Happy Valentine's Day. On this day of lovers, instead of hearts, chubby-cheeked cherubs and lace, I have decided to adopt the roach as my own personal mascot of love. You may be asking yourself what kind of devpraved, cynical individual associates something that vile with Valentine's Day. There are actually several reasons why love and roaches are similar. For starter's like love, roaches have infiltrated our lives at some time or another. Think about it, I bet you can remember the last time you fell in love and I'd bet you also remember the last time you came in contact with a roach. Secondly, love is unpredictable just like roaches are. For example, you never know when some morning when you least expect it, as you're reaching for the body wash in the shower and all of the sudden you see that you're not alone and that a roach, making an appearance from the sewer, is staring up at you, completely in its element. You also never know when you're going to fall in love either or with whom. It may be love at first sight with some cutie at the laundromat or it could be a slow process with someone you once found to be completely different from you or somewhat despicable, yet eventually came to the realization that he or she was perfect for you. Lastly we all want love to last forever. Roaches will still be around after we've managed to destroy everything else on the planet. Lets face it, who doesn't want to have an epic love that can withstand even nuclear apocalypse.

You may be wondering what I got for Valentine's Day, having such a unique idea about Valentine's day and all. Even if you aren't I'm going to tell you anyway. This Valentine's Day I got my ATM card witheld at the bank (long story, not going there), a brand new shiny penny, two pieces of peanut butter candy, a red carnation given by a complete stranger and left on the ledge in front of a storefront window, and some beautiful bruises on the sides of my arms from sparring in the dojo, the kind of bruises I'm strangely proud of in the same kind of way that kids that break their arms are proud of their casts. The bruises are a reddish color, almost the color of roses, and just like roses in a day or so they'll surely turn a purplish black. All in all I think that this was one of the best Valentine's Days I've ever had.

Evolving Electronically

I regret to inform you that I will no longer be posting on this blog. Its been a good run, full of sarcasm and stupidity. See you on livejournal.

Riding in cars with pies

Imagine if you will, riding in the backseat of a flaxen-colored car at dusk. The sky looks bruised, black and grey with splotches of orange peeking through. Your mission is to infiltrate the headquarters of a (inter)nationally known environmental group which is , according to your sources, filled with pie. You of course aren't, of course, riding alone in the car. One rarely gets very far riding in the backseat of an empty car. Yor associate in the passenger seat is an excellent knitter who has turned this handicraft into a deadly art, able to incapacitate someone with the rib stitch if nescessary. The fellow at the wheel, besides being a top-notch getaway driver, uses wit and an uncanny knowledge of astrology to amaze and disorient his opponents. When you arrive at the rendesvous you don't know what to expect. Your sources haven't named a contact. The edifice itself is a cramped one story adobe house with overgrown desert plants in the front yard. You know you are in the right place because there is an overabundance of people in tie-dyed t-shirts loitering in and around the premises. The place gets filled up fast with people holding various reusable containers and pies. Someone has gone to the trouble of writing a list of all the available pies on a small whiteboard and you suddenly realize why you are here:onion pie. No one in their right mind would eat something so vile by choice. All the answers will be revealed in the onion pie. You wait in line holding your plastic plate and being jostled by hippies while your associates wait in the front room in case there is suddenly a riot. When you get to the front of the queue, you ask the serving lady for a slice of onion pie and she gives you a knowing look. You gather your associates and the slice of pie outside and carefully pick it apart so as not to draw suspicion to reveal a tiny slip of paper.

"At the State Fair"

I am currently writing this behind the garbage cans near the exhibition hall at the Gaylordsville County fair in Conneticutt where Mrs. Cherylee Bundt is accepting the blue ribbon for her "Amazing Rhubarb Pie" to which she credits her great-grandmother's recipe and a slew of other people in her fifteen minute acceptance speech. Since my last entry, I managed to escape the vessel I was trapped in using paper clips and a snowglobe. Once I was freed from what I feared would be my watery doom, I managed to swim to shore, which was surprisingly only 25 feet away and separated from the water with a four foot metal security rail. On the other side of the security rail were a family of four and six japanese tourists, all of whom looked incredibly alarmed. As it turned out, I was being locked away in a theme park attraction and the ghost that was hitting me up for money was really an actor named Sherman Ebers. Mr. Ebers has a penchant for betting on the horses and as an occupation dresses up as a furry purple make-believe creature in the Splashtastic Fantasy section of the park. But I digress. As I mentioned before I am behind the garbage cans near the exhibition hall at the Gaylordsville County Fair.
Those garbage cans are home to a vide variety of insects and rats that hover 'round in hopes of finding scraps, and I'm reminded of the rat named Templeton in the lovely children's book Charlotte's Web. Sheldon would wax poetically about the glories of deep-fried and sugary castoffs. Speaking of deep-fried foods, I can only pen a few more paltry lines before I meet with
the fried bread vendor, a secret agent from the Etruscan Secret Police sent to capture Mrs. Bundt a.k.a. Katvia Petrostovich, who has been using forged vegetables and handmade goods to compete at state fairs and expositions internationally. Her latest scam, the rhubarb pie, allegedly contains cleverly disguised turnips, yellow children's molding clay and other ingedients that have been told to me, which are far too obscene to mention here. To date, she has collected 14 blue ribbons, two medals for best in show, one for a zuchinni and the other for a sweet potato, and 5,000 dollars and prize money. There are also rumors that she won a honorable mention ribbon at a dog show at a local park which is odd considering all sources say she doesn't own a dog.

