MishegasMaster Notes On Illinois Primary Election Day

"Are you all gonna go out and vote? I wish my vote meant something, but what the fuck does it mean? Ronald Reagan, Walter Mondale, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny! Cartoon characters! The puppet strings are being pulled by the same people, over and over again..." Jello Biafra, lead singer of The Dead Kennedys, October 31, 1984, Cabaret Metro, Chicago, Illinois

It’s primarily Election Day here in Illinois, although primarily it still is important, for all parties concerned. The voters never seem to come out in droves like they do for the general election though and why is that? Perhaps they feel it’s just that it’s not the big a deal.
Although the current sitting Democratic governor has a challenger this year, I believe the governor will easily defeat him. The Republican candidates on the other hand, seem to have more at stake and course, what would a political campaign be without a good old-fashioned name bashing fight?
I’m not sure it matters that the four candidates, who fought it out, fail to realize that whether they behave like conservatives or moderate Republicans, more people seem to look at how they conduct themselves overall.
Election campaigns are famous as well as infamous for running notoriously hateful campaign television and radio commercials and really if you think about it, blatant hateful words only confuse a voter more and only makes the potential candidate look like an ass, but if you think you've seen the last of these ads, buddy, think again! You'll be seeing them from now until the General Election in November.
Their behavior especially publicly and privately seems to indicate that some of the candidates could care less about the overall public, caring only instead for public opinion polls and their selfish professional persona.
No such thing as an honest politician, as they go directly for the throat when they promise us the world and bring us back nothing but a bucketful of dirty salt water. Then again there are some politicians (and friends of theirs) who bill themselves as clean and honest and what we end up with is a celebrity politician who is all talk and show. The kind of man or woman who gives the people nothing in return, for after all it is for the people and by the people who vote to elect a candidate to office. That being said, junior Illinois senator Barak Obama should resign his senate seat.

But politics is a tricky business run by tricky people, looking for a few extra tricks on the side, while selling as many tricks as they can get away with selling. At least former Illinois governor George Ryan was exposed for his bottomless pit of dirty tricks, as well as late President Richard Nixon and an entire slew of others who lost their trust from their citizens who believed in them at one point.
Trust is important to the American public and once a person betrays their trust, others will do everything in their power to expose them and destroy their persona. Exposure is good to a degree, for once the truth is exposed, your soul will forever remain free.
There’s an election in Israel next week too. I certainly hope the citizens of the American-sponsored country will exercise their rights to vote as well. Anyone who doesn’t vote should be deported from his or her respective countries. Despite what they say in the press and what many believe in the public eye, voting is a privilege, so use it and don’t lose it.

Cobb-Webbed Forgottenness & Hurtful Melodies Get A Second Chance To Breathe

In the spring, time is observed for healing old wounds slowly like the drops of dew scattered on flowers in the morning. It’s a time to begin new projects and study the law of averages, knowing things once uneven and bombastic, now turn smooth, round and softer around the edges.
In the springtime, pink & naked is more often than not the true meaning of new beginnings; a significant turning point that brings together the cob-webbed forgottenness & hurtful melodies into the forefront and pumps new breath into the meaningfulness and purpose set forth and put upon this earth.
It’s was a hard winter for me all around and I almost didn’t make it through, but thankfully due to a few good friends that care, I came out on top. Then of course I also have to thank my newly found friends, my angels, my spiritual guides who came at a time when I needed them most, picked me up and held onto me as tight as they could.
At first I didn’t believe my angels were really there, but to prove their existence, they shook the futon where I sleep, eat and meditate on a few hundred times and well, after the 101st time and a few other holy tricks, I believed them.
Springtime is also a perfect opportunity to clean house or in my case, my apartment space, which seems more like a storage facility when one gets an eyeful of it at the present moment. Cleaning house is definitely in the forecast this year; the very idea of getting rid of unwanted junk is more appealing to me this year, than any other year in recent memory, perhaps since there’s money to be made on stuff!
Some say spring is a young man’s fancy, though I really believe spring is a time for women to make men act like fools, all for a little comfort.
And also for me, spring is a time to make peace with one’s self after a long hard misunderstood and often frustrating battle between souls that never quite went away.

