The man who has no memory makes one out of paper. If you take notes, you might begin to notice some patterns. 1990ish. – JDW
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked from them. – Thoreau
I was cleaning off my desktop, a newspaper clipping caught my eye. Something Pudge Hindenberg said after the loudmouth conservative syndicated talk-show host signed on the air at his 350th radio station. “Nobody wants to hear from the liberals.”
He’s right. Way right. He has a message Americans want to hear. This is the land of the beautiful and home of the brave. The entire country is one big Lake Wobegon where things would be a lot better if we didn’t have to pay taxes to fight so much crime. Don’t worry, be happy. Just do it. Go Blazers. God bless George Bush. Read his lips. And now a word from our sponsors, your state lottery commission.
Nobody wants to hear the cold truth. There’s no market for it. The truth hurts too much. Facts are funny things. Another pile of clippings seemed no more comforting. I rifled from one miscarriage to another, becoming more depressed on the one hand, more confident it was time for change on the other.
Spending on all government – state, local & federal – is nearly 40% of the gross national product (GNP). About $1,900,000,000,000. Bureaucrats make up over 15% of our total work force.
A NASA technician stumbled on his lab coat and bumped into a space rocket. Actually, it was the nozzle of a space rocket. He cracked the nozzle. The government replaced the entire first stage of the rocket. Cost to the taxpayer? About $6 million.
Of those incumbent Congressmen who sought another term, 98% were re-elected. Only twelve percent of American adults understand astrology is not a science.
In 1988, industry generated 20,146 metric tons of hazardous waste. Eleven percent of the GNP went to pay medical bills.
AIDS has killed nearly 47,000 Americans. Nearly 46,000 are killed each year in motor vehicle accidents. There are 400 million cars in the world. One hundred million Americans live in cities with unsafe levels of ozone and carbon monoxide.
New York City police seized 16,370 guns in a recent year. A three-year-old boy was used as a shield in a gun battle between rival drug gangs. He was seriously wounded.
Within a ten or fifteen minute ride from the White House one recent Valentine’s Day, thirteen people were killed or wounded with firearms.
In the history of marijuana smoking, there have been no – zero – deaths reported. Eight hundred to one thousand deaths can be attributed to aspirin. Almost four hundred thousand Americans die annually because of smoking. Ten times the number who die from illegal drugs.
U.S. companies produced 600 BILLION cigarettes in 1988.
Oregonians spend about fifty cents per person in state funding for the arts.
Texans drink more beer than residents in any other state, 27.5 gallons per person per year. The equivalent of 60 billion cans of beer were sold in 1986. The average annual alcoholic consumption – pure alcohol – for every American, age 14 and older, is about 50 gallons of beer. Or 5 gallons of whiskey. More mimosas than you can count.
Twelve percent of convicted rapists are not sentenced to prison. Average cost of a four-year college education is over $46,000. One in four college students has been a victim of crime. More than 13,000 were assaulted.
At Texas A&M, 93% of the male students in a Journal Of Sexual Research report said they’d been coerced into sex. Usually because an aggressive woman took off her clothes. (These are guys in crewcuts, wearing uniforms.) Many of the men said they were too drunk to stop the woman. Others said they didn’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings.
In 1969, 25% of movies were rated R. Today about 65%. In a recent year, 6128 dogs were brought to the Oregon Humane Society in Roseland. 1,656 found new homes. 4,472 went to The Big Kennel In The Sky. As many as 18 million pets are destroyed in the U.S.A. each year. There are 56,000,000 cats and 54,000,000 dogs in the U.S. Every hour, more than 2,000 dogs and 3500 cats are born.
Americans spent $1.8 billion on furs in a recent year.
According to a study from Johns Hopkins University, more young children die from murder than from any other type of injury-caused death. Between 1980-1985, 1,250 children under 1 year of age were murdered. Suicides more than doubled during period for kids ages 10 to 14.
As many as 7 million “latch-key children” under age 14 fend for themselves every day after school. Today perhaps as many as 80% of mothers have to work outside the home. Every month, 500,000 of the 13 million American children living in poverty go hungry.
During the first ten months of 1988, 171 drug-addicted babies were born in Roseland, compared to 113 the entire year before. Also in 1988, 2,477 women sought shelter from abusive men.
One out of twelve ADULT Oregonians can’t read this sentence. As many as 27 million adults, nearly a quarter of all workers, lack the basic reading, writing and math skills. Only one American in twenty buys a book each year.
White family income is now eighty percent higher that of black families.
In 1914, average Americans actually welcomed the first income tax. The average worker only made eight hunderd dollars. Since you didn’t have to pay unless you made $3000 ($4000 if you were married), the common man on the street didn’t have to pay. Those who did pay forked over a flat one percent.
The Revenue Act of 1916 lowered the minimum taxable income to $1000. By 1919, the maximum tax rate has climbed to 77%.
Of course, there was no radio to speak of back then. So there weren’t any talk show hosts watch out for the generations who came before us. Nobody like Pudge Hindenburg.
Nobody wants to hear the bad news. Nobody wants to listen to liberals. Where is the truth? Is it on the air or is it buried somewhere in the statistics?
