political filler

[Mason Payne]

i will push aside for the moment the likelihood that W will get tens of thousands killed while he's hidden three miles below the Blue Ridge Mountains. Focusing on the fact that our captain has no intention of going down with his ship is no way to get the bigger picture.

politics has been reduced to the dregs that are the advertisers. Campaigns are won and lost over ad dollars. actual issues and policies are watered down to make them ineffectual, and thus safe for a politician to vote for (or against) without offending either voters or (perhaps more importantly) contributers.

now its more than just elections, ad-(wo)men are slithering in and attempting to effect change in policy, trying to use ad-style manipulation to convince an under-educated public we need to kill iraqies.

there is no longer an attempt to educate the masses on the Facts and the Truth, instead we are simply being told to "trust W," "trust rummy," "saddam is evil," "things are different after 9-11."

sorry, but they are not. we still ought to strive for peace and remain subject to the international laws we fought to establish. we ought to remove manipulative pratices from political activity (good luck!) and resist giving our liberties away, and cease taking away the liberties of others.

 

[Mason Payne]

us or U.S.

the constant yakking about killing this person, killing that person, evil here and everywhere, its childish. foolish. it lacks the most important aspect of politics, which is understanding.

If our leader has no more understanding of the people he wants to go and kill than he does of the very people he claims to be acting in defense of, how will he succeed? who will benefit?

I can guess that homeless people in my city will remain hungry, cold, and alone this winter, saddam or no saddam.

I can guess that the quality of education in impoverished school districts will see little change with American soldiers in Baghdad.

and i'm quite sure a plan will eventually deal with these problems, and it will trickle very very slowly.

i have read that society has matured in such a way that we are losing our group nature. we are becoming a society of loners, to varying degrees. we accept lonliness, abandonment in the way we conduct most of our daily activities... the book is called Bowling alone, and to be honest i'm not done with it yet.

i get to reading it and stop and apply it to more current events. this country has (and will again) attacked countries the size of Maryland. Countries whose armies may have difficulty handling a bunch of drunk fratties after a football game. millions of us don't want the US doing shit like that, but we can do nothing to stop it. try calling your senator, enjoy the fancy way of being told to fuck off. (unless you live in one of those few places unlike the south)

there is some resistence. it's divided and disorganized. how do you fight money in a world where money is king, judge, jury, executioner... it seems so many just give up, just hide away. i hate that feeling, the desire to give up or run away. i hate the feeling that there is little that can ge done.

 

[Mason Payne]

sick

i am a sick dog today.

i was supposed to be rehearsing right now, but am too congested to breathe through my nose. it is dificult to play the drums without breathing.

i couldn't read the Times today because my head hurt and reading about what goes on in this country will make it worse. i did read the local paper, which is so biased-right wing it is only funny.

in virginia, you see, there is a big deal about the descendents of confederate veterans getting their own special license plate. Its not bad enough that there are so many "2 CUTE 4U" and the like down here, thats apparently not enough.

there are probably over 100 different designs you can choose from for your car tag in VA. that not being enough, the sons of confederate vets want their own which features the good ol' stars and bars.

it should go without saying that different people have different feelings when confronted with the Confederate Flag. A good many associate it with the army who was fighting to maintain the right to enslave other humans. whether that is the only thing it stands for or not is beyond the point. i do not think i need explain.

well, VA is also posting the all the GOD rhetoric in schools, making it harder for lower class people who hapen to be gay to purchase a house, cutting back on education, ugh... my head.

why, i must ask, does anyone not making a minimum of seven figures vote republican? this i will never understand. women? why? republicans are against the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. republicans ("small government") want to have laws that pertain to the female body. republicans want to reduce paid maternity time off mandates. health care? don't even ask!

not that the dems are such a force. most of them weak and unwilling to stand for anything. ugh.

its hard to have hope anymore. whatever the american dream may be it necessitates selective blindness to achieve it. i had some hope in Nader, i'll admit. chance or no chance, he said the things that needed to be said. i hope more people were listening than it seems.

i wonder what it would take to spark revolution in the US. people fear change, at least as long as they have something to lose. it is being glossed over now, but a lot of people are losing everything. a lot are losing hope.

my friend lost hope and killed himself. he didn't see a way out. its a shame that at our lowest points of despair, we all too often lash out at ourselves...especially when it isn't necessarily we who are to blame.

cheer up.
mason

 

[Mason Payne]

people who suck.

