FUCKING PUZZLING EVIDENCE!!!!

BOOF i AM... i am going to write about a subject that has confused me since before my memory can reach... the conflict in the Middle East. Neither side is hero enough to take. The Zionists are taking peoples land. This is the final insult, the reason people take up guns and fight like there is no tomorrow. Wouldn't you? Only certain death could make you leave, and this indeed was the case back then, in the bad old days, when you could get away with shooting arabs. I hate the settlers who go into Arab land and say some fucking god has given them the right. I hate the people who blow these people up just as much. But not more. They are both so wrong in so many ways that the fact that they don't understand why they are wrong makes them brain washed/crazy/greedy... New Yorkers who move into settlements because that is the only way they can afford a house are like Jews who buy Volkswagen -- their memory is too short for their own good. This land they are on has been disputed since the first words started appearing. Moving there puts their kids in the line of fire of a war. What fucking good parents they are. Not to mention the land was so disputed, even in Israel, that they should have known their little trip into the reservation to steal land just might not be a forever thing...Israel is on a plot of land that once was a major route of trade, the only way to go between a sea and a desert. They were always getting conquered and sucked up into whatever culture the rulers were imposing.

Now, we flip to modern times, and see the powers that were after ww 2 telling the Jews they could have land that Arabs had been living on for hundreds of years. The Jews come in and slaughter the Arabs, drive around with trucks full of bodies telling the Arabs to leave or die. The surrounding countries grew to hate the Zionists right then and there. Before this they had gotten along, the jews and arabs who lived in Israel. Acted just as kind neighbors do. Then the war came, with the gas and the train of humans reduced to animal... slave laborers worked to death making mercede and volkswagons... In the aftermath, the Arabs found they could no longer buy land in the country that nourished their memories and their grandfather¢s memories. They were forced into a reeking camp and watched as the occupier took over their orchards and farms and started living in their houses... saw their lives wiped away and the conquerer building mansions in th edust of their lost lives. The echo of the Germans raping the Jews for all their money and houses is not lost on me.

On the other bloody hand, you have religious fanatics and psychopathically cold acting leaders ready to spill as much blood as it takes... a long as it isn't theirs. An entire culture with a suicide wish fed by dreams of virgins and rivers of wine (presumably non alcoholic since they can't drink that, but the Koran doesn't make this distinction, because there was no non alcoholic wine when it was written... not that I expect the book to make sense, and old books like that are too easy of a target for me to harp on the inconsistencies.. that just gets so boring).

The mind reels. What to do? Now we have the children of the men who slaughtered the Arabs and drove them from the land living in inherited land. They feel as strongly about not losing their lives and ways of being as the Arabs do. Now they are building a wall around the Jews there, and in the process, of course, of course, nabbing a bit more land.

Caught in the middle are the people who want nothing to do with the conflict, and can't understand why the others keep the killing going; they would give anything for a normal life like you can have in the states without too much effort. Caught in the middle are the children raised thinking other humans are enemies, that the jews/arabs are less than human, undeserving of mercy and love. Caught in the middle are the widows and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and uncles and grandparents of the dead, all crying quietly in their respective churches, praying as hard as they ever have that no one else in their family will fall victim to the troubles.


So if anyone out there is in Palestian or Israel, or even knows anyone in the middle east, please inform them that Johnny Pain has officially declared their war over, and all combatants are to disarm within twenty four hours... or I will not be as kind to you as I would like to be when I take over the world.










puzzling evidence du jour....

DESPITE ALL APPEARANCES

I want to feel complete once in awhile.
enter a place where all is calm
everything is as it should be
& there is nowhere I want to go
no one I want to see

the happiest man
never has an urge to leave home
a bastardization of a buddhist phrase
stayed in my mind
as so many others were washed away
by cascading floods of words in newspapers and books and magazines and cereal boxes...

culture your garden
ignore the burning fields around you
there is no putting out some flames
the globe will burn here and there
smoke a little forgetfullness
play a computer game
try to think of something else while rome burns

save your tears for the climax
the day of surrender
when the animals and plants
are sacrificed
over something like the cost of oxygen

save your tears for the day when the blue sky
breaks momentarily through the brown and yellow smog
for the last time

save your tears for the end days
when the last voice of denial is struck dumb
and the mindless force of our doom
hails down a thoughtless wrath

IS IT SO INSANE TO SHAVE HAMSTERS?

