Overdue Bile

As we’ve become accustomed to at this time of the year, there is a basic need to look back over the past year and assess all of the things that have happened. Personally, the pitch and yaw of my life has finally settled down, I’ve managed to Forrest Gump my way into a happy place, and I’ve found peace.

But I gotta ask, What the Fuck is happening to my Republic?

I look around and see something out of 1984, or Atlas Shrugged, or V for Vendetta. It’s heartbreaking, really. And as I’ve sat here in a Menkenesque gluttony, laughing at the absurdity of the manner in which I see the popular media performing fellatio on our president, I’ve said nothing. There has been a fatalistic aspect to this passivity which bothers me, as I recall beginning these missives back during the Clinton administration, when I was subjected to the rule of a man who was quite possibly even more ineffective than the current thief who occupies the house on Pennsylvania Ave…(but in a less malignant way, I think.) Perhaps the idealism of my early thirties, the spark of light and reason that burned so brightly, and seemed so attainable, has merely been recognized for what it actually is: the fire of reality burning my hope in the landfill of middle age.

Or maybe it’s the overwhelming sense that the downfall of this Republic has truly gained the terminal velocity that I’ve been on about for awhile in this space. That aspect of this entire fuck-all is what really disturbs me, and has kept me in defilade these past few months. This was all foreseeable, avoidable, and could have been fixed.

St. Michael of Ann Arbor asked me just the other day if I felt somewhat vindicated since so much of what I’ve been predicting these past years is largely coming to pass. Vindication is the wrong word, I think. It feels more like when you see one of your kids, or a junior Marine, about to make a mistake. One that you KNOW will result in something very bad. You stomp your foot, you clear your throat, you really, really try to explain things the way they are. You coach and mentor until you get to that place that my boss identified to me about three years ago…”Larry, I can’t do anything more to help this guy out than stick my arm up his ass and make his mouth move for him”…and yet that individual still decides to take the dumb road. Well folks, I reached that point, with regards to these United States about 10 months ago. And I decided to adhere to the one and only commandment that we as Coyotes talk about all the time: “Never care MORE about the training than the Marines who are going through the exercise”. And so, I’ve been mute as this society continues to completely ignore those things that will eventually make them slaves. I will do so no longer. I can’t. It’s in me, and it’s gotta come out of me.

So, as Maude Lebowski would say, “Okay Jeffrey, let's get down to cases”.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s like rubbernecking at an accident on the freeway. It’s like staring at a solar eclipse. It’s…

BILE:
Volume Whatever
The Opening of the Seventh Seal…
Rights, real and imagined, Fiat Currency, and miscellaneous crankiness.

1) More Aristotle.
One of the gifts that was bestowed on this philosophical tradition that we’ve come to forget as a Western Society is the Aristotelian practice of breaking complex ideas into their most minute parts. This allows us to understand concepts in their most basic form, and make informed decisions as to whether or not we agree with a given tenet that is handed to us by a sycophantic mouthpiece of a corrupt system, at the behest of a man who would take our liberty, our property, and potentially, our life. Definitions are important in discussions such as these, for they give us a common understanding of what exactly is at stake in agreeing or disagreeing with whomever is running their man-pleasers. Please indulge me, as we run through a few basic tenets, with regards to what is currently being offered up by those who call themselves your “Government”.

a. Right-That object or state of being which a person is entitled to, that by its very existence carries with it a concomitant duty for every other person to provide. So, let’s review. If you have a right to speak, then I have a duty to allow you to do so without hassling you about the content of your speech. If you have the right to property, then I have the moral obligation not to steal, break, or otherwise fuck with your stuff. If you have the right of liberty, then I have a moral obligation to not wrongfully imprison you, detain you, or bring you along on a blind double date with my girlfriend and her cougar friend who is three-sheets after two martinis and begins either describing how she’ll dismember you if you are a player, or sits in your lap and sticks her tongue in your ear deeply enough to taste what you’re thinking. If you have a right to a job, then I have a duty to pay someone to hire you. If you have a right to a house, then I have an obligation to give you money to pay for it.

[STOMP, STOMP, STOMP] If I have a right to health care, then you have an obligation to finance the surgeries and various treatments that might be necessary to continue my life, even though my habits and behavior may not be acceptable to you. (We’ll come back to the implications of this in a minute.)

These last few “rights” that I’ve cited have a recurring cost that I’m not certain you are prepared to agree to. Beware when people start talking about “alternative rights”. FDR was an asshole, and a socialist, and this is known. Thank you.

b. The Government of the United States-This is defined very specifically in a document called the Constitution of the United States of America. There was very little left to the imagination. Of course, due to the fact that the government deals with “laws”, and a specific branch of the government is devoted to the interpretation of laws by judges, (see: H.L. Menken’s definition: “A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”), the government is unfortunately, by design, subject to attracting lawyers to its employ. For lawyers, nothing is ever simple. Interpretation becomes problematic. “What did the framers REALLY mean?”, they ask. Hypothetical discussions result, and we are lured into this parallel universe of vagueness and flexibility when the answers to the fucking test are actually right there on the page.

Look people, the full rights and responsibilities of the FEDERAL legislature are outlined in article I of the Constitution, those of the FEDERAL executive branch appear in article II, and those of the FEDERAL judiciary are dealt with in article III. Questions? Refer to the 10th Amendment, where it details that ANY powers not delegated in this document are “reserved to the STATES respectively, or the PEOPLE”. It’s just that fucking simple. It’s all right there, isn’t it?

Well, here we are, 229 years after this document was ratified by the legislative bodies of the States that made up the country at that time, and we’re confused as to the ramifications of straying from that document, or attempting wholesale revision of it, by either ignoring it or allowing some pointy headed fool to interpret it in some vague way that allows him to remove whatever liberties he wants by judicial or legislative fiat, by citing that it is a “living document” that is “open to interpretation in the context of modern society”. People, that is nonsense on stilts. The definitions of Life, Liberty, or Property have not changed since we stood erect for the first time and scratched our arses. The technical definitions of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches have not changed for 229 fucking years. So what has changed, then?

What has changed is our expectations.

We look back at a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and we see an expectation for the FEDERAL government (read: NATION of taxpayers) to provide recompense to city and state governments that were corrupt enough, and short sighted enough to not prepare for such a disaster…and a city and state full of voters/taxpayers who were willing to risk that short-sightedness.

We look at large banks, large lending establishments, and large automobile conglomerates who have failed, but have been given YOUR money by the FEDERAL government because they failed. Where is the expectation of punishment for poor business practices? What does this portend for small business owners (the heart and soul of local economies) who aren’t “too big to fail”? Why are the wealthiest failed entrepreneurs now expecting the government to take care of them?

We look at a health-care industry (it ain’t a system, people. It’s a fuckin’ industry…) that has been manipulated by tort to the point where the cost for ANY treatment is buffered by the factor that you might sue for malpractice. And so we’re seriously talking about giving the responsibility for providing that service to the FEDERAL government (read: NATION of taxpayers). Please re-read the paragraph above that defines “Right”. If we all agree to pay into this, then we accept two eventual outcomes: 1) we bear the responsibility of paying for Unclean’s healthcare, even though he has disgusting personal habits, and engages in pretty cool, but reasonably risky personal behavior; or 2) we, as a collective, mandate that if we must all pay into said healthcare plan, then all of us must stop engaging in habits not mutually agreed to, which are punishable by the government by either judicial action, or revocation of said health benefits.

Look, I love you guys, no shit. But I LIKE to smoke, drink, stay up late, eat red meat and foods high in cholesterol, drive fast, sneeze, and sit on the toilet for extensive lengths of time. I have nothing against the fact that most of you like to run marathons, abstain from Mother Liquor, go to sleep soon after dusk, eat a lot of green vegetables, and shit like horses. However, I’m not prepared to mandate via legislative fiat that you smoke a packaday, eat fried egg and bacon sammiches at two o’clock in the morning, or drink improbable amounts of whiskey. However, if this government agrees to this health care plan, our wonderfully free ability to engage in whatever conduct that we want to will be restricted in just such a way.

People, wake up. This government wants to control you in the most offensive way that the world has ever seen. While it is true that they also want to control how you buy things, perceive things, and interact with each other, they also want to control your simplest everyday functions. I did not see that they were given that responsibility in the Constitution, but they are actively working towards that…and nobody is talking about it. This should make you more than uncomfortable. This should make you angry. This should cause your heart to cry out at the manipulation that is being done to your country. This should cause you to wonder about what kind of country you are bequeathing to your children.


c. fi•at
Pronunciation: \ˈfē-ət, -ˌat, -ˌät; ˈfī-ət, -ˌat\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, let it be done, 3d singular present subjunctive of fieri to become, be done
1 : a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort

So we’ve dealt with several of the ways in which your liberty will be stripped from you (i.e.: the creation of new “rights” and the nationalization of the health care industry.) Now I’d like to introduce the other. Friends and neighbors, welcome to the discussion of Fiat Currency. It is a term that many have not become familiar with simply because no one has really talked about it. But it is the reality that we are currently burdened with. The truth is this: Richard Nixon took the United States currency off of the Gold Standard back in 1971. Prior to this, many countries fixed their exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar. In exchange, the U.S. promised to fix the price of gold at $35 per ounce. Therefore, all currencies pegged to the dollar were stabilized by the value of the U.S. dollar’s relation to the price of gold. In 1970, the fucking french, headed by their head-cocksucker, Charles de Gaulle, dramatically reduced their dollar reserves. That and the U.S. expenditure as a result of the Vietnam War, caused Nixon to pull his little trick. Now, Tricky Dick did try to at least back the dollar with SOMETHING, so he took advantage of another little opportunity. He somehow got OPEC to agree to sell their oil exclusively with the use of the U.S. Dollar. (For more info, see this speech by Ron Paul to congress in 2006.) Think about that for a second. Anyone who wanted to buy oil since the early 1970’s had to first exchange their money for U.S. dollars before they bought a drop of oil. And that backed the dollar with something more tangible than the spending habits of my aunt Mildred and the ability of some guy without a job or legal tender to repay a 100K mortgage.

