Gender: Male
Status: Married
Age: 96
Sign: Scorpio
City: MySpaceLandio-villa (A Gated Community)
State: Florida
Country: US
Signup Date:
04/05/05
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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Hot Buttered Alchemy Under the Miami Moon.
Current mood:  contemplative
Category: Music
Heady times. Freedom was just another word for being out on your own, surrounded by friends. This is what 18 years had all been leading up to. Riding in the backseat, but it wasn't my parent's car. Chris was driving and Connie was in the front seat next to him. The perfect couple, they were beautiful and they were cool. They made fringed leather vests together and they always looked like they shared a little joke with the world.
Chris resembled a stoned young de Niro with bare feet and shaggy blonde surfer hair. (We didn't know de Niro yet). Connie was the former cheerleader turned artist - petite, blonde with blue-gray eyes you could never forget or ever want to.
So here we were, cruising up from Coconut Grove on I-95 in the Miami moonlight - heading who-knows-where to do who-cares-what. Gas was cheap and the radio was playing. Chris had Connie; Connie had Chris and I had.... the radio. It was the stuff dreams were made of. There has never been anything quite as unpredictable as radio programming in the late sixties. In Miami we had WBUS FM - the Magic Bus. Maybe not a world class station, but it served us well at the time. We were quickly conditioned to expect the unexpected. But when the sound of a deep mellow voice cut through the wind and traffic noise we all stopped our conversations and listened.
The band was vamping a slow, soulful accompaniment behind him but it was the voice that grabbed our attention. It wasn't like the nasal, whining singers we were accustomed to hearing from a thousand different psychedlic-folk-rock-british-blooze-bands . Not a Mannish boy. This was the voice of a full grown man. I spell M. A. N. man. He didn't have to shout or scream to be heard. He could whisper and you felt ever syllable sock you in the gut like the amps were turned up to 11.
What was he going on about? It took us a while to take in the message. He was talking about his woman. He was talking about why he had to leave her, even though it was the hardest thing he ever had to do. It was what we used to call a "Rap" years before the music style of that same name. He must have gone on for 5 minutes before any of us said a word. Songs had already started getting longer by this time; some were over twenty minutes long - the optimum length of the side of a vinyl album. If you wanted anything to last longer you had to have a pause stuck in there somewhere so the album could be turned over - like with 'Dark Side of the Moon.' But this had been going on for over 5 minutes and he was still just talking!
We weren't sure what it was leading up to. Was it a goof? Was it a commercial? Who was this guy and how long does this rap go on? We would listen quietly for awhile and then, just when we thought it would end, he would launch into another thought, taking the drama of his narrative even further along and we would laugh at the sheer audacity of it all. I don't know for sure how long it actually lasted, maybe 17 or 18 minutes - I'm sure it seemed much longer than it really was - but finally the band lead into a familiar melody and the voice sang the opening words of a song we had long ago dismissed as top forty twaddle:
"By the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising…" Woooooah! We couldn't believe what we were hearing. It was as if someone had taken straw and spun it into gold right before our eyes. It was pure alchemy. The DJ said it was Isaac Hayes.
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Currently
listening
:
Hot Buttered Soul
By
Isaac Hayes
Release date: 1990-10-25
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2:50 AM
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Monday, August 04, 2008
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If you can read this - thank a teacher. Part Two
Category: Life
I had very little else to do that summer. I was too young to get a regular job, although I did watch some of the neighbor's kids for them at night. I didn't have a regular girl friend yet and my other friends werre off on summer vacation with their families. So I let myself get talked into going to summer school.
The teacher for this class was a neophyte, fresh out of interning. She was one of the first teachers I had ever had who wasn't old enough to be my mother or grandma. I don't recall her as being especially pretty. It was her enthusiasm and good spirits that made her attractive - she had a vulnerability you don't often see in more combat weary teachers. There were no defensive barriers - she wanted to be our equal rather than an authority figure. There was something about her that brought out the worst in me.
