Scumbags Pt. II

Ok no need to rehash old subjects, like who is the biggest scumbag on the planet. But when the contestants keep coming out of the woodwork faster than pedophile priests (scumbags in there own right, but I digress), it is the sworn duty of The Guitarman to pluck at the metaphorical strings:

Lets start with an obvious target, the honchos at Goldman Sachs. Never mind that some were caught on tape admitting the shitty deal they were trying to pass on to their investors. Not every broker can pick winners all the time. But the fact that they bet against their own advise, thus making millions (billions?), conjures up memories of those most famous of scumbags, Randolph and Mortimer Duke. Quoteth Randolph: "...no matter whether our clients make money or lose money, Duke & Duke get the commissions." Money talks, bullshit, er, makes more money.

And while we're on the subject of the Goldman hearings, let's not overlook our own federal government. Members of Congress are holding up to the fire the execs at Goldman for their role in the banking crises, hoping that this mis-directional tactic will help Americans forget that is was they themselves who kept pressure on the Fed to push the twin Freddies (Mac and Mae) to keep extending questionable mortgages. Shuffle the blame, shout angrily, and keep reminding the voters that you really are on their side. It is an election year after all, may the loudest, richest scumbag win.

An obvious candidate, lets look at 30 time arrestee Heriberto Viramontes. Who? I'll tell you. He's the piece of crap scumbag that beat those two woman in Chicago with a baseball bat for some gas money. Being a member of a gang, in this case the Spanish Cobras, makes you an automatic scumbag. But beating unconscious two defenseless woman so you can get home that night puts you in the running for scumbag of the month. (Side note: we must include the asshole cab driver who saw the bloody and almost unconscious Stacy and DROVE AWAY! Thank God another cabbie with a soul was right behind him) Why hadn't the courts and cops put Heriberto away for any of his past indiscretions? They were to busy protecting themselves and winning this months scumbag award.

And heeeeere they are! Chicago cop John Ardelean and Cook County Judge Thomas Gainer Jr. Lets start with the cop. He was drunk one night. A video tape SHOWS HIM doing 5 shots before leaving the bar he was at. 5. Don't know about you, but I am passed out after 5 shots. So John got in his car and killed two men with it. He wasn't arrested or even given a breathalyzer for seven hours. (We should include the fraternity of cops protecting each other as scumbag contestants, but this space isn't big enough to go there) So the Judge relies on the "testimony" of two fellow cops that said he didn't appear intoxicated, to throw out the evidence. And the cop walked. 2 guys dead, and he walks. That should be enough for Thomas to win, but guess what? He has a history of letting bad cops get off scot free. He was the one who acquitted the 3 cops that beat the shit out of a group of businessmen last year at the Jefferson tap bar. Just as it is with the Catholic Church, these scumbags put their own survival ahead of the people they were hired to serve. If that ain't a scumbag, then I'm not The Guitarman.

Asparagus. Life Lessons 101.

So yesterday morning, I was pissed off. I mean, downright four letter word inducing, lip quivering rage. At like 10am. There's a whole lot that went into building me up to that point. It started the night before, well before our gig was to start. Early in the evening, I got a ridiculous stomach ache. You know the kind where the bathroom better be within 30 seconds of you. By the time the gig started, I was just wishing I was in bed. Then things got worse.

We were running with an unfamiliar sound system that required a sound man to navigate, and we didn't have one. Couldn't get the levels straight for anything, guitars, vocals, bass. Feedback everywhere. It was a train wreck. And me being the anal perfectionist that I am, was completely unnerved and subsequently played like crap. Thus the scowl appeared on my face as we were breaking down, and I wore it like a crown all the way home. Woke up with it the next morning too. Spent a few minutes arguing with one of my teenagers about something ridiculously inane. Then I sat down to blog about the whole Arizona immigration thing.

I made damning points about Arizona having the guts to do what the country can't. Seeing as 7% of their population is illegal to the nations 3.9%, they enacted legislation to do something about it. I quoted Chicago Rep. Luis Gutierrez in his attempt to show the "bigotry and hatred" won't be tolerated. (Um, these people broke the law. Some "borrowed" social security numbers, and most are driving down the cost of wages by taking the jobs that "nobody wants". Tell that to the nearly 12% of the actual citizens that are unemployed). And as I was putting the final corrections in place, I hit a wrong keystroke (still don't know what I did) and 30 minutes of writing was gone. Poof. And this blog site isn't MS Word. There is no "undo" button. Throw everything together, combined with my smoldering fire of not having worked in a year (you really do feel like less of a man), I went off.

