Michael Kindt's Blog, page 415

Placing my adult son up for adoption. PM if interested.

So I have a kid, right? And I love him and yadda yadda yadda, but this week he got his first apartment. Although only 18, he is an independent man living on his own. I kind of helped matters in that department by immediately packing my bags and moving the fuck away the day after he graduated high school. If that ain't a hint, I don't know what is.

What bugs me is that his apartment is bigger than mine. I just got off the horn with him and he was all bragging about it, the little fucker. "You know your whole living room and bedroom?" he goes. "Yeah, my bedroom's a little bigger than that."

Additionally, he has a dishwasher. I do not. "Tried it out it tonight. Very cool. I just filled it up with dirty dishes, put some soap in it, pushed a button, and went and sat on my ass. An hour later, BOOM! Clean dishes."

Know what else? He has a cool neighbor. "Yeah, I met him in the hall and he invited me over for a few beers. The first thing I saw when I walked into his apartment was a huge stack of Vonnegut books. He's also into meditation."

My neighbor? He beats his dogs and throws trash all over the yard.

Where did I go wrong in raising myself???

"DR. DOOM" PREDICTS THE OBVIOUSOr does he? Economist...

"DR. DOOM" PREDICTS THE OBVIOUS

Or does he? Economist Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed "Dr. Doom" for his gloomy predictions in the run-up to the financial meltdown four years ago, has predicted that going to war with Iran would be very bad financially, not only for the U.S., who will cause the war, but for everyone else, too.

"No way!" humanity replies sarcastically, then rolls its eyes.

Going out on a limb, Mr. Roubini says that having a conflict in a major oil producing region would lead to a disruption in—get this—the flow of oil. This, in turn, would lead to a global recession. Mr. Roubini really comes out of left field when he says that the United States, which is already deeply in debt, would go still further into debt by having yet another war.

The United States has no money. We all know this. What we really don't know is actually how much money we don't have. We owe more money than there IS money. If you took all the money, from everyone, even rich people and corporations (which is blasphemous), and put it in a big pile, there still wouldn't be enough to pay off the debt. Such a visual goes a long way in helping you understand the level of pure fantasy our economy operates on.

Republicans will tell you we need to reduce spending by cutting things like education and help for the poor, because, you know, that's the REAL problem behind all this debt. (Nyuk, nyuk). Make rich people pay a fair tax rate? Come ON! End corporate welfare? Are you HIGH? The debt is caused by people who don't have enough money to begin with, so we need to take whatever they do have away. Food stamps? There's a perfectly good dumpster in the alley. Health care? Think of your financial inability to fight your cancer as an extremely late late-term abortion.  Taking everything away from those who don't have much makes it possible to avoid doing something psychotic like making people such as Mitt Romney pay a tax rate as high as a school teacher's.

Whenever I listen to Republican hallucinations, it's no surprise to me why they won't win a national election. Well, not without the help of the Supreme Court anyway. (By the way, this month the Supreme Court is brought to you by Monsanto. "Monstanto—providing Frankenfood to a clueless public since 1982"). It also becomes clear why Republicans are trying to rig local election laws to make it more difficult for the poor and minority to vote. As Jesus, the Republican mascot, always says, "If you can't win playing by the rules, cheat." (Matthew 19:24).

Republicans have actually convinced themselves that their coddling of corporations and the super-rich, plus nearly a dozen years of war, are not the cause of the national debt, which it is. Amazing what you can do with magical thinking, huh?

What a penetrating gaze this Nouriel Roubini has, able to peer into the future like Nostradamus and predict that the coming war with Iran will be expensive. Very observant, Mr. Roubini. You must've been squinting.

But all kidding aside, it seems to me that war with Iran or someone else is inevitable, and soon. The Iraq War ended several long months ago and we're due for another Support Our Troops magnetic ribbon fest. How about supporting them by not having them fighting and dying on a more or less constant basis? How about being reluctant to kill our fellow man just a tiny little bit?

What Mr. Roubini failed to see as he peered into his crystal ball was that billionista corporations like Lockheed Martin depend on selling a manufactured product that kills people, and they need a war to have a market. Building complex, expensive devices that slaughter humans is big business in America. It's a very large, very important section of our economy. It all comes down to supply and demand, and suppliers need to do something to create demand, otherwise there's no reason for them to exist. The industry that builds the machines of war needs a war to sell their machines and they have a lot of money—a lot of money to pump into political campaigns, a lot of money to lobby with, a lot of money to get rid of pesky, unprofitable peacetime.

War is good business, Mr. Roubini. Sorry, but you lose.

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I dreamt that I was younger.

I had my long hair back and I was in my old hometown, a place I haven't lived for 20 years. Everything was abandoned, caving in, falling down, boarded up. The ground was covered in skeletons.

