Thunder Without Rain

- Somtimes it got to where he felt the good and the bad, the Holy Spirit and the Demon, so crowding his lungs with their battle that it was hard to breathe. But still he did it.




All forsaken
The eyes that stare back
avow the unspeakable.
Always a slave
Drank ... lay down in darkness like the long dead
Here lies a man
Don't put no headstone on my grave
Rompin, stompin
Mean, razor-toting son of a bitch
I don't give a fuck what you believe
Put that down in your little black book

Reflexes got the better of me


- He would laugh or cast an evil murmer, depending on which night he was in the middle of, which cloak he wore


All of you fucking sideways mother fuckers who haven't been commenting on my blogs lately better fucking leave something or I'm going to get pissed.

Is there any question that rock and roll is dead? Does the term "rock" even enter into it anymore? Ya know one of them one-hit-wonder goofy bastards from the 50's got more soul, got more fuckin edge in one of their guitar picks or piano chords than every stinking last "punk," "grunge," "R&B," "Country-Western," or "hip-hop" pretenders out their wasting electricity and airwaves today. I've always felt this way, but man its getting worse and worse, and I've been doing a lot of music sampling lately. Let me tell you, a guy like Jerry Lee Lewis ("The Killer") puts every single one of these paltry, piddling little fiddlers to shame. If I have to listen to one more band come out hailed as the "savior of rock" or "the revival of rock," play their rotten bubble gum version of rock and disappear after an album I'm gonna pull a Jerry Lee myself and storm the gates of Graceland with a pistol. Where have you fuckin' gone, rock?

List of the top ten rock stylists in history (not in order):

1. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2. Led Zeppelin
3. CCR
4. Elvis Presley (Early years)
5. Jerry Lee Lewis (Early years)
6. Rolling Stones
7. Jimi Hendrix
8. The Doors
9. Pink Floyd
10. Tie between - Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Van Morrison

There's the fuckin list, friends. You put together a better list than that - it aint gonna happen. Those are the boys right there. You see anything like that anymore? Any bands come out in the last ten years that have stuck around for more than a CD and could be arguably even slightly historically relevant? Go ahead, drop Dave Matthews name in this blog. Beg the gods of rock to bring thunder crashing down upon your ears in a clataclysmic judgement in which you are cast forever into the wasteland of wandering minstrils - the deceptive paints of pop in the guise of uncommercial legitamacy.

Notice you didn't see the Beatles in the top ten? I've said it before - they are a good band, but they are not what history wants to pretend they are. Here's what the Beatles are. Elvis came out as a dancing, thrusting, screaming nightmare in a jukebox full of big bands and crooners. Then he quickly sold his sole to the Colonel Tom Parker and went pop in an explosion of mediocrity - "One Night of Sin" becoming "Song of the Shrimp." The Beatles merely picked up where Elvis was when his star began to fade. Their early rock tunes were catchy and singable, just like the King's, but not a shred of the passion, edge, and fury that had been driving rock only five years earlier when Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, and Chuck Berry drove across the country touring together - Jerry Lee burning a piano to the fucking ground WHILE HE PLAYED IT just because they let Chuck Berry get the last set instead of him. The Beatles and their silly "Can't Buy Me Love," and "Ticket to Ride," and so on were a pop band - and a damn good one. But they weren't the Stones. They weren't Hendrix. They weren't The Doors. They weren't Zeppelin. Those were the true heroes of the Sixties.

So fuck the music biz. Its fuckin dead. No, its long dead. Its a dead, bloated fucking beast of burden that collapsed into itself fifteen years ago when Nirvana first reered its ugly head and "invented" the music that had been being played by underground bands for years and years already. Let the crybaby rot in his fucking grave and write his feminist poetry and dream hellish zombie nightmares of fucking Courtney Love's drug-riddled, death-in-life vessel of wickedness. And let our insanely disturbed, psychotically deranged friend Eddie Vedder quit his crying and join Cobain on a barstool in hell. And let the demons of horrifying, smiley-faced-sticker music eternally chew at the brains of Creed, and Limp Bizkit, and Good Charlotte, and Destiny's Child, and Jay-Z. I'll be happy to sit here, sipping cheap whiskey, and playing "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," or "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee O' Dee," and the stylists will never go down so long as the booze holds out.



