More in the way of afterthoughts

I am so very restless. Full moon and windy weather that seems like spring instead of winter. I’ve been driving nowhere to do nothing and roaming my house, lionesque prowling and growling at those around me whenever I go out of the house.

I am feeling very antisocial.

My impulse control is at its limits from moment to moment just trying to keep me from putting a boot into my TV screen.

Probably it’s a good thing that I have things to do this weekend, but no date. First time she says something like “there’s a piece of lint in your hair, let me get it for you”, I’d be off on her about controlling women. (Please laugh with me over that line.)”

No doubt the universe unfolds as it should.

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you neeeeeed.

Workin’ on mysteries without any clues.

Rock lyrics are the popular poetry of our day and it infuses our life, doesn’t it? Little platitudes for living, like a perpetual AA meeting full of “the gurus” who have a slogan for everything. But they resonate as true, so we put up with having our philosophy of life reduced to six monosyllabic words.

I’m living a bumper sticker life.

My desperation got louder.

I want to howl along with the Watermelon Slim that’s been in my CD player for days now.

Can a guy with the top down on his Miata in mid January sing the blues?

I’m sick of the vapid, insipid daily-ness of life.

The self-centered alcoholic in me (he’s the babysitter for the scared little child. fucked up, huh? that’s the way it is inside here) loves chaos to the extent that I want any change, even if it’s for the Murrah Building to be blown up by some looney tune militia white trash conspiracy.

Bring on the explosions! Let there be gunplay! Automatic weapons and anarchy!

I want electric stations and highway overpasses to shatter.

Make the sewage plants splatter fecal matter over the entire town as a homemade biological disaster.

Throw grenades into emergency rooms and shoot the RPGs at the communication dishes at the police and fire stations.

Blow up the grocery stores and set fire to the liquor stores.

A molotov cocktail through every car window, every plate glass storefront and over the fence at the lumber yards.

If I can’t have the love life I want, I’ll have none at all.

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Better to die on my feet than live on my knees.

I’m an unwilling prisoner of capitalism, of behavioralism, of western rationalism, of television and movies and radio and cell phones.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore

There. Again. Captured by a slogan from a fucking 30 year old movie.

I want to kick the shit out of everyone who’s ever read the Bible and kill anyone who hasn’t.

I want to call down the wrath of God on Pat Robertson.

I want to level Carthage, leaving no one stone on another, salt the earth, kill all the men and take all the women into abject slavery. ( Ever wonder where racism started? Right there on Cicero’s lips: “Carthage must be destroyed!”. That’s what I think, anyway. How can we ever know the consequences of our actions? Yet, we pick arbitrary points of time and call ourselves good or bad never knowing the end of the story. Back to the rant.)

I want to sleep with the Whore of Babylon. You out there, honey?

I want to slay Medusa and defy her father, Zeus.

I want to sail with Odysseus.

I want to rocket to another planet.

I want to sleep all day with the covers over my head.

I want to heal the sick and raise the dead.

I want to be remembered and missed.

I want to be centered and serene, unperturbed and calm throughout.

I want to be like water, always flowing naturally.

I want to let go of the unimportant and challenge myself to achieve infinitely.

The world actually will unfold without my exertion.

My fellow humans will do the best they can by their own lights and within their own time.

For I know the plans I have for you … They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

Some Afterthoughts

I’ve been thinking about the stuff I wrote about how I don’t want to hear any criticisms.

Do I have a fragile ego?

Hell, yeah.

Not always.

I can hear what my friends say. I get my share of pokes in the ribs from my friends and I think I take it pretty good.

I do divorces and get called names that would scorch your ears by my client’s estranged spouses, other lawyers and even a judge or two from time to time. That’s just my business and it goes with the territory and I don’t let it get to me too badly.

Like everybody else in the world, I get my share of fingers shot at me by passing drivers and my share of ugly and unhappy at the mall. I went down to the station for my fair share of abuse, as Dylan wrote last century.

But, in a relationship, it’s different.

I’ve let down my guard. I’ve made myself emotionally vulnerable to you. It doesn’t take much more than a light touch for me to react with the sensitive skin I’ve presented you.

My scared little boy inside is hypersensitive and hypervigilant. I’ve spent a lifetime being the good boy who looks at the chicken innards of eyebrows, frowns and scowls to determine my future. I am mostly doing my dead level best to please you and I never have a malicious intention.

