Drinking With Grandpa-by J.D. Brayton

In 1972, two days after my eighteenth birthday, I went north from Florida to Rhode Island to visit my grandparents in Riverside, Rhode Island. It was in mid-June and hot for New England. I had returned from Europe a few months earlier with what would eventually become a drinking problem all my own. Being young and fresh I still believed in the myth of the bawdy, jolly, lusty sailor who drank and romanced women, port to harbor, with endearing abandon. My father drank. My father’s father drank, and though I knew grandpa George was in ill-heath because of a fifty-year tobacco habit, I looked forward to tipping a few with him at the Riverside Social Club; the place where the all old salts would juice quietly whenever the stress of aging became too overwhelming. My father, George JR.; (whom they called Sonny) was dead by that time. He had been killed in an airplane accident a year earlier. Grandpa still mourned his only son. Drinking was a male rite of passage that Grandpa understood. We were sitting at the kitchen table. I finished off a slice of my auntie’s blueberry pie, and handed the old salt his favorite cap (the one with the Navy anchor). “Grandpa, I’m eighteen now- and I’m old enough to drink. Let’s go to the club.” My grandfather, who was hooked up to an oxygen tank and unable to smoke his beloved pipe, seemed to consider the idea fondly by arching his eyebrows and chuckling a bit. I think he not only liked my audacity, but welcomed it. “Just like Sonny.” He could barely walk then. I remember half carrying my grandpa down the hill through narrow streets, his lungs wheezing from the emphysema in the early afternoon heat. The sign read ‘Riverside Sportsman Club- Private- Members only’. I remember thinking that Rhode Island working class architecture was not much to get excited about. Everything seemed small and cramped compared to the southern architecture I’d grown up with. The interior was stark. No windows. Fluorescent neon lights were placed above the Formica bar in a dry attempt at decoration. Old Glory hung above the mirror, faded and dusty. There were blue chipped stools for seating. For ambience, bathed in the pink glow of a Budweiser sign, were some girly calendars from the 1940’s. Beefy women wearing bikinis. Holding tools. The six old Vets sat drinking at the bar in the middle of the afternoon. They all looked up as I, a baby-faced hippie kid with long hair halfway down to my ass, walked in with my grandpa. One of them let go the zinger; “She’s a little young fer ya , ain’t she George?" My Grandpa laughed with them and looked at me in masked amusement. I gamely smiled back. Yankee salt-geezers. “Naw, he’s Sonny’s boy… just up fer his first beer with the grown men”. He coughed as I helped him to the barstool . “You sayin’ he’s a full eighteen then, George?” asked Kenny the barkeep, looking me over with suspicion. I produced I.D. “Flarida, eh”? he remarked as he handed me back my card. I loved the Yankee accent.Grandpa was quiet as he sipped his beer. After his third Budweiser , he gargled; “Y’oughta be signed up, kid.” “What, grandpa?’ “Fer the service, kid, if yeer eighteen, y’oughta be signed up fer the service.” The effects of all the beer made me bold enough to sass him back. “So I gotta go to Viet Nam to serve my country?” “Hell, yes boy- Y’go where yer country sends yah. “Y’do yer duty!” barked Kenny the barkeep, polishing glass. My grandfather’s coughing kept him from being able to speak. He nodded an affirmative and pointed at the flag. “Isn’t that why all you guys fought WW2? So I wouldn’t know what war was like? Right Grandpa? Didn’t you guys suffer the war so dumb-ass kids like me would never know? Wasn’t that the idea?” Grandpa George looked up at me from his bar stool. The others in the bar grew silent. One old Vet rose slowly to leave. It wasn’t until he stepped into the full light and faced me that I noticed his left sleeve was pinned at the shoulder. He smiled down at me. “He’s gotta point they-uh, George.” He pat Grandpa’s shoulder. “He’s got Sonny’s head on ’im“. He’s Sonny’s boy alright.

Dinosaurs Don't 'Tweet'

Psychedelic Geezerdom Dispatch #4 RE: The Spoiled Under 30 Crowd. A Procrutean Response from an Acerbic Dinosaur. While I may agree that you can't help when you were born, you can help your insipid slackerism. So to my dear coy Yuppie,Gen-X or ‘or i-twittering Millennials attempting to mark your territory- vagitus and ignorance is no excuse. I was born in 1954. (Yeah. Go ahead and snort. A BOOMER.) Let’s get this missive of generational remonstration started, shall we? Our Cable was that steel wound stuff we used to hold the chariot together.(just kidding.) We used other Cable to hang a transistor radio from our belts, or on the handle bar of our bikes. I actually remember 8-track tape being a wonder of scientific ingenuity. I bought 45 records. Lots of them...and rode my bike with Angel wing handle bars and a Banana seat to the record store to buy them. The L.P. (that stands for Long Player phonograph record-a round black thing made out of black vinyl. Google it for a picture) was an extravagance few could afford on 35 cents allowance per week. We could afford, however to go to the Saturday Matinee and get a BIG ASS Milky Way candy bar and fountain drink for under a buck. Easy. We got change back. In my case I grew up in the deep south – Miami, Florida –Red State then, Red State now. There they shot and beat the shit out of people for having long hair.Tattoos were found in the circus or the jailhouse. Earrings were usually of the clunky clip-on variety. They were worn by women or movie Pirates.(Sandals –because it was Florida –were A.O.K.)The hoop-type were worn by Carmen Miranda or dancing Latinas in Desi Arnaz movies.(Google him too.) Gay meant happy at Christmas or the church dance (preferably White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.) After Lent. (Yeah non-Catholics celebrated this religious trope too.) We rarely fasted and self-flagellated. We were taught sex was dirty, but we strongly doubted it. Bikinis sold soap.Sister was hot for Moon-Doggie.( read: Life guard surfer dude with a Woody. Both kinds.) Listening to Rock N' Roll was a subversive act. It took actual guts to be different. It took guts to have Black(a.k.a. African-American) Friends. It took guts to refuse to say the pledge of allegiance in school because you had questions for an AUTHORITY who forced you to do so in what was supposed to be a free country. They tried to tell us to "Duck and Cover" under our desks at school because that would protect us from Nuclear Attack. We saw riots in the streets daily. They assassinated anyone who tried to tell the truth. They expelled you from school for being a non-conformist. They beat you with belts, and paddles for not wearing socks, talking back, not tucking your shirt tail in, citing the poetry of Bob Dylan, or falling asleep in Civics class. The Space Race kept us awake. Space travel was miraculous. God help you if you questioned the Vietnam War. They told us "Potted Meat Food Product" was healthy for lunch. If we wanted to know what was happening, we turned on Ed Sullivan, or Dick Clark, for new music. We had 3 channels. Maybe. AM Radio was the shit.(meaning cool as). Disc Jockeys were sought-after personalities with mystique. They gave you cool free stuff if you used your rotary-dial telephone to call in requests. Gidget was the epitome of beach babe. Pat Boone was used as a cultural shill to clean up "race music". We kids knew better. He sucked then and he sucks now. We knew that if we wanted change we would have to take the initiative --we got off our asses into the street and protested to stop Racism, War, the Draft, and the use of wax paper to wrap potted meat food product festering in our un-refrigerated lunchboxes. Which, by the way, were truly cool because we had cool bands on them and of course- Mr. Ed the Horse, My Favorite Martian, Gidget and The Beatles. These things are worth a CRAPLOAD of money today. Radio pushed vinyl which pushed us onto the dance floor to pantomime sex-acts we didn’t really understand. It was good practice. Sweat mixed with lust and the din of a garage band IS the elixir of life. Being caught with POT would get you a life sentence in a Federal penal colony in the Aleutian Islands. So would nudity in public.Or sewing the American flag on the ass of those fruity-ass bell-bottom pants. We did our best to change this. You pesky little twerps can thank us later for tits and balls on T.V. Go ahead and smoke a little weed. Just NEVER wear idiot egregious Nehru jackets OR bell-bottoms(with or without Old Glory on the ass) –those things looked ridiculous. We lived for the next new song to make us dance and be happy. None of you under 45 year olds would have survived the 60's OR 70's, because we would have beat your ass and took your lunch money then bought Rolling Stones records with it. Kiss the glove. Now go Twitter. P.S. That bit about ending War and Racism? We got off to a good start, but admittedly, we need your help on that --so get crackin’ newbies and show us what you can do. While you’re at it get rid of that= Corporations are People thing, willya?

