Americanakaki

The World Cup lost me more friends than I knew at the time. I have reached out to a few people online since, only to find not just an un-friending but an outright blocking. In fairness, this might not have only been the result of my overly enthusiastic online World Cup behavior. 

Some do not care for my ambivalent statements concerning the Israeli / Palestinian conflict.

Also, coming out publicly as being very pro-rape does not help matters. I am exponentially pro-gang-rape, which complicates things even more, for some... because I am also a well known and adamant foe to the act of bukaki.

(I have had to edit this article. A friend immediately questioned my "pro-rape" stance. It was an absurd joke. I thought that was clear enough.) 

Bukaki is just one woman shy of being the gayest thing available to heterosexuals. It is, by pure definition, the least heterosexual act that can be captured on video.

It is the worst defense of marriage ever dreamed of, or upon. 

I am neither pro-hetero or anti-gay, as some of you know. I only clarify here for the purpose of Old Testament science. Stonings have proven their historical effectiveness, and I challenge anyone here to argue with that logic. 

History lacks a "control group" in the truest sense. 

But, ah well... I'll make new friends. That is what I have learned: I'm a very friendly guy.

I don't mean "friendly" in the bukaki sense. I mean that I am an affable fellow. 

In truth, I did not know what bukaki was until a friend pointed out my ignorance to me by once making a joke about it, leaving me with a puzzled look. 

(I pride myself in knowing things, especially as it pertains to all things sushi and sashimi.) 

So, my friend carefully explained to me that it is a friendly, almost all male, jizzful-jarless situation. 

Girls Gone Wet is the documentary to study.

This ceremony is meant to shame the woman for presumed infidelities or just general sluttiness, though only through strict accordance with custom, or law. 

In The States it must be conducted with a willing female participant, which is odd and antithetical to the very purpose of the punishment.

Let's just say that that approach might only encourage first time offenders, etc.

The thing that confuses me is this: if the woman is meant to be shamed... then why is the camera angle positioned to exclude the participatory men's faces? Also, why do the men wear masks, as insurance against shame? Are they embarrassed about the very justice they are freely dispensing?

The women are not allowed to wear masks for this special ritual, and it is frowned upon when the men do, though Stanley Kubrick seems to have tangentially disagreed. 

That's what I don't like about it: It is too American in one way and outright Un-American in the other, like Kubrick.

Bukaki is Canadianese.

The name is Japanese, of course, who got their asses kicked and then handed to them in World Cup and have been oddly silent on the Israeli / Palestinian conflict.

I am marginally O.K. with Japan's silence on matters of genocide. 

Don't hate me because I notice these things.

I find the world as odd and beautiful, disgraceful and magical as it is.

I just try to steer clear from much of it and also try to shoot straight, though the mask does occasionally make it difficult.

Disclaimer: this post has been edited to protect myself from my readers.

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The Buzz Boy, Rhys

If I would have known how difficult it is to have a child then I might not have ever done it. 

Had I known how much fun it can be, and how satisfying, then I just might have done it sooner.

I look forward to returning to Sonoma, to ring the doorbell at the daycare and see him running from the other room squealing, "Daddy! Daddy!"

It is silly, and it makes me giggle, and him too.

We'll go to the park and then get ice cream, and he will tell me of his unwavering friendship with Buzz Lightyear. I'll listen and agree as if I am great buddies with Buzz also. And I am.

... To Infinity and Beyond!

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The Western Union

Arriving in town on the afternoon train, last. -(STOP)- Don't ask. -(STOP)-  Will check into the Hotel Occident -(STOP)- Only have money for one night. -(STOP)- Shortly after will be at the Tanglefoot Saloon -(STOP)-  The table in the corner -(STOP)-  I'll be wearing the powder blue dress with hair down. -(STOP)-  I won't wait all night -(STOP)-  Leaving in the morning, unless you arrive early. -(STOP)- Don't bring you know who. -(FULL STOP)- 

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Fighting the Sun's Arrival

Up at a ridiculous hour, again, a by-product of not drinking. It leaves my body too rested. I decided to temporarily give it up when my pants failed me and ceased to fit, again. I try to put them on and they are all too tight, much of my body's mass forced uncomfortably above the waistline, awkwardly raising my center of gravity as if I am trying to tip a canoe. It is least painful when I stand, though my body dreams of always lying.

