Existing in New York City: Preparing for a Trip to Hell

Foto by tgw, New York City, June 2012
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Say Goodbye to: Andrew Sarris --All I can say is I used to find his Village Voice film criticism about as boring as it got; Pauline Kael was much more understandable. But then I'm not one to talk about film criticism except to say most films bore me. Andrew Sarris, 83, American film critic, complications from a fall.
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My Second Day in Hell
So far so good. My fans have kept me cool--outside in the street today (Thor's Day), it is hotter than the Holiest of the depths of Holy Hell, but in my apartment--NO PROBLEM--"Bring it on," as our great worst-president-ever once said.
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Readying for My Trip to Hell
Temperature is supposed to hit 100 here in Gotham tomorrow. Three days of Holy Hell predicted, 100 tomorrow, then 96 (which means 98) on Thor's Day, then 93 on FryDay with rain predicted that will hopefully cool the night down back into the 60s. New York City in 100 degree weather ain't no fun, folks, that I guarantee you. And without air conditioning, Death is your constant companion. And guess who doesn't have air conditioning? And guess who has a huge southern-exposed bay window in through which the sun blazes starting around 1 o'clock in the afternoon?

All around me, my Republican neighbors will sit in their air-conditioned multimillion-dollar condos planning to vote for Mitt "the Mormon" Romney and continue denying that there's global warming going on--in the meantime if the Con-Ed substation just a building away from me blows up, folks will be seeing Jesus walking on the water of the mirages that will be prevalent all over town no matter how much rent you pay or how many millions your condo is worth.

How about those stupid Greeks voting for their own demise by putting the Conservatives into power, which means they want to owe their souls to Goldman-Sachs by accepting the austerity measures the rest of the Euro Union will put on their dumb asses. The Socialists came in a close second but the pot-bellied big shot politicians are already talking caving in to the god-damn bankers, the IMF, and the World Bank (the last two controlled by the USA). Next comes Spain, but I don't think the Spaniards will fall into line as easily as the stupid Greeks.

Here in New York, it was announced yesterday that our state politicians are voting themselves a big raise come fall. These sorry bastards are raising their salaries to average over $100,000 a year. How dare these cheap chislers do this while at the same time the rest of us are heading for the nearest poor house. Amazin', amazin', amazin'!

A Summer of Discontent is heading the world's way methinks.

Of course, as a recent heart-attack survivor, I've got a huge survival test ahead of me. I've got to stay cool. Drink tons of water. One thing about New York City's tap water, it stays cold during heat waves since it comes down from the Catskills far underground in the cooler parts of the earth. During the height of the heat I soak towels in it and drape them over my shoulder and that keeps me cool. But there's never a dull moment during an NYC heat wave, especially at night--night's the worst time--night time's when Virgil has to keep that boat sailing as we travel through the Holiest parts of Holy Hell.

Reminds me of Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter's "Too Darn Hot":

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhs3Qklz5a0

Bad news, too, for the people of Egypt who thought they were going to get a democratic form of government after they ran Mubarak out of office and into his prison sick bed. Seems the Egyptian military--and they just got a new supply of weapons and ammunition and rockets from We the People of the USA--has decided they're taking the country over in spite of yesterday's election results that gave power to the Muslim Brotherhood. So the poor Egyptian Arab Springers have to get off their asses and amass in the streets again. Thousands of poor impoverished Egyptians will have to die. Militaries love POWER and they ain't gonna give it up no matter what. Look at the Syrian situation right now--Ass(hole)ad will wipe out as many of his countrymen as it takes to keep POWER. It's all about POWER and the POWER ELITE. Killing off thousands of a nation's citizens means nothing to the POWERFUL.

Again I quote my hero, C. Wright Mills, from his book The Power Elite:

In this military world, debate is no more at a premium than persuasion: one obeys and one commands, and matters, even unimportant matters, are not to be decided by voting. Life in the military world accordingly influences the military mind's outlook on other institutions as well as on its own. The warlord often sees economic institutions as means for military production and the huge corporation as a sort of ill-run military establishment. In his world, wages are fixed, unions impossible to conceive. He sees political institutions as often corrupt and usually inefficient obstacles, full of undisciplined and cantankerous creatures. And is he very unhappy to hear of civilians and politicians making fools of themselves?

It is men with minds and outlooks formed by such conditions who in postwar America have come to occupy positions of great decision. It cannot be said that they have necessarily sought these new positions; much of their increased stature has come to them by virtue of a default on the part of civilian political men. But perhaps it can be said, as C. S. Forester has remarked in a similar connection, that men without lively imagination are needed to execute policies without imagination devised by an elite without imagination.

thegrowlingwolf(on his way to Hell)
for The Daily Growler (Hell's Own Journal)