The other way in which we’ve managed to shore up the value of our currency was to sell portions of our government to anyone who had available currency. China has possessed mountains of ready cash for years, and they’ve bought up trillions of dollars worth of U.S. currency, along with any other country who had any capital since the 1970s.

Now before any of the above actions happened, way back on 23 December, 1913, the Federal Reserve Act was enacted by the United States Senate. This act called for the creation of a System that contained both private and public entities. There were to be at least eight, and no more than 12, private regional Federal reserve banks (12 were established) each with its own branches, board of directors and district boundaries (Sections 2, 3, and 4) and the System was to be headed by a seven member Federal Reserve Board made up of public officials appointed by the President (strengthened and renamed in 1935 as the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency dropped from the Board - Section 10). Also created as part of the Federal Reserve System was a 12 member Federal Advisory Committee (Section 12) and a single new United States currency, the Federal Reserve Note (Section 16).

Let’s go back to the rule book again, shall we? In article I, Section 10 of the Constitution of the United States of America, we find the following passage: “No state shall,…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…” The reason for this proscription is obvious, the Department of the Treasury issued nothing except gold and silver coin, which means that if the states offered coin of a different medium, then anyone crossing a state line would devalue what was in his pockets. But what happens when the Leviathan stops holding itself to the standards that it holds “all those under awe” to?

What happens is this: you end up with a coin that is backed only by an agreement with a foreign oil cartel and the good will of a communist government who has as much ability to influence the value of the dollar as the Federal Reserve Board of Governors itself. What would happen to this economy if the Chinese government asked us to buy back the currency that it has bought up over the years? What would happen if OPEC decided to stop dealing in U.S. coin? Does it bother any of you that this whole house of cards is held up by the fancy of two foreign affiliates who do not necessarily share our common vision of Lockean minimalist government? Would it surprise any of you if any of the policies or speaking points espoused by our government are not edited by these foreign affiliations before being enacted and/or spoken?

None of this is secret. It’s all out there in the public domain for any of you to peruse. Nobody talks about it because of fear. The fear that you and I may act in a way, vote in a way, buy in a way, speak in a way that would prejudice the positions of many very wealthy people who have sunk a whole lot of money into the continuation of this leaking vessel. These people want you to continue to bind yourself to this system of corruption. They can’t have you buying things of worth (i.e.: gold or silver) in an effort to shore up your continued existence at the expense of applying for loans which they can claim on their bottom line. At the expense of you not buying the current consumer item that is all the rage, and which finances their reckless addiction to a corrupt system. At the expense of them maintaining seats of inscrutable power that keep you paying ever-higher prices to consume the items which were created with the use of resources that were borrowed on the margin, using capital that is not backed by anything at all, based on an extra-constitutional system that has resulted in the dissolution of the way of life of an entire nation of producers through years of mismanagement and negligence.

Tyler was right. To our lasting consternation.

2) Apathy revisited
The short list of those things that I couldn’t care less about, if you spotted me two consonants and two vowels:

a. Tiger- Okay everyone, I’ll admit it. I slept with Tiger. It was in La Quinta two years ago. I was drunk. What can I say?

Let the poor bastard up, already. It’s not like he’s filling a public office or anything. Oh. I guess if that were true, this would be over already. Bottom line, the media loves to tear down anyone who actually does something…

Oh. Hold on a second. On one hand you’ve got the media. Which is run by people who don’t contribute agoddamnthing to anyone. What do they do? They WATCH stuff and then talk about it. A lot. Ad nauseum.

On the other hand, you’ve got someone who actually does a given thing better than any other human being alive or dead, and who has a personal breakdown of some sort.

So we should forget everything else and focus on the personal fuck-up, based on information pushed by someone who has only a stake in the fact that their “observation” sells copy?

How about this. How about I let that poor bastard try to clean all of this up, ignore the ignorant ‘tard who is reporting it, and continue to contribute to the stock of human dignity? People, the stock of human dignity is under siege right now. Paying attention to these worthless pieces of shit while ignoring the actual factors which will bring about our enslavement will only serve the ends of those who wish to hold the key to our bonds.

Do please focus.

b. The new prohibition- I have become very familiar recently with the aspect of society that has decided that my usage of the fifth food group (alcohol) is excessive. Fuck these people, and everyone who looks like them. To quote Menken (again) “A prohibitionist is the sort of man one couldn't care to drink with, even if he drank.” Why? Because a prohibitionist is a busy body, concerned with making mankind better instead of dealing with the basic fact that he is still as full of shit as every other human being who has ever drawn free oxygen. These assholes are killing me, the MADDs, the people who don’t want me to speak impolitely to my dog or eat chicken because it was treated ignobly, the people who don’t want me to do anything but sit in front of my TV and watch the E! channel…at exactly what point did these people get the arrogance to assume that anybody gave a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what they thought in the first place? I know that I have not called nor emailed nor even spoken to any one of you, or anyone else for that matter, and suggested that you stop doing just whatever the fuck you wanted to do.

It’s that right/duty thing again that I referred to above. I don’t have a right to tell you how to do a goddamn thing. You don’t have a duty to take any advice that I offer. We actually have the right to tell these people to go fuck themselves…and they do indeed have the corresponding duty to heed our admonishments. These people assume the opposite. They think that because they have reached such a level of shrillness in decrying whatever cause they’re involved in, that I have a corresponding moral obligation to listen to their advice and heed their recommendations.

Fuck that.

These assholes are almost exactly like the assholes in the previous paragraph. They stand on the sideline and bitch about something that I’m doing, but don’t actually produce a damn thing in the way of progress.

I swear to God, I’m going on-line immediately after I send this to you people, and I’m going to create a non-profit organization that seeks to reduce incidence of sweating. I’ll make up a ton of statistics about how the water vapor (which is actually on the EPAs list of hazardous material, as a component of green-house gas) which results from sweat is actually contributing to global warming (which has never been actually proven), how if we could just figure out a way to harness the power of alternative cooling we’d save billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of lives, annually.

The fact is this, people. Nobody extra has died this year because of booze than in any year before. Nor because of tobacco use. Nor because of the intake of red meat, fried chicken, or venison. Nor because of driving a large automobile. Anyone who claims so should reflect upon the fact that everything has it’s excess. It is just as vicious for me to abstain from something entirely, while shrilly bitching about your consumption of said item, as it is for you to consume too much of it and badly effect both you and those around you. There exists a “golden mean” where one should strive to take ALL things in moderation, for that is the path to virtue.

Wait. I’ve heard that before…

Oh.

Aristotelian ethics. Hey! That guy is all over the place!

Learn to swim.

Fuck L Ron Hubbard and
Fuck all his clones.
Fuck all these gun-toting
Hip gangster wannabes.

Learn to swim.

Fuck retro anything.
Fuck your tattoos.
Fuck all you junkies and
Fuck your short memory.

Learn to swim.

Fuck smiley glad-hands,
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses.

Learn to swim.

Cuz I'm praying for rain
-Tool, Aenema

Immundus, ergo liquidius,
Unclean

Yet another reminder...

You should be pissed off...and actively seeking redress. Why? Because the framers said so:

• "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
  That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. "

Just here recently, the governed have consented to trade these promises for safety. This should make you angry. You should lose sleep about this. You should be concerned...

Unclean

Bile LIII, The Lockean Prophesy

The insane and somewhat perilous path had opened before me. Long, dark, sultry and addictive like a long draught of cool wine after something much stronger. Lines had become straightened, questions had been answered in retrospect, after long months of self-doubt. Perspective had been granted like water after a long and sere August. It was the end of so many things. It was the beginning of so many more.

People, welcome back to the machine. We’re in the last throes now, and we’re still ignoring it. I’ve not said a word since December, in order to put things right in my life…until I realized that nothing would be right unless I got over the idea that “this too shall pass”.

People, it’s already passed. It passed a good long time ago. What is left is to enjoy who I am, right now, and what is going on in my life, right now.

Not waiting for anything. Not biding my time for something that may or may not happen.

Children, life is here. Now. Live it or get run over by it.

And so, with a fifth of rye, at a 0318 start time, having witnessed the emasculation of the Constitution mutely, reacting with neither voice nor anger, I am here…finally. Here to weigh in, to give my two cents. Here to point out the tragedy of what is happening to YOUR republic right now, as you read this, as I write this, as we just sail through life, assuming that freedom is free, currency is real, and the Government will take care of all of us. People, I’m wound tighter than a drum, probably up later than I have a right to be, and a sight drunker than I oughta be. It ain’t right and it ain’t fair, but it sure as hell is just…because it’s your,

BILE
Volume LIII,Freedom, By God
1) “Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments.” (Ahhhh. I love opening an argument with John Locke! It’s like coming in to catch the first inning knowing that Nolan Ryan is starting. Swear to God.) Sometime in the past sixty years, and some would argue that this all started much earlier, we came to believe (as do toads in a luke-warm pot) that the Government would solve everything. Now, as I went through high-school poli-sci (which is taught by fuckin’ retards, by the way…all of you contemplating a college degree: don’t take poli-sci to understand what I’m talking about below, take political philosophy. No apologies to those with poli-sci degrees, mind you. Parchment is equal in the eyes of employers, I reckon…) it was brought to my attention that the Great Depression was ended by the reforms of the Roosevelt Administration. Five years later, I was told by my college poli-sci professor that the Great Depression was ended by America’s involvement in World War II. Recently, I’ve heard the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Bernanke, make similar arguments. Problem here, folks:

It’s Bullshit.