Psychedelic Geezerdom-Dispatch # 3-Meeting ALICE COOPER

ALICE I Hardly Knew Ye- So What It seemed as if we had been walking for days in the stifling summer canyons of New York City. My brother, my sister-in-law –their six-month –old child (a Boy) in her arms, another friend John and my best buddy Roger had decided to visit the City and look up a pair of friends(a trendy gay pair) who had left Athens, Ga to live in the west village. It was 1971. We had all just moved up to the western Maryland mountains from south Georgia and my Mom –(a professor of remedial English)—agreed to allow us to borrow her Volkswagen van and visit our hip buddies in the hippest city in the world –or so the ‘Bruised Apple’ seemed to be to us. It was to be a long footsore weekend of no sleep , little spending money and culture shock. We all welcomed the adventure–like desert dwellers stumbling for the first time – into a great lake with a paper drinking straw. Ready to founder, drunk by entelechy -- drinking deeply from an ocean of gritty northeastern backwash. The possibilities were endless. We were in search of Andy Warhol and Lou Reeds’ New York, not Frank Sinatra’s Broadway fantasy – we were seduced by the outre’--the NYC of seedy Ratso Rizzo, transvestites with fake paste pearls, perched slutty rockers, dopers with fairy stories, mind-expanders, pre-vampire scenesters, sexy leather doused in cheap libation and Jewish delis with miles of pastrami we could weave tall tales around. Attitude and accents we could marvel and mimic with our customary young humor—we were southern kids after all. The razor-sharp finality of clipped Yankee consonants and magnified vowels both fascinated and repelled us all –especially Roger, who had never been much out of Oglethorpe County Georgia—and this trip was a signified cherry buster for him. He was quiet most of the time, prepared with a carton of Winston cigarettes to smoke and share, the perfect prop to remain an enigma in a fast talking city full of premier hustlers and urchin street gimees, always prowling for subway change ,or skin-tomb robbery from a gaggle of wide-eyed southern fish—near fresh kids really, as the eldest amongst us was 19. Eyes wide, ready to be entertained by the real reality-series played out on the streets of Greenwich Village. We dove in, sure we could swim well enough to survive a night. NYC in the year 1971 was a different place. The words frowsy decline seem appropriate; the sharp-dressed lady Manhattan was emaciated, unwashed and scandalized after two centuries of parties - her black eye-shadow was running like a off-Broadway raccoon, and the make-up was blistering off the hot paved surface…but it was still New York City, a cultural clitoris, and her loins vibrated like no other place on earth. Yesterday is never Now until you re-live it. Nostalgia is a Christmas tree decorated with reechy thrift-shop bijou. Memory plays tricks on us like drunken pedophilic mime-uncles. After enough time you forget the smell of vomit. We were over-tired kids sharing the baby-carrying chore, in need of a pack of immediate naps; and like all petulant children the world over – we were having none of that shut-eye talk. We were young –capable of tertiary circadian marathons –and we lived by the mantra ‘we’ll sleep when we’re dead’. And this city was more alive at midnight than mid-day at a Georgia 4th of July parade. This concrete island levitated. Parallel continuity for the culture-vultures, and the innocent who hunger—this was fucking paradise, man. My obsession with Alice Cooper in 1971 was multi-facetted—something more than just hard music, it was an elective fusing of shock into my character that at the age of 59 I have not entirely abandoned –though these days I would have to be far more sensitive to my 12 year old daughter’s sense of propriety and epic mortification if , at my ripe state of Psychedelic Geezerdom, I went to the grocery store in horror-show drag. At 17 I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. None of us would have–it was a new frontier of multiple Freak-storms on polite society. It was so easy to shock, frighten, and disgust the down-homey folks –it was our hobby, you might say. Boredom was death, and normal was the enemy. Anything goes. (Nearly) None of us had lived long enough to watch our jocular mocking turn to stone-cold cynicism –that happened in the 80’s. Many among us still had some Aleister Crowley/Velvet Underground induced romantic notion that heroin and mystical awareness was a common-law marriage worthy of exploration. (This nuptial killed my brother eventually, and many more whom I have loved since then…but that is another set of horror tales). It had crept into our music like tattooed carnival parolees at a psychedelic free-love concert, or like bikers at Altamont, or a crime novelist at a Bible study…and it all came from arty, seductive concrete canyons on the isle of Manhattan. Ol’ Blue –Eyes sang it –If I can make it here I can make it anywhere…" He left out a line: "...from cradle to grave, it’s the knowledge of poets turned into ghosts that we crave…"( a little improvised Anne Rice lyric there..) To adequately describe the flavor of the counter-culture in the ‘70’s I invite you to Imagine a sepia-toned snap-shot of Oscar Wilde holding hands with Aleister Crowley in the front row of an Easter re-enactment at St. Paul’s cathedral. Drinking the blood of a microchiroptera bat. Piquant. #Worth a thousand words. { ‘The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.’ ~ Aleister Crowley. } { ‘I’m frightened of the devil but I’m drawn to those who ain’t afraid’… Joni Mitchell/A Case Of You } Alice Cooper was my vampire story escape from the effects of Protestant Sunday school. Vincent Fernier and his band of ex-high school track stars from Arizona were as frightening to most parents in 1971 as Marilyn Manson(who stole the act) would be if he magically appeared at the Rev. Billy Graham’s dinner table French-kissing Anton La Vey. Wrong=Right. It was easier to shock society then. In fact it was our sworn duty as a generation of affected degenerates to keep up the good work. How great is that? Alice Cooper gave us the sharp kitchen utensils with which to cook, carve and eat Ozzie and Harriet. Yummy. Father Knows Best My Ass. But it was still play-acting to us. We were still clinging a bit to the Peace n’ Love Alice Cooper swears he hated and claims he was trying to rub out. Hell, honestly? I just loved the absurdity and theatrical nature of the societal goof. Other than gasps, wide-eyed gaffs, and neck-craning I really didn’t want to hurt anyone. I wasn’t joining the Satanic Army. I was just a disaffected ex-altar boy Episcopalian with authority issues…who liked my rock-stars cutting the heads off thrift-store baby dolls. At high volume. With a resonant high camp sensibility. Dystopian Oscar Wilde –on- acid charisma. Charmingly harmless.(There was and is nothing charismatic or enchanting about Charlie Manson’s dystopian vision.) From genocide to horror to comedy -- Timing is everything. Nothing says fun like crazed hippie boys with drag and scary eye-shadow sauntering down the streets of Athens, Georgia(or any southern town) knowing full well you were welcoming (at best) a thorough southern style deep fried gang of ass beating at any given moment by followers of Jesus and worshippers of FOOTBALL. It all seemed worth it then. I would far from welcome it now. I have the scars to prove it. Evolution (or de-evolution) is not painless. But it can be amusing. We all stumbled into Max’ Kansas City at 1 a.m.—tired, funky but totally electrified. There in the corner, talking to Mitch Miller (of ‘Sing Along With Mitch’) was Dennis Dunaway the bass player of Alice Cooper’s band. I’d have recognized him anywhere. I bought the album ‘Love It To Death’ when I was stuck on a de-consecrated hog farm in the middle of a peanut field while living in Ty-Ty Ga. And there beyond him was The Alice himself. Drinking beer. It took me twenty minutes to work up the nerve to speak to him. When I did it went like this. “ Um…uh…hi I just wanted to tell you that I’m really a big fan of your music.” Alice’s answer? “ SO WHAT.” He did smirk while saying it. I smiled back—embarrassed. After all, how could Alice know the death-defying gauntlet I –and uncounted many small town kids-- had gone through just to order and pick up an album with a bunch of men in drag displayed on the cover? Especially in my case. Had Alice ever even set sparkle-boot in by-gawd-killya-hippie Tifton JO-JAH? SO WHAT. Didn’t he and his band know a few thousand southern small hamlet kids considered Alice Cooper a harbinger of shock and freedom? So What. Sing Along With Mitch shrugged and repeated, “ Hey kid…SO WHAT.” I skulked away –deflated. The story doesn’t end here. It wasn’t until I read Mile Davis autobiography that I realized that SO WHAT was a NYC celebrity’s way of saying –who cares? Drink a beer. Go start a band. SO WHAT. Because that’s exactly what Miles Davis said to people who tried to worship him on the street. SO WHAT. You can do it too. But not without the motivation. SO WHAT. It’s even the title track on the great ‘Kind Of Blue’ recording I am listening to right now as I type this…from the subtle intro of Bill Evans piano, to Paul Chambers bass laying down the first conversation—and Miles and Adderley’s horns answering So What. So-ooo Whhhhat. And onward through the remarkable fluidity of call and response—the ultimate being SO WHAT in bursts of sharp modulating SO WHAHHHHT. SO WHAT. It never hit me until years later what Vincent Furnier was actually saying to me. Vincent Damon Furnier. I didn’t even know that was his true name. SO WHAT. I didn’t know he started his band in Arizona, by way of L.A. and BACK to freezing-ass Detroit. Detroit? Not Detroit. Really? You went back there? SO WHAT. He didn’t kill that chicken in Canada…people in wheelchairs killed that chicken. Alice wasn’t no farm feller SO WHAT. Alice Vincent Cooper Fernier was not particularly menacing…he was simply addressing yet another wide-eyed kid that bumped into his personal space when he was trying to (keep) drinking a beer. With Mitch Miller. So they could ‘Sing Along’ those drunken obscene Pirate shanty songs and musical limericks that begin and end in uck. Vince never gave it a second thought—but I was so mesmerized I’m writing about it 42 years later. I can still smell the Budweiser on his breath…not a hint of mascara on his squinting lids. The years went by like a blink of a Rock God’s eye. I carry Alice’s ‘SO WHAT’ with me ever mindful that it was never really Alice’s SO WHAT to begin with…it was Mile Davis’ SO WHAT…and it’s my guess that it was someone else’s SO WHAT before that. Like from the mythical beginning of time, when Miles Davis might have been impressionable enough to dig his toe in the ground in the presence of some historically under-mentioned originator of Jazz and utter something akin to : “Gawlee yer good”. So What- aren’t you that little horn playing wannabe son of a middle-class dentist trying to play Jazz music? Really? Stop being a wannabe TWERP…Piss off Miles. So What. Don’t stand there with your finger on that horn and a thumb upyerass…start playing, man! And furthermore, So What --Go learn to be yourself. So What. You are wasting time kissing my ass. So What…whatter you doing standing on the floor staring at the ceiling? Go outside and taste the Dog Star and sail into the future accordingly. Twinkie Bitch. Whelp. Asshat. Groupie. Yer crowding my air. So What. Fuck Off, kid and go and BE great. Or Not. What-the-fuck-ever. So What. Goodbye. You’re interrupting my beer.

Psychedelic Geezerdom Dispatch # 2

ZOSO Played Wheaton ! ( Not).
by MYSTR Treefrog- geezer skeptic.
Date night –The A.F.I. Silver Spring—5 bucks, hell…why not?

Jeff Krulik’s new independent film “Led Zeppelin Played Here” is undeniably funny, exhaustively researched, and at times hilarious. But I remain unconvinced.

The premise: Led Zeppelin, at the behest of local D.J. and promoter legend Barry Richards, was booked into the Wheaton Community Center for an impromptu fill-in gig on a cold January 20th, the same night the spanking new Nixon presidency was being inaugurated, and no one came. No one except those who swear they came. By some accounts there were 12 people, which –by the magic of confabulatory mathematical hallucination –becomes 20 people, and by collective hysteria multiplies rapidly to… oh, a brazen 32 people who , by all reports, stood out in the cold as the band played and never saw them…(exactly).

Not even the tour manager remembers the gig. Neither did the surviving members of the band. (The latter is to be expected. They were under the influence of The Hobbit and Aleister Crowley at the time.)

It appears nowhere (exactly) on a tour schedule. There were multiple sightings in the area surrounding Wheaton –The Laurel Pop Festival, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Bawlmer someweers—but no one remembers Jimmie Page blowing the left side of their brains out (exactly) with the opening to “ Good Times, Bad Times”. Not one groupie stepped up to admit that they offered to blow Robert Plant. Hell, I’m completely hetero –but I’d have offered to blow Robert at this stage of nascent rock greatness. I saw him in ’69 in Macon , Georgia. It was –in fact—transcendent rock buggery of the tallest order. NO ONE who ever saw this band live would EVER forget it. Impossible.

It was as if Genghis Khan and his buds had slipped into the receiving line at Nixon’s Inaugural Dance and French kissed Pat Nixon and squeezed her pert butt cheeks without anyone noticing (exactly). Not the Secret Service. Not Checkers, the dog. Not even Henry Kissinger.

Wheaton still holds many mysteries, some culinary, others cosmological, Some mysteries involve artificially intelligent thieving parking meters, and there’s the mystery involving the plethora of unrequited local musical genius ducking in and out of Chuck Levins’ Washington Music Center. There is the mystery involving inscrutable hair styles which multiply like culturally inseminated amoeba and converge at the intersection of University Blvd. and Georgia Avenue. A Wheaton bus stop is, without a doubt, a true illustration of the American dream.

I can’t see John Bonham and Peter Grant stopping at the Dunkin Donuts to ask directions to the Wheaton Community Center in 1969. And I love cartoons. A lot. Zep would not have escaped un-noticed. Peter Grant was an ex-wrestler and played a munitions expert in "The Guns Of Navarrone." He kicked a lot of ass back then. He was not the 'forgettable' sort.

Let me speak frankly. A lot of people spent 24 hours a day high outta their freakin minds in 1969 –especially (subjective and anecdotally) the motley and lovable characters who packed the house to watch “Led Zeppelin Played Here” at the A.F.I. in Silver Spring on Friday night.

I’m not sure, but I think I’ve met most of them…but I might have been stoned outta my freakin’ mind at the time. But that was then (exactly). The most endearing thing about our boomer generation is: They all still believe The Hobbit exists. The most annoying thing: They still think The Hobbit exists. Guys. Led Zeppelin NEVER played the Wheaton Community Center.(and Clapton IS NOT God.) But the movie by Jeff Krulik was great stuff. As for the 'eye-witnesses-especially Barry Richards--If it were left up to me I'd have water-boarded the lot of them...then we'd get to the truth in a big hurry. There is simply no time for dithering on important matters such as these. And, I might add, water-boarding is not without precedent in the new America. It's a matter of national security.

Further addendum: The Psychedelic Geezerdom on display in the audience would further underscore the need to resolve this mystery quickly. I have a deep bemused love for my brother and sister boomers…but kids, some of you aren’t aging that gracefully. Myself included. A replay of our present selves re-living the soft-focus nude bathing scene at Woodstock makes me start to claw my own eyes out. (And I only have one eye left, and one knee I was actually born with.)

They sell fresh Cadillac to Led Zeppelin songs. “Been A Long Time Since I Rock N’Rool-eyed ”… yeah, dude…right on! In a shiny new Cadillac.Far Fuc’n out. Livin' the dream...

It may be a longer time in my case…such as when WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER.

Please, again, underscore the fact that Jeff Krulik’s film was entertaining, great, funny and highly recommended, (see what I did there?);

Stoned or Fresh outta Re-Hab: I remain unconvinced.

Even if I were marginally convinced by the movie, the rambling dithering of a formerly influential disc-jockey at the end of the question and answer period after the picture --held by the affable, witty director Jeff Krulik -- served to illustrate that the same people who claim to have been present when Led Zeppelin played the Wheaton Community Center are the same people who were present at Christ’s little church picnic when he gave the Sermon On The Mount. In the latter’s case it was less objectionable to have sucked all the air out of the room with mystical nostalgia.

Fascinating. All history is written by the victor…and the subjective collusion of hippie pranksterism. What’s not to love?

( I think I’m having a ‘Linkletter flashback’ as I write this…) Only my fellow Psychedelic Geezers will understand that reference. It’s a generational thang…
Personally? I disbelieve. Led Zeppelin never actually played the Wheaton Community Center –but I guarantee Jesus worked at El Pollo Rico in Wheaton (before it burned down). He was a cool guy. He always gave me an extra serving of plantain with my brazed chicken quarter. He told me to stay away from the picante sauce.

            In his words,” It is unbelievably hot, muchacho.”

Once and For all: Until I see EMPIRICAL evidence, (i.e, pictures with,locks of hair, Jimmie Page's multi-colored autographed Jock Strap,) I will NEVER believe that Led Zeppelin actually played a gig at the Wheaton Maryland Community Center.
Nope. Robert Plant’s rutting feral horny dog howl would STILL be reverberating down Georgia Avenue if this gig truly ever happened. And he would not have escaped the National Capitol area un-blown.


I think, if they actually came to fair Wheaton, the band took one look, shook their head and drove away. I think this is one of those collective cultural hallucinations..(i.e Joan Of Arc, Virgin Birth, Tax refunds,Justifiable Homicide) we boomers are famous for.

                   This is Psychedelic Geezerdom at it’s finest.
On the other hand I'm pretty sure Elvis works at The Booeymonger on Wisconsin Ave.
He told me to help myself to extra mayo. I think he's learned to speak pretty decent Spanish.

On second thought maybe I should’ve titled this review:
              THIS PAGE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK
                          
Go see the film and make up your own mind. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
                                          (or Not).
                                             ***
P.S. UPDATE: Now Wal-Mart wants me to LIKE them selling Bob Marley. Because their business model is directly in line with Bob's message and philosophy.

The nice old guy in the red jacket- The Greeter? His name tag reads: Jesus Iscariot.

Psychedlic Geezerdom

Psychedelic Geezerdom- the greying of the Stoner Boomer


Stoner(echo) Stoner(echo) Boomer(echo) Stoner(echo)

(did I just say that?)..

Part 1- The Semi-Colon

At the Doctor’s office the Nurse informed me –while handing me a ‘Scientific American’ magazine to read (I had complained that Car and Driver was not what all men like) –that the Earth is only (actually) six thousand years old.

Coming from a nurse this was a little disturbing.

I’m pretty sure a Creationist Colonoscopy is not a procedure I shall schedule in my immediate future. (Timing is everything.)

In the initial interview the Doctor asked if I had ever smoked marijuana. I told him maybe but I forgot. Then I asked him if he kept any individually wrapped saltine travel packs in the examination room because talking about weed makes me hungry.

He said no –but please open up and say AH-HHH.

I did. I said, “AH-HHHH”

He said, “Do it again, please –say AH-HHHH.”

I did, I said ,”AH-HHHHH.”

He began hitting my knee with a tiny rubber hammer, “Have you ever had a colonoscopy before?”

I said,” No…but I’m pretty sure that’s not my asshole you’re hitting with that hammer.”

“ Well..”, he said,”..you passed the Intelligence test. I think we can move on to the Eye chart.”

“ I see what you did there. Should I keep one eye closed?”

“ No, no..keep both eyes closed and tell me what you see.”

“ Amazing..the inside of my eyelids are covered with cracks and neon sparkle-berries.”

“ Does insanity run in your family?” he asked, clearing his throat.

“Does phlegm run in yours?”

He cleared his throat again. I took that as his answer.

“ Have you ever taken L.S.D.” he asked.

“ Are you a doctor, Doctor…or a C.I.A. operative?” I answered.

“ Why would you ask a question like that?”

“ Because if you were with the C.I.A. I’m looking to score.”

I don’t think he got it.

“Do you know your blood type?”he asked, trying to change the subject.

“ Red and drippy.” I answered,”..unless someone gets my Irish up.”

“ What happens then?”

“ That’s when I give ‘em my own version of a hernia exam.”

“ I see…and thanks for reminding me,” he smiled, tossing his clipboard on the desk and jamming two very cold fingers into the cavity below my testicles,” Cough,” he said.

“ AH-HHHHHH.”



Part 2- The (actual) Finger



“Please drop your pants and underwear and lean over the examination table.” The Doctor pointed at my mid-section and reached for a pair of latex gloves.

The Doctor had a secret button on his desk he pressed he used to summon the Creationist nurse. Like she was the Secret Service or a bank guard. He pushed the call-button and started putting on both gloves, snapping them on –it sounded like each individual finger was smacking its lips in anticipation.

I turned around, dropped my pants and underwear secretly thanking Jehovah that I had remembered to change them that morning.(It’s a guy thing.)



I felt a slight sickness in the pit of my stomach as my mind turned over the thought;

If he’s only going to use one finger on one hand, why is he putting on two gloves?



“ Now I’m going to use lubricant, but this may still be a little cold.” He announced cheerfully.



“ It must be my birthday”, I announced almost as cheerfully.



“ Do you ever suffer from rectal itch?” he queried. I could hear the squeak from the lubricant dispenser behind me. “ …if so we have something for that.”



“ Thanks. So do I --but I rarely use someone else’s finger to deal with it.”
     He inserted a digit and began a rollicking search for who knows what. Like a desperate husband searching for the wedding band he accidently dropped into a garbage disposal. I kept trying to smile and keep up brave thoughts. The door opened behind me. It was the Creationist nurse and three female interns. I felt eight sets of chatoyant cat eyes -- all staring at a guy in a white lab coat with a finger up my ass in a wash of bright jitterbugging fluorescent light --like maybe we were all at a church cotillion sugaring tea.

“ Well, Mr. Brayton,” she began, as if trying to strike up a conversation on the Titanic;” ..did you enjoy the Scientific American?”

“ I sure am enjoying him right now.”
“ Oh..I see.” She didn’t really understand my idea of irony
     I turned my head and looked over my shoulders at the four women observing the finger attached to the Doctor attached deep within the crevice attached to my prone bare white rump.
They were wearing hair-nets and safety-glasses.

“ But I can guarantee that this exam has already lasted longer than six-thousand years.”

                                          The End.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day


If I appear cynical that’s because I am- but at least in this paragraph I’m not being cynical for my generation- the Baby Boomers- that’s another chapter I certainly won’t ignore.

No, in this case my cynicism is peppered with an outrage of what I would define as sort of personal endearment for the generation of the Depression and World War Two.

The truth is that they did the work. We are losing them at an alarming rate-our parents, our grandparents. Our aunties and favorite uncles who, before their health became an issue, marched in the parades and remembrances of VE day, VJ day, and always had their hand over their hearts when saying the Pledge Of Allegiance. The vets who rarely spoke of the war in graphic terms, but made no secret of the fact that they thanked God for the outcome. Then, if some of us listened very carefully, there were the quiet vets. The wounded ones. The scarred ones. The quiet old guy at the V.F.W. flipping burgers and dogs with one hand because that’s all he had to work with. Or the guys like my Dad, a ‘Coastie’ who, after piloting the landing craft in every invasion from North Africa to Normandy, could scarcely look at the ocean surf rolling in and not see red foam in his mind’s eye. These dads and uncles were the ones who drank.

Heavily.

These are the uncles and brothers who never developed healthy sleep patterns after returning. These are the guys who started out jolly at the family picnic and after a few beers began to brood silently or not so silently. They, if they told war stories at all, would have to be drunk to the point of reliving it all. These are the men, and yes, women that were utterly inscrutable to me as a small boy; but as a man I find their sacrifices have become an object of sharp focus.

-A little vignette from my callow youth I have told many times because it so affected me..

     In 1972,two days after my eighteenth birthday, I went north from Florida to Rhode Island to visit my grandparents in East Providence- Riverside- Rhode Island. It was in mid-June and still hot. I had returned from Europe a few months earlier with what would, over the course of the next few years, become a drinking problem all my own. Being young I still believed in the myth of the bawdy, jolly, lusty sailor who drank and romanced women and life away with an endearing abandon. My father drank. My father’s father drank, and though I knew he was in ill-heath because of a fifty-year tobacco habit, I looked forward to tipping a few with him at the Riverside Social Club, a small private drinking establishment the old guy would disappear to whenever the stress of family life became overwhelming. At the time I was not aware of how often that was. My father was dead by that time so my grandfather would surely be willing to be a stand-in for this mythical male rite of passage. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and I was finishing off a slice of one of Aunt Dot’s blueberry pies when I announced my intentions to him in full voiced bravado so that my grandmother and aunt would hear.

“ Grampa, I’m eighteen now- and I’m old enough.

Lets you and I go get a brew together, eh?”

    My grandfather, who was hooked up to an oxygen tank, and thus unable to smoke his beloved pipe seemed to consider the idea fondly by arching his eyebrows and chuckling a bit. I think he not only liked my audacity, but welcomed it. Like a swooping sea gull my grandmother appeared, her eyes flashing, her finger wagging using her no-nonsense New England school marm tone.

“ George- don’t you dare bring that boy out to go drinking. I absolutely forbid it!”

My Grandpa paused to inhale a burst of oxygen before giving her a reply. I noticed he scarcely looked up at her before doing so.

“ He ain’t a boy no longer, Emily. He’s legal age.”

My grandmother moved directly into my grandfather’s field of vision.

“ If you go to the Sportsman Club and start drinking, don’t either one of you come home expecting supper! I won’t do a thing for you George- don’t you corrupt this child!”

    Grandmother Emily Donovan Brayton slapped the table top and moved eye to eye with my grandfather, who by this time had what might best be described as a half-amused half- steely glint in his eye. He had that well worn facial expression of a man long married and made miraculously and selectively deaf by the experience.

“ George!;” she rejoined,” I forbid it!”

I saw them lock eyes for what seemed like an eternity, but in actuality only must have been a pair of seconds.

“ Jon-boy, go ‘n fetch my hat.”

“ I’ll lock the door, George!”

“ ..it’s the blue one with the anchor.”

