Sunday, August 31, 2014

Xanadu


When all else fails, record an elevator musak version of Xanadu.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Al Pastor

"Sin cebolla" means "without onions"...something I forgot to request this time.
not my picture
By request...this particular taco is made "in the style of the shepherd" or Al pastor. It involves a huge shawarma pole of what looks like pre-sliced pork.* This is doused in some kind of salt and sugar syrup and then a gas and ceramic roasting element is put on one side and the pole is turned. I've seen a butane torch used in a pinch. A pineapple is put on top and in my case an onion was put on the bottom. These are small corn tacos and the recommended serving size is 5 tacos but after 3 I start groaning. Tonight I got 2 as a way of reintroducing my bowels to this delicious central Mexican staple. The noble Pig has no friends here in Mexico...all parts of him are used to feed everyone. Carnitas stands are everywhere, as are Al Pastor. Carnitas are less involved and are simply shredded pork chopped up with fried pork fat and hacked bone but in this region street vendors are putting an additional slab of pure pork fat as a garnish. It's really too much for me. One detail I love about carnitas is the tradition of chopping up the pork on an ancient round wooden cutting board that has never been sterilized. Then I know I'm in Mexico.

*Don't ask me if Mexican shepherds watch over flocks of pigs. Methinks the original meat was lamb or goat and it became pork but the name stayed the same.

Home Improvement

This is as good as I can do.

Home: I'm thinking about investing in a good mattress.

The van is running good but now that I really need the moped to run it is having problems. The 1974 Vespa Ciao is 40 years old now but I think the problems are routine...total loss of power, fuel leaks...fouled plug...These are related to timing. I bought the van and the moped back in 2008 and spent a few months getting the moped running as I could only work on it in parks and on the sidewalk between sleeping winos. I last touched the antiquated points ignition system in 2008. Isn't that remarkably reliable? 6 years without even checking the points gap and it's been in three countries. Well, the time has come and I'll be happy if that's the problem. First the carburetor on the van develops a vacuum leak and requires a rebuild, which was the first maintenance I did on the carb in 6 years and now the moped is running rough. My right shoulder also feels like Hulk Hogan has been kicking it. Age, sagging fat, flabby ass, wrinkles on my hand, strange growths of flesh on my leg; life quietly becoming a cycle of maintenance. Sure, you could point out that I own vehicles that belong in a museum...and I won't argue.

Note: 10 hours of messing with the moped and I got some results. The timing was an issue since the points were opening about .1mm instead of .5mm.
Also, why didn't anyone tell me that some modern carb cleaner can not be used in the same fashion as starting fluid? It takes a while for news to get to Old Oggy and I only learned today that store brand carb cleaner, even in Mexico, is not flammable since idiots were probably spraying their carb while the engine was running and starting fires. So here is Oggy spraying inside the air filter with non flammable carb cleaner, thinking it's flammable...and then scratching his bum because the thing won't start or immediately dies. I spent hours hunting for the reason non-flammable carb cleaner wasn't getting my engine to start. I don't recommend spraying carb cleaner directly into a carb on a running engine but technically it won't backfire into a ball of flame as long as it is the non-flammable type. Now I definitely warn against using non-flammable carb cleaner as a substitute for starting fluid unless you are applying for a PhD in futility. The real kick in the ass is that I have a can of starting fluid in the van but assumed they were interchangeable. Damn! But after the timing was fixed and the carb was cleaned and I rubbed magic dust on my balls the moped ran like a wild horse. In fact, I took it out for a test drive and it didn't stop until I was way up on a hill next to a tacos al pastor vendor. I was lost, but I was found. 3 fouled spark plugs and frustration levels were high. Please let it be fixed!

Further note: yes, the moped is basically fixed. The fuel leak is because the gaskets are old and the inlet float needle tip is worn and general deterioration. But the important thing was the performance and I can say it has never been better. I was afraid the cylinder had worn out but it was the damn timing/points gap that was to blame. This moped is the best! On further investigation my carb cleaner is indeed flammable, so I think it kills the engine because it enriches the mixture too much for a two stroke. It's running good. That's all that matters.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Vain Hobo Coughs Up Bloody Phlegm