America pulled itself out of the Great Depression by the expansion of the free market economy. Fact: the nation needed infrastructure. Fact: we were not in debt to other nations past the point where we could reasonably repay them. Therefore, the Government of these United States was free to hire free market contractors to build shit. They, in turn, hired laborers to dig ditches, build dams, etc. People, that ain’t a government success story. It’s a success story that highlights the ingenuity of private industry, and the dedication of the common man. Thus, we took stuff, that the Government had (gold), and gave it to those who could build shit for the Government (bridges, roads, dams, electrical grids). It just so happens that, later on, the Government still had gold to provide to people who built tanks, planes, battleships, and rifles after the Japs bombed our asses. Things got better people, not because the Government magically threw money at the problem, but because responsible individuals correctly identified shortfalls in the critical infrastructure of the Republic, and had a willing and eager work force to displace and build those edifices.

Commonalities between now and then: we’re in a war for our survival, the economy’s in the shitter
Differences between now and then: Our currency is not backed by anything other than a glass of scotch and a smile. We’ve migrated our industrial capacity to other nations, or have unionized the local industrial capacity to the point where profit has been rendered an iffy proposition in a competitive marketplace. We’ve sold an astonishing amount of currency to other nations like China. We’re in debt, and it’s getting worse by the day. We can’t pay it back, because the bottom line surpasses the capacity of this nation to make good on the total note. Further, the common unemployed seem be unwilling to displace and do menial work.

And so, in the midst of all of this turmoil, we’ve allowed the Federal Reserve to do as it wishes. Not necessarily former President Bush, not necessarily President Obama. Those two gentlemen will be blamed for this downfall, but it isn’t completely their fault. The game was rigged for both of them. There is a banking cartel, that exists outside of the Constitution, who has issued currency. Think about that for a second, good people. The federal Government, to whom this domesticated society has entrusted itself, has allowed an unelected cartel of banking interests to usurp the Constitutional charter of the Department of the Treasury. This cartel, in turn, has stacked the deck over the past few years to make themselves money at the expense of you and I.

People, you need to wake up and get mad.

Every cent of interest on the debt that the Government is accepting is coming out of your pocket. That money does not belong to the Government, it is yours. Currency is nothing but a promissary note that a bank is told to issue that is based on something of worth (i.e. paper money representing gold that I have deposited in the bank) However, since the end of the gold standard, that money is literally representative of nothing but the sweat coming off of your brow. Further, every time inflation rises, it is an invisible tax (Christ, please remember this!). Here’s why: with currency not being backed by anything other than a smile, the only way to pay off debt, maintain calm, avoid runs on banks, and satisfy the Chinese, is to issue more currency. More currency becomes available, and prices go up. You and I pay more for a given good only because the Federal Reserve has issued more currency, not because the inherent scarcity or plentifulness of that good has changed in any respect. So, the Government does what it wishes, without a vote, without running it through a representative body, and soley because the Federal Reserve Act allows them to print as much currency as they like. If the Government cannot pay for these things, they don’t need to raise taxes on you and I (although they will, and at the drop of a fucking hat.) because all they need to do is just print more money. They pay off whatever silly assed program they want to fund, while you and I pay more and more for the consumer items that we need, independent of any market forces.

Check this out. We all just did our taxes, right? Notice that the “Federal Stimulus” check was taxed? Well guess what? (I’m actually very surprised at the subtlety on this, it is VERY, VERY slick.) We’ll get another stimulus check early this year…I’d guarantee it. And then Congress with a willing President will raise taxes a jot, and that stimulus check will actually end up costing you more next tax season than it was worth when you received it. Is that not the most diabolical thing you’ve ever heard? I’ve been scratching this year to itemize everything that I can, just to cover the fact that the government GAVE me money! Signs and wonders…

If I remember my Freshman U.S. History correctly, we went to war in 1775 against a sovreign power because that power taxed us without any persons representing the colonies involved in the decision to tax the colonies. Correct me if I’m wrong on this point, but it seems to me that we’re back in that same boat. The Federal Reserve is an unelected body, who is levying a tax on all of us, without a Constitutionally mandated entity having a say in any of it. Taxation without representation.

Here’s the scariest part of all of this: We’ve got $20 billion in debt owed to the Chinese. What happens when they ask for us to make good on that debt? What will happen is that all that currency that they have purchased from us, and that we default on, will return to the US… I need not explain what that will do to the international exchange rate, nor what it would do to inflation here in the US. What the Federal Government is doing right now is wrong, they are taxing us by just making more and more and more money, which will pay for their experiments and adventures, without our even being given the courtesy of putting it before a duly elected body. But rather, by an unelected cartel, acting completely and totally unilaterally in your name.

Wake Up. For Chris’sake, wake up.

2) “A ‘living’ Constitution is just the thing that any government would be delighted to have, for whenever the people complain that their Constitution has been violated, the government can trot out its judges to inform the people that they’ve simply mis-understood: the Constitution, you see, has merely evolved with the times.” –Ron Paul

Turning to the reaction of the states to the creeping nanny state: Good news for a change. On the floor of the Texas State House of Representatives is the following issue,

By: Creighton
H.C.R. No. 50

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"; and

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

WHEREAS, The scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

WHEREAS, Today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

WHEREAS, Many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may not usurp; and

WHEREAS, Section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution says, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," and the Ninth Amendment states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"; and

WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

WHEREAS, A number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise
enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That this serve as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these
Constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.
Holy fuckin’ shit, sports fans! A state is in the process of officially putting the Republic of these United States on notice that “we are tired of your shit”, “get out of my box”, and “abide by the fucking rules that we all agreed upon when we signed on the dotted line in 1847”. Stephen F. Austin is smiling somewhere, people, as this type of thing will become more and more common, mark my words. I predict that states such as New Hampshire, Idaho, Alaska, and Montana will soon follow suit.

Contemplate for a moment this little bit of perspective: It has become plain that this sort of declaration is necessary. That’s scary, I reckon. Especially when one considers that the colonists issued similar statements to the British Crown from the early 1760s until the Battle of Lexington, begging…nay, PLEADING for the King to stay this madness. Eventually, the Leviathan in London had taken all that the colonists were willing to give. And now we’re starting the same pattern, here and now. Not 50 years from now (Rainman). It’s happening right now. You could look it up.

Speaking of New Hampshire: They are currently engaged in an internal monkey-shit fight over parts of their state wishing to bow to the “cumpulsory federal legislation” concerning seat-belt laws. From the Wall Street Journal (“In the Land of 'Live Free or Die,' Some Refuse to Buckle Under Pressure”, Jennifer Levitz, 18 March 2009):

“…The Granite State has long been known for its plucky Yankee self-sufficiency -- it was the first colony to declare independence from Great Britain in 1776. Today it is the only state in the nation that doesn't have a law requiring adults to wear seat belts. It has resisted efforts to pass one for 30 years, and has been the proud lone outlier since 1995, when neighboring Maine became the 49th state to buckle. But now, legislators are close to passing a seat-belt law under a push by Democrats who gained control of the state Senate, House and governorship in 2006 for the first time in a hundred years. The Democrats have been boosted in the polls by a wave of migration from other states, including famously liberal Massachusetts, over the past decade.

In a way, New Hampshire only has its success to blame. Many new residents from Massachusetts and other parts of the Northeast came to enjoy a more affordable lifestyle and growing high-tech employment. New Hampshire is the only Northeast state that's experienced significant population growth since 1990, and the University of New Hampshire projects that trend will continue in the next 10 years. The newcomers tend to be more educated, wealthier and more liberal than the natives, says Andrew Smith, a political researcher at the university. Democratic registrations grew by 30%, to 265,000, between 1998 and 2008, while Republican registrations remained stable at 271,000. One newcomer, Robert Mann, moved to Deerfield, N.H., from the Boston area in 2000. The tool-shop owner, who calls the smoking ban a ‘wonderful thing,’ says the ‘Live Free or Die’ motto is ‘a lot of strutting and peacock feathering and loud talk.’ [This man should have his scrotum removed with a rusty fish hook, a length of 25 lb. test, and a three-speed fan set to “low”…]

Rep. Sally Kelly, a Democrat from Chichester, N.H., is the author of the seat-belt legislation. She used to be against mandated buckling but ‘the facts took over,’ she says, noting that in 2007, at least 70% of those who died in traffic accidents in the state weren't wearing seat belts. Rep. Kelly calls the $3.7 million in federal funds the ‘icing on the cake....We could use something a little bit sweet in our New Hampshire economy right now.’

Opponents point to NHTSA figures showing New Hampshire in 2007 had a fatality rate below the national average: 0.96 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, well below the national rate of 1.36 per 100 million. The seat-belt legislation, which calls for a $25 fine for the first violation and a $50 fine for the second, passed one vote of the House, 197-155, three weeks ago, after a hearing in which anti-seat-belters showed up wearing chains, kneepads and crash helmets -- in a jab at the ‘overprotective’ state. The bill needs a second house vote before going to the senate. Sen. Hassan expects passage, but in a ‘battle.’ Opponents include Sen. Robert Letourneau, head of the Senate Transportation Committee and a three-generation New Hampshirite who cruises on his Harley motorcycle without a helmet. New Hampshire has no helmet law, either. In his office, the white-whiskered senator smacked a plastic motorcycle model that started blaring the Steppenwolf song ‘Born to be Wild.’ Then he flipped through a stack of phone messages from constituents who he says are against the seat-belt law. ‘Every day my mailbox is flooded,’ he says. ‘People don't want it. It's an insult to their intelligence, that's what they tell me.’ A gaggle of protesters showed up last week at a meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee, which was looking at the fiscal impact of the seat-belt law before sending it back to the full House. ‘It's a last-ditch effort to stop these people,’ said Jeremy Olson, a 28-year-old Internet technician, who says he wears his seat belt but promises that if the law passes, he'll take it off ‘when police pass and wave to them.’ ’Will you require helmets in cars next?’ a protester shouted to Rep. Kelly, the bill's sponsor.‘No, that's not me! That's not me!’ Rep. Kelly promised, adding: ‘I'm not into helmets!’Inside the meeting, Rep. Jordan Ulery, an opponent of the bill, snorted as Rep. Kelly described how New Hampshire would use the $3.7 million in federal funds. ‘I love that Big Brother wants to tell me how to live,’ he said, punching his fist in the air. He added, ‘New Hampshire is a sovereign state; we can do as we damn well please.’”
Note the statistics from the New Hampshire Transportation Safety Administration. The only state in the Union that has not enacted a law mandating use of seatbelts actually has a lower fatality rate than the average state that has passed such a law. I’m not saying that seat-belt usage is the largest issue facing this nation, but it is indicative of the useless effort, and thousands of dollars worth of fines in every other state that is wasted annually, in the enforcement of this worthless policy. This is, however, the tip of the iceberg.

Again people, wake up and take notice of what has become of your country. Even Jefferson, who violated the Constitution by summarily attaching 1/3rd of the North American continent by fiat with his purchase and annexation of the Louisiana territories, said in 1802 that “written Constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people.”

We need to do just that: be watchful, and rally the people to what was given to them by the blood of hundreds of thousands of good men, and true. Further, we need to do it soon. And the vehicle that we should use is the Tenth Amendment.

Ron Paul (the man who should be in office right now…don’t EEEEEEVEN get me started…) said in his Manifesto, The Revolution, that the Tenth Amendment “was a guarantee that the experience Americans endured under the British would not be repeated, and that political decisions would be made by their own local legislatures rather than by a distant central government that would be much more difficult, if not impossible, for them to control.” Well, here we are. We are exactly at the point that the framers wished to avoid. But like Billy Martin in the famous “pine tar incident” with George Brett, we have the rule book to consult in order to get satisfaction. If we are aware of what our Government SHOULD NOT be doing, then we can use the Constitution as it was intended: a document intended to limit the power of ANYONE telling you how to live your life, to limit the ability of the politicians in the DC ivory tower to attempt to govern a people so diverse, but rather allow those on the scene, in each state and municipality to do so.

I’ve never advocated anarchy. I’ve SEEN anarchy, as have many recipients of this have, in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is bloody and pointless. What I am advocating is that all of us become very aware of what is being done in violation of the Constitution, to realize that there IS A BETTER WAY, and to use our quiet voices to draw the attention of others who are as effective as we are and collectively use the two things that we have been given to change things: our votes and our pocketbooks. I challenge you to send this on to those whom you know who are thoughful, conscientious, and effective in their thought and action. We should all strive to know what this candidate or that has done before in his life to lessen the size and intrusiveness of the Government on our daily lives, and vote accordingly. We should all pay attention to those corporations who have managed not to succumb to Union labor and reinforce their success by purchasing their goods and services. If enough of us are aware, talking to one another, and making these sorts of responsible decisions, then we can effect change. If we do as I have done since the beginning of the year, and simply hide our light under a bushel, then we will deserve whatever happens to this Republic. I’m calling myself out here, it ain’t an option, it’s a fucking duty. I implore you, all of you, as free men and women, to know what all of this SHOULD look like, according to the document that set forth this Republic.

Unfortunately, none of this is being reported anywhere. Awareness of what our rights are is at an all time low. Apathy and complacency is absolutely fucking rife. I had an educated and otherwise intelligent friend of mine, in the middle of a screaming argument, say to my face a month ago that “the Constitution is an obsolete document”. People are confident in the Government, fed tripe by the media and by Academia to get us to roll over and accept the usurpation of not only our rights, but our only means of redress. Jefferson also said that “Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence…In matters of Power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution”.

(Caution: Those liberals who are well-read will cite the verbiage in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which gives the Federal Government the wherewithal to act for the “general welfare” of the people. Nowhere is “general welfare” specifically delineated, unfortunately. However, James Madison could not have been more clear when he wrote that “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”

“Indefinite Governments” are more commonly known as “Tyrannies”. You could look it up.)

Realizing that there are many out there who will need convincing, I’m here to arm you with the most effective tools to convince these people that the path that we are currently treading is dangerous, slippery, and will end with us all in chains. Therefore, I’d like to link to a few places to go to find alternative views to the tripe being fed to you. A few resources to arm you in your duties here as free men and women against the hosts of the apathetic, ignorant, mis-informed, and complacent.

-To read and pull citations from the founding documents, go here: http://www.consource.org/
-To read the thoughts of Ron Paul, who truly has a very calm and reasoned grasp of what “right should look like” with regards to the size and intrusiveness of the Government, go here and buy his book. Or you can just wait a week for me to finish reading Andy’s copy and come grab it from me at the office.
-To gain an alternative perspective of the various economic systems that are being trotted out as “good”, without backing our currency with gold or silver, and who maintain that government spending is what pulls economies out of depressions, go here. Kick around and pay attention, you’ll learn a ton. I know that I did.

Any who would like to take me to task for anything that appears in the above diatribe is more than free to do so. I welcome the opportunity to use these resources, the Lockean principles, and common sense to convince others that we need to start getting mad.

2) Epilogue. I know this was bereft of the sort of cutting, blatant, and cynical humor that you’ve become accustomed to. That’s simply because I have been sitting here quietly, watching these things go on, and remaining mute. I have a good deal of time on my hands here recently, and so now that I’ve cleared this out of my Bile Duct, I can return my attention to the more mundane, and begin posting vituperative acidity on a much more regular basis. I thank you good people for indulging me in this, and I promise to be back on point in the very near future.


I fall cause I let go
The net below has rot away
So my eyes seek reality
And my fingers seek my veins

The trash fire is warm
But nowhere safe from the storm
And I can't bear to see
What I've let me be
So wicked and worn

So as I write to you
Of what is done and to do
Maybe you'll understand
And won't cry for this man
Cause low man is due
Please forgive me
-Metallica, “Low Man’s Lyric”

Immundus saecula saeculorum,
Uncleanhere

The Threat Posed by the Federal Reserve

My Friends, The modern media, since the advent of 60 minutes, has taken great pains to attempt to concern you about the “oh shit! d’jour”. We’ve been shown that the world is warming, that rogue icebergs are enroute to your home as we speak. We’ve been led to believe that cigarette smoke, high levels of triglycerides, and prolifigate use of the word “fuck” will result in damage to everyone around you, and might just cause the end of the world as we know it. I attempt no such freakout. I wish simply to inform you of something that I have recently become aware of, and rationally and calmly wish to share this knowledge with you. The individuals who appear in the following link make this point far better than I ever could, so I will not waste your time in attempting to restate their argument. I simply wish to provide you with information that may sway you to think of the Constitution, that document that many of us took an oath to defend, and clear one hour out of your schedule to listen to a very reasonable explanation of where we are headed as a nation. I normally would not ask this of you, but I think that the information that you would glean from this video will change how you think in the coming days and months before us. 

https://youtu.be/5K41O2QfpjA 

 I truly appreciate your consideration. 

 Regards, 

Unclean

Thanksgiving Bile

It came to me as I piloted the space ‘tween fully awake and dead sleep the other night. (As does indigestion… as well as most of my flights of epiphany, which are roughly equivalent to indigestion, in a qualitative sense anyway.)

Folks, the seals have all been opened. Seriously. All of them. The End is at hand. The Rapture is nigh. Soon, we’ll have the place to ourselves, by God.

First, the Tampa Rays went to the World Series AFTER winning the AL East.

Second, the Yankees didn’t even make the playoffs, AND George Steinbrenner officially turned over the club to his sons within the same two week period.

Third, the Phillies (the only professional sports franchise to lose more than 10,000 games, for the Love of Christ) won the World Series.

Fourth and most remarkably, the words “National Championship” and “Texas Tech Red Raiders” have collided in the same sentence on several occasions within the past three weeks.

(Yes, yes. Please save the responses that would remind me that they were beaten like frenchmen by the inbred products of the Indian Territories. I watched the game, and now know what the subjects of a live-dissection feel like. This is the main reason why I did not write this missive last weekend, by the way, as I got hideously and morosely drunk after the 42-7 halftime score, but back to my learned discourse.)

