Do Police Get Tested For Drugs and Steroids????

         Gentle Readers,

Forgive the fomatting, as the PC is still vexing us.  Speaking of vexations, many are disturbed by the presence of man-made monsters, one of the most famous of which is Frankenstein’s Monster.  Some people refer to the monster simply as ‘Frankenstein’.  There are a lot of these Franskenteins in the world, the most famous being the United States Government.  We create and enable them and then they rattle the chains, break loose from the stone walls of the government buildings and come create nightmares in our lives.

At one end of the scale we have Bacarat Obama, Disaster in Chief of These United States and on the lower, lower, lowest end of the scale are those we pay to protect ourselves and our property…the police.  Currently, the Obama administration is using these police as a tool of terror and fear as it employs them into the Neverending War we are involved in.  It used to be nice when wars ended. 

It also used to be nice when a police officer was a sign of safety, not a call for fear.  On Youtube, for instance, you have numerous instances of police beating innocent motorists because the civilians have the temerity to film the jackboot thugs in action.  These days, if you buy a gun or a camera, you need to buy both, not one or the other.  If you buy a gun, you need a camera to show the unjust way the police treat you when they try to take it away from you.  If you buy a camera, you need a gun to protect yourself from being beaten by officers wearing uniforms that you paid for.

We pay a lot in taxes, to the fed, to the stores but most disturbingly, to our local governments.  In our instance, we must pay several thousand to the school district, even though we have never spawned a child.  Why do we have to pay for the education of a bunch of little wankers when we had the good sense to ‘keep it in our pants’?  We pay for our trash to be collected and we just has an increase in our water and sewer bills.  So if you pay for the water, the schools, the trash and sewer – why do you have to fork over even more cash to have the township collect all the other checks we send?  We have to pay the police, of course.

Did you ever get pulled over for speeding or some other minor infraction of traffic codes and have some beast with ‘roid rage bark at you through the window, while flexing biceps which are unusually bulging with veins, like those veins in his neck as he screams at you for asking a question.  If you are like us, and have long hair and look like a liberal, it is even worse.

If noise comes from our yard, we are confronted by one of these monsters.  It has not happened for a long time.  If noise comes from another yard and we call the police, the chief tells us that they do not have equipment to measure decibels and so the ordinance is unenforcable.  So we are paying to have laws unenforced.  A judge told us to sue the township but the fear of harrassment stops us.  If a neighbor is persistent in destroying a section of our property and the cops are called in, the focus is not on the neighbor who is trying to build on my property…we get grief because the officer sees long hair and for some reason ‘roid ragers hate that.  Maybe because a lot of them go bald from using the stuff.

This is a bigger issue than our yard and long hair, however.  The drug war, which is the biggest waste of money ever to face a country which cannot balance a budget and even threatens to take Social Sevurity away from senior citizens. allow police to search homes, yards, automobiles, test your breath and your blood.  In all our years of paying taxes, we have never seen a breakdown which shows payments for drug tests on policia.  A lot of them are known to confiscate drugs and keep them for personal use and it is obvious that many of them use steroids in order to be bigger and stronger than the bad guys…they do not realise that the rage induced by the steroids makes them criminal in the cranium.

Office workers, Walmart workers, garbage truck workers, forklift operators…all of these people are subject to random drug testing…what about the police? The dangerous ones with the guns, pepper spray and lots of buddies to help beat on you.  If you pay a tax, you should demand that police be tested for drugs and, specifically, steroids.  Why would anybody be afraid to do this unless they were terrified of the thugs?

We know that not all police are bad.  Our own grandfather was a typical drunken, irish paddy precinct copper.  He used to beat his wife and kids and they did not even have steroids back then.  The thing is…just pay attention the next time you get pulled over or see somebody else in that unfortunate position.  See if the cop is red in the face.  See if the veins in his neck look ready to pop.  See if you can make him chase you by taking his photo.

They had cops like this in Nazi Germany and also in Russia, back when it was the Soviet Union.  Then, America was too good to allow such shit.  Not anymore.  This weekend, when you are on your way to a fun event and notice the ton of cops on the highway, earning overtime while getting high on confiscated pot, think about the fairness of them NOT being tested regularly.

Michael Hendrick on The Clash – “I Made Joe Strummer Avoid Drugs!”

