>> ^Lawdeedaw:

promote
So true it's not even funny...but the song is funny...so would that make it untrue? Logical fallacy damn you!


Say's Pinocchio, "My nose will grow now"

>> ^Peroxide:

I did for you, what a short sighted status-quo supporting buffoon.
"These youth should be content to make my big macs for the rest of their lives! Lousy no goodin' disrespectin' authority YOUTHS!"
Yeah, they have NO good reason to be upset... Typical response of the wealthy.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/10-7
>> ^ghark:
wow, wish I could downvote this guy



cheers mate, interesting link too, it seems him and Pat Condell need to shack up some time.

>> ^gwiz665:

Bukowski wrote that? Huh, guess I should reevaluate my position on him.


This is one of my favorite short stories of all time:

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/194/

Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl in town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and whirled about as did her body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones would never understand Cass. To the men she was simply a sex machine and they didn't care whether she was crazy or not. And Cass danced and flirted, kissed the men, but except for an instance or two, when it came time to make it with Cass, Cass had somehow slipped away, eluded the men.

Her sisters accused her of misusing her beauty, of not using her mind enough, but Cass had mind and spirit; she painted, she danced, she sang, she made things of clay, and when people were hurt either in the spirit or the flesh, Cass felt a deep grieving for them. Her mind was simply different; her mind was simply not practical. Her sisters were jealous of her because she attracted their men, and they were angry because they felt she didn't make the best use of them. She had a habit of being kind to the uglier ones; the so-called handsome men revolted her- "No guts," she said, "no zap. They are riding on their perfect little earlobes and well- shaped nostrils...all surface and no insides..." She had a temper that came close to insanity, she had a temper that some call insanity. Her father had died of alcohol and her mother had run off leaving the girls alone. The girls went to a relative who placed them in a convent. The convent had been an unhappy place, more for Cass than the sisters. The girls were jealous of Cass and Cass fought most of them. She had razor marks all along her left arm from defending herself in two fights. There was also a permanent scar along the left cheek but the scar rather than lessening her beauty only seemed to highlight it. I met her at the West End Bar several nights after her release from the convent. Being youngest, she was the last of the sisters to be released. She simply came in and sat next to me. I was probably the ugliest man in town and this might have had something to do with it.

"Drink?" I asked.

"Sure, why not?"

I don't suppose there was anything unusual in our conversation that night, it was simply in the feeling Cass gave. She had chosen me and it was as simple as that. No pressure. She liked her drinks and had a great number of them. She didn't seem quite of age but they served he anyhow. Perhaps she had forged i.d., I don't know. Anyhow, each time she came back from the restroom and sat down next to me, I did feel some pride. She was not only the most beautiful woman in town but also one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I placed my arm about her waist and kissed her once.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked.

"Yes, of course, but there's something else... there's more than your looks..."

"People are always accusing me of being pretty. Do you really think I'm pretty?"

"Pretty isn't the word, it hardly does you fair."

Cass reached into her handbag. I thought she was reaching for her handkerchief. She came out with a long hatpin. Before I could stop her she had run this long hatpin through her nose, sideways, just above the nostrils. I felt disgust and horror. She looked at me and laughed, "Now do you think me pretty? What do you think now, man?" I pulled the hatpin out and held my handkerchief over the bleeding. Several people, including the bartender, had seen the act. The bartender came down:

"Look," he said to Cass, "you act up again and you're out. We don't need your dramatics here."

"Oh, fuck you, man!" she said.

"Better keep her straight," the bartender said to me.

"She'll be all right," I said.

"It's my nose, I can do what I want with my nose."

"No," I said, "it hurts me."

"You mean it hurts you when I stick a pin in my nose?"

"Yes, it does, I mean it."

"All right, I won't do it again. Cheer up."

She kissed me, rather grinning through the kiss and holding the handkerchief to her nose. We left for my place at closing time. I had some beer and we sat there talking. It was then that I got the perception of her as a person full of kindness and caring. She gave herself away without knowing it. At the same time she would leap back into areas of wildness and incoherence. Schitzi. A beautiful and spiritual schitzi. Perhaps some man, something, would ruin her forever. I hoped that it wouldn't be me. We went to bed and after I turned out the lights Cass asked me,

"When do you want it? Now or in the morning?"

"In the morning," I said and turned my back.

In the morning I got up and made a couple of coffees, brought her one in bed. She laughed.

"You're the first man who has turned it down at night."

"It's o.k.," I said, "we needn't do it at all."

"No, wait, I want to now. Let me freshen up a bit."

