Unraveling the Illusion of Meaning/part 1

In response to the question, What do you want to do in the future? a Japanese university student writes:
"I want to go to France, because French food wants to eat me."

And, needless to say, we'd all like to be there to watch as this culinary paradox unfolds.

Another writes, "I want the job of welfare, because I want to help a lame dog over a turnstile."

Hard, admittedly, to get a handle on this one. Can't really see it as a viable career option. Just not that many crippled dogs trying to fly over turnstiles. Not in my experience, anyway. Lame politicians maybe. Plenty of them around, mental cripples mostly, but it would take a true to the bone altruist, a self-effacing paragon of saintly virture, to even consider helping them.
Let alone voting for them.

CNN Headline: Two more die in Pakistan during cartoon riots.

So what, seriously, is up with the Muslims? Talk about taking the vapid, senseless, mindlessness of organized religion to its logical conclusion. These people make the Born Again Christian set actually start to look good. I mean, there has got to be better things to do than pray to Allah 17 times a day and, when you're not busy praying (for what, one wonders?) you hang around on the street waiting for the next deadly riot to get started. Do any of these people ever go indoors? Sure, it's the climate, living in the hot, dull desert all day. the brain begins to boil, the hollows of hopelessness begin to fill with the fervor of religious banality. And it's all the obvious things, as well, like no jobs, no education, no sex.
Especially no sex. If these young, Arabs were getting layed on a regular basis they'd be much less likely to be murdering each other in front of the local mosque. They wouldn't have to be trampelling their fellow Muslims to death in their enthusiasm to reach yet another holy shrine (how many holy shrines do these people really need?)

Hey, let's go! We can run over all these old Muslim men and women and get to the shrine first and throw stones at the Devil.
No, I'm not in the mood today.
Infidel!
Relax! I'm as devout a Muslim as you, and I'm willing to kill you to prove it.
Praise Allah!
It's just that I had sex last night. Great sex, in fact.
Out of wedlock? Sinner! Your thing will be chopped off in the public square. After which there will be a mandatory riot.
All I'm saying is that sex is a lot more fun than killing people in the name of God.
Really? Is that possible?

(Disclaimer: Just to calm the torrid emotions of any irate Muslims reading this - and what are the chances? it's more likely that aliens on another planet are reading my blog) - I am not anti-Muslim. I hate all religions equally.)

Let's move on.....

Bush & the Intricacies of Political Irony:

Recall the grim days of the Bush Dynasty? Those 'Compassionate Conservatives' who plunged the world into a thousand years of unremitting darkness.

So we have this President, little George Bush, and his coroprate gang of zombie goodfellows. They want to control the world (at least the world's oil supply), as well as turn the USA into a corporate-friendly-police state. So? Blatant money politics stole the election for little George in 2000. Fortunately, the dim-witted American people forgot about this almost instantly. They were too busy finding Jesus and exploring the outer limits of collective obesity while watching Reality tv. Bush was as bad as any of us who still read and occasionally think past the buzz of hysterical sound bites knew he was. His advisors knew it, too. Even George himself suspected it. Then 9-11 happened. Terrible, but also lucky. Maybe the sneaky little bastards in the so-called intelligence community knew about it in advance. Maybe the Saudis set the whole thing up. Maybe Dick Cheney had a vision. Handle this thing right and Halliburton could someday rule the world. Maybe Carl Rove had to blow a couple of Shieks. What of it? As every good military leader knows, a certain number of casualites is always acceptable for the greater good.
Salvage a Presidency and enhance the conservative Republican agenda in one memorable swoop. And it worked. Okay, a bogus war costing half a trillion dollars certainly helped. Legions of expert propagandaists playing the fear card at every opportunity didn't hurt, either. Across America, millions of Americans who have never had an original thought realized they were in danger. What if they attack the Malls? Jesus Saves. Bush got re-elected. Blame the right-wing Christians for that one. Now most of them are being devoutly screwed by his policies, but they still don't seem to care. Their reward, after all, is waiting in heaven.
So, fine. A brilliant political strategy that worked better than anyone could have expected. A totally fearful electorate. Will go along with almost anything. The corporations win, the environment loses, the American middle class slowly disappears. Most of them had no health care, anyway, so perhaps they're better off.
The way it goes. the world de-evolves. Religion rules the masses and the Bushs' pray the people never wake up and figure out what's really going on.

