Confessions of a Starving Artist

Republicans believe that everyday is the 4^th of July, but Democrats think that everyday is April 15^th.  ~ Ronald Reagan

It seems fitting that the morning after the 4^th of July gets spent over a pot of coffee, the lingering smell of sulfur in the air from last nights myriad of fireworks exploding around the city below Walker Street, and the murmuring voice of Charles Osgood hosting Sunday Morning on CBS.  In true form, the Tiffany Network’s ease into the last afternoon of any given weekend is marked with gentle conversation concerning only the news stories that are worthy of a Sunday brunch tête-à-tête; topics spoken of lightly but pointedly, without the jumping sensationalism of the rest of the work-week’s 24 hour buzz infotainment.  Gladly, I woke just too late for their piece on the life and times of the late King of Pop.  I’m sure that it was in good taste… nonetheless, I’ve quite had my fill of that matter.

Noticeably, I’ve been always from all things current.  My co-workers have given me a considerable level of disparagement because of my ignorance toward the daily signs of the times over the last month due to my attention to my work load, sleep, and my attempts to wade through all three seasons of Heroes.  As a side note, I’m nearly finished.  Nevertheless, it was nice to get caught up with real events as opposed to the ongoing saga of a cheerleader who can heal herself.  Plane crashes, a bloodless coup in
South America, and the untimely death of Michael Jackson would have all made fine and blog-worthy matters of discussion.  But for the sake of timely observations I’ll stick to the most current of events.

I think that it is ironic that on the 4^th of July that our latest would-be vice presidential candidate, Gov. (AK/R) Sarah Palin, decides to call an impromptu press conference to announce that she is leaving the office of The Governor of The State of Alaska effective the end of the year.  Reasons stated being nothing to what they more likely are, Gov. Palin claims that she does not wish to burden Alaska as a lame duck Governor and further wishes to take time to recuperate with family as well as to “…rebuild and help our nation achieve greatness!”  Damn us all for taking this woman out of the Yukon and placing her on the national stage.

On the other hand, I can understand the move… to an extent.  Her state legislature is highly against her politics and policies and fights her constantly.  Also, no other Governor endures the scrutiny that Gov. Palin deals with as her family weekly becomes fodder for tabloids and other editorial commentary… almost as if the “liberal” media seeks to smite her before her vestige ever rises from the ashes of last year’s election.  To be fair, I have the article about the father of her daughter’s child in the latest issue of GQ open at the base of my boudoir.  Further, and I just found this out, she commutes four and a half hours from Wasilla to the capital city of Juneau.  I sympathize with situation whole-heartedly…

…but it was the job you ran for and it’s the duty of the woman to complete her duty.  I don’t think that anyone would ‘want’ the job that she finds herself in, but part of government service is, in principal, supposed to be selfless.  The office and its duty is “For the People…”, not to sound trite.   Staying with that thought; let’s consider two other very common political names.  George W. Bush didn’t exactly have the easiest run.  The man aged thirty years in a very short eight.  Not only am I sure that there were days that the man woke up and considered quitting, I’m also convinced that there was likely a day or two that he woke up and contemplated suck-starting a 9mm.  Point is that he didn’t, and it’s sad that ol’ G.W. has a mark up on the character column over Gov. Palin; a sad sign of the times and the generation gap.  Secondly, remark upon Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.  No woman has been more dogged by the media over the past twenty years except for perhaps Angelina Jolie, yet despite your stance on her politics (Hillary’s, not Angelina’s), her character must be agreeably rooted in persistence and tenacity.  These are the marks of a politician, whether you view them as a contemporary or a combatant.  Quitting is the mark of a quitter.   

Gov. Palin now finds herself stating, “I never thought that I needed a title before my name to forge progress in America.”  This subtle indication of her subliminal mindset paired with her first solicitation from her political action committee marks a deeper ambition and foresight.  Gov. Palin contradicts herself when she makes observations above.  As a point of order, she has (no wait, had) a title before her name and she found herself unable to push her agenda with it, the elected leader of one of the least populated and effectual States in the Union.  People who need titles before their names in order to reign in their visions of a nation most people don’t agree with typically need considerably important titles to do so… like Presidante for Life or Der Fuhrer.

 

Still, it’s not a stupid move for someone with any sort of conceivable end state likened to what we are all imagining for Gov. Palin… terrifyingly calculated by someone who must contain a certain level of megalomania, but certainly not stupid.  I recently overheard someone say that Gov. Palin was taking a huge gamble; rolling the dice and betting on herself.  Laying low in the frozen north of Alaska is close second only to shaving her head and assigning herself to a Canadian Buddhist monastery for a year.  And as Britney Spears has shown us, shaving your head does tend to draw some media attention as well. 

What will intrigue me most is how other members of this battered Grand Old Party will receive the eight-percent popular Governor after this.  With tolerance not truly being a watchword of the Republican right lately, we will see what sort for a premium they put on Character verses Loyalty to the Party.  As a conservative Green, I have never liked Gov. Palin because I felt that her politics reflected her integrity; flimsy and untested.  And now, as a nationally staged politician who can’t even claim that she finished a complete term as a Governor or managed to get any of her State campaign platform passed through local legislation, I feel as though I made a proper affront to her moral fiber and quality.  I wonder if I will be the only one?

