Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything … 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs … damned humans.
Author: Stephen J Frankenberry
Just some guy in a Pirates hat, couple'o cats and this spot
With Ron DeSantis continuing to attack education in his Florida petri dish test case of a new All American Fascist State, a Florida as America platform, a one of ignorance, free thought be damned (the actual indoctrination) and with yet more states threatening teachers that don’t educate in conservative straight white safe ways and even possibly criminalizing the truth?
This one keeps popping up in my head.
From 2 years ago and I have re-posted it here before.
On my way into work early last week, driving my usual route, a few backroads through some pretty suburbia (one of the reasons I take this way and not the main way) I noticed this one house, like really noticed it for the first time though I pass it every day. It has a striking red front door, how it hadn’t really caught my eye before I couldn’t tell you but, no matter, it did on this morning.
I think it did because recently I went to visit Mom in her assisted living facility for Mother’s Day and something about this red door seemed vaguely familiar, like maybe when I was kid we lived in a house behind a red door or maybe it was a red house?
So, this then is for Mom, who lives behind her red door in a different sort of house now, two of them.
I try bring some news.
Love ya Ma
–
Behind The Red Door
It fronts a house
Once center
Village open welcome
But
Floating hazy now outskirts
As doors don’t float but do
Lost in trees tall tangle roots shoots forest grasping edge of the old gathering square
Where voices were there
Their songs sung in unison
Once
They did declare!
High up into the air!
—
It’s a house with a red door
Please knock to tell something
Sell something
Even
Needed in
Village’s
Villager’s stories
All shared
But
Through bay whispy window tissue thin doilied curtains now floating like ghosts gently pushed aside
(mind you move away ghosts!)
To glance out
Please knock to sell me something
Tell me something
Are you the paperboy?
Do you have the news?
Have you heard of Linda?
I worry
—
It was a house with a red door
Open
Of many room’s
Thoughts
Lived
Loved
Grand castle with Nobles and Ladies
Knees bent
For wisdom’s grace
I have words
Had words
Want words
Can you hear them through whispy bay floating window tissue curtains now?
Through whispier lips?
Behind the red door
Kind ghosts
But ghosts still
Oh, go away ghosts, shoo!!
—
Are you the paperboy?
Have you some news?
—
It’s a house with a red door
Flashing in
Out planes
Existence moving on wheels
Now
Through tangled grasping forest root shoots long hallways
Of village
New sort
To sort through and around in time lost
Trapped
Behind the red door
And …
So many different other colored doors
So many different castles
So many doors
—
It’s a house with a red door
Closed
No, ajar instead
Instead
Maybe can you see
Me
In
Through
Whispy bay floating window tissue curtains like ghosts?
When Mother Nature finally gets her season shit in order and lets you know that, yes, you can now safely put away the Fall & Winter sweats to swap out with some Spring & Summer shorts, you will find yourself swapping said items in and out of a drawer.
While doing so, you, possibly being of the crazy cat lady guy ilk, will think “Ya know, I should leave this drawer open”
Million $$$ idea number 42 thousand and 14 (yes, Jonna and Keryl … Million $$$ ideas). Ok, more like maybe Million $$$ idea number 6 (you don’t want to know the first 5, #2 was a new version of pants, #4 was an addendum to #2 and wasn’t pretty, and I almost broke my ankle, don’t know what I was thinkin’. #3 #5 and #1?? Don’t ask, especially about #3, I swear I didn’t know that could catch on fire and so quickly).
As you can tell I don’t really have a lot of Million $$$ ideas, they make my brain and ankles hurt, sometimes even require 911 calls but how about a new safe animal trap, possibly for say, cats?
A dresser with an open drawer full of clothes set up at the edge of the woods, or next to a busy roadway, under that overpass, or wherever you find some cats, or any other animal that you are hoping to catch/save to be?
… Ok, that lugging around of a dresser to place in catch spots is probably not the best of ideas, it would be really awkward and impractical and would most probably hurt my back (I told you I don’t have a lot of Million $$$ ideas) but it can still be effective.
Last week I posted here in the Attic of driving home, windows down, on a beautiful Spring evening singing along embarrassingly loud to Sweet’s “Little Willy” from the early 70’s and my early teen years finding some 70’s glam rock and a Best of Sweet CD to be just the ticket for this ride until some knucklehead in his souped up (or down depending on perspective) Motocross dirt bike sounding BMW (such a crime) ruined said ride.
Went to see Mom, “Ma”, today, for Mother’s Day at her assisted living facility in Somers, the Paramount, such wonderful folks, with Beck (my Sis) and her guy Buck. It was to be a perfect, and it was, perfect little brunch with a perfect little brunch menu of perfect fruits and French toast and scrambled eggs and bacon on a perfectly pretty day under an outside tent and with even a muffin or two with butter if you were so inclined to fill up too early from that basket before the main menu … and a Mom.
I’ve had some difficulty recently dealing with age and what it presents us, not for myself really though I joke of it quite a lot, not the worries of it and the remembering of better days to compensate, which is never a compensation at all by the way, that’s just the stuff and memories and doings in your past that built you, the reality of fond times, things learned, but of the creaks and cracks of body parts now that can be quite comical on occasion. I can no longer sneak up on anyone for instance with my ankle cracks, stand ups that take a little longer with breathy exhales, a belly paunch that reminds that I am terribly out of shape and leave an awful profile now in bathroom mirror selfies if I were to take such but do not (my God man! think of the children!) but for a Mom who has slid into a something that is unexplainable and something that scares me to death.
And I don’t do anything to help myself from what I have convinced a me might be inevitable. I habit too much in things that don’t help, even when I know that that habit too much is not the best of course. Put down the beer, put down the vape pen (cigarettes at least being well behind me), get some exercise, go out and mingle with actual human beings on occasion that don’t make just for fluffy pet pictures.
But I keep working anything, ANYTHING that might help the noggin keep working noggin stuff while telling itself just that.