Getting The Internet At Home

There’s a beautiful feeling in my heart tonight as I write this blog. I finally have the Internet hooked up and I couldn’t be happier! On the other hand, what a few crazy weeks it’s been.
I made the decision to get the Internet at home based on my ever-changing life. For the past six years, ever since I moved from Chicago and into the surrounding northern suburbs, I’ve had to resort to creative ways of communicating and connecting with the world, as my finances haven’t always been that steady or well-kept.
Of course, up until last year I was making payments on my Saturn and therefore, couldn’t afford all that much, including a telephone. During the entire year of 2003, I had no telephone and so I had to resort to using disposable calling cards whenever I wanted to speak to someone, namely my parents, The Arizona Babe & Rex Pater Homo. I used to call them at a local hotel, not too far from the basement apartment where I was dwelling on Sunday evenings.
That situation changed when with the help of The Arizona Babe, I was able to purchase a cell-phone and re-establish myself in the world once more. In the meantime, I had no connections to the Internet and so I would use the next best location, the public library.
The last time I had Internet service at home was late 2000 and then it stopped because it was at that time, financially impossible for me to keep paying for it. So, I had to resort to any and all public libraries in order to fetch my email and find out varying bits of information that I needed. I had initially thought that this sort of life without the Internet would be a temporary situation, but of course it lasted for almost six years!
Now libraries aren’t so bad, except for the privacy factor and believe me, people hanging out and waiting for their turn to use a computer made me a workaholic when it came to finding time in my already busy day to get online.
Not having the Internet at home also cramped up my free time. In fact, I almost never had free time, especially when I began dating and it almost always came down to a choice of either going on a date or using the Internet. But of course, there were ways around that; I would just spend less time online and get back to the next day.
Then of course there were the days that the library would be closed due to inclimate weather or various holidays. That can really muck up a schedule especially if you’ve been depending on something of great importance. I’ll miss the library, but perhaps only the folks who worked at the reference desk and that’s all.
Two weeks ago I was hooked up via the local telephone service, but that’s when all of my temporary troubles began. In order to get online, I had to have my computer fitted properly.
It took several trips to the local electronics store to get my computer fixed and re-fixed until it worked properly. During that time, I had experienced several episodes of near panic attacks and several shades and states of sadness. At some point, I prayed to God that I would get through this hardship and asked for guidance. This past Friday evening, God answered my prayers as I was finally was able to get online.

The first thing I did when I got online was to call up The Arizona Babe, who was overjoyed with the news. Then I took her surfing with me and of course the first website I went to was www.beatles.com; we then looked up her name, then my other two brother’s names, Benjy & Louie and lo and behold I found that my brother Louie has a blog like me. Then on final approach, I took her to my blog and read her one of my recent posts.
Even though I am working on the bugs within the system, I am still able to get online with no real problems. Those frightful days of having to go to the library are over. But all those days are gone now.
Today was a beautiful day; I went grocery shopping, I went to a friend’s house to party, I picked up some instrumentation for my pesky bathtub, went to work out at the gym and will do the laundry soon.
It’s almost as if I’ve become a free man!
I think I’m going to like this.

American Yarnprose>Sardines

Sardines


Oh, I wish I wish I wish I were a fish disguised as an Oscar Meyer Weiner; everyone would be in love with me or would they? Would they really, really, really, really, really, really, love me if I became someone else? I have always wondered that possibility off in my mind; I mean would they be satisfied like those sardines in a tiny can if someone like someone could actually change a person & their status for good? The true foreverhood of time. I had too many try to do that to me & ended up as dissolved throat lozenges gathering acids inside the stomach of pulp-woods.
Sometimes it seems to work; sometimes it doesn’t. I hope no one ever tries to pull that shit on me.
Help is better than change. It just refines the wine. Ages the cheese. Prolongs the movement within the climax. Makes the train ride seem a little longer in the short of it.



Bye-bye love. Bye-bye happiness. Hello loneliness. I think I’m a-gonna cry. Goodbye my love. Goodbye.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>War Materialism

Well, here we are again, it's Friday! Tip of the kippah to you one and all and Happy St. Patrick's Day too! Boy! Talk about long weeks! This was certainly one for the books, but it's finally here, that fun little capper that greets us the moment we walk into our homes after a hard day's night! In keeping with the topic rhythm of the past four days, I've chosen a poem that fits right in! And please remember my dear, dear readers; always-always-always enjoy!

War Materialism

The time has come

No need for more slack

The time is now

Before they put a gun in your back

Your chance to serve

Is going fast

Pretty soon

It’ll be days of past

So grab a load of guns

Bayonets and slick grenades

Join the army join the navy

Display them proud in parades

But then comes the real chance

No fun and games, no time for romance

It’s time to see

Both blood and guts spill

Watch the bodies collect in the unmarked gravesites

No time for scaring, no time for frights

Instead, you see

Victims of war materialism

Band together on a muddy hill

A MishegasMaster Minute

There are too many complainers in these here United States. Yes, I know that many have taken great advantage of the freedom of expression law within both the United States’ Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, but there are a growing number of useless blabbermouths who have a better purpose here in our country.

All they do is complain, complain, and complain.

It’s the same kind of complainers who sit on their collective asses, watch television talk shows or listen to local/national radio call-in programs and actually believe everything they see on television and hear on the radio is true.

