December 29, 2023: Lord of the Flies, Beset and Beshit, Cannot Fool a Maggot

 

While making a rare campaign appearance in Iowa a few weeks ago, Caesar Disgustus was beset by a fly. There is something odd about the attraction flies have for ReSCUMlickans, the last Vice-Presidential debate immediately leaps to mind. Disgustus, harrowed by the flying insect, loudly protested his hate for flies. He should be careful flies produce maggots, and his maggots were in attendance.

It shouldn't come as any surprise; flies are attracted to shit. And there stood Donald J. tRUMP, beset and beshit.

Rumors have been circulating for years. Noel Casler, stage hand and celebrity handler who worked on the Celebrity Apprentice openly relates how tRUMP would, in a state of rage, shit himself on stage, that he wears adult diapers and has no control of his bowels.

All of this had lurked beneath the radar until recently when Adam Kinzinger, former Illinois Congressman and member of the January 6 Committee, asked on social media why no one has mentioned the stench that accompanies tRUMP's arrival. Suddenly the subject has gone 'viral' as the internet has lit up over speculations and confirmation that tRUMP does indeed smell like shit.

Suddenly, we were treated to videos of tRUMP farting, or shitting himself, in meetings with department heads and congressional leaders, the late Senator Dianne Feinstein being one soul unfortunate enough to be assigned a seat next to him; Turkish President Erdogan being another. It is no wonder that his wife won't ride in the same car with him.

Could it be that the 'orange' patina daily applied is not cosmetics at all but shit smeared upon his face? Nothing would surprise me. It explains his undying and unyielding support among his maggots who feed off such substance. This is what happens when one snorkels in the septic tank. In any case, one cannot fool a fly, drawn inexorably to shit as a filing to a magnet; you cannot fool a maggot either.

December 22, 2023

November 30, 2023: At Long Last, Kissassinger is Dead, War Crimes and Treason

 

Henry Kissassinger is finally, at long last, dead. He lived for a long century over half of which should have been spent in a penitentiary for war crimes as well as treason.

He began his sordid career as an analyst, playing war games, principally nuclear war games dispassionately calculating the relative millions that would be vaporized in the next war. He is said to have inspired the character in Stanley Kubrick's film "Dr. Strangelove".  He rose rapidly, working as a pentagon functionary flittering around the National Security Council in the Johnson administration while at the same time courting Republican Nelson Rockefeller, and later Richard Shithouse Nixon, during the presidential campaign of 1968. It was Kissinger who, using his connections with the U.S. delegation at the Paris Peace Talks, sent word to Nixon that a deal was all but done and would be concluded before the upcoming 1968 election. Nixon then sent word via Madame Chenault, a Filipino emigre married to an American Air Force officer with connections in Saigon, that the government of Nguyen Van Thieu should stall at Paris in anticipation of a better deal if Nixon were to win the election. It was Kissassinger who wormed his way into the emerging Nixon administration by selling out his adopted country.

Later, as National Security adviser, it was Henry who engineered the bombing of Laos and Cambodia, with orders to “kill anything that moved”, It was Henry who engineered the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile ushering in Augusto Pinochet; It was Henry who orchestrated the overthrow of the government of Argentina with similar results; it was Henry who supported the slaughter in East Timor by the Indonesian government. By some estimates Kissassinger was responsible for the deaths of some six million souls.

He gained his position by exhibiting a level of obsequiousness rare among subalterns. I used to regularly refer to him as “Kissassinger” because of his constant fawning before power. I had read the White House Transcripts published by The New York Times as the Watergate scandal was unfolding. Later my wife queried me about my use of the moniker, and then a television production based upon a verbatim reading of the Transcripts demonstrated the legitimacy of my characterization. “My god,” Kate exclaimed, “he really is a kiss ass!”

Nixon, whenever he needed reassurance, would call Henry into his office. “What do you think of my speech last night?” he would inquire. “Oh, Mr. President, that was the greatest speech I've ever heard, one of the best ever given by a president”, Kissassinger would intone. "You really think so?" Nixon would press him.  "Oh yes, Mr. President, it was beautiful, it was forceful, especially when you gave it to your enemies!", Henry would, on cue, bow and scrape in order to gain influence.  

