the wit and wisdom of cyborg

if, during germany's invasion of the ussr, a german hung a sign from their window which said "support our troops; end the war," what would we make of that sign?

what is this thing where women are wearing long wool socks to protect their lower legs while also wearing short shorts or a mini skirt? aren't their thighs cold too?

at what point does something cease to be "old school," or begin to be "old school," for that matter? i have been told i am old school because i listen to a disc man. just wait until they see my model t ford!

i am tired of hearing about how school children throughout the world are being tested to see how they compete against each other. who gives a fuck if finnish children are better in science than our children! judging from our use of napalm and cluster bombs, we could do with a little less science. for that matter, fuck testing. these kids should be out exploring nature, learning who charlie parker was, and jerking off. (perhaps not in that order)

where have all the flowers gone? ok, so i'm tryin to get by with song titles. sue me.

just to set the record straight, not all white women have flat asses. i am deeply offended by this stereotype. furthermore, not all latinos have big asses. it just appears that way. i think it has something to do with the pants. perhaps g-d knew they would go on to master the salsa, so he wanted to give them the right equipment. remember; stereotypes kill. so stay in school, don't do drugs, and read my blog. church!

when was jesus supposed to come back again?

don't you think white people at least owe the native americans rhode island? an apology? somethin? dag!

laughter, leisure, and love; let's hear it for the l words. yeah, lesbians are cool too.

remember that guy in the blues song who is going to move to the outskirts of town? did he get a good deal on a house or something? i hope he has access to public transit, or at least a decent bike path. do they recycle on the outskirts? no wonder i am having a hard time sleeping.

the perfect night? listen to "boss tenor," see jason kidd get a triple double, watch "bananas," and have killer sex. oh yeah, and the war would end. i forgot; that's the perfect dream.

onward to the revolution! i'll be cheering on the rebels from the balcony.

peace.

thoughts

a young girl is walking down the hall way at brookline high. i notice she has on a "stop genocide in sudan" t shirt. i have yet to see anyone wearing a "stop genocide in iraq" t shirt. genocide, it seems, is something that germans did, or that africans currently do. we only make "mistakes," or have "misinformed leaders,' or "faulty intelligence." the war in iraq is a "diversion from the war on terror," not genocide. it is a "misuse of our tax dollars," not genocide.
tell that to the hundreds of thousands slaughtered by u.s. weapons, the millions made homeless. explain our hypocritical use of language to those who were bombed while lying ill in hospital beds, and to the children whose schools have been demolished. ask the residents of fallujah if they were the victims of a "mistake."
a "mistake" is adding 2 and 2 to get 5. plundering the planet is genocide.
well, i guess it doesn't matter. the t shirt wouldn't help anyway. it would probably only get the girl suspended. invariably, she would be made to feel like an outcast. as that great opponent of the bombing of serbia said, "you have the freedom of speech. now shut up!" in any case, what does a t shirt do? has that che t shirt made the world a better place, or that one with martin and malcolm shaking hands? has the number of young black men in prison decreased since that shirt appeared? have the poor been fed since that picture of huey sitting in a chair holding a staff was made into a shirt? capitalism will sell you anything, and by doing so, will kill the power of the image they are selling.
once, i was walking down the street in downtown boston, when i came to the army navy store. in the front window, they had that che t shirt! my g-d, it was our own cia which precipitated his demise, and now that same imperial monster is profiting off of his image! it was, and is, our government which has savagely strangled the cuban revolution since its inception. and now, this same merciless military machine presents us with a consumer good containing the image of the man who gave his life in an attempt to rid the world of u.s. imperialism. oh, the wonders of mindless capitalism.
also outside that store was a full body suit to "protect" us from a gas attack. something out of a satirical commentary of the 1950's, the outfit will surely help protect us against those bearded others who are out to destroy all that is beautiful and pure within our blessed nation.
che and gas masks, side by side.
the bottom line is profit, with ignorance a close second.
go fuck yourself america, with your atom bomb.

on gorillas and sacred cows

yesterday, an apology was issued by the brookline schools. for what, you ask? well, it seems that there was a picture in "equity" magazine that was offensive to some. "equity" magazine focuses on the diversity within the brookline schools. in the magazine, there was a picture of a young black boy playing with a gorilla. because of the racist historical representations of black people, this picture caused some consternation. my own view? i'm pretty evenly split between "hey, it's a kid playing with a toy," and "yo, they should have known to be more sensitive," with a slight tilt toward the former. (although, you should know, i'm not black) the school board has apologized for the picture, suspended publication of the newsletter, and revamped their review policies of material. my question is; if they were forced to apologize over this, when will they be forced to apologize for not writing stories on police brutality, poverty, war, health care, and other life and death issues for black and other oppressed youth. "equity" magazine? please.
by the way, i'm still waiting for someone to condemn muhammed ali for calling joe frazier a gorilla, and for taking a toy gorilla out of his pocket, calling it joe frazier, and saying "come on gorilla, we in manila!" ironically, ali often referred to frazier as an uncle tom. others have referred to frazier as "the white man's champion." am i missing something here?
ali, this latter day sacred cow, is, to me, one of the more overrated figures of our time. if he didn't look like he was doing a chubby checker impersonation, maybe people would be more critical toward him. he certainly deserves credit for refusing to fight in vietnam, but doesn't he also deserve blame for saying the most racist remarks every uttered by one black athlete to another?
it could be that white america actually liked how he ridiculed frazier. could it be that it was ali who was actually the "uncle tom?" what do you think of that, dave zirin? perhaps when you get done ball sucking mr. ali, you will take the time to understand him. ali was a man who bemoaned how dark skinned the women were in zaire, as he went looking for ass before his fight with foreman. he told his doctor, ferdie pacheco, that the women "needed some white in their blood." spoken like a real black power advocate. let's face it; to a large extent, ali was a fraud, a posturing, crap talking juvenile who wrote silly poetry and viciously berated his opponents. he had courage, and did have an understanding, however vague, of the evil inherent in our white power structure. but hell, he was no leader of men.
even today, he continues to demonstrate his mediocrity. just last year, he received a medal of honor from president bush. ali, the man of peace, the muslim, accepting awards while baghdad is burning? while the middle east is being murdered? don't tell me he doesn't know what he is doing either. for years, we have heard that his mind is fine. so, which one is it? max schmeling was pilloried for dining with hitler, and in general, not standing up to the nazis. why does ali get a free pass? what dangers would have befallen him if he refused the award? what would have happened to him if he used the platform of the white house to have someone speak for him about the horrors of war? has he thought of all those with similar names to his own who have been killed by the government that honored him?
ranting? perhaps. but i just thought i'd try to balance the slate a little. instead of ali, maybe we can take the time to learn a little more about fred hampton, robert williams, ella baker, ida b. wells, and so many others, black, white, latino, asian, and indigenous, who were not known to speak of black men as gorillas.
fuck sacred cows.

to be old, untalented, and white.

it was not sweet of lorraine to be so cole blooded, but some things need to be said, edward. the comment did lead to a lot of drama, that will likely play out in the near future. however, if a scene is what is needed for all of us to get our act together, that would not be a tragic circumstance. sometimes things need to be stated in a broadway, so that we are forced to face the sound of music. helen was reddy to face the music and dance, but she was in berlin, and couldn't understand the words. jesse owens her a translation, but when i questioned him on it, the jack off showed me his johnson and told me to shut up. what a dick! jim, i felt jeffries at last when i gott away from the dick. it is my white hope that someone will wipe that silly smile off his face and send his jack ass back to london in the winter, where he will need to build a fire to stay warm. the fang is, white boy, is that we all need to respect each other. come on, people now, smile on each other, every body come together, and start to love one another right now. we need to do this now, for i ain't got time to catch a fast train, something about my baby writing a letter. jackie, let this be a letter to my baby, for this love is real, but i can't get to my baby, for the t workers strike has me walking. it was a beautiful day, as i tip toed through the yellow tulips in my mellow way. my journey through mother earth to get to nobody but you, was a success. i did it just for you in the good old summertime. i have the will smith to travel on through g-d's green earth. i am shakur to take this tripp again to linda. i have the jones to call my uncle tom, but, i who have nothing, can not afford a cell phone. it's not unusual for me to be the only person, chuck, in a room without a cell. that makes me want to sprint to my nearest phone dealer, but i am not mobile enough for the journey, so i thought to take the t. i need to train with the bus. we have a bettis that i can lose 10 pounds before the month is over, it's over, it's over, i can't look back at life because i don't have the time to be a sport and illustrate all the details. here the news? there's good rockin tonight under a ray of brown light for all those like roy who are on bass. we need to get our act together, sister, and begin to make that al green. you are probably telling me to preach, brother, but you can put those thoughts out to pastor. you mosque remember to abide with me in separating church and state. for we are allah for one, and 3 for a quarter
and i am bin laden with guilt that things will go wrong. let's keep it up, and quench our desire. let's get higher and higher, before it all goes to pot.
let's hang in there.

