Going for the throat...the times, they are a-changin'...various musings on pointless things

Who knew in November, right?

Knee-jerk reaction was at its finest. RepubliTeacanPartiers were promising job growth, smaller government and winning numbers to the Mega Millions drawing; whatever it took for them to get the public to raise their pitchforks and run those Gawd damn-ned Democrats out of office.

And the voting public acquiesced. Suddenly, we had a boatload of fresh faces in various local, state and federal offices and the general consensus of those voters that placed them in office was that things would be different. Things would be fixed...

I am guffawing at this idea as I type.

I'm an independent, pure and simple. Not a Libertarian, a Tea Partier, a Green Jello-er, Coffee Partier, elephant, donkey or any of the remaining excuses we have for folks that supposedly pledge our best interests as a society before their own personal agendas.

Because, personally, I don't like having a black hood draped over my head by any political party in order to keep me blind, which is exactly what the latest crop of "conservatives" has attempted to do since taking office.

Wisconsin...Ohio...anti-abortion bills...healthcare bill repeals...yanking funding from PBS and NPR much like a bad parlor trick.

All of that doesn't resemble job growth and small government to me. It appears more as if they are going for the throat of the American people — attempting to turn the public worker unions into eunuchs, outlawing abortion without actually rescinding Roe vs. Wade and stripping the lifeblood of two news organizations that likely represent the least biased news organizations in the country.

Why the ruckus? The presidency in 2012, that's why. Union's support Democrats, abortion supporters' back Democrats, and NPR and PBS are labeled "liberal," which is synonymous with...

You guessed it...the Democrats. Known in some circles as the "Demoncrats," they aren't innocent in all of this either, nor have been in the past (see: Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.)

Ah, fuck. Just stop the parade of lies, political charlatans. We'll respect you more if you just tell us face to face that you plan on sucking the marrow from our bones and feeding off our middle-class remains.

Just please give us the reach-around at least after you fuck us in the ass, as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, our beloved senior drill instructor, begged in the past.

The times, they are certainly a-changin'.

The anti-union bills in Wisconsin and Ohio spurred protests at those state's respective capitals and college campuses. Meanwhile, it seems the entire Arab world has opened its eyes and realized that a bevy of tyrannical despots have been running roughshod over that region for years...or is it centuries?...or eons? — thus the multiple revolutions and uprisings.

The Clash, if they were around today, would title the song "Multicultural Riot."

Speaking of musical groups, here is a quick aside. Ohio once again got screwed...neither the Dropkick Murphy's or Tom Morello swung by the Buckeye state to lend their support to protesters like they did in Wisconsin.

Instead, I think Ohio had a barbershop quartet and some half-assed bagpipers. Nice.

Throw in a mulleted hair band while you're at it, or fuckin' Nick Lachey.

Ohio always gets shafted musically. James Brown left King Records in Cincinnati...Reznor left Akron and Cleveland, as did Chrissie Hynde...Manson left...Guided by Voices retired. Now all we have is repetitive emocore from Dayton's Hawthorne Heights.

And fuckin' Nick Lachey.

When country artist Jerry Reed wrote the lyrics "She got the goldmine, I got the shaft," he was waxing poetic about O-H-I-O.

Ok, now back to the original train of thought.

Folks are plain tired. They are tired of the broken record-ness of political systems and tired of lies. They are tired of seeing an elite few reap the rewards from the broken backs of the downtrodden many.

We haven't been this pissed off of a proletariat in a very long time...and 2012 is shaping up as either a beginning of things to come or the end of things as we know it — in more ways than one.

I will leave those ways to your imagination...

Let's get a little more lighthearted now. I'm just going to bitch for bitching sake and rattle off some random musings on pointless things I've read, seen or heard over the past few weeks.

You might as well throw on a swarthy jumpsuit and gold chain, Jim Tressel. Your days of dressing like Pa Cleaver and snookering the Ohio State faithful with your homespun coaching act is over. You bent over backwords to cover your players asses while flipping the bird to the university when it came to properly doing your job — which includes reporting player misconduct. Hmmm...

I now have no doubt that you didn't just throw, but rather violently flung former OSU running back Maurice Clarett under the bus when he raised his allegations about you back in 2003-04. More and more it looks as if the "thuggin' " ex-con from Youngstown was telling the truth about Tressel.

Interesting...we took the word of a white man over that of a black one. No surprise there, but it certainly has caught up to the white man now and deservedly so.

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi has written a "novel." No, strike that. She dictated some ideas to a writer and then slapped her name on the book, which is nothing but a half-hearted attempt to fictionalize her partying exploits with the rest of the cast of "The Neanderthal Shore."

In the novel, there is even a date rape scene where either Polizzi or her hired gun writes that a girl deserved to be raped.

You, Snooki, deserve to be fucking fist-pumped in the face then dropped off in a Hell's Angel's clubhouse in Berdoo. Let's see if you feel the same way and would write the same drivel after that experience.

Have you ever been raped, Snooki? Have you ever had something forcefully taken from you — peace of mind, faith and self-worth — without your consent?

I know you shorts come unzipped easily, tramp, but that doesn't mean every woman's has too.

And folks bought the book. Hemingway is puking in his grave and it makes me think of some graffiti I once read in a gas station restroom.

" 'The Jersey Shore ' gives dagos a bad name." What a contradictory, yet strikingly perfect sentence.

