Saturday, August 31, 2013

News Source Comparison

I'm going to make a quick and unscientific comparison of Al Jazeera and CNN. I picked two stories off the respective site's home page.

From Al Jazeera-
"From back in the cattle-car environs of coach, the airlines' lunge for high-end travelers, while squeezing basic comfort for those in the cheap seats, can be seen as a clear analogy of the growing inequality across the economic spectrum."

This is a story Al Jazeera's editors decided was pertinent to American readers. JetBlue, an airline that was always known for nothing but coach seats and budget prices, has decided to add luxury seats for those who can afford to pay more. Al Jazeera's angle is the that this decision "illuminates the growing upstairs-downstairs divisions in the air". That's a tasteful way to further the communist agenda that the wealthy are a different class of people and deserve better service than masses. Yes, they are paying more, but since they have more they are proportionally paying the same. I don't think that's debatable in America where everything from hookers to wine are rated by how much you can pay for them. The dollar is the only ID you need for upgrades. They could have aimed the editorial toward the fact JetBlue is looking to make money too and has decided 1 upgraded seat is worth more than the 3 coach seats it will lose. So it's not a humanity based decision. JetBlue is saying a catastrophic injury lawyer deserves to be pampered more than a 2nd grade teacher. If you agree with that then keep your thumb in your ass and continue doing nothing. This all fits Oggy's hopeless Red Agenda so I appreciate it. If this article ended with "Proletarians Unite!" it would basically be the same as the handwritten screeds I once handed out at government shut down boycotts in Santa Cruz.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Al Jazeera America A Better Source of News?

It's a sign of the times that Al Jazeera, headquartered in Qatar, has become the best progressive news source for American current events. No, I don't mean Hannah Montana*, I mean actual news. Go ahead and comb through CNN's car and financial investment commercials for an article about the largest fast food strike in history planned for Friday, the day that none of you will sympathize with the workers and not buy fast food because you can't be bothered...assholes...buy your fucking prepackaged morals at Walmart.


CNN has no mention of the strike because it fails to fit Rupert Murdoch's agenda (McDonalds pays his bills) I'm sure Fox neglected to include it in their broadcast. So, a Middle Eastern news source, a source that actually broadcasts terrorist videos, is less biased, and more fact based than the more popular CNN. I shouldn't be surprised but I do have to be ashamed when I'm reading the news and an NSA suit walks up behind me.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Top 10 Movies Oggy Shouldn't Like But Does

10 - Point Break
9 - The Lost Boys
8 - Dumb and Dumber
7 - 48 Hours
6 - Young Guns
5 - Ghost
4 - Crossroads
3 - Xanadu
2 - The Mummy
1 -  How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days

Why I Miss Los Angeles

Monday, August 26, 2013

Intercepted Grief

I was browsing the wikileaks pager messages from 9/11/01 that were recorded and filed away and then leaked. I don't know what I expected to find, maybe some clue to cause of the 12 chaotic years that have followed. I actually couldn't read much of it as it brought back memories that even masochistic Oggy prefers to ignore. What is it called when you reprint previously leaked material? Releak?

This is the incriminating text message that I want you all to read without a tear in your eye.


9/11/01 5:32:16 ------- "JUST TO SAY HI Y QUE TE QUIERO MUCHO THKS E." 


Take a wild guess what "Te Quiero Mucho" means.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Energy Rhetoric

 There's a debate about energy use comparisons between iPhones and refrigerators. Mr. Mills says iPhones use more and another says refrigerators use more. I had to submit my five pesos worth of nonsense and here it is in verse format because I'm unconventional like that.


Another approach to this debate would be to imagine an
Earth with only 6 things: 2 refrigerators, 2 iPhones
and two immortal people who live on different
continents where they each sit next to their one
refrigerator holding their iPhone.
There is only nature and these 6 things.
Determine how much energy it would take to power the
two refrigerators.
Then determine how much energy it would take to enable
the two iphones to communicate to each other.

