Big band in the veins. Sunny skies above. Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative. Don't mess with Mr. In Between. Words to live by or just words to get drunk and hear and shout back at? Someone help me with these tootsie pop questions. Those damn psychedelic commercials have changed my world and perspective, how about you? I thought not.

I know many a comic have commented on the hokie pokie. It is what it is all about. As humorous as I thought the references to the song were, they really are quite pertinent to our existence. I know the hokie pokie is not politics but I will be back to those on Monday. Today I just want to put things in and out, well, 'cause that is what it is all about.

There is some dreaded conspiracy about a certain post on blogstream regarding the Amish. I stay out of garbage topics like this, but this time I was forced into investigation as I am a Leo and should be dead now due to that curiosity. I find it funny that something of such trivial importance grabs a hold of over 500 comments yet anything meaningful only grabs a dozen or so. Then there are posts written by my nemesis that grab around fifty comments. I get about 4. MMMMMMMM. Where am I again? I take it I am in some sort of lock down much like that of high school. Fuck that, I am going to smoke cigarettes in the field and miss a few classes I could out-teach anyway.

I have more important things to worry about than the Amish and their pre-historic feelings. Today my five year old daughter wept on the phone exclaiming that she "needs" to see Daddy. To me this is far more important than both sides of the "what the fuck" spectrum.

I couldn't care less about cell phones, the Amish, what you do in your living room or bedroom, teen fashion, minivans, SUV's, gas prices, Starbucks, the Gap, Old Navy, the grammy-emmy-oscar-tony nightmare, or the current state of isolationist Americans living out in the middle of no where. Let them all live and strive and thrive and breathe and live. Rock on with your bad ass selves. I need not these trivial existences or repercussions. Just make sure not to push it down my throat and do not insist it to be my behavior.

I have not shaved in over a week. I am furry. Grisly Adams look out, your bear is looking pretty nice. All that echoes through my head are thoughts of Jerry Reid and, well, that is just fine with me. "We're goin' to do what they say can't be done".  Two seconds after reading that you think I am a red neck, which simply means you do not read my pieces.

Hey, wait! Does that make me condescending? Considering these little graffiti pieces, these miniscule scrawls on the bathroom wall, actual "pieces", actual "articles"? Am I nothing more than the fault of my own existence and hopes of achievement? Shame on me! I am a let down.

Trying to write politics and taking time off due to illness, you would think my fat sickly ass would be able to get up and at least sit in a chair long enough to research a bit of what is going down. Nah! Fuck that! I can sit and ramble. I am mad today. I am sad today. I am gloriously confused today.

I eat table cake of disgust when looking at not only the attention but the detraction (which only creates the need to taste) created by a simply innocent piece about humor. My woman is a member of the "Weird" Al Yankovic fan club. Hell, she is a calendar girl for last years calendar. I know, Laugh it up! You all wish she were in bed with you and  99% of you don't even know why and I'll keep it like that. But this woman went out to watch performers try their best to earn money and signatures to get Al on the Hollywood walk of fame. She didn't see Al but she acquired signatures. She is more of a trooper than most of you with your own "important" causes.

Put my left brain in . Pull my left brain out. I try everyday to shake both sides all about.

I know I am getting old due to last nights movie line up on Flix. At 1:15 a.m. PST they showed 200 Motels. I know, this seems like a shoulder shrug to everyone else. So be it! Frank Zappa changed the world that we live in. No matter what side of the aisle you stand on or what side of your brain you are shaking all about, Frank changed your life. The man was going to run for President in 1992. God, I wish that man had not become sick and that it had reached fruition. Just from a debate point of view. He would have licked up and down and spit out the ass of Ross Perot. Bush - dust in seconds. Clinton with that pansy ass sax blowin on Arsenio - Uuuggghhhh. Frank would have woo hoo'ed Arsenio into his dog pound wrist twirl and sent Bubba away to the land of other blows. If not for Zappa, peace in Eastern Europe would have unfolded very differently. If you don't believe me do research. I am not your hand maiden. I am no Monica. Do it yourself. No Nike's here, even if I do like the Misfits.