This I do at least … constantly. A never stop no matter how much I know that no one may actually read or listen to whatever it is. Doesn’t matter. Just work it Steve … just work it.
But you know the thing I miss the most in this world is not being able to call my Mom, my friend, and recount a day, tell her of this noggin stuff, tell her of whatever stupid thing I came across that day that was latest funniest thing ever (at least in my mind) maybe direct her to new a post of mine in the Attic, that phone call that I am sure, while nodding and smiling, she was checking on her end the clock back then wondering if this phone call would end soon “Love ya Stephen, but it’s Murder She Wrote … it’s Angela Lansbury”.
Mom loved herself the murder mysteries, even in re-run, especially in the most dangerous sleepy small town that ever existed.
//////////////////////////////////////////
I brought Mom three things today, a bar of Ghiradelli chocolate, a dark chocolate salt caramel one where the caramel is salt crunchy not smooth, like a toffee, an almost English one I thought she might like, a T-shirt I was wearing with a cat paw fist bumping a human fist and a Mother’s Day card with also a cat. A wide eyed cat.
I thought maybe the cat thing might jog a bit of the Stephen. She always noted to her great dismay I think “Oh, that Stephen and his cats … why doesn’t he have a girlfriend”
When I mentioned that she nodded and said “Your cats” but then when Beck opened up that chocolate bar in her room to give her a piece of it she looked at me and said “Stephen, you’re ruining my diet” with a bit of chocolate on her lip and she also held onto that card, with the wide eyed cat all morning until we left and maybe past that on her nightstand.
Marveling.
Recognition.
When I was finally in my car (Beck and Buck and I always meet at the 84 diner to drive together the way down and back to be able to catch up and catch back) alone for my short rest of the ride home I broke down a bit. Quite a bit.
She said “Stephen, you’re ruining my diet”.
That was the world.
She said “Stephen, you’re ruining my diet” … to me.
Love ya Ma.
**Addendum: And please note that it is my sister who has been carrying the ball here with visits and keeping mind on the particulars of Mom’s care. I’ve been lax in that regard, cowarding out in the things that I just can’t quite face.
On my way home earlier this week, windows down, a perfect breeze with plenty of sun and light whispy cloud blue skies, singing along embarrassingly loud to “Little Willy” from Sweet of “Ballroom Blitz” and “Fox on the Run” and “Love is like Oxygen” fame I gloried in a really beautiful Spring evening ride. I had grabbed a best of theirs from my CD bookcase that morning thinking that some 70’s glam rock, with long hair and tight t-shirts and tall heeled shoes and really high pitched harmonies recalling my early teen years might just be in order, I mean ya gotta have a rockin’ throwback tune that has “His star-shoe shimmy shuffle down” & “His star-shine shimmy shuffle smile” in the lyrics for a ride like this right?
Then I came to be behind THAT car and THAT guy with a self satisfied “I’m too cool” elbow out with every step on the gas and sudden too fast lunge forwards making mother earth and eardrums die just a little in the process.
That one of the crackling and popping and sputters and intentional combustion engine machine gun sounds imitating a motocross dirt bike, just one that sounded like it needed some time in the shop, rigged up in this case with an exhaust system that featured four exhaust pipes all blowing back at me worse than a local public bus that ya can never seem to find the right moment to pass while trees just dropped over dead, pedestrians covered their ears and birds fell from the sky with X’s on their eyes in its wake.
So much for open windows and perfect Spring breezes huh?
And it was a Beamer!! Just criminal.
“Hello, 911, what is your emergency?”
“I’m behind a BMW that has been mocked up to sound like a Motocross dirt bike and with multiple exhausts”
“A BMW?!?”
“Yes”
“And with multiple exhausts? Well, that’s just criminal. Are trees dropping dead in its wake along with people losing their hearing and with birds with X’s on their eyes just falling from the sky?”
“Yes”
“Contacting local authorities now Sir …”
Anyway, Sweet, “Little Willy” and an almost perfect ride home.
There was a time where I loved to read, couldn’t put a book down, something I truly regret that I don’t do much of anymore, at least not of novels to transport, though I still do read voraciously when it comes to trying to stay informed in this real world (but maybe back to transporting type novels might be more in order as the staying informed in this real world just tends to really piss me off and make the blood pressure spike which is not recommended at my age with an old man tiny little daily pill now as proof) or reading of old friends and new found ones and their blogs, or of baseball and my Buccos when in season though that has fallen off this year, sadly by a lot, and for many very specific Rob Manfred reasons, but that is the topic of another post, and another thing to make the blood pressure spike that I just don’t need … I mentioned at my age and old man tiny little daily pills right?
But I discovered early on, after a short stint of YA sports books, exclusively baseball related but which got rather repetitive and dull after a while, that I was to settle in, instead, on what would become lifelong wheelhouse stuff for me, fantasy and sci-fi.
I couldn’t get enough of the Asimov’s, and the Heinleins, the Herbert’s, the Clarke’s, the Niven and Pournelle’s together or alone, the Terry Brook’s and Shea Olmsford’s Shanarra days, the Mary Stewart’s and her Merlin and King Arthur tales (some that I even read once in England while sitting on the lawn of an old Norman castle for added effect) and eventually the Gene Wolfe’s, man, the Gene Wolfe’s and the Book Of the New Sun of Severian the Torturer for one, or any of Wolfe’s other disquieting and always slightly askew stories that left you feeling, well, just that, slightly askew, and marvel at how they could all build worlds so immense and dense in detail and yet also so intricate and fragile, sometimes even light, though, more often than not, dire and harrowing but always just flat out glorious and the sleepless nights that would ensue just waiting for return after being forced to put whatever new world I was in now on hold, at Mom’s insistence, on a nightstand, wondering if all involved in the pages knew that I had put them on pause, in a time out though not for any face in a corner reason, small, no bigger than a novel font, underneath some kids’ lamp after that Mom’s insistence turned to Momly threats, usually of the “alright Stephen, but you still gotta get up in the morning and I don’t wanna hear about your tired if so” type.
