The Wonderful World of Chaos

Free Form
Free form in jazz is about as musically free as you can get. No confines. No fences. Free range. Able to leap tall obstacles at a single bounding measure of ascending eighth notes. I just got up from my aging piano where I've been doing finger exercises, trying to keep digitally loose as a goose. I've been a true believer in Korg electronic keyboards since the 80s when I bought a Poly 800, a sleazy little pipsqueak keyboard even in those days though considered innovative by the industry--Poly 800s still sell on eBay for a hundred bucks or so--but in its heyday it was used all over the music place from rockers to studio musicians. Jazz didn't accept it really. I used its organ preset, but it was cheesy. Then I bought a Korg M-1 when it first came out. I bought it at Sam Ash on Music Row in New York City. I went in there knowing I wanted one and as usual in Sam Ash in those days the snobby staff wouldn't wait on you unless you looked like them so that day not one staffer would wait on me. Finally, I took $1500 worth of greenbacks out of my jeans and started waving it in the air and hollering auctioneer-like, I've got an irritatingly noisome voice when I'm mad, "Heah ya go, I got 1500 smackers of good ole USA cash-a-rootie here if one of you out-of-work stars will wait on me!" It wasn't long at all until 4 dudes jetted over my way. This one dude beat them all. Turned out to be the day job for a jazz drummer I recognized and who I did the right handshake with--in those days it was a trickier version of the ole "give me five" ("give me some skin, daddy" started by Louis Armstrong) where you actually gripped hands then slid your palms off each other (the give me some skin move) only to come up bumping elbows--something like that. After the handshake I was in like Flynn with this drummer and I got my M-1 and put it in a cab and got home and had it set up and was recording with it a couple of hours later. I bought it because I got a steady gig with a Long Island blues band and especially since this band had gotten a gig opening for Robert Gordon at the old Lone Star Roadhouse in New York City. I still have a recording of that night, just me doing two diddies--that M-1 sounded so god-damn great. I got a standing ovation after both my tunes, about 200 folks in the joint. We were so hot that night that Robert Gordon ask us to sit on the stage during his gig--he ordered over the mic "Give these dudes a round of beers on me--great job guys!" Gordon was with Chris Spedding that night--and Rockin' Rob Stoner, a bass player I'd known around New York City for what seemed like forever, certainly ever since I'd come on the NYC music scene. Now I have a Korg N-5, a low-end version of the M-1 (it does have M-1 piano sounds on it) that records great, though live it ain't so hot--too tinny, a problem with even high-end electronic keyboards. They never will be able to duplicate a true instrument sound on those things no matter how hi-tech and artificially mimicking they can make them. That electronic tinniness is deeply rooted in these instruments. We used to call them AIs, for Artificial Intelligence machines, which is what they are. I like Korgs because they were developed on Long Island by Amuricans even though they are made in Osaka, Japan. Japan, by the way, bought all our instrument companies in the 80s--they bought Fender guitars and basses and along with Fender instruments came Harold Rhodes's great electronic keyboard invention, the Rhodes Electric Piano. The original Rhodes were not only a joy to play, but damned if they didn't have a great new piano sound to them. I don't think it's ever been duplicated--that sound! I still own two Rhodes, one an original Rhodes Stage 77 (77 keys instead of the normal 88) and one a Fender-Rhodes Stage 77, same piano as the original Rhodes, made at the Rhodes factory, but carrying the Fender-Rhodes emblem for the first time. Then CBS bought them and took them to Japan and suddenly all our guitars were being made in Japan. Now, I've been noticing, a lot of guitars are being made in Korea, Mexico, and China. Such a low time, those Reagan years, when we sold our culture to the Japanese--think of it, all our recording industry moved to Japan; and Sony not only bought our music from us but they also bought all our cinema archives since we started making films. RCA sold our television industry to the Japanese and GM took our automobile industry over there under the advice of a man named Malcolm Baldridge! Ironically, now, the three leading industrial countries in the world are our former enemies, the Germans, the Japanese, and the Communist Chinese. The world hates human beings--and can't you see why?

The world itself can cause Chaos. In fact, our planet is a chaotic planet. There's no stability here. That's why the Muslims are so miserable. They love and worship stability, but there is no stability in this chaotic world. That's why the Jews, the Christians, and the Judeo-Christians are so miserable. The world won't tolerate dependence on fanciful illusions for stability. The world defies any power human beings come up with to use in trying to stabilize it. That's why the Buddhists set themselves on fire! They can't stabilize the world long enough to find Nirvana--except as a US grunge band! That's why the Commies are shiftless skunks. Communism can't stabilize the planet. That's why the US seems to like being at constant war. It's really a war against the planet.

The Power Elite control the human aspects of the world by controlling all human wealth--all the while doing their best to extinct as many of the planet's other animals as they can as fast as they can--human beings need territory--we are territorial animals. Man is hard at work decimating his fellow animal beings from its smallest animals like the plankton of the cold Antarctic Ocean to the largest mammals--whales, elephants, rhinos, hippos--and those animals that have traditionally been enemies in human fables like Gilgamesh's long poem where he as the world's first superhumanhero wipes out a pride of lions with his bare hands. We are wiping out the lions and tigers of the world. We are wiping out nature all over the world. We hate the planet. We can't control it. The planet doesn't give one shit in Hades what happens to human beings! It doesn't give a shit if human beings are corrupting the atmosphere, the rain forests (the lungs of the planet--and humans hate our lungs), and extincting all its life--so frustrating since down deep (in our instincts) we know our efforts won't affect this planet's continuance one iota whether all its animals are decimated, whether all its vegetation and forests are burned off, whether we blow the tops off all its mountains, and drain all the coal, oil, gas, and water out of its soul so we wasteful human animals can waste it. This orb will turn on long after we're gone and our sun has died and there isn't even a universal remembrance of us left, unless its a remembrance left by one of our nuclear waste garbage dumps, like Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which will survive forever--or maybe the remains of our plastic society--plastic made of petroleum products--we are ruled by the Power Elite, especially the lot of them who got into the Power Elite through oil wealth! But the world doesn't care about us. That's why we believe in all our gods and superheros. Like this movie that is currently outgrossing every movie ever made, this transformer movie. The planet isn't afraid of our monsters! And what's so stupid about these films, they are totally unreal, totally graphic-software-manufactured, blown up versions of comic-book-page illusionary monsters. Machines arising to eat all of their creators, like Saturn needing to munch on newborn babies for its continuance! And I like Rage Against the Machine, that band; yet their endeavor is futile.

The Daily Howler lately has been doing some damn good writing, telling it like it is (remember that? Gil Noble, a legend in NYC television journalism, one of the original black journalists in NYC teevee, still does a show on the local ABC-TV called "Like It Is"). The last couple of Howler posts have been right on (remember that?) in terms of how ignorant Amuricans are and how especially dumb our Congress is.

Here's an excerpt from yesterday's Daily Howler:

Consider two columns in Sunday’s Washington Post. They were written by George Will, a man of the right, and Ruth Marcus, a woman of the center left. Each column pondered the high cost of American health care.

Will began with bluster and thunder. “Most Americans do want different health care,” the thundering giant announced. “They want 2009 medicine at 1960 prices.” Will’s meaning was soon made clear—Americans want the advantages of modern health care at the price tag of its Model T predecessor. In this passage, a thundering giant announces why this desire is so dumb, so absurd:

WILL (6/28/09): The Hudson Institute's Betsy McCaughey writing in the American Spectator, says that in 1960 the average American household spent 53 percent of its disposable income on food, housing, energy and health care. Today the portion of income consumed by those four has barely changed—55 percent. But the health-care component has increased while the other three combined have decreased. This is partly because as societies become richer, they spend more on health care—and symphonies, universities, museums, etc.

It is also because health care is increasingly competent. When the first baby boomers, whose aging is driving health-care spending, were born in 1946, many American hospitals' principal expense was clean linen. This was long before MRIs, CAT scans and the rest of the diagnostic and therapeutic arsenal that modern medicine deploys.

Spending on health care has increased, Will condescends, because health care has gotten “increasingly competent.” We have amazing stuff now—MRIs, CAT scans, all the rest! This just isn’t your father’s health care. If you think you can get it at bargain prices, you’re just a big dumb silly dope.

Of course, they have CAT scans in Europe too. And in the year of Our Lord 2003, those European nations (and Japan) recorded per capita health care spending which went something like this:

United States: $5711
Denmark: $2743
France: $3048
Germany: $2983
Italy: $2314
Japan: $2249
United Kingdom: $2317

Just like Michael Kinsley on Friday, Will forgot to mention a salient fact. Other nations with “increasingly competent” health care spend half as much as we do!

Excerpted from: www.dailyhowler.com/index.shtml
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We've readily admitted here at the Growler that we sort of parallel-lined ourselves alongside The Daily Howler--stating that a wolf howls when it's looking for love, but it GROWLS when it's hungry, mad, looking for something to sink its teeth in. However, the Howler lately has been a little more Growler acerbic in his opinions and a little more understanding of just how dumb Americans really are.
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Our old raging reverend, Dr. Jack Van Impe (a The Daily Growler Hall of Famer), was so off-the-wall early Monday morning, I almost threw my radio out the window. For the first time, I noticed, too, that Jack's semi-beautiful wife, Rexella, is now a Dr. like Jack. The announcer introduces them as "Doctors Rexella and Jack Van Impe." On this program, Jack just came flat out and said Obama may be the antiChrist! Then Dr. Jack let out a "Praise the Lord, Jesus is coming, oh what a glorious time to be alive--just think, Jeeeeesus is coming to take his seat on his throne in Jerusalem!" and said we'd all better tune in next early Monday morning because at that time he's going to discuss whether Obama is a Christian or not! Dr. Jack, you cagey old deceiver, you're going to intimate that Obama's a Muslim! I know you are, Dr. Jack, you little pompous ass. I pray to my gods that this Jesus X. dude will hurry up and call all his children home to whatever fantastic paradise awaits them--just get 'em the hell off the planet, Lordy Lord God--and, Lordy Lord, I hate to ask this of you because I'm in love with a beautiful Jewish woman who I don't wanna lose, but would you also take the Chosen Ones on up there with those that truly believe you're the Jewish Messiah? Maybe then we can have some peace down here! My prayers, however, are seldom answered.

