Notes From Above Ground

The View From the Mousehole
"Giant salamanders!, Batman!" Batboy (Robin) watching the stock market drop.

In the meantime hobbling in from left field comes ass-dragging Allan Greenspan to do some more Wall Street/Federal Reserve PR-ing. What pack of lies has old grizzled Allan come up with now we wonder?

Yes, C. Wright Mills knew it back in 1956, but, hell, 1956! That's long before our twentyish trendsetters and neo-pundits were born. They think of 1956 as being somewhere back about the time maybe their parents were born--"Oh, god, that was awesome years ago! Have you got the latest cell-phone-internet-handheld-electro-magnetic-gadget-made-in-Singapore-yet? War? What's war? The VietNam War--didn't we win that one? When was that one again? Oh, and Jeez, I'd forgotten about the Persian Gulf War--I was only 8--Normin' Stormer, I remember my dad talking about him--who was president then? Bush? Oh, that's right, G.W.'s grandfather, right?--oh, his father! Jeez, I'm so awesomely not with history!"

We pander to children. Children all over teevee--children tell mom and dad which SUV to buy--children even tell mom what detergent to buy! Children on teevee promote McDonalds--yet, we'll bet more adults eat at McDonald's than kids--and kids promote toilet paper--we love the "bear shits in the woods" toilet paper commercial--remember when Scott's Bathroom Tissue advertised it had more sheets (read: "shits") per roll than all the other brands--because of that ad we use Scott's here at the fabulous downtown underground hi-rise-the-other-way offices of The Daily Growler--"Hey, this 'up' elevator is going down."

We say fuck children! Put Miley Cyrus back in a B.F. Skinner box and calm her hormones down! Except, if you put Miley in child protection, how's her old hick daddy, Billy Ray, gonna make a living? We can't wait for Miley's first Playboy lay-out (legs open we hope)--it won't be long--when's she 18, 2 years?--OK, she'll be really ripe and nice for old Heff by then--even at 86, old Heff still likes 'em blonde and bombshelly--he'll probably have to pay for a breast enhancement job on Miley!
thesarcasticstaff
for The Daily Growler

From thegrowlingwolf
I'm under the earphones for real today--they've started construction on the 18-story hotel that's going up next to my building--only about 20-feet east of my bay window--they are beginning digging out the basement of that building--that's usually when these illegal immigrant construction crews accidentally dig into your building's foundation--"Hay, carumba, mucho malo"--right next to this site a five-story building collapsed back about 15 years ago--plus for two years there'll be a twenty-five story crane hanging its collapsible head right over my apartment.

I'm listening to myself under the earphones--in September and October I laid down 10 tracks trying to get recognized as both a performer and composer (actually a songwriter, though I've written a lot of instrumental renderings, too)--it's the best shit I've done in a long time--the most mature--I'm still a blues idiom advocate but I've toyed with contemporary rhythms--working off drum beds--oh well, that's just me, my way of composing! I think I hear a trend of contemporary music going back to melodies--we haven't had any good melodies written in this country since the 1950s--as Tony Bennett pointed out to Chet Flippo back in the 90s when he talked about the obsolescent factor in the music business today.

I saw the Backstreet Boyz last night singing the National Anthem (that boring, hard-to-sing, overversed bullshit war chant) at the World Series opener, and god-damn, how old do those dudes look now! They ain't boyz no more! They did F. Scott Key's battle hymn the normal way of doing it at sporting events these days--like a black person would sing it--and I laughed my backstreet-boy-wolfie ass off when the dyed-blond BS boy started singing like he was black--you know that stretching out of notes--getting four modulations out of one word! Like the Righteous Brothers used to sing white as though they were black--and they sold more records imitating Sam and Dave than Sam and Dave did giving out their real thing. The Righteous Brothers singing r and b was the same as Pat Boone singing Little Richard's "Tutti Fruitti"--and what a fruity job that was.

You see, black music is the Devil's music to white people--the power elite--and to some overholy-rolling black people, too--and white people can't stand a music that makes a young girl's hips start to shaking and bucking and a young boy trick-dancing his best all around her--a mating ritual, YES! All male animals have their trick dances to attract females--who dance away in tease--dance away, until the conquering male spins her around into his arms--the dance award comes--"said our plumber still plumbing, it's me!"--after the dance.

