Atheist and Rebel

It’s probably not wise to read Christopher Hitchens on religion during the holiday season, as doing so can create intense cognitive dissonance. I mention this from harsh experience. While Andy Williams croons in the background about this most wonderful time of the year (always a debatable assertion no matter how many times it’s repeated), Hitchens -- in his polemic God is Not Great -- shreds cherished religious traditions and pokes huge holes in dogma doggedly held by millions of believers. An equal opportunity atheist, Hitchens skewers Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, and for good measure tap dances all over Joseph Smith and his Mormon tribe. While the lights on our tree twinkle, and Bing Crosby replaces Andy Williams, I find myself thinking about Almighty God, though I focus less on his (her?) supposed generosity and benevolence than I do on his darker utterances. For one supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing, he wasn’t very kind to women, children or skeptics. The eternal question enters my consciousness: if God created the universe and everything in it, who created God? Turn that question around any way you want, as many times as you want, and the logical answer is that we did, “we” being mankind.

If one is interested in an honest Christmas tune try The Rebel Jesus by Jackson Browne:

And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

No surprise that Hitchens and Christmas are not a jolly mix. Mindless piety and crass commercialism collide head on, like two tanker trucks laden with jet fuel. Even though I take the silly season with a boulder-sized grain of salt, it’s next to impossible to ignore the general anxiety as Christmas Day approaches. People in the mall are grim and determined, focused on their shopping tasks, underpaid workers in the stores are sick and tired of dealing with demanding people, children are antsy, UPS drivers are harried, and nearly everyone who must attend one dreads the annual office party. There’s endless chatter on the radio and TV about happy families coming together in peace and harmony, and of course the obligatory stories about the holiday homecomings of brave American military men and women. There’s no harm in any of this, except when it reaches the saturation point, as it inevitably must, and then December 26th cannot arrive fast enough.

After the 18th the man who runs the Christmas tree lot in the County Bowl parking lot knows the jig is up, and that he will sell no more trees for $10 a foot. Optimistic to the bitter end, the man keeps the lot open morning till night the final week before Christmas, but his big red and white banner no longer entices passersby, and his giant inflatable Santa leans to one side in weary defeat.

For convenience sake we buy a tree from the man every year, no earlier than the 10th, no later than the 15th. As I write this, my wife and daughter are taking ornaments from the tree and packing them away in storage boxes. See you next year. Tomorrow I will saw the tree in two and place the pieces by the curb. We’ll pick pine needles from the rug for the next week or so.

And so it goes. I certainly have little to complain about, living here on the Platinum Coast, where the temperature on Christmas Day was in the mid-70’s, with blue sky overhead and a clear view to the Channel Islands.

Although I began with Christopher Hitchens I’ll give Jackson Browne the last word:

Now pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgment
For I’ve no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and earthly toil
There’s a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

Big Crazy

Would the American electorate choose a man named Newt for its president? Never mind that the Newt in question is an ethically and morally challenged blowhard, a fat toad despised by most members of his own party.
President Gingrich? Have we fallen so far so fast?

I don’t think this can or will happen – but then America in 2011 is a bizarre, unpredictable place. Look at the GOP presidential field and tell me we’re not in the middle of Big Crazy. Newt, Mitt, and what’s his name – the womanizer – ah, yeah, Herman Cain – though the Pizza King has been silent since dropping out of the race. Throw in Rick “I’m dumber-than-Bush” Perry and it’s no wonder that a pall of despair hangs over GOP headquarters.

But when one wing nut drops out another rises to take his place. The other morning Donald Trump was proclaiming that he might have to run for president after all – for the good of the nation, of course. How is it possible for one human ego to metastasize so grotesquely?

President Trump?

Every time Good Morning America does a segment on Jerry Sandusky, the alleged pedophile from Penn State, the more Sandusky looks like a man guilty of buggering young boys in the locker room shower. Once that suggestion is planted in your mind it’s not easy to let it go. No matter what clip of Sandusky GMA shows – walking from a black SUV into the courthouse, tossing footballs on the sideline, shoveling snow from his driveway, dropping coins in the collection basket at church – the man looks creepy, just the type to lure impressionable young boys into a dark, sound-proof basement.

And then there’s Tim Tebow, quarterback of the Denver Broncos, a strapping lad who thumps his Bible at least as well as he runs a 2:00 offense, a fact which captivates people and makes them say ridiculous things. When I heard Diane Sawyer on ABC News talking about Tebow and God I was sure she wet herself. Calm down, Diane, God has nothing to do with it.

Tebow for President? Tebow and Jesus!

While all this nonsense goes on something far more insidious and dangerous is happening in Washington D.C., where the House has passed legislation in the Defense Authorization Bill that would classify the American “homeland” as a battleground in the Global War on Muslim Terrorists. So what you say? The ramifications are chilling, and could lead to US citizens being detained indefinitely by military forces without formal charges, due process, or any of the protections set out in the Bill of Rights. If you’ve never heard of “indefinite detention” you might, soon enough.

As a commentator on KPFK radio put it: the distinction between dissent and terror is collapsing. A country that can’t tell the difference between the two, or have the confidence in itself to allow the former, is on the express lane to fascism.

On that cheery note…

The New Barbarians

How does the classic Christmas carol go, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” Not for me. Not when the TV and the radio are jammed wall-to-wall with commercials hyping Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and all the news anchors talk about is the great deals down at Best Buy. Not when it’s all Christmas all the time before the Thanksgiving turkey is even cold. The season has been elongated and stretched, expanded and super-sized by retailers in search of customers. Before the last scream of Halloween fades, up go the Christmas decorations, and the faux cheer spreads like a river of sewage across the land.

Never mind that the unemployment rate is high and holding steady or that banks continue to foreclose on delinquent mortgages or that every day more Americans slide below the poverty line; everybody is a potential consumer and if they have a pulse, however faint, and can walk, however unsteadily, then by all that is holy about American-style capitalism, they must have the latest LED flat screen TV, a new toaster, an iPad or a Kindle Fire.

It doesn’t make a whit of difference that many of the people lined up twelve hours before the stores open should be buying food for their children, not the latest electronic gadget.

Did you see the video footage of the human herds stampeding in search of Black Friday bargains? Did it make you want to hang your head out the window and puke? Fighting over an iPod dock? Slugging it out over a pair of boots? Putting other customers out of commission with pepper spray? What kind of nuthouse has America become? The mindless hoards are goaded and prodded and prepped and primed all week long, tantalized with promises of deep discounts on today’s must have products, mesmerized by visions of gain, and by Black Friday people have lost all contact with reason or common sense and descend on the local mall like the barbarians of old.

If Macy’s or Target advertised a one-pound block of cow dung at a 35% discount, some fool would stand in line for an hour to buy it. Yes, I know, people have free will and critical thinking capacity, and shouldn’t be manipulated so easily, but isn’t that what happens every November? Why else is Old Navy in downtown Santa Barbara open for business on Thanksgiving Day?

Bah humbug. Bah fucking humbug. The reason for the season is buried beneath a pile of gaudy sweaters from H&M, crotch-less panties from Victoria’s Secret, and Black & Decker power tools from Home Depot. Baby Jesus rides the escalator up and down all day long, unrecognized, ignored, pushed this way and that by caffeine and Red Bull addled shoppers. “Outta’ my way you little fucker.” Recognizing a lost cause when they see one, Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, the camel and the donkey have already fled for their lives.

Black Friday and Other Tales

New York City cops in full riot gear drive peaceful protesters from Zuccotti Park. Much the same thing happens in Portland, Oregon and on the campus at UC Berkeley. The powers that be in other places follow suit, citing concerns for safety and sanitation. Motionless, peaceful students at UC Davis are doused with pepper spray. Many protesters are arrested. Real democracy is messy and at times uncontrollable. The Occupy movement vows to continue.

Herman Cain, former pizza magnate, can’t keep his mitts off women. Sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger all over again, and we know what happened to Arnold. Herman’s candidacy was doomed to begin with, so it will be no surprise when he drops out of the race for the GOP nomination. Cain’s name recognition is higher than it was when he began his quixotic quest for the White House, and this will help him sell books and keynote speeches on the rubber chicken circuit in the near future.

Have you noticed that the media never mentions Cain’s race or demands that he answer questions about race? None of the “Is he too black?” or “Is he black enough?” questions about Herman. In the corporate media, race disappears as an issue once a man passes the conservative litmus test.

In the meantime, that bloated toad Newt Gingrich is rising in some polls, though nobody understands why. Gingrich was a blowhard when he was Speaker of the House and has done nothing in the intervening years except suck up to corporate donors. As a self-styled “historian,” Gingrich should know that a blind, three-legged dog has a better chance of being elected president than he does. The American electorate can be dumb, but not that dumb.

All Mitt Romney has to do to secure the GOP nomination is avoid a total mental breakdown, like what happened to Rick Perry recently – or be sideswiped by some long forgotten scandal. Everybody has a skeleton or two in the closet. Hard to say what that might be in Mitt’s case, but candidates who piously preach family values and the sanctity of marriage (only between a man and a woman of course), are generally tripped up by a skeleton of the sexual variety. Who knows, maybe Mitt had a homosexual dalliance as a curious undergraduate or dabbled in cross-dressing.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama wanders around the White House late at night wondering what became of the magic. Liberals can’t stand him. Environmentalists want his balls on a platter. Labor leaders feel betrayed by him. Young people who worked their butts off to get out the vote for Obama in 2008 now fully understand how it feels when a politician fools them into thinking he is something that he is not. Those voters are likely to stay home in droves come 2012, a possibility that contributes to Obama’s late night strolls through a silent White House. Every now and then Obama is convinced that he hears the ghost of Richard Nixon whispering in the corridors. Though for different reasons, Nixon often felt hated and trapped.

