Fresh off the presses and from in the can, it’s the Scenesters teaser! 40 seconds of proof, if you ask me.
AGarBlog is a much better title than LeftWingZionist. That is merely my opinion, as the writer and creator; but I do not agree with this opinion as the marketer and publisher. For the benefit of search engine optimization, LeftWingZionist is a three headed monster craving attention while drenched in the blood of the masses. As the marketer, I feel confident that the overzealous shall be reached knowing full well a more subdued, deeper thinking crowd is the target. As the publisher, I would remind myself as the writer that it might be a great idea to actually bring in some Left Wing thought as well as an essay or two about the Zionism. Not that I want to be a pushy editor, because I know the trouble that I am having as a writer, but let’s get real about Israel, hombre.
AGarBlog was the short-lived predecessor to this here fandangled techno-writing. I wrote about my business. I wrote about my neighbors. I wrote about my dog dying. Nothing terribly different than now, really, except back then I had a digital camera and included my own photos rather than steal imagery off the internet. For educational purposes, I would incorporate links to the text which would then open new windows. I would also consistently use Crazy Capitalization for stylistic purposes. Ontop of this, I disengaged the 4th wall between myself and the readers by addressing ya’ll as You, and giving You the nickname of the 15 of You or You 15. Now, it turns out, my shtick is more customized for the internet, an identity designed as a potential, hot-shot, political asshole blogger who suppresses freedom and thought of not only the poorest, most pitiful Palestinians, but of the lowest hanging, and swinging, Tea Bagging fruit as well. A wily victim-maker, ready to stick it to America by calling for nationalized health care while also supporting Israel’s right to defend herself from the constant, Arab aggression that eventually bombs other people to make a point. Listen, Hitler was a vegetarian, but Gaza doesn’t even come close to either Johannesburg or the Warsaw Ghetto.
But do You really want to read my perspective on that? In essence, the point of my blogging is to keep myself writing. Or, actually, to simply get myself writing. I am desperate to maintain a discipline of sitting at the desk and jotting thoughts down to be consumed by a reading public. And I don’t think You expect much out of me except Peace, Love, Harmony and other forms of Crazy Capitalization. Coherence will be good to add, as well as some sweet alliteration to keep the narrative flowing with hidden games and messages. There are images in my head that I need to get out. Purple rhinos that dance in tutus.
I have checked into it, and I can change the name of my blog is to create another page. As if that’s a big deal, but You know what? I’m not real interested. AGarBlog is the nickname of LeftWingZionist, and if You want to use it, You may. Nothings changed. I’m still trying to get some writing done.
I was brushing my teeth, and looking in the mirror, and thinking about how We’re All Winners, especially those guys who generally considered loveless, and jobless, and, in essence, lifeless, when I thought, Heck, now’s the time to write a post about depression. Because it’s one constant theme in my life are that the people who don’t understand the deep, dark holes of painful, circular logic (think of the razor ball in Phantasm drilling into your brain combined with final thoughts of failure and self-inflicted torture) is that they tend to say, So why don’t you start writing about your depression?
That's What I'm Talking About, Except Messier
Why? I rhetorically ask back and give them my answer: Because it sure sounds like a shit load of fun listening to somebody talk about how much he hates his life.
Depression is knowing my dog is going to die.
Depression is looking at my mother’s last photograph with me and it was taken by the man who murdered her.
Depression is getting fat and bald and still eating ice cream on the couch as the cute, troubled red head solves a murder mystery.
Depression isn’t fear. Fear is based on the unknown. Depression is based on what is happening right now combined with a large helping of what had happened in the past. Fear is being afraid to walk in the kitchen in the middle of the night because of the large, Texas sized cockroaches that hang out by the sink scraping food off of dirty dishes, or scurrying across a cupboard door, or in and around the bowl of dog food. That’s fear, and it’s for pussies. This is depression, and those who really get depressed aren’t worried about a fear. We already know that life, which is based on the current and past, fucking sucks. That it’s going to blow chunks and suck major league donkey dicks whether I’ve got 10 inch roaches or not.
Whoo fucking ass de-fucking-pression.
Catch the fever.