The Neil Gaimen’s would come too and of course there was the early discovery of Hitchhiking through the galaxy with Douglas Adams and Arthur and Ford and finding out just how important a simple towel and off beat Monty Python-esque silly English humor really could be.
And then there were the movies, a lot of really bad ones as I look back at them now, “The Man From Atlantis”, the first one, a TV one, with Patrick Duffy was possibly the greatest movie I had ever seen back then when I was 13, holy cow I thought, he can breathe underwater! And he has superpowers and webbed feet and hands! something I watched again years later and probably shouldn’t have, I really shouldn’t have. Sometimes it’s best just to let your grand memories remember and live on their own, in their own time … otherwise you just open yourself up to disappointment. Ya don’t need that right? No, “The Man From Atlantis” was the greatest movie ever. Period.
Then, in the same year, came that little thing called Star Wars where I was the envy of every kid in school as I had seen it first on Cape Cod on a family vacation. For one week before it came to town at home I was a kid god.
And it was, of course, a revelation, no sci-fi anything had ever looked like this, had told such a story as far as I knew, a one so engrossing and visually mind blowing. I was sold now on the movies showing me my favorite of sci-fi and fantasy things in moving pictures, real, forever hooked.
//////////////////////////////////////////
I went to the movies tonight for the first time in 13 or so years. The last being, I think, when Maria and I and the JG, back in the when we were a now, saw Toy Story 3, JG making a point of punching both of us in our arms when we were brought to tears.
It was Guardians of the Galaxy 3, a triumphant conclusion to a set of films that I had already held dear, just the first two installments, but hold even more dearly now.
I went in with intent to the Regal at the Poughkeepsie Galleria, and walked some length of the Mall from my always Mall parking lot parking spot from whenever I did go there, by rote, so many years ago, for a Maria visit at her store, and past her old store, forgetting that I was on the wrong end of the Mall for the theatres.
It was a bit of a hike. I forgot how Malls can be so long. I broke out my inhaler.
It was just a little kiosk now, the theater, menu, tap tap, menu, tap tap, in front of empty windows, almost mocking them, where there used to be human beings to buy your ticket from, with quick excited casual conversations, as you bought that ticket, of the wanting to see whatever you so were looking forward to followed with spoilerless “you’ll enjoy this one … seen it three times now” from former human beings at was now just that kiosk.
This was new navigating for me, kind of cold, but well, with big popcorn and a waaay too large a soda in hand that you know you shouldn’t order as their will be, in your old, at least one pee break, but hopefully at a point in the movie where you won’t miss too much, I made my way in.
//////////////////////////////////////////
After a back in the when we were a now with Maria and the JG and were now just a were I moved out into my own apartment, a wonderful little place in upstate Hyde Park, NY with the best of neighbors who always kept an eye for me, something I will forever be thankful of as I am often not all that good at doing it for myself.
There was a weekend where I thought the JG (Jagger) might like to come visit and watch a movie with me and just hang for a bit, I would be an awful cook in my promise of dinner and maybe he and I could just watch this flick called “The Guardians of the Galaxy” that I had heard about but knew nothing of.
I was transfixed, we were transfixed, we were transported, it was my everything space adventure, and an unexpected one at that making it even more special and engaging and was reminded of how the best of adventures, in books or TV movies or even full blown Hollywood productions of any type always have you playing the lead in your head or in your dreams on a nightstand until tomorrow.
I watched it three more times after getting Jagger back home and before the weekend was done.
//////////////////////////////////////////
I figger’d the personless kiosk, and after some tap taps it spat out a ticket and I made my way into the stadium seating which sounds like a whatever something until you realize and remember that it is more than a something, it’s just really cool, almost like a captain’s chair (a good chair to be in if this were a space adventure) and you don’t need to worry of that one really tall guy with the really big head wearing a hat who would, of course, always be sitting right in front of you.
I settled in with that too large a soda and that too large a popcorn in a too large a bucket taking up it’s own seat like it was my date …
//////////////////////////////////////////
No spoilers, but Rocket? You are probably one of the greatest characters I have ever had the pleasure (or pain now) of sharing my time with.
When you’re trying to write something new but ya got nothin’ but bad poetry you think to other avenues, maybe compile some of your parodies from the last couple of years into one post as a distraction, something you wanted to do anyway.
The bad poetry can wait, It’ll always wait.
(to Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up”)
Mock it Up
Jim Jordan feels import
Says this is of utmost
Importance of a sort
He gets to what is his real sport
Saying gov is weapon sent
While he’s Jim sweaty bent
Fig’ring new distractions
Nothing else matters
—
Mock it up
Even though we don’t need it
Fog it up
Distractions we feel it
—
Says gov weaponized
But not in the right right light
If you’re gonna weaponize
We want it with a left left prize
So we can order lives
Get “others” all in line
—
Mock it up
We’ll fake it and sell it
Fluff it up
Distractions fall for it
—
Hey!
