Downhill Part 1

So I started writing this blog when I lost my last job. I felt like the world was closing in and at my age I was all done. Well surprise surprise, unemployment kicked in, I had money for my bills, people sent me job leads, I didn't get sick but even if I did government mandated COBRA insurance was there for me, I was still worried about the future, but hey, doesn't everybody worry about the future, then I got a new job... So where is the downhill part? That wasn't downhill. That was a rough patch. Right? But?... while doing this blog and watching the news and talking to all of you and just getting my citizen on it became pretty clear to me that everyone thought we, and by "we" I mean America, were in trouble.

Oh no! The Taliban army has taken Disneyland

It seems that everyone across the entire political spectrum seems to think so. The current budget head butting just magnified the feeling. It was time for me to spring into action. Shaking the lethargy that had fallen upon me after an over dose of spring I decided to finally root out the destroyers of America. I knew this was going to be a difficult task. I didn't want to be like the pun-dents that cast wildly aggressive and only quasi accurate accusations at each other. No red state/ blue state war for this blogger. I didn't want to be a sissy either though. After all, someone was destroying America and it has to stop. So no Sunday service and breakfast today. Last week was sentimentality, the week before was both religious manipulation and saccharin secular up lift. My new hard investigative self decided to cancel todays original clip "Wing beneath my Wings" by Bette Midler ( sorry Bette Midler fans) followed by a danceable gospel tune from the 50's ( sorry danceable gospel fans) in favor of facing Sunday with...

This is not about fried turkey.

So we were having fried turkey last night. Mmmm fried Turkey! Everyone was having a good time. The food was great. People were laughing, telling jokes, telling stories, arguing, just doing what friends do, when K suggested that her friend, and everyone for that matter, wants to find true love. If you want to ruin a party...



Now I'm not  big on discussing gender anything. A known misanthrope with obvious emotional issues I'm the last one to comment on the nature of love. For example I picked the Snow White clip mainly because the whole concept it portrays is destructive to the future happiness of every young girl that sees it. There are many number  other examples ...perhaps Cinderella hooker from "Pretty Woman" or maybe converting to slutdom from the end of "Grease". I might be a misogynist, but I wouldn't feed my kids, if I ever stopped  hating long enough to have some, fairy tale nonsense or destructive stereotypes if I could help it. But that's Hollywood love. It doesn't really answer the question. Doesn't everyone long for true love?

Well there's a problem here. What is "True Love"? If  by "True Love" you mean everyone has a soul mate that is born to be your other half you have already lost me, and since all you need is one person to say no to end the concept of "everyone agrees with this", this case is closed. That was easy except...

What if "True Love" isn't something you have, but something you get too? I posted this morning about pay-offs in life. What if true love is the end of your journey? Not that fade to black moment from the movies when your  journey together would normally start? That's the moment you're all-in, head over heels, can't bare to be apart, in love, right? That's true love, right?How about 2, 3, 5 years along, still young, still getting you some 5 times a week; that's true love, right? But then come kids, and mortgages, and aging parents, and accidents, and illness, and money issues, and money woes, and desire, and neglect and they're all in the future and they're all going to always be there, but they're not simple to deal with and they don't always have good outcomes. Whoa!

I don't know how love starts for women, hell I don't know how love starts for men, but since I am a man I can venture a guess for my peeps. You ladies aren't going to like it, but for most of us it starts as a carnival ride.

"Look Ma, no hands"

I am not proud of the fact that for most of my gender when we see a woman we are attracted to we are hardwired to want to climb on and go for a spin. Crude I know, but also true. Now how do you separate that feeling, which starts in your drawers but ends in your head, from your emotions, which start in your head and stay there. The answer is you can't if you are a well raised man, but it is no problem if you are a sociopath. Too many man are sociopaths; and I'm sorry ladies but I have no tips on how to avoid them other than take your time, make sure you are not the only one he treats well, and erase that prince charming bull from your DVD player right now. We aren't talking about sociopaths though we are talking about "True Love". Most men are not sociopaths, but they do have a case of the munchies for lady parts every bit as strong as a stoner has for oreos. Again crude but mostly true. Boy are we crude.

Fat, Dumb, and Dead

It's been a tough week for unions. It's been a tough week for teachers. It's been a tough week for working people. I'd like to just tee off on the usual suspects. Limbaugh, Fox News, Republicans, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, but that's a waste of time. Those people are dancing on the coffin of working people, but they never claimed for one second that they would do otherwise. In New Orleans they dance at funerals. It's called the second line, and it's made up of the folks following the hired band (1st line) on the march to and from the cemetery.




