“I’ve been wrong before and I’ll be there again.”

22 February 2022

I’ve misunderstood before what friendship means and who are actually friends and who just like my occasionally amusing quips. I may never fully grasp it, but the last couple of years have taught me a bit more about what friendship is not. It seems to have less to do with honesty than with tiptoeing around delicate little feelings.

“In the field of [social intercourse] it’s plowin’ time again.”

Lyric from “Field of Opportunity” by Neil Young, 1978

Lyrical Scraps

Shabby Tricks”   23 August 1985
Shabby tricks!
You always pull such stinking shabby tricks!
You’re always getting yourself in a fix!
Down a ditch!
Up a crick without a paddle and you pull us in with shabby tricks!
You really are a foul disgrace!
You’re really in disfavor, ‘cause we hate the flavor,
Of your dirty lowdown shabby tricks!

With the Hair and the Music” 14 January 1994
What’s the matter with kids these days?
Goin’ through life in a smoky haze?
Why do they think that violence pays?
What kind of monsters did we raise?
With the guns and the drugs and the hair and the music!

Oldie, the round-Heeled Spice Girl” w/ Robi Jo &al (1 March 2000)

Well you know
Ginger, and Baby, and Sporty, and Scary,
Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Posh and Rosemary!
But do you recall,
The most ancient Spice Girl of all!

Hello my name is Old Spice,
And I wear the lamest clothes.
My legs are veined and wrinkly,
And I don’t wear pantyhose.
All of the other Spice Girls
Put out for the football team.
They just will not believe that
I was once their Pops’ wet dream.

When Versace hosts a ball,
We’ll show up to play!
When that party starts to stall
Then we’re on our way!
If you wanna be my lover,
Ya gotta get up with my friends.
But if you think it’s too much bother,
Then you can just kiss our rear ends!

“Capitol Hill” (28 December 2002)
(meter stolen from Sherwood Schwartz)

Just vote for me and I’ll bring home pork from Washington DC.
We’ll soak the other taxpayers, but you’ll get yours for free.
We’ll build you a mighty welfare state, and it will be your slave,
Offering full coverage from the cradle to the grave
(The cradle to the grave…)

We’ll regulate small businesses, we’ll tie them up in knots.
If not for the vigor of the working class, the budget would be shot.
(The budget would be shot…)

When things turn sour we’ll duck the blame,
You cannot pin us down.
Not two Senators, your Congressman (doodle-oodle-oot-doo)
The President, or his Vice (waa waa waaah)
His Cabinet, the Supreme Court, or the Pentagon!
What a slick bunch of lice!

(intermezzo)

So, that’s the way the system works, we’ll rob the country blind.
And blame each other’s party, you’ll buy it every time.
The Donkey and the Elephant will patronize the pest
Who whimpers for free goodies from the public treasure chest.
“New roads! Food stamps! More benefits! Not a single user fee!”
Don’t call it “Socialism”, we say “Democracy!”

So watch the action on the floor, it’s sure to make you ill.
Those lying scheming Congressmen, there on Capitol Hill!

“Don’t Touch My Junk” (w/ John Tyner, 23 November 2010)

I’m not a fan of your scans, but without help from God above,
You won’t touch my junk…
I wanna fly through the skies without fear of harrassment,
And no I’m not impressed with yer professional detachment,
Yer gropin’ up my thigh provokes a natural reaction,
Don’t touch my junk!

I want to fly to the west when my trip commences,
With my self respect and my common senses,
(You don’t need to know if I am on my menses),
Don’t want irradiated and don’t want molested,
Don’t touch my junk!

I think them porno portals are carcinogenic,
The latex on yer fist don’t make you a medic,
So git yer mitts off of my sweet stuff,
You’re givin’ me a headache,
Don’t touch my junk!

