Peeder wrote (in his recent post on Political Fleshfeast Salting to Taste on Friday):
No you don’t cook with your brain.
A cook is a tongue and a nose. And that’s about it.
Well, peeder…
Pre-corporate breakdown it was maybe all about the tongue. YOU know. You remember. When you could fairly well trust that the food you bought…even at the local market, let alone in the best, priciest places…was not so chemically and genetically fucked up that it was just as likely to kill you as it was to nourish you?
Yeah.
Back then.
Now?
Fuggedaboudit.
Read on for more, if you so desire.
The whole system is rotted out.
Top to bottom, left to right and front to back.
NOTHING is working well here.
I am living on organic brown rice, beans, organic vegetables and wild/free range/organic animal protein as much as I am able to do so. I FEAR the food offered in America now, just as I fear the government and contact with corporate services of any kind.
Case in point.
I am well into my 3rd week of trying to establish high speed internet for an apartment in a thriving working-class neighborhood of the Bronx. I successfully did this with minor hassles…maybe two fuck-ups, no more than an hour or so on the phone…6 years ago in the same general area.
This time?
What a corporate disaster!!!
Easily 6 hours of phone time alone.
Missed appointments.
Refusal to make appointments during a time when I can actually see what is going down.
Endless telephone circle jerks. Often with people who not only cannot speak English well but do not know what they are doing. (Sorry, India…your tech boom is being fueled by the work of below frycook-level workers. A bust is coming. Soon. Bet on it)
I am into my third major corporate system in this quest so far. And THEY fucked up yesterday, keeping me in the apartment for 4 hours, claiming that they were there and received no answer when they rang, offering me another appointment 5 days away and then wishing me a nice day and goodbye.
This level of incompetence goes for the military, for the feds in every aspect of government, for the cultural and educational apparatus of the country, for the industrial system (what’s left of it) for the service industries, for the political parties…the decline has been truly shocking. And it is getting worse, not better.
Obama?
Unless he is a combination of all of the wish-wish-wish superheroes that have graced the screens of our national subconscious this year, he does not have a SHOT at stemming this outrushing tide of…I was going to write mediocrity, but that would give it the grace of middleness at the very least. This outrushing tide of callous, uncaring, hypnotized, self-serving (short term only) stupidity.
If wishes were winged horses, beggars would FLY.
But they are not.
They’re just wishes.
I have been watching an ongoing “road repair” operation in my Bronx neighborhood for several months. A bunch of undershirted louts with big machines and tiny little brains have extended a two or three week operation into a career. Like the invasion of Iraq. I’m around during the day because I work at home when I am not traveling. Can’t help but see the shit. They take more time off than they work, and easily half the work force is engaged in incompetent traffic control when they are “working”. God only knows what kind of structural mistakes these assholes are making on the roads, but I will guarantee that someone will be back to fix the same area within a year or two. These guys couldn’t fix a fight even if they were the ones who were supposed to take the dive.
I am reminded of Japanese road workers when I watch these posturing fools. Two, three, four guys in neat coveralls, industriously doing their job with the least possible disruption of traffic and then on to the next job. And we wonder why Japan kicked our dimpled butt in the automotive and tech fields.
DOH!!!
Simpsons America
Home sweet Homer.
God help us all.
It’s all about the tongue?
Bullshit.
Y’gotta eat with your brain now. If you’re going to survive, you’re going to have to think your way through the corporate maze.
Bet on it.
The aliens done landed already.
They’re wearing suits.
When busted…they conveniently “die”.
To be replaced by another.
Bet on that as well.
It’s all about the brain now, peeder.
The tongue? It’s just the new appendix.
Think well and prosper.
AG
I was not going to cross-post this essay, but then I read clammyc’s post The long road back to respectability and realized that mine is essentially about the same subject as is his.
So it’s here now.
Later…
S.
Hi, AG, Well want to hear my phone story… Ok, lol.
A week ago I went to office phone to forward calls to my cell and found no dial tone, spent about 20 min. seeing if the problem was in my hook ups and various snaking connections and finally decided to check the input jack. No dial tone there so called the phone co. they scheduled a visit for hours between 12:00 and 4, arrived at 12;30, located the problem down the street at a hub, caused by a newby who had miswired a few other places at the same time, and finished up the fix on pole in location here by about 12:50.
As he was leaving and we were chatting he said well thanks for calling and I said, “why, it was to fix a problem how can you thank me, I am thanking you” and he said “well if you didn’t call, if others never called then I would have no job.” He was right and it changed how I feel about calling for repairs.
All in all it was delightful and worked out well for once for me.
So just wanted to put that out there, somethings are still being done fairly well in some parts of this country, in socal at least.
And how’re you doing anyway, Mr. AG.
Well…y’win some and y’lose some, diane.