But that's still academic and I think this is a
philosophical question:

The values that are important are imagining an Earth
with only naked humans.
Now determine how much energy it would take to
manufacture two refrigerators and run them.
Then determine how much energy it would take to
manufacture two iPhones and communicate with them.

And if you really want to get philosophical the whole
debate is Bernays-ian because it's predicated on the
assumption that both refrigerators and iPhones are
required for a content life. It's fundamentally
manipulative, consumerist propaganda. Bernays wrote
that if you want people to buy a piano then hire
architects to draw rooms named "Piano Room" and the
owner will fill the void on his own. Mr. Mills is using
the same trick: in order to generate pro energy
sentiment, make ludicrous statements about energy use
comparing two consumptive devices. The subsequent
argument will conventionalize the existence of both
devices in the minds of the public. He wins not by the
science but by public perception.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Odd Website

Did anyone else check out the self-departure* website of the sportswriter in Kansas? It's impressive for being so comprehensive. It was definitely a Maude-like decision, referring to the character in the Harold and Maude movie who had already decided she was going to move on once she turned 80. The movie is so good because it has the simplified "suicidal" kid whose fake suicides fail to make his mother see that he's not content...and he meets a 79 year old free spirited woman and gradually learns to love and ignore the expectations of others. But he doesn't know that Maude has already decided to depart this mortal coil on her 80th birthday, which arrives only on the day that Harold proposes they get married. Talk about star struck!

The film's strength is not in character development (the characters are mainly stereotypes) but in the questions it generates in the audience: is suicide justified? What is the nature of a free life? What fears or forces limit us? The answers aren't easy enough to be addressed in a movie but it's clear that Harold finds at least a reason to genuinely feel sad enough to want to die...and it's that feeling that is his unspoken goal from the beginning. The Cat Stevens soundtrack is also a big plus.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Near Future

"The surgeon may put other small surgery tools inside your knee through the other cuts. The surgeon will then fix or remove the problem in your knee."

 My research lately hasn't been fun at all. It bothers me that I'll be awake for this surgery. Like I don't have enough bad memories. I think of the hour long Hemorrhoid surgery I endured in Glendale. I was dead to the world during that and still shudder to think about what was done to my asshole. But my knee is going to be filled with saline and cut and diced. Does anyone have firsthand experience of this surgery. Did it work, is the main question. Right now I feel like Daniel Larusso after a Cobra Kai Black Belt kicked him in the ACL.

No Mercy!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Love Songs


This is the kind of love song I'm trying to write...something obtuse like my perspective, with metaphors and a chorus melody that can be sung by the heartbroken forever. It's easier said than done.

I was playing this song after dinner on Battle Harbor and I asked, "You all know Gordon Lightfoot?" My one audience member said, "Gordon Lightfoot is a national treasure."

You know a song is good when a man can write it and record it and a woman can rerecord it from a woman's perspective. My favorite version of this song was recorded by Don Mclean.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Bird Don't Fly

Haiku for Roadrunner

Black spots on blind Bird
My truck speeds like Coyote
Feathers, then nothing.



Fast, but not fast enough. sorry. Meep meep!

Monday, August 19, 2013

Rocky Horror

Tim Curry
I love Rocky Horror Picture show. And I've always felt Tim Curry's performance is the greatest male role in film history. Am I wrong or merely drunk?

Master of Nothing

Surveying his dirt plot

Freddy Prequel

There was a time when it would've been distasteful to dramatize Freddy Krueger's initiation into killing children. But fortunately we've passed that point somewhere around the time Obama deleted any mention of his "I will protect whistle-blowers" promise from his own website because, gee, it sort of contradicted his policy of persecuting whistle-blowers. We're reaching end of days time for democracy. The lies are piling up and we're only one police force union disagreement away from total anarchy like you see in Egypt. People are real puzzled when they elect a slippery two-faced lawyer as President and they get a slippery two-faced lawyer as President. So, I figure in a drunken haze, with two strong XX by the wells fargo WD40 from my above the garage adventure to the homeless dream time, why not really let our pants down and shit in public? Why pretend we are dignified and have limits?


