Added value supplement to "Will the Menstrualcramp run...and flow?"

South Bend, Indiana--What was his fucking name? Wilbur? Fred? Terry? Chuck? Kilroy? George? I can't remember his goddamned name, so George it is. Anyway, he was our band instructor, our music teacher at John Adams High School in the 1980s, and, as he told us at least seven times in one year, he was "Lisa Germano's dad." I'm probably going to get whacked for this if John Mellencamp becomes a senator, but what the hell? It's not especially damning of him, just Mr. Germano and Indiana, and hardly even that.

So, anyway, I can barely remember anything about Mr. Germano's class, but he was a really nice man, I liked him, and he rose above the pack of Jackapes I had to dodge every day. But that's all he could talk about sometimes: "My daughter Lisa is playing violin for John Cougar Mellencamp [he was still called this at the time], bow before her icon, yadda-yadda-yadda, blah-blah-blah," like it was Shintoism, worshiping the people who came before us, except for no particular purpose. OK, there was one. He got to say his daughter was famous and that he was proud of her, which is fine, it's cool, solid. He should have been.

But why, then, is that all I can remember from his class, says I-and-I? Babylon soon come, but this one still has me vexed. True, I never liked reading sheet music, and that's what he taught, so once again, I was fucked. Math has never been my strong point, regardless of its context. I have to imagine that in-between my naps in his classroom, Mr. Germano had to have said something about his daughter Lisa at least seven times, no less, and probably a lot more were I able to recall how many doo-doos I had that week. But alas, I'm not autistic...or at least I don't think so. Consider (not the lillies, that's for another time class) that he was telling all of his classes this shit every class.

My opinion, though, over the years is that he--Mr. Germano--didn't especially care about the quality of the music Lisa was playing (which was very competent on her end) but that she was "famous," that coveted status that means everything outside of the ideals of humanism and the good deeds of St. Francis. It's a queer attitude that I don't relate to and didn't back then around 1983. Let's be honest though: she could have sleptwalked through the simple parts she had to play for her "boss." She was classically trained and could play circles around that shit, get real. For a time, she was working in a bookstore in Indy during the 90s! Mellencamp didn't want to do anything, her 4AD (Pixies, Cocteau Twins home label) record deal didn't go the way she might have hoped it would, and she had a shitty job like me--what the fuck! That's showbusiness, as they say, whoever the fuck "they" are.

Non-sequitur time: It might seem like a great idea to have someone famous whom one likes and feels holds and reflects the same values, but that's not the thing in practice. I'm sure Mellencamp is a great guy, and I've heard good things about him. Does that mean he'd be a great senator? No. But really, I hope she's doing well. I assume Mr. Germano has passed away, I don't know. He was a nice man in a crappy school, and I think he followed us from Edison Middle School, but again, I don't remember it all, or what I had for lunch on February 13th, 1979. I know, what an asshole...

The time Digger Phelps saved Christmas Eve (a true story)...

It was that special night--Christmas--and Zofia and her daddy were headed home through the back streets adjacent to Notre Dame's golf course and campus. The neighborhoods were built, in most cases, around the time of the Great War and its aftermath, mostly populated with professors, former Notre Dame coaches, and even a few celebrities, like the comedian Martin Short, a home he bought for his children while they attended the university's prestigious law school.

The law school itself is run by the notable Robert Blakey, former chair of the House Assassinations Committee that was convened in the late 1970s to investigate the killings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy.

But it had snowed and melted overnight before Zofia and her daddy went out to run errands for when grandma and her uncle were coming over to celebrate Christmas eve with them and they had forgotten how icy the neighborhoods could get! The moment they hit the patch of ice, it was over: they slid very quickly into one of the neighborhood yards; it was shocking and jarring, but they were alright when it was over. But they were stuck. What to do?

Help was on the way! A grumpy old man who appeared to have been born with a jelly-doughnut in his mouth ambled-up to the side of the car. Daddy had already gotten out. The man said nothing, just grunted, and motioned. He took the jelly-doughnut out his mouth and said, "Move it over that way and you'll be able to get out."Daddy did what the man said, and it worked. Daddy waved to the man with no response who was headed home, eating his jelly-doughnut he'd been born with. Funny how people can overcome their shadow side, being kind and grumpy all at the same time. Grumpy!

But the fact remains: Digger Phelps saved Christmas eve. Thank you Digger.

Coming soon: Digger Phelps saves Christmas eve!

South Bend, Indiana--A true, but very brief anecdote on the former N.D. coach saving the day!

Nowhere special: South Bend, Indiana

Ed.--Here are a few photos I took of the town I live in. The photo to the top right shows the building in which John Dillinger, Homer Van Meter and Baby Face Nelson robbed the Merchant's Bank on June 30, 1934, to the left of the front-end of the car in the center of the shot, a building with arches and a tall front. It's now a Cambodian restaurant. The building to the bottom left was once an outlet of the Chicago Stock Exchange, or at least that's what I've been led to believe. The State Theater was featured in some shots of the Party Monster "Shockumentary" that was aired on Cinemax in 1998, about South Bend native and club kid promoter Michael Alig. There hasn't been a hell of a lot going on here since Studebaker closed in 1964.

In the future: my take on "Club Kid" promoter Michael Alig and the club kids scene

I had a very warm and friendly chat with Michael's mother Elke Blair just last night--it was like talking with an old friend. I'm just two years junior to her son Michael, who was also born here in South Bend in 1966. My first experience noticing the club kids was in 1994 (I'm pretty sure it was the Joan Rivers show) when I saw some of them on a talk show. I also saw the Geraldo broadcast with Michael and Elke and was pretty impressed with the creativity of their look, their decadence, their style, the flippancy and devil-may-care side of it. It looked like a lot of fun. They seemed to be having a good time and a sense of humor about themselves, what more can a subculture ask for? Everything has a beginning...

South Bend/Michiana is a peculiar place, a hotbed of dysfunction. During the 1980s, South Bend had the highest unsolved murder rate in the continental United States, a little known fact. We created Dan Waters, the writer of the black comedy "Heathers"(1988). Waters went to Penn High School, the same place that Michael went to, and it was the same kind of brutal environment as depicted in the film minus the more fantastical parts of the plot. But the homophobia was very real during 1970s-80s when Alig and Waters attended Penn. I can attest to the fact that the other schools in the area were no different. In fact, if you were "different" from the clearly molested and physically abused rednecks and white trash that unfortunately populated the majority of the school bodies you were a target, it was up close and personal, and violence was always simmering beneath the surface.

Michael was harassed, I was harassed, and most all of my friends were too. I can literally remember witnessing a major fight every day of school from about 7th grade until my junior year in high school at John Adams (I graduated in 1986). Racism was also endemic and went both ways (but the black kids tended to like me).

I can recall being stopped in the hallways at John Adams and being asked point-blank, "Do you like rap?!" You were supposed to answer "no," I answered "yes," and was rewarded with a swift punch to the arm. I'd say that was typical, but usually the response was significantly more violent. What I'm getting at here is that my and Michael's experiences weren't especially different, and I'm not even gay. In my case, I had the misfortune of being from a "broken home" (Michael was as well) in a Catholic town in the early 1970s. Notre Dame was literally just down the road from my house. Was I discriminated against? Was my brother and my family? You bet, and it's even worse than it reads, there was a lot to it.