Cass went into the bathroom. She came out shortly, looking quite wonderful, her long black hair glistening, her eyes and lips glistening, her glistening... She displayed her body calmly, as a good thing. She got under the sheet.

"Come on, lover man."

I got in. She kissed with abandon but without haste. I let my hands run over her body, through her hair. I mounted. It was hot, and tight. I began to stroke slowly, wanting to make it last. Her eyes looked directly into mine.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"What the hell difference does it make?" she asked.

I laughed and went on ahead. Afterwards she dressed and I drove her back to the bar but she was difficult to forget. I wasn't working and I slept until 2 p.m. then got up and read the paper. I was in the bathtub when she came in with a large leaf- an elephant ear.

"I knew you'd be in the bathtub," she said, "so I brought you something to cover that thing with, nature boy."

She threw the elephant leaf down on me in the bathtub.

"How did you know I'd be in the tub?"

"I knew."

Almost every day Cass arrived when I was in the tub. The times were different but she seldom missed, and there was the elephant leaf. And then we'd make love. One or two nights she phoned and I had to bail her out of jail for drunkenness and fighting.

"These sons of bitches," she said, "just because they buy you a few drinks they think they can get into your pants."

"Once you accept a drink you create your own trouble."

"I thought they were interested in me, not just my body."

"I'm interested in you and your body. I doubt, though, that most men can see beyond your body."

I left town for 6 months, bummed around, came back. I had never forgotten Cass, but we'd had some type of argument and I felt like moving anyhow, and when I got back i figured she'd be gone, but I had been sitting in the West End Bar about 30 minutes when she walked in and sat down next to me.

"Well, bastard, I see you've come back."

I ordered her a drink. Then I looked at her. She had on a high- necked dress. I had never seen her in one of those. And under each eye, driven in, were 2 pins with glass heads. All you could see were the heads of the pins, but the pins were driven down into her face.

"God damn you, still trying to destroy your beauty, eh?"

"No, it's the fad, you fool."

"You're crazy."

"I've missed you," she said.

"Is there anybody else?"

"No there isn't anybody else. Just you. But I'm hustling. It costs ten bucks. But you get it free."

"Pull those pins out."

"No, it's the fad."

"It's making me very unhappy."

"Are you sure?"

"Hell yes, I'm sure."

Cass slowly pulled the pins out and put them back in her purse.

"Why do you haggle your beauty?" I asked. "Why don't you just live with it?"

"Because people think it's all I have. Beauty is nothing, beauty won't stay. You don't know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you you know it's for something else."

"O.k.," I said, "I'm lucky."

"I don't mean you're ugly. People just think you're ugly. You have a fascinating face."

"Thanks."

We had another drink.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Nothing. I can't get on to anything. No interest."

"Me neither. If you were a woman you could hustle."

"I don't think I could ever make contact with that many strangers, it's wearing."

"You're right, it's wearing, everything is wearing."

We left together. People still stared at Cass on the streets. She was a beautiful woman, perhaps more beautiful than ever. We made it to my place and I opened a bottle of wine and we talked. With Cass and I, it always came easy. She talked a while and I would listen and then i would talk. Our conversation simply went along without strain. We seemed to discover secrets together. When we discovered a good one Cass would laugh that laugh- only the way she could. It was like joy out of fire. Through the talking we kissed and moved closer together. We became quite heated and decided to go to bed. It was then that Cass took off her high -necked dress and I saw it- the ugly jagged scar across her throat. It was large and thick.

"God damn you, woman," I said from the bed, "god damn you, what have you done?

"I tried it with a broken bottle one night. Don't you like me any more? Am I still beautiful?"

I pulled her down on the bed and kissed her. She pushed away and laughed, "Some men pay me ten and I undress and they don't want to do it. I keep the ten. It's very funny."

"Yes," I said, "I can't stop laughing... Cass, bitch, I love you...stop destroying yourself; you're the most alive woman I've ever met."

We kissed again. Cass was crying without sound. I could feel the tears. The long black hair lay beside me like a flag of death. We enjoined and made slow and somber and wonderful love. In the morning Cass was up making breakfast. She seemed quite calm and happy. She was singing. I stayed in bed and enjoyed her happiness. Finally she came over and shook me,

"Up, bastard! Throw some cold water on your face and pecker and come enjoy the feast!"

