Michael Kindt's Blog, page 117

"[Clarence Thomas] is a clown in blackface. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace."

“[Clarence Thomas] is a clown in blackface. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace.”

-

George Takei

LOL @ George.

Black people are only allowed to believe a certain way, goddamn it!

LOLOL

"NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature..."

““NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes — some of which have a large sale.””

-

Ambrose Bierce

[ for 

jmarie0621itsme ]

William Faulkner’s typewriter, writing desk, and...

William Faulkner’s typewriter, writing desk, and accoutrements.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Tequila blanco-highland-with sangrita chaser.

Thank you, Mexico.

My dog Daisy just ran across the street (she saw a...

My dog Daisy just ran across the street (she saw a squirrel).

Only, she stopped, looked both ways, THEN ran across the street.

What a smart little dog she is :)

Gin was the first crack. From the Illustrated London News, May...

Gin was the first crack. From the Illustrated London News, May 6, 1848:

THERE are few places in London where so great a variety of characters may be seen popping in and out in a short space of time, as at the bars of our modern gin-palaces. Even respectable men who meet each other by chance, after a long absence, must drop in at the nearest tavern, although they have scarcely a minute to spare, to drink a glass together at the bar, and enquire about old friends. Married women, we are sorry to say, many of them the wives of clever mechanics, also congregate when they ought to be providing the dinner for their families. Such things are thought but little of among those who are far from being numbered  with the lowest orders of society. Then there are young itinerant vendors of almost every imaginable thing - these are, also, constant members of the bar, confining themselves generally to pennyworths of gin. The coster-mongers, who come wheeling and shouting from opposite directions, with their barrows, if they chance to meet near the door of a tavern must, after a little gossip, go in and have their “drain.” Added to these, there are the poor, the old, and the miserable, who look and feel “half-dead,” as they themselves express it, unless they are “lighted up” every two or three hours with a glass of spirits. Many of these have become so habituated to drink that they care but little for food, and very rarely partake of a substantial meal; a pennyworth of boiled shell-fish, such as whilks or mussels, an oyster or two, or a trotter, or sometimes a fried fish - all of which are borne into into these places by hawkers every hour of the day - maybe taken as fair samples of the food consumed by these regular drinkers.

Nor is it at the front of the gaudily fitted-up bars alone where such quantities of spirits are consumed. Women and children even are coming in with bottles; some of the latter so little, that, like the one which our artist has so truthfully sketched, they are scarcely able to reach up and place the bottle upon the zinc-covered bar. If the weather is cold they are generally sent out in their mothers’ shawls and bonnets, the one trailing upon the ground, and the other completely burying their little dirty faces. Even these young miserable creatures are fond of drink, and may sometimes be seen slily drawing the cork outside the door, and lifting the poisonous potion to their white withered lips. They have already found that gin numbs and destroys for a time the gnawing pangs of hunger, and they can drink the fiery mixture in its raw state.

THERE are few places in London where so great a variety of...

THERE are few places in London where so great a variety of characters may be seen popping in and out in a short space of time, as at the bars of our modern gin-palaces. Even respectable men who meet each other by chance, after a long absence, must drop in at the nearest tavern, although they have scarcely a minute to spare, to drink a glass together at the bar, and enquire about old friends. Married women, we are sorry to say, many of them the wives of clever mechanics, also congregate when they ought to be providing the dinner for their families. Such things are thought but little of among those who are far from being numbered  with the lowest orders of society. Then there are young itinerant vendors of almost every imaginable thing - these are, also, constant members of the bar, confining themselves generally to pennyworths of gin. The coster-mongers, who come wheeling and shouting from opposite directions, with their barrows, if they chance to meet near the door of a tavern must, after a little gossip, go in and have their “drain.” Added to these, there are the poor, the old, and the miserable, who look and feel “half-dead,” as they themselves express it, unless they are “lighted up” every two or three hours with a glass of spirits. Many of these have become so habituated to drink that they care but little for food, and very rarely partake of a substantial meal; a pennyworth of boiled shell-fish, such as whilks or mussels, an oyster or two, or a trotter, or sometimes a fried fish - all of which are borne into into these places by hawkers every hour of the day - maybe taken as fair samples of the food consumed by these regular drinkers.

Nor is it at the front of the gaudily fitted-up bars alone where such quantities of spirits are consumed. Women and children even are coming in with bottles; some of the latter so little, that, like the one which our artist has so truthfully sketched, they are scarcely able to reach up and place the bottle upon the zinc-covered bar. If the weather is cold they are generally sent out in their mothers’ shawls and bonnets, the one trailing upon the ground, and the other completely burying their little dirty faces. Even these young miserable creatures are fond of drink, and may sometimes be seen slily drawing the cork outside the door, and lifting the poisonous potion to their white withered lips. They have already found that gin numbs and destroys for a time the gnawing pangs of hunger, and they can drink the fiery mixture in its raw state.

-Illustrated London News, May 6, 1848

Talk to me about global warming. Real or not?

There are a vast number of things about which I don’t give a shit. This is one.

What annoys me is that we are supposed to take a preponderance of opinion as scientific fact. Um, sorry. My brain has not been so softened by social media propaganda as to believe that.

Besides, who gives a shit? Are not human beings natural and a part of this planet? Is not our activity, then, a part of the workings of Earth? Science tells us that we’re just animals. If so, then we have no right to be so egotistical as to view ourselves as OUTSIDE of nature. We don’t influence or change climate, we are just one big cog in the system.

As a homebrewer and baker, I see an analogy for humans in the activities of yeast.

Yeast is a microscopic organism that eats sugar and farts out alcohol and carbon dioxide. If you put some yeast in apple juice, it will turn it into apple cider, with much steady bubbling—the creation of alcohol you cannot see.

Eventually one of two things will happen to the yeast. One, they will consume all available sugars and go into hibernation, floating to the bottom. But, two, if the sugar content is really high or if you keep adding more and more, the alcohol content will continue to rise and rise, eventually killing off the yeast. In such a case, you will be left with very strong apple wine, not cider–and dead yeast.

We are yeast.

And to answer your question, YES, I believe in climate change. The climate of the Earth has been changing constantly throughout its history. At one time, before we yeastie boys came around, it was so warm not a shred of ice was anywhere and palm trees grew above the Arctic Circle.

So, politicize away. I don’t give a shit. Everybody needs something to distract themselves on the way to the grave.

"I’ve been accused of vulgarity. I say that’s bullshit."

“I’ve been accused of vulgarity. I say that’s bullshit.”

- Mel Brooks

I was given a bottle of Jose Cuervo as a gift because, for me, "gift" is not a verb.

Also, the guy didn’t like it.

I just tried a shot of it and I don’t like it either. I love tequila but this is tequila-flavored (barely) vodka. Anybody want it? Come and get it.

This week in my town a guy anally raped a six-month old baby to death and someone is putting razor blades on all the slides at the parks. A number of kids have been cut, but thankfully none have been anally raped to death by their meth-head mother’s ex-boyfriend SLASH babysitter.

Small victories.

I could really use a shot or five of a decent blanco right now. Drinking Jose Cuervo only makes me hungry for tequila. Maybe I will get up and go to the bar, but in addition to being in a terrible mood I am also extremely lazy.

Fuck this planet. We deserve to be climate changed to extinction. I wonder what creatures will thrive after we’re gone?

Happy thoughts.