hope is the thing with feathers

i need to mc where my hammer is. if i had one, i would hammer in the mourning just to wake alonzo up. maya, it is a beautiful day to take a walker. alice told me that taking a walk is the wright thing to do, and lena, i agree with her. alice was a woman, a lover, and a friend, but she was tired of all the doggin around from her boy danny, so she quit the relationship. that took a lot of wilson on her part, but she did it. and now, danny needs to cooke for himself, and his life is no longer gaye. danny was too busy thinking about his girlfriend's bebe coat, so he didn't have time for nothing else.
one knight, while eating a grape and feeling vine, i thought to myself; i am gladys to be alive! hello out there! there ain't no mountain hi enough to keep me away from good music, like the gordon jenkins composition "goodbye." how sweet it is to gleason to great music. what's going on my turn table next you ask? mercy mercy me, i'm not shore yet. just wait and sea, dave dinger, for you can a Ford to be patient. so relax under a braintree, and think of peace. and then, get off horace and make that silver you need to survive. your life can be filled with gloria, for you have everything to gayner and nothing to lose. donna says the summer winds may blow, and a hard rain may autumn in new york, but you need to mo vaughn, sarah. life can be ella on earth if you stress the negative. but, if you are positive, life can be a holiday that no lack of dollar billie's can make you forget, guy. yes, if you have the williams, life is filled with serenaty. men are from a bar in mars, women are from frankie avalon's version of venus, beyond the bay. watch yourself. carmen, you can do it.
this blog has gone to pot. it has bellied up, and i can no longer stomach its contents. please, make a footnote of my plea, or put my two pleas into your ipod and get a charge from my words. compute the results, and then, polish my apple, for i need a soothing presence that will present me with a positive experience. meanwhile, like a fox, michael thinks of the j's he will shoot in the future, long shots fired when there is warren the moon, and even though he will hold a sign which says "no blood for oilers," the war will go on and on. he will carvey out a niche for himself as an activist, and each dana, he will perservere in his efforts. and each saturday night live at the movies, we won't care what movies we see, for we will all act as drifters and go to movies no moore. we will be starrs, and we will all be edwinners, and johnny will no longer study war in school, for war is good for absolutely nothing. instead, he will play with his tolstoy's with the others leo's in his family, as they recollect the past under an august moon.
and the world will live as one.
imagine that? in this fight for decency on the planet earth, we will emerge from the ringo a starr. we will wynn, for no one can beatle us. we have heart, and we will fight to the end.
what the fuck am i talking about?
just trying to keep from thinking about being a citizen of our 21st century fascist state.
until next time.

goin up

the title comes from a freddie hubbard album. the year was 1960, the engineer, rudy van gelder, the label, blue note. hank mobley's tenor adds considerably to the affair, as it always did. a young mccoy tyner plays incredibly, as do paul chambers and philly joe. a rather unknown record, as they almost all are. but they are no less brilliant for being unrecognized. hank mobley would eventually die penniless in a one room flat in philadelphia. he was a giant of a sax player, his "soul station" one of the very greatest jazz recordings ever. he was an integral participant in the bands of art blakey, max roach, horace silver, and miles davis, and his string of albums on blue note, both as a leader and sideman from the mid 50's to the mid 60's represent a fantastic body of work. he deserves to be known. students should hear of his name, and the names of hundreds of others who contributed so much to our collective musical heritage. for once, maybe we can ignore the britney spears of the world, and properly present the plethora of comparatively unknown musical giants whose music yearns for a hearing. i won't hold my breath for this to occur.
i am reading a book by independent journalist dahr jamail, entitled dispatches from the green zone. his writings speak to the unmitigated war crime that is the u.s. occupation of iraq. it is a hard read. the words make clear the destruction of a people, the bombing of ambulances, the murdering of defenseless masses, a conquest created by cluster bombs. no one is off limits. children are targets, as are the elderly. in case you are wondering, the book was not written in german. this is our country, our weapons, our military, and it always has been. and worst of all, we don't acknowledge it. who reads the memoirs of the vietnamese anne frank? who cries for the koreans, murdered by the millions, bombarded by our bombs of nasty napalm ? every year, i notice all the school children forced to read wiesel's "night" in school. it's a fine book, an important book, but what about hersey's "hiroshima?" is that not too a fine book. of course, its words speak to horrors committed by our government. in case you are wondering, i have not met one student asked to read this book. no one has even heard of it. the same is true for trumbo's "johnny got his gun," a more relevant read than either of those other books. for while the holocaust and hiroshima were awful crimes, they are crimes of the past. meanwhile, war is a horror that is all too present, perhaps explaining why trumbo's book is unknown and untaught.
night is truth, but only a partial truth. it is the truth of the horrors done by others. hence, it is easy for us to condemn. we cry over the crimes of others, but those are easy tears to shed. they ask of us no criticism of our own crimes, no study of the brutalities of our own past and present.
the same with today. we often hear about the terrors taking place in tibet, or the devastation in darfur. clearly, horrendous things happen in these places, and should be condemned. but, where are the rallies for the serbians? who prays for the panamanians punished by our powerful military? who holds a vigil for a central america condemned to violence and poverty by the recent history of their right wing governments, who were brutally supported by the u.s. security state?
do you expect me to take those "free tibet" bumber stickers seriously while we are currently conquering the cradle of civilization? talk about a gutless action of political "progressivism."
hope, where are you? you are small, seemingly the size of a mustard sea.
and you are fading fast.

thoughts on becoming a stiff

i am sitting, waiting for my monday class to start, when a student comes up to me and sits down. she tells me "she will cry if she loses her cell phone." this same girl lost a sister last year. later, she eyes my cd player, and exclaims " it's been a long time since i've seen a disc man." she wonders out loud why i don't get an ipod, since they are so much "better." then, she laughs when i tell her i have to put my player on a flat surface to make sure it doesn't skip. it is an esa, a cheap make made by circuit city which cost me 12 bucks. "you should buy another one" she states, seemingly after giving up on me purchasing an ipod.
she is not a bad girl. she has a winning personality, a nice laugh, good vibes, and is fairly intelligent. she is simply a product of capitalist, consumer, culture. she has inculcated the idea that you should possess the new thing, and that the new thing is automatically better than that which came before it. this is a basic, foundational assumption that most people take for granted in our society. all i could do was smile, tell her she was young, and that when you get a little older, you find something you like and you stick with it. if something works for you, and you are comfortable with it, i stress, there is no need to change.
how can i speak of the intangibles? at this moment, i listen to coleman hawkins. his album "at ease," a beautiful collection of smokey ballads, is playing. as i play the disc, his smiling face looks out at me. on the back of the disc, i learn the album was recorded on january 29th, 1960, in englewood cliffs, new jersey, home to the great engineer rudy van gelder. i learn the tasty touch at the piano belongs to tommy flanagan. i can touch the disc, read the liner notes. i need to be gentle with the disc, to protect it to make sure it doesn't scratch. how to explain that i have hundreds of cd's, and with my father, thousands of albums, an even older, more obsolete item that would surely strike her as beyond weird. how to i put into words that i feel close to my collection, that it is a part of me, that i have spent hundreds of hours looking through record stores with my father, and thousands of hours listening? what would this mean to her? she would only find me lost, trapped in a previous generation, an oddity.
later that day, another girl has a cell phone in class that starts playing music. the singer informs us the girl he is speaking of can "shake it like a cyclone." i wonder out loud "like a cyclone?" this sets another girl off into an imitation of a clueless adult who doesn't understand the younger generation. "these hip hoppers today, and their music," she intones with mock seriousness. it is a funny moment, and i smile. and then, it hits me. i have become the adult, the stick figure adult who doesn't get it. the stiff. i don't mind this. it has to happen, for the young have their own music and style, and much of it will always seem like gibberish to me. i get nothing out of the commercial offerings the young think of as "their culture." i prefer buddy tate. but the young themselves i like. i don't need to like 50 cent to like them. they are not the music they listen to. they are people with dreams, hopes, thoughts, disparate personalities, creativity. they deserve love. they may find me corny, but to them, i am corny. the natural tendency is to resist the tag, but i embrace it. we can get along, and still listen to different music. i just wish they could get hip to the good stuff. but, where are they going to find it? if you are blind, it is not your fault if you can not see.
at work, a co-worker raves about the dancing of someone named chris brown. "you should have seen him. he glided across the stage on one foot!" as if this were new. i felt like screaming at this fool, punished by our culture to know nothing of the past, that this was not new. i yelled in my head, "have you heard of jackie wilson, mr. excitement? he always glided on one foot across a stage. once, he jumped off a flight of stairs and landed in a split! my dad saw him toss his microphone across the stage, do a split, regain his feet, and then catch the mic as it came back at him. do you know his name? this man could sing blues, opera, standards, r and b, even jolson songs for christ sake! if he was white, his birthday would probably be a national holiday."
you saw chris brown on one foot, huh? fuck you.

