Vandal Nation

Freddie Van At 73

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:30:24 GMT

Slouching to Senility in the Age of Rage

"An era can be said to have ended when its illusions are exhausted."

Arthur Miller

"Man is conceived in sin and born into corruption," declared Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men, "...he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something out there that will get you." Although he was referring to political corruption, old Willie was on to something quite profound. Indeed, there is always something - sinister, lurking, waiting to upset the precarious balance of our perfect lives. From the very instant of our expulsion from the birth canal, we are given our personal “use by" expiration date - unknown to us - that will follow us from the womb to the tomb. That expiration date may be many decades away - or tomorrow. Perhaps the malady is in you at this very moment, a simple backache suddenly diagnosed by your family Doc as some malignant monstrosity that punches your expiration ticket before you can even get your parking validated - or worse, will signal your painfully slow descent that initiates your ignominious final decline. Or, perhaps some external event in the random cosmic crapshoot of life; an insurance salesman, with whom you have no known affiliation, speeding distractedly to his weekly sexual assignation with his secretary at a motel room - worried that his wife has become aware of his dalliance and weighing his options - wondering what the ultimate cost will be...just before he T-bones you at an intersection, bringing you instantly to room temperature.

I was never a rear-view mirror guy, (unabashedly believing the most unappreciated word in the English lexicon is next ) - personal reflection was not in my wheelhouse - and these fleeting thoughts of mortality seldom struck a chord of dread within me when my years on the planet numbered, say...30 or 40. Not even being aged 50 gave me any significant pause; indeed, those years were a fabulously crazy halcyon period of purposeless conspicuous consumption that reached the heady hedonistic heights of first rate piggery - old enough to know better but still young enough not to give a shit. It was a spectacularly irrational race to the bottom when I managed to turn my myriad drinking problems into fabulous drinking opportunities and my life's mantra at the time was "...nothing succeeds like excess." By 60, however, these years were beginning to feel more than simple mileposts along my journey and, facing the serious business end of one's mortal existence, were no longer far off ephemeral way stations.

But finally, having reached the septuagenarian stage of my life's program, I find myself given to an uncharacteristically retrospective view of the whole mess - and what it was all about. And that reflective process would be less tasking if it were possible to recognize the country in which I currently dwell. Being a stranger in a land that one has inhabited for one's entire life has a surreal, discomfiting feel to it - an unsettling, off balance unfamiliar dissidence. Somehow, while I was growing old, the nation had engendered a subculture of vindictive violence, victim hood and entitlement that finds half the country distrusting our time-honored national institutions and the other half attempting to destroy them. As this New America mindlessly rips down the existing societal structure in this suicidal search for equity , we are left to ponder exactly who will even be left to take refuge in the remaining rubble.

To many of us this New America has become a foreign country on virtually every social and political level, the myriad pathological symptoms easily recognizable: Monuments of traditional heroes (the very people who founded the country) are thrown into the scrap pile while congressional legislation and city streets are named for commemorated career criminals. Who needs Thomas Jefferson or George Washington when you you've got All American heroes like George Floyd and Daunte Wright. Move over MLK, Rosa Parks and Medger Evers, the New America, wallowing in its modernity, has a new class of "Hero."

Fantastically, we are told that men are "birth people" - can have babies, indeed, can breast feed (by what bizarre biological process this could occur is never precisely explained) while sexual groomers, posing as teachers and educators encourage minor children to consent to grotesque body mutilation under the auspices of "gender affirmation."

In classic Orwellian fashion, '60's and 70's Neocons of both parties, still hanging around government sewers - who have yet to see a war they didn't love - are ensuring that the country maintains involvement in constant and never ending foreign conflicts, blood lust in nameless shithole countries around the globe that has produced military leadership so weakened by social equity policies and woke-ism that it managed to lose a 20 year war in Afghanistan to a pack of itinerant goat herders. We are asked to provide unlimited funding for an unlimited time frame to protect "the sovereign integrity of the Ukraine border," one of the most corrupt nations in Eastern Europe while the "integrity" of our own southern border has been unrelentingly and flagrantly violated for the last three years by literally millions of illegal immigrants, inviting a Trojan Horse into our very backyard. And, inexplicably, with a curiously unresponsive silence from a cognitively incontinent President who, like some witless bystander, placidly watched our cultural decline into idiocy - until he was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by his own Party like some hollowed out, punch-drunk boxer. "Sorry Joe, we're going for the price on Kamala, it's not your night kid" - thereby giving the American electorate a choice between two presidential candidates who have elevated the free-wheeling, inarticulate, vapid word salad to an art form.

But wait... that's just where defining down our cultural and societal deviancy begins. Apparently we Americans, a nation once known as "The Arsenal of Democracy" - doers of great things, builder of interstate highways, armaments, automobiles and rocket ships are no longer capable of keeping trains on the tracks, on-time airline scheduling...or even managing to keep airplane wheels and hatches from falling off in mid-flight. We watch on the nightly news the shocking proliferation of a national Jew-hating antisemitism movement reminiscent of 1930's Germany that ignores the horrors of Hamas while accusing the Israelis of genocidal occupation of Gaza - when, in fact, the only territory the Jews ever occupied was Miami Beach. Can't wait to see the Post Modern Progressive celebrity game show version of Kristallnacht in prime time cable TV - " Who Wants To Be A Nazi?" or perhaps "Jew Or No Jew?" interspersed by those ridiculously cheesy commercials encouraging the adoption of Polar Bears (really...Polar Bears?) or ubiquitous drug ads depicting pre-diabetic female fatties, a chorus line - a virtual cavalcade of camel toes - waddling around singing (badly) about "...a little pill with a big story to tell" to fix something called their A1-C.

We all see these things. We know - we feel it viscerally - that this new cultural shift does not seem to be merely the age-old generational disconnect, the natural antipathy of elders to their impudent progeny, but a Sea Change in our culture. Given that the road ahead is so much shorter than the road behind, perhaps it is no small wonder that those of us, in our dotage, would gravitate to a seemingly simpler, more familiar time and place while coming to the late realization, regretfully, that oftentimes we did not recognize the value of a moment until it became a memory.

Nostalgia. The Webster's New World Dictionary defines it as; "a return; a longing for something far away or long ago," a definition that barely captures the true essence of the sentiment. In Greek, the word alludes to a melancholy memory and is defined loosely as "...the pain from an old wound." The Portuguese term "saudade" is an interesting word, defined as; "an emotional state of foreboding or profound longing for a beloved - yet absent - something or someone; a love that remains." It is a delicate word that evokes the fear that one may never encounter the object of their longing again and captures the emotion of a love so powerful - so fiercely intense - only hate could truly understand it.

Yes, life is different now, sometimes incomprehensibly so. We grasp for familiar signposts to make sense of the chaos, to find some familiar touchstones that are relatable. I am part of that vaunted Boomer generation of men, born in the middle of the last century who came of age at the dawn of TV and mass media manipulation. We were the Darling Generation, admired, adored - the apotheosis of the Cambrian baby explosion of the post-war era. Deified, catered to and exploited by ad agencies, service providers and product manufacturers for virtually our entire existence...and soon to be the most despised generation as we suck up our social security checks and demand (from what primal yearning?) our Medicare while the nation circles the financial drain. No longer Cock of the Walk, Boomers will be vilified and blamed, rightly or wrongly, by younger, more progressive generations as a thoroughly selfish, self-indulgent, self-absorbed epoch - the guys that raided the frat party, drank all the beer, ate all the food, left a mess and flipped the bird to the remaining revelers.

While the idea of death was always a muted part of our lifelong conversation, it has now entered the lexicon in a more frequent and intimate manner - an old comrade, forgotten in the fog of living, come to visit. We attend more funerals than weddings, see many old friends of 55 plus years who struggle with a variety of serious health issues and ultimately succumb. I feel fortunate to have dodged any serious problems. My vitals are good and, so far, I'm not on any meds. Despite several back and rotator cuff surgeries I am in semi-fine fettle, still digging life while pugnaciously fighting a rear-guard action, making Old Age battle for every inch I concede. I still love the sound and feel of a solidly struck golf shot that moves from the club face to your hands and vibrates through your entire body - deceives you into thinking, perhaps one can live forever. I still thrill to the rumble of diesels under my feet while standing on the bridge of a sturdy vessel as it slices through a sea so blue it makes the sky jealous. I work out regularly, still climb stairs two at a time, knowing full well that a day will come when I can no longer perform even that meaningless display of bravado. A charitable explanation for my late stage-of-life health condition would be a lifelong dedication to physical fitness - which would be a colossal canard. Far from treating my body as a Temple, for years it was my own personal pool hall. Beyond good genes, the ubiquitous Progressive refrain of "Social Inequity" has convinced me that the real secret, my personal talisman of longevity, is simply my unearned White Privilege - which, they tell me, is like a Super Power.

It seems I am visited by these reflectively mystic musings more often these days as I sit quietly on my patio facing the lake of my youth. Closing my eyes I listen to the gentle sound of the water on the break wall, the balmy breeze of late Summer soft against my cheek. A lifetime of memories float by me, as weightless as moonbeams. After all the years, all the roads taken and abandoned, all the money, all the exhilarating successes, all the humiliating failures, all the jetsam and flotsam of living - all of it - I am chagrined to find that I have, finally, ended up right where I started.

I open my eyes.

I am alive.

Freddie Van

A Child of God

SKI: A REMEMBRANCE

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 14:02:09 GMT

Memory is the guardian of all things. ~ Cicero

How do you thank a guy for a lifetime of memories? A thousand laughs? Certainly a few written words could never capture the essence of John Kosinski, a man who managed to jam several lifetimes into his 71 years on the planet. But even the gilded words of the gifted poet could not contemplate the profound void created by the death of an old friend. But I can try.

In the summer of 1963 (perhaps the last year of relative normalcy before the cultural tectonic plates began their ponderous yet inventible shift into the dizzying, unrecognizable world of assassination, incivility and social decay), I met John for the first time on the roof of Ferry elementary school while we were engaged in throwing tar soaked rags at an unsuspecting rival gang (if a collection of boys hanging out on the mean streets of upscale Grosse Pointe could be characterized as a “gang”.) Having just moved from the City of Detroit, he was the new kid in the neighborhood, maybe a little rough around the edges, as his style of dress, attitude and language boldly announced. Smartly attired in an untucked and wrinkled mustard-stained Detroit Tiger tee shirt that barely covered his 11-year-old embryonic pot belly, khaki shorts and unlaced Chuck Taylor high tops, he was bellicose, blaringly boisterous and a charmingly deranged dynamo hurling insults to the tar stained kids below.

But John’s most commendable attribute at this tender age was his unparalleled and extensive vocabulary in vulgarity – a tour de force in profane performance art. He was a virtuoso in his employment of obscenity, using crude, shockingly indecent language and foul-mouthed idioms that stretched the limits of the lexicon and expression the way Jackson Pollock would work with acrylics on canvass or Leonard Bernstein would conduct a symphony. He was the most curious person I have ever known (a trait he maintained into adulthood) and was like nobody I had ever met; we became fast friends.

That summer it seemed like the Yankees were in town every Ladies Day, (Wednesday was Ladies Day at old Tiger Stadium – all bleacher seats $.75) and on several occasions we took the bus (Kercheval Deanhurst – one transfer) which dropped us at Michigan Avenue a few blocks from Tiger Stadium. We would walk to the stadium, baseball mitts dangling from our belts (brought on the off-chance a blast would be hit in our direction) excited to see our hometown heroes Kaline, Cash and Colavito with the bonus of seeing Mantle and Maris.

One Wednesday, Mantle, batting left-handed hit a bullet that Jake Wood actually made a leaping attempt to snag at second base on a ball that never climbed higher than 15 feet and cleared the right field fence by three feet as it was still climbing. Ski and I had a 60 year running argument on who was on the mound; Ski said the right hander Paul Foytack, I insisted that Old School Manager Charlie Dressen would never let Mantle face a right hander and the Lefty Don Mossi was pitching. I suppose we could have googled the game to determine if either one of us was correct – but then we wouldn’t have had the decades-long discussion.

The time passed. We grew up - different High Schools, interchangeable groups of friends - but our paths crossed through the years through college and into adulthood. Me to Florida to finish college and chase my fortune, he to Medical School and to his practice in Marquette where his brilliance was evident. Although separated by 1500 miles, life moved on and we would catch up with phone calls, weddings, Christmas parties and funerals, with a whole lot of living in between. Later, we found time to visit he and Kris in the UP and he made the occasional sojourn down south – despite his abhorrence of Florida – to Lakeland usually during Spring Training to see our revered Tigers.

On my last visit this summer, we spoke in his backyard garden in that soft ethereal twilight of a U.P. summer evening. We spoke of the ephemeral nature of life and - facing the end of the runway - what was all this about anyway? What did it mean? That evening there was a quiet melancholy about him, a reflective quality at odds with his explosive, larger-than-life persona, a quality that I had recognized in him even as kids. As a surgeon, John had more than a nodding acquaintance with death in all of its dreadful configurations. He was a man who had come to realize that we are all prisoners of our own reality, fair or not, and understood the limits of loss and love – and that oftentimes one is the price of the other.

He was a paradox of pluralism; he was self-effacing and vainglorious; he was impetuous and thoughtful; he was fanatically rational and fantastically eccentric; he was infuriatingly argumentative and incomprehensibly conciliatory; he was steadfastly dependable and demonstrably irresponsible; he boldly traversed the summit and plunged headlong into the abyss. He lived big. He loved big.

He was eminently human.

The past is but a shadow, a hazy penumbra eclipsed by time and the movement of the earth…but always with us. In the words of Faulkner “…the past is never dead, it’s not even past.” In the end, it is not the past that haunts us. It is we who haunt the past.

Goodbye Buddy. See you on the other side.

Freddie Van

(a child of god)

A Christmas Present for Stevie

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 01:18:25 GMT

We used to never say never

Used to think we live forever

Flying free beneath the sun

Days go running and hiding

The weeks go slippin' and sliding

Years leave quicker every time they come

Remember when we were young

Passenger

When We Were Young

Time. Whether an artificial man-made chronographical construct of measurement or an immutable universal principle of the cosmos, the idea visits more often these days. In those seemingly halcyon salad days of puerile youth the concept of time was relevant only in the microcosm of the seasons; winters were cold and dark, spring was new life and baseball, summer was freedom and autumn was football and school. Wash, rinse - repeat. The routine, the minutia of the day-to-day business of life distracted us from any thought of the larger constraint of the concept of time.

But eventually, the hours began to pass with a conspicuously ferocious velocity - the click of the clock cannot not stop. Perhaps it was the first realization as a child of how suddenly one particular Summer raced by and a flicker of consternation fluttered through our vestigial lizard brain - but did not light - chased away by our primal fear of the inevitability of time running out. The very thought was dismissed, safely stuffed way back in that deep subconscious, that dark place that allows rationalization to thrive. But in that seminal moment - that flash of reality - it lingered - lurking, waiting - confirming the dread that there is an end to everything. As Paul Newman famously said in the movie Hud, "...horses, dogs and men - nobody gets out of life alive."

In many ways, the process of aging is one of subtraction - the taking away or casting off - of most things cherished. The tendency to focus on the end of the runway is inevitable at times. Seven jaded decades have molded a world view - hardened the heart - that allows adults to navigate all manner of shit that life sometimes throws at us. While life can only be understood backwards, it must be lived forwards and, despite the ravages and loss of aging, our humanness compels us to look to the future, to find those touchstones, those reminders that allow us to recreate that wonder and serendipity we knew as children. One of my touchstones many years ago was Stevie Van Elslander.

Stevie was a child who marched to the beat of his own private drummer and had a remarkably whimsical fascination with flags that flied high and birds in the sky. I first met Stevie Van over 20 years ago at the Lochmoor Invitational. Along with his mom Cindy, he would follow his dad on those rare occasions when Gary would make the Sunday finals, getting ripped apart by his opponents like a sock puppet in the mouth of an angry Pitbull in his ever illusive quest for his 15 minutes of Warholian golf fame. What conceivable transgression the poor kid could ever have committed to be subjected to that sort of corporal punishment, only God knows. Thankfully, the boy was too young to completely comprehend the carnage he was compelled to witness.

Stevie reminded me of Danny, a younger cousin I had growing up, also a boy who was "different", who listened to his own silent tune and, by the standards 60 years ago, he was judged to be a child of a lesser God. To many in my extended family, Danny was a problem child - except to my grandmother, who, much to the chagrin of the other grand-kids, took a special interest in the him. No doubt, the current enlightened modern medical geniuses would have doped the kid up with more drugs than a lab rat and pronounced him cured.

Once, at the annual family Christmas Eve party at one or another uncle's dreary knotty pine basement - a mad house with a broken down rent-a-Santa, a besieged assemblage of stressed adults consuming vast quantities of adult beverages and a pernicious pack of 40 screaming cousins (a testament to the Cambrian explosion of prodigious, postwar procreation), my Grandmother was cleaning up little Danny, who had gotten into another little girl cousin's Christmas gift - a finger paint set. Apparently Danny used it to cover his face in brightly colored war paint in an effort to compliment his Native American Chief's feathered war bonnet, (clearly a gift that today would be considered a disgraceful form of cultural misappropriation).

The 6-year old girl cousin's whose gift was pillaged was watching our Grandma clean up Danny and was understandably unhappy and articulated her outrage between spasms of uncontrollable, stuttering gasps. While she did not understand Grandma's well known solicitous soft spot for Danny, she was certainly well acquainted with our Grandmother's rigid rules of grandchild behavior and decorum. (To characterize Grandma as merely a "strict" disciplinarian would be like describing Jeffery Dahmer's cannibalism as an eating disorder.)

"You love him more than you love us," blubbered the little girl cousin to our Grandma in a less than respectful fashion that would have normally elicited a stern rebuke - not simply for the tone of the statement but because it drew a clear distinction between "us" and "them" - always a no-no with Danny.

"Well," Grandma said softly, "if I love him more it's because he needs it more," she replied in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. That was more than 60 years ago, but I never forgot what she said that night.

On a visit to the Van Elslander home in the summer of 2001, when Stevie proudly displayed his personal flag collection, giving an impressively detailed description of each flag by shape, color and function, I had an idea. On my return to Florida, I contacted a specialty store and ordered a bespoke flag emblazoned with his name in big letters specially for him along with a whimsical little poem about flags flying high and the simple joys of childhood. In turn, he sent me pictures of him proudly flying the flag high atop his lakefront flagpole. I truly got a kick out of his enthusiasm for the present.

In the spring of 2002 while playing in a golf tournament in Jamaica, I saw a beautiful, island-made birdhouse in the shape of a lighthouse, hand-carved of Jamaican Cottonwood - and I immediately thought of Stevie.Upon my return to the States, I had a sign made that identified it as "Stevie's Fly-Inn Bird Hotel", wrote another simple poem about the precious summer days of youth, had it packed up and sent it off Fed EX to Stevie Van - quite certain that he would love this surprise gift and I would hear from him or his mom in short order.

After several weeks, however, having heard nothing from Cindy I reached out to FedEx on several occasions. Of course they claimed the package was delivered and signed for and, as I quickly realized, arguing with Fed Ex customer service is like arguing with a Forever Trumper - unpleasant and unproductive for you and pure obstinate rapture for them. I surmised the package was signed for and inadvertently misplaced by one of the numerous Van Elslander minions employed on the grounds, and, as the gift was designed to be a surprise and never mentioned, I figured it would turn up sooner or later. So, as adults do, I got busy with the business of life - weeks became months which in turn morphed into years. From time to time I would wonder whimsically about the mystery of the missing "Stevie's Famous Fly-Inn Bird Hotel".

Then, several weeks ago while standing in line with my wife at a Bed, Bath and Beyond (yes, Bed Bath and Beyond where I learned quickly that if you are so hapless to be coupon-less, the middle aged women in the queue will gaze upon you with pity one might reserve for fools and imbeciles), Jeri receives a call from Cindy Van Elslander and, after the obligatory friendly salutations, immediately hands the phone over to me.

"Did you send Steve a big birdhouse" Cindy asks?

I'm puzzled for an instant as the cognitive tumblers click into place...Stevie's Famous Fly-Inn Bird Hotel! "Yes I did - about 20 years ago," I reply.

"Well," Cindy says excitedly "it's here!"

Apparently, the neighbor next door, some type of hoarder, signed for the package and stashed it, unopened with the rest of his swag, only to be discovered when the old guy was moving and clearing out his house.

And so, on December 1st, 2020 in the year of the Covid, Stevie Van read the words I wrote to him about the enchantment of those tender years of ageless youth, not as a child - but as a young man. Stevie is doing quite well these days. He is an Equestrian, employed at Grosse Pointe Equestrian stables, riding and tending to his cherished horses. He is, happily, living his best life.

And, in an ironic twist of Kismet, the very gift meant for Stevie turned out to be, in a year so fraught with apprehension, anxiety and an appalling lack of human interaction, a gift for me - a reminder that at times when our own light is extinguished, it can be rekindled by the simple spark from another person.

Freddie Van (a grateful child of god)

December 25, 2020

ONCE UPON A TIME IN DYSTOPIA

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 01:17:52 GMT

December 24, 2051 Celebration of the Solstice Eve

As I weave the intricate narrative of her family history on this cold winter evening by the fireside, my seven-year old great grand daughter Danielle (my daughter's granddaughter) gazes at me with that mixture of quizzical disbelief and comical condescension usually reserved for elder citizens and idiots. I imagine it was the same reaction I had nearly a century ago when my Grandpa related the stories his Grandfather would spin about trading with the Chippewa Indians on the shores of Lake St. Clair in what was once called Grosse Pointe (renamed years ago Big Point due to cultural appropriation violation).

"Careful Dad," my daughter Katie leans close and whispers to me softly. "Her school gives regular 'Social Quizzes' and the teachers take notes."

While the Federal government has abdicated virtually all of its responsibility regarding border security, national defense and civil rights protection over the years, through Executive Orders and virtual single party legislation, it has ramped up its draconian enforcement of Hate Speech,1st and 2nd Amendment "violations", Federal government education mandates and Disinformation Crimes. I forget sometimes that virtually every State has different school curriculum in "Historical Truth", a significantly modified history of the old United States which permeates every discipline from math to geography and is completely un-tethered to any historical truth. Deviation from the proscribed teachings is frowned upon, especially in Katie's home State of Maryland and usually leads to Social Credit adjustment.

"What can they do to me," I ask stupidly. "I don't even live in Maryland. After all these years, I still bristle at the dystopian shithole this entire continent has become.

"It's not you we're worried about," Katie replies cryptically. " We have to live there." Her family lives just outside of Baltimore in a state that has some of the most restrictive "Citizen Freedom and Equity" statutes. In winter I am still in Florida, a state claiming to be the least restrictive of all the States in the country - which I'm quite certain is a claim made by virtually all the remaining States - and, of course, is a completely fabricated prevarication. Freedom and Liberty - as I understood the term in a previous life - no longer exists...anywhere.

For the last 35 years we have summered in Michigan, also considered a restrictive State where civil liberties have been limited for years, and now legislation is actively discouraging ownership of private property. For the final time I have gathered the family together in Michigan for this Solstice Celebration, because the State has recently passed yet another law during the last session of the legislature and, effective January 1, 2052, I am considered a "non-resident alien". The " N on-Resident Alien Equitable Property Act" authorizes the State to invoke Eminent Domain to acquire the property - offering me about 20% of the current market value - despite the fact that there is no indication of "public use". I suspect by this spring, some well connected faceless political apparatchik will be enjoying my beautiful sunrise views.

There is little celebration this "Solstice Holiday" week (all holidays are secular with no religious affiliation) as my wife and I are essentially inventorying and packing up our personal effects from our summer home of more than three decades. The State has determined that the furniture, artwork and any chattel are part and parcel of the real property and must stay with the house. In anticipation of this draconian demand, I had my boat shipped to Florida before the final ruling of the Alien Commission Board, essentially a rubber stamp for the State. Perhaps the Board will determine that the boat is personal chattel and not deduct the value from the pittance they will pay for the real property. I am not hopeful.

Several friends who are in similar circumstances approached me to mount a law suit challenging the new law, but included in the "Resident Alien" statute is a state government indemnification - Michigan cannot be sued for these Eminent Domain claims. These heretofore un-imagined trans-formative laws over the past three decades were all implemented with such rapidity the change was on us before we knew what was happening. As crazy as it sounds, I fear this is merely the logical extension of the national trend of Federal confiscation of all private property, which was once the backbone of our governmental, cultural and economic system.

Gazing out at the desolate winter lakefront landscape, I see the beauty "...in the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is" ** and am gripped by melancholy. How did it ever come to this? But frigid winter nights by the fire are made to tell tales - so listen... let me tell you a story. It is a story of a time and place and a way of life that no longer exists, destroyed by a people who did not know how to protect it.

After another summer of rioting in the cities, by the summer of 2021 with COVID raging, Capitol riots, after the impeachment of former President Trump and over 50 arbitrary Executive Orders issued in the first few weeks of the Biden administration, the social and cultural fabric of United States was torn in two. Within four years, the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada were flooded with 16 million "undocumented" aliens. In the same period, tax-paying citizens and businesses fled, decimating the tax base while creating a true welfare state full of unemployed illegals and Social Justice Warriors. A portion of these new arrivals were dispersed to the interior of the country, never returning for their asylum hearings. Of course, these immigrants were eligible (thanks to several of those famous Executive Orders) to receive full health and welfare benefits and achieved full citizen status within a year. (After the 2024 Presidential elections, the demographic nature of the voting population irrevocably altered, a secession referendum held simultaneously in those four border states overwhelmingly voted to secede from the United States and formed a new country, now known as La Raza Nacion. An additional plebiscite on that referendum codified the official language in La Raza as Spanish.)

By 2023, COVID relief, Medicare for all, Social Security along with numerous other gratuitous transfer payment social programs had drained the U.S.Treasury and, with the Fed crazily printing worthless money, (11 Trillion dollars in two years), the unprecedented record inflation and corresponding rise in interest rates was not only predictable, but predicted by nearly every economist who was not employed by the New York Times or CNN. But the geniuses at the Biden Economic Advisory Committee were dumbfounded - their long discredited tax and spend Keynesian theory of economics failed once again. Guaranteed Universal Income was passed, income and corporate taxes were raised and, because money has no home, capital fled - along with the jobs.

Not surprisingly, our "guaranteed" U.S. Treasury bonds were as worthless as a degree from the long defunct Trump University. There were no buyers and no market ...not even China. The once omnipotent economic powerhouse of the United States of America, for the first time in over 250 years, defaulted on its debt. The worldwide economic tectonic plates had irrevocably shifted, creating a new reverse paradigm; China, now the Global Superpower, flaunted its hegemony with the largest navy and standing army in the world. The Yuan became the official global currency and China used its now muscular purchasing power to flood Asia with cheap American imports produced by low wage American workers.

By the late summer of 2024, in the midst of this financial and cultural chaos, the Biden administration was reeling and, despite an obviously biased media narrative, was polling poorly for the November election and desperately scrambling for some miracle "October Surprise". But the Political Gods seemingly smiled upon the Democrats when, through a Biden campaign operative leak, they learned of the Genome Project.

The Genome Project was a parallel shadow research program, funded by the Trump administration and conducted in conjunction with the development of the Pfizer COVID vaccine. The project essentially analyzed chromosomes contained in DNA to identify the genetic code and isolate (and edit) genes that breakdown in the body's immune system as we age - a revolutionary "youth vaccine" designed to mitigate age related diseases in an effort to maintain a healthy aging cohort - ostensibly to reduce the Medicare for All policy that was swiftly developing into a fiscal and policy mega-disaster .

Racing to avail itself of this apparent panacea, the Biden administration rushed to take credit for the discovery. In an effort to mollify the disenchanted "fixed income" Seniors who had suffered the most as a result of these ambitious Progressive fiscal and tax policies, the normal testing protocols were circumvented (via Executive Orders) and the Administration immediately approved (and encouraged despite serious concerns of prominent bioethicists) the vaccine to be distributed to any American citizen 65 years of age in the same fashion as the COVID vaccine - compliments of the Federal Government...and of course, Uncle Joe.

Pfizer, having been indemnified from any possible negative side effects and anticipating another huge payday was totally on board and hurriedly churned out millions of Genome Project vaccine doses. With the now efficient COVID vaccine infrastructure still in place and (despite being a bureaucrat-run government program) operating like a well oiled machine, millions of Seniors (virtually all Baby Boomers) dashed to queue up to receive the miracle youth elixir.

Then, in a perfect storm - a colossal collision of calamities and consequences unintended and, for reasons the vaunted medical "experts" never identified, the Genome immunization affected 40% of seniors receiving the vaccination by aggressively attacking their immune system. Of those, 80% died within 12 months - the majority after the 6th month of receiving the vaccine - with such alacrity that by the summer of 2025 the medical system collapsed nationwide. The new plague struck swiftly, killed by the millions and was no respecter of age or health, gender or wealth. There was no curve to flatten - just death on a pandemic scale. Pfizer immediately yanked the Genome Project vaccine off the market forever and despite the indemnification given by Biden's ill conceived and politically opportunistic Executive Order, were the target of the largest class action suit in history and quickly filed for bankruptcy.

But all this carnage occurred after the Democrats won the '24 election and, in an outrageously overreaching, ironic twist of kismet, the Democrats never needed to juice the deal with the Genome Project vaccine to win the election. The Republican party, with their typical history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, jumped the shark when Donald Trump, the true Teflon Don (who in cat-like fashion used up another one of his nine lives by escaping the New York Attorney General investigation with only a fine), again received the nomination. With fabulously minimal reflection or consultation, he recklessly announced that his nominee for Vice-President was... the My Pillow Guy. The choice created a rift in the Republican Party with mainstream Republicans forming the American Patriot Party - a collection of decorous, dignified, propriety minded Moderate, Rino and Neo-Con "Conservative" apologists. These Republicans refused to default to sanity and their overwhelming choice for the nominee was Mitt Romney, another old white-guy retread. The outcome was never in doubt and no true Conservative has ever been elected President since.

Due to the Mail In Voting and National Voting Standards Act of 2021 , (which essentially codified Mail-in voting, eliminated voter ID, the Electoral College and Federalized all elections, allowing the Democrats to maintain control of government in the '22 mid-term elections), no clairvoyant was necessary to predict the monumentally massive fraud that accompanied this legislation. By the '24 elections, all three parties figured out how to game the system and mastered the technique of vote harvesting, managing to generate 250 million votes between them - 80 million votes more than the total number of ballots cast in the record breaking 2020 election. Voter fraud had become institutionalized - endemic in the free election system. What was once recognized as the pillar of the Democratic election process had become a punchline to Banana Republic bad joke - welcome to the Third World.

Amid the violent protests throughout the country, the Biden - Harris ticket, free from the cumbersome restrictions of the Electoral College, claimed victory with 40% of the popular vote. The formal Inauguration ceremony was done virtually - behind the fenced and guarded barriers surrounding the White House (which still stand to this day) as Washington D.C. burned. The virtual event was not surprising as "Hiden' Biden" did not make a single campaign appearance in person, locking himself down in the West Wing watching reruns of Matlock - reliving his salad days of 50 years before when he practiced law for 15 minutes. In the previous two years, for the first time in over a century, only a written State of the Union was submitted to both Houses of Congress. In 2025, perhaps because of the rumors swirling around Biden's cognitive impairment and possible Alzheimer's, the White House announced the State of the Union would be given in person.

In a much anticipated televised evening event, the President began his stumbling address, reading off the teleprompter like a hostage reading a ransom note. Suddenly, due to a teleprompter malfunction, the President stopped, staring straight ahead, a deer in the headlights, became frustrated and angrily lashed out at the technicians - a classic Sundowner's Dementia Syndrome melt down - all of this on live TV. All networks televising the event pulled away - except Fox News, which carried the President's angry incoherent rantings for several minutes. (The FCC later fined Fox two million dollars for violating the Disinformation in Broadcasting A ct for failure to go dark.) In a pitiable and pathetic display, Biden was helped off the podium and shuffled off stage, still irritated and muttering unintelligibly. Later that evening it was announced that the President had suffered a stroke, was in stable condition at Walter Reed Hospital and the 25th Amendment would be temporarily invoked. Several weeks later, amid heroic fanfare for Biden's 55 years of service to the country, it was announced that due to the severity of the stroke, he would retire and Vice-President Harris would assume the duties of the office. This totally anticipated event triggered another pandering, disingenuously spontaneous round of phony heroic celebratory distraction commemorating the first Female/Asian/Black President. Although Joe Biden lived another five years, he was never seen in public again, dying in relative obscurity secluded in his Delaware home. Donald Trump outlasted him by six years when he succumbed to a stroke while choking on a Door Dash delivered Big Mac at Mar-A-Lago. Trump's final wish of receiving a State funeral was denied by President Eric Swalwell.

Over these 30 years, life in what was once America has become unrecognizable. Big government and big Corporations are indistinguishable, controlling every aspect of life and culture. What at one time was identified as "censorship" has become so ingrained in the day-to-day life of the citizenry it is invisible - there is not even a word for it in the lexicon, the actual term having been banned years ago. All forms of internet communication are strictly monitored - if not by the government (Ministry of Truth and Disinformation) then by the disingenuous and biased fact checking organizations, wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporations that own the platforms. The major electronic and print media deny the well documented violent mayhem of the past and present that occurs daily on the streets throughout the country, altering our history in real time. Publishers have ceased publication of any material deemed to contain "disinformation, misinformation or speech in violation of authorized Ministry of Truth guidelines" under penalty of felony prosecution. America (what's left of it) exists in a constant state of McCarthyism, (a term banned 20 years ago) which was an historical reference to a period of governmental tyranny - and of which my grandchildren are completely ignorant due to the revisionist "Critical Race Theory and Historical Truth" curriculum now taught in all schools. Simply questioning - in any forum - the accepted conventional orthodoxy, regardless of the subject matter, is automatically considered Hate Speech - a felony.

The right to bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment has been so diluted through state and Federal legislation it has become superfluous - initially by a firearms national registry and then in stages; by limiting the production and sale of ordinance, then by government civil litigation of retail firearms sales and finally criminal prosecution of the gun manufacturers. The fools that obligingly registered their guns soon realized that they were the target of confiscation by the authorities - who knew exactly who owned the guns and exactly where they were located. Eventually governmental confiscation became the order of the day but, of the 375 million guns in the U.S., less than 300 thousand were retrieved - the vast majority of which were the recent gun purchasers who were frightened by the complete lack of police protection in the cities. Despite the draconian penalties for firearm possession, like the Prohibition era Volstead Act of the last century, gun control was largely ignored as weapon ownership had become the primary means of self protection. With no funding to maintain police protection, riotous urban areas have created two tier policing; sociologists who respond to oftentimes dangerous domestic situations armed with only Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory or "incentive based" law enforcement - roving packs of of armed, uniformed "officers" who are essentially shake-down thugs targeting any business owner, citizen or potential criminal on the street who may have the ability to pay.

I will be 102 years of age this coming year. Good genes, tremendous advances in modern medicine and dumb luck aside, that I have lived so long is pure serendipity and, in no small measure, due to the Genome Project vaccine. In truth, this longevity is equal parts Godsend... and curse. I am blessed that my wife survived the Genome vaccine debacle along with me, a scenario not as common as one may think. Those of us who survived the second pandemic with our partners are referred to euphemistically as "Pas de Deux" couples - The Dance for Two.

If Boomers were vilified as selfish, greedy and self absorbed 30 years ago, today we are easily the most despised assemblage of people since the Trump Derangement Syndrome era. Scorned by the Gen Xer's and the Cancel Culture Millennials (neither of whom were eligible for the short-lived Genome vaccine) for our Boomer reluctance to adhere to the group-think mentality and our refusal to acquiesce to their demand that we confess to our virulent racist and xenophobic tendencies, we are the symbolic Judas Goat, using up the scarce financial and medical resources while leading the unvaxxed to their demise. They anxiously await our final dirt nap and are quite candid and vocal about faulting us for the utter failure of Medicare For All - which, as also predicted 30 years ago, is actually Medicare For None. These princes of the New America, prisoners of their own ideology, are a symptom of the tribal decay into which this place has finally devolved - in which there is never enough blame to go around. But there are still millions of us and, joylessly, we are having the last laugh as we bear witness to America's final, death-rattling last gasp. We are outliving our children and even our grandchildren, with some older Boomers who received and survived the Genome vaccine still alive at 112 years of age. We are condemned for our music, our cultural norms and our refusal to embrace the victimhood in which the Millennials and Gen Xe'rs revel. We are a constant reminder, to those old enough to remember, of what once was.

The right to grow old in the same familiar country that we grew up in was never a guarantee and, clearly, a benefit that that will never be afforded us. I am old, but I know things: I know I steadfastly believe we are a freeborn people with an innate distrust of government built into our DNA. I know that any government that did not bestow upon us this freedom does not have the authority to take it away. And while the very nature of life is constant change, these last three decades have borne witness to a transformational upheaval, a never-before-seen metamorphosis to our way of life - culturally, financially and socially - from which there is no recovery.

I recognized long ago that I would never significantly change the world. Looking back, I can derive a small measure of satisfaction that the world has not significantly changed me.

Freddie Van

(an aging child of god)

** From the poem "Snowman" by Wallace Stevens 1921 - Cancelled 2026 by Ministry of Disinformation.

Fear, Loathing and Alienation in the New America, or How I learned to Love Social Distancing

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Wednesday March 18, 2020

Day #1 Coronavirus quarantine

It was only 10 days ago we laid to rest our old friend Jack, on a cool, clear and brilliantly sunny Saturday morning. The sort of morning certain Michiganders - for months subjected to the bitter deprivations of winter - may break out the clubs and hit the ill-manicured links for what passes as "winter rules" golf in this neck of the woods. I am quite certain that Jack, an inveterate linksman, would have been first in line had it not been for the decidedly inconvenient circumstance of being ensconced in the very casket I was helping to carry to the hearse. Later we gathered at Country Club of Detroit, one of Jack's favorite venues in all the world, where we drank wine and ate large shrimp and finger foods - Jack would have loved it. Later, people took turns telling Jack stories and saying nice things about him, which for me, was as effortless as slipping on an old pair of jeans: He was a kind and gentle man, whose motives were uncomplicated, navigating this world with the simplicity of achild and without a hint of guile. I will miss his laugh and his sometimes clumsy social graces, (like standing in the shallow end on the edge of Fossee's pool in Florida, reading his i-pad with his shirt on and butt naked from the waist down...full Porky Pig mode). I will miss my friend.

But that was 10 days ago, a lifetime ago, and the dissimilitude between that bright sunny Saturday morning and the world today is inexplicably impossible believe. It is a world that is going sideways in a hurry, the type of world in which my friend would not fair well. As the hyperbolic craziness progressed over that hysterical week and a half (and continues to grow as exponentially as the reported statistics of the virus itself) one wonders what, exactly, is behind all this charlatanry. Has this country simply devolved into a pack of whiny, self absorbed snowflakes, afraid of contracting a flu that, (for the vast majority of those without underlying complications), while very contagious and perhaps somewhat more precarious than a simple flu...is still the flu ?

Or, is something more sinister at work here. Not a big fan of conspiracy theories. I think Alex Jones is a crackpot, Lee Harvey Oswald probably acted alone, 9/11 was not an inside job and I seriously doubt that I'll ever run into Elvis at a CVS in Belize. All that said, are we completely shutting down a vibrant economy because of a minuscule fraction of the populace? I write this with the full knowledge and understanding that some will interpret this as a callous, uncaring, unempathetic and probably criminal, policy. Fuck 'em. It should be pointed out that we live with statistical realities every day. The actuarial guys will tell you that they cannot predict who will die, but they will proudly tell you, with uncanny an d unempathetic accuracy, how many will die.

Nearly 40,000 people die each year from auto accidents. One could accurately surmise that if legislation was implemented to reduce the speed limit to...say, 20 miles per hour, the fatality number would be greatly reduced. How about 10 miles per hour - 5 miles per hour? We could save thousands of lives.Of course, a ridiculous policy like this would have an incredibly deleterious effect on the economy, would not be tolerated by the people and would be laughed out of an governing body to which it was proposed

Established science has agreed that smoking (and secondary smoke) is the primary cause of lung cancer deaths, which exceed 140,000 per year. If we are serious about the safety of all Americans, let's outlaw all tobacco products, thereby sparing tens of thousands of lives. Forget about the fact that doing so would shut down the revenue stream to the Federal government, who still collect billions in taxes from Big Tobacco and whose DOJ attorneys chased those companies like they were a pack of ambulances leaving the scene of a horrendous accident to sue them for billions, which they are still collecting.

And let's not forget the 84,000 deaths caused by diabetes annually. If "... saving lives of Americans" (God, I am tired of that trite and meaningless banality) why not get all the overweight and out of shape diabetics off the dime and create some mandatory, federally enforced diet restrictions. Why not compel those affected to eat according to the government outlines?

And please, let's not forget the regular flu, which sends upwards of 50,000 Americans to the Grim Reaper annually.

I have yet to read or hear (with the possible exception of Facebook paranoia) any material that indicates this virus, once contracted by those individuals not at high risk, requires mandatory hospitalization, is that much longer in duration, is more lethal to healthy individuals or has long lasting consequences when contracted. Discounting, for now, any possible nefarious undercurrents in all this, (the guy who could possibly have enough juice to pull off this world wide scam would make George Soros, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg look like a pathetic troupe of cut rate street corner grifters), and understanding the need for some "at risk" (a category in which I would be included) individuals to protect themselves, is it worth ruining this giant economic engine for our lifetime and our children's lifetime while we watch as this place turns into a third world economy? In an effort to protect an infinitesimal percentage of 'at risk" people? Really? Are we that afraid of the flu that we'll roll the dice on this plan - this poorly thought out piece of sophistry that may not even work - for a problem that may not even approach the epic and dire predictions of self-serving bureaucrats?

The question, at this juncture, is how long an entire nation of free-born people will tolerate anti-constitutional expedience and infringement on their civil liberties before impatience and disgust take over.

