Being regular.

I'm driving along minding my own business the other day and Herman Cain comes on my radio and says first thing he'd do is get rid of the E.P.A. Really?
In the last couple of weeks I've heard proposals of doing away with the Department of Education, the F.D.A., The National Weather Service, the Federal Reserve and other banking regulatory agencies. In short The Federal Government.
Cool, we'll let business and State governments set the rules and standards for society. What could possibly go wrong?

Regulations are crippling this Country. That is a very popular clarion call being belted out across the airwaves these days.
Hell, I'm up to my chinny chin chin in regulations every time I go to work.
The Federal Government tells me I can only work 14 hours a day and 70 hours in a week so I don't fall asleep at the wheel and run over a bus full of nuns.
They also say I can only have a load weight of 80,000 lbs so I don't pulverize bridges and roads as I'm tooling around. What an assault on my freedom!!
Hang on, being a fatigued menace to society and destroyer of infrastructure is a bad thing. Oh dear, regulations good?
Let's face it even with regulations we can be devious little shits.
Business is always going to try and get away with the cheapest bottom line even if it means dumping toxins in the water or air or paying women less than men just because they can.
We are always going to try and do more than the speed limit because we need to. Screw public safety.
Fishermen will over fish, farmers will waste the soil, coal miners will be valued about as much as shovels. And this is WITH regulations!
You want to get rid of regulations and Government? It's very easy.
DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE.
That's it. Not just for driving anymore. A Mantra for our times.
Regulations are like another set of physical laws to protect ourselves from our dumb ass selves. We can be pretty myopic when it comes to profits and our best interests.You don't catch a river on fire or make a Love Canal by doing the right thing.
Be sweet. Do good work. Look out for others needs and the impact of our actions on ourselves and generations to come. How hard is that?
I'm thinking we might need the regulations till we get over this whole asshole stage.
Changing Government starts with us changing our minds.

You can stop me from breathing but you can't stop me from loving.

"If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind"

Personally I'd like to see a beanery where a fella could get a bowl of soup with a side of greens and bread for $2.00 and a pint of Guinness for a nickle. Above it I'd love to have three floors for the different realms brought on by good beer and full bellies.
One floor for fist fights
One floor for arguments
one floor for the hugs and kisses that come to those who make it through the first two floors.
On the floors above that I'd like a Library of the dead, for the dead so the ghosts of clear thinkers can sit in fine chairs, sipping bourbon and laugh at the living.
Studs Terkel can share cigars with Edward R. Murrow and Daniel Schorr while James Baldwin and Richard Feynman discuss Physics. Hunter S. Thompson is around here some where looking for Brautigan.
That's my idea for 51 W. Park Place.
A place to be human. Warts and all.

So maybe a Mosque is an o.k. second choice.
Before you burst a blood vessel and walk around with a droopy smirk and sinister limp for the rest of your life hear me out.

Trinity Church is just a couple of blocks away.
I would hope there is a Synagogue near by, if not perhaps one could be built or even better perhaps the building at 51 W. Park Place could house sanctuaries for two of the three branches of Abraham. Nice touch don't you think.
I like the idea of each faith having a beautiful house of worship to praise God and share their love and scriptures for a better world.
I like even more the idea that after services all these folks can go down the street and picnic together on the grounds of a park that is a monument to what happens when people warp the words of God and somehow come up with a liturgy of hate.
Hate don't put food on the table
Hate can't help you think yourself out of a jamb.
Hate complicates every little thing we do.
Lose the reigns on that horse and there is Hell to pay.

The only way we "Lose" in this case is if we let Fear, hurt and anger change our basic rules that make this country great. Criminals cloaked in the name of Islam broke that part of New York and I don't mind if the good folks of Islam want to help put it back together better and stronger.

I am an avid follower of the Devoutly Baffled. There are at least three of us that I know of and one is a fictional character but I'm not going to hold that against a guy especially when trying to boost the numbers.
I think there are over a billion Muslims, Hundreds of millions of Christians and despite a history of annihilation, millions of Jews. So I guess a mass conversion to blissful Wonder is probably statistically out of the question.
So what the Hell, Let's all try to get along and follow the one rule that is in everyone's book of rules: Love Thy neighbor, Do unto others,
Be well Cousins......