big bang, or rebecca kaim, she saw, she conquered

evo-lution, or bo makes a livia in south america. hugo a long way to find a blog that starts as badly as that. sometimes these lines must be too much for you to colbert, but there is more that i need to report. dave, i need to make this pitch to you so that we can stewart in a new era, for where there is a will, there is an oakland a, and any one canseco if they just try hard enough. brother, i don't mean to bash you over the head with this, but we can be giants among men. all we need is will power, lady. we need to kirby our enthusiasm, and we must close the union gap in our thoughts. then, the world can live as one, and we can john hands, and lennon on each other. for even while this mess of a world withers away from the steep bill we have placed upon it, we can hold out hope that love will conquer all.
what of my sex life, you ask? well, i tried to get a damon my matt, but she did not appreciate the value of my bob advances. instead she was as cold as ice, which t'd me off. she continued to rebuffy my body, which drove me coco. i tell you, i did not feel like a king, and even hearing the queen of the blues at a jukebox in a dinah did not make me feel better. al b. sure to remember how sad i felt. if i had a night club, i probably wood have nicked myself with it, but luckily, i was unarmed. frank, maybe i should have been nizer? but, how did i know she would drop a kirshbaum on me, and leave me with a gap that i can not fill? i suppose their are other girlz, but i would have to trainum to bob and weave, and mike, i am no weaver of drums. you would have to be punch drunk to think i could exert an influence over a woman under these circumstances. (note: all of these lines are strictly for the puns. puns he says! i am very happy with my love life)
back at work: again holding in a shit to write a shity blog. i think it's time for me to steal another rolle of toilet paper. that is always good times. i amos take a rolle every day, but security watches me like a foxx. i see redd, but say nothing, and though the policeman's face is vivica in my mind, i do not want to get played. if that was too direct for you, i am capable of producing more subtle writing, if that is what you prefer. i can write blogs which shoot out bolts of electracity. carmen see what i can do do do, for the mac has returned with a whopper of a blog that is fit for a king and his dairy queen, who reside in a white castle. yes, i will milk these lines for all they are butterworth whether you egg me on or not. i will do this nog because i want to, but because i have to. there is a lot of stuffing i need to say. though my words be filled with corn and cheese, they can sting with the power, tyrone, of a mac truck. you must remember that i am doing all this off the stove top of my head, and that i am trying to cranberry in as many lines as i cannes, for i am in a festive mood.
yes, i will keep it reel, and will keep on movie because i can not stand still, and come high nunez, i will win the oscar for best blog. it would be a travisty if i didn't.
gott to getz back to work
till next time.

pagan power

onward to christmas, that pagan party that packs a powerful punch. yes, we like to deny the pagan package that is christmas, but it is there nonetheless.
today is black friday. millions are buying millions of things for millions of dollars. they will walk miles in the malls of america, milling about in the markets, as they spend their money in more and more meaningless ways. yes, a dark day indeed.
i saw a fine movie entitled "51 birch street" today. i give it a tom thumbs up. go see it.
i must confess that i did shop around a little today. i know you think that is a miracle, but before smokey gets in your eyes, let me give you some info for your platter of thought. this is for only you, my dear reader, to read at this twilight time, and it is my prayer that you digest this food for thought wisely. i believe i can chew the fats with you without suffering a domino effect that will cause my checkered history to be made public. in any case, i did purchase some colgate toothpaste, a tooth brush, and some batteries. i confess to being turned on by the bonus bucks offered by cvs. alas, i didn't have the williams to refuse those bucks, leading to a nice net savings to my benefit. i suppose i will have to live with having spent money on buy nothing day. a crime, you cey, ron? i gather it is, but you moss remember that i do not live a brady bunch existence. it is hard for me john, to pass on a sayles, for i am an ordinary joe who does not have the power to pull strings. the sayle, i must admit, was music to my ears. perhaps if i was well off i would sing a different tune.
excuses, excuses. the fact is i broke the strike. alas, i am a scab. sorry, iww.
the world would have been so much different if i could have put up with my bad breath for another day.
i guess we will never know what might have bin. instead, i am laden with guilt, struggling to survive in this trash can of life. osama these days, perhaps it will get a little better, and we will make it, and live happily in milton, writing poems as we relax on the john.
dreams sustain me.
all power to the pagans.

the juniors were robbed

on wednesday, i saw the worst officiated game of my life. a plethora of pathetic calls rained down on the juniors in the powder puff game. i know the whole thing is silly, but my sense of fairness was violated, and i became vocal in my support for the juniors. they ended up losing in overtime, in a game that they dominated. in a way, it was a metaphor for the cultural amnesia within our society. each year, the game is fixed, with off sides, false starts, and other crazy calls made only against one side. and, each year, the juniors get excited, and play with all their passion, as if hard work and effort really mattered in our world. and each year, we listen to our leaders speak of foreign threats, and we think this time it is different. and we move to a new neighborhood, and get a new job, or begin/end a relationship, and we think this time fairness will factor in to the final result that is our lives. and each time, we get fucked again. and, within this twilight zone of life, next year, the juniors will once again try their best. they will not know what happened the previous year, or the year before that. they will think that if they try hard and do their best, they will be rewarded. for, they have been brainwashed to fight a battle they can not win. but, they, and we, don't know that. and we never seem to learn.
for what other game is there?
i give thanks that thanksgiving is over. i was able to avoid the apathy that arrives when i am in close proximity to those i hardly know. i spent the day with my parents, two people i actually love, and with my girlfriend, another person i love. it was a nice day. i am thankful to have them in my life. i am not thankful for what the natives went through, and i don't believe the conquest of colonialism is cause for celebration. yesterday, the destruction of the indigenous; today, the murdering of the middle east. in the big scheme of things, there just doesn't seem to be a whole lot to be thankful for.
but, i am very happy for the good that surrounds me.
i'm a pretty lucky guy.
now, lets see if we can get the bombs to stop falling.

powderpuff

today at brookline high school, the junior girls will play the senior girls in a game of "two hand touch" football. the games usually resemble guerilla warfare however, with female feminity replaced by ferocious fighting. i have just listened to kids chant "ohhhh-niiiine!" for close to an hour. they have been booty shaking like crazy and i feel like a patsy, for i de-clined to take part. perhaps the rear end times are near. butt, that is a conversation for another day.
the step team also performed. these are young girls who can clap their hands at an alarmingly fast rate. there was also break dancing (or is it brake?) i was left to wonder; doesn't anyone square dance anymore. that dance is as easy as pie, which i would eat in 3.14 seconds if one was available. steve, you may wonder what my angle is here, but there is a formula to my seven steps to success. i metco alot of people who didn't know what i was up to, who questioned my motives, but i've been brown for so long, because i am board with education. so, i came up with a new approach, which i cologne when i need to. you may perfume with anger toward me if you like, but i will teller you ed, this is how i feel. i was telling my taylor, whose name is james, how sweet it is to finally be myself. james is one of danitest people i know, and very strong willed. he wears the pants in his family, as he refuses to take in his wife's slacks. i remember herr always wearing sam's shorts. sam ran a club which was the best buy in town. sam was goody at what he did. he was always willing to lend a learned hand, and judging by his popularity, he helped many to realize their dreams. he had me over his holmes several times. once i went to his house for dinner with eddie, oliver, and wendell. it was a supreme meal, as sam held court on a variety of subjects, including the true size of milton berle's penis. (i've heard it was even bigger than dick's johnson) yes, sam was a diamond in the rough, and i neil down and pray that all will go well for him. for, sometimes people try to strongarm him, because he is a nice guy. nice guys are often finnish. that was probably the last thing you thought i would say.
david, there is no more water in the wells, so fetch me a pitcher of water for my padre. don't make me have to strike you. ohh g-d, what has become of this blog? why am i writing just to write? i can see clearly now that i have nothing to say, but yet, i don't wan't to step out and be gone while the rainn wilson is still falling. so, i nash my teeth like the johnny come lately i am, and perservere, pulling out more putrid puns which punish my pathetic following. dear reader, how do you mellish the courage to read these mindless meanderings, this mental masturbation?
i should be outside, taking a walk. i should be listening to music, or reading a book. at this very moment, i need to take a shit, and yet, i continue to put my finger to the keyboard, and type, hoping in vain that something will come of it. i raven, filling the screen with words that no one will lou reid. may be i was born free to be wild, but that is a side issue. otis is nonsense. i should be docked for sitting here. i should be under an oak tree, redding my made love got war, a solomon book which was quite popular at burke high school. bunny i should think of that now. my, how my ideas have negroned over these past few lines. martha, i am rooting for the detroit lines tomorrow, although it is likely the packer defense will allow them nowhere to run and nowhere to hyde. to be frankenstein, the packer defense is a monster, and .com what mae, it will likely help them arnett a victory. speaking of sports, the dodgers will likely attain more victorres now that they have a new manager. nomar losing seasons for them, that for shore, dinah. speaking of which, the iraqi dinah isn't worthy what it used to be, james. in the old days, iran to a dinar and would load up for a small sum. sum of these days, you'll know what i'm talking about.
for the moment, even i don't know what i'm talking about.
so i guess i'll stop.

thoughts

aretha franklin has told jet magazine that losing weight is "the hardest thing she has ever had to do." aretha, i can sum up what you need to do in five words: eat less and exercise more. aretha is a woman in her 60's. She was born into the segregated south, has surely had to bury her parents, and has had to carry on following the assassinations of Martin, Malcolm, Che Guevara, Fred Hampton, and others. Maybe I shouldn't have taken this quote literally. Although I guess asking a woman to lose two of her four breasts would be a traumatic experience.
Thanksgiving: A celebration of conquest. You can evade this fact if you prefer, but it is the fundamental foundation of the festivities. Most of the natives are no more, thanks to the caucasian conquerers of yesteryear. Thanks to these founding terrorists, we get to visit our families, slaughter millions of turkeys, and purchase gargantuan supplies of gas for our journeys. we top it all off by awakening absurdly early the following morning, to purchase putrid trinkets we are coerced into consuming. stores will open earlier than usual, and malls will be packed. millions upon millions of dollars will change hands, but the bombs will continue to pound people of far away lands, the air will continue to be polluted, and poverty will continue to punish many among us.
Others will go to movies, mediocre offerings mostly. They will spend 4 dollars for a bottle a water, and consider themselves contented. Still others will watch football, attempting to packer in as many games as they can. I'm not lions, for you are seen as a real patriots if you mix pigskin with pie on this day. this is a day that takes all my strength to bears. i wish i could fly like an eagles away from this celebration of civilization and conquest. like a byrd my leonard feathers would blow in the wind, yes, that is the answer my friend. i will turn turn turn away from this kind of drag known as thanksgiving. i will make a believer of all the daydreamers who envision an alternative. those who feel no need to ape their peers, and who are looking for the monkey to happiness, will find solace in our plans. by the way, i have a code and two pair of plans.
i tried to duck out of a dinner invitation, preferring to eat soup at a diner instead. i was so hungry i could have ate a horse, but the chicken the diner didn't have one available. i gave her a 15 percent tip. she was a nice chick who took my baloney without complaint, i tried to get her goat by acting like a pig, but she was one cool cat, who was unaffected by my animal like behavior. the eatery was "pleasant," whatever that means. all around where pictures of dead white people who were once famous. what is it about james dean? the guy made three movies! there is always a picture of mickey mantle, but not of willy mays or hank aaron. i wonder why, stevie? you would have to be blind not to know the reason. perhaps when we reach a higher ground, our racial superstitions will be no more, and a ray of hope will shine a new light on all of us.
i've got to hit the road, jack. i got a woman waiting for me, you hear what i say?
peace.

there i go again, about to take linda for a tripp again.

while she is not looking, i will get moorehead from monica, who blewinsky to town last week. as of late, i feel like i am staring in my own personal version of ground hog's day. i am that guy in the twilight zone who relives the murder trial, day after day. his lawyer, the jury, the judge, all change, but the eternal feeling of death, is constant. life rotates in 360 degree turns. or else, i am the store dummy in the twilight zone who in vain, searches for freedom, once even overextending her vacation in order to grasp for liberty. but, work predominates, and the endless eternity of alienating labor intrudes on all other possibilities. the issue of freedom denied is one that we all must face.
fine art adds the pepper to life that we all need. it changes the tenor of our lives, and drums up the vital excitement that we all need. believe me, i am not off third base, and if you cey that ron, you are hitting me with a lowell blow.
we are all that woman in the twilight zone (what is this with him and the twilight zone) on the operating table, trying to conform to the accepted standards of society. we go to social gatherings, and the first words out of our collective mouths question the other's money making capacities. "what do you do?" what did you study in college?" "oh yeah, what do you plan to do with that?" i plan to stop talking to you, you greedy, shallow, networking, prick! is there a concept more revolting than seeing the other as a stepping stone to money. curtis, there has to be something fuller than that. yet, we taylor our lives to such selfish sensibilities, and the art of life evaporates, leaving only the mundane of career and currency. sonny, i see redd when such meetings occur. donald was known to fly away like a byrd from such happenings, but how do we buck these doings. i suppose where there is a williams, there is a way, but to me, it seems that it is the same old birdsong and dance, and there is no michael ray richardson of hope to be found. perhaps my friend michael, who is a g-man, can get to the bottom of this.
but alas, i am suspect of authority figures, for in essence, they are essentially protectors of property and power. did they not murder the powerful message of fred hampton, spy on martin king, and help to drive abbie hoffman to madness? power has taken the best among us, and crippled us all, reducing what we could have been to crumbs. if the panthers had the bobby seale of approval from the powerful, what might they have become? if cuba had been allowed to develop as they would have liked, without facing the destructive disdain of the behemoth from north america, what might they have been? if malcolm x had not been picked off by malicious murderers moving hand in hand with the state security apparatus, what wonders might the black community, and hence, our nation, been capable of? if the iww not been wickedly wacked away at, what radical realities might they have realized within the american labor movement?
our system is marvelous at leaving us with questions left unanswered. quandries quickly quantify, and the man who cares for decency and justice finds himself swimming in a sea of state sanctioned violence. the bombs fall on others, but the air he breathes, the food he eats, and the water he drinks, will surely kill him too, in the end. his demise will be viewed as a personal tragedy, terrible, but nothing that will lead him toward a new social understanding of power relations and root causes. joe six pack will be busy with buying, worn out from work, after ass, and tied down with television. he may have a faint sense that all is not well, but will most likely blame the usual suspects, as the real purveyors of his misery remain out of his limited vision. yes, michael would rather blame the savage inequalities of his daily existence on evil others. he turns on talk radio, and listens to unlearned losers pontificate pointlessly about immigrants and terrorists and 9/11.
and he thinks these guys "tell it like it is."
and he goes to work, and his taxes pay for war, and he goes broke trying to keep his precious caucasion offspring away from public schools, and he wonders why he muddles along, meandering through the misery of modern life.
and slowly, but surely, this man murders the world.
and dies along with it.

hooray for the movement

when the heat comes on in my apartment, it sounds as if ali and frazier are duking it out in the walls. ahh, to sleep, perchance to dream, there's the rub. i had green eggs and hamlet for breakfast this morning with alonzo, a mann who is always the center of attention. he takes a lot of heat for his personality, but that is the price you pay. once, when he was homeless, i let him shaq up with me for few weeks. he used to o'neal down and pray through the hard times. i told him tan times if i told him once to read the king james version of the bible, but he preferred to listen to red kyner. he would go down by the riverside and hang out with chris childs, who was motherless and would often keepnews to himself. i told moses to go down there malone to retrieve them, and to karl me if he needed any help. but in order to maintain their solitude, they were willing to duke it out. i can't count how many arguments we had trying to get them to open up. they would always say we were off basie, which would throw us a curve. all in all however, we had a ball, except when the tv writers were on strike and we had to find something else to do on thursday nights. desi the strike may end soon. by the grace of god, i hope the strikers have the will to go on and stan getz (along with the other strikers) what he deserves.
sometimes, workers need to strike. i tried to get my co-workers to protest for nicer bathrooms, but i was told i was full of shit. it pissed me off that an old fart would say that. in fact, it made me want to take a voyage to uranus, but i didn't have enough gas. such things happen oil the time. i am tired of being put down, kay? for i am a starr after edwinning on the wheel of fortune. that was the 25th milestone of my life, and i am sending out an sos for all to hear. to be frank, i want you to know of me from hear to eternity, from montgomery, alabama to the clifts by the jordan river. from the farmers of peru to the artists of france, remember me. sing a song of praise for me, you miserable masses. light a candle, you pertinent people.
it is you, you leaders of tom tomorrow, who will create the conditions of change. i can cents it. you will march forward two by two, silently, without signs, singing voicelessly the songs left unspoken. and then, the guys will be all smileys and the dollars will reign down on us for the long uhaul, for we on the move from the john to the motherland of africa. we are tired of the fecal matter that is modern life. we are reddy, helen, for something new, and for something by blue mitchell. sing out your song, however ludacris the lyrics may be. for when you sing, life is jay-z, life taking candy from a bebe. yo that line was phat, baby. you've come along way howie, but you still have a long weigh to go. so, step onto the scale of life, which is beyond measure. remember to always do this, for an ounce of prevention is worth an exra pound of marie curie.
ohh, john q public, sing out, from the galileo's of newton, ma, to the virgil hill's of south dakota. then, you can wrest your head on my shoulder, and i will anka your wait until your number is called. for life is a bakery, a gaye place that cookes up goodies for us faster than we can eat them. you need a wilson to control your appetite, less you grow chubby eating the supremes cake, leading to a domino impact that will cause you to gain weight. so eat, and grow strong, but then stop, before you grow fat. if you find these thoughts off the waller, honey, than suckle on this: a rose by any other name is still a rose, so don't grow stern and make sure you ain't misbehavin. i'm not tryin to bug you, but i want to make sure you are not left out in the cole, flying aimlessly like some gnat. you moth remember to take care of business. i hope these words will a rouse you, charlie, and that you have understood the tenor of my remarks. if you can hear me, than stop acting like a monk and take the coltrane into the city. brush up on your math while you are at it, for while you can adderly, you can not subtract. so what, you say? well, poor math skills will leave you kind of blue if you are in a situation where you need them. your problems will multiply, and there will be divisions, so grab a pendas, and copy these words, for they will serve you well in life. but no, you would rather rest on a cot, caught in a trap, in a room without windows and a room without doors, that has bin lit on a fire, while you watch films from the cannes festival and fill your stomach with garbage.
so, duh, now what are you gonna do? i am not a big fanta of the approach you are taking right now. you have to mclean up your act, and get a new bag, jackie, or your life will be one long song of blue notes, lacking prestige. the days of weinstock and roses will pass you by, joe, and you will spend the rest of your days by the moon river, wasting time. wake up, and get a redding on where this is going, or else, everything will be staxed against you. sam and dave agree with me. it is up to you. you need to pickett up, before it is too late, or else you surely be a drifter for the rest of your days. moonglows will not shine down on you, and you will fill your time at casinos, getting mcphatter by the minute. johnny, if you make moore bad choices, i will be dunn with you. i will not let this ruin my homer life, and i am going to cry a riviera over you, but nevertheless, as long as their is a ray of hope, johnny, i will kneel down and pray that your bland existence will improve. i will not cry wolf, even when the masses are howlin with laughter at our travails. we will tread these muddy waters, and drink from the fountain of life, for we have pep, see, and though we are given the cola shoulder, we will get to the root beer of the problem and solve this endless equation.
for now, this square will attempt to eat a pie in 3.14 seconds, as this blog has come full circle. i could preston, but the site of a billy club slows my progress, and i retreat, ready to regress and retard my gaynors. i will survive, and though gloria may evade me, one of these summers, it will donna on my enemas that no amount of pubic humiliations will perturb me. i will keep swinging and remain a goodman and from glenn miller to glen miller and down the mountain side, my boys will be on the dan casey, helping me to solve the mysteries of life.
ed, i will wynn. oz see a bright future, a tomorrow without toms, a new day of strong, caring, compassionate beings.
i must be dreaming a dream fit for a king.
it fades to black.
the nightmare remains.

a benefit for imperial plunder

next week at madison garden will be the benefit to end all benefits. entitled "a tribute to imperial plunder" it will feature celine dion, lionel ritchie, the 6 blind boys of georgia, and the eight deaf senior citizens of north carolina. the money raised will go to oppressing the state of iraq, and to hasten imperial plunder throughout the world. the eight deaf senior citizens of north carolina are not to be missed. they will start their portion of the show with their compelling rendition of "what kind of fuel am i," a song that invariably gasses their audiences. from there, they will tackle the world war two era chestnut "oil be seeing you." they are a group filled with energy, and are extremely resourceful in their approaches to grabbing an audiences attention. they have performed throughout the world, stealing the hearts and souls of crowds wherever they go.
tickets are only 250 dollars each. for a contribution of 5,000 or more, you can have a picture sent to your door of an iraqi child murdered by a u.s. cluster bomb, signed by the child's mother. this tends to personalize the issue, for it is always good to know just how your money is being spent.
just came from an open house for the evening teaching job that i do. only five parents showed, which meant extra pastries and coffee for me. mr cao, (pronounced cow, a man who does not appreciate bull) is the math teacher for the program, i, the english teacher. i had cao as my teacher when i was in school. in any case, he is always telling me that i should get my teacher's certification. i am still working on a helen way to tell him to go fuck himself that won't hurt his feelings. it is hard enough for me to justify working in a school, much less to teach in one, but such thoughts would come off as gibberish, so they remain unspoken.
and so, my alienation eli grohs. eli alot, for the truth hurts, much moore, johnny, than you'll ever know. to know and not to do, is not to know. that line may have been the nader of this blog, but gleason ralph, not all the lines can be good. sometimes, even the 17 traditions can not help me get off the matt. at times, i can't get it into geary. at other times, sam, i lack a yoonity in my writing, so i chuck the results and turner to another activity. but, in this city, there are not many people i can turn to for council. johnny, most men i know will not give me a vote of confidence. from glen to glen and down the mountain side, they say "you go ordway and i'll go mine," but that doesn't help me. if i could only come ye back to when donna summer was hanging out with audrey meadows, and i didn't have a care package in the world. irish those days had never ended.
have been blue a lot lately. i can't shake the feeling that life is filled with meandering mediocrity, and even a meaningless use of alliteration can't make it better. perhaps i am too hyper, and i don't mean to bole you over with my state of mind, but i wish i could return to the salad days. if i could only meat someone who understood me better than mr. cao. mrs. bull is nice, but we don't have much in boston common, and she lives on park st, which is far away from me. i don't mean to copley a plea, but thems the facts. if i go to her neck of the nick woods, i could be mald in malden. i was a sub at malden high once, but i didn't have enough steak in the job to put up with my cheesy coworkers. quite honestly, i didn't relish working there, so i quite and used my spare time to ketchup on my reading, which didn't pass mustard with my parents. frenchie was proud of me however. he told me "you're hot, dogg. just keep doing what you are doing."
and so, here i am, bitching, complaining, barely breaking even, constantly confused. i work because i have to, no more, no less. i'm just trying to keep from going crazy, in a world of patsyies that is in decline. some country we are, a haggard land, where many are in dire need of cash, while other johnny come lately's swing dollyies on their arms, if you'll beg my parton. we need to make changes.
where to start?
what an obamanation it all seems to be. we have a big hillary to climb, especially for those who need macains to walk. i, for one, need to use the john. i don't mean to be rudy, but i am out of here in a new york minute.
bye.

ode (owed) to dorothy, and to the others

to dorothy, to tom dow, and the rest, i say thank you. dorothy, you have been there through the thick and thin, always commenting, always reading. there were times i thought i couldn't carey on with this blog, and then i drew strength from your words. you have seemingly read them all, from the defeatist diatribes to the puny puns. it is nice to feel a connection with another being, even if that connection is filtered through machines. i don't know who you are, my readers, but i feel closer to you than i do my neighbors, my coworkers, and certainly my government. thank you. seriously, i am sam bowied by your support. your comments make the day go a little faster, and help to bring a smile, however fleeting, to my lips. i hope my blogs do the same for you.

self portrait - because you didn't ask for it, i have decided to paint a portrait (or as steve lawrence would say, a portrate) of myself, with words as my colors and a computer screen as my canvas. to dorothy, and to all of you: the chairman revealed.
i was born by doc rivers, in a little tent city, and i have been running on this long road ever since. i was born on july 20th, 1979, which makes me 28 years old. i was born a jew, but will likely die an agnostic, although my fondness for woody allen and groucho marx does, at times, reach religious levels. i was born in dorchester, the biggest and most diverse neighborhood in boston, ma. as a jew on a largely irish block, i was occasionally accused of killing christ. luckily, no one ever discovered his body, which was hidden in my closet. happily for me, i went to public schools, which by the late 80's, the irish had fled, perhaps thinking they would turn black if they were forced to attend integrated schools. i had a grand time in school, and i quickly became a class clown. among other things, i ran into walls, threw books, clocks, trash cans, and plants out of windows, and threw computers, monitors, desks and once, a teacher's cart, down a flight of stairs. i was also known to yell fuck at the top of my lungs to break a silence, and would go around the class giving answers during quizzes. i was once suspended from school for saying "jesus was a carpenter." i would turn the lights off in a class, yell fuck, and throw books against the wall. i once did a show in the auditorium after school, in which i took my shirt off and jumped off the stage onto a table, which collapsed when i landed on it. i hurt my leg from this, but like a good soldier, i carried on and finished the show. i would also sing in school, usually melodramatic show tunes like "what kind of fool am i" or "who can i turn to". once, i held a note for 18 seconds, but was bummed about this, for i had bragged i could hold it for 20.
after barely surviving high school (i was 1st on a to be expelled list) at the john d o'bryant (formerly, boston technical high school) i went on to umass boston. here, i became a serious student. it made no sense to throw trash cans, seeing as i was now paying for my education. i took many an interesting class, although there was plenty of bullshit too. i ate a lot of free food, and got to look at a diverse section of the female portion of our populace. i met my best friend, pinko, a laid back californian, in a native american literature class. 3,000 miles separated us at birth, and in a school of 12,000, we met in a class of eight. fate? god? oh yeah, it seems silly to call that god while the bombs reign on iraqi children. i almost forgot. but still, a fortunate occurance. i also had classes with atwood, srikanth, hunt, van der meer, and other fine teachers.
eventually i would run into the mental masturbation that is grad school. i have yet to write my grad feces, and in my opinion, was fucked by a professor out of some credits, which finally made me realize that giving up two nights a week to listen to egg heads pontificate was a pointless waste of time.
my hobbies? leisure. beyond that, i have hundreds of jazz cd's, and have helped, since the mid 90's, to further build up my father's fantastic record collection, which surely reaches into the thousands. a certain artist has described me as a jazz genius, but picasso was known to exaggerate. i am a fairly avid reader, usually of left wing nonfiction from the likes of zinn, blum, parenti, and others. i like certain foreign film, documentaries, and indy film. for tv shows, i go with the old classics like i love lucy, the honeymooners, burns and allen, the twilight zone, you bet your life and sanford and son. for newer shows, i like seinfeld, the office, (both british and american) extras, and now, i am just getting to curb your enthusiasm, which i like so far.
i am very close to my parents, two free spirited, funny, intelligent people, who remain youthful spirits into their 60's . i love sports, especially the red sox and the new jersey nets. my favorite athletes are manny ramirez and jason kidd.
currently, i live in jamaica plain, a neighborhood in boston. i live with my girlfriend of many years who i love very much, and who helps to keep me centered to the extent that that is possible. she is an intelligent young woman with a lot of interests, and it has been my pleasure to see her pursue her ideas through the years. i hope i have helped her, as she has helped me.
i remain a cynic with a smile, down but not out. i think we live in a horrible country, but i give it credit for its library system. i think we need to stop dropping bombs on defenseless people. this thought puts me beyond the pale of political discourse in this country. i voted for nader twice, and plan on voting for a hopeless visionary with no chance of victory every four years until i die. i believe that prisons, corporations, money, racism, sexism, car culture, the meat industry, pesticides, animal testing, public schools, high stakes testing, low stakes testing, testing, private ownership of land, property, and resources are evil and driving this planet to a painful death. all of us, are guilty to some extent.
but, we have done some good. thank you: charlie parker, charlie mingus, charlie brown, john coltrane, john brown, jackie gleason, jackie wilson, emma goldman, eugene debs, hank mobley, malcolm x, abbie hoffman, lenny bruce, angela davis, howard zinn, ike quebec, gene ammons, richard wright, dalton trumbo, george carlin, richard pryor, frank sinatra, sonny stitt, bud powell, the marx brothers, and so many more. for the laughs, and the notes, and the words we needed to hear, thank you.
if you would like, you can reach me at fidel813@yahoo.com.
the chairman thanks you again.
peace.

