1, 2, 3, 4 we look good, and we H8 war!

as "d" (i'm trying to protect the far from innocent) and i witnessed last night, west los angeles protests are truly a "sight" to see. i have never seen such well dressed dissidents in my life! from patchwork suede coats, suits and high heels, i must declare that the west su-HIDE ru-HIDERS are very well adept at knowing how to look good drawing attention to themselves. "d" and i could only look in awe as we watched one west la lady create her own alter to fashion as we all "took to the streets." using an innocent traffic cone, she created her offering to the fashion gods by draping the cone with her mink (yes, mink) coat, her cardigan and her designer sunglasses. in between chants of, "exxon, mobil you can't hide/ we charge you with genocide!" we watched in amazement at how she was able to find time to brush her hair. it was fascinating... just fascinating.

overheard: man on cell phone during a time when things weren't even getting hot and heavy, yet--

man: honey? it's me. i wish you were here. it's absolute anarchy. there's cops everywhere. it's amazing. amazing!

i wonder what he would say about a soccer match in brasil?

thursday night brought out the yuppies, the neo-punks, the earth crunchies, the students, the scared, the well-dressed intellectuals, the labor union die-hards (hi "d"!), the angry, the sub and urbanites, the crazy and even the fuzzy cow people from the learning annex wielding a sign that read: "visualize peace. you are love." (note: click on the "pics" link to see pictures from the west l.a. demonstration). along with the numbers that have been protesting all over the country, i know this motley crue of west siders were part of the true majority that can smell the bullshit for what it is: a blood war for oil and a dangerous, power and money grab for corporate america and the military industrial complex.

coming next... i would like to know myself.

make your reality... and run with it

i'm tired, hungry, and sleep-deprived having just returned from my first in a string of many more protests (right, "d"?) since the bombs started dropping a few days ago. it may seem to some that the logical thing to do right now is to hang one's hat just because the death and destruction has already begun and say, "well, we tried, but we couldn't stop the war." however, i realize more and more how that is not a luxury for me to have, nor do i want it. my initial advice to you, "v," is to TURN OFF THE T.V. there are legitimate journalists out there trying to give the news, but unless you have access to some fantastic satellite beaming you with news from outside the united states, i would not trust what you see on cnn and definitely not on any of your local news stations. (shit. i live in LA. they'd rather give full coverage of a car chase or some celebrity divorce than a peace march or protest anyday). like i posted before, i can't listen to NPR because i would never hear anything now about how dick cheney's company won a multi-billion dollar government contract to "rebuild" iraq after the war on npr nor on any other station like NBC or CNN. (note: my link may not work; just do a search for "cheney," and "halliburton.") instead, i'll hear technical analyses on what type of missiles the united states is dropping and "where is saddam now?" these channels would rather have us following coverage on "who really killed O.J.'s wife" while bombarding us with a lot of useless miscellany than really give us a picture of how disgusting and destructive these military "toys" are and how even more so we need to resist a renegade government bent on filling the pockets of dubya's already-wealthy cronies in the name of "liberation."

rather than fill my head with these particles of distraction, i think it's important that one does what they need to do to make their heads, their hearts and their bodies feel that nothing can be the same as yesterday and something needs to change right now. it does scare me with the audacity and shameless insanity with which this illegal administration and their bullshit "international" coalition is moving forward with their bloody and destructive plans of self-interest, but i would be more frightened if i thought that i can no longer move forward myself in resistance in whatever way. my friend gave me this yesterday, and i think it's more important even now:

"The dreamers are the saviors of the world.
As the visible world is sustained by the invisible,
so men, through all their trials and sins and
sorid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions
of their solitary dreamers.
Humanity cannot forget its dreamers;
it cannot let their ideals fade and die;
it lives in them; it knows them as realities
which it shall one day see and know.
Composer, sculpter, painter, poet, prophet, sage,
these are the makers of the after world,
the architects of Heaven.
The world is beautiful because they have lived;
without them, laboring humanity would perish..."

James Allen

i don't know if this was something he got in some mass e-mail forward, and i usually try my damnedest to avoid the tone of "cheese!" (anyone have wine?) in anything i write, but i think it really speaks to how we cannot go along with business as usual in our comfort zone and let other people dictate our world or our realities. i will continue to protest, to teach and organize, i may even go to work (it's not like i have perfect attendance in that arena), but i'll still keep my biting sense of humor and i will dedicate myself to never shutting up and sitting down (ask my brothers) to let some crazed, oil-thirsty imperialist twit run the world.

remember the subversiveness of "goofy." HI ASHCROFT! (hey! i think i may have rejoined the "club!"--see "let the bullshit begin," 3/20/03)

coming next... how tres LA is that?: musings on the LA anti-war scene.

