Dio Fa
02.25.05 (11:35 pm) [edit]I guess the Pope is more proof that no one gives a fuck about you until you're dead or nearly dead.
Can we get this sorry-assed old fuck off the TV? He's everywhere. Even Bush sends his regard, "on behalf of all Americans." No. You are WRONG. You do not speak for me, asshole. I don't give two FUCKS about the Pope. I'm sure he's a nice guy and all the Boy Scouts think he's great in bed, but who gives a shit? Isn't this the guy who most Catholics spend their time *ignoring*? "Don't have premarital sex, don't have abortions, condoms are bad." Yeah, OK. Thanks for calling, Pope. Now go take your medication, I've got some hos to bang in the back room before Vinnie comes to collect the goods.
So, anyone seen Jesus in their tortilla lately? What the fuck's up with that, anyway? Instead of ACTING like Jesus, you've gotta be so desparate that you're looking for him on a piece of goddamn bread?
Once again, I'm in love with a statement I head Bill Maher say tonight. "Religion is a neurological disorder." Everyone on the planet is gonna disagree with me and say it's a crass over-generalization, but I'm sticking with it. Because *I KNOW GOD* and He says it's OK. Fuck you if you don't like it. Respect my religion or die, you unbelieving scum.
Welcome to my compound,
Doug Koresh
Better Than Sex?
02.23.05 (11:01 pm) [edit]Ah, sweet chorizo. Sweet, fat-filled, heart-stopping Mexican sausage. How I treasure you. Let me perform passionate oral sex on you with cheese and Mean Green Motherfucker hot sauce.
We're all killing ourselves slowly, just by being here. One of the true heroes of American literature killed himself in a much faster way Sunday night, but in the end, we're all meat. Toast. Vulture-pickings. In spite of all our best efforts, we're fucking dead.
But hey, life goes on anyway, right? It's all a game, and games are to be enjoyed. Hunter knew that, and while few doubt that his exploits weren't exaggerated, it's obvious that he had little if any regard for the cult of perfect health and longevity that has crept up in American life, convinced as it is that there mere act of banning tobacco, drink, and carbohydrates will make our lives "better" somehow.
Shit. These people are fools without newspapers. Our "better" lives are being bought and sold by treacherous swine in DC, oil executives and third-rate magicians who poison our air and water, "medicate" our mass national depression with pills that don't work, and convince us that a coming Social Security "crisis" is more vital an issue than feeding our poor and making sure our children come out of high school with more than a rudimentary knowledge of how to run a cash register. While cretins like James Dobson run rampant raving about the evils of animated sponges and "protecting" the lives of drooling carrots who have already been dead for 15 years, our Fine Young Men rout out Baghdad, ridding the world of the rotten brown scum who stand in the way of American Progress. We are chumps. The lot of us. Our priorities are fucked. We'd rather have another five years on the end of a shitty government-sponsered life than die young knowing we'd truly LIVED and experienced something beyond ourselves, beyond our common mundane expectations.
Hunter knew better than that, and he may be dead now, but so is the American Dream that he went chasing all those years ago. It's been pummeled to death in a dank back room in Washington by a greasy set of thugs. And We The People are as guilty as they, because we've watched this rotten shit go down, and we've proclaimed it to be good.
I've been mourning Hunter this week in my own disjointed way. But tonight in front of the stove, frying chorizo for my tacos while doing a horribly depraved dance in my underwear to an old Robin Trower CD, stinking of rum and Guinness, 250 pounds and shoulder-length executive non-approved hair askew, I probably looked much, much more like a white version of Dr. Gonzo, the psychotic attorney. Truth be told, I'd likely be as willing to violate a teenage Christina Ricci as Benicio Del Toro was in Terry Gilliam's brilliant rendering of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. I'm not proud, but I am honest. I never did all those chemicals and I never terrorized Ellen Barkin in a grimy roadside diner, but according to the rules and values of Correct Society, I'm little more than scum myself, hardly a role model for youth, certanly not for my own daughter. The daughter who has to grow up in a world that has been corrupted by the stink of George W. Bush and his cronies. I'd apologize to her for bringing her into this world, but I wouldn't know where to begin, and she's having too much fun to subject her to that shit for another few years anyway.
Damn, Hunter. I don't think less of the man for deciding to end his own life with a bullet, but I've thought long and hard on what it means to be human in the past few days, and it never ceases to amaze me that the most human among us are the very ones we as a collective are fast to describe as "depraved" or "degenerate." Hunter took these adjectives on himself and thrived on them, and so have many of my heroes who are now dead. Zappa. Hicks. Richard Nixon.
But no, let's be serious now. Depravity has got a bad rap in our nation, and fun has taken a back seat to propriety and correctness. Neil Young's epochal phrase "it's better to burn out than fade away" has been trampled over by paranoia and sheer stupidity. We live in a world where people in a small town in Indiana rush to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting at the first supposed hint of unAmerician Arab activity, but are too stupid to realize that the economic views of their leaders are the very things responsible for sending their jobs to distant countries. Terrorists are not going to attack that place, it's an absurd, idiotic notion. But our own government will, and has. Not with bombs, but with lies. A society that no longer realizes that there are worse things than dying will be more likely to gladly accept lies as a neccesary part of American Life, and that, my friends, is a fucking shame.