No more excuses, thought Oggy, as the rain breached his final defenses, the tarp made of dream fabric and recycled self torment, bound by Lenin-stitches and Marxist thread. The bay leaf stump was not going to be the end of his fruit and nut utopia, no. In fact, the entire pre-conceived cliché, his use of the philosophically commercialized term “Project” to describe his activities was part of the problem. The roots, Socrates wisely taught, were always the ultimate source of failure or success and Oggy’s fruit and nut utopia project was no different. Once Oggy had defined the objective as a “project” then it could never evolve into a reality. It was a project, like a defeated era of the 1960s, an experiment in idealism, media-enhanced, subjugated by commercial terms, co-opted, ethically plagiarized from a failed and poisoned culture and that was why it had failed to gain support. The re-imagined Fruit and Nut Collective began to hover on the immediate horizon of Oggy’s soggy vision, mice and earth worms forming his immediate army. The disdainful golf course crawling with pastel pants and false teeth, the elitist and whore-filled crystal clubhouse, the awful, disgraceful “seafood” restaurant, literally buried in the rotting corpses of crustaceans and coerced butter sauce, must be appropriated for future generations…Oggy saw no other solution. The land was ideal for the Collective and had access to the seaside mansions that would also be appropriated for common housing during the revolution. The cursed elite of Santa Cruz were snug in their usurped houses while the exploited Ohlone Indians crouched in homeless shelter tents…the forecast called for Justice.
Oggy winced gravely as he shifted his meatless hips on the bed of crushed redwood leaves and re-purposed artichoke leaves. His throat was raw with disappointment and bacteria but his eyes remained focused on the future where love songs were authentic, sung around a healing fire, the light pollution that obscured the stars would be part of a discredited past. The alternative, Oggy knew, was a continued decline into a commoditized psuedo-culture where the indiscriminate price tag and the catchy slogan on the painted lips of the trashy spokeswoman was gospel to a bewildered congregation of flash mob boot lickers and pop culture tampon dispensers; fruit flavored toiletries, pre-tarnished jewelry, travel-sized ethics, lion shredded jeans, bears shitting out coffee beans for the smug elite morning cups. Oggy shuddered from acute disgust: Civilization was already collapsing, obviously, as the divide between the elite and the field hands grew more and more obtuse. So, against all odds, he would rally support for the fruit and nut collective, the antithesis of the awful decline into internet masturbation chat rooms and fertile land forever poisoned by dental products and wasted, rotting IHOP pancakes.
In the morning, rain or shine, throbbing prostate pain or not, Oggy vowed to camp outside City Hall, abstain from food, surviving only on the plentiful rainwater, until he could impress upon the blind Council members that the golf course property must be returned to the starving people. Oggy’s legs had fallen asleep in the crooked positing the tree stump forced him to lay and his neck ached and his prostate pulsed with infection and alarm…all these details gave him strength because a fight was only worth fighting if the stakes were life and death. Oggy had his Spanish Street School to consider, and the weekly vegetable pickup at the Farmer’s Market and his piano recital at the nursing home, but he believed these playful activities would not hinder his important mission to further the advancement of ultimate submission by the unconscionable dominant McGovernment. God, everything Oggy thought sounded like a manifesto, but he couldn’t help it. He was vain, he admitted and his pine bough mattress was an awful affront to environmental sovereignty. He might as well have dug up a cemetery and build a hammock factory on the rotting bones of Spanish priests.

Fool On Piano

This is too self-pitying to be totally accurate to my current situation but I couldn't help it. The song and the lonely piano player and the white walls, barred windows like a prison...I don't know...it works as a self-pity anthem...which I have sung proudly more than once. But I'm actually relaxing, eating exotic food...I have my whole life to live here in Puebla...I have postponed my masterpiece for too long and am trying to motivate my disdain. But notice the flat finger technique that I now use on the keys...this is Erroll Garner's influence and the sustain pedal is no longer treated like a throttle on a VW Beetle with a bad ignition coil. The angst and agony of traveling with a full sized keyboard that has to sleep in my bed until I need it was the definition of frustration. Imagine moving a piano every night and morning for a year when you need to lay down or get a tool to fix your aged van or moped. It was done with one objective in mind: me alone with a piano and time to kill. Now I have this objective met and I can hear the maturity and vain arrogance on display in my playing. What kind of fool am I? That's a difficult question to answer, but it's a good question to ask.

This tune is in my fakebook and I don't have a good story of why I'm playing it. I turned the page and read the lyrics and thought, "Hey, this sounds like someone I know." The jazz standards are like that. This horrible windows movie maker credits feature was the only way I could figure out how to get all the lyrics to scroll up...but it forced me to break them into two columns so there are odd spaces that make it look like I was trying to write poetry from someone else's words. I'm not that pretentious so I blame Bill Gates.
I tried to pick up the tempo on the 2nd verse...but it's too advanced and also it isn't even the right approach when I consider the words and the mood of this song. It is not a dance tune with fingers snapping like the sweaty young turks on Hollywood Blvd. scoring crystal meth. It's about self pity and should be played like a noose is somewhere nearby. The Great Sammy Davis Jr. recorded a strong performance of this show tune.

