DAY NINE - INSIDE THE VIPER ROOM WITH JOHNNY DEPP INSIDE AND RIVER PHOENIX OUTSIDE SPAZZING OUT ON THE SIDEWALK

By Alf A. O'Megha

The Abominable Screed

Underpaid Staff Writer

DAY NINE – I turn into a pumpkin between 2-4 p.m. Sunday. So’s I’m just tellin’ yous now that I’ll be a lights out Luddite well before then. Not that anyone is reading this abominable screed anyways. Near as I can tell. I’ve mentioned Dr. Mengele before, I’m not going to rehash what his first name is because all of the names here have been changed anyway. If you don’t like the name that was chosen by the attorneys then you blame them, NOT ME! I could say [any name in the book] who is part of our social media network of nice fellas whilst I’m saying all of this outrageous, true-to-life, revealing stuff now just to see how its laundered and vetted when it’s finally printed out in a book. I’ve already noticed that if I make a misspelling or write/say into Dragon: “yous guys” they just leave it like they found it those lazy bastards – I spelled Luddite wrong in an earlier edition of “The Screed” and it flew – It’s like I’m a dirty dog or a piece of garbage by the side of the road.

Watch this: If I say we got a guy in Seattle name of: [Dr. Donald “Ducks” Coles] who drives a [1992 Black Impreza], but it got heisted off of the street recently, they black it all out and put in different names, places and vehicles than I originally wrote. We got a made guy in D.C. by the name of [Herr Professor Dennis “Ralston” Purina] who [does Civil War re-enactments in his pajamas]. So I think we’ll see by the final edited, purged of all righteous juicy content re-gurgitation that none of the real names of my friends will actually come out in the piece. I don’t feel so bad though because I saw in that Jewish Chronicle/Christopher Hitchens/Martin Amis video on YouTube that HIS EDITORS once changed the word “patois” to “patios.” So maybe I shouldn’t feel so bad after all. And he was a professional.

Anyway, I was talking about that no good Dr. Mengele, I’m not going to lay it on thick any more with the adjectives it’s just a waste of time anyway because if I write anything really juicy and delicious they’re going to just excise it anyway. My new C.P.A. [J. David Jackson] of [Quest LNG and T Squared Capital] in [St. Croix] estimates that the good doctor heisted about $170,000.00 from me over the last five years. So by mentioning that fact you have an idea about how I feel about that guy right now. Anyway, the good doctor was the boss then and I was just a kind of a glorified baggage handler. The boss did the hiring and he hired hundreds of young men and women to do business for us. I’ll admit he had a keen eye for it (despite having jaundice in real life) and one of the things I gleaned from him in our brief conversations was: “People always tell you what you need to know.”

What Dr. Mengele meant by that was when he was doin’ the hirin’ was: like Art Linkletter used to say: kids say the damndest things! Dr. Mengele would always ask [the candidate]: “What is it that I need to know about you?” So when [the candidate] said: “I always show up to work on time.” We knew right away: “That [expletive deleted] will be late” if we hire them on a job. And so on. There was one Danish national, she told us, first thing out of her mouth: “I never cheated anyone.” We said: “Good morning, [Ruffles].” Because that was her name and they’ll probably let it fly in this first draft let’s see! Then when we checked out this [Ruffles] character, although she ran the Danish Consulate in the Green Tortugas (good cash business) everyone we asked had a personal story about how [Ruffles] had cheated them out of $600.00 and so on in some kind of threadbare Middle European ponzi scheme.

The reason “people always tell you what you need to know is important” is important is that I was re-reading old Jerry’s “Slight Rebellion Off Madison” and in the first couple of sentences old Jerome David says: some girl “THOUGHT SHE SAW HIM” on some street in New York City blah blah blah. The reason this is important is that Jerry knew he was a great writer (Hemingway met Salinger during the war and saw him writing in a bunker – both J.D. and F. Scott weren’t sure if they’d survive the wars they served in so they wrote at a feverish pace – and Papa Ernest who wore a girl’s dress as a little boy gave J.D. the Queen’s stamp of approval.) So Jerry knew he was a special writer like QT – and he knew he’d soon get his wish – a kind of Greta Garbo-type wish that all he really wanted was to be left alone there in Cornish, N.H. But the truth was: all he really wanted was to hide out there in the woods and eat a macrobiotic diet and practice Zen Buddhism and have the [young sweet nubile] girls find him there! And if you look at his life and who he married and who he consorted with you’ll find out that what I say is true. I saw Larissa Szporluk’s work in 1983 and I told her when she was nineteen that she would be a great and published American poet one day (and believe me I had read a lot of girls’ poetry by then and it was mostly a bunch of horseshit gibberish). Now Szporluk is a lauded professor of English at Bowling Green Tortuga State University in Ohio. Blonde, blue-eyed, great athlete Larissa (of Chernobylian descent – she could throw a perfect spiral with a football on old East Annie Street in Ann Arbor) once wrote a poem about me. Szporluk called it: “The Swordplayer.” Which I thought was a compliment to me at the time. And [R&B terminologies] had not been yet introduced to [lamestream] culture so calling someone a “player” in 1983 was indeed a fitting tribute. Like when someone calls Warren Beatty or Prince gay.

