Fuck you Ronald Reagan and your cocksucking wife.

I depart for once from my conceit of using music titles, in order to say what I mean.  I came of age when Ronald Reagan was laying the foundation for the insane Republican Party of 2016, and I do not give that motherfucker one inch of relief because he was misled or demented.  He was a function of the party of the Southern Strategy, and he was either an idiot or an imbecile or complicit.  None of that absolves him.

His wife not only helped, that, she helped engineer his transition from a kindly union member to a terrible Republican monster.  Molly Ivins, (who we miss every minute of every day, especially in the Clown Car Republican Primary) once described her as an ‘overdressed little sparrow fart’.  Who, apparently, gave the best blowjob in hollywood.  Keep THAT in your fucking mind when people talk about her ‘returning grace and elegance to the White House’.  Grace and elegance and kneepads….

Repulsively (and do we expect anything less from the KKK arm of the electorate?) has used her death to attack Michelle Obama.  A woman who DOES actually embody grace and elegance.  Except, of course, she is black; you can imagine what they say….

IN any case, I agree with BBBB in that we don’t necessarily blame Nancy for her husband’s transgressions (and did you know that after the initial stupid tax cuts blew a hole int h budget, he raised taxes ELEVEN times?  True story!).  However I am willing to blame her for being instrumental in Reagan’s rise, and she was also leading the pack in the 80s glitz and glamour, ignoring all the people at the bottom of the class structure.

In any case, Elvis Costello has the last word:

I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young child’s face
In her hands she grips
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
Coming down on that child’s lips

Well I hope I don’t die too soon
I pray the Lord my soul to save
Yes I’ll be a good boy, I’m trying so hard to behave
Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
Long enough to savor
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

When England was the whore of the world
Margaret was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear
As the black tarmacadam
Well I hope that she sleeps well at night,
Isn’t haunted by every tiny detail
When she held that lovely face in her hands
All she thought of was betrayal

And now the cynical ones
Say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father
Who just squeezed the life from his only son
And how it’s only voices in your head
And dreams you’ve never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference
Between justice and contempt

Try telling me she isn’t angry
With this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face
As you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say thank you
Straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because you’ve only got the symptoms,
You haven’t got the whole disease

Just like a schoolboy,
Whose head’s like a tin-can
Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides,
Being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame

Well I hope you live long now,
I pray the Lord your soul to keep
I think I’ll be going before
We fold our arms and start to weep
I never thought for a moment
That human life could be so cheap
But when they finally put you in the ground
They’ll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down

The mantra of “if you can’t say something nice, say nothing” only applies to people who were not objectively evil, I will say;  I am putting on my tramping boots and Sleep uneasy, you horrible horrible person.

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Immigrant Song

Come on, that was the most obvious title, wasn’t it?  But this may not be:

It has been remarked (mainly by me on the Facehell) that this whole idea that we need to restrict immigrants from the Middle East (which, to the xenophobic  idiots populating most of the right side of our political spectrum, means brown folks that aren’t Christian enough to handle snakes_) is not only stupid, transgressive, and un-Christian; but that based on the Constitution this crap is not only Un-Constitutional, but also based on one of our major American Symbols (provided by France, by the fucking way):

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Dammit, white folks, you all got here because your ancestors fled some shitty conditions in their home countries.  Do you really think white folks were the Natives in North America? I guess you do, because most of you are fucking xenophobic morons.

Special note to my favorite target Turdwaffle:  I guess your inability to graduate from college is representative, because you seem to be really fucking stupid.  The FUCKING CONSTITUTION does not allow you  to say we don’t want refugees.  If you really give a shit, let the Syrians come to Madison and Milwaukee, who already have a thriving (and non-terrorist) culture of various ethnic groups.  I look forward to some awesome Syrian restaurants opening really soon…

So, y0u paranoid, xenophobic idiots that, while you got elected to various levels of  office, have decided that understanding the actual text of the documents governing our goddam large, silly and kind of twisted country is less important than being obsequious to ALEC or a very few repulsively rich asswipes who may fund your future campaigns: let me tell you that not only are you stupid as fourteen open-end ratchets in a vacuum-bag, you also are not able to understand what the actual Constitution (which you claim to be fully devoted to), but you also misunderstand about what AMERICA IS FUCKING ABOUT.

DO YOU REMEMBER?  the ideas taught us in public school (and maybe this is a big part of the reason that the push is on to eliminate public schools) was that we were a country that accepted people from all kinds of other countries, especially the ones that were, in desperation, coming here in hope for anything better than the horrid things they were trying to escape…

 

Germans. Irish.  Mormons. Of course, the Jews during WW2 were turned away, because some of FREEDOM.  Asians, who were interred.  Hispanics, who lived in much of the southwest, but are still being treated is interlopers.  Blacks, who were stolen from their homelands and enslaved, and were not treated (legally) as equal citizens until…yeah, the 1960s.

