i’m bringing this up because it’s an issue that’s extremely close to home, having had a second uncle at one time who was taken away almost ten years ago now:
abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20031008_1607.html

last year was the first time in several years that the number of new AIDS cases actually increased. most at risk are females.

just don’t be morons, people.

and i got to pimp Kimya Dawson (no relation)

it used to be that Pop Culture informed Mass Media.

now, Mass Media informs Pop Culture.

so why the turnaround?

i urge you all to explore this, especially those of you who live in California.

we have an arrogant, bible-thumping chimp in office, acting as if he were the President of the United States of America (which he’s NOT); and we have an arrogant, cigar-chomping Ro-bot, acting as the new Governor of California (which he apparently IS, disturbingly enough).

draw your own fucking conclusions from now on!

metaphorge, summing things up perfectly, once again.

you should all listen to this astute man.

and buy the latest copy of Parabola, as well as Al Franken’s new book. and read Tom Tomorrow’s blog.

AND FUCKING VOTE ONCE IN AWHILE.

listen. heed good advice.

so… logically speaking… does <-this-> mean that women really DO like being sexually assaulted?

this is a great day for rapists and sexual Predators everywhere, not just in CA!

you know what? FUCK YOU, California voters.

and a bigger, more vitriolic FUCK YOU to all the non-voters, who’ve just proved my point that politics is a business that MUST be dealt with, whether you like it or not.

i’m gonna need a new icon, because this one just doesn’t quite cover it.

no matter how tulmultuous my life may seem at times, at least i don’t currently reside in California.

my hope for America, and for Americans, has taken a sharp turn downward.

for some reason, whenever i hear old songs from the 50s, i think of Death. i know, i’m obsessed with it. you’d be too, if you knew as many suicides and tragedies as i. chances are, some of you do, and are just better-adjusted to it. but i never forget. i still break down when i think of my dog, or my old friends who’ve died, or even that crazy hood Jimmy Harris from the back of the bus who once greeted me by name, out of the blue, when we passed each other, all alone, in the boy’s room, back in high school; who set fire to himself one day, supposedly during an LSD trip, and died a horrifying death, over 2/3 of his body charred or melted off.

i think most of all about my dear friend Mike Mettler, who hung himself in the closet of his old bedroom, in his mom’s house. we worked together, skipped school together (to see that Oliver Stone Doors movie), shared great, great music together (The Doors, Suicidal Tendencies, Queensryche, Bowie, and so many other fine bands), and developed the enormously influential dance craze called The Penuse together.

and my old friend Bill White, who was alternately my ally and my arch-nemesis. he shot himself in the face with a handgun, probably overwhelmed by all the recent changes in a life that was already punctuated by sadness and pain and tragedy. he was one of the most recent deaths. what a great musician he was! one of the 3 or 4 reasons why i moved back to Ohio was because i really wanted to get the classic 4-piece version of Tony’s band The Loving Scares back together, featuring Bill on drums (and occasionally, scorching guitar), Tony on guitar and vocals, Tony’s brother Jeremy on bass and guitar, and me on guitar, keyboards, and occasional vocals. the last time i ever saw Bill, we’d been on very good terms, so i’m glad that when he died there was none of the old bad blood between us.

these things all stay with me and haunt me.

i’m going to compile a list of grievances. it will probably read like an angry suicide note. but really, it’s just an angry dreamer who’s fucking fed the hell up with this sick system he’s been thrust into, with which he has HAD IT UP TO HERE.

no more lies, no more bullshit. no more spinning things until the people They are supposed to be taking care of can’t see straight or understand anything any longer. no more hypocrisy. no more sensationalism for the sheer sake of ratings (which sells ads for things you probably didn’t even know weren’t actually necessary – or in the worst cases, could actually harm you). no more pretending to be gentle as They rape the people with Their thinly-veiled greed. no more fear, no more paranoia. no more switch-and-bait ad campaigns. no more corporate mergers, which destroy communities, obliterate small businesses, and wreck families. no more taxing the poor to feed the rich. no more denying aid to those in need, just because they can’t line Their pockets with silver and gold. no more fucking people over for the sake of your own selfish interests. no more lies, no more bullshit.

more to come later.

i’ve just finished my portfolio.

wish i had an online resume, but unfortunately, i can’t seem to get it looking nice enough. i’ve tried on numerous occasions, but it just never works out.

transmothra.com now validates as XHTML1.0 transitional and CSS2.0.

this means that my code, while not necessarily well-formed or anything, is technically correct. it’ll also help ensure that it won’t break down in The Browser of the Future.

and it’ll look a nicer to prospective employers, of which there are currently: none.

which is a good thing!

1) my girlfriend is going to see Eddie Izzard tommorrow nite. hope she has a blast! wish i could be there. Eddie Izzard is the best, most thoughtful and intelligent comic out there since Bill Hicks.

2) i sent her flowers. not just any kind: Moonshadows. see, we have this Cat Stevens link. i love it when she’s happy! i’ll sure miss her while she’s in Chicago, though :(

3) old Blogger archives now seem to work fine in my b2evo weblog. now it seems like all is well at last!

NOW it looks like it’s working.

you might have to delete meat-thing.com and www.meat-thing.com cookies, but i doubt it.

www.meat-thing.com/transmothra.com/blog/

please let me know if you get a blank page or anything weird. thanks!

p.s., the old archives are down, for no reason whatsoever. they should work, but they just don’t. works locally, just not on the net. and what a simple, simple routine i use to select them:

<?php
 if (isset($z)) {
 include("archive/"."$z".".php");
 }
 else {
 include("_blog_content.php");
 }
 ?>

you can now syndicate the moffrablog via moffrablog.

alternate syndication points:

oh my assing hell!

i think i’ve fixed it!
(may need to delete site cookies (meat-thing.com))

i’m trying to fix my damn weblog. please gimme a hand. i’m going nuts here. all i need to know is whether you can see the following pages.

http://www.meat-thing.com/transmothra.com/?page=home
http://www.meat-thing.com/transmothra.com/blog
http://www.meat-thing.com/transmothra.com/blog/blog_all.php
http://www.meat-thing.com/transmothra.com/blog/blog_a.php
http://www.meat-thing.com/transmothra.com/blog/blog_b.php
http://www.meat-thing.com/transmothra.com/blog/blog_roll.php

it’d be super if you could also screw around with setting the skin, either from the top left, or from the blog menu about halfway down the page (sidebar). they both use different routines, and i think that may be where the problem is.

(if you get stuck, you can always go back to the home page and reset the skin using the regular, icon-based selector – i think.)

thank you. thank you so very much. seriously, i really mean it. i appreciate your help.

last night i dreamed that i was riding a bus of some kind. we were riding through a neighborhood i seemed to recognize, and passed where i’d wanted to get off.

i was talking to the bus driver. we really hit it off. she had long, straight dirty-blonde hair and was thin and about my age. i can’t remember what name she used, but she turned out to be Carla, my very first friend, from when i was a wee tot and lived briefly with my father and his 2nd wife in an apartment complex in Englewood, Ohio, where i got mudded up by some evil older children (talk about a formative experience!), which may have been on the same day that i dropped a glass jar of grape jelly while trying to make my own PBJ sandwich, shattering it and incurring my father’s wrath (talk about…!).

my earliest memories are spotty, so i can’t recall exactly how old i was, but it was definitely before i was four.

Carla and i had what could best be described as the toddler’s version of a love/hate relationship. eventually, we weren’t even allowed to play together. either that, or we actually chose not to. she tormented me and i was probably fairly evil back to her.

i’ve always wondered what ever became of her. i hope she’s doing well and that she’s happy.

speaking of other earliest memories, i figured i might as well jot them down.

POOL
i was probably <2 years old. i was in some house with other children. it was either a birthday party (though fuck only knows how i would’ve known anyone at that age to be invited to a party of that sort), or this was my only memory of foster care.

the other children, of which there were a handful, were going swimming. i had to stay inside and go nappy-bye. i whined, and the lady of the manor, who had black hair in a beehive, looked for a pair of swimming trunks small enough that i could pretend to swim with the other, older kids (or else just go ahead and drown). i distinctly remember hating the trunks that she found. they had huge plastic buttons on the front. i’ve hated buttons ever since. even the very word gives me the creeps.

i remember all this as if from an out-of-body point of view. it seems like she put me on an ironing board to change me. that lady creeped me out. i’m glad i wasn’t there for long.

the only thing else i can recall about that day was that it seems vaguely like there was Motown music on the radio.

NEEDLES AND PINS
i was at Donna’s house, my first babysitter and lifelong family friend. there were needles and pins all over the floor. foot. all i remember is the feeling of my foot coming back to sharpness after having fallen asleep, which may or may not have been what actually happened. that, and all the dark orange and brown grainy wood of the interior.

