The Sporadic Curmudgeon

Apparently I can’t stay away from politics. What can I say? I guess I’m just allergic to creeping fascism.

According to this CNN story, 17% of high school students believe people should not be allowed to express unpopular views, and a third of them think the First Amendment “goes too far.”

Well, there’s a reason both Adolph Hitler and Ronald Reagan recruited teenage males as their enforcers. Stupidity, unquestioning obedience and a complete lack of restraint are the precise qualities one looks for when shopping for a thug.

But then I’ve been reading one version or another of the “Ignorant Buffoons Say First Amendment Goes Too Far” story for quite some time. Here’s two from the last decade: 2002, 1999. I recall the same general story in the papers as far back as the early sixties.

This is the highest level of discomfort with the basics of democracy that I can remember, though. I find it interesting that it’s synchronous with a period of unbridled media consolidation and the administration’s focus on rote learning.

Well, that’s enough politics for a while. Let’s get back to the true driving force of the web: an unbridled appetite for esoterica. Meryl, my dear friend of 27 years who lives in Los Angeles, has alerted me to some pages listing TV series and movies that contain women wearing spacesuits, indexed by decade.

Sure, it’ll be hard to justify visiting this page when I’m actually supposed to be writing code, but who can pass up a shot of June Lockhart the one and only time she wore a spacesuit on Lost in Space? (It’s halfway down the sixties page).

And June: if you’re reading this, I’ve had a massive crush on you since the Lassie years.

And so it starts. The White House has cut the Hubble from the 2006 budget. I am so angry I can’t even think right now.

Hubble’s going to be de-orbited. I hope the NASA technicians do their damndest to ram it down President Fuckwad’s ignorant goddamned throat.

James Dobson, neuron-challenged head of the publicity-hungry fundie group Focus on the Family, gave a speech at a pre-innauguration DC dinner Tuesday night attacking Spongebob Squarepants for promoting homosexuality. The reason: Mr. Squarepants appears in a video promoting “tolerance.” Tolerance toward exactly what is never spelled out in the video. Apparently the Christian right believes that anything less than rabid eye-bulging teeth-grinding spittle-flecked incoherent hatred of anyone even marginally different from yourself constitutes a pro-gay agenda.

The attack on the chipper chunk of cellulose is a transparent attempt to raise money by frightening their idiotic followers.

As I’ve said before, I’m not a subscriber to the “all homophobes are closet queers” theory, but sometimes I think the world would be a lot better off if some people would just follow the secret desire that’s got them so twisted up inside. So Dobson, we’re begging you: go ahead and suck a big dick and get it over with. Then maybe you can shut the hell up and leave the rest of us alone.

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

“Free Speech Zones”…

The Patriot Act…

Lying to Congress about WMD as a justification for war…

The Energy Task-Force meeting notes…

The exposure of Valerie Plame…

Minority voter suppression in Florida and Ohio…

Abu Ghraib…

And on and on it goes. [Requires clicking through an ad.]

Resist and ridicule, kids. Resist and ridicule.

January 20th is one of the more bizarre days in the Catholic Calendar: the Feast of St. Paula the Bearded. This 14th-century Spanish lass had dedicated her life to God and vowed to remain a virgin. One day, finding herself pursued by a local swain bent on playing her castinets, she ducked into a church and prayed for help. She immediately sprouted a full beard and mustache. The horny hidalgo was so grossed out he bailed on the tail, thus preserving her maidenhead.

Believe it or not, she’s not the only hairy Mary in the Church Calendar. July 20th is the Feast of St. Wilgefortis, daughter of the King of Portugal. Dear old Dad had arranged a marriage to the King of Sicily, who apparently didn’t come up to her standards. She took a vow of chastity, praying for a beard that would so freak her suitor that he’d call off the wedding. It worked. Her father crucified her for her troubles.

I tell you, that Christ guy really gets around, doesn’t he? This time he’s doing a cameo appearance on an oyster shell in a Swiss drinking establishment. The bar’s owner said the messianic mollusk first came to his attention when it “stuck to his hand as if God was calling him.”

I was not previously aware that sticky mucus was a divine attribute. Had I but known, I would have been on the lookout for holy slime-trails myself. Come to think of it, I distinctly recall some boogers and an unfortunate discharge or two that seemed to exhibit a disconcerting omnipresence.

