Forward!

Tis the end for thee, so I must bid thee goodbye Mitt Romney…

…you won’t be missed. I will be working the polls all day tomorrow for this most momentous election. I find that I am more excited for this one then I was when I did the same thing in 2008. So in the face of Obama’s pretty much assured victory, never mind what the talking heads say, I thought it wise to make my farewells now to a truly unworthy opponent.

So here’s to you Willard “Mitt” Romney, one of the most craven, corrupt, dishonest, despicable, pathetic, and  egregious excuses for man or politician I have ever been exposed to in my life.

These are some of the things I will most remember you for:

1)    Binders full of women

2)    Etch a Sketch

3)    “Corporations are people, my friend.”

4)    A VP candidate with beefcake photos

5)    Making yourself extra tan for you town hall on Telemundo

6)    Buddying up to “rape babies are a gift from God” Murdoch

7)    Fake storm Sandy relief events that were really campaign stops **wink wink nudge nudge**

8)    Blundering and blustering your way through Europe

9)    Newt Gingrich’s scathing film about you and Bain capital

10) Your extremely shy tax returns

11) Ryan washing clean pots at a soup kitchen –honestly he’s almost as bad as you. Great choice!

12) Not believing in the same thing from one day to the next and then denying you ever believed it – You have always been at war with Oceania

13) Your ability to lie so easily and with such conviction

14) Your stepping in a Benghazi cowpie

     


You may have been good for laugh at times, your robotic delivery and stilted mannerisms always were good for that, but the thought of you actually running this country brings an absolute chill to my spine. You who would privatize Social Security and Medicade to non-existence leaving once and future generations to shrift for themselves. You who does not believe in climate change. You whose first priority is to your weird religion. You who gets hard just thinking about bombing Iran no matter how many must die for your hubris. You who would disenfranchise those of a different color, women, and sexual orientation then you. You who would increase defense spending at the expense of schools and poor folk. You who would drag all the tea bag loonies and religious nuts that you have had to pander to with you to the White House. You who thinks its okay to pay no taxes while shifting the tax burden to the rest of us. You who think that 47% of Americans are useless leeches.

But in the end it is you and your ilk that are the parasites. You and the other vultures who have for the last 30 years striven to take without any thought to those you take from as long as profit is involved. You sir are a disgrace to the office of the Presidency and worse than Bush, which is something I never thought I’d say. I hope when this is over you will finally slink away back to the dark recesses to which you belong and take your repellent wife and 5 sons with you. It would be a great day to never have to lay eyes on your clipart visage again. Unless that is to see you marched away in handcuffs from all your dirty dealings coming to light. I’d watch that all day long.

When I come home tomorrow night to celebrate Obama’s victory with friends and Champagne, I will take a moment to honor your campaign and pour a flat diet cola out on the curb.

Happy Halloween!

I am a big fan of horror/scary movies. So in the spirit of my last post and because I’m still feeling Halloweenie, I thought I would share some of my all-time favorites. Even though I love zombies, devils & demons, and serial killers, I find that the movies that truly scare me as opposed to just making me jump or recoil from the gore, the ones that keep me up nights afraid to move or open my eyes, the ones that really stick with me giving me nightmares are ghost stories. For some reason, I have a visceral reaction to these types of movies and honest to god, if they are made right, they scare the shit out of me. Maybe it’s because ghosts can be anywhere, watching you, locking doors and shutting the curtains will not keep you safe. It makes you question every little temperature change or strain to identify every little squeak or bump as you lay in bed. They can only seek to harm or they could be reaching out for help or they could be little more than an echo of a long dead person whose death caused them to imprint. Regardless of what they are, the concept is frightening. I believe in ghosts and this probably adds to the terror I feel when I watch a good ghost story. Not to say I wouldn’t be willing to stay in a “haunted” hotel or do a little amateur ghost hunting, I’d actually jump at the chance, the fear is exciting. Once last summer a friend was trying to finagle us a night in the deserted and supposedly haunted Goldfield Hotel, the suspense was palpable, I wanted to so badly but unfortunately it never came to pass. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nv-goldfieldhotel.html

 

Before that, we stayed in this beautiful house in St. George Utah that was built around the turn of the last century and used to be a bed and breakfast before it became a private vacation residence. It has a stream running through the front yard and old abandoned buildings that litter the property. We were told it was haunted but alas no spirits chose to present themselves to us. It looked spooky sitting behind huge iron gates as we drove up to it but was beautiful on the inside including suitably creepy suits of armor and afforded us nothing more than a wonderful weekend. So in the end, I have never had traffic with the spirit world but I always listen to those who say they have and I must get my ghostly thrills vicariously, which means movies.

