Posts: 46

1. wk 46 - let us now praise a famous woman

   11.May.08, 03:03 EDT
   
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   I could start off this by doing my usual hemmering and hawing. You see I already am. I’m concerned ‘bout my incredible naiveté. My insane optimism (there, that’s my autobiography title, now what’s my “stripper name”). Sometimes I feel I have the sophistication of a uni-celled organism, there’s hay stickin’ outta my ass (hey!). I’m so corny, I’m ethanol. But as the contest for the Democratic Nomination for the President of the United States seems about settled, I would like to take this moment to say something to the candidate who finished a very (very) strong second. I’d like to say ... wait I’ll say it at the end.
   
   First, I’d like to mention again that John McCain is not my friend (he keeps addressing us all the time as his “friends.”) Now, we know who his friends are, fatcats. He should begin his speeches, “my friends, my fatcats.” This guy is really the weakest general election candidate the American Tories, the Republicons have put up in three decades. All he is is a liberal Republicon who’s against abortion. Oooooh, that’s a scary coalition he’s gonna build. The Thought-Bots of the Conserveyourightatives have pointed out over the years, that some working-class voters don’t so much vote against their economic interests but vote for their cultural ones (I think it’s a good point, rich liberal democrats like FDR or Warren Buffet do the same thing). Yes, the Republicon party moved South over the last half-century and emphasized certain “values”, but it never altered its foundation in money, business, land, oil and Wall St. (nothinc against money, business, land, oil and Wall St. jus’ sayin’). McCain has the same foundation, but the slip is showing, he does not have the values down. He’s a Rockefeller from Arizona. He’s the one that needs the Reagan Democrats, and he’s not going to get them, like uh, Reagan did. There’s gonna be some more Democrat Democrats this year. The only thing he can try is the war, and the war ...
   
   It’s an interesting question whether there is ever only one factor in anything (I myself, really, you, yourself?, have liked the idea in the past of “many factors”). But I think for all the all and everythinc of this election, there has been one factor. In the upcoming general election, the one candidate who is really against the war in Iraq, will be up against the one candidate who is really for the war in Iraq.
   
   And this is the reason Hillary Clinton will not be in that election. Having said that, I’d like to say what I was going to say at the beginning. This is typical Mike Tyler style to fill up on a couple words with not really what the thing was gonna be ‘bout, but then jus’ sorta say it. But, ya know whatever. Here’s what I wanna say to my Senator from New York; nyc boi was proud to vote for you in the Democratic primary, just like I will be proud to vote for the next President of the United States, Barack Obama in November.
   
   Hillary, thank you.
   

2. wk 45 - misery lane anus

   04.May.08, 02:30 EDT
   
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   First I gotta give my take on two things right away. Memo to John McCain: I am not your friend. O.k., gottit buddy. (“My friends ...”).

   
   

   Two, just read this quote in the NY Times from a securities analyst who had harsh words for Yahoo’s management’s “unbelievable” actions in refusing to be taken over by Microsoft. I’m not going to add my own comment. It doesn’t need it.
   

   
   

   “This is management putting its employees and its job security ahead of current Yahoo shareholders’ interest.”
   

   
   

   Oh and some more things. One aspect of the Revved-up Wrightroversy and Obama (or as my Dad pronounces his name based on the way the French pronounce his name Oh-Bah-MA) that I don’t really believe has been properly explored (after much trekking ‘bout I shall put my flag in it and declare it mine) is the boomer vs. un-generation issue. If you get me started on this I will just keep typing like those famous infinite monkeys, and end up writing Shakespeare etc., but waste a lotta carbon Yeti paw prints as I’m doing it. So don’t get me started. Just let me say (we’re letting you, we’re letting you Mike) can these boomers get off the stage already please, please! Oh wow, god, have you heard this, Martin Scorsese just released a concert film of The Rolling Stones. Oh I’m so relieved about that. That was so necessary to do. The clamor for such a movie must have been gi-normous.
   

   
   

   BTW, it’s Fiesta!! in the New Mexico town of Truth or Consequences. That’s neither here nor there. Okay it’s there.
   

