A Fine Month

April 20th is an auspicious day. Sure, it's the day that BP started spilling a quattuordecillion little drops of crude oil (206,000,000 gallons) into the Gulf of Mexico, way back in 2010. It was the largest oil spill in the history of...oil. For three withering, depressing months we all watched as oil ejaculated into the gulf, and the little birdies and fishies had their summer ruined, not to mention the people. If you don't know what a quattuordecillion is, it's a 1 followed by 45 zeros. A lot. In Britain, the same number is a 1 followed by 84 zeros. More proof that Americans suck at math.

One side benefit of the spill, however, is that people can fry shrimp without putting any oil in the pan first.

April 20th is also Adolph Hitler's birthday. In case you don't know, he killed a lot of people and ruined the toothbrush moustache for everyone.

It was also the day of the Columbine High School massacre, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and the day the Chicago Cubs first played in 1916. Not to mention the day that Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament. You'll never forget where you were when that happened, I wager.

So what makes April 20th auspicious? It's the day that Nancy and I are getting married in 2012. The day we enter a state of marital bliss. The day, I hear, that most couples stop having sex. Regardless of that aspect of it, we're going to set April 20th on happy footing. It will be remembered as our anniversary, the day that Darren stopped annoying women (besides Nancy) with his unwanted sexual advances. And they lived happily ever after until there came to them The One Who Destroys All Happiness.

I'm sure that a lot of good things happened on April 20th. As we all know, "420" has nebulous connections to smoking marijuana. It's the birthday of Crispin Glover, Jessica Lange, Veronica Cartwright and Ryan O'neil, and the day that the Wisconsin Territory was created. Not such a great day for the Native Americans, though.

By April 20th the forsythia will be in bloom, the grass will be green, and we'll be married. It's a fine month.

Mark Slaughter wrote this. I dig.

Still an irritating wind;
Vestiges of stubborn grey –
Jibing us of recent winter blight.

It’s coming though – like perky breasts
Pushing through a blouse –
Teasing, pleasing in it’s tantalising play:

Warmth of youth in April sun –
Simmering off depression,
Brains retuned; remapped for fun.

April is a portal –
Smoothly transitions
Delicate dispositions – suchlike mine,

Easing hunched bodies into
Summery smiles.

Zuckerberg Poops His Chinos

The little fucker Zuckerberg is frequently under attack on Facebook. In fact, the "little fucker Zuckerberg" is a term of disaffection that I keep coming across, I didn't make it up. What motivates this anger seems to be about how Facebook keeps changing the layout and way in which one may tweak privacy settings. It doesn't really bother me. At least that's not what annoys me about Zuckerberg.

What does annoy me is that, according to the film, "The Social Network," Zuckerberg is a total prick. He is also an amazingly successful young man. That level of success makes me want to hit him in the face with a lemon pie. A frozen lemon pie. He's just too damn adept, talented and accomplished. At the age of 26, he's a billionaire responsible for changing the way hundreds of millions of people socialize with each other. Facebook has changed the way products are marketed, people communicate, and short videos of "Hitler cats" go viral.

He needs to be stopped. He is making us all look bad. The age of 26 found me a thousand-aire, in a nut-house, and ensconced in self-pity after a failed relationship. At that age, I was shooing homeless drug-addicts away from my cot in the men's dorm at The Arbour. I'll bet that Mr. Zuckerberg never had to feign a loud cough to discourage a frantically masturbating ne'er-do-well two cots over.

As I said, 26 found me madly in love with a young lady who returned my love for about 4 months before dumping me with extreme prejudice. Most of 1998 had me stomping about town, screaming like Frankenstein's creature, clutching my chest and holding my head. Not unlike John Cusack in High Fidelity.

Later that year, I nearly broke up a marriage when a woman cheated on her husband and used me as one might use a blow-up doll. Keep reaching for the stars!

The man simply has it together and knows what he is doing, with a vengeance. He should be proud of himself. Yup. But it annoys me. Those Germans have a word for taking pleasure in the suffering of others, and that word is "shadenfreude." It's low and trite of me, but I confess no small amount of pleasure in knowing that life eventually squashes all of us. With any luck, it will be a woman who does the deed. Not that I wish unrequited love on anyone (except, apparently, Mark Zuckerberg), but it's a reliable humbler. A de-egofier. Look what women-folk did to Tiger Woods. The man was the greatest golfer in the history of mankind before his affair went public. Now, he wears a look of vague confusion on his face and can't win a tournament to save his life. He's rated 5th in the world and falling. Yup, the ladies will always flick you off of the top of the world like a dried-up booger.

I could look at Zuckerberg and feel inspired, and perhaps to feel motivated enough to turn my life around. To admire the little fuck-face. Yeah, I could do that. It's easier, however, to wish for a piano to fall on his head, or that he'll get lost in his house and not emerge for several years (it's a big house). The image of him with a beard, stinking with body odor and suffering from scurvy, pleases me.

As I said, though, he'll probably get knocked down a peg or five in the wake of a failed relationship. An infatuated Zuckerberg using gasoline to spell out, "Take me back, you bitch!" on some poor woman's lawn may happen one day. Hell, an ingrown toenail may be enough, or a fart that leads to him shitting himself, or an "Internetting" accident that leads to his pinky finger getting sheered off. Anything to show that he is a fragile human being.