I think my position on Hamster Hair should be clear by now. This fashion statement slows them down and I will not have that!! Not in my army. The problem is that afterwards they look kind of scrawny and pathetic. A bitchin' tan really helps. They say that if you look better, you feel better, so it probably applies to Hamsters, too. So, of course, I have added tanning to their training schedules.

Today I lectured the new troops for two hours on how to do maximum damage with a toothpick (while I was glueing the toothpicks to the hamsters' paws, there was a slight mishap, and I had a hamster glued to my arm for about an hour... it stayed on even when I twirled my arm around in a circle real fast.. I finally just ripped it off... man, how that thing squealed in pain--almost drowned out mine) and then another hour on The Three Stooges School Of Martial Arts, mostly on Curly's break through moves (as you know, the CIA invented the whole idea that the Stooges should take their fighting method and make a film to train recruits in far off places; as many millions of laughs have shown, the Stooges of course did them one better, and hid their deadly games under the veil of slapstick comedy). Curly's moves are mean, and some say below the belt, but dammit, these hamsters have a size deficiency to make up for!!

After the lectures, I ran them through some drills... or at least tried to. I fear that once more I have a band of leaders so sure of their own minds that they do not often follow directions. Hamsters are known as born war strategists, of course, and I don't want to beat that out of them... but they did have some strange attack ideas when I put them on the world map and told them to show me how they would take over the world.

M. seems to think that they are merely just, quote, "Running this way and that, all helter skelter."

What does she know of the hells of war? I have read dozens of books on Vietnam and am haunted by flashbacks to page numbers that I am pretty sure are from those books...

Napoleon The Seventh (Ruby ate all but the original, I must sadly report) seems to be just the little Mussolini I need to do my bidding without thinking too much. I took him and Alexander the Great The Seventh (yes, Ruby), and General Sniggly Poo The Sixth (you get the picture), down to the beach today. I stayed under a sun umbrella as they tanned. I was surprised by how many people were on the beach sucking cancer in through their skins. I thought this human geography would be smarter than that, optimist that I am.

Just a few minutes after we were all set up, as I rubbed coconut lotion on Napoleon, the lifeguard came walking up. A young college looking boy. "What the hell are those?" He asked me.
"Shaved hamsters."
"Whoa. Did they have disease, or something"
"No, I assure you, they are healthy. In fact, they are at the top of their game."
"Why did you shave them then?"
"Duh... aerodynamics."
"Well, anyways, no animals on the beach."

It doesn't take a keen mind like mine very long to spot an enemy agent, and when he said this, totally interrupting my training schedule, I knew he was acting under orders to sabotage my army at all costs.

"Well, I will hate to break that news to my other three hundred hamsters. They are going to be pissed. I can't always control them."

"Look, buddy..."
"That's General Buddy, to you."
"Okay... I have a phone here to call the cops, okay?"
"Cops, you say. . . Don¢t you mean . . . wombats?"
"What?"
"You heard me! Dammit, man, when are you going to wise up to the marsupial threat!!" I gather up my umbrella and tan oil, put the troops in a shoe box and begin trudging across the sand, knowing that the enemy has upped the stakes in the game... and will stop at nothing to break up my training camp. When I reach the steps, I turn around and see the lifeguard watching me with a puzzled look on his face. Taking in every damn bit of information he can about me. I take one last stab at saving his soul. "They couldn't have paid you enough to make up for living in their vision of a world, which they will have if they win."

The Mighty Beat Them To Piss And Twitches Hamster Army now is entering a time of trials. I expected this. I will need to watch for spies everywhere. Even people I know could be deep plants, people who have been working their way into my life for years... how did they know I would build a Hamster Army?