I am going to be discussing some of these issues with Elke in the future on this site. When I first saw the "Party Monster" documentary on Cinemax in 1997 (practically fresh out of an extended college stint) I nearly fell off of my couch. Why was I seeing footage of downtown South Bend on television, and on Cinemax of all channels? Naturally, I was riveted. And then they showed Michael and the club kids and it all began falling-into-place...and it depressed me. I cannot say that it's a "bad" documentary, but it's too short and there was so much of the story left out that it should never been viewed as the last word on the decline and fall of Michael Alig and the club kids. At under an hour, this just wasn't going to be possible, so Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey (originally of the techno dance unit the Pop Tarts who once worked for Alig) had to focus on what would fit easiest into the cramped running time, and it shows.

As crazy as it sounds, it's too sensationalistic and spends far too much time on Michael Alig when it should be focusing on why chaos came to the club kids scene at the Limelight and Peter Gatien's other clubs, their environs. Yes, it was drugs and misbehavior, but what about the role of the DEA, the FBI, and the NYPD? What was the role of organized crime? What about the drug informants within the scene? Why is Peter Gatien running around free and operating a new club up in Toronto (rumor has it that he no longer runs Circa)? What was their contribution of these players to the disaster? How many of the talking heads in the documentary were informants? We may never know, but I frankly don't think that the Party Monster documentary gave us much depth or understanding. Worse, it didn't show us much of the glory of the club kid scene, a movement that outlasted so many others by several years, a major feat.

Barbato and Bailey's films are more of a very brief overview of things, and that's not slamming it or dismissing it outright. What of Michael's childhood? That section lasts barely five minutes. They were "in love" with their subject? What of Michael's side of the story? Nearly all there is comes from James St. James and a little from Elke. It's not so much what's in the documentary as what isn't. But one thing's certain: the entire story is still untold.

Sgt. Rock demoted in Waco, Texas

Waco, Texas--Ted Nugent...where to begin, where to begin? Mmm-hmm. The Waco Tribune fired Nugent this last week for being Ted Nugent, an unsurprising outcome to everyone except Ted Nugent, for whom life is a constant surprise! Wheeeeeee!!! Yes, the rifts in the right are still very much alive it seems, at least outside of Congress, the domains of the D.C. lobbying cesspools, and the corporate boardrooms where they're finding it difficult to wipe these days.

The Waco Tribune was taken over by a new owner and they wanted Nugent to "tone it down" in his "Teditorial" columns covering home cooking and finery, a reasonable request considering what flows from his mouth and pen, never mind the rest. Ted got angry and threw a fit, but never had the anatomical manhood (pride) to talk face-to-face with his new editor. Once again, Ted's painting himself as some kind of comic book hero, another casualty of believing one's own press from over thirty years ago. How do I put this? Where to begin?

OK, first: Nugent got as many draft deferrments as he could during the Vietnam War, not unlike Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Dan Quayle, or even Karl Rove. This makes this "reply"to the Waco Tribune's new editor, Carlos Sanchez, all the more galling:

...When the Nazis had the Americans surrounded in the town of Bastogne, they demanded American General McAuliffe surrender or they would level the city. General McAuliffe’s reply: Nuts!

The new editor of the Waco Trib recently told me that I could only write nice things about people, that I could not be critical. Basically, that I need to tone it down. I can not, nor will not, comply with this Romper Room request. My reply: Nuts!... ("The Nuge vs. The Waco Trib," Evan Smith/Ted Nugent, 08.16.2009)

He seems to have fixation on "nuts," probably implying that he has none. I had a great-uncle who was at Bastogne, by the way. He was in the 101st Airborne and literally had to fight his way out of Remagen in hand-to-hand combat with members of the Waffen-SS and Wermacht--all crack troops--with a knife. He was briefed by the OSS before going into Western Europe over a distant Slovak relative in their branch of the Waffen-SS, but that's another story for another time. But that was a real war fought by real men for the most part. Ted, being your typical Midwestern redneck doesn't know his history from his ass, and him invoking those kinds of stories had better know them well and have a damned good reason to do so. He does not. But we learned one very important message from all of this: one of Ted's favorite shows is Romper Room. And speaking of kids...

Second: he has oodles of illegitimate kids all over North America, and yes, he's that kind of deadbeat you're assuming he is right now. Reference that with his moronic and Libertarian-style economics and social policy opinions, and his hypocrisy takes on an almost aristocratic air, the bad kind.

Third: he stole at least half of his style from the hard left MC5, originators of the real "Detroit sound." Even "the Nuge" himself has admitted witnessing them back in the day and being scared shitless by them. The one thing he really copped from them was the sheer volume, dynamics, and intensity of Wayne Kramer's and Fred Smith's sound, and he wasn't alone; even Funkadelic did. Fine, whatever, but don't lie and tell me "I blew Hendrix off the stage in 1970, he was washed-up by then from the drugs, man," because we all know that story is bullshit you loud-mouthed asswipe. Frankly, I think he meant "I blew Jimi."

Fourth: Ted--are you perhaps the finest example of the North American male tendency for overcompensation, trying to prove to us all that "you're a man," when clearly you are not? Your invoking of the Nazis was nowhere to be seen under the last president, and yes, Obama is barely any different, except that he's black. That's your real problem, you thicko, you moron.

Fifth: We all know that all of this high talk of insurrection and secession isn't going to go anywhere and that nothing will come of it. Being a natural coward, you won't be on any battlefields. You'll be hightailing it like the yellow-bellied adolescent you are today.

Keep being Ted, and stay out of Edwardsburg! They say hobbyists are already reenacting the Vietnam War. Someone should tell the president, and you, Ted, that none of that was necessary with Afghanistan and Iraq, two more unwinnable wars to declare victory over in the our endless game of military adventurism and mindless stupidity.

"The Nuge vs. The Waco Trib," Evan Smith/Ted Nugent, 08.16.2009: http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/?p=1647

Make some Romper Room for my main man: http://www.tvparty.com/lostromper.html

"The Underground Railroad never happened."

Michiana--Of course it did, and it was more widespread than bigots and racists here in Northern Indiana would care to admit.

Whether the local Klaverns around here or foaming-at-the-mouth racists like attorney Tony Zirkle want to admit it or not, a lot of people around here were involved in the hiding and ferrying of runaway slaves into Canada and other "free" states that wouldn't cooperate with slave hunters in returning the "property" of slaverholders in the American South and the border states.

My own father--not exactly someone I'd ever refer to as racially progressive in any sense--even had to admit this to me. During the 1970s, he did a lot of work on construction sites throughout Michiana as a civil engineer (the area I live in was once part of Michigan, and the borders might be contested again soon, another story for another time...) and he and his coworkers found several sites that were part of it, even tunnels that weren't on any map, completely unknown until their discovery by the construction crews.

But besides being a nexus for the Underground Railroad, Michiana has also been yet another place where local folklore once flourished. In 2005, folklorist Carl Lindahl visited the Suggs house and Underground Railroad museum, still run by the family of the same name up in Vandalia, Michigan, right outside of the city of Niles.