Pastures of Heaven

Zeta Cartel Employee Hard at Work in Cocaine Field... Scares 400 million Americans away with 20 year old garden tool.


It is a relief to return to the road weary blog...carburetor dust in my lungs...jarritos soda on my parched lips...torta sándwich remnants in my clogged colon. Setinbeck´s book was kind of titled as a mockery of the truth...the poverty and violence and earthlike symbolism...Heaven is where you find it is one message to be construed from Steinbeck´s tales. 5 Years ago I decided I would go to Puebla, Mexico and it took 5 years to get here after a troubled expedition to the Northern Lakes of Labrador. I might set down and write the last 5 years out...it has been unusual.

I knew I had arrived in Mecca when I saw this Wall painting. I can wear my belt buckle proudly here.
 I hope no one has used the 2nd person generic in the past week. I have my spies everywhere so I will know.
Is it good luck when a butterfly photobombs your volcano selfie?
This is a nice puebla in Puebla. There is a volcano that I think is active...the legend is that the volcano is a fire kept by a god to warm his sleeping lover who is laying next to the volcano. I think the monotheistic approach makes things simpler but was it so intollerable to The Spanish having Huehuecoyotl as a God of dance and music?
Oggy in a previous life.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

You is not One

This isn't a political essay. I try to fragment my already discarded theories so that one may read articles without always being faced with political jargon and conspiracy babbling. This is about my other pet peeve: bad grammar.

I've noticed a trend that started long ago but now has reached endemic status: the improper use of 2nd person pronouns, especially in speech. This is an issue that few but Oggy will be annoyed by but that keeps me up at night. Even there in that previous sentence I referred to myself in the third person, and then in the same sentence referred to myself in the first person. I do this at times break up the first person narcissist that I believe I am at heart, my vanity, my literary selfie constantly reinventing itself in stilted vocabulary and self-conscious sadness. But to be so inconsistent in the same sentence is crazy. But I must obey my instinct and I refuse to censor some artifacts of my broken inner dialogue.

But the use of second person "You" when the person really means the impersonal or generic "One". It's like the "royal We" in England. "We will have breakfast on the porch," said the Queen, who would be dining alone.

Almost any interview on television is peppered with this awful mistake.
Interviewer: How did it feel to throw an interception to end the game?
Quaterback: You prepare for a game and do the best you can. You learn to take the good with the bad.

What the fuck is that quarterback talking about? You? Who? The interviewer? The interviewer has never played football and isn't asking for a lecture on what he should do to avoid throwing interceptions. The question was asked to the quarterback specifically but the quarterback responds with a second person response. "You do this and that." I'm so irked by this awful trend in speech.

This grammar is all wrong. But the problem is that it is entrenched since the likelyhood of a quarterback saying, "One trains all year until one is prepared, and then one does his best." is zero. Why not say, "I did my best."

The word "You" should never be used as a generic you. Of course even wikipedia approves this ugly and barbaric usage; I disagree. It sounds stupid and there are more sophisticated alternatives. I am making an effort to purge this generic you out of my vocabulary. And the best way to do that is to speak in first person, like the egotistical cocksucker that I am. If I tell a story then I'm going to tell it not like, "So you come into town and the first thing you see is a bus on fire, because the teachers are on strike."
Yes, this sounds natural, this is how most people would tell a story...but what I've seen is a dramatic tendency for interviews and stories to become these generic fables about an impersonal "you" who does not exist but really acts as a deceitful buffer between truth and lie.

I didn't really like the Scorsese movie "The Departed" but I watched it a few times. In one scene, the generically pretty psychologist is justifying her romantic decisions to Leonardo. "You get a job, you go on dates, you get married and you start a family."
The whole tone of that scene is that she doesn't trust herself...but doesn't know why...and Leo's character is her therapist. And to me, the whole tone is entrapped in her usage of the word "You" instead of "I"...and everytime I see that scene I keep waiting for Leo's character to say calmly, "You didn't use the word "I" in that whole explanation of your life."

THAT is why I have a problem with this generic usage of You. It's become a substitute for ownership of actions. I watched an interview of the late great Robin Williams and he was asked if sobriety made it hard to be funny. He said, "No, you find your humor when you're sober." Well, fuck, Robin, if that's true then why don't say, "I found my humor when I got sober."? I felt the same way watching that interview as I felt watching the scene in The Departed; the person wasn't convinced so they used a generic YOU to deflect the question. Furthermore he's talking bullshit because the world is way funnier when I've been munching on cannabis enhanced cookies than when I sit around eating stale Ramen Noodles. Sobriety ain't funny at all to ME.