   
   

   My girlfriend’s godson just had his first communion. I’m amazed I now know what that sentence means. And I can use it. In a sentence.
   

   
   

   “Oh she’s out of town at the moment. Her godson his having his first communion.”
   

   
   

   Birdie Num Nums.
   

   
   

   I saw a great movie this week, Sparrows with America’s Sweetheart Mary Pickford. It’s a silent movie. And they, those ah, move me. She has to lead a rag-tag bag o’orphans outta an alligator-infested swamp. She tells them that Jesus is going to help them, but the kids complain they aint seen help. She says there’s a lotta fallen sparrows that need to be watched over. The kids complain what do those sparrows got that we don’t. Finally, when it all works out alright, the last title card is a ‘lil kid saying (saying?), “those sparrows got nothinc on us.”
   

   
   

   President Bush now has the highest disapproval rating ever recorded.
   

   
   

   Mission Accomplished.

3. wk 44 - the pope stole my baby

   26.Apr.08, 23:52 EDT
   
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   My girlfriend is Catholic. I am. Not. Tho I’m really not not (knock, knock!). I’m always irritated about being not, when I really am. What I mean is, if somebody believed that giant sea sponges held a universal intelligence in which all other beings were only a strangely orbiting extension of, would I have to go around defining myself as somebody that didn’t believe in that. When people ask me in that quizzical voice if I don’t believe in God, I say no I believe in giant sea sponges that hold a universal intelligence in which all other beings are only a strangely orbiting extension of, they look at me strangely.
   
   “You mean you don’t believe in that,” I say. Quizzically. At least that way they get to be in the negative camp. Tsk, tsk, sad unbelievers I hum, as I worship at the alter of St. Jacques Cousteau.
   
   But of course being Catholic is not necessarily the same as believing in God, as strange as that may sound. It’s even more so, when you talk about being Jewish. To discuss the obvious horrific comparison, no one was asking Jews as they were being rounded up by Nazis, whether they believed in God or not. Religion is a tradition.
   
   Believers that those who believe in God are stupid (commonly  known as “non-believers”) can get lost in this. Misunderstandings, hurt feelings, inquisitions, and flying stolen 747’s into people working in big buildings can follow.
   
   I’ve never understood why religion needed God. There isn’t one, and it kindof puts your entire product line into doubt, like “lead-paint by number sets” made by corrupt Chinese toy companies. Kings used to run the world, and they were connected to God. Then that connection was severed, and finally Kings didn’t run the world. They’re still around tho. They’re a tradition.
   
   Now the problem with my idea, is that people who are religious generally believe in God;  like men who drive Hummers generally have Viagra in their glove compartments. But it’s not that big (ahem) of a problem. Reason can include in its understanding both the rational and the irrational. Faith can not include reason. I win.
   
   When the Pope came to town, I lost my girlfriend for about a week and a half in the allure of a thousand years of wine, wafer, and a whomp bop-a-lu a whomp bam boo. I wasn’t really worried. I had faith she’d be back.
   
   
   

4. wk 43 - the american and

   20.Apr.08, 04:25 EDT
   
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   And. And. And.
   
   And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.
   
   And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.
   
   And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.
   
   And. And.
   
   And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.
   
   And. And. And. And. And.
   
   And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.
   
   And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.
    
   And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And.
   
   And.
   
   
   

5. wk 42 - thinking too little

   13.Apr.08, 00:58 EDT
   
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   When you are thinking about things only in terms of what you are thinking about then you are not thinking about things. What do I mean? The subject at hand is the subject at hand. It is too close. You need a framework to detach. (I like that last sentence.)
   
   Thinking is that frame. But especially in my beautiful country thinking is considered almost a disease. Ooh, you’re thinking, sorry to hear that. It should go away.
   
   It does seem somehow against nature, and it is. Thinking is feedback from the ability to speak. It is artificial. But wait a minute (okay, 1 elephant, 2 elephant, ) how can it be artificial if it is coming from me, coming from inside me.
   
   It’s not.
   
   It’s coming from outside you and then expressed from inside. At least it is, if it’s thinking. If you drop somethinc on your foot, and go, ouch, that’s not thinking.
   
   Ouch.
   
