January 20, 2005
Got the new Esquire two days ago and finally got to read some of it last night (Scarlett Johansson burns a hole through the cover). As usual, several pieces of writing stopped me dead cold. I had to reread them a couple times. Two examples:

"It took 75 years to bring democracy to Europe, from 1914 to 1989. At some point, the entire European continent was governed by either communists, fascists, or Nazis. Two hot wars, one cold one. Tens of millions of people killed. The good news is, I don't think the Middle East will take as long."
—R. James Woolsey, former CIA director, in Esquire

“America is being divided by its extremes. Conservatives are moving toward religious nationalism. The culture is moving toward a kind of pornography. Liberals have been kidding themselves, thinking the culture is on their side. The truth is, they don't have a side.

"The kind of pornography that the culture is moving toward is not necessarily sexual. It's omnivorous. It's a culture in which human beings are defined by their sheer utility—sexual, economic, or otherwise.

"The humanism that is the beating heart of Liberalism—the humanism that exalts the power of the individual human conscience—is threatened not just by the rise of religious nationalism. It is equally threatened by the pornographication of the culture."
—Tom Junod, in Esquire

At noon today I went down to The Home Depot to get more cement for my Spanish driveway. I've got the whole deal down now. I've got my cement pants, and my cement shirt (stained white of course). I know right where to park and I know right where the big, orange railroad-car-sized shopping carts are. And, of course, I know right where the Portland Cement is. I load up my ten bags (which is pretty amazing exercise for a guy who has been picking up nothing heavier than a mouse since Bush has been in office) and I do the cement strut down to the self service checkout ($56 something, biz account). My hands are covered in white cement dust. People look at me like I belong there, and I've actually heard fathers whisper to their sons, "He works in cement."

Heard from one of my old radio partners, Jeff Deem ("The Deaner"). We did a short-lived stint at KSLX after David K. and John Giese left. He has been on the air in San Francisco for the past decade on The Bear, a Country radio station, at KXBR-95.7 FM. He and his wife just bought a condo in Grayhawk, which is a pricey development down in Scottsdale. We laughed about old times and he remembered something I had completely forgotten. One time, according to Jeff, wildman Ted Nugent was on the show and I asked him if he was "packing heat." He looked at me funny and said something snide like, "what do you think?," but during the break he pulled out a big ol' hogleg he had stuck in the back of his pants. When we went back on the air, I, of course, confronted him about it. According to Deaner, the Nuge said, “Boze, you Bastard.”

Got a new poll up. Are you going to join me on the Gunfighter Tour? And if not, what is your problem? Go vote here.

"Don't fight forces; use them."
—Buckminster Fuller