#53 “Brother Gregory Has Left The Building”

Dear Don1001,

It’s been a year in the Bunker and I made a mistake. I started engaging people on the Internet Highway and when you get a lot of traffic it gets you noticed. So at any moment they could come after me or I could simply lose my mind. Anyway it’s been a good run, but now it’s time to run. Yes, run, fast, hard and low to the ground. Get under the Radar and keep moving. You can stay in one location for only so long, then it becomes a matter of when, not a matter of if. The law of statistical probabilities is a bitch and when it starts to rear it’s ugly head, you’re toast. Yes, one can dance with the Devil for so long before the Devil gets his due. So I’m out of here, I’ve said too much, for too long and there are always some consequences, especially if you irritate the wrong people. And that’s the problem with the Federal government, they have a huge amount of faceless bureaucrats with just enough power that if one of them gets a hard-on about you or something that you did, they can make your life a living Hell. Been there, done that, just followers orders, ma’am, I can’t help it that you lost everything. You can vent your frustrations about the system until you piss someone off, it might be something you said or you remind them of their brother-in-law and they hate their brother-in-law and then it’s a whole new ballgame. When you upset or worse yet, piss off the Status Quo, you immediately start being associated with conspiracy theories, UFO’s or fringe groups. It marginalizes those that aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid. It’s at that point, officially they make you an outlaw, drug addict or insane, sometimes all three. One way or the other those that wield the power in this country discredit or dispatch those that they feel will threaten their hold on power. It doesn’t matter if this is an actual threat or a personal vendetta, once you’re in the system as a threat, you’re fair game and when in doubt, close counts. When it comes to power politics the motto becomes “Kill them, before they grow”. So I don’t have a clue if I’m on the list and I doubt that my ties from the old days will protect me, anyway. Loyalty comes from having power and favors to give, and right now I don’t have either of those things. And I feel the need to get out there in the flux. Something is going on as I write. It is a dynamic change in how we see the World and ourselves. Most of the time heightened awareness happens because of necessity. I feel the need to hear, smell and taste this change. So now I must move and keep moving, I’ll surface in the future, when one develops.

                                                                 Jumping into the Abyss, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
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#52 “Cassius Has A Lean And Hungry Look”

Dear Don1001,

I just got done watching a group of right wing pundits explain how Obama is ”One and Done” because of the “Tea Party”. Throw in the kicker of unemployment and there’s nobody that thinks that Barry can be re-elected. Those poor delusional bastards don’t realize they’re the past and the big “O” is the future. Mr. Obama is a whole lot smarter than just about everyone in the room. Usually this can’t be said about Presidents, they tend not to be intellectual giants. Even among those Presidents considered great, most were just above average intelligence. Except for Jefferson, most of our revered Presidents weren’t overly bright. Then came Obama, who is extremely intelligent, aware and patient. Those facts alone should scare the shit out of anyone challenging Obama. Especially the patient part, most great men have drive, vision or determination but few have patience. When you combine intellect with discipline and focus be afraid, be very afraid. These are the characteristics of serial killers that never get caught. Intellect, discipline and intellect enable a successful serial killer to pounce only when he is certain that he won’t get caught. Over a period of decades there might be years in between murders, the patience always overcomes the compulsion. Sound familiar? Not that I’m saying that President Obama is a serial killer, but if he was, there’s a good chance you’d never know about it. No, Obama is probably one of those truly noble people that do good because it’s the right thing to do. This ultimately is more unnerving than Obama being a bloodthirsty tyrant. It’s much easier to relate to a self-centered ego driven maniac than a selfless public servant that thinks of others first. A person that truly puts the interests of others first, creeps me out, doesn’t it you? As a culture we are selfish and we love to player hate. Which is why we want Obama to fail, fall or have a scandal and then go away. He reminds us that the American Dream can actually happen and that basically almost all of us were slackers. If a half Kansan-half Kenyan guy with an Islamic name, foreign father (that skipped out) and Hippie Mom can be President, what’s your excuse? Exactly. Which is why, we have to get Obama out of the White House. In order that the nation not feel like a herd of self centered, underachievers, Obama has to lose in 2012. But it probably won’t happen because the Tea Party and the Republicans will probably under estimate Obama and when they realize he’s winning it will be too late. I bet to this day, Ms. Clinton still can’t believe that she lost to a Rookie Senator from Illinois. Obama ran quietly and deep, Clinton didn’t take Barry seriously until it was too late. So look for the Obama machine to lay low until Summer 2011 then the juggernaut will start to roll and the Republican Party will see how much “juice” they really have and how short the memory of the American people really is. My money is on the guy already in power, to paraphrase Shakespeare “Beware of those with a lean and hungry look.”

                         Look for Obama by a nose in 2012, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
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#51 “Waiting For The Dam To Break”

Dear Don1001,

One of the hardest things for a human being to do is to see things as they are happening. I’m trying to take a deep breath, slow down and understand what exactly is going on in Washington. As the two ideologies settle in to fight their version of Armageddon, the truth about the nation’s financial health keeps getting squeezed. This is because neither the Right nor the Left wants to admit their complicity in this fiasco. The truth can be hard to acknowledge especially when you were asleep at the wheel. And right now our so-called leaders on the Left and the Right are in panic mode as they try to digest the events of the last couple of years. And they’re doing so without cutting it up into smaller chunks and chewing. So don’t be surprised if the country ends up choking on the truth when it gets too big to swallow. The question is? How do you perform the Heimlich maneuver on a whole nation as it starts to have that panicked look on it’s face as it realizes that it might die choking on a big chunk of reality? Because if we you can’t do something, we’ll have to stand there and watch the good old USA become asphyxiated, turns a sickly shade of blue and die. The deaths of empires are usually slow and messy; the only difference this time will be that the whole ugly process will be televised. It won’t be a pretty sight but you’ll still watch. Imagine the kind of Nielsen Ratings the decline of the Roman Empire could have gotten when the Vandals raided Rome. The carnage covered with hourly reports of raping, pillaging and mass killings, it would have been “Must See TV”. Nothing rivets people to the “Tube” like tragedy on a grand scale. The chaos that will ensue from our country as it becomes disenfranchised and starts to disintegrate will enable network TV to have huge amounts of cheap Reality TV without spending a lot of money. So don’t look to the networks for any real solutions, they’ll report, you unravel. Whenever a riot looks like it will get numbers, the networks will throw cameras and commentators at it until the ratings fade. Imagine 24-hour coverage of societal breakdown with quick cuts, cool graphics and 3-D simulations but no substance, wait a second, that’s contemporary TV now.  What’s maddening is that somewhere amid “all access - all the time” the truth is often hidden in plain sight, hidden by a plethora of information and images, sort of like fast food journalism. It’s fast, cheap with almost enough information to justify all of the junk that goes with it. Yes, today’s TV journalism goes down so easy and you don’t have to dwell on anything too long, especially if it’s about topics that make you the least bit uncomfortable. Yes, today’s TV News fits your fast paced life style that tells you what you want to hear, when you want to hear it. Don’t think “meat” just watch and we promise that we won’t confuse you with complex issues that may not have an apparent solutions. We will lead you, where our ratings tell us you want to go. But this will last for so long before one of these days the dam will break and the truth will roll out of the hills. And then either you’ll surf on the truth or it will roll over you.

                                                                Treading water continually, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
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#50 “Oklahoma City”

Dear Don1001,

Its been awhile since I posted and I have to admit I fell into a black spell. A depression got on top of me, but I’m back and totally aware. I’ve spent the last few months monitoring the fringes on both the ”Left” and the “Right” and they are both groups are 3 cans of Red Bull amped up with no place to go. The only difference between the Wing-nuts and the Pinkos is that the Tea Party people are so much better armed it’s not even funny. Don’t get me wrong – the extreme Left aren’t pacifists, I saw this T shirt at a Green Peace event, “I have a Bible, a gun and I’m a liberal!” Oh it sounds bad-ass but the extreme Right has been stockpiling arms for years and they practice killing people. So I can’t stop thinking about the Oklahoma City Bombing. After all of these years I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The Bombing was a horrible thing that killed the unknowing and the innocent while providing nothing but pain to those involved. Yet it is these periodic acts of political violence that make up our DNA. The willingness to kill for a political ideal is the reason why we’re not Canada. The act of destroying of a political structure, then creating a new one, then wanting to repeat the process every few decades is a totally American phenomenon. Let’s face it, right before the Civil War, rich White People in South totally controlled everything and had slaves yet they still weren’t happy. The South insisted that new territories allow slavery and when they couldn’t get that concession, they started a war that was the bloodiest in our history. The South's justification for the Civil War was that the North was oppressing the South’s ability to oppress more Blacks. Which goes to show that real injustices or aggressions have nothing to do with people justifying horrible acts of violence. A large amount of people throughout history done the most horrible acts imaginable with perfect moral clarity for ideas that turned out to be a myth. And speaking of myths, how about democracy in America? It’s not that hard to come to the conclusion that true individual freedom in the United States to some extent has always been an illusion. When the Constitution was signed, you could still own people of color and women couldn’t vote. And over 200 years later the poor, women and people of color still get treated like crap. Yet it’s not these people that talking about taking back their country. As in the Revolutionary War, the people augmenting violent change were self-employed merchants and writers (the shock jocks of their time). Our Forefather lived fairly well but they still wanted more. Which leads us to Timothy McVeigh, how oppressed was Mr. McVeigh? What doors were closed to Timmy because of the United States Government? Somehow I don’t think that the shackles of Fascism were keeping him from getting laid or getting a decent job. Which leads to the disenfranchised on the Right, they make more money and have a better education than the average “Joe”, so what is exactly their problem? Seriously, how bad do Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh have it? Yet they’re always pissed off about something. Regardless of whether their complaints are legit, I take the Tea Party people and their feeling of oppression seriously. And you should too because a lot of these people have Assault Rifles with large clips. The fringe on the Left may not be reality based but they aren’t fatalistic like some on the Right, which are “End Time Warriors”  looking forward to Armageddon. And that the little fact, my friend, should keep everyone wrapped tight.
   If you’re not in the Bunker, you should be, Brother Gregory

                                          

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
                                          www.bell-jarboefilms.com

#49 “The Darkness Within”

Dear Don1001, 

I can’t save the World; I may not even be able to save myself. One can rail against the ignorance that seems to dominate the World for so long, before the introspection begins. It’s early in the morning and two days after my “Christmas” binge, a ghost from Christmas past returns; Stacy Ann Marie, a precocious young lady I met in Liberia in the winter of 92’. I was bringing “merchandise” into Liberia during the First Liberian Civil War (thankfully I was out of the business by the time of the Second Liberian Civil War) and I had a house on the beach in a “safe” zone. One day while I was on the beach two young ladies walked up in cut-offs, used as bathing suits, (written on the butt of their cut-offs in magic marker was the word “juicy”) and began to practice their English slang with me. Stacy Ann asked “What’s your name dog?” Hearing this immediately caused me to almost double over with laughter and Stacy Ann to playfully smack me. After talking a bit, her friend excused herself and I found myself asking her if she wanted to get something to eat. Stacy said yes, but she needed something more appropriate to wear and wanted to know if I had something she could borrow. We wandered into my place and I found a decent shirt and a pair of shorts that would fit her, as I handed the clothes she immodestly took of her tank top and cut-offs and stood there naked. As took the clothes from my hand she quickly bobbed up and kissed me on the cheek. Then just as speedily Stacy Ann Marie had put on the clothes and was dragging me to her favorite place to eat. That night Stacy Ann moved in and a week or so later so did her relatives. I think there about five people; Mom, 2 sisters 2 brothers and occasionally her Dad. It was a great arrangement, they took care of all my needs and any surplus I had I shared with them. Stacy Ann was a cute young lady with a great sense of humor that initially told me she was 21, then 19 and I suspected that she was 18. But what rocked my American sensibilities was when a cousin (Wanda, a former teacher in her 20’s, schools were almost non-existent) visited and told me that Stacy Ann was having a Birthday next month and that the child would be 16 years old. Some things do make you pause and think, like being a 36 year old of European descent in the middle of an African Civil War with a 15 years old woman/child common-law wife and her family. I blurted out to her cousin “I’m 36, what should I do?” She asked “are you good to her and the family?” I said “I treat them as my own.” Wanda said, ”Then keep doing what you’re doing.” Later I confronted Stacy Ann on why she lied about her age, Stacy Ann started to cry and said, ”Because you would think I was too young and send me away.” Which is exactly what I should have done, but I didn’t. Then she started hugging me and then kissing me, which led to us making love, going out for seafood and then bringing a bunch of food back for the family. Which was one of our favorite activities and everything remained the same. And for a couple of weeks our strange family unit worked until a frantic phone call at three in the morning, telling me that the man I’d been doing business with, could no longer hold onto the town where I’d set up and that I had about two hours before a bunch of teenagers wearing wedding dresses carrying AK-47’s and rocket launchers would arrive, geeked up on weed, cocaine and gun powder. So immediately everyone starts packing, Stacy Ann is begging me to take her with me, which I can’t. I have one seat on a transport and I get one bag, nothing else. Anything I can’t pack I give to Mom, plus a couple of pistols and all of my local currency. Before I can really say anything to Stacy Ann, the Hummer is there to take me to the airport, before it falls. I’m standing there holding her, car horn blaring, I take off my bracelet and put it on her wrist and tell her that I will send for her. We have a brief hug as I begin to cry with her and for a moment I held her as I had never held another person. Then I got in the Hummer and left the country. I never saw Stacy Ann Marie again; I hope she’s okay.

                                    Trying to find the light, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
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#48 “The Evils of Eggnog”

Dear Don1001,

I’m listening to Christmas Carols on French Internet Radio, so in the multi-dimensional of world of theoretical physics that makes it Christmas, well at least in some point of space and time, so it’s time to get totally toasted. Usually upholding family traditions can be a pain in the ass but getting drunk on Christmas Eve and then carrying on that buzz on to Christmas Day may be a torch that needs to be handed to the next generation. On my Father’s side of the family, certain days like your Birthday, funerals (close loved ones), weddings (not so close loved ones, friends, Hell even casual acquaintances), Super Bowl, New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve-Christmas are the appropriate times to get completely hammered. And far be it from me to stand in the way of time honored traditions like drinking huge amounts of high octane Bourbon mixed with eggs, sugar and heavy cream, which from where I came from meant one thing; Eggnog. Now usually the majority of this Christmas libation is a vile tasting substance that has no place in a glass or anywhere else, but when Eggnog is made correctly by a master craftsmen, this holiday tradition can be sublime. This seemingly innocent beverage when made with a deft hand, has an almost heavenly taste that is quite deceptive. The heavy cream, sugar and egg smooth the alcohol burn making Eggnog seem innocent, almost benign, but it’s not. With two or 3 glasses of Eggnog, your Aunt Edna becomes Glen Beck (the goofy version that cries all of the time) wanting back her country and wanting you to understand her fears for the future of mankind. Eight Eggnogs, you and Uncle Red are completely wrecked and impulsively decide to join the Polar Bear Club by chipping enough ice from the top of the family pool (that wasn’t drained for Winter) to take a swim on Christmas Eve. This results in Uncle Red (age 66) turning blue and almost dying.  And with a blood alcohol level of .30 or higher (Red had a head start with a large flask of Makers Mark) the man probably should have died. But Red didn’t die, so we wrapped him in a blanket and stuck Red by the fire then we got the man another Eggnog. Thus is the evil that Eggnog can and will bring. This Devil’s drink does not respect age, class or culture. Eggnog doesn’t choose its victims; its victims naively choose it. But real men don’t fear such things because tonight we are drinking Eggnog! Or whatever the closest thing you can make out of condensed heavy cream, powdered eggs, brown sugar and homemade “moonshine”. The quasi-Eggnog will probably taste like crap but  it won’t matter after you drink a couple of them and smoke a spliff of  Sour Diesel. Hopefully after six Eggnogs I won’t be looking for a pool. Merry Christmas, Donnie and have an Eggnog on me.

                                      Getting out the blender, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
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#47 “Just a few more shopping days until the Apocalypse”

Dear  Don1001,

Give me a break or give me something to break. Three years after visiting the economic abyss, a majority of Americans are still mired in rampant materialism and economic indifference. Not that people shouldn’t enjoy the fruits of their labors but maxing out your charge card and continuing to live above your means, makes the pain, greater, later. Which makes me wonder why would we ever want a business leader to run the country? If the business leaders of the good old US of America are so great, why is China treating us like a doormat? I thought that the economic pain the majority of Americans are in would cause the nation to contemplate the true economic nature of the Universe but it hasn’t. As a nation we keep trusting the same people that almost wrecked the world economy. Like the usual suspects such as Larry Summers, Timothy Geitner and Ben Bernanke, who are the big economic dogs in Obama’s Treasury Department. These so-called public servants remain firmly connected to Wall Street, so no matter where these gentlemen land it will be with the courtesy of a golden parachute. Larry Summers helped sow the financial seeds of destruction under Clinton by losing the firewall between banks and Wall Street. Yet this fact doesn’t seem to outrage many people because they don’t know enough about finances to fill a thimble. For some unknown reason the majority of American people still believe that if we don’t give Business what it wants, we’ll end up like a Third World nation. It’s like the Stockholm Syndrome, we’ve been held hostage by Big Business for jobs for so long, we now defer to our captors. That fact alone goes a long way in explaining why the top 1% of this country controls 85% of the economy. (Although Germany does seem to have a high standard of living, ecology and socialized medicine, what’s up with that?) Which gets me back to my present rant, why in the midst of the most fucked up economy in decades there hasn’t there be an examination of our junkie like relationship with materialism by our so-called business, political and religious leaders? In fact there has been opposite, a bunch of these same leaders are exhorting Americans to get out there and spend, so we can trade the Real-estate boom/bust cycle (which was begat by the Dot.Com boom/bust cycle) for a new boom/bust cycle that has yet to be determined (my bet; commodities). At this moment in time, we have a Texas sized justification for a little navel gazing to see how we got into this economic debacle in the first place, but we’ll probably choose to do a little more shopping instead. The hypocrisy of spending a boatload of money that we don’t have, buying things that aren’t really needed, in the name of having a strong economy, seems absurd to me but not evidently to most of the people that running our country’s economy. Which leads me to a bleak observation, people get led where they want to go and you’d better not let the facts ruin the vibe. This seemingly has led to absurdities like feeling special because a large, faceless multi-corporation made you a friend on Facebook. Which is pretty much like the relationship most of us have with the people that control our financial future.

                                    Looking for something to break, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
                                           www.bell-jarboefilms.com

#46 “Faded Photographs – Faded Love”

Dear Don1001, 

I was going through stuff for the memoirs, when I came across a picture of Debbie, the first “love” of my life. Although our first date was technically statutory rape, our “hook-up” consisted of Debbie picking me up after work getting me quite drunk and fucking the Hell out of me. I was 16 and Debbie was 21, the younger sister of “Baldy”, the president of the Grim Reapers MC (Motorcycle Club). This group of semi-outlaw bikers (semi because some of them had jobs) skirted the law at the least and at the most, literally stomped all over it. When I got up the next morning after being pushed on a bed and having my clothes being ripped off, I was sore in places I never knew existed and I was “Baldy’s” little sister’s “old man”. There are worse things, when you’re 16, than being the boy toy of a 21-year biker chick that had 36X30X37 measurements on a muscular five foot, four inch frame with jet-black hair and a Betty Page face. Although I was 16, I worked a 40-week as a night manager of a fast food joint, plus I went to High School full time, so I came and went basically as I pleased. This meant that I sort of started living with Debbie during the last part of my junior year of High School. And I have to admit my new living arrangement raised my standing among my male peers and some curiosity from a few fellow female students. When you get dropped off at High School in the morning by a sexy, tough looking chick in a tricked out 64 Chevy Coupe, they don’t ask if you got laid, they know you got laid. And in their minds it was sex beyond anything they could ever imagine and they were right. God Bless Debbie for letting me forego the sex of inexperienced teenagers, she told what she wanted, when she wanted it, and when she was satisfied. (My worldly knowledge of certain things in the early part of my life, benefited greatly from having had the company of experienced and financially able older women.) Because of “Baldy’s’” sponsorship I was allowed to go on “Runs” and was sort of like a little brother and as long as I didn’t fuck with any of the Brothers or their “Old ladies”, I was protected. And for the next few years, I was an extended family member of the Grim Reapers, which meant I had access at times to the Outlaws and other MCs during meet-ups or “Runs”. This occasional brush with genuine Outlaw Bikers exposed me to real life skills like learning how to grade Marijuana and Methamphetamine, the going prices for various stolen items and how instantaneous efficient violence at times does have it place. The cool thing about my whole time around Bikers, never once did they pressure me into becoming a Biker and never once did I ever want to become a Biker, I was an accidental tourist, but we respected each other. Bikers are much more intelligent and socially aware than most people would imagine and I had many a learned discussions and debates on various eclectic topics. But after my reaching adulthood our romance began to fade and we parted on slightly less than amicable terms but Donnie that’s a memory that might be best to leave alone.

                              Better to Love and not lose body parts, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
                                           www.bell-jarboefilms.com

#45 “Small Town Values and Outsourcing”

Dear Don1001,

Thomson Correctional Center in the northwestern part of Illinois is currently empty.

It’s where President Obama had ordered the Federal government to subcontract a prison for prisoners being transferred from Guanténamo Bay, Cuba. The prison facility would have hired a couple hundred locals, but airhead conservatives and pansy liberals fretted that some of these sad sacks might go over the wire and go on one-man terror sprees. So the gutless “Left and Right” in Congress made sure those Muslim Rambos stayed in Cuba. So the people living around the Thomson Correctional Center never got to pop the top on those celebratory brews. And there would have been a celebration because in a lot of rural areas of the U.S. the only real source of any decent employment are prisons. Rural areas especially love Federal Prisons, because of perks of an upgraded infrastructure and an elevated pay scale. So why the Hell, are we outsourcing prisons to other countries? You can torture someone just as well in a Federal prison as some Third World Country, where our tax dollars are given to people that don’t pay Federal taxes or Social Security. In fact, I bet we can torture much more cost effective in the U.S. because currency exchanges and we have the “technicians” already on the “books.” And the people overseeing the selective persuasion can have a social life and see their kids grow up (local schools are almost always upgraded) instead being in Cuba or some other God awful place. Did Dick Cheney or William Kristal ever think about the little people that make “enhanced interrogation” happen? I don’t think so. They’re people, too. Sweet Jesus! A Jack Herer buzz just keeps creeping higher. (Big drink of coffee) Where was I? There are scores of small towns in Appalachia and in the Southeast that have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs that would love the $18 an hour jobs that our prisons provide. On top of that, there are countless people like my brother “Jim Bob” (who stopped counting how many guns he had at 30) who would love it if a terrorist escaped. Seriously, the people who think I’m a “hardcore” don’t have a clue. In areas, where making a living is hard, you have hard people. The authorities in these places would have so many civilians with guns out hunting any escapee that it would probably freak them out. Where I grew up you couldn’t use dogs to hunt deer but you could use them to hunt humans. I don’t know about your people but my people have never worried about terrorists. Which is another myth “That Americans think that it is better to fight Islo-fascism over there”, the truth is that most Americans would rather fight terrorists here than anywhere else. The American people are armed to the teeth and right now they’re not in that good of a mood, so I don’t think we need to worry about a few dozen loser Muslim wannabes. And that hopefully those “pussies” in Washington will rethink “outsourcing” what red-blooded Americans do more of than other nation on earth, incarcerate people. We have the highest percent of our adult population in Jail than other country in the World, so we have the technology. So why should we send more jobs to Third World countries? 

                                             Why, indeed, Brother Gregory 

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
                                           

#44 "Attention Span of a Gnat”

Dear Don1001,

Although presently I’m writing my memoirs, there are contemporary things that “bitch slap” you back to the now. For instance, I just saw an Internet TV commercial for a mortgage company that was advertising the advantages of a new low variable rate mortgage over a stodgy old 30 year fixed rate. If you want an allegory or metaphor (I can never remember the difference) for the economic debacle that took place in 2008, the variable rate mortgage (that anyone including children could get) is that poster child. Those “Dream home deals of a lifetime” turned out to be all sizzle and no steak, and in the end for most people, it turned out to be like a long bad weekend in “Vegas” where you get on the plane with a screaming bad hangover with all of your credit cards “maxxed” out and a tooth missing. Since February of "09" American homeowners have suffered a combined net loss of over a trillion dollars. I don’t know about you, but from where I came from that’s money, real money.  The recent monetary “pig-fuck”, my friend, was the result of a combination of avarice, world-class arrogance and stupidity. Now less than three years later some of the financial institutions that the Federal Bank lent money for 0.0% (that’s zero percent) are starting to slowly creep back into the shadow world of variable rate money lending. The sharks on Wall Street have a lot of “cheap” money and they need to find a place for it and what better way get a high rate of return than lending money to people that can’t afford it. Which make me wonder just how long is the attention span of the American people? It can’t be too long, because after the World almost went into an economic Armageddon, one would have thought that in the election of 2010, the people that had lost homes and jobs would elect politicians that would have their best interest in mind, but they didn’t. The American people returned to office at the State and Federal level people (mostly conservative and very rich) with the very same mindset that drove the truck into the ditch in the first place. And what do these Ayn Rand aficionados have to offer as solutions for the pain of the working poor and the middle class? More tax cuts for the Rich. (Personally that’s not the direction I would have taken but nobody asked me.) So I doubt things will change any time soon because the economic elites are still having so much fun that its easy for them to rationalize an America where the majority of people are saddled with a boatload of debt and angst about the present and the future. I know this is a horrible indictment of the truly rich but it certainly does go a long way in substantiating my best worst fears about the future.  A fear that events that have yet to come are going to be as equally fucked up as the last decade, because we, as a people, are still more infatuated with flash than substance.

                                                      Wishing we could rewrite the future, Brother Gregory

You can see videos of these sage observations here: http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum
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#43 “Unidentified Submerged Objects (USOs)”

Dear Don1001,

Writing my memoirs has loosened a torrent of repressed memories. These memories were placed into the deep reserves of the reptile brain because of extreme weirdness. The sort of incidents in one’s life that pose more questions than answers, and if you did find the truth, you might not be able to handle it. When I was transporting “cargo” in and out of the swamps of Louisiana, we would occasionally make runs into the Gulf to meet up with ships too large to make into the Inter-coastal Canal, during one such run I saw some World Class strange. At sea, at night you see all sort of lights that are unidentified moving through the sky and most seaman don’t think anything of them, but this night, the lights weren’t moving through the sky but moving through the Gulf waters. It’s one in the morning and we’re chugging along at close to 12 knots about fifteen miles out Houma, I’m standing on the bow smoking a Cuban cigar and drinking a large cup of very suspect coffee, when I see a 747 size light slowly rising underneath the water about 500 yards off of our right side. Now in the area of the Gulf that we were in the water is about a mile deep, so this was different, so I run up to the wheelhouse, where the Captain has got a “what the fuck is going on look in his eyes” and is starting to steer the ship away from the light that is getting closer. Normally this is the time that you would call the Coast Guard, but if you’re meeting with a ship that slipped out of the port of Santa Marta, Columbia, in an area you’re not suppose to be, in the middle of the night, there will be questions asked you don’t want to answer. By the time that the whole crew is on deck, there has been a joint fired up and for about 3 minutes we watch this massive submerged blob of light, track us. Right as the joint is finished, Captain Jean calls out over the PA that he was headed back to port, no matter how much money we offered him. One of the hard-cores wanted to renegotiate with Captain Jean with a Glock pushed in his ear, that was until suddenly 5 smaller brightly lit orbs emerged from the large blob of light surfaced about 20 feet above the water and hovered there for 5 seconds, then they disappeared into the night breaking the sound barrier with a resounding boom as they disappeared. As we looked to “Mother Sub/Space Ship” it took off at the same speed under water. Things don’t move that fast under water but this thing did and it barely made a wake. It was at that point, that collectively we realized that Captain Jean was a fucking genius and that land was the place to be. Evidently the ship we were to meet saw the same light show and headed back to Columbia, chucking “merchandise” along the way so that they could go faster. We weren’t sure if it was Aliens or a NSA/CIA “Black-Op” thing. Either way, there are certain things that you don’t fuck with, Aliens and the NSA/CIA both come under that heading. After I got back in the wheelhouse I asked Captain Jean what he thought just happened. Captain Jean said he didn’t know and didn’t care; he just wanted to get his boat back to port safely. Two weeks later we met up with another boat and then everything went smoothly. So gradually the incident didn’t matter as much as staying alive or staying out of jail. Twenty-five years later, I wonder what exactly did happen that night, not that it really matters because then as now, Aliens and the NSA/CIA are still things you don’t want to fuck with, trust me.

                                                            Turning on the Night Light, Brother Gregory

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#42 “Literary Agents & Bail Bondsmen”

Dear Don1001,

One of the side effects of doing huge amounts of coffee and Khat is binge writing. But occasionally you need to come up for air and Cannabis, so I’ve decided to take a break from writing to blaze a big fatty and to compose you a note about what I’m writing. I’ve decided after five decades on the Planet to pen my memoirs, or at least I think they are my memories and if they’re not mine, they’re somebody’s and they’re weird enough that they need to be penned. So after decades of hard drug use, cheap hotels, air flights from Hell in Third World countries, suspect food and a large quantity of weirdness, it’s time to record some of these escapades while I can still remember them. And what better way to rationalize a life that can only be characterized as theater of the bizarre combined with moments of sex, violence and illusions of grandeur than a memoir? Although my decades of Bohemian/Political Gangster lifestyle has enabled me to accrue a lot of stories, the huge amounts of alcohol and drugs that came with that territory, has taken a toll on my “hard drive”. I have all of these vague memories of things that I may or may not have participated in to some degree, like of hanging out with some junkie classmates for a couple of weeks in the Summer of “76” as they were in the middle of a phase, they described as “Crash and Burn”. These morons owned a “63” Ford pickup that they would crash into a small town pharmacy, grab all of the drugs they could in five minutes and then haul ass to the next small town and do the same thing until they had a large laundry bag full of drugs. Thirty some years later it’s hard to say exactly to what degree I participated. I know I didn’t go with them during the robberies because even at the ripe old age of 20, I knew these guys were fucking crazy. Although my “home-boys” from the “Hills of Southern Indiana” were junkies, they knew nothing about drugs, that’s where I came in, I could tell them which drugs would get them high and which ones would clear up their acne. Of course I kept the best drugs for my services but they never knew that because they were getting higher than they ever had in the life, so everybody was happy. But because of that incident alone, some would say I was an accessory to several felonies that are too tedious to list; I would say I was an “in-bedded Journalist” a priori. I wasn’t participating in crime; I was observing these antisocial behaviors so that I could write about them at a future date when I could be more objective about the facts and not face serious jail time. For some individuals, journalism is a vainglorious attempt at relevant observations about current events, for me, its vague recollections of three-day weekends in Hell, pen in hand. All serious writers should have a good literary agent and a great bail bondsman. Well the Manatuska Thunderfuck (Alaska’s finest Cannabis, I wonder if Sarah ever tried it?) has taken off the edge enough that maybe I can eat something and get some sleep.