He saw himself as the modern Metternich, the principal architect at Vienna, forgetting that Metternich fell prey to the machinations of Tallyrand.  Nevertheless, Henry soldiered on imagining himself, in the tradition of Metternich and Bismark, the modern practitioner of "realpolitik".  It was a grandiose proposition given the limited intelligence and vision of his main protagonist; for his imagined 'new world order' would not produce a 'century of peace' as Europe had known in the aftermath of the Congress of Vienna but wouldn't outlast his lifetime. 

Indeed, his famous Peace Accords of 1973 didn't even end hostilities in Vietnam and would lead, in a little more than two years to the collapse and defeat of our South Vietnamese allies finally ending the war.  Kissassinger, nevertheless, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for 'ending' the war, which his counterpart North Vietnamese Le Duc Tho refused to accept.  

He got rich in the bargain, opening up the far east, normalizing relations with China, Kissinger and Associates raked in millions mining the relationships with the Communists, acting as a gopher for multi-national corporations and the crony capitalists in Peking and Moscow.

He evaded prison, got filthy rich by selling out his country, posturing for decades as the senior statesman—the go-to-man during every international incident—on network television. He was one of the few in the Nixon administration to survive with his reputation intact. He should have been left rotting in prison.

Kissassinger is, at long last, dead. We can breathe a sigh of relief; the world is a now a better place.

November 5, 2023: Legacy of Guy Fawkes

October 30, 2023:

October 27, 2023:

September 29, 2023: Take The Greyhound, Rough Justice On Ya, Pop Up The Corn Martha

 

Indictments have been handed down in the case of the State of New York vs Donald J. tRUMP. New York Attorney General Lettia James has charged tRUMP with fraud and several other felony counts and is asking for at least 250 million dollars in relief along with the dissolution of the tRUMP Organization and the banishment of tRUMP and his larvae from doing business in New York. Imagine, Caesar Disgustus having his much vaunted “beautiful company” taken from him; imagine the tRUMP Organization placed in receivership; imagine the empire of Caesar Disgustus sold off for scrap. Caesar Disgustus, the all-time loser, is about to lose it all.

Pop up the corn, Martha. This is about to get interesting. Imagine, if you will, the stripping of most of the assets from this clown. Imagine him having to sell off that ridiculous jet aircraft. Imagine, if you will, Donald J. tRUMP reduced to taking the Greyhound to Washington and Atlanta to meet his serial rendezvous with justice. National television cameras transfixed on the spectacle of Caesar Disgustus and his Secret Service detail arriving at the depot, as he gets in line, as boards the Greyhound bus.

“It's midnight at the depot

as he drags his bags in line

travelin' light, he's got to go

but the bus won't be on time

everybody's looking half alive

later on, the bus arrives

they punch his ticket

and he finds a seat

and moves out past the lights

come on, driver

where's your heat?

It's cold out in the night” ----Harry Chapin, “Taxi” parody

Gone is the majesty of the overblown commercial jet transformed into a gouache, gold-painted obscenity. Gone is the stage prop holding up the trappings of a completely fraudulent persona. Gone is the pretense replaced by a stark reality: Caesar Disgustus stripped of his robe and sceptre figuratively standing in line naked, if you will, rubbing shoulders with the poor and the dispossessed.

“He's wrinkled on his stool

at the rest stop

the waitress being cozy

with the highway cop

coffee's tasting tired

his eyes roll over dead

got to go outside

and get the gas out of his head”

It would be rough justice, but justice long, long overdue.

“But there's nothing new about Greyhounds

nothing new about feeling down”

For the first time in his gilded existence, the snot-nosed little Lard Fauntleroy would know how “the other half” lives.

“Looking to tomorrow

that's the way the loser hides

he should have realized by now

that all of life's a ride

it's time to find some happy times

and make himself some friends

well you know there ain't no rainbows waiting

when this journey ends

Take the Greyhound

It's a dog of a way to get around

take the Greyhound

it's a doggone easy way to get you down”. (1)

One can only hope.

