Friday, January 26, 2007

View from the Bubble

The view from President Bush’s bubble is always rosy. Wonderful things are happening all across our great land. The economy is growing and robust, unemployment is low and incomes are rising; our millionaires are happy, and our billionaires think everything is just ducky; ok, we’ve hit a speed bump in Iraq, but if we remain resolved and inject 20,000 more soldiers, we can right the situation and turn Iraq into a flower of Democracy, a beacon of hope in the Middle East; we’ve got a minor addiction to fossil fuel, but hey, with “clean” coal and a few new nuclear power plants, everything will be hunky-dory; health care is a teeny problem that can be easily solved by taking away people’s health insurance rather than making health care more accessible; the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina fixed itself with the help of a few charity concerts and a heckuva job by FEMA; our budget deficit can be erased with another round of tax “relief” for the wealthy.

Is this a great country or what? Because we love our freedom we don’t feel any need to invade weaker countries and threaten those that disagree with us. We’re way cool, and people around the globe know it. The bright side with W is far better than Daddy Bush’s thousand-points-of-light. Americans got it going on, dude. We’re kings of the scrap heap and sitting atop the dung hill. The rest of the world wishes it were in our sneakers, camped in our Lay-Z-Boy with a six-pack of Bud and a giant bag of Doritos, watching American Idol.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the State of the Union speech, though from reading press reports and pundit comments, I gather Bush tried to dampen his mad-dog instincts and project a reasonable image. The White House staff seems to have made Bush aware that the Democrats won the mid-term elections and control both houses of Congress. Further, Bush finally accepts that Nancy Pelosi is a woman and a Democrat. Yes, I think we can confidently say that Bush is beginning to hit his stride as our chief executive. In two years he’ll be trained and ready to take on the job of Mayor of Crawford, Texas. The folks in Crawford are already preparing for the return of their favorite transplant, planning an inaugural parade down Main Street. Bush will ride a white stallion and fire his six-shooter into the air when he arrives at the courthouse for the swearing in. It’s going to be a big deal, that’s for certain. The Saudi royal family has already promised to foot the bill for the whole shebang. Ambassadors from Togo and Poland – staunch US allies in the Iraq conflict – have rsvp’d. The Comfort Inn down the street from the courthouse is sold out. The Rocking Horse Saloon out on the Lone Star Parkway is swapping its old Sony for a 50” plasma screen.

Only seven hundred and twenty-five days to wait.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Tale of the Smart Globe

My son has a “Smart Globe.” It’s an interactive globe filled with something like a million facts. Press “Angola,” and the smart Globe will reel off facts like a madman in church on Sunday. Fact after fact: “Uganda’s population declined 66% last year.” The thing is, you can plug the Globe in and download facts from the Internet, new, updated facts all the time. Touch Washington D.C. in the present day: “The majority of the American public finally woke up and realized that George W. Bush is an idiot who high-jacked the United States from its citizens. Almost all its citizens except those fortunate enough to have a trust fund, a big-ass inheritance, or a smart-fucking stockbroker. Most of us have sucked dry tit since Bush and his Junta overtook the country, way back when, in quieter times, before the Dogs of War went chasing innocent Iraqi’s. But that’s an oil story, baby, big business babble, share prices and Wall Street mega-deals, instant wealth, almost out of thin air, future predictions based on insider-information, a rigged game. But hey, why are you complainin’? it’s a level playing field, Bubba, the same for everyone regardless of race or creed or Heaven Forbid, sexual orientation. Dog-eat-dog-eat-chicken-eat snapper-eat-octopus-eat-lion-eat-polar bear-eat my obnoxious next door neighbor…The American food-chain. Big got bigger got biggest, until they had all the power in their hands and called all the shots. It was relatively easy. Citizens were stressed out, arguing about abortion, about gun-control, about “reverse discrimination,” and suddenly, before they really knew what had happened, they looked around and their entire town was changed; gone was anything organic -- good-bye street corner market and the little farm where they sold fresh peaches in the summer. Lemon orchards, avocados, walnuts. Quieter times and all that shit…

My son plays with his Smart Globe by the hour. At his age, all I cared about was sports. He’s way smarter than I was at that age. His access to information has increased, shit, math isn’t my gig, 500%? It’s a big number, that’s for sure. It’s just astonishing, mind-blowing, to sit back and think about all the technological gadgets that have appeared in your lifetime. The information, entertainment, news, advertisements, images, sounds, and speed with which it all comes, is mind-boggling.

