blackjax29

"I'll Take Brain-Meds For $200, Alex.."

Off and On The Med Rez...

A few weeks ago I went off the Rez, off the Meds, and...

For a while I was fine. Stoic. But...

It felt like the world had lost all of it’s baby proofing. It was filled with sharp edges and sandpaper railings, it had lost it’s safety rails and comfort. I felt like I could handle it. Felt like these were things that would toughen me up a but from my long 2 year slumber in the warm, fuzzy pharma cocoon.

But day by day, the world kept getting more... loud? Insane? I could have sworn that the Republicans would lower themselves to actively kicking the afflicted and denying reality to maintain power.

Anyway. I kept holding on. Kept working my way through life. I worked, did the Reno Gabriel thing (the next page is fun and gruesome) but...

I could feel the world collapse back into the old sticky, icy molasses of a few years ago. I could feel the familiar ground glass in the bloodstream. Gaining day by day. Thoughts started to attain the familiar vacillation and fibrillation into inertia.

So I just took a quarter hit.

Life continues.

So do I. 

De-Posse Comitatus + De-Habeus + Diebold + Halliburton Camps in the USA =

Can you smell the Banana Republican State Yet..?

The W has repealed the Posse Comitatus act. Three weeks ago. Hear about it?

Basically the 1878 Posse Comitatus law prohibits the Feds from using the US Military from policing the Citizens in this country. His reasoning is that we need them in our borders as first responders during an emergency The problem is: He gets to decide what an emergency is. Fun, right?

He’d NEVER use this as a political tool... Right?

Like if there’s a mass demonstration after a clearly crooked election. Well, now, that’s an emergency. And now, with the repeal of Habeas Corpus, they can all be designated as Enemy Combatants by the Decider, tortured by his guidelines of what the Decider designates as torture, and shipped off to the taxpayer funded camps built by F.E.M.A and Halliburton and staffed by the National Guard.

Anyway. Pieces are being brought together. Martial Law is coming.

Our only hope is that it goes as swimmingly as it has over in Iraq and Afghanistan: Half-assed, horribly mismanaged, and on the cheap.

Such as if Halliburton builds these camps, then we can rely on shoddy craftsmanship with cheap materials. Any walls should topple over pretty quickly. Also the Military is pissed off by this Administrations’s policies, so there’s no greased skids in them being the muscle for this half-assed trick...

But still, he did remind us back on December 18, 2000 "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

Hey, even paranoiacs are right once in a while...

Back to work...

Bit by Bit...

...And all That Jazz...

The Repubs are going nuts. Weldon is  stating that the Dems are secretly in control of the FBI and the Stare Department. That can be the ONLY reason that he's being investigated for influence peddling. The possibility of he being guilty hasn't crossed his mind yet, but the dawn may come yet for 'ol crazy Kurt...

Meanwhile, a paper in Kansas, The Johnson County Sun, has decided, after 56 years of endorsing nearly nothing but Republicans, has switched. They’re endorsing nothing but Democrats.

In an eloquent column written by the paper’s chairman, Steve Rose, he gives a brief history of the paper’s choices, then the reasons why they’re switching now. To quote...

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I'm talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.

Note, I did not say it means "anti-abortion," because I do not find that position repugnant, at all. I respect that position.

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew.

That's why, in the absence of so-called traditional Republican candidates, the choice comes down to right-wing Republicans or conservative Democrats.

And now you know why we have been forced to move left.

Wow. In Kansas. The mythical flyover, bloody blood Repub red state is now what we’ve been led to believe it was. This gives me a wee bit of hope in the upcoming Elections.

Albeit, we still got that minor problem called Diebold.

But still.

Tiny Changes, Big Results...

In the late 1700’s, in a Pennsylvania town called Conestoga, they manufactured two things called Conestogas: a wagon and a cigar. The Drivers of the massive Conestoga Wagons smoked the cigars, which were first called Stogas, then eventually Stogies...

But an odd thing. The wagon had a running board that ran along the left side, making the ‘stogie smoking drivers of said Conestoga wagons to sit on that side, which made them pass each other on the left when they were passing one another in the congested towns, which eventually led to the same configuration when motorized vehicles were created, which became the norm nationwide, then worldwide...

All because the creators of those Conestoga wagons decided that it needed a running board. On the left.

Now, all I saying is, what changes we see now, politically or otherwise, might or might not mean a hell of a lot now, but maybe, down the road...

