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“Rapping” the Fed

21 July 2018

How very gauche of our uncouth President to be “rapping” the Olympian minds of our exalted “Federal Reserve” as they pore over their auguries and divine the holiest and purest of interest rates for a grateful nation.

Backward rubes like Mr Trump might believe that in a primitive commodity based free market economy natural interest rates would be based on the perceived availability of surplus resources. In Our Enlightened Democracy we’ve learned from the great Soviet Pioneers that central planning, top down, one size fits all dicta are always superior to the chaotic caprice of capitalism and its mysterious invisible hands. All right (and wishful) thinking citizens understand that only the wizards of the Fe’ral Reserve have the moral clarity and detached objectivity to proclaim that most revered of rates. (Viva Vigorish!)

Mr Trump clearly fails to recall the Constitutional Convention of 1913 that repealed the Tenth Amendment (which theretofore had authorized State resistance to Fe’ral encroachment — really a dead letter anyway since Mr Lincoln’s invasion of the Sovereign South) and rescinded Article 1, Section 10’s prohibitions of the emission of Bills of Credit and of the States’ bar on making any Thing other than gold or silver Coin a Payment of Debts.

Silly President.  Constitutions are for tricks.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates, c/o Gene Greigh //  401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas;  76903

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Company Loves Misery

20 May 2019

Childhood for me was an intermittent horror show. 

The Thug was born in 1953.  I was born in 1956.  For most of our time growing up I was his favorite punching bag.  In 1962 our mother remarried (after divorcing our “boring” father) and began thirty-five years of excitement under the dominion of The Submariner.  Fortunately, lacking vaginas, my brothers and I weren’t all that interesting to him, so his attentions, when we did receive them, were delivered with his fists rather than his ecumenical erection.  Our baby sister, born later, was not so lucky.

Those who believe that I can’t admire the accomplishments or desire the cool stuff of others without resenting them, will likely also suspect that I was cheered by the prospect of The Thug’s coming in for “his share” of physical abuse.  Sorry, but I don’t “envy” that way.  Just because The Thug could delight in my pain, I was unable to appreciate his.  Or our other brothers’.  Or even, much later, our sister’s, whose suffering may well have eclipsed all of ours.

I may take righteous satisfaction from the punishment of the guilty, but sadism and revenge leave me cold.  Yet another of my defects (just like my lack of jealousy, resentment, loneliness, or boredom.)  But making everything WORSE for everybody (beatings all around!) didn’t make anything better for anybody.  Except Mom, maybe.  The serotonin must have been especially rich for her to forgive his raping her daughter.  My greatest regret is not killing him (The Submariner, not The Thug) when we lived together all those years ago.  It probably would have been easy.  Just jump on him from off a staircase or rooftop or tree, land on his shoulders, and quickly slit his throat, and my sister could have been saved.  But I’m a sniveling coward, so I didn’t think it through.  Upon reflection, most likely the State of Connecticut wouldn’t have gassed a twelve-year-old boy.

update 210107: I neglected to mention above that killing The Thug might also have been a kindness. Or redundant. As an enthusiastic bully, he was also, naturally, a coward, and quite possibly a sociopath as well. He hanged himself in 2009, leaving his body for his wife and dogs to discover. Abusing and betraying those weaker or dependent on him was perfectly consistent with the rest of his miserable life. I was sorry for his wife and his daughter and his grandchildren and for our Mom and for our older brother, whose birthday he picked to do himself in. I am less sorry for him than I am relieved for those he can no longer hurt.

Firehair, Bat Lash, Pow Wow Smith, El Diablo, and Johnny Thunder are all properties of Detective Comics and Warner Communications.  Their images are reproduced by Piracy Press for purposes of analysis and scholarship.  If anything, their use here constitutes free advertisement for DC‘s properties at the considerable expense of Piracy Press and Greigh Area Associates.

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Call to Crankiness

20 April 2019

Workin’ at the QuikkStopp-by-the-Interstate I get many questions.  Mostly they’re of the nature of “Do you have milk?” or “Are they not open?”  Generally, I can answer them directly and the customer gets what he wants, or learns that we don’t have it, and we part in peace. 

