So, I'm reading the NYT online because I am curious about the current financial meltdown and various government bailouts both proposed and implemented. And while I'm reading, it is pissing me off that the government is coming to the rescue of people who made horrible investment decisions. I pay my f-ing mortgage like clockwork, and what's more, I made damn sure that I would be able to afford my mortgage payment before I ever signed any paperwork. Now I read that my government is planning to use a vast chunk of of the bread they get from taxing everyone to help out the morons who couldn't do simple math and rudimentary risk assessment. Reward the idiots and show them it is perfectly acceptable to take huge gambles in risky markets. And I'm reading. And my ire is swelling. And I keep scrolling down to read more.

And I see this:



Now, normally when I see this image is looks a bit more like this:



For a moment there, my eyes automatically added in the shitty pixelation problem and gaudy flashing text that accompany most 'quality' porn ads. Then I blinked and realized that it was a decent photograph, and touted as a new film in a major newspaper. So obviously, I'm slightly confused, and naturally I forget all about the proposed sub-prime mortgage bailout. Because, hey, there appears to be a new movie out featuring two Asian lesbians. So, while I'm REALLY hoping this oriental lesbian throw-down movie isn't the "Dakota Fanning Rape Movie" mentioned just below the photo, I cautiously click the link.

It turns out that NO, thankfully this is not the Dakota Fanning Rape Movie. It also turns out that the movie sounds incredibly dull, and I have probably already enjoyed the greatest part of the film by looking at that still image.

But I have to hand it to the ad guys at the Times; I'd wager that their review of Wayne Wang's two new and equally unintriguing movies is one of the most viewed pages online today ... simply because of men's reflexive reactions when seeing that picture.

Putting the "Fun" in Funeral

Questions I frequently ponder during funerals: Is there an afterlife, or do we just wink out like a blown 60 watt bulb? If there is an afterlife, what exactly is the deal there? Does everybody look the age they do when they die, or is the afterlife like a giant bottle of Oil of Olay that makes everyone look 25 again? If you only lived to be 47, but your kids lived to be 85, do they get to boss you around in heaven because they are "older"? Is there some heavenly equivalent of needing to take the occasional shit, or are the burritos of eternity completely digested by your soul, leaving nothing for your transcended colon to process? Heaven better have Wet Burrito Wednesday, or I'm having some stern words with the angels in H.R.

...

A few days ago I went to a funeral in Stillwater, and was reminded of a few sentiments. The first was that I don't like funerals, because they call into sharp focus all of the "unanswerable" questions about death. During the service for my friend's mother, the preacher rattled off the traditional funeral outline; this human lived life well, brought joy to others, fought as hard as possible against inevitable death, and is now in a place where pain and suffering cannot follow. I sat there thinking that while the first three assertions were most likely accurate, the fourth was mere supposition. How can one be sure that pain and suffering don't follow a person in death? Or what if there is something awaiting us on the other side that makes pain and suffering look like milk and cookies? And can joy and happiness also not follow us in death, or is it just the abhorrent parts of life that get turned away by some ethereal bouncer? How can two people with two separate concepts of heaven both share the same afterlife? The more I thought, the more my head hurt.

[CUTSCENE TO SAINT PETER GREETING AT THE PEARLY GATES]
"Hey! You must be Krëg! Welcome to the afterlife. What's that? No, there's no cancer or AIDS here. Pretty sweet, huh? But we DO all have contagious parasitic cranial worms that are made of rusty barbed wire, sea-salt and Tabasco sauce. Oh, and also you no longer have genitals and Friday is mandatory bingo night. Huh? What's 'beer'? I've never heard of that. Weird. Well hey, I've got a lot of other people to meet and greet. Stop screaming and enjoy eternity, fuckface!"
[CUT BACK TO REALITY]

Anyway.

