MY HOW WE SPEND IT, EVEN WHEN WE DON'T HAVE IT!
A little leg work on the internet reveals that some forty two million dollars was set aside to build new bachelor quarters on the Marine Corp base on Oahu. Source: www.reedconstructiondata.com (the company that is doing the job and that information was last updated 12-11-08) For that amount of money you get 78 units making each ‘unit’ worth about 544,000 dollars each. Okay there are laundry and recreation room and vending areas, etc. along with landscaping and other amenities but let’s face it, at half a million dollars you can buy and entire single family home along with the land it sits on. (Median price for a single family home was $550,000 as of 3/3/09, (source Honolulu advertiser)
The new bachelor pad will have A Telecommunications Infrastructure Room, On Each Floor To House Communications & Security System Infrastructure, This Area Is In Addition To The Functional Areas Allowed For The Facility, Information Systems Include Telephone, Data, & Cable Television (CATV). Don’t you love the wording “Information Systems” which go on to describe itself as telephone, data, (probably internet access) and cable television. The expression making a pig’s ear look like a silk purse seems apt because they have to find some way to justify housing each soldier in a half million dollar crib. Telecommunications Infrastructure Room Will Be Provided On Each Floor To House Communications & Security System Infrastructure. I don’t want to sound cynical but do Marines on a base really need a security system? I thought they were the security system. Do they need to pay an outside contractor to put in a system that makes them feel safe? What is all that training for anyway if they don’t feel secure on a heavily armed Marine Base? But here is the punch line, in May of 2008 it was stated by the House of Representatives that a Marine Corps Base Hawaii Bachelor Enlisted Quarters (part of ongoing improvements to bachelor enlisted quarters) was to be $28.2 million. I guess that extra 14 million dollars that got worked in is going to make the recreation room and vending area larger, much larger. Read what Rep. Abercrombie had to say at: http://www.house.gov/list/press/hi01_abercrombie/pr08defense_auth_passes_house.shtml
But how many of you think how the money is being spent, or in the case of the newly passed stimulus package, not being spent.
A lot of stuff got cut from the stimulus but what we got instead was more military equipment. For instance according the GAO the government spent $361 million per F22 Raptor Fighter Jet. The Pentagon got plenty of money up front as they have all those guns and such it is easy to intimidate anybody, including Congress. Now $361 million dollars, per plane, represents the cost of developing the plane as well and by the time all 183 planes have been built, $34 billion will have been spent on procurement while $62 billion on the total program costs. Do we really need 183? Let’s for the sake of a one sided diatribe assume the military could make it work with 150 of these new fangled grim reaper soul harvesting machines. That is a savings of close to 12 billion dollars….for 33 planes!
Instead of thirty three F22 Raptor Jets these items below could have been left in the stimulus package:
65 million for watershed rehabilitation, 98 million for school nutrition, 50 million for aquaculture, 1 billion for Energy Loan Guarantees, 25 million for Fish and Wildlife, 55 million for historic preservation, 20 million for working capital fund, 90 million for State and Private Wildlife Fire Management, 1 billion for Head Start/Start Early, 3.5 billion for higher education construction, 100 million for Science, 200 million of the National Science Foundation, 10 million for state and law enforcement, 100 million for distance learning, 50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension, 2 billion for Health Information Technology Grants, 600 million for Title 1 (no Child Left Behind), 2.5 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization and other programs that got diminished could be brought to full funding as in, the other 300 million for the federal fleet of hybrids, the other 100 million for Law Enforcement wireless, the other 75 million for the Smithsonian, the other 600 million for the Superfund Cleanup. We would have to cut half a billion from the Neighborhood program to come in on budget but if they are asking us to cut, do we have the nerve to ask the Pentagon to do the same?
For the cost of 33 killing machines we could have gotten a whole mess of programs that not only create jobs but create something that improves the quality of life. But wait, there’s more! What about the missiles the plane is going to carry, we haven’t even got into the cost of upgrades. Each jet carries six AIM 120 C missiles with a cost of $386,000.00 (www.af.mil/factsheets) which now makes another 2 billion 316 million for the ‘perishables’. (i.e. one time use and aptly named) Multiple that by our reduced force of 150 planes and now the fee for those high altitude fly by shootings is 347 billion dollars.
And that is only the missile named, “AIM 120 C”. On the same website you can learn about all the missiles and what they cost.
For instance:
$450,000 per AIM 130……….. up to $110,000 for on AGM 65……… one AGM 86B goes for one million dollars apiece and there are 1142 of those available in the inventory…………… one AGM 88 is $200,000………. one AIM 7 is $125,000…………. one AIM 9’s is $84,000…………, one GBU-15 is $242,500, and I am only scratching the surface and to get to deep truth you will need a bunker busting bomb from Raytheon Missile Systems. That company was awarded, on February 10, 2005, a $10,490,029 firm fixed price contract to provide Guided Bomb Unit-28C/B (BLU-122) guidance control units and tail kits, quantity of 71. Ten billion dollars for 71 bombs! Is it worth it? Do you feel safer knowing this or more afraid that our priorities are so skewed.
