Two kinds of crazy............

Some people you can take one look at and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are as crazy as a shit house rat.

 

I rest my case.





Meet Meredith Lowell, 27, of Cleveland Heights. She is an animal rights activist, Her convictions, like her Patchouli oil, are strong. She believes that freeing animals from fur farms, medical labs, zoo's, your back yard, is not unlike the freeing of the Jews from concentration camps. Meredith started a face book page to solicit a hit man, or woman to shoot or slit the throat of a fur wearer. Said fur wearer needed to be at least 13, preferably 14 or older. I think the age limit has less to do with killing a kid, and more to do with the fact that a 12 year old might not leave a big enough mess when they bled out.  Her plan was to be in the area when the killing took place, then she would pass out leaflets until the cops hauled her ass away to the booby hatch.  Meredith  hoped to be arrested so she could call attention to her beliefs and to get out of the home she shared with her parents and brothers who eat meat and eggs and use fur, leather and wool, investigators said. Apparently her convictions were strong, but her motivation to get a fucking job and move out on her own were not.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have this guy.

I rest my case, again.

 Rep. Bob Morris, a Republican representing Fort Wayne. Morris is raising a ruckus over the Girl Scouts, because their agenda is promoting communism, lesbianism and subverting "traditional American family values," .  Apparently Planned Parenthood is in cahoots with the Girl Scouts to turn all the little darlins into Canyon Yodelers and Feminazis. I'm not sure why PP is involved with the Girl Scouts, but I'm guessing they are spiking those overpriced cookies with Ru480 and estrogen. Which explains why I have started to develop man breasts and spend lots of time at Camp Lickasnatchee. Which is Indian for, "If I was a dinosaur I'd be a lickalottapuss". And by Indian I mean Casino Indian not 7/11 Indian.

I'd pay cash money to sit in on a debate between Meredith and Bob. I'm pretty sure it would turn bad about the time Bob started quoting his family values dogma, and Meredith bit his face  off for wearing leather wing tips.

Before you smug libs think you got away clean, lets talk about Maxine Waters.

Maxine hates white folks, alot. If you are a conservative cracker, then you are especially vile in Maxines world.   "I saw pictures of Boehner and Cantor on our screens," she said at a Democratic Party event in California, referring to screens at the events. "Don't ever let me see again, in life, those Republicans in our hall, on our screens, talking about anything. These are demons. These are legislators who are destroying this country."  Maxine, who is under ethics investigations, but only because she is a strong black woman, has built her career around saying outlandish and inflammatory, racist shit. If you think this woman is sane, you're crazier than she is.

My point, and I actually have one............. There are two kinds of crazy. Meredith is typical crazy. A loner, slipping under the radar, with her fucked up ideology until she does something stupid like try to hire a killer through facebook.  Bob and Maxine would also fall into that category except for one important detail.  The last two nimrods have a voice beyond crazy ramblings on facebook, or Myspace, heh. The reason Bob and Maxine have a voice is because the morons in their particular districts voted them into office. Maxine, more than once. That shit is scarier than a whole busload of tofu eating, cardboard shoe wearing, hippy activists.

The fact that there are people who have twisted, fucked up as a soup sandwich ideology and beliefs is nothing new or surprising. What is surprising and more than a little disturbing, is that there are enough like minded  slack jawed doofus voters to put these clowns in office. The people of each party who are supposed to be normal, love to point out the crazy on the other side, while ignoring the crazy within their own party.  Which is why I will be leaving the country for Amsterdam, as soon as I can get off that no fly list from the time I cussed out the Expedia customer service rep  in India. Which was a total bullshit call from the TSA given the fact that the dude clearly couldn't understand English. 

the Double M manifesto to the 14 year old troll living in our house

Most if not all of you rubes are unaware that my girlfriends 14 year old lives with us.  She has decided it's time to test the waters in the the Sea of Boundaries. I won't get into the details of her recent escapades. Suffice to say she is still as pure as the undriven snow when compared to my 14 year old, juvenile delinquent self. I'm no doctor Spock. But my love is as tough as a 2 buck steak from Aldis.  When she arrives from her hiatus from Never Never Land where no is a 4 letter word, or as she likes to call it, Dads house, she will be greeted with a pristine room and the following Manifesto. .................................................................................................
                  .................................................................................................