Obama is still an interesting character for me to study with my Sociologist eyes! (Remember "Betty Davis Eyes"--name the one-hit-wonder who recorded it? That's the Growler quiz for the day. Who sang "Betty Davis Eyes"? for a growler of ale at a bar of our choosing.) Obama says he's determined not to look back, as if he believes the old Jewish tale of Lot's wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah and turning into a pillar of salt! Interesting that a woman in the desert turns to salt rather than stone. But perhaps Obama is understanding now that some of us who elected him are demanding he turn around and take a look back if only to see the source of the problems we are currently facing, where they came from and how they happened! How can you correct a problem whose wrong solution you continue to respect? How can you correct the wrong solution to the economic crisis when you don't look at the figures that led to the wrong addition (solution)? Obama met with members of the Gay and Lesbian community yesterday and he was extra cool and charming with them, talking out the correct side of his mouth for their sake; yet, the day before keeping in place the "Don't Tell" policy with Gays in the US Army, one going on trail today, a lieutenant who is a high-profile translator, a West Point graduate, who admitted he was Gay and was immediately dishonorably discharged! Obama said he would rescind that policy...but, no, yesterday he said he was keeping it in place. 266 Gay soldiers have been dishonorably discharged due to this travesty of human rights originally put into law by, who else, Slick Willie Clinton, the phony liberal Dumbocrat who originally fomented all the involvements we're currently bogged down in--Willie giving us the original Patriot Act; Willie shooting missiles into Afghanistan telling us he was destroying an Al-Queda training camp run by the illusive Osama bin Laden (a CIA invention), then telling us he'd hit a school maybe instead of the training camp. Or remember the Slick One bombing Iraq continuously. Firing a missile one time that killed the leading female artist in Iraq; firing one missile that he said hit a Saddam Hussein bombmaking plant when in actuality it was a pharmaceutical lab he hit, wiping out a source of medicine for long-time embargoed Iraqis! Slick Willie also sent the Marines ashore in Somalia. How quickly we've forgotten that failed mission--remember the Mogadishu tribal goons dragging our soldiers's dead bodies through the streets of that ravaged African city? For what did those poor young men and women suffer and die for in Somalia? Slick Willie got us involved in the Kosovo situation; then got us involved in the Serbian-Bosnian situation--again, a Christian vs. Muslim situation. We pried into that business and what good did it do? Has Sarajevo been rebuilt? Slick Willie used Guantanamo to imprison hundreds of Haitians who he had rounded up while they were still on their innertube boats and unsafe rafts trying to get to the USA--Florida--and freedom from the terrible oppression and poverty of Haiti, a nation the USA has punished for whipping the shit out of Napoleon's foppish French forces to become the first Republic in North or South America, a Black Republic of former French slaves (some of them perhaps even relatives of Napoleon's precious Josephine, a Martiniquean of dubious parentage)--and Slick Willie put a flotilla of Navy vessels around Haiti to block future efforts of Haitians to escape to the safety of the USA--who has a statue standing out in the middle of New York Harbor, I can see it from my window, that says this nation welcomes the oppressed of the world with open arms--a poem written by a Jewish immigrant girl--Slick Willie's Statue of Liberty had a extra verse to that poem, it was "Fuck You to All Haitians Seeking Freedom in This Cuntry" In an ironic, I think insulting to Haiti, move, Obama has made Slick Willie his Haitian analyzer/envoy--Slick Willie will evaluate the Haitian situation--from his Harlem office, I assume--I can't see Slick Willie living in Haiti, or even visiting there. Or how about it that it was Slick Willie's Neo-Con-artist economics nutjobs who deregulated banks and insurance companies and financial institutions and allowed stock brokerage houses to become banks and to sell insurance and allowed insurance companies to become banks and to sell stocks and allowed banks to sell investment plans and insurances of all kinds; all of them deregulated to the point they were all able to become bankers and stock brokers and insurance peddlers and financial middlemen without control--my bank peddles life insurance to me 24/7, wasting money sending me these offers several times a month--wasteful hustling is all it is.

So Slick Willie's reign gave us this current economic mess, exaggerated gladly by little rich boy dumbass G.W. Bush when his bushwhacking crew led us merrily and drunkenly into this black hole we're now depending on a junior senator from Southside Chicago, a black-white-international man with a Muslim name, to pull us out of. If you know physics you know you can't go into reverse when you're being sucked into a black hole. And if you know the laws of thermodynamics, you know you can't retrieve yourself from entropy once it starts sucking you into the heart of Lord Chaos. But, I know, I'm not supposed to criticize the Slick One. He's totally overpraised by bloggers like BartCop, for instance--Bart's so in love with Slick Willie he will offer to go out back into the alley behind one of those Tulsa Cracker bars and bareknuckle fight you over the Slick One's honor. Bob the Comedian (the Daily Howler commenter) is a big Clinton defender! Some people believe Slick Willie is the greatest president we've had since JFK! But, the Slick one makes me growl, and I say bullshit to such exalted praise (and remember I'm not at all a fan of JF (for Fucking Around)K).

And speaking of denigrating Slick Willie, I was reminded the other night just how slick Slick Willie is while watching a PBS Brit-glamor show on the infamous Pamela Churchill, one of the slickest whores (they politely referred to her as a courtesan on the PBS rav show) to ever fuck her way from a common whore all the way to the top of American politics. It's a position she purposely came to America to gain, starting it off by luring in and then marrying old lonesome Leland Hayworth the Broadway producer. She then began to waste all Leland's hard-earned millions. She eventually drove poor old Leland to drink and then to his demise, leaving him and his family stone-cold broke. This lucky whore wiped out Leland's whole estate. Then before old Leland hadn't even been embalmed yet this whore was on the phone to her old WWII lover, the Honorable Robber Baron Averill Harriman, that rat bastard, after noticing that his ancient old wife had just croaked leaving the ancient old rich-ass Averill lonely for some hot pussy! And Pamela, who was the hot pussy he needed, soon became Pamela Harriman!

As Pamela Harriman, this whore took over the Dumbocratic Party. And guess who Pamela Harriman's prize Dumbocrat toyboy was? She picked him out herself! Why it was none other than the young upstart who had just lost his first effort to be governor of the last-ranked State of Arkansas (hey, I married an Arkie, I can talk about 'em). Yep, you guessed it, Slick Willie Clinton. She got Slick Willie elected president. And how did the Slick One reward her?--maybe he showed her his dick or diddled her with an illegal Cuban cigar (they seem to be easily obtained by big shots and politicians), I don't know--but he made her ambassador to France! Wow! How's that for success? Her son Winston, he was sired by Randall Churchill, Sir Winnie the half-Amurican's worthless fop son, said he remembers the shock he got the night he walked into his mother's Washington flat and caught his mother on the living room couch topless and with old topless Averill Harriman (he was like 77) with his hands all over her breasts squeezing them and his old gnarly tongue dancing over his mother's nipples.

But rather than looking back on this Clinton bullshit, Obama gives jobs to nearly every old Clinton hanger-on from those days--especially all Slick Willie's Neo-Con economy advisors! But Obama's slick, too, so we'll keep on keeping a Sociologist eye on him--and we'll tell it like it is as we observe him!
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Check out what the old Truth Seeker says about the Slick One:

www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=14

People really don't understand slick-looking and sauve-acting hillbilly men like Billy Jeff Clinton, but I do. I grew up with a whole slew of Billy Jeff Clintons. Their kind either became fundy Christian preachers or they ran for a political office. Smart? Who the hell knows? Billy Jeff got a Rhodes Scholarship because of old Bill Fulbright, the Arkie senator who started the Fulbright Scholarships that led to Rhodes Scholarships (a scholarship given in honor of Cecil Rhodes, a Brit-fop asshole who wanted a One World Order under British control). Senator Fulbright was giving him credit against the Vietnam War and Slick Willie knew that and became an antiVietnam War "activist" because of old Bill. I've heard rumors that old Bill might have been a little deviant when it came to young men, but that's a rumor and we're not into gossip here at the Growler like the normal rags and blogs are.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

If you want to watch a hot live video of the true genius of Michael Jackson, here ya go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ODaEq9n3Y

The Highway to San Angelo--a Serial in 2 Parts

The Highway Cowboys on the Range--The Highway to San Angelo Part 2

Robert Elliott drove his father's car back over to his house, only a couple of blocks back west across Elm Creek from Teo's mansion, dropped it off, and joined Teo in the new Ford Custom coupe. It was one in the afternoon when they finally buzzed the new Ford over to North 1st Street, just across the Tee Pee tracks on the Northside. They were approaching Pine Street and Robert Elliott was fiddling with the radio trying find some good music. Abilene in those days had two types of stations, C&W or the Top Ten (just prior to Top 40). Robert Elliott settled on the Pop station. At least that station had to play Jimmy Reed a lot since Jimmy had a couple of top-chart hits all the time in those days, Found Love and Let It Roll, plus they had to play Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Rich and Ronnie Milsap, dudes Robert Elliott and Teo both could tolerate. When Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney and Dean Martin and big commercial crap like that came on, the boys turned the sound down and made their own music.

They approached the green light on Pine and North 1st, just in front of Tee Pee Park, the small bandbox park that sat nestled under old Elm trees by the side of the rather Gothic-looking Tee Pee train station that sat up above the park on the level with the railroad tracks, that crossed over Pine Street via a viaduct. Suddenly Teo slammed on his brakes and started cussing.

The Pine Street Underpass. The trees on the left showing above the viaduct is Tee Pee Park on the corner of Pine and North 1st. This photo was taken facing north looking up Pine from South 1st Street, the Bankhead Highway, Highway 80 West.

"You ever been to San Angelo," Teo asked Robert Elliott. Robert Elliott was cautious. He thought he knew why Teo had slammed on the brakes and started cussing. He thought he'd seen the same car. "Yeah, I used to go there when I did boardwork for Joe Ziggarut on his radio show," Robert Elliott said, "He broadcast from the San Angelo radio station once a week. I've been there two times with Joe. Great seafood restaurant we used to eat at." "Wanna go to San Angelo instead of Breckenridge?" "Why San Angelo?" "I just decided I want to go to San Angelo. I didn't mean to Socratically argue over it...I mean, what difference does it make?" "About 35 or 40 miles difference. It'll be dark before we get back." "Do you give a shit?" "No." "OK, so let's go to San Angelo." He turned right onto Pine, went under the underpass, then swung around left at the light on South 1st to shoot over to the new Treadway Boulevard that circumferenced the western edge of Abilene and sped you straight on out to South 14th where it met the Buffalo Gap Highway.

We were cruising along around 65, the speed limit in those days--it was later raised to 70. The Ford was running sweet, humming right along, the wind whistling in the side windows--it was a stick shift and certainly didn't have air-conditioning. It was a sturdily built car with a boogie-ing 6-cylinder engine that was cookin' on all six and the radio was playing underneath our jabber as we flew along, Teo goosing the young Ford up to 80 as we flew over the Callahan Divide.

"Did you ever eat catfish in Buffalo Gap?" Robert Elliott asked.