tom, you are well en dow-ed, or, barry bondage vs. king george

i'm thinking of two men. one has lied about trying to bring freedom to far away lands. he has lied about certain countries having weapons of mass destruction. he has stood by while poor people have been ravaged by "natural disasters." he sat reading a book to children while certain tall buildings collapsed, then used this tragedy to blow up buildings in other countries in the name of defending america. in short, he has killed millions, and hurt/injured millions more with his policies. for this, he faces no penalties, no jail time. he is a free man.
the other man has hit more home runs than any one in baseball history. he is the best baseball player of the last 30 odd years. he may have lied about using steroids. for this, he is facing up to 30 years in jail. he has been attacked by the press, villified by the media. one reporter said he should be hung. fans have yelled for pitchers to throw at his head, to hit him in the knee, to end his career. these same fans have argued that none of this is motivated by racism, although the treatment echoes what hamerin hank went through in 1974 when he was chasing babe ruth. he too received death threats, threatening letters, boos from fans. now, hank is a hero, thirty odd years after the fact, as jesus, abe lincoln, jfk, martin malcolm and others are also heroes, after the fact.
one of these men are white, the other black. one is a president of the united states, and therefore, an automatic war criminal, as all our presidents have been. this president said yesterday was a sad day for baseball. this man who has given us 7 sad years of war and increased poverty and low paying jobs and on and on. this man sheds tears for baseball.
and the bombs continue to fall. and not one minute of jail time for the ultimate policy maker.
i'll say this for him: he hasn't taken steroids. plenty of cocaine and alcohol in his past, but no steroids it appears.
so, barry faces the possibility of a life in bondage. his u.s. bonds may lose their value, and he will not be able to run home to evade the enveloping persecution. they are busting his balls, and he is not able to strike back, and even though i am going to bat for him, it appears they will park his ass in jail. willie mays recall this story differently, but i wouldn't banks on it, ernie.
and so, i mourn, with a picture of bonds on my mickey mantle. if ever a manny has been villified, it is bonds. how lowell can this attack go? is there no cora for this disease of hate? i feel terrybull that they may drive this man into an early fran coma. you can dresser this up anyway you like, but the fax are the same. the machine is out to get him, and when your number is up, there is nothing left but to wait for the ordeal. i can't recall a time when so many phonies have been on the attack, ready to pounce, deleon. it makes me want to pack up and move to columbus, but de soto is in the shop and won't be ready for a couple of weeks. so, you amerigo your way, and i'll go mine, and let's get away from it all.
our students have just completed a retake of the mcas. we did what we could, short of giving them the answers, to help. invariably, they get nervous, they sweat, they curse their fate, they question their intelligence. and we administer the exam, year after year, for that is our job. we could be punished if we did not give it to them. we all know it's wrong, as many of us know the war is wrong, that poverty is wrong, that racism is wrong, as many in germany must have known that ovens of human flesh were wrong. so, we compromise. we point out mistakes they made, our fingers linger sliently over correct answers, hoping the students will catch our not so subtle hints. we used arched eye brows, glares, pats on the back. we tell them they are doing well, and give them extra long breaks to catch their collective breathes. we hope they pass. we mumble the "mcas sucks" but hand it out, read the instructions, give them pencils, hand out calculators. we play along.
for we need the money. the rent doesn't ask how you got the money. the electric company doesn't want to hear of your moral quandries, and the supermarket could care less about your alienated state. the oil company knows nothing about the wounds of your soul.
M-O-N-E-Y. That's all they want. That is what makes you a success to the mindless followers chasing the dream.
today, we had a lockdown drill. the principal came on the loudspeaker to tell us. we turned off the lights, put a red flag on the door, locked the door, turned off the lights (i would have lit a candle, but i didn't have one) and sat quietly in the back of the room, under the desks. we did everything but duck and cover. i, for one, am made serene by our doing this. it is good to know that if someone decides to fly a plane into our school, we will be safe, quietly content in the dark, silently sitting. for, you see, 9/11 changed everything. brookline high could be attacked at any moment. in the meanwhile, our military bombs schools in iraq. no amount of drills will save these children. duck and cover does them no good.
the kids came through during the drill. they sat quietly. i held in a shit, which was no fun. i so wanted to run out the room, drop my pants, and plant feces into the nearest john. but, i didn't. once again, i showed my maturity by not doing the one thing i most wanted to do. ohh, the wonders of being an adult.
until the next drill, we will try to stay safe. we will watch closely anyone with a beard who is mumbling into a cell phone. we must protect our institutions of learning from the bad ones. save the children. let them have a gaye childhood. so, we will keep drilling them, for you never know when tragedy may strike.
better safe than sorry. so, waive them flags and drop them bombs.
and keep wondering why they hate us.
some mystery, huh?

oscar, take a walk on the wilde side, and reid my blog

pinko, do you think you can get me a picture of dorian gray? he was a gay young man, always smiling and playing the clown. once, i saw him smoky a butt. it was a miracle, how cool he looked. it struck me how lucky i was to see him strike that pose. later, i went to the mall with paul in winston. you winston, you lose some, but that was a good day, a very fine day. other days are a pain in the nantucket nectar, but you can't let yourself get down. you have to snapple out of your funk, brothers, and let your voices be heard in parliament if needed. write to george clinton himself if that is what's called for. rick, it is the james old song and dance, so you have to stand reality on it's head. even if you have to marie tina to save the relationship, you should do it, for love mae come just once in your life, and you want to make sure you arnett the right woman. so, don't be lazy, fight with all your might. you may have to lay z out if he fucks with you, but that's ok, for you are from the hood, man, and no one fucks with your manhood. when all is said and done, remember the time you saw shelley manne play in the hood.
have been morbid lately. the usual, what does it all mean, everything is bullshit, the bad dominates the good. man, we have really done a number on mother earth, and on each other. it could be so very different. the planet was not meant to be a giant storage space for our shit. we are hopeless followers, in search of what the others have, who are in turn searching for the new thing that will make them happy. but the new thing turns out to be a variation of the same old bullshit, and does nothing to increase the happiness, or wisdom, or compassion on the earth. really, have we become a better species since the cell phone? the internet? cable tv? are we wiser now? smarter? more decent? what have been the real benefits of our false progress? have we come any closer to doing away with war, or ending racism? what can new toys do for us? we are better off jerking off than playing this endless game of constant consumerism. this silly, stupid race has no end point, no finish line. it is a run of infinite insanity, and there are no winners. we are all swimming in the shit that is modern existence. here i sit staring at a computer screen screaming silently at myself, while one or two readers consume my words. they also stare at a screen, perhaps looking for a quick fix from their job, or maybe even searching for meaning from a world that has ceased to offer any.
but what else am i (we) to do? i get up, i go to work, i come home, i curse our wars, go to the obligatory rally or political film, and begin the endless eternity all over again. yes, i care deeply for my family, for my girlfriend, for pinko. but what of the other 6 billion? what is my relationship to the species, and to our earth? often, i feel alone, utterly cut off from any genuine feeling of connectedness. civilization, i curse you. you are beyond cure. you have made crazy the best of us, and alienated the rest of us. you have drained life of its dynamics, leaving us drips to battle over for nourishment. you have starved our souls, and murdered our minds.
but, i'm not dead yet. you can't take my humor. i still have a semblance of individuality. the truth still matters to me.
i, and the people i love, are still alive.
and so, the battle continues. i'm prepared to get my ass kicked.
i'm not ready to surrender.
when all is said and done, i'd rather be myself.