—
Jims been a bad girl
Livin’ in his Trumpy world
Does what he can
To make truth go in a whirl
Living Trump bat ass unhinged
This’ll truly make ya cringe
Sycophant I’ll call you sir
Run through border walls I’m yours
—
Mock it up
We work in post truth now
Muddy up
Jim Congress waste time now
—
Now in a passion show
Start demanding DA’s show
Papers bout the real blow
To great leader you should know
We’ll keep him above the law
Not right to hold him account
He came to us from down the mount
We’ll make sure law for him don’t count
—
Mock it up
We work in post truth now
Fog it up
Jim Congress waste time now
—
Mock it up
There’s only our truth now
Muddy up
Making point to waste time now
—
Mock it up
We will make up the rules now
Fuck it up
G O P new false truth now
—
New post truth now
Different set of rules now
New post truth now
—
Call ourselves Ruth now
Hit homer for Trump now
Clear bases of truth now
—
Prayer call the lord and how
Charlatans gather up now
Cause god is Trumps cow
—
Call for pro-tests here and now
Insurrection again now
//////////////////////////////////////////
(to the Green Acres theme song)
Greene Crackers Part II
Greene Crackers has more thoughts you see
Though that leads to scary possibilities
Now she wants red states simply to secede
With no thinking who it is that pays for all their needs
—
Margie Greene crackers howls ironical
How libs are fascist devils taking us to hell
They try to be inclusive but their woke’s a death knell
To her Christ white oppression in her genuine fascist spell
(to the Talking Heads version of “Take Me To The River”)
Take It To The SCOTUS
We don’t know why you livin’ like ya do
G O P can – help you un-blue
We stole two seats now to leave you bereft
Of any hope of what – fair was left
And we wanna know – and we’ll – tell you
Progress stops right here
—
We’ll take it to the SCOTUS
A court beholden to us
We’ll take it all to SCOTUS
Partis’n arm we made thus
To lead it around
Backwards where we’ll be found
—
The extremists are not on the left
That’s just cry rally we’ve always kept
No radical court – it’ s square to the right
They hem and haw but it’s in plain sight
Want you to know, can’t you – see how
We lead them by the haaaaand
—
Take it to the SCOTUS
A court beholden to us
We’ll take it all to SCOTUS
Partis’n arm we made thus
To drag your rights down
Backwards where we’ll be ….
—
Crosshairs, dazed stares, we don’t care, what you want here
Till we can’t,
Till we can’t,
Hold our glee at
Our own court’s red de-crees now
—
It’s a court beholden to us
We’ll take it all to SCOTUS
Partis’n arm we made thus
To lead it around
Backwards where we’ll be found
—
break
—
We don’t know why you’re stewing like ya do
Bout all the rights – next in the queue
To be struck down now – with radical hand
Voting women equal they don’t stand a chance
—
Want you to know now
That your rights now
Are up to Uuuuusssss
—
We’ll take it to the SCOTUS
A court beholden to us
We’ll take it all to SCOTUS
Partis’n arm we made thus
To lead it around
Backwards where we’ll be found
—
We’ll take it, we’ll take it, we’ll take it to the SCOTUS
They’re all ours now and we’re gonna have them show us
We’ll take it, we’ll take it, we’ll take it to the SCOTUS
You’re gonna regret that you didn’t vote for us
We’ll take it, we’ll take it, we’ll take it to the SCOTUS
We own them now and they’re gonna send us backwards fast
//////////////////////////////////////////
(to an instrumental I didn’t know that I discovered from our Prod site – a one I really like as it took the most work)
Tyranny Theatre
Are we viewing a sur-real horror
Or just watching angry parody
Only funny in horrific ways
Tickets bought a play called tyranny
Our seats quick-sand of ignorance
Till lifelines thrown early history
But still grasp false reality
—
Theatre
—
Now don’t bother me now, Mom I’m only dancing
In the aisles I’m prancin’
But not in gay way I’m singin’
Bout what end days are bringin’
Performance art playing out at schoolboards
Angry small minds at chalkboards
Who chalk up hate in loud chords
—
We sing of Devil’s discord
Threatens normal we should afford
Only to those who live accord
Cause if you can’t you’re not on board
That train rolling over those told to
To straighten up and fly right
And only to the right, right
No other way to fly right?
Right?
—
It’s time now to get on page
To help us harken back to better days
Where men were men and women knew their place
And where the lessers really had no face
And history didn’t happen as they say
No it was wondrous patriotic way
And the whitey’s always saved the day
With better of country their only play
—
“Hey now, that sounds like Jazz … we don’t do jazz here … there’ll be no jazz … though, we could appropriate it … whattya think Cletus, we could appropriate it right? It’s an idea … and hey, whoa, hold on, that sounds almost a little funky … we don’t do funk here … there’ll be no funk here … though we could appropriate this too and probably even dance to it with wide lapels and wider pant legs in an embarrassing way and pay lip service to the lesser players … and don’t even go there on blues if that’s next by the way … though we could appropriate that too … but you know what? we got country, good ol’ American country is ours … top Lee Greenwood and Charlie Pride and Toby Keith if you can… hey, why you laughin’?”
—
We know now, we know the only right right
We’ll push till you surrender fight
Tyranny now in plain sight
Though we’re too dumb to see plight
Instead looking at it as insight
To future where we new white
Will own again some of you then
Own all your rights superior
Restrict your vote and then some
Or change votes depending on outcome
Sham democracy gets its run
Till realize too your rights are gone
Tyrants don’t care of your song
Tyranny theatre ticket bought
Backstage phone it sounds now
ring ring
Hello, it’s me great leader
Right?
