Your Money Is No Good Here Mr. Torrence.

Things have not progressed very far since the last time I posted. I still find myself drawn to the blasted Dirty Martini, the beast that ruined the old world.
Last night found me and some un-named cohorts in a vintage Golden Age hotel bar that looked like it was pulled right out of The Shining. In between haunting the other patrons the bartender managed to do more damage to my liver than Jack Nicholson with a fire axe. The atmosphere was distinctly plush and luxurious but ghostly, silent ballroom dancers fading in and out of existence and a creepy pair of twins kept asking if we wanted to play. By the third martini I was ready to stuff Scatman Crothers into the deep freeze, and after the forth I was ejected from the premises when they found me in the basement trying to stoke up the boiler to the point of exploding. But that was fine with me, I didn’t need to witness the bloodbath that was surely on the way. In the end, I believe I made great progress in finding out what all play and no work will eventually make Jack into.

‘Til we meet again, try not to step on your own dick.

X

To Insure Promt Service

I woke up this morning with my soul shriveling on the floor and a gang of Philippino stick fighters causing massive collateral damage in my skull. The previous night was spent dining on a bag of fortune cookies and several very large bone dry dirty vodka martinis. That man who invented the martini is a soul brother of Robert Oppenheimer, having unleashed upon the world a source of such destructive power which is all too deliciously tempting that it should take the simultaneous turn of two keys to allow it to be poured. The fortune cookies however are not so cruel. After extricating myself from the cabinet I had taken refuge in, I armed myself with a fire extinguisher for fear that the pure alcohol I was sweating would ignite at the smallest spark. Thus I hit the streets.

My first stop was the local diner where I planned to offset my condition with a liberal application of grease and salt. “Gimme two eggs with bacon and cheese on a buttered roll” I told the woman behind the counter. “Well,” she said, “we have a special with two eggs, bacon or sausage, homefries and toast, but we don’t have egg sandwiches.” I can’t say what my reaction to this looked like, but judging from the way she retreated into the kitchen it must have seemed fearsome. “WHAT? NO EGG SANDWICHES!?” I bellowed, “What kind commie crap is this? The egg sandwich is the back bone of the industrialized world! This affront will surely affect your Zagat rating!” It was at this point that I noticed the crew of busboys moving to surround me and I knew action was needed. “LE MIGRA!” I yelled by way of diversion, and as the lead man turn to see, I swung the fire extinguisher in a high whistling arc connecting with the soft upper shoulder shattering his collar bone. “I saw them pissing in the soup tureen and there was an ear lobe in the Cobb salad!” I found many times the best way to escape an unhealthy situation is to incite a riot, and this day proved the rule. As the waiters and busboys scrambled to look nonchalant and reassure the cliental that all was well I continued to fan the flames. “I have video tape of them putting Mad Cow Disease in the bacon! What do you really think is in that eclair? SOILENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!”

On that note I knew it was time to abscond. Within minutes the customers would overturn the tables and set fire to the Rock-O-La jukebox and beat the waitstaff with broken chairs. I’ve seen it happen before, though I won’t say where for fear of prosecution. Suffice it to say that a wise restauranteur would never show me a bill, knowing by instinct alone that my actions for good or ill could decide the life or death of his establishment.

Hours later, as I sit here still half dead and trembling, I can smell the burning formica and flesh wafting up the avenue from where the diner once stood. The lesson to be learned today dear friends, is don’t come between a man and his egg sandwich. It can cost you more than your life. Also, rot gut scotch will serve as a good remedy for short terms DTs.

My hands just now have stopped shaking enough to return to being a productive member of society, whatever that is, and as such I must leave you now dear friends.

Until next time, don’t drink the milk. It’s spoiled.

X

Scooter, we barely knew ya'

Well it looks like Ol’ Scooter is going down and I for one am glad to see a man receive the recognition he deserves. That’s right, any one who would so selflessly rat out one of our nation’s covert operatives and put an end to their career to send the message “Shut up, your going to ruin our war” should be held high and pointed out as the yard stick by which to measure this administration. All to often people see what needs to be done and stop short, making excuses like “Oh, that’s illegal” or “That would be unethical” or even “That might put some one’s life in danger”, but not our I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. The Scootster is a man of action, the kind of man that understands that things like ethics and morals and national security and regard for human life or even common courtesy have no place in running a country, especially when it comes to winding up for a good war. Why if he hadn’t acted, Joseph Wilson might have proven that Iraq wasn’t trying to buy uranium and stopped us from opening up the can of whupass we had been working up. But Libby did act, and thanks to him we didn’t have to find out that there was no reason to be in Iraq until it was too late to leave.

Now two years and two thousand American dead later, the Scootmiester finally gets his do. Or does he? Maybe, just maybe, some one higher up took action and is so humble that they decided to give credit to a loyal aid instead. Knowing what I do about the current White House, I would not be surprised to see such leadership tempered by such humility. Who knows?

