Author Archives: LastFullMeasure

Funkin’ Blue

Personal Reflections & Memories No Comments

 

Lots of possible reasons for this I imagine and if I could isolate the main ones then maybe I could chase the blues away.  

But it ain’t really just one.

I am at the time in life when there is more to think back on than likely lies ahead. This is most certainly true at my age but no real excuse, just maybe an accelerant for what lies beneath. From the embers rise the flames.

I don’t think I have composed too many happy posts here on this release site and for that I hold more than a little regret and am more than truly sorry. For I have been happy often and I would have to say that I still mostly am but still there lingers that melancholy feeling that I am fairly sure most out there have had and do have from time to time.

It too often returns too often these days so it seems.

I was, in the past, often complemented on my ability to maintain myself in difficult circumstances and situations but it gets harder, a lot harder, when others are involved. And I guess I cannot control what is not really mine to control even if I could but I feel bad when I fail to be able to even influence it ever slightly so.

I have tried and I have failed and the time to fix that or try again is growing shorter with each passing year; maybe now even with each passing month and week. The clock ticks and little seems to change for the better at times it seems to me.

Ah, me. Maybe just feeling sorry for myself and not sure how to get out of the funk. A few good moments might help. Just a little more than a little bit I would guess.

I don’t have it so bad but does that really matter at times like these?

You just feel stuck and helpless and, in the end, rather damn useless to yourself and to everyone else. It just don’t seem to matter all that much anymore.

When I was younger and I was in a teen funk I would write and listen to music and maybe read or do something to pull myself up and it always worked.

Right now I am writing- here- and I am listening to some music and I hope it can again work to lift my failing spirit.

But still I hide and too often I remain angry at those around me for things that maybe they cannot control either.

Maybe we have no influence or much say whatsoever on any of all of this. Sometimes it just is and at other times it just is not. Which will make you happier?

Sometimes life is just life I guess and you can’t do much more than live to see and fight another day.

Maybe soon that day will again arrive for me and for all of us.

Maybe on that day I can be happy for more than just a little while.

Bowlistics

Commentary Jibberish No Comments

 

Arrows or bullets? Or maybe chop your head off instead.

Maybe you’ll burn or drown deep under the water.

Drawn & quartered? Too passé I think.

Down past the water, where it really runs, is where they will be waiting for us. And you damn well know who gave us up now dontcha? C’mon now, you know you know you know.

Might be too uncool or uncool to say because they might be listening and you might offend. Or just maybe get your head chopped off.

No, silly me oh me, not by them but by THEM. They’ve decided that the best plan is to get there first and beat them to the knife. That way there is no blame to lay.

Just policy sir, just policy.

No new legends can be born before the old gods die and reach rejuvenation. Bring them back with all the wrath and pomp and circumspection. That’s what they want…I know it is.

You see, when no one is left to see me then I am finally free to be me. Hide behind whatever I can to mask them off. No harm and no foolish pleasure there, Just practicality.

Just policy ma’am, just policy.

There used to be a time when it mattered, when good men were still good and bad men died. That was around the time that many hoped for change and change is just what they done got. Signed, sealed, and tweeted out for all. For at least some anyhow.

Did you see it? Did any of it, any of it at all disturb your better halves? There is a nature that can be bettered and some have said it was so, that it mattered when it came time to put it back on the line and decide just what was never again to be the same.

You see, there is no change when things remain the same. No matter the price or repercussions there must be change.

Tribes demand it and leaders provide it. Even if it ain’t no damn good for anyone.

Just policy my friend, just policy.

And soon there were none. And there was nothing left that change had not infested. Change for change; tit for tat; left for right and so it went and so it goes.

Well, it really don’t go any longer. But you don’t really care about that now do you?

Can it really be that so many for so long were so blind or deaf. Or maybe just dumb…or stupid. The eyes, the ears, the mouth and the brain. Kind of foolish things to trade for change I think.

But what I think don’t matter. It never did. And I tried a little but not a lot and the arrows and the bullets and the fire and water took me down so quickly and easily.

