The Mouth O' The Mule

bye bye

2009-07-13T13:31:00.002-04:00

I feel that mister parker and I are responsible for Manny Acta's firing.

Ever since we met him and gave him our insights, the team's gone downhill. . . .

2009-07-12T21:04:00.003-04:00

Some of the Intentions age well

click to enlarge

copyright 2009 mistermuleboy
please respect copyrights
thanks

crankypants and toneboy [tommygun] at the Sidebar Tavern

2009-07-12T20:58:00.001-04:00

special thanks to bellotoot for "helping" me change the synthetic earl in my aged vehicle.

By "helping" I mean "doing"

he was, I hope, into it. . . .

life

2009-07-12T18:30:00.006-04:00

as rare as it is these days [since all I do now is document, poorly, the artistic comings and goings of others], I occasionally capture an image that

expresses what I want to express through photography

here's such a piece:

click to enlarge

It's called the Mind of His Audience

copyright 2009 mister muleboy
please respect copyrights

A CrankyPants Birthday

2009-07-12T17:57:00.004-04:00

No one can explain the call of a nickname

Phillipe is no more

click photo to enlarge

a look back at Crankypants's [hopefully] happy birthday

Growing

2009-07-10T22:36:00.003-04:00

So when I attend Rustbuckit, I'm likely to see the young lady that I've been dating.

I figure I won't wear the Black Puss t-shirt.

You know, eight years of unchecked id present a real challenge . . . .

although I think she'd appreciate Black Puss [the band]

debating my visions

2009-07-10T07:22:00.001-04:00

a crisp, laundered, starched white shirt, strewn at the end of a long day:

sometimes, it looks to me like a conquered, defeated people.

At other times, it just looks like the battlefield.

But it always looks . . . sad.

I Walked, No. 4

2009-07-09T09:00:00.002-04:00

COuldn't make it past minutes seventeen of Cheri the latest Stephen Frears costume drama [from the Belle Epoque] starring Michele Pfeiffer.

I've explained that I'm in the tank for most movies, but have also explained that my early exits from flicks are not always comments on the movie as much as on

My Teeny Head Full O' Shit and Anxiety About Something Else.

Cheri was somewhere in the middle.

I kinda didn't want to be there. But the movie also left me cold cold cold. By the fourth scene that was obviously just established as A SCENE -- possibly driving the narrative, but largely conceived by all concerned as a three-minute piece, to be linked with many other three-minute pieces -- I had had more than enough.

I also feared that I would not see M. Pfeiffer nekkid, thus letting all remaining air out o' the tyre [so to speak] . . . .

Brando Giggled

2009-07-09T08:48:00.006-04:00

Hey muleboy -- I can top yer entry from yesterday.

Here is the full cast o' Mister Roberts, sans "The Captain." Oh; a missing nurse or two [Betsy?]

I believe that the photo captures the crew from the Captain's point of view, as he lectures to them from the bridge. . . . .

click photo to enlarge

The weird thing -- as incredibly youthful as the joes [and janes] were, they are essentially the correct age.

The coal tender on a boat in the South Pacific in late '44 or early '45 might have been younger than two or three of the actors you see here here.

A second weird thing: do you think today, post-9/11, that a class o' high school students could stroll into the Washington Navy Yard, unattended, parking their cars wherever they wanted to / could, to shoot on one of the Navy ships -- UNsupervised?

Methinks Not.

A challenge to mister parker and bellotoot: see if you can identify [guess] which [young] actor pictured here portrayed CPO Dowdy [portrayed by Ward Bond in the film].

That is all

RIP F. Liebowitz

2009-07-08T10:25:00.003-04:00

WOUNDED DEER, Massachusetts - Emily Dickinson College sophomore Fawn Liebowitz died suddenly last week in a kiln explosion on campus. Liebowitz, 20, a sociology major from Fort Wayne, Indiana, was tragically killed while firing a pot in the new kiln in Sylvia Plath Hall. "Messy" was how Wounded Deer Fire Chief Michael Redman described the scene of the accident. "It was hard to tell the pot shards from the body parts," said the pyrodefense professional. "She just blew like a frog sucking on a cherry bomb," Redman added. The cleanup of Plath Hall has been further complicated by a thin coat of glaze that has affixed many of the body parts to the light fixtures and hand railings. In the wake of this tragedy, there has been talk among Emily Dickinson students of renaming Plath Hall to Fawn Hall. Until she was blown to bits, friends would say that Fawn's best feature was her smile. Her roommate, Shelly Dubinsky (sophomore, primitive cultures), described Fawn as "a special friend who liked to share her thoughts and experiences, and who had a curiosity about life and relationships." Her long-time boyfriend (they were "engaged to be engaged"), Eric "Otter" Stratton of nearby Faber College, was in shock when he first learned of Fawn's passing. "I just talked to her last week. She was going to make a pot for me," Stratton said while attempting to hold back tears. Services have already been held. In lieu of flowers or donations, the family requests that friends express their grief by posting comments on line at: www.myspace.com/crazycueball.

CCNN thanks The Blue Republic (www.thebluerepublic.com) for contributing to this iReport.

I used to touch Fawn this way.

I know.

She told me.

She did?

The Victory of Moral Persuasion

2009-07-08T08:53:00.000-04:00

I'm ashamed.

