Patton Lee Beaugus's Open Salon Blog

Debunkin’ Da Bunk: Why Obama Is Not Failing

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:09:04 -0400

An esoteric essay on current economic perceptions and the fallacies therein. Or something like that.

Negativity rules these days, in the media, at the lunch counters, the tennis court juice bars, the beauty shops, opium dens, and on the bar stools occupied by guys who teasingly show off their butt crack cleavage to prove that they are real working guys, even if they have not worked for a while.

Practically everybody acts negative. Even my dog, Hap, who just shakes his head when I read him my positive, inspirational blogs. After giving me a sad look that implies I just don’t get it, he punctuates his nonverbal negativity with a fart.

I get it. Life stinks and you have to smell it. Well, Hap, I know you are smarter than me because I’m the one who carries your pooper-scooper, but I don’t believe it.

Everybody says things aren’t getting better in America. They say President Obama has failed.

I think that is bunk.

They say that any imbecile would do a better job than the bozos currently in Congress, or the Governor’s mansion. And it looks like they intend to test that premise come November 2 by voting for the least experienced candidate. They seem to want stupid. If Lindsay Lohan, who is arguably even more intellectually challenged than Sarah Palin… if Lindsay was running for the Senate, I think the Tea Partying negatorians would vote for her.

I think that most of what these negative people say is not what they think, but what has been thunked at them by the entire GOP, the RightWingNut propaganda channel, puppet masters like Beck and Limbaugh and fellow travelers in the news media who are singing a song of doom and gloom, and fear.

(You can take a break here, if you want, to listen to Colbert’s Theme song “Keep Fear Alive” which really has very little to do with this blog, but I like it, and if you’ve read this far, you will, too.)

Boy, I needed that musical break, but now it is back to me pontificating. To use an economic term I learned from Milton Friedman, the negatorians are fulloshit.

Things are getting better. Oh, you don’t believe me, do you?

Please let me explain. All economists, pundits, and even empty talking-heads agree that conditions at the end of the Bush years were cataclysmic. We were looking at a world-wide depression.

Then our county’s least stupid economists decided to save the world by saving the financial infrastructure first. So to save you and me they threw money at them. And that questionable decision at the very least gave America and world a solid economic platform to rebuild on.

If you don’t think having a solid economic platform is good, you either are running for office, or have the IQ of one of Lindsay Lohan’s boobs – the one that’s always nipple-slipping, not the smart one.

What makes that good beginning bad was/is that the greedyfcks running the world’s banks and businesses decided what was good for them was good for America. Those with this philosophy can be identified by their support of extending Bush’s tax cut to the millionaires, billionaires, and trillionaires.

It is my contention that the corporate executives reamed us. Not Obama. Not the Congress, at least not the side of the aisle that wanted to do something to make things better. It was rich bankers that would not lend. And rich corporate execs that would not invest in anything but executive compensation packages.

Believe me when I tell you we’ve gone through the worst of the worst — unless of course, the GOP takes both houses of Congress.

If you want to punish someone for the mess we are in, I suggest you don’t punish the Democrats who have at least tried to save us. Punish the Republicans, the tea-partiers, the corporate executives, and your banker.

I wish I could tell you to take your money out of the banks and the stock market. But I can’t and you can’t. All we can do is to stop the Repuppetlicans of the rich from getting elected.

If you believer me, but still can’t vote for the Democrat Party or the Green Party, write in Lindsay Lohan. After all, we get the government we deserve.

The Holy Ghost Will Work For Food

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:01:33 -0500

Written Under Divine Inspiration by Paddy The Prophet

As a child who thought as a child, I believed what I was taught by nuns with sharp rulers that there was only one God. One God? No problem, Sister Torquemada.

Then the nuns taught me about the Holy Trinity. God the Father. God the Son. And God the Holy Ghost, who changed is name sometime before I graduated from High School to the Holy Spirit. But I still think of him sorta like Casper, and I’m not into people who change their names. So He’ll always be the Holy Ghost to me.

As we all know, even you heathen unbelievers who never even bought a pagan baby, that important books have been written about the Father and the Son, and they’ve sold a lot of copies. There have been beaucoup paintings, a movie where He costarred with Charlton Heston, songs, mural on ceilings, concertos and even a tv series with Michael Landon. I mean, over the centuries, this dynamic duo has been bigger than Buddha or the Beatles, or even Brangelina!