“Fake News” (2 September 2018)
“Week fans’ swank fee wakes fen, knew safe, kens a few.” — N.E. Fawkes

“Media Madness” (28 November 2018)
(meter stolen from Graham Nash)

In a cloistered room in Congress,
Under wraps so the world can’t see,
The President is hobbled,
In the name of “Democracy!”

Mueller-Trump Madness is thrilling the country!
It’s partisan hack work! It’s Dems on a spree!

Did Putin hack Her e-mails?
Did Assange let the truth get free?
Will schemers share the details,
For suborning perjury?

Manafort Madness is filling my country
With shock and amusement, free of dignity!

Wood Bits”     26 March 2019
Hoo Ray for Wally Wood!
Big-breasted women never looked so good!
The way he’d draw a damsel in distress
Without a dress!
In pen and ink his work was…
Undeniably the best!

Dear Diary(25 May 2019)
Did ya rare airy dread dry ear aid? Add ire ray.
Day raider read diary. I dye radar.
Dairy dare: aired yard.
Dryad Aire dried Arya.
A Dreary Id

“Space Gun 2036” (20 June 2019 for Wells et al)
“O Very Newt, we try oven.”
New Votery, Envy Tower,
Everytown

At the Vectory               5 May 2020
Germs are all around!  Every surface, every pore!
Pathogens abound!  Wuhan Flu™ and so much more!
Now I don’t know if I’m being cautious,
And I don’t know if I’m being fooled.
But I put on the mask like they ask us,
Though I know that I look like a tool.

Sanitize the world!  Spray down anything that moves!
Battle flags unfurled!  Our campaign is in the groove!
It’s a cinch that we’ll vanquish this virus!
By employing new means of control!
I can’t shake the thought that they’ve had us!
Or that next year I’m catching a cold.

A Lady Tonight, Syntax Be. 24 September 2020  
Predated Bill, Ted, and Yoda by decades, did Damon Runyan.
This he would do with most elegant prose.

Dough Reigh Miegh
12 October 2020  
A-C-B!
Much better than R-B-G!
Confirm her A-S-A-P, U-L-C,
Dems go mad throughout D-C!

Natural Anti-Semitism

13 February 2019

Anti-Semitism is the inescapable confluence of bigotry and demography.

Most ignorant savages hate and fear smart people. They either “think” that we’re evil wizards, or that we’re up to no good. (“[Constantly imposing] their safety and hygiene and prosperity [on the skeptical.]”) On the other hand, they seem to have no trouble at all with their cold beer, TVs, or “smart” phones. (“Oh look! Bright colors!“)

Decades of psychometric examinations on thousands of subjects have clearly shown that, Jews, taken as a cohort, often described as “crafty, cunning, clever, and conniving” (all ways of saying “smarter than me”) are indeed smarter than the rest of us, just edging out the East Asians in second place.

Can’t have that. [Them smart people is up ta sumpthin!]

update 190218:
At Matthew 6:6 Ministries, we are definitely Up to Know Good!
In addition to brains, poetry is also good, and I’d love to provide some. Instead, I’ll offer this collaboration from me and Elvis of Puna, with meter stolen from Hanna, Barbera, or one of their many minions:

Fundtsteins!
Meet the Fundtsteins!
They’re the modern Jewish family!
All their —
Sons are lawyers,
And their daughter has a PhD!
When it’s —
Time for you to pay your tax!
You can —
Be assured that you’ll relax,
With a —
Tax accountant,
Who knows all the hidden secrets,
You’ll never regret,
Your Jewish CPA!

Resisting or Yielding to Temptations

18 February 2022

I was good. Really I was. I had considered showing up wearing a useless facemask, just to wave my dick a little. In fact, I was going to cover it first with safety pins, thus folding in an earlier schtick that was de rigueur a season or so back. That way, of course, I would be twice as safe. I think I’ll do that anyway, adorn my surviving mask with safety pins, so that it’ll be ready when a harried merchant requests or a bureaucratic thug demands it next. But I did not wear it to Sugar‘s ([and BUD‘s!]) house, as much as I was tempted to crow out how much I’d told the world this time. But I was a guest, and besides, I’m a coward, so I wasn’t about to stir up an unnecessary confrontation.