Fifth, a former Commandant of the Marine Corps has agreed to be President-elect Obama’s National Security Advisor. With Hillary as SecState. I’d love to be a fly on the wall of those policy discussions…

The fact that all of these things have occurred in such immediate succession has me wearing a tinfoil hat with a loaded shotgun in my lap, most nights. What’s more, due to the crushing irony that surrounds me at every turn, I have been uncertain as to how to continue in this relentless habit of public reflection and analysis that I have taken up since some point in 2001, when Mike and the rest of my Reserve company were sitting in Cuba, and I became the first unemployed active-duty Marine Officer in recorded history.

Do I continue to shout into the forest with regards to the tyranny of the Leviathan and the insipidity of the sheep who continue to suffer the indignity of the domesticate? Do I turn up the volume on the vituperative sarcasm regarding these items, in hopes that it will become even more widely circulated, in the footsteps of H.L. Mencken? Or do I continue as I began, following in the impressive footsteps of Dave Berry, and simply point out the absurdity and confounding simplicity of the human condition?

Or should I just stop making this so Goddamn hard and just drink a lot, while sitting in front of an empty MS Word document, until I impose my will upon it?

I think I’ll do the latter.

Kids, it’s like the “alcoholic” to your “beverage”, the “fore” to your “play”, the “fire” to your “maneuver”, it’s…

Bile
Vol. LII
The New Prohibition and All the News That’s Fit to Print

“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition that he may abuse it.”
-George Washington

1) “Oh! I get it now! So if we levy a tax on bodily fluid expenditure, we can reduce the instances of sex, sports, masturbation, and sneezing!” Sometime in the late 19th century, the United States became settled from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. What followed was a period of urbanization and stabilization in which the forces of “civilization” were to finally take over the chaotic, uncivilized, and dangerous continent that we had finally conquered. This is to say, your Mom became ruler of the entire nation. Wonderful, unruly freedom for that part of the nation that was located west of the Ohio River was replaced with a litany of: “Stop running with those scissors”, “drink your milk slowly”, and “don’t pinch your sister”. This would eventually result in that Edsel of domestic policy: the Constitutional amendment prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, and/or distribution of distilled spirits.

Ever wonder why we evolved as a societal model? Well, I’ll tell ya. It was booze. Seriously. I learned this in Western Civ 1301, by God. One theory that is accepted by historians for the gathering of people into an agrarian collective is the discovery of fermented fruits as an intoxicating agent. As one might expect, this makes sense to me. Why in the hell should I chouse around elk and buffalo when I can settle down in one area and grow stuff that can feed my family the day that I harvest it, and get me shithammered three weeks after I squeeze its fluid into a vessel, add sugar and yeast to it, and bury it underneath yonder tree?

So, contrary to the human nature, these United States of America agreed to stop drinking on 16 Jan 1917. Completely. Like, or “go to jail if ya do”, completely. It was about as well thought-out as snake mittens.

Well, we’re headed back in that direction. Despite the fact that Christ turned water into wine…not the other way around. Despite the fact that grog is the one unifying aspect between every culture except that of the Islamic bent. Despite the fact that it most likely began the entire cycle of human collective interaction. The government doesn’t want you to drink.

I’ll give you a minute to read the article in the above link, and soak this in, as I freshen my drink and chuckle into my glass.

Ready? Okay folks, follow the bouncing ball. Now that you’ve read how alcohol is the driving factor behind untimely death, read this from the Mayo Clinic. I’ll finish my drink as you read…

People, this is fucking insane. I absolutely cannot stand stupidity and shortsightedness of this magnitude. Hands down, the biggest four causes of death in the world are: the application of combined arms, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes…not Drunk Driving, Liver Cirrhosis, or Bar Fights. Heart disease, stroke, and diabetes can be ameliorated by moderate consumption of alcohol. Yet the government is pushing, along with their lapdogs in the media, to reduce or eliminate your ability to consume by increasing the amount of currency necessary to purchase said tonic.

Fact is, our bodies seem to LIKE alcohol. Truly. In the same manner in which our bodies appear to like exfoliants, fiber, and spinach. Unlike spinach, however, alcohol facilitates my ability to sit here and vent my spleen. While moderate consumption of spinach enhances my ability to shit with relative regularity, the moderate consumption of alcohol enhances my mood through turmoil, contributes wildly to the capacity of creativity (name one puritan painter, author, or poet…thank you), and paves the road of societal interaction. Thirty years ago, when we were not so fucking anal retentive, how many “spinach parties” do you remember hearing about? Contrast that number with the number of “cocktail parties” that were thrown during that period.

Consumption of alcohol, in this society, has been viewed as vicious for time immemorial. This is in large part due to the fact that it was once outlawed by Constitutional Fiat. The fact is this: unless you are forced to swear it off due to behavioral considerations, it can actually contribute to a longer and more enjoyable life.

As I read the above argument, one may ask why, in fact, does the government object to moderate tippling? The dealio is this, people: there is a perception of safety and caring on the part of the the government in their concern about your intake of alcohol. It shows that those assholes are “doing something”. The fact that this particular “something” stomps on a right that I have, as a paying customer, to use this legal substance in a responsible manner gets lost in the overarching concern for the plight of those who use this substance irresponsibly.

Don’t think that your mom is running the government in your state? Check this out.

They’re after your right to buy and consume a beer at a reduced price in Massachusetts…

And Delaware…

And Connecticut…

And New Jersey…

Now, you won’t see a headline crying out at the injustice and inhumanity of the tens-of-thousands of tea-totallers who die annually at an early age due to the fact that they would not drink alcohol at all, which may have staved off whatever natural cause ended their trip around this mortal coil. In contrast, you will see report of every single individual who uses this substance in an irresponsible manner, resulting in the death or injury of another. While this is tragic, and is part and parcel of this mortal imperfection, it is not the fault of the substance itself, nor should it be an issue that is considered by the legislature for penalization through taxation or legal fiat. We, as a society, have sought to insulate ourselves against the results of irresponsibility for decades. We’ve tried to ban booze on one occasion, and are well on the way to banning guns. We’ve prohibitively taxed gasoline, although consumption of that resource has yet to be proven as harmful. We are becoming a culture that would rather reduce the access to a given good by way of taxation, in the name of safety, than demand that the individual be responsible in the use of that commodity at market value. I do not revile in the refusal of tea-totallers to imbibe the occasional cordial, as that is their right. However, no individual nor assembly should revile in my responsible consumption of alcohol.

Alcohol is just one area in which the government is hedging into your ability to spend your money or time in the manner that you, as a free human being roaming this planet, wish to do so. Other things on the chopping block: toting a gun (background checks, limits on the ability to buy ammunition in quantity, etc.), smoking a cigarette (taxation), driving a car (taxation), and saving money (taxation and redistribution to a class that will re-elect those who will redistribute). People, you’ve seen the news. We’ve been writing checks that we can’t cash as a nation, despite the amazing creation of wealth. Kick around on this site: http://www.mises.org/.

Ron Paul is right. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve is wrong. Tell a friend.

Actually, it just occurred to me. I’ll out-live all those tea-totaling assholes anyway. So fuck ‘em.

2) Reasons for getting out of bed in the morning…

…is finding shit like this:

a) The Italian Job

Oh my God! Yes! I LOVE YOUR MARINARA SAUCE!

Apparently, in Newcastle, Australia, they love their Italian food. We thoroughly enjoyed the random listing of contraband found in the car. I’ll bet that the Jack Russell Terrier is happy that his owner spent time on the inside. Fucker.

b) “Drop the poultry, lady…”

A North Carolina lady REPRESENTS, by God.

The term “weapons of opportunity” gains a whole new meaning in NC.

c) “Police admit that they have a lead in this case…”

Why everybody gotta be hatin’?

3) Epilogue
I telephoned an excited Wally last night, as I searched for additional material that he had sent me earlier last week which would buttress my argument in section 1 of this Bile. I was in relatively good form at the time of the conversation, and assured him that I would finish this and get it out last night. This was before I started drinking white russians. 2230 rolled around to find Laura standing over my left shoulder, watching me as I slept at my post, hat pulled down, arms folded, snoring.

I awoke at 0630 this morning, in my bed, in an utter panic, as I did not remember exactly how I got there, or if I had sent this, or even if I had finished editing this. I was molified by the fact that “The Bile List” had been lost, when Sean got his revenge on the Adams family for Sarah painting the toes on his right foot bright pink by putting my computer on “system restore”, which summoned the bi-annual return of the Retarded Mexican Mennonites, who immediately wiped my hard drive clean of past information. I spent a goodly portion of today in the reconstruction of said distro. (By the way, I’m sending this in the clear (with all of you on the “TO” line) this one last time. Look up there and see if I missed the inclusion of anyone, and send me a message identifying the fortunate soul who was spared the receipt of this fishwrap. The only one that jumped out at me was J.D. Martin. Eric, please send along his email, assuming that he still wants to receive this shit. I am certain that there are others. Your efforts are appreciated.)

In other news, Sarah has only recently returned from Tibet. Her efforts without the usual support were noteworthy. She did secure the release of Jack Bauer from the Chinese Government, after all. Her return, as well as that of her brother, Joel, were all well received, as all returned to the nest to scavenge…ahem!…um…I mean, partake in the bounty of the tribe during the yearly Thanksgiving feast. I caught several “looks” throughout the weekend, though, which would seem to indicate that something is, indeed, afoot. Whether it be direct action, or information ops, I reckon we’ll all either hang or succeed as part of the same unit, so wish us luck…we’ll need it.