Sometimes I am obliged to confess my ignorance. 
Rather than plaudits for my candor, I am scorned. 
“Don’t you work here?” they demand, indignantly.

When they’re jerks, that’s my permission to defer to the standards that they assert. “Sure, I work here.  And the next time you’re at the ER, ask the janitor there to take a look at your owie.  After all, he works there.”

“It’s not the same thing!”

Other times, when the Feds, the State, the County, the Municipality, or Management directs me to NOT honor a sale (usually for drugs), or other egregious offense to their dignity, they demand to know,
“Are you the manager?”

Once I again, I’ll defer to the customer’s call to crankiness: 
“Of course I am.  Who else is going to be eating your shit at three o’clock in the morning?  Obviously I’m the manager.  Seriously, what kind of manager would delegate an unpleasant task to a subordinate…
other than ALL OF THEM?”

19 July 2019 — Rhetorical Wins
If you ask questions faster than I can answer them, that means you win.
If I’m not as upset as you are, that means I don’t care as much.
If I don’t talk as fast, I’m not as funny.
If I don’t shout as loudly as you, that means I’m not as confident.

update 191218:
Customer w/Russian accent: You have Putin sticker on car?
Me: Da! Is thumb in eye of Democrat fools who think Trump does Putin favor by killing Russian soldiers and Syrian janitors.

update 200504: What is the proper response to “OK Boomer”?
(1) “Yes?  And…?”  Because if it’s English, then it isn’t a statement yet.
(2) “Please millsplain that.”  Because it is clearly NOT English.
(3) “Lick yourself, bitch.”
(4)  “Go fuck yourself with rusty garden tools.”
Sorry… it was kind of a trick question. 
Responses (3) and (4) are ALWAYS appropriate whenever someone seeks to denigrate your perspective or opinion.

Princess Pam is the creation of Bruce Jones & Dave Stevens. 
Black Canary is the creation of Bob Kanigher & Carmine Infantino.  
Stephanie Starr is the creation of Mike Friedrich & Dick Giordano. 
Their images are reproduced by Piracy Press 
for purposes of analysis and scholarship. 
Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination,
but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited
with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  
Reader discretion is advised.

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The Return of Carnac the Magnificent & al

“Gettin’ Technical”  (30 October 2013)
You know, quoting the Bible or the Constitution verbatim, or citing other relevant facts in an argument – is the didactic pedantic’s way of “keepin’ it real.”

“Which Annoys Your Leftie Friends More?” (28 January 2018)
The fact that you never vote to rob your neighbors, or the fact that you call voting to rob your neighbors “voting to rob your neighbors”?
In my case I’d have to go with the latter offense. Most of my friends are long over my peculiar voting policy (unless they still find it amusing). I think it may be their subconscious realization that voting is generally useless. However, they still hate that I won’t endorse their lies or larceny. Of course, I expect that “His Serenity Now” will again insist that he responds “more in sadness than in anger.”

“Not Too Bright, I Does No Right” (14 September 2018)
They tells me that the selfish CANNOT care about others, BECAUSE of the dictionary, and that “they” and “them” and “their” and “they’re” are all singular, IN SPITE OF the dictionary. The conclusion are clear — I does no right.

(18 October 2018) Workin’ at the Quikk Stopp by the Interstate may be only a step up from livin’ in a van down by the river. A small step, but it is a step, and in the right direction.

“Necessary Polarity”                      (9 December 2018)
There are generally only two classes of data under a bell curve:  norms and deviants.  They are mathematical descriptions of expectations alone and can be taken as either slurs or commendations as befits beholders.
Celebrate diversity?  Sure.
Why so serious?  Because I understand both English and Arithmetic.

“Why HR is so Reasonable” (9 March 2019)
It makes perfect sense. Who’d want to work with a productive, efficient, resourceful asshole, when he could be carrying a charming and affable parasite through every shift?

