Desperate Need of Nothing

Mutt: So what’s up with the Boss?

Jeff: Silence is golden.
Mutt: Maybe he doesn’t have anything to say. Ran out of brains.
Jeff: Never stopped him before.
Mutt: I heard he wrote some posts on the current political situation, but is too chicken to publish them.
Jeff: Squawk, squawk.
Mutt: Quack, quack.
Jeff: Did you hear about the two microbes who lived inside of a horse?
Mutt: What? Another microbe joke!
Jeff: They were just barely squeaking out a living by eating any small particles of food that passed by the tiny capillary in which they were living. After discussing it among themselves, they decided to move out to a bigger artery, and then to a large vein, but too late they realized their mistake. They forgot the old maxim: Don’t change streams in mid-horse.
Mutt: Once there was a King who was loved by all of his subjects, especially because of the hunting excursions he shared with them. As will happen, one day he died and his eldest son took the throne. Now this new king was an animal-lover to the core, and immediately outlawed all forms of hunting and fishing. His subjects accepted this for only a short time before they ousted him.
Jeff: So what?
Mutt: So what? Well, this is a truly significant event, because it's the first time a reign was called on account of the game.
Jeff: Every one a winner.
Mutt: Yabba dabba doo.
Jeff: It seems that there were these three pregnant Indian squaws, all due to give birth at about the same time. The first squaw gave birth to a boy, and the birthing was done on a deer hide. The second also gave birth to a boy, but this was done on a bear hide. And the third had twins, two boys, and she did this on a hippopotamus hide.
Mutt: I am really afraid to ask.
Jeff: This shows us that the sons of the squaw on the hippopotamus hide is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.
Mutt: I don’t get it.
Jeff: Neither do I.
Mutt: For the love of Mike!
Jeff: Oowah!

Copenhagen by Lucinda Williams

Thundering news hits me like a snowball
Struck in my face and shattering
Covering me in a fine powder and mist
And mixing in with my tears,

And I'm 57 but I could be 7 years old,
'Cause I will never be able
To comprehend the expansiveness
Of what I've just learned.

But you, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed.

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed.

Walking through unfamiliar streets
And I'm shaking unfamiliar hands
And I'm hearing unfamiliar laughs
And lovely language I don't understand.

It's late October in Copenhagen
The skies are grey, the snow is falling
I see my breath outside, I'm freezing
I'm motionless, I'm disbelieving.

But you, have disappeared
You have been released
You are flecks of light
You are missed.

Somewhere, spinning round the sun
Circling the moon
Traveling through time
You are missed.


Happy trials, Martin

Neal Under the Tree

This year Neal waited until December 24^th to buy his Christmas tree. That way he would save a lot of money and still have a nice evergreen for the living room. Of course, when he got to the cut tree sale in the shopping center parking lot, most of the ones left were crooked, needle-less and sickly. The heavy snows had made many trees grow into question marks. Yet the fat man and his sons still had plenty of Christmas trees for sale; maybe they’d overstocked.

One flashing thirty-footer was on display at the back end of the lot. The clever idea was that the shoppers would enter from the front and on their way to see the huge decorated tree at the rear would find a darling to set their hearts on. Plus, you could see the tree sales area from miles away.

Many people did buy trees, the cute ones, but by the 24^th there was still half a lot full, half off, 70% off, and make us an offer. Tomorrow they’d all go into the shredder, except the Paul Bunyan model that would go chopped into the fireplace.

When they saw Neal coming, they got ready to make one final deal. One of the kids asked him as he ambled in, “You need a piece of rope to tie up your tree?” And Neal thought that a bit odd but took the offered rope end just in case. He pulled it behind him like a dog leash. What he didn’t realize, because he was distracted looking so hardly at the crumpled trees, was that the boy hadn’t cut the other end of the rope and Neal was trailing the whole spool behind.

In the spirit of the jolly season, in the spirit of eggnog and peppermint schnapps, the fat man and his boys watched as Neal walked around amongst the trees holding the end of a rope that wasn’t cut and kept rolling off the spool by the entrance. They laughed till they held their sides; they cried and made each other laugh even more. The younger boys were bent over double, and the father had a coughing-spitting attack, then continued laughing. Nothing was ever as joyous and merry as this doofus dragging a rope all around their trees.

Neal, on the other hand, was using his keen eye and fine sense of judgment to get the very best of the rejects that remained in the lot. He wouldn’t be cheated, and he planned to get his tree for 80% off, if not more. He arrived at the telephone pole-height lighted tree at the end of the tree lot (out in mid-parking lot). Plus, he had reached the end of his rope.

Neal, who thought he maybe had a six or eight-foot piece of rope, the length used to tie a tree to his car roof, who thought it may have gotten caught under a tree’s tiny x-stand, who stood hidden in a forest of dry aromatic firs, pulled on the rope end to no effect. He was peeved at this stuck rope deal because he had seen several contenders and was trying to remember which tree would look best in his apartment. So he pulled harder. To unstick his rope, Neal leaned back and yanked with all his might.

The hundred foot rope pulled the trees at the entrance; it pulled them over in fact. Those first dominos toppled over the one next to them and the whole forest started to shift. Timber! Neal couldn’t see over the tops near him, but he could hear some shouting and some rumbling. He pulled again, dammit, that rope was really wedged in tight under something! Row after row of trees fell towards our hero. When he finally saw the avalanche he turned to run in panic.

