The Sun's Not Yellow, It's Chicken

BACK AT WORK TODAY, post-Labor Day weekend, feeling a deep, sorrowful September of the soul that has to do more with the November-like climes being foisted upon these environs by Ma Nature than by the traditional end of summer demarcation. By my calculation, we have seen about a day and a half worth of sun in the last two weeks. Took advantage of a sunny window yesterday by going to Rockaway Beach where we again threw the 'Bee with impunity, sent the football spiraling tightly back and forth among ourselves like strong-armed Cowboy quarterbacks of yore, and swam & rode the season's waning waves like modern-day scions of Poseidon, while the sun shone warmly on friend and foe alike. Or something like that.

Last worked here last Wednesday, so I was looking at five days off in a row, being Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday, and of course yesterday, Monday, the aforementioned Laborious Day. For those of you with paid holidays, a five-day weekend is something to look forward to, but as a freelancer, I was somewhat bemoaning such a long gap of forced inactivity. But Thursday afternoon around 3:00, I got a call from Kate letting me know that my earthly presence was requested by SC on Friday. So off I went on Friday, down to 131 Varick Street, where I worked a quick four-hour shift from 10 to 2 among my peeps. One of my main contacts is no longer there, seems there was a little personnel shakeup, his place being taken by a very fine-looking young lady, one of more than several lurking about on the premises and checking the brother out. Let's just say there are more than a few visual distractions that make working there so enjoyable. There's a good chance I will be returning there this week as the final page proofs weren't ready for me to go over on Friday afternoon.

Don't really know what's going on at the new Air America. They just moved up the dial, from 1190 to 1600 on the AM dial. Has Mike Malloy been terminated, what about Sam Seder, the dreaded Satellite Sisters? Last Tuesday I heard Malloy filling in for Randy Rhodes on the 3-7 shift, saying he would be back on Wednesday with Gore Vidal, and then he was gone. I've been listening a lot more lately because this promises to be an exciting two months politically with the November Congressional elections coming up and with Republicans poised to steal as many votes as they do and Democrats hoping to regain control of a country absolutely gone off the rails. There's nothing I hate more than young conservatives, nothing so dispiriting as some sheltered person of privilege laying claim to their rightful place in the world order, so smug and uninformed and repressed.

How sweet it was to see the Greek national basketball team knock the U.S. team off in the world semifinals! Before the game, the U.S. players were of course styling and showboating for the crowd, practicing their own idea of fundamentals -- if lobbing the ball off the backboard and throwing down thunder dunks can be considered fundamentals. On the other side of the court, refusing to be intimidated by the presence of the much more famous Americans, the Greek team had the quirky notion of working on such quaint, seemingly outdated phases of the sport as jump shooting and free throws. The 101-95 ass-kicking the Hellenes then perpetrated was a thing of basketball beauty, with the Americans seemingly powerless to adjust to the mighty Hellas squad running the game's most elemental play, the pick & roll, to perfection over and over and over again. The Greek team shot the lights out, hanging a hundred spot on the more celebrated U.S. club, thereby delivering a nightmarish comeuppance to this wannabe Dream Team. As one writer noted, "In the crunch, a collection of NBA stars couldn't handle players whose names they couldn't pronounce and could identify only by number." Let's leave the last word to the corn-rowed, overly tattooed, me-first Carmelo Anthony, who may have inadvertently stumbled on his team's mindset after the game: "It's not like this is the end of the world for us." How about a case of sour grapes to go with that whine, Carmelo? Old Aesop woulda loved it.

No Emmys For You!

BEFORE I LEFT ON FRIDAY M.P. reminded me to show up early today, in case L.TV brought home a bushel-full of awards from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences last night, also known as the 58th annual Emmy Awards to all of you outside the industry. Alas, it was not to be, as the nominated Human Trafficking, Ambulance Girl and A Little Thing Called Murder were shut out, unable to garner any respect from the Academy. So there will be no self-congratulatory trade ads running in the industry press touting actors Donald Sutherland, Robert Carlyle, Judy Davis and Kathy Bates, as was the case when the nominations came out in June. I didn't watch a second of the Emmys show actually, but I was glad this morning to see that The Office won for best comedy. I wonder if Deadwood won for anything or if it was even nominated. Hard to believe there is better acting (Ian McShane), better writing, better directing, etc., going on elsewhere.

Working my way thru the Season Two DVDs of Deadwood, up to Episode 9, watching all the extras and commentaries. Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, these commentaries by the actors seem to add very little, but are usually good for a few laughs and even more cursing than the show itself. Series Creator David Milch's comments were interesting, but the actors rarely provide insight about what's happening onscreen. Best line so far of season two goes to (who else) Al Swearengen, speaking to newspaperman A.W. Merrick:

"Pain or damage don't end the world.
Or despair or fucking beatings.
The world ends when you're dead.
Until then, you got more punishment in store.
Stand it like a man ... and give some back."

For some reason, other than critics, nobody I know seems to like this show as much as I do, or as much as they once did. Unlike The Sopranos, which people seem eager to return to week after week despite bitching over decreased quality, ridiculous plot lines etc., I've heard complaints from friends that there's too much cursing on Deadwood and that it takes too much work to decipher what's being said in terms of the archaic period language, etc. But to me the reward is so great that it makes all the effort worth it.

Darn good Deadwood piece from New York Times here:
www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/arts/television/11mcki/html?ex=130767
Each episode costs around $4.5 million to make, and it's all there up on the screen, as they say in the business. It's also mentioned that writer David Milch was a former heroin user, alcoholic and gambling addict. That knowledge, too, undoubtedly adds to the richness and texture of this "blood and profanity-drenched Western," as it's called.

And last but not least, there's actually a Website that keeps track of the number of "fucks" and "cocksuckers" uttered per episode. Seriously, it's cataloged here at www.thewvsr.com/deadwood.htm. For instance, you can discover that there were a total of 98 fucks in Episode 18 ("Something Very Expensive"), while the same episode had merely 9 cocksuckers, a ratio of fucks to cocksuckers of 10.9 : 1. The most profanity-laced 10-minute segment in Episode 18, for those keeping score at home, was achieved by Minutes 20-29, which got off a staggering 31 fucks in that time frame. Cumulative running total through the end of Season 3? 2,980 fucks so far, with more to come. This Website also thoughtfully makes use of bar graphs for season recaps of number of fucks, but didn't get around to including cocksuckers until the second season. Helpful and edifying nonetheless.