So, I accept that the use of "One" sounds a little too Queen's English to stick in the modern tweet world on idiots on smart phone. But I hope to make a case that the use of "You" to deflect a question and speak generically and impersonally when the question was specifically personal is something that must come to an end or life on earth will steadily decline; taste and decency will perish.

Try this: if someone asks you a question that is specific and personal and directed to you then answer in the first person. This habit of turning everything into a fucking generic fable where an unnamed "You" does all these heroic things has to stop.

This has all come to my mind because in the Spanish language the word "Se" is used to death...and "Se" is the exact same as "One" It's an impersonal generic pronoun. The first thing I learned in Spanish was, "Como se llama" which doesn't translate to "What is your name?" although that's basically the question; the translation is "How does one call you." And "Como Se Dice" translates to "How does one say..." Se is an important word as the word "Tu" or "You" is a direct and personal pronoun reserved for close relations.

In English I ask someone, "How did you like the movie?" and the person responds, "Well, you get your hopes up and then you pay all this money and you sit in a big room and you...." like he's telling a fucking biblical tale about Solomon and the gold mines of Bethlehem. Fucking shit. When did we start using generic pronouns to explain something as simple as a fucking movie night? I believe it's a problem associated with media and celebrities being such false personalities that they cease to refer to themselves in the first person..."You go on set and then you have to kiss Brad Pitt and you jump off buildings and you just get overwhelmed..." Well, that's total bullshit because I will never do none of that shit...so don't try to deflect your experiences on me you vain cunt.

Now everyone wants to be a fucking movie star so we are all getting in the habit of speaking generically. I need this to stop now. I catch myself doing it still and I have to start the whole conversation over using all first person pronouns. It's hard at first but it's a bad habit and I don't care what wikipedia says; it's all wrong. If one is actually referring to a specific person in front of one then you are permitted to say, "You....you take a left and then go down the steps." But never generically, "You have to ask yourself, is this a dream?" BULLSHIT!

I'm not going to let this go because it irks me. I'll start a nickle jar where if I make a video and I accidentally say, "You" in a generic usage then I put a nickle in the jar. I still will use "Oggy Bleacher" in the third person even when I am Oggy Bleacher because I think it's amusing and I'm trying to deliberately create a mythology around Oggy Bleacher and until someone starts an Oggy Bleacher fan/hate web page then no one is going to refer to Oggy Bleacher in the third person. So I must report on Oggy's actions as though he were a separate entity. I'm really perplexed by the state of the world so this is how I amuse myself. (Imagine if I had written, "You get really perplexed by the state of the world so you invent ways to amuse yourself." What an asshole I would be)

Monday, August 18, 2014

Hard Life

Vacillating between dejection and resignation, the grey-bearded cowboy ponders it all.
generic cactus picture

mattress springs used as fence

Friday, August 15, 2014

Good Times

Man, dig it.

I took a trip down memory lane with my aunt and her wedding ceremony on Mt. Tam was covered in the auspicious street mag called "Good Times" (The post-wedding party was rudely broken up by "Smokey The Bear Pigs" the journalist called "Big Pathetic Boy Scouts")

Can you appreciate this trip?
This was a time when independent media was cool and non commercial. 1969. Not the Summer of Love (1967), but the year of Armstrong walking on the moon, Nixon endeavoring to mass murder all of South East Asia with the compliance of buzz cut drones raised on Eisenhower Flakes, Woodstock, the manufacturing of my very own E-200 Van, concept of Gay Rights, Kerouac hopped a ride on the big railroad to the sky, and lots of cool things.

1969: Good Times Frisco newspaper published with a pot leaf in the logo...it's unusual but it's normally hard to determine exactly how long a bad President sets the country back. In Nixon's case we know now his domestic drug approach set the country back exactly 50 years...as the current decriminalized status of pot in several states including California is exactly what Nixon selfishly denounced. Public Enemy number 1 was, in Nixon's words, "Public Resistance to mass murder in Vietnam, and drug use." It turns out Nixon was Public Enemy Number 1 and I think his bones should be dug up and shipped off to Cambodia for goats to eat them and shit them out. Hey, the magazine says "COME ON STRONG"

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Relics


authentically annoyed carb mechanic
I watched a movie about Americans finding "home" in Mexico. I pondered that topic in dreamy Oggy fashion and decided the joy of extended childhood, of freedom to be authentic, of exploring creative opportunities, is what I found when I moved into the van. The geographic location is more a quest for a climate in which I can live in the van. But I want electricity for the keyboard and my typewriter so living in the van isn't a long term goal. But owning the van and traveling in the van is like when I was a teenager and dressed up in black Ninja outfit and ran around the neighborhood, doing drop knee rolls in the parks after midnight. It's amusing.

