Oren Hatch

If it weren't for the liberal entertainment industry, Oren Hatch would be as big as Elvis. Maybe now that we have a Democratic President, he'll concentrate more on his music. Perhaps, If Senator Kennedy dies, he can write an opera about Kennedy's life like John Adamns did for Nixon.

Historic Election

Yes, it was an historic election. But what has been lost in the news is the new golf resort that Donald Trump is building in Scotland. All our wealthy conservative think tankers will be able to play golf with Joe the Plumber while they plan their next adventure in the Middle East.

The Man Who Loved His Penis

The man sat in his new truck in front of the post office. A small, but noticeable sign, I Love My Penis, hung from the rear view mirror. He had a long well scrubbed face. His nose seem to hang down on his tight lips. He looked like he also loved beer and loved to tell stories about how much he drank. Maybe then, after several beers, he would profess love for his penis.

Penis man sat there in his truck for a long time. The truck had a crew cab. Was he waiting for his friends,other penis lovers, to return from buying chocolates and flowers? Had he been quarreling with his love interest? A lover's spat? One could only hope that they can reconcile their differences.

Bailout Ideas

1. The money could be used to build a series of Resorts with golf courses. (Hire Don Trump!) The resorts, though, would be built in Iraq, Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. Fallen Wall Street types could hide out there as an alternative to jail time.

2. Start another war. Invade a country like Yemen or Somilia. Sarah Palin could practice foreign policy on a third front. Establish a democracy and rebuild the civic institutions and physical infrastructure. Sarah Palin could stand on top of a dead moose and declare "mission acomplished."

Troops could rotate out of Iraq and Afghanistan and rest on our third front, play golf in one of our bailout resorts.

3. Just give the money to the 800 most corrupt, greedy, ordinary-person-hating, elite-university-nation-destroying businessmen and be done with the country as we know it. One billion each, but they have to leave and live like third world dictators.

Financial Instruments

My favorite financial instrument is the backing of a truck up to the vault. Not that this is what Wall Street has done. (Check security cameras!) In the New Yorker a number of years ago, someone is sent to Saddam's vault to haul away pallets of hundred dollar bills.

Sarah Palin and Disbelief

Sarah Palin does not believe in the following:

1. Gravity
2. Photosynthesis
3. The water cycle
4. Dinosaurs
5. The Equator
6. Respiratory System
7. Light Years
8. The Moon Walk (Should have shot a moose instead of hit a golf ball)

More to follow as my Alaskan stringers respond.

A Real Maverick

I'm a real maverick, aren't you?

Well, maybe not. I'm thinking about the pilots who flew over Viet Nam, dumped their load, then had cocktails at distant airfields. All those dead peasants still bother me -- villages lighting up with Napalm.

Like the planners of the war in Iraq, I had other things to do and didn't serve. Don't respond, I will not press my maverick status. The word is kind of idiotic, if not geriatric. Like theatre in an assisted living community.

Sarah Palin and Pitbulls

Before I lock on to the subject and have to be shot by the local police and as I bleed to death with the banal subject in my mouth -- like the neighbor's Lab -- I want to acknowledge that this is a dumb subject even for blogs that no one reads.


I've observed that pit bull owners are usually short males who have a real or imaginary connection with the criminal justice system -- they have been in jail, have family in jail or want to appear tough by having a tough dog. I've judged (unscientifically) the average pit bull owner to be 5' 8" tall and fond of baseball caps worn backwards.

Sarah Palin's as a self described pitbull along with the images of a moose, hockey, gay conversion rallies and Jews for Jesus are jarring. These images temporarily threw me off my study. (Think of bird watching.) Fortunately, I saw three 5" 5" guys with backwards baseball caps and a pit bull walking through the strip mall to their small 4wheel drive truck. They were not wearing lipstick. They had cases of Bud Lite. This is more of what I had in mind.

President Bush's Presidential Library

The time is at hand to think about the President's library. Please send ideas and comments to the library committee. I will send the following and update this post as new material is available:

1. The library should be housed in one of the Eastern European CIA prisons for rendered terror suspects.

2. The picture book the President was reading during the 9/11 attack should have its own wing.

3. All material not classified or held by the courts during trials should be watermarked in honor of water boarding.

Rapture or Rupture?