As much as this resignation may look on the surface as though we are finally losing sight of ex-Gov. Sarah Palin for good, but I have a sick feeling that she is going to be a nuisance to her party and our country for many more years to come.  Which is unfortunate with the host of daring and smart young Republicans waiting in the wings; we continue to harbor the poor models of a single party and ignore a vested and eager future to the detriment of both parties. 

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.  ~ Ralph Nader

I think that I have remarked before that when your days and nights become full, regardless of whether it is with obligation, adventure, or some combination of the two, that the profound tends to take a backseat to efficiency.  Not to say that it is obscured completely, how could it be?  But when necessity forces us to streamline our hours, prioritize what we have to do in order to accomplish everything that we mean to, those sweet scents of the roses can only be remarked upon for tender seconds as we catch our breathes or in the fading worlds just before sleep.  Regardless, it is in these days, whether we love what we are doing or loathe it, that we remember what it is to be blissful… it is to be unthinking.

That being said, I knew that June would be busy.  And it has been.  Work has been demanding, despite the end state of any given day.  One way to note this, other than philosophical reflections like those above would be a simple examination of one’s checking account.  I would wager that it is the same for most Generation Xers, perhaps all Americans at this point; when we are bored, we spend money, when we are not, we spend less.  There are a number of insightful thoughts that can be expounded upon from that sole observation, but I will refrain from digression and note it only as a presumed fact.  Unfortunately for me, other commitments and projections have kept my bank account lowered over recent days… so it goes.

However, after LL’s departure this weekend past, I found myself with two vehicles whose gas tanks were dangerously low for a man who is inclined to ignore even the most routine maintenance and care for a vehicle during a busy work week.  Observing this, I went to the pump recently and was a bit shocked at how much it cost to fill up both automobiles.  Of course, my eyes turned to the price per gallon sign, and I was even more shocked.  Living in a  past month and a half of going, going, going, I had not realized that gasoline had jumped nearly three quarters of a dollar since Memorial Day. 

I know that it was Memorial Day when all this started because I noted it then with a sort of brooding foreshadowing to any and all who would listen.  Sometimes I hate being right.  Three years ago in 2006, I remember a bit of a price-jump on Memorial Day because I was travelling in the American Southwest at the time.  2006 was the first year that I remember noting any sort of Memorial Day spike, though I’d admit, it may have gone on for much longer and I simply did not note the fact because of either minimal personal effect on my life or a lack of giving a shit… or both.   Then in 2007 I noted it again, and thought it queer, mainly due to the price beginning to have an effect on my bottom line as a single, free-wheeling playboy.  Then last summer in 2008, I noted it with complete appall as the price per gallon had grown to what I and many other Americans considered to be outrageous and condemnable, and yet over the summer it continued to grow into what we all remember as one of the worst and most inflated fuel cost summers ever. 

Which brings us to present.  Fuel costs did eventually settle back to a level more akin to a country that hanging precariously in the balance.  For my neck of the woods, the price was a stable two bucks even to the gallon; a price that held for nearly four months.  Regulations being what they are in our current administration, I had foolishly believed that something more paralleled to President Carter’s gas rationing was more likely than another spike.  It would appear that I was wrong.

If I am remarking upon an issue that has been gorged to unrecoginability by frenzied publized lions like so many stories that fetch headlines in the arena of today’s 24-hour media coliseum, then I apologize.  It is not my intent to beat a dead horse.  To be fair, twenty minutes of NPR News and, if I’m lucky, a chance to see the newest Hollywood blockbuster on the weekend, is about all the exposure to the outside world that I achieve each week.  As I said, the profound takes a backseat to efficiency. 

Still, I would be remiss if I thought that I didn’t offer some sort of perspective.  I am convinced that the American public, as it stands, is one large, oafish, neglectful, animal who is all too happy to forget its own experiences, no matter how near, if it allows itself the opportunity to shrug its shoulders at current national issues that may be hard to handle.  I remember growing up in Western Maine and noting gas prices even then… however it was more alone the lines of, “…Daddy, gas is a whole dollar a gallon now!  That’s a lot!… can we still get ice cream?!”  However, the point is that gas prices would be more or less stable for years at a time, fluctuating a few cents this way or that way each week, but generally holding steady… after all, I remember the value of ice cream well.  The public accepts that gas prices can now bounce whole quarter-dollars in a month because of the economy, nay, the world economy is in crisis.  I may have bought that…

…until Memorial Day.  Prices that spike consistently on a specific weekend each year for four years do not mark inconsistencies in the market.  They mark something far more calculated, far more greedy, for more evil; a feeling that something larger and more ominous is at work going much deeper than we can imagine or hope to affect.  That feeling I will coin here as “the darkness”. 