So, what I don’t need is a jerimiad or a screed. Don’t nag me or chide me like an underling. No need to berate me or demean me. It’s overkill and it really hurts and it makes my psychic armor bristle. If you find you are speaking to me much in the way an irritated teacher speaks to a errant gradeschool child, you’re probably talking your way out of a relationship with me.

Those of you so inclined may now indulge in your symbolic vision of me killing my father and self destructively putting out my own eyes out of the shame of raping my mother.

So, here’s the deal, ladies. If you just MUST fix someone, try working on yourself. When you’ve reached Buddha-hood and Enlightenment and Nirvana, let me know and you can immediately begin telling me all the places I’ve fucked up in my life. Until that time, you can accomplish almost everything you could ever want by doing the counter-intuitive thing. I am very hard to push around, it’s true, because I tend to push back instead of going the direction you desire. On the other hand, I can be easily led. A little flattery here and a little encouragement and support there plus some patience will get you very far with me. If that’s not working, try showing some leadership and actually work on your own side of the street. You might be surprised how often I’ll follow suit.

Instead of punishing behaviors you don’t like, try rewarding the behaviors you do like.

And PLEASE don’t mistake me for some one-time behavior I’ve exhibited. Even if I’m a jerk in one instance, try to remember all those times I wasn’t a jerk and the additional times I was a dreamy prince. One instance of being a jerk doesn’t make ME a jerk. It merely means that I was a jerk on that occasion.

You might also get some perspective. Even though I’m not perfect, who will you find that is? Is this a fight you really have to win to be happy? Is THIS the place where you want to draw the line for all time? How often do you think you get to do that before there are so many lines that I can’t move and get claustrophobic and break up in anxious and neurotic frenzy? Isn’t that kind of boundary drawing best left for the things that are really important?

And, ladies, if you think I’m the only guy you know who feels/thinks this way, you are just dead wrong. Again.

Movie Review of Brokeback Mountain

Son Jack calls to say he’d been to see the Ang Lee blockbuster, but that he doesn’t like it all that much. “I’ve seen this movie before,” he said. “But it was called “Same Time Next Year” with Alan Alda and it was a lot better and a lot funnier. It even intended to be funny, unlike this movie that was only funny when it tried to be so melodramatic. This emperor has no clothes.”

Corruption is Bipartisan Now

By Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 12, 2006; Page A05

A former aide to Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) pleaded guilty yesterday to bribing the congressman to promote high-tech business ventures in Africa.

Brett M. Pfeffer, 37, of Herndon, a former president of a McLean investment firm, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official and aiding and abetting the bribery of a public official in 2004 and 2005.

Although this has absolutely nothing to do with the lobbyist scandal going on with the GOP, they’ll conflate it and say it isn’t a GOP problem, it’s just a few bad eggs in both parties. Yeah, OK. Wonder what the odds were that the Dem they’d catch up with would be from Louisiana? LOL As far as I know, in Jefferson Parish, they make fun of any politician who doesn’t get rich in office and think he’s a fool and refuse to vote for him. Where’s James Carville when you need him?

The fox guarding the henhouse

Guess which fox will investigate the henhouse of whether Bush violated the laws when he ordered wiretaps on all of us? Why, the inspector general of the NSA who approved the wiretaps in the first place, of course! Who did you expect?

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 11, 2006; Page A04

The National Security Agency’s inspector general has opened an investigation into eavesdropping without warrants in the United States by the agency authorized by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a letter released late yesterday.

The world upside down

OU lost at home last night to Missouri in a 1 point game. Yesterday, there was snow on the ground and today, the top is down on the Miata in the face of a 65 degree forecast. Welcome to Oklahoma, where the world regularly turns upside down.

I listened to a little NPR this a.m., trying to catch some of the Judiciary Committee hearings on Judge Alito. Our own U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) sits on the committee and he was up for part of the time I was listening in. What a goober! It’s freakin’ embarrassing to be represented by this wing nut. Oh, well. The people have spoken.

Noticed on the front page of today’s Gazette that 5th Dist. Congressman Ernie Istook (who wants to run for governor against Brad Henry) is donating to charity nearly $30,000 in campaign contributions that were tainted by the Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay’s corruption scandal. It’s freakin’ embarrassing to be represented by this wing nut. Oh, well. The people have … why does this sound familiar?

I don’t have a g/f right now and I’m OK with that for once. Seems a g/f will notice when I’m less than perfect. Like when I “clock” another woman at Flip’s when I’m out with her. It’s a bad move on my part. SuzArt says she’d walk if it happened to her. Maybe so.

