Larry Craig is an amusing fellow

Conservative men have always fascinated me, mainly because I don't believe there is any such thing as a man having an objective appreciation for the manliness of other men. Masculinity can not be coolly admired from a distance as if it were a wall mural. One either wants to be ravished by testosterone or is indifferent to it.

Although it is the logical conclusion of what I believe, I have never gone so far as to say that ALL conservative men are closet homosexuals. Perhaps there is some other explanation for the obsessive demand for strong, decisive, hard, steely, bulging, straining, groaning, sweat-covered leadership. I could be wrong. Maybe these fellows simply had good relationships with their own fathers, and aren't actually being driven mad with their hidden desire for a daddy. But then there's these incidents that keep happening; Jeff Gannon strolling through White House security to verbally fellate the president at a press conference, his ease in doing so strongly suggesting that he has a boyfriend somewhere in the West Wing, Mark Foley's epic search for an eromenos warmed the hearts of all of us longing for a return to classical values, and now we hear that Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig was trying to get busy in an airport bathroom. Accusations of cruising have hounded Craig for a long time. An old frat brother says that Craig hit on him at his pledge. (Seriously, what was he expecting?) and another man (closely tied to the republican party, meaning what who knows) reported having oral sex with Craig in the D.C. Union station bathroom in 2004.

It is impossible to imagine anything more foul than committing any sort of sex act in a Washington D.C. public bathroom, and to be fair the story is just hearsay. All the same, there are an awful lot of people shouting fire about the senator, and, sweet Jesus God a D.C. bathroom.

In North Platte there is this woman named Sue, she is a lifelong friend of my mother's and has always been something of an aunt to me. She had a boyfriend some who owned a white astrovan. One night he pulled his van to the side of the road as I was drunkenly walking home and asked me if I wanted my dick sucked. But I suppose that's neither here nor there. I bought a white astrovan on Sunday, just so you know.

Studies have shown that many men who frequent glory holes don't consider themselves gay, indeed their identities are often fiercely hetero and masculine. They just like to suck a little dick every now and then is all, for the same simple reason other men barbecue or go fly-fishing together. If one were to go by the demographics of the se men,(white, middle-class and blue-collar) it can be assumed that the majority of them vote Republican. Now that I think of it, it has been some time since a major Republican officeholder has been in a sex scandal involving a woman.


But no. As much as I love hyperbole, I still can't bring myself to say that all conservative men are gay. It's statistically impossible. It would simply be prejudicial, slanderous, to say something so outrageous and unprovable.

Or maybe I'm just afraid of the implications. The G.O.P., after all, still controls the executive branch of government; meaning the business end of government. Much as the brain is unable to conceive of its own death, it may well be that the thought of federal law enforcement agencies and the military being run by closet-case pinheads looking for something socially acceptable to pin their love of penis upon is so horrifying that my mind must reject it to preserve its own sanity.

After all, if this were the case, it's safe to say that the Pentagon and the FBI would be behaving exactly as they are now.

Saturday, 2:AM

When one is walking through Lincoln's Near South neighborhood at 2Am on a Saturday night, it is assumed that one is looking for something. We have no dangerous neighborhoods mind you, we simply have neighborhoods where people go to get things.

I had been drinking since seven, first at the state fair and than playing cards. I lost, bought back in, avoided the biggest dick-waving bets, and ended up making a five-dollar profit. It came in quarters mostly, and that's okay.

The woman emerged about half a block behind me, on E between 13th and 14th. She asked me for a cigarette. I dealt with her the same way I deal with every stranger who asks for change or a cigarette from half, a block away, I half-turned, mumbled "sorry" turned back and kept walking.

She followed me around the corner, than around the next corner and the next corner and the next corner.

I turned north on 16th, she apparently didn't want to face the traffic and finally turned to go another way. "You son of a bitch, you should have given me a cigarette!"

Or else what? What now then?