Great interview with David Milch, series creator of Deadwood, here:
http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/feature/2005/03/05/milch/index.html

L(Time)'s Been Good To Me So Far

SITTING HERE AT LT, where I have been kept unusually busy this morning, going over around 10 posters and ads. LT has been berry berry good to me. For instance, this week I will have worked four days. That seems to be what M. and the staff here have settled on; working from 10 to around 4, 4:30. Also, just got a call from A. asking me if I was available this very day to work a shift at S.Comm. Claro que si! I will shoot downtown at 4, get to S. around 4:30, and work as needed. That gives me a nice check for next week. I last worked for S. around three weeks ago, so it's good to get them back into the rotation.

But I've been making ends meet here as a freelancer. Since late June, when I got the hotel job and then turned it down, I've only missed three days of work. The great majority of the work has come from LT, where I've settled into a nice daily routine. I get up at 7:30, have my breakfast of cereal and soy milk, out of the house by 8:30, and if the sun is a-shining I take the train to the Fifth Avenue stop, go to Central Park to have my ritual cup of Earl Grey tea, and then soak up the atmosphere for around an hour, from 9 till 10, before walking the short distance to the LT offices on Eighth, riding the elevator to the sky 32 floors up, where I settle into my cozy cubicle. Unfortunately, I've been eating at Mickey D's far too often, usually off the dollar menu, where I get a McChicken or a small burger and fries to hold me over. To put it in pespective, I've eaten at McDonald's more in the last month than the previous, oh, 10 years put together. They say that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but does it make you any healthier? We'll see. I just can't afford to spend 6 or 7 bucks on lunch like I used to back in the Transcript days, and there are far fewer food choices here in Midtown.

By the way, except for the relative proximity to Central Park, Midtown sucks compared to the Downtown area I used to work in. I used to love the Seaport in the summer. In addition, the traffic here in Midtown Manhattan can only be described as a nightmare blend of speeding taxis, delivery trucks, gargantuan double-decker tourist buses and selfish suburban SUV scumbags constantly running lights and blocking the intersections. I take comfort somehow in the fact that even saintly Walt Whitman would be shouting obscenities and profanity at these obnoxious obstructive bastards who make getting around such an ordeal. You never see anyone ticketed for blocking the box or other violations, never mind talking on their cell phones while driving. It should be suspended license for at least a month each time some self-important asshole is caught driving while ego-impaired, as I like to call it. How about a commuter tax, Bloomberg, or some traffic congestion ideas like London has successfully implemented -- you pathetic excuse for a mayor.

This just in: Pluto is no longer a full-fledged planet. It's been summarily downgraded to the status of a "dwarf planet," ending its brief 76-year run as the ninth planet. Not that it was one of my favorite orbital bodies, that's an honor reserved for sexy spheroids like Mars, Venus and big old badass Jupiter. But I hate when they change stuff like that. No word yet on the fate of the goofy Disney character, but if Pluto is not a planet, what the hell was it doing taking up so much space in MY solar system all these years. Now we're down to just eight planets, which for me ruins the whole damn galaxy really. Next they'll change the pronunciation of Uranus back to your-anus. Now that would be painful.

The Most Horrible Person In America

THAT EPITHET remains applicable to only one man: Long Island's own Bill O'Reilly. Consider this your one-stop O'Reilly Hatin' Station.


I remember how at the start of shock & awe this noxious creep proposed giving the citizens of Baghdad 48 hours to clear out before leveling the city lest there be any resistance to our wonderful, heroic invading stormtroopers. I still regard that comment as one of the sickest comments ever heard uttered on television.


For an introduction to his vileness and a debunking of this sanctimonious bully's facile talking points, go to www.newscorpse.com/Pix/TPoints. Hear delusional O'Reilly call for a boycott of Mexico and bemoan the popularity of the Dixie Chicks, while you revel in the knowledge that the average O'Reilly Factor viewer is 71 years old.

Another Website doing God's work (i.e., devoted to taking down this venomous scourge) is www.sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com. It rightly bills itself as An Organization Of Hope.

The Nation (www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/bill_oreilly) does a fine job of skewering O'Reilly's feeble attempts at book-writin' in its current online edition, taking aim at his often unintentionally humorous effort to indoctrinate the young folks against the evils of secular humanism. It would be even more funny if the man wasn't such an evil bastard who way too many people take seriously. The man is a non-stop hate machine, with a primetime cable show, radio program and syndicated newspaper column spewing his outrageous McCarthyisms all too often unchallenged.

O'Reilly is the subject of nightly lampooning on the Keith Olberman show, Jon Stewart tweaks him mercilessly, and the Colbert Report is a demented, bizarro world homage to Clueless Bill. David Letterman famously told him he was full of crap a few months ago. And of course there was the infamous sexual harrassment case that he settled out of court. But there seems to be no stopping him, because as long as you preach hatred of liberals, there is always a built-in audience of goobers, hicks, trailer trash know-nothings and neo-nazis.

Enemas Of The State

No list of the most dishonest, delusional and dangerously disingenuous demagogues would be complete without the following: Elliott Abrams, yet another Republican chickenhawk still wielding tremendous power over American policy in the Middle East; John Lund, a neofascist corporate propagandist in the mold of Doctor Goebbels; James Woolsey, ex-CIA madman now working tirelessly to promote U.S. military intervention as the solution to all world problems; Larry Kudlow, an uber-yuppie economist with the smug mien of an eternal preppie who, I am not making this up, recently credited the Reagan tax cuts for the robust state of our current economy. Read it here: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjIxNDVlYmZhZjI4ODk3ZDMzMjViZjdhMTE3NjMwZjA

In a related matter, the other night I mentioned to my friend that I am boycotting Imus in the Morning for the foreseeable future because of his penchant to alternately swallow and espouse right-wing bullshit. Well, he did have John Kerry on the other day, he said, so with that in mind I turned Imus on this morning and what do I hear inside of two minutes but more tired, infuriating crap. When a caller from Connecticut suggested she was not gonna vote for Joe Lieberman in the fall, he started to berate her, saying Lieberman was great for the state, great for the country, and was one of the greatest men in the history of the nation. I kid you not. He then said that even though he disagreed with Lieberman on Iraq, he was still a supporter, and brought up Rick Santorum as an example of someone who he disagreed with occasionally but on the whole was more good than bad. Sorry, unacceptable at this stage of the game. Man, my instincts are honed. I mean, the man had Larry the Cable Guy on as a regular in-studio guest. I don't need that kind of aggravation first thing in the morning.