But, you know, I don’t care right now. I really don’t. I have been “fixed” by the best. One after another outstanding woman has given me some really good advice about how I can improve myself and be a better boyfriend.

I don’t want any more advice.

I don’t want to be fixed.

I know I’m flawed. Got lots of places where I might improve.

Don’t want to hear about it.

That’s probably wrong of me as well. Shouldn’t everyone want to get better?

Fuck that.

I am not a pre-existing home to be painted and plastered and remodeled. Good foundation, good roof, needs fixin’ up for resale at a profit.

Fuck that.

I’ve been raking myself over the coals for every little shortcoming for half a century now. I’ve got a momma, three sisters and a daughter all telling me from time to time where I fall short of the glory of God. What I do not need is another woman in that line with another set of her own complaints.

I know about my failures and shortcomings. Right now, I’m interested in building on my good points and I’m waiting for someone to be happy to get what they get when they get the flawed me. I’d like to be appreciated for my intelligence, education, taste, generally good manners, kindness, generosity, willingness to be emotionally available, maybe even my looks. When do these things outweigh my shortcomings? When does an “A” for not playing golf and not drinking get to be good enough without also having to berate me for some trivial matter for which I get a “C”?

Here’s a complaint I’ve heard on more than one occasion that kills me: “we eat out so much it ruins my diet and I’m gaining weight.” What? That’s MY fault? I thought you LIKED being taken out to eat!!! Another one I have some trouble with is smoking. I don’t like that I smoke. I keep trying to quit. I know it’s bad. I know it’s unhealthy. I know it’s expensive. Why is it necessary to get that lecture from everyone who dates me? I was smokin’ when you met me, babe, and I’ll quit as soon as I can, so can we move on? Nope. Gotta hear it over and over.

I would be a one-woman man by choice. I prefer relationships. I’d like to have a LTR and I like being in love. I’m no damn good at it. That’s just all there is. I don’t do it well. I freely admit that I don’t “get it”. There’s clearly something that I’m not understanding and/or doing. There’s clearly something wrong with the way I approach relationships.

As for now, I give up. I have other things I want to do. I have other things I want to accomplish. The new and improved me is going to have to wait for 2007. This year, I’m going to be involved in politics and art. I’m going to write and practice law. I’m going to work on my flawed house and my kitchen floor is my No. 1 priority for being fixed, not my poor relationship skills.

So, I’m sorry. My apologies to all those women out there who loved me for my potential and hated me because I don’t live up to their expectations.

Maybe next year.

Dumb and Dumber

From The Rolling Stone (Online)

The GOP just doesn’t get it.
The party is mired in the stench of K Street corruption. So who are the two men tapped to compete for Tom DeLay’s leadership post?

Let’s meet bachelor #1:
DeLay’s wingman Roy Blunt. The only problem with Blunt, as Bloomberg reports it, is that he “served as the Republicans’ official liaison to K Street. In one meeting at the Capitol last April, he rounded up some 200 lobbyists to talk with top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, about the party’s agenda.”

And bachelor #2?
Ohio’s John Boehner. This quote from R.I.N.O. Representative Chris Shays of Connecticut says it all: “The problem John faces is that he’s so close to K Street.”

The Daily Show copy writes itself, doesn’t it?

These are the two guys running to replace Tom DeLay in the House Republican leadership. Here’s a little example of the shenanigans of these guys from The Washington Post:

Both camps this week have been pointing to the other’s well-documented connections and activities, some of which are the stuff of legends. They include Blunt’s failed effort to insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris USA into the massive bill creating the Department of Homeland Security and Boehner’s distribution of checks from tobacco concerns in 1995 to lawmakers on the House floor. Also of note are both men’s prodigious fundraising activities, some of which involve individuals and clients with ties to Abramoff.

He's a dick

My friend, John X, writes:

It’s a good thing Cheney is OK after his trip to the hospital.

If something had happened to Cheney, George Bush would have become
President.

I’m reserving my judgment until I hear from Pat Robertson whether this hospital visit is the wrath of God for something the dick did or didn’t do.

political fix for the junkies

Now, it’s official. It’s OK to talk about the war in Iraq and even to have some criticisms, but we have to do it the president’s way, we’ve been warned.

From today’s New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 – President Bush issued an unusually stark warning to Democrats today about how to conduct the debate on Iraq as midterm elections approach, declaring that Americans know the difference “between honest critics” and those “who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people.”