I no longer have my job at [ACME]*Inc. I still have my magnetized name tag which gets me into the building and all the parking lots, though, because my former supervisor said that I am welcome back if the work calls for me. The bad news about not working is that I need the money to buy food for me and the dog so that we can eat, but all in all, I have yet to wake up in the morning sad that I no longer hop in my car with a sack lunch and my canteen so that I can stare at product numbers, UPC codes, and item characterizations for eight hours in the day. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t wake up sad, frustrated by the lack of purpose to this life. Which means, really, my emotions are pretty much in check from having my job cut; I just don’t have an activity to distract me from how I feel.
Update: I need to write. It is how I chose to communicate to the world as a child, and it is what I had wanted to do throughout my life… up until, that is, the last decade of painful writer’s block. Even now, in the middle of this paragraph, my thoughts wander as to whether Fred Jackson is going to score a touchdown for me against the Raiders since the Bills are in the Red Zone. Seriously, how fucked up is that? I live in Austin, can’t see the game from Buffalo, but I sure have got a second window open on my computer screen following team Las Moutafika make it through its second Sunday together. At the present moment (while checking the status of Mr. Jackson), I am deeply heartened by Dwayne Bowe’s better half of football than his entire game last week. I fuckin’ distracted. It’s ridiculous.
Update: Palestinian leadership is continuing their push through to become a recognized Arab state. Mazel Tov, I say, since they were offered not just a state in 2000 with 97% of the West Bank along with the remaining 3% of disputed land exchanged through swaps, but also in 2008, when Ehud Olmert upped the ante by including a part of East Jerusalem to be considered the proposed Palestinian nation capital. And it’s not that it’s necessarily funny that the Palestinian leadership at the times– Yasser Arafat in 2000 and Mahmoud Abbas in 2008– rejected these proposals that would have established a recognized, Palestinian Arab state, but that neither leader offered a counter-proposal, and instead, upped their own ante with the second Intifada and missile strikes from Gaza. Everyone agrees that the Palestinians need to make concessions in order to achieve a true, undeniable peace with Israel– that Israel be recognized as the Jewish state (as in, the Palestinian state being recognized as the Arab state); that the new Arab state of Palestine absorb their life-sentenced refugees as citizens, as opposed to forcing a “Right of Return” of Arabs into modern day Israel); and that the ’67 borders will serve only as a framework, and not as a definite absolute. But, to be honest, all of that is cute and all, but what really drives it all home is these three points of concessions are then used by Israel-bashers to explain Israeli intransigence.
(h/t Elder of Ziyon)
Oh... Archie
My cell has a camera, but 2005 called me up to say my phone was obsolete. I have no money for anything but my free with a subscription plan Sanyo Kyocera II, and I haven’t had a camera since Black Sunday 2008, the Sunday after Thanksgiving when I came home from work and saw someone did some Christmas shopping with my stuff.
My brain on HubbleSite.org.
If this was a real blog, I would have splatterd it with photos of Lopez. At least the image of him on the deck wearing the African beaded yarmulke from Ethiopia used as my Facebook avatar. (I attempted to import it to this blog, but it only comes up as a thumbnail.) Which means if this was a real blog, I would have the money to buy a camera so I can take extra photos of my dog in order to splatter his image all over my portal of the net. And if I had the money for a real camera, you know I would have the money for a real computer. One that doesn’t erase paragraphs as a sign that it’s a bit overheated.
It can’t be that hard, right? It’s not like I haven’t written before. It’s not like I don’t want to write again. It’s not like I wouldn’t trade my 40 hours in a cubicle at [ACME]*, Inc for the opportunity to utilize my narrative skills as a means to make money. It’s not like I didn’t come to this town 12 years ago with the objective of finishing a 4th and Final draft of what was supposed to be my first book. I didn’t get into a position like that without the discipline of repeatedly sitting down to write on a blank page or screen.
Explosions in Space
As they say in baseball, you don’t walk out of a slump.
Obviously, this is something dogs do. They stick around for awhile, and it’s simply not in the gameplan that they outlive you. Some of them don’t live very long, and in this regard I am lucky. Abby, the dog I had when I got Lopez, i.e. The Sisterinator, was 13-years-old when she died. A corgi-shepherd mix, Abby died at the ripe age of 91, with a hip no longer useful for walking around. Although the morning I put her to sleep, she did make it out the house and all the way to the back of the yard where I was digging her grave. She wagged her tail, and gave me a lick when I hugged her. I led her back and into the house where she waited and stayed.