Anyway, I’m kind of getting lost in all of the nonsense here. I read all of Jerome David’s works including “The Hang of It” and all the works he deemed not appropriate for us to read once he was famous. But if you read that early crap that was published in The Saturday Evening Post and all those other godawful Norman Rockwell-doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test [half-smart] media from the 1950’s, you’ll see an evolution in J.D.’s writing. He starts out good and gets great. When William Faulkner accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature he said something like: “no one should have to live in fear.” Now I trace “The Fear” to John Steinbeck in “Travels With Charley.” Some will credit Raoul Duke, but I think it begins with J.S. The reason this stuff about “fear and loathing” is important to me is that I too want to be a great writer some day. I’ll probably never get the Nobel Prize for Literature because the real me will be lost in too many pseudonyms. I’ll probably never be a great American writer like Jonathan Franzen or James Woods, or [insert name of the other guy here, something like Gordon “Sonny” Elliott] but as the last guy mentioned [Elliott cq?] says: “there is a nobility to trying to write a novel.”

If you ask me the best living writers are: 1) Martin Amis, 2) Quentin Tarantino, 3) Diablo Cody, 4) David Mamet and 5) Jerry Saltz. No sense in calling people’s names who are dead already because they’re not here to rub their saliva glands in the cat nip of praise. Of course, nobody cares what my opinion is: but I write it down just the same to be entered into the official record. I mention Faulkner because I thought “As I Lay Dying” was about the funniest book ever written. From the title of it you wouldn’t think so, though. I’m not sure why all of this came up but MasterCard shut off my last working Black Card today. I gotta skeddadle from the place I’m in by Sunday. I got less than a quarter tank of gas in the old Gray Humpback. No one wants me to stay with them free anymore (even though I’m clean and quiet) and it’s beginning to sound a lot like the sixties all over again: “gas, grass or ass; no one gets to ride for free.” Apparently that “rule” is all of a sudden being grandfathered in on me! Those bastards! I got one cash dollar to my name and I’m going to buy a Mega Millions ticket with it. I’ve got a few dimes in the cigarette bin in the Honda and a wooden nickel and some pennies and about $240.00 in my checking account. The computerized wizards at the credit card companies call my house nearly every day (I can check the messages remotely). Everyone’s looking for [Harry] and no one’s callin’ just to say “hello” or “Happy Birthday [Harry]” or “April Fool’s Day” or nuthin.’ It’s a gloomy day here today raining and cloudy and cold and it usually isn’t that way. Enough about the rich and prosperous [Harry]. How are you doing today? How is your day going? I really do care about you and I’m not just writing that because I’m [supine] desperate for cash right now. I’d really like to get to know each and every one a yous out there and you can write to me on Facebook at that [“John McCarthy”] catfish site. There’s no nobility in not making money in America (Elliott) and I can tell you that most famous writers before me have gone through the same thing. It’s a rotten, underpaid and nasty business and I’m hoping it will all end well rather than badly.



I gotta write fast ‘cause I don’t know how much time I have left. I just saw a “Johnny On The Spot” big rectangular truck hit a little bird, the bird did a kind of flopping- around-on-the-ground-like-a-fish-out-of-water dance – it was truly sickening and revolting, but that’s the natural world we all live in – none of us is immune to it. I don’t know why I mention it here in this venue. Because if you’ve ever seen an animal die it is the most horrible thing imaginable. Trust me on this. The French don’t call it the “danse macabre” for no good reason. And the reason I’m writin’ all of this here now and got immunity is because I [witnessed someone die]. This is not the venue to name names. And I ain’t no Sammy The Bull dirty dog; I’m just going to do my citizenly duty and kinda clearing my own good name in the process. Well, like I says, I seen a guy die. At least one. And it’s the same sickening shit all over again. Doesn’t matter if it’s a bird or if it’s a man. Disgusting death dance. There is NO Dignity in Death (DID). I wasn’t there for Joaquin Phoenix at Johnny Depp’s place in LA, The Viper Room or the Voodoo Lounge or whatever stupid name it was that he came up with (always name a business or a book starting with the letter “A” because it’s the first thing you come across – at least it was back when they were still using phone books – now it’s all Yelp! this and what have ya. You’ll notice that the Arabs understand this in America). Hollywood still doesn’t have it quite right if a guy sustains a gun shot wound to the head (my best friend is an emergency room physician) the blood comes out dark purplish with the gray matter rushing out on the gray sidewalk there. Usually HBO/Showtime/Miramax makes blood between bright red and dark red; whether it’s “Dexter,” “The Closer” or “The Sopranos” or some QT film. They ain’t got it quite right yet but they’re getting closer. Problem is, nobody quite knows for sure – except me and the emergency room physicians who described it to me.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