___________

1. genius.com/harry-chapin-greyhound-lyrics

September 19, 2023: Caesar Disgustus At The Colosseum

 

Criminal Defendant Donald tRUMP At Iowa State vs Iowa Football Game

August 27, 2023: Quote of the Day, Celebrity Arrival, Messianic Appeal

 

Quote of the Day:

"Mmmkay, And I'm 110lbs and a virgin! I'm not a scale or a doctor but I have spent some time beneath 215 pound men and Tiny was not one of them”

      ----Porn star Stormy Daniels referring to Donald Trump's claim at his arrest this week that he weighs just 215 pounds and, of course, to his 'tiny' dick. 

Of course he was allowed to self-report. Of course the nation's media covered his 'celebrity' arrival at the Fulton County Jail. Of course the cameras fixated upon our illustrious Caesar departing New Jersey in his outlandish 727 commercial aircraft and landing in Atlanta. Images of Disgustus deplaning to an awaiting motorcade. Televised coverage of the motorcade proceeding through blocked traffic as it snaked its way through the city. Hushed tones as news reporters covered his 'celebrity' arrival, proceeded by 24 motorcycle policemen and accompanied by at least a dozen vehicles. Of course he was allowed to 'self-report'. Of course he got out within minutes of his arrival. The way had been paved for him. 

Disgustus is nothing if not a creature entirely of the media. He owes his 'celebrity' status to the media and what it has made of him. His mythology is a complete media fabrication. Here he demonstrates his only talent by choosing to 'submit' to authority not only in prime time, but on his own terms; and the authorities let him do it.

His former consigliere Michael Cohen, disgusted at the spectacle, raged on the podcast Political Beat Down about the special treatment afforded Disgustus as he has serially made his way before the bars of justice. Honest citizens held up for hours on the roads and freeways. Police escorts. Cordoned off roads. No stoplights. No waiting in traffic. Wall-to-wall coverage except, of course, when he stood before several magistrates to make his ridiculous pleadings and, in this case, when he was fingerprinted and the infamous 'mugshot' was taken. They concluded the mockery of the process letting him declare his own weight and height. Stormy Daniels encapsulated the absurdity of the moment. Once again our dick-less Caesar, ever the Carnival Barker, had made a spectacle of the proceedings.

Politics as spectacle, television as spectacle, justice as spectacle. Everything is outlandish, exaggerated and totally out of proportion. The nation, indeed the world has long awaited an official accounting of his real wealth, here his real weight and height. Instead we were again treated to outlandish spectacle bordering on farce. 

Disgustus constantly whines about how he is treated so 'unfairly'. He declares that he is persecuted. This resonates with a population that reveres not the persecuted, but worships the persecuted ONE. It is fundamental to his emerging Messianic appeal.

But, like everything else tRUMP, this too is a fraud.

It is true that he is getting special treatment, but it is not persecution. No one else, and I mean no one else, would be allowed to self-report. No one else would have had the streets cordoned off and the way paved for his passage. No one else would have been allowed to determine the time of his arrival, been escorted by two dozen motorcycle policemen, nor would they have been conveyed in a motorcade. Any one else summoned to the Fulton County Jail would have had to wait for hours to be processed before being hauled before the magistrate and many, lacking bail, wouldn't have been allowed to return home. Disgustus was treated as a potentate, hardly different than if he were the sitting president of the United States. Not since the arrival of the Messiah at Jerusalem, preceded by the laying of palm branches, have we seen such a spectacle. Criminal defendant tRUMP is a private citizen charged with serious and several felonies. The spectacle belies his scumbaggery.

Of course, this is the point. Disgustus is seen as being in control, of being above the law and, as the Christian Messiah before him, condescending to 'submit' to authority but only on his terms. Once again, the powers that be have played into his hands.

Disgustus is a con and a fraud, as Dan Quayle was no JFK, Disgustus is no Jesus Christ, but he has always managed to keep one step ahead of his jailer.

“An' Br 'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison. 