The idea of people leaving the earth like baloons released from a children's party no doubt comes from human folly eventually having dire consequences. I can't help thinking that we will go too deeply into an oil field and suck something monstrous out of middle earth.

A bumper sticker asked for the cars of those who were taken in the Rapture. Do any of you drive hybrids?

Suicide Bombing -- The America Way

When Americans walk into the work place and start shooting, it is the equivalent of suicide bombing. We don't always have a well defined mission though. It is often just psychotic slaughter. Sometimes we take our own lives after we've had enough second-amendment fun. Or we wait for the police to kill us so that good triumphs over evil -- one gun correcting the excess of another gun.

Metrosexual House Painter

Now that I have your attention, I want to mention that I have three cans of Barbasol shave cream. Don't ask how I ended up with three cans, but I'm almost done with number one. If I wasn't a house painter, I might shave daily and write in my blog about metrosexual life in a city with ten dollar candy bars.

Seven Kitchen Tables

If you remodel for a living, all those McCain kitchens will need to be remodeled. At that level of income a kitchen is good for about two years, maybe sooner with the Bush tax breaks. So there's lots of work for a few. The rest of the work force is screwed though.

Police Shooting and the Woman in the Red Sweater

There was a lot of police activity at the end of the block today. I thought it was a car accident, so I didn't bother to look until I went for coffee. Later, TV camera crews and a number of police officers were still on the scene interviewing witnesses.

On the way back from the cafe, I followed a number of police officials in suits, pasty white guys like myself. They were very animated about the reporter in a red sweater. A sixty year old woman was either in surgery or dead and they -- what else -- were leering at the reporter in a red sweater.

The sweater was for TV and a police shooting. Her Capri pants gave her the look of someone who'd been out walking her dog when the call came.

Chicken Liver Omelet

While out walking yesterday, I passed a cafe where I once had a chicken liver omelet. The taste for chicken liver is not so much acquired as it is experienced a few times then abandoned.

As I was eating the omelet, I had no idea that it was in effect payment for the production of a play I had written. I was writing plays at the time and had high hopes that this production would do many positive things, not the least of which would be an understanding of how plays worked and didn't work.

None of this happened during the production. With the taste of chicken liver in my mouth, I moved on to house painting. When I was left alone in a room with an open can of oil based paint, I never looked back.

Mortage Pundit Fears The Future

In responding to the housing market/loan conditions, the pundit says that it is hard to predict, especially if it's in the future.

The FBI should investigate bad pundits. It may be a sign of criminality.

Home Depot Humiliation

The other day I was in Home Depot early and witnessed a peppy manager/consultant forcing the staff into a football chant, give me an H, give me and O and so on. She exorted the staff to yell louder. They were embarrassed to the point of shame. I had to run for cover. It was too painful to watch...a perky pep consultant leading chanting over piles of sheet rock.

NeoCon Porn

The recent revelation that naked Muslim detainees were interrogated by female “handlers” suggests Neocon porn. The thought that bundles of photos are making the rounds or even live video feeds to secure rooms in Washington and interested think tanks is very disturbing.

Dick Cheney is the alleged mastermind behind the torture policy. Whenever I think of Dick Cheney I hear the pop song, “The Shadow of Your Smile.” It may well be that the song was playing while we were both using our multiple student deferments to avoid the Viet Nam War. Perhaps he is only guilt of caring too much. One hopes that he isn’t convicted of war crimes or rendered to an unfriendly country.

Generosity Misunderstood

The house painter held a neatly folded pastry bag in front of the bearded homeless man. He tried to explain that the bag contained food. The bearded man wanted money so he could buy a donut. He did not understand a bag in his face. The painter was a little frustrated. He had to get to work but his act of kindness was falling into the other's pathology.

It's so simple...eat the damn donut! Another man sits on the same street with his disconnected prosthesis that holds a cup for money. He would know what to do with the donut.

Perhaps the bearded man was a former client of the painter.

Jimmy Carter's Sweater

What would our lives be like if we'd put on sweaters and lowered our consumption of energy? But this was a matter of our "non-negotiable" lifestyle as one of our sage and compassionate leaders commented and framed the dilemma. Almost a half century wasted.

Peak Oil -- Regifted

A gift idea making the rounds is giving gas in gallon cans or larger jerrycans. While this is ironic, Hipsters, please don't burn the town down. All those expensive tattoos gone up in flames. How about gift cards, the kind with credit on them.