2500 protesters shut down lake shore drive in chicago, 1025 protesters are arrested in san francisco. nationwide, americans are clamoring for peace. the invasion of iraq has inspired worldwide outrage

16 british and american soldiers have paid the ultimate sacrifice just so that w can have his merry little war.

and here i am sitting on my ass. despite my general disgust of newscasts, i am enthralled by this utter madness, watching everything unfold like it were some movie, or worse, some reality tv show, and despite the seriousness and utter tragedy of it all, i can't help but think in the back of my head that, like all sequels, this sucks a lot more than the first one did. there's all this hype and exaggeration, all this artifice of drama and suspense, and when it comes down to it, it's just really, really boring most of the time, as reporters stand stupid and staring while the soldiers sensibly crouch in the darkness. but all they're really doing is watching and waiting. the rest of the time, it's just sad and depressing. off-screen somewhere, you know there are people being exploded into bits by bombs gone astray, or people getting torn apart by machine gun fire. we see none of this.

i wonder how long before the american public simply stops paying attention due to sheer boredom and the networks realize that they aren't getting viewership, so that they stop covering the whole thing.

what a brave new world order we live in.

let the bullshit begin...

now that we're at war i can no longer listen to news being pumped in from npr. instead, i need to take my break from their diluted and highly mediated broadcast news on the war and listen to pacifica radio. i can't seem to buy into the propagandist "news flashes" on kcrw that warn us to "watch out for a short man named annan. he may be a suicide bomber, who was last spotted in florida in 2001." yeah... RIGHT! i suppose i'm supposed to recoil in the corner of my house underneath my saran-wrapped and duct taped windows in fear while praying that the U.S. and their mighty "international coalition"--consisting of ethiopia, the philippines and whoever else who got paid off to publicly sanction illegal war-- bomb the hell out "dem terrorists" in "eerack."

during the "gulf war I: daddy's battle," i was a high school student watching the blaze of american testosterone on cnn. now, i can only listen to the radio. it's enough to know and hear of the bullshit; do i have to see and smell it, too? well, garth. i know you tried your best last tuesday night (see: nevermind the comeback; continue the going," 3/18/03) to do just that, didn't you?

coming next... i swear: "r" tries to rejoin the "forever optimist" club.

B.racing (for) B.ad C.overage

my queasy stomach is trying to tough out this annoying "correspondent" from the BBC who uses the phrase "short and sweet" to describe the strategic aims for the U.S. imperialist (yes, i'm calling it as i see it!) invasion of Iraq. who the hell can really describe war as being remotely related to anything "short" and "sweet?" invading another country is far removed from being just a little jaunt through the city center to pick up baguettes and a tall caffe latte. as the U.S. drops weapons of mass destruction on baghdad, i really wonder whose taste buds are savoring these "sweet" little bird droppings from the sky. war is neither "short," nor "sweet." discuss amongst yourselves.

go AWAY, GMA!!!

sadly, the united states is not the only sorry nation being run by a single digited i.q. twit. the land of my family, too, suffers under the ignorance and insanity of the un-glorious gloria, a.k.a. GMA. a true camera whore, she will pose with any person, place or thing noteworthy or not, just to get into the papers. she'll also make public announcements, pronouncements--anything to get her words in print. and now with this oil war, she'll give her unnecessary two-cents to sell her people and her country down the fucking pasig river just so she can say "glorious" things like, "we will give the US political and moral support," while her own country's children run naked and malnourished down polluted streets and while their O.verseas C.ontract W.orker parents become the largest exported commodity. what's so glorious about that?

nevermind the comeback; continue the going

my grandmother in the philippines loves this phrase and i love her for it. there are many people in this world that i'd like to damn to hell on this eve of war, but i've decided that i'm going to proact. right now, i want to think of my oldest friend in the world--(and for an admitted friend gigola, this means a lot) "h." i want to think of her because i need to remember to call her husband tomorrow if we go to war. i need to make sure he's not punching another hole in the wall, and that he's keeping it together. i need to think of her because she's on some death boat in the persian gulf right now wishing she were home dancing and being stubborn about how she doesn't believe in god and how her black belt ass kicking self was always better suited for the dance floor and not for polyester military garb. i sent her an e-mail saying that i'll be waiting for her in august to attend a high school reunion where we can both drop $70 to reunite with people we never cared to see over the past 10 years. but, tatay says she probably hasn't received it yet--personal e-mails are being prohibited to active military personnel. i need to think of her because i hope she comes home safe and alive before the men of the world really fuck us up for another 20 years to only realize that patriarchy never pays, and that exerting presence like those male beetles with large protrusions jutting out at that entymology museum i once visited, never give presence but takes away. i hope she comes home a veteran of other things in life. already, she's a veteran ex-smoker, a veteran ex-objectionist society student (yes! she dabbled in ayn rand) and an ex-almost christian (i believe she attended one meeting out of curiosity and got the shit scared out of her. i bet it was holy shit.) i just hope she doesn't have to add "government-ordered killer" to her resume. and about her other exes... i remember how she dated a clown--really, a clown--named juju--really, juju--and how she dated some woman who got lost in japan to "find herself." i don't know if she ever came back. she may still be looking...