A Presto



Mike

Once Upon a Time in Porvuello, Mexico (Part the First)

Well, here it is. As promised. Part I of a ridiculous story featuring all of you who signed the last blog, plus Mumbach per his request. Enjoy. Or choke.

"Once Upon a Time In Porvuello, Mexico"

Part - The First

Written and directed by Me
Produced by the staff of Dominion of Cool
Starring (in order of appearance):
Me, as the heroic adventurer and crusader for justice
Gary Bettman, as a corpse
Many bottles of whiskey as themselves
Nick Caughl, as a fearsome, corrupt drug lord
Schwegs, as a highstrung Mexican motel owner
Jeff Buss, as the insane gunfighter
An angry little Mexican midget as himself
Mumbach, as the law enforcement queen
A bottle of Tequilla, as itself
Barren deserts and black lakes as barren deserts and black lakes
Nameless entities lurking in foggy depths
John Fraser, as some sort of evil thing


It was chilling the way he looked across that desk at me and spoke those evil words. It takes no particular emphasis of quiet and repose to call that to memory. The way he spoke them slowly … distinctly … individually so I would be certain to grasp his meaning.
“There will be no hockey.”
That was it. Simple.
“No hockey.”
And suddenly it seemed there was nothing else to be done. No way of avoiding that song of inevitability that was playing in my head, and before I could think it through I was laying into Mr. Bettman with both fists in remarkable rapidity. Left, Mr. Bettman. Right, Mr. Bettman. Left, right, Mr. Bettman. And, of course, with this sort of particularly savage beating, it was not at all surprising that he soon expired underneath the rain of my hateful blows. That is to say – he died.
So there came suddenly this necessity to flee, and that is how I wound up here, puto. In this Mexican shithole. I came storming out of Bettman’s office, half in a rage, half in a panic, and lit up for the border with a few bottles of whiskey and a pair of shades and some smokes. As much of a degenerate little weasel as Bettman was, the authorities would not have looked so fondly upon the gruesome nature of his murder and they would have almost certainly sought to punish the perpetrator, that is to say myself. Thus my 90 mph drunken dash to freedom, even if it was something less than freedom in the American sense. More of a dusty, brown, beef burrito kind of freedom where law was lax in its responsibilities and men were quick to use guns to get drugs, or drugs to get guns.
The town’s name was Porvuello. It stunk. Stunk like shit and sloppy, greasy tortilla shells. It was run by a crooked man … an evil mastermind by the name of Senor Nick Caughl. He was some sort of Mexican gangster, though exactly which pies he had his fingers in I could never tell for sure. A little bit of everything I supposed, but either way he was the wealthiest man in those parts, and everyone with a business sold him a piece. You wanted to avoid this fellow at all costs, but that was more difficult than it might seem.
Nobody talked much in the town. It was the kind of horrible fucking place where the women danced or prayed, and the men sat around on benches smoking evil things and drinking strange and wonderful concoctions in local saloons. There were the occasional marriaci’s who spiced things up from darkened barstools or street corners, and sometimes the movie house might actually show an American flick. But mostly you just sat around. Drinking. I traded in the whiskey for tequila, and chose to sit around in a place called El Motel, which was run by a sweating little Mexican who called himself Senor Schwegs. To what extent exactly this Schwegs character was involved with Senor Caughl was difficult to tell, but one thing was for certain … he didn’t like me. Not from the moment I first stepped into that crumbling old lobby and asked for a room. “El room, porfavor?”
“El fuck yourself, Americano!” he spat. Nevertheless, he tossed me the keys to room sinco and charged me a few pasos. I asked him if there was any place I could grab a good burger and maybe a cold beer. “Si,” he laughed. “In joo-own fuckeeng country, puto.” I could tell by his tone I was going to have to settle on a steady diet of tacos and burritos.
I was only in Porvuello for a few days before I met a fellow American – a dusty, angry looking character named Mr. Buss who referred to himself as a “rugged desperado.” Mr. Buss would sit back with his feet up on the railing of El Motel’s front porch sipping tequila from the bottle and chain-smoking cigarello’s.
“I’m Wyatt Earp,” he said one day after an hour of silence.
“Very nice,” I said.
“You and me, we’re gonna take down this Senor Caughl and his whole crooked organization.”
“We are?” I said, half-amused.
“You got a problem with that, friend?” he said, raising his hat to look angrily at me.
“No, no,” I said quickly, nervously. “Just surprised by it, I guess.”
“Well, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do,” he said, lowering the hat back down over his eyes. “We’re gonna fuck him right up his gangster ass.”
“Listen,” I said. “Don’t say that too loudly. I think this Schwegs character works for him.”
“He’s small beans in a moldy taco,” Mr. Buss said. Then: “That means he’s nothing. Leave him to me.”