Lindahl's article is about a collection that was released at the time, but his observations about the Suggs patriarch J.D. Suggs and the legacy of certain folklore collectors from the last century are interesting ones:

Much more commonly, however, I emerged from the listening experience with enhanced respect for the collectors and for the positive bonds they had forged with the storytellers. Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of this sort was Richard Dorson. Dorson has been roundly (and rightly) taken to task for many of his statements about the nature of African American narrative, especially his contention that it was a “borrowed” tradition —adapted from European sources rather than being “truly” African American. Such theoretical positions have long been discredited, but they have influenced many folklorists, including myself, to belittle Dorson’s work with African American narrators and narratives. So I was astonished to find that the children of Dorson’s favorite African American storyteller, J.D. Suggs, not only remembered Dorson, but cherished their memories of him. Their father had had a vision of “black and white coming together”—and the Suggs children have interpreted that vision in terms of Suggs “coming together” with Dorson. When I drove up to the J.D. Suggs Underground Railroad Museum and Historical Site in Vandalia, Michigan, I was stunned to find two metal silhouettes —one of Dorson, painted white, and one of Suggs, painted black—facing each other. The silhouettes were fashioned on the model of a photo of Dorson and Suggs that Suggs had carried with him until the day he died. In August 2004, shortly after American Folktales had been released, I attended the J.D. Suggs Freedom Festival at the museum and emerged from my car to find the Suggs family gathered in a circle around the metal cutouts of Suggs and Dorson.
The recordings of Suggs and Dorson reveal a strong mutual affection based on the two men’s common love of story. These and similar recordings from other storyteller- collector teams underline the importance and redeeming quality of fieldwork. We may get it wrong theoretically, our scholarship may sometimes seriously misrepresent our “informants,” but as long as we can record their remarkable performances and deal with them personally, in an atmosphere of mutual respect, we have done something remarkably right. The recorded performances will survive our misperceptions and, through such archives as the AFC, be available for their grandchildren and ours. We justify our existence by prolonging that of the storytellers.
The Archive of Folk Culture is in many ways America’s folkloric memory. There is no substitute for the wealth of oral art and wisdom to be found there. (Lindahl, Carl. "The Making of American Folktales," Folklife Center News, Winter/Spring 2005, Volume XXVII, Numbers 1-2)

God love the common man, the only conscience America's ever had or ever will have, because it's not going to come from above. The Suggs House Freedom Festival is being held today and tomorrow in Vandalia, Michigan. Its main-thrust is racial unity between African-Americans and Euro-Americans and a reminder that the nation most of us has always wanted has always been there, right under our eyes all along, if only we heed the call. Most of us already have in our hearts and minds, the real battleground.

Listing of local events that include the Suggs Freedom Festival (Aug. 8-9): http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090705/INTHEBEND/305029998/1044/Ent

Lindahl, Carl. "The Making of American Folktales," Folklife Center News, Winter/Spring 2005, Volume XXVII, Numbers 1-2: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/news/news-text-winter-spring2005.html

"Twilight time" at Ford, with a dose of hope and wisdom

So I took my grandfather's old--old?!--2000 van cruiser to the dealer down the road for a recall fix (you don't want to know, but it includes the cruise control and the vehicle bursting into flames, even when it isn't running) early this morning, and it was almost what I expected: no customers, employees sitting around in the waiting room with me (cute girls!), salespeople and other staff walking around trying to look "busy" when it's obvious there's no way in hell that's going to be possible, and a few other of the depressing sights and sounds one might imagine walking into a car dealership in America these days.

Mind you that I took the van in just to have the recall work done, gratis (FREE). As you might expect, I waited while they did it and one the big-shots in the garage came back and asked if I wanted the whole-enchilada--check the brakes, blow out the transmission fluid, check the battery, change the oil, wash the van, kick the tires, etc., etc. . Naturally, I had my trusty credit card in-hand, the damage (to my finances) was going to be impressive, and it was!

After what seemed like at least a two hour wait (not bad), they were done with everything, no hassles, no worries. It felt great to finally have all this done, like a good early-morning dump, both invigorating and a little exhausting, but satisfying and a relief. Now, my van wouldn't suddenly burst into flames spontaneously on the highway or in our garage where it could spread to the house, maybe taking-out a few lawn chairs in the backyard, a squirrel, and maybe an errant opossum. That'll learn 'ya.

Ask any working-class American one of their greatest sources of frustration and anger besides their job or their boss, and they'll immediately home in on their car or truck. Frequently, it's an American-made vehicle like mine, a hand-me-down. For decades and decades--even back when Henry Ford was alive--the auto manufacturers were told by the public, by consumer advocacy groups, the government (but not much here), and everyone with a pulse, to make cars that were safer, more affordable, durable, got better gas mileage, and required very little maintenance. I know, I know--people need jobs, and I'm not going to begrudge that, but why not pay everyone properly? Wasn't that Henry Ford's idea?

Wasn't he an authoritarian nut, a Nazi-supporter? What does that make the latest brew of CEOs who have placed themselves on the extinction list as a class? They haven't believed that Americans should be paid a living-wage, never mind being able to actually afford their products. I know, that whole "logic" thing. The real problem, as usual, is the American obsession with work and the work ethic, a dysfunctional authoritarian division of labor, and greed. This no longer works...so?

Even the new president is overly-obsessed with work and it's a little worrying; but I feel assured that reality of current events is going to change him and his assumptions as it changes everyone else. More work is not always the answer, but a rethinking of productivity, wages, and the division of labor are. True, there is much work to be done getting a sustainable energy policy and economy (the same thing, really, something our intelligent president understands), but what after that? How will work be divided-up? Are we to tolerate more of the same old, same old regarding the policies of employers?

The president appears to be on the same page as working-class Americans here in his vocal support of the right to unionize, the right to collective bargaining that's implicit to a healthy democracy. This is all about the social contract, or what the Republicans and errant Democrats have debased it to. For every recall, every death caused by design-flaws done at the behest of profit and shareholders, and corporate executives, and for every breakdown that could have been avoided but was part of "planned obsolescence," the social contract was violated and discarded again and again. This was the fault of ownership and management, not the UAW, not any union, and not necessarily the consumer, although we have to make an exception with the SUV.

As I was signing the papers for the repairs and maintenance, a very smart, wise Black man shook his head in a chair across from us: "Yeah, Ford isn't going out of business...at least not right away. You know, if they would have just made cars that--maybe they wouldn't look great--didn't cost so much, but got good mileage and didn't need so much maintenance." He was an employee of the Ford dealership. His supervisor did nothing to contradict him, nothing at all. We all agreed, and I had a great talk with this man about the heart of all of this. Call me crazy if you like, but I've always had a greater rapport with Black Americans--they call it as they see it.

But today, at Ford, things have changed. Decorum has changed, and people are tired of towing-the-line for the big-shots, tired of keeping up appearances when it doesn't matter. I'd write that we need to do this and stop holding-our-tongues with employers when things no longer work, but that time passed long ago. Now comes the time to "fix" things, a time of incredible opportunities for working people...if they decide to be those squeaky-wheels that get oiled. We have an opportunity to rollback authoritarianism in the workplace like never before. If we fail to try we'll only have ourselves to blame.

Our children and their grandchildren will also blame us. They will be right. We can make things better, it's just a matter of will, the jaded-be-damned. Get moving, get organized.

O.J. Simpson's memorabilia was his and yet not his...

WWW--This trial has been very interesting to me for a number of reasons. My brother has worked for over a decade in advertising and had the misfortune of meeting a lot of Northern Indiana businessmen over the years (hint: car dealers think "Top Gun" is the "greatest film ever made"--wrong again).

As one might vividly imagine, most of them are antisocial turds with less personality than a houseplant, but a few of them actually wanted to chum it up with "the help," so my brother had to oblige their overinflated egos.

