INTO A MIRROR: A REFLECTION

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.” –-Hunter S. Thompson

As I write this, it is Friday and I am tired.

For those of you who were unlucky enough to read my last post, Life was good enough to recently throw an abscessed tooth my way. Well, on Monday I had it pulled. While a universally accepted unpleasant experience, the staff was great and the procedure itself comparatively quick and without complication, so I guess I can be thankful about that. Still, I left the clinic with a gaping hole in my mouth, a heavy case of sticker shock at the bill and the distinct feeling I’d been hit in the face by a baseball bat.

The next day I felt a little better. The pain was only as bad as being kicked in the face by a mule. Now, though, the pain is gone, replaced by an intermittent dull ache that can be taken care of by a good dose of over-the-counter pain meds if the spirit moves me. On the up side, the antibiotics prescribed to me haven’t been as nauseating as I had expected, but they sure have taken away my appetite. I consider this a happy accident, since I’m trying to drop the weight I packed on during my months of hermitage last year.

Speaking of which, I think that is going pretty well. I don’t know how much I’ve lost, but I’m pretty sure a few pounds have disappeared. I’m not really sure if it matters anyway. The scale at home is inaccurate at best and I find those contraptions very disheartening. So, I try to avoid them unless my curiosity gets the better of me, after which (usually) I make a bee line to the local Nico’s for a carne asada burrito! And rice.

Odd thing about the last post, though. Once I came down from the Vicodin (word to the wise: try not to take it on an empty stomach) and re-read what I wrote, I really struggled whether or not I should post it. Some of the stuff was really out there, even for me, but in the end I decided to hold true to the blogs mission so I posted it anyway. That being said, I make no apology nor any excuse for what I wrote. It is what it is.

Actually, in my drug-addled state, I found the whole exercise rather fun in a “freewriting gone horribly wrong” kind of way. I might even try it sober one day, although I doubt I’ll get the same kind of results. I used to do that all the time in my capricious youth, only then my drug of choice was alcohol. I don’t do that anymore, either, and without sounding too preachy I’m much better for it. Only now do I realize that weirdness and insanity is a way of life that can be maintained without the need of mind-altering substances. All you need for that is kids.

The tiredness is still here, perhaps even because it’s Friday. Or maybe my body is still not yet used to having its carbs and fat cut down so much. Or maybe I’m still recovering from the stress of the tooth extraction. It might even be the fact that I’ve restricted myself to just three caffeinated drinks a day (another of my goals). Hell, it could even be the kids. I think the most likely case is that it is a combination of everything. It’s been a tough couple of weeks, though not a mind-, body- and soul-wrenching as it could have been. At least I’m thankful for that. I’ve had far too many stretches that fit this description in the past few years, so you’ll have to excuse me if I say I think a deserve a break.

Still, I could use a beer.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM A RANDOM MIND

You know, it’s amazing what the pain from an abscessed tooth and a little Vicodin can do to one’s thought process:

• Saddam Hussein was a grade-A prick who deserved to go down even if we went in under false pretenses like we did. That being said, where was our moral indignation when it came to almost every other douche bag tyrant despot of the last hundred years?
• My face hurts. Good thing I have—preanut butter and jelly sandwich!
• All women are beautiful. What makes them beautiful is different and unique, but still they’re all beautiful. My wife and daughter, though, are more beautiful than the rest.
• I want to shoot some pool, drink some beers and eat some wings with Gandalf the Grey. Not the White. He’s kind of a dick.
• I once took an online quiz on whether or not I was a dork. It had 100 questions and said if you got 10 or more correct you were a dork. I got a 98. So suck it, straights!
• Sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side, and not all the watering or fertilizer in the world is going to help your side get any better.
• “Love, exciting and new. Come aboard. We’re expecting you!”
• Do “reality” TV producers really believe that people can’t see that the crap they create is staged?
• I admit it: I do watch “reality” TV. It’s called football and baseball, with some soccer and basketball thrown in. Oh yeah, and Mythbusters, if you can call it that.
• Is anybody aware that Arizona’s AHCCS program is based on payscales that haven’t been accurate since the ‘70’s?
• Do you think the marketing morons at General Motors had any idea what “Hummer” really meant when they went ahead and made that the name of cilivilian version of the Humvee?
• I am one of the 99 percent. Except I regularly bathe.
• Congress. The only place I’m aware of in the U.S. where bribes (or campaign contributions, if you please) are legal.
• “God” and “evolution” are not mutually exclusive, much like “fundamentalist” and “crackpot”.
• Life is a lot like being thrown out of an airplane at 10,000 feet without a patachute, so you might as well pop a beer and anjoy the view.
• I once thought of moving to Phoenix to find work. Tragic, I know, but when you’re hungry enough you’ll eat about anything.
• Teenage boys: testosterone-soaked perverts! All of them!
• What happened to the good ‘ol days, when armies met in a valley and beat the crap out of each other the way God intended?
• If I want to good laugh, I’ll just read an essay on Objectivism.
• I recently found out that half the people I knew from growing up in the old neighborhood up are now either dead, in jail or died in jail. Or lesbians.
• So THAT’S what pus tastes like! I suppose it’s acquired.
• “Gimme a bottle of anything and a cherry cheese danish—TO GO!” Pop quiz: Where did this quote come from? ANSWER ME! ANSWER ME!
• I was once part of the stage show for the speed metal band Atrophy during a gig in San Francisco. I don’t think I’ve ever done that many beer bongs in so short a time in my life!
• Is Van Halen turning into The Partridge Family, or what? If it’s not Michael Anthony, IT’S CRAP!
• Everyone should see Alice Cooper in concert at least once. For some, once is all they can handle!
• How many books did YOU read last year? How many have you read so far this year?
• When I walk fast, the swelling in my face jiggles.
• I want to die with my boots on. One of my brothers wants to spontaneously combust.
• Will the Democrats or Republicans be in the White House next term? Doesn’t matter. Either way there’ll be an idiot living there.
• I’d say more things about sex, but my wife and father-in-law read this. I leave my mom off the mailing list entirely, though.
• I never understood the whole thinking behind the “If men had the babies, there would be no (insert world problem here),” line of reasoning. If that were true, we’d be the women and the women, the men, and we’d be saying the same thing! Or maybe we already are….
• A woman needs a man like a man needs a woman. (PLEASE don’t say this like Michael Bolton! I bet you already did, didn’t you?)
• If the trick to holding your hand over a scorching flame is not minding, where’s the common sense not to do it in the first place?
• Han shot first. That’s right! He made that green alien freak bitch a smear on the wall!
• Speaking of which….So, a legion of the Emperor’s best troops got their asses kicked on Endor by a bunch of walking teddy bears wielding stone-age weapons—and he was in power HOW LONG?!
• You know who your best friends are when they talk you out of dropping acid and attending a laser show.

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NO REASON: A TRAGEDY IN THREE PARTS

One year ago, a terrible tragedy occurred.

In every tragedy, there were no winners. As the curtain closed all involved had been scarred, and some died.

But I suppose relegating it to the metaphor of theater is insulting, to the victims who survived, to those who did not and even the perpetrator—that poor, sick kid whose calls for help went ignored or unnoticed, depending on your point of view. No matter how much the media dramatizes it, this was real life: raw, rough and unfettered, that creates in us all the illusion of control until of course it doesn’t.

I remember that morning very well. My brother and I had just picked up from my sister-in-law a futon for my daughter. Our route to and from her home took us along Ina, right by the Safeway where the shooting occurred. By some misstep of timing or providence, we managed to just miss the incident. I’d even glanced that way, noting the movement of signs and furniture around the store, perhaps for the Rep. Giffords’ meet-and-greet that, later on, went horribly wrong.

Shooting Scene

It sickened me, the senselessness of it all. Really, though, how can any of us attempt to reason out the motivations of the insane? I think what sickened me more was the political hollowness of the aftermath. Both sides, of course, took to their pulpits, decrying the violence and calling for bipartisanship.

But what were the results? As far as I can see, partisan haranguing has only gotten worse, if anything. The worst, though, were the parasites, who tried to use the incident to further their own agendas. They said it was about this or about that or about the other thing. How can you scumbags sleep at night? It wasn’t about anything, fools. It was a meaningless, awful act of senselessness in its most horrible form.

For the sake of full disclosure, I voted for Gabrielle Giffords. While I can’t say I agreed with all of her stances, I knew that I viewed Randy Graf as too rightwing and someone who would only contribute to the fascistic factionalism on Congress I so despise. Besides, foreshadowing things to come the local Republican Party just couldn’t get its act together and was more enmeshed with infighting than anything else.

Still, even if you didn’t agree with her politics, I think that to not feel for her, the victims and yes even the perpetrator Jared Loughner, to make out the shooting one year ago as anything but the meaningless act that it was, makes you something less than human. Should Loughner be made to take his meds? Should he spend the rest of his life in the loony bin or get the needle? Should we pray for him with the same earnestness that we have his victims? I don’t know. I think, though, that at the very least he deserves our pity.

In the end it’s all most of us have to give.

(Editor's note: Like what you read? No? Well, read something else on the blog. I'll wait ... Did you like that? Great! Tell your friends! Hell, tell your enemies! Tell your family, business acquaintances, your neighbors and that guy who talks to himself at the bus stop. Especially him. Let's see what we can do to make this the biggest blog EEVVVVVVAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR! By the way, please contribute by clicking on the link above. Your financial help keeps The Maztorphyl up and running!)