"Yeah. My dad was screwing a waitress at that catfish joint out there."

"Come on, man, you don't know that."

"Hell I don't. I know more than you do, so shut the fuck up about it."

He did know more about it than Robert Elliott did, so Robert Elliott did shut up about it. Robert Elliott knew enough about it to have heard rumors that Teo's father beat his mother sometimes. Though Teo's mother was the nicest woman you'd ever want to meet. She treated Teo like a prize child. All the hate he had for his father turned into love when it came to his mother. Robert Elliott saw her a lot but he never saw her injured or anything; yet, he knew firsthand Teo's father had a temper. Plus, Robert Elliott knew for sure, Teo always talked about it, he was a heavy drinker. But then everybody in Abilene knew that. Still, his old man was a local hero. He had his afternoon radio show on the C&W station of which he was a part owner. He also maintained a little band and promoted local young talent on his show by featuring a live music segment. There was one group of young men from down in Coleman, Texas, who later became really big C&W and Pop stars that Teo's father claimed he discovered and introduced to the world on his radio show.

Though Teo despised his father's music, he didn't despise the fact that that music had made his father rich. So rich, the old man had built a state-of-the-art recording studio behind the three-car garage just across from Teo's apartment entrance. That was the prize Robert Elliott loved going to Teo's for--yes, Teo's friendship, they were totally best friends, too, but also that recording studio. Teo's father would let Teo and Robert Elliott use it especially after his father gave Teo a Slingerland drum set, a beautiful set of drums, which Teo set up in the studio and left them there so his father's drummer could use them when his father's band recorded there. As a result, Teo got to use the studio when his father was working at the radio station or on the road with his C&W stage show.

Robert Elliott had never seen or heard Teo acknowledge by giving a nod of recognition or spoken greeting to his father. Strange, but, no, he had never seen Teo speak to his father. In fact, Robert Elliott had had conversation with the father. Yes, the man was an imposing figure. A big man. A big chested man. Teo, as a matter of fact, looked just like his father. And, yes, the father's legend had him as a mean bastard as a father but a great man as a C&W star and promoter. Except for telling him to never park behind his Caddy ever again, Robert Elliott had never had a problem with the man. Once while Robert Elliott was playing jazz on the studio piano, the dad had come in to pick something up out of his office. As he was leaving, he said to Robert Elliott, "If that jazz is all you can play, you'll never make a living in the music business." Robert Elliott had never forgotten that nor did he ever after that try to make a living in the music business.

After a long stretch of uninvolved driving, they got to Ballinger, Texas, where they turned onto Highway 87 and headed up the final 30 miles to San Angelo.

"Jesus, man, San Angelo's gonna be hard to crack...." Robert Elliott said, anticipating that first cold can of beer they were driving like a bat out of hell the 100 miles to San Angelo from Abilene for.

"Stop the paranoia, R.E. I can pass for 21 easy. Not you, you baby face son of a bitch! But, don't worry, I'll get us some beer."

As they came into San Angelo, they came to a traffic circle.

"Hey, look, there's Lake View High over that way. I once met a chick in Abilene who'd gone to Lake View."

"Yeah, that Sandy chick, I know who you mean."

"Yeah, Sandy. Nice ass."

"Not as nice as that Paula's ass I saw you with at Casey's that time."

"Paula Sturgeon. Yeah, she was an armload. Damn, look, Teo, a liquor store!"

They wheeled the new Ford into the round-buildinged liquor store. It had a clumsily big neon sign shaped like an arrow pointing down at the liquor store, the big word LIQUOR flashing on and off red twenty-four-seven, one assumed.

Cool old photo of US Army Air Force fighter flying over San Angelo; which was the home of Goodfellow Air Force Base during WWII.

Before going in the liquor store--liquor stores sold beer, too--cold beer by the case, the six-pack, or the can--Teo put on his disguise, an Abilene Blue Sox baseball cap, his black horned-rimmed glasses, and he rolled the sleeves of his short sleeve shirt up to bare his arms, then he inserted a pack of Camel cigarettes in the right arm sleeve--the heavy cigarette smokers of the day carried their cigs that way--I think it started with sailors in WWII. Teo was a cigarette smoker as were most high-school-age boys in those days. Cigarettes had no age limit on them. A five-year-old, one assumed, could buy a pack of cigs in those days.

Rigged out in his disguise, Robert Elliott had to admit Teo looked like a hardened twenty-one-year-old, the legal drinking age in Texas then. He watched his friend stride confidently through the glass doors and into the store. Robert Elliott could watch Teo move through the store due to the store's front being solid plate glass windows. He saw Teo carrying a case of beer up to the counter. He saw him take his billfold out. Shit, he thought, they're making him show an ID. Shit. Now we'll have to try every fucking store in San Angelo.

Distracted by a particularly awful tune playing on the radio, the next time Robert Elliott looked up Teo was sliding a case of Berghoff Beer, a Colorado beer that was $3.00 a case, into the car's back seat. Though Colorado beers, Walthers, Berghoff, Coors, were 3.2% alcohol in the State of Colorado, the Colorado breweries could export 6% alcohol beer to other states. Berghoff was a Pueblo, Colorado, beer.

"Is it cold?" Robert Elliott asked.

"Does your mother read the god-damn Bible?" Teo answered, popping the case open and pulling out two cold-sweaty cans. "These are pull tabs, too, man."

Pull tab beer cans were new. Before, you needed a metal-cutting church key to pop the top of a beer can. With the pull tabs it was simple, you simply pulled the tab pin, it looked like a hand grenade pin, with a quick action, and then you quickly brought the foaming beer up to your lips...and in a matter of seconds you were drinkin', man, drinkin' beers, smoking cigars, and blabbing about sexual intercourse, which girls you wanted to make it with, and which you wouldn't touch with the proverbial ten-foot pole. About as much fun as a high-school-aged illegal beer drinker could have in those days.

Robert Elliott was chugging his first beer as Teo pulled the Ford out onto the road and soon they were back at the traffic circle.

"You hungry?" Teo asked.

"I could handle a good chili dog or a Pronto Pup right now."

"Let's check the drive-in scene out here."

They found a drive-in and ordered chili dogs laced with raw onions. The onions were supposed to cover up the smell of the beer. They hid their opened beers on the floorboard of the Ford when the waitress took the order and later when she brought the food. They sat eating the chili dogs and scoping whatever San Angelo babes they could spot they liked. Like the waitress. Dixie was her name. At least that's what it said on her uniform nametag. And Dixie was sweet. Tall. Long ivory legs looking sexually pale and inviting in the high Texas sunlight. "Damn, R.E., check out that Mexican chick over there." "Hay, caramba, what a cula!" Robert Elliott whooped. The boys were getting "the buzz" on. What made beer such a cool way to get drunk. The buzz. And the buzz got better the more cans you downed...and so did the girl ogling and the whooping it up.

"Guess we'd better be heading back? Wanna go back the same way, or the Wild West way!" Teo asked.

"Same way back, man," Robert Elliott said. "Time waits for no man."

"Wow, brilliant. Did you think of that!" Teo teased.

They were happy. They were in a new Ford. They had a case of cold beer...well, there were several beers missing from the case by the time Teo tooled the new Ford back out to the traffic circle and soon they were zipping along back down the way they had come in the first place.

It was late afternoon by now...way late...the sun an orange orb slowly sailing down to float just above the western horizon before it sank off the edge of the world and left behind one of its Van-Gogh-like sunset paintings in the darkening sky.

They had just sailed through Ballinger doing 70 when the motor of the Ford sputtered. Just a little sputter at first but a noticeable one.

"What the fuck...," Teo said.

Then there was another sputter. This time the car coughed out a backfire! Next thing they knew they were pulling the new Ford off onto the highway shoulder. There was smoke coming out from under the hood.

A 1956 Ford Custom Tudor. Teo's was white and pink.

Teo pulled the hood latch open from under the dashboard and then went around front and opened up the hood. Steam was freed in big gushes once the hood was up.

"We're boiling over!" Teo shouted.

Robert Elliott got out of the car. He faced west and caught a face full of mad sun, a mad sinking sun, burnt out, you might say, after broiling the earth without stop for 12 long hours. He got in the backseat and popped himself another Berghoff. The air was getting hotter not cooler he thought as he chugged half the beer down in one long open-throated gulp.

"I need something to take that radiator cap off," Teo said, coming around to the side of the car. It's boiling like a motherfucking volcano, man; I gotta get that cap off 'fore it blows. God-damn new car; there's no rags in it yet."

"Use your shirt!" Robert Elliott teased. "Or why can't we just let it cool down on its own...it ain't gonna blow! Look, it's calming down now. See. Have a cold one and relax. Enjoy the sunset."

"Holy crap!" Teo yelled, "come on, man, it's gonna get dark soon, let's flag a car down. I've probably got AAA if we can get somebody to drive us up to a phone. Where the fuck are we?"

"We just left Ballinger...what's next, Winters?" Robert Elliott answered, already opening another beer.

"Shit, Winters, yeah, I can phone from Winters...." He walked out and looked up and down the highway. "Here comes a car...let me see...." Teo started waving at an approaching car. The car whizzed by without a glance. "Hey, you fuckin' hick asshole!" Teo hollered at the car.

He came back to the car and had Robert Elliott pop him a beer.

"Look she's cooled down a lot," Robert Elliott said, "But where can we find some water around here?"

They both looked around. There was a fallow field to their right and across the highway to their left was a field of mesquites and prickly pears.

"Shit, a brand new fucking car and this happens!" Teo said then slugging back his beer in the same fashion Robert Elliott slugged his back.

"It's probably the timing or something."

"Yeah, it's the distributor cap--it's misfiring or something. Probably nothing serious."

"Maybe we drove too fast coming over here. Aren't you supposed to break them in?"

"Can't be the oil. The red light didn't come on."

"How about the fan belt slipping!" Robert Elliott said.

"Yeah, damn right, that could be it." Teo loped around to the front of the car again. "Yeah, son of a bitch, it's the fanbelt, man. Flag a car down, man."

Robert Elliott went out to the road. Way back up toward Ballinger he saw a car coming. He started waving his arms at it. The car was obviously traveling pretty damn fast. Then he could see it was a big car. A black car. It was coming fast as hell. He was flapping his arms like mad but the big car came on obviously with no intention of stopping or even avoiding Robert Elliott where he stood with one foot out on the highway. He jumped back just as the big black Caddy shot by. "You god-damn son of a bitchin' motherfuckin'...." Then he looked closer and his thoughts went back to when he was backing his dad's car out of the Lesser Mansion driveway and Teo's dad backed his big new Caddy out and then ran it at him. God-damn, he thought, that was Teo's dad that just almost ran me down. "Teo! Teo!" Robert Elliott ran to the front of the car. "Teo, guess what?" "What?" "That was your old man who just almost hit my ass out there!" "Did he see you?" "God-damn right he saw me. He saw you, too, man, it ain't that dark yet."