Cliff Dwelling

I'm having some kind of nostalgic flashback to when I was an Indian living in cliff adobe buildings and I had to climb a stick ladder to enter a room and then pulled the ladder up after me so no one could get in. I'm formulating my plan to move to Atlixco and build an adobe hut, partially underground but with mud rooms that can only be reached by a stick ladder. I'm not the first person to think of revisionist architecture but it gives me some dream to plan for other than an old age home out of tune piano.

Oggy's Future

Rooftop A/C Unit


When I'm too broken to do anything else then I'll sit on rooftops and bake in the sun to clean starter capacitor terminals of green oxide.

Two days after this procedure I heard some crackling from the roof. I looked up there and saw sparks flying out of the cover.
"What have you done, Oggy," I thought.
Then I had to drive the van next to the trailer since I didn't have access to the long ladder and an approaching thunderstorm made me vault into action. I climbed up there after shutting power down and climbed onto my van and then jumped across to the trailer roof, investigated and found that it wasn't my fault for once. The condenser wires were zip tied to the condenser pipe for so long they wore a hole in the insulation. I patched with electrical tape as the storm hit, buttoned it all down, and jumped back to the roof of my van. I must have A/C because I'm a pampered Westerner who thinks the world revolves around him and it would be intolerable to sleep without A/C.

Oatmeal

At the Salvation Army breakfast at 4:30 am I would roll over on the floor of the dining hall, flick bed bugs and roaches left dying from the night heat, and fold my thin Yoga mattress up for storage. The night manager would flick the lights on and off and yell, "Git up!"
My spine threw knives through my arteries. Men farted and coughed. There were no phony "Good Morning" greetings at the leaking toilets. Most men groaned as their embattled prostates cried with relief, signifying the only pleasure they would feel for the next 14 hours. Then we drank water that looked like a coffee bean had been crumbled inside it. No cream. No sugar. Breakfast was cold toast and oatmeal and the conversation always came back to the food and my tears were lubricant like the lacking butter...

"I likes oatmeal," said a man to no one in particular. "Stick to your ribs. Makes you full up. Always eat two bowls if they have it." The toothless man would nod to me and my eyes betrayed my broken heart. Some were disabled like me, in chronic pain, waiting for checks that would never arrive.

The merciless day was coming and these men had less hope for improvement than a Hutu in Tutsiville.

I can't eat oatmeal without thinking of those morning pep talks I had.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Stoners Unite

I live in a state that was settled by poor gringos invited by the Spanish government to kill as many Kickapoo and Karakawan Indians as possible so the land would become commercial. That backfired when years later the Anglo settlers waged war on Mexico (who had fought for Independence from Spain) and declared their own Lone Star Republic as independent. (This was the war that included The Alamo defeat).  It was complicated further when the war debt to the United States and continued Mexican harassment compelled the lone republic to join the states (really, they were forcibly annexed but don't mention that to any Texan. It hurts their pride.) Mexico really regretted their earlier mistreatment of Texas when a war was manufactured in 1845 that resulted in the seizure of Texas (Until then Mexico didn't recognize the Lone Star republic), New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, California, and some of Wyoming. I owe my free music education to this blatantly immoral event. To show their gratitude for their official liberty, Texas joined the Confederacy as a slave state about 12 years later...and then back to the Union after Lee surrendered to Grant. Are you following all that? France had a short claim to territory on the coast that's hardly worth mentioning except it's the 6th flag referred to by the amusement park.

