Sarge....get out the lawnmower, we're bringing em in.

I used to come home after work and take a nap for a couple of hours and then go out and over to the park in neighboring East Rutherford. It's where all the freaks hung out. We didn't call ourselves hippies back then, that was a name the straights made up. Two of the group lived in my old house we had moved out of a year before. Funny thing because when my folks were selling the house, a black couple came to look and my mom told them the house was sold. She said she lied "for the sake of the neighbors". So the guy that eventually bought the place gave it to his two freak sons to live in and the neighborhood quickly went to pot after that!
Too bad for the neighbors ha ha.
Don't know if they even recognized me, I wasn't that nice , clean cut little leaguer any more at that point and I bet they were mighty pissed at my parents.
After the kidnapping ordeal, dealing with the police was something I could do with out for awhile, but that was not to be. I had gone to the park one night with several hits of acid, and planning on sharing it, but no one else felt like tripping, and I hated walking around with drugs in my pocket, so I took it all myself.
Right after that, maybe ten minutes, a cop showed up.
There was probably a dozen or so of us there that night and the cop said we'd all have to leave because of "curfew". Well, I don't think there was such a thing and we all just ignored the guy. He went back to his car, radio'd in and put on his smokey the bear hat and came back...................
"you're under arrest!" he said to each one of us, giving pokes to the chest with his finger at the same time.
"you're under arrest!"
"you're under arrest!"
right on down the line, including me as I sat on the bench (in the picture) beginning to come on to the acid.
So, about that time, several more cop cars showed up and we were all loaded in for a ride to the station.
"sarge, get out the lawnmower, we're bringing em in!" smokey bellowed on the radio.
It was pretty crowded there at the station, stoned freaks everywhere and me....tripping my brains out at that point. The cops were called pigs back then and since I tended to see people as animals when under the influence of LSD, well, it was just perfect. Perfect pigs they were. oink oink.
They had me empty my pockets, which just earlier had been put into my stomach and then they took apart my radio. They took the batteries out, off came the back and then they shook it around and didn't find anything there but ......radio stuff.
No drugs were found, no felonies committed and since our only offense was curfew violation and they couldn't let us go ....because of curfew, they called our parents.
My dad came.

You see, the hair thing started before my run in with VP. I used to get a ride in the morning with my dad and a guy he worked with, up to the bus stop about 2 miles away. I took a bus to school, Bergen Tech in Hackensack. It's where all the problem children went . And one day he told me that his buddy didn't like my long hair and he didn't want me in the car unless I cut my hair.
That was when I really got into to walking everywhere.
I had lost any respect I had left for him because of that and then quitting school didn't help matters.

He walked into the station and glared at me, signed me out and we were on our way,
and not a word was said. We returned home, he went to his room and I went to mine.

I put Abbey Road on the record player and went out on the roof for awhile, one of my favorite places to get away from it all. Did some trip kind of dreaming for awhile out there, thought about how I had to get the fuck out of new jersey and then came back in and kicked back. I didn't know what to expect from the acid, since trips usually last 8-10 hours, I expected to be up all night and then some.

"Because" started playing........

Because the world is round it turns me on
Because the world is round...aaaaaahhhhhh

Because the wind is high it blows my mind
Because the wind is high......aaaaaaaahhhh

Love is all, love is new
Love is all, love is you

Because the sky is blue, it makes me cry
Because the sky is blue.......aaaaaaaahhhh

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh....

and I fell asleep...............

40th anniversary

It was 40 years ago today Sgt Pepper taught the band to play............
Well not exactly, that was more like 44 years I think. But 40 years ago this summer, is when the Woodstock music festival happened, 3 days of peace love and happiness. But this year also marks another occasion for me and that was my first summer as an emancipated adult. At 16 years of age it's a bit of a stretch to say that I was an adult, but nevertheless, after quitting high school in the spring and starting my work for a living life, an adult I was, like it or not. My launch into adulthood started when I was sent to the vice- principles office because my shop teacher ( machine shop) felt that my long hair was a safety issue. So the vice-principle told me I was suspended for a week and to come back with shorter hair. I disagreed that a haircut was the solution and suggested instead that I wear a welders cap to keep the hair out of my face. He thought about it for a millisecond and replied "that will be OK, as long as it is pink!"
* a little side note here, my hair was about as long a Ringo's in the picture.........
See, the thing is, my hair wasn't actually long enough to be a safety concern, it didn't fall over my eyes and it wasn't long enough to get caught in the machinery. They were just making an example of me, trying to break my balls.
So that was the verdict from the VP....."comeback in a week with a haircut or a pink welders cap, or don't come back!"