The exploding smiley face is disturbing me. i wonder if there is a way to make that go away.

there was a man who came into my workplace today. he needed to buy something for his daughter's birthday party. he wanted something that would make the party "like a disco."

i said to him "what, like coke?" and this got him all disgusted looking.

"She's just 8," he says to me, like if she were older it would be one thing...

It was just a joke anyway, so i found him a couple of "disco-y" lights and what-all and sent him on his way.

This wouldn't be much of a story except i just ran into the guy again at the beer store. (they actually have more items for sale than just beer, but i think thats all that ever gets bought.) he says "hey man, your the guy from the store."

yeah.

the guy has one of those 18 packs of Miller Lite, which he points out, in a very clever manner, that it is now "miller time."

ha!

so out he goes and in a moment out i come with my little handful of adult beverage, and there the guy is again. just kind of standing there in the parking lot.

"hey man," he says to me, "hey!"

so i walk over to him and say something like lock yourself out? or forget something? i forget, doesn't matter.

The guy looks around and says "hey, were you serious about that coke?"

no

i really have nothing to say further about this guy.

when i got home there was a little girl on my fron porch wiping the blood from her scraped forhead. her bike was between some parked cars. i asked her if she was alright and her mom, who was standing on the sidewalk playing with a baby in a stroller said "just ignore her, she's jealous of her new brother."

The little girl jumped up, grabbed her bike, and hustled it down the street. I looked at the woman who was still ducked down into the little baby carriage, she was a liitle overweight and clearly well-off, judging by the clothes, the rings (eight by my count), the necklace (pearls? for an evening stroll!), the hair-do, etc...

"see?" she says and holds up the kid, "he's Calvin," just waving him around like a new doll, his legs just dangling and limp, his mouth open, his face glaring and mindless... "isn't he DARLING??"

Down the street i hear a horn blow, it make me jump and i immediately picture the little girl out in the street with her bike and the tissue on her forehead... look down towards the intersection, straining to see if there is any commotion.

"ISN'T HE?!?" she says again...

I have nothing more to say about her either.

g'day
mason

 

[Mason Payne]

nothing on the grand scale of stupid happened today. not im my little world. in the big stupid world lots of stupid happened, seeing as how the whole thing's piloted by a twit.

i am too exhausted from work to bitch about politics. there's an awful lot of violence in the news it seems. not the kill saddam kind or the depressing local news kind. more like the "shocking" national news kind, the kind the talking heads get a kick out of reporting... like they get an opportunity to use their "serious face"
then the big issue is finding a segue way from a drive by sniper to sports.

you see, serious face or not, we got to get to sports scores, and its got to be smooth.

something else. how can "headline news" give almost five straight minutes to a report on a new movie (red dragon) and less than 30 seconds to economic downturn, increasing poverty, lay-offs, increasing crime and loss of medical care combined. ignore it and it will go away.

am i the only one who agrees that Bush and Saddam should just go take care of this whole thing with a duel... just one bullet, no unintended casualities, no increased spending...

or maybe the two of them should get a room, for gods sake.

enough politics. just found out i have to go play in S. Carolina for Halloween weekend. no offense to S.C., which i'm sure will be lovely and so-on, but its a lot of driving for what i'm sure will be little pay. and what is in S.C? i've driven through it. can't remember seeing anything. . .

maybe i'll rant a little later. this post has been uninspired. perhaps a pint or so will loosen the fingers.

