Like Mike

You have probably heard by now that Michael Jackson has died. I have a few words to say about it. What, you may ask, could a one man judge and jury like Texino possibly add to the wave of feedback generated by the passing of the self styled King of Pop? There are, after all, hundreds of writers covering every inch of the story in search of horrid detail. Well, as it turns out, I am uniquely qualified for this assignment. Why? On the one hand, I have studied emergency cardiac care for nearly 30 years both as an instructor and care giver in the field and on the other I suffer from chronic pain due to a series of lower back injuries going back to Vietnam and culminating with my work with the fire/rescue service. Unlike Jackson, however, I control the pain with RX Methadone tablets which, while relieving the pain, do not give any sort or euphoric feeling such as produced by other narcotic analgesics i.e.
Demerol, Morphine or Oxycontin. I have tried the other drugs and found that I quickly became addicted to Oxycontin and Codeine. It was hard to stop using those pills because not only was I getting them from my doctor, but found that I needed to get them on the street as well which was very expensive. My situation is much better now and though I am sure that my use of the methadone has become an addiction it controls the pain without making me high. So from a drug users standpoint, I would say that MJ was hooked up with a tame Doc who would keep him feeling up by injecting Demerol as needed.

Now the heart attack scenario. Sudden cardiac death is not uncommon in seemingly healthy males over 50 yrs. I went to the hospital in 2000 because I had a funny feeling in my neck which went away after I took a nitroglycerin tablet. I was admitted and a test showed my coronary arteries to be extremely occluded with the most important one about 93%. What that meant was I was very close to having a severe and most likely fatal coronary event. This type of myocardial infarction can be fatal even if it happens with a room full of doctors. Bypass surgery is the life saver there. So MJ could have something like that, but it would have been obvious in the autopsy. Since no one has mentioned that, it now becomes possible that Jackson went into cardiac arrest as a result of an overdose of Demerol. Demerol is usually given as a IM injection as an IV shot can cause abrupt CNS depression with the patient becoming unable to breathe for himself. Two scenarios present themselves here. One: The shot was given as an IM and accidentally hit a vein or Two it was given by an IV route too quickly causing respiratory depression leading to cardiac arrest. Now whether it was #1 #2 or a combination of both there is an easy way to reverse the problem and that is with the narcotic antagonist "Narcan" (Naloxone™) This drug given IVP (fast) will completely reverse the effects of the narcotic immediately putting the patient into withdrawal and possible seizures. Never the less, it works and anyone who is treating a patient by injecting narcotics should have a good supply on hand as the half-life on the Narcan is shorter than the narcotic meaning the Narcan may wear off and put the patient back in respiratory arrest. In general the patient can be handled by maintaining respiration until the effects of the drug moderate. When I was on the job, we often did not wake the OD patients up because the reaction to the withdrawal could be dangerous. We just inserted a breathing tube and kept IV access and monitored the heart rate and oxygen saturation.


So here in my opinion is the issue with Mike. He had a Doc with him 24/7 Supposedly a cardiologist and the guy does not seem to have had the necessary
drugs and equipment to manage a cardiac event. If this was the case, then it is an awful over site, but it should be remembered or made clear to the public in general that doctors in private practice are seldom aware of the latest advanced cardiac life support protocol. I have a feeling that the fact Jackson's MD went missing for a while is to figure a way to cover himself for not having the proper set up which may have easily saved Jackson's life.
We will see. It's all cheers and sorrows, Texino

Roz

OK, here are some photos of the photogenic naked row boater Roz Savage. She is a handsome woman and her handler Nicole would like to get her into playboy magazine...? Oh well Roz is still rowing but she is not saying much about where she is headed or when she expects to get there. She spoke quite a bit about that during her last row which made for interesting reading. Oh yes, Roz posted another picture of herself naked today, but you can't see her breasts. OH well, I'm probably not going to write too much more about Roz Savage™ Nicole, is keeping my comments from reaching her, so there is little chance of give and take.
Cheers and sorrows,
Texino

My Pal Roz

You really ought to check out Rozsavage.com and read about the adventures of this intelligent and capable woman who is rowing the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Australia with stops at Hawaii, Tuvalu and then AU. it self. Roz has an interesting story to tell about how she left the business world to become an adventuress and now she seems to do rather well giving motivational speeches between rowing. Between rowing is the issue. Roz first rowed the Atlantic in a east to west "race" and it was during this soul stripping experience Roz decided her new career path. She would write a book and give talks. Also, since no woman had solo rowed the Pacific E-W, Roz set about gaining sponsor-ship for such a venture.