But it was about an hour later when I was at the produce market that perspective finally crept in. I was noticing how the simple act of picking produce was having a calming effect on me. As I made my way over to the asparagus, I made a comment to a fellow shopper, a kindly looking elderly lady. "You ever notice how they package asparagus so that one pack isn't enough, but 2 is too many?" And she agreed, and shared a cooking tip with me. So I replied with one of my own, telling her after she cuts off the ends, she could use a potato peeler to take the skin of the hard end of the stalks. She looked at me and said, "You see that? You serve the lord and every day something good will happen to you." I tell her it is time consuming, and she says, "But it will make for a better meal." And she smiled at me and walked away. And right then, something amazing happened. I smiled too.

The emperor has no clothes, but his lawyers are getting richer.

The emperor has no clothes. He thinks he does, but no one around him will tell him the plain and obvious truth. A common tale, most everyone has heard the story, or more likely, has heard the comparison to someone in real life, as I am about to do here. Usually, it's some Chicago reporter calling out Mayor Daley and his go-at-it-alone take-chargedness. And I am not going to surprise you with someone you've never heard of. This person still believes that they are the shit, that what they have to say matters, that they are still relevant in some way. And why won't the people around them just say what everyone else knows? Because of money.

Greedy, money grubbing, soul-less, power hungry, headline craving, grandstanding lawyers to be precise. And the man I am talking about needs no introduction. He's innocent. He was only working hard for the people he represented. Everyone else is wrong, and he is right. Just PLAY ALL THE DAMN TAPES ALREADY!! Yup, we're talking about Rod Blagojevich again. The only reason, other than his massive ego, that this BS is still playing out is because of lawyers. If only some, er one, of them had the nerve to tell Bla-boo-boo-itch what he needs to hear, maybe this circus that is supposed to be an indictment would go away. Right? Ha! Not even close. Because if the world is full of one thing, it's yes men. Not just any yes men, but the kind who say yes to the emperor for the loftiest of aspirations. Money. And TV time. Which leads to, yep, more money. And if we know anything about lawyers, it's that there are more of them ready to swoop in should one vulture leave it's roost.

Maybe Boy-have-I-got-an-itch will someday scratch his itch and he will be satisfied, an itch that goes something like this: I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me! Now keep on keepin' on until you are president! Here's my vision: Trial becomes bigger than OJ. It's dragged out through appeal after appeal. Boo-boo goes to jail about the time his girls are in high school. Serving his time, he gets out and runs for office again. He is delusional enough to believe it, but better yet, the people around him will convince him that it could happen. Wouldn't it be refreshing instead to see Patti say, "These past 10 years have been nice without Rod around. We reconnected with my father (Ald. Dick Mell). We haven't been on a reality show since I dropped 128 pounds on Biggest Loser. I haven't seen my name in print since the trial. And my daughters have grown up without a camera shoved in their face. I only hope now that their father can somehow quietly integrate back into the private sector." But somehow, I believe it will sound more like this, "Yes we can!! Change we can believe in!! Don't stop thinking about tomorrow!!" Blagojevich/Blagojevich for president, '24. I know I am right.

Proud of what you did yesterday?

What did you do yesterday? Was it productive? Was it therapeutic or relaxing? Was it self-serving? Or maybe it was serving someone else. I am not advocating some moralistic duty of humanity. If that serves you well, go for it. My day consisted of cleaning the garage (productive), taking a small nap (therapeutic), and practicing for and playing a gig (self-serving). (Side note: cleaning the garage is not an actual task, as my garage is in the perpetual cleaning cycle. Meaning, I have so much crap crammed into every nook and cranny, that cleaning more or less consists of moving said crap from one spot to another. If I can ever manage to clear enough space to actually get CARS in the garage, then maybe I have accomplished something.) One thing I did not do, however, was to maliciously and cowardly find and murder innocent civilians from my own country in the name of religion.