It's no secret to anyone with a functioning intelligence that our President is a stupid greedhead fuck with insane policies and a psychotic false religion, but we've let him in office again. This has as much to do with the utter pathetic failure of the opposition to set themselves apart as it does Karl Rove's despicable campaign devices, but it's too late now to worry about that. Four more years, motherfuckers. Four years of lies and bullshit. Get used to the idea.
We'd like to ask ourselves what Hunter would say to all this as it goes on for those next four years, but we already know. He's said it. We've said it. The truth is plain for all who have ears to hear. Jesus said that once. And the ruling establishment kicked his liberal ass into the dust for it. Never forget that, my children. Never fucking forget that.
Love,
Dougie
Hunter
02.21.05 (12:03 am) [edit]I never knew him. I only felt his waves.
When he was 9, he stared the FBI down after knocking a mailbox into the path
of a schoolbus. He got away with it. He learned then how to work with and
around the law, and he used it to his advantage for all of his 67 years.
He spent time in the '60s in Puerto Rico, and wrote an alcohol-soaked novel
about that land called The Rum Diary. He travelled with the Hell's Angels.
He lived neck-deep in the shitstorm of the '72 presidential campaign. He
made a living from hating Richard Nixon, then later proclaimed both Bill
Clinton and George W. Bush to be worse.
He went to Vegas and consumed insane amounts of chemicals. For us. He did it
for US. For the children, dammit. He did it so we wouldn't have to, but at
least we can feel like we were there, wishing for golf shoes in a
blood-soaked room full of evil lizards. I remember it as if it were
yesterday, and I was never there. But Hunter was, and he brought the tale
home for me, wrapped it around me like a loving blanket, and made me laugh
so hard I nearly cried.
You never really knew where the facts began and the fiction ended when
reading his work, but it really just did not fucking matter. The SOUL of his
writing, the CORE of it was always cold hard truth, and even if he never
actually left his home during that entire Clinton campaign, I still want to
believe that Carville and Stephanpolous stole his wallet in Little Rock.
His life wasn't one he recommended to others, and it's not one most of us
could withstand. But somebody had to do it. Somebody had to stand on that
precipice overlooking our foul world and turn around and report to the rest
of us what he had seen. A lesser man would have been far less insightful,
and far less funny. Hunter was always funny, even at his most serious, as
all truly great funny people are.
I sat in a theater with my friend Jeff when Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
came out. I owe my Hunter obsession to Jeff. There was one other person
there. We laughed our balls off. I've read the book three times, others
once, and bits of them again and again. Still others I haven't got to yet,
and I feel poorer for it. Not having read those gems before he was gone.
I had just started reading Kingdom Of Fear this week, one of his newest
books. I know what I will be doing this week.
Few people have made me radically rethink my approach to life and to
thought. Those who have had the same kind of combination of soul, humour,
and a manic gift for their art that Hunter had. Zappa comes to mind. Bill
Hicks. Or perhaps one of the living among us like George Carlin. But there
was only, and could be only, one Hunter S. Thompson.
I loved you, Hunter. May the swine be scattered into the depths and the true
lovers of freedom find their holy rewards. You were an instrument towards
that coming day. If there really is a God, that motherfucker ain't gonna
have a CLUE what to do with you on his hands now.
Love,
Dougie
Random Thoghts
02.16.05 (12:27 pm) [edit]1.) This Rush bootleg from 1978 I'm listening to fucking rocks.
2.) The South Park guys are true heroes of a deranged age. I watched The Passion Of The Jew for the first time yesterday, and it's GLORIOUSLY offensive. Truly, utterly, beautiful. And not even one of my favorites that I've seen recently. Cartman leading the adults of South Park through town chanting Nazi slogans (the adults too stupid to even bother finding out what they were saying) was some damn fine television.
3.) It's so nice to see that getting rid of Saddam Hussein has made the world a better place. Syria and Iran sure are being cooperative, eh? Yes, our President is a smart, godly man with fabulous instincts and planning abilities. He's truly a great man. For me to POOP on!
4.) I've been really into Triumph The Insult Comic Dog for the past couple days. Can you tell?
5.) I got Chris Rock's new album Never Scared yesterday. It's based on the same material as his recent HBO special. If not for Bill Maher and Lewis Black, Chris would be my favorite comedian right now. Razor sharp shit, motherfuckers.
6.) Speaking of, Real Time With Bill Maher starts its new season Friday night. I'm there with the VCR, baby. A couple somewhat iffy episodes towards the end of last season in no way change my view of it as the best thing on television right now. I absolutely adore The Daily Show, but Bill goes farther, and unlike Jon Stewart, Bill usually seems to have little concern what anyone thinks about anything he says. Well, I still think he wants to bang Ann Coulter, but a guy has to have SOME faults, right? He's not just a comedian, he's an original thinker who cuts right through the bullshit myth of "liberal vs. conservative" in this country by forging a sensible path through both "sides." I admire him hugely.