FBI Alert

After watching the movie Z, I realized that Z like assaults on public figures may be the next wave. If you haven't seen Z in a while, the thugs drive slow-moving vans in full view of the opposing camps who have positioned themselves on opposite side of the street. A thug-driven van drives slowly down the street and a leftist senator is clubbed with a Flinstone era bone club.

(This viewer believes that reaction times among leftists were much slower in the sixties. The ur erneast demeanor made them subject to such attacks. Obama...watch out for fat republicans in electric golf carts!)

The slow assault could fool public figures now, especially with the advent of GM's electric car. I think intelligence agencies should work with the model of the slow assault, a small non combustion vehicle.

Learn English Now

An immigrant takes his lunch break in his car. He is a bright and funny guy, but he has an accent and he is conscious of it. It is thick in a few places. To remedy this he reads from a travel guide -- Nashville on so many dollars a day. He reads slowly and carefully in his pronounced accent. Unfortunately, this method does not self correct.


Learning in your parked care is fuel efficient, though, vital for our daunting energy transition.

Good Guys/Bad Guys

When I hear "good guys and bad guys," I think of "poo poo and pee pee." This is not to say that bad guys, such as terrorists, and a small child's understanding of bodily functions are equivalent. Clearly, terrorists are much more dangerous than pooping children.

What I hear, though, is an explanation meant for children or a society infantilized. "Bad guys" allows us to go after anybody in the wrong place (of our choosing) at the wrong time (we have guns ready.) It's almost fun!

Pundit Boner

The pundit says, "testicles" when he means "tentacles." The gist is that an investment firm extends their testicles/tentacles into some market that has got them in trouble.

Think of horror film with Ivy League hedge funders directing their tentacles through tract homes and trailer parks skewering and strangling unsuspecting people, some in the act of prayer to their fatherly leaders and free markets.

You can now substitute (at your own risk) testicles.

Would anyone shout, "it's the rapture?"

Job Opportunities (Not at Home Though)

We, too, have the unfortunate people who hire out for the day to shake a sign that points to a potential sale. Some Shakers are vigorous with their sign, others are obviously saving their arms (or dignity) for future considerations.

A small development with an ocean view is at the sign shaking stage. One week a sullen youth with pants (crotch) heavily under the influence of gravity, just stands counting the hours, indifferent to development. Was the developer desperate that day?

The following week a youth with a back pack stood (as if about to get on a train in Amsterdam) and rocked the sign with one hand. He’d tied the sign to his jacket as if he were rocking a baby to sleep. For good measure he was on his cell phone catching up with friends.

Several weeks later, a man in a polo hat used the sign as a juggling object. He spun the sign and tried to catch it. This may have been a gesture for the unstable real estate markets.

Twilight Zone Jingle

As I experience the atheist/believer arguments, I hear -- during the proofs for a supreme being -- the Twilight Zone Jingle, which may itself be an acceptable proof or as good as any other. It's a catchy tune, isn't it.

My Other Blog is Down for Service

My other blog is temporarily off line while I make some updates, which is another way of saying that I lost it. I have, though, saved all of the more developed ideas that I have not presented in full on this blog, as well as the links. I will continue to refer to my other blog with the expectation of a quick recovery.

Papanca -- Try This at Home!

Allow your senses, the objects of your senses and the resultant consciousness to run wild, to proliferate with concepts, destructive emotions, paranoia, even to the point of loosing track of the subject at hand. Then return to one sense object and start over again.

Sequence model: Frying food, mother, church and sweating supplicants, global warning, crush injury and an unresponsive HMO, seven billion people gasping for air on the north pole, over consumption of tic tacs, return to frying food.

See my other blog for more developed models and links to helpful texts.

Greetings from Safeway

Safeway recently offered hot dogs for lunch. An unenthusiastic employee sold them from a card table. The proceeds were for prostate cancer research. The dodg represented the enlarge prostrate.

It's odd that this Safeway would make such a crude lunch offer. This store is in a part of the city where well-educated people live and work. A delivery man bought one, but who else did they think was going to buy one? I didn't.