But avoiding provocation didn’t help, because out of the blue and apropos of nothing apparent, FP decided that she needed to look after L’Historienne‘s welfare, in whose home I will be living for the week or so it takes me to secure my own accommodations in Texas. “Has [she] been vaccinated (sic), and does she know that you haven’t been?” I assured her that L’H was fully aware of my jab-free status, and that she was also uninjected and uninfected with these experimental concoctions.

FP then had to go on and regale me with sad anecdotes about some of her “anti-vax” friends who (at advanced ages and with possible other compromises) had taken quite ill and in fact, in one case, actually succumbed. I agreed that that was very sad, then we sat awkwardly until pleasanter discourse prevailed. Maybe I should have expected as much, but I failed to reckon with how enduring a love of fear of Wuhan Flu® could be. 

A Promise is a Promise

update 220213: In Autumn of 1969, my (half-)sister was not yet seven and I was not yet fourteen, and we were both fresh to Hawaii and living in temporary housing. Her father (and my nemesis) had recently been transferred to his new assignment at Pearl Harbor and the Navy had yet to find permanent billeting for his dependents. July’s moon landing was fresh in our memories, and I was the weird kid who was super excited about the Apollo program. Looking up at a clear night sky, she asked me if I would take her with me to the moon, and I assured her that if that’s what she wanted, then I would.

You probably already know most of the intervening story, but years later I began to feel the pangs of having disappointed both myself and her, which was prompted by advertisements for a quarter ounce silver coin forged in the image of Luna. In the same package as the coin, I also sent her a copy of my latest novel, and this letter:

28 July 2020

Hey Kid,

Every promise carries weight, and as the years go by,
if they are not resolved, they get heavier and heavier. 

Promises made TO children carry the most weight.  Weight of commitment, because it is as important to teach children to trust as it is to teach them to be trustworthy, to cherish and to honor as much as to be cherished and honored.

Promises made BY children carry a different kind of weight altogether.  Weight of charm and weight of sentiment.   And the very least weight of commitment.  Children are childish and they do and say childish things, so we tend to take them less seriously than other people.  Still, we do want to encourage them to live up to their commitments as best they can, and to expect the same from others.

That boy standing on the balcony by the tabasco tree in Waipahu meant every word he said when he promised his sister the moon.  I think by now we can give him a bit of a break.  He was young and naïve and optimistic.  And plenty stupid.  He’s still plenty stupid, of course, that never changes, and naïve and optimistic, but not so young.  A little more experienced perhaps, and maybe a little more cautious and circumspect.  Certainly, less hasty to lead with his heart.

Still, a promise is a promise. 
For now, Kiddo, this is the most moon I can manage. 
Sorry about the delay.  Enjoy!
And I haven’t completely given up hope on the actual moon,
but it’s not looking all that promising.

her response (210822): “Good morning, [Gene], I want to thank you very much for the book and moon coin. I have not started the book yet, but will soon. The letter and moon coin brought tears to my eyes.” For all of my contempt for her father, I am nevertheless grateful that he lived, at least long enough to sire her. It may be the only good thing he ever did. I think she’s the best, and her husband, children, and grandchildren all seem to agree with me.

What’s a Nine Digit Word for Rubbish?

The nine digit ZIP Code is utter nonsense.
The original proposal for the Zone Identification Postal Code had merit. With just five digits, potentially a hundred thousand discrete locations, you can get a letter or a package to the nearest post office.

For decades, on the outsides of my correspondence, I have put only my name (or usually just my initials), my street address, and the five digits. Never a problem. For a couple of months in 1976 or ‘77 I sent it out with addressees’ explicit city and state lacking, as those data are supposedly subsumed by the ZIP Code. But, because the Post Office employs human beings (who are idiots) they couldn’t figure out how to read their own allegedly superior system, yet they somehow managed to get it back to me, marked “undeliverable”.

