Been looking around lately?

Been paying attention to the latest rage? The newest fad?

I have. I see skulls on everything and on everyone. From ball caps to mannequins/womanquins on Lincoln Ave. in South Beach to the Jack Sparrows and and t-shirts and bandanas at Jax Beach. To silver rings and flying machines, from the old school to the hip hop, to the far reaches of there, to way over here. They’re everywhere.

I just laugh. Internally. Skeletally.

Didya happen to catch the celestial rage five years ago?
Oh yes. It was stars and moons and astronomy and astrology and Milky Ways and glow-in-the-dark atmospheres.
Stick-on glowers and grinning moons, pin-up silhouettes of waxers and waners. License plates and grow-a-dates, tattooed ankles and rear mirror bangles. They were everywhere.

I just smirked. Internally. Crescentic.

This all reminds me of a wise old adage: I was country before country was cool.
Or some shit like that.

How about 99 red balloons? Did you see them go by?
(Slow) Do do do do (Fast) doo-doo-doo-doo. Repeat. And…repeat.
Or if you prefer, 99 luftballoons, the German original version from like, 1983.

The point is this; that I kinda get nostalgic-ed off (I know, it ‘aint a word!) that no one thought we were cool when we WERE ACTUALLY cool.

I liked the skully-moony-starry-jingly-jangly-way-cooly and so untouchable thingies from my beginning. So get lost. Get lost in the stratosphere, beeotches.Yeah, that’d be about 8 miles from our fuckin’ surface, yo.

The fashionistas feel like THIS is the time to be into skulls. NOW is the sweet hour to lasso our moon and rope the stars. From HERE is our vantage point to spy some red balloons.

But geez. Can’t we get some props for being the originals? I feel like I’m havin’ to explain Woodstock to a bunch of parochial school students and I wasn’t even THERE!

I shrug off the moon, blow off the skulls and pop the red balloons.

Gotta find something new, something of my very own, to be cool at.
Gotta move on from there.

Just can’t stand those copy-cats.

Just can’t stand no more.

Blind THAT shit with science, yo.

Probably not. Not if you don’t have cable.

Pan in on a bar.
Pigs are hanging out, drinking, being social.
(Bunch o’ swine-o’s.)
Close-up of the hot chick.
One pig attempts to talk to her.
Decides he’s not going to get anywhere with her.
He pig-walks to the mens room.
Telling himself that he’s not going to give up.
Focus on the Trojan dispenser.
(I wonder where he kept his change, maybe he was a pig-pocket? Ha ha ha, I kill me.)
Buys a condom and struts out of the john only to reveal that he’s now a handsome young man.

The ending is a word. “Evolve.”
“Use a condom every time.”

I saw that commercial several times on cable over the past week.
But then I read a blurb about Fox and CBS being unwilling to air it on their networks.
Why? Something about it not being suitable for their viewers.

Isn’t Fox the home of the Simpson’s?
I do believe that this would be the perfect commercial for their: “target audience.”

We can suffer and groan through a panoply of Levitra, Cialis, Viagra and other dick-related, limpy-lame commercials, but they don’t want us to see anything that resembles safety during sex, or unwanted pregnancy.

Yeah. That makes sense.
(Eating pork rinds, sorry for the crunchy overtones.)

Well, it IS an interesting title, is it not?

I have some pollywogs that are my responsibility.

(Nope. We didn’t use a condom.)

They’re growing up without my help.
Without my moral, spiritual, physical aid.
Without my cash donations, even.

They’re growing so fast.
Off to school before we know it.

I saw them at their conception’s result.
Little caviar lookin’ freaky things.
“My kids?” Hell no. Too ugly.

I want a paternity test.
(Yeah, me and P. Diddy.)

I saw ’em squirming around and punching their way out of the sac.

I even saw their odd little tails forming.

But where are they now?

Where are their land-legs?

Where’s their gratitude and thanksgiving?

Not here.

Are they victims of parental separation?
Divorce. The ugly “D” word?

Nah.

My triplex keeps me informed, mostly. She’s good like that.
Realizes the importance of kids knowing their folks.

What excuse will I offer up to them?

Not sure. I was never good at stuttering thru my feelings.
“Um…Uh…Well…Go ask yer Mother.”

Good thing their Mum and I stand together in their future.

I’m gonna get to see their legs spring out.
How fucking cool is that?

Way cool.

We just gotta figure out if they’re gonna go to Princeton or Harvard.

I’m saving my lillies, so’s I can pay for their pad.

See? Things work out.

Just give ’em a chance.

“Yank ’em out o’ the creek,” if necessary.

(Gotta push those legs out. Take ’em for a frog-spin.)

Put them in a rain barrel.

Life/Love finds its own way.

(And I can’t wait ’til one of them turns out to be like MOI, so I can rub it in! Nanny nanny boo boo.)

Peace and ribbit.

Yup, me too.

Geez. I bet there’s some fun shit swirling around in my petrie dish, y’all.

As soon as I can identify it, I’ll write it.

I’m sure that Dorothy, et al, will add to the maelstrom of goo.
Always my critics, always so kind.

Good thing that I’m the friggin’ editor, eh?
(Gracias, Eh-Net.)

I’ll catch ya later, folks.

I’ll catch some whimsy somewhere.

Until then,
peace, out.

This entry will no doubt anger some folks.
Fuck it.
Care factor is zero.

I heard something recently that pissed me off.
No, I read it actually.

“Shouldn’t those yanks be in church or Iraq?”