The Christmas trees seemed to be chasing him. Neal cried out like a girl. He turned right around to run as fast as he could away from the tree monsters coming to get him. Blindly he ran smack into the big tall pine trunk with the blue, red, yellow, green lights flashing on it. Neal smacked his hard forehead on the tree so hard that it tottered. People pushing their shopping carts to their cars couldn’t figure out what was happening in the tree lot area, but the trees were all tipped on their sides and the big one was starting to lean. Neal had fallen back onto the ground, knocked out cold, possibly dead. The big tree couldn’t recover its balance and fell out into the parking lot. A white SUV was coming around that lane. People shouted at the mother in the van to stop, but she couldn’t see what was about to crash onto her head.

The tree fell with a thud and a swoosh of dust right in front of the SUV; the woman swerved, avoiding disaster, but then skidded and bashed into a couple parked cars. No one was hurt, except Neal who woke up in an ambulance. There were cops at the E.R. and the fat man who said he’d lost his whole business to the Ropeman and the SUV woman and the parked car owners who had called their lawyers and insurance agents. Neal had a concussion and could not understand much, but none of it was good.

Even though a thunderstorm of trouble would arrive in the coming weeks--four lawsuits against Neal for an accident not his fault--Neal celebrated Christmas at home with a bandaged head and a puny three-foot fake tree the nurses at the hospital had given him. It most likely had belonged to a patient who’d died before he could use it. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

Happy trials, Martin

 

Mutt: Good day, partner.

Jeff: And a jolly good day to you old pal.
Mutt: I’ve got a question.
Jeff: Do you now?
Mutt: Is there another word for synonym?
Jeff: Is it possible to be totally partial?
Mutt: Should vegetarians eat animal crackers?
Jeff: Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow (only to be troubled and insecure)?
Mutt: I don’t know, but the question bothers me.
Jeff: I’ve got another. Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do ..."practice"?
Mutt: Let’s go to the races.
Jeff: I hear the ponies calling.
Mutt: What do they say?
Jeff: Trifecta, brother, trifecta.

XXXmas

My yearly humbug a month late? Yes, but a diff take on the season this year. For one thing, I sailed to ye good ol’ U.S. of A. for a new look-see.

The United States of America, the great social experiment, the wild, impractical, honorable, nutso experiment in arbitrary and strained co-habitation. Can former enemies, current enemies, haters of other races, religious fanatics, speakers of different languages, live side by side, get along, form friendships, intermarry and reproduce (see Barry O’s folks), become one people, unite? Citizens from everywhere else crammed into somewhere else become united by what they find to share. (sounds like campaign rhetoric there) But we don’t truly share enough and the experiment fails every day.

I’ve wondered what the big deal with the flag is. Then I got it. The common mutual identity of every other country missing, we’re stuck with a marker, a phony symbol of improbable unity. We’re all flag-wavers, at least. Yet there must be more. Do the Russians, Africans, Indians, Indonesians, Portuguese become Americans through partaking in football or fast food? It is a choice, you know, you can live in the country or be of the country, no matter where you were born.

So that brings us to Christmas, an overwhelming holiday. The lights, trees, Santa hats in the supermarket, the soundtrack played all over the radio and public address systems. You cannot escape Christmas in the U.S. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., are celebrating with the Christian believers and non-believers. Despite “reason for the season” talk, it is now a universal national month of festivities. That beats the stars and bars any day.

Don’t want to feel good, hum along with the songs, smile at each other, wish strangers well, smile at the colored lights, laugh at the silliness, watch the stupid movies, enjoy the excess of food/drink/gifts/family (when will they leave?)? Tough! You got no choice, everybody does Christmas. It’s the ‘Merican Way. Land of plenty, hell, land of too much and-you-know-it. So go on, get happy, eat candy.

And shopping, ahhh, the shopping season, do your stores a favor, fill that cart and that extra bedroom since the garage is already stuffed to the roof. Buy buy old year—hello new … wardrobe/toy collection/next generation electronic do-dads/food till you cry ‘Uncle’, and so on. Shopping not a hobby? Shopping is the great American pasttime, most evident in December.

I’m reading Willa Cather. New immigrants on the western frontier had nearly nothing, slowly acquired the basic tools for survival, then bought that little sugar lump or ribbon for the girl’s hair. Skim five generations ahead. We don’t fix things, we don’t build things, we don’t entertain ourselves anymore, we don’t walk for the joy of walking, we don’t play (casinos don’t count) – we’re too busy down at the mall! There’s a sale on, everything and everyone is half off! Half off!

At the mall, you see the oldest settlers’ descendents and all the new peoples (in my town they’re Asians and Arabs), who may not have assimilated much yet (first generation, you know, like me), but they’re all down at the mall shopping their American hearts out. Land of plenty, milk and honey, toys ‘r us, candyland, dream come true. Salaries are high enough to give everyone that small or large surplus to spend, so spend baby spend! Bush said it was our patriotic duty; I say it’s the emblem of patriotism, of Americanism (which doesn’t really exist, except in advertising). Merry ca-ching Christmas!

Don’t like it? Find it an empty, valueless, superficial lifestyle? Move to Cuba. But don’t bring a boatload of Cubans with credit cards to a Miami outlet, they’ll go berserk.

Hey, I only call ‘em, like I see ‘em.

Happy ca-ching trials, Martin

Mutt: Including Rudolph, how many reindeer does Santa have?

