Bluffing & Vodka

Just to prove we're not dead, here's a quote of President George W. Bush lavishing praise on former President Bill Clinton:

"Over eight years, it was clear that Bill Clinton loved the job of the presidency," Bush continued. "He filled this house with energy and joy. He's a man of enthusiasm and warmth, who could make a compelling case and effectively advance the causes that drew him to public service."

From the June 14, 2004 Washington Post.

Hey, Quilly, remember Vidal's 'silly tirades' on our 'ruling class'?

I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Kill Bill, Vol II a couple weeks ago. It was my gourging on movies before going to Charleston which has no good theatres weekend.

I sort of screwed myself. I went to see Hellboy, which was cool. I mean, Ron Perlman is just a badass. Like, Ian McKellen leauge badass, or even, dare I say it, Christopher Walken.

But then I walked out of Hellboy into The Punisher. Which was so mind numbingly bad that it ruined not just my entire day, but my memories of Hellboy as well. Bleech.

It's been ten days since our last post, Paul. Perhaps we now declare our noble expariment a failure, the way Truman declared America's grand expariment in democracy a failure and replaced it with an imperialistic police-action state.

Well, I am back in civilization. In fact, I'm in New York City which is better than civilization. I leave for Job Corps on Tuesday. But my year-to-date round up is looking mighty fine. So far this year I have

• taken a very long train ride.
• visited the Drag Queen Capitol of the Midwest in Des Moines, Iowa and ordered a White Russian in a lesbian bar on the same block, answering the age-old question, 'is it possible for a minor to be served booze at both gay bars in Des Moines, Iowa?' Yes, it is.
• worked in the kitchen of a hotel in upstate New York dedicated to serving the vacation needs of Hassidic Jews.
• read several books by Gore Vidal; and several books by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., J.D. Robb, Edgar Box and other people who - with the exception of Edgar Box - are not Gore Vidal.
• spent an afternoon with Beth Broderick, aka Aunt Zelda on year Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
• deflowered a 17 year old virgin.
• seen Bubba Ho-Tep, a film which advanced the art form and is about Elvis and J.F.K. living in an east-Texas nursing home whose residents are being killed by a 4,000 year old Egyptian mummy. Ossie Davis plays J.F.K.
• eaten lunch in Central Park.

So I'm good. Really good.

[Found scribbled on a piece of
scrap paper early this morning.]

It is sometime after sunset. I have no accurate clock and my coworker Sly is literally too stoned to eat peanuts.

I got back to the staff cabin with fresh books from the library in town and barely had time to sit down before Sly burst in and began a conversation that veered wildy in unintelligible directions because Sly is, as I said, extremely stoned. When he asked me, "Do you recollect what I'm saying?" and I did not recall what he had been saying, I simply moved my mouth without speaking. He grinned and announced, "That's what I'm talking about!" He was captivated when I repeatedly flipped a coin and in stitches when I—get this—opened a door. This blows away all of Mikey the flaky bisexual's MacGyver bongs put together.

It cannot be screwing up his sense of time because there is no need for one of those here. A combination of complete timelessness in the woods outside and omnipresent cable television inside has severed whatever connection we may have had with the passing of days in the so-called real world.

I gave Sly some peanuts, and he told me, "I love peanuts. I really do." Even if he lacked the hand-eye coordination to successful bring the peanuts to his mouth, I believe that Sly does, sincerely and deeply, love those peanuts.

I am taking a vacation because I can't take much more of this. America is doomed because no one writes books about how we are doomed any more. Think about it. There used to be a bunch of authors who wrote about how it was all going down the tubes: Orwell, Huxley, Vonnegut, Burroughs--what do they all have in common?

They're all dead. There are no more writers writing about how society is doomed. With young writers, even political leftists who know were doomed like Chris Rice, all the new novels have to be about specific characters with serious problems. There are no living novelists who address major themes through fiction. The only malcontent left is Gore Vidal, and even he seems fed up with fiction and writes mostly political pamphlets that reprint letters he used to get from Timothy McVeigh.