Now I should mention that these ocean rows are done in highly specialized craft which are safe as they can be made to be and barring being sliced in two by a liner or falling overboard unattached the rower can expect to survive quite a bit of ill nature.

My issue comes from the rather long interludes between the hops. In fact the way things are working out, while the Atlantic Row was filled with hair raising adventure and the first attempt of the pacific row ended in having to abandon the good boat "Brocade" making the second attempt a dramatic race against the real possibility running out of water and all of us giving Roz the big cheer as she rowed into the Waikiki Yacht club. Now 6 months later step 3 has our gal pulling toward the Internet nation of Tuvalu (.tv) and while the previous two steps have had everything you would want as far as adventure, so far part 3 has been totally a matter of poor Roz's sore bum w/pictures.
OK, now here is a woman hoping to make big change giving speeches to cube dwellers or whomever has to sit through this sort of up lift, and I Texino happen to mention that "metaphorically" this row is falling as flat as the "El Mariachi" trio of films and Roz goes crazy on me. I don't know, maybe she needs to rant about how this is real life, but we are both sitting behind key boards and Roz knows nothing about my years at sea, my wartime service or career as a Fire/Rescue Officer. I figure it's only a matter of time before the her inbred British insults start and I get called a "Dreadful Little Man".

The whole nutcase problem here is I'm just making some points. I'm not trying to demean Roz Savage in any way, I just fear that she has picked up all these newbie followers who are so heavy with the saint paint that she may lose sight of the true southern cross.

Be safe Roz- that has been the tone of my twitter tweets since day one. If she needs a whipping boy to stay strong, I can take anything she snaps up.
Check it out for yourself. T

Fuck it

I don't care if anyone reads this blog or not, so I'm not going to harass my online friends into joining another list. I really hope someone reads me because I think I say some decent words of social commentary and if you listen up you could get ahead of the flow and not worry about idiots making you look unaware. think about it.

So how come I'm still writing?

Well I can't say for certain. I thought that I needed the support of Novelist Mary Moon in order to test my mettle, but I guess that was just an illusion provided by my sponsor- Mr.Insecurity. Now, I'm still a big fan of Mary Moo, I guess I just don't need her help as much as I thought and I suppose I can get by the loss of friendship the same way a person gets over other such disappointments. So it comes down to this. I'm sorry but I am going to continue this blog even though I have no idea if anyone reads it. It is just something I have to do.

You would have thought differently

So The "Grasshopper" ends up doing the ultimate jerk off in a town well known for it's sexual delights and kills himself in the act. I must say this disappoints me because I figured that a guy like David Carradine would have had this sex thing figured out and even at the age of 72 have some sort of Tantric method or special Kung Fu discipline keeping him up, so to speak. But no, instead of surrounding himself with girls and boys Viagra, he goes for some cheap auto erotic asphyxiation trick in a closet no less. Jesus Christ. I mean I've seen people who have hung themselves and it's gross. Snot comes out of your nose in a long string and other messy stuff happens. Also as far as this auto erotic asphyxiation issue goes, it seems a mighty dangerous way of getting off. The least someone could do is make some sort of kit that would allow the project to go forth with some bit of safety in place. I'm not totally hip on the procedure but as an old man who is losing his spark, I might need this at some point and I'd hate to make the ultimate screw up. Like, I already invented an anti overdose syringe that has a secondary dose of naloxone (a narcotic antagonist) that will auto inject if a junkie doesn't disable it within a certain time after he or she shoots up. I guess I should investigate how this deal works so I can invent a safetly device. I'm not sure of it's worth, since my anti OD kit may save lives but since it tends to put the user right into withdrawal, I don't get too many thank you notes. Oh well, it's still sad about old Dave. The guy went about spouting the wisdom of the ages and it comes down to the same old sad Hollywood bullshit.

The tragedy of uptown.

First and then.

the reason I don't write any more

Every writer needs a person who will stand up for them as well as to them. If you don't have that sort of relationship to provide ballast to ease your voyage through the questionable sea of words that can destroy you as easily as allow you to shoot the rapid to keener pools of prose, you will end up painted in some ugly corner of flickering fluorescent tubing. I've lost my anchor. A person whom I thought was chained to me by the gold of friendship turned out to be connected by sacrificial Zinc; an element which leaves in its own time with little notice or evidence of ever being.

who the hell am I?