A few months earlier I was walking up 14th between C and D, four blocks shy of the governor's mansion. A man walked out of his apartment house and into the middle of the street where I was. It was four in the morning and was still only mid-spring.It was chilly. He asked me for a cigarette and I gave him one. He asked me what I was doing out there and I said I was just returning home from a party. He put his hand on my shoulder and I told him it was nice to meet him and I needed to get going.

After the woman walked away my path was blocked by a cop that had stopped in the 16th street crosswalk across G. He was staring at me of course. I was drunk, and people come here to get things. If I was in a bad mood I would have walked in front of his car to emphasize his illegal blocking of the crosswalk. But I was in a generally good mood, tempered a bit by unease, and I thought it best to avoid him completely. I turned back into the neighborhood and made my way into downtown via 14th.

When I returned to T-Town the parties were still in full swing all along R street. I don't remember if I went to any or not.

Rainshower

I live in an upstairs apartment, so the threat of being fried by a lightning bolt coming through the bathroom window was very real. I felt like a true warrior, taking a meaningful risk for a meaningful cause. I listened to Terry Gross, clipped my nails to make them look pretty and drank cinnamon coffee, with determination. The cry of the savage man is nothing but the cry of the satisfied man, free from the effete double-talk and emasculating shackles of society.

Ted Nugent shoots animals. A four-year-old boy who likes to wrestle his teddy-bear might be impressed by that. I showered in the middle of a thunderstorm after having a salad with cranberry vinaigrette dressing and ice cream for dinner. Unless that 4-year-old boy has met me, he has yet to meet a man.

Sunshine

I went to this movie knowing only that it had been made by Danny Boyle, director of "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later". Expecting nothing, except something good, what I got was a mediocre sci-fi film, complete with talking computers, (yup) space walks-of death, and long loviing shots of men playing with machines.

It's the future, and the sun is fading out (One shot shows snow on the ground in Sidney Aus.) A crack team of scientists is sent on a mission to reignite the sun's core by detonating a nuclear bomb the size of Manhatten inside of it. No, that wouldn't work, in case you were wondering, and if you were wondering, you should have paid more attention in high school. Space suits, as well as the space ship itself (Icarus II) are covered in gold to deflect the sun's light and radiation. The crew never seem to tire of staring at the sun through an ultra-thick window and industrial-strength sunglasses.

The crew receives a distress signal from the Icarus I, a ship sent out seven years earlier on the exact same mission (yup.) Debate ensues over whether or not to change course in order to rescue any survivors of the Icarus I and/or loot the corpses. Out of the eight people on board, the captain leaves the decision solely in the hands of the physisist, because he's the physisist and he knows how the bomb will work, and because he's Cillian Murphy and he has those fierce sunken eyes of his. There are a thousand different reasons why the decision was left in the hands of the physisist, the question is why the ship needed a captain. Murphy decides to rendezvous with Icarus I in order to use its nuke as a spare. (No, not even two really big nuclear bombs would be enough to reignite the sun.)

Trouble ensues when the ship's techman fails to set proper coordinates for the ship's heat shield. Murphy and tthe captain go out to repair the damage, captain fails to get out of the sun's way in time, dies religiously. Massive sunlight causes a fire in the ship's "oxygen garden" ( Plants converting CO2 to oxygen, making the long journey survivable.) Without oxygen, the journey becomes a one-way trip, though one has to figure that the crew always knew they wern't coming back from flying into the middle of the sun and nuking it.

Oh, and the captain of the Icarus I is still alive, he gets on the Icarus II and starts killing people. Ghost frames of Icarus I crew members pop up on the film, which would be spooky if it wern't so obvious. I remeber seeing "Event Horizon" when I was fifteen and hearing my friends talk about how "freaky" it was before they passed the bong. "Event Horizon" is an absolute piece of trash, of course, and it's hard to imagine what sort of moron would like it well enough to rip it off; oh wait. it was Danny Boyle.

They reach the sun. They set off the bomb save the day. Murphy faces death and transcends it, (yup), the end.

