Bullshit!

My longest day.

2009-12-04T15:54:00Z

As I painted the wood with the clean, white, waterproofing paint, I thought back to the very first time we met, back to the dark, dirt basement under a friend's mother's house where I had been asked to search for any indications of foul play by her estranged husband... she thought he might have tapped her phone.

As I crouched in the dirt under the house, looking for God-knows-what and feeling not just a little uneasy, I peeked around a corner and was startled by the two large eyes that looked back at me for only a split second before disappearing into the dark as quickly as they had appeared.

The eyes had looked as afraid as... as, I'm sure, mine must have. The tiny kitten had been startled by my presence and wasted no time in removing itself from the potential danger that I presented, but didn't run away entirely; it had just gotten out of harm's way and watched me, unsure whether I was friend or foe.

But I had always been friend to cats. I had always loved the independence of cats and their natural awareness, like birds of prey, watching and calculating, missing little. Sometimes snoozing and stretching, caring of nothing other than the ray of sun warming them. And the kitten sensed that from me, I think, because it came back when I called it. And we sat there for a second, getting to know each other.

After finding nothing suspicious under the house, I asked Dodie about the cat living there and she replied that it was a stray and that if I wanted it, it was mine. I rode my motorcycle home that afternoon with a new kitten riding wrapped in the bag on my gas tank; terrified, I'm sure. She was the color of a summer field, a muted golden orange, with huge eyes and an inquisitive gaze that bespoke fear, but once you came to know her you knew it was just her way. She looked at things and people as if she were trying to understand them. She developed a sense of humor quickly once she moved in with me and we became close friends, spending many years as the only two inhabitants of our various homes. She got the name Moe early in her life when I was driving a truck out of San Francisco early in the morning and as I got dressed for work in the predawn hours, watching the Three Stooges on television, she would play with me and beg attention. "You're such a Stooge", I said to her, and the name Moe became hers (because her coat wasn't "Curly" and "Larry" seemed inappropriate). During the times we spent living with roommates and significant others, she was always a respected part of the household, all the way to her Grande Dame years. She went on to live to the approximate age of 22 years old. People years. She had a long life.

By the time my daughter and I moved to Santa Rosa, Moe was getting on and slowing down. One day she started making strange meowing sounds for no apparent reason. They were annoying, and I told her so. She'd quiet down and run away. But she'd make them again before long. After a few days of this I noticed she was tired and not herself and paid more attention to her, keeping her in the house closer to me and watching... hoping.
As she got worse, she would lie on the couch next to me, barely able to move and not eating or drinking. When I took her to the vet, they said she was very ill and that I would need to get fluids into her by feeding her with a syringe made for pets. Soft food if she'd take it, water at least. We'll check her again soon. But it doesn't look good. If she doesn't get better right away, she's likely dying.

Hoping. The syringe seemed so unnatural. Moe didn't like it and wouldn't take the food. She barely took the water. We worked together on it, but I could see her heart wasn't in it.

When you love someone, even a pet, as much as I loved that cat, it is extremely hard to watch them suffer. There comes a time in the progression... regression, where your vision clears and you know. That time came when she was lying next to me on the couch as I pet her soft fur, hoping, knowing. I watched her eyes as they looked to me for help. Help I apparently could not provide. She stirred a little and just shit. It tore me apart inside, because I knew it was over. Her listless expression seemed to beg me to help, and I, helpless. That was the moment that I realized I needed to make the decision to put her first in the priorities. Her suffering was something I could not endure, even though the alternative was going to be something I would not endure without great pain. It was her time, and I had to help her along.

I set up the next day for the visit to the vet by the house. It was understood what was to happen. I then set out to make her passing as comfortable as possible and maybe make her rest more comfortable too. She had always had a thing for sleeping on my clothes. I think she liked my smell, it made her feel at home, or safe. She would not be buried somewhere else; she would be buried at home where she belonged. So I started making her a box. Nice new plywood, painted with waterproof paint inside and out. Solid. Safe.

I took an old favorite golf shirt, one that held enough value to me to be an appropriate bestowment to her, her life of friendship and companionship, and I laid it in the box, across the bottom and up the sides, to provide comfort for my friend. It was a sad building project. I worked into the night and was happy with the results, but not happy; not near happy.