One of these clowns was a very big O.J. fan. He took my brother down into the basement den of his very expensive and poorly-designed-and-built clapboard where there was a wall literally covered with sports memorabilia.

And there it was, it even had its own display-nook: O.J.'s 1968 Heisman trophy.

"He lets me keep it for him, and I give him money every once in a while," he said (I'm paraphrasing now, isn't it thrilling?). This was within the last eight years. Yeah, it's crazy, but these things just have a way of coming to me and not the reverse, a kind of "Jungian" latticework of coincidence that's plagued my life from its inception.

What is there to gather from this? That O.J. has such an enormous ego that in his mind he wasn't "selling" anything, but "allowing" fans to "rent" his memorabilia in return for an audience with him, to be on his "good" side. I won't even go into what it must have been like to have been on his "bad" side, that's now a foregone conclusion after this trial.

In 1999, O.J.'s Heisman was sold to a Philadelphia--that wonderful town Poe loved so much--businessman named Tom Kreissman, except that he went and sold it to the man who O.J. and his co-conspirators attacked in a Vegas hotel, Alfred Beardsley:

Nevertheless, it’s believed that he bought the 1968 Heisman trophy -- the first and maybe only one ever to be auctioned — from the winner of that 1999 sale. The trophy was originally sold to Tom Kreissman of Philadelphia at Butterfield’s auction house on Sunset Boulevard for $230,000. But a source at Butterfield’s says Kreissman returned and sold it a couple of years later. It’s thought that Beardsley was the buyer. ("O.J. Simpson's 'Victim' Part of a Long-Running Feud," Foxnews.com, 09.20.2007)

And why wouldn't Beardsley have "sold" or rented the thing out to raise money for himself and "the Juice"? Why not?

The unintelligent businessman told my brother, "I went to USC when O.J. was playing there, I've known him since then," and "I'm actually borrowing it from another collector." He exhaled on and on, painting a scenario in which all of these successful old school fans of O.J.'s were shuffling these artifacts around to hide them from the Goldman and Brown families who were doing their best to track down all of the assets he was selling off to pay them from the 1996 civil suit ruling ($33 million).

Hey, who says once something's sold that it's really "sold"?

Over time, O.J. had a number of folks around him who felt he "owed" them money, and the trophy changed hands several times before 1999, and likely afterward:

The man Simpson accused of stealing the items from him is Mike Gilbert, another one-time associate. As Simpson's licensing agent in the late 1990s, Gilbert admitted snatching Simpson's Heisman Trophy and other items from his client's Brentwood home as payment for money he said was owed to him. He later turned the items over to authorities, save the trophy's nameplate.

Gilbert swore he'd go to jail before turning the nameplate over to the Goldman family, which was trying to collect on the $33.5 million civil judgment won against Simpson. Gilbert later surrendered it under court order. ("O.J.'s Vegas Accuser Says He Wants Charges Dropped," Foxnews.com, 09.15.2008)

Yeah, real class act folks there. After 1999, the trail appears to grow cold, wikianswers-be-damned, the Wikiuniverse almost never being correct about anything.

I think that the Goldmans had a good idea this kind of shell game (aka "three card monty") was going on with wealthy fans of O.J., a constant shifting of the memorabilia around with a rental fee and lots of broken promises. Egomaniacs like Simpson can convince themselves of almost anything, the same applying to pea-brained American businessmen with penis envy.

My feeling is that these people aren't mere fans, but criminals--all of the players involved in ferring around O.J.'s memorabilia. Beardsley is just a flash point. I hope that this verdict smokes the rest of them out and that they pay the price of aiding a vile murderer simply because they love football too much. To these clowns, the murders don't even matter--only football does. What a pathetic bunch. I wouldn't use that Heisman for a doorstop, although it would make a great lighter/ashtray combination with a few modifications.

None of it matters, the game is over, finally, at long last. But I still have to wonder: where's O.J.'s 1968 Heisman...and why would anyone in their right mind want it? They may as well buy one of those lousy John Wayne Gacy oil-paintings while they're at it.

"O.J. Simpson's 'Victim' Part of a Long-Running Feud," Foxnews.com, 09.20.2007: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297400,00.html

"O.J.'s Vegas Accuser Says He Wants Charges Dropped," Foxnews.com, 09.15.2008: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296934,00.html

Michigan decriminalizes medical marijuana

The Midwest--This is a truly incredible development that could only have happened with disciplined grassroots (pun-intended) organizing that has continued unabated for over a decade, and the main fact that the economy of Michigan needs something--anything--to give it a "boost" (pun-intended). This means jobs and more tax-revenues for the State of Michigan, say what you will...and I'm sure some of you out there will.

The medical applications for How does it make me feel? It's a good development, because now doctors in Michigan can legally prescribe marijuana for the people who need it very badly, such as chemotherapy patients, AIDs patients, and so on.

The medical applications of marijuana/THC are numerous, and the full number of them have yet to be expended. As many Americans know by now, there are also numerous eco-friendly consumer applications of the hemp plant, including the generation of energy.

The Michigan law defines users as having a "debilitating medical" condition, and will be issued registry-cards authorizing them to use and even possess and cultivate medical "marihuana" (an old legislative-spelling):

3. Definitions.

Sec. 3. As used in this act:

(a) "Debilitating medical condition" means 1 or more of the following:

(1) Cancer, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus,
acquired immune deficiency syndrome, hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,
Crohn's disease, agitation of Alzheimer's disease, nail patella, or the treatment of
these conditions.

(2) A chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment
that produces 1 or more of the following: cachexia or wasting syndrome; severe
and chronic pain; severe nausea; seizures, including but not limited to those
characteristic of epilepsy; or severe and persistent muscle spasms, including but
not limited to those characteristic of multiple sclerosis.

(3) Any other medical condition or its treatment approved by the
department, as provided for in section 5(a).

(b) "Department" means the state department of community health.

(c) "Enclosed, locked facility" means a closet, room, or other enclosed area
equipped with locks or other security devices that permit access only by a
registered primary caregiver or registered qualifying patient.

(d) "Marihuana" means that term as defined in section 7106 of the public
health code, 1978 PA 368, MCL 333.7106.

(e) "Medical use" means the acquisition, possession, cultivation,
manufacture, use, internal possession, delivery, transfer, or transportation of
marihuana or paraphernalia relating to the administration of marihuana to treat or
alleviate a registered qualifying patient's debilitating medical condition or
symptoms associated with the debilitating medical condition.

(f) "Physician" means an individual licensed as a physician under Part 170
of the public health code, 1978 PA 368, MCL 333.17001 to 333.17084, or an
osteopathic physician under Part 175 of the public health code, 1978 PA 368, MCL
333.17501 to 333.17556.

(g) "Primary caregiver" means a person who is at least 21 years old and who
has agreed to assist with a patient's medical use of marihuana and who has never
been convicted of a felony involving illegal drugs.

(h) "Qualifying patient" means a person who has been diagnosed by a
physician as having a debilitating medical condition.

(i) "Registry identification card" means a document issued by the
department that identifies a person as a registered qualifying patient or registered
primary caregiver.

(j) "Usable marihuana" means the dried leaves and flowers of the marihuana
plant, and any mixture or preparation thereof, but does not include the seeds,
stalks, and roots of the plant.

(k) "Visiting qualifying patient" means a patient who is not a resident of this
state or who has been a resident of this state for less than 30 days.