But to hell with all that political garbage. What really matters in America at this moment – beside the fact that legendary football coach Joe Paterno has been dislodged from his pedestal and Demi and Ashton are calling it quits -- is that Black Friday is drawing nigh. All over the land shop-a-holics are polishing their credit cards and planning for that magic moment when the glass doors finally swing open at Wal-Mart or Target or Best Buy, and they surge forward with the rest of the herd, trampling security guards, unattended small children, elderly ladies, and sales clerks. There will be casualties on Black Friday, brawling in the aisles, fistfights in the parking lot, and many hospital emergency rooms will be forced to turn patients away. Serious Black Friday shoppers accept the risks of bodily injury in the same way a mountain climber on Everest does.

Benign Neglect

I have neglected the Balcony of late. Life interferes with my scribbling. Excuses? Well, there is the job, kids, homework, dishes, bills, laundry, Halloween, errands, grocery shopping, stuff that needs to get done or else the wheels fall off. Try letting your toenails grow for a few weeks and you’ll see what I mean.

The days here grow shorter. In the evening fog rolls in off the ocean, dense in some areas, wispy in others, and in the night we hear the warning beacon sound in the harbor. A waning crescent moon rises above the pines on Anapamu Street. The County Bowl concert season is over, closed out by Deadmau5. It’s been a while since we’ve heard coyotes howl from the canyon that runs west of the Bowl.

Bob Dylan sang that people don’t come and go as much as they float, and sometimes people float to places and positions they don’t belong. Sometimes circumstances and dumb luck conspire to produce an outcome that leaves you shaking your head. Trying to understand is fruitless; it’s like trying to penetrate the meaning of a Zen koan. Whatever and whoever, it just is, and the decision you must make is to fight it or go with it. Life or death it’s not. Worse comes to worse you say, “I’m done” and hit the road. Some windmills are not worth tilting at; they will keep turning no matter what.

The illusion of control, of making sense, of logic and pattern, of rationality, of cause and effect, of being the master of one’s own fate, of being the guiding hand on the cosmic tiller. It makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time. It’s cream in your coffee and sugar in your tea; it’s a trout on the end of your line and a clear mountain stream at the end of the trail. It’s a homeless woman giving birth in a cemetery under a full moon. It’s the smartest man in the room doing the dumbest thing imaginable. It’s a beloved preacher fornicating behind the church with an underage whore.

My son is watching a rerun of Gray’s Anatomy. The show has an MD for everyone: African-American and Asian, lesbian and straight, dashing and dorky. The voice over by the actress who plays Meredith offers canned wisdom: “No matter what’s going on, a surgeon must have a steady hand.” OK, no argument with this obvious observation. My son tells me that I’ve reached an age where I cannot suspend my disbelief, and for this reason I’m incapable of enjoying the TV dramas he finds so intoxicating. Gray’s Anatomy is apparently the best show ever…my loss for not watching it.

In the world but not of the world, wandering with the people who float, beyond the point where sense is made, past the place where we cease to be what we think we are.

Under the Influence

Every now and then Barack Obama opens the mini-fridge in the Oval Office and removes a mason jar left over from the Bush Administration. The jar contains the elixir first brewed by Bill Clinton but not perfected until Bush and Cheney moved into the White House to begin their long reign of error. It’s rumored – but only rumored, you understand – that the secret formula for this elixir resides in a slim silver tube that Dick Cheney slips into his rectum every morning after his bowel movement.

This morning, before being interviewed by Jake Tapper from ABC News, Obama unscrewed the lid and took a quick sip, just enough to take the edge off for a couple of hours.

The elixir is a potent concoction that induces politicians to make statements they don’t believe with total conviction. For example, when Bush claimed that tax cuts for the wealthy would produce an economic bonanza for the poor, he really believed it. Cheney was totally addicted to the elixir and for eight years ran around Washington D.C. making all manner of bizarre claims. Illicit substances are not for the faint of heart or those with weak constitutions. Bush and Cheney, two alpha males who enjoyed boasting about the size and hardness of their testicles, believed they could handle the stuff in small, consistent doses.

This was hubris at its best.

By comparison, Barack Obama is a weak-kneed wanker who shouldn’t mess around with toxic substances under any circumstances. Case in point: Obama telling Tapper that the Occupy Wall Street movement has many similarities to the Tea Party. Deeply under the influence and obviously out of touch with reality, Obama claimed he understood both points of view.

WTF! OMG! Is our president serious? All one has to do is follow the money behind the Tea Party to understand what it’s all about.

Obama was serious, in the moment, but don’t forget, he was crocked to the gills. A few hours later, after the elixir wore off, Obama realized the magnitude of his gaffe and called Dr. Drew Pinsky, the reality TV addiction guru.

“Dr. Drew, this is the President of the United States. It’s very possible that I have a problem.”

“I can help, Mr. President. What is it, crack cocaine, Oxycontin, booze, hash, smack, Internet porn?”

“It’s the elixir.”

“Holy shit,” said Dr. Drew. “That’s bad, very bad. I’m afraid you’re screwed, sir. The only thing worse than being addicted to that stuff is trying to kick it. Makes kicking heroin feel like a long weekend in Barbados. Ever been to Barbados, sir?”

“What does it mean, Dr. Drew?”

“Well, to be frank, Mr. President, it means that you will continue to make indefensible statements about movements you know nothing about, continue to put the demands of bankers and hedge fund managers above the needs of ordinary people, continue to insist that the way to put more Americans back to work is to export their jobs to low-wage countries. In short, for the rest of your presidency you will think and act, well, like a Republican.”

*Expert conjecture about the formula: Combine two drops of Newt Gingrich’s blood, four strands of Ayn Rand’s hair, one cup of Alan Greenspan’s urine, three teardrops from John Boehner, a pubic hair from Eric Cantor, a teaspoon of Ann Coulter’s menstrual blood, six drops of ether, four packs of Splenda, eight ounces of Kool-Aid mix, a generous splash of Jack Daniels, an ounce of high fructose corn syrup, and a tablespoon of water from the Hudson River. Mix thoroughly and serve chilled.

Awake, At Last?

I’m a fan of the Occupy Wall Street movement. What started as a small encampment has grown and migrated to hundreds of cities, and is now too large for the mainstream media to ignore, though that massive house organ for the corporate status quo has done its level best to downplay, denigrate and ridicule the protesters.

This is the way powerful elites react when threatened.

The next tack the elites take is to call on the Law.

But having seen in other parts of the world what can happen when the masses become aroused, you can bet the American political and business elite -- which is now one and the same thing -- are beginning to comprehend that their long run of privilege and prerogative is nearing an end.

That end can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned. The Ayn Rand philosophy that seeped into the political system like toxic sludge over three decades has now poisoned that system. All the talk about producers and parasites, the inherent merits of the wealthy and the inherent imperfections of the poor, the evils of taxation and big government, immigration and equal rights, has proven to be pure, stinking, steaming BS.

America is a weaker country today, a more divided and polarized country, and a country that has misplaced its mojo and is in danger of chucking its soul – primarily because of the unfettered and unaccountable corporate power that drives the economy and controls the political system.

The people camping on Wall Street and marching on Bank of America and Wells Fargo branches in other cities understand, even if they struggle to articulate their feelings, that something has gone terribly wrong in this country, and that it hasn’t happened overnight; they realize that the country has tipped off its axis, that too much power rests in too few hands, and that this arrangement severely limits the options of ordinary people. You can’t graduate from college toting $25 or $30 grand in student loan debt, work a wage slave job for $9 an hour because that’s all you can find -- sans benefits or health insurance, of course -- and expect to prosper. No matter how hard you work, you can’t get ahead under those conditions.

The Wall Street protestors and the diverse group calling itself the Other 99% understand that the working class and the poor are held accountable, while the wealthy absolve themselves of all responsibility. The people also understand that American-style capitalism is prone to choke on its own excess, and that we are living in one of these periods now.

Where is it written that ours is a nation of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy?

One of the brighter aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it has shown staying power and resilience. This alone is reason for cautious hope that the movement – if it isn’t co-opted along the way -- might actually budge the status quo back toward the moderate middle. The lesson is clear as can be: when ordinary people decide they’ve had enough and take to the streets, they must be prepared to remain in the streets until the power elite sees them, hears them, feels them and, most critically, is bothered by their presence.

If you listen closely you can hear the faint stirrings of the American people – the real American people -- not the mythic people right-wing conservatives repeatedly invoke in their speeches. Listen, that’s Joe Hill stirring in his grave, and over there, Woody Guthrie is dusting off his guitar. Cesar Chavez is moving, Martin and Malcom and Medgar are moving, John L. Lewis is moving, Walter Reuther is moving, up toward terra firma and the light of day where justice is found.

A Strange and Savage Land

“He was born in a vat of snake oil.” Hunter S. Thompson on Bill Clinton

Well, that seems to aptly describe ninety-nine percent of the politicians in Washington and most state capitols. Honor is rare in politics these days, and most politicians wouldn’t recognize honor if they tripped over it. This is partly because the pols are constantly in fund raising mode, prostrating themselves before trade associations and industry groups, grubbing for cash and leaving their ideals and ethics at the door. The system is bought and paid for and the deals go down under a shroud of secrecy.

There was a time in America when we depended on print and TV journalists to expose political corruption and, for the most part, they did a decent job keeping the politicians somewhat honest. The corporate takeover of the mainstream media destroyed the muckraking tradition. Reporting now is sanitized and trivialized and delivered by friendly lightweights or -- in the case of Fox News -- shouted by rabid partisans. No average American can make sense of it all, a fact politicians from both parties use to their advantage. Confusing the hell out of the American electorate is relatively easy.

The US is now involved in several armed conflicts in the Muslim world, but most Americans are as clueless about that as we are informed about Amanda Knox -- former resident of Italy’s prison system. We know Amanda’s parents, her sisters, her lawyers (US and Italian), her minister and her childhood friends; we know her state of mind and what she ate on the plane coming home from Italy.

The Knox story is like a Lifetime network movie, replete with all the things we love: sex, drugs, murder and mystery. In comparison, our wars against Muslims are merely grim and depressing, endless and hopeless.

Dark times, Hagrid said to a young Harry Potter, dark times.

Indeed.

