How evil are you??

Take the quiz, and let me know just how evil you are. . .I hit 40%. And, yeah, I did answer truthfully...

You Are 40% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well. In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

How Evil Are You?

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Nearly catatonic President soils pants following voodoo doll disclosure - White House terrorist charged with littering

Litterbug leads to President's sedation

A man who lobbed a paper bag onto the White House lawn yesterday is in custody, according to the Secret Service. A suspicious package, spotted shortly after President Bush left on a helicopter trip to Wheeling, W.Va, was examined using a remote-controlled device.

"Normal security protocols were in place," a Homeland Security told All This Is That. "Nothing in the bag was dangerous per se. B ut the bag did contain several mutilated voodoo dolls. The President was extremely upset when told about the contents of the bag."

According to our White House source, the President has had an unreasonable fear of voodoo and zombies since childhood. After the disclosure, The President was sedated, and Air Force One returned to Washington immediately. "Look, this is on the Q.T.," our source said, "but someone even said he had an involuntary evacuation, if you know what I mean."

The Secret Service secured the White House and raised its internal alert system one level during the investigation, according to a Homeland Security official, "It's unfortunate, but there is nothing illegal about black magic or witchcraft. Yeah, might be able to charge him with creating a public nuisance but it looks like the only thing we'll be able to tag him with is littering." ---o0o---

Poem: Changes Three/Trouble Ahead

You have difficulty beginning
And gaze into the abysmal water
Under rumbling thunder

Difficulty beginning
Leads to the upside
Through perseverance

To win
You bring troops
To impose order on the melee

With every hesitation and hindrance
The trouble grows
The dragon is freed

Moving brings good fortune
Everything you do
Acts to further

But when the horse
And the wagon part
The bloody tears will flow.
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Changes Two/The Receptive

You may be receptive
And a bottomless chasm
Look to your friends in the west and south

Quiet perseverance brings goodness
You may be receptive
But every bucket needs a bottom

You may be receptive
But every bucket soon fills up
The earth's condition is receptive

She takes everything we dish out
So far
Nothing remains unfurthered

Dragons fight in the meadow
Their blood
Is black and yellow.
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Four years and counting: another grim milestone in the Iraq War

This week marks the beginning of the fourth year of the Iraq War. The President, Vice-President, and Secretary of Defense all marked the occasion by delivering guardedly optimistic speeches and pep talks.

According to the New York Times, "Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld sounded much as they had on the first anniversary of the invasion. At that time, the rebuilding effort had just begun, the insurgency was far less fierce, and the American occupation had suppressed, temporarily, the sectarian violence scarring Iraq today."

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Osama bin Laden guest appearances on niece's reality show spark outrage

An upcoming "reality show," starring Osama bin Laden's niece has sparked outrage, protests and riots around the United States. Wafah Dufour, daughter of terrorist bin Laden's half-brother Yeslam, stars in the television series following her quest to achieve success in the music business.

The September 11th Family Association demanded the show be axed before it was aired. A Family Association spokeswoman yesterday said that the show "is an absolute disgrace. " Producer Judith Regan, the publishing whiz, defended her decision to make the reality show: "Wafah may be related to Osama - but she isn't him. She's a beautiful young woman who is gifted and trying to find her own way in life. "

The public outcry and protests, however, turned to riots when it was revealed that Osama bin Laden would make several guest appearances on the series. All This Is That has obtained clips of several of bin Laden's appearances in the program. In one scene, bin Laden's niece, Wafah, accidentally discloses the location of Osama's hideout. The clip shows Osama, his wives, and lieutenants running around Keystone Kops style, trying to get everything packed up before the Americans arrive.

A second show's plot details bin Laden falling in love with a 15 year old Jewish girl, and comically attempting to convince her parents to allow her to join his harem.

In a third episode of the program, Osama's niece guest stars on Sesame Street and brings along "my famous uncle," who attempts to convince Bert and Ernie to convert to Islam.

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Poem: Changes One/Action

The dragon stays underwater
The master of river and lake

The dragon stays below the surface
Because his time to act has not come

He should not act
But gather strength

The dragon emerged
Has gone too far

The dragon reaches his limit
Because alone he has no leader.
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Poem: revolt in heaven

It's horizontal here
And the clouds roll every which way

We spend the day drumming on blue trash cans
And humming on our blue kazoos

We're teaching the angels how to sass
And drink beer

Tomorrow's lesson: fun things to do
When you hike up your fig leaves.
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George Bush & the Geometry problem

Test question from George Bush's college Geometry 202 class.

President Bush lights up the "c***suckers" in the press

President George W. Bush, acknowledged his stunning freefall in the polls, saying on Thursday that his unpopular decisions have hurt his standing but that it "comes with the territory and you. . .you've got to stand on what you believe." A year into his second term, Bush is beset with a job approval rating of 36 percent, with Americans disapproving of his handling of the war the U.S. economy, the Dubai ports fiasco, and other issues that just won't go away. His popularity among Republicans is now falling even faster than his approval ratings among the public at large.