I drove her to the beach that day. It was a weekday and not yet summer so things were splendidly deserted. Beach bums in rags slept on the lawns above the sand. Others sat on stone benches sharing a lone bottle. The gulls whirled about, mindless yet distracted. Old ladies in their 70's and 80's sat on the benches and discussed selling real estate left behind by husbands long ago killed by the pace and stupidity of survival. For it all, there was peace in the air and we walked about and stretched on the lawns and didn't say much. It simply felt good being together. I bought a couple of sandwiches, some chips and drinks and we sat on the sand eating. Then I held Cass and we slept together about an hour. It was somehow better than lovemaking. There was flowing together without tension. When we awakened we drove back to my place and I cooked a dinner. After dinner I suggested to Cass that we shack together. She waited a long time, looking at me, then she slowly said, "No." I drove her back to the bar, bought her a drink and walked out. I found a job as a parker in a factory the next day and the rest of the week went to working. I was too tired to get about much but that Friday night I did get to the West End Bar. I sat and waited for Cass. Hours went by . After I was fairly drunk the bartender said to me, "I'm sorry about your girlfriend."

"What is it?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, didn't you know?"

"No."

"Suicide. She was buried yesterday."

"Buried?" I asked. It seemed as though she would walk through the doorway at any moment. How could she be gone?

"Her sisters buried her."

"A suicide? Mind telling me how?"

"She cut her throat."

"I see. Give me another drink."

I drank until closing time. Cass was the most beautiful of 5 sisters, the most beautiful in town. I managed to drive to my place and I kept thinking, I should have insisted she stay with me instead of accepting that "no." Everything about her had indicated that she had cared. I simply had been too offhand about it, lazy, too unconcerned. I deserved my death and hers. I was a dog. No, why blame the dogs? I got up and found a bottle of wine and drank from it heavily. Cass the most beautiful girl in town was dead at 20. Outside somebody honked their automobile horn. They were very loud and persistent. I sat the bottle down and screamed out: "GOD DAMN YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH ,SHUT UP!" The night kept coming and there was nothing I could do.

I like this much more now than I did 30 years ago Upvote, because it's not an 80's track, no matter what I had always believed! I'm still not going to vote up "Love Shack" though. Ever.

For a better example of the principle that you can never go back, the song that I always thought was the worst song of the 80's is now one that I appreciate much more (Trio - Da da da) and would no longer be on my 100 worst 80's songs list.

Apparently the dividing line between poor and not poor was whether you had a garden or not, a place to corral animals.

If you had a garden, then you had a source of food. If you had a pig, and a cow, and chickens, you were doing just fine.

My dad lived in a two room shack, with the porch screened in for additional sleeping quarters. In these three rooms lived his widowed mother, her newly married brother and young wife, and five kids, the oldest of whom was 8 when his father died. Uncle Buck would wake up in the winter and have to shake the snow off his blanket - it had drifted in through the porch screen, accumulating on him as he slept.

But they weren't poor. They had a garden and a rifle and a means to feed themselves.

Now my dad has a Master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, thanks to the GI Bill and WWII.

The world is an amazing place, isn't it?

In reply to this comment by mentality:
>> ^bareboards2:

Seeing this vid prompted this story from my dad -- He grew up on a dirt farm in Oklahoma during the depths of the Depression. One of their sources of food was my dad's ability to kill squirrels for the stew pot.
He was 15-16 years old, out hunting. Saw a squirrel in the crook of a tree, just its head popping up. He got it with one shot, picked up the body and stuffed it in the back pocket of his overalls and started walking home.
Halfway home.... his pocket started wriggling. He had just creased its head, grazing the hair right between its ears. Knocked it unconscious but otherwise it was fine.
He says he built a cage for it, where it lived for months before escaping. Took up residence in the roof, until it eventually disappeared.
I was surprised it didn't end up in the cooking pot, but as dad says, they weren't poor. The folks living in a cave in the riverbank were poor.


I'm guessing that if he could afford guns and ammo (even if it was just a .22), then you weren't that poor.

Socratic dialogue:

Blanfisticles: People donate more to causes that are threatened, therefore we must eliminate all funding for causes in order to increase their revenues!

Dystopianysus: Uhh, dude, you're nuts, tax cuts don't increase revenues cutting government funding to a program won't increase its revenue.

Blankfisticles: Whose responsibility is it to give to charitable causes, government, or people?

Dystopianysus: You're changing the subject.

Blankfisticles: So?

Dystopianysus: *sigh* Very well. I say it's everyone's responsibility to look out for other people, and that's why I don't see why setting up a society-wide arrangement like government funding for charitable programs bothers you.

Blankfist: You're an idiot. And a statist. And Thoreau was an anarchist, and as we all know he's an infallible person who you're a moron for not listening to. And no, I don't plan on living in a shack in the middle of nowhere, are you crazy too?