Turns out, unfortunately, that Schwegs was not small beans in a moldy taco. In fact, this sweating little Mexican proved to be a master of the Black-Ninja/Samurai arts. And worse, an angry little Mexican midget that was sitting next to us was good friends with him, so naturally he went straight away to report our discussion to the owner of El Motel. Schwegs came tearing out the front door of his rotten establishment, swinging karate-chops and screaming evil things at us.
“Joo fuckeeng Americans!” he yelled. “I fuckeeng kill joo, mang! I fuckeeng cut joo to pieces, ese!”
“Whoa, whoa!” I said, getting to my feet and holding my hands out non-offensively. “Look, buddy, calm down, alright. I don’t want no trouble.” He looked at me angrily. “El no trouble-o,” I said slowly.
He put his left foot across the right side of my face and sent me crashing through the window into the lobby. A rat scuttled across my face and disappeared into a hole in the wall. “JESUS!” I shouted. “JESUS TITTY-FUCKING CHRIST!”
Schwegs executed a nimble front-flip through the window and landed a right-boot to my face, and then followed that up with a judo-chop to the chest.
“Joo like dat sheet, puto?” he said, smiling, green things crawling between his yellow teeth. “Joo like to get shit keecked out of joo, mang?”
“Come on,” I said, pulling myself up on my knees. “Leave off, man.”
He spun around in midair and landed two kicks to my face. I fell back, bleeding at the mouth, and certain my nose was broke. I looked up into the grinning mug of Schwegs, who stood over me, smiling wickedly. “Now joo die, mang.” He pulled a knife from his belt and held it over his head. Just then two loud gunshots rang out, and Schwegs dropped to the floor holding both shoulders. “Joo fucking shot me, mang!” he shouted. Behind him Mr. Buss stood holding a smoking pistol.
“Got him,” he said, softly.
“Joo shot me in the fuckeeng shoulders, mang!” Schwegs shouted.
“Next one kills you, puto.”
“Okay, Americans,” Scwhegs said. “Okay joo fuckeeng guys, joo fuckeeng ween dis round.” He rose slowly to his feet and shuffled off out the door.
“Taught him a lesson, didn’t we?” said Mr. Buss. “I’m John Wayne, ya know.” It occurred to me Mr. Buss was fucking insane. I was certain Schwegs was going straight to Senor Caughl. Things were getting rather complicated. I was going to need a bottle of Tequilla to mull this over and figure a plan.
The angry little Mexican midget came back out on the porch and eyed us wickedly. “Joo never get away weet dees. No me gusta!!”
“I’m Clint Eastwood,” Mr. Buss said in low tones, squinting into the sun. Then he shot the angry little Mexican midget in the balls, and he ran away from us holding his mangled nuts and weeping “boo hoo, mang! Boo hoo!”
We decided to go see the Seargant. The law had turned a blind eye to Senor Caughl’s operations for many years, but maybe if we brought some good old American pressure to bear they’d cave and make a push for his capture. The Seargant, as it turned out, was the law in Porvuelo, and his name was Sgt. Mumbach. A big Mexican – maybe six foot six, three hundred. He peered at us from behind a bottle of Tequilla as we took a seat in his office.
“You boys want some crem brulet?” he asked with a heavy lisp.
“No thankyou, we’re here to recruit you in our fight against Senor Caughl,” I told him.
Sgt. Mumbach licked his lips seductively. “I liketed Crem Brulet, that shit is good too,” he said, smiling. “I lick that shit … I slapted that shit.”
“I don’t think he’s going to be able to help us,” I said to Mr. Buss. “What do you think?”
“We need Rooster Cogburn.”
“He’s a fucking movie character played by John Wayne. How is he going to fucking help us?”
“John Wayne!” said Sgt. Mumbach. “Ooh, I grease him up like a drumstick and lick my fingers clean.”
“There’s only one man who can help us now,” Mr. Buss said. “The one they call El Fraser.”
A dramatic chord sounded seemingly from nowhere.
“I’ve heard of El Fraser,” I said. “Isn’t he the one with … shall I say questionable allegiances? I heard he eats souls.”
“I’ve heard he howls in the maelstrom,” Mr. Buss said.
“I’ve heard he smells like a giant taint,” Sgt. Mumbach said. This seemed to bring an air of conclusion to the proceedings, and we were off to find the one they called El Fraser. We crossed barren deserts and black lakes where nameless entities lurked in the foggy depths and the sky was always dark. Finally, after many months, we arrived at the isolated cave of El Fraser which existed in the uninhabitable desert of Nachos Supreme.
The wind shrieked and the sky grew black as we approached the opening to the cave. Suddenly a voice sounded from its unseen depths. A voice latent with the funk of ages old rot and decay.
“Eight skies of the forlorn have fallen,” it said. We looked at each other. “The ninth soon shall descend.” We had found the one they called El Fraser.
Silence. We stepped into the cave and found a wrinkled, gnarled mass of flesh huddled in the corner.
“You will come to know your master,” it said. “He will engulf you in a bath of red madness and suck the vile jelly from your eyes with fiery rapacity … and you will BOW before him.”
I looked around nervously.
Mr. Buss fingered his pistol and tried to squint like Clint Eastwood.
Sgt. Mumbach smiled to himself and thought about his favorite marching band uniforms.
“Who is our master?” I finally said. Silence. “Is it you?” More silence. “Fiend! Answer me!”
The gnarled flesh jiggled. “Me?” it grinned wickedly. “Me? No.” It cackled loudly. “No. It is another … “