But anyway, I drift off-point like a tired working stiff on Friday night. Nancy Pelosi, history-making Nancy Pelosi, she of the San Francisco values, whatever the fuck that means, talking with that blonde dingbat, Diane Sawyer, indescribably obnoxious, vacuous, someone you’d abandon all pretense of sensitive manliness and just smack upside the head. “Shut the fuck up, bitch. Your voice makes my head ache. One more word out of you and I’ll fling you off that balcony. That’s fifteen stories, in case you’ve lost count. One-Five. A long fast drop, first step on your journey to becoming a full-blown self-hating cockroach. Or something like that.”

Ye gads, my mind has gone off the rails…violence…eerie thoughts…why is that vicious dog creeping up behind me…who are these people and why are they x-raying my mail…It’s like being scrutinized and ignored in the same instant. Modern life. We all scurry like rats in the proverbial maze. Some run faster, some slower, and some croak by the roadside. Is it really hard and cut and dried like that? Fuck, where was I, and why? I started off with a point, a single point of light, and now it has gone up in crimson smoke.

Ah yes, Nancy Pelosi, talking with Diane…about the War in Iraq, which, if you start with that term, “war,” dooms the dialogue to spin down BS Avenue because, well, the US never declared “War” on Iraq, did it? An inconvenient fact, perhaps, but a fact nonetheless. We Invaded, Poland and Togo at our side, and then we Occupied. And all kind of terrible shit happened, so many young dead, so many more maimed, and for what? The Bush people said it was WMD and Al Qaeda and bringing the light of Democracy to the besieged and despot-ridden Middle East. When none of these justifications held water or made sense, this president -- who slavishly clings to his illusions, like a drowning man to a ball of twine offered from the deck of a cruise ship -- and his brain trust simply created another reason, another justification, another grand cause, when underlying every inch of every ruse is our thirst for that liquid gold buried beneath the sand. We need it, they’ve got it; our beautiful system of wealth concentration runs on that dark, sticky liquid, and we’ll lose millions in the intermediate run if we don’t figure a way to control it. This is heavy, top shelf raging Capitalism; immorality justified by the end game, the Grand Objective of the Powerful. And the young people and the Reservists go over and get blown apart, and there’s not much discord on the home front, no angry mob at the White House gates, no laws you need respect or obey, not even the Big One, the Great One, the majestic United States Constitution, that amazing, flawed document that guided us far and in relative peace, no, you don’t even need to lose sleep about trampling all over that.

When there’s no sheriff in town, there will be mischief.

And Nancy Pelosi sits there chatting with Diane and states in all sincerity that our soldiers haven’t died or been disfigured in vain. What have we gained, Nancy? Tell me, and be real, remove your political mask and speak from your heart. Has Iraq made us better morally, stronger militarily, and more secure economically? Is our standing with the other nations that we are doomed to live on this planet with higher? Is the bottom line that Conservatives always yammer about better now than it was in 2003? Better fundamentally? Better strategically? You stretch the parameters far enough and twist the truth long enough and our dead might seem not to have died in vain…

I go over to my son’s Smart Globe and touch Iraq. The Smart Globe says, “Lost cause…”

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Surge of the Idiot-in-Chief

I promised myself that I wouldn’t click on the Tube and watch Bush attempt to justify sending more American kids to Iraq. As an American citizen I feel a duty to watch, but I can’t bring myself to punch the remote and bring up the Spider-Monkey-in-Chief. Bush is a fool who long ago burned all his credibility as a leader. He didn’t have the chops in 2000 and he sure as hell doesn’t have the chops now. He’s probably not as dense as he comes across during his speeches and press conferences, but why should anyone give him the benefit of the doubt at this point in the game? After all the lies, the hubris, and the “Mission Accomplished” grandstanding; after all the carnage and rising body counts; after all the corruption and miscalculation.

