bring the noyz

that phrase kinda takes on a new meaning. . .

as do these. . .

"firing all phasers"

"warp speed, Mr. Sulu"

'Star Trek' Actor George Takei Comes Out

You would be so amused.
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just like in the polls

and oddly soothing.
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Meet with Elvis. . . then later be forced to resign in disgrace wrapped in the stench of corruption and scandal.


Meet with Bono. . . ah, sweet wishful thinking.
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Yes, my dear reader, proof. . .

Proof that Pat Robertson is wrong, and as is also evident by beer, that God loves us and wants us to be happy:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Fox television network said on Wednesday it was canceling plans for a fourth edition of "The Simple Life"

So rejoice.

No, really. Rejoice.

Rejoice now.

Rejoice damnit, rejoice!
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Yes, slightly more freaked out.

But due in part to some sort of underlying lonely sadness it does not seem quite as fucked up.

If you have not yet subscribed to Salon, well don't feel bad because neither have I.

You should, my dear reader, you really should. We both know it is the right thing to do.

And so should I. But I've spent a lifetime watching PBS without feeling the slightest tinge of guilt, even during pledge drive week, so let's just be honest and say that there is no blood coming from this stone.

So either pay or watch a brief ad. Whatever. Just do it already.

Then make yourself a strong drink (as the weather is turning cooler slowly drifting into autumn, I suggest something a little darker and heavier, perhaps some bourbon, as I am having). . .

Comfortable? Relaxed? Good. . .

Now read this.

What the fuck?

Good. But let's do it once more with feeling. . . WHAT THE FUCK?

Maybe it's kinda fresh on my mind because I watched "I, Robot" on HBO this weekend, but I know it's just a matter of time before technological advances. . .

Well, my dear reader, like me, use your own imagination to finish that sentence.

Wanna feel creeped out a little more? Like something's not right but you can't turn away. . .

I know you do. It's October, almost Halloween. It's just the right time of year for feeling all creeped out.

Okay then. Now slam what's left of your first drink and make yourself another one. Make it a double.

And then go make yourself one.
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and fucked up. . .

First a warning: parts of what follows are not workplace friendly, unless you work on the set of a snuff film or for rotten.

Quite early on a Sunday morning while checking out the online news of the day and enjoying my morning coffee (or double gin and tonic. . . you know me, you decide), I read this news story.

This prompted a Google search which lead me to this.

Which lead me to this.

And eventually to this.

Oh, beautiful for spacious skies. . .
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You visit in a dream.

Why? Why now? I do not know.

This time is more surreal than the times before.

I am outside an apartment building. Where? How tall? I do not know. It’s dark. There is yellow police crime scene tape at the curbside going around the building. Parked cars block the street as handfuls of curious neighbors and bystanders mill around the parked cars. There is a small yard in front. I seem to recall children’s toys, a ball, maybe a trike. Perhaps it is not that large a building. The interplay of the streetlights with the changing rhythms and colors of emergency vehicle lights illuminates the exterior of the building like the inside of a strip club. I think this odd, almost ironic given that I don’t recall you sharing my enthusiasm for that type of establishment in our wilder younger days.

The whole dream has the look and feel of a “Law and Order” episode. Like I am both in one and watching one at the same time in that weird alternating first and third person perspective I frequently experience in dreams.

The police have brought me there. You have already done the deed.

For some reason they need me to identify the body. I walk up a narrow staircase, dark stairs with dirty once white walls. I am lead into an apartment. The door enters into a small kitchen, almost blindingly bright and with fluorescent lights when compared to the dim and dingy stairwell I just exited. A countertop juts from the far wall and separates the kitchen from the living room.

There is a television on. I didn’t look at what channel you probably spent your last moments watching. I just didn’t want to. Knowing you, it was probably VH1 Classic. I see the back of a recliner, black or dark gray.

I am lead past the counter into the living room. A firm yet gentle hand on my shoulder turns me as I walk past the chair into the middle of the living room. The only light comes from the television at one end of the room and the lights from the kitchen at the other.

I stand in the middle of the room, backlit by the television, facing towards the kitchen I just walked through. Knee level on my right there is an old coffee table, overflowing with dirty ashtrays and empty cans of The Beast, like from the 1805 days.

You are there, sitting in a worn recliner.

At first it looks as though you are sitting on a knitted yarn afghan blanket, like the funky ones my grandmothers made in the ‘70s with great ‘70s yarn shades of red, pink, gray and brown.

Then I realize it’s not a knitted blanket. The left side of your head is missing. You still hold a gun in your right hand.

I say nothing. I just stand there, dumbfounded and numb.

I see your face move slightly, a subtle wrinkled grin. I have seen this face hundreds of times before when waking up on someone’s floor amidst the wreckage of an all night party. Your eyes open, your mouth moves, “Hey dude, what’s up?”

I awake with a startle, feeling very unstuck in space and time.

A moment’s chaos, then all is calm. I’m in bed. It’s the middle of the night. The Wife sleeps soundly beside me. To help get my bearings and to reconnect with this reality I get up and check on The Boy. He is fine.

All is well in my world.

Possibly even a little better. . .

