Welcome to the Norman Church

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Norman Church's newsletter. This is an important edition, as the church is beginning a campaign to protect traditional bicycle attire.

As we know from reading the scripture according to Norman, only bicyclists that nicely fill out a pair of cycling shorts and can order salads in French will be admitted to the Gates of Heaven. For those of you new to our church, please see the link below that describes the events surrounding Norman's witness to God.

Yet there are those among us that defile God's will. We see them every day riding their bicycles while wearing white shirts, ridiculously ugly ties, and dark trousers. Some have even been known to wear helmets with reflective Mickey Mouse stickers. You can always tell these abominations by the Godless literature they carry in their fully stuffed backpacks.

But the true sin occurs when no one is watching. They will hide behind rows of grocery carts in supermarkets and try to recruit our children to their lifestyle. Some of our brethren had even reported these cretins hiking their pant legs to expose young children to their white tube socks. Yes dear friends, they have an agenda, and it is Godless. Their sole mission is to morally and financially bankrupt our brothers and sisters working tirelessly in New York, Paris and Milan to bring the joy of style to the sidewalks and cafes of America.

Left to their own devices they would require the wearing of white Jockey shorts for all men and white cotton panties with padded crotches for all women. They would suck the joy out of God's universe.

Now we Normans know we are in the middle of an economy that no longer allows the shoemaker to buy the shoes he makes, but this is a war for the very souls of God's children. So I urge you to take out a third mortgage on your home, close out your retirement funds and strip your children of their college funds to join me in financing a campaign that will show America what true Hate is. We will hire the best and brightest ad men to make up irrelevant fiction that will sway the weak minded among us. Rejoice in Norman's name, and bring out your checkbooks. The commuter lane to heaven is marked by the number of zeros on our checks.

Yours in Salvation,
Otis Strunkmeyer,
Elder,
The Norman Church

Banking on ignorance

I received an email from a friend, who by the way I adore, who is sympathetic to the Tea Baggers, or as she likes to call them, the Tea Partiers. I did the one thing Tea Baggers hope no one will ever do: research their claims. First, the original email, followed by, well, without sounding condescending, the truth:

LET ME SEE IF I GOT THIS RIGHT.

IF YOU CROSS THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET 12 YEARS HARD LABOR.

IF YOU CROSS THE IRANIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU ARE DETAINED INDEFINITELY.

IF YOU CROSS THE AFGHAN BORDER ILLEGALLY, YOU GET SHOT.

IF YOU CROSS THE SAUDI ARABIAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE JAILED.

IF YOU CROSS THE CHINESE BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU MAY NEVER BE HEARD FROM AGAIN.

IF YOU CROSS THE VENEZUELAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE BRANDED A SPY AND YOUR FATE WILL BE SEALED.

IF YOU CROSS THE CUBAN BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU WILL BE THROWN INTO POLITICAL PRISON TO ROT.

IF YOU CROSS THE U.S. BORDER ILLEGALLY YOU GET:

• A JOB ,
• A DRIVERS LICENSE,
• SOCIAL SECURITY CARD ,
• WELFARE,
• FOOD STAMPS,
• CREDIT CARDS,
• SUBSIDIZED RENT OR A LOAN TO BUY A HOUSE,
• FREE EDUCATION,
• FREE HEALTH CARE ,
• A LOBBYIST IN WASHINGTON
• BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PRINTED IN YOUR LANGUAGE
• THE RIGHT TO CARRY YOUR COUNTRY’S FLAG WHILE YOU PROTEST THAT YOU DON’T GET ENOUGH RESPECT
• AND, IN MANY INSTANCES, YOU CAN VOTE.

I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE I HAD A FIRM GRASP ON THE SITUATION

What Denny found ...

Let’s see how firm his grasp is. First of all, it seems like what he is saying is that North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan will be cool places to live because they shoot border brothers. Wow. Double Wow. Double Wow with Hand Slapping Forehead.

On to whatever he thinks he is grasping:

• Lie 1. Illegals can't vote. If anyone reads this email, believes it, and nods their head like a Sarah Palin bobble-head doll, they deserve to have their jobs taken away by a drunk Mexican. For the folks who were sniffing gasoline during their high school civics classes, only U.S. citizens can vote.
• Lie 2. Illegals are not issued Social Security cards by the Social Security Administration. Most SS cards presented by illegals are forged. Period. Oh, and a word about the forged cards, from the conservative San Diego Union-Tribune: Last year, contributions by illegal immigrants made up about 10 percent of the Social Security surplus – the difference between what the system takes in and what it doles out.
• Lie 3. Illegals get welfare. According to the Congressional Research Center: "FACTS: To the contrary, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive any "welfare" benefits and even legal immigrants are severely restricted in the benefits they can receive." Hey, I've always wanted to make stuff up and see if there are folks gullible to believe it. How about this: Sarah Palin got laid by a moose, actually two big bulls. She denied enjoying it. Really. It happened. Honest!
• Lie 4. Illegals get food stamps. A person who is not a citizen of the U.S. can not get food stamps. However, if there was a child born in the U.S., a parent could apply for food stamps for the child only. But a human born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen, not an illegal. Source: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
• Illegals can get credit cards. I'm not even going to research this. How did getting getting a credit card become a threat to democracy?
• Illegal immigrants get a free education: Yeah, something called the U.S. Constitution prevents us good ol' 'mericans from keeping kids out of schools. The Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) that the state cannot refuse funding to educate children of illegal aliens. Hey, I have an idea, maybe the author of this email should declare himself an illegal alien, then he could get an education and might understand THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION!!!
• Lie 5. Illegal immigrants get subsidized rents. A federal regulation, which has existed since 1995, prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving assistance in public housing developments or through Section 8, a federal program that provides help with monthly rents." Source: The Los Angeles Times
• “Illegal immigrants get billions of dollars worth of printing costs in their language.” So I guess all the millions of legal Americans that need help with languages are, as the rednecks say, shit outta luck. The Tea Baggers would have you believe the language materials are only for illegal immigrants. By the way, I needed to clean up the English of the author of the email so it wouldn't sound like my Uncle Otis wrote it.
• And finally (my personal favorite), “illegal immigrants have the right to carry their country's flag during protests.” Oh God where do I begin? First of all, only U.S. citizens have "rights" under the U.S. Constitution -- the document this Tea Bagger apparently wants to abolish. Illegals do not have the right of free speech or any other Constitutionally mandated right. As for the U.S. citizens who are brown and therefore encourage the wrath of the Tea Party, when they carry a flag other than Old Glory aren't they protected, even in unpopular speech, by the Constitution? You know, the same right that this author has to make things up and lie under the guise of fact?

The only word I can think of to describe the Tea Party and its unwitting legions: (sigh)

Obama's oil slick

Dear President Obama:
In my office, where I am now sitting, I have the front page of the San Jose Mercury News framed on the wall. The headline: "Remaking America." I am a 55 year old white guy who shed tears of joy when you were elected, because you are obviously smart, and you said you care about things like social justice and the environment. What happened to you? Was is money? Kowtowing to the corporations that feed your political war chest? I don't expect you to even read this; I'm sure one of your assistants to the assistant of the undersecretary of the assistant press secretary will report with a check mark against your plans for more offshore drilling. I will become a statistic; a callous number that you will add to the river of opinion and data from which you will try to forge a policy position. You've lost your heart. I'm sure you have read Thomas Friedman ... his books, his columns, and choose to ignore the reality he presents, all for the sake of trying to be a moderate voice in a partisan world. Screw politics. Are the dangers of offshore drilling to be sacrificed for some cynical political agenda? I'm sure the person who reads this and deletes this would say sure! The ends justify the means, he or she would say. It's your legacy President Obama. The tears I shed in 2008 are rapidly being replaced by the tears of watching you turn your back on what is right. Oil killing countless God's creations, destroying small businesses up and down the delta, and yet you don't want to act "prematurely" on your position on offshore drilling. Tell that to the thousands of dead animals, birds and businesses that your political obsessions are feeding.
Dennis Taylor

The Night of the Living Dead

No wonder Dead Heads have lightening bolts through their brains. I'm still trying to pull mine out following Phil Lesh's 70th birthday show at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. I had never seen the Grateful Dead live, even when Jerry Garcia was alive. I figured it was time to catch two of the surviving members (Lesh and guitarist Bob Weir) before it was time for them to catch that train.

I went with my cousin and friend, Bill. While not a Dead Head, per se, he owns every recording ever made by the Grateful Dead (and all the live recordings of Further, Lesh and Weir's new band). The picture on his Facebook page is a picture of Jerry Garcia. He has a beard. OK, whatever, maybe's he is a Dead Head. But he's a sane one. He and I were probably two of only a handful of party-goes who were sober. Make no mistake, a Dead concert is a party where a band happens to be playing. While I've taken my fair share of acid, and maybe a few other shares as well, it hasn't been since the Carter administration. So the Dead party was the first time in more than three decades I was around that many people stoned on acid. Thousands of people tripping.

The drug Bill and I both like is adrenaline, so we opted to start the party down on the floor near the stage. Armed with our Diet Pepsis, we took position 20 feet from front-row center, except their were no rows, or any distinguishable pattern or order to the crowd. Just many tripping people with enough weed lit up to make Bob Marley cough. One guy, about 15 feet to our left, was toking off a huge bong. We would see fire, then a campfire size cloud of smoke drifted up to mingle with all the other bonfire smoke. After a while the stage was just an opaque outline somewhere in front of us. London has nothing on a Dead concert.

