Really liked the album this song came from back in the day. This song is so pretty and so sad. I’m much too busy growing grass to write, even if I wanted to. Not that kind of grass, Snoop, the Kentucky Bluegrass type is what I’m trying to raise; part of a new walkway/patio revamp project I started in late March. Takes 3 weeks to germinate, which means a lot of water and even more impatience. Some is finally coming up. What Stevie Wonder does with his voice here may or may not be epic or awesome or any other overworked word, but it is definitely “wonderful.” “Politicians laugh and drink, drunk to all demands:” Why does that ring a bell, I wonder? These Republican Congressional shitfuckers have no concept of how to govern. I’m embarrassed that they represent anyone in the U.S. And yes, Libertarians, everyone is owed healthcare. It’s the very definition of insurance–shared risk, and no one asked to be brought into this world, but, now that any one person is in the world, that person shouldn’t have to go bankrupt to have their life spared or saved. We don’t deserve free anything, but we do all deserve to share the risk, like decent caring people. Or, like my type of people, who can be raging “dicks,” but believe in the Golden Rule. Yeah, this post is long enough now. (Oh, except for the obvious disclaimer that “Test” in this sadly-neglected blog means: “Will YT let me play this on my blog, or say ‘Screw you’ and claim copyright?” Some live performances seem to fare better than videos.)
Stevie’s voice has been a gift to the world, since anyone first heard him sing, I imagine:
This poem is inspired by my love for the female form, particularly the curve of a pleasing butt (which I try not to gawk at as if I’m a manner-less rube, but won’t apologize for liking), and my “Captain Obvious” observation that a “smart phone” crammed into a back pocket of tight jeans has forever changed the shape of said asses. Somewhere in the world, both Emily Dickinson and Charles Bukowski are spinning in their graves. If people wish to write, though, they need to write, even if it’s just flat-out silly. I picture this being read someday at a poetry reading, with voice “dripping” with sarcasm and also admiration (to clarify: admiration for the still-watchable female form, not for this godawful poem).
Oh Lumpy-Butted Hottie
Oh lumpy-butted hottie
Your smart phone can’t hide your curves
The rectangle in your jeans
Can’t steal the credit you deserve
From my fleeting glance, that is
(I know that we’re not dating)
I’m like a friendly uncle
Not someone to be hating
If our eyes should meet my dear
Please do not be alarmed
I assure you I won’t stare as if
I’d never left the farm
You’re young enough, alas, young lass
Enough to be my child
An aunt, perhaps? With bad taste in men?
Half so cute as you, but twice as wild?
A lumpy butt all of her own
A face open and kind
An ear for tunes, an ear for books
Open heart and open mind?
Could you reach into the pocket
Of your lumpy-butted pants
Relay to your lumpy-butted aunt
Your co-worker’s offer of a dance?
I assure you I’ll mind my manners
Till at least the second date
I’ll reach to caress her lumpy butt
And take a chance on fate
Will I find a “smart” rectangle
Or an “I-phone-less” curved ass?
Will I get a lust-filled smile
Or a slap for my forward pass?
Will she come into my room some night
Cast her lumpy denim on the floor?
Or will she bring her smart phone into bed
And I’d sadly show her to the door?
Because I may not be a thriller
Like some young men she has seen
But I hope to hell I can please her more
Than that rectangle in her jeans
All you lumpy-butted hotties
We men still think you’re fine
Though a rectangle is plainly not a curve
You’re not plain, you are sublime!
My sister would have been 63 this week if she hadn’t died of goddamn breast cancer almost 10 years ago. She was my biggest cheerleader, as poor of a judge of the opposite sex as I have ever been, even poorer actually. Relatives and friends don’t know everything about each other, though. She wondered one time if I’d like to do research for some essay writer or someone. Well, no, I hate research and of course have always wanted to be the one doing the final writing. I fucking hated term papers and slid by with minimal research and maximum bullshit.
To honor her, I’m going to post this letter, the end result of me sending a way-too-long letter to the editor a while back, after which they called and said they could print the first half of it for now. So I sent them the part I should have limited myself to in the first place (I couldn’t be brief on a regular basis like newspaper people have to do), and they kindly printed it.
