It came to my attention through film oriented websites' message boards that the spiderman of the comics had a mechanical apparatus on each wrist that shot out his silky spider fluid.  I knew this, I just forgot.  I seem to recall plot lines that would involve him running low or out of web juice while embroiled in battle.  For the film version of spiderman this dramatic element could never enter the fray for the fact that his web juice is organic, coming out of, what I can only assume are natural spinnerets on his wrists.  Of course, even this could theoretically run out like all bodily fluids.  We can't bleed or urinate indefinitely without eventually running out of piss or blood and the same logic must hold true for spider webbing, but wouldn't the natural order of things make more sense if the webbing shot out of a point just above Peter Parker's anus?  This could come in handy if arrested for vigilantism and thrown in the pen with a big alpha bull for a cellmate.  But what do I know?

As an additional thought on the movie Training Day, if one is driven to ask why a black actor portrayed the bad cop, then one must also ask why a white actor played a good cop.  To that, I'd say it's in the air.  It's a general hope that exists throughout the land of Los Angeles that someday balance will come to the LAPD, and it's the knowlege that it will not come through outside forces but can only be brought to justice from within that places the white actor in the roll of the good cop.  Thus, the saving grace on the face of police corruption is white because the devil must redeem himself and put corrections to the hell he hath created.

For no apparent reason at all: tumbling pigeons and their webdesigner whose web design skills almost rival that of a pigeons.  For only $30 a page he'll design a website for you, and it's a steal.  Each page includes up to four images, an email link, a web counter, guestbook set up and a maximum of five (no more) URL links to other pages!  How the hell could anyone pass up this offer?  And for only $20 more per page you can upgrade from a Basic Personal Site to a Genealogy site which is no different from a Basic Personal Site except you can have three more URL links to other pages per page for a grand total of eight hyper web links per page!  Act now!

The devil is amongst us

No, no, no, it's heel, burger, pickle, special sauce, then crown, not heel, special sauce, burger, pickle, crown!  Do you need to see the training video again?

Up until that point the day was going okay; I was only nine over par on the Disc Golf course and had a well brewed cup of coffee in my hand as opposed to the "best by: 11-18-00" cup of Starbucks I'm currently reduced to drinking that can be dated by noting that it was refuse from the ill lived Los Angeles based branch of kozmo.com.
I just typed in kozmo.com's address and see they no longer have a website which would imply they no longer exist at all since they were after all a delivery service geared towards taking order's online.  This is too bad, I owe to them the current feculent Starbuck coffee fueling my morning and my free (well, free to all I suppose except Kozmo.com) year 2000 thanksgiving meal.
The worse thing that has happened to the coffee beans in the year and five months since its "best by" expiration date passed is that it's lost all flavor.  What's in my cup has more in common with water than coffee; all I can do is keep my fingers crossed (difficult while typing) hoping that the caffeine didn't vamoose along with the flavor.

After arriving at the hospital we sat outside waiting.  What happened was I was Disc Golfing, as I said, with the Juggler who suffers from an allergic reaction to either a wide or narrow variety of food stuffs.  My guess is it's either a spice or a grain or a particular kind of yeast.  Whatever causes it the result is that he puffs up, particularly his face, until resembling a beet red Shaquille O'Neal, and thanks to the state of insurance in this country he'd rather wait outside the hospital, keeping his fingers crossed (difficult while trying hard to breathe), hoping the reaction will subside.  That's precisely what we did yesterday, and eventually the reaction did relent and fade, but if it hadn't we would have gone inside, they would have shot some junk into his arm, monitored him from a quarter to a half hour and said, "that'll be $2,000 thank you and come again."  And who the hell has $2,000 to spend on 15 minutes of fun? The insurance companies.  The insurance companies screw the people, and the hospitals in turn screw the insurance companies which in turn means those without insurance are the ones the most screwed by the hospitals that have inflated their prices to what insurance companies can pay, not individuals.  It's a real great system, and this is America, and they wonder where suicide bombers come from overseas.  It's called injustice and when you're forced to feel that your life isn't worth shit, then the sticks of dynamite get strapped on.  When you step in shit you're eventually going to track it into your own home. 
So watch where you step.

Well, if Girl Mania was the nadir of the weekend, then the peak was the reason for being down in Newport Beach:  a screening of The Decline of Western Civilization III which I had seen before, but never on the big screen where the power, poverty and emotion are much more devastatingly heart felt.