Forty-five minutes into the show, I wanted to ask Bill a question. Minutes passed. Then many minutes. Then I forgot the question. Then I forgot that I wanted to ask a question. Meanwhile, some guy trying to out-Hunter Thompson Hunter Thompson kept swaying in circles. When the arc of the circle ventured backward, Bill would provide a gentle nudge to keep the momentum going. It was like playing with a human tetherball, only in slow motion. Enough. Too much pot doesn't put me in a party mood, it puts me to sleep. Besides, my feet hurt.

After feasting on something called "Chef's Special" of greasy eggroll, rubbery chicken wings and a Chinese cabbage salad that looked like something out of a Louisiana bayou, we headed to the upstairs balcony, strangely licking our lips in delight of the food. If we hadn't left the floor when we did, I'd probably go back for seconds, surely.

The concert was sold out, and no seats in the balcony were available. But Bill was a veteran Dead Head. He had a plan. He led us out into the horseshoe shaped halls surrounding the venue to people watch. Suddenly screams behind us made us dodge for the sidelines as no fewer than six guys were carrying a prone body whose head was lolling around like a bobble-head doll. It was like they were carrying a casket, three on each side, except they were in a hurry. They ran into the medical area staffed by paramedics (So this is what Woodstock was like, I contemplated.) Naturally I followed -- hey I care what Tiger Woods has to say and I still want to find out what happened to that coed's body in Aruba, OK? A security guard asked me if he could help me, and I said yes, and asked if I could get a closer look at the fucked-up guy they just brought in. Escorted back to the halls we climbed up to the second floor to continue our venture down the rabbit hole.

At the end of the horseshoe we began to chat it up with a delightful woman standing guard at the entrance to both an up and a down stairwell. Bill is a big man. I'm talking NFL lineman big, and folks meandering toward the security guard eyed her "Security" T-shirt and radio, then glanced at Bill standing aside her and spun on their heals without bothering to ask. The thing about Bill is he's a Teddy Bear, a big, gruff-talking Italian from Rochester, New York with a heart of gold. Physically though, he can be intimidating. Since our feet still hurt, we took turns using the security guard's chair. Her work definitely became easier since Bill's arrival, and gladly shared her seat.

While Bill sat, I leaned against the wall, Pepsi in hand, and read a newsletter from some outfit called the "Wharf Rats" (a Grateful Dead song). A guy walked up to me and asked if this was where "the meeting" was being held. "What meeting?" I assured him. Then a woman walked up. Same question. Same response but with an edge on it this time. Then a third person. What the hell is this "meeting?" Who the hell meets at a Dead concert? Is there saccharin in this Pepsi? (the smoke inhalation from the floor was still hours away from working its way out of my system). Then I actually had a few minutes to read this newsletter. It seems the Wharf Rats were a bunch of sober Dead Heads. Sober as in AA sober. They have catchy slogans, like "One Show at a Time," and "Another Dopeless Hope Fiend," and "This is Your Brain on Hugs" ... you get the picture. Finally I did too. Sober middle-age guy drinking a Pepsi with the Wharf Rats newsletter in hand. I was being mistaken for the head rat.

Bill broke my haze with a shout of "Hey Chris!!" I glanced up and Chris Robinson, the lead singer of the Black Crows was ambling up the stairwell. He was a friend of the Dead who was doing the lion's share of vocals that night. He flashed a peace sign at Bill, who turned and nodded at me as if to say, "Dude, me and Chris, we're simpatico, man." The stairwell connected the stage downstairs with the back stage upstairs. Kind of a Up Stage where all the food and drink for the band was laid out. Here's what's trippy, even without acid: There were tons of skanky groupies going up and down (no pun intended) the stairwell. For Christ's sake, Phil Lesh just turned 70. Just what, exactly, was the trade off here? Despite my personality being ruled by a morbid fascination with who was currently banging Octomom, my curiosity was overruled by the revulsion at the images of 20-somethings having sex with the band. They may be grateful, but they were also undoubtedly dead in that category. Or they should be.

Finally we heard Phil Lesh announce they were going to take a break. The first set was over. "Get ready," Bill said to me. A mass of tripping drunk humanity flowed out the exits toward the bathrooms. You can't drink that much beer and whiskey and not have to get out of your seat to pee at some point. This was Bill's plan. We hover around like two turkey vultures until swelling bladders force folks to leave their seats, allowing us to swoop down to gorge ourselves on a fresh kill. Pride doesn't belong at a Dead party.