Jeff: I know this. No I don’t.
Mutt: Ten: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Rudolph and Olive.
Jeff: Olive?
Mutt: Yes, Olive the Other Reindeer.
Jeff: Okay, what did the kids say when they saw Dr. Jekyll the Truant Officer coming?
Mutt: Uhhhh.
Jeff: "Hyde! It's Dr. Jekyll!"
Mutt: Too ambivalent. How can sea captains use amphibians?
Jeff: As froghorns? If a seagull flies over the sea, what flies over the bay?
Mutt: A bagel?
Jeff: What did the kid say when his mother poured oatmeal on him? I’ll tell you: "How can you be so gruel?"
Mutt: Yucky. So how did Colonel Sanders die? Give? He choked on his fingers.
Jeff: If you continue, someday I’ll lose all my respect for you.
Mutt: I lost mine for you three years ago.
Jeff: How do you change tires on a duck? With a quackerjack. I learned that one from a three-year old.
Mutt: I learned this from a two-year old: What colour is a belch? Burple.
Jeff: What did Tarzan say to his wife?
Mutt: Go.
Jeff: "Jane, it's a jungle out there!"
Mutt: How do you tickle a rich girl? You don’t know this? Oh, you should. You say "Gucci Gucci Gucci!"
Jeff: Uncle.

Music in Memorium, 2011

Way too many people died this year. Here are some whose music has given me a kick.

Amy Winehouse

Andrew Gold (see Maria Muldaur)
Benton Flippen
Bert Jansch
Big Jack Johnson
Bill Morrissey
Bill Tapia, ukulele master, 103 (see photo)
Billy Grammer
Bob Burnett (of the Highwaymen)
Carl Gardner
Charlie Craig
Charlie Louvin
Clarence Clemons
Dan Peek
Dan Terry
David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards
Dobie Gray
Don Kirshner
Doyle Bramhall
Eddie Kirkland
Gerry Rafferty
Gil Scott-Heron
Harry Jackson, cowboy singer
Hazel Dickens
Jack Hardy
Jerry Leiber
Jerry Ragovoy
Jessy Dixon
Jimmy Norman
Jimmy Roselli
Jody Rainwater
Joe Morello (Brubeck’s drummer)
John Barry
John Walker
Kenny Baker
Marv Tarplin
Milton Babbitt
Myra Taylor, 94
Nickolas Ashford
Nilla Pizzi
Phoebe Snow
Roger Williams
Sam Rivers
Suze Rotolo (Dylan’s girlfriend)
Wade Mainer, old-time banjo master, 104
Warren Hellman (Hardly Strictly Bluegrass)
Wild Man Fischer (street musician)
Willie “Big Eyes” Smith (Muddy Waters band)
Wilma Lee Cooper

Non-musical deaths:

Andy Rooney
Cliff Robertson
David Nelson
David S. Broder
Giorgio Bocca
Harry Morgan
Jack LaLanne
José Pagan
Ken Russell
Matty Alou
Owsley Stanley
Peter Falk
Richard F. Pedersen  (Uncle Dick)  (see obituary at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/us/01pedersen.html)
Sidney Lumet
Steve Jobs
Theodore Roszak
Tom Keith
Tom Wilson, Sr. (Ziggy)
Vaclav Havel

Poets:
Edwin Honig
Eleanore Ross Taylor
Hugh Fox
John Haines
Lucille Clifton (2010)
Peter Reading
Piri Thomas
Ruth Stone
William Kloefkorn


Happy trials, Martin

Picks of the Flicks, 2011

This is my incomplete list of the best films I saw in 2011 (I watch films on Sky television, so they will likely be from past years):
Cars

Crazy Heart

El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes)

Fair Game

Henry Poole Is Here

Howl

Love and Other Drugs

Moby Dick (2010 mini-series)

Motel Woodstock

Reindeer Games

Shutter Island

Sugar

The Adjustment Bureau

The Concert

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (Swedish)

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Swedish)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish)

The Road

*The Tree of Life

Too Big To Fail

Up in the Air

*Best ever

That's it, whatcha gonna do?

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Good day, my fine feathered friend.
Jeff: Same to you but more of it.
Mutt: Ready for the funny stuff?
Jeff: When's it start?
Mutt: Now. When women enter middle age, it gives men a pause.

Jeff: So funny I forgot to laugh. How about: Prison walls are never built to scale?

Mutt: Not bad. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
Jeff: Glad to hear it. If you don’t pay your exorcist you get repossessed.
Mutt: Oh yeah. There was a guy who was fired from the orange juice factory for
lack of concentration.
Jeff: When I was a kid, we were so poor we couldn’t even afford to pay attention.
Mutt: I used to be a tap dancer until I fell in the sink.
Jeff: Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
Mutt: The poet had written better poems, but he’d also written verse.
Jeff: There was a ghost at the hotel, so they called for an inn spectre.
Mutt: Ancient orators tended to Babylon.
Jeff: The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
Mutt: You didn’t hear about the three big holes in the ground? Well, well, well.
Jeff: It was raining cats and dogs. There were poodles all over the road.
Mutt: When chemists die, we barium.
Jeff: And last but not least ... Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
Mutt: You told that one last year.
Jeff: Hoppy Cassidys to you too.

This Year of Books

This year I read some books I liked a lot, life-changers, teachers of writing. I also started a number of books that just didn't sock it to me. It may be rice wine to you, but it's still sake to me! I gave 'em the standard fifty pages, then retired them to the basement. Reading's too much fun and life too brief to read books that don't zing to your zoul.