Worldly Readers,
We miss Joe Strummer. Today we listened to The Clash Live At Shea Stadium and it brought back all those years to the Punk Rock days. Joe’s star still shines bright. He will always be missed by many. He was a good man.
In 1980, the start of the Reagan Era, we bundled up and went to the Sears Store at the mall and stood in line to buy our tickets. That is what you did back then. If you got there early, you got a better seat – it was that simple. We ended up with seats around the seventh row or so…good seats but we must have arrived late since we cannot remember who opened the show.
In the early days of punk, band members made a habit of spitting on the crowd while playing live and the pogoing crowds reciprocated moistly.
Like standing in line, it’s just what you did.
With this in mind and the spirit in our hearts, we set out in the cold last days of February (a crueler month than April, really)to get some drugs for the show. Two things daunted us…Reaganomics and a dry spell, translated ‘no money, no drugs’. As oft happened, we ended up at the door of Crazy Timmy. Crazy Timmy is actually the only person so crazy that we don’t have to change his name here…like Ferd. Timmy had been tossed by the Armed Forces after some schizoid incident involving a stolen tank and a German village.
His Section Eight got him plenty of pills – all the wrong kind. Psyche meds were more primitive in the seventies and eighties. They made you fat and sleepy and depressed. Today we have much-improved meds which give wack-jobs the gumption to initiate a school shooting.
Timmy dispensed a variety of pills that we never saw before. Even Timmy didn’t take them but he had to get the prescriptions filled so he could keep claiming his full GI benefits for being nutzed. So we pocketed the crappy tablets. We went there to see if we could get some pot to smoke before the show, actually, but even Timmy had no reef. He bought an ounce a month with his VA check and then cut it up into thirty bags or thirty one, for each day of the month; then he would smoke his way through them in the first week.
The pills were an afterthought because we thought he may have something abuse-ably fun.
The main thing we recall is the solid front they put up; Strummer out front, writhing around the mic-stand as he sang, Paul Simonon laying down the bass with legs spread in shooting stance, Topper Headon banging away on the skins and Mick Jones up there with Strummer, playing off him.
They launched into the London Calling Tour and they rocked the Casbah. Michael Hendrick, who drove us to the show, launched a handful of lithium, depakote and other odd dopamine blockers directly at Strummer’s head. Strummer clocked them coming from his spot at the edge of the stage. He ducked to stage left without missing a note. Hendrick volleyed a second, smaller batch of meds at Joe, who avoided them by ducking to stage right.
Yes, Dear Friends, he avoided the drugs.
We were there and saw it happen.
A great show!
God Bless Joe Strummer. We are not sure about Michael Hendrick.

This is a free blog. If you find any errors, report them to the authorities.

Who Sent the Private Investigator To Check Us Out??? Where Is Old Snarly?

Gentle Readers,

This message is not really for you.

We are dropping the editorial ‘us’ in parts to make it less confusing. We think Cynthia Oldsnarly may have sent them.

On Friday, a private investigator named Kellie showed up at our Motel. She checked in with no luggage or purse, wearing a short-ish white dress and stylish hair and nails.
She came out of the front desk office and wandered the parkinglot aimlessly for an hour and then went to her room, near mine, when I came out on the balcony to see which room the possible hooker was going to visit.
As it turns she kept obviously spying on me, looking through the open spaces of a luggage rack on a car parked between us.
So, I decided to STARE at her to let her know she was not un-noticed. This prompted her to come over and up the steps to the balcony, where we sat drinking and chatting…about me…all about me…she said she would be gone in the morning and i watched her leave on foot, no luggage or purse, just a copy of Beatdom we gave her to read…

She kept me up talking about myself until 3am. We did not talk adult topics or any such shit…so why do people spy? why do they lie? why do they not be real in 2014????

funny thing is…we hide nothing, as all you kind readers know…and any import given to us is undeserved, since we are morons.

best from the staff!

*tis is a free blog…if you see typos, live with it or contact us about our exclusive paid blog!!!!!

One From The Poetry Corner

Esteemed Readers, Bottom Feeders and Counters of Meters, today we bring you an installment of the Poetry Corner. We promised to keep this blog going, so we are happy to be in your face.
The following poem is the first in what will be known as the ‘Yakima Cycle’ by Michael Hendrick, a drunken friend of ours who can’t be trusted with your daughter…a sad one, boys and girls, sniff, sniff. He redeems himself with his poems…maybe not this one but he seemed quite insistent that we publish it for him and it is a ‘limerick’ really. As per our buddies at the Encyclopedia Brittanica a limerick is a popular form of short, humorous verse that is often nonsensical and frequently ribald. It consists of five lines, rhyming aabba, and the dominant metre is anapestic, with two metrical feet in the third and fourth lines and three feet in the others.
These short rhymes often involve a city name. We chose Yakima as our city and Mr. Hendrick, in his infinite kindness, offered to share poems written just for this blog…a saint of a man, is he.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A certain young woman from Yakima
got randy but had quite a hacking cough.
Though she sounded a fright,
she loved a new man each night.
Her ten kids proved that she did not whack’em off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, Kids…it is nothing against women, nothing against Yakima and most certainly not against masturbation…if anything, is insulted here, it is the Rhyme itself, but it endures, year after year.

Oddly, though…the most popular blogs here are the ones having to do with insults and words and we find that to be very interesting and think we will do our best to include more such material in days and weeks to come.

Welcome to the Working Week!

More About Heading West

Recently, the editorial ‘We’ left the East Coast and headed west. “The west is the best,” Jim Morrison said. It is true and it is also kind of sad. After fifty-six years in the same time zone, the Eastern Standard Zone lost the fun it used to be.
Personally, we first heard rock and roll in New York, as Roy Orbison exposed his whiney heart over radio in my parent’s old Desoto singing Born On The Wind. At five years old, we watched the Beatles arrive at Shea Stadium on the tv and the resulting new British revolution followed on the screen. In our teens we spat at the stage of CBGB, pogoed and slammed.
New York City, the City that never sleeps must have been napping when the Hip Train arrived in Colorado and Washington with legal weed. How can it
be the hippest city in the world when the most delectable commodities are easier to get here in the west? Our eyes moisten with tears of sorrow when we consider this. We think of the swinging forties and fifties when the Rat Pack ruled the dark streets and the punk rock in the seventies that restarted the heart of rock and roll in the face of the disco machine uptown at Studio 54.
Recently, the editorial ‘We’ left the East Coast and headed west. “The west is the best,” Jim Morrison said. It is true and it is also kind of sad. After fifty-six years in the same time zone, the Eastern Standard Zone lost the fun it used to be.
Personally, we first heard rock and roll in New York, as Roy Orbison exposed his whiney heart over radio in my parent’s old Desoto singing Born On The Wind. At five years old, we watched the Beatles arrive at Shea Stadium on the tv and the resulting new british revolution followed on the screen. In our teens we spat at the stage of CBGB, pogoed and slammed.
New York City, the City that never sleeps must have been napping when the Hip Train arrived in Colorado and Washington with legal weed. How can it
be the hippest city in the world when the most delectable commodities are easier to get here in the west? Our eyes moisten with tears of sorrow when we consider this anomaly. We think of the swinging forties and fifties when the Rat Pack ruled the dark streets and the punk rock in the seventies that restarted the heart of rock and roll in the face of the disco machine uptown at Studio 54.
We miss the dirty old New York City of our youth with her dirty pavements, leering pervs and beggars with outstretched hands. They brought a sense of danger that seemed vital to the city, like the visage of Moondog standing on Sixth Avenue shouting his poetry and scaring more timid foot traffic to the other side of the street with his two-horned Viking helmet. Philadelphia still sports a layer of dirt on it but Disney constipated the Big Apple by cleaning up Times Square, the once-beloved center of sleaze. The last time we walked down to Greenwich Village and got thirsty for a beer, we had to walk eight blocks…eight blocks!!! In NYC for a beer? The real indignity came with viewing the Lower East Side out the window of an Applebee’s because that was all we could find.
And what happened to the 25 Cent XXX Sex Show on Forty Second Street? As bad as it turned out to be, how could anybody resist finding out how much of a show you get for a quarter?
Well, now we reside in Washington, home state of the most prolific serial killers. The Son of Sam fell far short of some of the body counts we see here. To the south a couple of states, we have California so that gives us our minimum daily requirement of nearby whack-jobs. What is the difference between bad behavior at the Jersey Shore and bad behavior in LA? LA dresses it up better and has blondes. It all comes out the same on TMZ, though.
We arrived here at 70 miles per hour. That, in itself, tells volumes about the gap between coasts. We crossed some areas in Montana where there was no speed limit whatsoever. At 70 mph, we do not feel inclined to speed. Therefore, the police have no need to pull us over. If they did, they would find something that is legal, anyway. When they put out the DUI patrols here, they are kind enough to tell you which night of the week and during which hours on which road. That is so kind!
In fact, if we do not agree with the way things are run, they even have legally assisted suicide! How can we go wrong?
Some eastern states go to 65 mph but the norm is the old ‘stay alive at fifty-five’. Go 65mph there and they have a good reason to stop you. Take Pennsylvania (please…haha), if you are stopped and ‘suspected’ of being high on marijuana, you must consent to the urine test. The test used by the state police is so sensitive that it can spot the tiniest amount of THC metabolites in urine so that it can even turn positive if you smoked six months ago. If you prove positive you lose the license, get the fine, etc…if you refuse, you get the same thing…not nice!
No such things happen here. There also seems to be a great paranoia in the east. Before we left and as we packed, we heard numerous friends and associates warn us about the dangers on the road. “Keep your guns in the storage locker!” “Don’t keep any paraphernalia on you!” “Remember the facial recognition scanners every mile along the road!”
We left with two shotguns and a rifle lying right behind the seat under the open case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which we drank all the way from Harrisburg to the bottom of Lake Michigan one June night and did not see a single police until we waved at one in a rest stop outside of Fargo. There is really nothing new to be scared of on the road. Take it from us, it’s the same old road. Be free.
Here, hitch-hikers still stick their thumbs out and serial killers smile at them. Beggars guard entrances to the shopping areas, mostly young methed-out tweakers with nothing to look forward to. Older ones drifted north after then-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani solved the city’s homeless ‘problem’ by rounding up everybody in the parks and giving them a free bus ticket to LA, but only if they promised not to return. So we have all types here.
Most exciting, just to the south in Portland, the city hums with activity. We can feel the energy and a scene is taking place there…either that or the place is loaded with poseurs. From the many small music magazines we see, we know Portland has tons of small venues with live shows every night. Big acts tend to play Seattle and skip down to Cali. The scene in Portland feels organic, the visiting acts at local clubs seem to be an esoteric mix which blends with and compliments all of the fresh new faces releasing new songs on vinyl and playing crowded gigs.
Where can we get the best price for our old vinyl? Portland, of course. So many record and alternative book stores line the streets here that it reminds us of the Village in the old days, before Bleeker Bob’s and other old rare record/cd haunts vanished. If we sell an LP in Portland we get cash as opposed to the dreaded store credit, which has so often dampened our spirits. We take the cash and go to small clubs where the vibe reaches out from the city center into outlying neighborhoods.
Count up the clubs and the acts per night and we do not think NYC can keep up, not with the rock and roll end of things. We feel the loose, mellow, friendly haze of the current heroin epidemic there, as well. Funny how those things seem to keep time with each other.
Seriously, though, the scene in Portland, so robust you can taste it, may just break out and unleash a new twist, a new alternative to alternative, a fresh coat of paint to a passe’ form of music. What is happening in rock and roll right now? Who is hot? Where is the innovation? When did we last see a ‘movement?’ Was that way back when grunge hit?
The biggest sellers remain in place from the sixties, seventies and eighties. The geezers sell more ducats than youths do and that is wrong. College students listen to Pink Floyd and the Beatles. These may be old bands but soon we ought to be hearing from the young and angry again, unless rock and roll really is dead.
We’ll be sitting right here, watching from up close.
See ya!