Not nice of me.

The Rotting Corpse of America

Enough is enough, I've had it. A 3-day waiting list for an abortion in North Dakota...or is it South Dakota. One of those shit-holes. And a hearing involving the input from a 12-week old fetus. Sweet, fancy Moses we've lost our minds. Conservatives just have to get over it, a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy. That's it and that's all.

A war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya. The US needs to recognize that we are not the grand high pooh-bahs of Upper Butt-crack anymore. Some day we'll stop bombing and invading other countries, and the world will be a much better place for it. The easiest way to stop our endless misadventures hither and yon is to force senators and representatives to vote to declare war or not. If we're going to send young men and women to die, the least these spineless pricks could do is take a vote.

Obama is useless, and I'll never vote for him again. He let the Republicans convince him that the debt is the most important problem we have. It's not. And where was he during the demonstrations in Wisconsin? On the campaign trail, he vowed to fight for unions and collective bargaining rights. All we got is a couple of half-assed speeches. Another broken promise. Obama has dropped the ball on everything from Social Security to health care reform. I guess the last straw for me was when he allowed dozens of new oil platforms along the coast of the US. Drill, baby drill.

And that is just scratching the surface. The president has nothing to offer, unless you happen to be wealthy. How is that different from any god-damned Republican? It isn't. So in 2012, I'll be voting for a Green, Socialist, Labor or some other 3rd party candidate. If a Republican wins because the left votes for a can't-win candidate, it won't change anything. The two major parties have never been closer together. They are one now.

Fox news is a microphone for Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers, and the GOP, to boot. Anyone who doubts that is either in denial or ignorant. More people watch Fox news than CNN and MSNBC combined. A recent study of Fox views shows that their not old fogies and tea-baggers, either. Most viewers are in their 20's and 30's, and "mainstream" in America today. A recent poll shows that a quarter of Americans think that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Close to half think Obama a Muslim. Americans are stupid and gullible and easily manipulated by anyone who pays to manipulate them.

Something else. More people need to realize that capitalism doesn't work, and regulated capitalism simply lets it died slower. It took $1.1 trillion dollars to save capitalism from itself. Nothing in history can compare to this con that was worked on the American people. And in the wake of this enormous welfare check used to bolster a failed economic system, not a single new regulation was passed to prevent it from happening again. Gullible and stupid.

Consider also the attention span of your average dip-shit American. During the British Petroleum oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, people called for new regulations, criminal charges, and a ban on coastal drilling. As soon as the oil stopped flowing into the gulf, however, we moved on to something else. Now BP is running ads on television, crowing about how wonderful the gulf is now, thanks to them. I'm sure it's working. Spend a little money, run a few ads, and there you go.

On to Congress and the debt hawks, again. We need to cut PBS, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (along with the National Weather Service), home heating subsidies for poor families, student loans, Planned Parenthood, and on and on. Didn't you know that the debt needs to be cut? But you can't touch the temporary Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, oh no. Why? Because in America today, the rich get what they want, when they want it, and the rest of us can FUCK OFF.

The Citizen's United case is the most damaging Supreme Court decision in the history of this country. Another sign of madness. Another sign that money governs us.

What upsets you, dear reader? The list of bad decisions and poor judgment goes on and on. Someone once said that an empire in decline embraces Fascism. If I could, I'd leave this country. It is my home, and I love it. That's why I'd leave it if I could. Watching vultures pick over the corpse of someone you loved is rather hard to watch, wouldn't you say? The grotesque, twisted, mangled body of America now rots as carrion before us. It's a show I'd rather miss.

The Light Within and Without

The moon is as advertised tonight, very large and bright. The ideal time to show Bill O'Reilly what causes tides. Some coves, bays, nooks, and crannies along the coast will actually have higher tides than normal. Never a misunderstanding. The night is crisp and clear and the sky looks as it does just before the sun rises.

I dig it.

Annie and I took a walk earlier, and we both enjoyed the spectacle. The pull, the pull, the pull. The gravity was reduced to such a degree that she floated several inches off the ground, and walking her was like carrying a day old, slightly flaccid, helium balloon. An awkward yank sent her spinning like a Roulette wheel as she hovered, with only the cold air to slow her down. In space, she would have spun from here to eternity. Imagine that. Her brilliant poof of a tail reflecting sunlight only at a certain point in her arc. Blink, blink, blink. From here it would look like a winking star. With her ears splayed wide and a shocked expression on her little doggy face, spinning forever. Never a misunderstanding.

Nancy is sitting across the room from me as I write this little missive to the world. The moon is out the window to my right, shining white and ensconced in a halo of deep blue. They have something in common, those two. She pulls at me and is always glowing in my eyes, and is most often seen at night. Sometimes tempestuous thoughts and feelings obstruct my view, as clouds and fog do to the moon. She is there nonetheless, her affect on me undiminished. To her, midnight is high noon, and the sunrise compels here to climb into bed, like the late evening to most people. My darling insomniac.

Unlike the moon, Nancy drinks a lot of Diet Coke and is regularly outraged by politics, and stubbornly insists that there be a modicum of social justice in this world. Her beauty and her anger are an irresistible siren's song that draws me in every day and every night.

Never a misunderstanding!

The Rattlesnake, Toad, and Vampire