November 29, 2003
One Last Fast One

Another weekend, another round of funeralis. This time around, the appointed was rather young and worked in a gas plant most of his life and the guys who spoke at the podium were tough sorts of fellows and it was rather brutal watching big guys like that break apart and weep on the stand.

The only strangly amusing part was the story that Harv Jr. told me when I walked up to him in the funeral home and he pulled me aside.

H: I got to tell you something. You're not going to believe this.

MT: What?

H: I got my suit and my Dad's suit drycleaned this week.

MT: Yeah...

H: And I got the dry cleaning back a couple of days ago, right?

MT: And?

H: And so when I got it back, I dropped his suit off at the funeral home and dropped mine off at my mom's. And everything was fine, till today I went to put my arm in my suit, and the shoulder wouldn't fit over my bicep.

MT: What, they shrunk your suit?

H: Nope. I gave the wrong suit to funeral home.

MT: You mean...

H: Yep. I was trying to put on my Dad's suit.
(pause)
Meaning I dropped off my suit at the funeral home. You see him in the viewing room? He's wearing my suit.

MT: No fucking way.

H: Yup.

MT: No fucking way.

H: Yup. The old switcheroo.
(pause)
Looks like the old man pulled one last fast one on me.

And then we laughed, and shook our heads, and maybe laughed some more, cause what the fuck else could go wrong at that point?

Jim, you're gonna be sorely missed.


November 28, 2003
Haiku Fridays

Guantanamo Bay gets properly reviled as a monstrous failure of justice on IHT. Nicely done. Especially the part comparing it to a kangaroo court. If you really think the US is a great and wonderful place, please read that article and attempt to defend it. I don't understand it.

I mean, the propaganda is ripe and loudly spun, when the truth is sitting there quietly and defiantly, waiting for people to pick up on it. Georgie, history is going to put you up on the shelf with McCarthy. After reading the article on Cheney selling the war, I honestly feel that once you and your croneys are over and done, you will be viewed as the stupidest, most antagonistic, myopic Southerners to ever run the country. Even the Texans will be aghast, because no one will ever elect one of them to run the country again for a long time.

In other, sadder news, Harv's dad Jim died way too young last Saturday. Today's the funeral, the third in a month for local death-magnet Mingus Tourette. Wrote this haiku in Saskatchewan, and it's really about an older man's funeral, but I don't know what else to say. Whatever you need over the next months, don't stop yourself from asking. Peace.

the white hairs standing
in solidarity - against the wind
as the casket drops

November 27, 2003
Hard Ticket to Hawaii

Chloe headed out to her rehearsal this evening, and let me know that she was resting her short-haired head at her own house. Fine. Set. Match. Whatever. Doesn't bother me, but I know that Accountant fellow has been sniffing around, and Mingus don't like no wolves nosing round his pork. Might be time for the pitchfork soon enough.

Always interesting to find this site linked up and interpreted on other sites. I often forget that there is some content on this site that might blow a nun's panties off. After the big sensibleerection.com traffic frenzy, I've been picked up by a few other sites like diminishedresponsibility.com and my old politico pal Lillibuen who introduced me as follows:

Mingus Tourette spouts off on a variety of issues. Although a goodly fellow, Mr. Tourette may not be everyone's cup of tea. Those shy about profanity or explicit sexual themes should think twice about delving too deep into Tourette's corner of the web.

True, true and true. There's something here to offend everyone. Profanity and explicit sexual themes abound, along with political crucifixion, apostastic diatribes and unrelenting rhetoric on everything from the unshakable facts behind evolution to the brilliance of Dostoyevksy. We got it all. So tell your friends, keep coming back every bloody day, and when the Empire crumbles in eighteen months, you can say you were there at the beginning. I'm having final meetings with the designers and associates this weekend, and then beginning of December, if nothing changes, we set a date.

And then get ready, my Nuntettes, for Nunt is coming. Gasmasks will be available to the faithful.

November 26, 2003
The DoppleGanger Complex

Strange, I haven't heard anything back from incumbent Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin since I offered him a link exchange. I would think he would be all over that. I've done my research on him and found out that his wife likes literature, his son is a screenwriter, and Paul is a fervent Catholic. It stands to reason that he would certainly find Nunt to be a challenging religion-oriented piece of literature that he would enjoy adding to his collection. For example, in one of the poems, a nun has sex with a couple of altar boys and Mingus Tourette somewhere in Kansas, and it is a religious experience for all involved. What lit-minded brow-crossing world leader wouldn't enjoy that?