Holy fuck, white people. We suck.

Can we try to do better with the people fleeing the horror of the Mideast (which we should, by all rights, accept that we have some responsibilty for).?

 

Well, let’s ask the many other governors who are apparently unable to understand the actual Constitution.

So I wish to offer these to graphs:

 

and here’s the actual legal version:

 

So, like I have said many times before, fuck yourself, Trudwaffle, You have been told by your oligharch supporters that everything you do at their behest is best and legal (and the second part of that is optional).  Your decision, in a rush of public xenophobia, is weak and sucky at best.

You are a weak, suburban white kid at best.  When I grew up near Madison, I started to learn the love of other cultures on State Street.  When I moved to Milwaukee, I found that the lively immigrant culture has given us some amazing restaurants and a vibrant-multi-cultural environment. The thing I see whenever I go enjoy any of these cultural parts, restaurants and festivals, is that they are effusively welcoming of me as a white germanic guy.

You know what?  I think we ought to respond by doing the same thing to immigrants and refugees.

Dammit, I love their food and their culture.  If you ignore it, you are not only being ignorant, but you are shutting down the possibility of finding new friends.

 

 

Apparently not.

Fuck you , Turdwaffle.  The French have been so exemplary in that many people have offered their houses to displaced citizens…

In contradiction to our stupid fucking moronic governor who is stupid…

I would offer my zombie house to any Syrians who can get here.  Out governor is not representative of us; we in Wisconsin have always opened our doors to immigrants; Holy shit, the germanic heritage is due to the idea that we allowed for immigrants that were not acceptable to the eastern states.

 

By-Tor And The Snow Dog

OK, I have made much sport over the fact that I don’t like Lucifer, the orange, leaky-ass dog and she don’t like me neither.   She likes to steal my seat on the couch..

But here’s the thing; I like dogs, and cats, and most animals.  Like em better than most people, most times.  So even Snag’s Lucy was endearingly over-enthusiastic

(admittedly, I only had to endure her work for short periods of time; on a daily basis, maybe not so much.  On the other stump, Paleo’s Jaxon is a fucking delight to share a back seat with, especially coming home drunk from First Avenue).

But, here’s what has changed:  Me.  Since the Event, I have been told in very direct terms by any number of Health professionals that I need to change my ways. Usually accompanied by some variation of “and you need to do this for the rest of your life” delivered in as dark a tone as they feel they can get away with in a health-care setting (which makes me kind of chuckle, as I am conversant with serious foreboding in stupid horror movies, until I remember they are are talking about ME).  And one of the things they impressed on me is the need for daily exercise.  “Unless you want to die” is the unsaid half of that dire warning.

So one of the things I did is bought an extensible leash (Lucifer likes to range) but she also like to work fast, so she maintains a decent pace.  And in the summer, I went on many walks with her; the extensible allowed her to go up ahead, and to linger over smells, but only to an extent, because we needed to MAINTAIN A PACE, you foul beast…

And so now, whenever I get up and even make a motion toward the shoes, she gets excited.  “Walks? Walks?  WALKS WALKIES WALKIES”  Sorry, you damn pathetic beast, I am going to work.  In the oncoming fall, I have gotten back to my taekwondo family (instructor is also a cardiac therapist at the hospital that takes the REAL hard cases) and I joined a gym near my office where I can do an hour or so of mild, middle-aged style cardio.  It’s gonna be winter…

But I have a partner, Wife Sublime.  And she has been working crazy to make things happen for a large globe spanning corporate megalith that has also footed my bill for the recent Event, so I am hardly one to bitch.  So today, I did laundry, i cooked, and went to the grocery, and I took Lucifer to the dog park.  Made dinner, simple as it was.

Which she needed. (Both of them).  But Lucifer needed some Dog Time. She gets restless.   She is, as best we can tell, pretty much a pure-bred hound dog called a black mouth cur and we figure that she was abandoned by a puppy mill because she had a few white stripes across her snout.  Yeah, we got her from a rescue situation, what did you expect?

She is now old enough that her snout is mostly white (as is my hair, let’s be plain) but she still needs much exercise and as a hound, she needs to sample the smells in the neighborhood.  She also needs to run, and the dog park gives her some room.  And many other friendly dogs (some overly friendly, we watched one mount another).  Good doggy fun no matter, and she poops more than I really wanted.

