too, so that may be an avenue worth pursuing if only for potboilers.

Seeing old friends tonight and this weekend may inspire me to step up the game a bit more, too. I feel like I haven't been devoting as much time to this plan as I should be, but stepping it up as I have been has been a good step in the right direction. If anyone has any good ideas, I'm more than happy to hear them. Writing jobs, publishers, affiliates (not AdSense, as my account for this blog is yanked for good), or anything else, I'm open to it. I've written for plenty of magazines in my time -- some good (Tattoo Savage), some not so good (UFO). It's not always my favorite type of writing work, but it's a check and exposure. Savage and Film Threat opened a lot of doors. Now I need to open some more ... especially if I want this current manuscript published. Man, that one is going to be a hard sell ... at least in America.

Facebook Monsters

2011-01-31T06:21:00.000-08:00

A friend asked me why I don't post on Facebook more often than I do. It was a weird question, or so I thought. I told him I'd post the answer on Facebook. I was being ironic and a smart ass, of course, but there is a reason why.

I use Facebook for a set number of things. Promoting my writing, keeping in touch with family, friends and professional colleagues; making sarcastic posts on other people's walls; and posting fake celebrity death news. On occasion I will do a more personal post, but I don't make a habit of it, and there is a reason why.

First, I'm private. I just don't need people knowing what I'm doing. It's weird, and I'm not vain enough to think that anyone would care. I'm not that self-important, which I tend to think Facebook really promotes. I also find posts where people tend to post such information to be odd at best. I don't know what to say to someone who posts, "I'm sitting at my table with sushi." What do you say to that? It's fine if people want to post that, but with few exceptions I will abstain.

Facebook has been a great tool for marketing my writing and for making friends and family uncomfortable. Beyond that, I could leave it behind and not worry about it one bit (and have often thought of that). People act much the same way on it as they do in real life, too, despite the general consensus that it is otherwise. They talk about petty things and take offense to the most innocent of comments. I have text messaging and e-mail for the latter, and I try to avoid the former at all costs.

So, dear friend, that is why I don't post more on Facebook. Nobody needs to have an up-to-the-minute update on my actions, and I have no desire to tell anyone, either. I stopped reporting in when I was about 14, and I was a much better person for it, too.

Keyword Fun Time Again

2011-01-30T00:36:00.000-08:00

Every month or so I do a listing of some of the strange keyword searches that have brought people to my blog. I want to note that I will no longer be including Regan Reese in these unless it is crazy because she shows up every time. Almost daily, it seems.

"'Hood over the head' asphyxiation video" is one of the searches that brought people here. That I can understand, since I wrote about that video. This, however, is not a site where I regularly post such things.

"'Writing about Kool-Aid'" and "arson and drugs" were next up. For some reason I can't help but think of Jim Jones and his merry band of poisoners. And in keeping with the Jones theme, I did have some people directed here who were looking for "Aleister Crowley death pictures." Who on Earth cares about that sort of thing? Ozzy?

Perhaps the most disturbing and ominous search was for "butchers lie about cancerous breasts." What the hell does that mean? Who are these butchers, and why are they lying about cancerous breasts? Freaky. I hope this doesn't refer to chicken, though. I know a really gross story about that.

The next two searches don't even make a bit of sense. "Cakif fuking video" and "cancerous zeitgeist even a mature isn't safe." I don't know what a "cakif fuking" video is, but if you can't spell properly when you're looking for porn, you deserve to end up here. Hope I killed the erection with my endless ranting on the Tea Party.

Apparently I'm not the only one interested in the black sun, either. I had searches for "dark matter harnessing" and "harnessing the power of the black sun or the ultimate sun." Dude, if you found something on that, I'd love to know about it, too. Thanks for stopping by.

People are still searching for "Eureka, CA hookers." Second Street. In front of the library. How many times do I have to say that? Oh yeah, and on the City Council, too.

"Devils nails," "nail devil" and "Larry the Cable Guy" were also searched. I grouped them together because they should be.