   To know the difference is what I’m saying you need to know the difference of. It might seem horrifying to have a prison inside you; even more horrifying than to be inside a prison, which is sorta what I’m saying thinking is. But by prison, I only mean a discipline. Yes, it is inside, this, this discipline that comes externally. You learn to do it. You learn to do it well. Or you can.
   
   If you do, does it amount to anything. Are you just generally conversing then. In other words just subsuming your ouch to a universal one. I know very little, but I do know this. There is no Universal Ouch. The universe does not stub its toe, only we do.
   
   What thinking can do is allow you to actually think about somethinc (wow, Mike deep). The thing you can think about is what you’re thinking about. You cannot express yourself by expressing yourself. You’re only expressing yourself. To express yourself you need to place yourself in, not from.
   
   When you are thinking about things only in terms of what you are thinking about then you are not thinking about things. You need a framework to detach. (I still like that last sentence.)
   
   Thinking well is the best revenge.
   
   I think.
   
   
   

6. wk 41 - art heresy

   06.Apr.08, 01:54 EDT
   
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   We all have opinions. When it comes to art, the arts, stuff, ya know, cultural (what the hell do we call it, but ya know what I mean), that is well, kinda, subjective, what do our opinions mean. As we get older, this all adds another layer. We remember the excitement we felt about somethinc, and then we think was that excitement real. In other words, how did that excitement lead to a judgment; a judgment that was correct? In other other words, did it?
   
   Ya know what I’m sayin’. It’s even worse when you try to make the stuff. You like this. Someone else likes that. How are you supposed to make somethinc that somebody likes. What are you supposed to be doing. Is that what you’re supposed to be doing? Are you supposed to be doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
   
   Not everyone can be your hero. How do you choose? Recently the M Word was ensconced, enshrined, entombed (whatever they call it in this thing) in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. She is not my hero. She didn’t perform. Iggy Pop performed. Iggy Pop performed two of her “songs.” Iggy Pop is not in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Iggy Pop is my hero.
   
   I don’t think popularity is the way to choose your heroes. I don’t think. I don’t think not being popular is the way to choose your heroes either. I don’t think. I like Lawrence of Felt. I like Oasis too.
   
   BTW, did I mention Iggy Pop is not in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Did I FUCKIN’ MENTION THAT IGGY FUCKIN’ POP IS NOT IN THE FUCKIN’ ROCK ‘N ROLL FUCKIN’ HALL OF FAME.
   
   Poets write poems when they’re young. It gets harder when they’re not. They get wisdom. Suddenly what they’re feelin’ gains perspective. I think what I’m about to say is true, but it might not be. When you don’t make this stuff we’re talkin’ ‘bout, you can have these non-perspective feelin’s, these excitements ‘bout stuff, ‘bout bands, ya know, etc., and then well you don’t. I mean it doesn’t matter that much. When you make this stuff it’s different.
   
   The poet W.H. Auden, liked to go back to his earlier poems and try to fix ‘em. I like W.H. Auden. He’s a hero. I do my best to find versions of his poems before he later fucked them up.
   
   

7. wk 40 - dead endgame

   30.Mar.08, 06:35 EDT
   
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   It’s time for us, the U.S., to leave Iraq now. It is very simple. Let me put this another way. It is time for the U.S. to leave Iraq now. How ‘bout this. It is time for the U.S. to leave Iraq now. Or this. It is time for the U.S. to leave Iraq now. It’s not complicated. It’s time for us, the U.S., to leave Iraq now.
   
   The conserveyourightatives have been saying of late (too) let’s not discuss how we got there, we’re there, and so now we have to stay. I mean sorry, but, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That’s hilarious. If somebody kidnaps me and takes me some place I’m gonna try to escape. I don’t want to then be told “ohmygod and after I went to all this trouble to get you here.”
   
   But you can use their so-called argument against them. I don’t want to talk about the war anymore, in any way, right, wrong, the surge (gainsbourg?),  the geo-political reality show of dominos falling in a night sky, to form constellations that foreign policy gamblers can make their bones with. Let’s get the logisticians in there. Let’s leave.
   
   Oh the horrors, the horrors, we’re told. “The horror” of our leaving. What will actually happen. We’ll have left.
   