I wish I could believe in the news media as a whole or its members, some of whom I still see from time to time, having been in the news business a long time ago, yet it’s changed from bad to worse, mostly overtaken by corporate conglomerate companies with executives who dictate how the news should be presented.

Many of these companies will tell you their first obligation is to present the news, yet with a twist; the very idea to get their own agendas and viewpoints hammered into viewers and listeners’ heads the first time with an earthquake Hollywood-like intensity and a little public relations thrown in for good measure and oh yes, before I forget, they must make a profit.

Ever since NBC was taken over by General Electric (G.E.) decades ago, who also just happens to have within its patent arsenal the MX-missile, I doubt anyone of us will ever see anything bad about the bomb. Stories about electricity companies and its entities will also not get as much negative press either on NBC or its affiliates, not as long as someone like G.E. owns them.

Strange how that works itself out; reminds me of the time I was a young reporter working for a northwest suburban newspaper in the Chicago-area in the early 1990s and our newspaper staff had to write advertorial news; translated it means writing a positive article on a business that advertised with our newspaper.

The trouble with doing those kinds of stories was how dishonest the newspaper was being to us reporters and how the wrong lesson was being taught to us. Sure a newspaper needs to generate ad revenue, but not by having its staff writing happy, bogus stories about its advertisers! The worst part of it was, when the advertiser had final say so what went into the story and the editor agreed with the advertiser and not the reporter!

If there is ethics in the news or publishing business, I fail to see them, as there are so many irregularities in both. The worst types of ethics I run across are those that manipulate the truth and present it as fact, when the opposite is true.

Anybody with a computer or a blog is a reporter these days; anybody who calls into a radio or television stations with an eyewitness account of a robbery, fire or car wreck is a reporter. Anybody who hasn’t studied journalism yet uses the jargon and mannerisms of a journalist is a reporter.

If anything I measure true journalists and writers this way; anyone can write a sentence. Anyone can write a paragraph. Try editing it down. Therein lays the key to success.

The Hilary Clinton Haters

My country is made up of various groups; perhaps one of the more wicked and evil of them is an outrageously out-of-control sexist mob made of mostly men in the United States who absolutely disdain Hilary Clinton, for several reasons, some of those which I will attempt to address within this blog.

Some say she’s just a senator from New York; just a senator you say? Whoa buddy! You’d better sit quietly in your chair and let me give you the lowdown.

Ever since Bill Clinton had been elected to the office of the Presidency of the United States, there had been a slow-burning movement to ridicule him and his wife Hilary.

Let’s face it; politics is a dirty business and there are those whose life’s mission is to destroy other men’s souls just because they don’t have what they want or what God handed to them in the receiving line; sometimes it’s called professional jealousy. Still others resort to name-calling and mud-slinging, digging up whatever terrible-bad actions a person did in previous times and exploiting it.

Before Bill Clinton became president there were several people out to destroy him, but thankfully he beat back their stupidity with honesty; besides one can only go so far with dirty tricks. Still, the people liked him and voted him in, not once but twice.

But sure enough, there have been those in the media who have sought the Clintons out, like a personal vendetta; people like pain-killer popping radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, overgrown Congressmen, media stars, attorneys and right-wing Christian groups, among others.

Seems to me the more the Clintons put themselves in the public eye, the more the hatred and disdainment spews forth like a putrid vomit geyser. To make it seem more ludicrous, during the time I worked in a corporate bookstore chain in the Chicago-area from 1994-1997, I saw at least 100 anti-Bill & Hilary Clinton books. Never in my life was I so shocked.

And yet I still don’t get it. The Clintons are quite intelligent and hip to society, as is the societies of people that are hip to them, like me. What other United States president can most of us say admitted to digging Elvis (Presley), playing the saxophone, smoking weed and connecting with people? Certainly not George Bush Jr. or Ronald Reagan or even Jimmy Carter; no the Clintons are observantly brilliant and smart.

But back to why most men seem to disdain Hilary; perhaps they feel threatened by her dominance or maybe it’s her aggressiveness or assertiveness that she displays so well.

In general, I believe that most men would rather have a woman who stands behind him, wash his clothes, bake his bread, make him dinner and submit to every command he requests from her. If not, will then his woman is most likely a bitch or a femanazi because she has a mind of her own.

The same rule of thumb applies to Hilary Clinton; why are so many men afraid of her? The same basic principles and that’s sad when you think about it really.

So sad.

What’s The Point Of Undeclared War When We Can ITMFA!

There are some true idiots in these United States and strangely enough most of them live in either Florida or Texas, save for a few in the other 48 states. Their mentalities range from those who putter around and blog four or five times a day without being paid for it!

That’s about as bad as serving time in the United States Armed Forces, pick your branch, they all seem to be the same and those who serve believe they are doing a good deed for our country, by “protecting our freedoms.”

