It's alright ma (I'm only bleeding)

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

Back

What the hell. Nobody will notice for some time, so maybe this is a good repository for some chicken scratch, or at least an outlet for writing a few lines, a few times per week, just to write something that's not an edit or an editing-related e-mail. Of course, I've forgotten all my fancy HTML crud... or have I? We'll see if that works. Not much to report.
Oh, except that I'm married with a kid now. You get married and all of a sudden all people can say to you is "How's married life?" I hope it wears off soon or I'm just going to start lying and saying I'm miserable, worst mistake ever... just to make the askers uncomfortable. Okay then. Enough for now. More to come.

Good Dog

Fergus died today. We put him to sleep at the vet at about 8 o'clock. He hit the same spot all three of the Medeiros family dogs have hit at a certain point. Today was the day he couldn't get up.
My mom called me at work, about 5 minutes before closing time, to tell me to come straight home, that Fergus was at the vet. That was enough for me to know.
Because, he was thirteen, old for an 80 pound pampered Irish Setter, and honestly there have been many times in the last few months where I had to look at his big red body long and hard to make sure he was breathing.
He was never in pain. I guess that at about 11:30 today my dad busted out the vacuum cleaner and Fergus didn't bail out, as he usually would. After some prodding and encouragement, it became apparent. So I got home at about 5:10, had a grilled cheese sandwich, and dug his grave with my brother.
I kept thinking to myself, "someone is going to walk by and say 'looks like you're digging a grave!'" but of course nobody did. I've never dug a grave before. Pet graves, according to literature picked up after the fact, have to be three feet deep. We went about five. There were about four layers of soil. The goldish stuff is easy, the black stuff is hard, and underneath some of those layers is a brownish tan sandy layer.
We went about three feet by five, I guess. The digging wasn't so hard. Most of the roots were in the first two feet, not many rocks. Just dig down, not across the surface of the pit. The real pain was being in this tight space at five feet trying to lift a five foot shovel full of dirt out of the hole.
Then we all went to the vet: my mother and father, my brother, my sister's kid (age 7). My sister couldn't make it; she was at a Kenny Chesney concert, which is inexcusable -- not given the circumstances, just in general.
Before we went I called the kid out front to explain to him what was about to happen.
"Do you know what's going to happen at the vet?" I asked.
"Not really," he answered.
"What's do you think is going to happen?"
"Fergus is dying," he repeated several times. "Fergus is dying and... Fergus is dying, Fergus is dying."
I think this was his first real death.
I explained that people who love their dogs, at a certain point, have to choose to let the dog die happily and peacefully before their lives become painful.
It was an easy decision to not make the crossover into human euthanasia issues.

Anyway, we went. We all petted Fergus, mostly me, my brother, and my mom. I think Fergus is easily one of my mom's best friends. I love him.

So the way they do it is one overdose of anesthesia followed by another dose of heart stopper -- not Sodium Pentathol, my dad asked -- or maybe it's brain stopper. The second agent acts slower, so the animal is totally out when the death occurs. So the vet gave the shots -- into an IV that he already had in his leg.

Fergus looked pretty cool. I mean, he wasn't in pain. But the thing is, he was... retired. He was disinterested. He looked up at us from time to time. But his decision was clear. He wasn't eating -- he didn't eat supper last night -- he wasn't drinking, and he wasn't getting up. His breathing was shallow. It was obvious. I didn't even ask the vet any questions which under much less important circumstances I would.

So she gave him the shots. And that anesthetic must have been pretty nice, because Fergus got a big smile on his face. Now, the drugs don't cause death in some neat short timespan like I expected. In fact, after about three minutes, he half-sat up, the first time he did that: elbows down, chest and head up, torso and rear legs prone. And it was freaky as I wondered: My God, is he suddenly okay now that we have administered a lethal dose of drugs?
But it was the drugs. He sat up for a minute or two, and I took advantage of the opportunity to massage the left side of him, which had been against the ground, as I had only massaged his right side earlier. He wagged his tail one time, when my mother rubbed her face in his face. He gave no kisses, as he was never much of a kisser. Me and mom got probably 15 between us in his life. That's about one every two years for each of us individually.

Then he laid his head back down on my leg and drifted off. His breathing became more and more shallow, although not strained, and then stopped.

He was still warm and lifelike there. People kept petting him after he was dead. I'm sentimental but I didn't. He was dead.

My mom and I both cried a little at the vet's. She cried again when we were putting him in the grave. We wrapped him in his bedsheets.
"Are his eyes closed?" the kid wanted to know. "Yes," replied mom, who had closed his eyes at the vet's.
I had brought him to the backyard in the wheelbarrow.
"His eyes are wide open," the kid said. "His eyes are WIDE OPEN," he said. They were. "Does that mean he's alive?"
"No," mom answered. "Do you want to feel his heart and make sure?"
He did, and was assured.
I got into the grave and my dad and brother handed the dog down. It was tight in there. I squatted as low as I could and let him fall gently to the floor of the grave. The blankets -- there was the blanket from the vet's directly around him, the sheet my mother lined the trunk with, along with garbage bags, and his Irish-looking green-and-red plaid bedsheets -- fell over his head, which had been peeking out, rather nicely.
"Make sure his face is covered," my mother said, her voice cracking. I told her it was.
I climbed out and we covered him. Because the dirt is looser going back in, there's a small mound out there. The back yard has little pea-stones on top, which lay over the little mound. It will settle with the rain.

I was at the mall today for the first time in years. Went to go pick up a copy of Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and Bringing it all Back Home.

No luck on either count but interestingly...

Everyone in the mall is an inhuman freak on some mind-altering drug pushing them to mindlessly consume. It's a really disgusting place. Not to mention it looks like an eating disorder clinic. Every ten feet there's a toothpick-looking chick with a thick veneer of makeup. Not to say I wouldn't bang every one of'em -- if there was any way possible I could even communicate with them, and there's not. It's really like we speak different languages. I speak English, and mall denizens speak bullshittish.

I remember taking acid and going through the mall for something years and years ago. Definitely freaky. One of the worst nastiest places on earth. Bunch of brainwashed trolls. I wish that malls would blow up and take the lives of everyone in them.

Also, Kath is telling me the anti-sweatshop bill died. I don't have the attention span to get into detail, but in short it was a bill to prohibit state institutions from buying their clothing from sweatshops. A real no-brainer for passing, yaknow?

But no, they were too busy passing a law to ban junkfood and soda machines from public schools.

Don't get me wrong, nice thinking there. But... what does it say? Maybe...

Dear downtrodden women and children of the world,

Thank you for the basketball jerseys that our children are wearing at the 8th grade basketball championship. We really appreciate you and your children's slave-labor.

Little Johnny and Beth have gotten really good at sports. I think part of it is this new law we passed against Pepsi and Snickers. The kids are so fit! They probably don't have the endurance of you and your kids, but hey, than again, we're not bringing them up to earn a quarter an hour, either.

Love,

The CT General Assembly

defrag

Seriously. Why does anybody know anything about -- or even accept any information thrust on them -- about celebrities? I am thinking hard and there's literally not one single reason to know anything about someone who you don't know and who has no role in your life. SO, I'm going to erase all the Paris Hilton / Jessica Simpson / Brad Pitt / blah blah blah shit from my head.

I'm not even going to find out or if I overhear not gonna listen to or think about the MIKEY JACKSON verdict. I mean seriously, again. Why is this news? Why is it more important than the people on trial for child molestation in your home town or state?

It's a psychologically fucked industry. It

1. propagates harmful ideas about how women should look etc.
2. Takes peoples valuable time and energy for nothing in return
3. Distracts people from what's important
4. Feeds into a fucked sense of societal vulturism in which everybody wants to see "celebs" go down in flames
5. It fills peoples' heads with the wrong ideas of what success and happiness is (driving consumer culture to even more gross depths)

SO if you have a brain and are a worthwhile person, I urge you to join with me in

1. Voluntarily and willfuly erasing and celebinfo from your brain
2. Shutting out and refusing to accept or process any new celebinfo
3. DERIDE anyone who mentions shit about that stuff

Bombs bursting in air...

Bombs don't actually burst in the air, do they? I mean, if they did, they wouldn't be very effective tools of murder. I'm pretty sure they blow up on impact. Impact with buildings full of people, buildings like schools and hospitals too.

Is that so different than what those planes did when they hit the money towers in NYC?

Today there was some parade I didn't go to in Manchester. They had jets flying overhead, military marching, fired cannons. Hurray for stuff we use to kill people with. Hurray for guns and tanks and bombs.

My mom was there, with two children from Liberia whom she is tutoring in English. The older girl - must be around ten - told her when they see or hear things like she saw today, they would usually run away.

America the beautiful. Everything is backwards and we gather around our WMDs waving flags and shit.

Stick a yellow ribbon round the old SUV
It's been 300 long years of perpetual war, do you still want me
If I don't see a ribbon round the SUV
I'll stay on the war, forget about peace, put the blame on me
If I don't see a yellow ribbon round the SUV

I read the other day that the NFL player Tillman's family is all pissed now because the army lied for a while after he died, making up some sweet story a la Jessica Lynch, who was miraculously rescued.

So anyway it turns out there was no fancy patriotic crap. Rather, Mr. Tillman was killed by friendly fire.

That's MILspeak for "shot by confused U.S. soldiers."

In a subsequent story another euphemism was "fratricide." In case your Latin is off, that's killing one's brother (or sister.) I hate to say it and I haven't been in the army to comment on the FRATERnization, but if some meathead psychotic spittle-mouthed brain-stem-operatin' fuck of a human being overzealously riddled me with bullets intended for some goat-farmer or whoever happened to not be me, but then got me instead, I ain't callin' the motherfucker my brother as I go.

Friendly fire. A really great example of how the U.S. media shapes issues in the minds of people by redefining what's really happening. Some other examples: The name-fight over the senate squabble was either "the nuclear option" if by Dem or the "constitutional option," if by Rep. Luckily both of these militant fundamentalist organizations are being supplanted by the G-14, a new insurgent group that has openly embraced Dempublicanism or Republicratocracy, already the unspoken modus operandi.