Insofar as the USPS can’t be relied on to take itself seriously, and those extra four digits only allow for ten thousand locations within each Zone, it is clearly inadequate to the urban scene, and irrelevant to the rural.
190208

If I Were So Wired

10 February 2019

I’ve long coveted the assurance of religious conviction, but my skeptical nature denies me such comforts. I understand the temptations of disbelievers to be swayed by extraordinary coincidence, extreme emotional trauma, and sentiment. Often the birth of a child or a near death experience will do it.

Last Friday a colleague of mine suffered a great personal tragedy. Her granddaughter was killed in an auto accident which also took the life of the girl’s de facto stepmother and put her father and her brother into intensive care with grim prognoses. It constitutes a very tough time for said colleague, and while I know I cannot help with the most important work of hugging and crying and sitting quietly as needs be, I still want to help. Cash can paper over a lot of logistical difficulties in the middle of such stress because the crap part of life never lets up. Whether it’s rushing meals or missing work or making arrangements for relatives, cash can help smooth the way. My means are modest, but I can help a little. Mine is the easy part; I cannot even begin to imagine what a bereaved grandmother must be going through. My heart breaks hard enough at just the thought of it.

Last night (Saturday) at the Quikk Stopp by the Interstate, a regular friendly customer, a local Corrections Officer, concluded the transaction portion of his visit, and rather than bidding each other the cordial farewells we normally do, he paused and looked a little bit embarrassed.

“I don’t mean to be weird,” he said, “but the Holy Spirit told me to give you this.” He pushed a wad of bills across the counter.
I picked it up and stammered and managed to say, “Wow. Thanks, CO.”
He smiled and said, “Christ loves you,” and turned and began to walk out.
“I…” was all I could think to say as I watched him leave.

It’s not unprecedented for shop clerks to receive gratuities. It’s not common, either, certainly not the standard. Maybe around holidays sometimes, after establishing personal relationships. (And of course there’s that occasional bit of “keep the metal” from some customers.) Actual deliberate tips, though, are rare, and usually just a matter of a small bill or two, but this was a day’s wage. This was something special.

A day’s wage is pretty much what I had already resolved to kick over to Comrade First Shift but just hadn’t yet. I’m not procrastinating, I can read the schedule so I know when she’ll be back. Right now she doesn’t need me in her shit. When she returns to her lighter paycheck she’ll also find my little boost with CO’s extra helping backing me up.

What so moved CO to bestow so lavish a gift? Well, he told me already, didn‘t he? It was “the Holy Spirit.” I expect he believes it, and I think I might like to, but for about a half a century now I’ve made a pretty steady claim of atheist materialism — with a generous dollop of Rastafarian Agnostic Sybarite folded in for flavor. CO spends his time around people who are a lot worse off than me. If he wanted to help someone out, and witness the gospel at the same time, I expect he has plenty of opportunities. Of course, working for the state, he may be constrained from proselytizing his charges.

I’m an old dude who works at the Quikk Stopp by the Interstate to keep himself in groceries and electricity and other expensive indulgences. My lifestyle is not lavish, but I’m not particularly suffering. Maybe I’m his mission and he thinks I need the help. Sometimes there are holes in my clothing, and my shaves and haircuts are often haphazard and irregular (because I don‘t care), so maybe he thinks I’m hungry. I don’t complain (about that.) Was my vicarious grief in response to Comrade First’s loss apparent in my body language? Did CO already know about the tragedy and was relying on my presumed character to “do the right thing”? A calculated risk that, but not impossible.