She now likes me more than I expected, and the way she looks up at me when we walk on leash is heart-melting.  It almost makes me forgive her for the way she yanks the shit out of my arm…

Dammit.  I never expected Lucy, the orange, leaky-ass dog to be my avenue to being more healthy, let alone to being more composed.  Dammit.  This is what happened with the last damn dog.

Shit.  I know how this ends.

The Act We Act

It’s a big pretend gig, isn’t it?  Every politician pretends to be an obsequious Christian of some version, then is found to violate almost all of the personal statutes, and then professionally violate them all by screwing the poor and abetting the rich.  AND being self-righteous about their living right next to Jeebus all the while.

you know, it’s time to fuck them.  The idea that their adherence to the thousands-year-old doctrines passed down from pre-industrial farmers and shepherds who looked up into the sky and were frightened by thunder should be respected, let alone a basis for governance for a modern, post-industrial world is not only ludicrous, it is repugnant.  It is moronic.  It is Republican.

So, insane love child of a weasel and Joseph McCarthy, Ted Cruz now believes that atheists should not be able to serve in public office.

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/11/ted-cruz-believes-atheists-should-not-be

Hey, Ted:  Fuck off.  Fuck you with a large black dick, one made in Canada.

Tell you what, THEODORE. Let’s talk about works, which I believe your guy Jesus talked about.  I have worked within the poorest communities of the city I live in.  I have worked to improve the lives of people who do not have many alternatives.  I have also worked to teach martial arts to very young people, giving them self-esteem and teaching them to be people who are able to express themselves.  I have also worked to teach women (and men) self defense and the confidence to defend themselves in real life situations.

I have ALSO worked to interest high school students in an urban school system in STEM  careers, through helping them design and build goddam robots.  And I know for a certainty that we have sent some of these kids into college in STEM careers.  They will change the fucking world, Ted…

And here’s the thing, you whiny-voiced shitweasel.  I did all of these things, and more, while not believing in God.  Not yours, not another, not any mushy idea of a “Supreme Being”.  In fact, i bet that I’ve done more things in line with YOUR “god”‘s idea of what people would do than YOU have, you reprehensible half-intelligent lizard.

FUCK OFF, you nasally-obstructed opportunist. Not only do I think I am FAR MORE qualified than you for public office, based on your track record I am confident that I will be better than you at governing.  After all, I do not subscribe to the Tea Party bullshit that government is always incompetent and always bad; but I have seen and experienced the possibilities of government that can operate in the positive.

AS HAVE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, you fucking fucknozzle  fucknuckle (H/T Tengrain, with spelling differences!)

Atheists have just as much right to this country as you do, and if you really want to argue this, I have a number of things called “pressure points” that as a black belt, I would like to show you.  Also, I want too remodel your stupid weasel nose.

Asshole.

ETA:  Oh, yeah, I forgot this.  H/T to that Substance dude…

Tramp the dirt down

Hey!  The Republican Stupidity Carnival is a block from my office!

I’d go over there, but there are no branes to be had.  Many helicopters overhead though.

Also, the parking prices are surprisingly low, considering it’s also a Bucks game night, and Wicked is also in town.  I would say you could probably soak those rich fucking right wing asshats a bit more, parking dudes!  Although soaking the Bucks fans seems kind of like kicking them when they’re down…

So, I think an Elvis song is appropriate…

Also, because Gawd and Jeebus will be claimed at every pause tonight, here’s a bit of XTC:

And, just because I went on a Mekons tear recently and still haven’t come down, here’s a favorite song, Orpheus:

here’s the pertinent lyric:

I will teach them from my lesson
I will teach them from my song
I will speak of all lives wonder
Where I land will be renowned

Where I land will be the fortress
Of this fight against the tides
Tides of rotten patriarchy
Tides of greed and tricks and lies

Whoah, the condensed stupid is leaking out and running down the gutters…

In hellish glare and inference The other one’s a duplicate

Now that I have been summarily dismissed from the Robotics team, I am hoping to be able to devote more time to more important things:  professional life, taekwondo, Wife Sublime, the rundown shack we live in, and profanity-laden chuffing about politics.  Music blogging will still happen, but we are rapidly moving into Summerfest season, so that will be moving to Summerfestblog very soon.

1)  In fact, I think I may re-title the Fuck You Friday tag to Fuck You Forever, as Turdwaffle Shit-Knocker is working overtime to make himself attractive to the Republican shit-eating moran dimwit base.  For instance:

“I’m a dipshit with a lethal weapon! H-yuk!”