The next car coming Teo flagged it down. It stopped. It was a farmer type. "What's wrong, boys? Need some hep?" "Yeah, I got a loose fanbelt." "On that new Ford? Nice lookin' car. How's she runnin' otherwise." "Fine, we just wanna get back to Abilene 'fore sundown...." "You ain't gonna make it to Abilene 'fore sundown, give up on that, but I think I kin hep you boys." He went to his car, opened up his trunk, and came back with some tools. "Yeah, lemme take a look at that fanbelt." He went under the hood, got up on the bumper and leaned in over the fan and the fanbelt. He took a wrench and did something. Then he climbed out and back onto the ground. "That ought'a fix that. Now we jes' gotta get you boys some H2O and you'all shouldn't have no trouble gettin' back to Abilene." "I don't see any water for miles around here," Teo said. "No problem, I gotta a water can in my car, still half full of water."

"Son of a bitch," Teo said to Robert Elliott, "I may start believing in human beings again."

The man brought a big water can like they use on construction sites and stuff. Teo popped the radiator cap and the man and Teo hoisted the water can up and poured water into the radiator.

"There ya go, boys, ye're'as good as new now. Nice lookin' motor. How old's this car?"

"Brand new," Robert Elliott said.

"We owe you anything?" Teo asked.

"Naw. I will take a couple a'them beers youall are drinkin'--if they're cold."

"Damn right, take as many as you like."

As he was pulling away Robert Elliott noticed the deputy sheriff medallion on the car's back license plate.

"Look, man, that son of a bitch is a cop," Robert Elliott said as they climbed back into the Ford to see if it would start.

"Son of a bitch! You sure!"

"It said Runnels County Sheriff's Department then Deputy on that medallion over his license plate."

"Let's get the fuck out of here!" Teo said as the Ford started up fine and the motor was purring like a kitten and the temperature gauge was sitting on COLD. Teo pulled out onto the highway and soon they were tooling along again, drinking fresh beers, singing "Reelin' and a Rockin'" a recent Chuck Berry chart ascender, and back in their high-school-boy mode.

They went fifteen or so miles at 55 mph, it was beginning to get dusky, kind of dark already on the right side of the highway, the left side still lit up by the now half-sunk sun. Then Teo kicked it up to 65 and they were spinning along just fine when suddenly up ahead they saw a strange sight. It looked like a car had gone off the highway, you could just see the skidmarks on the highway and then the torn up shoulder. It looked like a car had skidded off the highway and gone down in a ditch. They couldn't tell. They didn't slow down but kept sailing along, the closer they got to the off-the-road car, the better they could see it, until almost on it, when they both immediately saw it was a big new black Caddy. Still not slowing down, they saw, yes, it had gone off the road, and, yes, it was down in a ditch, and, yes, it looked like a bad accident, and, yes, it was definitely Teo's father's car.

"Teo, stop, stop, that's your dad's car...."

Teo didn't stop.

"Teo, man, that's your dad...come on, man."

Teo didn't stop. In fact, Teo sped up. Teo sent that Ford to flying.

"Teo. Hey, man. Do you know what you're doing?"

Teo said, "Hand me another beer, R.E."

Robert Elliott handed Teo a beer. The beers were getting hot now. They'd drank over half a case, plus the ones they'd given to the deputy sheriff. They were, Robert Elliott assumed, drunk. He thought if they had to take a sobriety test they might fail it. Robert Elliott considered himself still in the buzz stage, though he was so confused right now over what had just transpired, still he thought himself rational in a sober sense.

Teo didn't say another word the short way back into Abilene. When he dropped Robert Elliott off at his house, he said, abruptly, "Give me a call tomorrow, man, I've got that new Ornette Coleman album I told you about." With that, Teo drove off toward home.

The next morning the headlines in the Abilene Reporter-News were wreathed in black with bold black font roaring the tragic fact that the C&W legend had been found dead--from an apparent heart attack it was declared--in his brand new Cadillac on Highway 83 coming back to Abilene from a radio broadcast he'd done in San Angelo.

Later that afternoon, Teo came by the house. He was feeling good, light-hearted, as if a big burden had been lifted off him. Why, he was even happy acting, very unusual for so cynical a young man. "Wanna go to Casey's?" He asked Robert Elliott.

"Yeah. Nothing else to do. Besides, I'm in the mood for some chili dogs."

"Yeah, me, too," said Teo, "piled high with raw onions."
_______________________________________________
The Highway to San Anglo
a 2-Part Serial
signed: Austin Highchew
___________________________________________
thestaff
for The Daily Growler

We Interrupt This Program

"We Interrupt Our Regular Broadcasting for the Following Special Report"
Can you imagine your mother and father, with bullwhips in hand, forcing you at the age of 4 to learn routines and to beat you into a genius who by five was a genius and was a entertainment puppet with his father's hand up his ass working the works. Michael Jackson was that puppet. Old Man Jackson's Pinocchio son, the family nestegg. Bullwhipping the five Jackson brothers into a world-class group, a prodigy group, with little Michael as the star, a star from the time he was born into the Gary, Indiana, Jackson clan. Jimmy Reed, the blues man, used to work in the steel mills of Gary in order to make a living so he could spin a new American music on the world, right there in Gary, Indiana, in the bars and slugfest joints near the steel mills; so did Eddie Taylor and Hounddog Taylor, and Muddy Waters, and Willie Dixon, and all those Chicago transplated Mississippi, Tennessee, and Saint Louis motherfuckers who turned American music upsidedown. Out of them came the Jackson Five. Jesus Christ, folks, they came out of these bluesmen who worked the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, where Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five were born and raised and heard the music on the radio or live in the joints, jukes, and clubs, heard Jimmy Reed singing how he'd found true love and how the boll weevil was wearing the overalls down in Mississippi while Jimmy and Hounddog and Eddie and Lefty Bates and Muddy and Willie and all of them were working their asses off in the steel mills and playing the juke joints at night, drinking that whiskey and gin, wearing them red suits and playing those Jimmy Reed Model Thin Twin Kay guitars, guitars made in Chicago, sunbursts, solid bodies, sweet-sounding guitars.
A 1957 Kay-made Sears & Roebuck Silvertone Jimmy Reed Model Thin Twin Gitbox

The Absolutely Genius American Music Inventor Jimmy Reed Playing His Kay Jimmy Reed Model Thin Twin Guitar--a Blonde One--Look at That Pick Guard!

You know Michael Jackson's old man made the boys listen to Jimmy Reed. I mean, come on, Jimmy Reed's music gave rise to The Push, and Michael Jackson is simply doing the Push when he's gliding--James Brown took the glide and added all those rocket-to-the-moon steps--watch James Brown and Michael Jackson when they're dancin' their asses off, they're always keepin' time with one heel, while manipulating the 1st, 4th, and 8th steps of the sequences. We used to do the North Texas Push--and shit, a good Pusher could double-step and glide and slide all over the slick floor. I watch Michael Jackson and yes I see James Brown but I also see Jimmy Reed and Houndog Taylor and houserockers all over in Texas and Detroit and Chicago and Lawsbanana and Alabanana and Memfast, Tennessee, and on the Mississippi at Saint Louie and East Saint Louie and up the river to Chitown, Sweet Home Chicago, and across Lake Michigan and into Detroit City, the Motor City, Motown--and then there were all those cool Detroit bluesmen like John Lee Hooker who Michael and the Boyz had to have heard...or maybe the great Clarence Carter--man, the boyz had to have heard Clarence Carter.

The Great Clarence Carter "Strokin' It"

Damn right I dug Michael Jackson. He was the epitome of Black-American music in this country; where OUR original blues led us--and Michael had jazz in him, too. I mean, come on, Quincy Jones loved this dude. When you were dealing with the future of American music you had to deal with Michael Jackson. Unlike a lot of the other Motown phenoms, Michael didn't rest on his laurels. I mean, come on, this dude wrote some of the greatest tunes ever written. I mean, listen to "Human Nature." What a fucking song. Miles did it it was so great. And, hell, Michael wrote the filmscore to "Ben," the great rat movie. Michael wrote that great "Centipede" that his sweet sister Rebbie recorded. That's a hell of a tune.

Sure Michael was weird. You'd be weird, too, if you were a celebrity at five, a millionaire at 12, and later so big time, you bailed the Beatles out of debt by buying all their music. That he was 500 million in debt at his death--who cares! Look at how that son of a bitch lived! The cards were stacked against him! I mean, come on, a rock star dying of a drug overdose! That's normal. At least he died in the business, rehearsing for a big Last Chance tour, which would have cleared up all his debts. [It's too bad President Obama couldn't bail out our national institutions like Michael Jackson instead of the criminal (child-abusers deluxe) banks and financial institutions--those who contribute nothing but detriment to our culture. Those who eventually wipe out great geniuses like Michael Jackson, take over his life, a life of body guards, accountants, lawyers, agents, parasites, all sucking the life out of the Queen Bee.]

I once saw a very good docudrama on Michael where he goes back to Alabama to the roots of his family and he walks around among shacks and sallow cottonfields and mud and ruts and unpainted frame shacks with sagging porches--and I saw the little son of a bitch actually start shedding tears as he walked up to a Jackson auntie or granny cabin to meet one of his ancient Jackson elders. Jesus, that was real. What wasn't real was Michael Jackson being mechanized into a commercial property. That's what kills all our Amurican geniuses. Elvis Presley, love him or hate him, was a masterer of the American blues/rock idiom, a black idiom, a blues idiom, a high-valued stylist who was remade and jerked around and PR'd to the point of zombieism--and Elvis died with his head in a toilet puking the drugs out of his dead system.

You'll see. Same thing in the case of Michael. A Doctor Nick (Elvis's pill-pushing dealer-doctor--with a license to kill by prescribing) is in Michael's life. A Doctor with a spike full of Heaven on Earth will be responsible for shooting Michael to death--shooting him up to death.

Yes, I made fun of Michael Jackson the freak, though he was no more a freak than Reggie Jackson or Jesse Jackson. I mean come on, can you imagine the expectations of you after "Thriller" becomes the greatest selling album of music ever recorded? Michael Jackson after that, and he wrote and produced "Thriller," too, was commercialized into a zombie. That's when his insecurities overtook him and he tried to become White like his handlers were telling him he had to become. "The White audience, Michael, that's your audience, not those darkie-ages Blacks--they're taking us back to the jungle, Michael, we need you, Great White Hunter, to lead us out of the jungle and into the White suburbs, where the money is."