if i had a nickel, son, for every time i saw cukoo's nest, buddy, i would be a rich manne

just trying to drum up a little excitement with my puns. ohh, why did the stan levey's not do a better job in new orleans? that situation made me want to swing at somebody. just seeing those devastated people, some only in their roy haynes underwear, made me want to beat a fast retreat from this country, but howard, where am i to go, for nowhere is there a swingin affair to be found, and while dexter may be calling to say i love you, it is no little stevie wonder that those words are at his fingertips. despite his encouraging words, i am uptight, and everything is knot all right. i feel tied up, trapped in a ball of confusion, and while esther reminded me that papa john was a rolleing stone, i want something else from my life. look, i need time to illustrate my thoughts so be a good sport and hear me out, here and now. don't step into your vandross and drive away. please, help me barry this heavy load. treat me pender, and get me some grass to calm my nerves. in the meanwhile, turn off the lights and light my fire, for i adoor you.
but no, you would rather chill with marilyn in monroe, but that is no self defense for your actions, robert. the fact is, you don't have the williams to norv turner your life around. listen, it is time to take chargers of your life, and even if it means moving to san diego, you should do it if it will help you. i am not lions to you, but detroit is no place to live. you need nerves of steelers to survive there, and chauncey's are, though you wear a piston jersey, my talking to you is like talking to a brick wallace. however, i still feel the need to tell you the truth, even though it may pierce your happiness. when you have heard me out, ben you can make up your mind. believe me, where you are living now is a rip off. take off that mask, and get down to the supreme task of realizing that you have nowhere to run in motown. life there is no longer a gaye existence, and it is a wonder you have lasted as long as you have. i know you were made to love your hometown, but your amor, cherie, is no more. slip away, by carter if you have to, but get away if you cannes. i am being reel with you, and pardon my french, but you need to be told that the edwin starrs are not going to fall on your land, harold, and the boulevard of your broken dreams will edwin out in the end, so be a quitter, take a pekar at the big picture, and grab the crumbs that remain, for you r going to have to do this soon we'll be without the moon, as warren iraq will destroy nature, sun. iran away from the truth once, but if you are going to be syrias, you have to realize that you will not live in a palace, stein. life is hard, deal with it. i'm not trying to take a poker at you, but you can't rummy away from reality. norman, you can't mailer life in, you've got to live it, for it is all we vonnegut, and come heller or high waters, john, hang in there and do your best. if you do, you will always be richard wright in my book, i don't give a flying chaucer what anyone says. for while you may be poe, buddy, you will be rich to me. so be swift, and grab what you can from life. explore the river jordan in june, find your own hemingway, and understand the importance of being ernest borgenine. marty, live life while you cannes, and you will always be an oscar winner in my book.

picture this: pinko is back, and cey what you will, but i find his pictures artestic

last night, i was watching something that goes by the name of the news. there was a segment on how "crime" is up at the boston public library. it turns out the "crime" is basically the homeless hanging out there because they have no other place to go. this is supposedly a crime. funny, but i thought the crime was that one of the richest cities in the world has thousands of homeless. i thought the crime was that people have no where else to go during the day than to sit in the library. for those of you who don't know, it is getting cold in boston. don't the homeless have the right to keep warm? don't the homeless have the right to use the public buildings of our city? is it now a crime to sit down in a chair of the local library and read. if a man had on a nice suit and a cell phone, and decided to spend the day sitting in the library, would this be a "crime?"
i visualize a different kind of news channel, one that emphasizes the crime of the high cost of living, the criminally high rents, the outrageous oil prices, the increasing cost of public transit, the lack of quality health care, foreclosures, failing public schools, illiteracy, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-immigrant bigotry, and alienating labor. one that exposes the lies of our imperial aggressions, the corruption of corporations, and the plethora of preventable diseases.
in this day and age, what constitutes a crime? what is the crime, the homeless, or the system that produces homelessness? i suppose it is asking a lot of a media owned by disney, or ge, to get to the root causes of oppression, but even the average american should be able to see that the crime has been committed against those who have become homeless, and not the other way around.
or am i giving him too much credit? for the last time i checked, the "average american" is still waiving the flag and saying the pledge and buying yellow ribbons and watching nascar and forming militias and watching mel gibson movies and blaming affirmative action and immigrants and some faceless enemy called "liberals" for all their troubles. many a crime has been committed against them as well, but through my anger, i often forget this. it seems that the world is one big rapist that is taking our innocence and creativity and identities from us, one by one. we need to fight off this attack, this "crime" against us all.
put that on your news, you corporate capitalist ball sucks.

back in stride again, trying to travel through the maze of beverly, ma.

i've gott soul, richard, and ever since i've been back in love again, i feel osborne again. i want to sing a love ballad. but alas, i have an elegy and can not stop sneezing. and then i think of our government, which said hi, coup in caracas, but hugo went his own way and overcame the imperial ambitions of the bush klan. it is getting harding to overthrow foreign leaders for the war machine, especially when they do not have a warren for their arrests. as an arthur, i had to get that off my chester. i need to speak my mind, for i have been a grover, i have walked alone, and i need to cher my thoughts with you on this sonny day. i make no bono's about it, but you moth remember this, cleveland is a fine city. give it a pekar if you are in the area, and enjoy the splendor this american city has to offer. from there, catch the shining starrs over manhattans, a view maid in heaven. if you see them, you will feel like an edwinner, and you will want to dance. people will stop and astaire, but that won't bother you, for there is no other place that you would rather act like a dapper dan in.
everything goes up except my salary (and my penis) so i end up eating celery, and getting threatening letters from salari. so larry, your hair looks really curly today. did you happen to catch "moe better blues" last night? i didn't, as i had a fever, so i listened to a peggy lee record and rested my eyes, which saw the gory of the coming of the moses virginia trial. as the old song goes, he was guilty, but i think he suffered from de jury discrimination. can a greek man get a fair trial in this country, even if his name is moses? this whole thing leaves me without pizza mind, and i can't move pasta it. guy told me to forget it, but i will not seles out. someone needs to remember the travesties of justice meted out against the little david's of the world by this behemoth of a system. for i have seen the graf's which show how the poor and non-white are tobacco railroaded, while whites rome free, jim. dick, take stockton in what i am ceying. don't ron away from the truth. gordy, howe many times can a mann turn his head from the byrds, pretending he can't sea? it sounds fishy to me that he can continue to do this. it is as clear as day. the bombs are falling, and if i were an mc, i would hammer out this message through the music of dylan. the people need to seeger what i am talking about. i would hit them over the head with protest music that would have the strength of a billie club, and even the strange fruits in the audience would know what i am talking about. don't ask me to explain where i am going with this, for i am a lover, man, and i don't have the time for you hatin on me. if you had them there eyes, you could see what i'm sayin. i don't mean to be stern, but honeysuckle rose thinks it is off the waller that i am still chewing the fats with you. she tells me i should give up, but i will continue to try to get you to walk the straight and navarro path. one day, she will trumpet my viewpoint.
my golson is for people to see things my way. to be frank, what else can i aim for, for i am on the crest of something important, and i only need to paste my thoughts together to come up with the solution. yes, i will sink my teeth into the facts, and come up with the bitter truths that will expose this rotten, smelly edifice for the disaster it is. the tooth hurts, but i need to pull this, for guess who else will. these eyes have seen the nasty underbelly of the system, and american woman, you are crazy if you think i am not going to share what i am on to. otherwise, i will feel that i am drowning on dry land, and i will never feel like a king that way. yes, it is a bland feeling to withould vital truths, one that makes me feel like a dick and has me singing the blues before long. at that point, only listening to ready for freddie seems to help, but that is only an escape, i can't keep flying away from my troubles like a donald byrd. rather, i need to plant a seed and act as the metaphorical art farmer i have become, and to continue to pepper my remarks with puns of w. e.b dubios merit. perhaps then i will carver a niche for myself that even george washington would be proud of. yes, i am the x factor, and i declare that my future is rosa. i am gonna parks myself right here, for we need optimism now more than evers. i am gonna rolle back my sleeves and get to work. we are amos there, and if we keep plugging away, we will make it. emma gonna strike goldman, if i just keep on doing what is wright, antoine. good deeds will nets all of us progress. i am not kidding, we can not pass on this opportunity to assist in the progress of our world.
but, they still have the bombs and the oil and the courts and the jails and the armies on their side, don't they? well, i have the recycling bins and i turn the light off when i leave the room and i freeze my balls off in the winter because i am in sympathy with the iraqi resistance and i am a cheap bastard, and i walk and take the bus because if you drive you are a defacto serial killer and and and and....
well, i haven't done much in the way of stoping the war or ending poverty and children are still dying from malaria and men still think if they have sex with young girls they won't get aids and global warming is still assaulting us all.
but they can't take my puns from me, can they? i've got my blog, and if i want to root for the nets in boston than by golly i can because this is america and we are all free to pursue meaningless habits and interests in this great land. we are free. this is america.
this is america, where i am free to drown in my own tears.
by george, come home america.