200 Motels features the most pristine and precise drummers of the twentieth century. There are a list of twenty that rocked the hundred years leading to now. Five of them are in the movie. Ringo Starr (never one studio mistake ever, no one else in history has that claim. He is perfection), Keith Moon (do I really need to say anything there? I may not care for the Who but Keith is a keepsake of times long gone and talent not sought after with such devotion), Aynsley Dunbar (AMAZING, he was the second drummer for Journey and played with Frank for over 7 years leading up to that. He can't enter the country anymore due to the plethora of illegitimate children he has and his outstanding support of said children), Jimmy Carl Black (just look up this bad ass, mad ass, Indian and that is all that need be said. God gave us Barstow for a reason and meth was not it), and of course Frank himself. Watch the movie. At the time Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the Turtles were doing vocals for Frank and they are predominant in the film. It is a hard watch but well worth the while. And it grows on you like sleazy slacks that fit in all the right places.

I listened to nothing other than Frank for over five years. No MTV. No radio. No live music. No nothing. Just Frank and the woods. I exercised alot back then. I read lots of Twain and Kafka and listened to Zappa. I ran. I mountain biked. I lived. Then I stopped. This must be why when I shake it all about it doesn't stop shaking.

I guess I am an odd duck. Something about John Wayne comes to mind. I remember growing up and my Mother would take us to Delaney's in Newport Beach for a "fancy" dinner. Wayne used to hang there back in the day along with other amazing Newport dining establishments. Wayne, when asked by the press how he was doing replied during a drunken dinner, “I feel more like I do now then I did when I got here”.  That sums up the last five years of my life. Well, until I started to care again and put the ol' breakdown aside.

It's funny the amount of rage one person can accumulate in a life time. I wish rage was a "Nerf" product. It would make anger a much more simple endeavor.

I honestly don't think anyone reads these rants all the way through. Yes, I am having a pity party. I think about when I thought of growing up. Nothing that I considered to be that changing really changed me. College, marriage, children, divorce, careers. It was all about me. Something I will have to thank that cunt of a mother I have for. Now I see it. I feel it. The love for my woman, now, I want to shake that all about. Can I still wiggle and worm my fat ass into the hokie pokie? Well, that is what it is all about, right?

I guess if no one reads than I can go on some sort of erotic porn bender and really twist a nipple or two. I am a writer. This is not the only thing I write. I could fold a few fannys, contort and copulate a few cl##s, refinish a few mentalities. I refrain. There is a time and place for everything. What am I supposed to be sticking in and out now? What is to be shaken?

Stick me, stuck me, don't you want to  ____ me? No? Neither do I. It makes it easier when all we want is the hokie pokie.

Thoughts of Benny Hill run through my mind. Was Herb Alpert really blowing sax sounds of his soundtrack while he lay in his apartment for weeks, dead? Papa's in the ice box looking for a can of ale.

I will wait until tomorrow to know. I will wait with baited breath. I want to jive and wail, do you? No worries, just shake it all about until tomorrow ...

Normally I can not see through the cigarette smoke in my office. The stars and stripes craddle my huge ass in the form of a fold out camping chair. My desk is two 3' planks laid across two chests of drawers that stand three drawers high. I have two monitors, one of which stares at me in it's black faced splendor screaming "mamie" at me. I live in a nice place but my ergonomic keyboard wouldn't know that. My speakers scream jazz and classical as I ash my death into a copper mug that I top off with a two inch metal M&M to block out ashtray stink. Sometimes I wonder why I write. Tonight I tell you how I write.

There are nights when it is easier to lay down my head and not even think of the big ol' techno beast that requires my input and editorial. If no one read would it be redeeming? Probably not. But this is the forum I wish to scrawl my existance and opinions into. I mostly find myself writing and typing and creating into the ol' box. Am I at a loss? Do I waste my time? No. I do not. Even with this week being passed up politically, I think I am better off having sat at the machine spouting and spewing my ideas and thoughts down before they make my head rupture like a bad pumpkin being shot out into the Virginia fields of doom.

