The Original Blog

General Eisenhower Warned Us: It is a matter of history that when Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead. He did this because he said in words to this effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened' This week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offended' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Rus...

I don't even try to be worth a damn before my morning coffee.  I know that I can't process or function or do just about anything, so I don't even bother. Today I went to Cup A Joe for my morning fix.  I was groggy, disoriented.  There were too many people in the shop.  Everyone was moving and talking really fast.  I made hand gestures as to what I wanted.  I was confused.  I didn't bother to put my prescription sunglasses on for the drive because it's overcast today.  So when I got back to my apartment, I parked, shut the car off, put on my sunglasses and proceeded to get out of the car.  I was immediately confused.  It just got darker.  What happened?  Oh yeah.  I just did the exact opposite of what I should have done.  I went back to the car.  I took off the shades and put on the glasses (like I had it originally, because its overcast).   I've now had half of my quad king.  My brain is starting to fire correctly now.  I'll go.............

Yeah, so I drank way too much beer this past weekend.  Actually, I've consumed way too much beer for the past few weeks.  I feel like I'm malted.  I need to take a break.  I need to get some quality sleep again.  I want to wake up before 10AM again.   The hangover is nothing new to me.  If you've worked in the restaurant industry as long as I have, you develop both a tendency towards alcoholism and a tolerance for hangovers.  In my Aspen days it was just assumed I'd have to work for the first half of my day with a screaming hangover.  That's probably one of the reasons I'd shoot tequila all day long.  If you stay drunk all the time, you postpone the hangover. But with my 35 birthday right around the corner, I can say with all honesty that I'm a little tired of hangovers and that malty taste from a night of heavy drinking.  I think its safe to say that I'm going to be laying low this week...

This scene speaks for itself...

I visited this memorial in Normandy when I was in France with my high school.  Many years later "Saving Private Ryan" came out and the movie started in this cemetery.  I wish I had seen the movie first because I would have appreciated my visit a lot more. And the veterans of that war are now almost extinct, most of them dying of old age.  We will soon be without any living knowledge of that war.  And I hope without living knowledge we aren't dooming ourselves to repeat things.  I just don't see us as being smart enough to learn from our mistakes.  One quick look at the state of the world and I think anyone would agree with me. So I am taking this brief time to remember and thank everyone who fought and died for our country.  And I hope that everyone will take politics out of their remembrance.  Those men and women did not fight for politics.  They did not fight for politicians.  They fought for this country.  They died for this country.  The ideas and love they fought...

OK, so I'm reading Peter Carey's "His Illegal Self" and its about 60's radicals, among other things, and Carey is throwing in real names with fictional names.  Well, when I read I like to google things in the book and find out if they're real, etc.  One name mentioned was Bill Hicks, so I googled it.  Turns out he's a famous (and dead) comic.  Should have none that.  And of course, it lead me to You Tube.  And then good ole Sam Kinison popped into my head.  For those of you that are still cutting your teeth, you probably won't remember this genius.  Of course, you've seen him in "Back To School."  But aside from that, this guy was the shit back in the 80's.  And then, completely out of nowhere, he dies in a car crash.  And we lost a great one .

My boss showed me this video the other day.  I don't have a TV, so I'm pretty much out of the loop on just about everything.  I've never seen this show, but this video made me chuckle rather merrily...

OK... so how can anyone not love this video?  Great album.  Great video.  And Chevy Chase. A lot of people don't remember a time when Chevy was really,  really funny.  Its true.  And it was happening around this time.  I was in late elementary school or middle school when this album came out.  And of course, they played the video all the time.  Because, back then MTV actually did play videos.  And they'd make this pitch and have this big build up waiting for the world premiere of a new video.  And by god, you watched.  It was like waiting for a new movie or, I don't know, video game (for you gaming idiots out there [go outside and play]). Anywho...

I'm beginning to think Dweezil and Moon are conspiring against me.  I don't want to think ill of the little buggers, but its starting to become rather obvious... Here's the deal.  It seems that ever time I try to get some sleep, it is their play time.  And I'm not just talking night or morning.  Nap time, too.  And it doesn't matter if they're asleep too.  When they see ready to slumber, its all out play time.  And please keep in mind that we live in a very small apartment.  I hear every step they take.  I hear ever thing they get into.  Oh yes, I know what they're up to. So I've been spending a lot of mornings lately yelling at them as I try to sleep.  They want to be fed as soon as there is light in the sky.  I myself prefer to sleep until 8:30 or 9AM.  And on the nights where I work at the Bistro and happen to catch a few beers after my shift, then I might try to push it to even 10AM.  But the furry little fuckers are having none of that!  Daylight=fo...

I finished David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" this past Friday, the 16th of May.  I started it on March 31st, 2008.  If you do a little rough math, you'll discover that it took me 1.5 months to read it.  My copy of the book, which looks just like the one above, is 1079 pages.  And its a big book, probably a foot tall and the words are very, very small.  What I'm getting at is that it takes a least 3 times as long to read a page as your normal books.  In fact, I have already one and a half books since finishing "Infinite Jest" on Friday.  Long book! I would say that "Infinite Jest" is one of the most incredible books I've ever read.  Easily top 5 on the incredible list.  Wallace is far and away one of the mostly insanely talented writers I've come across.  Comparisons to Pynchon are well merited.  It will take some distancing, some time, for other books I read to jump out at me again.  I feel things are just going to come across as f...