Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

Thinking about my friends in Nag’s Head, old Earl is heading that way. This little curl of a storm came around one afternoon we were there but didn’t have much to offer; I imagine things’ll be a bit different tomorrow out there.

Alright, Outer Banks, hold on to your undies, this could get weird! But remember…the sun will come up tomorrow…bet yer bottom dollar on tomorrow…dee dee dee…

Yes, it is summer and it is busy and stuff. Lots of travel and what not coming up, and of course the constant ongoing celebration of Lord Stanley’s Cup, for the lack of a better reason. But anyway, as the oil spill disaster horrorshow slowly unfolds before us without any sign of stopping and we all watch the images helplessly, it’s easy to get really pissed off. I happened to see just a snippet today where the protester interrupted the testimony of BP CEO Tony Hayward and it made me want to punch this guy in the face–not because of his reaction (there was none)–but for the primal need to inflict pain on this corporate asshole. Someone deserves to be punched for what’s been done, right? And the sight of this woman with painted oil hands screaming at the guy tapped that caveman instinct inside of me. String him up!

But that’s not the way it works. BP will pay, and they will suffer, and possibly go under, but how different are they from every other oil company? I need a goddamn oil change in my car! What the hell am I gonna do? We’re so screwed here. And it’s my fault because I need it just like everyone else. I’m gonna get in a plane soon and then I’m gonna drive the shit outta my van soon and all of this oil is gonna burn and I’ll refill the gas and there’s nothing I can do about it.

It totally sucks. And I have no further revelations or answers, it’s just out there and that’s it.

So then there’s politics and of course I think it’s silly to blame Obama or get worked up about the response, this isn’t Katrina and there aren’t people waiting on rooftops for rescue or dying in the Superdome. The government can’t fix this, they can only get money for it and help the people affected by it, and so that’s what Obama is doing, and has done. I didn’t see his speech and haven’t read much about it but I like Andrew Sullivan’s comments here (“Getting Shit Done”):

Obama’s incrementalism, his refusal to pose as a presidential magician, and his resistance to taking the bait of the fetid right (he’s president – not a cable news host) seems to me to show not weakness, but a lethal and patient strength. And a resilient ambition.

Obama, I don’t worry about; it’s everyone else. I heard that his speech was regarded as too far above the heads of his viewers, too “professorial.” Why not just say “people are really stupid”? We prefer things dumbed down, it’s the American Way. This guy just doesn’t get that…thankfully.

I’m off again, for a while. I’m sure nothing will have changed much when I return…

No, it’s not Anderson Cooper…

This is very cool. The story behind it is here. Wait for it…

Longtime dedicated readers of this Booze Cabinet may have noticed the lack of coverage or excitement regarding the now-week-old baseball season, and in particular, our Chicago Cubs. Well, what can I say? It’s still hockey season over here. The playoffs are just about to start and although the Hawks missed the top spot by one point, they are still in good shape for a run at the Cup.

But really, the Cubs. Hope springs eternal, they say, but I’m not feeling it. Yes, Milton Bradley is gone and that’s all good, but I am in the Zambrano-is-a-nutjob camp, and a new haircut and weight loss is not going to change that. Plus, the bullpen appears to completely suck, just like last year. And Soriano is still out there in left field misjudging balls. Ugh.

Today is opening day at Wrigley and there are changes afoot, but I am keeping one eye shut right now. Yeah, I may turn it on and see what happens but it’s not the same for me, not now, not yet. Bring home the Cup!

No, I will not be commenting on any fringe groups or fringe activity here. We have high standards here at The Booze Cabinet! High, high, high standards. Now, off to another booze-filled picture shoot. This is Serious Business!

I didn’t know that Dennis Hopper is apparently on his deathbed? Sounds tabloidy, but yet real. Bummer, man. Makes me wanna watch “Apocalypse Now” again.

The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he’ll… uh… well, you’ll say “hello” to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you. He won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say, “Do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you”… I mean I’m… no, I can’t… I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s… he’s a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas…

This may be one of the saddest headlines I have ever seen: “Arlington Heights approves warm-beer law”

What kind of a sick world is this? That’s what you get for living in Arlington Heights, I guess, wherever that is. Oh, suburbs, you amuse and befuddle me.

Another shot, coming home from Michigan under apocalyptic skies.

Words can’t do it justice! Simply…unbelievable.

UPDATE:

Meanwhile, Drudge race-baits: “White Student Beaten On School Bus; Crowd Cheers.” This is a movement that is just showing off now! Why wouldn’t we want to put them back in power?

Last night I saw some old Bulls game on, I guess they’re replaying Jordan’s great games to mark his Hall of Fame induction or something. Wow, man. One of the games was from 1987 and it was a one-man gang. Amazing that they got it together to win six championships, but Jordan was truly great. Best ever, no question. Basketball isn’t even worth watching anymore without someone like him to watch. So glad I saw all of that, from right around that time on, the early Jordan years up through number 6 in 1998…eleven years ago? Sheeee-it…

Eight years ago it was a different story. I woke up today and happened to catch the replay on msnbc, not from the beginning but after the second plane hit.  Watched the first tower go down, then the second. Unbelievable. Tim Russert is on there too, which is weird. If only people had not reacted with such fear and instead with resolve. Resolve would not have invaded Iraq or set up torture prisons or carried bogus terror alerts, but Fear would, and did. How different it would have been without the fear-mongering.

