blackjax29

Elliot...Napping...

Hey Mark and Barb...

7404...

Or ‘The Current Bush Body Count’...

It struck me earlier this morning. Sofar on this Administration’s watch, we’ve lost 7404 lives.

Hear me out.

2,602 on 9/11

2,639 in Iraq

327 in Afghanistan

1,836 in New Orleans

7404 Total. 7404 families in this country shattered. 7404 taxpayers. 7404 fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, children... gone. This exceeds the wildest proclamations from the foamiest of right wing nutjobs from the entire Clinton Administration. 7404 lives...

Gone.

Not to mention an entire city, trillions of dollars, goodwill and our good name. All for what?

The “F” Word...

Islamofascist... Sounds like something scrawled on a $50 dollar cocktail napkin. Probably was.

I can see the cogs spinning. “If we call the other side this, then the public will AUTOMATICALLY think that we’re on the side of the Allies. Like WWII. Yea...”

If the Right wing is going to toss the word Fascist around like Mardi Gras beads, I think it’s time to actually see the description of the term...

“Fascist: One who is Dictatorial or has Extreme Right Wing Views.”

Uh huh...

“A governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc, and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism...”

Toss in gay bashing and messianic grandeur and it smells a lot like 1600 Pen Ave.

“A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism..”

Macaca. Little Guatemalan Man. Blacks can’t swim. Electric Mexican Border Fence...
“A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government...”

Let’s face it. Time for the left to finally call one one.

As For Me...

Yesterday I was getting ready for work with my brain on sideways and with a desire to stay in bed or in the office and drawing, and I was getting the pill. I usually cut it in half, but something said I needed a vacation from the noise of the outside world, the desire to claw my eyes out, and involuntary twitching. So I downed a full one.

The rest of the day I was submerged in a swimming pool of sky blue Jell-O, where words had to fight, calmly, serenely, to the surface and to that outside world. Where it really didn’t matter what the fuck was going on in planet Earth. I had my pool ‘o Jell-O and nothing was going to harsh the buzz...

So I floated through the day, floated home. Drew. Inked...

Last night the Redhead and I went to the Asheville Pizza and Brewing company to see ‘The DaVinci Code’ over a couple of Guinnesses and a tasty pizza. And even buzzed and stoned, it was a dog of a movie. Visually lovely but a waste of great talents sleepwalking through half-assed parts in a theory dressed up in a plot. I guess mediocrity, the mainstay of the current Administration and time we live in, just doesn’t cut it anymore. We need excellence in art, writing, and Governance.

We deserve it. We deserve better. 

Page 12

Wednesday Soon Enough...

As I look up and Breathe Again...

Nightfall. Outside sounds like a Tarzan movie. The temp's fallen again. I’m currently finished with Reno Gabriel’s page 12, and am now going to do a page 9.5 As a filler. It needs it. I’m slowly getting better at this Graphic Novel schtick, so as I look back I see that it needs some padding there, so blah, blah, blah...

Ick....

And I’m trying not to cringe at the earlier pages since I’m now playing with type and such, but whatever, it’s just m y art and my possible future.

So...

It’s being posted on the site and I’m distantly jazzed. I’ll be jazzed more once I finally hear... something from there. Whatever. Doing the pages has become like needlepoint, like painting the pewter figurines, like, well, masturbation, but with a payoff you can actually show your friends and the public as a whole. Well, without getting arrested or setting up the webcam.

Hmm...

Anyway, the new stuff, to beat a simile to death, looks great if I may toot my own horn. I can see the ramping up and style solidification...

But...

Today and for the past few days it’s been bad here in my head, the world is noisy and scary, my breathing short, nerves shot, constantly huffing the word ‘No’ under my breath, earphones on and attached to the IPod/Security Blanket/Person Avoidance System.

And why? Chemistry, I’ll guess. These moments come screaming out of the darkness and hammer me like a padded freight train, knocking me off my ass and into my office to scribble, ink or push pixels.

But now I’m in bed at a reasonable hour (1 a.m.) since I’m going to the store by noon to give the appearance of competence and feigning interest over Okra and Jicama...

Then it’s back to scanning and pixeling page 9.5...

Karr...

Seems like I won a personal bet. I owe myself a Mocha.