I'm Texino and I write stories. Sometimes people request my friendship on social networking sites and when I accept, they act like it's a pretty good deal.
I must have made them feel a certain way through my writing. If that is true then I'm doing my job. Other times I write stupid and obvious lies about Bluegrass Players who I consider Grand Falloons. A Grand Falloon is a type of person made up by the humorist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and it means just what it sounds like. I break a lot of laws and spend more time on the hill that out to sea. It's for the better because I am getting old. Still I want to make another tour. They have taken my major priviledge to drive, but I have a 49 cc motor scooter and if I should pack it wisely and take back roads, I might see some things left to see which will teach me some lessons I have not learned. Like the importance of corn to the economy and if there is any new love to fall into or if I am just a fool for thinking I'm still worth a fuck.

The Poor House

I am aware that I have shown signs of moral bankruptcy in the past but I always managed to pay the dues associated with that itchy plight. Now, I'm faced with a full financial collapse. They simply do not pay Texinos the way they did when we schooled like big tuna with manuscripts fresher than the best grade fish flesh. Oh the price of fuel and the invention of automated long liners. Then you make the mistake of fishing for what would eat your own carcass should you bunk with D. Jones on a perfect stormy night. Once you take that bug money, it is better to go to the hill and buy a house with the wind at your back. And I did that and 30 years of near perfect citizenship brought me in touch with a different breed. Then: Lord did the heavy past en bay me with casual duties and one day I looked up to find 30 thousand squid full and fine and demanding their share of the voyage of my life. What kind of captain doesn't pay off? Well no kind of Captain at all. And then this steady procession of old mates walked off the plank into the fog where, unlike the snowy churchyard not one can answer your whispered question and your loudest calls are swallowed and beaten senseless beneath the billowed blankets.

Ah, what a war!

She make look clean, but she's also forty feet tall! If I was that woman, I'd teach those men to make assumptions about my character. Take that sailor. Swallow him whole and when he tries to climb back up my throat, slug down a double scotch and see how he handles that. Anchors Aweigh Swabby! Hey Mr. Businessman, how's about I check your lungs with a big deep kiss? Heck, he folded up like a piece of cellophane! Say there soldier, let me give you a little love bite on the neck! Oops! his head came right off. So you see while the Armed Services tried to scare men out of having healthy sexual intercourse and catching easily treated diseases, giant Frauliens cruised the east coast killing service men by the score not only in the ways mentoned here but casual use of Zippo Lighters or mistaking the little men for match sticks or ciggarette butts. While the defeat of the giant Axis Alices has been a closely guarded secreat since the second war, great creedence has been given to rumours involving submerine warfare and midnight swims.

It's like the song says-

What song? Doesn't matter. They all get around to it eventually; sadness, loneliness, heart break. The opposite of good. For some reason, perhaps because I am reaching the end of my life, I find my self shuttled into that invisible corner where no one knows you when you are down and out. It's like the song says.

As a tween, I was sent to deportment classes. Learned how fill out a dance card and how to dance it; how to sit and how to walk; how to eat and have all around good manners. I would have benefited more from a course in diesel mechanics. Actually,I did learn quite a few manual trades in the Army but it being wartime everything had a modicum of violence attached to it that did not translate into civilian life i.e. "weld up a box so we can put it on some prisoners head and whack it with sticks." I was playing the bad boy before I went into the service and it was doing me pretty good. When I came back, I really was the bad boy and suddenly no one wanted to know me.

The thing is, I should learn to make friends with a lower class of person. But I don't. Instead, I pal up with the sort of chaps and chicks whom I grew up with. (remember, I know the rules of deportment) and therein lies the rub.
I get exposed as being rough and coarse for real, and that just doesn't do.

So now I am as down and out as is possible. I haven't eaten a full meal in ages
let alone seen a glass of wine. Are dinner parties illegal now? Well of course not, but who would want us at one? (They're broke for God sakes) Me, a poor sport? Well, no. If I had something and you had a need, you would have it. How many computers and instruments and other things have I given away or sold at fractional value just because someone would benefit? People who know me know the answer.

Do I deserve the life I have? Well yes I do. Really. I have the reason written down some place, but if you read it you wouldn't believe it. It's right out of the twilight zone and that tune has no words.

