S

S

I don't want to do homework

So here's a Spanish review of the he-man movie.


href="http://galletas.blogia.com/2006/060302-grandes-fostiadores-del-cine-ii-dolph-lundgren.php">

Note to Self

Last night I dreamt that Ernie Chambers was in jail for having fictitous plates on his car and that Dan F. was in jail for stealing a German flag. They were not locked up together. These were seperate dreams, obviously related, but seperate.

I really don't think that the meaning of these dreams should be too hard too figure out. Chambers had the recent kerfuffle over purple heart license plates; and, of course, he is a rebel's rebel. Surely he would never break the law in such a tacky way though. Dan and I both have laughingly minor legal issues, and he did say something about, I mean he said nothing whatsoever about stealing a German flag.

I rode the university shuttle back to T-town this morning and saw that the German flag that Dan said nothing about was still flying proudly from one of the new houses along Vine Street. That's not to say that he isn't locked up for any number of tresspasing or burglery-related issues, but I doubt it, he never does such things you see.

I am disturbed though. I pride myself on being the only purely heterosexual man on earth, yet I dreamt about my best friend being in jail.

Fixing a fan

The perceived connection between machines and masculinity has always confounded me. My father took it as a matter of faith that every male felt it and accepted it. There was nothing to explain, it simply was. So many times through the years he would look in awe at a new Harley motercycle or v-8 engine and point it out to me, expecting me to feel the same, and I would simply look back at him with a confused dog stare, leaving him equally confused by my ambivilance.

I have an upstairs apartment, the air conditioner is tucked away in a corner window of my living room and is functionally worthless without my house fan to blow the cold air through the rest of the apartment. My place is simply uninhabitible in summer without the thirty dollar "Hawaiian Breeze" that I bought at Target last year.

During the night, one of the arms of the fan got bent behind another one and killed the machine. I woke up at dawn and noticed that it was unusually stuffy. I quickly noticed that the fan wasn't working, but it was six in the God Damn morning, so I stumbled to my couch in front of the air conditioner and continued sleeping till ten thirty.

By then, the sun was beginning to bleed through my the windows and it wouldn't be long until I would have to either do something about the fan or abandon my home and become a functioning hobo until the sun went down. I walked to the fan and discovered the bent arm.

Track down a phillips-head screwdriver, is it buried under the newspapers or the textbooks? Ah, there it is. Take the screws out, now gently rip the cover off. Gently now, but rip. Grab the bent arm and bend it in the opposite direction to get it back in place. Five minutes, okay, it looks more or less in place. Put the screws back in, use the screwdraiver as a makeshift hammer to pound the plastic slats of the cover back into the slots.

This is satisfying. I'm sitting alone in my boxer shorts, unwashed and unshaven, reparing my machine with my bare hands, my tool, and a little improvisation. I like this. I'm going to change my own oil twice a week just for fun.

Set it back up and try it again. It still doesn't work. Fuck. Am I going to have to go to the thrift store and get a new one? No, no. I have the right idea, I made the correct diagnosis, just pull the cover off again and continue counter-kinking.

Another five minutes, it's still out of sync with the other arms. Put a book on it, okay, that didn't work. Put a stack of five on it while you go to the bathroom. Ha! That worked surprisingly well! Put the screws in, hammer the cover back in, plug it in, turn it on. Ha! There we go.

I got dressed and walked to the corner shop for cigarettes ant the Sunday paper. I return home and point the fan directly towards me. The double blast of fan and AC makes it possible to have a cup of hot coffee on a ninety-degree day.

I went to the Coco Montoya show at "Celebrate Lincoln" last night and spent about twelve dollars on Arab and Italian food and beer. It soon became clear that Coco Montoya sucks and I had wasted my money. So I left early and bought a bottle of Night Train wine to punish myself in proper Catholic fashion.

I've had bad experiences with roomates in the past, but perhaps I should get over it. Living alone is starting to affect me.

