November « 2009 « WALKING ON THIN ICE

Archive for November, 2009

living with the wound from a stray shot

Monday, November 30th, 2009

ufo – foto by Smith

Here are the news headlines I did not post yesterday because they were too depressing, so of course I’m posting them today when they’re no less depressing.

Time Magazine has called these past 10 years (2000-2009) the worst decade ever, mainly because how badly George W. Bush and Dick Cheney screwed us in the U.S. and the rest of the world as well. I call these past 10 years The Aughts with the Naughts.

~ D ~ R ~ E ~ A ~ D ~ L ~ I ~ N ~ E ~ ~ M ~ A ~ L ~ A ~ D ~ Y ~

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping

Cancer Victim Went On $80,000 Spree Before Finding Out She Was Going To Live

’12 Days Of Christmas’ Items Would Cost Over $87,000

Massive Sushi Fraud

40% Of Food Produced Gets Trashed, While 1 In 6 Go Hungry

One in Eight Americans On Food Stamps

1 In 4 U.S. Children Relies On Food Stamps

Video Of Diners Eating A Deep Fried Fish — While It’s STILL ALIVE

49 Million Americans Going Hungry

More Than Half Of Teachers Report Buying Hungry Students Food With Their Own Money

Kids Reenact The First Thanksgiving With Smallpox Blankets And Whiskey

Two-Thirds of Chicken Tested Harbor Dangerous Bacteria

Sex, Beer, Heroin and Cocaine: How Prosecutors Pay Off Criminal Snitches

Stealing Money, Selling Heroin and Raping Boys — The Very Dark Side of the Afghan Occupation

US Army Suicides Continue at Record Paces

U.S. Companies Kill 16 Workers A Day

Number Of Seniors Living Alone And Seeking Help Up By 81% In 2008

Economic Crisis Is Getting Bloody — Violent Deaths Are Now Following Evictions, Foreclosures and Job Losses

Pharmaceutical Giant Paid $500,000 to Psychiatrist Who Used Chicago’s Poor as Guinea Pigs

Teenager Charged With Murder Said Hobby Was ‘Killing People’

“I Couldn’t Give Up Jesus” For My Jewish Husband

Catholic Bishops Put Sex Obsession Ahead of Mission to the Sick and the Poor

Church Of Scientology Accused Of Torture, Forced Abortions

Santa Claus Actor Gets Prison For Part In Global Sex Tourism Ring

Peruvian Gang Killed People To Extract Their Fat

Lab Grown Meat Could Be Safer Than Eating Animals

Big Pharma Promises To Save Government $8 Billion, But Not Before Raising Prices By $10 Billion

Republicans Promise “Holy War” To Delay Health Care Bill

GOP Senator Wants To Let ‘Mentally Incapacitated’ Vets Buy Guns

Cult of Conservative Christian GOPers Backs Death Penalty for Gays With HIV

Uranium From Polluted British Petroleum Mine Found In Nevada Water Wells

Chinese drywall causes metal corrosion

Steelers Fan Killed Puppy Before Game

Rancher Jailed For Housing Homeless

The Vampire Banks Are Back

CIA Manual Of Trickery And Deception Declassified, Now On Sale

Women Now ‘Better With Gadgets Than Men,’ Study Says

Men Married To Smart Women Live Longer

Living With the Wound From a Stray Shot

don’t kill the messanger – foto by Smith

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As Our Brains Shrink

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

lov rat – foto by Smith

I’ve harvested too many heavy headlines from the news these past two weeks and a bad chunk of them are grim sad mean and downright perverted. I’ve had enough of gritty nitty reality, so here are some of the lighter lines, leaving the larger darker horrors on the cutting room floor.

~ ~ ~

Toys For Tits

The Government Is Trying To Control My Breasts

I Was Told To Have Boob Job

$3M Bra

Boobs & Balloons At Victoria’s Secret Show

Colombian Chefs Create Viagra-Laced Dessert

Man Marries His Video Game Girlfriend

Sex, Please, We’re British

Youth Group Rap Advocates “Side-Hugs” Over Sinful “Front-Hugs”

Spray-On Jesus

Michael Jackson’s glove sells for $350,000 at auction

CNN Gave Dobbs $8 MILLION To Leave!