If I could be indulged a conspiracy theory:  Last year’s oil spike was the match that caused the conflagration that is our global economic meltdown.  I’m not saying that it was the sole factor, as many other dynamics laid significant tinder to this wildfire; I believe it was the unquenchable tanks of last summer’s SUVs and over-sized pick-up trucks that was the mighty wind brought down this house of cardholders.  The fact that fuel prices somewhat balanced could be attributed to our new regulatory-oriented Commander in Chief, but I imagine that is only a clever subterfuge originating from somewhere far deeper inside the darkness.  Somewhere, someone is pulling the strings again, seeing what they can get away with… and after a long winter and a quiet spring, a dormant puppet master picked up those strings again on Memorial Day.

Little man reality says that none of this really matters because at the level of the everyman nothing can be done about this.  If I am right (and I occasional can be…) then even Democracy cannot prevail because this goes far beyond a simple nation.  Capitalism. as principal, cannot because the very idea of control through cost is well within the finest ideals of Capitalism.  Even such extreme methods, out-dated or avant guard, such as Imperialism or International Militarization cannot control this.  What then can we do about this?

The answer, for most of us, is nothing.

This morning, prompted by increasing concerns about terrorism, oil prices reached a record high as the cost of a barrel of crude is a whopping $44.34.  Wow, it seems shocking that a product of finite supply gets more expensive the more we use it.  Now the terror alert means higher oil prices, which oddly enough means higher profits for oil companies giving them more money to give to politicians whose policies may favor the oil companies such as raising the terror alert level.  As Simba once told us: “It’s the circle of life.”   ~ Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Summer 2008

…and the show has reached a new low.  ~ Will Ferrell as Alex Trebeck, Celebrity Jeopardy SNL

Without equivocation, this most recent month of May has been one of the worst in memory, which has left yours truly with a lingering sense of disassociation with the establishment, something that hurts even more because I hadn’t realized such a cancer had formed on my own particular idiom, let alone taken enough root to cause such feral throws once removed.  At any rate, as with any feelings of self-loathing, a general fortification against those powers that be must be undertaken.  Therefore several nights this week have found me at my local watering hole, surrounded by dank smoke clouds, veterans of any war that still has living survivors, and a sometimes silent jukebox that only gets unplugged for karaoke night or Ms Wendy’s Ipod.  It is here that I find well-gin out of a plastic cup can taste just as good as a twelve dollar martini.

It is due to all of this that I was watching The O’Reilly Factor a few nights ago.  Normally, Bill and I don’t hang out, that is to say, I don’t really watch his show.  But when I do I am usually… intrigued.  I do enjoy ol’ Bill’s ability to note the subtle inconsistencies within our society and daily political theaters.  Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don’t.  However, most of the time I don’t agree with how much he carries on about every issue as if each small point and irregularity of life was cause for calamity.  In my mind, and perhaps the rest of the waking world, if his responses were more editorialized and measured and less sensational and attacking he would be far more validated overall.  But then that wouldn’t fall in line with FOXNew’s aggressive level of info-tainment disguised as actual news… so I digress…

As I was saying, I was watching The O’Reilly Factor and I noticed a familiar face.  Mrs. Megyn Kelly, most notably the co-host of America’s Newsroom on FOXNews, was appearing as a legal pundit for Mr. O’Reilly and proceeding to pass her judgment out upon several smaller and non-effectual pop stories of the day.  Now, in all fairness, I have remarked in the past upon Megyn Kelly’s occasional opinionated affronts to daily headlines on America’s Newsroom.  Snide comments that have just a pang of right-wing judgment tend to slip out from time to time leaving me wondering if it was just one person’s unmuzzled opinion on a giving matter or a whole station so rife with conservative sediment that it couldn’t even be contain by their news anchors.  Nonetheless, I still prefer to watch Morning Express on CNN with Robin Mead… because she’s hot as Hell.

So as I sat there, alone in that smoky bar, I thought to myself – has the FOXNews channel, like the Republican Party, really become so self-infatuated and convicted in its correctness that it has begun excluding any possible creative thought or outside view, so much so that it is willing to take the baseless opinions of female news anchor who is solely paid to look sexy and read a teleprompter?  I mean, I know the economy is tanking, but there are somethings that it’s still okay to outsource off the payroll.

However, let it not be said that I was wrong… and least a little bit.  Megyn Kelly, as it turns out, actually received a J.D. from Albany Law School and practiced as a litigator in New York, Chicago, and Washington DC for becoming a journalist in 2004.  I stand corrected.  A woman of this background does have some clout to be giving her political and legal savvy on the air.  

Still, the whole thing didn’t sit quiet right.  Something was still amiss… as it usually is with FOXNews.  Then it struck me.  On a station that is touted as being “Fair and Balanced”, how then can a legal and political pundit be the voice of the AP headline news show?

I have had to laugh several times as I bring this up to friends of mine who are either staunch watchers of FOXNews or general conservatives or both because across the board none of them can refute this observation as anything more than what it is: spin.  Agreeably, it throws the whole station’s slant into question even further than it ever may have been.  One might be able to argue that you’d rather hear your news from someone who has a higher education on relevant fields of study to the news that you are receiving.  To be fair, I did check on Robin Mead’s credentials and she holds a masters in programming and performance from Ashland University, has served as an anchor/reporter for several local television stations throughout the Midwest and Florida, and was a Miss USA top-ten contestant in 1992.  So if you wanted to say that you’d rather get your news from a lawyer rather than a trained anchor and orator, I could see that… I guess.