And soon there was Liz Taylor, and Elvis's fucked-up daughter, and Madonna ("Come on, Mikey, don't you want to fuck me like all the other men in the world do?"), and all of 'em tried to climb on board. Plus he had to deal with supporting his whole otherside worthless family--his weird mother and even-weirder father; all his semi-talented brothers and no-talented sisters--where the hell would Janet Jackson be if Michael hadn't of paved the way? And the neurotic La Toya--posing nude in Playboy in order to divorce herself from moralistic Michael--even Janet later showing her hairy pussy in order to prove she was not infected with the Jackson bigendernaturality.

Michael Jackson was plasticized until he finally suffocated from the pressures of parasite handlers. Michael was smothered to death by fame and illfortune. If Michael had of been White? Go ahead, you figure it out.

Michael Jackson in the Glory Days

With high respect for an American genius,

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

A Mural in the Lobby of the Texas & Pacific RR Station in Albany, Texas, Circa 1935.

The Highway to San Angelo--a Serial in 2 Parts

Highway Cowboys (Part 1, The Highway to San Angelo)
We thought east and west and not north and south. East was the direction of the closest best chances of survival in the civilized senses. West was the direction of the Golden Gate, the farthest best chances of survival in the more glorious senses. East was the direction of joining the established. West was the direction dreamers took. No talk of evolution. Not in this land. Surely only gods and devils could have made such a fickle land. A testing land. A land where there's only faith and grit--not much in the way of hope. Hope was something you wore on your watch chain or bracelet as a charm. Usually symbolized by a ship's anchor--land being a sailor's only hope of salvation from the gulping monsters and savage storms of the seas. This land was a land where charms were necessary. The ancient people of this land used all the charms they could invent: rattles, drums, bird feathers, animal skulls and bones, porcupine quills, animal imitations, constant mesmerized dancing, the rhythms of this land stirring the feet, stirring the instincts...a land of wind dancers...a land learned in the ways of the instincts of the coyote, the bobcat, the puma, the Gila monster, the vinegaroon, the scorpion, the tarantula, the Child of God, the fox, the wolf, the bear, the bison, the mountain goat, the mountain sheep, the pronghorn antelope, the mustang, the ancient armadillo, the javelin--the horned toad, the rattlesnake, the chaparral, the wild turkey, the turkey buzzard, the red hawk, the eagle, the bat, the jackrabbit, the longhorn, the mesquite tree, the cedar tree, the shrub oak, the prickly pear, the goathead, the cockleburr, the wild grass, the wild wind, the home of loneliness and aloneness and lonesome song and lone wolves and mavericks and bandits and outlaws and sheriffs and deputies and the U.S. Cavalry, the Buffalo soldier, the drifter, the grifter, the flim-flammer, the gambler, the whore, the gunslinger, the rugged individual, the cottonpicker (the "wetback," bracero), the cedarchopper, the Comanche, the Apache, the Cherokee, the transplanted Chickasaw (the original "Indian Territory"--the gulag Jackson forced all the Native Americans he could force march out of the east to collect them in, to imprison them within their own concentration-camp territory--extended from all of Oklahoma over into western Missouri and then down southward to include a big chunk of north and central Texas) , the half breed, the hardtack--the constant praying for rain, rain dancing, shaking fists upward towards the high sky, calling down the saving rains. Dry. That's the key word for this country. Constant thirst. The high strong sun sucking the water up out of every living thing below it. All below it dependent on water for life! The sun sucking the water out of the land leaving wavy fields of sand and prepottery red clay, yards of caliche, a potash-infused earth, a gypsum-laced earth, artesian water, the water of the deep bowels of the earth--and of course oil and gas and oil and gas and oil and gas and fields of flares....

There were two ways to get to San Angelo from Abilene. Both had at one time been trails. Originally worn into paths by the Clovis people, the Aztec, Coronado's Children, by the Native Americans, by the stealthful humans and animals who used these trails to follow the enormous herds of bison and later as the highways for the huge herds of longhorn cattle being moved from the Mexican border and South Texas ranches up north to the Kansas railheads, to the cattle pens of Abilene, Dodge City, Atchison, Topeka, on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, the railroad that carried those carloads and carloads and carloads of live Mexican-Texas cattle to their deaths in the great slaughterhouses of Omaha and Chicago. One of those old trails was the longest and scariest way to San Angelo, leaving out of far southwest Abilene city limits, out the Capps Highway, over the Santa Fe tracks at View, Highway 277, heading south to Happy Valley then on to Bronte (Charlotte or Emily, take your pick)--that way. The other way to San Angelo was the quickest way. The modern way. Out Butternut Street, out to the Buffalo Gap Highway, then onto Highway 83, following the Abilene & Southern railroad tracks over the Callahan Divide, all the way to Ballinger where you pealed off onto Highway 87--that way. That was the fastest way. The much-better highway. You could do a 100 mph on Highway 277 but it was deadly scary if you did. 100 mph on Highway 83 wasn't so scary. They kept that highway in great shape. By the 1950s, it was two lanes going out of Abilene and over the cut-down Callahan Divide. A superslick highway.

In those days there was only one reason for an Abilenean of any kind to go to San Angelo. That was booze. San Angelo was in Tom Green County and Tom Green was a wet county. Abilene was in Taylor County. Abilene had been founded as a planned city. Laid out by the Texas & Pacific Railroad, the Tee Pee, the center of town the railroad station and stock pens, the town divided by the train tracks into a north side and a south side. The North Side was the established part of Abilene; the South Side was the wild side. Courthouse Square on the Southside was where the cowboys hung out, where the wagon yard was, where the stables were, where the stockman hotels were, where the Buffalo soldiers hung, where blacks (like the famous Black cowboy Bill Pickett) and whites mixed and Native Americans hung around, where the court house and the sheriff's office and jail was, all in the Taylor County Courthouse where the hanging judges held court, where the public hangings, if necessary, were held, in the side park, a shady little park with a covered bandstand in the middle of it. The Northside was the side where the old rich lived and where the big churches were--where the church-run colleges were. The Southside was where the fun was--the Southside was home of the cheap movie houses, the greasy spoon coffee shops, and the last remaining cathouse in Abilene, the T&P Hotel on South First, an establishment where many a young Abilene boy lost his virginity--and caught his first case of crabs or if a regular patron perhaps a sweet case of gonorrhea. The T&P Hotel where Uncle Johnny, a big bellied always smilin' Black man, sat in a cane-bottomed chair and would greet and screen every living thing that came up off the street to go into the hotel. "How, y'all, today, Mistah Suh? That yo' boy? Fine lookin' y'ungin', Mistah Suh. Takes all after his fatha, I bet'cha!" Then Uncle Johnny would open the screen door for you and in you'd go: up to the front desk where the heavily perfumed and ostentatiously adorned Miss Callie was the desk clerk. "I'm sorry, sir, but our rooms are only rented by the hour...and, oh, too, you must be accompanied to the room by one of my attendant ladies...." Seven bucks an hour. A lot of money in them thar days. For seven bucks you got laid, or if you couldn't get it up, it got you a long conversation about the unfairnesses of life from a couple of angles. For seven bucks you didn't get to pick; you got what you were given, beauty or beast; them was the chances you took.

The original Abilene was wide open prior to its being settled long enough to have a Northside style and a Southside style. In the early days, Abilene was founded in 1881, there were bars and whore houses every 50 feet or so along Pine Street, the big main street on the north side of the Tee Pee tracks. And there was the same thing over the tracks on the south side along Poplar Street, and especially around where the cowboys hung out, South Second up past South Third. Once the town was settled and the parts of town got to be defined by the people who lived in them, the do-gooders took over and that spelled the doom of Abilene's sites of sin. The do-gooders ran the bars and whore houses, except for the T&P Hotel, out of town, and turned Taylor County "Christian" and therefore dry in terms of licker, wine, and beer.

There were closer places to Abilene than San Angelo where you could get booze. Like Breckenridge. Breckenridge was 65 miles east of Abilene over in the old Ranger Oil Field. Breckenridge started as an oil boomtown, but after the boom ended, it kept its wet state and was home to several big side-of-the-highway liquor stores. One problem with going to Breckenridge, though, was the highway that got you there. It was not as well-kept as Highway 83 to San Angelo was. It was not a straight-shot highway like 83 either; Highway 180 was tricky with sudden bad curves and wind-around-hills stretches. Like you could no way do 100 mph on Highway 180. It was hard to even do 65 or 70 steady on that road.

Highway 180 departed Abilene out past Holy Hump, where Abilene Christian College sat then and still does now, except it's a university now. The highway then snaked out past the old Hashknife Ranch land to then suddenly drop sideways off the high mesa you never knew you were riding on. The highway took long broad swoops off that mesa that was known locally as Albany Hill as it bullwhipped down into the old ranching town of Albany. It then snaked out of Albany and then snake-climbed to hit another mesa-level stretch that flung you on into Breckenridge. Theoretically, you could 'round-trip-it to San Angelo on superslick highway 83 quicker than you could do it to Breckenridge on the precarious Highway 180.

A big difference between Abilene and San Angelo, too, at least in the minds of Abileneans, was the difference between raising cattle and raising sheep. Abilene was Hereford country. Herefords were the heartiest cattle on earth in those days, developed in the Abilene-Lubbock area--there's a Hereford, Texas, up on the Cap Rock--they are stocky, beefy, dry-land-living-dry-grass-eating cattle. Why there was no steak for years around Abilene like an aged Hereford steak! Grilled over a mesquite wood fire! or a live-oak or pecan fire--different woods different flavors.

San Angelo on the other hand was at that time and had been for a long time the wool capital of the world! San Angelo was on the Edwards Plateau and the Edwards Plateau was a well-watered plain of old grassland. It was sheep country! And cattlemen hated sheepmen! Sheepmen put up fences! Cattlemen hated fences. "Give me room lots of room 'neath the starry skies above/Don't fence me in," Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers used to sing on the area jukeboxes. Or Eddy Arnold, The Tennessee Plowboy, was singing, "He's brown as a berry, from ridin' the prairie/Out where the doggies roam/As he rides along, he's singing his song/Singin' his cattle call." Followed by a lonesome yodel! Now give me a sheepherder song! In the opening scene of one of Roy Rogers's 1940s movies, his sidekick, Gabby Hayes, is shootin' his Winchester repeater madly at a bunch of sheepherders who are asking permission to drive their sheep through Gabby's cattle range to get to a watering hole. As he fires at these poor sheepmen, he's hollering, "Sheeeep, ohhhhh how I hate sheep! And sheepherders, oooooooh how I hate...Git off my property, you sorry..."