When the Marines were founded in 1775 they wore their hair tied back in a knot but today they cut their hair ‘high and tight.’ To maintain the look a haircut is required every week. At seven dollars a haircut done 52 times a year comes to $365 dollars per Marine. Multiply that by 199,000 active duty Marines and you the tax payer, are paying about $72,436,000.00 every year for their fashion statement. Too bad they are so covered up with body armor and helmets because nobody can tell how good they look.
If we, the people, don’t look at how our money is being spent then we deserve everything the government doesn’t give us. If on the other hand this article has ‘incited’ you, then pick up your pen, (it is mightier than the sword, remember?) and let you congressman and senator how you want your tax dollars spent.
M. Marlin©3/7/2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Medical Model Blues
Rat Lung and the Medical Model Blues
A woman from our neighborhood is in a coma in the Hilo hospital from the ‘rat lung’ disease that has now made the front page in the papers over in Oahu. Short of going out into the field and removing every pair of lungs from every rat we are going to be living with this for a long time. In a nutshell this woman is in a hospital that will not admit her physician in to treat her. I have spoken with both Jackie Hahn N.D. and also to Alan Thal M.D. and both wanted to treat the patient with a starter dose of 50 grams of vitamin C. As this is outside conventional practice the door was shut and the ‘Go Away’ sign was put up. The Hilo hospital’s turf is closely guarded because otherwise somebody may come along with a better idea and that may put some people out of work. They are doing what they can to secure their jobs by not allowing anybody else’s medical model to infiltrate it. To be fair it isn’t the hospitals fault but the insurance companies. But who is making their medical policy; insurance salesmen?
According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatment making the medical treatment themselves the third largest cause of death after heart disease and cancer! Okay you can stop laughing because it’s true. Now you can start crying because it’s true. At 225,000 per year the doctors and medical errors alone could wipe out the Big Island’s population. That would be about all of the 200,000 locals, tourists, haole’s, with another 25,000 to take care of the feral pig population. So help save the environment, “Bring a pig to you’re the hospital!” and savor these statistics with your barbeque sauce.
1) 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgeries
2) 7000 deaths due to medication errors in hospitals
3) 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
4) 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
5) 106,000 death per year due to negative effects of drugs
Source: Starfield, B. (2000, July 26). Is US health really the best in the world? Journal of the American Medical Association, 284(4), 483-485
The politicians talk about how 40 million Americans don’t have access to health care. Just a cursory look at what is going on and you will consider them the fortunate forty million. I would rather cut open a chicken and reads its entrails that to get a medical diagnosis from the Hilo hospital. At least with the chicken I can make soup which will be good for me. The tragedy here is there are other ways to treat people but those in power will do everything they can to keep it, including letting a lot of innocent people die. Our friend who is a coma will more than likely die even though her primary physician, a naturopath, may have saved her life. Though nobody has died from acupuncture, ozone therapy, naturopathic medicine, homeopathic remedies or Vitamin C therapy, the pharmaceutical companies and the American Medical Association deem these treatments as being dangerous. That is like the stick of dynamite telling the balloon how dangerous it would be if it popped.
Let us put things into perspective because nobody can get anything in focus while looking down their nose at it. Since the war began in 3/19/03 the enemy has killed 3423 American soldiers in combat. (www.defenselink.mil) In that amount of time our own doctors, pharmaceutical companies and medical institutions have killed that many American civilians 330 times over, and we are paying them to do it! We rant and rave about how those insurgents and terrorists are killing Americans, but they haven’t even put a dent in how many people have died from our own medical workers. One million, one hundred and twenty five thousand (1,125,000) innocent American’s have died since 2003 at the hands the very people who they trusted to heal them. Soldiers don’t put their trust into insurgents so their guard is up and have body armor and maybe that is why the death toll is so much lower. So the next time you get sick enlist in the armed services and do a tour of duty in Iraq, your chances of survival will be greater than a stay in the hospital. (Unless you are wearing body armor and carry an assault rifle with you when you get admitted)
Michael Marlin©3/6/2009
A woman from our neighborhood is in a coma in the Hilo hospital from the ‘rat lung’ disease that has now made the front page in the papers over in Oahu. Short of going out into the field and removing every pair of lungs from every rat we are going to be living with this for a long time. In a nutshell this woman is in a hospital that will not admit her physician in to treat her. I have spoken with both Jackie Hahn N.D. and also to Alan Thal M.D. and both wanted to treat the patient with a starter dose of 50 grams of vitamin C. As this is outside conventional practice the door was shut and the ‘Go Away’ sign was put up. The Hilo hospital’s turf is closely guarded because otherwise somebody may come along with a better idea and that may put some people out of work. They are doing what they can to secure their jobs by not allowing anybody else’s medical model to infiltrate it. To be fair it isn’t the hospitals fault but the insurance companies. But who is making their medical policy; insurance salesmen?
According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatment making the medical treatment themselves the third largest cause of death after heart disease and cancer! Okay you can stop laughing because it’s true. Now you can start crying because it’s true. At 225,000 per year the doctors and medical errors alone could wipe out the Big Island’s population. That would be about all of the 200,000 locals, tourists, haole’s, with another 25,000 to take care of the feral pig population. So help save the environment, “Bring a pig to you’re the hospital!” and savor these statistics with your barbeque sauce.