So far I am unable to rule out subconscious reasoning, subterfuge, deceit, coincidence, or psychic manipulation. Or divine intervention. My (poor) understanding of the mathematics underpinning current physical theory opens me to many unprecedented phenomena, but because they are unprecedented, the burden of proof rests on the positive. Of course, I expect CO would remind me that history is replete with reports of miracles, so, so much for “unprecedented”, and I might point out that sometimes you’re dealt a pat hand. I do know that I was emotionally distraught. People who know me tell me I have some obvious tells, and CO has been acquainted with me for at least a couple of years. His trade (security and corrections) calls for a good ability to read people. With inmates specifically I guess he’s watching for violence, but in so doing he’s also learning the emotional language that overlaps with other venues.

I’m no Saul of Tarsus, and I have no conversion to report, but I have a better idea now of what rapture and agape mean. It was a unique emotional rush for me, that confluence of circumstances — sadness, compassion, resolve, amazement, delight. And fraternity! CO is a man whom I’ve grown to trust and respect, and he offered to enfold me in his and Christ’s love!

If I were so wired…

Love’s Losses

9 February 2022

My brother fell in love with hating Donald Trump, and it’s squeezed out many of his other loves. This mystifies me, because while I have no doubts about Mr Trump’s worthiness of disapproval, I remain baffled as to what made him significantly more hateful than the mass murdering sociopaths who inhabited the White House before and after him. Strictly based on body count, he may have been the least awful President since Jimmeh Carter. Now that the “evil orange monster” is out of office, you’d think he’d check back on his beloved hatred a little, but it must be an intoxicant too powerful to quit.

Mrs Axis seems to have fallen in love with fearing WuhanFlu™ and it’s squeezed out many of their other loves. This mystifies me, because, while I have no doubts about the dangers of the coronae, I remain baffled as to what made these significantly more dangerous than the seemingly endless varieties of coronae and influenzae, and indeed, all respiratory viri who inhabited our biome before them. Strictly based on body count, it may have been the equal to the Spanish, or Hong Kong, or Swine flus. Now that more accurate data are available, you’d think she’d check back on her cherished fears a little, but it must be an intoxicant too powerful to quit.
If only I, and the ideals we supposedly shared, were half as intoxicating.

Unhappy Anniversaries

210106 — The Capitol Hill Ruckus and murder of Ashli Babbitt

210109 — Singled Down (detached, dejected, rejected, and rescinded)

190717 — All them issues, All them feelings: A relay event wherein the Baton of My Perpetual Failure is passed from the hand of “it’s your own fault for not talking to us” to the hand of “how could you say such a thing?

We Might As Well Be Jews


Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of Man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded… are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised… and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority… is driven out of society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as ‘bad luck’.”
— Robert Heinlein, 1973

24 January 2019

My step-father insisted that I remain stupid in his presence. “Don’t get smart with me, boy!” He once swore to me that “if it’s the last thing I do I’m going to slap that smart mouth right off your face!” Fifty years later he’s out of the picture, and I’m still a mouthy prick. He tried. He really tried, but I could never measure up. But really, this was supposed to be about the Jews, and why we all hate them.

Jews are too smart. Cain’t trust them smart people. Them smart people is up to no good. Alla time trine ta shove their safety, efficiency, hygiene, leisure, and abundance down our throats. Somethin’s gotta be done!” Bigots have been on to us for centuries. History and literature are replete with references to “the inscrutable Oriental” and “cunning Japs” and “sneaky, crafty, conniving Jews.” All of these (except perhaps for “sneaky” which may just mean “light of tread” or “careful of step”) are simply ways of saying, “They’re smarter than us!”

Why are little negro girls beaten up by their classmates? The excuses betray a theme. “Da bitch ax for it,” and “She cray, she think she better’n us,” and, of course, that most egregious offense of all, “’Cause she ac’ white!”

What does that mean, to “ac’ white”? It appears to refer mainly to those children who speak clearly, dress neatly, attend to their studies, and are generally deferential (if not respectful) to their instructors. It’s a pity more “white” children (and alleged adults) don’t “ac’ white.” Know whum sane?