A Pirates Life for Me

I fully intend in these next few days to be the captain going down with her rusty ship. While the water in the vessel keeps steadily rising I, my friends, will be eating peanut butter in various ways, the best of which is smeared on apple cinnamon flavored rice cakes, which may be used as floatation devices if the water gets too deep. I will also be having banal conversations with a figment of my imagination, a weary pirate I used to know in my glory days and in moments of conversational lulls I'll be asked to give the scurvy devil money to pay of his gambling debts. Course I'm not left with much of nothing these days. Keeping your nose clean don't give you much of anything. You may wonder why I don't call for help. The truth is that before my boat sprang a leak. I tried to contact anyone I could or find some vestige of land. What I got was a spaniard that didn't like my grammer and then buggered off. I would have preferred a duel with a red tipped pen instead. Oh who am I kidding, the chap prolly'd a kicked me arse with a preposition. The water's up to my chest now and I don't even have anymore spirits. Bugger.

We Resist!

Today there was a protest at the Tucson Convention Center against the arrival of George W Bush to Tucson. Naturally I was there. I held up a sign that said "Artic Drilling now= Damage Forever." This is in response to the Senate proposal to drill for oil in the Artic Wildlife Refuge
-this is supposedly protected land people!- which would have a damaging effect on the ecosystem. I'd have liked to have represented all of my queer, feminist, anti-war peeps, but not all of the causes would have fit on a sign. How can they when they take up so much room in my mind? It wouldn't have sat well with my conscience if I went to work and sat around all day. This fits perfectly with my current motto is : Its better to regret something you did than something you didn't do. I think that Iggy Pop actually coined that phrase. There were a few protesters from groups such as Move On (www.moveon.org), Billionares for Bush(www.billionairesforbush.com) and Planned Parenthood (www.plannedparenthood.org), but most of them were individuals. There were college students, retirees, kids and their parents, artists, hippies and the homeless. I'm not sure of the number of people that were there against bush but I'm guessing that it was in the hundreds. Part of the protesters were centered at the side of the building on a ramp that usually leads into one of the ballrooms when its not being cordoned off, and the other half was over in the parking lot holding signs and jeering the mostly white, mostly rich, and mostly serious crowd of rich men and their well- polished stepford wives that were waiting in line. I thought that it might come to blows when one of the Bushies starts screaming about Social Security and his four kids so adamantly that I thought that the vein in his neck might burst and another one screams back at him that his kids are gonna get drafted. But fortunately, it didn't escalate and most of the protesters moved away anyway once the Bushies all went inside and they lined up along the main thoroughfare waiting for the presidential caravan. The caravan arrived about a half an hour later with about fifteen motorcycle cops in front and ten cop cars in the back. The entourage consisted of two SUV'S, 2 limo's, and a City of Tucson van. All of the vehicles went into an underground parking so as to spare our president the wrath of the unpaying public. All in all this protest was very peaceful and the police harassed very few, if any people. Yesterday I was walking and I saw a slogan that was spray-painted into the street with a stencil. It read "Your heart is the same size as your hand. Keep loving. Keep fighting." Dissent doesn't (have to) come from hate. I was speaking my conscience. And I will speak it again.

"We Find ourselves in the Same Old Mess Singing Drunken Lullabyes"

Happy St Patricks Day everyone. I hope that the luck of the Irish is with you.
Today go green. Here are some links to make it easy to be green.

www.meatout.org
www.vegan.org/going_vegan/
www.justgive.org/ways/50waysenvironment.jsp

Also, today is the birthday of Billy Corgan, the lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins. You can check out his blog about his cats and other random thoughts at www.billycorgan.com