We took a picture of your room, so you can remember how everything needs to go back in it’s place, no later than 10 PM…. That’s 10 at night just in case you were wondering.

Listed below are the new and improved rules and guidelines. You are expected to follow these rules and guidelines. Failing to do so will result in your losing

EVERYTHING !!!

Everything is defined as but not limited to the following.

TV

Phone

Computer

X box

Nintendo

PS2 3. Etc.

I POD

The I POD you either lost, traded for dope, or sold. The I POD probably isn’t important since you won’t be getting another one until you pay 350.00 for the one you allegedly LOST. Should you trick someone into buying you one, it will be confiscated by management until you come clean about what happened to the last one.

CONTRABAND

Contraband is defined as anything you are not supposed to be in possession of. You can review the list above as the penalties for contraband are the same. The only difference is you loose your door and gain a dog gate if any of the following is found in your room or person.

Drugs

Weed

Cigs

Booze

Weapons

Lighters

Guns

1. Room must be clean by 10 each night.

Clean means free of juice boxes, straw wrappers, trash, etc. See the picture. No clothes floor. Etc.

2. NO FOOD ALLOWED IN ROOM.

No plates, candy, chips, nothing.

We are not trying to start an ant and roach farm. The NO FOOD rule will be reviewed on a monthly basis. Keep your room clean and free of trash and debris and we may relax this rule.

3. Home Work… Must be started at 530 pm. No x box, computer, TV or non existent I pod allowed after 530 until home work is done. If you do not have home work, bring a text book from one of the multitude of classes you are currently failing and we will give you home work. All home work must be viewed by one of the management team.

ATTITUDE

We get it, you’re 14. It’s a part of your DNA to act like you hate us, unless you want something. We’re okay with that, we get it. What we wont play is the tired old “ I’m a disrespectful angry nimrod game”. You are well within your constitutional rights to act all angsty, dark, and moody. You could argue it is a free speech issue that allows you to treat those who pay your way in life, as if they were here to serve you. Unfortunately, this is not a democratic household. It is a dictatorship. We don’t care about your constitutional rights. Check the news, read up on Syria. We will squash your rebellion, like so many rock throwing middle easterners. If you actually kept up on current events, you would realize just how funny that last line was.





We have bent over backwards to give you a nice home, food, an unending supply of 30 dollar black t shirts with stupid band names like “ The Bitter Sphincters or Drucillas Venereal Warts”. If children in a third world country had a tenth of the shit you have, they would either try to eat it, or trade it for a skinny goat.

You have betrayed our trust, disrespected our property, disregarded our rules, and mistaken our kindness for weakness. Those days are but a fleeting memory. You will comply with our rules and expectations, or face dire consequences. You will treat your mother with respect and show a little appreciation, rather than acting like a self entitled spoiled brat.

Do as you are told, follow your rules, and you can expect things to get back to normal in short time, once your grades have reached at least a C, no C-, a C, or higher. Buck the system, fight the power, rage against the machine, and you shall think a ton of brick hath fallen upon you.

Not Hardly Bullshittin

The Management

Mom and Mark.

PS You may get a break once a week when you go to your fathers, but I’d neither count on it or expect it. He’s got your number now as well. Your welcome.

PSS We realize the above text has made you none to pleased. Too bad. You have repeatedly pissed in your Corn Flakes, don’t blame us if they are soggy. We would prefer to be able to trust you to do the right thing at least half the time. We can’t. Until we can, until your grades are up to par, Camp Happy is closed. SHU program. 23 hour lock down. King Kong aint got shit on us.