jo hires a new stafford

happiness is just a thing called joe. actually, a penis is just a thing called dick johnson. lou saw him in brockton, and stole a quick look his way. you may say i'm off bass, but i think someone should paul lou's ass off to jail and throw him in chambers of horror. that was horrorble. someone should just ring my bela lugosi and get this over with. lou go see who rang the bela because i am too busy dishing the dirt with jo stafford. i can't stafford to keep telling such bad puns. this must be punsishment for my reader(s?) perhaps i should switch to telling nelson riddles? to be frank, billy may tell them better than i do, but i need to do something to turn this around, before my readers fly away like byrds of a leonard feather. for i have tried to buckingham the system, but after a while, that became kind of a drag. carribean drag queen, are you sharing my same dream? well, you can jump in an ocean for all i care! sonny, i don't cher my dreams with anyone, for my dreams are fit for a king, and you are boycott between little rock and a hard place, if you think i will relinquish them.
question. was the song "going out of my head" a song about having an orgasm?
i saw richard pryor to writing this blog. he told me he had nixon his face. i told him of a face cream i thought wood help with his nicks, and that would get to the martha root of his problem. i told him he had to pick himself up off the matt and get it into geary, for he has no socialist alternative. he has got to chuck turner his life around yoon, before it is too late. i don't mean to be bold, bald, and bright, but a change has got to come. i wish someone would come on a my house, for i get lonely, and could use a helping hand, but i don't have a clooney as to who to invite. irish i had a buddy, a guy i could chill with. jewish that for me, don't you? butt, i would probably just make an ass out of myself, and rectum the whole thing, for when i colon a friend, they are never there for me. well, i can't look back, for bad mammories will get me nowhere. it's all ovaries now for me anyway. i haven't been on the ball for a long time. ever since malcolm was little, it seems i've only been half the man i used to bee. i just can't spell it out. perhaps if i new the country of origin that my people came from, i wouldn't feel like i was in the middle of a life sentence. ahh, this shit is off the question mark. no one will exclaim when they read it, or point to it as a vital contribution to american society. alas, i am a no name in the street, and as i turn bald, i realize i can't win. well, i need a shirt, so maybe i will go to tello's, but i have a mountain of blogs to richard wright. perhaps i will buy a bebe shirt, so i can step out with my bebe. steppin out with my bebe, i can't go wrong, because i'm reading richard wright. ohh, when will i wake up from this long dream? why must i always feel like an outsider even though i am a native son? sometimes, i just want to hide in giovanni's room, and escape from this disaster in the nikki of time. perhaps in june i will sail away to the river jordan, or jump over a cliff and put an end to the farce we know as existence. if i were only an invisible man. wells, you can't win them all, but it seems like you can lose most of them.
is there a ray allen of hope for me? shoot, i don't think so. what's the point, jason, for you know i am only kidding myself. it would take magic for me to alter the course of humankind. alas, i am not what the doctor j ordered, so i should just fly away like a larry bird up in the sky, but instead, i preston like the unknown beatle i am. i plead the 5th, for i can not speak to the sanity of what i am writing.
i only know what i know, the passing years will shoah, jew made my love so young, so new. and time after time, i tell myself that chaim so lucky to be loving you. g-d, i should go fly a kike and be done with this. perhaps greg will shoah me how to fly a kite at camp. if i concentrate hard enough, i should be able to learn. i don't know, why should i fly a kite while others fly planes that drop bombs on innocent poor brown people who happen to sit on vast oil reserves?
but we can't stop that, can we? stop, in the name of love, and make the supremes sacrifice. then you will be the four tops in my book and i will have the temptations to think of you always with edwin starrs in my eyes.
war, what is it good for?
absolutely nothing.

for ryan: ilene on me when you're not strong

when i tali up my puns, i find that i am satisfied with many of them. i often poritz through my material, looking for old gags that can be incorporated into my "work." abrams often tells me the mark of a good comic is to pekar at what other comedians are doing and to steal their lines. while i have nerves of steel, it hurts me in the pittsburgh of my stomach to rob from williams, or anyone else, for comedians are deacons of hope to the world, and i don't care what bob, elmo, or anyone else says, i will not use other people's material. i am my own mann, allison, and while it is a lonnergan road to travel alone, i would rather walk it than accompany kevin, for his johnson often protrudes, and i don't want my sun to be exposed to such filth. dogg, i am hounded by these thoughts, and while i maybelle recover from them, it's a big concern for me. joe, help me turner the page on my infatuation with patti. i need a patti on the back right now. perhaps john will go with me to denver and show me the elway to happiness, but alas, it is johnny most likely a connie job. he will not appear, and i will be stuck with panama francis, and while the duran ran ran the duran ran, that doesn't help me right now. jackie, please help me mclean up my act and lead me out of the woods, for i'm tired of this stitt. phil me up buttercup, don't break my heart, and return me to alto acres. i need to find the mark. where is he? where are you? where is the dream we started? i can't believe we've parted, where are you? moses he parted the sea, but i just want him out of my hair. i want to live in the hair and now. i just need to keep my head above water, and to lay off potato chips when i am down by the riverside. ahmet a nice guy dowd by the atlantic ocean. he sold me a billy club.
where have all the good lines gone? are they buried in grooveyards all over this land, harold? carl me up if you find them, and trumpet the results. as for me, i lena on the music of shirley scott, and often think of donating my organs. i guess i'll hang my tears out to dry humor.
that line was a cereal killer. you may find me corny, but i ain't no flake, and i got my shit in chex, and i'm on it like white on rice krispies, and i ain't gonna tom like jerry for none of you cats. i don't care if you think it's a mickey mouse issue, for i get a kix out of what i do, and i think i am outward bound to get some respect from you natural women out there. think of freedom, and say a little prayer for all those suffering from warwick, and who are diane needlessly. i would brake my bacharach to improve their ronnie lott, and to lead them to safety, for their pain is wide, and they have received no justice as of yet. they are hungry you see, and berry juice can only carry them so far. still, i halle their courage, for they carey a heavy load, and alba sure to acknowledge their fortitude. i am fortitude years old, if i'm a dorris day. g-d, i'm caught between a rock hudson and a hard place. what is there for me to do? should i call eric fromm baltimore? i will if i can russell up his phone number. i want to tell the story of how eric met an old man at the c, but i never get it wright, so perhaps i should just relax and listen to my mills brothers record. i just wish my blog would get a little ink in the papers, but they tell me it's a little spotty. if i didn't care, i wouldn't feel this way, but for now, i feel like i have reached helen earth.
im dyin here.
help

thoughts

i am in a bagel shop. in front of me is an old, crabby white woman who is explaining in minute detail how she wants her sandwich. you know the type, a grump living in the 19th century, a gone with the wind watching caricature of a bigoted old lady. after receiving her sandwich, and angering the middle aged latino/modern day slave making 7 bucks an hour who made it, she went to sit down. before eating, she reached into her pocket, and this 70 to 80ish woman pulled out an ipod! i'm 28, and i don't have an ipod. of course, i don't have a cell phone, a computer, or cable tv either, but still! wasn't it always the old who held on to what they knew, who knew nothing of the new, who resisted changes in technology, who were blissfully ignorant of modern trinkets? it seems that is changing, that the new dominates all that came before it, and forces itself into the lives of all of us. i would much prefer a world where the young explored the joy of listening to the radio and playing records than a world where the old master the use of transitory consumer goods in a useless attempt to stay vital and relevant. an old crank is an old crank, regardless of what perry como vocals arise from a portable record collection the size of a mustard sea. fuck modernity.

going to work, i'm on the bus. children going to school are also on the bus. young, mainly privileged white kids, most likely heading to boston latin school, the oldest and "best" public school in the city. chatter ensues, the mindless rantings of brainwashed adolescents in a decadent civilization, destined for destruction. a group of young black students cluster together, talking. they begin to mock the afro as a hairstyle. one says "hair looks better short" as if he were just back from a stint in the service. i was half expecting a rant against "hippies," a faceless group the young have come to blame for the problems of yesteryear. the afro...once, a statement against the beauty standards of the dominant structure of white supremacy. now, a punch line for the descendents of those same rebels, the children and gradchildren of angela, of assata, of huey, of mumia. "hair looks better short" say those who have already begun to die, and whose spiritual death will receive no notice. they are merely well adjusted. they are making it. they go to the latin school. they are role models. they are succeeding "by any means necessary."

later that day, another group of kids. these kids are "tough" kids who go to the curley middle school. they are anywhere from 11 to 14 years old, but they are already high on pot, and use the n-word liberally. many will likely not live long, victims of the poverty they are born in. they are the ones who did not make it into latin school, the ones who our society fears, and who, in turn, find their only joy in terrorizing society. there is no money for them. that money has been earmarked for military bases, imperial wars, and corporate contracts. meanwhile, our inner city schools crumble, poor children go cold because their families can't pay outrageous oil prices, and decent parks, libraries and community centers close due to lack of funding. for many of these children, their education will take place in prison, their juvenile lives a mental and physical jail.

at times, it really seems that there is no hope, and i mean none. N-O-N-E.
it's time for me to get back to work
until 2:35
peace.

mcas talk

today, a couple of the kids i work with had to take the english portion of the mcas, the standardized test the state of ma. gives that high school students need to pass in order to graduate. they were supposed to write a composition that asked them about a character they have read about in a book. nolan proceeded to invent a character. the character's name was nolan, and he was from outer space. somehow, the character ends up as a soldier fighting in the nazi army during world war two. the teacher told him he had to stop, for he would "fail" if he didn't answer the question the way he was supposed to.
i ask you, what kind of an education are we giving our youth when we are forced, as teachers, to discourage them from using their creativity and their imagination? isn't the ability to create from scratch an idea that has not existed until the moment you created it, more relevant than the ability to regurgitate information that already exists?
and then, it hits you. the system doesn't want young people to think, to imagine, to be creative, to form new things which did not exist before they sat down and made them up. they want us to think that what already exists is good enough, that all we need to do is use what is there, to memorize that which is, to become what others have already became.
nolan would have failed. nolan would have been wrong. he wanted to do it his own way. he didn't want to do what they were asking. therefore, nolan must be an idiot, a crazy, a loser. why would anyone want to do something unique? why would anyone want to create a character? creativity is for others. we can pay 10 dollars for a movie to see others be creative. we can spend 15 dollars on a cd to hear others be creative. we can go to a concert, to a museum, to an art show, to see and hear and watch the creativity of others. but no, we must not be creative in this moment, the only moment that exists. we must not live a life of agency, of choice, of creativity.
we must get an education. we must pass high school.
we must slowly die.