Great article on Wikipedia in recent New Yorker mag; read it online here:
www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

Blogs that I dig:
www.jameswolcott.com (always worth checking out)
www.tomwatson.typepad.com (great taste in music, likewise in politics)
www.waiterrant.net (occupation-based angst and anti-yuppie musings)
www.antiwar.com (read Justin Raimondo, an unabashed paleo-conservative who takes on Bush, the Israel Lobby, the folly of Iraq, etc.)
www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com (Her book, Baghdad Burning, and this blog provide an insightful glimpse into living under the American occupation in Iraq)

Most depressing movie recently seen without any uplifting or redeeming qualities had to be 21 Grams with Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benecio Del Toro. The performances were uniformly outstanding, but this drag of a film really had no reason to exist except to bum the audience out. Unlike, say, The Killing Fields, an admittedly depressing movie but one based on a historical nightmare, here we get speficic personal nightmares like a car crash that wipes out a dad and his two daughters, a man dying of a terminal illness, and a jailbird trying to save his life with religion. The story is told in jumpcut fashion, taking liberties with the narrative structure for no apparent reason. The emotion you feel while viewing this is not catharsis but dread. I found the individual situations too specific, too non-universal to relate any greater meaning, save that all our lives, no matter how disparate, are somehow intertwined. Not every movie necessarily has to teach a lesson, of course, but art should impart something close to a moral, as Tolstoy believed, otherwise it becomes art for art's sake. This leaves out art forms like surrealism, dada, modern dance, glam rock, etch-a-sketch, sand painting, body art, art deco, Art Carney... Just one man's opinion.

The most absurd promotions I've heard in some time are the corporate tie-ins to baseball. On New York Yankees radio broadcasts, one company picks a random listener and promises $10,000 plus Internet & cable services for a year if there is a triple play in a certain inning of the game. In other words, Joe Blow from Kokomo wins tonite's contest if there is a triple play in the bottom of the third inning. Now, mind you, I would guess that there are, at most, like two triple plays a year total in ALL OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. What do the odds become if you narrow it down to a speficic half-inning of a Yankees game? Very generous promotion, but not the most ridiculous one. That honor goes to the Grand Slam promotion on Yankees games, where another lucky listener can win a car if the fourth batter in a designated half-inning hits a grand slam. So if your name is picked, the first three batters have to get on base, then the fourth batter has to hit a home run. I doubt that each team hits more than 3 or 4 grand slams a year, so the odds approach the infinitesimal when you stipulate not only the specific half-inning, but also set the added qualifiers of specific batter and specific order. If any of those contests actually find a winner and give something away this year, I will join the Marines, vote Republican and immediately close down this popular blog. Does the nature of these so-called "giveaways" not say a lot about how corporations play people for suckers? If you want to advertise on a broadcast, buy the fucking airtime. Don't come up with convoluted contests designed solely to get your corporate entity some free commercial time. Disgraceful, and somehow even more commercially craven than buying the naming rights to a stadium, which in the past has brought us national treasures like Enron Field in Houston and Adelphia Stadium in Tennessee.

Hard to determine what his angle is, but pencil-necked confessor John Mark Karr is unlikely to have carried out the grisly JonBenet Ramsey murder. His sketchy background contains the requisite weirdness to fit the bill, but apparently little else seems to match him to the scene of the crime. Nevertheless, he now stands poised to join the long list of lamentable lowdown losers sporting three names -- Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, John Wilkes Booth -- who have butchered, bungled or blazed their way into American criminal infamy.

Pissed-Off Primary Postmortem

Went a little nutzoid the other day after seeing one too many right wing explanations as to why the end of the Democratic Party is near now that Ned Lamont handed Joe Lieberman his ass. This despite Lieberman's pathetic call for an uprising, his word, on primary day, lest the antisecurity wing (his words) of the party prevail. You see, he even thinks like Karl Rove and uses the same verbiage as Dick Cheney. A girl I used to work with at the Transcript, Emma, has a blog that is occasionally funny, www.weenieenema.blogspot.com, but methinks she leans too far to the right. She has links to Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin and other human feces on her site, so I had to straighten her out the other day, letting loose with one of my trademark verbal barrages in her general direction after she took a shot at my boy Ned, praised Liebeman, called his wife Hadassah a badass, and said she would move to Connecticut to vote for Lieberman as an independent. That really set me off. Here's some of my response reproduced for your benefit:

"Good riddance to Joe Lieberman and his massive puppethead, fuck his wife too. I burn with hatred for the Cult of Bush and their devotees. All Lieberman cares about is the fate of Israel. He hid behind Bush's skirt when Bush was riding high and Democrats didn't forget that. The vast majority of Dems supported ousting the Taliban in Afghanistan, but refused to conflate the war on terror with the invasion of Iraq because they have minds of their own, unlike Republicans who will support Reichsfuhrer Bush right up until it's time to drink the cyanide Kool-aid. The right wing is out of ideas, save for the time-tested dementia of red baiting and painting their opponents as Al-Qaeda appeasers. The fact that you have links to hateful bitches like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin says it all. Stick to your semi-humorous pop culture ruminations. You see nothing wrong apparently with the culture of lobbyist corruption, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, shock and awe, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, stolen elections, one-party rule, journalists paid by government contract to write pro-Bush articles here and abroad, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, torture and rendition, or supporting the consensus worst president ever. I guess everyone who disagrees with you just hates freedom, right? But Ned Lamont you get worked up about. Get used to it, sweetheart, because you're gonna have to move to a lot of different states come November if you hope to offset a Democratic onslaught. Physician, heal thyself."

Over the weekend I felt bad about using the word fuck, but it's a perfectly legitimate construct here in the blogosphere. Hey, I meant what I said. The gloves are off now. I really have no desire to debate or try to convert Republicans or Conservatives at this late stage if they still don't get the mess they've made. They exhibit all the behaviors that people in cults do -- the glassy-eyed denials, withdrawal from reality, avoidance of fact-based reality. And like a cult they must be deprogrammed. I envision a series of Khmer Rouge-like reeducation camps across the country, forced labor and total public renunciation of past bourgeois lifestyles. But that's just me.