The next day I had to take off from work early to take her to the vet. I worried over her all day, hoping she was okay at home, wondering what she was thinking. She was on the couch where I had left her, almost unable to move. I sat with her for a while, petting her, trying to soothe her through my tears and cracking voice. Saying goodbye to such a faithful friend is hard. Finally, time would not allow us to stall further, and we went to the vet.

In the office, we finalized the paperwork and the vet said, "Give her to us and we'll take care of her".

"No", I said, "she's not leaving my arms". He could tell by my expression that there was no arguing this point, and showed us into the cold room where the stainless steel table stood. I told him she was not going to be put on the cold steel for the shot, but would be wrapped in my arms, where she could feel safe during her last moments.

The assistant got the shot ready and gave it to the doctor as I stood there thinking of the many years we had had together, all her crazy stunts, favorite places, funny antics. I tried to be strong, to look like the tough construction guy I was, but I knew I was falling apart.

As the doctor readied the shot, I said my goodbyes. Moe looked up at me as I once more tried to speak softly some last soothing words of encouragement. I think she knew, and I think she was okay with it. Nonetheless, when the doctor gave her the shot and I felt her slowly give up her earthly presence, I just stood there with my old friend in my arms and cried like a baby.

The drive home was, fortunately, only a block and a half. Moe was in my lap, and I tried my best to focus. We had planned well, and I knew what needed to be done. Mechanically, I found her some of my clothes to rest on while I made sure the box was ready. She looked peaceful for the first time in weeks. The conflicting feelings were overwhelming as I readied her final resting place and set her gently inside.

Funny how moments in life are reduced to a single, tiny significant act or remembrance. The moment she left me was when the first nail was hammered into the lid of her box. It was when I knew I would never see her again. I tapped gently.

What is it with cops these days?

2008-01-26T16:52:00Z

Just what the hell is it with cops these days? I'm not that Goddamned old, but I still remember when cops had a modicum of respect from among most of the community, but these days they inhabit a very nasty place in the minds of most people I know, including (more and more) myself.

"Who gives a shit?", one might ask. Well, I DO! We all should!!! We all have to deal with cops at some point, in some fashion. Those who deal with them on the criminal level, I suppose, "get what they pay for", i.e. they have to accept what they get from what they sow. But the average citizen these days gets from cops what used to be reserved for the criminal element: the attitude that everyone's to be assumed guilty of SOMETHING and, as such, is suspect and to be treated with hostility. This is simply fucked up!

This little rant comes from an encounter I had a couple nights ago when a neighbor's house burned. I approached one of the cops working crowd control and said "You guys are aware that there's an old woman living in that house?" I was answered with a snide "She's right there. We've got it all under control." No 'thanks, yeah she's OK', or 'yes, thanks'. No, instead of some kind of respect for my concern over the well-being of the home's owner, I was greeted with what is becoming the standard cop approach: belligerence. I let it go, knowing that cops are becoming assholes and, after all, they deal with the dregs of society on a daily basis for the benefit of all of us. So later, when I asked the same cop if they knew what started the fire, he answered "Yes!". Period. I waited a second to see if he was going to elaborate but there was no further comment. I wanted to say "So, are you going to let us in on the secret?", but instead asked what it was that started the fire. He told me, "Well, that's the owner's business. She can tell you if she wants."

Now, I'm thinking, "OK, maybe it was something she might not want everyone to know, like that she did something dumb like throwing water on a burning pan full of oil or something". Give the guy the benefit of the doubt, that's my motto. So when another neighbor who had been talking to her walked by, I asked him what had happened. He said that it all started because of a small heater placed too close to flammable stuff in the house. This on a night as cold as any we'd had recently this icy January of 2008!

This asshole cop sees fit to make me feel like a boob for asking about the well-being of a neighbor, and an elderly one at that, then heaps insult on top of it by playing the "I'm a cop and you aren't, so fuck off" game instead of trying on the "Protect and serve" shield that used to exemplify the best of cops and saying something along the lines of "She had a heater too close to something that went up in flames. A good lesson for us all on these cold nights". Simple, basic common courtesy.

I'm getting real tired of this new bullshit Nazi cop mentality! I used to sympathize when cops bemoaned the fact that they got no respect from the general public, but I'm getting fed up with their holier-than-thou attitudes, the way they assume everyone they come in contact with is somehow inferior to them. Who pays their fucking salaries? What right do they have to treat tax paying citizens as though they were some kind of lowlife?