A short hurricane story.

Remembering Floyd

Dateline Cleburne TX: August 2008.

Once upon a time there was a hurricane named Floyd.

It was a giant storm that was going to erase Florida in a torrent of wind and rain.

I was in Baltimore when Floyd decided to spare Florida and come roaring ashore on the Jersey coast.

I was one of the last trucks to pass over the Key bridge before it was shut down. The wind was howling a duet with the cables of the bridge. The sea was boiling. Yes the sea does boil in a hurricane.

Physics gone wild.

I spent a white knuckle evening driving from Baltimore to Albany NY. Trees kept blowing onto the road flying out of the darkness into the beams of my headlamps.

By the time I slowly plodded through the sheets of rain poor Albany was flooded. The downtown streets were rivers of white water and garbage. The night was furious. Every object was alive dancing or straining in the wind.

Most of the streets were blocked off but there were no police to be found. In fact i was the only person out on the road. Almost.

At the top of a hill by a barricade was a man in a yellow slicker and rubber boots. He looked like a public works official.

I pulled over to ask him which way was safe to go. The man stepped out of the flooding street onto my running board and leaned in my window. "what do you want?" he asked. "I need to know how to get to the bottom of the hill safely". He looked at me and cocked his head. "What do you need?"

Hmm... what an odd time for philosophical questions I thought.

Then I noticed that even though it was dark, in the middle of a torrential rain, the public works man was wearing pitch black sunglasses."What are you looking for?"

Duh. Man was I astounded by the guys work ethic. Neither wind nor rain nor dark of night or even a full blown hurricane was going to stop this friendly neighborhood dope man.

I thanked him for his concern but assured him all i needed was safe passage to the bottom of the hill

Pride and things we love. A short story.

I'd rather talk about puppies or even cranky smelly old beagles that tell you how they really feel by pissing on the bed.
In truth I'd like to spend the next ten minutes gushing about the cutest little red cheeked Russian ever to set foot on a pitch. Arshavin is so cute I want to put him in my pocket and carry him pulling him out now and then to tussle his hair and watch him run around on his magic feet.
I know what you're thinking, "Is he Gay?"
No, but that does bring us to today's story........

On Saturday I heard a news report from Riverside California about rallies the National Socialists (That's NAZIS for you kids playing along at home) are having and the violence that is breaking out in the dusty streets of that town.
The NAZIS are showing up in full uniform along with swastika flags and taking back their White Pride from the Mud people, Jews, Catholics, Queers and Commies.

Now I'm all for White Pride, hell I thought that was the whole idea behind Oktoberfest , Morris dancing, hockey, and yodeling in general. We do have our moments. Mmmm sausages and sauerkraut.

So I'm not really sure these nimrods quite understand the concept of pride. Hard to be proud when you're shouting how much you hate everyone, but hey that's just me.

The story did remind me of a great day in Atlanta back around 1988.
One spring day the Grand Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and a half dozen of his minions decided to pay a visit to the Little Five Points neighborhood.
L5P was a perfect spot for a rally. The community was home to Hippies, Punks and Queers. A receptive audience for some down home hateful condemnation.

The Wizard had broken out his finest silky robe which was something you just didn't see that much anymore. His cohorts were dressed in snappy looking fatigues and had truncheons strapped in their belts.

In L5P you never knew how people would react on a given day. One day a person could get mugged in broad daylight and people would walk right by the stick up without pause. On another day folks would come storming to your aid like pissed off Amish farmers.

This day the"Farmers" were pissed. Before the klan could unfurl the Stars and Bars an angry mob had pinned them up against the liquor store.
By the time Mr. Wizard started his spiel the parking lot was full of hundreds of people who were not taking kindly to his line of reasoning.
The whole scene was about to turn violent which is what the baton wielding klansmen were waiting for. And then came Benjamin.

