1 Sept. 2003/Monday
Well, here we go again. Another day dawns on the carnage in Iraq and another death flogs the world with pain, as another birth thrills the earth with joy. What will those gods think of next?
Referencing a recent entry from another blogger, it’s no surprise that the Republican Party can speak out of both sides of it’s neck, so to speak – promoting a philandering, dope-consuming womanizer like Arnold Schwarzenegger (a closet Nazi if ever there was one) – while crying foul over the issue of removing a 10 Commandments monument from a judicial building in Alabama. They perfected the art form in the late ‘60s early ‘70s with the advent of Nixon’s famous Watergate fiasco. Hell, all the dirty little creeps who participated in that blundering fuck-up made millions from book sales, TV appearances, college speaking engagements, etc., and that was ONLY BECAUSE THEY GOT CAUGHT! If they’d gotten away with the shenanigans (how’s that for an old-fart word?) it would simply have been business as usual (BAU).
So, no, it’s no surprise at all that the GOP backs a thug like ‘Ahnald’ without so much as a smirk, especially when it’s California politics we’re talking about. Hey, the Golden State is known for it’s screwy politicos and oddball manuevers (see: Harvey Milk; murder and Twinkies defense).
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Aaahnald challenge Gray Davis to an arm-wrestling contest for the governor’s office. And the electorate would probably support the notion too!

So here’s to ya, California. I know ye well, ye scalliwag. I know your slimy little underside, as well as your fudgy little backside, ya whore. And yea, we all know that most Californians are nitwits and are so neurotic or psychotic that they’re glued together with some sort of psychotropic drug or mood-altering substance, staying loaded 24/7 just to be able to tolerate facing their image in the mirror. Ain’t life grand?
Now, for some nuance and nicety – the true reality that IS reality: My job is a piece of crap and anyone who wants to enter the field of journalism should understand one thing up front, and that is this; no one gives a damn what you think, feel or hope to achieve!

Ads and ad space are all important and editorial content is just the gravy on the spuds, the ribbons in the hair, the false eyelashes on the bloodshot orbs that gaze upon the world with a pulsating, greedy sneer which masks a bottomless appetite for hard, cold CASH!

When that college professor tells you that you’ll never get rich being a journalist LISTEN! He or she isn’t kidding. In fact, that person probably tried to make it as a reporter, filled with a passion for fair play, setting out to expose the mighty when they stray off the path of righteousness and trod upon the poor and ill-bred (see: Most of us), causing untold agonies and perpetrating treachery most foul. It’s a bunch of crap! And forget about Woodward and Bernstein and the famous president-toppling reportage they did in ‘71 and ‘72. That was a fluke! A fluke I tell ya. Edward R. Murrow is long-dead, and truth be told, nearly all publishers have their snouts so deeply immersed in the schmooz-trough – you know, hanging out with the power brokers, golfing with the mayor, banging the bank president's wife and sucking up to the almighty ADVERTISERS, et al – that they go to great pains to make sure reporters avoid impugning or offending their cronies (read: advertisers ... again), even unto the harsh snap of the whip (*crack!* You’re outta here ... fired, ya bum).
If you’re lucky, you’ll get assigned a beat, meet some folks you can, on occasion, trust to provide you with accurate information, and wind up writing the rare piece that draws a snippet of praise from your envious, salacious peers. Believe me. You’d be better off selling your ass on Main Street than becoming a journalist. Look at Bill O’Reilly, for Christ’s sake! He’s the embodiment of the new journalism and he’s an obnoxious boor with a greasy, slippery grasp on reality, let alone truth. TRUTH? Hell, O'Reilly wouldn't recognize truth if it appeared to him as a burning bush and spoke its name loud and clear.

If you want truth gaze into your dog’s eyes and pretend, no, believe you know what he/she is thinking. That’s about as close to the truth as most of us can get these days.

Truth is a gauzy, diaphanous, nebulous fog, hidden beneath a blanket of darkness so thick it might as well be a black hole.

And besides, someone famous, some reporter I believe, once said "I'm not in the business of truth. That's for pastors and priests. I'm in the business of facts and only the facts that are accurate today. They may change tomorrow."

If you must write and hope to make a living scribbling, then write for yourself and only about that which you know and love.

C’est la vie.