The forces of repression and stupidity are loose in the land, running amok, and growing stronger against feeble resistance. Mexicans in Alabama are running scared, packing up, pulling their children out of public schools, fearful of being persecuted by Alabama’s tough new immigration law. Mexicans, Arabs, Pakistanis, Ethiopians -- no arms wait here to welcome you and yours. America is pulling back, electrifying its fences, and screening undesirables like never before.

Dark times, scary times. Who will hold the line against these forces? Barack Obama? No, he was born in the same vat of snake oil that Clinton sprang from. Any of the crop of GOP presidential hopefuls? Sweet Jesus, no, those people are unhinged, as dangerous as starving jackals, and they pray to a wrathful God who doesn’t believe in redemption or forgiveness. If you’re poor, it’s your fault. If you get sick, too bad. If you get deep into debt and can’t crawl out, you will find no relief.

All our heroes sleep in the grave. We’re on our own, stumbling around in a strange and savage land where the customs of the locals are unfathomable and intruders are burned at the stake. The rich wall themselves inside environments they can control and hire private security guards to fend off undesirables; the poor are driven into shantytowns where raw sewage flows in the unpaved streets. At night the tolling of the mission bell is drowned out by the howl of coyotes.

Who's Next?

Good Morning America led with the news that the America-born terrorist mastermind, Anwar al-Awlaki, had been killed in northern Yemen. George Stephanopolous and Brian Ross were beside themselves with excitement, and if you didn’t know they were talking about the assassination of a man never charged with a crime or tried in a court of law, you might have thought they were reviewing a particularly exciting Super Bowl game.

I don’t know if Anwar al-Awlaki was as diabolical as he is being portrayed in the American media, or if he is just being used to justify the American War on Muslim Terrorists.

The Obama Administration speaks with the same certainty about Awlaki that the Bush Administration spoke about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear and biological weapons and the direct threat they posed to America.

Let’s not forget that the Bush gang cooked the intelligence books to buttress their justification for the invasion of Iraq; let’s also not forget that the American intelligence community frequently gets it wrong.

Osama bin Laden. Anwar al-Awlaki. Who will be the next terror czar to be taken out by the United States or its proxies? Who will be the next to die because of his “potential” threat to the United States?

I’m not making apologies for terrorists, but there is something deeply disturbing about the United States ceding to itself the power and authority to act as judge, jury and executioner, wherever and whenever it wants. How do such actions make the United States safer? Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, and Anwar al-Awlaki is dead, but in killing them, how many additional martyrs has the United States created?

I felt a little sick to my stomach as I listened to George Stephanopolous and Brian Ross, watched as ABC’s slick graphics simulated how the American military’s technological wizardry tracked al-Awlaki’s every move. GMA’s infatuation with wizardry overshadowed any need to raise larger questions about the threat al-Awlaki posed or the legality of killing him without evidence or trial.

The website www.costsofwar.org estimates the monetary costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions at $3.7 trillion. Six thousand two hundred and thirty American service people have died, thousands more have been maimed or scared for life. The number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan is routinely underestimated by the United States, and a reliable count of the number of wounded or displaced human beings is almost impossible to come by, though after a decade of continuous war, it stands to reason that the number is very large.

And as the War on Muslim Terrorists drags on year after year with no end in sight, as the number of innocent victims grows, so does distrust and hatred of the United States.

POEM - Bones

Not sure why, but tonight I’m thinking
About bones
Bones buried deep in Central Africa,
Eastern Europe,
Bones between the Tigris and the Euphrates
Bones in the highlands of Vietnam
And the Mississippi Delta
Bones beneath the Vatican
Bones thirty feet below bustling avenues
Stacked in orderly rows in the catacombs
Of Paris
Mounds of femurs and ulnas, metatarsals and tibias
Bones with stories, bones with secrets
Bones blessed, bones cursed
Broken bones, misplaced bones, mismatched bones
Infant bones
Bones with memories of war and famine
Pogroms and purges
Revolutions and riots
Bones from the earth, of the earth
Bones yet to be discovered

Lessons from a Monarch (Butterfly)

I watch a monarch butterfly float over our deck in the sunshine; it flutters and weaves, circles a purple flower and lights for a moment before taking flight again.

The light is lovely this afternoon, here on the Platinum coast of California, the American Riviera. The morning marine layer burned off early and now it’s a postcard day, a day tailor-made for tourists. I wonder where the tourists get the money to travel, which leads me to wonder how residents of this glorious city make the nut every month. What do they do or own that pulls in the big sums needed? Unemployment is high in California – higher than the official numbers suggest – but here the beat goes on as if the economy is humming.

If well off residents of the American Riviera have taken a hit, they manage to disguise the fact with relative ease.

It’s less easy for the working poor, but then everything is less easy for the poor.

When the monarch returns for another pass at the flowers, I ponder my fate if my job were to suddenly disappear. I have no illusions that it can’t happen to me because it can; no job is safe today. In less than a minute I have created – in my head -- a doomsday scenario full of desperation and degradation. In a blink my family and I are on the street, another charity case, another casualty, another statistical entry in a government database. Homeless. Destitute. Doomed.

It’s not class warfare when the wealthy and well-connected rig the political system to rob working people and the poor – it’s only class warfare when workers and the poor push back, speak up, make demands; then the rich mobilize talking heads and pliable journalists and the airwaves fill with slogans: “We can’t create jobs by taxing the producers.” “Tax cuts are the answer. Slash tax rates and jobs will appear, like mushrooms.” The truth makes no difference – it’s the slogan that matters, the crisp sound bite, easily and often repeated.

The news I read argues that more and more middle-class folks are losing their grip on the ladder and falling into the abyss where the American Dream becomes a nightmare. These are the stories that never make Good Morning America or the CBS Evening News – stories about a generation destined to fare worse than the one before.

All this from watching a butterfly? All this from pondering how people make the monthly nut? Shouldn’t I be thinking of something else on this sun-splashed day? Why can’t I understand that tax cuts for the rich mean jobs for the poor? It’s so simple. Wealth equates to virtue. The eye of the needle is a hindrance no more.

In flight the monarch appears to be playing, like a child on a playground, floating one way for a while, then abruptly altering course as the mood strikes. Happy butterfly. The reality, of course, is that the butterfly isn’t here for leisure or fun: it’s programmed to lay its eggs and die. Every egg doesn’t produce a caterpillar, and every caterpillar doesn’t become a butterfly. The monarch fights for life and continuance like every other species.

The monarch dwells here and now, and maybe that is all I can learn from watching it dance across my deck.

A Day to Forget?

I’ve never believed or felt that the horrible events of September 11, 2001 changed the world: what happened that day changed our perception of the world, and our perception gave birth to a mentality that has ensnared our country in a trap beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams.

I never bought George W. Bush’s assertion that 9/11 happened because Muslim terrorists hated “our freedoms”; my reading of history and geopolitics told me that the policies of the United States angered some Muslims to the point of fanaticism.

I don’t personally know anyone who died or was directly affected by 9/11. I can imagine, however incompletely, the sense of shock and loss; I can imagine the fear and grief; on an intellectual level I can understand the desire for revenge. If my wife or child had died in one of the towers that day, if I had lost a friend or colleague, a brother or sister, I’m sure my feelings about 9/11 would be different.

As it is, when I think about 9/11 I tend to focus on the American response to what was essentially a crime – diabolical to be sure -- but still a crime. Instead of engaging the world’s police resources to solve the crime, we launched a war in Afghanistan that at first succeeded and then became a failure; Bush and Cheney, along with a craven Congress (and let’s not forget our disgraced national media), compounded that error by abruptly invading Iraq on the flimsiest of pretenses. Thousands of innocent people died in these invasions; hundreds are still dying.

Iraq is a fragile and corrupt state and Afghanistan is even worse.

In between the wars, our hysterical political leadership behaved according to the script penned by Osama bin Laden and enacted the Patriot Act – a monumental assault on the civil liberties that set America apart from other nations.

The Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security it spawned still frighten me more than a hundred Osama bin Laden’s.

And while I appreciate the heroism of policemen and firefighters and EMT’s, and respect the bravery and compassion of ordinary people suddenly caught in an extraordinary event, I find endless memorials to them unsettling, in the same way I find endless references to our “brave men and women in uniform” unsettling. In my case, repetition of this message distracts and detracts. Yes, some members of our armed forces are brave and heroic and believe that what they’re doing protects America, but to hang the hero label on all of them is like saying that all public school teachers love kids.

We can’t let 9/11 go even after a decade of war and mourning, a decade of looking over our shoulder and around corners for humorless men in turbans, a decade of security scans and pat downs and warning messages boomed over loudspeakers, a decade of cowboy rhetoric.

We can’t forget and we can’t heal. We’ve locked ourselves into a war that can’t be won or brought to a close. And if we are any safer today than we were on 9/10/01, it’s only marginally so.

Hard Labor

The official unemployment in California is 12%. 14 million people are estimated to be out of work nationwide. The “real” unemployment rate is much higher. Job growth in August was flat.

Private sector labor unions are weaker this Labor Day than last, continuing their long decline, and public employee unions and their members have sustained fierce attack from Republican governors bent on solving fiscal emergencies by pushing government workers into the wage cellar with their private sector brothers and sisters.

Happy Labor Day.

After wasting the summer bickering about deficits and austerity, the political class has finally acknowledged the one issue that Americans actually care about: jobs.

And not the low-wage, no benefits, part-time jobs that Rick Perry boasts of creating thousands of in Texas – Americans want real jobs at living wages that will allow them to buy what they need, send their kids to college, see the doctor without needing to take out a second mortgage, and maybe even salt a little money away for their golden years.

President Obama will make a big policy speech about jobs this week though we’d be wise not to get our hopes up; Obama will hit the right notes as he always does, but action will not follow his rhetoric, and in any case the austerity mandarins of the GOP will immediately crow that we cannot afford to extend unemployment benefits or launch a second stimulus package. For a few days, maybe a week, the subject of jobs will sit front and center on the media stage and then be replaced by the usual economic reporting: the ups and downs of the stock market, whether or not investors are feeling confident or cautious, and how much dough CEO’s are taking home.

