The couple who just came in either don't or can't speak. They're signing very large to each other and dragging chairs around.
Lots of kids in here today. They're kind of disruptive, but also they're a good sign, in a way.
In the Empire of Sado-Masochistic Sociopathy
Wolcott appears to be reading Kunstler again. Like a lot of us, JW swore off the Jeremiah of Peak Oil after he went ape shit at the time of the most recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon, proving only that most of us sometimes think with our blood instead of our brains. But nobody can stay mad for long at a guy can who sees a thumbnail of the American psyche in the country's most popular movie of he moment.
"My pathological interest" Wolcott says, "is piqued by James Howard Kunstler's entrail reading of what the movie says about the impotent fury of America's death wish," then quotes Dr. K:
The most striking thing about the new Batman movie, now smashing the all-time box office records, is its emphasis on sado-masochism as the animating element in American culture these days. It must appeal to the many angry people in our land who want to hurt others, even while they themselves feel deserving of the grossest punishments. In other words, the picture reflects the extreme depravity of the current American sensibility. Seeing it all laid out there must be very validating to the emotionally confused audience, and hence pleasurable, in all its painfulness.
Yepp. Welcome to the nuttiest country on earth. If he was still alive, Dr. Jung could mine a rich vein of self-hating, self-pitying narcissism were he able to get the vast majority of the TV-addled citizens of these dysfunctional and disunited states onto his big couch.
Weather in the Big City and in the Southern Shitty
It's about 50 degrees here, and foggy/cloudy with a cool breeze. It feels like paradise after having spent nearly a week in the monsoon conditions currently oppressing Desert Hot Springs -- 99 degrees most of the time, with 40 percent humidity. Forget the swamp coolers! Only air conditioning can save you now, and I hope your unit is working.
Johnny the Pimp
By now, everybody with any kind of political inclination has heard about how McCain tried to pimp his wife out at a biker rally in South Dakota a couple days ago.
Leave it to the inimitable Grace Nearing, however, to descend into the caverns of the comments mine at the Free Republic blog to discover this priceless observation re: McCain's offer to enter Cindy in the Miss Buffalo Chip pageant at this Sturgis, S.D. event which features a machine-gun shooting contest in addition to the topless and, reportedly, sometimes bottomless beauty pageant. The mini-essay presented herewith, typed (and rather well, too) by one Nathan Zachary, is either a masterpiece of withering sarcasm or a museum-quality example of unconscious irony. Mr. Zachary says:
They ("liberal" critics of McCains behavior at the rally) are just jealous that they (sic) only crowds that Obama gets warm applause from are large crowds of queers in SF, black males on the down low, lesbians, and Muslims who hate America and the very thing these bikers symbolize- America, land of the free, home of the brave.
Well, now that you put it that way, Nathan, I guess I have to agree. If the best Obama can get is a bunch of faggots, negro freeloaders, bull dykes, and ragheads, while McCain pulls the quality crowds -- you know, the ones who like tits and machine guns -- I guess it's going to be "no contest" at the polls in November, because, as we all know, red-blooded virtue always prevails over effeminate and effete decadence.
The Guy Ain't Here
There's a guy who hangs out here a lot. I mean, like every day, for hours and hours. He's middle aged or close to it, but he dresses very young and trendy. The first time I saw him he was wearing a very good-looking knit hat and a gray tee shirt with a darker gray number "2" on it. I was curious. Why "2?" Nobody wants to be number two, if you know what I mean.
He never talks to anybody. At all. He orders food and coffee, and sits tappity-tapping on his lappy. Every once in a while he smiles or giggles kind of under his breath a little bit.
But he's not here right now.
What's his story, I wonder? There are three-quarters of a million stories in the Nude City, and I don't know this one.
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