i dunno what it is about elitist liberals

but they have this deadly tendency to let the ol' "man of the people" mask slip when they're amongst their own and think it's safe.

i mean, you'd think barack woulda learned something from the john kerry "be smart or you'll get stuck in iraq" debacle of a couple years ago, but nope--he actually opened his mouth and said what he really thought in a place where people could hear him.

and really, folks, is it any surprise to anybody that barack obama--or any educated liberal, for that matter--sees the downtrodden (white) lower/middle-class of this country as nothing more than simpleminded bible-thumping, rifle-waving xenophobes looking for a scapegoat for their own miserable failures? because it came as no shock to me--reading liberal blogs every day as i do, i know exactly how these people regard joe sixpack from scranton.

and now, of course, that woman of the people, hillary clinton, has jumped on this like a crow on a junebug--it'll be interesting to see which of 'em manages to out-pander the other to the huddled masses of pennsylvania between now and the primary. i swear to god--between 'em, these two dipshits are gonna end up putting john mccain in the white house, you just watch.

yeah, i know i'm a day late and a dollar short with this one, but indulge me anyway

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i saw this awhile back on drudge (who, i believe, broke the story in los estados unidos) and just laughed and laughed, sat back and watched the fun--and fun it has been:

act 1: conservative outrage--"boycott absolut" movement initiated

act 2: liberal counter--"anybody who objects to this ad must be racist and evil, because by god we libs are the only ones who get to be all irrational and boycott shit"

act 3: frantic backpedaling by absolut as they realize the magnitude of their tactical error.

and me? fuck, i hope this hurts 'em, and good--the nationalist in me wants this to serve as a reminder that when you cravenly attempt to pander to the sour-grapes mentality in the corrupt shithole that is mexico at the expense of the united states of america, you should expect to experience consequences here.

because, my friends and readers, i live in their absolut world--i've watched as, over the past 19 years, the quality of life in my adopted city of los angeles has steadily deteriorated in direct proportion to the unchecked influx of illegal immigration from the south. but hey, don't take my racist, xenophobic gringo-ass word for it--the following are a few select words from ex-mexicans who say it better than i ever could (courtesy of this chick, who i'm sure couldn't have imagined the response she'd get when she joyously posted the above pic on her blog):

first, let's hear from fabricio:

I was born and raised end educated in Mexico, this has got to be the biggest sour grapes ad ever. We lost tons of what was then OUR territory, because we were weak, stupid and corrupt, no one in Mexico cared about 2/3 of the old Nueva Espana until after they discovered gold in California and no one in Mexico cared about that territory untli the USA built it up with roads, cities, towns, services, industry in the early 20th century. Guess what, it’s the 21st century and Mexico is still weak, stupid and corrupt, socially, economically and govermentally. Instead of wroking to build a great society, instead of mexican society working as a team and building a 1st class country with the tons of human an natural resources we have, we covet jealously what we could have had, what the USA became and is, it because the Americans are smart and they have their checks and balances socially, politically and economically they built an empire out of 13 piece of dirt colonies, the Spaniards gave us an empire in term of land and as a society we pissed it away, the problem is that mexican never look at themselves as the problem, which we are, naturally we always look at some one else to blame for our own failings.

We suck as a culture, we suck as a society, we suck as a country, were a third rate wannabe leftist dictatorship aka a latina american democracy that can never get it’s act straight. I had the good fortune of marrying into an American family that embraced me regardless of my origins these social and political conservatives are some of the most generous and hard working people and some of the closest knit humans you will find, I am lucky to have left Mexico, and I will never return to Mexico, I will die for the USA and my sons will die for the USA because it has given me everything.