Most Americans are unaware of how much blood was spilled by labor activists to put a more humane face on American capitalism. Sweatshops, child labor, sixteen-hour shifts and dangerous working conditions were once the norm; workers were expendable, tossed aside when used up. No paid vacations, sick time, pension plans or overtime pay was offered until working people, men and women, took to the streets to demand a fair share and a seat at the table. This required guts and courage and determination and organization, a willingness to be bloodied today and come back for more tomorrow, to never back down, no matter how ruthless and hostile the mine and factory owners were.

Grit of that kind has disappeared.

I see them at 5:30 in the morning when I’m on my way to the gym. On foot or pedaling rickety bicycles, they carry backpacks and wear hooded sweatshirts as they make their way to jobs that I imagine are physically demanding, unpleasant and low paying. They are Hispanic or Latino, legal immigrants, maybe a few undocumented immigrants among them, here to work and make better lives for themselves and their families. That desire is immutable, crosses generations and cultures, motivates people to cross oceans, deserts and militarized borders; motivates people to make long commutes on crowded freeways; motivates people to get out of bed day after day.

Desire for something better lies at the heart of the American Dream. Work hard, play by the rules, take care of your family, and don’t expect something for nothing, and you can make a decent life for yourself. The implied promise of America, drilled into generations, and then slowly eroded by the failed ideology of free trade agreements, union busting, tax cuts on top of tax cuts, and corporate takeover of the political system.

14 million people unemployed. Millions more underemployed. Untold thousands who have given up all hope of ever working again.

Happy Labor Day, America.

Everyday Madness

Ordinary everyday madness, the DOW is up, the DOW is down, investors are wary, investors are jubilant, the recession is over, the recession is just beginning, racism is a relic of the past, racism is embedded in our DNA.

The eagle cries and the raven squawks, a caterpillar must run a gauntlet before it becomes a butterfly, water wears down rock, stupid is as stupid does; Texas Governor Rick Perry has a nice head of hair but before long his Jesus shtick will wear thin. Mitt Romney believes that every dime a corporation earns (steals, siphons, extorts, you decide…) ultimately returns to the people – yeah – Mitt said that on one of his campaign stops. Which people? How much dough does Wal-Mart return to its grunt line employees, the very same ones, mainly women, who are encouraged by Wal-Mart to apply for food stamps and any other government assistance for which they qualify? How slick is that? Are those the people Mitt is talking about? Mitt wants us to think he’s a regular guy, a can of Bud and a ballgame Everyman, but he’s a millionaire like most American politicians and his view is marred by gilded glasses. Mitt thinks the rich deserve everything they have no matter how they got it, just as he believes the poor are responsible for their own fate, their own poverty, their own ills, their own health care, their own college tuition.

In gleaming glass-enclosed Christian churches God wants you, me, every body, to be rich and blessed with a nice head of hair. But many are poor and many are balding, so there is a difference between what God wants and what God delivers. Money on the table, blood in the gutter, Woody Guthrie is trading his guitar for a pistol and Mother Theresa is sharpening a machete. Tempting fate yet again, the armadillo sets off across the two-lane blacktop, just another crapshoot, another turn of the deck, another roll of the dice. Few win, most lose, ageless, timeless, back to the garden and the fall, the primordial swamp, the Big Bang, the meteor shower. Don’t forget, Mr. Bigshot, that you lost your virginity to a 300 pound whore in Tijuana. You’ve come a long way since college: house, luxury car, stock portfolio, purebred dog, trophy wife, young mistress, lovely children and a cholesterol reading below 200. You the man! America has been very, very good to you and the gifts keep coming. Generous tax cuts and free airline miles, the complimentary first class upgrade with champagne and strawberries. Hotel maids earning minimum wage pay more Federal tax than you do. You’re one of the winners.

Ordinary everyday madness, garden variety, as common as bird shit on a statue. A woman in Florida drowns her infant in the bathtub; a man in Texas rapes his daughter because Jesus told him to; ordinary and mad, mad and ordinary, madness from the pulpit, madness from the judge’s bench, madness in the maternity ward and the Governor’s office. Only the graveyards are calm and serene. The captain of the cruise ship has gone AWOL in port and the ship is drifting on the outgoing tide. The passengers are oblivious and the entire crew is below decks, drinking pilfered booze from paper cups and dancing to Lady Gaga.

Summer is almost over.

Poem: The Elusive Lady

My muse is on vacation tonight
Or maybe she’s dancing close
With someone else
She comes and goes
Here today, gone tomorrow
The biggest tease I’ve ever known
I reach for her
My need urgent
The well is almost dry and the words
Refuse to cooperate
I need an idea that will grab me
And hold tight until the demon is exorcised
By words on the page
Come back to me, elusive lady
Play fair for once

Burning

London burns for three nights running
Bottled anger and frustration spills into the streets
Sirens wail, smoke billows, broken glass sparkles
In the firelight
Hopelessness is a powerful thing

Standard & Poor’s passes judgment on Uncle Sam
And the DOW freefalls
Why S&P is given any credibility after the role
It played in the mortgage fiasco of 2008
Is a mystery no one bothers to explain

All eyes focus on traders in Wall Street’s casino
Which way will they lean when the bell rings and
It’s gambling time again?

Sirens wail, smoke billows, broken glass sparkles
In the firelight
Hopelessness is a powerful thing

China – America’s banker -- lectures the US on austerity
The way the US once hectored Mexico, Brazil and Italy
To make “structural adjustments”
And let the market rule
Ironic advice from Communists

The proverbial banana has found a home in our crumbling republic
Land of the indebted and indentured
Students buckle under college loans and a low wage future
Families choose between medicine and food, clothing and gas
The long-term unemployed pray to a God as deaf
And indifferent as the politicians in Washington

Sirens wail, smoke billows, broken glass sparkles
In the firelight
Hopelessness is a powerful thing

Poem: All Guns, No Butter

America is all guns and no butter
Big, bad and broke
But never too broke to spend more money
On guns and bombs than China,
Russia, France, and England -- combined

We’re masters of the remote-controlled drone,
The F-14 and the A-10, the Apache attack helicopter,
And the Tomahawk cruise missile;
Under the banner of freedom and security
We kill “suspected militants” and deny civilian
Casualties

Here at home deliberate neglect is our weapon of choice
Roads and bridges and schools and libraries
Are allowed to go to seed
Another sign of government’s failure and
Incompetence;
The public pond is systematically
Drained
Then handed to profiteers as political
Payback

Captive children of the Market God
We would rather self-destruct than pay taxes
For services the rest of the civilized world
Takes for granted

We’re an empire in name only, a swaggering thug
Living off past glory and hoary myths
Repeated endlessly by a corrupt, gullible
And cowardly media:

“Tax cuts for the rich equal jobs for the poor.”
“The free market will regulate itself.”
“Social Security causes budget deficits.”
“The Taliban is a threat to America.”

While the clock winds down and the sun sets and
Night falls on the American experiment
Imposters and posers, fakes and frauds
Make a mockery of representative democracy
Under the majestic capitol dome
Common ground for the common good
Is trampled beneath the jackboot of ideology

And our more perfect union
Is dying a perfect
Death

The Eloquent Ankle Grabber

The news is full of details about the debt ceiling compromise reached in Congress and my BP is moving into dangerous territory. Breathe, baby, breathe. Most of the reporting in the mainstream media is sloppy, warmed-over BS passed along as truth or wisdom, neither of which can be found in Washington D.C. today. Let’s be clear: this manufactured crisis is a new low point in American politics, an insult, a slur, an epithet against the people. Today the New York Times repeated the fantasy that economic “catastrophe” has been averted, even though the deal was based on extortion from extreme members of the GOP. The Times also stated that no deal might have triggered a new “recession.” Huh? New recession? The only people who think we are not now mired in a recession are the big shots at Goldman Sachs, a few nitwit economists on the payroll of right-wing think tanks, and maybe the hacks President Obama takes advice from.

I have written several times before about Barrack Obama’s weak spine and teeny-weeny testicles, but this man of empty eloquence has outdone himself this time. To put it in blunt playground terms: Barrack Obama is a pussy. In the face of extortion, he caved; in the face of overheated rhetoric, he capitulated; in the face of a terrible plan that will have dire consequences for the country, he channeled Jimmy Carter and at the same time moved right of Richard Nixon. How the fuck he managed this bizarre contortion is beyond me, but he did. The cause of the deficit is inextricably linked to Republican policies of tax cuts for the rich, a stupid, endless global war on Muslim terrorists, and the financial implosion orchestrated by Wall Street bankers and speculators. Instead of mounting a ferocious counter-argument from the biggest bully pulpit on the planet, Obama meekly bends over, grabs his ankles and begs for more of the same: “OK, boys, give it to me harder this time. Ram it up there. Harder. Faster. Make it hurt so good.” My grandmother once told me that Richard Nixon had the instincts of a Mafia don; as much as I despised Tricky Dick, I have to admit that he would never willingly bend over and take it up the ass.

Obama is John Boehner’s bitch. Obama allows congressional Republicans to line up and piss in his face. This isn’t the hope and change I voted for in 2008. Obama has moved far beyond being a mere disappointment; he’s now a joke and a disgrace. Candidate Obama bears no resemblance to the serial coward and habitual capitulator that occupies the White House. Might as well elect Sarah “Shit-for-Brains” Palin or Michelle “Homosexuality-is-a-Sin” Bachmann in 2012 and crash the republic all at once rather than bit by bit. Watching Boehner and Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell bitch slap Obama whenever they wish is painful. Why won’t the man stand up and fight? Does he really believe that there’s nothing he can do because the GOP controls one house of Congress – or is he, at bottom, a fellow Kool-Aid addict who believes that Republican prescriptions for the economy will help put people back to work?

Now that the burning question of the summer – will Harry Potter finally vanquish Lord Valdamort, save Hogwart’s and hook up with Ginny Weasley – has been answered, we need to find out who stole Obama’s soul and how we can get it back.

