Cheeto Zuniga

Nevada Ballot Questions

2006-10-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

As I've gotten older I've gotten more interested in the specifics of government. With so much going on, it's tough to get to the nitty-gritty beneath all the talk and distortion. I had to Google "Nevada Ballot Questions" to find the actual text of the proposed changes to Nevada's Constitution and Revised Statutes - most of the top results have to do with regulating marijuana and the drama of Question 3 being removed from the ballot as unconstitutional.
Any of the two people who are likely to read this already understand how ludicrous is the tyranny and dismissinformation surrounding the issue of marijuana legalization in a circle of flaming, stinking bullshit, so I won't bother to go into details. I am excited not only about the possibility of freeing up incredible resources, but also generating tax income and actually increasing safety in the use of marijuana. Not that it has any hope of passing in this backward state.
Most interesting to me is Question 6, raising the minimum wage in the state. I like the idea, but I am concerned about exactly how the proposal is written: will it actually make it easier companies to avoid providing health coverage for their employees, theoretically just by throwing an extra $40.00 gross at them per week? As an employer, when I consider the cost of tracking health plans, shopping for them, then managing the bookkeeping, giving everyone a dollar an hour extra is a smokin' deal. There is still the moral issue of not caring for your throwaway employees, but since mostly larger companies are paying minimum wage (because smaller ones must offer more money to compete with name recognition), morality is a distant consideration.
Anyway, please read the text of Question 6 and give me your opinion.

Caught with a "Christian Hook"

2006-08-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

My oh my, that Thomas Kinkade. I was always suspicious of artists who franchise themselves. Now, once again I am proven right about the evil. Part of my set of sicknesses is how delighted I was to hear about this. He's a groper, people.

2006-07-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that all drug experts seem to be cops? At least, whenever you see a drug expert being interviewed by the news or by government officials. Just watch TV, any TV, and you will observe the absence of actual doctors when the script turns to drug use, where marijuana will be shown again and again to be equally as life-destroying and insidious as cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamines. Please, do some research in the form of just seeing a little bit of "news" and get back to me on the results.

Another Icon Faded and Dropped Away

2006-07-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

Syd Barrett has moved on. As usual someone wraps up their article with the most ridiculous possible final paragraph. ""Adam, I need to fill a little extra space with your article. Can you throw in one more tiny little fact at the end, please? Peppers? Perfect, Adam. I can see the irony, since you mention The Beatles earlier in the article." Did the writer give a complete list of his post-Floyd works? "His left hand met the frets like strangers." Better is this, though I'm always cracked up by the old journalistic standby whenever one talks about artists: "the slender thread by which creative talent can hang." Between these two articles, we read two different explanations for the name "Syd." Now that's accuracy in journalism, one of you. I've been hearing a bit about papers slashing reporting costs and going with columnists, who are generally lame, because it's cheaper. Shit, I can write a column from here for free, one column per month, so if you just freelance about 35 guys (the extras are in case the others are as slackadaisickle as I), and you have yourself a paper! But as usual I digress from the solemn matter at hand.

Well, I'm not really that bummed about Syd passing on as it certainly sounded like a miserable life, if he was even capable of evaluating it anymore. Catatonia, disconnection from your skills, becoming known for stuffing goddamn peppers.

I don't know enough about Mr. Barrett, and haven't even heard that first album recorded with Pink Floyd, because classic rock stations (your best hope for that sort of thing) seem to only own "Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Were Here" and "The Wall." In fact, that may be the only THREE albums owned and played by KOZZ, 105.6 on your MF'ing dial.

Anyway, Syd, I hope you were finding a form of comfort in that mind of yours, in your last years.

Death n' Stuff

2006-06-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

I wonder how I would behave if I were terminally ill. I wonder about things like that fairly often, actually, because my life is fairly free of unwanted/unchosen adversity, leaving me free to frighten myself as some form of melodramatic almost-entertainment or spiritual reverse-masturbation that pretends to be "planning for the future."