           

 I will start with some of my favorites from when I was a kid/teenager during the 70s & 80s. Honestly, thinking back, I’m shocked that I was allowed to see so many of these at such a tender age. It explains a lot. They are not all ghost stories but there is a preponderance of ghosts here.

Burnt Offerings

The Sentinel

Trilogy of Terror

The Amityville Horror

The Legend of Hell House

The Car

The Haunting – A classic and absolutely frightening.

The Changeling – I never thought a ball could be so menacing.

Ghost Story

Salem’s Lot

The Shining

Nightmare on Elm Street

Night Gallery

Poltergeist – I’ll never forget the man ripping his face off or that clown doll.

Prince of Darkness

Alien

The Fog

Not all of these have aged well but I still will watch them from time to time if only for the nostalgia. A few are just as good now as they were when I first watched them, they are horror classics.

As I got older I found it was harder for movies to deep down scare me. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy them or that when I was watching I didn’t hide my eyes or jump at the appropriate places but once the movie was done that was it, it didn’t follow me home or haunt me if you will. Some movies that stand out for me are:

The Others

The Blair Witch Project

The Ring

Stir of Echoes

Session 9

Signs

The Sixth Sense – This one actually kept me up for several nights after seeing it for the first time and gave me nightmares.

Scary movies are fun and Halloween is great for an excuse to bust out old favorites or to find some new movies that could become future favorites. I will end this post with a wish to all for happy & safe Halloween!!

A Halloween Post

This is the first Raimi movie I ever saw and it blew me away. I remember seeing it for the first time when I was still in high school. It was a dark, cold and stormy Saturday night and my brother rented it on VHS tape, telling me I'd love it. And I did, I really did, while developing a severe crush on Bruce Campbell as well. The scariest scene was when they were playing cards and the one girl started to name them from across the room only to turn around all demonified and the delicious havoc did ensue. The sequel was great too, no one can do slapstick like my Bruce. Since it is Halloween, I do like to watch my scary favorites and this is one. I must say that I was laughing at all the sly references to this classic that the newer movie The Cabin in the Woods threw out. When the 5 college kids drove up to said cabin, I piped up with "that looks just like the Evil Dead cabin", not realizing that it was kind of an homage. (Cabin in the Woods is very good by the way and if you haven't yet freeze the screen and check out the betting white board and see all the choices they have to kill our protagonists for a laugh.) There is also a big budget remake being made now that unfortunately has decided to remove one of the best things about this version and the follow ups, its sly sense of humor. They really should leave well enough alone and this movie does not need any remakes. If you like this movie series as well, check out this website that is all things evil and dead http://www.bookofthedead.ws/website/the_evil_dead_synopsis.html. The internet really is great for these kinds of things, I feel like I have found a little treasure.

Just Wanted to Share This...

It is too funny and with a good message. Plus the absolutely gorgeous eye candy does not hurt.

It has already surpassed 3 million hits and would like to see that triple, so share it!!!

Just a Thought...

Hi. You're going to call off your rigorous investigation. You're going to publicly state that there is no underground group. Or we are going to take your balls. Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we connect your calls, we guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us.

—Tyler Durden, Fight Club 

 

Recordings have power. It is tanking a Presidential campaign and caused a useless celebutard to apologize for her homophobic remarks, and this is just in the last month. One was recorded by a bartender and the other by a cab driver, 2 of the faceless 99% that the wealthy and powerful do not see. They do not think we have power because we do not have money. What we do have is numbers, we are everywhere. Even farther then the quote above, we serve their drinks, we drive their cars, we clean their homes, we do their nails and cut their hair, we wait on them at restaurants and stores, we watch their children, cut their lawns and run their errands. Those who are wealthy have virtually abdicated all responsibility for the day to day care of themselves and their families to others whom they pay, usually poorly. They denigrate us or ignore us and almost all of us have phones, which have the ability to record. Just a thought.