"Naget women with focking" made as much sense as "qatar 'ball gag' -- rawanda -- paraguay -- portugal." Am I missing something here? Where does "ball gag" fit into that last group? I don't think anyone in any of those countries owns a ball gag.

"The cold finger film" was another one that sounded vaguely bothersome. The same goes for "yanks woman humping pillow." Actually, that just sounds funny. "What's your fetish, Danny?" "Oh, Yankee women getting all busy with a pillow." People never cease to amaze me with what gets them off. Whatever happened to a little hair pulling and pierced nipples? No, these days you need regional women getting intimate with fluff-filled fabric sacks.

That's all for this time. The general insanity of Internet searches brings some awfully strange people here. I don't know if they stick around and have a look, or go back to searching for their bargain basement porn. Either way, I'm happy they at least stopped by.

Mouth for War

2011-01-22T22:28:00.000-08:00

About a year ago I did a piece on a group of National Socialists adopting a highway. (You can read it here.) I came across a news item about the National Socialists when researching a piece on a ritualistic slaying that I wanted to write about. The slaying was probably the more headline grabbing of the two, but what fascinated me about the National Socialist story was that there were plenty of articles on it focusing on the outrage, but not a single one that looked at its historical context.

When I first started my current job I was reading Noam Chomsky's At War With Asia. A friend had spotted me reading the book and asked me what it was. When I told him, he asked, "Why are you reading a book on Vietnam." When I explained it provided a fascinating insight into our military action in Iraq he didn't get it.

Context is everything. No situation exists in a vacuum. What is happening today is tied into what happened decades ago, and people seem to forget that. It's easy to forget, actually. If you only get your news from one source, or only from sources you agree with, you aren't getting the entire picture. And since many of our journalists don't even have a clear concept of historical context there is no way they can present them to their audience.

The National Socialist story was fascinating if only because what the group was doing was right in line with National Socialism's core beliefs. The Colorado group that had adopted the highway did it more as a stunt, but it had historical context. I didn't read any articles stating that, however, so I decided to write it. I was going to use the incident as a springboard for an examination of how environmentalism became a leftist issue with its rightist background clearly ignored, while at the same time being something the Right fought against. I never published that version. After doing my second rewrite I knew I was writing something that few reading the article would be interested in. The Associated Content pieces I did had to have a wide audience, and what I was thinking was just too specialized and demanded that the reading audience would have to have at least some understanding of the history of environmentalism. I could not trust the readership to have that.

Context and history is important to understanding the events that shape us. What I've come to understand those rare times I seriously discuss current events and politics to with people is that when someone doesn't have an idea of context and history, it takes far too long to explain it, and even then it's a crapshoot whether or not they'll get it. Instead, it's easier to nod politely and give a bit of a smile. Anything else is an exercise in self-torture.

More on the Gervais Controversy

2011-01-21T06:59:00.000-08:00

I watched Ricky Gervais on Piers Morgan's new show last night, and he was offensive in the worst possible way. He declared himself an atheist, refused to apologize for anything he said at the Golden Globes, stated he did nothing wrong, defended himself, questioned why religion has the monopoly on being "good," stated (like I had earlier) that nobody had a right not to be offended, and did not repent.

Obviously, I'm being sarcastic when I say he was offensive. He defended himself the absolute best way I've ever seen a celebrity do so under the same kind of fire. I applauded him. Here was a guy who knew who he was, knew that comedy was an art and was able to articulate why, refused to admit that the religious were the only people who could be good (and he had the best answer to that age-old question geared to atheists I've ever heard in the mass media). He was, as Girl put it, "open and honest." And it was damn refreshing.

He continually stated he did nothing wrong and nothing was sacred. He was centered and self-actualized. He knew what worked in his comedy, and stated he didn't care what people thought of him. That wasn't his problem. He also stated that when he did his comedy the only person he cared about making laugh was himself. It sent chills down my broken spine. This is exactly how the arts should be. As soon as you start caring about what the public or even your audience thinks, and then start tailoring your work to that, you are doomed.

