...and I hide in the stairway and I hang in the curtain and I sleep in your hat...

So I was talking to Mom on the phone earlier tonight, for the first time in many moons. It was actually a really lovely conversation...she lovingly kicked my ass to (a) deal promptly and aggressively, yet diplomatically, with a snafu that has come up with my UIC Ph.D. app; and (2) to fucking write.

I've got a million excuses for why I'm not doing the writing even though the Ph.D app stuff is done, but all of them are ultimately bogus, except perhaps for the one that involves not really having ideas just now, and not being in a headspace in my day-to-day life to encourage ideas, and develop them, and put them down on paper. But Mom talks a very good and persuasive game. So.

Earlier I was reading the Emilyon's blog, and following her links, and then posting Tom Waits stuff. I also cued my peer-to-peer software to download "9th and Hennepin," and when it got done just now I listened to it, and was weirdly inspired. Because there's weirdness in that...nighttime logic stuff, as Kelly Link might say. One of the reasons I've always loved it. But, so...

And all the rooms they smell like diesel
And you take on the dreams of the ones who have slept here
And I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway
And I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat...
And no one brings anything small into a bar around here
They all started out with bad directions

I think there might be something there, to think through over the weekend and maybe sink some writing teeth into. "I'm lost in the window, and I hide in the stairway, and I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat. What am I?"

That's the question. It sounds like a riddle, when put that way. And it's an interesting and pleasing one to try to construct an answer to. Especially given the rest of the song/piece/thing. So, I dunno. We shall see.

And what does the size of barroom luggage have to do with whether the directions were good or not? I wonder...

It's gonna be creepy and weird, though, and probably oddly, darkly and dementedly romantic. I mean, that's where you've gotta go with it, I think. I haven't done creepy, or tried to, in quite some time. Maybe not since week one of Clarion, actually. But there's also

And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear
One for every year he's away, she said
Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by

There it is, right there. What might the $100 buy? And what does the "Southern Pacific" have to do with anything, in Minnesota? Is he talking about a now-defunct railroad concern? I don't know, though it would fit with the "clang and thunder" descriptors. So.
(UPDATE: Apparently so, hence the hyperlink. I love Wikipedia!)

And of course I have no shame in using song lyrics as the inspiration for stories, apparently. Cf. "The Distance in Your Eyes." So.

Anyway. Close to bedtime. So I'm going to sleep on this, and let it rattle around in my back brain for a little while, see what emerges. Cheers.

And if you don't own a copy of "Rain Dogs," for chissake buy one, or obtain one by other means. It's worth every cent and more, so what's wrong with you? Geez.

ARRRRRH, matey!

Sorry. All about the pirates, who continue to fascinate me.

So apparently we've got a new ass-kicking task force, CTF-151, patrolling the Somali coast and the Gulf of Aden. Well, sorta. They're patrolling, but ass-kicking? Not too much yet, though piracy incidents are down. Might just be rough seas, though. Our multinational flotilla sure talks a good game, though.

Meanwhile, of course, the pirates themselves seem to be developing still further their tactical awareness (bitches!--in-joke, beg your pardon), running games and winning at them against the Indian and Chinese navies.

One thing that continually baffles (and annoys the crap out of) me with our national rhetoric, and to an extent the West's international rhetoric is that we always seem to spin it so that the "evildoers"--terrorists, pirates, folks in general who commit acts in flagrant violation of international law--get cast as being somehow second-class or wildly inferior simply because they're poor and quite possibly hungry and their skin color is often a darker shade.

Now, don't get me wrong...if someone's reprehensible but a moron, I'm all for calling him or her on that. Thing is, it actually requires a hell of a lot more thought, creativity and tactical precision for guys with speedboats and AK-47's on the open seas to get their job done (in this case, piracy) than it should for us to do our job (in this case, to deter them). And they seem to beat us, more often than not, these days.

This suggests to me that these people are smarter, and more creative, and more flexible, and more highly motivated than we are. Even if they're doing reprehensible things, the fiction of meritocracy should demand, or at least allow, that we give them due props for their operational competence (relative to us, anyway...and on the downside for the pirates, there were those dudes who seized the Saudi oil tanker, got the $$$, and then drowned on the way home) regardless. The West sucks at irregular warfare--on land, as we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza, and by sea, as we can see (if we have the eyes to do so) of fthe coast of Somalia. We've got billion-dollar warships and all kinds of crazy stuff. They've got chewing gum, baling wire and black-market weapons. They now also have the German-owned tanker, snatched from a convoy with a navy escort, and now there's one more ship that someone somewhere is going to wind up paying a ransom on. Who are the competent ones here, I ask?

Way to go, CTF-151.

...the moon's teethmarks on the sky, like a TARP thrown all over this...

I'm not sure why, but reading the Emilyon's post, and the associated links, found me reflecting on the acronym TARP, because the link to the Obama smackdown actually defined it (Troubled Asset Relief Program), which increasingly and exponentially seems like it should win the Ironic Product/Program Name of the Year Prize. Anyway, it put me in mind of an old Tom Waits spoken-word piece from "Rain Dogs," called "9th and Hennepin." It's named for an intersection in Minneapolis that is apparently renowned as, well, you can probably glean from the lyrics. Here's the first ten lines or so.

Well it's 9th and Hennepin
And all the donuts have
Names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are
On the sky like a TARP thrown over all this
And the broken umbrellas like
Dead birds and the steam
Comes out of the grill like
The whole goddamned town is ready to blow.
And the bricks are all scarred with jailhouse tattoos
And everyone is behaving like dogs.

And yes, I did capitalize the "tarp" in the lyrics. But the whole goddamn town is, perhaps getting ready to blow. Also, everyone does seem to be behaving like dogs, at least on Wall Street.

At the same time, still and yet, everything is a little bit better, or a little bit easier to take in its badness at least, when Tom Waits gets deployed. So I'm just trying to do my part. Cheers.

A terrifying thought.

But an amusing one, to me at least, in a sick sort of way. Look forward to 2016. Who will be running for president? Some of Blago's wiretapped natterings indicated that he could see himself in that position at that time. And of course Sarah Palin has made her interest in the GOP nod pretty clear. So imagine Blagojevich vs. Palin in '16. Rather than a lame tag line like "Decision 2016," the news orgs could do up a nifty graphic that reads "2016: Race to the Bottom."

Question I've got is, to make a Blago ticket and a Palin ticket all they can be, who would be their running mates? Suggestions from the floor are encouraged.

UPDATE: Here's my thought on the running mates, actually. Joe Lieberman, that reprehensible little Zion-crazed muppet would get offered the VP nod, from both parties. And he'd accept both nominations, like the two-faced shitweasel he is. Hee.

Blago, Blago, Blago...

I've been resisting going into the twilight zone that is Rod Blagojevich's world, in large measure because an awful lot of people are already going there and I didn't think that one more was needed. Today's priceless Blago tidbit, though, has lodged in my brain, and blogging seems to be the only way to dislodge it.

So after spending most of the week doing interviews on cable news and boycotting his own trial and talking trash about the folks who are conducting it, the tastefully-coiffed governor of Illinois decided today that he wants to make a closing argument at the trial, I suppose just in case (or perhaps for some truly nutty and bizarre reason that nobody who doesn't live in his head could possibly imagine). Here's the rub, though:

... the two-term Democrat wishes to deliver a closing argument, for which he needs the senate’s permission. (emphasis added)

There really are no words, except perhaps "Hee."

Well, they're not trying to fake their own deaths in plane crashes, but...

...I hadn't realized there were so many investment scams coming to light. There's lots. Ah, the joys of the deregulated marketplace. Phil Gramm, America thanks you. Shithead.

The state obtains some distance from political failure...

Huh. All about the Lind tonight, apparently. Interesting notion, though.

http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2009/01/27/on-war-289-his-majestys-birthday/