An inconvenient friend

It often seems that the friends I make, the ones who seem ready to love me for the whole go round decide at some point that I am somewhat along the line of a good meal but too hard to get at; like blue crab or something. Think about how tasty those crabs are; then think about the last time you had a mess of them over the house. The shells hurt your hands and the Cayenne gets in the pokes and slices and then the trash doesn't come for days and lessons are taught by the blue tail fly. Don't fret, someones mamma's going to see those maggots on the black trash bags. Then it comes down to the reasonable gathering where Poppa pulls out the years grouper crop and a fish fry is put on.
Good food good company. No mess. No pain. No one to ask the wrong question in this happy group. No, because they all sailed safely through the 60s happy in the knowledge that they were secure and the men they knew were safe and smart and they lit fires on beaches and spoke codes and fattened their futures and worst thing was they forgot, because it didn't mean a thing to any one's plans until it proved an inconvenient mess when a guy like me slipped through and then had the gall to exhibit symptoms of a horror that could not be controlled or over looked. How dare a person behave the part of a separate reality and what were we thinking anyway?
Well the problem is easily solved. Just pretend there was never anything there and it will go away.

A Parting Glass

It's sad to reach an age where something once so large in one's life starts, through a series of sad goodbyes, to implode like a bright star and shrink to a compressed memory, shared now by a few scattered friends.

Fred Foster Davis, F.F. or Filthy Fred as he was universally known; not for lack of hygiene, but for his abiding love for ribald folk song, has died and left a big gap in the circle around the warm fire of friendship. As we slide down the metaphoric pew to fill his now cold seat it seems that each shadow takes on the face of someone too dear to lose.

And how dear was Fred? In '83 and Fred showed up needing to borrow a car to drive to Fernandina in aid of some sort of vehicle exchange over on Cumberland Island. I gave him my yellow Wagoneer, an old veteran but drivable. Fred was back in two days to recruit me to help him tow a Volvo back. I said OK, fine and the day was set. The next morning as we were ready to leave, Fred mentioned that I might find the brakes a bit "tight." He was right, of course, as he had replaced some major components while he had the car. He just did that kind of thing. You borrow a clunker from a friend, find the fluid reservoir a tad low, so you put some fluid in and watch it. Not Fred; he rebuilt the whole system. You know, as a favor for the loan. That was just the kind of guy he was, plus he liked order in machinery . As a life long sailor, he had the ability to make or fix anything. Looking back, I find it hard to think of a time a whirlwind visit from Fred did not result in some repair to the lights, plumbing or car. I'm half certain if he house sat for a month a remodel of some sort would be effected. Really.

Fred died down island in Nevis. He had property there and after losing his wonderful 53' steel hulled ketch,"Curlew" to a hurricane, he had given up life as a charter captain to split his time between the Eastern Shore of VA and the Caribbean.

Our history goes back 35 years and the adventures abound.
In fact the last time I saw Fred, maybe 5 years now, our paths crossed in Beaufort, NC. during a Pirate Festival. It went from a quiet visit with other friends to a highly questionable activity involving reefer, rum and a functional canon. Did not see him again though I figured it was just a matter of time. Now this. Fred leaves a new wife and an ex-wife, Mary. Mary is a story herself and a good friend. The new wife? I did not know about, but I'll wager she has spirit.

So Fred, about to seek treatment for Cancer in Brazil, I'm told, fell to that terrorist of disease while being given oxygen and morphine at the Alexandra Hospital in Nevis and lies buried so far away.

Fred Davis, dead at 65. Too soon for a man so full of work to do and robbed of his days as a elder, sitting some dock yard with stories to amaze the children and a tot of rum near by. But, that is only the future as I saw it. Perhaps he did not look ahead and just lived point to point, like a good navigator.

My friend Dave, another good one, held a pledge with Fred. It was the kind of thing people say, when they really do not consider the truth or consequences of the bargain. The bond was, whomever died first, the survivor would sing "The Parting Glass" at his funeral. It didn't turn out because Dave did not get the news, none of us got it, until yesterday and that was too late. David went home and sang it by himself.

Now if you don't know The Parting Glass, it's a sad Irish tune sung at closing time, and the last part goes: "And if it falls unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not. I'll softly go and gently call, good luck and joy be with you all."

