R.I.P Maxine Frasella June 19th, 1995 – Sept. 2, 2008

Hello friends and fellow animal lovers of ours. We are sad to tell the news that on Tuesday the 2nd, we had to let go of our sweet sassy sue love child, Maxine Frasella (aka. Max Fras), so she could go meet her brother, the ever famous, Kramer at the Rainbow Bridge. Its been a bitch of a year for us and just when I think that nothing can possibly happen because of the amount of crap that we have dealt with which is more than our fair share, something else major happens that was totally unexpected. BTW, this is Mrs. Bmac, not my husband, Bmac, so what you are about to read is from my mouth. I just thought I should mention it was me since I am so mouthy lately, you could have trouble telling us apart. The only difference is that I seem to be the only one so far in our Mac team who has aquired what I am calling “My Turrets” after enduring all this shit. “My Turrets” is when I blurt stuff out or it seems to indadvertently just fly out of my mouth without thinking of how it may be percieved, who it may hurt, or how it might make me look. My turrets usually flares up at the most inappropriate times. I’m sure that Bmac would love for someone to invent some type of mouth tampon for me.

Just to give you an idea of what has actually been going on with The Bmac’s in 2008, up until Tuesday when we had to let go of Maxine, I will give you a short list of things we have been forced to face. We have had a tremendous amount of loss this year. I don’t want to appear as being a Debbie Downer because I’m the furthest thing from that. Seriously. I have just come to the realization that life is actually a cruel comedy and now I am starring in the 2008 series of it with Bmac as my unlucky sidekick. This is the time in life when you learn that good looks can’t even help you anymore and you find yourself living life with your hands blocking your face.

Ok, now to my “short list” (or is it?) I promised you:

First of all, my mom dying at the end of January almost took me down. Almost. Yeah, almost. Actually, every day I am still really challenged with it. I just try to bury it better so I don’t make others crazy. Even though she was sick and I knew it was going to happen, everything I thought I would feel and think, didn’t happen how I thought it would. Not even close. It sucks-it hurts really deep and is a pain never felt before-but no one else feels it with you-you feel totally alone-the end. The biggest shocker for me had to be how quiet everything got. One day the earth was spinning around like normal, when suddenly, it stopped like someone pulled the emergency brake and you hadn’t braced for it. I miss her every day and I hate that pain that goes along with it. Its something you can’t shake off.

Then, 13 days later on February 8th, Kramer dies at home in the arms of Bmac. Wow! Another thing that I really love? The shocker for that one was that he didn’t even die from his cancer. He was in remission! What the hell was happening here? Our little precious boy was gone. Just like that! His little heart just gave out. How long did he have a heart problem without us knowing! What the fuck was going on?

You would think it would end there but apparently that is NOT how this is going to play out for us. In late February, Bmac had to close up the doors to his business he had worked hard at building for the past 3 years. Hey everybody! Wanna play a game and try and guess why Bmac had to close his business that he slaved at for 6 days a week. Was it: 1. the economy, 2. someone thought it would be funny to see the looks on our faces, 3. that’s how the Bmac’s roll, or 4. all of the above.

I can’t speak for Bmcac but I think this may around the time I had officially lost my mind because all of a sudden it was March 1st and we driving an hour from here to pick up a homeless German Shorthaired Pointer. The GSP rescue called and asked if we could drive and pick him up and temporarily foster him for them. He had been wandering around for 3 weeks in some little town and no one seemed to know where he came from. It was sad that this little guy had no place to call home.

