My idea of gun control

Amy
Originally uploaded by Love Me1.

Little Bill Daggett: Well, sir, you are a cowardly son of a bitch! You just shot an unarmed man!
Bill Munny: He should have armed himself if he was goin' to decorate his saloon with my friend.
- Unforgiven

Photo by Flickr friend Cindy Nguyen of Flickr friend Amy Nguyen

I got a name

Cleveland rocks, Richmond sucks has moved to my personal domain. (Hey, I am the master of my own domain, and don't you forget it. This isn't Shoe City. This is my city.)

Smokin'

A blonde Barbie (looked like Charlize Theron, she did) waitress from the Tobacco Company restaurant once picked me up in the James Branch Cabell Library at Virginia Commonwealth University. She wanted me to go down there and spend a lot of money on me getting to know her before I or she decided it was worth getting involved with eachother. Which is pretty much what dating is all about. Spending money on women in restaurants before deciding they're worth the time and trouble of further involvement.

I declined the offer because I'm not interested in going to restaurants that are named after an industry that will kill a billion people in this century (Richmond Times-Dispatch).

What's next: Auschwitz Pizza Ovens (coming soon to a neighborhood near you)?

Going to school

You can learn from anyone, even if it's what not to do. As a speaker at a George Wallace rally told me in 1968, even a stopped clock is right two times a day. I went to school on the University of Virginia for five years and I learned two things:

1) A sociology professor told me, "The system always looks functional from the top." I already knew that. I have a B.A. in sociology. But it never hurts to go back to the basics.
2) How to make a livable city from William Whyte at the School of Architecture.

I went to school on Virginia Commonwealth University for 10 years and I learned two things:

1) VCU sucks.
2) Eugene Trani, president of VCU, can kiss my ass.

How I feel about African-Americans

What DeGaulle said about France.

For the record, I would like to say that I feel the same way about Ms. Janeane Garofalo. DeGaulle also said, "The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs."

Come to think of it, DeGaulle's sentiments probably reflect the way Moses felt about the Jews. DeGaulle also said, "Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop."

I'm blowing up

I've opened up a third front - The Richmond Times-Dispatch. I hope I don't fall off a cliff. I'm going to out-Hitler Hitler. I'm going to be more popular than Jesus. Ooops...

Are the Jews an endangered species?

There are only 14 millions Jews on the entire planet, according to Glenn Beck. Hmmm, should we make them an endangered species?

HAWHAWHAW. That was a joke, and a double-edged one at that. Please, no angry letters from handmaidens of Israel like the AJC, AIPAC, and the B'nai Brith. Also, no mouthing off from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. I don't want your mouth anywhere near me. I know where it's been - firmly affixed to crypto-Nazi Arnold Schwarzenegger's ass.

Whatsamatta u Jews? You people just don't have a sense of humor. You lose it at Auschwitz?

I can make these kinds of jokes because I'm Jewish. I'm sure if you go back far enough, you can find Jews in my woodpile, er, ancestry.

Rush hour

At five o'clock it's much too crowded (too crowded)Much too crowded (too crowded)Much too crowded (too crowded)Too crowded for meCouldn't get through to you babyOh, it's too crowded - The Soul Survivors

Trying to get through the sidewalk in front of the Capitol City Coffeehouse was nearly impossible because of the dense foot traffic. My dogma was nearly run over by my karma. All those people and tables obstructed the sidewalk (a capital offense at Virginia Commonwealth University.) I was tempted to make a citizen's arrest but declined.

Sgt. Pepper and the Bad Lieutenant decline the invitation

You're invited to a retirement party for the Virginia Commonwealth University chief of police and Officer M. Franklin. The chief's distinguished record is even more impressive because he recently confessed to me, "I can't read." VCU President Eugene Trani said he was so impressed by the willingness of the chief and Officer Franklin to take a bullet for VCU that Trani was freeing them in his will.

When reached for comment, Officer Taylor said, "Fall mountain, just don't fall on me."