                       Plagiarizing myself, Brother Gregory

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#41 “Missing Doc”

Dear Don1001,

I’ve been reading the some of the latest newspapers that I scammed on my run to the outside and it has posed a question, are there any political writers that aren’t in some sort of time warp? It’s like Bizarro World stuck in neutral with these people, because the only people they are truly writing for are other political writers, especially those that are of a different political persuasion. They continually spare without substance and yet no one calls out these hack writers for ignoring the things that are really fucking up your life and the lives of the rest of the planet. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are the worst of a long line of editorial writers that have for too long taken themselves way too seriously. That’s why God do I miss Hunter S. Thompson. Doc has not been gone from the stage that long but he has left a large vacuum. One never knows why, a person sticks a large caliber weapon into their mouth and pulls the trigger but there must have been a lot of physical and emotional pain. So although HST is gone the weirdness that remains still needs to written about and dissected by those that aren’t "political groupies". I wonder what Doc would have thought about the emergence of Gretchen Carlson, Ed Schultz, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin (now that she’s a journalist) as champions of “TV Truth”. They are painful examples of  something Doc said “TV is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench running through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason, then there's the negative side.” Dr. Thompson knew that the TV News business is uglier than most people can ever imagine. And Sarah Palin is  a perfect example not because of her politics but because of her lack of interest in the World. HST knew that you had to poke and probe everywhere and everyone if you wanted to find the truth. Doc understood that “absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.” Which is why the pursuit of this precious commodity should left out of the hands of former Rodeo Clowns, Sports Casters, Beauty Queens or former political hacks like Carl Rove and Chris Matthews. These people are damaged goods and we don’t need their sanctimonious navel gazing. We need big picture journalism and we need it now. That’s why if we’re lucky somewhere is this great country of ours there’s a gifted juvenile delinquent that is starting to write a little and read a lot.

                           Wishing I had some Ether, Brother Gregory

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#40 "In The Red Zone" REDUX

Dear Don1001, 

After hacking into the satellite that has all of the NFL games, I’m nine hours into a full-fledged professional football-watching binge. I’ve never experienced total access to all of the games, in real time. It is fucking awesome and I’m not that into football or maybe it’s the friggin Khat but the ability to go every game when anything interesting is about to happen, is like channel surfing on steroids. At one point they had six games where there were teams in the “Red Zone”, I’m not sure what that really means but it was fucking cool. I can’t really describe it, going from one game to another as shit is about to happen with no down time in between plays, its like playing multiple games of John Madden NFL at the same time. About three hours into to this sensory overload the video had become the retina of my mind’s eye and there ceased to be an awareness of my physicality as I’ve become one with the flat screen. As I watched I was totally unaware of my brain telling my hand to change feeds, or to keep ingesting the substances that enabled me to maintain the perfect chemical equilibrium needed to stay in the “Zone” for hours. Athletes talk about the ability to slow down time and see things before they happen; I now know what they mean. I’m not sure when it happened but by intuition I began to know what game to switch to as a big play was about to happen. From bone jarring tackle to big runs, full tilt testosterone, mano a mano, no estrogen need apply.  It was 100% pure American choreographed violence with no cute female sideline reporters or cheerleaders. If you want to see eye-candy cute female reporters and cheerleaders, rent a porno, it does not enhance the football viewing experience. Men watch football to see whose balls are bigger. I knocked you down so I’m the dominant male. It may seem frivolous to females but men need to know their place in the pack not by intellect but by physical ability. If you’re trying to take down a 500-pound wild boar with spears, you have to know what the next man’s got and that you can depend on him. Football is our modern equivalent of an ancient hunt for big game. These men bond by learning each other’s strengths and that if they slip a little that someone has their back. Because of this, they will literally risk being crippled for life in order to be there for their football brothers. It is why a Marine will sprint across fifty yards of open field under fire to pickup a wounded fellow Marine and die in the process. It is not rational but it is why, as a species, we still exist. So maybe my football orgy is encoded in my DNA and that I have little or no say with my fascination with watching steroid crazed individuals crashing against each other, I don't know, but half-time of the last game of the day is ending, so you'll have to excuse me, I'm going to drink in the last remaining bits of violence and eat large amounts of meat.

                                   Going deep, Brother Gregory

Now for something entirely different:

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#39 “Tomorrow is Black Friday”

Dear Don1001,

I started the day reading the Thanksgiving edition of the New York Times from 2008, 2009? So why not treat the day like Thanksgiving? So now I’m tweaked out of my skull. It started with a big cup of coffee (from Kenyan beans that had been hoarded) and a joint of Jack Herer/Blueberry the size of a small Louisville Slugger, and trying to do a crossword puzzle from the Times. After about a third of the way through the crossword puzzle, I started chewing a big wad of Khat, which kicked in the African Coffee, so my BP went to about 200 over 140, so then I ate a thumbnail size chunk of refined opium and fired up another spliff, just to take the edge off a bit. So I was occasionally nodding off, gritting my teeth, while trying to finish the fucking cross word puzzle, when I saw the article about how tomorrow was Black Friday and it was high anxiety time for merchants. I’m not sure they could be as tense as I was at that moment, but as I read, I realized the correlation between the drug world and mass consumerism was uncomfortably close. Nothing is as near to pure capitalism as drug dealing. You have a one on one viewpoint of what something is worth and how much customer satisfaction it gives. There’s also something else to drug dealing, good dealers know how much product their customers can buy before they’re dead customers. The question is do the merchants of America know how much their customers can buy before they overdose on too much needless shit and too much debt? On those rare occasions when drugs are plentiful, dealers sit on their stash, until demand returns or they lower prices to undercut their competitors. It’s that simple. So are the guys sitting in the boardroom as smart as the guys working the corners, slinging out “eightballs” and "dime bundles"? I don’t think so. Ever hear of many drug dealers that lose money? Oh it happens, but not for long, if you’re being fronted and you lose money, either you’re beat down or killed. Just imagine if the head of GM was told that if he lost money, that "Ray-Ray" and “Little Joey" would beat him to death and bury him in a cornfield. I have a gut feeling that homeboy would be a little more diligent about the running of his company and most of all customer satisfaction, because if people don’t buy his products, Mr. CEO will be fertilizing Orville Redenbacher’s next Popcorn crop. Which gets us back to Black Friday, (actually Friday, Saturday and Sunday) where some stores do as much as 20% of their years’ entire business. Which is like a yuppie binge drug user coming in and buying your whole supply, which disrupts everything, because when your "regulars" come in, you're out of merchandise. Dealers like steady, everything is about flow, and their favorite customers are the people that have worked their drug habit within their financial framework and like clockwork are there after every payday. Occasionally if you are a “regular” you may get something fronted, as long as you pay soon. The problem is that Big Business of America has stopped “working the corner” and lost track of how much they could front the people and small businesses. And now after pumping too much “product” onto the streets, Big Business is starting to realize that the credit overdoses won’t stop until they stop fronting to people that can’t pay. But Big Business started dipping into it’s own stash a few years back and now has a King-Hell sized addiction to credit. So it will be interesting to see, which can get their addiction to “free money” under control sooner, Big Business or the American people.

                                Trying not to pop an artery, Brother Gregory

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#38 “Made in America”

Dear Don1001,

I’m not sure how much longer I can go before I need to go on another run for supplies and some newspapers. I continually read the same old issues of the New York Times, time and time again. Why is it so hard to find a Wall Street Journal or an Economist? Anyway I’m reading the Times and I remember this little morsel; D.C. Sniper Who Killed 10 in 2002 is Executed (Nov. 10-09), John Allen Muhammed known for killing 10 people in the nation's capital in 2002, is executed in a Virginia prison. And I began to wonder why domestic political terrorists don’t seem to scare the shit out of the power structure like Islamic terrorists do? When Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols took out 168 people on a beautiful day on April 19, 1995, there was no one clambering to take down every chapter of the Aryan Nation or any of the separatist groups that openly advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government. Why wasn’t there a domestic version of the Patriot Act? Wonder why? Maybe its because some of these fringe groups are very convenient at times to certain parts of the Military/Industrial complex. Check through the company formerly known as Blackwater, and the cross connections can be quite interesting. I can personally attest that the best prices for bulk ammo I’ve ever received came from a group of Klansmen from Pascagoula, Mississippi. I worked for an unknown employer a few months in the Inter-coastal waterways with a “crew” of Klan members, moving large amounts of merchandise (it was some sort of crystalline substance in bulk, I never asked what it was, but when handling it my heart would race like a rabbit’s) back in the 80’s. Although I could never relate to their racial politics we both shared an appreciation for high-powered weapons, prescription methamphetamines, and ladies of African descent. This Pascagoula “crew” hated Black people but any chance they got to hook up with Black women, they did. It was always a weird contradiction that made my head spin. Which leads into the love/hate relationship that America has with domestic political terrorists. Ask the British, who were the first political terrorists in America? And the Brits will tell you, Paul Revere, John Adams, Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry (which they hung) most of which participated in the first Tea Party, yet in the U.S. they are the Fathers of our Country. You see, business oriented political fanatics not religious fanatics founded our Country, so there is an inherent soft place in our hearts, for those that fight the “man”, especially if there's potential profit. In some of the circles I use to travel in, Timothy McVeigh is a fallen hero. Mr. Tim died without “ratting” out his brothers and fought the New World Order to his death, taking out as many Federalists, as possible. Tim and his associates' anxieties are very similar to the present day frustrations of the people that fear government more than anything. Which makes it curious to see if a Tea Party supporter kills for the cause and subsequently dies fighting for their version of liberty. Because as people from the right and the left ratchet up the rhetoric, sooner or later someone is going to go “Timothy McVeigh” on the government. It will be curious to see whom they’ll attack; I’m betting the next attack will be against the IRS. Almost everyone on the far right or far left hates the IRS. So I’m handicapping the “Over/Under” on the next Domestic Political Terrorist Attack at 12 months.

                                         Betting on under,

                                               hoping for over,

                                                       Brother Gregory

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