The other sentiment caused me to give thanks for once that allergy season is upon us, as it offered alternate justification for my red and misty eyes. I have known my coworker Greg for over nine years now, and while we never hang out outside of work (lunch-breaks notwithstanding), we share enough about our personal lives to technically qualify us as friends. Plus, we've figured that we have saved each other thousands of dollars in therapy bills by just venting our frustrations to each other. "Fuck, you won't believe THIS shit...", is the header of choice for most of our dialog. One side-effect of this rapport is knowing about each other's immediate and extended families.

In 1999, shortly after I started working my current job, Greg's father had a massive heart attack. In fact, the heart attack could technically be classified as fatal, since Gibb had absolutely no heartbeat for over eight minutes. Contrary to all the hard science of human biology I learned from watching the movie Flatliners as a teenager, having no oxygenated blood pumped into your brain for extended periods of time is counter-productive to things like short-term-memory retention, appropriate behavior in social situations (like NOT grabbing random tits), and dressing yourself. Greg's dad proved no exception, and Greg's recently deceased mother ran herself ragged looking after her husband. Four months ago, the decision was made to move Gibb to an assisted living facility, as the strain was beginning to show on his wife. Physically, Gibb is the picture of health for his age; mentally, his headlights have dimmed.

I have never met anyone outside of Greg's immediate family (wife, two kids), but when the funeral service was briefly interrupted early on to allow an elderly gentleman to be escorted to the center aisle seat of the front row, I had no doubt who the man was. The service swung through the usual rigmarole of hymns, scripture readings, and family recollections of the deceased. Pretty standard fare. The man in robes invited everyone to quietly nibble cookies and shake some family hands in the meeting hall immediately following the service. Then the ushers began to "ush" the family out of the sanctuary.

Gibb was one of the first to leave, and I don't think it would have been possible to mistake him for anyone other than the spouse of the deceased. I have never seen so much grief packed onto one singular face, and it temporarily fried my brain. I wondered if he remembered when he woke up that morning that his wife had passed away just a few days prior. I wondered if he knew why the nice people at the facility were helping him dress up in his suit, or knew where they were headed during the ride from the facility to the church. If he hadn't known that morning, it was obvious he was fully up to speed by the
conclusion of the service and the events had brought his mind fully to bear.

As he filed past me and into the meeting hall, I mentally fumbled around, searching for a prayer for Gibb. Fuck. Do I pray that he gets over the loss soon, knowing full well that the end of his grief is probably the result of a decaying mental condition that is slowly erasing the memories of his wife? Or do I pray that he remembers and feels the pain of losing her for the rest of his days, letting the bare flame of her memory slowly burn away at him? Dammit. I think I'd rather think about those death questions some more. I finally just closed my allergy-stung eyes and prayed that he would endure as best he could.

Fucking funerals.

Oh, and happy birthday Greg. I'm sorry it came a mere day after you mother's passing.

My Den Is Alive...

...With the sound of music.

With the help of some dear friends, I set up my music room Saturday evening.
Inventory:
Four guitars.
Three guitar amps.
Two banjos.
Two bass guitars.
One bass amp.
One piano.
One organ.
One digital drum kit.
One PA system.
Assorted microphones, egg-shakers, harmonicas, bongos, and tambourines (for the musical-instrument-impaired).

Now just as soon as I find some musicians, I can begin the long awaited process of "rocking out".

Gustav won't stop pissing on me:

Cleanout

I found a few items of interest while cleaning out a drawer a few weeks ago. As today marks the one year anniversary of my ex-wife moving out of my house, it seems a fitting time to post them.

The first one cracked me up:









The second made me feel much better about my attempts to keep my marriage happy, even if it did drive home how oblivious I was that the whole thing was falling down around my ears:



June 28th, while picking up supplies for a party, I also picked up some carnations for my now ex-wife.

July 3rd we had the discussion that probed our collective misery and effectively ended our marriage.

Five days.

Now, while I don't for one minute believe that flowers were all that were required to keep the marriage alive, at least I can take some small solace in my efforts at thoughtful gestures.


Maybe some things were just never meant to be, no matter how hard a person works at them.


About a week ago, a co-worker who has been monitoring my varying attitudes of the past year phrased it best:
"Thank God for second chances, huh?"