   And let me say somethinc about me. I am not a peacenik. I don’t say this with a sense of pride. I say this trying to be honest (key on the word “trying”). I know peaceniks, and they are the brave ones. (And often they have earned their bravery about peace, by actually fighting in a war, hello Dad.) I am not that brave, or brave like that. I have a real tendency towards war. I really do. I like to fight. I like to win. I usually do. I have a poem that includes the line “I always win.” Don’t fuck with me, period; o.k. semi-colon (huh?). I don’t like dictators, and although of course that’s a statement anybody can make quite comfortably not many people really mean it. I do mean it, feel it. Saddam Hussein is dead and gone. His sons are killed, dead too. Some of the monsters that drove the screws into the casket top of their own country dumping it into a shallow grave of deep suffering, gone. Killed. Dead. 1.2.3.4! Good.
   
   But guess what. Mission accomplished. O.k., hey ho, let’s go.
   
   Have you ever been in a meeting. It doesn’t have to be formal or anything, in a business, or on a committee or anything, ya know jus’ a group of people together discussing somethinc, and the discussions can get intense, and all over the place, and then finally, they settle down and some kind of creaking consensus is reached, and just as everybody calms down, and gets ready to leave, somebody, has to bring up the thing again, the one thing, that starts the whole damn conflagration to flame into cons and pro again and nowhere is gotten to fast. That’s where we are now with Iraq. But, easily solved. Again, not that complicated.
   
   Meeting adjourned.
   

8. wk 39 - the safety knot

   23.Mar.08, 01:48 EDT
   
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   The chicken-hawks have not come home to roost. What I mean by that is the same scaredy-fatcats who so virulently violently believe in the way of harm, as long as other people and other people’s children are in its way, have been remarkably tightassed-lipped on the mega bailout of that mega (capitalist) church, Bear Stearns.
   
   Yes, there are no atheists in a foxhole (I always thought that might be cuz they’d been jailed as conscientious objectors, as an aside I’ve always thought of myself as an unconscientious (ori izat unconscious) objector), there are also no conservatives in the trenches of economic philosophy when the invisible hand of Adam Smith is outstretched – for a handout.
   
   Now get this, I’m for the action taken by the Fed this week. Why. I’m a liberal, that’s why, and this was a liberal action. In fact, all “action” is liberal. There is no such thing as a conservative (or conserveyourightative) action. Conservatism with its strange brew of animal superstition, fate and bully fetish, conveyor belt lurchings on the road that must be most traveled (shortsightedness prevents you from looking ahead, suspicion of reason prevents you from looking at a map), describes all action, personal as well as public, as subject to the sways and swings of greater tides than the will of man. In fact to conservatism, where there is action, there is always, horrors, mistakes. In their radical theology only God gets to make ‘em, not people.
   
   Yet, here it was, a thundering, cavalry-charge, of yes, government, to the rescue. Where were the popes of the free-market gospel? Strangely silent (actually not such a bad thing), because well they had to be. It was their money that needed to be protected and suddenly, a safety net, didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.
   
   That’s cuz it’s not a bad idea, and this is what is important. The safety net is there when you fall off the trapeze, so you can get back on the trapeze. (Either that is incredibly beautifully said (hello Obama!) or incredibly stoopid, I can’t really tell.) It is not there to lie entangled up in. It is there during a crisis to alleviate the crisis. Conservatives for too long have gotten away with the canard (quick, quick, he’s getting away with the canard, chase him) that the safety net creates the crisis. As they got their welfare check this week, I hope they pondered on this.
   
   
   

9. wk 38 - my yellow bicycle

   16.Mar.08, 00:53 EDT
   
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   I had a yellow bicycle once. I loved it very much. It was stolen. I haven’t ridden a bicycle since. That was in the third grade, no jus’ kiddin’, that was two years or somethinc now, but that’s a long time isn’t it. I’ve been mourning.
   
   I was attached to my yellow bicycle. It was very heavy. It was made of, I dunno, iron or somethinc. I dared the SUV’s, I dared ‘em to try n’smack me, I’d dent the behemoth with my heavy frame.
   