//////////////////////////////////////////
(to “High Hopes” from Frank)
Woke Hopes (little dictator song)
Next time you’re told
To be woke isn’t bold
By a Ronnie who scolds
Know he just trolls
—
Just what makes little dictator rant
About some things that he says ya just can’t
Eyes open to inclusion now
A weakness you can’t allow
—
But we’ve got woke hopes
We’ve got woke hopes
Hopes not turning blind eye to the “other” folks
But when you need a bigot’s screed
To tell you what truth’s to heed
Just remember his rant
Ohhhhh …
Ooops, there goes another Ronnie slam
How being hu-man is just another scam
Ooops, there goes the truth a now also ran
—
Ronnie now calls
To his herd of mind smalls
That they must all stand tall
Or think to brawls
—
Now Ronnie says CRT is just crap
Doesn’t fit his supremacist rap
His white kin they were ex-cep-tional
Racism don’t even track
—
Cause he’s denier of truth
With slaves country didn’t build roof
And if you say otherwise
Laws he’ll pass making rights go poof
—
So anytime you hear Ron speak
Know his white’s been tweaked
And he just won’t couch for that
Ohhhhh …
Ooops, there goes some more to demonize
Inclusive compassion that’s a bunch a lies
Ooops, here goes some hate to try on for size
(break)
Ron threatens anyone who don’t agree
With his hist’ry tree
Don’t be of them and not we
Ohhhhh …
Ooops, there goes another truth to turn
Ooops, there goes another book to burn
Ooops, there goes democracy to be spurned
Mm Mm
//////////////////////////////////////////
(to the Mamas and the Poppas “California Dreamin'”)
Autocratic Dreamin’
Democracy’s in straits (Democracy’s in straits)
Getting dire by the day (dire by the day)
New Reich says it’s ok (practically they say)
To let it fade away (let it fade away)
Embracing a big lie’s how (embracing a big lie)
Help usher in a new way (usher in a new way)
—
Autocratic dreamin’ (autocratic dreamin’)
On such a darkened day
—
They stepped off of the ledge
All willing still offer pledge
Into abyss of endless lies (and lustful power cries)
They almost seem to pray (almost seem to pray)
To a god of broken things now (god of broken things now)
Broken with real bad intent (and where violence sings)
Autocratic dreamin’ (autocratic dreamin’)
On such a darkened day
… break
All the truth is down (all the truth is down)
To be changed by the day (change it by the day)
Even history (even history)
Won’t stand in the way (won’t stand in the way)
Rewrite it backwards forwards (rewrite it forwards backwards)
To fit just what he might say (fit just what he might say)
—
Autocratic dreamin’ (autocratic dreamin’)
On such a darkened day (autocratic dreamin’)
On such a fascist day (autocratic dreamin’)
On such a darkened day
//////////////////////////////////////////
(to Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger”)
We Are
We are the hypocrites
We’re pro-life but abandon born kids
Body autonomy’s a right against masks
And vaccines you’ve no right to task
Don’t tread on me, no you can’t even ask
But female autonomy’s a thing of the past
—
We’re disingenuous
We cry at vigils of schoolkids
More lost to our well paid hubris
We thought and prayer and rationalize
Blame our morality‘s claimed decline
Not in our war chest for power outsized
Our lack of action is your fault it’s not ours
—
We sing la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Pompous self righteous is what we all are
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la
We are
—
We are the Christianists
Women’s rights we won’t allow
Rape incest even under-age now
They’re just a new day’s opportunity
While we strut about in our piety
Making sure you bring about babies
Promptly out of mind once do the light they see
—
Authoritarians
Free speech is what we insist
The right to misinform
The right to prop-a-gan-dize
And you can’t criticize now
Speech is what we decide now
We’ll legislate what you can and can’t say
Or violently bring your free to waste
—
Got our own rigged election plan
100’s GOP’s in on the scam
Break at states the will of them you’ll see
Not of the people but new you and me
Results just for GOP’s new you and me
Our vision of a Democracy that’s just died
—
We sing la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Minority drunk w majority court
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la
We are
—
We are the activists
From the court we legislate with new twist
It’s not the leftists we warned in past
Boogeymen to scare conservative kids
No it’s a Clarence bloc with a backwards breath
A new Christian way with a brand new breadth
And scope of what rights just might be next
And how we now can control your ways
The ones we know the Devil helps sway
Generations precedent progress gone away
—
A Singin’ la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, la-la
We are
—
We are exceptional
Shoulder above all the ne’er-do-wells
Who think history’s about truth’s to tell
Not our re-write aleviate guilt
With no systemic racism cloud
We were just caretakers of a new world
On the back’s of lessers who still owe us the price we paid
—
Singin’ La La La La La La La La La
We are
//////////////////////////////////////////
(To Green Day’s “Troublemaker” from “Uno!”)
Kingmaker
Yeah!
Woo hoo hoo
—
Hey!
Democracy’s under attack
Right in plain sight a lockstep right
Work their authoritarian plight
—
Hey!
They wanna control the states
So next time vote around they’ll mess ‘bove ground
Mold sham results for self-serving tastes
—
They wanna be some new Kingmakers
Autocracy’s G-O-P takers
They wanna be some new Kingmakers
Great leader’s cult first of new shakers
—
Hey!
We like your lie moxie cool
Obstructive whitewash of what was true
It’s quite impressive in its attempt at coup
—
Hey!
His Rally’s his palace days
He’s sounding loaded, old lie bloated
In his propagandist playbook word salad way
—
They wanna be some new Kingmakers
Autocracy’s G-O-P takers
They wanna be some new Kingmakers
Great leader’s cult first of new shakers
—
Hey!
Woooh oooh oooh
Woooh oooh oooh
Woooh oooh oooh
Yeah!
—
They saw election pass with result a bad state
So pass suppression laws before it’s too late
Present these measures in a group all for one haste
Integrity’s at stake the big lie is the play that they make
—
Hey!
Democracy’s under attack
Right in plain sight a lockstep right
Work their authoritarian plight
—
Hey!
They do their do
Hey!
A lie’s whose who
Hey!
Who know the screw
Hey!
A fascist stew
Hey!
////////////////////////////////////////////
(to Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me”)
We Want You To Be We
We Want You … To Be … We
—
We want you to be we
We need you to be we
We’ll force so please just a-gree
Can’t have you livin’ feelin’ free
—
We want you to be we
Not right to live to your own de-gree
We know what’s best as only god does decree
—
We’ll shine up our partisan court, the one that’s been godly bought
Parade them over your free thought, make sure that you are sin free
—
We’re tired of spending time feelin’ persecuted
We need able dictate how your lives are executed
It’s not fair to watch you all go about your happy dailies
While we’re forced to fret and live with all your evil failings
—
We want you to be we
See country the way that it should be
Revisioned right light history
One white and straight you’ll all see
—
And shine up on all old hurts, of unallowed to convert
Bring handmaids to life, ‘cause we know just what is right
—
Will we neglect children after grabbing their first real air
Of course cause hypocrisy we’ve got plenty in spare
We’ll only find our end until it is that you all stop tryin’
Pursuit of happiness is up to us to do the decidin’
—
Ohhh!
—
We’ll work in a morality play’s future dire warnin’
But that future won’t know it from this backwards day future dawnin’
—
Ohhh!
—
We want you to be we
We need you to be we
We’ll force so please just a-gree
And gay marriage is soon next up on the tee
—
We want you to be we
We need you to be we
We’ll force so please just a-gree
You’ll thank us soon you’ll all see
////////////////////////////////////////////
(To Sammy Davis Jr’s “The Candy Man”)
The DeSantis He Can
Alright everybody
Gather round DeSantis man is here
Now what kinda country he want?
Ignorant, compliant, revised history, brainwashed
A Fourth Reich?
He’s working on a right plan because only DeSantis can
—
Who can take agenda (who can take agenda)
Of a fascist POTUS dream (a fascist POTUS dream)
Put it into practice Flor-ida a test run scheme
The Ronnie can (the Ronnie can)
Oooh DeSantis he can (DeSantis he can)
DeSantis he can
Test there his despot plan, prove self a new strongman
—
Who can make the classroom (who can make the classroom)
A site of culture wars (a site of culture wars)
Make them a battleground to settle whitey grievance scores
The Ronnie can (the Ronnie can)
DeSantis he can (DeSantis he can)
DeSantis projects into classroom learning texts
Indoctrination’s pre-text
—
And then he just bakes everything at stake
A vision’s cake of normal crumblin’
He’ll make the gays and blacks go runnin’
Applaud him please for his true cunnin’
—
Ohhhh who can fudge the numbers (who can fudge the numbers)
Of a shit COVID response (a shit COVID response)
And jackboot whistleblowers who point that out at once
The Ronnie can (the Ronnie can)
Oooh DeSantis he can (DeSantis he can)
Collateral damage was always part of the plan
No worries if base at hand
—
And then he put the brakes on election takes
That his was one of real gold standard
Integrity it must be mastered
The big lie being votes true bastard
—
Yeah Yeah Yeah
Who can add police force (who can add police force)
For this claimed integrity (this claimed integrity)
And have it to intimidate new SS just for he
The Ronnie can (the Ronnie can)
Oooh DeSantis he can (DeSantis he can)
DeSantis he can Democracy it’s not the plan
Fourth Reich new Uncle Sam
—
DeSantis he can even take a Disney stand
Free speech an also ran
—
DeSantis can
DeSantis can
DeSantis he caaaannn
—
DeSantis can
DeSantis can
DeSantis he caaaannn
—
Alright everybody
That was nice
Break it up now
It’s curfew
Go home
Stay straight
Stay white
//////////////////////////////////////////
(to Sammy Davis Jr’s “The Candy Man”)
The GOP Can
Alright everybody
Gather round GOP man is here
Now what kinda country you want
Sweet white grievance, ignorance, revised history, gun pops?
Anything you want
You’ve come to the right klan because only the GOP can
—
Who can take elections (who can take elections)
Sprinkle with Big Lie (sprinkle with big lie)
Claim the last gold standard but hinder future tries
The GOP (the GOP)
Oooh the GOP can (the GOP can)
The GOP can
Make all else an also ran
Results already planned (results already planned)
—
Who can make our schools get (who can make our schools get)
Riled up to re-invent (riled up to re-invent)
Teach versions where our hist’ry has an only whitey bent
The GOP (the GOP)
The GOP can (the GOP can)
The GOP projects in some wishful burning texts
They’ll make all a-gain good
—
The GOP rakes everything at stake
Over coals of division
This di-vide their only true vision
Damn the Libs forcing decisions
—
Ohhhh, who can take invasion (who can take invasion)
Of an ally’s sovereignty (an ally’s sovereignty)
By a murdering despot and admire with great glee
Some GOP (some GOP)
Oooh some GOP can (some GOP can)
Or others they can in hypocrisy their brand
Decry horrors at hand
—
But then they all brake at more public takes
On how they feel of orange missives
Expressing his more bromance dishes
To this now well they’ll just dis-miss it
—
Yeah yeah yeah
Who can yesterday now (who can yesterday now)
Forget it with a glance (forget it with a glance)
And build it back to suit them any real truth held askance
The GOP (the GOP)
The GOP can (the GOP can)
The GOP can Democracy that also ran
Warrants new Uncle Sam
—
The GOP can be shameless in their scam
corrupt new order looks good
The GOP
The GOP
The GOP caaaannn
The GOP
The GOP
The GOP caaaannn
—
Alright everybody
That was nice
Break it up now
Yeah go home
//////////////////////////////////////////
(to Dave Matthews “Ants Marching”)
Pawns Dancing
They wake up always grasping
At conspiracies of the big de-feat
That they say didn’t happen
Even with real truth so right-fully
Sitting
—
Tinfoil hats gleam in the sun
One powered by the big lying orange one
And they all walk the same line
Like drunken lemmings’ nose to ass that cliff is just fine
—
They take to their knees
Willing blind fealty
Tethered not reality
Indentured to cult
Blood oaths easily took
—
GOP share the same sign
New astrology for stars to now a-lign
In their own special lie sky
No other sky is right for stars now to a-light
—
Take to their knees
Willing blind fealty
Tethered not reality
Indentured to cult
Blood oaths easily took
—
He looks down from gold tower
Directs his masses to cower if ranks are broke
You must tow the company line
As truths are mine and your minds must keep time
—
As all you little pawns keep dancing
Marionettes in my power play
Look to the stars for new king’s
Star’s shine to show you the right waaaaaaay
—
Orangeman controlling the thoughts
Of a party hopelessly lost
Watch his dogs cut back on the vote
With a bleak end, dark end cut the hope
And an end to an autocrat lend
Democracy pop
You’re dead
—
Take to their knees
Willing blind fealty
Tethered not reality
Indentured to cult
Blood oaths easily took
…….