That's all for today, I'll be checking in with my daily diary as long as this pernicious pandemic persists. Stay calm and carry on.

Fear, Loathing and Alienation in the New America, or How I learned to Love Social Distancing

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Thursday March 19, 2020

Day #2 Coronavirus quarantine

Beautiful morning on Park Ave.in downtown Winter Park to meet up with my normal coffee klatch crew. Only one shows as the streets are as deserted as if a category 5 Hurricane was 20 minutes away. Our regular coffee shop indicates that "in an abundance of caution," they will be closing after today. As we are the only two patrons, this move is economically understandable, despite the fact that the proprietor just opened two weeks before after sinking a ton into the renovation of the trendy, upscale establishment. The young man will certainly take a haircut. Bad JuJu - bad luck.

Trump is on the TV again in one of his loquacious, meandering word salad attacks on the English language, struggling as always with constant repetition while employing the few adjectives he has in his limited lexicon of superlatives. He is a man, even on the teleprompter, who never read a sentence he couldn't mangle beyond recognition while boorishly applauding his own extraordinary efforts. Although at times he looks a little shaky, I have to give him credit for handling the pressure over the last three years. His sidekick, Corona Czar V.P. Pence - who has the constipated pinched face appearance of a man who hasn't taken a good dump since he came to Washington - is blathering on about ventilators, respirators, medical masks and various equipment which he squeezes in between the fawning plugs praising Trump's efforts. The reporters in the press room could give a shit; the media goons are waiting with the patience of a spoiled self indulgent brat itching to tear open his Christmas presents. They shout over the top of each other to hurl their ridiculous accusations at Trump, - clumsily disguised as questions - about (what else?) RACISM, because Trump has saddled the virus with the moniker "Chinese." This despite the fact that virtually all these viruses are named after the area of origin.

With my entire golf club shut down (course, fitness center, pool), I motored down to Dick's Sporting Goods to purchase a bench and weights for "quarantined" workouts. Dick's was shuttered along with the rest of the mall. Went to Publix and bought a broomstick and 4 one gallon jugs of water. Found a 4 foot piece of plywood and a concrete block and BINGO...my journey on the road to Adonis-ville remains unencumbered. I suppose this is how the convicts do it in prison.

The rumblings that the cure may be worse than the disease are beginning to resonate; the people are getting restless, as well they may. Prior to this Black Swan event, this generation of Boomers have experienced three watershed events in their lifetime that became part of the collective consciousness of the nation, either with terrifying suddenness - the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 - and the Vietnam War. While Vietnam gradually crept onto our national radar and severely affected an entire generation, Kennedy's assassination and 9/11 shocked the nation - but none of them caused a panicked media to lose all perspective and the Federal Government to shut down the entire country - on scientific information that is sketchier than an Al Gore movie. This phony, kinder, gentler, pseudo-morality that has taken hold of this country and brought us to this marshmallow clouds and rainbows safe space - where the naive idea that assuming any risk of losing anyone is intolerable. Let's not kid ourselves - there will be pain.

That's all for now. I'm falling behind in finishing these posts because...well, because I'm basically a layabout. I'll catch up. Please click on the link below to give you an idea of how this shutdown strategy is the greatest scam since the Clinton (Crime) Family Foundation.

Fear, Loathing and Alienation in the New America, or How I learned to Love Social Distancing

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Friday March 20, 2020

Day #3

My wife was not the first person in my life to accuse me of the occasional battle with the iniquitous vice of procrastination, (although my naturally indolent nature dictates that simply postponing the battle is much more expedient than fighting it now.) So, imagine my justifiable chagrin when, finding myself with plenty of time on my hands, I made the admiral effort of cleaning the small 2nd story balcony in the back of our townhouse, (something that's been on my "mini bucket list" since moving in nearly two years ago), she was decidedly unimpressed with the effort. My righteous indignation demanded an adequate explanation, considering I had just braved the perils of the corona virus by spending the better part of a half hour in the hot sun, (who knows what malignantly lethal microorganisms are flying around in that potentially deadly air), cleaning "her" balcony - the place she frequents regularly for morning coffee.

"Well," she replied with that haughty, imperious attitude adopted by people who are convinced of the virtue of their position, "it took a potentially civilization-ending, world-wide, pandemic for you to finally get it done!" I would remind her that old aphorism that nobody likes a smartass, but for me it's kind of a "kettle calling the pot" meme.

Later in the afternoon, having accomplished the above mentioned Herculean task and finding the shelter-in-place lifestyle not only stifling but abjectly stupid, I meandered over to the only golf facility in the area still operating, Goat Hills Golf and Trailer Park C.C. to hit some range balls. GHGTPCC is a facility that, when built, ruined a good swamp. The dress code is, essentially, "clothes optional," where, if one were attired in a pair of ripped cargo pants and a bleached out "Cold Play Tour '96" tee shirt, one would be considered woefully overdressed. The golf carts appear as if they did a few tours in Afghanistan - a faded monkey-shit brown in color, replete with ripped seats and balding tires that are (as my North Carolina buddies were so fond of saying) "slicker than deer guts on a doorknob."

But they have a driving range...of sorts. The range balls are golf balls in the notional sense of the word - they were at one time round, white and once actually had some component of compression. What passed for grass on the dismal teeing area of the range was the pathetic occasional clump of dried out weeds, where every iron shot resulted in a puff of dry dust and an erratic ball flight that resembles a hummingbird dodging a shotgun blast. Gone are the good old days (day before yesterday) when I was practicing with shiny, brand new, out of the box Titleist tour practice balls at my club...that solid feeling that moves from the hands through the entire body as a nine-iron meets the ball precisely, leaping off the face. The high, perfect parabola of the shot as it gently slides a little left at the apex, hangs for an instant and falls gently to earth - a sensation so pure it makes you feel like you could live forever.

We will not, any of us, live forever. But we surely will die an ignominious, spineless and humiliating death if we hide like children from a Bogeyman that may not even exist.

Catch y'all tomorrow. In the mean time - don't give out, don't give in and NEVER, EVER, give up!

Stay Calm and Carry On.

Fear, Loathing and Alienation in the New America or How I Learned To Love Social Distancing

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Saturday/Sunday/ Monday March 21-22-23 2020

Days #4, #5 & #6

(The lost Weekend - Some days will be condensed. When the highlight of your day is driving 4 blocks to the Publix, even Stephan King would find it a formidable task to create a compelling narrative for any protagonist.)

You wanna talk desperation? I'll give ya desperation right here...played nine holes at Goat Hills Golf and Trailer Park with my wife this weekend!. I thought the driving range was rough...until I saw the greens. In the '70's, I had a shag carpet that was smoother than these babies. Hit it three feet on a 167 yard 3-par - the putt squirted left from the giddyup - missed the the hole by 6 inches. Good news, however. Jack Nicklaus Grand Cypress Golf course near Disney (usually at least a 35 minute drive in season - now maybe 15 minutes) opened for play. Individual carts, no touching flagstick, all bunkers played as waste areas (no rakes to touch), rangers are there solely to monitor the six foot rule.

This new normal is the inevitable and logical result of the general direction technology has been driving us. Tethered to our machines and relying on them as virtually the only mode of communication has created an alarming inability to actually connect with other humans. Why go through the inconvenience of actually talking to someone when texting, while not as accurate, will suffice. And while all age groups are guilty of this behavior, Millennials and and the so-called Gen Z generations are clearly the most affected. At least with the AIDS virus in the '80's, the level of alienation was controllable; if two consenting adults wanted to get inter-personal and bump uglies, prophylactic protection was available. Is there any doubt this "no touch " culture will effect the way we interact with other humans. Will the birthrate decline even more propitiously with Millennials and Gen Z? Will they even care?

Several months ago, smoking a cigar and sipping a MacCallan's 15 on the patio at my golf club, I overheard some junior members (perhaps early thirties) excitedly recalling a round at Augusta National that apparently all three had played the day before. As I listened to them recount an extremely detailed, hole by hole replay of their round, I wondered whose ass a couple of puerile, non-partner attorneys had kiss to gain entry to the storied home the Master's. I was fortunate enough to have played it over 30 years ago (when these kids were still shitting yellow) and I understood the level of difficulty involved in gaining access. When I asked them if they had an opportunity to walk through the stately clubhouse (oftentimes part of the Augusta guest protocol), they stared at me dumbfounded; the Augusta National they played was a giant video game with a wrap around screen at the Titleist booth at the PGA show, complete with sound of chirping birds and breeze blowing through the pines, and, if you so desire, the roar of the patrons.To these kids, who have been playing video games all their lives, this seemed to be as satisfying as the real deal. What happens when the virtual reality becomes indistinguishable from truth? Which, of course, is a question better answered by someone who understands the reality of life, say...a TV Doc like Dr. OZ.

If one needs any additional proof of our devolution, if the new word abbreviation protocols for text and email isn't enough of a perversion of the language and communication skills, think about the prevalent use of emojis as a communication device. From Egyptian hieroglyphics to emojis in only 3 millennia - real progress. For those hipster individuals who think there's no difference - that a symbol is a symbol - try to convey the feeling and emotion of any of the great pieces of literature...with emojis.

Frustration with the preposterous "run and hide" reaction to this virus continues to grow as American economic viability and wealth continues to circle the fiscal drain. Congress is throwing around trillion dollar bailouts like Bloomberg buying a quarter page political ad in a high school yearbook, deceptively burying Green New Deal and carbon footprint buy backs for airlines deep in the bill. if this pandemic concludes with a fatality number that is less than or equal to previous year's death rate, who will take the responsibility for this boondoggle? Where will these possibly unnecessary trillion dollar relief packages come from? Those hopeful Democrats who believe this is the end of Trump, may be correct. But the reality is that this just the beginning of an entirely new and perilous relationship between the individual and the Federal government, which is the silent price of the bailout money. No matter how this fiasco concludes, the face of the nation will surely change as Government intrusion will be an integral component of everyday life.

Life moves on, sometimes the cultural tectonic plates shift. As much as we may want to, nobody ever promised we had the right to grow old in the same country in which we grew up. Truth be told, I don't know that I even care to coexist with a society that tolerates cheesy Medicare commercials with Joe Namath as the pitchman (YES , BROADWAY JOE ) and who don't even comprehend the significance of the hook line at the commercial's end when Joe intones, "...call the number - you'll be glad you did.. .I guarantee it! "

Oh well. As Jimmy Hendrix so eloquently prophesied - "Ain't no Life Nowhere." Catch y'all down the road.

Fear, Loathing and Alienation in the New America or How I Learned to Love Social Distancing

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Friday/Saturday March 29, 2020

Day # whatever

Have never been a big "rear view mirror" guy, believing that the most under-appreciated word in the English language is "NEXT"...next deal, next day, next dream. Looking back was the give-up- artist's mode of surrender, a rear guard action - a fighting retreat against whatever time one may have left. However, in this era of coerced uncertainty - when any future runway available to us grows more transitory by the quarantined day - reversion seems the only viable course available. So, who would've thought on my birthday 50 years ago today, I would be a 69 year old man under quarantine in Florida, with the dystopian media predicting the end of civilization while depicting joyless, depressing sepia colored video vignettes of the deserted streets of New York City with cheesy, melancholy background music. When not displaying these spurious Orwellian and totalitarian images, the cable networks bring on their charlatan TV Docs to help us deal with "...the anxiety and fear of isolation," as if we were children who lost their security blanket and are desperately seeking a safe space. While this Corona virus seems to play perfectly into the narrative of this new America - that is, you're nobody until you are a victim. However, this pandemic allows - EVERYBODY TO BE A VICTIM which, in turn, reduces the value of victimhood, the currency of the snowflake mentality. What the everyday, off the rack, pre-virus regular victims are learning is that when everybody's somebody, nobody's anybody.

Leaving my domicile on Saturday, (how long before "papers" will be a requisite to move about freely), to pick up a script for my wife at Costco, I notice for the first time the taped off lines on the floor indicating the compulsory 6-foot social distancing mandate while in line at the pharmacy. While the mind reels at the opportunities to contract this virus in this sad sea of humanity - even at six feet, the fear of some of these people is visceral. The woman behind me was taking no chances; although the outside temperature is pushing 90 degrees, she is ridiculously costumed in a surgeon's cap, a respirator mask, rubber dish washing gloves that cover her forearms and (I am not making this up), some sort of cotton booties over her footwear - in the event, I guess, that little viruses are leaping up on our shoes like so many fleas. A slender, rather mousy woman, she resembled those actresses from the black and white movies in the '50's when, apparently, it was de rigueur to sport pointy breasts - as if two snow cones were fastened to her pigeon-like chest.

The Latina woman in front of me, when finally arriving to the pharmacist's window only to find that her script hadn't been called in, began a rant a la Rickey Ricardo - part Spanish, part English (a form of spanglish) directed at the pharmacist, cursing the poor young man relentlessly.The rest of the Octogenarians in line, already scared half to death by, well...by fear of death from a virus and the constant dread that the conservatives (those faceless, nameless malevolent rabble) will use the Corona virus to steal all their social security and Medicare, simply cowered, averting their eyes. She was in her middle 40's, huge breasted and, at one time perhaps a genuine dark-haired beauty - but now just a chunky, high mileage, B list midnight Bootie call Senora beat up by the disparate inequities of life. A real man hater, she had the classic female "I need" line - a distinguishing crease that ran from the middle of her forehead to the bridge of her nose and let you know she could spew enough venom to make some unsuspecting man wish he had corona virus. As she paused momentarily to catch her breath, she turned around in time to see me shake my head and gave me a look she had probably used her entire miserable bullying life. I held her gaze, wagging my finger in a "make my day sweetheart" pantomime.

She turned away briskly, her stiletto heels clicking on the concrete floor. The pharmacist greeted me at the window with a sheepish smile. "Maybe," I said with only a hint of sarcasm "there's a reason for this virus."

The velocity of the recent societal transformation has a startling semi-permanent and Cambrian explosive quality to it that has perilous overtones. The arrogance, however, of a society that jeopardizes the immediate future and its children's future by tampering with the deciduous nature of life is astonishing. It is a cosmic reality; at maturity, some leaves will fall from the tree. Despite the constant media propaganda that saving every life is an imperative, I am unpersuaded.

Life is, indeed, changing. I realized many years ago that I would not significantly change the world. I am gratified however, at this stage in my my life, that the world did not significantly change me.

See y'all down the road. Stay well.

Kamala Switches Teams

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 20:30:02 GMT

Exclusive to the VandalNation

Washington D.C. 6/3/19

VandalNation Exclusive

(For Immediate Release)

In a hastily called press conference, Juan Rodriguez, campaign manager for Kamala Harris announced that the candidate will now identify as a lesbian. “In order to better serve and understand the long standing victimization suffered by the LGBTQ community, Senator Harris will, as of this date, identify as lesbian,” said Rodriguez in front of a boisterous, cheering crowd of LGBTQ, including a vocal contingent of Lipstick Lesbians.

Douglas Imhoff, Harris’ husband of 12 years, apparently surprised by the unexpected announcement, refused to comment.

The move immediately catapults Harris several polling positions in the Identity Politic Intersectionality Championship of the Democratic presidential primary race, leapfrogging both Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker. “As a lesbian, the Senator now accumulates victimhood points in several categories - having faced discrimination as a woman, as African American and now, as Gay,” said Rodriguez. “The fact that she also has that youthfully attractive MILF appeal only adds to her likeability - while still maintaining the fundamental grievance issue,” he said.

The announcement did not go unnoticed by several other candidates. Mike Schmuhl, campaign manager for candidate Pete Buttigieg, (the only other announced Gay candidate in the race), quickly responded via twitter. “We believe it is critical that the Democratic National Committee immediately initiate an investigation into the substance of this specious and highly suspect claim made by the Senator" he tweeted. “The Senator needs to provide dispositive evidence to the American public of this claim as to exactly; 1.) when Senator Harris had cunningulus, 2.) where Senator Harris had cunningulus and, 3.) most importantly, with whom Senator Harris has had cunningulus,” Schmuhl tweeted. “The American people are entitled to know if their leaders only claim to be Gay when it suits their needs.”

In an unrelated event, Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of candidate Mayor Buttigieg, locked himself into the restroom at the Buttigieg campaign headquarters in South Bend, Indiana, weeping inconsolably at the Harris announcement, apparently distraught at the prospect of having his husband share the Gay spotlight with another candidate. Grief counselors were summoned and the situation was resolved without further issue, according to people familiar with the matter.

Under the condition of anonymity, a spokesperson for the Elizabeth Warren campaign, (which has been relying solely on female victimization and experiencing difficulty overcoming the candidate’s “whiteness"), rejected any potential Gay claim by the campaign, indicating that senior staffers are contemplating an assertion of Transexuality. “We think the Tranny route is much more believable and while we’re not ruling out a possible bi-sexual claim, it just doesn’t have the victim impact and won’t get us where we need to be polling-wise,” said the source.

Frontrunner Joe Biden, on the campaign trail speaking to a small group of somnolescent, old, white and embittered retired United Mine Workers, was asked if he had any intentions of asserting a Gay claim, responded assertively. “C’mon man. I’m old school. You guys have seen Old Uncle Joe in action on video for 30 years - grabbing’ and sniffing’ - but y’all never saw me sniff a male - just women. Sure, I sniffed a few old ladies, but that’s just politics. Any male grabbin’ was manly grabbin',” exclaimed Biden with uncharacteristic testicularity.

The Biden campaign, suffering from a lack of any meaningful grievance issues and covering no intersectionality bases, is scrambling to establish some victimhood claim. "As an old, white, mainstream political moderate, I'm in the only class of Identity Politics that is discriminated against because we have no victimization claim. In fact, we are victims of not being victims!" Biden exclaimed with circular logic.

Asked if Bernie Sanders, also old and white (in addition to being bitter) faces the same lack of victimization status, Biden replied, "at least Bernie's a Jew - he could get some discrimination mileage out of that if it didn't alienate his base," referring to the openly, virulent anti-Semitic posture of the Progressive wing of the Democratic party.

Sanders, in a lunch diner on the campaign trail making his 205th visit to Iowa, refused comment with an angry, dismissive grunt as he sent back his cold soup.

Corey Booker, reportedly furious with his campaign staff for prematurely outing his relationship with actress Rosario Dawson amid swirling rumors that he was a closeted Gay man, was heard by campaign staffers to have said “...I could have been a victim of racial discrimination, Black and Gay." Experts believed such a scenario would have put him within margin-of-error distance to Senator Harris impressive claims of racial discrimination, female, Black and Lesbian credentials - the Grand Slam of victimization.

While the White House press office had no official comment on the Harris announcement, a mid-level staffer, under the condition of anonymity, responded. "President Trump currently is lazer-focused on doing the work of the American people, ensuring that the intricately nuanced Fox News subtext continues to portray him as a beleaguered, yet unifying Christ figure and trying to figure out how to put together a three-way with Senator Harris and Stormy Daniels in the Mar-A-Lago Presidential suite."

Senator Harris will kick off her "Gay Daze" whirlwind tour, with rallies at 50 Gay/Trans nightclubs in 50 days. Venues and showtimes will be available to the public on line at: divein69@GayDaze.com

AFTER THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:52 GMT

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die

It takes a lot to change a man

Hell, it takes a lot to try

Jason Isbell

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/24/2019, 6:07 PMEastern Daylight Time

October 21, 2018

It was a morning much like many of the mornings, these days. He awoke, as usual, too early and with the now familiar disquieting and restless anxiety that sat heavy in his chest. Autumn made its first appearance during the night, a blustery Northwest wind blowing in on an early morning brilliantly blue and brittle sky, signaling the end of another season - another summer. As he lay in his bed listening to the high, lonesome sound of wind whistling through the halyards at the backyard dock, a dull apprehensive anticipation enveloped him - not a dread of what was going to happen, but the pervading, empty sensation that, once again, nothing was going to happen. He would fill this day, like most days, with meaningless errands and made up tasks. A golf game, a boat ride - place holders that ticked off the hours and minutes - to what final end he no longer knew. Now, these days, with greater frequency, he questioned where all this was leading. Unfamiliar with a rudderless course, life, it seemed was a sometimes confusing and meandering trail with no directional signs.

Despite spending his feral formative years navigating through the maelstrom of (what he considered) real cultural and social revolution in the quixotic ’60’s, he does not recognize these current day phony cultural warriors - these people, this place - he now calls the “New America”. He recollects McCarthy’s Children’s Crusade during the apex of the Vietnam War in the summer of 1968, when political leaders were shot down ignominiously on the street like common gangsters, entire cities were really burning and under attack, (not simply under some laughable micro-siege by Antifa delinquents in black ski masks heaving folding chairs through store-front windows). During the Senate Judiciary hearings he watched with a baffled amusement as zombie undergraduates stormed the steps of the Supreme Court building like a scene from the Walking Dead, (only with marginally better groomed “walkers’’), chanting in unison some mindless slogan while banging on the imposing front door as if it were a flimsy cyclone fence.

He wonders out loud how it could be possible that 25% of Millennials claim they suffer from symptoms of PTSD as a result of the 2016 election of Donald Trump ! If the reaction to the Presidential election of a single ill-mannered, inarticulate boor evinces this level of pathological derangement, with what frantic ferocity would these self-absorbed snowflakes react if the United States government, under the auspices of the U.S. Army, was snatching them out of their Transgender Studies class and shipping them 9,000 miles to some shithole jungle to get shot at by brown people? Would they scream racism, complain about toxic masculinity…make a safe space demand? He wonders what sort of trigger warnings would be elicited if the National Guard was shooting them down on campus? Is life so devoid of meaning in this Mr. Rogers, marshmallow universe that relatively trivial events automatically attain an elevated life and death status?

He recalls a recent conversation on an airplane with a University of Florida card-carrying millennial, a very bright, attractive second year law school student, a seemingly normal young lady…until she steered the conversation into the foggy realm of “Social Justice”. For one and a half hours she passionately pontificated on the enlightened post-modern positions of the “movement” with a litany of cultural evils, touching upon; white privilege, critical race theory, thought crime, hate crime, hate speech, man-splaining, gender assumption, cultural appropriation, Nazism, fascism, feminism and misogyny – among others. Virtually every practiced phrase was a formal proclamation, a noble declaration worthy of a granite monument etching. He conscientiously summoned his focus and listened intently, because, well…because he actually thought she had a point.

As she recited her well rehearsed mantra as if by rote, his singular thought was that the ink on the handwriting was already drying on the wall for this highly motivated and socially conscience young woman. She would toil in the legal vineyards (probably for one of those ubiquitous overly virtuous subsidized civil rights non-profit law firms), diligently working 65 hours a week. She would date well into her late 30’s, routinely detecting alarmingly serious defects in every man she encounters until her mother’s jokes about being single are no longer funny. Despite a nagging self doubt, she would convince herself that a primary dogma of the feminist altar at which she worships clearly espouses the incontrovertible tenet that men are excess baggage, beat up old Samsonite too worthless to drag through life and unnecessary for her happiness and fulfillment. In her permissively emancipated progressive world, she would seriously consider lesbianism (some of her best friends are gay) but will reject it as too messy. She will end up spending her solitary nights perusing facebook, casting a cynical eye towards her old friend’s children, completely alone - except for her 20 cats and her disadvantaged clients. Self righteousness, ultimately, has its price.

As spurious, sanctimonious and morally superior messages are delivered daily by fiat through a smarmy and compliant media, could the seemingly inconsequential concerns of these social justice soldiers be of such import that they even approach what his generation experienced? But what could be expected from a generation, coddled from birth, who receive instruction in manhood based on a virtue signaling shaving commercial from a razor company? He reminds himself that these are only children whose singular experience with governance is the example set by high-end deal brokers, an elitist political class that had long ago betrayed its people. Corrupt sell-outs who despise the very constituents that elected them and have metastasized into mercenary political day traders, short selling constitutional freedoms and civil liberties. However, never too busy between domestic deals to still recognize the profit opportunity for nation building and wars in far-away, off-brand countries. He realizes the children are blameless victims - the inevitable product of 35 years of the re-educational gulags – laughingly referred to as the government-run public school system.

Or perhaps, he reluctantly concedes, his disdain for this new age belief system is just a naturally occurring generational affair, another symptom of aging - a lack of cognitive fluidity, an ideological rigidity that leaves no room for new and unfamiliar ideas, only a reticent and intractable philosophical stubbornness - the cynical unreasoned equivalent of the old nasty white-haired cat screaming “…get off my lawn!”

He ponders the entire idea of coming back to this place after nearly half a century - much of it looks the same, feels the same - but has an odd cacophony, a remotely unremembered dissonance. With a melancholy flash of the obvious, he realizes it is not the place that is so different - it is he who has changed. He realized that the sub-conscience rationale for his return at this late stage of life, perhaps based in folly, was an effort to reach back and make things right - a cosmic “do over”. But throughout his life and travels, this place by the water, especially this water, the Lake St. Clair of his boyhood was a special place with an easy, familiar feel – as comfortable as slipping into an old pair of Levis.

He remembered another simpler time when an early morning offshore breeze, a rising sun, dancing on perfect water as flat as gleaming ice - skis ready to go - was the most important event of the day. He reflected on the days, now more than 50 years past, when, in his naive and unsullied reality, seemingly every experience was new and shiny and exciting; the exhilarating sensation of popping a longneck; that slender blue-eyed girl - his adolescent muse - half child, half woman, who wore a thin mustache of perspiration on her upper lip on those lazy sun-baked mornings and who fascinated him from the giddy-up; all those young buddies experiencing the exhilarating pure joy of youth. Now, with the worldly treasure he has accumulated over a lifetime, what would he give for one day, one hour - a single moment - in that time? He considers the reality of movement in three of the dimensions of space - back and forth, to and fro, up and down. Only the fourth - time - is static, limited to forward movement at the predetermined pace of the universe. For even back in the day he recognized that this life was divided into moments - mere snapshots in time - and the moment would not last - would survive only in memory.

One week, perhaps next summer, he would top off the tanks and head out to the shipping channel. And then, free from the limitations of space and time, make a course due Northeast, past the islands that dot the St. Clair River, right to the mouth of Lake Huron to revisit the ports he remembered as a boy traveling on his father’s 42 foot Chris Craft Constellation (elevated helm, gleaming teak decks, bulbous bow high up on the prow - the absolute perfect boat). But memory, like so many areas of life is seldom accurate. For years he had related colorful stories to his wife of the quaint romance of the picturesque little lakefront towns remembered from his youth, but a trip earlier in the summer to Port Sanilac for a wooden boat show proved to be fantastically disappointing.

The voyage began with a three hour boat trip up the St. Clair River, through Port Huron and Lakeport along the east coast of Michigan, past the Lexington lighthouse, until surprisingly, he found his way to Port Sanilac. He maneuvered the 33 foot Sea Ray into the relatively new and unfamiliar, municipal marina, where apparently the entire dock staff was on strike, compelling his wife to handle the lines. Concrete docks, smooth and clean, replaced the uneven, ancient wooden structures that he recalled would inevitably result in splinters when one risked shoeless ambulation. Finding a well, he set out for town, his wife in tow, in search of a bag of cocktail ice.

Entering the outskirts of town he located what he thought might be the outdoor covered roller skating rink which, all those years ago, doubled as a dance floor and “casino” on weekends. In his memory he recalled a shiny white, gingerbread trimmed, old timey edifice, with a spacious smooth wooden floor, lights strung overhead in circus big top fashion and posters plastered in the immediate area and throughout the entire town which advertised to the visiting boaters:

“…Dance to the Stylings of the Guy Lombardo Traveling Orchestra –

As Seen On The Perry Como Show!!”

What he found was a rotting and dilapidated wooden wreck of peeling paint, peppered with posted “CONDEMNED” signs, barely standing - as lonely as an abandoned, tinsel decked curbside Christmas tree on a cold January morning.

Moving on, he found the piece of ground where the old clap-board General Store once stood – old ceiling fans, the musty smell of licorice and tobacco, well worn pine floors and weary screen doors - where his dad would send him from the marina to fetch ice in his red Radio Flyer. In its place now sat a dirty, rundown concrete block convenience store and a two-pump, no-name gas station. Instead of the big-bellied, white-haired old men of his memory that sat around a pickle barrel smoking Lucky Strikes and trading local gossip, was now a contingent of young, mangy, heavily tattooed townies and greasy haired toothless layabouts with the dental hygiene of a mini-meth head convention, all of whom appeared to have done more drugs than an entire research center of retired lab rats. Standing behind him, his wife (the Living Martyr) thankfully, only smiled. “Picturesque”, she intoned as she turned on her heel, “ and romantic”.

Time touches everything. Maybe next summer he’d journey a little farther – maybe up to the Great Stone City at the tip of the thumb where the deep orange sunsets were strikingly magnificent. From there, across the prodigious Saginaw Bay to Au Sable point and Tawas City and points north…hope springs eternal in the breast of a true Time Traveler. Who knows - the quest for yesterday’s respite might just be found tomorrow.

Nirvana, it’s been said, is always just up the road.

LESSONS OF OUR FATHERS

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:49 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

6/17/18, 9:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time

The human heart beats approximately 4800 times an hour, over 100,000 times a day…an incredible 3.3 billion times in the lifespan of an average human. Consistent dependability like that would imply a level of reliability - behavior so unwaveringly predictable it can be found only in degenerate gamblers, phony Christian businessmen and sycophant Democrats. Life’s vagaries, however, preclude any such assumption regarding the untimely appearance of the Reaper - no respecter of age or wealth or innocence or health. Exactly when that final heartbeat will occur is a cosmic lottery. Believe it – this life becomes a precarious proposition after the age of 65 for everyone you ever loved and everyone that ever loved you, an irrefutable fact I came to fully realize this past autumn.

After exposure to the Hepatitis A virus - from a Grosse Pointe MI restaurant that will go unnamed (Champ’s on Mack Avenue) - Freddie Van languished on Death’s Door for four weeks and ultimately landed in Winter Park Hospital for 6 days suffering from a severe case of Jaundice, his skin as yellow as a canary perched on a Daisy.

After the second day in the hospital, I counted 55 scenarios that could kill me, (without even leaving the hospital), tabulating the different ways by marking on a legal pad 11 groups of five using four vertical strokes and a diagonal slash. On the fourth night, for the first time in 10 years I dreamed of my Father and was convinced I was going to die.

This was not the “Father as Prophet” with goatee, long hair and flowing white robes that came to me in the last dream a decade ago when the Prostate cancer, (another of life’s many unexpected surprises), nearly vanquished me - but this time a silent and ominous apparition that didn’t speak and vanished as quickly as he appeared. This was not boding well and, for the 100th time I contemplated, after nearly 67 years, if this is how it all ends - not with a bang but with a whimper - death by a thousand cuts.

The following morning when I informed my medical “team” of my imminent demise, the three docs did not take the news well.

The chief Doc, some off-brand Asian with a face like an old catcher’s mitt whose degree was doubtless obtained from some matchbook Medical College during the Tet offensive, was stunned. “What make you think you die? You much improve every day - we find nothing wrong. You good shape - you get very better”.(Although his diction was precise and he spoke with a perfect, non-regional American accent, his sentence structure and syntax screamed “In-country Hooch”.)

“Do more tests”, I remarked, “you’ll find something”, still thinking of my Pop’s unworldly visitation the night before and convinced it had some ethereal meaning. After several more days of seemingly random sticking, poking, blood-taking and waiting for results with extreme consternation - feeling like one of a dozen “possible” fathers nervously waiting for the results of the maternity tests on the Maury Pauvich Show - I survived and was released, weakened but heroically alive.

However, the looming ephemeral figure of my Dad in the hospital room struck a portentous note of dread deep within me. My father is currently deceased, having ridden off into the celestial sunset with his personal Pale Rider over 25 years ago. In the intervening years I had not been given to contemplation about his life and its affect upon me - over time the musings had become eerily silent.

This year, however, after some reflection I realized the attrition rate of many of my friend’s fathers is off the chart which - would be expected from an age group in their late 80’s and 90’s, even for paragons of indestructibility. They were a different kind of cat, this assemblage of men. From the incomparable successes of a single man who built a world-class company and achieved Furniture Magnate status to the myriad small business owners, this generation of Patriarchs were resigned, duty-bound and at times stoic - encompassing a world-view that was unfailingly unyielding.

I am part of that Boomer generation - American males, born in the middle of the last century to fathers, many who endured a Great Depression and survived World War II or the Korean “Conflict” - hard men, tough as month-old beef jerky who had seen much and were not simply proud of their resilience, but stubbornly exalted in it. It was an era in America, long before the fear of toxic masculinity and politically correct institutional emasculation of males when fathers fulfilled an important role in child rearing - especially boys. After the rigors of deprivation and war they dreamed big, and, upon their return many of them reasoned their unique sacrifices were not made to simply seek the normalcy of the suburbs, to burn beef on the backyard BBQ and acquire a second car to find only a modicum of satisfaction in merely grabbing their little piece of the American Dream.

They attempted to instill in us what we were told were the uniquely American values of hard work, fair play and, above all, winning. Their lesson was simple, direct and embodied the admirable certitude and determination of that generation; in Post-War II America, one’s self worth and value was derived from what one produced - the score was kept by the material stuff acquired and accumulated.

For the most part our young lives, if not perfect, were very good. As kids, life was simple. We idolized our sports icons – the Wheaties box heroes who, whether through clean living or a compliant press, never seemed to be challenged with aberrant social pathologies like drug addiction, wife beating, obnoxious braggadocio and the pathetic self absorption so prevalent in the New America. Life, as we understood it was uncomplicated, especially in Parochial schools (where there was no “Time Out”…maybe “Knockout” when you screwed up); everyone knew the rules and you violated them and got whacked at your own peril. This was no country for snowflakes - swift and uncompromising justice provided clarity.

Our teenage and college years were spent pursuing the mindful and purposeful indolence which was the hallmark of the ’60’s. But the tectonic plates of cultural change were shifting - cities burned, American icons and political leaders were assassinated, college-age kids went on strike and, in an ironic prequel, universities became the incubator for social upheaval (as the French say - “plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”).

Some of us grew our hair out, demanded freedom for John Sinclair (incredibly serving a 10 year prison sentence for possession of three joints), embraced the hipster nomenclature of the day and, to show we were unique and independent thinkers, embraced a “revolutionary - lite” social program that every swinging dick we knew was espousing. The entire University system was led by the phony radical, academician charlatans and poseurs of the period who self-recognized as the anti-war, cultural elite of the Midwest. (Curiously, many of of these very same toadies grew up to be the Bush neo-con crowd of today - now busily getting us into wars…go figure).

This was the age of a cataclysmic social compact of radical thought and open, inclusive dialogue and we, the Boomers, were on the leading edge.This new progressive dynamic professed to encompass all ideologies and people - provided, of course, that they agreed with us. Naturally, all this political and sociological heavy lifting did not interfere with chasing girls, power drinking, smoking dope and living life “sans souci”.

But, ultimately the apples did not fall too far from the aboriginal tree as we eventually strove to fulfill the dreams of our fathers, greedily grabbing with both hands the stuff of life, fervently hoping that one of the things that we acquired would prove to be the Rosetta Stone, that singular piece of the Happiness Puzzle that at times eluded our depression era parents.

We sprinted through our prime, glided through middle age and ultimately (if fortunate enough) assumed senior status. Then, facing a shortened runway, irregular bowel movements, chronic bursitis and a heretofore inordinate and inexplicable fear of heights when ascending 2 foot stepladders, we exercised the prerogative of age seldom allowed in our salad days. Now, Fathers and Grandfathers ourselves, we cast back our memories to ponder our earlier, simpler lives and after a lifetime of striving - on those one-too-many-single-malt late nights - at times we yearn for what has passed and what is lost. And in those quiet moments of reverie, we remember the lessons of our Fathers, the good…and the not so good.

My father, a successful businessman, whose personal life was sometimes a Demolition Derby was a notorious boozer and gambler, an unrepentant, unreliable rounder and irredeemable rogue…and I worshipped him. In 1989, ravaged by the effects of chemotherapy and radiation and (against my mother’s wishes) adamantly refusing any additional “treatments”, he was quite aware he was never leaving St. John’s hospital alive. At the time he was waging a heated battle from his hospital bed (more of a rear guard action/fighting retreat) with my mother. With only weeks to live, the old man was resisting the idea of allowing a priest to administer the Last Rites of the Church.

The specific priest in question happened to be Father Barton, the Pastor of Our Lady Star of the Sea, who, over the years had been befriended by my mother. As President Emeritus and Board Member of the Alliance de Francaise de Detroit, my mom would invite Father Barton to receptions she hosted at our home when an important Francophile was in town. My Pop (a WWII vet) detested these functions and once, (after a near-lethal dose of Johnny Walker Black), called the French Ambassador a “…cheese-eating-wine-swilling-surrender-monkey”. Which, needless to say, did not resinate well with my mom. But, as much as my Pop may have despised the foppish Frenchman, his distaste for Father Barton was boundlessly inexhaustible, believing him to be a leach and a boorish clown. At these receptions, the good Father would guzzle champagne and stuff himself with the rich “Cuisine Francais” - Foi gras, Moules a la creme and Crepes - like a death row inmate who had a midnight date with the electric chair.

As I was in town between shows and, as the oldest, I was tasked by my mother to redeem my Dad’s mortal soul by convincing him to receive the final sacrament. “I don’t want that phony fish-eating son-of-a-bitch within 20 yards of me – dead or alive”, my old man croaked defiantly. “I’m going wherever I’m going and this Padre’s mumbo-jumbo won’t make any difference. What the hell does he know anyway…the fool is from Columbus”.

Now, my father actually had no idea where Father Barton came from, and, while not an un-travelled man, (having lived in Europe after the war until 1950), my dad was a parochial, wall-to-wall, native Detroiter (St. Bernard grade school, South Eastern High School). His intractable belief was that, with exception of a few World Capitals, the Motor City was the center of the universe – the town that put the entire world on wheels. In his traditional tool and die reality, if your business was not involved somewhere in the manufacturing chain of creating a widget of substance, weighty enough that if dropped on one’s foot it would leave a bruise, you did not even register a blip on his manufacturing Richter scale.

His standard disparaging characterization of any individual which had fallen into his disfavor, (a catalogue of miscreants and transgressors that had reached encyclopedic proportions over the years - the sort of number one might see on MacDonald Golden Arches signs), was to imply that these adversaries were ignorant small town hicks, i.e. : not from Detroit.

To my mother, a convent educated European, his irreligious heretical apostasy of declining this last chance at his heavenly reward, regardless of the officiate, was totally unacceptable. But the Old Man was uncompromisingly intransigent. Although he sent all his children to Catholic school, his Sunday Mass attendance when we were kids was only obtained by virtue of my mother’s guilt-ridden insistence - but he had been calling it in for years. By the time I was in high school my Father’s use for religiosity of any description had been worn threadbare and he ceased all church related events. Chances of the Last Rites being administered by any priest were absolute zero…especially by a rube from Columbus.

In a last ditch effort to create some semblance of peace for my mom in his waning weeks, I appealed to reason. Reaching back to Father Van Overbeek’s Religion, Logic and Rhetoric class from my High School days, I cited “Pascal’s Wager”, which states simply that rational humans bet with their life that God either exists or he doesn’t.

“At this point, what do you have to lose? Let Barton come in and go through a 10 minute ceremony”, I implored. “Pop, be reasonable…what if you’re wrong?”

My Dad smiled (more of a grimace) and barked a raspy laugh through his tracheotomy, slowly shaking his head. “Then”, he said softly, “God help me”.

Father Barton never showed up for the Last Rites. He did, however, show up at the old Hunt Club for the free luncheon and drinks after the funeral…a leach ’till the end.

In recent months I have reflected on the life and death of my Father. Like many of us, in later life I have come to realize that he, in no small measure, was a driving force in my successes and, perhaps, some failures. He was a hard man to know - a hard man to love who marched to the beat of his own impetuous drummers, incautiously dove into his life head first and lived and died on his own terms with few regrets.

When it’s my time, I hope I can do as well.

Freddie Van

(a fatherless child of god)

“THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED”

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:46 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

2/15/16, 1:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time

On a funereal February morning in 1959 I was at my desk, peering through the classroom window, watching the huge snowflakes pile up in drifts on the playground at St. Joan of Arc parochial school, fearfully contemplating the loss of my immortal soul and my imminent trip to the sinful regions of hell for the sacrilegious consumption of two pieces of bacon.

In those guilt-plagued, dismally dogmatic days of Catholicism, the taking of morning communion required a four hour fast prior to receiving the sacrament, and this was actually the source of my anxious trepidation. As a result of this fasting business, parochial school students (“Little Cadets for Christ” as we were called by our century old self flagellating principal, Sister Paul of the Perpetual and Never Ending Misery) had to pack not only a lunch but a breakfast, the latter to be eaten after the daily 8:00 a.m. Mass and compulsory communion.

My 9-year old mind cursed my weakness, my inability to “…avoid the near occasion of evil” which resulted in the unfortunate bacon devouring incident earlier that morning, when temptation completely overcame me and I surreptitiously snatched those seductive strips right off of my younger brother’s breakfast plate. Thankfully, he was quite content to give up the purloined pork quietly, without a fight. Fortunately for me, my brother was a non -eater – I cannot remember him ever eating a meal at the table – who had the highly developed skill of hiding and moving his food around his dish in an attempt to create the impression of an empty plate.

“Appelez-vous de rester a jeun pas de nourriture ce matin,” (“remember the fast—no food this morning”) my mom, facing the stove reminded me in French, which, back in the day, was only spoken around the house by my mother and us two boys, much to the chagrin of my East side Detroit father.

“Speak English, damn it” he barked, which always elicited a sly smile from my mother.

“Oui, ma mere”, I said as I turned my back to the table, quickly jamming the greasy meat into my mouth.

According to church doctrine which was drummed into our little catholic crania with the intensity of a Soviet re-education gulag, the earlier eating violation made me ineligible to receive communion. My problem, the nagging thought that struck a religious chord of dread deep within my eternal soul (which scared the shit out of me that particular morning) was, when I took communion anyway, I was looking at the Catholic equivalent of a Class “A” major felony… a MORTAL SIN!

