September 14, 2007 archive

Lord Have Mercy, Feel My Temperature Rising …

Ok, so the top recommended diary at Daily Kos is the hard hitting speech by John Edwards immediately following Mister Bush’s address to the nation (which I did not watch — will never watch that man if I can help it).

So now I know that America has officially gone nuts.  The video of Edwards looks as though he is President, he’s sitting in a nice chair, an American flag behind him.  Except … except … HE IS NOT EVEN A SENATOR!  He is not in any position to make any decision in Congress right now!  Aaarrrrggggh!

All right, all right, I’ll calm down.  It’s just that this reminds me of the really creepy phenomenon of so many folks watching “West Wing” after Mister Bush was selected — this kind of fantasy-land where you could at least watch on the teevee what a President was supposed to act like, look like, talk like.  Not having a teevee (I stopped watching after 9/11), I was never gripped by this fantasy.

Tilling new ground

I’ll jump in here, full tilt boogie, with a peek into my non-pragmatic mind…

Only, it’s fallow ground, not new, because I and some of my cohort of that era was asking the question forty years ago.  Back then it was extreme visionary territory, but nowadays, the question just screams for an answer, but nobody is even asking the question.

So when do we come to the realization that there are NEVER going to be enough jobs, either here in America, the USA, or anywhere on the planet, for that matter, and when do we start to talk about the paradigm shift it is going to take to come to accommodation with that fact?  Jobs, in the sense of wage earning, support-your-family-security, steady meaningful employment.  Remember that?

Short Diaries are mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~

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writing in the raw: the touch

I’m listening to a musician, new to me. Sam Prekop… heard his music playing as i passed by a small shop. i walked in and asked… who is that. Sam Prekop. Oh.

So now i’m listening to Who’s Your New Professor. I love it. I love the acoustic guitar. And the acoustic piano. The tone… the depth of the music. And listening, i hear the electric elements there too. but it is the acoustic parts that are warmest, most intimate.

Candidate Poll! Who’s your choice as of today?

I’ve not seen one yet, so I’m going to run one! đŸ™‚

Buhdy said I could

Heh.

impatience

I find myself growing more and more impatient. Like a child waiting for the magic of Christmas morning, only to find those toys were not quite what they seemed, and may have been, in fact, argyle socks and tighty whitey underwear.

Little Grey Orb

On Monday morning a little grey orb was floating three feet off the ground in the living-room of Judd Frimp’s apartment.  Judd was late for work at the supermarket and didn’t notice. 

When he got back that evening, sweaty and swearing, it was still there.

“Don’t put bags of groceries on top of watermellons, Judd,” Judd fumed as he came in the door.  “Don’t smash carts into curbs to make a train, Judd.  It knocks the wheels out of alignment, Judd.”  He threw his green “Food Gnome” apron onto the 70’s-plaid couch and stormed to the shower, stripping clothes as he went.  “I’ll knock you out of alignment you fat pig,” he said to his boss, who wasn’t there.

A moment later Judd reappeared from the bathroom, naked, gawking at the orb.  One of his socks had landed on it. 

“Flubuck?” he said.  “Huh?”

The orb was about a half-a-foot in diameter and unblemished . . . aside from the gym sock.  It hovered motionless above the coffee table in the living room.  Judd had bought the coffee table at a Target Superstore and put it together using the stupid little hexagonal tool that came in the box.  He’d hurt three of his fingers in the process.  Stupid hexagonal tool.  Stupid hexagonal Chink tool.

More importantly, though, nothing was holding the orb up.  It hung in mid-air, next to the lamp on the table.

Judd shuffled toward it warily, squinting.  He expected lighting bolts or maybe laser beams to shoot out of the orb and fry him.  He reached and grabbed his sock.  The orb was unperturbed. 

Judd tapped it with his finger.  Tap tap tap.  Nothing.  He tapped harder.  Tap tap tap.  The orb didn’t move at all.  It was as though it were lodged in the oxygen.  Fixed.  Fast.  Frozen.

It was reflective.  Judd saw himself in the orb — a funhouse-mirror skinny self.  Looking at his own eyes, Judd imagined the orb or the Smurfs inside it could see him.  He covered his privates with the sock. 

“Devil’s own business,” he mused.

Phone in kitchen.  Back up slow.  Dial.  Bart. 

“Hullo.”

“Hey Bart.”

“Yeah?”  Bart sounded groggy.

“You ever see a little grey orb?”

“What?”

“A orb.”

Waking up some: “The fuck are you talking about?  Is this Frimp?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, fucker,” Judd said.  “Like a ball.”

