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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Whatever else you do with the rest of your miserable life, read Steve Raker’s Dick Cheney Plays Poker in the latest VO. This is pristine “sick humor,” like the kind former GM CEO Roger Smith decried when asked if he had seen Roger & Me (he hadn’t, yet he just knew - maybe Miss Cleo clued him in).   Somehow, corrupt politicians and hypocritical CEOs intuitively understand how thin the PR veneer is, the one that separates their twisted souls from horrified public scrutiny. In the name of self-preservation, they act as they must, thrusting the veneer forward like it’s an impenetrable shield, right into face of anyone who dares to look closer - all the while saying that it is reality itself that is the liar.   It takes only one number 2 pencil with a sharp lead to penetrate that shield and Steve’s pencil is very sharp. Like a stake to a vampire’s heart, I might say, if I were prone to metaphor, er, uh, simile.      07/16/2004 "update": Steve tells me he didn't write that article. He clearly said that when he sent it to me. I guess that makes me a raving lunatic, but I didn't kill anybody. 7:19:22 PM    comment []

Gotta wish a happy 100th birthday to my mother today. She left us a little over 4 years ago, even though I always really believed she’d still be around for today. It wasn’t because of lack of will that she isn’t here. She just ran out of gas. I can’t remember anyone ever calling her anything but “Mom,” though I’m sure they did. Especially the repairmen who “fixed” something at her house and did less than a perfect job. They’d be back, again and again, until they got it right. The way “Dad” used to do things.   Having lived through The Great Depression, she never trusted banks and she never threw anything away. Her irreverent children, perhaps instigated by her youngest, would joke that she still had the very first piece of aluminum foil that she ever bought hidden away somewhere – a crumpled and shredded metallic sheet that might come in useful sometime. After I moved away from home, I would sometimes buy rolls of foil, tear off a piece, and immediately throw it in the trash, just to see what it felt like to throw the stuff away. I felt nothing.   It was not until shortly after her death that I realized nobody in my lifetime really loved me as much as she did, and that nobody ever will again. Happy Birthday, Mom! I’m sure that in heaven all the repairmen and children are up to snuff.   6:11:03 PM    comment []

This is a composite made from screen captures of the woodpecker that has been visiting my feeder regularly. To the best of my abilities to discern, it’s a red-bellied woodpecker. If you know better, let me know. 5:51:30 PM    comment []