No, I never do things the easy way, so lets talk about the guy in the coffin. Since before there was a labor movement in this country the powerful have been trying to destroy the labor movement. Why did you think the work was done?

• Gorged on the American dream you still flew when Reagan crushed the air traffic controllers ( a EAW friend of mine told me he wasn't ruining his vacation over an illegal strike.(Of coarse if the right has it's way they will all be illegal). 
• When the trucking industry turned almost everyone that was an employee into an independent contractor, who could only sell his services to one place, you circled the wagons to make sure the work that was slipping away went to your people. Keep the death grip on a style long after you've been p'wned is a bad idea.
• You made a big deal about buying American, but the Sonys and Motorolas in your play room (another friend) didn't matter as long as you had a Ford truck with the right bumper sticker.
• When we'd go to a job that should have paid prevailing wage (something we didn't know and our company wouldn't tell), you didn't try to get us prevailing wage. You tried to kick us out and called us scab. I never once in 35 years disrespected a union line. I never once in 35 years ever felt like anything but an enemy at a union site.
• At the convention halls in Boston a bunch of you were drunk back in the 80's when I delivered there. Every time for years and years.
• At Javits in NYC I used to have to pay a "toll" to get unloaded.
• When I worked election sites in Boston in the early 2000's the Carpenters Union would show up, but not know the names of the people whose signs they were holding. 

I never meet Investment bankers. Anything they have done, and they have done plenty, is remote. There is no personal connection there. There is a difference between the anger you feel for an abstract on the television and the anger you feel for a person in front of you extorting money or threatening your safety. Personal is always more powerful. You hear me teachers?

I just took a walk.

I was going to do a post today about the way the Republican members of congress are trying to trample women's reproductive rights. I was going to weave that theme in with a few pop culture highlights, then finish the whole thing with the mashed potato and green bean recipes I didn't give you with yesterdays post, hopefully making the whole thing fun instead of offensive. That's what I was going to do. I'm going to tell you about my walk instead.

I didn't sleep well last night. A friend of mine needed me to go with him to housing court today, but I have an appointment this morning. This is probably his last hurrah before the banks take his house. He was obviously distraught, raging at the injustice of it all, the failures of the government, how his enemies will gloat, how he moved furniture for years to buy that house, how they're stealing his labor. It was paranoid, it was true, it was spin, it was about mistakes in life made and not made. It was me with a little bad luck.

Yeah, it's all about me. So after a night of tossing and turning I just had to get out of here. Out my front door and into the sunshine. The sky is really blue today and you can feel a hint of spring in the air. The sidewalks are finally clear after months of unshoveled snow. As I head toward the T station everything is still quiet.  The yoga studio is closed, so is the tattoo parlor, someone is inside the liquor store but that's closed too. The rent-a-car lot has a couple of young hispanic kids wiping down the cars,  a woman in a green blazer is visible at the computer at the front desk. I wave to the kids, they don't wave back. Both are wearing earbuds; I'm not even on their radar.

I keep walking. There's a small gang at the White Hen. They're drinking cheap coffee, smoking cheap cigarettes, and filing in and out for scratch tickets as they convert their 2 dollar winnings into another roll of the dice. I buy a paper, it's early but there are only 4 on the stack. If I come back tonight there will still be 2, soon they won't carry the paper at all. No need for it around here.  I pass the bus stop, but it's empty. School is closed for the February break. People schedule trips to Disney land, you can't have school interfere with that even though the kids have already missed almost 2 weeks worth of classes because of snow. What hardship could going late in the summer cause? A kid losing out on a summer job?Hundreds of people trying to learn in unair-conditioned 80 degree buildings?

I skip "Mark's Deli". It's a nifty little slice of the 50's buried directly under the railroad tracks. Unfortunately I've got some pounds to shed by summer so the siren call of cheese omelet with a side of ham has to be resisted. I pop into "Sweet Things" instead for a coffee. Will power is required here too, there's a Mom/daughter team baking away, but I don't like sweets in the morning the way I like eggs. Both women are cheerful and welcoming but the place isn't exactly mobbed. Maybe later in the morning, right now I'm the only foot traffic and the car people are at Dunkin Donuts.

We are so stupid.