I read that on a blog entry from north of here, ***** **** country.

Got me thinking. Got me wondering. Got me figuring. Got me hurting. Got me offended.
Nope, not any sort of false pride, either. Real pissed-offedness.

(My friend and mentor, Ed, would react with such sadness if he were here. He hated fighting of any sort. He was a Marine. Yet he made peace an inside job for me. I wish he were here to lead us all.)

Back to September Eleventh, 2001.

Where were YOU?

I know exactly where I was, what I was doing.

(Remind you of the Kennedy assasination?)

I wasn’t out shooting things or polluting the planet or rollin’ in my suv with my confederate flag or playing “army” with my buddies.

I was in my apartment on Larue, with Lu and Danette.
My last day of vacation.
The t.v. was on.
News.

Slow motion now.

An airplane is flying into one of the towers in NYC.
Surreal.
Can’t be seeing this.
Holy shit, no way.
News people yammering up a storm, trying to put a grasp on the scene.
The second tower, crashed.
Geezuz. Fuck. Holy crap.

I’m scared now.
Phones ringing.
Lu and Danette and me looking at each other in disbelief.

No one’s explaining shit.

Were YOU scared?

My store calls.
“Lock it up. Go home.”
An employee hears my fear and gets afraid.
“Dee’s scared, y’all. We’re scared now, too.”
“Get out of there and go home,” is my only advice.

What is happening?
How can this be happening?
My country’s safe. My country’s impenetrable.
Isn’t it?

December, 2001.

I’m at ground zero.
I went there. NYC.
I see the memorials, I see the buildings and rubble.
I see the American flag that covers one whole side of a shell of a highrise.
It’s cold. It’s winter. I see strangers and we cry and we huddle as though we’re family.
We ARE family.
Our tears are burning our faces in disbelief.
Little notes, little papers line the fences.” We love you, those who are dead because of this.”
It feels like our whole nation is pressing against my chest and suffocating me.

And then a couple years later I read…”Shouldn’t those yanks be in church or Iraq?”

1st amendment.Yeah, I know.
I actually get it now.
But hear me.

Listen carefully:

Do not stand and hide behind your ***** **** and tell me that you know me.

Don’t you stand there and act all brave and strong.

Do not pretend that you fucking know what it feels like to see your whole perceived world on the precipice of doom.

Do not assume that we support a Bush when all we wanted was a leader to subside our fear.
(May I remind you that Gore REALLY won that election? Or that the two frontrunners for democracy are a BLACK man and a WOMAN? Or how about these two words; “Nancy Pelosi.?” Ring a bell?)

Don’t act like you know what it feels like.

You don’t.

You haven’t a clue.

You may stand upright on your high horses.
You may say; “I told you so.”
You may act like you know it all.
Like us American’s are hate-filled-war-mongers.
But what if *.*. ***** explodes in broad daylight?
What then, huh?

Who are you gonna blame?
The yanks?

Sure.

Yeah.

Good one.

Because every war employs no humans. Every war has no individual goddamed story, eh?

I’m mad, I’m hurt. You don’t know us. You can’t criticize us.
You can’t look me in the eye and tell me that you wouldn’t have been scared too.

Stand behind that ***** ****.
Cover yourself up.
But don’t you dare fucking tell me that you know me or assume I’m pro-war.
There are people dying right now and it’s them you should focus on.
Our freedom is yours, too.
Don’t even bother saying that you know how it felt.
No one I know wants this war.
No one.

We don’t wanna be in Iraq, but we were a scared nation.
We made a mistake based on human fear.

We needed an answer and we needed a leader.
We trusted a man who wanted to finish up his pop’s old crap.

We fucked up.

But you would’ve too.

We want to fix it. Yeah. Most Americans aren’t assholes. We care.
We just got a bit sidetracked.
But most of us only briefly.

Gee. Can you forgive us?

I’m a bit offended.

However…

I hope I don’t act the same way if it happens to y’all.
I hope I’ll remember that there really are no fucking borders.
(Um, round planet and all.)

I hope I’ll cry with y’all when people you love aren’t here anymore.
I think I will.
It’s the American way…

I’m pissed off that you judge me so easily.

Nice.

Way to go.

Pat yourselves on the back as you feign to be stewards of the planet.

I bet your ***** **** is sooooo damned pleased…

Shouldn’t you ******* be out criticizing someone in church or Iraq?

(No ******’s were harmed, I hope, in the typing of this entry.)

Wouldn’t life be grand if this word were true, if this word actually showed up every single time?

I guess.

My astute cognitive skills show up about as often as the teeter-totter of the middle ground does.

Almost never.

Except for yesterday.

I recognized the balance of nature.

Between the gray lines of reason.

Having a great day? Super! This too, shall pass.
Having a gruesomely excrutiating day? Awesome! This too, shall pass.

Got that ticket and I got that pink slip.

No, I didn’t get fired. Feels like it, though.

Had to let the Hope go.

Remember my: “Hope of hope entry?”

Well there’s now that empty feeling the size of a Whitney.

She had to go. I had to take up for the stayers.

It’s only fair.

I like it when I see the balance.

I hate it when it has to happen to me.

I hate the human sized blanks that follow the cycle of life.

Can’t everyone just stay?

What’s so fucking hard about THAT?

I’m gonna write Charlie Crist and ask him to emphasize the property taxes of those who take up residence in my heart.

I deserve a tax cut, y’all.

Whether it’s for the property of my soul or not.