As a background, South Dakota, my state, is considered one of the most corrupt in the country, the leaders are often accused of cover-ups, there have been scandals involving deaths, and of course in today’s red-state middle of the country, we hold the middle solidly together. Try “South Dakota Gear-up Scandal” or “South Dakota EB-5 Scandal”, or “Mike Rounds and Joop Bollen” for starters. Also, some people really are as dumb as they look–our own Patrick Star, Senator Mike Rounds for instance. And here’s Kristi in her glory:
Our Republican “leaders” are:
Governor Dennis Daugaard Attorney General Marty Jackley Senator John Thune Senator Mike Rounds (ex-governor) Representative Kristi Noem
That’s enough; herewith the ravings of a lunatic:
Dear Editor:
S.D. Republican leaders let us down
Years ago I saw two maintenance guys, each with slight but obvious speech defects, standing toe-to-toe doing dead-ringer vocal impressions of each other. You could tell they were old friends who would jump into an icy river for each other. They long since earned the right to make fun of each other. Donald Trump did not earn the right to mock the disabled reporter that he mocked. He should have been laughed out of the Presidential race right then. Rather than apologize, Trump later repeated the gestures during speeches, as a cover for earlier mocking the disabled guy. He clearly stated “You gotta see this guy” as he was mocking him.
We all received the “Defeat Measure 22” mailing from our Republican leaders, who are “taking a stand for our families.” They missed the chance to take a stand when they did not repudiate Trump for mocking the reporter. Every mentally challenged kid, any adult with a disability, anyone who walks or looks “different,” all were told by this action of our President, and by the lack of condemnation by Republicans, that they are “lesser.”
Some of the most important people in my life are the staunchest Trump supporters I know. But they would jump into an icy river to save me, or to save anyone. Would Republican South Dakota leaders do that? Thune might, but Noem would be too busy texting, Rounds would have trouble finding the river, and Daugaard and Jackley would most likely deny there ever was a river in the first place.
Our leaders wanted to toe the party line, to get a Republican in the White House to help them with their all-important work, like denying women the rights to make decisions about their own bodies, or repealing Obamacare. Because women can’t be allowed to make their own decisions. Because Obamacare is more horrible than the current system, where a patient, even one with so-called “great company-sponsored insurance,” has to co-pay 3 or 4 grand for even the simplest surgery, where having a test, like when a camera goes “where no camera should go,” requires a $1000 co-pay, where anything other than a routine doctor visit will wipe out a family’s savings. No, nothing’s wrong with that. Republican legislators should just obstruct any attempt to fix that, not come up with any solutions of their own.
It’s also important to only let people we like into the U.S., because those who are “others” must surely be losers and terrorists. You do realize that the cure for cancer most likely was lost when a Jewish baby was tossed into a burning pit at Auschwitz, that the next chance may be some little Syrian refugee girl, some future scientist that we can’t be bothered to help, because America is no longer a shining beacon; instead we are on a headlong race to “Stop America From Being Great.”
I doubt that George McGovern would have supported Hubert Humphrey if Hubert had talked and acted like Trump. I can’t imagine Jim Abourezk not disavowing a Democratic candidate who he abhorred. Larry Pressler wouldn’t have toed the Party line either for that matter. Long before they, too quietly, urged Trump to drop out over boorish behavior towards women, our leaders should have turned up their noses at Trump.
Lastly, all of us, Democrats, Republicans, and others, expect you Republicans to stop this doe-eyed moron Paul Ryan from destroying Medicare, the foundation of every working person’s dreams for a peaceful, deserved retirement, without fear of losing everything to pay medical bills.
(Yours truly, me, January 2017)
(by the way, anyone with a computer and literacy has a duty to speak out against Trump and his “nest-o-morons.”)
Yeah, I really want to NOT suck ass at life, and want to write some more, here and otherwise, but in the meantime, enquiring minds want to know–is anyone else having trouble accessing their “followed sites” “stream” under the “reader” tab? For the last week or so, I click on it and all I get is these little “shadow areas” where it looks like the, whattayacallit, the synopsis thing of the “blogs I follow” should be. The “discover” thing seems to work, but not my followed blogs. So I have to go back to my deleted emails and find where I was notified that “so-and-so” blogged today, and then click on the blogs that I’ve actually saved to favorites in my search engine (or whatever the hell you computer nerds call it). It’s the same on my slow desktop computer as it is on my not-so-slow laptop, so I feel as if it’s a wordpress issue. I even clicked yes, finally, on the thing which showed up several months ago wanting me to use more space on my computer for wordpress. No difference whatsoever. As Trump would say, “Very Unfair.”