Wonder what he thinks about us debating the bribery and corruption scandal wracking his party? Here’s the latest to go under with Jack Abramoff’s little cash for vote deal with Tom DeLay:

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and James V. Grimaldi
of The Washington Post
Updated: 11:16 p.m. ET Jan. 9, 2006
One of Washington’s top lobbying operations will shut down at the end of the month because of its ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former House majority leader Tom DeLay.

Alexander Strategy Group, which had thrived since its founding in 1998 thanks largely to its close connections to DeLay (R-Tex.), will cease to operate except for a relatively small business-development division, Edwin A. Buckham, the former top DeLay aide who owns the company, said yesterday.

I liked what Dahlia Lithwick wrote for Slate Magazine about the start of the Alito hearings: “He told the committee that he grew up too poor to afford a judicial philosophy.”

Another Saturday Night

The big piece of my Saturday was spent, regrettably, with beautiful young models. Boy, don’t you just hate it when that happens? To make matters worse, they were shooting fashion and that included running around in not much clothes at all. Yes, very sad for me. Of course, I was a grown up and averted my eyes at the appropriate times. Mainly because their mothers were about, but I was a gentleman and want the credit for that despite any other circumstance.

OK. That was the joke portion.

Really, it was a fascinating adventure. Hairsylists, make up artists, photographer from Dallas, and about five models were involved along with the lovely Juliet from Elastic Cafe that provided all the assistance and personnel needed for the shoot of her models. The part I watched and/or participated in was along the west side of Western about 4th to 6th Street in an industrial area around the Oklahoma League for the Blind, just south of Linwood Diagonal. The workmen and gang members and whatnot kept circling in their pickups and we soon learned not to let models in skimpy clothes stand on a corner. LOL. If they stopped, I told the guys that the girl was my daughter and that got them to leave. How do you say “That’s my daughter” in Spanish? OH! “Esta Mi Familia”? Anyway, you can imagine how curious people were to see these leggy young girls sitting in a chair in the middle of an empty street next to an empty corrugated steel warehouse along the railroad tracks. The young women seemed to have fun climbing over huge truck tires and onto smashed, wrecked cars in short dresses and wild costumes. I think I was the only guy on the shoot not wearing eye liner or mascara. What’s that about? Anyway, it was fun and some of the pictures (digital, so we got to see them fairly quickly on nearby laptops) were very good. Moms actually were present overseeing the action, so it wasn’t anything any mom couldn’t see. Later, everyone went to Juliet’s house for some lingere shots in her basement and bedroom, but I didn’t participate in that. No, really, I went to get some dinner instead. Shut up.

I went from there to Paseo for a lovely meal and stayed for the band, Tincture, a reggae group made up of members of other bands. One of the bandmembers was from The Ills, and I heard from Craig the bartender that the keyboard artist from the Ills had tried to separate two fighting dogs and got one joint of one of his fingers bitten all the way off. Not good for a keyboardist.

Anyway, the band was jammin’, as they say in the reggae world.

I sat with my hero, M. Hoffner, and we had a long talk about women, and came to the conclusion that we know nothing at all. Also, that we are very unlikely to ever figure it out. Also, that our past experience had only been confusing and not enlightening. Also, and this is the most important conclusion of them all, that the number of really great looking women that walked into Galileo’s last night was unique in our experience.

Really. Shut up.

Both male and female, it was a great looking crowd. Lots of guys with square jaws and broad shoulders mixed with boys with curly, unkept hair and puppy dog eyes mixed with long lines of absolutely gorgeous women. I first noticed about three or four brunette, Mediterranean women come in and each of them was a knock out. After that, a few Hispanic girls with dark hair and eyes and olive complexions came in. Then, the Nordic, tall blondes came in, followed by the Russian law students all dolled up and it just kept on going like that.

By 11:30, after the band FINALLY started playing (my one gripe is that the band was very late starting) the dance floor was full of people dancing, although not necessarily with one another. It was one of those chatty, buzzy, electric nights that we go to bars to experience. People having fun without getting loud, obnoxious and very drunk. Of course, I saw people I know like Jonathon Majid and his son, Josh, and Kat with a K, and Jasmine the belly dancer, and Mumblin’ Jeff and on and on. Eventually, Juliet showed up for a bite of my d’Cheny pizza, but she was tired and made an early night of it while I stayed on for the music.

Well, the weather is too nice for me not to be out with the Miata top down, so if you want to know more, get out more.