I am just a worthless liar.
I am just an imbecile.
I will only complicate you.
Trust in me, and fall as well.

Immundus, saecula saeculorum,
Unclean

The Von Mises Website

People, in these days of economic doubt and uncertainty, there is a solution. It's not spoken by anyone named Keynes. It's told by a group of men that include Ludwig Von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, and Llewellyn Rockwell. Don't give into the mass hysteria, but check out this:

http://mises.org/

or this:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/

and look around a bit. We can work our way out of this, it is simply up to each of us to know what is true, what is valuable, and what we should think about the world around us. There is a war going on out there for the thoughts of us all. Remain suspicious of all that you read and hear. Believe only those things that you can verify. I remain.

Immunus, ergo sum.
Unclean

Range 410A at night

Background: We at the Tactical Training and Exercise Control Group (TTECG, a.k.a. "Coyotes") have recently added a new wrinkle to our training program: Night runs of a platoon attack at Range 410A. It's a pretty dynamic range, with several active support by fire positions firing at targets that are in close proximity to squads that are closing with those same targets. One of the contractors that works with me, Josh, is something of a skilled amateur cameraman. He took some awesome time-elapse shots. Check this out!

You'll see squiggly, irregular red and white lines throughout these shots. Those are time-elapse traces of Coyotes running with white or red chemlites. The white light down range is provided by 60mm mortar illumination rounds (thank God). I can't express the relief felt by someone controlling one of these things in complete darkness (there was no moon this night), praying that no one has arbitrarily decided to engage a target unsafely or wander into an active gun-target line, when an illum round goes up and you can see everyone and confirm that all is well. I aged several months, the first time we did this. The red streaks are tracer rounds from 7.62 machineguns.

This is one of my favorites. The two elbow-shaped arcs in the background are rounds that have ricocheted before tracer burnout. The flash on the right side is a 60mm mortar illumination round that has landed before burnout.

The green flare denoted that the squad that I was with was about to close with the target.

The blurry red blob in the background is me, standing near the entrance of trench 1 (the aforementioned target), madly waving my red chemlight as I deny fires to the left side of trench 1. The squiggly white lines are the Coyotes at the support by fire position moving their chemlights up and down, giving visual confirmation that they have denied those fires to the shooters that they are controlling. After seeing all the Coyotes in his position waving their chemlights up and down, the Coyote who "owned" that support by fire gave me a radio confirmation that his position was denied, allowing me to continue to the trench.

You can just barely see me standing at the entry point to trench 1 in this picture denying all fires on trench 1 (the mound of dirt on the left, under the red streaks in the background). Yes, those tracers look like they were going over our heads. They weren't. They were about 25 meters to our right. We did this 9 times over a three day period without incident. It is safe, as counter-intuitive as that may sound.

I fuckin' love my job.

Another green pop-up, denoting an immediate push from trench 1 to trench 2.

Suppression to support the push to trench 2. That's just so fuckin' cool.

More fire on trench 2. You really don't appreciate just how much power that one platoon of Marines (36 dudes) with a machinegun section in support (13 dudes with four machineguns) can bring to bear on the enemy until you see it at night. Note that for every red streak you see in these photos, there are 4 rounds that are NOT tracers impacting on those same locations. This is illustrated very effectively here:

Trenches 1 and 2 having been secured, the final squad moved around our left flank, going deep to assault trench 3. As they moved up, we "painted" that the enemy had driven up a couple of vehicles and were engaging them with machineguns on those vehicles (actually they were big HESCO barriers filled with dirt). This allowed that squad to fire on those targets with AT-4 rockets. Of course, they missed (they generally miss with rockets, sad but true), but it makes for a very fine photograph. Josh should win an award for catching this rocket in flight.

Finally, and because I love the abject pose here, indicating complete acceptance of whatever may come, I leave you with a great shot of me getting smoked out while resting between day runs of this range (note the supine driver in the back seat, which is standard conduct for drivers, as they wait for us to get done so they can go back to the shop and get ready for the next day) :

Again, thanks to Josh for the photos.

Great freakin' Movie

Just watched V for Vendetta. Awesome flick. Quote of the movie "We should not fear our government. Our government should fear us". Watch it, I'm serious.

On another note, I plan on chaining myself to this spot until I finish the story of the six day bender/ordeal in Las Vegas. Please stand by.

Unclean

Gears and Closing in Las Vegas, Pt 2

Like lemmings to the edge, we were. Unyielding, undaunted, unable to walk a straight line ten minutes after waking...

Bile
Vol. LI
Gears and Closing in Las Vegas, Part two

The Westin, 1100 or so, Saturday Morning.
I wake up smelling mildly of scotch. Whether it is because I'm emitting the scent from my pores, or because I'd managed to fall asleep with a glass of it on my chest, and rolled over in the mid-morning remains to be seen. Perhaps a little of both, I suspect.

I awake to find my roomate, Mike Griffin, gone. I know him to be a college football fan, and realize that most of the east coast games are currently in progress. I surmise that he's either down at the bar watching football with St. Michael of Ann Arbor, or that I returned from gambling at 0530 and woke him out of a sound sleep in an attempt to interest him in a debate regarding the efficacy of a minimalist government in these modern times, which resulted in his hasty departure in a state of abject frustration. Again, either explanation probably works, and in fact, both probably apply in this situation.

So I awake and spend the first thirty or so minutes of my day in a futile attempt at making the impossibly complicated hotel-room coffee machine work as it was intended. After sticking my head out of the room door and summoning a member of the housekeeping staff who was cleaning the room across the hall, she and I found the problem.

It was unplugged.

A shower and an irished-up cup of coffee later, I feel like I may just actually survive until happy hour. I sail down to the casino bar and find St. Michael, et al, firmly ensconsed and enjoying bloody Marys. I order one, take a sip, and receive a renewed appreciation of the concept of a "Shampoo Drunk".

You know how when you shampoo once, and "repeat" as is demanded on the bottle, it takes less than 1/3 of the amount used in the original treatment to obtain a similar quantity of lather? Well, booze seems to have many of the same properties. Day two of a bender is always a cheap date. Maintaining a buzz in this state is relatively easy, but unfortunately somewhat difficult to control. Much like coming off of an interstate highway, where one travels at speeds of up to 80 m.p.h., it seems like you're standing still when you're going 55 or 60. Likewise, when you've spent the prior night pounding alcohol in an effort to consume it all before it becomes extinct, it is sometimes difficult for the inexperienced to awake from a good drunk and continue to drink without crashing into the mountain before the sun goes down. One must realize a fundamental truth here: drunkeness should be a rather flat sine curve, where x="how long I still have money", and y="how long I am still ambulatory". Unfortunately, many of us think that we are still in our young twenties, where drunkeness was a bell curve, and where x="how much fun am I having?", while y="how much of that have I poured down my neck in the last ten minutes?".

What resulted in those days was inevitably this:

We'd be having a great time. All of us were handsome/beautiful, funny, and charming. Someone would get the wonderful idea that everyone needed to do shots of Jaegermeister, so that we could become exponentially more handsome/beautiful, funny, and charming. Now, this ignores another of my favorite tenets: The Law of Diminishing Returns. This principle maintains that a continual increase in effort or investment does not correspond in a continual increase in output or results. When applied to drinking, we notice that there is a point where a continual increase in volume-consumption stops leading to a corresponding increase in the aforementioned personal characteristics, but rather, a decrease in those characteristics. Unfortunately, we did not discover until our early thirties that the solution to this conundrum is not continued intake of large volumes of alcohol. What happened in those days is that, after the initial shot of Jaegermeister, we would stop exhibiting the ability to speak coherently, move in a bipedal fashion, or continue to concentrate on a single point in space. We felt that the solution to this was that we needed more booze. Predictable outcomes were in evidence. Thus, I can never return to that bar on Broadway and Ave X in Lubbock, where I projectile vomited, with my hand held firmly over my mouth, as I ran down the plush spiral staircase towards the front door and my good friend's pick-up truck. (Giving new meaning to the phrase "Let's paint the town red!")

Adult boozing is knowing one's limits, and understanding when it is acceptable to cross them without incurring corresponding damage to one's reputation as a man. When we were young, "being a man" suggested a psychotic willingness to drink until one was comatose. Friends, we ain't young anymore. "Being a man" means knowing where the line is between "buzzed" and "fucked up", and then riding that line like Tony fucking Hawk. Many of you may be frankly surprised to hear me characterize drunkeness in such responsible terms. I submit that you can't do what I've done to my liver since the late-80's without becoming a little smarter about how you go about doing it. I've told my Marines for years that the new-puritanism that is being forced down our throats is wrong, that a man CAN imbibe and still retain his judgement, that being a true Marine is just that, in fact. The challenge isn't how stupid you can be after downing a fifth of something that could take the paint off of a ship in one draught. The challenge is how long you can go while enjoying the finer things...a good bourbon, a fine steak, a good band, a fine martini, etc...without losing the ability to appreciate these things. To me, a good bender is not me tromping, weaving, and stumbling about for hours without end. A good bender is me enjoying as many of these good things as I can, with minimal sleep. "Being a man" equates to ENJOYING the finer things, not simply CONSUMING them.

Back to my learned discourse.

So I sip into this bloody mary for a reasonable amount of time (side note: Absolut Pepper makes fantastic bloody Marys). At some point in that milieu of football and conversation, we decide to go to the legendary dive in Vegas known as the "Double Down". We quickly assemble, catch a cab, and become motile.

