papers

the students are writing papers. they don't want to, but then, who does? 14 year olds sit in world history, "learning" of cracker conquerors from days past. they peer edit, make note cards, now done on the computer and referred to as noodle bibs, or some such nonsense. the teacher speaks of pizarro, de soto, columbus. they were free spirits, adventurers, explorers. there is no indignation, no passion, no sense that injustices were done. clean, smooth...progress.

ah yes, the papers. you see, the students have no choice. they've just got to go along. the student as tom. deadlines, guidelines, 12 font, doubled spaced, title page, footnotes, bibliography, at least 6 pages, at least 5 sources. wikipedia not acceptable.

just what the world needs...more 14 year olds writing about julius ceasar and the protestant reformation. this will surely save all of us. of course, their options were limited. they couldn't write about massacres, genocide, holocausts. such words are not used in freshman world history. no, that would be political. that would mean someone risking their teaching job. that would mean...something. but then, what they are taught means something too. sadly.

and me? i just sit there, pretending to help a student who cares even less about this bullshit than i do. hey, i've found a job, and short of being sexually hairy-assed, i plan on keeping it.

so, the papers will be written. what other choice do the students have? they will obey, or else. for, if they don't, they will "fail for the quarter." i would rather fail for the dime myself. and, if they fail for the quarter, they may fail for the year, or at the very least, hurt their gpa, which in turn may hurt their chances of getting into a "good" college. never mind that they are 14. it's never too soon to break them in, to teach them what really matters, which is the ability to do things that make no sense.

and one day in the future, these flustered, frustrated children can become the lording adults of tomorrow. they too will be able to realize the dream of forcing bullshit on others.

you know, the students don't have to write these papers. the sun will rise and set either way. they could say fuck it. what if they did? what would the teacher do? would he fail all of them? could he?

we'll never know, because the papers will be written.

and the bombs will be dropped.

the same children may do both.

they are certainly being trained well for the murders of tomorrow.

it's been a minute

in fact, it's been several months. i've grown since then. either that, or it's these platform shoes i'm wearing. there have been a plethora of terrorist scares since i last wrote. luckily, no one has arrested me yet for being an armchair radical. i court arrest. once, i took it all the way to the supreme court arrest, where they arrested my development, but let me go free. sadly, all my neighbors in the development had to serve long sentences. i got off with a few paragraphs, though they did insist on a 12 font. at least they allowed recycled paper.

so, i've returned. millions have waited, wondering. sadly, they haven't been waiting for me. truthfully, one person did confess to missing my blog, but was shortly after seen muttering anarchist slogans in the nude. what has compelled me to write again, you ask? simply, a gun to my head. no matter that it is a water pistol. frankly, i became bored with the status quo. i needed moore in my life. unfortunately, archie moore has been dead for many years.

so, where do i go from here? well, i go back to what i do best. once i figure out what that is, i'll let you know. of course, it's not like i haven't been working on anything. over the last few months, i've been laying down the vocal parts for my debut album, "pissing on the ceiling." i expect it will take six years to complete, what with the guitar overdubs and the interweaving of 46 different bass lines. i'd like people to think that this is a great album. so, each album will come with 100 dollars worth of food stamps. hopefully, it will meet with their food stamp of approval. mark hasn't eaton a while, so i'll maybe send him the first copy.

as for me, it's been much of the same...work, ball, jazz, somber thoughts of the destruction of the universe, not necessarily in that order. perhaps all is lost. if so, couldn't the pop music be a little better? at least when they were telling us to duck and cover, sinatra was swinging his ass off.

speaking of music, it seems bill evans refused to play in the soviet union as an act of protest against the soviet invasion of afghanistan. funny, but i seem to recall that he was plenty busy while the u.s. destroyed vietnam. selective compassion doesn't impress me. though, i must say, evans was a great piano player. well, those of us on the left want our artists to be political. sadly, this often backfires!

think i might take the summer off again. or, i might work. one or the other. you know, there really aren't a lot of choices.

but, it would be nice to sleep in, move slow, catch some free jazz, play with my penis, not necessarily in that order.

crouching tiger, hidden penis

when the tiger crouched from us, we couldn't see what he, and his hammond b-3 "organ" was up to. sadly, he chose to stand erect, and the situation came to a head. tiger woods has become tiger's wood, and we have been forced to hear enough "hole in one" gags to make us gag. if you are thinking something dirty because i used the word gag, perhaps your name is steve swallow, which would be off bass, but on point. so, be on guard, on point, and play point guard, or pass on the entire game. and remember to hate the game and not the player. or the playa, for that matter. and yet, shoot is still just shit with two o's. peter gunn could shoot. he once shot someone in his shelly manne hole. what if shelly's last name was ass? then, his club would have been called shelly's asshole, which would be ok, but you can't put it on the sign. tits and ass, yeah, but you can't say it.

i'd be lion if i said that the tiger story is over. sadly, we are not out of the woods yet. so, keep your head up for the next break in the story. until it reaches it's climax, this story may fuck with our lives for sometime.

if only dick johnson had been caught having an affair.