In most of my fantasies I paint a picture of dignity and total command of the final situation, throwing pre-death parties and speaking great wisdom to a finally captive audience, then hearing some of those minds thinking, "It's because of this type of bullshit that I won't miss him" and other compoundings of my gorgeous self-absorption. Like people in real life, I don't get to hear the eulogies, but generally I'm considerably more impressive at the age of 124 than I am now, still standing, walking, talking, with nothing to indicate that I'm actually about to roll out on the midnight train.

Does dying with dignity include infinite courage, layers of emotions controled for the benefit of others, absolute consciousness, addiction to painkillers, chemo in the last two weeks, screaming at your wife, a clean diaper? What quantities of fighting are appropriate in each circumstance to allow one to balance between artistic quitting and animal desperation? How much are you allowed to think of yourself as, for instance, your body painfully eats itself?

My grandfather, gripped with the last fever, woke from his squirming dying slumber just long enough to look at me and say, "Oh hey, Cheeto..." then he was back down in there somewhere and away, soon gone. Some of us, like my mother, told him it was OK to let go, but I wasn't sure it was my place, being only a grandson. I still regret not telling him.

For me dying with dignity is a matter of leaving on my terms, being as conscious as can be, leaving nothing undone, everything said that needed to be said, being maximally loved - all things that seem to do more with having led a good life. And probably a load of crap considering the infinitesimal chance that I will be shipping out on anything like my own terms.

No Stims, Still Sticking to it at 1:22

2006-05-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

Trying to bring a bit of brevity:

Is it me, or has each of our assassinated presidents been murdered by a US citizen?

Is it me, or is the central point of being an American, at least when we consider those things that made this country all the great things it is, the placement of freedom before safety? Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

There are those of us who notice many threes. The first of three was the discovery of unwarranted tracking of calls overseas; the second, the discovery of unwarranted collection of lists of numbers called by US citizens. The third, which we shall probably discover after this ridiculous presidency is done, will be unwarranted eavesdropping on phonecalls by the public in general.

There is no "War on Colon Cancer," no "War on Miscellaneous, Unintentional Airplane Crashes," nor any "War on Landmines from Previous US Conflicts." Each of these things we could war against kill and maim more people annually than we have lost to terrorism, at least before we invaded any country that had not actually been engaging successfully in the use of the techniques of terrorism.

If you declare war against a technique of war, you will avoid any clear answer to the question, "When is it over?" This allows you to maintain a permanent grip on the curtailment of personal rights, emphasizing fundamentalist Christian value subsets, accelerated wealth stratification, or whatever other ideas come to your or your political contributors' minds. Between extreme cynicism, paranoia, and random chance, try to balance likelihood and simplicity to help choose your blend of declarations. Within that terrible triangle of troubles, I'm down in the paranoid corner, close to the cynical side. How about you?

Bitchin' About Politickin'

2006-04-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this and write to me about red herrings. Walling up the US-Mexican border is about fighting terrorism? To quote a president who helped us down this slippery slope with a few gentle shoves, "Well, there you go again."

Now read this amazing article (one of over seven billion columns in print and Web entitled "Insight") and write to me about the 10,000 ways of distortion and dishonesty used to make your point.

I think the basic issue has become how important it is for people to win. This is related to how our criminal justice system works: a dichotomy is set up by the nature of guilty/not guilty in the form of prosecution and defense. In this context, the closest we can get to truth is victory (and it's kind of sad that victory equals truth, but what can you do to defeat physics, with its life/death levels of human consciousness, etc.? (and yes, you betcher ayass human consciousness is a physical level. But let's save that for another set of too damn many parentheses (appearing in some other blog entry))).

In this country, we find ourselves stuck with another false dichotomy: (D) and (R), "conservative" and "liberal," with me or against me. This [sad state of affairs] + [nearly 300,000,000 people] = [you must lie to manipulate enough minds to create anything resembling consensus]. You must lie to create a truth enough people, mostly uneducated, mostly ignorant of important facts (whether by design, laziness, whatever combination of elements) can recognize
and respond to. You must lie to win. Just win, baby! Mission accomplished.