I know that some of you reading this are artists. If you are worth anything at your craft, you know this to be true. I also know some of you are pure entertainers (I'm not making a judgment call this time, Bryan), and you may not even care about the artistic side of things. All good. Some of you may have no idea what I'm prattling on about, and that's okay, too. (I'm being super diplomatic this time, perhaps because I'm in pain and have already resigned today into the dustbin as I have a training to look forward to.) You don't need to get it, but you do need the artists you admire to get it. That is absolutely essential.

I'm glad Gervais refused to apologize. I'm glad he made people uncomfortable. I'm glad Morgan didn't let up on him, demanding through sane, pleasantly asked questions, that he justify himself. Why? Not because I wanted to see Gervais squirm (he didn't). Because I knew Gervais could do it, and you rarely hear it done. Too many people apologize for what they have said and done, blame it on one such thing or another, and act contrite. Not many people buy it. Gervais, on the other hand, stated flatly that he has nothing to apologize for and won't.

Thank you, Ricky Gervais. You get your art. You get what it means. You speak your mind and remain true to yourself, and by doing so you make it so that nobody can really hold anything over you. If more artists spoke out with the same candor, we may have a society that actually reaches my expectations of what we can be. Instead, we have a culture of self-entitled, self-important, hypocritical, happy-to-be-victims, offended-at-the-drop-of-a-hat, apologetic folks who wouldn't know truth if it slowly chewed open their necks.

Cheers, mate.

Eureka: Earthquakes Aren't The Only Thing That Breaks Us

2011-01-20T20:46:00.000-08:00

If you're a fan of crappy Mexican food and live in Eureka, CA, you probably already know that the Jalisco on 101 is closed. This comes at a time when the Bayshore Mall announced that four more stores were leaving its overpriced folds: Hallmark, Anchor Blue (thank God), 9 Months Later (I think that is what it is called) and Gold Rush Coffee. Last but not least, Eureka also lost two KFC restaurants and long-time local hang-out Stanton's (another restaurant).

The economy, as they say, is showing signs of improvement.

Like those parents who videotaped their child, all of 23 months old, smoking pot, the people who think the economy is getting any better here in Humboldt are delusional at best, but are more likely just plain ass stupid. Perhaps they don't deserve to be in jail like those idiotic parents (for whom jail is far too pleasant, but at least they probably get to see family and friends in there now), but they do need wake-up calls like this to remind them that the yellow brick road is really just a lot of paint and a fancy name.

Too many of Eureka's residents are really like those parents (both figuratively and literally). They are oblivious to reality, and not only are they oblivious, they revel in their ignorance and display it for all the world to see. When they are caught, however, it becomes one of those deer-in-the-headlight moments we've all seen on windy country back roads. "Oh shit, I'm fucked!"

As anyone who has spent five minutes in this county knows, pot fuels our economy. Luckily, our local growers and dealers are fast and loose with their money for the most part, so the businesses get the benefits of that (not to mention some of those businesses are involved in those operations). That's not something you want to build an economy on, however. With legalization being inevitable, which will surely drive prices down, Eureka and Humboldt County has to start looking at other ways to keep itself alive (and all those Humboldt shirts you see people wearing for some stupid reason is not enough to do the trick, either). So what would turn the Northcoast's economy around? What do we need to do in order to survive?

Small businesses are nice. They don't employ many people, but they do create jobs. Larger businesses create more jobs, but much of the money leaves the county. The tourism industry is a bust when gas is creeping into the $4.00 a gallon range. Pot will eventually be legal, and the price will drop ... and the tobacco companies will move in. Prostitution won't be given the thumbs up any time soon. Our lumber and fishing industry have been sucked dry. So where does that leave all of us? California is in the throes of a financial disaster, and as California goes, so does the country. But to save a state, you have to start with one county at a time. Humboldt can't do it alone, but we can watch our own backyard. All it takes is a little elbow grease, and some great ideas.

As anyone who has read this knows, I'm not a huge fan of the current state of capitalism. Greed on everyone's part has led to much of the disaster we are in. I do think a survival instinct will get us out, however, and a great big part of that involves Eureka not turning its nose at anything that reeks of big business.