If you are tired of hearing me say this, then by all means, close the page, go back to facebook, and pretend I never said it. But low and behold, and coming to a theater near you, two piece of shit cowards in the name of Islam, dressed up in head to toe burqa's, and blew themselves up in a line of civilians along the Afghan/Paki border. Innocent people who were in an aid line because they had fled a Taliban offensive, only to find that the offensive had indeed followed them to their place of refuge. Why do I get so upset at something that is occurring on the other side of the world, so far removed from my life? Something that I will never have any control over whatsoever?

Because I still say it is only a matter of time before this hits closer to home, and a couple of burqa clad maniacs blow themselves up at the Super Bowl. They are still out there, and they will never go away. They are not a country we can put sanctions on (how's that working in Iran U.N?). They are not an identifiable person we can bring to justice (how long have the Gitmo detainees been there?). They are like the terminator. Says Kyle Reese, "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!" Only we are not dealing in science fiction, but a painful reality. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are out there, and like it or not, we are Sarah Connor. So for all you folks out there who want us to take the foot off of the military gas pedal, and insist upon bowing to ridiculous sensitivities toward a kinder, gentler US of A, I have one suggestion. Go watch The Terminator. Maybe then you will get a glimpse of the mind set we are facing.

The day of the sausage is nigh.

Facebook is either a) a monumental waste of time or b) a wonderful tool to reconnect people to each other. And thusly my post on sausage skins generated enough responses to put me in category (a) for the day. Not that I don't take full advantage of category (b) to tell the world when our bands are playing out (200 friends does not = the world but I digress). But now I am waxing poetic, and well you can close the page any time now if you wish:


Scalding white hot juices flow from your very existence,
to which I fervently devour, in my every waking hour,
knowing not from whence you came, I devour all the same.

You're perfume is that of a bee to nectar,
be it pooh to honey, or man to money,
I am singularly drawn, like some ravenous pawn,
to be sacrificed for the greater good.

A poppy seed womb, a mummy like existence,
fleeting as a ray of light in the cave of the swallows,
but your sauerkraut crown, will undoubtedly drown my sorrows.

Going down is a joy, a remarkable bliss,
coming out, my crap is like piss.
But to me you are royalty,
be you Italian, be you Polish, be you Andouille, be you Szynkowa, or be you Kielbasa,
it's the day. The day of the sausage.

Your time has come.

Day nine belongs to me.

Woke up that morning fully aware of what day it was. I just didn't know how we were going to spend it. After countless walks on the beach, laps in the pool, trips to the mini golf course, applications of aloe on sun burned skin, cocktails and the spending of lots of money, we were ready for it. I'm talking about the last day of spring break.

Unable to go in any direction due to the locust-like swarming of tourists at the entrance to Ft. Myers Beach, we knew we weren't going to drive anywhere. The wife and kids headed down to the "square" for an air-brush tattoo and a souvenir or two. And alone there I sat, contemplating how to spend my final hours in paradise. I decided after doing what the kids wanted for 8 days, day 9 was going to be mine. So I threw on my shorts and sun-block, now down to SPF 4, (thank-you Nan and Pop for my Italian skin) and headed for the pier.

Bikini's and umbrellas as far as the eye could see, I trudged down the length of the pier, and plopped down $15 for a fishing rod and bait. By far, the biggest deal of the trip. Hooking a squid head onto my hook, I ignored the "no casting" sign and flung my rig as far as I could, watched it settle to the shallow bottom, and began what would be the best of my past 8 days. 15 minutes in, I got my first reward, a baby Bonnet Head Shark. This was no coincidence, the shark, it was what I was hoping for. I got lucky on the first one, having snagged it's fin, and the hook came off easily to the growing crowd of astonished beach goers. I let little kids, college girls, and a few parents touch and/or hold the catch. Shark skin, if you've never felt it, is like running your hand on like wet 1500 grit sandpaper. I was an instant star.

Over the course of the next 6 hours, I managed to pull in a total of 5 baby sharks, Bonnet Heads and Black Tips. Would have been 6 but the biggest one of the day was too heavy on the meager line, and having to pull it up some 20 feet from the water to the pier, it flopped off inches from the top. No worries, it was a day in paradise for me. It was even more enjoyable that the obnoxious New Yorker to my right got shut out. (Do they ever talk about anything but the damn Yankees?) The kids each pulled in one, and they visited me from time to time, asking if/when I was coming back to the room. I never wanted to leave, and only did so when my bait ran out. But was I being selfish? Abandoning the troops for some American pastime? If I was, I didn't care. This was my day, and I'm sure I won't get another one like it for a very long time.