1) 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgeries
2) 7000 deaths due to medication errors in hospitals
3) 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
4) 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
5) 106,000 death per year due to negative effects of drugs
Source: Starfield, B. (2000, July 26). Is US health really the best in the world? Journal of the American Medical Association, 284(4), 483-485
The politicians talk about how 40 million Americans don’t have access to health care. Just a cursory look at what is going on and you will consider them the fortunate forty million. I would rather cut open a chicken and reads its entrails that to get a medical diagnosis from the Hilo hospital. At least with the chicken I can make soup which will be good for me. The tragedy here is there are other ways to treat people but those in power will do everything they can to keep it, including letting a lot of innocent people die. Our friend who is a coma will more than likely die even though her primary physician, a naturopath, may have saved her life. Though nobody has died from acupuncture, ozone therapy, naturopathic medicine, homeopathic remedies or Vitamin C therapy, the pharmaceutical companies and the American Medical Association deem these treatments as being dangerous. That is like the stick of dynamite telling the balloon how dangerous it would be if it popped.
Let us put things into perspective because nobody can get anything in focus while looking down their nose at it. Since the war began in 3/19/03 the enemy has killed 3423 American soldiers in combat. (www.defenselink.mil) In that amount of time our own doctors, pharmaceutical companies and medical institutions have killed that many American civilians 330 times over, and we are paying them to do it! We rant and rave about how those insurgents and terrorists are killing Americans, but they haven’t even put a dent in how many people have died from our own medical workers. One million, one hundred and twenty five thousand (1,125,000) innocent American’s have died since 2003 at the hands the very people who they trusted to heal them. Soldiers don’t put their trust into insurgents so their guard is up and have body armor and maybe that is why the death toll is so much lower. So the next time you get sick enlist in the armed services and do a tour of duty in Iraq, your chances of survival will be greater than a stay in the hospital. (Unless you are wearing body armor and carry an assault rifle with you when you get admitted)
Michael Marlin©3/6/2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Over Your Dead Body
OVER YOUR DEAD BODY
Death is a drag, for the living. We lament and remorse. We grieve and shout. We cry and quake. It is time we began producing people’s funerals and making them a little less on the macabre side. We speak in whispers like the that dead were in a library, reading. We speak in terms to make sure the dead are respected. They don’t need it and can’t appreciate it. It is not an enlivening thought that the only respect I will get in life is when I am dead. There are other ways to approach funerals than dressing in black and listening to piped in music from pipe organ. Let’s dress up the dearly departed and put the fling back in funeral.
The curtain goes up and on plaster column is a television, which is turned on and a pre recorded monologue begins. As the dearly departed they are now able to share all those things that would never be said in their life time. Copernicus had to do something like this, publishing his papers on Earth’s orbit after he was safely underground knowing full well the church would burn him at the stake if given the chance for his blasphemy.
Nowadays we want to be so politically correct that correctness has become political. In other words, we are correct only when it becomes a means of getting something we want. That is also political sincerity in action. But since you are dead, all convention goes out the window like dust, as it were, in the wind. Do we really have to wait until we have left this world, to truly speak our minds? Who hasn’t heard, “I would rather die than tell him what I really think.” We are too afraid of the consequences and repercussions to be honest with one another. With a pre recorded message you needn’t worry about being interrupted, because nobody would have the gall to ‘butt in’ on the dead.
You will be given a highly polished monologue, just like the kind you see on David Letterman and you can know that in your final resting place, “you killed em’.”
Top Ten Reason’s Why it is Better to Be Dead
1 At last some peace
2 The view is here is better than my apartment in Queens
3 Save a lot of money on clothes
4 Develop Intimate relations with earth worms
5 Get to look forward to “Turning Over in Your Grave”
6 Don’t have to listen to Fox News anymore
7 Finally understand the lyrics to all those Grateful Dead songs
8 Plenty of time to practice actually pushing up daisies
9 Don’t have to diet anymore, because you died.
10 Downsizing doesn’t scare you like it use to.
A production team will script your funeral proceedings and songs like Amazing Grace will be replaced with “Sympathy for the Devil”. Additional music from Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, would lend a touching tribute to your once, state of mind.
As none of us can know what God really wants from us so we will make sure all your bases are covered. The presiding priest will wear a rubber mask of Lord Ganish and the Rabbi will be speaking in tongue and brisket.
Funerals and wakes need not be mournful affairs, not if you give your guests the opportunity to party like there is no tomorrow because for you there is no today.
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die…drives the message home, but to make sure that the message gets home, assign a designated driver first.
We have no myths about death in American culture which is a fundamental lacking and perhaps the reason we fear it so much. It is said that 95% of all our medical bills are spent on the last year of our lives. With Eskimos, when you no longer have enough teeth to chew, they put you out on the ice as an offering for a polar bear. The legend goes that your children’s children will one day kill a polar bear and when they cut into the belly, you will come out reborn.
In our consumer culture when you no longer have enough credit to buy food, you will be put out on the curb as an offering for the landfill. Your children’s children, who won’t have enough money to go to college because you tapped all the credit, will be garbage men. They will find you on the curb and toss you into the back of the truck where you will go to your final resting place along with all of the other garbage that you threw away over a lifetime. You may not be able to take it with you, but ‘it’ will be taking you with it.