I figured yesterday that it was about time me and K got together and drank a few beers, so we hit the Strat and hit on old-timer Mary for a bit and sucked back a few pickled eggs and listened to the Doors. Conversation worth keeping went like this:

Mingus Tourette: K, you ever do this thing where you're fucking your woman, and all you're trying to do, the entire time, is pretend that you're fucking another woman that you barely know? You know, you hold on to her ass and close your eyes and imagine it as best as you can and try not to say the wrong name when you come?

K: Oh certainly. It's called the Doppleganger Complex. It's a common ailment for men such as yourself.

MT: What do you mean, men such as myself?

K: Men in a long term relationship.

MT: It's only been like six months. And I would barely call it a relationship. We fuck and go to funerals together.

K: Whatever. The complex can begin as early as three months.

MT: And where the fuck did this come from?

K: Germany. It's been clinically proven. On University students.

MT: Really. And how does one cure one's self of this problem?

K: Very simply. You fuck the woman you've been think of.
(pause)
It's not fucking rocket science.

MT: And what if, after three months of fucking the second woman, you get Doppleganger Complex relating to the first woman?

K: Well, you go back and fuck her.
(pause)
Come on, Ming. This is first year psychology. If you're fucking one woman, and you're thinking of another and you want that to stop, you fuck the second woman, and if, after awhile, you get tired of that action, you go back to the first woman or go on to a third. This is how we work, you know.

MT: (Says nothing, but stares at the juke box as though a bell has been struck.)
It is that simple.

K: It is that simple.

MT: And does it work for women, too?

K: It works for everyone, I think. It just depends on the people, and how much they want to be with someone besides the person they're fucking.

MT: And if I can't just up and fuck both women, what happens?

K: Well, you are stuck with your DoppleGanger Complex. You make love to one woman, and you think of another. It's a very common complex in Western society. We're not built to be monogamous creatures, as you know.

MT: Bloody great.

K: I wouldn't leave this untreated if I were you. It's very unhealthy. Leads to irritation, bitterness, and excessive masturbation.

MT: You made that up.

K: Did I? You've got DoppleGanger Complex, my friend, with all its symptoms, flagellatory side effects and the one cure that you don't have the balls to use.

MT: Fuck you.

K: I am merely a vessel for science. You asked, I answered, and you know my diagnosis is right.

And with that, I looked up at the plaster, thought about buying a smoke off the trucker at the VLT and slugged back the rest of my beer glass. I stood up, walked to the can to take a piss, pulled out my cock and thought, fuck you K, what do you know, and then thought, fuck you mingus, don't you wish it was Colette holding that instead of you.

And I looked back over my shoulder at the broken mirror and saw two men standing there in the reflection and both of them were Mingus and both of them were lost.

November 25, 2003
The American Gulag

One can never get enough well written articles about the unmoving purgatory of Guantanamo Bay. Reminds me of an interview I saw recently. An old Russian couple who had spent a few years in one of Stalin's gulags were asked about their experiences in a time when twenty million people were killed by a spectacularly brutal dictator. The interviewer asked the old couple if they thought the era could ever return. The woman said she didn't think so, she thought people were better than that. The old man was not so optimistic. He said that in the years since the 9/11 attack, there were many ways the United States reminded him of Stalin's Russia - the propaganda, the removal of rights and the driving use of fear.

As chilling as the couple's story about the Russian gulag was, Guantanamo Bay could be worse. The woman was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, which is a terrible waste of life, but at least she had a defined term of detention. Prisoners in Guantanamo are held without access to legal counsel, without access to friends or family, without trial, and possibly, without end. That's right. The US government has no problem incarcerating people without the rights of the American constitution or the Geneva convention and has no problem keeping them locked up forever. For those thinking that this place only houses people of Arabic descent, Tony Blair is proud to announce that even though the UK is America's new best friend, there are still Brits being held in Guantanamo Bay and Tony can't do a thing about it.

So if you're British, or Iraqi, or a national of any sovereign nation, imagine waking up in the night as black-clothed officers knock down your door, hand you an arrest warrant and haul you away in the back of a truck. You see your mother weeping in the middle of the road, surrounded by police as you are driven away. You are kept in a room with criminals whose languages you don't understand and when the hearing comes, you are told nothing, the charges mean nothing to your ears, you stand alone and you are judged and found guilty by a court of faceless men. You soon find yourself in a place you have never seen, you have no contact with the outside world, you stare out of your cell at mountains you do not recognize and when you go outside, you stare at the sky and wonder if someone will carry a message to your mother to keep her from growing old with despair.

That's the way the old Russian lady described her trip to Stalin's gulag, and in all likelihood, it's probably very similar to the stories waiting to be told by those rotting away in Guantanamo Bay. Except for the bit about the sign posted at the front door:

Abandon hope all ye who enter here. Welcome to the American Gulag.

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