1. Us banks created credit default swaps, took our toxic mortgages, diced them up, inserted them into the credit default swaps, and voila! no risk ever again! Wee! it's like we can just print money.
2. Uh oh! Barney Frank + Acorn are crashing the economy (B***S**T but its better than banks being blamed right?).
3. Well the default swaps are still triple A rated investments Mr Public Pension administrator. They can't (cough, cough) fail.
4. Crap they failed anyway. Sorry. Lucky for us banks we are too big to fail.
5. Bush and Obama take turns giving us lots of your money, bonus time!
6. Oops! the states have a hugh deficit. Their pension funds are under water. Somebody sold them toxic investments. Someone will have to take a hit.
7. Time to stop those damn unions from wrecking the economy (not the police or fire fighters, Republicans (and bankers), like the police and firefighters).
8. Look at those greedy teachers and clerks having a job action. Why do they hate America?
9. I love me my gold bathroom fixtures.
10. It really is like we can just print money. I'm glad workers hate teachers and clerks more than they hate us. That way we won't get any flak when we foreclose on their houses.
11. If we are lucky we might actually be the lien holders. We merged so many times that finding the paper work is kind of a bother.
12. Somebody should have gone to jail for this. I hope those Acorn people are finally brought to justice.
13. I really do love me my gold bathroom fixtures.
14. Maybe we can get them to privatize social security. I'd love me a solid gold bathtub.

Make the Call, I know you'll make the call.

You: You're walking down the street. You're coming from your work. You're coming from the gym. You're coming from your tea-party rally. You're in a hurry. You're late for dinner. You're meeting the hot trainer for drinks. You're late to your anti-socialism bible group. Hustle and bustle, it's the American way. "Gotta move, got places to be, better hurry, gonna cut through the ally,  can't delay....

Him: Face down. It's dark but there's blood. He's not moving. His breathing sounds funny.

You: Damn, the hot trainer better understand. You pull out your cell. You dial 911.

You: Then you call your, significant other, trainer, bible group. You're going to be late. You have to wait for the police and the ambulance. You don't move him, somewhere you heard not to move people, so you cover him with your jacket.

Him: Not moving.

You: The police arrive with the paramedics. You wait. They're busy. Time passes. You know the trainer went home. The police want a statement. Finally they let you go. You socialized medicine loving Euro-trash loser! What?

Praise be the soup!

That stone soup friday was pretty good, so think how great soup can be if you use organic ingredients instead of stones? It doesn't have to be hard either. Today's Sunday. Time to visit friends, time to indulge our spiritual yearnings, ( I said yearnings, I said it. Just because I'm an agnostic doesn't I don't want to believe in a higher power. It just means I don't want the higher power to be some creepy omnipotent kid like from Twilight Zone or Star Trek. Creepy kids are as believable as all our other myths.) and time to go to Al's Diner and get a rocking breakfast. Mmmmm... Al's. Steak and cheese omelet, beans and jumbo english muffin please. Oh yeah, hold the creepy kid...

If we're talking omnipotent beings we should take a more traditional approach. Now get up, clap your hands and embrace the fantasy. Hey, you never know! (Agnostics, having it both ways for 2000 years!)


It's a party for Jesus! Throw in a steak and cheese omelet and you can feel the spirit take you. You can also feel your Sunday slipping away as you try to shoehorn all the stuff you didn't do during the week into one day.(Didn't we used to have 2 day weekends?) Breakfast was the big score today so dinner is going to be simple and easy.

This is Where it Started.

People seem wonder how things got so out of control. Why is everyone so mean and short sighted all of a sudden? Maybe you just spent $100 (Really?) so your girl could get roses at her work("in your face co-workers')  place for Valentines Day ("Someone loves me spinster bitches. I got mine. Woohoo!" Girly fist pump!) Maybe you just came from a parent teacher meeting where a solemn pack of education experts (looking for easy solutions) just told you that your rambunctious 10 year old needs to be loaded up with adderall so he can learn like the other drugged up zombies in his class. Maybe you got laid off, crunched the numbers, and realized that there are worse things than being dead. Maybe you actually tried those recipes I gave you last week and you are going to need to scrape down the kitchen, just as soon as the smoke alarm stops going off (you could try muffling it with a chocolate covered pillow case.) Maybe... well it does seem like there is something wrong, even corrupt about our society. You know why? Because working hard and playing fair is for chumps, and it started right here.



The moment in popular culture when "The ends justify the means" went mainstream. If you are under 35 you don't even know how corrupt this is. The Duke would have never done this. Gary Cooper, not a chance! You young'uns don't even know how shocking this was at the time. It was a genuine surprise. Hell this film didn't come out until 1981. Maybe the 70's, disco, cocaine, and Nixon/Ford/Carter were enough to turn America's soul sour but suddenly the easy way was the smart way.

It's like Obama and Bonher. Got to do that federal budget or the whole country shuts down in March. What to cut? What to cut?...hmmmm.