It started with jokes and comments . It wasn't conscious or deliberate, but I was testing her, trying to see how far I could push her before she either lost her temper or sent me to the office. She did neither. She remained good humored and in control. I was too immature to appreciate her tolerance. I was caught up in the game. The next morning she left the room momentarily and I was helpless to resist the overpowering urge to further exploit her good nature. Scoping out the objects on and around her desk I spotted her attendance and grade book and grabbed it. "Hide it, quick." implored my fellow demon spawn. "Hide it - she'll be back any second."
Looking around the room I was enmeshed in the devilish excitement of the prank. I needed to hide it somewhere she wouldn't think to look; somewhere that could not be traced back to me. The classroom was not air conditioned so the windows were open. I leaned out and set her notebook on the ledge outside the second story window and beat a fast retreat to my desk.
When the teacher returned I put on my best deadpan expression. Still, my fellow hooligans and I must have looked guilty as hell. It didn't take long for her to notice the empty spot on her desk. Glancing quickly about and not seeing the black leatherette spiral bound notebook, she stood up and, crossing her arms, she looked at each of us and said, "Alright, who has my grade book?" She was NOT amused. Nor, I was sure, was she in any doubt. as to who was responsible.
"Where is it?" she demanded again. She was beginning to lose her composure. Other kids were giggling and denying any involvement but no one was giving up the notebook or the thief.
"I am going to get my notebook back, or I am going to the office and someone is going with me!" she said with a mixture of controlled anger and pain. Her voice quavered - she looked like she was going to cry. For a moment it was like the two of us were alone in the room. The other students were furniture. I was incapable of processing all the thoughts and emotions swirling within me: I had succeeded in breaking her down. She was about to lose it in front of the entire class. Then why did I feel like a huge sack of mouse droppings? And, more importantly why was she still giving me a way out? I looked at this woman who was only a few years older than myself and I wanted to hug her and say I was sorry - tell her that her only mistake was allowing her sweet nature to show through.
And then I relented. "OOoohKAY, OK", I said - rising dramatically from my desk. "I know where your notebook is." I tried to act cool and casual but I was shaking inside - half because I wasn't sure if she would send me to the Principal's office and half from the tension that had finally eased like a commercial break in a soap opera. I retrieved the notebook from the ledge and, with no admission of guilt offered and none requested, I placed it on her desk and returned to my seat. Our cards were now on the table, but the game was a draw and we still had one last round to play.
(to be continued)
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Currently
listening
:
The Spider, The Fly and the Boogieman
By
The Monocles
Release date: 2008-05-20
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3:51 PM
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Friday, July 11, 2008
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Thin Ice
Current mood:  ninja
Category: Life
Winter in Rochester NY. Snowball fights and riding sleds down the slopes of hills. Parts of my childhood were all Currier and Ivey. I was about 6 years old. Next door lived my best friend, Roger. He was about my age but we were very different in our backgrounds and our temperament. If I had not moved away I doubt we would have remained close friends as we got older. Who knows.
Roger's parents seemed very old to me at the time; older than my own parents. They resembled something out of the Grant Wood or Norman Rockwell gallery. I only remember seeing his father in a jacket or sweater and a tie. His mother wore shirtwaist house dresses and, often as not, an apron. Together they resembled Ward and June or Ozzie and Harriet.
Roger was a bit larger than me with longish blonde hair and skin that was truly a whiter shade of pale. In the winter his cheeks and lips would be so rosy in contrast that it looked like he was wearing make-up. This wasn't helped by the fact that Roger loved kittens and had his room decorated with cat pictures and a fuzzy kitten-shaped rug. I wasn't old enough to think anything of it, but my father never missed a chance to imply that Roger was a "sissy". To the best of my knowledge though, that was not the case.
The first time I ever got beaten up by anyone other than my brother was at the mitten covered fists of my friend Roger. Roger's Dad was an executive at Kodak and financially well off. Roger had much for me to covet in terms of material things - the most obvious being a full size functional model train set that whistled and blew smoke; and an honest to goodness arcade quality Pin Ball machine with ringing bells, buzzers and battle ship graphics with guns that lit up and boomed when a top score was beaten. Thinking back now, I have to admit I liked Roger more for what he had than for who he was. But you don't have a lot of options when you're six. It's not like you can hop on your Huffy and go to the mall. We didn't even have malls at the time and my bike still had training wheels.