That's right, all the flag decorations in Paracho are shaped like guitars. Misty and cool like paradise. I slept until the entire town assembled outside my van and started shooting fireworks in honor of the dead and a marching band played odd tempo tunes. My dreams were interrupted by life
In a place called Tzintzuntzan
 Tzintzuntzan is a place I can't pronounce. How many towns have three Z's in the name? It means Hummingbird in an ancient language, but I didn't see any. When I ran out of light I camped by the P'urhepechan pyramids. There was also a small circus in town that I suspected involved sacrificed or abused animals so I skipped it. I'm learning that not every pyramid relic is Mayan or Aztec so I will try to give credit to the proper extinct Indigenous people. There were hundreds before Senor Cortez decided to lay waste to 5000 years of culture in pursuit of gold.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Good Times

chaos photo 100_9879.jpg
This never gets old

Travel Advisory Issued For St. Louis

For the last 2 weeks I've been using St. Louis as an example of the worst place I've ever lived. I was afraid to leave the house and I didn't even leave the yard and was robbed once. The house was broken into twice and the neighbor was beaten and left for dead by her boyfriend. I literally got attacked by a fucking dog on my way to drop some mail in the box. I fucking hate St. Louis. My van was vandalized and when I moved it I was confronted and told to leave the neighborhood. Someone left a note saying my van was an "eyesore" which is true, but coming from someone who lives in The Lou it was a real insult. Speaking of eyes, I have a bacterial infection in my eye and the closest free clinic was near Ferguson so I rode my 1974 Vespa Ciao moped from Carondolet to some town near Ferguson where I established that St. Louis was trying to set some kind of record for god awful health clinics. The nurse, or pseudo doctor looked at me like I was trying to buy crack cocaine when I told her all the skin on my eyes is falling off and maybe some Polymixin ointment would help.
Obviously, I left with no medicine or prescription, feeling like an asshole, and rode home through streets that could only be described as modern ghetto, filled with empty brick buildings and graffiti. I was the only white person in sight so pedestrians stared at me in my bellbottom pimp pants and moped for more reasons than one.

True, Louisiana is the place that I will never fit into and have anxiety attacks thinking about my time there, but St. Louis, with live music, a historic river and some evidence of culture that should make it charming also has the worst collective health habits, the bleakest economy, the most prevalent crime rate, a profound lack of education and opportunities and a police state attitude exacerbated by high drop out rate and a racially indifferent crystal meth production crisis. And deadly tornados. It's the worst place I've ever even heard about because while you may point to places like Gaza or Tehran or even 1942 Poland and I will agree there were spikes of aberration and plain insanity, I defy you to find a place with more entrenched problems than St. Louis.

Everything I know about St. Louis makes the news that the police murdered a black teenager in cold blood no surprise. The kid was trying to defend his own life and lost the battle against a total jarhead cop. The cop is not an aberration, and that's the problem. They instigate. They are bullies with badges in a neo-apartheid environment. The cops in St. Louis are encouraged to have complete disregard for black lives, by design. They start fights they can't lose because if pedestrian fights back then they shoot him dead. St. Louis is actually a place I consider too fucked up to be an accident. It takes work to make a place that dysfunctional. Looking at this as an isolated incident will only put you in the company of redneck internet cowboys with the foresight of a blind horse jockey. Like Bob Marley said, "When the rain fall, It don't fall on one man's housetop."

When a cop approaches you with a puffed out chest like he's going to kill you for being black, and then he goes for his gun like he's really going to shoot you down dead in the street no matter what you do, then what the fuck is a kid going to do but try to get the gun first? It's like a cop choking a guy or beating him with nightclubs...if he tries to defend himself then he's "resisting arrest"...and if he accepts blow after blow like a stoic Buddhist monk then he's going to die. There is a saying that the police are supposed to be professional peace keepers and citizens do not have to be professional suspects. I imagine a big sign in the St. Louis police office locker room: "IF A SUSPECT JERKS AWKWARDLY WHEN YOU PUNCH HIS MOUTH THEN THAT IS RESISTING ARREST SO YOU CAN JUSTIFIABLY SHOOT HIM."