It's a really shitty story, but "Sunshine" is almost redeemed by the images. The multiple close-ups of the sun close-up never stop being cool, nor does the sight of a man freezing to death instantaniously and then shattering his arm to pieces against an antenna. As much as I want like to be ashamed of paying to see "Sunshine" in theatres, in truth I can only say that I merely regret it.

The Lincoln City buses

Should be able to make it across town faster than a long-distance runner. It fails to do so currently, and this is the best public transportation system in Nebraska.

"Politeness Noun: The Most acceptable hypocrisy"

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Marge is seventy five or so. She and a woman roughly half her age were discussing the way things used to be and rural school consolidation battles and the untimely deaths of some of Marge's nephews and nieces. Marge stepped off the Vine Street bus at 70th. She had some trouble getting out of her seat and I turned to help her. I gave her my arm to prop herself up and then followed behind at a discreet distance to make sure she got off the bus okay.

It had been an interesting conversation to eavesdrop on. This woman has all kinds of insightful things to say. I made no actual attempt to talk to her, of course. I was reading "The Devil's Dictionary." I figured that the bus ride would be a good opportunity to finish the book, plus it would be a good way to avoid the people on the bus who like to talk.

At S.C.C. I was approached by a youngish man, about my age. He was wearing a wife-beater and blue jeans, and his whole bearing just suggested trailer park, unwanted children, and Puddle of Mudd. "Do you have a phone on you sir" he asked.
"No, sorry" I said. He turned and walked away.

I take my phone with me whenever I leave my house, just like you do, and I'm sure the man knew this.

If you don't like the weather in Nebraska just wait fifteen minutes.

This is a damned lie. Nebraska weather changes quickly only when it is pleasent. If it is over ninety degrees or under twenty, the weather will hold for at least three weeks.

Jon Bruning: Rise of the Jamensch

Jon Bruning knows the joys of reproduction and commanding the loyalty of small mammals.



In his law school days, Jon Bruning was a perfect Democrat, parroting party talking points in that same vague and uninspired style that has brought the Democrats so much electoral success through the years. "I Believe In gun Control" he wrote long ago in the Daily Nebraskan. I myself believe from the bottom of my heart that there should be some manner of legal regulation of some things.

Here then was a young man who was contemplating a future in politics and was very careful not to go against the prevailing winds, this being the generic liberalism that reigns at every campus newspaper and the more traditionally "academic" departments at every university. Bruning eventually graduated, however, and, as we all someday must, he found that college is nothing like the real world. More importantly, he discovered that Nebraska is not Connecticut or the inner suburbs of Denver, where faintly leftish don't-rock-the-boat fuzzy-blanket nihilism actually wins elections. Nebraska is a one party republican state, and to gain a career in politics one must either have the sort of aura and charisma that suggests leadership or show a willingness to be a reliable errand boy- enter Jon Bruning.

In retrospect, it's hard to imagine how Bruning didn't see that he was meant for the GOP from the beginning. The Republican party, particularly in those regions where it holds dominion, has always clung to the timeless values of loyalty, obedience, and loyalty.

By the time Bruning was elected to the Unicameral, he was pro-life, pro-gun, pro-God, you get the idea. He had evolved from saying nothing to saying nothing with deep religious conviction, describing himself as a "capitalist to the core" in voting against restrictions on hog-shit factories.

In 2002, Bruning was rewarded with the Attorney Generalship, one of those "constitutional offices" found in every statehouse that are handed out to those who have failed to hide the hands up their asses well enough to be governor or senator. The job of the Nebraska Attorney General is to demonstrate that crime is bad and that only Republicans truly understand this. In discharging his duties Bruning was surprisingly unoffensive; certainly less irritating than his predecessor, Don Stenberg, who is the cheap prostitute one ruefully remembers while trying to pass water through a swollen, gonorrheal urethra.