Ben was our own little William Burroughs. Heroin thin, with a gravel voice and a whit that comes from a dark journey that one takes alone leaving the rest of us behind in the comfort of the known world.
"I LOVE YOUR DRESS!" Ben screamed this above all the shouting and it was as if a bomb had gone off. Everyone froze on on the improbable words.
"OHH, HOW SILKY. Oh, I WANT YOUR DRESS. IT MAKES ME HORNY JUST LOOKING AT YOU IN IT. DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL HORNY?
The crowd started to howl with laughter which fueled Ben's propositions towards the Grand Wizard. It was about the time Ben was screaming his desire for hot oral sex that the klan knew they were in over their heads.
Angry mobs were one thing but a flaming homosexual in heat was way past their frame of reference. They scurried to their truck completely humiliated. NAZI's and the Klan don't do well with laughter. Hmm, who knew?

So it's moral time..... As much as I despise NAZIS and Supremacists in general they do have a constitutional right to say what they want. Hell they even have the right to marry, breed and raise little NAZIS.
Ironic that Ben does not enjoy these same rights because he likes men.

Because of his sexual orientation he is marginalized by both Church and State and in some states the general public on election day.
I don't get it. We will die for the rights of hateful shits that would love to exterminate marginalized citizens given half the chance but deny basic human rights to people because of who they love. Weird.You can hate anyone but you have to be careful of who you love. Welcome to Crazy World.

love thy neighborhood.

Funny how a neighborhood can change.A turn of a valve and your world is floating.
A little long time ago I lived in Cabbagetown which back then was a run down community on the wrong side of the tracks in Atlanta. On Saturday nights the rowdys on the corner would fight with shovels and picks. No fooling, it was like watching a live performance of "Braveheart".There were blood feuds that went back generations and in the heat of summer nights blood would flow freely on Berean st.
The combatants couldn't have cared less for the new arrivals to the neighborhood. We were like just plain old Palestinians amongst the waring factions of Hamas and Fatah. Stay out of the way and you won't get hurt.
This was the only neighborhood I've ever seen where crack heads would steal 90lb bags of cement (estimated value $5.00)off of someone's porch and lug them off down the street to some deranged fence who specialized in worthless overweight swag.
Over time the old mill families were over run by brave young yuppies that knew a hip new location when they saw one. The shotgun shacks sprouted second stories and burst forth with bright designer colors overwhelming the dingy old white clapboards.
The police and higher rent cleared out the old timers leaving a cute in-town neighborhood.
Then came the C.S.X. rail yard at the north end of the hood. There was always a rail yard at the north end. Hell this was the rail yard that caught fire in "Gone with the Wind" and burnt Atlanta to the ground.But it was a quiet rail yard till C.S.X came in with their grand plan. A transfer yard where thousands of trucks could pick up thousands of trailers that came in on trains.Brilliant!
The new Cabbageheads lost their minds. All the trucks and trains and giant cranes and nonstop 24 hour a day crashing and banging which sounded like the soundtrack to a Godzilla VS. Mothra movie was going to seriously bring down their home values.
Well Duh... you live in a inner city neighborhood next to a century old established transportation line. It might get noisy. What did Sam Kinison say...."Don't live in the fucking desert!" You want quiet move to Snellvile.
Of course there are always surprises to every neighborhood.
In Florida we did a sex offender search of our area and learned that there were 45 predators within a five mile radius of our happy home. Zoiks! lock up the livestock.
And sometimes you find you yourself as the agent of chaos in an otherwise happy block.
In the summer of '88 we, which is to say most of the members of our very loud psychedelic reggae band lived in a quiet corner of Little Five Points in an enormous forest green house on the corner of streets I cannot remember....It was the best of times... We were benign as neighbors I thought at the time. Well ok, we did practice in the house some times and did keep very late hours with an odd assortment of people coming and going at any given moment.
Our neighbor was a business journalist from France named Sophie. There were other neighbors but they never really interacted with us and rarely came out of their homes, at least not during our business hours.
Sophie would acknowledge us, gazing at us like she was witnessing a time warp to a hairier, freer time. We missed much of the Reaganomic revolution she was reporting on.
She finally snapped during our big Little Rascals moment when we found a pile of scaffolding in the basement and thought "Hey these look like amplifier towers. ya know like at Woodstock...Hey kids, lets put on a show." In the vacant sunken lot next to the house we built a subterranean amphitheater complete with 15 foot high towers for the p.a. and all invisible from the street. We put on a day long festival of music, love and happiness, well except for Sophie who was beyond pissed. She called the cops. They told her as long as we stopped the music by 6:00p.m. we could play all day. We had the forethought to hire an off duty cop that put us in square with all the working blues. So for 7 hours we had a grand performance complete with naked dancers and a scandalous amount of fun. During a break in playing we met Sophie up at street level. She crossed the street with her arms flailing. "What the hell is wrong with you people? You don't belong in the city. You need to be in the country where you can be uncivilized all you want."
She was not expecting such madness in such a quaint location.
But there you go, some things you can figure. Living next to Wrigley Field. Living above an Hawaiian drum school.Living in Carteret N.J. Life is going to be loud and sometimes smelly depending on which way the wind is blowing or how bad the Cubs are playing.
Life in a flood plain is a guarantee that sooner or later the creek is going to rise and the river is going to get up out it's banks and just meander all over the place. If it's where you live you gotta love it. No place is perfect (San Diego was burning like Hell last time I was there)so you best make peace with where you are and love it like home.
"Ah Loki, was Wisconsin all that bad?"