Try keeping score yourself, a reading log can mark the paces of your passage through your years. You might take little steps of mildly enjoyable reads or you might mark your life into before and after X.

Plus reading can help you lose weight and keep in shape if done on a treadmill.

Here are the gooduns, excepting research and work stuff.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole *
bird by bird, Anne Lamott
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
Demonology, Rick Moody
Dude, Where’s My Country? Michael Moore
Many Lives, Many Masters, Brian L. Weiss
Moran of the Lady Letty, Frank Norris
Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
On Moral Fiction, John Gardner
Plan B, Anne Lamott
Ron Carlson Writes a Story, Ron Carlson
The Billboard Guide to Writing and Producing Songs That Sell, Eric Beall
The Challenge of Space, Arthur Louis Joquel II * (my former prof)
The Elements of Storytelling, Peter Rubie
The Inferno, Dante (John Ciardi translation)
The Maytrees, Annie Dillard
The Pacific Crest Trail, National Geographic Society
The Road to Wellville, T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barth *
The Sweetheart Season, Karen Joy Fowler
The Watch, Rick Bass
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Vineland, Thomas Pynchon
Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg
* best

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
Jeff: When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she’d dye.
Mutt: A scientist doing a large experiment with liquid chemicals was trying to solve a problem when he fell in and became part of the solution.
Jeff: If you leave alphabet soup on the stove and go out, it could spell disaster.
Mutt: When they bought a water bed, the couple started to drift apart.
Jeff: A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was a nurse said ‘No change yet’.
Mutt: What did the grape say when it got stepped on? Nothing – but it let out a little whine.
Jeff: A criminal’s best asset is his lie ability.
Mutt: Be true to your teeth, or they will be false to you.
Jeff: If you give some managers an inch they think they’re a ruler.
Mutt: She was only a whisky maker but he loved her still.
Jeff: The optician fell into the lens grinding machine and made a spectacle of himself.
Mutt: Gravity is studied a lot because it’s a very attractive field.
Jeff: Old lawyers never die they just lose their appeal.
Mutt: Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
Jeff: So how are you today, my friend?
Mutt: 'Bout the same, 'bout the same. And you?
Jeff: Ditto likewise.

Chains of Gold: rap against the Wall

Politically inconsistent. I am often glad for serious moderate competent people running things (like the new Monti government in Italy), but my impulse would be toward drastic immediate radical upheaval. Things are so bad! Things are so bad? Compared, say, to the Middle Ages? Compared, say, to an ideal world?

In a moment of certainty, I wrote this rap about the most interesting movement in decades. And happily it’s not even organized. There’s no head honcho, just a bunch of pissed-off people who won’t go away. We haven’t all lost our moral compass.

chorus:  Chains of gold, bought and sold, chains of gold in a stranglehold

Lose your blindfold, you just been rolled, they stole your payroll and sold your household.

The rich never pay, we pay every day.

Gold in rings, rings in rings, forming strings of shiny things

Chains of fun, glittering sun, I want one, I want two for one

Two three four, count out more, more and more, you credit whore

I want my chains, I can’t abstain, it takes no brains, cigars champagne, to maintain this gangsta domain (Wall Street gangsta, that is)

It’s a human trait, what makes us great, you eat a full plate, an’ load on the weight

Weigh me down, oh golden crown, pool of money, I want to drown

Go down, underground, where the gold is found.

Wall street, your elite street, where you cheat neat, now our sweet street

Main street, mean street, easy street, sleazy street,

Your deceit, your conceit, listen to the flock bleat:

You’re obsolete, you’re obsolete, man, get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand

Who’s to blame? Here’s your name:

Citigroup, Bank of A., Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

Morgan Stanley, GMAC, General Motors, AIG

JP … Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, disgrace

Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and old Bear Stearns,

Wachovia, watch the Lehman Brothers burn,

Burn, Money, Burn! Wall Street Fire Sale!

Investment bankers in my rhyme, say, “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

Traders on welfare, o.d.ed on their junk bonds, another big scare for the upper echelons

When we cut your chains of gold, watch your golden parachutes implode

Flying bankers, lost their anchors, we saved your asses, you still rich bastards,

We paid your debt, with our sweat, think we’re pissed off? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

99%, 99%, can’t afford a lobbyist, can’t pay the rent

Tax the rich, the wherewithal, Arab spring, New York fall

Break down the walls, open the halls, fight for your future in the Wall Street brawls

Sick of your greed, heed our need, you see that bull, now watch the stampede!

Globalization against our nation, we invented our own ruination:

Sub-prime mortgage, Ponzi scheme, Corporatocracy, American Dream

Toxic hedge funds, Matrix scheme, Bubbles and scams: the American Dream

Like Uncle Sam is now Scrooge McDuck, screw your neighbors, what the fuck?

We work for peanuts like hamsters on a wheel, for the Madoffs to steal

Wheel and deal, bow and kneel, believe your own spiel, spin the big wheel

Banking fees, got us on our knees, credit card debt, but we’re not dead yet

Lower pensions, lower wages, fewer benefits, smaller cages

Life.com, the assembly line, lining their pockets, never mine

Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, when the military-industrial complex was born

Evil child, mean and wild, don’t be beguiled, by its gentle smile

You broke the unions, you broke the youth, your Fox News sluts broke the truth

Permatemping not professions, time has come for major concessions

If you won’t give a living wage, you’re the one who set the stage

Bars on the banks, bars on the doors, doors on the bars say come in, drink some more

Hey man, if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

Who me? Who me? I’m the sleeping giant nation.