love,
mason

 

[Mason Payne]

little story

it was mexico.

it was 1996.

i had to leave Texas due to a minor infraction with the law. a weekend stay in san antonio cost me my car, my apartment in austin and thirteen hundred dollars.

sam was supposed to pick me up at a place called dirty dicks. she knew a bartender named carly. carly was at least 200 pounds and every bit of it wings and beer. didn't really care to know how she knew him.

i sat at dicks talking to the guy who said he hadn't seen sam in six years. shit i said. six years ago i was in high school.

she didn't show. without her the car was as good as lost. further, i couldn't go back to austin. the money had to get there with me. so carly says to go south and lay low. he says take a little vacation, ain't you ever seen a donkey show?

i couldn't stay in town when i crossed the border. went two hours south east with a guy named pelo. his wifes name, i think, was saralinda or something that sounded like that. she yelled a lot. she didn't like me being in the car. pelo said she was needing some sleep and she was alright if i understood..

i did.

he dropped me at a ranch called con dobe. something like that. my spanish was bad in those days and i only knew "spain" spanish as it were which caused me some troubles here and there.

at the ranch there was an american. he was erik, but they called him cacu. pronounced like cock-eww... something like that. never knew what it meant.

erik was a wanna-be drug smuggler, but he had no money. a lot of the people at con dobe had nothing. i was pretty concerned about that right away. i was fealing like i might well be the sucker. i sure as hell had no intention to stay there, there was, in my mind, a great deal of difference between me and those people.

erik told me he knew some people near round rock who could help us out with a place to stay in the states and maybe could help me find the car. i asked him if that was so, why was he here.
he said they were waiting for him to bring back a "score."

he had no score, and had no means to bring it anyway. he did have an idea, though.

the idea was to take the car from the boss on thursday because thats when he heads off with his brother to some other ranch or something. thursday was only the next day so i told him we should do it.

i didn't sleep that night since i had a good deal of money on me (compared to the rest of the people there), and i had no knife or gun or anyway to fight anyone off.

the next morning the jefe-boss left and me and erik just took the car.

no one even flinched. here's the problem, though. neither of us had a damn clue where we were going. i remembered a few intersections, but not enough. a we got good and lost, found a little town where my spanish was enough to amuse a few drunks, and eriks was enough to get us run out of a few places.

we eventually ran out of gas about five minutes out of nowhere. no one would pick us up for a while, not until a couple of dirtbikes pull up on us.

the first one asks me que pas... and i say texas, and point in our direction. he laughs and points another direction and says texas. i try to ask for a ride and they are laughing at me. meanwhile erik is backing into the brush at the side of the dirt road.

get on, the second guy says, and i do. they don't even look at erik, just pull away.

god knows how long...four hours?..they drop me t a truck stop on 35. texas, the guy says. i reach in my bag and offer them about half a liter of bourbon. the first guy takes it and they drive off.

again, i'm deserted. a driver says he'll give me a ride if i pay for his dinner. i say sure, be right back. i call up my old room mate who tells me he's seen sam around the restaurant she works at time to time. says shes pissed at me. i tell him to tell her i'm coming there now.

i buy the trucker a sizzilin' steak and potato platter--$5.99--and he drops me right at the 6th street exit. i walk down to the place sam works at and wait around for her to show. she does at about 1:30 am. she has my car. she has most of my money. and none of it has found its way to my landlord.

"your shits on your front lawn" she says. "i grabbed your CDs and guitar for you"

what the hell is all i can ask. i ask it a lot. she starts choking a little, getting a little red in the eyes, calls me an asshole, then she loves me...

there's people who want that money, sam, i say.

dammit, she says. don't you understand? she says it again, don't you understand?

i guess i did.