Should I be so pissed for such a small slight? In short, no. But I'm not. What I'm pissed about is the fact that this is becoming the standard of treatment one can expect from cops these days. This is how a huge percentage of cops treat the general public now. Get pulled over for a traffic violation and the first thing you can count on is the cop trying to put you in your place, then seeing if he's going to get the major brownie point of giving you a D.U.I and hauling your ass to jail. I had a cop pull me over years back, when getting out of your car to get your ticket was still the norm, and he crouched down behind his door, pointed his fucking GUN at me, and told me to "GET BACK IN THE CAR!!!" I wasn't at all sure this stupid fuck wasn't going to shoot me! Not being one to let such shit go unchallenged, I let the guy know I thought he was a complete asshole (a San Francisco cop!) and, after being let go with my ticket, I flipped him off as I drove off and again at the next stoplight when he drove up next to me, to which he responded with a sarcastic smile and a wave. I felt better, but it was the beginning of a new disrespect for cops in general for me.

My ex brother-in-law was a sheriff in San Mateo County in the seventies. Even back then the new cop mentality has started. He was a nice guy; too nice, apparently, to be a cop. He finally quit the sheriff's department because he couldn't handle the hypocrisy. And it's too fucking bad! We're losing good cops by the minute because they just don't want to be expected to back up people they see as undeserving (other cops with this nasty attitude), don't want to have to live with the new universal disrespect that cops are seeing, and can't justify some of the shit they're expected to do in the course of their daily jobs. Good cops retire every day too, being replaced by these surly fucking little "I-got-beaten-up-in-school-so-I-got-this-badge, now-fuck-with-me!" new age cops that whine more than ever about people having no respect for them. I say too fucking bad! Just like the criminal element of society, asshole cops "get what they pay for". Reap what they sow. Because of my brother-in-law's knowledge of the law, I was privy to the fact (at least back then... it may be different now) that there was no law against telling a cop what you thought of them, as long as you didn't yell it or be physical about it, or do it in a way that could be construed as disturbing the peace. That's why I felt no fear in telling the S.F. cop just what I thought of him. Fair is fair.

A friend is a bartender/bar manager in town. He told me of a local CHP, one of the latest groups to join the ranks of the asshole cop, who drinks in his bar on a regular basis. He doesn't just have one or two but instead gets pretty well looped and then, right before he leaves, says "Give me one more for the road". Now, there's more than just a little irony in THAT statement, from not just a cop, but a CHP, one of the formerly most trusted and respected members of law enforcement we have. "One more for the road", a phrase that used to be thrown around by the masses at cocktail parties, bars... anywhere people gathered to drink. It was accepted in the old days to drink and drive. That old accepted routine has been addressed by the laws and attitudes of today's society, and drunk driving arrests have gone through the roof with cops everywhere giving no quarter to anyone sitting even right at the limit (which, at 0.08% blood alcohol level, is 0.04% LESS than what used to be the LEGAL limit!). The official attitude of cops these days toward drunk driving is that it is NOT GOING TO BE TOLERATED! (Uh, well... unless maybe if you're another cop... and since I'M a cop, I think I know when I'VE had enough, and I'll do what I Goddamned well please!)

And the funniest part of this bullshit is that, when my buddy says to this cop, "Hey, you're a cop! Aren't you worried about getting pulled over?", the CHP tells him, "No, we have a deal with the 'town clowns'", meaning the local city cops. (I don't think the "deal" would be so valid if the local cops knew the CHP referred to them as "town clowns", but I digress.)

The point here is that if cops want some respect, they need to give some respect. I'm sick and fucking tired of having to show respect to people who refuse to show mutual respect to me.

So what do we do? How do we approach the new cop mentality? Is there a way to change this new approach cops have toward law-abiding citizens before it's too late? I don't know, but I do think it's getting more unlikely every day that we just sit back and allow cops to treat us like shit just because they're cops.