I woke up hangover-free. Perhaps I had sweated it out during the night. I hope so. If the train doesn't leave one absolutely devestated, than one is drinking too much.
But weather we feel contentment or not at any given moment has more to do with the moment than our general positions in life. Life would be unbearible if this wasn't the case, no one who is blessed with self-reflection is satisfied with their position in life. Not in this culture at any rate. If you're not longing than you are cheating.

But I'm content now. I have coffee and "A Prarie Home Companion" and my fan is giving me a Hawaiian breeze because I fixed it, and this would be satisfaction if I could allow myself to feel it. But I have a term paper, and a show and a movie I've been meaning to see all weekend and I have to get to work soon.

We're not Russian Damnit.

I was just at the Celebrate Lincoln festival, our annual ode to cultural diversity. (Now only 90% white) I happened upon the booth where the local Czech club sells snaks and knick-knacks and noticed that they were sharing the booth with... the Russians. As if this wasn't enough, I picked up a brochure advertising classes in Czech from UNL and found that they are taught by a Dr. Mila Saskova-Pierce. The fact that she is merely an associate professor is insulting enough, but the fact that she is an associate professor of Czech and..... Russian, is beyond the pale.

We Bohemians have had three great enemies in our history; the Hapsburgs, the Germans, and the Russians. It's bad enough that Czechs immgrated to the Great Plains only to have our maidens snatched away by those mass-murderering Krauts. I should be able to carry the noble genes of the downtrodden (Czech, Polish, Irish) with undilluted pride. But no, some effete, fair-haired, piss-beer drinking German had to snatch my great-grandmother, so that now I also carry the genes of the bloody hun within me as well.

But we Czechs have a special hatred in our hearts for the Russian. Just because our languages our nearly identical doesn't mean we should be associated with them. Does Prague Spring mean anything to you people? Millions of my people were forced to flee their homeland to escape the surly, rock-livered oppresors, and for what? To share a booth with the bastards? Am I going to have to get Vaclav Havel on your asses and write an incomprehensible drama in protest? Get the fuck out of our booth you giant-foreheaded slovelnly bastards!

Ah, well, at least they're not the English. At least I'm not English. I'm probably not English. I mean I am part Irish so, somewhere along the line it's more than likely that...oh hell no.

Disband the State Patrol

Buck Asaila and Curt Ellevoid were pulled over by state trooper David Frye for being out of state on Feb. 23. Fry asked to search there possesions, they refused. He spent half an hour repeating his request, using intimidation, browbeating, and a childish semi-lie about a drugdog being on the way to finally get them to submit. Fry's reasons for being suspicious include the fact that Asail and Ellevoid were driving a "gas guzzling SUV" from Wisconsin to Las Vegas instead of flying like upper-middle-class white folks (aka real Americans) are supposed to. Of course, the fact that they were returning from Las Vegas, a place where, horror of horrors, people do whatever they like, was suspicious in and of itself.

"Asiala said he wanted to see Colorado and Utah, but Frye said that answer wasn’t plausible."

Of course not. Colorado and Utah are well-known barren wastelands without any notable scenery or tourist attractions. The only settlements are the dust-covered hamlets of Denver and Salt Lake "City" where one-armed orphans dig through the petrol-soaked earth looking for grubs to fill their swollen bellies. No one in their right mind would ever travel to such hellholes.

It should be beyond debate that Frye's actions were fascistic (Yeah, I went there) and unconstitutional. It should be beyond debate that Asiala and Ellvoid should be immediatly released with the full apologies of the state. Of course, there is no guarantee that this will happen. We live in a part of the country where people actually believe that obedience, respect for authority and, worst of all, reverence for "the law" are American values. A place where people actually believe that every protest is a potential riot, every pot enthusiest or petty thief is a potential murderer, and that criticizing the police for any reason is an act of anarchy. This attitude produces our suicidal choice in political leadership, and they're the ones who pick the judges. I personally consider every day that Asaila and Ellevoid spend in jail to be a bigger personal insult than watching every possesion I own stolen from me in front of my eyes.