7 Great Products For Telling The World You’re A Rich Jerk

Laptop Steering Wheel Desk: So You Can Work While you Drive?

Electronic Polar Bears Replace Real Bears At St. Louis Zoo

Galileo’s Lost Tooth, Fingers Found By Italian Collector

A ‘Meat Band-Aid’: Mass-Produced Living Tissue Could Help Healing

Roadrunner, Conch, And Pork Brains: The Craziest Canned Foods Ever

A plague of flatulence

Humans Still Evolving As Our Brains Shrink

Dad Locked Kids In Trunk While Running Errands

Cell Phone Use Linked To Brain Changes

Think Like An Intellectual

They’re Getting Rid of Whom

~ ~ ~

This is Whom, once again reporting backside the unemployment line in the shallow end of the gene pool just the other side of Looking Glass Gone where we all see our strangeness in the black water’s reflection.

C bar C – foto by Smith

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man who chews with broken tooth

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

$100 worth – foto by Smith

Having a tooth pulled at 8:30 in the morning is not the way I’d choose to start my day. I’m sick of the taste of swallowed blood. That and my love of garlic shows I would make a darn poor vampire – besides, I’ve been to enough parties with the brainless to realize the undead are not my preferred conversational tribe.

Last time I had a tooth pulled, the dentist wouldn’t give me my tooth, said it was against the health laws. Time before that the dentist did give me my tooth and I put it in a fine collage titled Post Coital Repression. This time when I asked, he said sure, and then the assistant threw it away anyway. The dentist came back with a prescription and asked if I’d gotten my tooth. Said no, so he went to the trash can and dug the two pieces out for me. Now that is service.

When my father had his artificial knee installed, I asked if he’d ask the surgeon for his old knee cap back so I could use it in art. The doc laughed, said that was the oddest request he’d heard and that he’d be happy to except old knee caps are sliced out a thin section at a time so there’d be nothing to give me.

The tooth did not want to come out. Believe my body was thinking I’d lost enough teeth already and was fighting to hold on to this one. The doc’s pliers kept slipping off into my lower teeth and I had visions of him breaking even more.

Doc said the tooth next to the one he pulled was loose and would eventually go. That leaves two loose future lost teeth on top. Aren’t you glad you’re not me?

The minor good news is I miscounted my top teeth – I have nine left now, not eight. I’ll take what I can get.

After I left the dentist and spit blood all over the street, I glanced at the prescription – it’s for 30 Vicodins. Last tooth extraction they told me to take Aspirin or over the counter Tylenol, so this is a major gift. In fact, I have a good buzz on now.

I now have 9 left on top, 13 on bottom – foto by Smith

Posted in health, life | 2 Comments »

NOISE NOISE NOISE, SALT SALT SALT

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

Sometimes I deliberately leave the poetry scene, I deliberately don’t create art or write because it can just be too overwhelming and come at the expense of the necessities of life.

The aftermath of Yuyu’s leaving is like a perfumy vaccuum of curry evacuated out the space hatch. I feel happy, rich with community and words, but too stimulated. I’m sleeping and not delusional but very poetic and unable to focus on anything other than art and writing, not work, though I’m trying. Grandpa is not on the radio lately but Smith’s worrying because I’m overstimulated.

Poor Smith got his tooth pulled this morning. He just walked in with blood on his hands, bloody packing in his mouth.

“What’s the damage?” I asked.

“Oh, not too bad. $100 to get the tooth pulled and $15 for the pain pills.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “How are you?”

“I’m sick of the taste of blood.”

Yuyu offered to take my grandma to Nepal to live out the rest of her days. I told him we’d miss her but he could ask. I told her his offer and I don’t think it registered with her. I think it would be neat. Imagine, Grandma in Nepal. In Nepal they have a festival when you turn 77. You’re carried around town in a chair by porters.

It’s just such a messy blessing, this existence.

Smith and I found a very good movie (a VGM) yesterday, “Kabluey.” It also led to some very good music (VGM) and I’m falling in love with the music. I thought there was no more music for me on this planet, which was bad, because I love music.

Lady