Melvins

Listening to Melvins almost exclusively this fall, at least until Xmas when the EP Eggnog will seem all the more appropriate.

Cough. Cough, cough.

I need to quit smoking. Not so much because it is going to kill me (that’s a plus, actually) but because it is making me want to kill other people.

Not literally, but still...

I was walking from the Red Line to my corner of Purgatory today and did as I have done for most of these last few months, lit a cigarette. Some woman rushed past me, waving her hands in front of her face, making some phony coughing sounds and protesting a bit more than necessary. I wanted to say I was sorry that my disgusting habit bothered her but I let her fly past me like a filthy pigeon I scared off into the air.

Last week I was taking a quick smoke break in the alley behind the office. A woman walked past, cutting from one building to the next. She made the same motion with her hands, placing her displeasure on display for one and all to witness. That time I was less sympathetic. There is an ashtray in the alley and a designated spot to smoke. The smokers of this city are about to lose their rights to puff away in bars and restaurants and have been pushed off the main streets and into the goddamn alleys. Give us our alleys, please, and give them to us free of your self-righteous condemnation. Let me stand proudly with my cancer stick among the trash, the rats and the stink, shivering from the cold and gazing onto the grandeur of the Potbelly’s workers throwing away bags of spoiled food. Give me my crumbs, please, and let me die in peace.

1-2-3 What Are We Fightin' For?

It’s getting impossible to be apolitical in this country.

It was easy in grade school and even high school. I had more immediate concerns, like avoiding getting my ass kicked and dreading my Theology teacher’s punishments (kneel, extend the arms to your side and balance a bible in each hand, feel the weight of the word of god). I was finally able to vote when Bush was running against Clinton. Somewhere in that mess, Perot threw in his ugly hat. I was excited and my guy won, so it seemed that my vote mattered and my voice was able to lift itself above the din of the rednecks of U S of A.

Somewhere after all this I decided I didn’t care. I think it coincided with dropping out of school. I didn’t care about anything then, especially politics. I was shut in a nice little bubble. I knew little to nothing about the O.J. trial; I didn’t hear about the Oklahoma bombing until days after it happened. It was ignorant bliss.

Not one to advocate this way of life, I only mention it to point out that it is an easy trap. Apathy makes sense in the face of absurdity. It is not good, not in the least and I don’t wish to return to such a state. And now more than ever it seems that being so aloof is not healthy. Then again, neither is being cognizant. Reading the news is enough to make my stomach tie itself in knots.

My distractions even fail me. Below is a link to this week’s Savage Love, America’s source for rim job info and reading about the sicker-than-most who populate this world. I love it and always have, taking equal joy in the silliness of human sexuality and Dan Savage’s tough yet practical advice. Much the way I was surprised that the Bijou’s weekly recording went from “now showing” gay porn updates to bizarre political messages, I find the same happening with Savage Love. I suppose it is inevitable; sex and politics seem to go hand and hand. So now—with the war in Iraq bubbling into as big an absurdity as Vietnam—it has become impossible to escape, even if I wanted to.

The truth is I am starting to care again. I have for some time but always as a matter of principle and never in the fevered way I see in others. I admire the people who stage protests just as much as I hate their foolish behavior, which essentially wrecks the title “liberal”. I wish Michael Moore was not such a buffoon as his points of interest are sullied by his questionable editing and self-serving bullshit.

Anyway. Here’s a tale: my friend got back from Iraq a week ago. While changing planes in Philadelphia, a group of protesters spat on him three times. Ouch. Okay, this debacle resembles Nam in many ways but for fuck’s sake people…

I am so very tired right now. I just want to smother W. in oil and myself in bourbon. That’s as political as I can get, folks.

Vive la France.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove

Witless whores... fuckers...

Okay, I'm one of those people now

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