If I were dictator for a day, I would cut off all funding from the Nebraska State patrol until they fire David Frye, agree to never search anyone for any narcotic for any reason, and wipe all drug-related investigation units and task forces out of existence. Thier duties will be limited to handing out speeding tickets and wishing people a nice day. The typical Nebraska State Patrolman is undeserving of the honor and respect shown to meter maids, but I do suppose we need to keep the roads safe. I won't crush them completely.

You may wonder.. Arn't I bothered by the thought of thousands of drug-smugglers commiting major felonies on our highways with impunity? No. In fact I welcome it as much as I welcome any other private enterprise. Only children and slaves believe that there is any connection between law and morality. Laws against drugs are unjustified, therefore they do not morally exist.

"If they hadn't been doing anything illegal they wouldn't have gotten caught." True enough. But ignoring for a minute the fact that what they were doing shouldn't be illegal, it is simply naive to fear criminals more than police. Society is not held together by respect for "the law" Society is held-toghether by self-interest. Suspicion of the state and what it can do to you, (Oh yes they can, do you really think it matters that you're doing nothing wrong?)is an intregal part of this self interest. Fell free to disregard your own fourth amendment rights. Feel free to get yourself pulled over specifically to show the nice officer your squeky-clean trunk so he can be impressed by what a good puppy you are. But know this, the source of state-control is fear, fear of those "beneath us" is used to ensure obedience to those "above us." We are trained and morally brow-beaten to cower before terrorists, gang bangers, and child molestors who are usually poor and brown. (And, quite often, imaginary.) so that we turn to the people who can take away our jobs, throw us in jail, or send us to the other side of the world to get blown up for protection.

Take the imaginary weight of upholding common decency off of your back and maybe then you will see who's really going to hurt you.

The iced coffee at the Coho is quite intense

I feel an insatiable need to widow-tweek here in the Love library basement. Birds, grass, people, they're all moving and they don't notice a thing. I can't be stopped. I am controlling their movements. I am their will.

The heat isn't as bad as I thought it would be, with clouds and a breeze it's possible to walk around outside and be quite alright but nonetheless I am to beautiful to walk outside in the afternoon sun of a summer's day because real men don't sweat and keep their hair perfect and their teeth clean in all situations and my fingers are twitching and spelling correctly is rather difficult.

I read a porno story today that was nothing but a single five-thousand-word sentence and that's how you measure quality literature you know , it's quite refreshing to see that the Speed Racer slash fiction cottage industry has reached the same intellectual level as Wolfe and Joyce and all of the great titans, I can't help but think that it never would have happened without me and I am proud.


Stay the home kids, stay the home kids, keep to the dog, keep your children entertained in the summer with light family friendly animation that reminds them of school and keeps them well and structured and well and surely your boy will stop playing soccer and move on to a real man's game by the time he gets to middle school . Now is the time to teach him how to run with weight on his back. Run, run, run, motherfucker, run , run, run, keep a straw hat on your head to keep your hair straw now your grandmother would be shocked she was red once, full body red you have no realizations, you have no sympathies, you don't fish in the pad by the cornfield when the sun dances weakly and the light is pale though it is raging black skin dirt you don't look presentible in front of her you are the stuff of dirilection avoiding he family at dinner you are not the case I am the case I am the center the open end and the sympathy and the possibility . You wont, because.

Ileagal

Driving 26 mph in a 25 zone is illegal.

Throwing a sackful of babies into molten steel is also illegal.

there is no such thing as "the law." There are many laws of varying degrees of importance. Breaking a law is not a show of disrespect to the nonexistent "the law."
Nor does it signify a willingness to break all laws.

"Illegal, illegal, illegal, illegal" is not an argument.

So, a public access show.

Yup, me, Myles Cecere, and herr Fuerbach. I'm procratinating from writing material as if it was homework. I'm in a pensive mood this weekend, might have something to do with the fact that my car was towed for $540 in unpaid fines. (No, I'm not getting it back, buying another POS special would be more economical)

But the show, yes. Well, I've already told my father when he asked me how I was spending my time, and now I'm telling you. I am commited now, so I have no excuses.