I also wonder what reward the president has in store for his loyal service. Perhaps he will make him Ambassador to Gabon and o Tome and Principe! Or maybe he’ll appoint him to the Supreme Court. That would be sweet!

Well, enough of this crap, I going to follow the president’s example and go on a drinking binge! I’ll see you again with blood on my knuckles and puke on my shoes.

‘Til then, don’t trust the white man!

X

Onions & Leaks

What else could top a juicy cheeseburger but a nice slice of Bermuda Onion? What else would suffice to cover a steaming bowl of Chili but some diced Spanish Onion? With out the noble bulb parisians could only offers the world “French Soup”, Outback Steakhouse would have to serve a “Bloomin’ Turnip” and let’s not speak of what would become of perennial favorite the “Funion”. I bring this up because an important member of the Allium cepa genus is under attack, not by fungus or some plant clap, but by the White House!

A certain publication that has chosen this pungent flower as it’s masthead has found itself the latest target in “The War Against Terror”. The issue is over the paper’s frequent use of the presidential seal which oft times accompanies stories lampooning the Bush administration, including a spoof of W’s weekly radio address. Tenants of the executive mansion say that the use of the seal in these cases is inappropriate and degrading to the office, which of course has never looked better. The White House apparently having nothing better to do sent big kid Trent Duffy to tell the Onion to “Shut up, or else!”. To which the Onion responded, “Nana nana nana, you can’t make me!”.

I for one am glad to see the oval office finally focussing on the important issues. Fuck the war in Iraq, the economy, the environment, that shit’s not important. No. It’s about time that W concentrated on stopping people from making fun of him. I mean here he is, the leader of the free world and some guy’s picking on him right out in the open as if he had the right or something. If you can’t respect the man then respect the office, and if you can’t respect the office then you haven’t taken your pills.

The Onion should keep in mind that White House has an enormous arsenal to bring to bare against nay-sayers. They could assign them “Enemy Combatant” status and lock them up in Gitmo, or ignore their pleas for help when their homes are demolished in a storm, or expose their spouse’s secret identity. Yes the beat goes on and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is being prepped for the beating it seems. The case of Valerie Plame and the leaking of her name, rank and serial number to the “Press” is getting hot and heavy and Karl Rove and the boys are playing a first class game of “I didn’t know she was a spy ‘til you told me” in which each contestant tries to prove a greater level of ignorance (some thing the Bush crew has been training tirelessly for over the last five years) and put the blame on a lower ranked administration member. A truly skilled and ambitious player might even make Valerie Plame believe that she outed herself. Why not? They got everyone to believe that crap about why we had to go to war. Well, everyone but Plame and her husband Joseph Wilson who criticized Bush for essentially being a lying, war mongering, oil grubbing boob with his head up ass (of course I’m paraphrasing).

I look forward to seeing just how the Onion will cover the upcoming indictments and trials. I wonder, will they use language that the president will be able to understand when Dick Cheney reads it to him like a modern day version of the Three Little Pigs.

Speaking of pigs, it seems I’ve loitered here longer than is safe and must retreat back the sordid under belly of this land I love and wait until next time it’s safe to surface.

‘Til then, keep it in your pants.

X

Things that piss me off.

I know, it’s been a long stretch since my last entry, but it’s hard to find a Starbucks with wireless internet that doesn’t have my likeness on the wall. Many have given me up for dead, but this is hardly the case. Well, not entirely. The details are foggy, but the involvement of a German yachtsman is a certainty, and this haunts me. Images of him in his red and white striped shirt and little navel hat dancing around a flaming suitcase flash in front of my eyes whenever I think of tropically named cocktails in Polynesian designed drink-ware. The possible connections frighten me. Or perhaps it’s the that the barista looks like a fed I once burned on a coke deal. You just can’t trust the kind of people Starbucks hires these days.

But I digress. There never seems to be enough time think about all the things that really piss me off, although I think I have made some progress in that regard. To start with, People Who Say “Squozed” When They Mean “Squeezed”. Generally, these are the people that have enough trouble with existing words in the english language and they have no business inventing more. People Whose Cellphones Are Still Set To Corporate Branded Ringtones. What the fuck? Are you getting paid by Nokia for the advertising, or are just a lazy asshole? Not that the two are mutually exclusive. David Letterman. People At The Supermarket Who Pay By Check. These tend to be old people, very old people. They feel technically savvy for using a ball-point pen, and believe swiping a card can steal their wizened souls. In the time it takes the to pay for their groceries you could grow old enough to find yourself involuntarily reaching for your own check book.