Happy 1st anniversary OWS

I find it funny that so many armchair and “respectable” pundits alike are counting it out. They say it is over now, that for all its bluff and bluster that nothing was accomplished. All of those people who with their sweat and tears who had the bravery to stand up to the machine and say that “I will not allow you to consume me and I am worth more than the amount of money that you can squeeze from me”, walked away with their tails between their legs never to look back. I beg to differ. The fact that in 2011 the middle class shrunk again adding to the class inequality that we in our precious USA have not seen since the gilded age means that we still have far to go.  

Humans are not cars but the crooks of Wall Street treat us as such, broken down into components our monetary worth is greater. I have written before of the high cost of poverty. There are things that people who have never been poor will not understand about how the money drains through the fingers, not by shiftless thrift but by rampant preying on those least able to protect themselves. The bounced check fees, the check cashing fees, the late fees, the higher interest rates all add up. The most mundane chores of life can become stressful. Something breaking down can throw an entire household into disarray for weeks, as the cost of repair is prohibitive. Paying for all the costs of an automobile (maintenance, insurance, registration) can be a terrible burden while being a necessity. Driving is a privilege you say? If you can’t afford it take the bus. Therein lays another hidden cost of poverty, time. Some cities, I happen to live in one, is not friendly to public transportation. A 20 minute car ride can become a 2 hour adventure on the bus. What if you have to shop for groceries for a family or pick your child up from school, is the bus really a viable option then? That is why so many poor people risk driving without…and then of course there are the fees if they get caught. When you are poor you spend more time than me doing laundry, going to the Laundromat can take at least half a day. When you are poor you spend your days in line at the unemployment, social security, or food stamp offices just to get by.  Most who are poor have to work more than one job, so a week where you just work 40 hours is a pleasant dream. Plus those who want to use education to climb the ladder of opportunity graduate with a massive student loan debt that is the equivalent of indentured servitude. When you are poor, the simplest thing is a struggle; every bump in the road becomes a mountain to climb. Money is not the answer to everything but it sure does take away so many burdens. The money is squeezed out of those who can least afford it in a million different ways and funneled upward. Being middle class is not the answer any more. Basically claiming being in that class is the untapped font of wealth that can be pulled upward and it is becoming an endangered species.  We still bray wildly that “we are #1” even while we fall pathetically behind in education, social welfare, and child mortality.

That is what OWS wants to end. They envision a world where the playing field is equalized and the rules are for everyone, not one set for the rich and one for the rest of us. They have not stopped fighting; they have just ceased it from one central location, no matter if it was in New York or Oakland or anywhere in between. I read today what has happened in words far more eloquently than I can say it, but I can’t remember the direct quote or where I got it from (apologies to whoever it was and my butchering of it). They said that like a seedpod, they were pushed out of their casing so that they could spread with the wind and deposit their message in the fertile ground, and the ground is fertile. Movements do not happen overnight. The abolitionist movement took over 60 years, the suffrage movement over 80 and civil rights another 40 (although I think we are still fighting that and not just for our black citizens but for our gay ones as well). The OWS of a year ago was just the first furious blooming that was mercilessly pruned by the military and police who work for the 1%. Anyone who gardens though can tell you what happens after a pruning. Usually new growth is stronger and more vibrant than ever. The Powers that Be would be grateful for you to think that occupy has faded away, for you to become complacent again, don’t let that happen.  No matter what they say, OWS has changed the dialogue, and the PTB continue to hate it as hundreds have been arrested once again. We must always fight, no matter how small it may seem, even a shift in consciousness can mean big things. We are not as gullible as we were even 10 years ago and unlike those earlier movements cited above, OWS has one thing, one very powerful thing, that they didn’t which is the internet. There is no excuse for ignorance anymore, not with a world of knowledge at your fingertips. There are more of us then them, so never forget that, times are changing whether those at the top want it or not. We are the 99%!