"I Growl Therefore I Am"

End O'Year Cheers and Jeers
1. Jeers to the politicians. What a bunch of yawing jackasses. All of 'em; warped Mormon through bedeviled VietNam vet through hillybilly huckster through Chicago black do-gooder through Billy Jeff Clinton's wife and John "Up From Poverty" Edwards! I won't even mention Rudolf "Mussolini" Guiliani or Fred "What's His Name?" Thompson. I still can't figure out how John McCain like Jesus is suddenly performing miracles of poll climbing while Ron Paul who has made himself at least 25 million off his hopeless campaign--pretty good for a Libertarian's long day's night work, ain't it--has no rating whatsover though somebody must love his two-faced ass.

2. Cheers to The Daily Growler for saying things over a year ago that are coming true right before our eyes today--remember our lesson on "How to Goosestep Properly"--or how to duck and cover when you see a red glow in one of your townhouse windows. Also to The Daily Growler's cracked staff--they suffer a crack up a day--those who bear the burden of waking certain wolfmen up and kicking them in their lazy rumps and getting them downstairs and into the fantastic The Daily Growler editorial offices, shoo off the mice, and prepare a sermon or else look over the over-the-transom shit to see if there's anything worth posting from that crack staff--yeah verily--thedailygrowlerhousepianist is back in Michigan celebrating the holidays with his parents and wrote an interesting email on Ives and listening to John Kirkpatrick's 1945 recording, the original LP, which blew his top--but I trashed that email--then he's doing three gigs New Year's Eve--congrats to the lad--he's workin' his ass off--he's becoming a household word around New York City--cheers to him.

3. Stack up the dead: Mr. Wizard, Jack Valenti, Rostropovich, Ike Turner, Oscar Peterson, Arthur Schlessenger Jr., the dude who invented the laser, Bobby Short, Evel Knievel, David Halberstram (ever read Best and the Brightest?), Norman Mailer, Cecil Payne, Max Roach,
the Little Jewish Lady, the big tall redhead; damn, where's my mojo bone; I need some protection. And Madame Bhutto and several men who had been saved up on the Texas Penitentiary Death Row for some ritual killing ceremonies--more than any state in the old union by a long shot. Cheers to Texas for still being back in the Dark Ages politically and humanely.

4. Jeers on the Pope. Why does anybody pay any attention to his worthless words? And the Dali Lama, I don't get him either, except as a flim-flammer, and he's good at that--he lives well. I wonder if people still follow him around to make sure his shit doesn't hit the ground? In fact, how about a stadium-full of jeers for all religious nuts?--and I forgot, De Lawd took old fat-jowled Jerry "Homophobe" Fall-well home to glory--"Wow, Jerry, look at all that damn burgoo over on that groanin' board--praise the lard and pass those biscuits and that ham-fat gravy over here." When does Brother Pat Robertson get his special invite to enter the Pearly Gate before his time?--"Take him home, Jehovah. In fact, take all your 'soldiers' home--except for Pastor Melissa Scott--please leave her behind, Lard! I will even give a half-nod to your son's actuality if you leave Melissa behind."

5. Jeers to all crazed-sleazy celebrities; what a pack of hollow-head fools. And jeers to that Lipton dude who is keeping the Actor's Studio going off the rich--F him and his saying actors are the most important cogs in stage productions and films. He says the Actor's Studio has produced the greatest actors of our time then names Marlon--Jesus, Marlon could play Marlon better than anybody else, but come on! And James Dean. And James Dean could play James Dean better than anybody else. And Paul Newman. Was Paul Newman ever considered a great actor? Yes, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof maybe, which was a wonderful sleazy pure-dee Tennessee Williams movie--and yee gawds, what great actors to play Tennessee Williams's roles--Pretty Paul and "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" Liz Taylor, a complete neurotic--pilled up and perfect for the role of Maggie the Cat in that movie; and Liz didn't go to no Actor's Studio and she acted just as real as Paul did in that movie. And what about Burl Ives kicking acting ass as Big Daddy? Whew, now that's acting. And then I watched The Longest Day (in history--Paul Anka wrote the music) last night and let me tell you, that's a hell of a movie--I mean, so full of Hollywood war cliches and war hyperbole via the screenwriting of Cornelius Ryan yet played so superbly by a bunch of Hollywood all-stars like the Duke, Mel Ferrer, Robert Mitchum, Red Buttons, Eddie Albert (yep, Green Acres Eddie)--and poor ole Eddie gets it when he's only a few feet away from safety--he takes a round right in the back of the head--and Robert Mitchum, chewing on a cigar stub, looks back and sees Eddie's dead and he simply shrugs his shoulders and waves his hand signaling all to follow him and he shouts in his effeminate voice, "Come on, men! Let's go," and wow, that's how the Longest Day in History ended, with the Duke pulling a fresh cigar (tobacco killed the Duke) out of his jacket pocket (amazing how that damn stogy survived without getting crushed as Robert Mitchum came ashore on D Day on the Normandy beach and crawled his way up the beach toward the Nazi bulkhead--and that cigar came through as though it had just come fresh from a fresh box), sliding his ass in a Jeep, and sayin', "Soldier, take me up that hill." And off the Duke went. The end. And, hell, I enjoyed it. Actors acting--which is good--actors playing soldiers in uniform in a real-like setting--shit yeah, that's when actors are good--even Richard Burton has a great scene in this movie and he pulls it off without a hitch, though his timing is off in one place there--hell, nobody's perfect, especially an actor.

Sorry, I don't think Dusty Hoffman's a great actor either. Another Actor's Studio grad.