In this Jewish World Review article I assume you just read (making an "ass" of "u" and "me"), you were affected uncomfortably by statements like "Some were reportedly peaceful and even patriotic," which make it sound as though most - much more than merely "any" - of the recent protests by immigrants were violent. And who reports what is patriotic? Is there a ratio of US flags to protesters that must be reached to conform to some operational definition of "patriotic?" In the same article, just skimming through it now

"sleeping giant:" a reference to Pearl Harbor. When I saw people protesting on the streets a few weeks ago waving Mexican and US flags, hoping to make life better for themselves and their families, I felt like a part of Hawaii was on fire, full of death.
"the very system they circumvented...humility:" Who's circumventing? Corporations and proprietors of businesses of all sizes, circumventing payroll taxes (that are supposed to be reported and paid on a consistent basis for all their legal employees), circumventing insurance costs, circumventing workman's compensation...and passing all those costs on to other, honest corporations and the public as a whole. If only those corporations could do the right thing and just refuse to hire those evil, illegal immigrants. And humility? Shee-it, just imagine David Limbaugh (wonder if he was dumb enough to be related) bringing his family hundreds of miles, paying his life savings to strangers who may just leave him to bake to death inside a moving van, in hopes of a slightly better standard of living.
"Bush's Achilles' heel in the War on Terror:" Not to mention the theft of another's body parts, what the Kryste does illegal immigration across this particular border have to do with the War on Terror? It's like saying you'd rather drown than choke: I don't think anyone involved in 9/11 snuck across the Mexico-US border. I'm pretty sure it's because it would be too dangerous, and one would risk too many trained, valuable combat resources. People need to be desparate to try and cross that border.

The quotes get less mind-boggling after the writer has already shaken the baby a few times, but there is some stuff about national pride, assimilation, and adoption of our language. Here I must admit things get a lot more complicated: personally, I would like to see borders disappear so there are no countries to attack, nowhere with cheaper labor or easier laws to exploit, and everyone speaking English so I don't ever have to get around to learning Spanish (I have books and software and plenty of people with whom to practice, but the words get in the way).

Nowadays I am a businessman, and it only makes sense to treat everyone fairly, to learn how to communicate with any sizeable group of people nearby who speak a different language. There is a lot of pressure on "monolinguals" (which I hope picks up a negative connotation ASAP) to learn a second language in order to compete in business, to fight for jobs in the face of automation and higher population. It seems a lot easier for me to convince myself to learn Spanish than to convince thousands of others to learn English. This solves the assimilation problem, too: Americans feel so welcome in Europe (until our leaders do crasy things) because so many people in Belgium, Germany, France (my God--FRANCE?!) speak English. Get the point?

But as usual, no one who disagrees with me on more than relative details, is ever going to read anything I ever type. Damn.

More Souls...

2006-04-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

After all those years of acting like an animal, it turns our I was just profoundly lucky, not sterile. Another shrimp-sized/shaped Cheeto grows now in the belly of my Beautiful Wife, Cheetah.

The only other thing happening recently of any interest: I forwarded a pornographic entry written by an "onanista," to my good friend Sleeve. Truly amazing what those onanists do.

To read and bleed from your own eyes.

Preamble

2006-03-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

You may remember "Preamble" not only as the first part of our great Constitution, but also as a catchy-as-Hell (yes, Hell is VERY catchy) song. Try this some time: have a beautiful child of your own playing, walking, and learning around as you listen to Schoolhouse Rock, and see what things come to mind.

My first excitement came from hearing "Verb," a super-badass song from Grammar Rock, after so many years. I've been singing that for some time now. Any song that ends with "To LOVE" so powerfully in the innocent context of teaching kids the parts of speech...oh, yeah.

But today things took a hard turn to the Right for me. As I sang along to "Preamble," from American Rock, my voice cracked and I began to cry. I'm not a pussy, I'm a closet Patriot - which may be worse.

"We the People
In order to form a more perfect union..."

The words themselves, so pure and strong, still emanating a giant potential from those ancient quills--what the fuck happened?

"Promote the general welfare...?"

When I tried to sing it, tears welled up in my eyes, and I think it's more than the idea of how much I've changed since childhood. It's how much this country has changed, in my mind.