As a side note, I don’t think that I have to point out to the vast sea of viewers that both of these ladies are incredibly attractive.  What is a bit striking to this writer is that these women are forty and thirty-nine years old.  Well done!  Their ability to defy aging is likely a major reason why these 24-hour news stations have the ratings and audience that they do.  But what I love is that despite all these women’s advanced degrees, experience, and ability to do their job, it’s their tits and ass that keep them employed.  You’ve come a long way, baby…

Doesn’t anybody notice this?!  I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!!  ~ Will Ferrell as Mugatu, Zoolander

A recent reduction of phone numbers in my cell phone directory reminded me that I’m losing friends and not replacing them.  Not by any malicious means; I do not think that I am running around burning my bridges and writing off friends for petty differences of opinion or some self-serving sense of being dishonored, though I have been known to do that from time to time.  Rather, the instances of life have simply been conducting business as usual, and a busy man whose normal social routine of the past several years has been disrupted by a truly wonderful woman can be made to suffer in this transitioning time where outlets for new acquaintances are slim.  This was punctuated today as one of my dearest and most go-to friends of this area sent me a text from the road as she and her boyfriend drove away to Phoenix. 

The daily grind is no better.  A series of personal setbacks have left me questioning the nature of being right… or rather the nature of believing that you are right.  Feeling that you are correct on a given matter when you are the only one who feels as such is not unlike madness.  First, a part of you looks around and wonders if you are wrong.  Then later, when that part of you looks back inward and decides that you are not and that the rest of the world is wrong, the next logical step is to wonder why it is only you that sees things in this manner.  Without fault anyone who has found themselves in this situation has considered themselves to either be an absolute genius and thus comfortable with their stand point to the degree that the issue itself become mute; or they hearken themselves to some sort of insanity or dysfunction, at which point they drop the given issue in hopes that people will perhaps forget their grievous and odd perceptions of what is said individual considers to be absurdly right.

That’s most people anyway.  There are extreme cases unlike this that have appeared throughout history.  Galileo for instance stood his ground against The Church and in the end was vindicated by history.  Another end of the spectrum could be Adolf Hitler who gripped the world to a new methodology through demonstrations of shock and awe.  Do I think that my petty and current situation at work warrants the invasion of Poland?  Probably not, but it’s the principal of the matter, I think. 

More to the point, I think that there are more than simply my interjections at work being ignored and ridiculed, even punished.  I think that the resulting overlying feelings that are present right now for me are not a symptom of just this, but of a series of events all leading to a general level of melancholy, which, by rights, I have no business having.  If you were to ask me ten years ago where I wanted to be when I turned thirty, I the outline that I would have drawn from you could not look anything more like this life that I have in front of me.  I have a beautiful home, I have the dream job that I worked for nearly eight years to obtain, I have an amazing woman, I have all the bells and whistles that I could imagine affording… and yet physically this is the most lonely that I have ever felt. 

Whether your dystopian view of the future is more akin to 1984 or A Brave New World, the sedation, the repression is starting to set in.  Like Lester Burnham in American Beauty, these days become measured and fixed.  Perhaps that is why so few break out or even release that the matrix has them.  My days are concerned with being part of the waking world… and being right… though I could see myself easily being locked up for both eventually.  What would Dr. Thompson do in this situation?

Like all low points, this too will pass.  Something will have to give, and in my humble experience, I have found that it tends to give ground faster the harder you hit that seemingly immovable brick wall.  However, normal methods of rebellion against The Man must be modified as of late.  In more normal circumstances, I would take a page from my own book, head to the bar, and drown my current afflictions with gin and tonics and then set to a mental cat-and-mouse game with some young twenty-something year old ‘empowered’ and ‘educated’ woman that would eventually end with my checkmate coming in the form of a one night stand.  I cannot do that anymore, despite how therapeutic it can be for the Ego and perhaps the soul.  Probably a good thing though.  As I get older, the odds of winning those games start to get stacked against you, and nothing is more damaging to the male psyche than being made to feel subservient to a set of Double-Ds.  Besides the matter, the likelihood of any painted-up hussy being as mentally grounding as my current steady is about as likely as any Red Bull addict claiming that they are surprised that the energy drink was found to have trace elements of cocaine in it.

Regardless, creative measures must be taken.  New outlets must be found, cultivated.  A return to innocence, at this point, is in order.  Unfortunately, my body is still not fully recovered from its latest injury, and to be fair to myself, it may never be.  So soccer as a meditative escape is gone, much to my sadness.  Thus, in a tender bit of counseling, I was reminded of several past-times that used to make me happy; things that I set aside along the way in order to galvanize my efforts to get to where I am today.  As stated, where I am now is not be all it was envisioned to be, so perhaps the careful re-assimilation of these things will bring us all back to the bountiful.  Who can be sure?  It does not hurt one for trying.

In the meantime, I will keep on keeping on.  No reason not to.  Granted, the geniuses and the tyrants became such by first becoming radicals but, “…Insurrection, like any art, has its laws that must be followed.” (Trotsky)  Regardless of how wrong you may be perceived, the fact remains that perception is truth.  In order for the individual to change what is viewed as right, one must first change perceptions.  This requires measure, opportunity, and above all, patience.  Regrettably, we do not live forever…

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.  ~ Mic Jager

I’ve been anything but grounded lately.  Work has had me more directed and focused as anything else, and what’s more, I feel like it is becoming all consuming; though I know full well that it is not.  My home is going through a massive facelift, the resulting trials and tribulations of which are nothing short of a brain aneurism on a daily basis upon returning home from the previously stated work place.  To touch it all off, my personal life has me soaring above the clouds in such a way that I do believe that I’ve started leaving my common sense up there, sometimes for hours and hours at a time.  And while none of these are bad things in the least, on the contrary, I can’t say that I could wish for anything better in my life right now; I can say that the combination of all three is tearing the days off the calendar at an alarming rate.  Which, again, is not a bad thing.  Not at all.

Funnier still is the fact that there remains a ‘to do’ list.  As usual, I’m behind where I wanted to be in respect to accomplishing my personal goals, often time while accomplishing goals that I didn’t realize that I wanted (or needed) to accomplish in the first place though very much did.  Obviously I’m not angry that I have a wonderful and simply amazing girlfriend and not a gas grill for the back yard – that’s a no brainer.  Nonetheless, I did eat a prime rib at a local chain restaurant last night despite having a freezer full of steak.  Life’s full of little contradictions like that, I guess.

My job is one of calendars and planning as much as it is gun play and rock climbing.  I fill in the white spaces and try and keep everything balanced; down time with late nights, long weekends with working Saturdays.  More than that, I try to see the three-dimensionality of my plans, that is to say, the fair assumptions or anticipations of factors not yet decided upon or the things that might not even exist between the lines.  I’m living in the here and now just as much as I am living in tomorrow.  Regardless of your opinion of a man who conducts his life in this manner, it’s where I seem to do the best and it’s where I feel the closest to alive.  To be honest, I haven’t really felt like this too terribly consistently since I graduated college; a sad and noviced shadow of my current mind, though an advanced and mentoring version of my current spirit.     

But enough of that.  I’m accepting of living in days like these.  They are fast and they are young and they end in a return to the mundane all too soon.  Those days gone always seem to burn brighter than those we live in, which seems logical, but I’d venture to say this may be faulty logic by perception.  Perhaps the fire isn’t as bright when you are by it because it lights up everything else, and thus those burning in the distance past seem so brilliant because of the deep darkness that surrounds and contrasts them.  Who can be sure?  All I can say for sure is that the fire does dance and burn, and that which burns nearer always warmer than the memory of the heat of that which can only be seen in the rearview. 

I sat last night to write, but nothing came.  It has been like that for a few weeks.  At least, it has on the night that I have had a chance to actually sit.  Someone said that a writer must be troubled to allow the ink to flow.  I am stressed, but certainly not troubled, so perhaps this is the crux of the case.  More likely it is because my troubles just moved to a new area of my mind and are sitting like a cancer, working at me and waiting to be discovered and diagnosed.  Or maybe it’s an old area.

LL (my girlfriend as far as this blog is concerned) was having a bit of a bad day today.  As we text each other back and forth throughout the day, she asked me, “Name 5 things you want to accomplish in life.”  This was a hard question for me.  Or was it.  I could have answered this question like a rifle shot five years ago as I would have mused on it and those like it for hours with friends as we stared blankly into long evenings.  Today, I could only think of two things that I wanted to accomplish, and I openly conceded that the first was less than necessary to my overall happiness:

1.  Get promoted to the rank of O-6.

2.  Become a published author of note.  

So I thought about it some more.  There was more to life than this.  Three more accomplishments such as these would either leave a man strung out or weaken the overall punctuation attached to each benchmark.  Besides, a man is more than the sum of his parts or some such way of thinking, isn’t he?  What then is an accomplishment for?  I don’t have the answer for this, but it is the crux of all things around me now.  At least I think so.  Regardless, here are the other three that I came up with.

3.  I want to be asked to give a lecture to a room full of experts… and have them be blown away.

4.  I want to be invited to a Hollywood black tie affair and have at least two different celebrities recognize me for my work.

5.  I want to own a home so grand and so timeless that my family will live in it for decades to come.

News is what someone somewhere wants to suppress.  The rest is advertising.  ~ Lord Northcliffe

I think that it is remarkable how contemporary sketch comedy can become such a compass directing us towards the bitch of a society.  In other Occidental countries, international flavor has kept Americans en vogue as the butt of most jokes, but with the arrival of President Obama and his celestial popularity among the ABCs (Australians, British, and Canadians), these countries have had to look inward to find a somewhat more easy target than loud, seemingly brazen Yanks with their ineloquent ex-leader.  We too have had a radical shift within the focus of what is funny and what is not, mostly for the same reasons.  So if Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are any sort of gauge (and I whole-heartedly believe that they are) it would seem that a new target is within their pseudo pundit cross-hairs: The Media.

