I am NOT shopping.

"Bah, humbug." - Ebenezer Scrooge

I remember when I loved shopping. My Nonna would get her shopping bag. She and I would go to Mazilli-Baptisti to buy Italian staples. There would be dried beans, chestnuts, and lentils in barrels. The smell of cheese and cured olives was overwhelming. Then we visit the Butcher. Then dish towels from the Lady-Who-Speaks-Italian-so-Fast I cannot understand her. Then the Baker where the scent of anise would make me faint with cookie anticipation. Shopping was a dignified sensual tour of the neighborhood. We got all the Chambersburg news and tangerines at Nelly's Fruit. It was the most exciting part of my week. I was about four when she started to take me shopping.

I am not shopping anymore. Shopping has lost its charm. Why? People are shooting each other in the stores. Every fricking thing for sale is made of or wrapped in plastic. You know, that stuff that is never going to biodegrade and is forming islands?  Most of the things that compose the seatrash were not even manufactured in the 50s. Somehow we lived without plastic bags. And lived well. The streets were clean even in poor neighborhoods. The beaches and the surf were pristine.

You know what happened to Mazilli-Baptisti? The last time I went there the place was dark, the door was ajar and there was almost no stock. It was dark and dank and smelled bad. Then the owners, the Grandsons, got busted for dealing cocaine in the 80s. "Mannagia America!" the old folks would say around the table.

I am not shopping. Mostly because I cannot afford to buy anything. Who is buying all this stuff? You got me. I only know one thing. As the Corpos who make everything we buy got larger and richer, the trash piles also got larger. And the jobs got smaller and meaner.

The Corpos privatize the profits and socialize the trash. You see them picking up any of this "convenient and disposable" crap? Or paying taxes for the city to do it? Plum Street is full of trash I pick up myself. Trash seems to flow down Plum Street from the Avenue like tampon applicators on the high tide.

I have had enough. I own enough. I am tired of dusting the stuff. I am not shopping. I wonder if I am alone.

http://grist.org/living/ask-umbra-what-do-i-do-with-my-worn-out-sponges/

Nobody died. Nobody got robbed. Not much of a crime says Ghouliani.

Last Sunday the 9th was my 75th birthday. I have been depressed and missing. I have been unable to write. All I was able to do was troll on social media. I just cannot figure out how to act. 

Between being sick for weeks and doctoring thereby, the ongoing mess in DC, and reaching this birthday, I was struck silent. I was so miserable my Muse left for more congenial circumstances. I never expected to live this long given the bipolar insanity. If you want to know what I mean, this video series explains it better than I can. This is the first of a 3 video series.:

I am back. It is clear I am not going to die for awhile, so that is good. Andiamo. Our POTUS is a crook. 

Generally, I ignore Rudy Giuliani. I cannot ignore this:

“Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed… This was not a big crime,” Giuliani told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. He added, sardonically, “I think in two weeks they’ll start with parking tickets that haven’t been paid.”

Yo Rudy, I got robbed of the sane experienced person I voted for being POTUS.

I got robbed of my national pride when my government kidnapped, caged and drugged children and caused them to be raped and/or die in custody. 

I got robbed of my peace of mind and dignity because I am a multiple rape survivor and I have been made to face the rape culture head on by REDpublicans daily and for years now.  Recall 'legitimate rape?' That was 2014. Remember the Republican Rape Advisory Chart?

We nearly got robbed of our Democracy, the system many Americans worked and died for over the centuries. I want to know who the Americans are who have accepted employment in American internment prison camps?

Reading Mark Twain makes me sane and gives me some perspective on the whole mess.:

“The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” ― Mark Twain

We have a lot more firing to do. Lots more.

Stanley - or - This story has no redeeming social value with Music.

I am single. I am bored because I have nothing and no one to do. One of my Viper Girls told me "Ma, you are not allowed to date anybody without a written permission. It is like you have this sign on your head flashing Weirdos Welcome!" Sadly, this is not unreasonable. 

I met Stanley at a screw-rinse-repeat joint in New York City called The Candy Box. I think it was 1976. Stanley was the bald bespectacled guy telling us he “screwed both bartenders and all the other whoo-ers sitting around on the bar stools." Stanley is still loud, profane and bespectacled as I write. A Caveat Emptor, "Whoo-ers are all no good", delivered in loud Brooklynese has to be experienced to be fully appreciated.

I do not know why exactly, but I took him home. He came with me because I told him I had a pool in my backyard. I think he thought I was lying or nuts. He was right about the nuts.

I always enjoyed Stanley. Stanley and I used to have the greatest fights. He was naturally funny. And he always left me money. He could be generous and stingy at the same moment. We hung out together for twenty five years. We made a porno. We ate at every great Italian restaurant in three states. We fought epic fights. He was mean. Years later I found out he used to stand behind me just out of hearing range and make fun of me to people I knew. Stanley financed every crazy thing I could think up to do. And I am creative. Laissez le bon temps rouler.

Everything was great until I got sober and truthful. One day I said to him

"Stanley, God gave you a package that cannot be beat. Even Ron Jeremy steps back. Nevertheless, you suck in the bed. Now that I am dually diagnosed, I am no longer de-generate and de-praved, and the government gives me $638.25 monthly, I do not have to fuck you. So just pay for the fricking thing and stop that whining."

It was the beginning of the end.

Stanley went and got married. He came to see me even after he got married. For a long  damn time. As a wedding present to him and his bride Angela, I taught him how to eat pussy. I know why I did not teach him sooner. He was always a bit prissy about the physical part of life. All that experience taught Stan nothing. It is kind of a turnoff if a guy is salivating copiously all over you at the critical moment because pussy has germs. I miss him still. I still meet him in my dreams.

Although his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis Redding was a singer of such commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music in its purest form.

His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. Redding left behind a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first sessions for Stax/Volt Records in 1963 until his death in 1967. Read more here...

Halloween Message from GrandMom and PopPop

Do not vote for the Orange Howler. I am repeating this because you did not listen to your Elders last time, it seems. I know - it was the Russians. More reason to vote.

Get your Hot Dog at Alzheimer's on the Potomac

The below graphic was a meme on Twitter. It implores us to contact these Senators. Do Democrats try for dumb? Waste of my time to contact these Hot Dogs. There is no evidence they can hear or think. Watch them sometime.

Convince me Chuck Grassley is not one of the two Senators taking Alzheimers Meds filled at Congressional Pharmacy. I been watching and Grassley been weirding wiggling waffling wandering all over the place. And I think there may be some outright falsehoods. I think it is hard not to see the dysfunction. I watched Grassley Town Halls. No wonder some folks do not want to do them. Town Halls are quite an education.

I am further saying Grassley rubber stamps anything his chief of staff puts in front of him cuz he just zombie into the gentleman's club.

Orrin Hatch is second of the Alzheimers Zombie Twins. I got 100 bucks says it is so. And I am financially challenged and I do not gamble. Hatch the Undead Corpse. I say doG??? Please have mercy on a weary people. doG say BE CALM. Breathe. Free will.

April in TX‏ @BGHeaven

Hatch and his invisible glasses.

Nick the Feminist Speaks Ex Cathedra

There was a band of GOP whiners
Could not keep their hands off vaginas.
First they tried to de-school them,
Then regulate and rule 'em,
Leaving women with less rights than most minors. 

- Nick Vanocur
sitting at his favorite table in the back