What has Mexico ever given me? Nada.

and now, here's "legal:"

This is “absolute”ly disgusting.
I am an immigrant to the USA and love America.
Mexicans are envious and angry.
They need to solve their own problems and their weak, corrupt government.
I came to the USA from a socialist, unionist government that failed its people.
Mexico is no different.
I will boycott Absolute.
Absolute sucks.
I am tired of the “reconquista” and “blame America” mentality.

and, finally, a quote from "victor":

Fabricio: As a Hispanic, I have never before seen such an excellent summation of what is wrong with the whole Reconquista movement. I have always said it…The best thing that Mexico gave me was NOTHING. It taught me to stand on my own two feet. Gracias…for making the point that although it is EASY to fall for the easy “Viva Mexico” crap, most people who say it are standing on the US side of the line….To Mexico, I repeat what John said…”Come and get it…”

thanks, guys, for making my point for me.

[the irony here, of course, is that 20 or so years from now, that map will be more accurate than not--and yes, we'll be talking about this more, trust me; it's a hot-button issue here in guttermoralityland.]

our candidates are all idiots

[seeing as i've been so preoccupied with my incipient alcoholism i've neglected politics lately, i thought i'd come back hard]

hillary clinton is an idiot because, given the fact that back when she was the anointed candidate mulling over potential campaign managers she could have snapped her fingers and had anybody she wanted--and i mean anybody (probably up to and including karl rove)--she picked some fuckwad who was not only unwilling to quit his day job but who had demonstrable, clear and ultimately deadly conflicts of interest with her candidacy. and if she couldn't figure this out, then (her congenital tendency to prevarication aside) the bitch deserves to go down just as sure as that pussy-ass al gore did back when he spread his legs for bush in 2000.

barack obama is not only an educated idiot but, worse, a naive and arrogant idiot--naive, because he really seems to believe that he's gonna ride into washington on a white horse and, through the force of his character, will and innate rightness, unite the parties and the country in a coalition of "hope" and "change." and arrogant, because now it seems he thinks that the fact that he spent some time as a child in indonesia, traveled to pakistan when he was in college and has relatives living in mud huts in kenya gives him the foreign-policy cred to get the world to come together, join hands and sing kum ba ya. jesus god, save us all.

and, finally, john mccain is an idiot because--oh fuck it, just google "john mccain" and "idiot" and use the overabundance of hits gained thereby to figure it out for yourselves. g'night.

fine, i have a drinking problem

[and yeah, i'm not talking about politics much these days--sue me, i've been preoccupied--but i'll get back to showering all of our lame-ass candidates with contempt shortly, i promise.]

and it's not like my little problem is news, but it was nice being able to quantify it--according to the test i took the other night (see previous post), only 3.5% of americans drink more alcohol than me in any given week; puts me in a select group, huh?

but it's not a group i particularly wanna belong to anymore. i needed more perspective so over the past couple days i decided, with some reluctance, to turn to the blogosphere, seek out some folks who've been there before me.

[why reluctance, you ask? that's simple: my relationship with the blogosphere is uneasy at best--from day one, i never fit in, for any number of reasons (being a non-liberal faggot, for one thing; and a loose cannon when i'm drunk, for another). whatever the reason, i tend to either bore, horrify and/or alienate other bloggers with a fair degree of regularity; as a result, i can count on the fingers of one hand the ones--that i care about anyway--who'll still have anything to do with me (and thanks for hanging in there, guys). nevertheless, i needed some input--and i was not disappointed.]

my first realization was, recovering-alcoholic bloggers are pretty goddam eloquent when it comes to describing what they've been through.

the second, and most important, realization was that i am not an alcoholic--and no, that's not denial; it just means it's become clear i haven't earned that badge yet. in fact, after reading this post in particular, i realized that calling what i'm dealing with 'alcoholism' would trivialize the struggles of true alcoholics in much the same way as comparing don imus' "nappy-headed ho's" to rosa parks trivializes the struggles of true victims of racism (and yeah, it's this kinda analogy gets me in trouble with the libs).

consider: lush though i may be, and even though i've gotten to the point where i can drink most people under the table, it is demonstrably clear that i am not yet addicted to alcohol--i never drink past the point of pleasure, i never drink to the point of lethal toxicity (i.e., i never vomit), i never pass out drunk, i never drink in the morning, i function perfectly well the morning after and i can go for weeks without a drink if i so choose. in other words, while i may well be a habitual heavy drinker, i'm still operating well within the realm of choice (and as a former smoker you'd think i'd understand something about addiction, but i guess i had forgotten--it was good to be reminded of the distinction).

and now, having achieved clarity, this is the point at which i find myself: knowing that booze is no longer my friend, do i turn away from it while it's still fairly easy, or do i hold on until it becomes necessary because it's still the only thing makes me feel good?

dunno--guess we'll see. we'll talk about this some more.