     I remember half carrying my grandpa down the hill through narrow streets, his lungs wheezing from the emphysema in the early afternoon heat.We didn’t talk much. I knew it would be a strain on him to answer. By the time we finished the walk to the bar, all of three blocks I noticed with some alarm that all the color had drained from his face.His pallor was gray and his lips had become tinged in the blue shade of exertion. We arrived at a shabby little one story white wood frame building on the waterfront.

The sign read :
Riverside Sportsman Club- Private- Members Only.

I remember thinking at the time that Rhode Island working class architecture was not much to get excited about. Everything seemed small and cramped compared to the southern architecture I’d grown up with. The interior was not much either. No windows. Fluorescent lights. A few neon bar lights were placed above the Formica tables in a vain attempt at decoration. There were blue plastic chairs for seating and cheap vinyl squares on the floor. For ambience, bathed the interior in a pink glow of a Budweiser sign, were some girly calendars from the 1940’s. Big meaty busty women in bathing suits slyly holding wrenches, jackhammers and fishing nets. The jukebox played a warped mix of warped Frank Sinatra and Benny Goodman singles. It was the quintessential blue-collar old guy bar where regular guys went to escape their wives and get quietly soused after work,to fend off the dreariness of harsh winter and retirement. The six or seven old fellas that were in there in the middle of the afternoon looked up none to fondly as I, a baby-faced hippie kid with hair halfway down to my ass, walked in with my grandpa. One of them let go the zinger;
“ She’s a little young ferya ain’t she George ?”
My Grandpa laughed with them and looked at me in masked amusement. I gamely smiled back.

“ Naw, he’s Sonny’s boy just up fer his first beer with the grown men.” He coughed as I helped him to the barstool and leaned his cane against the wall.
“ It’s not exactly my first, it’s just my most legal.”
“ You sayin’ he’s a full eighteen then, George?” asked the barkeep looking me over with suspicion, “ and he’s gotta card, then eh?” “ Gwan’n show Kenny yer card boy, before he gets his ass in a sling.”
“ Right here, I said pulling out my wallet and my driver’s licence. “ "Flarida, eh? You all the way up from Flarida ?”, remarked Kenny the barkeep as he handed me back my card. “ I didn’t know Sonny lived down south George, I thought he was in Asia or somewheres. Whatta yah have theyuh, young fella?” “ Bud is good. Bud good Grampa?”

My grandfather didn’t answer, he just waved his hand, nodded and coughed. The barkeep either forgot or never knew that Sonny, my Dad, was killed two years before in a small plane accident in the mountains on the big island of Luzon . Grandpa George Edgar wasn’t the talkative type. He wasn’t known to talk much about his family. Grandpa was quiet as he sipped his beer. Finally he said;

“ Y’oughta be signed up.” “What,Grampa?’

“ Fer the service..if yer eighteen y’oughta be signed up fer the service.”

Kenny the barkeep seemed to agree. His eyes turned on me as he filled a glass of draft beer for another old-timer who sat eavesdropping in the shadows. I noticed a tattoo on Kenny the barkeeps arm. He was Navy. I thought it prudent to shrug and gulp my beer and control my urge to say something inappropriately hippy-smart-ass.

“ You kids today don’t know nuthin. Y’oughta be in service..we all wuz. Yer fahthuh wuz Coast Guard in World Wah Two, did ye know that?”
“ Yeah, I know Grampa.”

Grandpa George Edgar amazed me by downing his entire glass of beer. He looked at me silently and motioned for two more beers. He pulled his pipe out of his coat pocket and lit it.

“ Theyud have tuh cut her hair ta get in the service, hah,George!” offered the old feller to the left. My Grandfather chuckled and coughed in spasms. I was more concerned with my grandfather’s coughing fit than I was irritated with a couple old Yankees rednecking me about my long hair. There wasn’t anything aggressive about it, just a bunch of old lifers giving me my medicine.

By the time we had downed two more brews apiece I was beginning to get dizzed and I could tell Grandpa was feeling a good deal less pain. He began a somewhat emotional narrative of his two years as a Seabee in The Solomon Islands during the Pacific campaign. How they lost men to mines and sniper fire. How the Japs had committed suicide rather than surrender. How much he loathed the climate. All this punctuated by long gargling bouts of coughing as he tried to inhale the pipe smoke that had so ruined his lungs.

“ Goddamned Japs..nevuh will buy a goddamned Jap cah, Jap radio..none of that round heah! No kraut cahs neithuh.”

I had never heard my Grandfather curse like that before. He rarely if ever spoke emotionally about anything. The beer was loosening his tongue.

“ None’a you young smart asses know what goin’ta war wuz like, we wuz fightin’ fer this country heah, see? Now none’uh yah kids give a shit! You don’t wanna serve yer country.”

The effects of the beer and the harangue were beginning to make me a little bold.

“ So I gotta go to Viet Nam to serve my country?”

“ Hell, yes boy- Y’go where yer country sends ya. Y’do yer duty!” intoned Kenny from behind the bar. My Grandfathers coughing kept him from being able to speak.

“ So all you guys are World War Two vets?’

“ Goddamned right..I was Navy first mate on a class-B destroyer in the battle of Midway. Jess wuz on Wake Island, wudden’t it Jess?”

“ Supply ship, whole goddamned way through;.”answered the old fella on the stool. “ None’na you kids know a goddamned thing about goin’ta war an serving yer country. Yuh juss wanna smoke marijuana and chase them hippy girls. You don’t know nuthin.”

I remember having a moment of clarity through the beer haze. I remember just blurting it out-

“Isn’t that what all you guys fought for? I mean, so I wouldn’t know what war was like? I mean, right Grampa? Didn’t you guys suffer like that so dumb-ass kids like me would never know? Wasn’t that the idea?”

Grandpa George Edgar looked up at me from his bar stool. The others in the bar grew silent. Only Sinatra sang. The old fella who sat at the barstool rose slowly to leave. It wasn’t until he stepped into the full light and faced me that I noticed his left sleeve was pinned at the shoulder.

“He’s gotta point they-uh, George.”


There was a moment of silence as the old salts looked one to another and nodded slightly.



“ Yey-uh.. he’s Sonny’s boy alright. He’s got Sonny’s head on’im. “
   
   The beer was on the house the rest of the afternoon and I got plastered as the old guys told stories and ribbed me and my Grandpa with good natured slights and observations.
    My grandfather carried me the three blocks home. There we were the two of us, drunk as skunks weaving our way back to Middle Street laughing and cursing like midnight lunatics. When we returned home,there was no supper waiting. My Aunt Dot helped me up to the second story room and took my shoes off before I passed out in what had been my father’s childhood bed.
“ Shame on the both of you,” she said in a mock tone, her eyes gleaming in amusement.
“ Your Grandma doesn’t approve of drinkin’.”
   
    The last time I saw Grandpa George Edgar was in 1978. He had taken up permanent residence at the Veterans Hospital in Providence. This was as much out of choice as it was for treatment of his lung disease. George and Emily had, as I came to find out, lived more years apart as they did together. Divorce was less of an option to old folks like that. This was undoubtedly was due to my Grandmother’s latent Catholicism, which though unpracticed, held firm in several aspects.
     Grandpa George Edgar looked gaunt and sick when last I saw him alive. He shared a room with a Marine Vet of WW1 who was attached to an IV and was intubated with a plastic hose down his throat. He had been in a coma like that for months. Grandpa George Edgar didn’t seem to mind his roommate. He liked it quiet, he told me. The Veterans Hospital was a sad shabby institution full of forgotten old guys living their last days out in rusty beds or in shadowy game rooms playing Parcheesi or Monopoly with dog-eared cards and watching game shows on old black and white T.V.
     These were our heroes; creaky old men who smelled of medicine, existing like ghosts in dingy halls that smelled of Pine-Sol and Vapo-Rub. In the post Viet Nam era damn little was spent to upgrade these places. Paint peeled on the ceilings and walls. The asbestos composition tile floors were chipped and stained by years of industrial cleaners and waxed over body fluids. Military life was not rewarded by public opinion; but Rhode Island being one of the more patriotic states, always made sure that above each door was a paper Old Glory and decent holiday dinners for the fellas.

God Bless America. It’s the least we can do.

LAWNMOWER PHILOSOPHY

(2005-mtf)

BLADE FREE SNAKE
BLOOD FREE BLADE
BLOOD FILL CUP
CUP REFLECT EYE
EYE BREATHE LIGHT
LIGHT CRACK GLASS
GLASS BECOME MIRROR
MIRROR LEARNS WATER
WATER
CIRCLES FOREVER
WITH THE CLEVER CENTERING OF ONE
SENT COMMON
PEBBLE

To Readers Of The Clabber Girl's Retreat

8-5-12
The time has come my friends for final edits and submitting to publishers so that I can collect my Rejection notices like everyone else.
I am following sage advice by removing the novel from the Net. Getting it published will be easier if I don't "give it away"...which is part of my character..but I think I'd like to see it in print..therefore..
I think this novel- (which started out as a goof/relaxation tool from my other novel- 'The Light Horse')- has taken on a flavor and a life of it's own. It is nearing completion of first drafts.
Who knows how the final will turn out?
In the meantime, those of you who have been following this and still want to should furnish me with an e-mail address and I will send you rough chapters- I'm not one to tease..
I will put other short blogs up as the spirit moves me.
The completion of The Clabber Girl's Retreat-however- is a top priority.
Time, my friends, waits for no one.
Thanks for reading ;
J. Brayton

Excerpt from "The Light Horse" by J.D. Brayton

The invocation of The Priest of Kalika in the Jeshoreshwari Kali Temple:
To Fandoor he gave the silver incrusted begging bowl made from the skull of a Kapalika and said:

As with the dawn of creation it begins with the Mother. Always and Forever; within the womb and the universe within. Always before the first cry of vagitus until the last prayer, last gasp, final pose of man in his end. We move forward. We lead the goat, the horse, the mare, the water-bearers through another impossible jungle, slashing at vines resembling confusion and stasis of soul. We breathe the air of the Mother, we seek the comfort of the Mother, we are chastened by Her very chatoyant gaze, her eyes burn or warm- cauterize or comfort us, watch us in our feeble yearnings and ridiculous wants. Struggle man. Struggle woman. Succeed unto death and rebirth and your futile gift for worms and crows. Feed the hungry; have you not hungered and feasted on beasts? Have you not taken sustenance in fear and greed and suffering? Give your flesh gladly. Lift up your palms to the moon, walk through the fire of Agni- not even the God of Fire can subsist without her blessing.
Mankind. Show gratitude in fever. Show gratitude in motion. Show gratitude with the gift of birth of your offspring.Show pleasure in the cry of the shokun as it pecks out your eyes.
Nothing is worth clinging to. Your purpose was ordained an eon before you were conceived. Your very conception is as rude and ordinary as the silent death of ants beneath the feet of God.
This in itself is cause for laughter.
Are not the very teeth is your empty skull frozen this way forever?
Is not this certainty a comfort?