Texans have an official policy that is intolerant of drugs. Zero tolerance. The people themselves, including the politicians, are not very concerned with drugs. The main priority is sovereignty as their history should suggest. Any hint that Washington Yankees or "Northern Suits" are dictating business in Texas riles the locals like nothing else. My presence here is tolerated because I try to adapt, wearing cowboy hats, working on the pipeline, chewing tobacco, driving gas guzzling vans...etc. But I'll never be a Texan. I'm not a Yankee either. I'm not even American, although that's what my passport says.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Lone Star

Downtown Eagle Pass
It's funny, I was watching this excellent John Sayles movie and wondering what town this was filmed in and then I looked up and saw the music store where I bought a harmonica, across the street from my bank. I walked on this exact sidewalk when I went to Mexico...which is two blocks over their shoulders.

The movie calls the town "Frontera"* but there's no such town. And they reference "Presidio" which is a town nowhere near Eagle Pass...on the other side of the big bend.

If you watch Lone Star it's pretty much exactly where I live. Surprisingly, this movie had a profound impact on me even though I had never lived here before I watched it as part of my Film Appreciation 101 class at Canada College in California. Sayles wrote, directed and edited it, which is very rare among professionals. Editors usually take over so the director can move on to other projects...but Sayles had a precise goal with this movie which is to overlap past and present as the 40 year old murder mystery is unraveled...and he figured out a way to seamlessly edit present and past locations/scenes without special effects...to highlight the deep history that impregnates a land, ghosts mingling with the living. Now that I live here it's like he actually filmed a parody of the real lifestyle and characters. It's too realistic. But since almost no one lives here Sayles knew his broader audience would be illuminated and entertained. To Texans of the border this movie sort of makes fun of them. I went to the liquor store recently and overheard a woman say, "All I done t'day is git old." and her humble expression and dignified resignation will be found nowhere in the world but this area of Texas.

Other filming locations are Laredo and Del Rio and I've been to all of those. It's less magical now, but still a good movie. The odd thing is that they are actually walking toward the old courthouse. Sayles was almost filming in real time. They are one block from the place where Buddy Deeds' memorial plaque is (It doesn't exist in the real world) and the next scene is them giving the speech in front of the plaque. Normally locations aren't even close to each other but cinema magic makes it seem like they are. In this case, it is.

*Chris Cooper has just finished his speech where he says, "They ought to put up a banner, 'Frontera, Texas: Gateway To Inexpensive Pussy'"

On a Lighter Note

I wonder how kids are going to learn not to bully each other in grade school when their government bombs village weddings using un-maned drone attack planes, then lies about it, then covers up the truth, and then prosecutes the person who revealed the truth...and sends the whole bill to the taxpayers of the United States, who didn't authorize any of it. I really wonder sometimes. What is a kid supposed to think about all that? How could I expect to be trusted? Most 10 year old kids don't know the word "Hypocrite" but I think they understand the basic concept of double standards...that contradict the fundamental message...and force you to rearrange truth and reality with propaganda and evil.

If I had a twelve year old kid I would interview him and ask him how he makes sense of a nonsensical situation. And the sad part is that I'd be watching a human being adapt to insanity.

I'm trying to make sense of it myself and am having a hard time. My government assassinates foreign kids...lies about it...takes oil from invaded nations for use in Nascar races...villainizes the NSA employees who try to tell the truth, then launches an Anti-Bullying campaign for grade schoolers...because picking on fat kids and calling them names is BAD.  

Confused face emoticon (Confused emoticons)


Really?
Is that really happening?
I have no good explanation. Something has gone horribly wrong.
The next thing you know Hooters will refuse to serve a mayor accused of objectifying women.
Kids, don't trust anyone older than 16.
We've all lost our minds.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

"Therapists use cognitive behavior therapy techniques to help individuals challenge their patterns and beliefs and replace "errors in thinking such as overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives, minimizing positives and catastrophizing" with "more realistic and effective thoughts, thus decreasing emotional distress and self-defeating behavior"

The element of this passage that stand out is "catastrophizing". I don't know if I overgeneralize much...I'm acutely aware that I can do this to defend my pitiful ideals. I do magnify negatives, but I wonder if it's justified when those negatives include the decimation of all natural forms of life to be replaced by Apple Corporation robots....yes? Same goes for turning things into a catastrophe.