We decided to call him Mikey. Oh, sorry. I am getting ahead of the story. How it actually happened was about 2 weeks after Kramer was gone, I called my friend at the GSP rescue and told him that our house was so quiet without Kramer and we knew we were going to have to have another one at some point. That is when we hear that they had already set aside a dog for us who they think will be perfect for us named Gunner but knew I was busy packing my mom’s house up so didn’t tell us before then. The next week they called and asked if we could go get Mikey, or as we also like to refer to him, the homeless hobo dog, and foster him until we get up to the rescue. Sure, no problem. That’s we learned the true meaning of the word foster. It means giving them up at some point. Saying bye. Never knowing them longer than that short time. That’s the part that we couldn’t seem to do. Plus, I didn’t know how I was going to pry Mikey off of Bmac. Or was it pry Bmac off of Mikey? Whatever, they were attached at the hip. Did it really matter at that point. No. What really mattered at the time for me was that Bmac told me that if we could keep Mikey, I could still get Gunner. Woo Hoo! We never once thought that if we did that, it would mean 3 dogs! 3 large dogs? Thinking was something that we heard about other people doing but we were too busy to try it ourselves. Exactly 2 weeks after driving to pick up Mikey, we were now on our way to California, with Mikey in tow, but just to take a ride in the car, to rescue Gunner. I know what you are thinking. Idiots. Hey but Maxine was so happy when Mikey came home she would be really excited to have another young psycho dog named Gunner running around the house. She did have a new spring in her step with the new youngsters around. It was obvious that she was morning Kramer too.

When April rolled around, I had another death to deal withwhen a friend of mine died unexpectedly at 43 years of age. I mean, honestly. Come on? Does this ever stop? Life and all the crap that was happening was getting a little out of control and obviously no one seemed to hear me standing outside with my megaphone and screaming “UNCLE!” at the top of my lungs.

I was hoping and praying Maxine would make it until next year. Max was 13 years old but she was tough. I actually was the one who picked her out of the litter. She was Bmac’s dog and got her from our good friends who’s Chocolate Lab mama named Abbi and Yellow Lab daddy named George, just had a litter of nine little pups. This was well before Bmac and I even started dating. Max was great yet a handfull for Bmac. She was very loving, yet incredibly independent, and the most hard-headed bitch you ever met. She never did a single thing in her life she didn’t feel like doing, and it if she did, she only did it exactly when she felt like doing it. She ran the house, or so it seemed. From birth until about 3 years old, she was an absolute terror; a shredding machine that destoyed everything in her path. Bmac almost gave her away about 3000 times. He was reaching his wits end with her. Also, that girl had an iron stomach. She once ate a pair of glasses made with real glass that our friend Marnie had just gotten that day. She ingested them glass and all. She dug about a million holes in the yard in search of finding all the sources of where there was water. She was successful at it too. Bmac didn’t want that sprinkler system anyways so it was no big deal. I think she had something internal built into her that would be similar to those “Stud Finder” things that most guys have in their tool box. You know, its that one thingy they like to point at themselves and pretend they have found a stud instead of finding the stud in the wall. What most of our friends that would come over remember best is that she LOVED beer. If anyone gave her the littlest bit of beer, she was stuck to their side for the rest of the night. She would bark at them until they gave her more. She was a bit of a boozer but wore it well. She also was a licker. She would lick you until you walked away soaking wet, but hated being fussed over or loved on. SHE dispensed the love, not you. You were good to go as soon as you learned that from her.

She lived longer than either of her parents or siblings did, so obviously I chose well. She was never sick, or got hurt, she was a tank. I would get up at 4 in the morning and walk her and Kramer for 3 1/2 miles every day for many years. In 13 years, we can count on one hand how many trips she had to the vet, which she HATED with a passion.

We’re gonna miss stepping over you in the kitchen Max, where you loved to plop down right in our way, refusing to move. Or the hallway, or the bathroom, or the back patio in the morning. We will especially miss seeing you in your favorite place at the front door, where guests had to step over you to enter “your” house, and how dare they think you’re gonna move for them.

She loved “the boys” too. They were such a pain in the ass but she loved having them around and they were her pains in the asses. She loved keeping them in line and we thought it was keeping her young. So did the vet!

God speed to Kramer, our sweet little froggie sue! You were the reason we fell in love with and wanted more dogs. You were how we got Kramer. You will be forever remembered and we will meet again down the road. We love you more than we can express!

I suppose we should have realized that there was no way that the planets would realign and make life easier for us and maybe things could slow down a bit so we wouldn’t have to bend over and take yet another horrible experience up our asses without a kiss. I would have even taken just a hug if that was offered as an option. I will continue to scream UNCLE! Why the hell is no one responding? You’d think I’d know better by know. Life sucks right now, but it can only get better from here. Right?