TERRE MOTUS

TERRE MOTUS
by J.D. Brayton for MWB

to record the image of catastrophe
to celebrate the moment when
equilibrium is shattered
and creativity is born
when the earth gives up her chains
rocking wholly constant
in a mud-hut bastard-child’s eye
all that is dreamt ,all that are despised
transition
the cracked cocoon here
the possum scitters in the light
of a wild dog moon
seven subconscious plagues and
consequence
of nil
the anger of a rock-chained eyeless semi-God
breaking the wind-ed sigh
terror and others of horror’s cousins
visit in shards of wily sunlight
the opposites brought home in a
slow burn
for this turning of a shrieking ball of dirt
now send MASSIVE shiver
collect up the mankind spine
Prometheus can stand it no longer that
Crackling,cackling
crow’s laughter.
Loin rumbling churning ballast folly
Laugh- it’s the sound of one
Hand clapping
The calm, and after
Of one
Blade of grass
Prostrate in the aftershock of a sunspot
Solar wind envy

So sublime is
One
Thoughts’
Entry.

Part 3- The Confederate Flag- Should It Still Fly?

Part 3 - Wrap it Up I'll Take It..

Who owns history? Who dictates Truth?

As for the Confederate Flag used as a symbol-

I am a musician. I was raised in the South. I consider myself proud to be a Southerner. I KNOW where my musical influences come from. Rock n’ roll comes DIRECTLY from the Blues. The Blues comes from incredibly talented black musicians, mostly from the South. This music was invented by the sons and daughters of slaves. I revere these artists. I am delivered, artistically, and spiritually through music as a result of their suffering and their vision and their perseverance.

Guess what? So are any of you who consider yourselves fans of “Southern” Rock.

I understand this and most of our “Southern” Rock heroes understand this. Most musicians know who they have to thank for those incredible guitar licks.
It was Lynyrd Skynyrd who wrote the song “Curtis Lowe’.
And just what was the message of that song?

Hey- in case you haven’t been paying attention- THE SOUTH ROSE AGAIN.
It rose again through literature, art, film and MOST importantly -through MUSIC.
Hey..the music of the SOUTH changed the entire WORLD.

R.E.M are from Athens Georgia. So are The B-52’s. I knew the B-52’s. They all had Southern accents. Dang, I watched Keith Strickland and Ricky Wilson eat Sweet potato pie and fried okra.

Why are they not considered “Southern” Rock? Is it that Flag thing?

Dig this. James Brown was a Southerner. Little Richard was a Southerner. Howlin’ Wolf was a Southerner. The Allman Brothers, who are credited as being the originators of “Southern” Rock were an integrated band, AND Southerners.(by the way- you will never see a Confederate Flag flown behind The Allman Brothers Band.) So was Booker T and The MGs. So was Muddy Waters.
Aw shucks, so was Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis.

That Confederate flag being hung behind some “Southern” Rock bands is disingenuous for this reason. It’s an abysmal abuse of a symbol. It’s a marketing device that fosters a culture of division.

How do you honor your ancestors by degrading the very population who, in point of fact, gave you the driving rhythms you use to rock the world?

How would you feel about Old Glory being used to sell breast implants? Toast? Baby formula?
A good stout toilet? Chicken feed? Erectile dysfunction pills?

And what the HELL does that have to do with those who died in battle to preserve a nation?

Such are the uses of symbols as myth..and myths created and used as comfort for the desperate and terminally insecure.

Ol’ Bill Clinton, a Southerner, once said,

“ It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you ANSWER to.”

See?

There are museums to house artifacts of history, proud or otherwise. For those who march around in circles shouting about the injustice of the striking of the Confederate Flag from a PUBLIC institution, paid for by the taxpayers of THE UNITED STATES, I respectfully ask you to please march into your back yard and plant your flag of eternal resistance (to evolution?) there.

Put a Confederate decal on your rear windshield. No one will stop you.

Put a nice over sized Stars N Bars tapestry over your living room couch.(Most of these are made in China.) Wear a sporty tee-shirt bearing the emblem of your pride. Put the Confederate flag on your favorite fishing hat. Get Confederate golf clubs and matching cleats. Go on a double date wearing matching flags. Who knows? It could enhance your sex appeal.
This is your individual right. You can use your Individual Tax Return to purchase these items.
Look in the mirror and smile. It’s O.K.
Hell, Y’all look mighty sharp.
Ain’t The United States Constitution grand?
Uh-huh. Sho nuff. There is will always be something magnetic and romantic in lost causes.
Fact is, in one way or another, there’s a rebel inside us all.

Damnation-after all- we’re a nation conceived in rebellion, right? Hell Yeah! Yee-haw!

Lets HEAR that Rebel YELL!

But bear this in mind my Southern Brothers and Sisters: to MOST of your fellow countrymen, no matter WHAT their race, or WHAT state they are from; when they see the Stars and Bars flapping in the breeze above your house, the first words that come to mind Are Not

FREEDOM, JUSTICE OR EQUALITY.

Can you say the same for Old Glory, bubba?

Part 2: The Confederate Flag-Should It Still Fly?

The Confederate Flag- Should it Still Fly?
PART 2-
Now it doesn’t matter how cool the design is.

As an artist, with an eye for color and a fascination for design- I truthfully think I like the graphic of the Confederate Flag better than our current National symbol. The Red background, blue cross and white stars is immediately striking to the eye.
It is interesting to note that this was not the first Confederate flag used in battle. There were two others used before it . These Confederate flags were rejected for reasons not obvious until similarities in color and design to Union flags made the flag difficult to distinguish in the heat of battle.
The second Confederate battle flag had a white background that resembled a flag of truce.
Not great for morale. Mighty darned confusing.
I imagine the designer of that particular flag was reassigned.

This bold Red background with Blue cross and white stars representing the Secessionist States was superior indeed. It was easy to recognize on the field, striking in detail, bold in character.
It has reached legendary status in Civil war lore.

Fair observation helps us tell the difference between LEGEND and MYTH.

Hint: one has a basis in fact- the other does not and thus can be molded to suit the teller of the tale.

The Myth: The South was all mint Julep, hooped skirts, beautiful Belles and well dressed southern gentlemen. These fine gentlemen owned large plantations on which a happy population of well fed, happy, musical negroes went dutifully about their labors, singing, dancing, and feeling fortunate to have been delivered out of the savage African jungles by the white master. In Addition these negroes happily converted to Christianity, thanks to the beneficial institution of slavery. Their souls were no longer in peril as a result of their conversion. The fields and comfortable shacks rang with songs of the grateful black folk. Under Southern skies great poetry was recited by genteel and well -mannered white aristocracy, there was laughter under the majestic Magnolias and cotillions lit up the night.

Bullshit, Y’all.

Few Southerners fighting in the Confederate forces owned slaves. Most of them were poor dirt farmers. Few even owned their own land. Plantation owners who owned more than 10 slaves could legally buy their way out of serving- or pay some poor white hardscrabble to serve in his stead.

The North profited by slavery as well. Northerners also owned and imported slaves. Rhode Island was one of the most active importers of slaves until Moses Brown and the Quakers put a stop to the importation of Human Beings. This didn’t happen overnight. The ships left from Massachusetts and Connecticut for the coast of Africa as well. The North had the mills and the means to turn “King Cotton” into a useful commodity. Not all Northerners gave a crap about Emancipation. One of the worst riots in American history happened in New York City. Over one thousand died in rebellion over the Union army conscription law. Over eighty black men were lynched on that occasion.

So much for Liberal Yankees.

America from it’s inception til the year 1865 was

The Land Of The Free And The Home Of The Slave.

(…but why don’t they just get over it…)

To this I would add that if there is ANYONE left in this country that doesn’t admit to the fact that the United States was largely built by the sweat and labor of slaves, who were forced into bondage, brought to these shores in the stinking disease ridden Hell of a slave ship, tortured, auctioned , bred like animals, and whose families were ripped apart and sold away from one another, and whose culture suffers as a result TO THIS VERY MOMENT- (are you getting this yet?)
IF NOT-
Damn, man. Where Y’all been? Stop yelling about your heritage and worshiping a SYMBOL and mouthing anecdotal truisms and read a book once in a great while. Great knowledge resides between the covers of a History book.
You may want to read Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative (3 Vol. Set).
Ol’ Shelby is a Southern homeboy- so don’t worry that he’s part of the Liberal media.
Prop that flag up under the shade of that Magnolia tree and set a spell. A good read never hurt anyone. Eat some souse and crackers and settle in. What you may discover may expand your mind.

War as Heritage? ..strange way to look at it..

I would argue that then, as now, War, and the myths associated with it, are a decision based on greed and economics brought to bear by Politicians who-through sheer guile and false pragmatism, and under the banner of Patriotism raise the propaganda levels necessary to send a duped population into battle. Both sides were guilty of this. Read a little history before making half-baked assertions about HERITAGE.

It is, and ALWAYS has been-

RICH MAN’S WAR- POOR MAN’S BATTLE.

Wars are begun and fostered by GOVERNMENTS comprised of POLITICIANS; but the horror of battle is suffered by Human Beings- those who are wounded or killed, and most certainly by those who mourn them and are left behind to pick up the pieces. It is those Human Beings who cast the bronze and erect the statues to fathers, brothers, sons, daughters, and yes-to African-American visionaries who died for Racial Equality.
Such is the passion of the ones left alive to grieve.

There is healing in this. From healing comes Resolve. From Resolve comes positive social evolution.

The Pain of loss is universal to the species. There are few things held as sacred in all humankind than the honoring one’s own dead and the need for obsequy.

There are Confederate war memorials. There are Union war memorials. There are memorials (though not nearly enough of them) showing the suffering caused terrible institution of Slavery.
This is our collective history. These memorials are essential to all Americans so that history and the cost of war will never be forgotten. There is no logic in the desecration or in using these monuments as political footballs. These were people. They were loved. Let the memorials stand and may they rest in Peace. May we finally learn the lessons this national horror gave us as Americans.

Unity, IS strength.

When it comes to War in general, and the Civil War in particular- the words of The Bard are especially poignant-
“ALL ARE PUNISH-ED..”

That quote can be found in Romeo and Juliet. It is spoken by the Prince as he looks at two dead lovers at his feet, and addresses the grieving families whose feud no longer seems so important.

Who owns history? Who dictates Truth?

Tomorrow- Part 3- Wrap It Up- I'll Take It.

The Confederate Flag –Should It Still Fly?

Note: This was the article I wrote for an internet music site dedicated to "Southern Rock". When I put out my first CD "Bats Will Scatter" it was reviewed by my good friend Tamar Fleishman. She asked if I would accept the project and write a piece on Muscle Shoals-the famous recording studio in Mussel Shoals , Alabama. I did so with great zeal. As a follow-up I was asked if I would write another article on the Confederate flag and the controversy surrounding it's use. I accepted the project with the rejoiner:
"I'll write it but I doubt it'll be anything they expect to read.."
I wrote and posted the article and great drama ensued. I and my music and all reviews of my music were bounced off the site(Southern Fried magazine) and the editor reacted(as in REACTIONARY) by putting scores of tiny confederate flag icons next to each and every paragraph on his site. Typical. I was accused of being UN-southern(the editor hailed from Arizona-hmmm.) and I a mere Florida-Georgia boy. In any case- here's the original article in deference to the Presidential Primaries being held in the South(Red??) states. I hope you enjoy it. ~ MTF



PART 1-The Confederate Flag –Should It Still Fly?
Or
Notes on an Obsequy and The Power of Southern Mythology
By
MYSTR Treefrog

Who owns history? How much power do symbols hold over us all?
Is change necessary even to the exclusion of the diversity of viewpoint?
Does revisionist history foster debate, or political correctness?

