Author: Dick

Weasel and the white boys (not so) cool.

If you have ever read this blog before you know that certain individuals are usually identified by specific names that might not be their real names but rather something I call them. It isn’t that I call them these names because I might otherwise forget who they are. No, I only wish that I could forget some of these folks. For instance: Gee Dubya, a.k.a. President George Walker Bush, or The Weasel, a.k.a., Attorney General Alberto “V.O. 5” Gonzales. I call Bush Gee Dubya because others have beat me to other nicknames, the late Molly Ivins, for instance called him “Shrub.” I refer to our alleged attorney general as The Weasel because his expressions combined with his actions often remind me of a weasel. Of course, not all weasels are evil and arrogant.

With Gonzales being grilled recently in congressional hearings and hearing his name mentioned so much, naturally the Rickie Lee Jones song “Weasel in a White Boys Cool” ran through my head. I say naturally perhaps it is because of these lines from her great tune:

“He was pretty sleazy when I met him
A weasel in a poor boy’s wool … “

Of course, I never met Alberto but when I first started knowing very much about him was after he was already an attorney general who wonders why people get upset about torturing prisoners or eavesdropping on their phone calls without a warrant. The poor boy part is just, I guess, artistic license.

Whether this latest circus involving Gonzales and the firing of his U.S. Attorneys turns into something that will make him go away, either from the Justice Department or to prison, only time will tell. And one can only hope.

What is more important is why don’t you hear Rickie Lee Jones on the radio? Even some of the better stations I come across from time-to-time (across the board they aren’t in the southeastern part of Texas)don’t play anything Ricky Lee perhaps maybe “Chuck E.’s in Love.” That was not even the best song on her 1979 self-titled album. While I like “Weasel in a White Boys Cool,” the song, I think that even better is “Danny’s All-Star Joint.”

“Downstairs at Danny’s all-star joint
They got a juke box that goes doyt-doyt
The vice is nice, they stay in the back all day
But when the nighttime comes, hey-hey
There’s this cat down there that makes a bad kinda soup
I come around struttin’ my luck in my shoop coupe
Cecil gives me coffee
And he won’t never take my coin
I say, ” I got thirty dollars in my pocket!
Whatchoo doin’? “

I holler, ” Come on, Cecil, take a dollar!
Come on, Cecil, take a ten!
I’ve finally geared up into a whole buncha big ones
And you’re actin’ like I’m down-shiftin’ “

Then perhaps one of the best lines ever:

“I’m in a halfway house on a one-way street
And I’m a quarter past left alive “

Not that I’ve been in a halfway house on a one-way street or on any other kind of street, other than to visit someone. But I think the line puts into perspective just how screwed up things can be sometimes in your life.

Getting back to reality, relatively speaking, I don’t know what will happen to The Weasel Gonzales. But Rickie Lee has out a new album called “The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard” and I hope to hear it sometime. Maybe Gonzales will resign and perhaps Rickie Lee’s CD (I keep calling them albums for some reason, like being an ancient fart)will be wildly popular if it so deserves.

And maybe I will win the lottery. Rickie Lee probably has a better chance having another hit than fate dealing Gonzales a well-deserved losing hand (and my winning the lottery) But one can always dream.

It is a rather long story of how I came to watch the Neches River Festival Parade today in downtown Beaumont, Texas. The festival celebrates the Neches (NAY-chez)River, which flows down the city’s eastern side on its way to join the Sabine River at Sabine Lake, which is more bay than lake just north of the Gulf of Mexico. The river acts as a waterway for the big ships that dock in the Port of Beaumont. Those ships carry everything from petrochemical products to Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1-A2 tanks heading from Fort Hood to Iraq.

Mayoral candidate Becky Ames and her little dog too.

As you can see, Becky Ames is a council member at-large. I don’t think she is very large, however. As a matter of fact, I think she’s just right. Nonetheless, she is running for mayor of Beaumont and I don’t know why she can’t advertise the fact while riding in the parade. Perhaps it is common courtesy, maybe it has to do with our election laws. She has been on the council for awhile and I have no idea how well she would do as mayor. I just haven’t followed city politics all that closely. I do know that the King of the Neches River Festival is the outgoing mayor Guy Goodson. Perhaps Councilwoman Ames could be named King of the Neches River Festival (or Queen) if she is elected and term-limited as mayor. Beats me.

Nothing brightens up a parade like a pretty, young girl.

This pretty, young and pretty young girl was riding on a float with other pretty, young girls. By float, I mean a flatbed trailer of the sort that heavy machinery such as Caterpillar tractors are carried upon. Actually, there were quite a few pretty, young girls on this trailer and I cropped all but this one out. The reason was that she had a pretty smile and secondly because my photo skills suck. I will leave it at that.

Why did people keep throwing these things at me?

Usually, I don’t collect Mardi Gras beads. But since it wasn’t Mardi Gras and since kids on these huge floats kept throwing them at me, I decided to pick them up. Yes, it is a crappy picture. No, I don’t really give a damn.

Just when you thought the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings might settle down to allow those affected a chance to heal emotionally, along comes those nutso anti-gay fanatics from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. You know, those folks with the catchy Web site, godhatesfags.com?

Those fine Kansas Christians plan to picket the funeral of Virginia Tech shooting victim Ryan Clark which is to be held tomorrow in Evans, Ga.

The Westboro gang are the ones who picket funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, the fanatics’ reason being that God (apparently the angry one)is punishing our country for its “sodomite” ways.

Now, especially in the wake of what happened in Virginia, I don’t advocate violence. But sometimes actions such as those of these nuts from Westboro make me think they need to be slapped silly. Who knows, perhaps their angry God will turn on them.

A report a short while ago on NPR told about how the young students were despairing of all the media who have descended upon the area of Virginia Tech in the wake of the massacre there.

No doubt, you will find your basic Type A, overdriven, lack-of-common-sense reporter who would crawl under and over the dead to get a comment. But most are not like that and are doing a job, as some who spoke to NPR agreed.

What some of these youngsters don’t get it that no one is forcing anyone else at gunpoint to speak to the media. Some seek out reporters because they want to tell the story of a friend or share their sentiment of something which has been truly awful.

One child, perhaps a high school student, complained to the NPR correspondent that the media were lurking around on My Space and Facebook to find potential respondents, or victims, depending on your point of view. Excuse me, but are these kids aware that when they put something online — with exceptions of course — that their stupid pictures and random thoughts and kittens and butterflies and unicorns all go out around the world? Ever hear of something called the WORLD WIDE WEB???

Oh my. That is about all I can bring myself to say. I think I might go to the beach for the weekend.

The blame game has started over the shootings at Virginia Tech after what appears to be the nations deadliest shooting incident. The news reports now at almost 8 p.m. CDT — about 12 hours after the first shots were fired — say at least 33 people were dead but it remains unclear if one or more shooters were involved.

It would be prudent for people to not start pointing fingers until the basic details have been sorted out. Of course, maybe the blame coming like lightning from cable TV and the Internet is a normal reaction if one subscribes the Elizabeth Kubler Ross model of grief. Kubler Ross said that the stages, which include anger, does not necessarily appear in order.

We will eventually see how this story plays out and who gets the biggest heap o’ blame beside the killer or killers. I suppose you just can’t fight grief.