Angelheaded Hipsters Burning For The Ancient Heavenly Connection To The Starry Dynamo In The Machinery Of The Night

Can't put my finger on how or why it happened like it did, but in recent weeks I have become obsessed with the Beats all over again -- Ginsberg, Burroughs, Cassady, Kerouac et al. I picked up a Jack Kerouac bio last week from the library and can't put it down. The faith he had in his own work when publishers were rejecting his early stuff left & right speaks volumes about his integrity, in my opinion. He wouldn't change or edit his stuff when he had no leg to stand on, no money, no leverage -- only a vision. His personal life was a mess while he wrote his groundbreaking books. Alcoholic, drugged out on pot benzedrine morphine, simultaneously homophobic & homoerotic, making it with both guys & gals, freeloading on friends & family, hitching back & forth across the country chasing kicks, charasmatic & confused & religious & hopeless & joyful, free spirit & mama's boy, but always writing typing scribbling jotting it all down ... letters poems novels confessions -- all there in one fascinating package. Mad to live indeed. Above all, cool, when that word had meaning, before mass marketing to the youth market.

A Market Of The Senses

IMAGINE you're a TV critic assigned to write a piece on the 25-year anniversary of MTV and you have nothing negative to say about one of the most pernicious cultural developments in the history of western civilization. Instead, you use words like marvelous and ingenious, and state that, "In its quarter-century, MTV has done everything right." Now, I know the blogosphere is already filled with hateful invective and name-calling, so what's one more rant. Allow me to say that the "critic" in question, The New York Times' Virginia Heffernan, is no Frank Rich, or even Camille Paglia. Heffernan has "no complaints" with EmpTV, save for the white-guilt notion that it took them too long to flood the airwaves with disgusting, valueless, tasteless rap culture on a daily basis. In The Ever-Changing Eternal Youth Of MTV, Now 25 Going On 11, she credits the network with "amply compensating for early mistakes, like its notorious snub of hip-hop." The gushy airhead goes on to report that her mouth is agape at the splendor of the houses shown on MTV Cribs, the show devoted to flaunting homes purchased with the ill-gotten, obscene wealth amassed by these talentless, mumbling, crotch-grabbing video stars. Her breathless celebro-praise is worth quoting in full: "Paulina Rubio, the girlish Latin pop star, led the camera through her spectacular house in Miami. It was immaculate, airy, elegant, filled with light. As she seemed to float through the tour, she appeared to have no obligations or ties except to her yoga teacher. For a moment I thought she had the most beautiful house I'd ever seen. I was agape." Wow! That's how her article ends. The world now seems to be full of young people like this, lost souls desperate to demonstrate hipness at any price, even if a mindless allegiance to hip-hop is their ticket.

Compare that take with one by a real social commentator, someone with guts and an abiding inclination to go against the mainstream. Stanley Crouch of The Daily News, in a column titled MTV, Still Clueless After All These Years, writes that MTV "came to project the most dehumanizing images of black people since the dawn of minstrelsy in the 19th century. Pimps, whores, potheads, drug dealers, gangbangers, the crudest materialism and anarchic gang violence were broadcast across the world as real black culture." He laments the triumph of "the lowest common denominator" as well as the "misogynist images" and "rule-of-thumb-stupidity" that viewers have become accustomed to. You can read the whole column at www.nydailynews.com/news/col/scrouch.

Squawking Like A Pink Monkey Bird

You know God has a sick sense of humor when you stop and reflect on the comical physical guises he bestowed on some of his creations. One need look no further than the weirdly configured 3-toed sloth, the charmingly goofy manatee and the freakishly puppetheaded Junior Senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman. What else do these Seuss-like wonders have in common, besides their penchant for scaring small children? Perhaps the fact that after this Tuesday's state primary, none of these forlorn creatures will be slithering around the halls of Congress in support of a costly, immoral, unnecessary war. Lieberman's enthusiastic shilling for the invasion, occupation and prosecution of the Orwellian-named Operation Iraqi Freedom likely opened the door for anti-war candidate Ned Lamont to hand the diminutive woodenhead warhawk his walking papers. That news, coupled with corrupt, embattled, scandal-ridden Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney's decision not to seek reelection in the fall, could be the start of a wave of mutiliation for the War Party and the beginning of an end to the almost unprecedented killing, chaos and despair they are responsible for on a global basis. Yes, maybe there is a God.

We Can Hitch A Ride

SO I'M AT THE BEACH, Rockaway Beach, the Sun is out & I Want Some, and in between throwin' the 'Bee, playing catch with a regulation NFL ball, riding some waves, talking to some Brazilian girls we met from Astoria, getting some rays, I see one of those small planes low in the sky above the shoreline, pulling behind a giant banner: it's an ad for D.H. on L.TV, one that I probably proofread. That brings it all home. If just one more viewer tunes in because of that ad, well, at the end of the day, isn't that what it's all about? Hey, I'm asking the questions here...

I'm debating whether to send in a C.E. claim form asking for reimbursement for food I never had getting spoiled for the blackout that didn't hit me. My landlady said our block was literally the only area not affected out of the whole area, something like,oh, I'm guessing 40 square blocks, maybe more, something like 250,000 people. But C.E. sent me a form and I'm not sure if they can pinpoint which areas were affected during which times. The letter said that I only had to lose power for a minimum of 12 hours to be eligible. I could say that some things worked but my refrigerator stopped working and all the food spoiled. I already filled out the form but have not sent it in yet. I have no qualms regarding the moral aspect, I'm more than ready to take advantage of my one opportunity to screw a big utility company right up the ass; I just don't want to be held liable for fraud. I will consult with a few of my advisors and then make a final decision forthwith, maybe fifthwith or sixthwith.

Got a credit card application in the mail recently from some heretofore unheard of financial entity called First Premier Bank. Now anyone who knows me knows that I owe thousands and thousands of dollars to credit cards, banks, etc., but shoot, I am as susceptible as the next guy to better living thru plastic, so long story short, I called up one nite, told some broad my pertinent info and lo & behold the credit card comes in the mail the other day with my name on it. Then I look at the not-even-so-fine print: a $250 credit limit, $48 application fee, and then a bunch of other fees (brought to you by industry lobbyists and a Republican-controlled House & Senate) totaling 178 dollars! That's right, I owe the fucking Credit Card Company $178 before I even use it, leaving a grand total of $72 available credit. I know I have bad credit, but aren't those terms just a wee bit onerous? Well? Again, I'm waiting for an answer here. I have a good right to just use the card up just out of spite. That's just the kind of childish, antisocial, devious thing I've done in the past.