Not much of a fight at all. Not much point in that anyhow.

You cannot fight alone. Not any longer.

No shame. Just policy my son, just policy.

Can’t Be, Aunt Bee

Commentary Jibberish No Comments

 

They told me and now I am telling you.

Good to run, better to hide. Best to just pack it all up or in and get on wid’it.

There ain’t really no place left to run and likely too no place to hide. But you can pack it up or pack it in.

And getting’ on wid’it? Well, man, that just means get to getting’ in line and takin’ what they givin’. Y’know, all that stuff that’s yours by right or at least Executive Decree.

You all know what Executive Decree is don’t you?

Yeah, some may call it Executive Order. Maybe I’ll just call it Royal Decree instead.

After all my simple-minded friends, what file would you put it in when it don’t come from me, it don’t come from you, it don’t really come from us, and it no longer even comes from those clowns we elected in the hope that they might represent us?

And the fact that others have done it in the past makes it all okay.

Keep marching sheep-boy. You can’t even aspire to being the shepherd bot no more. That’s been taken away along with what little personal freedoms you had left.

Yeah, let’s forget about those clumsy personal freedoms and just call everything that they want you to have, rights.

This country was founded upon the notion that rights are innate- they come with you when you come with us. No one gives them to you and no one can really take away the right. But they can take away the free and unfettered (big word I know) personal exercise of those rights.

Personal freedoms be damned- just give me my rights. Who defined those rights?

Oh, you did? And what about your cousin, and your neighbor, and the man across town- do your definitions line up?

Ok, no? Well then, THEY must have defined those rights for you. Did you vote on them?

No? Ok, now we are getting somewhere.

But you still don’t see do you sheep-boy?

If rights can be given, if rights can be decreed then they sure as hell can be controlled, changed, and even taken away.

They aren’t laws anymore.

And you ain’t free no more neither no way no how. Not like you was.

I know you don’t believe it. But one day, not too long from now, you will and by then it won’t really matter anymore. Too late has become long ago.

Aunt Bee said it be whilst Uncle Cracker tried to say no it don’t.

Guess who won?

 

American Acceptionalism

Commentary Political Uncategorized No Comments

 

Been away but am now back. Don’t ask where I been just be glad you weren’t there too.

What’s been up?

Well, more Christians reportedly captured by non-Islamic Muslims. Isis on the move. Obama vetoing the pipeline bill and getting ready to set out an order on the internet. A brave judge in Texas putting a stay on the execution of Obama’s order on immigration.   A battle over the funding of Homeland Security and the immigration funding it also provides.

Just another week of a lawless regime and the limpers in D.C. who can’t seem to understand our laws and the Constitution and the things that they were elected to fight for and defend.

Nope, just biz as usual and folks defending their fiefdoms and more folks reporting on and still others living off it while the rest of the country just simply wonders WTF. Seriously, can we just toss them all out and start over closer to the beginning?

It would be a good idea and you know it don’t you? Yeah, I thought so.

But we won’t because besides themselves and their enclaves they really don’t seem to care much about this country of ours. They don’t seem to think it’s so special after all- certainly not worth protecting inside and out. What a travesty.

I’m back now and not much has changed and not much is exactly the same. It’s moving away from us in fits and starts and no one seems able to stand up and stop it much anyways.

No, we just get along with our own little lives and hope that the damage will not be too big. Wouldn’t want to get taken away from all that important stuff we have going on now would we?

I wish I knew what to do but one thing I know is that I don’t want to just sit back and take it. Too many for too long have done that and things need to change don’t they?

Oh, you disagree because we, us Americans, cannot fail. Things will go on for us forever. We are different, better, than those old Greeks and Romans.

Didn’t the Mongols rule for a long time after that?

Gotta go soon. Not back to where I was but not all that far from it.

You just relax and sit back and take it easy. It will all be okay if we just don’t look too closely. Take it for what it is but don’t get all hung up and strung out.

Do nothing and nothing will be done to you, right?

Well, maybe. Then, maybe not. Maybe so, maybe no.