In those days at Parochial School, the obligatory morning Mass was not the casual, happy-faced, low key affair of today with guitar strumming hippie-scum and the never ending handshaking and the “go in peace” over-familiar interaction. Mass was disquietingly austere and somber, a private experience creepily replete with the “smells and bells”, the entire event (songs and liturgy) performed in Latin…and sometimes (in a High Requiem funeral Mass) with a dead guy lying right in front of the altar. As intimidating and distracting as all this may have been to 9 year old, the very idea of not receiving daily communion at morning Mass was inconceivable, an anathema. Occasionally some wise guy would plant his butt on the pew and refuse to get with the communion program. Such ill advised behavior would be met with swift, pitiless and frightfully harsh retribution, humiliatingly delivered in front of the entire school. Rapid response nuns would converge like a well organized Swat Team and surround the violator, plucking him out of the pew by the ear and delivering him with dispatch to a nearby confessional, where, by some metaphysical religious phenomena, the perpetrator was met by a waiting priest who was already seated deep in the horrifically dark recesses of the confessional box, beckoning like some eerie Hammer film character. The clear implication was that these Draconian measures were not only warranted but necessary… only a single step from calling in Father Damien to exorcise the Godless infestation which snatched the spirit of the guilty nine year old malefactor and compelled him to skip the Blessed Sacrament.

So, that morning at Mass, when our second grade teacher Sister Mary Joseph began her communion line routing routine, directing the kiddie traffic up to the communion rail like a colossal crossing guard penguin, I knew full well that failure to get in the queue would place me in imminent jeopardy. I proceeded to panic in the pew and got in line, opting for eternal damnation, which I figured would at least buy me some time before the swift and certain Devine retribution would strike. Believe it – back in the day, Jews had nothing on parochial school children when it came to dragging around all that overstuffed Samsonite, packed to popping with self reproachful angst. To suggest Catholic kids had only a slight guilt problem was like saying Jeffery Dahmer had a mild eating disorder.

With this mindset, I sat staring out the window, filled with self loathing and unable to eat the breakfast my mom had packed, gloomily pondering my mortal sin and my untimely eternal damnation… at only 9 years of age.

“Hey, you know what?” I turned away from the window to see Jimmy Versical, lanky and lop-eared even then, eyes bulging, bursting with news. “Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens were all killed in a plane crash last night!” he blurted, unable to hold it in any longer. “I heard it on the radio…it’s true – you can ask John or Joe,” which automatically cinched the veracity of the claim. John and Joe were Versical’s older brothers, 11 and 12 respectively and, for all practical purposes ersatz adults in addition to being walking Wikipedia on all subjects related to Rock and Roll music. Versical and I would spend hours in his basement listening to his older brother’s 45’s on a rickety little (state of the art) portable record player turned up to “full” volume, the music squeaking out of the single tinny speaker barely louder than a church mouse fart. (Show that antique devise to a person under 20 years of age and watch them scratch their heads attempting to determine its function.)

We loved The Silhouettes’ “ Get A Job ” (yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip – mum, mum, mum, mum, muma, Get a job…) , Rick Nelson’s “ Be – Bop Baby ” (Be-bop baby in her old blue jeans, just as sweet as she can be…just my Be-bop baby and me), The Penguin’s “Earth Angel” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” by Frankie Lyman & the Teenagers. Our favorites were The Big Bopper’s “ Chantilly Lace ”, Richie Valens’ “ La Bamba” and all of Buddy Holly, who, in the pantheon of Rock and Roll Gods of the day, was 1st among equals.

The lyrics of this musical genre were decidedly un-cerebral, simple and sweet and spoke of an old fashioned innocence – love, life, loss – all the emotional raw material necessary to achieve the American Dream. Although these notions may be completely unfamiliar to contemporary America, it was music that celebrated the “Be-Anything-You-Want-Baby-Boomer”, coming of age generation and reflected the culture of the day perfectly.

Versical’s excited utterances created a buzz in the classroom, drawing a crowd as half eaten egg sandwiches and thermoses filled with tepid cocoa were abandoned at the desks. Billy Zerrilli, both his tiny hands wrapped around a breakfast cannoli (his mother always made him the most magnificent post communion breakfasts in the school) piped in.

“No foolin’, Sam?” he intoned, using his very best Eddie Haskell impression. Billy, a naturally loquacious skinny little smart-ass, had it down perfectly, capturing not just the voice and head bobbing physical characteristics but the essence of the character. Close your eyes and you would think Ken Osmond was actually in the room, cracking wise. Billy, always the perfect gentleman in front of the nuns, was actually the most foul mouth kid in the class.

“No foolin’—they’re dead, probably burned to a crisp Joe says,” Versical answered. The huddled group of 2nd graders all solemnly nodded in unison, recognizing the gravity of the situation. When a 5th grader (especially one with Joe Versical’s Rock and Roll celebrity bona-fides) made an official proclamation like this, it was as reliable as a police report.

“How come they didn’t use their parachutes?” Little Sammy Ventimiglia asked suspiciously.

“There was no time – they probably crashed into a mountain…or something,” Jimmy Versical speculated emphatically, realizing instantly he was on shaky ground with this theory, which was pure conjecture.

Sal, who sat in the “V” section as a result of the anally alphabetical organizational classroom chart on which all nuns insisted, was not mollified by Jimmy’s lame explanation. (Curious how lifelong friendships are sometimes forged by virtue of the pure randomness of the first letter of one’s surname.)

“How do you know they hit a mountain…maybe snow got in the engines and froze them up!” Sammy challenged, pointing out the window to the snow-filled playground. As 2nd graders with a rather limited world view and, (as it was not yet part of our curriculum), any knowledge of geography, it never crossed our mind to question Sammy’s logic …that the weather conditions might have been different some 2000 miles away where the crash actually occurred. (In fact, although the snow-blown weather conditions were present, pilot error was the official determination of the cause of the crash.)

“Well, anyway…they’re dead,” said Versical morosely.

Suddenly my concern for my own eternal spiritual situation, at least for the moment, was secondary. I was unfamiliar with death, never even having known anyone who had died, and probably didn’t entirely grasp the concept of mortality. However, as a result of the 24/7 church indoctrination, we all had a propensity to view virtually everything in our lives through a prism of religiosity. So overwhelmed was I with this concept of my own spiritual transgression, my first thought was if the Almighty would arbitrarily and capriciously allow a tragedy like this to befall someone as famous Buddy Holly – with no warning whatsoever – what terrible fate may await me…any second? What if Buddy did not have the benefit of, in the parlance of the nuns, “…the state of grace” when he bought it? What if he was smeared with the shit stain of mortal sin and therefore doomed? If there was no time for parachutes, I reasoned, there probably would not be time for what your confessor would refer to as “…a good Act of Contrition”.

My predicament was, literally, a matter of life and death. With a three day wait until Saturday confession (this was Thursday – mid-week confessions were heard on Wednesday and the rules were definitive – a “Good Act of Contrition” was insufficient when a confessor was handy), I had created a multiple day exposure to eternal damnation.

Upon further reflection I realized that Buddy might not have even been Catholic and, again, according to church dogma as translated by the nuns, would probably burn to a crisp anyway in the fire and brimstone of the abyss; Church doctrine of the day was quite clear regarding non-Catholic’s limited chance at hitting the heavenly lottery. (Protestants, however, were in a better position than the poor Jews who, according to Sister Mary Joseph, were utterly and completely locked out of Goyim glory, celestially speaking. Forget about Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists…they were not even on the Vatican radar.)

The logical extension of this theological thought process hit me with a blinding flash of the obvious; if poor Buddy was a non-catholic – almost certainly doomed – and wasn’t bound by all this fasting nonsense and ubiquitous rules and regulations, he could eat all the bacon he wanted – whenever he wanted – with probably no affect on his immortal soul. As I was constantly unable to resist temptation and already in deep shit with this mortal sin affair, I was fairly convinced that I would never be able to hack Catholicism and dared to wonder if perhaps I could switch teams…maybe hook-up with one of the off-brand religions like Methodist or Episcopalian. Based on what I could glean from my few non-catholic buddies, these surrogate orthodoxies appeared to be a virtual lights-out-steel-cage-free-for-all … no fish requirement on Fridays (and no more of those dreadful Friday TunaLinks either – an early version of a meat substitute product made of tuna fish shaped like a hotdog that managed to taste like neither), no standing, sitting, kneeling at church on Sunday – actually no mandatory church on Sundays! No more terrifyingly somber confessionals. No more keeping score of mortal and venial sins (Sister Mary Joseph actually had developed a point formula for keeping track of our sinful transgressions, with each venial sin assigned a point value. Too many points and the sheer weight of your collective venial sins magically morphed into one massive mortal sin, placing you in harm’s way for all of eternity.) I realized the idea of abdicating Catholicism was, of course, a pipe dream; my Mom would never allow it. I was stuck, my soul slowly circling the ecclesiastical drain.

“Breakfast period is over,” announced Sister Mary Joseph suddenly from the front of the classroom, her slight brogue immediately distinguishable from our nasal mid-western accents. “Return to your desks and clean up your area,” she said sternly, shooting the fish-eye directly my way, sniffing out sin like some pious bloodhound. She was a newly minted nun, a first class Irisher, round-faced and pudgy, with translucent white skin and a saddle of brown freckles running across the bridge of her little pug nose. Outfitted in the traditional garb of the nuns of the day (think “Bells of Saint Mary”), her hair-hiding- habit concealed what we all guessed was a thatch of bright red tresses, although due to the black ironclad costume, we would never really know. So heavily ensconced in oppressively modest clothing were the nuns back in the day, it was doubtful that Sister MJ ever even had a glimpse of her own pristine cooter.

Later that day after lunch I remember we were instructed to fall in line (in parochial school, one “lined up” for literally everything…coming, going – eating, shitting) to file into the church basement to watch “Bert the Turtle”, a Civil Defense film (“There was a turtle by the name of Bert...Bert the turtle was very alert!” Apparently, as a turtle, Bert had the unique advantage of handily hauling around a fallout shelter on his back.) The film depicted schoolchildren who, upon seeing the “flash” of an atomic weapon, were instructed to “roll, duck and cover”, (I am not making this up), which, amazingly, was our singular defense against a nuclear holocaust.

After the propaganda film, the older kids, Joe Versical among them, who were also in attendance and familiar with the film, demonstrated the proper method of the “roll, duck and cover” preparedness maneuver.

“What’s up with him?” Joe asked his brother Jimmy, noticing my less than enthusiastic duck and cover effort.

“He broke his fast before communion this morning and committed a mortal sin… he’s worried about his soul,” Jimmy cavalierly answered, as if I had forgotten to brush my teeth that morning.

“What?” Joe laughed. “What a dope – that’s only a venial sin…everybody knows that. The only reason they don’t want you to eat before is that it’s too hard to pick the pieces of the Host out of the puke when you punks get sick!” (Joe was correct about picking the Host out of the mess the little shits – who were constantly getting sick and puking all over practically everything – would make, especially in the winter. The Ecumenical Council theory of Transubstantiation – the conversion of spirit to body – maintained that the Communion Host was not simply the symbolic body of Christ, but was literally the body of Christ, therefore necessitating the officiate to collect the remains of the Eucharist from the mess.)

Joe had already gone through the Confirmation process the year before, elevating him to official “Soldier of Christ” status – a very big deal in the Catholic Church. As far as I was concerned, this opinion was authoritative and there was absolutely no need for additional theories which would only muddy the waters. Doctrine-wise, I was in the clear.

My immediate sense of relief was palatable. I did a quick point count in my head and determined that I was well within the venial sin maximum – with points to burn – and in no immediate danger of crossing over to the mortal sin side. No longer plagued by the sword of reverential reprisal hanging over my head and off the eternal damnation hook, I cruised through the rest of the day, sans souci , my child’s mind quickly shifted gears leaving questions of life, death and faith for another day.

So thankfully angst-free was I that before the school day had expired, I fished into my pocket for the $3.00 that had been earmarked for the purchase of a genuine Northland Pro hockey stick and magnanimously ponied- up for yet another “Pagan Baby”.

For the uninitiated, the so-called “The Pagan Baby Rescue Fund” was a 1950's missionary program operated under the auspices of the arch-diocese of Detroit with the ostensible goal of baptizing into Catholicism every child in the universe, thereby saving countless souls from the eternal damnation. This was accomplished through the (paid) “sponsorship” of unsaved little pagan babies by parochial school children within the Diocese. Sponsorship "donations" were $3.00 per child and entitled the student sponsor to confer upon the little “pagan” a Christian name, which was codified on a handsome certificate of baptism and sponsorship. The nuns would then hang these certificates above the blackboard along with a picture of the newly minted Catholic child. While I was pretty much geographically challenged, I had seen countless Tarzan films at the Saturday afternoon movies and it was clear that these poor little "pagans" were of some sort of African heritage.

Encouraged by the nuns, kids in our school would compete to see who could step-up and "save" the most pagan babies. By acquiring this latest little celebratory pagan (my 7th - all numbered consecutively and christened as "Freddie" after me, their magnanimous sponsor), I was building quite an impressive virtual Pagan Plantation, leap-frogging Dean Williams, my nearest competitor, who was trailing badly with only 5 babies in his little stable.

Alas, later that day I received my first lesson in phony religiosity. After school that same dreary February afternoon, I wandered into an empty 4th grade classroom down the corridor where I had occasion to see the string of their pagan baby pics hung over the blackboard. To my horror, I identified at least three of my little Freddie pagans in that picture lineup. Apparently the Arch-diocese, in perpetrating this pagan baby racket, were more than happy to take my $3.00 per pagan fee, but too cheap to buy more than one set of bogus African baby pictures. Further investigation showed that every classroom had the exact set of 30 photos of the same sorrowful, soul-less African kids. Disillusioned with the entire spurious sham, pagan baby Freddie #7, sadly, was the last soul I saved.

I have reflected on that winter day many times over the last 57 years, amused at how the world has so drastically evolved it would be unrecognizable to that little kid who is still searching for answers to life's unsolvable riddles. We have come far, my fellow Boomers and I, from those sometimes somber, black and white days of America, right through the turbulent times of social upheaval in the '60's. We were the Vanguard of a Cambrian explosion of an exhilarating metastasis, the leading edge of a revolutionary transition. We were special, we foolishly told ourselves, chosen especially to be the instrument of epoch change...only to finally realize that time touches everything and, to our chagrin, like some cosmic bad joke, we grew up to be no more unique than anyone else.

And what of my pals who shared that day so long ago? Billy Zirilli faded into the ether of time, long forgotten by history. Jimmy Versical was still searching, sadly contemplating the limits and latitude of loss from the bottom of a bottle until his untimely death at age 63.

Little Sammy Ventimiglia? Sammy grabbed the brass ring of life, establishing success on the building blocks of three basic principles: 1) Never waste an opportunity to make a friend; 2) Never do business with people that have no money; 3) Never cook Marinara gravy in a white shirt.

And me? I long ago resolved at least one of the age old questions…it was right in front of me all these years, buried in the lyrics of the day:

What is Love?

Five feet of heaven on a ponytail…

The cutest ponytail -

That sways with a wiggle when she walks.

The Playmates, 1959

That’s it for now. Try not to freeze your asses off and I'll see you all down the road.

Freddie Van

(a simple child of god)

Photographs - Michael Ochs Archives | Getty Images, Courtesy of the artist, Allan H. Plant/Getty Images [via NPR]

Originally written in February 2015 but not posted to VandalNation

GOD, MAN AND TRUMP IN THE NEW AMERICA

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:42 GMT

ON EXPERIENCING “THE DONALD”

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/15/2016, 10:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time

The phenomenon of Donald Trump is as puzzling as it is alarming, and not solely because he’s the only presidential candidate in history who has the cajones to appear in public with a dead badger on his head. In the most stunning display in all of Lackeydom, virtually all of the electronic media -- most notably conservative talk radio and the cable TV political talking heads (especially FOX News and its star anchorman, Bill O’Reilly, the Ron Burgundy of cable news) are burning out their olfactory systems chasing the anterior regions of “The Donald” hoping desperately to cop a sniff. For most of these defacto apologist toadies, loss of access is the motivating factor which is manifested by a compulsion to justify their journalistic malpractice in accepting Trump’s rambling braggadocio, nonsensical narratives and his ever increasing outrageous “policy” positions -- which change from day to day depending on the capricious vagaries of his current mood.

To be fair, there is something inherently wrong with any profession that not only allows, but encourages, its adherents to viciously besmirch colleagues and friends of long standing with baseless innuendo and outright lies while touting their own "deeply held" Christian values with a certitude found only in small children and imbeciles. But Trump takes his own brand of political disparagement to an innovative new level. His sophomoric “shoot-from-the-lip” style of reckless name-calling, imprecise language, exaggerated claims and amazingly uninformed positions elevates banality to new, nosebleed heights while lowering social discourse to uncharted depths. His laziness in lack of preparation and inability to focus on detail in virtually all of his proposals is matched only by the reticence of any of the media to “drill down” on his ideas. The rambling, stream of consciousness, non-answer diatribes may seem unique to our new class of celebrity media sycophants, but his bluster is merely another (albeit novel) form of the same age-old evasive double-speak -- the KY jelly that the political class has been using to “schlong” the American public for decades. When other candidates are up at zero-dark-thirty pressing the flesh in coffee shops in the primary states, “The Donald" is literally “phoning it in” – doing call-in interviews -- with cable news morning talk show rabble that grovel shamelessly while serving up a steady diet of softball questions. Possessing neither the discipline nor patience, Trump would be to good governance what Eddie Haskell was to sincerity.

During one of the earlier debates, while Jeb Bush, (in whose head Trump lives...rent free), was pointing out the myriad inconsistencies of his positions, the split screen depicted “The Donald” clowning and mugging for the camera, bobbing his head and peering down his nose with an arrogant, disdainful frown. Cross his arms and place a black Fez on his pathetic comb-over and he would be a dead ringer for Benito Mussolini in the iconic veranda scene. At the same debate, Hugh Hewitt (one of the few journalists that actually came prepared with follow-up questions) queried Trump on the condition of the aging Nuclear Triad. Trump, who has consistently bragged that, among all the candidates, he “…is the best on the military,” appeared momentarily panicked at the question, eyes glazing over, like a guy in an S&M; M 3-way choking on the leather collar while desperately trying to remember the safeword. He quite clearly had never even heard of the Nuclear Triad, which didn't stop him from embarking on a cringe-worthy, long-winded, loquacious wild goose chase, finally summing up with the head scratching statement “…Nuclear is important to me – very, very important”.

“The Donald” is the ultimate result of 35 years of corrupt teacher-unions, government-run re-educational gulags that we laughingly refer to as the public school system, which have simultaneously produced a dumbed-down electorate while inculcating political correctness in a media that prizes above all else celebrity -- even ignominious notoriety -- believing it to be preferable to no celebrity at all. Trump may be Kabuki Theater, but he is ratings and an incredibly large segment of the electorate watch and listen with the rabid enthusiasm of a “Desperate Housewives” zealot. Why not? “The Donald”, fluent in the dumbed-down patois of this riff-raff, understands more than anyone the debilitating appeal of coarseness in the culture. In this plastic, God-less, soul-less place that is the New America, image is everything and the guy who gets on TV and accumulates the most stuff is, by enthusiastic acclamation, the new Moses.

Trump and Obama, like any populist demagogues, rely on three primary principles: 1. A Cult of Personality that is driven by abrasive ego and emphasizes glittering promises, a perpetual campaign mode and rhetoric over solutions and action: 2. A disillusioned, dispirited, desperate and frightened electorate who have lost faith in the traditional institutions and are personally invested in the individual candidate and the ideology: 3. Something (a disenfranchised group or an ideology) to loathe and blame for all the ills of the nation.

Both individuals are self absorbed egotists whose fascination with their sense of self is inexhaustible and whose sole purpose for existence is to bask in the glow of their own celebrity. Both have that insipid demagogic tendency towards gross exaggeration. And, perhaps the most unappealing personality trait of all… neither can accept responsibility for the consequences of their own behavior, occasionally denying, with a scary Orwellian certainty, repeated remarks made publicly on film.

But the genesis of Trump (or someone like him) is inevitable as it is understandable. He is, in fact, the bastard child of a corrupt, elitist conservative party that is afraid to lead and has co-opted incrementalism as an official policy, creating a conspiracy of intellectual dishonesty indistinguishable from the progressive movement. The frustrating failure of any Republican legislative response to constitutionally questionable executive orders and a consistent pattern of pathological prevarication by so-called conservatives have set the table for a Trump candidacy. And the last seven years of the current resident of Pennsylvania Avenue and an equally corrupt administration has done little to assuage the people’s concern.

Obama is a captain who has not merely fallen asleep at the helm -- he has jumped ship. Despite numerous terrorist attacks at home and abroad, Obama inexplicably warns that Global Warming and gun control are the greatest threats to our national security. Not to be one-upped in geopolitical nonsense, Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated after the Jihadist attack in San Bernadino that her greatest fear was -- wait for it… Islamophobia ? Really? In light of that unpaid butcher's bill and, even in this era of outrageous political correctness, is it conceivable that we could officially bestow upon Muslims the most coveted of all classifications in the New America -- victimhood ? Mr. Obama’s cavalier disinclination to acknowledge that Jihadists are even in this country (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence) has alarmed and angered a majority of the people. And in this New America anger has become the default response, the singular empowering emotion, personified by Trump. His angry, unfiltered, freestyle scorched earth speechifying under the guise of anti-political correctness gives free reign to say almost anything, regardless of the damage to the body politic.

However, in this case, let's shoot the messenger and not the entire message. As inarticulate and uninformed as he may be, Trump has posited questions which strike a note of clarity regarding several serious concerns: Is it a universal right, morally or legally, for anyone to emigrate into America. Given a Department of Homeland Security vetting process that couldn't catch a Jihadist at an ISIS strategy meeting in Raqqa, is it such paranoid lunacy (as Progressives suggest) to call for a hiatus on all Middle Eastern immigration for a specified period of time? Do Americans have a right, in equity or in law, to know who’s entering its borders, keep track of them when they are admitted and access their social media before they arrive? One can only imagine the national outrage had FDR issued an Executive Order in 1942 allowing only German citizens emigrate to the U.S. -- but never Nazis.

As difficult as it is for Westerners to comprehend, Islam combines the unholy trinity of religion, politics and culture within the legal framework of Sharia Law. This 6th century form of government regulates the public and private lives of its adherents and is grossly incompatible with Western culture. Those skeptics that claim the implementation of Sharia in America is a straw-man argument – that it would never become the law of the land here--need only consider the Western Democracies of France, England and Belgium and the creation of “no go” areas of that “blended culture”. Have we as a nation sunk so deep in this politically correct, multicultural abyss of excrement that the very Constitutional freedoms and values created and implemented in Western civilization have now become our suicide pact?

It is a distinct possibility that a Trump candidacy could be a Titanic disaster, perhaps ushering in a more virulent culture-altering Progressive agenda. But he has peeled back the scales from our eyes; has asked painfully penetrating questions, challenged long held truths about an elitist political class that no longer serves the governed and has clearly demonstrated that a citizenry, free-born will not accept an out-of-control Big Brother Federal government. At the very least, he has made many of us re-think – regardless of one’s political proclivities - what it means to be an American.

However, watching Trump from afar does not give a meaningful measure of the man, and, in the summer of 1988, once again being fortunate to be on the right side of history, I had the opportunity to encounter “The Donald”-- Mr. Personality his own self in the flesh. At the time, Davey Johnson, (then the manager of the New York Mets), and I are in the process of launching an IPO (Celebrity Resorts, Inc.). I'm in New York to attend a “Meet and Greet” at Delmonico’s downtown for our market maker J.W. Gant and Co. (the “king” of the penny stock brokers) for the last of the “Dog and Pony” shows for the New York stockbrokers (commonly referred to as “ticket pimps”). The soiree is scheduled for the next evening and tonight I’m going to the last game before the All Star break at Shea Stadium in the Manager’s Field Box, the very seats where two years before I watched in disbelief as Billy Buckner, hobbling pathetically on the inside of his ankles, booted Mookie Wilson’s soft grounder that ultimately cost Boston the World Series. (In one of baseball’s great ironies, Buckner, a stellar 22 year veteran, one time NL batting champ and lifetime .289 hitter with over 2700 hits, will be remembered forever only for those two seconds.)

I'm accompanying Davey’s cousin to the game, (an attractive aerobics instructor whose husband was out of town) and meeting her at the #7 Train subway station directly in front of the stadium. She’s running late and it’s the 2nd inning by the time the usher shows us to the box. Davey’s field box has four seats on the first base line – two on the rail and two directly behind -- all four are the best seats in the house with a perfect close-up view (even for Shea) of all the action. I give the usher a ten-spot and notice his sheepish look as he glances at the tickets. Averting my eyes, he leads us down to field level to the box where I determine the source of the kid’s consternation; the seats are already occupied -- by none other than “The Donald” himself in the company of some unidentified younger babe.

At that time Trump is riding high, his problematic financial situation still only a rumor. Remaining seated, he ignores us, ostensibly focusing on the game as we stand in awkward silence in the aisle. It was clear the usher, a pimple-faced kid outfitted in parachute pants, an official “Mets Usher” T shirt and a Mets hat over a crop of unruly red hair has dummied up and suddenly disappears, quicker than a mob informer entering a witness protection program.

“I believe you're in our seats,” I say in as conciliatory a tone as I could muster. “We have the two in front.” Trump finally impatiently scowls up at me, like I’m a Fuller Brush salesman standing on his porch with my case of samples.

“I’m very, very good friends with Davey…I’m sure he meant to give me these seats,” he says, making no attempt to conceal his contempt at even being challenged for sitting in the wrong seats. “It was an oversight,” he says dismissively, turning back to the game. As any sports devotee will testify, grabbing someone else’s seats is gauche, but apparently this guy is insistent on laying claim to these four feet...just so he can be seen on the rail? This blue-blooded Bozo is way out of line and Davey’s cousin, a transplanted New Yorker who has adopted the “take no prisoners” attitude of the natives, realizes it and gives me a sidelong glance as if challenging my testicularity. I dismiss the idea of letting him know that I'm Davey’s business partner and I’m with his cousin. Nobody in America is going to “one up” this swollen ego. It’s clear…there ain’t no hook big enough for this guy’s hat.

I stand firm, showing the young lady I've got a little gravitas and I'm not just some rube from Florida. “Yes sir, but these are still our seats,” I reply. hoping to strike a quiet tone of assurance, which, at that moment I do not possess. Trump stands, rising to his impressive 6’ 2” height, lips pursed in a smart-ass smirk I'd love to slap off his arrogant face. He glowers at me impatiently, a jaw jutting jackass, face contorted into a mask of disgust. “Do you know who I am?” he asks, almost rhetorically.

In the presence of the Great Man I founder momentarily, drawing an uncharacteristic rhetorical blank, but inspiration strikes -- I quickly recover. “Yes sir, Mr. Trump, I do… do you know who I am?” I ask. Just then the crowd roars at the crack of a bat and he lifts his head, looking over my shoulder at the field beyond me. Reluctantly he turns his attention back to me. "I have no clue," he sniffs, like the self-important prick he is.

Holding up the two ticket stubs in the form of a “V”, I look directly at him. “I'm the guy,” I say confidently, “with two tickets on the rail,” -- and smile after him as he storms off into history.

Hope everyone had a great Holiday Season. And -- no shit -- drink the good whiskey now!

Freddie Van

(a freeborn American child of God)

Saatchi Art Donald Trump Drawing by Paul Nelson Esch

Racing Algernon

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:40 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

9/9/2015, 3:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Some time ago during a conversation concerning my 91-year old mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis, a lifelong friend and retired surgeon -- no stranger to death in all of its dreadful configurations -- related one of those dicta that rattle around in one's head like a persistently annoying jingle, a tinny little tune that won't go away. "Forget all that crap you read in the obits about '...peacefully entering eternal rest surrounded by his loving family...' " he observed. "The late stage life cycle is usually painful, slow and almost always ugly."

His analysis, though brutally pragmatic, was devastatingly accurate. After a series of falls resulting in broken bones and myriad injuries that led to several hospital visits and a three month stay in a rehabilitation facility, my mother began her slow, steady downward spiral both physically and cognitively. Because of my proximity to her as a result of my long time Florida residence and, in one of those queer ironies of life, (despite the threadbare parental canard that "...we love our children equally," I was her clearly her least favorite of three sons), I was tasked with the responsibility of handling all care giving and assisted living arrangements.

My mother, who lived through the fearful terror of WWII 1930's occupied France was an intelligent, college educated, no-nonsense former career woman who at times exhibited the maternal instinct of a Head Mistress at a private prep school. Despite her cold reproachment of me, I executed my task out of a sense of duty - just as she had done during my childhood. For me to do less would have entirely bitched my self-perceived image as a "stand up guy". In the end, we are all prisoners of our own reality; life, it seems, is sometimes a funny old dog.

Her condition continued to deteriorate and at one point she was admitted to the hospital for a week with a dangerously low hemoglobin count, totally oblivious to her surroundings. Within hours of her arrival, Hospice (yet another one of these ubiquitous end of life Medicare funded programs) paid a visit and dropped off some of their tony literature. The slick, color brochure, which promises a "pain free, dignified transition", depicted what appears to be a stress free loving family surrounding a white haired (but stylishly young) debonair gentleman, clearly the patriarch, who is lounging comfortably in a hospital bed in a private room setting. They are virtually beaming at the camera, their smiles radiating happiness, as if they were preparing to treat old Dad to a day at Disney instead of a celestially eternal dirt nap. In post-modern America, we package even The Grim Reaper like so much toothpaste.

Surprisingly, she bounced back from the hospital stay and was placed directly into a Rehabilitation Center. The rehab facility "a clean well lighted place" almost completely financed by Medicare and Medicaid, simultaneously smelled of disinfectant and old-age decay is, for many "residents" the end of the line, a holding tank for all manner of the debilitated -- stroke victims, advanced Parkinson's, Alzheimer and dementia patients. When not going through the motions of "rehabilitation" sessions, those residents in various states of diminished mental and physical capacity are lined up at the nursing stations in their respective wings so the staff may monitor their movements. Invariably, upon seeing a stranger approach, they will reach out with ancient, thin skinned and translucent hands and, almost to a resident, ask some variant of the question "...can you get me out of here?"

In some sad way, these octogenarians are a colorful cast of characters: The poor old guy, a stroke victim, who perpetually sat in his wheelchair, right arm held forward stiffly in a Nazi salute, left leg extended backward on the outside of his wheelchair as if eternally running the 100 meter high hurdles who every 30 seconds would loudly exclaim "...on the money, buddy ", a phrase he used to communicate everything from bathroom requests to hunger; the retired investment broker who did not so much suffer from dementia as he reveled in it and who loudly blamed "...those Jew lawyers" for his forced commitment by his family; the patient, a perpetually smiling butterball of a man, suffering from some undisclosed ailment, who occasionally had to be restrained lest he spent his entire day hopping and jumping along the walls of the corridors throughout the facility, resembling a midget leaping up to a mailbox to send a letter. Or the rail-thin elderly lady, a loquaciously unpleasant woman who, in a facility where death from natural causes was a fairly common occurrence, believed that every resident's passing was a conspiracy between the nursing staff and Satan. "Satan murdered her," she once vociferously announced in the crowded dining room after an elderly dementia resident who suffered from congestive heart failure passed during the night. "He lives among us." However, by the time the paramedics arrived, they were quick to rule out Satan as a suspect.

During my mom's 99 day stay in rehab, I befriended a 94 year old long retired lawyer whose mental acuity was razor sharp but was physically so decrepit he had difficulty manipulating the toggle switch on his electric wheelchair. I would occasionally run into him outside in a little garden/gazebo area where we would discuss a variety of topics. He was a surprisingly adroit individual, with an incredible memory for dates and numbers -- not just for a 94 year old, but for anyone -- and an entertainingly dry, acerbic wit. In my conversations with him, I am mindful of the literature on nursing home protocol I have read on interacting with the aged...always encourage an upbeat attitude -- focus on a positive future. My elderly friend, a hopeless cynic, would have none of it. On one meeting outdoors in the garden, on one of those breezy, crystal clear, gorgeous Florida days in early Spring, the sky so blue it made the ocean jealous, I opined that it was "...a beautiful day to be alive". The old guy carefully placed his book (Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil") on his lap, peered at me over the top of his cheaters and simply scoffed. "Young man", he said with a sardonic smile, "I wouldn't go that far".

My mother's short term memory has deteriorated months ago and now the disease is doubling down, racing at a breakneck speed, affecting her hand-eye coordination and her ability to ambulate, confining her to permanent wheelchair status. Despite this, and the fact she really should be placed in a skilled nursing situation, I manage to locate and finagle her a spot in an excellent facility that provides 24/7 care, but is not inundated with the unsettling senile screamers and weepers who can be frightening. In her newly decorated room I watch my mom, staring vacantly at her hands as if they were newly grown, undiscovered appendages. Her lips move soundlessly, now rarely able to articulate the words even on those rare occasions when she actually formulates a thought. Oddly, when she does speak, she often slips into French, her native tongue. (A government interpreter in Europe after WWII, she was fluent in three languages and, typically with Alzheimer's, what is most ingrained -- i.e.; language in her case -- is the last faculty to completely deteriorate.)

"Quand je voudrez allez a la maison?" (when may I go home) she asks, gazing intently at some invisible spot on the ceiling. I do not tell her I sold her home seven months ago.

"Peutre demain, ma", (maybe tomorrow) which is my standard reply in what little of the language I remember from childhood.

"Okay," she says in a thin, frail voice, "okay", still focused on a specific point on the ceiling.

My research on the hereditary nature of the disease is indeterminate and, despite my mother's life threatening precarious plight, I cynically contemplate and focus on my own future -- how will this affect me . Despite the unseemliness of the thought, only the slightest shadow of shame floats through my consciousness -- but does not linger. More than 64 years of Baby-Boomer self absorption indemnifies me from any guilt. I am steadfastly secure in my selfishness.

These days, every misplaced set of keys, inability to recall the name of an acquaintance or momentary mental lapse strikes a frightening chord of dread deep within me. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Could this be me in 20 years? 10 years? 5 years? Will I eventually devolve into some helpless, non-ambulatory, non-verbal sack of mush, curled up in a fetal position. My worst nightmare -- Consummate Wise Guy regresses into a primitive, imbecilic Knucklehead Smith. According to the American Academy of Neurology, (an impressively sounding outfit) and a number of other equally distinguished and notable organizations which I have encountered in my Internet investigation, there is an established correlation between concussions and Amyloid (a toxic protein) deposits, which are thought to cause Alzheimer's.

I run through my checklist of lifetime concussive events, mostly sports related, for the thousandth time. It dawns on me that for the first 21 years of my life I used my head as either a battering ram or a speed bag. My early sports activity clearly puts me at risk for the disease. Several visits to specialists does not diminish my consternation. They are generous in their cavalier advice --"wait and see"..."don't worry about it"..."we'll revisit it in a year or so..." -- the very sort of worthless platitude you would expect from another egotistical, narcissistic Baby-Boomer who is unaffected by my situation.

Everyday the assisted living facility encourages the residents to participate in "rehabilitation" exercises ranging from physical and occupational therapies to speech and cognitive exercises. Wednesday afternoon's cognitive therapy is an art class, which is attended by a dozen or so Alzheimer's/dementia residents, exclusively women. They are given brushes, watercolors and a canvass on an easel and are instructed to paint a bunch of colorful flowers in a vase which is setting on a small table in the center of the room. I slowly saunter around the circle of elderly artists examining their work. While none are in danger of shocking the art community as the next Grandma Moses, all of their work vaguely resembles a vase containing flowering plant life of some description.

My mom's effort, however, appears to be something akin to Picasso's greatest hits...if he was smoking crack when he painted it. After a few minutes she loses interest and simply stares mindlessly at the canvas, her thoughts lost in some private, inaccessible space to which only she is privy. She exudes a somber sadness, a melancholy loneliness that is profoundly visceral and heartbreaking.

And so now begins the long goodbye -- the slow, steady unpacking of her cognitive suitcase. Based on my observation of the other Alzheimer's patients here who are in the later stages of the disease, the future appears to be less than hopeful. This insidious disease, a thief with a burglar's brass balls, robs one's memories and then, almost as an afterthought, in a merciless coup de grace -- a heartless smash and grab -- brazenly snatches what little is left. This woman, who survived Nazi occupied France as a teenager, three impetuously feral sons and a husband who marched to the beat of his own private intemperate demons, is a survivor and will not "... go gently into that good night". But her end will not be swift. It will not be merciful.

What is it like for her, I wonder, on those nights alone in the darkness of her room, eyes wide with fear unseen, sleepless, silently staring -- death and dementia at the door? In those transient moments of lucidity, does she despair of all hope? Or maybe, does she glimpse, for only a fleeting second, a happier time from days long past? And in that brief, ephemeral reverie, does she remember -- feel the very fabric of her life, each day in every detail -- the memory making even the ordinary simply too beautiful to bear.

Danielle Antoinette Van Assche died on April 5, 2016, surrounded by her loving family, completely and utterly alone.

BARRY AND ALI -- LOVE LETTERS IN THE SAND

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:30 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

11/9/2014, 7:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time

U.S. Department of State/FOR EYES ONLY

DESIGNATION: Diplomatic Pouch - Private Correspondence

TO: Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Iranian State

FROM: Barack Hussein Obama, POTUS

Dearest Supreme Leader,

Well, I hope your week is going better than mine. As you probably have heard by now, our elections over here did not go very well for my Party – not that anyone could blame me, even though those knee-jerk neo-cons sure tried. To begin with, two-thirds of the voters (for whom I claim a mandate) stayed home in protest and did not even cast a ballot because the Republicans have been so mean at me and hatein’ on me, which, of course, is just another form of voter suppression.

That 66% of virtual voters would have certainly put my policies over the top if they had not been coerced and bullied into being so discouraged. Supreme Leader, how I envy you your political organization over there; no pesky constitution to which you actually must adhere, only a single candidate on every ballot and political opponents who stay in line and keep their pie hole shut because they know what side their pita is buttered on. You certainly have it goin' on over there!

These nasty, nattering Nazi Conservative Republicans (knowing how fond your people were of the Nazis during WWII, I use the word in the most collegial context) have been jumping all over me for everything I do – from Executive Orders that erase U.S. borders to racially charged speeches and openly bigoted positions – and for even playing too much golf! For Allah’s sake, I just can’t make these people understand that I’m the President and they aren’t !

Speaking of golf, Great Supreme Leader – I know you probably think that it’s the game of The Great Satan, but honestly, it can be a lot of fun and I think you would find it way more relaxing than, say, playing soccer with decapitated heads of Christians and Jews. I can get you on Congressional C.C. in D.C., so next time you’re in town, we should play a quick round. Well, to be truthful, my rounds are not that quick - usually in the 5-6 hour range (but don’t listen to that Uncle Tom Capitalist pig, NBA team owner Michael Jordan – I’m an excellent player – it’s the other folks in the foursome that are always slow). But, just to be on the safe side, you’d better bring along a prayer mat and a compass as I know you people have to pray four or five times a day facing a specific direction and I never know exactly where I am.

Any-who... I need a small favor. As you know, several years ago I withdrew all of our troops out of Iraq because my West Point educated Generals deliberately gave me misinformation and didn’t have sense enough to properly train the so-called Free Iraqi Army in Northern Iraq, whose casualties were virtually zero as they simply dropped their weapons in the face of danger and ran or turned coat (go figure these Sunnis…am I right?). If that wasn't bad enough, those same Generals gave me inaccurate intelligence on that wacky Syrian situation (that’s really a mess, isn't it?), which led me to refer to these ISIS folks as the “JV”, which got even CNN all up in my business. This ISIS group is gobbling up the entire region faster than Bill Clinton racing through a McDonald’s on $1.00 Big Mac Day and causing me a severe case of angina.

Now Supreme Leader, I know we've had our differences in the past but I think you always knew I had your best interests at heart, especially during all this Israel nonsense about uranium enrichment and centrifuges (whatever the hell they are). The pace with which these crazy low-life ISIS are decapitating folks is making the French Revolution look like a beautiful day in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood (for your information Great Supreme Leader, Mr. Rogers was a mild-mannered character in an American children’s TV show who happened to be a homosexual in real life and you probably would have decapitated him yourself). I’m sure you’d be the first to agree that we have a common interest, as these ISIS nut jobs certainly won’t make your life any easier down the road either.

So, I was just wondering if you can give me a hand and unleash that famously savage Revolutionary Guard Corp to get a little decapitation action of your own going and ward off these ISIS people. I hate to be asking at such a late date, but my National Security people dropped the ball once again and I had to learn that ISIS was approaching the entrance of the Baghdad airport from that idiot Brett Baer on FOX News. I don’t have to tell you, Supreme Leader – if that airport is overrun and my State Department people are trapped and slaughtered by decapitation, it’ll make Benghazi look like a little political pissing match between Hillary Clinton (who screwed it up to begin with) and Trey Gowdy, that Congressman with the goofy hair. Believe me, with all this first amendment foolishness over here, I’ll get pilloried with some pretty lousy optics. Even MSNBC won’t be able to bury it this time.

If you can see your way clear to help me out with this little problem, I’m certain I can work out some amicable arrangement (on the low-down) to allow your people to get those centrifuges spinning at full speed again so you can continue your uranium enrichment program, which you have so generously promised not to weaponize.

I’ll handle any push-back on this end from those whining right wing kooks who are sure to complain about all the anti-Semitic rhetoric over the years dealing with Jewish annihilation and pushing the Zionists into the sea and all. Just because one of the articles in your Constitution contains a codified pledge of Jewish genocide, that certainly doesn't mean you are compelled to necessarily abide by that one little plank. I personally have ignored several Constitutional guarantees right here in America – with hardly any blow-back! However, it may be helpful for both of us, politically speaking, for you to simply say you don’t have any bad intentions towards Israel – to kind of grease the two-state solution skids in the short term.