To Be Continued …

If you'd like to become fictionalized in Part II, simply leave a comment. Or die trying.

A Presto

Il Pazzo

Some Fine Opining

It certainly is no secret that the folks in the news world are quite fond of assigning and aggrevatingly re-using arbitrary words. Once these words are introduced, they are uttered over and over and over again by media anchors, politicians, analysts, and the whole fucking sha-bang. Take for instance the well-remembered era of "sexual harrassment" (pronounced inexplicably on the television as "harris-mint") or the post-911 obsession with labelling every development as "sobering" (that was a sobering speech, or this news is very sobering). So, now that the 2004 Theatre of the Absurd (viz., the election) is finally over, the staff of Dominion of Cool would like to take a moment to remember and commemorate the favorite, commonly used media terms of the whole shameful affair.
1. Disingenuous - first used by John McCain at the Republican Convention to describe fat Michael Moore, the term went on to be used with agonizing consistency by anyone who managed to get their mug in front of a TV screen. "For George Bush to say this is a little disingenuous," or "The democrats are being somewhat disingenuous here."
2. Categorically - first used, as far as I can tell, by Michael Jackson's lawyer to dismiss charges against his client, it then went on to become an excruciating favorite of media politics. "I categorically deny (fill in the blank)."
3. "a plan" - I never thought it would be possible for a phrase as common and simplisitc as this to get old, but between Kerry and Edwards and Lockhart and others, it was like Al Gore saying "every vote count" all over again. "I have a plan," "We have a plan," "John Kerry has a plan." Jesus titty fuck...good for your goddamn plan! They sounded like the mouse from Pinky and the Brain. I can picture Kerry and Edwards sitting in an office somewhere, with Edwards goofy ass saying "What we gonna do tomorrow night, Kerry?" to which Kerry responds, "The same thing we do every night, Edwards ... TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"
4. "Duty" - W's personal favorite word. Someone should suggest he try mandate, or responsibility, or committment. Not that the word is so bad in itself, its just the way he says it. It really sounds more like "dooty," and you can picture him snickering at it when he sees it in the script.
5. "Dishonest," "misled," "lying to you," "flip flopping," and any variation thereof - today's news media no longer simply covers the news. Instead it introduces an issue and then brings in the conservative and liberal elements to argue with each other, and during this "election" year we never heard anyone say "I disagree" or "our opinions differ" ... no, instead we heard time and again "this person is lying to you," or "so and so is misleading you," in regards to the opposing partisan element being interviewed. The conservative tells you the liberal is lying to you and the liberal tells you the conservative is being dishonest.