Well, I tell you now that I will be the next writer to be proud to get letters from dangerous mass-murderers and libertarians. I will write novels showing exactly where were going because I, like Huxley or Orwell, know that people are too stupid to get off the train tracks if you make vague metaphors about approaching engines of steel, I know that you must shout, "Move, you dumbass, or you're going to get hit by a fucking train!"

But first a vacation. I'm going to Fleischmanns, NY for about a month to work for a small hotel run by orthodox Jews. At least, I assume they're orthodox, because they pray every single morning; reform Jews consider a Kosher breakfast with decaf giving God more than his due.

Not kidding, folks, I'm going to a tiny town in upstate New York until my bed at Job Corps comes through. I'll have limited internet access, so I don't know when I'll get back here. I expect a least a couple of good posts when I do.

Peace.

So, one of the people I know here is this guy Jason: DJ in an S&M nightclub, into spikes and leather, introduced me to one of the best coffee houses in Philly. It's in the gayborhood, but caters to more the punks, goths and beats. The beats rock, of course; laid-back intellectual homos in sensible clothes.

Jason is dating a washed up model and recovering junkie. She is as annoying as Courtney Love, and even harder to get rid of.

I first met her at the AIDS library, one of the places I go for computer time. She looks and sounds a lot like Courtney Love, and quickly told me the reason she didn't jump off the roof of a tall building recently. She had been throwing pieces of candy off the roof, and was going to jump just as soon as she hit someone. But her aim was bad; she didn't hit anyone, and so she didn't jump. Oh well.

She, too, is into S&M; she claims to be a top like Jason, and says that can cause problems when they go to bed together. She invited me to watch, if I'd get them a hotel room or something. I told her I create the impression of material wealth because I have no money, and that when I do have money I will stop showering. She took this in stride--a lot of city people share my strategy.

She does not: "My hair hasn't seen a brush in years!" she informed me. Apparently she'd had dreads at one point, but not any more. She had cut them off after she decided not to jump off the building. She seemed very nice for a dominatrix. Of course, Jason is very polite as well. When Margaret Cho said "those S&M people sure are bossy," she was talking about west coast S&M people.

We went to the coffee shop with all the punks, goths and beats. She bought me coffee, and explained that she had a fair amount of money, but couldn't use a it because her mother is keeping her from going anywhere near her trust fund until she turns thirty-six.

Listen: her life story, as she told it to me. Or what I could understand of it, anyway. She has a tumor pushing against her voice box, which makes her sound like she is suffering from a severe case of bronchitis. She smoked four Marlboros in the two hours I hung out with her. She is also heavily medicated.

"It's getting to the point where I can't tell how much of the red under my eyes is from lack of sleep and how much is the lipstick I use as eyeshadow. Plus, they got me on morphine and methadone."

As I was saying, her life story: she was born fairly well off, and traveled around a bit. She started singing early, and was quite good at it. Then she found out you could make more money being the 250th best model in the world than the 25th best singer, and switched careers. She did shoots in exotic places, and once ran naked through the Sistine Chapel. Later, she went on Oprah and picked up a heroin habit. She wasn't quite clear on which one ended her modeling career. Probably both.

She was talking to me and a beat girl named Jen, who wore sensible clothes and was eating hummis. I had her check if it was kosher, and when it was, told her it was a goal of mine in life to find hummis that wasn't kosher. Paul, you might want to try that line the next time you hit on a Jewish girl.

I excused myself and went inside, where Jason was sitting with a distinguished looking black woman neither of us new. Jason asked me if she was driving my nuts, the way Kurt must've. I was noncommittal, and for the benefit of the black woman, said that he was talking about his girlfriend, not the black woman.

"Girlfriend?" Jason rolled his eyes, "Try nightmare. A friend hooked us up; I was drunk and stoned and just coming back from one of our shock therapy parties. I don't remember everything that went down that night."