I have gone back to my previous jean size. I had purchased several pair in expectation of remaining in my new body shape, but things have not worked out as well for me as I might have hoped and I have morphed into the shape that my age requests of me. 

I kept thinking that it was all because I had moved into a new place and had been traveling, that perhaps the various dryers I was now using were hotter than normal, shrinking my jeans just beyond use, ruining my fresh svelte look. But no, the scale at the gym does not often lie, at least to me. I just hadn't been in a while. I was growing in leaps and bounds, weights and pulleys. 

It is so easy to tell yourself things, so easy to listen. If it were not... then love and religion would hardly be possible. 

But I forget too easily, love for some is the most plausible thing there is. What could be more sensible?

I need to get back to doing hard cardio, a few different types: bursts, circuit, and distance. I want to feel that thumping burn in my chest, the pain and fear that gives way to eventual satisfaction. If I can put my heart in fear, of what I might do, then I just might have a chance. Once that pumping organ starts to enjoy the pain and misery of exercise then the tides turn, gravity releases me by degrees and I become as light as a spirit. The trick is getting thumper to work for me, have it turn against my mind - the echo that is too often complaining - let the whining be replaced by the beating. 

All exercise, whether the initial uphill struggle or the satisfaction of accomplishment, is masochistic in nature. Pleasure derived from pain. It is mostly insecurity and then vanity that masks its true nature, one replaced by the other, once derivation is achieved. The only people that I have ever known to exercise as a regular part of their lives enjoy doing it. How twisted. The enjoyment they get from the physical exertion is their reward.

Sure, there are other delights, but wanting to be in shape is not enough for many. The line between healthy and perverse is often just a starting line, one must explore some secret pleasure in the pain.

They're out there.

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Late July

A weekend with the boy; a drive into the city, the Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, a visit with friends, lunch on the grass in the park, the kids' playground, much running and laughing and playing, the boy sleeping on the drive home, a late afternoon baseball game; a mask-and-cape themed birthday party, some fussing and tears, a long nap, pizza, the drive home.

104 degrees fahrenheit, little matter what the record claims.

Lying here now with the fan trying to cool me, no music playing, the sound of a washing machine through the wall, distance, victory, sleep fills the room.

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Please secure your own mosque before assisting others

(Castle, Fortress, Cathedral, Moat)

Sunday morning. I awoke to bad news. Ah well, it is one way that I can tell that I am still alive. The increasing occurrence of misfortune reminds me that I am aging, which is an indication of life. 

Eventually, everybody else's bad news will fade away and I will be left with my own. It's math.

I almost wrote "left in peace with my own" but that is just hope hoping. Peace comes just after the very last bit of bad news, if it comes at all, we're told.

It's difficult to imagine caring about the silly life trifles of others as you're transitioning. 

I imagine that I move my hand outwards in darkness and there feel dry napkins, waiting, or perhaps it is only a skeletal bird.

So... we've touched upon death already this morning. It is good to have gotten that out of the way.

Bad news is not always death, but neither is it ever far off. 

I think I may have substantially increased my readership by discussing the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. That, or I am being targeted by new readers who take a fundamental approach to all that I write.

I tried not to "take a side" in the issue, but others will not allow that. There is the old adage: If you're not with us then you're against us. Even your favorite deity, Christ, invoked that cruel axiom.

That must be the genuinely galling thing for some about this conflict, that each side must make life here on earth unpleasant for one another and then spend eternity burning in hell together.

Without atonement those blood-loving savages will taste eternal torment at the hands of the one true loving God. My God. 

