Duck Diamonds, a fixture at the Liquor and Rubber Balls Sports Bar and Shoe Repair (While U Wait), stares thoughtfully at the teevee set above the bar, ignoring it and everything around him.  I can tell: he’s thinking.

Duck doesn’t think that often.  What he does most is calculate, which is different.  Duck is a professional gambler whose specialty is sports of all kinds, from NFL and MLB to MMA and LSMFT.  He’ll also beat your ass in cards, dominos, billiards, and dice.  He has a unique and very interesting perspective on this great joke we call life, which he says is the worst wager there is.  “Don’t make it,” he advises, “unless you like losing.”

I ask him if he’s heard any good Tiger Woods jokes.

“No I have not,” he replies.  “And I’ve heard them all.”

So what’re you brooding on today?

He sighs.  “Afghanistan,” he says.  “We’re on a fools errand.  It’s lose-lose.  We stay, we take gigantic human and financial losses, lose face, lose allies, and eventually lose the so-called war.  We leave, we look like losers to the terrorists and the rest of the world.”  He shoots down his whiskey, signals for another.  “Stupid stupid stupid.”

I take it you have a better strategy.

“Sure.  Simple.  We stop firing guns.  Ground the drones.  Lose the camouflage.  And stop trying to clean up corruption – it’s their way of life.  Everybody’s filthy, from illiterate serfs to the President’s brother.

“So what have they got?   That country is the world’s biggest supplier of poppies, heroin, and opium – it’s their only export.  We tell them we’ll buy it — pay in cash.  They sell it all to us, we take it away and bring it here.  We fence off a gigantic chunk of  Wyoming or someplace and dump it there, let it rot or freeze.  And we tell them we’ll be back for more next harvest.

“This costs us a fraction of what it costs to send an army.  Nobody dies, either, and instead of fucking hating us, they love us – we’re their best customer, makin’ ‘em filthy rich.  They know only one thing – how to grow dope.  We reward that skill and they forget their quarrels.

“And  we solve our dope problem at the same time.  We just gotta keep our own people away from stealing from ourselves and selling it back.  Be a lot easier if it was all in one place, under our own control, yeah?

“Hearts and minds are won with open wallets, not by nutcase ideology.”  He swallows his shot and slams the glass down in an alcoholic exclamation point..

Duck.  That’s brilliant.

“It ain’t brilliant, it just makes sense.   Which is exactly why it won’t happen.  It’s straight and practical, and the world runs on hypocrisy.  Naturally, it’s political suicide besides.”

So we’re off to war.

“Yep!  And we’re gonna lose.  If I was a gamblin’ man, I’d bet the house.”

IF you were a gambling man?  You ARE a gambling man.

He smiles.  “That I am,” he purrs.  “You got your deed on you?”

Quite a week around here and it’s barely Tuesday.  Two names from the past appear (Rollo Nickels and Miami Harold) in the comments section, along with some impassioned exchanges (apparently from Great Britain) over that ancient post, “Dem Bones Dem Bones Dem Bones.”

And then there’s this in the email:

Walcot Kevin

to customerservic

Dear one,

How is business? I hope by God’s grace business is moving on smoothly.My name is Mr.Walcot from the united state of America The main purpose of mailing you is that,I am in need of some Paper Toilet,when a business friend of mine asked me to contact you for assistant.I would like to order the Paper Toilet,I would like this order to be shipped international to my new store in SOUTH AFRICA .So if yes your     company can assist me place this orders then kindly mail me back with the prices and types of the above mentioned item,So that I can quickly make payment for the orders and also don’t forget to mail me your method of payment.Thank you very much and hope to hear from you again.

Best Regard

MR WALCOT

I’d enjoy following up on this, negotiating the price of the paper toilet he requests, but life’s too short and the beer’s getting warm.  (How does this work?  Do you wipe yourself afterwards with porcelain?)  I would also congratulate Mr. Walcot on his excellent command of English: clearly he’s a product of our public school system, prepared to compete in 21st century global markets.

Reminds me of an encounter I had on Thanksgiving.  Guido sends me off for 40 pounds of bagged ice for the coolers.  The idea is to move the wine and beer out of the refrigerator to make room for the food, then use the coolers for a bar during dinner.  Publix is closed, so I motor over to the local Circle K, staffed by heathen illegal immigrant non-believers who work on holidays.  (Jews, probably  Don’t let the turbans or Spanish accents fool you.  Devious swarthy bastards control the money, the media, AND the convenience stores.  I hear that on the radio.)

I tell the counter person I want to pay for 40 pounds of ice.  Her eyes widen.  “40 pounds?” she asks, despairingly.  Shakes her head.  “I don’t have that.  I guess you could look, but….” And she spreads her hands apart to visualize what a container that size would be.

I use small words to assure her I realize ice comes in 10-pound increments (I do not use the word “increment”), and that all I want is 4 bags.  “Four tens,” I say.  “40 pounds, right?”

“Ah,” she says, relieved.  “Oh, yes.  Okay.  You fool me when you say ’40 pounds.’”

I pay with a $20 bill and VERY carefully check the change.

Tomorrow I think I’ll go back and ask is she has paper toilets.  If so, I’ll hook her up with Mr. Walcot.  No broker’s fee, either.  I’m just a nice guy.

As December 31 approaches, do you find your mailbox (USPS as well as Outlook) stuffed with solicitations for charities you never heard of?  Like the Save Your Ass Long-Ear Rescue, a donkey and mule refuge in Vermont, or the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of cross-dressing “nuns” who recently raised $25,000 for AIDS treatment with a live S-and-M show?

The number of organizations that can offer their donors a tax break in the name of charity has grown more than 60 percent in the United States, to 1.1 million, in just a decade.

The $300 billion donated to charities last year cost the federal government more than $50 billion in lost tax revenue. “Especially during these tough economic times, it’s troubling to hear we are increasing the number of these organizations at such a rapid pace,” said Representative Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat who is one of the few members of Congress to pay attention to the nonprofit sector.  – NY Times

Say what you will about the charitable causes themselves, let’s look at the principle at stake here.  Support for charities is one of the very few ways Americans can use their money the way they want and be rewarded (rather than taxed) by the government.  Would you rather direct your money to battle breast cancer, support the arts, and prevent animal abuse, or to buy a bridge to nowhere, send weapons to third world nations, or pay for Rep. Xavier Becerra’s salary and fabulous health insurance?

That $50 Billion in lost tax revenue bought something 1,000 times more valuable than anything the Federal government could — for ten times the cash.

The nonprofit sector in this country proves every day how wrong the classic capitalist/economic school is about the relationship between incentive and remunerative reward.  Here are armies of Americans who work their jobs with scant regard for hours, benefits, corporate trappings, bonuses, etc., let alone ego.  Many volunteer.  Many take vows of poverty (some explicitly and consciously, others find out years later.)  Most work ‘way longer than union workers, white collar slaves, or management at no reward than the satisfaction of a job well done.

Sure, there’s exceptions and yes, there’s corruption.  Compare it to what you find in government, or the financial sector.  Or the unions and the arms industry.  Sinners crawl among saints wherever you wander, but look at the ratios.  And if there are charities that stretch the limits of philanthropy, does the harm caused compare to a single Ponzi schemer, ruthless landlord, corrupt judge, or garden variety city commissioner?

Besides, what’s the problem with a live S&M show?  Given the resources, I’d become the Bill Gates Foundation of the genre.  They’d endow a leather seat in my name (complete with restraints).  Give ’til it hurts, right?

It’s a while since I walked my sorry ass into the Liquor and Rubber Balls Sports Bar and Vacuum Cleaner Repair Emporium – in fact, not since the World Serious ended horribly.  In a sea of (mostly lesbian) sports fans, I am the only one flying the flag (note the “l”)  from the City of Bodily Harm, and they’re hard on me.  Yeah, I said hard on.  Carpet Munchers.  What of it?

But it’s quiet this evening with Don Tequila himself presiding behind the bar, so after enduring the requisite irritating cracks (!) from a few of the muscular regulars, whom I bribe with drinks, it settles down.  Don hands me a very dark Guinness.

“Winter time,” he acknowledges.

I eye the brew warily.  About 3 months ago, I purchase a six-pack of Guinness because every once in a while on a blistering summer evening, an ice cold Guinness is a nice alternative.  In cold weather I like them room temp – ideally with a handful of cashews and a banana, which is tasty and texturally marvelous but you won’t believe me until you try it and you won’t; you’re already retching – and that Guinness was lousy.  A month later I had another one, and it was lousy too.