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of The Big Layoff, as it's now known in industry circles. August 8, 2005. I get back from lunch at the Seaport when I see a maudlin-looking Paul Smith gingerly approaching me, the quintessential bearer of bad tidings. He regrets to inform me that I have been fired due to various factors, he thinks it's unfair, but all the forces are arrayed against me, it's a fait accompli, I'm to clean out my desk, vacate the premises, turn in my membership card, cease and desist, do not pass Go or collect 200 dollars, see ya wouldn't wanna be ya, don't let the proverbial door hit you on the way out, be kind to the people you meet on the way up because you meet the same people on the way down, praise the lord and pass the ammunition, don't follow leaders watch the parking meters, I don't make the rules I just follow them, be careful what you wish for, there are people starving in China with no shoes or even feet to speak of, so put your nose to the grindstone, get your ducks in a row, sharpen your pencils, and keep your ear to the ground, you're very well read it's well known, but something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones.

It's been a year of struggle, sturm und drang even, but onward we strive, excelsior! Tossed asunder on seas of indifference, shipwrecked on islands of hostility, beached on shores of uncertainty. Yeah, it's been all those things. But I'm a fighter, a survivor, as stubborn as a mule, nobody breaks my rules, I'm looking for one new value, but nothing comes my way.

But seriously. Worse case scenario, best case scenario, who has time to differentiate anymore? I've got a good base here at L.TV. Friday was my first day off in, oh, about 5 weeks. I'm back today & tomorrow, then I talk to M. about the rest of the week, but it looks like I can count on 4 days a week here. Hopefully my other clients will use me more steadily. And then sometime in the fall, the catering biz will get bizzy & I'll take my place in the great merry-go-round of society, filling my destiny in some karmic comedy of conventional comity. Let it be written, let it be said.

The Fatherland's No Place To Die For

HAVEN'T LISTENED TO Air America in weeks, maybe even months. Right after I was laid off I used to listen to Al Franken sometimes, but I really only liked two shows enough to tune in consistently, the morning show with Mark Maron and then Mike Malloy at night (maybe it's an M thing), and of course they have both been canceled, at least in the New York area. Even more tragically, Malloy's time slot has been filled with the uber-lame Satellite Sisters, which Jeanane Garafolo had the guts to blast a few months ago on air, saying that altho she was sure they were nice people, she knew of no one who actually liked them. I agree big-time. Their show consists of 4 or 5 sisters living in different cities on a group conference call babbling endlessly/needlessly about their boring social/love lives. Brutal radio. In practice it's even more hideous than the description would have you believe, with zero political insight or content. It should be used to torture what prisoners remain at camps like Guantanamo, along with archives from the mercifully cancelled David Lee Roth radio program. Hell, come to think of it, anything David Lee Roth does is a form of torture to anyone with half a brain.

For a late night political talk fix I turn now to Lionel on WOR-AM 710 on your dial, just Lionel, no last name needed, who is on my wavelength now both literally & figuratively. Knowledgeable, intelligent and properly vituperative & unforgiving toward the right-wing loonies who call in to voice support for Gruppenfuhrer Bush and our heroic Stormtroopers protecting our freedom and our way of life.

I have decided to boycott Imus in the Morning and the Daily News, for similar reasons. Imus' show has become a platform for some of the most detestable personalities/celebrities of various political stripes, but mostly right wing scum. Imus himself adopts a ridiculous Cowboy persona that would be laughable if he didn't wield so much power; I live for the day when his world comes tumbling down. Here's a short list of the human crap he gives an uncritical pass to: Joseph Lieberman, Laura Inghram, Donald Trump, Orrin Hatch, Rick Santorum, Jay Severin, George Will, etc. But the crowning blow for me was allowing self-styled retard Bo Dietl to give his viewpoint on the Middle East, which was basically kill all the Arabs and let God sort them out. The show is long past its prime and will not be missed.

The Daily News has long been listing to the right under the pathetic Mort Zuckerman's twisted stewardship, coming off like a pale imitation of the New York Post. The paper that used to employ populist writers of staggering talent like Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill is unrecognizable now. The final straw for me had to be a column by Michael Goodwin, a smiling yuppie hack and unapologetic Bushie cut from the David Brooks weenie mold. In a column titled Give War A Chance: Hezbollah Starts A Fight, So It's Time To Teach Terror A Lesson, he posits that Israel, by the very fact that it is Israel, can literally do no wrong and should prosecute this latest war with unbridled savagery so as to stop terrorism for generations to come. Of course, it's not the neoconmen who will be doing the fighting. So now the Post of course is out, the News is out, the Times is too expensive so I just read it online; that leaves me with Newsday, the Voice, the New York Press, and the free daily papers, amNewYork and metro. Which is enuf to get me thru the week. Here's hoping there's a Hezbollah rocket with Goodwin's name on it.

Twenty Years Of Schoolin' & They Put You On The Day Shift

For those of us keeping track, today marks my 18th straight day of work since the ill-fated Hotel W. experiment -- a modern freelance record for me. I'm due back at LT. this coming Monday & Tuesday, so I'm guaranteed to have at least 20 days running. Then we play it by ear; maybe they won't need me Wednesday, for instance, but will ask me to come back on Thursday & Friday. But it's good that I'm basically the proofreader du jour, if not du whatever the French word for week is. Plus, as my regular readers will know, this week was significant in that I got Select back in the rotation. I am well nigh loved & respected there, getting along famously with all the kids. I got skills to pay the bills.

I'm not as superstitious as I used to be, life has beaten that out of me, so I must say that this L.T. gig is the least stressful $$$ I ever made. I'm used to proofreading or editing pages & pages of text copy under tight deadlines, so naturally this is going to seem easy by comparison. For instance, I was here 4 hours on Tuesday without a scintilla of work coming my way. Yesterday I had perhaps 15 minutes of total work out of 5 1/2 hours. Which means you really have to focus and concentrate when the work does come in. It's almost like my own personal internet cafe, but instead of me paying a buck for every 15 minutes, I am instead paid to sit here while I surf the proverbial net until I'm needed. But M. said he wants someone here ready in case something comes along. Usually it's a poster or advertisement for an upcoming show that I look at & then sign off on. I see it as a win-win situation for everyone involved. They get my unparalleled expertise in all matters proofreading, almost like I'm a proofing consultant; I get the benefit of their quite reasonable financial remuneration. Of course, they don't have to pay me benefits or the like. It seems like they laid off a lot of people in recent times, and it's a big TV network, so they're still way ahead if you look at like that. In fact, the network just paid the staggering sum of $500,000 per episode for the rights to broadcast a hit show that ABC owns.