I got my first taste of politics again today when I went back to work and drank from the frothy glass of a.m. radio. Ahhhhhh, what a shame. I was doing so well with my head inside the sand. I learned to day of things that I would never want to dream of or ever taste. I did non the less. It made me feel alive. It renewed my disgust for most modern man.

I dance around in front of my computer to some warped Brazillian Bossa Nova. Taunting the stautes and art works I have in the office. Spitting at and scoffing off my trinkets and bric a brac, all the while hoping they would write a piece for me. They didn't. I have to. If we all only knew that lesson. What a world we would have.

If my grand ol' Ma Ma would read these pieces she would shit her britches twice and die. That liberal hag could not even begin to recognize or comprehend what I lay down on these pages. Would she understand my poetry? Nope she would get that even less. Lesson? If you are going to be a disagreeable liberal at least be involved in the arts!

Have you ever wondered how sick you could be? That is the premise of my existance. Sick, sick, sick! An alcoholic father, a dysfunctional and mentally deranged mother. Drug addict step father who is also a work aholic. Two half sisters that are beyond mentally ill. Someday I will write a piece about cults and maybe you will all understand.

You all know my disgust regarding commercials but I find two jingles running through my head all of the time and I am left to wonder if Dr. Gonzo is camping in my skull having a good round of football just to piss me off and give me headaches. One of them is the Old Navy "Summertime Girlfriend" song and the other is the Post It note company's ad about replaceable picture stickeys. Ahhhhh the time I wittle away humming out these melodies of consumerism. Needless to say I do not buy either product. Hey, thanks for the songs!

Eleven p.m. finds me typing into this dumb ass box. I am alone. By choice. My lady has gone out with friends. I am sick. Something is wrong with me. Maybe someday I will figure it out. My taxes go to help out people not paying taxes but without incurring numerous dollars in debt but I can not figure out my health problems. I can't even get published; do I honestly think I can get a physical? Earth is weird.

At one point in time I thought I had Asperger's Syndrome. I was sure of it. Then I just realized that I was having a nervous breakdown and that I was no more messed up than anyone else. Or maybe that is what I told myself in order to move on. Much like the tootsie pop; the world may never know.

When I start thinking about IQ's, I humble myself by reminding myself of Leopold. 200 + and all he had was a dead kid, a murdered compatriot, and an exile in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is nice but I rather spend the days like Bukowski or Hemmingway or even Thompson. Death is as death does. How sad my post has become.

I find it easier to listen to music in different languages. The point, for some reason, is easier to understand. I want to learn other languages but that would just ruin it. I guess it is easier to just listen to Allen Holdsworth.

Does this make sense? No. Do I want it to? No. It is a bonus post after all. And sometimes bonuses make no sense. Think Bazooka Joe and get my point.

On Monday the tic tac will progress back to politics. Thanks for being with me until then. Monday already tastes better ...

I have been miserable sick all week. Too sick to write. Too sick to read. Too sick to even get out of bed. There is too much sick to pass around these days and I finally got slapped in the face with a ton of it.

I have been very, very stressed this past couple of weeks. Life has not been upside down or upright it has more or less been a sideways float by on some gravity-less pod floating on down the continuum.

Taking a week out of reality can help when it's vacation. Taking a week off to lie in bed and ponder the thought of showering for hours on end is another. I find the older I get, the sicker I get. Life will be very difficult for me in old age. Did Roger Daltry have something there?

I find it funny that the same feeling your face has when you are fevered is the same reaction when embarrassed, shamed, caught or belittled. Bad things all have the same reaction to being noticed . It would be nice not to be noticed. This week was both sides of that argument for me. It was horrible not to be at work and not to be writing. But it felt good to lay in bed in my robe and wonder when I would fall asleep again. Feeling better today and the first place I go to after my shower is here. To write.

I have been out of the political link for a week. I have not looked outside. If you asked me the weather and made me a wager, I would not take it because I know I would lose my money in a flash. I know today was sunny but beyond that I have no idea. I did not slumber underneath a mobile of Bush and Cheney and Rice. The conflicting circle of NBC, CBS, and CNN were not hovering about in the night time air blown cool by the breath of three a.m. Was I healthy? No I was sick.