For Christians it must be like watching chickens just before, during, and after their group beheadings:

Look how silly the little people of the world are, just before they burn in infinite perpetuity.

It's too bad, because if some of that religious fervor were used in the service and glory of Christ then they might be able to really turn that region around. 

This is what happens when you live in a place that rejects Disneyland.

Once the Christian voice has echoed in your head... well, some say it never leaves.

I wonder how many here in the US support Israel not because they are part of the Christian meta-story but instead because the Israelis' seem to have better shopping malls. Meaning: people, like us.

Or... how many must secretly support Palestine because the very existence of Jews on the earth brings into question Christ's legacy and prophecy.

I had to clarify what a Semite, Zionist and Jew were online yesterday, for a Jew. They had used the terms as if they were all three interchangeable and meaning the exact same thing.

Silly Jews.

I wish to one day be a hip, stylish Zionist. A Zionista.

Don't let my jokes fool you, I am all for humanity. When I am asked, repeatedly, to respect religions I am left with the simplest of questions: Why? 

When they can not respect one another, why is it an atheist's responsibility to do for them what they can not do for themselves. 

Issues concerning the "right to exist" are important, you'll see. As the world's population increases it is only natural that the issue will become even more vitally important. The "right to defend" will become the "right to kill," if it hasn't already.

Israel is using Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law more effectively than most, that's all.

Because there's is no better defense than a good offense. 

When I say good, I mean killer.

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Who doesn't love Ice Cream?

Up in the middle of the night, fell back asleep long enough to wake up just as the gym opens. Now, I sit here, knowing that I won't go to the gym but wishing that I had the coffee that would be my reward if I did. It is all an endless negotiation with self, life.

Today, the little boy and I will go into the city. We will have some adventure together. He is truly a remarkably sweet and crafty boy. 

Yesterday, we sat eating dinner together at a place where we also sometimes enjoy small servings of gelato, which he believes to be ice cream. We sat together and shared vegetables and a breast of chicken, talking about Buzz Lightyear as we ate.

In a moment of pause he turned and looked at me and said, "I love you, Daddy."

"I love you too, Rhys."

"I love your eyes, Daddy."

"I love your your eyes also, Rhys."

"I love when we share ice cream together, Daddy."

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"I come from down in the valley..."

(pic by Cato)

The town is cut first by the river, then by the swooping tracks along the river, then the swooping road that crosses and comes partway back from the other side, the shape of a hook without end; a lopsided heart that fell from above and then grew into the land there where it lay. An antique organ that's neither old enough to be famous nor visited, just crossed. The four parts of the town are unequal, each part is that one thing, nothing more. Few here would know what a ventricle was, or is. Nobody ever said, as if both sides of the city had a stroke while waiting to find out. The edges seem to slump away from the center, trying not to be noticed, even as they creep upwards on both sides.

Most things bleed downhill, the color of rust, age, whiskey, rained upon clay. Nothing has been. Things don't fall away from the valley as they should but rather endlessly towards it, into it, then downstream without much notice. If it's useless then it finds its way here. We were locally famous for making more moss than most.

The small buildings towards the four way central crossing are the color of old pennies. Banks, ever softening, were clogging the would-be arteries. Abandoned leftovers tilt, bend, or sag where they were dropped, left in the yard. All directions given at the gas station are the same, with a nod of the head, "Over there."

Women's wishes are secret or not at all.

Men here don't wish. They have all been run off, or stay inside.

We were young, though. We'd rush up the hills on either side of the valley, belly full with what we thought was liquor. There were parties that felt enormous, like the roaring of many engines just at the start, flags waving, driving us all rabid with thrust. Sweet local girls would drink beer and lie down to close their eyes, clench their fists, grab the seatbelt and hope for marriage or worse. We would emerge, sometimes awake, together in love, or less.

We would smoke pot in what we thought to be the forest, then slink back to watch whatever they offered new on the double-feature evenings, then off into the night, or sleep, or else.