We ain’t special, we ain’t exceptional- our man told us so.

No, he don’t want no exceptionalism- just what we continue to give him with our own tepid acceptionalism.

Not to worry- it will all be over soon.

Y’all had enuf?

Commentary Political Social No Comments

Okay, so we have more and more folks being brutally murdered by non-Islamic Muslim terrorists.  And the Christians that they kill, um, behead, are citizens and not Christians.  The children that they kill are simply victims.  And the women that they capture, beat, rape, kill or sell are just, well, unfortunate, shall we say.

Meanwhile, the beat goes on.  Beck and Kanye at the Grammies; SNL 40th anniversary bash; Bruce Jenner’s “age crisis”; the NBA all-star game.  All such American events.  All so wonderful.  All soon to be a thing of the past if those non-Islamic Muslim terrorists have anything to say about it.

Hear they’re heading for Rome and those cross-people.  Couldn’t happen then, there, to them…no never, and sure as where the bad people go never here to us.  Just keep on watching Hollywood and Facebooking all about where you live, what you are eating, where you are on vacation.  No need to worry, it’s alright ma.

What’s the word from D.C.?  Oh, I got it- ain’t none.  It’s just fine ma.

What’s the word from the streets?  Oh, yeah, “hands up, don’t shoot.”  You can cut my fuckin’ head off but don’t shoot bro.  It’s cool ma.

How does the general electorate fell?  Forgot- we’d need to explain who ISIS is.  We’d also need to have them get over the fact that the extent of their knowledge is that anyone who would ask them what they know about Islamic terrorism just had to be a racist.  Oops, I meant non-Islamic Muslim terrorism.  Of course.  It’s okay ma, I was only kidding.  Just get back at it, nothing here to see, know, understand or in any way worry your simple self about.

Yeah, even though they’d kill you too.  If you believe in nothing or anything other than what they do- because they are, after all, Muslims, even if that part of them doesn’t figure in the terrorism they carry out.  Kinda cool to be able to separate oneself like that- like a superhero- “Non-Islamic Muslim Man” to the rescue.

Don’t speak, don’t draw, don’t worship any other god.  Don’t not worship.  Don’t be gay.  Don’t be female unless complete subservience and full body armor is what makes you you.  Don’t be a Jew or Hindu or Buddhist or Coptic.  Don’t use alcohol (not in public at least).  Go get you a prayer rug and get ready to pray a buncha times a day.  Don’t be speakin’ your mind now ma.  Don’t be making or starring in those raunchy Hollywood movies that have sex and stuff.  Don’t try to create your own style of music or write your own free words.  Don’t think or act unless it is well within the constraints and complete restrictions that have been placed upon you.

Don’t cry for tears won’t save you.  Don’t hope for there is none to be had.  Don’t deny what you have been given to believe and all that you have been instructed to behold.

Don’t run no mo ma- there ain’t no place for you to hide.  Not no mo ma.

 isis-beheads-21-egyptians-because-they-were-christians

 

 

Been Goner

Commentary Personal Political No Comments

 

Trying my bestest these days to get to gonest.  Working on it man, working on it.

Just a few things here, this cold and sunny Friday morning as January fades into the melting snow.

I don’t think I ever write about all of the good things about my life, my wife, my kids, my family but I should because they are what keeps me going always; they are who inspire me to face each day and without them life would not be as challenging or as beautiful.  For them, for this life, I am forever grateful to the God that more and more people, on a regular basis, deny exists.  Yep,  all of this was just random chance governed by a few basic physical laws.  But here is a question that I know I cannot answer.  Why does the law of gravity dictate that two bodies are attracted rather than repulsed by one another?  Who made left left instead of right?…up up instead of down?…electrons have to remain usually in a certain orbit?…radioactive elements have to decay?…the Big Bang not shoot out in a preferred left, right, up, or down direction rather than in spherical direction?  Or did I miss something?

And why the hell did a firefly develop that cool luminescence?  How did it know and what was it before it did?