Respect is earned by more than a badge and fancy vehicle and cops need to learn that. If you stop a stranger then accept you are nothing until you earn respect. Understand that compliance is not the same as respect. The cop profession is discredited by a collective shitty attitude. I never called the cops when I was in St. Louis because that's like begging to be drug tested and arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor. In fact, most people I know openly distrust cops. Don't call 911, it only encourages the assholes. You've got neighbors who probably have guns so knock on a door instead. We're going to reach that point eventually so we might as well start now.

There's a saying, "If you don't like the police then next time you need help call a crack addict." Hahahaha. Pretty funny. I say, don't call either of them. Call me. I'll sort out the problem and the cops and crack addicts don't need to know shit. The money-based justice system is so fucking flawed it's a joke. If you want justice follow your instincts. Like the biker said in Raising Arizona: "You want to find an outlaw, hire an outlaw. You want to find a Dunkin' Donuts, call a cop."

Respect is earned, is the lesson. It's really bullshit that a kid can't stand up for himself when a cop loses his shit, tries to run him over and then goes for his gun. I've had cops randomly slam me against the van and I can't defend myself because I got a bad back and I know I can't win without help. It's the price I pay for blowing in the wind in a tone deaf nation. I had a woman cop get up in my shit because I was singing gospel songs alone in a park. I found out the hard way that she was stronger than me. She knew Aikido or Ninjitsu or something because I was on my ass before I could say "A Closer Walk With Thee". That was in a city named after Jesus Christ...and I was singing gospel songs. True story. hahaha. Same city that kicked me out of the welcome center parking lot...ON JULY 4th! Independence Day. HAHAHAHA. Treated me exactly like dog shit on a shoe. I don't have to slander the cops, they put shit on their face with no help needed. A mom called the cops cause her mentally ill kid was acting wacky. The cops shot the kid dead. That's a meathead mentality. Don't tell me your job is hard if you show up to a call and open fire on a defenseless mental retard! The fucking Italian Mafia is more tactful than that.

Mostly I take my shirt off when I know a cop is going to interrogate or search me because it slightly defuses their belief I'm carrying a hidden Samurai sword. I'm a professional suspect because when they ask me for my ID before I move I say clearly, "My wallet is in my left front pocket. I'm going to reach for it with my left hand. Is that ok?" Otherwise I get shot in the chest reaching for the wallet they just asked me to reach for. If a cop is genuinely human and knocks politely on my van door then I say hello, I invite him in, I give him a tour like I would give to anyone and answer his questions like I always do. "Yes, officer, the country is fundamentally unjust and I don't feel like working to climb to the top of a shit heap. Would you like some coffee?" If I hear a tone of disrespect in his voice then there's usually trouble that has me with my arm in a painful angle. But I've never had a cop cross the line with me where I think it's life or death. I've dealt with lots of bullies in my day and they all have short attention spans. I wait it out and I've been lucky so far. In the end I know I'll sink their ship.

That said, I must echo the depressing advice from Constitutional fundamentalists: when a cop approaches you for any reason, say nothing except, "Am I being arrested?"
The cop will ask for an ID because it's the minimum a cop can do. You will be tempted to ask, "What for?" and that is considered disobeying an officer. Disobeying is an offense they can arrest you for, so you see how quickly the situation escalated. Don't ask, "What for?" Give them your ID and pray you've been a good boy in the recent past. Ask again, "Am I being arrested? Am I being detained?" They will make up some reason to detain you while they confirm your identity...so you can wait it out while repeatedly asking if you are being detained. If they ask you what your name is tell them it's on the ID that you just gave them and do they need you to read it to them. If they ask you what you are doing sitting alone in a public park at noon playing guitar ask them if you are being arrested. Another way to respond is, "My first name is I Want and my last name is A Lawyer." Never argue with a cop or proposition a cop. If he's dirty then he will hint that there's a way to make this all go away. Take it from there. You can't win an argument with a pre-programmed idiot so don't bother. It's no different than being picked on in 7th grade, the bully singled you out for no reason and he's got unlimited backup and resources, there is no justice...you are a nameless victim in the decay/refinement of America. Live with it for now. Lots of people are in jail for failing to follow these rules and because isolated resistance is disorganized and ineffective, although morally justified, I can't agree with it. I was being searched illegally by two cops once on Venice Beach and while he reached in my pockets I was asked, "Do you have any needles that are going to stick me?" I foolishly said, "That's for me to know and you to find out." and his partner punched my liver...and he could've shot me, planted some drugs, and gotten a gold star. It happens every day. I got lucky. Life in the van has given me lots of experience with the cops. I admit I'm an undesirable transient and the cops are suspicious...so they put some heat on me as part of a preemptive strategy. For that reason I hold no malice toward the ones that do their job without malice. As long as they don't try to get a hard on bullying me I'm an obedient puppy dog.

