January 19, 2009 archive

I possessed very few of my father’s old things, but one of them was a warped and discolored old acoustic guitar that I nominally shared with my brother. “Nominally” because it didn’t feel right to take it to school with me last fall; R.J. had been playing it more often since he’d formed the band, and once I had my own electric bass guitar, I couldn’t really exert much ownership over the battered old acoustic anyway. Still, it was important to strum a few chords on the thing every once in a while, and one day, as my internal rhythms settled into the simple slog of summer vacation, I took it down off the wall to finish the re-stringing that R.J. had begun the night before.

I figured I owed him at least that much, since he’d been running phone interference for me all week; Frankie had called at least once a day, but he’d always picked up for me. R.J. wasn’t being entirely altruistic-he had the legit excuse of waiting for Hannah Haynes’ calls-but I’d made it clear to both he and my sister that under no circumstances would I ever willingly speak to Frankie again. Robin had shrugged it off, but R.J. knew the circumstances and so was happy to oblige. I was so used to ignoring the phone by then that it took a while to notice its ring, even when I’d found myself alone in the room we shared, surrounded by the mess of band gear we’d accumulated-cables, amps, a tangled orange extension cord.

For some reason, re-stringing acoustics always felt like it should be done more delicately than electrics. Maybe it was just that this particular acoustic was so beat-up, but I’d been almost pain-stakingly careful doing the E and A strings, and was about to start the D when the phone rang and I absent-mindedly picked it up. I realized my mistake a split-second too late, and was silently cursing my own stupidity when I received the first of many shocks that day.

Previous Episode and Previous Pertinent Episode

From The Rude Pundit:

There’s one final myth about this President that the Rude Pundit would like to put to rest: George W. Bush is not a man you would want to have a beer with. No, not because if you saw him in a bar, you’d react like you had gone on the sex offender registry in Dallas and discovering that a guy who fucked babies in his basement was now living in the downstairs apartment. It’s that, despite any feints at finding him charming, he is not, in his soul, a kind or decent person.

[snip]

The Rude Pundit doesn’t drink with irredeemable dickheads, with self-righteous balls of fuck who think their very existence demands your respect and attention, with privileged cockmongers who can’t manage even a moment of self-awareness.

[snip]

Yet we can’t just bury this presidency alive in the cold, cold ground and have a picnic on the earth above it, joyously toasting as it screams and claws and tries to get free before it inhales dirt, gags, vomits, and dies horribly, not knowing why it deserved such an awful fate. No, alas, no.

Because the reason I will unreasonably hate this man, these men, these women, as human beings, and not just for ideologies and actions, is because neither I nor most of you will live to see the day that all their hurt is healed.

The snips are worth reading too, at the link above, but they were a little too civil for here, even by my standards… but by all means go read the whole thing.