"She told me she had turned a lot of gay guys straight," I mentioned. "I suspect it's the other way around."

"She knows where I live now, so I can't get rid of her until I move. I should be able to dump her, but I can't do it--I have to wait until I get a new apartment."

Jason was wearing a leather harness and spiked collar today, and when she got my coffee, his girlfriend asked me four times to make sure she'd put enough sugar in it. Like I said, S&M people are polite.

Wanna know why people fetishize Catholic schoolgirls/schoolboys? The law of diminished expectations. When someone wearing a St. Domenick's Letter Jacket does so much as keep a can of whipped cream on their night stand, it sends chills up and down our spine. But when someone in a dog collar asks how much sugar we like in our coffee, it's not so hot.

Six things to do on a Sunday better than church. Well, most churches.

• Wake up at quarter to five in the morning to get in a battered white van and give donuts and coffee to the homeless.
• Have a cheap breakfast in a greasy diner. And not have to pay for it.
• A late morning browse throug a music store that lets you listen to the entire CD.
• Flirting with someone who is attractive, has good taste in music, and gives you their phone number.
• A lunch time cup of coffee in a good coffeeshop with a good book.
• A post-coffee walk through a sunny park, followed by unanticipated sex and a cold shower.
• Long, warm sex in the late afternoon, followed by a long, warm shower.

The White House quotes Lynne Cheney on the conflict of interest scandal involving her husband, Supreme Court Justice Antione Scalia and a duck hunting trip:

And so while I am unable to offer an opinion on the matter of Justice Scalia's professional duties, I can say that I would prefer that he recuse himself from the practice of leaving pornographic blonde jokes on our home answering machine.

Hey, wanna make a lot of money? Sanford Weill, CEO of Citigroup, earned $300 million dollars last year. Sweet.

Four things I had to say this morning that I wish I hadn't had to say this morning. Or at all.

1. "For a cut this small, there sure is an unreasonable amount of blood."
2. "You can't seriously be telling me there isn't a single band-aid in this entire complex."
3. "The band-aid I got earlier is a failure as a band-aid. As you can tell by the blood that has completely soaked through it and is dripping onto my pants."
4. "Oh, and your desk. Sorry."

You know, it occurs to me that you can tell a lot about someone from where they get there news.

• The Washington Post: You have no rights, you communist terrorist-loving pansy.
• The New York Time: The typeface is really, really small so it must be true.
• The Chicago Tribune: We support your consititutional rights, you communist terrorist pansy.
• The Los Angles Times: That stuff in The New York Times is really small and hard to read.
• NPR: The Al'iawla people of Tazmania are losing their cultural identity. Whoever the President is, she should do something about this.
• The Wall Street Journal: You have no rights, you communist index-fund-loving pansy.
• CNN: No rights for terrorists ... No rights for communists ... Cat stuck in tree ... No rights for pansies.
• FOXnews: You communist terrorist-loving pansies should be beaten to within an inch of your lives and then taken to death camps.
• ABC, CBS, NBC: We think maybe the death camps are a bit extreme.
• NOW with Bill Moyers: What is wrong with you people?

Paul is now an admin, with the power of God. Or a very close approximation. Let's say, the power of Jesus' Stock Broker.

But now,

...on the End of Civilization

Alistair Cooke is retiring, after 58 years talking on the radio. I am, of course, a big fan of the people who talk on the radio. My heros there are Garrison Kellior, David Sedaris, and ... Alistair Cooke. He's insightful, funny, and is one of only four or five people on earth to have an accent like mine:

His transatlantic accent left Americans thinking he was British, and vice versa.

The report of this tragic event of course wasn't in the american press, but The Economist picked it up. I have fond memories of dropping Paul off (the one time he let me drive) and heading home, Alistair talking of prescription drugs while I careened through stop signs. Then sitting in the driveway, not wanting to go inside until Alistair signed off.