Adrian Peterson, running back for the Minnesota Vikings, compared the labor situation in the National Football League to slavery...this coming from a man who makes multi-millions dressing up like a Road Warrior and carrying an inflated balloon of pigskin.

All on his own accord.

What the fuck did they teach you at the University of Oklahoma, Adrian? That you can volunteer to play a game for more money than a soldier, cop or teacher will make in a lifetime, yet it's on par with slavery?

What a way to piss on your ancestors. Fuck 'em, they're dead right? Who cares what they had to endure...Peterson's football career and future photo-ops on the cover of "Madden" are at stake, dammit!

Is there any wonder we have cults when we have idiots like this running around? Maybe he should marry Snooki...perfect goddamn couple.

Finally, let me briefly place my toes on the bandwagon/car wreck name Charlie Sheen. Nah, forget it.

I can't fault the man for his "Winning" attitude...it's the American way, after all. Blow shit up, regardless of whether it's yourself or other people, and win at all costs. We love watching him self-destruct and honestly don't want a damn soul to intervene and stop it.

As Sensei Kreese said back in 1984, "We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak."

U.S.A., U.S.A!


Onto the flipside,

-Spragoo

Wicked Westboro...you are the draggin' queen...get outta here, ya bum!

Where do we draw the line?

Our saintly United States Supreme Court decided
Wednesday that the wicked Westboro Baptist
Klan - those most un-Christian of "Christians" -
could freely protest at the solemn funerals of
U.S. military members with their utter garbage
of "God Hates America" and "God Hates Fag
Enablers."

It's their First Amendment right, after all - or so
says the Supreme Court.

I'm ripped in half concerning this conundrum.
There is a reason for this.

As a veteran, it disgusts me to no end what this group of ignorant, hateful people do at the funerals of Americans that paid the ultimate price of death for our country. Yet, as a journalist and staunch supporter of the First Amendment, for me to root for the abolishment of their right to protest and speak - no matter how vile and putrid the rhetoric might be - would be in essence to cheer for the erosion of the basis for my chosen field.

That is the crux of my dilemma...and I'm sure as hell having a hard time staying objective.

So, I won't.

Take the hatred of the Nazi party, the ignorance of the Klu Klux Klan, the theocratic nonsense of Al-Qaeda and mix it up in a blender. Now let it sit in the sun for two days and spoil.

BOOM! You have Fred Phelps and his lobotomized minions spouting their most-definitely-not-the-word-of-God drivel.

Did you stop and think, Phelps, you convoluted bastard, just why in the hell you are protesting the very defenders of every freedom you live and breathe daily?

Do you think that Matthew Snyder and his other fallen comrades whose funerals you sullied only fought for homosexuals, Catholics and Jewish folks?

No.

They fought for you and your insidious klan of heathens.

I say "klan" because I refuse to call you a "church." In places titled "churches," they teach things such as the following...

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." - John 13:34-35

Guess that doesn't really make you disciples or God's authority on much of anything, does it Mr. Phelps?

Send us a postcard from Hell when you and the kinfolk get there, Fred.

Let us know if global warming is having its effects there, too.

Speaking of homosexuals...

I visited my first gay bar last week, to assist a dear friend of mine in celebrating her birthday. It just so happened that a drag show was the entertainment of the evening, so it was a double-first for me...popping my cherry in the LGBTQ world, so to speak.

Talk about a convivial atmosphere!

An electic mix of shiny, happy people it was. I observed no mean-mugging, no fisticuffs, no arguments and some pretty stellar dances moves from the queens.

Throw in cheap beer and no wannabe Ronnie's from "Jersey Shore" and all in all it was a good time. Hell, I even got hit on by more men in one night than I have women in the past six months - sad but true.

Even a drag queen took her shot at me, which brought the biggest laught of the night.

Here is the scene...I'm outside on the front porch of the bar, killing myself slowly with the not-so-sweet smoke of a Marlboro when the following exchange occurs with an old drag queen - whom already had informed me that she wanted to have my fourth child after hearing me explain to another gent that I was straight and a father of three.

Drag queen: "So, now do I get to touch your dick?"

Me: (roars of laughter) "You are cracking me up."

Drag queen: "No, seriously. The two lesbians over there are busy making out and she (referring to a drunk passed out on a bench) is out of it. So, do I get to touch your dick?"

Me: (blushing brighter than Mephisto) "Ummmm...unfortunately, no."

Heavens to Betsy, what a way to close out the night, right? Quite flattering, I do have to say.

But goddamn, could a woman say that to me? Puh-leeze?

Ah, now for more insanity...

I work a second job in addition to being a hack journalist, as a rent-a-cop - I prefer the title "Centurion" - for Duke Energy in the downtown 'Nati.

And no, I can't help you with your electric bill.

Anyways, we have a camera in an alleyway next to the building that we monitor. It has a dumpster and heating grate that has quickly become the hottest night spot in Cincinnati outside of wherever the fuck George Clooney is filming. It has attracted a literal horde of bums.

Bums who over the past two nights have shit, pissed, masturbated and fought in the alleyway...which I now refer to as Golgotha.

It's a gathering of drunken rummies that have turned an alley into a microcosm of society today...the basest of human instincts in action.

It's amazing, hilarious and truly sad to watch.

It makes me wonder where we, as human beings, are really going and what we are.

We may never know.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my real "reality" TV viewing of homelessness and poverty.


-Spragoo

"He who makes a beast of himself relieves himself the pain of being a man." - Hunter S. Thompson