But don’t worry Supreme Leader…I’ve got your back on this one. If you’ve ever seen me in action on TV, you know I can be more persuasive than a pitchman selling a Squatty-Potty on a 30 second infomercial. I’ll just let them know that all those decades of bluster was merely saber-rattling and political posturing – essentially a cultural misunderstanding – just your way of saying you’d rather not live around those people. And really, who could blame you with guys like Bibi Netanyahu running the show over there. Don't get me started on him... he’s one pushy Jew – no?

Given the fact that my articulated primary foreign policy operating principle is “…just don’t do stupid stuff...”, I would prefer the Media not stumble upon these private communications, so please keep this stuff under your turban. The last thing I need right now is that numb skull and Spawn of Satan, Susan Rice to get in front of a camera again and start channeling John (“yeah, that’s the ticket”) Lovitz, babbling about whatever floats into her empty little head. (For your information, Supreme Leader, Lovitz is an American comic who appeared on a Saturday night TV show called “SNL” and is also a pushy Jew.)

This is the third private correspondence I have written to you and you have yet to write back - or even call. In my last letter I even included my cell number and personal private e-mail address on my Blackberry and no response. This really hurts my feelings worse than when the press bullied me and made fun of my big ears, (which are not really that big, it’s just that I have a small head). Please, please, Supreme Leader, let me know what you’re thinking on this. Somebody has to do something – and quick – or I’m going to get blamed again!

Sincerely Yours in Allah,

Barack

PS Enclosed, please find a gold embossed edition of the Koran. I would greatly appreciate your autograph in Arabic on the cover page in the space provided. I plan on displaying the Holy Book in a place of Honor in my Presidential Library – Allah willing and the Euphrates don’t rise.

ON THE ROAD WITH REVEREND AL

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:27 GMT

THE TRAVELLING TRAYVON TRAVESTY TOUR

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

8/22/2014, 9:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com The long, hot summer continues— steamy urban nights where the menacing sense of impending disquiet hangs heavy in the humid air; sweat slides slickly down the back, stray hounds whine mournfully in the fetid heat, their hackles raised, skittish wives with nervous hands gently stroke the business edge of a freshly sharpened kitchen knife as they crazily eye the back of their husband’s neck. But while the uneasy natives grow increasingly restless, for Al Sharpton, the gangsta race pimp, business is booming.

From Brooklyn to St. Louis, the race racket hustle has hardly ever been better and, with the possible exception of the 1967 riots of Detroit, Newark and Harlem, this season is shaping up to be the most profitable and productive summer for the Rev’s National Action Network since Tawana Brawley and Freddy’s Fashion Mart, the latter tallying seven white employees burned to death. Ahh…the good old days.

With the welcomed help of the New Black Panthers leader Malik Zulu Shabazz and good buddy Attorney General Eric Holder, Sharpton’s racial entrepreneurial genius is cashing in on the backs of two dead African Americans – Eric Garner and Michael Brown – both of whom died as a result of altercations with police only two weeks apart. Sharpton, whose demands for justice never rely on investigative fact gathering, promptly inserted himself into both situations, determining both cases to be homicides before the release of the coroner’s autopsy report or even before any of the parasitic MSNBC talking toadies.

Eric Garner, a 42-year-old African American, died while resisting arrest when Staten Island police confronted him for selling untaxed cigarettes. Several officers were needed to restrain him, one using a choke hold prohibited by the NYPD, which was recorded on a cell phone video and ultimately blamed for the heart attack he suffered during the dust-up. The fact that he was your basic morbidly obese, 350 pound asthmatic with myriad health issues and, (as the video clearly illustrates) was the instigator of the very physical dispute apparently was inconsequential.

As usual, Sharpton’s appearance did little to illuminate and much to instigate as his primary contribution was to announce a “March for Justice” to clog up the Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn to Staten Island. The plan was re-named “Justice Caravan” with the decision to bus the justice seekers instead of marching across the span, ostensibly because the bridge had no pedestrian access. One may speculate, however, that Mr. Garner’s supporters were in similar physical condition as the late Mr. Garner and a summer march of 1 ½ miles would perhaps invite additional heart attacks, which would create a problem for the Rev; how does one sue a bridge?

But the Garner incident was merely a shoot-around for the Big Game; events 900 miles away were unfolding in Ferguson MO and fortune smiled benevolently on the good Reverend Al with the shooting death by a white police officer of an unarmed 18 year-old African American, Michael “The Gentle Giant” Brown. With bigger fish to fry, the Rev immediately jumped on the first Gulf Stream that was made available, (no doubt compliments of a previously extorted CEO), beating the fading Jesse Jackson by several days.

The Rev, nattily attired in a gleaming European-cut sharkskin suit (the choice of all successful pimps), arrived just in time to muster his troops of nihilistic thugs and thieves and, along with Brother Shabazz’s Black Panthers, rallied them to multiple days of violence and looting. This, of course, is necessary to stimulate T-shirt sales, generate National Action Network fundraising and bolster the Rev’s pathetic MSNBC viewership – all of which negates the Progressive mantra that steadfastly maintains hard work doesn’t pay off in America. Another day, another dollar…the Reverend Al is doing just fine.

In addition to Brother Shabazz, Sharpton gathered the rest of the old gang together; Tallahassee attorneys Daryl Parks and Benjamin Crump (of Trayvon fame and with whom the Brown family quickly lawyered-up) and U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who acceded to the demands of Sharpton and called for a third autopsy by the Federal Government – before results of the first two were even known. Doctor shopping Fed style.

Last, but by no means least, our post-racial POTUS, completely incapable of resisting any temptation to weigh in on all things concerning race, held a press conference declaring that AG Holder would conduct a “parallel” investigation in Ferguson whereupon he promptly dispatched 40 FBI agents to canvass a municipality with a population of 21,000 people. Odd how Holder can spare 38 more agents in the Ferguson investigation than he can in the entire protracted IRS investigation, which has ignored multiple subpoenas and is dragging its feet as it dawdles into its second year.

In a delicately worded balancing act at a press conference that stressed his empathy with the “aggrieved” African American community of Ferguson, Obama virtually ignored the lawlessness of the violence, questioning the mayhem and looting only because it “…does little to achieve the goals of justice”. The POTUS refused to make any comment on his decision to send his A.G. Holder and the Federal Government intervention, citing the standard “ongoing investigation” dodge, which he uses selectively when it serves his narrative. “…The DOJ works for me, I don’t (want to) look like I’m putting my thumb on the scales of justice”, said Obama, completely dismissing his comments several months earlier when he body-slammed the scales of justice with his “...no corruption? – not a smidgen of corruption!” remarks during an interview referring to the ongoing DOJ investigation of the IRS. On matters of national security or domestic policy, Obama consistently reacts to problems with a disinterested, completely detached, (even bored), attitude as he perfectly outlines policy steps he will not take while offering vapid and banal rhetoric that pass for ideas. Predictably, his rhetoric, not tethered to any recognizable reality, disappears into the fog of obscurity, never executed and quickly forgotten. Despite his deep seated anti-colonial, anti-Semitic worldview, on matters of race in America our post-racial POTUS is active and engaged and, while he may not be virulently anti-white, he is fanatically pro people of color.

As of this writing, the actual facts of the shooting are unclear. Initial eyewitness accounts created a narrative that vehemently claimed that Brown did not physically confront Darren Wilson, the responding officer; that Brown, innocently strolling down the street was summarily executed in cold blood, shot in the back with his hands up while surrendering. Perplexingly, preliminary autopsy results appear to directly contradict eyewitness statements. The autopsy indicated that all shots came from the front and according to a source in the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, a police report indicates that a hospital X-ray revealed Wilson suffered an “ orbital blowout fracture to the eye socket ” caused by serious trauma (corroborating Wilson’s version), although CNN disputed that police report.

Meanwhile, the nightly terrorism continued, punctuated by brief periods of semi-calm despite the efforts of the media who inserted themselves into the story every evening and were more plentiful than hungry Hondurans crashing the border at a Homeland Security way-station. Reporters snatched marchers off the street for interviews, asking ridiculously suggestive questions that elicited tearful sobs from the interviewee punctuated by disingenuous sighs of compassion from the interviewer. Marchers, claiming to be residents of Ferguson, provided anecdotal accounts of decades long police brutality and shootings perpetrated upon young African American boys so multitudinous one marvels at how any black males in Ferguson could have possibly survived such systematic genocide. The constant media speculation, deliberate misinterpretation of facts on the ground and individual reporter self aggrandizement proved to be a race to the bottom…a dash to see who could get it wrong first.

Protesters, exercising their right of assembly, flooded the streets and the initial night of 1st Amendment looting and destruction (in which law enforcement was instructed by the local politicians to sit and watch the carnage), proved to be quite profitable for these Constitutional advocates. So lucrative, in fact, they elected to exercise even more of their Constitutional rights on the second night and turned out in significantly greater numbers anticipating an enjoyable evening of unconstrained felonious “free speech” larceny. Unfortunately, they were met by a group of fascists in the form of law enforcement, who violated their constitutional rights when they had the outrageous effrontery to protect themselves and private property.

“Non-violent” town hall meetings were incendiary, as race baiters led by the Reverend Al, (who was quick to link the Brown shooting to the Garner debacle, taking full advantage of the “two-fer”) stoked the crowd loudly proclaiming “NO JUSTICE – NO PEACE”, basically demanding a directed verdict of guilty from the prosecutor. Why waste time on an investigation when a jury in the form of a street justice mob is ready with the noose? Why go through the legal process of a bill of indictment and trial when the Attorney General of the U.S. arrives in Ferguson and pisses in the jury pool by publicly stating he understands how black men are targeted by law enforcement – while relating his personal experience of police profiling and brutality…an outrageously irresponsible statement in light of the ongoing investigation in such an incendiary environment.

Ron Johnson, a Captain in the Missouri Highway Patrol was assigned responsibility by the Governor to reestablish order after the first night, ostensibly because he was an African American and had a background in (black) community policing. At one town hall meeting at Greater Grace Church, Captain Johnson opened the show and, in a bizarre Kumbaya Moment meant to create reconciliation and understanding, addressed the church group in a curious fashion: “I’m sorry. I wear this uniform and I should say I’m sorry,” he said, although it was not clear exactly for what or why he was apologizing. Then, in an oddly tone deaf moment, he spoke of his son, basically describing a young African American that, if confronted on the street, would cause many middle class whites to move to the other side. Warming to the crowd and dropping his consonants, he began in his best Ebonics – “When this is ova, I’m goin’ in my son room… – he wear he pants saggy, he hat cocked to da side, got tattoo on his arms – but he my baby…” he proclaimed amid the shouts from the boisterous congregation and Pentecostal style organ riffs.

If tolerance, reconciliation and understanding were actually the goal, the speaker’s remarks, the violent sloganeering and the general tenor of the assembly missed the mark with all but the most enlightened Progressives. Reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin trial, the giant image of Michael Brown as a 14 year-old was prominently displayed on a large screen in the church. The picture captured a young, pudgy, harmless African American youth who bore a striking resemblance to Fat Albert, Bill Cosby’s Saturday morning cartoon character. This depiction of the “Gentle Giant” was completely at odds with the images of a threatening 6’4”, 275 pound Brown caught stealing boxes of Tiparillos (what’s the deal with these black guys and tobacco products?) on a convenience store surveillance video while bullying a much smaller and older store owner. The video of the theft, which was released the previous day, was shot literally moments before his encounter with Officer Wilson. While its evidentiary value could demonstrate Brown’s state of mind at the time of the shooting, it was demonized by Sharpton and the Brown family mouthpieces as “character assassination”.

Several days into the investigation Mr. Shabazz , attracting more free cable TV face time than even the Obama Care Pajama Boy garnered, demanded, (along with Sharpton) in the interest of “transparency”, that the identity of the police officer be released to the public. With his megaphone in hand, Shabazz led a group of zombie-like black citizens in a frightening incantation --“WHO DO WE WANT! – DARREN WILSON! – WHEN DO WE WANT HIM! – NOW! It is not a coincidence that the identity request came from the Panthers: during the Trayvon Martin trial, death threats by the Black Panthers forced George Zimmerman, his parents and even his neighbors into hiding. (This writer was in attendance at the Zimmerman trial last summer and gleaned firsthand knowledge of the New Black Panthers. They are menacing Nation of Islam zealots, anti-Semitic, anti-white, first class racist and serious felons.) The authorities knew Officer Wilson was not a flight risk and the singular reason Shabazz and his black suited thugs had an interest in his identity was simple intimidation. The town of Ferguson is currently under siege and will remain so, until one of the three parallel investigations coughs up Wilson, the negotiating chip. And make no mistake, if none of the other investigations indicts and convicts, Holder will cough him up quicker than Obama can get a tee time at Congressional Golf Club. Unfortunately, Officer Wilson has little chance of getting a no bill from the Grand Jury, regardless of the evidence presented. And when Wilson is indicted, the threat of recurrent violence looms large if the verdict is not to the liking of the street justice vigilantes.

Regardless of the outcome in Ferguson, cable TV will be inundated for months with peripheral discussions of race that inevitably focus on additional spending for a variety of previously failed social programs. Countless billions will be thrown at new prenatal care and head start initiatives, medical care, additional expenditures for education, an increase in the national minimum wage and the always mythical “job creation”— the myths, of course, are two-fold: The first is that government can actually “create” jobs. The second is that all black criminality would magically evaporate if only jobs were available. One wonders if those unfortunate jobless individuals in Ferguson would have dropped the purloined big screen TV to investigate the opportunities provided if there was job fair next door to the looted stores.

Politicians, jabbering political pundits and educators – will all demand yet another “conversation” about “Race in America” and, in their deathly trepidation over being labeled racist by certain media and black “Leadership” will take great pains to avoid the truth and perpetuate the denial.

Since the inception of the “Great Society” – 50 years ago, 7 trillion dollars ago – the entitlement culture has impoverished two generations of African Americans and has metastasized into the body politic of the middle class. The statistics regarding the pathologies in the black community are staggering. African Americans constitute 13% of the population, yet represent half of all homicide victims in America. Of those black homicide victims , 93% were murdered at the hands of other blacks. The incontrovertible evidence indicates that children (especially males) of fatherless families are significantly more likely to become involved in drug addiction, engage in violent behavior and criminal activity and serve prison time before the age of 30*… gruesome statistics. With nearly 75% of African Americans born out of wedlock,** (what we would so delicately refer to in hushed tones as “bastards” back in the day – a term that has been deemed so pejorative the original definition is no longer in use in the modern day lexicon), how do Charlatans like the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson react? Living in a cocoon of denial, the illegitimacy problem is consistently ignored or even disputed by African American leadership in an effort to perpetuate the victimization narrative, which is the currency of their realm. The dichotomy between the truth of the established facts and the longstanding, malevolent policies of the leadership in black America is a puzzling enigma and impossible to reconcile…entire religious movements have been founded on phenomena less mysterious.

While the militarization of local law enforcement (financed over the last decade with Federal Government dollars) which was so prominently on display in Ferguson was troublesome, perhaps the Feds, under the tutelage of the contemptible consortium of Obama, Holder, Sharpton, Shabazz, et al, know something about future urban insurrection that we don’t. In the meantime, keep your powder dry.

And remember to drink the good whiskey now.

Freddie Van

(a cynical child of god)

*National Fatherhood Initiative

**Heritage Foundation

REAR VIEW MIRROR

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:24 GMT

VANDALNATION SUMMER REMIX

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

7/16/2014, 2:54 PM , Eastern Standard time

Once again, on the right side of History. Residing in the Orlando area, I am privileged to witness firsthand the 2nd "Trial of the Century"... and in only three years! (For those unenlightened rubes who are not devotees of Nancy Grace, the 1st trial of the century was, of course, Casey Anthony). What luck!

While watching the Zimmerman Televised Circus last week, where entertainment is paramount and justice is merely notional, one of the ubiquitous local "Legal Experts" (read "parasitic trial attorneys") referred to the testimony of one Rachael Jeantel, a 19 1/2 year-old African American High School junior, who was on the cell phone with Trayvon Martin at the exact time of the Martin/Zimmerman altercation.

Apparently during her earlier testimony, Miss Jeantel related several racial epithets allegedly uttered over the phone by Trayvon. The legal experts and news commentators referred to the two offensive terms as the "N" word and (curiously) the "C" word. "C" word? Hmmm.

We all are familiar with the "N" word, (although I've never quite understood how the term "N word" conjures up any different images than the actual word itself). But not having heard the original testimony, I puzzled over the meaning of the "C" word. A homophobic reference to a sexual act? A brutally blunt colloquialism in the Western World lexicon (and universally despised by women and non-specific gendered people everywhere), used to describe a female part of the body or a recalcitrant, uncooperative and obstinate bitch?

No, neither of these. Apparently the pejorative, racially charged epithet -- (please clear the room of young children, all genteel ladies of the feminine persuasion who suffer from uncontrollable fits of "The Vapors" and anyone subject to delicate lingual sensibilities) -- is the Mother of All Epithets, that shameful trump card of racial bigotry ...CRACKER!

Yowza!. Have we climbed so far down this politically correct Rat Hole that the new social decorum dictates that Freddie Van, an angry old white guy, should feel compelled to take offense as a result of the ignorant musings of some scruffy, Skittles eating17 year old high school junior who doesn't have enough sense to come in from the rain? Have we finally created such a squishy, sensitive environment that every seemingly innocuous comment is scrutinized, every perceived slight, every conceivable unpleasant vibe is viewed through a prism of fear of affront, where we are required to monitor and self censor all thought and speech because the whole fucking world has a constitutional right not to be offended or have their feelings hurt? My God! Who do these politically correct Toadies think we have become ...Canadians ?

The next day, with the rainy season here (no golf), having absolutely nothing else to do, and, as a result of having friends in low places, successfully worming my way into the gallery seating at the courthouse in Sanford, I actually attended the trial in persona . On the stand that day was the lovely aforementioned Miss Jeantel, all 225 sassy pounds, whose testimony the previous day created the "C" word controversy. She was being cross-examined by defense counsel Don West, who several days earlier had inexplicably prefaced his opening statement -- in a murder trial where the victim is an unarmed black youth -- with a knock-knock joke. (Really, if your motivation is to get the jury's attention, why not just slay 'em with an always dependable "Rufus" joke while impersonating "Algonquin J. Calhoun" of Amos & Andy fame?)

Miss Jeantel (who is a dead-ringer for one of Eddie Murphy's movie characters in heavy make-up) presented the entire stereotypical package; head swaying, gum chewing young African American woman, adorned in a Mr. T starter set and costume jewlery (which could have been purchased from the good folks at Hardcore Pawn) displaying serious attitude and whose linguistic style and inflection gravitated to eubonics...("I do him a solid, you know, like anytime he axe, you know, he a fren', is what"). The six white middle-aged female jurors gazed at her in fascination as if she just disembarked from the Mother Ship. Mr. West, for his part, comported himself during his examination like a true white elitist, with phony expressions of compassion, arrogant, condescending and sardonic. He was everything blacks detest, and more. A great matchup.

The physical contrast between the two was striking. Miss Jeantel, a double wide woman, her hair a hard helmet of shellac and shiny black like an old time telephone. West, a wiry runner's body, so pale he could be a candidate for admission to the Caucasian Hall of Fame and appeared to be a not too distant relative of a Himalayan Yeti. Mr. West, in fact, would make even Edgar Winter look like a George Hamilton Cocoa Butter Open Suntan Tournament Champion. (Those of you who do not grasp the Edgar Winter reference -- you are too young to read this blog...you're grounded, go to your room.) Without getting into a Howard Cosell blow by blow account of dust-up, suffice it to say that the sparring was interesting, if not enlightening.

Great theater and an excellent way to kill a rainy summer afternoon. I will try and get inside one more time, so do not fear...Freddie Van is on the job and will be your eyes and ears on the ground for this earth shaking event.

Freddie Van

(a "C" word child of god)

P.S. Do not be concerned about the upcoming hurricane that the National Weather Service has so aptly named (in politically correct fashion) "Chantal " ( not a member of the Shirelles) . I am, however, worried with the next big storm, which I understand, in keeping with the NWS protocol, will be named "Deshawn" .

DREAMS FROM YO’ MAMA

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:22 GMT

DEFINING DIVERSITY DOWN IN PROGRESSIVE POST RACIAL AMERICA

“…You got to get your mind right, Luke.”

Strother Martin to Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke”

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

6/9/2014 at 9:51 pm Eastern Daylight Time

As the government inspired totalitarian impulse pushes inexorably forward in its zeal to banish any and all independent thought from the national discourse under the banner of “diversity”, getting one’s mind “right” is proving to be an Orwellian undertaking. From “income inequality” to racism – homosexual marriage to climate change, the political thought police, bolstered by the unholy alliance of a servile media and a runaway Progressive Obama administration with its bureaucratic, over-top corruption, are out in force with their chilling message; think like us or we will destroy you.

Donald Sterling, 80 year-old owner of the NBA L.A. Clippers has a problem – his mind just ain’t “right”. To be sure, he has a history of minority housing discrimination and his inelegant, indefensible comments regarding African Americans, secretly recorded in the privacy of his home by longtime dirty-leg girlfriend, V. Stiviano (who bears an uncanny resemblance to a post-operative transgender patient) were inappropriate, insensitive and rooted in generational racism. Although racial epithets were never employed in the disparaging rant, his remarks clearly indicated contempt, disrespect and a marked hostility towards African Americans, who are, ironically, the very group on which his organization relies for the success of the team. By any measure, the obvious conclusion to be drawn from that incident is clear: Mr. Sterling does not much care for black folks.

Perhaps he is growing weary of 20-something angry black males in his employ who constantly invoke slavery and Jim Crowe, (laws and policies that were banished years before they were even born) while decrying the “Plantation Mentality” of the NBA as they are compensated to the tune of 15 to 20 million dollars a year. Perhaps Mr. Sterling, married for 50 years, had a problem with his gal pal “cheating” on him by publicly associating with a black man (Magic Johnson), a feeling based on a combination of jealousy and racism. (Although, it must be noted that a metric has not yet been developed to adequately describe the ambiguous emotional complexity of that sort of infidelity.) Perhaps he doesn’t care for the behavior of many NBA players in general, a shockingly significant number of whom are convicted felons. Perhaps he recognizes the hypocrisy of the NBA owners that ignore Jay Z (minority share-holder of the Brooklyn Nets) when he publicly wears a Nation of Islam medal around his neck bearing the inscription “White Men are Devils” while sitting behind the Nets bench. Or, employing the direct, unalloyed principle of Occam’s razor – perhaps he is simply a good old fashioned, dyed in the wool, card carrying, bigot and a first class racist. All that being said…so what?

In America, one has the right to view the world the way he sees it, right or wrong, ignorant or enlightened. He has the right to be secure in his own thoughts and free to like or dislike whomever he may choose, associate with whomever he may choose, for whatever reason he may choose. And yes, through this choice, he may be forced to suffer the slings and arrows of being labeled a “racist”, which has become the de rigueur, socially ostracizing shame based insult, a term so over-employed by every race baiting shakedown artist it is virtually irrelevant.

The NBA is a private club. Their bylaws allow for expulsion, apparently for any reason, of any member they want removed and, like good soldiers, despite the fact they are powerful billionaires, they are cowed by the unyielding power of the national media-endorsed Progressive message: The current outbreak of diversity and tolerance is the new social order— submit and subscribe to the correct forms of diversity or feel the full weight of the government and the sycophant compliant media who will be eagerly standing in a queue, stones in hand. Leading the parade of these self righteous reputation rapists carrying their pitchforks and torches, as always, is the POTUS, who is provided with a platform (commencement addresses, press conferences, beer summits and powder-puff interviews) to gratuitously opine every time any situation remotely relates to race.

From Louis Gates to Trayvon Martin, the temptation for Barry to break bad with yet another thinly veiled “Get Whitey” moment is apparently irresistible, as he recently proved once again with his conspicuous appearance at the racially tainted National Action Network. With his Crybaby General Eric Holder in tow he made a highly publicized visit to pay homage to the Babe Ruth of Race Hustlers, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Among the “dignitaries” in attendance was none other than the Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz, a moniker, (for those of you who have not yet been subjected to diversity re-education), that translates in some obscure African dialect to mean “Courageous Warrior with Terrific Jump Shot”. Mr. Shabazz believes the preferred avenue to achieve the goals of people of color in the U.S. “…is not through the ballot but through the bullet.” Perfect. Exactly the sort of diversity indoctrination theory I’d want my grand-daughter to be taught in her re-education civics class.

Holder, the most prominent law enforcement officer in the land, who flagrantly prevaricates under oath, blatantly ignores the Constitution, is disrespectful of Congressional Committees and defies lawful subpoenas, addressed the assembly of African American “leaders” and race pimps, querulously whining like a petulant child about his insufferable treatment throughout his tenure by the bullying, rabidly racist Republicans. (How about this, Buddy …grow a set – suck it up, Buttercup.)

Rich DeVos, principal owner of the NBA Orlando Magic, has a problem – his mind just ain’t “right”. Within days of the Sterling dust-up, CNN had an investigative news team in Orlando. Their mission? To investigate Richard DeVos and the entire Devos family. Their crime? Contributions to Focus on the Family , a Colorado based organization that (among other initiatives) opposes homosexual marriage. Perhaps the NBA owners will strip the DeVos family of their ownership as a result of their philosophical and religious opposition to gay marriage, a belief that, incidentally, was held by the Thought Police in Chief, Mr. Obama, barely a year ago.

In fact, the entire so-called Gay Rights Movement is primarily populated by individuals who are less concerned with their “right” and are much more focused on their fight. Is it believable that those blushing lesbian brides in Arizona couldn’t find a gay baker or gay florist to cater their “wedding” – in all of Phoenix? Really? The simple facts defy normal interpretation; cake and flowers were clearly not their goal – they wanted the issue…and a lawsuit.

And the diversity train rolls on. Don Jones, defensive back for the Miami Dolphins, has a problem – his mind just ain’t “right”. He had the impudence to write “ OMG ” followed by “horrible” on his twitter account directed at Michael Sam’s televised smooch of his boyfriend after being picked in the seventh round of the NFL draft. Not exactly elegant prose and except for the brevity, not exactly Hemingway-esque, either. For those of you who have been in a coma for the last month, Sam is the first openly homosexual NFL draftee. As a result of this “anti-diversity” missive, Jones was suspended, fined an undisclosed amount (too bad for Mr. Jones the Dolphin front office does not fine by the word) and forced to attend “sensitivity training”, the modern equivalent of the old Soviet Union re-education gulag. In a delicious piece of irony, Mr. Sam’s “spontaneous” lip-lock with his boyfriend, a dead-ringer for the infamous sissified Obama Care “Pajama Boy”, was being filmed as part of the Oprah Winfrey network (OWN) inspired TV series about his “courageous” Gay journey. (Not for nuthin’, but I’m pretty sure Mr. Sam is the only 7th rounder in NFL history to get a TV show before he has ever even played a single professional down.)

Essentially, Jones was suspended, fined and re-educated because he had the reckless audacity to express his disapproval through a tweet on what will surely be another banal Reality TV show. Apparently, the image of the “kiss seen ‘round the world” offended him… too bad. However unpalatable, no one has a constitutional right to not be offended by activity that may seem awkward, unseemly or in bad taste. However, Mr. Jones did have the right to voice his disapproval without the threat of losing his job for actions he, rightly or wrongly, believed were inappropriate.

But, like all zealots, Progressives, blinded by their political tunnel vision, are incapable of recognizing all this enlightened higher truth as a dangerous slope, slicker than a fresh bikini wax. Why stop with coercively forcing the homosexual and a racial political agenda on America? Issues that provide opportunities for thought and speech control are virtually limitless. What about Climate Change Deniers ? Those that believe that perhaps the science isn’t quite as settled as Obama and his zombie purveyors of intolerant uni-thought stridently insist. A well financed, federally funded investigative team utilizing the Inspector General’s office could be dispatched to ferret out any high profile individual that, sometime in the distant past, may have questioned the Climate Change science and is deserving of suffering the inevitable financial ruin as a result of his inability to adapt to the prevailing partisan scientific dogma.

Why even stop at simply withholding grant money and defaming, personally and professionally, those scientists who have the temerity to question some of the flawed data and who believe that research on the Climate Change theory should continue? Why stop at the confiscation of their wealth? Let’s take a page from Professor Lawrence Torcello, a prominent Climate Change whakadoo at Rochester Institute of Technology, who has publicly advocated imprisoning, without benefit of due process, all Deniers ! (The entire idea of “settled science” is counter intuitive to the principle of scientific research. To this day, a decades-long effort to reformulate quantum field theory continues, rewriting a 60 year-old method for calculating amplitudes developed by a Nobel Prize winning Physicist Richard Feynman. When one of these Progressive scientists vehemently insists, with that shrill tunnel vision certainty of the zealot, that a scientific theory is “settled”, two things are true; 1) it’s not, and 2) he’s losing the argument.)

If the landscape looks unfamiliar – don’t despair – you are not alone. Between the incessant and non-stop references to “White Privilege”, lack of minority opportunity and the appallingly dreadful racial conditions in contemporary America cited in virtually every speech delivered by Holder, Obama and his wife – in fact virtually the entire administration – one would believe we are living in “step-and-fetch-it-back-of-the-bus” 1962 with nooses hanging from every tree. Mr. Obama and his crowd with their selective memory, conveniently forget that this country has elected (in no small measure with the support of white voters) an African American President who has more black Americans in his administration than a P Diddy concert. And, please, all you smug Progressives, self appointed protectors of virtue who insist that racism still exists in America - as Obama and his crowd are so adroit at pointing out. Yes, indeed, racial inequality exists…this is America, not Nirvana and one will find racism in every corner of the globe. This country is far from perfect, but it’s odd (even ironic), is it not, that the only Continent in the world still embracing slavery is… wait for it – AFRICA!

With almost every Federal Agency in this White House under fire for corruption and/or ineptitude (Justice, Treasury-IRS, HHS, State Department, VA, Homeland Security, Defense) and U.S. foreign policy circling the drain around the world, Mr. Obama seems completely disconnected from the botched execution of his failed policies. Foolishly choosing to spend his time changing the dialogue with bush-league attempts at mis-direction by speechifying about race, income inequality and climate change, his credibility ranks somewhere between the ridiculous street corner 40 year-old bindlestiff claiming to be a Vietnam Vet displaying a “Will Work for Food” cardboard sign and the ubiquitous Nigerian chain e-mail. The historically challenged “Vietnam Vet” beats Barry by a nose.

Burdened by incompetence, a lack of leadership and vision, intellectual laziness and an incredible transitory relationship with the truth, that familiar ephemerally soaring rhetoric that symbolized his management style has nosedived into a recognizable pattern: Complete ignorance of the problem coupled with vociferous professions of outrage, followed closely by disingenuous statements of “caring” concern along with empty promises to “work hard to fix it” and finally a run out the clock strategy that includes accusations of phony scandals and unfair media coverage of old news, (“…Dude, that was like, two years ago!”). Being a disingenuous prevaricator of this magnitude isn’t as effortless a skill as Mr. Obama would make it appear. Developing this sort of exceptional talent requires patience, dedication, discipline, practice, an uncompromising willingness to believe your own deceptive narrative and deliver it publicly with a straight face no matter how outrageously laughable.

As the velocity of Obama’s untimely and unprecedented descent reaches warp speed, finally, even formerly sympathetic media outlets can no longer ignore the events, circumstances and the realities on the ground. As truth closes in from all sides, Mr. Obama must feel like, (to quote LBJ during his own Vietnam debacle) “… a hitchhiker caught in a West Texas hail storm – can’t run, can’t hide and can’t make it stop”.

One would think that a country that could win two world wars, put a man on the moon and make Justin Beiber an international celebrity would be better than this. One would be wrong. These days, the Lost Nation of America, directionless, wandering aimlessly in a desert of despair and inefficiency and suffering from a sheer lack of leadership are more focused on mindless reality shows, new Apple apps and the latest “X” Game winner.

As the historically unique idea of America, once so evanescent and full of promise, rapidly degenerates into a fading echo of a memory, what will become of the rest of us ancient, recalcitrant gray-hairs on the prison farm who stubbornly refuse, for whatever reason, to conform to this perverted "Group Think"?

We're just layin’ low in the bush – “…shakin’ it here, Boss”— desperately trying to get our mind right.

Big Daddy's Daycare Dilemma

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:19 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

6/9/2014 at 9:21 pm Eastern Daylight Time

As my old man warned a lifetime ago, the world will, eventually, always come full circle. So, as the Magna Pater Familia ("Big Daddy" for those of you fortunate enough to have avoided freshman Latin), I have been pressed into service on short notice to baby sit my 10 month old granddaughter EV, (Eleanor Van) -- for the entire day!

So, here I sit, with snot and shit over practically everything, as the little darling scoots throughout the house, employing a very inefficient crawl, walk and fall method of ambulation. I watch with trepidation at these fledgling first stumblingly scary steps -- jerky, unbalanced lurches -- from coffee table to chair, chair to outstretched hands, a staggering spastic midget. Like watching a drunk cross an icy street or a 20 handicapper attempting a 10 yard pitch shot with a sand wedge from a white knuckle, tight lie -- disaster always lurks right around the corner.

And what's with this younger generation? No wonder this country is in big trouble with all this self absorbed me, me, me attitude. Feed me ! Change me ! Hold me ! Read to me ! Watch me every second to ensure I don't whack my miniature melon, raising a minor, barely discernible bump on my forehead (for which Grandpa will be roundly condemned and unfairly criticized by the entire family as an incapable and irresponsible old fart.) My God, do these little urchins have any respect for their elders? For the third time I text my wife (who, remarkable as it seems in this oppressively toxic economy, still has a viable business and is in meetings all day.) No response.

What the fuck was I thinking when I agreed to this daycare nonsense? My mind reels and I flash back to another babysitting fiasco nearly 30 years ago, when, after taking a short nap on the couch watching golf, the kids (age 4 and 2) ran one of the upstairs bathtubs to overflowing, which leaked into the downstairs ceiling and the parquet oak floor in the front foyer. My 4 year-old boy (now 33 and whose child I am babysitting) -- was the ringleader and clearly the most culpable in this botched bathtub business -- refused to man-up, and, of course, my wife arbitrarily and unreasonably blamed me for the entire mess. As if I could have done anything to prevent this nonsense...while I was sleeping!

In my day, when I was not too much older than EV, my mom would plop me in an old fashioned playpen (complete with wooden prison bars) with a book constructed of shingle thick, chew-proof pages, to watch Miss Nancy and her Magic Mirror on Romper Room.

"Romper, bomper, stomper, boo -- tell me, tell me, tell me do.

Magic Mirror, tell me today...have all my friends had fun at play?"

I would wait breathlessly, my nose pressed against the old Admiral TV screen for Miss Nancy to see me as she gazed into the Magic Mirror and call my name as a "Do Bee", which was an extremely rare occurrence. Even at that tender age, as a result of serious character and attitudinal flaws too numerous to mention here, I was one of those kids that was relegated to permanent "Don't Bee" status. Lord only knows how navigating that sewer of negativity may have affected my self esteem throughout those formative years.

Time for mid-morning feeding. I follow directions exactly and, after 5 minutes of unsuccessful fumbling with the seemingly simple strap-in system on the highchair, I remove my own belt and secure EV into this high tech feeding device. Mealtime basically consists of spooning some sort of apple-mango-strawberry baby food concoction into her mouth so she may spew it back all over my brand new, right-out-of-the-box, first-time-worn, $85.00 Cutter and Buck golf shirt. EV is busting a gut laughing, as this is clearly the funniest thing she has ever seen in her entire 10 month existence. The kitchen, floor to ceiling, is a slippery mess. I lose my footing on the slick wooden planks and slide on my ass into the refrigerator. EV shrieks her approval from the highchair. I reach into my pocket for my phone and text my wife again...no response. Flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, I come to the singular conclusion that God is dead, or at the very least is consciously conspiring with my wife to abandon me.

As if all this incredible inconvenience didn't create enough angst for a man pushing 63 years of age...there is the inevitable changing of the "poopy-diaper" -- a deliberately inaccurate and bland euphemistic designation that really doesn't do justice to this frightful facet of infant rearing. For those of you who have not yet been blessed with grandchildren and have buried this gastric outrage deep within your subconscious from your child rearing days with your own kids...well, let's just say that, thankfully, one doesn't experience this affront to the olfactory senses everyday. I could gorge on enough bran and fruit to give a medium sized army dysentery and not come close to the sheer volume of waste produced by this 18 lb. dung delivery device. Yowza!

Diaper changing becomes 10 full minutes of gagging and retching while attempting to pin down this squealing, squirming bundle of joy. A quick perusal of the detailed feeding/changing/sleeping schedule posted for me on the fridge indicates it's time for a nap...for both of us. Several attempts to put her down proved unsuccessful and I'm forced to carry her for the entire nap period, my back and shoulders screaming in pain. I look at my watch -- 11:00 a.m. ...only seven hours to go. I text my wife for the eighth time. No response; I realize I'm on my own. Exhausted from chasing her around the family room with a quartered orange peel in my mouth (a la Marlon Brando in the "Godfather"), I decide to pack up and go for a little day trip in the car -- maybe visit a few places, keep her occupied. This proved to be an ideal solution as she dozes during the car ride, is enthralled by the frenzied activity at Publix, (voraciously collecting and guarding the various items placed in the grocery cart) and thoroughly enjoys our various stops along the way. It was also a teachable moment for me; who knew that younger women are fascinated with an older guy when he has an infant in tow...especially in strip clubs. Go figure.

Outside of that hardly noticeable, tinge of a rash caused by a mild peanut allergy which I apparently missed on the provided schedule (and for which my wife, once again, bitterly reproached me), the day finally came to a glorious end with a minimal amount of damage sustained by either of us, Perhaps, many years from now -- when "income inequality" has been erased, when the rise of the oceans have slowed, when planet has healed and Muslims act like human beings -- I will relate to EV the story of the day Big Daddy babysat her for the entire day.

Then again...maybe not.

IT’S AN UNUSUAL LIFE

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:53:07 GMT

A RETROSPECTIVE AMERICAN CHRISTMAS TALE

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/16/2014 at 12:55 pm Eastern Daylight Time

Laid up over the recent weekend due to a recurring 25-year back ailment, owing, at least in part, to the vicissitudes of age and lifestyle, I was subjected to several days of the ubiquitous cable TV “Christmas Chick-Flick” presentations. Due to some unutterable character defect, I had an inexplicable compulsion to channel surf through the weekend, skipping over even sports programming while I “binge-watched” this corny holiday fare.

The titles and cable guide descriptions of these shows were remarkably similar and had that familiar pseudo romantic Chick-Flick “heartwarming” quality:

“MERRY IN-LAWS”

The heartwarming story of a young woman whose compassionate dedication to free Samson, a reindeer held captive in a small town Christmas exhibit, unexpectedly blossoms into a long term romantic relationship with the great beast. Initial family tension magically evaporates when they experience a Christmas spirit epiphany and come to the contemporary, yet timeless realization that ultimately, it makes no difference who (or what) you love because love conquers all.

“HOLIDAY SWITCH”

The heartwarming story of a young woman fashion designer who unexpectedly falls in love with her co-worker friend while helping him realize his lifelong dream of becoming the first openly transgender Santa Clause in a major department store. After intense and bigoted corporate resistance that threatens her job, all ends well when she receives a promotion to V.P. of Fashion for her design of the “Santa Skirt” (created for the Transgender Santa) becomes the hottest selling product of the season. After much soul searching, she comes to the timeless conclusion that the Transgender choice is not only socially acceptable, but preferable. She enthusiastically adopts his lifestyle, forming the first ever transgender Santa/Elf team. They appear live on MSNBC's Morning Joe and negotiate a seven-figure book deal from Random House.

“THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR”

The heartwarming story of a young woman attorney, the great niece of Sister Teresa, who successfully employs the 1st Amendment to battle an evil Methodist congregation seeking to prohibit a Wiccan Coven from celebrating a traditional Black Christmas when they intolerantly refuse to rent the congregation’s auditorium to the Coven. Her unexpected, last minute Christmas Eve courtroom victory is heralded as a landmark civil rights decision for religious freedom.

Okay... a little hyperbolic. But even the actual story lines of these nonsensical TV movies miss the mark and do little to conjure up any old time cozy Christmas feelings, at least for me. While it appears to be de rigueur these days to boast of an emotionally deprived childhood, claim some form of child abuse and “self esteem” issues, to my eternal shame, I am forced to admit that my childhood was reasonably normal, despite a dad who was certainly a man who marched to the beat of his own whack-job drummer and was sometimes crazier than a shithouse rat.

As a youngster, our family Christmas holiday was an extended family affair, an annual movable feast in the Detroit area that shifted from one relative’s dreary knotty pine paneled basement to the next every Christmas Eve in order to accommodate the 16 aunts, uncles, grandparents and the 43 miscreants that were my cousins. There was a Santa for the little ones and a bar for the adults who kicked off the holiday by imbibing heavily and arguing about the family tool and die business. Children, regardless of age, were supplied by their parents with a “Santa’s Helper” gift to be handed out that evening by the rent-a-Santa, a bindlestiff who worked at my Dad’s plant and whose primary qualification was the constant week-old growth of white stubble on his haggard face. It was understood by all participants that your Santa’s Helper gift was basically holiday party swag and usually not one of your “primary” Christmas morning gifts which were to be placed under the tree that evening by the “real” Santa.

These morning presents were used as a threat later that night to get all these spoiled, hyper-active monsters to go to bed, as in; “…if you don't go to sleep right this minute, I will come up there and…”, a vapidly impotent warning that inevitably would taper off into some meaningless threat of physical harm. (Many of this generation of parents, after all, had read the Dr. Spock baby book, where negative reinforcement was disparaged and actual corporal punishment of any kind was a serious no-no – and the little brats knew it. Unfortunately for me, neither of my parents or the nuns at my parochial school had even heard of the Spock book; consequences for bad behavior in my world almost always resulted in physical punishment.) The follow-up threat, however, was the clincher -- “…and Santa WILL NOT come tonight unless you go to sleep RIGHT NOW!” which always did the trick with the greedy little toadies.