The generation last moved downstream together in a re-enactment of the bible. The generation before that refused to budge any further until after death, so we were were all stuck for the time being. Even Moses, he's gone thirty years ago now, maybe more, but nobody will tear his place down.

Newness crawled away from us all, we never agreed on it, none, but neither did we fight. Some left, some stayed, some strayed, none arrived new. 

Well, one. She - that somehow didn't evaporate or get washed downstream. Just one.

The pub had a patchy collection of high school yearbooks, tattered and abused as they were, forgotten as they now are. We granted her the local dignity of pretending that she graduated. It was a hospitality that we collectively agreed upon without much discussion. Southern in its grace, ignorant in its effect. 

Except by accident nobody makes babies, at loss of modest budget or none at all.

She and I will still stand at the far edge of the parking lot just after work and look down at the city, before we drive. Where we live is beyond the remaining set of trees that barely marks the bend at the far end of what used to be the theater.

You can still see it all from where we stand, even the parts that are gone. The river turns sharply and then disappears, taking nearly everything with it.

Says she was put on earth to hunt and find and extinguish the sun, when she drinks, and that's just what I believe she'll probably do.

When she's bleeding she runs as far up the side of the valley hill as she possibly can, howling and kicking as she goes, tumbling back in the mornings, angry, mean as a bag of snakes.


The circular thing is time, and thought; the saddest, sweet craziness where they ever met. 

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If you will it...

("Mark it zero!")

I do not "support" Hamas, nor do I think they are "right," if any of you were wondering. 

I only resist "siding" with the Palestinians or the Israelis based on the criteria of editorialized visual media.

The point of my post was only to reflect that any anger felt about the treatment of Palestinians can be used to better understand how others might feel also, when considering America's global efforts and intrusions. 

I would love to opine further but my day also involves working... not like those filthy, lawless, unemployed, bomb-target Arabs.

"Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?" - Walter Sobchak

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Birth Control

(Surrender...)

I was going to dispense my rather immense wisdom on the birth control issue plaguing the hearts and minds of all Americans but I have arrived at work late and now I must move on to the more important task of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict.

Here is my thought for the day: American media seems to have turned against Israel, lately. More stories are beginning to emerge detailing the difficult, and some would say brutal, handling of the crisis by the Israeli military. 

Americans' self-righteous anger seems to be rising, and many might argue Rigthtfully so, and... It's about time!

Perhaps now would be a good time to remind these dear-hearts that this is how citizens of other nations must feel every time America decides to act similarly, claiming to be protecting freedom and advancing the cause of democracy.

You know, killing children.

So... swallow some of that anger and digest it well. Let it sit in your stomach like a pile of dirty, rusting pennies.

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Pleas and Appeals

(Okay: my flight was delayed last night, so I got into SF late and had to work early this morning. I *tried* to write a post on the plane but gave up. This is the unedited result.)

Stuck on a delayed flight home.  I held out as long as I could, then... I put on an old favorite Tom Waits album and pulled the computer out of the overhead, forgetting altogether that I had no internet.

So, I’m writing this post in Word, for an old buddy.

We’ll see what Microsoft has to say about my grammar. It is curious that Google does not offer to correct me, all things considered, and with their access to information one might think… oh well.

Don’t be vile, says the Google autocorrect.

The buddy I mentioned above, he developed a rather formal relationship with the federal government. Well, the relationship was a thing that they insisted upon. A surprise invitation. They would not have it any other way. They presented it to him such that he could hardly refuse. He was only able to fend them off as well as he could in their relationship demands. He negotiated, I suppose. But once things were settled they became inseparable, for a time.

He was an industrious sort, a true diligent. He had an import/distribution operation with several loose contacts in the Amsterdam area.

Ah, the days… but so much more and again the nights.

(Nothing good happens after midnight... claim some)

Pleas and Appeals. 

Pleasin' an' Pills

Well, it is not my intention to fabricate his story here. He is already crafting his own version of the tale, so… I’ll leave him to it.

I feel awkward writing what might become a post, on a computer, on a plane.