“Just say ‘WEIRDO’, it’s Easier Than Thinking (30 June 2019)
When Easy Identification Resists Doctrinaire Orthodoxy, the lazy rhetorician will start dissembling and misdirecting and marginalizing. “Weirdo“ is not an affirmative description of a person‘s appearance, demeanor, or character, specifically, though it can allude to all of that and more. No, “Weird“ tells you what someone is NOT rather than what he IS. He is not normal, he is not average, he exhibits some characteristics of appearance or behavior or ideology that seem to be from the far ends of the bell curves. He‘s not what you would expect, he doesn‘t fit your paradigm, he stands out, he‘s weird. This is not just an “All-American” conceit, it is nearly universal in application. MY tribal superstitions are natural laws, whereas YOUR cherished traditions are arrant nonsense.

“Unnecessary Disparity”                 (20 July 2019)
People demand the truth until they get it. Then I’m just being rude.

(190907) Anyone who refers to the united States as “Our Democracy” has done us all a great favor. Such usage identifies the user as an historical illiterate, and shows his lack of understanding or appreciation for constitutional republican order. We can readily infer that anything that flows from such a corrupt premise (like pharmacological advice from a Phlogiston Chemist) will be of little value, if not actually deleterious.

“You know, you don’t HAVE to be an asshole” (8 September 2019)
Of course not.   No one HAS to be an asshole.
It‘s just that, after so many people show up with their belligerent tones, their contentious moods, or their multitude of annoying questions, too many of us feel like we‘re being pressured to choose.
At that time, we choose to NOT be the toilet paper in the relationship.

“Class Clarity”                                      (24 December 2019)
The only people more difficult to understand than tech geeks are everybody else.

“The Return of Carnac the Magnificent” (9 March 2020)
for Ed & Johnny, R.I.P.   “Sim Salla Bim!”
The answer is:  “One s’more with veal in,” and the question was: 
“How do you order a graham cracker sandwich with a thin slice of baby calf in the middle, surrounded by chocolate and marshmallow?”
The answer is:  “Na’m good,” and the question was: 
“What did you think of your tour in Southeast Asia?”

“#[T] = #[S] + #[F]” (23 March, 2020)
“Do or not do.  There is no try.”
TV or not TV?  There are no electrons?
Yoda [and others] is a fool to deny the obvious evidence of dependent conditions.  And he is clearly innumerate.  In fact, there are lots of tries.  Every success is preceded by a try, and every failure is preceded by a try.  Therefore, the total number of tries in the universe must be equal to the sum of the number of successes plus the number of failures, and that figure is NOT zero (by lots!)
If there were no tries, there could be no do, nor any do not. 
Maybe “fool” was a little generous.

“Now, Less than Ever” (20 July 2020)
“Adjusting” to retirement is hilarious. The way it looks so far is that once I hit the beautiful Six Six Six and tax victims start kicking in for my groceries and electricity, I will be getting a raise and a lot more time off. What’s to adjust? I hear the horror stories on the radio frequently (“If you’ve got two hundred k blowable, take a flier with one of our risky schemes!”) and I fail to get it. What’s to prepare? I’ll be getting a raise! With a lifetime average income of not quite 20k/year, it’s hard NOT to improve on it. Oh how oh how oh how will I ever “adjust” to working less for more money?

210121 — Collision versus Collusion
When my desires collided with reality, I experienced frustration.
When my expectations collided with reality, I experienced disappointment.
When disappointment colluded with frustration, I experienced marriage.

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Wuhan Flu™, part Two

3 January 2021

Combine a rich black wit with a vigorous immune system and you run the risk of people inferring that you are being cavalier about contagion.  

I am presently observing my first anniversary of living in a post WuFlu world.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I have since concluded that I was among the first of Americans on American soil to contract the plague.   In December of 2019 I was still employed at the QuikkStopp by the Interstate™ (aka “The Vectory™”).  My shop was about an hour’s drive from the nearest International Airport, and therefore probably less than twenty-fours away from practically any spot on Earth.  After several hours in the air, and then another hour on the road, many travelers are eager to get out and stretch their legs again.  My shop was ideal for that, being, as I said, “by the Interstate.”  We also sold gasoline and soda pop and cigarettes.