These family Christmas gatherings from a half century ago flicker through my memory like a grainy old black and white home movie, most years run together like a string of laundry on a clothesline. But one Christmas Eve stands out, a mental talisman, a touchstone reminding me of an America now, for better or worse, long gone.

The year was 1962, a watershed year in America, the last year of old-time sanity -- pre-Kennedy assassination, pre-Beatles, pre-societal revolution – before the cultural tectonic plates began their ominous shift. My two brothers and I were all dressed and ready to go to that year’s bash, waiting for my dad to get home from his own annual afternoon office Christmas party where he insisted on personally handing out each bonus check to his 30-plus employees. He would usually have a few pops and then play poker with a few ambitious souls in a fruitless attempt to win back his bonus money. Like many successful men, my Pop, despite his braggadocio, was nowhere near as good a poker player as he fancied himself -- in fact he sucked. A chronic single card hunter and desperate pot chaser with a hopeless habit of drawing to inside straights, the end result was usually a substantial Christmas bonus increase for those employees who elected to play.

Now, it's important to realize in those days before video games, lap tops, i-Pads and all the electronic gear of today, simple battery operated toys were the state of the art and highly coveted as Christmas gifts; their acquisition was a serious business that required months of tactful strategy and diligent begging. That year, as all years, my mother had carefully supervised the selection of our “swag bag” gifts for the party that evening, uncharacteristically allowing my 9-year old middle brother to choose his “primary” gift as the party gift, a Remco Bulldog Tank. This was a toy complete with a cannon which fired “real” foam rubber bullets, utilizing roaring sound effects that emulated a German Wehrmacht Panzer capable of handily plowing through an average size commercial building (if the TV commercials were to be believed.) Apparently, one of our other 9-year old cousins—procreation came in such plentiful and predictable groupings in the ‘50’s that any one of us could find a half dozen cousins our own age—was also receiving the same gift and the two of them had created a war plan to destroy this year’s knotty pine basement. Parents in today’s America who allowed their young male children to play with a dangerous WMD like this would surely be reported to Family Services and find themselves sitting in jail for the holidays while the young boy was shipped off to foster care, forced to play with dolls or a finger paint set (with the caveat that no representation of any weapon could be created with any finger).

For his swag gift, my two and a half year old kid brother had chosen a toy called ODD OGG, (by Ideal toys) which, based on the image portrayed on the box, appeared to be a combination of turtle and a frog, (in fact, the advertising jingle was “ODD OGG, ODD OGG, half turtle and half frog!) This was a cute little toy that moved toward you when a rolled ball hit his ample mouth and backwards (with a razzing sound) when the roller missed the target. Several weeks before, at the direction of my mother who wanted to finish up her Christmas shopping, I had languished for an interminable hour and a half in a Santa line that wrapped around the entire ground floor of the downtown J.L. Hudson store with my kid brother. (In those simple, unsullied days in Detroit, people actually would travel to the full service downtown Hudson’s to do their shopping—of course, in those days there actually was shopping and a Hudson’s in Detroit.) After regaling me with a virtual catalog of various top-end toy choices we finally got to the Big Man himself. My brother, finally safely situated on Santa's lap incomprehensibly asked for …an ODD OGG -- a crummy $2.95 toy. Even the hired Santa gave me a look of empathetic pity that conveyed what the family had long assumed—the kid was one of those unfortunates who would invariably end up riding on the short school bus. He eventually graduated from University of Michigan with honors and went on to medical school and is today a practicing radiologist. Go figure.

My gift selection was a no-brainer. The previous March, my mom determined that I had received too many gifts for my birthday and summarily relieved me of one of them, a Tudor Electronic Football game. She then assigned the football game as my swag gift, essentially re-gifted my own gift back to me, which, in Kid-World, (or even by any measure in the far off, as yet uncontemplated Obama-World of the future) was unfair gift inequality. (I was not, however, overly concerned; my primary gift that Christmas was a dandy—a gleaming pair of brown-toed, black-booted CCM Tackaberry ice skates, the choice of every player in all six NHL teams.)

By any definition, the Tudor Electronic Football game was the most useless activity in all of toydom, the modern day equivalent of Face Book or Twitter. For the uninitiated, (those under 55) electronic football was only notionally a game. The rules, although codified in the manufacturer's literature, could never be completely understood, tactics and strategy were non-existent and participants had absolutely no control over the outcome of the "contest". Suckers who wasted a precious month of pre-Christmas shopping days coercing their parents to buy this loser---making impossible promises to diligently hit the books or committing themselves to months of voluntary servitude by performing any number of new household chores-- were sadly disappointed by mid-Christmas morning.

Participants in this electronic fraud would spend countless hours setting up miniature football player action figures on an electronic vibrating green (not to scale) gridiron to create "plays" in an effort to "...MARCH YOUR TEAM DOWNFIELD---LIKE A REAL NFL COACH!" according to the literature provided on the box. In point of fact, there was precious little marching as, at the flick of an electronic toggle switch, the little action figures scurried in every direction like Mexicans fleeing a construction site at the unexpected appearance of an INS truck. One could only watch helplessly as your Tommy McDonald wide receiver repeatedly bounced off the sideline like a dodgem car stuck in a corner as your running back would inexplicably commence to wander about aimlessly before making a bee-line for his own goal line, racing backwards until finally tipping over, flopping crazily on his side and vibrating in circles like some pathetic miniature epileptic having a seizure. This sorry excuse for a “game” would invariably end up with the participants engaged in a wild fistfight on the living room floor.

As we sat in the family room near the glimmering Christmas tree all dressed and ready to go, our evening party gifts close at hand, my father suddenly appeared through the back door leading to the garages, trailed closely by an unidentified sullen faced man with the shovel jawed, deeply furrowed brow and ruddy complexion of the classic whisky drinker. He was sporting a dirty dark blue pea coat and knit sailor’s cap and it was clear, despite the stranger’s nautical attire, neither he (nor my Dad) was totally in possession of their sea legs.

“This is Jimmy,” my Pop announced unceremoniously, red-faced from the freezing cold outside. The unmistakable fragrance of Scotch mixed with English Leather cologne filled the room instantly. “He’s out of work and doesn't have any toys for his kids this year,”said my Pop. My immediate thought was that this probably wasn't the first year Jimmy’s kids would have a disappointing Christmas.

“Johnny”, chirped Jimmy suddenly, correcting my Pop while casting a sidelong glance at the yet-to-be-wrapped Remco Bulldog tank and Tudor football game packages. ”I’m Johnny. Have three kids…two girls and a boy”. Jimmy rocked back on his heels with the gingerly bounce of the professional boozer, his balance far from perfect, his words muffled and slightly slurred.

The Old Man, a life-long rounder, had a fairly specific watering hole route he followed daily on his way home from the office. Occasionally, his last stop was “Craine’s”, a blue collar workingman’s neighborhood joint, where he was recognized, but not considered a regular. My guess was this is where he ran into Jimmy or Johnny…or whatever his name was. The Old Man was well known as a sucker for poor-me sob-stories and an easy touch, especially after a few J&B's. Normally he would have just given the guy a few bucks and wished him well. But it was Christmas and the Old Man, overcome with holiday compassion, hatched a dual-purpose plan; he apparently believed could help this poor schmuck and make yet another attempt at one of his many half-baked Ward Cleaver life lessons he just didn't have the panache to actually ever pull off.

“You kids get too many toys every year. We should share some with Jimmy—for his kids,” the Old Man said, getting right to it. As it wasn’t clear exactly what my Pop would be kicking in to this philanthropic holiday shindig, the royal “we” did not go unnoticed by me.

The Old man was a real piece of work and this was the constant refrain to which we kids were subjected virtually our entire lives. An East side Detroit kid, a child of the Great Depression and a WW II vet, every Christmas season he would bask in the glowing affirmation of his self-made financial success by heartily approving your advance gift list and by Christmas morning he would decry your avarice. He had a unique ability to embrace your hopes and dreams, elevating and then demeaning them, sometimes in the same sentence.

“Johnny”, Jimmy corrected my dad again. “My two boys would really like that tank and the football game,” he said, pointing to the unwrapped boxes.

The Old man casually snagged my football game, which I surrendered without a fight, my kid’s mind already doing its mental gymnastics to determine how to negotiate this temporary set back into a present I actually wanted.

“You said you had two girls and one boy a minute ago,” I said, confronting Jimmy. “Which is it?”As I didn't want this stupid game anyway, this was just a little one-act for the Old Man’s benefit to prove I incurred damages as a result my selfless altruism.

Jimmy (Johnny) was caught off balance by a question of this complexity, his thick eyebrows knitted into a mask of consternation, his heavy jaw drooping slightly as if even that level of concentration could be painful, began to mumble some unintelligible response just as the Old Man reached for my middle brother’s Bulldog Tank. My brother, clutching the box with a death grip, stared soundlessly at the Old Man, mouth wide open, forming a perfect “O” in a panicked pantomime of Evard Munch’s iconic painting “The Scream”, adamantly refused to give up the present.

My Pop immediately realized that getting the tank may be more difficult than he had initially thought elected to go for a softer target and zeroed in on the “ODD OGG”. Reaching for the package, which was setting on my kid brother’s lap elicited a piercing screech so sonorous it would make a canine howl in agony, an explosion of sound which is no doubt still hanging somewhere over the Great Lakes.

Just as the Old Man began to mentally revisit his poorly thought out act of charity, watching it spiral out of control, my middle brother, encouraged by my kid brother’s vociferous reaction and having sufficiently recovered from his momentary panic, finally found his voice and began screaming for my mom, who made it to the family room in a flash from upstairs.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE… AND WHO IS THIS MAN IN MY HOUSE?” said my no nonsense, European born mother racing into the room, her curlers half out of her hair. The Old Man, no stranger to this sort of marital adversity, generally brought on by his total absence of any semblance of impulse control, focused on the Christmas tree.

“Dad’s trying to give our stuff to Jimmy’s kids,” lamented my middle brother, pointing to the stranger.

“I was just trying to help out Jimmy and his kids,” he proclaimed defiantly, gesturing in Jimmy’s general direction. “Poor guy is out of work…and….,” he grumbled helplessly, his hopelessly lame, cringe-worthy attempt to explain the theft of his own children’s Christmas gifts on Christmas eve fell on deaf ears as he withered under my mom’s perilous stare. It was over. The Old Man was beat, his Life Lesson ruined once again, this time by the pernicious greed of his own spawn. Retreating to the liquor cabinet at the other end of the room, he abandoned Jimmy, leaving him to deal with the precarious reality of “Mom Justice” on his own.

My mom, not quite done with the Old Man yet, gave him one last scathing glance. “Espece d’idiote,” (you’re an idiot) she said in her native tongue, to which she always reverted when seriously pissed.

“I think it’s time for you to go,” said my mom, turning her attention to the stranger. “And you can put down that package,” she said with an unmistakable tone of finality.

“I don’t have a ride,” said Jimmy, as he lay down the football game.

My mother turned abruptly, found her purse in the kitchen, returned and handed Jimmy a five dollar bill. “I’ll call you a cab. You may wait in the second garage—it’s heated. I’m sorry my husband wasted your time,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

Then to us—“We’ll be leaving in 20 minutes -- be ready” she said, casting a fiercely dismissive glance at my Pop, now sulking in the corner of the room. Once again, the karmic shit had hit the cosmic fan --- the universe had conspired against him --- no good deed would go unpunished. Later on the Old Man would get his for this ignominious little fiasco---it was only a matter of time.

Jimmy (Johnny?) shuffled off through the back doors in the direction of the garages. I followed, carrying the Tudor football game which had, despite my attempts to dump it, tenaciously remained in my possession and watched as he walked through the garage, all the way down the driveway, sitting on the edge of the curb in the dark. Reaching into his deep pea coat pocket he produced a pint bottle of Four Roses whiskey and took a long pull, swallowing with a shudder and a snort.

I walked up, startling him, and held out the football game. “Here, give this to your boys --or girls.”

“Thanks,” was all he managed to mumble as he put the box under his arm. He got up off the curb and began walking in a westerly direction.

“What about the cab?” I asked as he lumbered away in the darkness. Without turning around he raised his left arm, waved and kept on moving. I knew there would be hell to pay for giving away the football game…the Old Man wasn't the only one who was going to get it.

But what the hell… it was Christmas.

Season's Greetings from the Post American Family

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:52:51 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

12/11/2013 at 12:55 pm Eastern Daylight Time

The Holidays. A time for gatherings, giving and glorious greetings in the form of the traditional, time honored Christmas Card. I have always been fond of the entire notion of Christmas card giving and, upon my return from our family Christmas in the little mountains of North Carolina, I was casually sifting through some of the Holiday the cards we had received during the season. My favorites are the Currier and Ives scenes of snow, sledding and skating that conjure that mythical White Christmas, which seems to be so deeply engrained in the American DNA.

The last several decades, however, have produced the aberrant twin of the classically venerable Christmas Card…the usually pretentiously ubiquitous “X-Mas Letter”. A dear friend sends one each Christmas, describing his family’s year with just the proper blend of enthusiasm and truth to make the missive interesting and factual. Pretty good job, as these things go.

But for every Christmas Letter like his there are three that nauseatingly stretch credibility to its absolute limits in its ostentatiously offensive, bullshit description of the author’s family; the three year-old who already speaks four languages; the twelve year-old who can dunk the basketball with such ferociousness it would make LeBron James look like a sniveling, bedwetting Nancy Boy; the would-be concert violinist who can barely perform at 2nd chair in her High School orchestra but is expecting her acceptance letter from Julliard any minute. We actually received an “X-Mas Letter” a few years ago that was written from point of view of the family dog, replete with the Fido’s ridiculous paw print for his signature.

Given the contagiously viral, cultural death spiral of our vaunted "Middle Class" in this “tell-it-all-brother” emoting era of Oprah, Dr. Phil, Roseanne and Reality TV currently gripping America today, the contemporary “X-Mas Letter” has taken on a new truthful and unvarnished character:

X-MAS GREETINGS FROM THE BUMRUCKERS

BILL, BONNIE, BILLY JR. and BUFFY

Well, another year and has it ever been a hectic one for the busy Bumrucker bees!!!! Bill Sr. is still looking for work… but honestly, who can expect anyone to find the right fit in the telemarketing industry in only 18 months? That short stint bagging at Kroger’s last fall didn't work out when his manager wouldn't let him take off for his birthday even though we had a family picnic planned– just because he'd only been there for four days and was only late twice!!!! If you ask me, the government should go after those greedy thieves in Big Grocery, the way they treat their employees!!!! Thank God for President Obama, who everybody says is going to extend unemployment for at least another six months—maybe a year. It’s the fair thing and Lord knows we deserve the money, if only to keep that predatory bank off our backs.

I don't even know why those criminal loan officers forced us take those 2nd and 3rd home mortgages which we used to buy the motor home (which wasn't even new), the Branson vacation (we were all unemployed and had the time, so why not?), those four matching jet skis and Bill’s Harley , which Billy Jr. wrecked in his last unfortunate DUI incident. As it turned out, it wasn't even Billy’s fault…just an allergic reaction to those pain pills he was taking for his back. (The cops made a big deal out of it just because Billy couldn't find the prescription and couldn't remember which doctor wrote it and scored a .185 breathalyzer). We would have kept up the insurance payments on the Harley if those miserly bankers would have only given us another small loan. Just get 5 or 6 months behind and see what those blood suckers will do.

I had some bad luck myself back in September. Some nosey bureaucrat from Workman’s Comp spied on me during the finals of my bowling league Tournament. The next thing I know, my disability check is cut off…just like that. And that’s not all!!!! It looks like they want me to reimburse the State of Florida for the two years of checks they sent!!!! The nerve!!!! Like they need the money!!!!

And talk about inefficient government!!!! After months of wasting time filling out forms and going through screening, we finally got Billy Jr. into a state sponsored Methadone program in November. He’s making a terrific effort in rehab at the halfway house -- he’s only had three “slips”—and two of those weren't even heroin, just methamphetamine which he only smoked. We're so proud of his progress!!!!

Little Buffy isn't so little anymore. She’s carrying her second baby and is due next month. It’s been a difficult pregnancy with absolutely no support except SNAP, ADC, TANF, ADATSA and her basic bare bones puny welfare check. What with the daddy of her first child in prison again and the presumed father of this one back living with his ex-wife, it’s no wonder the girl is a little depressed.

And on top of all that bad luck, the poor thing was hospitalized for four weeks back in October from an infection due to blood poisoning because a so-called tattoo “Artist” didn't know what he was doing. What kind of professional person tattoos a 6-month pregnant girl who had sucked up an entire fifth of Southern Comfort and popped two tabs of Orange Sunshine? I tell you, these selfish business owners just have no sense of personal responsibility these days!!!! Of course the quacks at the hospital said the blood poisoning was from a dirty hypodermic needle but I know for almost certain Buffy is too good a mother to ever shoot up when she was expecting.

Thank God for Medicaid, which is taking care of the $105,000.00 hospital bill. Not that the inept hospital staff showed any competence, denying Buffy a private room and refusing to give her pain meds on demand and all. Believe me, that elitist attitude is going to cost them. We hired the firm of Whoregan and Whoregan, attorneys at law and are suing the pants off the tattoo parlor and the hospital for misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, malpractice and whatever else our attorney can come up with. So, things are looking up for 2013!!!

Well, that’s about it for the Bumruckers!!!! We wish you all a very Merry X-Mas and a Happy New Year!!!!

P.S. If any of you have any legal problems (slip and fall, Product Liability, dog bite, medical malpractice or any claim against anybody, for anything), you can’t do better than Whoregon and Whoregon. They're on the radio and television all the time, so they must be good!!!!

And that’s it from Freddie Van. Life continues to be a perplexing, yet hilarious, head-scratching mystery to me as I enter the tail-end of my life’s walk... just an old dinosaur scouring the sky for the last meteor. To all of you, my very best wishes and lots of luck for prosperous and profitable New Year. And remember…don't save the good whisky for later.

Freddie Van

(a fervently hopeful child of god)

Photograph - Dena Rooney-Berg, Sugar Shop

CHILLIN’ WITH THE ‘BAMA

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:52:49 GMT

ON THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO DAMASCUS

“The falcon cannot hear the falconer

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity…

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

Wm. Butler Keats, “The Second Coming”

“…Can’t anybody here play this game?”

Casey Stengel, 1962 N.Y. Mets Manager

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com
9/27/2013 at 1:22 pm Eastern Daylight Time

In the little mountains of Blue Ridge, the early chill in the still morning air, settles softly, whispers autumn’s quiet arrival. Leaves are turning early – flaming orange, brilliant yellow and deep crimson – dotting the mountainside, coming together in a picturesque orchestration, like notes that shape a musical score. Seeking southern sanctuary, my whimsical water fowl, winging their way to warmer climes have already begun their annual migratory journey. But outside this tranquil enclave, all is not serene.

Like the preening, loudmouth, 9th grade poseur, having drawn one too many lines in the schoolyard sand, Mr. Obama finally ran out of playground. Once again (and true to form), he disavowed any responsibility for the national trap he created with his braggadocio during an election in which he would say anything, obfuscate any truth, to achieve his victory. He comes now to the American people with the outrageous claim that he did not draw the ill conceived “Red Line” regarding the use of the nerve agent Serin gas in Syria – but the world drew the “Red Line”; that the enforcement of the anti-nerve agent policy does not jeopardize his credibility, but the credibility of the U.S. Congress – and by extension the entire nation, essentially dumping all political and moral responsibility for any possible outcome on anyone and everyone but him . Incapable of exerting any leadership nearly five years into his presidency, the ‘Bama, the original “Drive By” President, continues to elevate the ridiculous concept of “leading from behind” to a New Age art form.

After days and months of wheel spinning consultation with his sycophant brain trust and with a burglar’s brass balls, Obama proudly announced at a hastily called press conference that he had made not only one decision, but, in a superhuman executive effort, made two decisions – as if presidential legacies were determined not by the quality, but rather by the quantity of the decisions made. His first decision? He had determined that immediate, firm, decisive action was required in the form of a “…targeted, tactical proportional strike of limited scope and duration”. His second decision? Notwithstanding his Secretary of State’s previous day’s cautionary admonition that immediate action was imperative, the ‘Bama (for whom the constitution is merely notional) would inexplicably delay any vote for 13 days until lawmakers reconvened in order to seek consent, which he maintained was “unnecessary”, from a body he had heretofore blatantly ignored. That latest 180 degree stunning foreign policy direction shift took even the groveling MSNBC official Obama cheerleading squad by surprise as they experienced another collective (if not confusing) thrill-up-their-leg orgasmic moment.

The credibility-challenged Obama administration by now should have learned the hard lessons of employing the military to achieve nation-building and regime change in the Middle East. With no clear or compelling National interest at issue, no specific end game, the obvious temptation of mission creep, and suffering from a severe case of military industrial complex sticker shock, war weary Americans are increasingly opposed, for a multitude of reasons, to any form of military action. Many of our government-gulag educated, functionally illiterate citizen-rabble have little interest in the political state of play and are much more focused on Kim Kardashian’s baby bump than any world transformative events in the Middle East— (who is this Ben Ghazi guy anyway?). Suffering from a terminal case of Attention Deficit Disorder, the hoi polloi, making the correct decision for the wrong reasons, are simply finding this new, intricate Syrian narrative too complicated to ponder, especially when “America’s Got Talent” is heading into the season finale.

The ‘Bama has made such a dog’s breakfast of what passes for a foreign policy that the nation finds itself in still another lose-lose international jackpot. He has effectively asked for a tactical missile strike intended to punish President Bashar al-Assad’s government while simultaneously supporting the dubious goals of several loosely organized groups of rebel sand simians, (the so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army), who despise virtually everything American and are comprised in part by Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida rebels, (who are reportedly whacking Christians like Mafia button men in the final episodes of the Sopranos). In addition to the missile strike, and in an unprecedented show of support for a recognized enemy combatant, the ‘Bama proposes to supply this Free Syrian Army of Muslim terrorists small arms and other tactical “support” to the tune of $350,000,000. The thought process behind this strategy is inexplicable. Can any American imagine FDR instituting a lend-lease program to Japan or Germany after Pearl Harbor? Or Lyndon Johnson shipping arms to the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive? (It must be noted that the Free Army rebels are skeptical of any promises of U.S. military aid after the ‘Bama reneged on an earlier arms pledge.)

The opposition in this fight to the death is a better organized – but just as bloodthirsty – army of Assad’s Syrian sand simians who detest us with an equal degree of vitriol. Some choice; rather like having to pick between the pedophile who abuses 8-year old girls and the pedophile who abuses 10-year old girls for the elementary school crossing guard job. I claim no expertise in the world of international diplomacy – Henry Kissinger I ain’t. But here’s a thought; when two barbaric groups of murderous enemies are wiping the floor with one another, why interfere? Step right up and meet Allah—and your 72 virgins.

And for all those long suffering liberals, neo-cons of the “kinder-gentler” persuasion and other politically ambivalent whiners out there in the New America whose concern centers on the pathetic need to do something based on the exploitative videos of dead and dying innocents...take note; Serin gas is no doubt a terrible way to die - maybe worse than bombs, bullets or even incineration. Just ask the families of the tens-of thousands civilian casualties in the Iraq or Afghanistan debacles, many of whom were gassed with the U.S. barely issuing a statement of condemnation. As terrible as the Syrian civil war and the violation of international law may be – gas or bombs, young or old – dead is dead.

Despite having had his Secretary of State jetting around the world drumming up support for this pitiful military operation like a woeful Willie Loman hawking encyclopedias door-to-door, Obama had not a single taker in the U.N. community. As lonely as a Climate Change denier at an Al Gore fundraiser, once again, the U.S. would shoulder the entire burden – the international equivalent of the “Thin Blue Line”. Lobbing a few missiles would be little more than a sideshow diversion, accomplishing nothing except to assuage the ‘Bama’s ego in a reckless attempt to salvage what little credibility he may still possess with his decimated cabal of hope and change dreamers. This action would only send an even more ambiguous message to Syria in the most laughingly ineffectual terms possible; that the United States seriously frowns on chemical warfare. Our Red Line, however, will not extend to genocide with conventional weapons.

Despite the fact that virtually the entire Middle East has been a war torn hell-hole for four decades, there remains a delusional American political faction which clings to the fiction that all peoples have a deep rooted, universal desire for a representative form of government when given the choice. As a “secular” society, proponents of military action in Syria claim it is an excellent candidate for a democratic form of government. That argument, trumpeted by nation-building neo-cons since the establishment of the “Bush Doctrine”, is a particularly offensive piece of sophistry. Syria, despite a more “moderate” semi-secular regime, is still hampered by a 5th century religious orthodoxy and warring Islamist religious sects and is a theocratic despotic regime. Incapable of embracing western style freedoms, it is too crazy to ever become a democracy and not quite crazy enough to become a giant insane asylum.

Obama’s outrageous decision to even contemplate such an action underscores the fact that he functions more like a thin-skinned community organizer than a Commander-in-Chief, willing to risk National Blood and Treasure to save his spiraling world-stage rep as an unprepared, lazy, weak and careless Imposter-in-Chief. And he is not without bi-partisan support for his foolishness. Pandering Republicans, whose haughty moral superiority is as hypocritical as it is insulting, are onboard for full scale regime change, including (despite their ubiquitous denials) “boots on the ground”. Apparently the nearly 7,000 dead American kids over the last decade haven’t quite sated their bloodlust. (And herein is the acid test for all hawks on either side of the isle – would you sacrifice your son or daughter in the defense these off-brand, grab-bag group of third-worlders?)

Out peddling the party line, Mr. Kerry, whose penchant for self-contradiction has achieved mythical status, continued to insist that this monstrous violation of international law cannot stand and is the critical issue of our time. He simultaneously and illogically insisted that the military response to this heinous, universally condemned crime would be “...unbelievably small.” What, exactly, does that mean? Does the ‘Bama intend to deploy a miniature GI Joe toy Tomahawk missile set (batteries not included), targeted at Damascus? Is our courageous “Munich moment” response to these repulsive Hitler-esque “crimes against humanity” merely a “check the box” attack, of so little consequence that Assad and his blood thirsty war criminals will hardly feel it? Sinking in the muck of his verbal quagmire and unable to shut his pie-hole once he gets rolling, Kerry continued his loquacious nonsensical stream of consciousness by referring to this proposed meaningless pinprick of a response as “…not a war—not a war in the classic sense.” Tell that to Abdul, the collaterally damaged poor Syrian schmuck when the ceiling of his Damascus hut has just fallen in on his head and who views modern warfare and traditional (classic?) war as a difference without distinction.

Having given away the element of surprise, unwilling to attack with overwhelming force and with no clear understanding of the situation on the ground (the so called Islamist “vetted opposition”), this minimal effort (“just muscular enough not to get mocked”*) would have no effect— would in fact illustrate yet again to the world another embarrassing lack of U.S. leadership. The mind reels – but just when it appeared this prime time International reality show couldn’t get any weirder, the weird turned pro.

Kerry, who seldom resists the opportunity to say something exceedingly silly, responded to a London Times reporter’s throw away question at a press conference who asked what Assad could possibly do to avert the proposed military action. “Sure…he could turn over every single bit of chemical weapons to the international community in the next week,” Kerry replied, stumbling through an absurd, shoot from the hip, rhetorical wilderness. “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously,” he concluded, literally throwing up his hands, the clear implication being all this nonsense would come to fruition when monkeys fly out of Kerry’s Brahmin ass. Soon after he made his ill advised remarks, Kerry contacted his Russian counterpart to assure him none of this meaningless babble should be taken seriously. In the meantime, Vladimir Putin, realizing the ‘Bama and his sidekick Kerry had backed themselves into an inescapable red lined political cul-de-sac, moved with dispatch and accepted Kerry’s foolish, off the cuff offer on behalf of Assad.

It was obvious to anyone listening to Kerry’s botched answer that this was the first time he had even heard of, much less ever contemplated this inspection proposal scenario. Even so, in a performance worthy of an Oscar, he later made the bizarre claim (after a narrative polishing script adjustment with the ‘Bama) that this wasn’t a gaffe, but a serious, statesman-like, thoughtful and intentional strategy. For his part, the ‘Bama, incapable of avoiding the temptation to take authorship of someone else’s idea even if it’s absurd, also claimed the plan had been in the works for weeks having discussed it with Putin at the G 20 summit. (I am compelled to admit a begrudging, if not perverted, form of admiration for these shyster pols that are capable of spinning the most outrageously spurious tales on a moment’s notice with the full expectation of the listener’s total belief.)

Obama, who is being played like a bumpkin at his first carnival hoop-toss, reacted predictably with a knee jerk nationally televised Presidential address, delaying any Congressional vote – probably indefinitely – to give this farcical diplomatic solution a chance. To describe this comedy of errors as “fluid” would imply that Kerry and the ‘Bama actually have some degree of control in whatever bad faith bargaining protocol Putin chooses to imposed upon them. As of this writing, Assad and his puppet master Putin, (a deadly serious and capable former KGB operative, who is playing a geopolitical 3-dimensional chess match while the ‘Bama is worrying over a barrel top game of checkers), as expected, have already begun to place caveats on the illusory proposal, leaving Kerry and the ‘Bama bumping into each other chasing a self delusionary apparition.

The POTUS TV talk to the nation produced no new insight or perspective, no long or short term goals, no clearly defined mission – only more passionate, sentimental appeals to watch the horrible videos of dying children…Barrack’s twisted version of a politically partisan “Hallmark Moment”. He made the outrageously offensive claim that the phony chemical weapons disarmament deal – this “…opportunity for diplomacy”— was created as a result of the “…credible threat of military action.” What credible threat? Does Obama (or anybody) really believe that this bogus “credible threat” actually frightened Assad, Putin or any of their ilk? Based on his op-ed in the New York Times in which he figuratively slapped Obama around like Mike Tyson whuppin’ up on a sock puppet, Putin is not exactly some whiney-pants sissy quivering in terror. Essentially the President of the United States came before the nation to persuade them that he had a valid rationale for postponing a Congressional vote he could never win, for a military action the people were never in favor of, to pick a fight he never wanted so Putin can keep him cooling his heels, hat in hand, waiting for a realistic disarmament deal that will never come.

By keeping Assad in power, the ad hoc delaying tactic gives Putin, who has little interest in Syrian chemical weapons, the ability to re-emerge as a political player, preserve his anti-Western alliances throughout the region and keep his valuable lone naval base in Tartus. Assad, having dodged even a mini-missile attack, buys time to continue to wreak havoc in Syria and ultimately prevail in his battle with the rebels. And what exactly does the ‘Bama secure from this thoughtfully crafted grand strategy? In the vernacular of my old East side Italian paisans – Obama gets stugots !

And this is the thoughtful generalship from the smartest guy in the room? Yowza! Some general. Some deal.

The candidate who would be Monarch, who declared that age of cynicism was over, who arrogantly proclaimed “… this (was) the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, when our planet began to heal…” sadly, despite his saber-rattling bluster, has become Putin’s bitch. The delicious irony? For years the ‘Bama preached that Assad was a diabolical dictator and his immoral, illegitimate regime must go, while at the same time excoriating Putin for protecting the malefactor. With his desperate acquiescence of this delaying tactic framed as a legitimate disarmament proposal, Obama has been suckered into a deal with Putin and the war criminal Assad which forces the recognition of his regime as the de facto government. As a result, the ‘Bama must rely on their arbitrary timetable for implementation and would be totally dependent upon that government to fulfill all aspects of the disarmament process, (inspector safety, weapon stockpile locations, removal of any chemical weapons, etc.), which could take years. As if the mere presence of Assad wasn’t noxious enough, the third member of this shameful triumvirate is Putin, the former KGB agent, Super Bowl ring thief and notorious international gangster who reportedly has a predilection for heaving political and business rivals off the roof of tall buildings.

With this in mind, Kerry, in his role as Secretary of State, would be well advised to schedule all future face to face meetings with Putin at any Red Roof Inn motel, which, I understand, are all single story affairs.

Several months from now, when the ‘Bama’s Press Secretary Jay Carney is asked about the progress of the Syrian peace process, his response will be framed in circular talking points, non-answer answers… “productive talks continue”… “frank, constructive and open exchange of ideas”…yadda-yadda-yadda. And perhaps, reprising his infamous answer to a Benghazi question, he might conclude his reply with a rejoinder in his unique double-speak style “…but that was a long time ago,” as if time evaporates all truth into the Orwellian fog of obfuscation. Such is the manner by which the President of the United States, allegedly the most powerful leader on earth, may ignominiously skulk away in humiliation, just another off-the-rack, barely mediocre politician and, ultimately, a victim of his own ineptitude and arrogant vanity.

But keep the faith! “Hope and Change” forever spring eternal in the breast of true believer, especially when free stuff is in the bargain. So take heart, all is not lost – things are looking up…today is free Calzone day at Jersey Mike’s.

In the New America, one must learn to savor life’s little pleasures as they come.

Freddie Van (a road weary child)

*unnamed U.S. official to the L.A. Times

SOUTHERN FRIED GENOCIDE

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:52:44 GMT

TRAYVON, THE MAGIC NEGRO AND THE POLITICS OF RACE IN THE NEW AMERICA

“When Elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

Old Swahili proverb

“Leave a log in the water as long as you like;

it will never be a crocodile.”

Old Swahili Proverb

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

8/14/2013 at 8:22 pm Eastern Daylight Time

As appallingly disturbing as the Zimmerman verdict may have been to the race-baiting African American “Leaders”, the nattering National TV Talking Heads and – in the most curious instance of hysterical group cognitive dissonance – even the jurors, Reality TV justice ultimately prevailed. Really great reality theater, however, would have seated a celebrity jury (a Kim Kardashian or a Paris Hilton would have been a nice touch) with Judge Judy on the bench, guilt-tripping and bullying witnesses like a Jewish Bubbe. Not that Judge Nelson didn’t provide enough visual comic relief with her spot-on impersonation of the late Chris Farley in drag. But the real show began at the final gavel when six confused women rendered a verdict of “not guilty”, thereby setting in motion a ridiculous weeklong left leaning lalapoluzza of white guilt and African American recriminations with even the POTUS (never missing an opportunity to marvel at events from the outsider’s perspective), irresponsibly injecting racial motives into an already volatile situation.

So, what are the rest of us ignorant, racially motivated, apartheid loving, bigoted non-minority Americans to make of all the post trial, smarmy, self absorbed, soul searching? The media midgets raced to judgment, blindly following Lemming-in-Chief, Chris Matthews off a progressive cliff while reveling in the relentless exploitation of their three favorite issues of gun control, color and class. As the urban areas teemed with racial tension, the Race Pimps shifted into overdrive with inflammatory rhetoric, hawking their grievance industry racket with the enthusiastic dedication of a TV pitchman peddling a Squatty- Potty on an infomercial.

Having followed the trial closely, one day as a spectator from the cheap seats in the Sanford courtroom, here are some reflections from an angry old white guy:

*THE WHITE HISPANIC

George Zimmerman appears to be a community minded -- albeit overzealous -- citizen (a politically incorrect term in Seattle but still in use in Florida nomenclature). While criminal overcharging is universally employed by prosecutors and is the grease that lubricates the wheels of plea bargain justice in our system of cut-rate jurisprudence, Special Prosecutor Angela Corey bypassed the Grand Jury process and moved directly to a inflated charge of 2nd degree Murder-- not to encourage a plea but for purely self serving political reasons. Given the shortage of genuine evidence, even utilizing a fawning, fact ignoring and cringe-inducing passionate strategy that appealed to raw emotion, the overcharge proved to be a burden that no prosecutors could possibly meet.

All that being said, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin was a true tragedy and Zimmerman is, at the very least , guilty of Felony Stupidity in the 1st degree. His situation is analogous to two basic, undeniable life principles; Murphy’s Law and Chekov’s Gun Principle . We’re all familiar with Murphy’s Law – “whatever can go wrong will go wrong”. For the uninitiated, “Chekov’s Gun” is a dramatic principle which requires every element in a narrative to be necessary and irreplaceable…“If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second chapter…it must go off”. In Zimmerman’s case, go off it did, forever altering countless lives.

Whatever good intentions may have motivated him that night, Mr. Zimmerman’s judgment couldn’t have been more flawed. While packing a 9 m.m., he foolishly pursued a bigger, stronger Trayvon who, (according to extracted cell phone data that the jury wasn’t allowed to see), was itching to “make his bones” on this pudgy white guy. Given the racially divisive political environment so prevalent in the country these days, he is indeed fortunate that he is not in Raiford State Prison, getting the shit kicked out him daily by African Americans that specialize in that particular discipline.

*THE LITTLE CHILD

From the very beginning of the jury selection and throughout the trial, Television depictions of Trayvon Martin seemingly went backwards in time; Trayvon as a semi-surly 17 year old, Trayvon as an young adolescent, Trayvon as a grade-schooler. By the time lead prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda referred to him as “this child” in his closing argument, it would not have surprised if a sonogram portraying an embryonic Trayvon had been displayed to the jury.

*THE STOOGES

Hampered by a case with very little real evidence, after every point he made during the course of the prosecution closing rebuttal, John Guy, using the word “Wow!” for emphasis 12 times, actually elevated it to his primary legal argument. However, compared to his pal Bernie, who, (in a ridiculous pantomime of Zimmerman’s sworn testimony), literally skipped and screamed about “Skittles” all the way through the state’s closing argument, Mr. Guy was a veritable Ben Matlock.

*THE FAILED OPPORTUNIST

At the State’s press conference immediately after the verdict, Angela Corey, the Governor appointed carpet bagging States Attorney and Special Prosecutor from Duval County, ignoring the fact that she had just blown the self-created political opportunity of a lifetime by failing to secure even a manslaughter conviction, acted as though she had just put away Charles Manson. Wearing more makeup than Emmet Kelly and dressed in some hideous ‘60’s cocktail outfit, she goofily smiled and ducked her way through questions from the press while professing her respect for the justice system and the jury’s verdict. Two days later, on an MSNBC TV interview, she called the verdict “wrong” and labeled George Zimmerman a “murderer”-- this from a sitting State’s Attorney. Mark O’Meara, lead defense counsel, speaking at a Florida Bar luncheon in Orlando recently, related that he has filed for sanctions against Ms. Corey’s office for withholding several critical pieces of evidence during the trial.

In addition, Ben Kruidbos, the former information technology director for Corey’s office, is suing her for wrongful termination alleging he was illegally fired after testifying in a judicial proceeding that Corey’s office refused to turn over all requested information to Zimmerman’s defense team.

With political hacks like her, it is little wonder that the rest of the nation at times views Florida with a significant degree of skepticism.

*THE HAS BEEN

Stevie Wonder announced that he will not play any concert date in Florida until the “stand your ground” statute is repealed. Ouch. No Stevie. This may start a trend that could bring the concert industry at Disney, Universal, Hard Rock Café and Sea World to its knees. My God! What if Milli Vanilli (“Girl You Know It’s True”) joined the boycott, or J.J. Jackson (“But It’s Alright”), or Shorty Long (“Here Comes The Judge”) or any of the countless under-employed acts of the 60’s and ‘70’s that haven’t had a chart song in 25 years. Stevie made the announcement from the stage of his latest gig at the Inuit Nation Regional Fair somewhere in the Canadian wilderness…not exactly the big room in Vegas. He is to Soul what Elvis in his final days was to Rock, a bloated legend, all rep and no talent who has been calling in his performances for over a decade. In point of fact, Florida needs Stevie like Fox News needs another blonde talking head. As much as he may be missed, the ignorant misguided Crackers in Florida, with a heavy heart, will simply have to struggle on without hearing (thankfully) one last screaming version of “ Living for the Cit-ay”.

*GHETTO WISDOM

Rachael Jeantel, a star witness for the prosecution, attempted to educate all of America on the difference between “Cracker” and “Cracka” and “ Nigger” and “Nigga” on yet another softball fest at CNN, an alleged news network that actually appeared to take this 19 ½ year old high school Junior seriously, describing her as “real”, “honest” and “genuine”. (Seriously? Her 15 minutes of fame aside-- has the state of play in our cultural discourse devolved to such a desperately low point that we are searching for enlightenment by scraping the bottom of the cognitive barrel of this functionally illiterate young woman? To quote attorney Guy …”wow”!)

With her legal mouthpiece by her side, adorned in a faux gold Mr. T starter set and in front of a studio audience who cheered every word they could understand, she maintained that neither designation was necessarily a slur but simply an appellation for a male or female acquaintance…white or black…or something…I think. Due to her elocutionary challenged delivery and her habit of lapsing into Ebonics style slang, whether on TV or on the stand, Ms. Jeantel had the singular quality of speech that consistently rendered her unintelligible. To properly probe the deepest sensibilities and reflective musings that would unlock the pearls of wisdom of this “unique” young woman, we’ll just have to wait for her (one episode) reality show, “15 minutes--Remembering Rachael”.

*JESSE AND AL—JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE

From the outset, recognizing the tremendous earning potential in this opportunity, the Race Hustling Reverends (Jesse and Al) were all over this like Rush Limbaugh on the buffet line at an all you can eat rib fest. Jetting down on their Gulfstreams, they arrived in Sanford to threaten, intimidate, extort and light the racial bonfires in an effort to gin up the locals. To prepare for the major marketing rollout, they packaged and positioned their new product with a brilliant sales slogan -- “ JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON”-- comparing him to Medgar Evers (a slain civil rights activist and a bona fide martyr), who, to my knowledge, was not prone to deliver a little “Woop-ass” on any available cracker and did not wear his pants below the crack of his ass.

Whatever Jesse Jackson may have accomplished for African American children with his self help oratory back in the day -- (“I-AM…SOM-BODY”!), it is clear his singular mission now is to perpetuate and maintain a victim class, which he has successfully expanded to Latinos, the LGBT community and other ignorant, socially disenfranchised fringe elements of society who are desperate enough to buy into his phony pitch. He is a Charlatan and a shakedown artist who long ago lost any credibility he may have once had. He still, however, possesses the chops to inflict severe damage on mainstream culture and civility, especially with his own piteous constituency of professional victims.