My wife's car was recently hit-and-run while parked in our driveway. We called the cops and were told that they were not going to come out. Just like that. "We're too busy to come out for this!" $7,000 worth of damage to her car, the whole ass-end of it smashed and torn off, and the cops wouldn't even come out to see if there was enough evidence to follow up on it and maybe see if they could find the other car involved. I had to ride my bicycle around the neighborhood to see if I could find a car parked nearby with damage to it that was maybe left there in hopes that at least the driver, who we assumed must have been drunk to hit the car where it was, could get away without being arrested for D.U.I. I had no luck, but did achieve a new level of disrespect for those who "protect and serve"!

Our city was one of three listed as a major center for Hispanic gang activity in a recent History Channel special on gangs in America called "Gangland". Right up there with Los Angeles. We have a HUGE gang problem here. Are our cops addressing the issue? I guess it depends on who you ask. The cops in our city find it valuable to cite kids for riding skateboards in town, or smoking in the square. They spend inordinate amounts of time giving tickets for the smallest infractions and handing out their bullshit attitudes to those who have done no wrong to their knowledge, but they seem to stay the hell away from the neighborhoods where gang activity is rampant. They'll huddle together in groups of two or three in town, hovering near places where people might break the new no-smoking-within-however-many-feet-of-a-business law in the hopes of doling out citations for some highly prized brownie points back at the station, but God forbid they get proactive and do something of real value... something that requires effort and finesse. Something that the cops of old would have taken pride in addressing.

I don't have any answers on this issue. The beauty of a blog is that you get to voice an opinion and possibly get responses on issues that will give you insight as to others' feelings on a subject, or help you deal with it. At the very least it is a way to lessen the effects on one's own psyche by employing the "misery loves company" dynamic. It is, somehow, less harmful to your own attitude when you know that others at least share some of your feelings.

Al Sharpton is a racist!

2007-10-27T20:25:00Z

Boy, Al Sharpton is something. It amazes me that there are any blacks left who pay attention to this asshole. He claims to speak for the black community, but what he does is speak to further his political career, period. And the way he does it makes about as much sense as Tom Cruise firing his sister, who was his acting public relations manager at the time, when she somehow failed in her duties by not stopping him from spouting off to the world about how wrong it was for Brooke Shields to take prescription drugs to counter suicidal feelings during the post-partum depression brought on by the birth of her child. In other words... Al Sharpton is clueless as to the world's interest in what he has to say.

Like Tom Cruise and his absolute refusal to accept that others have the right to their own opinions and the ability to make life choices for themsleves causing him nothing but grief in the longrun, Al Sharpton steps up to the podium every chance he gets, stuffing his face in front of the hungry cameras of today's sensationalistic media, and calls whites racist simply to stir up the pot and give him reason to get in front of more cameras, and the result is that each time he does it he loses favor amongst both blacks and whites.

He recently called for the firing of Don Imus for the (stupid, yes... racist, perhaps) remarks he made regarding the women's basketball team at Rutgers being a bunch of "nappy-headed ho's" (a quote from a Spike Lee movie, by the way...). Imus, (who I have never liked as a talk show personality, but feel has the right to speak his opinion as long as it's not inciting bodily harm on anyone) went on television with Sharpton and made a heartfelt apology for his remarks, to which Sharpton responded by shoving the knife in a bit further and continuing his campaign to get Imus fired. This is the same Don Imus who owns a ranch where he allows groups of children suffering the debilitating effects of cancer to go and be among others who are in their same state of physical disrepair so they can enjoy themselves without fear of judgement from others who are afraid it will somehow jump to their bodies if they get too close. Al Sharpton offers no one any such outstretched arms and warmth. It seems that an apology means nothing to Sharpton. And this makes sense if we look at Sharpton's own actions in the past.

