Saturday, December 5, 2015

Mass Shootings… Rated TV-MALV

I am trying to think of what to say about the shit which is going on with the mass shooting thing. There is so much bullshit in this that I am at a loss for words, or have too many words to describe my outrage. Watching the news does not help. Reading shit on Facebook and other Social Media is ludicrous. Trying to pray, sadly, gives little relief. And the fucking republicans voted against doing anything about it! It is like I woke up today in a different reality where we just have to take shit and can do nothing about it. Except it isn’t a different reality, it is what is happening right the fuck now.

I write and wonder the effect these words are going to have. So many differing opinions and ideas make it hard to decide. If I write about gun control, I am a pacifist even though I own a gun. If I disagree with what some idiot fundamentalist Christian preacher spews I am an atheist. If I do not want our troops to go back to the Middle East and say so, I am unpatriotic or a traitor. If I complain about conservative politicians taking bribes and committing crimes, I am a bleeding heart liberal. If I talk about possible solutions I am a communist or a simpleton. If I complain about the misinterpretation of the Second Amendment, I am a socialist lamebrain. If I talk about how much I love and respect the President, I am a nigger lover. And finally, if I let any of these things bother me, I really am a mentally defective simpleton. WHICH I AM NOT!

Mass shootings have become an accepted part of our culture. It must be so because they have occurred more than once a day for the last year. San Bernardino has mesmerized the country and once more launched the debate on what there is to do. The next day there was yet another shooting in another location. Only a few died. Anyone know where that happened? This abomination has transpired more times in America than anywhere else in the world since 2005. It has become a money making proposition. News agencies have had a field day with the topic, in between advertisements, commercials, endorsements, and outright graft, and yes I do mean graft. Graft is, when not talking about medicine or planting trees, a function of politics. When was the last time anyone read, viewed, or heard a news report that was not driven by the politics of the administration of the agency reporting?

How did this become? It is beyond my comprehension that this has developed into a daily affair. It happens and we ask why even though the answer is right in front of us. We allow it because we are too selfish, scared, or ambivalent to address the real issue. We want to own guns and any talk of restricting that scares the shit out of us. We would rather let crazy people shoot up innocent men, women, and children than go without something only a small percentage of our population have the need or right to use. Assault weapons are for those who are in the business of staging, defending from, or reacting to assaults. This means soldiers, police, and those others tasked with defending our country. They should not be sold. AT ALL!!!!!

Owning a gun is not a bad thing per se, except when you have it with the intention of harming another human being. Hunting and home protection are reasonable uses and purposes for owning a gun. Owning one that will fire twenty or thirty times before reloading is overkill and, apparently, we are in love with killing a lot of people at a one time. We must, it happens so much that is the norm instead of the exception.

As to the rest of what I have said, I stand firm. News agencies are Satan’s tools and we embrace them. I am not a traitor; I am an Honorably Discharged veteran of the US Army who believes war is an atrocity and should be avoided at all costs. I am a supporter of Barack Obama because he is a good man and a fine president. If you disagree with this then keep it the fuck to yourself and, by the way, he is also a white man as well as a black man! Our government breeds criminal activity in the manner in which it has chosen to make and maintain election law. Christian Fundamentalists regularly deny, in their preaching, the teaching, and commandments of Jesus Christ where it applies to loving their fellow man. I embrace Jesus Christ as my God as taught me by my mother and sister; two loving and committed Christian women.

And in conclusion, the Second Amendment was included in the Constitution at a time when private citizen militias were necessary for the defense of the country. That is no longer the case, and the complete meaning and spirit of the amendment is being horribly subverted by blockheaded imbeciles who do not know how to fucking read!


Peace…Goddamit!!!

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

An Fhís

“But it is not you. It is them.” He sat at the end of my bed and quietly sipped a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette. There was nothing remarkable about him. Just a dude with a couple of days growth on his face wearing jeans, work boots, and a “Frank Zappa for President” t-shirt like the one I was sleeping in. I sat up in bed and asked him what he was talking about. It did not occur to me to ask him who he was and how he had to audacity to be in my house and drinking my coffee when I had no earthly idea who the fuck he was

“It’s true, you know. You have been wondering for days why people act the way they do when you show up anywhere. It seems as if you are an interruption in their ordinary everyday ordinariness and it is an imposition for you to even be breathing.” He blew some smoke rings and looked at me.

“What in the Holy Good Christ are you talking about?” I asked even though I knew perfectly well what he was saying.