And you just woke me up!

Homeland security, economic purity, democratic assembly, a sign of maturity

Our Declaration of Independence, the beginning is near, a compassionate world, with no more fear

I am not a number, I am a free man, (ha ha ha) not your property, not your brand

End war, feed the poor, war’s a racket, don’t back it,

Rebuild the dream, that’s the theme

Let’s turn this whole world around, okay?

Nation build in the USA:

1,2,3,4

Easy to see what we’re fighting for:

Healthcare for all

Environmental overhaul

Jobs with dignity

Educational quality

So occupy everything, everywhere, Oakland, Pittsburg, Wilmington, Delaware

It’s our country, it’s our government, we’re the people, the 99%

Peaceful protest is a right, you cops know we’re not here to fight

We’re occupied days and nights, defending our free speech rights

Can you hear us now? Can you hear us now?

How much noise till you awake?

How much pushing does it take?

To break these chains of gold.

Want to hear it? It's on myspace:   http://www.myspace.com/emartinpedersen

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: You up for a good one?

Jeff: No, I'm up for the one you're going to tell no matter what.

Mutt: One day, an elderly woman was walking along the street, coming home from the supermarket. Her bag of groceries was especially heavy that day, and as she passed Nathan Hale's Used Cars, she got an idea that she could drive herself to the store and save a lot of shoe leather, time and aching muscles. She walks into the car dealership and, as it just so happens, gets the owner himself. He asks her what kind of car she wants and she replies,

  "Well, sonny, I can't remember the name exactly, but it has something to do with hate or anger."

  The owner replies, "Well, let's see... Oh yes, you want a Plymouth Fury! We have a couple on the lot. What color do you prefer?"

  The lady has some trouble explaining the exact color to him, so she reaches into her shopping bag, takes out an ear of corn, strips down the shucks and says, "I want this color sonny."

  To which Nathan replies, "Ma'am I'm sorry, but we don't have any in this color. Could I show you a nice blue one?"

  "No son, I want this color."

  "But ma'am, they didn't make that color! Maybe a cherry red one would suit you?" says the owner, obviously worried about losing a sale.

  By this time, the old lady gets mad, and starts throwing things at the owner, thereby chasing him out of the office and into the lot. One of the salesmen, coming into the office from the back door, notices the disruption and asks the secretary what the old woman was so upset about.

  The secretary replies, "Apparently, Hale hath no Fury like the woman's corn!"

Jeff: I should have stayed in bed this morning.

La Liberazione, part two

“Thank goodness for Napolitano!” is the most recurrent and heart-felt phrase around these days. Berlusconi was head of the government; Napolitano is head of the nation. They are opposites. Giorgio Napolitano has a limited role and stays out of all government/parliamentary affairs unless a law violates the constitution or the prime minister no longer has a majority to support him. But he is a symbol of statesmanship and gentlemanliness even in the political arena. His behavior is always above reproach; his voice is always calm; what he says always makes sense. His choice of new prime minister, Mario Monti, is better than anyone ever elected. He is a man, while Berlusconi was a boy, a naughty disturbed boy.

You may wonder how Berlusconi, this political freak, ever won elections. In our town everyone knows what a vote went for in the last election. The working class, or unemployed class that is, voted en masse for the highest bidder. Isn’t buying votes illegal? There are laws and then there is the enforcement of laws. Berlusconi went for the lowest common denominator, ignoring the thinking minority and gathering huge numbers from the slums. After all, there’s a satellite dish on every shack. He then did nothing for the poor, so they’d be there to vote for him again next time.

Maybe you’ve seen crowds of flag waving, cheering supporters of Mr. B and wondered. They are brought in on busses and special trains from the countryside and paid, one professional fan admitted, to appear on TV. As if whatever happens on TV is real. Berlusconi, even last night, made a polished video announcement, not a real press conference where journalists might ask embarrassing questions. He has a large image-making staff, marketing experts, spin doctors, etc. They dress him up, comb his hair and tell him what to say, all very calculated for maximum effect on those who would buy anything from this confidence man.

Deep down he’s a huckster, a TV salesman of miracle creams and vacuum cleaners. But he nearly ruined a beautiful country. He and his entourage of evil-doers remind me of Dante’s Inferno: The pagans wandering in limbo, carnal malefactors blown in violent storms, blind gluttons lying in the foul slush from ceaseless icy rains, the avaricious pushing enormous bags of money as punishment, the wrathful fighting and drowning, heretics trapped in flaming tombs, violent souls trapped in a river of boiling blood, suicides transformed into gnarled thorny bushes fed upon by harpies, blasphemers and usurers in a desert of flaming sand and fire raining from the sky, then the fraudulent, panderers and seducers marching in lines whipped by demons, flatterers steeped in human excrement, those who bought and sold blessings head-first in holes with flames burning their feet, sorcerers, astrologers and false prophets with their heads twisted backwards, corrupt politicians immersed in a lake of boiling pitch kept down by flying devils, hypocrites wearing lead cloaks they can never take off, thieves guarded by a fire-breathing dragon with snakes covering its back, evil counselors burning, sowers of discord hacked to pieces by demons, falsifiers afflicted by various diseases, traitors immersed in ice, and then at the very center of Hell is Satan, the giant, terrifying beast with three faces weeping, also trapped in ice, ignorant, impotent, full of hatred. Wow, if you knew the people who’ve been governing Italy for the past two decades you’d recognize them all in this Italian poem of 1300 a.d.