Voice Mail from Dr. Duke

July 24, 4:30 P.M. PST

Tanguay, answer the God-damn phone. Where the hell are you? I think I know what’s missing from your blog: sex. Think about it. What do people use the Internet for more than anything else? That’s right, sexual titillation. I’m talking porn, man, in every imaginable variety -- boy on boy, girl on girl, two boys and a girl, men abusing goats, women pleasuring themselves with dildos the size of baseball bats. Get the idea? Give people what they want. The Balcony is too fucking serious. Life is full of dire news, famine, war, pestilence, drought, murder, slavery, scandal, child abuse, earthquakes, tidal waves, death, death and more death. Why do you think reality TV is so popular? Because people need to escape the stifling confines of their boring lives by becoming absorbed in other people’s totally dysfunctional lives. Give up writing serious shit about serious subjects and become a porn impresario – that’s my advice. In case you’re wondering, I’m half in the bag. OK, more like three quarters. OK, three and a half. For the past hour I’ve been drinking tequila shots in the airport bar with a professional poker player. Least that’s what he claims. Weird, pint-sized guy, oversized head, small hands, very dark eyes, but a helluva drinker! Anyway, I’m in Vancouver, on my way to San Francisco and then Maui for a week of R&R. We’ll catch up when I get back. Do me a favor and stop by my house and check for squatters, particularly of the female variety. If you see a dark-haired woman who looks like a gypsy, run like hell. And remember, people want porn. Amen and good luck.

Downward Spiral

Deep into summer here on the Platinum Coast, long evenings with clear skies and the day’s heat finally abating, diffused sun falling through the eucalyptus trees. Tonight I am thinking about Hunter Thompson who put a pistol to his head six years ago and pulled the trigger. Dr. Thompson wrote – a full three years before Sarah Palin thudded on the national stage and proved his point beyond any reasonable doubt -- that America was locked in a downward spiral of dumbness.

All you need do is switch on the TV and watch the news for three minutes, white noise on every channel about the debt ceiling and the potential default by the world’s leading debtor nation. President Obama stands on one side, his weak spine barely holding him upright, while John Boehner and his Nazi lapdog, Eric Cantor, stand on the other. Nobody mentions that the debt ceiling crisis is wholly contrived and manufactured, a faux crisis if ever there was one, nothing more than blatant opportunism on the part of the GOP to further emasculate government, continue the rollback of basic entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, and score political points with anti-tax ideologues ahead of the 2012 presidential election. The BS is so thick and noxious on both sides that only a policy wonk can begin to understand the deal, but maybe all you need to know is that the debt ceiling was raised at least a half dozen times – without debate -- during the W. Bush junta.

For all their disdain of government and praise for “free markets” as the cure for every human problem, from toe fungus to cancer, I haven’t heard Boehner or Cantor offer to relinquish their government salaries, gold-plated health benefits, or guaranteed pensions as a symbolic gesture of austerity. When public servants in Wisconsin or Ohio or Indiana are demonized as the cause of budget deficits, stripped of their collective bargaining rights or forced to accept unpaid furloughs and pay cuts, Boehner and Cantor have nothing to say. Austerity is fine when it happens to someone else.

Slice it any way you want, hypocrisy is hypocrisy and Washington DC is brimming with it. The poor and the elderly and the unemployed must sacrifice, you see, lift themselves by their own shoestrings and learn to stand on their own while those with the most are exempt from any and all sacrifice.

The tables are rigged and the game is fixed. In America, the wealthy always get out of jail free and always pass GO on their way to the bank.

Downward into the swirling vortex, twisting, turning, spinning through icy air, past common sense, past moderation, past compromise, past empathy for the less fortunate, past sympathy for the unlucky, past forgiveness for the damned, past overflowing jail cells, past cemeteries, past toilets clogged with shit, past troughs filled with piss, past denuded forests, past polluted lakes, past windowless factories, past the truth, past popes and cardinals and bishops, and past corporate chieftains perched on golden thrones.

What does it mean? Everything. Nothing. The sun drops behind the eucalyptus trees. The smell of lighter fluid drifts on the evening breeze. A man and a woman argue in Spanish. Far off a Southern Pacific freighter rumbles through town.

Short Fiction: Last Call

Repko’s wife drained her wine glass and gestured to him for a refill.

Take it easy tonight.

Fill. It’s the only thing that dulls my pain.

What pain is that?

Being married to you, for one thing.

Really?

It’s not what I dreamed about when I was a little girl.

You think you’re a picnic?

Fill.

I wanted better for myself, too, you know? I had dreams, aspirations even.

The only dreams you ever had were wet ones. Fill ‘er up.

You’re a mean drunk, Valerie. You used to be a kind person, but now you’re just mean. What happened?

What happened? Shit happened, that’s what. You happened. My crummy job happened. More shit happened. Shit, shit and more shit. It’s all shit, a great big stinking hill of shit.

You’re very negative, Valerie.

Well, I have reason to be.

Your aura is cloudy.

What do you know about auras?

I know more than you give me credit for. Believe it or not, I’m connected to my spiritual dimension and I know a cloudy aura when I see one. Yours is cloudy, like there’s a dust storm swirling around it.

You’re full of shit. Shit’s coming out of your ears. I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life. Fill!

Repko started to uncork the bottle but then thought better of it and smashed it down on Valerie’s head, something he had fantasized about doing for years. The sensation that ran up his arm was even more satisfying than he had imagined. Surprisingly, the bottle didn’t shatter. Valerie fell backwards. Her eyes rolled up in her head and her mouth opened as if she had one final thing to say, but nothing came out except a grunt. Rivulets of blood rolled down her face.

Repko uncorked the bottle, filled Valerie’s glass, and offered a silent toast to his now dead wife.

Star Spangled Nightmare

It’s the 4th of July and part of me feels compelled to write something high-minded about America. Land of the free, home of the brave, 1776, beacon of liberty -- all that stuff. Yes, take the exalted path and pen something in praise of the birth of a free nation, steeped in the principles of the Enlightenment. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Hancock, a few of the fabled founding fathers that Michelle Bachmann always refers to in her speeches to Tea Party faithful – as if to say: if we only return to the time-tested values of our white fathers, all will again be well.

Today the star spangled banner will play from thousands of loud speakers, Gob Bless America will be sung in ballparks and arenas, hot dogs will hiss on BBQ grills, bands will march…

Damn it! Why is a vision of a leering George W. Bush slipping across my mind? Why is Dick Cheney sinking his teeth into Jefferson’s neck? Why is that skinny bitch Ann Coulter flashing her insipid tits at John Adams? Am I losing my mind? Am I having a waking nightmare? Is this what psychosis feels like when it finally takes hold?

Wow! Where did that come from? It was like 2003 all over again, when Dick and W ran roughshod over the Constitution and lied through their teeth about the need for America to invade and occupy Iraq. But it’s better now, right, and if the Founding Fathers are gazing down on this fruited plain, surely they are smiling?

OK, maybe not. Washington is teary-eyed and Jefferson is livid with rage, John Adams can’t believe what has become of America, and John Hancock simply mutters, “Bastards, bastards, bastards” over and over. The venerable Founders look at the current Congress, aghast that a single great leader cannot be found beneath the dome. Instead they see a house filled with clowns, idiots, shysters, fools, pederasts, homophobes, morons, perverts and criminals, all of them grubbing for money from corporate lobbyists and shilling for wealthy donors. Of the two political parties, one is in thrall to a failed ideology and the other is craven and intellectually bankrupt. Meanwhile, the president is a serial coward who repeatedly raises the white flag and flees the battlefield before the first shot is fired.

And the people, the good, decent American people that Mitt Romney and Bachmann and Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry are always droning on about, how are they getting on? Not so well. Many are running scared in the face of a bewildering economy that serves the few on the backs of the many, swimming in debt or waiting to lose their homes to the maw of a pitiless foreclosure machine. The cost of living rises but decent jobs at living wages are harder to find than a moderate Republican, and the playing field that once made sense and held promise is now tilted against wage earners.

Washington, the military hero, cannot fathom how easily the nation commits its sons and daughters to murky wars in distant lands, and how little sacrifice is asked from the people, and how these wars go on without end, long after the rational for them expires. The military generals cow the politicians and in turn the politicians frighten the population with predictions of dire consequences should our soldiers come home before the mission is complete. The huge footprint left by the American military colossus on the globe – particularly in places where oil is found -- tells Washington that something besides national security is in play…

Whoa, man, this is getting heavy. Don’t be such a downer. What about fireworks and cold beer, juicy hamburgers, and American flags snapping in the breeze? Don’t stress about the economy, distant wars, political gridlock or the fact that the FBI and the NSA spy on us. Forget all that dark stuff. Crack a cold Budweiser and stick your head in the sand. Now you’re behaving like a patriotic American.

Fly, Redux

Note: Fly made his first appearance on the Balcony on April 15, 2011.

Greetings. Fly here, still stuck in our nation’s capitol where the people are truly cuckoo. After my experience in John Boehner’s office, all I wanted was to return to the suburbs of Northern Virginia and the simple joy of stalking backyard BBQ’s.

One thing I’ve learned about DC: it’s easy to get in and hard to get out, which might explain why some of these political hacks remain for decades.

Anyway, I was buzzing along K Street, waiting for a prevailing breeze to carry me to the burbs, when I passed an open window in a nondescript office building where the odor of junk food was overpowering. I ducked in for a quick peek and saw this rotund gentlemen (OK, the truth is, he was a fat slob, at least 290 pounds) eating lunch at his desk. And what a feast it was: two Big Macs, French fries, king-size Dr. Pepper, a half pound bag of peanut M&M’s, and a vanilla shake. Nirvana! I dived, flew a tight loop around the shake, and then made a perfect landing on the French fries. The fat man paid no attention to me because he was looking at porn on his computer.

