Strange Rumblings From The Hinterland

I had a dream the other night.
I was watching an infomercial for a juicer that will cut your grocery bills into tiny shreds. The host was wearing a loud sweater, with a swastika on each shoulder.
I had a dream.
In the dream the host was talking to the inventor. The inventor was wearing a golf shirt, khaki shorts and converse sneakers. He kept pushing his aviator sunglasses up on his forehead and pulling them back down.
I had a dream the other night.
The juicer was impressive, indeed it was an awe-inspiring task of engineering. Large and imposing, with hoses and wires and chrome bits and white bits. Large teeth and what looked like a chain from a chain-saw and other pointy things sticking out at weird angles. A truly awe-inspiring task of engineering, a monstrous piece of machinery. It stood twelve feet high, it lay across two executive desks and was started with a pull on a cord. Sixteen homeless men were required to carry the juicer into the room. Three Catholic virgins were needed to pull on the cord and bring the beast to life.
I had a dream the other night.
The inventor fed fruit into the juicer at first. Oranges and limes and apples and melons and berries and grapes and kiwis. And then he started adding vegetables and then he started adding office furniture and carpeting and window coverings and then he started throwing in electronic equipment without unplugging it first, sparks flying everywhere, small fires breaking out and stamped out by the production assistants and the audience.
I had a dream the other night.
The host was screaming, frothing at the mouth, dancing like bug on a hot-plate. The host would sometimes crouch down, make himself a wee ball, then leap into the air hitting heights of eight, maybe nine feet. Wailing the entire time in a strange language known only to himself and his tribe.
And then the host stopped moving, stopped jumping and leaping and dancing. The host was silent. He raised his hand. He pointed at the inventor with a gnarled finger, a finger covered in snot and blood. He pointed at the inventor, with a glaze in his eyes and a growing stain in his pants. He pointed at the inventor and mumbled in a voice from the deep south, "Where are the virgins? Bring me the virgins. Bring me them now. Where are the homeless? Bring them to me. Where are they? We must make more juice."
I had a dream the other night.
And the inventor seemed to sense the danger, the lightening in the air. The inventor paused for a fraction of a second, frozen in place, a piece of lawn furniture in his hands forgotten. And then he smiled. A grim smile. A smile of a man who has driven to the edge of the cliff. A smile of a man who has faced a gang of armed militants armed with only a bowie knife. A smile that has tasted the blood of fiends and the wrong.
I had a dream the other night.
The inventor dropped the piece of lawn furniture to the floor. The inventor continued to smile. He slowly crept towards the host. The inventor continued to smile. "Now, hoss," he purred, "why did you have to say something like that? Tell me, pig-fucker, why did you have to go and ruin The Fun and say something like that?"
I had a dream the other night.
"You want more juice, pig-fucker? You want more juice? You don't see we're making Art here? We're making Fun? I'm going to teach you about Joy, pig-fucker. I'm going to bring you to Nirvana." And with one smooth motion the inventor grabbed the host by the crotch. And he lifted the host up, up above his head and tossed him like a bag of dirty laundry. And the host flew across the infomercial stage, over the smoldering remains of a sofa, over the small bits of electronic equipment that didn't make it into the juicer, over the heads of the virgins and the homeless, he flew. A look of horror mixed with extasy crossed the host's face as he arched across the stage. And with a mighty growl, nearly orgasmic, the juicer accepted its gift.
I had a dream the other night.

If you staggered into here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, I apologize. I'm not from around here.
HST - we miss you.