San Angelo's cowboys were sheepmen. OK, they had cattlemen down there, too. San Angelo had the Santa Fe Railroad--and the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railroad, too--and, San Angelo was on a cattle trail. San Angelo also had had the US Calvary down there at Fort Concho--over at Fort Chadbourne. Abilene was on the Butterfield Trail and the Butterfield Trail passed through Fort Chadbourne, which was just west of San Angelo.

Abilene's high-class cowboy hotel was the Abilene Hilton, one of the first-ever Hilton hotels, the first one established in Cisco, Texas, 30 miles east of Abilene on old Highway 80. The Abilene Hilton later became the Windsor. In the lobby of the Abilene Hilton was a mural depicting a cattle drive. The high-class cowboy hotel in San Angelo was the Cactus.

The Abilene Hilton on the left; San Angelo's Cactus Hotel on the right.

So, there you go, San Angelo, as far as Abileneans were concerned, was blasted for having sheep but blessed by having booze.

For some reason, and even to this day it's not clear in his head, he remembers he was with his best friend, it was a summer afternoon, they were 17, in Abilene High together, and this best friend had just been given a new 1956 Custom Ford coupe as a birthday present by his father. His father was a big shot Country Western (C&W) star who was nationally famous and had oodles of money. Rather than love his first-born son he spoiled him, building him his own apartment in the family mansion with its own private entrance and filling that apartment with the latest stuff, like a hi-fi record player and hundreds of records, a small well-stocked library, and a closet full of cool clothes. So this guy's best friend accepted all these spoils though in return he meanly despised his father. What kind of "dad" is it who gives his son material offerings instead of relative love and understanding, he was constantly asking.

Robert Elliott and his best friend Teo sat on the floor of Teo's private apartment in the far back out-of-the-way corner of his parents's mansion in the swanky new Abilene neighborhood called Elmwood West.

"So, listen, man," Robert Elliott said to Teo, "let's go break in that fucking car."

"Fuck that car and the fat bastard who gave it to me. Fuck him. I have a good mind to plough that god-damn car straight into his new Cadillac."

"Yeah, I saw the Caddy when I drove up. In fact, shit, I parked behind him...."

"Oh fuck yeah, you better get your ass out there and move it before...." Teo was yelling as Robert Elliott flew out the door of the apartment and raced around to move his car that really was his dad's car. He got there just in time because just as he got to his car Teo's father all dressed up in his Western suit and high crown Stetson came bowling out of the mansion's driveway-side side door.

"Sorry, Mistah Lesser, I'm movin' it, don't worry." "Yeah, good. Don't ever park behind me again," he meanly growled as he got into his bright and shiny brand new Cadillac, a truly cool black Sedan de Ville. A long slim sleek beauty of a luxury car. No one could deny it was a good-looking car. "Don't worry, Mistah Lesser, it won't happen again."

He backed his dad's car out into the street and waited as Teo's dad backed his Caddy out. When the Caddy was out of the driveway, Teo's dad goosed the gas to that big car, burnt rubber, and in a scary lunge raced the Caddy right square-dab at his dad's car only to whiz just passed, almost sideswiping him. Then Robert Elliott pulled his dad's car into where the big Caddy had been. Teo's mother's beauty of a '56 Chevy was in the far garage of the triple gargage and parked behind it was Teo's new Ford coupe. "Lucky Teo," Robert Elliott thought as he made his way back to Teo's apartment.

"Your dad almost sideswiped me!"

"Yeah. What happened?"

"I got out there just as he was coming out the kitchen door. I was cool. I told him I was moving it and he told me...like, 'Don't ever park behind me again!'...I said, 'Yassuh, Massuh.'"

"Shit. Fuck him. Park behind him anytime you want. Was he drunk?"

"I don't know, Teo. I backed out into the street and he backed out and then put the pedal down and I thought he was gonna hit me head on."

"Son of a bitch. God, I hate that bastard."

"Come on, man, let's take the Ford out for a test drive."

"You know what we should do?"

"What?"

"Let's drive over to Breckenridge and get some fucking beer."

"Come on, man. We can't buy beer in Breckenridge."

"Little Whiny told me they don't check your ID if you act like you're cool and older, you know, just walk in, grab a case of beer, pay for it, and sail out of there. That simple."

To Be Continued...tune in again tomorrow, same time, same station...

thestaff
for The Daily Growler

Lester Young's autograph.

Another Visit From the Jots & Tittles Man

The Daily Growler Proudly Presents Another Sampling of Jotting and Tittling From the Odoriferous Shores of Lake Flaccid in Upstate New York By Barabbas Munn-Dayne, the Jots & Tittles Man--"All Hail" Rings Through the Adirondack Firs

I was down in New York City last Sunday to attend the Hillary Hahn recital at Town Hall--and I love Town Hall. What a comfortable and intimate place to hear anything from a rabblerousing speech to a full symphony orchestra--though I complained that either Town Hall's acoustics were faulty or Hilary didn't play with enough verve for me. For blaming Town Hall acoustics I got a dressing down from thedailygrowlerhousepianist's wife, a truly beautiful and interesting woman I got to know for the first time at the concert, who works for Town Hall, as she defended the hall as having the finest acoustics of all the NYC concert joints. OK, so it was Hilary Hahn's lack of verve then I openly concluded, which garnered me a dressing down from thedailygrowlerhousepianist. He thought Hilary played marvelously (plus Hilary, 29 years old, is a very attractive young lady--healthy, am I allowed to put it that way?)--he added to that that he thought she was a brilliant performer--he said she played Ives's 2nd Violin & Piano Sonata the best he'd ever heard it played! I shut my mouth. Classical music ain't my main speed, though I'm not dumb to it; I did take piano lessons as a scatterbrained youth.

After this occasion, I dropped in on the The Daily Growler penthouse offices, in the basement under Filene's Basement Store, the one up near Chambers Street. There I met a very strange gentleman, Austin Highchew, a guy I had been reading lately in The Growler. This guy just suddenly appeared one post, introducing himself and intimating that he "may be" taking thegrowlingwolf's place in this continuing-present "news-spews-views"paper (post)--then he wrote in the next post what I thought was a well-written piece on the origins of thegrowlingwolf character in terms of fictional reality.

I happen to know thegrowlingwolf's a real person. I've spent days with the dude. At least he's the guy Franny & Zoe, the two-headed girl reporter, introduced me to as thegrowlingwolf the first time I met him. I clearly remember this was the guy I dined with that first evening after I met him. He trotted me down to his fav Irish pub where we committed unforgivable sins dining on specially prepared squabs and drinking huge precarious slugs from a bottle of Jameson's Gold and washing those down with Guinness Stout poured so particularly carefully for us by the owner himself of this Irish establishment in which the Wolf Man is a privileged customer--I was amazed at how the staff kissed Wolfie's ass (he prefers being called Mr. Wolfe by men--"Wolfie" by women)--one waitress in particular seemed to think he hung the moon he howls at. She was all over him seeking his advice about a ring she'd just bought. The wolf-human seemed to know all about that damn ring, talking about the setting and the cut of the stone, in this case an orange sapphire. "Is it a real sapphire, Wolfie?" the waitress asked him trustfully. He held it up several ways and then, son of a bitch, he pulled a jeweler's ten-power loupe out of his pocket and studied the stone. "Oh yeah, this is nice--I see a couple of flaws but they're off in a corner there and besides they can't be seen by a human eye. I might ask the guy for a few hundred back though just to show him you know what you're talking about...com'yere and I'll show you, sweetheart." She looked through the loupe and came up heartbroken. After she left the table, I said something about him hurting her feelings. He laughed--a horse laugh. "Man, this is my business. I can't lie to the girl. I'm an honest appraiser. I hung around 47th Street [the New York City diamond district] for years--my best friend on the street was Andy the Angelic Jew and his Russian girlfriend Rilka--I mean what that son of a bitch didn't know about the gem and diamond world wasn't known. He'd been born and raised in Amsterdam. His dad had been one of the world's biggest diamond dealers before he was found shot to death out back of the Amsterdam airport one night. Andy blamed it on Israelis--he hated Israelis--Andy's family were Swiss Jews--descendant of the Rothschilds! He hated Russians, too, and this is when the Russians started coming to this country by the droves, settling out around Sheepshead Bay--black market diamonds are all over Russia, according to Andy." The Wolf Man talked on for 15 more minutes about his hanging on 47th Street, and all the tricks of the trade he learned there. "I can test gold, too, buddy."

Just yesterday, I read that tailend of the Growler where they said the Wolf Man is going to run a Website on American Music--intimating that he may be leaving the Growler, which brings me back to this Austin Highchew character. He's dapper. Dressed to the nines as we used to brag. Armani? Bruno Madernos (a la the Juice!)? Custom-made shirt. A very sporty pork-pie hat (a la Prez). He was easily approached, shook hands like a real man, but didn't say much. If you ask him a question, he was blunt and that was it. "Where you from, Austin?" "I don't remember." OK. OK. How do you handle a dude like that? "You want a coffee, Austin?" "Coffee's so plebeian, isn't it?" OK. OK. I brought him a black coffee and he slugged it down. "Want some bourbon in the next cup?" "That's what was wrong with that cup of coffee. God."

Strange man. But then some people think I am, too, so you never know, do one?
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Jots & Tittles

--from Philip Wylie: "The most significant dissenters from Faith are the learned men. Scientists, that is, and scholars, statesmen, doctors of medicine, authors, artists, lawyers and judges, schooled experts in finance and industry; these are so rare among religious congregations that a church possessing even one chemist will boast of his membership as a warrant of Joseph Smith or Jesus, and I cannot think of an anthropologist who seriously acknowledges Virgin, Trinity or Cross." An Essay on Morals. I am sad to say that on New York City television both Benny "the Huckster" Hinn and thedailygrowlerofficialspiritualleaderandhousepastor Melissa Scott have lost their slots. They're off the New York City airwaves. I assume they were behind in their bills. The bullshit artist supreme Kenneth Copeland and the superbullshit artist doublesupreme Pat "As Phony as a Three-Dollar Bill, Which He'll Accept as an Offering" Robertson are still blabbing their fabulous crap over We the People's airwaves. I know Melissa Scott's off the air is a great loss to Growler cynics!

--On April 28th at a press conference, President Obama said that illegal immigrant workers do affect the wages of US workers. So, dammit, do something about it--like how about nuking Mexico!