A friend called me a “twat” today. He must be right.

I wish to feel that there is somebody anonymous reading along, a young woman, seated just behind me, wondering what purpose such a thing could possibly serve, neither love-letter nor path to prosperity.

I have a few hundred daily readers, so I should not wish that I have one now, reading as I write; one that will never know how to find me once the darkness is lit and the altitude has been relinquished. 

But I suspect she is there, as I am here. So, there.

It must be Tom Waits, the effect of his music upon me, a forlorn romanticism. 

Why don’t all planes have wi-fi? What bullshit is that? I am ready to spend some money.

Not a lot, but enough, always just more than the thing is worth.

That must be one of the truest signs of age, the feeling that all things are not worth what they cost. It is a begrudging thought that did not occur to me before, ever. 

I only felt that there were many things, some great, which I could not afford.

Now, whatever it is… those bastards are always charging too much.

It is why women aren’t interested in me any longer. What kind of a lover would think such things, or worse, admit to them? 

I once discovered suddenly that I was wealthy, and well beyond. 

You can imagine my disappointment upon awakening.

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Problem Solved

(Disclaimer: I had meant to write more, but time restrictions prevented me from muddling the facts any further.)

My friends have not been able to yet resolve the Palestinian / Israeli conflict by posting to Facebook. I don't understand how these things work, apparently. The images of maimed and dead Palestinian children seem to have no effect, or not the effect that they might have hoped for: the raising of consciousness. 

Denouncing baby-killers is one way to get people over to your way of thinking. I'm amazed that Congress hasn't already passed the Anti-Baby-Killer-Act. ABKA.

There are too many of my friends that should have rightly been involved in various armed global insurrections throughout the 80's and 90's, but instead they were eating ecstasy and dancing at nightclubs. 

Now, of course, they are the true and righteous revolutionaries. 

Only in sports and politics is everybody so self-assured of correctness and eventual victory.

Don't get me wrong... I'm as self-righteous as anybody and love to argue for a cause, even when it's not mine, but... I'm completely befuddled at some people's online responses to the conflict in Palestine, or Israel, or whatever you choose to call the Levant, the piece of land along the South-Eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

You know the place (see detail above).

I understand, all too well, how people wish to project their allegiances and grievances online. But the Israeli / Palestinian issue (see how I changed the order there, to be fair?) is far more complicated than anybody would have you believe. Anybody that would attempt to simplify it "for you" is engaged in political manipulation. It is called propaganda and should be recognized for what it is: a rhetorical device meant to persuade. 

Choosing sides is easy. I do it two or three times a day, just to keep Facebook interesting, etc.

I saw a video yesterday in which a scholar attempts to show how easy-to-understand the issue actually is. His reasoning involved a simplification that painted the Palestinians as stateless historical wanderers that refuse to recognize the right of Israel to exist.

Seems simple enough.

Justification for response is the tricky part, though.

There are two groups fighting for the coveted role of victim here, and two groups also violently asserting their right to exist, one more effectively than the other and with greater military support.

A victim never has to morally evaluate themselves. So, it confers great advantage in the justification of any subsequent behavior once the status of victim has been achieved.

Why either of them requires recognition from the other, and the legal and economic possession of the locale where they believe themselves to have this right to exist, seems to be the main points of contention.

Is that simple enough? 

One group will need to cease to exist, or at least cease to do so in their current location.

So, take a guess at who looks like they're most likely to win, make yourself some popcorn, get a beer, pull yourself up to Facebook, choose sides, and fire away.

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Not Safe For Home

(Lower Alberta Falls)

Last day of my mini-vacation. A barbecue in Golden, CO later today. Yesterday, we prepared by buying fancy brat sausages and craft beers. It is what Coloradans do. 

That, and smoke pot.

We went to get some Vietnamese pho yesterday and I browsed through a local newspaper while we waited for our food to arrive. The cover story was about how the federal government was going to try to take away the guns of the honest hard-working, pot-smoking citizens of Colorado.  Think I'm kidding? (see below).