Next, my suggestions (to whom?) for social reforms (who am I?). And who’s listening?

Happy trials, Martin

 

Mutt:  Did you know that old academics never die, they just lose their faculties.

Jeff:  Old bankers never die, they just want to be a loan.
Mutt:  Old basketball players never die, they just go on dribbling.
Jeff:  Old bookkeepers never die, they just lose their figures.
Mutt:  Old bosses never die, much as you want them to.
Jeff:  Old chiropractors never die, they adjust.
Mutt:  Old composers never die, they decompose.
Jeff:  Old frogs never die, they just croak.
Mutt:  Old grammarians never die, they just fall into a comma.
Jeff:  Which reminds me … Old English teachers never die, they just complete their sentences.
Mutt:  Oowah!

La Liberazione, part one

I imagine some of my non-Italian readers asking me, “What’s going on over there, dude?” You’ve heard the news: puppet and puppeteer Silvio Berlusconi finally out of power, but what does it mean and how did it happen? I’ll attempt the impossible, explaining Italian politics (impossible because I don’t understand it myself, even after more than 30 years here).

Berlusconi started in real estate development and then, through strong political connections, built a media empire. The first non-public national commercial television channels were all his, as well as several national newspapers, etc. When they were on the verge of collapse, he went into politics and gave them/himself public money to keep going. He consolidated his monopoly. He kept himself out of jail for crimes like bribery, tax evasion and collusion with the mafia with his power as head of the executive branch. He bought the majority in parliament, which block-voted in his favor. He bought the racist Lega Nord party too.

For years he railroaded through laws called reforms that were destructive to the social fabric and the constitutional democracy, while helping himself and his friends with their business ventures. See my old blog about his dismantling of the universities, public schools, public health system, etc.

Along the way he had at his command an army of professional liars, appearing nightly on national TV (still his own property, as well as the government-run RAI networks). As if Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc., were cloned into the hundreds and sent to invade every public space with their deliberate bullshit. Those were the hysterical voices screaming at us for almost 20 years. Naturally some people grew to believe Berlusconi’s Black Is White tactic, but most voted for him because they thought they’d make more money in his alternative reality.

A pathological but strategic liar, earlier this week he said that there was no economic crisis in Italy; the proof being that the restaurants were full of people. Out of touch? Out of his mind? But was the current economic collapse the cause of Berlusconi’s downfall as all the foreign papers are saying? I think not. There’s more to it than that.

When a couple years ago, the alternative press broke the bunga bunga orgy story, that Berlusconi held nightly Hefner parties during which he had kinky sex with a number of the thirty-something prostitutes that he personally employed for his own use, at least one underage (16, he's 75), that would have been the ultimate scandal in almost any country except Italy. But we knew he’d been at it all along. In the early days of his television career, any young women wishing to work on his shows had to go through his bedroom. Many of the females “elected” (imposed) in parliament had the same apprenticeship. It makes you look at them differently when they’re on talk or variety shows. Berlusconi lives in a world of prostitution and treats all Italians as his whores.

Don’t forget that we’re talking about the richest man in the country. He can buy anything he wants, and he behaves as if he can do anything he wants. Scornful of the law, the institutions, the constitution, political decorum or just common decency, he is famous for his bizarre personality. It is no surprise that Muammar Gaddafi was one of his closest political allies, one that he apparently admired and copied. Never seen in public without thick pancake make-up, with regular hair transplants and face lifts, elevator shoes, comically excessive body-guards, he seemed to be acting the part of a statesman, but came off more like a lowlife mobster-clown, reminding me of Jack Nicholson's Joker in the first Batman movie. His favorite activity, other than those mentioned above, was telling dirty jokes, the filthier the better. A true sleazebag.

So why, you ask, could he stay in power so long? By far the longest-serving premier in Italian history, he stayed in power because the rules are written to allow and encourage cheating. When he needed more votes, for example, he approached opposition parliamentarians and offered between 200,000 and 500,000 euros for them to change parties. It worked, of course. Isn’t that illegal and punishable by law, you ask? Apparently not. He regained his majority by purchasing these traitors. So why did some of his own people vote against him this last week, so that he lost his majority? I don’t know the true answer to that one. The truth is, again, hidden in a cloud of lies.

It happened at the same time as the economy imploded, and Berlusconi didn’t have the strength to win another fight for his political survival. Even his closest allies (he has no friends) were sick of him. Perhaps the Arab spring has been imported across the Mediterranean. Now what awaits Berlusconi are a series of criminal prosecutions that will probably mark his pathetic end. I’d guess he’ll run rather than do time, and the authorities will let him, as they did his mentor Craxi.

Does crime pay? Not in the long run. If we don’t believe that and it isn’t confirmed by history, we’re sunk. But if, even after twenty years of hell, we can finally liberate our country of a disgusting, embarrassing, trashy, immoral, purely self-interested leader, then there is hope for political maturity. Representative democracy in Italy is only sixty some years old; it has a lot of catching up to do.

Happy trials, Martin

 

Mutt:  Once upon a time, a tribe of cannibals caught a saint sent to them as a missionary and ate him. He was very tender and tasty, yet they were all violently sick afterwards.