I approved of Bruning's prosecution of Matthew Kelso, which Bruning pursued despite the disturbing number of Nebraskans who believe that it's not pedophilia as long as the couple is married and hetero. Then there was Bruning's Agent-Smith-without-his-earpiece moment at a clemency hearing in September 2005. "I've been so tough on crime, it makes me want to throw up sometimes." The incident turned some heads for a day or two and politely forgotten. Prison remains our primary means of providing food and housing to the poor, with Bruning's full approval.

Things were going well for Jon Bruning. He seemed to be that rare, fortunate breed of man who had found his niche in life. But then something happened. Maybe it was the election of Dave Heineman as governor, which showed that the state GOP will offer up an empty suit for major office if they have to, and he'll win. Maybe Bruning started sneaking into his daddy's closet to try on his big-boy clothes. Whatever it was, Bruning decided to leave the comfortable niche made for the likes of him to make a run for the United States Senate.

Senator Chuck Hagel, you see, occasionally exercises independent judgment; especially on the Iraq war, that Godly endeavor that was to prove once and for all that conservatives value patriotism and understand what must be done about the evils of the world and that we do not. Hagel's insistence on giving a negative spin on the war (Telling the truth) has caused quite a stir among Republicans. There is a peculiar belief in the right-wing; that national successes and failures are determined solely by weather or not "real Americans" march in lockstep, and that all of the actors in the rest of the world are motivated by whether or not they are sufficiently intimidated by American unity. Publicly disagreeing with each other is akin to sending one's first-born son to school in a dress. Hagel has been a reliable conservative on most matters but what matters to conservatives is the war; this is the show of force by which they were to cow The Other into giving up the kitchen -scraps of power he has managed to grab for himself over the past hundred years and set the country back on the course to Plymouth Rock.

Hagel's public stance on the war has infuriated millions of self-appointed enforcers of conservative purity across the country along with thousands back home in Nebraska.
In some quarters, Hagel has become a bogeyman on a par with Hilliary Clinton or Barbara Streisand, sustaining the same charges of secret evil motives and attitudes. Hagel is trying to look moderate to the liberal mainstream media, they say, trying to claim John McCain's abandoned halo of independence. Hagel wants to be president, you see. Well, maybe. He hasn't stated his intention to run for president; he hasn't stated any plans to do anything, choosing instead to throw a post-modern anti-press conference in March. But just as the right-wingers somehow just know that Hilliary Clinton is a lesbian, they also just know that Chuck Hagel is burning to be president, and that only the combined electoral force of the current president's eternal loyalists is keeping him from doing so.

Still, if Hagel runs for and retains his seat next year, the Tories would hardly be unable to say that they have the power to punish heretics. The far right already has lost its claim to owning the country in last year's congressional elections, and a Hagel win would show that they can't even control "their" party in a state where it is well-entrenched. Whenever a segment of the population in a democratic society feels aggrieved there will surely arise a politician who promises to address those grievances. Enter Jon Bruning and his proven record of doing what he is told.

Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith both won congressional elections by promising to leash themselves to the preisdent's war policy, (Along with supporting traditional values, opposing activist judges, and other such boilerplate) and Bruning does have his internal polling showing him ahead of Hagel in their presumed race. Than again, Pete Ricketts promised to be the White Houses' monkey and got nowhere, and the anti-Republican wave of last year's congressional elections was strong enough to leave a few tiny drops on Nebraska, with Smith and Lee Terry facing unexpectedly tough challenges.

A primary battle between Hagel and Bruning would follow the same line as last year's governor's race between Heineman and Tom Osborne; a battle within the GOP between pure, stout-hearted conservatives and adults. The most important question is not whether or not Bruning can win; of course he can, Heineman did, but what would happen if he did. We Nebraskans have proven ourselves willing to send small men to the governor's mansion and the U.S. House, but Stenberg and Ricketts have found that we do care about little things like dignity and ability when it comes to the really big offices. If Bruning wins the nomination, will the Eisenhower types in the GOP vote for a moderate Democrat like Mike Fahey; and leave the state's ruling party without a seat in the Senate, or would that hallowed old Republican loyalty fetish keep them in line?