Almost every ad in this newspaper somehow involved the growing, cultivation, distribution, ingestion, or dispensing of... you guessed it, pot.

It makes me want to buy a gun. I've always sort of wanted one, just to help settle unexpected arguments, but now that I'm in a state that has legalized pot I want one even more. I'm not sure if I'll be here long enough to buy one though. I believe there is a waiting period. I feel like I've already waited long enough. 

The word NOW! keeps flashing in my mind in bold red letters, accompanied by bursts of light and deafening pops, sirens.

I also want to start drinking more champagne, or whatever, and wearing tuxedoes on boats. There's something about downing a nice flute of bubbles while you're packin' heat that just seems so fucking cool and righteous. Prostitutes would love that sort of thing, I think.

I don't want to shoot anybody, at first. Eventually though... I can see how the temptation would get to you. You might succumb to it in a moment of unexpected strength, or if you woke up with an erection.

I have some friends who are avid gun owners, and amateur fantacists. I find their stories of self-invented heroics fascinating, though alarmingly repetitive. Their willingness to engage in fantasy role-play is unequaled, except only maybe by those who are heavily into sado-masochism, and a few closet larpers here or there. 

That crowd, etc.

You can't tell them any of this, the gun owners. Or, you can, but they'll just dismiss you and then try to project their gun-use fantasies towards you and your family.

Oh yeah... what would you do if your wife was being raped by a bunch of dirty, uneducated, unemployed immigrants that snuck past the guard house at the entrance to your neighborhood, turned over the file cabinets at the HOA office, then broke into your home without triggering the ADT alarm? What then? Huh? What would you do? Watch your wife get raped? Would you like that? Huh? Look at a picture of her right now and tell me how you could allow such a thing? You fucking disgusting liberal. You're probably on their side, aren't you? You probably want to line girls up at the border, just waiting to be raped by them like their sun bathing. You fucking liberals are all such a twisted bunch.

Why do all their stories involve raping as a launch point, and the singular incident which propels the narrative, a plot which always ends in them unloading a round or two into their belly or face, with just enough time left in their miserable lives for them to lean over and say one last thing to them.

You really wanted to rape my wife, didn't you?

They're like pubescent cops. I've never met a cop that didn't like to use gang-rape as the punch line to every chuckle. 

Ah, yes, Mothers Day, that'll be nice. There probably won't be much gang-raping at brunch. If there is, I'll be there to oversee it.

If we were to know the porn-watching habits of cops we'd never let them back out on the streets armed again, society would be forced to act. 

There must be some mechanism that gets triggered when you restrain people and lock them up together as a regular part of your job. It must trigger some primal fascination with the dynamics of sexual power. The semblance of maintaining order as a masking device to barely conceal the urge to humiliate must really be a powerful, shared voice among them.

That's part of the reason why cops are always trying to convince themselves, and everybody else, that firemen are all just a bunch of pussies. 

They're just itching to lock those guys up.

And this, dear friends, is why I want a gun.  Because there are just too many sickos out there.

I want a Big 9" Black Glock with thick, creamy bullets that can spray everywhere, just like in the video movies.

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Humor should be protected, or at least kept away from the cops

(Rizzo, the wonder pup)

I want a secret life. It's as if everybody has one, except me.

If I had a secret life I would probably write about it on this site, though. That's the surest way to not have one: to be persistently confessional.

Having a secret life seems like it requires a lot of energy, of course, but being able to spring it on your friends who are oblivious seems like it packs such private, personal whallop. 

My life is more like skiing with an inter-tube; it is imprecise, unexpected, fun for a while, and designed for disaster. A rudderless catastrophe. 

I suppose I might be doomed to live the other type of life, the one where secret acknowledgement of deviance plays less of a role, or not at all.

I mean, I do secret things, but Rachel knows about them. So, they fail, at the level of secrecy.

How does one acquire a truly secret life? I want to know, so that I can tell everybody.