Blasphemy, I know.

The jobs that Eureka lost with these current closings will be felt throughout a community that is already reeling. Many of these workers had families. Mouths to feed. There aren't enough new jobs or open jobs to absorb this. And anytime anyone wants to start a new business that would have more than five employees there are so many hoops to jump through and so much knee jerk opposition that any common sense argument is lost in the din. I don't like Wal-Mart. I don't like Best Buy. I don't like Home Depot, and nor do I care about Trader Joe's. But let's get realistic. Any one of those businesses will create more jobs than another small coffee shop that may last a year or two, and then those people who are employed there can spend their pay checks at the local small businesses if they so desire.

Big and small businesses have the same end goal as far as I'm concerned -- both want your money. Small businesses often can't compete on the same level as the big ones can, but they don't have to. They can offer services that the big businesses can't hope to compete against. Instead of focusing on that, however, too many of the small businesses here just flatly state that people should support them because they are small businesses. It's an inefficient argument that does nothing to really sell their cause.

If there's any reason to shop at a small business (besides the money staying in the community, but that means less than you'd think in a global economy), it's for the personalization of services. The staff at your local small bookstore will know you. The staff at Borders won't. That is the real draw of the small business. People will be willing to spend more for that. I know I am, as that "your local dollars stay local" line means nothing to me when I have to comparison shop. I want whatever goods I need at the cheapest price possible, but I'm willing to pay more when a business makes me feel special.

Example: Big Pete's versus Poppa Murphy's. Big Pete's is better pizza. No comparison. It's also more expensive. Even when I have to be super careful about what I spend, I'll spend it at Big Pete's simply because they know me there and are able to address me by name. Hell, even if the pizza weren't as good as Poppa Murphy's, I'd go just for that. Fortunately, the pizza at Big Pete's kicks ass, so no real problem there. I'm willing to pay more for the personalized experience. Hell, when I call them there are workers there (hello, Jackie!) who know my voice. They ask how work is going. They sit with you at the table and discuss movies. You won't get that at the chain store where you are nothing but a dollar sign.

Our local businesses need to realize that and push that, and then they need to get on the Internet and sell themselves there, too. Instead, they whine about how big box retailers will destroy us. Yes, they will, but only if we let them.

Right now, Humboldt needs jobs. Period. Those jobs can be from small business or big, but realistically speaking they are going to come from the big businesses. Target employs more people than a group of small businesses combined. Once we get our economy back on track, we can look at ways of keeping it stable without the use of big businesses. Until that happens, though, we need their cash infusion if only in the form of jobs. There are many of us who won't shop at them regardless of cash problems, and plenty who will regardless of the service. They can co-exist in a community with small businesses and small businesses can actually use them to help bolster their own economy if they are smart about it. We can be mercenary, too, just like the big box retailers. Lure them. Let them create jobs. Get the economy kick started, and then abandon them where they stand, force them out, and utilize the building for something else. Unfortunately, that will never happen here, and the reason why is exactly why our economy is struggling so bad in this area.

We have just enough people to keep those big businesses in business, which does eventually hurt the smaller businesses that don't know how to compete (more the pity on them, but regardless -- lost jobs are lost jobs). On the flip side, we also have a smaller number of people who are even more influential and successful at keeping these big businesses out. Thus, a large influx of jobs are rarely created, and when they are, we lack the courage of our convictions to boot the businesses out once they've done what we need them to.

If we don't do something soon, this lack of revenue is going to send more businesses under ... and a great many of them, like the past few weeks have shown, will be small businesses. And then where will we be? Really stuck, as now even those who refuse to engage with big business will have little reasonable choice, and those who are employed by the smaller businesses will be out of work. It's not a future that looks good by any stretch of the imagination, but it is happening. It is real. And it is the wave of the future.