A couple days after a multiple-victim shooting in Menasha, the Walkershit-for-brains trust put out a 2nd amendment rah-rah post that was illustrated by this photo.  Nicely done; next up is squashing baskets of kittens and puppies on National Pet Day, while he is eating live goldfish and chasing rabbits until their hearts burst.  He is a foul animal that would be considered to egregiously villainous to appear on Game of Thrones.   His ambition and directions from Koch Central Fuckery Towers make him conscienceless and remorseless, and his recent actions would be considered ridiculous and fucking too horrible to publish in a Frank Miller dystopian comic.  Since the beginning of the year, he has spent so little time in Wisconsin that the Republican Legislature has even fucking backed off on his “Kick The Fucking Poors and Blahs EVEN HARDER” budget (it’s the actual name, you can look it up).  Even now, the fuckwit who once said to a gathering of the Tribe, “Molotov!” is visiting Israel on a “Listening tour” in which he will listen to war criminal Netanyahu about how much fun it is to strafe and carpet bomb civilians and residential districts.  Next up, I guess, will be knob-gobbling Dick Cheney while being butt-fucked by Kissinger.

2)  I am being pissy today because I woke up to find my car flashing a “no bus” message to me, but since It still started, I drove it to the bakery to get Wife Sublime’s favorite Apple Pie Bread.  And then the car promptly refused to start, so I had to have it towed to the neighborhood repair garage, and tomorrow will wait with EXCITEMENT to find out how much a new car computer is going to set me back.  Research on the Internarfles indicates it may range from simple fuse replacement to a full new computer, so a couple hundred bones up to $1000.  AND EVEN still, whining about this makes me feel like the whiniest of the whiny whinersons when I heard from a Friend of Blog that had even worse news.

3)  In Extremely Great, Magnificent, Incredible Zombie News, it turns out that the Mekons are planning a short tour of the Midwest and Selected Points East this summer.  There are a couple of Chicago shows, of course, but no Milwaukee show; my new FaceHell Friend Sally Timms says, however, there is a show in Mineral Point.  WTF, Sally.  the Point?  In their defense, we will be seeing them in a small, VERY intimate restored historic theater called Mineral Point Opera House, and we have friends in the area who will be joining us.  The tagline says “A theater for all the people” but do they really mean include Mekons obsessives and zombies?

The thing about the show is that the band is warming up for a show in New York called MEKONCEPTION which is intended to be an old-OLD school recording, a big band with one microphone; stepping up to the mic for vocals and solos; of all new songs.  The whole, big band is coming along including Lu Edmonds (weird, self made instruments) Tom Greenhalgh (original member, guitar, and vocals), and Suzie Honeyman (crazed librarian violin, dumbed down to Mekons level).  Seventy-five audience members, who will be included in vocals and perhaps instruments, and the whole thing will be recorded in 2 hours for release with minimal or no overdubs.  I would so love to be there, and would pay more money than I have to do so; but given the short time frame (it’s happening on 7/23) I am probably not able to pull it off.  I have asked a couple of friends with some contacts in New York bar/entertainment biz, but have not heard back.  Mineral Point it is, and I have to figure out what I want to take along for signatures.  If Scary Joe and/or Some Bastard come through, I will make both of them happen…

So here is a wonderful demonstration of one of the reasons I am so obsessive about this band, as well as one of the reasons that they have survived as an ongoing and vital operation for nearly 40 years.  They are restless and refuse to allow others to dictate their career path; and they insist on following the muse that they feel at any given time.  They have done art projects, theater projects, book projects and performance art projects.  If it isn’t interesting to them as a band, they don’t do it and allow other band members to do it.  One of their recent albums was inspired by their gathering for the funeral of a friend, and they did a “musical marriage amongst the fields and stones” and a great album resulted.

The only thing that ever interests them is doing something that is artistically compelling.  If it is not musical, they will do something graphic or literary.  I have books they have written.  I have various art elements, including some lovely woodcuts based on their songs; awesome prints of various signed iterations….

My love of this band reflects my own unwillingness to rely on repetition or copying others.

4) While I was being snubbed by the other mentors at the FIRST Championships, I received notification that I have received my fourth Mayor’s Design Award, for the rehab/vertical addition project previously discussed.  It enabled me to spend the rest of the time there with a satisfied smile.  I tried for Mona Lisa, and probably was closer to Alfred E. Neumann, but fuck it; either way the other mentors were likely to be disturbed…

5) just announced is a Milwaukee performance of Penn & Teller.  We saw them last time through, 25 years ago.  Later, Young Zombie became enamored of their Bullshit program (and kudos for learning about skepticism, and I think he has also learned to be skeptical about P&T themselves.  Question Authority, you know?) and we saw them in Las Vegas, during a remarkable episode in which they called me up on stage and put my phone into a fish.

