Likely a great many Donald Trump supporters are furious at the furor raised by their candidate’s long-ago intemperate remarks concerning the mating rituals of rich and crass males.
The rest of us are pleased seeing Mr. Free Association’s verbosity hoisting him by his balls. Also nice to hear his lack of impulse control isn’t a recent development. Continue reading Mr. Charlie Empties His Mind
Suffered my first real pang of homesickness recently.
While New York offers plenty, or Nevada lacks a lot, I knew what I was leaving behind and venturing into three years ago.
In the 30-plus years before resettling West, I’d frequently visited the Southwest. And while visiting is never the same as living, these stays informed me. I wasn’t that tenderfoot or greenhorn who showed up in February who so beguiled by the gorgeous weather believed the Mojave Desert paradise only to discover it hell June through August.
Nor was I that New Yorker who bemoaned the region’s paucity of good pizzerias.
A woman tugged the old home heartstrings. One who wasn’t even from Metropolitan New York. She hailed from Boston. And unlike some longtime New York transplants who continue playing up their old neighborhood roots decades into living here, hers wasn’t some vocal caricature that should’ve been misheard as some kind of distaff Vaughn Meader. Continue reading Graceless Nevada
Who thought it a wonderful idea that ours becomes a “cashless society”? So much can go wrong without the fungible stuff on hand. Greenbacks in pocket are reliable.
The myriad of ways we can buy items, make payments, and settle debts is astounding. Twenty years ago, the methods and devices we today take for granted to purchase and relieve would’ve smacked of science fiction.
At the rate we’re going, how soon until credit cards join currency in targeted obsolescence? If and when we become so advanced won’t we be opening ourselves to even more insidious financial mischief? Continue reading Modern Money Malady
Don’t two fables form the weak backbone of Donald Trump’s presidential jihad?
Der Trump’s war against America borrows heavily from The Emperor’s New Clothes and The Scorpion and the Frog.
Unlike the first’s titled character, it is the Der Trump’s social media minions and the florid barking attendees at his rallies who are exposed. If the narcissus’ crusade actually holds any rational calculations, these only seem hell-bent on discovering the depths to which the candidate can drive his slanders. Dim enlightenment among his followers won’t occur until even the most convinced clod supporting him finally comprehends this fraud’s derangement has now also become their delusion. Continue reading Fractured Fairytales 2016
Although with the 2016 general election the fate of the free world hangs in the balance, really, who doesn’t hope Donald Trump is a Russian injection into our political system? It would explain a lot. Continue reading The Siberian Candidate
“Silly season” is an Anglophile conceit. Across the Atlantic, it’s Brit shorthand for that carefree time of year when news seldom rises above trivial and the frivolous assumes gravity.
Were that the American version of the silly season consisted of the same confections.
Instead the menace and insipient violence always lurking beneath the surface of ordinary life here frequently shatters summers’ otherwise lightness. Hawks devour our larks. Vultures then pick over what scraps remain on the bones.
Our silly season has the likelihood of going overboard this this year. Continue reading Under the Stateside Sun
When does sovereignty of naked photos expire? Do they ever? Or should they?
Not the commercial nudes adorning glossy magazines or porn sites, but those serving as, what, mementos that have been passed between lovers. In some circles, these are called “dedication pictures.”
As in “dedicated to the one I love.”
Naturally. What proclaims deepest affection and fidelity more than a lover’s or companion’s voluntarily exchanged nude photograph? Continue reading Yours Alone
My last image of Perdu was a mundane one. The drug-addled, alcoholic, brain-dead swine we worked for had just admitted the company was flat-broke.
For an enterprise best known through word of mouth, throughout the industry its new name became “mud.” So many bridges were burned, including ones on drawing boards, no hope existed of any lifelines.
Solvent on Friday, tapped out on Monday. Continue reading Thoroughly Anonymous
Of the three, shouldn’t Zygyac have been the most reprehensible? After all, dusted as he claimed to have been, he’d sliced and diced his lover, a la Sid Vicious upon Nancy Spurgeon.
An Iron Curtain émigré, Zygyac had always emitted an off-kilter vibe since his family’s arrival in Quarropas. Yet no one ever could’ve foreseen the doughy, pasty-faced boy growing into a hulking and heaving beast who behaved in such a mindless manner. Other felonies? Yes. Murder? No.
Alibi, though? Projecting him as a murderer, that image didn’t tax imagination. Who knew? Maybe he had. Intimidate as he did those under his thumb, knowledge of bodies rendered inconvenient might remain uncirculated despite his current incapacities.
No, Moret was the worst of this rogues gallery. His, unlike Zygyac’s and Alibi’s transgressions, have been worsened by discovery, time, and scope.
Sure. Zygyac took a life, while Alibi committed depravity. Nonetheless the law dealt with the former and karma, if it truly exists, laid the latter as low as possible.
All things told, though, that pair left small numbers of victims in their wakes. Even now, who knows how many people suffered through Moret? While women predominated, at least one man served as collateral fodder.
Betsy among the wounded, first and foremost. The ripples emanating from her are exponential and generationally tragic. Have there been others like Betsy? Certainly there were numerous unknown girls Moret shoved into premature womanhood. Continue reading Betsy
Must the sensibilities of the fragile transform American English into an insipid language?
Our plummet through political correctness threatens rendering how we speak into mamby-pamby.
Several weeks ago, a very conscientious article ran decrying colloquialisms whose origins the author deemed racially-charged. Why, yes. Some were. What of them?
If the writing behind the subject had been any more earnest, the page would’ve wept. Since publication date sat so close to April 1st, I made sure the piece wasn’t a seasonal gag, a la some Borowitz satire.
Were that it was. Such would’ve elevated the article into clever entertainment rather than leave it low at honest persuasion. But since it was so doggone sincere, the views expressed so achingly put, that made this righteous tripe ripe for scorn. Continue reading Let’s Cut the Rebop