DAY 101 - THE TIJUANA DRIVE-THRU THAT YOU CAN WALK THRU WHEN DRUNK

MEXICO CITY — On the way home from a pre-Christmas fiesta, Mauricio Rodriguez, after “two tequilas,” felt clear-headed and focused, “not dizzy or anything.”So when the IT help desk employee failed one of Mexico City’s feared alcoholímetros — those pervasive breath tests at holiday checkpoints — he knew he would be saying goodbye for a while. No ticket. No warning. “Come get my wife,” he told his father by phone before being whisked off in a squad car. “They’re taking me away.”
Rich or poor. Legislator or bricklayer. Foreign or domestic. Anyone in Mexico’s capital city who exceeds the legal 0.08 alcohol limit must take a strange little journey to a squat brick building next to a playground on the west side of town where they can sit — and sit, and sit — and think about what they’ve done. Part prison, part timeout for adults, the official name is the Center for Administrative Sanctions and Social Integration. But everybody knows it as “El Torito.”

“It’s like jail-lite. Mild jail,” Jorge Emilio González Martínez, a senator with Mexico’s Green Party, told reporters after he spent his drunken-driving penance there earlier this year. “They make you conscious of your error. I have learned.”
Winter holidays are Torito’s boom time. In Mexico, the whole month of December seems devoted to one bacchanal or another. Celebrations for the Virgin of Guadalupe blend into nightly pre-Christmas posadas and boozy company lunches that bubble over into New Year’s celebrations. Christmas bonuses, required by the government, flesh out the national wallet.
“The end of the year we see an exceeding amount of people arriving,” said Torito’s director, Rosa Maria Laguardia. “Very powerful people. Humble people. Engineers, lawyers, artists, journalists. Everyone. Everyone ends up here.”
The place is not without its charm. One recent day during the holiday rush, several inmates, including one wearing a Corona T-shirt, played a spirited game of volleyball in the courtyard. A refreshment stand nearby served sodas and chips. There’s a library, movies and a small glass shrine to the Virgin Mary decorated with flowers. Christmas Eve warranted a special menu: turkey in plum sauce and spaghetti soup.
“Prison I’m sure is worse,” Rodriguez said.
A former slaughterhouse, Torito has been drying out drinkers since the late 1950s, but only in the past decade, since the introduction of the city’s breath-testing program, has it taken on such cultural import. More than 100,000 people have slept it off within its white-washed brick cells in those 10 years, spending up to a day and a half before walking free. Other civil infractions can land you in Torito — drinking on the street, disturbing the peace, scalping tickets, cleaning windshields at stoplights, getting rowdy at soccer games — but the majority are drivers stopped by the breath-test cops.
“The objective of the institution is to make people aware of the damage they can cause themselves and others” by drinking and driving, Laguardia said. “They can suffer tremendous crashes, and often people die.”

About 1,500 people pass through Torito during an average month. December surpassed that figure in its first three weeks, around the time city authorities announced their holiday special: Breath analyzers would be going 24 hours a day until early January in 20 fixed and roving locations.