We still love ya, just tired of the bullshit. It ends today.

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Note to readers.  Thanks for your outpouring of condolences over the loss of Max. 

Max 2001 to 2012 A real world shaker......

This morning, a little after nine, the world became a little less bright. Max the Yorkie slipped this mortal coil. I wanted to write this while the loss was raw, the wounds fresh, my ego and machismo momentarily absent. Max deserved an honest eulogy, and that's what I intend to give him now. 

Max came to me through a former girlfriend back in 2001.  He was  with me from his birth to his death, just shy of 11 years. 4.5 pounds of hair, piss, vinegar, and a heart that knew no fear. For all his heart and undying loyalty, in the end it was a bum pair of kidneys that finally got the best of him. I knew it was coming.  Friday I knew for certain, but I couldn't bring myself to make the short trip to the vet. I needed to be sure and I needed to finish saying goodbye. He ate rib eye steak all weekend, slept in my lap, and looked at me through his dark little eyes, in my mind telling me he would wait until I was ready. So it was with a heavy heart that we took that last ride together this morning. In the end, at that instant prior to drifting away, he was brave and calm. I was neither. The same vet who managed to bring Max back from the brink of death a year or so previous, was the same who helped me do what had to be done.

You have to know the type of person I was when I was released from prison back in 2000, to understand the real impact that little dog had on me. A career criminal, morally bankrupt, self serving, unable to rise above childhood scars and a misguided anger at the world. The first few years I was out, even at the inception of this blog, there were times I almost fell back into my old ways. A series of low  paying, back breaking jobs that I was lucky to have. The knowledge that I could hustle more money in a few hours than I'd earn honestly in a year, was a temptation that I faced on a daily basis.  The fear of dying old and alone in prison is a convict and criminals worst fear. It's like the fear square world people have of dying old and alone in a nursing home, surrounded by strangers, fluorescent lighting, and an institutional smell constantly in the air.  But that fear isn't always enough to keep a guy like me from back sliding.  While that fear was a big part of my turn around, it was Max that probably kept my mind right. Those first few years I had built such an attachment to him, there was no way I'd risk being separated from him. So I swallowed my misplaced pride and inflated ego. Eventually I started to fit in. I found a voice that a few hundred people a day bothered to read.  In the end, you can credit a 4.5 pound Yorkie for doing what 30 years of social workers, institutions, prisons, judges, police and parole officers could not do.

Winter days are short, night envelopes me as I pull  in front of our house after work every evening. Warm light glows through the frosted glass of a bay window.  My girlfriend, soon to be wife, is often there to greet me, if she isn't at work. It's home, a normal  home, something I lacked most of my adult life.  You can see the shadows of 3 dogs in that bay window back lit by the light inside.  A large shadow, a smaller shadow, then one yet smaller still. Max would wait in that window until he heard my key slide in the lock of the front door. As the door opened, he was always, always, right there waiting. I'm dreading that first night when I pull up out front, 2 shadows waiting, the smallest one no longer there, leaving an empty space which can never be filled. I loved that little dog.

I'll miss ya Max.

The fading and forgotten.

I'm working on putting together a series on some of the dead and dying rural areas around Missouri. My problem is time, I don't have enough of it.  I've always loved documentng the dead and dying areas of this city. I'm going to get back to that in the near future. I'm finding more than a few dead and dying places in my rural travels across the northern part of the state. I'm working on covering these as well.  I did find one place on the edge of the city that is about to become another suburban stuccoed McStrip mall.  I've been meaning to look around the property for years now. This past weekend I drove out there only to find that some of the buildings have been bulldozed. I snapped a few shots. I'll be going back this weekend and I'll write more on it then. For now, here's just a teaser of that place and a few  of the dead and dying areas I'll be covering later.

This place has been abandoned for a long long time, over a decade. It's as if the occupants left one day and forgot to come back. Forgot to take anything with them.