But what about the poor Holy Ghost? He’s not even in the Old Testament. And He’s like a few oblique one-liners in the New One. I’m not sure He even existed until Holy Mother The Church, yes, that’s what the nuns called the Pope and his henchmen, until the one Holy and Apostolic Church declared that The Father could not have knocked up Mary because… well, I’m not sure of the because, but it has something to do with sex without marriage being a mortal sin. And like how could the Daddy God do the hunka-chunka with the Virgin Mary without it being a sin, which would mean he wasn’t God, which would have put all the Bishops and priests out of a job. So it just couldn’t be!

This problem was solved by the realization that there must be another way, and I don’t mean anal, and that it must have been God’s Evil Twin who done the dirty deed on the sleeping teenager.

But wait, as you amateur theologians just figured out, then that would mean two Gods, and we can’t have that. Or next thing you know we'd have Zeuses and Thors and pagan gods who do the nasty in the shape of swans and other heretical perversions that a well-brought-up Christian God just wouldn’t do.

So the Trinity was roughed out by The Church Fathers at the Council of Nicaea in 325. And after a while, some people got confused. So some Pope who isn’t in Wikipedia delivered a Papal Bull, which is a lot like it sounds, to proclaim the Trinity. As you Catholics might remember from your Baltimore Catechism all the Popes are infallible in matter of faith and morals, but might think the Nazis were okay. Anyway, the Holy Trinity was declared to consist of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

That’s how it stood, century after century, even surviving the Protestant Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition, and Pat Robertson — until last night.

Last Night the Holy Spirit appeared to me. At first I was afraid, especially to roll over and give Him a shot at my backside, but then His Caspar qualities showed themselves and I was able to listen to His story.

He said He like my writing style and wanted me to write Him up. Give Him his own book. Like a New New Testament. I told Him I didn’t have an agent or a publisher and the best I could do was a Blog.

He decided to take the Blog, this Blog, with the hope that a writer with an agent and a publishing contract and maybe even a three picture movie deal would get inspired to pick up the idea and run with it. He mentioned Mel Gibson, but I think He’s aiming too high.

I mentioned He might consider doing some of those “Sleep Creep” videos for the Internet, but He wants something with more class.

I said, I’d write His Story, but I needed more background to even write a blog. I asked if He’d done anything else but the Mary thing, and he said he hadn’t. So I asked about Mary, and He said, “She was Good!”

I told him that if I’m going to do this for Him, He needs to do something more that I can write about. And He said He’ll do anything or anybody for the publicity. And He’ll work for food as long as he isn’t paid in bread or wine, for which Jesus holds the rights.

He also implied unless I can make Him bigger than Pink, who He’s a fan of (go figure!), unless I got him some ink, somebody was going to Hell. I think He meant me.

Please contact me at this Blog to make Him an offer. Please! The future of eternal soul hangs in the balance. Of course, after writing this, I'm probably going to hell anyway.

Here endeth the revelation.

Tunes To Fight The War On Drugs By

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:11:09 -0500

By this headline, of course, I mean fighting for Drugs, not against.

On November 18, 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the War on Drugs Bill providing the death penalty for murderous drug traffickers and Liberal Democrats who'd had more than a joint back in high school.

The latest trends — like of legalization for medical purposes, or like what's going down in Oakland, and/or like the Fed's policy of non-enforcement — all that shit gives us hope. Enuff hope, I hope to make some noise. Maybe with some of my fave dope tunes, which I have divided into categories for those of you too ripped to remember what music goes with what drug.

CAPTAIN, WE HAVE A SHOOTING SOLUTION

Horse With No Name • America

The Needle and the Damage Done • Neil Young

Dead Flowers • Rolling Stones

Under The Bridge • Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Heroin • Velvet Underground

Mr Brownstone • Guns N' Roses

Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth • Dandy Warhol

Heroin • Sinéad O'Connor and U2

Comfortably Numb • Pink Floyd

My Sweet Prince • Placebo

Waiting for the Man • Velvet Underground

Chinese Rock • The Ramones

Perfect Day • Lou Reed

GRASS ROOTS HITS

Pass the Dutchie to the Left Hand Side • Musical Youth

Looking Out My Backdoor • CCR

Along Comes Mary • Association

Marijuana • Nirvana

Last Dance with Mary Jane • Tom Petty

Marijuana Mix • Eminem

One Toke Over the Line • Brewer and Shipley

Smokin' in The Boys' Room • Brownsville Station

Marijuanaville • Bare Naked Ladies

Don't Bogart That Joint, My Friend • Little Feat

Ride Captain Ride • Moody Blues

Puff The Magic Dragon • Peter, Paul and Mary

Pass The Marijuana • Mystic Roots

Midnight Toker • Steve Miller Band

Grazing In The Grass • Friends of Distinction

Marijuana In Your Brain • System Of A Down

LIKE FAR OUT, MAN!

Purple Haze • Jimi Hendrix

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band • The Beatles

Sunshine Superman • Donovan

Yellow Submarine • The Beatles

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds • The Beatles

Eight Miles High • Byrds

I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night • Electric Prunes

A Whiter Shade of Pale • Procol Harum

HIGHLY DOPE

Everybody Nose • N.E.R.D

I Get High • Styles P.

So High • John Legend

I Want A New Drug • Huey Lewis

Birds Fly High • Lil Wayne ft. Juelz Santana

Blue Magic • Jay-Z

MY FAVE FAVES

Panama Red • New Riders Of The Purple Sage

Drugs Are Bad Mmmmkay • Eminem (from South Park)

White Rabbit • Jefferson Airplane

Everybody Must Get Stoned • Bob Dylan

Let's Make OS Into Dungeons & Dragons

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:11:10 -0500

I think this blog is already in a verbal Civil War. We just aren't keeping score beyond awarding points for Ratings, Reads, and Comments. So I can't tell who is winning. And being a guy, I like to know things like that, so I can get down a bet.

This post is a starting point to reform Open Salon from a blog to a game.

I'd like to call this game Open Saloon and it will be a MUD role playing game. We don't need to change much here because we have already chosen our roles with avatars and descriptions. I think the ultimate goal might be to kill the Editors, and take over the front page and EPs.

First, we need to define the sides which should be numerous like Chinese Checkers, each "team" going their own way and interacting with all the others in the middle. So even if you are on a team playing against an opposing team you can bash anybody in middle, just like we do now.

The minority NeoCons get their own "party" and a homebase on the far right side of the dimensional gameboard. They can be led by somebody like rwnutjob or Noni The Intern (who might just turn out to be a spy).

The majority on Open Saloon are Liberal-Progressive types, but that's too generic a group. So other than placing the LibPros at the left of the board, we need to divide them into other subcategories — like the BiPolar Crazies (like me) and the opposing "Kick The Cripples" krewe.

We need the In-Crowd led by somebody like john blumenthal or Will Someone F The Cat? They will battle for the high ground with the EP Team, although the rest of us need to be aware they might form an alliance, so we need constant vigalance to keep them from blitzing us.

There needs to be a Passive-Aggressive Team. We need an all-male Chauvinist Pig Pen to oppose the Feminists in what will not be a fair fight.

How about a Kinky Krewe? I'm not sure if Moms and Grandmas should have their own societies or not. Maybe a Biker Club. Or One-Issue Wonders. I think we need the Used2Bees and the WannaBees. Or maybe not. We'll know when I put the signup sheet on the bulletin board in the cafeteria during recess.

Now about points. Each flame costs you a point. Each comment supporting your flame gets you 2 points. We need to define things like "maiming the blogger," and even kills that happen when someone is driven off the site. But there should be points for the going away blog, too.

I realize I don't have all the sides and I don't know all that many of the people. So this is just a starting point.

Now, you may think this idea of an Open Saloon Game is silly. But if we all sign up and acknowledge that this is just a fcking game and not the real world, maybe less people will take it so seriously, and maybe less people will be hurt by what happens here.

Should We Legalize The Good Sht, Man?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:11:50 -0500

Recent changes in medical marijuana policies have renewed interest in making pot legal, or at the very least, decriminalizing it. Like far out!

It probably won't surprise anyone that I'm not only for legalization, I think ganja should be classified as a "green industy" and everything from growing to distribution to the collection and recyling of roaches should receive tax credits. I think this could lower the crime rate, save the economy, decrease the prison population, and create a third comeback for Firesign Theatre.

And there should be federal funds for marketing that would go to a new ad agency headed by me. My slogan for this movement is "The Grass Is Always Greener. And You Can Be, Too."

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I come from that hippie generation that wore tie-dyed shirts, Ho Chi Min sandals and falling apart jeans held together with bizarre and psychedelic patches.

Back then, we all wished we'd been at Woodstock, but we weren't. The best we could do was to try to bring the "Summer of Love" to Lafayette, Indiana or whatever backwater astral plane we inhabited.

We all thought grass would have been made legal years ago, but then we also thought we'd end war and bring peace to the world. Like who knew?

Back in the day, I smoked a joint or two although I was more of a juicer than a head. Back then, if you wanted to get lucky with a teenage hippie chick, you'd take a hit when the jay got passed to you, even if it meant coughing your guts out, while croaking, "Good sht!"

Back when the phrase "Don't bogart that joint" was just starting to catch on, our smoke wasn't really good sht, no matter what color the dealer told us it was. Indiana homegrown was second generation whatever we grew from whatever was left after cleaning stuff that wasn't that potent to begin with. I think half our crop was grown from stems rather than seeds. That weed was harsh and had less than 4% THC. The only way to get really zonked was to smoke sht improved by pcp, which made the top of your head fly off and caused UFO sitings among your roomates.

I smoked to get laid. Half the time, you didn't know half the people in the circle passing the joint, even if you'd met them 12 times. If the cute one or her chubbier friend looked at your distressed jeans and said something like nice patch, you were in. Like groovy.

I might add as a mid-blog postscript that even if marjuana were made legal, I wouldn't use it. Well, not unless a really pretty 50 year old hippie chick passed me a joint, as she looked at my distressed suit and said nice tie.

There are some of us who no longer seem to remember those days, and therefore can not relate to my pithy and salient arguments. If you want to flash them back, just say "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers." If they get a glazed look on their face, and a really dumb smile, they are remembering.

If you have such a look now, then you are ready for my arguments for legalization.

My best argument is "like why not, dude?"

Having tried this argument in the past and having achieved limited success, I have honed my argumentary skills to deal with the three primary arguments against legalization.

#1. It is a gateway to other drugs.

#2. Today's grass is too strong. It's killer weed, man. It has double or triple the THC we inhaled back in the day, and it will seriously fck you up. Whoa!

#3. Uptight assholes don't use grass, therefore nobody else should.

On #3, I say fck em if they can't take a joke. We used to say a lot, and I'm still not sure what it means.

On #1, pot is not a gateway. Purchasing from Danny the Dealer is a gateway. It's the supply chain, not the drug. The pipeline for grass is currently the same pipeline for hard stuff. If the Catholic Church was the distribution channel, the next step would be going to mass, and if you got "hooked" you'd become a priest or a nun. So marijuana itself is not a pipeline to harder drugs. And if you still think so after having my pipeline argument, fkc you if you can't take a joke.

BTW, in my entire amatuer doper career I never heard a human say "Pusher" It's a book and movie word. If anyone you are arguing with on this subject uses the word "pusher" to refer to a supplier, discount everything they say, assume they are a narc, and sell them oregano.

The biggest negative affect of marijuana today is the cost of enforcement and the cost of putting users in the pokie. With legalization, it all goes away and we balance the budget, and have 19 straight quarters of GDO growth.

If grass could be legalized and standardized, you could control how stoned you got. Oh, yeah. I forgot, that was like #2 in my other list of reasons to keep it illegal.

I see three legal levels of joint-power.

1. "Oh, wow" which is safe for high school kids.

2. "Got the munchies" which is safe for everyone

3. "I'm really fucked up, man" which is not safe for anybody.

4. "Let's borrow your sister's van and go to Burning Man."

In conclusion, I forgot what I was going to say. Ever since I mentioned Fabulous Freak Brothers, my brain has been slipping, slipping deeper and deeper into a state of "Oh Wow!"

Fat Freddy's Cat! Can you dig it?

And the Roaches! Like far fckin' out.

Are you holding?