When he brought Tawana Brawley before the world and paraded her around as the poster child for white cruelty to blacks after she claimed she was raped by a group of white men, some of them policemen, in Wappingers Falls, New York in 1987, the world screamed out for revenge. The black community was understandably incensed at the outrageousness of the crime alleged. Many whites were as well, but Sharpton and those like him in the "race-card" game try not to pay attention to that. What followed was classic Sharpton; fist-pounding, name calling indignation at an entire race for the supposed actions of a few members. However, a grand jury was convened to study the evidence and determine whether there was enough to take the case to court and eventually found, through interviews with witnesses and doctor's examinations of Brawley immediately after her discovery in a garbage bag near an old residence, that Brawley had been seen at a party during the alleged abduction period, had been seen climbing into the garbage bag on her own, had not been reported missing by her mother until the day that Tawana was seen getting into the garbage bag... the same day that the mother, Glenda Brawley, was seen at the very same prior residence they had shared-the apartment complex where Brawley was later found. Along with this damning evidence was the discovery that all of "the items and instrumentalities necessary to create the condition in which Tawana Brawley appeared on Saturday, November 28, were present inside of or in the immediate vicinity of Apartment 19A." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley). It was determined that the entire episode was a hoax, but not before the public put up $300,000 for a defense fund for the family. After Brawley and her mother disappeared to Viginia with the $300,000, in defiance of subpoenas issued by the grand jury (arrest warrants still linger there in hopes of their return), Al Sharpton never once apologized for his behavior in the case and was even sued by the prosecutor, Steven Pagones, for calling him a racist and a rapist and saying that he was involved in the rape. Pagones was awarded $345,000 in his suit against Sharpton and the others representing Brawley, and another $185,000 in the case he brought against Brawley herself, which was awarded when she defaulted by not appearing in court. All the time, Sharpton was in the foreground screaming racist at the white people. All the time, as the evidence mounted against Brawley, blacks were becoming more and more uncertain of Sharpton's actual motivations in the case.

Sharpton was again in the news recently after stepping into the camera lights to support a black woman who claimed that three Duke lacrosse players sexually assaulted her (they were later found to be innocent of the crime). In another case of whites having been singled out by a black "victim" for alleged atrocities, only to find out that the "victim" was a liar, Sharpton was there in the background, soaking up the limelight and playing the race card and trying to further his political career and expand his visibility in the media. Even after the prosecutor in that case, Michael Nifong, withdrew from the case and was subsequently disbarred for fabricating evidence against the Duke players, Sharpton would not apologize to them for having spoken up against the players when saying "I'm sure the district attorney knows what he's doing". Whoopi Goldberg voiced her opinion that Sharpton should apologize on national television to which he responded that, since he had not taken any stand against them, he owed no one any apologies.

Sharpton said, while speaking at Kean College in 1994, that “White folks was in caves while we was building empires ... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” Not only did he show blatant disrespect for an accepted part of society by using the word "homos", but he also showed the limits of his intelligence in his butchering of the english language. Ebonics was proved to be a backwards-thinking approach to what amounts to the problems that personal choice can cause... in this case the personal choice being to retain the linguistics of one's race in separatist fashion as a form of unity with that race. Speaking poorly does not make one a better person, no matter what race they are. There is no lofty regard given by society at large for the black person who says "axe" when he means "ask". It makes the person seem less intelligent than he may well be. When our idiot president says the word "nucular" when he means "nuclear", it makes you want to ask him how he spells it, knowing all the time that he's probably going to spell it "n-u-c-u-l-a-r"... and it's the same when an otherwise intelligent sounding black utters the word "axe" in place of "ask", you want to say "are you stupid or just lazy?". Bill Cosby has chided the black community for years for what he sees as the poor choices that many among them have made regarding parenthood, lifestyle and the lack of application of work ethic to achieve goals instead of coasting on governmental assistance (just as many whites and 'proud' native americans do) and whining about how their inability to climb the societal ladder is due to the oppression of the white man. That may have been true years ago, but those times have changed a great deal, and it serves no good purpose to have people like Al Sharpton fanning the flames of racism by making blacks think that they have not gained as much as they have in their search for equality.

Women have made huge gains in equality as well. Have either become totally equal in today's society? Sadly, no. But times are changing, day by day. And someday maybe all men and women will be seen as equals. But it will take hard work by the people themselves, without the interruptions and misguidances of people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who, by pointing fingers at the white race and saying "it's all their fault that you cannot amount to anything" are simply giving those who are struggling through a tough existence an excuse to quit trying and sit back and join the fingerpointing. After all, it's easier. And it seems that Al Sharpton would rather victimize the people he claims to represent than actually help them out of their rut. He would rather give blacks a reason to give up than a reason to fight to better their surroundings. He would rather have a podium from which to spread his name and show his face than acuate real change in the black community.

In my mind, that is real oppression! That is racism in it's rawest form. Subverting the betterment of an entire race for one's own political gain is immoral and should be a criminal offense.