Waking up to my alarm clock on the 24th of December I felt worse than usual.  (I’ve always felt that the only thing worse than waking up to an alarm clock was being late for work, so I never expect to feel good under those circumstances.)  It wasn’t super disturbing.  It was my biennial flu, I thought, returning to recharge my immune system.  But it wasn’t quite the flu.  Sure, there were the body aches and the headache and the sore throat and the congestion and the nausea…  Well, not so much the nausea.  That was an odd part.  The nausea was low grade, but persistent.  And none of it was sufficiently debilitating to persuade me to call off working.  When faced with a choice of staying home and feeling badly, or going to work and feeling badly and getting paid for it, well, obviously, I go for trying to stay on top of the groceries and electricity.

Anyway, it lasted for ten days.  Then, for the next couple of months, the news began to spread.  By March the whole of America was awash in trauma.  Masking and assiduous hand-washing and anti-human anti-social distancing were becoming popular fads, and concerts and plays and celebrations of the Christ were being cancelled (“to flatten the curve”) and people started to adjust to “the new normal.”

Well, some of us.  I’m familiar with the sensible protocols of hygiene, and of not coughing or sneezing on other people, and of the importance of good rest and nutrition, so I didn’t change any of my behavior, except for being a little more attentive to the greater vulnerabilities of others.  I certainly didn’t want to be any sort of “Typhoid Larry,” but I also knew that a virus is a delicate thing.  If it lands on my shoulder it usually dies in a matter of hours, from dehydration or ultra-violet poisoning.  If I were to suck it up into a nostril or it landed on the welcoming wet membrane of my eye, it would probably die in a matter of seconds.  I did mention my vigorous immune system.  It takes a much heavier viral load of an unfamiliar strain to knock me over.  Wuhan Flu™ was that, in December.  Now, having been recharged, it’s just another trivial nuisance.  (For me!  Not for others!  I never said that!)

But, as usual, almost everywhere I go, I am an outlier.  People are reasonably skeptical of my claims, and I’m already a natural misanthrope, so keeping my distance is no hardship.  Again, even before this, I worked at The Vectory, so I knew that my chances of picking up something strange was elevated.  Again, I did not change my behavior, I continued to be just as cautious and prudent as ever.

And the contagion raged. And by the end of June, new policies were being handed down by employers and by the apparatchiks of the occupation.  I paraphrase:  “This plague is so dangerous, so urgent, and so serious that NEXT TUESDAY we are all required to be masked.”  Not so urgent that RIGHT NOW, but so urgent that LATER.  Believing that hygiene theatre is just as counterproductive as security theatre (thanks for the TSA, Dubya!), when my manager advised me that on-shift masking would be required, I told him that I would not be complying, fully prepared to be dismissed on the spot.  He blew it off, saying, “Don’t tell me things I don’t want to know.”  Clearly, he recognized what a valuable employee I was.  He seemed also to hope that this would soon abate.  

I guess it didn’t.  By the end of August, Mr Manager was getting too much heat from above, so he came in one morning and laid down the law.  Cheerfully I repeated my position, and dourly he asked if I would sign a resignation.  To this request I cheerfully complied also.  I have since been advised that I was surrendering any claim thereby to unenjoyment insurance, which I realized at the time.  It’s their shop, so their rules.  I was just grateful for the three months of forbearance that I’d managed to squeeze out.