“Have I ever seen a ball?”

“Yeah.”

“Well lemme think on that, Frimp.  Yeah, yeah.  I believe so.”

“No shit?  Floating?”

The orb sat in the air, silent, reflecting a Dokken poster on a wood-panel wall.

“You high, Judd?  Get ya some bad shit?”

“No, man, I was gonna ask if you had it in –“

“Yeah, I had it in,” Bart said, mimicking him.  “I been holding it for you all weekend.  You didn’t go buying that shit Harriet sells, did you?”

“Naw, no, Bart.”

“That shit’ll make you see things.”

“No Bart, I’m straight at this exact moment.  Look I’ll be right over.”  Judd hung up.  He got dressed and went over to Bart’s.  He didn’t want to piss off Bart; Bart sold the California shit.

__________________________

Suzie at work agreed to a date for Friday.  Judd invited her over to his place at nine.  At eight, he sat on the couch, watching television on his thirty-inch flat screen, changing channels.  The orb was still there.

Judd had heaved on the orb, tried to shove it, beat it with a tennis racket, all week long.  The orb never budged.  It was a rock.  A rock floating three-feet off the ground in the living-room of his apartment with wood-paneled walls.  It was a true-to-life bitch, is what it was.

But Suzie was pretty, so Judd sat there and contemplated the matter.  He had to hide the orb from her view, so that when she came over in an hour, she wouldn’t see it.  It was some embarrassing shit, having an orb in your place.

Judd took the lamp on the table and tried to arrange it so that the lamp shade covered the orb.  The lampshade was puke-orange and fairly translucent, but Judd figure it would do if he could arrange it correctly. 

He’d left the TV absently on channel 43, the science Discovery channel.  A guy was speculating on higher-dimensional objects, and what would happen if they protruded into the known universe.  Only three of their many dimensions would be apparent, of course.

Judd messed with the lampshade and the lamp and got it about right — the shade was a bit askew but it covered the orb.  He looked down into the shade from above and he could see the orb there.  Good enough.  He changed the channel to a Friends rerun and drank a beer and smoked some weed.

Suzie came over looking nice in a jean-skirt and sweater and they made out.  But Judd made the mistake of trying to turn on the lamp at one point to help her look for an earring.  This sent the lamp twirling about and cast a weird dancing shadow of the orb onto the walls.

Suzie freaked out and left.  Judd kicked the orb a karate kick and hurt all five of his toes.  He drank himself into a daze and then crashed on his bed at two o’clock in the morning.

____________________________

When Judd woke up, the little grey orb was gone.  He thanked God loudly and took a numb, hung-over shower.  He went to work at Food Gnome where the boss yelled at him again.

The most amazing thing that ever happened in the history of the world happened in Judd Frimp’s apartment, but he was stupid and so nothing ever came of it.

Posting on Posting

If you are NOT a Contributing Editor….If you have NOT been specifically informed by e-mail that you are a CE….If you have not spoken to me about your Editorship….If you just signed up like a normal person…then the following applies to you!

Just a quick post to clear some stuff up and answer any questions you might have. It seems that some folks misinterpreted (my fault) the rules for being a CE (Contributing editor) with general posting in the recent list.

After spending all morning over at pff responding to comments in the launch diary, I am afraid to write this next sentence….but here goes!

You can literally write anything you want, in any form you want, at any length you want, in the recent essay list.

Really.

Anything

Economist displays the power of Magical Thinking

Now look, children, here is how you dazzle rather than honestly make an argument:  If the surge is working it is a good reason that we should stay in Iraq; if the surge is not working it is a good reason that we should stay in Iraq.  Huh?  Watch the hand with the ball, not the hand fluttering around in front of your eyes.

From the 13 Sept 07 Print edition “Why They Should Stay”

This newspaper was not wowed by either man. The spin General Petraeus put on the military achievements of the surge exaggerated the gains. Mr Crocker’s claim to see a spirit of sectarian reconciliation bubbling just beneath the surface of Iraq’s stalemated politics was even less convincing. But on one point Mr Crocker was surely right. If America removes its forces while Iraq remains in its present condition, the Iraqi future is indeed likely to be disastrous. For that reason above any other, and despite misgivings about the possibility of even modest success any time soon, our own view is that America (and Britain) ought to stay in Iraq until conditions improve.

So, since its been a disaster we should stay: keep eye on ball as we move below

My Docudharma Manifesto

No, I haven’t written my own manifesto.  But my intention at this site, and one which I think it is particularly fitting for this site, can be summed up by Tristan Tzara’s 1918 “Dada Manifesto”, from which I quote:

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