More word tips for reporters and Americans who don't want to throw this one to the Muslims, who are the unholy trifecta ~ militant, fundamentalist, and insurgent: the U.S. military is not militant. People who fight them are the militants. The U.S. soldiers are forces: like Jedis, but more like a surreal Buddhist paladin or chevalier. Enemies can also be called communists, terrorists, or Chinese. Oh yes and another media favorite, insurgents.

Main Entry: in·sur·gent
Function: noun
1 : a person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government; especially : one not recognized as a belligerent

Bad guys are also fundamentalist.

As part of CT media's love affair with Jodi Rell, they were also quick to parrot her term when the Feds announced they were shutting down the sub base in Groton. They were quick to announce Ms. Rell was rapidly forming a STRIKE FORCE of pen-wielding insider lobbyists. A strike force, for chrissake.

Last week a local radio personality who switched from journalist to government cheerleader referenced Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, and George Orwell in support of Darth Dubya. I have decided we should call all people we don't like Darth _______.
(insert name or nickname)

Star Wars

THE FOLLOWING ENTRY REVEALS INFORMATION ABOUT SPECIFICS OF Revenge of the Sith!

Well, I just got out a few hours ago from seeing R.o.t.S. and the rumors you've been hearing are correct. The movie was great.
This isn't really any effort to be a comprehensive review, but some thoughts:
-- The reason this movie is great, whereas the last two sucked, is because it finally returns to the feel and style of the original trilogy. In the previous two movies I felt like the franchise somehow looked more like the mailman than the father. Not so in RotS.
--Ewan MacGregor does a LOT for this movie. The acting all around is not bad, as many have suggested. Even the lines, which old-school Star Wars aficionados can appreciate, are not painful except in a few spots.
But MacGregor really puts on Alec Guinness in this one, albeit years younger than the Obi Wan we know. He lends real acting credibility. Hayden Christiansen is not nearly as bad as many critics have said. The emperor is true to form, although admittedly a relatively shallow typecast. By contrast we have Vader -- we get the breadth and depth of what leads to his supervillainy in the original trilogy.
-- Which leads me to a minor disappointment. (STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT MOVIE INFO.)

-- When Anakin dons the Vader suit after the action peak of the movie -- simultaneuos duels between Yoda & Sidious and Kenobi & Skywalker -- the viewer is treated to the only humanism you'll get out of the big black lug until the culmination of Return of the Jedi. He asks the Emperor what has become of Padme and is told that he killed her. Vader begins to rage, and I reasonably expected to see some serious fireworks and a good primal scream. No such luck. There's just a corny "No!" that even Howard Dean coulda done better than.

-- The animation is much better in this movie than the previous two, although I still prefer the elaborate costumes of the original trilogy. The characters look more real and aren't caricatures. Justice is done with Yoda's character, who seriously brawls without the midget-wrestling sideshow feeling given when he battled Dooku in episode II. Facial expressions are right on. Like with Kenobi, we get a great sense of the character we know, at a younger age.

-- The references to this movie being anti-Bush are a big stretch. Aside from a few ultra-basic and warped statements by Sidious on democracy, peace, and security, there are no developed allegories going on in this movie. While these lines are easily identifiable with our own dark lord Darth Dubya, they're a passing shot and totally undeveloped -- thank God.


-- Another triumph of this film was to really tie the two series together, which it did admirably. When considering how much more identifiable with the original trilogy it is, the denouement is nearly seamless, ending with the placement of Luke and Leia. At this point even the film's artistic styling - the grain, the appearances, etc - shift noticeably into old-school mode. It's well done and made me leave the theater wanting to go ahead and start with the first Star Wars (A New Hope).

-- There is no letdown with action and violence! I vaguely object to the opening scene, a space fighter sequence that's hard to follow and carries little weight. I also felt somwhat disappointed in how Lucas carries out the extermination of the Jedi -- somewhat graceless and I feel sells the Jedi somewhat short (shot in back by droids, etc.).
But I meant to focus on the good here - lightsaber battles galore, dream matchups - one of the highlights of the film is the fight between Mace Windu and Sidious. Windu gets dissed a bit by critics and it's unwarranted. Jackson plays the part understated but well, and the actual scene -- which is where Skywalker goes bad -- has great parallels to the Emperor/Vader/Luke scene at the end of Return of the Jedi.

-- There has been talk about the movie's "darkness" but that's a load of hooey. It's not scary and not disturbing. The only really deep-end part is Anakin's assault on the Jedi Temple, in which it is implied (and later confirmed) that Anakin slaughters children training as Jedis. But it's off-camera and therefore only vaguely horrifying, and it's overall good as a benchmark for the depths of Anakin's fall.
And that's what this movie is about, really, so throw in the action and even a bit of suspense, and it's a winner.

It's not as quite as good as any of the original trilogy, but it's very, very close -- at least it deserves to be put alongside them.

Ultimately I think critics were dying for something to criticize because let's face it, this isn't Shakespeare. It must offend their cinematographic sensibilities. But this ain't a movie to live up to movie standards. It's a Star Wars. And finally, thank God, it lives up to Star Wars standards.