#@$!!

Of course he did. Of course! He did! Blago appointed a black guy. And when he or some lingering toady thought of it, I bet they laughed and laughed and laughed. Or quoted, say, Borat when he encountered an Uzbekistan embassy.

I can't believe I live here. Is it possible to secede? It's not as if Chicago, our de facto capitol, even acknowledges that this part of the state. The "governor" never even sees Springfield, home of the legislature and a renovated yet empty mansion, so seventy miles southwest of there is surely off the edge of their world. And most every Missourian I've ever met seems to think that the universe ends somewhere over the Mississippi, or that the only thing East of St. Louis is East St. Louis, either that or the neighboring strip clubs. So, clearly living neither there nor there, we can hereby declare ourselves independent. It'll be like Texas, way back when. I believe the Lone Star Republic managed for ten years. Surely that'll be long enough for this to all blow over, to just be an unfortunate episode that the Dems somehow rose above.

Yeah, I don't believe it, either.

Like mother

"Who do you think did it?" asks my daughter in the middle of my parking lot rant.

"Some. . . REPUBLICAN!" I sputter, refraining from repeating the other descriptors that are going through my mind. She is, after all, impressionable. Proof of that perhaps being her eagerness to spend half a Saturday with her mother and sixty-thousand others listening to the next president under the Arch.

But in the meantime, I'm ticked, and I can't stop gesturing at the circle of dust left behind where some. . . REPUBLICAN . . . stole the Obama magnet off my car.

I try to focus and finish loading the groceries.

"Don't worry," says my helper. "I'll give you a pillow to punch when we get home . . .and," she giggles, "I'll put John McCain's picture on it." I'm surprised only that she didn't say Palin.

Seven words he'll never say again

RIP, George Carlin.

from the HuffPo:
by David Hochman


Somewhere in heaven, George Carlin is probably watching Lou Dobbs right about now. At the end of the Playboy Interview I did with him a few years ago, he was full of thoughts about the meaning of life, his legacy and what was next -- if anything -- after this life was done, and that's when he started musing about cable news.

Carlin was a big thinker. While conducting the interview, I spent three days with him in Las Vegas, a city he loved and hated and where he was still doing stand-up a week before his death yesterday at age 71. At each session, some of which lasted five hours, Carlin held forth on every imaginable topic -- from the color of farts to the solutions to global warming (unrelated topics, incidentally). His mind was so expansive, he kept stacks of Post-it notes around his Vegas condo so he could write down random musings that might find their way into a routine or book or letter to his daughter. Then he would record those thoughts onto various iPods and later transfer the files to his computer. Even as he approached 70, his mind was so loaded with data it needed its own zip drive.

Although he was one of the most successful comedians of his generation and a bestselling author, Carlin didn't have an easy life. He struggled for years with drugs and then heart problems and his fortunes came and went. At one point he owed four million in back taxes. Another time, on a trip to Hawaii, his daughter, Brenda, then 11, made him sign a contract so he wouldn't snort cocaine for the rest of the vacation. But by the end, Carlin had found something that looked like peace -- sobriety, financial stability and love with Sally Wade, a woman he called "the sweetheart of my life." Even growing old was interesting for him. It gave him more material.

"The older you are, the more noises you make," he told me. "Standing up, sitting down, it's like you need a fuckin' lubricant. I agree with Bette Davis who said, "Getting old is not for sissies." But it's just aging, so I say, fuck it. There were handicaps to being 10, there were handicaps to being 40, but the richness of memory, the richness of acquired and accumulated experience and wisdom, I won't trade that. At 67, I'm every age I ever was. I always think of that. I'm not just 67. I'm also 55 and 21 and three. Oh, especially three."

At the end of days of interviews, I asked Carlin what he imagined heaven would look like, and he gave an answer that was appropriate considering his TV had been turned on the entire weekend to Headline News. To the end, Carlin loved being in touch with the big world around him.