An Associated Press reporter asked if President Bush accepts responsibility "Or do you continue to blame the press for your drop in popularity?"

The President angrily shot back "Will the press continue to fan the flames? You f***ers know you will. I've never seen such a gang of backbiting drunkards in my life...every one of you sonofab****es has poked a shiv into me whenever you had the chance. There was a time when you c***suckers in the press knew your place. If I was LBJ, you'd be Windexing the sneezeguards at the Olive Garden now. If I was Nixon, you'd just disappear after a friendly drive with Chuck Colson or Gordon Liddy. Yeah, twenty years ago, we'd make an example of a few of you and the rest of you pieces of s***would fall into line. . ."

Members of the White House communications staff called the press conference to an immediate close and escorted The President from the briefing room. Other communications staff asked the press to "voluntarily relinquish all tapes and recordings" of the conference. "We are a nation at war. The last thing we need is to embarrass The President publicly." The President's tirade was fed live to various internet news sites, where it spread rapidly among the websites and blogs that follow national politics.
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Here's mud in your eye: Bono says Bob Geldof nearly spat on Tony Blair

U2 honcho Bono got between Sir Bob Geldof and P.M. Tony Blair to prevent him from hocking a 'loog at the Prime Minister, according to contactmusic.com

After Geldof became agitated, Bono stepped in to shield the P.M. from a spit shower. Bono said: "I have seen Geldof try to bite prime ministers. I accept the rules of ultimate fighting, which are: you can't poke someone in the eye or bite them, and Bob doesn't."
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Jerry Melin, still missing, still missed

Click photo to enlarge...

[Dear readers: forgive me, because I have published most of this previously here. But it's that time of year when my thoughts return to Mel, and if you missed it the first time around, it may be even better as a leftover].

I'll never forget--as long as I'm compos mentis--the morning Dorothea Melin called me to tell me the news. It was about 7:00 in the morning. I was taking a shower and my son Colum came in and said Dot's on the phone for you. And I knew. I knew it as sure as I'd known it that day on May 19, 1964, when I rode home on my bicycle from a baseball game and saw my mom standing on our back porch watching for me to arrive home. He's gone.

It was this week he died. His funeral was held on St. Patrick's Day. Click here to hear a recording I made of him in about 1980 as Senator Jerry Melin.

Or click here to hear Jack and Jerry discussing Shakespeare and "self-love." Or click here to hear Mel describe his meeting with Allen Ginsberg at the Grass Roots Tavern on St. Mark's Place.

Seven years ago, Jerry Melin, died in Marin County, California (where he lived near The Grateful Dead, a band we both loved). He even met a few of them during his years in Ross. Mel's death was a jackhammer blow; a blow I still try to understand and absorb. There is not a day when I don't think of him often, all these years later. Even now--last night, in fact--there are things I want to tell him; things so strange, or amazing, or bent, or obscure and ethereal, that only he could plug in to them. And yet my loss is nothing like that experienced by Dot, and his three wonderful daughters. Whenever I see them, I know that he's smiling and maybe bragging them up to Gabriel and St. Peter.

Mel died instantly of a heart attack in the middle of a tennis match. His wife, Dorothea, asked if I could speak a eulogy at his funeral. I wasn't sure I could, if I could even write it. I wasn't thinking right. Somehow, 'though, I felt Mel peer over my shoulder and was able to get something on paper. I was even able to deliver the eulogy in a packed church without completely breaking down. It wasn't looking at his widow or his three young daughters, or all our friends, or the people of Ross that got me through it. I asked myself "what would Jerry do?" How had Jerry managed the deaths of our friends Phil, Peter, Jannah, Colin, or his father? It was not by boohooing...that was not his way. The Way was to realize it's over and go from there, and celebrate. "You celebrate them by digging that we're here, " he would say, "there's plenty of time to be pushing daisies. You celebrate them by celebrating this. Dig this and dig it now because tomorrow never knows, as that hippie Beatle sang."

I gave a eulogy at his funeral in March, 1999:

Eulogy for Jerry Philip Melin

[This first paragraph about the church I ad-libbed at the funeral and wrote down when I got on the plane that night].

I look around this church, and I see--what?-- Three Hundred People? I know Jerry would have been amazed; he would be amused. This is half the town of Ross, California. Jerry never dreamed he could sell out a Catholic Church. It's S.R.O.--Standing Room Only--here. It should be. No, Jerry could not have dreamt this. I wonder if it's some kind of dream myself. But I know it isn't, because we are here, together. And I wish we weren't.

