Prussian Blues

I usually grab dinner around 6:30 in the p.m., and often in front of the TV, about the time the various Entertainment Shows are on . Normally their prattle about Hollywood and The Industry and various stars goes in one ear and out the other(indeed, much like other information I should be retaining), just visual/auditory parsley. This past week, however, something on there did get my attention.

The act in question was a singing duo(which, again, is something I wouldn't ordinarily give a flying fuck about unless they were absolutely gorgeous and/or had big tits or something--or even could really sing): twin 13-year-old sisters who sing songs about White Power. They're of course, blonde-haired and blue-eyed and cute n' perky in that sort of Aryan separatist way. The TV profile also showed them playing a video game called "Ethnic Cleansing", where the protagonist blows the shit out of the swarthier peoples of the world: blacks, latinos, et al).

Ya ha...

Out of morbid curiosity, I visited their website, and sure as shit it was filled to the hilt with neo-Nazi, racist, white separatist rhetoric: some fairly frightening literature espousing their views and mission, equally scary "news" stories, and of course their songs. One part of the site I found particularly chilling was their Fan Mail. Dear Buffi n' Barf(or whatever the fuck their names are)- I am glad there is finally somebody who stands up for what is right. Our town is 85% white, and we don't talk to them and they don't speak unless spoken to. Etc etc. Sieg heil, Toxin Sue.

Well okay, her name wasn't really "Toxin Sue" but she DID really close her letter with Sieg Heil, and she DID talk about living in a community which was 85% white and about how they treated the remaining 15%. The other letters were along the same lines. Dear Buffi n' Barf- Guess what? I'm a complete fucking ignoramus JUST LIKE YOU!


On the local level, we had a guy for awhile who had the same message: about the White Race,and the other so-called "mud races". He made the newspapers on occasion when in town to hold a presentation(these were always sparsely attended, chiefly by hecklers)or being indicted for something.

As a security measure here in the house I leave newspaper on the floor in case my dog, Lester, just can't hold it while I'm gone. One day I came home for lunch to find he'd laid one of his steamier turds right on a picture in the paper of our White Supremacist buddy. GOOD BOY, Lester! It's important to praise your pet at such a moment, as it encourages like behavior in the future.

The problem with hate is that it just begets itself, just like love. Groups like this are like the character on TV you love to hate. Woody Allen in Manhattan urged a group of his intellectual friends to take baseball bats to Neo-Nazi's who were demonstrating in the area. They bring out that violent shithead in you, bring out your own worst(your own 'little Hitler' as it were), no matter how erudite and refined you might think yourself to be.

Actually the best way to handle such a group is for their action to inspire an equal and opposite reaction. And the opposite of hate is not love but indifference. I am delighted to see sparsely attended rallies and no public support for the character I mentioned(not to mention my dog pinching a loaf on his picture). .Unfortunately, Neo-Nazi's and other hate groups have every right to be in this world that I do. Granting them that right is part of not being a Nazi- though I do sometimes wish there were a special zone for them -perhaps, a Home for the Intolerant.

Mondayitis

Man, it's a bitch starting the work-week. I feel the same vague dread and apprehension toward Monday morning that women do about their periods. According to my ex-wife(though I'm sure it varies from woman to woman, and perhaps from period to period)it's the worst right before it starts, and at its onset, but once it's going, it's not as big a deal. So it is with the work-week. Once it's in motion, you're going with it, following the current of the week's activities, but getting started is rough. Especially if you're not much of a morning person anyway, and have a job where you sometimes have to hit the ground running. A jarring experience.

Like Garfield, I hate Mondays.

Actually Garfield would have no reason to have any feelings about Monday one way or the other. I mean, it's not like he does anything, for that matter. Being a cat, his main daily concerns besides eating and shitting(I don't know if he's been neutered or not as far as that other concern)and irritating others are in finding places to take his series of naps(my cat has a sort of "nap rotation" thing going, with the bed, chair, dresser and certain floor locations: her "N Spots".)

No, for Monday to have any signifigance, positive or negative, you have to Go Someplace and Do Something(preferably something you'd just as soon Not Do, and in a place you'd rather not Go To). And then have 4 more days just like it followed by 2 days where you don't have to go anyplace you don't want to go, or do anything you don't want to do. Then when you go back to the 5 days of Doing Stuff You'd Just As Soon Not Do, Monday will mean something...