I dream the above scenario time and again. Hundreds of times now. Variations occur, variations on a theme if you will…

This time, for example, my hair was black. When I was young, my hair was dirty blond or light brown. It only turned black in my late twenties, after I shaved it all off. I was walking through the empty streets, stepping over the skeletons. There were thousands of them. Thousands and thousands.

I am heading, for some reason, to the grocery store. I don't know why. I feel compelled to go there. Just as I approach it, a young boy runs up and asks for my help, saying "Please, Mister!"

I begin to follow him and suddenly we're in the woods outside of town. The darkness of the abandoned, death-smeared town is gone and we're in the brightness of the forest. Summer sun, high noon, cloudless sky bright. Greens everywhere. Heady smells.

The boy is crouching above a man a few feet away. The man's chest is torn open and his heart is exposed. I can see it beating wetly.

"Please, Mister!" the boy says again.

I hurry over and kneel beside the man, who is barely conscious. I try not to look directly at his exposed heart. It seems like nudity to me, but the boy and I both know something needs to be done and that I am the one to do it. The boy's eyes are filled with tears as he looks at me desperately.

Finally, I look at the exposed heart. I reach out to it and touch it, feeling it squirming and twitching in my hands, which are quickly covered in blood. I try to put it back into his chest, into the large hole. I hear a ripping sound. One of the veins or arteries has severed and blood is shooting up in the air.

The boy screams, piercingly, making my ears ring, and runs off into the forest. I look at the man's face and he is dead, staring straight with waxy and vacant eyes. I stand up quickly and look into the flat blue cloudless sky. I notice how there is nothing up there and that it isn't a real sky at all, but a fake one, a painted-on sky, covering up a terrible black secret.

I look down again at the man and he is a skeleton. My hands, which once held his heart, have also become skeletal. I look at them poking out from the ragged flesh of my wrists. They are like aliens.

That's when I woke up screaming.

Jesus.

POLICE SUSPECT JERSEY SHORE SHOOTINGS ARE RELATED TO MTV REALITY...

POLICE SUSPECT JERSEY SHORE SHOOTINGS ARE RELATED TO MTV REALITY SHOW

ASBURY PARK, N.J. (AP) — Three young men have been wounded in a shooting on the Jersey Shore, but their injuries are not considered life-threatening.

Asbury Park police say they haven't determined a motive for the shootings, but suspect hostility toward the MTV show "Jersey Shore" to be a factor. The shootings occurred just before midnight Friday in a residential area on Bangs Avenue. Monmouth County prosecutors say it appears that the three men, each of Italian descent, muscular, and somewhat orange from tanning bed use, were targeted by an unknown shooter who remained at large as of Saturday evening.

Authorities did not disclose specific details about the victims, saying only that they did not know each other and were "real Guidos."

Officials say two of the men suffered "serious wounds" and remain hospitalized. Hospital staff have been forced to administer sedatives to keep the two men from escaping out the window to a nearby nightclub. The other man was treated at the hospital for minor injuries and released with a regimen of painkillers, which he promptly shared with some homies.

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I'd really like to see a "No" during one of those hokey televised marriage proposals.

I just saw a televised marriage proposal (TMP) tonight. It was typical: the guy yammering about finding his "soul mate", tearing up, lower lip quivering. They bring the woman out. She's all surprised. He gets down on his knees….

You know the story.

My fingers were crossed for a "No." Alas!

She of course said "Yes." They almost have to. Shit, she's in front of God and everyone. Millions of overweight Americans are watching from their couches. Talk about pressure.

It would've been sweet if she turned him down, told him to get lost, or that she only "wants to be friends." What would the poor sap do? Cry? "But I bought you a shiny rock! Hundreds of Africans were exploited for it! Come on, we're soul mates!"

"Sorry, bub," and off she goes, free as a bird, the luckiest woman in the world…

The 65 year old hippie was talking to the 45 year old punk.

"I don't understand all that anger and violence you guys were into," he said.

"Yeah?" said the 45 year old punk. "Well, I don't understand all that peace and love crap you guys were into."

Just then a 25 year old hipster walked by and they both burst out laughing.

You know, when George Thorogood drinks alone,

he prefers to be by himself.

BOURBON

Goldberg Variations, Aria, played by Freddy Kempf. Who played it...

Goldberg Variations, Aria, played by Freddy Kempf. Who played it in Silence of the Lambs? This sounds close, but I don't think it's it.

What happened to the fucking harpsichord?

Was it not cool? Was the piano really that much better? Why? I like it, kinda. Very different. Goldberg Variations are quite different played on one. I'm not saying better, but….different. Goldberg Variations were originally written for harpsichord, if I'm not mistaken.

You'll remember the Variations from Silence of the Lambs. It was what Hannibal Lecter was listening to as he killed and ate (some) of his guards, then made his escape by stealing one of their faces. It was played on piano then and usually is these days.

On the harpsichord it is less haunting and less deep, but has a dainty prettiness…or something.

Also, whenever I hear a harpsichord, I feel like putting on a cravat. How cool is that?