Can you say ‘Distraction’. Can you say Propaganda? Can you say hinky and asinine and too fucking obvious? Has the Boulder D.A. Given ANY justification for flying him out of the East?

Nope.

Anyway. Bed. Sleep.

Friday..?

...And The World's Goin' Nuts...

I'm just amazed at the half-assed CYA-ism that this Administration is involved in these days, especially with the Photo Op with this purported “Grateful New Orleans Resident” Rocky Vaccarella, who turns out to be a member of the GOP who ran as such and a businessman who dined with White House Staff the night before, who gushed that this President is really the People’s President and that ‘the little guy can get to the big guy whenever he needs to’ and he’s and wished that the W would have another four years...

Man. O. Man. The Administration that lost an American city is now trying to conceal the fact that it did so on the anniversary, that the media blowtoads are going full belch on Nagin and Blanco meanwhile the billions promised to the rebuilding has gone... nowhere. Garbage is piling up. Running water still isn’t restored. Electricity is sporadic. Crime is rampant. Huh. Instead of New Orleans becoming Vegas with Spanish Moss, it’s become a swampy Iraq.

And both have become the pinnacle of Supply Side Economics, of conservative Privatization, a shining example of the ‘Miracle of the Marketplace’. This is what you get when you plan everything  with profits in mind, with sweetheart deals and no oversight. Billions wasted. Nothing to show for it for those who need it but second or third homes, 10 Million Dollar Bat Mitzvahs and obscene profits...

And to watch the W crumble during the ‘reassuring’ Press Conferences where he’s talking that the Terrorists will ‘Follow us Home’ if we leave there... Like puppies. It’s like the insurgents in Iraq have no idea who’s invaded them.  Where he’s starting to shout incoherently. He’s looking like he’s trapped in the position, he can’t walk away from it like he’s done from everything else in his life.

There was a time when this crap flew, but now it’s going continually into the fan. Change time Kids.

On Fatherhood and Mortality and the Whole Shebang...

Yea...

I made a few connections in my creaking brain considering  Fatherhood, Kids, Mortality, the whole Maghilla as it were.

Hear me out...

When I was growing up (well, not mentally, but you get the gist), I’d see Dad a few times a year and it was always awkward. His English was as shaky as my hold on sanity, so the get-togethers were sort of...

Cold? No. Just distant. There wasn’t a connection there.

I mean, there was love, I could feel that, but beyond it there wasn’t anything I could take home, to keep, to learn from.

So kids to me were sort of... vague. Distant. Love yes, but...

Part of it was that kids reminded me of what somewhat would be called a lousy childhood. I didn’t want to be reminded of it and kids, I guess, did. Also living as I did in that hellhole I had to become a ghost, a timeless wraith, unburdened by reality and mortality, but also without form, without having a stake in life.

Like kids.

Once they’re there you’re clock has started. Mortality is staring you in the face.

But life goes on. I’ll be dead eventually.

And the one thing I learned from my last meet with Dad was life is short, that you have to take chances, make a stake, live. 

Then the gears clicked into place a little while ago. Dad. Distance. Programming. Me. 

And now here I am.

Surprising myself...

Why I Haven't Written Lately...

I Give You Page 11...

Konspiracy...

...Or "Why is Homeland Security all over this Karr Suspect..?'

If you Goog ‘Karr Homeland Security’ you get a few articles on someone called Ann Hurst, a Department of Homeland Security attache in Bangkok who’s connected to the Karr dupe. Yea, I know. WTF and all that, but just...

The main question is: What the fuck does a 10 year old murder and a very shaky suspect with questionable connectiveness to it have to do with Homeland Security?

Answer? Personally? This came when the Administrations numbers continue to tank, when a judge had ruled that he’s been breaking the law with this whole wiretap thing, when Iraq is crumbling and the London Terror plot turned out to be a big ‘ol load of supposition...

In other words, it’s a distraction.

A minor bet, a little game you can play is: If he walks, then it’s a distraction. Just sussing his reactions and statements about ‘drugging her then saying he didn’t drug her’, that he knew her and he didn’t, that he was there and the DNA proves it but yep, the DNA testing hasn’t been done yet, that his ex-wife states that he was with her during the holidays a thousand miles away that year and now she’s in the Media ether. Where’s her interview?