Well, now he's signed off for good. Mourn, my friends: mourn.

I recently ranted on the economy, and was then soundly thrashed by a guy with a stupid name. I will now share my humiliation with all, but I am still God's gift to policy wonks.


The last twenty years? Under Reagan, taxes decreased across the board. But the hourly wage of the American worker also fell. The working class are usually the ones working for an hourly wage. Oh, and the national debt tripled. (1)

Clinton raised taxes, but he also raised the minimum wage twice (2) so minimum wage workers earned $3,744 more a year under Clinton than Reagan (not adjusting for inflation, which Reagan did combat effectively). To say nothing of balancing the budget.

Bush?

First, Bush's own web site states that single mothers with children will get almost a thousand dollars less than a married couple without kids. (3) But he is giving you a tax cut to get your son some new clothes. Bush is also straddling your son with $24,226.99 of debt. (4) That's one hell of a Visa bill. And Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay for 3.1 million American workers, especially those in the $10/hour range. (5)

To sum up, yes, the Democrats take more money from your paycheck, but under Democrats you earn a bigger paycheck. Under Republicans, you're paycheck goes down, but they make up for it by passing a tax cut that lets you get your son new glasses (and lets Rupert Murdoch get a new cruise liner or three). Oh, and under the Democrats, your son doesn't get straddled with a national debt that would give FDR night terrors. But that last one's just a minor point, right?

(1) http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/R/Ronald-Reagan.htm
(2) http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/chart.htm
(3) http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/tax-relief/
(4) http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
(5) http://www.ufcw.org/worker_political_agenda/where_we_stand/ufcw_letters_to_congress/flsa_bushadmin.cfm


See, good shit, right? Well, no. I was then thrashed by "Quilly Mammoth."

Mr. Koretz,

First a bit of a civics lesson. The Congress approves the budget. The Congress in the Reagan years was Democrat. The minimum wage law is not set by the President, it is set by Congress. The budget is not balanced by the President, it is balanced by Congress. In 1993 Clinton projected that the budget would be balanced within five to seven years ( he waffled a bit on that) using _his_ requested budget. The Congress balanced the budget; after the 1994 term the OMB projected a surplus in 1999.

Your statement that *Bush* has "straddled" "your son with $24,226.99 of debt" is an out right fabrication. A total falsehood. A base canard. Do you actually read the cites you use? That number is based on the Public Debt. That number was not generated under Bush, nor Clinton, but by over fifty years of Congressional neglect. The Public Debt was $233B in 1953 and has grown every year since then (The oldest available on line at ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdm071953.pdf.) and the yearly budget
defecit was $9.3B

Back to the Civics' lesson....do you know who votes the budget?

The minimum wage is a Red Herring. It has never been a living wage. It has never been a substantial portion of the GDP. It has never been a substantial portion of the average household income. It is an entry level job. It is a philosophical sop for the Paternalistic Wing of the Uniparty. (nod to Ross)

To sum up, you haven't the foggiest idea of the facts. The facts are that the average wage increased under Reagen, Bush, Clinton and Bush. The only substantive decrease in purchasing power were under Ford and Carter. The stats are available at www.bls.gov you compare the increase in average earnings against the increase in the Consumer Price Index. But your claim that wages go down under Republicans is simply absurd. Since the Great Depression the only time an American worker has experianced a wage reduction is simply one of his wages not increasing more than the CPI. Which is why economists who support tax cuts in recession see results. It increases the comparitive purchasing power.

The issue of the hourly workers as reported by the UCFW is not exactly as you say, and isn't in play anymore. Ummmmm...that's why we have a Congress.

Now if you wish to discuss what segment of the population increased in wealth the fastest, that's another discussion. On that basis there is no class distiction between the elites of the Left and the Right wing of American Politics. Big Ketchup vs. Big Oil.

Patronizing bastard. I'll get him.

Hey, even Baptists can do cool shit. Check this out!