But back to our mortuary make over. Once your pre recorded message has been played the attendees at the wake will be so incensed they will want to bring you back to life just to kick your butt. So a life size replica will be available for them to punch, kick, insult, stab, burn, and assail with any number of assaults both verbal and physical. Some people feel better after battering. The guests can get it off their chests and go home feeling so much more at peace because in the end they will appreciate that they are living and can still take the time to stop and smell the crematorium.
M. Marlin ©February 2009
Death is a drag, for the living. We lament and remorse. We grieve and shout. We cry and quake. It is time we began producing people’s funerals and making them a little less on the macabre side. We speak in whispers like the that dead were in a library, reading. We speak in terms to make sure the dead are respected. They don’t need it and can’t appreciate it. It is not an enlivening thought that the only respect I will get in life is when I am dead. There are other ways to approach funerals than dressing in black and listening to piped in music from pipe organ. Let’s dress up the dearly departed and put the fling back in funeral.
The curtain goes up and on plaster column is a television, which is turned on and a pre recorded monologue begins. As the dearly departed they are now able to share all those things that would never be said in their life time. Copernicus had to do something like this, publishing his papers on Earth’s orbit after he was safely underground knowing full well the church would burn him at the stake if given the chance for his blasphemy.
Nowadays we want to be so politically correct that correctness has become political. In other words, we are correct only when it becomes a means of getting something we want. That is also political sincerity in action. But since you are dead, all convention goes out the window like dust, as it were, in the wind. Do we really have to wait until we have left this world, to truly speak our minds? Who hasn’t heard, “I would rather die than tell him what I really think.” We are too afraid of the consequences and repercussions to be honest with one another. With a pre recorded message you needn’t worry about being interrupted, because nobody would have the gall to ‘butt in’ on the dead.
You will be given a highly polished monologue, just like the kind you see on David Letterman and you can know that in your final resting place, “you killed em’.”
Top Ten Reason’s Why it is Better to Be Dead
1 At last some peace
2 The view is here is better than my apartment in Queens
3 Save a lot of money on clothes
4 Develop Intimate relations with earth worms
5 Get to look forward to “Turning Over in Your Grave”
6 Don’t have to listen to Fox News anymore
7 Finally understand the lyrics to all those Grateful Dead songs
8 Plenty of time to practice actually pushing up daisies
9 Don’t have to diet anymore, because you died.
10 Downsizing doesn’t scare you like it use to.
A production team will script your funeral proceedings and songs like Amazing Grace will be replaced with “Sympathy for the Devil”. Additional music from Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, would lend a touching tribute to your once, state of mind.
As none of us can know what God really wants from us so we will make sure all your bases are covered. The presiding priest will wear a rubber mask of Lord Ganish and the Rabbi will be speaking in tongue and brisket.
Funerals and wakes need not be mournful affairs, not if you give your guests the opportunity to party like there is no tomorrow because for you there is no today.
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die…drives the message home, but to make sure that the message gets home, assign a designated driver first.
We have no myths about death in American culture which is a fundamental lacking and perhaps the reason we fear it so much. It is said that 95% of all our medical bills are spent on the last year of our lives. With Eskimos, when you no longer have enough teeth to chew, they put you out on the ice as an offering for a polar bear. The legend goes that your children’s children will one day kill a polar bear and when they cut into the belly, you will come out reborn.
In our consumer culture when you no longer have enough credit to buy food, you will be put out on the curb as an offering for the landfill. Your children’s children, who won’t have enough money to go to college because you tapped all the credit, will be garbage men. They will find you on the curb and toss you into the back of the truck where you will go to your final resting place along with all of the other garbage that you threw away over a lifetime. You may not be able to take it with you, but ‘it’ will be taking you with it.
But back to our mortuary make over. Once your pre recorded message has been played the attendees at the wake will be so incensed they will want to bring you back to life just to kick your butt. So a life size replica will be available for them to punch, kick, insult, stab, burn, and assail with any number of assaults both verbal and physical. Some people feel better after battering. The guests can get it off their chests and go home feeling so much more at peace because in the end they will appreciate that they are living and can still take the time to stop and smell the crematorium.
M. Marlin ©February 2009
Saturday, January 12, 2008
RECYCLE TATTOOS
In today’s world nobody wants to be average yet they fear the consequences of stepping off the curb of the mainstream and into the lurking realm of the strange. Could this be changing so that the strange becomes passé and only stranger will satisfy our craving? We want to set ourselves apart from the swarm of humans, each of us wanting to be recognized for how we stand out, but will rarely stand up when the roll call for social deviants is taken.
Tattoos have become a way to blend in and stand out all at once. Once they were solely sported by the habitants of the South Pacific and the sailors who visited there, both whom fell into the category of the far flung and never seen at the tables of people considered decent. Somewhere along the line they came to adorn the bodies of bikers who realized they would never be invited to those people’s houses either. Today the tattoo has invaded Middle America and can be seen on the calves, arms, necks, backs, chests and butts of the very folks who you would like to date or have for dinner.
Tattoos have lost their edge, its radical nature has become yet another fixation of those who wish to be cool and fit in but retain their differences at the same time. No longer daring, it has become drab. “Oh, nice tat” is the response these days whereas in the past it was, “My God, what have you done to your body?” Putting it on your back is handy because you just don’t have to look at it day after day whereas many people put them in a place that is reserved for lovers and voyeurs. I think it is time to up the stakes again and bring the horror and glee back to what can be accomplished with human skin being the canvas.