The Basic Skill.

Woah! That first draft was WAY too big. Anytime Cleveland, Dinosaurs, Cod fish and some asshole on the Dan Ryan expressway make it into the same blog you know you might have to focus a bit tighter on what the hell it is your trying to say....try again.
I'm still upset about Fred. Despite the coordinated efforts of a half dozen vets and hours upon hours of research on the Net and hundreds of people praying, Fred didn't make it. We know so little about what makes us tick and sometimes have no answers when our bodies break down. It is a humbling experience to have no control over the fate of a loved one.We care and love and learn through these times so that we may become more skilled at living a good and graceful life.

The basic skill of of caring and nurturing for what we love is a skill we still struggle with as a species.
War and killing we have down to a science. Hell on a good day we could wipe out almost everyone...at least back in the good old days before nuclear disarmament.
It's funny how hard we struggle to keep people housed and fed and healthy sometimes barely pulling it off and yet we can kill people half way round the world by remote control. I guess it is harder to make a life than it is to take a life.
Nobody said this was going to be easy but I am positive if we put our minds and hearts together we can become as skilled at living as we are at dying.
I've heard it said today that it is a dangerous world we live in. Very true.
I also believe the world is what we make it and I know we have the skills to make it a better place.
Amigos,I'm all for trying.

Gifts from my Mother.

Gifts from my Mother.
I am forever in debt to my mother for my joi de vie and miscellaneous other odd bits that make life worth living. Mom, you are a Jewell.
#1. My given name pretty much ensures that I will never become a terrorist, mad bomber or assassin. News reports of such people always use your full three given names. Lee Harvey Oswald. John Wilkes Boothe. Somehow Kristopher Robin Ludwig doesn't strike fear into the hearts of men. I am always delighted that Mom was such a fan of A.A. Milne that she would name her last born after such a gentle character. Thank God she did not name me Pooh.
Mom let me read anything. When I was a teen my brother had a copy of Jerry Rubin's "Do It" which was a bit of a manifesto on turning on and dropping out maaaannn. In retrospect it was a bit of self indulgent hogwash from an asshole but still at the time my Mom said "sure go ahead and read it". In an age where Huckleberry Finn is being banned I am forever in debt to my Mom for allowing me the freedom to sort through the horseshit and the truth on my own. Really the only way to find the truth. Let your children dig for themselves because it makes them stronger and if truth cannot stand on its own then maybe questions need to be asked.
This was a brave stance to take coming from a depression era housewife. Revolutionary if I may say so myself.
Mom taught me to believe in ghosts and the gentle guidance of spirits. This came in handy when I indulged in mushrooms and therefore was not surprised to find a coursing river of reality that surges around us as we float on only the surface of a miraculous universe. How does a simple girl from Chillicothe Mo. know such things?
She gave me the gifts of a proper tea and champagne, Pogo and Ingmar Bergman.
An appreciation Classical music and N.P.R. I owe to Mom.
My sense of freedom and all the peril and joy that comes with it I owe to Mom.
Her advice to me once was "whatever you do, don't be boring. Life is much too short for boredom".
Amen! Love while we can and embrace the bits that make us think. There is so much going on and it's a shame to miss any of it.