The song is actually about drinking, not dying, but it doesn't take much for it to become an allegory to everything I have been saying here. On that point, I'll shove off in hopes that you will find the "Parting Glass" and hear it for Fred. From there on you will have it to sing to yourself when you are lonely or sad and you might find it of use.

Monkey talk ( Another chapter in a series devoted to the study of animals and their characteristics)

I like to think that I am a friend to all animals, however; the truth is, I have a distrust of both the bear and monkey.

I often think about the initial choices we make regarding our trusts and fears.
I'm talking childhood zen here, the sort of thing that just shouts to your fresh brain that red is candy and sweet potatoes are to be avoided. You make deeper choices as well, like are you a dog or cat person or both, or is your father the sort who would have killed and eaten you if times had been hard. (Bears do this) You are also taking sexual notice at this time. That makes sense as you are the recent product of a sexual union. I grew up in a woman house and the visions of soft curves and pretty feet were early additions to the slide show behind my eyes. I had animal exposure too. Carted to the National Zoo strapped into my stroller like a jet pilot, I was wheeled to within yards of the actual "Smokey The Bear." This was supposed to be a lark but, in fact, it was the product of a horrible domestic misunderstanding. A local TV show for children, which centered around life in the forest, featured a man who played a guitar and sang a song about Smokey the fire prevention bear and how he came to get that job. I loved the guitar but, as I lived in the city, did not really relate to the story,. In fact smokey was represented as a stern creature who wore a drill instructor's hat and admonished in a rumbling robotic voice that "Only YOU can prevent Forest fires" and I just could not figure why it had to be ME since I had other plans for my life. My keepers, on the other hand, insisted that I loved the bear and that's why I was freezing in a stroller watching a scarred bruin watch me. I was wheeled to other sites as well, but to me, the most intimidating was a trip through the monkey house.

Now I knew a bit about Chimps because there were two of them on the television. There was J. Fred Muggs and there was Zippy the chimp. Both of these animals wore clothes. Zippy did tricks and Muggs just sat around and sometimes he smoked a cigar. Chimps like to smoke. I instinctively disliked those monkeys. Sort of like the sweet potato knowledge, or maybe because Zippy The Chimp Dolls of all sizes were in distribution and lay in doctors waiting rooms and on preschool toy shelves. These were horrific in that, while they seemed furry brown and cuddly, they had naked ears and hard rubber faces which totally robbed them of any chance of love. It would be of great interest to analyze a person who actually did become emotionally attached to a zippy doll just to see what sort of person he or she had turned out. Regardless of my predispositions toward chimps, one look at the naked apes in their pseudo environment of sex and violence was enough for the boy and has remained constant into manhood.

I'm here on this monkey business due to the recent story of the face eating Chimp up in New York. Pretty gross indeed, yet because I know my enemy, I can tell you that this sort of destructive attack is not uncommon. In fact, in the last year I read of a couple who had a long standing relationship with a chimpanzee and during a visit to the animal, who was now living in an open environment with other chimps, another chimpanzee attacked the man and ripped his testicles off as well as causing other significant trauma. These villains who go about on "all fours" literally have legs for arms and can tear someone to pieces. I remember a story by the famous Animal expert Frank Buck, who described being temporally blinded by the venom of a spitting cobra. In order to save his eyesight he had to call for help, yet the only telephone was in an office located across the room and to get there, buck had to pass the cages of several chimps. In chilling detail the author described having to crawl in a prone position keeping as close to the floor as possible while the chimps, sensing his injury madly reached for him, there fingers nearly brushing his clothes. Buck escaped, but he made it plain beyond doubt that the terrible chimps would have murdered him in an instant, even though he had treated them with great care and kindness. Chimps. Somewhere down the dusty hall of horrors where the light of my adulthood seldom shines, there is the memory of some long lost kine scope showing Zippy dressed in a doctor's get up, complete with one of those reflectors on his head. In the "gag" he is supposed to be an escaped chimp who has put on the get up. You know how it goes. Patient sees the doctor, the doc says "I'll send in the specialist" Zippy shows up, patient freaks, doctor returns, patient says specialist is a monkey-hilarity ensues. Well OK, but in real life, I think that's pretty screwy and if my doctor ever says, "Ill be right back" I make sure I've got my pants on and I'm ready to bolt. No doubt, chimps are blessed with super speed as are bears. I don't know what the human to chimp + bear ratio is, but I fear it is too high. On an evolutionary scale, I'm supposed to be above a monkey, yet the only product of my superiority that is evident is my ability to get my hands on an Army .45. Well and good, but I'll wager a chimp can shoot a gun too. My advice on that is to do like I do when traveling in chimp territory. I carry a life-like replica of a pistol which I can recognize due to the fact that the tip of the barrel is colored a bright red. If I am challenged by an armed Chimpanzee and can't get the drop on the bastard, I simply pull a bit of the old monkey see-monkey do and placing the "toy" gun in my mouth pretend to pull the trigger. Fair fight? Hell no! Like I said,I get along with animals just fine, but when it comes to ball ripping face eating Chimpanzees, well the tables closed and all bets are off.