2010

26 years later, and war is still peace. well, all is well that's orwell.

besides kool and the gang, who exactly wants to celebrate, and what is worth celebrating? well, many of us are still alive. i suppose that's good.

the mavs are 22 and 9. kidd, nearing his 37th birthday, has yet to win a title. now, if someone could kidnap the celtics and lakers, we might be on to something.

2010...how about 2020? we could make eye jokes. i can see that this will be a perfect year...shit like that. and i think it's by 2040 that whites will no longer be a majority in the states. i hope i feel like celebrating at 60. but then, blacks were 90 percent of south africa during apartheid. you can have your population percentages, it seems that the power percentages are the thing. if we can get non-whites to have a majority of the power, things may swing a little, though the big o doesn't give us much to be hopeful about in that regard. maybe if its class based, or feminist, or something. hey, we got to hope, right?

there is evo and hugo and fidel still writes an article now and then. there are movements from the grass roots, though i have always preferred an ass roots movement. come to think of it, an ass roots bowel movement is really where it's at.

so, today, many will travel from miles around to hit up old beantown. they will wear silly hats and blow horns. they will listen to mediocre singers and wear the red white and blue. they will forget their troubles and blindly hope for a better tomorrow. they will lie to themselves, but what the fuck else is there?

i am getting slightly wasted before i hit the local bar. cheaper that way. funny thing is, i prefer the taste of chocolate milk and apple cider.

happy jew year.

two rights don't make a left

yeah man, now we are bombing yemen. but, you see, it's to save lives. you know, bombs for peace. will that help the dozens of dead? only if they think positive thoughts!

saturday, we killed eight school children in afghanistan. i think we were after some taliban, or terrorist, or something. but it was children who took the bomb. i suppose this is the price we pay for fighting a "just war," but it isn't we who pay the price, is it? it's not obama's kids who get killed when one of these bombs are dropped. but, what makes these children any less valuable than his own? didn't they too have parents who loved them? will they cry less, knowing the man calling the shots in the country that killed them is more liberal than the man he replaced? perhaps they will not shrug their shoulders and say, "hey, at least he's a lot better than bush." just as the vietnamese didn't give thanks that they weren't being murdered by the nazis.

we have a funny sense of progress in this country. progress means a guy can speak in complete sentences, have a half way decent looking wife, know his jazz and blues. it's a progress of style, of form, a shadow progress, a superficial progress, a surface progress. for, you see, we can all make it now. what if the odds are a million to one? what if making it means having to be as big an asshole as the cats you will replace? people of different shades have always made it, and still millions starve, countries are bombed, the earth is polluted. a token is only good for a ride on a subway, and now, they want tickets, so tokens don't even work for that anymore.

what is going on in pakistan, afghanistan, yemen, and iraq is not progress. the dismantling of democracy in honduras is not progress. a watered down gift to the insurance industry, euphemistically referred to as health care reform, is not progress. yes we can has quickly turned to no we can't.

america, land of surface and superficiality.

and murder.

a tale of two crazies

two crazy things happened yesterday. well, more than two crazy things, but these are two that i am at least partially aware of. one, hit close to home, or rather, work. the other was on tv. one group of crazies were an ostracized number of fascist zealots, standing directly across from the high school that i work at. members of the phelps family, founders of the godhatesfags website, decided to protest outside of my workplace because our school has a gay straight alliance, and because the town i work in has a liberal reputation, whatever that means. and so they came. they were guarded by police officers stealing money from the town, making at least 30 bucks an hour to stand by and defend fascists. of course, as bad as these fascists are, they have not killed as many people as the various police agencies of this great nation. and speaking of white supremacists, it was not some kansas crazies who shouted "white power" after the massacre at attica in 1971. it was not those who tell us that aids is god's gift to gays who murdered fred hampton in his bed, bashed heads in the american south, or brutalized rodney king. something to think about.