The Internet fought back, with Facebook and Twitter users calling out checkpoint locations. Easy Taxi, an Uber-esque mobile app, sent out an e-mail to its users on Dec. 17 warning about the round-the-clock alcoholímetros.
“If you want to avoid falling into Torito, it’s better to download Easy Taxi for free,” it wrote.
Rodriguez was worried when he saw Torito’s sign in the wee hours Saturday — “Don’t be surprised, the alcoholimetro program violates no fundamental rights.” He entered the white metal doors and stepped onto the cold stone floor.
“I asked one of the guards here, ‘Hey, what do I do? What’s the dynamic? I don’t want to get stabbed.’ He’s like, ‘No, everybody just wants to leave.’ ”
Unfortunately, you can’t. Depending on the severity of the infraction, inmates must spend 20 to 36 hours at Torito. While fixers hover outside to arrange a type of bail for some, even the wealthy and well-connected have to return to complete their hours. The prisoners sleep on concrete bunks and the cells have metal bars, but they’re not locked and the guards don’t carry guns.
By 6:30 a.m., the prisoners are roused for breakfast, no matter the hangover. There are medical checks, discussions with psychologists, classes on the dangers of drugs and alcohol.
Outside, family members wait nervously for their kin to be released. A paparazzo in a leather jacket pulled up on a motorcycle, his lens trained on the door, hoping to get lucky with a celebrity sighting. Antonio Guerrero, a thin 22-year-old who works at a parking garage, stepped onto the sidewalk rubbing his eyes after logging his 36 hours. “Not very pleasant in there,” he said.
He got nabbed while walking on the street after “three drinks.” He said he paid the cop 100 pesos — about $8 — and even so he was spirited away to Torito. “It’s because it’s Christmas. The police want to pick up as many people as possible to get their little gifts.”
Rodriguez came out in a better mood. “Freedom!” he yelled and raised both fists in the air. He hugged his wife and daughter.
“Right now I’m going to go for some cold beers,” he said. “I’m not going to drive, though.”

THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS WARS PAST STILL HAUNT SARAH PALIN: VIEW FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

http://themoderatevoice.com/189987/view-from-the-virgin-islands-the-ghosts-of-christmas-wars-past-still-haunt-sarah-palin/

By John F. McCarthy

The Moderate Voice

2016 Republican Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin professes to have at least a passing interest in slavery.

 
But more than that, the founder of Palinism (pronounced like “Stalinism”) claims to be upset that America is borrowing money to ward off a ballooning budget deficit.

 
Obviously Ms. Palin hasn’t read Warren Mosler’s Modern Monetary Theory.

 
Because Sarah Says:
 
1)      she doesn’t want U.S. to borrow money from China;
 
2)       doesn’t want U.S. to run a budget deficit
 
3)      doesn’t want U.S. to … [you fill in the blank]

 
But what then does Sarah want us to do?

 
That is about as easy to predict as the next winner of “Dancing With The Stars.”

 
When Alaska had a budget deficit, what did the Mother of All DWTS contestants do?

 
Mayor Palin instituted a wildly successful two percent sales tax that not only balanced the budget – but produced a surplus – like the one President Clinton presided over nationally in the 1990’s.
 

Now that the shoes are off of each of her other feet – not to say that she is an advocate of a “barefoot and pregnant” Occasionalist philosophy – but one of her daughters surely was – where are the “better ideas” to lead us forward in this 21st Century?
 

If the lights are on in Sarah Palin’s house: does that mean that somebody is home?
 

If Sarah doesn’t have any good new ideas, how about some old ones?
 

It might be old hat for Lady Nome if she were to pick up the national sales tax ball and run with it again. But no more income tax returns - no more IRS? If you're going to go rogue negative - that's where it's at.
 

Ms. Palin is familiar with the concept, after all, it helped her as an Alaska mayor to cut property taxes in Wassily 75% while totally eliminating personal property and business inventory taxes.
 

The result: that Alaskan city was able to pay all of its bills and still build new bike paths and a storm water treatment center.
 

Those are the kind of aggressive, thinking-out-of-the-hot-box ideas that made Missus Sarah such an attractive Vice Presidental Candidate for Sen. John McCain.
 

This graduate of a Moscow (Idaho) University is some kind of smart cookie; so why all the progressive name calling as the G.O.P.’s most kinetic lightning rod?
 

Well there's no denying that the “rogue” candidate has been a busy bee - by the way Sarah does support sex education (birds and the bees) in the public schools – as long as it is paired with talk of abstinence: She has:
 

1)      written a best-selling book (currently on tour)
 
2)      toured India on a Mumbai newspaper’s dime
 

See Sarah go!
 

Oh, the places she’ll go! (If someone else is paying.)
 

But what is it that Sarah does again?
 

We all know we won’t see her on the NEW! and Improved! Martin Bashir Show on Al-Jazeera America.
 

Is picking political sticks and stones fights really what you’re best at, Sarah?
 

Be mindful of your power, woman.
 

Listen to the Force within you, Luke-ess.
 

After all, Palin has the national stage and is using her bully pulpit for knee-jerk conservative reactions – the svelte Svengali is in perfect lock step with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly – or as we know them – the Four Horsemen of the Ghosts of Christmas Past Apocalypse.
 

But as one of Time magazine’s one hundred “Most Influential People in the World” winners, I am hoping Sarah will break the Fox News yoke and use her considerable talents try to make the world a better place, rather than just better inform us of future prime-time television events.
 