Safety in Boredom

2011-01-18T06:34:00.000-08:00

I checked my e-mail this morning and found a missive defending the outrage over Ricky Gervais' hosting of the Golden Globes. The letter writer does not read my blog, and nor is he a Facebook "friend." I have refused to friend him simply because I know he would read what I write and be offended by it, and then I would get e-mails like the one that showed up in my inbox this morning. I'm not going to reprint the entire thing here, as it would bore you. However, you should note that Mr. X was under the impression that I watched the Golden Globes and that I would think the controversy over Gervais was ridiculous. He was right about the latter. My comments to his observations appear in brackets.

Mr. X thought Gervais went "way over the line" with "jokes about Jews and people's sexuality." [I think drunks who insult Jews and then don't expect to get called on it go over the line.] It was "uncalled for, unprofessional, and unfunny." [It was definitely not unprofessional. Gervais is a comedian. That is what he is paid to do.] An awards show, according to Mr. X, is "no place for comedy." [Then why do they hire comedians? Are the organizers of these award shows unaware of the hosts' daytime gigs?] If a comedian "has to be used," they should go with "someone safe like Tim Allen or Hugh Grant." [By 'safe' you mean 'boring.'] Otherwise, he states, they need to "stick to the professionals" and "not hire 'funny men.'" [Professional award show hosts? Who are these people? Who would want to watch them?]

Mr. X was pretty certain I'd be upset over the fact that people were offended by "what were offensive jokes." He suggested I "take a chill pill and realize that when you throw a bomb into the room you have to deal with the fallout." [I have a problem with people equating words with bombs. There's a term I hate. 'F Bomb.' It's what people use when they don't want to say "fuck," because it will give cause their tongue to burst into flames or something. If you are one of these people, here's what I want you to do. Gather your loved ones in a room. Stay at the door and yell, "Fuck!" Wait five minutes. Chances are your loved ones will still be in one piece. Now take a grenade and throw it into the same room. Wait five minutes. The outcome is probably a bit different. That's the difference between bombs and words. See, you learned today!]

Mr. X pretty much epitomizes what my prior post was talking about. He's the blissfully ignorant person who wonders through life with a smile and an expectation that nothing should ever offend him. He just doesn't get it.

Speaking of not getting it, CNN jut reported that Regis Philbin is leaving his show. This was reported as "just in" news. I imagine that when this is what passes as news, it makes sense that you have a populace that becomes offended by people who poke fun at celebrities.

If you have anymore comments on this, please either comment here or on my Facebook page. Otherwise I may run the e-mail with your name, e-mail address and all the misspellings intact.

If Thine Eye Offend Thee ...

2011-01-17T22:23:00.000-08:00

Lesbianism is always offensive!

The "controversy" over a comedian (the always great Ricky Gervais) cracking jokes at the Golden Globes proves a theory I've had for years: the more easily offended you are, the lower your IQ score. The epitome of this is when commentators actually expressed sympathy for Mel Gibson because of the jokes Gervais made. Keep in mind that Gibson is a drunk, sexist, Anti-Semite. People are saying Gervais was too hard on him, and Charlie Sheen, and Tom Cruise, and so on and so on.

Boo-fucking-hoo. Gervais is a comedian doing what comedians do. Comedy is sometimes brutal. If you want safe comedy, hire Larry the Cable Guy.

He's just like you!

Americans have grown soft. The general public, in its infinite wisdom, gets offended by anything that makes it think and anything that smacks of being true. Jokes offend people. Body parts offend people. Songs offend people. Books offend people. Words offend people. About the only thing that doesn't offend people is the one thing that really offends me: utter stupidity.

He's a drunk who hates women and Jews, but you loved him in "Attack Force Z."

People seem to think that if something offends them they have to listen to it, read it or watch it. They seem to lose the ability to switch the channel or turn off the radio, or avert their eyes. And before you say those people at the Golden Globes couldn't leave Gervais' "verbal assault," I call bullshit. They were perfectly capable of leaving or issuing catcalls, heckling, whatever. Would it be uncouth? Yes, but if they were really offended, shouldn't they address that at the time instead of crying about it afterward?

