elecpencil

I Moved

2008-12-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

Hi I've moved to wordpress.
Come visit.

A Memorable Evening

2008-12-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

Every Christmas pageant throughout the world has a scene showing Joseph leading Mary into Bethlehem on a donkey. Do you realize what would happen if the Republicans asked for equal time?

Q: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office?
A: You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit.

I was excited to see my favorite news and opinion website Unknown News put my blog as one of their Mystery Links yesterday! It's a site run by two real sweethearts, Helen and Harry Highwater and well worth checking out.

Mrs. and Mr. Elecpencil went to New Castle's Scottish Rite Cathedral Friday evening. We experienced B.E. Taylor's annual Christmas concert tour. See info on B.E. here: B.E. Taylor

B.E. does a great take on some traditional Christmas songs and also has quite a few original Christmas songs. I loved that B E includes local special needs adults who join him singing and dancing on stage. All in all two and a half hours worth of fun yet touching memorable entertainment. Mrs. an Mr. Elecpencil loved it so much we have decided to make it an annual event and that's saying a ton in this household.

While in New Castle we stopped for dinner at Nahlas Middle Eastern Restaurant on Rt.18, which is located in an old Taco Bell. Nahalas owner is a relative of Mary's Restaurant on 131E. Long Ave. in New Castle. I have visited Mary's many times but had not been to Nahlas before. We had hummus with Syrian bread followed by Chicken over rice with onions, peppers and Syrian garlic sauce. This chicken dish is my favorite Chicken dish and was just as great as at Mary's. Nahlas was packed but service, meal and price were all top notch! Two ice teas, hummus and two great dinners for about $20.00 is even in the Elecpencil's budget range!

B E Taylor video: Feel the Love of Christmas

B E Taylor song: I Saw Three Ships

Green Planet Anti-Gift list: 15 gifts no one needs

I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.” ~ Bernard Manning quotes

Mr. and Mrs. Stinky Racists

2008-12-18T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Elepencil really needs to hibernate and not go anywhere but work. I can’t go anywhere without running into morons. I call it being an asshole magnet as I described in an earlier post. Here I was picking up a couple of staple type items in Kmart when I spotted this couple in their early thirties. I should say I smelled them before I actually saw them. When someone stinks that bad I can only describe it as an odor so foul you can actually see stink whiffs coming off them. It’s as if the whiffs were drawn into a comic strip to emphasize the putridity the artist was trying to get across.

It wasn’t that they looked poor but more biker or Grunge Rock grimy. I imagine for about $2.00 I could have cleaned them up. I believe that’s about the going rate to operate a self-wash stall at the car wash. I try to be frugal as I am poor so I wouldn’t spend the extra $2.00 for the dryer and wax spray, as I believe they could air dry.

I looked in their cart to hopefully see if they had bought any soap, deodorant or shampoo but alas no. This Kmart was the one in Niles Ohio so I note it is a Super K. I say that because the Super K’s have groceries. I was thinking if they went back in the produce section they could buy a head of garlic pretty cheap. I was thinking even if they hung a couple of cloves of garlic under their armpits it would be a step in the right direction.

This couple’s offensive odor isn’t even what makes me take keyboard to internet highway. It’s what I heard them say to another couple who was shopping. That was a couple that split up with the men heading in one direction and the women in the other. These were folks of Asian descent in their fifties or sixties with the men in suits and the ladies in dresses. The two men walked past the putrid white couple and were talking in a foreign language. Stink man turned toward them and said, "Yer in Ameriker furiner speakee Amerikeen."

The Asian men glanced at Mr. Stinky but then walked on. I spun to stare at Mr. and MRS. Stinky. They had already walked down the aisle pretty fast and I was sure out of range of me yelling at them. I wanted to chase them down but with my knee that needs replaced I know I can’t speed limp that fast. That and the fact that having two kids to raise makes me worry about my safety more than when I was a single guy.

Anymore you have to consider that the fruitcakes are armed and dangerous. Truth is people who don’t spend money on soap and deodorant probably spend it on guns. I do remember seeing Reynolds Wrap foil in the gross couples cart so I imagine they were going home to make foil hats.

As I was heading to my car I saw the Asian couples putting bags in the trunk of a Lincoln with Ohio plates. They were all talking back and forth in English. English that I note was far better than Mr. Stinky’s "Amerikeen" English. The Asians had one up on Stinker as they were bi-lingual and Stinky wasn’t even singular –lingual.

Sadly, I am reminded that America has a history of racism and it doesn’t appear to be anywhere near ending. On the other hand America also has a history of community organizations and social justice groups who have stood up for equality, and inclusion, even when it wasn't the popular thing to do.

Surprise Surprise:We're all here for a purpose

The Zebra song:Bill Bailey

Satire song about racism:Flight of the Conchords

"Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list." ~ Denis Leary

A Failed System

2008-12-14T13:45:00.000-08:00

I am hoping the loan for the auto industry comes through for the workers sake but I am also hoping the auto companies restructure realizing that it's a new day where if you put people, quality and the environment first profits will follow.

The Elecpencil worked in a plant that closed after being owned by half a dozen companies in the 28 years I spent there. Every one of them mismanaged it because they only thought about profits. The auto companies of today reminded me of what I experienced. I wrote the following for the labor newsletter, Impact about my plant closing in 1999.

A Failed System

The barrel plant I worked in has had half a dozen owners in the almost 28 years I worked there. Every time an owner sold us he’d explain how it was no one’s fault the business failed. The first owner, United States Steel decided they could make more quick profit buying an oil company. This decision of short- term gain was no one’s fault; just the way American businesses operate. It was no one’s fault the next owner went bankrupt, he told us. It was just that the government had silly laws that prevented things like price fixing and mail fraud. Since it was hard for our executives to run the business from prison we were sold.

It surely wasn’t anyone’s fault the next owner failed. Ok, maybe he shouldn’t have spent a million dollars for equipment to make a new design barrel without finding out if customers would be interested in such a design. Or, maybe he should have listened to plant engineers who told him said design would never pass government safety tests. It didn’t but I suppose the bad guy once again was the government with its business hurting consumer safety standards.

The next owner said it was no one’s fault the plant was going under. He did admit maybe he should have hired a salesman to sell our product but he was trying to save money. It was no one’s fault he just didn’t realize a business has to have a sales force to get customers.

It was of course, we were told no one’s fault the current owner who was leasing us has now closed the plant. It was no one’s fault just his good fortune he got a great deal leasing us he couldn’t pass up. He used those two years he leased us, to close his other two plants six months each to modernize them. We were used to supply his customers while those plants were not operating. When those plants were retooled, we were no longer needed, so our plant was gutted and closed so we could never be sold to be a competitor to him. He explained it was no one’s fault we were closing, just economic circumstances. There weren’t enough customers for three plants.

Before he bought us we had won numerous container industry awards for making the best barrel in the world, something our workforce was proud of. Customers bought our barrels because they were not always the best price, but the best quality. Those customers all deserted us when our last employer leased us. They would not do business with him because he was known for putting out a cheap inferior product. So in the end we lost our customers, no one’s fault again we were told.

How odd that with all these businesses going under it was no one’s fault they failed. For one of these owners to admit fault would mean failure, a taboo subject for entrepreneurs. The government has all kind of protections like bankruptcy laws to come to the aid of inept businessmen to keep them from feeling like failures. The government has few safety nets for unemployed workers. If you’re jobless in America you’re made to feel like a failure.

The workers were the one constant in all these businesses going under, were we the real fault of the failures? I believe not, because with each new owner workers maintained the sweat, the insight, the skill and the hope things would turn around. On top of that with each new owner came a concessionary contract, in the end all the efforts and give backs in the world won’t make up for bad management. We workers did not fail; six employers failed. Our fifty employees are now unemployed while our former employers are off mismanaging new endeavors and so it is across America.

Labor is not failing; the truth is the capitalist system with its profit before people mentality is failing. It is a system based upon unrestrained short-term greed in which society bears all the long- term costs. In the end it is a system that will be punished not only for its sins but also by its sins.

Michael Moore is right on; The truth

The Wall St. Shuffle:10Cc

Capitalism funk song:Hart House

“The cure for capitalism's failing would require that a government would have to rise above the interests of one class alone.” ~ Robert Heilbroner

Time is Big Money

2008-12-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

For all of you that think shopping is patriotic I give you:

Watch Where You Spend Your Money

Plato said, "The greatest wealth is to live content with little." That quote is lost to purchasers of the, "Day & Night" wristwatch by Swiss watchmaker, Romain Jermome. There were only 9 made and they sold out within 48 hours of going on sale. I use the word, "sale" lightly as the watches made with rusted steel from the Titanic sold for $300,000 each. You can look at this watch and say, "I'm on top of the world." The strangest thing is that the watches don’t tell the time, which really makes it a bracelet. Romain Jeromome says, the watch offers the new way of telling time. That is by just showing whether it’s day or night. In other words they are pretty much a sundial for people who are too lazy to look up and see whether the moon or sun is up. My initial thought about a watch that doesn’t tell time was, "When did Yugo start selling watches."

The concept of, "time is money" has now been replaced with, the idea that for the really wealthy it’s the ultimate luxury to take your time. If you're rich enough to buy this watch I’m sure anyone you're doing business with will wait on you.

What could be snobbier than a watch that doesn’t tell time? How about a watch you can’t even wear? "The T-oxy Concept" is also offered by Jermome. This wristwatch is made from non-stabilized rusted steel also from the Titanic. Oxygen will destroy the watch so it must be displayed in a dome case filled with argon. This watch comes with no guarantee because it is extremely corrosive. With steel from the Titanic wearing these watches is creepy because you have a tombstone for a mass grave on your wrist. I wouldn’t want to be reminded of all those horrible deaths on the Titanic very time I looked at my watch to see if it was day or night.

I’m rich in my own way because I have two useless watches that don’t tell time. They are a couple of Timex watches in my nightstand that need batteries. Being a little better with my money than the suckers that bought Jerome’s watches I’ve found it cheaper to pick up a new watch at the Dollar Store than buy batteries for my defunct watches. If I was even able to pay $300,000 for a watch I’d not only want it to tell time I’d want it to let me travel through time.

I started wondering what else the other half (or should I say the top 5%) waste money on so I did some web surfing and came across, Bornrich. org. This site has everything needed for the rich to pimp their world. For example if a watch that reminds you of thousands lost at sea isn’t gruesome enough for you how about a "Coffin Couch?" Since the law doesn’t allow the use of used coffins they are made into furniture that’s to die for. Don’t ask me where used coffins come from because I don’t want to know. I suspect when you’re wealthy there is nothing that isn’t available for purchase.

Other items found at this site for the home that are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine are: diamond studded laptops, bamboo laptops, a LCD display Digital Cutting Board, a $60,000 poolside lounge chair, a $25,000 Ferrari go-kart, or boots with a built -in Gameboy. Worried about security? How about a $12,000 bulletproof bicycle? If you’re on a budget you can buy just the bike frame for $7,000. Maybe some armor for your dog or a $60,000 18K gold, diamond studded mini-revolver for your bodyguard.

My parents taught me that a fool and his money are soon parted. As I got older I learned on my own that the best thing about life isn’t things at all.

Jeromone watch info:titanic watch

Only in America will idiots buy these watches. Jay and the Americans:Only in America

I'm an "Outsider" because I don't want a Jeromone watch and "Time Won't Let Me" Live Long Enough to Afford One. "Time Won't Let Me"The Outsiders

Money Song: Muppets

"I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves." - Bruce Grocott

The Hot Growth Industry

2008-12-07T12:55:00.000-08:00

Through a gmail screw up I haven’t been able to post for a week. So what has been happening in the last week?

I went to a birthday party for local activist Susie Beiersdorfer. Susie is one of those activists who recognizes a need and cannot be just a spectator. She’s one of those folks I like to say, is a liberator whose only fear would be surrender. She is involved in a lot of causes and I wish I had a small percent of her energy. Her and her husband Ray both give back to the community and have taught their two daughters to do the same. Forget about Ozzie and Harriet, Ward and June we need more Susies and Rays because they lead by example.

When I think about how many good people our area has had move away it’s great to realize we’ve had ones like Susie and Ray move to our community. They put the “common unity” in community.

Mr. And Mrs. Elecpencil went out to do some Christmas shopping today. I noted near Eastwood Mall what is the hottest growth industry in the declining Bush economy. That is the job of holding signs along roadways advertising going out of business sales.

Be Patriotic Shop: shop

Beings as most of the cars parked at the mall were in front of one business I know what most people are getting for Christmas. Guns, as evidenced by the big gunny crowd waiting to enter the exhibition center for the gun show.

Buy a Gun for Your Son: Tom Paxton

For the late great Odetta who died 12/2/08: Bourgeois Blues

"One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings." ~Franklin Thomas

Shop Pigging not Shopping / Death to Butters

2008-11-29T09:04:00.000-08:00

The Elecpencil proved he will go to the extreme of torture beyond mere water boarding in order to experience the ugly underbelly of society and report it here. I’m talking about rubbing elbows with an element of society more dangerous and vile than all the pimps, hookers, small time gangsters and foul mouthed truck stop waitresses that fill a Tom Waits recording.

In the interest of science I hung out with vampires and zombies on the most frightening night of the year. It is a day that shows we are a declining society. It ranks with such savage events like barbarism, witch burnings, plagues and the inquisition. That would be the demonic shopping day known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day when stores broke into profitability for the full year.

My daughter, the Mac suggested we needed to buy one present for Christmas for all of us. That would be a new TV as ours has no remote, a 12-inch picture in a 20-inch frame and volume that raises and lowers ghostlike. She informed us that they also make color TVs now a days. That came as quite a shock to me as our family doesn’t spend much time keeping up with the latest technology. Mac suggested that we go early in the morning and get in line at an electronics store for one of the Black Friday specials on TV’s.

On the plus side Mrs. Elecpencil and I both had Friday off of work. Unfortunately that is also a day many people have been emancipated from work so the lines could be long. The big problem is a disorder I have known as, poverty. Like many people I don’t make enough money to support my family. I could try to convince my employer that I can’t live on these wages but he would say he isn’t in the business of saving my life.

The Mac said, that the electronic stores doors open at 3 am Friday morning. I had a relative who drove past the store tell me several tents of shoppers were already on the sidewalk as of Thursday at 10 am. I guess these were folks that were so thoughtful about wanting to buy a present for their loved ones they actually gave up enjoying a day of thanks with their families. Such sacrifice for others is the true spirit of Christmas I was thinking in my naive mind.

I looked up some stores on line and most had the same “bargains” I could buy online with free shipping instead of standing out in the cold for. The Mac had experienced standing out in the cold on Black Friday a couple of years ago and convinced us it was something we should check out. I wasn’t easily convinced because I have had previous experience being on a strike line for months on end in the wintry wee hours. We decided to go to the Grove City Outlets, which were opening at midnight, which seemed better than 3 am.

Darkness was upon us as we started out at 10:30 pm on our adventure. Fact is what with it being winter and that stupid turning your clock back crap darkness is upon us at 5:30 pm. We went a back way and arrived at 11:20. Some of the stores were opened since earlier in the day but not of course the ones my family wanted to shop at.

Mac and her friend, Mrs. Elecpencil and I got in line to go in PAC Sun. There were about 70 people in front of us and as many behind. Next thing you know a line starts parallel to the line at the door. I am shocked people walk up 20 minutes before the door opens and do this when people have been waiting in the cold for an hour. This is not something I’d want to do to an angry crowd who has been waiting in the cold jacked up chain smoking and guzzling high energy drinks.

A girl behind me tells me they are butting. She suggests butters should be brutally hacked to death, set on fire and their bodies spit upon. Wow, such Christian spirit for the holidays. The elecpencil fancies himself to be a man of peace. Standing in the cold an old saying comes to him. That is, “Whenever you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is attack.” I start looking around to see if there is a store I can buy some machetes and lighter fluid for myself and my muse in line behind me.

Once the doors open the parallel line is pushing like their lives depended on it. Once inside the store people grab clothes and line up at the registers or fitting rooms. I make a mental note about the people with armloads of clothing in the fitting room lines. That is that’s it’s amazing that the people they are buying clothes as Christmas presents for are the same size as them. They I demise aren't shopping for others they are shop pigging for themselves.

Mac is in one of two checkout lines with clothes she has bought for her brother. She got in line at 12:15 and when my wife and I returned from shopping elsewhere she was still in line at 1:30. She said, people were just cutting in line and arguments were breaking out. We let her go shopping while we waited in line until 2:50. My wife refused to leave the line despite the Elecpencil’s pleading. I personally don’t even wait at a restaurant if they a say it’s going to be 5 minutes.

The lines in the store circled around the walls. There wasn’t room left for anyone to shop. They only had two registers open with two cashiers and two baggers. Meanwhile they had a greeter at the door and one employee wasting her time folding up items on shelves no one could get to. I’d say if you’re going to have people in line for hours you should have people giving them massages and free drinks by damn.

A woman and her young daughter tried to get in line behind us. I wondered why a woman would bring such a young girl out so early in the morning. They both claimed they had been in that spot. It was sad to see a mother lie in front of her young daughter and the daughter lie to back her up. Such lovely Christmas spirit. Mrs. Elecpencil said, “Neither of you were here.” The girl they butted in line in front of sternly said, “I strongly suggest you move to the back of the line.” The woman put her things down and left the store. Yeah, victory for our side and a loss for the butters. Now I was finding myself being unchristian like.

By 3:00 am the whole shopping complex was packed with huge lines at every store’s register. Seven buses from Canada had arrived plus buses from elsewhere. I talked with a woman from Toronto that was shopping despite having her broken foot in a cast. From this I deducted that even the wounded had entered the shopping battleground. I saw four teenage boys all in gray hoodies (an outlet mall gang?) with the hoods up drinking alcohol in paper bags. They were all screaming, “Woooooooo.” Which in drunk means, I can’t handle alcohol. Between the drunks and the butters the Elecpencil sensed his asshole magnet was drawing an evil element that could endanger his family so we headed for the Jalopy GT and made our exit.

After arriving at our domicile the Mac and her friend still having teenage energy headed off for the Eastwood Mall. The Elecpencil had decided to never again experience Black Friday. The nasty butters are a culture I don’t understand and hope to never see again. I’m reminded of an old saying, “ An idealist is a man who worries about why people do things. A practical man is he who worries about how to get out of it without doing it.” Put the Elecpencil down as a practical man.

Black Friday shoppers kill at Walmart: WalMart killers

The fun of Black friday: fun

More fun: crazy fun

Christmas shopping music: tune

Shopping music: music

Thanking God for Genocide

2008-11-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house. My mother is one fine cook and baker. I can almost smell the scent of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, buttered biscuits, cherry pie, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. No yucky sweet potatoes though because being 100% Irish we only eat real potatoes.

The Mac (my daughter) is off work for Thanksgiving and Adam (my son) will be home from college. Thanksgiving a sit down dinner with three generations of the family I hope will leave my children with happy holiday memories.

Holidays in the good ole USA always have some bizarre background to them. The Thanksgiving holiday is no exception as it's history is about as weird as it gets.

We will smell a kitchen full of the scents of a delectable feast but that is not the whiff of what Thanksgiving represents. The original smells would have been the putrid scent of barbecued Indian flesh.

Here is a historic description behind the massacre of Indians, which is the real reason the Pilgrims, gave thanks: This by William Bradford, an early settler, on Captain John Mason’s attack on a Pequot village.

"Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword, some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived that they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy."

While we have genocide against turkeys for Thanksgiving our fore fathers had a genocide against Native Americans.

Thanksgiving history:facts

Here is a Thanksgiving/Christmas poem I wrote:

Holiday Deja Vu By the elecpencil

It starts before Thanksgiving
Those articles in the newspaper
on what to cook with leftover turkey.
Turkey ala-king, potpies, burritos...
why not turkey Jell-O or turkey smoothies?
Why don’t they just say buy a
God damn smaller turkey!

Then I wouldn’t have to see
all those redundant articles.
Next comes Christmas.
Ready for Christmas’s religious service,
I sit down to read the daily paper
and of course, there’s an article
on how Christmas is too commercial.

It’s say, Christmas has become
the largest annual economic stimulus
for many countries.
The story is squeezed in between
a Christmas Sales ad and
an article on the hottest toys to buy.

I contemplate the question
of Christmas commercialization...
sitting at my Thomasville dining room table
drinking my Carnation instant hot chocolate
complete with Kraft marshmallows
from my Correll Peach Garland pattern mug.

I spill some on my Geoffrey Benne necktie.
I toss it in my Kenmore washer and
add some Tide, extra strength
I turn on my Toshiba stereo TV and
ease into my Lazy Boy Recliner.
I set it to full tilt and view the 27” screen between
my black Dexter wing tips
that are so old they
were made in the USA.

I eat a Fiesta bowl of
Nabisco shredded wheat
with slices of Dole bananas in it.
My Timex watch says its time to go.
I get my tie out of the Maytag dryer
and put on my Botany 500 jacket.

I get in my Dodge mini-van
and leave my Ryan built home.
I brush off the idea of Christmas
being too commercial
as I enter church to celebrate
the real meaning of Christmas...
For the rest of you...
Merry McChristmas and
a happy Wal-Mart New Year.

Thanksgiving Prayer by William S. Burroughs: Burroughs

Stuff it Good: Devo parody

Happy Thanksgiving pass the smoldering Butterball Indian.

Talk Radio Jihad / Minimum Wage

2008-11-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

I am a CSPAN and talk radio junkie. As a kid I fell asleep listening to talk shows. I don't remember most of them being as crazy right wing as they are today. Driving in the car I listen to them and yell back at the hosts every time I hear a lie (every 15 seconds or so). When my family is in the car they fear I am going to stroke out.

I watch CSPAN's call in show at 7 am when I'm getting ready for work. They switch between several different hosts (isn't that Greta a babe?). Hearing conservative callers with crack pot views gets me angry and in a defensive mood that prepares me for what the day will throw at me.

Here's a poem I wrote a few years ago about talk radio:

Talk Radio Jihad

Leaving work, I turn on my car radio
only to hear the last few minutes
of the Mush Windbag Show.

Mush: “The Congress should vote against the minimum wage increase, it’s
already high, whatever it is. They should give more tax breaks and incentives to
businesses and keep workers from getting minimum wage increases.”

Caller: “Ditto Mush on the minimum wage it’s already too high…whatever it is. I also agree with you about the environment. Environmentalist are commies, green on the outside and red on the inside.”

Mush: “Yes, trees are not beautiful until you cut them down and make something from them. Goodbye ditto heads, be ever vigilant and tune in tomorrow.”

I yell at the radio,
I guess God had in mind big picnic tables when he made the giant sequoia trees.
Yes, keep tuning in ditto head lemmings
until prophet Mush tells you when to drink the Kool-Aid
We need national health care to get these callers mental help.
It must be very hard to dial the telephone in a straight jacket.

The news comes on to say protesters at a Buchanan fundraiser
called Pat, David Duke without the sheet.
Pat Buchanan’s sister Bay says, “I hate David Duke, he steals all of Pat’s ideas.”

Next on the radio comes a local show
with the host Don Dangling Participle
Don: “Now the government wants to regulate wages. The minimum wage is too high already…whatever it is. We don’t need government intervention. Let’s go to the phone lines. Callers what’s wrong with America?”

Don hits line one : Caller; “Big Government”
Ok, line 2: “Big government”
Line 3: “ Big government.”
Line 4: “Big government, big government, big government”
Don: “Caller turn down your radio when you call.”

Next line caller; “Hi Don, Juliet here, long time listener, first time caller. I was struck by a hit and run driver in a BMW last winter as I waited for a bus. I’m in a wheel chair for life and my husband has become an invalid also.”
Don: “Yeah, you old battle axe, so what?”
Caller: “Well we worked at minimum wage jobs and have no savings and are having a hard time making ends meet. I turned on the radio to hear you arguing against a minimum wage increase. Why over the years have you gotten meaner and meaner to working people?”

Don: “Listen lady I got married a few years ago and had an instant family. My wife wanted a big wedding ring, a big new house, a new car, and a $1500 dryer one of my sponsors sells and a $1000 sweeper another sponsor sells. Hell lady, my life’s been super sized in a short period of time. I had to get a 2nd career running a grass cutting business. I don’t like minimum wage increases because it will mean I’ve got to pay my employees more. Got it battle axe?”

Don;: “Next caller: Big government bad.”
Next: “Hey Don I can’t talk long, I’ve got to get to my post office box to pick up my Social Security check and re-mail a government college grant check to my son that came to my house by mistake then stop for a check up at the Vet’s hospital.”
Don: “Yeah, old timer so what did you want to say?”
Caller: “Just that big government is bad.”

Now for a commercial: Hello from Right Wing Wacko Books.com. Check out this great new book, “Benefits Bah Humbug” by Silas Marner. Learn how to keep your workforce from obtaining health care, vacations and how to keep your sweatshop free of: unions, OSHA and EPA regulations. “Benefits Bah Humbug” with a forward by conservative union buster, the Gipper. Order one today.

The next program was an investment show.
“Hi, I’m Rob Grinch, host of Who Says You Can’t Take It with You, Sew Pockets in Your Shroud.”
First off: “Big government is bad, they’re trying to raise the minimum wage which is far too high…whatever it presently is.”
On to the first caller: “Rob I agree the minimum wage is too high…whatever that figure is. Now my problem, I make $635,000 a year, my wife $510,000. We’ve got a $985,000 house paid off, $3.5 million in 401ks, 1.8 million in bonds plus I just inherited 6 million.”
Rob: “What’s your question?”
Caller: “I need your help because, it’s free. Should I spend money for snow tires this winter or can my wife get by with her BMW’s all season tires? Last winter she slid off the road and thought maybe she hit something so she’s concerned about snow tires this year.”
Rob: “What the bleep, bleep, call the auto talk show you bleep. I’m a certified investor.”

Next caller: “Hi Rob, I’m Romeo. I just turned on the show and I don’t know your topic but I need help. I broke my spine on my job as a manual loader of anvils and I have no insurance or health care and a wife and 2 kids and a $15,000 house to pay off.”
Rob: “Did you sock away any money?”
Caller: “Not making minimum wage I didn’t.”
Rob: “What’s that pay?”
Caller: “$5.15 an hour.”
Rob: “Far too much, I knew it. Make your wife work.”
Caller: “She’s in a wheelchair, last winter a hit and run driver in a BMW hit her, jumping the curb while she waited for a bus. She has doctor bills over $300,000. What can I do?”
Rob: “I’ve got one word for you, cyanide. Sayonara until tomorrow listeners.”

Next came the therapist show,
“Hi, I’m Dr. Whora Slutfinger and I’m my kid’s mom.” I’m thinking that’s her way of talking about herself 3 times in one sentence.

Her first caller: “Dr. Whora, my husband has a permanent spine injury and can’t work. I am also an invalid since I was hit by a BMW hit and run driver last winter. We’ve got two kids to feed, no income or health care and 100’s of thousands of dollars in medical bills. We’re so stressed out we don’t know what to do.”
Dr. Whora: “How old are your kids?”
Caller: “ 3 and 5.”
Dr.: “You didn’t stay home with your kids? You worked?”
Caller: “Yes, my husband and I only had minimum wage jobs.”
Dr.: “You should have stayed home with your kids, you shameless bitch. I’m sure God is punishing you for working. You and your shack up honey probably have tons of cash saved since you both worked minimum wage jobs which pay way too much…whatever that figure is.”

Next up was a news break with Saul Harve.
“Hello, Saul Harve here with the rest of the story."

Page 1: A Romeo & Juliet love story. With Romeo suffering from a spine injury he somehow gets the crazy idea to end it all with cyanide.

Page 2: Juliet finds his lifeless body, pulls her wheelchair next to him and takes the rest of the cyanide. Her small children find her muttering, “shack up honey, shameless bitch, God is punishing me” as she dies in their arms.

Page 3: It is your announcer’s view they ended their lives because they were depressed with their human condition. You see they both had minimum wage jobs and therefore must have been living the life of luxury. Living a decadent, debauched life discovering all their fabulous wealth could not bring them happiness.

Page 4: Yes, the lesson we have to learn is that minimum wage is already too high…whatever it is. Good day.

Minimum wage VS CEO pay:CEO

Minimum wage song: minimum wage

Smashing Pumpkins parody minimum wage song: Bob Rivers

God is Not Spelled G.O.P.

2008-11-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

All right that does it I had more than my fill of the Catholic Church. Before you label me a Catholic basher know that I spent fifty years doing penance in that faith before I left. I will save all the reasons for another post, as they will be lengthy. What I want to address is the harm they are presently doing by getting involved into politics.

Rev. Jay Scott Newman a South Carolina Roman Catholic priest distributed a letter to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote for Barrack Obama. Fr. Newman says Catholics should always vote for the pro-life candidate, as any other issues don’t count.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas said politicians “ can’t check your principals at the door of the legislature.” Naumann has said repeatedly that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic Democrat who supports abortion rights, should stop taking Holy Communion until she becomes pro-life." They cannot call themselves Catholic when they violate such a core belief as the dignity of the unborn," Naumann said.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops told Catholic politicians and voters that the abortion issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 was criticized for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.

This act of Catholic priests telling you who to vote for is not new to the elecpencil. I attended a small Catholic church in Warren Ohio for a number of years. In 1988 I was appalled when one of the priests at mass told us we had to vote for George H. Bush because he was pro-life. Sadly, this priest went to another Warren parish where he claimed two African American kids knifed him. It was soon learned he lied and had actually tried to commit suicide. That lie almost erupted the city into a race riot.

On the very day of the 2008 election I heard a bishop I believe to be Naumann from Kansas City interviewed on a Fundamentalist Christian radio show syndicated by local 1440 AM. He said to Catholics considering a vote for Obama: "Give consideration to your eternal salvation."

Despite the Catholic Church’s claims that abortion needed to be the one issue that Catholics voted on, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama. In a poll of likely Catholic voters, 70 percent said that the views of Catholic bishops holds no weight in deciding for whom to vote and 73 percent said they believe they are under no religious obligation to vote the way the bishops recommend.

The Catholic Church has a proud history of standing up for many movements of social justice. These are issues like: peace, justice, racial equality, workers rights, the fight for raising the minimum wage, health, safety, homelessness, poverty, environmental issues, corporate responsibility etc. The Catholic Church needs to remember that Republicans have always been the ones on the other side of these issues fighting back. That has not been lost on Catholic voters just the churches hierarchy. As far as the issue of decaying morality, let’s put the blame where it belongs, on conservative values, which promote greed as good, looking out for number one, and the support of an economic system that puts profits before people. Conservatives, I’ve come to realize confuse G.O.P. and GOD.

Since 9/11 I have heard hatred, racism and religious intolerance from people of many faiths. The most shocking to me were some things I heard a couple of years ago on the Catholic Church’s radio station, “"Stations of the Cross.”" On various programs on the station I heard: A Catholic Priest (who was a former Episcopalian Priest) criticize Episcopalians and Lutherans. I heard one host trashing Mormons another Moslems. I heard an author interviewed who was promoting his book, which would arm Catholics with information to combat those "pesky" Jehovah Witness missionaries when they come to your door talking religion.

It is time to realize there can be no peace and tolerance among nations if there is neither among religions.

As I go to print this it’s ironic I received information about a priest I have met and respect more than any other one I’ve ever met. I’m talking about Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of the School of the Americas Watch in Columbus Georgia. Fr. Roy leads yearly demonstrations against the School of the Americas that trains death squads for third world dictators. Despite all the great work that Fr. Roy had done he is being threatened with excommunication by Pope Benedict XVI (who as a cardinal was the one who hid the pedophile priest problem). This is because Fr. Roy has spoken in favor of ordaining women as priests.

This about Fr. Roys excommunication threat: check out the comments

I am saddened by this threat as I have been saddened by the second-class treatment of women in the church and the church’s stand against gays. With all this talk of denying parishioners communion and excommunication I would ask if the Catholic Church excommunicated pedophile priests or forgave them as Christ would? If the Catholic and other Christian churches are going to excommunicate liberal members who are pro-choice and use birth control, and conservative members who use birth control, are pro-war, pro-death penalty, and pro-pollution of our planet by corporations, all things opposed to Christian church teachings, I think you’re going to find the pews pretty empty.

With all the hate and intolerance I’m hearing from various religions that may not be such a bad thing.

Ammunition song : Ammunition

Big Butter Jesus: In Southern Ohio

A Message fron God No More Bigotry in My Name

2008-11-12T15:45:00.000-08:00

A message from God: God’s message

Lots of voters missed that message from God in California, Florida and Arizona when they voted to ban gay marriages.

Individual contributions from Mormon Church members put up $15,305,050 to pass Proposition 8 in California banning gay marriages. The Catholic Knights of Columbus was the largest single contributor against gay marriages spending $1.4 million. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops kicked in $200,000 and Dr.James Dobson's Focus on the Family contributed more than $400,000 to the Yes On 8 Proposition. Other contributors included, the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association ($500,000), and Elsa Prince, ($450,000), mother of Erik Prince, founder of the private security contractor Blackwater Worldwide.

Besides the money another reason proposition 8 passed was the turnout of the minority population. 50% of Latino voters voted for proposition 8. African Americans who came out in big numbers for Obama voted 70% for the ban. The 51% of whites who voted against the ban were not able to make up for the minority vote for the ban.

Latinos are mostly Catholic so they supported their church in the discrimination against gays despite the discrimination Latinos face in the U.S. Mormons who spent big dollars to deny gays the rights of marriage have forgotten their own church history about how they suffered horrible persecution and were driven from state to state. Most gays voting cast ballots for Barak Obama and yet African Americans forgetting about the bigotry they have faced voted to discriminating against gays. In the case of color I believe many African Americans are some of the most religious people so I believe religion is what fosters their homophobia, not skin color

The elecpencil worked at an African American radio station for two years doing a weekly interview show in the mid 1990’s. I interviewed a young African American minister because I admired the work he was doing ministering to prisoners. Because he also worked construction and I am interested in labor issues we talked about minority hiring. I asked him how many minorities were on the large construction job he was presently on. He replied, "Only half a dozen." I asked, "How many women?" He answered, "Thankfully none as they need to be home making dinner and ironing." We then got into a heated argument because he didn’t see anything wrong with what he had said.

Another time near Martin Luther King Day I had on a local well-respected African American minister who had marched with MLK. I had seen in the newspaper he was having a meeting with the Promise Keepers. I sited some quotes from Promise Keeper leaders that trashed gays and treated women like subhumans and asked him why he would meet with such hate mongers. He asked me where I got such information. I replied from Promise Keeper literature and the NOW organization and the Gay and Lesbian Task Force. He replied, "Who cares what a bunch of queers and militant feminists have to say." We got into a heated argument when I replied, "You may have marched with MLK but you surely never listened to him."

I can tell you that the African Americans at the station took the ministers side and not the elecpencils. I was surprised at how African Americans who have suffered discrimination have no empathy for others suffering discrimination. I had to learn that it had nothing to do as I said with color but had everything to do with the hypocrisy that exists within the Christian faith.

Christian Coalition promises more anti-gay amendments: not so Christian coalition

As far as the Knights of Columbus and other Catholics (and I say this as a former Catholic) they might be better served not electing former cardinals to pope that hid the priest pedophilia problems than worrying about gays marrying. I have a whole tirade to wage against some of the U.S. Catholic Bishops who try to politicize elections. I will save that for later in a discussion about one issue Catholics.

As for now let me say, California by court order had created a bright new age where gay people had equal rights to enter into a loving committed relationship. The passing of Proposition 8 serves to discriminate against citizens of our country who just wanted the same rights of happiness and love as others have.

On a bright note Prop. 8 was opposed at significantly higher rates among California's youth. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, a poll taken before the election showed that 59 percent of likely voters aged 18 to 34 opposed the anti-gay measure. Maybe the future will be brighter.

Another bright note is that some Mormons are standing up against their churches bigotry against gays: Speaking out

Proposition 8 lies: the lies in Prop 8

Thugs claiming to be Mormons attack protesters: thugs

Gay marriage song; Love Conquers All

It's About Time Song: In California

Review of a Kick Ass Concert and Warning of a Weasel in the Hen House

2008-11-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

This was meant to be a review of Mike Stout’s concert last night at YSU (it follows this rant) before I brought in today’s Warren Tribune from the paper box. The Trib as it’s dubbed is the local newspaper. It’s actually owned by a corporate conservative conglomerate. It ignores the working-class make up of our area and endorses candidates like McCain. Being conservative it loves school vouchers and tells our citizens to vote against school levees even the local school for handicapped kids. This isn’t a rant against everything that's wrong with the Trib as that would take me tens years to write working 24/7 but on a story that was in this mornings Trib.

The story is about USW (United Steel Worker) Local 3523’s members having been on strike against Thomas Steel in Warren Ohio for 100 days. I was glad to see our congressman Tim Ryan stopped to visit the strikers. Rep. Ryan spoke to the company’s owners a few months ago in an effort to get them back to the bargaining table. I sadly note that the workers are being represented by, Gary Steinbeck, a subdistrict director for the United Steelworkers International.

Gary was the union staff man for my USW local so I feel for the strikers. When Gary represented my plant he never met a contract he didn’t think we should pass. Gary would have had us vote yes on a blank sheet of paper. When we complained of terrible contracts Gary would reply, “We’ll get em next time guys.” Next time of course was always worse as once you open the concessionary door to the hen house the fox has an endless food supply to feast on.

In 1998 the roosters and hens at the plant I worked at had enough of bad contracts. They rejected an ugly contract from a new company that wanted to buy our plant. It went down to defeat by a vote of about 75 to 25. Guys who had voted for any contract in the past now said we had negotiated away everything but our dignity and by damn we were now standing up for our dignity! By the next week our dignity was stolen as Gary told us the USW was our bargaining agent and he was passing the contract we turned down. Some of us in the hen house were not going to be battered, seasoned and fried chickens or roasted roosters so a case was mounted to take to the Labor Board charging that the company and the USW were in bed together.

We lost the case because the USW by law represents the local rank and file members and doesn’t even have to give us the right to vote on a contract. So much for democracy in a union. The new company Gary had told us was great at turning companies around. The new company came in and unscrewed every other light bulb because they were a bunch of nickel and dimmer, ten-cent millionaires. The plant closed within a year and the same owners had purchased Copperweld Steel and closed it in no time at all.

Gary is a weasel who doesn’t care how bad a contract is because he doesn’t have to go to work everyday under it. You can’t let weasels into your hen house as they will steal your eggs and suck the life from them. I’m the most union person you’ll ever meet but I have no use for company unions who are nothing but mere cops for the boss. Unions need to know the real union is the rank and file members on the shop floor. That’s much like our political representatives need to learn they represent the people not corporations. I feel for the strikers at Thomas Steel because the only talk Gary knows is B.S. and the only walk he knows is slithering like the snake he is. Strikers stand up for your dignity and view your union “representative” Gary with a watchful eye. Best of luck to you FW’s (fellow workers).

A Real Grievance Man Sings Out at YSU

WYSU is a great station and they proved it to me by having Pittsburgh’s Mike Stout and the Human Union band play WYSU’s Folk Festival last night. Mike is a former grievance man for the US Steel Homestead Works. That, coupled with the working-class conscious music he makes today, has led him led him to be dubbed, “the Grievance Man of the world.” Grievance Man Mike has used his safety shoe allowance on steel-toed boots in the form of a dozen and a half songs he brought to Y-town to kick the powers-that-be in the ass and unite the working-class in solidarity in the struggle for a better world.

The elecpencil dragged his tired rump out for the evening even though working with some overactive youngsters at work left him as tired as Superman after a double shift at the Kryptonite mine. Ms Elecpencil having her strength zapped by the same type of tykes even joined me for the evening, which is a rare event. That’s mostly because like me she loves Mike’s music. I was invited to a get together for Mike before hand but due to circumstances beyond my control (which is about how 90% of my life is) we arrived just before the music started.

Though I didn’t see a lot of advertising for the event it was well attended. The crowd was a mix of many of the activists and radicals in the area. That includes lots of folks the elepencil loves and admires and was happy to see. These are people who make this community better and are therefore my kind of people! Mike’s also as he opened with his song, “My Kind of People.” Mike followed that up with more songs about: Solidarity, historic working-class heroes and heroines, a song about the School of the Americas, revolution, hope and freedom. His band the Human Union is made up of some of the best musicians in the Pittsburgh area. Guitarists Dan Parese and Fred Nelson help deliver a powerful and solid contract for the World’s Grievance Man. Ms. Elecpencil noted how, Fred’s slide guitar on Mike’s,” The Big Time Corporate Blues” was especially haunting.

Mike talked about how his father sent him away to a Catholic detention school for troubled kids. Mike said, he hid a radio under his pillow and listened to Chicago’s WLS’s top hits of the time. This brought back memories to the elepencil because his parents were Catholics who ran their home like a detention center. In my cell I would also hide my radio under the pillow. I listened to Chicago station WCFL’s Sunday show, “Ron Britain’s Subterranean Circus.” Britain introduced me to Muddy Water’s, “Electric Mud,” John Mayall and the Blues Breakers, Terry Reid, etc. Grievance Man Mike played three Beatles tunes he remembered from those times. He started with, “You’ve got to Hide Your Love Away.” As he played I thought about how that was one of my favorite Beatle tunes that doesn’t get played much. I was thinking the other Beatle tune I love and seldom hear is Norwegian Wood” Next thing I know Mike is playing, “Norwegian Wood.” Like Mike my favorite Beatles album is also, “Rubber Soul.” If you have the album dig it out and play, “The Word” and “In my Life” and see if you don’t agree.

Being in Youngstown Mike played Springsteen’s, "Youngstown." He did,”Flowers of the Working-class” about two former Youngstown union leaders, John Barbaro and Ed Mann. Today’s union leaders like Gary Steinbeck could never fill Ed and John’s steel toe work shoes. Mike also played a song called "Mama Bear" written about and dedicated to Niles Ohio activist, Alice Lynd who was in attendance. Alice and her husband Staughton have been mentors to many others and me and our community is lucky to have such people. Ms. Elecpencil says, I’m a better person for having known the Lynds. Having known Mike for what must be over a decade I can say my kid are better kids by having been exposed to his music at home and in the car.

Mikes music gives voice to the voiceless. The voiceless are the downtrodden, the immigrants, the incarcerated and the workers left behind because of social injustice and globalization. He makes us workers realize, we’ve not just sold our labor, but also our souls to a system that promises us dreams but delivers us nightmares.

Sadly, Mike’s music is not for everyone. It’s only for those of us who won’t settle for the banality of junk food in our literature or music. If you seek something life sustaining, you’ll find it fulfilling and loaded with protein. Those of us who look to be the carpenters of a new world need these songs as tools towards that construction.

For your tool box pick up Mikes latest CD, “The Point of Pittsburgh.”

I could say tons more about Mike's music but his songs speak for them self and you can hear them at Mike's website: Mike Stout

Review of the New Ytown Reading Series and Three Legged - Elephants

2008-11-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

When I started writing this blog I was hoping I could review some events in the Youngstown and surrounding area. The first problem with having a Blog is you have to know how to write. I don’t mean just stringing thoughts together but actually using proper punctuation, spelling etc. Remember how you took another language in high school or college? Know how all you can do today is count to ten in Spanish or German. That’s the problem I face today with writing skills. After a couple of years at college and working two jobs and being dirt poor I quit the jobs and college all in one day (more on this another time) bummed around for awhile and got a job in one of our ancestral job sites known as a factory. I then didn’t pick up a pen for decades so I lost all writing skills.

Being someone who was into Punk Rock I realized you didn’t need writing skills to write. I started reading working-class poetry and decided that mixing my industrial background with a less is more, irreverent punk school of thought would be something I could do. Punctuation, spelling be damned (but thank God for Spell check anyway). OK that’s my way of saying I don’t know what the Hell I’m doing but full steam ahead. Nietzsche once said, “It is better for the Three-Legged Elephant to dance foolishly than to never have danced.” In the last decade and a half I have been dancing foolishly a lot.

While working on a monthly labor issue newsletter with some wonderful folks I started writing poetry. I realized I was going to at some point get in front of a crowd and read these poems. I was the guy in high school that wouldn’t take speech because I was afraid to get in front of folks and present something. Well, I have been getting in front of small groups doing readings for over a decade. Yep, I still am uneasy doing it and know I always will be. But by damn this three-legged Elephant doesn’t want to miss dancing.

Back to my wanting to review events in the area. The truth is I really don’t get out enough to be able to review anything. Also, after working with hyperactive kids all day I am hammered by the end of the day. My day at work is full of noisy kids and I really need some quiet when I get home. I love my job but I pretty much took a vow of poverty when I signed on. Truth is with poverty wages a son in college and a daughter going to college next year I really can’t afford to attend very many events.

I loaded up my vehicle with lots of heavy scrap metal today to get a few bucks ahead. At the scrap yard I had to drive down a long road filled with broken glass and scrap metal. I also had to unload all this crap myself. For all my hard work I walked away with the princely sum of $1.43. I will probably end up having to repair a tire for $20 with all the glass I drove over. There is no getting ahead brothers and sisters.

When I do venture out it is usually for some free event. As I mentioned previously my wife suffers from Lupus. Cold weather is especially hard on her so if I do venture out I try not to stay at an event for to long. I actually would like to bring folks to tag along but because I tend to get in and out of an event I don’t bother to ask anyone to come along. I’d actually love to stay some place I’m at longer and socialize. People who know me well will say I’m opinionated, boisterous, and humorous and love to banter back and forth with people. On the other hand if I don’t know you I am not unfriendly just shy.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way let me tell you about an event I attended Monday night. I went to Cedar’s Cafe for the New Ytown Reading Series. Local author, Chris Barzak is putting on this event, which features a visiting writer or poet, followed by an Open Mic. Monday’s speaker was the Akron Beacon Journalist David Giffels. Giffels newest book is, “All the Way Home.” It is a memoir about rehabbing a crumbling mansion in Akron. He has also written, “The Story of Rubber in Akron” and a biography of one of my favorite bands, Devo. He’s won a slew of awards and before you start thinking oh no not some high brow boring shit let me mention he was a writer for “Beavis and Butthead.”

This event featured two things I’m all about first access to beer and the event was free! Cedar’s Cafe has reopened and features tapas and panini sandwiches. I ordered hummus and it was creamy, yummy and a generous portion. I also got a Straub draft for a mere $1. Straub is my favorite beer along with Stoney’s (a great name for a beer) as both have all natural ingredients and are as pure as beer can be. A real working-class punk valued beer. None of that dark beer over yeasty, added flavor crap for me. Drinking that dark crap is like pureeing a loaf of pumpernickel bread and drinking it. What the Hell is with Corona beer? When I visited Mexico almost a decade ago I noticed you couldn’t give Corona away. People called it peasant beer. I learned that was because it was aged less than three weeks and contains corn syrup instead of 100% malted barley. Some how it made it’s way to the USA and is marketed as a top-notch beer. Any beer that people stick a lime in to mask the over sugary taste should be a tip off that the beer sucks. You shouldn’t have to add fruit to a beer just like you shouldn’t have to add mixes to liquor. A whiskey that won’t stand on it’s own isn’t worth drinking.

But I digress and must say I enjoyed David Giffels. He brought back memories of the Bank punk club in Akron and talked about Highland Square. He made me realize I love going to Akron because it reminds me so much of Youngstown. David talked and joked with us about trying to remodel an Akron mansion while trying to convince his wife he was up to the task. The book is a coming of age life story about dealing with an aged house on life support. Dealing with such a remodeling task David wondered at times whether he was breathing life into the home or it was sucking the life out of him.

I enjoyed briefly talking with David about the things I love about Akron. I was glad to learn David had fond memories of being in a band and playing at Cedars. After David there was an Open Mic where local folks shared poetry. Including the elecpencil himself. I don’t think I will ever be comfortable reading my poetry and I have a hard time looking at people after I am done. I really do admire some of the folks that can recite poems off the top of their head, as it’s something I would never attempt to do.

What I do isn’t poetry as much as observations and rants. To me there are only two types of poems, ones you start and ones you finish. I really do try and avoid some poetry readings that are highbrow shit with poems about nature with a ton of adjectives. I’ve been to a few poetry events that feature award winning poems and short stories by people working on their Masters’ of Fine Arts (MFA) and PhDs in creative writing. After hearing their poetry I started to think MFA must mean Mother Fucking Awful. This is the artsy fartsy, boring soulless, sterile academic, uninspiring crap that gives poetry and short stories a bad name. I want to hear short stories and poetry about events and characters that make you laugh, cry and even angry. These kinds of writers and poets are ones who’ve earned their MLE (Master of Life Experience) on the shop floor. If there were any justice in the world these writers would be the award winners who could earn a living by being a writer. I’m glad to say David Giffel is in the later class.

All in all it was a good event and I’d recommend you go next month. Chris Barzak who I’m told is a gifted writer himself (I’m to poor to any longer buy books) is putting on this monthly event. Being in some organizations that put on events I can tell you a lot of work goes into events so I was glad to see a nice size group of audience members. I as usual had to rush home after the event but if my broke, tired old ass can drag itself out for the night than you can to. See you next month at Cedar’s Cafe and bring some poetry to read as we three-legged elephants should stick together. ~ In solidarity ~ the elecpencil

Drano Joe the Circus Monkey

2008-11-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

The latest news on Joe the plumber has him hiring an agent see here: Agent
Joe is going to be a millionaire after all! That’s why he’s for McCain, as millionaires don’t pay taxes under Republicans.

As comedian Bill Maher said, "Joe doesn’t want to pay more taxes but is willing to give an agent 15%." News is Joe is also going to record a country and western album. Joe was on right-wing talk radio hosts Laura Ingraham’s show saying he may run for congress. I remember reading in David Brocks great book, "Blinded by the Right" that of all his former right-wing friends she was the dumbest and shallowest. He said he noted being at her home and noticing she owned no books and he also doubted she had ever read a book.

For all those right-wingers that claim the press wouldn’t let Joe have any privacy it’s worth noting Joe is trying to exploit his 15 minutes of fame to the max. Joe has been joining McCain/Palin on the campaign trail to try and influence the "Joe Six" packs of the country. As a Joe Six pack I can tell you when my plant closed I went from being in the industrial sector to the service sector. I note that Ronald Reagan’s service sector pays way less than the industrial sector did. So many of us Joe Six packs are now Joe Two packs.

On the campaign trail Joe agreed with a guy that a vote for Obama is the death of Israel. Obama of course is a big supporter of Israel. How dumb of a right-winger are you when FOX News’s Shep Smith calls you out as being frightening? : Calling Joe frightening

Joe is truly an uninformed bald bobblehead. Anyone agree with me that Joe has been huffing Drano?

McCain has been calling Joe the Plumber his hero. McCain says Joe’s a regular guy who works hard and pays his taxes. Well pays his taxes sometimes, as he presently owes $1200. As for working hard Joe is an unlicensed plumber, which makes him a handyman. I don’t know about you but when I hire a plumber I want a licensed, bonded and insured one. Joe obviously doesn’t know enough to pay his taxes but wants to question Obama’s tax plan. Joe’s worried about how to get out of paying taxes one day when he becomes a millionaire. Joe you are already not paying your taxes and working without a license, which makes you a typical republican.

Joe says he hopes to one day buy his bosses business that makes over $250,000 a year. Joe’s boss laughed and said he makes about $100,000 and has never talked about selling Joe his unlicensed contracting business. I guess Joe was giving Obama the business when he spouted off his B.S. about becoming a business owner. First off Joe get a license and some plumber training.

Besides spouting off about Obama and Israel Joe has weighed in on hating Social Security and stopping immigration. Joe your parents get Social Security so have them refuse the checks and you pay for their keep. As far as illegal immigrants they are coming to the USA to better their life isn’t that what you wanted to do by buying your bosses business? Immigrants would actually be smart enough have a conversation with their boss if they were interested in buying his business. Immigrants would also realize they don’t need to buy out someone’s business because how much does it really take to run an unlicensed contracting business? What a pick em up truck and an ad in the newspaper?

Joe I believe McCain when he says you are his hero. That’s because Joe is the middle-class guy republicans’ love. He’s a regular working guy deluding himself into thinking he’s one day going to be a millionaire businessman. He’s a guy who owes money to a hospital but isn’t concerned with health care plans. He’s a middle class guy who doesn’t realize or care that the wealthy own our politicians and pay them to write laws for their benefit not the benefit of the middle class and poor. He’s a guy who doesn’t understand that the wealthy profit from wars that the poor and middle-class sacrifice their kids for. McCain the multi-millionaire is exploiting Joe the wanna be millionaire. Joe rails against socialism while socialism just bailed out the wealthy.

The Joe Six packs that vote for the McCain’s, Reagan’s and Bushes of the world haven’t figured out what their place is at the big top republican tent. The media is corporate owned and therefore not liberal but conservative. In the big top GOP tent the media is therefore the clowns entertaining you. The corporate CEO's play their high wire acts and if they fall they use the middle-class as the nets to save their rich asses. The lion tamers are politicians who try to scare us with fear and claim only they can save us. The magicians are the conservatives trying to convince us trickle down economics is not a trick that only rewards the wealthy. The Republican symbol the elephant is the star trampling anything in it’s way. When the elephants have done their damage and left their excrement the middle-class and poor that vote for them are left to clean up their shit. Right now Bush is the ringmaster and McCain wants to be. Let’s hope after next Tuesday we can tell them to pack up their tent and hit the road.

Tonio K One Big (Happy) Family: Happy?

Tonio K Funky Western Civilization: Funky

Jesus Hussein Christ

2008-10-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

After spending a long time doing some historic research I’ve made an important discovery. I know you’ve often heard Jesus Christ called, Jesus H. Christ. Well my extensive research shows that the H. stands for HUSSEIN.

Yep, Jesus was a Moslem. I know this is going to shake up the Christian world because they never liked the idea that people thought that Jesus was Jewish. Jesus Hussein Christ, Jesus Hussein Christ, Jesus Hussein Christ say it with me. There, we just caused some Christian McCain supporters to have strokes!

I am sure my research will drive some Christian leaders insane. Then again aren’t many of them already insane? Let me give you some examples of their insanity: First from Phyllis Schlafly a right-wing icon who founded the Eagle Forum,who was central in derailing the Equal Rights Amendment. Schlafly a firm believer in the use of nuclear weapons, once pronounced "the atomic bomb" is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God.”

Pat Robertson (Christian Coalition): "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist."

Paul Cameron: "I think that actually AIDS is a guardian. That is I think it was sent, if you would, about forty years ago, to destroy Western civilization unless we change our sexual ways. So it's really a Godsend."

Randall Terry (Operation Rescue): "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty; we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."

Also: "When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed."*

Robert T. Lee (Society for the Practical Establishment of the Ten Commandments): Democracy originated in the mind of a rational being who has the deepest hatred for God." "Do you realize that the only thing that gives democracy existence is sin? The absence of democracy is perfect obedience to god."

Star Parker (Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education): "Anybody that believes in separation of church and state needs to leave right now."

Joseph Morecraft (Chalcedon Presbyterian Church): "Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah. And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody's pseudo-right to worship an idol."

Jerry Falwell: "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

J. B. Stoner (White Supremacist): "We had lost the fight for the preservation of the white race until God himself intervened in earthly affairs with AIDS to rescue and preserve the white race that he had created.... I praise God all the time for AIDS."

"AIDS is a racial disease of Jews and Niggers, and fortunately it is wiping out the queers. I guess God hates queers for several reasons. There is one big reason to be against queers and that is because every time some white boy is seduced by a queer into becoming a queer, means his white bloodline has run out."

It’s even scarier when politicians make religious wacko quotes.

George Bush Sr. (President of the United States): "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

Ronald Reagan (President of the United States): "For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ."

We survived Reagan,two Bushes and the will of the above Christian wackos and I'm suppose to fear Obama because his middle name is Hussein?

Jesus H. (Hussein) Christ what is wrong with that nut case Joe the dumb plumber? More on that tomorrow.

America owns Jesus. Bad religion sing:American Jesus

Jesse James sings Dear Jesus:Dear Jesus

Heaven is Not Segregated

2008-10-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

If we can get on You Tube and view videos filled with racial hate by white trash Americans aimed at Obama don’t you think the rest of the world can? Don’t you think bin Laden can easily show these videos of American racists for the purpose of recruiting terrorists? These recruited terrorists will hate the white trash Americans for hating anyone who isn’t white and Christian. The Arab terrorists will figure if these Americans in the videos hate their own countrymen for not being white Christian they are certainly no people you’d want to be setting foot on your soil. So as you can see hate is a vicious circle.

The thing is some of these foreign countries think all Americans are like the racist Americans you see in these videos. I am not calling for a ban on videos showing these racists against the Obama campaign. I don’t believe in censoring the media. I’m for calling these racists UN-AMERICAN. They want to label anyone who doesn’t think like them un-American but the truth is people preaching racism are more than un-American they are terrorists.

I am ashamed to live in a country with folks like the ones in these videos. They call themselves Christians but they make as much of a mockery of the bible as Al-Qaeda does of the Koran.

See what I mean by these subhumans in Ohio: racists

A guy in a Confederate hat who’s not a racist? Las Vegas racists

More Vegas: racists

Then you’ve got racists in the media: racist media

Racists in PA: Pa racists

A racist biker shows he has brain damage after a wreck not wearing a helmet. How else would you explain this T-shirt: racist biker

Millions listen to this racist everyday: radio racist

Listening to racists like Rush and Hannity leads folks to this: assasins

Nietzsche said, "The last Christian died on the cross." There are lots of Christians about that prove him right.

Eliza Gilkyson sings about the Man of God: Man of
God

Cure for racism and hate: cure

Sing it Bob! Redemption Songs

If Obama gets elected we will show the world the majority of Americans are not racists! We are all brothers and sisters no matter race or religion!

Of Holy Books to Rick

2008-10-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning with every intention of going to a memorial at YSU's Planetarium for Rick Perko. The arthritis in my back, knee and bursitus in my hip had other plans for me. By afternoon I was able to try and speed limp out to the mailbox. I was rewarded with my monthly invite to join AARP and a free copy of, "Arthritis Today." Nothing like kicking a guy when he's down and adding insult to injury.

Since I didn't make it to YSU I'd like to say this about Rick:

I got to know Rick Perko as a fellow member of the Valley Co-alition of Peace and Justice. I enjoyed talking to Rick while we held signs at Friday afternoon protests against the Iraq war. I remember reading a Letter to the Editor of the Jambar Rick had written. I discussed it with him while protesting telling him how much I liked what he had written.

This to YSU’s Jambar 2/10/05: Jambar letter

Digging up that letter I note how Rick was sure right about where the Bush economy was headed. I laughed aloud when I read, "I hoard my Canadian Quarters."

I’m Rick’s age and only wish that I had been able to accomplish half as mush at Rick did in his lifetime.

Being a religious skeptic like Rick and hearing the story of him removing bibles from hotel rooms I'm posting this poem (posted here as an article to save space) I wrote some time ago. I hope he would have liked it:

Of Holy Books

Christians are portraying Moslems who follow their holy book, the Koran as intolerant murderers, criminals and terrorists. Some Christians are saying, atrocities such as the attack on 9/11 can easily be attributed to the prophet Mohammed and the god, Allah. They point out Koran verses that preach hate like the following: "Don’t associate with those of other faiths." "Don’t receive them into you home or even exchange greetings with them." Others who don’t share your beliefs have an "evil heart."

It gets even more intolerant when you read; "God destroys those who don’t believe in him." When the god in this supposed "Holy Book" isn’t killing someone, which he seems to do on many pages, he is ordering his followers to kill any friends or family that worships a god different than him. He says to kill them in their very own church. He orders, "Kill all inhabitants of any city where people worship different than you." There are holy verses that call for the elimination of entire ethnic groups including women, children, animals and even trees. He tells his followers to, hide along the road wait for women and then kidnap, rape and marry them. This god tells his followers you are "of God" and everyone else is wicked.

You best believe there’s a lot to fear from this faith when you read, "Everyone will have to worship the prophet---whether they want to or not." They place themselves above all laws by the verse, "A follower cannot be accused of any wrongdoing." I’ve only scratched the surface of the hate and evil deeds in this so called, "Holy Book."
Knowing that their faith could crumble if it were to under go any free and critical thinking, this prophet tells his followers to avoid philosophy. That just proves that ignorance is bliss.

Surely this hate-filled book should never be in a library. It should also never be allowed in a school. Banning it is just not enough. All copies of it need to be immediately burned. If I were a politician who espoused "family values," I’d strike the first match. Clerics of every religion should be calling for a funeral pyre of this unholy book. It’s little wonder that its followers’ fight constant wars and justify them.

I did extensive research that buried my desk in a pyramid of paper to write this poem. Gathering so much info can get confusing. That’s my excuse because I have just realized, oops, my bad, the aforementioned verses are really from the Bible’s Old and New Testaments, instead of the Koran. All holy books tend to have some type of the hate filled quotes from above in them. Such statements taint any good that can be found in these books. We need to know what’s in our own back yard before we ask our neighbors to clean their back yard. Building fences between our neighbors is surely no way to build a better neighborhood.

Peace to you Rick.

Do-rags, Frisbees, Dogs, Sickos and Wall Street

2008-10-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

On my way to work today I did not notice the bikers I have seen hanging out at the Waffle House. I have noticed them the last three Wednesdays. There are about a dozen wearing $600 leather jackets. They are all on new $20,000 plus full dresser Harley Davidson’s. That’s a lot for a cycle when we have a limited about of season to ride one. I was thinking who are these bikers with so much money who don’t seem to be working on Wednesdays? I then realized that’s the day doctors and dentists have off. That’s who riding these expensive toys as no one else can afford them. A pack of these medical guys have gotten together with their golf buddies and are making a morning stop to get an All-Star Special breakfast.

Now don’t get me wrong I don’t begrudge a doctor or dentist owning an expensive motorcycle. I like my doctor and dentist they're first class guys and deserve the money they make. What I object to is something else I noticed about these medical outlaws. What I was horrified to see was that these guys were either wearing do-rags or bandanas. Bandanas and do rags make horrible helmets and doctors should be smart enough to wear helmets. That doesn’t even bother me so much as what a stupid fashion statement do-rags and bandanas are.

I grew up in the late 60’s and early 70's and have seen more than my fair share of bandanas and these do-rags are just the newest extension of that tacky fashion. Ever see those guys throwing their dog a Frisbee in the park? Odds are their dog, a golden retriever or spaniel will have a blue or red bandana hung in a triangle cowboy kerchief style around the dog’s neck. I overdosed on seeing that in the 70’s. If I ever see that on a dog again I will call the ASPCA and report the dog’s owner for being cruel to animals.

Here’s a sicko site selling dog bandanas: sicko site

Look at this photo and tell me your heart doesn’t weep at what they have done to this poor defenseless animal: sad pooch

If I accomplish nothing in life I at least want put on my tombstone, "He accomplished nothing but at least he never wore a bandana (or do-rag)."

What I really admire about bikers is something we can all learn from them. That is the fact when Ohio passed helmet laws for motorcyclists the cyclist marched on Columbus. They organized with other states in ABATE (American Bikers Aimed Toward Education). ABATE is a freedom of choice organization, dedicated to the premise that the individual is best suited to decide the type of motorcycle to ride, the type of safety gear to wear, and their own personal lifestyle. ABATE monitors legislative activity in regard to laws affecting motorcyclists, especially those designed to limit freedom of choice, and to encourage all members to become politically involved in order to effect positive legislation. Through demonstrations, public forums, writing letters and meeting elected representatives, ABATE members have the opportunity to present their side of the issues and educate governmental leaders about the needs of Ohio motorcyclists.

Where the Hell is the organization to represent the working-class and organize us to fight for our rights? It sure isn't our unions who have become "cops for the boss"' as they negotiate concessionary contracts that give away our pensions, health care and lower our wages. The unions call themselves International but did nothing to raise wages around the world. Had they helped bring up the standards of workers around the world corporations would not of had sweatshop nations to set up shop in. Instead workers around the world are competing in a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions.

Where was the organization representing workers who for the most part didn't want our tax dollars going to bailout Wall Street? Anyone believe our congressmen and senators had our opinions or interests ahead of Wall Streets? Do you think either of our two parties truly represent you? Aren't our politicians today pretty much the type we fought a revolution to get rid of? If socialism is the answer for Wall Street why is it treated like a boogieman when it comes to solving the problems on Main Street? So many questions so little lifetime left.

I am reminded of a poem I wrote years ago when I rhymed things more than I do today. It explains how business is run in America today. Reading it today I am reminded of how much money the taxpayers are giving WalMart to locate in Liberty Ohio.

Business In America

The politician promises all a job, job, job
then it’s off to the country club to hob-nob.

These are the people he must please,
the same ones who send jobs overseas.

He’s got a business to locate in his district,
of course, they have demands that are strict.

They’ll need tax abatements and low interest loans,
local officials will bow at their thrones.

New offices with computers and faxes,
all paid for by the little folks’ taxes.

Have their loan ready on the specified date
or they’ll move to your neighboring state.

When the abatement is up, they’ll need a renewal,
see the stock markets been a bear not a bull.

This is the way business is you see
in a capitalistic economy.

The Oakland Stage Review and Asshole Magnets

2008-10-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

The Mac (my daughter) went with a friend to see Hillary Clinton at YSU. She described Hillary as, "A babe." Like Michael Moore I have also thought that about Hillary. Like Michael I also tend to be disappointed in the Clintons as being, Republican lite. Mac waited about two hours to get into Beegly Center and another hour inside. She got an up front spot but had late comers pushing her out of the way. One woman claimed she just needed to get by to get a picture for her child but then of course stayed in front of Mac. Hey ignorant people go to a Palin rally. I’m afraid when Mac attends things she has inherited a tendency that her pop has. That is my tendency to be surrounded by assholes. I refer to it as being an "asshole magnet." More on that later.

I went the Oakland Center of the Arts Thursday night for their monthly "Stage" event. The event is an open stage that really shows what a lot of talent our area has. This is my review.

The stage has a great solidarity between audience members and performers. The audience comes for some entertainment to relax after a day of stemming the tsunami of incompetants that are known as our employers. Since this is Saturday and the Stage was Thursday and I didn’t take notes I’m not sure how well this review will go. I have an idea. Let me get in my way back machine. I’ll set the dial for Thursday Oct.16 2008 8 pm. And...

And our first act is: a small preview of next weekend’s opening of Night of the Living Dead, based on George Romero’s cult film classic adapted by Morton Grisly. I note some of the zombies are wearing sport jackets as if eating brains was a formal dinner event. I am thinking how zombies are rather grouchy looking and walk rather lazily and seem empty headed. In other words these guys are management material. Ever notice how the humans in Romero’s movies always run out of gas in Zombie Land? In 1968 when Romero made, "Night of the Living Dead" gas was only 23 cents a gallon so there was no legitimate reason to run out of gas. With gas now over $3 a gallon I can understand driving around on gas fumes.

Zombies are brainless walking corpses who do nothing for others and stagger around the planet getting in the way of the working man who does the real work. Given that and the fact zombies are in an endless search for brains it there for goes without saying they are Republicans. We all now know that a "compassionate conservative" is just a smiling zombie cannibal. Zombies always seem to be around rural cemeteries and farms in the movies. Funny thing is I tend to think of zombie’s as being from "Bored Man" Ohio or "Howl Land" OH.

Being 100% Irish I suspect all zombies are English. Those guys love kidneys, liver and all that organ meat crap. Truth is I’d try brains before I’d ever eat sweet potatoes, beets or olives. I have heard brains are brain food. The brain even raw is tender, juicy, and chocked full of all the neurotransmitters a bloodthirsty zombie could want. Frontal lobes cooked in a crock pot set on low with a can of cream of corpse soup, some femur bones and a couple of phalanges cooked for eight hours is particularly tender, making for an excellent roast, or so I’m told. Is your mouth watering yet? Girl zombies it makes for an excellent meal when hubby zombie says his boss zombie is coming for dinner. A meal like that and hubby will get promoted to cemetery manager in no time. Sad to say zombies are not anarchists or I’d be one already. They have bosses just like us regular folks so Hell is indeed universal.

To protect yourself from zombies keep your hair short and wear tight clothes and keep the Edsels gas tank on full. The zombies we daily have to fear are football fans, greedy consumers and capitalist that want all of the worlds natural resources. They usually meet at Wal-Mart and Sams Club so burn down any in your area.

I liked the scene I saw from Night of the Living Dead and was thinking it would make a cool musical. I of course would love to come to the Oakland to see the play but my ass is always to broke to go anywhere. At my age my back goes out more than I do. As a labor activist I was glad to hear the zombies in the play are union workers from local 666, International Brotherhood of the Undead. What do zombies do when they’re not ripping open people's heads? I suspect watching FOX NEWS or listening to Rush. Zombie ditto heads now I know his audience.

In the middle of the zombie production a guy sits down behind me and kicks my seat back causing my spine to paralyze me. Damn I hope those zombies don’t come out in the audience as I won’t be able to run. Shit on top of that I just remembered my Pinto is almost out of gas. This SOB (does not stand for sweet ole boy) who kicked my seat is mumbling something. I hear, "Shit my ex mother-in-law is scarier than these so called, zombies."

I now feel everything is normal because I know my asshole magnet is working. Why should today’s outing be different than any other time I leave the house? Change is bad except when concerning diapers. This burden is my Dark Ages. Which reminds me of a joke. Why were the Dark Ages dark? They had to many Knights. My tormenter has arrived let the evenings entertainment begin.

Next performer is Shay who is playing a bass guitar and singing. Her first song is the "Hierarchy of Unintentional Homicide" a love song. She does another funny original song and a Police cover of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic." I agree she is magical in a 1920’s button mouthed Kewpie doll voice kind of way. I mean that in the best way, as she’s cute, funny and talented. I hear my asshole magnet, I’ll call him, "Joe the Dumber" say, "I got a magic trick I’d like to show you." I turn around and give him a stare and he looks behind him as if someone else said that.

Next is Rebecca who I met last month when she was reading some funny/touching short stories. Tonight she is doing stand-up comedy. She says it’s the first time she has done this and I never would have believed her. Comedy is hard to do and I admire her for the great job she has done. I hardly recognized her as her hair is standing up in a 1920’s Kewpie Doll sort of way that really works on her. I hadn’t realized I said that out loud until I heard Joe the Dumber say, "1920’s I got a roaring 20's good time for her I hope she’s not untouchable." I again give him a stare. I'm generally a peace nick but I am tempted to stray from the path and give Joe a little Damnation Alley.

Next performers Emma and Natalia who are dancers from the nutcracker. They do an interpretative dance to music from Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho. Using that as a dance music choice shows you why the Oakland is the Avant-garde place to be. Which reminds me when I was younger I wanted to be a budding visionary of the Avant-garde sadly no one was hiring. I hear Joe the Dumber behind me clearing his throat and I turn to stare at him before he makes another rude comment. I liked the performance but what do I know about ballet? The one time I took my wife to see ballet at Powers Auditorium my asshole magnet was working strong. Who did our assigned seats have us sit behind but two WWF wrestlers. It was big John Stud and Andre the Giant. Two guys both way over seven feet tall. Worse than that is they were in wrestling tights and smelled like they just came from a Death Cage tag team match.

Kerri the poet is up next. I saw her last month like I did Rebecca and I also didn’t recognize her. She is all dolled up to the max looking hot in a 1920’s flapper girl kind of way. She’s the bee’s knees. Shit, I must be having a past life experience about the 1920’s. Kerri is not only sexy so are her poems. The last female poet I fell in love with was punk poet Patti Smith. I met Patti in my Punk Rock days on a trip to NYC in the 1920’s (I mean 1977) at CBGB’s. In the club were Joey Ramone and Handsome Dick Manitoba (former wrestler) and singer for The Dictators. Outside the club I spoke to Patti telling her I was from Youngstown. She was hailing a cab and asked me where my car was parked. I said in front of Max’s Kansas City (another punk club). She got in her cab and asked my friend and I if we wanted a ride back to my car. I said, “No but thanks.” I kicked my own ass as my friend and I walked the 9,000 blocks back to my car. But I digress. Kerri is reading another sexy poem that makes me wonder if she’d give me a ride to my car, which is half a block away. Of course at my age I could pretend I don’t know where I parked. She’s reading another sexy poem and I’m thinking I have to take my jacket off as it’s getting hot in here. Third floor and all I suppose.

I snap back to reality and remember I’m happily married. My wife refuses to attend events with me though because of my asshole magnetic power. The last time we went to a Drive-In movie we arrived late to find there was only one parking spot left. It ended up being behind a Monster Truck. My wife gave me a stare to melt steel. How was I supposed to know it was Monster Truck Convention Night?

Speaking of assholes I hear Joe the Dumber mumbling something. While listening to Kerri he is muttering, "Baby beat me, hurt me, and make me write bad checks." This time I refuse to turn around and look at Joe the Dumber. I do make a mental note to never sit in that seat when I come to the Oakland. Dam that’s right I’m at the Oakland why the Hell for a minute there did I think I was at the Foster Art Theater? Did I say I liked Kerri’s poetry? Well, duh does Brittany Spears drive drunk with her kids in the car without them in seatbelts? Ya you betcha I liked Kerri as Alaska’s Barbie Bot Bible Spice would say! Kerri gives poets a good name. There is so much bad poetry out there (usually the published and academic turd kind) that saying, "I’m a poet" was as dangerous as telling a Pilgrim minister you were a witch. Kerri helps make the world safer for other poets. The Pilgrims came saw and conquered. In Kerri’s poems she is saying, "I came, I came, I came." And the audience is applauding saying, "I like them, I like them."

Brooke the MC I note looks like a younger Sarah Palin only with brains, talent, humor, warmness, charm, etc. etc. I peg her as a girl attractive enough to be some 1920’s gangsters moll. Brooke is making a joke about having large breasts. I hear Joe the Dumber say, "That’s a major padded bra from Elmo’s." I turn around and Joe looks at me and sheepishly says, "I’m just saying I’d have to see dem in da raw to know fer sure." I turn my back on him and hear, "It never fails girls with breast that large usually get allergic reactions to nipple clamps." Shit I think why me lord.

Robert Dennick Joki was next and what a great singer he is. He reminds me of Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso who died in 1921. I have a faint recollection of hearing Enrico at The Chicago Opera House in 1920. I remember some asshole singing off key behind me so I must have had my asshole magnet on. I turned around and said, "Hey numbskull knock it off." I said that about the same time I recognized the guy as Alfons Capone. Funny I don’t remember leaving that place alive. But I digress. I wish I could sing like RDJ. If I could I would never talk again. I would just turn every aspect of my life into a musical. I suspect if I went to that extreme I would live about two days before someone would kill me to a standing ovation.

Also performing were Ric Panning and Matt Liller with a comedy sketch about the current financial crisis. Anything that has me laughing about how stupid capitalism is instead of the capitalist system laughing at my broke ass is a major hoot. This skit involved one participant down on his knees serving the powers that be and that is a perfect analogy of what’s happening to the working-class today. Great work comrades! At one point when one of the guys was on his knees I heard Joe the Dumber say what I think was "Baguette" I thought to myself I like Baguettes how nice of Brooke and the folks at the Oakland to set out food. I got to get me one of those!

Rocco did a singing/poetry piece that was interesting. One of the zombies Chazz Sutton sang a few songs with some being originals. I don’t know if the microphone was at the right angle as I couldn’t catch all of the words but enjoyed them anyway. Neither performer reminded me of anything from the 1920’s though.

I can’t forget to mention Stage regular Don. Don proved his undying love for the Oakland in an original love song about the Oakland that was great! Don has told me he likes my poetry so I think Don’s a big-hearted guy. Don sings like the late great Nat king Cole or is it the late great Old King Cole? Anyway Don is a merry old soul who makes me smile and that comrades ain’t easy.

Tim Malone read two poems from writers who wrote about Pearl Harbor as they experienced it. I was thinking about 9/11 when he was reading. I admired how Tim saw the spookiness in the horror of Pearl Harbor and thought it fitting for a Halloween reading.

The only thing I’ve left out is the poetry antics of my pal Jim Jordan. I have caught all of the occasions Jim had read for the last decade but one. Interesting enough Jim tells me that’s the one I should have really caught. To hear him tell it he was asked by Bono to open for U2 at the Cleveland Stadium. Seems Jim was so well received he got standing ovation, dived into the crowd and was crowd surfed around for an hour. Jim tells me Bono is setting some of Jim’s poems to music for his next album. Damn if I don’t always miss the great events.

About this time Crissy who is sitting next to me live blogging gets a strange look on her face gets up and runs to the bathroom. That was close as I noticed she was drinking some hooch or giggle water as we said in the 20’s. If she’d of heaved on me it would have made me a double asshole magnet for the night. That usually only happens to me on special occasions like my wedding or my birthday. As far as an asshole vomiting on me I’d have to go back to 2004 when Senator Kerry was running for president. I was in Kent Oh. at an event featuring Michael Moore supporting Kerry. A drunk and stoned girl behind me with a Bush sucks sign threw up on my shoulder. Two guys in dark suits wearing shades and earphones hauled her out as I was wiping my shirt with her long hair. Turns out my asshole magnet that night was Jenna Bush. Ever notice the name Bush has a B and an S in it?

Jim Jordan takes the stage but is having a hard time reading as he broke his eyeglasses today. He is reading a poem called, "Swift boating God." Beings as Jim’s dyslexic and not wearing his glasses I suspect it really is, "Swift boating Dog." The thing I like about Jim’s poems is he laughs at the fact that there is nothing left to laugh at anymore. I could write books about how talented this guy is but he’s too modest to let me print such things. When I attend talent events and a poet comes on I say, "Oh no it's the poetry train and I ain't riding." Jim has taught me that poetry can be fun, insightful and palatable. Speaking of palatable where are those baguettes?

On the way out I noted Joe the Dumber was hitting on Kerri. But as they said in the 20’s he saw, she saw, she shot. Good I won’t have to encounter him next month at the Stage. That was a heck of a show for $5. You should find out what you’re missing. As we said in the 20’s it’s the cat’s pajamas.

Yes Joesam You are a Fool and a Corporate Tool

2008-10-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

I’m sure by now you all know "Joe the Plumber" who McCain and Obama talked about in the debates. Obama ran into this guy who asked him a question in Holland, Ohio: Plumber

Well, Joe wanted to interrupt Obama’s answer because like most conservative Americans they can only handle a fifteen second answer. Like most conservatives once a little investigation ensues they are either exposed as hypocrites, corporate tools, full of Hannity (shit) liars or usually all three. Well, Joe’s name is really Sam so I’ll call him Joesam. Since he’s a conservative he is of course not a union plumber. Hell, Joesam is an unlicensed plumber who never had any training in being a plumber. He has worked for the same employer for six years. When he was first hired his boss said, maybe some day you can take over the business. Joesam has taken that literally and believes one day he will be owner of the company.

Right now Joesam pulls down about $42,000 a year from suckers who don’t know they are paying for an unlicensed plumber. That is damn good money for a guy with no training in a field that takes plenty of training. Instead of being happy that he’s making good bucks for not even being licensed Joesam thinks he deserves to be the business owner. If he was owner he believes he could make $250,000 -$270,000 a year.

Never mind Joesam has no experience or schooling in business management Joesam thinks he’s entitled to become the owner of the plumbing busines he works for. Joesam has an alligator mouth and a humming bird ass. Since Joesam stuck his big bald head in front of a camera trying to trash Obama for asking the richest 5% in this country to pay more he may have ruined his boss's business. There may be no business to some day in the future buy once the word gets out they employ unlicensed plumbers. Nice going Joesam. He couldn’t help himself, as conservatives just have to be assholes when the media appears.

Joesam has bought into the whole Horatio Alger bullshit. Exposing the B.S of Horatio Alger.:B.S.

Joesam was held up by John McCain as the typical, hard-working American taxpayer. Court documents show he owes nearly $1,200 in back taxes. Joesam I wouldn't sweat the big taxes you fear paying when you become a millionaire I'd say just pay the tax money you already owe.

Joesam has fallen for the Hannity (shit) that rich conservatives tell the poor and middle-class that we should never ask the rich to pay their fair share as one day we could be those rich guys. When people fall for that they become corporate tools like Joesam. If we dare mention the inequities in the USA we are accused of starting class-warfare. You saw McCain accuse Obama of creating class-warfare in the last debate. The poor and middle-class are getting their asses kicked in this war and we are supposed to act like there is no war on us? We’re suppose to believe in Trickle Down economics? Hell, I know a Golden Shower when I see it.

I’m always saddened when I see the middle-class trashing the poor for getting welfare, which is a measly 1% of the federal budget. I am saddened when I see the middle-class trash each other as in this Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae collapse. They blame folks for trying to buy more house then they could afford instead of greedy bankers and greedy real estate companies. Hey middle-class hypocrites if you buy anything on a credit card today because you don’t have the cash and will pay for it later you are just as guilty as those folks trying to buy too much house. When you bash each other you are a corporate tool that the richest 5% love as you’ve let their tax loophole asses off the hook.

The truth is now that Joesam has been exposed as being unlicensed and untrained his boss will be canning his ass instead of selling him the business. Joesam is a conservative who has been quoted trashing Social Security and government programs. I’m sure his hypocritical soon to be unemployed ass will be first in line at the Welfare Office demanding food stamps.

Joesam is leaning toward voting for McCacin and said he voted for him in the primary. This is more bullshit from Joesam: Joe’s a liar

Joesam has stated with all of his attention he hopes he hasn't made a fool of himself. News flash you are a fool. I think you've been smelling to much flux when you're soldering those copper pipes.

Here’s the kind of racism the GOP does: racist GOP

I went to The Stage at The Oakland Theater last night. I didn’t take notes but I will try to write a review of it tomorrow.

Anne Fenney sings live: Anne tells it like it is

More Anne: Scabs

For a Better World Do Nothing

2008-10-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

One of my FW’s (fellow workers) mentioned that the gas station nearest work was selling gas for only $2.88 per. gallon. It’s a shame that we are to the point we think paying under $3.00 a gallon is a bargain. I replied, "I don’t buy Shell gas." One FW replied, "OK what’s wrong with Shell?" I replied, "I don’t like how they have destroyed Nigeria by aiding the corrupt government that runs the country. I also don’t like that Shell has dug mass graves with their equipment to bury indigenous people who the corrupt government has killed for trying to stop Shell from taking their lands." Shell also has a horrible environmental record in Nigeria. See boycott info: Shell info

The latest info on turmoil on corruption and war in Nigeria: Vanity Fair

One of my fellow FW’s said, "I don’t care what a company does as long as its product is the cheapest. "I came back with, "Some people go to church on Sunday and pray for a better world when they made decisions all week long that contributed to the injustices and destruction of the world."

I thought of a few of my present and former FW’s who actually have sent their kids to Christian schools to supposedly get better moral values. Yet the same parents don’t give a good Hannity (my word for shit) what values the companies who make the products they use have as long as they’re cheap. Sounds like a waste of money on that Christian school when the kids come home to parents who don’t care about standing up for a more moral and just world.

I also have a beef with fellow FW’s who pick up their check from Public Education while they put their kids in private schools. This is a hypocrisy George H. Bush brought up when he ran for president. Bush was taking on the NEA union and made fun of how 30% of it members had kids in private schools yet the NEA was fighting against school vouchers. I wasn’t working in Public Education at the time and thought Bush was full of Hannity. I have been ashamed to now learn that Bush may have even been a little light when he said 30%. I am puzzled why my FW’s in Public Education don’t see this hypocrisy as detrimental to their job in Public Education.

I truly believe parents and grandparents all would like to see a better world for their children, grandchildren, and the next generation. The world is fraught with problems pertaining to social justice, sweatshops, racism, misogyny, poverty, the environment, human rights, respect, dignity, etc.

I’m sure most people are overwhelmed in their daily life just trying to earn a living and get by to feel they can spend any time being an activist on even one of these issues. Mother Theresa told us we should "just do what’s in front of you." Even if people did as little as that, just working on an issue that confronts them everyday, it would make a better world. What if I were to tell you how you could take a role in fighting for all the social justice issues I mentioned above without even lifting a finger? As a matter of fact, not lifting a finger, not moving a muscle, being an armchair activist as it were is exactly what is called for.

It’s not really about doing anything it’s about doing nothing. By that nothing I mean making the companies accountable is about closing your wallets and purses to their anti-human, anti-environmental agendas. The sound they most fear is the silence those wallets and purses make when they don’t open. Nothing in a capitalist society speaks louder than the silent sound of wallets not opening.

I have spoken out in my workplace about the evils of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Both of them don’t pay livable wages, seldom promote women (when they do they pay them less then men), they use Third World sweatshops, use child labor, pollute, are anti-union and get millions in corporate welfare. They are on the wrong side of just about every issue you can imagine.

Because as I've said I work in Public Education I brought in some the following info: Giving Wal-Mart style

Folks I work with said, I know Wal-Mart is evil but I have to go to Sam’s Club. It’s as if going to Sam’s is some kind of religious experience. Don’t take my word for how evil Wal-Mart is, take the word of The Methodist Church and 30 religious, labor, consumer, and human rights groups that have urged Wal-Mart to improve the company’s social and environmental performance. The groups organized by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, said it feared the company’s strategic vision to achieve success in the marketplace comes without an ethical standard.

The first and only time I went in a Wal-Mart was over twenty years ago as I accompanied a friend who entered the new store in Hermitage PA. What I saw inside the front door made me turn around and leave and never come back. The terror that drove me from their store was the Wal-Mart greeter. He had been a boss at a grocery store I worked in while attending YSU. He was the vilest, lecherous, evil boss I have ever worked for in my life (and that’s saying a lot). This was a man who actually made fun of and imitated a handicapped employee at the grocery store. Here it was decades later and this boss was now a senior citizen and a greeter at Wal-Mart. I imagine he probably kicks canes out of the hand of elderly women and disconnects the batteries on the scooter buggies while the handicapped ride them in Wal-Mart.

As for Sam’s Club I’m not shopping anywhere that I have to pay an annual membership to. That just sounds plain dumb to me. I tend to buy from small stores in my community and buy things at second hand stores so I believe we do have alternatives to companies that are not good world citizens.

Truly, do those products we buy at soulless corporations give us so much comfort and pleasure that we will pay such a high moral cost for them? When we buy gas at Shell and enter Wal-Marts and Sam’s Clubs with our children, we are telling our kids we think little of the world they will inherit. In the end, we must ask ourselves: do we want bargains or values?

I hope in the near future to be able to post boycotts and link other ways arm chair activist can make a difference as soon as I figure this whole blog thing out.

Bruce Cockburn: If I had a Rocker Launcher

More Bruce: A Dream Like Mine

Bruce with Lovers in a Dangerous Time; lovers

Lamenting Amusement Parks and a Fishy Tale

2008-10-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

The Mac (my daughter) went with some friends to Conneaut Lake Park the other day. The park is set up as a haunted town called Ghost Lake. The park has been closed since the end of the 2006 season. It suffered a partial fire the next year. It originally opened in 1892 as Exposition Park on the west side of Conneaut Lake in western Pennsylvania. Conneaut Lake Park had over 80 rides, slides and attractions, including the famous Blue Streak wooden roller coaster.

I remember going to the park every year on a school outing on the last day of school. I also had relatives who worked at Sharon Steel and the Westinghouse and the park had discount days for those companies. We had many family and church outings at the park that I remember fondly. It’s sad that old fashioned amusement parks like Conneaut Lake Park and Youngstown's Idora Park are gone.

On September 21, 2007 Geauga Lake Park closed and my kids were saddened as that’s the park they remember from their youth. My kids especially loved Sea World. On January 2001, Busch Entertainment Corporation sold Sea World Ohio to Six Flags Inc. The whales, dolphins, and penguins were moved to other Sea World parks. Six Flags kept all the other marine mammals, fish, birds, etc. and all the shows and buildings, but not the Sea World name. The park reopened as part of the nearby Six Flags Lake Geauga theme park. The new combined park was known as Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. Six Flags brought in dolphins from one of their other parks so they would have a dolphin show. The second season saw the addition of a killer whale to their collection, an attempt to bring back most of the shows and exhibits familiar to visitors of the old Sea World Park.

Eventually, Six Flags sold out to Cedar Fair, who renamed the park Geauga Lake, ditched the animal park and turned that area into a waterpark. After a couple of under performing seasons, at the end of 2007 Cedar Fair gave up on the concept of having a ride park and a waterpark in one and shut down the ride portion of the park.

In 2001 when Shamu was deported I did the following investigative piece of journalism:

Fishing For Answers

The last two weeks of January have seen major mergers, layoffs and closings. There have been thousands laid off at Chrysler, 15,000 at GM, 16,000 at Lucent Technologies, and 5,300 jobs are gone as JC Penney’s closes 47 stores. Here in the Youngstown area we have layoffs at WCI, Lordstown, Packard, and possibly a plant closing at CSC.

Some of the job losses are through attrition and early retirement offers. Another thing that happens to many people because of mergers and closings is job transfers. Being uprooted because of a job transfer can be hard on a family. It’s sad to say goodbye to friends and family and pick up and start all over again, and that’s what I want to address. This week one of the saddest victims of a company buyout actually happened here in NE Ohio. That was nearby Sea World of Aurora, Ohio, the 232-acre marine park owned by Anheuser-Busch Inc. being bought by Six Flags Inc. for $110 million. The sad victims of the buyout are the animals at the park who are going to be relocated.

Another victim is the park’s annual 1.4 million visitors. Six Flags does plan to keep operating the attraction as a marine park, under a new name. Unfortunately, Sea World’s three killer whales, including Shamu the signature of the park, along with the park’s penguins and its ten Bottlenose and Commersen’s dolphins, will be relocated to other Busch theme parks. I will be left like many parents, trying to explain to my children what happened to Shamu the Killer Whale and his friends when we make our annual voyage to the park.

I decided to do some investigative journalism so I made the hour journey to the park. I entered the park and headed to Shamu Stadium to see the big guy himself. Many killer whales have played the 30 -year -old part of Shamu. 4100 lb. Keet now plays the part. He sadly confided, "I’ve never got my own recognition but had to live up to a dead whale’s legacy. Now to add further insult they’re moving me. My namesakes have been making a large splash here since the park opened in 1970. I have been a good employee, whose loyalty has reached great depths. Hell, I’ve jumped through hoops to please management and audiences alike." He added, "I’ve been here 8 years, but so much for seniority when corporate America enters the pool. I have resented the term killer whale my whole life but right now because I’m going to be moved away from what is my home I’m in a killing mood."

Next I went to interview the dolphins that are also being moved. A Bottlenose dolphin that asked me not to use his name greeted me warmly. I told him I had already talked to Shamu. He replied, "Shamu is a sham, there’s no such thing as killer whales. They’re just fat dolphins. Beluga whales, Bottlenose and Pacific dolphins were all part of the Odontoceti family. Shamu is touted as the big star around here so he’s developed a swelled head."

I asked, "How does management treat the animals in the park?" He replied, "Management likes keeping the animals in the park divided and fighting amongst themselves over food, accommodations and billing. It’s the old divide and conquer strategy, just like a page out of Machiavelli’s, "The Prince." "We know the bosses have been making a fortune off of our talents and energy for years telling us we’re all family. Family, my fin, now we know we’re nothing but wage slaves.' He continued, "Unfortunately the animals here never stuck together. It’s a funny thing about solidarity. In the wild we dolphins travel in packs of twenty and killer whales travel in packs of up to thirty and by damn it we watched each other’s backs. There’s no solidarity here in captivity. Natural instincts in the wild like compassion and respect were replaced in captivity by greed and the quest for the easy life. We had someone to feed us so we became complacent, thinking only of ourselves and pleasing management."

He continued on, "A few years back one of my Hollywood friends, Flipper came here trying to organize us animals into the screen actors union. Many of us were interested but management started threatening us. Shamu also opposed it so he started throwing his weight around, all two tons. We all respect the sea turtles that live here because of their age so we turned to them on this issue. Let me tell you age does not mean wisdom. Two hundred year old turtles are in no hurry for change. On top of that it was impossible to convince spineless jellyfish and sharks with cartilage where their spine should be that a union would be a good thing. Sea World ended up hiring a couple of thugs from Arthur Treacher’s and the next thing you know Flipper disappeared. The word is he was breaded deep fried and served with a side of chips."

He added, "If any of us animals dares speak up about how management is making huge profits while we are fed stale herring we’re read the riot act. They say we’re unappreciative and unpatriotic and accuse us of talking class warfare. The truth is a class war is going on and it’s being waged against us and if we don’t wake up to it we’ve already lost. I exit, now realizing why dolphins are called the smartest of all animals.

I next stop at the Penguin Encounter a 45,000-gallon icy sea pool. I encountered one hundred of the formally dressed regal residents. I address an emperor penguin as to how he feels about being moved from his home. He answers, "Two of the four species of penguins at the park will be transferred we are being kept in the dark about which two species. It’s par for the course because over the years management here has done all it can to agitate racism between the four species."

He goes on to tell me he feels betrayed not just by management but also by the visitors and children who come to the park. He explains, "The visitors should have formed a picket line demanding that all the animals should be allowed to remain here at the park. Management knew what they were doing as far as the timing of the parks sale. They did it at this time of the year because it’s football season. The public is too wrapped up in the Super Bowl to care about what injustices are happening in the animal world. After all, humans don’t even care about injustices in their own world like the recent hijacking of the presidential election." He ended by saying, "We penguins are at heart social animals that live in colonies. So, I’m going to miss my brothers. Hell, I’m a penguin, you think I want to be transferred to somewhere like Florida?"

On my way out of the park I stopped by the employee’s lounge where I found many of the parks animals taking a coffee and sardine break. I questioned the animals about the park’s sale and about the soon to be departure of many of their friends. A sea lion named Clyde complained about management, "They have stooped so low as to watch many of the animals breed." "Yeah," chimed in his friend Seamore, "They’re a bunch of sick peeping Tom bastards." An octopus told me he’d like to help stop the animals from leaving but felt his hands were tied. Tunas expressed fear of ending up between two slices of bread at the concession stand. On top of that the park’s waterfowl were in a foul mood and lobsters were seeing red. One otter commented, "And sushi think they got a raw deal?" Sharks said they feared for some time that corporate raiders were circling the park. With their keen sense of smell the sharks were the first to smell the blood in the water scent of a corporate takeover. In the end, the sharks at Sea World were no match for the predator sharks from Wall Street.

As I write this none of the animals at the park feel they have a safe harbor. Yet, something they all expressed makes me think they can look forward to a better future. That is the idea that if you feed a fish you control him, but if a fish organizes he can control his own life. To end my sad tale I say goodbye Shamu and friends my family will miss you.

Hey Sarah Palin Song:funny song

James McMurtry: Cheney's Toy

More McMurtry: We Can't Make it Here Anymore

Youngstown Hidden Treasures and Rememberances

2008-10-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

My son, Adam was home from college for a few days. He brought his girlfriend along to visit. We spent time on such a beautiful day sight seeing in the area. Downtown Youngstown and YSU are looking very nice for the most part. The little garden next to the Wick Pollock Inn is a real hidden treasure.

We did some walking with a puppy Adam’s girlfriend owns in Mill Creek Park. We truly are blessed to have such a terrific recreational area. Fellowship Gardens was very busy with many visitors enjoying its splendor.

I am reminded of a poem I wrote about Youngstown.

A Childhood Adventure

Hard to believe
it was decades ago,
pre airbags and seat belts,
pre malls and cinema plexes,
that two brothers bounced up and down
in the backseat of a two-tone
Ford convertible.
They couldn’t sit still
because of a burning sensation…
money in their pockets
saved from cutting Grandpa’s yard.
Soon to be spent
on comic books and model cars.
With mom behind the wheel
and Grandma riding shotgun
wearing a pillbox hat with a veil
and dark sunglasses
and one of those mink stoles,
the type with the whole mink nose
to tail with beady eyes.
We were on our way to our most serious
shopping expedition.
The frequent trip
from our Western PA home
to the area’s shopping mecca,
downtown Youngstown.
To me it was as adventurous
as drums along the Mohawk,
the music from the Fairlane’s
one speaker said it was more like
Elvis on Route 7.
Further up the road it was
the Beatles on Wick Avenue.
Past dealer after car dealer on the
Wick auto strip.
All the latest makes of Detroit iron were there:
Galaxies, Comets, Starfires, Jetstars, and Novas.
Space age names for the days of JFK’s “New Frontier.”
Each dealership had triangle-shaped multi-colored rows of flags
to me the conveyed a carnival atmosphere
little did I know they were there
to scare off birds and their droppings.
Then past Butler Institute of American Art
and picturesque Jones Hall.
Over the hill
and we were in the heart of Youngstown.
On the outskirts of downtown,
lay the soul of Youngstown,
the steel mills.
But here in downtown
were stores reaching to the sky
full of treasures
Marco Polo could not have imagined.
Department stores like
Strouss and McKelveys
were so big
almost every floor
had a restaurant on it.
Strouss’ had its famous chocolate malts
in the basement.
Restrooms on every floor,
a plumbing contractor’s dream
and a janitor’s nightmare.
Elevators and escalators
to move you about seemed like
amusement park rides.
When we parked our car
they lifted it into the air
on a ramp to park it on another floor.
An amusement ride even for the car…
an all-encompassing experience.
Strouss and McKelvey’s each had a whole floor
with nothing but toys.
Pure heaven!
We joined in the hustle and bustle
of West Federal Street:
Past Woolworth’s, Peoples Drug,
Hartzell, Rose & Sons and the Parkade Shops.
Mother and Grandma would head to
Lustig Shoes and Livingston’s.
After taking my brother and I
to Fanny Farmer’s for candy,
they would drop us off at
the State or the Warner Theater.
We would sit spellbound
watching movies like
Ben Hur or
The Alamo.
Then it would be off to the Ringside
for some spaghetti
or Isaly’s for a skyscraper cone.
It was all bigger than life.
I can’t help but be reminded of it all
when I take my kids to
faceless malls
and cracker box cinemettes.
I feel sorry for them,
they never had the experience that was
downtown Youngstown.