Look at the list of the good stuff in 2008:

1. Hey, there is Wicked Pinto! Yippee!

Wussup?

How’s everybody doin? Haven’t been around these parts much lately. There’s a few reasons for that, including a new job, spending time in the gym, and generally trying to live a healthier lifestyle, physically and mentally.

One of the things about blogging about politics and news, is that it’s…….depressing. Constantly monitoring the news was really starting to bring me down, as it becomes a never-ending stream of idiotic bullshit, and frankly, I’m tired of being in a state of perpetual rage.

Instead, I’ve been concentrating on more positive things, eating better, smoking less, working out, and my new job which requires me to work a lot of swing and graveyard shifts, (that’s Vegas baby), so my time is split up all weird now.

I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll do in the coming weeks and months, but it will definitely not be on the level it was, maybe a post a week or something, if anyone is even still checking here at this point anyway.

Just thought I’d let y’all know.

Hi, I’m Still Alive

Sorry for the light posting, but I’ve been busy with all kinds of stuff. Probably get something up later today, as soon as something interesting happens. I hope my absense hasn’t ruined your life, I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Oh, and the check’s in the mail.

Russert Over Exposure?

This is an interesting take on the coverage of Tim Russert this weekend, and I have to say I agree with it.

A friend told me Sunday: “I now know more about Tim Russert than I do many members of my family.”

After Russert’s shocking death Friday at age 58, television kept serving up witnesses to his expertise, intelligence, diligence, kindness, faith, love of family, Buffalo and the Buffalo Bills. The self-indulgence was breathtaking.

On Monday’s “Today,” Matt Lauer interviewed Russert’s son, Luke. The show basically gave over the first half-hour to the Russert story. Presidential candidates aren’t questioned at such length on morning programs.

I saw Luke Russert on Today, and while I was really impressed at what an extraordinary young man he was, I thought it was a bit much.

Is the coverage professional? A lot of the comments about Russert should have been saved for the office. NBC should have approached covering Russert as the network would have any other public figure who had died. Hard to do, yes, but that should have been the goal. Instead, Russert’s colleagues used the airwaves to work through their grief. Some people will excuse that style out of sympathy, but that approach just wasn’t right.

Again, I agree, while Russert was a fine journalist, a lot of other important stuff happened this weekend.

Will journalists ask the tough questions of themselves that they ask of others? Not during grief, evidently. Brokaw hinted that Russert had his critics. Could we have heard from them? Well, no. The coverage seemed designed to put Russert on the fast track to sainthood.

Bam. There’s the upshot here, and in particular, my problem with the style of eulogising that has become the standard these days. This is the same mentality that drives people to put up giant memorials on the sites where people (usually unkown to them personally) have died, which I wrote about here.

Or even the coverage of people like Anna Nicole Smith, or Natalie Holloway.

I think in some way, this over-memorialising is a result of the breakdown of the family. People start to feel like the people on TV are their family. In the lack of support they get at home, they find solace in being devastated at someone else’s loss. It obviously fills some vacuum. In this age of more and more single moms and baby-daddies, people need to feel connected to something, a connection they don’t seem to be getting from their families.

Luke Russert seemed to be dealing with this just fine, probably because he has a strong family connection, and lot’s of support, and it speaks highly of his dad.

We should feel sympathy for Russerts’ family, but really, this is not a national tragedy, and it shouldn’t be covered as such.

Tim Russert seemed like a fine man, and his son is proof of how well he raised him, actually handling this in a much more mature way than most of the press. But I wouldn’t say he was an icon, and I found him to be more biased than anyone else on the right seems to have, and in particular, his regular segments on the Today show were p-r-e-t-t-y biased. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great guy personally, but I think he wore his “Meet The Press/Debate” hat, and he wore his “Today/MSNBC” hat equally. That’s just my opinion.

On a personal note, expect to see pretty light blogging here for awhile. Got a lot going on that needs tending to, that’s a lot more important than ranting on the internet, (as much as i enjoy it) and you know…..priorities. Believe it or not, this crap takes a lot of time to produce, since most of my content is original, and I try to make it as interesting as possible, so a single post sucks up about 2 or 3 hours of my day, as well as posting on DPUD, and checking and commenting on all the Moronblogs, and you can begin to see this is starting to take up too much of my time that could be better spent elsewhere, at least right now.