The Double Down Saloon, Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1600.
A quick note about the Double Down Saloon: until sometime in the 1990's, this bar did not show football on the TVs surrounding the bar. Not NASCAR. Not Music Videos. The Double Down only showed midget porn, for twenty four hours a day, for seven days a week. I knew this coming in, by the way.

We pull up in the cab and find a single motorcycle in the parking lot. Most of us thought it was closed. I pulled on the door, surprised to find it open, and we entered. What a great fucking place! There was nothing on the jukebox but punk rock, most of which I'd never heard of. While the bartender looked as if he could bench-press a small church, and growled like a starving pit bull, he seemed pacified by chewing on an ashtray, after serving us. I laid five on the bar for a two dollar beer. I waited for change. The bartender put my change down and actually sniffed as he lowered his head. That's called a three dollar tip.

The TVs had college ball on (damn, no midget porn!), and they were having a special on Pabst Blue Ribbon in the longneck variety. ("Goes down like candy", I've been informed.) My kinda fuckin' place, by God! Griff quickly put fifty dollars in the juke and flatly refused to leave until he heard his last song. I played a few games of billiards, until I recognized that I had the fine motor skills of a three-toed sloth. We maintained pretty well, but you could just tell on every face that each one of us wanted to stick around all night and just howl at the fuckin' moon. I think each one of us said, at some point in the hour or so that we spent there, that "man, I'll bet this place is fucking sick after about eight o'clock." To which the bartender would nod.

We left about 1700 or 1730. Off for the Hard Rock Casino.

Before leaving, we found Clubber's sainted cousin, Augusta, in the midst of this bender. Promised by Clubber that she'd find a bunch of fun and exciting Marines to hang around with for the evening, the lady found a bunch of former Marine Officers who were as boring as saltine crackers and drunker than Otis on The Andy Griffith Show. Despite her disappointment, Augusta proved able to needle us as was appropriate, was outrageously funny, and was accepted as a member of SCAM-D by the end of the evening.

The Hard Rock Casino, at some point in the late afternoon
Buzz maintenance is difficult when you're surrounded by Eric Martin. Eric is one of the few men that succeeds in surrounding an individual. He's large. He's aggressive. He drinks a lot of beer. He moves constantly. Looking at my cell text messages just now, I've got like five messages just from the few hours that we were at the Hard Rock. "We're over at the Restaurant". "We're at the Circle Bar". "WTFRU". "We've moved to the CP bar." It was exhausting.

We did find a great restaurant that had a great Saturday special on Steak and Shrimp for $7.77, and ate in good company. I paused to have an extended cell phone conversation, and when I rejoined the group, I found half of them gone. Asking what had happened to them, I received another text from Eric: "I'm down with Pink Taco" (very freudian, I may add). So over we went, after much drunken wandering, looking for the right route, to a bar with the unfortunate name of "The Pink Taco". When we found them, I lit up a camel and was taken to task by the bartender that it was "against the law of the state of Nevada for [me] to smoke that". I was shocked: 1) I didn't know that Nevada actually had laws; 2) I had no idea that there was a place in this state besides the airport and hospitals where you COULDN'T smoke. I made a snide comment to Eric, and walked out to the bar across the hallway to finish my smoke. When I returned, I attempted to order another Sam Adams. Apparently, they don't have those either, at the Pink Taco.

We left soon after.

Napoleon's Piano Bar, The Paris, sometime in the late evening.

Following almost an hour spent wandering Bally's/The Paris, with the only noteworthy event being my loss of a hundred bones on three tens at the Bally's poker room (to a set of jacks, for the love of God), we found a great bar. Of course, there's a non-smoking concourse that leads up to the door of the place, but I've come to expect this.

Great fuckin' place. Good music. Comfortable seating. Competent wait staff. We procede to drink even more. Augusta, God bless her, managed to find an excuse to ditch a bunch of old men about 0100. Griff, St. Michael, Craig, Clubber, Eric, and myself maintained and continued. About 0130, St. Michael checks out to make a head call. We maintain conversation in his absence. About five minutes later, I get a phone call. Puzzled at the fact that the caller ID said "St. Michael", a man who, until five minutes ago, had been by my side for the past 12 hours, I answered: "Unclean"

"Hey, it's Mike. I went to the bathroom, and someone locked me in here. Come let me out."

Suddenly, I'm on my feet. Walking down the fifty yards to the bathroom on the concourse between The Paris and Bally's. Walking into the Men's room. Looking everywhere. Nobody. I walk around and look under the stalls. Nothing. "Hey Mike, I'm in here. I don't see anything."

"Well, I'm locked in here. Find me."

I see a locked janitor's closet in the back, and walk up to it. "Okay, I think I understand. Knock on the door where you are."

[faint knock, knock, knock]

"Hmmm. Well Mike, you're not where I am, but I can hear you. Hold on"

I walk out into the hallway, between the Men's and Women's rooms. "Okay," I say, "try again."

[clearer knock, knock, knock]

"Mike, are you sure that you're in the Men's room?"

[Like he's talking to a bright but unfortunately addled child] "Of course I'm sure, Larry! I just used the bathroom, turned to get out, and THEY LOCKED THE DOOR ON ME!"

"Alright, alright Mike. I'm on the motherfucker. Just give me a second," I say, grinning as I begin to understand. I walk to the entrance of the Women's room..."Okay Mike, knock one more time."

[BANG, BANG, BANG]

"Okay Mike, gimme a sec. I think I've found you."

And so I walk through the open Women's room door, make a hard right, and find my good friend. He was standing at the back of the room, between two rows of stalls (note: not a single urinal in sight) with his left hand leaning against the top of the locked janitor's closet, and his right hand holding his cell phone to his ear. Thank God, not a single woman was present, cowering in her stall as Mike hammered at the janitor's door. I close my phone.

"Mike," I say, sticking the phone in my pocket.

Mike slowly turns, hanging up his phone, his face defining the term "rueful".

Smiling from ear to ear, standing in a Women's room, in The Paris Casino, on the Strip, on a Saturday night, I look up at my friend...

"Hey Mike, I think I found the way out."

Unclean

Bile Turns 50!

No Intro, no chaser. Neat. Some liquors are too fine to be cut with ice, water, or other fillers. Like that, it is...

Bile
Vol. L
Gears and Closing in Las Vegas, Part one.

It seems somehow fitting, relevant, and somewhat satisfying that the 50th volume of this vituperative collection of barely coherent rantings comes on the heels of one of the most fucked up benders that I've ever been on. It seems, my friends that last weekend marked the festival of drunkeness that is an annual tradition of that most august of organizations that was known, until recently, as the Southern California Association of Marine Drunkards (SCAM-D). For those of you who have recently tuned into this freakshow, there's about 10-20 of us who are all loosely affiliated with either the Marine Corps, the U.S. Military, St. Michael of Ann Arbor, or being able to stay awake, despite downing a fifth of decent gin, for 96 consecutive hours. (In many cases, all four affiliations apply. Void in Utah.) It seems that this intrepid body invades a different city every year, in the late summer, to meet, eat a decent meal, carouse for a couple of days, and take nourishment from a bottle until it's time to sober up for the flight home. Over the past several years, we have descended upon Las Vegas, New Orleans, Chicago, our Nation's Capitol, some town in Canada, and new york city (we skipped a year, due to the fact that most of us were deployed in 2004). Due only in part to my howling objections that this had become an east coast-centric gathering, my bretheren agreed this year to meet again in the esteemed city of Las Vegas. I was particularly looking forward to this because I could drive to that locale, thus saving untold hundreds of dollars in air-fare, so that I could drink and gamble on the difference.

And so I threw a bag in my truck on Friday morning, stopped by the liquor store for hotel-room pre-flight booze and purchased a fifth of Dalmore, a fifth of Basil Hayden's, and a carton of cigarettes, and departed Twentynine Palms. A cool and clear morning it was. Imagine my satisfaction as I drove down Amboy Road and looked to my left to watch my Coyotes from 20 km away, as they controlled India 3/8's running of Range 400, while I absconded to Sin City for what would prove to be a Thompson-esque bender.

Bwahahaha.

The world was my oyster. My truck handled nimbly. The playlist on my MP3 player...perfect. I howled across the desert, looking forward to watching Eric get 86'd from the hotel pool (this happened...before 1630 on Friday), looking forward to arguing with St. Michael about...something, looking forward to not drawing a sober breath from my arrival until sometime Sunday afternoon (which would roughly align with checkout time).

I made Amboy in record time. I then hooked a left on Kelso Road and began nimbly making my way towards I-40. Laughing all the way. I started uphill after going under the 40, and got most of the way uphill going 65 m.p.h. when it happened. With no discernable warning, my tachometer went into the red, and I lost all power to my drive-train. Desperate, I downshifted into 4th gear and clawed back into cruising speed. Once there, I attempted to again shift into 5th...

...Nothing.

Fuck.

Okay. Good News: we're still moving forward. Bad News: we've lost 5th gear.

I uttered a string of curse words that should have been recorded for their cunning, profanity, and duration.

About the time I said "fuck" for the last time, I neared the railroad station that has been arbitrarily set at the hamlet of Kelso, California. All that is entailed here for the skillful driver is a downshift into 3rd for a small boost around a gentle bend which grants one access to a road that parallels the railroad tracks all the way to another shit-splat called Cima, California--thirty or so miles distant. I'm praying for another gear, thinking "Just give me 2nd and 4th, and I can drive to Greenland, by God." Here comes the turn...