I know you've chugged enough rhetorical paste already, but still! the sense of how doped up we are by media sources so totally dedicated to profits that newsrooms can hardly afford to report or research the news, that people are allowed a vote equal to mine after considering it a genuine education in current events to listen to people shout at each other a half hour at a time on pseudo-news channels; that we as a public were stupid enough to twice consecutively elect a President who is an embarrassment each and every time he opens his mouth; that we have as our best hope of achieving balance in the false dichotomy that is American politics, a political party that refuses to believe it has completely failed to define itself in coherent terms for the stupid public it needs; that members of Congress can insert words into the congressional record exactly as if they had been actually spoken on the floor (how can that possibly promote the general welfare?); that at this point in history, no one in Congress could actually accomplish anything without being filthy; and on and fucking on.

And this is still the greatest time in my life, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Gordie Howeian Knot

2006-03-15T20:56:00.000-08:00

A compelling hockey figure, Gordie Howe even played a little in the National Hockey League at the age of 50, coming out of retirement for some reason the writer cannot recall just now. Who cares. The matter at hand is a terrible injustice committed against this great sportsman by the elitist historian culture that forces a warped fairy-tale upon the quivering, anticipating wet minds of innocent seekers of knowledge worldwide, and it can all be traced back to loser geeks getting their asses kicked by jocks.
A sort of "beer-drinking everyman" crossed with some Platonic perfection of humankind that could only have been conceived by the mind of, well, Plato, Mr. Howe was a happy drunk. Gordie, nicknamed "Ol' Gordie," "Mr. Howe," and "Gordie" by those closest to him who dared to speak, was not so happy when sober. In his prime during simpler days in the sport of hockey, he was feared and respected as a dangerous fighter both on the ice and off when sober, and a man's man wherever he was plastered. It was during one legendary battle that Howe imposed his will upon a lesser hockey mortal/sodomite/punching bag/flesh pretzel to the point that Dick Schapp remarked, "He tied Wyzcklshvnrnski in a goddamned Gordiean Knot!"
And this is where our story takes a turn toward the sad patch of the hockey ice. Although film of this game is archived at the Smithsanian Institute in Scranton Pennsylvania (home of the Wire Coat Hanger Hall of Fame), it sits all but forgotten within a labyrinthine Dewey Decimation System. The stroke of genius by Schapp, originally shouted during a regular-season contest in August 1971 (and never since, because Schapp is dead), has now been subverted to the point that it is totally buried beneath the weight of a replacement lie, shoveled over by the mouthful.
For nearly four decades, thin-armed revisionists have spread sickening Greek stories to steal Dick's glory and erase the memory of a fantastic sports moment, out of nothing more intriguing than petty revenge. An entire industry of crybabies cannot get past a few long-ago atomic wedgies and brutal little beatings, and exacts its revenge on a helpless old toothless man. Now the Gordian Knot is just a fake story about Alexander the Great who, ironically, was a jock.

Binary Opposition

2006-03-12T07:34:00.000-08:00

Hey, either dichotomy is useful, or it's not. I can see the moment long ago when one filthy sonofabitch crawled out of the cave, pointed at a bird in the sky, and grunted. That utterance became the word for "bird" as soon as it was shared with another, perhaps as soon as it was remembered in the internal workings of that ancient, filthy sonofabitch.
It is not my way to actually READ anything anymore that comes in book form; I merely OWN those and act is if I've read them after reading about the subject in cheaper forms on the Internet, for instance. I appreciate Jacques' rebellion against the thousands of years before his, even though they are another masculine response to reality including his philosophical peers. I suppose that's why I don't find much reference to deconstuctionism in feminist texts. Of course, I haven't gotten around to reading much of that material, but it has also always been my way to speak at least a year before I know what I'm saying.

