i know i'll regret this later

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but in the here and now (i.e., basking in the warm, benevolent glow of my first mkf cocktail in well over a week), the idea of publicly committing to the production of no less than one blogpost a day during the upcoming month of july suddenly seems like a damned fine idea.

and i'm not gonna let the fact that even back in this blog's drunken heyday i never even approached such prolific output deter me from my new goal for even a second.

[having said all that, i totally reserve the right to resort to youtube videos and cute puppy photos if i have to.]

different dance, same ol' song

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one of the pleasures of writing guttermorality is the opportunity it affords me to indulge in the occasional random, drunken rant.

unless you've experienced it yourself, you'll just have to trust me--there's little in life more satisfying than getting a hair up your ass about some dumbass thing or other, letting loose in a satisfying blast, hitting "publish" and stumbling all self-satisfied off to bed.

and such was (almost) the case with this post written back in early may.  problem was, by the time i was done venting my spleen i was too, let's say, exhausted to perform the elementary photoshoppery necessary to create the below composite image--so i hit "save as draft" instead, stumbled my not-quite self-satisfied ass off to bed and promptly forgot all about it.

until tonight, that is.  better late than never, right?

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michelle obama is, i'm sure, a very nice lady, and she's handled her duties as first lady--a job that would have to bore the living shit outta someone with her background--with commendable grace.

but one thing michelle obama is not, is stupid--which makes what she's doing right now not only egregiously dishonest, but laughable.

what am i talking about?  her dancing around the country telling poor and middle-class people to eat healthy when she knows damn well that one of the main reasons poor people eat unhealthy is because a jumbo jack with cheese can be had for less than a third of what a comparably-filling chinese chicken salad would cost 'em, that's what.

and not for any good reason, either.  the cost of producing a bowlful of healthy greens is infinitely less than that of a quarter-pound of hamburger and a slice of cheese (and i'm not just talking dollars and cents--the environmental costs associated with raising, feeding, waste disposal and slaughter of industrially-grown cattle are astronomical).

but you'd never know it when you go to the supermarket, would you?  a pound of hamburger and a pound of arugula will cost you about the same.  it's madness, and all thanks to the way the people over at michelle's husband's department of agriculture--in fact, every department of agriculture since nixon--dole out the goddam subsidies.

basically what it comes down to is, the corn, beef and dairy lobbies throw a lot of campaign money at politicians in washington in order to ensure that shitloads of your tax dollars will be used to keep their respective industries' genetically-modified, excitotoxin-laced, hormone-adulterated products artificially cheap so that you will eat and drink them in abundance and consequently fatten and develop all kinds of mental and physical diseases, at which point the food industry will happily hand you off to the medical and pharmaceutical industries so that they can drain you of whatever dollars you have left before you die.

think i'm being a little harsh, do you? then consider this:  about the same time michelle was kicking off her "let's move" campaign, a division of her husband's department of agriculture euphemistically (and misleadingly) called dairy management, inc. was working with the fast-food industry in an ambitious multi-million-dollar campaign to boost lagging sales by increasing the use of cheap, fat-laden, taxpayer-subsidized cheese in their products by up to 40%.

how did it (and other similar past campaigns) work?  admirably, i'd say--according to the above-linked article,

Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate.

you really want us to eat healthy, michelle?  then next time you're in bed with your husband, snuggle up to him real close, nibble his ear a little and, in your sweetest, most seductive voice, whisper to him to quit subsidizing fattening, unhealthy foods with our tax dollars, and throw a little of that money to--

oh wait--there's no arugula lobby, you say?  never mind.

fifteen dollars? really?

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if somebody could once and for all please splain me

• why the american "high-end" movie experience of today must include having one's eardrums virtually blasted outta one's skull; and

• why the makers of the american movies of today can't lend even a fraction of the intelligence, imagination and virtuosity employed in the execution of the special effects to the writing of a script that doesn't have holes you could crash a goddam train through

i would be really grateful.

oh, yeah--happy pride

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completely got away from me this year, but better late than never--right, kelly?