Damn straight.




Oh, and I'm pretty confident those weren't MY lucky numbers.

I Just Splurged All Over Myself

Damn you Craigslist. I only love you for your /msg section, because I find the rest of you seedy and strange (kinda like holding a garage sale with only one soiled and smelly item). But your musical instruments section is like a magical toy store to me. I've become pretty adept at sifting through your piles of musical crap, looking for peanuts and nuggets of corn amongst the turds.

Today you made me broke Craigslist. Flat ass buh-roke. My finances are red-lined, and I couldn't care less. I can and will endure the coming week until payday frugally, and I'll do it happily. I have no choice but to eat ramen and air until then, since I dropped five Franklins on my new (used) uber-toy. But I'll only be hungry for a week; I'll have my kick-ass gear for a LOT longer than that. And I doubt a unit like this will be for sale again in the next twenty years at so convenient a location and certainly not at so low a price.

I can't believe someone listed an X77 at about one-quarter of its value. Can't. Fucking. Believe. It. I could NEVER afford a properly priced unit. Never. And I can't believe no one else beat me to close the sale. I was well over a day late responding to the post due to illness (mostly mental), and was astonished that no one else got there first. Actually, one guy did beat me there, but he told the seller that he had to look into some repair questions (three of the keys don't work) and make some calls before he made his offer. I did all my homework on the x77 before I ever met the seller, brought a handful of cash and a friend with a truck, and I didn't aim to fuck around. Yeah, the cabinet has the tonewheel. Yeah, it has the Leslie. And yeah, it's mine for life (or until my house burns flat). I like to imagine that the guy who showed up first but waffled on the sale is tonight curled up in some dark room, drinking and crying at his inability to pull the trigger.

This whole affair also drove home one of the finer points of being single, as I could never have pulled some shit like this when I was married.

My music room is almost complete now. I only lack a drum kit...

Fuckin sweet.

Nothing better illustrates repeated twitish behavior I witness on a daily basis than the image below.


Figure 2.4 - Americans enjoying
one of their countless freedoms.


Self-destruction is just too damn easy these days...

The Mad Hatter

The trial upon which I served as a juror in April was concluded recently with sentencing. The local paper covered every "exciting" angle:

Accountant sentenced in tax fraud
By DAVID HARPER World Staff Writer
7/31/2008

The Tulsan, who made some unusual claims during his trial, says he was singled out for his political views.

A Tulsa accountant who was found guilty in April of nine felonies for reporting false information on his federal income taxes was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison.

Robert Steve Miles, 65, received the maximum possible punishment from U.S. District Judge James Payne, who issued a warrant for Miles' arrest earlier in the day after Miles failed to appear for his sentencing hearing.

Miles, who was in the tax-preparation business for about 30 years, was arrested by the IRS at his Tulsa office and was brought into court in handcuffs while wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

He tried to explain his failure to appear earlier in the day by saying that he was surprised that his case was not transferred to the "Cherokee-Wampanoag Supreme Court," as called for in pleadings he filed recently in federal court in Tulsa.

Miles, who represented himself at his April trial, claimed in his closing argument that he was being singled out for prosecution because of his political views. On Wednesday, he said, "I don't believe I have done anything wrong."

At his trial, he periodically managed to get some of his views about government, the courts and the tax system in front of the jury. At various points he seemed to be arguing that tax returns aren't "documents" and that "zero" isn't really a number.

In an April 3 filing, Miles claimed that "any correspondence sent to Robert S. Miles etc. or to a ZIP CODE AREA will be returned and will constitute a direct and deliberate attempt to infringe My religious beliefs and to Expatriate Me and Convert My Sovereign Status to a subject, serf, person and slave and to the secular humanism, commercial religion of government."

At an April 4 hearing, Payne ordered a psychiatric or psychological examination for Miles.

The results of that report were sealed, although Payne wrote in an order filed April 21 that the examining doctor thought Miles was competent to stand trial.

Miles told jurors that he had no intent to violate the law in January 2006 when he mailed his federal income tax returns for the years 1996 through 2004.