Meantime, have a great weekend, and be glad you don’t live in the Frozen North of the so-called Upper Midwest (loosely containing the Dakotas, Minnesota, maybe Iowa and Wisconsin). Here in S.D., it’s been below zero (F) most of the week, and is up to a whopping 10 above today. We actually had a weekend where it got down to about -25 F in my town and 37 frickin’ degrees below zero F in other parts of this godforsaken state. And that’s actual air temp, not wind-chill. I hate winter. Stay warm.
I have
Hundreds of books
On several
Ultra-fancy
Walmart bookshelves
Here in the mansion
And I don’t feel like
Reading a one of them
And most of them
Would be fine
To read
Would bring hours
Of escape
But I can’t choose just one
And nothing really strikes
My bored fancy.
I wonder if that’s how
An old but still
Rich playboy
Would feel, surrounded
By a bevy of women
Young and middle-aged
No old bats,
He thanks you very much!
And they all look
Just fine
And no doubt would feel
Fabulous
Wrapped around him
But he can’t make up his mind
To pick just one
So he sneaks off to
The furthest guest bathroom
And jerks off
To the memory
Of the glowing face
He saw from his limo
Earlier that day
She was walking from one no-tell
Motel room
To another
To swap clean sheets
For jizzy ones
And she was young enough
That her dreary life
Hadn’t yet beat her
All the way down.
I have to tell you, folks, I’ve never been more disgusted with the American public, with Republicans especially, and with that Thing calling itself Trump. There’s a complete lack of humanity, an utter absence of talent, a total void of any knowledge of how to lead or how to improve anything, in any field. I wouldn’t put him in charge of a crew of people picking up roadside trash. His opponent, a woman who has been convicted, tried, and executed in the court of public opinion, who is more rabidly hated than the nightmare of a person who turned 6-year-olds into hamburger at Sandy Hook could ever have been, hated for crimes she may have committed, may not have committed, is flawed. She may be deeply flawed. She is also deeply experienced at several levels of government. I believe our celebrity worship and the instant gratification of internet commenting, judging, trolling, has led her haters to feed their anger exponentially on itself. There is a deep rage against her which, I believe, is unfounded, and of course is based on allegations yet unproven.
In any case, I don’t fucking care if she’s the reincarnation of Dr. Mengele, a shining beacon for women, or just an arrogant, conniving bitch. She has ability, a lot of it, but her main qualification for being elected our next President: she is the only person on the planet who has the statistical chance of beating Trump, a goal which MUST be accomplished. If and when she is elected and inaugurated, she should then be investigated. Hell, the Republican Congress, in their main role as “Obstructionists R Us,” can start this coming Wednesday, if she wins. Right now, I’m reasonably, sadly sure that Trump will win. Why? Because the mere existence, of new copies of some of her emails, is therefore a guilty verdict against her, in the Internet Court of Public Opinion without even knowing what’s in the emails. Because we worship talentless “reality-show” yutzes. Because we have somehow lived through other men who didn’t know one end of a book from another–Reagan and W come to mind. Both of them committed as many crimes and cover-ups as Hillary is accused of, but at least they were in love with their wives, respected women, were affable, knew how to react to slights and how to gather levelheaded advisors around them.
Trump is nothing. Evil. Disrespectful beyond belief to women, minorities, the press, anyone not fitting into his category of normal. Let me tell you this: The sweetest, funniest thing I ever saw when I was on the road for a previous job helping to install electronic displays was when 2 maintenance workers at a hockey arena, both with slight but obvious speech impediments, stood face-to-face, doing dead-ringer vocal impersonations of each other. You could tell by the looks on their faces that they deeply respected each other, probably had done this many times, would jump into a flooding icy river for each other, or for anyone. They long since earned the right to mimic each other in a friendly way. Trump earned no right to mimic the reporter that he disgustingly ridiculed in public. No one does that, unless they are an entitled little rich piece of shit with the emotional and intellectual age of a 2-year-old. Never mind the revelation of his bragging about grabbing any old vagina, excuse me, I mean any young attractive vagina, he already gave up his right to be taken seriously way before that when he stood in front of a crowd of morons and TV cameras and shook like his version of a physically challenged reporter. Right at that moment, he gave up his right to be thought of as not only as a candidate, but as a human who should show his face out in public, to be out in public and not looked on in horror. He should be given an even wider path than the average crowd would reflexively give a homeless person who is also insane and has his pants full of urine and excrement. This is the kind of person that is likely to be our next President. He MUST be stopped.