I should take my health more seriously than I do. I had no healthy role modals growing up unless you include Mr. Body (or was his name Mr. Goodbody?). Running around with his want to be Richard Simmons afro and his skin tight organ diagram of a spandex suit. Look, there's my liver. Hey, check it out, there are my lungs. Aaaaahhhhh. I suppose to think about those organs not make fun of his funny outfit. It was lost on me.

Today I began to feel much better. My afternoon embraced me coming out of the cave and into my living room. No more tissues needed. No more bathroom time to chalk up. It's already 8:30 p.m. and it feels like a week was wasted on being sick. Was it? I feel better. It put certain points of my reality into perspective. My soldiers are now lined up in rows. Certain problems are now gone. The only hurdle left to get me into this weekend is saying hello to the boss tomorrow and working my ass off for eight hours. Not much of a hurdle. Or is it?

I normally take about three months of the year off in order to visit with my daughter. Due to some troubling times as of recent I have not seen her since last July. It breaks my heart harder than any virus or cold ever will. Those months off, normally in three week intervals, always did me good. I was able to see my child and continue to help in her formation as a child and onto an adult. I was also able to step back and realize why I was doing what I was doing. What I am doing. I work to see my child and to be part of her life. I gave up a huge part of the choice part of my life when I consented to make a child by having sex. For one big choice I sacrificed numerous. When I see my daughter I understand why. When I do not see her things become muddled and cloudy. Time off is still required. Even if it is the result of stress erupting into my being leaving me incapacitated and only able to reflect.

I am no longer sick, for now. Where is my ticker tape parade? Where is my revelry? Where are the fireworks in my honor? When do I get my Katie Couric special on health with that Gupta guy? Never, never, never. I am a grown up now and it is my responsibility to be healthy and to deal with being sick.

Growing up is hard. Knowing that you are already a grown up is harder. Writing my pieces is easy. I tend to think it will be easier on Monday when I am one hundred percent ...

I really enjoy the archaic past time of listening to radio programs. I do not mean bopping around to the funk, jive, and bop of musical sound on the good ol' FM dial. I do not mean listening to some sack of crap running morning show contests while he plays my top ten hits. I listen all day to AM radio. Recently, I was contacted by Arbitron (the Maryland based radio ratings firm) in order to participate in a week long radio diary survey of everyone in my household over the age of twelve. I am over twelve, as is my co-habitating woman (Dr. Laura would be disgusted I am shacking up), so it works out for all the parties involved. Sometimes life is sweet.

It is kinda sad that being a participant in a ratings machine would be categorized as making life sweet. I live a pretty sad life. At this point in the post I have to decide wether or not to get real personal or just let it be what it has been; my reflections on life and politics and how they intertwine. Pretty tough decision to make. Certainly harder than just filling out a radio diary. It is about as tough as convincing a liberal that there is a difference between news and op-ed. And if I do, I give fuel to said liberal in order to try to discredit me via personal attack. What the hell, I'll get a little personal as it will keep me on track and in line in regards to the point of the post.

Sometimes points are the hardest things to keep track of, especially when writing. My recent posts have been pretty short and not as flowery as they once were. I do try my damndest to get my points across and to do so with flare (not the stuff at Chachki's), as of late, personal problems have prevented me from giving it my all and for that I apologize to you, my readers.

I had this idea once, when I was twelve, that I would grow up to be a writer. I had seen the movie "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (Neil Simon) and fell in love with the whole writer idea. I even had my Dad buy me a black and white notebook just like the one in the movie. My first short stories were of Dragons and Vietnam soldiers and stuff that twelve year old boys are into. Mainly fantasy and macho meanings of manhood. Twelve was one of the worst years of my life. My Mother and her bull dyke man hating twenty year old first wife had abducted me and my two half sisters and gone to California from Massachusetts. With no job, no home, almost no money (1500 dollars), and nobody to stay with or help out; we were loaded on to an Amtrack train and keeping only what we could carry we made our misguided pilgrimage to the West. The Summer of '87 I lived in the Disneyland Campground (a small campground in Anaheim next to, but not affiliated with, the park) and got to watch fireworks in the sky every night while my Father frantically searched for me. The following fall we all traveled back to Boston for an Aunt's wedding and I was able to see my Father. I was going to stay and visit with him while my mother and sisters went back to California and then return to them with my Step-Father (mom's second spouse out of four; the last man) who was driving out to California to be close to his two abducted daughters. The day before he was to pick me up I went with my Father to the court and petitioned for change of custody. Testifying against your Mother is hard. Two and a half years later when my Mother was married again, this time to her current wife, I moved back out to Orange County. I was bi coastal for the rest of my juvenile existence.