And if Bruning does win the general election, just what manner of horrors would that sorry twit subject us to if we gave him a national stage?

Vote Fascist

http://joanne21921.tripod.com/

If I'd had Known I was Stepping on Ernie's Toes

A sample from Sen. Chambers' letter to the Omaha World-Herald, printed yesterday August 9th.

"If asterisks are to become the order of the day in the realm of sports records, one should accompany every so-called record established by any white athlete in any sport while black athletes were locked out of competition due to their race. This, of course, would include records held by Babe Ruth, who was quite comfortable with racial segregation in his sport."


Summer goes by so slowly without Ernie putting the rhetorical screws on the corrupt jokers in the unicameral. Thank God we have the public forum so he can still occasionally expose the dumb savage beast lying behind some precious "mainstream" white convention.

This letter was hell yes. This letter is a rock anthem.

Bonds and The American Dream

A record is a mathematical construct. One either hits more home runs than anybody else or does not. The home run record is not the Holy Grail. An unworthy will not crumble into dust if he touches it. Deserve doesn't factor into it. Deserve simply doesn't exist.

Is Barry Bonds a cheater? Probably, and he is likely to die the same miserable death of any steroids user or alcoholic. Laying a claim to the title of best baseball player ever is more important to him than his own survival. Fine. We all need something that's more important to us than living as long as possible, otherwise we would go mad. Barry Bonds is a grown man who has made his choice, temporary physical superiority over any sort of positive legacy. This is an unwise choice, but not uncommon, and it is his choice.

For those who think that celebrities exist "for the children," worry not. Those children who are sad enough to get their moral lessons from athletes are learning life's most important fact. There is no connection between moral character and material success. Barry Bonds has become more subversive than Ginsberg without even trying; an anti-Alger destroying the fantasy-land of sluttish welfare mothers sucking the blood out of chaste productive citizens with every swing. What this country needs are a dozen more Barry Bonds'; lying and cheating their way to the top in one high-profile profession or another. Perhaps then we can finally delivered from this damnable American Dream that creates nothing but scapegoats, servility, and self-loathing.

87 degrees at nine in the morning.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, God doesn't like us. Stop sucking up to it.

Simpsons Movie

It's not bad, even surprisingly, good. Not as good as the early "Treehouse of horor" episodes or anything from the 94-95 season, but good.

Yes I very much want some

Twinsome in the kayaks.

Golden ray and golden night.

Chowder and you step for me

Chowderhicks slap thrice and you dance for me.

And we're stepping adeyyayyeee, adeeyaddeyaddee,
steppoping adiyadee, stepping adeayee
yayayyayayayayayayayayayayaayyayayayayweeeee

yadayadyadyadeee
yadddddddee

ydadydddeeee

alvuinc

yeeelelellllllelleleel'

leyelyeylyeleyleylyelyeyelel

DDUsdoduou

Dear in The Headlice

Dear in the headlice, DO I look such the wreck as that? Mosltivia, Mosotov, mellophone. bankheaded, suctionintiuitiveactionatuicityashphyxiation mallledrome, P

Alhast, Alex was left ruined and it ruined ya, jjjjjjjjjj

Open, throbbing, thru a tweezlle ungotten.

incorrect incorrect incorrect


open thru masturbating door

Openunderall.

Back in thru the last gate on the south end.

Always 3 to the 2 outnumbered.

Always brought onboard and stocked yet.
yeah right
Good solid shit



Always in thrall to the stocked set
Always inclined to the short finds
The ones you always find the swilthiest
Always in the flavor of Happy Wednesday
A chilly night the night for macceroons
A total direct the posit
for the short-feayerhd LccPhurrinrrwrwrwd
Always in good company
A word to you a note on tea
The company you keep is with the company you're keeping with
Always such a time must you say
always they
shoulder on
shoulder through

Things to do

I have yet to be with a pack of drunks caught in a thunderstorm.

This is something that needs to happen to everyone at least once per summer.

I need to get to work.