Now, the reality is that it could all end at any time. But that is life itself in a nutshell: no guarantees all around. Anything can end at any time: a job, a relationship, a loved one. It's best to take it a day at a time while looking slightly ahead and keeping a positive outlook, like a mutant cross between Norman Vincent Peale and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Select Communique

Had just started my shift at L.T. yesterday -- my 14th straight day of work since the Friday I decided to quit the hotel and focus exclusively on freelancing -- when I got a call from A. saying S.Comm. wants me for tomorrow at 2:00. Trouble is, I was already booked by L.T. through Wednesday. An old-fashioned quandary, because L.T. likes me to stay at least till 4:00. But I told M. the sitch. Looking back, I probably would have been better off making up a doctor's appointment, because I could tell he was a little put off.

The thing is, I have to keep S. in the rotation. As those of you have been following along know, S. is my favorite & they pay great & I like working there & they were the first to hire me back in March I think it was, so I couldn't afford to take a chance of alienating them again by turning them down. (The problem with blogs is that they are read back to front but it is assumed that people are familiar with everything that came before.) They hadn't called me in a month since I had to turn them down two days running while I was training at Hotel W, which I never was paid for by the way. I could tell M. was a little ... oh, pissed is too strong a word, but he didn't like the idea of A. calling me with an assignment when they knew I was already booked here at L.T. for the day. I explained that it was a one time thing. I have to fill in the blanks with other stuff for the days when L.T. isn't gonna book me. It's called looking out for numero uno.

That said, it is good to be wanted. So I will work from 10-2 at L.T. here in Midtown, then shoot Downtown to Varick Street and work from 2:30 to whenever. This is how I envisioned freelancing eventually turning out. It's a juggling act. So again, just to belabor the point ad nauseum, I think I made, make that I know I made the right choice. I feel very good about myself and my work situation at this point. All I needed was a chance. I'm good at what I do, but as a proofreader you have to stay on your toes mentally because that one mistake could and probably will come back to haunt you; you're only as good as the last thing you do. That's what the client will remember. That and being professional and personable, of course. And in the back of your mind, you want to make the gals at my freelance agency proud of you, because they were there for me when I really needed them and they got me all this work. Of course I make them money as well by being booked. It's the proverbial two-way street.

I also want to do some proofreading on my own. Make up some cards and put them in the internet cafes in Astoria, in the coffee shops. I already have the name: EagleEyeProofreading. I can look at things like screenplays, books, freelance articles, cover letters, proposals, resumes, etc. Words are words. There are a lot of self-styled creative artist types in Astoria that I can tap into. I even have a logo in mind, the eye of an eagle looking thru a magnifying glass at some printed type on a page. Why settle for less than perfect? could be the motto. Oh it's all taking off for me now. Who can take a nothing day and certainly make it all seem worthwhile?

Leading American MEdiocrities

It should be self-explanatory, but celebrities make this list via a combination of extreme overexposure, financial success beyond all common bounds of decency, and a demonstrable, tangible lack of talent and taste. Here we go, in no particular order of crappiness, general annoyance and/or damage to Western Civilization.

Adam Sandler - the modern face of multiplex mediocrity
Matt Lauer - the morning show moron looks clinically insane
Regis Philbin - Just. Go. Away. Already.
Ray Romano - embodiment of the safe, smug suburban asshole
Bon Jovi - his anti-Bush sentiments aren't enough to save this teeny-bopping poseur
Taylor Hicks - manufactured winner of glorified karaoke contest: somebody had to win
George W. Bush - a consensus choice for worst president ever and head of a dangerous cult of lunatics known as Republicans
Robin Williams - has literally not said anything funny since 1982
Chevy Chase - founding father for all the SNL alumni who have poisoned movies since the late 1970s
Drew Barrymore - has anyone seen even one picture of this "actress" without her trademark vacuous smile?
Bruce Willis - king of the forgettable action heroes
Tom Cruise - Scientologist head case
Eva Longoria - current reigning bimbo queen and future has-been
Kevin Costner - the poster child for painfully wooden acting
Ashton Kutcher - a male bimbo and from all accounts a total douchebag who astoundingly had even 15 minutes of fame
Everyone from the cast of Friends
Keanu Reeves - an embarrassingly inept actor even by today's low standards, who wouldn't dream of appearing in a film that wasn't totally carried by CGI or other special effects
Katie Couric - is anyone else sick of her inane gummy smile by now?
Tim Allen - ex-cokehead jerkoff who wallows in a uniquely American strain of self-satisfied dumbness
Sylvestor Stallone - one of the leading avatars of cinematic stupidity
Madonna - her inexplicable popularity and critical acclaim have always baffled
Jim Belushi - all the talent in the family obviously went to his late, demented, brilliant brother
Dr. Phil - a fat greedy charlatan who should be clubbed to death by sadistic Japanese seal hunters
Rosie O'Donnell - even her affected public Lesbianism gives her zero hipness
Howard Stern - was funny for about 5 minutes in the 1980s; his horrible, ugly fan base says it all
David Hasselhoff - couldn't even make the D-list of bad television actors
Dan Ackroyd - actually a case of squandered comedic talent: why couldn't he have died young instead of his long-deceased Blues Brother?

Mother Of All Websites

I have become obsessed with Wikipedia, the incredible online encylopedia. The whole history of civilization is literally at your fingertips! One search leads to another, which leads to another, and each entry has links within it. These are just some of the topics I have researched in recent days:
Easter Island
Stonehenge
Pol Pot
Pirates
Hitler
Llamas
Stalin Purges
SamuelBeckett
Ancient Greece
ConcentrationCamps
Mussolini
Shining Path
Swastikas
SpanishInquisition
Crucifixion


Random Wikipedia Facts:
Adolph Hitler was a strict vegeterian;

Some have theorized that Stonehenge, seen from above, represents the female sexual organ;

The word faggot to describe homosexuals comes from the twigs used to burn them at the stake in Medieval times;

Pirates wore heavy gold earrings because they thought pressure on the ear eased seasickness, and because the gold could be used to pay for funeral expenses;

The more irritated a llama is, the further back into each of its three stomach compartments it will reach to draw materials for its spit;

The word excruciating comes from crucifixion;

The swastika symbol dates to the 5th Millenium BC and is found in Hindu and Buddhist temples; is on the flag of the Kuna people of Panama; was used by American Indians, ancient Greeks as well as Celtic peoples; was seen on Arizona state highway markers until the late 1920s; and was worn as a unit symbol by the 45th Infantry of the U.S. Army until the 1930s;

In Ancient Greece, street prosititutes not only were registered and paid taxes, but some wore sandals with marked soles that left an imprint stating "Follow Me" on the ground;

According to oral tradition, a common insult on Easter Island was, "The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth."