Yesterday, as promised, we went hiking. Alberta Falls, in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Fantastic drive into the park and a great trail. We took my buddy's "service dog" and were questioned by every Park Ranger and volunteer we encountered. I believe that by law they are only allowed to ask if it is a service dog and what type. My buddy lied and said that he was epileptic. It always brings me barely contained private pleasure to openly lie to law enforcement officials. 

Always.

Though, admittedly, Park Rangers are about the friendliest law enforcement agents that you will ever find, anywhere. All cops should be trained by the National Park Service. 

I would have told them that he was my service dog and I had diarrhea. I believe that all you have to say is "medical" but we were having too much fun making up faux reasons for the pup's presence in the park.

We let him off the leash to the great astonishment of many hikers. They had never seen anything like it in a National Park, a privately owned animal running free. Clearly seeing an animal off its leash is not the reason they come to a place like that. 

I kid. Nobody at all seemed upset by it. The dog is very well-mannered and friendly. He made many new friends on the trail. 

Then, lunch in Lyon. Local beers and chicken wings and burgers.

Tomorrow, a bbq at an old friend's house whom I haven't seen in many years, perhaps as many as fifteen years, or more. Should be fun. 

A lot of my elderly friends, like CS, question my time spent on Facebook. They miss one simple joy there though, I think: the open opportunity to poke cops in the proverbial eye. 

It's fucking great sport. 

A few of my friends have friends that are cops, for reasons that I don't quite understand. So, inevitably conversations will surround an alleged citizen, you know, where a group of cops accidentally choked somebody to death in the normal line of duty. 

The cops always point out that if the person had simply agreed with their arrest then there wouldn't have been any problems. Because that's what the courts are for, disagreeing with the particulars of your arrest. Things go so much better for arrestees in court, of course, especially for the minorities. 

Nothing warms a judges heart like the phrase "resisting arrest."

I get so tired of hearing how cops are "just like everybody else"... No they're fucking not. Go to a bbq. If a cop shows up there is a distinct and unnecessary sense of something being projected from them. As if at any time the whim to exert control over the situation might just take them, or be required of them, for the safety of everybody involved. The only times cops giggle is if you make a gang-rape joke.

Not all of them, is the common response.

Too many of them, is mine.

Fuck them and everything about them. They are the armed, funded henchmen of the near future. They know it, and they even seem to enjoy it. 

That's just the violence they regularly display. What about the systematic misuse of "probable cause"...?  Of course they believe it's reasonable to trample people's rights. The justification is the result. 

Or, "detainment," which is the law they created to take away your rights and hold you in custody without charging you for a crime, for your own good....

When is it ever in your best interest to have your rights taken away without recourse? 

When they say so, that's when.

So, Facebook is a place where you can safely tell them what witless, petty, corrupt autocrats they are. 

For now...

Don't let the opportunity pass you by. 

It might not come again. 

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... love to always consider

(A mountain or two, maybe, and a lake, some trees)

I finally got some much needed sleep, hours of it. Who knows how many. There was nobody there in the room to count, I hope.

My buddy and I went bike riding yesterday to see what there is to see around Longmont, CO. Pretty standard stuff in a little town not far from Boulder. Great view of the Rockies on one side, great plains just starting on the other.

Today, we go hiking up into the mountains a little bit. I'm a genuine nature boy.

Yesterday, I fucked up the joke about the arrivals and departures. When I looked at it I thought, Wait, that IS how it's supposed to be. The joke was lost. It was the other way, I swear. 

Ah well... the legalized marijuana is already softening my brain.

I don't really smoke pot, or not that much, anyway. I'm not what anybody would consider a pot smoker. I'm not an abstainer, it's just not part of my regular life. Every now and then I'll smoke it when a friend offers it, or if I have the whole day to myself to do with as I wish, without having to interact with anybody else. That happens less and less.

It does not calm my mind the way it does for some. It has never put me to sleep. It has the opposite effect. If I smoke too much I am reduced to a babbling spastic, though many must not even notice a difference. It is my natural-boy nature.