Anyway, one fine crisp winter morning Roger was in the snowy wonderland of his backyard playing with yet another new toy: Roger had on ice skates and he was slowly skittering around and around on the ice that formed in what looked like a kiddy pool with very low sides. "Neat-O" I said, or keen, or something similar and I jumped on the ice next to him and started to slip around in my rubber boots. "Get off the ice!" Roger insisted. "Only one person is allowed in the rink at a time. And you have to wear skates."
"I don't have any skates." I pouted "So I can get in your skating ring if I try on your skates?" I countered, ever the smart ass. I mean, what did he say, "rink"? What the heck is a RINK. It's round, like a ring in a circus. Roger, I thought, you may be up to your rosy cheeks in neat stuff but at least I'm smart enough to know it's not a RINK, it's a ring; an ice skating ring.
"It's a RINK!" Roger shot back. An ice skating RINK you dummy. And you can't get in it unless you have skates on." Defiantly, I stepped on the ice again. "I'm in the ring, I'm in the RING. It's an Ice Ring. There's no such word as RINK and YOU"RE the DUMMY!" I was determined to have the last word. I was the youngest child at home, bottom of the food chain. I was used to my brother knowing more than me and making fun of me when I called things by the wrong name. By God I wasn't going to stand for it from this spoiled sissy-kid who liked kittens and looked like a girl.
I was right about one thing: I wasn't going to be standing for long. Roger lunged at me knocking me down on the ice and, with his full weight including heavy coat and wide wale corduroy pants - commenced to pummel me, all the while crying at the top of his lungs as if he was the one being attacked.
I lay beneath him stunned and helpless as a box turtle pinned on my back by an hysterical albino walrus on skates.
Finally, after what seemed like a surreal eternity, we were pulled apart by our mothers who were drawn to the backyard by Roger's vocal impression of an Air Raid Siren - and sent to our respective rooms to defrost.
I was soon educated to the fact that it was, indeed, called a skating Rink, not a Ring although I continued to insist and believe to this day that it is a stupid word. Roger and I soon let by gones be by gones. Still, the incident had a deep and profound effect on my psyche. Not in any way directly related to ice skating, though.
True, I have never owned a pair of ice skates or even been on a real skating rink. I do, however, enjoy watching winter Olympics and I have met Scott Hamilton and gotten his autograph. Seems like a nice guy.
5:08 PM
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Sunday, June 15, 2008
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My Old Man - For Ben on the occasion of Father’s Day 2008
Current mood:  lonely
Category: Life
I am thinking about my father this weekend. He's gone now it's getting close to 20 years.
The next to last time I saw him alive my son, who was about 11 at the time, and I had made a trip down to Hollywood, FL to visit for a couple of days. Dad's heart was failing and he felt tired and light-headed much of the time. Still he was trying to go on about his life as normally as possible.
On the second day of our visit he said he wanted to get a haircut so together we went, grandfather, son and grandson, to the barbershop. For the one and only time in our lives we sat alongside each other and got our hair cut. As always everyone in the shop knew him and treated him like an old friend. As always, he wanted to pay for the three of us and I let him because I knew it made him feel good to be able to do that.
The next night we had to leave. My son and I carried our things downstairs and my father walked us to the parking lot. After we hugged and said goodbye we got in the car and - in spite of the fact that I had lived in South Florida for years - in spite of the fact that I had visited them many times - my father proceeded to give me directions to get on the highway.
It was already getting dark when we left Hollywood and headed back towards Orlando. By the time we were on I-95 near Jupiter (where Burt Reynolds used to have a Dinner Theatre) my son had fallen asleep in the seat next to me so I turned on the radio for company. I didn't have any stations preset for so far from Orlando so I had to search around the dial for a minute or two to find anything but static. Finally I picked up something that sounded quite strange and oddly familiar at the same time. I turned it up some to hear better being careful not to wake my son.