It’s almost like an unconscious admission that (on average) “white” people are smarter than “black” people, and “Jews” are smarter than “white” people by about a standard deviation each. The classmates’ reaction is a visceral reflexive defense against anyone acting out of place or above his station. As if scholastic achievement were a betrayal of one’s “people” or “kind.“

Don’t blame me for these data. (Or Charles Murray or James Watson.) It was the US military that conducted these psychometric examinations upon thousands of applicants over several generations. (I was one of those applicants, and I apologize for skewing the average.) Their point of view was not Jim Crow, nor Louis Farrakhan, nor Kumbaya. The military’s main mission is murder and mayhem. Unless directed to by a bleeding-heart Congress, they care very little for your delicate little feelings or your ardent racial pride.

Norm MacDonald says that David Letterman is the smartest comic he knows. I know OF Letterman, and of other comics, but I don’t know any personally, so I’ll take Norm’s word for it. I like Letterman, and I think he’s funny, but he doesn’t come across to me as extra smart. In fact, his dumb-guy schtick, and his apparent dumb-guy ethos, are a big part of his act. “Nobody likes a smart comic,” says MacDonald, and I disagree. I LOVE smart comics, and many have been successful (George Carlin, Dennis Miller, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Dave Smith, Margaret Smith) but none of them can summon the size of the audience that Letterman, Jim Carrey, Carrot Top, or Gallagher might. (Perhaps Norm meant ALMOST nobody. If so, he should say so.)

The Bush family is not stupid. They are evil, wicked, shallow, vain, and cruel, but they are not stupid. Dubya ( “lahk his Daddeh” ) is a Yale graduate, and yet he pronounces nuclear “nuke ya lurr.” His base eats it up. His major competitors, HALGOR 9000 and John Kerry, are both widely perceived to be of rarified intellect (they are not) and of an elite and effete class (they are.) Dubya was elected twice. He’s jus’ a good ol’ boy. And while he is a talented painter, he doesn’t seem to know how to hold a hammer. I believe he’s a clever guy who found a winning formula for success.

My father once told me that he was an Adlai Stevenson man two cycles in a row. “He had every thinking man’s vote,” he said. “Unfortunately it takes a majority.”

update 200828 — Defending the Curve

Working at the QuikkStopp-by-the-Interstate™ provided an opportunity to test Murray’s bell curve, cited above. One of my duties every shift was to mop the floor, and as an aid to protect our bottom line from lawsuits we were provided with “Caution, Wet Floor” signs. I had no way of knowing when or whether customers would come in, so I would mop in stages, blocking off the wet sections with the signs. Doing so, I would often carve out a dry path from the door to the till. Some customers would take the trouble to step over or around the signs and tread across the wet section to get to the till that was closed, while most would take the easier path to the till that was open. I believe that this is an objective test of stupidity, albeit with a limited sample, so errors could be substantial.

Who’s dumber, on average? Chance should show the proportions of stupid behavior as more or less equal to demographic representation. Is it really true that “whaht people’re smarter’n them nigras?” In Greater Cincinnatistan, the population breaks down approximately as follows: Pink People 75%, Brown People 20%, and Clearly Asian People 5%. Over the course of a couple of years, I kept track of who took the extra effort to go to the wrong till. That was my working definition of “stupid,” and this is what I saw, a total of 93 pinhead transgressors, as follows:

Pink Male: 48, Pink Female: 9, Total Pink People: 57/93 = 61.3%
Brown Male: 21, Brown Female: 9, Total Brown People: 30/93 = 32.3%
Asian Male: 6, Asian Female: 0, Total Asian People: 6/93 = 6.5%

Based on larger, more comprehensive studies, I should have expected fewer Asians to unnecessarily tread on the wet floor, but again, mine is a very small sample, so anomalies are naturally exaggerated.

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