(l) "Written certification" means a document signed by a physician, stating
the patient's debilitating medical condition and stating that, in the physician's
professional opinion, the patient is likely to receive therapeutic or palliative benefit
from the medical use of marihuana to treat or alleviate the patient's debilitating
medical condition or symptoms associated with the debilitating medical condition.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/ED-20_11-08_Props_Poster2_251561_7.pdf

It's a 16 page statute with a thoroughness that's thrilling, it should be applauded as well-written and clear in its language, a rarity in most legislation. You would think this is big news, but the majority of the major media outlets are doing their best to talk as little about it as humanly possible. Most interesting is the State of Michigan's assertion of state's rights in the matter of marijuana-interdiction:

The People of the State of Michigan enact:

1. Short Title.

Sec. 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the Michigan Medical
Marihuana Act.

2. Findings.

Sec. 2. The people of the State of Michigan find and declare that:

(a) Modern medical research, including as found by the National Academy
of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in a March 1999 report, has discovered
beneficial uses for marihuana in treating or alleviating the pain, nausea, and other
symptoms associated with a variety of debilitating medical conditions.

(b) Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports
and the Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics show that approximately 99 out
of every 100 marihuana arrests in the United States are made under state law,
rather than under federal law. Consequently, changing state law will have the
practical effect of protecting from arrest the vast majority of seriously ill people
who have a medical need to use marihuana.

(c) Although federal law currently prohibits any use of marihuana except
under very limited circumstances, states are not required to enforce federal law or
prosecute people for engaging in activities prohibited by federal law. [My emphasis.] The laws of Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Washington do not penalize the medical use and cultivation of marihuana. Michigan joins in this effort for the health and welfare of its citizens.

Once the domain of California, the Northwest, and even some of the plains states and Southwest, medical marijuana has made a beachhead right here in the heart of the American Midwest. Times are certainly changing, just another part of our rapidly-shifting demographics. Now, if only that prostitution statue had passed in San Francisco. Don't worry. Eventually, another one like it will. Get organized, the fight has only begun on this issue in Michigan.

The first shots of this battle were fired at Rainbow Farm, once overshadowed like everything else by the events of September 11th, 2001. The gloves are truly off now.

OK Indiana, you upset my expectations with the primaries, but I was still right.

Indiana's 2nd District--Say what you want, but Indiana and my own voting district has miraculously made me proud. OK, it wasn't all that miraculous: even racist Hoosiers know that Clinton isn't going to fix anything, and that we're going to get more of the same from her and the McInsane, that guy with a hair-trigger temper and a yen for making Beach Boys songs into hymnals for bombing Iran. The difference between George W. Bush, Hilliary Clinton, and John McCain is: nada, zip, zero.

The good news:My own district, and the county I live in (St. Joseph) voted predominantly for Barack Obama. That's saying something, as this isn't a particularly enlightened region--Michiana--but we've got the nuts outnumbered, an obverse to the 19th century when Abolitionists who ferried runaway slaves through here were the minority. Attitudes have changed significantly, and we're moving in a better direction. It hurts to write this again, but we're improving as the WWII generation dies-out. So the wheel turns, the real meaning of "revolution."

Predictably, National Socialist (GOP) candidate Tony Zirkle (see article below) lost in the primary race, but received an appallingly-high vote of nearly 6,000. It takes a very motivated racist to vote for someone as clearly insane as Zirkle, but we have them outnumbered. They're a fringe-phenomena, and it's enjoyable to watch the candidate waste his own money with his personal lost-cause of theocratic white supremacy.

Emigrantes mexicanos, tengai cuidado! Tony Zirkle es un abogado que no actuará en el mejor de vuestros intereses, el es contra los emigrantes!

Hilliary Clinton received just a barely 2% margin-of-victory over Barack Obama, which is considerably less than her "victory" in Pennsylvania. It's not going to be enough for her to prevail. We can thank her and the mainstream media for the paltry 2%. They hammered-home the Rev. Wright story again-and-again, going well beyond "heavy rotation." If it seemed like the GOP echo-chamber, that's because it was.

The Indiana count: At this writing, candidate Clinton holds 643, 442 votes (51%), while candidate Obama holds 629, 029 (49%). Clinton has garnered 37 delegates, while Obama has earned 33, but today Obama received the superdelegate endorsement of George McGovern. This comes from CNN, with 99% reporting. That's hardly a victory for Senator Hillary Clinton at all. It doesn't help her overall, and today we're hearing that she's dipping into her massive savings for $5.6 million as a "loan" to her campaign.

How does one loan oneself money, and is she good for it? Thank heavens for stupid girls, because stupid girls vote Clinton everyday. We're the state of Eugene Debs and New Harmony. It's just that we keep trying to forget. How did I vote? Obama. Rep. Joe Donnelly got no vote, and never will again for standing with President Bush on Iraq, and for helping block impeachment.

Donnelly needs to go, but there's no viable Democratic or third party candidates running against him (take that, Steve Francis). The one Republican who was for a withdrawal from Iraq (his name was Roush) lost along with Tony Zirkle. I would have voted for Mr. Roush over Joe Donnelly any day.

Indiana's Election results as of 3:38PM: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#IN

No, it's not Urkle: It's mad dog, race-baiting Tony Zirkle!

Indiana's 2nd District--Expect much more on this individual, Tony Zirkle. Who is Mr. Zirkle? You could not make someone like Tony Zirkle up, only the human condition could. It would be too polite to refer to him as a confirmed whack-o, or that he's decidedly racist. Zirkle's law office (one of five he purportedly owns and runs) is located in Crown Point, Indiana, a place that would be essentially unknown were it not for John Dillinger's clever escape from the County Jail with a wooden-gun.

Zirkle compromises the worst that Indiana has to offer the rest of humanity, forget the rest of America. On Sunday, The South Bend Tribune--our one newspaper--asked all of the runners for seats in and representing Indiana, some interesting questions on current issues.

Each of the runners' political affiliation, educational background, political experience, and even age, were laid-out nicely. First, we got a lot of hot air from soon-to-be former Republican Governor Mitch Daniels (aka "Scarface," Bush's economics adviser in the first term, hint-hint), and some interesting answers from Jill Long Thompson, and James Schellinger, both Democrats running against the incumbent governor. Not a bad piece, and all done from questionnaires sent to each candidate.

Democratic Representative Joe Donnelly's answers about Iraq--and nearly everything else-- were disappointing as usual, and there appears to be no viable Democratic candidate to replace him in this district...but that's where the GOP's runners come in, at the tail-end of the piece.

Of all of the candidates for the 2nd District of Indiana's representative seat, Joseph Alan Roush wins the award for the most human and progressive platform on every issue he was questioned on, including Iraq--he wants a full-withdrawal. Immigration? he wants an end to NAFTA, and doesn't blame migratory workers and illegal immigrants. If Roush actually makes it further, it will be because of a progressive platform, and not because he's a Republican. It's doubtful Indiana's GOP will be giving him much support.

But this makes Roush a more reasonable candidate than the boorish Joe Donnelly, a man who won't be getting my vote anytime soon. The rest is fine-print, see for yourself. But then...then (brace yourselves), there's Tony Zirkle:

Tony Hvfvgpd Zirkle

Address: Homeless [Ed.-?!]

Political affiliation: Republican -- Original Intent [Ed.-?!]