Iraq is a moral, political, military, and financial debacle. Not only has the Bush Gang butt-fucked the Iraqi people for at least a generation, they have also fucked America by pissing away billions of dollars that could have been put to use here on our own soil to provide decent medical care for American taxpayers, educational and training opportunities for our young, retirement security for our elderly, and sorely needed investment in alternative energy sources.

Instead, Bush has squandered billions of taxpayer dollars in a failed fantasy. We’ll be paying the bill for years to come.

Clinton got a blow-job from an intern and Congress impeached him. The Republicans investigated that deal to the hilt. Remember the frenzy, the horseshit about a constitutional crisis, Kenneth Starr acting like the Grand Inquisitor? They wanted to know the length of Clinton’s erect cock and the volume of his ejaculation; they wanted to know if he smoked the cigar after jamming it inside Monica.

Bush mortgages our future, condemns our young to die for a lie, lays waste to Iraq, and strolls across the White House lawn like it’s just another day at the office.

Americans should be outraged, incensed, marching in the streets in protest against the stupid, criminal acts perpetrated in our collective name.

At some level, Bush knows that Iraq is lost. His aim now is to salvage his ass for the history books. This surge bullshit is Bush’s Hail Mary pass, his last ditch effort; he’s ninety feet from the basket with one second on the clock... As it goes tonight, Bush stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the worst Presidents in our history: Polk, Harrison, Hoover, Nixon. There’s a closet-sized space next to these clowns and it’s got W’s name stamped on the door.

We can surge troops until the geese fly south but it won’t change a thing. Iraq must fight its civil war, turn the sand crimson, and hope that what emerges is a government and society that can begin to rebuild what the United States so effectively destroyed.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Unlock the door, remove the velvet ropes, the Balcony is open for business for 2007! Ho hum! You can wander over to YouTube and watch real people star in their own movies, so why the hell would you want to climb my creaky stairs, sit in these smelly old seats, and read the ravings of a rehabilitated madman? And hey, doesn’t the new season of American Idol begin soon? Can’t miss that. Or Gray’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, 24, Dr. 90210, Rachel Ray, Oprah, or Dr. Phil. Lots of choices in this entertainment wonderland, this Kingdom of Distraction. The world hisses and burns as it always has, blood and tears run in the gutters, toilets clog with the excrement of kings. Saddam is hung, Jerry Ford’s in the ground, reunited with Tricky Dick Nixon, two-headed mermaids row leaky boats while ghost cloud ships sail past the moon and Captain Fantastic swings from the Big Dipper. The faces on Mount Rushmore come to life and belt out a rousing rendition of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

No matter what, we’re all bit players.

But the clock ticks and our hearts beat, the phone rings, the dog yelps, the garbage men arrive on schedule, the Post Office brings the bills.

Take a couple of poems and call me in a week…the Doctor is in every day except Wednesday afternoon when he plays billiards with a Cantonese midget. Ciao!

FAST TRACK

More, more, bring me more
Put it on the fast track, strap it to the wheel
No second to lose
Hyper-evolution
Here at sunrise, gone by sunset
Out of date, obsolete, ancient at birth

BlackBerry tyranny
Wireless chains
Multi-task madness
Digital delirium

We’re running blind, with Starbucks
Sloshing in our guts,
Ephedrine tickling our brains
Slow down, world
The race is to the wise, not the fast
And the finish line still reads:
D
E
A
T
H


REMINDER

Midnight
Full moon
Stars
My 5-year-old daughter wants to know
Who hung the moon
why the Earth spins
And what happens if it stops?

The genius of small children
Is to remind grownups
Of forgotten mysteries