After listening for a few minutes I realized that I was picking up a broadcast of a Jewish religious service in Hebrew. My religious training is minimal and I never learned hebrew, but I recognized the prayer the voice was chanting -
Yis'ga'dal v'yis'kadash sh'may ra'bbo, b'olmo dee'vro chir'usay v'yamlich malchu'say, b'chayaychon uv'yomay'chon uv'chayay d'chol bais Yisroel, ba'agolo u'viz'man koriv; v'imru Omein.
Y'hay shmay rabbo m'vorach l'olam ul'olmay olmayo.
Yisborach v'yishtabach v'yispoar v'yisromam v'yismasay, v'yishador v'yis'aleh v'yisalal, shmay d'kudsho, brich hu, l'aylo min kl birchoso v'sheeroso, tush'bechoso v'nechemoso, da,ameeran b'olmo; vimru Omein.
Y'hay shlomo rabbo min sh'mayo, v'chayim alaynu v'al kol Yisroel; v'imru Omein.
Oseh sholom bimromov, hu ya'aseh sholom olaynu, v'al kol yisroel; vimru Omein.
This is Kaddish, the Mourner's Prayer for the dead. I was stunned and tears began to well in my eyes. Never in my life before or since then have I ever randomly happened upon a Jewish service on the radio. And what were the chances it would be THAT part of the service. I was convinced that I would never see my father alive again.
I was wrong. My father's condition did worsen and he went into the hospital. Knowing this would be our last chance to see him my brother and I met in Hollywood and went together to the Hospital. I was in denial and could not bring myself to say goodbye.
The details in this song by the late Steve Goodman are wrong - my Dad was in the Navy, he would have been a terrible salesman and he was in his seventies when he died. Otherwise, Steve could have been writing it about me and my Dad.
My Old Man
by Steve Goodman
I miss my old man tonite
and I wish he was here with me
With his corny jokes and his cheap cigars
He could look you in the eye and sell you a car.
That's not an easy thing to do,
but no one ever knew a more charming creature
on this earth than my old man.
He was a pilot in the big war in the U.S. Army Air Corps
in a C - 47 with a heavy load
full of combat cargo for the Burma Road.
And after they dropped the bomb
he came home and married Mom
and not long after that
he was my old man.
And oh the fights we had
when my brother and I got him mad;
He'd get all boiled up and he'd start to shout
and I knew what was coming so I tuned him out.
And now the old man's gone, and I'd give all I own
to hear what he said when I wasn't listening
to my old man'
I miss my old man tonite
and I can almost see his face
He was always trying to watch his weight
and his heart only made it to fifty-eight.
For the first time since he died
late last night I cried.
I wondered when I was gonna do that
for my old man.
Copyright 1977 Big Ears Music Inc., Red Pajamas, Inc & Crackin
Music Co. ASCAP.
1:40 AM
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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Here kitty kitty
Current mood:  amused
Category: Life
Standing in the kitchen, trying to clean up after myself so my wife won't have to as she usually does - I accidentally hit a button on one of a myriad of labor saving appliances lined up like white plastic action figures from some yet unfilmed sci-fi feature.
WHIRRRLLLRRRRunnnnn... it goes, briefly drowning out Hugh Laurie's voice as he cuts another victim to the quick on a House rerun. All at once our cat, Molly, who we haven't seen or heard from in hours, comes scampering into the kitchen like her tail is on fire. Her furry feet lose traction on the congoleum tile floor and she has to make a maneuver straight out of Looney Tunes to correct her course before she collides with the dishwasher door.
She looks up at me in hopeful anticipation but her eagerness soon turns to disappointment as she sniffs the lysol scented air for a hint of confirmation that her efforts have not been in vain.
This has been a test of the emergency electric can opener system. This is only a test. If there had been a real tuna can opening you would have been directed to a dish from where you could await your rightful portion.
Somewhere, Pavlov is resting peacefully.