At least there is still irony to sustain us in the darkness. To whit:
After all this effort to create a paranoid nation, the Bush people are shocked and awed that most Americans are against them selling several major US ports to an Arab country. The fear thing worked, they won, and now they're pissed off about it.
Nice touch. Near-perfect dissconnect with their own bullshit.

As painful as it is, have to love it.

They Shoot Republicans, Don't They?

At last, a news story that brings a authentic smile to the lips and a surge of pleasure-inducing chemicals to the brain.
Dick Cheney shoots some guy on a hunting tip. Mistook him for a large bird, apparently. It seems that Dick's glasses were fogged up at the time, he'd had a few drinks and was experiencing palpitations. Although his spokesperson preferred to describe it as the 'normal excitement engendered by the impending thrill of the kill'.
Really, who would ever give Dick Cheney a gun? A tank, maybe. An F-16, okay. But a shotgun?
Could there be a more heart-rending advertisement for the nobel and manly American pastime of slaughtering helpless animals for fun? The NRA has got to be ecstatic. Now that Cheney has legitamized blasting people you know by "accident," think of all the imbeciles who will be running out to buy guns and do the same thing.
Still, when I imagine Dick Cheney (not something I do often), I see him with a walker, muttering to himself, planning revenge on unspecified targets. Can't really see him carrying a weapon. The good news, of course, is that he shot a Republican lawyer from Texas. It doesn't get much better than that. Unless other Republicans jump on the band wagon and start shooting each other. It could become a Democratic slogan for the November elections: Why shoot a deer when you can shoot your Republican congressman (by accident, needless to say)?
The best comment of the day, from a so-called friend of the Vice President: "Dick cheney is the most sensitive of hunters."
Talk about oxymorons. The sensitive killer. A uniquely American type.
Way to go, Dick! You sensitive soul. We know you're not the sneaky, rapacious, self-serving, war mongering ghoul those Godless, left-wing sissies who have never murdered an animal for sport portray you as.

On other matters, to long lost friends and phantoms who periodically surface and make contact, it's great to know you're still out there. The circular nature of things make this possible. It's not as if we have a choice about staying on the merry-go-round. I blame the universe, rotating to a tune that only dogs can hear. As for figuring out what I'm trying to say, I don't, so why should you? But if you're determined, I suggest you check out my novels, accessed at PublishAmerica.com
All the best, stay well, stay in touch..

The Next Greap Leap Backwards

I'd like to pick up where I left off and continue to denigrate the Chinese. God knows, they deserve it. But I also want to at least pay lip service (a term that has always mystified) to the principle of fairness. So let's talk about how fucking clever they are. No easy feat getting the entire world to kiss your ass, but the Chinese are able to pull it off. That's because on most computer demographic models the Chinese population shows up as two billion dollar signs. That translates into a lot of sucking up that needs to be done. That's a lot of potential customers, my friends. Potential being the operative world. 90% of the Chinese population lives in conditions which make American style poverty look like an elitist joy ride. Think of it. As China patiently and insidiously cooks up complicated plans to take over the planet, there are millions of Chinese who have never seen a toilet flush. Even more shocking, there are large numbers of Chinese people who have no idea what a Disney character looks like. Are these people even human? And all of them speaking Chinese. Think about that. I don't know, it scares me.
Anyway, let's for the moment forget ridiculously unfair trade practices, a grotesquely undervalued currency, rampant intellectual piracy, total disregard for environmental well-being and the fact that all of China's top leaders look like reanimated caricatures from a wax museum. How the hell do they get away with it? I like to think of it as the ultimate great leap, the brilliant jump from rigid Communist dogma to 'Free' market Capitalism without having to worry about all the messy, emotional concepts which characterize democratic societies. The Chinese ruling class, bred on Mao, Marx and hostile takeovers, figured out rather quickly that the ability to buy cheap, consumer junk in WalMart, or it's Chinese equivalent, is, in fact, the essence of freedom. Who needs freedom of speech when shopping is readily available? Who needs elections (or erections, for that matter), when there are malls and an endless array of crap to buy on-line? In short, what the Chinese, always pragmatic, if nothing else, realized is that a controlled, productive, reasonably content work force has little, if anything, to do with human rights. How else to explain that the average, annual income in China is $400 and no one seems to complain about it. Do you want to express your opinion and risk prison, or do you want to go shopping? And hey, it's not like anyone living in a so-called free society ever has anything interesting to say. The words of Emperor Wang Po are as true today as they were when he reportedly said them, some 3000 years ago. 'Repression of the people works best when it's self-imposed.'