--Charles Kernaghan, a great American, said G.W. Bush's attitude toward common labor was "Fuck it." Bush said we are now a technology/computer science country--as a result we are billions of dollars in debt to the Chinese in the hi-tech market. Kernaghan goes on to say that a corporation's products are tightly controlled by patent laws, copyright laws, etc., while workers who make the products aren't protected at all. Corporations say worker rights are an impediment to free trade! We all tend to forget that our 19th-Century Supreme Court declared corporations "citizens" same as you and I when it comes to Constitutional rights and privileges. They did this back in the up-and-going days of the Industrial Revolution when guys like John D. Rockefeller through Standard Oil was monopolizing the country's wealth!

--Did you know that Bangladesh children & young adults tear down outused tankers that are brought to Bangladesh for demolition? These young people climb into the pitch dark holds of these huge ships and there in that darkness on bamboo ladders, one hand holding a torch while with the other hand these young people tear away the asbestos from the hulls. By the way, if they fall off the ladders they are left to their fate in the deepest darkness below. These poor boobs are paid 15-cents an hour for this horrible work. Then they torch-cut out big hunks of steel plate, which these kids haul on their backs to the metal stamping machines. These kids have to work because of the utter poverty they live in. Due to their doing this work for 15-cents an hour when they are 12 to 18 means their life expectancy is, if they're lucky, around 25-to-30 years. Hurray for Capitalism!

--George Clinton said "Free your mind and your ass will follow."

--A thought: The Power Elite use "secrecy" to cover up their fuck ups.

--New companies advertising on TV:
1) Premier Bathrooms for Cripples (I kid you not)--"Premier transformed my life," a satisfied customer testifies on the ad.

2) Strange car names: the Chevy Cobalt (sounds like a cancer treatment); how about Honda's The Insight?

3) Ever heard of the Alli Bank before? Me neither, but they are advertising all over teevee.

4) How about My Medical Shoppe? Ever heard of them? Their ad has an actress-customer saying, "I depend on My Medical Shoppe pharmacist." She doesn't say for what she depends on him for--I hope not diagnostic advice! And how about the olde-fashioned way of spelling shoppe?

5) From a car commercial--can't remember the car--"Socrates said, 'You gotta know what you don't know.'" I don't know if Socrates talked like that, but that's what the car ad says.

6) In Colonial-Penn Life Insurance's commercial where they use Alex Trebeck as their spokesman they run a crawl under him while he's prattling on about how you better have some life insurance when you die or who the hell's going to bury you? that says "Mr. Trebeck is a Compensated Endorser" and you better believe if they didn't pay Mr. Trebeck, he'd be long gone from that commercial. This is the commercial that Ed McMahon used to do until he got so old and feeble and Alzheimer'sish they canned him.

7) And how about the NEW Chevrolet commercial for Chevyoffers.com. An online Chevy dealership that says it hands out "government-backed" auto loans. Obama! Why'd you give our auto industry right back into the hands of those who wrecked it in the first place? Backward thinking, as the Wolf Man calls it.

--Oh No, Say It Ain't So, Naomi! An article in the Growler style by Naomi Prinz in the latest Mother Jones.

Wed June 17, 2009 7:07 PM PST

On Wednesday, after weeks of the requisite press leaks and prefabricated spin, the Obama administration released details of its new "rules of the road" financial regulations, which had been billed as the most sweeping overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression.

Obama, alas, is no FDR. Roosevelt's New Deal reforms included the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which split complex financial institutions into commercial banks (for consumers) and investment banks (for speculators). This enabled government to safeguard the boring, conventional activities of consumer banking without insuring the dice-rolls of high-risk investors. His reforms also opened the banking sector to independent audits to ensure financial soundness—as opposed to just taking the banks' word for it, as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's recent stress tests effectively did—and established the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which helped people at risk of foreclosure cover their mortgages.

Read the rest at www.motherjones.com/

Naomi Prinz is an Economist who used to work for Goldman-Sachs (crooks) and Bear-Stearns (crooks)--now she's spilling the beans on her former employers!
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Well, I'm back in my comfy cottage on the shores of Lake Flaccid again. Playing my new Paul Stanley Silvertone electric guitar I bought on eBay for $150.00. NO, I'm not a musician, though I already can play this guitar as well as any rock guitar players I see on the local teevee. Maybe I'll try out for American Idol the next time they hold auditions here in Lake Flaccid. Oh, look, another dinner invitation in my mail from Cecil the Dog-faced Boy III. Hot damn. Pheasant under Glass fresh in from the plains of Nebraska, according to Cecil. Jeez, I can't remember when I had pheasant under glass last! Can you?

barabbasmunn-daynethedailygrowlerjots&tittlesman
for The Daily Growler

A The Daily Growler Sports Extra from marvelousmarvbackbiter

I was just talking to a New York City Joe at the CitiBank ATM machine on 34th and Fifth. He was wearing a Yankees Jeter shirt and an NYY cap so I just asked him calmly how he felt about the Yankees this year. "I ain't watchin' 'em, that's how I feel about 'em. Fuck 'em!" "What's wrong with them?" "It's the way they treated the fans. I ain't payin' no fuckin' 35 fuckin' dollars to sit in the bleachers at the new phony stadium. A billion dollars that stadium cost? What's worth a billion dollars in there, the fuckin' sushi restaurant? What would the Babe think of them serving sushi at Yankee Stadium? Pussies!" "How about A-Rod batting .245. No hits in his last 50 at bats?" "A-Fraud Joe Torre called that phony bastard. Jeter, now there's a real ballplayer. I'm still a Jeter fan. Check out the shirt. I watched the fuckin' Washington Gnats beat the shit out of the Yankees the other night on Channel 9. Jesus, even the fuckin' Mets can beat the fuckin' Gnats!" "You miss Joe Torre?" "Don't even go there, motherfucker. Don't even go there. What a stupid fuckin' god-damn silly move that asshole Steinbrenner...that bastard. Don't even go there." He shut up on that one. I had just read where Joe Torre was now the 5th winningest manager of all time. I'm happy for Joe but god-dammit, I'm not happy he's having such success with the fuckin' Dodgers, as my Yankee pal on the street would have called them--9 games ahead of the Giants in their division. A pretty substantial lead for this time of year--and Manny Ramirez is coming back soon after serving his without pay punishment for using female hormones--Jesus, how stupid--and with Manny back--it's a guarantee that for the second straight year, Joe's taking the Dodgers to the playoffs. All the while Joe Gerardi even with the highest paid bunch of heavy hitters in baseball is struggling to hold on to second place in the American League East, 3 games in back of the Red Sox, but only one game ahead of hot-and-cold Toronto who are currently on a hot streak. The Red Sox have beaten the Yankees 12 out of 12 this year--their last year under Joe Torre the Yankees dominated the Red Sox and near the end of the season they shot into first place by beating the Red Sox five in a row. They then could have easily won the league pennant except suddenly A-Rod and the rest of the millionaires quit hitting. Then the pitching staff fell apart--it was about this time the Steinbrenners were forcing single-A minor league pitchers on Joe's burdened ass--one of which was whiz kid Jabo Chamberlain who in single A ball was throwing 100 mph fast balls like it was a second nature to him--and he was great as long as Joe used him to pitch the eighth inning to lead into Mariano Rivera coming in to close the game down. The Yankees, in spite, of after winning 5 straight over the BoSox, went on to lose 7 in a row to the likes of the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays. Still Joe got the Wild Card and went into the playoffs against the Cleveland Indians. Joe and the Yanks were taking care of Cleveland until that 7th game--and Jabo Chamberlain panicked when a bunch of gnats attack him--and Joe Torre did fuck up--he didn't force the umpires to call the game until the gnats were dispersed--and left Jabo in the game--and Jabo went to pieces and the Yanks got knocked out of the playoffs by the Indians. It was just as the Yankees were going into this series that Steinbrenner shot his asshole mouth off and said if Joe didn't win this playoff series his job was in jeopardy. The FOOL. So, we Yankee fans lost our beloved Joe Torre to the low-life looked-down-upon Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York City-hated Dodgers, where Joe said, it might take awhile to get this young team into shape, which he did his first season there, taking the unexpected to win shit Dodgers into the playoffs where he lost to the eventual World Champs, the Philadelphia Phillies. [The Dodgers currently, with a .657 winning percentage, are the best team in the Majors!]

The Mets? The Mets are losers again this year same as last year same as the year before last year when the Mets fired Willie Randolph--a much better manager than Jerry Manuel; yet, hey, Jerry Manuel could speak Spanish and since the Mets were an all-Spanish ball team--yo, man, dig the need to fire Willie unfairly and give the team to Jerry "Yo Hablo Espanol" Manuel. The Mets can't get themselves together. One game they play great; the next game they play like bush leaguers. However, K-Rod is one hell of a great closer. He's the next Mo Rivera, I think. However, the Mets don't seem to be going anywhere different than they went last year. Gary Sheffield, however, is one hell of a surprise! And the Yankees gave up on Sheffield.

It's a sad baseball season for New Yorkers. Still, there are people going to the games in spite of the prices and the Mets's stadium named after the criminal CitiGroup! Oh well. Maybe one day the Yankees will get rid of the Steinbrenners.... I'm not holding my breath.

marvelousmarvbackbiter
for The Daily Growler Sports Extra

Old Massuh and the Fieldhands

"Hey, Boss Man"
I watched "shuck and jive" commercial teevee Sunday morning just long enough to see how creepy this country's Power Elite are becoming at a point in history where they are on the brink of owning the wealth of all nations. All the right-wing Sunday morning "news" shows were packed with idiot Repugnicans, the main nutjob showing up to put in his 1-cent's worth of illogic was loser and still Vietnam-brain-scrambled near-billionaire thanks to his marrying a beer and whiskey peddler's daughter and who was a protege of Charlie Keating the savings and loan swindler who's swindling led to We the People's bailing out the crooked savings and loan industry in this country--all that glorious introduction for John "Vietnam Nutjob" McCain.

McCain looked stupider than usual, but he was in good Yahoo spirits. He looked very comfortable, looking like he'd just had one of those $400 haircuts Johnny "Fuckin' Around on his Cancer-Riddled Wife" Edwards was famous for. Nutjob McCain did not seem worried one bit about credit card debt, being foreclosed on any of his many mansions around the country, no recalls of any of his 12 luxury automobiles--which sends me on a tangent: like, how come no one has come up with putting the "luxury tax" back into existence again--you know, a luxury tax on Lear Jets, yachts, private islands, excess bonuses (aren't those luxury payoffs? shouldn't they be subject to a gift tax?), limos, helicopters, diamonds, cell phones!