Muthafuck him and John Wayne

It is common practice on the internet to use images in lieu of arguments. I myself am not innocent of the practice. Images work well for the TV and computer age. They're simple, pithy, and the modern person's mind is conditioned to respond to pictures more than the written word. The issue, I think, is not weather or not using images as arguments is a bad thing (Yes and no) but what a given image says about the person using it.

Take the image above, John Wayne standing in front of the stars and stripes with his pelvic reason thrusting out and expressing disgust that Latinos have so infected our culture that he has to wait an extra five seconds to confirm that he wants to purchase his Extenze pills in English.*

The sentiment is absolutely disgusting, of course. It exposes the anti-Latino crowd, (Yes I know, you're only against illegal immigration. Save it. I have ears, I hear what's being said about 'those people' at bar stools and dinner tables. Don't piss on my back.) as the selfish, childish, narcissistic thugs they are. They believe that there is a narrowly defined standard American and that they are it. The rest of us are here to serve them and provide them with every petty convenience without complaint. If we dare to suggest that our differences from them make us anything less than inferior to them, then we are social
cancers who must be eliminated. Some say that bigotry is caused by lack of education or a "natural fear" of people and things that are different. This is being too kind. Bigotry is caused by self-worship, disguised by the flag. It's as simple as that.

But now let's get to what's really important here, John Wayne. John Wayne was, and, through the immortality of cinema, always will be, absolute human trash. His white-trash reanimated corpse can suck the lint out of my pubic hair while I drink foreign beer and read Nabokov. Fuck John Wayne, and fuck his fans.

Millions of small, angry little men, especially in the sorts of places where I grew up, consider Wayne to be the paragon of American masculinity. The scene in "The Quiet Man" where he drags his wayward wife by the hair through a bucollic Irish village while all the townspeople cheer makes Wayne's fans feel warm inside. Oh yes, rock-hard American values in action.

It's well-known that Wayne's fans are overwhelmingly male, which is amusing to no end. Let's be clear; there is no such thing as a man having an objective appreciation for the manliness of other men. If you are a man who is impressed by John Wayne's masculinity, you are gay. And not only are you gay, you are a 'boy', a 'toy', a 'bottom' and a 'bitch'. You want to meet John Wayne out on the lonely trail with both of you cocking your guns and blazing away, and you want to come out on the losing end.

So if you see the above photo on an internet political thread, this is what the poster is telling you; "I am a arrogant, bigoted, submissive homosexual, and only the most well-built, clean-cut white man is good enough to ride my train." Someday , dear reader, your powers of anaylisis might be half as good as mine. In the meantmime, just eavesdrop on the local truck stop conversation and know that I am right.

* A friend of mine recently attained the free trial package of Extenze. (Strictly for the humor value, of course.) It comes with eight or nine pills, a couple of brochures, and some truly abhorant pornography. I wish I could get the image of the sixty pound man pounding away while his mediocre-looking ladyfriend moaned unconvincingly. I'm not joking about the sixty-pound thing. His languid thrusts caused his spine and ribcage to protude at least six inches through his skin. I haven't been eating well for the past two days.

Local news grabbag.

Mr. Paul Clark, of Whiteclay fame, beat me to the http://unl.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2370609040 But I feel that I must comment on what must be the most amusing edition of the Lincoln Journal Star ever published. I'll try to keep my own comments to a minumum, actually, as the stories themselves are quite beyond satire.


(Actual photo and headline on this morning's paper.)

Parents, do you really know who’s selling ice cream to your kids?

Neither did the city.

Until late last week, just four of the people who drive 15 Frosty Treats ice cream vans serving Lincoln had received required city peddler’s licenses — and the criminal background screening that goes with them.

And several drivers, past and present, have lengthy criminal records for such crimes as assault, drug possession, attempted child abuse and concealed weapons violations.

Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady put officers on alert Friday after questions from a Journal Star reporter showed a gap between the number of licenses and the number of drivers. Since then, officers cited three drivers for selling ice cream without a license, a violation that could lead to six months in jail, a $500 fine or both.

The company moved fast, too. Eight Frosty Treats drivers were licensed Friday, although Dwayne Smith, the Lincoln Frosty Treats manager, said only four of those licensed were still with the company. And eight more drivers applied for licenses Monday; one was denied because of a 1999 felony conviction for burglary, and another application is pending.

Frosty Treats officials would not say how many drivers it has under contract here, although most of the company’s 15 vans in Lincoln are driven daily, Smith said.

The inquiry started after the Journal Star searched the criminal background of driver Geneo Johnson, whose local record dates to 1984 and includes four convictions for assault, violation of a protection order, carrying a concealed weapon, theft and burglary.

He is set to face two charges of third-degree assault and a felony child abuse charge in court Sept. 10. He was also cited Monday for selling without a license — the same day he applied and was granted a license from the city.

According to city law, applicants who have a felony conviction or have committed a “crime involving moral turpitude” within 10 years of the application date are ineligible for a peddler’s license. They can appeal if denied.

The Journal Star conducted background checks on another 15 past and present Frosty Treats drivers — 10 had criminal records; five had none.

Nevertheless, Casady said, there has never been a report of a Frosty Treats driver committing a crime on duty.

Smith said the company conducts its own background checks to protect its customers — most of whom are kids.

“If we think someone’s not OK around children, they’re not going in our truck,” he said. “We’re really safety-conscious here.”

Smith and Bill Garbez, Frosty Treats’ regional manager in Omaha, said the company tries to weed out anyone convicted of sexual offenses, child abuse or drug violations that go beyond simple possession.

“If there’s something on paper we don’t know about, we would get them out of the truck today, as we’re talking,” Garbez said. “We can’t run a good business with people like that.”

Garbez said the company pays for its drivers to get peddler’s licenses and does its best to follow the law.

But because drivers are independent contractors and not employees, he said, mandating compliance can be difficult.

“If drivers get fines, good for them,” Garbez said. “I don’t want anyone shutting down our company because of their ignorance. Driving without a permit is not something I condone.”

Two drivers cited Friday — Rabbeca Seaman and Matthew Redden, both of Lincoln — will appear in court next month for selling ice cream without a license. Neither had criminal records likely to prevent them from obtaining a license, though neither had applied as of Tuesday.

On Tuesday, there were 282 active peddler’s licenses in Lincoln.

The number of denials is “significant” but could not be quantified, Casady said.

Denials based on crimes of moral turpitude can be troublesome, he said.

“When you have a term that has no specific definition you revert to the dictionary,” Casady said. “Unfortunately, this term has a variety of meanings.”

Casady said he defers to Black’s Law Dictionary, which defines it as “a breach of community standards of morality so grave as to be shocking to the conscience of the community.”

Prostitution, pandering, producing child pornography and contributing to the delinquency of a minor would be “slam dunks,” Casady wrote in his blog Monday.

But drug offenses, fraud, child abuse and violations of a protection order are debatable, he wrote.

Casady gives final written approval for all peddler’s licenses. But the task is largely delegated to his staff because of the volume of applications.

“When someone makes them cringe,” he said, “that’s when I hear about it.



Now, it's no secret that ice cream person is a rather bottom of the barrel job, reserved for those with too many DUI's to be pizza boys. I know that Lincoln is not a booming metropolis, but, cmon, front page?

Some thoughts from concerned online readers:

" I've always thought that adults who want to drive these trucks are either very uneducated and incapable of holding another job, or a little creepy. I NEVER allow my son to buy ice cream from these people and I'm not sure why any parent would allow their kids to do so. "

"Those people" include drunk drivers, petty thieves, and, wait for it... PROSTITUTES.
Yes, your children are being exposed to PROSTITUTES every time they cram a creamy brown chocolate ice stick down their throats. Honestly ma, just make sure you don't give your kid more than five dollars, and unless he runs into a total skeezehead, it shouldn't be a problem.