To me science is the doorway to the divinity, to a higher or at least unknown power that makes a bit more sense out of all this nonsense.

And that is my twosense.

While I am at it another topic springed up agin this morning.  It’s one of my faves- racinism!  (There I said the nasty “R” word and I haven’t combusted in a spontaneous or any other fashion…just yet anyhow.)

I gots a question I have to ask.  Why are you allowed to be proud of your race while I am supposed to be ashamed of mine?  That seems rather racinist to me.

And another:  why am I always made to feel that I should be apologizing for a bunch of stuff that I didn’t do?  (And, for that matter, neither did my brother or sisters, my father or mother, my grandmothers or grandfathers…pretty much as far back as I can remember anyhoo.)

Is there a purpose to all this racinism stuff?  Does someone stand to gain from such false and endless claims?

And, hey you ponderable liberals, here is a question that is sure to keep you busy:

Which one is the worst? (or, if easier, please just rank order the following in order of worstness):

A racinist, a sexinist, an anti-gay-marriage gay basher, a pro-lifer, George W. Bush, a Christian, a stay-at-home-mom, an oil pipeline, a climate-change deniester, Sarah-goddamn-Palin, free speech, a gun-owner, white cops, Rush Limbaugh, China, Chick-Fil-A, the U.S. Constitution, Chris Kyle, a fiscal conservative, the Koch brothers, a family with two still-married-and-living-together-heterosexually parents and more than one kid, God, faulty condoms, another Bush in the White House, Hobby Lobby, the abolition of Executive Orders, John Boehner, suburban whites, non-union workers, the 2000 Presidential Election, Michelle Bachmann, a conservative black person, the use of the word “terrorist”, illegal drugs, untaxed anything, capitalism, second-hand smoke, the “N” word, a conservative woman, American history, Christopher Columbus, an SUV, a house or apartment bigger than yours, self-made millionaires, a right-to-work state, any corporation, any CEO of any corporation, any employee of any corporation, Fox News, Richard Nixon, a southerner, a Jew, McDonalds, tort reform, a budget, a strong-and-ready military, Ronald Reagan, the Founding Fathers, Sunday mass, private charity, Citizen’s United, Hillary Clinton forced to actually run before being handed the Presidency, American exceptionalism, small businesses, entrepreneurs, Republicans, welfare reform, Middle America, Rural America, prayer in schools, due process, American football, Dick Cheney, the stock market, interrogation techniques, Israel, anti-conspiracy theories, cowboys, charter schools, parochial schools, private schools, the Duke Lacrosse team, Darren Wilson, non-minority viewpoints, non-government healthcare, independence, responsibility, accountability, spending limits, or separation of powers.

There, now that is a good start of a list is it not? 

I will sit and await your response…

 

…before is now til then…

Commentary Social No Comments

It all becomes so clear when the smoke and fog finally fade.  And that they do, before short becomes very long, with almost everyone.  Oh, sure, there are exceptions but there almost always are yes?

There is a fun ride at most waterparks these days- it is called the “Hurricane” in these parts.  Everyone climbs into a tube and the dude pushes you off and down a drop tube that winds a bit before dumping you down into a bowl of sorts where you spin round and round, each time dropping you and your folk ever closer to an unknown and somewhat scary hole- another tube, the exit tube- with each spin round the bowl.  It’s sort of like a big, but clean, toilet.  And if you scream you can hear your echo quite clearly and quite loudly.  It’s all good fun.  When it’s done you really want to go again right off unless it is your first time and you need a bit of time to recover and chase away your initial fears.  Rare, that.

But sooner or later you do go again.

Society spins in such a fashion at times.  In fact it spins as such most of the time but there is a difference.

In society you spin toward the exit tube, the final drop, the ultimate dumpout. with some ability remaining to fight gravity or at least slow the descent.  Think “friction” perhaps.  You can also just jump out of your tube but that would likely be a very large challenge.  Maybe I will attempt it sometime but not anytime soon.  No, like the others in my tube; the others in the tube that just left with a pushoff from the dude; the others waiting eagerly yet patiently behind us; like everyone in the line we all are ready to get going toward the descent.  Maybe it’s the thrill and maybe it’s just our search for entropy that propels us forth.  Dunno.

