Sawmill Gravy on the Side Please

So I've not been blogging for awhile....your loss.

For the last few months the lovely Brook and I have been co-habitating. It occurs to me I've not really taken the time to tell you, my faithful readers, all about our apartment.

First off it's on the second floor, which also happens to be the top floor. Very few two floor structures out there in the world with elevators and our building is no different. Now in day to day life that's not any particular problem.

The thing is though, we are as yet without a washing machine and dryer. The Lovely Brook owns in the neighborhood of one million articles of clothing. She works days and I normally work evenings....so do the math and 1 plus 1 equals JeffRey tackling Mount Laundry.

Now I've explained a whole other set of issues with the laundromat in a different posting. You may read it at the following:

http://crazyleftist.blogspot.com/2006/02/i-saw-this-face-looking-down-at-me-and.html

So after my battle over morality with the laundromat ends, I must carry enough clothing to fill a Gap catalog up a couple of flights of stairs. Yeah...sucks.

Oh, and our building, which is made up of four apartments, always smells of chicken-fried steak. I don't know who's doing the breading and frying of that Grade A U.S.D.A Choice Beef, but I can smell it all around. I try to counter by frying up a pound of bacon and making one of those Elvis sandwiches. You know, the one where you hollow out a loaf of bread, dump in a jar of jelly and a jar of peanut butter and then layer on a pound of bacon. I'm told they were designed to feed 8 people, but ol' Elvis Aron could apparently adios one on his own. And that was probably with a handful of quaaludes having just gone down his gullet.

Anyway, the bacon smell lingered for awhile, but nothing can face down chicken-fried steak. You top that off with some flour gravy and you've got a recipe for freedom.

Oh, speaking of which, the Senate failed to pass on an Amendment to the Constitution of the "United" States of America which would have outlawed the burning of the American flag.

In an totally unrelated story, the United States recently draped an American flag over a dead serviceman or woman for the 2,500th time. Happily enough the soldier will enjoy services in a place of worship which will never be faced with the shame of hosting a same-sex marriage.

[Editor's Note: Is it just me, or has the author taken a slightly darker path than the beginning of this post might have indicated?]

It is not just you Mr. Lapham.

Quite a bit has happened since I last blogged, and frankly I'm too disappointed to make extensive comment on...well, any of it really. So here's some word association.

Senate Vote on Flag Burning --- This piece of shit was only one vote from passing the Senate?

Senate Vote of Gay Marriage Amendment --- It's awful early in the year for the GOP to blow their wad on this one, don't you think?

U.S. out of the World Cup --- Well no shit! Do you think a company other than good ol' American Coca Cola would have ranked the American's 5th? Four shots and only one goal scored by our guys. That shit would get you shot in South America.

Democrats bicker over Iraq policy --- Holy Fuckin' Shit! Somebody sit John Kerry's ass down!

Mexican mechanic Manuel Uribe loses 200 pounds... --- ...from his 1,200 pound body! Ay Caramba!

Obama courts evangelicals and urges other Democrats to do the same. --- Oohhhh....I feel a pounding in my head.

Anyway, back to the apartment. I like it. I love living with Brook. She's the first lady friend I've lived with, and the first I ever wanted to live with. Yes, friends, your ever dutiful author has found himself embraced in loving bliss.

Sysco T. Dogg still makes himself the focal point of our lives. He further mystifies us by choosing dark corners or the shadows of various pieces of furniture as his places of slumber. Sleep incidentally, makes up about 18 hours of Sysco's day. The rest is a blend of eating, drinking, peeing and pooping.

That's my special little boy.

Oh, and I'd like the hashbrowns smothered, chopped, diced and covered. Thank you

JeffRey

"Staring Down the Barrel at the Arab on the Ground."

Okay, non-combatants at home and abroad, before we get into the real business of the day, the killing of Islamic fundamentalists, let's make mention of a story that shows us the United States is not the only nation of infidels and hedonism.