Cats, whether cartoon or real, basically do what they want to do when they want to do it. They spit in the face of Monday morning by their very existence. Ah, to be a cat. But then you get furballs, and have other cat problems. Like maybe other cats, or at least a dog who acts like a jerk by 'blocking' the doorways and other antics..

Anyway. As to often-manic Monday, one person I work with(who, unlike myself, is actually a morning person and thus rarin' to go at the bell, in dramatic contrast to my reluctant entry into the workday)has a more carpe diem approach to the week's beginning. "It's another chance to get it right", she says. Fortunately she's learned not to talk to me too much first thing in the morning, unless absolutely necessary..

Well actually, life(depending of course on your metaphysics)is itself 'another chance to get it right', and every week is a sliver of that chance, or perhaps that chance-for-rectitude in microcosm, however you want to see it. By 10:30 or so, 2 hours into the workday, with a couple cups of coffee in me, all this makes more sense.

Personally I have things I wanna 'get right' of course in my life, but I don't really look at them on a week-by-week basis in terms of their resolution. Every week seems to have its own twist, as far as things thrown at me in the 'getting it right' department, so I look at each week individually.

No, every Monday is in fact a return from the relative peace and quiet of home to the cacophony of the office--well, at least the one I work in, replete with phones printers and complaining. It's a chance to earn just a little more money and build up one more week toward that time when you can finally get yourself that Mondayectomy you've been saving for--also known as retirement.

Various Harebrained Ideas

"If fat people don't stop eating so much, they'll use up all our gravity and we'll all go floating off into space. We've got to do something fast!"

The author of this quote has requested to be anonymous here(gee I wonder why?), so of course I'll honor their wishes. It's refreshing to see that a few of one's friends have ideas that are just as crazy as some of one's own. I guess that's why they're friends...


Here are a few of my harebrained ideas:

A strap-on dildo, called Michael Bolt-on. Great for lesbian couples I guess, or anybody else who would want to enhance things with this nifty strap-on device...

A furniture store which sells nothing but footstools, called The Ottoman Empire.

Another in-between meal like 'Brunch', only this one between the lunch and dinner hour(say, around 3:30-4pm), called Dunch. Thus you could add entertainment as well, make it a Jazz Dunch . Well, okay, dunch is not all that euphonious a word-especially if you're gonna design a meal around it..

A porno movie, called Rock Around the Cock.

Another one called Phallus in Wonderland. (Actually one of my favorite pornflick titles is one I haven't had the privilege of actually seeing but just saw in the box--pardon the pun-- at a video place: Up and In. Really. Up and In. Sort of like "Hot n' Now" only with people screwing I guess.)

One harebrained idea I had which did kinda turn into something was a support group for guitarists(mainly)and other instrumentalists who take up bass to get more work, and then never get called for their main instrument. It's called Bass Under Pressure, and actually has 5 or 6 members in the central Illinois area. We've yet to have a meeting but it has been discussed. I put it up on Yahoo thinking I'd be deluged with members but got nary a one. Absolute zero response. Must be something only Illinoisans find funny...

And perhaps the harebrainedest idea of all: a blogsite called The Rubber Room where I write drivel like this for whoever stumbles across it in that proverbial cybernetic wrong toin at Albukoike . You know, Bugs Bunny(speaking of harebrained- sorry!)ever on his way to Pizmo Beach and makes the wrong turn, only to end up...

More later.

Augie Doggie & Mack Daddy

My Dentist was wondering today(while excavating two of my teeth) whether or not the voice of Mr Ed(what- you mean he didn't really talk himself?!)was actually done by Johnny Cash. If you "de-twang" it, Cash's voice COULD conceivably pass for that of Wilbur's ignoble steed. Anything is possible...*

Thank goodness for a Dentist with a sense of humor. Between him and his assistant and myself, we usually get the laughing gas going, so to speak. Definitely helps, adds a couple layers of bread to that shit sandwich known as dental work. Anyway, the Johnny Cash/Mr Ed thing reminded me of an equally unlikely musical parallel that'd occured to me at one point or another.. Listening to rapper Snoop Dogg, not the words mind you but the cadence of his words and his tone: that sort of nasal staccato delivery- has always reminded me of Howard Cosell.


Yes. Howard'the- fans- have- a- right- to- know' Cosell. The late sports announcer, who'd interviewed Mohammed Ali among many others. Okay, speeded up a bit, but that same basic rhythm. Really. Go to your record/CD collection and dig out your Dogg cache, and you'll see what I mean.