Blankfisticles: Shut up, id. What I mean to say is that helping people should come from the free and voluntary choices of individuals. No one should be forced to do anything not of their choosing.

Dystopianysus: And what if an insufficient number of people donate to charity, and it results in mass suffering? What then?

Blankfist: That won't happen.

Blankfisticles: I said SHUT UP, id. Excuse me, I mean to say that I would give all I had, and get on a soapbox to shout and yell to encourage others to give all they could to help the massive suffering, but I would never once put the threat of force on anyone.

Dystopianysus: But isn't it the duty of all people to help those in need?

Blankfisticles: Yes, but they shouldn't be forced to live up to that duty.

Dystopianysus: How is that a duty then? It's not a duty if you can choose not to live up to it without any consequences.

Blankfist: Still, you just shouldn't. Because.

Blankfisticles: People own themselves, and also own their lives, therefore people own the product of the labor they spend time on, and it should never be taken away from them just like your arm shouldn't be taken away from them. To say otherwise is to say that you can enslave another man, and you disagree with slavery don't you?

Dystopianysus: So what you're saying is that while you say it's our moral duty as individuals to help those in need, you're going to refuse to voluntarily agree to a social contract that formalizes that duty into a legal requirement to contribute money to charitable causes?

Blankfisticles: Pretty much.

NetRunner von Freud: Blankfisticles, have you ever considered the possibility that your affinity for these anti-tax philosophies is being driven by your more basic impulses, and that you just use them as post-hoc justifications for things you wanted to do anyways?

Blankfist: *gay

NetRunner von Freud: Sigh.

But you know what? Thoreau walked the walk. He lived in a mother-fucking shack in the mother-fucking Walden woods. He wasn't capitalist or materialist and he didn't live in close proximity to Beverly Hills. You want liberty? Put down the iPad and get you some REAL liberty... Thoreau style... in the woods. I've been in that shack. It's tiny. No room for a plasma. No wireless. Not even a toilet as I remember. There's an image to go with that quote, eh?

Theology aside, Carman really doesn't seem to have a good understanding of Freddie Kruger's behavior and overall style. He (Kruger) generally tries to hide the fact that you are having a dream in the first place, to give himself the tactical advantage of surprise. Never, NEVER, would Freddie Kruger own a house or answer a door for that matter, and if for some reason he DID need a residence for some kind of nightmare-related business, it certainly wouldn't be an ooky-spookie halloweenie haunted house; it would be something subtle, like a shack or a boiler room break area. Freddie was all about surprise.

I'm sorry to say it, but if Carman had gone up against Freddie Kruger, he would not have stood the slightest chance of surviving. Freddie was very good at using the pomposity and vainglory of his victims to great advantage. Half way through this video, it would have been BAM... squashed under an avalanche of Bibles.. or.. glug, glug, glug, Carmen drowns in a vat of holy water.... It would have been something ironic, because that's how Freddie rolls.

Carman basically just beat up some old goth poser, with no real magical abilities.

My dad grew up in a two room shack in rural Oklahoma. I'm sending this to him so he can see how far butter making has come since his days of churning.

I've made it a rule to never go to parties where I don't know at least a few people fairly well. Party small talk with strangers is the worst kind of small talk. The worst was a time I was talking to this drunk army dude who was spewing out the manly bullshit and I was pretending to be amazed by. I found out he used to live around where I did and I jokingly said something about living just down the road from the mini red-light district. Which was basically a collection of random shack like buildings that were 'smoke shops' and 'massage palors'. And he in his quiet drunk guy, yet still very loud, voice, confided, 'Just between you and me I like go there and get a hand-job or BJ when I'm on R&R.' His fiance was well within ear-shot and instantly staring daggers.

There aren't many times I've felt more awkward than that. I was just talking to some dude to pass the time so I wouldn't look like a boring pussy for leaving the 'cool' party early.

>> ^rottenseed:

something something <iPhone Joke> something something...


Anything you can't look at porn on isn't a telephone?

The scary part happens when Republican presidents get the media to systematically silence dissent...

The only ‘silencing of dissent’ is on the left side of the aisle. And how nice it all sounds… ‘Net Neutrality’, the ‘Fairness Doctrine’, ‘Political Correctness’, ‘Academic Fairness’… The left is the side that engages in the systematic suppression of dissent – not the right. I have a longer memory span than 5 minutes, and there is nothing BUT ‘dissent’ when the GOP is in the White House. Dissent was ‘patriotic’ during Bush, but now is ‘the party of NO’ during Obama, right? But of course good little left-wing zombies have no problem with that.

If I break something of yours, do you have to 100% go through the courts to get compensation? No. Why? Because civil court is totally optional.