This is how it went.
We drove for three hours to reach our destination, a dry lakebed north of San Bernardino called El Mirage.  It was here that seven punk bands were going to play outdoors under the stars.  Finding the location in the dark wasn't easy; the dry desert like lakebed had no natural markers, the only thing I could use to guide my general direction were mountains off in the distance, scrub brush and small barely visible camp sites peppered here and there along the way.  Eventually two trucks went roaring away into the dusty terrain and I followed thinking, "Well, maybe they’re going where we need to go."  I was wrong, but the folks we followed were a good sort and knew where we wanted to go.  In their drunken way they told me to, "Swing out round that way and follow the whoopie road."
"Whoopie road?" I asked.
"Oh, you know, it's road that sortas whoopie," he answered.
While following the directions I determined "whoopie" meant "wavy" or "bumpy" or "better suited to BMX bikers."
Finally we found the campsite.  Fires revealing Mohawked silhouettes gave us a clue.

Feats of Osiris had been asked to play this little event many months ago by the guy who had organized it for the past four years.  Each preceding year had gone off without a hitch except for a park ranger who showed up one year and gave a bunch of kids tickets for setting off fireworks.  There wasn't a ranger in sight this year, and I think you get the idea that this year there was going to be a hitch.

A couple weeks ago a squatter punk named Wicked, he calls himself Cheeseburger in Persephone Cubist’s fantastic documentary The Descent of American Society 3, overdosed along with two other punks on heroin.  EMTs saved one of the kids, but the two others (including Wicked) died. 
What this means to the party on the dry lake bed is that it was transformed into a sort of wake/memorial for Wicked, and that means it was packed with grieving drunken squatters.
In November I think it was, I wrote on the website, after Marian's O.D. death, that I believed the government might be using the Taliban as an excuse to capture portions of the drug supply, poison it and return it to the streets or maybe simply pump out cheap high grade shit.  Whatever the case, it's clear to me that H has become deadlier than before September 11th.

Okay, we have grieving squatters, three kegs of free beer, various floating bottles of Jim Beam, wine and so forth, crust punk bands crust punking away and random desert people racing their dune buggies across the lake bed (think of the Hills Have Eyes family and you get a good idea of what these small town desert dwellers are like).

I was enjoying myself, there were more stars visible in the sky on this moonless night than I had seen since being in Northern Wisconsin, I had a bottle of beer in hand, a fire to stand near and plenty of people to watch doing those strange and wonderful things people do.  So I felt good.

Then, as promised, came the hitch.  As I was standing near the fire, Persephone's partner, Pecado, a former squatter himself, informed me that a couple guys had brought guns with them.  He said he saw a twenty-two and a 9mm.  I didn't like the sound of that, and if I had been utilizing half an ounce of common sense (as opposed to the full gram that I thought was enough, damn you metric system)I would have tried to get everyone to leave, but I know I'm quick to jump ship and I knew nobody else would want go.  Hell, later when the gun nuts were shooting a little plastic target they had set up on the hard packed dirt of the dry lake bed floor, dirt hard packed enough that bullets could easily ricochet off, nobody thought it foreboding, but it was and foreshadowing.  If it had been a low grade work of fiction like a movie, then the presence of guns and our knowledge of their presence would assure they were to be used in a later scene in a more dramatic manner, and they were.
Two of the kegs had been drained of life.  I knew the slightly secret secluded location of the third keg so I wasn't concerned and the way I figured too many people were already excessively intoxicated.
As I stood next to the fire I heard two girls tell their boyfriends, "Those guys over their were talking shit on Wicked."
Then I heard their boyfriends respond, "What?  What guys?  Where are the fuckers?  What did they say?"