Of course it was scary, at least for a while. I would ride my bike downtown to work and expect to see a plane at any moment come flying into the Sears Tower. It’s still odd to see a low-flying plane anywhere near here. But that doesn’t mean you have to panic. And it feels like we panicked. (Re)-elected a dumb ass. Shouted down dissenting views. Bunkered down and lost some freedom. Acted exactly like they hoped we would.

Kinda feels like those same folks are still shouting today.

Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

A great column by Joe Klein in Time about The Party of Nihilists:

The most liberal members of the Democratic caucus…are honorable public servants who make their arguments based on facts. They don’t retail outright lies. Hyperbole and distortion certainly exist on the left, but they are a minor chord in the Democratic Party.

It is a very different story among Republicans…they have been overwhelmed by nihilists and hypocrites more interested in destroying the opposition and gaining power than in the public weal. The philosophically supple party that existed as recently as George H.W. Bush’s presidency has been obliterated. The party’s putative intellectuals — people like the Weekly Standard‘s William Kristol — are prosaic tacticians who make precious few substantive arguments but oppose health-care reform mostly because passage would help Barack Obama’s political prospects…There is no Republican health-care alternative in 2009. The same people who rail against a government takeover of health care tried to enforce a government takeover of Terri Schiavo’s end-of-life decisions. And when Palin floated the “death panel” canard, the number of prominent Republicans who rose up to call her out could be counted on one hand.

I have been hesitant to even write anything here about the loons in the GOP and their hypocrisy, because I simply am having a hard time believing that they are relevant to this debate. Well, they aren’t. The bipartisan hope–which I believed was a slim possibility in the election of Obama–is a myth. It is clear that the only principle on the right is to bring Obama down, much as it was with Clinton.

There is no solution, no compromise, no debate at all with these people. Obama deserves credit for trying but as everyone seems to be saying now, it is time to fuck ‘em. Go your own way, like Fleetwood Mac. There’s problem enough with the conservative Democrats, who needs the Party of No?

I still think that these crazies are a very small minority of people, the 20%ers, and hardly worth the time or the coverage that they receive, but realize that cable tv news is nothing without this kind of garbage. I just hate to waste my time or this verrrrrry valuable space in The Booze Cabinet on such wackjobs. Not when we could be posting beer pictures and fictional tales of existential misery.

Walter Sobchak: Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.

I say up there that in The Booze Cabinet you will find beer, ideas, fiction or ice, but rarely do I come through with the fiction. There’s lots of beer and ideas and ice…but no fiction. So here’s an excerpt of a longer piece, completely out of context and only explicable if you read the whole thing. Which is not finished of course, but godammit, I’m working on it. Enjoy, or scratch your head:

Such sadness, to be cognizant of all of life’s missteps and undiscovered treasures before the end, enough to put it down on paper. Poor woman. It was unfair. I don’t know that we all deserved better but she certainly did. And so where had I not been and what had I not done? The list was endless. The rain slowed to a drizzle with occasional flashes of lightning across the night sky and my head swam with dark thoughts, the gloom of unfinished business. I talked to Ben about Sandy and how I was pushing her away and then there was Dora, and I tried to explain about the magnet she had placed squarely in her crotch. “You’re hopeless,” he said, of course.

He was right about me—it was sick how easily I fell back into it—but I was all caught up in the drama and I had no intention of figuring out why or trying to change. It made things more interesting, to pathetically hop from one failure to the next, getting burned or burning it all down, the romantic arsonist. She was right, that sweet innocent at the Courson House, it was a world on fire, and no wonder I loved that falling star. Ben didn’t understand at all and to his credit he simply ignored me and got to the point.

His mother’s note requested a desire to be littered across the “dry death heat and cactus landscape” of the desert, never having visited such a climate, not once in her life, never even crossing the Mississippi to the west, it was like some fantasy foreign land she had only seen on television or in pictures. I sat there thinking about it and grew more and more depressed. There was no way anyone could properly fill up a life. There would always be something left, always somewhere else to go, and in the end we would all have to accept that the world held places we would never see, pyramids, jungles, exotic locales; mountains, skyscrapers or a burning hole in the ground where a satellite fell. Somewhere was a girl I would never meet, standing at the foot of the Great Wall or walking the beach on a remote island in the Pacific, or maybe just around the corner on a street I sometimes walked. She would close her door just as I went past and go inside to an empty house and I would see a shadow behind a curtain and then a light switch off. It was a world too big, a life too small, and I could hardly move, paralyzed with despair.

Ben shook me out of the haze and demanded that I accompany him. “I can’t do this alone,” he said, “I need a witness. It would mean a lot to me if you came.” I wondered if his mother had simply given up waiting for the course of her life to change, given up on anything but the routine and invested it all in her son. The Burden of Benedict. And were we living the life she was never able to? I had a hard time believing that, not this life.

“A son has to fulfill a mother’s wishes,” I finally said.

We were living within limitations. Why? Why follow the guide? Why allow the cock to rule the mind? I was angry at God for not existing and for allowing me to exist. It was going to have to end somehow—and alone and without warning—and who would I leave behind? I thought of Walter and his false sense of comfort. What part of the equation had he left out in order to find peace? Eternal happiness and proper salvation and superstition and empty slogans. Another conversation, never started, never finished. I wished to have never lived and to never have to die and I could feel the fury building and the terror and the misery and all the while Ben stared at me slack-jawed and maybe even slightly amused.

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

Whoa! What happened? Just updated my Word Press and it turned into this craziness. We’ll be back soon, hopefully!