If you are a democrat and push comes to shove you can certainly count on kicking your base in the teeth,  after all where are they going to go?

If you are a republican and push comes to shove you can certainly count on kicking your base in the teeth, after all where are they going to go?

What a pair. Speaking of pears we never cooked our pears from Monday.

                                             (Luigi Chiesa)

Freedom Ain't Free

It's Sunday morning. For us agnostic dudes it's just another day. For the rest of you a little spiritual up-lift is in order. After all the bad guy in Egypt is stepping down and change is going to come to a region of the world where poverty and superstition have ruled to many peoples' daily life. But freedom isn't free. Mubarak is out, but for now Suleiman is in. When the head of the secret police, and the military, are running a country the work has just started.

"How can I be a free man when all around me I see people in chains."

I couldn't remember who originally made that quote, but there it is.  Today we are going secular so all the folks that need a little succor this morning can move forward. The hard work always starts now!



Just yogurt and toast this morning. Sorry no food porn.

Valentines Week/Gender Roles/Man Crying

Nothing says love like an artificially generated marketing ploy designed specifically to sell product. That doesn't mean it didn't turn into a good idea. The folks in the boardroom force feed us stuff all the time. You can try rejecting it out of hand. Do that often enough and you end up so far outside the mainstream of society that you end up fat and alone pouring out sorry rants into your computer. Don't be that person.  The trick is to turn things on their head. Sure it is a fake holiday, sure it is going to cost you money, but you can definitely deny the big 3 (card, flower, chocolate industries) their profits.

Valentines day is also a girl holiday. I know, I know,  I'm a misogynist, but that doesn't change the fact that woman love Valentines day for its' spirit while men only like it because they can get laid if they preform the right set of tricks. Mmmmm laid! So, if we are going to subvert our corporate masters we must find a whole knew approach to Valentines day. We have a week so let's get started.

No, no, no, no! Getting woman to be more like men, or men to be more like women is not the answer. We want to enjoy Valentines day, not give it a feminist makeover. Feminism gave women a lot of deserved opportunity, it also gave women double the responsibilities, it also had unfortunate consequences. For example, in post feminist society there is Oprah, Dr Phil, getting in touch with your feelings, getting in touch with your inner child  and this...



The dreaded scourge of man crying. Now this post isn't to pick on Boehner. Man Crying has over-run our society as we all get in touch with our feelings. (Thank you sixties counter-culture as well)





I was going to show you Clinton crying too, but all the video I could find was of fake crying which is probably worse. That means man crying has so engrained it self in our society that there are times when not crying is going to cost you points.

Super Bowl's coming.

Superbowl is coming tomorrow. Isn't it time to declare the Monday after a national holiday? We are a particularly argumentative people, wearing faux rebel gear, wrapped in the flag, and ready to exercise out 2nd amendment rights on anyone that disagrees with us, I say any event that we can all agree on should become some sort of national celebration. We need to wallow in our common ground. Besides do we really benefit from 60 or 70 million hung-over people showing up for work on Monday? I didn't think so.

Now being the chippy jack-offs that we are ( that's us boys) you know you can't possibly enjoy the Super Bowl unless you have a team to root for. That's tough for this Super Bowl. Pittsburgh is the 24th biggest television market in the country and I think they only have etch-a-sketch in Green Bay. Looks like we are going to have to trump up some false rage to get this party started on the right foot (yes ladies, I know you don't have to hate on someone to watch a game, that's why you are sometimes better than us, but that's also  why you are going to be in the kitchen most of the evening chatting and waiting for the commercials to come on).

Now it is just my opinion, but Pittsburgh has Rothlesburger which gives them a head start on the villein thing. (you might want to watch this ladies and join the hate; blame the victim much?)

In fact the Steelers pretty much win this one outright, but in the interest of being fair and balanced we will at least try to hate on the Packers.

Now a lot of you young-ins are thinking..."What's the big deal?" but I promise you that every old school coach in this country, and is there any other kind of coach?, was throwing things at the television when this self-involved nitwit started celebrating before he was in the end zone. Belichek and Ryan in the same room would both be throwing the same things at the screen. Why?

That's why. You should be impressed with yourself after you do something great, not before. We aren't going to get into a meta discussion on why we are going to hell in a hand basket, at least not today, so the sexual predator beats the happy buffoon for todays target. I say "Go Packers!"

We already whipped up some wings this week. Good Super Bowl food. If it's going to be a party though we need something more for the buffet. Start with chips, spring for the good stuff (my personal favorite is salt and pepper). Add some shrimp, a couple of dips, a vegetable plate (blanch the broccoli), it's all good, but you want something a little more substantial. How about this?