I missed the rest as a cacophony of voices rose up and two idiots started stomping around in the glass-melting-hot coals of the fire screaming at the guys who had allegedly spoke slanderous words against the fallen squatter.  The two dipfucks in the fire reminded me of apes picking up sticks and beating the dirt or pounding their chest or throwing poop in a display of alpha male intimidation. Me tough, me walk on fire.
They shouted and grunted; they cursed and defended the good name of Wicked, and then in a clear and precise moment I heard one of them shout to the already growing crowd around the scene, "Wicked's people!  Come on!  Let's get these fuckers!"  Then the fuckers were gotten.  The mob had spoken.  The first punch was thrown by the rallier of "Wicked's People," followed by an angry wave of safety pins, piercings, patches, Mohawks, and tattered clothing that crashed and broke upon the accused talkers of shit.
Quickly, I moved away from the mob, through the darkness, towards the makeshift stage area to tell Flywheel from The Desistance who was in the process of setting up for their show, to scream something into the mic to break it up, but all I was able to say was, "Flywheel, why don't you-" and I was cut off by the sound of gunfire.  Three shots in rapid succession.  All shots were fired into the air, but that was it; party over.  The mob retreated, everybody scattered, taking cover.
"Behind the van, come on everyone, behind the van," I said to everyone near me.  We crouched down behind the van, waiting.  I heard people shouting.  My friend Lot, who followed Kitten and I out to the desert, came around looking for me, and when I saw him I said, "Lot, right here."  Not being able to see me in the dark he took five hurried steps in my direction, "Where?" he asked and promptly tripped over somebody hunkered down taking cover, he rolled over their body, down a small trench and smacked the side of his head on a rock.
I had him walk over to a lantern with me so I could inspect his head.  Since he was bloodless I sat him down and told him not to move since he was getting loopy from his noggin' floggin'.  Then I found Lot’s girlfriend who was in full-blown double “A” grade ape shit with a cherry on top panic mode and clearly needed a baby sitter.  I sat her down next to Lot, and then went to find my wife, Kitten, Feats of Osiris’s vocalist.

The bass player for Feats of Osiris immediately left upon hearing the gunfire.  He had seen the gunman come charging across the open camp ground, gun in hand, towards the mob of punks gone lemming.  Kitten and I were trying to get our group together to get the hell out of Mirage, but it wasn't so simple.  The guitar player, Susan, didn't want to leave because we had been drinking.
My response to that logic behind staying was, "So fucking what! They've been drinking too!  And they have guns!  Which is the greater risk?"

Somehow, we ended up delayed, and the drummer, Lot, their girlfriends and Susan all wandered off to the sight of the third keg.  I stayed in the car.  I wanted nothing to do with this bullshit fiasco.  Kitten went to tell the guy from XNB who set up the show that Feats of Osiris wouldn't be playing.  That seemed like a no-brainer to me, but she felt she had to let him know.  Some time passed, about half an hour, and seven more gunshots were heard in the distance.  Kitten promptly came back to the car and announced we were leaving.  At this time Lot was returning and said the drummer’s girlfriend, Ahemily, had a bloody nose.  She had more than a bloody nose; she looked like she had been on the wrong side of Slymenstra after pulling out the cork. The drummer had a split nose, and Kitten became irate shouting, "What the fuck is wrong with you fucking children?  You're getting into fights?  This is unacceptable behavior!  Get the fuck in the car now!  We are leaving!"

It seems that while at the other campsite, Ahemily and a squatter girl started joking around with one another.  Then, the joking escalated until Ahemily, in a moment of utter genius, japed, “What?  Do you wanna fight?”  That’s all it took.  The squatter girl lunged at her. 
Ahemily kept repeating “I don’t want to fight” and “I’m kidding” as she attempted to pin her foe down, but her attempts at diplomacy soon failed.  Her challenger, with arms pinned down at her sides jerked her head forward, butting Ahemily in the nose and then twice more in the face in rapid succession. No longer able to hold her down, Ahemily released the girl who then began swinging, and K.O.’d Ahemily to the dirt.  At this point, the drummer stepped in and knocked Ahemily’s assailant to the ground, causing immediate retaliation from the assailant’s boyfriend in the form of a fist to the drummer’s face.

After getting the punch drunk Ahemily and the drummer loaded into Susan's car like excess gear, we left and sluggishly took meandering roads that lead as closely in the direction of a mountain on the opposite side of the dry lakebed as we could.  Getting out was nightmarish, nothing seemed to lead closer to escape, routes would be cut off by deep furrows in the desert sand or by forbidding looking desert shrubs. The trek out of this hell took a half hour alone, but we finally found our way out, once again by following others, and after another half hour our convoy came upon a gas station where we pulled over to regroup.