Blood oaths easily took
///////////////////////////////////////////
(to the Green Acres theme song)
Greene CrackersPart I
Greene crackers are the treat for me
The favorite snack of the new GOP
Buttered with lies that spread from sea to sea
Keep the truth just give us conspiracies
—
Margie Greene crackers is party’s new face
With Gosar, Gohmert & a guy taking girls ‘cross states
Throw in Boebert with a shiny gun case
it’s a GOP wagon to a really dim-lee lit place
—
The lies
White cries
More lies
Past dies
—
Authority life
Hello fascist right
Greene Crackers we are there
///////////////////////////////////////////
To the Dixie Cups “Going to the Chapel”.
Goin’ to the School Board
Goin’ to the school board
And we’re gonna get carried away
With banning books now that aren’t
In a real right straight white safe way
Gee we’ve got some issues with works
That don’t teach imagined virtues of a
Re-visioned whitewashing day
—
GOP’s here
To set message clear
Ignorance sings
Of white patriot things
—
This country was found
On exceptional ground
And we’ll never teach real truth anymore
—
Because we’re
Goin’ to the school board
And we’re gonna get carried away
Might throw books on a pyre now
And dance ‘round with a hey hidey hey how
—
Gee you don’t need a degree
From any liberal leftist factory
Goin’ to create history
—
Whistles will blow
And dogs will crow
We’ll set it right
No CRT will be in sight
We’ll ignore slave-ery
Even though it’s part of the core
And strike systemic from vocabulary’s lore
—
Because we’re
Goin’ to the school board
And we’re gonna get carried away
Snowflake about the sensibilities
Of our children’s tender feelings
Gee we don’t know the problem
Of new curriculum’s whitey outcome
Goin’ to the school board of dumb
(yeah-a-yeah-a-yeahy-yeah)
Goin’ to the school board of dumb
(yeah-yeah-yeah-yeahy-yeah)
Just mind your place and we’ll all get along
///////////////////////////////////////////
(to OMC’s “How Bizarre”)
How Repub
Big lie it shotgun rides, McCarthy at the wheel
Headin’ Mar-A-Lago to co-mmiz about steal
A new plan it was hatched then, right after riot’s zeal
After kneel ring kiss the two saw how this should go
Campaign of vote suppression with a spankin’ new cash flow
McCarthy genuflects then says we’ll work on Fili-Joe
—
How Repub
How Repub
How Repub
—
They stay course mis-inform’, more openly than before
First voting then vaccines now, workin’ at death’s door
Of democracy and lives now, Elephant’s they know the score
How to politic both with a loud crazed cultish roar
—
How Repub
How Repub
How Repub
—
Ooh, baby (Ooh, baby) Democracy’s lazy (It’s future now hazy) Every time I just look down There’s a new lie to be found (Every time I just look down) Every time from underground Lies are bubblin’ up
—
Ring master he directs, says make Donkeys have regrets
For not buying into Country’s patriotic cultish sect
We’re showing you white way now, yet ya still deflect
The truth of where road’s going to where we’ll intersect
At Ignorance Way and Main Street with a future surely set
You’ll be minority major
Too slow now to react
Where chance was had to save from dark political intellect
And you’ll learn now how to,
Hey,
To genuflect
—
How Repub
How Repub
How Repub
—
Ooh, baby (Ooh, baby) Democracy’s lazy (It’s future now hazy)
Every time I just look down There’s a new lie to be found (Every time I just look down) Every time from underground Lies are bubblin’ up
They’re bubblin’ up
—
Ooh, baby (Ooh, baby) Democracy’s lazy (It’s future now hazy) Every time I just look down There’s a new lie to be found (Every time I just look down) Every time from underground Lies are bubblin’ up
—
Ooh, baby (Ooh, baby) Democracy’s lazy (It’s future now hazy) Every time I look just down (Every time I just look down) There’s a new lie to be found
Every time from underground Lies are bubblin’ up
///////////////////////////////////////////
(to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”)
Neo Fascist Man
It’s Doomsday clock on an everyday
GOP wear a watch
They check their wrists – for the end of us
Great experiment to now call a loss
—
They say It’s time has passed can ya follow me
It won’t really be all that hard
There’s a new road to take while the truth we will fake
A dead dream just not in the cards
—
Oh La-la-la de-de da La-la de-de da la-la
—
Sing us a song Neo Fascist man
Sing us a song of lies
Rewrite for us a seen history
Till no longer believe our own eyes
—
Now the GOP practice a longer game
State and by state they block votes
Or they gerrymander – so to stay in command
As they can’t win with votes honest’s go
They say integrity’s at stake in our system here
Must restore voter confidence
And they’ll disenfranchise with no color the prize
And all because of the Big Lie
—
Oh La-la-la de-de da La-la de-de da la-la
—
Now McCarthy holds true his great leader
Kool Aid drunk while supporting the cries
Of an unhinged one, carny barker and some
Whose show now attracts nothing but flies
—
And McConnell says partisan politics
Are the only game Dems wanna play
While hypocrisy drips from his marble mouth
Lockstep lemmings minority sway
—
Break
—
Sing us a wrong Neo Fascist man
Sing us a song of lies
Rewrite for us a known history
Till we no longer hear as it cries
—
GOP gambles Dem dreamers
Whose justifies are like some swiss cheese
Manchin and Kyrsten to any who’ll listen
Are standing just notice them please
—
They’re determined to center attention
Nonsensical their fantasy fight
To preserve the one thing that is killing the dream
The usual at least once a week stop at the grocery store was in order tonight. I jockey it back and forth from Tuesdays to Wednesdays as it’s important to change things up, don’t wanna be too predictable in the schedule for those sketchy bulky guys who surely have heavy foreign accents and have been on your tail recently waiting for just the right moment to black hood abduct you into the trunk of a sedan that is too small for them where you listen for possible location sounds of maybe trains or boat horns or airplanes, thinking you’re so smart to do such just in case, to an eventual nondescript abandoned warehouse in the (mad lib a one here) district to find out just what you know about that thing and everyone involved in that thing that accidentally interfered with THEIR thing and that they don’t believe for one second that YOUR thing stepping on THEIR thing was an “accident” at all.
