Blast from the Past -Aug 2008

But First let's hit the current news, which is pretty disconcerting today.  Some Texas judge is saying there will be a full scale rebellion among Texans if Obama is reelected president.  "It won't be just a hap hazard riot, but a full scale organized rebellion with the sanction of government officials here in Texas".  They seem serious.  Meanwhile Mitt Romney told a woman he'll take question but "Nothing that is in the news right now".  So there will be no questions about his taxes, or how he really feels about Paul Ryan's budget, or the whole Todd Akin thing or his real stance on abortion, or for that matter invetro fertelization, since it involves the death of furtelized eggs that aren't used.  One Radio comentator said this was the coming trend, for Reporters to "sell out" and not ask the real questions, in order to gain access to the candidate at all.  To me it's sick.  I'd rather not ask anything, and get others in my profession to follow suit.  There were two electrocutions today when this woman driver sheered off a fire hydrant and knocked over a power pole and was instantly electrocuted when she stepped out of the car.  Another rescuer approached the area barefoot and was instantly electrocuted.  Rodney King's autopsey came back today.  They said that he not only had a heart condition, but also that four dangerous drugs were in his system.  There was PCP, marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol, when he stepped or jumped into that swimming pool last June and drowned.  And on the Dr. Oz show we learn that one in thirty babies born to forty year old women- - are mongoloids, and one in twelve cvhildren born of 45 women are mongoloids.  That's an absolutely frightening statistic!  It sure beats the five percent elevation in risk from fifty year old men becomming fathers.

Today is jiinxy for me and I hope it's not the start of a trend.  The following material took place just prior of the Jinx of September first 2008 descending, and this jinx in effect lasted for two years, and at times I'm not sure even now it's lifted.  Today my watch stopped.  The other time I had a watch stop on Memorial Day of 2006 it signaled a turning point to the negative in terms of finances.  Also I burned my finger on the coffee maker reaching to turn it off, and now I'm getting a blister there.  We had that horsemeat stuff or whatever for dinner today.  We were supposed to have regular ground beef meat balls with barbecue sauce over noodles but we didn't.  I'm going to be out of money for a week starting tomorrow where I'm up a creek regarding cigarettes, and eventually I'll run out of coffee.  In terms of this flashback it's kind of a "let it all hang out" affair.  The soap opera references involve a guy named Max, who is a young man adopted by Sean and Caroline Brady so he's kind of Chelsea's blood relative, but I think they've had sex.  The Morgan was a girl who dated Philip Kiriacus, who is no longer in the series.  One will note in this report I seemed to have more spending money back then.

This is Wednesday August 27, 2008 after dinner.  I put the laundry out last night at nine though Denise did come in the night for Bill’s.  I had trouble getting to sleep and then I had a dream I’d gotten into some argument with Mom and Dad at company where I felt picked on.  Uncle Bob got involved somehow.  Bonnie fixed me a Romaine lettuce salad with balsamic vinegar dressing.  Then I went looking for a restroom because we were in this sprawling office complex but people were saying there weren’t any.  When I woke I had this gripping tightness in my anal muscles.  But it was one of these night spasums I get from time to time and after just sitting on the toilet it passed in time.  I then had another dream about company.  I was living in a rich person’s house and there were a lot of these girls about twenty over that weren’t especially attractive.  One time I came across a bunch of them in my bedroom and thought this might be my lucky day but more likely they were just looking at the architecture and nick nacks in the room.  One of the girls asked me about a picture that was hanging, but I didn’t know anything about it.  I’m not sure who I was living with in that house, only that I felt out of place.

We had corn flakes for breakfast and pancakes and bacon.  I got bacon also from Manfred and Yvon, which was good because I was really hungry and didn’t get filled up.  I didn’t go for coffee at the bakery till later.  When I got out of the shower it was 25 minutes to six and still dark.  I had three cigarettes before breakfast and just the one afterwards.  I did a blog for today at eight covering the convention.  I then lay down listening to Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartman at times dozing.  I went down for coffee snacks at 10:15 and had seconds.  There were few people.  Then I took the walk down to the ARCO station and got four packs of Waves.  The lady was really nice about it when I was momentarily dazed at what brand I was going to order.  We had hamburgers for lunch and it was quite a long wait for firsts, but we finally got seconds.

In the soap opera, now Marlena is rejection John Black’s professions of love for her and she seems to be making a play for Roman Brady, who is concerned about her but not in love.  Chelsea found out that the doctor and Kate were shaking up because Chelsea saw the text message on Kate’s phone.  Morgan thinks she saw her father making a run for it.  Someone is screwing with the TV stations right now and nothing works.  I had Randy Rhodes on at two for a while.  I went out about two for a Coke and a Pepsi, and misplaced a quarter and got another one and then found the first one between the bills and returned to give it back to her.  Mary Jane weighed me this morning and now I am down to 175.5 pounds.  That’s obviously about a seventeen year low, and a bit disconcerting.

Obama was nominated by acclamation in a real circus event.  I turned on CNN about two thirty.  I did not go down for afternoon coffee.  Hillary’s name was being seconded for nomination and other seconding nominating speeches.  Then there were the brief Obama nominating and seconding speeches.  They went right into a state by state rowcall.  For once you could see the state poles.  As the roster of states proceeded the speeches got longer and longer becoming absurdly verbose.  California passed.  When they got to New Mexico they yielded to Illinois who yielded to New York.  Hillary could be seen in the delegation and they gave her the microphone to move to nominate by acclamation.  Ohio and all those other states got cheated out of the right to make a speech in public.  Of course they announced what they’d do before they did it.