Well, there's plenty more but I'm hungover and my head hurts, so I'm not inclined to dwell on it for very long. So fuck it.

I was disappointed by the lack of response to my last blog where I offered a list of dead people I'd like to have a beer with. I thought this would provoke readers to leave a comment indicating their own choices, but nobody seemed very interested. So I will again offer my own list to begin the discussion.

Dead people I'd like to have a beer with (abbreviated from the previous version):
1. Ernest Hemingway or Billy Faulkner (alcholic writers, bohemoths of 20th century literature. Kerouac deserves an honorable mention here, and personally I like him better than either Hemingway or Faulkner, but the image of Ernie and Bill is very appealing.)
2. Then again, there should be at least one representative from the Beat era, so I'll throw Kerouac into the mix anyway. Or Neal Cassady.
3. Jean-Paul Sartre (nihilist philosopher - the ultimate cynic)
4. Dean Martin
5. Jerry Lee Lewis (he's not dead, I know, but he will be soon, and he is a crazy mother fucker)
6. Miles Davis (one of the kings of cool)
7. Robert Frost (a poet, yes, but a notoriously mean-spirited man. Could be interesting)

High school students are protesting the Bush administration by standing in some library over night. Looked like there was maybe twenty or thirty of them wearing shirts that said "PROTEST" on them, and they were told by the principle it was okay as long as they left in time to get to school the next day ... which they did. Change is coming in this country, my friends. I forecast that this group will bring Bush to his knees within a week.

Having become completely depressed about literature after all the boring shit I have to read for class (an average of two novels a week) I have decided to use Christmas Break to return to some good ol' hard-hitting, scathing texts. I'm completely fed up with "good literature" so I'm putting together a lineup of novels that have a lot of swears, and violence, and sex in them. This is what I have so far.
1. "Hellfire" by Nick Tosches - the biography of Jerry Lee Lewis
2. Something by Chuck Palahniuk. Probably either "Lullaby" in which a certain song kills whoever listens to it, or "Stranger than Fiction" which is a collection of true essays about really fucked up shit, in which Palahniuk himself assumes the alter-ego of Brad Pitt who played the role of Tyler Durden in the filmic adaptation of Palahniuk's "Fight Club."
3. I need at least one more novel, preferably two, so I'm still hunting for a final text to round out the list. Any suggestions? Let me know, dickheads.

I love Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I WILL vote for him for President if he gets the "country-of-birth" requirement changed. Not because he's a great politician, but because the truth is it makes no difference to any of our lives who is in the White House. None of our lives were impacted in any way between "Bush the First" to Clinton to "Bush the Second", nor would our lives had changed if Kerry had won (though we certainly like to pretend like it makes a shitload of difference to us). At any rate, considering that it doesn't matter if God himself or the pizza delivery boy is in the Oval Office, I submit that it would be the coolest goddamn thing to have Arnold as commander in chief. Look at the guy. He's just this jacked motherfucker with a deep voice and german accent. That's the kind of guy we need in there! You think Jacques "ferry" Chirac would give him any shit if he took a plane to France, grabbed him by the throat and said some cool Hollywood toughguy quote? Not a chance. And don't think he wouldn't do it. He feels quite free to speak his mind. He's already referred to his opposition as "girlie men" and most recently he called Democrats "losers," which I find tremendously amusing. Its always funny to watch their faces turn red with indignation as they stammer and protest this unfair treatment while they turn around and call the President a liar and a killer and a moron (speaking of which, Kerry is reported to have said "I can't believe I'm losing to this moron").