Nobody has the right not to be offended. They do have the right to speak out against what offends them, though they often risk looking like a fool (such as with the Gervais controversy -- where those celebrities as offended by Gibson's tirades?). They also have the right to ignore that which offends them. To believe that you will make it through life without being offended ... well, that's like believing in the Tooth Fairy when you're 25. You'd have to be a drooling idiot.

Pills. Pints. Porn stars. Punchline.

"Gervais was mean-spirited." "Gervais went too far." "Gervais went over the edge." Let's put this all in perspective, though. Gervais is a comedian. Gervais said things people were already thinking (he's not the first to point out that Charlie Sheen has a problem). And Gervais said he was going to push things. He said it weeks before hosting. The only problem that I see is that he didn't go far enough.

Words never gave anyone cancer. They never blew the legs off a young soldier stepping out of a Humvee. They never caused a worldwide economic meltdown. They never let the healthcare industry get out of control. Do people get offended about these things, though? Hell no! They continue to fight against environmental regulations. They support war. They still invest in Wall Street. They urge their representatives to end healthcare reform (which really wasn't much reform in the first place). But throw a few jokes in their face and suddenly they are indignant.

This guy should offend you, but you don't know who he is or why.

If you were one of the people offended by Gervais, I urge you to really take a look around at the things that should offend you yet don't. Is it because you don't understand them? Is it because being offended by those blatantly offensive things calls into question your role in them? Is it that you are just so blind to reality that you don't see them? Jokes are easy to get upset about. It requires very little thought. Any joke can offend anyone. The joke that doesn't offend you could very easily offend your neighbor. If it's that easy to get offended, why even bother? Save your anger for something that counts, like families being thrown out into the street because their homes were illegally foreclosed upon.

This man offended you.

If you were offended by Gervais, you don't have enough problems in your life, and you probably needed to be offended. I do feel a bit sorry for you, however. Real life must fill you with a lot of fear and rage. It's got to be scary and frustrating knowing that every time you look at, read, or listen to something you run the risk of getting all sorts of bent out of shape.

I do want to thank you, too. As someone whose writing has offended everyone from teachers to screenwriters to Keanu Reeves fans, I want to take this moment to let you know I appreciate the business. You not only make it easy, you make it fun. What kind of crazy shit is going to set you off next?

Start the Day With a Bang

2011-01-14T22:41:00.000-08:00

I'm on my way to work. Driving. I'm not in a good mood. Work has been ... trying ... as of late. So, the morning drive is not exactly a happy time. (I'm working on it.) My window is down. The cold air feels good on my face. The Dead Kennedys ("Holiday in Cambodia," which I find ironic because once again we have Governor Jerry Brown) blaring over the speakers. I'm heading toward Broadway.

The ginch in the banged up Mercury doesn't even look. He just pulls part way out of the side street. I swerve. We don't hit, but boy does he glare at me. The guy pulls out onto a street without looking and he glares at me. He glares at me.

I glare right back. I'm hoping it will escalate. A little justified violence will be a good way to start the morning. I watch as he pulls out behind me. He looks oh-so-angry. Maybe he's ticked because he wanted to hit me and missed. I want him to pull over, or indicate that I should ... because I will ... because I have this sudden thought. This is how I picture it go down. It would make for an interesting tale.

In my mind I see us pull over. He's out of the car quick. Shouting obscenities. Arms wildly out of control. I get out. I'm calm. I approach him. He goes to push me. I move in closer. I grab his face ... and I start biting it. Inhuman growls. Chomping at it. How the hell would a person react to getting eaten?

For the first time on this small hop to work, I have a smile on my face. I make it to the parking lot of work, crisis and cannibalism averted. King Automatic is on my stereo now. My smile has faded somewhat. I had spent a few hours before work editing a short story. Small consolation.

I shut the car off. Finish my morning texts. Make my way into the building. King takes Queen every time ...

Arizona

2011-01-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

The shootings in Arizona are still dominating the news. The alleged shooter's cartoon-like visage leers from across television screens. NPR, that guiding light of toothless liberalism, runs the requisite stories. A church of senseless believers wanted to picket the funeral of the little girl who was shot. (I later read that some radio time was enough to buy them off.) Even his online gaming habits have been examined.