 

[Mason Payne]

bunch of questions. no answers.

i've reformed that stupid kid.
i made him keep the good and leave the bad far behind. made him leave it in memory, and if it needs more, pretend. just write that dumb shit out and quit getting his dumb ass into trouble.

there's a process some of us have to go through, that maybe others take care of earlier in life. call it maturing, call it being responsible, call it giving up... its the point where ramen is no longer good enough. where the bank account stays in triple digits always, then quadruple and so on.

when the job is no longer one that can be forgotten if the hangover is bad enough. when someone else suffers when you fuck up.

not sure where, in that "progress," does the artist in the heart of the hanger-on to freedom/irresponsibility/living begin to lose the innocent nature it had. can you really conform to the capitalist, consumer world and still reject it in your heart?

what? is that the problem? is it a sell out situation?

what am i asking? here's what i think it is... can someone really fight the system from within? it seems to be absolute, corrupting. It seems that once in, legitimacy is lost. once in, your ideals must merge with the status quo, then hope to find little victories.

is there real revolution without violence? is there real politics between the diametrically apposed. by politics, i mean concessions, give and take, understanding, acceptance, humility. can the truely wise prevail in times of gross material consumption? what defines quality? how do we choose our leader? what does it take to lead? where are they hiding the truely wise? why aren't they in charge? why is the free world run by trust funders and nixonites?

are we being bought? or sold?

why do i get the feeling "we" are no longer in control?


when is a kiss just a kiss?
mason

 

[Mason Payne]

back from hiatus

hmmm...
forget the login, forgot the password. finally remembered both, nuthin' good to say.

Here's a brief story, then i'm going to sleep. no, i'm going to drink one more beer, then go to sleep...

or two.

three plain looking blonde girls--probably not "natural" blonde as in curtains and rugs and so on--standing outside the club we just played at. this is in pittsburgh by the way. one of them is talking on a cell phone, she is upset with the person on the other end of the call for "playin."

The second blonde girl is speaking to the bassist in the band about the matching of her underwear. She is speaking about it very loudly. like this:

--Usually i wouldn't wear panties [note it is for whatever reason uncomfortable writing the word panties. i have no explanation for that]. tonight I [again, this is the second blonde speaking] am wearing red ones. and i am wearing a red bra, see?

she shows this to the bassist in the band, which to be honest, everyone was already aware of without the gratuitous unbuttoning...

--you wanna know why i don't usually wear them??

and so on. the bassist in the band can stomach a lot of this kind of thing, i could not. i went over to the van where the third blonde woman was petting our dog. she askied if it had a name and i said it did and that seemed alright with her.

we had to leave and the story would have ended here except one of the three, the one with the phone, had disappeared. The rest of the band could have cared less, but the bass player--always the kind sort--decided to help his new friend locate the lost girl.

it would be three hours before we would see him again, and he had little to say about the whole thing except that he got real lost and so-on.
The band itself was pretty pissed, but more pissed was the third blonde who was left to wait at the van with us, apparently not in on whatever plan had been formed. Further, it turns out, she is not familiar with the area and it being incredibly late she is very scared to be left alone out there visibly drunk.

 

[Mason Payne]

continued

sorry...

anyway, so we end up trying to drop this person off at a place that turns out to be her parents house. She also manages to lose the ability to walk during the ride and falls out of the van, busting her lip on the sidewalk.

Ok, now she's kind of half in half out of the van, so mr. bassist an I carry the girl up to the house and lean her against the door.

here's the stupid part.

we ask her for directions to the nearest hotel. I have no explanation for what happens next. She starts cursing us as loud as she can manage and within seconds the dad is at the door.
He wants to know who the hell we are, and why she is so drunk and what time it is and every thing else.

we start to explain ourselves but the girl gets sick on the porch right about that moment and dad starts to drag her indoors yelling "you sons-a-bitches stay right there."

of course we did no such thing.

what does all this have to do with politics?
well, nothing i guess. i can't write anymore about politics right now. believe me, i write a lot, and it is usually about bush and how much i dislike him. but its late and i'm going to sleep in my own bed finally.

after a beer.