I dined slowly, savoring every delicious morsel, while the fat man gobbled his burger and watched two Asian women do things to each other that I dare not describe. And people think my kind dirty and disgusting! When the fat guy began fumbling with his belt buckle I flew to the far side of the room… As much as I love French fries, there are some acts I can’t be witness to.

My host quickly minimized his computer screen when there was a knock at the door and a man poked his head into the office. “Wassup Greg? Hey, French fries!”

“Help yourself.”

The newcomer’s name was Mark and he was as skinny as Greg was fat. Mark helped himself to a handful of fries and settled in a chair, all arms and legs, elbows, and an Adams apple the size of a golf ball.

“Is that a Dr. Pepper? I’m thirsty.”

“Mitts off. What time are you meeting with Senator McConnell?”

“Three-thirty. What you got for me?”

Greg cleared space on his desk. “OK, first thing is to remind the Senator that American Millionaires for Fair Taxation support the GOP’s efforts to revive the economy by cutting spending on wasteful entitlement programs – “

“No,” Mark interrupted. “The first thing is to remind the Senator of all the dough we’ve contributed to his re-election campaigns and those of his pals. OK, proceed.”

“Right. AMFT also supports further tax cuts – corporate and individual – because everyone knows that Americans are overtaxed. We’re encouraging our contacts at the New York Times, the TV networks, and the business press to print or air stories about the struggles of wealthy Americans. Average people don’t appreciate how stressful being fabulously wealthy can be. It’s not easy to maintain seven houses, a private plane, a helicopter, a fleet of BMW’s, a string of polo ponies and a private petting zoo.”

“Absolutely correct,” Mark said, stretching his long legs and helping himself to more fries. “Not to mention how hard it is to find decent domestic help. The wealthy are carrying the burden of jump-starting the economy and should therefore be rewarded for their heroic efforts. Good angle. I’m sure Senator McConnell will be happy to carry our message to his colleagues. Can we book him on Face the Nation?”

“Piece of cake, buddy. We control that agenda. M&M’s?”

OK, my friends, I’m on the wall thinking, OMG, WTF, again with this Kool-Aid? Is everyone in this town insane? Do they ever get outside the bubble and rub shoulders with real people? When have tax cuts for the rich ever produced jobs for the poor? I’m just a common, insignificant fly, but if I can understand how spurious that idea is, why can’t you?

“We’re also launching,” Greg continued, “an aggressive billboard campaign in selected cities. Check this out: photo of a man with blueprints tucked under his arm in front of a new office building, with the caption – ‘I’m a producer. I’ve earned my tax relief. Have you?’”

“Brilliant,” said Mark, helping himself to more M&M’s. “What else?”

“’Entitlement programs only produce debt.’ We’re thinking the photo will be of a fire hydrant spewing red ink.”

“Hunky-dory,” Mark said, unfolding his long body from the chair. “Keep producing this wonderful crap. God help us if the voters ever wake up and realize they’ve been fleeced. It will be like Greece, only ten times worse.”

“No chance,” Greg said. “Voters are irrelevant. Fist bump, dude!”

Before I flew out the window I crapped on Greg’s French fries. Take that, fat man! I should have jumped on the wind and gone straight to the burbs but I wasn’t through with DC yet. Somewhere in this former swamp there had to be someone who understood that the American people were being mugged by their elected representatives on behalf of plutocrats and vicious ideologues, and I was determined to find that person.

Fly will be back!

Satire: War is Hell

Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing Room, Washington D.C.

Members of the Committee file in and take their seats behind the dais. A few moments later, David Petraeus, incoming CIA Director, sits down at the witness table. Although he will soon be a civilian, Petraeus wears his dress uniform.

Dianne Feinstein (Democrat, Chairperson): Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with us, General.

DP: No problem. War is hell, ladies and gentlemen, but our brave warriors carry on.

Saxby Chambliss (Republican): Amen, General. How’re things going in Afghanistan?

DP: We’re taking the fight to the enemy, hitting him hard where he lives and breathes; we strike fear in his women and children and make his animals cower at our feet. I think it goes well and I believe we can secure the country by 2024.

Daniel Coats (Republican): That’s fantastic news, General.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): General Petraeus, I don’t mean to rain on the parade, but we invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and you’re telling us it will have taken 23 years to secure the country by the time we’re done.

DP: You’re not a military man, Senator. You’ve never tested yourself on the field of battle against an enemy intent on blowing your brains out. You’ve never eaten MRE’s for weeks on end and crapped in an open latrine in a hailstorm. Al Qaeda has a foothold in Afghanistan, and is aided and abetted by the Taliban. Together, they are a formidable enemy, as cunning and merciless as any fighters in the world.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): How many Al Qaeda fighters do you estimate are in Afghanistan, General?

DP: Last time I checked there were 12. We may have taken one or two out since that point in time.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Do you mean 1,200 or 12,000?

DP: No, I mean 12, as in a dozen, although, as I said, we may have taken one or two out during night raids.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Let me make sure I understand…in all of Afghanistan there are maybe a dozen Al Qaeda operatives? How many US troops does it take to contain 12 Al-Qaeda fighters?

DP: A minimum of 100,000, not counting contracted support forces, CIA agents and private mercenaries. Don’t look so surprised, Senator. As I told you, these Al-Qaeda fighters are devilishly clever. I’m convinced some of them have invisibility cloaks like in the Harry Potter movies.

Daniel Coats (Republican): Let’s shift gears for a moment and talk about President Karzai…what’s you impression of the man, General?

DP: Well, it’s clear that most Afghans despise him and his family, and that he’s up to his eyeballs in the opium trade. He lies, he schemes, he cheats. He’s hopelessly addicted to smoking opium, totally unreliable when the going gets sticky, in short, the kind of tinhorn strongman the United States has always supported. Karzai can be sanctimonious when it comes to civilian casualties, but overall, not a bad guy. I’m encouraging him to take up golf.

Daniel Coats (Republican): Shifting gears again…what about Pakistan?

DP: A nation of two-faced liars and thieves. They take our military aid with one hand, support the Taliban and Al-Qaeda with the other. I curse them all. I’d like to put 150,000 combat hardened troops on the ground in Islamabad and teach those lying rag-heads a lesson they will never forget.

Saxby Chambliss (Republican): Well said, General, my sentiments exactly.

Dianne Feinstein (Democrat): General, some Americans have expressed concern about the cost in lives and money in what seem to be perpetual wars. How do you respond to these concerns?

DP: I don’t. War is hell. Get used to it.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Give us a sense of what is going on in Iraq.

DP: The flower of Democracy is definitely taking hold in Iraq. When necessary we take the fight to the enemy, hit him hard where he lives and breathes; we strike fear in his women and children and make his animals cower at our feet. If the current trend continues, our troops can come home in 2085.

Daniel Coats (Republican): That’s fantastic news, General.

Ron Wyden (Democrat): Out of curiosity, what duties are American forces in Iraq performing?

DP: Our brave warriors stand on guard against undesirable elements in Iraqi society. Other than that, they spend their time playing softball, tennis and soccer, all indoors in air-conditioned comfort, of course. We’ve spared no expense to make our brave warriors comfortable.

Saxby Chambliss (Republican): Would you also call them gallant?

DP: I would. OK, ladies and gentlemen that’s all the time I can spare for you today. If you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch engagement with Sarah Palin.

Confidants

Huma Abedin is standing by her husband, Anthony Weiner, while Weiner battles to salvage his political career, though unlike many other political wives in recent years, Huma’s not standing anywhere near Anthony. Her support is of the low profile variety.

Huma works for Hillary Clinton at the State Department, and is said to be one of HC’s most trusted advisors. When it comes to dealing with a lying, cheating, scofflaw husband, who knows better than Hillary? One can easily imagine the older more experienced Hillary offering solace to her shell-shocked aide.

“Men are pigs,” she might say. “Especially men who also happen to be politicians. They treat their marriage vows like campaign promises: easy to make, hard to keep.”

“I feel stupid,” says Huma. “He swore he was done catting around on-line and I believed him. I believed him! I was clueless!”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Huma. Now, now, shhhh, don’t cry. Our men are of a particular breed. Like Bill, Anthony can be charming, persuasive, suave, and sincere. Oh, the sincerity! I knew Bill was messing around on me long before the Monica story broke, primarily because he was skipping around the West Wing with a permanent hard-on, but even though I had seen that telltale energy many times before, I believed him when he looked me square in the eye and denied there was something going on. I know what you’re going through, it’s a terrible blow, but you can survive it. You will survive it.”

“How did you do it, Hillary?”

“First of all, I exacted revenge, that’s very important. Don’t listen to any BS about forgiveness and putting the incident in the past. My past with Bill was littered with cocktail waitresses, secretaries, interns, hotel maids, other men’s wives, etc. Lewinsky broke the camel’s back. I told Bill in no uncertain terms that my support came with a high price tag. I made that man crawl on his knees.”

“Can I ask you something? If it makes you uncomfortable you don’t have to answer… “

“Huma, dear, after what I’ve been through, nothing makes me uncomfortable except being in the same room with Newt Gingrich. It’s about the cigar, right?”

“How did you know?”

“Woman’s intuition. Yes, the little bitch rode that Montecristo like it was a stallion, up, down, in, out. I’m sure Bill was fascinated. It was like going to Bangkok and watching the whores shoot ping-pong balls from their VJ’s.”

“They really do that?”

“Oh, Huma, you’re so sweet and innocent. Take my advice, go home and treat your husband like a dog for the next eighteen months. Exact ten pounds of his flesh.”

“Thanks, Hillary.”

“OK, I’ve got work to do. The Libyans are pissing me off. Dictators are complete assholes.”

“That’s because all of them are men,” says Huma.

Control Thy Weiner

Enough already, Good Morning America. Weiner-Gate is a non-story that you and your breathless correspondents keep dressing as a major “scandal.” It’s not, except as the details pertain to Mr. Weiner and his wife. OK, granted, the congressman from New York might be a little weird and a lot lacking in self-control and common sense, he might be an inveterate pussy-hound or an incurable narcissist, but his offense is hardly as egregious as sending young Americans to fight and die in unnecessary foreign wars or using taxpayer dollars to host orgies with underage hookers in the Presidential Suite of the Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Are Weiner’s constituents – the people who voted him into office – the ones clamoring for his resignation? No. The clamor is coming from talking heads and the Democratic Party power structure and Weiner’s colleagues who are now petrified to associate with him.