Unlike my local-lumpen Safeway, the employees in this kupscale store have dispensed with the tiring and inappropriate greeting of customers. The kind best given to meeting long-lost friends. I must admit I like walking past the produce guy who tirelessly offers a "how ya doing" not matter how many repeat trips I make, often with his gaze steady on the onions.

Readers--Take Back Our Libraries

Demand a ban on cellphone use. Take them at the door.
Limit computer use -- no games.
Make noisy students leave.
Ask clueless parents to control their toddlers.

An alternative plan would be to sell space in the library to Starbucks. The coffee area would have to have a separate entrance and have sound proof walls, but there would be access to computers, movies and magazines. This would allow the public to continue its undifferentiated and unmindful behaviors of constant talking, use their cellphones, Ipods and junk computer use, games, dating services, soft porn, etc. All of this can be done elsewhere.

The cafe would provide revenue for the library and allow readers and students -- those who will go to a university -- the quiet environment that is a library.

Old Cliches

I love "old cliches." I use them all the time, don't you? While I love old cliches, I'm most excited aboaut new cliches, the newer the better. I live in a perpetual state of anticipation and excitement over the approach and arrival of a new cliche. How can you tell what is a new cliche? It has the same intended content as an old cliche, but the words are different.

See my other blog for examples.

New Shorts

The painter walked into the paint store with many hellos and a request for new pants. His night of drinking had not finished and he'd wet his painter's whites. He didn't draw attention to the wet spot nor did he try to hide it with a color chart or job notebook.

When they didn't have his size, he settled for shorts, a size too big. A few minutes later he returned from the bathroom in his new shorts tightly bound by his belt. He bought two expensive ox hair brushes and forswore coffee. His legs were thinner and whitier than one might imagine.

The Amazing Aeron

Only $49.94 (Three equal payments of $16.43)

See my other blog for details.

Critical Thinking

A fifth-grade boy wanders across the school parking lot with a giant pastry in one hand and a bottle of chocolate milk in the other.

"You don't have a donut do you?" he says and for goodmeasure he adds, "I don't think so."

He has two minutes to eat this pastry and drink the milk.

Tank Tops and Deforestation

A very large man in a tank top carried an equally large weedwhacker to his truck. His large wife and daughter were at his sides. The weedwhacker, judging by its protrusion over the tailgate, was at least eight feet long. One wonders what exactly is the nature of the whacking project.

Note: See my other blog about armpits in public space.

Many Places at Once

A Brittish correspondent with a weary, almost quavering voice, is often assigned to intractable conflicts with loss of life. He is often at risk. His voice is appropriate for his work. He is, it would seem, more concerned for what he is covering than his career. The viewer, myself, feels that his anguish is right for the story, the sadness of the world.

One thing about his work that is disturbing, though, is that he is often in two places at once, even three. I do not believe that news is managed to a degree that it is fabricated for the needs of a congtrolling entity. The explanation may be that the correspondant could have a twin or be one among triplets. I'm sure a quick check of Oxford/Cambridge would reveal triplets in the history department.

"At the end of the Day" Questionaire

When you use the phrase, "at the end of the day," do you believe that history is on your side, both short term (if that is history) and long term?

How often do you use the phrase?

Have you been influenced by pundits, commentators and politicians who use the phrase?

Do you mix in other figurative language, like "throw the baby out with the bathwater?"

Do you feel like you are commenting on the end of time like a prophet?

Do you have a favorite commentator who uses the phrase often?

Do you like commentators whose first language is not English and use the phrase?

Do you feel uncomfortable when the phrase occurs more then once in a group discussion creating the tension of competing ends of the day?

Acting

Everyone will be in a porn movie for 15 minutes.

candy

There is an Eight dollar candy bar in a neighborhood store in San Francisco. How much are the candy bars in your neighborhood?

Shirts

A jazz combo is playing in a cafe. The sax player wears a black shirt with white flowers wilting on it. A man walks into the cafe with blanket carefully held as if presenting a baby. There is no baby. The man without the baby wears a black shirt with white wilting white flowers on it. He sees the combo and says, "Oh Jazz."

Pat's Commentary

People are praying for gas. What does that mean?
There is a diminishing supply of oil and Oil companies need huge profits.
Is this prayer from home or at church after a long commute?

At the Beach

A man wearing a pith helmet orders chop suey from a takeout.
This happens in a small community near the ocean.