(this is an aside) i thought garth was playing bob marley and sounding somber on the air because we may be killing people on the other side of the world tomorrow. instead, he's admitting to food poisoning... ("i feel like poop."--not much for the imagination there, garth!)

it's amazing how someone's downs can give you a momentary "up."

about "h," again. i remember "h" when she begged me to take her out dancing even with a concussion the day after being run off the 405 by a hit and run asshole. (i still curse that driver wherever you are!) i also remember how she lived below PAT BUCHANAN'S running mate, and how she hated "h." oh, well. she obviously didn't win; she failed to "press the flesh" with my friend. i want to remember all these things about "h" right now, because i'm going to have so much to talk to her polyester ass when she comes home to pull pirouettes on my wooden floor and blab to everyone about how crazy i am and "how i can't believe" you were my reference to get into the armed forces:

recruiter: is there anything about "h" we should know that may give us doubts as to her loyalty to the U.S. government?

me: (chuckling--to whom does this fool think he's talking? where's the artifice and intrigue? the trick questions? the deep investigation?) uh... no.

may bush&co. rot in hell. PEACE (really... PEACE)

the happy pall bearer: "always look at the bright side of life!"

i woke up this morning (at 6am!) to npr. as soon as i realized the newscast was talking about the impending war, i got knots in my stomach. in these times, i need to focus on things that keep me hopeful:

tony blair: two words, you fool-- political suicide!

dubya: like father, like son: one-term germ!

spain (or, "thpain"): who the hell asked you in the first place?! i was thinking of spending some tourism dollars in your country this year to look at the goods you stole from my people, but i think i can wait! quit trying to think that you "co-drafting" any U.N. resolution gives you any more clout. HAH! (thanks for the laugh!)

to all the comics of the world:
there's such a wealth of comedic material with so many asses in office right now. now we can all be jaded proctologists with biting senses of humor.

oh, god. spare us the pain of patriarchy! mama? mama?

st. patty's day... what's so happy about it?

thank god i fell off the wagon a couple of year's ago and climbed my whiskey ass back on it. now i can be sober and weary-eyed with the threat of war. while everyone else is downing irish whiskey in the name of, "st. patty who?" i can drive home from work testing my tolerance for listening to an inarticulate ass trying to tell the country that he wants saddam to, "disharm." my god does his voice grate. "disharm." of course, i couldn't stomach much of his address on npr and had to listen to cheap trick, instead. but then, the ignorant d.j. had to ruin my listening experience by saying something as trite as, "if george bush had a song request right now, it would be something to tell saddam, 'who's the boss, now?'" prior to playing a track from the who??!!! how dare he!!! you wanna know who the boss is, (or who during these shitty political times, i wish were the boss) TONY DANZA! how dare this jock use the who in vain!!! (i curse him).

dubya's giving saddam 48 hours to get out of town. i'd like to give dubya half an hour to spare us his yosemite sam routine and head his ass to some local pub. maybe he should get off the wagon (if he hasn't already), start off with around of six glasses of guiness and top it off with a couple of long island iced teas. that should make him miss his deadline.

gosh... i sound bitter. bitter? party of one? bitter?

whoa! i need better dreams than this!

i can't remember the details of all my dream last night, but i do remember being in some public restroom. i was on some type of bus tour with a bunch of reno-types, and we must have stopped at some station. the stall i chose was small and faulty. i had to try and keep the door closed with my head! while i was in it. i thought about all the germs i was collecting with my hair. for some reason, while i was still in the stall, i was able to see... yes, hold your breath... LOUIE ANDERSON, the comedian, standing outside with the other tourists. i kept staring at him and thinking, "should i say something?" as i washed my hands (yes, even in my dreams i think about germs) i kept hearing really bad "jesus" sermons being piped into the bathroom. i thought, "maybe i should do the low-key approach of, 'mr. louie anderson,' (hand shake, hand shake), 'nice to meet you.'" then, i thought better of it. i would be lying. what's so nice about it? later on, my parents (who i guess were with me) and i sat at the tour bus depot and watched people getting off a train. as soon as they exited, they would get on this moving conveyer belt and walked quickly off the platform. where were they going? were they ingredients for the twilight zone's "to serve man" episode? ("it's a cookbook!!!!!") wow. drama!

egads. i seem to have come down with a case of rampant blogorrhea. not only have i posted to congestive soul failure and last days of the republic multiple times, but i've started another section entitled the (future) evil resident which probably won't be amusing to anyone who isn't in med school and/or doesn't appreciate "scrubs." (and the ridiculous thing is, i think "scrubs" is much more realistic than e.r.) but the evil resident is sort of the antithesis of the fatman from samuel shem's seminal work "the house of god," which is a hilarious parody of the internship year of an internal medicine residency. (what i learned from reading this book: never believe a doctor just because he/she is a doctor, don't ever get sick, and if you do get sick, don't ever go to the hospital, but if you do end up in the hospital, make sure you sign a "do not resuscitate" order so that they don't try to bring you back even when you're surely too far gone.) someone please break my fingers and make me stop writing about medicine.