You call this undeclared war in Iraq “protecting our freedoms?” That has got to be one of the biggest lies ever told to young, naïve men and women who sign up to fight for Uncle Sam. It’s so far from it. All they are doing is protecting our oil interests.

I don’t care what President Bush or Vice-President Cheney says! It’s a little tough to believe what both men say anyway! They’ve already lied to the American people several times over the course of three years and invaded a country that wasn’t bothering America to begin with?

How is it that America had Osama bin Laden trapped in Pakistan a few years ago and then suddenly loses sight of him? How is it that they go after a smaller dictator who had nothing to do with the events in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C on Tuesday, September 11, 2001?

What significance does the trial of Saddam Hussein have on the outcome on the undeclared war? It’s never really been answered as to why Saddam Hussein’s is on trial, other than perhaps he was an easier target for George Bush Jr. to smash and grab while he had the chance. Or maybe it’s payback time for his Daddy (George Bush Sr.) who let him go at the end of the Gulf War in 1991 to begin with.

If you coupled Bush’s crimes against a country that wasn’t even involved with 911 to begin with, plus all of the illegal wire-tapping of phones and cell-phones (including yours truly), the monitoring of email to those who send letters to friends & lovers overseas (including yours truly) and those who write blogs against the President (including yours truly), I’d say we have a President that is far worse than President Richard M. Nixon’s paranoia could stretch out, far worse than Ronald Wilson Reagan’s lies and deceit he spread out over the Americas and all those faithful who so believed him like lambs to the slaughter and far worse than George Bush Sr. could ever profess to be!

And yet, the bastard hides behind the Patriot Act like a scared little rich kid...I wish he could face my friends who he's harassed and tell them the truth, but I know better...

George Bush Jr. should be impeached for all of his crimes against humanity followed by a trial jury of his peers and given the maximum sentence one could get for such crimes.

I’ve always said that polls don’t mean much for politicians or celebrities, but by the looks of things, I’d say this time the numbers do mean something significant and let me tell you that all the bullshit speeches our President makes this week on how wonderful the undeclared war without a mission or without a time frame for our boys and girls to come home safely won’t do him a world of good.

ITMFA!

Assassination-The Easy Way Out

Assassinations are everywhere you look; people planning to murder others for varying reasons. Perhaps they don’t agree with what is said or what is agreed to, like say deals involving money, broken promises, bad sex, medicinal side-effects, horrible positions in life or a handful of pills disguised as several obstacles than one could swallow so easily on any given day, let alone week.

Assassination is the result of projected selfishness, the very idea of wanting to work alone based on a lonely fear factor, i.e. fear of failure of one’s self-worth. It’s almost a half-step below suicide bombings, as suicide bombings seem to strike at random against anybody or anything, unlike the self-proclaimed suicidal maniac or assassin, who decides to take out one’s own soul out of its misery for whatever reason because pressure is too much aka, a decision made is a decision kept or promised.

Suicide like assassination is not only based on impulse, but well thought-out plans, with the intension of not making any slip-ups. Assassination is another word for murder, killing or slaying and just a fancier and more glamorous way of approaching the act.

When I was younger, assassinations were a part of everyday life in America, having grown up in the 1960s. Death seemed to fit in with everyday life and as strange as that sounds, it actually did.

I had terrible dreams between the ages of 6 to 8, watching bombs go off in my head or watching virtual newsreels of important men being assassinated before my very eyes. To be safe, I used to sleep outside in the hallway of my parents’ bedroom (The Arizona Babe & Rex Pater Homo), knowing they would protect me from harm’s way.

Benjy, Joey, Naomi, Louie, never knew what to make of that action and for several years following, used to make fun of me for doing it, calling me all sorts of hurtful names, insisting it was fear of detachment and as I now reveal here for the first time ever, it was quite the opposite, so please stop ridiculing me already!

Assassination of one’s self seems at times to be the only way out from the absolute madness that follows a wounded soul around like a lost puppy dog.

And maybe it’s the best way possible to go.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>The Dress Shop

In keeping with the rhythm of poetry for last few days, I think I will keep up with the pace and offer up one more poem to you. And remember my dear, dear readers; always-always-always enjoy!

The Dress Shop

Eyes upon eyes

Do not say hi

But watch what you buy

Behind the façade

Of

Starkness

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>This Cold Rain

Well, it's such a nice day here where I live, the sun is shining brightly with a light breeze in tha air, oh how I know spring is coming soon! And I thought instead of my usual rabble-clatter-bang, I'd give you my readers a triple treat! Poem time! Three poems in three days feels good, doesn't it? And remember my dear, dear readers; always-always-always enjoy!