Jeff:  I’m waiting.
Mutt:  It shows that you can't keep a good man down.
Jeff:  And an incompetent ship captain grounds the warship he walks on.
Mutt:  Oow, clever. Did you hear about the optician? Two glasses and he made a spectacle of himself.
Jeff:  How about the man who ran through a screen door? He strained himself.
Mutt:  One can tell that a tree is nomadic when it packs up its trunk and leaves.
Jeff:  That’s awful.
Mutt:  I know. The truth may ring out like a bell, but it is seldom ever tolled.
Jeff:  Okay, when you lose something, why do you always find it in the last place you look?
Mutt:  Help me out.
Jeff:  Because you stop looking as soon as you find it.
Mutt:  Did you hear about the guy that lost his left arm and leg in a car crash?
Jeff:  I did. He's all right now.
Mutt:  So what do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long?
Jeff:  You got me.
Mutt:  Polaroids.
Jeff:  Sounds painful, but less than these jokes.
Mutt:  Jokes? These are legitimate questions.
Jeff:  Fer instance?
Mutt:  Fer instance, how does a spoiled rich girl change a lightbulb?
Jeff:  She says, "Daddy, I want a new apartment."

Hope?

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

When I was a teenager I loved to debate or spout off or hear myself talk. Not chit-chat but substance, important things. They were dramatic times, before and after 1970. We didn’t have formal debating at my high school like my father did—he told me about his days as captain of the Stockton High debating team—but plenty of schoolyard arguments occurred. Logic and rhetoric pitted against logic and rhetoric in a duel to the death. Yessir.

And one of the major questions we discussed, or that I subjected my friends to was/is: Is humanity progressing? Is society improving? Are all the efforts of good people succeeding? Generations dedicating their lives to making a better world, is it working?

Often it doesn’t seem so. We can see the power of a tiny match to destroy a car, house, city, forest pitted against the slow, hard work of building, planting, nurturing, reaping. The symbol of our times is the suicide bomber. Peace explodes in an instant. Back then it was the atom bomb, which destroys without even going off, except twice.

And I still remember my answer: yes, the world is progressing. And I still remember my supporting evidence: because in the 19^th century there was a movement against human slavery, many of my relatives were involved with, and it was finally victorious. Human slavery was abolished, erased from the world, our dark past immorality cancelled to allow a brighter future for all, free and equal!

That was my adolescent argument. Now? Now I wish I still believed that. I need to believe that. Why work if not for a better world? For one’s own belly? To keep trudging along towards the hole you can’t wait to jump into? Why hope for better lives for your children? Is yours better now because of your parents’ and grandparents’ sacrifices? It should be or you’re dishonoring their lives.

There’s bad news. Terrifying news. Human slavery is back. It may even be worse now than the African slavery of the 1700-1800’s because it is worldwide and often sexual. Human trafficking doesn’t just reduce people to machines but reduces the bodies of women and children to scorned objects to use, abuse and toss away. It could involve 30 million slaves. It is a devastating scourge.

I'm sure there are many organizations fighting hard against slavery and some governments that take the problem seriously, though most seem silent, that is, acquiescent. Yet the one that's most visible to me is the CNN Freedom Project. It seems courageous compared to every other network that rarely reports on the topic and then only to say it exists, doing nothing about it. Can a news organization get  involved not only in informing but in contrasting such a horror? Guess so. Good luck to them. Want to help? Check out the website. It's not pleasant viewing, but we need to know and act.

Yeah, but what does that do to my theory of 40 years ago? My symbol of human progress has turned worse than ever in only one generation. Maybe all our other hard fought successes will be brutally overturned and crushed. Smallpox pandemic coming up?

It’s all about quality of life, right? Think yours is high, low, good enough? Overworked, stressed, burnt-out, depressed? What’s the root cause, anyway, of sexual slavery, narcotic drug addiction, war and violence everywhere? Deep down, what’s wrong with us? How did we get to be a world of prostitutes, junkies, and killers? I don’t buy human nature as an answer. We can choose. We can be better. Something in the system has failed.

In Italian the expression is: hope is the last thing to die (la speranza è l’ultima a morire). I’d say if you don’t hope you’re already dead, alive but with nowhere to go. So hope? I hope.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt: Did you know, my friend, that research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate.

Jeff: For the love of Mike, please practice safe eating.

Mutt: How so?

Jeff: Always use condiments.

Mutt: Did you ever hear of Dijon Vu?

Jeff: No, you?

Mutt: Sure it’s the same mustard as before.

Jeff: And a hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Mutt: And a boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

Jeff: And bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

Mutt: They do, but do you know what is small, red and whispers?

Jeff: ‘Fraid not.

Mutt: A hoarse radish.

Jeff: Do you know what turns without moving?

Mutt: ‘Fraid to ask.

Jeff: Milk. It can turn sour.

Mutt: And where does a jellyfish get its jelly?

Jeff: Go on.

Mutt: From ocean currents.

Jeff: Okay then, what do you call cheese that isn't yours?

Mutt: Give.

Jeff: Nacho Cheese.

Mutt: All right, last one. What kind of coffee was served on the Titanic?

Jeff: Go for it.

Mutt: Sanka.

Jeff: And what kind of lettuce?

Mutt: Uh, oh, uh oh, I can hear it coming … ICEBERG!!!

Neal in the Members Only Club

Or ‘Neal Plays the Organ’, ‘Neal Bites the Wienie’, ‘Neal and Little Peter’, et cetera.

This is a true story. It’s embarrassing, like most of Neal’s life, but I think both males and females can relate and empathize. Maybe something similar has happened to you.