[and if you want as good a description of alcoholism as i've seen--or if you just wanna read one hell of a blog post, click on the highlighted link above]

i just love these online quizzes

in the space of less than a month, four different people have, with varying degrees of tact, told me i'm hitting the sauce a little heavy--and since i had long since arrived at this opinion on my own (whatever my other faults, denial really isn't a part of my make-up), i decided tonight to apply some objective, dispassionate third-party analysis to the situation, find out where things really stand.

so after a little searching, i came across this website and decided to take their "are you an alcoholic?" test. i did a cursory scan of the instructions and noted nothing unusual, until i came across the following sentence and knew i was in trouble before i even began:

One drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or one standard cocktail (1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor).

to clarify my consternation, lemme give you my definition of a standard cocktail [such as, for instance, the one i just whipped up in preparation for taking this goddam test]:

i grab a plastic fast-food cup--i have several, all identical--and pour vodka up to the little line where the cup goes from being cupholder-friendly to swelling out to its true size. i then add 7-up or whatever to within two inches of the rim, then top off with ice--always the same, proportions never vary.

and up until tonight, i had never thought to measure how much vodka that actually was. but now, thanks to the demands of this test and my trusty pyrex measuring cup, i know that the standard mkf cocktail contains right at six ounces of alcohol. so basically, before i even start this test i'm at a 4:1 handicap--god, i am so fucked already.

oh well, fuck it--let's get started.

1. How often do you have a drink containing alcohol? 2-4 times per week (perfectly respectable, you ask me--so far, so good).

2. How many drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when you are drinking? damn, they had to ask that. i mean, i could say 3-4, but that's only in guttermoralityland; the true answer, for purposes of this test anyway, is 12-16 (which i'm thinking, when the tabulations are done, is probably not gonna skew in my favor).

3. Thinking about a typical week, on how many days do you have at least one alcoholic drink? (If you don't drink every week, answer for a typical week in which you do). this seems redundant--see (1) above.

4. How often do you have six or more drinks on one occasion? how often does rose kennedy pull out her black dress? (and if you don't understand this reference, you're probably too young to be reading this blog).

5. Thinking about the past year, what is the greatest number of drinks you've had on any one occasion? i dunno, maybe the equivalent of 18? (i.e., i don't think i've ever made it all the way through five mkf cocktails--talk to me next year, though.)

6. How often during the last year have you found that you were not able to stop drinking once you had started? never. i still stop when i'm no longer having fun, for whatever that says about me.

7. How often during the last year have you failed to do what was normally expected from you because of drinking? see, this is what's interesting--i apparently metabolize alcohol like a motherfucker. i've "called in sick" a maximum of maybe four times in the last year; for the most part, i can drink a third of a 1.75 liter jug of vodka, stagger off to bed and be at my desk six hours later, relatively hangover-free--go figure.

8. How often during the last year have you needed a first drink in the morning to get yourself going after a heavy drinking session? never--what do you think i am, an alcoholic?

9. How often during the last year have you had a feeling of guilt or remorse after drinking? this question would require a blog of its own to answer.

10. How often during the last year have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking? unfortunately, never--what do you think wakes me up five hours later?

11. Have you or someone else been injured as a result of your drinking? if this includes psychic injury to unwitting bloggers, friends and strangers i've drunk-commented or -emailed over the years, then the field is strewn with carnage. if we're talking actual physical injuries, then i'm still in the negative column (i think).

12. Has a relative or friend or a doctor or other health worker been concerned about your drinking or suggested you cut down? um, maybe.

so anyway, that was it--twelve questions. i hit the "finish" button, and the following came up:


like i needed a test to tell me this.