Having been involved in the “Justice” business in the past, Reverend Al is a regular rough-rider when it comes to racial rodeos, and this was far from his first. Lest we forget, 30 years ago the Rev was responsible for the Tawanda Brawley fiasco where he knowingly perpetrated an ongoing prevarication about the alleged 1987 gang rape of a 14 year old girl, falsely accusing a State Trooper, a prosecuting attorney and four other white men of the crime that never happened. Explaining his theory of social activism at the time (which became the template for his current “business” model), he said, “…I don’t care ‘bout no facts, I ain’t gonna pursue this legally, I gonna pursue this politically ”.

A virulent anti-Semite, Sharpton incited a race riot in 1998 at Jewish owned Freddy’s Fashion Mart in Harlem that resulted in a fire, killing seven people. Audio tapes recorded the professional bigot speechifying about “…blood sucking Jews” and driving out (of Harlem) “...White devils”. Sharpton has never apologized for either of these (or any other) incendiary incidents and one might think that somehow he could be held to account for the lives his self promoting bigotry and racism ruined. Not exactly. In America today, the only consequence of bad behavior is…wait for it—a TV show on MSNBC! No matter that the entire national viewership of this pathetic propaganda machine is probably less than the population of Sanford—you’re on TV with a license to promote your Jew baiting, Caucasian hating, class warfare. And Jesse and Al say America ain’t the land of opportunity.

These days Reverend Al has lost 100 lbs., has his hair styled in a professionally straightened “do”, (a greasy, Jackie Wilson Do-Wop style) and dresses in $3000.00 tailor made sharkskin suits (that never quite seem to fit). You can take the pimp out of the ‘hood, but you can’t take the ‘hood out of the pimp.

*THE MAGIC NEGRO—A “CONVERSATION ABOUT RACE”

And finally we come to President Obama, the “Magic Negro”, a term first used by L.A. Times op-ed writer David Ehrenstein, a Jewish, African American, gay man. (The only progressive base he hasn’t covered is the transgender category, but I’m guessing he would still be a shoo-in to fill virtually any cabinet post in the Obama White House). The term was used in an Ehrenstein op-ed piece to describe a non-threatening Black Man who eases the feeling of so-called white guilt over slavery, racial injustice and the salary exploitation of African Americans in the NBA.

Despite the myriad “phony” scandals ominously hanging over his administration, his Middle East foreign policy literally in flames and the shit really hitting the fan, the smartest guy in the room found it impossible to resist the temptation to take the opportunity to weigh-in. “When I said that if ‘I had a son, he would look like Trayvon’”, he proclaimed, “I was saying that Trayvon could be me 35 years ago”. Really? Well… maybe, if Obama at 17 was a swaggering, baggy panted, budding felon and gang-banger wannabe who, (cell phone records proved), was into guns, dope and street fighting. After nearly five years in office, Obama chooses this event, "The Trayvon Tragedy", to express his deep felt feeling of the urgency to begin “…a conversation about race in America”. Oddly, he made no mention of the 60 African American kids who perished in gun related violence in his hometown of Chicago that very weekend.

A conversation about race? I have been subjected to “conversations” about race virtually my entire adult life, ever since the summer of 1967 when, with fascinating incredulity, I watched the city of Detroit burn down from a Chris-Craft on the Canadian side of the Detroit River while drinking a cold Stroh’s. Conversations about race? I cannot remember a time when there wasn’t an ongoing conversation about race. So called Black “Leaders” love to focus on unsubstantiated, ethereal allegations of subconscious white racism, hate-based employment discrimination and nonsensical claims of “evisceration” of voting rights, laying the responsibility on the doorstep of white America in a dishonest attempt to justify the plethora of problems in the African American community. Public Defenders in the criminal justice system were fond of referring to this as the “TODDI” defense—“The Other Dude Did It”.

The facts, however, relate a somewhat different story. According to 2007 FBI statistics for “single offender victimization”, blacks committed crimes against whites at a rate eight times greater than whites against blacks. Those same stats found that a black male was 40 times more likely to assault a white person as the reverse, although outnumbered by whites 5-to-1 in the general population. Those same year statistics show 14,000 assaults on white women by African Americans—and alarmingly—not one case of a white sexual assault on a black female was found in the study.*

Despite the long standing, solid evidence of the numerous social issues in the African American community, including drug addiction, black on black crime, high school dropout and illegitimate birth rate – all self inflicted, bad behavior -- any “conversation” that that seeks to modify or criticize the conduct of the African American community inevitably results in the intimidating charge of racism. (A term so overused it has lost its meaning—i.e.; Tea Party proponents of “fiscally responsible small government” are, by progressive definition, racist.) Given the serious social pathologies so blatantly dismissed by black leadership, (from what political and financial yearning?), in what universe are the most serious problems in the black community deemed to be legally armed white Americans or racial profiling?

With the typical indifference of the casual bystander, Mr. Obama views these (and all national issues of critical import), with the aplomb of a man who has just arrived on the scene and is absolutely mystified by the goings on, as if he is not connected to any of it. Putting a top hat and tails on a dancing bear, doesn’t make him Fred Astaire and, at the end of the day, the “Chosen One”, the perpetual candidate turned President who would bring us together in a glorious Kumbaya moment, has revealed himself to be an empty suit, just one more false prophet, another fallen idol.

It appears that the Magic Negro has just about emptied his trick bag (although his draconian penchant for ignoring the rule of law by exercising Presidential decree is still his “go-to” illusion, a mainstay of his long running travelling campaign road show). One has to wonder when even Mr. Obama’s early vociferous supporters will ultimately be struck with a blinding flash of the obvious and realize their former fanciful optimism has finally morphed into a pitiful form of self delusion. But the seeds of fanaticism grab deep in the soul of the zealot, and once rooted can flourish, even in the closed eyes of night.

After all, a messiah like this doesn’t come along every day.

Well that’s about it for now. Heading to the little mountains of North Carolina, where the days are simple and slow, the cool evening breeze tickles the trees and one can cling to the notion that maybe America is the still the land where men, freeborn, refuse to be enslaved.

Freddie Van

(a "cracka" child of god)

*"Suicide of a Superpower: Will America survive to 2025”, Patrick J. Buchanan

LEAVE IT TO ‘BAMA

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:52:42 GMT

LIFE IN THE NEW AMERICAN BABYLON

“Wish a buck was still silver, back when the country was strong

Back before Elvis, before the Vietnam War came along

When a Ford and a Chevy would still last 10 years like they should

Is the best of the free life behind us now?

Are the good times really over for good?”

Merle Haggard

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

12/10/2012 at 8:54 am Eastern Daylight Time

Snugly sequestered in the little mountains in this corner of North Carolina, far from the rough and tumble of the racket’s rumble, I have read, for the last several months with varying degrees of interest, the internet commentary of the local talking heads on the scandalously sorry state of our ever devolving economy, culture and politics. As we continue to define deviancy down, the politics, of course, drives all of this insanity, culminating recently with a national Presidential campaign. So deceptively tawdry and classless was this shameful national embarrassment, it made any full blown white trash episode of Jerry Springer look like tea with the Queen of England. As the last few painfully polarizing months have illustrated, our political discourse has become so cynical, so hopelessly irredeemable, it would turn even Mother Teresa into $30.00 a throw crack whore.

It’s getting wicked ugly out there…uglier than the final scene of a Tarantino movie. Call me a bigoted, politically incorrect angry old white guy, but I’m sick of hearing how every sycophant candidate’s goal in life, (whether running for President or Dog Catcher), was to “create jobs” and “restore the Middle Class”. As if these professional government toadies ever created a job, (even had a job in the private sector) and who couldn’t give a self respecting third-worlder a run for his money managing an off-brand convenience store. In the meantime, the vaunted American “Middle Class” look like a swarm of locusts devouring a Federal Government entitlement cornfield, gobbling up whatever government swag they can lay their grubby little hands on, trampling each other to grab their SNAP cards, apply for their bogus SS disability, gratis cell phones and all the while whining that the “rich” aren’t paying their “fair share”. Face it, our once courageous and heroic American Middle Class has been relegated to a myth, a popular urban legend. Like a fading, past her prime Diva living on past rep, she is neither courageous nor heroic. The Middle Class…I say fuck ‘em, let them eat twinkies…which will probably be free.

We are, finally, inevitably, reaping the dubious rewards of 40 years of a dumbed-down public educational system and phony cradle to grave government programs that rewarded the indolent while penalizing the industrious, spawning a cultural about-face that embraces spurious politically correct policies of mindless self indulgence. This, of course, based on the discredited feel-good notion that every child -- regardless of talent, work ethic or attitude – is deserving of praise, all in the name of some absurdly comical concept of “self esteem”. Armed with no skills or ambition, possessing only a self important sense of self esteem induced entitlement and backed up by a bellyful of want and a mouthful of gimme, what else was left for these little malcontented miscreants but the Occupy Movement.

Ah yes, the Occupy Movement, the perfect analogy for the New America paradigm. As foolish as the rabid Tea Party aficionado may appear when they go all Paul Revere on us, beautifully bedecked in their breaches and three-cornered hats and quoting passages from “Atlas Shrugged”-- (a ridiculously reductive Ayn Rand fanciful flight of fiction that should be discarded after one’s junior year in high school along with “Catcher in the Rye”) -- they absolutely pale in comparison to the Latter Day Hippie Scum occupiers. Although the glorious “occupy” days of these malingering malefactors seem to be over and the “movement” changed nothing, they were the canaries in the coal mine of cultural change, a fateful futuristic foreshadowing of the new age. And yes, (lest you think this is merely a passing youthful phenomena), these bindle stiff’s are the very same rabble that will one day run whatever remains of this place.

Dressed as if they just crawled out of a Good Will box, the basic philosophy espoused by these self absorbed anarchistic vermin was more notional than concrete; private corporations exist only to employ the people and to serve the needs of the collective while recognizing that profit is an obscene attempt to rob society of its rightful compensation. I have my rights! Feed me! Clothe me! Give me a job! Pay off my college loan that took six years (at 25K per year) to earn a BA in Western African GLBT studies, only to find that the most consequential piece of information required for proficiency in the job for which they were qualified was “paper or plastic”.

The tactics employed to accomplish this confiscation of wealth and earnings of the so-called 1% by these class envy warriors was as ridiculous as the ideology they championed; physically interfere with business to ultimately bankrupt them, public fornication and shitting on cars. America, behold your future.

Although these delusional dopes made quite a splash for a while, the Occupiers were not the first youth “Movement” to take it to the streets. In May of 1971, my sophomore year in college, American college students still outraged over the National Guard execution of four protesters during a Kent State Vietnam War protest the previous spring were holding anti war rallies throughout the nation and one was planned for the second weekend in Ann Arbor where I was domiciled. Although sympathetic to the cause, I was not given to drinking the idealogical Kool Aid and was openly contemptuous of the zealots of any organized movement who were foolish enough to believe that Nixon would flip-flop and stop sending our young asses into some jungle hell-hole. I decided to make my way to the staging area at "The Quad" at the University of Michigan Law School - not for the high-minded noble strikers, for the best reason any 19 year old male could contemplate—I wanted to get laid. I had been on serious point; hot on the scent of a young, raven-haired beauty, a nubile Hippie chick we called “Flipper”.

I was on the rebound from a failed two year relationship when I met Flipper at party several weeks before. She was smart, athletic, with pert breasts and olive skin as smooth as fine cashmere, all sinew and muscle. For weeks she had been driving me crazy 24/7, the singular reason for my existence. Unfortunately, she was hooked up with some skinny pseudo Marxian poseur who was the only person I’ve ever known who claimed to understand the theory of dialectical materialism. He carried around a copy of Das Kapital and had an annoying habit of constantly quoting Engels and spewing all his commie claptrap about the evils of capitalistic materialism. Apparently the U.S. form of capitalism wasn’t evil enough for him to refuse to accept his showroom new Mustang fastback or the $350.00 per month stipend (a King’s ransom in those days), all compliments of his wealthy father, a tool and die mogul with some very profitable government contracts. This was a well-heeled subversive.

When Flipper surprisingly asked me to come along with her, the loser boyfriend and a few of her activist gal-pals to the University of Michigan, I thought I had a shot to make an end run on Mr. Marx. I was all in before I ever even saw the flop. After hard partying the first night, I never made it back to my off campus apartment and crashed in the dorms on campus with Flipper and Mr. Marx in the adjacent dorm room. That night it became obvious why she acquired the “Flipper” moniker.

As it turned out, carnal interaction brought out in her an alarming (yet thrilling) peculiarity. Even one room over, her frenzied passion pierced the concrete wall…indeed the vociferate cries could be heard throughout the entire floor. Simple uncontrolled shrieking, the intonation of mindlessly undirected “dirty talk” or even the classic petitioning of a celestial Deity apparently was not descriptive enough for this tiny temptress. Rather, she would emit a high-pitched chattering coital cacophony that sounded exactly like a porpoise in pain.

As I listened with jealous amusement, I remember thinking that this noisy show-stopping sexual soliloquy was so startlingly unnerving that it would have rivaled the ever-dependable ejaculatory delay method universally recognized as the “Mick Trick”. For the uninitiated, the “Mick Trick” was a practice utilized by the male component of the (traditional) coupling in which an image of jocks possessed of extreme testicularity, (i.e. Mickey Mantle) was mentally conjured in an effort to delay climax. It seldom worked, especially in those virile, vitamin-packed days of my puerile youth. For a motivated 19 year-old, one could conjure up the entire 1927 Yankee World Series Champs with zero effect on delaying ejaculation.

My stars being in perfect alignment, my luck changed that very next morning, after Flipper got into a hot-blooded row with her previous night’s partner, splattering him with cold pizza and beer as she gave him the bum’s rush. She invited me to breakfast and, artfully adopting a sympathetic hybrid character (a cross between Rambo and Phil Donahue), I chatting her up for several hours pretending to listen attentively to every word that poured out of that delicately sculptured pie-hole. Mission accomplished, she made a date to meet me at a popular campus night spot that evening. I spent the entire day practicing my witty lines and polishing my sophisticated “espirit d'escalier”. I was on a roll.

But disappointment was my lot. My cynical world view was validated that very evening in that campus bar when, searching the crowded club for my newly found soul mate, I stumbled upon her performing fellatio on a total stranger in the men’s room. So stupidly enamored was I with her charms, even in my bitterly disappointed mindset, I remember taking cold comfort in the fact that at least she had the class to find an empty stall.

Even though that was a time in America full of foment and volatility, the country still embraced a collective consciousness, a baseline which served as a dependable reference point. Success was not demonized but emulated and behavior had consequences—we all knew the rules. As corny as it may sound in this New America, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day--all were reminders of the collective consciousness of the country, not simply a buying holiday for discount furniture. Unfortunately today there are no more rules, only referees.

The face of the nation changes by the individuals and ideas that the people admire. Our current batch of leaders are only a symptom, merely a reflection, of our times and culture. As Republicans and conservatives scratch their heads and play the blame game over lost opportunities, they ignore the obvious reason for the failure to launch; the tipping point has long last arrived. The attitude and values of the country have finally jumped the shark as the majority of our citizens, like our politicians, have become professional moochers. Despite the loudly articulated arguments, everything the old time Republican Pols thought they knew about this place is wrong. An FYI to conservatives and folks over 55… Ladies and gentlemen, your America has left the building.

For sure, the American family model even 50 years ago was never the “Leave It To Beaver” pastoral ideal that many of us secretly longed for, but only a make-believe slice of Americana. Right or wrong, equitable or not, at the very least there was a righteous sense of certainty and clarity, which one could take for granted if operating under the mistaken assumption that God could only be on your side.

Life was easy, if not at times boring. There were no blacks or Hispanics in my neighborhood, save the domestics whose contempt was well hidden. We desperately clung to the fantasy that all athletes were clean cut and great role models, (my, we were stupid in those days), there were no graphic descriptions of feminine hygiene products or personal lubricants on TV and only boatswains mates and circus people had tattoos.

Despite all this bourgeois euphoria, I realized my pop would never be Ward and my family would never look like the Cleavers. As innocently quaint as this miniature universe may have been, some of us were capable (from what yearning?) of thinking outside this little Rockwellian box. In the midst of this clean-cut, healthy environment and all this button-down goodness, my shameful, super-secret dark fantasy at age 13 -- what occupied my thoughts for a good chunk of my waking hours during that time, (no doubt prompted by the my Parochial School education and regular paddlings from the stern and sexless Sister Mary of the Perpetual Misery), was to somehow work my way into a three-way with Barbara Billingsley and Dusty Springfield. (Ah, well…just one more entry on the bucket list I’ll never check off.)

But it’s the New America, where it is not only politically fashionable but de rigueur to play the American people for suckers. During the contemptible slop-throwing fest that passed for a political campaign, (in which the fundraising Bundlers and Super Pacs posted the sort of numbers one only sees on a McDonald’s sign), we were repeatedly subjected to what had to be the most poorly crafted piece of sophistry ever uttered by any POTUS; “…Americans are smart enough to realize that we can’t drill our way out of this (energy shortage)". What? While we sit on the largest oil and shale reserves in the world? Right. The next time I need to fill up my SUV (at $4.00 a gallon) I’ll just drive up to Solyndra and install solar panels on the roof.

Now I realize that I only have a couple of undergraduate degrees, a somewhat limited world view and clearly no intellectual match for, say, a tenured college professor who decries the very system that freely allows him to spew his nonsense. But, in what universe do these progressive clowns think that I and millions of people like me, are so unsophisticated, so naïve we could possibly believe their intricately nuanced and ridiculous argument that injecting more oil into the market would not lower the price of fuel? These political hacks, Progressives and Conservatives alike, most of whom have been suckling from one Federal tit or another since the earth cooled, who worship celebrity over accomplishment, have so little regard for the intelligence of the American people that they constantly insult us with their lame assertions, half truths and downright bullshit. For sure, there was a time that all this would be perceived as an extraordinarily worrisome predicament. Today, however, it is simply the “new” normal. We have met the enemy… and he is us.

These days one could easily slide into some dark depression, absolutely apoplectic with the current state of political affairs, a gnawing sense of foreboding, an alienating feeling that we are all running headlong into some dark abyss. Not me. My existence is validated by my cynicism. In fact, I’m not even disappointed—although I have long believed the only difference between depression and disappointment was simply one’s level of commitment. My commitment level has been running on empty for quite some time -- 25 years in fact -- ever since the unfair incarceration of James Brown (The hardest Working Man in Show Business) for an unfortunate wife beating incident. (Apparently, his claim “…the ugly bitch made me do it” was an insufficient legal defense). In the not so immortal words of Alexander Pope, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

Yes, life will go on. Despite Climate Change, the looming fiscal cliff and apparent cultural implosion, the sun will continue to rise every morning; it will just shine on a world with which many of us are unfamiliar. And for those unfortunate souls who are contemplating taking a rope up to the attic, who are truly adamant about maintaining a super-elevated level of depression and despair…take heart. There is plenty of hope to fuel your hopelessness. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait nearly two full weeks until December 21st for the end of times.

Go figure. Who would have ever thought the Mayans would be the optimists?

Six Minutes with Bill

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:52:21 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

6/16/2008 at 5:43 pm Eastern Daylight Time

It has been said that the only thing new in this old world is just the history you don’t know... if a man lives long enough he will see just about everything this world has to offer. And so it was, several weeks ago, I, Freddie Van, former Impresario, dreamer of large dreams, cancer survivor and all around Bon Vivant (in the classic sense) was not overly shocked when, just before Christmas, I had the opportunity to meet the Hon. William Jefferson Clinton. Actually, it was not the first time I had met a former President. In 1989, my company hosted a convention of the International Association of Firefighters, (an AFL-CIO affiliate) in Washington D.C., and Ronald Reagan, inexplicably, made an appearance in our hospitality room. He shook hands with the plebian working stiffs, chatted with the State Firefighter Presidents and smiled his way goofily through what appeared to be the initial signs of dementia. I had my picture taken with the Great Man: a fifteen second snap of a hand shake and then I got the bum’s rush. At the time it truly appeared to me to be a major disappointment. Looking back at it now, I can honestly say that I don’t give a shit. For whatever reason, they never even sent me the Goddamn picture.

At any rate, due to some serious Democrat connections (one of our rare Democrat member’s sister being married to Terry McAuliffe, the former head of the DNC), Slick Willie’s presence at our golf course was quite an affair, what with the Republican rabble, the Democrat sycophants and the Secret Service contingent (serious dudes in wrap-around glasses and really bad suits) and all. He showed up to shoot his substantial weight and attend a quick early evening fundraiser. Basically he blew into town on a G-3, played a six hour round on our newly re-vamped Steve Smires golf course with a few golfing non-notable Democrats and attended a quickie fundraiser. No press, no questions, no muss, no fuss. Just a $2300.00 [American] intimate evening with a few hundred perfect strangers. Rather a “show me the money” moment that was attended by trial attorneys, political gadflies and other well meaning but misinformed well-heeled liberals.

When he finally finished his round, the former President, rather than driving to the cart barn area which was well attended by Hoi Polloi membership, decided to avoid the great un-washed denizens and take a short-cut through our veranda to get to the men’s grill and into the locker room to wash up for the evening’s festivities.

As fortune would have it, my stars being perfectly aligned, and I, being always on the correct side of history, happened to be holding court on the veranda with my faithful contingent of “Porch Puppies”, long-time members in medium standing at the club whose only refuge is outside under a covered patio area, away from the reach of the chinless, faceless “Mem-Bahs” where we smoke cigars, act out in a politically incorrect fashion and drink liquor to excess. As Clinton made his way up the veranda steps, I asked, in my most ingratiating tone, “How’d you play, Mr. President?” He mumbled some response about not quite playing to his handicap and unexpectedly came up to our table and shook hands all around, a surprisingly small hand for a rather large guy, soft yet firm. “How are ya’…. how ya’ doin’ ” he intoned in a rather high pitched, melt-in-your-mouth southern accent as he moved around the table, showing his best political smile.

About 30 minutes later (several decent MacCallans later) I headed in to use the bathroom located in the locker room. As I was coming out of the urinals to wash my hands, Clinton was shaving at one of the sinks. He was shirtless, clearly an aficionado of fast food. Our first “Black President” was as white as an old-timey Frigid-Aire, had an angry purple scar running down his pasty chest and made Edgar Winter look downright swarthy. He was working his neck with quick, upward strokes and singing Bobby Darin’s cover of “Beyond The Sea” with a thin, small, raspy voice that while not strong, was perfectly in key. He used his voice like a musician would use an instrument, delicately working around the melody with faultless timing and cadence in a southern inflection, soft as smoke;

“Somewhere, across the sea

some where waiting for me….”

In full view of the Secret Service men I move to an area a few sinks down from Clinton just as another member walks into the bathroom. “Freddie, are you giving the President political advice now?” He is a rabid republican with a bad toupee I call “Muskrat Slim” because it appears as if he is constantly wearing a dead varmint on his head. Clinton doesn’t look directly at me, rather catches my reflection in the mirror as I wash my hands. He flashes me a quick smile of recognition. “How you doin’ man?” he asks in that thin whiskey voice. Very cool. Very hip. Oddly familiar and as easy as an old pair of jeans. Distinctly un-Reagan-esque. The kind of Presidential greeting that could only come from a cat that could proudly make a public distinction between boxers and briefs.

“I’m well, Mr. President. How’d you like our golf course?” I respond. He talks about the severe greens and the difficulty of the course. I tell him that we’ve been closed for 7 months for the revamp and that Smires did the same thing here as he did at Isleworth, where Tiger and all the PGA Billionaire luminaries play, (along with a plethora of NBA stars and other convicted felons.) He allows that he has heard of Smires and bemoans the fact that, due to his work with his foundation and the road work for his wife, he just can’t play much anymore. I am made affable by multiple MacCallans and am in an expansive mood. I do not challenge the idea, (after watching a few swings earlier from the veranda), that his lack of play is the singular problem with his game; I feel his pain.

As he finishes his shave, he suddenly, curiously, takes the razor and shaves the top of his nose with the same quick, short strokes used on his neck. It may be useful to note here that he has a prodigiously broad beak, loaded with the burst capillaries of the Bourbon drinker. However, in my 57 years, I have never seen anyone (even the most Neanderthal, knuckle-dragging Italians on Detroit’s East Side) shave the top of their nose.

Done shaving, he turns to me with a conspiratorial smirk. “Ya’ll comin’ tonight,” meaning the fundraiser. Just a little soiree he and I and the Secret Service guys are privy to. He gives me a wink (I’ve always envied guys that can wink; I never could) and a look I’ve seen on TV a thousand times, but never experienced in person. It’s a sincere forthright look that says I’m his guy. A look (no shit) that says he’ll be with me “till the last dog dies.” For whatever foolish reason, I feel like I’m being seduced, pulled in by his facile manner after a few minutes of inane chit-chat. Obviously, all this “Life Changing Experience” shit that happens to you when some unexpected calamity takes over your life (such as prostate cancer) has turned me into some Sissy-Boy, a bedwetting-weak-willed wussy, unable to resist this charismatic charlatan’s pitch. Clearly, you don’t need to waterboard my ass to get me to flip-flop. I’m troubled by his untroubled demeanor (which is incredibly effortless and natural). More significantly, I am puzzled by my reaction to it. Curiously, and probably due some unspeakable frailty in my character, I want this guy to like me. The only thought that crazily jumps into my mind, however, is that the greatest trick the Devil ever played on mankind was to convince man that the Devil didn’t even exist.

Now, I must explain that after 30 years in the promotion business playing upwards of 100 shows a year, more shows than I can remember, I have waded through more bullshit than your average big city public defender. So this ain’t my first rodeo. For all those years I navigated my way through a toxic waste dump of deceptive dealing, interacting with three basic types of people, none of whom could locate the truth with a AAA roadmap. They were, (in descending order), 1) The Performing Artists (“The Talent”) who, out of some deep seated pathetic paranoid privation found it necessary to attempt to convince everyone to love them and would work you to death for the smallest compliment. 2) The Hustlers and Carney’s who, due to serious character flaws, laziness and outright greed would attempt to sell you something, (an act, a venue, a failed promotion) that would separate you from your money quicker than a Personal Injury attorney chasing an ambulance. 3) The Lackey’s and Malcontents who were malingerers and hangers-on and who needed to hook-up or stay hooked, would tell three lies when one truth would suffice and would prevaricate at the slightest provocation. All of them had Doctorates in shmooze. But, liars, thieves or sycophants, they all had that quality that in the “bid-ness” they call “It”. I have literally heard bullshit from the best. But clearly, compared to this guy they were all rank amateurs. Even when you know Clinton is shmoozing you, you want to believe. When they talk about the power of his personal appeal, the pundits are correct; he is “all that”.

“Unfortunately, Mr. President, I’m a wall to wall, card carrying conservative and I won’t be going. But good luck,” I reply. I like the way the “card carrying conservative” rolls off my tongue easily, showing him that I’ve got a little cachet, that he’s not the only one around here with some pretty “smooth chops.” I extend my hand and he takes it, again that soft, but not weak grip. It is a casual, almost careless handshake of a self-absorbed ‘Boomer born of money or politics and who, clearly, has an inexhaustible fascination with himself. The handshake of a man who has shaken a million hands and absolutely delights in basking in the glow of his own affirmation, who just exudes the feeling that he gets it, and pretty soon you, too, will understand that it is about him, that he is the show. Very smoothly, he places his left hand on my right arm and gently turns me around in a casual but practiced maneuver. Still shirtless, his expansively pallid paunch dripping over his belt buckle, he leads me down the center corridor of the locker room in the direction of the locker he is using. The Secret Service men fall in quickly with military precision, drafting a few unobtrusive paces behind.

“Freddie, let me ask ya’, who y’all like in those Republican primaries.” I’m thrown off balance by the use of my name until I remember that Muskrat Slim used it only moments before. Very crafty, this one. I regain my composure when I realize that finally, after a lifetime of not being appreciated, a world leader is asking my opinion on some serious topic, and not just on some crummy internet or telephone survey, either. At long last, my time has come; I will get my ultimate due… and after only 57 years. Oh, how the Gods have smiled down upon me favorably this afternoon. Clinton, who is universally recognized as a world renown and astute political operative, must see something in me or why ask such an important question? Who knows where this sort of “Man on the Street” type of dialogue could lead? Guests spots for your basic “common man” insight and analysis into U.S. politics and its geo-political ramifications on CNN, Fox or maybe “The View.” (Believe me, I’d teach those little ladies a little something about the reality of the vicissitudes of life). My mind virtually leaps at the prospect of the myriad opportunities that this situation may present.

Clinton’s pace slows as we approach the locker he is using and I snap back from my quixotic reverie and casually glance over at him standing next to me where he is waiting patiently for an answer his question. The question? Was there a question? Jesus, what was the question? My mind reels. In my dream-like state, I have already completely forgotten the question. Suddenly my fortune takes a decided turn for the worst and in my panic I scour my scotch saturated brain to remember even the question. My God, I’m blowing it. No CNN. No Fox. Not even an opportunity to set those lazy broads right on the View. Abruptly, unexpectedly I rise to the occasion and scrambling, recall his query and give the only answer that instantly pops into my head. “I’ll tell you who I don’t like” I say proudly, recovering some of my self assuredness. “I really don’t like Huckabee!” (This is completely true. The bullshit religiosity, the 5 o’clock shadow, the little sneaky, smarmy smile smacks of Nixon, and I am very leery of this cat). I give added emphasis to the last word for dramatic effect, proud that I at least came up with some sort of an answer, one that demonstrates that I’m an open thinker, capable of seizing the nuance of every situation. Indeed, I congratulate myself that my quick thinking has put me right back on track.

Clinton smiles, bites his lower lip and gives a small, almost imperceptible head bobble. According to an Esquire article I read years ago, this is the body language he shows when he is getting ready to lie. In the parlance of poker, it is his “tell.” He is about to dissemble. “Oh, I like ole’ Mike,” his head bobble a little more pronounced. “He’s a Razorback, ya’ know,” the ex-president says, apparently forgetting that Huckabee was one of the first politicians nationally that called for his resignation during the impeachment debacle. “He’s a real good ole’ Boy,” he says as his head bobble shifts into overdrive, about to vibrate right off his doughy shoulders.

Clinton begins to tick off all the major Republican hopefuls; Romney (knows him from the National Governors conference), Giuliani (because he’s a New York state resident now and was with him during 9/11), McCain (a good man in the Senate). In front of the locker now, one of the Secret Service guys opens a box and extracts a shirt (a red, small-checked Burberry…$185.00 [American] off the shelf at the Lord and Taylor store on in mid-town Manhattan), and holds it up, like a well-armed valet, for Clinton to put his arms through the sleeves. The remaining Secret Service guy, a rather large fellow, black as a stick of licorice who resembles and has the menacing stoicism of football great Jim Brown, is in the immediate area and steps into the end of the aisle. Looking left then right, he holds out the white palms of his hands, bringing them up above his waist, lifting his ill-fitting J.C. Penny suit coat and in the process displays his 9mm equalizer strapped across his broad chest in a shoulder holster. (I learned afterward that at least one Secret Service man must have both hands free when ever the President is in a “public venue.” Clinton ignores the conspicuously official exhibition of his bodyguard, “That Romney, he just looks presidential, doesn’t he,” says Clinton. He pronounces “doesn’t he” with an Elvis like, velvet drawl “dun ‘ne”. “He’d be a great candidate. Y’all like him?” I actually am kind of winging it here not having given any of this political shit a whole lot of thought. My political philosophy these days basically runs in the direction that voting only encourages more of these idiots to throw their hat in the ring. How else can you explain the fact that the last few elections we have had record setting voter turn-out and today we have a standing room only crowd of imbeciles running for public office. Life is way too short and I have pretty much removed myself from the political process; the idea of listening to political talk radio is off-putting. I would rather be locked in a room for the rest of my life, forced to listen to Yoko Ono albums.

As Clinton buttons his new shirt, I suddenly I come up with the perfect musing upon which to depart that has just the precise touch of humor. “I tell you, Mr. President, I like Fred Thompson.” This is, of course, complete bullshit, a canard of the first order. “My wife’s name is Jeri, and I would really love to see a ‘Fred and Jeri’ combo in the White House. Two for the price of one!” I exclaim. I am ebullient, virtually beaming, nearly unable to contain myself at this clever stroke of levity.

Clinton stops his buttoning and glances deliberately over at the Secret Service men followed by about a 15 second pregnant pause. I’m a little confused and look around to see if there is some activity in our immediate area I’m missing. In unison, they all slowly look over at me as if I had just slithered out of some primordial soup and asked them to “pull my finger.” I recognized that look. It was the identical look I remember seeing on my younger brother’s face 40 years ago when, in the middle of the season on “Bewitched”, inexplicably, without any explanation whatsoever, they switched the actors who played Darin, (Elizabeth Montgomery’s love-interest/husband). I remember the look on his perplexed and disappointed 6 year-old countenance. For whatever reason, he was a huge Dick York fan (the original Darin.) It was a look that said simply… “What the fuck?” (For the record, although he has a successful medical practice in upstate Michigan, I do not believe he has ever fully recovered.)

I feel the grin on my face slowly fade. My unfailing sense of timing tells me right now is probably a good time to get out of there. I extend my hand once again, “Well, Mr. President, it’s been nice chatting with you. I’ll let you go. Good luck tonight.” They are still looking at me like I’m growing antenna out of the top of my head. He shakes my hand and, biting his lower lip and giving the faintest head bobble says, “You bet. It’s been….great… talking with you.” He virtually trips over the word “great” as he dons his sport jacket. I back out of the aisle, afraid to turn my back on Jim Brown. I force a smile that says, “have a nice life” and beat feet out of there.

Meanwhile, back on the veranda the word has drifted out about my tete-a-tete with Clinton. I ignore all questions regarding our little visit, instead show my right hand, palm up to the Porch Puppies. “Sorry, can’t talk about the meeting…but Boys, shake the hand that shook the hand of JFK, the Pope, Yassar Arafat and Monica Lewinski.” Sometimes, some things are better left unsaid.

Life continues to be a complete mystery to me as I continue my great walk Home into a setting sun, my history dogging my footfalls, collar turned to the future, heels hitting heavily. I revel in the many twists and turns on my path, realizing finally that our journey is short enough and our time here too brief and that Life, is indeed, a funny old dog.

Antoine, Eddie and Me: A Summer Tale

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:52:19 GMT

Look deep into the April face

A change is clearly taking place…

Lookin’ for the Summer

The eyes take on a certain gaze

And leave behind the Springtime days…

Go lookin’ for the Summer

The time has come when they must go

To play the passion out that haunts them so…

I’m still lookin’…

Lookin’ for the Summer

Chris Rea

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

6/6/2008 at 7:45 pm Eastern Daylight Time

The Blue Ridge Mountains, without preamble or warning, surrendered winter in a single grandiose weekend with all the stunning finality and drama of a late round Joe Louis left hook. The brisk Northern breezes gave way to the sudden springtime sunshine, baking the face and arms, an old friend come back to visit. And again, for at least one more year, reminding us that even in this seemingly endless and frigid season, with spring comes reason, floating gently upon a soft rhythm that is pleasing to the ear; an uncomplicated rhyme that’s easy to hear.

Most of my ring necks and stately wood ducks have yet to return, although I believe I’ve spotted Eddie the Alpha Duck. He has apparently scouted ahead in advance of his crew and has reestablished himself as the Duke of Duckdom, the Big Wheel water fowl on this little portion of the lake. He is truly a magnificent animal, his iridescent feathers of indigo blue and deep green shine like a bright neon light in the sparkling sunlight as he maneuvers effortlessly through the placid waters. He remains confident of his preeminent position, preening and emitting the occasional righteous squawk accompanied by an Oscar winning, wing fluttering warning at some perceived trespasser. He is, I fear, more form than substance; more noise than nobility. His message, however contrived, is always loud and clear; do not fuck with this duck.

In a Single Malt induced haze several summers ago, because of his aggressive and provocative nature, I named him Eddie after a long forgotten high school acquaintance named Eddie Yast, a hockey player at the neighboring South Lake High in the late ‘60’s. And it was through Eddie that I met and came to know, briefly, a very strange young man named Antoine Saggat. So listen. Let me tell you a story of a different time and place, the fabric of which has worn old and thin, an almost forgotten shadowy memory, nearly lost to us. Like the summer belongs to children, this was our season, a time that belonged to us when life was still all shiny and fresh and brimming with the excitement of inexperience and foolish youth; a story of a time when the music was transformative (before it’s icons cashed in to make Chevy commercials) and influenced the culture of an entire generation in a unique yet different way. It is story about Eddie and Antoine and that fateful early summer night long ago in 1968 when Eddie convinced Antoine to blow up the Draft Board building in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But wait… I’m getting ahead of the tale.

Actually, Eddie did play some hockey when he wasn’t suspended or in trouble with school authorities or some law enforcement agency or on the “lam.” (He remains the only individual I have ever known who, from time to time, was a lamister.) Eddie was of medium build, quick and menacing and intelligent in a wily, wounded wild animal sort of way. I am not sure if Turrets Syndrome was even a diagnosable disease 40 years ago, but I am convinced that he was the first person I have ever known who had it. Eddie’s vulgarity was as prolific as it was legendary, throwing “F” bombs, the “C” word and stringing together myriad other obscenities in a seemingly endless display of pornographic imagery that to this day still reverberates in my memory. He was the Picasso of profanity, a true genius in his medium, using coarse and offensive language the way an artist would work on a canvas in oils, acrylics or water colors.

In today’s government public school educational gulags, Eddie would have been pumped up with enough psychotropic drugs to give a respectably sized circus elephant hallucinations. Every psychologist and counselor in his school would have been assigned to him on a full time basis and of course gulag administrators would feel obligated to provide grief counselors for all those victims that Eddie so creatively threatened, beat up or scared nearly to death. But 40 or so years ago we were woefully ignorant of how uncaring and thoughtlessly callous our society really was and so, for the most part, they treated Eddie like a selfish, self absorbed reprobate, just another wise-ass punk, which of course was exactly what he was.

In fairness, it should be noted that Eddie never really had much of a chance, right from the get-go. His twice divorced father paid Eddie’s mom (with whom Eddie lived) the princely sum (in 1968) of $1200.00 a month “stay away” money to live in a modest home and be supplied with all the vodka she could drink. And drink she did… 24/7. From the exterior the home was a well maintained 3 bedroom brick affair in a reasonably nice area, but the interior was a wreck, a complete shithole. Dirty dishes piled up 2 feet high in the kitchen, literally dozens of empty and discarded fifths of Smirnoff strewn about the house in virtually every room. Except Eddie’s bedroom, which was immaculate; bed fastidiously made with sharp military corners, carpet vacuumed, clothes hung in the closet, all perfectly aligned. “You have a personal maid or something,” I asked upon one of my rare visits. “Nope. My dad says a sloppy bedroom is a sign of weakness and a disorganized mind,” Eddie replied in a surprisingly lucid non-profane or confrontational manner. This was a somewhat puzzling revelation in that Eddie, to show his appreciation for all the profound patriarchal advice and financial support given by his dad, would routinely drive his old Plymouth every other week or so to his Pop’s condo 10 miles away and knock off a side-view mirror or an antenna from his father’s 225 Electra. His tool of choice for this hardware removal was a cut-down Dick McAuliffe Model Louisville Slugger. Once, en route to some party, I was an unsuspecting witness to one of Eddie’s outbursts. “Just gonna stop off at my dad’s for a second” he said. Out of the car, he grabbed the Louisville Slugger and got down to business, banging away at his father’s ride. “Fuck” (slash) “You” (slash) “You” (slash) “Fucking” (slash) “Prick.” Totally out of wind, Eddie hesitated momentarily, collecting his composure. Then in one final fiery outburst he attacked the deuce-and -a -quarter with a vengeance; “This and this and this you fucking prick,” And with one last gasp…”and this” and then, completely spent physically he gently laid the bat (a gift some years before from his father) in the backseat and said …”Fuck it, let’s go,” .

While Eddie clearly had some anger issues, he was also possessed of an oddly, seductive and persuasive charm often found in bi-polar and schizophrenic people and other fruitcakes with some form of mental aberration .With a canary-eating twinkle of the eye, he constantly appeared to be bemused at some private joke that he might let you in on if the mood struck him. He was also abrasive, irrational, disloyal to a fault, manipulative, capable of extreme violence without warning and, with the wary eye of an individual who believes in absolutely nothing, trusted absolutely no one. At the tender age of 17, I thought he was the most exciting guy I had ever known and, for that winter and spring of ’68, before his insanity completely outran him, he was exhilarating to be around.

Eddie was, in fact, as crazy as a shithouse rat and particularly crazy when it came to…well, virtually everything, really—but certainly when it came to the game of hockey, which he basically considered to be little more than the World Wrestling Association on ice, only with real chains and chairs. And with an added bonus of legally getting to carry your own personal weapon, in full view of spectators, school administrators and referees and use it for a variety of purposes, including whipping a rock-hard rubber disc at the head of an unknowing opponent (or teammate for that matter) with whom he may have had some sort of disagreement. Yes, Eddie had a profound love for the game of ice hockey.

Once in a tournament game at old Olympia, he and his teammate (and gullible old pal) Larry Robberts, in a totally unprovoked action, pulled bicycle chains (I am not making this up) out of their hockey pants before official even dropped the puck the for the opening face off at center ice. No one was seriously injured in the fracas, although the sharp edged bicycle chains were being waved overhead, lariat style, dangerously close to eyeballs and teeth. One unfortunate wingman, apparently unaware that opening face-offs included bicycle chains in the circle, sustained a gash on the forehead which by all accounts bled profusely, causing a hospital visit where he received 6 stitches.

Eddie, being Eddie, did what he always did when he was caught inciting havoc: he ran. Or, more accurately, he skated (he was quite a strong skater) with all the officials and opposing players in hot pursuit. When he was booted from the team for the third and final time Eddie laughed it off. Hockey, after all, without mischief was not much of a game. Larry, who also was booted and who actually wanted to play hockey was crestfallen, inconsolable, drawn into another complicated web of misfortune once again by his good buddy.