The next subject in this series will be, Bears, an abomination before Almighty God!

Let's talk about The Shriners, OK? Fine

You know who the Shriner's are, right? Wear a Fez, drive a little car, have a big parade for no apparent occasion? Those guys. International do-good organization is what they are. The Shriner's, AKA The Masons, are a secret society who have something like 33 degrees of membership. Shriners come from all walks of life, but I am not certain if Black People can join or if they have their own Shrines. (I have seen Black Shriners but not in a mixed group) Because the Masons are a secret order, a lot of mystery surrounds what goes on at the Lodge. Now, I'm not sure how one gets tagged to join up. I don't think being an actual mason is necessary, however; The Masonic orders are big into the compass , square and apron as symbolic artifacts in their rites. The Masons have been about for a real long time and, by the way, George Washington was a Mason and I believe he laid the corner stone of the Capitol. In fact lot of the early big shots in the USA were Masons and they managed to get some of there junk put on the money and it's still there.

Of course, whenever there is a secret society afoot, people are going to want to know what goes on. The Masonic orders can be pretty tight lipped about this and it is alleged that anyone who might do a run and tell all on The Brotherhood would face some pretty substantial grief for his trouble. This must have some degree of truth because a lot of people would be interested in finding out if to get to the highest levels of the "Craft" it is truly necessary that the candidate do such naughty acts as sacrifice a child as well as a bit of rape and cannibalism. I guess, if the brothers have that sort of information on a fellow, he would be loath to tattle.

Personally, I have a hard time believing nice Mr. Fowler down the street (a known Master Mason of high degree) would do any of that nasty business, however; there are two major obstacles which keep my suspicions engaged Viz the Masonic Order. #1 is their affection for Arab paraphernalia and #2 they perform as Clowns in their own circus. Now it is well known that Arabs are often employed in the snatching an ill use of young boys and this is something not unheard of in the Clown Conspiracy either. Therefore, until the Masons come across with some heavy evidence to the contrary I cannot release them from suspicion. OK. I was just thinking about The Masons and that is what came out. My head is stacked full of information, so if you need any, don't Google! Ask Texino!
Bye for now.

Real Time Internet

I just realized that I was able to view the unfolding drama of the US Airways Flight 1549 crash entirely on my laptop and other that watching some streaming video from a NY TV station, did not have to deal with the confounded broadcasters nattering rumor back and forth. It was truly a relief to be able to put the puzzle together by looking at live shots and reading breaking text released by people on the scene rather than having to listen to the baffled newscasters interrupt one another and then speculate as to the situation. I fully realize how difficult it is to handle a breaking story cold and you can really see how hard some veterans work to keep from falling on dead air. That's well and good. I'm just happy to have a high speed connection and the ability to data mine. Equipped to this level, I remain confident that I can get the goods on any story without the distraction you get from the news folk who can turn from serious to light hearted in an eye blink or cut to commercial advertising and miss an important event. I sometimes get annoyed by the web and its wide open spaces of worthless junk, but for someone like myself, who wants information and deep back ground on a regular basis it is true magic of the modern age. Magic that allows me to see the miracles of my own life time, for now that I have struck the gong and entered my time of diminishing seasons it is evident that the last 60 odd years have brought us so much and the fact that I can prove it with a few clicks of a button and then broadcast it to the world in my own words makes me feel like a ripple that will eventually show its power as a new wave. That's cool.

