The Gormless Quayle

I miss Dan Quayle and his absolutely harmless idiocy. Don't you?

Dan Quayle on Education

“Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.”

“We’re going to have the best-educated American people in the world.”

“You take the United Negro College Fund model—that what a waste it is to lose one’s mind, or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”

Dan Quayle on Geography

“We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.”

“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.”

“It’s wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago.”

“The western part of Pennsylvania is very, uh, Midwestern. Midwestern. And the eastern part is more . . . east. Uh, the Midwest . . . Uh, Pennsylvania is a very important state, a big state. The western part is—Pennsylvania is a divided state, like Tennessee is divided into three parts. Pennsylvania is divided into two parts. You have western Pennsylvania and then you have eastern Pennsylvania.”

“Hawaii is a small state. It is a state that is by itself. It is a—it is different than the other forty-nine states. Well, all states are different, but it’s got a particularly unique situation.”

“Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here.”

Dan Quayle on Outer Space

“Space is almost infinite. As a matter of fact, we think it is infinite.”

“For NASA, space is still a high priority.”

“It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.”

“Mars is essentially in the same orbit. Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”

Dan Quayle on Family Values

“Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.”

“Republicans understand the importance of bondage between parent and child.”

Dan Quayle on Politics

“This election is about who’s going to be the next President of the United States.”

“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Vice-President, and that one word is ‘to be prepared.’ ”

Dan Quayle, Master Detective

“When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple. Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.”

Dan Quayle, Time Traveller

“The real question for 1988 is whether we’re going to go forward to tomorrow, or past to the . . . to the back.”

“I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.”

“The future will be better tomorrow.”

“The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean, in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.”

And, finally, Zen Quayle:

“Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.”

“We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.”

“I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made.”

My new cussword insult list

"Cocksucker" is one of those insults that hits hard, but it hits in the wrong direction. Culturally and historically it has been used as a put down that basically says "You are a homosexual and thus you are worthy of contempt". It drags a whole group of people who never did a thing to me into a fight they were not part of. It punches down, not out. Once I actually looked at the word instead of just using it for the sound, it stopped feeling sharp and started feeling lazy.

I do not want to use language that harms people who are not the target. I want my insults to land on the person who earned them, not on anyone else. So cocksucker is out. It does not fit who I am or how I want to speak anymore.

What I use now are insults that are mine, built for precision and impact without collateral damage. Shitsucker is the flagship, a clean two beat hit that lands exactly where I aim it. From there I have a whole family of put downs that stay ethically clean while still being vicious enough to satisfy me. They are sharp, original, and they only strike the person who deserves it. I am not giving up intensity. I am giving up harm that was never meant for the people it hit. That is the difference.

Here's a list of words that pack a punch without punching DOWN. At least, not to anybody but the coprophiliacs among us...

Insurance SUCKS, Free Luigi!

I did SO much today

First I dealt with health insurance for several hours, found out that no, they DON'T cover my online psych care like they said they do before I switched to them (it's United Healthcare. Luigi did a GOOD fucking thing, and I wanna put money on his fucking jailhouse commissary account!). So after about four hours dealing with them I said: "Ya know, take your UHC bullshit and get royally fucked, okay? I'm going back to Molina SOONEST, motherfuckers!" And yes, I DID swear a blue streak. Then I hung up, and I miss the old fucking phones you could slam down in anger. Jesus, the things we miss.

Called 211, switched back to Molina which is effective April 1. My psychiatrist sent my scrips in even though he didn't get paid for that. Don't think I need any refills on body meds until next month, but we'll see. I am covered under United Hell Care for the month of March, so my meds should be covered...

Creating, Growing, and Returning to Life

For a long time, I thought my creative life had gone quiet. Not dead, just sleeping under a pile of exhaustion, pain, and the everyday grind of being a human with a body that doesn’t always cooperate. But lately something has cracked open again. I’ve been wandering back into the arts like someone returning to a house they used to live in. Everything feels familiar, but also new in ways I didn’t expect..

The Voice I Thought I Lost

 

Me, 17 years old

All my childhood and teens I sang, sang all the time. Played guitar. Music was the thing that brought me to life, and I wanted nothing more than to buy a PA system and join a band. The singers I listened to shaped my style. Grace Slick, Tina Turner, Ann Wilson, Janis Joplin, Janis Ian, Joni Mitchell.

My dad always encouraged me in my music, always asked me to play and sing for him, always got happy when I learned a new song or wrote one. He especially loved that. He gifted me my Harmony Sovereign for Christmas when I was twelve and paid for guitar lessons twice a week for several years. He was my biggest fan.

When I was fourteen I won a school wide talent show singing the 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel and accompanying myself on my Harmony Sovereign guitar. That was the kind of kid I was. Music was where I lived.

I would watch the street musicians in Harvard Square, hungering to be playing, but too damn self conscious to even consider it. Then one day I was really high on weed and very relaxed, and I started singing along with a musician who was playing John Prine's Angel From Montgomery. The reaction of the other people listening, and the musician asking me to join him in more songs, opened the floodgates and made me feel like performing publicly would be a fun thing to do.

I set my future ambition to be a professional musician, to sing, to play music, to share the joy of melody with the world.

In my mid teens, I would play music in Harvard Square. I never put my guitar case out for donations because I was too self-conscious about it, I just played for me and my friends. Sometimes, though, somebody would walk up and hand me fifty cents or a dollar. That was coffee money!

Patti and I usually just hung out with our friends, smoking joints behind Out of Town News, getting coffee at the Mug and Muffin, playing music in the Pit, and generally having a good time. Those were the years when I thought music was going to carry me forward forever.

Then came the car wreck when I was seventeen. I went through the windshield and took three hundred stitches to my forehead. My throat slammed into the edge of the dash. Paralyzed one of my vocal cords. I couldn't sing for more than one or two songs after that before my throat would hurt bad, and I would start hitting bad notes. Me, who has perfect pitch. It was devastating. My hoped for future career was up in smoke, I had an immense scar on my forehead, and I had no hopes any more.

Over the years, I gave up singing for the most part. It was too emotionally painful.

As my voice got rougher and weaker, I fell into depression about singing and wouldn't even try, which probably resulted in helping my voice get progressively worse, along with the pack a day habit. Heavy smoking, injury, never using my voice, it went really bad. I was croaking when I sang Happy Birthday or whatever. It was bad. It felt like something that used to be mine had slipped away and I could not get it back.

Well… lately I have been singing along with the radio. I am also singing while I practice ukulele. And my voice is improving. I have my projection back. I am on key. I can sing a little longer every day.

And I am blown away.

I am not going to be a big rock star, not at 61 years old and in poor health, but I have my music back. 

Yesterday, Sam told me I was sounding pretty good. 

My heart soared.

A fantasy... Donnie Is Gonna Learn Today!

The following is a purely fictional account that is not about any real person, living or dead, I promise. 

It resulted from a ChatGPT prompt that David Gerrold had used just to pass the time. I took the idea, ran it through Copilot, refining it as we went through several iterations and laughing my ass off and shaking my head all the way through.

Since it was David's idea, I got his permission before bastardizing it.

Really, this is fiction, and bears NO resemblance to real people, seriously!

New Art

 

There's a WHOLE bunch of new art inside...

When Bipolar Disorder Takes Another Life, The Stigma Should Be What Dies Next

 

Image courtesy Unsplash.Com - work of Paolo Nicolello

Robert Carradine died by suicide today after a long fight with bipolar disorder. The news hit me harder than I expected. Not because I knew him personally, but because I know the illness that took him. I know what it feels like when your own brain turns into a battlefield. I know what it feels like to lose the fight for a moment and still be here to talk about it. I have been there. I have survived it. And I am tired of pretending that bipolar disorder is anything other than a medical condition that deserves compassion and treatment.

Every time someone with bipolar disorder or another mental illness dies, the world reacts with shock. People ask how it could happen. People whisper. People speculate. But very few people talk about the truth. Bipolar disorder is not a character flaw. It is not a weakness. It is not a failure of willpower. It is a brain chemistry disorder that can be brutal, unpredictable, and exhausting. It deserves the same seriousness and empathy we give to heart disease or cancer or any other life threatening condition.

But that is not how society treats it.

Instead, people with bipolar disorder get labeled as unstable or dramatic or dangerous. We get jokes made at our expense. We get told to calm down or get over it. We get treated like our illness is a personality problem instead of a medical one. And when someone dies, the stigma gets louder instead of quieter.

The truth is simple. People do not die from bipolar disorder because they are weak. They die because the illness is strong. They die because the stigma keeps people silent. They die because too many people are afraid to ask for help or afraid they will be judged if they do. They die because society still treats mental illness like a moral issue instead of a medical one.

I am bipolar. I have attempted suicide in the past. I am not ashamed of that. I am not hiding it. I am not pretending it did not happen. I survived because I got support, treatment, and time. I survived because people showed me empathy instead of fear. I survived because I was lucky. Not everyone gets that chance.

If we want fewer deaths, the stigma has to go. The shame has to go. The silence has to go. We need to talk about bipolar disorder the same way we talk about any other chronic illness. We need to stop treating people like they are broken or dangerous. We need to stop acting like mental illness is a moral failing.

Robert Carradine deserved better. Everyone fighting this illness deserves better. And the only way we get there is by telling the truth. Bipolar disorder is real. It is medical. It is treatable. And the people who live with it deserve compassion, not judgment.

The stigma should be what dies next.

SCOTUS Overturns Trump’s Tariffs and Trump Loses His Mind About It

SCOTUS finally did what everyone with a functioning frontal lobe knew was coming. They looked at Trump’s tariff stunt, checked it against the Constitution, and said no. Not maybe. Not sort of. Not later. Just fucking NO!

According to the reporting, the ruling was simple. A president does not get to rewrite trade law because he feels like playing Tough Motherfucker. Congress did not authorize the kind of free for all Trump tried to pull. The Court reminded everyone that presidential power has fucking limits. That is their goddam job. That is the whole point of the fucking judiciary.

And Trump reacted exactly how he always reacts when someone refuses to kiss the friggin' ring...

Spammers should have to shampoo my crotch

Fee fie foe fammer, boy I hate a spammer!

The other day I put a contact form on the blog. Thought it might be a good idea, ya know?

Tonight, I got about a dozen emails that were clearly from spambots.

Fucking hell. Assholes wreck everything.