Remember your past Palin!
 

Otherwise we are doomed to repeat it on YouTube re-runs..
 

You can be the Proud Mother (p.m.) of the Dancing With The Stars” alma mater (a.m.) of your daughter – or you can be a stirring firebrand of intellectual discussion of the national issues that affect U.S. all.
 

Ronald Reagan gave U.S. a.m. (morning) in America; don't give U.S. p.m. (no Jobs, nacht mourning) in America.
 

The choice is yours.
 

You are not a slave.
 

Remember what Brother Bob Marley said.
 

Free yourself from mental slavery, Sarah.
 

That is – if you want to.
 

As master of your own mind, you’re the only one who can.
 

Or you can just stay where you are – in Nowhere, Alaska.
 

Or help women purchase “Rape Insurance” in Michigan.
 

Or run for (or from) the Senate in Scottsdale, Arizona.
 

It’s snowing in Alaska right now. Looks like it will be another White Christmas. So dress warm, Sarah.
 

Meanwhile I’ll check with TV Guide to see what’s on next, while you roast up some chestnuts.

THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS WARS PAST STILL HAUNT SARAH PALIN

bY jOHN f. mCarthy
Abominable Screed Founder

 

 

2016 Republic Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin professes to have at least a passing interest in slavery.

But more than that, the founder of Palinism (pronounced like “Stalinism”) claims to be upset that America is borrowing money to ward off a ballooning budget deficit.

Apparently Ms. Palin hasn’t read about Warren Mosler’s Modern Monetary Theory.

Because Sarah Says:

1)      she doesn’t want U.S. to borrow money from China;

2)       doesn’t want U.S. to run a budget deficit

3)      doesn’t want U.S. to … [you fill in the blank]

But what then does Sarah want us to do?

That is about as easy to predict as the next winner on “Dancing With The Stars.”

When Alaska had a budget deficit, what did the Mother of a DWTS contestant do?

Mayor Palin instituted a wildly successful two percent sales tax that not only balanced the budget but produced a surplus – like the one President Clinton presided over nationally in the 1990’s.

Now that the shoes are off of each of her other feet – not to say that she is advocate of a “barefoot and pregnant” Occasionalist philosophy – but one of her daughters surely was – where are the “better ideas” to lead us forward in this 21^st Century?

If the lights are on in Sarah Palin’s house: does that mean that somebody is home?

If Sarah doesn’t have any good new ideas, what about recycling a good old one?

It might be old hat for Lady Nome if she were to pick up the national sales tax ball and run with it. But it’s still better than nothing.

Ms. Palin is familiar with the concept, after all it helped her as an Alaska mayor to cut property taxes in Wassily 75% while totally eliminating personal property and business inventory taxes.

The result: the Alaskan city was able to pay all of its bills and still build new bike paths and a storm water treatment center.

Those are the kind of aggressive, thinking-out-of-the-hot-box ideas that made Missus Sarah such an attractive Vice Presidental Candidate for Sen. John McCain.

This graduate of a Moscow (Idaho) University is some smart cookie; so why all the progressive name calling as the G.O.P.’s most kinetic lightning rod?

There’s no denying that the “rogue” candidate has been a busy bee - by the way Sarah does support sex education (birds and bees) in the public schools – as long as it is paired with talk of abstinence: She has:

1)      written a best-selling book

2)      toured India on a Mumbai newspaper’s dime

See Sarah go.

Ah, the places she’ll go (if someone else’s paying)!

But what is it that Sarah does again?

We all know we won’t see you on the new and improved Martin Bashir Show on Al-Jazeera America.

Is picking political sticks and stones fights really what you’re best at, Sarah?

Be mindful of your power, woman.

Listen to the Force within you, Luke-ess.

After all, Palin has the national stage and is using her bully pulpit for knee-jerk conservative reactions – the svelte Svengali is in perfect lock step with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly – or as we know them – the Four Horsemen of the Ghost of Christmas Past Apocalypse.

But as one of Time magazine’s one hundred “Most Influential People in the World” winners, I am hoping Sarah will break the Fox News yoke and use her considerable talents try to make the world a better place, rather than just better inform us of future prime-time television events.

Remember your past Palin!

Otherwise we are doomed to repeat it on YouTube re-runs..

You can be the proud mother in the “Dancing With The Stars” audience – or a stirring firebrand of intellectual discussion of the national issues that affect U.S. all.

The choice is yours.

You are not a slave.

Remember what Brother Bob Marley said.

Free yourself from mental slavery, Sarah.

That is – if you want to.