On July 1, 2000 the Confederate flag, the Stars and Bars, was taken off the State capitol of South Carolina in Columbia, where it has flown since 1962, and moved to the statehouse grounds to fly at the site of a Confederate war memorial. The Confederate flag had been hoisted above the State Capitol Dome by the State Legislature in protest of the civil rights reforms being enacted throughout the South during the early 1960’s. After continued protests from the NAACP and other groups who viewed the Confederate Flag as a Racist symbol, the State legislature reached what they thought was a just and equitable solution by a vote and a compromise was reached.
Counter demonstrations, though smaller in number, opposing the removal the flag on grounds of the historical preservation of Southern Heritage, were temporarily assuaged by the compromise.

The Confederate Stars and Bars still fly on State property.

The debate, the protests, and an economic boycott of South Carolina suggested by the N.A.A.C.P continue as a result of this issue.

Recently, on January 15th, at a rally in support of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day at the state capitol, Senator Joseph Biden, D. Delaware was joined by fellow Senator Christopher Dodd in saying;

"If I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds - out of the state."

Confederate Flag supporters attending the rally, numbering fewer than 50, were incensed and waved banners saying, ”We Don’t Want Dodd, No King but God.”

Jim Hanks of Lexington ,Ky -a member of the League Of The South was quoted as saying;

“We love this Flag, we love our heritage. Biden would say anything to get votes. “

There is much debate as to exactly what that heritage is, and what that heritage means to the citizens of the United States- black and white- and to the citizens of South Carolina. It must be noted that most South Carolinians voted to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse Dome. Most, but not all, seemed satisfied with the compromise of allowing the Stars and Bars to fly on Statehouse grounds at the Confederate war memorial.

The State of South Carolina census of the year 2000 puts the percentage of black citizens at 29% of the state population. This is nearly a third of South Carolina’s population. It may be fairly assumed that most of these persons are descendants of slaves, and therefore may be alienated by seeing what they may characterize as a symbol of racism, slavery and division being displayed over Capitol Dome of the Statehouse. The land, it is argued, is paid for and supported by taxes, both State and Federal.
The Confederate flag is an insult to one third of the taxpayers of South Carolina, and therefore should be taken down and off Public land.


Symbols are odd things. They change in importance depending through which set of eyes view them.

The Civil War- (which, my fellow Americans, was FAR from Civil)- began on April 12th, 1861 when Southern Forces fired on Fort Sumter. It ended on April 14, 1865 when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at a tiny courthouse at Appomattox Virginia.

That was the end of The Confederate States of America. Period.

It was not an end of the grief suffered by both sides as a result of this national horror. It continues to this day. I leave the factual debates to historians-both the revisionists who insist that slavery was not the real issue, and those who insist it was.

To a descendant of the unconscionable institution of slavery, and the segregationist policies that continued in the South afterwards(and in point of fact-EVERYWHERE in the U.S.)- will reasonably insist that slavery had EVERYTHING to do with the Civil War.

To those who hold that States Rights was the issue, and that the right of a people to rebel against the enforced domination of an all-powerful central federal government was the REAL cause of the Civil War- it’s a question of Southern Pride. Many see this rebellion not only as their right –but their bound duty, even 142 years after the end of the cession of hostilities to continue to defy all boundaries set by others by flying the Confederate Flag.

It must be noted that the state flag of South Carolina does not incorporate the Stars and Bars in it’s design as do many of the southern states such as Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi.


Some people just like being disturbers of the status quo. History be damned. Flying The Stars and bars pisses THEM off so that’s why we do it.

Some people just think it looks cool on the back of a motorcycle jacket.

The South- for it’s part- suffered horribly not only by losing the Civil War, but under the failed and harsh policies of Reconstruction.

I think it’s a pretty fair assumption that descendants of slaves suffer still.

I have heard the knee-jerk reaction from some who dislike hearing the descendants of slaves demanding social and political equity. The stock line goes something like

“ Why don’t they just get over it? “

Here’s something to consider:

To the Victor belong the Spoils. What is FAIR seems beside the point when presented by the realities warfare and of both American and Human History.

Now- those of you who may wish that “they just get over it” should go look at the calendar hanging in your home. Hopefully it is current. Do the math. What year is this? More importantly, what century?

Is there really a debate here?

A little perspective is in order.

The use or abuse of a symbol can have serious detrimental effects to what may otherwise be met with fair compromise and just observation.

Observations? Here’s one:

The Swastika was originally a symbol used by Indians(um..you know..the ones from India..)
to illustrate the continuity and balance of Life force. Taken by itself, without the weight of modern history, it’s really quite a fascinating graphic. It’s even beautiful in it’s simplicity.
It’s tough to get the same reaction from your average Jew.
Looks like the Nazi’s messed that symbol up by appropriating the swastika and creating their own special myth around it.
Darn Nazis.

Fact is, The Stars n Bars might have been an innocuous cloth oddity, perhaps even merely nostalgic if the Ku Klux Klan hadn’t decided to appropriate it and use it to terrorize black citizens and reduce the perception of all Southerners as being hateful, ugly, ignorant, murderous and petty. The KKK wasn’t content to only desecrate that symbol for their myth, there was also that cross burning thing.
It’s weird how the use of THAT symbol didn’t seem to cause any sort of moral conflict in good Christian Stars N bar totin’ citizens working for the preservation of “heritage”.
Darn KKK.

Now it doesn’t matter how cool the design is.

Next- Part 2- Design is everything..

My new official capacity

To My Christian-Right Friends and Political allies:I want everyone to know, once and for all That I- MYSTR TREEFROG AM THE DEVIL. I'm a Gemini, like to barbeque and eat Saints, karaoke, buffing crome and Drive-thru burgers. I'm looking for an exquisitely coiffed slut and serial killer in a woman-and I'd like to settle down and raise some six-headed puppies in New Jersey. I sell life-insurance on the side. Please send photos of yer ass- because it is-after all- MINE.

PS. Vote fer me and I'll set you free-( for a nominal processing fee of course.)PPS. Just stay home and vote for yourself in the mirror...the election is already over.


IMPORTANT UPDATE:Since I identifyed myself as THE DEVIL this morning there have a great many requests(civil and..um..not) for my personal contact information. I am gratified by this overwhelming response- however-in my capacity as the God of Hellfire and human destruction I find myself on the road quite a bit- Hence it is difficult to have any mail forwarded( rest assured the DEVIL DOES NOT TWEET.....ok?) I have arranged to have all personal correspondence forwarded to my personal assistant. Please direct all requests, inquiries, pictures of asses(bare and/or hairy),puppies and succinct advice or suggestions to:
THE DEVIL
c/o Mr. GROVER NORQUIST,esq-
Americans For Tax Reform, Washington ,DC 20001-hell
Thanks for your support.
PPS. Yo Momma is HERE with me. And she lookin REAL good.

Do These Reebocks Make My A$$ look Phat?

OR: Do these Reeboks make my A$$ look REALLY big?

Not only am I now certain the whole world revolves around me-I have irrefutable proof.
The newest scandal involving marketing Pinocchio-ism :I.E.- magical tennis shoes that tone your posterior, legs, and Kardashian shows that-now and forever(read al-fuc’n –ways) OLD SCHOOL still rules.
Screw objectivity- the Gawd of Get-Back is squarely in my corner.

Four weeks ago- in a fit of either misplaced guilt or uncharacteristic generosity- I offered to take my lovely (read long suffering) wife out to the *$ new $* Silver Spring to buy her a new pair of purple tennis shoes she had been lusting over -(Lusting is the right term folks- this story involves a woman and shoes..) There was a sale. And a coupon.
And I had been an asshole and a tightwad for a decade.
Lets just say my (shopping) Karma had run over my(anti-shopping) Dogma.
Educational moment:
!!Okay- for those of you young un-married smart-asses-here’s a short lesson in modern translation between the sexes:
SALE in woman-speek=
A coupon and a sale means savings and the excellent get.
SALE in man speek=
What makes you think buying crap you don’t need is an economically sound maneuver in any way shape or form?
(Visions of a discount coupon on the Titanic come to mind.)

Or-in my case- Jesus Shana, you’ve only got TWO FEET…why do you need forty pair of shoes?
Or- when I’m REALLY determined to eat my own cooking (peanut-butter oatmeal-cold) for a week -I might conjure up a brilliant verbal hyperlink like:
Fer Chrissakes- I married an octopus!
(Attention unmarried smart-asses- Avoid saying the above. Or invest in fast food stocks and stool softeners.)
Ok. Enough eschatological suppositorial conjecture- She had a coupon.
Yer going shopping dude.

We enter the discount shoe store and browse. Browsing with mother and daughter means carrying a reader’s digest version of War and Peace to read between footwear choices.
Of course my wife-also nicknamed “The Finder” or in Levite tribal vernacular “Shops With A Fist, Bubke”- found the natty purple Chuck Taylors she wanted within forty seconds..but, there are so-oo many choices in our great Republic..why stop there?

I sit on a footstool (see what I did there?), and skim chapter 400 of my Russian masterpiece ,occasionally looking up defensively at the seriously most corpulent woman balancing in stiletto heels I have ever witnessed.

She is a little too close. I don’t want to be judgmental , unfeeling, or socially incorrect- but I don’t want this woman to lose her balance in those carnal pole-dancers and crush me like a ripe watermelon under a Semi.

There’s nothing safe about being the only man in a shoe store full of feral females in search of bargain footwear. Go climb yer lame ass Himalayan mountain or walk your tight-rope over Times Square, or hunt Bigfoot (skim-dick) THIS takes REAL balls. Attila the Hun would avoid this adventure and hide in his yurt counting yaks.
Word.

After reminding my dear spouse that we came in on a surgical strike for purple Chuck Taylor tennis shoes-(which are under her arm being squeezed in case they come to life and attempt escape) and adding that my prostate can’t take too much more bargain hunting- (I'm afraid to ask for directions to the 'Mens Room'-certain there isn't one..)
"The Finder" relents and we saunter over to take our place in line at the check-out counter. Our daughter has found some bunny slippers she doesn't need. And a jutted out lower lip daring me to mention the fact..(I know better.)

There are stylish young people ringing up the discount footwear with the quasi-superior air of college sophomores in the presence of three-legged gerbils.

Our shoe selling barrista, a well coiffed metro-sexual dressed in the hip clothes purchased straight out of a trendy catalog, eyes me with something bordering on the contempt one reserves for an old, fat, clueless Baby Boomer- and says:
“ I’m Jeremy- I’ll be your cashier today.”

“ Thank-you, Jeremy-“ I answer,” I’m so relieved.”

“ Shhh-hh!” hisses my wife pushing me to the side and in one magnificent motion relieves me of my Mastercard.

“ These are on sale I believe..I have a coupon.” announces Shana , with all the directness and certainty of a satisfied lioness displaying a kill.

“ Oh, so sorry- but this sale only covers Athletic Footwear.”

“ Sorry?”

“ These are Chuck Taylors..the sale only covers Reebok or Nikes..you know-Athletic Footwear.”

“ Hey thur Jeremy..” I chirp up-pausing to read his nametag-“ ..but I believe those Chuck Taylors are capable of being tennis shoes..as in tennis..or running shoes, as in running..in a jock strap as in chasing game balls. See? The original Athletic Footwear were Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers.. ”

Jeremy looked at me as if I had said the rumbletoadeatschikenbythemidnight scar- in Mel Gibson Aussie/Aramaic.