This Cold Rain (for Phoenix, Arizona's Cloudburst After 143 Days Of Dryness)

It’s as strange as day

She and he tell the perfect story

The long-winded lies

Dirty dancing chills me

The spirited shadows do feast

As ever to feel this cold, hearing the warm breath

Throws out those secret whispering sky songs

And

Flowing mud

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>Babyshoes' Blues

Yippee...we made it to Friday once again!!! And here we are to embrace that loving gentle capper that greets us like a long lost relative! Time for another oldie but goldie poem of mine, that is enjoying a comeback of sorts. Please my dear readers, dear readers, always, always, enjoy!!!

Babyshoes’ Blues

I met this cat named Babyshoes who walked the streets at night with the biggest sack of blues I'd ever seen in this life.

Seems like Babyshoes had wimmin troubles.

Hell! We all do at one time or another.

Yeah man! Babyshoes cops the blues with rosy palm intact in fact almost every time I can think about it; he cops a feel between a rattle and a banana peel, sandwiched in the middle of two pegs, always a runny residue left on a plate of scrambled eggs, feelin' satisfied.

Seems that Jane, a woman half his age, drunk in pints, gave him the eye more than once in that juke joint he used to frequent.

So the story goes, she saunters up to his table, spread-eagles herself next to him and says, "Hey Babyshoes, feel like swingin' on the vine tonight with Jane?"

But Babyshoes' answer was always the same, "Why bother?"

He'd get his fill, lay back & holler, milk the old one-two and he'd be done in two squirts, like a shot of iron into his bloodstream.

He was such a lonely cat, that Babyshoes.

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>Suffragette

Well, here it is a Thursday evening and guess what? Poetry!!! At times I really like to treat my readers extra special and tonight is one of those nights. So sit back, relax and kick your feet up and enjoy a brand new poem on me! And remember my dear readers, always, always, enjoy!!!

Suffragette

We

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

The madness of truth

sandwiched in between

stories we paint ourselves to keep ourselves real cool

And we hope to think that we are right, but you know we are not

And we

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

Suffer!

for the madness

Local Yokel? Okel-Dokel!

I park in a leased parking lot a few feet from where I actually work at and I pay a partial parking fee for the usual every quarter, which I have no qualms about, but I’ve been noticing little things occurring there since I’ve been parking there and seems to me that neither the city of Evanston or the Evanston Police Department isn’t exactly doing their job as well as they could be.

While warming up my car these past few months, in the middle of the afternoon during my lunch break, closer to 3pm as a matter-of-fact, I’ve noticed a lot of unfamiliar-looking cars in the parking lot.

The signs where I park clearly state: “City Of Evanston; parking Lot 64 permit required. Monday through Friday, 5am to 3pm. Free Evanston theater parking weekends and after 3pm weekdays” and “All trucks and buses prohibited. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

That sign is a relatively new one, posted up nearly a month ago after which a lot of people tried to park illegally in the lot during a Northwestern University basketball tournament, which caused lots of headaches for those of us who park in the lot. A lot of those unfamiliar cars park there since the local greasy spoon; Mustard’s Last Stand has a tiny parking lot next to the alley, approximately seven spaces. Ah, they just don’t build cars like they used to, but anyway, the funny part about that first sign is that the movie theater has been closed for several years and yet people still park there knowing that, cheating the law.

And speaking of Mustard’s Last Stand, what’s the deal with the morning deliverymen dropping bread off on their side windowsill facing the parking lot and leaving? You’d think that the hot dog joint would have a better system, but oh no, not them.

Sure the bread is wrapped up tightly and in plastic, but still, anything could happen, like say a curious rodent shows up like a squirrel and takes a bit out of the bread or a vagrant man or woman wonders by and steals it? I think they are asking for trouble in the long run.

And what about that one suburban Pace bus driver that ignores those bus signs and drives through the lot at exactly 3pm each day just so he can take a shortcut to get to the Linden El Station in Wilmette? Shouldn’t he be reprimanded too?

But then again, I suppose it’s like those poor clowns who park in the Chase Bank parking lot on Central Street, just because they couldn’t find a metered space on Central Street to return a movie at Video Adventure, have a meal at Prairie Joe’s, mail a letter at the post office, get their hair or nails done.

The schmucks don’t care, just as long as their needs are met. In the meantime, they take up a good space for folks who really want to do business with the bank, despite the fact that there are signs in place there that strictly prohibit parking, plus cameras, but apparently, they are ignored.

Ah well...what do I know? I'm just a local yokel! Okel-dokel!

For The Price Of Tea & Eggs In India: An Occupational Hazard>Act 22

Disclaimer: By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage. Go before the people with your example, and be laborious in their affairs. He who learns but does not think is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger. Fiction can be that way sometimes. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental & should not be taken or misconstrued as such. Anyone who thinks otherwise probably believes that he who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

Every life span has its mortality; it’s just what we choose to do with it within a particular time frame that makes it all crystal clear. Sometimes on Devil’s Island one learns the hard way that mortality has its price, meaning who will be spared for the moment, while who gets the one-way ride on the gurney to the death house for the last time.