And you know, this shit doesn’t pay.

When Greed Goes Bad, And The Reality Of Business

Boy Band Mogul Gets 25 Years

I just don’t understand this kind of greed. This asshole had made a ton of money from legitimate businesses, and still just had to fuck people over to make more, including his stupid boy bands. This is the kind of guy that makes people loathe the rich. Kinda like Martha Stewart. She was obscenely wealthy, yet she just had to break the law to scoop up a measly (to her) couple hundred thou.

I guess somehow, complete Megalomania just takes over these people. No amount of money will ever be enough, they just have to bulldoze through as many people as humanly possible to prove they’re top dog, at any price.

This is why people get so infuriated at anyone that makes a dollar from something they have to buy, like gas. Assholes like Lou Perlman and Martha Stewart, make the public think everyone is trying to fuck them.

Big Oil makes what, 7% profit? Not much considering all their costs, and all the things they do that don’t generate money, like exploration. What do you think Exxon’s annual insurance bill is? They have “record profits” because gas has never been $4.00 a gallon before, but they have record costs to go with those record profits, no one seems to ever mention that, people just think they’re getting fucked while CEO’s are barbecuing Yangtzee River Dolphins on their solid gold yachts cackling hysterically.

Same with the Airline industry. People love to bitch about that. I heard somewhere, that every one cent increase in jet fuel, costs an airline about 25 million dollars that they don’t get back without raising prices. Not sure how true that is, but it makes sense when you consider one single 747 takes about 60,000 gallons to fill, and multiply that with an entire fleet, and hundreds of flights every day, and you start to get the picture how hard it is to make a buck without pissing people off that have no idea how much it costs to run a business like that.

Not to mention the fact that they put giant fucking pieces of metal in the air everyday with a near perfect safety record to get your ass to any number of destinations on planet Earth within a matter of hours, yet somehow, they must be gouging you.

I got the same attitude from people when I owned and operated my own small business up until last February. They all thought I was rich, because I owned a business, and why can’t they get a discount. I sold moving boxes people. You could get 20 for 40 bucks, and people thought I was ripping them off, I mean, it’s just a box. Two dollars for a box?

It never even occurred to them that this stupid box had to be manufactured, shipped, bought by a distributor, bought by me, and transported again to my business, where I had to pay rent, and pay insurance, and about 800 other bills, to get this stupid box in their hand for two bucks, that is somehow greedily overpriced to fuck them out of two dollars while I laugh hysterically at them as I step into my Bently.

It’s like that Dennis Miller bit. People think they’re getting royally screwed paying four dollars for a gallon of gas that will transport them 10-40 miles, (or two dollars for a box) and not even blink at paying $4 for 8oz. of fucking coffee at Starbucks.

I think I lost the main focus of this post in my rambling, but I think you get a point of some kind.

Update: Nevermind that last sentence.  Changing the title of a post can really bring a point home.

Panhandling Pays!

I kinda knew this. A good spot on a freeway exit can be pretty lucrative.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I spent a lot of time at Venice Beach, and there were some world class panhandlers out there. At Venice, there was a guy, probably still there, that juggled a chain saw, an apple and a bowling ball. He had a cardboard box out for “donations”, and I looked in it. Musta been 2 or 300 bucks in there. And he probably did 3 or 4 “shows” a day. That guy was making great money, tax free. He was really good though. At least he worked for it, but his schtick was complete bullshit, and tourists ate it up. In fact, here he is:

He’s been out there for years. Although, when I used to see him, it wasn’t this elaborate, with the fire and everything. Here”s another guy you may recognize, a total fixture on Venice Beach, Harry Perry:

This guy has been there at least 25 years, so it must be working for him. We used to talk to him, and I have a feeling he goes home to a nice house. He sells his wacky CD’s. He’s not real aggressive about it, but I bet he sells enough to make a decent living. He acts all crazy, and he’ll skate around you in circles singing songs about aliens. Most people just get annoyed with him, but if you are ever in Venice, and you see him, (Trust me, you’ll see him) ask him to sing “Invaders” and he’ll launch into his “greatest hit.” And then he’ll be all normal and ask if you want to buy his cd, and tell you all about the new one he’s working on in “his studio.” Pretty funny.