And really, thank God, because these fuck-rods have been getting off light.  For those of you just tuning in, I have been actively lambasting the main stream media and 24-hour news networks for at least as long as I have been writing this blog… which will be four years this September.  The fear and loathing and general degradation to journalistic integrity that these so-called reporters have brought into this profession over the past decade is enough to make Walter Cronkite claw himself out of his grave and punch Sean Hannity in the dick.  And while President Bush conducted himself in a controversial manner thorough his presidency, if measured only on The Hill, the vote was always somewhat even.  If measured in the polls, it was not.  What was important to note, however, what that this was more or less a constant variable through his eight-year administration, in other words, not terribly newsworthy.  It was the media who created the veritable ‘shock and awe’ surrounding every little minutiae, throwing Liberals into frenzies and slamming Conservatives ever so much further into the right-wing corner to defend themselves with ostensible American Values from the onslaughts of theoretical common sense. 

It would seem that this media divide would be out of work.  Ironically, a black President isn’t so controversial after all.  But remember, this isn’t your daddy’s evening news, this is a mindset closer to Perry White of the Daily Planet.  So reportedly, President Obama’s shift in politics is more than enough to insight the same fever-pitch of hullabaloo that President Bush did, but new networks have become unable to produce anything more than noteworthy considerations for dinner conversations as, for the most part, a general feeling of ‘wait and see’ presides over these amber waves of grain.  I’m not calling it a calm, but rather a patience, certainly more so than the past eight years of near revolt. 

What’s changed?  Perhaps it’s the fact that one half of this absurd argument among the masses has declaredly had its chance and now are respectfully silent… Ha!  If that were only the case.  The conservative right has done nothing since November except show its witless and hypocritical ass splashed all across the media in a way that would make The National Enquirer blush.  Like a closed circle of high schoolers, they come off with mis-facts again and again, and by the course of mass proliferation, attempt to make it true… even if it means changing history.  Most recently, a wave of conservative ‘experts’ claimed all over FOXNews that the New Deal under FDR didn’t work at all, something which even my basic political science education knows in false.  It was successful every year except for one when unemployment spiked (in his second term, I think) when President Roosevelt cut back on government spending.  Another bungle that happened a month ago was Dick Cheney going on a series of interviews attempting to lambast the current administration’s stance on security policies.  To be fair, I listened to most of what the ex-Vice President had to say… until he admitted that he didn’t have access or read the intelligence reports anymore.  By that respect, I should have more input on the news networks than he does because at least I get to read a handful of those reports!

With News Week recently calling Rush Limbaugh, “…what Jessie Jackson was to Democrats in the 80s,” it is obvious to me that the Republican party is just losing it as they are continue a man who can’t even keep his sound bites from contradicting as their media mascot.  And apparently, out of utter fear of America’s current tsunami of believed Liberal undermining, FOXNews and some of its more right-wing pundits have completely lost their damn minds as well.  However, nothing tops the lunacy, which I was privileged to watch at work the other day.  Glenn Beck seems to have taken a queue from his Rushness and added to the red-neckery of everything by beginning to rewrite present-day history within minoritized right-wing audience through the institution of his new “9-12 Project”.  While the intentions of this project I only somewhat understand, what confuses me  most is why it is necessary in this day and age where our country is been more unified politically than ever in the past eight years do we need a unification project?  Still, if you’re not convinced, YouTube Glenn’s performance as he introduces the project to his fan base with, and I can’t make this up, Chuck Norris.  By the way, his acting is about as good as Chuck’s… oh and if you fast forward through the part where Glenn attempts to cry because of his professed “love for this country”, then you’re missing the best part.

And while you’re on the internet, check this out.  It’s Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Cramer.  He’s the insanely caffeinated gentleman who hosts CNBC’s Mad Money.  Lately, Jon Stewart took an entire episode of The Daily Show, which by the by is supposed to be half-hour of comedy, and took this masquerading economic journalist down a peg in what I thought was one of the most brutalizing interviews that I had seen since Murphy Brown went off the air.  Do yourself a favor and be sure that you make it completely through the interview, because what I find the most funny of all is that it takes a guy who plays a fake journalist for a living to point out the complete lack of journalistic integrity now alive and well in the business today.  I for one applaud Jon Stewart and Stephen Cobert for taking the info-tainment industry head on.  Bless you, boys, you do God’s work!

However, they could still screw this up for me.  In a take-no-prisoners war (something that is more akin to Stephen than Jon) I fear for my only network news darling, Robin Mead.  She is what we refer in to in my line of work as ‘deployment porn’.  I can’t have Comedy Central roasting Ms. Mead for she is all that is good and pure in morning news.  …but feel free to hang the rest of those mindless bastards!

VIVA LA GONZO!

