Flu South for the winter

So I'm on the arse end of the flu and finally feeling better. Only 3 more days of amoxicillin to digest then it's back to normal life, at least for a week, on March 5th we are off to Florida for a week of sunshine and detox.

I have never been in FL before so I might be jumping the gun here here but I am looking forward to the sunshine - I am not looking forward to meeting the natives. I have nightmares of fat white people in spandex pants (that doesn't qute hold in their flabby arses) and Mickey Mouse t-shirts, armed with McDonald's Happy meals and screaming snotty-nosed obese children, riding shotgun in their SUV's to the Tabernacle of All-Consuming Fire or maybe Hooters for a bible class. I am obviously exaggerating here but unfortunately everyone I tell this nightmare to says it's not too far from the truth!

When people in Scotland ask me "What's it like living in America?", I have a standard reply that goes something like this: "I have no idea what living in America's like, I live in New York City!" I have encounted the Jerry Springer America once in my life, on a trip to the casinos of Atlantic City, and that was enough.

So I expect to be spending my week in FL hiding in my In-laws house listening to John Prine and reading Hunter S.Thompson books trying to remind myself that not all Americans are mad.

On the subject of Hunter, I read that he took his life because it wasn't fun anymore, wow! I've always believed that suicide is a selfish act but this guy was so caught up in his live fast, die young persona that he couldn't see any other way out. I keep thinking of the old Pete Townsend line "I hope I die before I get old". Pete, as we all know, is still here. Shite, but still here.

Flu

Ah Jeez! I drunk myself into a bad case of the flu last week when a friend from England dropped into town. It's all his fault of course! :-) I guess if you are shaking and that shaking is not being caused by the booze, then you should listen to your body and take it easy! Instead I find myself skulling pints at 3AM at some karaoke party in Midtown Manhattan. The next day I am leaking out of every orifice, except, for once, my arse.

So now I have anti-biotics coursing through my veins and the glands in my neck are so swollen that I look like a king cobra. I think the pub is going on the back burner for a while.

Woke up Monday morning to the news that Hunter S. Thompson blew his brains out at the age of 67. Can this week get any worse? Reading Hunter was the reason that I wanted to write. I'm saddened by his death but not entirely surprised; I think if you live on the edge that long you are eventually going fall over it. Insanity gets the better of everyone eventually. One of Hunter's idols was Ernest Hemingway, he blew his brains out too.

Ah fucking pass the Lemsip will ya!

The Little Guy

Some days I actually like reading the newspaper, today is one of them. When the little guy gets to win over the big guy, or at least give the big guy a bloody nose, it always puts a smile on my face. Today the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Helen Steel and Dave Morris were denied their rights when they were denied legal aid after being sued by McDonald's in the "McLibel" case. You can read that story here and you can view original trial details here.

Ultimately Steel and Morris lost the trail but won the battle as McLibel is viewed as one of the biggest public relations disasters in history.

At the same time the Iraq election results are being portrayed as a mess here in the US, only a week after the "triumph of democracy" was being trumpeted from every front page. Allawi's puppet government only managed third place and the candidates put forward by Ayatollah Ali Sistani took first place. This is not the result Bush had in mind as it is likely to produce a government which has close ties to Iran not the US. Oh dear George! Looks like this shit wasn't really thought through very well, maybe we should just abandon this whole "Democracy" idea like we have in the USA! You give people a vote, they might vote against ya! Who wooda thunk it!

Long Live The Little Guy

Burning Eyes

I've got a "Do Not Enter" sign in my mind,
Bright red circle around a straight white line.
I'm living my life on a turning wheel of pain,
I got a burning in my eyes and I'm going insane.

This is not the way it's supposed to be!
Take my burning eyes and let me see.
The sign on the door said "Bring your own dreams!".
My dreams are so real that I'm parting at the seams.

The bright sunshine and the darkened room.
Squint in the glare, stumble in the gloom.
I'm feeling my way along the wall in all life's places,
Enclosed in a box surrounded by wide open spaces.

I know I'm feeling sad, just feeling sorry for myself.
All those dreams that I left on the shelf.
Dreams that I can never fulfill,

my burning eyes burning me still.................

Dave, September 28th 2004.

Legalize it

Difficult times. Just learned that this week I lost another chunk of my sight, the visual field test revealed that my peripheral vision is now all but gone and though my central vision is holding out, I can now be considered "Legally" blind. It was one of those days when I feel like I just won some fucked up lottery - my eyesight gets worse but now I am at least entitled to some help from the State.

In my heart I knew that I've been on the cusp of legal blindness for a while (in the USA this is when you have less than 20% of your eyesight left) but it was still saddening to have it confirmed. It seemed to hit home with my Wife Alma and her Friends more than it hit me - I'm in the exact same situation I was in on Wednesday (before the test) as I was on Thursday (after the test). Down the pub Thursday night involved a lot of symapathy (which I'm not ungrateful for) and promises of help (which I'm definitely not ungrateful for). We'll see what happens...

The day after I call the New York State Disabilities office to set the ball rolling on paperwork. The Woman who answers the phone at the Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped (CBVH) seems genuinely surprised to hear from a blind person and is extremely unhelpful. Isn't this a bit like being surprised that someone would ask you for a hamburger if you worked in McDonald's? If you work at CBVH then you'd better get used to the fact that most of the people who call are probably gonna be blind, damnit! I'm already dreading this process but it has to be done.