These guys are harmless, and I’m pretty sure their system of “Panhandling” is just kind of an alternative job. They never seemed like druggies or alcoholics to me. Unlike the super aggressive bums on Hollywood Blvd, that used to threaten and harass people, or scam artists like this girl in the link. Anybody that’s dealt with big city bums has probably lost a lot of empathy for the homeless, and for good reason. Myself included.

Immigration In The Front Yard

Half the Los Angeles workforce are immigrants.

They don’t specify legal or illegal, but they say “many” speak little English. I’ll take that as “many” are illegal. What does this mean exactly?

“The question is: Are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an elite group on top and the majority at poverty or near poverty wages?” he asked. “Right now we’re headed toward becoming a Third World city.

Pat Buchannan has been saying that for years, but people seem to think he’s a kook. No matter how you feel about immigration, the shear numbers are staggering.

Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona wrote: “According to the US Border Patrol apprehension statistics, almost four million people crossed our borders illegally in 2002.” Although many are caught and made to leave the country, a significant number try again. No one knows for sure how many succeed, but Senator McCain’s assertion would mean that the number crossing the border and disappearing into the US economy could be much higher than official estimates.

I hate to keep saying this, but I will, that’s a major metropolitan city full of illegals coming into our country every single year. When will that begin to dawn on people? With those kind of ridiculous numbers, how long before all of America is a third world country?

Let me tell you a little about how this affects day to day life here in Las Vegas. I have a neighbor, a 73 year old guy, nicest guy you’ll ever meet, he’s like the dad of the street. Served in Korea, a vet. Now retired, he still works more than most of us half his age do. He had his own landscpaing business for many years, and he did the majority of the work himself. In the last ten years of his business, here’s some of the harassment he had to deal with from illegals trying to take business from him:

They would “case” him, and his commercial jobs, and learn his schedule, and when he would begin cutting grass at these accounts, he’d run across metal spikes that were placed in the grass, just below the surface, put there to severely damage his blades. Not only is this despicable, but it could have sent his blades flying, hurting or even killing him or others. He had to start walking every inch of every lawn he had to cut, to check for these things, which doubled his time spent at every job.

They would follow him home, and run up to his truck in groups of two or three, and just start stealing his tools off his truck, in broad daylight. This is a 70 year-old man here, trying to chase these dirtbags. If these tactics didn’t discourage him, they simply started undercutting his price, by as much as half.

It was a constant war. He finally had enough, and retired. He had already worked well into his retirement, because he loved it, but he found other projects so he didn’t have to deal with that crap anymore.

That’s just one little example of how this stuff affects an average guy every day. These are the kind of extremely aggressive tactics that are used every day to TAKE jobs that Americans WILL do.

While we sit and bicker over Iraq, and Islamo-Fascism, guys like my neighbor, a vet, are fighting a war in their own front yard that nobody seems to care much about. Immigration is not even a faint blip on the radar screen of this election cycle. More ink and pixels have been wasted on fucking flag pins, than a real, tangible, exponentially growing threat to the American way of life that is actually happening right now.

And we just keep ignoring it.

Charlton Heston

End of an era. Just about the last real man in Hollywood. I especially liked Charlton Heston because he looks a lot like my dad. They could be brothers. I don’t need to go into what a great guy Chuck was, everybody (at least in the dextrosphere) has covered that pretty extensively.

I will add that I think the most despicable thing Michael Moore has ever done in his completely despicable career, was ambushing Charlton Heston for his POS anti-gun propaganda film. Heston was gracious and kind enough to let that dirtbag into his home, only to be edited to look like a racist. This man that stood up for civil rights when it was not fashionable to do so.

There’s a very special circle of Hell reserved just for Moore, just for that.

                  

                        Heston                                                        My Dad

Don’t they look like they could be brothers?  

Love ya dad!

The New Pups

We have two new members of the bmac family, Mikey and Gunner.