Presently, I am eating my savings, holding off on tapping tax victims for as long as I can afford.  Massa took a lot of my money over the decades.  He promises that the longer I wait to ask for it back, the more I’ll get.  Meanwhile, I’m focusing my fulltime energies on literary failure.

update 210110: Mrs Axis suggests that I may be delusional to believe that I contracted this virus before it became more widely spread. Had I, considering my work environment, many others should have picked it up. Given the range of symptoms attributed to this malady, those picking it up may also have thought as little of it as I did. I cannot rule out either delusion or otherwise.
update 210122:  I stop masking every time I exit a private property confinement that requires masking for occupancy.  I have followed, and will continue to follow, the prudent masking and distancing protocols that independent merchants stipulate as a condition of entry.  I have not lost my ability to discern the differences between “important” and “urgent” and “everything.”  My disdain for foolishness is often a source of consternation for those who might conflate its broad expression for particularity, but it is not intended for those who consider provisional masking to be prudent, or even important.  My disdain, or even contempt, is for those whose posture and rhetoric and highly charged emotional responses reveal that, to them, masking is everything, and any deviation therefrom is tantamount to reckless endangerment or depraved indifference to human life or safety.  I am not killing anyone’s Grandma by breathing freely (except, of course, in the same sense that I threaten innocent strangers every time I take my car onto the road or dislodge a rock from an elevated hiking trail) though arguably Frau Braun did kill L’Historienne’s and Stargazer’s and The Enumerator’s and all their cousins’ Grandmama (7-11-33 => 4-17-20) through her cruel and oppressive “quarantine of terror.”
update 210223: I may have been a little too cheerful about all of this.
210331:  Obedience versus Faith — It has become clear that it is not enough to observe a protocol.  One mustn’t be seen discerning any of the costs or disadvantages of single-minded security.  Showing doubt sabotages public morale, and if one expressed honest (albeit game and sarcastic) skepticism of its efficacy, AND celebrated instances of unexpected masklessness, one could readily be branded a delusional unbeliever.  Video media are lousy with images of maddened crowds accosting the unmasked in public spaces.  In some cases, people have been injured, confined, and fined, for their blasphemy.  It’s like adhering to the Dicta of the Christ without acknowledging His Divinity. 
Gods (Hebrews 11:6) are not alone in their jealousy. 
Obedience without faith is empty.

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Que Sera Bob Lah

Liberty Carols (3 July 1990)

Sad King George the Third gave thought to the Revolution.
Would France intervene, he feared, in social evolution?
The traitors in the Colonies were kicking up a ruckus,
Shouting out their battle cry, “England shall not fuck us!”

Chicken roasting on a barbecue,
Sunburn peeling off your nose.
Cold beer bubbling in a twelve-ounce glass,
And beach sand sticking to your toes.
Everybody knows, a blanket and a volleyball,
Will draw the dudes and babes to you…
Sun splashed days, and a dip in the sea,
Will make a body feel brand new!

Que Sera Blah Blah (22 March 1996)
I had a hungry little girl, I asked her sweetly,
“What shall we eat? 
Should we have pretzels, should we have chips?”
Here’s what she said to me,
“Quesadillas, please! 
And make them with extra cheese. 
No salsa, it makes me sneeze.
Quesadillas please.”

9 August 2005 — Hot Tub! Bubblin’ Jacuzzi!
Roll up the eyeballs, take a little snoozie!
Hot Tub! Isn’t it a doozie?
Sit too long start to get a little woozy!
All day, slavin’ in the hot sun,
Soak up to your chin and listen to the pump hum!
C’m’on honey, don’t you fret!
We’ll get nekkid and we’ll get wet!
Have a ball, in the bubblin’ pot!
Do it all, while the water is hot!
Have a good time,
In the hot tub, the Jacuzzi!

“Uncertain Origin” (26 June 2010)
I don‘t know who wrote this but I like it. I found it recently, dated and in my hand, but not clearly quoted. I do not remember composing or transcribing it.
Buoys like crones, Rocking in their seats
And nodding to the rhythm of their lives.

“You Need Bob Loblaw” (5 June 2018)
( — or — Joanie Loves Litigation)
dedicated to lawyers and other sufferers of arrested development

If you got troubles,
If you got legal woes,
Just give a call to Bob Loblaw.
He’ll file your papers,
He’ll get your probate through,
You can rely on Bob Loblaw.

“Ow Ow Ooo, Ow Ow Ooo Ooo Ooo!”
You slipped and fell one day.
“Ow Ow Ooo, Ow Ow Ooo Ooo Ooo!”
Call Loblaw right away!

