I'm not
overly grateful that you asked me the other Serious Question.
Everybody these days is cliche-ing "It's complicated." Which is code for
crap so dysfunctional and incomprehensible and toxic that I don't want to give
myself a migraine by thinking about it or trying to figure it out.
For the past 11 days, whenever I've been incautious enough to turn on the
TV or the radio, it's been -- well, like the month-plus after 9/11, a Fiesta of
Fear & Anxiety, with big sacks of Hatred tossed in for flavor.
(I'd be real curious to know how all this is going down in Dearborn. That
poor community must be pooping its drawers, waiting for a mass Homeland Security
roundup and detention.)
So for the past 11 days, both of us have found ourselves increasingly
watching kiddie shows like "Dinosaur Train" -- if we plug into media at all,
it's strictly and carefully for "Happy Bunny Rainbow" shows with guarantees of
No Flying Severed Limbs and hot shrapnel and crowds screaming "Kill The
Muslims!" In my office I plug into YouTube and listen to symphonies and Jean-Luc
Ponty and Zappa albums. (Nerve-calming playlist on request; I'm listening to the
B52s right now. 100 percent maim-free.)
Of course the Shock & Horror is when this happens in an American city.
In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan -- and ethnic friction areas of
Russia, like Chechnya -- this sort of thing is a weekly feature of everyday
life. A big bombing at the marketplace or the other denomination's mosque --
well, for those folks, it's just same old same old.
Of course back in our Happy Youth days, if you wanted to find homemade
bomb-making fiends intent on terrorizing our American way of life, they were
current or recent students at UC Berkeley or Brandeis, I guess U-Michigan was a
good place to find some Very Angry Dangerous fiends with a little background in
chemistry. U-Wisconsin @ Madison has the sad distinction of being the last
domestic bombing death of the Vietnam era. Some pissed-off retro Maoist
anarchists blew up the Army Math Center in the middle of the night -- politely
assuming nobody was inside. One guy was inside, pulling a
computer all-nighter.
Hmmm, a similarity has just zapped in some old neurons -- our same USA has
just been fighting two decades-long wars in non-white non-Christian Asia again.
Could this possibly have something to do with bomb attacks HERE?
I know that after 9/11, Americans' usage of [doctor prescribed] anti-depressants and tranqs
shot sky-high. Besides Happy Bunny TV shows, I'm riding out the Boston Marathon
bombings with my old reliable Diazepam (bit more than usual) and cannabis (for
medicinal purposes only).
btw Happy 4/20 -- how'd the Hash Bash go this year? I
think there was a bit of gunfire at the Big Reefer Party in Boulder, Colorado,
but I think the worst was just sort of treated-and-released small-caliber
crap.
Maybe I'll post these -- well, for want of a better word, thoughts -- on
Vleeptron. They might serve the tiny purpose of Witness -- that during a moment
of national hysteria and revenge, one old Vietnam-era hippie jerk publicly
objected to Hatred, Fear & Revenge on an industrial scale, to sell a lot of tooth whitener and hemmorhoid cream and Subarus.
Fox jerks have
been calling for an end to student visas for foreign Muslims. The American
public/political dialogue increasingly is blaming Everything on them
Satan-worshipping Jihadist Muslims.
Big crowd demanding that we stop informing
criminal suspects of their Constitutional rights, that our priority must be a
little of the old enhanced interrogation. Elsewhere the crowd screams that the
surviving suspect be processed as an enemy combatant (rather than your standard
garden-variety deranged bomber).
I seem to recall that whenever we have a whomp-butt long frustrating
overseas war against Foreign Heathen Devils, eventually some of the firearms and assault
weapons and explosive devices -- and a bunch of the anger -- find their way back
home -- even though that was strictly declared an Unintended Consequence, and we
find it shocking when it happens.
Your e-mail is making me miss "Dinosaur Train" on PBS For Kids. One of the
dinosaurs -- well, T. Rex -- talks just like Elvis, the little dinosaurs call
him The King.
Oh btw we are placing our hopes for Homeland safety on the same reliable
federal agency which is also safeguarding us from the Insane Clown Posse &
its dangerous hoard of followers.
Old Hippie on Tranqs
& Medicinal Cannabis
=================
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 9:00 AM
Subject: ICP
Hi
Bob,
Besides Insane Clown Posse, ICP also stands for International Center
of Photography.
So because you are interested in all things ICP, the clown
version, here are a couple pictures.
Attached are two images from a book of
photos of ICP fans I found on the web site of a UK graphic design
magazine.
Ron
PS – I thought I’d see comments on Vleeptron_Z about
the Boston bomb business.