Between a quarter and a third of Los Angeles’s land area is now monopolized by the automobile and its needs-by freeways, highways, garages, gas stations, car lots, parking lots.  And all of it is blanketed with anonymity and foul air.  ~ Alistair Cooke, American Journalist, 1908

As sent to the Publisher of Up and Coming Weekly, 13 March 2009 —

Before I start, I will say that maybe I am wrong.  Maybe it was just a poor swing at trying to find something fresh to write about in today’s field of frozen-fresh journalism, but Bill Bowman’s Publisher’s Pen article Park Here. Validate Downtown. had to have been one of the most propagandized, sell-out articles that I have ever had the disgust to come across in a publication that I had come to admire for its grass-roots reviews and local championing.  However, after that utter nonsense, I feel as though perhaps Haymont may have had the rug, or in this case, their parking spaces, sold out by someone on the inside.

Haymont is one of the only pure vestiges of cultural sanity in this otherwise sterile and commercial town, pock-marked by sprouting new age sub-divisions, strip malls, chain stores, and the occasional country ghetto all canvassed against a back drop of military transience and classic Southern values.  Altogether though, it’s rather nice in this humble author’s opinion.  Notably though, the revitalization of the greater Haymont area is a substantial boon to an otherwise downtrodden community.  Maximizing its exposure the ever expansive city of Fayetteville (or Cumberland County… the two are almost interchangeable nowadays) has always presented somewhat of a difficulty.  However, Mr. Bowman’s commentary seemly to be towing some kind of party line, which insinuates that paying $4 dollars to park after possibly driving thirty minutes down the scenic vistas of Bragg Blvd or Raeford Road is somehow going to inspire more people to come to see what Haymont has to offer.  And while it wasn’t a bad pitch, it is, well, just dumb logic. 

Personally, I’ve never had an issue with parking in Haymont, and as a single member of the military in his late-twenties, I think that I may be one of the key demographics that the Downtown Alliance would be hoping to garner.  I could be wrong… Nonetheless, when I do escape down to Hay Street during the weekdays, I’m lucky if I can stay for a full three hours due to other obligations, professional and personal, thus negating any parking worries.  The times when I can stay longer, typically evenings and weekends, I don’t suffer the same obligatory time constraints as the work-day parking stop clocks so again, no harm, no foul.  And as side note, while I have heard of McLaurin’s Parking Police as the “Parking Gestapo” in light-hearted conversation, I’ve never considered them an eye sore or anything other than kindly meter maids, rather more part and parcel of the warm (though perhaps annoying) character that marks the historic downtown so homey.  And really, on a street that used to be the haven of prostitution, drugs, and illegal activities in all of Fayetteville, is one more guy in uniform really that unpleasant?

The whole article was really quite comical in its suppositions.  To think that someone will actually say, “Come on down, and stay all day for just four bucks!  How cool is that?” Is one of the higher forms of lunacy that I’ve been privy to since leaving Afghanistan.  To put myself in that scenario, I’ve never just pulled up to street parking in front of Bob and Sherry’s Wine Shop to run in quickly and grab few bottles of wine and said to myself, “hmmm.  I’d love to give this four dollars in my pocket to someone for no good reason at all.  Too bad there isn’t a bum or a government official around to hand it over to.  I guess I’ll just have to spend it in a local business… sigh.”  Also, harrowing terms used in the article like, “…a new day will dawn…” or “…a solution may be on the horizon…” are intended to make us feel like some progressive measures are being achieved.  They are both trivial and misleading, and what’s worse, complete malarkey. 

Taking customer money before the customer has a chance to spend it, that’s part of what’s really at work here.  If Mr. Bowman can honestly look us in the face and say that the grand fascists in Fayetteville City Hall are going to turn around and give this money straight away back into Haymont, pound for pound, dollar for dollar, I’d be pleased to be the one to throw the first stone from the crowd.  The City Council has applauded the efforts of those organizations responsible to breathing life back into Fayetteville’s historic district for years, but has done little more than clap them on the back as they focus on more streamlined ways to make the city more profitable and more prolific, not artistic or centric.  In this case, Mr. Bowman uses a feeble smoke screen, showcasing the wonderful features, merchants, and businesses in Haymont as something that can be enjoyed now at such a nominal fee… without mentioning that it all used to be free.

Let’s be fair and call this what it is: a timely profit windfall.  With the expansive (and expensive) new townhouses, all of which are already sold, nearing completion and thus nearing occupation, creating paid parking in the downtown area just prior to an oncoming parking crisis is going to net the city a pretty penny and the good people of Haymont will be the ones left circling in the rotary. 

Mr. Bowman does give a half-hearted gesture to the real issue, which is the mark of true journalism, I think; the need for a mass parking deck or garage.  But the city hasn’t ever seemed to think that this is important, mainly because a free garage wouldn’t be profitable.  And Bill, who cares if it’s “in the correct location”?  Everyone in Haymont walks everywhere once they arrive on those lush brick streets anyway.  As Lewis Mumford once said, “Restore the human legs as means of travel.  Pedestrians rely on food for fuel and need no special parking facilities.”  Free parking and four hundred yards or four bucks?… I might be alone in this, but you can feel free to call me Clark Griswald.