Seen from this perspective, there are several aisles of the grocery store dedicated to wiping Christianity from the earth. Maybe the rumors about Proctor & Gamble are true after all.

Personally, I think the oyster looks a lot more like Lionel Atwill in Mystery of the Wax Museum than the Rorschach Messiah, but that’s just me.

Furthermore, why is Jesus wearing goggles? Is there something about conditions in the afterlife that we should know? Ah, the eternal mysteries of religion.

It’s been several months since I’ve done any artwork whatsoever, which makes it my longest dry spell in seven years. Normally I kind of excrete art; if I couldn’t paint I’d probably die. Between the rigged election, moving into a new house and the soul-flaying mælstrom of the Holidays, though, I’ve been too wrung-out to do the “I yam a ottist” bit.

But about three o’clock yesterday afternoon I started feeling the old familiar urge. After some sketching, I dug my oils out of storage, found a small square canvas I’d stretched before the move, and by 7:30 had begun pencilling in the outlines. Working without a break, I finished up at 3:45 AM.

It went more smoothly than usual; with most paintings there are at least two “oh-god-it’s-total-crap-why-do-I-bother” points. (When I was younger those used to really hamstring me; I’ve since learned to just push through.) But this painting flowed easily from start to finish. There was one anxious moment when I wasn’t sure whether to use ivory black to deepen the shadows or not, but within moments of adding it I saw I’d made the correct decision.

For the time being, the title is Lower Extremities. I’m still too close to it to get a solid idea of what it looks like, but I suspect it’s decent work. In any case, it’s good to be back in business.

Sorry about the image size and quality; the Dakota camera is not intended for archival use. I’ll put a picture up in the gallery as soon as I can wrangle a decent digital camera.

There’s snow coming down this very minute here in Sin City. I’ll try and get some pictures if it starts sticking to the ground.

Update: I got a few shots of the snow coming down, but it melted as soon as it fell. Other parts of town got several inches piled up, but not here. Dang it.

Oh, well. My boss is from Canada anyway, so I doubt if we’d have been able to get away with declaring a snow day even if it had stuck. The ideal situation, of course, would be a supervisor that panics at all forms of precipitation.

And yes, that pallid creature in the photograph is me. No, that’s not dandruff.

I’ve tried to be a pretty nice guy my whole life, but the interminable shitrain that was 2004 has suppressed that impulse like a minority vote. Let’s recap some hilights of this foul year, shall we?

• I came very close to dying of colitis last February, which is a nice way of saying I almost shit myself to death. The humorous gifts my sympathetic friends brought me while I was in the hospital were especially thoughtful. I’m looking forward to the next time John or Doug are laid up so I can reciprocate.
   
• I had all four tires slashed on my car in June, just in time to completely fuck up my birthday plans.
   
• I had one bone graft, two abscessed teeth and three, count ‘em, three separate root canals. (I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, which is the only major city in the country that does not fluoridate its water. They think it’s a commie plot. No kidding.)
   
• Our Republican Underlords stole yet another election, in spite of the fact that their annointed is the least-qualified man for the job since Elizabeth Bathory decided to open a finishing school. Frankly, I’m getting tired of all this pussyfooting around. He knows he’s the antichrist. We know he’s the antichrist. Why doesn’t he just blot out the sun and fucking get it over with? At least we don’t have to live that “world’s oldest democracy” bullshit anymore. Let’s call a spade a spade: it’s the world’s youngest theocratic oligarchy!
   
• Speaking of being screwed over by a deity, there was that little shake-up in the Pacific on the day after Christmas. God rest ye merry gentlemen, indeed. And looky! Good old GW was being conservative with his compassion again. $35 million. Shit. His fucking coronation is expected to cost $40 million. A few days of global opprobrium later he increased the aid to $350 million. Here’s a tip, Georgie: it doesn’t count when you’re shamed into it, you jerk.

So yeah, I kinda lost any pretense of giving a good goddamned shit what anybody says this past year. 2004 sucked big sweating greasy donkey dick, and if you pretend otherwise then you’ve got your head so far up your ass you’re looking out of your own nostrils.

Happy fucking New Year. It’s only gonna get worse.