7.) My daughter has been way into wearing dresses lately. She's three and she's already worried about how pretty she is. I tell her not to worry because A.) She's beautiful, and B.) it's more important to be smart and funny and sweet and kind and thoughtful, and she's all those things too. I've been taking her out to the store and library more often lately (like we did before she went into daycare) and she's been so much fun. Like any 3 year old, she asks for things she doesn't need and pushes the right buttons, but she's remarkably good at listening to me when I try to work with her and compromise. I'm trying to find a way of teaching her that she can't always get what she wants, but if she has the right attitude and works with me, I'll be quite happy to let her have *some* of it sometimes. I think it's working pretty well, though I have to admit that I do think we still spoil the hell out of her sometimes.
8.) Been reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cats Cradle, which is time off from reading loads of horror fiction recently. Clive Barker? Sick goddamn motherfucker. Love him. I read Rawhead Rex the other day, and lemme tell ya, that's gotta be the best fuckin' story about a nine-foot tall baby-eating demon from Hell I've read in at least a few days.
9.) I'm working on being more of a prog-rock/fusion geek recently. Oh, I've always been one, but sometimes you get sidetracked and your priorities get out of whack, and next thing you know you're listening to the fucking Eagles or something. I mean, come on. If you don't listen to Stanley Clarke at least a couple times a week, you don't have any right belonging to the Overplaying Asshole Bass Player Club anymore, and that my friends, would be wrong. So I've been doing lots of that. It's fun.
10.) I'm very upset that McCartney didn't show some titty at the Super Bowl a couple weeks ago.
Love,
Dougie
What Is The Capital Of Assyria?
02.15.05 (9:14 am) [edit]Stolen from my wife's blog, who stole it from somewhere else. Talk to me, fuckers!
A. First, recommend to me (or list your favorite):
1. A movie
2. A book, and
3. A musical artist, song, or album
B. Everyone who reads this has to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.
C. Then, go to your blog, copy and paste this allowing your friends to ask you anything they want!
Dougie
An Observation
02.10.05 (9:05 pm) [edit]A Google search for "monkey boy" and "Scott McClellan" turns up 138 results. Coincidence? You decide.
Love,
Dougie
A Piece Of Shistory
02.05.05 (10:03 am) [edit]Today I ate lunch at the Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon, a 20 minute drive from here. The Golden Lamb is known as Ohio's oldest inn, and it was established in 1803, the year Ohio became a state. This was my first visit there, though I've driven past it several times. I really like driving through Lebanon, it's a lovely little town with a lot of old homes still in excellent condition.
My interest in genealogy in the past couple years has reopened my interest in history (learning about your ancestors is one thing, putting them into the context of history adds a lot to the experience) and since so many of my ancestors lived in this area, I've become particularly intrigued by the history of southwestern Ohio. This was such an important area 200 years ago, and so many people came through here on their way west. Hell, this WAS the west in 1803. The first ancestors of mine in Warren County that I know of came here in 1804, and settled a few miles north of Lebanon around Waynesville. I sat in the Golden Lamb today wondering if my ggggg-grandparents who brought their family in that year had eaten there. It's entirely possible. I have pictures of them from the 1860s, not long before they died. Those pictures would not look out of place at all on the walls of this window into our country's past.
The place made me think of my grandmother. She turned 96 Wednesday. Two days after I moved here from Marion (almost five years ago now, which is strange to think about) she had a stroke and we thought we were going to lose her. Even at 91, my grandma was really sharp, really together. That's changed since her stroke, and it's sad to see her stuck in her chair when I visit her now, though it's surprising how well she is even now.
But I thought of her today, in that old place that kinda looked like something I associate with her, some vague tendril of memory in the blurrier sections of my mind. I had a tooth worked on today, so my lunch was tomato and celery soup, and a plate of cottage cheese. I felt like that made me fit in with all the old people who apparantly make up the lunch crowd there. It was good. It tasted like something Grandma would have made.
After lunch, I walked through the inn. They let you do that, only the rooms in use (you can still get a room there) are closed off. Each room is named for a famous person who once occupied it. Eleven U.S. presidents stayed there, and the names Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe were on doors as well. There's old pictures and maps on the walls (including an 1851 map of Quaker meetings in Ohio and Indiana that was good for my genealogical jones) and a couple glassed-off rooms have Shaker items and other stuff from long before my day.
I saw the room for many a president. Ronald Reagan, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes. And I got to see the room that our current president stayed in when he was in town for a rally last year. The George W. Bush room is as immaculately cared for as the others, and I'm happy to report that they've nearly got the red crayon ("Geeorj wuz heer") cleaned off the wall.
I sure took the long way around just to set up that one stupid fucking joke, didn't I?
Love,
Dougie