Strange Rumblings From the War Zone

I saw John Hockenberry on Jon Stewart the other night. He's a writer. He writes for Wired. He is in a wheelchair.
Anyway...
He was on Jon Stewart chatting about an article he just wrote for Wired. Its about Military Blogs. Or Milblogs for short. These cats (and kittens) in the warzones, he was saying, are writing online about their day-to-day lives. These cats (and kittens) are logging on and telling their stories. They aren't giving away state secrets. They aren't giving away locations. That would be seriously dumb. No, they are writing about daily experiences. They are writing about how it feels to rise each day and go about your job and wonder if you're going to see the end of the day.
The letters home that used to take weeks and months to reach home during all the past conflicts are now published and downloaded in moments.
I guess Washington saw the internet as a way for these cats (and kittens) to keep in touch with back home, to raise morale. Washington saw that these kids would be in the desert for an uncomfortable stretch of time and thought, hey, lets give them email and photos of undressed ladies, that'll keep them occupied.
So soldiers being people, some also saw this as a chance to start-up online journals and blogs and stuff so they could post pictures of sandstorms and themselves and their fellow soldiers and let freinds and family know how they are doing. And, John Hockenberry sort of said, the Military Blog was born.
I won't get into the whole question of what the Pentagon is allowing or not allowing or censoring or blocking or channeling to the world or whatever. Go over to Wired's spot on the Internet, go to the magazine. Look for the article. John Hockenberry does a much better job of that than I ever could. A much better job.
Anyway...
I saw John Hockenberry on Jon Stewart. And I got thinking about this whole Milblog thingy. I read his article. And I continued to think about these Milblogs some more. Was Mr. Hockenberry pulling examples of the writing on these blogs from rare occurences? Or was this a regular state of affairs? Were these soldiers really writing these things about life in the Iraqi nightmare? So I decided to check it out.
I went to Google, typed in milblog, not really expecting anything to happen. Maybe a link to Wired or Jon Stewart or some crazed soldier-wanna-be Stateside. I was thinking, hey, if this is for real, the Pentagon must have made it hard to find, right? Right?
Jumping Jesus on a trampoline. These blogs and links and other stuff started filling up. Page after page. And then I started surfing and staggering and stumbling from one blog to another. Some of these cats (and kittens) can write. I mean, seriously write. I'm talking like Hemingway or Faulkner or Thompson or whatever. I found posts that made me laugh out loud. Posts that choked me up. Posts that had me scratching my balding head, searching for the answer to their existential angst.
I found one blog that...well, I haven't added it to my links. I read and I damn near wept. It was so personal and full of...I don't know, grief, at the death of the writer's humanity. He could feel himself becoming colder and harder and shutting down and was keeping a daily journal of it. And his return home to his family was coming up and seeing his children again and his wife and...shit, man. It went beyond a voyeuristic peek into his personal diary. It was a flatscreen exposure of his soul. A little too heartbreaking. Last time I checked, his only entry this week is "Taking A Break". That's all it said. I like to think that means, Hey, I'm home. I'm gonna hang with the wife and the kids and play pool at the bar with my friends and all is good in the world. Maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm wrong.
Anyway...
I have added some links (over to the right...see War Pooh...yeah, there). The one to Blackfive is a guy State-side. The link I've got there to his page is a giant list of these blogs. He's a wee right swinging, okay, and some folks I know will have some serious issues with his adds, but if you can look past his politics and just check out some of those links, you'll be pleasantly suprised.
The others are a small taste of my faves. If you do nothing else here today, check out SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM. This guy can write. Shit, can he write. As I have said before, and will say in the future, jumping Jesus on a trampoline.

We all have differing opinions on the war in Iraq and the Afghan one and we question the motives of the folks who are in charge and some of us are living in an environment that is trying its best to beat those opinions out of us and some of us are lucky to be living in an environment that asks us to question everything we are fed by the media and the govenment and the loud-mouth at the end of the bar. If you're reading this thing, you probably know exactly where I stand on these issues. You should know that I believe that any war that is run by a bunch of suits who avoided ever putting on a uniform is not recipe for success. You should know that I believe the Bush family has sold their country for a dime and is swimming in a pool of blood and ground bone. But the one thing you should know about me is I rarely question the motive of these cats (and kittens) who do what I am truly unwilling to do. I won't wear a uniform. I won't march in line. And I will (hopefully) never have to put myself in a situation where people are shooting at me.
These Milblogs are a glimpse into the minds of people who are willing to wear a uniform, march in line, put themselves in situations where bullets fly. I may not truly understand their thoughts and dreams and circumstances that have led them to this life, but their blogs are giving me a peek.
Okay, I have rambled on enough. I'll stop now. And if you have staggered into here expecting photos of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, once again I apologize. I'm not from around here...