Anyway...

Winter is here. Ish.

I want to see snow. Now.

Eventually. But still. It’s like being in Disneyland, this odd anticipation of snow, of making stew, of making fires. Cookies...

Anyway. Sleep. Now.

Pray For The Bush Marriage...

No. Seriously...

Evidently the Clan Bush is praying to George and Laura’s marriage. Evidently she’s had enough of his (possible) drinking and his (alleged) affair with Condi Rice. Laura fled the White House in July and shacked up at the Mayflower Hotel to escape, but still...

If she does leave him now, he’s sunk. And if he’s sunk, then the W will have NOTHING to lose, effectively kicking out the chocks from his madness trolley, leading to the US of A invading, where and what, Canada with the 7 to 10 thousand Troops we have left?

And if it’s true that he’s doin’ the Condi, then say buh-bye to the remaining Religious Nutjobs and Racists he has on his side.

Yea... Uh...

Oh, God! Pleeaasseee! Laura. DTMFA! Go on Oprah! Spill! Have some closure on The View! Don’t wait for the book tour. Trust me, you’ll feel better and stop kicking Barney in the hall closet or replaying that moment when you ‘accidentally’ ran over your former fiancé by replacing the W with him. Over and over. And over.

Bumpity-Bump. Bumpity-Bump. Bumpity-Bump.

She gives a small, quiet smile. Sigh.

“Hon? Whatcha think’n ‘bout?”

“Oh, nothing..”

Bumpity-Bump.

But still. If it falls apart now, she’ll either have a small accident or have a teeny, heavily medicated vacation in some swanky cookie jar.

But if she escapes, spills, then we can say, again, buh-bye to sanity and civility and...

No. But Pleeaasseee! Laura. DTMFA !

And It’s Winter...

Jingle, jangle, jingle...

Fun...

Looking out the window yesterday morning it looked a bit like the final scene in The Third Man, sans jangly Anton Karas soundtrack. The leaves slowly tumbling in the 50 degree air, the stillness of it all. The...

Snow is coming, and to this San Franciscan it means the weather is changing, which means...

I don’t know. It’s just kind of cool. All of this.

We’ll see. I’m looking forward to it all.

Tomorrow I may hit a pizza place, quaff Pumpkin beer and play darts with the Redhead.

Meanwhile. Bed. Sleeeeeeep.

"None Dare Call It Treason..."

...Just an Election Year Stunt...

The US is going to try Al Qaeda’s A.V. nerd, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, in absentia. He’s basically the Harry Reasoner or Bill O’Reilly on their newscasts. Basically he’s known. He’s a face...

And he’s an American.

They’re trying and going to convict and American. For Treason. In an Election Year. By a desperate and cornered G.O.P.

Do you get it now? An AMERICAN is being tried for TREASON.

We’re allowed to fuck up. We’re allowed to do asinine things. But once we do we have to face the laws of this nation.

Not the whim of some P.R. driven nightmare machine.

Once we do, then those laws are useless. Those laws are moot.

Once we do, we turn over the lawmaking to a handful of ideologues.

Once we do, it’s game over.   

Even that wounded moron John Walker Lindh went to court, pleaded guilty, and will spend 20 years in the pokey for following his dream, whatever it may have been. But at least he was tried and convicted under the laws of this Nation, not by these show trials, and face it, they are.

Once we give these trials the whiff of legitimacy, then it’s all over. Once these trials have the power to actually convict and lock people away, then it’s all over. Once we give in, give up, surrender to them, then it’s all over.

Then Americans can and will be tried and convicted.

Then Americans will be locked away for the sake of one party rule.

Then Americans will be locked away with the veneer of logicality, of legitimacy, of security, of showing that the one party is besieged by enemies.

Hey, I just work here.

“Squeak..”

I finished a new Reno Gabriel spot illustration, now showcased on the antoniotoro.typepad.com/ site. Check it out.

I’m off to the Chyro. Evidently he’s going to showcase a new gizmo there that does it all, adjusts, cracks, whatever, and all you do is back into it and...

Very Très Jetsons. Maybe the Receptionist got it wrong. We’ll see... 

Meanwhile, post back readjusting, I’m going to be beating the cheese at the specialty counter, which I must say, is so friggin’ civilized. You have your coffee, you sample your cheese...