One never knows his or her consequences until the day of the actual event and in many ways it makes one feel as if they have been placed in a Nazi concentration camp, with little chance of survival, meaning the only ways out are by secret underground tunnels built and organized by freedom fighters or death.

In the time one can spend here like many of us have done so in the past and present, the death rate has been awfully and unusually high, right now the average execution or escape rate comes up to two souls every three months.

When I first arrived on Devil’s Island, the escape and execution rate was exceedingly high, averaging seven to 10 souls per month within in a 24-month period; of course that was during the regime of Old Black Devil, whose motto was “honor the guilty and punish the innocent.”

Not since the flighty days when The Fraternal Goon Twins, Groggleman and Old Black Devil ruled the roost on Devil's Island, have tensions mounted steadily and the prisoner population appears to be more on edge.

The mere fact that each prisoner is required to wear a wristband that monitors their every movement, action, breath, sound, word and thought that processes through their heads is a sure sign of bad times ahead.

Paranoia has set in across Devil's Island like a thick dense fog and no one seems to have any sense about themselves as to what should be done. Yes my friends, it's true; Devil's Island has reunited itself with evil...God help us all!!!

Four Score And 302 Blogs Ago-Why I Blog

Four score and 302 blogs ago, I began writing little diary entries for what I originally thought would be a new outlet to post up all of my poetry, both old and new; an online extension of Cops Hate Poetry, my poetry fanzine which I published from 1986-1991.

But you know what, dear readers? I was so wrong; just like all those Chicago weathermen who were unable to predict the weather forecast correctly between January 26 & January 27, 1967, which most called for a little snow, with accumulation between one and two inches. Most of us, who lived through that blizzard, when a blizzard was a blizzard back in those days, know otherwise!

At least former Chicago television weather forecaster John Coleman kept himself honest; he always told his viewers that if he was ever wrong, that he would stand on his head on live television and sure enough he did it several times throughout his career, but I’m straying as always.

I started my blog because another friend of mine at the time and also a very funny comedian Ray Hanania had interviewed me nearly a year ago on the subject of the arrest of popular Chicago poet J. J. Jameson, who of course turned out to be none other than Norman A. Porter, a wanted fugitive from the state of Massachusetts.

At that time, I remember looking at Ray’s blog-page and thinking how easy it looked to set up one. Now of course it was! After several minutes of trying to pick and choose a name for my blog…my real name was taken, I chose The MishegasMaster and the rest as they say, is history!

Over the course of what seems like a lifetime, I’ve written so much and covered so much ground, almost as much ground during my newspaper reporter days. Unlike my reporter days, with a blog I’ve been able to respond to my harshest critics who believe I am always too honest. As a reporter you’re not always able to do that or face the firing squad of editors and ultimately, the company’s human resources department, if such a department existed.

I’ve also written several fictionalized stories and serials too, two of which are still running regularly and a one maddening surreal serial that runs every so often, plus my regular Friday poetry series.

Along the way, I’ve rediscovered myself, redeveloped my writing skills through trial and error and most of all, I’ve found that after all these months of writing and editing myself, that there is always so much more to learn, write about, comment on, constructively criticize, defend, label and create! I’m proud of myself with the strides I’ve taken and made with this blog and the several friends I’ve inspired to create their own blogs!

Blogs are a wave of the future, though the future is now; a cliché perhaps, yet true. While on vacation last month in the Valley Of Golden Happiness, my mom, The Arizona Babe had given me a stack of newspaper clippings to read; she’s always saving things for me…ah, the acorns never drop too far from the loving tree, now do they?

Anyway, the one that really caught my eye was a column on blogging by Chicago Tribune writer Kathy Parker, who said in so many words that those who blog don’t really say all that much in their blogging efforts to begin with and equated the blogging experience to nothing more than a lot of wasted space.

It’s really funny how all that works. It’s true; anyone who is a non-writer can get online and become an instant writer via the blogging network. In a small way, I feel kind of irked by that whole idealism, having been trained properly in journalism school many years ago, yet it’s an opportunity for 10 million voices to be heard, organize and focus without being told what to do.

I can also understand how blogs have become a brand new outlet for freedom of speech and how it might or might not sway public opinion. In more so in the case of Kathy Parker who feels threatened by bloggers like me and others, so I guess it seems only natural that her insecurity would side with the uselessness we bloggers have to offer the free world!