Revolting

I guess this is revolution post part two. Revolutions, only sometimes a good thing, never a safe thing, always a deadly thing. What's up with the camel?



Of coarse you can't have a revolution without Rebels. In other places, other countries, a rebel is just a regular person who has had enough and is willing to risk everything to make things better. Even then a lot of times they don't get " better" they just get "different". Better is always out there, sometimes unrecognizable, sometimes out of reach, but worth fighting for. Different is just another word for change, and change happens all the time whether we like or not. So rebellion is not a narcissistic hissy fit by a bunch of spoiled arrested adolescence, it's unpredictable and dangerous. Unless you grab it and make it a lifestyle.



I wonder if the founding fathers had a cool hand shake and a hip attitude? Those darn 50's, quiet, safe, repressive, how could you not rebel? and if everyone was into it how could corporations not co-op the images for a profit. Of coarse there was real stuff to rage against. Civil rights  and the Vietnam war were an actual call to arms... so why do we just remember this guy?



Pretty cool huh? Rebellion as pick-up method. Nothing says Fight the Power like ruining a dinner party to impress the hot girl! Putz! Of coarse once you start making something into a commodity you might as go all in.

SnowDay!

Here in New England the 24 hour news cycle always yields to a snowstorm. Brave news corespondents tape at the very edge of snow filled streets braving the cold and spray from the plows. People hunker down in their homes surrounded by there loved ones, or the loaves of bread and gallons of milk they obtained in in a Lord of The Flies pre-storm frenzy. I mock the prepared at my own Karmic risk from the safety of my den. Do not do the same in a crowded Market Basket when a snow emergancy has been declared. It's snowy and cold in February in New England. How would we manage if a highly paid television personality didn't tell us what to do?

Well I didn't watch the news this morning, so I looked out the window. February, check! Snowy, check! Cold check! I'd guess I'd better dress warmly if I have to go out, stay off the roads, and stay in if possible. Oh yeah, and run to the supermarket to get as much bread and milk as I can possibly stuff into a shopping cart. Wait, the folks that do watch the news have already cleaned everything from the shelves. I guess I'll have to hit my own pantry to survive.

Chowder, now that's what I'm talking about! A cold winter's day screams Chowder! Sadly, I do not have any clams about so we have to go with plan B. Yep, there is a one pound block of haddock in the freezer. What else do I have? Hmmm? Got an onion, no salt pork or bacon (Mmmmmm bacon) but I do have a fatty piece of ham, 3 potatoes, salt, pepper, butter (Mmmm butter) a celery stalk, flour and some Half and half. We're good to go. (If I didn't have fish a can or package of corn would do. Remember, we're cooking, not following recipes.)

Tea Party

OK, so here I am, an old lefty (let's check, single payer health care, yes, gun control, yes, pro choice, yes, anti-death penalty, yes, wow, I'm so far left I'm right) and I'm pretty sure that this is a traveling clown show.

Yep, Ringling Brothers has a winner here, except, except...

I was working on a cold adult beverage at Archies Friday night. Local bar, easy walk from the house. Only not this week. As I've noted in my profile I'm a short fat dude, not so fat that I won't walk anywhere, but fat enough that snow banks that force me to climb them to avoid speeding cars are a hardship. Ditto getting half way up them only to have them collapse, sucking my boots to a slushy underworld and leaving me stranded like some overturned beetle between a 62 Nash Rambler and the curb. Everywhere snowbanks, no-where sidewalks.

Anyway I was enjoying a frosty reward after a unpleasantly hazardous trek, soaking up the ambiance that only cheap beer and heaping nacho platters can create, but I couldn't get Archie chattering about the NFL, hockey, or the Celts. Seems that he lost  most of his business to the snowstorm last week and all he wanted to talk about was the town government.

On the day of the storm  the weather was impassible which you have to roll with here in the great white north, strike one. Only on the day after the storm the downtown streets and lots were still not plowed, strike two. On the second day after the storm they plowed, they plowed the cars parked in the downtown streets and lots into their spaces so they couldn't move, strike 3. Finally on the third day after the storm the city closed off downtown to bring in front end loaders and dump-trucks to pick up the snow. Nothing makes for better business than a police cruiser blocking both ends of the street all day, strike 4. Wait a minute, strike 4? Four days, no business, yeah strike 4.

Archie doesn't know politics, but he does know that he lost 4 days of business last week because the government didn't come through for him when he needed them to. On last Thursday the guy in the triconer hat screaming about the government maybe looked like a clown; what does he look like on Monday?