The Next Best Thing

Not only am I booked thru-out this week, but M. P., the titular head of the production dept., just came over and said I was working out better than the other proofreaders they use and, although at the present time he couldn't offer me a full-time position per se, meaning 40 hours each and every week, he wants me to come in on a consistent basis every week! How fucking great is that? Plus, 30 hours here at 22 an hour adds up to 40 hours at the hotel at 15 per, and the schedule here is much, much better. Okay, so no benefits, but it's the next best thing. And if a full-time official position does open up, he seemed to intimate that I would likely be considered for that. I like all the people I interact with here, in fact the office is filled with cute young creative intelligent female type womenfolk, and M. said if I need to work around some other jobs like last week, he would be amenable to that. So it looks like at least for now I made the right decision to stick with the wild & wacky world of freelance proofreading. And let's face it: it would have been a waste of my immense mental talents to stand behind a hotel desk and wait on precious, pampered East Side types. This gives me a certain peace of mind, at least temporarily, because nothing is forever, nothing is guaranteed and, in the immortal words of one Bobby Dylan, nothing was delivered.

Here All Week

I am booked at L.T. thru this week, so that will give me a string of 12 days of work in a row, which isn't bad for freelancing; usually there are some gaps. So without trying to jinx myself, ever since I made up my mind to forgo the hotel and stick to freelancing, I've worked every day, not counting the 4th of July. In fact, I would have been better off never saying yes to the hotel job, because not only does it look like I won't be getting paid for the training days I put in, but I could have worked that whole week either at S. or at L.T. -- plus, I may have somehow alienated the folks at S.C. because when they really needed me I had to turn them down. I would have never fallen behind money-wise if I had just stuck to freelancing. But at the time I thought the hotel gig would work out, before I realized what I was getting into. I won't go into the details; I already outlined them in previous posts.

This L.T. proofreading gig might be the easiest work I've ever done. There are enormous gaps between things to proof. Basically I'm looking at the same posters and ads for the same shows over and over again, which run in trade publications as well as on the sides of buses and on top of taxicabs. It is the opposite of catering, the yin to its yang. In catering you're busy for 5 or 6 hours and you're lucky if you get a 5 or 10 minute break; here there's about 20 or 30 minutes of work for every 5 or 6 hour shift. In catering you're on your feet all day, running around and doing a thousand different menial tasks; here I sit on my butt and use my brain. It's almost too good to be true, but they keep asking me back and seem to appreciate my effort and my expertise. Today I caught a bunch of errors in a glossy promotional package they were sending out; that made me feel useful, and apparently they're gonna have to reprint the entire 200 or so letters. So I have been justifying my presence here. But I really would rather be kept busy because the time goes quicker. Ah, who am I fooling? I'm sure you don't believe a word of it.

At the other proofreading gigs, at S.C. and especially last week at C.B., I'm usually kept busy the entire time. They really don't call you unless there's a specific need or publication date coming up, whereas here at L.T. I'm on standby, so to speak, more of a consultant, where in the parlance of the office, I sign off on this or that ad, meaning it's good to go. I'm fortunate this gig showed up when it did, and hopefully I'll be needed at least 3 times a week for the foreseeable future. I don't want to obsess about it, but I wish Select would call sometime soon so that I can get back in their rotation. You'll be the first to know when it happens, here on WardensWorld!

In Demand

Booked solid this week: Monday & Friday at L.T., Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday at C.B., and L.T. said they would need me on Wednesday night for a couple of hours, which means a minimum of 4 hours as that's the minimum billing charge at A. Sweet. It's nice to be in demand. And if S. calls, I will try to squeeze them in Tuesday or Thursday nite. This could be the week that really gets me caught up, or close to it. Actually I need about a month where I'm booked solid every day. At least this week it looks like I made the right choice in not giving up the freelance stuff. I still haven't told anyone I gave the hotel job up after 3 days. Most people wouldn't understand my logic. They never do. So this is an exclusive WardensWorld scoop!

Pseudo-celebrity sighting: Last Wednesday, I think it was, near Madison Square Garden, saw a pensive bordering on sad-looking Curtis Sliwa, the former Mafia Kidnapping Victim & current Right Wing Talk Radio Blowhard, wearing his trademark Guardian Angels red beret & red jacket, with Curtis emblazoned in cursive across his chest. I mean, if you were kidnapped even once, would you make it easy for future kidnappers to identify you or would you at the least adopt some rudimentary disguise?...

...I'm still trying to figure out which is more disturbing when it comes to North Korean madman Kim Jong Il: his ridiculous hairdo or the fact that he owns the planet's largest collection of Daffy Duck videos. Oh yeah, and he has killed millions of his own people through starvation and labor camps in his police state and he is intent on trying to create a next world war. This guy makes Our Guy look stable.

If you added up the total viewing time I spent watching American Idol, it would be under an hour. That's not just this year, it's all the years. Does that make me a perfect sentient being? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing I am not is a sheep, which sets me apart from most Americans. Idol is nothing more than a totally manufactured, overhyped talent contest. And because of it we now have to be subjected to this year's "winner" Taylor Whatshisname's horrid caterwauling on those near-ubiquitous car commercials. It doesn't seem fair that those of us who avoided watching that crap night after night are now exposed to an overexposed hack of a singer. Let me get this straight: people are supposed to choose a certain vehicle based on this ad campaign? I think it's more likely that anyone hearing this guy will drive off the road. Bloody awful.