Michael Franti: Time to go Home

More Michael Franti: Yell Fire

Still More Franti: OH My God

Smiling Cannibals and Heartless Vampires

2008-10-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

I’ve had it. I'm mad that conservative Americans are a bunch of corporate tools. They are corporate tools who will still believe in corporate capitalism no matter how much we taxpayers have to bail the corporate fat cats out.

I’m talking about idiots like this ahole: Big ahole who does need his head examined

These corporate tools will scream against socialized medicine while the corporate hogs take all the socialism they can get and laugh at us.

AIG execs live it up after socialist bailout: Fat cats laugh at us

Socialist? If that means we should have a worker's paradise instead of a corporate one where CEO's make 400 times the employees put me down for socialism I prefer the term "Peopleism." Don't underestimate how much the average common man can make this a better world. We’ll just have to work around some tools who love to serve their corporate masters. Maybe they’ll be happy to go to China and work in a sweatshop for Wal-Mart for 15 cents and hour.

Perhaps if the Republican Party didn't have their heads up the Asses of every corporation, we would have consumer laws that protected us and not big business. Maybe we would have a health care system that benefited the public and not the Insurance lobby. Maybe we would have banking and mortgage laws that benefited citizens and not the banks. Maybe we would have an energy policy that benefited us with reasonably priced electricity, heat and gasoline not just benefiting Big Oil. Maybe we would have environmental policies that protected our planet instead of allowing it to be polluted by industry.

Voters who support McCain and Palin are actually voting for a Vice Presidential candidate who is anti-polar bear.

For those fools who want less government that means less regulation of all the issues I mentioned. I love my family too much to cut the Food & Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, etc. This is what all-republican candidates propose doing. People fought long and hard to get these agencies to protect us. The same conservative politicians who sold our jobs out to China now want to protect dangerous products from China instead of our families.

All I hear from the conservatives is their worship of their god. Their god is Reagan. President Reagan painted a picture of America as a shining city upon a hill. On the other side of that hill Reagan let corporations purchase that city. These corporations bought our so-called representatives and raped and plundered our countries natural resources and labor force. That has increased under Bush/Cheney and their "compassionate conservatism". We now know compassionate conservatism means, a smiling cannibal.

We should all be able to see that these neocon ideas have tanked our economy. Yet we have voters who can’t get enough of the tragedy and want McCain/Palin to finish us off. The noecon vampire needs to have a stake pounded through its heartless body.

Just electing democrats will not save us. We must hold them accountable. We are all leaders and we need to take back America. Time to get busy fellow leaders.

Steve Earl: The Revolution Starts Now

More Steve: A Rich Man’s War

Morons in Strongsville OH and Songbird Johnny McCain

2008-10-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought when we had another Bush become president in 2000 we’d have a terrible economy, huge deficits and a war in the Middle East? How about anyone with an ounce of cerebellum loaf.

I heard a man complaining on Air America radio about his $600 a month natural gas bill. He also mentioned his $500 a month gasoline bill and the $600 a month he pays for a terrible health care plan for his family. Bill Press the host replied, "So you are going to vote for Obama?" The caller replied, "I can’t because he knows that terrorist Bill Ayers." How do you fight stupidity like that?

For info on how Ayers statements about the Weatherman not doing enough terrorism have been taken out of context see here: What Ayers meant by we

This from a Republican: As a former Republican representative in Illinois told NPR on Monday, smearing Obama for his board association with Ayers is "nonsensical."
"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier ... It's ridiculous," Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said. "There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

I am so embarrassed these moronic folks live in Ohio: Should anyone this hateful and stupid be allowed to vote?

Can anyone this dumb breathe air? fostering hate

Mclame/Piglan are pushing hate and this is what FAUX NEWS cares about: FAUX NEWS

Did the photo show Palin’s swastika tattoo?

Cindy Lou McCan’t says no negativity from McCain campaign: No negativity>

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Time to play hardball on the McCain campaign:

McSame’s creepy friends: McSame’s baggage of friends

Hanoi Rose Johnny McCain: McCain the traitor

The info McCain gave the Viet Cong: McCain’s info to the enemy cost U.S. lives>

McCain the Songbird: McCain hides his military records>

Let’s be honest if Songbird McCain was the Democratic candidate he would have been swift boated on his military record of talking to the enemy.

It’s time for the Democrats to fight fire with fire. If negative campaigning didn’t work it would have ended years ago. Let's fight hate with the truth and expose McCain's hypocrisy.

Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows

More Leonard Cohen:Democracy is Coming

Part Ghandi Part Bruce Lee

2008-10-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

Theodore Roosevelt (American 26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919)

I work with a group of people that have won that prize Teddy was talking about. They are my workmates who work with handicapped children (mostly autistic) and give it their all on a daily basis.

The 2000 Census showed a sharp growth in the nation's young handicapped population. One of every dozen U.S. children and teenagers -- 5.2 million -- has a physical or mental disability. The disabilities captured by the census could range in severity from mild asthma to serious mental illness or retardation demanding full-time care. Special-education enrollment rose twice as fast as overall school enrollment in the past decade. Some of the growth is explained by greater recognition, changing definitions or more willingness to report a handicap. There are more theories than answers for the sharp rise in autism, asthma and learning disabilities.

In February 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued their ADDME autism prevalence report. The report showed the prevalence of autism had risen to 1 in every 150 American children, and almost 1 in 94 boys. Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others.

I have seen people argue that ADD and ADH are just names or labeling for old-fashioned bad behaviors. I’ve seen others argue about over use drugs like Ritalin. I’m not really interested in arguing for or against any political correctness. The fact is there are tons of kids who really need some support and help. If you had to spend some time in the shoes of a parent with Autism or any other physical or mental challenged child you’d forget about any silliness of labeling or not labeling a disease.

It’s hard enough to be a parent of a healthy child today let alone a parent of a child that needs constant care. God bless these parents for I have nothing but the highest respect for them. What I do know a little more about is the teachers, assistants, caregivers, physical, occupational, and speech therapists that work with these kids. I want to salute these working-class heroes for as John Lennon sang, "They are something to see.” See them most people don’t but I have had the privilege to see them in action and here’s my impression.

Daily Working-Class Heroes

Daily flashes of heroism
illuminated their dedication.
No dollar figure can respect
such humble people
that lessen the pains of the earth.
Fighting the good fight
moving aside all obstacles
to get the job done.
To them giving becomes nourishment
which never fills them up.
For they have bottomless
pockets on their hearts.
They protect autistic children
from life’s cruelties.
Breaking down walls
to give them a future.
Listening attentively and respectfully
to each child’s collage of needs.
Helping them grow up
strong physically and morally.
And growth when dealing
with an autistic child
can be a painful process.
When working with these kids
two words march together:
love and pain.
The pain of
bites and scratches from the kids
and so many bruises
there’s not enough
chocolate to heal.
If God judges people
by their scars these folks
will have VIP suites in heaven.
For they expend all their energy
to satisfy endless needs.
Through toil and moil
strife and struggle.
And they do it with
courage and calmness
and laughter.
When days are really bad
they practice a little math
by subtracting negativity
and adding a little more devotion,
a little more charity
and a little more patience.
For they’re specialists
who cannot be just spectators.
Liberators who’s only fear
would be surrender.
They’re part Gandhi
with the defensive moves
of Bruce Lee.
They’ve found nothing is difficult
when you put your heart into it.
They know that the evolution
of the child
mirrors the evolution
of the race.
Those live longest
who live most.
Long lives and a hug
to you all

McCain video of him not shaking OBama’s hand: Mccain the troll won't shake Obama's hand

I love elderly people who are feisty: God bless elderly feisty people like this wonderful woman

Isn't this how Traficant got started? This is how Traficant got started

Nick Drake's music is so melancholy it always makes me cry:the late Nick Drake

The producer of the band Fairport Convention, who once was coincidentally in the studio where Nick was recording, heard his music and said: "Hearing such beautiful music, one feels ashamed about the ugliness of the world."

More from Nick:Place to Be Nick Drake

Everybody Must Get Poor and Comb Overs

2008-10-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

What the Hell is with these focus groups the media goes to after the debates? It’s the same group of folks who won’t commit to a candidate because that would mean they wouldn’t get to come back for the next debate. Listen dickweeds you haven’t landed a new fall TV series. Time to get off the fence or we need to make the fence sharp enough they won’t sit on it. In other words shit (or the word I use for shit, Hannity) or get off the pot. If they can’t decide by now they are officially to damn dumb to vote.

What’s with McCain not shaking Obama’s hand after the debate? I watched the debate as I always do on CSPAN. I noted after the debate that the McCain’s left while Michele and Barak went into the audience and interacted. Maybe Grump McCain had to meet up somewhere with the other 6 dwarfs.

Why do McCain and so many other senators and congressmen have comb overs? Am I the only one who notices that every time I turn on CSPAN and watch the houses in action?

So much for McSame being the guy you’d rather have a beer with. You would have to say, “Which one of your nine homes should we go to a bar near?” Then asked, “Can you pick me up in one of your 13 cars?” I’ve been in bars and I can’t tell you even one time I’ve looked around and wanted any of the patrons to be my next president. I also imagine McSame drinks at a country club that wouldn’t let my blue-collar butt into.

McSame's wealth: wealthy McCains

The real Maverick: Maverick

What the Hell is with McSame always saying, "My friends?" I am not nor never will be your friend you Scrooge McDuck.
See here: I am not here to be your friend

Shawn Phillips the voice of a God: Gods voice

Shawn still gives me goose bumps 35 years later: chilling voice

My favorite Poem

“A Case for Utopia” by Peter Maurin

The world would be better off if people tried to become better,and people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off. For when everyone tries to become better off nobody is better off. But when everyone tries to become better everybody is better off. Everyone would be rich if nobody tried to become richer,and nobody would be poor if everybody tried to be the poorest. And everybody would be what he ought to be if everybody tried to be what he wants the other fellow to be.

Attention Book Burners / Fahrenheit 451 Time

2008-10-07T15:32:00.000-07:00

I am hearing Alaska’s Gov. Bimbo on the campaign trail reminding voters that Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein. We all know that is to try and tie him to Moslems. He is not a Moslem but here in America (at least my version of America) people are allowed to be Moslems if they want to be.

Maybe if Republicans weren’t so busy painting Obama and any Democrat that wants peace as a terrorist they could have actually captured a real terrorist like bin Laden.

McCain’s middle name is Sidney. Do you really want a Sidney in the Oval Office? I can’t imagine saying, President Sidney McCain and First Lady Cindy Lou McCain.

I have been doing extensive research on the Koran and came up with this poem:

Attention Book Burners/Fahrenheit 451 Time

Christians are portraying
Moslems who follow
their holy book,
the Koran as
intolerant murderers,
criminals and terrorists.
Atrocities such as
the attack on 9/11
can easily be attributed
to the prophet Mohammed
and the god, Allah.
when you read the following verses
from their so-called “holy book.”
“Don’t associate with
those of other faiths.”
“Don’t receive them
into you home
or even exchange
greetings with them.”
Others who don’t share
your beliefs have
an “evil heart.”
It gets even more intolerant
when you read,
“God destroys those who
don’t believe in him.”
When the god in this
supposed “Holy Book”
isn’t killing someone
which he does on
every other page,
he is ordering
his followers to
kill any friends
or family
that worships a god
different than him.
He says to kill them
in their very own church.
He orders, “Kill all inhabitants
of any city where people
worship different than you.”
There are holy verses
that call for the
elimination of entire
ethnic groups including
women, children, animals
and even trees.
He tells his followers to,
hide along the road
wait for women
and then kidnap,
rape and marry them.
This god tells his followers
you are “of God” and
everyone else is wicked.
You best believe
there’s a lot to fear
from this faith
when you read,
“Everyone will have to
worship the prophet---
whether they
want to or not.”
They place themselves
above all laws
by the verse,
“A follower cannot be accused
of any wrongdoing.”
Knowing that their
faith could crumble
if it were to under go
any free and critical thinking,
this prophet tells
his followers to
avoid philosophy.
That just proves that
ignorance is bliss.
Surely this hate-filled book
should never be in a library.
It should also never be
allowed in a school.
Banning it is just not enough.
All copies of it need
to be immediately burned.
If I was a politician
who espoused “family values,”
I’d strike the first match.
Clerics of every religion
should be calling for
a funeral pyre of
this unholy book.
It’s little wonder
that its followers’
fight constant wars.
Even if you don’t
appreciate my poem
know that I risked
my life composing it.
I did extensive research
that buried my desk
in a pyramid of paper.
Gathering so much info
can be confusing.
That’s my excuse because
I have just realized,
oops, my bad,
that the aforementioned
verses are really from the Bible’s
Old and New Testaments,
instead of the Koran.
I guess, like most things
banning books should
begin at home.

For the quotes I must thank: John, Jude, Joshua, Hebrews, Deuteronomy, Kings, Judges, Exodus, Colossians, Philippians and Romans.

Palin’s scary minister friend Pastor Muthee:
Palin’s scary pastor

Another Bimbo besides Bible Spice Palin: Dumb Bimbo

The greatest rock singer of all time is Terry Reid. Terry was asked to join Led Zeppelin before Robert Plant. I’m no Zep fan but would have dug them with Terry’s funky voice and his guitar talent. Terry toured with the Stones and Hendrix: Greatest rock singer

Because one Terry song is not enough: Terry kills

Swiftboating God

2008-10-06T17:15:00.000-07:00

As Caribou Barbie was blasting Obama for knowing Ayers I was reminded of a poem I wrote last year saying no one is safe from negative campaigning.

God as the Presidential Candidate

My opponent, “God,” who didn’t even show up,
claims he’s an author of two best selling books,
The Old Testament and The New Testament
better knows as the “Bibles.”
As far as anyone can tell,
it’s a fiction, because
it lists no references.
There are doubts he
wrote the books as it
has so many ghostwriters.
These two books reveal
much about my opponent.
He claims he is not
only older than dirt,
but that he invented dirt.
The man claims he’s everywhere
at once and hears and sees everything.
That’s an amazing claim,
especially because no one ever sees him.
When anyone questions
God’s word about these Bibles,
we are told we don’t understand
because the ways of God are strange and mysterious.
What is written in the books is no mystery.
It’s there in black and white,
translated from the original Hebrew
for all to read.
God endorses high taxes
and big government.
He stated, “Render unto Caesar what is his.”
He’s an elitist that thinks
we should worship him
because he’s better than everyone else.
He claims he’s the one true God.
He feels we should kneel before him,
or, in the case of Catholics,
kneel, sit, stand, genuflect, kneels, sit, stand.
Speaking of Catholics,
God cut some kind
of deal with them to
promote eating fish on Fridays.
I suspect it’s because
of a lobby effort
on the part of Peter the fisherman
and his fishing corporation.
There was some bad blood
for awhile between Peter
and God’s son Jesus
because Jesus didn’t
buy fish from Peter’s family.
Jesus instead would buy
a couple of local fish
and magically turn
them into thousands
of fish to feed
his thousands of followers.
And what’s with
all the wine this family drinks?
These folks have a serious
problem with alcohol.
Jesus has gone so far
as claiming the wine
is his blood.
On another occasion,
God turned a river
into a river of blood.
Have these guys
never heard of the AIDs epidemic?
Talk about your family
values, God never married
Mary, the mother
of his only son.
He convinced a man named Joseph
to marry her so that God could
get out of paying child support.
On top of that,
when Jesus was 33,
God let him be
tortured and executed.
God’s followers
are so out there
that they claim Jesus rose from the dead
after three days in a tomb.
This shows God’s followers
are smoking more than incense
at their worshiping services.
Where was God’s family values when he not only
let, but encouraged Jesus to hang out with
prostitutes, beggars, thieves, and lepers?
Yet when it comes to other peoples
children, God encourages parents
to beat their children with rods,
and, in some cases, for parents
to sacrifice their children
on altars to God.
And talk about letting his
son hang around with the
dregs of the Earth,
look who God has for friends:
folks like Jim Jones, Pat Robertson,
Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart and Rev. Moon.
This “God” would be lousy on issues
of the economy. The friends of his I
just mentioned are constantly begging
for money in God’s name, so obviously
he can’t manage money and lives paycheck
to paycheck.
For God’s sake, er, excuse me.
For Pete’s sake, the man believes
in slavery, stating “Slaves, obey your masters.”
As far as being an environmentalist,
God is a pyromaniac,
constantly setting brushes on fire
and reigning down hurricanes, tornados,
and floods on us.
He even messed with Mother Nature
by parting the Red Sea and by flooding
the whole Earth.
He has spread socialism
through his son,
claiming the rich have
an obligation to help the poor.
He made anti-capitalist statements
claiming it would be
easier for a camel to pass
through the eye
of a needle than for
a rich man to enter Heaven.
The man has no compassion,
and has a mean-spirited sense of humor.
He once gave poor directions to a
man named Moses, and let him
wander aimlessly for 40 years in the desert.
He claims he’s opposed to gay marriages,
but he must be for incest.
how else would you
explain Adam and Eves’ Grandkids?
He claims he can be a full time president
because he never vacations or sleeps.
Yet he wants off every Sunday to rest.
The man believes in
Weapons of Mass Destruction.
He once equipped an army
with trumpets that were used
to knock down the walls of Jericho.
I haven’t even got to
what a flip-flopper God is.
In The Old Testament,
he’s an eye for an eye
fascist Lord of War, and
in The New Testament,
he’s the turn the other cheek,
beat your swords
into plows
Prince of Peace Hippie.
Talk about your Senators
missing from voting
on legislation,
God has a party
every Sunday to celebrate himself
where he serves cheap wine
and tasteless bread called Hosts.
Some host he is,
he never attends these gatherings,
yet claims he’s there in spirit.
God hopes you’re dumb enough
to vote for him.
He likes stupid people.
He once expelled Adam and Eve
from Paradise for seeking knowledge.
A lot of people in his party
are wise to him.
That’s why he barely
beat out the Golden Calf in the Primary.
I ask you not to be swayed by
his threats of Hellfire, brimstone, and Armageddon
if he is not elected.
I ask you to
cast your vote
for me.
Sure, God may have created the world,
but what has he done since?

Help refute the Ayers and Obama lies: Ayers Obama lies

Bad Ass in Warren Ohio

2008-10-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

I lived in Warren Ohio for about 14 years before moving in 1994. I lived in three different areas of the city. Being as my wife and I were young and poor (instead of old and poor as we are now) we couldn’t afford much rent so we rented in an older run down neighborhood. My wife found the house we rented, as she knew an elderly woman who lived on the street. As we were moving in my wife pointed out all the ramps up to the front doors up an down the street. The wife said, “With so many wheelchair ramps it will be a quiet street because so many elderly must live here.” I eyed the ramps suspiciously as they seemed very narrow. Turns out my suspicions were justified as those ramps were for choppers as we were in the heart of a biker commune.

Needles to say it was a neighborhood the police didn’t respond to calls for help in. At one loud party “Stairway to Heaven” blasted the neighborhood for 10 hours. If I hear any Led Zeppelin music today I have been known to stomp a stereo to death.

I read a story in the July Warren Tribune that reminded me about that rough neighborhood in Warren that I lived in. I have written my interpretation of the story using my poetic license.