I've definitely met a few people who were classic examples of this trait. I rented a room to a dying artist in Los Angeles. He had AIDS, all his friends and lovers had died. Judging by the porn he left behind, I guess he was gay once. He had lost his job, all his savings...his health...he had a dog and some old model train sets. I actually wrote a full length stage play with him as a character. He had stories to tell that made himself out to be the victim of the most insane catastrophes ever. And I was indifferent mostly to his past; he had a piano and was interesting and pathetic so I rented him the room. What followed could fill a book of crazy tales that I don't want to deal with right now. Suffice to say it did not work out and I'm certain he's dead now. The highlight was his crashing a full size moving truck into the house.

Anyway, I'm sure he felt that his life was, in fact, a catastrophe. But the way the stories were told made him to be the victim...and I think that's the symptom therapists look for. It is true that getting a fatal disease IS a catastrophe. Who can argue with that? But the victimization syndrome is a separate issue and this guy took it to an extreme.
I remember laughing because everyone kept saying, "Oggy, why did you rent a room to a dying, hysterical, unemployed gay artist?"
My answer was defensive, "Right, so it's MY fault he shit in his pants and threw the pants into the corner of his room to rot. I'm responsible for that."

I think my point was that I don't take any responsibility for his action. None. He was fucked up, not me. I made a bad decision based on what followed but I did not personally drive his moving truck into the side of the house or hang 200 pounds of cooking pots over the sink on a rack that eventually broke in half and fell onto the faucet, breaking it off and flooding the kitchen. He did that. He glued a bookshelf to the wall. He put Christmas decorations all over the front fence and then lit them on fire. I'm not going to victimize myself and you aren't going to hold me responsible for him being fucked up.

Friday, August 16, 2013

SICKENING NEWS OUTLET REPULSES DYING PSUEDO-CELEBRITY

I felt self abusive today and since I drank all my hemlock recently I had to go to Fox News (also known as Serial Killer News) to flagellate myself. I usually browse until something makes me slap my head...it takes about 2 minutes.

The head-slapper today came after a minute of painful grimacing, like I was passing a Kevin Smith limited edition Mallrats Blue-Ray DVD out my asshole. But first, a review...
The general presentation of Fox News makes CNN look like Frank Lloyd Wright designed it. I'm deeply troubled by the popularity of such total trash. It is offensive to taste and decency. Still, I plunged on through puerile and tasteless gossip tales (one hesitates to call them news stories), alligators eating celebrity babies, dead celebrities, dying celebrities, feuding celebrities, sex changes, dirty laundry...I laughed when I read the headline "NO END TO CARNAGE IN EGYPT" It was funny because it's exactly the headline that Citizen Kane would've penned for what he considered the dumbest people on the planet: the readers of his paper.
No News, Only Static

Citizen Murdoch, you are a complete cunt. 

Oggy's Alternate Entertainment

Pleasant Thoughts

Oggy laughed himself to sleep
dreaming of the certainty
when all Americans are enslaved by Chinese
Tech moguls
and are forced to plow under their ancestors
into dusty fields
and irrigate with their own blood
the treasures of lost cultures
Micky Mouse droppings on Pluto's head
pet cemetarys bulldozed to make room
for pagodas selling goofy t-shirts
the cycles turn for and against
the imperialist demon

Asian emperors denounce rock and roll
subdivisions of ghettos are where hip hop
survives
on the parched lips of a blind child
the last remaining trace of our once prideless slop

It's a James Cameron movie
projected in 3D on the fat back of Honey Boo Boo
where Big Red Soda flows through veins of immortal statues
guarding the circuit boards that recorded our pet's bowel movements
for broadcast to internet.

Oggy's brain is hot wired to a gold fish bowl
for non stop entertainment
pulverized by nonsense
withered
weeping
Fox News has won

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Development of Africa Hindered by Lack of Second Africa To Exploit

Third World Development expert Dr. Simon Houndstooth announced today that the development of Africa was significantly hampered by the lack of a second Africa to exploit for resources and slave labor that would help the original Africa.