And yea, sometimes it does come in some mind-boggling shapes and sizes. There’s a huge slice of swiss that looks like a prop from a Tom and Jerry Cartoon, pie wedge, wax, holes and all.

Although I’ve read that mice really don’t like cheese. They’d rather have sugary crap than cheesy crap. Go figure.

Gotta Go...

Wha... Wednesday. Again. Wow...

How the Time Oozes By Here...

A quick ooze, but still...

It was only yesterday we were watching “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”, me with a broken back and high on Advil, the Redhead taking a much deserved night away from her setup...

And now, Wednesday afternoon.

Anyway. Here we are. On the eve of what’s going to be a odd Election Year, the Media screaming how EVERYTHING is CLINTON’S FAULT, even when it happens 6 years into a hackneyed, inept, failed, corrupt Administration.

I’m just saying.

I’m wondering if they’ve tried to fly the trial balloon of Iraq being Clinton’s fault. Or gas prices, or...

Clinton is the Right Wing’s own Emmanuel Goldstein, own attack trigger word, own Boogie Man.

I remember there was a sculpture in a shop that was the representation of your own faults, troubles, worries. All of these aspects would be drawn into it and it would take them over. Sort of a crap magnet.

Clinton is the Right’s Blame Magnet.

Personally If I were he, I’d tell them off. Daily.

Can you see it? On YouTube or some such, he’d just come on and say something like...

“The party of Personal Responsibility my ass. YOU people screwed this up. You people took the largest surplus and pissed it away, you’ve broken the Military, destroyed F.E.M.A. under a landslide of corruption and cronyism, you lost New Orleans, you have let 4700 Americans die, you let 9/11 happen, you people let North Korea fuck around with you, you people turned us into China’s Economic Bitch, you people have made us the laughing stock, the toothless wonder, the joke of the planet...

It’s your fault, it’s your doing, it’s in your nature, in the very undisputable DNA of the conservative cause that’s led us to this sorry, weak, pathetic, owned, impoverished state.

This? All of this? This is your responsibility. Deal with it.”

A boy can dream.

Meanwhile. Back to work.   

Failure. Failure. Failure...

On the Republican House of Cards...

I’m still aghast. How can anyone still be for this Administration?  That 17 to 24  percent of Americans who still believe in this Administration? In the Republican Party? 

In Iraq there are bloated corpses clogging the intakes of the Tigris River Water Treatment Plant. Sewage and Electrical Systems have collapsed. A Privately funded Police station has to be torn down due to sewage leaking from the ceilings.

In North Korea we have a Nuke successfully tested.  Way to go Rumm y.

Ports here are still wide open, but try to get a bottle of mouthwash through the Airport and man, they got you there...

Idiocy on a grand scale.

And yea, this Foley thing. Finger pointing, lies by the hour, no effective scapegoats or straw men to be had. Hastert and the rest of them know they’re blown, even after a week of talking heads trying to muddy the waters with speculation of Democratic Operatives, Savage Children egging on the poor Gay man...

On and on...

But the Repubs know their goose is cooked. Hastert et al, will be out of a job either by themselves or by the Voters in November...

And STILL the lies from the W about the Dems. And STILL the asinine happy talk about Iraq. And STILL the warships are heading to the Persian Gulf... Towards Iran...

Memo: We currently have 7 to 10 thousand Available Soldiers left.

If we hit Iran in thee coming month, everything and I mean everything will collapse...

The 140 thousand Soldiers in Iraq will become Hostages...

The barrel price of oil will go though the roof...

The Military will finally break...

We will have to have a draft...

Insanity, all of it.

But all those time in the past 5 years when I’d draw a mental line in the sand, when I dais that ‘They won’t be that Insane as to do..”, and they do.

I keep winning mental bets with myself. Not all of them but a majority of them.

I’m betting either we will attack Iran in late October, or we’ll have an ‘Incident’, or we’ll have show trials.

We’ll see. Personally I want to see the W just lose it in front of the cameras, just snap and start screaming “It wasn’t supposed to go this way!! I CAN ARREST THE WHOLE ROOM IF I WANT TO!!!”

And, yea, now he can. Buh-bye to Haebus Corpus.

So if Olbermann, or Rhodes, or Seider suddenly vanish, then we’ll know. What’s the Northern America equivalent for Banana?

Ouch...

Heading to the Mall to get the Plaid Sans-A-Belt Slacks and my AARP Card...