I may be losing my taste for Guinness, I remember telling Guido, unhappily.  Either that, or this is a really bad batch I got here.

A sensitive soul for a 6’9” 420 pound axe murderer, Don senses my hesitation.  “Oh, you know,” he grunts.

Know what, Don?

He sighs.  “It ain’t Dublin-brewed,” he tells me.  “The Guinness you’re drinking now is brewed in Canada.  “It’s exactly what happened to Fosters.  And Rolling Rock, when they pulled it out of Latrobe.  And about 100 years ago, Budweiser, which used to be a good import.”

No shit?  So THAT’S what I tasted!  Sometimes I impress myself.

He takes it away and spills it out.  “I was gonna see if you noticed,” he says, “but you woulda.  They fucked up the best beer in the world.”  He drops a wad of grainy mucous in the spittoon behind the bar (I hope).  “Harp, too.  Green label, now.  Don’t drink it unless you’re desperate.”

If I’m that desperate, Don, I’ll drink something cheaper.

“Magna’s sweat would be better,” he agrees.  (A beefy tank-topped regular at LRB’s, Magna never goes without her switchblade, but she doesn’t own a razor.)  Don draws 20 ounces of glorious Grolsch and presents it with a flourish.  “Stick with this for a while.  Canadians brew some decent beer, but only the Irish can fuckin’ make Guinness.”

What can we do, Don?  Stop drinking?

He is still laughing when I drain my beer and hand him the glass for a refill.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday – have YOU started your Xmas shopping yet?  Personally, I’m not in the mood – but then again, I never am.  Never.   But as a public service, here’s a little something to give you that Chet’s Nuts Roasting On an Open Wound feeling, followed by a complementary gift idea.

Wichita, KS   A Kansas nurse convicted of enslaving the mentally ill residents of a group home she ran with her husband was back in federal court for a re-sentencing hearing after an appeals court threw out her original prison term.

A jury found Linda Kaufman and her husband, Arlan, forced residents to work naked and perform sex acts while billing the government and their families for the “therapy.” The couple videotaped the “nude therapy” sessions in graphic tapes played for jurors at trial.

“His main interest in life was sex and genitalia,” Belot said of Arlan Kaufman. “The man was a pervert – worse than a pervert, he took advantage of people.”  –  CJOnline.com

Don’t you love the part about them billing the government?  I fully anticipate some Congresscretin from Kansas introducing this incident – and maybe the tapes! – into the health care debate.

What I don’t love is characterizing a man whose main interest in life is sex and genitalia as a pervert.  Most men I know would say their main interest in life is sex and genitalia, and not all of them are perverts.  There’s myself, for example, but maybe that’s a bad example.

Abusing mentally ill people has a long tradition among the human species.  I was reminded of one Gary Heidnik of Philadelphia, who kept a stable of mentally retarded young women chained up in his basement for a long while, sexually abusing them and feeding them dog food.  When he wasn’t torturing them himself with near-drowning and electric shocks, he had them torture one another, some to death.   Details here and not incidentally, Gary was a psychiatric nurse.  Sickos are drawn to the mental health profession like flies to dog shit, but the flies don’t do it for money, let alone entertainment.

If this sort of account strikes your fancy, or you know of somebody who enjoys it, I recommend picking up an item or two from this retailer, whose impressive collection of pervertia is comprehensive.  Rare teevee footage of Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz; serial killer tote bags, tee shirts, and even wall clocks; and of course, the 2010 edition of Serial Killer calendar.  A whole year of madness and mayhem, a month at a time!

Season’s Greetings, everyone!!

Aaaah.  Social networking.

Authorities say there were at least five attacks on red-haired students at a Southern California middle school after a Facebook group announced “Kick a Ginger Day.”

Investigators say the Facebook message may have been inspired by a “South Park” TV episode that satirized racial prejudice by portraying a campaign against red-haired, fair-skinned “ginger” people.

Investigators have not made any arrests and don’t consider the attacks to be hate crimes.   –Miami Hurled

I have this thing about redheads.  It’s probably a sickness, and it seems to run in my family among the males.  They leave me cringing with desire, stupid with lust.   I wasn’t even aware of it until my 20s, when it struck with terminal force, and I married one.  So this sordid little episode resonates deeply.

Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but I’m no gentleman.

All I’ll say here about redheads is, they really are different.  They not only look different, they’re constructed differently.  They even smell and taste different.  Wonderfully different.  Blindfold me and lead me into a room, and I’ll pick out the redheads.  I can even taste freckles.

So — Why isn’t this a hate crime?  These individuals were selected for abuse precisely because of their hair and skin color.   The attacks were motivated by hatred of these beautiful people’s surface characteristics; they were targeted for who they are and what they look like.  Isn’t that the definition of a hate crime?

Redheads are in this year, by the way.  You’ll find them in print ads, on billboards, and in teevee commercials.  Not all are born redheads – we aficionados can spot the difference, and the one sure test is NSFW – but even the fact that Hollywood and Madison Avenue are using artificial means to mimic the look tells you about the fashion and the marketing power.  Great!  I’m ahead of this trend, and I’m already sold.

The last thing the world wants is a militant redhead movement, even though the vision of battalions of redheads, male and female, angry and arrayed in battle gear, presents an enormous erotic influence on some of us.  Hell.  I’ll sign on as an Auxiliary. They’ll make war.  I’ll make love.

Red is the new pink.

(see more here!)

Thanksgiving is a Very Big Deal around Squathole Manor, at least to Guido, who takes this opportunity every year to push the earth out of orbit.

Guido will cook.  Christ on stilts will she cook.   The holiday brings out the Dago and sets free the hounds of gluttony.

But even before she cooks, she cleans.  She has devices for cleaning surfaces one rarely sees outside commercial buildings; some direct streams of searing steam deep into bathroom walls and tiles, others exhume archaeologically embedded particulates from soft cushions and hard walls.  Then there’s the array of deadly chemicals, astringents, and applicants with their specialized engines of delivery, ostensibly to purify surfaces on which 4-legged creatures pis and puke up hair balls, and husband-critters parade with filthy stained (cloven) hooves.  She climbs ladders.  She crawls under furniture.  She does windows, not the Bill Gates kind.  She peels, polishes, and sometimes re-paints.  She washes the soap.

One Christmas I got her a Zamboni machine.  Why fuck around, right?  Her sister got her this vacuum cleaning device I dubbed “The Monica” – it can suck gasoline out of the car’s gas tank from 60 paces.  It roars like a 747 in need of a ring job.

Trust me, I’m not complaining.  Guido shines this time of year.  When she starts cooking, strangers stop their cars and stagger up to the kitchen window, sniffing like hounds.  The letter carrier starts grinning in anticipation as she begins her rounds.  Neighbors ask her for recipes and advice.  The neighborhood Ginzoid is back in her South Philly element.

Today she calls Delaware Chicken, as usual, to order her two 12-15 pound birds.  “We don’t take orders any more,” they tell her.  “Come by today.”  Guido says she can’t: “I’m working,” she says, “and besides, I don’t have anywhere to put them.”  “Shove them up your husband’s ass,” says Delaware Chickens.  Guido pauses.  “How do you know my husband?” she asks.

I get no respect.  But I get fed.  And laid.  Not just on holidays, either.  Happy Turkey Day, Pilgrims.

Here’s the kind of week it’s been.  Starts with a very early morning meeting, one that requires me to haul my groggy ass out of bed at before 5.  The only positive about that hour of the day is, I don’t need to worry about pole-vaulting over  my morning wood on my way to the crapper.  It’s usually up before I am, but at that hour, it –- and I — are still asleep.

(Think about it.  Under what other ghastly circumstances is it a blessing NOT to sport a hard-on? The doctor’s office?  The locker room?  That depends.  But I digress.)

Worse, I need to get dressed up.  A pressed shirt under a crisp suit.  Socks and shined shoes.  And underwear, ferchrissake!  Savage!

I stumble outside, start the car, and head off for the meeting at a local Marriott.  I have a pretty good idea where it is, but the challenge  is to avoid pimpled hot rodders speeding through the dark, text-messaging obscenities and gossip to their litter mates.  C U Next Tuesday, bitch.

I make it to the Marriott about 5 minutes later than I want, which is 10 minutes after the meeting officially convenes (but it starts late to allow attendees to saturate themselves with seas of caffeine, cholesterol, sodium, and sucrose).   I ask the uniformed factotum behind the desk – a hideous hag whose insincere corporate smile transforms her face into a cracked plate – where the meeting I seek can be found.

“Second floor,” she advises, checking the calendar.  “The Smegma Room, second door on the left.”

I mumble thanks and climb the stairs.  Something isn’t right here.  I sense a vacant vibe, a misplaced priority, a dry heave.  A young Hispanic pushes a vacuum cleaner in the hall.  The meeting room doors are ajar, revealing laundry bundled on stripped tables, chairs stacked, lights too bright (ouch).

I retrace my steps and confront Hazel Witch. “Is there another second floor in this hotel?” I ask.  She looks confused.  “Because there ‘s no meeting going on the one I just went to.”

“That’s the only second floor,” she beams (dully), honest to god.  “Please wait.”  And trundles off to the back room, where I crazily visualize a GPS, or a patented Marriott Find-O-Meter or something.  I’m close: she comes back with this large print-out that evidently lists all the meetings in every Marriott in the southeastern US that day.  She asks me again what meeting I’m looking for.

“Aah!” she bleats.  “You want the Courtyard!”

“There’s a courtyard?  I only saw a parking lot.”  Thinking, how do you get a courtyard on the second floor, anyway?

“No!” she explains.  “The Marriott Courtyard.  This is the Marriott Residence!”

Constipated Christ.  “This seaside berg has two separate Marriotts?  Where’s the other one?”

She gives me directions which I forget even before I get back to the car – I’m good at that; ask Guido – and before it occurs to me I should have asked why she dispatched me to the second floor of HER featherbedding Marriott if the meeting was in some other building miles away.

Which I have trouble finding, of course, and by the time I roll up, park the car, and find out which room I need, I know I’m not going in.  Unlike your average defensive replacement,  I heartily dislike coming in during the late innings.  It’s rude, and I feel obligated not to say anything insulting during the Q&A, which is difficult for me.   My decision is reinforced when I see that the coffee urn outside, in the hallway, surrounded by bagels .  I help myself to one not too badly chewed, then stroll around the personality-free hallway for a moment before oh so coolly wandering out.   I scarf the bagel and finish the coffee on the long slow ride to the office, farting.

I am asked upon arrival how the meeting went.  “It happened,” I reply.  “But I’m glad to be back because I have a ton of crap to complete before the deadline.”  And slither away.

Later, somebody tells me “I look very nice” today.  It doesn’t help.  I take that to mean that I usually look like I report to work after sharing a tent and some King’s Tokay under the Julia Tuttle.  My kind of people, if not my kind of drink.

TGIF.

But I learned something valuable today.  Never start your day before your dick does.

This is one of the weirder things I ever read about the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. From an interview in 1971 with John Gerassi, a political science professor at Queens College in New York:

Sartre: Yeah, after I took mescaline, I started seeing crabs around me all the time. They followed me in the streets, into class. I got used to them. I would wake up in the morning and say, “Good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?” I would talk to them all the time. I would say, “O.K., guys, we’re going into class now, so we have to be still and quiet,” and they would be there, around my desk, absolutely still, until the bell rang.

Gerassi: A lot of them?

Sartre: Actually, no, just three or four.

Grassi: But you knew they were imaginary?

Sartre: Oh, yes. But after I finished school, I began to think I was going crazy, so I went to see a shrink, a young guy then with whom I have been good friends ever since, Jacques Lacan. We concluded that it was fear of being alone, fear of losing the camaraderie of the group. You know, my life changed radically from my being one of a group, which included peasants and workers, as well as bourgeois intellectuals, to it being just me and Castor. The crabs really began when my adolescence ended. At first, I avoided them by writing about them — in effect, by defining life as nausea — but then as soon as I tried to objectify it, the crabs appeared. And then they appeared whenever I walked somewhere. Not when I was writing, just when I was going someplace. … The crabs stayed with me until the day I simply decided that they bored me and that I just wouldn’t pay attention to them. And then the war came, the stalag, the Resistance, and the big political battles after the war. – NYTimes

Serves him right for having mescaline with crabs. He’d be better off with horse radish, melted garlic butter, or cocktail sauce. But what’s the sense in talking to a Frenchman about anything at all, let alone food?