"What we need right now, what would really make the difference, is the discovery of another African continent full of waring stone-age tribes who are easily captured, a land with resources such as timber, fresh water, free labor in the form of slaves, and mineral deposits. All of these could be easily obtained with minimal force on the sub-modern savages, and then we could immediately use these precious resources to raise the quality of life for the original Africans."

Dr. Houndstooth explained that following four centuries of exploitation and pillaging, the current Africa stands little chance of naturally reaching a stable status.

"No, that's never going to happen. The average African's quality of life was much much better in the year 1000 AD than it is today. Their cities were stable, their culture was rich and locally born. They rated high on the self determination scale. Unfortunately, the conquest of Africa by the Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Germans and Americans and the series of wars fought on Africa's soil, and the subsequent four centuries of resource looting and political carnage caused by absentee governments and racial oppression basically combined to turn Africa into a toxic waste dump/civil nightmare with no hope of organically reaching stability." He paused, "If we had a chance to do that to another continent then we'd be in good shape."

The Doctor chuckled, "Why, the introduction of Christianity alone is enough to permanently cripple a nation. That's why the hunt for a new Africa to plunder must become a top priority. By our calculations most of the world has benefited from unrestrained seizure of Africa's human and natural resources, so we're confident that the discovery of another Africa to systematically decimate will ensure a bright future for this Africa."

Citizens of Africa, the original Africa, agree that the lack of a second Africa presents a serious problem on their path to modernization.

"The issue is simple," said Inequa Zuma of the Nigerian World Council, "we can not develop further without finding a continent similar to the condition of Africa about 600 years ago to totally dominate and plunder. Honestly, we'd be satisfied with a land mass the size of, say, India or China. That would work for us...as long as they are sub-literate and innocently living on top of vast mineral deposits. The puppet government/share-cropper method would still be a valid approach to their domination and our subsequent rise from poverty. Who knows, maybe Antarctica will melt and expose a primitive culture living in harmony with nature, whom can use as our personal forced labor pool. That would be perfect."

Zuma's aide whispered into his ear and he added, "Oh yeah, they have to be hard workers, almost genetically bred to perform cost saving manual labor and able to breed like rabbits to replace those who die of malnutrition and abuse. If you know of a continent like that then please contact us. I mean, it worked for everyone else so I don't see why it wouldn't work for us. You don't even know how much we'd benefit from 25 million slaves right now. We're one plundered continent away from being like the United States." Zuma held his thumb a fraction of an inch away from his index finger. "We're soooo close."

Zuma continued, "Otherwise, I don't see us moving much further [on the path to modernization]. We promise to commit tons of development aid to the new continent once we have fully modernized, but only after they have raised their standard of living on their own to the point where they can buy our obsolete armaments and technological waste. That's only fair."

When asked how the new continent would be divided among present nations, Zuma shrugged and replied, "Is that really pertinent? Whatever arbitrary lines we draw on a map will be reasonable. They [the newly discovered people] will eventually adjust. The important thing is that they are close enough geographically to facilitate our economic development quickly, you know, like in the case of the Dutch, English and Americans. We don't have a lot of time to waste. Everything else will work itself out."

At press time, no undiscovered continent that fits Africa's description in the year 1400 had been located and, not coincidentally, modern Africa remains the most impoverished continent.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Song tribute to Econoline

 It's not everyday someone writes a song about a van...but I think this captures some of the spirit of the van.

"She's the salt of the earth
Straight from the bosom of the Mormon church
With a voice like wine
Cruising along in that Ford Econoline"

I want to write a song about my 1974 Vespa Ciao...and send it to Nanci Griffith so she can sing it right.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Bass is Soul

5 year search is over

Try finding a bass guitar to test out when you're in the middle of the desert. I pity the settlers. I'm slowly recovering the essential instruments from my all time 2008 peak when I had more instruments than Daddy's Funky Music. The essentials include an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, an electric bass guitar, hand drums, harmonicas. This is an SR 750 Ibanez. I always pronounced it "EYE-ba-nez" but folks around here say, "ee-BAH-nyez" I still don't know the correct way since it's a Indonesia manufacturer and this is a "US only" bass. No matter...I own the instrument that Roger Waters plays and that's all that I care about. I'd make a video but my fender amp can doesn't do it justice. I can't tell you how many times I've seen audition requests for a bass guitarist and couldn't go because I had no bass. This job may kill me but I'll die with a bass in my hand.