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Currently
listening
:
Teaser and the Firecat
By
Cat Stevens
Release date: 2000-05-23
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8:54 AM
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Friday, May 09, 2008
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For Beatrice Part 2 - Carry Me
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Life
Of the hundreds of times we must have gone grocery shopping together only two stand out in my memory. . Once was a time when I lost track of where she was. I panicked and ran around the store in fear that she had left me there and I would never find my way home again. Another time, probably one of the last times, we were walking the grocery aisles when she became dizzy and almost passed out.. A customer noticed she did not look well and got her a chair. He told her to put her head down low between her knees so she could get some blood flowing to her head. She sat that way for a few minutes. I think someone brought her some water. I was ten and had never been so scared in my life. These were days before 911 and cell phones. I would not have known how to get in touch with my father or my brother.
She recovered enough to drive us home but from that day on I was increasingly aware of the fact that she wasn't well.
My mother was afraid of doctors. Her generational philosophy held that nothing could be so wrong that a doctor couldn't make it worse. I think she was embarrassed to be examined by a male doctor and she was too terrified of the prospect of finding out something was seriously wrong. She chose instead to deny and ignore the symptoms at least long enough until it was too late.
My mother smoked filter tipped cigarettes. Salem, Larks or Winston (Winston taste good like a cigarette should, went the popular jingle.) If there were laws against selling cigarettes to minors they were not enforced. Many times Mom would send me to a cigarette machine with 35 cents.
I don't blame cigarettes for her death. In the year after my mother died I briefly befriended a schoolmate whose personal situation was strikingly similar to my own. His parents had moved to Florida and his mother had choked to death on an orange pit. He blamed moving to Florida for her death under the assumption that, had they stayed in another state she wouldn't have had an orange and wouldn't have choked and died.
If my mother had seen a doctor sooner …who knows. I blame God. God gets a lot of shit dumped on his doorstep. I can hold him responsible for this one thing. It all balances out. We are estranged you could say. I try not to bother him and I expect the same.
The world began to change very quickly after Bea died. JFK was killed. The Beatles invaded.. Civil Rights, Vietnam, hippies and all the rest.
I have only been out to the cemetery a few times in the years since her death, mostly out of curiosity. I remember very little of my first visit. But I quickly realized that my mother was not there. I've seen movies and read stories about people who sit at gravesides and converse with their loved ones.
Once in a while I will think of a bit of a song she liked and I will feel happy and sad and that is when I feel like I have visited with her. I think you would have liked her.
Then there was my mother, she was lying in white sheets there
And she was waiting to die
She said if you just reach underneath this bed, and untie these weights
I could surely fly
She's still smiling but she's tired
She'd like to hear that last bell ring
You know if she still could she would, stand up, she would sing
Carry me, carry me, carry me, above the world
David Crosby
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5:09 AM
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Thursday, May 08, 2008
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For Beatrice - On Mother’s Day
Current mood: contemplative
Motherless children have a hard time
When the mother is dead., Lord.
Motherless children have a hard time
Father will do the best he can
So many things a Father can't understand
Motherless children have a hard time
When the mother is dead.
I was too young to realize how unhappy my mother was with her life. It is hard enough I think as we grow up, to learn to see our parents as individuals – much less through the fun house mirrors of adolescent memories.
My mother's name was Beatrice. She was named for the actress Beatrice Lillie who my grandma liked so much she had already named her first daughter Lilly. To her friends she was Bea, but her mother and sisters called her by her childhood nickname Bunny, or 'Boony' as it sounded with Grandma's heavy accent.
My grandparents owned a small variety shop in Brooklyn that featured a luncheonette counter. . I have pictures of my brother and myself visiting them at their shop in the late fifties. They served coffee and egg creams and a 2 cents plain. That's a glass of seltzer water. My mother was born the youngest of three girls. She was five years old when the stock market crashed. Her father was a luggage maker and he managed to put food on the table for his family.
When I was old enough to hear the story of Orson Welles' radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, my mother told me about the terror she remembered, standing on the roof of their building with her Mother , sisters and other neighbors, searching the skies for Martian saucers and their death rays. She would have been about 14 years old at the time.
I remember my mother as having been exceptionally beautiful. Her wedding portrait still bears this out.