I think that somewhere, every day, some nutcase is confessing to killing that girl.

Or I just think that the Administration needed a distraction, contacted this Ann Hurst to haunt the jails to see if an American facing child sex charges was on the books, then see if he’d be willing to play ball and act like a nut to escape the charges there.

I think he’ll walk.

Back to work. Now on page 11... 

Wow...

...Thursday in the Land of (manufactured) Fear and Trepidation...

I love the fact that the W thought he’d get a bounce via London by telling Scotland Yard to rush the bust there to gain political capital here. That the fact that people are now dumping toothpaste and shampoo out into bins at the airports would be a boost to the sagging Republican Numbers when it comes to ‘06 and ‘08. That every time someone in a now very, very long line dumps out a bottle of mouthwash or tube of K-Y into that hastily dug-up and labeled black plastic bin it’ll equate a Republican vote.

I don’t think so.

Personally I think people are pissed off, finally and justifiably, that the current Administration has had 5 years of graft and dilly-dallying, waving the Rainbow Flag ‘o Terror and issuing vague alerts while cutting obscene deals for contributors and themselves for useless programs and outdated equipment.

I remember back in the Reagan Years when there was some such kerfluffle concerning airports the Airlines hired dogs right out of the pound and had them led around as if they were bomb-sniffers. If I recall the Airlines charged the G a hefty fee for the furry placebo. It hasn’t gotten any better.

In fact the graft is now the norm. Lucky us, kids...

Case in point: The Japanese have a device that scans and screens for liquid explosives at the Osaka Airport and have been using it for a few years.

Israel’s El Al has a minor, low key approach. They personally interview each and every passenger prior to issuing a ticket.

But here? Cash has been pissed away into Screeners and barely useful equipment owned by private companies, entities that are charging the Government probably three times what they’re actually paying the Employees or what said equipment is worth.

So I think that the Rank and File Citizens are finally pissed off.

They see Lebanon go up in flames.

They see more than 3000 Iraqi citizens die this month sofar.

They see as National Guardsmen are recalled weeks after coming home.

They see as Health Care, hourly wages and the Country’s infrastructure collapses from sea to slowly dying sea with more destruction than some hair gel bomb.

They see when they finally do the democratic thing they’re slammed as Communists and terrorist dupes in the Media.

They see the waste. They see the graft. They see the hypocrisy.

They want a change.

And the W and his posse don’t want it. They’re beefing up their cadre of personal lawyers to protect them from the investigations when it does, but they’re going to do anything possible to prevent it.

The mind boggles what they’re going to do to boost his numbers now, still hovering around 34 percent... 

Carpentry...

Turns out I wasn’t what they wanted in a minion, that is someone who was WAYYY more skilled than I am currently, so...

I did learn a few tricks in the cutting and dressing of window casings, but now quickly enough. What threw me off what the dearth of fingers on the hands of the crew, each with some gruesome story...

‘Yea, this one was with a band saw up near Hendersonville. That client lady screamed holy hell when I bled on her marble flooring...”

And the company was too small to have a lowly paid trainee either.

So back to the Store and Reno Gabriel. Oh well... 

Odd Thing...

Another Gig-Ness in Asheville...

I'm up at 6:30 to be in another part of the city by 7:30 to, basically, audition as a moulding installer for a company that, as luck would have it, installs moulding and renovates old houses.

The Redhead and I were checking out the other Organic Market called Greenlife and spotted an ad on sunday from this place. I called...

Now the real fun of this town is finding places. Last night I decided to do a dry run to the job site... and what would have taken a local 10 minutes took, I swear to Yaweh, and hour and a half. It was like I was one of those magnetic Scotty Dogs and as soon as I neared this place on a map... you'd find yourself flung on a highway or freeway miles away and soon you're back on the same streets over and over again...

I took another tactic: I decided, instead, of trying to find this place I decided to actively get lost...

I found in in 10 minutes...

Go figure. Anyway. It pays roughly double what I was getting at the Store, so I'm going to do this audition and maybe thursday as a second run and see if I can do the gig and vice versa, then I'll drop the bomb at the Market if this gig feels right. If not...

Anyway. Shower. Food. Drive...