Lopez is 11-years-old. He is a much larger dog than Abby. A tall, 120 pound, Rhodesian-shepherd mix, I tell folks that in a previous life, I charged kids a quarter per ride. Lopez also has hip issues– partly due to his shepherd mixed lineage– and it will be his inability to prop himself off the floor that signals the time I end his life.
I think about it because I want to be prepared, although I will miss work and have a real shitty next morning and probably rest of the week. His height and weight propel his human age ratio to closer to 88 than 77, and a late-aged octogenarian is physically much different than a spry, old fart. Although, Lopez did get frisky this afternoon when I inadvertently blew smoke in his face. (It was an accident brought on by him, where I was waiting for the Dude to finish eating his food which he only began chowing down as soon as I grabbed the leash; and so I told him, I was going to smoke another bowl, and the next thing I know, he’s right up in my face waiting to get leashed up. I swear.) Next thing I know, he’s leaping into my torso, his weak and numb hind legs bearing his weight, and I lose wind.
Lopez el Dopez, mi amigo del grande.
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Fatwah-hot. As in, the lady jogging down Manor in the bike lane as Lopez and I turned the corner from Randolph to Merrie Lynn. Fit, tan, and with a long runner’s body, she totally convinced me that jogging in the … Continue reading
It turns out, when I wrote yesterday’s little diddly at the office, I was less than 10 hours away from discovering that my car was going to fuck with me again, and keep me from making work the very next day. Truth be told, I fucked with my car first, and it was out of trust to a 710 band member/customer/employee who happened to be a mechanic. He did me right the first few times I went to him. Michele, my Qi Gong therapist, knew the other mechanic who shared the shop, and we both were happy with their progress. I should have known better, though, because I walked into a 710 situation where there was my m/c/e mechanic was face down in a bowl full of coke. Anyway, a year ago, his response to an off-track window was bolting that muther into door panel, and, since then, my window has been inoperable. Then yesterday, it ends up affecting my door lock, and with no window and no door on the driver’s side, I’m thinking it’s going to be a bit of acrobatic strength to scan my [ACME]* Inc. identification card and pull into the garage.
I took the car to the dealer. They pulled my door panel, lowered the window, and said that it would cost $900. The other guy Saab mechanics I now go to quoted me around $350 with a used regulator, about $500 with brand new. That’s also out of my price range, but it doesn’t matter, because it took an appointment set up 2 weeks in advance after 3 weeks of contact to replace a water pump. They are just that busy.
One of the tenants suggested a mechanic on Lamar. He said to go pick up a used regulator and see the man over there just north of 183. Straight up guy, he says, and so I knew there was another way through this. Before heading to the dealer I got in touch with DanMC, the former customer who turned me on to the Volcano 6 years ago. Seeing as how he worked for my dealer’s sister branch at Porsche, I was hoping he’d know someone at Saab who could be cool and help me out. He didn’t, but he knows a mechanic friend, and this guy totally knows upper line cars because he works with Mercedes. First of all, how necessary is this balance from the 710 m/c/e. Feeling bent over and screwed by the past with a $30,000, 10-year-old death trap. Second, I needed to find a 2002 Saab 9-3 5-door hatchback, driver’s front door window regulator.
While waiting at the dealer for them to finish tinkering with my car– a 2 hour wait, that went into lunch, that got me wondering just when the hell I was going to get out of there– I decided to open the yellow pages and contact used automotive parts. We’re deep in the heart of Texas, so there’s some all over town and whole bunch outside the city limits. Maybe not surprisingly, most of rejections were along the lines of “Saab?” than “No, not for an ’02 9-3.” And then, bam, a Saab-Volvo specialized yard with an 800 number. $105 for the part with shipping from California, probably a 1-week turnaround time. That made me feel better, and then my next call struck gold. “Shit, sir, I wouldn’t think we’d have one.” So I headed north.
Looking for messages, it’s good to know that the drive to the dealer is about 1/3 of the way to the salvage yard, so no detours. My window was down for the first time in a year. It was about 100 degrees again today, but the rest of the way to Griggs felt okay. I took the new toll road for the first time, which sounds exciting until you realize it’s a corporate land and tax grabbedy-grab by our Governor Good Hair for his slimeball backers and boys.