July 9, 2023: Lawrence Freeman Hamp, Of Bones And Beads, Sail On Olde Friend

 

“Just yesterday morning

they let me know

you were gone...”

                   -----James Taylor Fire and Rain

We had lost touch, over the years. For more than half a century he had, several times, come and gone. He was a soulmate of my youth, so close we could complete each other's sentences.

I met him in Professor John Batchelder's Political Science class while attending college. He was eleven years my senior, was a high school drop-out,  and had spent the intervening years in the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine, but he didn't seem that old. There was about him a certain street-savvy, a certain savoir faire, a certain élan that I found, in my provincial inexperience, fascinating.

Ever the gregarious one, he simply walked up after class and introduced himself; “hi, I'm Larry Hamp, pleased to meet you”. His middle name, I later discovered was, more than appropriately, “Freeman”. So began a life-long, if often interrupted, bond.

This was in the fall of 1969. I had reached the mature age of 20, he was 31. I opposed the war, he supported it. Several spirited exchanges ensued, albeit always in private discussion, never in the Student Commons. It would take him about six months to finally come around and see it my way.

In his obituary, someone described him as a lifelong student. That he was, but I would describe him as a free-thinker, a wanderer who all those years ago set me out upon my own intrepid journey. You see, he had, in a sense, returned to old childhood haunts having seen the world. I was just beginning to break loose the confines of my origin. “Here, Señor”, he would intone as he would pass me a joint, “let me lead you astray”.

We would later light up in the basement of Professor Grey's home where he had for several months, after another divorce, taken up residence. Here he would regale me with tales of the high seas, of pulling victims who had drown from the Delaware River, of serving in Alaska. There was the story of flying into a base near Anchorage, while serving in the Coast Guard. The landing gear had failed to deploy and passengers and crew watched anxiously as the plane spent what seemed, according to Hamp, an eternity circling the airport in order to expend remaining fuel as the ground crew sprayed foam on the runway in preparation for the expected fire upon impact. “We made it”, Larry assured me, although the point was already obvious by his presence, “amidst the rattling of bones and beads”. He could turn a phrase.

Later in our collegiate experience we would meet again, this time in one of our History seminar classes, this one dealing with civil strife. The 1960's, after all, just in the rear-view-mirror. Professor Mapes assigned the two of us a project together, later telling me that he thought the combination would prove interesting. We had a choice between a major labor strike, I think it was the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and the New York City Draft Riots. I pressed for the Draft Riots having introduced myself, back in the spring of 1968, to the colorful history of mid-nineteenth century New York, the chicaneries of Tammany Hall, the political power of the the city's gangs, the city's disparities of hope and power.

“Oh I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days

That I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times

when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again

We spent the next 18 months or so researching and writing about the Draft Riots, intending to cement a reputation as historians by publishing a seminal book on the subject. We intended not only to consult primary resources but map the neighborhoods using the 1860 census to definitively describe the likely composition of the 'mobs' that took to the streets in the wake of the victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. You see, Lawrence was deep in military history, especially nineteenth century military history. A descendant of Lord Nelson, he made himself familiar with the technologies and tactics, in this case grape and canister used upon the mob by artillery units fresh from Gettysburg.

However, graduation came upon us and we soon went our separate ways, he off to Western Michigan University, I accepted a full scholarship at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He spent several semesters at Western, I ended up returning to West Michigan in the wake of divorce.

It was Lawrence who met me at the airport as I landed in Detroit from Boston on March 27, 1973 my marriage in ruin. He had driven from Kalamazoo and it was good to see him. Like old times, if only bitter-sweet, a bit of continuity in the madness and just in time to witness, together, the unraveling of Richard Shithouse Nixon, whom we both despised.

I had returned, for what I planned would be a short summer experience, my old job at as projectionist at the theater—a job that paid better than any prospects at the moment—and get me through until I had time to re-group. I pogoed back and forth between sleeping on Larry's couch and my brother's Dennis' front porch as we all watched the scandal unfold. It was splendid diversion in what were personally very difficult days.