Consider some of the art work that has been done and how it has evolved over the years. Mom, Anchors and Hearts have transformed into veritable pieces of work that cost thousands of dollars to buy and take hundred of hours to execute. Twisted dragons consuming damsels, exotic wave motifs, devils with erupting horns, angels with aerodynamic wings, zodiac carnivals and cryptic Chinese symbols are all part of the body palette. It would be a waste of money and the talents of the artist to see them be cremated or buried six feet under once the owner finally has no more use for them.
Let’s begin a movement where these works of art are recycled and enjoyed long after the original owner drop the body bag for that eternal departure. Go not to grave oh colored of body and inked of flesh. Skin you we will and adore a lampshade lightly with the art that you have worn and worn out.
Gruesome; You bet. And that is why people will flock to it. We are nation that puts people eating bugs on TV and considers it entertainment. This will at least carry some intrinsic beauty with it. I know what some of you are thinking who are old enough to remember or well read enough to know. The Germans did this kind of thing and what horrible swineherds they were. But they always knew how make a great car too. So imagine using grandma’s ass as seat cover for your minivan. Sure it says “HarleyHead” but just think of the fun the grandkids will have. They will still be able to sit on Grandma’s lap even after she is in the grave. No sense in her taking it with her when it can serve a purpose here.
How about that attractive floral tattoo which use to ring your best friends ankle? Properly cured it would make a lovely bracelet that would be the center of any conversation and induce curiosity and hurling all at the same time. Think of the laughter that your departed friend will still provoke.
Those angel wings that are now being sported by your departed loved one but use to be sported while they were still in a human chassis will make a wonderful adornment for the front of your cowboy hat. We have been skinning snakes and wearing those as hatbands for years and it’s a snake we never knew. This is an opportunity to remember the snake in your life by stripping them of what they no longer need and using it to decorate that Stetson. Adding some teeth, frozen in the snarl that you remember them for, just brings it all the more to life.
Bury Grandpa but save those legs as they will make terrific ski pole luggage or a nifty umbrella cases. You can wear a smug look on your face when you pick up your ski equipment at Vail or Aspen resorts because your luggage isn’t plastered with Gucci, Versace or Armani logos but your ol’ Pappy’s credo, “Fuck ‘em when they can’t take a joke”.
You can pull the wallet out of your back pocket that is made from your father’s foreskin and when you rub it, it will turn into that overnight case. Yes, it is an old joke but doesn’t it work well in this context?
Those cool designs that don’t mean anything that used to adorn the chest of your “Ex” will now make terrific coasters to put that cool one down on. What better way to remember the beer swilling man he was than by placing a Pabst on his Pecs.
Environmentalists will cheer you when you walk down the street and aren’t wearing the hide of some poor animal but wearing the hide made from the animal that was your wife beating husband. They’ll say, “He got what he deserved and don’t you look good in something other than black and blue!”
Endangered species the human race is not and there will be plenty for everybody. Your wardrobe can be outfitted with matching ethnicities a “Black” pair of lo-riding pants, with the name on the Butt will take on a whole new meaning. The obligatory “White” blouse, monogrammed of course, with a ‘Redman’ vest will look ever so sharp and will come with that pierced ‘forked tongue’ accessory. Fall colors will come out with the new Asian look and for those special formal occasions, Albino. Even more to consider is that your clothes, accessories and umbrella can be taken to the beach and tanned without the fear of skin cancer.
Some folks who do not have fond memories of their dearly departed can go to extremes and take those parts that aren’t considered art work and have them cured to be chew toys for the family pet. Watch the glee the children who will be watching ‘Fluffy’ shred what’s left of daddy into little pieces. They will be so happy knowing they have done their part to save the skin of a cow that is still free to be worshipped while singing, “We know it hurting you, more than it hurts us.”
Remember how your spouse walked all over you for all those years? Now you can literally walk all over them by turning them into a pair of Reebok Retreads. It will be closest thing to having a sole (sic) that they ever got.
If it is true that beauty is only skin deep but that ugly goes to the bone it would explain why in a culture like ours it is better to be beautiful and insincere that ugly and honest. So here is to wearing his heart on your sleeve and hanging her ass out to dry.
©Michael Marlin 2008
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Shocking Talk: Don Imus
Remember the ‘shock jock’ they fired, and now rehired? Don Imus who has a reputation for being controversial (he wears a cowboy hat and lives in Manhattan for crying out loud) finally stepped over a line that he has danced on for a long time. Shock jocks are not scary linemen for the Pittsburgh Steelers, though some of them act as though they have been hit too hard too many times. These formidable mouths stir the s---t and do it in a way that boosts ratings instead of getting a knuckle sandwich when they are seen in public, which isn’t to say that some of them haven’t feasted on that five fingered delicacy. What really gets me is this guy, who I have never listened to, used the phrase, “nappy headed ho’s” to describe a winning, mostly black, women’s basketball team. He said it once, but within days I have read it and heard it at least a dozen times over. The word ‘nappy’ supposedly describes the kind of hair blacks have and the only time I have heard the word ‘nap’ was talking about the rug or what the baby was doing. Since when did ‘nappy’ become a word that was associated with black hairdo’s? If Imus had said, “afro headed ho’s” it may not have come across as badly. Then again there is the word ‘ho’ and that can’t mean what John Wayne meant when he said, “Westward Ho!”. Cleary the long road to ‘ho’ (sic) is now what Imus is faced with having been canned for doing what he does best, insult and infuriate people who are too high on their pedestals. Let’s face it, there isn’t a person alive who hasn’t been insulted for their looks, race, sex, financial standing, what they eat, where they live, what they drive, what they wear, and who they are dating. It is pathetic that this has turned into a national debate when we are faced with the biggest financial meltdown due to sub-prime lending practices that will be making ‘ho’s’ out of suburbanites who can’t meet their mortgages all too soon.