Most of my friends who blog are not writers at all, with the exception one guy who did journalism school; the rest of them are ordinary citizens preaching to the choir and their friends, mostly. After all, it is your basic online diary for the entire world to see. And I do have my favorite blogs too, so try these on for size, won’t you?

http://energynorm.blogspot.com/

http://pietyhill.blogspot.com/

http://onlysummer.blogspot.com/

http://spacewine.blogspot.com/

Be sure and tell them The MishegasMaster sent you!

The Amazing Tale Of Wearing My Yarmulke In Public

Sometimes in my life I have found some incredible animosities, both personally and professionally and this past Friday was no exception. I have begun to explore my religious roots and I’m finding that because I am who I am, which is a quite sensitive person among other qualities, I find that I am in it for the long haul.

And having said that, I felt like an outcast as I sported my colorful hand-knit yarmulke for the first time upon my head to work; of course there were some snide remarks like; “Oh, so that’s the infamous yarmulke, eh?” to rude stares and whispers whenever I passed their desks or departments.

I often wonder why certain religious artifacts are regularly accepted by society and others aren’t. I mean it seems to be perfectly okay for the three major religious groups of Catholic, Jewish & Muslim to do what they feel without being questioned as long as it’s normal in the normal sense of reality.

But you know it’s not; not by a long shot. People in America especially behave peculiar because they seem to have their own hang-ups about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to religion.

These are the same people who go around judging what others do, while expecting themselves not to be judged. How so very hypocritical of them. It is with that thought that I will leave you with as I present this prose-poem on my experience in my own home territory.

A word to the wise; I will continue until further notice to wear my yarmulke on Fridays until I feel comfortable enough to wear it on other days, so for those of you who I know personally have a problem with it or choose to openly criticism me, remember that instant karma strikes back hard!

Funny Little Hat

I am shunned in my workplace like a blacklisted man in Hollywood

For speaking what my soul desires

Jabbed with indifferences to indifferent to notice what I am about

Injustice bleeds me dry

Every time I ask to be recognized or called upon

But you know, they never notice and they greet me with their tokenisms

And their strangeness

Because they fail to comprehend that I understand their ignorance too.

If crosses were banned from wearing around necks, would the Catholics complain?

If head coverings were banned, would the Muslims complain?

If gospel, R & B, rap & hip-hop music were banned from listening to at individuals’ desks, would the Afro-Americans complain?

If the frightened ones were dragged from out of the closet, would they complain?

So, when I chose a new flight path that gives me new found hope, why do my friends blind their eyes and not look at me as if I were some kind of sideshow freak in a Brooklyn, New York neighborhood?

It’s a conspiracy I tell you man, it’s a conspiracy!

Don’t ask, don’t tell and to tell you the truth, if I weren’t at all Jewish,

I’d probably blame it all on them too!

Tales From The Desert>Post Trip Talk-Act Five: A Postcard Home

My dearest and lovely Venus,

It is late in the night as I write this postcard to you. Alas, I have woken up in the middle of the night, close to 3am and of course I couldn't sleep, what with the very thought of you kissing me and me kissing you back and us kissing each other everywhere and then...I fell back to sleep peacefully and happy. I bet secretly, you are happy too.

After I spoke to you on Wednesday, I hiked along the desert highway and saw two jackalopes (bunny rabbits with big ears) and most likely a baby Diamondback snake sleeping beneath the sand. My first morning here in the desert, I saw two beautiful hummingbirds. It seems as if they behave like us, like two mad lovers in the throes of passion, did you know that? Well you probably do know. Most of the desert birds here sing meticulously as well as melodically too. What are your sea birds like and what songs do they sing to the lost, the found and the loved?

I miss you and love you so very much...

The MishegasMaster

The Botox Frankenstein Poetry Series>Venus Of The Sea

Well, glad to see each and everyone of here once again, dear readers and let me tell you, it's great to be back into the swing of things, but most of all... it's Friday!!! And it's March already! My-my-my; the fantastic little capper is here to help us along once more. My time spent away was a good time and along the way, I started writing poetry again after a long dry spell, so in honor of my miracle, I present to you, a brand new poem. And remember my dear readers, always, always, enjoy!!!

Venus Of The Sea

It is evening

When I think of you

In between splashes of orange crouching cactuses within black pudding sky

I think of where you might be

What you might be thinking

For love holds us close, although we are far

A virtual kiss means so much more than a virtual touch

When our eyes and fingers meet and coo and phrase each other

Like two small children splashing around a bathtub

Your red hair

It flows

Swiftly

Like The Red Sea

I am immersed in thought,

Your sweet eyes do not disguise

Though mysteriously like a bride to be

I envision your soul more easily

Spirits entwined

Just so entwined

Tales From The Desert>Post Trip Talk-Act Four: A Postcard Home

Zog-19, ASU (Arizona State University) is the best place to hide out if you want to check out life before it checks upon you. The best places to hide are beneath the palm trees or inside the orange shrubs. I've disguised myself as a well-tanned man that no one would recognize, save for a passing rainbow fish or a desert rat and believe you (me), there are plenty of those out here! The mountains are breath-taking, spacious and curvy, not to mention probably being a bit better than being in the flatlands, but oh! To live and love and float and yodel mindfully within the sportin' life!