At one point, during the Spring of '73, Larry said to me: “Champ, when I met you there were books all over your apartment. You were reading 5 or 6 books at a time. I haven't seen you reading anything at all, that mind of yours will atrophy if this continues.” He then presented me with a stack of books, including De Tocqueville's work, Edmond Burke's “Reflections on the Revolution in France”, and “The Federalist Papers”, all part of a boxed set of conservative classics (he had openly campaigned for Barry Goldwater, after all), as well a book on militarism and a biography of John Paul Jones. His motto: “Why reason when simple force will do”, Lawrence would invariably return to the military and to the sea.

In the spring of '74, I found myself up in Chassell, Michigan high up in 'Yupper' country; that's Michigan's upper peninsula, otherwise known as 'copper country'. Lawrence had lined up work with a landscaping firm planting trees on the embankment between Michigan Tech and the channel separating the Keweenaw peninsula from the rest of the U.P. I had applied for a managers position with Butterfield Theaters, after years working as a projectionist with the company, and was awaiting assignment. I thought, “why not?” and went north, spending a couple of months in copper country finally returning to take up management of the Vista Drive-In Theater in Grand Rapids in August of '74 returning in time to share with my brother Dennis old 'Shithouse's resignation.

Lawrence and I would correspond over the next couple of years. He made the journey south a couple of times to visit friends and family, he being a native of Hastings, Michigan a city located about 30 miles southeast of Grand Rapids, during which we would re-connect.

But, alas, we would once again drift apart.

Then, facing another marital crisis, this a second divorce, I found myself needing to hear that voice, to consult my old oracle, to seek an old touchstone. I called his ex-wife Nancy asking where I could find him. Nantucket she told me, by way of Richmond Virginia. This was early 1996. When I finally caught up with him he was back in Hastings, his parents growing old and frail, his brothers in the immediate neighborhood. His advice was to be kind to her and move on. Wisdom gleaned from years of experience, wisdom that should have been heeded during my first divorce; wisdom from a man whose soul was well lived in; wisdom well taken. My second divorce, though much more painful than the first, turned out much better. I remained in my child's life, my ex and I sharing custody.

In any case, life made its demands, time slips away, days, weeks, months, years. I always thought that we would return to the 'project' and finish the work; but always suspected that we wouldn't. Lawrence, a 'life-long professional student' as his eulogist described him in his obituary, was always about leaving loose ends. His curiosities, as well as the demands of simply making ends meet, would get the better of him and he would move on. He was a sailor. Under sail, one makes a thousand course corrections. We had that in common.

“Let me set you free,” he would intone. The straight-laced, up-tight, goal obsessed young man he met in the fall of 1969 would, by degrees, learn to relax, learn to 'let go' and evolve into a bohemian troubadour; like himself, a wanderer.

Lawrence was an agent sent to help me complete what I had set out to do all those years ago, when I was fifteen or so: to retrieve the little boy, lost in his youth. To rediscover the wonderment, the curiosity crushed by childhood; to see the world stripped naked in awe of it's complexity and marvel at its beauty

“Let me lead you astray”....

It was a commandment to think outside the box, to eschew convention and shed the straight-jacket of conventional wisdom, to see things anew. Precisely.

I had last seen Lawrence back in 2008 as Obama put the 'Straight-Talking Express' on a permanent siding. I talked him into submitting what would turn out to be a couple of contributions to these columns but we would again go our separate ways. But as we observe the 50^th anniversary of the summer of 73, a half-century since John Dean testified before Senator Sam Ervin's Select Committee on Watergate, I once again sought out my old soulmate only to find that he had loosed the bonds of this mortal coil and is now, at last, free. Sail on, olde friend, sail on.

 "I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times, when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again."

I always thought that I'd see you one ... more,,, time...again.

_______

1. For an example of his very descriptive writing style and my analytically acerbic response to the inspiration see Protagonist: November 6, 2008: Big Wind at Nantucket, A Hurricane Boat Wreck, Misadventures of 'Maverick' (wandererandshadow.blogspot.com) 

And my response; Protagonist: November 7, 2008: A Splendid Wreck, Not A Sailor in the Lot, Wretched Exhibition of Seamanship. (wandererandshadow.blogspot.com)