The media, the black leaders, the outraged are acting like they are on a playground at recess and wagging their fingers at the maverick among them who has the audacity to call a ‘spade’ ….well, you know. Those young women who won their title have so much to celebrate that in their state of mind and euphoria could just roll over Imus like so much paste under the wheels of the Hummer he probably drives. “That’s right Don, we are number one, and the nappiest, headiest, ho, ho, ho ‘ing’ bunch of basketball players in the country. And by the way, you look pretty lame wearing that hat when you ain’t no cowboy.”
It use to be that people matched wits, but we have become literally ‘wit’ less and rely on others to make our case. Nobody has called Al Sharpton anything he hasn’t heard, nor for that matter Jesse Jackson. Mind you those young women probably haven’t heard themselves called, ‘nappy headed ho’s” before but would they have gotten upset or the attention if somebody hadn’t picked up the story? Words only have the power we give them. The word ‘denial’ has no meaning to George Bush so it doesn’t exist for him. The world could be going to Hell in a Samsonite and George would be saying, “How lovely they re-paved this route with good intentions.” We decide what the word means to us. Call a woman who only speaks Croatian a ‘slut’ and she is oblivious to your slur. Ignorance is bliss. Call a white man ‘niggardly’ and he will be confused because even though he knows he isn’t black, he will take it as an insult, but only if he knows what the word means. By the way it is the dictionary, “niggardly” which means “ungenerous”, “stingy” and “miserly.” So what are we saying? Slang has hijacked the meaning of words so one man’s compliment is another’s insult. Nowadays if a person under 30 says something is ‘sick’ they are saying this is very, very cool. If they say it is ‘dope’ they are not referring to weed or idiots but to something slick and desirable. So in a particular case being called a ‘sick dope’ could be the best compliment you get all day!
At some point somebody turned a word into a weapon and the rest of us bought into it. When the floor product came onto the market ‘Spic & Span’ did the people in the Hispanic community take offense when clearly they had every right to say, “Just because we clean your floors doesn’t mean you can name the product we use after us.”
A NYC cabdriver was going on a rant one day about something and he used the word ‘Eggplant’ do describe a group of people. My mind went to Italian’s because they make eggplant parmigan but the cabbie was taking about blacks. How did it come to calling Negros a purple vegetable? Who thought of this and said, “Great idea” and while we are at it lets call the Asian’s “Pears”, Irish “Potatoes” and the English, “Muffins” and the French ‘Dressing’.
Name calling has all the destructive power of a warm breeze. However we as a country have become a nation of cowards living in fear. Why do I think that? Only a people living in fear could confiscate my corkscrew before I get on a plane because of the remote possibility that I have the capacity to overpower the rest of the passengers and hijack a plane with it. It is fear that makes us do foolish things, like buy guns to protect ourselves against others who also have them. (By the way their guns are bigger than yours and holds more bullets) Fear makes us view other races and nationalities as a threat, instead of with curiosity. A child has no fear, (ever watch them on a skateboard?) but is soon taught to be suspicious of others by their role models, which unfortunately isn’t Spiderman or Wolverine. Fear now dictates our actions and re-actions.
The girls on that winning basketball team were so ‘high’ from their win that when somebody said, “Imus called you all a bunch of ‘nappy headed ho’s” they either said, “Whatever” or “You mean he mentioned us?!!!” When you are at the top (literally) of your game, name calling is the last thing that is going to bring you down because if it wasn’t, the loosing team could really ruin it for the victors by insulting them, Have you ever heard of that working? When you are on the top, even “Sticks and Stones” won’t break your bones because you will have an entourage of followers who will gladly ‘take the hit’ for you. These girls are winners and you can say whatever you want about a winner, it doesn’t change that fact. But if you are a looser, it is a completely different story. You have the right to collect sympathy which people will willingly give you. A person who is down is not to be kicked…. hard anyway. Shock Jocks don’t kick people who are down. There is no fun in that, it’s too easy and it is ‘bad form’ even for them. They want to taint, trouble, tarnish, hassle, and harass those people who are riding high on their hogs or resting on their laurels. Don Imus brought them up to talk about (insult really) because they are winners and as such can take some ‘Roasting.’
In his own ‘red-neck’ way Imus was saying, “Look at those girls go, they are stomping on some poor white trash ass now.” That would not have gotten the same response because the ‘poor white trash’ lobby isn’t that strong up on capital hill but if it was, Rush Limbaugh would be their spokesperson.