As you may have guessed, Larry was not exactly the brightest bulb on the chandelier and this certainly was not the first time he had been manipulated by Eddie. Larry, however, had several qualities that could recommend him. He was an affable young man, just over six feet, handsome in that large lipped, heavy browed knuckle-dragging Cro-Magnon fashion and what was seriously impressive about the lad, girls -- inexplicably-- simply fell all over him. A young fellow with a sharp eye could make a pretty good living just off old Larry’s leftovers.

Perhaps Larry’s most intriguing quality was (from my standpoint coming from an all boy Catholic Prep School) …he got laid on a regular basis. And not by some dirty-legged East-Side skanks either. By real girls. Cool girls. Pretty blondes. Stunning brunettes. All high-assed and long-lashed, smelling sweetly of citrus and cinnamon. Girls so attractive that even the idea of conversing with them would catapult me into spasms of fright so overwhelming that I would nearly shit in my hat or blubber nonsensically, a hopeless Gomer Pyle attempting to explain the theory of relativity to a physicist. The idea that a guy my age could be a PLAYBOY and could command women to do his bidding for his own personal gratification was an epiphany, a fantastically novel revelation that could deliver me from all that religiously induced guilt and testosterone build-up that plagued me on a daily basis. Crack Larry’s “Secret,” unlock the mystery that was female, and the world would be my oyster; life would take on an entirely unfamiliar yet gratifyingly agreeable dimension. Daydreams of adoring, pouty-faced, scantily clad chicks lounging about, visions of velvet smoking jackets in studies with mahogany covered walls, Meerschaum pipes and drinking Cold Duck out of long stem glasses occupied my every waking moment. (At that age, Cold Duck was universally believed to be the finest wine on the planet; my how relentlessly ignorant we truly were.) While I was wasting my time working on those lame cornball pick-up lines to use on these little snotty chicks at those ridiculous “Sock-Hops,” humiliated and reduced to some groveling dimwitted Don Juan, a pathetic back-seat beggar in my mom’s Mustang, this guy, without even trying, was literally bursting at the seams with a superabundance of split-tail.

When asked the secret of his success, Larry, never known for his loquaciousness, would just shrug his husky shoulders, unconsciously lay his thick fingers over his crotch and wrinkle his massive brow, creating the impression that the effort expended in even this minimally introspective thought process was stretching the synapses in his brain to the breaking point, giving him a headache. “Dunno,” he would mumble thickly, sounding like a mildly retarded James Dean. “I’m just here...then they come here and …” slowly the thought would float away and he would abandon his hopelessly inept attempt at explanation. One might well have asked a honey bee to explain the pollination process. His secret, whatever it might have been or from what source it originated, much to my disappointment, in the end, would never be revealed.

After serving his school suspension for the “Bicycle Chain Affair” (as it came to be known) and with no hockey practice and time on his hands, Eddie was at loose ends, which was always a dangerous place for him to occupy. As it turned out, a young, well meaning and hopelessly naive high school counselor got Eddie a job as a cook at a “Clock” restaurant where the counselor dined frequently and knew the proprietor. The job was a condition of his return to school, where all Eddie’s friends were killing time. Under the theory that Jesus made everyone good at something, it was not surprising that Eddie, too, had a special gift. As it turned out, Eddie was a terrific short order cook, having picked up the skill working in his uncle’s restaurant for a few summers. Never one for real work, Eddie maintained that the real reason he actually took the job with his uncle was to case the operation to see if an opportunity existed to rob the place. But Eddie’s uncle or aunt, aware of his rakish quasi-criminality, always opened and closed and deposited the cash receipts nightly and even Eddie would stop short of strong arm robbery of a relative… if he could easily be identified.

Over the next several weeks Eddie excelled in his new position. Glowing progress reports were forthcoming from the various shift managers for whom Eddie worked. They reported on his dedication, reliability, trustworthiness and respectful demeanor. In short, all the character traits for which Eddie was not known. Now, anybody who was even slightly acquainted with Eddie’s background and warped view of society should have known something was up. Anyone, that is, who wasn’t drinking the Kool-Aide and buying into all the bleeding heart collectivist commie claptrap would know, would have to know, that something was terribly, terribly, amiss.

What was amiss was that Eddie would routinely piss in the pickles and spit in the various dishes he would create with such reportable diligence and ingenuity. In a master stroke of debauchery, his “piece-de-resistance,” he cut his soups with dishwater and disguised the taste by added extra spices. What Eddie enjoyed the most was the more he screwed with their food, the more the patrons raved about all his dishes, especially his “Soup de Jour.” While he was an equal opportunity food saboteur, he always made a prodigious effort whenever whipping up a “Blue Plate” special for one of his “special” friends, namely the shift managers who had so lauded his performance or the counselor who got him the job in the first place. Whenever Eddie would doctor-up the entrees for one of his special buddies he would give one of the busboys a quarter to play A-3, his favorite jukebox tune (in those days they had juke boxes in every joint.) It was a Motown (what else) cover of “If I were A Carpenter” and Eddie would peer with the intensity of a poet into the winter darkness out the huge window facing Mack Avenue and watch the snowflakes fall, as big as silver dollars, and listen to Smokey’s soulful rendition:

“If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady

Would you marry me anyway

Would you have my baby…

If a tinker were my trade

Would you still find me

Carrying the parts I made

Followin’ close-up behind me…”

And while he may have pissed and spat in their food, one could never say that Eddie didn’t take care of his friends. Such was the essence, the soul of the boy. He was truly bad to the very bone.

The counselor, obviously unaware of his prodigy’s real performance on the job and believing Eddie to be making tremendous progress, was proud of his apparent success in turning around the life of a young man and decided to expand his fledgling “School/Work” program. As history would illustrate, hubris led him to make his fatal mistake.

As the story goes, another of his “problem” kids was one Antoine Saggat, a 19 year-old glue sniffing high school junior who had elevated underachievement to a noble art form. Antoine had shoved so many toxic chemicals into his body in the previous 5 years he would have been eligible for an EPA Super Fund clean up grant. Another irretrievable loser, Antoine also came from an ill-fated background. His mom was a tiny, sometime employed hatchet-faced woman, mean as a snake. She had the annoying habit in conversation of finishing the last several words of each and every one of your sentences, speaking along with you. The poor woman was a true religious whackjob who attended mass daily and had more Blessed Virgin candle altars scattered throughout the house than an East Side Italian family expecting the Pope for dinner. His dad was a hapless traveling sewing machine peddler, a perennial steak-knife set winner in the Singer Company sales contests, whose territory covered a piece of geography ranging from southeast Michigan all the way up to South Dakota. On one road trip made during the dismal depths of a Midwest winter, upon arriving in some small town in Wisconsin en route to Pierre and having sold not a single machine, gave away his sample unit and just kept on moving, following the sun in a westerly direction. It was as if he were just chucking all the bad Samsonite he’d been dragging around his whole unhappy life; just put it down and moved on. If one could encounter this much crushing heartache by the time you hit Racine, how much more could one man take by the time he stumbled into Pierre? As the story goes, his freedom secured, he was never heard from again.

Basking in his first success, the foolish young counselor implored the restaurant owner to take on another young man. The owner was ecstatic; of course he would take on a second project, even if Antoine had absolutely no marketable skills. They agreed that every man had to start somewhere and the jumping off point for Antoine would be bussing tables. From there he would begin his meteoric ascent up the Hospitality Service ladder to the kitchen where he would graduate to the lofty position of 2nd dishwasher. After that, his future life plan clearly delineated, for Antoine, the sky would be the limit. They also agreed that if he was half as talented as Eddie, he would be quite a find. The restaurant owner thought he was fortunate indeed to have this young counselor supplying him with cheap, hardworking, first class, white American labor, what with all these crazy Negroes burning down our cities and the hippie scum agitators infesting the entire nation like vermin. Yes, the restaurant owner could count his blessings. It really was great to be an American.

Antoine was desperate to remain in high school as a 19 year-old senior, even at a marginal level to avoid the draft. In dire need of some form of cash flow to feed his ever burgeoning glue habit and in trouble again with the authorities for using gasoline to light another low-life miscreant’s head on fire in a drug misunderstanding, Antoine sucked it up and reluctantly accepted the position.

Although Antoine had sampled the full range and variety of mind expanding pharmaceuticals that the ‘60’s had to offer, his drug of choice was still Testers glue, used primarily by young American dweebs to build plastic model cars and airplanes. Antoine developed his glue habit at the gentle age of 13, and his addiction was, in and of itself, the stuff from which legends are made. In a moderately stressful day, Antoine was known to inhale upwards of 6 jumbo tubes of Testers, sniffing the sticky substance from an ever present plain brown lunch bag which he carried around constantly. In order to divert teacher attention from the real purpose of the lunch bag, the sack also contained several pieces of half rotten fruit and a sandwich that was made in 1965. No matter. Antoine, thin as a reed, seldom ate any real food, subsisting solely on Frito’s, Black Crows and Mellow Yellow.

Although in the middle ‘60’s sniffing was not illegal, Antoine had purchased so many tubes of Tester’s from various area hobby shops over the years that the shop owners, in a cursory effort to cover their asses, had begun to require him to purchase a model of some description along with the tubes of glue. This ridiculous rule was implemented, ostensibly, to ensure that he was actually using the glue to construct model airplanes, destroyers and little hotrods. It is impossible to believe, however, that any adult, not sniffing glue themselves, could mistake Antoine’s intentions, as his very appearance, (red-eyed, pale and as hyper as a speed freak doing shots of Espresso at Starbucks) belied his true purpose. Unfortunately for Antoine, on his best days, he did not have the ability to concentrate or focus long enough to follow the opening credits of “Gilligan’s Island,” much less actually construct something with more than 5 parts. Which was probably why his bedroom was literally filled from floor to ceiling with unopened boxes of plastic models. While the glue purchase by itself was not exorbitant (about 65 cents per for the family size tube) 6 tubes per Diem was nearly $4.00 daily. Throw in even the least expensive model at $2.50 per day and Antoine’s weekly glue tab came to just under $48.00per week, not even taking into consideration his weekend marijuana and LSD expense. This, as some of us can recall, was a fairly serious piece cabbage back in the day. The opportunities to steal from his mother’s purse or cookie jar or shake down some punk freshman for chump change were becoming less frequent as he was still on probation and being closely scrutinized as a result of that unfortunate head incineration incident. He had previously tried selling various drugs (mostly marijuana) with little success. Not that Antoine was a bad drug salesman. Antoine, unfortunately, had the one bad habit one apparently cannot overcome in the drug selling business: he got high on his own supply. Like a farmer eating his seed corn, there was never enough product leftover to even cover his initial investment. Without a regular independent source of income, Antoine could not come close to meeting his chemical financial obligations. It was almost enough pressure to make a man switch to heroin.

Antoine’s urgency for money was like the Federal Government: constant, carnivorous and insatiable. His drug habit simply grew with the amount of revenue that came across his palm every week. A month after Antoine accepted the Clock “posting” and was bringing home a fairly regular paycheck, he would have to borrow money to put gas in his 15 year old Ford Galaxy convertible. “You just got fucking paid,” Eddie would complain when Antoine would inevitably hit him up for a few bucks. “No,” Antoine would shake his head solemnly, “the hobby shop got paid.” Irritated, Eddie would scream “you fucking start the fucking week broke, you work all fucking week then spend all your fucking cash on glue and LSD and at the end of the week you’re dead broke again, you piece of dogshit.” “Yes,” Antoine would nod his head gravely, “it’s a vicious cycle.”

The chance meeting of Eddie and Antoine at the Clock was a pre-ordained event of fate, a Karmic collision of convergent destinies, an incredibly unlucky roll of the cosmic dice. It was the perfect recipe for a perfect storm. The seemingly smallest of events in life have a way of creating large and unmanageable scenarios. In this world there is no coincidence, only a series of separate and apparently unconnected events that lead ultimately to an inevitable conclusion. A bird flaps its wings in Africa and a week later an airliner with 300 people burns on the tarmac at Miami International. Go figure. One needs only to follow what appears to be a random chain of events.

As the story goes, the chain of events began with an unrelated first link when that unlucky hockey player took a bicycle chain to the melon from Eddie at Olympia some six weeks before Antoine took the job at the Clock. The hockey player was a cousin of the unfortunate young man who was victimized by Antoine in the cranial combustion donnybrook. Because there is no room for coincidence in this story, and as fate would have it, Antoine had advanced $70.00 worth of drugs to the poor unfortunate several days prior, with the explicit understanding (or as explicit as Antoine could possibly be given his permanent self-medicated condition) that the money would be forthcoming several days hence. The young man who accepted the drug consignment (and who had already consumed the entire stash) was planning to get the money from his cousin, the luckless hockey player, who, at that very moment of the evening assignation with Antoine, was in the emergency room receiving 6 stitches to the head and was unable to supply the needed funds. Antoine, in desperate need of cash became enraged and taking his fiery revenge, tempted the stars which, unfortunately for him, were in a perfectly ill-omened alignment. Thus the series of events coupling the two was put into motion and the circle of chance completed. In the universal scheme of things there really was never any prospect of any other outcome; it was in the lap of the Gods all along.

So, Antoine and Eddie became fast friends at the Clock, their lives inextricably intertwined. Within a few weeks Eddie had the older Antoine under his spell and the two were thick as thieves. Eddie, bored with school and seeing no end of his education in sight, decided to drop out. Antoine followed in suit and life was moving along swimmingly until Eddie received his notice from his draft board. Eddie, who was now 18 and eligible for the draft, having lost his “school deferment,” had ignored the three previous letters he had received from his draft board. This one was the big one; a final notice demanding his appearance for his physical or suffer the consequences of being a Federal Government fugitive. Eddie became enraged and went on a culinary sabotage rampage the likes of which no restaurant of any description had ever seen or will ever see again. He spat and peed until he was dehydrated. He developed unspeakable new and improved methods of dining desecration, sparing no patron his righteous wrath. All the while Antoine looked on with awe. Never had he seen anyone in his pathetic life that was so driven. Here was a man with a purpose; a true trailblazing anarchist one could follow anywhere. Antoine had found his Hero.

Eddie continued to duck his draft notice and, as his rage grew toward the draft board, he knew he had to take action. The service, he knew, was certainly no place for him. Now, as some of us nearing 60 will remember, the regular army of the middle and late ‘60’s was not the volunteer gung-ho “Be All You Can Be” organization filled with rosy-faced All American Pat Boone types. It was more of a “Stay Alive As Long As You Can” outfit, and it was not the ideal place to be. At least in the Marines the troops signed up to be an elite Jarhead, and the guy in the foxhole next to you took a certain modicum of pride in being a Marine. The regular army (not a volunteer arrangement in those days) was largely comprised of a variety of misfits and malcontents, most of whom did not want to be there. If you can imagine wandering through a rain forest with a bunch of wired-up hallucinating hoodlums at your rear who you didn’t know and who would shoot your white butt just because they could, looking for camouflaged encampments filled with well-armed wild-ass Asians you can kind of get the flavor of that whole wretched scene. Talk about Esprit-de-corps all you want; there was a reason that the average life expectancy of a 2nd Lieutenant in Vietnam was just over 23 minutes. Living in a jungle with little to do, fragging (of officers and enlisted men) was the pastime equivalent of bowling when you were in-country.

Slowly Eddie began to formulate a plan. When Antoine told Eddie that he had a friend, a “vet” who claimed to have Special Forces training, an idea crystallized deep inside Eddie’s fertile mind. This veteran, Stoney, so named because he was a first class stoner who existed on a steady diet of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Tylenol 3’s, claimed he had actually worked with explosives. In truth, Stoney was a first class section 8 and wasn’t in the army long enough to get his parking validated, washing out of boot camp because even the Drill Instructor at Ft. Bragg could not get Stoney to make his bed. Apparently Stoney had read a book or two on the making of explosives using a variety of chemicals, including fertilizer. His favorite explosive device, however, was the always dependable Molotov Cocktail, fashioned out of a super-sized Coke bottle, which he reminded Antoine he had employed with remarkable success several years before at a South Lake Homecoming game while Stoney was still a sometime student.

Eddie now put his action-plan in place. He convincingly reminded Antoine that it was only a matter of time before he, too, would be served his induction notice. During an all weekend LSD marathon, Eddie laid out the plan. The only way to ensure their freedom, Eddie insisted, was to destroy all record of their draft registration. This of course meant destroying the entire building in one Herculean Dresden-like firestorm. But even if the records were not destroyed, Eddie reasoned, they would be making a statement—(striking a blow) for the movement. Antoine, who was as political as a bag of hammers, probably didn’t know who the President was and his awareness of current events stopped at knowing what hobby shop had the best buy on Tester’s glue. But something in Eddie’s argument stirred Antoine’s soul, creating the watershed moment in his heretofore wasted existence, instilling in him for the first time in his life the sense that he could be part of something larger than himself. Probably the 8 jumbo tabs of California Sunshine he ingested in that 48 hour period had something to do with it as well, but Antoine, without reservation or hesitation was onboard. He would begin work immediately with Stoney to develop the appropriate ordinance and in doing so would scream his statement for the struggle. Antoine was down for the righteous cause, to give power back to the people. Or whatever.

As the story goes, Antoine and Stoney began work in earnest on the appropriate hardware to pull off the master stroke. Because Stoney was relegated to living in a tiny shed behind his mothers garage, the real science was done in the fruit cellar of Antoine’s mom’s basement, where even there, several candle altars had to be repositioned. As it turned out, Stoney was not as proficient as advertised with respect to fertilizer-fueled bombs and several failed attempts using miniature prototypes resulted in a semi-catastrophic blow-out that knocked out Antoine’s mom’s water heater, flooding the entire basement, taking out all the repositioned Virgin Mary Altars, which created a spiritual blow-back from which Mrs. Antoine never recovered.

Eventually Antoine and Stoney, because they could not find a stable combination of fertilizer and combustible chemicals in a single experiment and had exhausted all known areas to blow up, settled on the Molotov Cocktail approach which was simple and had proved so successful at the Homecoming when Stoney was a perennial underclassman at South Lake. After several successful trials the two geniuses informed Eddie that they were ready to deliver the decisive blow. At the same time Eddie, after much diligent research, determined that the downtown Detroit draft board offices were too heavily protected and elected the easiest target of opportunity to be the draft board offices in Ann Arbor. And so, as the story goes, the date for Eddie’s earth shaking event was set for early June, 1968.

On that warm and humid June night, the cicadas singing their soft summer song, Eddie, Antoine and Stoney piled into Antoine’s old Ford and made their way to the draft board building in Ann Arbor, seven large Coke bottle Molotov Cocktails riding precariously in the back seat. Eddie, sans souci, driving, the balmy night air blowing in through the open convertible. Life, as they say, was good. The 45 minute trip to Ann Arbor was filled with smoking dope, bottles of long neck Stroh’s and the sounds of Terry Knight’s “Season of the Witch,” on the eight track. Although their plan was not completely developed, their prospect of success was fortified by chemicals and alcohol. Besides, the promise of another wasted night hanging out in Angel Park on the Detroit River sharing a few bottles of Boones Farm Apple wine with the Hippie Scum would be the equivalent of screwing the pooch. The collective decision by this brain trust was to move forward; destiny was calling.

Arriving in a parking lot near the draft board building in Ann Arbor, Eddie parked the Galaxy at a safe distance, directing the two air-brained anarchists to the target site. Grabbing the jumbo Coke bottle Molotov cocktails, the two proceeded to the spot where Eddie had determined they could safely deliver the ordinance. Stoney, who had mixed the Blue Bombers with Stroh’s and Tester’s (always a lethal combination), missed the designated spot, settling on an area that looked fairly close to the building. Placing the gasoline filled Coke bottles at their feet, they each grabbed a bottle, Antoine doing the lighting honors, his zippo trembling with anticipation in his hand.

His large Coke bottle lit, Stoney hefted it above his head, throwing it like a German hand grenade. His depth perception chemically challenged, he threw it 15 yards off the mark, hitting a WWII monument near a huge Elm tree. Due to the super-size bottle with which the boys had not trained, the home-made bomb detonated against the monument and the Elm tree with a violent burst of explosive flame, startling even the anesthetized Stoney, and downright scaring the shit out of Antoine who was in the process of throwing his own bottle, hesitating at the top of his arc like Louis Tiant throwing a change-up. As he hesitated due to the unexpected fire-bomb, the large Coke bottle poised high above his head, a trickle of gasoline leaked downward landing directly upon his head and, ironically, igniting his long blonde locks in a fiery chemical reaction which enveloped his entire head in flames. In a panic, Antoine dropped his Molotov cocktail, thereby breaking the other bottles that lay on the ground creating another terrifically huge blast that enshrouded both of them in a blazing maelstrom. Thinking that the first off-the-mark bomb was a direct hit and did some serious damage to the building, and their legs on fire, the two hot-footed it (literally) back to Eddie and the waiting get-away convertible.

Eddie, attempting to view the attack in the darkness from a safe distance, saw the first and then the second larger explosion and in the ensuing confusion assumed that they had scored two direct hits. Suddenly, from the general direction of the conflagration, Eddie watched as Antoine and Stoney came screaming out of the darkness, partially on fire. Eddie’s Turrets raced into overdrive as a string of obscenities flew out of his mouth in a virtual rhapsody of profanity. “What the fuck, you stupid motherfucking assholes, Jesus Christ on a bicycle…” Eddie quickly grabbed the musty old blanket from the backseat that they used to cover the now exploded jumbo Coke bottles and raced over to Antoine, covering what was left of his hair, smothering the fire. All three quickly jumped into the car and raced off into the moonless night.

Outside of his burned hair and singed jeans, Antoine was, remarkably unscathed. Stoney sat in the backseat in a stupor, mumbling cryptically to himself nearly catatonic from fear, clearly not the foxhole veteran he had previously claimed to be. “Some big-time fucking bomb expert, you fucking jackoff,” Eddie lamented, looking at the damage to his pathetic platoon. Antoine, unaware that the blast, while apparently destructive, did virtually no damage to anything, spoke up. “No shit,” he croaked, the gasoline fumes still hanging heavily in his throat. “We hit it on the money…we blew the bastard up.” Eddie, believing that the two fires he witnessed were actually the building on fire and still seeing the flames as they drove away shook his head “We gotta get out of town… now.”

So, as the story goes, Eddie, after helping himself to the cash drawer that night at the Clock restaurant, once again took it on the lam and split for parts unknown. Stoney simply retreated to his shed behind his mom’s house to await the authorities for what he was convinced would be the inevitable pinch. This, of course, never occurred. In point of fact, the entire ill fated fiasco barely rated a mention in the local Ann Arbor newspaper, much less The Detroit News or Free Press. It was believed to be the prank of some misguided youngsters; the youthful indiscretion of some delinquent vandals. The very idea that this could have possibly been the terrorist act of some villainous anarchist was never even seriously contemplated.

And Antoine…Antoine hurriedly packed his things that night and took the Windsor Tunnel to Canada, where he was quite at home. As it turned out, Antoine was never in any jeopardy with regard to his draft status. For one thing, he had never actually registered for the draft (a small detail that, as a result of his Testers induced separate reality, he had apparently overlooked) because he was not even an American citizen. Antoine Saggat, drug dealer, black sheep, prodigal son and hellion was born in Ontario and never having been naturalized, was a Canadian citizen. This, when one reflects upon it, may have been the simple answer to the genesis of his enigmatic personality all along; he was a fucking Canuck. As the story goes, like his vagabond father, he was never heard from again.

Once, about 15 years ago on my way back to Florida at a quick lunch meeting with some clients at an Atlanta airport Bennigan’s, I thought I recognized Eddie cooking in the open kitchen area. He looked older and drawn, but he caught my eye with that wise-guy private smile, staring for a long moment. When the waitress came by for our lunch orders, I remember I was preparing to order the onion soup and sandwich when some indefinable sense drew my eye back toward the kitchen area where the cook whose strong resemblance to Eddie was peering at me with a strange intensity. “I think I’ll just have a light beer,” I said closing the menu. “In a bottle…and sweetheart…let me open it at the table, OK?’ One can never be too careful.

Now some readers of this tome may question the veracity of this narrative. While many of the details and particulars have been obfuscated through time, recollection and research, the basic facts of the story actually did occur those many years ago Although many readers may recognize some of the characters in this historical yarn, the names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike. And anyway, what is real truth-- or what passes for truth today? When it comes to fidelity and accuracy I personally agree with Mark Twain who said “…the truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.” And for those of you cynical cyberland snotty sons-a-bitches who think you have identified the truth, or something akin to it, call me—no—better yet, call Mike Wallace. I think you might have a pretty good “60 Minutes” story.

In the meantime, I’ll catch y’all next time.

Freddie Van

(a veraciously unimpeachable child of god)

Oil Beach Scene - Brutta Matta

Bailout City

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:51:58 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/19/2009 at 7:23 pm Eastern Daylight Time

The financial world continues to implode as I patiently endure my laborious journey into a dark abyss, a pathetic Joseph looking for a manger, or at least some semi-soft place to fall. My old pals in the Detroit area, as dreadful as they’re circumstances may be, have absolutely nothing on me when it comes to navigating in this noxious and toxic economic sewer of insolvency. The “Consulting Bid-niz” finally, at long last, has truly become a polite euphemistic expression for “unemployed.” Like the man said when asked how his business was…“kind of like sex,” he replied dryly-- “The last I had was pretty damn good; it’s just been a while.”

So imagine my chagrin when I received in the mail yet another of those ubiquitous fliers from some bottom feeding business broker who is promising top dollar for Vanco Promotional Marketing, Inc., an outfit that is limping along barely making payroll, running two skips ahead of its creditors. I have always prided myself on being one who views responsibility as the other guy’s predicament, my mantra being “it’s not my fault,” which I have expanded in these trying times to “it’s not my fault…blow me.” I have little tolerance for any of these impudent and niggardly vendors, (self absorbed little money-grubbing shylocks, all), when they commence calling and insolently demanding payment for, say, printing that was ordered months ago and is now all used up and which, (after allowing for my liquor budget and country club dues in Florida and North Carolina) has generated absolutely no substantial profit…as if that’s my fault! Like I’m some sort of Warren Buffet who can control everything under the fiscal sun! Not for nuthin’, but it seems to me that these perfidious, predatory pirates should be required to shoulder at the least some of the responsibility for taking advantage of me by extending credit and selling me the stuff in the first place. I’ll tell you this; some people in America today really have some brass.

At any rate, a short time ago I received a circular from an outfit with the very impressive title of “Transworld Business Brokers” which stated the following:

TRANSWORLD BUSINESS BROKERS

4700 Universal Blvd. Suite 350

Tel 407-885-7525 Fax: 800-765-8778

http://www.worldbus.com/

Dear Mr. Fred Von Aske ,

Transworld Business Brokers are THE business sale specialists with trained Professionals that will sell YOUR business for the absolute BEST price and terms. Our experienced brokers and resources will guide you, F. VonAske through the difficult, detailed and sometimes complicated business sales process.

My business is selling businesses, and several people have indicated an interest in purchasing a business like yours. If you have EVER considered selling, NOW IS THE TIME!! We have buyers waiting! Contact me TODAY! Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity.

F. Von Aske , you can start enjoying the good life TODAY!

James Burbank

Senior Transaction Broker

Buyers waiting? The good life…today? This must be a great opportunity! Maybe this guy knows what he’s talking about...after all his business is selling businesses (even if he has no fucking clue as to what I do, who I am or even the spelling of my name). But, if you can’t believe the printed word, what can you believe in anymore? Recognizing a chance to perhaps escape with a little cheese from this formidable trap created by my misaligned stars, I immediately e-mailed Mr. Burbank:

12/2/08

Dear Mr. Burbank,

I am in receipt of your Transworld Business Brokers flier offering your services. As you undoubtedly know, Vanco is a profitable and well respected Leader in the Promotional marketing industry. While I had not really considered selling any time soon, certain new business opportunities have just recently become available and I may be persuaded to sell to the right buyer for the right price. The terms, of course, would have to be cash.

Kindly e-mail me ASAP with the information needed to get the ball rolling as time is of the essence. Just as a starter, my accountants indicate to me, using the traditional Friedman Foundation Formula of Evaluation, that Vanco is worth somewhere in the vicinity of 2.25 million dollars, give or take a few thousand here or there.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Sincerely,

F. VonAske

President

Vanco Promotions, Inc.

Feeling I had set just the right tone in the letter, (nothing worse than a desperate seller) and giving my self a little leeway on the opening price, all that remained was to let all those waiting buyers begin the Irrational Exuberance. Enjoying the GOOD LIFE , it seemed, was right around the corner. My patience was rewarded when just two days later Mr. Burbank e-mailed me a somewhat pithy response.

12/4/08

Dear Mr. Von Aske,

Thank you for your response to our circular. Transworld is the largest Business Brokerage in Florida and we’re ready to SELL your BUSINESS… TODAY!!!

To get the “ball rolling” we’ll need your Financial Reports for the last four years, including your Balance Sheets and your P&L’s. Based on this information our analyst’s will be able to create a specific and accurate evaluation of Vanco Promotions, Inc.

Incidentally, none of our analysts or consultants have ever even heard of the “Friedman Foundation Formula’’ much less know how to apply it.

Looking Forward To Receiving Your Information,

James Burbank

Senior Transaction Broker

Current Financials? Hmmmm. It’s times like this when I wish my ol’ CPA buddy Deduction Dave Davies was still baking my books instead of baking bread in prison. With his own accounting creative genius he could restore health (at least temporarily) to any set of numbers…a regular Benny Hinn of the Balance Sheet. Rummaging through my records I find some likely looking documents and forward them to Transworld, along with a cover e-mail.

12/5/08

Jim,

Enclosed, please find the information you requested in your previous communication. The accounting firm that generated the work product was Goldman, Cohn, Jacobs and Schmuckman (a first class Jewish firm…no?) of Atlanta, and Bernie Cohn, Senior Partner did most of the work. They’re very professional and scrutinized this material like a Pakistani convenience store owner examining a winning lotto ticket. However, these boys are busier than a tick on a turtle and it probably would be best not to pester them right now, with tax season only seven months away and all.

If you have any questions regarding the reports I’m at your service and would be more than happy to answer any minor (or major) issues that may come up. No reason to bother the Big Boys over minutia when we can keep it between us girls.

Good News, Jim. As it turns out, the new business opportunities I spoke of earlier really appear to be panning out… and much quicker than anticipated! The situation is fluid and the fact I am compelled to move with rapid dispatch to avail myself of these new and exciting opportunities creates a little more leeway with regard to the price of Vanco. The beauty is…my loss is your buyer’s gain!!! I am willing to move on the price (for a limited time only) a full $500,000.00 in order to expedite a QUICK sale. I know this terrific offer will get those marketing juices flowing in an old Pro like you, Jimmy!!!

On another topic…I don’t quite understand your people being unfamiliar with the famous Friedman Foundation formula. If I didn’t know you better (and had so much confidence in you, Jimmy) I might be a little suspect of Transworld’s ability. When I took my MBA at Wharton, the Friedman Formula was the premier method of business evaluation and in common usage.

Looking forward to a continued fruitful relationship and a mutually rewarding conclusion, I remain,

F. Von Aske

President,

Vanco Promotions, Inc.

The next day I received a rather disappointing response:

12/6/08

Dear Mr. Von Aske

It appears that there are some irregularities in the Financial Statements you forwarded to us. In the first place Goldman, Cohn, Jacobs and Schmuckman have never heard of Vanco Promotions, Inc. (or you, for that matter.) Secondly, the work product forwarded was allegedly completed by Bernie Cohn and was supposed to have gone back to FY ’04. We have been informed by Goldman, Cohn et al that Mr. Cohn passed away in 2003…a full year before he theoretically completed the first year of your financial report. Clearly this has created a serious problem.

As to your generous movement in price…while our buyers are always looking for bargains, evaluation must be based upon some sort of financial due diligence. If you cannot produce a readable set of financial documents then we will have to end our “relationship”, despite the confidence you have in me. I feel compelled to warn you that falsifying financial statements is a criminal violation and we will not be a party to any such conspiracy.

Conduct Yourself Accordingly,

James Burbank

Senior Transaction Broker

cc Wm. Simmermon, Esq.

PS We work with several market analysts that have access to people who attended and actually graduated from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania and their research indicates that not only did you not receive an MBA from that institution, you never even were enrolled there.

Events seemed to be spinning out of control, the GOOD LIFE seemingly a ghostly apparition, floating out of my grasp when it appeared so close. Time to fall back on the age old business adage…”a good excuse is the same as good performance” and so, sensing the momentum shifting, I replied snappily:

12/6/08

Jimbo,

What a major misunderstanding! And believe you me, there is a perfectly reasonable and logical explanation for all of this. The statements you were given were for another company , an obscenely profitable former subsidiary of Vanco (a company, incidentally, not in the original deal—although I may be willing to negotiate some sort of bundling accommodation provided the price was right) and were sent in error from the main office. Jimbo, I don’t have to tell you the help we are compelled to hire these days just doesn’t have the work ethic of old workhorses like you and me.

At any rate, I tasked the sending of the documents to the wrong person. Unfortunately I assigned the job to my man Julio (a very undependable and sneaky Mexican, who just this afternoon ran off with my wife) and he, of course, screwed it up.

But Jimbo, lets get down to brass tacks. Financials, Schmi-nancials… am I right? When you’re looking at a rock solid company do you really want to throw the proverbial fly in the ointment of commerce with all this OVER ANALYSIS? And to show you that I’m willing to work with you and go that extra mile, Jimbo, I’m actually reducing the price of the company by an additional (are you sitting down?)--$1,200,000.00!!!! I know there’s a lot of zeros in that number, but it’s an honest to goodness offer and I’ll hold it open for just 48 hours. And the beauty is…my loss is your buyer’s gain!!!

So let’s get those brokers moving! Your buyers won’t find a bargain like this for the balance of the millennium and if they’ve got any business savvy at all they’ll jump all over this deal quicker than Robert Downey Jr. buying crack at a dope house.

With respect to the other misunderstanding regarding Wharton College…I took my MBA from the Wharton school in Iowa , a highly respected, top drawer, semi-accredited on-line institution that offers a variety of career paths. Not to brag, but I set a new school record of achievement, getting my MBA (with credit for “Life Experience”) in only 16 days! Believe you me, Jimbo, that sheepskin has come in quite handy during the course of my diverse and multi-faceted business career.

By the way, Jimbo, while I ‘m looking forward to a quick sale, it is imperative that we close after the 1st of the year in ’09 and that the closing check be made to “CASH.” It is important that I do not create a taxable event in FY ’08 due to an unfortunate IRS misunderstanding several years ago which I expect will be cleared up any day.

Tell your folks to keep their heads up when these offers come flying in!!

Your Pal,

Fred

President

Vanco Promotions, Inc.

Thinking I had successfully and expertly patched the beef, all that remained was for me to wait on the multitude of offers to come pouring in. Several days passed and, hearing absolutely no word, I made a few friendly chit-chat calls to the Transworld headquarters to check on the progress, receiving no satisfaction whatsoever. My dreamlike reverie of the good life was shattered when, out of the blue, I received a hostile and confrontational e-mail from my man Burbank:

12/9/08

Mr. Von Aske,

I am in receipt of your latest e-mail and, quite frankly, I do not exactly know what to make of it except to inform you that Transworld no longer has any interest in conducting any business with you or any of your companies . We view attempted financial fraud as a very serious offense and have referred this matter (and your bogus Financial Statement) to our in-house counsel and he, no doubt will forward it to Goldman, Cohn, Jacobs and Schmuckman in addition to the Orange County States Attorney.

We must ask you to refrain from your persistent and annoying phone calls to our offices. At first they were merely irritating, but now you are scaring our people and your calls are bordering on harassment. If you do not cease and desist immediately you will only compound your already growing legal problems.

This is your last warning. LEAVE US ALONE!!!

Sincerely,

James Burbank

Senior Transaction Broker

PS In the event you need to refer to me at all during the deposition process DO NOT call me “Jimbo.”

Needless to say, I was taken aback. Ain’t it always the way? Just when you think you know someone. Well, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this ungrateful bloodless bastard Burbank (if that’s really his true name) or his shoddy incompetent outfit “Transworld” run their scam on me. I immediately e-mailed him:

12/9/08

Burbank,

I am in receipt of your latest threatening e-mail that attempted to intimidate me. Defaming an unimpeachable business owner with personal attacks due to a few minor misconceptions is the very definition of unprofessional behavior. Well, let me tell you something, Buster!! All this saber-rattling bluster doesn’t frighten me. Where I come from this sort of ridiculous posturing is a fatuous attempt to hide the fact that you, Pally, have a tiny wiener and all this fulmination is simply compensating for the fact that you are an abject failure in the sack and probably a closet homo.

I wouldn’t do business with you or your collection of toady’s and misfits you call “analysts” and “brokers” (who, incidentally, were not even aware of the famous “Friedman Formula” for business evaluation) even if you managed to sell my company for the original asking price. You and your licentious losers think you’re pretty slick employing the old bait and switch by tempting a legitimate business owner with a fantastic offer, then just nickel and dime-ing him down until the poor bastard is bankrupt due to your specious chicanery (not unlike my experience with your nifty little swindle.) But be advised assface…I’m onto your dishonest and disgraceful little deception and you’re not the only citizen in this state that has access to the regulatory authorities!

Be informed that our business relationship is over and I demand the immediate return of my proprietary work product, which was sent to you in error by an underhanded and irresponsible Beaner. Furthermore, be advised that I am retaining counsel and will seek any legal remedy, including bringing suit against you, your collection of lackeys and your company for your libelous comments directed towards me and Vanco Promotions, Inc. Your reckless remarks have ruint me by creating a poison environment with respect to the sale of my company, rendering a previously profitable enterprise virtually worthless.

I’ll see you in court, you pre-mature ejaculating little pencil dick.

Conduct your-own-self accordingly,

FJV

Vanco Promotions, Inc.

PS In the event that any offers do happen to be submitted to your office, you may forward them to me for final determination. Despite my bruised feelings there is no sense in letting rampant emotion and personal animus interfere with business. (FYI… I am willing to lower the asking price another $100,000.00 with an additional 25K bonus to the selling broker if the right offer comes in…but only for the next 72 hours. )

Unfortunately, all this miscommunication and misunderstanding left me duped and hoodwinked once again by incompetence, bad advice and forces beyond my control as it appears that no offers are forthcoming. But things are looking up! Vanco, much to my amazement and delight, for the last 30 days posted a profit for the first time in months!

My only dilemma now is where I will spend the $237.41.

Ciao for Now,

Freddie Van

(a victimized vox populi and vilified child of god)

On Existentialism, Fear And Loathing In the New America

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:51:55 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/19/2009 at 6:50 pm Eastern Daylight Time

Like a child’s much anticipated Christmas morning, the summer serenity of the mountain season came quickly and left, rushing by as the days seem to do now, leaving a suitcase full of stolen summer secrets and souvenir memories. Sitting on the deck listening to the cool mountain breeze and the rustling crackle of the dry and falling leaves that gently whisper autumn’s auspicious arrival, I am convinced that existentialism in America is alive and well, thriving in fact, in the 21st century. Some days one cannot help but feel as lonely and alone as a de-frocked and discarded Christmas tree laying at the curb on January 2nd. Meanwhile we wonder just how long it will take the barbarians accumulating at the gate to smash down the walls of civilization as the economy continues to melt down like a Snickers bar in the summer sun and the world as we always knew it (our world) is on the precipice of change that we cannot yet even ponder.

Lark’s on the wing, God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world… my ass. The world is, for many, splitting apart with a nuclear intensity and while God may be up there all right, it seems He’s one pissed off Dude, apparently angry over something we humans did two millennia ago, (talk about holding a grudge.) Or maybe He’s just been pissed all along, and only in the last few centuries just got fed up with His little mess of a human experiment. One gets the distinct impression that He’s turning into a real vengeful Cat, a first class colossal Prick who is currently harboring quite a bit of unhealthy hostility. While we act like the little snotty punk-ass brat at the dinner table who refuses eat his vegetables, He’s just about to give us the back of His righteous hand. I’m quite certain I am not without guilt and probably haven’t lived the most courageous or inspiring life. But I "did the right thing", put three kids through private school and college, paid off my mortgages, built and sold several businesses, saved for retirement and never beat anyone out of any money who didn’t deserve it. I basically did everything they told me to do to achieve the American Dream, all the while watching some guys do all the wrong things and thinking “It’s alright…they’ll get theirs in the end.”

But I must have missed the Devine memo that came down and said “Eat shit and die, Pally,” because I’m the one who’s getting it in the end, a first class Karmic ream job. As a 40 year recovering Catholic I still lug around enough residual guilt to appreciate the delicious irony that I’m probably getting screwed for something I can’t even remember doing. My research into Hinduism gives every indication that it is possible for me to be re-incarnated as an indolently lazy grasshopper (who is bankrupt and in foreclosure because he shopped his ludicrously unaffordable mortgage based on which website had the best little dancing figures), instead of being reborn as an industrious ant again, (who plays by all the rules and for his effort gets it right up his tiny little ass.) Makes you damn proud to be an American!

And so life goes on as I anxiously await my bailout, which I don’t anticipate anytime soon despite the fact that my current financial statement and retirement accounts are as shot-up as Sonny Corleone in the causeway (if you can say… “look how they’ve massacred my 401 k” in your best Godfather accent, you’ll get the idea). Until then I continue to spend my way into oblivion in my beautiful mountain get-away with new batteries for the boat (they’re only 71/2 years old…doesn’t anything last anymore?), new coat of stain for the back deck and more of this never-ending landscaping which vainly attempts to thwart the natural habitat.

At this elevation the locals are quick to point out that these little mountains are a unique eco-system, a 3400 foot rain forest with fauna and flora one would not see elsewhere at this latitude. As proof of this pronouncement, they constantly carp about the scenic beauty of the hiking trails where one can witness, first hand, this wonderland of plant life if one only ventures out trekking mindlessly up and down steep and slippery slopes that lead to nowhere with only some sort of large walking stick to assist you as you stumble your way past pickers and poison ivy. Some of these folks (tree huggers and socialists, no doubt) do this 3-4 hours daily . Apparently Americans have sunk so low, have become so depraved, that even reality shows are not enough senseless diversion to kill the time. Rather than set one foot in those insect infected jungles I personally, would rather stick red-hot knitting needles through my corneas.