I will take my camera hiking today, so that maybe I will have an original picture for tomorrow's post. A landscape shot that is not nearly as good as any one I could easily find online. 

I chat with Cato often about his love of landscapes and my indifference to them. It is something that I do not feel as much, or understand. There is nothing weird about them to draw my attention. But neither is there in my many pictures of my boy, at least for me. 

So, it remains a mystery. Why does anyone like the things they like? Most of my pleasures are there simply because I burned myself out on the thing that came before it, giving myself no path back to orthodox pleasure. It's a scorched earth policy.

"Spiritual discovery" for an atheist consists mainly in rediscovering simple joys in life, not depending on others for them.

The second part is the trick. Discovering a new tea that you enjoy only goes so far. There is love to always consider. 

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The names have been changed for reasons unknown

I made it, Colorado. The Sunshine State.

I had hoped that we would already be skiing this morning but have since come to find out that this is not the season for it, no matter that altitude, sort of. 

I was encouraged to stop asking questions.

It was a bit of a rough landing getting here. The Denver airport - home to the secret Norad bomb bunkers, and the central point for many, many conspiracy-based operations -  was designed by a child with spectrum disorder. Where you pick up your baggage is the departure floor, rather than arrivals. There are no counters to check in for your flight there, those are on the arrivals floor.

Imbecilidiots. 

I was expecting to get what is known as a "contact high" just from being here and rubbing up against women in the airport, but the state has not yet devolved into Mad Max style anarchy, where the bloodthirsty rule the roads and the night. Not yet.

In fact, I'm already bored, almost. My friend, who I am staying with, sleeps about six times as much as I do. He's like a cat, but not always as lucky.

Well, fuck... I just read that a passenger jet was shot down over the Ukraine. I'm going to take a little morning nap, and maybe dream about flying.

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Pakwan

(Chickens)

Not enough bandwidth today. Yes, I use nerd-speak when that's all I've been able to hear in my own head all day.

I wanted to relay a story about going to dinner with "the guys" last night, but it has escaped me.

There was great Pakistani food at a little place in SF. 

Pakwan.

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Never Enough

I leave Sonoma today, for a little while, a week or more. 

I go into the city and work for two days, then to Denver, then back to the city and work for two days, then home again. It already feels a long time to be gone, but I don't know why, and I know that it is not.

Puddle-jumping, like the days of youth, only without the youth. The first thing to go are your needs.

Or, is it knees?

The friends that I go to visit have several large dogs, perhaps a hundred or more. It is difficult to feel blue near them. They are a happy pack and I love them much. I have posted pictures of each of them here before, though that is not what you see above. That was just one that I found quickly, and was taken just as quickly, obviously.

I will only bring one camera. It is more than enough, but it doesn't feel that way. I have come to understand that that feeling might be part of what has plagued me. If it can be called a plaguing.

I will only bring one pair of shoes also, though that distresses me much less.

Perhaps I have finally stopped dressing for success.

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The dangers of bitterness

I have allowed myself to get too worked up about the past, lately. I have been letting it simmer, dangerously. As it approached a rolling boil... one small act of kindness, just a few encouraging words, seemed to wipe it all away.

So shines a good deed... as Shakespeare's Wonka would say.

Resentments are too dangerous to toy with. They are like jealousy in their scope. They run wide and deep, and move too fast. Then they grow roots where they can, in the darkness, corrupting and cracking the foundation over time.

Just as I was letting a few things start to eat at me, a few simple words of benevolence made them all seem to vanish. It felt as if I was taking a shower made of sunshine.

The future is looking up, the past is the past.

Moving forward has never seemed so easy. 

I feel as light as hydrogen, but not in the Hindenburg way.

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This post is Safe For Work

(Nadar)

Somebody reported me for posting this pic on Facebook earlier.

So, fuck off.... philistines. 

See if you can get Facebook to ask Google to scold me.

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