[and since i have nothing prepared to commemorate the occasion this year, i'll leave you with my offering from two years ago.  if you haven't read it, do so--it's one of my better efforts, if i do say so myself.]

quote of the month

One of the conclusions that I try to coax, lead, and/or nudge people towards is acceptance of the fact that the economy can't be fixed.

chris martenson

a couple years back when everything really started going to shit and the red and blue teams and their respective cheerleaders were casting hysterical blame back and forth at one another whilst simultaneously assuring us, the scared sheep, they they and they alone knew how to fix it, i looked around for a few voices of reason who could tell me what was really happening.

while i found several--peter schiff and gerald celente among them--chris martenson turned out to be the guy i was looking for.  he's not an ideologue; rather, he's a scientist, and taking his "crash course" was not only among the most productive and eye-opening afternoons i've ever spent, it's also one of the reasons i drink [try it--it's free, it's broken down into easy, doable doses, and i promise once you're done, you won't ever look at the world the same way again].

since then, i've come to depend on his analysis--he strips away all the bullshit like no one else.  a case in point would be the recent post from which the above quote was taken.  read it here--it won't take long, and in a few paragraphs, and after looking at a couple simple charts, you'll understand for yourself what the paul krugmans of the world simply refuse to see, let alone acknowledge.

it really just comes down to math, folks--it's that simple.  the world as we know it is about to change forever, and the sooner you accept that fact, the more time you'll have to prepare for what's coming.

cheerfully submitted,

mkf

guttermorality blogpost #592, in which mkf poses a question

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may i first just say, god save us all from outcast high-school dweebs who obtain power later in life.

everybody knows at least one of these monsters--the fat bitch at work who makes her underlings' lives miserable, or the officious prick on the condo board who writes you a ticket if he catches you with your dog off the leash or your garage door up for more than five minutes, for instance.

and god knows you can't turn on the radio these days without running into pathetic, pencil-dicked overcompensators like rush limbaugh, howard stern or michael savage (who was at least smart enough to change his name from weiner, anyway).

but the really ambitious former dweeb-outcasts?  they're the ones who find their true calling in the arena of politics.

congress is replete with these guys, on both sides of the aisle, but there comes to mind no more sterling example of the breed than that flaming, throbbing asshole, anthony weiner.

here you have a guy who finally, after a lifetime of having sand kicked in his face by the jocks while the pretty girls laughed, had his shot at the brass ring of power.

did it go to his head?  all i had to do was watch a clip like this (and god knows that's only one of many) to have my answer to that question long ago.  all this shit that's come out lately?  merely confirmation of what i already knew.

but to the rest of you for whom this past week's developments were a revelation--and whether he resigns or not [and i fully expect him to brazen it out, because democrats caught in shit like this usually do]--i pose the following question:

in this, the darkest hour our country has ever faced, do we really want or need small men of the caliber of anthony weiner scolding us, wagging their fingers in our faces and making the laws the rest of us have to live by?

really?

postcards from the edge (part 2)

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the 382 miles between los angeles and san francisco can be driven any number of ways, but what it basically boils down to is either getting there quick, or taking the scenic route.

that latter road less traveled by--the narrow, meandering pacific coast highway--is the one i've wanted to take for 20 years, and since i finally had the chance, i decided to go for it.

the plan, such as it was

       mkf doesn't really plan things, as will soon become clear

was to take the 5 up, spend a few days partying, reminiscing and sightseeing, and then make my leisurely way home down the coast, stopping at notable points along the way.

the trip up was a breeze--i waited until saturday so as to avoid the holiday herd and averaged eighty-five the whole way, with hardly a trooper in sight [thanks, california budget crisis].

trip home goes different--i get off to a late start, cross the san rafael bridge from the east bay into marin, and then south across the golden gate into the city [two bridges, eleven dollars in tolls--thanks again, california budget crisis], fuck around there a little too long, and then finally head south.

in a way, it works out--by the time i stop somewhere south of santa cruz for my first photo op of the day [all of these photos embiggen gorgeously, btw], the light is perfect:

water looks so inviting, doesn't it?  shame it's, like, 50 degrees

as i travel further south, the hills begin to rise

hell, even the slums are picturesque

oh, and in case your overloaded senses need a visual break from the ridiculously-beautiful coastline?  no problem--big sur's right across the street:

it's at some point south of monterey--as the afternoon is waning and about the time i stopped and took the following picture--that something i had only been peripherally aware of for the last hour or so crystallizes in my mind; namely, that for some reason i've got the whole pacific coast highway pretty much to myself.

the fact of this makes me uneasy in a way i can't put my finger on.  maybe i shoulda paid more attention to all those road signs back there indicating some sort of closure up ahead.  but what the hell--there's always a detour, right?

whatever--i'd figure it out later. meantime, there's insanely magnificent shit like this to stop and gawk at [and if you're still wondering which pic you should click on, this would be it]:

as the afternoon fades to twilight and the fog rolls in, the setting sun casts a maxfield parrish glow across the landscape

and i come across my final warning:  this really harsh road sign informing me and all the other clueless idiots like me who ignored all the prior warnings that, thanks to some buzzkill mudslide last year, there's only 22 more miles of PCH before the party ends, and i'd better quickly get ready to make other arrangements--no mention of a detour anywhere.

fuck--no wonder there's nobody else on the road.  my heart sinks at the thought of having to turn around and drive my dumb ass all the way back to fuckin' monterey.

to my relief, i see immediately beyond the above harsh road sign another sign informing me of the town of lucia up ahead--first town i'd come across in many miles.  surely someone there could point me to a detour, right?

the town of lucia turns out to be a combination restaurant/general store on the side of the road whose employees have seen more than their share of people like me.  i walk in the door and before i can even get the words out, the girl behind the counter rolls her eyes, whips out a xerox'd map and a highlighter and says, "look--you can either do it the easy way and turn around and go back the way you came; or if you're brave, you can drive four miles south and take the nacimiento over the mountains to the 101."

"the nacimiento" of which she speaks turns out, i'd find out later, to be the nacimiento-fergusson road, a legendarily steep, narrow, twisting, one-lane mountain pass featuring numerous treacherous hairpin switchbacks and noted not only for its sheer drop-offs at every turn but also its complete absence of guardrails of any kind. 

here's a picture i found of the nacimiento on a good day:

"and should you survive the nacimiento," she continues, "it dumps you into this army base you have to cross to get to the 101, and those bastards'll ticket you if they catch you doing 26 in a 25--and since it's federal, you'll pay $100 for every mile over the speed limit.  whole thing'll take you at least two hours if you're lucky.  you game?"

here's the nacimiento on a bad day:

 

as i turn off the PCH in the gathering gloom with the fog rolling in, i pause before beginning my climb to snap this final picture, and reflect on the fact that if i go over the edge up there somewhere, there's no cell phone coverage in this mountain wilderness, and nobody to even know to look for me there.  would i make it?  should i turn back?

i'll spare you the suspense--bitch back in hooterville didn't realize she was throwing down the gauntlet to the greatest risk-taking scofflaw of all time.  federal, my ass--i was over that motherfucker, through the army base and cruising down the 101 in less than an hour.

problem was, by the time the whole thing was over, it had been a long day and i was exhausted.  fuck san simeon and all the rest of that scenic shit i had planned for the next day--i needed a drink.

so i got myself an in-n-out burger and went home.

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a word about the transportation:

it wasn't a car i was buying, it was a soulless, economical appliance--that's what i, the car guy, told myself a year ago.

that was before i knew this "appliance" could (a) smoothly fly me up the interstate in great comfort at autobahn speeds with power to spare, (b) transport four full-size men and their gear all over san francisco with plenty of elbow room and nobody bitching; (c) stick like glue at insane speeds not only down lombard street and through the serpentine curves of the pacific coast highway but up the nacimiento-fergusson road as well; and (d) do it all averaging 43 mpg.

i feel fairly safe in saying there is no other car in the world that could make all those claims.  it took me a year, but i'm finally happy to say

i love you, baby.