At any rate, my beautiful wife, always looking for new and innovative ways to separate me from what remains of my fortune, called some landscaping outfit with the impressive moniker of North Carolina Landscaping, LLC to complete the last leg of a 4-year plan that has nearly put me in the poorhouse. I was told that the president of the company was going to show up himself to conceptualize the plan. Additionally I was told by my visiting daughter that this executive was bringing his partner and my immediate thought was that these people must think I’m General Motors, or at least what GM used to be, and in very short order I would, once again, be hemorrhaging cash.

Later that morning as I’m preparing to slide over to the golf course where, in my distracted state of mind I will no doubt shoot my weight, I see two middle aged guys in very tight, very short pants lost in animated conversation sashaying down the circle driveway. My daughter is quick to tell me that these are the landscapers. With a blinding flash of the obvious, the reality of the situation sets in and my daughter sees my bewilderment.

“What did you think when I told you he was bringing his partner?” she asks me. “My God, landscape architects are the equivalent of outdoor interior decorators.” I sheepishly tell her I thought she meant a business partner, not a … (I have trouble even using the term) “life partner”. “So what is that Dad, some sort of ‘80’s thing?” she asks. Ah, not quite…probably more like a ‘70’s thing, I mumble my response, suddenly feeling very old and weary.

My wife greets them outside and joins in the animated conceptualizing, spit-balling about this shrub and that tree; what color would work here this spring or what would work there next summer. My basic long term life vision is that I may not even be around next summer as I hear the ca-jing! of the cash register, standing there helplessly, desperately trying to keep up. Both of the “landscapers” are friendly enough, perhaps a little on the effeminate side with the mannerisms of middle aged women at their weekly bridge club. One is extremely fair-skinned, gray-headed and thick through the trunk and a little on the short side; the other a rangy, swarthy athletic appearing fellow with a nose that had more curves than a mountain switchback and a face like an old, well oiled catcher’s mitt.

They both spoke with an accent that at first I identified as western Virginia, which sounds very close to a Canadian accent, both having that tincture of Scots, making “around and about the house” sound both ways as “arroond ond aboot the hoose”. However, the first time I heard a sentence end with a distinct “Aye”, it was abundantly clear that these cats were Canadian. While the short one bore an odd resemblance in his countenance and voice to the old “Hockey Night in Canada” play by play announcer, Foster Hewitt, the other one also was strangely familiar as well.

I’m shaken from my musing when my wife asks “So, what do you think?” I, of course, have not been paying any attention to any of the discussion about this landscaping nonsense. I get ready with my standard …“if this is what you like…” response when it dawns on me that the athletic looking guy is a dead ringer for Johnny Bower, the old Toronto Maple Leaf goalie from the early ‘60’s.

I suddenly gag on the mental image of my childhood hero and Hall of Famer Johnny Bower bare-backing an old flaccid, fish-belly-white Foster Hewitt and I visibly shudder, trying to shake the thought out of my mind. “I’m sure you guys know what you’re doing, so I’ll just leave you to it…gotta go,” as I make my rudely quick exit, thankful to get out of there before my overly vivid imagination gets the better of me. Out of the corner of my eye I see my daughter laughing at my distress. Times are changing, and she tells me that I must work on my diversity skills, which are clearly not my strong suit. Just another item for the “Bucket List;” one more thing that I’ll probably never get around to doing.

Change and Hope. Clearly, I am uncomfortable with these modern conceptual pillars of cultural transubstantiation. All this advancing reverse collective catabolism rushing by gives me heartburn and leaves me questioning where this Brave New World is taking us. I don’t grasp the reason kids today suddenly want to be circus people as they desecrate themselves with body piercings and tattoos. I don’t understand the nasally sissified “Up-Speak” in common usage by America kids that is some form of shorthand English (where every utterance puts the accent on the last syllable, making even a declarative statement sound like a question and every other word is “like,” “all” or “goes” as in “…so I’m like ‘driving the car? So the dude in front like puts on the brakes?,’ and he goes … ‘what the f..k Chuck, like real loud?’ and then he flips me the bird ?... and I’m all, like , ‘what-ev-er!’ ”).

I’m uneasy and disturbed with the bastardization of the language at establishments like Starbucks where small is Tall and medium is Grande and seemingly intelligent people can memorize seven separate ingredients that go into a $6.00 specialty coffee but cannot tell you who their congressman is. I do not comprehend the doublespeak that refers to abortions as “reproductive rights” and illegal aliens as “un-documented Americans”. As the language continues to lose it’s meaning, we rapidly lose our ability to communicate on any meaningful level. Like the old ‘60’s radical Jerry Rubin said... "how can I say ‘I love you’ when the billboard says ‘my car loves Shell’." I despise state sanctioned gambling advertisements that tout Indian casinos and Lotto ticket sales that intentionally target the poorest and most ignorant elements of our society and end with some ridiculously phony anti-gambling addiction caveat-- (“…got a problem? Call 1-800-ADMIT IT.”) Rather like the corner crack dealer handing out an addiction warning with every rock he sells and claiming no responsibility for the lives ruined. Let the State sue and settle with the murderously vile cigarette companies for hundreds of millions of dollars….but keep their evil asses in business in order to continue receiving their annual settlement payout and, as a special bonus, maintain the ability to tax the hell out of them. I especially detest the hypocrisy that pretends that the State is not complicit, a partner in fact, in this immorally malevolent racket.

Getting colder? The “Global Warming” model that Al Gore promoted for two decades with such diligence and industry (and for which he won a Nobel Prize and has made millions) doesn’t quite fit? No problem; It’s the semantics, stupid. Simply call it “Climate Change,” which is such a magnificently malleable theory that it can be squeezed into virtually any set of facts. And the dummies out there are too ignorant to even understand the change in the nomenclature, much less appreciate the difference or come up with viable solutions.

Go ahead and let the local Orlando government sell the bonds to raise three-quarters of a billion (that’s BILLION with a “B”) bucks so some billionaire basketball owner can charge $125.00 per seat in his state-of-the-art facility…don’t even worry about the dirty faced malcontented kids who’re being indoctrinated in state run sub-standard educational gulags, going to class in leaky, broken down trailers and can barely read. Don’t be concerned about neglecting these youngsters now…but be mindful that these junior budding felons of the future will be the very same criminal rabble that will cut your throat outside that brand new auditorium for the $20.00 in your wallet.

These days I am a world weary Winston Smith, desperately trying to find a reason to love Big Brother while slouching into this inevitable New Age Orwellian Gomorrah. I am loath to admit that all this relentlessly evolutionary metamorphosis weighs on me and has gone way beyond my personal tipping point. My paranoia runs rampant and I am constantly on guard for all sorts of Bogeymen and conspiracies and things that go bump in the night.

And so we all pensively plod along our own personal path of perdition while we impersonally view the wreckage (human and otherwise), wondering what unforeseen and unexpected event each new day may bring. If nothing else, we are truly fulfilling the old Chinese curse that admonished “… may you live in interesting times” and, at the very least, the day-in-day-out monotony of life has ceased to be boring.

Oh well, I say Life is short…let’s drink the good whiskey now .

Until Next Time, I Remain,

Freddie Van

(a very wary warrior and still a child of god)

Of Giants and Little Men

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:51:52 GMT

Now the children try to find it

And they can’t believe their eyes,

‘Cause the old team isn’t playing

And the new team hardly tries

And the sky has got so cloudy

When it used to be so clear

And the summer went so quickly

This year….

Yes, there used to be a ballpark…

Right here

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/9/2009 at 9:32 pmEastern Daylight Time

As if the cataclysmic economic vagaries that are occurring daily weren’t enough for one stand-up guy like me to take, my golf game has now completely degenerated into some form of clownish buffoonery, a fearful experience filled with self-loathing, vitriol and humiliating debasement. This was clearly in evidence at this year’s Lochmoor Invitational where virtually everybody I knew after twenty-six years of participation in the event looked as old as my Pop, including me.

I, in fact, played like my Pop (who would be 92 years old were he not currently dead.) Despite my ignominious exhibition, we miraculously managed to maneuver ourselves into the final day, “The Show,” where Fossee and I, saving the worst for last, got sliced up like two Johns in a whorehouse, losing 5 and 4; another shameful performance for the record books.

The week, however, was far from a total loss. I attended my first ballgame at the Tigers “new” stadium, Comerica Park. Old Tiger (neo Briggs) Stadium was the only real Major League ballpark I ever knew growing up and the thought of a new place was somewhat off-putting. The truth be told, the new park is truly a first class, state of the art facility complete with all the bells, whistles and accouterments including massive electronic scoreboards that are so high tech they can tell you what the on deck batter averaged with men on base when he was in Little League. At games’ end we witnessed an impressive fireworks show lasting nearly a half an hour. If Marshall McLuhan’s new age philosophy held that the “medium is the message,” the current ballpark architect’s mantra must be the “venue is the message.”

As luck would have it, Freddie Van, once again being on the right side of history and having friends in low places, happily garnered an invitation to a private box, the owner a friend of a friend, a Doc, who, by all indications has been hitting it out of the park himself for the last few years. Upon entering the box, with the abundance of booze, hors d’oeuvres and alive with animated conversation, it was apparent that the people there were taking the opportunity to socialize and party and had, for the most part, little interest in the game.

No matter. I quickly grabbed an exquisite seat on the rail of the box (decidedly better than the primo Manager’s Box I had at Shea Stadium compliments of Davey Johnson in the ‘86 Series) along the right field line, which was remarkably close to the action, especially for a private box. Even though I’m more of a “roar of the greasepaint, smell of the crowd” type of fan, I enjoyed the game immensely, despite the fact that the Tigers got beat in the last inning. Oddly enough, this was the very day that they began the demolition of old Tiger Stadium and the idea of ripping it down, corny as it may sound, plucked a distinct chord of sorrow deep within me.

Memories of my granddad recounting the times he saw Ty Cobb play, my own Pop (hard to believe now, but a young buck himself back then, in dark shades, handsome as movie star in my eyes) reveling in the tall tales of Babe Ruth and who took me to my first Tiger game where I saw Mantle (the Mick: now there was a ballplayer) Maris, Al Kaline (flawlessly competent and classy,)Harvey Kuene, Rocky Colavito, Stormin’ Norman Cash, Billy Bruton, Dick McAuliffe and Vic Wirtz . And later the Lions games where I had the privilege of seeing Alex Karras, Paul Hornung, “Night Train” Lane, Terry Barr, Pat Studstill and of course the incomparable Jim Brown (perhaps the greatest running back of all time .) Old Tiger Stadium had one other personal endearing memory for me; I had the opportunity to actually play (and win) a “championship” game in the old park.

It was the fall of 1962, the very last autumn of sanity in this country. A simple, sensible time, when certainty was a given and there was no lack of clarity. It was a time to believe in the virtue of possibility and faith in our future; within a year the shit would hit the fan when a lone gunman squeezed off three shots in Dallas and our lives and destiny would be forever altered. But that singular season I was the middle linebacker for the renowned and highly respected Grosse Pointe Spartans, the local little league football squad. I remember trading my teammate Eddie Black one (1) Yogie Berra rookie Topps baseball card to get the coveted number “56”, which was the number of the Detroit Lion Captain and middle linebacker Joe Schmidt. (Poor Eddie made a great trade that fall, but died the following spring in a private plane crash on the way to a skiing vacation…so goes the tale.)

A teammate’s Dad apparently had some serious business connections to Bill Ford, who, at that time was negotiating to purchase whatever portion of the Detroit Lions he didn’t already own thereby initiating that terribly long downward spiral of the once proud Lions that after 45 years has finally culminated in a pitiful totally winless season. For whatever reason, strings were pulled so that the Grosse Pointe Spartans would play a dreamed-up “City Championship” game against Hazel Park, (always referred to as the “Halloweener’s” because of their Orange and Black uniforms.) It was scheduled to be a 45 minute affair to be played on a Sunday afternoon before the Lions-Steelers game. Oddly, we still had several games to play in the regular season, but apparently, this was the only date that Bill Ford could negotiate and we were happy to be there, All-Stars, if only for a few precious moments, in front of thousands of people; such is the crap from which a young boy’s dreams are made.

Hazel Park (even then) was a “predominately” black team, meaning that while they had one or two white players, the team had more black kids than a Tarzan movie. We had battled them to a fortunate tie the previous year when their little scat back fumbled on the one-yard line with a minute to go and then proceeded to curse the referee, swinging his helmet in the official’s direction while we looked on in complete awe. They had a quarterback who, long and lean at 5’10” and claiming to be just 12 years of age, looked like he could have sung bass for the Four Tops. This is not to mention the two receivers, one tight end, a brawny, belligerent behemoth, big as a Buick, the other a wide-out, cool, quick, a graceful gazelle. The year before when we played, (a night game at their field where the lights were barely operative and it was as dark as a movie theater on the field,) it was easier to watch the bright whites of the eyes of the man-child quarterback to see where he was looking and going to throw. For a young white boy with a very unsophisticated world view, he was a frightening and imposingly daunting adversary.

Game Day at old Tiger Stadium; gray and chillingly raw. While doing our warm-up drills, the large and imposing Halloweener quarterback casually lopes over to me while I’m on my back doing leg stretches. Looking up at him as I lay on the hallowed turf of Tiger Stadium, he looks like a giant, his voluminous flared nostrils shooting steam. “What you doin’ little man? Don’ you know you got no shot today, you little motherfucker?”

I am reluctant (given the coarseness of my vocabulary these days) to say I was somewhat taken aback. But keep in mind this was the early ‘60’s, and while my crowd had heard the word “FUCKER” we seldom used it, and we certainly never quite put it together with “MOTHER” and the combination of the ultimate obscenity with a word of such endearing emotional attachment was puzzling and at the same time disconcerting and menacing. The only thought that my young mind could generate was…. “what kind of person could even conceive of fucking somebody’s mother?” Anybody’s mother. What kind of people are we up against here? Sufficiently messed up, I, as co-captain lost the opening mid-field toss. Remarkably, the captain of their team, the huge quarterback, blacker than an old-time telephone, inexplicably elected to kick. I remember that my immediate thought was that maybe…maybe we had a chance.

After we turned over the ball on downs on our first possession, the Halloweeners scored quickly on a long pass when their quarterback found the lightening fast wide-out as he ran a fly pattern by me, whipping a perfectly executed tight spiral with the ball flight of a frozen rope. The mighty Spartans, not to be denied, answered with scores on two consecutive possessions, missing the point after on the second score; 13-7. With time counting down on the 45 minute running clock and the Michigan State University Marching Band warming up behind me behind the end zone, the Halloweeners moved the ball impressively inside our 20 yard line as the freezing, stinging drizzle began to fall. The rangy quarterback dropped to throw just as the slick wide out raced into my zone again, blowing by me like I was waiting for a bus, running his pattern with smooth precision. With a delicate little head deke and speed to burn, he raced past me quicker than Oprah Winfrey jumping on a Three Musketeer’s bar. Beat by several steps from the giddy-up, I slip on the newly wet turf losing even more ground and my entire life flashes before me. With no ability to catch this racehorse my frustration gets the better of me and, for the first time in my young life, I scream the epithet “motherfucker” as this high stepping bastard breezes by. To my absolute amazement and relief, the pass, apparently deflected, miraculously came floating downfield, suspended in mid-air like a wobbling, wounded duck, short and directly into my outstretched hands.

I snatched the ball from the air and clutched the prize to my chest, running out of bounds as the clock ran out and the Marching Band began its procession from the end zone behind me towards the 50 yard line. In all the confusion, I had run to the Steeler sideline, where the players were already congregating near the bench, grunting and snorting loudly, smashing each other’s shoulder pads and butting helmets, colossal human rams readying for combat. So incredibly huge were these Titans that I was unable to see the Marching Band at mid-field, ducking my head underneath long legs and massive thighs to try and catch some of the action. Suddenly, I feel myself being lifted from behind by two gargantuan hands, fingers as huge as bananas wrapping around my waist and lifting me onto the shoulders of this colossus, a terrific mezzanine seat from which to watch the band accompany Dinah Washington (who was at that time engaged to be married to Lion defensive back Dick “Night Train” Lane) as she sung the National Anthem.

Glancing down I see a tightly cropped oblong ebony head the size of a small suitcase, the largest human head I had ever seen. Unable to see the player’s number from my treetop perch, I still was unaware of the identity of my giant host. As the final stirring strains of the Anthem (Dinah Washington’s version was sweetly soulful yet very recognizable, unlike most of the over-stylized renditions of today; she would die the following spring at age 39 from an overdose of pills…so goes the tale.) I am gently set back down on the ground and glancing up, still clutching my intercepted football as if it were a newly found security blanket, I see the largest human being that I had ever witnessed in my young life. Towering over me was number 76, Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb the notoriously fearsome six feet eight inch 300 pound All Pro defensive tackle. His reputation as the biggest, bad-ass in the league was well documented. It was said that he would just grab a handful of players and toss them aside until he found the ball carrier, and snatching him by each leg would smile slyly and say “…make a wish, baby.” Running backs throughout the NFL were aware that bumping into Big Daddy could be a career killer. Born in Detroit’s East side Black Bottom neighborhood he was an angry and violent youngster who grew into a violent man, constantly in trouble in his personal life, with the authorities and his team. But on the field, he had no equal, especially in terms of his ferocity. He peered down at me with what appeared to be a scowl from under his thick and furrowed brow, bulging eyes large and menacing and rimmed in red.

“You make ‘dat pick, little man?” he asked, referring to the interception. I nod slowly, scared shitless and wondering what it is with all this “little man” stuff. “Y’all win da game?” I nod again, like some dummy, unable to say anything. Abruptly Big Daddy’s scowl vanishes as he broke into a broad smile that literally lit up his massive face, his white teeth as huge as piano keys except for one sparkling gold incisor, his eyes big, bright and beaming. It was the rare sort of smile that had that contagious quality and conveyed joy and a simple vulnerability, and looking up at him I felt myself breaking into a grin despite my trepidation. He threw his head back and let out an abrupt, piercing laugh, halfway between a bellow and a howl, all the while showing his brilliant smile, no longer an intimidating bully, but a gentle giant. Taking my hand in his enormous paw, he walked me partway across the field in the direction of the opposite sideline where my teammates were watching us intently.

He nodded his impressively large melon in the direction of my buddies on the sidelines. “Boy, you go on which ‘ya now and tell dos’ little cats dat Big Daddy ain’t no bad man,” Big Daddy said a surprisingly soft rumbling voice. “You go on now, little man.” (There it was again…what is it with this “little man” thing?) I obediently trotted over to the sidelines to celebrate, happy in the knowledge that we had prevailed and that Big Daddy Lipscomb had honored me and my friends by referring to us as “cats”…which was what we called each other the entire rest of that season.

Funny what the mind retains. My encounter with Big Daddy lasted but a moment over 45 years ago. I never even spoke a single syllable to him. But I would bet not a week has gone by since that long ago chance meeting that I haven’t recalled Big Daddy and that gloriously splendid laugh and his huge smile.

And so it was the following spring, three weeks after poor Eddie Black bought it in a fiery plane crash, two weeks after the soulful Dinah Washington OD’d on pills, that I opened the sports page of the Detroit News and read in Doc Green’s sports column that Big Daddy was found in an apartment in Baltimore, dead of a heroin overdose…so goes the tale. Doc Green recalled how mean and menacing Big Daddy Lipscomb truly was and that in so many ways what an awful example he was to young people. I recall trudging my way up to my room with a sad emptiness I had never experienced, my adolescent mind numb as I contemplated the implausible fall of giants. Clutching that football, that rubber talisman that I foolishly believed could somehow protect me from my own epitaph, I abruptly realized that in the end, life, even for Giants, is a difficult and sometimes tragic mistress. Tragedy, it is said, is truly a tool for the living to gain wisdom.

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, the rolling thunder tumbling in the distance, announcing a gathering spring storm that was quickly blowing in off the lake. I watched as the majestic stand of towering elms in the backyard bent precipitously against the darkening sky, but never broke, while the freshening squall whistled through the newly sprouted buds with a high, thin, lonesome sound.

I remember that I was crying.

The Slow Life And Fast Death Of Dudley

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:33:07 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

3/19/2008 at 7:47 pm Eastern Daylight Time

With ignominious finality, death came yesterday, as it must to all canines, to Dudley the Bulldog. The once proud and powerful (yet clueless) specimen was taken early, felled as a result of a tumorous kidney which caused complete renal failure and reduced him to a mere shell of the dog he once was.

His favorite activity in life (which he loved right up until the time of his untimely demise) was "BYE-BYE CAR" in a roomy convertible, wind blowing through his impressively massive jowls, followed by a dish of Heinekens (always imported, never domestic) beer. Dudley's power-naps on the sofa and his prodigious appetite were legendary and he was recognized throughout all of Dogdom as a "Bulldog's Bulldog" for his slothful nature and his sluggish, good humored disposition.He was also known for his gentleness, having never nipped or bitten anyone in his entire life.

At the end he died as he had lived, snoring peacefully while laying down on his once formidable belly in his classic splayed prone position. He is survived by Fleetwood and Mac, lifelong Jack Russell companions. He will be missed greatly by all those who loved him during his Salad Days on Park Avenue.

Dudley the Bulldog.....dead at 6.

A Cynic’s Letter Sent to an Un-Named, Much-Married (and nearly broke) Friend

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:33:03 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

3/19/2008 at 6:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time

Dear _________,

So I’m at my club some time ago watching this pathetic youthful sap getting married to an old lawyer buddy’s daughter. Seeing this poor chump of a groom, fresh out of law school and all dressed up in his monkey suit, I know (the way you just know things after 57 years of knowing), that this marriage is going to cave in on this hapless simpleton with his little JAP wife so quick I almost began to feel sorry for him. But instead I thought of you, as I always do when I’m at a wedding that has all the earmarks of a NASCAR pile-up. It must be gratifying to have old friends think of you after all these years.

Anyway, the new couple, the perfect picture of youthful innocence, come to the real dopey part of the service where they read their vows to each other. The skinny little snot (whom I’ve known for 24 of her 26 years and who was on the 7-year undergraduate program at Boston University at $37,500 per annum, finally achieving a B.S. in Comparative Eastern Religions), reads for her vows that banal piece from the New Testament. You know the one that goes “…love is patient, love is not jealous…,” love is this and love is that. And this poor feckless fucker, in some absurdly bad deal made with the devil, is going to work for his new father-in-law and is peering with the loving intensity found only in young children and imbeciles into the eyes of this young woman who will be the instrument of his own destruction.

The single thought that leaps into my head is how the male species devolved from “Hunter Gatherer” hero of the planet to this little de-nutted sycophant I see before me. Could we have looked like this 35 years ago? I flip through my mental scrapbook, running through old grainy black and white flickering images that will somehow validate my manhood. Maybe this is the getting old part: beautiful young child morphs into a spoiled little plastic-titted brat in the blink of an eye.

She could have asked her old Uncle Freddie to help her write her ridiculous little speech. If you want “Love Pomes”, I’ll give you Love Pomes.

Cynical Marriage Love Pome

(for those who have been around the block more than once)

When love congeals

It soon reveals

The faint aroma

Of performing seals

The double-crossing

Of a pair of heels…

I wish I were in love

Again

The blackened eye

The furtive sigh

The words “I love youTo the day I die”

The self deception

That believes the lie…

I wish I were in love

Again*

There! I am nothing if not brutal in my honesty.

And so it goes. The universe continues to conspire against me; my victim-hood status is now legendary. My career is in the ditch, my golf game in a crater and I am hemorrhaging cash in the stock market. I desperately long for those heady days of conspicuous consumption back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when BIG was good and BIGGER was even a damn sight better. No little politically correct, nose to the grindstone, shoe clerks running the show. Great Days. No serious wars. Suicide bombers were still considered to be deranged maniacs, not misunderstood sand-monkeys and of course we didn’t have to put up with these offensive "boner" erectile dysfunction ads on TV. But life as I now know it continues to march on in an inexorable and relentless parade of idiocy, mocking me at every conceivable opportunity. A lesser man might bemoan fate, but I choose to take it all quite philosophically. When one is already grabbing one’s ankles as firmly as one can, what’s 3 or 4 more inches?

Not that you’d ever hear me complain. I, for one, am not getting married.

I hear you are dating again. Look forward to meeting the next ex-wife. I’m sure she is lovely.

Your Pal,

Freddie Van

(a cynical child of god)

*lyric to "I wish I was in Love Again", Rogers and Hart

NORMAN ROCKWELL: In the Belly of the Thanksgiving Beast

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:32:59 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

2/20/2008 at 7:42 pm Eastern Daylight Time

So it’s Thanksgiving, a time to reflect and be grateful for all the good things in our life. Looking back, however, our recollections always seem to be framed in that familiar warm and fuzzy, soft focus Norman Rockwell setting. The reality, of course, is always much different. Watching the Detroit Lions briefly last Thanksgiving, (I say briefly because I am no longer an NFL fan, the game having devolved into a modern metaphor for urban warfare; huge, tattooed menacing felons on drugs dressed in their colors and fighting over turf), I was catapulted back to the Thanksgivings of my youth.

Growing up in the Detroit area, Thanksgiving was, for a young boy in my family, more than simply a Holiday; it was a revered rite of passage. The distinct structure of this process was as simple and direct as it was demeaning. Basically, there were three categories of people at the annual extended family Thanksgiving gathering that took place on a yearly round robin schedule at a different home every year. The loftiest category in this arrangement was the adults, which were actually separated into two distinct groups; Male Adults followed at a great distance by female adults. Of these two, Male Adults were by far the most influential and held the most commanding position over all of the rest of that holiday horde I knew as my extended family. Adults were followed by Lackeys, primarily comprised of servile and stupid teenage boys. That collection of idiots was succeeded by the most inferior of all, the Toadies, which included all children 11 years of age and younger. In the early ‘60’s, as a result of overtime baby-boomer hyper-copulation, this group had, by far, the most members and the least power.

The normal and long-accepted progression was from Toady to Lackey to Adult, which required years of considerable applied dedication. There were, however, some distinct advantages to working one's way up the line. The Male Adult, for example, had it dicked from the giddy-up. He was not responsible for cooking or clean-up and was content to do absolutely nothing except a little armchair quarterbacking while getting shit-faced after he returned from the Green Bay Packer/Detroit Lion Thanksgiving Day game at Briggs (neo Tiger) Stadium. Everyone in my sphere (even the female adults, whose chances of acquiring a game ticket in those glorious pre-feminist days were absolutely nonexistent) aspired to this most lofty position in what was clearly a dysfunctional pecking order.

The next most coveted spot in this arrangement was the Lackey. Lackeys consisted of mostly teenage males, pimply faced and arrogant. They had the second best deal in that they were allowed to go to the ballgame with the Male Adults, didn’t have to watch any of the little dirty-faced Toady rabble cousins or wash dishes and could blow out after dinner to see their girlfriends or a movie. While not as commanding or secure a position as the Male Adult, the Lackey, none the less, was nothing to scoff at.

Then there was the Toady category, of which I was a member. When you were a lowly Toady, Thanksgiving was a series of humiliations, one heaped upon another. You were forced to sit with the little 5 and 6 year old Toady cousins at rickety old card tables set up willy-nilly throughout the kitchen or in whatever other areas not being used by real people. All one could do was sit and watch hopelessly as whatever meager bit of manhood you may have possessed as an 11 year old top-end Toady slipped away while the dirty little shits threw candied yams all over your brand new cable-knit crew neck sweater you just bought with your hard-earned paper route money. Because I was too young to attend the game, and in those days all home games were blacked out on TV, my only hope was maybe I’d get lucky and sneak off somewhere in the host house and listen to Van Patrick (the Official Radio Voice of the Detroit Lions) with his overly-elocuted clipped diction and old-timey formal radio voice do the play-by-play. I can still remember it like it was last week…. "Lions on their own 45….second and ten….Plum in the pro-set, Petrosanti at fullback….Cogdill split left, Barr deployed to the right….Studstill in the slot…the snap….Plum back to pass… (sing-songy now)… in the pocket….plenty of time…... .l-o-o-o-k-s…d-o-w-n-f-i-e-l-d… (anticipation building) …THROWS — THE— HOMERUN—BALL... incomplete.” But even the hope of listening on the radio, I knew, was only a pipedream. Because, as if this shameful day was not enough debasement and degradation for one 11 year old to take….there was the parade.

The J.L. Hudson Department Store Thanksgiving Day Parade was, at the time, recognized nationally and second only to Macey’s in size and stature in the Thanksgiving Day parade genre. In the parochial, self conscious vernacular of Detroit in those days it was said of the Hudson’s parade “….it may not be as big as Macey’s, but it’s just as good.” Bullshit. It sucked. And when you were a Toady, mandatory attendance at the parade with all the other little loser Toadies was your personal purgatory on Turkey Day. At 11 years of age, I was not yet eligible to go to the game (although my cousin Gordy the year before did attend at the tender age of 11 years and 7 months as a result of a broken ankle suffered by his older brother in a football injury). I Knew full well that the only way I was ever going to move up the Big Game food chain, given the limited number of season tickets the family business had at it’s disposal, would be if an older Lackey cousin got married or received a debilitating injury sometime that day. My prospects looking bleak, I resigned myself once again to face the fact I would be forced to attend the parade, bemoaning my fate as I navigated my way through this Thanksgiving limbo.

The parade proceeded down Woodward Avenue in the heart of Detroit and featured a semi-impressive display of floats on which characters taken from the popular culture of the day were riding. There were the always dependable Disney characters and mandatory high school marching band, flat, tinny and off key followed by the chubby baton twirling little cheerleaders who wanted out more than even me. The parade, which seemed as though it went on forever, finally finished, as these things always do, with a massive float of a red-faced Santa, a bloated fraud who’s HO- HO- HO was like the worst community theatre you’ve ever seen.

But it was the second to last float that really got to me that year in the terrible time during my transition from Toady to Lackey; an image that is fire-branded in my brain to this very day. It was a float that depicted the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock, or wherever the first Thanksgiving deal was allegedly held. The float itself sported a giant Tee-Pee with a corresponding collection of huge cornstalks, place throughout the float. A fantastic behemoth mechanical Indian Chief was handing a colossal ear of corn to this goliath pilgrim who was extending his hand to receive it. Both of these bizarre titans were moving with a jerky, spasmodic motion, as if each were suffering from some leviathan dose of a super-advanced stage of syphilis. As cheesy and pathetic as this display was, it paled by comparison to the human characters who were walking along side of the float. Pilgrims with black buckled shoes and goofy black buckled hats grimly trudged by followed closely by Indians clad in traditional Indian garb and soaking wet leather moccasins, freezing their asses off in the rain and sleet and smelling of cheap whiskey.

By the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s there were no Indians in Detroit, having been massacred and starved out some 10 generations before. No problem. The marketing geniuses at J.L. Hudson’s simply went to the nearest Salvation Army and hired some off the rack Mexicans, put pitiful pigtailed wigs on their little third world heads, dressed ‘em in buckskins and turned ‘em out.

Now, I may have only been 11 years old with a limited world view and perhaps not even the sharpest knife in the drawer. But don't you dare stick a feather in some drunken Mexican's head and try to pass him off as a fucking Indian while I’m stuck out here in this shithole which happens to be lousy with ankle-chomping Toadies when all the big guys are at the big game!

Eventually the natural order of the universe played out, my cosmic tumblers fell into place. I moved up the next year, accepting Lackeydom, (albeit the bottom rung), with the graciousness for which I am now known and immediately began kicking downward lest I lose my hard-earned spot to some new-wave thinking young Toady who would attempt to alter the time-honored system.

These events, of course, took place many years ago, blurred by the obfuscation of recollection and research. I relate these stories to my wife, (who is from a rather reserved family from Charleston), and she just shakes her head with a funny, knowing smile, as if recognizing some private joke that I am not privy to. I secretly believe that she secretly believes that there is a genetic strangeness on my side of the family. She is, of course, too well bred to say so. But strange is as strange does and I have seen quite a bit in the way of strangeness in my 62 years on the planet. My kids think I’m strange because I own, and listen to, the entire Rickey Nelson Anthology (a vastly under-rated artist, by the way). I personally think that those who listen to Barry Manilow are strange, while other, more decadent and urbane individuals may think that bestiality, for example, is only a moderately strange practice.

No matter. One man’s floor is another man’s ceiling. You’ve got to know, however, that God has probably reserved a special place in hell for those sick fuckers who practice bestiality while listening to Barry Manilow.

So here’s to a Happy Thanksgiving and start of the holiday season. Take heart; Norman Rockwell may be long-gone…but the memories haunt you forever.

Freddie Van

(a child of god)

Autumn Came Late to the Mountains

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:32:57 GMT

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/29/2008 at 6:26 am Eastern Daylight Time

Autumn came late to the mountains of North Carolina this year, sliding in on a series of cold, damp, gray days. They were the sort of days that thoughts of taking a rope up to the attic crazily shoot through the synapses of your brain, leaving you wondering about the genesis of such notions. My summertime tenants, the delicate wood ducks are now long-gone along with the handsome ringnecks, probably well on their way, winging to warmer climes, to some other old guy who is foolish enough to claim them as his own.

My two white squirrels still scurry skittishly about the trees that surround my home, stealing the food I put out when I am not around, depriving me of the small pleasure of watching them enjoy the nutty treats. They are unique animals but basically ungrateful and self absorbed little rodents and despite their rarity I have little use for them. I await the spring and the return of my lovely, ethereal water fowl.

My first class immune system apparently continues to battle my body’s Achilles heel of prostate cancer, my first PSA follow-up came in at an encouraging .01, virtually undetectable. I imagine microscopic cellular brawls being waged deep inside me, little Freddie Van cells throwing tremendous body shots and brain numbing hooks to the head of whatever evil cancer cells that still may exist. I am optimistic, despite one the lesions escaping the capsule of the prostate, the cowardly little bastard no doubt sneaking out under cover of darkness. I am unafraid. I am winning. I am, in my mind, Legend.

My Doc shares my optimism. He is youngish, well credentialed with a confidence that borders on cockiness and his polite and deferential demeanor seems genuine, even if well rehearsed. He tells me that I am in terrific shape, but I see in his eyes what is left unsaid…“for a man your age”. While I appreciate his fine work and his exquisite surgical skills, he is none-the-less, a condescending son-of-a-bitch.

These “follow-up” visits seem unending. I sit shirtless in freezing, tiny rooms on paper covered examining tables for interminable moments waiting for young nurses to prod and poke and then hand me off to some other nubile bitch who will probably not know my name and will just move my old ass through the medical morass. Not too long ago, while sitting in the waiting room next to a guy older than dirt ,wearing a Tee shirt that said “I take my orders from the Big Guy upstairs” and had , (what else) several BUSH-CHENEY bumper stickers plastered all over his old beat-up briefcase, the nurse came to bring the old guy back to the examining area. She gave me a sideways glance and a shy, rather embarrassed smile. And suddenly, as she led him away, the old guy stoved up and crouched over as if looking for spare change on that waiting room floor, it came to me, in a blinding flash of the obvious. She was looking at me, smiling at me, embarrassed for me, knowing that I, in the not so too distant future, would be the Old Guy. I gagged on the bitter taste of the realization that this is what getting older is all about; moving your old ass through the system, staying alive out of pure habit, from what yearning I do not know, but perhaps because it is all we know.

Despite furious workouts 3 or 4 times weekly, my confidence in my immortality is rapidly waning, diminished by the awareness that I am only staying even at best, barely staving off, if history is any indication, what appears to be the inevitable. Fast approaching 57, one realizes that this pace can’t be maintained forever. Time touches everything. As Paul Newman said in the movie classic “Hud,” “…horses, dogs, men…nobody gets out of life alive…” Sooner, probably than later, progress will be measured in ground given up in a valiant fighting retreat. And yet we keep on, moving deliberately, inexorably towards the inevitable, whatever awaits us at the end, knowing full well that the more we come to know, the less it seems to matter. At the end of the day, we all come to realize that while we may be integral components to our family and friends (which has great importance), in the great scheme of whatever is out there, we are superfluous little things wondering who will remember us 30 or so years after we take the big dirt nap.

I remember a guy, my grandfather, dead now some 36 years. A simple farmer, born in the old white clapboard farm house still standing Grosse Pointe Shores Michigan on Lakeshore Road at Vernier in 1878. It was the old Vernier farmhouse, his mother being a Vernier, the “wealthy” side of the family as far as the Grosse Pointe farm community was concerned. In 1970 he had a wish at the age of 91. Although he had seen some of the Great Lakes, he had never seen the ocean; had never, in fact, been out of the Detroit area except to travel on a church trip by train to Toronto. So, in the spring of 1970, it was decided that my granddad, now a widower, would accompany us to Florida for my family’s Easter vacation to my dad’s beach-front condo in Ft. Lauderdale to accomplish a series of “firsts”. His first trip to another state, his first plane ride and most importantly, the first time he would see the ocean.

I sat with him on the flight down, his insistence on a window seat overwhelmed even the seasoned stewardess. He never took his eyes off the window, amazed that something so heavy could even get off the ground. We arrived, cabbed in from the airport and turned in early, his anticipation of the “Ocean Viewing” as great as a child awaiting his birthday party.

The next morning he woke me at 0-dark-thirty, coffee made and ready to roll. The sun was just rising, a huge, fiery red ball, cresting over the ocean horizon. We walked down to the beach, a bull of a man, his pace was several beats quicker than mine, his step steady and sure. At the beach, the new tide lapping up against our shins, he took off the brand new top-siders, purchased for him by my aunt which looked so wrong on a 90 year old man. Rolling up his khaki pants he waded into the foaming surf and reached down with his open hand to scoop up the briny water. He smiled, a knowing smile, as if to say “yes, this is the McCoy”, the salty real deal that he had never experienced, but certainly had read about. This was, indeed, the ocean.

The old man, who had told me stories of his father trading with Indians along Lake St. Claire, stood, hands on hips smiling at the rising sun and the vast expanse of water. “So grandpa, whattya think of the ocean?” I asked.

He looked at me with a wry old man’s smile and winked. “Boyka”, he replied in the Belgian derivative of “son”, “Somehow, I thought it would be bigger”.

I wish all of you “bon chance” and a tremendous Holiday Season, and hope to see you all next year at the Art Van.

Your Pal,

Freddie Van

(a quickly recovering child of god)

Of Moonbeams and Memories

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 17:32:53 GMT

(Sent to Martin Van on his 25th B'day)

Originally published on vandalnation.blogspot.com

1/28/2008 at 10:46 pm Eastern Daylight Time

Dear Son,

It hardly seems like a quarter of a century ago when, upon bringing you back from the hospital, I wrote Mark Fossee, "...here I am in the middle of the night with an 8 lb. continuous loop siren and shit all over practically everything." And now, here you are in a PhD program in a discipline that I can barely pronounce. So it goes; time touches everything as it marches inexorably onward toward some pre-determined point in space.

Actually, you almost were not Frederick Martin Van Assche IV. Although the name was pretty much chosen as a tribute to my now late and unlamented father, I nearly changed the whole schmere, as it were. In a celebratory mood the night you were born, I was over-served at Harper's Tavern, a popular watering hole where I actually met your mother when she was a singer in the band some years before. That I imbibed too much was understandable in that earlier in the day I was forced to endure the "24 hours of Lamas" birthing experience. In the event that you are unaware of this now well established and time-honored fraud, it is a birthing procedure whereby the male component in the procreation process is locked in a "birthing room" with a women (his wife) who is suffering immeasurably from erratic waves of labor pain. The male is instructed to vanquish her agony by admonishing her to breathe. Right. The literature that was provided in the required classes necessary for the privilege of participating in this criminal deception maintained that the female would feel some discomfort, "however by using the breathing techniques," (note the scare quotes) the "temporary inconvenient uneasiness" will be "significantly diminished". Where I come from "inconvenient uneasiness" occurs when one three-putts from 12 feet. I personally am a fan of the ancient method of child birth whereby the female takes the drugs and wakes up when the child is in the second grade. Many fine Americans were born employing this very method; former president William Jefferson Clinton, America's first Black President immediately comes to mind. I now understand that people are bringing video cameras into these birthing rooms in an effort to play a major part in this now discredited hoax, filming (FILMING!) their own wife's VAGINA as it expands to 270 centimeters, or however wide these things expand in order to accommodate the indolent little lackey's head.

Anyway, I digress. After being over-served the night of your birth, I made my way out of the bar and maneuvered through the parking lot, searching for my brand new Lincoln. I recall the full moon crazily casting weird monochromatic shadows that danced over the other cars and trees on that balmy, early autumn night. Finally locating my vehicle, I thought that I had gotten into the wrong side of the car because I was sliding from one side to the other and could not find the steering wheel. While contemplating this development and staring up at that silver, low hanging full moon through the car window, a sudden blinding flash of the obvious leapt into my alcohol saturated brain; Martin MOONBEAM Van Assche the 1st ! My last fleeting conscious thought before drifting off was that this was just the alliterative quality a man looks for in a name when he hangs a moniker on his first-born son. I also hazily deduced that, in an unprecedented display of lawlessness, thieves had somehow stolen my steering wheel. I was, however, satisfied that my insightful thought process leading to this new and improved appellation would be warmly and rousingly lauded by my wife the next morning. The heavy lifting being done, cerebrally speaking, I peacefully fell asleep in the back seat of my Lincoln.

But my well known persuasive skills were no match for your mother. The next morning, bright and early I rushed to the hospital and pitched your mom on this name change produced by my scotch-induced visionary apparition. Sitting up in bed, holding you gently, the perfect picture of new motherhood, she gazed at me and asked if I was completely out of my fucking mind. And so, by default, Frederick Martin was reborn.

But you, young man, should never forget that somewhere, floating in that moonbeam packed cosmos, is your dimensionally challenged twin, Martin Moonbeam, who still lives, if only in my own fanciful memory of a special night long ago.

Happy Birthday Son,

Dad

AKA Freddie Van

(a child of god)