Probably that damn Miss Cleo the psychic. According to the commercials and that one sleazy looking woman singer, she is always right. I knew she was making a mistake by advertising her powers. And sure enough, where is she now? Locked up in a CIA lab. Sure as shit, the wombats have gained access to her through their sympathizers in the Company.

Johnny Pain Out...

(not so totally) TRUE TAXI TALES

I pick up a fare who tells me a woman in her neighborhood, a crack head who lives with her grandma, has been forcing her to cash checks at a currency exchanges. The woman twists her arm near to breaking, and threatens the old lady with a knife if she says anything at the currency exchange. She has went to the cops, who basically blew her off, saying they couldn't do anything unless they caught the woman in the act....


I give the her my number and find out her name is... we'll say, Ann. We agree to get together again at the first of the month, when she receives the social security check that the junkie has stolen twice so far.

We plot out what to do, who will draw blood, watch for the cops, steal the cars, get the weapons.. come the first of the month, we are ready, out in two different cars. The junkie has been under survaillance for the last 48 hours. She's a two hundred and fifty pound slow walking junkie who watches tv all day, breaking up the monety with lotto tickets and crack. Three kids, all taken away by the state. I could write more that we gathered on her, give you her rap sheet; trust me, nothing came up in our research to say she was much of a human being at all.

Come the first of the month, I watch her though my binoculars from a roof half a block off. She has set a dining room chair up by the window so she can watch for the mail. She keeps tapping her fingers and seems jumpy, nervous; all the signs of a major rock urge.

Sure enough, she catches a glimpse of the mailman coming and leaves her perch, comes out the front door and sets on her steps... just waiting for the mailman to go into an apartment building so she can snag the check.
When she's sure no one can see her darkness, he crosses her lawn and goes to the Ann's mailbox, pulls out the mail, shuffles through and finds the check. With the blue envelope in hand, she has the stupid ass, don't give a shit, audicity to go up to her victims door and knock hard and loud.

Camera catches everything. We have her on a federal offense. The plan is to anonymously send the tape to a reporter we know, in the hope that at least the story of this shooting can make sense to people: an execution. The others in our cell made this decision. I voted against saying a thing to anyone. I am pleased when future events make this tactic unneeded.

Ann calls me on her cell phone. The knocking was driving her nuts. She is breathing fast, her small body all nerves. I tell her to open the door, so we can get the junkie on tape telling Ann she is going to go cash her check and give her the money.

Ann opened her door a crack and the junkie pushed it open. "Let's go, we're going to the currency." She reaches out to grab Ann's arm and I think of how fragile her bones seemed on her tiny frame and slowly pull down the trigger. I have my sights on a spot of red cotton between her monstrous breasts, just right of center, straight into the heart and blowing out her back through a four inch hole between her shoulder blades. In the close up of the cross hairs, I see the first red spurts of blood shoot out at impact. I lower the gun and watch her face. She looks surprised a moment, and then mad, and finally, as she crumples down on the steps, terrified. A shudder runs through her body. The front of her pants grows damp as her bladder goes loose....

I watch the news that night and hear the junkie was in a gang. The cops are calling the murder a drive by.
I laugh at that, knowing the cops have a philoshophy on gang bangers killing one another; A cop told it to me once, said, "If we catch a gang fighting, we let them kill as many of each other off as possible before we move in. If they shoot each other, we high five, man."
I remember the cops words and reach down to pet Ruby dog, who is laying on her back, shooting me what I call a tummy ray. She stares at me from this position until I break off whatever I am doing and rub her tummy. I laugh again. The cool breeze of the airconditioner feels joyous after the heat of the streets. I load the bong and take in a bubbling head rusher, sit a moment feeling the waves of the rush, blow out a stream of white cloud that swirls up into the air over the coffee table and looks to me like a rising cobra, look at a picture of my Dad that I keep by my desk, shrug and tell him, "Pops, things just got weird."