Last night that lady governor from Kansas spoke, and she had a broad smile.  Then it was governor John Warner of Virginia, who is running for the senate.  But there was a “black hole” or black-out in media coverage of the floor activity from sometime before seven to about twenty to eight.  They just filled the air waves with commentary bullshit.  I searched on vain all over the dial for any coverage.  At least two people spoke.  The governor of Massachusetts spoke and then the governor of Montana spoke and “gave a real stem winder”.  There were roomers Dennis Kassinitch spoke last night.  When I turned back to KCET the Hillary film was already underway, meaning NBC was missing that.  Hillary had to rush her speech because she didn’t get started till a quarter to eleven Eastern time.  She got off to a slow start because she had to thank the many little people who helped her including a bald woman with cancer who had Hillary written on the top of her head.  She finally found her stride and the speech was getting good but she had to end it because it was eight after eleven, Eastern time.  [two or three confusing sentences were deleted here]

I had Rush Limbaugh on and Hurricane Gustav may pre empt the Republican convention because we may have Katrina II in New Orleans next week.  And like Rush says, “All hurricanes that strike are really the fault of the republicans”.  I was less than entirely happy about the way the media covered the convention last night.  I had the computer off so CNN was not an immediate option.  Maybe tonight I’ll be smarter.

We had shake and bake chicken for dinner with cheese potatoes and mixed vegetables.  No seconds.  I haven’t gone for coffee yet.  They rang the bell the first time before four and rang it again about 4:12 while we were waiting for our food.  Nora was by about three during row call and she dusted and I moved my stuff.  There was a funny kind of stale smell in here after she had concluded.  The window has been open.

This is an overcast Thursday morning August 28, 2008.  It’s funny the things that pop into your brain when you first awake.  I was thinking of that time when Tom Leykis was talking about he was mad at his father for having so many kids that they had to move into a bigger house.  When Tom was eleven in the summer of 1967 he lived in the Bronx and went to all the Yankee’s games.  But when he was twelve his family moved to a big house out on Long Island and Tom was so lonely.  And he would hitchhike back into town to spend time over at his cousin’s whom he was good friends with.  I think some significant planet has moved into a new house today.  I feel different.  I was thinking on how I’d have to quite smoking to honor that fleece to God last May that is Obama actually won the nomination I’d quit smoking and do something else the very nature of prevents me from even bringing it up now.  Of course this time of year you always get that “summer is almost over” feeling because the days are so much shorter both on the evening side and the morning side.  We had oatmeal for breakfast along with toast and scrambled eggs and coffee.  Alma remarked about the below average temperatures.

I caught hurricane Gustav on the Today show before breakfast and Rush Limbaugh is right.  God is a democrat.  They are already making plans to evacuate the city of New Orleans days in advance of the storm.  Of course August 29^th. is the anniversary of the storm- - and I’d like to confirm in my own writings.  This is the date that Mc Cain has chosen to make his Vice Presidential pick.  Talk about lasts,  August 29^th. 1966 was the last time the Beatles played a live concert, and that was in San Francisco, of course.  It was seven years to the day that the Beatles were officially launched as a band.  A tidbit I didn’t share yet was it was August 29^th. that Mona Best opened up the Casbah Club and George Harrison and bass played Ken Brown had just quit their band Les Stewart Quartet, and they ran up John and Paul and they formed the Beatles.  And of course, they have been a hit ever since.

I guess the question is do I have to say everything about last night twice, or can I use this material on my blog.  We’ll see.  It’s kind of funny how people are always talking about the South sides of town.  To listen to the media you wouldn’t even think towns had a northern half.  You hear of south Chicago, south Boston, and south Philadelphia, and south central LA.  Of course you know that Mom moved a lot when she was a child.  People seemed to move around a lot during the great depression looking for work or whatever.  She lived in south Illinois, south Indiana (there’s that word again) and she lived in Florida.  She also lived in Modesto, San Luis Obispo, and Julian, but that was back before NBC renamed the town as Allester.  One time she mentioned she moved back from Florida to Indiana and people remarked how she talked funny.  She had picked up an accent from living there.  And of course as you all know Marlon and Denise would make these trips to New Hampshire in the summer and come back with their accents “reinforced” sounding like Bobby Kennedy.  But I never saw them much after the end of summer 1962.  Of course there was that time in 1964 when me and Allan saw Denise and Susan, and Roger of course.  That was when the joke was going around “How is a girl like a frying pan”.  And my answer was “Well, if they’re like Susan it’s because they’re both flat”.  We’re missing Drive radio now.  The other day Drive had 1976 music but the trouble with that year is that 1976 is a year that’s pretty much been beaten to death on Classic Radio.  I guess we’re about heard all of the songs.

Last night I had CNN on the computer.  There were a lot of short speech.  Tom Dashell spoke and Jack Reed (?) from Rhode Island, and Evan Bygh from Indiana and one other quickie.  Bill Clinton spoke earlier than expected and I hadn’t yet gone out to get coffee.  Then I got coffee and when I returned John Kerry was speaking.  Both of them gave excellent speeches.  Then KCET cut out and we were into that media black-out period again so I switched the computer on again to CNN and they had some lady Iraqi veteran speaking.  Another key thing that they included hurredly was the actual nomination and voting for Joe Biden by the concention.  This was done very quickly with alcclamation votes.  Then there was that big build up to Joe Biden film, and then Joe Biden’s son spoke and then Joe Biden himself spoke.  He finished up at about five to eight and then Obama himself appeared at the convention.  Then I watched the “Bones” rerun.  I saw Venus for the second time this year.  The key is to get out there early before it gets completely dark, or it’s already gone.  I don’t mind commentary is there is still stuff you can watch on camera and they still have the music going so that you feel you are a part of it.  It’s when they cut away entirely that bothers me.

I did today’s blog just now and it wasn’t all that long.  If I’d had Clinton’s and Biden’s speeches recorded on tape perhaps I could post analyze them better.