Since this poem has been newly decorated and polished for display, I will not move it from it's initial location, but I will recommend here that you go there! If you're spry enough, go see
at my old musty poetry blog, Judy Garland Blues. It's an amusing little wine (whine?).
Anatole France: "To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture."
A year and a half ago
I was robust, robust enough
At any rate to fool everyone that I was ok,
And so I hid my illness a very long time
Before I fell apart.
It’s been no secret for the past year, though.
I’ve become a feeble old man in a short span
And before all expectation.
Weak, anemic, diabetic, dizzy,
And plagued with other ills
And taking more pills than I ever took
In my life. It is my life now,
Counting out pills each morning, bent over,
And I just tolerate it, I guess,
And hope that it doesn’t get worse
Or else that I don’t care or mind.
But I’d like to get well again,
If it’s all the same to hell and paradise.
Rabbi Julius Gordon: "Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less."
Alice Roosevelt Longworth:
"The secret of eternal youth is arrested development."
Tennessee Williams: "A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with."
I always used to say that there was nothing you could do with Time but waste it. People would look at me like I'd stepped on their foot. I still believe that no matter what you do, you can't save it! So I was thinking about this silly shit and thought I'd make a list of the twenty things I've wasted the most time on in my life. At different times, I've wasted time on:
1. pinball machines
2. comic books (collecting them when I was over 18)
3. tennis
4. Playboy magazine
5. canasta
6. chess (if only for the amount of time!)
7. not asking women out right away
8. being heart-broke after going out with women
9. fear of bullies
10. waiting at railway crossings
11. getting my zipper stuck
12. in bed moaning after "all-you-can-eat" outings with my buddies
13. worrying about what might be unlucky for me
14. worrying about looking stupid
15. smelling bad (when I could have just washed!)
16. swimming underwater
17. anxious about house noises when alone
18. in doctor's offices without a book to read
19. waiting for boring school classes to end
20. waiting for a chance to see eternity improve
I forgot to mention that I wasted Plenty of time as an audiophile, collecting music and equipment like a miser! So I guess that's #21. No more! Not even if I did play a lot of marbles as a kid! That's all in the past! I can't remember it. You can't prove it happened. Not a single photograph of me with a marble in my hand or mouth. Damn, I've got to get out of here while the getting's good!
The new me that Can See! I can't say more than that. Maybe it'll get even better. I can't read tiny print very well, but I sure can see better when I drive! I no longer need to veer to the right so much because I'm aware I don't see oncoming traffic very well. But that veering made me nervous that I was going to run over mail boxes and stuff on the roadside! Some of those boxes are concrete and brick these days, so you can't just whop 'em and go on! Not that I'd do anything like that...unless I could claim that I didn't see that I'd done it! I may be seeing the TV better, but I've stopped caring much about the TV and the excellence of it's pictures when I can barely find any quality programming. My favorite program is Judging Amy, and that's off the air already! Sexy Amy, what have you done? Well, there are daytime reruns running now, so do it again so I can see it, pant, pant!
Flannery O'Connor: "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."
Oscar Wilde: "To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable."
Oops, this is a dangerous hint! If I make this white print on black background for political labels when there's only one, I guess I'll have to write more! I must be planning to do so. Oh, Jesus. I have a furious cousin who might write some for me if I dry up. He could write them in his name or mine, I don't care. Maybe he ought to; he used to have a blog, but now wouldn't blog if you flogged him. Besides, Beta would probably rip him a new asshole; it's done it to others!