As master of your own mind, you’re the only one who can.

Or you can just stay where you are – in Nowhere, Alaska.

Or help women purchase “Rape Insurance” in Michigan.

Or run for (or from) the Senate in Scottsdale, Arizona.

It’s snowing in Alaska right now, Sarah, so dress warm.

I’ll check with TV Guide to see what’s on next.

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS ON: "MAKE MINE THE POOH POOH PLATTER, PLEASE!"

AS PUBLISHED ON “THE MODERATE VOICE” TODAY

“The author seems to have missed all the controversy, and its effect on, rappers who denigrate women. That train left the station some time ago. As to why a major news source’s commentator should be given as much freedom to be as scatological as artists whose audience is limited to those who want to hear such offal: it’s a mystery.

“One audience spends millions to see and hear smut in the privacy of their own home, while MSNBC viewers are subjected to it unexpectedly and offended. I wouldn’t think the difference would be that hard to understand.

“To expect better from Ms. Palin (she could use scatological language to promote her unique view of life and politics but hasn’t – so far) is … hopeless.”

 --The Ohioan, December 19, 2013, 6:49 a.m.

 http://themoderatevoice.com/189822/make-mine-the-pooh-pooh-platter-please-in-defense-of-msnbcs-martin-bashir-guest-voice/

MAKE MINE THE POOH POOH PLATTER, PLEASE!

IN DEFENSE OF MSNBC'S MARTIN BASHIR

[AS PUBLISHED TODAY @ "THE MODERATE VOICE"]

http://themoderatevoice.com/189822/make-mine-the-pooh-pooh-platter-please-in-defense-of-msnbcs-martin-bashir-guest-voice/

 WHEN IS A PU PU PLATTER JUST A POOH POOH PLATTER?

 

By JOHN F. McCARTHY

Abominable Screed Creator

 

 

     When is a mouth rinse not just a mouth rinse?

     Answer: When it is scatological in nature and nationally televised on MSNBC.

     Bad behavior is rewarded every night on our favorite premium TV shows like “Nurse Jackie,” “Weeds” and “Boardwalk Empire.” Why not on one-sided televised political “debates”? If you are watching MSNBC you are not really pining to hear Sarah Palin’s side of any story anyway.

     But Joe Gandelman was obviously correct in calling out Martin Bashir for saying that the founder of Palinism should basically eat sh-- and LIVE for a comment that equated slavery with the national health care system.

     Still, Gandelman’s piece “Martin Bashir Crossed The Line” left a bad taste in my mouth. And here’s why.

     We live in an America where it is OK for rappers to attempt to dehumanize women as “ho’s”  and “bitches”- as Jay-Z, Tupac Shakur and Eminem do – along the way to dropping the n-word and f-bombs of mad media messaging that carpet bombs our sense and sensibilities.

     We live in an America where I can be watching the Super Bowl Halftime Show with my religious 87-year-old neighbor when he asks me: “Did I just see Janet Jackson’s boob? Or do you need to take me to the ER?”

     We live in an America where when you go to see a recreation of Wild Bill Hickok’s murder ten times a day in the Black Hills of South Dakota and people around you are disappointed when the cast doesn’t throw in an f-bomb or two like they did to good effect on “Deadwood.”

     So although Martin Bashir may have been the end of sleepytime for Michael Jackson after his well-publicized and audience-leading ABC News interview that attracted millions. He is not known to be a muck-raking yellow journalist. He got Quentin Tarantino to explode. But he never opened Al Capone’s vault to see if there was any loose change or victim’s bones buried in it.

     He is British! He knows Urdu and converted to Christianity! He went to King’s College in London for crissakes! These folks apologize in their sleep and say sorry when your crumpets are soggy at High Tea.

     So Mr. Bashir’s statement was a one-time-only faux pas, while the bad word blitz of American rap music is a daily full-scale assault on the essential human decency that is the foundation of our civilized society. It is a purple passion play that is re-run every day on U.S. television shows that should concern every man, woman and child in this great country.

    Where is the far right when movies like “Poison Ivy” are released and foster sequels?

    America’s most famous arts critic New York Magazine’s Jerry Saltz curries favor with Jay-Z and Kanye West when their new CDs “drop” in New York City – fiddling his right-word fine art reviews – and correct jaundiced viewpoint of High Urban Gear while modern-day America - as Rome - burns.

    By not calling out these present-day media moguls such as Jay-Z and Eminem (President Obama admitted to owning and listening to a Marshall Mathers CD – see how the worm turns when we start cherry-picking what is appropriate and what is not appropriate for adults to listen to and watch?) we seem to be saying that it is OK for rappers to verbally abuse their African American sisters in their talking, not-singing “art” – but it is NOT all right for a dark-skinned man to “bragadocc” that Ms. Palin was wrong to mix the African Holocaust into a potluck dinner discussion of what is the best possible health care system.