"The best afterlife for me would be to be able to sit comfortably and watch the world on a kind of heavenly CNN," he said. "To be able to have my remote and say, 'Okay, there's an uprising in Spain. Let's watch that. Or to watch China finally take over the fucking world. Because there's a billion of those motherfuckers and they're going to eat our lunch. I would love to get the thousand-year view on the decline of the European birthrate or the "Muslimization" of Europe that's talking place; the explosion of Latin American culture in the western part of the United States.' Just sit back and watch. India and Pakistan, both, have nuclear weapons and they fuckin' hate each other. I'm telling you, somebody is going to fuck somebody's sister and an atom bomb is going to fly. And I say fine. You know? I just like the show. This world is a big theater in the round, as far as I'm concerned, and I'd just love watching it spin itself into oblivion. Tune in and watch the human adventure. It's a cursed, doomed species but it's just interesting as hell. That's what I want heaven to be. And if it's not like that, then fuck it. I'll just kill myself."

Since we were on the subject, I thought I'd ask what he'd like his tombstone to say. Carlin didn't miss a beat.

"I'm thinking something along the lines of, "Jeez, he was just here a minute ago."

The Physics of Winter

Cold. Sleet. A little snow. Not bad, but for a highway department that's a study in futility--how about you ask the boys on this side of the river how they always get the crap off the roads? Two hours for a one-way trek home. State of Mis-our-ee, indeed.

But then I check the TV station list, just to see who's already not going to school tomorrow, down in the various Show-Me State hollers, and bless whoever's making this shit up. I love you, I swear.

The Inertia School of Dance is closed. Forever, I must assume.

Shitload defined

Webster defines it as a vulgar reference to "a very large amount." Seems about right from this vantage point. We got a shitload of snow.

Officially it totaled 13 inches, sufficient to close schools, banks and many businesses. Garbage pickup was delayed and churches postponed Ash Wednesday services until Thursday. Even snow plow operators had their share of difficulty.

I work at a residential college that is loathe to cancel classes for any reason, except Flunk Day. After giving the day the old college try in the morning, afternoon and evening classes were canceled and employees sent home.

Historically, it's the biggest Cedar Rapids snowstorm since 14.5 inches came with "The Blizzard of '73." I was eight and remember digging out of my grandparents home that April weekend. The record stands at 17.8 inches in 1954.

So this wasn't quite a record snowstorm. But still...we got a shitload.

Oh, the profanity.

Most useful button on my keyboard, right there.

Or it would be, if it were connected. Its portability, however, might just come in handy, if I ever again stop after work for a drink, assuming some retarded city councilman gets his wish, or, rather, that his bill passes. Because along with table-dancing and drinking contests (and now what will I do with my weekend?) this proposal would outlaw profane language. In bars. No cussing. In bars! WTF? I knew there was a reason that I don't live there. Or you know, about 47, making that unenforceable quasi-constitutional proposal just the topper, but given that this space and my classroom are the only places where my speech isn't regularly punctuated by some of those infamous seven words plus, that restriction would quite definitely seal the residency deal. Having an English teacher hauled off for her extensive vocabulary? Why, it just wouldn't look right.

A helpful hint

Do you know which one I'm talking about, the supposed advance in voice recognition technology that sounds like an oh-so-casual woman instead of some robot on the phone? I am clearly not the demographic that responds to the practically giggling, let's just get settled in here, what problem do you have with your over-priced Charter service-here, why don't you, honey, just whisper into my automated ear and tell-me-about-it voice they've programmed in. Besides it's SLOW and I'm IMPATIENT and I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO ANYBODY. That's why I tried the chat. And was pawned off twice and disconnected. So you know I was rarin' to go. Just not with a robot.

So, in case that happens to you, my helpful hint. If when the lady robot asks you to say yes or no? I suggest, "Kiss my ass!" instead. You'll get a human, pronto, and an indefinite $20/month discount for your trouble. And, bonus, that deleted e-mail address restored, too. (I'm feeling so much better.) Just try to get that from a robot! I mean, maybe that's your thing.