Disintegration or Rebirth of a Nation?

I do ponder exactly WHY there's been such a disconnect between those who want to restore our democracy away from the current direction of special interests back to the interest of the people.

Seems like, in reality, before the Tea Party was basically hijacked by right-wing extremists it had much more in common with the Occupy movement than is commonly believed. Both want freedom, an almost libertarian Utopia.

The difference is really only the social issues manufactured by the religious right, the largely heterosexual christian crowd who condemn gay marriage while their own track record is pushing below fifty per cent success rate.

Or decrying marijuana use while decimating livers and lives through drunken excess. Or celebrating the right to carry assault weapons then decrying urban violence.

Or professing the sanctity of life at inception yet condoning the death penalty.

Otherwise, we all want a sensible tax structure, the right to live as we please as long as we hurt no one else, and the expectation of a comfortable life in the richest large country on the planet. Is that asking to much? Time for a loya jurga with the two groups, and a mind reset.

Welcome aboard, all!

OCCUPY PLUMMER PARK

WEHO SHOULD not be immune to a bit of healthy protest.

The ENDLESS OVERSPENDING and OVERBUILDING has decimated the friendly,

artsy vibe and caused a cavalcade of congestion on our neighborhood streets.

We need to STOP CITY HALL from killing it ALL.

They just want these big developer projects for funding for higher office campaigns. It's a tradition in our Creative City. It's a bad one.

It's soils everything. I say, call 'em on it and

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS FAIR AND FINE

get the VERNON-like fat cat politicos OFF council and OUT of our minds, already!

A candidate can win with 100K to challenge them,

but Steve Martin came within 300 votes with just 10K--it can be DONE!!!!

Duty NOW for the FUTURE!

SIGN THE PETITION

Change.org and then search: Plummer

Listen to DEVO! They KNOW! OCCUPY 66 & Sweetzer!!!

Behold The Glorious TAQUILA MOCKINGBIRD

A fantastic set again from the Amazing

TAQUILA MOCKINGBIRD!

Her quartet of accomplished musicians Blond Moondust, including amazing drummer BOOMBOOM

kept the vibe very, very jazzy as Ms. T went through her standards crooning in a voice at once reminiscent of Billie, Edith, Marlene and even Genya Ravan. Falling In Love Again was captivating and as the classics poured forth, My Funny Valentine reminded us (as did TAQUILA) that she became engaged on Valentine's Day! Host Egor at

Isla Cantina on the Sunset Strip was swept away into another world by her performance...and the guests by the ambience, cuisine and locale. Stay posted for more performances by this most accessible, yet arcane, of divas.

Rumor has it she'll be performing at the SOLAR THE SIGN

benefit @ ISLA CANTINA on March 27th.

BARACKATTACK

DEMS DID IT TO THEMSELVES

GOSH they're such NICE guys n gals they get STOMPED ON left n right.

Mostly right.

I think if OBAMA had not been swayed by trying so hard to stay the course his advisers suggested, we'd be:

In less debt

Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan

Calling a Loya Jurga for all Muslims to confront worldwide opinion against radicalism

Working a Peace Corps angle for American youth.

Seems almost every single security/military type is a holdover.

The photo op with

Republican Presidents Bush 43 and Clinton

(you read that right) over Haiti was sickening.

The man who allowed the fiasco after Katrina should not share a photo op at the White House he helped trash.

He should fade into ignominy.

SO NOW the majority is lost in the Senate, even though it barely matters as the Dems let the Healthcare reform bill whittle away to the size of a small band-aid™.

Maybe we need a Teddy ROOSEVELT, not an FDR.

I don't have the answer, and apparently no one else does either.

I have laughed at Becknpalin et al for months now, but it seems this lunatic fringe of a marginalized party is not causing mass defections after all. PROOF that a bevy of self-centered non-compassionate users run the 'Pubs and have since my birth, at least.

BRING ON THE LIBERTARIANS!!!!!!!

The Conspiracy of Conspiracies

Somedays I can be easily mistaken for BROTHER THEODORE. Waking up and peering from under the covers, blinds tightly drawn, it's easy to imagine that certain elements of this planet are out to get me. And you.

Sure, I've had a few stalkers, probably due to my unbearably intoxicating good looks. A dragqueen, a mixed up bi boy, a geezer: the usual suspects. But they were largely harmless, unlike my current certifiable stalker who sends me threatening e-mails signed, Love and Peace or some such incongruous catchphrase. The internets make it really, really easy to be tracked down, and you don't have to scale my estate walls with duct tape and rope at ready to find me at your mercy.

Big cities are anonymous, good or bad, and it's hard to tell if that person is actually following me down the street and just seems familiar or in fact has TASER™ in hand, ready for a stun and toss in the back of a black SUV headed for the hills, some dungeon or romp room a the ready.

LIVING IN FEAR is not an option, but one thing I learned in NYC at three ayem crossing Cooper Union from Village east to west: STAY ALERT! Look around: looking a little menacing yourself, a little crazy, is always an option. I was never hassled in Manhattan, and this in the Age of Crack, yet.

So if you come up to me on the street because we are facebook™ "Friends" please ID yourself, and give a reference. Otherwise, my BROTHER THEODORE MINDSET might take over and I just might be the one pulling out a TASER™

COPROCK

Drunken slobs on Paycheck Fridays at the oft-lampooned LA Police Academy, resulting in the DUI death of a young motorcycle officer, wrapping his bike around a post.

LAPD sting operations against gay men in the bushes bordering Weho. The Moreno Valley flack jacket and armed invasion of black-owned barber shops ostensibly for licensing violations. Gay bar patrons harassed and beaten. A homeless women armed with only a screwdriver and obviously mentally disturbed shot like carnival target.

I hereby volunteer to change the course and direction of my colorful life for a new goal:

Teaching sensitivity to men and women in uniform. Not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in the streets and cars and bedrooms of America, where overzealous and under-trained cops seem to overreact more often than not.

I was recently able to pose a question to new LAPD CHIEF CHARLIE BECK about the above referenced entrapment of gay men, and how LAPD jut didn’t get it. Neither did the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department, I opined, until we throttled them a bit and got some response…Beck pledged to work toward interagency cooperation, and gosh, I think he really means it. There’s no reason that these organizations aren’t all on the same big, fat, recycled page, the page with large typeface easy to read by all with no subtext and no connotations. Just the facts, ma’am and those facts are that well, let’s not shoot to kill every sing time, or get the wrong address in a raid, or assume guilt based on skin color or location, among other obvious factors.

Imagine, for a moment, you are a black man, established in the

African American community, and bursting in your doorway, ready to haul you off to the hoosegow. The era of water cannons and lynching might well reside in the memory banks of this barber: certainly the history of the struggle is not forgotten.

Perhaps it would be wise to enter with the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology inspectors, ask to see the requisite paperwork, and then act accordingly. I know, that gleaming black leather, shiny firearms and polished badge make it hard to resist leaning on people and using that might. That’s where the training comes into play. That’s where Chief Beck’s Community Policing policy comes into play. Sorry, Gates, it is broke and we do have to fix it. You’re old school and it’s a new era, an era where we work together for the common good, not uncommon greed and power. See you in time for Police Academy 8, or whatever number they’re up to. In this one, there’s less to laugh at, and more to laugh with.

A Poem

Route 66 Sunday Morning 106 Degrees

The Ford door flies open propelled

massive greasy head of hair falls out

head smashed tight onto the gravel

door swings back hits head hard

settles against ear squeal ringing

aching jaw just cracked with fist

of crazed shirtless tattooed driver

raw anger alive in clenched form

shot with unnerving force

blackout…

brown greasy bag hits pavement

shatters - a muffled smash

hands yank at jeans

in pockets like a hundred wired snakes

few crumpled bills, not ten dollars

snatched as desert water, gone, gone

boot push on crotch as shoulders fall from ford

next rump then legs and a final

kick from a scuffed heel

dust tires screeching silence

hot desert all around waiting

for the buzzard dance

boots akimbo