     My opinion is that Bashir was correct to throw a red flag at Palin’s half-smart, ham-fisted slavery allusion. As was Mr. Gandelman when he said that Martin Bashir had gone a bridge too far.

     Bashir’s comments were erudite and historical - they taught us something about the horrors of the modern American tragedy of slavery; Ms. Palin’s comments at best tried to obfuscate the issue of affordable health care for all Americans.

     I was irked because Bashir relinquished the high moral ground that was his genesis point – for Palin to equate the black genocide of slavery with needed health care reform was worthy of a heap of TV scorn indeed – but Bashir fumbled the ball by asking Lady Nome to rinse twice before brushing.

     Or however one makes a turnover in rugby or cricket.

     With his foot in his mouth, Bashir slipped off of the high ground.

      But Palin herself hasn’t taken the first step at the base of Mount Bashir.

DAY 84 - THE MIAMI SPEED-UP ORDEAL - OR HOW I LEARNED TO PAY THE HOTEL BILL TO CONRAD HILTON

Do you think for a fly, wings are strictly a mode of transport?

It was questions like that that were getting me into trouble in Miami.

In spite of everything -- I liked Miami, because the people, mostly Cubans, Colombians and Haitians, seemed grateful to be livin’ in Chuck Berry’s good ‘ol USA.

Where you can get hot dogs, hamburgers and Cooler-raders if you have enough cash.

[A side note: If you ever get a black male Haitian or “white” female Colombian taxi driver in ME-a-uh-ME – get out of the cab immediately and run for your life. I recommend paying them first – with a two-dollar tip to ward off bad voodoo-mojo – if you want a head-start on the mad-dash to “Freedom.”]

We call those kinds of people “money Satans” in the Caribbean.

There.

They are not so much people.

As coin-operating-vacuum machines.

They’d take pennies. And they are just that niggardly.

But, they are not limited to just Haitians and Colombians (black or white).

The “H.C.’s” only want to suck the six-point-four-inch greenbacks out of your Gringo American ass – and then spit the refuse out in the Stygian Miami Dade sewer system – or invest the money in their brother Fernando’s cocaine-mule scheme (hope you like lube – but, it is better than Madoff – the payoff is more than Valerie Solanis’ “Up Your Ass.”)

“At least they are grateful to be here,” I keep telling myself. Which is a different ‘tude to what one might find in the so-called “American Caribbean.”

Where “Don’t Worry Be Happy” is great – as long as they haven’t “gone-een” to contributing to the Caribbean being the Murder Capital of the World per capita thanks to places like Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

I wish I were kidding.

But I’m not.

I believe it was the 1983 movie “Scarface,” and the ghost of Tony Montana and his Cuban crew that had kept me out of Miami for close to thirty years – what can I say – I’m a fraidy-cat at heart – I want to live, but live well, as well.

So let it be written. So let it be done. I am a live “fraidy-cat” at present.

Once the drug trafficking moved from South Beach to the Mona Passage – Miami became safe again for civilians. Only no one had shown me the memo – kids ride the $2.00 trolley (the driver called it “a train,” and she-he was quite insistent) – and a smorgasbord of under-age nationalities ride the elevated train with impunity (only problem is: the stairs to and from the train are quite steep and short: so if you are 60-70-80-90 – and the U.S. Census says 10,000 people a day are turning 65 years old in America – it is not a recommended mode of transport no matter what its affordability.

Colombus named Miami: “great swampy worthless land” less than 24 hours – and I feel that I already know the place – it’s like a wet catacombs with tropical humidity.

And if “nobody walks in LA,” as the song goes, even fewer do in Miami, and the white people who do – have backpacks on their hunchbacks and far-away looks in their eyes – only it’s not Mick Jagger singin’ about Bakersfield, California that is reverberating between their ears.

When I was young and bright with no intentions of severing one of my own earlobes ala Van Gogh, I had a “fresh’ perspective on life and felt that my future was self-assured to be a good one.

 

Twenty-three years ago I thought it was a certainty that I would be a success.

I had graduated from a major university. I had made sense for a while. Granted. I hadn’t done the recommended summer internships at businesses who laud such utter foolishness – but I chalked it up to youthful naivite – and figured by sharp, Blarney-stone tongue (with a taste for Stolichnaya screwdrivers in the summertime) would be able to more than make up for this minor deficiency.