Here I scrawl, back brace tightly smooshing the blue ice bag to a section of my back that has deserted me.

And yes, yes, it’s my fault. I should'a gone to the Chyro Doc a few weeks ago for an adjustment, but time has a way of just slipping away here. And last week I was watching “The Illusionist” at the theatre (Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel, a fun, gorgeous low key movie) and I kept noticing that, yea, the back was getting kind of painful...

And yea, time is slipping away here. I went to pick up my paycheck and Matt the Assistant Manager came back from the office with two checks, laughing in his jocular, Kahuna-Buddah way of his.

So this weekend It was at the point of wincing when I bent over, putting on shoes became an experiment in engineering, and getting out of the tub was as effortless as slipping out of a straight jacket.

So I genuflected on over to the Chiropractor who tsked and winced in sympathy, cracked what he could, then had his assistant attach electrodes to my spine.

And some ask do I miss San Francisco...

How to explain what this felt like. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of Corn Flakes, also ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. It employed enemas, nutrition and exercise, but it also had a sitz bath that ran a minor electrical current through it. The effect was compared to being nibbled by tiny fish to whatever you had dangling in said bath. ‘Nuff said.

The electrodes at my doc’s office had that same effect on a lower setting. Tiny nibbling, minute massaging. At a higher one it had the effect of a burly Norwegian Wrestler going to town on my already wobbily spine. The assistant mentioned she liked setting 12, but I managed to get it to 15.

So I came home, slept, crept about like a kicked dog, constantly icing myself and ingesting Advil like Pez.

Today I’m more human, albeit one who’s sadly feeling like one who’s in his mid-80’s, or like Crooks in “Of Mice and Men”, wincing at every cough and needing to rub some kind of Liniment on my back. I’m going back today for more electroshock and adjustments. I’m thinking to get it to 20. We’ll see...

Meanwhile I’m inking another Reno Spot Illustration. Fun. Gooey. Gruesome.

"Stumble You Might Fall...."

"See Through You...”

The Dems have got to run with this Foley thing, as distasteful as it's going to get.

"Hear me out..."

If the Dems try to go after this Administration on Iraq, on illegal spying, on the wars in general, all the Rethugs have to do is wave the flag of treason, of appeasement, of Neville Chamberlain, of... traitor to the flag, the nation, to Mom and Apple Pie, with or without the melted Cheddar....

However...

If they do this, go after Foley, after Hastert, after the whole machine, they can’t automatically wrap themselves in the flag with the Media lowing behind and they know it. That’s why they’re scrambling. Spooked.

In the past week I’ve read and heard the screwiest excuses coming from the Media and the Pundits, from “The Kids were specially bred by George Soros and the Clinton War-room to seduce Foley”, to “We didn’t want to Expose him and be accused of gay-Bashing”...

Gay bashing. By the Republicans. Riiiiggghhtt. Those sensitive Republicans. Those that equated Gays with bestiality. Those Republicans. Those same Republicans that equated Gays with Drunks or Pedophiles. Those Republicans.

“The Writings on the wall..."

The Dems have to do this. Get subpoenas, get hearings, get to the bottom of this, and if so, along the way, kick over a few more rocks and expose a few more misdeeds, so much the better.

There’s also this odd... thing.

The Repubs like to have members who are dirty it seems. A bought and blackmailed group will be a compliant group. Will be a group that will vote in the interest of the party. Like clockwork.

Think about it. They KNEW about Foley’s penchant for young flesh, and yet still wanted him to run. They also kept hitting him up for 100k donations like a ATM. Do you smell payoffs?

And look at the rest of them that are coming to light. Cunningham, Delay... All of them rotten as a Hapsberg’s molars, and still in positions of power. You don’t think that there’s ANY payoffs, any leaning on, at all?

"Gonna get myself Connected..."

The Repubs managed to take a piddling land deal and lead it to a blowjob. Let’s hope the Dems can take this all the way to 1600 Pen Ave.

My Life...?

I’ve switched from the sinking ship of Produce and am now working in Specialty, which includes Cheeses, Wine and other life affirming things. I’ve gotten a (I believe) raise and a set sched of 2 to 10 Thursday to Saturday. Other Perqs include free wine to cart home to sample, a sane boss, and co-workers who really care about doing a good job. You also get to taste cheese and snack all day while wrapping and setting up displays.

Meanwhile I’m awaiting the cards from the printer so’s I can annoy the world.

Back to work...