On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:13:58 -0500, Jeff Miller
wrote:

guess the weasel's got him... he was a brilliant and humorous
mirror-maker. fear and loathing indeed...

jeezus, i just heard bush mention voltaire in his opening remarks in
brussels. ah...if only ht had maintained the same clarity of vision and
writing as he did with tricky dick...

jeff

It was a dark and stormy night when Brian, Tricky, and I set off for the land of
sugar and rice, and the air had an appropriate pudding-like consistency...but I
digress.

As one gets older, nagging war wounds and ignominious injury make it that much
harder to fill one's lungs. wherever the air comes from. It's hard to run with
the bulls with plastic joints and old, broken bones. But there is no time to
dwell on the problems inherent in the trip, as the trip itself is the thing.
The all-important, all-encompassing thing. And all trips have a starting point
and a destination, even if one doesn't realize it at the journey's beginning.

In every game, as any (good) gambler will tell you, there is a time prior to the
official end when it is over. You don't see if some sucker will take some more
action on Denver if they are behind 31-7 at the two-minute warning no matter
what you THINK you know, no matter what your gut tells you. Sure, some bad
gambler will point out that so-and-so came back to win from the exact same thing
in '71, but the good gambler plays the odds. And the odds are that it ain't
'71, so-and-so ain't playing, and Denver is gonna lose. Well, boys and girls,
the scoreboard may show nearly a quarter left, but that unofficial whistle is
getting a lot closer. The hell-spawned *******s in the White House are not much
worse than the weasels whining at the door for some scraps, and finally, in
November, 2004, the American public were going to get what they deserved, no
matter what happened.

A Government of the damned, by the damned, and for the damned. God-dammit.
Kerry could have ridden up on that boat, jumped up to the platform, and
screamed, "YOU STUPID RABBLE! I WAS IN VIETNAM SO VOTE FOR ME INSTEAD OF THOSE
SCURRILOUS COCKSUCKERS!" while stamping his feet like a spoiled brat, and it
wouldn't have mattered because no one would have been able to figure if he meant
"scurrilous cocksuckers" referencing Bush and company, his former Democratic
opponents, or if he was faking some pseudo-flashback. Cheney and Rumsfeld could
have nuked Iraq, Iran, AND France while their charge played with blocks and
choked on nachos in the Oval Office. Flip-flop, floppity-flip-flip. It just
didn't matter. And the truly soul-frightening part was that I found myself
entertaining the thought and realization that at least Bush and crew truly
believed the things they uttered, even if they were black-hearted, foul things
indeed.

As we made our way through the lower half of Louisiana, Tricky began to try to
recall our last outing. However, he had consumed several quarts of Sloe Gin, a
handful of serious Mexican diet pills, some Vioxx, and, before we could relieve
him of it, about half a sheet of blotter acid. At random times, he would yell
out about "that ******* Johnson!" and break into a song his addled brain was
sending to his out-of-tune vocal chords, "Spiro-Spyro-Spirogyra-
Spy-y-y-rogra-a-a-a-ph! Oh, baby, Spiro-Spyro-gi-i-i-ra! A-tax-tax-tax all day!"
trying to force the words onto the tune of "Iko Iko." Brian observed that he'd
rather hear Joe Lieberman give a 6-hour Burroughs reading with a toothpick in
his mouth. I must confess, I agreed. And this, like much of this trip, filled
me with a twinge of nagging fear, that shrillish, edgy feeling in the back of
the throat. I knew better than to stop at that roadhouse, but what the ****.
Some serious weirdness might just be what the doctor ordered to get this thing
back on the rails.

I almost expected to see the great buffalo standing in that bayou honky-tonk, as
it was just the sort of place the crazy anachronism would be standing. Well,
not so much standing, as he didn't really stand. He hunkered and towered at the
same time. Such is the way of the great buffalo, I suppose. Surprisingly, we
made it through the third round, waiting on the fourth, before the ca-ca hit the
whirler. Brian observed, perhaps at too high a volume, that a certain sweet
young thing was perhaps dating much beneath her ability. "That gal over there
with the nice ass and big tits, the one in the short plaid shorts, is wasting
her time with that gap-toothed Cajun cracker-ass," was, if I recall, the exact
turn of phrase. Not surprisingly, dentally-challenged as he may have been, he
took no mild offense to this observation, regardless of its truth or fallacy.
It may have been the accordion, it may have been the washboard, but Tricky
suddenly came to life, and broke into his song about tax-evading veeps, jazz,
and taxation. Unfortunately, the plurality of "a-tax" was drowned out or
otherwise lost. And as the melee broke out...

Raoul