March 2004 Archives

I'm already euphoric just thinking about watching The Sopranos tonight.

Then there' s that new western, Deadwood. I was already favorably disposed to it from seeing the promos, but when the opening sequence started, and I heard that music and saw those images, I knew I was in love.

Perhaps it's a generational/sentimental thing. The western genre is practically dead; no one does it any more in this age of bullshit so-called reality shows. When I was a kid growing up in the sixties, there were plenty of westerns in film and on TV. I was fascinated by the macho atmosphere, the hokey-folky wisdom, the horses, guns, cards, whiskey, violence. The saloon doors, the player piano with that clinky sound...

Now comes this ultra high qualiity show where the creators went to the trouble of researching the shit out of the history of Deadwood, Montana, to bring you a beautifully produced work that de-romanticizes the old American west in the manner of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. (For the record: I won't be suprised if some critic has already compared Deadwood to Cormac McCarthy, but I haven't read or heard any such comparision, so maybe, just maybe: you heard it here first.) And so you have a character named Ellsworth who stands at the bar, having just traded his $170 gold piece for bar credit, and proclaims: I may have fucked my life up flatter than hammered shit, but I stand before you today beholden to no human cocksucker." How can you not love it?

I first became aware of the beauty of boxing in the mid-fifties. The "Friday Night Fights" sponsored by Gillette "Blue-Blades". My father and great-uncle made it a ritual: Dad chain smoking Luckies and drinking bourbon (straight, if you nancy boys were wondering) and my uncle smoking his pipe (Granger Rough-Cut) and sipping blackberry brandy. I was supposed to be in bed but would sneak downstairs and watch/hide from the doorway. What an exotic scene: a room full of smoke and the two grown men in my life watching a snowy black and white TV screen and yelling as the two men on the TV tried to fucking beat the shit out of each other.

It was a religious moment.

Back in those days of black white and shades of gray, the fighters were in the "light" or "dark" trunks that usually had their names in bold letters on the waistbands. It was the south then, when it was "did you see that nigger hit that white boy? Man, them niggers can box" Ingmar Johannsen was the hero but Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston came along and the white boys had to admit that those coons could pack a punch. And then came a guy named Clay who beat Liston and I was amazed that these white trash - I - hate - niggers types were actually upset. Maybe that was the beginning of the realization that niggers weren't all that bad; well, some of them - "not the uppity ones". Ah, those were the halcyon days of my youth.

I was watching the HBO fights tonight and remembered the professors early bit about the "fighter in the blue trunks with the whitish golden tassles and the fighter in the blue trunks with..." (or something like that) and the advent of color hit me over the head. My! How things used to be easier before color. Maybe TV should go back to black and white. Blood is just a really a really dark color. "Raging Bull" is a great work of art - the slo-mo of liquid squirting out of pummeled noses is just like the Friday Night Fights of my childhood.

What to do now? The boxers are from everywhere and every "race" but we have to be PC and not notice that one is a square-headed-retarded looking former commie russkie and the other is a cauliflower-eared, puffy eyed, white double-wide trailer trash from northern Maine. Now did you notice that I didn't mention the gook in the red corner and the mick in the blue corner?

Family values were out in full force on Saturday, March 20, 2004 at the anti-war demonstration in New York City, as you can see if you click the thumbnail to display a JPEG of my 10-month old daughter, my wife Marie, and Professor B himself observing the one-year anniversary of the Bush administration's criminal invasion of Iraq.

Thanks to a recent Sopranos episode, I can't even take a dump now without thinking about Johnny Sac sitting on the pot, smoking a cigarrette and bitching to Tony about shit. Here I am with my pants down around my ankles -- where's my goddamn cigarette? And I don't even smoke.

How can a person in so undignified a posture be so self-righteous? The sheer chutzpah of Johnny Sac is stunning.

As the one year anniversary of the invasion comes around, and Ministry of Truth a/k/a the Whitehouse loudly congratulates itself for its heroic deeds on behalf of freedom and democracy in Iraq, I thought it a good time to resurrect this little gem that circulated on the Internet around this time last year.

IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED :
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH
202.456.1414 / 202.456.1111
FAX: 202.456.2461

DEAR SIR / MADAM,

I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE.

I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE WAS SOON FOLLOWED BY A FALLING OUT WITH HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH SUBSIDIARY.

MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST OF SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT COST, THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS PARTNERS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF MONARCHIES, AND SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND JAPANESE PARTNERS. BUT MY FATHER'S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.

MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM FROM POWER. UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO SHOULDER THE BURDEN OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY COST THE SUM OF 100 BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000 - $200,000,000,000), BOTH IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN LONG-TERM MANAGEMENT.

WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS ASSISTANCE. OUR DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION INCLUDE THE SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RICHARD CHENEY, WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER HEAD OF THE HALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER.

I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE THE FIFTEENTH (15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL.

I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS TRANSACTION, PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER DISCUSS THE MATTER.

I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL. PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS BELOW.

SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS,

GEORGE WALKER BUSH

I like to use this blog for bitching and ranting and thundering against assholes. So today we're gonna change the tone a little bit and praise somebody.

I got a good buddy across the street -- let's call him Ned. Ned is one of the most generous people I know -- almost pathologically generous. He seems happiest when his house is full of his friends from the 'hood, eating and drinking and talking shit and enjoying themselves. And he regularly hosts informal, quasi-spontaneous gatherings of this kind. In cold weather Ned's parties are indoors. In warm weather we like to stoop it on his stoop, and we barbecue. Where a lot of us just talk about how we'd really like to host a get-together some time soon, Ned just does it. And does it and does it.

He also is skilled at producing great amounts of good food on short notice. Dinner for ten people in two hours? No problem.

Ned is like the hub of the social network we call community. He's the glue that helps make it all cohere. Here's to Ned.

Think I'm kidding with that provocative title? Hardly.

The other day I got fed up with being sick for about 60% of the preceding eight weeks and went to a doctor's office. I was seen by what's known as a physician's assistant. She prescribed two drugs: a decongestant, and an antibiotic. I bought the drugs, scanned the warnings about possible side effects, and dutifully started taking my drugs.

Imagine my consternation when I awoke in the middle of the night seized with something that must be similar to a panic attack. We're talking serious jitters. I went and took another look at those side effects... "Mild dizziness, mild drowsiness, headache, loss of appetite, nausea, dry mouth..." Ah, here we go: "Extreme nervousness, trouble sleeping." Thank you, Guaifenesin/Dextromethorphan/Decongestant Oral. Wait, what's this? "If any of
these effects persist or worsen, notify your doctor." Hmmm. Otherwise, tough it out? Not wanting to be a pussy, I tried it again for a couple nights before I finally said fuck this, I'm better off without it. That Guaifenesin/Dextromethorphan/Decongestant Oral is some bad shit.

When you buy street drugs you might well be buying a safer product and getting a better value than when you score from the pharmacist. Granted, that bag of cocaine from the corner spot contains a substance whose exact composition and origin are unknown. However, the dealer has a sincere market-based interest in your satisfaction. Can the same be said of Big Pharma? If they think the profits outweigh the risks of liability, they are capable of spinning their data and lobbying the FDA to approve their stuff even when they know it isn't safe.

Does the drug dealer really care any more than AstraZeneca does about your health and well being? No. But the active ingredient in that bag, cocaine hydrochloride, has been the subject of countless scientific studies, many of them responsible. Moreover, cocaine has been and continues to be tested informally by an army of volunteers every day. Its effects, both good and bad, are pretty well understood. Anyone who can read and think can make an informed decision whether to buy and use that bag; you know less about the drugs your doc thinks you should take.

True, cocaine will not cure your ear infection, and indeed may make it worse. But that's not what it's intended for. It's for mood elevation and temporary relief of fatigue. Side effects? Let's see.... loss of appetite, nasal congestion, trouble sleeping, nervousness, prolonged use may produce dependency. Not much worse than Guaifenesin/Dextromethorphan/Decongestant Oral, is it? And for the congestion you can always try... Guaifenesin/Dextromethorphan/Decongestant Oral! (I got some right here. You interested?)

Then there's price. We all know prescription drug prices are scandalous in this country. Street drug prices have been comparatively stable, obeying the economic laws of supply and demand -- pure market dynamics undistorted by the sort of corruption we see from Big Pharma. That bag from the homies on the corner is a better deal than that bogus antibiotic prescription your doctor gave you for an ailment that was not bacterial.

Today is Monday. The Sopranos will be back on our vegboxes Sunday.

As Christopher Moltestanti might say:

thank fucking god!