So fucking ashamed.

Brando Trembles

2009-07-08T08:08:00.006-04:00

click either photo to enlarge

Doc and Ensign Pulver
ca. 1944-45

with apologies to contributors l'il jimmy watson and torqueymada, who didn't need this at all. . . .

Mediaite debuts

2009-07-07T13:58:00.002-04:00

So a new website, Mediaite, has debuted.

It's ostensibly the brainchild of Dan Abrams, formerly managing editor/on-air "talent" at MSNBC.

It's like a million other such sites, but I do like its rankings.
It purports to rank objectively various categories of known folk [e.g. columnists; television personalities; publishers]. For their media influence.

Yowza!

I always wanted to know that Bill Bennett is the 19th most influential "Radio Host" . . .

2009-07-07T08:30:00.000-04:00

here's a little slice o' heaven, courtesy of Paul Collins and cohorts:

so who's with me?

2009-07-07T07:43:00.002-04:00

SUNDAY, JULY 26 - Jammin' Java

mick taylor

grahame's obviously all in . . . .

Justice Isn't Served

2009-07-07T07:36:00.004-04:00

You know, I doubt that when Chuck Berry duckwalks off this mortal coil, the movers and shakers will throw a Staples Center "funeral" covered by Brian Williams and Charles Gibson. . . .

too bad that sentence only resembled English

Dead Secretary of Defense

2009-07-06T09:49:00.003-04:00

I enjoyed my time in Vietnam.

I don't think too many other young Americans did.

No one was shooting at me.

For the boys who did get shot at, and who survived, I suspect that Robert McNamara brings up some strong feelings.

He was a slickee boy smarty-pants who knew better than most.

You know, we see them every day on TV, working all around the President.

It's been that way since there were presidents, I'm sure.

Anyway, I'm glad that he learned his lesson, whatever the lesson was.

he's dead now.

You know, I get paid as a writer. This is some good sh^t.

I think I'm gonna write obits for the Times.

As for lessons -- all the Vietnamese I met really loved Americans.

Not surprising, since I was an American who would almost surely be surrounded by Vietnamese that loved Americans

Most of them were killed or concentrated into camps in 1975-76

You know, not a whole helluva lot changes, do it?

the unfortunate, no. 4

2009-07-06T09:27:00.000-04:00

Ah, this poor fellow.

Imagine the consequences every time he fell down. . . .

I Promised

2009-07-05T21:55:00.001-04:00

you know where to find me

2009-07-04T22:29:00.001-04:00

next time, i'll lay off the politics and just post a shot of my cock

Happy Independence Day

2009-07-04T22:16:00.003-04:00

I enjoyed this evening very much.

I drove to a secluded spot in a new neighbourhood that has a view of the local minor-league ballpark.

Not Nationals Park, which is minor-league n performance, maor-league in cost. But I digress . . . .

The ballpark offers fireworks after the fun Fourth o' July ballgame.

I saw a few people slip past a picket fence into the woods facing the ballpark; they'd realized [as I had observed] that you could walk to the woods and get right back by the fireworks launchers.

The show was good -- not as spectacular as years past, but loads of fun. The patriarch of what proved to be "the fence family" kept his son on his neck. He and I "hoohed and hahed, wooooh-ed and waaaaah-ed"during the show. English was clearly not the family's first language; it remains a challenge [perhaps not to the kids].

When the big finale wrapped up, the man and I started clapping -- loudly -- with eyes shining. Then, in the middle of a small forest, next to a chain-link fence, we hustled over to each other, arms in a bear-grasp. He choked out "Happy Fourth of July" in broken English at the moment I said it.

It was damned fine

I'm sometimes ambivalent about the Fourth. I know it's a blurred national celebration, but I always get bummed. The Declaration and decision were momumentally brave [or stupid, or both], and a few of the ideas endure and inspire.

But it was mainly a bitchfest about ol' George 3

The Constitution? Aaaaah -- sublime. THAT's where the work goT done. Let's celebrate that fucker.

Oh, wait; we're busy draining it of any vitality. Fear -- of foreigners, death, economic woe,

fear is used, and accepted, to water it down.
every freaking turn I see it becoming less and less important.

One day we'll want it back, but no one "with authority" will be inclined to give it back.

Word of warning this day.

Govt a necessary evil,
but not our friend

when I bitch and moan about the current folks running our legislative and executive and judicial branches, it's not personal.

Long Ago and Far Away, No. 16

2009-07-04T22:11:00.004-04:00

please click to enlarge

I leave behind my packing from many years ago.

For those with difficulty reading, the box says:

FOTO BUKz

Who let Biff near the
Magic Marker?

Who let him near the box?

Gahd bless our [sort of] missing friend; I love the man. . . .

Uranium from Nyjer

2009-07-03T19:24:00.002-04:00

I love Nyjer's stirrups and sanitary hose.

Robert Fick, you're in the rearview . . .

~ from the hand

Taking stock

2009-07-02T10:42:00.000-04:00

DAY 18,037 of unhealthy relationships . . .

* sigh *

~ from the hand

Blogging by emall

2009-07-02T08:58:00.001-04:00

Blogging by email sucks.

Traveling

Here on the Great Plains.

But I respect you all, and must beg * you * to provide the content.

Gibson, or Fender

It's Gibson all the way

~ from the hand