“ Excuse me?” he answered .

“ That’s what I’m trying to do, Jeremy. These are ancient mysteries only those born in the fifties- or ninth degree Masons ,could possibly know. But for you I’ll make an exception- listen carefully- I'll whisper..soylent green is people and Chuck Taylors are Athletic shoes.”

Jeremy had that frozen possum smile that people always get when a naked man asks them for directions. In church.

Jeremy apparently also has a microphone grafted to his palm.

“ Any available manager to the front desk please..the front desk..any available manager.”

Jeremy did what every good novice sub-management trainee does- he immediately passed the buck and abrogated all responsibility.
It is my guess that Jeremy had a future in politics.
I was secretly glad he used the intercom and interrupted that hideous Journey song:
‘Don’t stop belieeeee-vun- hold to that FEEEEEEE-eee-eeeee-EEEEEEEEEE-ul-lun!’

Jeremy and I were in a zoological smirk duel- He the possum, I the smiling chimp.
(Three guesses what a chimp is about to do when he smiles, chum..)

“ Can I help you, sir?”
It was the manager lady. She was 24 to Jeremy’s 22 years on my planet.

“ I’m not sure. But you can help my wife buy this pair of Athletic footwear..”
“ For the advertized discount.” Adds Shana.

The manager-lady looks at the purple Chuck Taylor’s in barely disguised pity.

“ Oh, my golly- our discount only applies to Athletic footwear..you know, Reebocks, Adidas, Nikes..”
“ Wow,” I smile happily at my wife,”..twins.”
“ I have a coupon.”
“ Oh yes! Good golly I can see that M’am..but those only cover Athletic footwear…not casual footwear.”
“ Romulus and Remus..country and western.” I mutter to no one.

Jeremy stands like his butt is frozen to an ice sculpture.

“ Okay..like my husband tried to tell you..Chuck Taylors are Athletic wear. “
“ Oh. I see.Yes-but not here.” The manager-lady says using her finest mommy talking to toddler tone.
Poor thing..she just made a big mistake trying to shut down ‘Shops-With-A-Fist, Bubke’.

“ I. Have. A. Coupon!”

My wife’s diction has become dangerously perspicuous and her face is becoming a wholly unknown (previously undocumented) shade of burgundy.
All at once I know exactly what I must do.
I snatch the coupon out of my wife’s hand and ram it to my mouth and chew it like a secret agent saving the planet Treefrog.
Everyone in the line- including blimp-lady with the glittering stilettos -stop and stare.

Time and space hiccup. God takes a power-nap. Nothing moves. No lungs expel carbon-dioxide until I swallow my nugget.
“ I demand to pay full price.” I say, the delicate taste of coupon still caressing my tongue.
“ That was not helpful.” My wife’s eyes well up.

She was either close to tears or about to roll on the store floor laughing.
“ Ring it up Jeremy. Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it..here’s thirty bucks cash.”
“ Are you sure you don’t want to look at our new line of slimming –toning Reebocks? They are guaranteed to slim you down as you walk or exercise.. they are on sale”, chirps frightened manager-lady. (Coupon eating husbands were not part of her training at the corporate robot-mill.)
“Ok-that postulation is way-y more absurd than eating a scrap of sale paper..”
“Oh no sir;” says manager-lady looking directly at my wife;”..this line of Athletic footwear are scientifically proven to help the wearer reduce weight and tone the thighs, buttocks and abs.”
“ I have more science- Eating feeds you and jumping in water wettens the jumper.”
“Shh-hhh! You are frightening everyone.”

(I am being hissed at by my darling in public-and it is so-oo hot. This only encourages me.)

“ Jeremy, did you know Fruit Loops are Apple Jacks and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is the real National Anthem.”
This time my wife and the manager lady both ignore me. I have Jeremys undivided attention. Now the coup de gras ..
“Wearing Chuck Taylors, however, are guaranteed to produce oral sex at music school.”

The pitying look in the manager-ladys’ eyes reveal her new understanding that poor Shana shops with a clinical mental case (brother-father-son-husband?)-who is obviously afflicted with some scatological version of Tourette’s syndrome.

“ Thank-you, come again!” Jeremy carefully putting my receipt in my hand before giving me my change-
“Banality is as contagious as jactitation Jeremy.”
The only sound that escapes manager-lady’s lips is an A-hh-um-ahaaa reserved for mentally challenged shoppers with thalidomide children.

“ Sorry, my husband has onomatomania and a touch of extrusionary meosis.”
The manager-lady and Jeremy the metrosexual nod in complete misunderstanding.
Neither blink.

My heart swells with a sort of carnival-barkers’ pride that my wife memorized that phrase I offered her as an instant get-out-of-awkward-jail card whenever I get like this in public.
We leave with the handsomely packaged hard-won(un-discounted) Chuck Taylors.
My wife walks a full ten paces ahead of me the entire length of Fenton Street.
I am content. Today has been a productive day.

**And now the irrefutable truth **

A month passes since my Einstein-inspired dissertation at the discount shoe store. All my transgressions have been forgotten.
Tonight The Nightly News reports that Reebocks has been exposed for BULLSHIT involving scientific claims of ass-ab-leg toning bestowed by their magical Athletic footwear.
Some corporate spokespersons' ass is going to jail.

The payout is huge- 25 bizillion dollars to the egregiously bilked overweight Athletic Shoe consumer who needed the Federal Trade Commission to explain at a prime time,coast to coast press conference that wearing “special” tennis shoes will not automatically replace a 20-minute work-out ,a Saturday morning jog,a bicycle ride or shutting one’s piehole long enough to lose weight.

Muscles are not Chia pets or instant pudding.
To this I would add that wearing special shoes will not result in winged chittering magical monkeys flying out your ass.

But that remark would expose an altogether unattractive, and cynical outlook .

I guess I'll have to admit I'm just a barmecidal heterodox who has 'old school 'issues with vapid corporate dogshit.
So sue me.

Or better yet- Yeah!

..gimme control of that 25 bizillion bucks and I’ll deliver ten-speed bikes to every door in America.
If there's any money left over I’ll take the change in purple Chuck Taylor high-tops and distribute these to the fattest cities on the East Coast.

No coupon necessary.

My next column: Is Stupidity the new Swine-Flu?

Next Month: The Algorithm of Caffeine Marketing; or watch me make a row of Starbucks barrista brains explode like mushroom spores on the Nat Geo channel by simply asking the eschatological question:
“Don’t you people sell just regular-old -normal frickin’ coffee?”

Important Eschatological questions in American society:By MYSTR Treefrog

Important Eschatological questions in American society:
Who or what is this God thing who keeps spoiling the waxjob on my El Camino.
Is God using humans for target practice?
Was Dick Cheney actually the avatar of Jehovah?
Does Evolution mean humans are better than dogs at sniffing out Perps?
Does Evolution mean people should actually understand what Algebra and Trigonometry is used for?
Why does my mother cook better than any of my wives?
If Meat Is Murder are Peanuts manslaughter?
Does celery count as food? And if so, where?
If ancient Judeo-Christian law commands us that eating Pork is forbidden-does that mean Baseball is UN-Kosher and football is worse?
Is Kosher a term to use when discussing bikinis on Easter break?
Why are ugly men the best guitar players?
Why does Chas Bono think he looks any better as a man?
Does Aural sex mean a blowjob by a trombone played by angels?
Why does ANYTHING taste perfect with extra crunchy peanut butter?
Is saying God Dang taking the Lord Dang in vain?
Do I have to see young white males imitating young black males who forgot to tuck in their boxer shorts? Could this be the very essence of DE-Evolution?
Why do I have an impulse to claw out my own eyes when I witness the above?
If the Catholics have the Holy See- does the Vatican have a see-saw?
Are Episcopalians eternally pissed at God?
Are Presbyterians aligned with the dry-cleaning industry?
If there is no heaven or hell how do you explain Maui and Jersey City?
Are all travel agents in league with Satan?
Why are we encouraged to question authority when we know damned well that we will get our heads blown off?
Will God give me a trophy for just showing up on the Sabbath?
Is the Devil the patron saint of fire ants and poison ivy?
If Round-up can kill weeds growing out of sidewalks, why can't they invent something for my nostril hair?
Why do tomatoes, no matter how fresh, stink by noon in my bag lunch?
Why did God give me feet if God knew they would smell like this? (There are other examples-but this the only one that can be discussed in print.)
Is pre-marital sex dirty if we’ve showered beforehand?
If abstinence works for stemming the tide of wanton procreation,why wasn't Brisol Palin a wet dream?
Why must Mystery Meat remain a Mystery?
Are flashers simply psychopathic sous chefs trying to correct the above ?
If we are given technology by way of God-whose bright idea was leaf-blowers?
Why do we bother to rake leaves when we know it will be Fall every year?
If stupidity isn't contagious then how do you explain the Tea Party?
Why do we tie our shoes if we know we’ll only take them off before bed? Wouldn’t keeping them on save time?
Why do we wipe our butts if we’re only going to poop again shortly?
Wouldn’t holding our breath save air, reduce pollution and promote early retirement without Federal Entitlements?
If God- by way of human technological genius- can invent more than one can-opener; 400 cable T.V. channels , Television of multiple brands, types, and sizes; 30 varieties of apples: choice CUTS of beef, A hundred Friggin’ types of stiletto heels -Then WHY are we still stuck with only Republicans and Democrats to vote for?
Is anything-including the concept of GOD or my opinion -even approaching original?
And finally-
In the name of God:
What the HELL is Country AND Western?

"One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests." This is how fanatics and extremists can twist words to justify murder. Philosophical quotes, when they become subjective tools of ego and fanaticism, cease to uplift the spirit and become rationalization for evil. This one had blond hair and blue eyes.
..and used Jesus instead of Mohammed as an icon.
The next time you hear a friend or acquaintance babble babble babble about how the Tea Party or Political Christers can actually affect change in this country- read them the part in the Constitution about the ABSOLUTE separation of church and state.
What part of THOU SHALT NOT KILL is causing confusion out there?

More Shorter

More than one person has told me that my blog pieces are too long.
Okay.
Luckily creative writing is not like a haircut from the Korean woman I used to go to (because -as I became aware)-there are 2 kinds of haircuts in Korea.
Short (and Shorter.)
Faulkner would not survive in the blogosphere.
Melville would never even sign on.
Somewhere Milton and Lewis Carrol are laughing their asses off.
Am I the only one who can hear the demented chuckles from the ether?
Does being bipolar mean that Santa Claus actually lives in Antartica?
Bald IS beautiful.
Really?

ATTACK OF THE ADJECTIVES

"Definitively preposterously preposterous? Definitely?," she vacillated as he went about describing adjectives to an adverb-laden dilettantish malformed coquette enveloped in localized lamb-colored gravy spilt liquidly from the quavering blue-knuckled fingers of Bethesda's best cook turned writer's aid. The taste flecked spoon wavered like heat off a hot Arizona license plate.
Yet still, the moon rose haphazardly.
And yes-the night was as young as a newly blue whelped human tinwhistle screeching human caesarian section named, unbelievably....
Joe Emancipated Shmoe.
With a vitreous vitupurous toe.
hanging low.
ho......de......doe.
Finis en Scarletta

The Importance Of Appropriate Footwear- Of Jesus and Viscosity.