A bad Ass in Warren Ohio

It was July 25,2008 just several days before his birthday. Mr. Bright was stumbling around on his Warren, Ohio front porch on a hot afternoon. He was sipping on a Bud Lite and tugging hard on a bottle of Jack Daniels. Being an inexperienced drunk he was drinking shots of beer and using the JD for a chaser. An off duty Trumbull County Deputy and woman walking by noticed Mr. Smart’s condition and thanks to that busy body invention the cell phone they called the cops. It’s gotten to the point the man of the house can’t get some fresh air and take a snort of booze on his own front porch on a hot day. Yes he was stumbling but folks who know him will tell you he never was much good at walking anyway. The two busy bodies claimed they were concerned because Mr. Bright was playing with a can of charcoal lighter fluid and a gallon of anti-freeze. Well as the man of the family Mr. Bright does the grilling. He’s one of those drunks who tend to get a little hungry when they drink. In his inebriated state he may have mistaken the anti-freeze for BBQ sauce.

When the cops showed up Bright was shirtless and was smacking his belly. Pretty much like all those white-trash drunks on that show Cops. Bright was mumbling something the cops took to mean, “Hey coppers you want a piece of me?” Upon entering the house the police found no food in the refrigerator and trash and empty beer cans and broken furniture everywhere. Mr. Bright’s mother Tamara said, “The place is a mess because my son is a violent drunk and I’m afraid of him.” As Mr. Bright had defecated in his pants the police had his mother change him before they took him into custody. Mr. Bright in a misguided attempt to protect his white-trash mother lawyered up and told the police nothing. Bright’s mother said she had not purchased any booze for her son. That means that some store is selling to minors who aren’t even old enough to walk or talk yet. You see Mr. Bright won’t be two years old until August 3 2008. He and his five year-old sister were taken from mom and are staying with their grandmother.

In a similar story in Denton, Texas a five year-old boy left his day care center and went to a Hooters. Look for a video about both boys called, “Toddlers gone Wild.” You don’t just start a career as a white-trash shirtless drunk on Cops you have to start young and practice.

In a sad follow up from the Sept. 24, 2008 Warren Tribune: WARREN - A woman whose toddler was found in July carrying two bottles of alcohol and a can of lighter fluid gave birth Monday to another child, this one with cocaine withdrawal symptoms, according to Trumbull Children Services.

McCain will withdraw from Michigan but not Iraq: McCain will withdraw from Michigan but not Iraq

Some Great Michigan music from the MC5 to celebrate McCain's Michigan exit:Celebtae McCain Michigan exit with the MC5

Because one MC5 song is not enough:Obama will put out those Detroit fires

Losers, Racist, Beer, Our Mobsters and lies.

2008-10-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

H. L. Mencken said: “No one ever went broke underestimating the American public."

I’m starting to believe that as I see more and more McCain/Palin signs. It’s really sad to see them in front of some really poor looking homes. I was surprised to see one of these signs in front of an insurance agents office. That is one guy I wouldn’t do business with because he surely doesn’t have my families’ best interest at heart.

When I needed tiles for my bathroom remodel I didn't even consider that big tile shop in Boardman. That's because the owner is the local head of the GOP. That and the fact that he had two of my fellow members of the Valley Co-alition of Peace and Justice arrested for holding anti-war signs along RT 224 near his business. My dad is a barber and he avoids political and sports talk because he doesn’t want to alienate customers. Given that I’m always surprised to see political signs in front of business.

At least those business men that call local talk radio shows and bash unions are smart enough not to name their business. I wish they would so my union loving ass wouldn't enter their stores.

I have been surprised to frequent area working-class taverns and see Coors beer on tap. Coors started the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank seeking to abolish civil rights laws, minimum wage laws, environmental laws, affirmative action, rights for the handicapped and arms control.The Coors family has also backed the racist John Birch Society. On top of that their beer tasted like skunk piss.

Who reads the racist magazine that John Birch puts out? See here:
an eye opener

I don’t need to look outside of the area and Ohio to be puzzled by voters. My own former congressman here in Ohio Jim Traficant sits in jail for corruption and yet voters cast votes for him in an election a few years ago. Thinking he could hold the office from prison actually made some sense because after all, most of our representatives belong behind bars. Maybe voters thought they were just putting the “con” in congress.

George Voinovich the former Mayor of Cleveland had a high school dropout rate of 50% in Cleveland’s inner city schools while he was mayor. That didn’t stop him from running for Governor of Ohio claiming he’d be, “the Education Governor” The voters bought it and made him governor. As governor his only economic plans for the state seemed to be rewarding his brother’s construction company with jobs and bringing in medical and hazardous waste from other states. He almost changed our state motto from, “the Heart of it All” to “the Dump of it All.” The voters responded to Voinovich’s incompetence by next electing him senator. Maybe, the idea was to feel
safer by sending him to D.C. and getting him out of Ohio.

President George H. Bush gave us a Gulf War and a terrible economy, so why did voters think his son would give us anything different? When GW was Governor of Texas they had the worst statistics on the environment and education of any state so why did people give him their vote to do the same to the rest of the nation? For that matter Arkansas’s record under Clinton’s governorship was the second worst at everything in the nation yet he was elected president. Given that the voters like terrible governors that ruin their state it’s a surprise ex-governor of Ohio Taft isn’t the GOP nominee for president.

Given the above it makes sense that when honest men with no dirt in their past like Ralph Nader run for office they are considered “non-viable.”

Jim Traficant will be out of prison in one year. I wrote this poem about him when he was being investigated for corruption:

Convenient Travel

Our congressman,
Jim Traficant
is bringing a second Federal Courthouse
to downtown Youngstown.
He has ulterior motives,
he did it for his own convenience.
You see he doesn’t want to travel
all the way to Cleveland
every time he’s indicted.
It will also save travel time
for the area deputies, sheriffs,
prosecutors, judges and Mafia dons
when they get arraigned.
Traficant also brought
a private prison to the area.
I would suggest instead
a country club prison
where elite criminals go.
Then the congressman
can have a short drive
to visit his cronies
and former office staff.
Also, if and when he ends up there,
his family can easily visit.
The voters have elected
Congressman Jim and
other local politicians
despite alleged mob ties.
Sure, they’re all mobsters
say area residents
but, hey, they’re our mobsters…
(You gotta admire loyalty like that)

If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you
would have $49 left.With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the
original $1,000.With AIG, you would have less than $15 left.But, if you
had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer,
then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would
have $214 cash.Based on the above, the best current investment advice is
to drink heavily and recycle.It's called the 401-Keg

Bush and Cheney still have time to ruin the country just in case McCain/Palin don’t get elected to further tank our country. Funny musical:

musical number

Palin's debate whoppers: Palin whoppers

Palin lie about Sudan: Sudan lie

Jesus was a Community Organizer Pontius Pilate was a Governor

2008-10-03T19:38:00.000-07:00

I got totally hammered during the VP debate. I decided to play a drinking game. I drank a shot of Jamesons every time Bible Spice said, Maverick and did a swallow of Straub every time she said oil. I was shit faced the first 20 minutes in.

She lost the debate because she could not show why McCain was not like Bush (even with all of her crib sheets). She did criticize Bush but I’ll bet she voted for him in 2000 and even in 2004 when we had seen how he was destroying the country. She also had no rebuttal to Biden’s point about McCain’s deregulation

Like other Republicans she thinks Government is bad, yet she’s supports the bailout and loved all the pork she got for Alaska as a mayor and governor.

Klondike Barbie is a regular “Joe Six Pack.” That is if you own half a million dollar hose on property worth $1.1 million, have two boats and an airplane that lands on water.

That she thinks like Cheney in that the VP should have more power is down right scary. It also goes against the executive powers of the constitution.

As for who I’d rather have a beer with. It’s a decorated veteran like Kerry instead of an AWOL alcoholic/cocaine addict frat rat like Bush.
It’s a community organizer not a governor. After all Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.

Ten Reasons why not to bail out Wall Street:

http://solari.com/blog/?p=1646

Joe Biden VS. Elly Mae Clampett

2008-10-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hey it’s debate night!

The real Sarah Palin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MJCvHMtwE4

This is going to make for an awkward Thanksgiving: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/republican_race/2008/08/30/2008-08-30_sarah_palins_motherinlaw_uncertain_about.html

Someone who knows what it’s like to debate Palin:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1001/p09s01-coop.html

I expect if Palin looks bad tonight it’s on to plan B. That involves Levi Johnston the redneck who knocked up Palin’s daughter (laying pipe in Alaska). Levi will have to take one for the team and have a televised wedding with Bristol Palin. The GOP will kick in enough money to rival Princess Diane’s wedding. Dick Cheney can bring his shotgun.

Hockey mom’s against Palin (funny):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIypadX3n0&feature=related

McCain lies about his about his earmarks (read pork):
. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1yMvaKrsQI

The new bailout bill porks up the old one:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53339.html

The possible November Surprise: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6453

CEO’s laugh all the way as they leave the bank. A slide show: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/as-banks-broke-down-ceos-cashed-in-slide-show.aspx

I say, "Mr. bush tear down that Wall (Street)."

Brother Mike Stout sings about the people who have the power for change (it’s us):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVryo5xYyb8

Mike Stout will be the featured performer at WYSU’s annual Folk Festival concert on Friday, November 7, 2008 at 8:00 PM. Charles Darling will host the evening’s event, which will take place in Peaberry’s Café in Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center. Admission will be free and open to all.

Info here:WYSU

If you haven’t heard Mike you owe it to yourself to be there. If you’ve heard Mike I know you will be there.

Pizza, pirogue and hummus oh my!

2008-10-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

I ran into this post on a restaurant guide last year:

Youngstown?

I'll be in Youngstown on business for a couple of weeks, and was wondering if anybody has any personal recommendations. There was a thread back in October that referenced a post on cleveland.com that isn't there any more... but beyond that, this town doesn't appear to have been much talked about here. Any veteran Youngstownians here with recs for a houndish visitor?

Is this town a distant suburb of Cleveland and Pittsburgh, or is it a place unto itself?

Lime Rickey

This knucklehead replied to him:

I lived in Youngstown for 5 years in the early 90's. The chow was really bad. A decent Indian restaurant opened, but was forced to close within a year. The same thing happened with a Jamaican place.

The tragic thing was that with so many people of Italian descent, you'd think that there would be some decent Italian food. I found none. It was all boring Americanized fare.

The pizza was especially poor. Lots of people gave me their recommendations for their favorite pizza joints, but I found each and every one to be lacking. Tasteless crust, rubbery cheese, and always ALWAYS the mushrooms were canned! There is a local variety of pizza that they call "Briar Hill," named after a neighborhood. It was just an unexceptional white pizza. I resorted to making my own pizza while I lived there.

Sadly, the best chow I found in Y-town was at the chains...and I hate chains!

Maybe things have improved over the last 9 years, but I doubt it.

Oh, now that I think about it, I did discover a coffee shop in the university area, called "The Beat." They created some tasty sandwiches. But coffee houses were a little too radical for Youngstown back then. I wonder if it even survived. (In another post Fire Rev mentions Quaker Steak and Lube for wings).
Fire Rev

Lime Ricky replies:
Damn... I'm discouraged. There's gotta be something worth eating after spending 10 hours a day plowing through mountains of paperwork. If I have to eat TGIF and Applebees I'm going to be sorely disappointed.

Come on hounds... gimme something!
Lime Ricky

I weighed in with this:

Wow. I don't know what FireRev is talking about because the Youngstown area has great food! He suggests Quaker Steak wings as they have won national competitions. They are tiny pigeon wings that get beaten in competition locally by wings at Inner Circle Pizza and blackberry BBQ wings at the Royal Oaks. He says the area has poor pizza and that Briar Hill pizza is unexceptional white pizza. It is not white pizza but red sauce pizza with roasted peppers and sprinkled on parmesan Cheese. This pizza has won many awards and is made at: Avalon Gardens, Belleria, Sunrise and many other area shops. There is white pizza in the area that is spicy cheese pizza and is great made at Carmen's, Brothers and Luigi's. Sunrise and the Swiss chess pizza at the Elmton are two of the best pizzas I have ever tasted and I've eaten pizza around the country.

To say no good Italian food is found in the area is crazy. Alberini's has been around for 50 years making great Italian food. The eggplant parmesan at Cafe 422 is the best I've ever tasted. The White Rose has been making great Italian food for 60 years. Then there’s; Johnny's, Schaggeti's, Cafe Capri, MVR, Cafe Cimmento, Combine Brothers, the Wave and two dozen others.

People line up for the Friday fish at the Boulevard tavern. Then there's Hunky food at Rip's Cafe that's been open 65 years. Hunky food at Paprika Cafe and pirogue at Tennies Tavern also. Great fried chicken at Sunrise Inn and Uncle Nick's chicken at the Buena Vista. Nick says, "If the colonel would have had my recipe he'd have been a general." Great chow at Martini’s, Anthony's on the River, Rachel's Steakhouse, BBQ at Charlie Staples is the best BBQ around. Huge steak and chicken salads at Trax Inn are a favorite. Saratoga has been around 70 years making a great chicken salad. Great Mexican restaurants and a Puerto Rican one are in the area.

Handle's Ice Cream has been around for 70 years and is rated in many magazines as one of the top 10 ice creams in the world. Hamburg’s at Raptis, Masters, and Yankee Kitchen are some of the best you'll ever eat. Hot dogs and chili at the Warren Hot Dog Shop and Jib Jab have people waiting in line. Nearby New castle PA is the home of the chilidog. Fancier food is available at the Blue Wolf, Saliah, Fifth Season, the Upstairs, the Youngstown Club, Vernon’s and dozens of others is worth checking out.

Yes, the Beat has good sandwiches but not as good as other coffee shops like the Mocha House. Coffee houses to radical for this area? Panera, which is a great coffee house chain, started in this area. The best rubens I've ever eaten at: Rusty's, Kravets Deli and Mary M's. Kravit's markets bagels that go around the country. For great Mediterranean food try: Aladdin’s, Ghossain's nearby Mary's and Natalis. Ghossains sells humus, tabuli and pita bread to national restaurants and grocers. Belly Buster makes subs that blow away chains like Subway. Great cooking oriental at the table at the Tokyo House has people lined up. A ton of good oriental buffets in the area.

Churches in the area also have dinners they've been serving for over 50 years. Specialties at some are stuffed cabbage and pirogue, Swiss, steak, pizza, cheese puffs, fish, potpies etc. Each church has senior citizens making their national dishes. Where else but Youngstown can you go to the Golden Dawn for breakfast for 70 years and get an omelets and a cold draught beer in a frosted mug. I know I've left out a ton of places but folks don't be a stuffed shirt you got to get out more. There are restaurants in the Youngstown/Warren area that have been making great food for 50-70 years you don't need to go to chains or trendy restaurants in Canfield/Boardman.

If you can't find good food here you just aren't trying. Youngstown recently asked for volunteers to help plant trees and flowers in the city and had over 300 volunteers show up to help. This is a come back city and the young people in the area are helping turn the city around. There are some great martini bars downtown and places that showcase original music. There is an active original music scene going on. Many places have open mike and a great art and poetry scene is also happening. Forget bad press and read some of the Youngstown blogs about the wonderful changes happening in this area!

elecpencil Oct 07, 2007 02:20AM

(Wow! I notice I was up at 2:20 AM composing that. Being a good will ambassador is a 24/7 job).

These two nice replies came the same day:

· hunkys, hamburgs and oriental food ... god i love ohio lol!
seriously tho, elecpencil is 100% correct that some people have got to get out more instead of just dismissing a place offhand. this is a an excellent fantastic post and i want to bookmark it for the next time i drive home for a visit from nyc to the cleve. thx so much elec!
mrnyc Oct 07, 2007 11:27AM

· re: elecpencil
You forgot East Wind on Market St.. The Best Fast Chinese Food in the area.
For Japanese/ Sushi, I think Asuka is the best, But their Hibachi grill doesn't Compare to Ken's at Tokyo House.
Cthulou Oct 07, 2007 06:16PM

I will soon post restaurant reviews (once my broke ass gets some extra cash).
Tell me about your favorite local places to eat.

Rock on but not with a tribute band

2008-09-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those days at work that when you get home you just want to have some alcohol? I seldom drink but I found some wine at home. I have been telling myself someday I will totally abstain. Luckily, today was today and not someday. Some folks had an intervention for me a number of years back. Who should show up but Foster Brooks, Brittany Spears and Charlie Sheen so it didn’t quite work out. I have been looking for another alternative that would help me with the bad stuff of life like bad wealth, bad health, bad habits, bad luck and my car that has bad brakes. I get through each day thinking tomorrow will be a better day. It seldom is but I remain optimistic.

I read in today’s Warren Tribune a story about getting more racially diverse acts for the Warren Amphitheatre. Councilwoman Helen Rucker pointed out that the 14 shows in the series of tribute bands did not feature any black groups. Most acts were tribute classic rock bands "copy bands" as I’d call them. There were psuedo bands of: Queen, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimmy Buffett, “Aeroscrud,” Rolling Stones, Journey, and Kiss. Helen should be glad no one was copying a black band, as it’s embarrassing enough we had phony half assed white bands imitating classic rock acts.

I didn’t attend any of the shows as I’d much rather hear the worst band in the world as long as they were playing originals. Here’s where I make enemies. The truth is I wouldn’t have gone to see any of the above classic rock acts even if they were the originals band.

I have never ever been a Queen fan. I could never understand how they could play a Nazi goosestep beat and sing, ‘We Will Rock You.” Not with that beat you won’t Fred. And what in the Hell is that "Bohemian Rhapsody" about? “Galileo you’re a boy scout he will not let you go.” What the F. As far as Pink Floyd the beat to "Another Brick in the Wall" is just as bad. I’ve heard enough Floyd that I never have to hear it again. I do miss Syd Barret though. I tend to agree with a friend of mine who stated, “The best thing Skynyrd did was the plane wreck.” I thought that was way harsh until the millionth time I heard, “Free Bird.” “I’m as free as a bird who cannot fly.” Wow that’s tenth beer profound. Jimmy Buffett, ever notice how dunk people at his concerts are? I can’t get that drunk to appreciate him. I also hate mixed drinks. Alcohol should be able to stand on it’s own without a mix or it ain’t shit. You're drinking the wrong stuff if you need to cut it with a mix so try a shot of Jameson. "Aerosrud" wrote “Love in an Elevator” and “Dude Looks Like a Lady.” If you didn’t know it from those lame ass songs they were using heroin. Those songs in themselves should be enough reason for kids not to do drugs. Just say no to “Dude Looks Like a Lady.” Aeroscrud has always been a third rate Rolling Stones. Who needs a third rate Rolling Stones? If we do we’ve got the last 25 years of the Stones third-rate career. Don’t “Start Up” Jagger it’s to late. I saw Journey at the Tomorrow Club years ago. It was when they had their first album out. They were very jazzy and quite good. They soon added Steve Perry and became a boring chic band. Kiss is not a band it is capitalism exploited to the max. Is there anything Kiss related that Gene Simmons isn’t having made by 8 year-olds at sweatshops in China? What genius wrote, “Hot, hot she looked hotter than Hell?” Probably the same genius in Foreigner that wrote, “She’s as Cold as Ice to Me.”

If you went to the concerts at the amphitheater you couldn’t have used enough drugs to reach any amount of groove quotient. In the old days at a concert folks took enough drugs they thought they saw God. At today’s tribute band concerts you just look at your watch and think God when is this going to end. If I sat through such concerts I could only get a smile on my face thinking about the Koran. You know that passage where 72 virgins are promised to martyrs. Truth is I’m not enough of a martyr to sit through such tribute crap. I don’t really care for that Ecstasy drug kids now use as at my age cortisone is my ecstasy.