...clutch...

...3rd...

...let it out...

Nothing.

Fuck.

Okay. Let's try 2nd...

...nope.

Fuck.

So, to sum up: no 2nd gear, no 3rd gear, no 5th gear. Probably, no 1st gear (but I won't know until I stop, so let's not attempt that just now).

But we're still moving forward. Which is good, given the alternative, which entailed being stuck with a vehicle in the middle of the largest desert in the United States. Grateful for what I had, I continued to push, by God. Now, one would say, "how the hell did you propose to get there in 4th gear?" Well, I'll tell ya. I knew that, by that point, I had to worry about three intersections to safely get myself to sanctuary: the Y-intersection at Cima, California; the on-ramp onto I-15; and the off-ramp onto Flamingo Blvd in Vegas. After that, I figgered, I could drop into a parking lot, call a tow to a garage, and fix whatever needed to be fixed. The fact that I did not have to pay air-fare, and thus "save money to drink and gamble", and the irony that I now WISHED that I could have flown into Vegas is not fucking lost on me, people...

So I get to Cima. Imagine, for those of you who have not driven this route, a Y-intersection that is less than fifty meters after a railroad trestle. Now imagine a desperate man in a truck, who, like Keanu Reeves in Speed, cannot slow down past a certain speed and retain forward movement. Now imagine that same man slowing to 30 m.p.h. in front of the 15-degree embankment at the railroad trestle at Cima, before letting out the clutch in 4th and actually catching air, while waiting to land, and clutch, in order to make the Y that would take that man to the interstate...

"YAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

I caught the Y at Cima at a tame 30, gently let out the clutch, cut the corner through the incoming lane, and found myself facing the 15 with enough torque to make it back to cruising speed...

Wow. Two more intersections.

So I'm cruising up whatever-the-fuck-they-call-that Road between Cima and the 15. Hares and slow moving tumbleweeds avoiding the right of way like the plague. I ain't stopping, and I ain't slowin' down. I come upon a smart looking sedan about the time the National Park ends and reality begins.

Brake Lights.

What the fuck?

This domesticated idiot almost came to a stop in front of a cattle guard.

I heel over into the left lane, identifying no oncoming traffic in the other lane (thank God), blaring my horn, and brandishing the second finger on my right hand to the affected dipshit who seemed momentarily confused by the parallel metal bars crossing the road. The fact that this guy figured that a cattle guard comprised a counter-mobility obstacle to the right of way, on a state fucking highway, has been burned into my memory. I'll bet that asshole uses his elbow to hit the paper-towel dispenser in public bathrooms. Shithead.

Anywho, I make it to Interstate 15, praying that no similar citified morons are in evidence, and find to my delight that the intersection is easily transversed at 30 m.p.h. After taking the easy right hand turn off of Cima Road, I hit the 15 at 60 m.p.h. Two down, one to go. And it is a lonnnnnnnnnnnng way to the next one.

Any mortal that has driven the route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas knows that the speed limit is 70, that 75 is optimal, and that 90 is optional. So, there I was, in 4th, going 60-65 m.p.h, and pulling 2500 r.p.m. on the tach without an appreciable increase in engine temperature. And getting passed like the world was standing still. It. Took. Forever.

Finally, I hit the Vegas city limits. I'm churning through the possibilities. I called Eric and gave him a warning order that, once I stopped, I'd need a ride and a tow. He said that he'd be waiting. Okay. That's solved, at least I'll have some ability to get around once I hit the city limits...and I keep pushing.

Now at this point, what I'm looking for is an off-ramp with parking lot on a right hand turn, before a traffic-light. People, that animal does not exist on the southern end of Las Vegas. Everything is an incline to get off the interstate, with a light on the intersection. So I drive on...

...all the way to the street that my hotel is on: Flamingo Blvd. I take the exit, relying on skill and cunning to make the right off the interstate. Magically, as I come to the intersection, I get a green light! Booyah!

Okay. So here I am on the Strip. Can't stop until I find a parking lot, or my hotel. I'm at the Westin, which is about five blocks away from the interstate, past Las Vegas Blvd. It is time for maneuver warfare/Sun Tzu if I've ever seen it. I became water flowing downhill. Looking down Flamingo (the left two lanes) I see traffic backed up from three blocks away. However, Las Vegas Blvd has access at that point in the two right lanes, and that light is green...

...I'm so there.

So I'm heading away from my destination (which sat at the corner of Flamingo and Koval), with an interstate on my right, and can't stop. This means that I have to find either a parking lot on my right, or a green left arrow at any intersection. I stayed in the middle lane to be better suited to make a move in either eventuality. A green arrow popped in my face at Harmon. I took it. Another magically popped up at Koval. Booyah. So I'm going north on Koval, in the middle lane looking for parking lots and left arrows. BOOM. Just before Koval and Flamingo, I see the arrow turn green.

Problem: there's a cab on my port quarter, and he didn't look like he wanted to let me in. I'm at 25 m.p.h. and de-accelerating, so I popped on the blinker, started waving out the open driver's side window and singing "My Baby LEFT Me"... and whipped into the turning lane with about three inches' grace on either side (between me, the cab, and the car slowing down in front of me). I'm at 15 m.p.h. now, so I wind it up to about 4k and let out the clutch. The clutch burned, but quickly shook it off, and I skidded through the intersection under a red light, "hic-hic-hic"ing my rear end as I did. The entrance to the Westin parking lot was a bare 150 feet from that intersection, so I stood on the brakes, heeled a right, sailed to the back row of parking (mercifully empty), and slid into a slot in open-parking.

My soul cried out as my faithful truck shuddered to its final halt, like Elwood Blues' car did in the last scene of the Blues Brothers as they arrived at the Cook County Assessor's office. I took a moment to carress the dashboard and the gearshift, 'ere I exited her familiar confines...

Pulled luggage, ball caps, and whiskey bottles. Called Eric. "Hey Man. By some fuckin' miracle, I made it here without stopping," I told him.

"Really?" he said. "I'll be damned," He added. "Me and Clubber'll be up at the pool."

I traipsed into the Westin, then. Found the Concierge. Walked up, and with a straight face, said: "Ma'am, I need the number for someone who can fix my transmission."

I could have kissed this young lady when she did not blink, but simply asked me: "Do you have a place in mind, or are you just looking for something close?" Vegas is feral, by God.

So, that information having been obtained, I found my friends. Eric and Clubber were still preparing for their jaunt to the hotel pool. I reckon they had a better part of a case of assorted beer iced in a plastic bag-within a laundry bag. We all shook hands, and I started making calls to find a guy to tow/fix my truck, while they sailed off to the pool. After talking to a transmission shop, I called the tow company that serviced his garage, gave an address, and worked out a link up plan.

Forty-five minutes later, Brad Pitt's character in True Romance drove a tow truck into the Westin Hotel parking lot in Las Vegas, Nevada. He said that he dug the fact that I was a Marine from 29, and would put a good word in for me with Raymond, the Portuguese mechanic who was to be in charge of the repairs. I wished him a good weekend, and repaired to the tenth floor to crack that bottle of Basil Hayden's and see how much I could knock out of the neck of that thing before the rest of the heathens arrived...

I think I was on my third sip when Eric showed back up. Yup, 86'd outta the pool. No shit. In less than an hour, he got a towel, sat down, and cracked a beer before the towel collector-guy (AKA: "the Westin Cabana Boy") came up and discovered that Eric and Clubber had smuggled in the better part of a liquor store. "You can't have all that in here!", said Cabana Boy. "I shoulda realized they would be that sensitive, seein' as how they have a bar up there," said Eric after he was ejected.

All going according to plan so far, by God.

I'm afoot.

Eric's been 86'd before sundown.

Mike Griffin and Mike Cochran aren't even there yet.

I repaired to the bar on the casino floor, due to the fact that we've booked in the only smoke-free hotel in Nevada. (This is a trend, please stand by.) I walked up with a bourbon in my hand that was clearly in a glass that was of a style unique to the rooms. The bartender gave me the stink-eye as he asked me if he could get me an eight-dollar drink. I respectfully declined. He frowned at my glass. I looked him in the eye and said, as I put two dollars on the bar, "Look pal, you won't let me smoke anywhere else in this place. This is less of a bar than it is a designated smoking area. Thanks for your time." He winked knowingly and left me to my own devices.

Thus began something of a rotation that afternoon, as we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive. Buy a three dollar beer, finish it, then excuse myself, hit the elevator, go to the room and fill a glass, hit the ice machine for a handfull of cubes on my way to the elevator, and go back and watch the Cubs' game. I did two complete cycles of this before Mike Griffin and Mike Cochran arrived. We all linked up with Craig Wilson, who'd been there waiting since March sometime, and set out for a really good Italian spot that I can't remember the name of, except they do a great sausage/ziti combo and they're on Flamingo across from Bally's, next to a liquor store that is protected by skinheads.

Following the meal, we gambled at a place called Bill's across from Bally's, and eventually at a dive called "Ellis Island" which is on Koval next to where I almost mauled the taxi driver. I played decent blackjack, despite the fact that Clubber insisted on hitting sixes on the dealer's five, until he gave up and succumbed to sleep. I remained at Ellis for another hour, found the bar back at the Westin, and watched the sun rise.

Slept four hours, hit Holy Bloody Mary, and started it up again...

Day one, people. Not bad. Stranded, in Vegas, with a purpose...

Immundus saecula saeculorum,
Unclean