   It had the most beautiful seat; that was stolen first. It was the original seat. The bike was from the Seventies. How do I know? I could almost give you the exact date. How? Once I came upon two guys looking over my bike dressed in suits. We’re bicycle collectors they said, and we can tell you when this bike was manufactured.
   
   Once I had to steal my own bike. The lock froze. My grumpy bike store guy lent me a small hack saw. After hours and hours in the cold, I finally hacked the lock off. People kept walking by and asking me if that was my bike. No. No. I’m jus’ stealing it.
   
   I’ve ridden a beautiful girl on it to and from an outdoor movie in Bryant Park.
   
   Once somebody accused me of stealing it. That’s my bike, they said. I explained where I got it, how long I had it, way longer than they had had it. It didn’t convince ‘em. It looks like my bike, they said. Really, do you think that, a 1970s yellow Schwinn 3-speed, do ya think, really, there’s only one, hmm, there’s a thought.
   
   There was an unwritten rule. In NYC, an unwritten rule. It wasn’t written. You didn’t steal these bikes. Sure if you left a mountain bike chained to a lamppost even with a lock formed from the earth’s core for more than five minutes in NYC you knew that it would soon be taken, taped, painted and pedaled on by someone (not you) delivering food, but you knew that. Old three-speeds, transportation three-speeds did not get taken.
   
   So there it was the terrible feeling. The thing that was there was not there anymore. The thing you loved, gone. You try various night spots etc., restaurants, movie houses, bars, did you leave it there, maybe you forgot it. But no, you know, it’s done.
   
   Hey, I said to a bike guy, trying to get a new bike, but not having my heart in it, and not actually getting one. I thought there was an unwritten law. No one’s s’posed to take these. Yeah, he said, it usta tabe that way. But now there’s some actual value to them. People like ‘em ‘cuz they don’t think anyone’s gonna steal ‘em.
   
   
   
   
   
   

10. wk 37 - the squall of a brat

    09.Mar.08, 03:05 EDT
    
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    William F. Buckley, who recently died, is famous for, among other things, saying somethinc along the lines of that he’d rather be governed by the first 100 names of the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. I say the same thing (okay maybe not Boston, I am after all, a Yankees fan). The only difference is I mean it.
    
    Arguing with Conservatives, or as I call ‘em conserveyourightatives, is always difficult for this reason. They say things, but they don’t mean them; so what are you actually arguing against. The kindof governance Buckley is talkin’ ‘bout above is the kindof governance we have; government by and for the people. However, Conservatives are famous for, among other things, saying that Government is the problem. We are the government. The people in the phone book vote. In fact the question that he was answering on NBC’s Meet the Press that provided the line at the top of this was really pretty smart. Buckley had attacked Truman, Eisenhower, etc., American Presidents all, and the question was what do you think then of the American voter. His reply was the huffy and silly response. The first names in the phone book is telling; Buckley is at the beginning of the alphabet. Yes, the anti-government crusader does like to have it both ways; his television show ran for years -- on "public" television.
    
    You can create a straw man in an argument, that is argue with a creation of your own, and conserveyourightatives certainly do that, but you can also create yourself as a straw man, in other words claim to have principles, values, scruples, that you simply don’t have. There is nothinc ‘bout the conservative project that is in any way democratic, ‘cept in its utterances, jus’ like there is nothinc remotely intuitively conservative ‘bout freedom ‘cept again in its publicity. In essence, this was Buckley’s contribution, he was the madaveman, shill, huckster, for his movement. He repackaged it. If you “stand athwart history, yelling Stop” like he claimed for his cadre in the first issue of his rag, The National Review (how? by using words like “athwart”), you are not being, um, progressive.
    
    The facts are simple. He has said nice words about the dictator Franco, Joe McCarthy, French Imperialism in Vietnam, Southern Segregationist Violence, and the ink tattooing of those with Aids. He has a right to these views, and these views are “right;” meaning they are conservative. They cannot be what they are not though, even if he has at times altered them or supposedly saw the light on subjects like segregation. It is not a criticism to state what a person’s views actually are, and we hold these views to be self-evident. Conservatism is not a cry for freedom, but only the squall of a brat.