6)  Mumford and Sons.  Yea or Nay?  Wife Sublime liked their rocking new song on Daily Show.

7)  Future planning.  Where should the Zombie Fam travel for the next vacay?

POPE

Sorry for the lack of postery.  Midst of the robot building season, plus a six-story building to design, plus, still recovering from that hairball of a loss to the SeaChickens.

Speaking of the Poop…errr, Pope…. regardless of his meager movements toward a less repressive Church, like bringing it into the NINETEENTH century from the fifteenth- he recently made some very stupid and repulsive remarks about the Charlie Hebdo attack.  And the creator of Mr. Deity responded in Fuck You Friday Fashion, so I hereby outsource FYF:

All I can do is stand and applaud.

Of course, this only makes me think of another NSFW video about the Poop…errr, POPE (albeit a different one):

Speaking of robots:

Better get busy.

POOP

after dominating the entire game, the Packers had a couple of breakdowns and some stupid bad luck that tossed the overtime to the SeaChickens.

Well, at least they didn’t need incompetent refs this time around.

So, the Bradys and the Seachickens in the Stuper Bowl.  A friend will be having a party, for which I will be preparing the traditional jambalaya.  And we will be hoping that the halftime entertainment will explode and take them all out.

 

The Violence of Truth

8 months ago, a mentally disturbed individual was shot dead just outside Milwaukee City Hall (several days later, I met with an alderman on a project, and his office faced the side of the building where the shooting occurred; he said he went to the window, rather than diving for cover.)  Of course, the dead guy (Dontre Hamilton) is black, and the killing officer is white.

In conjunction with the nationwide demonstrations inspired by Michael Brown and Eric Garner, Milwaukee had demonstrations that added this local un-necessary police murder to the list.  Even shut down a freeway; Milwaukeeans are hard to move once we take a stand.

Well, they announced the Official Dispensation today:  the White Officer will not be charged or investigated.  Color me shocked (pink and shocked).  I have several friends who have been at the protests.  The protests have been completely peaceful: sad and potent.  That has not prevented the Milwaukee Polizei from arresting a bunch of them anyway (bringing y’all up to speed:  back when Harold Breier was Chief of Police, his force was notable for beating the hell out of just about anybody, but particularly Citizens of Color.  Killed several of them, too.  To the point that the Violent Femmes wrote this:

Which has not, of course, prevented our rightwing idiot county Shirriff, Richard Clarke, from angling for camera time and wing nut radio microphone access by blaming it all on “outside agitators” and “communists”.

I kid.  One of those was not part of his official rationale for full riot gear and arresting a bunch of hippies and old ladies.

I bring this up because on Monday morning, i had a meeting with a long time repeat client, and several other people to discuss several projects to continue the successful redevelopment of a commercial corridor Third Street, which was a center of African American life before the destruction of freeways,  ‘urban redevelopment’, and the flight of manufacturing (rather than give jobs to blacks) destroyed that community.  Do you think I am harsh?  Fuck you; that was the underlying motivation of much of urban planning in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  And 90s.  And 2000s.  Do you think it no longer applies?  You’re a fool.  Of course it does.  It elected Turdwaffle three times.

Anyways.

So we were sitting in this meeting; two of us were white, three were black, and one was Latina.  The decision was mentioned, almost in passing; the one person who hadn’t heard said “do I have to ask” to which I answered “no.”  And the person who is my client and I respect as a very level headed person said “Do you think it was coincidence that the announcement was made on a cold day in December with crappy weather just before Christmas?  Is that supposed to not be planned?”  And he didn’t say that in an accusatory way, or a challenging way; but as a simple, weary, statement of the burden of being African American on a daily basis.

All I could do was listen.  What could I contribute?

FUCK YOU DAILY SHOW BREAKING EMBED

[Anyways, you probably know the segment.  It’s the one where Stewart finishes by saying “You’re tired of hearing about it? Imagine how f*cking exhausting it is living it.”]

But I feel that Stewart’s piece needs to be augmented for this particular Milwaukee-centric instance.  Sheriff Clarke, who is fanning the flames by instigating the red-scare era code-words “outside agitators” to pretend that Black Panthers are going to take over the city while he supports the white suburban assholes who love to cheer on the murder of unarmed black people, I have one thing that you need to hear:

Slightly South Of The Border

 

Going off the Grid and Off the Rails for a bit.

 

Behave yourselves.  I will be keeping tabs….

 

Fuck Scott Walker.