You’ll see — HOW — far your case goes,
When you work with Bob Loblaw.
You’ll see — HOW — much your purse grows,
They cough up for Bob Loblaw.

Sue the bastards,
Every cent they own,
With the help of Bob Loblaw.
From their mansions
To their mobile homes,
They’ll remember Bob Loblaw.

“Ow Ow Ooo, Ow Ow Ooo Ooo Ooo!”
For injunctions they will call!
{“Ow Ow Ooo, Ow Ow Ooo Ooo Ooo!”}
{ Is the refrain of Bob Loblaw. }
{……repeat and fade?……}

“For each Whitney and her own Special Bobby*) 11 July 2018
(* –or–  Rhianna gets it!  Just not hard or often enough, apparently.)

Oh, I wanna fight with somebody!
I wanna get hit by somebody,
Wanna get smacked by somebody,
Somebody who loves me enough to punch!

(If all she ever wanted was Moe, she should probably have told him.)
(Is a smoke no longer a smoke?  Is groovin’ no longer groovin’?)
(Who’s been wasting his time time laughing laughing with his friends?)

“The Nattering Spokesmodels) (28 April 2019)
meter (and some lyrics) stolen from Paul Henning

Come and listen to my story ‘bout gal named Jed,
Whose right wing opinions are rarely left unsaid,
She takes her position on the couch with Pete and Griff
To add a touch o’ color to a couple o’ stiffs.
(Jenkins, right? Hegseth, too.)

On The View mean Joy tried to put her in her place
Because she wouldn’t kowtow to the hustlers of race.
She thinks that people should be judged just by their deeds,
With no thought given to imaginary needs.
(EBT? Food Stamp Cards? SNAP it up!)

Well, then, Fox News said to soar along with us
And leave those losers just a-chokin’ on yer dust!
(Bile, that is. Jealousy.)

(intermezzo)

And now it’s time to brace ourselves for Jedediah’s spin,
And thank our loyal viewers for always tuning in.
You’re all encouraged every week to watch on your TV,
And get a heapin’ helpin’ of our ideology.
(Neo-con. Regime change. Ya’ll watch out now, y‘hear?)

(13 March 2020) Wuhan Flu®, fears of pandemic,
What to do? Stock up or panic?
We’ll get through this epidemic,
Wuhan Flu is asymptomatic!

First you get a tickle in your throat and then you sneeze.
Your eyes begin to water, and congestion makes you wheeze.
Fatigue and then the nausea will drive you to your knees.
And as your fever rises, we can hear your frantic pleas:
“It isn’t MY Corona®!
“Whuh — whuh — whuh — Why Corona®?”

“Particular Pupil” (17 April 2020)
She loves the harsh way that you reprimand her,
She loves the way you scold her, too-oo.
She won’t take correction from ‘nybody else,
She loves nobody else’ butt chew!

Anal Swab (22 May 2020)
(meter stolen from Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein)
Anal swab, anal swab, CoViD™ microbes are sneaky!
In my nose, I suppose, but why must technicians poke me?
Virus of Wuhan so small and tight,
In my rectum far out of sight.
Anal swab, anal swab, leering nurses can eat me.

“Din Geisel” (21 July 2020)
I am not like you Doctor Strange.
Not in my home nor on the range.
I fail to master magic spells,
Those noxious brews and horrid smells.
I cannot hack your incantations.
Necromantic imprecations
Awe the likes of Wong and Clea.
But mispronounced exhortations
Give mortal fools cause to fea’

“Wondervision”  (8 August 2020)
He crafts polychrome progressions for each song!
With those syncopated rhythms
He just can’t go wrong!
The music’s hot!
The lyric’s tight!
He keeps me dancin’ through the night!
I just can’t get.  E-nough of.  Stevie!