Yours intuitively,

Rocky Mountain Slim

Tales From The Desert>Post Trip Talk-Act Three: A Postcard Home

Dollface,

The mountains here are simply gorgeous, curvy and breath-taking and so is the student population here at ASU (Arizona State University), in Tempe. Much as I try to take in as many sites as possible, wouldn’t you know it? The ghost of Shiver-Me-Timbers Moors continues to follow me around and haunt my space and overall makes me wonder how much influence Jack has had on the both of us! The Arizona Babe & Rex Pater Homo sends good wishes and are both doing well. The Arizona Babe has been teaching and tutoring students all week. I’ve gone hiking several times and I have found a couple of things that I don’t often find in the big, big city and that is peace and adventure, since there is usually never enough time to naturally breathe or really understand what sweat beads mean to your own soul of your own heartbeat.

Talk To You When I Get Home, “Baby”!

Love,

The MishegasMaster

Tales From The Desert>Post Trip Talk-Act Two: A Postcard Home

Jeepers, Creepers Junior!

What does one say to one who wants to know everything, but shouldn’t know everything? However, since you’re such a conspiracy-driven man such as yourself who believes there is more than meets the eye or perhaps can read between the lions of this of this mere postcard, what do you believe I am actually telling you within the words that I am scrawling on this colorful piece of cardboard? Scratching your head are you? Good!

Well, in translation, I’m having a great time, glad to be here!

The MishegasMaster

Tales From The Desert>Post Trip Talk-Act One: The Near Ill-Fated Ride Of United Airlines (Ted) Flight 1448

I don’t fly often, but when I do, it’s usually reserved for vacation trips or performances that take longer to get to than one day. As many of you dear readers know, last week I headed west to spend time in the Valley Of Golden Happiness with The Arizona Babe & Rex Pater Homo.

Usually, when I fly, my flights are without incident; with the exception of the occasionally late passenger or crying baby and that’s about all. But not last night, oh no! Not last night, one of the most hellacious flights I’ve even taken in my short life.

I was dropped off at the airport three hours early by Rex Pater Homo, as he had to be elsewhere that afternoon. The regular route to the airport was being repaved, so he took an alternate route. We kissed and hugged each other goodbye, as I went to get my citrus-colored duffle bag checked in.

I waited silently as the airport lounge slowly began to fill up with other passengers. I watched and listened as others went about their little affairs, chatting on cell-phones, tapping away on laptops, munching down on food, sipping drinks and general stupid chit-chat.

Round about the time that my flight time was getting closer to departing, that’s when our troubles began. As the plane landed and deplaned passengers, while the rest of us lined up to get on board the plane.

We were stopped dead in our tracks when it was announced to us, that the plane we were about to board had mechanical failures and therefore, they were trying to make a decision as to what to do with the few hundred of us.

At first it was suggested they fly us to Denver, San Francisco or Los Angeles, with the hope that we could all make connecting flights from there. They also suggested “swapping” out planes, but that was quickly squashed. Then when push came to shove, our flight was completely cancelled leaving us in the dark for approximately one hour.

Needless to say, many passengers were upset, including me. To blow off a little steam, I blew out short frazzled riffs out of my new horn that I had picked up earlier in the week and called friends and family to pass the time. One hour later, after they told us our flight was cancelled and had taken off all of luggage off our plane, some bright person at the top decided that we would make the flight after all, even if the plane wasn’t working properly.

So our luggage was reloaded on the plane, as well as the rest of us and off we taxied down the runway, which took us a total of 10 minutes. Once we were in the air and the situation seemed to settle down, everyone seemed to relax.

It wasn’t more than an hour into flight when our plane met with turbulence and the plane shook violently as if it were breaking apart, it sure seemed that way as I had a clear view of the wings from where I sat and they looked as if they would snap off as easily as a tree branch.

I overheard a passenger say that he saw one of the plane engines sputter and wheeze as we flew over the mountains. I even heard a little boy sing “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow,” though I wondered to myself if the boy knew the seriousness of the situation at hand.

The entire plane became suddenly quiet as if everyone was thinking the same thing that I was. Death had never felt closer for me than last night.

I wept for nearly an hour after that incident, but I’m sure the guy next to me couldn’t understand why as he kept staring at me. But then again, grown men aren’t supposed to cry, now are they?

The rest of the flight went without incident, until a stewardess made an announcement on the public address system to tell us we were nearing our final destination and also there might be a possibility of an emergency landing. This is what she said, just as we were flying over Lake Michigan.

I never felt so scared in my life.