The powerful Tarheel in administration with the snazzy sports car was unavailable for comment. She was too busy cleaning out her desk and getting escorted off campus by Mean Mr. Mustache, the scrawny-ass bicycycle cop, who then escorted himself off campus, pointing his finger at everyone he met.

RSVP TBA CYA

Why? Why? Why?

In response to my post about racism at the Watermelon Festival, someone asked, "Why don't you move?" This a non sequitor and non-starter, to which I reply, "Why don't you move because you're the sort of person that tolerates this crap?" You should be ashamed and instead you suggest that I move. However, to show that I am the magnamimous person that I am, I have set up the Movin' Chris On Up Fund. Send all contributions to P.O. Box 11242, Richmond, VA 22320. I reserve the right if it never amounts to a hill of beans to spend the money on $1.00 expresso shots (50 cents for refills) at Can Can in Carytown instead.

A related question, by a man who stopped me and asked for a light: "Why you got to make things so hot?"

If you're referring to the August climate, I have nothing to do with that. If I could afford it, I would live in Rockport, Maine in August. If you're referring to the disturbed equalibrium in the structure which is Richmond, and which makes people feel uncomfortable, it's what I do.

I hate Canada

I don't know why people keep suggesting I go to Canada. Somehow it lacks the ring of Dwight D. Eisenhower saying, "I will go to Korea." I wouldn't even go to Canada when I was on the verge of being drafted during the Vietnam War, which tells you something. Nothing good has ever come out of Canada except for universal health care, cheap pharmaceuticals, and legalized marijuana and prostitution. On the other hand, they've exported Martin Short and Dan Aykroyd, responsible for "The Three Amigos," so it's a net loss. They're also responsible for the sex-mad, mad dogs and Canadians, crazy Samantha Burns. One of my first acts as president will be to sign an executive order deporting them, along with Steve Martin, for that crime against humanity.

Does Canada have any reason for continuing to exist, particularly after French Canadian independence and the overthrow of British royalty? If you don't knock off this visit Canada stuff - I'm going to visit Canada all right - to finish what Benedict Arnold started.

Expresso love - Dire Straits

She gets the sun in the daytime
Perfume in the dusk
And she comes out in the night time
With the honeysuckle musk
Because she smells just like a rose
And she tastes just like a peach
She got me walking where the wildlife goes
I'd do anything to reach her

And she was made in heaven
Heaven's in the world
Is this just expresso love
You know I'm crazy for the girl

She calls me just to talk
She's my lover, she's a friend of mine
She says, hey, mister you wanna take a walk
In the wild West End sometime
And I get trouble with my breathing
She says, boys don't know anything
But I know what I want
I want everything

Well I feel so good cos I feel so good
And I feel so good cos it feels so right
I was made to go with my girl
Like a saxophone was made to go with the night

And she can raise one eyebrow
Put her hand on my hip
And I close one eye now
Sweat on her lip
And I surrender to the fever
I surrender to the will of the night
She love me so tender, I got to believe her
Love? Expresso love's alright

I don't want no sugar in it
Thank you very much
All wired up on it all fired up on it
Expresso touch
Hey maestro, expresso
It's just another one, just like the other one
Hey maestro, expresso
Is this another one just like the other one?

The Dirty Boulevard - Lou Reed

Pedro lives out of the Wilshire Hotel
He looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
His father beats him 'cause he's too tired to beg

He's got 9 brothers and sisters, they're brought up on their
knees
It's hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the things
Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man
but that's a slim chance he's going to the boulevard

He's going to end up, on the dirty boulevard
He's going out, to the dirty boulevard
He's going down, to the dirty boulevard

This room cost 2,000 dollars a month, you can believe it man
it's true
Somewhere a landlord's laughing till he wets his pants
No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything
they dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard

Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard

Going to end up, on the dirty boulevard
Going out, to the dirty boulevard
He's going down, on the dirty boulevard
Going out

Outside it's a bright night, there's an opera at Lincoln
Center
Movie stars arrive by limousine
The klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of Manhattan
But the lights are out on the mean streets

A small kid stands by the Lincoln Tunnel
He's selling plastic roses for a buck
The traffic's backed up to 39th street
The tv whores are calling the cops out for a suck

And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming
He's found a book on magic in a garbage can
He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling
"At the count of 3" he says, "I hope I can disappear"

And fly fly away, from this dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly, fly, fly, fly, from dirty boulevard

I want to fly away
I want to fly
Fly, fly away
I want to fly
Fly, fly away
Fly, fly, fly
Fly, fly away
Fly away

My favorite line from "Raw Deal"

Arnold Schwarzenegger tells sniveling prosecutor Joe Regalbuto, "Resign or be prosecuted."

It's just another day in paradise

It's 5:45 a.m. and a African-American police officer has been waiting for me to walk by in front of Richmond Police Department headquarters. He says, "What's up?" I don't respond, which disrespects him. Every black man and woman in America is automatically entitled to my respect, until they do something to earn my disrespect, like don the uniform of the RPD (Report-Takers Police Department).

But don't let it be a black and a white one
Cuz they slam ya down to the street top
Black police showin out for the white cop
- Fuck Tha' Police, NWA

One of the guys who runs the Freedom House soup kitchen at the Salvation Army asks me if I still work at Tiffany's. (Hey, I really do have wax in my left ear, compacted from putting in a hearing protection plug at a Rachel Leyco Band show.) I used to know his name, but I forgot. If I were casting "The Mike Tyson Story," he'd be a trainer or cut man. If I were having a wedding reception, I'd hire him to be a bouncer and to tell the guests it's time to get to stepping. How do you know you're finished... I'm a little groggy at 6 a.m. but I realize it's another "Joan of Arcadia" moment courtesy of Janeane Garofalo. I don't have breakfast at Tiffany's, nor do I buy any rings there. And I guess that Janeane thinks she's Audrey Hepburn and I'm George Peppard or OMG, OMG I'm Buddy Ebsen - eewww!- and I should watch the movie for important clues. The only problem is that I'm still decoding the secret messages in a stack of "Badly Drawn Boy" CDs. Audrey Hepburn was 5', 7" and Janeane is 5', 1" though their weight is almost the same (Janeane weighs 99 pounds, Audrey, 110). Anyhoo, my favorite Hepburn film is "Two for the Road." And I get all my jewelry at Don Dransfeld in Shockhoe Slip, jeweler to the has-been stars, or at least one of them...

We off the block this year
Went from a little to a lot this year
Everybody mad at the rocks that I wear
I know where I'm goin' and I know where I'm from
You hear LOX in your ear
Yea, we're at the airport out decline from the block
Where everybody air-forced-out
With a new white Tee, you fresh
Nothin' phony with us, make the money, get the mansion, bring the homies with us

Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got
I'm still, I'm still Jenny from the block
Used to have a little, now I have a lot
No matter where I go, I know where I came from (from the Bronx!)

- Jennifer Lopez

The Surreal Life, or nothing new under the sun, my ass

Sunday, I found myself in front of the First Baptist Church on the Boulevard talking with an employee of the company that invented LSD about international water sports.

Fixin' to fly blues

I'm glad that I very rarely fly (my arms get tired - OK, I stole that joke). That means I can skip over all those stories about airlines and terrorism - saves a lot of time. I feel sorry for the rest of you, though. By the time this is all over, you're going to be flying in the nude (OK, I stole that joke) - which is a pretty frightening thought because some people need to keep their clothes on.

You ain't done nothing

Woke up Sunday morning at 12:35 to the sound of loud music, laughter, and the clinking of glasses. The people in the house behind me are having a party. I tell then to knock it off or I'm calling the police. I trudge down to the station to save minutes on my cell phone. Why get the runaround on the phone and spend money when I can get the runaround in person and save? The person behind the desk tells me the party patrol will check it out. The party ends after many amplified expressions of the n-word and various other obscenities at 2:30 a.m. - voluntarily.

I trudge down to the police station later Sunday morning where an Asian policewoman tells me what I already know - that they can't do anything once the party is over - and what I don't know - that the party patrol doesn't work in my area, only in the Fan District. But it's nice to know that the Richmond Police Department is not just misinformed and ineffectual - it's diverse and misinformed and ineffectual.

Hey, guys, to paraphrase Robert Townsend, if you want to sit on your ass and talk about sports and vacations, there are plenty of good jobs at the VCU James Branch Cabell Library reference desk.

The Watermelon Man

I went to the Watermelon Festival in Carytown Sunday. Heard: a volunteer at the Libertarian Party booth say the n-word. Maybe that's why they meet in the 7500 block of Broad Street instead of downtown. The Libertarians want to take over New Hampshire so that they can be with their own kind. I hope they secede - oops -succeed. Live frei or die, say I. One thing is certain: they'll have a white Christmas. Seen: a Confederate flag on the back of someone's shirt in the milling crowd. And of course, booths for those two sons of bitches, er, the Confederacy, George Felix Allen and Jim "Manchurian Man" Webb, both culpable in perpetuating a dangerous myth, that dying for slavery is a noble cause. Not seen: black musicians with a few exceptions. I did find a theme for any future candidacies: "It's not easy being sleazy" by the Dirty Truth - or maybe I should let Bill Clinton have it. And then there was the Stepin Fetchit (or was it Bojangles? - it's so hard to keep my racist icons straight) knockoff dancing in front of the crowd listening to the band. Creeped me out, it did.

You never turned around to see the frowns
on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you. - Bob Dylan

We don't know what the secret formula for Kentucky Fried Chicken is. Maybe the secret ingredient of the Carytown Watermelon Festival is racism. I don't know. I'm just a fruit trader.

I toasted your ass. You're my bitch now. - Gerard Mulligan, the David Letterman Show

I've opened up a second front. Hey, it worked for Hitler in Russia, huh? Walking back and forth this morning outside the Virginia Commonwealth University police station on West Grace Street with a sign that reads, "Kiss my ass, Eugene Trani." A woman cadet or intern with short red hair opens the door and suggests I take my sign elsewhere, preferably to Eugene Trani's office on West Franklin. I say First Amendment yada, yada, yada. She gives me the address. An officer says he's offended by the language on the sign. I say you can hear the same language on late night talk shows. I say I'm offended by guys who don't wear shirts, but there's no law against it. He says some people are offended by novelty t-shirts such as the one I'm wearing that says,"Whoever said, 'Money can't buy happiness' forgot about prostitution." I say some people are offended by overweight guys. He asks if I think he's overweight. I suggest he ask his doctor. I say that some people are offended by lesbians. At which point, the cadet or intern calls me "Jack" and closes the door. Yet another candidate for a refresher course in customer relations. My name is not Jack - Tripper or Ripper. My name is Chris Martin - yes, Gwyneth Paltrow made a horrible mistake which she regrets every day. The whole encounter has a surrealistic feel - like the the Knights of the Round Table at the French castle in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," with me as a stand-in in for the knights and the VCU police being the French:

French Soldier: You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur King," you and all your silly English K-nig-hts

.

I upgrade my sign at Pla-Za Art (reasonable prices for FoamCore) and move on to Eugene Trani's office. It's called hydraulics, Eugene. You pressure me and I transfer the pressure back to you.

Thanks to Janeane Garofalo for being my nasty girl

Submitted for your approval

I just rented a movie on Netflix which looks great on my new plasma TV and Truetech DVD player from Target. It's called Get Shorty.

My last will and testament

Put me in my box on the 309.

Ooh, my years are burning

David Brooks' column in The New York Times August 3, 2006 was a thinly-veiled dig at me for being lazy. At least he didn't call me shiftless, good-for-nothing, and no-count. Nationally-known hacks like David Brooks can't believe there's someone out in the sticks who can write better, funnier, and more perceptively than they. I know it. I own it. They do too. And unlike them, and like George Orwell, I don't just talk the talk. I walk the walk.

