Hbee Inc.

I got headshots done by Andrew Miller the day before vacation (one of a number of ill-planned get-it-done projects).  I’ve narrowed them down to a handful.  I get three shots retouched (thankfully) which I’ll need to split between me and Billy Bob.  If you like looking at headshots, check them out and let me know.  Snarky comments accepted.

And, naturally, if you’re looking for headshots (or any photography) give Andrew a call.

Think about this – you’ve got an hour and a half to wait for your plane.  You’re bored.  Possibly you feel a tad anxious.  What to do?  How about a nice beer or bourbon to take the edge off?  That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?  A nice sit-down, maybe watch some TV, a little conversation.

OR

How about you walk a half mile BACK through the airport and outside because the foul stench of your alcohlic breath offends people.  You have to drink outside.  Gone are your cozy little sports bars and random STD-carrying sexual encounters with stewardesses and/or pilots in the bathroom.  Gone are the blackouts that that divert your flight back to your airport of origin because you jokingly talked about “dropping a bomb” in the bathroom when you meant a particulary nasty bowel movement.

The only airport in the US that sections off a small parcel of real estate for smokers to fulfil their own addiction is Vegas. 

Civil society?

I don’t think so.

I’m stretched out on sofa with a cherry wood frame and lush green cushions the color of defiant, antique moss.  My glasses sit on a glass top side table made of the same wood, possibly the same tree.  Comfortable indirect lighting shines softly down on me from discreet recessed fixtures, pleasantly updated art deco burnished aluminum wall lamps and the occasional non-gaudy chandelier.  If you don’t listen terribly closely to the music you can almost pretend it’s one of the Brian Eno ambient series floating with its unassuming pretentiousness in the background.

All in all, the lobby of the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle is not half bad.

It’s 11pm (2am Boston time) and I’d rather be in bed, but I’ve been around people for four days straight and though our room on the 47th floor is stunning, I need solitude even if it’s alone-in-a-crowd solitude.  Four days with no break and no break down come close to a personal best.  Why push it? 

I’m pretty sure I know what’s happening 47 floors above me.  It’s a little scenario called “Children Eat Ice Cream Right Before Bed Time or Medea Had Her Reasons”.  I’ve played the principal role in this one before.  Let the understudy take over.

I haven’t recovered from not sleeping on the plane.  I’m still on Boston time.  11pm and I’m yawning like it’s…2am

Friday we woke up and took a cab into Seattle.  (I want to write “the city” but my East Coast pride won’t let me.  Sorry, Seattle.)  The plan involved staying with a friend on Bainbridge Island for a few days, seeing the sites there and coming back to Seattle this afternoon for my wife’s conference.  The kids and I will hang for most of Monday.  My wife has a little to do on Tuesday but finishes late morning and it’s off to the Space Needle and points beyond.  We finish at the airport around 11pm for a red-eye back to Boston where I’ll have a client waiting for me in the morning and my first 15-20 minute gig that evening.  I’m saving my Adderall.

Starbucks began in Seattle so you expect to see a couple of them here, but the current tally is fourteen.  This includes the two sitting half a block away from each other and it is wrong, wrong, wrong.  I’ll give them this, though, they have whored up the flagship store on the waterfront at Pike’s Place Market.  It’s looks a crappy and rundown (aka – funky) as it probably did before they took over the world.  It’s as if The Ring never changed Golem; he was always envious and covetous and he’s not spending money on clothes to pretend that he’s not.  Yes, the a capella gospel group outside sounded and looked bored until they’re last song but even that extends the metaphor.  To take it one step further, the old-timey group made up of uber-hip twenties somethings that played a few doors down kicked the gospel group’s ass and made probably half the money.  I vaguely thought of getting my wife to take a picture of me flipping the bird at the flagship store and dismissed it quickly as hack.  This was backed up as I  watched three separate people of varying backgrounds having their picture taken flipping the bird at the flagship store.

More later.

(We (aka my family and I) are in Seattle for a couple of days on the always economical my-wife-has-a-conference-here vacation.) 

As I type this, I’m flying at an altitude of 10363 meters (convert it yourself, motherfucker) and have been for 27 minutes. They project our plane to land in one hour and 12 minutes. Oneida Lake lies 73km ahead of us with Albany 48km of chem trail behind. Every hour we traverse 721km of 100% American soil and that’s with a head wind of 111km coming in from a direction of 277degrees. Is -47c cold? Beats the hell out of me, I’m American. We don’t do that metric shit. Jimmy Carter can go fuck himself.

Why do I know all of this? It’s Delta Airlines hip new hit reality TV show called Here’s A Bunch Of Stats That Some Geek Figured Out How To Output To The TV Screens On Our Planes. HABOSTSGFOHTOTTTSOOP gives you REAL TIME statistics relating to almost every aspect of your journey through the Heavens to, if not Valhalla, then at least Cincinnati.

Not a stats geek? No BFD!

HABOSTSGFOHTOTTTSOOP also gives the precise location of your plane projected onto a topographical map of, if not Atlantis, then at least Cincinnati. And if that’s not enough, with HABOSTSGFOHTOTTTSOOP you get to see it from SEVERAL DIFFERENT SCALES!

How did the man put it? Oh, yeah – HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW MOTHERFUCKER!!?? I’M FLYYYYYYING!

I’m hoping to sell this copy as a brochure to Delta. I think I’ve got a shot.

I don’t understand why we need TVs on planes (or in cars, or supermarkets, for that matter). Isn’t everyone watching what they want to watch on their laptop, cell phone or iPod? Hm – Einsenstadt, Sturges, Coen Brothers or Ravenous Rug Munchers Vol. 78? Answer – None of the above! I’d rather watch some a rerun of Friends that aired in 1992 or some fake news report about how people almost never die of blood clots on planes anymore. (Just kidding – Ravenous Rug Munchers it is – and tell that nun to stop “falling asleep” on my shoulder.)

Listening to pirate radio (real pirate radio not some DJ trying to sound “cutting edge”) takes patience, at least with my antenna.  The audio quality usually sucks and then there’s the making sure you’re in the right place at the right time.  Of course, finding a resource to clue you in helps.  Even with the sucky audio you get a bit of a thrill listening to a show that you will never, ever hear on our sanitized airwaves.  I don’t just mean the gratuitous profanity – excuse me – the gatuitous fucking profanity, but the actual shows themselves.  For starters, Commander Bunny, leader of the Rodent Revolution, would never dream of working for knuckle-dragging monkeys boys.  You can hear it in his steely military cadences. And while wingnuts certainly wage personal attacks, they fall far short of the merciless attacks on Mike Gaukin conducted by…some people.

Gaukin, it’s said, started threatening to jam pirate shows because…well…some people might say it’s because he’s a “gay faggot”.  Whatever the case, this gave rise to the thoughtful creation of The Voice Of Mike Gaukin which dedicates itself to teasing out the endless hilarious permutations of (and, yes, it’s all very junior high school) “gay faggot”.  It’s one of those cases where writing about simply can’t do the final product justice.  And even then some folks will hate it.  I, however, howl when I listen to it.

Which brings us to another wonderful by-product of the internet – mp3s of the unmuddied source copy!  Yay!  Now you can actually hear what’s said without all the static.  After listening to the VMG shows, which consist, yes, of “gay faggotry” but also audio clips and songs (“Homo Rainbow” by Weezer, “Touch My Cum” by a band I’ve yet to indentify) I felt the need to contribute.  Teddy and Darrel lept to mind so I sent an email suggesting it.  But then, I remembered a song by Holtzclaw called The Faggots Want Wine.  Haunting and gay, I knew it was the perfect song.  And it was.  And I feel honored for its inclusion into the record of VMG.

Ann “You’re A Cunt For Calling Me A Cunt” Coulter recently opined of The Jersey Girls and other 9/11 widow(er)s turned activists

“I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”

(Note – If you click on the link, pay attention to the URL. It’s filed under the “entertainment” directory.)

She went on (and on and on and on) to complain that “you” are not allowed to criticize anyone who had a loved one die in 9/11.  Except, I guess, if you write a book criticizing people who had loved ones die in 9/11.  In short, she cannot stand these sacred cows that Liberals raise from calves force feeding them baby bottles of lies and pity.  Let’s have it all out on the table, she seems to say.  No safe zones, no buffers – just straight out “truth” without the bullshit of empathy.

Ok.

So, what to make of three soldiers who allegedly executed three unarmed Iraqis?  Why don’t wingnuts jump straight to the guilty verdict as they did with, say, Scott Peterson, Michael Jackson or all those scumbag illegal immigrants that sell drugs to our pets and then rape them?  Wingnuts destroyed Max Clealand in his bid for re-election.  Their campaign slogan might as well have been “Fuck Parapelegic Veterans”.  John Kerry?  Fuck Veterans.  John Murtha.  Fuck Veterans.

Logically, then, wingnuts should have no problem with throwing these soldiers to the sand sharks.  They certainly don’t have any problem calling soldiers assholes.  More importantly, though, you’d think they’d want their beloved military as stain-free as possible.  These soldiers disgraced thier commision.  A good soldier leaves not the slightest hint of scandal.  Everything is done by the book because that, after all, is the American way.  If the reporting is wrong, it must be wrong for a reason.  If those soldiers were in the wrong place at the wrong time then they shouldn’t have been there to begin with.  That’s bad soldiering.

And yet – wingnuts complain to the high heavens that Liberals criticize the sacred cows of wingnuts.  The boys and girls of Abu Grahib were “blowing off steam”.  The unarmed Iraqi shot by a soldier might have posed a threat.  How dare Liberals insinuate that soldiers might purposefully kill journalists.

Ann, Mike, Sean, Rush – you can’t have it both ways.  That’s what you always tells us.

Actually, I had my Tevas on when Mike Gallagher proclaimed sanctimoniously

Sure.  All right, Congressman Murtha.  Let’s get out of Iraq.  Let’s do it.  But you need to know that if we do that we all might as well convert to Islam, put on a turban and start denouncing the infidels.  Because that’s what that’s gonna mean.

SCORE!  My car wobbled slightly after he said that, not from a possibly under-inflated tire but from the whole of the wingnut community physically changing the earth’s orbit by stomping and cheering.  “Go back to Russia, you sonofabitch cocksucker!  Jesus doesn’t want you here!”

Gallagher followed this up by several back-to-back callers demanding that Murtha dangle from the hangman’s noose for treason.  Every time a Liberal opens their mouth another US soldier dies.  The terrorists and/or insurgents would shrivel up and die if we’d just stop talking about the bad stuff.  Isn’t it obvious?

Well, after that, what’s a Liberal to do but pick up the phone?  How to approach it, though?  Someone suggested that I start calling up as Billy Bob and perhaps I should, but it’s much more fun to speak unfettered as a demon Liberal.  Finally, I had it.

Mike:  And now we go over to Paul.  Thanks for calling, Paul.

Me:  Thanks for taking my call, Mike.  So, did we all turn Communist after we pulled out of Vietnam?

Mike:  I’m sorry?

Me:  Well, you said that if we leave Iraq right now, we might as well put on a burka and -

Mike:  Turban.  I think I said turban

Me:  Well, whatever is hip in Iraq these days.  I’m just trying to follow your logic.  We pulled out of Vietnam and the US did not become Communist, right? 

Mike:  Oh.  That’s so cute.  That’s so clever.  You’re an idiot

Me:  Seriously, Mike.  You’re telling me that if we leave Iraq we’ll all turn into terrorists.  It’s your paradigm. That didn’t happen after Vietnam.

Mike:  That’s a completely different thing and you know it.

Me:  We went into Vietnam to save the US from Communism.  We went into Iraq, you  guys say, to save us from terrorism and…

Mike:  Just…stop.  Stop it.  Lemme ask you something – Where were you on 9/11?

Me:  Outside an office building.

Mike:  And how did you feel?

Me:  Wierd.

Mike:  Wierd.  So you’re telling me that…what…we should allow terrorists to continue to kill Americans?

Me:  Huh?  Where did that come from?

Mike:  Just let ‘em come and go as they please, right?  We deserve it.  We’re the bad guys, right, Paul?  That’s what you and your Liberal friends say, isn’t?

Me:  Nooooo.  But the hijackers weren’t from Iraq.

Mike:  There are terrorists in Iraq this very minute!  You’re probably sad that Zarqawi died, aren’t you?

Me:  Nooooo.  He was a scumbag, Mike.  A thug.  He also wasn’t in Iraq until we invaded.

Mike:  He was there when we killed him, though.  And you think it’s our fault.

Me:  Well, Mike, you’ve got Iraq with Saddam Hussein and no terrorists then we walk in and now you’ve got Iraq without Saddam Hussien and with terror-

Mike:  (Cutting me off and thrashing around for some kind of coherent statement that I couldn’t quite understand)

Me:  (Trying to finish my previous statement until) Oh, that’s right.  This is the station where the host both talks and listens.

Gallagher’s argument, I think, was that it doesn’t matter where the terrorists are or how they got there.  What’s important is that we kill them.  He didn’t want to hear about how the majority of hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.  That’s not important.  Or how none of the terrorists came from Iraq.  That’s not important.  Or how terrorists magically appeared after we invaded Iraq.  That’s not important.  What’s important is that they’re there now and we’re killing them.  Live in the present.  End of story.

Mike continued to hammer away at this modified, twelve-step, go-with-what-you-have kind of logic until he ended with something along the lines of, “so you think all Americans deserve to die, right?”  Needless to say I was stunned.  I attempted to respond, but, in the best tradition of wingnut radio, he continually cut me off.

M:  C’mon, Paul, c’mon!  Cat got your tounge?  Can’t talk your way out of this, can ya?

Me: Mike, how many kids did you beat up for their lunch money in grade school, dude?

Mike: DUDE??  DUDE??  What arrre yeeeeew, sum kinda surrrrrferrrrr, duuuuuude?  What are you, nineteen?

Me:  No, I’m forty-three.

Mike:  DUDE??  You’re forty-three years old and you still say, “duuuuude”?  You’re a joke.

Me:  Well, you hang out with your thirteen year old and stuff just rubs off.

Mike:  You’re a joke and a fool and an imbecile, Paul.  I’m glad that I could expose you for the Liberal jackass that you are.  Put on your Birkenstocks and your tie-dye t-shirt and get outta here.

Me:  I don’t wear Birkenstocks.

Mike: (Snort) Hyuh.  Right.

Me:  You’re gonna look great in a burka, Mike.

Okay.  What’s the following quote in reference to?

“This is about quality of life.  Whether it’s you, me, a dog, a cat, sheep, cow, or lobster, it’s about giving them the ability to express their normal behavior, to really support who they are as a creature. It’s the right thing to do.”

a) A call to stop the use of torture to make the mentally ill behave themselves
b) James Dobson on his support for gay marriage
c) A scene from Knight Rider

A trick question!  None of the above.  It’s Margaret Wittenberg, vice president of quality standards for Whole Foods explaining that crustaceans are people, too.  See, when you take a creature out of its habitat and throw into the back of a truck for a death ride to the suburbs, it’s critical that the creature get the creature comforts.  Think about it – who wants to throw a stressed out lobster into a pot of boiling water?  They’re all tense and that’s sure to translate into a tough, chewy dinner that no amount of butter can mitigate.  Think you’re getting laid after a dinner of barely edible lobster?  Think again, pal.

Whole Foods cares about your sex life and that’s why they no longer carry lobsters.  Face it, if you invite some chippie (or gigalo) back to your place for dinner and their idea of a good time involves forcing you to commit torturous murder – you don’t wanna date that person.  Didn’t you see The Last Seduction?  No good will come of it and you’ll be thrown in jail while the gigalo (or chippie) laughs his or her ass off in the back of a limo heading off to the airport and a life of endless days and nights of umbrella drinks. 

Dinner should be civilized.  Let somebody else do the killing, Kiki.  Even if you lived on a chicken farm in rural Montana, would you really consider a romantic stroll through the chicken yard and the subsequent hatchet to the chicken’s neck (Zarqawari got blown up for the kinda shit) a good first date?  Ok.  Bad example.  You probably would have to kill your own food in Montana.  You get my point, though. 

There’s no other food that Americans willingly kill except lobster.  I’d give anything within reason to see Barbie and Ken take a sledgehammer to a cow’s temple and proceed to skin, gut and cut it, all while making goo-goo eyes and laughing as they quaintly fell on their cute little asses in blood and entrails.  Within reason.

You’re looking for a punchline and I’m looking to wrap this up.

Whole Foods had started developing standards for humane cooking of lobster — calling for customers to freeze them first to avoid causing any possible pain.

Because getting thrown in an ice box for a day or so is much more humane.

(Late, as always) 

This just in – president bush and his entourage have returned to Iraq a few short hours ago. White House spokesweasal, Tony Snow, said the CIA had specific and credible evidence of a possible party to take place while the president was away. The informant, identified as Guido the Killer Pimp, told the CIA that it was his belief that Iraq planned to use some of his “hos” in a bid to buy back items taken during the looting spree that occurred after the liberation. Eyewitnesses tell Hbee Inc Radio that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki managed to catch president bush’s priceless Faberge egg saving it from shattering on the floor.

John Kerry, in an attempt grow the set that shriveled and wilted like sea monkeys during the last presidential election, called for a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Kerry’s announcement was greeted with a deafening STFU by 99.99% percent of Democrats with only Dennis Kucinich withholding judgment until a later date. Only the other side of the aisle, Republican Party chairman, Ken Mehlman took the unprecedented action of endorsing Kerry in a 2008 presidential run and offering political blow up doll Katherine Harris for his vice-presidential running mate.

At Hbee Inc Radio, we strive to keep up with the current trends in the main stream media and that means frequent updates on Natalee Holloway’s current whereabouts in the digestive track of a shark. But the trend towards missing white girls seems to be on the down-swing. The trailer-park-ification of American news media, however, got a boost today from a story on CNN about divorced parents arguing over whether their eight-year old son should be circumcised. CNN’s Nancy Grace defended the story saying” There hasn’t been a good penis story since John Bobbit. Sometimes penis stories are hard news. Sometimes penis stories are soft news. Sometimes penis stories erupt when you least expect them to. Penis, penis, penis. I look forward to saying the word penis over and over again”. Larry King has reportedly put his writing staff on the round the clock shifts to come up with as many setups to the punch line “He only took tips” as humanly possible.

Scientists at Harvard’s Center for Inculcating Androids, continue to remain optimistic that their flagship experiment, RX380 better known as Britteny Spears, will” give birth” to yet another android” baby”. Lead scientist, Dr. Moreau, said that a recent interview on the Today Show demonstrated the huge advances in logic algorithms that enabled Spears to weeps seemingly real tears one moment and nonchalantly chew gum the next. Said Moreau” We’ve had motor skills down for some time now as witnessed by her overly dramatic game of catch with baby RX381 or “Sean Preston”. Programming the simulation of hormonal imbalance has been a real challenge”. When asked how one programs hormones, Moreau pithily responded “don’t pay her”

New York State education officials released a report condemning the unfortunately named Judge Rotenburg Educational Center in Canton for enforcing discipline on their disabled and at-risk students by using electronic shock devices. Massachusetts education officials had planned to ignore the report until Rhode Island education officials asked them if they were gonna take that kinda stuff from New York. New Hampshire education officials then began clucking like chickens while Vermont snickered and started talking with a exaggerated lisp. Massachusetts then told New York they were” wicked retahded” and made a slur against Fiorello LaGuardia. New York then shoved Massachusetts at which point Connecticut intervened and sent them both to detention.

President bush apologized to vision impaired Los Angles Times correspondent, Peter Wallsten, for making a crack about wearing sunglasses that Wallsten needs to protect his eyes. Said Bush, “I needle you guys out of affection. Next time I’ll use a different needle, Mr. Magoo. Hey, do you dig tunnels with your front paws, four eyes?” At which point, Wallsten said he hung up on the president.