Nobody wants to hang out with a leper.

The Democrats are afraid of being embarrassed by one of their own, when they should be embarrassed by how cravenly they act and how quickly they cave in the face of right-wing pressure.

Of all the shit going on in America at this moment, why is our media totally absorbed with this pedestrian story? Husbands cheat on wives every day. Porn is a multi-billion dollar business. Sex sells cars, beer, cell phones, deodorant, shampoo, yogurt, clothing and jewelry. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are the next best thing to sexual carnivals. Hey, ruling class, let’s get fucking serious here. Do something about the devastating foreclosure crisis that shows no signs of tapering off; do something about the scarcity of full-time jobs at better than McDonald’s wages; do something meaningful about climate change; do something about the grotesque disparity in wealth that is making America look like a Third World country; do something to bring the endless treasure-sucking American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. Stop jabbering about “deficits” and “tax relief” for the wealthy; at this point, deficits have no business being the country’s number one priority. As for the very wealthy, they’ve been sucking at the public trough long enough.

But most of all, gilded and out of touch rulers, stop masturbating over Anthony Weiner and get down to real business before the unemployed and the hopeless surge into the streets and what remains of the National Guard is deployed to restore order.

This Bud's for You

Watched Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Dallas at Miami, Dirk Nowitzki and friends against the Dream Team with the Big Three: King James, D-Wade, C-Bosh. Hometown fans in white t-shirts, courtside seats occupied by attractive women, an overblown introduction of the home starting five just before tip-off, with pyrotechnics and pumping music.

Broadcasters for ABC/ESPN hype the game from all angles. Can the Maverick bench respond and contribute? Will Dirk’s finger injury be a factor? What should we look for from the Heat Magic Johnson?

The Heat dominated for most of the contest, James and D-Wade slicing, slamming and jamming to a big 4th quarter cushion, but the gritty Mavericks refused to fold and in the end, found a way to win.

Sandwiched between the B-Ball action are the commercials, targeted for consumers of beer, cell phones, cars, fast food. One Budweiser commercial showing a young soldier in fatigues coming home to a surprise party in an old barn ran several times. This Bud’s for you, glad you made it home in one piece. A hug from a brother, a kiss from a teary-eyed girl – cue the music, yank the heartstrings; this is what America is all about. Support our brave troops – run out and buy a six-pack or two.

Yesterday was a day for it, I guess, hard on the heels of Memorial Day. Standing in line at the post office in the morning I saw an ad about special mail rates for military members. Later, when I tuned in to watch the game, two soldiers were being feted by the Miami Heat – two more heroes, home from the wars; one female, one male, both black.

In the commercials and the pre-game ceremonies our soldiers are always heroic paragons of self-sacrifice who fight long wars in far away countries against implacable enemies so that the rest of us can sip beer, upgrade our cell phones, buy new cars and eat fast food. No mention, of course, is ever made of those soldiers who return maimed, broken, psychologically destroyed, or crippled. Nor is any mention made of civilian casualties in the countries where our heroes have been deployed.

Dress a pig in army fatigues and most Americans would stand up and salute. As our politics has become more and more corrupt, and our economy tilted in favor of the haves at the expense of the have nots, as we deny the logic and evidence and consequence of climate change, as our infrastructure crumbles, as high unemployment persists, the more we celebrate our warriors, the power of our killing machines, and our inherent right to unleash the dogs of war whenever and wherever we see fit.

This national obsession with military might is common to dying empires that refuse to recognize that they are dying. To prove to the world that we are still as bad-ass on the battlefield as Lebron James is on the hardwood, we manufacture new threats, new enemies, new rationales for invasion and occupation, and, tragically, we devote more and more of our resources to these foolish efforts.

And our most renowned corporations cloak themselves in patriotic garb as they sell us stuff we do not need.

Graduation Day

Sunshine all over the American Riviera, sea glittering sapphire, roses in bloom, grapes hanging heavy on the vine.

It’s graduation day for hundreds, sixth grade to junior high, junior high to high school, high school to college. White chairs in neat rows on the grass in Peabody Stadium. Anticipation for the march in cap and gown, for one’s name to be announced over the PA system, for the cheer to rise up from friends and family, anticipation for the next step, for the beginning of the road, for the class trip to Disneyland, anticipation for the long days of a carefree summer, for liberation from mom and dad, duty and convention, rules, restrictions.

Mylar balloons, still and video cameras ready to go, house full of relatives all itching to freeze the moment in time, something the kids can’t yet understand. Hold onto to seventeen, eighteen, fleeting youth and unbridled optimism, that sense of invulnerability, as long as you possibly can. Listen to Lady Gaga, respect your youth, be yourself, love who you are. Don’t listen to the old farts yet; they had their shot – now it’s your turn. Claim your inheritance no matter how minor. Play, goof off, slip into a new identity every other week, sing at the top of your range, trace your beloved’s footprints in the sand. Sleep under the stars as often as possible. Skip stones across lake or stream, jump in puddles, eat pancakes for dinner.

The world is out there, waiting for you. You’ll find no shortage of windmills to tilt at, though take the road anyway, see where it leads, leave home and come back, run to stay in place, chase whatever mirage makes you happy. The world is patient, time masquerades as an ally when you’re young and your heart is invincible and your teeth are white and your skin is supple.

Read the great philosophers, read billboards, read comic books, read and save every fortune from every fortune cookie; plant flowers; swim naked; ride your bicycle with no hands; party all night; remember mother’s birthday.

Milestones and markers, signs and portents, omens and premonitions. Claim it. Own it. Your turn and time, Generation Now, speeding through the galaxy, where the fake, the staged and the contrived might be more real than the real thing. Find out, return to tell the tale, conjure a memory of places you’ve never been.

What did Paul Simon say? “Every generation throws a hero up the pop chart.”

It’s evening now and a gusty wind asserts itself, whipping across the empty stadium, where the white chairs are folded and stacked; the graduates have scattered.

Fiction: Legal Tender

In the money universe I am a grunt, common and run-of-the-mill, printed by the millions, cut, stacked and bundled, sent to Federal Reserve banks and then dispersed into the world. I doubt very much that you have ever given me a second thought or considered that I might have feelings, dreams, desires and hopes. I don’t blame you for this.

The single. The buck. My life expectancy? Eighteen months, on average. But let me assure you that a month in the life of a dollar bill passes like a year. My kind travel non-stop, hitching rides in pockets, purses, wallets and backpacks, never in one place for long. As crisp, clean freshly printed dollars many of us dream of cozy piggybanks where we can remain in one place, conversing with our metallic cousins -- pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters and the occasional half dollar – as well as the fives and tens and twenties received from relatives in birthday or Christmas cards. That’s the life. Calm, routine, predictable, but mainly, stationary.

Imagine life without the $1 bill. I see that you’re beginning to understand and view my kind in a more appreciative light. Listen now as I tell you how I came to be here, in this silk purse, under this pillow.

My first glimpse of daylight came in New York City when I was handed to a Norwegian tourist – a big boned blonde woman with blue eyes -- by a sidewalk vendor. The woman had a habit of biting her fingernails, and in general seemed nervous and high-strung, traits not normally associated with Scandinavians. For reasons I never understood, she hid me and my kin from her husband, a heavyset fellow who took hours of boring video, mostly of street scenes; he was particularly fascinated by taxi cabs and their drivers, most of whom were sullen looking Hindu or Pakistani men. Ending up in the pocket of one of these men, wrapped in a greasy wad, frightened me, but that was my fate and fate is inescapable. After a visit to the Empire State Building I was unceremoniously wrapped around a bunch of soiled tens, fives and fellow ones – none of them as new as I -- and held captive by a thick rubber band.

The cabbie’s name was Humayun. He smelled of stale cigarettes and onions. When he wasn’t making change for his fares, Humayun kept us in his coat pocket, alongside lint, salted almonds and scraps of tobacco. His cell phone rang constantly and in his native tongue he barked at whoever was calling; more often than not he hung up while the other person was still talking. Humayun grumbled about his customers and made it very clear that he thought goats far superior to people. Into the pocket and out, in and out, until I was peeled off the wad and handed to a woman on her way to JFK and then Philadelphia. She carefully folded me in half and slid me between a snooty twenty and a tired, dog-eared ten. The twenty was talkative, arrogant, and boasted of his recent travels in Atlanta and New Orleans; the ten was weary and morose. I didn’t converse much with either of them.

Sue was the woman’s name, plain, vanilla Sue. After flipping through the airline magazine in her seat pocket she spent the entire flight to Philadelphia working on her laptop. My impression was that she had been jilted recently, her heart crushed and left to wither; now she was immersing herself in work in order to block her pain. Tap, tap, tap on the keyboard, rapid fire, words and numbers, lines and columns, but I was not fooled: her fingers were full of sorrow.

My time with Sue was short and uneventful and, to be honest, I was happy when she traded me for a Diet Coke at the airport and went on her sad way. After a short trip to the night deposit I landed in the hands of a man named Reed who was visiting Philadelphia from Santa Fe. Reed owned an art galley with his wife but I soon discovered that Reed had a secret life with a man named Peter. Reed and Peter. There were monogrammed towels hanging in Peter’s bathroom and fuchsia sheets on the bed. Egyptian cotton. Yes, it was a cozy love nest that Reed and Peter shared, full of books and paintings and delicious smells because Peter was a remarkable cook. They knew many people in Santa Fe and were openly affectionate with one another, which led me to assume that Reed’s wife knew about Peter. Understand that I make no moral judgments – I’m just a lowly $1 bill.