In New York City, a white woman might be nude except for a fish-net stocking and pushing a live baby (not Baby Alive) in a stroller. The white people who are crazy here (loco en de cabeza) make it a little more obvious by shouting out loud and dancing in broad daylight (only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon-day Sun).

I was in Supercuts on Brickel Ave. (I kept putting the accent on the wrong syllable and revealing myself for the hapless tourist I was) next to Blockbuster below the free trolley (which the trolley driver (a Spanish female with glasses) said was actually “a train” (at least she wasn’t hung up on superficial titles).

I came in for a haircut; but I am 48 years old and refuse to believe that my hair is white/gray at a less-advanced age.

I optioned left for “color” and a cut.

“Do you think it is for all winged creatures?”

I was still speaking in English, but even if the three Colombian women who “manned” Supercuts had understood English – they might not have understood the English that I was speaking.

I think it’s fair to say that the Queen of England might have said: “No comprende,” to my lame commentary.

And She would have been quite right.

In New York City, when my hair was naturally dishwater blond, I’d go to a Supercuts-type place (yes, I am from the Midwest) and there would be one hundred people doing “heads” as they say in “Shampoo.”

I try to disguise my bigotry; but, I always hoped and prayed to get a hot-looking female with big eyes who would want to suck the marrow from my bone – rather than a fey gay guy who would want to suck the fungus from my toe.

In 1987, a hair cut in the Big Apple was about six bucks.

In Miami, in 2011, I figured it would be about eight bucks – no color included.

There is a fat black woman who works with housekeeping at the Conrad (as in Conrad Hilton, as in “Be My Guest” Conrad Hilton, as in “fulfilling our place in the world” Conrad Hilton) who keeps slamming the door next to me because I have the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on my door and complained about one of her fellow Obama-entitlement blacks.

If my train of thought seems disturbed, you can blame it on the Hiltons (my lawyers will try their level best) – they hire niggers and other malcontents to fuck up your paying-through-the-tooth vacation on purpose.

Do you think if you chose Orlando, that Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck would go to the empty rooms in the Contemporary Resort Hotel (no such thing – that hotel is booked solid at least two years in advance since 1972) trying to fuck with you for no possible reason?

The answer, as they say in Charlestown, Mass. is: “No!”

The Colombian woman in Supercuts, after lacing my hair with a toxic light-brown dye that would leave me scratching my scalp for days, kept insisting: “Did you cut it yourself?”

Of course, the answer, as they say in Santo Domingo, was: “Jess.” But I’d be damned if I would admit to the stunted-gene pool native South American-Indian woman hiding the Howitzer under the bed in “Scarface” (Hector’s wife) that a Great White Shark had recently cut his own hair in the depths of the “The Great Depression 2” (it’s an artwork by an obscure Detroit fine artist who exhibited only once in his career – and that itself was in a “vanity gallery” where one has to pay to play as it were – in art, as in women, it is always cheaper to pay in advance) because it was more “cost-effective.”

“No,” I told her. I was embarrassed. “It” was correct. But I refused to admit it to it.

“It looks like someone cut this poor clown’s hair with a machete,” the kind female Colombian assassin from Scarface who means to slaughter Al Pacino, said in Spanish.

From this point on, it tends to get a little bad. My expression on my face must have changed, because the Colombian assassin (if they are not drug dealers, they are assassins – there is no such thing as a “good” Colombian – just as there is no such thing as a “smart” and “enterprising” Haitian. They are each niggers with a capital “N” – one with less melanin than the other.

“Do you think bees can tell each other where to go with their wings?”

I was babbling incessantly. Of course (por supresto) the Colombians paid as much attention to me as everyone else. They ignored me in part due to their own ignorance of the language – in part due to instincts – and in part due to the factApparently, Heineken, gin, Xanax, Tolulene and Tonic were not a prescription for success. But, as John Lennon said: “Nobody Told Me.”

“The bees watch each other’s wings,” I said. “That’s how they inform each other where to go.”

This information (I discouraged Googling its veracity for fear of exposure) had been received with less than perspicacity.

“The wicked flee when no one pursues.” That’s from the Old Testament. That might apply to me.

To that end. The Children of Israel (there were a few so-called “charney” ones in the Caribbean) may bring their sacrifices, which they offer in an open field, to the priest to give unto The Lord. As peace offerings to The Lord.

I’d be willing to sacrifice a Lamb of God to get MasterCard, VISA, American Express and the Diner’s Club off of my ass.

How do they find me? I threw my iPhone into the Bay of Biscayne.

It says in the Bible: “If you sell to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor – don’t cheat each other.”

If only that rule had applied to my Broker in real estate.