McCain of course was on this worthless piece-of-shit show to criticize President Obama [and trust me, folks, all these Repugnican Obama criticisms are based on Obama's letting his "black side" image dominate his "white side" (his mother's side--the main side--with Obama badmouthing his father this week, saying fathers shouldn't be like his father though he did backpeddle and say his father introduced him to basketball and jazz, which, in the words of Convited Felon Martha Stewart, are "good things")--in other words, racism is the basis for all Repugnican criticism of Obama. McCain is such a droopy, impotent, girly man! What a dipstick. Yet, there was our commercial teevee millionaire propaganda jockeys interviewing him as though, "God-dammit, Jawin' John, I think the Amurican people see now where you had the best ideas afterall now that the nigg...er-ah, Kneegrow is in office and seemingly with his nose up the terrorists asses--and, yes, John, we, too, wonder sometimes about Obama's allegiance, since like you brought up there is some doubt as to whether he is legally an Amurican citizen."

Then I saw the infamous Mitch McConnell on another of those right-wing firebrand shows and he, too, was attacking Obama on the grounds that "a common houseboy" was over his wooly-booly head in terms of running the White Man's House, a house where at normal best, according to the Repugs, he and his gorilla-related wife would be cleaning the shit houses in that sacred White Man's Plantation House rather than being the head honcho there. Why, if old Tom Jefferson were to walk in the White Man's House today, he'd order Obama to fetch him a bottle of good French wine, tagging it with "Boy" and not "Mr. President" [Repugnicans would love to use the word "nigger" but they haven't let that slip yet. In terms of Michelle Obama's favoring a gorilla, YES, one of those brilliant Deep South Repugnicans did get brave around his White brethren and call Michelle Obama a gorilla-woman, but that wasn't deemed a racial insult by commercial teevee. Just some old south nutjob having a little Amurican ridiculous fun!]

And how about the New York State Senate's being taken over by a bunch of Yahoo Repugnicans with the help of a low-life Latino scumbag, Speedy Gonzales Espada (knife in the back), jumping the aisle to declare himself president pro temp of the NYState Senate! Heave the rascals out, we all cry, but they tell us back that there is no recall of senators in the NYState Constitution! Great, so in the meantime, We the People of New York State and New York City are suffering losing jobs, our rents and taxes going up, tolls on highways and bridges, higher sales taxes, higher public transportation costs, wholesale rezoning of New York City neighborhoods and a taking over of Manhattan by mostly foreign private-equity investment groups--the Brits, the Israelis, the Saudis, the Royal Family of Dubai, the Communist Chinese--Donald Trump, that national eyesore!

This is the Age of the Crook, the Flim-Flammer, the Swindler, the False Prophet, the Sidewinder, the Robber Baron, the Schemer, the Pawnbroker, the Banker, the Broker, the Joker, the Privileged, the Nest Egg Guardian.... Squash the poor like you squash a stupid bug! Bringing down the bootheel of power on the necks of We the People of the USA--we the suckers! We who beg for help and mercy and relief. We who get nothing in return but more sacrificing, more having our homes and land stolen from us--leaving millions of us to live in tent cities--leaving millions of us without jobs--leaving millions of us stranded in the jungle of luxury costs on what should be essential services like healthcare, housing, the pursuit of happiness. I do not want to live like The Donald. His style of life is gaudy and wasteful to me! His is a hick's aesthete. Did the Donald graduate high school? Did the Donald go to college?--or was college for him sitting at his dad's private table in the 21 Club (it started as a speakeasy--in other words, an illegal drinking establishment for the lushlife, high-boozing, conspicuously big spenders of Upper-Class New York City during those stupid Prohibition years--the New York City Upperclass, by the way, does include Mafia dons, their wives and families, low-end political criminals like Rudi Giuliani and Bernie Keric and high-end swindlers like Carl Ichan, who the City of New York named a Randall's Island stadium after)? [There used to be a statue of Lewis Wolfson in the original old Pan-Am Building (now the Met-Life Building, unless Met-Life has sold it to a foreign investment group and I haven't heard about it). Then Lewis was busted for Wall Street shenanigans and went off to prison. The statue then disappeared.] [Question: whatever happened to the Goodyear blimps that used to cover sporting events and shit? Now it's the Met-Life blimp. Now there's a Met-Life Bank, too.]

We the People have the power--a power in numbers if nothing else, but we are all spoiled brats. We are all hornswaggled into submission; mesmerized by that old phony American Dream bullshit. We are scared shitless every day of our lives. Swine flu. Meteorites heading dead-on at us. A North Korean nuke missile hitting Hawaii. Believe it or not, now the Repugnican nutjobs are calling for nuclear weapons for Japan! (I kid you not, I heard Footballer-Reagan Gay Club member-Politician Jack Kemp's speechwriter now a member of Congress saying that this morning on one of those Krusty-the-Clown right-wing-promotion shows). E Coli is now in our cookie dough (first it was spinach, then peanut butter, now cookie dough). Al-Queda now is regrouping and reaiming at us--AND from WHERE: how about Gaza! Yep, the filthy A-rabb dog Palestine is now the homeland of a reemerging Al-Queda! This Al-Queda's intent is of course the destruction of God-blessed and American-financed Israel. The Pentagon propaganda machine has trotted out some old "so-said" Al-Queda training films where a bunch of black-hooded, camouflage-uniform-wearing dark-skinned-looking dudes are leaping and bounding around in some desert sands firing off AKAs. I mean, these could be US soldiers making a docudrama! But there they are, and the talking head announcer says, yes, these are Al-Queda trainees and they're thick as hops and training first-class in GAZA--their intent, obtaining nuclear weapons with the objective of annihilating Israel.

The weapons blackmarket is doing fine; in fact, the weapons industry has never been better. Gun sales are zooming up. AKA sales are going through the roof. Why, you can even buy missiles and perhaps high-grade uranium on the black market now, too. It was interesting to recently read that the USA had bought a billion dollars worth of uranium from Russia! The talking heads reported this saying it was necessary in order to fuel the whole bunch of new nuclear power plants that are soon to come on line in spite of the people of those areas not wanting them. Like We the People of New York City are begging the energy czars to shut down leaky old Indian Point nuclear facility that is on the verge of exploding just 25 miles north of New York City. "Don't worry," I once heard a NYC politician say, "a disaster at Indian Point at the most would kill only 250,000 of us!" So relax and turn that air-conditioner skyhigh!

Here in New York City, we've had a rain-soaked end-of-May and all of June so far. Now, however, our weather jokers are predicting temperatures in the high eighties come next week. Here it comes. A New York City sweltering summer. Anything over 90 in New York City crucifies you. Nails you to your energy-gobbling air-conditioners. Most people who work in office buildings no matter where are breathing recycled air! I once watched as a worker took the filters out of the air-conditioning system in an office where I worked. I swear there were living things in the muck of that filter! The last office building I worked in had sealed windows. I have lived in New York City for 30 years now without an air-conditioner. It gets brutal when it's up around one hundred, but I figure if Al-Queda can train in 115-degree Palestinian desert air and survive enough to blow up New York City yet another day, I can surely survive another New York City summer. 87-89 they're predicting for the coming week. That's holy hell, but still easily survivable. It's when the temperature hits 98 to 100 and stays there for 8 or nine days in a row, that's what the true Hell is like. "Yes, Virginia, there really is a Hell. It's New York City in the summer time. Or worse, Washington, District of Corruption, in the summer time. Or how about downtown Baltimore on a 98-degree day!"

I just switched off Brother Jack Van Impe's early-morning Christian-Fearmongering broadcast--it's 3:30 am Monday morning as I write this. Brother Jack was hot with WARNINGS, comparing Obama's "naivete" with that of the Brit fop Neville Chamberlain and his meetings with Adolph "Half-Jewish" Schickelgruber right before Schickelgruber trick-bagged the fop Brit Power Elite and did a behind-the-back shuffle into Poland and Czechoslovakia! The half-Amurican Winnie Churchill calling him a naive fool all during Neville's fop fumblings. That's who Brother Jack is comparing Obama with. Brother Jack is insistent on a coming nuclear war--Brother Jack's Christian made-up Bible tells him that a nuclear war is eminent--nuclear war in the Bible is "fire and brimstone" and "burning flesh" to Brother Jack Van Impe. In some obscure Old Testament passage it says, "And God warned the Jesuihites that there would be wars and more wars all leading up to that final big bash, that war of fire and brimstone and burning flesh! Glory be to the Wrathful Yahweh and his peacenik son! And by God according to Brother Jack why is Obama naive? Why because he's trying to stop this nuclear war from happening! Boy, now there's some Yahoo logic for you. Idiocy but hey since most Amuricans are true believer idiots this sort of bullshit takes hold--especially in White Racist Amurica. They are showing their ugly heads all over the place. Most of them are openly trashing Obama--most of them hinting, too, that like the right-wing encouragement in the killing of abortion doctors, the killing of Obama may be next on their Neo-Con reasoning. WARNING. I am a White man. I know my peeps. Yes, my peeps love assassinations! My peeps see anyone who isn't White as DIRTY! Don't you understand, folks, it's all a matter of one's definition of cleanliness!

It's going to get hairy, folks, before it gets "better." It ain't gonna be no fun living in this country unless we sweep these right-wing assholes back under the carpet where they belong--either that or eradicate them!

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

Note: Rumor has it that our own Wolf Man is currently negotiating with friends to operate an American Music-oriented Website. We may soon lose our VOICE--like BuzzFlash, The Daily Growler may be skidding off into oblivion due to little interest in political and general comment from a farther-out point of view than the celebrated experts who are consistently wrong and not on top of things and are way behind when it comes to innovative forecasting. The Daily Growler months ago warned that Obama wasn't the liberal savior we hoped he would be when we overwhelmingly chose him over the likes of Hambone Hillary Clinton, Big Bad John the Vietnam Nutjob, and Sweet Sarah Paleface. Are we better off with Obama than we would have been with John and Sarah? The The Daily Growler answer to that might SHOCK you!

C'est la vie,

thestaff
for The Daily Growler

From one of our fav sites, antifascist_calling.com :

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Pentagon Rebrands Protest as "Low-Level Terrorism"

You have to hand it to Pentagon securocrats and their corporate cronies, they never miss an opportunity to demonize, vilify or otherwise slander domestic political dissent as "terrorism."

The American Civil Liberties Union reported June 10 that "Anti-terrorism training materials currently being used by the Department of Defense (DoD) teach its personnel that free expression in the form of public protests should be regarded as 'low level terrorism'."

According to the civil liberties' watchdog: "Among the multiple-choice questions included in its Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course, the DoD asks the following: 'Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?' To answer correctly, the examinee must select 'protests'."

Yes, you read that correctly. The Pentagon has designed a training system that puts you in the crosshairs! And why not? Back in 2003 Mike Van Winkle, the spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC) said of antiwar demonstrators brutally attacked by riot cops at the Port of Oakland during a protest against the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq,
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To read the rest: www.antifascist-calling.blogspot.com