There is one consolation for me in knowing that he will win: that, in a year or two, his followers and all of us will see that he is worse than Clinton could dream of being. He will be called a Clinton by those who hate all things Clinton. Hillary will be thought of as “Clinton-Lite” compared to him after his upcoming crimes. He, after all, has already shown a history of shredding pertinent documents and lying about it. Do yourself a favor and look up the history of the government’s lawsuits against him when his dad and he refused to rent to those nasty “n-words.” He (or rather his staff, since he would never dirty his hands) shredded pages and pages of documents which the courts had ordered him to produce.
I meant to have less preamble, to have this be more immediately lighthearted, but some things need to be said. I at last offer you this list, which I mostly wrote months ago, of those entities which would make a better Presidential candidate than this lizard calling itself Trump.
Better Candidates For President Than Trump
-Satan
-Jeffrey Dahmer
-Maybe not Hitler, but his dog, yeah
-Lady Gaga
-Weird Al
-Stalin
-My neighbor’s dog that excitedly shows me the sticks she picks up.
-Neighbor’s dog number two that chases imaginary birds.
-Neighbor’s dog number three that shows off sticks and is still mostly a pup and does laps around everyone and every other dog.
-A rabid monkey.
-A rabid monkey with Ebola.
-Charles Manson
-Charles Grodin
-Marilyn Manson
-Shirley Manson
-A Mexican drug lord.
-An empty bottle of Lord Calvert.
-Even Kanye, yes Kanye
-Yes, even Hillary
-George W. Bush for that matter–most of us survived him but I don’t think we’ll survive Trump.
-That Texas rich punk who drove drunk and killed people and got off easy due to “affluenza.”
-A boil, on the ass, of a homeless person who is also insane and has his pants full of poop and pee–that festering boil would be a better President than Trump.
(With proper apologies to Weird Al, Shirley Manson, the dogs, and perhaps Hillary and Lady Gaga for their inclusion in this “nest-o-losers.”
(Please, if you wish, search for “trump shredding documents in renting lawsuit.” I would include a link, but, if you live in the U.S., I could probably drive to your house and hand you a piece of paper with the links listed on them, faster than my computer will go to Salon or Newsweek’s stories about his shredding. A combo of a crappy computer and an oversold internet service provider capability is a bad combo.)
Well, I’ve been remiss about doing anything “creative” for a long time. After I’d already gotten lazy about blogging, I was on some anti-depressants for about 2 months. I think they work wonders for lots of people, and may yet for me in the future, but all they did for me was make me tired and make the back of my neck sweaty. Well, that was mostly all they did, anyway. They acted like a “doubler” for partying, it seemed like, and they helped me slow down my drinking. I noticed some uplift in mood, but not enough to make me want to put up with sleeping all the time. I also truly think I’m just unhappy about a lot of stuff, not unreasonably despondent about life’s downs. And no generic Lexapro will fix the root cause of being unsatisfied with life’s progress.
I’ve also been too busy, doing stuff such as working on making a man-cave out of my storage-shed. I ran power to it earlier this summer, then shingled it, which it needed anyway, then insulated it, made a work bench, hung a bunch of stuff up, etc. I tell people I’m building the man-cave first, then going out to look for a woman to move in with me so that I have someone to escape from, to the man cave I already made for me. Or something like that. It’s small, but wide open in the middle, so if this mythical “she” likes The Who, we’ve got a built-in plywood dance floor. Which feels good on old feet.
Anyway, here’s something I wrote today, back in my corner at work at breaktime. Catholics, please excuse me for the first 4 lines. I was raised a Norwegian-American Lutheran, and now I’m a heathen, so I don’t go to confession, but the first 4 lines just popped into my head at work today, so I had to “write it out.” I thought it started out semi-inspired, but then, meh. I suppose even successful writers feel the need to “write it out.” It’s a sweet little poem about people on the opposite side of the political fence: Continue reading →