You'll probably never hear Snoop Dogg the same way again. Or Howard Cosell for that matter. I wish Cosell had lived longer. Maybe we could have heard them together.
peace out,
Heavy R




*One episode of Mr Ed I missed but would be interested in seeing(I think anyway)is one which was excerpted in a commercial for Nick at Nite. In the clip, Ed says to Wilbur," Wilbur, I'm your horse , not your wife !" Hmmm, that episode was probably rated M for mature audiences...

National Stoner Day

(Originally written on April 20, 2005)


This is apparently National Stoner Day(or maybe it's International). 4/20 is actually the birthday of ol' Adolph Schickelgruber, known to the world of course by his nom de voyage of Adolph Hitler. So I guess at 4:20, both am and pm if possible I suppose for the optimum effect, stoners around the country(and possibly the world, who knows?), fire up a doob in 'celebration'.*

As one who has definitely partaken of the green and leafy at times in life, I can identify. But as one who now has a daygig, I pretty much have to watch from a distance. At 4:20 this a.m. I was sound asleep, and at 4:20 this afternoon I was still at work with 40 minutes to go. Green and leafy doesn't really fit into the day- unless it's lettuce on your sandwich for lunch..

I was born in 1954 and thus had the 60's intersect with my formative years. So I'm sure I have a few basic values that could be attributed to growing up then. Pot(or hashish) I don't consider a big deal. It's no more 'harmful' than beer or wine- indeed less so, though it can be abused- just like beer or wine. There are drugs out there that ARE nasty, pernicious substances: methamphetamine, heroin, downers, and others(and as such should be outlawed because they harm the users) - but I don't think pot falls into that category. Just like beer or wine, used responsibly(i.e. if you have a job, don't go in stoned; or be driving)I don't see it as a big problem. I'd legalize it, or at least de-criminalize it--BUT you'd still have to be over 21 to use it, and it would still be "yo' ass" if you went to your job stoned.

More and more companies these days, particularly the 'big dogs'(with much of the pressure coming from the Insurance Companies) are drug-testing their prospective employees, and some even randomly test their existing employees(from which of course a positive test result would change your employment status from "existing employee"). I have a big problem with this in that the employer is infringing on what I choose to do before 8:30am and after 5pm- which is something they have no right to do(if so, let them PAY my ass after 5pm and up until 8:30am the next day!). It IS my responsibility to be "substance-free" for the time they're paying me to be there working, I am down with that. But when it starts getting into my own time, that's something else. (This is almost a blog in itself).


Anyway. One big thing, which I probably don't need to say. No drug makes you play better(if one existed, we'd all be addicts). The greats(Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix, Bill Evans et al)played as they did despite the junk in their systems. I myself have written and played a great deal of music both cold sober and stoned on my ass, and listening back found little appreciable difference(unless alcohol figured into it, in which case things got sloppy). As a matter of fact I've had some of my best playing nights with no more than 7-Up in my system, and the real work in composing music was done also cold sober- with a cup of coffee.


At 18(in 1972)I learned Transcendental Meditation, which was big then(the Maharishi had some fairly well-known clients, among them The Beatles and The Beach Boys). . You had to be pot-free for at least 2 weeks to do the course--which, as an 18-year-old, took several tries-and have your parents sign for you if under 21. My Dad signed, reluctantly, thinking it was some kind of -don't-know-what-but-it's-your-life-kid.

Actually it was a real good thing, and I've done it ever since--well, off and on. Currently in an 'on' phase. It doesn't turn you into a Swami- I'm just as neurotic as I ever was(though I worry much less about my neuroses)- but its practice does have a beneficial effect on one's health just as physical exercise. It helps. And the initial effect of it was(strangely enough) much like a pot high in that your senses were definitely heightened, but with more continuity than the pot experience.If I were to take any kind of anti-drug stance here, it wouldn't be because I think 'drugs are bad'. That's categorical, (usually)right-wing bullshit. Some drugs, like some booze, are relatively mild(again, used responsibly), others ARE nasty and should be outlawed. No, the only argument I'd have against drugs(i.e. the mild stuff)is that- whether it's through Meditation or Tai Chi or what have you-a much better goal is to be high rather than get high.


Happy stoner day.



* Oh yeah. What the hell is being celebrated here?! Or is that just a stoned thing....

Intro

Welcome to my blog. In here I'll have reviews of movies, books, CDs, whatnot, plus whatever occurs to me. Not sure what yet, but hopefully it'll be interesting. As Adam allegedly said to Eve, "stand back, honey- I'm not sure how big this thing's gonna get!"

Roger U. Roundly