My earliest Jerry memory might be the Letterman's Jacket Incident. Jerry lettered in gymnastics, and had later made "improvements" to his Kent Meridian High School letterman's jacket. In addition to a carefully rendered, bright white rendition of Mister Zig-Zag on the back, he reversed the letters on his jacket to read MK. The football coach stopped him one day and asked (I'll try my dumb coach voice): "Hey­­ what's this MK jazz stand for?"

When Jerry answered "Mein Kampf," the coach, of course, went absolutely bananas. Jerry had to surrender the Jacket eventually because it violated several rules, but for Jer this was a personal triumph, beating anything he'd done on the parallel bars or the rings, and leaving his vaulting wins far in the dust. He'd riled The Man.

Over the years, I called him at various times--of the names I can actually say in church--Jed, Jer, Mel, Bart (referring to the Hobart Dump), Jeddy and even sometimes, Jerry. These last few years we settled into Mel, and he called me either Doc, or Jack.

He was a skilled artist, creating bawdy cartoons of people locked in improbable combinations and situations, and incredible William Blake-inspired drawings of sinners and angels. He was a skilled stockmarket analyst and a securities trading wiz (not bad for a guy with a degree in English literature). He wrote chilling fiction and fantasy, often in stream of consciousness bursts, folded into those twenty page letters from Mexico, Alaska, Greece, Bellingham, Manhattan or Seattle. He was an introspective philosopher who could keep you up all night discussing The Big Ideas, and Art and Women and Godhead. Jerry was also a prankster unparalleled. I could go on about that alone forever. Jerry was an adoring husband, a doting father, and a friend whose intensity swallowed you up. You knew he loved you.

I tried to find my box of letters, stories, drawings, and poems from him before I came to the funeral, and even those many emails. His letters to me, at least, were machine-gun meditations on life--a vortex of free associations on the nature of Art and Destiny and Man's follies. These letters were shot through with his comic vision of humankind that plumbed the lowest and highest of humor.

His warped sense of humor and willingness to talk from the heart sustained us through a lot of happy times, tragic losses, and life itself.

In 1978, Jerry and I took a most ill­-advised trip from my home in New York City to his home in Seattle. You could travel from anywhere to anywhere in the U.S. for $49 on the Greyhound Bus.

One of the things I remember most about that trip is how much we laughed and babbled and talked through the night as we crossed those twelve desolate, frozen states in those nightmare bus seats, usually trapped in the back of the bus, near the toilet. We finally arrived in Seattle, and staggered off the bus after three and a half showerless and cramped days. We went to our respective family's homes.

Jerry called two hours later to see if I wanted to hang out. We had been six inches apart for 85 hours! I was ready for a serious and long Jerry­break, but he wanted to know when I would be arriving at his place to liberate him! There was more to transact! We had unfinished business. He could never have enough. I was always the first one to go, to hang up, log off, or go to bed. He never ever wanted to say goodbye.

There was never a time when we talked that he didn't hound me to come visit him in Kent, Seattle, Bellingham, Manhattan, Long Island, Mexico, San Francisco, or up in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Wherever he was was where I should be. It was critical that he knew exactly when we would see each other again. It was always "Jack. . .drive that car down here tomorrow. . .it's only 16 hours and you've got five days off." Or "Doc. . .come down here and quit working so damned hard. . .we'll sit in the hot tub and talk about politics and Rembrandt and old kings."

Jerry would never ever hang up without extracting a solid promise we would get together As Soon As Possible.

In retrospect, I wish I had driven down here a week ago, the last time he insisted I come immediately. He was really applying the heat this time. He knew I had a lot of time off, and I thought about it. He really applied the pressure­­. But I don't think Jerry had any sense of what was to come later that week; I don't think he knew he had days to live. He just wanted that visit to glimmer in the distance, as a possibility, as a carrot to keep him going. Mel had to know you'd be there again, in person.

How can we not all love and cherish someone who loved us as relentlessly as that? For everyone who knew and loved him, there will always be a void that only Jerry can fill.

I'll miss those midnight calls about Flemish painters and Yeats and Shakespeare and the mad popes. It was all so very important to him and he always wanted every detail about my life, and the things I read and wrote and painted, and created at work, and about my family, and about my wife he adored. . .all of that was never far from his mind. Half the time, I couldn't pry a word out of Jerry, but he was there, pumping words out of me like an oil derrick.

Mel measured his life by the people he loved. That was his yardstick. I hope we can all come to practice even a little bit of what he taught us about devotion and intensity and reaching out. Jerry's love was relentless.

I know I speak for Jerry when I tell you he wants us to somehow accept this terrible thing and learn to laugh again. Jerry was never much of a mourner; he was a liver. This much commotion about his passing would be too much. He wants you to ponder not his passing but his glorious transit through this bright blue ball.

It's going to be too long
until we hug Jerry
but until then,
I know that once you're through
with the orientation and settling in,
you'll be teaching those angels
new moves and showing them
just how much room there really is
to dance on the head of a pin. ­­­­

Jack Brummet, 1999

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