Needless to say, if Bush and his corporate cronies have their way, the USA will, in short order, become the next great, little province of Chinese mercenary market forces. Chinatown taken to the extreme.
I predict that in fifty years America will be a Chinese theme park, operated by Halliburton. What's left of the American work force will operate the concession stands. They will be strongly advised, though, in deference to residual democratic beliefs, not obligated to wear Dick Cheney masks on the job.
Welcome to the new world order.
In the meantime, good luck trying to find a pair of shoes not made in you-know-where.

Back from the dead/Not particularly happy about it

Dear Non-readers/

We all die in moments of special, fractured sizzlement, all the time.
We die because it's easier than coming up with an appropriate emotional response
We fake death because lying about ultimate issues gives us a bit of a buzz
"All right, just tell me this. Are you alive or dead?"
"If I knew, I'd tell you."
"You spoke! You're alive, you fucking bastard."
"Hey, ever hear of letting the dead rest in peace?"
"God will damn you for that sort of fakery."
"Yeah, well, if there's one thing God and I have in common it's that we're both dead."
"See you in Hell, liar."
"Great! See you in the whorehouse in Hell where I met you."
...The sort of bizarre, profane made-up conversations one has in a state which is neither here nor there. a bit like Alabama, only more intelligent. Smart, death dialogue. Nothing overweight zombie about it. No moronic Jesus freaks in this brain dead cosmology.
I grew a long, albeit stringy, beard during 980 days in an invented coma.
I was a miner for a heart of gold, or gas, or coal. I can't remember.
I was a national sensation for 30 seconds.
I survived. I beat all the odds, they said.
My wife, who weighs 300 pounds, at least, prayed to Jesus on CNN.
Overpaid commentators sucked air and talked about a miracle in the making
Meanwhile, I was praying that she would lose a lot of weight by the time I snapped out of it.
I mean, Jesus, what the hell was I thinking?
Poeple who know me say that it would be impossible for me to emerge any dumber than I was,
Even taking into account the 35 minutes during which no oxygen got to my brain.
All part of the miracle/I guess
Some people thrive on adversity
And what with the book deal and the movie rights, there's very little chance I won't be moving on to greener pastures
So to speak.

So, what is it like to be dead?
It's like no longer trying to survive inside your head
It's remembering all the stuff you did that made you want to cry and then kill yourself
Like coughing up firey phelgm through a straw in your nose
Like walking all the way to the cigarette machine in a blizzard and realizing you forgot your money
Like falling asleep during the Superbowl and not caring, but having to pretend that you do.
The worst part is losing track of the number of erections you get.
Hundreds of hard-ons. As big as your dick has ever been. No one there to take note or comment upon.
"Your erection is huge tonight!"
"Yeah, thanks."
"I mean, what the hell is this, a fucking petrified tree?"
"Yeah, well, you know..."
"Jesus Chtist! Too bad I'm not in the mood."
What?"
"You know, not feeling like...you know?"
"Why, for God's sake?"
"Aside from the fact that you're a brain dead vegetable in a coma, you mean?"
"Okay, aside from that."
"If you could only speak, tell me what you wanted me to do."
"SUCK IT!"
"You poor, dead, mental moron. You have no idea what's happening here, do you?"
"I know that I'll have to kill you once I'm out of this coma."
"I'm so horny now, I may have to call that guy from work. Even if he does smell bad."
"Please, turn off my life support, now!"

Basically, the near-death state is more or less a constant state of pleasurable dreaming.

Waking up is no picnic.
It feels like a mistake.
It's a source of anxiety.
Three years asleep and nothing much has changed.
Makes you question your impact on the world you inhabit.
But what the hell?

The blog works, the dog is still a pain in the ass and I still enjoy getting drunk.
Things could be worse