This morning, during a lull in my classroom activities, I grabbed my classroom guitar.

I spontaneously played without pause or missing a chord change, “Working Man” minus the long jam part in the middle and then several sections of “Xanadu”.

Which was really weird, because I don’t know how to play those songs.

"Nevermore shall I return
Escape these caves of ice
For I have dined on honeydew
And drunk the milk of Paradise"

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A week or so back on some romantically hazy post margarita post Katrina post Chief Justice Roberts nomination night, The Wife and I found ourselves discussing possibilities for Supreme Court nominees to fill the still empty Sandra slot.

(empty Sandra slot? As I am quite certain I am not the only one with a gutter mind I'll let you my dear reader, make up your own tasteless crass and offensive joke about that. But please, email it to me so that I may share it with the rest of the world.)

Not that we were bandying about names or anything, we're not quite that geeky, although it has always been something of a secret aspiration of mine.

(If I could have learned to throw off skills and stats of federal judges and legal officials the way Spew spills his wack UT Football knowledge. . . Whoa Nelly! Back in the day I would have really been a babe bangin' machine!)

We we're just kinda shooting the shit and speculating about what type of folk would cut the current Presidential Mustard.

At the time, Dubya's poll numbers were still sinking more rapidly than the water in New Orleans.

The Wife hypothesized, that since Americans were already pissed and becoming increasingly more so with our Blessed Commander in Chief, his nominee for the High Court could not be anybody blatantly controversial/conservative. She surmised that Dubya would chose some sort of nameless unknown to fill the vacancy. Her logic being something like if Dubya picked somebody nobody knew anything about then nobody really had anything to complain about.

She then went on and speculated that if Dubya took such a course of action, he ran the risk of aggravating and alienating the folks who rightly or wrongly feel like Dubya made them promises and owes them something. The Wife said that if Dubya chose a relatively non-controversial unknown he ran the risk of pissing off his conservative base of support.

She saw it as kind of "damned if he does and damned if he doesn't" situation.

Well I'll be damned. . .

Disappointed, Depressed and Demoralized

Miers' Qualifications Are 'Non-Existent'

Bush's Supreme Court Pick: Is She Right Enough?

Pick Made From Weakness Is Unnecessary Roll of the Dice

I do love her so.
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"I wanna get physical" - Olivia Newton-John

In 1978 Ms. Olivia inspired a twelve year old boy's early efforts to get physical with her invitation to "feel your way" near the end of Grease.

By 1981 when she expressed a desire to "let me hear your body talk", I was well practiced at honing my craft.

But I'm not talking about that now.

I don't mean "getting physical". This rambling is about "getting a physical", which is a medical procedure and nothing like the activity to which Ms. Olivia referred.

Unless you believe that the women who are briefly dressed as nurses in some of the quality entertainment The Wife and I sometimes watch late at night after The Boy is asleep really are nurses.

In which case I can't hardly wait for The Wife to finish her studies and earn her RN licencse.

But that's probably not the case. Getting back on topic. . .

Last week I went to my doctor for a physical examination. For the first time. Ever.

Forty is starting to stare me in the eye, it's just a few months down the line. I figured that it's time to really find out what's going on and begin to do any necessary penance for about 25 years (so far) celebrating the basic American values of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

I think I quite responsibly concluded that along with the addition of The Wife and The Boy in the past couple of years, I also added a responsibility to take care of myself so that I can be around to take care of my family.

So, yes I know, it still took me over a year. Baby steps. . . baby steps.

So I made the appointment and off I went.

I an quite pleased to report to the world that I am in very good health.

It wouldn't hurt me to lose ten pounds or so, there's a slight touch of mostly seasonal asthma which I've always known about but never treated, but otherwise I am, according to my doctor, a perfectly healthy guy.

This was also my first time to have that checked. I am still a little young, but my father had prostate cancer a few years back. They caught it early. He had the surgery. He recovered fully and is doing great today.

As my father had it, there is an increased risk factor for me.

Got to get checked out.

Doing so reminded me of a day a few years ago, when my father had first learned about his cancer.

One afternoon I spent some time sitting at my parent's kitchen table with my father and his oldest brother. We were drinking a couple of beers and mostly I listened as my father and uncle recalled amusing anecdotes and told outright exaggerations about the people and places from their lives.

As my father's prostate cancer was the subject that had brought us all there, the prostate exam was inevitably addressed as a topic of conversation. I sat with wide-eyed wonder as my father and uncle went into much more graphic anatomical detail than I cared to hear about men in their sixties.

My uncle recalled one of his prostate exams saying, "I didn't know whether I should cum or turn around and punch him."

That comment has stuck with me, perhaps because it has forever cursed me with the image of my then sixty-six or so year old uncle having an orgasm, which was already a borderline issue because he frequently brags about his Viagra consumption, or maybe just because I thought it was really funny.

So I'm in my doctor's office. . .

I dropped trou, turned around, was asked to spread my legs slightly and. . . whoo!

". . . cum or punch him?"

I can tell you without hesitation my dear reader, that following my first prostate exam I am quite firmly on the side of the latter.

I think.
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