All posts by Joseph

Usual Rubbish

Crunchy soup.


Stir a little harder. That’s the stuff. Put some elbow-grease in it. No, goddamnit, not for real! That’s just an expression! It means…. oh, mother of pearl.

Oh, hello, cyber-surfers. You find us in one of life’s most humble pursuits: making a substandard dinner. That’s the kind we like here at the Cheney Hammer Mill – far preferable to no dinner at all. In case you hadn’t guessed, soup is on the menu this evening, and inasmuch as we cannot afford that ultra-haut cuisine canned stuff you probably enjoy, your stalwart friends in Big Green are making it from scratch. And when I say scratch, that’s no euphemism. As I mentioned before, elbow grease is a euphemism, and one that should never be an ingredient in home made soup. Though, sadly, it is now part of ours. Another reason why it’s best not to have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) help with such tasks. (He just had his elbows re-greased, as it happens.)

But hey – if you were thinking of dropping by for pot-luck supper, never fear. There are plenty of good things in this makeshift soup. What, you may ask? Well… it would be far easier to tell you what isn’t in there. There are the standard things, like potatoes, as well as more exotic items, like kiwi fruit and baobab bark. (Mmmmmm. Baobab.) I saw Johnny White dropping a few chiclets in the cauldron – that should add a little tooth. The man-sized tuber, looking for alternatives to plant products, contributed a box of nuts and bolts he found down in the basement. When I saw Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, walking through, I was sure he was just using the kitchen as a short cut. I’m told, though, that he flipped his favorite slide-rule into the mix. Accident? I think not!

Enough about dinner. What else is happening, aside from the fabrication of inedibles? Not a lot, my friends. Just keeping body and soul together, that’s the long and short of it. (We’re a little longer on the short of it, truth be told.) Started some projects, but have yet to finish any of them. We do have a song due out on a compilation CD – a fundraiser for Haiti relief – which is supposed to be out any day now. (A little late on that one.) That’s a new recording called “Only You,” one of Matt’s numbers. I’ll post a link when it finally sees the light of day. Either that or we’ll drop it into the soup and have you take a bowl home with you. Talk about rich! It’s soup you can dance to.

Well, I’ve wandered a bit. More on upcoming projects later. First, I’ve got some peeling to do.

Political Rants

E Pluribus BBQ.

Me thinkst the Democratic party has missed a real opportunity here to show the American people how committed they are to the well-being of working and poor families, their supposed constituency. Extension of unemployment benefits have been stopped yet again by the Republicans (joined by some particularly execrable Democrats), whose threat of a filibuster is enough to weaken the knees of the ruling party. As I’ve mentioned before, the filibuster is never actually joined, just threatened, and in the gentleman’s club that is the U.S. Senate, that is enough for the majority to stand down. So having fallen short of their 60-vote supermajority, the majority has declared the holiday weekend to be underway. That’s for Congress, not for the millions of unemployed. How’s that for solidarity?

Hey, Harry Reid – time to take the gloves off. If the Republicans threaten a filibuster over benefits for the long-term unemployed, hold them to it. Make them stand there, hour after hour, day after day, through the bloody holiday weekend, defending their obstructionism and showing the entire country how little they care about those on the losing side of our economy. What a great opportunity for you to demonstrate that your pro-working stiff rhetoric isn’t just a lot of hot air. (Unless, of course, it is.) There would be those who call you partisan, divisive, etc. Let them! They say that anyway. Slug it out on behalf of workers, both poor and middle class, and you’ll end up with something a lot more valuable than a weekend barbecue.

Besides, the Republicans are always complaining that their ideas never get a fair hearing. So let’s hear ’em. Trouble is, we’ve heard them all before. Cut taxes. Cut spending. Expand the military. Balance the budget. Invade another country. Anything new there? For chrissake, their “idea man” is Paul Ryan (a.k.a. Eddie Munster), and he’s just dedicated to rescuscitating Bush’s plan to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare. I overheard him on “Morning Joe” the other day saying that Keynesiansim doesn’t work. Well, Paul… yeah it does. Of course, you haven’t tried it yet – your party convinced the Dems to strip most of the infrastructure spending out of the stimulus before voting against it.  Think Keynesian spending is ineffective? Try cutting the defense budget or the prison industrial complex and see what happens. For something that “doesn’t work”, it sure has a lot of defenders.

Hey, look… I come from a community that would barely be breathing if it weren’t for government spending. If our local Republicans think money from Washington or Albany is a bad thing, I’ve yet to hear about it.

I encourage you to remind your congressperson and senators that the jobless still need help… and they shouldn’t be made to wait until Congress’s 2 week vacation is over.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

Book him.

The difference between falling up and falling down is merely one of direction. How’s that, Lincoln? Not pithy enough? All right, I’ll keep trying.

Oh, hi. Didn’t notice you there, peering at me from the other side of this flat screen monitor I live in. Hope all is well at home. I’m just hanging out here in the delightfully abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, having a little chat with our old friend Lincoln, who was carried here from yesteryear through the magic of Trevor James Constable’s orgone generating device a year or two back. (That’s a long way of saying hello – I know.) What are we chatting about? Funny you should ask. The usual topics that come up around here, like how many hammers were forged here, how long this place has been abandoned, and HOW THE HELL ARE WE EVER GOING TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO GET A DECENT PLACE TO LIVE. (That last one’s a bit of a sore spot. Not sure if you can tell.)

Well, we’ve had a lot of ideas tossed around over the past few months. But recently it occurred to us that we are not using our own home-grown resources to their best advantage. After all, we have space creatures, a mechanical man, a giant sentient potato, and one of America’s most revered presidents (as well as his evil doppelganger) in our entourage. Why not exploit them more fully? That is why I’m working with Lincoln today. I’ve suggested that he needs to leverage his reputation as perhaps our greatest president by publishing a book of some sort – I have suggested a collection of aphorisms, something like what Yogi Berra may have published. Witticisms, as it were. Or as they are. Or as we were. (As you were!)

Hmmm. That last utterance took on a decidedly militaristic cast – my apologies. As I was saying, I and several others – though certainly NOT Marvin (my personal robot assistant) – have been tossing around possible entries for Lincoln’s upcoming work. Why does he need our help? Well, friends – he may be an excellent commander in chief, a clear-minded leader with nerves of steel, a visionary… but aside from speeches written hastily on the backs of envelopes, his writing for mass audiences leaves a bit to be desired. Far too flowery, too prolix. Goodness me, Lincoln! Take a page out of your evil twin’s playbook. Economy! For chrissake, it’s a rare thing indeed when Anti-Lincoln writes anything longer than a two-word phrase that ends in “you.” (Say what you like; at least he keeps the focus on “you.”)

So anyway. Here’s one from Mitch Macaphee. Never invent a deadly laser you wouldn’t aim at your own mother. Still nothing? Work, work, work.