pyroguysr's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WARNING: You won't like this post. It contains Political Commentary MISCELLANEOUS RAMBLINGS, RANTS AND POLITICAL COMMENTARY Seen on a bag of �Boston Baked Beans� candy: WARNING: May contain peanuts. (well DUH!) MY LITTLE TRIP OK� so I went to Chattanooga to visit one of the CEA chatters� and was again stiffed. I got an address that didn�t exist. (NOT a funny joke after driving 480 miles, I tell you.) It won�t happen again, but I think the really strange thing is that I�m not really pissed off about it. It was a beautiful drive. Mountains contain so much positive energy and well, they say that the atmosphere is more positively charged up there. The Smoky Mountains are beautiful. Driving west on I-40 is like driving into an artists oil painting of scenery. It's almost surreal. There are a multitude of blue/purple hues as the mountains are set against one another. There are all the shades of green, red, white and orange as the trees blossom their flowers and bud their leaves. I smiled at the beauty of the Dogwoods and redbuds as they bloomed. Then, as the evening fell, there was the diamond-like lights twinkling of lights on the mountainsides, turning towns and cities into man-made jewelry. There are curves up and down the mountains that take the tedium out of driving. I was happy, I was relaxed. I got to listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannitty on the way there without Kat being upset (more on that later) and I got to listen to about two hours worth of bluegrass on the way back. Yes, I love bluegrass. I hate most country (but with lots of exceptions... Commander Cody & his Lost Planet Airmen, Toby Keith, Kinky Friedman and his Texas Jewboys, Delbert McClinton, k.d. lang and Lyle Lovett to name a few... though I don't really consider them all true country), but I love bluegrass� even the religious stuff, but mainly the instrumentals. I go to festivals of bluegrass, celtic music and folk music when I can. I love Bill Monroe, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and folks like that. I like Flatt and Scruggs, Homer and Jethro. I had a client once that was the nephew of Lester Flatt. He showed me a mandolin that Lester had given him as a gift� Had 24-kt gold-wire frets, and gold, silver, platinum and mother-of-pearl inlay in the wood. I remember that the wood was fairly exotic as well, but I can�t recall what he said it was made from. Seven years ago, he valued it at $1500. I think it would have been worth more, because it was from Lester. THE POLITICAL COMMENTARY (WARNING: Liberals may find a lot of this offensive because it may open your mind to some other possibilities other than the loathing you hold for your own country, government and way of life. Discontinue reading if you think that John Kerry is the answer to our problems � Skip down to �FANTASM� if you don�t wanna read all this - I will not respond to any emails or note posts concerning the following. I put up with seeing your rants put on BB's and note sections. THIS is MY opinion - live with it.) This is by no means everything I want to say or everything I believe, it�s merely a rant. If you reply, argue or respond to it, I will ignore and forgive you� but you know where I stand on issues of national security, the war, private-vs-public sector, et al. I get a little pissed when all the liberals can post things on the BB at sillychat, whether they are jokes or commentary or whatever� and they aren�t even blinked at� but when I or Milkman or Zalitar post something of a conservative nature, we�re jumped all over. It�s not right, it�s not fair and that�s not good. We have our opinions as well and we have just as much right to express them. Sometimes Kat�s ultra-liberal politics bothers me. I listen to NPR, occasionally the �regular� media, sometimes the CBN news and I listen to Rush, Sean and (when I can) to G. Gordon Liddy. I enjoy all of them and I think THAT way, I get a balanced view of the news. She doesn�t seem to think so. A friend of ours, Weatherly, at MDRF (Maryland Ren Fest) told me last year that "Conservatives have taken over the media." I laughed at her. Prior to Rush Limbaugh, AM radio was just about dead. I mean, NOBODY listened to it unless you were Mexican, listening to a sports game, the news or trying to find out why traffic was so fucked up. Limbaugh revitalized AM radio. But he's only on ONE station. Most of the conservatives are on ONE station in any given city. And for every station that Limbaugh et al are on, there are two dozen that are of a liberal ilk. The mere fact that he has TWENTY MILLION LISTENERS daily says something about what he has to say and what the majority of this country believes... in other words, we are tired of being spoon-fed what the liberal media (radio, TV, Newspapers and Magazines) want us to hear. We want to hear the rest of the story! The FULL story, not just a soundbite that some liberal, ivy league editor/station manager things we should hear. I think if some of you out there listened to more than one news source, you might have different opinions than you have now. But I can't force you to change, so you may as well keep your head in the sand so you don't see when you're getting your asses shot off. As many of you know, I don�t have a high opinion of Hillary. Per Kat, this means that I, as a conservative, don�t have an appreciation for �strong women.� I don�t? I admire Margaret Thatcher, Liz Dole� oh wait� when liberals mean �strong woman� they only mean �strong LIBERAL women.� I think Hillary is a liar, a crook and a power-hungry fascist. Then again, I think that of Jesse Jackson, Cesar Chavez and Ted Kennedy. But I do admire many liberal women as well. I admire Renee Zellweger. She had the right idea when the whole Dixie-Chicks fiasco was happening� she said (though I�m paraphrasing here), �Why don�t we all shut up when we don�t know what we�re talking about and stick to what we do best� art.� I enjoyed the Dixie Chicks music up until they opened their mouths in England. (If you�re gonna say that kind of crap, say it here in the States� but then again, be ready to face the consequences... they�d prolly get stoned at a C&W stage if they said that. Keep needling them, Toby!) One other liberal woman I admire is Kat. She�s the only one in her family that didn�t go to college� in fact, she dropped out of high school. But she�s the only one that runs her own business. She�s the only one of her family that has the guts to take chances. She�s the only one in her family that isn�t a hypocrite (everyone in her family is New England Uber-Liberal � and they all bitch �because the blacks and the damn Puerto Ricans are moving into the area and, dammit, ruining it!) Kat�s got guts. She�s a good lady. Bush is gonna win. Even the liberal talk-show hosts I listened to on the way back were conceding that. Kerry is not inspiring the masses on the left. He flip-flops too much. To some, he's too liberal... to others, he's not liberal enough. To many, he's just another tired, elderly political hack from the east coast that has more money than brains. If he picks some other east coast schmuck, he�ll lose in a landslide. If he picks Hillary, it will be closer, but he will still lose. Why? Because their biggest base is comprised of college students getting their virgin minds filled with mush by academicians (that, if left to the real world, would starve to death because they�re too full of bombast to succeed in the real world. Instead, they poison the minds of our kids.) I love college kids� but college kids don�t vote. Second reason Bush will win� The campaign ads will get vicious on both sides. We�ll all get sick of watching them, but traditionally, when they get really nasty, it turns off liberal voters faster than it does conservative ones. Most of the people I know that bitch about the government AND Bush are liberals... that don't vote... ("My vote doesn't count, so what's the point? I hate politics anyway...") I also think that they should make voting day a national holiday that you can only get paid for it if you show that you voted... and they should include a "none of the above" choice for voters... If NOTA wins/gets a majority of the votes, you have to hold the election all over again! It might keep some of the rhetoric down and keep them focused on the ISSUES! Third reason?� Independent candidates will take away key voters from the Democrats more than the Republicans. Ralph Nader will suck away a large portion because he�s an extremist and a hard-core socialist, appealing to the far left �Deanies� out there. Finally, the reason he will win? He is CORRECT. He understands that this war is not about oil, it�s not about �imperialism� it�s not about Saddam, it�s not about any of the crap you liberals think it�s about. It�s a fuckin� religious war. It�s about people that hate you, hate me, hate us and our way of life and are willing to fill the minds of their followers with all kinds of religious clap-trap so that they will wrap bombs around themselves, killing us and themselves, just to get their way (funny though� you never see any of the masterminds like Osama wrapping bombs around himself, anxious to get into heaven for those �40 virgins� and wine). It�s about people that are dead-set on destroying our way of life and have been for the past 60 years. It�s about a group of thugs that want to take away your freedoms, the freedoms of the people that live with them. It�s about people that think that women are second-class citizens and should be sexually mutilated because they should not enjoy sex. It�s about people that think everyone should believe the way THEY believe or should die. You fuckin� accuse Bush and the religious right of this horrid way of thinking, but you defend the enemy that believes this to the extreme that they are willing to fly airplanes into towers and kill thousands of innocent people to make their point. But you liberals would have the gangs that rule our streets be your government. You support thugs and criminals ruling our cities (by passing anti-gun legislation that affect only law-abiding citizens - the crimials laugh at them) and ruling other countries, yet accuse conservatives of doing the same. Clinton did NOTHING in 8 years to stop this shit from happening, and now it turns out that he and his cohorts may have actually put the policies in place that allowed 9/11 to happen!! Why are you pissed off? Because when Bush says he�s gonna do something, he actually does it? He actually backs UP his words with actions? There were weapons of �mass destruction.� Saddam used them against his own people. We�re finding mass graves every week with tens of thousands of bodies. Why weren�t you screaming then, back in 1995 when Saddam was using nerve gas (a weapon of mass destruction, folks!)against his own people because they disagreed with him? Hmmm? If we did that here, you'd revolt! Where were you when the jerks in Afghanistan were mutilating women, killing off those that were educated and stoning to death those that spoke out? Oh, you didn�t CARE then? Because WE weren�t �involved?� And what did Clinton do? He lobbed a couple cruise missiles at an aspirin factory and admonished, �now stop that!� What did it achieve? NOTHING. Hypocrites. You�re all a bunch of hypocrites. You talk the talk, but you won�t walk the walk. I happen to think that everyone in the world should enjoy the same freedoms that I do. I could go on a great deal more, but I�m trying to keep the tone down so that I don�t offend too many of my friends. I don�t hate you, but I vehemently disagree with you on a political level. I�m just not letting my emotions get in the way of friendship. People can disagree politically and still be friends, after all. But Bush has some image problems among the conservatives. That� so-called �campaign finance reform� didn�t do anything other than give incumbents the edge. All they have to do is call a news conference to announce some trivial piece of legislation or give an opinion and they will get air time during those �last 30 days before the election.� It was a bunch of hokey and an abridgement of free speech. I don�t like the idea of school vouchers. Every time you get the �govmint� involved, they screw things up. Private schools were the last bastion of places where you could send your kid for a decent education. No, not everyone could get it and that�s a good thing. These schools should be for kids that WANT to learn. Now, giving me a choice of which PUBLIC school I want to send my kid to, that may be different. Put THOSE schools in competition and take away tenure� AND take away the power of school boards to dictate how and what teachers can teach, what the textbooks can and can�t put in� THEN we might get schools back on the right track� as it is, things are pretty screwed up. School systems care more about how a student �feels� about being educated than actually providing an education. I also want to see corporal punishment reintroduced. Give the teachers back their control of the classroom! Students don�t fear the teachers� and they should! I was scared to death of the penguins, scared to death of ever getting �the paddle� (got it only once in 8 years� and on the last day of school for getting into a fight with another geek� and the paddle wasn�t all that bad� it was the IDEA of getting smacked that kept me and the others in line)� and I got a great education because of it. The last thing that irritates me about Bush is that he put together this prescription drug package. EVERYBODY gets the benefit, not just those that need it. Creates even more government. I�m REALLY not happy about that one. I want government reduced� I want the IRS eliminated and a flat tax imposed. I want welfare to become workfare. I want all these huge bureaucracies dismantled and a lot of this crap turned over to the private sector or charities. OK� I�ll get off the soapbox. FANTASM Fantasm wasn�t quite as fun this year. The costuming wasn�t as outrageous, the people weren�t as bubbly (probably because of conditions at the hotel), the parties weren�t as fun and overall, it was just more subdued. The hotel was supposed to be exclusively ours. Ramada Inn was closing this hotel and it was to be sold that Monday to an investor that wants to turn it into a resort for adult-oriented conventions and vacationers. However, the hotel owners, I guess, decided to squeeze the last dollars out of the place. There were families staying at the hotel. There were truckers staying there. There were� regular� people there. LOL Thankfully, we didn�t stay at that hotel. We were at the �overflow� hotel (another Ramada Limited, about 6 blocks away) which was a little quieter. The main hotel was only $25 a night� but some rooms didn�t have hot water� some didn�t have showerheads and many didn�t have televisions. Some had no water at all! One or two rooms didn�t have locks on the doors! (I think the same people that owned this hotel own MrsCoble�s apartment complex, eh?) But we had little kids wandering into our areas. I mean, there was nothing really overtly bad in the dealers room or the exhibition rooms during the day� but I wouldn�t want my 6 yr old to be pointing to leather accoutrements or watching manga-type anime and say, �mommy, what are those for?� It was not good. Worse yet� they had a group of Korean Fundementalists having an Easter Service in the main exhibition hall that Sunday morning� I wonder if they knew about the shows going on the previous night. Then they had to walk �the gauntlet� of all the freaks, Goths, leather-fetishists and otherwise just strange people� many outside smoking and drinking beer� Kat says we gave them something to do� they could pray for our souls! LOL It still wasn�t right that the hotel management did that. The Convention Suite was in the old hotel restaurant. We had a bar there and donations were accepted for any booze. I went in there and got stickerized. Yep� even had a sign for it. Got a dragon sticker on my con ID. And kissed. And fondled. It was fun! *grins* That was also where the internet connections were. As one person said to me, �Isn�t it pathetic� here we are at the kinkiest convention in the States and we�re online� chatting. I had to laugh. She was right! There was a girl at the beginning of con that was a part of the dealers room. She kept looking at me and giving me that �don�t I know you?� look. Of course, I knew her. She was short� she was blonde� she was small-breasted� Of course I knew her. From Baltimore. At the club that Tiger worked at� Orpheus. When I told her, she laughed and said, �Oh yeah! YOU!� She never knew my name, just that I was friends with Tiger, my old landlady, and current girlfriend of Alan, the blonde�s ex boyfriend. Kat is sometimes a little too loyal to Tiger. She doesn�t like Stacey ( the blonde � Had to go ask Kat her name again), only because she IS Alan�s ex. Alan says that�s all behind him. He talks to her, she talks to him. Stacey wants a Dragon. Kat doesn�t really want to sell her one. I don�t care. I�m not letting personalities interfere with business. Her money is as green as anyone elses. I talked to her and complimented her on the corset she bought� of course, I liked the chainmail bra she was wearing before� heh heh. She was one of the few cute, short, small-breasted females walking around that was �straight.� Lots of busty women though, if that�s what you like� lots of busty brunettes � Betty Paige types. They don�t really do that much for me, but there were lots of them. I guess my attitude about gays kinda freaks people out when they hear I�m a conservative� Actually, I tell them I�m a �Libertarian Conservative� but they don�t hear or don�t understand what �Libertarian� means. I don�t mind gays. I have several friends and acquaintances that are gay. What Libertarian means is that, whatever you want to do behind closed doors and between consenting adults is YOUR business, not mine, not the public�s, not the city, county, state or federal gov�mint�s. As long as it is consenting and doesn�t harm someone, doesn�t violate mine or another�s civil rights, then it is NOBODY�s fuckin� business but your own! I really do hate busybodies. Which brings me to the next point. Fantasm or the owner of this hotel will need to change the way things are done next year. I have to admit, Atlanta doesn�t really like us� but they dislike us less than the other cities involved with Fantasm in the past. The hotels in Atlanta don�t like us� we�ve never had the con in the same hotel twice. Mainly because some of these people don�t know the difference between having fun and being stupid and destructive. Being that we were �supposed� to have the hotel to ourselves, we had some people sign up for the con that were a part of our local men in blue. Undercover cops. They were pretty obvious and they were pretty cool, other than busting a young couple that were having sex in the pool. (I understand that the idiot male of the two didn�t think he was doing anything wrong and resisted arrest� probably could have gotten away with a warning if he hadn�t been an asshole about it� but then, that goes back to what I said earlier about not having a healthy respect/fear for authority figures� it leads to stupidity� but then again, that�s what the Darwin Awards are for.) But to have cops there at all� was stupid. We were all consenting adults. It was a fairly private, enclosed courtyard and no one was being harmed (I didn�t know until later that there were non-conventioners staying at the hotel), so what was the big deal? Again, Libertarian ideals would have said, no one�s rights were being abridged or violated, so what�s up wit dat? Another observation I had was a woman that was ranting on about how a few of the convention-goers were either planning or having an Easter Service in one of the rooms. You know� I dislike fundementalist atheists/agnostics as much as I do the religious ones. They�re both closed-minded, opinionated fools that think their way is the only way. Again, as it harms none, do as ye will! Lastly, I was walking out to the car when I noticed two of the con-goers standing by a pillar. One of them was taking a picture of a plant growing out of a crack between the pillar and the sidewalk. I commented that, �Now THERE is a TRUE photographer!� His wife/mistress/girlfriend laughed and said, �He�s not just taking pictures of a plant� but the KIND of plant.� �Huh?� I went and had a look� OMG! Serrated leaves� five of them to a group� Somebody dropped a seed. It sprouted. (they ARE weeds, after all!) Don�t let the undercover cops know! 3:17 p.m. - 2004-04-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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