Winter sucks.
Lets just get that straight outta the gate. Life is too short for winter and I feel angry and desperate by being trapped in steel-toed boots seven months out of the year. Long pants- if manufactured out of light canvass- make some sense in hot weather because mosquitoes and ticks will drink your goddamned blood like mall-brats quaffing Diet Pepsi. That’s what they do. They drink your motherfuc’n blood, OK? This is their tick-ass job.
No debate here.
(Shorts , also,are stupid. Especially for the tragically hip Caucasian with translucent white legs who favor plaid. Different tirade- later for that..)
Hot ass clunky boots- for no prophylactically protective reason -are hellish bunions and stink-sweaty vinegar gaseous toe bloat trauma waiting to happen.
They’re great for busting bricks and bending nails at the jobsite or a Metallica moshpit- but if you step in a pile of Great Dane hooey on your front lawn in August and try to enter yer momma’s house, and track that delicacy across HER carpet- yer fuc’n done.
Toast is served, boots guy.
I wear sandals.

Not those pussy-ass slipper type sandals that Bobby and the rest of his twinkie-wang ‘The Grateful Dead’ buddies wear.
Nope. No fuc’n way- my hardcore East Coast dignity would never allow THAT putrid gas-hole- travesty of a fashion bomb to go off.
I have seen this rancid sandal-based Golden State cultural upchuck with my own eyes.
Yes- I have personally witnessed those Marin county Californicators wear that type of sandal.
In public-
..with something approaching a disaffected accismus of self-empowering pride.

And.With. White. Socks!

Ween- wiener type open- toed sandals that would even make Perry Como and his sweetheart Bing Crosby spit into the Vegas dirt, toss their drinks into the swimming pool, and beat some 90210 hippie ass.
If Jerry Garcia were still alive he simply wouldn’t countenance this Left Coast affected twee-ass blasphemy.
It should be mentioned that if faced with this fashion tragedy his band name would be tenfold more appropriate.
I’m the first to show active disgust when confronted with that special hippie-dippie west coast sox n’sandals nonsense- no! no! I mean I wear black functional heavy soled kick-ass krav maga loving Hebrew Tevas sandals that would make John the Baptist drool, throw down his staff, knee an un-baptized heathen, jump out of the Jordan River and head to the nearest Hudson Trail outfitters for a pair of his own.
Not only are my black nasty Tevas built to withstand the vicious rocky Sinai desert trails, full of Jerusalem stone, two-headed vipers, dirt devils and biblical variety poisonous rat-sized scorpions- but they are tough enough to wear while walking through( or on) water.
Their straps unbreakable truck-straps and the soles are as thick as yer Uncle Fob’s R.V. tires and yer Auntie Em’s army boots.
I Bullshit you Not.

Personal fact-
I try to change my own oil.
It keeps me busy, saves a couple bucks and makes me look like some kind of mechanical genius to my Bethesda-raised Jewish wife. I can’t say I’m really fast at it- there’s a certain amount of showmanship involved in protracted controlled simplistic mayhem- and the harder it seems, and the more colorful a man’s cursing, the longer his oil-changing- screen-mending- garbage wrangling sacrificial man shit -the more of a world-weary and loyal hero you appear to be.
Yeah right, cowboy- I wasn’t married yesterday.
(Whatever works, right guys?)

~Editor’s note: That wouldn’t be the first recorded instance of the mesmerism of an ‘old testament girl’ by fire and wholly smoke.

One of the reasons I bought my house is that the Car Parts store is walking distance. I consider this a prudent move.
There are a few things you want to be walking distance from -just in case the power grid goes down or your transmission takes a dump or the terrorists strike.

A few of these establishments-besides the car parts store- are gas station(obvious), grocery store(obvious), bank(obvious), gun and bullet store(x-tremely obvious) and a 7-11, (for those small snacks, power drinks and coffee necessary before joining your neighborhood vigilante militia).
Shooting looters, non-Christian zombies and false prophets requires stamina.
Luckily there is also a* Kare ~Bear* dance studio next to the gun shop.
Life doesn’t have to be all stress, stress, stress.
I’ve seen some pretty hefty beef-eaters out there who couldn’t get into a combat stance without popping their pants and zinging their Levi buttons like deadly projectiles- a little ballet might actually improve their dexterity.
There is something to be said for being light on your feet when chaos reigns, zombies rove and the Rapture comes to collect the really annoying neighbors down your street.
Good Riddance. Exactly.
Knee-capping Wrangler button trick shooting could become an Olympic sport in this country.
There should be a Reality T.V. series devoted to it.

So-ooo-

The old guy had a cane, forty-odd extra pounds, little hair or left-over visual beauty- but he did carry the definite vibe of an ex-combat Marine from ‘outside-the-beltway’ farm country.
I was in a hurry but I stopped to politely hold the door for him, even though I saw the Parts counter was busy. My oil-changing mission would be delayed by letting the old geezer butt in front of me.
Shrug.

I figured this old guy had less time left on earth to wait on a carburetor widget than I did. His face was flushed and he didn’t look particularly well.
My politeness and deference became inordinately taxed when,as the old guy slowly limped and wheezed toward the door, he greeted me with the remark that:

“ ‘Am ol’ thangs don’t look right on a man, “

He said this looking down at my sandals like he just spied a pair of queer monkeys.

” Yer feet ever get wet when ya piss?”
“ Yer welcome, partner- I’d like to think my aim is better than that.”
I had my instant insulted chimpanzee( I’d- like- to- slap- you-HARD!) smile spread wide on my face.

“ Never could stand ‘am thangs myself, make a normal feller look a little light in the pants.”
‘Ok,’ I thought, ‘Maybe he thinks I’m a raw recruit and this is Camp LeJeune.'

Mr. Old Phuck General Geriatric Hard-Ass (Ret.) has advanced Tourette’s syndrome brought on by sustained generational disdain.
I understand this syndrome. I guess I can keep my mouth shut and allow his gas to pass.
That’ll be me in a few years.

He chuckled at his own joke and pushed past me like an un-oiled rusty John Deere combine tractor chugging on two cylinders.

He had the wafting old guy smell. A mixture of Preparation H, joint crème, unlaundered pants, ten day old Folgers coffee and sour apple pie- he was one of those speak-yer-damn-mind old geezers.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck.
I was psychologically conflicted.

The old geriatric peckerweed was greeted with happiness and familiarity. The Parts Guys at the counter all knew his name. It began with ‘MISTER’.
He was a regular.
The Parts Guys and Mister Hardass (USMC ret.) began jostling good natured insults back and forth as I moved into position next to him at the counter and waited my turn.
After the wizened creaker took ten minutes to unwrap an antique part from a first-issue turn –of-the-century (19th) lawnmower and bitch out the Auto Parts Guy because he didn’t carry spare parts for this (*or his other chariot-)he took time to take a breath and look me over.

“..‘ave youz ever seen sich a thing? Look at ‘am shoes! I go down to Flerdah every winter, got some French neighbors wear them things around all day long..”
General Geezer-Jigger looks back to his buddy, The Parts Guy and zings his punchline;

..”but hell, they’z French-whadda ya expect?”

Ha ha.
The entire store of grease-worshippers, Parts Guys, undocumented Toyota owners and one large woman ,with a name-tag that read SAL, holding a re-manufactured piston, laugh in my face and look at my footwear.
Like this was some kind of insect petting zoo and *POOF* I’m the roach.
They are deriding my manly Teva sandals in public. The whole fuc’n store.
And Geezer –Twat (USMC ret.) has equated me with some dastardly French snowbirdy touristas from Montreal.
There are times Alzheimer’s is just no excuse for sequacious verbigeration.
Ditto for public displays of wandering redneckism.
Age be damned. His shark oil greased ass would be mine.
This pinguid rack-of-dust just called me a French queer in front of a bunch of mechanics at the car parts store.

This is like pissing on a monk’s feet in church.
Still -I repress my need to strangle all humanity, starting with General Hard-Ass-Ass (Ret) and smile genially, and say in my most even tone:

“ If they are good enough for the Son Of God, they should be good enough me to wear while I change my oil.”
“ What you say there?” Old bag scowls, “ ain’t no call to be sacrilegious, son.”
He glowers at me, slacking his jaw and opening his mouth wide enough to drive Sarah Palin’s tour-bus through.

“ You appear to be a devout follower of Jesus Christ, sir..and Jesus wore sandals.”
“ You ain’t him.”
“ If I were Jesus and in this parts store my guess is one of three things would happen.”
“ Such as?”

“ Well, the way I figure it- either y’all wouldn’t recognize me, or when you did I’d immediately be offered a job..in which case I'd lay hands on the collective Toyota there would be damn little need for this parts store.”
“ What’s the third thing?” piped in Parts Guy. I had his attention.
“ Stick his righteous sandaled Jewish toe up anyone’s asshole that insulted an innocent consumer in public by calling him a French tourist.”

I glare at General Geezerpenis(Ret.) and lean on the Parts counter like an experienced oil-changer wearing psychological steel-toed boots.

“ Now look here, son..I fought for this country in KO-rea, I have a right to say what I think.”

“ You ever heard of Joshua? The mega-kick-as Jew in sandals who beat the shit out of entire armies, charred their heathen bones and danced around the pyre howling like a wolf with a boner? I bet you might coulda used HIM in KO-rea. Or how about ol’ King David, the mega kick-ass pussy hound who wrote poetry with one hand and decapitated his enemies with the other? Was he wearing construction boots? I’ll bet no one in here would laugh at them fellers chosen footwear, would they now?”
“ No cause to get riled up and call Our Lord Jesus Christ a Jew.”
“ You shouldn’t say boner.” Added Sal. “ They never said boner in the bible.”

“ Not only was he a Jew, he was a sandal-wearing peace and love hippie. He ate figs and hummus. He ate lamb with a parsley garnish, drank wine and herb tea…babes flocked around him, dudes wanted to be him; in fact the entire Sermon on the Mount was like a mixture of a Hebrew Rave and Poetry Slam- minus the sub-woofers, of course..talk about free ecstasy! AND he woulda hated Wall Street..you betcha.”

“ Ah think yer talkin’ out yer blaspheming ass, son..”
“ That’s a matter of perspective, General Sandal-Hater.”

“ Ahem…fellers..fellers;” interjects head Parts guy,” ..let’s stick to car parts. No need to get in a pickle.”

“ Or say boner;” adds Sal.
Sal has a very sour look upon her face.

“ Ok now- Mr. Sandals..what can I do you for?”
Head Parts guy is being sequacious. And condescending. And making a stupid redneck sales-quip I’ve heard too many times before.
He is also looking at my footwear and mentally pissing down my leg.

“ Tell y’all what..lemmee have six quarts of 5-30 S.A.E. and 2 quarts of that S.T.P. smoke treatment…I gotta Burning Bush out back I need to deal with.”
“ Yer Hell-bound, son-I’m damn sure;” (Ret.) General Gawd-Dong righteously wheezes.

“ My guess is yer a lot closer to meeting yer maker than I am. Maybe you can put in a good word for me?”
“ Thur ain’t no reasoning with you sandal-types-izzair?”

I ruminate carefully my response and opt for :

“ Soaking figs don’t stay wet long under the harsh biblical sun of an open air market.”

The deer-people in the car parts store stand, eyes wide in perplexed confusion, their assembled thought processes annexed by my random psychedelic wisdom.

Right. I’m wearing sandals.
You twats wanna dance?
Let’s do this thing.