Neal was having a birthday Saturday. His girl-friend Mitzy wanted to surprise him. What better than a surprise birthday party with about twenty of their best friends? But Neal would suspect, he’d be on guard all day. Friday he wouldn’t be around all day because he had a seminar at work, one of those boring things where you sit all day and drink coffee while some jerk talks about ‘Toyota-style high-efficiency’--in English ‘working harder’--at the company which just cut your pay by 10% for the second time, so that they could save people from lay-offs during the economic crisis without, naturally, cutting pay or benefits for the owners and stock holders. In sum, a day of unbearable hypocrisy.

So Mitzy’s bright idea was to have the surprise birthday party on Friday night. Sounds pretty good, huh? For someone who doesn’t get bright ideas very often, this was a winner. Neal got up and left for the seminar saying he’d be back around 7 or 8 o’clock, suspecting nothing. Then Mitzy and her friends Babs and Jan went to work. They made a devil’s food cake from scratch about two feet high. They made hors d’oeuvres. They mixed punch and arranged colored napkins in circular patterns. Babs brought Martha Stewart magazines for inspiration. They drank the spiked punch and laughed even when there was no joke. It was a beautiful girls day together waiting for Neal. Pop radio on, dancing in the kitchen.

Excuse me, reader, if I interrupt my own story, but have you ever noticed what you never see in films or on television? Unless they’re European or pornographic? Well, you see almost everything, but you rarely see female nudity, lots of tits and asses but little in the genitalia category. That’s fine. Children and the oversensitive might be shocked. But the male apparatus? Ever seen one outside of “Boogie Nights”? Not often, in any case. The penis is alluded to and suggested, but you don’t actually see one hanging there. So my first answer would be the elusive male member. But there’s something even more secretive, more dirty perhaps. Unimaginable but true. Enough suspense already? Breast-feeding. A human mother suckling her young. What perverted morality finds breast-feeding something to hide? Most actresses have done it in real life, but I’ve never seen them do it in a film. Me never.

In Europe and elsewhere, outside the U.S., women will open their blouses and unhook their bras and offer the teat to their babies with no shame or ill-ease. What is it with America that they hide this most beautiful and natural of operations behind a curtain shield or go into a separate room or feel so horribly uncomfortable? I’ve been to parties here in Sicily with mother and child both doing their thing and smiling. It’s nice. That’s what the mammary gland is really for, you know?

Anyway, I digress. Neal is driving home and realizes that he has an urgent need to urinate. It’s nearly unbearable, and he squeezes his legs together to attempt retardance. He’s afraid when he parks under his apartment that he might lose his bladder control while getting out of the car one leg at a time. He squeezes his pants hard enough to cause pain and then carefully steps out. Then he walks on stiff legs and short strides to the door, but can’t find the key. He finds the key. It won’t go into the lock. “Come on, come on, I gotta pee.” He opens the door and gets into the elevator to go up to the fifth floor. “Gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee BAD!”

Neal attempts mental distraction, but cannot think of anything except relief. He attempts his theory of absorption, which is that you can use mind-power to command the urine to flow backwards, until, to quote his high-school buddies, “your back teeth are whistling ‘Anchors Aweigh’.” Nothing works, it’s so bad it hurts. He suspects permanent penile damage unless the situation is reversed in the next few seconds. He opens his apartment door, saying out loud, “Gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta peeeeee!!!” Neal unzips his trousers to save time as he takes the last twenty steps toward the toilet.

Now, my friend Neal is, um, let’s say, well hung, endowed. He has above average length, quite substantially above average. When we were younger and took showers together at the gym, all the males would marvel in envy and yearning for what was probably our double. Or more. Aw, that’s not important. Forget that.

So Neal is walking through his front room with his extensive penis outside his pants, actually squeezing with thumb and forefinger to prevent premature leakage, when the lights flash on, and Mitzy, his beloved, and twenty of his friends, including some colleagues from work, scream on command: SURPRISE!

Neal stands frozen in space. He looks at them looking at his penis. They are as shocked as he is. Finally, he whispers, “Today’s not my birthday.” And runs.

Whether he made it or not to his final destination is not essential to this tale. The point is that what was seen was what should have been seen and is never seen because deemed obscene. Next, a story about breast-feeding, but, unfortunately, Neal will not be the protagonist.

Happy trials, Martin

Mutt:  I was having dinner with Garry Kasporov (world chess champion) and on the table was a checkered tablecloth. It took him two hours to pass me the salt.

Jeff:  I went to a seafood disco rave last week and pulled a mussel.
Mutt:  I know how Christopher Columbus really financed his trip to America.
Jeff:  How?
Mutt:  With the Discover Card.
Jeff:  If you know so much why is Saudi Arabia free of mental illness?
Mutt:  There are nomad people there.
Jeff:  Okay, which president was least guilty?
Mutt:  Lincoln. He is in a cent.
Jeff:  Well, you know everything. Show me where Stalin's buried …
Mutt:  And I'll show you a communist plot.
Jeff:  Have you heard about the lawyers’ word processor?
Mutt:  Of course. No matter what font you select, everything comes out in fine print.
Jeff:  Have you heard about the pharmaceutical company that developed a new drug which, when administered to women, compels them to go join a convent?
Mutt:  I know all about it; the FDA refused to license it, though. Seems it was habit-forming.
Jeff:  You do know them all.

Mutt:  I wrote them all.