It can't be just me

Anyone out there seen The President recently? G.W. Bush, I mean, and when I mean seen, I mean observed him on the TV. OK? Fine. Now has it occurred to you during your observation that the guy is just sort of, nuts? I'm cheating a bit because I was watching a video montage last night and it showed President G.W. Bush speaking and responding, the general riff that a president does, and truth to my mind kept cycling back to "out of control." Now I know about out of control. I'm always saying the wrong thing and getting people mad when I didn't mean to, but neither do I go around starting wars for no reason, nor do I torture people; at least not in any way they can't escape by deleting my words or turning off my music. Sure, I ran a pig ranch in Vietnam, but I worked with people whose job it was to come up with the desired answers from some of our prospective ranchers. Let me tell you if you want someone to to say no is yes or black is white, it's an easy deal if your contestant has a high % of belief that you are in fact The Guy. Point being, this wholesale brutality as practiced by Secretary of Pain Rumsfeld's army of a few was not necessary. There are just cooler ways to get your info.
You know, I think one major issue with Bush is he is trying to fill in the blanks. Blanks that his Daddy was so great at using to get his points across. I mean if you listen to W trying to explain the whole Mission Accomplished fiasco on the aircraft carrier, it's gibberish. Bush the Elder could have gotten the whole issue covered by saying: "Carrier Landing- bad idea- gave wrong impression- not prudent." I suppose if you take W's words and "Bushellize" them, one might bring his presidency into a whole new light. Worth it? Naw.

TV is unfair to criminals

Well, it is, because almost every single tine I look at a news paper, I read about lawbreakers getting yanked off the street for committing the type of behavior T.V. bad guys pull off each week. Take the hit man, for instance. On TV, you just get Harvey Kitel. In real life you will either be set up by the cops or the Hit Person will sing like a bird if the cops ask him one question. How about your car chase? OK? fine; a guy is really intent on not stopping for the police, so rather than take his plate # and catch up with him later, unless he is on a murder spree or something, the police set up a road block with two cars touching together at a vanishing point. The villain has seen this move on TV 1,000 times. Just speed up and hit the road block dead center and the police cars will just spin out of your way. Right? Well yes, if they have had their motors and transmissions removed. If not, it's a-kin to striking a tree. Why do banks have those velvet ropes to feed you to the next teller? To make sure they get a shot of you with the security camera before you try and rob the place. If you try to get anything more that the loose cash, they will put exploding dye capsules in with the money and since the cops have been hauling their adrenalized butts toward you from the second you showed your hand don't be surprised if they blast you to bits with automatic shotguns as you walk out with a couple of grand. Hardly seems worth it, but hey those old British bikes cost a bundle to keep on the road. Faking your death. Always fails. Killing your wife. You will be the prime suspect from the get go, so you must be a real psycho killer to pull it off. How about safe cracking? Gem Robber? or Art Thief ? Romantic to be sure, but to pull that sort caper successfully you would need talents that would pay you a good wage without resulting to crime. I guess drug dealer can be a only money maker for the average Joe, and once you get up into the big money the chances that someone might burn you are just too great. Old Texino's been in the slammer a couple of times and I would not care to go back for any reason cause life is too short and you don't want to end up with a five or six year hole in yours. Well I started out to make fun of TV and ended up being a moralist. You can't know what I might do these days. I take my pills, but I have hallucinations. People walk through the room. I find myself getting up to do a task that has to do with an imaginary situation, plus all manner of medical stuff keeps popping up to try and scare me. I have now out lived any man in my family by 5 years. Does that make me a wiser person than my father or the Two grandfathers whose pictures look like extremely old gents who could have only lived in the Black & White days of noir. I'll be damed if I ever come up with that answer, however; the fact that those gentlemen share degrees from Harvard, M.I.T. and the U.S. Naval Academy and I have been but a common ambulance driver should hint strongly in some direction. Well that ought to get it Take good care of your tools. Texino 1/09

Secrets of musical youth

OK, who is that man on the right? You know him. He's a singer and song writer who has been around since the 60s and had several hits in the 70s. Pretty big hits for a folksinger too. He's from Canada and he's not Ian Tyson. Know who he is now? That's right, Gordon Lightfoot. Trouble is I know Lightfoot and he's a stocky chap with curly hair and a beard. Look at those ears! Something is wrong! Now observe the fellow on the left. He's from the same generation as Gordon, but other than a bit of gray he doesn't seem very old at all does he? The big difference of course, is you do not know who the other guy is. That's the big deal you see; large scale popularity will kill you. So take a tip from Tomas. Play for the fun of it and eternal youth and beauty will certainly come to pass.