The best thing to come out of all of that is the woman that I am engaged to now was my first real girlfriend. We met when we were twelve and dated when we were freshman in high school. If I hadn't testified against Mama and the castrating man hater then I never would have lived with Dad which is where I met this beyond amazing woman that I have always cherished as the most precious being on Earth. I love her more than life itself. I am very happy that she is here with me now. It was a close call. And to think she actually attended my wedding and was so smitten with my bride's dress that she purchased the same one for her wedding, that never was to be. At least she has never been married even if I did fuck up.

As high school came and went I became obsessed with the works of Charles Bukowski. Even to this day I own all but four of his published works. This led me top the greats of nineteenth century Russian literature. It made me appreciate be very detailed. It made me proud to be long winded and to really caress every detail of a story. It made me become a better story teller and made me appreciate the outline made before a novel is written. "The Idiot" is one of the most pertinent books right now in regards to American politics. Maybe I am a century off with all of my scribble as well. All of those books made a difference in my maturing and developement, probably more so then my Mother. As I type this, they sit in a couple of footlockers underneath a guest bed in my Father's apartment in a building for the elderly and disabled. I wish I were still bi coastal and saw my Dad more often. It seems like these days it is only about once a year if we are lucky.

I have kept writing since twelve. Through two years of college. Through my first marriage. Through the birth of my daughter. Through my divorce. Through my nervous breakdown (yes, a real nervous breakdown not a couple of weeks of sadness and manic behavior. a complete NERVOUS BREAKDOWN just five short years ago). Writing, writing, writing. It is the one thing that I KNOW I am good at. It is the most difficult thing for someone in my shoes to make a living at. I have never earned even one penny from my writing.

Bukowski didn't make it til he was 35. I am thirty. I would like to make it. I have written alot of material. Like a Jackass, I had bumperstickers made for this blog and for my poetry blog which is on another site. One hundred stickers for each of them. Right next to me, all two hundred sit like silent soldiers hoping the ration wagon will bring hot nourishment instead of the cold gruel of my stagnation. Self promotion, right? They are real nice weather proof stickers. White letters, black backgrounds, of sites that I write on. I have friends all over the country I thought. I got five years til that crucial 35. Self promote. Try to acquire free lance gigs. Publish my own stuff on LuLu. Hope and pray that some one might dig what I have to offer enough that a magic contract will fall from the sky. Nope. Just rain. I guess it is back to sending out query letters to literary agents that are more like an elite cigar club than a group of people creating a literary movement. I actually thought , through the idealism of youth, that I was one cog or sprocket in a watch that had the face of twenty first century art. What a farce. I listen to the radio. I watch it rain. I build pianos. I act tough and cry alot when no one is looking. I am no longer young, I try to be Republican, I know I will die broke.

This week I will make two whole fresh crisp dollars participating in my radio diary survey. This will be easy for me. All I listen to, radio wise, is 640 AM KFI here in L.A. I listen from about eight a.m. til about seven p.m. Tuesday through Saturday while I am at work. I just fill in the blanks and mail it in. My survey will have a greater impact than and make me more money than my writing ever has.

I never thought that Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura would make ME money. How nice. I now don't know what the point of this post was. You read some posts and the point is not obvious and people don't get it. I have done it and am guilty and so are others. The point of this post is pointlessness. We all know what that is and we don't need the everyday media or political press machine to remind us of it. I am sure there is a point today.