Six hundred billion dollars disappeared – so far – in the S&L scandal. Buried somewhere. “A lot of money got put into people’s pockets and they’ve rat-holed it somewhere,” explained H. Joe Selby, a former chief regulator for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas. “Some of it is in artwork, fancy homes, fancy airplanes and Rolls-Royces. Some of it went to Rolex watches, lizard shoes, hunting parties and yachts.”
The richest one percent of Americans saw their share of wealth double in the Whoring Eighties. In a single decade, the truly wealthy accumulated as much fortune as they had in the hundred years previous.
Listen to the way the wind blows. It tolls for us.
Of the 336 television ministries on the air in 1988, 34 were being audited by the IRS.
And what in the name of Christ does any of this mean to me right now? Nothing.
At no time in history have there been so many restless, questioning men. The traditional notions of manhood are under attack and men are being called upon to defend themselves, to change, to become something other than what they have been. – Sam Keen, author of FIRE IN THE BELLY.
Choosing heroes is like making the collage of the ideal person. They’re markers along the human journey, the pathfinders and definers of the human condition, the spiritual elite who reveal some aspect of the human promise. A person without heroes is someone without value to aspire to.” – Sam Keen.
Ask the pretty girl to dance. You will never know what can be yours if you don’t ask for what you want.
Ask yourself: WHAT WOULD I DO IF I KNEW I WOULDN’T FAIL? Then go ahead and do it.
Life is harder. Some of us make our lives harder still. We drink too much. We don’t study. We rebel. We wear our hair long. We marry the wrong person. We marry the right person at the wrong time. We tell our boss the truth she doesn’t want to hear.
I have made mistakes. I have squandered time and talent. I have failed people who cared about me. I know this. I accept this. I apologize. I am determined to behave better in the future.
My philosophy is this. BREAK THE PARADIGM. REINVENT YOURSELF. BECOME YOUR OWN HERO.
Thoreau. “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”
Cabin at the Oregon Coast 1990ish
Did you ever pay much attention to those instant cash machines? Not only are they more polite than a human teller, but they must think I’m stupid. Please Remove Your Cash, it says. Like I need the advice. Oh, no thanks, I’ll just leave it here for the next guy who comes along.
Did you hear what Imelda Marcos said the day after Ferdinand died? “I may fall in love again, but I will never remarry.”
Now, there’s an ad in the Personals ads you don’t want to answer. “WWF, full-figured, former beauty queen, enjoys shopping, collecting shoes, visiting Swiss banks…..”
A movie I have wanted to see ever since I saw this capsule review in the television guide. “DEMONWARP. One star. 1988. (Featuring) George Kennedy. A man whose daughter was kidnapped by Bigfoot rescues topless teens from alien sacrifice in the woods.”
Just one star. Sometimes you wonder what the critic could’ve been thinking.
There’s too much sludge in our lives. Too much noise. Too many sharp edges. Too many extraterrestrial virgins dying for no good reason.
True story.
Two old drunks at end of bar. The only thing more wrinkled than her face was his suit. The jacket didn’t match the pants.
It’s late. They’ve been drinking pitchers of Hamms since Happy Hour. He looks at her through unfocused eyes. “I don’t know,” he slurs, “I just have a lust for you.
She hitches up her brassiere. She doesn’t even look at him. “Well.” She is speaking very slowly. “I’m. Not. Interested.”
He’s not looking at her either. He’s staring at his empty glass. “How about another pitcher?”
They turn toward each other. “You buying?”, she wants to know.
“Sure.”
“You got yourself a deal, stud.”
Friends know when to say, one for the road?
Getting laid off because I didn’t have big boobs was about the last straw. I had been tending bar long enough to have gotten past the worse that any new situation has to offer. Everything but get shot at. There were worse places than Crackers, but this is the first time I’d ever worked in one.
There’s a sign hanging over the cash register: Three bar rules – 1. Go ugly early. 2. If she’s below your standards, lower your standards. 3. No woman looks as beautiful as she does with your nuts on her chin.
Burgers, babes and brew. Maybe snort a little blow out back.
What’s the difference between like and love? The same as spit and swallow. I learned more than I cared to know from the dancers. What’s the difference between business and pleasure? You pick the orifice, it’s business; I pick, it’s for fun.
Mostly she just gave me a lot of ear.
The remote control was suffering from PMS. I knew it was going to be a tough night. The babe, a semi-pro, at the end of the bar keeps calling me names like cuddle cookie and whisker biscuit.
She’s sitting with a guy who rode in on a Harley. His black t-shirt says When Things Go Well, Nobody Ever Asks “Why?”
Something of a barstool philosopher. The last pearl I heard growled out from between those hairy lips was “If women had their tits on their backs, they’d get asked to dance more often.”
He has a point, I had to agree. Maybe two.
About then the Boss Lady offers to buy me a beer and cover the rest of the night herself.
Random axed. “Too many of the regulars have been complaining about you,” she said rather upfront.
“Fuck’em if they don’t like driving home when they can still remember how.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” I was puzzled. I fancied myself a regular brewmeister.
“Well,” she glanced down at her own large chest, “it’s just that they say some of the sparkle has gone out of the place since you replaced Marilyn.”
I offered to wear my shirt unbuttoned to the waist.
Marilyn had moved onto the stage where she was now known as Teri Robe and making seven times more money than I was. No, eight times.
Starting to see a pattern here, seems to be the clientele’s strategy wherever you work.
No tits, no tips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hom0fYd5uX4