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Gut Feelings

29 December 2020

It is most apt that a correspondent referred to Mr Fauci’s declarations, when describing his shifting criteria for his seeming epidemiological contradictions, as “talking out his ass.”  Fauci averred that some of the significant tools in his diagnostic kit were his “gut feelings.” It occurs to me that the expressions are linked.  What else could be the most audible and tangible expression of our gut feelings, other than flatulence?

correspondent Zovvio Quicogyf responds:
A most logical even if hilarious conclusion!
Zov is too kind, though she is correct on both counts.
I’m now curious about what else she’s right.
I should probably look into these:

Halestorm–A Novel of the American Revolution – Kindle edition by Akers, Becky. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Abducting Arnold–A Novel of the American Revolution – Kindle edition by Akers, Becky. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates, c/o Gene Greigh //  401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas;  76903

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Nannie

from Strangler Sproose, forthcoming

Duc Montaine fell asleep in the tree.  When he woke up, he was the tree.  His family thought he was dead, so they tried to kill him, but by then it was too late.  But that’s not how this story begins.  It begins long before Duc was even born.  After the collapse of the United States and the suicide of the British Commonwealths, the North American Union was forged between the anvil of Chinese Foreclosure and the hammer of their Orbital Ballistic Program.  Three generations later President Christopher Fu Hsing launched the American Seed Foundation.

After centuries in interstellar darkness, Nannie Fleet Three entered its destination cluster and began casting about for planets to seed.  Fleet Three still maintained tenuous radio contact with sister fleets, sent off in disparate directions from Mother Earth toward other likely star clusters.  The different fleets couldn’t help each other; they were light years too distant, but the planners at American Seed opined that additional information would always be useful to the descendants, at least, of their precious cargo.  Many Nannies were lost to interstellar accidents – rogue meteoroid strikes, bursts of radiant energy from variable stars, mechanical failure.  Their frozen cargo died, never quickening.

After decades of investigation, Nannie Three B began her approach to her chosen world.  Its name, Missouri, had been preselected for her by the master programmers of the Foundation, so as not to duplicate the names of other possible habitable worlds in her cluster.  The naming of other things, and indeed, of her children, was to be determined by a random number generator.  Bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a “random number generator,” Nannie’s program was to be seeded by observed celestial phenomena, the time of selection, ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, wind velocity, and other factors programmed for appropriate “randomness.”  It worked well enough.

Because the master programmers of the ASF wished to preserve and disseminate American culture, the naming of locations and the first children was to be influenced by certain American novelists, whose significance were given various weights depending on the biases of the programmers themselves, and their relevance to the selected world name.  As a consequence of the Missouri bias, the first generation of children included Beccie Thatjer, Nigger Djim, Ree Dollie, Hamilton Felics, Talja al Ghul, Huc Finn, and Uaioming Gnott.

Still cradling her babies in their high-temperature superconducting polymer cells, Nannie floated down on a pillar of fire.

The slumbering sedge patiently awaited the stir that might signal the delivery of breakfast, and, if she were lucky, an especially delicious feral flyer.  Somehow, this morning, the sun seemed fuller, deeper, more vibrant, and sweet — until it was too much, as if lightning had struck the ground.  As the fire touched her fronds, ionic pulses raced along her dendritic tendrils and she withered in anguish, sucking moisture back into her root ball before it could be lost to the heat.  As the invader settled into its throne of flame, her upper vegetation reduced to ash and vapor, she retreated to the safety of her sub-apical cortex, but the mud was too tight, and the pain seared into her core as the wet hissed out of her pores and she died as Nannie touched down.

As Nannie settled to earth, plumes of steam rose about her, expunging the alien sky, obscuring the newly won sun, and shrouding the scorched ground. 

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Verbal Easements

22 January 2017

Drunk chicks can call each other cunts and sluts and bitches all night long and never a tender feeling gets hurt. Don’t you dare, you brute, or you’ll never lay a filthy paw on her silky drawers again!

The brothers can call each other coon and spook and jigaboo all afternoon, it’s all in good fun. Now let Jackie Chan show up, smile broadly, and ask, “What up, muh nigga?” and by golly do the hijinks ensue!

Whether it’s athletes in the locker room, or cops on the beat, or nurses on the nightshift, every cadre develops its grips and shiboleths that say “It’s okeh. I’m one of you guys. I’m allowed to talk this way.”