American Idol is on a list of network shows that I will never watch; it joins the following shows that give me a feeling of nausea deep in the pit of my stomach: Lost, House, any home makeover show, all state-sponsored propaganda like 24, any medical or hospital show, anything on CBS with an acronym in it, including CSI, NCIS, JAG; any show where a bunch of vapid, braindead young narcissists share a house or an apartment (except for America's Next Top Model), all teenage soap opera fare that runs endlessly on the WB or on UPN (except for the always amusing Gilmore Girls); any fictional portrayal of the life of a president (i.e., West Wing, Commander in Chief); all Survivor incarnations, and most police procedural dramas, including Law & Order, although I used to love NYPD Blue in its heyday. Obviously that doesn't leave much except the aforementioned Top Model, reruns of King of Queens, The Simpsons and Seinfeld, The Office (the American one), some Sex & The City, Girlfriends (also known as the Black Sex & The City), the occasional Jeopardy, Hell's Kitchen, Globetrekker, Antiques Roadshow once in a while and New York Noise. When I had cable I really only watched HBO, Independent Film Channel and Turner Classic Movies. I thought Deadwood was the best show in many years, heads & shoulders above the criminally overrated Sopranos. That's about it in this age of the reality show nightmare. Then there's radio, reading and listening to music. And oh yeah, going outside.

Change Of Plans

Lo and behold, I sit here again at L.TV, a half-hour early for my 11 to 4 shift. I'm booked here for the rest of this week, then 3 days next week at C.B. I'm hoping Select will fill in the blanks. I almost got a 4th account, an advertising agency that wanted to know if I was available for work over the July 4th weekend. Of course I said I was, but they never called. Oh well, at least I'm on the radar. Now, you may ask, why am I sitting here if I'm supposed to be training at Le Hotel W. Well... I decided after 2 days of training and around 3 days of heavy consideration that it was never going to work out. I thought about it long and hard, and I did not make the decision lightly.

In order for me to undertake the training at the Hotel, I would have had to put my freelance jobs on hold. It took me like 4 months to build up my portfolio, if you will, and reach the point where I am consistently considered for freelance work at 3 different places. First, the freelance stuff pays a lot more. The hours are normal, not 11pm to 7am. Now, what would have happened if two months down the line the hotel didn't work out? Then I would be left with nothing -- no freelance work, because they would have just gone on to the next available proofreader. And I just had a gut feeling that the hotel was not gonna work out. I didn't like it at all, there was a ton of stuff still to learn. I was stressed out about learning all the stuff, but still confident that I would eventually learn it all. With all the stuff to learn, I was looking at a mininum of 3, 4, maybe even 5 weeks before I could begin the night shift. By then all the freelance stuff would be gone to some other proofreader. It just didn't seem like a good fit. So I took a chance. Time will tell if it was the right thing to do.

I found myself outside the Hotel W at 5 to 10 last Friday, wondering if I should go in and resume training or if I should find R. and tell him it wasn't gonna work out. I had just moments before received a call from K. at my freelance agency telling me that C.B. wanted me for at least 3 days during the week of July 10. I already knew that LT wanted me for this week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So I was sitting there pondering all this when a bus rolled by with one of the very posters on the side that I had proofread! I took that as a sign. So I went in and told R. of my decision. Now, in any event, the benefits were not gonna kick in for 3 months anyway at the hotel. So what am i really losing there? I have 20 years of experience in publishing, zero experience in the hotel game. I think the freelance stuff is only gonna get more steady from here on in. All I need is two more good gigs to go with the three I'm jugging now and I will really be in business. I'm gonna stay positive.

Now, I know some of you are not gonna agree with my decision. But I had to go with my heart on this one. The big differentiating factor is that I actually like my freelance work, look forward to it, while I don't think that was ever going to be the case at the hotel; I was never going to be comfortable. And the hours! Plus it paid like 10 dollars an hour less. The only upside was the steady nature of the work. All I need though is 4 days a week freelancing to match the 5 days at the hotel. In the back of my mind i'm counting on the catering work in the fall to make up for any shortfall. That's if Tony still lets me do it once he finds out I "bailed" on the hotel. After all, he got me the interview thru a friend of his. We'll see. I don't consider it bailing.

Ironically, I applied for a night proofreading gig, 8pm to 2am, on craigslist last week. Pays 24 bucks an hour. It's a night shift, but not the graveyard shift. If I get that I would really be on my way; then I can pick and choose the occasional freelance assignment. I feel like a fool because I called everyone and their mother as the saying goes as soon as I got the hotel job, telling them how excited I was to finally land a ful-ltime, permanent position. But the more I think about it, the more I know I made the right decision, as much as we can ever know something with certainty. That's it in a nutshell.

Reprogrammed my iRiver over the weekend, deleting about 5 hours worth of music (out of a total of around 17 1/2 hours) & replacing it mostly with Vintage Punk that was heretofore in short supply. I got rid of stuff I already had in other formats, like Hendrix and REM, and put in a lot of Clash, Gang of 4, XRay Spex, Buzzcocks, Dead Kennedys, Stiff Little Fingers, old Bowie & some much-needed Jayhawks, Son Volt, early Wilco...now it feels more like me somehow.

Been on a major reading kick, the best spate in literally years and years. Started with the Columbus Last Voyage book, continued on through Massacres of the American West, then read a few sports books, bios of Bill Bellichick and Roberto Clemente, continued with a definitive bio of Cambodian madman Pol Pot, then finished Red Scarf Girl, a memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as seen thru the eyes of a teenager. I guess I gravitate toward political extremism.

One interesting aspect of the Cambodian revolution was how closely it mirrored the French Revolution in its use of terror, how Robespierre was in fact a direct historical antecedent to Pol Pot, even more than the more obvious communist models. Not to be overlooked is the part the U.S. played in setting the conditions that allowed political extremism to flourish: the indiscriminate bombings, its support of corrupt right wing regimes, etc. Even more mind-numbing is the reaction by the U.S. to the fall of Pol Pot's regime; rather than elation, administration after administration saw fit to lend their support to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, in hopes that a new government would eventually oust the one installed in Cambodia by Vietnam. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, seems to be the guiding principle, then as now.

Now I am reading an account of North Vietnam circa 1967 by Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury that I found for a buck at Argosy on 59th Street. One book usually leads to another when you're on a good roll. Also reading an account of the Greek resistance during WWII. Turns out that America and Britain basically prevented the Communists from having any say in the postwar process even though they valiantly fought the fascists during the war. Then America had a big role installing the brutal reactionary government of the Colonels from 1967 to 1974.

More to follow as details make themselves known.