I just watched one of the scariest documentaries I've ever seen. The film is directed by Chris Smith and it's called, "Collapse" (2009). It is, as the LA Times puts it: "...a spellbindingly weird one-man monologue by Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD officer and investigative journalist."
Spellbinding. Yes, indeed, it is, spellbinding. Terrifying, is more like it. The Times also said:
Smith admits that he has "very conflicted feelings" about Ruppert. "A
lot of what he says is incredibly thought-provoking, with lots of
historical support, but there are things that you'd probably get a lot
of criticism for believing," he says. "So I wanted to give the audience
the experience of living inside his world for 85 minutes. Even if you
can't prove all of his ideas, his passion and belief is definitely
concrete."
I suggest you check this out. Because even if he is wrong about what he says, he's right in that we really need to rethink how we are doing things. We need to prepare, because there is no question, that things are going to be changing, very soon, and indeed, if you look around you, they are changing now, and many things, are changing in the ways that Michael is saying they will change.
Consider if only, that Saudi Arabia is the largest oil field in the world, and they are starting to do off shore drilling. Its very expensive to do off shore drilling. So why do it? Unless you know something. And that something, as Michael puts it, is called, "Peak Oil". The point at which the production of oil peaks on a bell curve, and then starts coming down. And we have hit that peak and we are now on the down side of the curve.
When you consider what it made from oil and what depends on oil, for our well being, well, there is not really any question about it, we are in big trouble.
Friday, December 31, 2010
My childhood music collection
I had an odd collection of music when I was younger.
I already blogged about Glenn Gould in my collection.
I remember for instance, sitting in the living room with my parents, reading the newspaper and I found an ad from Radio Shack of all places, for an audio tape of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. I had just enough money, and I must have been about 16 or so, because I drove to the store and bought it. I still have it on cassette tape.
I remember, as I've mentioned before, a kid from school coming over and my having to take Bach piano fugues off and put on Black Sabbath; both of which I loved equally. But such a dichotomy lead to people thinking I was, weird.
I loved, and still do, Morton Subotnik's "The Wild Bull". A fabulously touching piece of work and Silver Apples of the Moon, a later piece I more recently discovered.
I listened to mostly rock music back then but, I also started listening to blues because of my older brother. I listened to classical; I started listening to jazz; I loved the old b/w movies with their blends of swing, classical, jazz, whathaveyou.
I owned and played to death, the ground breaking, "Switched on Bach" album and its sequel the following year, "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer", a 1969 album released by Wendy Carlos (then released as Walter Carlos prior to his sex change, which, years later, in looking him up again, I was shocked to discover he was now putting music out as Wendy). The Well-Tempered Synthesizer consists of a selection of pieces by Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, and Handel as well as Bach whose music was exclusively featured on the first album. The title of The Well-Tempered Synthesizer is a play on Bach's own collection of pieces entitled The Well-Tempered Clavier which I later owned by Glenn Gould. Carlos did music for The Shining, and the original Tron movie; as well as a work titled, Clockwork Black.
I had some other very experimental pieces of music that I can no longer remember the names of, either the musicians or the music.
Here are a couple of links to 1960s and 1970s experimental music. None of these artists are artists I had on vinyl. I cannot find those now. Most "experimental" music I find now, are variations on normal music. Experimental is something very different.
World Lingo defines it this way:
"Experimental music is a term introduced by composer John Cage in 1955. Cage defined "an experimental action is one the outcome of which is not foreseen" (Cage 1961, 39), and he was specifically interested in completed works that performed an unpredictable action (Mauceri 1997, 197).
"In a broader sense, it is also used to mean any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. David Cope describes experimental music as that, "which represents a refusal to accept the status quo" (Cope, 1997, 222)."
Perhaps what I refer to is Avant Garde music? I don't know. I just know that electronic music in the 60s was very experimental and from there, we go into Avant Garde. Some of it was very hard to listen to and some, very beautiful in its own sense of the term. But even today, we have some wonderful pieces of unusual music.
Needless to say, my musical tastes in my childhood years, confused my friends and family. My brother was into unusual music, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Capt. Beefheart, other music mostly in the Blues area. When I played some of my music for him, he found it interesting but really didn't know what to do with it. He had a rock band in the 60s, but I was the next generation and saw even a little further then than he did. Which was odd for him, as he was seeing far beyond what our parent's and their cohorts (and worse, their older generation of leaders) could see.
The thing is, to open your mind, to see beyond what you can see, to always strive for what you do not understand, and to be able to understand it, to think outside of the box, enhances your life, kicks up the quality of your life a notch, and helps you to even problem solve in other areas of your life.
And people think we don't need the Arts. Sometimes, they are our salvation, but people just can't see beyond needing to pay the mortgage. Its why we should be pushing the Arts in schools, over that of Sports. Kids need to have physical conditioning, but society needs to have the Arts. And both then, bleed into, onto, through, the other in that symbiotic way that things tend to do.
Defy expectation, strive to enjoy the unusual. Expect more.
I already blogged about Glenn Gould in my collection.
I remember for instance, sitting in the living room with my parents, reading the newspaper and I found an ad from Radio Shack of all places, for an audio tape of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. I had just enough money, and I must have been about 16 or so, because I drove to the store and bought it. I still have it on cassette tape.
I remember, as I've mentioned before, a kid from school coming over and my having to take Bach piano fugues off and put on Black Sabbath; both of which I loved equally. But such a dichotomy lead to people thinking I was, weird.
I loved, and still do, Morton Subotnik's "The Wild Bull". A fabulously touching piece of work and Silver Apples of the Moon, a later piece I more recently discovered.
I listened to mostly rock music back then but, I also started listening to blues because of my older brother. I listened to classical; I started listening to jazz; I loved the old b/w movies with their blends of swing, classical, jazz, whathaveyou.
I owned and played to death, the ground breaking, "Switched on Bach" album and its sequel the following year, "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer", a 1969 album released by Wendy Carlos (then released as Walter Carlos prior to his sex change, which, years later, in looking him up again, I was shocked to discover he was now putting music out as Wendy). The Well-Tempered Synthesizer consists of a selection of pieces by Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, and Handel as well as Bach whose music was exclusively featured on the first album. The title of The Well-Tempered Synthesizer is a play on Bach's own collection of pieces entitled The Well-Tempered Clavier which I later owned by Glenn Gould. Carlos did music for The Shining, and the original Tron movie; as well as a work titled, Clockwork Black.
I had some other very experimental pieces of music that I can no longer remember the names of, either the musicians or the music.
Here are a couple of links to 1960s and 1970s experimental music. None of these artists are artists I had on vinyl. I cannot find those now. Most "experimental" music I find now, are variations on normal music. Experimental is something very different.
World Lingo defines it this way:
"Experimental music is a term introduced by composer John Cage in 1955. Cage defined "an experimental action is one the outcome of which is not foreseen" (Cage 1961, 39), and he was specifically interested in completed works that performed an unpredictable action (Mauceri 1997, 197).
"In a broader sense, it is also used to mean any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. David Cope describes experimental music as that, "which represents a refusal to accept the status quo" (Cope, 1997, 222)."
Perhaps what I refer to is Avant Garde music? I don't know. I just know that electronic music in the 60s was very experimental and from there, we go into Avant Garde. Some of it was very hard to listen to and some, very beautiful in its own sense of the term. But even today, we have some wonderful pieces of unusual music.
Needless to say, my musical tastes in my childhood years, confused my friends and family. My brother was into unusual music, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Capt. Beefheart, other music mostly in the Blues area. When I played some of my music for him, he found it interesting but really didn't know what to do with it. He had a rock band in the 60s, but I was the next generation and saw even a little further then than he did. Which was odd for him, as he was seeing far beyond what our parent's and their cohorts (and worse, their older generation of leaders) could see.
The thing is, to open your mind, to see beyond what you can see, to always strive for what you do not understand, and to be able to understand it, to think outside of the box, enhances your life, kicks up the quality of your life a notch, and helps you to even problem solve in other areas of your life.
And people think we don't need the Arts. Sometimes, they are our salvation, but people just can't see beyond needing to pay the mortgage. Its why we should be pushing the Arts in schools, over that of Sports. Kids need to have physical conditioning, but society needs to have the Arts. And both then, bleed into, onto, through, the other in that symbiotic way that things tend to do.
Defy expectation, strive to enjoy the unusual. Expect more.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Pot Locator.com?
I really wasn't sure whether to put this under Entertainment, or commentary.
When things have turned the corner on national acceptance...international? Okay, let's not get too carried away, right?
When you find web sites like this one, PotLocator.com. http://www.potlocator.com/, to locate where to get certified and to purchase a substance that has been generally illegal for decades, one has to wonder, one has to think: things have really changed. By the way, they have a couple of sister sites: 420 Petition and Marijuana Doctors.
And its about time. The thought that anyone has ever spent fifteen years in jail for possession of a single cannabis cigarette, is far beyond the pale. Making something illegal so criminals can profit by it, as they've been doing for decades, is ridiculous. Making something illegal because of a Zeitgeist of ignorance, also has no excuse.
As it is with Penn Jillette, and as I've previously stated many times, I'm not advocating the use of drugs, just American's freedom to make decisions for themselves about what they do with their own bodies. The government should never have gotten involved in banning things like alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis.
If we want to legislate high taxes on those substances, I don't have an argument with that. If people want it badly enough, then they should just grow their own. We can legally produce our own alcohol or tabacco at home. We are allowed to create or grow more than enough for personal use. The same should be true for cannabis.
There are other areas where the government has gotten too involved in our personal lives and they need to back off. We have to start somewhere to reclaim our rights and these are obvious ones.
When you find web sites like this one, PotLocator.com. http://www.potlocator.com/, to locate where to get certified and to purchase a substance that has been generally illegal for decades, one has to wonder, one has to think: things have really changed. By the way, they have a couple of sister sites: 420 Petition and Marijuana Doctors.
And its about time. The thought that anyone has ever spent fifteen years in jail for possession of a single cannabis cigarette, is far beyond the pale. Making something illegal so criminals can profit by it, as they've been doing for decades, is ridiculous. Making something illegal because of a Zeitgeist of ignorance, also has no excuse.
As it is with Penn Jillette, and as I've previously stated many times, I'm not advocating the use of drugs, just American's freedom to make decisions for themselves about what they do with their own bodies. The government should never have gotten involved in banning things like alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis.
If we want to legislate high taxes on those substances, I don't have an argument with that. If people want it badly enough, then they should just grow their own. We can legally produce our own alcohol or tabacco at home. We are allowed to create or grow more than enough for personal use. The same should be true for cannabis.
There are other areas where the government has gotten too involved in our personal lives and they need to back off. We have to start somewhere to reclaim our rights and these are obvious ones.
Glenn Gould, Canada's Favorite Son
The other night I watched American Masters, on PBS, local Channel 9. It is interesting that it is about Glenn Gould, as he was thoroughly Canadian. Glenn Gould, in fact, is called Canada's favorite son. But he is a part of the American historical music consciousness. And so we see him documented on American Masters. This was an immensely affecting documentary. Gould died at 50, an age he always told a lady friend that he would not live beyond. A selection of Gould's recording of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier is on the Voyager Space Probes, exploring the outer solar system.
I saw that this episode was going to be on and so I Tivo'd it. Why? Because he was a brilliant pianist? Yes, but more so because when I was a kid, in the late 1960s, I had an album of his. Bach Piano Fugues. I cannot imagine how many times I listened to that album. I remember, painting my closet, and I carpeted my closet with some rug remnants, making it wall to wall, while listening to that record, over and over again. I found it relaxing, mesmerizing.
I had at the time, no idea who Glenn Gould was, other than he was considered to be a great pianist. I cannot remember how I got the album. But not, in hindsight, I find it interesting that I somehow found my way to that music. I have tried to find that same exact album now, as I no longer have it, but I have had trouble finding exactly that pressing, in whatever current format it is now still available. Most likely at this point, sadly in digital format, as it would not have the same resonance I'm sure, as does the original vinyl analog format.
Half way through the documentary, I see that he owned a Chevy Impala and it looks strangely like one of two I owned. My first Impala was my first car, a 1967. My second was years later, a 65 that I traded a beat up Honda 400 motorcycle for. Straight across. How strange.
Back when I was a kid, I had an unusual music collection. I had gotten one of those compilation collections off of TV. They had famous recordings from around the world. But not full concerts, not even full pieces, but valuable in that it was a cross section of all classical music. So, I had some knowledge of a variety of music. But there was something about Gould's playing that kept me coming back to that album of his, over and over, hundreds of times.
I remember, a friend of mine stopped by one day and I think it was the day I was painting my closet. I had two closets, one on either side of the room, one a short tiny closet, one a long one, running the length of the room. I used to hide in the long one from the household, so painting it, carpeting it, was like fixing up my extra room. So I had Glenn Gould's Bach Piano Fugues playing (and I cannot locate that album in any list), and this friend comes in and says, "What the hell is that?" Referring to the Bach.
I said, "Oh, sorry, I find it relaxing while I'm painting. How about this instead?" And I put on Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality, album; and he said, "That's more like it!" But I remember thinking, "Oh, how sad, he's so limited and he doesn't know what he's missing." As it turned out, he was pretty much a jerk. I had a tiny metal antique car collection, put out by Matchbox toy company. I had a Mercedes Silver Ghost, a Rolls Royce, and others; which, when I wasn't looking, he stole from my windowsill, where I could over look the neighborhood's housetops and off in the distance see a magnificent Mt. Rainier.
Then, after he left that day, Black Sabbath's album finished, and I went right back to Glenn Gould and Bach. It would put me into a kind of mental limbo, a sort of trance, all my concerns, melted. It felt like each impact of each key manipulated my being into a divine relaxation. I tried other piano music, but it didn't do the same thing. I listened to other pianists doing Bach and yes, it was Bach, there was something about Bach, but it was that combination of Gould and Bach that really seemed to do it.
Gould died too young at fifty years of age. But he has left us with an overwhelming collection of perfection, and freshness. Up to the point of his exploding onto the scene in the 50s and 60s, classical music was more or less a museum of classical interpretations. Almost not interpretations, but rather more of a mimicking of the original composers. Gould saw so much more in the original compositions and gave us a fascinating and sumptuous example of what can be done.
If you like piano music at all, in the more classical vein, you either already know about Gould, or you should seek his works out.
I saw that this episode was going to be on and so I Tivo'd it. Why? Because he was a brilliant pianist? Yes, but more so because when I was a kid, in the late 1960s, I had an album of his. Bach Piano Fugues. I cannot imagine how many times I listened to that album. I remember, painting my closet, and I carpeted my closet with some rug remnants, making it wall to wall, while listening to that record, over and over again. I found it relaxing, mesmerizing.
I had at the time, no idea who Glenn Gould was, other than he was considered to be a great pianist. I cannot remember how I got the album. But not, in hindsight, I find it interesting that I somehow found my way to that music. I have tried to find that same exact album now, as I no longer have it, but I have had trouble finding exactly that pressing, in whatever current format it is now still available. Most likely at this point, sadly in digital format, as it would not have the same resonance I'm sure, as does the original vinyl analog format.
Half way through the documentary, I see that he owned a Chevy Impala and it looks strangely like one of two I owned. My first Impala was my first car, a 1967. My second was years later, a 65 that I traded a beat up Honda 400 motorcycle for. Straight across. How strange.
Back when I was a kid, I had an unusual music collection. I had gotten one of those compilation collections off of TV. They had famous recordings from around the world. But not full concerts, not even full pieces, but valuable in that it was a cross section of all classical music. So, I had some knowledge of a variety of music. But there was something about Gould's playing that kept me coming back to that album of his, over and over, hundreds of times.
I remember, a friend of mine stopped by one day and I think it was the day I was painting my closet. I had two closets, one on either side of the room, one a short tiny closet, one a long one, running the length of the room. I used to hide in the long one from the household, so painting it, carpeting it, was like fixing up my extra room. So I had Glenn Gould's Bach Piano Fugues playing (and I cannot locate that album in any list), and this friend comes in and says, "What the hell is that?" Referring to the Bach.
I said, "Oh, sorry, I find it relaxing while I'm painting. How about this instead?" And I put on Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality, album; and he said, "That's more like it!" But I remember thinking, "Oh, how sad, he's so limited and he doesn't know what he's missing." As it turned out, he was pretty much a jerk. I had a tiny metal antique car collection, put out by Matchbox toy company. I had a Mercedes Silver Ghost, a Rolls Royce, and others; which, when I wasn't looking, he stole from my windowsill, where I could over look the neighborhood's housetops and off in the distance see a magnificent Mt. Rainier.
Then, after he left that day, Black Sabbath's album finished, and I went right back to Glenn Gould and Bach. It would put me into a kind of mental limbo, a sort of trance, all my concerns, melted. It felt like each impact of each key manipulated my being into a divine relaxation. I tried other piano music, but it didn't do the same thing. I listened to other pianists doing Bach and yes, it was Bach, there was something about Bach, but it was that combination of Gould and Bach that really seemed to do it.
Gould died too young at fifty years of age. But he has left us with an overwhelming collection of perfection, and freshness. Up to the point of his exploding onto the scene in the 50s and 60s, classical music was more or less a museum of classical interpretations. Almost not interpretations, but rather more of a mimicking of the original composers. Gould saw so much more in the original compositions and gave us a fascinating and sumptuous example of what can be done.
If you like piano music at all, in the more classical vein, you either already know about Gould, or you should seek his works out.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Obama Administration Science Guidelines
This is a topic that seems counter intuitive. When scientists come up with data, and mid level morons, I'm sorry, I mean, managers. Why, are people so afraid of what science has to say? Because it goes against the status quo? Because it goes sometimes against what people think? Isn't that the original purpose of science? To see what we cannot see because, we are stupid, which is basically deciding to remain ignorant, a time honored condition; or because we follow religious doctrine, or fear shedding knowledge that might go against our own prestige and previously uttered foolishness? I wonder how many times people have suffered because someone didn't want to "look bad"?
"Long-awaited guidelines ordered by President Obama last year to prevent government research from being altered or suppressed for political purposes so the integrity of government scientists can be protected could be released as early as Friday (December 17th).
"The guidelines are nearly 11/2 years overdue. During that time, the administration has drawn criticism for its own scientific missteps."
NPR.org article
"Long-awaited guidelines ordered by President Obama last year to prevent government research from being altered or suppressed for political purposes so the integrity of government scientists can be protected could be released as early as Friday (December 17th).
"The guidelines are nearly 11/2 years overdue. During that time, the administration has drawn criticism for its own scientific missteps."
NPR.org article
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The Elderly fight back - Rapist Attack Goes Awry
When I read things like this, I have to feel something reassuring. I do admit I enjoy hearing that some guy was attacked by some other guys and they got beat up for their efforts, because they picked on a martial arts expert, or a special forces guy, or someone like that. I'd love to hear about this being a woman, and then hear that she put them both in the hospital, but that never seems to happen. You also have to love the story, probably a social myth, about the guy that tries to rob a bar and its a cop bar with a bunch of off duty cops sitting around drinking, and suddenly they find themselves pissed off in that they find they have to work even now, when they were trying to have a drink and relax.
I wouldn't want to be that poor schmuck.
I actually feel badly for both of these people, although that isn't the Zeitgeist of such situations. Obviously, I feel sorry for the elderly woman, but then, how many of us get a chance to deal with something like this, and can then live the rest of our lives knowing we won out in the end of a bad situation, almost, an impossible situation. As for the guy, what sorry piece of work did life hand him for him to turn into such pond scum? And what about the friends, he had been staying with, since he was homeless? Here people are going out of their way for him and he pays them back by getting drunk and attempting to rape an old woman. I have NEVER understand ANY one wanting to rape an old woman. Lowest form of life, harming the elderly or the very young for that matter. In a way, I'm not sure I see much of a difference between pedophiles and those attacking the elderly.
I wasn't sure if this were commentary, or entertainment, and since I got so much pleasure out of it, I decided on the latter. This is from December 17th, old news but I found an interesting slant on it, how people report things like this. Basically the story goes like this:
Woman, 71, uses frying pan to fend off alleged attacker
"A man accused of attempting to rape an elderly Hutchinson woman in her home on Saturday spent several days in the hospital after the woman knocked him unconscious with a frying pan."
From: The Hutchinson News
I do love hearing that a bully, a criminal, someone who is imposing their will in an untoward way on another, gets their due. Not to mention, this fool has his photo plastered all over the world now, how embarrassing is that?
Then there are bloggers who go this route in reporting this incident
Old Lady Beats Rapist Unconscious from a blog the Blogger likes to call "WriteChic Press"; she's kind of cute, too, I have to admit.
Christwire.org blog put it this way:
"Hutchinson Police Sergeant Moore says that soon after gaining entry, Funderburk went on the attack. Eerily showing an unprecedented lust for his would-be victim, Funderburk attacked the woman, who fought back and “beat him down with a frying pan”, according to the report filed by Moore.
By the time police arrive, Funderburk lay in an unconscious pile of mushed depravity, on the floor.
Kevin Scott Funderburk remains jailed on over $55,000 bond on counts of attempted rape, criminal restraint, aggravated battery and damage to property.
Funderburk was wearing the neck brace in court, as pictured above, on Friday.
Police reports indicate the elderly grandmother was injured and would not reveal the extent and nature of her injuries. Moore states the suspect ‘held her down and was attempting a sexual assault.’
“She was fighting for her life,” Moore stated.
The Hutchinson News reports that the woman was injured but Moore did not release how serious her injuries were. He said the suspect held her down and was attempting a sexual assault.
“She was fighting for her life,” Moore said.
Like a weasel, Funderburk is apparently using the “I was drunk at the time of the incident” defense, which is punishable by an all expense paid trip to see Buckin’ Bubba down in County General.
An offended Moore stated:
“When we arrived, he (Funderburk) was unconscious and laying in his own vomit in th back of the house.” Moore continued, “He was in the hospital over the weekend where they stapled his scalp.”
Yes, grandmother busted this guy’s scalp open with a skillet."
Interesting. I detect a slight bias there.
I also found this incident reported in Great Britain... and Japan. When Mom said, go out into the world and make a mark for yourself, I doubt this was the kind of thing she was referring to. Then again, this guy is far more famous than I am. Marshall McLuhan said that once your name is a household word, you can then make money off of it.
I wonder if we'll see this guy on Jerry Springer type shows any time soon. After, he gets out of jail, that is.
I wouldn't want to be that poor schmuck.
I actually feel badly for both of these people, although that isn't the Zeitgeist of such situations. Obviously, I feel sorry for the elderly woman, but then, how many of us get a chance to deal with something like this, and can then live the rest of our lives knowing we won out in the end of a bad situation, almost, an impossible situation. As for the guy, what sorry piece of work did life hand him for him to turn into such pond scum? And what about the friends, he had been staying with, since he was homeless? Here people are going out of their way for him and he pays them back by getting drunk and attempting to rape an old woman. I have NEVER understand ANY one wanting to rape an old woman. Lowest form of life, harming the elderly or the very young for that matter. In a way, I'm not sure I see much of a difference between pedophiles and those attacking the elderly.
I wasn't sure if this were commentary, or entertainment, and since I got so much pleasure out of it, I decided on the latter. This is from December 17th, old news but I found an interesting slant on it, how people report things like this. Basically the story goes like this:
Woman, 71, uses frying pan to fend off alleged attacker
"A man accused of attempting to rape an elderly Hutchinson woman in her home on Saturday spent several days in the hospital after the woman knocked him unconscious with a frying pan."
From: The Hutchinson News
I do love hearing that a bully, a criminal, someone who is imposing their will in an untoward way on another, gets their due. Not to mention, this fool has his photo plastered all over the world now, how embarrassing is that?
Then there are bloggers who go this route in reporting this incident
Old Lady Beats Rapist Unconscious from a blog the Blogger likes to call "WriteChic Press"; she's kind of cute, too, I have to admit.
Christwire.org blog put it this way:
"Hutchinson Police Sergeant Moore says that soon after gaining entry, Funderburk went on the attack. Eerily showing an unprecedented lust for his would-be victim, Funderburk attacked the woman, who fought back and “beat him down with a frying pan”, according to the report filed by Moore.
By the time police arrive, Funderburk lay in an unconscious pile of mushed depravity, on the floor.
Kevin Scott Funderburk remains jailed on over $55,000 bond on counts of attempted rape, criminal restraint, aggravated battery and damage to property.
Funderburk was wearing the neck brace in court, as pictured above, on Friday.
Police reports indicate the elderly grandmother was injured and would not reveal the extent and nature of her injuries. Moore states the suspect ‘held her down and was attempting a sexual assault.’
“She was fighting for her life,” Moore stated.
The Hutchinson News reports that the woman was injured but Moore did not release how serious her injuries were. He said the suspect held her down and was attempting a sexual assault.
“She was fighting for her life,” Moore said.
Like a weasel, Funderburk is apparently using the “I was drunk at the time of the incident” defense, which is punishable by an all expense paid trip to see Buckin’ Bubba down in County General.
An offended Moore stated:
“When we arrived, he (Funderburk) was unconscious and laying in his own vomit in th back of the house.” Moore continued, “He was in the hospital over the weekend where they stapled his scalp.”
Yes, grandmother busted this guy’s scalp open with a skillet."
Interesting. I detect a slight bias there.
I also found this incident reported in Great Britain... and Japan. When Mom said, go out into the world and make a mark for yourself, I doubt this was the kind of thing she was referring to. Then again, this guy is far more famous than I am. Marshall McLuhan said that once your name is a household word, you can then make money off of it.
I wonder if we'll see this guy on Jerry Springer type shows any time soon. After, he gets out of jail, that is.
Harbinger - excerpt from a story in my anthology
I was just notified I would be one of the authors of a new horror anthology. It will be called, "Rhonny Reaper Creature Feature Anthology", published by Zillion Publishing. The story is called, "The Conqueror Worm", an homage to Edgar Allen Poe, but also to HP Lovecraft. It's about two twelve year old boys who get to digging in the yard and find something, fascinating.
Proceeds go to Diabetes research. The last anthology I was in, was for cancer research and I've lost people to that, my little brother, my sister had breast cancer, which she is now free of. My father also died of cancer, I was told a particularly painful type; but as I hadn't seen him in seventeen years at that time, by his choice, I only know what I was told.
I have lost one very good friend to Diabetes. Rose. She was a real live spirit. I miss her and my other friends, and my brother. Rose refused to live according to the rules Diabetes proscribed for her. And so, first they had to remove one foot, then the other, and finally she lost it all. I tried to convince her to take better care of herself, but she said she would live life on her terms, or no terms at all. She died as she lived. You gotta respect that. Now, I don't even have a photo of her.
I heard from my other publisher this weekend. I was assured I'm next in line for my anthology of short horror stories to be reviewed and considered. I know they have been busy over at kNight Publishing and I look forward to things progressing.
So, I thought, just for fun, I would give you here, a sample, an excerpt from one of my stories. The sum of the parts of this particular anthology, the Gestalt if you will, is definitely more than their separate constituent parts. I designed it that way. Taken separately, the stories are all stand alone stories. But taken together, they are something quite much more altogether. Something, rather epic.
No. Really.
Anyway, here is a snippet out of one of the stories called, "Harbinger". The story begins as our protagonist is entering the elevator high up in a very nice hotel in Seattle. I based it upon the "W Hotel" actually. The guy has much on his mind on his long trip down to the lobby. The doors open and he has an experience, that will be in the book, then he enters the lobby area, we pick it up there....
My hat placed firmly on my head and tucking a flimsy leather brief under my arm for a certain look of respectability, I set out for that God forsaken, sodden weather that is Seattle. How it made me long for my American east coast.
As I was about to enter out into a dark and watered down city, I passed a woman in the lobby patting a child’s face with her rain soaked handkerchief. The child was whimpering, a sound I had not heard since a fatal hunting trip in the emerald Irish hills, which I had so recently endeavored so hard not to avoid.
Outside, a taxi horn blared its driver's panic as another vehicle, speeding to enter traffic, nearly sideswiped two limos and the mortally offended taxi driver. Through the Hotel's large wall of glass that served as the fore wall of the building, I could clearly see the guilty driver shakily wiping his now shiny forehead with a handkerchief.
Turning back to the woman and child, I quietly observed as the Hotel's twin pneumatic doors began to shut its warmth and dryness away from me. The woman, who had a rather striking figure and a carriage unknown to most women in the States, had quite instantly gotten the child to stop its appalling lamentations. This feat, nearly impossible for any woman no matter how talented or motherly she was, posed her no concern whatsoever.
She was fascinating. Her hair was blazing red in a most attractive and sensuous fashion.
Before the doors could completely shut the scene out from me, the woman quite suddenly, and much to my amazement and chagrin, snapped one of the pre-pubescent's already pink eyeballs with an elegantly painted ring finger’s nail. For one interminable instant, soft pink eyeball and delicate crimson fingernail became as one. The door sighed closed and a group of formally dressed people pressed by me desperately seeking entrance to the now secured edifice.
I looked down at a sodden lump beneath my left foot. The frigid rains continued pouring down in a steady, heavy evacuation of the northwestern skies. I picked the tiny gray, purple-spotted glove up from beneath my shoe.
Immediately, it occurred to me that this must belong to that pathetic and whimpering child. Although I wished to return the glove, no fastidious desire to confront that woman urged me on. Nevertheless, I shunted my cowardice aside and re-entered the lobby, albeit, a bit apprehensively.
More people, this time exiting. I stepped aside from the lushly carpeted entrance, scanning the room for the pair. But they were now nowhere to be seen.
Shifting the glove from my right hand to my left, I searched for the stick of gum in my overcoat pocket, continuing to look for the child in that immense lobby. The thumb of my left hand continued to stroke the soft knit glove. I fumbled the gum into my mouth, rubbed my chin and dried my nose. The back of my hand crushed water from my moist eyebrows; residue from the rain steadily dripped off a three day old beard.
An ancient gentleman was enjoying a snack on one of the couches near the center of the lobby. He began to choke. Purple faced, he spit something into a napkin and resumed eating. Again he began to choke, repeated the process and began to eat once more. It was then that I noticed a dull, coppery tang upon my palate. The old codger and I mimicked each other’s motions. I extracted the gum. At first, it looked quite all right for cinnamon gum. “Ripe Red” cinnamon gum, from Ireland. It was the last of a pack belonging to poor Nikolas. God rest him at least now, in peace.
It was then that I noticed the pink all over the palm of my hand, with dark red streaks. The reflection staring back at me in the chrome latticework encompassing the elegant entrance bedeviled me. The lack of my usual antiseptic look to my appearance shocked me. My best efforts had been put into maintaining a low profile since long before I had made it to London. And now....
My face was now a marbled red, splotches of dark pink spotting my chin, my nose. There were no cuts; none on my face, nor on my hands. The small gray and purple glove still rested silently in my left hand against my dark trouser leg. Intrigued, I squeezed it and watched. Focusing beyond it onto the cream colored carpet I now noticed the dark spots of the gray glove draining, shrouding perhaps a child's tempered screams. I winced. My heart skipped a few beats; my face paled.
Squeezing harder, a red streak slowly followed previously unnoticed droplets to the carpet; a tiny, macabre Rorschach built from living materials. Lifting the glove to my nose, I sniffed it. It stank of cheap metals, of old cuts on plump, swollen flesh, fallen rabid from septic misuse.
Profane memories came flooding back to me. Blood Oaths of Revenge. Blasphemies. Acts of Sacrilegious Dimensions. My head began to swim, for it had been I who had set the bomb in the R.U.C. Headquarters next to that of the British Army, in that far away Gaelic land. The three of us had sworn vengeance undiluted by the civilities of cultivated thoughts against men we had never seen. Men who had never hurt us.
They were unavoidable events. Events which had lead a few friends and myself, a New England State, Masters student in Literature, to those beautiful, but wrathful hills of Ireland; a land with incomprehensibly complicated, internal difficulties; events which once seemed rather distant and childishly simple, but were now quite, quite immediate. Time... for me now, may be quite possibly, of very limited scope and duration.
How...how, did I end up in such an unbelievable situation?
Once again, I looked for the woman. Perhaps this small diversion amongst my more serious problems relaxed me. However, there was no sign of either of them. Carefully, I laid the accusing glove over a chrome cigarette ash can. Relieved and disturbed, I took out my handkerchief and briskly wiped the blood and dismay from my face; off my hands. A man pushed past me.
Wonder swept over me at those unattending people surrounding me. They were caught up in a whirlpool of their own devising; busy in their own times, with their own desperations.
A rising sickness came into my throat, forced ever higher by an empty, gray and purple-spotted, tumultuous stomach. Tides of churlish nausea rose from deep within my chest, besieging ever-mounting depths of a cynical adherence to a culture, which many years ago, had ceased to make much sense to me. And the thoughts...thoughts of revenge, murder; of a heart attack in Paris; one brought on much too soon in my young life, and not long forgotten. This trip had taken an incredible toll upon my body, and my life.
Pushing this all back from me as forcefully as I could, I pushed on again, out into the night. The torrents of rain violently increased; just my luck to have bad weather as Lover. She had followed me ever since Ireland. In fact, this storm had begun brewing the very day Timothy had died.
Again I wiped my face overly hard with my handkerchief, this time being the last. I threw it into the gutter. I watched as it convulsed inexpensively into a nearby storm drain.
Why? Where was the connection? What was it that I was missing? Where...when will I find safety again? Ever? Where...where was...that place? That one place which permits no insanity. Where there is no deliverance from peace, none from happiness...perhaps merely the interminable, ever-loyal contentment of the apathetic.
Shouldering my personal burdens, I begrudgingly shunted my hat back on my head in the Seattle downpour and walked away from the Hotel's entryway. Unexpectedly, the child appeared from the alleyway up ahead, and stopped in front of me. The pained look transferred from the child, to my chest and down my left arm, throbbing.
With a quite proper English accent, he said:
"Have YOU ever known the Ashes of the Damned, Sir?"
END Excerpt
Well, that's it for now. See you around.
Proceeds go to Diabetes research. The last anthology I was in, was for cancer research and I've lost people to that, my little brother, my sister had breast cancer, which she is now free of. My father also died of cancer, I was told a particularly painful type; but as I hadn't seen him in seventeen years at that time, by his choice, I only know what I was told.
I have lost one very good friend to Diabetes. Rose. She was a real live spirit. I miss her and my other friends, and my brother. Rose refused to live according to the rules Diabetes proscribed for her. And so, first they had to remove one foot, then the other, and finally she lost it all. I tried to convince her to take better care of herself, but she said she would live life on her terms, or no terms at all. She died as she lived. You gotta respect that. Now, I don't even have a photo of her.
I heard from my other publisher this weekend. I was assured I'm next in line for my anthology of short horror stories to be reviewed and considered. I know they have been busy over at kNight Publishing and I look forward to things progressing.
So, I thought, just for fun, I would give you here, a sample, an excerpt from one of my stories. The sum of the parts of this particular anthology, the Gestalt if you will, is definitely more than their separate constituent parts. I designed it that way. Taken separately, the stories are all stand alone stories. But taken together, they are something quite much more altogether. Something, rather epic.
No. Really.
Anyway, here is a snippet out of one of the stories called, "Harbinger". The story begins as our protagonist is entering the elevator high up in a very nice hotel in Seattle. I based it upon the "W Hotel" actually. The guy has much on his mind on his long trip down to the lobby. The doors open and he has an experience, that will be in the book, then he enters the lobby area, we pick it up there....
My hat placed firmly on my head and tucking a flimsy leather brief under my arm for a certain look of respectability, I set out for that God forsaken, sodden weather that is Seattle. How it made me long for my American east coast.
As I was about to enter out into a dark and watered down city, I passed a woman in the lobby patting a child’s face with her rain soaked handkerchief. The child was whimpering, a sound I had not heard since a fatal hunting trip in the emerald Irish hills, which I had so recently endeavored so hard not to avoid.
Outside, a taxi horn blared its driver's panic as another vehicle, speeding to enter traffic, nearly sideswiped two limos and the mortally offended taxi driver. Through the Hotel's large wall of glass that served as the fore wall of the building, I could clearly see the guilty driver shakily wiping his now shiny forehead with a handkerchief.
Turning back to the woman and child, I quietly observed as the Hotel's twin pneumatic doors began to shut its warmth and dryness away from me. The woman, who had a rather striking figure and a carriage unknown to most women in the States, had quite instantly gotten the child to stop its appalling lamentations. This feat, nearly impossible for any woman no matter how talented or motherly she was, posed her no concern whatsoever.
She was fascinating. Her hair was blazing red in a most attractive and sensuous fashion.
Before the doors could completely shut the scene out from me, the woman quite suddenly, and much to my amazement and chagrin, snapped one of the pre-pubescent's already pink eyeballs with an elegantly painted ring finger’s nail. For one interminable instant, soft pink eyeball and delicate crimson fingernail became as one. The door sighed closed and a group of formally dressed people pressed by me desperately seeking entrance to the now secured edifice.
I looked down at a sodden lump beneath my left foot. The frigid rains continued pouring down in a steady, heavy evacuation of the northwestern skies. I picked the tiny gray, purple-spotted glove up from beneath my shoe.
Immediately, it occurred to me that this must belong to that pathetic and whimpering child. Although I wished to return the glove, no fastidious desire to confront that woman urged me on. Nevertheless, I shunted my cowardice aside and re-entered the lobby, albeit, a bit apprehensively.
More people, this time exiting. I stepped aside from the lushly carpeted entrance, scanning the room for the pair. But they were now nowhere to be seen.
Shifting the glove from my right hand to my left, I searched for the stick of gum in my overcoat pocket, continuing to look for the child in that immense lobby. The thumb of my left hand continued to stroke the soft knit glove. I fumbled the gum into my mouth, rubbed my chin and dried my nose. The back of my hand crushed water from my moist eyebrows; residue from the rain steadily dripped off a three day old beard.
An ancient gentleman was enjoying a snack on one of the couches near the center of the lobby. He began to choke. Purple faced, he spit something into a napkin and resumed eating. Again he began to choke, repeated the process and began to eat once more. It was then that I noticed a dull, coppery tang upon my palate. The old codger and I mimicked each other’s motions. I extracted the gum. At first, it looked quite all right for cinnamon gum. “Ripe Red” cinnamon gum, from Ireland. It was the last of a pack belonging to poor Nikolas. God rest him at least now, in peace.
It was then that I noticed the pink all over the palm of my hand, with dark red streaks. The reflection staring back at me in the chrome latticework encompassing the elegant entrance bedeviled me. The lack of my usual antiseptic look to my appearance shocked me. My best efforts had been put into maintaining a low profile since long before I had made it to London. And now....
My face was now a marbled red, splotches of dark pink spotting my chin, my nose. There were no cuts; none on my face, nor on my hands. The small gray and purple glove still rested silently in my left hand against my dark trouser leg. Intrigued, I squeezed it and watched. Focusing beyond it onto the cream colored carpet I now noticed the dark spots of the gray glove draining, shrouding perhaps a child's tempered screams. I winced. My heart skipped a few beats; my face paled.
Squeezing harder, a red streak slowly followed previously unnoticed droplets to the carpet; a tiny, macabre Rorschach built from living materials. Lifting the glove to my nose, I sniffed it. It stank of cheap metals, of old cuts on plump, swollen flesh, fallen rabid from septic misuse.
Profane memories came flooding back to me. Blood Oaths of Revenge. Blasphemies. Acts of Sacrilegious Dimensions. My head began to swim, for it had been I who had set the bomb in the R.U.C. Headquarters next to that of the British Army, in that far away Gaelic land. The three of us had sworn vengeance undiluted by the civilities of cultivated thoughts against men we had never seen. Men who had never hurt us.
They were unavoidable events. Events which had lead a few friends and myself, a New England State, Masters student in Literature, to those beautiful, but wrathful hills of Ireland; a land with incomprehensibly complicated, internal difficulties; events which once seemed rather distant and childishly simple, but were now quite, quite immediate. Time... for me now, may be quite possibly, of very limited scope and duration.
How...how, did I end up in such an unbelievable situation?
Once again, I looked for the woman. Perhaps this small diversion amongst my more serious problems relaxed me. However, there was no sign of either of them. Carefully, I laid the accusing glove over a chrome cigarette ash can. Relieved and disturbed, I took out my handkerchief and briskly wiped the blood and dismay from my face; off my hands. A man pushed past me.
Wonder swept over me at those unattending people surrounding me. They were caught up in a whirlpool of their own devising; busy in their own times, with their own desperations.
A rising sickness came into my throat, forced ever higher by an empty, gray and purple-spotted, tumultuous stomach. Tides of churlish nausea rose from deep within my chest, besieging ever-mounting depths of a cynical adherence to a culture, which many years ago, had ceased to make much sense to me. And the thoughts...thoughts of revenge, murder; of a heart attack in Paris; one brought on much too soon in my young life, and not long forgotten. This trip had taken an incredible toll upon my body, and my life.
Pushing this all back from me as forcefully as I could, I pushed on again, out into the night. The torrents of rain violently increased; just my luck to have bad weather as Lover. She had followed me ever since Ireland. In fact, this storm had begun brewing the very day Timothy had died.
Again I wiped my face overly hard with my handkerchief, this time being the last. I threw it into the gutter. I watched as it convulsed inexpensively into a nearby storm drain.
Why? Where was the connection? What was it that I was missing? Where...when will I find safety again? Ever? Where...where was...that place? That one place which permits no insanity. Where there is no deliverance from peace, none from happiness...perhaps merely the interminable, ever-loyal contentment of the apathetic.
Shouldering my personal burdens, I begrudgingly shunted my hat back on my head in the Seattle downpour and walked away from the Hotel's entryway. Unexpectedly, the child appeared from the alleyway up ahead, and stopped in front of me. The pained look transferred from the child, to my chest and down my left arm, throbbing.
With a quite proper English accent, he said:
"Have YOU ever known the Ashes of the Damned, Sir?"
END Excerpt
Well, that's it for now. See you around.
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