Babies Assuss

2006-03-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

Wiggling through various blogs on this thing I enjoyed reading texfiles.blogspot.com. What an amazing mind! Somewhere in all that is a musing about writing one's bio which is really entertaining.
Have you ever felt your mind getting in its own way? That's part of why I wear out the BACKSPACE key on all computers I touch. But at least, being at the top end of articulation, some people can distinguish the near-infinite layers of named and unnamed things impinging on the purity of the Universe during all the necessary isolations that make up consciousness, thusly:

But surreally, one splinters oneself to read oneself (if done in the cult of sincerity) sentimentally endorsing the advertising of self via ones writing, plying audience in the most baldfaced way:

Hi, here I am commodifying myself in telling you what I've been doing with myself in writing without saying I am doing so, and pretending someone else is telling you, so that you will be convinced of my forthright ethos in my wish to draw you to my writing. Sell yourself, as they counsel job seekers, sell you as a self to get them to buy you, to get what you need/want. Got it?

But, hey, what if you don't want to sell your self or yourself?
Well, you are beautiful, but what are you doing writing? A book, article, poem, work of art, or whatever else you create, is a commodity if it's being published. It is presumed that your words have value, and you are writing them with the expectation that they will be appreciated by readers. If you want to avoid absurdity in the writing of a bio, you will have to avoid writing a bio. If you are getting published, someone is expecting to earn money. Maybe you should refuse to write a bio, expecting your writing to have sufficient credibility by itself (which I have no doubt it has). Pieces of your soul have been taken with every photo, including all your toes.

But of course, the best way to go with writing a bio is to embrace absurdity, to DIVE INTO those pitfalls of which you spoke on Friday, February 10, 2006. Hell, why bother being honest in your bio? Who's to say you didn't invent Chewbacco, at least in some alternate reality?

The main thing I'm trying to get across here is, visit this person's blog, be amazed, buy her works so she can get past the bio and all the other problems of this point in materialist history.

Complaining is a Great Way to Meet People

2006-03-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

Lord (or whatever) knows it's hard to find an audience and keep 'em where you want 'em if you're forcing yourself to speak for free, to people who are forcing themselves to listen. For free.

Shrinks are ear-whores. Alleged de facto shamans to many these days, they earn livings Phil-ling all kinds of voids these days, for the audience of pain and/or the cackling jackasses seeking to escape themselves by watching you. Different from the opening scenario above (which is you reading this, silly), someone is damn sure they need to give a piece of their maimed mind, and someone is ready to take it for a few shillings.

So I had a client for a very short time who happened to be a Shrink. Shrink owns quite a lot of real estate, and I've determined that he is so wealthy because he's a badass when it comes to avoiding giving others their due. We met when he needed to evict some of his tenants from an apartment. His "friend" (which usually reads in my business as "someone stupid enough to eat shit or degrade himself in some other way as a mere favor that will save me money") had found a nice lady who was keeping up on her methadone treatments, etc., etc., but now she wasn't paying any rent and "friend" had "left the country." Always ready for adventure, or at least liability exposure, I agreed to complete an eviction for a small fee. I visited the apartment with Shrink and we found plenty of evidence of crank use and people selling off their filled prescriptions: bottles of medicine with probably about 5 different peoples' names, small pieces of tin foil in curious shapes, dismantled BIC pens, biker porn. At this point, Shrink and I stood together at the heights of propriety.

To speed things up a bit (because the "they were using drugs" part of these stories is always much more interesting than the "I didn't get paid" part of the story), the last I heard from Shrink was a phone message saying that he had sold the place and wanted to know how much he owed. I tallied it up, sent a letter and copies, and haven't heard from him since, even after follow-up calls.

I would not normally be TOO too irritated about this sort of thing, because it is my experience that a good portion of wealthy people will make you miserable before you get paid for the fair service you have given them. Somewhere in there, you can expect a little bit of massaging (mostly pounding) about the price of your fair service. People giving up makes others wealthy - it's one of the secrets the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy leaves you to discover for yourself.

But shit, the man is a psychologist! Faux shaman, replacement moral compass for some, stable force in life for others, just a walking implication of decency and honesty, at least to me. I now picture him laughing and smokin' it up with the very people evicted from his apartment for nonpayment of rent. I am always amazed at how inconsistent people are from one part of their lives to another: from profession to investment to love, honest in some, creepycrazy in others.

Well, I feel better now, and I suspect that I've made a new friend.