In the parallel universe of my childhood I was Beaver Cleaver and my brother was Wally. My mother was played by Donna Reed. That's how I remember her at her funeral as well. She was all in white, her hair and makeup unnaturally perfect.
I am the youngest of 2 boys. My brother was born 3 years before me and he was Daddy's boy. Ideally the second child should have been a girl. I have no doubt that my mother was profoundly disappointed to have another boy. Jewish children who are raised in the religion are given Hebrew names. After many years of confusion I have come to the conclusion that I was given a female Hebrew name - my Mother was so hoping I would be a girl. After I was born she apparently never bothered to change it.
So I was Mama's boy. If there were errands needing to be done my brother would usually go with Daddy and I would stay with Mommy. She was what they refer to now as a 'stay-at-home-mom'. When I was growing up just about everyone's Mom was a homemaker. In the brief time I knew her, she never worked outside the home. I don't recall her ever talking about wanting a career. When my parents met, my mother was working in a department store.
My mother loved music. She would sometimes play her records and sing while she was having a cup of coffee or doing housework. Occasionally she would dance the Jitterbug or the Lindy Hop while my brother and I would jump around in manic imitation of her moves but as soon as she tried to teach us a step I would get shy and behave even sillier until she lost her patience.
Mom was very self – conscious about her looks. She loved any occasion to dress up and it was at these times when, in full make up, she looked truly glamorous. I have to rely on my memory here because there are relatively few pictures. She hated to be photographed, especially candid snapshots when she was casually dressed. She was already gone for many years before I realized that I have never seen a single picture of my mother when she was younger. No baby pictures, no pictures of her as a girl playing with toys or with her older sisters. No record of her teen years. I have no idea why this is.
My mother had one of those exercise machines with the belt that wrapped around your rear end (or 'tochas' as she would say in Yiddish) and attached to a motor that quickly pulled it back and forth causing your flesh to jiggle and vibrate. My brother and I would play with it until the inevitable fight that resulted in us getting thrown out of the room.
When I was very young, before we moved from New York to Florida, my parents loved to entertain and have parties. My brother and I would be brought out in our PJ's long enough to get a glimpse of the festivities and see all the grown ups in their suits and fancy dresses. On occasion we would get a tiny sip of a Grasshopper or some other fancy mixed drink my father loved to make – then we were whisked off to bed where I would listen to the adults laugh and talk until I fell asleep.
In 1959 on the wrong advice of doctors who said that the cold weather would make him a cripple, my father moved us to Florida – 1,600 miles from family and friends. If my mother was unhappy in her marriage up to this point, the move certainly didn't improve the situation.. She made fast friends with the other Moms in the neighborhood and she leaned on these relationships and the card games and Mah Jong, to help retain her sanity.
(to be continued)
6:31 PM
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Saturday, April 12, 2008
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I Remember Fred
Current mood:  betrayed
Category: Friends
I was thinking about Fred. You probably know him better as Vince. But when I met him he was Fred. I was wondering what ever happened to him? And why did he always walk with a limp? He ran without any trouble - but he always limped when he walked. Sometimes it was his right leg, sometimes his left, but always a limp.
I only saw him run once. It was summer in Venezuela. But we were in Idaho and it was 20 freakin' below. Bored out of our beanies - I bet him a twenty he wouldn't run around the outside of the house naked . Fred said that he didn't believe I really even HAD $20 dollars. When I pulled the bill out of my pocket he sucker - punched me. I woke up god-knows-how-much-later lying outside in the snow -- sans my $20, sans my pants (they were Sansabelts - very chic in the 70's) and sans any feeling in my extremities. But I had a new found respect for Fred's gamesmanship.
I loved Fred like a brother until the fateful day I spotted him limping down the street with my best girl on his arm. I don't know what came over me but I must have snapped. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the beer, or the Jack Daniels, or the Harvey's Bristol Crème. Maybe it was the smack or crack or hash, the meth or the H. Maybe it was the memories stirred up by the scent of Canoe in the air. (Fred always smelled of Canoe, he was two fifths Iroquois) or maybe it was just the last straw and you know how much I hate drinking from the can.