I know I miss my Daughter. I know I miss my Father. I know I love my lady. I know my Step-Father was there to support me with my recent troubles. I have know idea what runs through my manipulative and fraudulent Mother's mind of self centered reality that is cloaked under the guise of her being righteous and generous and giving. She is not. She's pointless. My sister's have bought into the cult like mentality that Mother has bred in order for her to always be protected, listened to, believed, and not alone. It is an actuall cult. Not one of religion but one of crime and deception. They are all con men or women as the case is. I am not big on being a liar, ripping people off, or making them feel great so you can take all they have and then make them feel like shit. I left the cult.

Someone will no doubtedly say this is nothing more than a "bitch and complain" piece or they will insist I am being a sympathy whore. I am just pushing it all out of the skull, making it all make sense, and putting it into the context of today's today. I write pieces on Friday. Today is Friday. This is my piece.

Two journeys were started when I was twelve. I have one of them now. If she were reading over my shoulder she would be smiling. Maybe, just maybe, I'll see the fruition of the other journey as well. If not, well, fifty percent isn't bad. I'll take one in two. Hey Howie, DEAL!

I am still writing. I am still listening to radio. These crisp ones that I rub between my fingers are making no point as well. It is a very, very rainy day in Southern California. The birds chirp through the falling prisms and I think about Monday's piece ...

Hey, hey I am here. Still; until it might become the next month in which case the demons always dig in deeper and gnaw at the marrow of one's soul. It is clever how one's media intake can slant an entire reality thus making it full of the disgust and distrust that convolutes one's perception. How does a septic tank cleaner get through the day? I suppose they function as well as a news caster or maybe a mayor, when all is said and done.

It is funny that most people can spout off whatever they need in order to propagate their view and in turn validate their existance. P.T. Barnum where are you now?

I called John and Ken ( http://www.johnandkenshow.com/) today to tell them of how ILLEGAL immigration affects me personally. The call screener  would not connect me. I did not have a valid story that has appeared in print. One of my friend's advised me to make a few calls and make it a story in print. I went to court today. The courts are pressured to push through cases right now here in Orange County. They are inundated. The Judges can only appease two, of the normal six, Pre-Trial Conferences that are granted to the accused. I actually heard a Judge today explain that they can only hear the two due to a parking issue that is plaguing the courts in the central court rooms that are found in Santa Ana. She explained that due to fruit vendors, roach coaches (food trucks selling a fast food of sorts to low income workers), and vehicles with B.C. (Baja California - in Mexico) license plates that the lawyers can not find parking places and in order to deal with the back log that the court I attended is required to "pick up the slack".  I am assuming that because John and Ken are being scrutinized by the media nationally in regards to what is real and what is rumour that they refused my call. I respect them a ton but I think it worth their while to hear me and my experience because it will find news sources soon enough. You would figure that a couple of successful guys like that would be apt to take a call like mine. Cest la vie.

Tonight, on Hannity and Colmes, Laura Ingraham (http://www.lauraingraham.com/) stated that there was a million man march of Shia's that was led through Basrah, Iraq. This was a peacefull protest that made no headlines here. Why is that? What is there to hide? Why is sucess in Iraq a No-No? Almost no violence was reported. In Iraq there is a civil war. How many peacefull demonstrations were held during the 1860's here? None. Sad. When will the media wipe the sleep from it's eye's corners? Never. And that makes some of us very, very happy. Too bad it is not me.

Today's AOL news made me laugh with it's Scalia story. He has said the same things Ted Nugent has said in regards to the constitution. Not to mention when AOL posted it's "lowest rating" ever story for G.W. they had the slant then too. I found it funny that G.W.'s approval ratings were up there with everyone in the last 45 years. Gerald Ford's lowest was 37% which is where the current President was just a few days ago. Bush's lowest is 36%. Everyone else except Kennedy was lower. Kennedy's was like 56%. I am sure that had nothing to do with the assassination. If J.F.K. had lasted for six years his would have been dog crap too. Clinton's was 35% and Carter's was in the mid twenties. Way to go Democrats! Us Republican's suck!

My last big turn in was KISS news. The midgets have revolted. Just look at the story at: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-minikiss11apr11,0,597094.story. I think that sums up the day more than anything; well except ILLEGAL immigration.

Until Friday, when I fry, frought, and fricker it all out. I know I will ...