Speaking of tearing anybody new assholes, Bush seems determined. The rotten son of a bitch wants more war and it seems like no one in the country has the guts to stand in his way, certainly not the Congress. What's the matter with them, I wonder? We've gotten to where not all of any group is in favor of continuing this fruitless war of liberation. The Iraqi people are now at liberty to begin a sectarian war and have done so, something that Arabs have always been good at. Maybe it stems from their desert tribal training. Even if Bush was sincere when he started, I don't believe he's doing anything now except stubbornly trying to come out of all this without backing down. He's the guy who's never liked to admit to being wrong. Reminds me of a drunken Texas frat-boy, which he used to be, and whom I used to observe at first hand back in Austin in the seventies! I remember one now, totally drunk and standing in the middle of the road, refusing to let one of his cohorts leave because he wanted to argue. Nobody would roll down the windows and talk to him, but they were in the middle of the road, stopping traffic in both directions. Sonsofbitches. When the police arrived, they broke it up, but arrested nobody.
Maybe I didn't see Bush, but I saw his like! When you're rich, you've had limited experience with being arrested or being knocked down and having the shit beat out of you! And that's his problem now. His personal predilections and agenda are forcing the country forward when there are fewer and fewer people who want to go! Goddamn it, when will he wake up? I guess he won't. Congress or the American people need to stop him. I don't know if we have the guts or not. There's been no sign of it. Why don't they impeach him just to keep him busy defending himself? I don't care if they make it stick. It didn't stick to Clinton, either, though it surely kept him busy and screwed up some of his administration. But Clinton doesn't have any balls, either, or else he'd call for impeachment! Maybe he could be the one that Bush turns to in the group and says, Et tu, Brute? For Bill is surely being a friend, otherwise, goddammit! Why can't we impeach? I guess Presidents have too much dirt on one another to get into a real battle, but why are the people shy? Does Bush have pictures of us all fucking a bunny rabbit? Is he blackmailing us into silence over this? Goddammit, get it over! End the war and save some American soldiers' lives. They're being thrown away for Halliburton, not for democracy.
It's time to sling some chicken blood! All of this Great Dignity that we allow to the President is not His; it belongs to the American people, and I wish they would do something about this distorted little bastard. He has become the kind of megalomaniac that Hitler and Nixon were, I think.
[For my nostalgia fans who want to read about one of the drunken Frat parties mentioned above, see the two bottom posts here (click on me!).]
How do you like my black frames around the artsy rat and other photos, boys and girls? That's the only subject I can even think of. The new frames seem to have made my page texture background disappear from behind the quotations, though, and I can't figure out the connection! Jeez. I wore myself out today with answering Blogger questions and having some conversations on various IM's. I'm so tired and it's so late! Tomorrow will be another day. Maybe things will fix themselves. I gotta get out of this place. Get outta the way for the Blog*Star, who is paid Zero! Dumber than a rock.
LATER:
Ah ha, I figured it out. It was not related, I was just a victim of circumstance and coincidence.
The real problem: My old email service and Web site host just closed me down (payment was due in earlyish December, but I didn't renew). It took them almost a month to shut down my sites. (Blubber, blubber, gone forever!) I forgot there'd be some photos on that host that I'd have to replace. I better start looking through the files! I'm pretty certain there are none left on the template, so it'd just be a missing photo in some few posts that would be the problem now! However, with over a thousand posts, I may run across the missing pix for a while to come. If you see one, let me know and I'll fix it!
Maybe I'm not so dumb. Sigh...
Hoo! Six thousand and more hits on the counter at my other blog, Most Frequent Blogger Questions, where I give advice about Blogger problems like a little tin God. It's hard work, but somebody's got to do it, even though I haven't yet been paid! Hey, Blogger!!! 
But, boy, does the Rat feel fat! That counter almost makes me smile. Pull out the confetti! Give a blast on the cardboard horn! We'll eat some chemical fertilizer until our droppings turn green and blue! Then go back to work for a distraction. Ho, hum...
Bob Dylan’s On His Own (So Am I)
Well, I was open to the soft side,
Was what I was calling,
But it was hard, abrasive, and everything
I knew about anyone was appalling
When it was applied to you, gentle you,
And it made me dizzy, and I just failed and faded
As I stared at you intently and once more slept alone…
Bob Dylan’s on his own Internet radio station,
I hear, him and Howard Stern, but not me,
(Fuck all that money for mere radio!)