I don't remember what happened next. It's probably for the best, cause somehow I ended up in the Merchant Marines on a freighter in the south pacific. But that's another story for another day and right now, I'm thinking about Fred. Sorry, I don't mean to bore you. To hell with Fred - know what I mean? Hey, leave the bottle, okay? Inside the cap it says I won a free download on itunes.
12:30 PM
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Thursday, April 10, 2008
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Find all your Ghandi needs on www.half.com
Current mood:  argumentative
Category: Blogging
Increasingly, there is an unintended by-product of the new marriage between marketing and technology. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes irritating and occasionally it can be infuriating.
Recently I updated my profile and, under the sub topic heroes I changed a glib, out-dated reference to the show 'Heroes' to a glib, even more out-dated name check of Ghandi. A great man, no doubt who certainly shows up on his share of "greatest people" listings. As a result, what do I find on my view of the home page? Ads for all manner of Ghandi products - T-shirts, books, posters - A vast array of "Ghandi's Greatest Hits" just waiting for me to click and buy! What hath Google wought?
On another page hosted by a blogger who's star spangled banner reads "Impeach Bush" in red white and blue, along side a link to an article that details reasons why John McCain is second only to Beelzabub as the worst possible successor to the Bush White house - what should grace the margin but an ad for John McCain's official campaign website.
Apparently, the only way to beat these insidious search engine advertising slaves and keep them from hijacking your message is to obfuscate diect reference to anything of importance to your message.
In the future, if you notice that any of my spelling appears to be ridiculously bad, please understand that there is a method to my madness. I am trying to beat the cyber-advertising robots at their own game. I can't speak for Jon Magqhain but I think Gon-DEE would understand.
4:59 PM
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Thursday, January 17, 2008
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Tsk, tsk....let me help you scrap that Bumper sticker off your car.
Current mood:  blank
Category: Blogging
Voting For Dummies
Chapter Two: The Campaign Process
Now that you have chosen a candidate you may think the hard part is over. You are wrong. For now you must decide just how far you will go, how far can you go, to support your guy or guyette. Does it begin and end when you go in the booth and cast your secret ballot? Or is this when you put it all on the line? Can you afford to quit your job and go on the stump? Or should you stay closer to home and turn your car into a rolling billboard?
Just what can Mr and Ms average tax-payer citizen Jack or Jill really do to show the courage of their convictions? We are glad you asked. With a modicum of planning and little or no expense there are actually quite a few tactics which can be employed to further the popularity of your pick.
1. Bumper stickers and signs are inexpensive. They can even be obtained for free from the local campaign centers. Pick up a few hundred from the other candidates and then, under the cover of night, put them on other people's cars, lawns light posts, pets and anywhere else you can think of. Then make a big show of dragging a trash can around the neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon and carefully,remove all the signs. While engaging each neighbors in conversation about how your candidate is green and would never litter the neighborhood with unwanted unrecyclable campaign material. Wind up each conversation with "but what do I know? I'm just a disabled veteran with a dream!" and limp away.
2. Study hypnosis and then start hosting Tupperware parties. (Hypnosis for profit is unethical but for political gain anything goes.)
3. Stuff ballot boxes. Register your dead uncle, senile neighbor and pets. Better still, bribe a middle school student to hack into the paperless touch screen voting machines. Apparently,it's so easy, a child can do it.
4. Tell all the neighborhood kids to nag their parents to vote for your candidate, the only one who will lift trade tariffs and make x-boxes, playstations and Wii's cheaper and more accessble than drugs or a gun.
5. Finesse support from the lunatic fringe. Have a rubber stamp made that reads "This book made possible by the committee to elect (your candidate's name)." Go into bookstores and libraries, find the sections for the most far flung, borderline obsessive cult interests like, astral projection, 911 Conspiracies, animal mutilations or Pilates and surreptitiously stamp the inside front cover.
Soon you will begin to understand the value of true, grassroots activism, one of the main building blocks of our Democracy. In the next chapter we will discuss the pros and cons of moving to Canada.
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The Manchurian Candidate [HD DVD]
Release date: 01 August, 2006
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