in any case, there they were. they had children with them. one looked about 5 years old. a woman with them would occasionally burst into song. i yelled "you have good pipes. i would like to bust them!" then, i started making requests. hey, if they are gonna sing, why can't i ask for a few favorites? i asked for over the rainbow, but sadly, the tune was not in the real books they had brought with them, fully aware that such a request may well be made. a male member wanted to do it in c, but the back up singers balked. i then asked for skylark. i was met with silence. meanwhile, hundreds of students stood gazing at them, as if they were animals at the zoo. if only they were. i would have preferred a mass beat down, but cops and teachers kept that out of the realm of possibility. earlier in the day, i had casually stated in the teacher's lounge that i would personally like to see them get the crap kicked out of them. i was met with silence. "then, what is to stop them from beating up some gay guy?" well, what is to stop them from doing that anyway? why is it only the assholes that get to kick ass? nonviolence as an excuse for non action doesn't impress me.

eventually, they were led away. now, as bad as they were, they operated exclusively in the realm of words and ideas, twisted though they are. they flew no b-52's over our school, dropped no napalm on us, raided no one's houses. they were acknowledged as the fools they are, for they make the mistake of being honest. they put their bigotry out there, and therefore, their lunacy is apparent. and we rightly reject them.

later in the day, a well spoken man appeared on the television. the fascists hate this man, though he has killed many more muslims than they have. he is the physical embodiment of multiculturalism. he has succeeeded. millions respect him. no one mocks him. he doesn't speak from a pen, and is not made to feel that he is a pitiful fool. and yet, this same men, surrounded by young men who will likely kill many more people than the wackos i had protested earlier in the day, told us that he is sending 30,000 more soldiers to afghanistan. his words were not hateful, at least not personally so. he didn't once say that "god hates fags," though the bombs that will be dropped as a direct result of his decision will likely kill a number of gay people. he spoke in the liberal, sophisticated, wordly manner that excuses all manner of brutal acts. he wore a suit, was clean shaven, he looked calm. it is the facade of decency that makes it work. the appropriate language soothes us, as we proceed to destroy.

the first group of crazies command no army. they have no bombs, no marines. they have invaded no countries, stolen no resources. and yet, it is they that we fear. meanwhile, under the superficial cover of freedom and democracy, well dressed men mouthing pious platitudes, are destroying the earth and its people. one of those well dressed men spoke to us last night. he is supposedly a liberal.

and it is this liberal, and others of his ilk, operating within the american power structure, that will continue to kill with deeds far more abhorrent than even the most hateful signs held by the outcasts among us.

and we will watch the respectable ones, and vote for them. we will celebrate their victories, and fight their wars.

as we protest the crazies for their words, we will do our terrible deeds.

at least we will have nice suits and fine vocabularies.

giving observations, not thanks

took an evening walk through the empty streets this thanksgiving. saw a sign outside the fire department building, showing a child with a toy. the poster read "toys for tots." toys for tots is a toy give away done by the marines. hopefully, it will be better than their original production, "bombs for babies." the facade of compassion and decency in this culture is almost as hateful as the brutality of our actions. almost. when you think of all the children our military has harmed, something like toys for tots becomes a sickening thing. it is not enough for us to kill. we must also pretend to be peaceful.

the hypocrisy is ongoing. we celebrate family on this day as we destroy families throughout the world. it would shock if it wasn't so mundane. we are such hypocrites that our hypocrisy has taken on a normality. honesty is a foreign trait. it would blind us if we came face to face with it. if someone asked the firemen, many of whom ride their trucks with a plethora of american flags, what do they make of an institution which kills children sponsoring a toy drive, they would look at this person as if he had three heads. or, they would tell him off. for, truth is no where to be found. it is buried deep, hidden within our degraded culture, but we are too busy digging for oil to notice. for, there are stars to be danced with, and songs to be sung, so simon says. it is bleak. we have pushed out the sun with lightbulbs, gigi gryce with lady gaga, home cooked meals with burger king. the bombs are dropped, as we debate the merits of adam lambert. yes, he kissed a man on stage. that's neither here nor there. but, what was he doing on tv in the first place? and, while children starve, what does it say about us that we spend precious time speaking of such matters?

surely, they will talk of us years from now. and oh, how vulgar the conversation will be.

just a walk down quiet streets. as the alcoholic once said, you can rum but you can't hide, so you might as well gin and bear it. it's better than singing the scotch blues.

toys for tots, sponsored by the marines. the walk for hunger, sponsored by raytheon.

war is peace

ignorance is strength

obama is bush

2009 is 1984

well, i give thanks that i am 5 again.



but there is noise in my head.