Occupation: Attorney

Education: U.S. Naval Academy; Georgetown University, B.S.F.S. International Economics; Andrews University, B.A. religion & economics; Indiana University Bloomington School of Law, J.D.; Andrews University Theological Seminary, master's in divinity candidate (two tests remain to completion)

Political Experience: 1988-1989 -- Indiana state president, Future Business Leaders of America; 1989, 1990, 1992 -- class president, U.S. Naval Academy.

Ran as a Republican for the following offices [Ed.--And blessedly failed...]:

2000 -- Indiana House, District 8

2002 & 2006 -- St. Joseph Co. Prosecutor

2004, 2006, & 2008 -- U.S. House of Representatives, Indiana 2nd District

Age: 38

What's the best solution to the conflict in Iraq?

The best solution? Stop glorifying adultery by enshrining neo-Baal porn worship in the heart of the First Amendment. Porn-adultery appoints "terror" to us. Lev. 26:16. Remember, slave-raping extended the Civil War. [Ed.--The meaning of this answer escapes me entirely, but perhaps Mr. Zirkle should try his hand at writing science fiction some time in the near-future, he's got a wild imagination. At-minimum, the candidate appears to be sexually-obsessed. One has to wonder if he's ever seen a prostitute or a mistress...]

Describe your position on illegal immigration.

If we want immigration fixed, the absolute critical issue is to secure local concurrent jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws with no bond holds. I would compromise on almost all for that. [Ed.--It should be noted here that Mr. Zirkle represents illegal immigrants. One might ask him how many clients he has achieved exoneration for.]

Explain your position on the rising price of oil.

We need a LaPorte County U.S. Civil Service Academy where the master's and doctorate students and researchers will have an unobstructed key to the patent office for energy technological development. [Ed.-?!] ("Candidates Seek to Challenge Donnelly," The South Bend Tribune, 04.27.2008)

And there it is, Tony Zirkle. He has a presence on the Internet, making a real spectacle of himself regularly there (and in courtrooms). Google his name sometime. You're bound to be offended, but always entertained.

Yet the fear will remain that there are creatures bearing his name: race-baiter, religious nut, and all-around opportunist and grouser, Tony Zirkle. Dr. Seuss could never had made you up. He didn't do nightmares (much). And here I didn't even mention that Tony wants to bring back the guillotine, and a segregated United States that closely resembles the version the Aryan Nations would prefer. Then, there's the birthday party for Hitler that he attended recently with some armband wearing friends. Tony Zirkle: how the other 1% lives.

"Candidates Seek to Challenge Donnelly," The South Bend Tribune, 04.27.2008: http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080427/NEWS07/804270385/-1/elections

Tony's Scary, and he keeps scarier company...I think: http://wonkette.com/politics/tony-zirkle/tony-zirkle-keepin-it-scarily-real-168906.php

Tony at a birthday party for Adolph Hitler: http://nwitimes.com/articles/2008/04/23/news/top_news/docf6a35b9d5a72e89d8625743300832e52.txt

"Worst Campaign Idea Ever?": http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=12532

On the Exhumation of Indiana Serial Killer Belle Gunness: New Questions Arise

LaPorte/Indianapolis,Indiana--The
more digging in the case of Belle Gunness, the more questions there are. In a piece that I wrote on the matter way back in November 16th , I commented that there appears to be a human skull in the photo to the right. That might be because there is one, but everyone's an expert (I'm not) and an anthropologist (ditto). From November 16th's comment from someone who wandered into the store:

Anonymous said...

Where do you see a skull in the photo? Most of the light-colored areas are the zinc which lined the casket. Sorry. No skull.

Mrithi

And yet there is a skull in the Gunness plot in Forest Park, Illinois photo [click-to-enlarge]. It's never easy to admit when one's wrong, but this isn't one of those moments. In late-February, the Post-Tribune did a piece that--lo-and-behold--there were bones of children found in the grave of Belle Gunness, along with the expected find of an adult-skeleton minus a skull. Yet, there it is, and in other photos--what could be a child's skull above the adult-skeleton. The forensic team even found another human skull at the former location of the Gunness farm:

But [University of Indianapolis lead researcher Andrea] Simmons, who speaks about the case Saturday at the Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso, has found a problem. The deeper the case gets, the more questions arise. Why were the bones of children found in her casket? Whose skull was found on the property? "We're finding every time we investigate something, it opens up a whole new question," Simmons said. ("Cracking the Belle Gunness Mystery," The Post-Tribune, 02.28.2008)

And that's how investigations like this play-out. It's possible that there will be no answers, it being 100 years since the Gunness farm burned-to-the-ground as a mob of authorities and vigilantes rushed to the residence to arrest the portly serial killer, the black widow of LaPorte. It was 1908.

In case you don't know, the charred-corpse identified as that of Gunness was found in the remains of the cellar of the ruined farmhouse...without a head. Ever since that time it has been a source of wild speculations, namely that she got-away and started a life elsewhere. One good theory has the "Lady Bluebeard" chopping-off the head of a female maid, and there is evidence to support this. There are a good number of theories, which isn't that hard to believe. A century ago, people didn't have social security cards and photo identification was a rarity outside of passports, criminal and military records, and the like. Gunness lured her widower victims to her farm through Norwegian-language newspapers in the big cities, the myspace or facebook directories of the ass-end of the Victorian-era.

Some individuals were social ghosts in 1908, and the "Wild West" was just ending. Back then, it was easier to be someone else, a strange echo of today's phenomena of "identity-theft." Forget being ripped-off. Someone could murder you, take everything you owned, and simply vanish becoming you or someone else. 100-years-ago, it was far more widespread, and vice and labor, criminal and social violence were rampant. If Gunness recalls anything-at-all, it's the danger of almost no regulations in our society. It's a reminder of what a lawless society looks like, and what can happen when nobody is looking.

So here's what we have kids: an additional-skull found on the original site of the Gunness farm, and the bones of children in the grave of the serial killer along with what appears to be a headless skeletal-corpse, presumably that of the killer or a luckless ringer.

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/11/theyve-dug-up-indiana-serial-killer.html

http://laportecountyhistory.org/

http://laportecountyhistory.org/belleg1.htm

They're Running the Protect America Act Ads in Heavy-Rotation in Indiana

South Bend, Indiana--Lots-o'-goobers here, the slack-jawed, drooling, yammerin' kind, that's why. How much you want to bet that the shadowy group running it to pressure Rep. Joe Donnelly to vote for the retroactive immunity version are being funded with Defense Department funds illegally? Being very wishy-washy, dumbo Joe might actually cave-in, hence the other reason they're running it here. Sorry, the threat is being exaggerated, but we're used to that since the president and the GOP tried to cry wolf every time they were in-trouble...just like now.

Hoosiers: they spook easily like most "oogah-boogah" people descended from lynch mobs, but that doesn't mean everyone here was raised by a wild-pack of baptists...

One would think the primaries are already here, but these silly-ass ads are all about making sure there are no real revelations about the crimes of the White House, Congress, and the telecoms, and how much they spied on all of us illegally. They knew it was illegal, and they're lying that we need this stupid legislation with its retroactive immunity amendments for the telecommunications companies--they are unrelated issues. Get a warrant, it's that simple. If it isn't, resign from office.

We might even be able to add a new crime into our lexicon: white collar crime, committed under the color of government authority using data-mining techniques which are also illegal. Why are some Americans so chicken-shit? Come visit Indiana sometime, and you'll find out: poor education, willful ignorance, lazy conformity, religious fanaticism, and your basic poverty and lack of culture. The usual.