Oh, and their are also registered sex offenders driving local ice cream trucks. But "those people" are a legitimate concern and hence, just not funny.

" We have had a bad feeling about the ice cream trucks this year ever since the odd times that they were coming through our neighborhood. 10a.m....come on and the creepyness of it all with asking the kids "do you want an ice cream little one?" Thank you Chief Cassidy, we've noticed that over the last couple weeks we haven't seen the icecream man at all which is fine by us. We'll go down the block to Dairy Queen for an icecream cone vs. buying something that is WAY overpriced from someone not even licensed to sell. "


Ah yes, creepy poor people driving by at the ungodly hour of... 10 AM?

" If you can't trust the Frosty Man, who can you trust? It's enough to make you quite eating icecream. "

Again, it's long been a well-known fact that the typical ice cream person is no priest... Oh wait.

The best part of the story has to be Chief Casady's odd standards of moral turpitude.
PROSTITUTION is a "slam dunk," child abuse is not. People have a different way of seeing things out here.

Postscript
Ms. Becky Ankenbrand was an ice cream person for a brief time, despite being a suspected terrorist. http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=25911697&postID=7766031130987030515
She currently works at an Arab restaurant. Take that as you will.

The other story I found interesting was a survey conducted by the Target corperation meant to compare the psyches of its customers compared to Wal-Marts. I decided to take the survey myself to see which giant hollowed out rock sitting in the middle of sun-baked concrete is right for me:

I am a superior person."
Um, don't you know who I am. Go back under your rock until you've learned who the beautiful people are.

"I am afraid of being rejected by my friends."
Now that you mention it,I would feel lonely if I was forced to let my servents go.

"I can be sarcastic and cutting when I need to be."
Um, don't you know who I am?

"Sometimes when I am reading poetry or looking at a work of art, I feel a chill or a wave of excitement."
Yes, I don't know if it's Goya's Caprichos or "Devaney-Zeus looking down on the team from the clouds" that gives me the biggest goosebumps.

"I don't like to waste my time daydreaming."
Absolutely not. I spend my time reading, blogging, and drinking. I just feel terribly antsy if I'm not doing something productive.

"I'm not known for my generosity."
I gave twenty cents to a vagrant the other day even though I have nothing but Mac'N Cheese for me to eat. That's no joke. I'm not bragging, just saying.

"Poetry has little or no effect on me."
Only an idiot has a general opinion on the entire medium of "poetry", "movies" or "paintings" Are we talking Whitman or Laurus? http://laurusmagazine.com/

"I often get into arguments with my family and co-workers."
Yes, but they're perfectly justified and I'm always right.

"I try to be humble."
Fuck that. Death to the priests of the Temples of Syrinx!

"It makes me crazy when the plane isn't moving and the pilot doesn't announce why."

Well, don't just sit there. Break out your pocket knife and march towards the cockpit to get some answers.

For the record, when I need cheap shit, I usually go to the thrift stores. (Yes, I'm one of those people.) When I need something that's cheap, shitty, and new, then yes, I prefer Target over Wal-Mart. Because I am a superior person, and young urban professionals need to look the part.

And if your kids want ice cream, just take them to the East Campus Dairy. You'll still have to deal with potheads and alcoholics, I'm afraid, but PROSTITUTES are fairly rare.

HantaVirus

Hanta Virus, get down like that, yeah, get down like that. Rat shit, liver failure, dust and dry and heave baby. It's morning .

How could I have forgotten about my 300th post?

You know what it's time for.






You asked for this, you asked for this, you asked for this. Don't try the innocent face, I am the innocent face. You are only doing what your mother commanded you to.

This is the best of all possible worlds, dance when I tell you. Don't drop the ball now, this is your chance. Cast the die. Put the hole in the boat with the heel of your shoe. You know damn well you wanna swim.

This is the only end for you. The best, the end and the best. Goodbye.