What awaits?  What thrill have they devised for us at the exit tube of this tremendous ride?  There is to be a semblance of order at the conclusion but I sense it is unconvincingly contrived.  There is no order in such disorder and, all things being the same and little changing from all that we see and hear and experience in these days of days we spin, we slide, we slip, we scream, we yell, we cry out, we throw our arms up to help to quell our fears but we can never escape the echoes and we can never outrun the tube ahead or pause to join the tube behind.   They have so brilliantly devised the ride, these anarchists, and they know that it takes a special person, a special people, to understand the plan and work somehow to end the madness.

That used to be us but is no more.  We ride, we descend, we are pulled to lines, just like all the others before us, in order and made to disembark only to willingly climb up, get back into line, behave in an orderly fashion, and await our turn to again be shoved off and sent to descent by the dude.  THE dude.  And we do it, again and again and again as if there is no choice and, now, nothing else whatsoever that can be done to stop it.  Not a bloody thing.

Been Gone

Jibberish No Comments

Where have I been? Where have you been? This is a draft; it is only a draft and isn’t intended to convey useful information, provide valuable guidance, or concoct new concoctions in any way, shape, or form whatsoever.

I need to eat now and since I have been absent from these friendless confines for just so long now it is left to me to finally realize that sustenance is sometimes a necessary goodness. Yum yum.

Where have I been? Where haven’t I been? And why didn’t you see me in the places where I haven’t been or saluted me in my presence in the places where I have…been? Perhaps that should remain properly rhetorical at it’s core so that we can just agree to leave it mostly alone for now.

I set out here to compose after decomposing for just about a month now.  Man that really stinks.

I set out here to reach that magical 500 word count that I never nor seldom do reach.  Not exactly anyhow.

Where were you when I needed you?  Why did you abandon me for the holidays?  I waited and waited and wondered where everyone had gone.  I wondered why you left and failed to return back to here, to where we had started now so not so long ago.  It really wasn’t but I fear that it might seem thaw way to others.  Not to you, though.  No, never to you.

Halfway home and wondering what’s on the table for dinner.  Except that it should be lunch by then or even by now.  Time to eat.  Time to refresh and refuel and refine what it is that I am after.  What is it?  Why do you want to know?

Okay then, enough badgering already; rest and be calm and I will fill you in.

There is only so much time that any of us has and what is it that we choose to do with that which we have?  Is that really, now, really, what defines us all in the end?  Maybe.

Or maybe we are just what we eat.

Or what we say.

Or what we do.

Maybe we are who we would be if we could be who we would want to be.  We were all sort of children once, playing with toys.  But now we are not no not no longer.

Rested but still quite tired.  Fed but always seemingly hungry.  Kind but all too often mean.  And dead while still alive.

It is Monday and the newer year had just begun.  A dozen days ago according to those in charge of such things.  I wish for all of you all that you would wish for me.  And maybe just a little more of what you would wish for yourselves.

I journey forward and will return here from time to time, as time to time will so allow, and then we will all be met again.  There.  Then.  Here now.

But still so very hungry.  And still a word or two beyond..

 

That’s What I Thought

Commentary Political Social No Comments

 

Elections have consequences, that’s what they say. Maybe.

But sometimes it just doesn’t seem to matter. So maybe not.

The Republicans won the recent midterms in something of a landslide. Yahoo. They don’t take office until next month but already the effects can be deeply felt.   Yeah, right.

There are Democrats and there are Republicans and there are other parties. There are folks on the left and those on the right and there are those who exist in between. There are many different people with personal and also institutional agendas who think that what they want can be gotten through normal political means and there are those who shed those means and take things into their own radical hands in order to achieve their goals.

And then there are the Washingtonians and the smaller kingdoms that aspire to be so. These folks also claim to be Democrats or Republicans or members of yet another party; left or right, liberal or conservative; calm folks or radicals; movers or shakers; people of the people. But they are really none of these no matter how hard they might try to convince us. They are the Washingtonians.

