The Silence Grows Louder

When the War Street Journal starts doing your heavy lifting for you, then it's probably a safe bet you're on the right track, at least as far as the most immediately agreed-upon-fit-for mass consumption "truth" goes. Like many things, I don't say this blindly but with real years of practical experience and knowledge gathered through research and study. Things are speeding up here towards the end of 2008 and the ominous predictions for 2009 don't give me much to hope for either.

Who you are and where you've been doesn't mean shit until the actual-factual meets the theoretical and the perceived in some sort of steel-cage deathmatch confrontation in your cerebral cortex. What you think and what you see can often times be completely different. Case in point: when I was in college, I had the good fortune to meet and socialise regularly with a man whose personal fortune was somewhere north of $600 or $700 Million dollars, in 1990s money not the over-inflated Greenspan money market world of too-cheap credit and zero loan qualifications for illegal immigrants. My friend, if you were to see him on the street, wouldn't raise the slightest bit of interest from thieves or paparazzi, and although he didn't dress like a slob, far from it, but he wasn't wearing a ton of bling or diamond encrusted Rolex or expensive tailored suits, either. Although he could afford any luxury sedan or sports car known to man, he drove a 1982 Mercedes Benz diesel with something like 170K miles on it.

When I first met him, it was in his reasonably appointed 2-bedroom condo near Westwood, and over the next 4 or 6 months we would either meet there or at a local restaurant. Discovering the extent of his wealth was quite a shock, to say the very least.

One day, however, he said that the building management was repainting and recarpeting the floors and hallways outside his flat and would we mind picking him up at his house. House? I'm thinking, "What house?!?" Yeah yeah, no worries, we'll come and get you. Now, keep in mind that this way back in the godless 1990s, before the ubiquity of cellphones, $49.00 handheld GPS satellite-fed mapping systems, and Google Maps, when you had to physically own a paper map of some value and actually be able to read the damned thing.

For people in Los Angeles and most large west coast urban centers, the answer was usually a Thomas Brothers Map, complete with a street index with print so small you'd go blind just looking at the damned thing. After we matched up the address to the grid coordinates and page numbers like we were calling in field artillery, we noticed that the house was located on a page that was solid green with a red line running through the middle of it, a canyon of enormous proportions. By the time we rolled into the long circular driveway, it was all starting to make sense. This guy had M-o-n-e-y kind of money and he wasn't socially retarded, a drunk or a drug-addict or someone you'd otherwise want to avoid because or their spoiled, petulant behavior. As we sat sipping Cokes (the really sweet ones in bottles from Mexico that weren't made with HFCS - yum!) in the library looking at his collection of first editions I suddenly realised that people with money, especially lots and lots of it, can make you believe any damned thing they want you to believe, at least in the short run.

However, as history has shown time and again, The Truth will always find a way to wiggle its way out and into the sunlight. My point of mentioning my friend was to illustrate what now is the obvious: perception really is not reality in most situations.

The people who run the WSJ and the stock markets of the global economy are very wealthy indeed, (although I suspect much of their fortunes has disappeared down the Bernie Maddoff rathole,) and one thing that is consistent about this Old-Money is that these people do not lose. They may get setbacks that would cripple or destroy the likes of you and me, but pish-posh, that's the type of worrying that kept your ancestors in the trees picking ticks off one another while theirs had conquered much of Eurasia. These people do not lose, historically, for very long, and when they do lose, say, an entire Empire-conquest like the Continental United States in 1776-1791 they take it very fucking poorly (see War of 1812, boiled steak, and The Spice Girls, all obvious revenge attacks against the moral underpinnings and the dental and dietary superiority of the "colonists.") And then they get us all addicted to the Beatles and the Led Zeppelin and the Monty Python and the James Bond and the Aston Martins and Page 6 Girls. Lousy buggers!

Now, having said all of that, here is what the Anglo-American Empire builders of the last 4 centuries have had to say recently, and this column in particular has been linked to numerous sites and has sparked some fairly lively debate in the comments section.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

Now, as this former KGB-type begins to list his reasons of why this collapse could happen and when, I am reminded of the time when another former KGB-type told me (in mid-1990) that the Soviet Union would collapse, America and Russia would act like old friends for awhile, and then things would get back to business as usual among the criminal-political classes of both countries. That prediction seems right on the money, pardon the pun, because when the former president and CEO of GoldmanSucks is named the Treasury Secretary and he's allowed to bail his friends out and use government to eliminate his corporate competitors (Lehman, Bear Stearns) you had better fucking believe it: these people are not in the business of losing, and when it comes to collecting their "touch" it won't matter whether it's from your local bank or your local industry's main employer, Uncle Scam, they will get their due. Just watch the "Sopranos" in the first or 2nd season when Tony and his goons take over that guy's sporting goods store because he can't cover his gambling debts to the mob gamers he's into for some money to watch a good illustration of what I'm talking about.

