Is It November Yet?

I have an emotional hangover from all the weeks of mainstream media attacks on Biden with not a word about the corruption, felonies, convictions, constant lies and idiocy of the Trump crime-ing industrial complex.

The talking heads have also not said a word about the convicted felonious fuck’s obvious descent into dementia. His father died in June 1999, eight years after his first formal diagnosis of dementia, and it looks like Cheato is following his lead. Will it be eight long years before ShitzenPantz kicks the bucket?

It wasn’t just Fox, CNN, the Washington Post and the NY Times who engaged in Biden bashing though. Every day, or so it seemed, another prominent Dem Party politician and/or big deal celebrity was calling for the best president in my long lifetime, to step down. These were almost all wealthy, healthy, het, white men—people who would be able to smoothly, easily ride out an Orange Asshole dictatorship.

I’m furious. I feel betrayed. The Party kicked off a Dems in Disarray circular firing squad. They fell for the same old, tired Republican gaslighting.

I no longer feel able to trust the only party who, generally, shows a lick of sense.

Does this mean I’ll start voting third party? Fuck no! Voting for imbeciles like Worm Brain Kennedy or Woo Woo Williamson or Putin’s little buddy, Jill Stein, is the same as voting for the 24/7 Death and Suffering Republicans. NOT voting amounts to the same thing. I’m unable to do much at this stage of my life but I can and will vote. It’s my defense against bullshit extra suffering and an early death.

Trump’s made it clear that he thinks disabled people should just hurry up and die. I’m sure JD Nazi feels the same way. (by the by, did you know that the D in JD, stands for Divan, the sexiest of couches?)

I like MVP Harris A LOT and am excited that she’s the candidate. She’s amazing. I trust her and that’s not something done lightly or easily. I will most def be voting for her and whoever she picks as her VP. Governor Beshear of Kentucky and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona both strike me as great choices.

Looks like the fecal brained old dumpster fire, who the Grotesque Old Party supports is having serious cold feet about debating a woman who’s a former prosecutor, district attorney, attorney general in California and vice president.

Trump has said he would debate Harris, and face off against her "more than once." But he said on his social media platform that he believes it should be hosted by Fox News, instead of ABC News. The former president called ABC "fake news" and a “joke." (source)

This is his first move in what will be a long drawn out, chicken shit retreat from what would undoubtedly be, for him alone, an absolutely humiliating performance.

Harris on debating the Gish galloping fool?

I'm ready to debate Donald Trump. I have agreed to the previously agreed upon Sept. 10 debate. He agreed to that previously. Now it appears he's backpedaling. (source)

She’s ready to go but the elderly, feeble brained, bully boy’s scared. He’s apparently still aware enough, just barely, to know that a debate with her will reveal to all that he’s nothing more than an incompetent, mentally ill pool of warthog puke.

“So think of it: They get me to that position, and then their campaign says, ‘I’m the prosecutor, and he is the convicted felon.’ That’s their campaign,” Trump said. “I don’t think people are going to buy it.” (source)

I think they will…except for his diehard cult of dimwits.


He’s toast and he knows it. The decaying griftasaurus already played his histrionic, lying-ass stack of fire hose bombast. He doesn’t have any other tricks hidden in his diaper.

So then, I’m thrilled to my core about Kamala Harris being our candidate. The way Biden played the GOP with  the timing of his withdrawal from the race was absolutely masterful. He has, so far, been the best, most inclusive and incisive president of my long lifetime.

“The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule — that people do,” Biden said as he closed his address. “History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands.” (source)

Yes, it is. VOTE!

It’s Hunter Thompson Day

I wonder what Thompson would say about the state of U.S. politics now, in the Trump Era. Of Nixon, amongst other things, he wrote:

The slow-rising central horror of “Watergate” is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it. (source)

Did we learn anything from Nixon? It seems the only lesson learned is how to more completely and grotesquely bamboozle the minds of low information, hate filled, violence prone U.S. citizens. All it took to win the allegiance of the self-proclaiming “christians” and the rest of this country’s venomous misanthropes was a rich, tiny brained, reality TV clown who hurls sneering mockery at anyone who dares to oppose him.

Von ShitzenPantz couldn’t have done it without his billionaire backers and, of course, his boss—Putin the Puppeteer. The rich don’t need convincing—they’ll donate and vote for any slimy despot as long as it means they’ll net more millions and billions. Human rights? Fuck that shit—they can buy all the human rights (for themselves) they want.

By the by, the Paris Review column, linked at the quote above, is fabulous. Go, read the full piece—it’s short and well worth it. In the meantime, have some wisdom from the wise:

We live in a jungle of pending disasters, walking constantly across a minefield.
~ Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Death of the American Dream

America...just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
~ Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.
~ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
~ Hell’s Angels 

Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.
~ The Proud Highway 

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
~ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Ralph Steadman

Some may never live, but the crazy never die.
~ The Proud Highway 

We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.
~ Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80's

Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used.

I have never seen much point in getting heavy with stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I... And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots.
~ The Great Shark Hunt

Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.

Clowns to the Right of Me

Disingenuous
     adjective
dishonest and insincere

   Synonyms:
     feigned, deceitful, shifty
   Noun form:
     lying sack of shit

Hillbilly Himmler (AKA JD Wentworth, JD Flaccid, The Ohio Couch-Fucker, Fauxbilly, Shillbilly, Eyeliner Boy, JD Vance) is hilariously bad at political hit jobs. He tried to paint VP Harris as a welfare queen who’s spent her life living off government buckos.

A) the original assholian trope is based on the fever dream fairy tale that Black women have mobs of kids all by different fathers. Didn’t Shillbilly, just the day before, claim that Kamala wasn’t fit to be president because she’d never had children?

Which is it, you bully-for-a-buck micro-dick? She’s either a childless traitor to humanity or a lazy-ass, welfare scamming, birthing machine. Also, our future president has two stepchildren. The, now adult, kids call her Momala which is incredibly adorable.

B) Where have the fauxbilly fuck’s paychecks been coming from and who paid for his post secondary school education? Goodness me, JP's been living most of his life off the government dime? What's that you say? He's a foul, smelly hypocrite? Who could've guessed? (all of us, that's who!)

I’ve read that the Tangerine Twunt and his party of fascist sycophants are having buyer’s remorse re: The Eyeliner Kid. Gee, it’s a shame that they must now carry JD Couch-Fucker to term. Yes, even though that will put the life of the motherfucker (TFG and the rest of the Gangrenous Old Party) at extreme risk. Oh well...

Probably they should’ve just made better choices or kept their slutty knees together. I wonder what Dementia Don and the GOP were wearing when they spoke with the Ohio Player and his billionaire Silicon Valley backers. I mean, maybe the Gangrenous Old Party AND Von ShitzenPantz got what they deserved for playing fast and loose with reality.

It’d be irresponsible not to speculate. Ya know?

Trump campaign officials acknowledged that Trump selected the inexperienced Vance, charged with all his techno-authoritarian ideas, to boost support among their own base, not extend a hand to swing voters… (source) 

Daft Donnie only hires/picks the best people, right? Did his team just find out that his fauxbilly fuck veep choice is a foreign agent? a Russian spy? This seems to happen a lot with Sleepy Don's picks. Maybe tfg is too old for presidenting and needs to bow out.

Questions for our next president:

• What is candidate Harris’ position on sharks versus electrocution?

• What about changing hurricane landfalls via Sharpie? Will she? Is she aware that hurricanes are wet?

• How about water pressure in showers and how many times we citizens are forced to flush in order to get rid of incriminating docs ? Oops, I mean poops.

• Has Harris announced her stance on diet Mountain Dew?

• Do we know how she feels about Hannibal Lecter? Is it true that they used to be an item? Why is she hiding this from us, the voters?

• Windmill cancer—does she pledge to find a cure within my lifetime?

• Batteries! Aren’t there caravans of electric Chinese boats ferrying batteries over the border from Canada AS WE SPEAK?

The Republican Party has become a ridiculous joke. They're seriously rolling-on-the-floor laughable now. They're a Saturday Night Live by way of Monty Python skit. What's sad is that so many otherwise functional Americans will still vote for them.

It's Funny

It's funny to see the two imbeciles at the top of the raging anti-immigrant party’s ticket. One is married to a mail order porn model from Slovenia (who, after becoming a sleazy rich man's trophy wife, moved her parents here). 

First lady Melania Trump's Slovenian-born parents were sworn in as U.S. citizens Thursday, benefiting from a path to citizenship known as family-based immigration that the president and others have derisively dubbed "chain migration."
~~~
The lawyer acknowledged that the Knavses had obtained citizenship via the very pathway that their son-in-law, the president, has so publicly denounced.  (source)

The other is married to an “anchor baby” whose parents came over from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

But yeah, screw the rest of them poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

It’s funny to see Elon Musk, an immigrant, contribute (or, rather, claim that he will contribute) $45 million a month to an elderly, dementia riddled, adjudicated rapist and convicted felon, presidential candidate who opposes electric vehicles. Does Space Karen remember that he’s the CEO of a company that makes electric cars and trucks?

It’s funny to see all the “she’s not fit to be president because she’s never given birth” faux indignation and outrage from the right. Are they claiming that the 46 preceding uterus-free presidents all gestated some offspring? Neat trick, eh?

Here are five presidents who not only didn’t grow their own, neither did their wives or mistresses:
Georgia Washington
James Polk
Warren Harding
James Buchanan
Andrew Jackson

Was Washington, having neglected to birth any babies, unfit to be the first president? He and his wife, Martha, owned 317 human beings. Slaves. Does that count? Only if you’re a right wing fantasist. I’m guessing Georgey Boy never taught any of his slaves how to ride a bike or tie their shoelaces.

Ya know, by Republican’s own “logic” Von ShitzenPantz is utterly unqualified for the highest office. He’s never given birth and, on top of that, reports paint him as the world’s shittiest dad. (Yeah, absolutely ZERO surprise there).

It’s funny how the standard-bearers of the White Purity Party slather themselves in bronzers and other makeup. It’s almost like they aren’t as thrilled about their pasty-ass skin color as they claim. They’re also big on Botox, have frequent plastic surgeries and love their uniform Fox newsreader blonde bleach jobs. These are some deeply insecure people who all seem to suffer from body dysmorphic disorder. Despite his elaborate (and badly applied) makeup and the hairdo from Hell, Donnie Demento may be the only party member who’s actually pleased with his appearance. I suspect this is because he’s mistaken those ridiculous, sloppily photoshopped NFTs for a mirror.

And here’s a truly amusing bit:

Former President Donald Trump donated not once but twice to re-elect Kamala Harris as the attorney general of California.

California records show that Trump contributed $5,000 in September 2011 toward Harris' 2014 reelection campaign, and followed up with another $1,000 in February 2013. His daughter Ivanka Trump also donated to the campaign, contributing $2,000 in 2014. (source)

I wonder if either of these flimflamming fools are able to grasp the irony. Nah. They’d need an ounce of self-awareness and half a brain to see it. While they’re both talented, if sloppy as fuck, grifters neither is burdened by cognizance or introspection.

Found online. I don't know who the artist is. I NEED this on a T-shirt!

I Get Back Up Again

To live without hope is to cease to live.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
~ Mahatma  Gandhi

There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen

Do not judge me by my success. Judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.
~ Nelson Mandela

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
~ Benjamin Franklin

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.
~ Emily Dickinson

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.
~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight.
~ Bob Marley

Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible,and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
~ Francis of Assisi

There is no education like adversity.
~ Benjamin Disraeli

A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option — for peace cannot exist where justice is not served.
~ John Lewis

When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don’t speak out ain’t nobody going to speak out for you.
~ Fannie Lou Hamer

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
~ Aristotle

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
~ Haile Selassie

To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.
~ Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
~ Elie Wiesel

Peeves and Other Annoyances

A relatively minor irritation—when an author sets a story in a city/world they’ve created and all the names for people or places are four and more syllables long. Every damn time the name comes up I fumble over it and try to puzzle out how it can or should be pronounced. This takes me completely out of the story’s flow.

Sure, it’s the writer’s universe, their creation. They can name the cities, planets, people and businesses whatever they want. I’m a bright babe. I’ll eventually come up with a reasonable guess as to how a new word should be said and stop my inner linguistic debate.

I’m nearly 3/4 through my current read though and still wondering how Chersenesos and Tonfamecasca should be verbalized.
Annoyance level: ★★
~~~
I’ve never been into makeup or big skincare routines. I’m regretting that now. Not my eschewal of face paint—it’s the lifetime of wildly irregular moisturizing that I feel bad about. The skin on my arms, before I rub in a pint of hempseed oil, looks like a dust bowl era dead wheat field in Kansas.
Annoyance level: ★★★★
~~~
People with perfect, bright, Hollywood closeup-ready teeth piss me off. I totally understand the wish to have straight, not terribly yellowed teeth. I’d like some of that action myself. It’s the glaring, gameshow host fluorescence that irks the fuck outta me.

This 21st century fad of having your teeth bleached to a blinding neon shade of white is just flat out weird. My very first thought, when someone flashes blazing fang is, “what is this fucker selling?” I’m instantly on guard, on the lookout for sly boots sales pitches and flimflams.

Also, I only mention it but, a decent, healthy set of teeth ain’t cheap. Medical insurance, here in the U.S., doesn’t cover dental needs. The price of a routine cleaning plus x-rays ranges from $200 to $500. Need a root canal? That’ll run you $1,100 to $1,900 per tooth. Bleaching? Add another $400 to $800.

Only the well off can afford a full set of strong, attractive teeth.
Annoyance level: ★★★★★★
~~~
The immediate go-to insult for Moscow Madge and Coke Junior’s always-a-fiancé-never-a-bride, la Gargoyle, is that they’re men in bad drag. WTF?!

