Journals
Sunday,Oct 21 2007, 10:40:21 PMFor Rush Limbaugh challenge click 'all journals'
To Whom It May Concern:
Click on 'all journals' then scroll down until you find the three challange letters to Rush Limbaugh, the Great Liar and UnAmerican baboon. I hope you hear about this challenge, Rush, 'cause it may be part of your demise as 'Spreader of Manure'.
By the way, it is an absolute cinch domino that a Democrat will be the next President of the U.S.A. and the Democrat Party will control, with votes to spare, both Congress and the Senate. Thank God!!! It will take years to undo the horror story put in place by the Republicans. It is my great fear (shared with many people, both Democrats and Republicans) that there is little difference between the parties and that they are, as it seems to appear, reflections of the same, self-serving beast. As a little person all I can do is go forward on faith...mostly hoping and some praying that what appears to be 'evil aliens' controlling the world isn't so.
Wednesday,Oct 17 2007, 06:34:05 AM79 YEARS AND 364 3/5TH DAYS
79 YEARS AND 364 3/5TH DAYS
By Clifford Latta 07-07
It did have a metallic taste; that surprised him. He hastily pulled the 357 magnum pistol barrel from between his teeth. He was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom. He hadn't put it any very far, just a couple of inches to see what it looked like, after all he had been considering this moment, at every increasing levels of awareness coupled with, what he had started to call, "temporal anxiety", for ten years now. The idea had come to him some time in his late sixties. He had been paying on his accidental death policy, with his daughter as his sole heir, for a little more than four decades: About $12 a month for a term life accidental policy that would pay his daughter $50,000 if he died before the bedroom clock struck twelve midnight. He would be, at 12 midnight, 80 years old and all that money, those many, many thousands of dollars that he had bet the insurance company against his life would be gone...and he would have lost the bet by still being alive. The policy would not pay on a suicidal death during the first two years; after that, however, suicide was perfectly acceptable. That was the dilemma faced by the old drum maker standing in the bathroom of his modular home, heavy 357 magnum pistol dangling at his side. He was a big man, stooped a bit now by age, but still large enough to fill a doorway so the big pistol didn't look awkward or out of balance. He walked into the bedroom, casually flipping on the light and television. He wasn't hooked up to cable or a satellite so his television provided him with movie accessibility. He'd watch a movie every day or so. He spent far more time on his computer. His web site was a huge winner. It didn't make him very much money but he knew that his daughter understood the potential of the business and, if she chose, she could make a lot of money and have fun, too. He was increasingly a hermit, joking with his few friends with whom he was in occasional contact, that he had become such a hermit that he no longer even talked to himself. He had been political with halfhearted efforts in several different directions. He had never made any money and had property through hustle and fluke. It wasn't much but for as little as he had to work for it, it was really okay. He had been thinking about his life a lot lately. He felt the years both physically and, more disturbing, mentally. He liked his web site, he even liked the sound of it: www.greywolfdrums.com. He could chant it like a advertisement and it had a pleasant ring to it. His blog at Zorpia.com/greywolfdrums was viewed by hardly anyone. That, he felt, was a shame. His Journals contained some of his writings and he considered some of it good enough to elicit comment...but there had been few comments. When he started the blog he wanted to get some movie ideas out into the world of possibilities. Fame and fortune, he felt might then be eminent; though the fame part was incidental. He wanted to make a hunk of money, all at one time, to prove some sort of a point or another to himself. If he was successful, he argued to himself, he would be rich and happy; if he was unsuccessful he would be poor and still be happy. It was in his nature. He looked around. Not bad, he thought. Not a mansion or even a big house but for a modular it was very nice with a sun room and a fireplace. He and his grandson and daughter, to whom, ten years earlier, he had given the house just to get ownership out of the way, lived comfortably together. He actually didn't feel very poor and he was unabashedly happy, even when he didn't feel like being happy. It was in his DNA. He came from happy stock, he liked to say.