Perhaps you've heard of this man Paul McCartney? He had a few hits back in the early 70's...you know, "Polka, Polka, Polka." No? "Twin Lakes Polka? Domavougi Polka, a.k.a. Kiss Me Polka? Polka Twist?" Some fairly big hits...sold 623 copies of that...in Sheboygan. Very big in Sheboygan. They loved it.

Well as you may or may not know, Macca has split from Heather Mills, his wife of the last few years and mother to their 2-year daughter. Now, Macca and Ms. Mills had not signed a pre-nuptial agreement....money, that's what she wants. So Mr. McCartney (whom I believe to be just behind the Queen, J.K. Rowling and Kristin Scott Thomas's brother in Four Weddings and a Funeral in terms of net value in the U.K.) is looking to pay out about 200 million pounds or Euros or what the fuck ever in a divorce settlement. Macca's looking a silver hammer right in balls on this one.

Or is he? Seems recently some photos have come to light. Now Ms. Mills claims they were part of a self-help book on sexuality, but unless she's looking to help strippers, hookers and the occasional dominatrix...I gotta call shenanigans.

These photos look like straight up porn. And believe me, I used to work in the business. Oh, incidentally, I know what you're thinking.

"Beloved author, Heather Mills lost a portion of one leg in an auto accident. Is there a niche market in the adult entertainment industry for that kind of thing?"

My answer is....probably, however, these photos of Heather were taken before her accident. So no hot stump lovin' for you today my friends.

If you're interested, the following is a link to an article on the story from the British Sun.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006250730.html

The British Sun, by the by, is a tabloid bound by...let's call them less rigid rules concerning obscenity than your typical American tabloid. In fact, a series of photos of Ms. Mills appear with some captions that really make me love the British. Among them:

"A Hard-core Day's Night"

"I Wanna Cuff Your Hands"

"Oil You Need Is Love"

"Please Sleaze Me"

"Day Whipper"

and of course, "A Ticket to Ride" and "Come Together" which now take on meanings I'm sure the Cute One never intended.

Ah, on to more pleasant topics....the killing of Arabs.

Oh, first, don't you miss the days when Nelly Furtado was cute and her songs weren't about raw fucking? Yeah...me neither.

I'm sure you all know by now, but Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed yesterday after the "United" States bombed his "safe" house.

[Editor's Note: You can decide for yourself which of those quoted words is more ironic.]

You may remember al-Zarqawi's named dropped by Colin Powell a few years back as proof of al-Qaeda's link to Iraq and the government of Saddam Hussein. See he was in Iraq, so he must be working for Saddam.

In a related story Tim McVeigh has posthumously been named Secretary of Defense. I mean he was in America, so he must be...working with the U.S. Government?

Nobody's arguing al-Zarqawi was a good guy. At least no one posting to this blog. You got that Keith Alexander? How bout you Billy Black?

[Editor's Note: Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander and Mr. William B. Black, Jr. are the Director and Deputy Director, respectively, of the National Security Agency. It is unknown if Mr. Black is, or ever has been, known as Billy to his friends.]

That all said, I'm not sure everything that has happened in the last few years, despite our having accomplished the mission a couple years back, has been worth one man's life. Especially a man whose name throws your spellchecker for a loop.

Did you like the tasteful way the army only showed us pictures of his dead body rather than wheeling out the stretcher for reporters. Much more discreet than the whole Uday and Qusay fiasco I'd say.

Is it just me or is there a chorus of words like barbaric and evil every time a dead G.I. is put in front of a camera? I know Americans are a cynical bunch and as the war becomes a larger clusterfuck every day the outcry against this administration and its staggering number of lies gets louder. So maybe W. and the elephants need their sacrificial lambs to put the bad man's body on TV to actually prove something has gone right. Still, seems a little grisly. And I'm not talking bears here people.

I can't see how this weakens the insurgency in Iraq. al-Qaeda has proven itself to be a pretty resilient bunch. There are a number of other Sunni groups who want the Americans out so that the Shi'ite government might be overthrown. You still have Saddam loyalists who don't seem to be showing any signs of giving up. This is news for today, but every time one of these guys with an eyechart for a name is sent to paradise to be with his virgins, another one pops right up...gun in hand and a brand new bullet point for the recruiting flyers.