Burnet County always sounded nice to me, because 1. it wasn’t Williamson County, where nobody likes me wants to be; and, 2. Burnet Road is a fun drive with cool shops including a Gas Pipe. Harold’s has an office, and I stepped inside an old, panel infused home, with two guys working on computers up at the front door. One was a Mexican man who knew his stuff. The other was Eddie, a white dude with a ball cap, tank-top, and shorts exposing some elaborate ink down on his shin and towards the base of his foot. 
He asked my name and I gave it to him. “I had never heard that name before.”
Usually at this point, I imagine myself ready to do a song-and-dance, with full-on tuxedo and gloves. It’s a Hebrew name…. (tappity-tap-tap)… One of the 12 lost tribes of Israel… (hoo wee)…. And still lost according to A&E…. (tip-top-hat-tap)…. most likely due us being a bunch of pot heads.
But I didn’t say it this time. It wasn’t due to fear. Not of these guys or the carving of a glaring wolf out of an oak tree branch. I was just tired. I wanted this over. No more haunts from 710, and I just didn’t feel like it. Everything seemed good; better to be underwhelming.
“What’s the return policy if this part doesn’t work?”
“Ten minutes or ten miles, which ever comes first.” He and the old guy waiting for a replacement third brake light for a late-90s small pick-up started laughing. “I’m kidding,” said Eddie. “90 days with receipt.”
It would be our last conversation for the next not quite 2 hours. At one point, after a flurry of front door openings that was reminiscent of a Busby Berkley musical, the door at times seemingly dinging every 45 seconds, and the phone ringing just about every 20 seconds; a time spand that included the Mexican dude helping Eddie smooth over a customer and ship out on a job he didn’t quite get the drift to ship out four days ago and that was needed yesterday; after all the hullaballoo and a near punch of the table by Eddie, when it seemed like reflection will ease the mood, I suggested, “Wow, it gets busy here.” Eddie didn’t care, but then 45 minutes later, after another bit of hullablloo but not as much, he replied, “Man, it does get busy around here.”
These guys didn’t care for me. I was the dude from Austin looking for Saab parts. Who cares if I’m flat broke and can’t seem to save my ride without the help of an unknown friend of a man I hadn’t spoken to in over a year. Who cares if I could tell them stories about Dimebag Darrell. (I actually can’t, but I know a lot of guys who could, and I know the name enough to drop a reference to it and care enough to spell his name right which is really an important part of this caveat– that I can be pretty fucking cool if you think about it sometimes, even though I’m just sitting in a chair staring at two guys who are avoiding me and wondering just what the fuck I’m supposed to do next.) The Mexican dude would have been, “Whatever,” but Eddie would have been impressed. More so than my spouting off on the 12 Tribes of Israel, although whose the say the Mexican guy wouldn’t have asked, “So you guys smoke weed, huh?”
At one point, Eddie looked at me and said, “You’re still here? Didn’t you get that part?”
“I’ve been here the whole time. Was something supposed to happen?”
Thankfully, it got the ball rolling on the part and proceeded to open the door for ribbing. The Mexican tisked, and said, “Shit, man, I know I wouldn’t be sitting around for 3 hours waiting on a part. I’d be out of here like an hour ago.” Another worker came by the guys. “I had a hell of a time with that car this morning,” he said, and then he looked and laughed at me. “You remember, because you were still here.” At this point, the other guy checks out the computer screen the Mexican guy had been staring at all afternoon. “Oooh,” he said, “I like me some Bristol Palin.”
The part cost me $69.
Please, Lord. Let me be happy with the purchase. Let me be able to use the window for drive throughs and to wave to my neighbors. Let me feel the cool dampness of a 76 degree early morning, before it gets over 100. Let me not go back to Griggs. And while I’m at it, let it not rain over my house this evening. Everywhere else in Texas is totally cool, but not tonight for my yard as my car is exposed to the world.
Amen.
 | koufaxmitzvah on Scenesters 40-sec Teaser |
 | thomasdikel on Scenesters 40-sec Teaser |
| koufaxmitzvah on I Hate to Say It |
 | stlouis1baseball on I Hate to Say It |
leftwingzionist 