If you break my stuff (and refuse to pay for it) then YES I 100% have to go through the courts to get compensation. You’ve proven my point. I don’t go to Obama’s pay czar. Court is where I go, and failing that, I call my congressman and let him know the courts aren't doing their job. I do NOT go to the Executive branch except to write a whiny letter.

I have not been programmed to have a knee-jerk Pavlovian response where I wet myself with fear whenever the word "government" comes into play.

This is patently untrue. You do have a knee-jerk Pavlovian response to wet yourself with fear whenever the word ‘government’ comes into play and ‘conservative’ is involved. The blind, unthinking, slavish trust only applies when a left wing radical is in charge. I believe it was Lenin (another leftist) who called these kinds of fanbois “useful idiots”. People who aren’t critical of government at all times and in all things are fools. The price of freedom is vigilance, and the only good government is LIMITED government.

I'm sure there will be Congressional oversight of this

Oh – well – that ignores history, facts, and precedent - but as long as you're SURE... You aren’t picking up what I’m putting down. I don’t care if Obama is distilled perfection made of unicorn hairs and angel feathers… It doesn’t matter if BP ‘volunteers’ (yeah right – then why the closed door meeting?). This is not something the Executive branch is allowed to do for ANY reason. Ever. Period. It has no authority to do this, and government isn’t allowed to just ‘assume’ authority over whatever they want no matter how munificent they may think they are.

Ahh, so now you're defining down what constitutes a legitimate claim from what even BP says is legitimate? Good to know you don't want to "let them off the hook"...

No – I’m defining ‘responsible’. BP isn’t responsible for lost business. Tourism down? Is that BP’s fault? Maybe partly. But you can also blame the media, the government, the economy, and a whole host of other parties for that. BP is responsible for damage and cleanup. That's it. I see no need for them to pay for ancillary issues that may or may not be related.

Everyone is answerable.

To who? When? You say ‘answerable’ but one of the main problems with federal government is that NO ONE is ever held responsible for anything. They never go to jail for breaking the law. They never pay damages for the consequences of their bad politics. So they ‘lose an election’? Awwwwwww – how terrible for them. They still keep getting money & payola. They still get political back-patting. They still get put on unaccountable ‘blue ribbon’ panels for exorbitant payoffs. They keep getting on TV shows and money for speeches, commentary and books. They still are put on cabinet positions, or other unelected unaccountable political jobs where they still effect policy and get away with murder.

See, when you really get down to the brass tacks the political class is in NO WAY ever ‘answerable’ for their bad behavior and terrible decisions. They just get a brief – all too toothless – wet noodling and then skate off clean while everyone else has to pay for them to keep on partying. Clinton. Impeached for lying under oath and obstructing justice. Did he lose his office? No. Did he go to jail? No. Did he have to pay millions in damages? No. He got a tiny slap on the wrist and then the left circled the wagons around him and set him up for life so he’d specifically NEVER have to be truly culpable for his high crime. He should be in jail, or living in a cardboard shack, penniless and shunned to the end of his days. Instead he’s living high on the hog courtesy of constant political payola. And you call that ‘answerable’?

So what happens WHEN (not IF) Obama’s pay czar starts mis-handling the BP funds? Exactly HOW is he going to be ‘answerable’? To whom will he pay millions in damages? What jail will he go to? How will he be banned from politics for life afterwards? And how is Obama ‘answerable’ for unconstitutionally claiming money in the first place? But I don’t hear anyone making him ‘answerable’ for his unconstitutional, illegal act. All I see are left-wing zombies defending the illegal, and GOP cowards who don't have to guts to stand up for the constitution anymore.

Awesome... McCready has kinda like a Bill Murry in Caddy Shack thing going on.

"This is like, the shecond time this has happened to me"

One of my all time favs is "Roughneck"
Born to be a roughneck I'll never amount to nothin'
Pullin' case and layin' pipe is hard labor
Well I was born in a boomer shack bout a half mile from town
Papa was a driller on a wildcat crew and my mama never was around
I learn to cuss when I was two and fight when I was three
And by the time I was five there was no kid alive could ever get the best of me
Born to be a roughneck...
[ banjo ]
Well I started workin' like a regular man when I was just about knee high
Skinning the knuckles with my two bare hands but they never heard me cry
I remember walkin' down the road and hearin' somebody say
He was born to live a rougneck's life and he's never gonna change his ways
Born to be a roughneck...
Born to be a roughneck...

I feel a little bit of awkwardness in this interview.

BUT,

a KITH remake of Candy Shack?!?!

I'm there.