Some other beat up punks showed up at the gas station to recover from the trip out of the desert.  One of them was a girl whose eye was swelling shut from getting jumped by a couple guys.
A female sherriff pulled in after seeing car loads of beaten and bloodied people caravanning  out from the lakebed.  Kitten, Suasan and Lot's girlfriend all explained the general situation to the sherriff who seemed largely unimpressed, found the presence of guns in the desert mundane and after finding everyone in satisfactory condition took off.
I wanted to clean the thick layer of dust off the car windows, but the wind-shield cleaner receptacles were dry.  *Ahem*ily went in to clean up, Lot and Susan were outside smoking, I was talking to them, a red pick-up truck with three guys pulled in at the pumps.  Two of the guys stood back by the truck and the other, a latino vato looking guy with a gray-black trench coat started walking towards the store.  I went inside at this point to see if Kitten was ready to go.  When the vato dick head walked by Susan he said in a hushed voice, "Fuck Wicked."  Susan dropped his cigarette and came inside to tell me he thought the guys who had started all the shit at the campground were here at the station.
Outside, Lot smoked.  The vato-fellow, who looked like the actor who betrayed everyone in the Matrix, walked up to Lot and asked, "How are you doing?"
Lot replied, "Oh, I'm all right," and then was met with a sudden sucker punch that drove his already bruised head back into the brick wall.  Then he was hit again and went down.  This guy then started kicking him while he was down.  It was at this point that I had turned around and saw what was going on just outside the doors.  I charged the door and saw Lot curl up, pull his legs to his chest and kick out, striking his attacker in the shins.  As soon as the attacker stumbled back, one hit, he had lost the initiative. 
Lot sprang up and bellowed, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" and as we both moved on this little fucking sneak attack bitch, his friends jumped into the truck and he ran away joining them and they drove off.
I was stunned that someone had stalked us out of the desert, lurked around from a distance until the sheriff departed, pulled into the gas station, then waited for one guy to be left alone and jumped him.  Lot hadn't suffered too badly.  He had a small cut below his eye, a chafe mark from a kick on his forehead, but other wise he was unscathed.  His glasses even stayed in one piece.  Yeah, that's right, the little fucking desert town pussy hit the guy with glasses.
I don't know who's luckier, the desert rat-fucker or Lot that he hit his head on the wall and went down because the desert kid didn't know how to fight and if Lot had gotten his hands on him it would have been very bloody. Not to mention that Susan was the jr. kick boxing champ of England.
That's about it for our adventure in bumfuck nowhere, but others had equally harrowing times, including Persephone who was assaulted by one little shit who charged her, a woman many years his elder, like a bull and possibly fractured a rib.  He was one of the other punks who showed up at the gas station, who watched Lot get assaulted and just sat in his car, and who when I yelled for everyone to get going because it wasn't safe to stay put at the gas station any longer said to me like some sarcastic bitch, "Oh the drama, the drama."  This fucker was also the one who threw the first punch at the campfire and called forth "Wicked's People."  This cunt has proven that it only takes one person to ruin everybody else’s fun.

Asshole number one for the night, the man they call Clit or Cunt or Clunt or maybe Kint.  If he hadn't been there then Persephone Cubist wouldn't need X-rays, guns would not have been fired in foolish desperado glee, Feats of Osiris would have played, nobody would have had to flee and Lot would not have been jumped.
Asshole number two for the night, the dumb ass who shot his gun off into the night sky, and who couldn’t get it through his thick sickly head that what he did was wrong.  May a bullet fall from the sky and drill some sense into his head.
Asshole number three, the convenience store pussy.  I wish him a long life full of degrading remedial labor, a prison sentence and a very large cell mate who longs for some passion in his life.

But insofar as ultimate causes are concerned, it is that Cunt, Clit, who turned a great time into a surreal hell of jumping shadows, angry mobs, pummeled humans, gunfire and outright assault.
I hope that Cunt, Clit, turns to a big syringe full of that cheap high-grade heroin sweeping the streets to ease his troubles, jacks his vein nice and deep and…  arrivederci.

Some of the very special, privileged and well armed men and women who have at least a high school diploma or equivalency and are much more important than teachers or social workers or you and me.

My pig snout tea kettle is whistling which means it's time to make the coffee.  I have a French press so first I put the kettle on, then pour the boiling water on the grounds.  It's the best of both worlds really.  Both worlds being the tea world and the coffee world.  The best thing about the tea world is the tea kettle.  I love the sound of shrieking steam escaping from the narrow urethra of the tea pot.  Sometimes I take a hot pad and muzzle it.  It's a very violent action like suffocating someone who's trying to scream for help.  On other days I like to simply turn off the gas flames and let the kettle simmer down, the insolent whistle mournfully wailing itself into oblivion.  That's what I'll go for today, the slow agonizing death rather than the quick kill.