Many readers no doubt observed that if today's prostate-age moocher wanted to loaf around the house all day reading books and tossing off their vacuous opnions into the ether, they should have had the foresight to become newspaper columnists. [Been there, done that. I wrote essays predicting what would happen in Fallujah and Iraq months and years before Thomas Friedman got his head out of the sand and/or his butt. Gail Collins, the editor of The New York Times editorial page knows it because I sent her the essays. And he knows it too because he has acknowledged it in his column. Actually, early in my newspaper career, a Duke Power executive who knew the editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal kept urging me to apply there. Only one problem: I didn't want to work for The Wall Street Journal. I still don't. I wrote a magazine column for the late-lamented indie Eye magazine in the nineties. I wrote a column on Apple and Macintosh for Macopinion.com. I also worked for The New York Times and it didn't take me long to figure out that I was smarter and more talented than Hedrick Smith, R.W. Apple, Sy Hersh, Joe Lelyveld, Eugene Roberts, Bill Kovach, Clifton Daniel, Scotty Reston, and a host of other Timesies. But I never advanced because of Ivy-league prejudice and political patronage - I lost my job to a Bella Abzug employee - which why I have hated feminists, feminism, and loud women in funny hats ever since.]

Others will note sardonically that the only really vibrant counter-culture in the United States today is laziness. [I get more done doing nothing than you'll ever by working, David. Study the Tao Teh Ching and BTO for more on this. I love to work at nothing all day.] But I try not to judge these gentlemen too harshly. What I see is a migration of values. Once upon a time, middle-clas men would have judged their dignity by their ability to work hard, provide for the familiies, and live as sel-reliant members of society. But these fellows, to judge by their quotations, define their dignity, not by their achievement, but by their autonomy, by their distance from anything dishonorably menial or compulsory ["Dishonorably menial or compulsory." That sounds like a newspaper column. Especially ones endorsing the US effort in Iraq. As for achievement, just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Like George Bailey, I am a wonderment.]

In other words, the values that used to prevail among the manorial estates have migrated to parts of the mass society while the grinding work ethic of the immigrant prevails in the stratosphere. [I certainly don't believe in heavy lifting. As Robert Fritz says, let the tool do the work.]

David, like many other immature adults, is feeling guilty or acting out in the hopes of getting spanked. Like children, they want attention, whether it's positive or negative, for things they have done or left undone. If it's any comfort, David, your spanking is coming. You don't have a lifetime sinecure like William Safire. Once I get my hands on the Times, I'm going to fire you. (And start competing newspapers in Richmond, Virginia and Washington, D.C. and put The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Washington Post out of business, but that's another story.)

Lights out at Night Out

I went to a Byrd Park neighborhood block party Monday. A woman was at a table gathering signatures opposing the Virginia constitutional amendment against gay marriage. I told her I was sitting this one out because the gays in the state didn't support my campaign against state sodomy laws. I told her I didn't appreciate Jon Klein of Diversity Thrift, one of the leaders of the Richmond, Virginia gay community, hitting on me when he knew I was straight. No means no. That's rude, and will get your ass kicked in some places - killed in others. I also didn't appreciate the obstructionist attitude of the gay lobbyist to the General Ass-embly. The woman gathering signatures said her lesbian friends didn't hit on her. I had to bite my tongue to stop from suggesting she get a decent haircut, develop a fashion sense, lose weight, go to the gym, and use makeup. Then get back to me with a progress report on her lesbian friends.

All this whining by gays about how biology is destiny, yet gays can't resist trying to convert people. And then they wonder why they lose amendment votes. To paraphrase Academy Award winner and recent Hollywood Walk of Famer Jamie Foxx in "The Truth about Cats and Dogs," the problem is they're not letting their brain do their thinking.