Copyright 2007 Michael Marlin
The media, the black leaders, the outraged are acting like they are on a playground at recess and wagging their fingers at the maverick among them who has the audacity to call a ‘spade’ ….well, you know. Those young women who won their title have so much to celebrate that in their state of mind and euphoria could just roll over Imus like so much paste under the wheels of the Hummer he probably drives. “That’s right Don, we are number one, and the nappiest, headiest, ho, ho, ho ‘ing’ bunch of basketball players in the country. And by the way, you look pretty lame wearing that hat when you ain’t no cowboy.”
It use to be that people matched wits, but we have become literally ‘wit’ less and rely on others to make our case. Nobody has called Al Sharpton anything he hasn’t heard, nor for that matter Jesse Jackson. Mind you those young women probably haven’t heard themselves called, ‘nappy headed ho’s” before but would they have gotten upset or the attention if somebody hadn’t picked up the story? Words only have the power we give them. The word ‘denial’ has no meaning to George Bush so it doesn’t exist for him. The world could be going to Hell in a Samsonite and George would be saying, “How lovely they re-paved this route with good intentions.” We decide what the word means to us. Call a woman who only speaks Croatian a ‘slut’ and she is oblivious to your slur. Ignorance is bliss. Call a white man ‘niggardly’ and he will be confused because even though he knows he isn’t black, he will take it as an insult, but only if he knows what the word means. By the way it is the dictionary, “niggardly” which means “ungenerous”, “stingy” and “miserly.” So what are we saying? Slang has hijacked the meaning of words so one man’s compliment is another’s insult. Nowadays if a person under 30 says something is ‘sick’ they are saying this is very, very cool. If they say it is ‘dope’ they are not referring to weed or idiots but to something slick and desirable. So in a particular case being called a ‘sick dope’ could be the best compliment you get all day!
At some point somebody turned a word into a weapon and the rest of us bought into it. When the floor product came onto the market ‘Spic & Span’ did the people in the Hispanic community take offense when clearly they had every right to say, “Just because we clean your floors doesn’t mean you can name the product we use after us.”
A NYC cabdriver was going on a rant one day about something and he used the word ‘Eggplant’ do describe a group of people. My mind went to Italian’s because they make eggplant parmigan but the cabbie was taking about blacks. How did it come to calling Negros a purple vegetable? Who thought of this and said, “Great idea” and while we are at it lets call the Asian’s “Pears”, Irish “Potatoes” and the English, “Muffins” and the French ‘Dressing’.
Name calling has all the destructive power of a warm breeze. However we as a country have become a nation of cowards living in fear. Why do I think that? Only a people living in fear could confiscate my corkscrew before I get on a plane because of the remote possibility that I have the capacity to overpower the rest of the passengers and hijack a plane with it. It is fear that makes us do foolish things, like buy guns to protect ourselves against others who also have them. (By the way their guns are bigger than yours and holds more bullets) Fear makes us view other races and nationalities as a threat, instead of with curiosity. A child has no fear, (ever watch them on a skateboard?) but is soon taught to be suspicious of others by their role models, which unfortunately isn’t Spiderman or Wolverine. Fear now dictates our actions and re-actions.
The girls on that winning basketball team were so ‘high’ from their win that when somebody said, “Imus called you all a bunch of ‘nappy headed ho’s” they either said, “Whatever” or “You mean he mentioned us?!!!” When you are at the top (literally) of your game, name calling is the last thing that is going to bring you down because if it wasn’t, the loosing team could really ruin it for the victors by insulting them, Have you ever heard of that working? When you are on the top, even “Sticks and Stones” won’t break your bones because you will have an entourage of followers who will gladly ‘take the hit’ for you. These girls are winners and you can say whatever you want about a winner, it doesn’t change that fact. But if you are a looser, it is a completely different story. You have the right to collect sympathy which people will willingly give you. A person who is down is not to be kicked…. hard anyway. Shock Jocks don’t kick people who are down. There is no fun in that, it’s too easy and it is ‘bad form’ even for them. They want to taint, trouble, tarnish, hassle, and harass those people who are riding high on their hogs or resting on their laurels. Don Imus brought them up to talk about (insult really) because they are winners and as such can take some ‘Roasting.’
In his own ‘red-neck’ way Imus was saying, “Look at those girls go, they are stomping on some poor white trash ass now.” That would not have gotten the same response because the ‘poor white trash’ lobby isn’t that strong up on capital hill but if it was, Rush Limbaugh would be their spokesperson.