I really don't see how the U.S. gets out of this cleanly. I was against the war from the start, but once we got there I've been against a complete pull-out as I have concerns over what would happen to Iraq now that we've totally fucked it up. But maybe it is sink of swim time for the new government. We wanted Saddam, we have Saddam. We wanted to get rid of the Taliban. When's the last time you heard their name outside a "This Day in History" notation? We wanted to weaken al-Qaeda? Whoops. We wanted to bring democracy to Iraq? So far...well, at least they had an election.

al-Zarqawi's death won't save one American life over there. How much longer can this war be a zero-sum game?

JeffRey

"It's driving me mad, it's driving me mad."

Well my gute freunde, if you're reading this then one of two things has been made abundantly clear. Either the world did not come to an end as a result of 6-6-06, or I, much to my surprise, have been residing in hell for some time.

Let's hope it's the former.

A quick shout out to Billy Preston, whose world did come to an end yesterday. The keyboard prodigy who learned under Ray Charles and recorded with the Beatles passed away yesterday at the age of 59. Preston, besides being an immensely talented musician, is also the answer to a great trivia question in that he was the only non-Beatle to receive a credit on a Beatles tune (specifically for his work on "Get Back").

So I rented this movie Shopgirl the other day. I'm sure you've heard of it. It stars Steve Martin, who adapted the screenplay from his own novella, Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzman. It's all about making oneself open to both giving and receiving love. Claire Danes is forced to choose between the silver-haired tycoon and the quirky quasi-romantic. Anyway, let me sum up my feelings.

I really hated this fuckin' flick.

It was complete garbage. This receives one of the lowest possible grades in the Trottski School of Film Criticism (affiliated campuses coming to your town soon). It was, in fact, Ass on Film.

[Editor's Note: For the greatest effect of the previously mentioned film grade, the words must be sung to the tune of Duran Duran's "Girls on Film."]

The only was this film could have been any worse would be if it somehow morphed into either Leonard Part 6 or Armageddon.

Let's begin with the acting. Maybe it's just me, but I'm starting to think Rushmore was Schwartzman's Cuba G. For those not in the know, the Cuba G. is a term named for Cuba Gooding, Jr. which explains the phenomenon of a truly bad actor being able to not just stand out but shine when given that once-in-a-lifetime script. In the case of Cuba, his turn in the sun came with his Academy Award-winning performance in Jerry Maguire. Others to have been awarded a Cuba G. include Kim Bassinger (L.A. Confidential), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous), So NoToriOus Spelling (House of Yes), Brendan Fraser (Gods and Monsters), Sharon Stone (Casino) and the man for whom this award was nearly named...Stephen Baldwin for The Usual Suspects.

Just seeing this list of names makes me miss John Cazale even more. Mr. Cazale, obviously, is best known for playing Fredo in Godfather I and II, but before before dying of cancer in 1978 and having his corpse raped by Francis Ford Coppola via archival footage in the godawful Godfather III, Mr. Cazale also had starring turns in The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter. Those were the only five films he ever appeared in before dying. The current equivalent might be losing your virginity to the Pussycat Dolls....and then never having sex again.

Speaking of music....I saw the video for "Miss Murder" by AFI. It wasn't until I saw this video that I came to a startling realization. This just aren't enough videos by bands of marginal talent featuring androgynous singers taking on Hitler at Nuremberg personae whilst singing songs of suicide. In fact, to the best of my recollect, there haven't been any until now. Fall Out Boy....you best get your collective no-talent asses in gear.

Oh, did Hitler play with bunny rabbits?

By the way.....Shopgirl totally sucked. The worst part may have been the heavy-handed/bordering on condescending voiceovers of Mr. Steve Martin. Yes Steve I realize you wrote the novella (Which I believe now means the cheese form of a novel.) and I realize you wrote the screenplay. So does everyone else who might see this dreck. So the self-flagellating can be kept at a minimum. Congratulations Steve you are now a jerk, rather than The Jerk.

I'd like to thank the Academy....and the demon kind enough to buy my soul.

Repent.

JeffRey