The most disappointing thing about this article is that it came on page four of Up and Coming Weekly.  There are papers like this one in most major cities in the United States; simple working class periodicals reminding us of the pure and artistic matters of our urban and fast moving lives.  They are free because the untarnished information is priceless and raw; a pure American press.  Troubling to the core that the Chief Publisher couldn’t even find a patsy to write an article so obviously meant as propaganda boot-licking towards those that financially aid this newspaper.  Instead, he dumbly placed himself and his integrity at the forefront of either his loyalty to the check-writer or his own detachment from the local people.  Either way, it’s sad.   

So if you want my two-cents (or four dollars), Mr. Bowman, there is a Gestapo in Haymont… so proudly sport your armband next time you’re on Hay Street.   

Sincerely,
[The Guttersnake]

Only great minds can afford a simple style.  ~ Stendhal

Once upon a time, I was a fashion aficionado.  I like that term better than “metro-sexual”, though at the time, I was probably closer to the later.  Metros somehow got a bad rap along the way as I think that the first wave of men who started to dress with the times were just trying to break out the humdrum wardrobes of Old Navy and GAP.  Then suddenly The Powers That Be decided that what was in style was also to be less-than-maculating in form and fit.  However, this whole phase of my life came and went before the label of “Metro” became vulgar and associated with semi-queers and quarter-fags everywhere.

Thankfully, metros have regressed into a more youthful demographic.  For a while there, middle aged men in their thirties and forties tried to give the smedium tee-shirts and vintage faded jeans a run to a sharp degree of non-success.  After a year or two, circa 2005, even men in their late-twenties figured out that dressing in drag was a bit of a stretch when trying to work the bars and single clubs.  Nowadays, the only real people who you see dressing in the prescribed androgynous avant guard are men in their early-twenties and late-teens who can’t really be faulted for following something trendy.  We all did it once or twice to some extent or another.  After all, who are we to be trend setters at twenty-three?  It’s not like we are Justin Timberlake… but then again, who is?

Nonetheless, it has become increasingly hard for men to dress their age in a fashionable and still manly manner.  Our role models are seemingly few and far between.  Hollywood continues to provide leading men who are pushing fifty and looking twenty-seven.  The new bloods like Shia LaBeouf or Michael Cera who show up on the silver screen look like the proverbial college-aged smart-asses who needs an ass-kicking or a few more days in shop class rather than someone who could dispense an example of any kind, let alone fashion, toward those of those of us out in the real world of a wartime wintery economy.  TV sitcoms, 24-hour news stations, and even the music and sport world provide hideous examples of what a modern man should look like.  Is it any wonder why men dread turning thirty and women seem to bask in it?  Women ascend at the thought of being thirty and looking twenty.  Men would rather look like an oaf in ill-fitting jeans than look like a boy of twenty these days… and many opt for just that.

I am no different… minus the oaf in jeans part.  I was just remarking to some of my younger colleagues that in fact I had not purchased any significant new clothing in over a year, aside from a new pair of running shoes, due to a straightforward lack of want.  My wardrobe has become one of simplicity, though well-fitting and coordinated simplicity I would add.  Single color sweaters and conservative-cut jeans have been the hallmark of this winter’s line, allowing my sunglasses and petty-coat to do much of the talking for them.  Still, it’s a classic look; clean and up-right.  And while it’s pure, I would have you take note that it’s increasingly hard to shop for clothes that fit into this line of though within today’s malls filled with trendy prints and oversized knit beanies.

The overall point to all this is that despite the fact that I don’t flaunt my fashion sense in a boisterous or flamboyant manner, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have one.  Actually, I would consider my discretion to be the more experienced mark of propriety; that is, the ability to observe the trends and rather than swim with the current, maintain some level of solidarity and self-made manhood.  So I was a bit taken back when yesterday as I was wondering through the local mall running an errand for a friend, I happened to note the change in season through the display and wear of the new spring sets in the various store windows.  In a word, I was horrified. 

In an effort, it seems, to completely ignore the lessons learned in the 1980s, those absurd skinny legged jeans did come back with a vengeance this past fall and winter.  Whatever, I can deal.  But it would appear that rather than going softly into that good night, there is a further genesis to those awful denims as I noted a young teenaged man wearing what would at a glance have been thought to be his little sisiter’s capri shorts.  Yup, that’s right; “the man-pri” style of shorts are going to the part and parcel of the young emo-look this summer.  And just as I finished shaking my head, I was left reeling again as yet another fashion blunder walked by.  This time it was a moppy-headed young hippie fellow with mid-thigh shorts rolled further up, cuffed and in the manner of a male version of the classic whore-shorts, the daisy dukes. 

I truly hope that our fair mall is the exception to the rule, and that you, faithful reader, will be not be troubled by this latest fad as it is a troubling eye-sore that left me confused and concerned.  Perhaps it is a regional thing.  Who can be sure?  I guess I will find out as these days and months continue to warm up.  So, unfortunately, will you.