Tonight I heard it reported that Gabrielle (Gabby to everyone in the news now) Giffords raised her arm. I half expected the reporter to scream, "It's a miracle!"

NBC, on its nightly "news" program, ran a piece on the alleged shooter's problems at school, with fellow students and administration describing him as "creepy" and possibly being on "drugs." One fellow classmate was interviewed. He seemed uncomfortable, yet you could tell this interview would be mentioned on his Facebook page ... a lot. In the end, it seems nobody was surprised.

Democrats had been saying their own numbers would die since Sarah Palin learned how to get on the web. Reporters knew it was bound to happen because months earlier they had been reporting about the death threats elected officials were getting (and doing their best to associate those threats with the Tea Party Parrots in our minds). The suspect's classmates all knew it was coming, too. So did his neighbors. You didn't need a psychic to tell. You could tell just by looking at him. I mean, look at all those photos they show. The wacky faces. The frozen grin. It was obvious that all he needed was a gun and an opportunity. America knew from his Internet rantings that he was a threat.

Bullshit.

Between all the talk about banning "violent speech" (like those jingoistic speeches every president gives before going to war in some Third World country where toilets are a luxury) and the absolute certainty of everyone in the media and Tucson that Jared Loughner, the alleged shooter, was crazy and going to kill, we seemed to lose sight of something. Many fine folks may have known it, and a "ban" on "violent speech" may have kept such speech from getting out there, but none of that would have changed a damn thing and nor could it. Bad people do bad things. Banning guns and speech won't stop those things from happening. They may make people feel safer. They may give people a sense of security. They won't really make the world a safer place, though.

As of this post, I haven't heard if the shooter was inspired by Palin and her website. It doesn't really matter, though. Palin is still a moron with a following. It doesn't make her any more or any less "evil," as I've heard her called. Loughner could've been inspired by anyone or anything. A phone call from one of those credit card telemarketers could've made him mad enough to go buy some ammo. (I know I've wanted to.) I think that we when we start to play the blame game on such a large and influential scale (like the news), we do it as a form of healing, a way of making us feel not only better about ourselves by distancing ourselves from the criminal, but also as a way of showing sympathy. (He's not to blame. Words drove him to it. Video games drove him to it. Misdiagnosed mental illness drove him to it.) Does that change anything, though? No. It actually ends up clouding the more serious points of debate. By painting him as a lunatic, it allows some very important questions about the politics of assassination to go unanswered.

Eventually the news will drop this story, focusing on either another homeless man with a deep voice or some Lindsay Lohan mishap that is best left unexamined. The shootings will only be mentioned when it nears the anniversary or a copycat crime takes place. It will be forgotten, and nothing substantial will be added to the public discourse. Like Columbine, the media will guarantee that the focus stays on a few narrow, easy-to-understand topics, and in six months we will be none the wiser. Hell, most of us will have forgotten Gabby's name.

Maybe that is for the best, though. Maybe we, as a society, aren't ready to deal with the serious questions a crime like this raises. Maybe we aren't ready to examine the deeper motivations that drive people. Maybe we won't understand, or don't want to understand. Maybe asking the substantial questions doesn't matter because even if we know the answers we also know we can't stop this sort of thing, so why even waste time trying to get to the root of the problem?

Me? I find an examination of the media and public's reaction far more fascinating than the made-up reasons for the crime. I am highly interested in politically-motivated assassinations and assassination attempts, but this shooting seems more crazy than motivated, so an examination of the coverage and the reactions yields better answers to the questions that aren't being asked.

Loughner is no Alexander Berkman. He's more like John Hinckley, Jr., which all but guarantees that any public discussion will be centered around the very things that nobody can really control. Had it been a very serious politically-motivated crime it would be a lot harder to dismiss it. Instead, he's just another mass murderer with a gun and crazy eyes.

You think you can stop that? Good luck trying.