And I’ve been up for days, just dazed
About how the world goes, when it goes,
Growing primmer by the hour,
My light growing dimmer by the power of lost
Energies and funeral flowers aglow in Kansas City
Where the jazz once flowed like black vanilla icing...
Oh what can anyone tell
About the mysteries of heaven and hell
Or the music that’s been lost
Now that we’re all awake and deaf
And Bird is gone and dead
And everything is public and pubic
And besides takes place on TV for all to see?
It's everything but the sex.
Could anything be more vulgar than all of this?
We strive to stroke and spill and get our own way,
While others in the bed are chilled in a heated room
And the deadpan souls of soldiers pile up on TV
Without ever bleeding very much somehow
And we may grieve, but don’t cry about it at all.
Some people may scream and wince
And complain a bit
To the masters of the universe,
But before it's over
They just look stupid on TV
And we cut to a commercial.
Edgar Watson Howe: "Most people have seen worse things in private than they pretend to be shocked at in public."
I don't suppose it's necessary to become as bad as Saddam Hussein in order to kill him, but for that matter I'm not sure that would be very possible! You could kill him, you could stomp him into a greasy spot, but you'd still be a few hundred thousand other deaths short of equalling the elegant, unflappable Murdering Bastard Saddam! What the fuck do I care if he was the totalitarian Head of State in Iraq!!!
Iraq may have made a big mistake with their hurried execution and stupid inability to snatch everyone's camera phones, but they would not have made such a mistake if it wasn't for America! That's right, it was all our fault! If when we found him hiding in his rat hole in the sand, we'd just shot him to pieces and then thrown a handgun down in the bloody hole with him and said, "Jeez, the crazy bastard was reaching for it!", it would've all been over. Less millions, less TV time, less whine whine whimper whimper about the monster's civil rights!
Would it have been so wrong to have just killed him with a hammer? I guess there's always somebody who wants to pretend that there is a civilized posture you can remain in when you're at war. But it isn't true. When you go to war, you go to Hell. Not only does everything go wrong, but you ARE wrong! You cannot make it right.
Oh, damn, we've let the Iraqis kill Saddam Hussein! How could we do that?
What the fuck did we expect? He's dead. Is he good and dead? Well, then, that's good. If some Iraqis kill other Iraqis over it, that's good, too. Just get the American soldiers out of the way and We, at least, will be on the way back to being Civilized! Give George Bush a sharp stick and a dull wit and a Bible, but no bombs; then let him finish the war. See which Infidels God strikes. God has not been discerning about it, so far. If you want to pretend that He has been, you must be George Bush's best asshole-buddy.
No, I'm not worried about Saddam going to hell. And I'm not worried about that asshole George going to Heaven, either.
Mark Twain: "Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person."
The Heart Of Carmen
Her softness seldom held me through the night,
But her dimness always gently hid the light.
What dwelt in the heart of Carmen
Made part of me feel heartache
And the rest of me feel right.
Right on the money...
Right at the time...
Right about what was wrong...
rcs.
Current draft: 04/28/04
©1980 Ronald C. Southern
Charles M. Schulz:
"Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement."
Poem From Tom Sawyer's Unpublished Diary
I don’t like to think
About places that don’t exist
And I don’t like to think
About places that do.
What I really like, Miss,
Is to sit in the shade
With my toes in the river,
Jerking off while
Thinking of you.
rcs.
Current draft: 01/05/07
©1980 Ronald C. Southern
Young poets on the run,
Beware of ending up
A bent and slow old man who observes,
"I've got poems older than you!"