This Ferguson cop fucked up, he lost his temper and executed someone who wouldn't be bullied, and he is a murderer in my mind. Defending his actions and protecting him makes the whole city accomplices to murder. I'm not the only one who thinks this although Obama clearly failed his final test of loyalty to the common man. I don't believe in killing cops even though they execute innocent people and then treat protesters and homeless like the scum of the earth. Call me an asshole pacifist. I also think that, like Buddhist Monks who kill with machetes, this guy isn't a "cop" anymore; he's a goon in a blue uniform with one confirmed execution under his belt. So how can a man defend himself against a rogue cop who has a twisted 007 mentality*?  He gets organized...or he moves to Mexico, whichever is easier. I say this cop crossed the line and can think about it for 20 years in the Missouri State Penn. This is fantasy of course because California set a precedent when Oscar Grant was executed by a low life BART cop who served less time in jail (11 months) than it took to prosecute him (18 months). BART paid the going rate for killing a father: $2 million. Maybe Grant's daughter can buy a new father. Furthermore, a conventional approach to justice pretends conventional justice system is legitimate...which it isn't. So, I don't see an immediate solution.

Citizens need to regain control of the police and there will be bloodshed because the cops are out of control like teenagers on spring break. Yes, I believe the army should be involved in the total disarmament of the St. Louis police force. Fuckwad bullies should not have guns issued to them. While you are at it go ahead and disarm the police force in Los Angeles, Houston, Corpus Christi, Denver and Miami because at best those police forces are worthless and at worst they are homicidal. A guy with orange hair and armored jacket shoots up a movie theater and then waits by his car. Do we really need a police force to deal with that situation? What the fuck good is the 2nd amendment if a citizen can't execute the guy with the orange hair standing next to his vehicle full of ammo and guns? The whole state of Missouri is poisoned by crystal meth and they bust out the armored vehicles and tear gas to suppress a protest after a cop murders a teenager? Really?  If the police response to crystal meth production was as violent and menacing as it was to a protest over an unjustified street execution there would be no more crystal meth. But that's just crazy talk, right? Disarm these pathetic bullies NOW! I'll take my chances with no police force.



Here's a nice clip of 6 minutes in The Lou. Those pretty brick buildings bring back fond memories of applying a tourniquet to my arm after that fucking dog attacked me. Pay attention to the classic meathead cops action: Roll up, get out of squad car, kill a black guy...collect your check. Also note how expertly the cops set up a crime scene after they execute the man. Maybe if they spent some time on crisis resolution rather than how to unroll caution tape this all could've been avoided.

I watch this video and think like an asshole, "HEY COPS, STAY THE FUCK IN YOUR CAR AND LOCK THE FUCKING DOORS IF YOU ARE JUST GOING TO EXECUTE THE DUDE THE SECOND YOU GET OUTSIDE. GOD GAVE YOU A MICROPHONE SO FUCKING USE IT."

Keep in mind that the police chief said "the officers did not have their guns drawn when they exited the vehicle." I guess he doesn't have eyes because they had their guns drawn as soon as they stepped on the ground. It's clearly in the video that the officers were trigger happy and the Chief lied without hesitation to protect two executioners. It really upsets me that anyone could consider this something other than execution. The main argument in favor of the cops is that "The guy presented a danger to the cops so they are justified in killing him."
That doesn't wash with me at all mainly because if a cop goes to work thinking, "Kill or be Killed" THEN HE SHOULD NOT GO TO WORK. That's the first thing. Go to Iraq. Join ISIS. But please don't be a fucking law enforcement officer. I'm afraid for humanity if this is not clear. The second problem is DON'T GET OUT OF YOUR CAR AND EXPOSE YOURSELF TO DANGER IF YOU ARE JUST GOING TO SHOOT SOMEONE. Christ! The black guy is not putting anyone at all in danger, no one is near him, he's not threatening anyone. By getting out of your car, stepping to one side of your door and aiming your pistols at the guy you are basically justifying the execution by saying you are going to "stand your ground". Which makes a policeman's job something similar to a hunter in a safari park. "Well, I drove 15 miles into the savannah, set out a bait of a dead hog, AND SUDDENLY A TIGER CHARGED AT ME. Well, I had to shoot it to save my life."
You are an asshole if that makes sense and these cops are cunts. They did not have to put themselves in a position where it was kill or be killed...so by doing such a thing they guaranteed an execution...which is no different than manslaughter. An even worse justification is, "The black dude should do what the cops tell him to do." My problem with that goes back to my lack of respect for cops. I respect people, not uniforms. When I finally lost any fear of cops was when I knew I had to get out of The United  Police States for my own safety. There was a time when I thought they deserved my obedience because, "I might get in trouble." Now I see that the trouble is much bigger than me and the cops are doing everything they can to ensure it never is corrected. Laws are written by and benefit the rich...so the police are basically private security to the elite. The cops are part of the problem, not a solution...the current law enforcement model will never be part of an equitable society. So it's really a question of pride. Are you the kind of person who would obey anyone in jackboots who has a gun, or do you think for yourself? Most people prefer to live like dogs, this guy in St. Louis died like a lion.