No matter how they arrived and no matter who they were when they arrived they wind up all the same. In the end there is no difference as they are all Washingtonians.

They simply work with the goal of keeping their jobs. Whatever it takes. But if they happen to lose their jobs through the undesired outcome of some election then they simply wind up turning that into something else- become a lobbyist, become a television commentator, become a political advisor, become a lecturer and tell people all about the stuff that you did that you really didn’t do. Recycle into the system. All that they care about is themselves. Seems to be the case with a lot of people in this country these days.

Nobody really gives a shit about this country anymore do they?

When we had Reagan we had hope; with Clinton, economic prosperity; Bush, international respect. What is it that we have now?

We have major issues with race relations. We have open borders. We have little apparent concern with the never-ending growth of the national debt. We have lost the global economic lead to China. China. We have an executive branch of our government that has decided the Constitution really doesn’t matter anymore. We are a joke on the international stage, no longer feared, no longer respected, no longer thought of as a country to be imitated. Islam is on the rise and we just continue to condemn Christianity and work tirelessly to finally remove God from our country. We have a popular culture that seems to have very little in the way of a moral compass- just do what you want to do (thanks 1960s). People in general just seem to not really care much anymore and if they do they mostly just don’t seem to know enough to have an informed and considered opinion. The liberal pundits were right, they ARE right- the American people ARE stupid I guess.

I gotta go now and happily greet the coming day but I will continue this soon. I am proud, still, to say that I am an American and I am cocky enough to add not a stupid one. I care deeply about this country and I am so sick of those who only seem to be focused on knocking it down perhaps with the ultimate goal of knocking it out.

But it ain’t over yet. We’re still standing, if just barely, and the final bell ain’t rung just yet.

Soon, maybe, but not just yet.

And Then There Was

Personal No Comments

 

Sometimes you feel like nothing ever changes and at other times you realize how little remains the same. Things change even when they don’t; it just might be too subtle or simple for you and me to see or notice.

We wind now into the final month of this, another year. When I look back nothing much seems different from last December yet I know that we, all of us, have covered a lot more ground than we realize. I’m not sure if that’s good or not but I do know it’s true. And is life simply just a matter of moving forward and never going back?

Ah, heck, I dunno. It’s early again and I couldn’t sleep again so I fired up the computer to write here, again. Not as prolific as a year ago when I was writing daily but I still try to get something said with the voice that remains to me.

It’s Friday and the kids and the wife have half-days. They plan to go out shopping together in the afternoon while I continue on the home project from hell. I need to be doing something with my life. For too long idle and for too long indecisive. I think that will be changing.

Christmas is coming on fast and I am more in the spirit this year than usual. I hope that can continue because it is a good feeling and I really could use some good feelings.

I ain’t complaining. I just wish I could sleep better and feel a little better in the process.

Soon, the boys will be up and getting ready for another day at school. They move on after this year to high school. So cliché but so true to state how fast it has indeed gone by. If we could live our lives all over again would we choose to do so?

If we could change something in our past what would it be? If we could do something different what would it have been? If we could change one thing about ourselves what would that be?

I wonder if such questions and their answers have any real purpose. Do they help? Probably not.

Not too cold today. Maybe a better winter than last year. Maybe better things ahead for me, or us, or at least some of us. What would I have tomorrow bring if I could place that order?

Tomorrow is another day if it is not the one we have today and not the one we knew yesterday. It is early and tomorrow has become today. There is always hope and there is always a chance to change things or even keep them the same if you like the way things are.

I like options and I like change. I also like consistency and the comfort that the old comfy flannel brings. There is something warm and soothing in the things we know and love.

For now, this day, this early morning, I look to my future and I vow to make the changes and do the things I know that I need to do. But I also hope that this weekend I can spend some time basking in the light of the things that I know, with the people that I love and cherish, and hope and pray that we all come out okay in the end.

Life is scary sometimes and what comes next may not be known but it does not have to be feared. Not yet.