And speaking of this last Kerry quote, I'd like to emphasize an important thought I had. I make no secret of the fact that I hate all politicians. They are pompous, arrogant fools, and they are old and ugly. I've been saying since the early nineties I'd like to get a guy in the office that isn't a bullshitter, just a regular, straight-talking guy who makes you feel like you could call him for a beer and a football game. Bush isn't this exactly, but he's much closer than, say, Kerry, and it occured to me that the two of them attended the same college. Kerry was a year ahead, and he was a campus celebrity. President of his class, president of the campus democrats, president of the debate team - known and respected by everybody on campus. Conversely, Bush was seen as a beer chugging party boy ... which he was. Later on, Kerry would become a national celebrity, and eventually a US senator. A guy pegged from the start to make a run at the White House someday. They were grooming him for it as far back as his college years. Same thing with another fella named Al Gore. Groomed his whole life to seize the White House. And both of them - BOTH OF THEM - were beaten by big W who was a political nobody until the 90's, and even then nobody ever saw him as a future President. So what we have here is a case of two quintessential politicians - guys who embody all the crusty, straight-faced, rigid, monotonous bullshit of the political world - beaten by somebody they would have laughed at only a few years before. Even if you like Gore and Kerry, come on ... from the standpoint of an American "ordinary citizen" (as Edwards so affectionally calls us) you have to respect this. At any rate, this is just an idea I had.

I haven't posted a short-story in quite some time, so I had planned on doing that in my next blog. Instead, I had a better idea. It occured to me that it might be more interesting to write a bullshit story in segments over the next couple of blogs with real people as characters. So ... leave a comment suggesting a real life person you'd like to see depicted in the story, and more importantly - if you leave a comment, you will become a fictional character yourself. You might become a druggy, or a rockstar, or a superhero. Who knows! But leave a comment and you will have an important role to play in the next great American drama (or ridiculous farce, as it were).


A Presto, dickheads


Il Pazzo

The Crawling Chaos

And so another example of democracy at its worst comes and goes, and thankfully this time we know who the winner will be the day after (though of course at this precise moment Kerry is slow to concede, and certainly the staff of Dominion of Cool does not blame him). But inevitability is stomping everywhere, and it is only a matter of time until he accepts the whispering voices of conclusion and announces his defeat.

Now the only question I would ask you ...

Did you really think ... any of you ... did you ever really think that this election was up for grabs? Did you really think the Kerry/Edwards ticket was going to take the White House from Bush? We here at Dominion of Cool called this one as early as last summer, and not based on hope or preference ... indeed we even mentioned in our last blog that this was an election we were choosing not to participate in (though, of course, our parents convinced us we would be bad people if we did not, and so we did). But this should come as no surprise to any of you. Kerry was no strong candidate. I've respected him from the beginning. In fact, he was the candidate I was pulling for in the primaries where he stood out as refreshingly intellectual and presidential among a pack of chuckling, giggling fuck-ups (with the exception of Leiberman). But being intelligent and presidential does not make one a good candidate, and there is certainly no shame in admitting this. Despite this, however, Kerry still could have pulled it off. Had he chosen a strong VP running mate (i.e. Clark, Leiberman) - in short, a candidate that could appeal to the other side as well as the lefties, and erase the doubt inspired by Kerry as to the ability of such an administration to fight the war on terror, then things might have gone entirely differently. But he went with the "young" (at 51?), "attractive" (poindexter), "charismatic" (really? then where was he all this time?) John Edwards who was a drag on the ticket from the moment he attached his bottom-feeding, trash-hording ass to it. What he brought to Kerry's bid was the heavy stink of slow death. Saying someone is attractive and charismatic does not make it so. To be honest, Kerry, in all his stoic, unemotional boringness, is the far more striking, memorable personality on that ticket. Edwards was more like a pair of cement shoes for Kerry than anything else.