The roof and second floor is falling in. The house and outbuildings are filled with probably 100 grand in antiques. Or I should say, they were once filled with 100 grand in antique furniture. Not a single piece is worth a dime now. Vandals and time have exacted a heavy toll. Now it's just crumbling, rotting, someones once elegant surroundings gone to seed. I'll get more up tomorrow.

The number of towns dying on the vine to our north is astounding. More on those tomorrow.

Uncle Ed is Dead.

I wasn't going to write about the recent news of Ed (Uncle Ed) Muscare's death. He died in prison. I'd be lying if  I said  the news didn't give me a moments pause, a twinge of guilt even. Don't get me twisted, the twinge of guilt came not from the fact that an aged convicted pedophile died in prison, that's as good a place as any. The twinge of guilt was the realization that I ratted someone out.  Since I was a kid, I never ratted anyone out. It went against my grain. That said, and as unfortunate as the ending is, I think it's probably one of the few selfless, decent, albeit accidental  acts Ive ever been guilty of. 

Here's a quick primer for those of you who aren't familiar with Muscare.  Ed Muscare was a local KC TV personality. He had a children's program and he did the late night fright movie on Friday nights, back when Me and Jesus were in short pants. So Ed moves away, catches a beef for sexual battery on a child. He does a stretch, gets out. He moves without notifying his parole officer, catches yet another beef. He moves again , no notice, fails to register, he goes away again. He gets out and starts posting creepy shit on YouTube. I wrote a post, website Fark picks it up. It goes viral. The majority of his YouTube subscribers are kids, teenagers. Turns out, Uncle Ed isn't supposed to have Internet, and especially Internet interaction with kids. He gets a nickle. He died in prison a few days ago. I played a tiny role in his last conviction. I didn't go all Simon Wiesenthal on his ass. I didn't lurk in the bushes doing surveillance. I just dropped the dime that started the ball rolling. This link goes to all or most of my posts on Ed Muscare.   The MM / Ed Muscare saga.  

Look, I was pretty candid about my childhood run in with a similar version of Muscare. Kids getting molested is nothing new. It isn't rare.  If your lucky, you move on with a few scars and fucked up memories. If you are unlucky, it rules the rest of your life. I mostly moved on .Other than a few nights, deep in a bottle when I almost paid an old freak a wake up visit, I moved on. There was nothing unique about my story, or Ed's victims story, or any of those before or after. The storyline is always, always, always the same. It ends bad for the kid. It can never end badly enough for the Pedo. I can't tell you the number of emails I got from Ed's fan base. Whatever he did, it didn't matter. He did his time. I was a prick, a dick, and several variations of mother fuckers.  I also got several emails from a couple of different people who claimed they had fallen victim to Ed or someone like him. I don't have the time or inclination to look into those claims. That said, it's pretty rare for someone to get caught right out of the gate, first time.

There are different levels of crime. All of them are wrong headed, bad, anti social things. I get it. We all get it. Some crimes, most crimes, you can find a way back to the light. One serious brush with the law is enough for most people. Some like me, the slow and dull witted, it takes longer, half a lifetime. But eventually, you can fit back in with the world. Your past never goes away, it pops up in job interviews, background checks, the routine traffic stop that results in your prior felony alert pinging in the cops radio. I'd been out for about a year when I got pulled over for having a brake light out. Some country cop in Drexel Mo. He had me face down on a gravel road while he tossed my car. Nothing to find. A condition of my federal parole, submit to all searches by the police. It's part of the price you pay.  Your past never goes away, but it fades and dims with time.


You steal, lie, put your hands on someone in anger, a million crimes, you can eventually see them fade, dim with time. Ed wasn't guilty of one of those. He fell into the category of crimes and horrific shit you should never do. Child molesters, rapists, people who kill for pleasure or profit, those are the crimes that never really end. The gift curse that keeps on giving.   For every person who understands that, there are dozens of  slack jawed morons, who, just, don't, get it. Ironically, they also make the best victims.  Go figure.