Gentle Pains of Hope from a Pessimist / Optimist

2008-09-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

I want a better world for my kids and I can be damn militant about people and things that stand in the way of that. Given that feeling I am watching what is happening with these bailouts.

The pessimist side of me (I have been known to smell flowers and glance about for a coffin) says to Hell with all of these bailouts. John Plender in the Financial Times. (9-20-08) Writes, "The capitalist class are shifting the cost of their crisis on to the backs of workers and the middle class not to mention the youth who are the future; heavy costs will be inflicted on the American taxpayer, who is now subsidizing Wall Street." Not the kind of burden I want to see my kids facing. What happened to that conservative mantra, "Pull yourself up by you own boot straps?"

My optimist side is thinking look how fast our so called, "representatives" are racing to help the rich. This fast response by our government shows me that money chould just as quickly be able to be found for health care and education for all.

Without state intervention (read socialism), we’re being told the free market system will collapse. Let's get past the thinking of socialism as a boogieman and realize if it's good enough for the Golden Goose (Wall Street) it's good enough for the people. For all those people that hate big government, I say, "Why all the self-loathing remember we are the government." Sometimes we just have to remind our "representatives" of that.

A poem I wrote a couple of years ago to let my kids know many of us are fighting for their better world:

The Marginalized Become the Majority

What with downsizing and globalization
we, the working class, are steadily joining
the ranks of the left behind:
minorities, the poor
the homeless and the incarcerated.
In other words, the nameless,
faceless and powerless.
Together, we make up the huddled masses,
once graciously welcomed by the lady in the harbor.
The time has come for us to get in a huddle and develop a game plan.
We must not be divided,
but shout as one.
We must dialogue,
not just speak, but listen,
with attentive ears hearing truth
when honest tongues speak it.
The journey of truth is long
so while we are the huddled masses,
we cannot be the tired masses.
There will be time enough to rest
in our graves.
We must all become leaders,
leaders who ask for nothing for themselves
but everything for everyone.
Let us approach the new millennium
as if it were a new world.
A new world where ideas
like freedom, justice and equality
are as common in nature
as air and water,
forests and mountains.
We may not live to see that better world,
but it’s enough to believe our children will.
For now let us welcome
the gentle pain of hope.

Today’s myth breaker: Obama is not the most liberal senator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qjornx-SLQ

Community, Moat Food, Lies and the Bailout

2008-09-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw more of my communities “common unity.” As I said, my daughter the Mac was chosen as her high schools homecoming queen. My neighbor lady who raised three daughters did a fantastic job setting Mac’s hair for the homecoming dance. Another resident had many of Mac’s classmates over (as she and her husband do annually) so they use her picturesque backyard as a backdrop for photos of the kids in their dance attire.

My neighbor was going away for a few days and asked me to keep an eye on his house. This is a retired neighbor who in the winter plows many of our driveways and won’t take a penny. This same neighbor has a big garden every year and shares his vegetable harvest with many in our neighborhood. I have been blessed with my neighborhood and it’s sense of community!

Speaking of vegetables I made some mental notes last week in the school cafeteria at my workplace. The school was actually serving buttered beets to kids. The only kids eating them were multiple handicapped kids who had them pureed or kids in wheelchairs who couldn’t get away because their brakes were locked. A note to the cafeteria staff beets, olives and sweet potatoes are not edible foods. They are “moat foods” to protect the garden’s treasures. You plant olive trees, beets and sweet potatoes in a circle around your garden to protect real vegetables like onions, peppers, cucumbers and corn. Bugs, rodents and small mammals will take a bite out of the olives, beets and sweet potatoes and vomit and run away there by protecting the inner circle of edible vegetables. I learned this technique in my favorite series of self-help books. No not those “Gardening for Dummies” books but in the “Lazy Man’s Guide to Gardening” book.

Don’t even try and convince me that sweet potatoes are wonderful when topped with butter and brown sugar. I wouldn’t eat a sweet potato if you put Handle’s butter pecan ice cream and a slice of Sunrise Pizza on top of one.

If you saw the debates and wonder who told the most whoppers see here: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_1.html

A funny on the bailout: http://www.236.com/video/

By Dammit I'm Old Enough to be Opininated

2008-09-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

I was saddened to hear Paul Newman passed away today. For more than 25 years Newman's Own Foundation has produced food products whose proceeds are all donated to charities. The private independent foundation has generated more than $250 million. Quite a nice legacy from a great actor and humanitarian.

Workplace Political Discussion

I had a political discussion with a workmate Friday. It's with one of those people who won't let you finish a sentence. She said, "I like that Sarah Palin." It's hard for me to take someone serious after that comment. Said person was saying the problem with the USA was people on welfare. I am always amazed that so many people in the middle-class (who are a paycheck away from being on welfare) see the poor not the corporations that own our so called, "representatives" as the problem.

I had a woman last year tell me she was outraged by seeing a woman buy a steak at Wal-Mart with a food coupon. I replied, "It's ironic that you would shop at Wal-Mart who in 2006 received 1 million dollars in corporate welfare and bash a woman with food stamps." Here was this woman shopping at the biggest welfare queen in the country.

I mentioned to workmate that social welfare isn't even worth talking about because it's always been less than 1% of the budget. It's like spitting in the ocean next to corporate welfare and the war cost over runs by corporations like Haliburton. My co-worker did not believe my 1% figure. I walked to a classroom computer and printed out an article on welfare myths proving my point.

See here: http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/myths.html

Please use this info to educate other welfare bashers. I don't even think my co-worker looked at my facts as some people would rather believe what they think than the facts. In the end I may disagree with fellow employees about political and social issues but I hope they know that I respect them for the difficult job they do working with Autistic children.

I can't think of any better reason to have a blog than to bust myths and spread facts. The powers that be fired all of their fact checkers years ago so it's up us little guys to spread the truth.

Laugter/tears and Homecoming Queens

2008-09-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

A big night tonight. My daughter, the Mac was chosen as her High School Homecoming Queen!!! It did not rain, my parents and mother-in-law came and our team won the game!! On top of that our community was warm with congratulations. The thing about your kids is they either make you laugh or cry and no in between. Truth is sometimes the laughter is in bewilderment and sometimes the tears are in joy. On a good day you get to share both of these kinds of laughter and tears with your kids. Today I had such a day!!!

Who's the Boss?

2008-09-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

I received this today and got a big chuckle out of it:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Because of policies that our corporate owned politicians have been pushing for years, the United States is facing some of the worst financial conditions in our history. While we can't get health care for everyone because that would be socialism the government is going to use socialism (read our taxes) to bail out the greed-head corporations. Well, where was the bailout money to save the plant that I worked at for 27 years? When it closed in 1999, the workers were trying to get ESOP money together to buy the plant. No one was around with their hand out to give us money. In my 27 years there, we went through several different owners. Each one was more incompetent than the last. They all had the worst management you could imagine. Of course each new owner asked for and go concessions from we, the employees. We Joe six packs, ended up being Joe two packs by the time the last owner came and went. I believe the employees could of done a much better job of running that factory than any of the so-called corporate types that managed it.

I wrote this piece a few years back for the IMPACT Rank and File newsletter:

Who's the Boss?

I loved history books that tell us the unknown stories we normally don't hear. It's history from the bottom up as in STRIKE by Jeremy Brecher. I highly recommend it and feel its one of the best books I’ve read on labor history. One of the stories in the book that interested me was about a general strike in Seattle in 1919. Workers throughout the city went on strike. They formed a General Strike Committee that controlled and ran the city. Major General Morrison, who was in charge of the U.S. troops in the city, said he had not seen a city so quiet and orderly run. This is the point that I want to make, that workers can and will efficiently run their workplace if they are in charge.
I believe in Anarcho-syndicalism, which is defined as a worker controlled and owned workplaces. Think about the bosses you’ve had, if they’re anything like the ones I’ve had, you have proof workers could run things better. Of course every workplace has some employees that are incompetent but odds are they’ll be justly weeded out. Of course, companies nowadays, weed them out and promote them to foreman or supervisor. I can always pick out guys destined for management from their first days on the job. You know the guy who says within earshot of the bosses, “Employees here are overpaid and under worked.” They earn nicknames like “worm” or “weasel” and are destined for boss hood. Guys that just don’t have those troublesome scruples. The factory I worked at for 27 years was the kind of place where maintenance men nicknamed Bailing Wire Bill and Duct Tape Dave were destined to be maintenance foremen. A place where a guy nicknamed Blind Louie or Four-Eyes Pete was sure to become head of Quality Control. Our last plant supervisor worked his way up from the shop floor. His nicknames were Sleeping John and Sleepy. This was fitting because Sleepy was one of the seven dwarfs. We had already had some of the other dwarfs for boss, mostly Grumpy and Dopey. I personally was pulling for Happy.
The worst supervisor we ever had stared out as a laborer. He was called Little Ricky; he had a Napoleon complex and was a kleptomaniac. He stole everything and anything in the plant. On top of that he ordered supplies. His policy was one space heater for the loading dock gang and one for his garage. The last news I heard about Little Ricky was his arrest. It seems his father and him stole freshly planted trees in an area park.
At least when bosses are brought in from the outside they have an anonymity about their idiocy and incompetence. Well, at least until they have a break-in period or open their mouths, which ever comes first. Our strangest boss who came from the outside was Big Harry. Harry’s highlight was the time he defecated in the company pick up truck. He was so dumb he told everyone in the office. The employees found out because he had the janitor clean it. We hung a roll of toilet paper on the turn signal for Harry; in his case it was a useful car accessory.
Most employees I worked with didn’t want a management job. A good example of why was illustrated by a foreman who worked a month and quit. He said considering the long hours he worked, his salary averaged out to less than minimum wage. He left to be a school janitor. Only in our plant could leaving a foreman’s job to be a janitor is considered a step up...a big step up.
I am just scratching the surface on bad bosses at our plant. We had a past owner, who along with his vice-president, and our plant supervisor all went to jail for price fixing. Our last owner ran the plant into bankruptcy within a year. He had been too cheap to hire salesmen so we were only working two days a week. He finally admitted to employees, ”You guys were right I failed because, I didn’t have a sales force.” The present owner picked a bean counter to run the place. His first act was to eliminate an inspector’s job. He bragged how he was saving the company $80.00 a day. The downside was that without the inspector we now have gone from $300.00 to $3,000.00 in scrap everyday. This had been going on for over two years and all he cared about was that he eliminated a job. Meanwhile they are creating deadwood management jobs like head of special projects. For the last 100 years our plant has gotten by without a special projects department. I’ve got a special project for them; prove to employees that bosses can run this place better than they could. They can’t, that’s why we get a new owner every 2 to 3 years.
Am I saying all bosses are bad? Yes, in my experience. I had someone tell me, ”What about Aaron Feuerstein owner and CEO of Malden Mills? When his plant burned down he paid workers for a few months until it was rebuilt.” I was asked, “don’t you think this is a good boss?” I said there must be more to the story, let me investigate. I found out the mill was a 100-year-old firetrap, where workers feared for their lives from constant gas leaks. He also forces workers to put in 12-hour days. He has tried to get his workers to give up seniority, and he has a two-tier wage system where new hires never reach wage parody. I don’t care how many awards Aaron received or that he sat next to Hillary Clinton at the President’s State of the Union Address. I felt vindicated, here was another bad boss.
There’s a saying, you’re not going to be promoted to Pharaoh by being a slave who built the pyramid. Well we don’t need workers who are slaves, and we don’t need Pharaohs. We need workers who are their own bosses; they’re the guys who get the job done on a daily basis. We don’t need politicians giving tax-abatements and corporate welfare to keep companies in their district. We need politicians and communities to back employees in acquiring the means of production. We’ve got to put the operations of companies in the hands of the people that run them.... the workers.
Jeremy Brecher in his book Strike tells us those Seattle strikers of 1919 saw their activities in management during the strike as a preparation for the time workers would run society. They stated in The Seattle Union Record: “Some day, when the workers have learned to manage they will begin managing...”
Brother and sister workers that day is here.

I want to hear your worst boss stories.

Dueling Hypocondriacs

2008-09-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

My wife and I were off work today to take the Mac (my jock high school senior daughter) to an ankle specialist at a hospital in Akron. I love Akron because it is a working-class town like Youngstown with lots of mixed cultures. The Mac has been a soccer goalie and is a second “basewoman” at softball. In June of 2006 while sliding into second she hurt her ankle. A doctor in Boardman Ohio did surgery on the sheath in her ankle. Since then she has had ankle pain off and on. We took her to a doctor in Sharon Pa. and a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic that the Boardman doctor recommended. They all agreed that the Boardman doctor did a good job on the surgery and they couldn’t help us any further. Some custom shoe inserts helped for a while now the pain is back. The Boardman doctor recently recommended we see the Akron doc. The Akron doc also complemented the Boardman doc and told the Mac to order an ankle brace to use while playing softball. I felt really bad as the Mac was upset because she just wants to play softball pain free. The Mac plays all out in any sport and I remember being scared for her as she played goalie and would actually throw her body through the air to stop goals.

When I got home I stopped at pop’s barbershop to get my ears lowered. An old timer in the shop was talking about an area knee doc who did a great job replacing his knee. My point is that we have some great doctors and medical facilities in the local area. The area doc’s are so use to everyone thinking that the Cleveland Clinic is the end all be all that they send folks to the clinic just to prove that the valley’s physicians did all that could be done. I am so sick of everyone saying, “Oh these docs in the area are butchers you have to go to Cleveland.” They say, Cleveland not even adding clinic. Cleveland I think, you mean if I drive to Cleveland stop downtown at Sliman’s Deli and get a mile high stacked Ruben with a dill pickle spear the knee I need replaced will be instantly healed? Many hospitals of course specialize in certain things but none are a panacea for all that ails you.

While I was at the Akron doc’s office I heard what I often experience when old folks are chatting. That is, “Dueling hypochondriacs.” An oldster in a wheelchair was telling an elderly woman, “I have four screws in my ankle.” She replied, “ I have six pins in my thigh.” He replied, "pins Oh yeah, I forgot I also have seven of those along with the four screws." The woman’s jaw dropped open. Match and point to “Ironsides.”

This all brings me to a poem I wrote a while back about my hypochondriac late Grandfather Doogie (John). On one of my trips taking Doogie to play the lottery I got the material for this poem.

Dueling Hypochondriacs

An early spring day, cloudy and wet

Dorothy was at the newsstand placing her bet.

The only way out of her financial agony

was to win the Ohio Lottery.

She saw old John and gave him a hug.

He said, “I just stopped to play the bug.”

She asked, "Seen anyone from work?" as they exited the door

“Since we retired, only at the funeral parlor

and they weren’t saying much if you get my drift.”

He added, “The cars right here, we’ll give you a lift.”

“No,” she said, “I’m going to the doctor.”

“Oh,” he replied, “Whatever for?”

Her: “My bursitis and arthritis.”

Him: “I’ve got that and tendonitis.”

Her: “I’ve got colitis and hepatitis.”

Him: “Me too and gingivitis and sinusitis.”

Her: “I just recently broke my hip.”

Him: "Ditto plus I have post nasal drip."

Her: "I had a triple bypass."

Him: "I had a quadruple bypass

plus constant gas."

Her: "I had kidney dialysis."

Him: “Ditto plus I’ve got a slipped disc."

Her: "I’ve got so much pain and stress I’m on Valium"

Him: "You don’t know about pain until a doctor probes your rectum."

Her: "Life’s been downhill since I had a hysterectomy."

Him; “I had one so I’m inclined to agree."

Her: “It’s time for my appointment with Dr.Pazack."

Him: "I use to see him, he’s a quack."

He said, "I was as healthy as a horse."

Her: “So you found another doctor of course.”

Him: “You betcha, Dorothy watch for me on the Lottery Show.”

Her: “Save your money John I’m going to win don’t you know.”

That was my Grandpa to a tee.

I don’t usually rhyme poems unless they’re silly ones like above.

A Lesson in Community

2008-09-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

I think that the following story I wrote several years ago and updated an opening for will show you the kind of people that make up the Mahoning Valley.

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has resigned because of a scandal. Dann is a Mahoning Valley resident so some folks are saying it makes our area look bad. Add his name to others before him who've embarrassed this area like: Trafficant, Mickey Monus, Philamena and several judges and you're going to get some pessimists painting the whole area with a broad brush as being a bad place to live. I'd rather use that brush and a big pallet to paint a landscape of what this area is really about. That is it's everyday people and how they come together to help others because that's what community is all about.

. The word community broken down is "common unity." In our fast-paced, busy lives of today all that sense of common unity can seem like ancient history. At one time I had to harken back to tales my grandfather told me of life during the depression for any sense of true community. My grandfather worked for 43 years at the same barrel plant I spent 27 years at before it closed. He told me how during the depression, the plant was a great place to work. It was one of the few places in the Mahoning Valley that had steady work throughout the depression. Since he was working and so many of his relatives, friends and neighbors were not, he felt his payday should also be their payday. He would cook up something like a huge meatloaf and make a bathtub full of homemade beer and the party was on. Neighbors, friends and relatives would eat, drink and play cards until the wee hours. During the periods he was laid off, those he had helped reciprocated his generosity. That’s the way things used to be, tough times rallied people into a sense of solidarity, of community, a sharing that said, we all matter and we’re all in this together.

Something happened to me several years ago to make me realize those days were not over yet.

Life has a funny way of changing almost overnight if you focus on the good instead of the bad. Many times it takes something bad like the Great Depression to see the good side of people. The bad thing that woke me up to the goodness in people happened in 1999 around Christmas time. My wife was diagnosed with a circulatory and connective tissue disease. She has to stay warm at all times so she has been limited to going outside except to doctors’ appointments, including three specialists.

My wife, Melanie, is a speech pathologist and has also taught multi handicapped children. She works for the county so she travels between school districts. Due to the pain she was in and the exposure to cold between her travels, the doctor has ordered her not to work the rest of the year.

At work I was being forced to work long hours. So to get her to doctor appointments, I had to miss some work, which the company was not happy about. Not being a person who likes to ask anyone for help, I didn’t. It turns out I didn’t have to, because help descended on our family in a wave of mythical proportions in the form of community. This is the type of community that gives blessing to life by only hoping to serve and it grows by giving.

In-laws, neighbors and friends came out of the woodwork to chauffeur my wife to her doctor appointments. But the sense of community didn’t end there. My neighbor retired and took it upon himself to help out the other neighbors. Every time it snowed that winter, he plowed many of our neighborhood's driveways. I can’t explain how good it feels to come home from a long days work and find you don’t have to spend hours shoveling out your driveway. Another neighbor got our daughter on and off the bus with her children. Other neighbors called and offered to pick up groceries.

My wife received a lot of cards and letters that always seemed to come at a time when she needed them the most. The substitute speech pathologist called often with questions and comments to let her know how the children were doing. My wife worried about the students so the calls were a relief. My wife’s co-workers, therapists, teachers, assistants, cafeteria workers, bus drivers along with my mother and mother-in-law, dropped in to visit often. No one came empty handed. They brought flowers; videos, books, lots of prayers and so much food our refrigerator and freezer were always full. My wife works with so many people and so many nationalities that we sampled all kinds of international cuisine. We enjoyed everything from pirogues and halushka to lasagna to a Spanish rice and chicken dish. Melanie’s friends and co-workers chipped in money to pay for a cleaning lady to clean our house (and the cleaning woman brought us food too!).

These aren’t people who just talk about family values, but live them. These are people who have learned that giving of self is the way to true fulfillment…. spiritual fulfillment. Community my brothers and sisters is anything but ancient history. It is all around us when we need a hand or are willing to lend a hand.

Brand new

2008-09-22T17:32:00.000-07:00

This is my first entry!