With GIs, it’s “chickenhawk.” As offensive as it is to watch civilian politicians on TV drone on about America’s great sacrifices overseas, it is almost worse to see non-vets and non-GIs wearing camo-print leisurewear as their way of “supporting the troops.” However, just as a paraplegic can be educated about baseball, so too can folks outside the military family speak knowledgeably about foreign policy and use of force and the tragedy versus atrocity of collateral damage. That’s not what bugs me. In its proper pejorative sense, “chickenhawks” generally lack coherent arguments, personal experience, or years of scholarship to back up their cant. They seem far too often to be proponents of, “Let’s you and him fight.”

So, while I have no respect for chickenhawks, not every non-vet, non-GI proponent of war (involving someone else’s kid) is necessarily a chickenhawk. But just about anyone I hear in the street, on the job, or in a bar saying “We oughta just go over there and kick Ahmed’s (or Ivan’s or Fritz’ or Jose’s) ass and take his oil (or vodka or schnapps or tequila.)” probably IS.

So, unless you’re a vet yourself, or still in uniform (casual salute), don’t let me hear you saying “chickenhawk” about an otherwise anonymous war booster unless you can do it in an original or amusing fashion.

You’re on our turf here, and we’re sensitive about that shit.

SSgt Gene, USAF

Chameleon Boy, Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl, Colossal Boy, Gigi Cusimano, Cosmic Boy, Triplicate Girl (all depicted by Steve Lightle), Shvaugn Erin, and Jan (Element Lad) Arrah (both depicted by Colleen Doran & Al Gordon), are all properties of Detective Comics and Warner Communications.  Their images are reproduced by Piracy Press for purposes of analysis and scholarship.  If anything, their use here constitutes free advertisement for DC‘s properties at the considerable expense of Piracy Press and Greigh Area Associates.

Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination, but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  Reader discretion is advised.

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Best in Show

21 November 2020

As an avid amateur actor, I have developed two things.  A hatred of stage make-up and an affinity for tribal traditions.  My “tribe” in this case is obviously the “dress up and make believe” crowd, and by extension, the professionals.  As a consequence, even though I never had a “dog in that fight” I enjoyed reflecting on the Oscars and the Emmys and the Tonys as they were handed out.  Of course, I never took any of it “seriously” because it is, by design, trivial fun.  However, as leftie zealots took the opportunity to hijack the events to bang their own drums, the show lost some luster.

By the time Sonny Corleomo picked up his Emmy, I was completely unimpressed.  It had devolved into an obvious insiders’ club generations ago, so I no longer nursed any illusions.  When the motion picture academy declined to give Ronald Reagan a lifetime achievement award, I thought that it was no oversight, just proper benign neglect.  While I have enormous respect for Ronald Reagan (as an ACTOR) I realize that his greatest artistic achievements took place on the small screen.  From guest appearances on Wagon Train and hosting Death Valley Days, to his magnum opus as “The President,” he touched millions of viewers with his skill, his poise, his humor, and his presence.  An award from the television industry would not have surprised me except for the obvious fact that most in the entertainment biz are spiteful commie twits.  Republicans aren’t much better, but at least they give superior lip-service to freedom.  When the Emmys declined to so honor such a fitting recipient, they surrendered the remains of their tattered credibility.

Which is why Sonny’s Emmy didn’t bother or surprise me. 
Actually, come to think of it, it’s kind of cool. Once again Sonny’s “accomplishments” eclipse Fredo’s fumbling attempts.

update 201226: My “conservative” friends, whom I often tease as leftie sympathizers, have as hard a time picturing me hanging out with other amateur actors, as “community players” have understanding my toleration of the “extreme” views of Evil Orange President. I don’t blame either group. I am an outlier almost everywhere I go. But as an actor… Well, it’s a good thing I’m so talented. Otherwise, this cadre of (generally) the leftiest, paisliest, patchouliest bunch of spiritual statists you could ever dread to encounter, wouldn’t have put up with my anarcho-materialist blasphemies.