Copyright 2007 Michael Marlin
Sunday, October 14, 2007
FIND GRIEF WHERE YOU ARE STANDING
My title today is taken from the Buddhist expression, "If you can't find peace where you are standing where do you need to go to find it?" We have learned to gripe about anything so if you can't find something to complain about in this moment, what makes you think that something lousier is going to come along? When people say to me, "I can't complain," I respond, "I guess you aren't trying hard enough." Learning to bitch convincingly is a not a task to be taken lightly. Get completely committed if you are going to persuade another person that your complaint is worthy of sympathy. Don't just whine but take the time to ratchet yourself up as tight as the waistband on the pants of a champion pie eater, and then cut it loose like a wild bull out of the chute and sweep everybody else into it. Isn't that we all want? When we tell our story that we want somebody, anybody to say, "You poor thing", which for some strange reason makes us feel better. Getting someone else to feel miserable with us is a time tested tradition that was made famous in the "Show me State". That's why we all know the expression, "Missouri Loves Company". Since they spend so much time doing it Jews created a special word, 'Kvetch' which some say is the origin of the word, 'Bitch'
To find grief where you are standing is easier than finding happiness and that is nothing to complain about. Look around you and notice everything that could use improvement. Are you getting the idea? You car sucks, unless it is a hybrid. And your wardrobe? I know, "You use to complain that you had no clothes, until you met a man who had no body". Then there is your hair, face, eyes, ears, teeth, lips, waist line, hairline, which is enough to have you watching commercials in earnest looking for the solution that will work in 3 to 6 weeks or your money back. You have lots of reasons to be discontent (and I haven't even mentioned the government's war on anything/everything) so, "If you are going to complain, be grateful".
8 Michael Marlin 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
BROADWAY SHOWS: RECYCLE
On Broadway, at last count there were four major shows that are based on movies. I saw two in one day. Broadway has caught the “green trend” and has gotten into the recycle game. The big difference however, is that when you recycle a can or a plastic bottle, the next item made from that material does not resemble the original product. Plastic bottles become paint brushes or door handles or any myriad of things. True, aluminum can be crushed, even without the help of critics, and turned into another can but this time instead of it being filled with soda it is now grown up and contains a beer.
Seeing Spamalot was disappointing as all of the good jokes from the movie were just being retold live. I have already heard, “I blow my nose in your general direction” from any number of friends. And yet the audience was laughing so hard you would think they never saw the original. It used to be after seeing a movie it would prompt you to read the book but here after seeing the play, I wanted to see the movie.
But now the creative minds have been side stepped because the big money learned long ago that once people spend a certain amount on their ticket, they will feel obligated to enjoy the show. I chose to stand for Spamalot and the ticket cost me 21 bucks. There was a seat available for 300 dollars and had I spent that I would have been royally pissed off. After all there was a King on stage.
There is more money in the world than talent and nowhere does it seem more prevalent than Broadway. Spamalot won a Tony for Best Musical and I don’t know what the competition was but giving an award for a show that is making fun of itself and other musicals can’t be ‘seriously’ funny. I got to see gags which made references to Fiddler, Phantom, Wicked, and Game shows. So instead of creating something anew, let’s make fun of stuff we have already seen. It will only appear funny if you were a savvy theater buff and had already seen and remembered the other shows or just dropped 200 dollars on tickets.
The Industry, which is what this business that is filled with artists has become, is taking old TV shows that people remember and remaking them as movies while movies are being made into musicals. The fact that people remember them, no matter how bad they were, is worth more and a safer bet than doing something new. Take the Brady Bunch Musical, please.
If the industry is going to go to the extreme of dumbing the content down, because then neither they, or you will to have think about it, why not go all the way. Why doesn’t somebody try to do what Max Bialostok did, and con the NY public in coming to see something that is so bad, so inane but so incredibly marketed that the producers can giggle like teen age girls about how the pulled and “Enron’ on the public. Bad taste has never gotten anybody thrown in jail. Bad taste simply gets you great press, as is evident with the Paris Hilton phenomenon.
Let’s see “Reality Broadway Musicals” because it is such after all it is already such a great success on TV. Why wait for the TV show to go to film before bringing it to Broadway? Go straight to stage with it.
For starters people would be lining up around two blocks and small commerce would spring up along that linear grouping of people. There won’t be just hotdog, pretzels, cold drinks and ice cream. There will be rolling carts being manned by photographers to take your picture which you will need to get cast. There will be publicist to write your resume, there will be make up artists and acting coaches. Working with you all the way to the front of the line and then cutting you loose once you walk through the front door, thus delivering enduring proof that P.T. Barnum was not only a great showman but a prophetic seer as well.
Once in the theater reality Broadway will cast all the parts for people coming in off the street. First, make one person the producer who will soon be wetting his pants with glee when he learns he will not have to pay for union labor. He will then choose somebody else to direct who will in turn select a casting director. That person will hand out the parts to would be ushers, ticket takers, bartenders, custodians and other front of house personnel. If you know somebody, or have a great body that the casting director, director or producer wants, you can get a part as a choreographer, stage hand, light board operator or sound man. To actually get a part on stage will remain, as it has always been done in show business, a random process. After turning in your 8x10 and resume, you will become a carefully screened individual who will be told to compete against the others who are also going for the same part. Even without a script they will have no difficulty finding plenty to say about why the other person isn’t qualified without ever speaking about their own talents, which will also be non existent.
Call it Jerry Springer meets American Idol. People will do anything for fame. People will not do anything for money, unless you have a lot of it. But in reality TV there isn’t any money for talent or the writers so why should it be different on Broadway?
It doesn’t matter if someone on stage can’t sing because the audience will entertain themselves by talking about how bad they were and enjoy that experience. It won’t matter if you can’t act because nobody in the audience would be able recognize your ability, even if you could.
Reality Broadway will run longer than anything out there because as long as there are people who want to be in the limelight, they will line up outside the theatre to be a part of the show. But the real genius behind all this is people will pay for the privilege to be taken advantage of, so long as you spell their name right.
© Michael Marlin 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