Need I remind everyone that this happened under Obama's watch so when I think back to 2008 and all the folks crying tears of joy that progress had been made in race relations I'm sick to my stomach. No doubt McCain and Palin wouldn't be doing shit either...so Obama is basically as fucked up and useless as a crippled Vietnam war vet and an Alaskan beauty queen. That's progress? Keep voting Democrat or Republican, go ahead. Like Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does."

So, save your breath if you want to ask if I've been kidnapped by Zeta cartels or extorted by La Familia. If you live in the United Police States then you have worse problems than Mexico has ever had. You have a teenage black kids channeled into poverty and crime who are taught that they are beneath respect and can be bullied and killed indiscriminately by police. Of course the mob is looting bacon and chicken; they are hungry. The police see themselves as heroes in a war on crime but it's a war that was manufactured by ignorance and apathy. And you watch the news and shrug because it's only another black kid getting killed and that attitude is something that I don't understand but I accept is a modern American tradition of inaction. I'm afraid that I may have to return briefly to St. Louis...and that's saying something since I'm going there from a place the Travel Department has determined too unsafe to visit. Their propaganda has worked well because until recently I was the only gringo in sight. No, the violence in America doesn't make Mexico safe by comparison, but I don't pretend that the land of police brutality is better than narco-extortion. That would be a fucking beautiful irony for me to travel from Mexico only to be shot dead in random violence in St. Louis. I'll be lucky a zombie from Florida doesn't eat my fucking face.

*Licensed to Kill

Monday, August 11, 2014

Romance

Because nothing is more romantic than driving 1000 miles into Mexico to the UNESCO world heritage city of San Miguel De Allende at the height of festival season to try to adjust a 45 year old Motorcraft 2 valve carburetor on river rock and cobblestone streets a block from a tortilleria. I'd like to show you pictures of the museums and cathedrals and gardens but that would be a lie...my life is consumed by RPM, vacuum specifications and idle mixture levels. Later this week I will visit a historic pre colombian pyramid where I will share a video about fuel float levels.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Fitting In

Wanted: Country That Accepts Gypsies


Morelia construction
When they put "churros" on a bronze plaque then you know they are serious
The good news is the Mexican transportation department wanted to make sure the roads were in tip top condition for me to tour this marvelous land. 300 years of vehicular congestion is going to be rectified. The bad news is they decided to start construction the day I arrived. So in 2016 the roads are going to be awesome.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Tropic Of Cancer

nearly the final resting place

la gente de dio
Like most heroic journeys, the elation of crossing the tropic of cancer again, finally fleeing the heat and oppression and police brutality of the north into the tropics where tortas are thick on the green fields...was followed quickly by trouble. San Felipe is not on my map and I entered that town feeling I could live there but horse questioned my decision and soon the van was coughing in a way I did not recognize. I would soon learn the elastomer valve and accelerator pump gasket had failed, leaking precious fuel onto the hot exhaust manifold. San Felipe had no gas station so I had to flee further south through Jalisoco, Aguascalientes, Durango, into Michiacan. There I would fix the carburetor on an abandoned street. rain falling like the scattered thoughts of a delirious philosopher. The Spanish came here and transformed the Indians with steel and coercion and the bible. the INdians fought back and burned priests. To the north, my ancestors, the English had no transformation in mind and set about to exterminate the locals. In Paracho, Michaocan the priests taught the indians how to make guitars. In Salem, Mass. the Indians were slaughtered. A flawed reading of a compass could have changed history but today this is what we have. Indian/spanish blood lines making tortas and requintos...and Apaches tossing dice on the table of defeat. I can not type on this keyboard. I have been pissing out my ass for three days following an ill advised jugo de cactus. I don{t know why anyone migrated north. it{s is nice here.
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.