Overall…on the evidence of the massive fuckup currently masquerading under the name of “The United States” I would say that we’ are losing more than we are winning. I mean, have we done a goddamned thing right since Vietnam, really?
If y’know what I mean.
Peace…it’s what’s for dinner.
AG
here are some words/lyrics by Brett Dennen, you should listen if you like, he’s on You Tube as well, the new age Bob Dylan, I’ve had his albums for a year or so now, enjoy
AG, sorta reminds me of your piece here.:
There ain’t no reason things are this way.
Its how they always been and they intend to stay.
I can’t explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.
Preachers on the podium speakin’ of saints in seance,
Prophets on the sidewalk beggin’ for change,
Old ladies laughing from the fire escape, cursing my name.
I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same,
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing,
You can spend your whole life workin’ for something
Just to have it taken away.
People walk around pushing back their debts,
Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets,
Talking `bout nothing, not thinking `bout death,
Every little heartbeat, every little breath.
People walk a tight rope on a razors edge
Carrying their hurt and hatred and weapons.
It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pen
Or a thought or a word or a sentence.
There Ain’t no reason things are this way.
It’s how they always been and they intend to stay
I don’t know why I say the things I say, but I say them anyway.
But love will come set me free
Love will come set me free,I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set me free, yes.
Prison walls still standing tall,
Some things never change at all.
Keep on buildin’ prisons, gonna fill them all,
Keep on buildin’ bombs, gonna drop them all.
Working your fingers bear to the bone,
Breaking your back, make you sell your soul.
Like a lung that’s filled with coal, suffocatin’ slow.
The wind blows wild and I may move,
The politicians lie and I am not fooled.
You don’t need no reason or a three piece suit to argue the truth.
The air on my skin and the world under my toes,
Slavery stitched into the fabric of my clothes,
Chaos and commotion wherever I go, love I try to follow.
Love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set me free, yes.
There ain’t no reason things are this way
It’s how they always been and they intend to stay
I can’t explain why we live this way, we do it everyday.
peace….an alternative source of energy ; )
ps. you should really take the time to watch the video on You Tube, it will make the lyrics come to life for you…..
take the time, it’s what we all need to do, and think about our actions…
peace
Dylan?
Ah well…he’s tryin’.
Gotta harden up a little first.
AG
.
There ain’t no reason things are this way …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Do we roast it?
No, no, NO, no…..
Do we barbecue it?
No, no, NO, no….
Do we boil it?
No, no, NO, no…
Do we SMOKE IT?
Yah, yah, YAH, yah… :o)
What’s up S.?
Speaking of cooking…My daughters and I are heading out to the Blues Festival in Riverhead today and it should be cookin out there in the sun in more ways than one. Hard to believe it’s been two years since I saw you, Ask and Curly, Cookting and Spiderleaf there. But I guess time flies when the country’s going to hell!
I thought about emailing to ask if you wanted to hangout but never got around to it. My apologies.
Hey, stay cool, if you can.
super
Workin’…
Have fun.
AG
How much history do you have to read? Not much, really. Dip in anywhere, any age, any century. any culture.
There is a point where corruption (and incompetence) enters an unstoppable feedback. It COULD be stopped any time people wanted–always, every time. But they don’t, and they won’t–every time!
Look at Rep. Kucinich, trying to raise impeachment articles against a President who commits his crimes in public, in the open air, and getting no support, even from a Congress whose own perogatives are at stake! Then ask: How is corruption going to be reversed?
It can’t be, and it won’t be. Watch: There WILL be a new shell-game for the rubes, and it does not have to be Obama, it does not have to be McCain. It could be anybody: It does not matter who it is, the point is not to fall for it.
I love Kucinich. He is trying to do the right thing, and he is failing, and in the process he is–deliberately or not–laying the truth bare for anyone to see. All you have to do is look–is that too much to ask? In any case, the handwriting is on the wall, plainly written in every one of the World’s languages, including yours.
Game over, folks–all but the tears. Plenty of THOSE yet to come.
What to do? Prepare for collapse. Collapse is a process–not an event–that occurs as corruption eats its way through the system and destroys one aspect of social functioning after another. Those with the best prospects are those who do not count on things working, but make back-up plans for things that (in normal society) everybody takes for granted.
When a Ponzi scheme is folding up, it is best to have already cashed out. Normalcy is going down faster than the US dollar, and like the dollar, it will not be coming back.
Too bad.
it was a nice idea, America.
AG
“…sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix’s job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.“
Also, your bets came to mind, when I read this. Wanna bet that one of her grandkids ends up in politics, for heart-felt reasons? Seems good, and new, to me, that teenagers are talking about a politician, that politicians choices, that politician’s impact on their life, their personal future. More people waking up! AND waking up sooner in life!