KISS
my dad took me to a Kiss concert when i was about 2. i barely remember a thing, just smoke and fire and it seems like we were in the back, and that it was a fairly small theatre or something that it was in.

THE SKELETON KING
i came to live with my grandparents when i was around 2 years old. before we moved into the house i’m typing this from, i had a dream. the house was exactly as it ended up being, and i remember not ever having seen the house beforehand, so it was a definite premonition somehow.

in the dream, i was riding my big wheels through the bedroom hallway, over what was then dark green carpeting. my big wheels slipped out from under me and went into what became my grandmother’s room. but instead of going in to retrieve it, i was drawn to the room just behind my right shoulder; the room which became my own, where i even now lay my head to dream some more. the door was ajar. i pushed it open. it was laid out pretty much like it is today. same black and white striped wallpaper, same red curtains. the curtains were drawn and the light of the room was a deep blood red.

sitting fiercely and glowing, possibly even on fire, on a throne, and under a platinum crown, was The Skeleton King.

i can’t remember what it said or did. but its skull has haunted me since that day. i’m not even sure where i would’ve ever seen a skeleton or a skull before that day.

KITTY GO BANG
i was at my stepmother’s apartment, and there was a pool party going on out back. i don’t know where my dad was. probably drunk and passed out underneath some chick. my stepmom had her biker boyfriend inside. i think they were making out or something.

there were several kittens there. mostly golden, stripey little tabby-cats or whatever. one of them was mine. the biker picked mine up and threw it hard against the wall, breaking its neck. i cried. stepmom thought it was pretty funny. formative! i have hated bikers passionately since that day. or at least deeply mistrusted them.

NO MORE DRUMMING
Alvin was my dad’s friend. if ever there were a human being who could be described as an acid casualty, it was Alvin. i used to like him. he was weird and wacky.

i’d gotten a little snare drum for christmas or my birthday or something. i was banging the sheer living fuck out of it. Alvin came over, took it from me, and put his fist through it. i’m certain i was being terribly annoying, but shit. give a kid a break.

earlier today (well, yesterday), i found myself thinking about my friend Ria’s brother Dan. Dan came down from St. Louey to live with Ria in Jacksonville. he didn’t stay too long, though, and i always regretted that we never really did hang out and skate like we always said we were going to do.

he was pretty hot, too.

when Ria and i were together, long after he’d moved back home, she told me that he was bi, and that he kinda had his eye on me. imagine my surprise! and my disappointment…

so, shortly after we split up, i made a passing reference to him in a sappy breakup poem. the version of the poem that i slipped under the door of her apartment right after she dumped me didn’t have that line in it. i figured it wouldn’t’ve helped my case to be hitting on her brother in a poem, while i was trying to woo her back with horrible poems about loss.

he’s married now, of course.

it’s really too bad that we don’t always take the chances that we are given.

in my defense, i didn’t even know at the time that he was bisexual, that he liked me, or anything.

none of this matters now, a-course, but given the chance to build a different road leading me up to the place i’m at today, i woulda built it closer to him for sure. i’ve always secretly liked detours. as long as i could still have that end of the road that led me to Lisa, at the time that it did. in the end, though, i only want to be with the one i’m with now.

screw the past! history is dead! i have no regrets that i can’t live with. i couldn’t be this happy with someone other than Lisa; she is exactly who i want to be with. period! (just so we’re perfectly clear on things.)

this post has been brought to you by the need to paint beautiful, untouchable sunsets, before they vanish forever into fading memory.

goodbye, sun. hello, moon!

i got very little done today. i did, however, complete the HOUR LONG online application process for hhgregg. i also called a really scammy-looking employer about an ad claiming $500/wk pay, and they claimed the positions had been filled. which means nothing. then i called another that looked moderately less scammy and it turned out to be exactly what i thought it was. i also read about 5 more chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. and downloaded the latest version of the blog software i can’t seem to get to work right online (last version worked fine locally, even with all my hacking, so i guess it has something to do with the PHP version or server environment – i emailed the guy who produces it for help, so hopefully i can get this bug nailed down soon).

seasons are changing and my gouty finger has been acting up for nearly a week now. it’s just a constant, low-thrumming hum of barely-tolerable pain. add to that the fact that i’ve got only 4 Orudis KT left and i’ve completely LOST my tube of topical painkiller, and you’ve got one agitated jer.

grr.

i’m updating my friends table at transmothra.com. this is what it looks like right now. it’s old.

leave me your URL.

that way i can add it (or change it).

leave me your URL.

or if you want your URL removed, let me know. any and all requested changes will be accomodated!