Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Is it just me or have things gotten markedly stupider in the last few weeks? I kind of remember New Year's, wasn't that bad. Gonzales nomination seemed rocky, then Condi got a lot of guff from Barbara Boxer. But somehow last week, right around 9 p.m. of State of the Union night, it seemed like we all took a plunge, like the stock market on bad acid. You just sat there watching lie after lie, nucular after nucular, and you wonder, what the hell is going on around here. Someone in charge just said they were going to work for a constitutional amendment to protect marriage? This is like Arnold Schwarzenegger suddenly getting appointed governor of California or something.

But no, you've been sleeping under a rock, like Howard Hughes walking around bare-assed in a sea of empty milk cartons. Where's Kate when you need her? Right next to you says La Laura. But she's actually angrier than you are, because it's all fresh in her moment, all shocking and shit. And you wonder why it's not really shocking you anymore.

Check that. You're pissed. This morning Katie Couric is showing some leg, trying to outdo Condi I guess, and the patter is all about the safe Super Bowl ads and the safe Super Bowl halftime show. Frankly "Live and Let Die" is pretty scary for me. And here's another clue for you all. The Walrus was Paul.

Yesterday amid the slew of panhandlers lining la Baldorioty on the way to the favorite French brunch place the holes in the street opened wide and swallowed you up like the ocean. Tomas Rivera Schatz was looking snarky on the front cover, but peeling the pages away you found this thing L. was reading:



The Mayra Santos Febre essay about Adolfina, the Mama Ines of 25 years ago who stood her squatting ground only to be mowed down by the Barcelo mafia. It reminded me of Eleanor Bumpurs, but Adolfina knew what she was doing. It makes you wonder, who's going to take up a metaphorical machete and stand up to this weird shit that's going on? Are we all going to sit there in our smug Manhattan and Brooklyn apartments and go, that's not me, that's Americuh and maybe these private retirement accounts are a good idea? Sitting calmly by while violence is being committed in your name...would that be violence as well?

I'm not sure if I'm the right person to be asking these questions. I just know that these streets sometimes bite just as hard as the ones uptown, about 30,000 blocks from here.



The US Marine Corps has publicly upbraided one of its generals for his comments describing shooting people in Iraq as "fun".