I'm twisted. Politics is such bullshit. Low bullshit at that. Fuck both candidates now, I'm hollering--growling about how I'd love it if Nutjob McCain and Paleface Palin stole the election--and they'll try--they have Karl Rove on their team, 'cept they're both so fucking dumb and possessive and self-important. I can't wait until on election eve when Sarah Palin announces she, her husband, Nutjob McCain and Go-Go Cindy have video tape of Obama in some bugged hotel room banging his white mistress! Oh that's'a comin' surely--racism is Nutjob McCain's only ace in the hole now--and damn right he'll use it in Florida, North Carolina, Virginny, West Virginny, those white hick states (Tallahassee's in the swamps, man)--and, yes, folks, Florida is a hick state--I know, I've lived in Boca and Key West! Miami scared me it was so wildly fatalistic!

Remember "the Narrative." To steal elections you need a narrator with a narrative--McCain & Palin's basic message in putting Ob(s)ama down is a racist one--they're white privileged so they have more experience than a young, dichty, uppity black man--except both McCain and Palin I'm sure use the N-word liberally. Remember, McCain can cuss like a sailor and I'll bet Sweet Sarah of Alaska can cuss like a mean-ass moth'a 'ho.

You ever heard of "bundlers"? I've come across some words during this too-long presidential race I don't remember hearing ever used before--like the word "vetting." Since when did someone getting "vetted" come onto the scene?

Remember the blues idiom vote song: Sunnyland Slim's "Be Careful How You Vote."

Why not a receipt when you vote--like the receipts you get when you use an ATM machine?

The sandwich line at the Subway Sandwich Shop in my neighborhood is getting longer and longer day by day--long lines of working class folks coming in for their "full meals"--a footlong sandwich, a big 16 oz killer sugar cola, and a bag of transfat chips or Cheetos, whichever's worse for you--all for under 9 bucks--unless you tip to poor buggers who work their Indonesian (in the store in my neighborhood) butts off a buck or so! The Sandwich Generation has been born. No more cat and dog food for the down and out--it's too expensive now--more expensive than a Subway footlong.

My meal last night at my favorite Irish pub was $38.90--$47 with tip. Sheeeeshhh! It was good though--sesame chicken in a honey-mustard sauce--crisp and nice--with a big pile of rice--a couple of beers--ah sweet truckin'--good eating.

Saw a documentary on Abbie Hoffman and the '68 Chicago absurd trial for the Chicago 8--and it was good to see Abbie at his best--his wittiest and sarcastic best. What a wit; what a quick mind; what a funny dude! And they had some old tapes of Abbie on Bob Fass's NYC-WBAI all-night radio show back in them thar days--and I remember Abbie on Bob Fass's Thursday night show and then on Steve Post's Saturday Evening Post back when I arrived in NYC in 1969--and Post's show went all night long--and Abbie would be on with Paul Krasner and Marshall Efron--Holy Moley Rounders--those days are long gone--Abbie committed suicide in a chicken coop in New Jersey after running from the fucking FBI for 20 years--even on the run he still managed to keep involved--finally being homesick and depressed brought Abbie back to New York City--and Abbie starred briefly once again on the Howard Stern KRock morning show here when he came back--in fact, it was on Howard's show that I first heard, Howard announced it, that Abbie had died. The late sixties and early 70s were good years in New York City--we were all so sure we were taking over and kicking the rascals and the old fucks out--free pot in Central Park--women going natural and being naturally beautiful--fuck make up and fuck bras and panties--and fuck shoes--and there was nothing more beautiful than a barefoot hippy girl wearing a guinea tee-shirt with no bra and a big full floral-patterned skirt--wrestling around maybe with a fellow hippy chick...on the ground; in the mud at Woodstock...oh, but I'm roaring back into those days through sentimental journeys...I have no time in this present tense for reminiscing.

And son of a bitch, just as we real New Yorkers thought we were getting rid of our god-damn, little man, billionaire mayor the son of a bitch looks down his nose at We the People and announces, fuck the law, he's gonna run again--the city's broke due to the Wall Street mess and by god we need his expertise--so he's running again! The bastard. The snooty little prick--he's running again because he knows the truth about how wrecked this city's economy is and how wrecked the city treasury is and how there are no longer any jobs in NYC and the real estate market even here in NYC is fixing to blow skyhigh! Get ready to jump, you bastards! And the NYC city council--those crooked assholes get most of their money to run for their illegal third terms from the real estate industry--poor bastards! Jump, you sons'a bitches--jump off those penthouse balconies!

They are now selling hi-rise penthouse apartments down on the Lower East Side for 33 million bucks a piece--based on so much a square foot now--like $2,000 a square foot!

Disgusting.

thedisgustedgrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler