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As Is: Heroes

As Is: Heroes

Posted on by Mike Gold

“So, come on ye childhood heroes! Won’t you rise up from the pages of your comic books, your super crooks, and show us all the way! Make your will and testament. Won’t you join your local government? We’ll have Superman for president. Let Robin save the day.” From Thick As A Brick, written by Ian Anderson.

The Old Folks At My Home

It’s amazing which people I’d vote for over Donald Trump. I suspect at least seven billion out of our global population of 8.2 billion would make that list, including a couple former Nazis who draw the line at fascist fundamentalism. This is not about Trump. This is about saving our nation — and not just from Trump. He’s not even the tip of the MAGA iceberg. In fact, after November they will no longer really need him.

If my goal was simply to defeat Trump, I’d back Taylor Swift. And it’s not about Joe Biden‘s accomplishments, which are truly breathtaking particularly given the fact that if Joe sneezed not a single MAGA would say gesundheit. It’s been four years of pushing the boulder up the mountain against a right-wing House of Representatives, a nearly evenly split Senate, and a Supreme Court filled with religious fascists too insane for The John Birch Society. Against all that, Joe has been doing great.

Judge Holden

This is not about age, and it most certainly is not about a bad head cold. That’s not what we saw last Thursday. Mick Jagger is only a year younger than Joe, and Keith Richards is the man who invented aging. While Joe was debating Judge Holden, Mick and Keith were kicking ass on stage at Chicago’s Soldier Field. But the job of running the United States of America should be a bit more focused.

(Yeah, I know. It’s only rock and roll…) Continue reading “As Is: Heroes” →

As Is: Maybe The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow…

As Is: Maybe The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow…

Posted on by Mike Gold

And the judge looked down at me and said, For getting smart, boy, gonna give you more than a lifetime. Murder in my heart for the judge. I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge — From “Murder in My Heart For The Judge,” as written by Donald J. Stevenson and Jerry A. Miller Jr. and presently performed by America’s best known felon.

I just had to make a difficult choice. Should I write about the final episode of Star Trek: Discovery under the “Brainiac On Banjo” banner, or should I write about how America’s treacherous ex-president finally got his comeuppance after 77 years of blustering, conning, extortion, lying, cheating and stealing under my even more political “As Is” rant? Bet you figured that out already.

I can always comment on boldly going where artificial intelligence has gone before. I should celebrate the light at the end of the tunnel, the forthcoming possibility that soon I will never feel the need to comment on the greatest criminal (and skankiest biped) in American history.

Coincidentally, I learned about the verdict coming in from one of the biggest Star Trek fans I know, and I happen to know one hell of a lot of them. I was resting and playing with Adriane’s cat Artemis while listening to music — Artie prefers Warren Zevon — when I received a phone call from comics writer/editor/legend Mindy Newell. She informed me the jury was coming in with the verdicts. “WTF,” I replied, albeit non-initialisticly. “They’ve been deliberating for only about a dozen hours!” “Nonetheless…” Mindy wisely replied.

So I fired up my monitor, hooked myself up to several real news services, and sat back to enjoy the show. As everybody who’s watched juries on television knows, such brief deliberations rarely inure to the benefit of the accused. So my happy-adrenaline started pumping madly like one of Harold Hamm’s oil wells.

And I was not disappointed. Everybody had their scorecard up on the screen. Even Fanduel is unaccustomed to displaying a loss of 34 – 0. The jury of Donald Trump’s peers — but, clearly, these folks were deliberative, focused, and honest so they hardly were Emperor Trump’s “peers” — were goddamned clear in their message. Continue reading “As Is: Maybe The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow…” →

As Is: What Goes Around Seems Here Forever

As Is: What Goes Around Seems Here Forever

Posted on by Mike Gold

“But now it’s just another show and you leave ’em laughing when you go. And if you care, don’t let them know, don’t give yourself away.” From Both Sides Now, written by Joni Mitchell

For at least six decades I have held to a position that seems to be unsupported by anybody else I know. You’d think that would be controversial, but, amazingly, not a single person has raised any objections to my basic philosophy thus far. That’s pretty unusual.

The ante seems to have gone up; so, now that we’re about halfway into this decade, let’s see if there’s any blowback. Yeah, I know, tossing a hand grenade and then throwing my body on top of it seems like a counterproductive means of persuasion — but one’s reality is only the property of the possessor. I think I first expressed this in print in the Chicago Seed, a radical newspaper, back around 1971 and I’ve said it a lot ever since, so you might have heard me say this before.

I am a big-ass believer in freedom of religion. Therefore, I am a big-ass believer in freedom from religion: you can’t practice your beliefs if mine stand in your way, and vice versa. This is why I only go to Chick-fil-A on Sundays.

Therefore, and this is where the ice gets thinner, I am and long have been opposed to a Muslim state and I am equally opposed to a Jewish state. I’m also opposed to a Christian state, and lately fighting the Christian Nationalist bigots and liars has become my raison d’être.

Yeah, I know. That pretty much puts me on the other side of — at the very least — a majority of my fellow citizens. 28% of Americans classify themselves as religious “nones.” 17% of them identify as atheist, 20% as agnostic and 63% as “nothing in particular.” (Source: C Mandler, CBS News, January 24, 2024  — quoting Pew Research). I note these numbers continue to be on the upswing, and that is a cause for hope.

So, I don’t have a horse in any Middle East war. Sorry, folks. I carry the torch for freedom of religion.

Unless you’re paying rent to a native tribal council, I do not want to hear the hypocritical “but my great-grandparents used to live there” argument. Not unless you’re willing to hand me the deed to one of the Egyptian pyramids that my ancestors helped build. This is America and all white people came from somewhere else.

I also believe, with equal devotion, in freedom of expression. If you morally object to something, you have a right to share, promote and defend your beliefs, and you have the right to gather with others who have the same opinions. This is why I am strongly opposed — and greatly repulsed — by the actions taken this part week at Columbia University, the University of Southern California and other so-called ramparts of knowledge. People who do not like either “side” of the Gaza/Israel War have every right to say so. People are getting killed, and those who object to that have an obligation to say so.

This does not mean I support in any way, in any manner, in any shape, Benjamin Netanyahu and his dwindling group of followers. Nor do I support Hamas, the Taliban, Yisrael Beiteinu, Boko Haram, Hizballah, Shas, the current rulers of Iran, the Likud Party, Hobby Lobby, and similar ultra-extremist religious terrorist organizations. If I declined to mention your favorite hate group, that is because, in my heart of hearts, I feel real estate in the etherverse is limited.

Oh, yeah. One thing more. Despite my Joni Mitchell quote above, I do not believe in “there are two sides to every story” bullshit. Thanks to Celeste Van Dorp, one of my most influential high school teachers, I firmly believe in multiple causation. There are lots and lots of reasons for damn near everything.

Sadly, not all reasons are good reasons.

As Is by Mike Gold #017: Make Room?? Good Luck!

As Is by Mike Gold #017: Make Room?? Good Luck!

Posted on by Mike Gold

I think I’m sophisticated ’cause I’m living my life like a good homo sapien, but all around me everybody’s multiplying and they’re walking round like flies, man. So I’m no better than the animals sitting in the cages in the zoo, man. ‘Cause compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees, I am an apeman. — “Apeman,” written by Ray Davies.

For me, the scariest event of the past year (a.k.a. “yesterday”) was seeing the above headline in the Chicago Sun-Times. Mind you, 2023 was the scariest year of my life since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, and 2024 is shaping up to make that look like a walk in the park on a nice spring day. The fact is, eight billion people on a marble built to warehouse maybe 1.5 billion at best is cause for a Pepto-Bismol transfusion.

Eight BILLION people! I apologize for shouting, but that’s The Naked City times one thousand!

We can argue our actual global occupancy limit number — I rounded it off at 1,500,000,000 breathing bodies, but if you feel any need to reality test our actual limit then you should get out more often. People can’t stop recklessly pounding out more people, often because their invisible friend ordered them to. Eventually, most all of those new people will want cars of their own and maybe even a place to live. We’re rapidly running out of the latter, and in much of Europe and North America there are damn few places to build new roads and to maintain fueling stations, be they fossil or EV. And Americans despise public transportation.

So where do we put all the new bodies? In 2015, Habitat reported 1.6 billion people lacked adequate housing. In 2021, the World Economic Forum said 150 million people were homeless worldwide. That, to state the obvious, is lot of people. Continue reading “As Is by Mike Gold #017: Make Room?? Good Luck!” →

As Is by Mike Gold: Old Joe, My Ass

As Is by Mike Gold: Old Joe, My Ass

Posted on by Mike Gold

We live in a political world, The one we can see and feel. But there’s no one to check. It’s all a stacked deck. We all know for sure that it’s real. “Political World,” written by Bob Dylan.

It’s time to get real. As of this writing, there are four presidential candidates who are likely — but not assuredly — to be heading their respective political party tickets.

The Democratic Party has Joe Biden, age 81. The Fascist Party has Donald Trump, age 77, although it is vaguely possible that they will have to share their Orange Pumpkin with our federal prison system. The Fossil Fuel party has Joe Manchin, age 76. He has yet to announce for president, but he has said he will not run for reelection to the Senate. I guess he’s afraid Exxon will take his yacht away.

(Fun Fact: Manchin, who has a cash register in his yacht’s master bedroom, is the right wing Democratic senator from West Virginia, which is a land-locked state. Anomalies abound.)

Finally, there is Bizarro Bobby Kennedy, age 69, from the Kill-Your-Neighbor Party. Unlike such movies as Godfather II and From Russia With Love, Bizarro Bobby adds credence to the philosophy “sequels-aren’t-as-good-as-the-originals.

That means Bizarro Bobby, at 69 years of age, is the cub in the pack. Ergo, “too old” is preposterously relative. I know a shitload of people who died before their 69th birthday, and even more who died before they turned 76, 77 or 81.

But let’s hope to High Hell that Bizarro Bobby is too apeshit for the electorate. That’s a big assumption after Trump and, unlike Trump (at least this week), Bizarro Bobby is pro-abortion… as long as said abortion occurs within three months of the zygote’s propagation. Recently, he’s tried to walk back that part, which shows us just how feckless the bastard is. But he is the baby on the railroad tracks so we’ll grade the others on the curve.

Manchin, 76. Trump, 77. Biden, 81. That’s a five-year span, yet it is Biden who is targeted as “too old.”

Friends, age is not the issue here.

It’s Kamala Harris. Continue reading “As Is by Mike Gold: Old Joe, My Ass” →

As Is — Woke, Woke, Woke, WOKE! Whatever…

As Is — Woke, Woke, Woke, WOKE! Whatever…

Posted on by Mike Gold

Lead Belly

You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons. — from Blazing Saddles, written by Andrew Bergman, Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Alan Uger, and Richard Pryor.
There are only two types of people who use and believe in the right-wing concept of “woke” — Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (a.k.a. America’s most obnoxious bigot) and those who think DeSantis is right. None of them seem to agree on the actual meaning of the term, but they know that, generally, it means “anything that makes life uncomfortable for white American bigots.”

Of course, these fools also believe that Black Lives Matter and AntiFa are real organizations that issue orders to their troops, that communism and fascism are the same thing, and that Donald J. Trump is Jesus H. Christ resurrected. Continue reading “As Is — Woke, Woke, Woke, WOKE! Whatever…” →

As Is: I Woke Up This Morning And Hate Was On My Mind

Posted on by Mike Gold

“And don’t try to dig what we all say” — Pete Townshend, “My Generation”

I freely admit: when I first heard the word “woke” as a positive definition of the human condition, I did not care for the term. “Woke” implies that everybody is asleep but for the lucky few who are smart enough to understand the difference between a bowling alley and a thunderstorm. I’m way too egalitarian for that.

I do not mean to suggest that DeSantis is less than truthful about his beliefs. Not at all. To quote Maya Angelou, the award-winning poet/writer/actor/dancer that Governor Ron has banned from his school libraries: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” After all, about two out of every three Americans think that Nazis are not good people, while some on the far-right object to being called Nazis, or even fascists. Evidently, these people banned the dictionary before they got through “F.” Continue reading “As Is: I Woke Up This Morning And Hate Was On My Mind” →

As Is: The Crack of the Whip

As Is: The Crack of the Whip

Posted on by Mike Gold

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes, the blossom embraces the bee. But, soon, says a whisper “Arise, arise! Tomorrow belongs to me.” – German folk song “Tomorrow Belongs To Me,” adapted by John Kander.

From what I perceive, TikTok is not an app intended for me. The younger we are, the more juvenile we act, which is also known as “duh…” To me, TikTok is the home-game version of Jackass.

And if you get that joke, you, too, are too old for TikTok. It appears the members of the legislature of the state of Montana also are too old for TikTok. They just banned the use of the app throughout the state.

OK, a lot of state legislatures have done far worse stuff over the past, oh, two weeks. Are you listening, you bigoted Tennessee crackers? Probably not. However, there are understandable reasons for wanting to ban this product. TikTok is owned by a Chinese company named ByteDance, which calls Red China its home. Technically, it exists at the government’s pleasure. TikTok strip-mines personal information so effectively you’d think they were owned by Google or Facebook. That makes TikTok as great a security risk as, well, Google and Facebook, and that is not good. Continue reading “As Is: The Crack of the Whip” →

As Is: Bringing The War Home

Posted on by Mike Gold

Responding to a query in Parliament yesterday asking why the United Kingdom has massed over 285,000 troops along the United States / Canada border, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the MPs “Well, Her Majesty and I were having a nice tea-time chat up in the Palace and we got around to that kerfuffle over in Ukraine. It occurred to us that perhaps Mr. Putin has a good point.

“Therefore, we have decided to follow in Mr. Putin’s footsteps and reclaim our colonies, beginning with the United States. We’ve never truly acknowledged any so-called right to be independent, either in the rebel States or, for that matter, in India or the Caribbean.

“We’re starting with the colonies because of our strong common heritage,” Prime Minister Johnson continued. “The frontierspeople west of the Atlantic pond continue to speak the Queen’s tongue, which clearly shows were their loyalties lay. The British legal system which dates back to Anglo-Saxon times remains the backbone of colonial law. In fact, the colonial subjects continue to employ the British weights and measurements that were in effect in 1776, even though much of the rest of the world went metric during the final years of the last millennium.

“Clearly, the colonial rebels are much more faithful at holding on to British traditions than we are,” Johnson noted.

“Of course, Great Britain is a nuclear power but there’s no need to dwell on that at this time. We expect the stalwart subjects of Her Majesty will welcome us with cheers, baked goods, warm lager and boiled beef,” the PM concluded.

This threat comes at a critical time for both Canadians and American colonists as this is maple syrup season. If the border is closed, Americans will have little to put on their waffles other than chicken fat. On the other hand, if Great Britain dumps all of Canada’s unsold syrup into Niagara Falls, they can set global tourism back several centuries.

The French have yet to comment in public, but it is believed they have been in deep talks with the Quebecois in and around Montreal. However, the Gaullists have been on record since the 1970s that they may decide to use their nuclear arsenal first in order to maintain its security and interests.

Independent American senator Bernie Sanders responded “there is a silver lining here, as at last American citizens will be covered by a national health system. It’s not perfect, of course, but it’s better than dying in the gutter with Josh Hawley pissing on you.”

As of this writing, the only American official who has gone on record is Congressfool Marjorie Taylor Greene, who stated “if this so-called Queen and her enslaved stormtroopers think they can push real Christian Americans around, they’ve got another think coming. They’re all a bunch of homosexuals anyway, so we know God isn’t on their side. He hates the damn Brits. Even Hitler agreed. I’m calling for an immediate embargo on Yorkshire pudding, which can invigorate their Jewish space lasers.

In response, Russian Emperor Vlad Putin issued an imperial smirk and returned with his cat to the horse he rode in on.

As Is: Stamp Collecting In Ukraine

Posted on by Mike Gold

When I was a kid, I collected stamps. This was worthy as it exacerbated my study of American history and culture and helped make me the wanton hoarder I am today.

I suspect that’s no longer a big deal with kids today, given the fact that I used to know of about a dozen walk-in stamp collectors stores back in the day and only one of them remain today, and that one seems to be devoted to underpaying desperate people for their family jewels. But, maybe, just maybe, people are still into stamp collecting in Ukraine.

Those folks may be (well, most certainly are) outgunned, outmanned, and outraged, but they have not lost their sense of humor. According to The Guardian, the government decided to issue a “go fuck yourself, Russian warship” postage stamp.

No kidding.

For those who came in late, a few weeks ago the Russians challenged the Ukrainians at Snake Island in the Black Sea. The audio transcript reads thusly:

Russians: This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you’ll be bombed.

Ukrainians: Russian warship, go fuck yourself.

According to published reports, the Russians declined that request and slaughtered the Ukrainians. The trade magazine Maritime Executive reports the Russian navy is reported to have bombarded the island with deck guns before sending their soldiers to take control and those chiropractically-challenged Ukrainians were killed. Since then, some doubt has been cast on this latter event and there has been no confirmation either way. When David faces Goliath, hope must reign supreme.

I’m not even certain Ukraine has the ability to print stamps – at least, not in Ukraine. I’m less certain they have a functioning post office, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had something. After all, this is the nation that last week told its citizens that if they capture or claim a Russian tank, they don’t have to declare it on their taxes.

Yes, folks, Jewish comedians should run all former Soviet bloc nations. Americans need not worry; Jews will not replace the government… unless you’re one of those astonishingly deaf, dumb and blind right-wingers who believe Jews already run all governments and banks. Obviously, that can’t be true.

But if Ukraine does fall Zelensky becomes a martyr, the rest of the world does the right thing and Putin dies on Snake Island, the Ukrainians will return to what’s left of their homes and rebuild.

Given their gift for humor, they might want to rename the place “Freedonia.”