Strange Rumblings From The Far East...

And so I says to the guy...
One post, one little "hey, look at me, I'm over here" entry, and what do I get? A bunch of odd comments, some of which made me vomit a little in a my mouth... Oysters???? Huh????? Ah, life. Gotta love what a liberal education will get you these days. Keep the comment-stuff coming!

And so goes the daily battle. This html stuff is definitely the spawn of some lower demon from one of the more disturbing inner-circles of hell. I don't know if its me or this ancient Mac I'm using, but everything is showing up a little...slanted. Maybe its not looking that way on other computers, but, man, I can't figure it out on this one. The other template I was attempting to use was shrinking everything. Very odd.

New pooh... The links are coming together nicely. Slow and slanted, but still nice.
I'm starting to wonder what the links I'm choosing are saying about, well, me. Hopefully that I am well-adjusted, a benefit to society, an all-around nice fella. Probably not.
Over to the right, there are a couple of North Korean links. While he may be a complete madman who takes paranoia to a whole new level, Kim Jong Il is easily one of the funniest sociopaths in modern history. His administration takes the time and spends the energy to entertain the rest of us on this blue marble, yet most folks don't know about it. Check out the North Korean News, for example. You won't find any updates on the six-nation nuke talks there, but you will find out about every wreath-laying ceremony in the country. And while they may shy away from mentioning their multi-decade long famine that has crippled the country and is wiping out an entire generation, they wil update the world on, well, wreath-laying ceremonies. And just for shit and giggles, occasionally they will mention their "foreign visitor" whenever he returns to North Korea to pal around with Kim. One thing that is interesting about "foreign visitor" is that the first time he seems to have been mentioned in the news was around the time Bin Laden disappeared into the Afghan/Pakistan borderlands... Whoever "foreign visitor" is, he spends a lot of his time while in North Korea at wreath-laying ceremonies.
The North Korean Pooh link is a collection of Kim's fave links. Really. Check it out. And remember, Communism is not dead.

Also, over to the right, is Geological Pooh. One is a constant update of earthquakes. Yay, earthquakes. The other, I am so proud of finding this, is a webcam pointed at Mt. St. Helen's growing bulge (heh, heh, heh). Check it often, be the one who can say, "I was there when the Mt. St. Helen's webcam was whaked by a river of lava..." Oh, joy.

So, enjoy. There will be more to come. I just have to wrestle html some more, find its weaknesses and make it submit.

And once more, I have to apologize to anyone who has staggered into here expecting to find pictures of unclothed ladies flinging pooh. I'm not from around here.

Uh...Is This Thing On?

Um...
Alrighty, then. This is my "blog". From what I understand, a blog is a place where some folks rant, some folks sell R.V.'s, some folks show pictures of unclothed ladies they have found while staggering around the internet. Occasionally (I have heard this from reliable sources) some folks have something that needs to be said. And there being a lack of boxes to stand on and shout from and a lack of people willing to listen to people standing on boxes shouting (except in that park in London, but that's another day and another dollar) these folks have turned to the blog as the new soapbox.
So here I am. Hopefully, as time passes, I will have interesting things to say, that, in another time and another place, I would be shouting from a soapbox, if I was able to find one.
This blog-thingy I've got going here is under construction, I gather. So please be patient while I try to figure this out.
And, if you have staggered here by accident expecting photos of unclothed ladies flinging pooh, I apologize. I'm not from around here.