Clicky for bigger pic. Mikeys the mean lookin’ one. ( He’s not mean at all)
Ain’t they cute? Both rescues. Both German Shorthair Pointers, a breed we’ve fallen in love with. In case you haven’t noticed, in my left sidebar is a link to the California GSP Rescue, a group we belong to, and got both of these beautiful doggies through. They also helped us immensely (as well as a bunch of very generous and kind morons) when our last GSP, Kramer, had cancer, which he beat twice, before falling to an unexpected heart failure February 8th, just after going into remission for the second time.

These people do great work with these dogs, and if your inclined to such things, you can donate a few bucks, they do what they do for free, out of love for this wonderful breed. Just click the sidebar link, and even if you don’t contribute, take a look at what they do.

We had already planned to get Gunner, when the rescue called us about picking up Mikey from a family in a small town about 50 miles north of Vegas, and bringing him to the rescue when we came to pick up Gunner. The family had taken him in after they noticed him wandering around their property for about three weeks, but they already had 4 dogs, 4 cats, a pig, and four horses, and just couldn’t handle another dog. We were just going to foster him for two weeks, but he imprinted on me like a newborn duck, and in doing so, secured himself a home.

Mikeys history is a total mystery to us, he had a collar, but no name tag, and he was chipped (in Vegas), but the chip had invalid info on it. We figure he’s between 3 and 5. He’s housebroken, and great with people and other dogs, as well as neutered. We have no idea how he wound up so far out of town.

Gunner was taken to the rescue from a shelter, where a family had given him up because he was too “high energy.” They’re both incredibly sweet, loving, smart dogs, and we’re glad to have them.

Welcome to a lifetime of being spoiled rotten, you lucky dogs!

Fun With The DMV!

About 6 years ago, I purchased a Ford F-350 diesel truck, because at the time, I did slab marble and granite for a living. If you don’t know, slab marble and granite installation is stuff like, granite kitchen countertops, marble bathroom vanities, and commercial stuff like walls in fancy lobbys, registration desks, just about anything that can have big pieces of stone on them. I needed a really heavy duty truck to carry this stuff to job sites, because obviously, it’s incredibly heavy. A half-ton pickup just can’t handle the load.

Two years after I bought the truck, I quit construction because, frankly, I was getting too old to carry around 300 lb pieces of rock everyday, and too old to take shit from younger foremen who didn’t know fuck- all about my trade. This is all superfluous information, but hey, it gives you a little insight into what a bmac is.

I was especially happy about the purchase, because 6 years ago, diesel gas was about 20-50 cents less a gallon than regular, and no smog check was needed to register the truck, because you can’t measure smog emissions without a catalytic converter, which does not exist on a diesel engine.

My euphoria at bypassing the system was short-lived however, as diesel trucks became all the rage here in Vegas, and this did not go unnoticed by the DMV, who immediately made smog checks mandatory on these vehicles that cannot possibly be smog checked. Not only can they not be smog checked, they can’t send the results of the non-smog check to the DMV. Know what that means? I can’t pay my registration online, because they don’t have the non-results of my non-smog check, that I paid $50 for.

This happens every year, this being the FOURTH YEAR that they haven’t bothered to figure out how to handle imaginary smog checks on vehicles that CANNOT POSSIBLY BE smog checked.

Which means I again have to go to the fucking DMV, and stand in line for at least an hour, to give the state money for finding an unnecessary way to fuck me out of $50 bucks.

Oh, let me tell you about the first year they did this. I went to get the imaginary smog check at a place that claimed they did imaginary smog checks. The idiot at the place spent about 15 minutes looking under the hood in vain for the catalytic converter, then failed me because he’s a fucking retard, and sent the fail right to the DMV, which meant I couldn’t go find another retard who understood this is all a fucking scam.

I then had to go to the DMV, where another retard had to TAKE A FUCKING PICTURE of the little sticker under my hood that says “This engine has no catalytic converter” to prove I technically didn’t fail the imaginary smog check, then I got to stand in line AGAIN, with the retards poloroid of the underside of my hood. This entire process took almost a full day.

Every fucking year with this shit.

Oh, and diesel gas is now 60 cents MORE a gallon than regular.

Anybody wanna buy a truck?