On those tax returns, Miles reported that he had "zero" total income or business income.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Snoke said Miles' income from 1996 to 2004 was not exactly clear, but he told the jury that "it certainly wasn't zero."

The judge used a tax loss of $256,316.93 to help arrive at the sentence.

...

I am glad to see that the judge ordered some type of mental evaluation for this guy. It was apparent that he wasn't living 100% of his life in reality.

The trial was a fu¢king travesty. Imagine someone with only a dim grasp of legal procedure and decorum attempting to represent himself. Imagine if every time this person opened his mouth, whether to make an opening statement, cross-examine a witness, or question the court, imagine that this person made the same mistakes and received the court's reprimand. For four days.

Ken Snoke and his staff did a fine job, especially his beautiful young assistant whose sole duty was to place documents entered into evidence upon an image viewer so that the jury could see them. After carefully deliberating and weighing all the evidence, I rendered a verdict of hot as hell and sentenced her to spend three to five days belly-dancing in my dreams.

Next time I get called for jury duty (which will be the third time), I'm showing up naked in the hopes they'll send me home for being crazy.

Almost time.

It's so close now I can think of nothing else.

Fun Day. The cold beer. The varied music. The oppressive heat. The late night jams while the mosquitoes drink away any precious bodily fluids I haven't already sweated out. Relaxing in the "river". Relaxing in the Beer Garden.

So close now.

Dope Specs

Found these online.


Forty bucks to have them delivered to my front door, and that includes the cost of my prescription lenses (slightly tinted blue because I'm that cool).

At that cost I can just throw them away if they suck. But they won't. I've got a good feeling about it.

46.1 miles. Since lunch.

__________________________________________________

James Brown - September Song
_________________________________________________________



Oh, Miss Black.

My fuel light came on last night as I rolled to get Coneys. Sweet, sweet Coneys. More correctly, it popped while I waited in the parking lot with a sack full of greasy wieners while a friend was securing dutch chocolate ice cream from the grocery store next door. I remarked to my friend that I'd have to get gas first thing in the morning. He looked at the Coneys.

By lunchtime today (yesterday) the "low fuel" light seemed to be glowing more brightly than ever, and since my noon-hour battle plan covered a good amount of ground, I surrendered cash to Sinclair and surrendered vapors for liquids that oddly everyone calls gas. Then the Baja de Tulsa commenced as I was off to secure a signature from my ex, trap some lunch, and deposit my stimulus check with my money people.

The first part of the trip was plagued by sh!tty cell phone reception that almost torpedoed twp-thirds of the whole excursion. After finally connecting a hand to a pen to a check, I was headed off south on Harvard in search of anything digestable. I headed straight for the most likely suspect, Jim's Coneys (Never On Sunday).

Now, a word search of this blurb up to this point would reveal a disproportionate number in the use of the word "Coneys", but I can openly state that I have not declared a war of attrition upon my tract (or "sh!t-sluce", as my redneck uncle called it). Only a fool visits Jim's for the Coneys; not that they're bad, but there are many items on the menu that shame anything offered up from the mixture of chili, cheese, and hot dogs.

The chicken oreganato is one such variant at the restaurant renouned for its Greek chow. I have a pair of pants that after two years still have a grease stain from where a small piece of the bird landed. Experience has taught me that consuming the oreganato (which is half of an entire chicken, tabouli and salad) would result in a long and sleepy afternoon of me doing my impression of a head-banger in slow motion. No, the meal in the cross-hairs was the yeros plate, a pile of roasted lamb, onion, sour cream and rice, shoved next to green beans and salad. Bliss.

I drifted through traffic further south, and arrived at the money changers' pavillion while still picking onion out of my teeth. It was turning out to be a hot afternoon. The elevator ride up to the eighth floor was interrupted only by a gentleman pushing an empty cart on at the second floor and off at the seventh.

Then I hit the eighth floor and beheld the lovely Miss Black.