These are all subjects I’ve spent sometime on and have for most part exorcised their poisons from my being. With the exception of David Letterman, which for reasons I won’t get into, I won’t get into. But the thing that today sucked me into a vortex of anger is the exclusion of the letters “X”, “Y” and “Z” from the naming convention applied to hurricanes. Currently the Florida coast is being threatened by Hurricane Wilma, the twenty third named Atlantic storm. After this, if some atmospheric anomaly has enough gusto to put the fear of God into the National Weather Service it will be named using the greek alphabet. How lame! Who wants to have their roof torn off by Hurricane Beta, when they could cry out “DAMN YOU HURRICANE XUXA! Why have you wrought this destruction upon me!”? Doesn't that have more of the drama you’d expect? More OOMF? More esprit du jour? And besides, once you got done with Hurricane Zdenek you could move on to historical figures with alliterated names, such as Betty Boop and Tiny Tim and Where’s Waldo! How much fun would that be!? But no! In the future historians are likely to think the country was ravaged by roaming hoard of drunken frat boys! Which brings me to George Bush. The man is simply a boob. What can be said about him here in this public forum that you wouldn’t rather pay a whore to say in private. Now I’m not some bleedingheartrightwingliberalpussy, but come on folks, he will end the world if he has his way. Does he even know that he is responsible for the whole country, not just Crawford, Texas? You half expect him to show up in a Tee-shirt reading “Someone toppled a sovereign nation and all I got was this stupid shirt”. I mean here’s a man who doesn't see the irony in calling himself both a “war president” and a “right to life president”. In some towns across America police cadets are given a special I.Q. test to make sure they are dumb enough not to get bored waiting to beat someone, so why can’t a similar wisdom be applied to the highest oblong office in the land? And no points for spelling your name correctly.

Well, I’ve gone on too long and the barista is looking at me over his shoulder and talking in to his sleeve, so I must leave now.

Until I can come up for air again, try to keep your nuts out of the fire.

X

FOR SALE: ONE SLIGHTLY USED AMERICAN MADE ORBITER/RE-ENTRY VEHICLE, GOOD MILEAGE

The world is holding it's breath and waiting to see if the seven NASA astronauts on Discovery will have to hold their breath and wait. After a two year hiatus during which the National Air and Space Agency put the remaining shuttle fleet up on blocks and ran the motors in reverse to roll back the odometer, the shuttle Discovery returned to space with a clean bill of health. That is until the bird strike, and the two foot chunk of foam fell off the brand new external fuel tank on launch. "Minor details" says NASA, "no worries" they say, "we build 'em tough round" here they say. And then they noticed that the filler between the all important heat shield tiles was falling out. "Stand by" they say, "we are looking in to contingencies" they say, "we can rescue your astronauts by February" the Russians say. Myself, I can't say I'm surprised to find that the high tech instructions on how to fix the problem include the word "wiggle". Maybe on future missions they might make sure to bring some bondo and a can of Crylon as well as the hack saw they will use.

If Big Brother is watching, how are my ratings?

I've had a lot of free time on my hands of late (not by my own choice, the courts just won't listen to reason), and I've spent it poking the slimey underbelly of the American media and smelling the end of the stick. I've been crawling the so-called "Discussion" boards populated by the twisted souls who bring the nightly doses of sorrow and misfortune to the masses through TV and print. Attracted by the smell of blood and death, they are vampires the likes of which Dracula would simultaneously admire, cower from and revile! Sure, they seem charming enough, they even get us to invite them in to our homes, with their smiles and snappy sport coats and perfect hair. They wait until we're in our favorite chair with a beer in hand, and WAMMO! they hit you with the most repulsive aspects of humanity, murder, rape, war, Nascar, anything that will suck your soul and leave you an empty wreck of a shell. Never do they offer solutions. Oh sure, they might tell you the warning signs to look for to know if your refrigerator is plotting your demise. They may even show you how to tell if your neighbor is molesting your compost heap, or if your town is being overrun by whores and pushers, but they don't mention the important stuff like what will the girls really do for twenty bucks or which pushers will front you a ten piece on credit til the next time you see him. But if some unknown hermit dies from auto erotic asphyxiation, then they can't work hard enough to expose the growing trend of of masturbatory mishaps, complete with information on which plastic bags fit best over the male or female head. Not that I don't need to know, but I prefer to get my information on such subjects from the traditional sources, like priests and the J.C.s.

But I don't want to sound like a negative Nelly, turning on the ten o'clock news saves you the time needed to find snuff films on the internet, and truth be told we all wanted to see Bill Clinton's mark on Monica's dress. In the end , as much as I may feel the majority of the industry should be locked in the bottom of an outhouse of a dysentery ward, I must admit I am a fan. The subtle turn of phrase that issues forth such prose as "the moment of silence heard round the world", the vacant gleam in the eye reflecting the wisdom of the teleprompter, and enough hair spray to alter the earths atmosphere. Mmmmmmmmm, thems good eats. Fuck Jim Lehrer, journalism is for pussies!

After much consideration, I want a job in TV!

Whores, Philistines and Fascists!

My kind of people.