Rear Hub

Sanded brake pad.
The 1974 Vespa Ciao moped fell over in the van and all the gear oil drained into the brake compartment. no rear brakes. I used slip joint pliers on the large sprocket nut. That comes off and the whole assembly is pulled out to reach the brake mechanism.
Sprocket and sprocket bracket
This bearing needs to be replaced but I'd have a better chance of replacing my T6-T1 vertebrae.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Andrew Jarvis

I learned something about the town I grew up in today so I'm going to see how quickly I can summarize it.

Every weekday from Late August to Mid June I walked out my back door, usually forgetting to lock the door, and walked or jogged to school. The high school was about a one mile walk for me. Maybe a bit more. 2 miles tops. "You'll be late," my father would inform me through dream cotton ears...and I paid him as much heed as I did to Nancy Reagan. My father left slightly earlier in the morning but it was a rare day I could get up in time to get a ride with him. I'll tell you why: normally, I would lay awake at night listening to the radio with headphones attached to my Sony Walkman. WHEB would play Dead or Alive and Pet Shop Boys over and over until 4 am. Then I'd get 2.5 hours of sleep and in attempting to make it 2.75 I would oversleep and miss home room. I could listen to the radio all night long in 1988. Faced with a choice between listening to Madonna's "Material Girl" or eating breakfast, I chose Madonna.

"Home Room" that phrase seems very unfamiliar to me now that I have been out of that artificial/codified world. I'd have to walk up South Street hill and endure the jeers of students who honked at me in their cars. Sometimes they'd stop and let me run up almost to the door and then take off fast, honking and flipping me the finger, calling me faggot. They were real heroes, laughing at me as they would arrive at school exactly on time and knew that I'd never beat the bell. Rain and sleet would lash my face and they'd always laugh and drive away. Real winners, those guys. (I'll add that one morning a kid let me catch up and get in. He was drinking vodka, playing Def Leppard wicked loud, laughing. He took a left turn in front of a speeding car and it smashed into us, glass covering our faces, flipping the car over and around. I got out and he forced the bottle into my backpack and said, "Get rid of this." and I limped away from the carnage, having injured my hip and neck. I tossed the empty bottle into a garbage can...and was still late for Home Room. When the Vice Principle asked for my excuse I said "It was my destiny." and was given an extra day in detention.)


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Safety Email

"MAX HEAT INDEX VALUES ON TUESDAY WILL RANGE FROM 105  TO 107 AND MAX HEAT INDEX VALUES ON WEDNESDAY WILL RANGE FROM  106 TO 110. THE COMBINATION OF HEAT AND HUMIDITY WILL RESULT  IN AN ELEVATED RISK FOR HEAT-RELATED HEALTH PROBLEMS." 


Strange that it doesn't mention the impending environmental collapse caused by unfettered destruction to fuel our grotesque infrastructure. It must've slipped their mind.

Note: Today, the only two places on Earth that were hotter than this area of Texas were Adrar, Algeria (middle of Sahara Desert) and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Ridiculous.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Street Guitar

Oggy's fat free ass rested hard on the concrete flower bed that protected a few weeds dispersed by wind and fate. The bearded one had to shift his decrepit hips to avoid sores. Graffiti and pain were painful distractions that Oggy wrestled against, mentally pinning one against the other and grappling alternatively with reality and an image of symbolic warfare. "Famuz G." was one such purple paint tag. "BLK BOYZ RULE" was another. "Vato Street Brothers...V.S.B." Nowhere was the wingnut nation represented, lacking literacy and publicity department of the aforementioned...and this omission bothered Oggy because it touched on a larger problem within a problem, a hidden problem, one of education strata enjoyed by the dispossessed, not merely defacing property but a subclass of undesirables who were voiceless.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Retirement




