So yeah anyway I still don’t know what in the Millard T. Fillmore is going on with my job, or if I have one, and I just spent $1350 I don’t really have to keep my car maintained, and I can’t afford my health care and it isn’t working very well, and no one loves me and I have a rock in my shoe etc.

Then again I’m still rich in a rich country and I have this glass of good Scotch next to me.

The price of Car Culture

…is $597 yesterday and $774 today.

Tasting notes

This evening we took our regular dose of ranitidine (generic for Zantac™), an over-the-counter medicine that reduces stomach acid. As we were preparing to wash it down with a glass of water, we accidentally broke one of the two pills, releasing some of the inside of the pill. This gave us the opportunity to savor and enjoy this flower of the apothecary’s art, and we present to you the result.

The initial impression is of sharpness, both physical and chemical. The shards of the pill’s shell give a needly intensity to the already piquant burst of flavor from inside. Overall there is a rush of tannins and industrial astringent agents, without the pleasant chiaroscuro of sweet or soft one might hope for. There is, of course, a fruity exploding nose redolent of JP-32 aviation fuel and butterscotch.

Directly following this bitter-bitter cascade, a rush of near-acetone-like aroma occurs, with a pulsating rising nose that strains to the apex of the sinuses. This produced at least in this observer a reflexive slapping of the left palm to the chest, as if suffering from a coronary artery occlusion, and a faint epithet.

After this sharp symphonic blast the finish levels off quickly into a wide palate of pine, wintergreen, and electrical insulation. Hints of bitter almond and antimony can be detected through the essentially caustic bloom on the tongue.

We rate this a 32, on scale where 0 is tap water and 100 is glacially pure hydrofluoric acid. As an example, Flonase dripping down the back of the throat rated a 10, and Yoo-Hoo is a 71.

Until next time, we are your faithful Chevalier de Tasteguhh.

The vanquished know war

Chris Hedges, author of “War is a Force that Gives us Meaning”, on Iraq, reviewing two books in the NYRB.

These Marines have learned the awful truth about our civil religion. They have learned that our nation is not righteous. They have understood that there are no transcendent goals at the heart of our political process. The Sunday School God that blesses our nation above all others vanishes in war zones like Iraq. These young troops disdain the teachers, religious authorities, and government officials who feed them these lies. This is why so many combat veterans hate military shrinks and chaplains, whose task is largely to patch them up with the old clichés and ship them back to the battlefield. It is why they feel distance and anger with those at home who drink in the dark elixir of blind patriotism, and absorb mythology about themselves and war.

One of the Marines in the book returns to California and is invited to be the guest of honor in a gated community in Malibu, a place where he could never afford to live. The residents want to toast him as a war hero.

“I’m not a hero,” he tells the guests. “Guys like me are just a necessary part of things. To maintain this way of life in a fine community like this, you need psychos like us to go out and drop a bomb on somebody’s house.”

. . .

We are losing the war in Iraq. There has been a steady increase in the assaults carried out by the insurgents against coalition forces. The attacks over the past year have risen from about twenty a day to approximately 120. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens’ expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront our hubris and the lies told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, we will not so much defeat dictators like Saddam Hussein as become them.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17630

I walked into my mother’s living room today only to hear James Taylor singing. Oh God no, there’s no way, the woman has taste. Oh whew, he is just on “The West Wing”.

Today I spent roughly $600 on four Falken ZIEX Z-502 tires, size 215/50 R17, rated V92. It’s good to spend all your money on toroidal pieces of vulcanized rubber.

I still have no fudging idea what is going on with my job. Therefore my limbic region is lit up like crazy and I am manufacturing doom scenarios in my head.

Tomorrow I shall spend somewhere between $300 and $900 on service for other bits of my car, because it is at 90,000 miles and needs some new parking light lamps, new rearview mirror automatic flipper upper, and possibly brake rotor resurfacing, and also alignment.

Good thing the car is almost paid off and will go another 300,000 miles easy.

I’m going to see Neko Case Saturday night.

Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

I’m a Nazi! I’m a Satanist! I’m a pirate! I’m a vampire! I’m a…

http://www.boydrice.com/

Musical innovator? Sure. Ahead of his time? Definitely. Culturally prescient? Uh-huh.

Annoying? Ohhh yeahhh. As an attention-getting device, “is he or isn’t he a Nazi” almost beats G.G. Allin’s “is he or isn’t he going to kill me on stage”. This way to der Egress! Also, hail Satan, etc.

But he did sort of invent modern electronic noise music.