The thing about Dead Heads is they love to dance, this swirling, arms flaying kind of stoned ballet. Comfortably seated, we had a great view of a young hippie chick and her old man dancing in the aisle 20 rows below us. She swayed and spun and reached for the stars burning in her brain. It was a good time, but Bill needed to catch a smoke. This was a delicious irony. I had a good buzz going on just from being under the same dome as 20,000 burning pipes. But there was absolutely no smoking in the auditorium. So out we go to a designated smoking area outside the auditorium on Grant Street. Bill was sucking on his Marlboro (he picked up the habit when he was in the Navy) and we were chatting up Dead facts. This guy, maybe in his mid to late 30s walked up and identified himself as a gay Jewish acid head. I looked at Bill hoping he could connect those dots, but he looked as bewildered as I was. The lad began telling stories about ingesting horse tranquilizers and public nudity. Finally he looked at me (he said I looked like Boris Yeltsin) and asked if this was the corner old gay guys hang out at. Bill happened to be enjoying a long inhale of the calming nicotine and didn't immediately catch what the guy said. Then almost with an audible thunk he understood what Mr. Gay Jewish Acid Head Boy said, and his face froze. Suddenly he turned into Jerry Seinfeld and I George Costanza and blurted out "We're not gay! We're cousins!" (only by marriage, so there was no incest involved)"Not that there's anything wrong with being gay," he mumbled on. Bill is far from being a homophobe. He does not feel threatened by gay men. He is a good soul. It wasn't that our new friend was gay (certainly not because he was Jewish) but we both felt threatened by a guy who shoves PCP up his nose then crashes his car into a Popeye's chicken joint, steals a bucket of chicken then drives off only to abandon both the car and the chicken so he could run around San Francisco naked. Fortunately for him it was San Francisco and no one noticed.

Back in the party we walked up the stairs to the aisle and had to maneuver around Hippy Chick as she continued on whatever merry-go-round she was on. Then it hit us. Armpit. Hairy, smelly armpit. Now personally I don't have a problem with women who chose not to shave their underarms, or opt not to use deodorant. I just don't want to be around them if they've chosen the latter. Opus, my Lab mix, on the other hand loves to be around hippies. We couldn't get up those 20 rows fast enough. The music was good, and Chris Robinson's vocals were beautiful, gospel like.

Then it hit us. Hippie chick's odeur corporelle had wafted up 20 rows of seats, and her arms were still reaching for those stars. Just then another hippie road to our rescue. The guy sitting next to me (he had to be at least 6-foot-seven; his knees were up at his nose) fired up a pipe that easily contained an eighth-ounce of pot (or what I imagine would be an eighth ounce of pot). Smoke replaced armpit in our nostrils, not unwelcome in contrast. Time was lost and I began to wonder what did happen to the Maltese Falcon? Like I said, I get sleepy, and when I looked at my watch and saw that it was 1:30 Saturday morning I nudged Bill and pointed at my watch. He nodded and we both got up and headed down to the aisle. Hippy chick had been dancing from 8 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. and was showing no signs of slowing down. We gulped what air we could and edged past her and safely into the halls before exhaling.

Having a painful left knee from an injury a couple of weeks prior, which was just then healing, I took the stairs carefully, glad I was more or less sober. At the bottom this guy came up to my left, his breath smelling like the inside of a bourbon vat, and told me I was a rookie. That was a microsecond before his foot hit the beer-lathered floor and he took a face-first dive into the swill of more than five hours of slurping Dead Heads. I leaned down to his ear and gently whispered, "rookie."

Then I ran and hid behind Bill.

Alas, I finally notched a Dead concert, eternally grateful I didn't have to take a drug test any time soon.

Open Letter to Dianne Feinstein

Sen. Feinstein:
Much of what I have to say is aimed at Democrats in general, but since you are my senator, it is you that must hear my anger and sadness. I have voted for you faithfully in every election since I moved to San Francisco in 1977, and have never been disappointed. Until now. Allowing the funding of an expensive war with a dubious, at best, mission; and caving in to ridiculous Republican obstructionism to allow the public option to die is more than my progressive values will allow. I've always voted Democrat, mostly because I have fretted over the "Nader Effect" and don't want to see Republicans win office. But as I read article after article, it has become apparent that there remains little distinguishable difference between the two parties of power. I don't know who I will be voting for in upcoming elections, but I know who I won't vote for. I am not abandoning the Democratic Party; it has abandoned me. I realize voting for a third-party candidate will likely play into the hands of Republicans, but ultimately it won't matter much in terms of policy direction; you are the party in power, winning the presidency after eight years of atrocities -- atrocities applauded by your Senate Republican colleagues. Yet today Democrats are rolling over and showing their bellies in hopes knuckle draggers like Mitch McConnell will scratch them. As Roger Daltry crooned, "The new boss is the same as the old boss." I want you to know that as an individual I like you. You carried us on your shoulder during those horrible days in San Francisco after the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. I will never forget that. I wish you well in the future; you are a good person. But it's time I recognize and live by the values I know to be true.
Sincerely,
Dennis Taylor