A few blogs back I mentioned how Guliani said "I think people will be surprised how handedly Bush wins this election." I agreed with him. He was right. "But why?" you ask. "What about all those polls? What about all those news networks saying this was the closest election ever?" Come on, get real for just a second. Do you expect any presidential race ever to occur again will be anything different? They thrive on it. They get rich over it. If they had Bush pegged to win this one from the beginning they would have lost out on all these months of constant viewer interest. Not only that, but when they all went out individually and released their partisan books, sales would have sagged in comparison. In this new era of big media and technology - and, of course, big money - they will make every election as close as they possibly can. And if an election happens to be somewhat close already, as this one was, then they will tell you it is the closest ever and there's no way to tell, just to keep you watching and buying. "But the polls, Mike?" Fuck the polls. You can go get a poll filled out any way you want it, especially if you're interviewing five hundred people and saying they represent the country. Just as easily as they had Bush and Kerry tied, they could have released polls showing either candidate up or down by sixty percentage points. Polls don't mean a thing.

At any rate, we among the staff of Dominion of Cool had intended to write nothing about the election because we thought it was a black eye for this country - democracy at its worst. But we couldn't resist. Nevertheless, we will keep this short. Suffice to say ... condolences to Kerry supporters, and to Kerry himself. Kerry, my boy, this one was yours for the taking, but just comfort yourself in knowing that it was Edwards and your evil wife that cost you this one. It was nothing you did personally. And, of course, much-earned congratulations to President Bush. It will be another decent four years for the country. Certainly not the greatest it could be, but far from the worst. Let's be honest, Kerry supporters. Many got caught up in the whole anti-Bush thing for a while and made him out to be the greatest villain in history, but he really isn't that bad. Admit it. You want to talk about a bad economy while the nation's big economists are saying Bush has numbers most presidential candidates would love to have. Down compared to Clinton? Yes. But hey, things will rarely be that good. The economy is fine, and its getting "finer." Lost jobs? Blaming that, somehow, on the president is absurd. Its changing times, jobs are being replaced by computers, jobs are going overseas thanks to globalism and outsourcing. Is there work to be done? Certainly, and that is what Bush is trying to do - but to say "Bush lost those jobs" or that he somehow could have saved them is just stupid. So what else is there? Pointless Iraq war? Well, there are plenty of questions surrounding Iraq, I don't deny that. I question it myself. But you'd be there anyway if it was up to Kerry. In fact, Kerry would have had you there anytime after '96ish. All well and good to question it in retrospect, but when you get down to brass tax, Kerry has been one of the loudest pro-Iraq voices in the country for close to a decade. So, at any rate, just admit it. It was fun to jump on the anti-Bush train and call him Satan and crucify him wherever he went, whatever he did ... but now that its all over ... come clean. He's NOT THAT BAD.

By the way ... if you really expected Kerry/Edwards to win this, please leave a comment on this blog explaining how in fuck's name you thought this was going to happen.

Here at Dominion of Cool, however, we were far less interested in the outcome of the presidential race, and far more interested in some other races. In quick summation - we were bitter and crabby to see Naples lose to that wicked little freak Higgins. We were, however, delighted to see Daschle's 26-year career of fear and doom come crumbling down in an inferno of shame and diarreah.

Did anyone vote for the socialist candidate? I seriously thought about it. Just to say I did. But I didn't. If anyone did vote socialist, however, please let us know. We here at Dominion of Cool respect and condone any and all efforts to undermine this shameful theatre of democracy at its very, very worst.

It was appropriate that Kerry sent Edwards out to announce they would continue to contest Ohio. We the voters deserved one last look at that hopeless, hateful little elf-wizard. Is it just me, or does that guy's mouth seem to almost open and close sideways rather than top-to-bottom. At any rate, it will be interesting to see if Edwards loses his Senate seat - as is possible - at the next Senate election. There was, in fact, speculation that he only ran for President because he was told his seat was in danger. Whether or not this is true, we will certainly not miss his freakish, child-molesting ass.

Perhaps the greatest good that will come from Kerry's loss is this - we may never have to see Teresa Heinz Kerry's sour fucking mug again. Ever. In history. Hopefully she will recede back into the crawling chaos of hell that she emerged from when Kerry ran. Uggh. We fucking hate her.

Okay, that's all.

As always ... fuck politics. And on a completely unrelated note ... BRING BACK HOCKEY!!!!


A Presto ...


Il Pazzo