There were a zillion failed wits online yesterday claiming the reason la Gargoyle reached up her own skirt (it’s on video and, yes, truly odd) during Crazy Donnie’s lies and stream-of-conscious-a-thon, was because she had to scratch her balls. C’mon! There’s no shortage of solid, serious things on which to mock these miscreants and this is what the jokesters hone in on?

Having said that, I find it fascinating how similar Madge and Hulk Hogan look. They could be brother and sister.
Annoyance level: ★★
~~~
I can’t get Ethiopian food outside of Boston. Mind you, Valhalla borders the city but the closest restaurant is still at least a 20 drive away. This blows.
Annoyance level: ★★★★
~~~
Stupid headline brought to us by the BBC.

Inches from death: An hour that shook America (no linky because the title is just TOO insane)

FFS, it looks like the BBC is now in the tank for Don the Con too. America was not, by any stretch of the imagination, “shook.” Disappointed, yes.

At this point I think it’s clear to everyone, except his most dimwitted cult members (you know, the morons who go to his rallies/wank fests) that the pumpkin headed grifter is descending way down into the deep end of dementia. We’ve entered Weekend at Bernie's territory, only Von Shitzenpantz’s body is still breathing. His brain? His mind? Yeah, that’s burnt babbling toast.

The billionaire class, who own the big media outlets, are propping him up, promoting the despot worshipping tool, the aspiring dictator. They’re doing it for the tax breaks, the money making page views, the power trip highs they get from creating versus simply reporting the news.
Annoyance level: ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Riding the Recovery Train

Note to self—It’s okay to take a day off.

On Thursday I had a physical therapy appointment. Judy, who I adore (as does Cake), took me for a walk to the seawall. Up until Thursday, the farthest I’d gone without taking a wee sit-down break was about a quarter of a mile—just to the steps down to the beach and back. Not much BUT, you try doing this shit after your third brain surgery within a four year span (sixth overall neurosurgery in six years).

How’d I do? Better. I was able to make it a bit farther, walking .38 of a mile without a rest stop.

Judy and I got back to the house where I sprawled in my comfy chair, sucking down oxygen and water as though I’d run a marathon. Once I’d sufficiently chilled I got on the elliptical for a whopping five minute ride. I’d be embarrassed about that five minute action but….well, see above. I gotta start somewhere. Later in the day, I managed a second brief elliptical session.

I felt great and slept exceptionally well that night too. Then Friday showed up. Oof. There was no pain (okay, I had a not-completely-debilitating headache—Tylenol fixed it) but, man oh man, I was riding the Fatigue Express to Lethargyville. I managed a shower. I donned clothing. I descended the stairs to the first floor. I sat down in my comfy chair and *BOOM* That was enough exercise for me.

Today I’ll attempt another seawall hike and more elliptical time. Also, this time for sure, I’m calling in sick to the Doomscrolling Marathon. NOT gonna get sucked into the gaslighting, clickbaity melodrama.

In case you weren’t sure, I’m ridin' with Biden—one of the best, most progressive and accomplished Presidents of my long-ass lifetime.