Michiana/Indiana's 2nd District: This area is a mixed-bag, and if I was to say the group of people that I like the most here, it would be the Black people. There are also a few good-ol'-boys who live around here who have hearts of gold, they're very tolerant of differences in others. There are farmers around here who really are wonderful people. The Catholic community here is the mixed-bag, because--with the obvious exceptions--they're not especially tolerant, and frequently very well-off.

Employers around here aren't any better or worse than anywhere else in America--take from that what you will. Wanton, senseless bigotry is prevalent, in a town where Notre Dame students rioted against the Klan around eighty-years-ago. This was once a stop-over on the underground railroad. My father discovered a system of tunnels on construction site dig once that was part of that network. Indiana is a mixed-bag.

Ed.-The shadowy group that ran the ads are called "The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies," of which Joe Lieberman is a founder. Newt Gingrich is alleged to be a founder as well. Their site is cagey on these matters: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about_FDD/about_FDD_list.htm?attrib_id=7615

They've Dug-Up Indiana Serial Killer, Belle Gunness

Forest Park, Illinois/Laporte, Indiana--I'm about 10-15 miles from the location of the Gunness farm, the site on McClung Road where as many as 40 murders by the infamous Belle Gunness took place. Gunness was a hulking, ugly Norwegian immigrant woman who placed ads in big city papers (nearly all Norwegian-language, so as to attract others of her ethnicity) to lure rich widowers to her home to be dispatched.

She sometimes took-out insurance policies on the men--often widowers--if they didn't have much to steal, and murdered them with poison in their coffee or tea. After that, she dismembered some of their bodies with an ax. Legend has it that the men flocked to her like flies to honey, which is strange since she was incredibly ugly.

Why the disinterment last week? A farm hand who was jailed after the 1908 fire at the Gunness farm contended that the murderer got away. After that, there were the obligatory sightings, but no solid-proof of his assertion.

With current DNA technology, we're probably going to find-out. There are a few letters known to have been sent by Gunness to some parties that has traces of her DNA on them, and are going to be matched with the now disinterred-corpse. All that's left are the bones, naturally, but there's going to be some DNA left in either the teeth, or within some of the other bones. There has been a legend attached to the story: that the corpse found in the burning embers of the farm house weighed too little to be her, and that it was headless.

In addition, there is a story that one of Gunness's domestics went missing at that time, and that someone's head was found in a cornfield nearby the ruins. What does it mean? What's the veracity of this legend? From the above image, it appears that the corpse in Gunness's grave has a skull. Sometimes the truth about the "Black widow," the "Lady Bluebeard" isn't so sexy, considering her girth and dour appearance. It should be of no surprise that there are women who kill. There's more than corn in Indiana.

http://laportecountyhistory.org/
http://laportecountyhistory.org/belleg1.htm

August 16th, 1977: The Day Elvis Died

South Bend, Indiana--It was a really hot day that day. We were all outside playing, dreading the return to school that month. The last year had been extremely violent, especially just walking to Edison grade school. The sky had a real amber-hue to it, and my brother and I were outside in our front-yard playing. I was nine, and he was seven.

We were cute kids, but our neighborhood was an unusually troubled one. Next-door, there lived a woman who was literally insane, a drug-addict (cocaine and pills), a child-abuser, an alcoholic, and she was fucking someone in the prosecutor's office, so when she threw a lawn boulder through one of our living-room windows, there was no recourse whatsoever.

The story of this woman will have to wait for another time, it's so baroque. On that same day in a part of London, the Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones was doing his guitar-parts for "Never Mind the Bollocks," when one of the engineers in the studio stopped-in and told him that Elvis had died (he didn't care). My mother saw Elvis at Notre Dame University's Joyce ACC, where Frank Zappa and everyone else played, on that last tour. She loved it.

Did I say it was hot that fateful day in August of 1977? It was, it really was. We'd already been to the Museum of Natural History in Chicago to see the full-on King Tut exhibit--a once in a lifetime affair--and Star Wars was coming. Punk was already here at CBGB's (good riddance!)and Max's Kansas City (wish it was still around and relevant), but hardly anyone knew what it was in Northern Indiana at that time, nor cared.

It was the salad days of the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Styx (yeccch!), Supertramp (double-yechhh!), Billy Joel, Alan Parsons Project, Steely Dan (back again, still good!), Carol King, Queen, Pink Floyd, James Taylor, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and even Frank Zappa...it was another time altogether from today, but familiar in some ways. Elvis just seemed out-of-place by 1977. It was actually hard to understand his place anymore, and I guess he felt the same. In retrospect, it was a decade literally teeming with cultural innovations, a flipside to today where there are virtually none.

It's funny, but most of the music my brother and I listened to as kids were my mom's old 45s. They were great, and in 1977, music was expensive and scarce compared to now. Obviously, there was no internet, no world wide web. People kinda still lived in a regional sense, in a kind of cultural isolation, and you might never even hear of a cultural movement until it had been over for at least seven years. We had time to let our imaginations run wild, we didn't have to be told what to see, hear, or even think. It was cool. In that sense, we lived in an Edenic paradise that children in the modern world may never experience again (unless order breaks-down as I expect it to, then it might), and our minds were allowed to roam free as a child's should--at least outside of school.

But what was so special about our experiences that day? The crazy, stupid rednecks who lived diagonally to our house at Whitehall Drive: They were the first to have a VCR, but needed to shave their knuckles so as not to alarm us city folks. The father had the personality of a potato chip and worked in a paint-factory. Both parents left guns lying around in their bedroom, including a .44 revolver, which was pointed at me by the son (the youngest). They all definitely looked like inbreeders and could barely talk, let alone read very well, and they worshiped Elvis as a god. I think they were from Kentucky, which was unsurprising, and had a kitsch museum that they called home.

The rednecks had entire photo albums the factory dog father had made, all from before Elvis went into the Army until the seventies. Some were faded-Polaroids, some were from negatives, but most were in color, and most were pretty impressive. I should say here that I love Elvis's earliest recordings with Sam Phillips and the Sun Records label, as well as his early-singles with RCA ("Hound Dog" is still one of the heaviest rock songs ever).

Hey, I even love "Suspicious Minds," a later single from the "fallow years." Never, ever, recite the lyrics to this song to a schizophrenic. Read the lyrics, and you'll know why. Oddly, they could easily describe the King's life at that time, as well as life in America in 1969-70. Or now.

What happened that day? We're sitting outside on the edge of our lawn, right up on the curb. Broken-glass is all over the street in-front our house from Coke (TM) bottles, because we used to break them all the time there. We also used to have water and snowball/iceball fights a lot, but that's for another time, heh-heh. What did we hear that day?

This is what we heard: wailing and screeching--much like that of Muslim or Sicilian women at a funeral--that began emanating from the redneck house. It was really loud, then--all of a sudden, the fat brunette daughter came running-out screaming, and so did the other kids. I never saw the parents' reactions to the death of Elvis, but there wasn't much activity over there for awhile, it was really quiet. I assumed they were all in-mourning. We laughed really hard at the kids as they came outside squealing, it was pretty funny and ridiculous. Again, keep-in-mind that we loved Elvis too.

The reactions were similar throughout the USA that week, it was bizarre, and thus, the Cult of the Dead Elvis was born. Ever since then, I have wished they would all shut-up. For that reason alone, I wish he was alive, and his death at 42 was certainly untimely. If you want a real headstone for rock's demise, one could argue it was the day Elvis died, with some minor-footnotes of relevance afterward.