6. Jeers to myself for growling too much. But then why is it called "The Daily Growler"? I mean, growling is natural with me--don't touch my space, dig? I'm for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and when I'm blocked from enjoying those things, then I growl, same as a dog will growl when you threaten to take his bone away from him or a wolf will bite your ass if you bother his grub. And cheers to those wolves who live in Yellowstone Park; amazing creatures they are.

7. And cheers to Dennis Kucinich.

8. And cheers to Gunther Schuller for writing this amazin'-amazin'-amazin' book I'm currently reading, a 900-page history of The Swing Era in jazz. What a work of art. What energy this dude put into this book. Said he listened to over 100,000 recordings (I may exaggerate but I don't think so) in researching it. I love great tomes, true writing art--like Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom that explains all about the Middle-East mess and how the Brits started it all over undiscovered-yet oil but they knew it was there and the Balfour Agreement--how the Arabs got huckstered by the snotty Brits--the Palestinians, too; when the Brits took Jerusalem. I remember when the Brits still occupied that part of the world, bombs going off all the time around where the Brits were barracked, like at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem--remember The Suez War? The battle over the Red Sea and all its oil ports? Remember, all those countries used to be under British Occupation--Aden, the Arab Emirates, Dubai, Palestine, Iraq (formed by the Brits), Egypt, the Sudan, Afghanistan (remember Doctor Watson of Sherlock Holmes fame fought for the Brits in the Afghanistan War--"It's a desolate place, Holmes, totally desolate"), India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and on and on and on, always the Brits and the British Imperial Forces--imposing their will upon the worlds's SAVAGES!

9. Cheers to the Brits, however, for pulling their troops out of Iraq. What a foolish war. What a wasteful war. I say there are currently way over 4,000 American dead--way more than 7,000 if you include the contractors and those kind of workers who've been killed--forget the million or so Iraqis who lost their hope at a future due to We the People--yep, it's our collective fault--trying to impose our brand of "dumbocracy" on these "other culture" people who our government and its gettin'-rich-quick stooges and dickboys and puppets know absolutely nothing about--does Bush speak Arabic? Persian? Does he know that Persians aren't Arabs? I'll bet not. I'll bet he and his crooked family don't consider their Saudi Arabian brothers Arabs, of the militant Islamic kind to boot--I can't believe Prince Bandar Bush is a militant Islamic, is he? How wonderful life is when you're filthy rich--you don't have to worry about the mess you've gotten this world into--Fuck 'em all, like Bush said, "I ain't gonna worry about any of this after I leave office--hell, I'm gettin' on that lecture tour--like old Slick Willie and my old halfwit hero Ronnie Raygun, who the boys tell me started all this Neo-conning of Amurica--what's that, Helen, am I an Amurican? How the hell do I know, Helen."

10. Cheers as always to our fake, phony, fabulous, crooked, unelected, "chosen" "president"-- we at The Daily Growler have never recognized this jerk as a legitimate anything except a total failure--a disaster of a man--he devalues everything he's given charge of. But we cheer him because as crooked and prone to impeachment this prick is he still glides by without a scratch; he's still ruining the economy; his programs are all disasters; and he lied us into an illegal war that is ruining our economy and ruining our morale and ruining our country ruining the reputation of us as a great collective cauldron of diversified people--but no, now the world sees us as a big bunch of crooked white men who want their way or they're threatening annihilation of mankind (the Armageddon Syndrome)--yet he keeps on fumble-bumbling us into disastrous straits with total impunity--he's captained this nation right into the middle of a political and economic Bermuda Triangle and there we are stalled and our nation's compass is spinning like a beer can tossed out of a speeding car spins in the middle of the highway when it hits the macadam (McAdam) and yet he's still fumble-bumbling along merrily as fornicating cats on a rooftop. I love the way the Dumbass Dumbocrats argue about experience and Obama doesn't have enough and absentee-prone Senator Hillary "Hot Rod Ham" Clinton has no real experience either (check her god-damn record--proof enough there she ain't no progressive)--I notice everyone of these million-dollar-trickbag "running" goons missed the vote on some really big issue in Washington, District of Corruption, the other day--an important vote but these buffoons were too busy campaigning and living like lushes on these huge money coffers they've suddenly got their greedy mitts on instead--all We the People's money by the way--We the People even pay for those big campaign contributions from the elite--how come they have enough excess money to give it to these handjive politicians?--maybe big tax breaks?, maybe straightening up the books by washing a lot of money through their charitable and political contributions--all with strings attached. So cheers to Georgie Porgie Bush--ruin the fucking country, nobody seems to give a shit. I don't give a shit; I believe in the inevitability of chaos, the great God Chaos. [Doth I growl too much, womantrumpetplayer?]

11. Cheers to Thelonious Monk live at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival--currently I'm jivin' to Blue Monk, the very Blue Monk that is featured in that film Jazz on a Summer's Afternoon--a great shot of Eric Dolphy in that film, too. I first saw that movie in my hometown in 1959 on the same bill with Russ Meyers's The Immoral Mister Teas--the first time I'd ever seen a woman's "naked titties" on the wide screen--and the first girl in that movie to take her top off is this gorgeous blonde with big vanilla ice cream cone breasts. Holey Moley, the seats on my aisle were jerking back and forth like crazy--could it have been all those jack-off friends of mine who'd ganged up and cummed with me to that immoral movie--though made spirtually uplifting by Jazz on a Summer's Afternoon, which only me and my best pal stayed for--all the other jack-offs had shot their wads on The Immoral Mister Teas.

Not her, but I remember this one, too (1959).

Happy New Year to all and all and all of you and you and you and especially YOU.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler