so who's my pick for president?

i think i'm gonna write in andrew jackson.

why, you ask?  consider:

during his first term in office, he watched with increasing disgust as the second bank of the united states (the federal reserve of its day) and its member banks brazenly engaged in the sorta shenanigans in which bankers unfettered by morality and/or oversight have engaged since time immemorial.

when it came time to renew its charter, a rubber-stamp congress sent him a bill for his signature approving same, and he sent it back to 'em with a big, fat veto on it, along with a message which read, in part,

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. 

[E]very man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. 

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

the bankers, panicked by the prospect of their gravy train disappearing round the bend, decided to create a little panic of their own, hoping the resulting financial chaos would be blamed on the president, and he would have no choice but to enlist their aid to fix the mess that they themselves had created.  in response to their "see?  we're too big to fail" extortion attempt, he brought 'em all together, looked 'em in the eye and, as the minutes of that meeting reflect, uttered the following words:

Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.  

When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. 

You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out.

now, that, ladies and gentlemen, is my idea of a president.

*     *     *     *     *

late last week, the obama justice department announced that, after an extensive investigation, it had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to justify pursuing criminal charges agains any executive of goldman sachs for fraud or other wrongdoing in the events leading up to the financial crisis of 2008 and beyond--this in spite of the fact that, even though said bank had clearly issued liar loans through its subsidiaries, packaged those loans and sold the resulting junk-level mortgage-backed securities to its institutional clients as AAA even as it was secretly and massively betting against them, and its CEO had demonstrably lied to congress about same.

the investigation, curiously, apparently didn't involve a grand jury, special prosecutor or, for that matter, any actual investigators.

and now, it looks like the MF global CEO (and top obama bundler) jon corzine will escape prosecution for raiding his customer accounts of over $1 billion when his idiotic all-in bet on eurobonds went south, thus robbing thousands of hapless and innocent farmers, ranchers and other everyday types of their life savings and working capital, much of which may never be recovered.  turns out it was just one of those things that happens sometimes, or so say investigators, who are now turning their guns on a low-level MF global sacrificial lambemployee who should've caught the "mistake".

a relieved mr. corzine is said to be busy with preparations to restore his good name which has been unjustly tarnished, and--wait for it--launch a new hedge fund.

*     *     *     *     *

lest any of you think that i've been bagging excessively on the obama administration lately, make no mistake--i have no illusions that a romney administration would behave any differently; after all, they're all dependent on the same money.

and unless and until that money is removed from the political arena, all we have to look forward to is more of the same--which is why mkf has pretty much opted out.  the rest of you bitches may be content to dumb down your expectations and support these craven, bought-and-paid-for motherfuckers, but i never will again.

paperboys

why?  because this is where my mind is right now.


"a paper route?", i asked incredulously.  "are you seriously telling me that you, a grown man of your accomplishments, are throwing papers?"

it was 1977 and ginger and i had driven down to austin for what we thought was gonna be a relaxing weekend with beau and her sister, gayla.  little did we know.

"yeah," he said.  "and, this weekend, so are you."

since the glory days of the fox's lair, beau had been through many ups and downs, but mostly downs.  here was the thing about him, though--whether he was scaling the heights or plumbing the depths, i never saw him lose his air of self-assurance; he was master of whatever situation in which he found himself, and he always landed on his feet.  but this time, i had my doubts.

"but you can't make money throwing papers," i protested.  "nobody makes money throwing papers--hell, i sure never did."

"that's because you were doing it wrong."

"oh yeah?  then enlighten me."  so he did.

turns out when beau returned from vietnam in the late 60's, broke and at loose ends, he found himself in florida.  he worked in construction for awhile, until, tired of breaking his back for little money, he started looking around for a better way.  it came when, after calling the miami herald for the umpteenth time to complain about his missing paper, the circulation manager apologized for the lousy service, told him finding reliable carriers for his crime-ridden area was a huge problem.  that's when the light went on.

beau talked the guy into giving him not one, not two, but ten routes--morning and afternoon--promised him he could solve all his problems.  he then went out and bought an old step-van, recruited a dozen 8-year-old urchins off the streets, offered each the princely sum of a dollar a day and all the candy they could eat.

each morning at three, he'd pile the kids into the back of the van, pick up the papers and drive while they rolled.  he'd drop 'em off one by one at their assigned corners with all their papers--their little shoulder-bags so full they could barely walk--go have breakfast, come back, pick 'em up, take 'em home, sleep til noon, and repeat the process at three that afternoon.  as more routes became available, the operation grew, and beau became not only the newspaper king, but the undisputed pied-piper/fagin of the hood.

"so lemme get this straight--they did all the work, and you paid 'em a dollar?"

"hey, those kids learned life lessons money can't buy."

"uh huh.  and you actually made a living doing this?"

he smiled that smile.  "where do you think the money for the fox's lair came from?"

*     *     *     *     *

unfortunately for beau, times had changed, and austin wasn't third-world miami--he'd have to do it without the child labor this time.  he figured it out, though.

he had long ago realized that the most time-consuming part of a paper route was not the throwing, but the rolling.  carriers would gather at the station, collect their papers and then spend an hour or two rolling and banding them, loading them into shopping carts, shlepping 'em out to their cars and filling 'em up.

fuck that--he figured if he just tossed the bundles into the car and rolled the papers while he drove and threw, he could do two routes instead of one in the same amount of time.

"your hands are pretty busy, so you drive with your knees," he explained.

he had managed to pick up two large, adjoining semi-rural routes in far-east austin--morning and afternoon--and breezed through each run in a little over two hours during the week, leaving the rest of his day free.  it was the weekends that were the problem, when all four routes overlapped and had to be thrown between the hours of 3:00 and 6:00 a.m.  it was a huge undertaking, and gayla got pressed into service on the weekends--and that particular weekend, so did ginger and i.

we stayed up that friday night, eating, drinking and playing board games, and headed out around 2:30 in two cars.  beau had hitched a little trailer to his car, which i didn't really understand until i saw the mountain of paper that awaited us.

"c'mon, this is everybody, right?  this can't all be yours."

he laughed.  "this is nothing--wait'll you see sunday."

*     *     *     *

by the time i moved down to austin the following year to begin my first half-hearted attempt at a UT education (back in the days when you could still work your way through college), beau had talked me into joining him in his enterprise.  since a morning route was outta the question for my sleep-til-noon ass, i opted for an afternoon route instead.  but first, i'd need training in the beau method--and i'd get a crash course.

i shadowed him on his route a few times, sitting in the backseat.  he never used rubber bands to roll, opting instead for the more-expensive bags usually reserved for rainy days, because he could hook a sleeve of 100 under his belt, hang it between his legs, fold the papers once and slip 'em into the bags as he drove.  thursdays, saturdays and sundays were a little more tricky, because on those days the papers came in two parts; rather than opening the main section of each paper and inserting the supplement like he was supposed to, he'd just slap 'em together, fold once and into the bag they'd go.  when the front seat was empty and the floorboards full, he'd reach into the back and pull another couple bundles forward and start all over--all this, understand, while driving at speed, turning corners, handling a clutch and five-speed (and usually a cigarette and cup of coffee), and keeping a running conversation going with me--oh, and throwing papers out the window when appropriate.  it was really kind of amazing to watch.

the route itself was byzantine--miles of unmarked dirt roads, ramshackle houses and trailers with no numbers, and, remembering how much trouble i had had memorizing the orderly suburban route i had had taken on in high school, i couldn't imagine how he had learned it with such seeming ease.

"lemme guess,"  he said.  "you had a route list on paper, and for the first three weeks you'd stop at every street, scan the sheet for addresses and drive at 5 miles an hour looking for numbers.  took you forever, right?"

"well, yeah, that's how you do it."

"well, yeah, if you're an idiot.  i got news for you--three days from now, i'm taking the day off.  you're gonna do my route, you're gonna do it by yourself and you're gonna do it perfectly, in about the same time it takes me."

and, you know what?  he was right.

the next day, he taped the whole route as we drove--"turn left, look left, start counting mailboxes, and throw your fourth one--it's yellow--and then look right, pass the big tree with the rusty buick under it and hit the second driveway", and on and on it went.

the following day, he put me in the driver's seat and watched from the back as the tape played and i fumbled with bags and papers, bumping over curbs and veering into opposing traffic as i turned corners with my knees while wildly throwing papers left and right--and it didn't help that he was laughing his ass off the entire time.  but, by god, i did it.

within a month, i was a veteran of the beau method of paper-throwing--handling my own route, throwing papers across three lanes of traffic with one hand with an accuracy nolan ryan would envy while rolling with the other, and making more money in two hours a day than most of my minimum-wage fellow students would earn in eight.

the best days were when we'd do our routes together--his rural route at one, my urban route at three. the papers were secondary by then--hell, that was automatic.  it was the hours we spent together surrounded by those piles of newsprint that i remember about that time.  it seemed like nothing then, but i'd give a lot for just one of those lost afternoons right about now.

i'm almost ready to campaign for romney just to spite these assholes

i used to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that the george w. bush administration was and would forever be the most inept and incompetent of my lifetime--until these clowns came along.

the fact that this "transcendent", "post-racial" president and the loutish, race- and class-baiting buffoon pictured above are even in the running for a second shot at offices for which they have proven eminently unqualified speaks far more to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the opposition party and the country at large than to anything they themselves might have accomplished.

and since they have nothing to run on in the way of accomplishments--hell, have in fact fucked up everything they've touched--they and their cronies have opted to descend to the sort of baseless smears against their opponents that make willie horton and swift-boating--you know, the sorta stuff that the left screamed about when it was turned on their guys--seem like child's play by comparison.

there are all sorts of reasons to oppose a romney presidency, but these guys can't fight on an honest, above-board level for fear of highlighting their own laughable record, so it's into the gutter instead--stir up the rabble, throw out libelous charges at random and incite race and class resentment

really, joe?  how many of the big donorsbanks has your justice department gone after?  how about zero?

in the desperate hope that something--anything--sticks, and to hell with the effect that such a campaign will have on the country they swore to preserve, protect and defend.

my advice to mitt:  fire your clueless advisors, take off the white gloves and go pull karl rove outta mothballs--and while you're at it, channel the ghost of lee atwater.  you're gonna need 'em both.

backgammon, anyone?

my shitty memory has been mentioned in past posts--if someone had told me ten years ago that i'd be writing lengthy, detailed stories from my past today, i'd have laughed and asked, "what past?".  but that was before i discovered that just the right amount of alcohol in concert with just the right random golden oldie could trigger a flood of long-buried memories--and thus, this blog came alive.

it was fun while it lasted (or not), but those days may be over, because, without any drama or conscious effort on my part, the falling-down-drunk phase of my life seems to have passed, just like that.  i mean, i still have one from time to time (in fact, i'm having one now), but one is enough these days.

as also previously mentioned, i recently sold my house, and, in the process of moving, went through every box and drawer and thus re-acquainted myself with every single thing i currently own--and what a revelation that was.

long-forgotten things, i was reminded, can trigger memories, too.  this post is about one of those things.

*     *     *     *     *

i remembered the first time i laid eyes on it--cheap, shellacked-linen case with yellowed, marbled plastic pips, flimsy cardboard cups coated with simulated moroccan-leather paper, painted points on cork.

i had just walked into the club for my usual round of after-school vacuuming and puke-removal, to find beau, my boss, and one of the bartenders bent over the board.  i stopped to watch.  he looked up, caught the expression on my face.

"what's the matter, country boy--never seen a backgammon board before?"

"no," i replied, "i'm just surprised somebody like you would own one that tacky."

he narrowed his eyes, looked at me a long moment.  "do you play?"

i replied, "it's like checkers, right?"

he said, "sit down."

"i've got work to do."

"sit down."

so i did, for the first of what would turn out to be hundreds of battles beau and i would wage on that tired old board.  at first he beat me easily, of course, gleefully pointing out my errors as he mercilessly demolished my board, but i caught on pretty quick, and soon we were slinging dice back and forth, doubling each other up to 128 for no good goddam reason and generally having a good time.

our relationship would go through many changes over many years--from employer-employee to equals of sorts to business partners--but backgammon was always the constant.  we'd spend hours facing each other across that board, smoking, drinking and talking into the night.

one christmas, beau's second wife, gayla, surprised him with a new set.  it was nice--leather, fancy stitching, weighted pips, expensive.  he loved it, of course, because he had to.  the old one got passed onto me--"take care of it," he told me. "i've had it since i was a kid, and it's been with me through thick and thin--trust me, it's lucky."  and i've had it ever since.

i last saw beau in late 1985, and our final conversation wasn't pleasant.  he called me the next day, and i let the machine answer, figuring i'd call him back later when i cooled off.  "later" would turn into never.

i've googled him from time to time in the ensuing years, just to check on him--he ended up in dallas, married a third time (gayla had bailed before i did) and started a tour-wholesaling business--but held off making contact, figuring i'd do it one day.

when i opened that box three weeks ago and found the set--musty and uglier than ever--i figured enough time had passed already.

*      *      *      *      *

i finished moving, slammed the door on my newly-rented storage garage and raced to the airport, missed my flight to dallas, stood by all night for the 6am special, drove the 90 miles east to tyler.  i was there to help my mother move into the house my sister had just bought for her, but i had other plans as well.

the next day, i drove the few blocks over to yorktown circle, parked.  the house looked exactly the same as it had when i had last visited it many years before, but i hesitated, headed for the front door instead of through the garage as i always had in the past--hell, who knew if they still lived here, or were even still alive?

when a stranger answered the door, my heart sank; i apologized, was in the middle of explaining when a familiar voice rang out from within:  "michael, is that really you? get in here right now and let me hug your neck!"

the stranger, it turned out, was a nurse; shirley, much older and frailer than when i had last seen her, couldn't get up to greet me, but that warm, sweet smile hadn't changed a bit.

before i could ask, she told me about fritz--he had died of complications from alzheimer's four years prior.  "and let me tell you", she said, "over 800 people came to his funeral.  people we hadn't seen for years, and some we didn't even know, all of whose lives he had touched with his testimony and his music."

fritz had been a well-known musical evangelist in the southern baptist church, and he and shirley exemplified, for me anyway, everything that was and could be good about christianity--and i'm talking the serious, hardcore, grit-your-teeth-smile-and-turn-the-other-cheek type of christianity that would prove necessary in order to have beau as a son-in-law (to the point of fritz's vomiting, rinsing his mouth and then walking out and performing the wedding ceremony at which i was best man--i only learned that little tidbit much later).

"how are gayla and ginger?", i asked, and was glad to hear that they were doing well, still happily married to great guys who loved them.  i would see them both before the week was out, and neither, to their credit, gave me too much grief about dropping out of their lives for so long a time.

and then shirley said, "you know beau died, don't you?"

no.  no, i didn't know that.

*     *     *     *     *

our friendship ended badly, and long after it probably should have.

beau was bad for me--everybody told me so, and on some level i always knew it.  but i didn't care--he got me in a way that nobody else ever had, and he listened to me in a way that nobody else has before or since.  i didn't know then that that's what sociopaths do, but it probably wouldn't have mattered if i had.  he gave me, a callow, naive east texas boy who didn't know shit from shinola, a window into a world i might never have known existed had he not come along when he did, and for that i will always be grateful.

i'm a very different man than the boy i was then, and i have no doubt i could hold my own with him now.

why'd you have to die, asshole?  you were supposed to outlive us all.

from an email to a friend

for anyone who still comes here and gives a rat's ass:  yeah, i've landed safe and sound in a fine new spot, two canyons to the right of the old one.  me being me, what should've been a simple, straightforward move turned into a clusterfuck of fairly major proportions, and i've got stories, but not tonight.  tonight, i'm offering up a little insight into what makes mkf tick, as recounted a few weeks ago to someone who knows me well.


he got it; you probably won't.



you haven't seen me lately, but trust me, age, blues and booze have all taken their toll, most noticeably in the face, which probably explains why i can now go for stretches of several days without a single viable new hit. needless to say, my time spent aimlessly yanking the one-armed bandit in hopes of hitting a triple-diamond is starting to add up.

and then, for no good reason, i suddenly hit a winning streak. like this week, for instance.

tuesday night was the young slutty bottom who was so cute i overlooked the fact that he was high and drove the 25 miles to south gate in order to fuck him. but, of course, fucking him wasn't enough--i had to break him. i knew i was succeeding when his previously open-mouthed kisses became little pecks--i said, "you're holding back now", and he replied, "yeah, because you've gotten me to open up and talk, make me believe you're actually listening, and now i'm starting to see you differently", and i said, "yeah, i'm listening--tell me more." and, of course, he did, and by the time i made my escape at dawn, his kisses were open-mouthed again, and he held my arms so i wouldn't leave.

thursday night was a slim, pretty 19-year-old japanese exchange student who insisted he wanted only a massage from gaijin daddy. yeah. i went to north hollywood and got him--he wouldn't look at me--brought him back to my place. at first he would take off only his shirt, which was fine--i eventually worked him down to his tighty-whities, rubbing and kneading every toned, exposed inch of him (i think it was the foot massage that finally broke him), then peeled off the underroos without resistance, poured on more oil and worked my fingers into places (and in ways) he wasn't expecting--or maybe he was, who knows. by the time he was begging me to fuck him a second time, i was ready to take him home.

tonight, i drove to alhambra--yeah, alhambra--for an honest-to-god straight guy, because i sensed he might be the holy grail. latino, 38, tall, solid, manly, handsome and recently divorced, with snapshots of his kids tucked into his dresser mirror. he was very businesslike, stripped down, laid on the bed, told me to keep my clothes on and my hands to myself--he only wanted a blowjob.

so i gave him one.

about halfway through, he started whimpering and moving, and his hands, which had been held stiffly by his side up until then, started caressing my head and face, his legs wrapping around my body. i reached into my pocket, fished out the lube, squirted some on a finger and started rubbing his crack as i continued giving the best head he'd ever had. he tensed, asked me what i was doing (but not with much fight in him). i said, "just go with it--i'm gonna do something your wife never did for you", spread his legs, and started with first my pinkie, then ring finger, then finally my middle finger--he was moaning by then--and then massaged and sucked him into the first pillow-stifling, screaming orgasm he'd ever had in his life.

immediately afterwards, i pulled out and away from him, stood up, wiped off and very quickly reverted to my masculine-fag persona, talking to him like a regular guy as he shuddered and recovered, as if what we'd just done hadn't taken place, and started in with the standard guttermorality post-coital interview.

turns out i was only the second guy who had ever touched him (the first, a couple months before, hadn't worked out, because he was too nervous and the guy hadn't played him well). see, after his divorce, a married friend of his suggested he do what he himself had done: place a craigslist ad for a gay cocksucker, because what the hell, they knew how to do it (his friend's name is javier--i told him to give him my number).

he kept asking, in wonder, "where were your teeth? i never felt 'em--my wife always scraped my dick with her teeth." i told him she probably did that on purpose so he wouldn't keep bugging her for blowjobs, and assured him that gay guys are the only ones who really like sucking dick.

and then i played my ace.

"trust me, i know--i was straight until i was 34, and i never got a decent blowjob from a woman. but that could just be because i'm kinda big."

of course he had to know how big, and i reluctantly took it out, showed him.  he reflexively reached out, jerked his hand back.  i told him it was ok, he could touch it if he wanted. he tentatively took it in his hand, and it started to grow--he couldn't take his eyes off it, and his grip grew tighter, he wouldn't let go. he said, "oh my god, i've never seen another hard dick except in porn--i can't believe how thick it is. what's it like to have one like this?"

i said, casually, "would you like to find out?"

well, yeah, he would, so i sat down on the bed to his left, took his right hand and wrapped it around my hard dick, squirted some lube on it, said, "jack it like it's yours."

he did, perfectly, and i came quickly, in huge spurts (looking into his eyes the whole time, imagining him leaning in to kiss me--that'll happen in time, if i play my cards right). he was in awe, said he'd never seen anything like it, called me a stud, conferred upon me alpha status, said he couldn't wait to tell his friend javier about what he did.

he works nearby in santa monica, gets off at 3--plenty of time before i go to work at 5.  i'm thinking three more times and i'll have him.

i'm not a whore so much as i am a safecracker, rob--a locksmith, a houdini. for me, people are puzzles to solve, codes to break. and then i move on.

evil in its own way, ain't it?

wham! just like that

i did it on a lark, really.

ok, not a total lark--i'd been thinking about it for a while, despite being told by any number of experts that it couldn't be done, at least not right now, not for the number i had in mind.

i didn't even bother to nice it up first--just picked up the phone, invited four representatives of a profession of which i think little into my half-finished world, told 'em to look around, and, with a flinty stare, challenged each to convince me that he/she was the one who could deliver the miracle.  went with the black guy--not because of the color of his skin, of course, but because of the quality of his contacts and the content of his competence (which is all that really matters here in guttermoralityland).

and, by god, he did it--within three days we were in multiple offers, four days after that in escrow. and tonight? i'm sitting here surrounded by fifteen years of accumulated debris, trying to wrap my head around the fact that if i don't find something fast, my totally-unprepared, about-to-be-flush-with-cash ass will be homeless fifteen days from tomorrow.

i try not to think that i could've gotten twice as much five years ago if i'd only allowed my critical faculties to override my ego.  those illusions i clung to then are now gone--i've finally accepted the hard fact that i'll never finish this place; it's up to the new owner now, and i can only hope she doesn't fuck it up too badly.  as for me? onward and upward--i'm finally free, and can go anywhere i want.

goodbye 90210--i'll probably never be able to call you home again.

i despair for the youth of america sometimes

tail-end of a conversation i just had on adam, presented without comment.  read from the bottom (and, as always, i'll let you figure out which was me).

update:  i've just been told that i'm the only one who understands that this post was about a kid i had chatted with for five minutes assuring me that he didn't expect me to give him a whole car, but merely a down payment, in exchange for which he would be my friend forever, or at least a week.  guess you had to be there.