He turned the television off and turned on the radio. Art bell was talking with someone about abductions. When had Art not been talking about abductions, he thought. Now that there was ample evidence that aliens were on the planet and monitoring humans through implants Art's cutting edge commentary was informative and entertaining but hardly that consequential. He tapped his front denture with the gun barrel. The tap was far harder than he had intended and one of his front teeth cracked in half. It startled and scared him. The shock of the seemingly accidental blow to his mouth filled him instantly with fear. He hadn't felt fear until that very moment. All of a sudden, with the smack of the gun barrel and the broken tooth, he knew that everything he understood, every memory, every thought, every desire...all of him would soon be gone leaving behind a pile of old garbage that would have to be dealt with. He had paid the cremation fees and taken care of the business part of it...but a dead, bloody body has to be unpleasant...unless you didn't like the guy. He looked in the mirror at the old man and laughed. It made him feel better. The hand held mirror reflected back a new grin. The difference half a tooth can make was startling. I wonder how much different he'd look with the top of my head gone. He bent his head forward so he could look up from under his lowered brow and see clearly the top of his head. He stared at it until his vision began to waver and the hair on top of his head began to undulate; he raised the gun, put the barrel solidly in his mouth pointed up at the roof of his mouth tilted slightly toward the back of his head. His finger tightened on the trigger. Man, this is it, he thought. Then he remembered that the movie Titanic was on his VCR and he wanted to watch that bow of the boat scene again. He wanted to feel the sensation of flying again as he had, during a snow storm, on a full moon night, standing on the front bumper of his partners Dodge van and zooming down the highway at about 30 or 40 miles an hour...with the headlights off. Now, that was a rush.
He took the gun barrel out of his mouth noticing that he hadn't tasted the metal that time, at least he couldn't remember tasting it. His short term memory had become so bad that he'd loose a thought between the first word and the concept several more words into the thought. It was one of the most disturbing aspects of being old. His joints were a constant source of misery but his failing memory and mind were like hornets stinging him in his brain. Of course, he couldn't remember the pain for more than a few moments so it wasn't so bad...once he had accepted the repetitive nature of it...repetitive nature of it...repetitive nature of it...repetitive...what was I saying? He laughed his genuine laugh. He actually didn't have anything but a genuine laugh. When it was funny he laughed, sometimes really loud, not from rudeness but rather his scared eardrums. He knew he was loud, just not when.
He had been watching Titanic and the movie started in the middle. He watched the television screen for a moment trying to recall what was happening in the movie; he noticed the time on the clock that he had placed on the television so he wouldn't loose track of time. That was something he just couldn't afford to do. Too much money was involved. The winning of a bet was involved. Passing on some sort of financial assistance to his daughter and grandson was involved. He had no savings to speak of; a couple of thousand dollars stashed here and there, in this bank account and that, here and there, but that was it. The house was mortgage free due to an actual accidental fire that had burned down his original house and burned up a huge amount of his stuff...which the insurance company paid for in an easy and generous way. The house represented $150,000 to $180,000, depending on the market, so that helped asuage his guilt but that wasn't cash money and the bullet in the head was cash money; enough to make a nice impression. Without the bullet in the head he would wake up in the morning, an old man of 80; he would have a cake with eight candle, representing the 80, 'cause who wants to eat cake after some 80 year old person has unintentionally spit all over it trying to blow out an 80 candle conflagration? Not me, he thought, I wouldn't even want to eat my own cake if I had to blow out a bonfire on the top of it. He's be 80 and feeling like shit as he had for some years now. If he died at 81 of natural causes he would be paying a nice chunk of money, that could really help his daughter and grandson, for one additional, crummy year. That would be a real bummer.
It was 11:43 when he raised the 357 magnum and placed the barrel solidly between his teeth, pointing upward, angled back just a tad...
Sunday,Oct 14 2007, 07:16:28 AMThe Poetry of Love, Coming and Going
The Love of My Life
Love last forever when two people have been woven into a single fabric, even for a brief time, for that cloth becomes fixed in the bigger fabric that is their life. The thread that is me, entwined so inextricably with 18 months with you, looks good on you...it fits.
You, with gentle entanglements, reaching deep into me, into areas not visable - and your presence has pulled my cloth togethr. What had been wounded is made whole by the loving thread that is you. My cloth, older, more worn, not easily added to, has been strengthened by you.
From my stronger position, far more comfortable with myself than I've ever been, I extend, across whatever distances that now seperate us, my eternal thanks to you, my friend.