“Oh, don’t be coy now. I am just telling you that it is not your fault. All those fuckers out there are just jealous of you and treat you as if you are an intrusion for just being there. Even that dumbshit smiling guy at the Stop N’ Shop gas station who you never talk to because you use your card at the pump and never even walk the hell inside thinks you’re weird. He waves at you and you wave back, but he is secretly counting the minutes you are even out front of his store. He thinks you are peculiar even though he is just a stupid son of a bitch who works there because he dropped out of high school and cannot get a better job.” More smoke rings drift to the ceiling.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That guy always smiles at me and besides, that’s the cheapest gas in town.” I swing my legs over and sit on the side of the bed. “Go away, I have to pray and then piss before I get my coffee. Did you leave any in the pot?” I look at his cup which seems really immense.

“I’ll make a fresh pot. See you in the living room. I know how you take it.” He gets up and pads out the door. I noticed he had slipped out of his work boots and was walking in bare feet. This deepened my resentment. Who the shit not only invades a guy’s bedroom but has the impudence to feel comfortable enough to walk around without shoes?

I read my books, and say my prayers before heading to the toilet. I have my t-shirt and boxers on from sleeping and toss on my bathrobe, leaving it open as I walk. I go to the can and then walk to the living room. I stop and take a detour to get my slippers in order to make the right statement to my barefooted home invader. I get back to my chair and find a piping hot cup of Joe on the table next to it where I keep the remote and whatever book I am currently reading. The bold burglar is nowhere to be found. Getting the first sip down I catch him peering, headfirst, from the kitchen with a spatula in his hand asking me how I like my eggs. He tells me to watch the news while I drank my coffee and that breakfast will be finished in a jiffy.

The level of confusion over this bizarre incident begins to grow and I start thinking it might be better to just listen and go along. I finish the coffee, get up, and walk into the kitchen. I am greeted with a properly set table with an azalea bloom in a long stemmed vase. There are plates, silverware, and glasses of what had to be fresh squeezed orange juice (The oranges I put in the bowl on the kitchen counter are gone) and milk. My intruder motions for me to sit down and when I did he sets before me a plate of bacon and eggs and another with three pancakes. He goes to the refrigerator bringing the butter dish and the jelly. How does he know that I eat my pancakes with jelly? The final touch is a plate of buttermilk pancakes and a bowl of sausage gravy. He sits down and, bowing his head, asks me if I wanted to say grace.

After clearing the dishes for him and loading the dishwasher, I ask him to explain himself. He waves for me to follow him out the back door and sits down at the edge of the patio overlooking the back yard. It is my favorite spot and he appears right at home in the empty chair that I have placed next to mine with a table in between. This was, in my mind, God’s chair and he has some nerve sitting there. He waves for me to sit and I do…grudgingly.

“You see, you got off on the wrong foot when you started writing that damn book. Nobody wants to read a book that tells them that they cannot or should not do something that they just love to do.” He lights another cigarette and sits back crossing his legs. “I have a real problem with it, hell I told everyone that they should not do it a long damn time ago. Hell, fucking commanded them not to.”
“You are not trying to convince me that you are God! That would be totally absurd! I mean, how could everyone even be mad at me when I have not done anything but write the damn thing and never even tried to publish it? All it was supposed to be was something to make me feel better after those folks died in New York!” I could feel my blood pressure starting to spike and my chest get tight.

“I know, I know. People are weird. They think who the fuck they are. That whole freedom of choice gig was a major faux pas dude. I’ve been regretting it ever since I let it happen. Hell, look what it has brought us to!”

“Man, I am not having this conversation! You are going to tell me who the shitting hell you are or I am going to call the police…RIGHT NOW!” I grabbed his pack of cigarettes and lit one. The first puff reminded me why I had given them up.

When I looked back at him, and he’s gone, vanished into the clear air. All that remains is the pack of cigarettes and the empty coffee cup he had been drinking from. I sit staring at the chair for a while and finally surrendering, walk back in the house. I find my computer and, opening the word processing program, begin to type. I realize that the book about killing is not done. I’ve let it languish for several years while I went out and found other things to do. I do feel odd when I walked out in public. I am not paranoid. I do feel that many people treat me as if they have bitterness toward me, but it does not bother me. I just did not care. Or is it, that I did not think that there anything to be done about it? Could there really be a world where killing was just something that people liked? Dreamed of and pursued like it was the answer to all their problems?


No. It cannot be. It must not be! Let him come and make me breakfast if he must, I WILL finish and publish that book!