The only difference will be that instead of some stupid, sweaty Guido with a junkie-whore girlfriend rolling through your hood in their stolen Range Rover, it may very well be a German or Congolese division of troops of a United Nations "peace-keeping" force in tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) with very large guns sent here to quell the riots and civil unrest you've all heard so much about here and elsewhere. When the creditors, namely the Chinese, the Dutch, the Brits, the Germans, who have been buying our debt and keeping our currency and economy afloat and the greater portions of the sub-Saharan African continent and the Middle East who have been living off of our foreign aid checks for the last 50 years suddenly realise we can't cover the ante, do you honestly believe that they'll behave like good little Christian American tax payers and just roll over when the gravy train suddenly stops? Do you honestly believe for one second that these people will just turn their heads, shrug their shoulders and walk away from Trillions of dollars of American debt that they are owed? PLEASE!

They aren't stupid American tax payers like you and me. When Brazil and Argentina's economies disintegrated in the 1980s, the US forgave billions of dollars in their debt. The list of Eastern European countries whose debt we've also forgiven recently is staggering as well. At the end of WWII, after liberating all of Europe from the hands of one A. Hitler, do you know how many thankful, gracious, welcoming countries in Europe repaid their war debts to Uncle Sucker? Do you?

Come on now, here's your chance to impress me with your 4th-world education and rote memorization drills "taught" to you in government (aka "public") schools throughout the US. Well?

One: Finland. So, in my opinion, any time you meet someone, any one from say Helsinki, buy the man (or better yet woman, 'cuz the Finnish women are the hot!) a drink, stat. Or some reindeer jerky, I hear they like that as well.

He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

When the Going Gets Tough? Who does this guy think he is, Will Rogers? Oh wait, he's the same Soviet analyst who predicted the USSR going bye bye right before it did. The drumbeat of gloom and doom is steadily growing louder, and not from just the usual suspects. When the monied classes start to panic and show their hand in public, you can damn well bet that their players know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.

Do you?

The Stink of it All

Happy Holidays, whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, or nothing at all.

On an altogether different note, the news of late is following the trend I predicted, which is for the worse, and that is definitely NOT a good thing. And it isn't just your stereotypical right winger that's got his panties in bunch, either. From the Bank of Spain Chief, to the global legal community to the head of the International Monetary Fund, the outlook for the future is fairly grim.

For the record,this is hardly a uniquely American outlook. When the British Telegraph UK and its most prestigious opinionist Mr. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard have lines like these in their articles, you had best take heed and pay attention,for instance: The riots have begun. Civil protest is breaking out in cities across Russia, China, and beyond. and that's just the byline!

When people say things to me like, "It can never happen again (Tm)," or "it could never happen here, OH!bama, etc etc" it reminds me that like the great writer Santayana said, those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it. Just today, I saw another fearsome reminder of just how fragile our freedom really is. Similar to the article I posted almost a month ago now about the 20,000 "battle-hardened" US troops being dispatched onto the streets of an American city near you, comes this story about how the same troops are "preparing for domestic disturbances." I hope you didn't hear that from me first, but if you did, at least you heard it. From the article:

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned last week of riots and unrest in global markets if the ongoing financial crisis is not addressed and lower-income households are beset with credit constraints and rising unemployment, the Phoenix Business Journal reported.
Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Rep. Brad Sherman of California disclosed that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson discussed a worst-case scenario as he pushed the Wall Street bailout in September, and said that scenario might even require a declaration of martial law.

Is it funny now?

Once again, government has created a problem by involving itself in areas it has no business being in, where it complicates things further and destroys trust in open and free markets and takes more of your liberty away, and their solution is always the same: more government, more government intervention, more restrictions and less individual freedom. The American so-called press is daily talking of putting armed soldiers on the streets to deal with the folks who "just won't take it any longer." And unfortunately, their numbers appear to be growing daily and rapidly. What happens when the foreign banks run by foreign governments suddenly call their money home to support their own failing economies, and nothing helps? Will the country with the biggest and most mobile land army ultimately dominate the world's scarce resources through geonocide and mass-deportations from fertile, native lands? Do you know how to routinely and accurately hit a man-sized target at 50 yards with a pistol and 500 yards with a rifle?

R. Buckminster Fuller once said, "If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do...HOW WOULD I BE? WHAT WOULD I DO?"

That Was Fast

It's been barely a week since my last blurb here, and already the "see, I told you so's" have begun piling up. Just in the last 2 days, another fragile democracy teeters on the brink of collapse, more companies have failed, more massive layoffs were announced (hey, remember my quip about the 52" teevee last week? Yeah well, SONY has announced that it is laying off 8,000 employees. You may not be able to buy jackshit from "SONY" in a few more months. Think about that, eight-thousand people, all without work and without a paycheck in one fell swoop. Ugh.) and the PEBHO (president elect Barry Hussein OH!bama) even had to release a statement telling people essentially to stop buying guns and that they had nothing to worry about. Pay especially close attention to the last line in the story, and I'll reprint it here before before it gets deleted from the site:

"We don't think these are first-time buyers. We think they are people who already have more than enough guns at their homes to protect themselves and are buying more."

Okay. So this clown actually has in his mind a number of weapons that he is comfortable with me and you owning? Fuck him! "More than enough?" Says you, you no-named drug-addled gutless whiner! Buying more guns as economies and goverments collapse at an alarming rate...hurm! Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Short of calling anyone who is a legal gun owner a deranged cracker, PEBHO is starting to show signs of wear and tear, and he hasn't even taken the oath of office yet.

When your chief of staff says that yes, you were in fact talking to the Governor of Illinois about your senate seat replacement, and then the Guv gets arrested for trying to sell your old seat,OUCH! Man, that's gotta hoyt!

And leave us not forget your friend and his, RAHM RAHM RAHM! RAHM RAHM RAHM IRAN! Sing it with me, you know the beat. Oh wait, because it isn't that tired old war veteran McCain, (R)aped at the polls, you're not laughing? That's okay, too, I got you covered regardless:

On a series of wiretaps, the 51-year-old Democrat who earned nearly $180,000 a year as governor was recorded talking in Al Capone-like displays.
At one point, he says bluntly that his family is hurting financially and adds, "I want to make money."
He discussed with an adviser that he wanted someone to approach an unidentified adviser to Obama - widely speculated to be incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel - about having the president-elect help get a nonprofit foundation set up for Blagojevich to run.

When demonrat campaign helpers are openly complaining about how they've gotten the short end of the schtick in terms of job kickbacks and appointments and the like, you're really having a bad week. Add to that the radical homosexual agitators crying for their cut, too, and also going to the media ( I heard this one gay activist/person say on KCAL9 the other night, "Hey we got this black guy elected, okay, so where's ours? Did PEBHO really think we were just going to skip back into the shadows after we got him elected?!") and you have the makings for a perfect storm of FAIL.

And it's not even Xmas yet. As I've stated before, it could be any one of these things such as massive unemployment, political destabilisation, $55M dollar jets falling out of the sky and vaporizing people's families, the continuing collapse and devaluation of the dollar, multiple failing brushfire wars, or just some teenager getting his ass shot by the local cops. Any one of those things by itself could be the trigger, but 2 or 3 or 4 of them happening simultaneously? There were also some minor earthquakes here in the Southland yesterday and the days prior.

Look at what is happening in beautiful, picturesque Greece as you read this. An apparently "random" event has touched off 5 days of rioting, looting, and burning. Oh, I know what you're thinking, it can't happen here, blah blah blah. Mind you, the last time the students took to the streets in Greece like this, their government collapsed entirely and became a military junta.

Tell it to Rodney King and Stacy Koons. If you aren't familiar with either of those names, Google is your friend.

The government's support has dropped lower as gangs of youths maraud through cities across the country, torching businesses, looting shops and setting up burning barricades across streets.
Storeowners accuse riot police of leaving their businesses unprotected as rioters smashed and burned their way through popular shopping districts. (That's gotta suck!)
Although police have fired volley after volley of tear gas when attacked by rock- and Molotov cocktail-throwing protesters, they held back when youths turned against buildings and cars.
(Oh Noes! Rocks and petrol-bombs! Wha Wha Wha! Umm, isn't that what they use as an excuse to take away more of our rights as they try to explain away their ridiculous budgets and over-spending on, dealing with shit like this?!? Oh Noes is right!)
Local media reported early Wednesday that groups of civilians had begun taking matters into their own hands, (now that's what I'm talking about, Civilian Law Enforcement FTW!)confronting looters in the western city of Patras and the central city of Larissa. Opposition Socialist leader George Papandreou claimed the conservatives are incapable of defending the public from rioters.

Well, duh. Of course he blamed the other guy.That's what he gets paid to do. And right after the cameras went dark, he and Mister Papandreou went out to a local falafel hut and got shitfaced on cheap ouzo together. Of course government fails at protecting "its people" from these kinds of events; it's not what "government" is or does. Just think back to Hurricane Katrina and the colossal failures of FEMA, the NOPD, the Army Corpse of Engineers, "Brownie," et. al.

Again, for the hard of learning:
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” George Washington, the only real "W"

Keep preparing. Learn how to sew or stitch. Buy a gun and train with it. Learn a useful skill. If you're okay, help someone who isn't.

Power -> water -> food distribution -> law and order -> arson fires -> full scale looting

How is ANY of this GOOD?

Jesus H. Christ on a bamboo raft in a typhoon!

My powers at seeing/foretelling the future have become a bit too accurate for even my own tastes and sensibilities. I mentioned almost a year ago that the economy was in a freefall and that the easy money from banks and housing lenders was going to come to an abrupt, painful end.

Then it did.

I also predicted that a bunch of well-meaning self-absorbed “myshame/farcebook/tweaker” generation types would ultimately be disappointed by a Barry Hussein OH!bama administration. To date, he’s basically filled his cabinet with the same pieces of human offal that Shitlery Clinton would’ve appointed. Rahm Emanuel? A Zionist warmonger. Robert Gates at CIA? Tool of the Bushies who is so powerful, Barry won’t mess with him. And on and on. A whore-hopping hillbilly dope-sucker from Arkansas as a fill-in senator for his wife? You betcha!

Is it funny now?

You see, I also predicted the rise in The State, and yes it’s capitalized for a reason. Our enemy, The State, has grown beyond any resemblance of usefulness into a rogues gallery of thieves and perverts. Just yesterday, Herr Boobengrabber, our so-called fascist-lite governor of Caleeforneeuhh, declared a fiscal emergency. Does that mean fewer cops on the street or fewer private jails being built in the state? Of course not! Their unions are full of goons and thugs and they won’t see any cuts. But as for you and me, brother, look out! Confiscatory taxation will reach unprecedented levels, which will make a call for massive tax protests that much easier. Then the real “fun” will start.

Fun you say? Yes! I think that 20,000 poorly trained, trigger-happy meth-addicts with high-powered assault rifles belong on every corner in AmeriKKKa. And golly gosh gee-wizz, so does Big Bad Barry Hussein OH!bama!

What? What is this right-wing, FauxNews nonsense you preach? Here, read it for yourself, from the decidedly “un”conservative MSNBC and Washington Post.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27989275/


Or this version from the papers:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_pf.html

Is it funny now?

This isn’t really a left-right, republicrat-demoblican kind of thing anymore. The power of The State must be absolute, otherwise it has no raison d’etre. Get over the whole liberal-conservative paradigm as well. It was designed to keep people who ordinarily should be pulling in the same direction arguing amongst ourselves instead of coalescing to attack our natural enemy, The State. Here’s a prime example from my own little corner of the world. In 1991-92, I campaigned openly and proudly for Patrick J. Buchanan, an old-school Goldwater conservative, and he put a hurtin’ on GWB’s daddy, King George the First, in New Hampshire. At the time, NAFTA was still a big issue and the talk was about how the standard of living for Americans would stagnate and cheap products from abroad would flood the markets, etc etc. Not only were most other republicans in favor of NAFTA, they were openly hostile to anyone who spoke out against it since GHWB was still on the clock. Well, the only people who I met over those 8-10 months who had actually read the fucking thing were Ralph Nader and Nora LaDuke supporters from the American Communist Party and Green Party! HELL-O! I learned real quick that letting other people tell you who your enemies are is almost as bad as letting someone tell you who your friends are. Together, the “far-right” isolationists and the “far-left” anti-imperialists really made the NAFTA supporters sweat. We almost beat it, but your friend and His, Albert Gore, Jr., made sure that didn’t happen.

I also predicted the astronomical rise in ammo and gun prices. Duh! Things have gotten so bad recently that at least one gun show I know of had to cancel their event because NO ONE HAD ANYTHING LEFT TO SELL!

I should add here that I am not claiming any extraordinary powers of prognostication or anyhting of the like. I didn't have access to secret high-level military briefings or access to information not readily available in the "main stream" media. I simply paid attention.

Additionally, and I know most of you don’t or won’t read anything longer than an email, but for your own personal edification, may I suggest this: Our Enemy, The State by Albert Jay Nock. It’s only 54 pages and it can be read online. I suggest it because it details how even in 1935 it was widely known that government was practicing the crisis-intervention-more government as the solution method of social control. This is nothing new.

Finally, my last words of advice for the upcoming holiday shopping season. If it can’t be worn in harsh weather conditions, eaten, used as a tool to create something else useful, or intrinsically valuable enough to be able to barter with, DON’T FUCKING BUY IT! Yeah, yeah, I realize your wife/gf/SO may not be cool with the sudden reduction in her standard of living, but riddle her this: can the 52” plasma teevee that has no electricity running to it be used for fire kindling? No, the toxic fumes from the cheap Chinese parts would kill you. Can the $600 dress from BCBG be used to prevent frostbite when temperatures drop below 30 degrees? Obviously not, however, I have a deer hunting coat from Carhartt that’s at least 25 years old and looks brand new. Without power or running water, can a Hanna Montana dvd be traded for a pound of wheat or rice or a 50-round box of 9milli? Of course not. If you don’t have anything to trade or barter with when the local Kwik-E-Mart is looted and burnt to the ground, remind her it maybe her ass that you end up trading for food and fuel.

Now is it funny? If any of this made you giggle, keep it up, Ein-steen. Keep watching the little-dicked men on SportsCenter and drinking beer. Maybe I can use your 52” plasma teevee box to put your rotten corpse in.

Self-preparedness is its own reward, my friends.

Power -> water -> food distribution -> law and order -> arson fires -> full scale looting

The View from Here

Since my last blog entry I've had some great shots and some not so great shots on my barely 3 year old camera. Apparently, it has decided to quit working at 100% when it works at all. However, when it has functioned in a useful manner, I grabbed these photos.

Also, a few friends have asked after us since the horrible fires of the past several weeks in Southern California. Thankfully, we are okay. A little choked up from all of the smoke, but okay. I have attached a series of before and after type shots for comparison.

This is what the view from my rooftop should look like...
(Click on any of the photos below to embiggen them.)




But, after the fires, this is what it looked like - UGH!


This is looking NE towards the San Bernardino Mountains, although you can't actually see them in this photo.

No sooner had the fires ended, and the Hollywood types were out in force again in my hood, trying to capture some last episodes before the big actors strike? Who knows, and mores imply put, who fucking cares if these self-important douchebags cut their own throats or not? Remember that the sickening endless supply of shitty "reality teevee" got a jump-start after the writers' strike in the 90s.

Setting up the scene for a "CSI: New York" episode. Note the logos on the vehicles, which were/are parked in DTLA, not in NYC.

NYPD police HQ in your neighborhood in Los Angeles? More likely than you think!

I found this sign on the ground on my way home recently. Pretty much sums up life in these harsh times. Hell, the other day I saw a pimp driving a Volkswagen. Man, that's rough!

I swear, the sticker was already there when I found it, honest...

It's O-fficial - Obama is President

Who knew that when my buddy got these posters in January, 2008, that they would become the iconic image of our 44th President's successful campaign.

These terrific images were "bombed" (or plastered with wheat paste to be technically accurate) to the side of this building across the street from my loft in Downtown Los Angeles, California, on the Saturday night before Super Tuesday's primaries in January. They were the FIRST to be put up ANYWHERE and I am honored and blessed that I was asked to document their arrival not only on the street art scene but also on the political scene.

Shepard Fairey's image has been seen around the world and it is generally the one most recognized with the campaign. Much like Andy Warhol's portrait of Richard Nixon with maniacal eyes and "Vote McGovern!" scrawled across the bottom, this image of Barack Obama will only gain in popularity and legend.



Here's a close up of the same image. For additional perspective, this building is 3 stories tall and each poster measures 24 x 36 inches. A month ago, originals of this poster were selling on eBay for $500 - $1,000, I wonder what they'll go for now.

We All Have to Duck When the Shit Hits the Fan

When I talk to people about my fascination of all things zombie or zombie-related, I often neglect to mention that what I really mean is how fascinated I am with human beings and their response(s) to any situation they either put themselves in or get put into through disasters and the like. As I like to say to anyone who will listen and even a few who won't, every time you see the word "zombie" think "ill-prepared suburbanite" and the context will instantaneously become that much more frightening. Why? Well that's the easy part actually: zombies don't fucking exist!

But, you neighbor, who goes from his air-conditioned house (that he can't afford the ARM adjusting payments on) in his air-conditioned leased BMW (see "house" above) to his air-conditioned office where he downloads pornography and sports scores all day while intermittently typing numbers into a spreadsheet that no one will ever use DOES exist. And, he doesn't just exist, he's real and he's real fucking angry when he can't get his Marlboro's and Natty Light from the 7-11 before the "big game" starts. Imagine how he'll be when the real shit hits the fan, that is beyond minor inconvenience to severe deprivation. Sure, why worry though, he's a good Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Buddhist man, right?

Maybe. But are you going to rely upon the thin layer of humanity and civility that invented color photography and the flame thrower prior to WW2? "Hey, there's someone over there that I really want to set on fire, but I don't want to have to get that close...hey, Bob, did you get that shot? The orange in the fire ball as it cooks this guy alive is really spectacular!" (RIP George Carlin)

My point is that preparedness is its own reward. Get educated. Get healthy. Learn a trade. If you already know one, learn another that is completely or even somewhat alternatively related. If you are able, legally and otherwise, buy a gun and learn how to use it for self-defense. Having a $2,000 Bushmaster AR-15 with laser sighting and night optics on it won't help you at all if you've never fired the thing in the dark! LOL WUT?!? In fact, you're actually more of a threat dead than if you had just died unarmed because now I have to also deal with the SOB that has your fancy rifle and can probably use it. If you own it, use it and use it regularly. That $40 a month gym membership that your chubby ass ain't using could be better spent on 2 hours of range time (which you should be biking or walking to,) 200 rounds of your favorite pistol ammo, 5 pounds of rice, 5 pounds of beans, and 6 10 oz cans of chicken or tuna.

A website that I've recently become a fan of put it this way:

You take your average urbanite or suburbanite and get him excessively cold, wet, tired, hungry and/or thirsty and take away his television, beer, drugs, and other pacifiers, and you will soon seen the savage within. It is like peeling the skin of an onion—remove a couple of layers and it gets very smelly.

Here is a mental exercise: Put yourself in the mind set of Mr. Joe Sixpack, Suburbanite. (Visualize him in or near a big city near where you live.) He is unprepared. He has less than one week’s food on hand, he has a 12 gauge pump action shotgun that he hasn’t fired in years, and just half a tank of gas in his minivan and maybe a gallon or two in a can that he keeps on hand for his lawn mower. Then TEOTWAWKI hits (the end of the world as we know it, Thanks Michael Stipe!) The power grid is down, his job is history, the toilet doesn't flush, and water no longer magically comes cascading from the tap. There are riots beginning in his city. The local service stations have run out of gas. The banks have closed. Now he is suddenly desperate. Where will he go? What will he do?

Odds are, Joe will think: “I’ve gotta go find a vacation cabin somewhere, up in the mountains, where some rich dude only goes a few weeks out of each year.” So vacation destinations like Lake Tahoe, Lake Arrowhead, and Squaw Valley, California; Prescott and Sedona, Arizona; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Vail and Steamboat Springs, Colorado; and the other various rural ski, spa, Great Lakes, and coastal resort areas will get swarmed. Or, he will think: “I’ve got to go to where they grow food.” So places like the Imperial Valley, the Willamette Valley, and the Red River Valley will similarly get overrun.

There will be so many desperate Joe Sixpacks arriving all at once that these areas will degenerate into free-fire zones. It will be an intensely ugly situation and will not be safe for anyone. In some places the locals may be so vastly outnumbered that they won’t survive. But some of the Joe Sixpacks will survive, and then the more ruthless among them will begin to fight amongst themselves for the few remaining resources. They will form ad hoc gangs of perhaps 6 to 30 people. Once the Golden Horde has been thinned (and honed to ferocity) and they’ve cleaned out an area, the thugs at the pinnacle of ruthlessness will comprise the most formidable rover packs imaginable. They will move on to an adjoining region, and then another. But the inverse square law will work in your favor: Imagine that you take a jar of marbles turn it upside down on a wooden floor and then lift the jar suddenly upward. The marbles will spread out semi-randomly. But the farther from the mouth of the jar, the lighter the density of marbles.

Hence, the rover packs will attenuate themselves into a huge rural expanse that is peopled with well-armed country folks. By the time the looters work their way out 150 miles from the big cities, they will be thinned out considerably. The rover pack is your primary threat in a total collapse, no matter how remote your retreat. Here are your potential adversaries: A squad to company size force (12 to 60 individuals), highly mobile, moderately well armed with a motley assortment of weapons and vehicles, and imbued with absolute ruthlessness. Be prepared.

Put succinctly: Power - water - food distribution - law and order - arson fires - full scale looting

Yeah! That makes me want to get up and go to work to support a bailout for billionaires!

What's CURRENTly Happening in LA

People ask me frequently about Bedlam. What it was like, what the scene was like, what the people who used to come out after 10PM on Tuesday nights were like. Here's an independent film maker's take on our happy little home away from home. For some background, the Bedlam Drawing and Live Model Sketch Workshop (it's official title, not that anyone ever used it) was free to all comers, which generally fell into 3 or 4 categories. Those who came to draw/paint the models in the various stages of undress, the people who came solely to drink at our speakeasy, the people who came because it was scene and weren't really tied to any particular activity, and the pool players. You can see the pool table in one of the shots towards the end.

Oh, and if you look closely, you can see Yours Truly at about 30 seconds into the video, walking up on the sidewalk with TV Terry, who is interviewed near the end of the video.

Enjoy!

http://current.com/items/86890841_living_muses

Happy 17th Birthday Doolittle!!

Wow. The little black ball of fur I adopted way back in 1991 turned/turns 17 today. My cat, Hunteresse Doolittle, more commonly known as Doolittle, was the runt of her litter of 7 or 8 kittens that were found abandoned in an alley on the Westside of Los Angeles in the late fall of 1991.

She was eventually brought along with her litter mates and Mom, Sheba, to the awesome folks at Friends of Animals, also in WLA. Her mom, from all indications of the volunteers and from reports of the people who found her and her litter was a master hunter. In fact, they used the term "hunter/killer" to describe her bird hunting and squirrel destroying prowess. I thought, man, I hate fucking pigeons with a passion, and having a descendant of a known h/k on my balcony certainly couldn't be a bad thing, right?

But before all of that could even take place, a little history is in order. My interactions with cats was essentially OP, other people's cats and up until I was 20 years old and in college, that was fine by me. At the time, I was living with my girlfriend who had had a couple of cats when she was a child, but she hadn't had significant contact with any in years either. That was not to be for long and our neighbor, Crazy Betty the Cat Lady, would be seeing to that.

My girlfriend and I were sharing a two-bedroom place that was fairly large by all standards. At the top of our landing, we were on the 2nd floor of a 2-story 9-unit complex, was our apartment and CBCL's. On most occasions when we saw her, she was surrounded by this purring, figure-eighting posse of fur and claws. She was seriously the closest thing I've ever seen to being a pied-piper of the feline set. At any rate, we got to know her over the first couple of months we lived there, and by association, all of her wonderful cats. It was really funny to see her walk down the stairs and go around the corner and down the side of the complex to the back where the laundry was, the whole time this little trail of 5 or 6 cats following behind her. With some practice, I began to remember names and meows of the various group that she kept and over the months I began to notice a different calico here and a new white one there, but never said anything to her about it.

Her young and quite cute cousin, Julie, who would visit periodically, was an altogether different story. You could hardly get her to shut up once got started and she was "like-omigod!-letz goto the mall now!" kind of LA-crazy, rich and spoiled by negligent parents to be sure. One day as we were passing the time on my balcony I just couldn't resist and I asked her, point blank and in a not so subtle way, "What the fuck is up with your cousin Betty?" I inquired. "Oh, her? She's crazy, that's all. She inherited a ton of money back in the 80s and lives alone in a huge house in Palm Springs, with fountains and pools, you know she even has a Japanese landscaper?"

"No shit? Wow. So she's got it like that, eh? Why does she spend most of her time in that little ass studio apartment in this shitty little has-been neighborhood in West LA?"

"You heard me say she was crazy, right?" Julie replied.

"Oh, right. I see," I said in response, although I didn't really see the point of any of it. And I still don't, but I certainly guess it is more than possible, hell even probable, that some nice fairly well-to-do woman snapped and went bonkers when her wealthy attorney/banker/white slaver husband died in police custody in Fiji, or something like that.

What does this have to do with my beloved cat of 17 years? Everything, actually, because Crazy Betty is the one who convinced me and my girlfriend to go down to the shelter and adopt a kitten. The rest is history, which is currently sitting on the floor chowing down on a fresh can of tuna and salmon chunks.

When we arrived at FoA, I knew next to nothing about cats, much less what I was ultimately getting into. When the volunteer asked us in the lobby, "What kind of cat are you looking to adopt?" my response based on hours of casual contact with the local cat population was simply, "A grey one." Without skipping a beat the lady turns to my girlfriend and says "You must be the brains of this operation." Well, all kidding aside, the volunteer walked us back into this large room full of cats in cages, cats on the window sill, cats on tables, it was just cats cats cats.

In the back, built up onto a little stand was a cage that was 8X16 feet and split down the middle with thick wire. On one side was a very tired looking momcat (Sheba) and on the other was this enormous pile of kittens, all moving around and climbing over each other. On further inspection, I could see that their tiny eyes had opened and they were playing around with each other. Sure enough, kind of off to one side, was a little grey one. I even toyed with the idea of naming him/her "Lego," short for little grey one, but it wouldn't matter. With a little encouragement from the volunteer I gingerly opened up the cage and began to reach over to the side where the grey kitten was, but before I could reach it, this almost microscopic dot of fur jumped up and latched onto my BumEquipment sweatshirt and instantly started to cling. "Well," said the great volunteer, "that pretty much settles it. She chose you."

It's awfully hard to argue with logic like that, and I didn't. After I detached this adorable black fur ball from my sweatshirt and put her back in the cage I knew that I had experienced something wonderful if not altogether magnificent in the truest sense of the word. Now, looking back on those 17 years of torn paper, stray turds in the hallway, hairballs the size of your hand and on and on, I'm certain of the specialness now more than ever.

Last week when I had Doolittle into hospital for a routine check-up I noticed that the Vet had a sign on the wall with comparative ages from humans to dogs to cats. It isn't really 7 years to 1 year human to dog years ratio like is commonly thought but what really struck me as powerful was the top age on the chart for cats: 16 years, which was shown to be 96 in human years. So, by my best guesstimate, Doolittle is around 103 or 104 today. Yeah, kitty!

And Now Rick is Gone Too

From the day Syd Barret died.




July 11, 2006 - Tuesday

The Great Gig in the Sky
Current mood: crazy
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Crap. I'm going to drink and listen to "Wish You Were Here".

It's morning, but I don't need a day starting like this.

Freakin' Tuesdays.--- grabs CD and wine ---

So long, Roger Sydney Barrett, resquiate in pace.

Currently listening : Wish You Were Here By Pink Floyd

What Would Bucky Think?

I was inspired by this poem in college. I came across it again when I was reading more of the ever-inspiring works of R. Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller. What a difference almost 3 years can make.  I am so glad I have the dates and times of these little gems of creation.

-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-

February 22, 2006 - Wednesday

Cosmic Plurality by R. Buckminster Fuller
Current mood: giddy

Environment to each must be
All there is, that isn't me.
Universe in turn must be
All that isn't me AND ME.

Since I only see inside of me
What brain imagines outside me,
It seems to be you may be me.
If that is so, there's only we.

Me and we, too
Which love makes three,
UniversePerme-embracing
It-Them-You-and-We.

Currently reading : Critical Path By R. Buckminster Fuller Release date: 15 February, 1982

Los Angeles is a Trippy Place Naturally

One of the things I enjoy the most about living in a post-industrial part of Downtown Los Angeles is that you never really know what you'll see just by stepping out your door and onto the street, and believe me, even THAT can be a dangerous challenge at times!

So, to wake up one morning hop on my bike and pedal maybe 85 yards and see this awesome graffiti was truly inspiring.

And by inspiring I mean that I actually went and checked to see if this was accurate, and sure enough, it was. From my qwiki-research:

LSD: Pharmacology. a crystalline solid, C20H25N3O, the diethyl amide of lysergic acid, a powerful psychedelic drug that produces temporary hallucinations and a schizophrenic psychotic state.

I'm not so sure about the veracity of the "schizophrenic psychotic state" business, but everything else was dead on accurate.

Better still, in my opinion, is the fact that this pharmacologically correct writing was seemingly randomly placed on the fence support of a local trucking company, seen here:

Nice to know the chemically adept are out tagging in my neighborhood with a head full of acid and a sharpie! Welcome to DTLA!

They took a bus tour to meet artists?

For those of you new to my blog and my blogging in general, I love to write about where I live and the people I meet and what they do and where they eat and all of it. Presently, I reside in a former toy factory and auto parts storage building on the edge of Downtown Los Angeles(hereafter referred to lovingly as DTLA,) near the L.A. River. In addition to writing, I also enjoy taking photographs of the people and things I encounter on a regular basis. Or an irregular basis, depending on the time and place, another fascinating aspect of living near Skid Row: no matter what time of week, day or night, sunny or cloudy, there's something going on around here, and what it is is sometimes frighteningly clear.


People have a long and selective memory for certain knowledge, particularly when bad shit happens to either them or the place in question. Since the mid-1970s and especially for "the 50 most dangerous blocks in America" as the area was once known around this neighborhood, DTLA has gotten bad rap. Some of it is warranted obviously, but a great deal of it was over sensationalized in the media, often the over-active and unimaginative local media. Let's go downtown, film some poor, destitute homeless dude drunk and pissing on himself and call it a day. Or the occasional bank robbery. Or the Lakers winning a championship. All of these things brought negative mojo to the region and it kind of stuck the way the dried blood and vomit sticks to your shoes in the crosswalk on a sunny day on 5th and Wall. SEE? That's exactly what I mean! Even I'm doing it!


Nowadays, my friends and I lovingly refer to this patch of pavement as "skid row-adjacent," the same snarky way a realtor on the Westside of LA would try to sell you on a place near a UCLA frat house as being "Bel Air adjacent," which is technically correct I guess, but karmically all wrong. Which brings me back to my main point: things have changed around here, albeit slowly. Exactly how secluded and shut-in and frightened do you have to be in the suburbs to get on an air-conditioned bus on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and be driven to an artist's loft?


Well, I guess I shouldn't be complaining either, but damn, the white wine and cheese crowd displacing the purple hair and nipple rings set is going to take some getting used to. At any rate, it was nice seeing one of my dear friends getting some exposure not only for his art, but also his bathroom drawer contents!


Emmeric J. Konrad and I go back to the dark days of 2005 when I was a fledgling human rights activist and I got invited to a "loft party" at a friend of a friend's place. When I found out he was artist I was instantly intrigued, and the rest they say is histoire. Some 15 or 16 purchased pieces later, I can now say as both a collector and friend that this opportunity was a great one. Here's a little sample of what it looked like today. Enjoy.


First, you have to meet the people.










Then you show them your loft.






Then you try to explain your wicked sense of humor and styling to people who usually see art behind glass in snooze-seums in foreign capitals.

From 2008, Big and Bad. And sadly, slightly out-of-focus.

I'm quite certain they left with a new if not altogether different idea of what it means to be truly "downtown" these days. And I hope they tell their friends!