I did a better job of taping the eye-patch to my face last night and it didn't come loose at all. It also didn't blind me with the tape across the eye, so I had placed it more sensibly! I slept pretty well. I didn't have to remove the eye-patch until I was ready to step into the shower, then uh-oh! It was super-glued to my face! Just in case it'd help, I stepped into the shower with it still on my face and let it soak a little. I don't think it came loose any better from being wetted; I think I just calmed down some under the warm water and got a better hold of the tape and it did come loose. I thought that was pretty good until I realized that the sticky stuff left behind by the tape was REALLY DIFFICULT TO REMOVE! I was out of the shower and drying off before I realized some of it was still in my hair--yuck!
I wonder what my face will feel like after 2 weeks of this? If i have all my skin, I guess it'll be plastered with gluey stuff. I went to another doctor's appointment this morning and he said it was a little better, but still had the scratch. They put another new contact lens "bandage" on it to help it heal and now I'll return on Monday. The reason my eye got scratched is that the deadening drug used in the operation started wearing off too early on Tuesday evening, allowing my eyelid to open and the eye scratched itself against the gauge or whatever they'd dressed it with. Drugs never did have all that much effect on me, except for some of the illegal ones. Maybe they should have thrown in some pot on top of the pharmacy stuff? If nothing else, I'd have slept well and not had such fluttery eyelids!
I was lazy last night about putting on the eye-patch that I'm supposed to sleep in for the next two weeks and ended up with the "transparent" tape that holds it to my face too much covering the area where the eye is located. Oh hell, I thought, what's there to see when I'm sleeping? True enough.
This morning I woke up with a pressing need to get to the bathroom! So, once again I was stumbling to the door and into the hall bathroom as a one-eyed man! There was no time to remove the tape! Ah, at last I could deal with the patch, though!
One state of hazy vision led to another, though. The sleepy sand and goo had piled up so much (and me not supposed to rub my eye). Shit! I took a shower, but you can't exactly put the fire hose in your eye, either, so that did minimum good! After I administered the three different eye drops (one drop, wait 5 minutes, then the next, etc.), and lots of blinking, I got to where I could see as good (or as poorly) as I'd been able to see the day before when the Big eye-patch was removed! A lot of work for little reward, but at least I wasn't as blind as I felt at first this morning!
I had my cataract surgery yesterday at 11:00 and it all went pretty well. They knocked me out utterly for 2 or 3 minutes so they could deaden the eye area (where feeling didn't return for many hours); that was very slick. They've obviously had practice. I was conscious during the procedure, but not aware of anything being done to the eye. I was "doped", but awake and aware and able to hear the medical team's conversation. It wasn't so bad, though I'd rather have been given more dope and slept through the whole thing. I left there with an eye-patch over my left eye by 1:30 and stayed like that until this morning when I returned to the doctor's office at about 8:30 and had it removed. I came home and worked some at the computer with my glasses askew over my good eye and my eye-patch, looking like a one-eyed nerdy impersonation of Patrick Stewart when he said sort of stiffly, "I am Locutus of The Borg!" (Ha! You probably thought I didn't watch TV!)
It appears to me that the medical people raved about how well it went in terms of my eye not being too swollen, discolored, or otherwise marred. Yeah, that sounds good. But there's a scratch on my new lens which has to finish healing before I might be able to see how well I can see. I was sort of interested in finding out about that, but no dice. So they put some kind of contact lens "bandage" on my eye and I have other appointments to go back in and consult the eye doctor. Whoopee.
The only thing that's really clear is that I sure can see (and walk!) better now that I could when I was wearing the claustrophobia-inducing eye-patch! Whether I can see better than I could the day before yesterday has yet to be established.
Erratic Sap Attack
Fuck the New Year! It's just This year (or will be). Probably will be shittier than last year--know whut I mean? Hope I don't hear that any of you darlings had to be scraped off the sidewalk or roadway tomorrow morning--know whut I mean?! I would not be indifferent; I'd only look it. Some of you keep me awake, you know?
I'm not sure if any of you keep me honest or not... But, hang on!
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