As a genuine cultural movement, created and played-by ordinary people for other ordinary people, rock has been dead in America ever since. The pockets are all that have ever mattered, not the mainstream. Rock was barely alive then. I miss Elvis. I wish he hadn't died in the state that he was in (Tennessee). "Train arrived, sixteen coaches long, ...Well, that long black train take my baby and gone." My baby's gone. The real Elvis is the lonely Elvis, the ponderous young man who yearned for a better life. How many whites listened to "Worried Man Blues"--the genesis of "Mystery Train"--in those days? It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.

I wish he'd made more of the 68' comeback, fired "the Memphis Mafia," Colonel Parker (really Mephistopheles to Elvis's Faust), and the idiot doctor who was prescribing him those pills that killed him. But that's not how things worked-out, and it's sad. What's sadder is that Elvis proved the American Dream is a lie, that fame is a hell of being constantly bothered, ripped-off, and misunderstood, and that all those rednecks are dreaming of something that never existed for more than a few-years.

Rockabilly rode a wave of Cold War fears, angst, and sexual-repression. It made a struggling redneck trucker a star, and it also ruined his life. On that hot August day--30-years-ago--we had a good laugh at the expense of the neighborhood rednecks--we loved Elvis too, but they made it into something more than it all was: a religion, and that's what it soon became, and what the Cult of the Dead Elvis still is today. Rock is a pathetic outgrowth of the American Dream, and it's a lie. Elvis, RIP (if you can).

At least my brother and I had a good laugh that day. We wouldn't be laughing the next year--in November--when Jonestown hit.

CONGRESS DECIDES TO SELF-DESTRUCT WITH BUSH PRESIDENCY: ON NON-BINDING RESOLUTIONS AND SUPERFICIAL TALK FROM JOE DONNELLY, ET. AL.

"The American people have lost faith in President Bush's course of action in Iraq and they are demanding a new direction."
--House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today (AP, 02.13.2007)

"I haven't decided yet."
--Joe Donnelly killing his own political future.

WASHINGTON D.C.--Like Athenian democracy, Congress has decided to shoot itself in the foot with non-binding resolutions. Thinking that this is going to make the public forget that many incumbents and presidential candidates voted for the authorization for the use of force in Iraq, they've deluded themselves as most corrupt individuals do.

Worse still, the public shares some of the blame in allowing the vote to occur at all with nary a fight. It's true, once again, those of us on the real Left had to do this, and few wanted to listen. We can blame George W. Bush as much as we want, but we're in Iraq because we want cheap-gasoline, and because we weren't civically active, let-alone responsible. That's right, it's not just the Bush administration, it's collective-guilt. That guilt is being acted-out--pathetically--in our House of Representatives right now.

But, if you look at the prewar statistics, over 50% of the public was against going in if the conflict was a prolonged one. This is why there was no postwar planning, and such low troop-levels in the aftermath--to do so would have altered the public to the fact that this would inevitably be prolonged based on the plans of PNAC and neocons within the Bush administration. A cabal. But it was an above-ground one that everyone knew about, tolerated it, and allowed it to flourish and hijack our political system. Only radical reform can undo the damage that was allowed by political elites who only view democracy as a means for their own advancement as politicians.

The public deserves this out, but was too-easily deceived to be safe. The GOP seems to be totally committed to self-destruction in their blocking-measures, and their tepid bills that merely allow the Bush administration a continued blank-check:

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that _
(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and (2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.(AP,02.13.2007)

Mainstream Democrats--reluctantly emboldened by the November midterms that gave them a congressional majority--only seem willing to support non-binding resolutions (not binding as law). Vice President Cheney has stated on CNN that "it won't stop us." This war will be four-years-old in March, and the political-cost will only continue to escalate.
The Bush administration's response to the bills (besides Cheney's): support the troops, the old broken-record we've been hearing for four-years, yet another underscoring of the Bush administration's inherent contempt for the rule of law and democracy. Some congressional GOP incumbents attempted to bring-up the ghost of Vietnam and the disdain most of the public had for returning-troops--save the crocodile tears, wimps:

It was the first debate about the war in either house of Congress since November's midterm elections, when public opposition to the conflict helped power Democrats to control of the House and Senate. Bush's decision last month to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to help stop sectarian violence has quickly become a flashpoint for critics of the war in Congress. There are currently about 141,000 American troops in Iraq and 27,000 in Afghanistan. The nonbinding measure states simply that the House "will continue to support and protect" troops serving in Iraq but that it "disapproves" of the troop buildup. (AP, 02.13.2007)

So, all it does is attempt to apply pressure to an administration that has never made any bones about kicking decorum to-the-curb. The war will continue, and thousands of Iraqis will be murdered by this ongoing-policy. This inaction makes all members of Congress who do not aggressively-oppose this administration fellow travels--war criminals. During a pause in the debate, Republican congressman Charles Norwood was eulogized.
Nobody was salivating over it since the GOP has no-chance of a majority in the House at present, and received a page-nine treatment (in stark-contrast to the stroke of Democratic Senator, Tim Johnson).The AP reports that, "Norwood was part of the Republican wave that took control of Congress in 1994." (AP, 02.13.2007) My, my, if only most Americans got the health coverage he did.

Amazingly, our own Joe Donnelly (here in the 2nd District of Indiana) was interviewed by AP, and had some disappointing things to say:

"The most important part of this to me is standing up for the troops and making sure we have full funding for them," Donnelly said Tuesday, after a weekend meeting with veterans' groups and constituents back home in his conservative north-central Indiana district. "I haven't made up my mind yet." The concerns of members like Donnelly are behind Democrats' strategy for this week's Iraq debate, which was carefully calibrated to bar votes on a GOP alternative that could expose a potentially messy divide within Democratic ranks over whether to cut off or restrict funding for troops on the ground. (AP, 02.13.2007)

A Hint to Joe: if you want to remain in Congress, you had better back defunding this war now. The majority of the public backs this measure, and yet you and the rest of the Democratic mainstream will not even pen a binding-resolution to halt any more troop-escalations.

You and I know this will mushroom into a military disaster, and that your real option is to defund the occupation, giving funds that mandate a demobilization. It doesn't bother me--or anyone except the GOP--that they've been relegated back to minority-status, and barred from watering-down an already watery-bill with their stupid amendments. They should shut up and accept their status.

The AP is siding with the GOP on this one, while they essentially ignored the shutting-out of the Democratic minority during the four-year GOP-majority. Frequently, they ignored the Democrats altogether, barely giving them the ink that the GOP-minority affords today.

This is because most of the mainstream media and the Republican Party are allied through an unconstitutional concentration of media ownership authored and engineered by the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton administrations and Congress. A situation like this that crosses party-lines, done with premeditation over decades, can only emerge from the culture of a class of people.

That would be America's ruling-class and her functionaries in the media, academia, and the other various professions that service them. There is no GOP alternative for Iraq, it will just be more-of-the-same, which is what they're always going to be about.

AP on the Debate: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070213/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_27;_ylt=AspApysA5fArp38emfb7OheGbToC

"Democrats Bar GOP Alternative on Iraq":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070213/ap_on_go_co/democrats_iraq;_ylt=AmIL_vNRpZiVwOAkDwTq3m2MwfIE

Text of the Resolution ("Bad boy, you stop!") :
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Feb12/0,4670,USIraqResolutionText,00.html