(after pulling off your hood quickly and menacingly) “Who sent you about our thing??!!!”
So, on this Thursday night (just tryin’ to stay one step ahead) I made my way in, did my round from the right of the store to the left, tomatoes, a red onion, some cold cuts and cheeses on the right to that Tuscan White bread discovery from not too long ago, but a bread need thought holding in the back of my head for as long as possible as it’s waaaay on the left (just at the head of the beer aisle) and that end of the store can take a while, like forever!, to get to, so I clutched it hard in the noggin as ya can’t make a sandwich without it, didn’t wanna forget, then hit some aisles in between.
The one with the Arizona Green Tea that also includes this store’s bargain items that I eventually buy one or two of that I don’t need thus making them not really much of a bargain after all, the one with dressings (do you need some new Bleu Cheese for future wings and Cricket the Blind shared dinners or maybe mayo or horseradish mustard for aforementioned sandwiches), the aisle for beverages and my Polar seltzers, the pet food aisle and hoping you might find something for your other pet charge, Bella, that she might finally not turn her nose up at in her finick with a disdainful southern belle-esque swish of the head as if I were the worst cat dad ever “Do you even know me?! Hummphhh!!”
But in the midst of my searchings here now of some Fancy Feast choices there was this dude.
He looked confused.
“I recommend the Savory Centers” I said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s sorta cat crack-like”
“Thanks. My partner has a cat named Cecil, he’s kind of a dumb cat but I’ve been sent”
“Well, sent solved. Can’t go wrong with the Savory Centers”
He then proceeded to tell me of Cecil the dumb cat and a Cecil the dumb cat story followed with small talk.
“So, how was your day?
“Ummm, Ok, yours?” (well, Bella might like this one, I thought, as I continued my search head down in the shelves checking off “yes Bella’s” and “no Bella’s” and “maybe Bella’s” in my head)
“Alright but tiring”
“Me too but hey, tiring is alright” I say “as long as we still got gigs that pay the rent and buy beer and cat food right?”
I tell him I have a couple of cats of my own and know my cat stuff, and have had more in the past, maybe even enough at one time once to qualify for crazy cat lady guy status.
More small talk then …
“Hey, are you straight?”
“What? Oh yes … yes I am”
“Damn, that’s too bad”
“Sorry to disappoint my friend”
“Well, you are a good looking guy”
“Jeez, thanks … much appreciated”
Some laughs and a “have a good night”, “cheers dude, hope the savory centers work for your partner’s Cecil the dumb cat” and we were on our way.
Then I was thinkin’, ya know, if I were an older and gay Ralph Malph from Happy Days I would have said to myself, to the camera, “I still got it!!”
—–
At the check-out, where I used a Vanilla gift card I bought on the dark web, I loaded my few items into a reusable bag from a rival grocery store and nonchalantly made my way out the back of the store through an “Employees Only” swinging door and then out the loading dock where, earlier, after changing into a plain dark ballcap pulled down tight over my eyes and momentarily leaving my cart in the paper goods aisle (the paper goods aisle can take some time figuring the TP ply, deciding on just the right paper towels, name or store brand, do I need, as a single guy, the colorful decorative tissue boxes or is plain alright etc, the perfect cover) I had slipped out to move my car and then slipped back in to my cart with plain tissue boxes in hand (I thought of the decorative ones but I’m kinda boring).
I laughed to myself, driving off, thinking at the sure bulky sketchy guys with heavy foreign accents driving around the parking lot in a too small sedan loudly cursing in said heavy foreign accents as to how I had managed to give them the slip yet again.
Ok, Mother Nature, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll be more diligent with my recycling than I already am, I won’t litter and make anyone cry in 70’s commercials, I will conserve as best I can, I will stop urinating in the neighbor’s flower garden ruining their Daylilies, I will use and tout eco-friendly products whenever possible (as long as there are no religious concerns/objections, because there always are, with everything and anything, hell, I’m sure someone is feeling persecuted in their beliefs right now just by the mere availability of the Right to Shower Joy Shampoo Bar in honeysuckle ($7.99 at Amazon)
“What Hank?! Give me a few minutes will ya!! … actually a little longer … I’m in the shower!”
And I will even unmute my TV from my usual stream commercial break mute for ads for electric or hybrid cars.
You in turn just give me more weather like this in the evening that makes for such beautiful pictures when I get home, maybe just a scootch warmer if you could though, just a few degrees, nothing drastic, and then let it stay for a bit huh?
Ok, well, you just let me know Momma N, I’ll keep checking open windows and in the meantime I’ll start on my end of the bargain.
Probably best that I do anyway, I heard the neighbors just installed cameras.
Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything ... 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs ... damned humans.
Sundarbans,The sunderbans, Sundarban Tour, Sundarban Travel Guide, Mangrove Forest, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Royal Bengal Tiger, Tiger Sighting, Wildlife Photography, Bird Watching, Sundarban Safari, Houseboat Tour, Ecotourism, Adventure Travel, West Bengal Tourism, Bangladesh Tourism, People of Sundarbans, Local Culture, Bonbibi, Mowal, Honey Collector, Sundarban Legends, Mangrove Ecosystem, Conservation, Climate Change, Biodiversity, Sundari Tree, Sundarban Itinerary, Travel to Sundarbans, Kolkata to Sundarbans, Sundarban Boat Trip, Wildlife in Sundarbans, Saltwater Crocodile, Spotted Deer, Indian Python, King Cobra, Sundarban National Park, Sundarban Tiger Reserve, Bay of Bengal, River Cruise, Nature Photography, Forest Life.
A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics
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