I was just a bit shy of oblivious at first, fishing out the check and mumbling something about needing to deposit it. When Miss Black looked up and asked me what account I wanted it in, her baby blues stuck me like a butterfly. I stammered that I really wasn't sure, and asked her if maybe the account number was on my checkbook somewhere. She glanced at it and set to work. A fraction of time later she turned back to me and asked me if I wanted to deposit in my IRA or RMA. By this point I was almost fully hypnotised by Miss Black's beauty, only retaining enough of my faculties to note her name and investigate her left hand.

"IRA, ... RMA...?"

Those lips were ... well, Miss Black would never have to make a living mopping floors.

Full-tilt dumb strikes me at this point, and in an attempt to see her computer monitor and discern which account I need to select ("RMA", as any non-smitten Kreg can tell you) I try to cram my skull through a large verticle slit in the teller window. Image a full grown man trying to stick his head through a five-inch gap between two giant panes of glass; that is the calibre of jacka$$ to which I had regressed.

"RMA" I finally utter. I stand silently trying to cling to any remaining dignity I might possess until Miss Black hands me my receipt. Definately no ring on that left hand. Hmm. "Thank you."

Back on the elevator, my ride down is again colored by the same gentleman with the same cart, only this time getting on at seven and off at two, and this time with a plant on his cart. "Stealing plants?" I ask. He pretends not to understand, or at least I think he does.

The heat outside knocks me flat, but doesn't burn the thoughts of Miss Black from my head.

...

And even late this evening as I sit recounting this long day and all the miles I've driven, I think that one aspect of it all electrified me more than anything in the past few years. Not that I think Miss Black had any interest in me, or that I think something may have happened. I have no such misapprehension that Miss Black would have to settle for the likes of me. No, what truly and deeply thrills me is that I found myself attracted to a person today (yesterday), and I haven't felt that in a long time. I don't know if I haven't thought I deserved to be attracted to someone else, or if I haven't found other people worthy. But I haven't felt that pull in a long time and it felt fantastic.

And I want to thank you Miss Black, for doing nothing more than sitting on a chair, pushing some buttons, and reminding me how it feels.

Money, it's a crime...

...Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.


I'm thinking I might need to find a new financial company with which to keep my money. Morally, I don't think I can continue to support those guys, even if they are doing a bang-up job with my scratch.

Tracks

Some holiday wax* for your (and my) ear-holes, shamelessly stolen from other blogs.

Jim Noir

Thao Nguyen And The Get Down Stay Down

Rolling Stones

Red Astaire


*(wax not included)

Two Wrongs

Sometime two wrongs are soooooo right.

Steampunk GPS

I usually don't yearn for earthly things, but this little baby is the perfect blend of geography and steampunk to switch on my inner geek. Hell, I'd even pay that ludicrous amount for one, but I can't find them online anywhere. I feel lucky that I could find this much information about them. I'm sure it's just the way I imagine things from the forties and fifties, but I'm convinced that thing must emit orange light when it's on.

The thing must be at least the size of a cantaloupe, and mounts to those antique steering columns that impaled any fedora-wearing-era driver involved in even a minor fender-bender. So I suppose I can see why these things weren't minting new millionaire salesmen. How convenient and wise is it to bend over to peer into an illuminated sphere while blasting down the highway? That's almost as negligent as talking on a cell phone while driving.

I still want one though.

Here's Breakdown by Handsome Boy Modelling School feat. Jack Johnson

Narrowing the field

I am partial to the second image. Most others are taking to the first.

But it's my house.

This finally happened.

Painthead

I've been scraping and sanding and caulking the outside of my house for a few weeks now, in preparation for painting it a new color.

Now if I could only decide what color...

Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
And...wrong.

If only I knew what was right.

To Dream The Impossible Dream

(Written for the Mindscrapes blog.)

About a week ago, my mind was trying to jar my body awake. When I'm too cold, or I have to pee, or the phone is ringing, my head makes every effort rouse my body so that I can tend to business. I suppose that experience has taught my collective self that the best way to get things moving is to start threading weird events together until my brain finally has a "what the f*ck?" moment, realizes it is dreaming, and takes corrective measures. However, this particular evening, traditional methods weren't working, so my brain started throwing curve balls.

In the earliest part of the dream that I can recall (which was pretty late), I was walking down a street that looked pretty similar to Bourbon Street. It was packed with people, and we all seemed to be having a great time. Suddenly and without explanation, the street was ankle-deep in crunchy black beetles, and people were far less jubilant. The panicked crowd began to move away and carry me along with them.

As I was borne along with everyone else, I noticed a cloaked, shadowy figure darting from person to person, like something out of The Frightners or one of those Harry Potter And The Epic Of Suck movies. Every time the shadowy freak would close in on someone, he would do an impression of David Lo Pan and shoot red light out of his mouth and into the face of his victim. That person would shudder briefly, then drain of all color, and finally begin attacking the surrounding crowd like a coked-out zombie.

Amid all this chaos of beetles and soulless roid-ragers and a red-light-vampire thing, I just get swept along in the throng. It doesn't really weird me out or cause me any distress. People are getting trampled down into the beetles. Friends are turning against each other. That bizarre black-robed creep keeps zipping about and turning more people into FOX-News viewers. It just doesn't penetrate that I might be dreaming and I need to wake up to check on the toilet-phone-blanket or whatever.

Finally, the thing shooting red light from its mouth gets close enough to me that I can get a good look at his face. He stops just a few people away and throws back his hood. I find myself looking at Armand Assante with red light coming out of his mouth. And THAT is when I finally have my "what the f*ck?" moment, blow a gasket, and realize that I am dreaming. Sure, streets full of beetles are possible. A spooky bastard with a mouth that shoots red light that turns people into a mindless violent army of the undead is feasible. But that red-light mouthed person COULD NOT POSSIBLY have starred opposite of Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd. No way. Wake up.

And so I did. After turning off the ringer on the toilet, I wondered briefly what had become of Armand Assante's career. Was he still making movies? Was he still alive? Was he chasing hapless victims through the beetle-infested streets of New Orleans?

As I lapsed back into sleep I quietly hoped that I would never learn the truth.

Erin Go Barf

The much anticipated 2008 St. Patrick's Day Greeting Card:


And the abominations of previous years:

2007:

2006:

...Live Together In Perfect Harmony...

Got myself a new toy for the rock-bottom price of seventy-five clams. Moved it with the help of good friend.
That 2x4 isn't affixed. I cut it down to size after I took this picture. It was necessary because this piano no longer has casters.
This thing literally fell of the back of a truck. It belonged to the Adam's Mark hotel here in town, and they used it during parades. I guess during one event, the truck took a corner a bit too fast. Anyhow, it made the woodwork uglier than a sack of smashed assholes, but didn't hurt the actual mechanics of the instrument at all. Well, one mallet is missing, but it is the highest B, and I'm pretty sure I won't use that much until I get better at playing.
So long story short, it looks like whiskey but plays like wine.
It's missing the flap-part that covers up the keys, and the large piece of wood between the pedals and the keys, but as ugly as the rest of the woodwork is, that is probably a blessing.
Today marks it's one week anniversary in my house. I'm surprised how much I've learned in one week. I printed out a sheet of piano chords and I have been fairly successful at playing songs I already knew on guitar. I can't wait to see where a month takes me.


It turns out that Craigslist is actually pretty cool. This is the first purchase I've ever made using it. Although you should always be careful when shopping in the musical instruments section. "Free Organ" isn't always what you think it should be.

It occurs to me that an excellent test of friendship is a friend's willingness to help you move a piano on short notice.


________________________________________________
Here some tracks:
Beck - Pressure Zone (Buy Here)
Bruce Springsteen - Pink Cadillac (Acoustic Outtake) (Buy Here)

We are the children

In addition to the rape of Nanking, here is something else that can be added to the list of Japanese atrocities...

Speaking of the rape of Nanking, I'm on the hunt for 2008's famous photo to be turned into my St. Patrick's Day greeting card. It may be impossible to top the past two years, but I'm going to give it my best.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.