We miss the dirty old New York City of our youth with her dirty pavements, leering pervs and beggars with outstretched hands. They brought a sense of danger that seemed vital to the city, like the visage of Moondog standing on Sixth Avenue shouting his poetry and scaring more timid foot traffic to the other side of the street with his two-horned Viking helmet. Philadelphia still sports a layer of dirt on it but Disney constipated the Big Apple by cleaning up Times Square, the once-beloved center of sleaze. The last time we walked down to Greenwich Village and got thirsty for a beer, we had to walk eight blocks…eight blocks!!! In NYC for a beer? The real indignity came with viewing the Lower East Side out the window of an Applebee’s because that was all we could find.
And what happened to the 25 Cent XXX Sex Show on Forty Second Street? As bad as it turned out to be, how could anybody resist finding out how much of a show you get for a quarter?
Well, now we reside in Washington, home state of the most prolific serial killers. The Son of Sam fell far short of some of the body counts we see here. To the south a couple of states, we have California so that gives us our minimum daily requirement of nearby whack-jobs. What is the difference between bad behavior at the Jersey Shore and bad behavior in LA? LA dresses it up better and has blondes. It all comes out the same on TMZ, though.
We arrived here at 70 miles per hour. That, in itself, tells volumes about the gap between coasts. We crossed some areas in Montana where there was no speed limit whatsoever. At 70 mph, we do not feel inclined to speed. Therefore, the police have no need to pull us over. If they did, they would find something that is legal, anyway. When they put out the DUI patrols here, they are kind enough to tell you which night of the week and during which hours on which road. That is so kind!
In fact, if we do not agree with the way things are run, they even have legally assisted suicide! How can we go wrong?
Some eastern states go to 65 mph but the norm is the old ‘stay alive at fifty-five’. Go 65mph there and they have a good reason to stop you. Take Pennsylvania (please…haha), if you are stopped and ‘suspected’ of being high on marijuana, you must consent to the urine test. The test used by the state police is so sensitive that it can spot the tiniest amount of THC metabolites in urine so that it can even turn positive if you smoked six months ago. If you prove positive you lose the license, get the fine, etc…if you refuse, you get the same thing…not nice!
No such things happen here. There also seems to be a great paranoia in the east. Before we left and as we packed, we heard numerous friends and associates warn us about the dangers on the road. “Keep your guns in the storage locker!” “Don’t keep any paraphernalia on you!” “Remember the facial recognition scanners every mile along the road!”
We left with two shotguns and a rifle lying right behind the seat under the open case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which we drank all the way from Harrisburg to the bottom of Lake Michigan one June night and did not see a single police until we waved at one in a rest stop outside of Fargo. There is really nothing new to be scared of on the road. Take it from us, it’s the same old road. Be free.
Here, hitch-hikers still stick their thumbs out and serial killers smile at them. Beggars guard entrances to the shopping areas, mostly young methed-out tweakers with nothing to look forward to. Older ones drifted north after then-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani solved the city’s homeless ‘problem’ by rounding up everybody in the parks and giving them a free bus ticket to LA, but only if they promised not to return. So we have all types here.
Most exciting, just to the south in Portland, the city hums with activity. We can feel the energy and a scene is taking place there…either that or the place is loaded with poseurs. From the many small music magazines we see, we know Portland has tons of small venues with live shows every night. Big acts tend to play Seattle and skip down to Cali. The scene in Portland feels organic, the visiting acts at local clubs seem to be an esoteric mix which blends with and compliments all of the fresh new faces releasing new songs on vinyl and playing crowded gigs.
Where can we get the best price for our old vinyl? Portland, of course. So many record and alternative book stores line the streets here that it reminds us of the Village in the old days, before Bleeker Bob’s and other old rare record/cd haunts vanished. If we sell an LP in Portland we get cash as opposed to the dreaded store credit, which has so often dampened our spirits. We take the cash and go to small clubs where the vibe reaches out from the city center into outlying neighborhoods.
Count up the clubs and the acts per night and we do not think NYC can keep up, not with the rock and roll end of things. We feel the loose, mellow, friendly haze of the current heroin epidemic there, as well. Funny how those things seem to keep time with each other.
Seriously, though, the scene in Portland, so robust you can taste it, may just break out and unleash a new twist, a new alternative to alternative, a fresh coat of paint to a passe’ form of music. What is happening in rock and roll right now? Who is hot? Where is the innovation? When did we last see a ‘movement?’ Was that way back when grunge hit?
The biggest sellers remain in place from the sixties, seventies and eighties. The geezers sell more ducats than youths do and that is wrong. College students listen to Pink Floyd and the Beatles. These may be old bands but soon we ought to be hearing from the young and angry again, unless rock and roll really is dead.
We’ll be sitting right here, watching from up close.
See ya!

Whatever Happened To This Blog?

Gentle Readers, for months, perhaps a year, we have been putting you off and have let this once-heralded blog slip into near obscurity. Today, we return and not only that – we return with our original name.
We remain uncertain as to whether we were trying to protect ourselves or trying to get laid when we changed the words ‘substance abuse’ to ‘substantial abuse’.
Too much information on one’s pattern of substance abuse can put low on the list for certain social invites. The fact remains that, as a result of being fed beer regularly as a baby (imagine yourself sucking from a beer bottle as tall as yourself…but just on weekends…), the editorial we naturally became alcoholic. We missed out on all the fun of gateway drugs – ha, ha, as if such a thing exists. We are not Hippies because we were born too late but we did manage to ingest LSD in every decade since the seventies, inclusive, and still keep the old neuro-plasticity working well enough to keep your attention!

We thank all the people who kept reading old entries of the blog while we were out of action.

We also thank Paul Krassner – for inspiration. We contacted him regarding some Beatdom business. Although he influenced us greatly over the years, from MAD to High Times magazines, we felt a pang of guilt when viewing his bibliography. He never shies away from a topic. He is fearless. He wrote a lot about drugs and put them in the titles of his books. He has integrity. We were afraid we would never be able to get laid if we had to explain our substance abuse issues…a pretty lame excuse, looking back.
Mr. Krassner helped change the course of American history to a degree. His activities during the sixties – his outspokenness, sense of humor and respect for Truth – allowed many others to open up with their personal views. Somebody always has to break the ice in a repressive situation and he melted minds. Conversely, The Realist allowed so-called ‘broken minds’ to melt the ice of the oppression of the time through humor. We remember how you Dear Readers love illustrations, so here is the book to look for……if you do not buy it and read it, you will not know what we are writing about when we refer to it in future important dispatches.
Anyway, there is a lot to learn about him and we encourage you all to pick up copies of his books. The best place to find them is on his website, http://www.paulkrassner.com

So, with all that being said, we shall now resume the blog as it ran a few years ago, three to four times a week. We will try to be more politically-minded and will try to be less silly. Things have gotten a lot more serious since we reported Governor Christie getting stuck in his gubernatorial bathtub and being pried out with two boat oars and a handy few pounds of butter from the larder….ah…”larder”… We thank the Gov for allowing us to resurrect an old word! May we gain from his girth.
Another reason for our return lies in the excitement we feel as we explore new lands. Native to New York, we left the east coast and drove west this past summer. After a lifetime in the Eastern Standard Zone except for vacations and other excursions, we find great novelty here in the State of Washington. We knew the diversity of topography to be extreme but the last thing we expected was to wind up stuck in a desert, much less the scablands. Everybody said it rains all the time here.
Not so.
We never experienced such pesky sunshine in all our days. Sun, sun, sun…nothing but sun, all summer. Like Bob Dylan asks a recent LP, “Don’t you know the sun can burn your brains right out?” Speaking of Dylan, we can’t help but compare the area to the locale depicted in the film Masked and Anonymous. With all the Native Americans, Mexicans, sand and abandoned junk cars, the resemblance strikes us as uncanny. In fact some areas here are so bleak as to resemble Afghan mountain ranges; so much so that troops bound for that bloodbath got used to the elements by training near here.
Fall arrived and clouds followed and as the sky got darker, things got brighter. We love rain! The first good rain to come in brought our first dust storm along with it. A fantastic sight! A cool thing to view from the safe confines of a car with rolled-up windows.
There is so much here to discover in Washington, we didn’t know where to start so food is never a bad idea. Crossing the US, we noticed portions of food increasing in size as we pushed westward. True, we settled for road food but it actually tasted good and we had to start comparing fast foods, just to see the cultural anomoly we are faced with.
It started at the ‘Steak’N’Shake’ somewhere in Michigan. Years passed since the last fast food burger touched my lips. It came down to ‘eat or starve’ so we went with Steak’N’Shake. It was amazing! The first thing that freaked us out was the whipped cream and cherry on the milkshake…we remembered that from soda fountains in the distant past. When we opened up the burgers, a cornucopia of veggies stuck out from the bun. While we chose our move to a liberal land where pot is legal, as is same-sex marriage and assisted suicide, liberal portions never occurred to us.
So amazed were we, that to push the idea to the limit, we tried a McDonalds…we must report that our two kitties, along for the trip, actually ate some of the ‘meat’. We tried the same thing in Pennsylvania and they shunned it. Finally, even McDonalds had a cherry on top of the shake.
Now here is the rub.

It is sort of like Lenny Bruce’s ‘Jew vs Goy’ bit…only it seems like Lenny was wrong on that one. He said anybody who lives in New York is jewish, whether they are goyim or not. While admittedly goy to the catholic degree at childhood, we can’t help but feel that the whole northeast seaboard, as well as points as far west as Chicago, create the true demarcation.
Try to find some real foods, foods we grew up with and now we seem to have entered a weird zone of culinary depravity. Perhaps being in the east, where European immigrants first landed, exposed us to a variety of victuals. Ethnic foods spread out from immigrant neighborhoods as they became popular with other cultures.
Brie, capers, anchovies, hummus, halvah, Finlandia or Jarlsburg brand swiss or Parmigiano-Reggiano, olive oil from Italy, couscous…mention these items and prepare to be met with a blank stare. Other seemingly unbotchable staples – pizza and bagels, for instance – get ‘the treatment’. To find a simple slice of pizza (crust, sauce, cheese and spices) the closest option is to send out for a Papa John or Domino imitation pie and cut it in the shape of a slice…or make your own. The concept of an italian pizza shop where you can walk in and buy a slice is exactly that, here on the eastern part of the state, a concept. It is an idea that does not exist. Maybe you can get it in Seattle but we have not gotten that far yet.
Forget bagel shops…but the street tacos rule!
We admit to enjoying a bagel at the most fabulous hotel we could find this side of the Cascades, The Davenport Hotel in Spokane. Here, birthplace of Crab Louis (after Louis Davenport), they referred to the smoked salmon as lox and knew well enough to put capers on the plate. For as many salmon as swim through here every year, we expected that most people would be familiar with lox. Maybe they are better off. I did see a number of big fish float belly up in the Columbia River just around migration time, when the state warned residents not to eat the local fish due to dangerous levels of pollutants in the filets.
Hordes of homeless tweakers who live under bridges and eat these fish since a little added protein never hurts a meth binge, are likely unaware of these warnings. A lot of homeless drifters hang here, though, so that makes us feel welcome. Hitch-hikers spot the roads, too. We hadn’t seen one since 2003 in Ireland. No wonder the serial killers like it here.
There is so much to say, so much to compare, so much to type that we will hold it for another day, tomorrow maybe…
~

Sorry for not really promoting the substance abuse this time. We did drink beer while driving across most of the states, though. We shall make up for this in due time.
Thanks all, for coming back to read this blog, and it feels good to be back!

Some Good Reasons To Buy Beatdom Issue 9

Cats and Kittens, Cherished Readers,

Open minds that have no leaders,

We return to you today after quite a long break in the action, although we see you have been reading daily and we appreciate the patronage!

Our disappearance was caused due to the fact that Your Humble Narrator is now Co-Publisher of Beatdom Books and we published our first two exciting volumes in the month of July…Beatdom Issue Nine and Zoning by Spencer Kansa, which we shall tell you about in the next blog.

     So why buy the new Beatdom? Ten dollars…one dollar per reason…as we have changed the format to that of a more traditional literary journal and also have gone to black and white, save for the excellent cover illustration by R.H.Harper, an excellent Philadelphia artist.

     First and foremost, you will find a lot of great writing from our regular crew of writers, as well as some new faces. We have new, yes NEW, photos of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Norman Mailer which have never been published before and were donated to us by the remarkable Jerry Aronson, whose DVD, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg is reviewed at length, as well as a review of the PBS Naked Lens film by filmmaker Yony Leyser,  William S. Burroughs: A Man Within. You can find reviews of both of them on this blog space if you use the search function but the review in Beatdom, with the photos from Jerry, make an exceptionally fine piece.

     The cover is so nice that you will be sure to look hip while reading it, so that is a reason in itself and it is a real conversation starter…just look at that cover…and there are numerous other great illustrations inside…you may ascertain from the cover that this is our ‘Drugs’ issue, so we have a number of articles with a droogy theme, as well as straight essays and poetry.

     …which brings us to yet another reason, which is the excellent fiction by Katy Gurin, Chuck Taylor and Dan Leo (as well as by Your Humble Narrator) and the accompanying illustrations and art by award-winning filmmaker Waylon Bacon and Haydn Lock.

     Then, we have the scholarly studies from around the world, like the essay on Hunter S. Thompson in Kentucky, by Rory Feehan in Ireland, and a detailed look at Mr. Burroughs’ forays into the jungles of South America in search of yage by Nick Meador and Geetanjali Joshi Mishra’s insightful look at Allen Ginsberg, From Ganja To God, about the late poet’s experiences with ganja in India, and a look at Burroughs’ groundbreaking work with yage by David S, Wills, our fearless leader.

     We have poetry smuggled out of the heart of a womens’ prison, poetry about addiction and poetry about supermarkets, plus more poetry, for the verse-lovers in the crowd.

     Another fine reason to buy this treasure-trove of Beat knowledge and enjoyable fiction and poetry, as we mentioned earlier, is that we have made it available at the ridiculously low price of $9.99 a copy, plus $2 for shipping…that is two dollars in America and two euros for international customers. Our first copy was sent to a reader in Australia…if you order quickly (www.beatdom.com) you may even get your copy before the first one hits the land down under.  We have squeezed the large, airplane-browsing-sized, full colour issues into a standard format literary journal, so it is easy to keep in pocket or purse. In fact, we dare you to find something better to read at that price and if you find something even half as hip, we want to know about it.

    This is actually an old reason, but Beatdom is the world’s most popular Beat-themed literary journal. We have readers on every continent except Antartica and we may open an office there just to stimulate sales…when we have the cash, that is…which may be a while since we only hope to break even on this endeavor…as has always been the case with Beatdom, all along…we are not here to get rich on your hard-earned book money. We are here to keep the Beat spirit alive and let you know what is happening in the world of Beatdom.

     This issue was printed and bound by the prestigious Sheridan Press. We chose them so that we could offer you the best in quality, not just in the writing and art but in the reproduction of such fine work. Sheridan is a venerable force in the publishing industry, printer of the best among literary journals…and that is why we chose them to bring you the finest Beatdom possible.

     It will not be online for immediate free download, like the older, more expensive issues were. It will be in the future – but at the moment, the only way to see it is to open a copy and start enjoying yourself. To older readers, consider this a literary take on ZAP Comix…great art, good messages and hip from beginning to end.

      Also, check out the cover illustration for David Wills’ upcoming (on Beatdom Books) novel The Dog Farm. You may have heard recent news about the glow-in-the-dark dogs which were created by those krazy koreans but Mr. Wills gives you a whole new view of South Korea.

    So what are you waiting for? You can buy it with check, money order or Paypal. Orders paid with check or money order will be shipped once funds have cleared, which is overnight in the day of instant wire transfer…so take a chance…don’t be a mooncalf, don’t be a fuddy duddy…get hip and get yourself a copy of Beatdom Issue Nine…it may sell out before you get the chance…

We’re Baa-ack!!!

     Gentle Readers,

     Much thanks to you for keeping this blog active by reading the archives for the past few weeks. Your visits are appreciated.  We have been busy with a few things, the least of which is putting the final touches on the soon-to-be-released ninth issue of Beatdom, the Drugs Issue and also the Fourth Anniversary Issue.

     We will be moving to a new format which will make owning a copy of your own much easier.  This issue has been graced by the work of Rachel Harper, who did the great cover art you see here, as well as a very cool table of contents. Rachel is a very busy Philadelphia artist and we were very fortunate that she took the time from her overwhelming schedule to provide us with such nice images.

     Inside, behind the cover, we have some excellent stories and essays by Chuck Taylor, Katy Gurin, David S. Wills, Geetanjali Joshi Mishra and more.  As for Yours Truly, we shall have two stories in this issue; one on ‘drugs and creativity’ and another which reviews two Beat-related DVDs, The Life & Times of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs: A Man Within.  This is also out first issue as ‘Editor,’ so we pat ourselves on the back for that and give a ‘tip’o’the’hat’ to David S. Wills for the honor.  David started Beatdom four years ago, at age twenty…no mean feat.  Since then, he has made the Beatdom name familiar around the world by

     This is the ‘Drugs’ issue, so do not be surprised if you hyperventilate while reading it.  We are just tying up loose ends and will send out a shout when it is ready for sale.  We also have been working on tee shirts using the cover art.  Get your order in early if you want one of those.

     Another thing which kept us from the blogosphere was Zoning…no, not the type of zoning that we are known for here at CFYSA.  Zoning is the new novel by Spencer Kansa, which will be released by Beatdom Books in July.  William S. Burroughs, a mentor of Kansa, read it and noted that it ‘reads like an urban Celine’. Fans of Burroughs will enjoy the wild ride that Zoning takes them on, stretching time and space in a fantastic tale of two earthlings bound for no good. Fans are lining up in Scotland already to get a copy.  We have been busy with the reading and editing and all those attendant duties and look forward to both the launch of Beatdom Books and Zoning. 

     Beatdom Books will also be publishing The Dog Farm, the much-awaited, sometimes acrimonious memoir of life in the armpit of South Korea, by David S. Wills.  Having read it a few times, we must admit to enjoying it more with each read.  Again, we will tell you when it is available.  It is a tale of the Beat road of today.

     Pardon us fro the brevity of this blog…we apologize for our absence and hope to be back on our schedule and amusing you all a few times a week, as we get nack to business as usual.

    We thank you again and it is good to be back!!!

Supreme Court gives police a new entryway into homes

 no picture this time, folks, just the disturbing news…

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles TimesMay 16, 2011, 10:47 a.m.

 

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday gave police more leeway to break into residences in search of illegal drugs.

The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision in a Kentucky case, says police officers who loudly knock on a door in search of illegal drugs and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.

Residents who “attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame” when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

In a lone dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she feared the ruling in a Kentucky case will give police an easy way to ignore the 4th Amendment. “Police officers may not knock, listen and then break the door down,” she said, without violating the 4th Amendment.

In the past, the court has said police usually may not enter a home unless they have a search warrant or the permission of the owner. As Alito said, “The 4th Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house.”

One exception to that rule involves an emergency, such as screams coming from a house. Police may also pursue a fleeing suspect who enters a residence. Police were attempting to do that in the Kentucky case, but they entered the wrong apartment, raising the issue of what is permissible in situations where police have reason to believe evidence is being destroyed.

It began when police in Lexington, Ky., were following a suspect who allegedly had sold crack cocaine to an informer and then walked into an apartment building. They did not see which apartment he entered, but when they smelled marijuana smoke come from one of the apartments, they wrongly assumed he had gone into that one. They pounded on the door and called “Police. Police. Police,” and heard the sounds of people moving.

At this, the officers announced they were coming in, and they broke down the door. They found Hollis King smoking marijuana, and put him under arrest. They also found powder cocaine. King was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

But the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned his conviction and ruled the apartment break-in violated his 4th Amendment right against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Police had created an emergency by pounding on the door, the state justices said.

The Supreme Court heard an appeal from state prosecutors and reversed the ruling in Kentucky vs. King. Alito said the police conduct in this case “was entirely lawful,” and they were justified in breaking down the door to prevent the destruction of the evidence.

“When law enforcement officers who are not armed with a warrant knock on a door, they do no more than any private citizen may do,” he wrote. A resident need not respond, he added. But the sounds of people moving and perhaps toilets being flushed could justify police entering without a warrant, he added.

“Destruction of evidence issues probably occur most frequently in drug cases because drugs may be easily destroyed by flushing down a toilet,” he added.

The ruling was not a final loss for King. The justices said the Kentucky state court should consider again whether the police faced an emergency situation in this case.

Ginsburg, however, said the court’s approach “arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the 4th Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases.” She said the police did not face a “genuine emergency” and should not have been allowed to enter the apartment without a warrant.

K2, JWH Products Still Legal No Matter What You Have Read

     Confused Comrades,

     The fact that horrible scumbag politician Jenifer Mann (R-PA) is still trying to pass legislation against K2 and related products, means one thing – they are still legal.  You may have heard on the TV news or read in your local paper that such products were illegal since November last year.  They lied and the public bought it!

     No law was passed and the stuff is perfectly legal.

     They will try to pass the law again but we suggest you try these fun substances while you can.  We also suggest that you find alternative news sources, if you fell for that line of guff.  That goes for everything, not just substances…do not trust the media because it is manipulated,

     Bottomline, if fat assed Jenifer Mann is trying to outlaw these products, that is the proof they are still legal. Wake up and think for yourselves, Gentle Ones, or much worse will be perpetrated upon you in years to come as the government gets further and deeper into out pockets and homes.

     Look for proof and distrust any authority. 

     Sometimes people are compared to sheep.  In a case like this, it is an insult to the sheep, since sheep will not be deterred unless herded by a sheep dog.  Humans do not even require a dog to control them…ignorance works much better.

     Wake up and look around. Make your own decisions. Don’t follow leaders. Watch your parking meters.