On a happier note, my friend Sean Byrne finally opened his own bar up in Hell's Kitchen. It's been a long time coming but Perdition is a really nice space and if you are in NYC get your ass over there. At 49th St and 10th Ave it's a spit from Times Square and a short walk from Port Authority Bus Station. It's got an excellent beer selection and Sean is still the best bartender in NYC.

Kill the Poor

So Bush is finally noticing that he is running out of money, or actually WE are running out of money, he's doing just fine thank you! His latest budget proposals are almost laughable in that they do not include the cost of the war ($80 billion this year) or the cost of his social security changes. Some experts believe this could require borrowing of up to $4.5 trillion over a 20-year period. Woohoo! Good number crunching George!

His budget does include however: cuts of 9.6 percent at Agriculture, 5.6 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency, 6.7 percent at Transportation and 11.5 percent at Housing and Urban Development. Also the Monkey proposed savings ("savings" is a nice way of saying "big fucking cuts") of $137 billion over 10 years in mandatory programs with much of that occurring in reductions in Medicaid, the big federal-state program that provides health care for the poor, and in payments the Veterans Administration makes for health care. Good idea when there is a war on George!

All this at a time when the Pentagon's announced an increase to the plan that pays a one-time, tax-free "death gratuity" to survivors of military men and women killed in the line of duty. This would rise from $12,420 to $100,000. Wow! I always thought 12 Grand for the death of a Parent or Brother or Sister or Son or Daughter was a bit stingy!

Just bear in mind those numbers when you thank God that Merck CEO Raymond Gilmartin, hasn't had a heart attack or stroke yet. Gilmartin helped engineer "The Golden Parachute" deal for top Merck execs in the wake of the Vioxx scandal, if the company should get bought over due to plummeting stock price, he would get about $57 million to soften his landing.

So yeah keep on killing the poor. It's the only way for rich bastards to get richer. There was a Dead Kennedy's song that summed this up nicely, you can read it here.

Spent 4 Lent

Jesus! What a week - serious winter blues combined with busy-as-shit work place and heart-attack prone co-workers have kept me away from the computer. It's Fat Tuesday t'mora and Hash Wednesday the day after. I didn't even get to go down the Pineapple (that's "chapel" to those uninitiated with Catholic rhyming slang) this year and sell my cigarette ends to the Priest! After that we have Valentine's Day and a good reason to get out and buy a Shit Bitch Bear.

Anyway in honor of the beginning of of Lent here is a fun game you can play with all the family. Go forth and multiply.

Beers in the Hood.

Started off drinking in a pub called "The Three Jolly Pigeons" in my neighboirhood, I'm guessing it's called that because it is supposed to be an ironic visual description of the people who drink there! My local bars are all Budwieser and Miller holes (with a strong line in Bud-Light and Miller-light's for the ladies!) and I generally avoid them. The 3 JP's is the best pick of a bad bunch as it tends to have a few extra beers to choose from even if the barmaid has no idea what you are talking about.

"I'll have a Franzikaner please" says I.

"What?" says the Barmaid, like I'd just ordered an orange juice in a bar in Glasgow. "Oh! That's the german beer right?".

To avoid anymore embarassment I order a Brooklyn lager next. I can quite bring myself to order a Bud because, well it tastes like shite and makes me wanna pee every 5 minutes.

Brooklyn has a long history of brewing and it always seems to produce good beers. The guys who started the Brooklyn Brewery are very aware of this history and for some reason this love and interest in their product seems to make it taste better.

Martyn Bennett RIP

Found out that Martyn Bennett, one of the most innovative musicians in Scottish music passed away two days ago. You can read his obituary here. I've been following Martyn since his first album after hearing some tracks played on the Andy Kershaw show, he was the same age as me and it was obvious he listened to the same music as me. The fact that he was talented enough to meld these musical influences into something completely new blew my mind and I will miss his music immensely.

It has me thinking that some people only seem to be on this planet for a short while to help mankind evolve in some way or another. Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce and Jimi Hendrix spring to mind. Jesus, even if you don't believe in him, definitely left a school of philosophy behind that mankind could have used to make the world a better place, instead we use it to fuck each other.

Dirty Little Religion

I'm all for freedom of religious expression but what some people believe is just outright weird. I used to think that the Catholic Church was as extreme as it gets - they're not!

Here is a story about a NYC Rabbi who is giving babies herpes during circumcision because he uses his mouth to draw blood from the wound. How fucked up is that? One baby has died already. That's a commitment to religious beliefs (on the part of the Parents as well as the Rabbi) that I'll never understand.

I need to get to get back to drinking - speaking of which I am not the first person to combine drinking and religion (as if!), Trappist Monks have been doing it for centuries. Now we have a Trappist only bar in NYC called The Burp Castle. It's designed as a temple to beer and sells only Trappist ales. Damn are they good! The bartenders are dressed as monks (I feel sorry for them!) and you can't make too much noise, just appreciate the beer!

On another note, Punxsutawney Phil saw his knob and decided there would be 6 more weeks of Winter... sorry he saw his shadow on the wonderfully named Gobbler's Knob. What a fucking con! Of course there will be more winter, it's fucking February! Has this rodent ever said winter is over and the sun starts shining the next day? No! Let him out in April and let's see what the fat rat has to say! Rant rant rant.........