I rode in Reed’s expensive wallet for more than a week and thoroughly enjoyed myself and the ambience of the art gallery. Well-dressed tourists ambled through the gallery, admired the paintings and sculptures, chatted with Reed about color, perspective and style, the attributes of particular artists, up and coming talents on the Santa Fe scene, and enjoyed wine and cheese set out by Peter. This life suited me very much and I wanted it to continue forever, though I knew my hold upon it was tenuous and fleeting. To circulate is the destiny of a $1 bill.

And I did circulate, in places low and high, hand to pocket, pocket to hand, until a wannabe gangster known by the nickname Bobcat scooped me off the counter at a Taco Bell.

Bobcat had seen too many music videos. He wore a baseball cap sideways on his shaved head, a thick gold chain around his neck, a Kobe Bryant jersey, baggy jeans, and new Nike’s. How ridiculous he appeared swaggering around in this getup! The fool boy carried two hundred dollars in worn bills and three ounces of marijuana into an area of Albuquerque controlled by Calderon, a dealer with ties to the Sinaloa cartel and a deserved reputation for vicious retribution on his rivals. When Bobcat, all of seventeen, crossed West Alvarado Street to meet his customer I noticed that my fellow bills, even the $20’s – usually so boastful – had fallen silent, as if they knew something awful was about to happen. I have to tell you that a chill swept over me even before Calderon himself stepped out of the shadows with two henchmen behind him.

Have you ever heard a young man beg for his one human life? It’s not pleasant, believe me, and Bobcat’s tearful pleas for mercy only amused Calderon, who toyed with the boy the way a cat toys with a cornered mouse. In a calm, casual voice Calderon explained how he couldn’t afford to let Bobcat slide. It would damage his reputation and invite others to poach in his territory. He had a business to protect, after all. You’d do the same thing if you were standing in my shoes, right? A man’s not worth shit if he’s unwilling to protect what’s his. Nothing personal, see, just the nature of my business. Shaking his head as if human nature was beyond understanding, Calderon told Bobcat that the tragedy here is that he, Bobcat, has nobody but himself to blame for his current predicament. Who forced you to cross the wrong line with the intent of upsetting the order of things? After ordering Bobcat to hand over the contents of his pockets, Calderon made the trembling boy kneel before a cinderblock wall sprayed with graffiti. If you think it will help, say a prayer, Calderon suggested. Hail Mary, Lord’s Prayer, whatever, and don’t mumble because God won’t understand you, and right now you need him to hear you. Laughing at his own gallows humor, Calderon pulled a pistol from his coat pocket and calmly pumped two bullets into the base of Bobcat’s skull.

We Treasury notes, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America, home of the free and land of the brave, witness more suffering than we deserve. Bobcat’s brains were splattered against the cinderblock wall and this grotesque fact meant nothing to Calderon; he had solved a problem in the same way a plumber solves the problem of a clogged drain, and now that it was resolved he was taking his girlfriend to the movies.

And that is where I parted company with the murderer and found my way to the shirt pocket of a hard working, God-fearing janitor named Luis Valdez, born in Mexico and now making a meager but much appreciated living in Albuquerque with his wife and daughter, Maritza. Luis once worked in an electronics factory in Ciudad Juarez so he was no stranger to exploitation and suffering, the unfathomable cruelty that human beings inflict upon one another without a moment’s hesitation. I felt comfortable in his simple hands and the chill that had gripped me finally abated.

On the day that Bobcat lost his life, Maritza lost a tooth. After Maritza fell asleep that night Luis placed me in a silk purse and slipped me under her pillow, and it is there Maritza found me when she woke. Her gap-toothed smile was as beautiful as any painting in Reed’s gallery. Like her father, Maritza possessed the capacity to be thankful for small gifts.

Rant: Road Rage

The most useless freeway sign in California is the one that reads, Slower Traffic Keep Right.

The major problem with this dictate from the State is that few motorists in California – at least the section of the state between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles that I normally travel – use their rearview mirrors. Of all the accessories on an automobile none is more under used. How do I know this? Because every time I head out on the highway I find myself behind some motorist cruising in the fast lane at 60mph, who, if he or she would simply look in the rearview mirror, would see my car on their tail and change lanes.

Just the other day I was driving south on the 101 in the fast lane when I had to slow for a Toyota Camry doing about 62mph. I had been doing a steady 70mph until I caught up to this joker. I wanted to move into the near right lane and scoot around, but no break in the traffic presented itself. I speeded up to get closer to the slowpoke blocking my way, hoping that he or see would notice me and move the hell over, but this was wishful thinking. The driver of the Camry was oblivious.

I flashed my headlights. Nothing. I tapped my horn twice. Nothing. I let out a string of curses: “Jesuschristassholemotherfuckingpinheadlimpdick.” This made me feel better but did nothing to remove the Camry from my path. I wished my Honda was equipped with a laser beam that could project a message in foot high letters on the offender’s rear windshield:

MOVE…THE…FUCK…OVER.

I hit the turn signal and hoped someone would give me room to pass this jackass, but my fellow motorists were not in a charitable mood.

“Look in the rearview mirror, asswipe,” I screamed.

After a few more minutes of this irritation I had space and made my move, swinging to the right and quickly back into the fast lane in front of the Camry. As I shot by I looked at the Camry’s driver and prepared to salute with my middle finger. “Don’t do it,” my wife said, mindful of the fact that there are a lot of unhinged people on California’s freeways, some of them armed to the gills.

But how could I flip off a white-haired woman who looked like a dead ringer for Mary See? She was hunched over the steering wheel, hands at ten and two o’clock, totally focused on the road directly in front of her.

Nine hours later on a northbound stretch of 101 outside of Ventura it happens again. 9:30 p.m., traffic sparse, I’m doing 75mph with the cruise control on, anxious to get home after a long day at Disneyland, and I’ll be damned if a Jeep Cherokee is in the fast lane doing all of 60mph. Another codger, I thought, a fugitive from Shady Acres nursing home, out for a late night joy ride along the ocean. Though I could have passed easily enough, I stayed on the Jeep’s ass for a mile or two, determined to make a righteous point about the rules of the road. More wishful thinking. The Jeep's driver was yet another California motorist with no use of a rearview mirror and no regard for Slower Traffic Keep Right.

Enough being enough, I veered right and jammed on the gas until I pulled even with the Jeep; old or not, armed or not, I was giving this idiot driver the finger.

Except the driver wasn’t old at all, and neither was the woman sitting beside him. Twenty-something’s by the look of them, sharing what appeared to be a joint, laughing uproariously and taking no notice of me whatsoever. What’s the point of flipping off a couple of stoners who are feeling blissful and at peace with everyone in the world?

I hate it when the joke’s on me.

Gloriously Ordinary

Parenthood is said to bring many joys and immeasurable satisfaction.

I know a few people who hold this opinion, though I am not one of them.

Heartache and worry, maybe, but not so much on the satisfaction scale.

Every day when I take my daughter to school, I see parents doting on their offspring and it reminds me of David Sedaris, who I saw at the Arlington Theatre recently. In a riff on his childhood Sedaris pointed out that he was born before the creation of self-esteem, so his parents put him and his sisters to bed the old fashioned way: “Lights out, shut up. If your father hears any chatter he’ll be back with his belt.”

Contemporary parents, on the other hand, feel derelict if they fail to read a bedtime story for half an hour, then spend another twenty minutes assuring their child that he or she is special, exceptional, gifted, a living miracle and without doubt the center of the universe.

I love my kids, don’t get me wrong, but I tend to think we – my generation, I mean – act insane when it comes to our children. Take play dates, for instance, a concept that absolutely staggers me. When I was a kid – in a society that was as full of dangers and predators as our current one – we’d give our parents a general idea of where we were going and what we intended to do and with whom, and dash off, into the neighborhood, out of touch for hours. We didn’t have cell phones or GPS tracking or picture ID cards with a DNA sample embedded in them. Today our kids’ schedules are so jam-packed with wholesome, supervised activities that we must schedule time for them to play with their friends. “Can Sophia do 3:30 on Tuesday or is 4:00 on Wednesday better? Oh, she has ballet on Tuesday and gymnastics on Wednesday and chess on Friday and Advanced Mandarin on Saturday morning. Wow, when does Sophia sleep? Does she sleep?”

Once in a while, as my daughter and I are waiting for the custodian to unlock the school gate, I’ll overhear other parents, almost always mothers, talking. “Tyler’s doing exceptionally well in his GATE (Gifted and Talented) classes, and I definitely think he has a predilection for medicine. He loves science, and he’s always watching medical shows on The Learning Channel.” “You let him watch TV? We only allow Brianna to watch the Disney Channel for one hour each week – provided she executes all her homework perfectly, of course.” “Tyler will probably attend Stanford or Harvard – he’s such a bright child.” “I see Brianna at USC Film School. She’s very creative.”

I glance at Tyler, expecting to see him reading the Physician’s Desk Reference on his iPad, and instead see that he is picking his nose with reckless abandon, twisting his index finger up and in until he extracts a juicy green mass, which, after long inspection, he proceeds to wipe on his jeans. Definitely Harvard material.

Is it just me or do we put too much pressure to perform, succeed, strive and accomplish on our children? Is it acceptable for them to daydream and goof off, to occasionally stare slack-jawed at the TV or the computer, or climb a tree without parental supervision and a safety net below? Is it OK if our children don’t acquire a foreign language and proficiency on at least one musical instrument by age seven?

The other morning my daughter marched into the living room and announced that she wanted to ask a question about sex. OK, we said, let’s have it. “Can you get pregnant from kissing a mirror?” No, we explained, kissing a mirror won’t do the trick, there’s a mechanical component to it, the joining of a female’s egg with a male’s sperm... We can go into more detail if you want. “No, that’s OK, I just wanted to know about the mirrors.”

We learn later that our daughter’s classmate Elena is fond of kissing the mirror in the girl’s bathroom at school. Each to her own.

Play dates, questions about sex, neurotic parents on the school steps planning their child’s college experience ten years in advance – this is what kills the rapture for me. Childhood comes once and is all too quickly gone. My kids are gloriously ordinary, which is just fine with me.