Editing, Growling and TMI

Word for the day:
Growlery
     noun

• A place to retreat to, alone, when ill-humoured

• A place to growl

Everyone needs a proper growlery. Mine includes my beautiful Cake, dark chocolate covered pretzels, e-books (currently reading Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway), a comfy chair and way too easy online access. Why do I say “too easy?” Because I spend too much time doomscrolling. I’m desperately trying to cut back on that shit. Why? I have a bleak enough view of this country, this cruel world, the insanity that we’re living through—I don’t need amplify that. I’ll continue to follow the news but it’s time to retire to my growlery.

While I’m here growling, I wonder how folks make new friends as they get older.

By “older” I mean my age—mid-60s. I’m hardly ancient but, with the old Nf2 and its shitbaggian effects, neither am I a vibrant, dynamic creature.

There’s a thoughtful, independent woman on Threads who’s always posts interesting lists of things she’s thinking about, working on, doing. She asks readers for their/our thoughts and ideas.

I want to join the discussions but my life is so very different from hers and all her commenters (due to that pesky old Nf2 and the havoc it’s wrought). They all seem healthy or, at least, in better shape than yurs truly. I’m afraid that, if I respond, I’ll come off as some self pitying egoist, out to steal everyone’s spotlight. There seems to be no way to jump in unless I leave out my honest, real-life bits. What’s the point in entering the discussion if I’m going to leave a generic, pablum-y reply?

If I responded to her post, it’d look sort of like this:

At 65 I'm thinking about what choices I want to make for the rest of my life.

1 and 2: To relocate or not to relocate, that is the question—It's not an option for me. My doctors, specialists and surgeons are all here.

Also, when we were home hunting 20 years ago, I looked ahead.

• Would Valhalla be a good neighborhood for someone old and rickety, needing frequent trips to MGH Land. (so far, yes)
  

• Would it be pretty and peaceful or turn into a college student ghetto? (not yet)
  

• Would a strip mall get built in place of the park? (nope)

• Would mini-mansions with huge, environment assaulting golf-club style landscaping replace all the old cottages and Victorians? (there are some big houses but not many)
  

• Would a McDonalds or Starbucks move in across the street? (no)
  

• Would this become a cacatopia, an epic wasteland of asphalt, greed and trash, devoid of trees? (not so far but MORE trees are always needed)
  

Neighborhoods change and evolve. I know that. Before buying, we checked zoning laws and it looked safe. Asshole neighbors come and go. Most of ours have been lovely but still, we generally keep to ourselves. We’re friendly and helpful but not looking to become BFFs.

3: Siblings—I have three. One lives in a town nearby. We frequently text but, with our respective vida locas, don’t get together often. The other two live halfway across the country. I’m strictly No Contact with one. The other sends me the odd, brief email.

This is fine.

4: Health—I’m rebuilding, becoming stronger so that, whatever excrement hits the fan, I’ll survive, sparkle and break on through to the other side (in as close to in one piece as possible). I’m making slow but sure progress on this front.

5: Simplifying—The older I get the more stuff I want to get rid of. There are things from my Aunt Mary Ann and my grandparents that are precious to me. I’ve got artworks, made by friends or picked up on holidays, which are deeply meaningful. There’s so much that I can (and have) let go of though. Possessions, excess ones, feel like an unnecessary, suffocating weight.

6: Creating—My essential tremors have advanced to the point that handwriting is almost impossible. Painting is no longer manageable (except, perhaps, large abstracts). I haven’t played the flute in 20 years (due to facial nerves damaged in brain surgeries). I can write though, doodle a bit on the computer and maybe knit.

What other choices can/will I make for my future?

I can allow my imagination to go off leash more. I won’t necessarily attempt to write fiction but I could sit in a coffeehouse inventing/imagining the lives of other patrons. I can tell myself stories...for a start.

I’d like to see if the dexterity needed for knitting is in any way therapeutic. That is, between my meds and the focused, precise moves of knitting, could I regain better use of my hands? Could I then draw and paint again?

So, I want to join this woman’s discussions but not be that Too Much Information participant who’s ignored and/or pitied. How can I be open, honest and real but concise AND still connect with people? Edit, edit, edit and more of it!

What choices are you making for your future?