This place looks like it has enough character and quirks to keep me entertained. A music school is all that is missing but there is one of those in Puebla.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

The Last Ride

Hitchhiking is like buying a lottery ticket to the wide world of lunatics...but you don't want the winning numbers. It's probably the most misunderstood modes of traveling because if you have ever hitchhiked then you know it's terrible and if you dream of hitchhiking then you believe it will be awesome. Go to the end of a dirt road, where no one passes you and stick your thumb out for 16 hours. I'll tell you what will happen: You will kick the dirt, piss behind a tree, snack on food even though you aren't hungry...hum songs you know, and invent melodies that you'll soon forget. Every demon you've ever developed, every regret, every skeleton will haunt you mercilessly. You'll wonder if anyone will find your body...you'll be certain you're going to die of starvation. Hours and hours of watching the sun go down until you realize that there is no way you'll get off this road without walking. But walking how far? 10, 20 100 miles on dirt? But it's too late to start because the sun is down. You'll walk all night? No, that's crazy. No food, no blanket. You'll curse your bad luck at forgetting your sleeping bag in the last station wagon who dropped you off way the fuck in the middle of nowhere. But you had to flee because the guy was super creepy and his wife looked drugged. What kind of maniacs were they? Now you'll freeze all night, hungry...cold...lonely...hours more pass...you aren't even tired. You sit down and ants crawl on your legs. The moon comes out through the trees...what state are you in? What's the difference? Finally you see lights and are relieved...you'll be saved! And it's the same car that dropped you off and the same creep who rubbed your leg. But he's going to town for cigarettes...and you have no choice but get in again. It's a Rorschach test because what you see is who you are.

Few hitchhikers attempt to record their experiences and even fewer do it convincingly. It's kind of like war combat. Kerouac might be the only person to get to the heart of it as On The Road touches all the sun and shadow of the experience and he ends with Big Sur "being passed by fake wood panel station wagons, wifey looking straight ahead, hubby ignoring everything at the wheel, two kids gawking through the window..." bleak reality of 1962...

This is the first time I've hitch hiked in years and I soon begin to see things have changed in America, you cant get a ride any more […]. Sleek long station wagon after wagon comes sleering by smoothly […], the husband is in the driver's seat with a long ridiculous vacationist hat with a long baseball visor making him look witless and idiot -- Besides him sits wifey, the boss of America, wearing dark glasses and sneering, even if he wanted to pick me up or anybody up she wouldn't let him -- But in the two deep backseats are children, children, millions of children, all ages, they're fighting and screaming over ice cream, they're spilling vanilla all over the Tartan seatcovers -- There's no room anymore anyway for a hitch hiker. - Big Sur --Kerouac


Kerouac had come full circle from being picked up by the darling L.A. blonde actress in a sporty ride in Dharma Bums, who wanted amphetamines, to being stranded in Big Sur. The highs and lows had become only lows...and he'd never hitch again...what was culturally the spreading of White America in Healthy Camelot prime time to Kerouac was the homogenization and degradation of Bohemia.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Hub

Vespa Ciao front hub





There are several components to a front hub of a 1974 Vespa Ciao moped. I rolled mine through the small town and the cowboy hats all turned like in a movie where a hippie comes to town and shakes up the conservative attitude...except in my case the front hub wobbled like a thirsty Chihuahuan immigrant looking for work throwing watermelons for $11 a day.


There is a nose cap...and there are 10 bearing per side, and then there is a dust cap that presses on. Then there is a spacer and then a nut. The grease seems to evaporate. So this wobble causes me all kinds of stress adding to the TMJ syndrome that has me sipping beer-itas in the morning for sustenance.
All I want is to ride without fear of collapse.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.