It all kinda started a couple of years earlier, 1967, the summer of love. My big sister ( badddddd influence) had gone to Frisco for a couple of months and came back a flower child. The country was going beserk with race riots, the cities were burning, popular music was changing with stuff like "white rabbit"and "for all it's worth". People were protesting the VietNam war. And then the summer of "68", Bobby Kennedy was murdered and the Chicago convention happened. I watched the convention police riots on tv and it changed me completely. Any respect that I might have had for "authority" or straights went right out the window.

Truth be told, I really sucked at school. I did well enough in shop class to get by but I didn't get algebra at all and english class sucked as well and most likely would fail and end up in summer school again. History was the only class I liked, usually aced everthing they threw at me and to this day it's still a very interesting subject for me.
So, after getting the word from MR. VP, my last words to him were..........bye.
On the bus ride home, my school books went flying out the window and I was on my way to whatever was going to happen next. I didn't tell my parents right away, in fact I can't say for sure now if I ever did actually tell them. I continued the regular routine of getting up in the morning, leaving and coming back at night.
My first job was at a plastics factory, the foreman hated me, probably because I was a filthy hippie, but I did ok for the short time I was there which ended when I had to have a tooth surgically removed and missed a day. When I showed up the next day, the foreman growled and said..."go to the office and get your pink slip!"
The next job at a chemical factory didn't last long either. I was a schlepper, hauling bags of chemicals from boxcars onto dollies and I'm telling you, that place was hotter than Haddes, they even had salt tablet dispensers on the walls so the worker bees wouldn't pass out and stop production. The next job, working in a peanut butter factory was better and I even received a promotion after about a week! See, the line mechanic hurt his back and since I had experience as a machinest, guess what?
I stayed there until they closed down a several months later ( not my fault :-) )and it was the job I was at when Woodstock happened. About a month earlier, I had borrowed money from my Bro to go see the band 10 Years After in Hackensack and had just finished paying him back..........
The minimum wage in "69" was $1.30 per hour and since I had just finished paying Bro back and was also buying groceries and stuff as payment for living with the parents, I was flat broke when a carload of my buddies pulled up and said.........
Hey! Wanna go to Woodstock?
Not realizing that the thing was going to be the biggest happening of the century AND free, I said......No, you guys have fun and I'll see ya when you get back!
It was still a great summer, had lots of fun, saved some money and even came close to getting charged with kidnapping the county district attorneys daughter. I had spent the afternoon with Carol and when we parted, she and a friend went over to "the city" and didn't return that night and I was the last person seen with her.....................
Boy was her daddy ready to lock me up and throw away the key!

Coming next: the 40th anniversary of my 17th year.

A titilating sidenote to the Swine Flu thing

After reading about the announcement today by "US health officials" that there may be as many as 1 million flu sufferers (story here) in the US, I thought I would pass on an interesting read from a few nights ago. It's a transcript from a lecture given in 1987 by John Stockwell CIA station chief Angola. Here's a quote ..........

"Colonel White - oh yes, and I can't not mention the disease experimentations - the use of deadly diseases. We launched - when we were destabilizing Cuba for 7 years - we launched the swine fever epidemic, in the hog population, trying to kill out all of the pigs - a virus. We experimented in Haiti on the people with viruses."

Here's the lecture

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The $134 billion dollar suitcase.

This is just too bizarre to not paste it right up here......

Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: William Pesek

Commentary by William Pesek

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- It’s a plot better suited for a John Le Carre novel.

Two Japanese men are detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland. Details are maddeningly sketchy, so naturally the global rumor mill is kicking into high gear.

Are these would-be smugglers agents of Kim Jong Il stashing North Korea’s cash in a Swiss vault? Bagmen for Nigerian Internet scammers? Was the money meant for terrorists looking to buy nuclear warheads? Is Japan dumping its dollars secretly? Are the bonds real or counterfeit?

The implications of the securities being legitimate would be bigger than investors may realize. At a minimum, it would suggest that the U.S. risks losing control over its monetary supply on a massive scale.

The trillions of dollars of debt the U.S. will issue in the next couple of years needs buyers. Attracting them will require making sure that existing ones aren’t losing faith in the U.S.’s ability to control the dollar.

The dollar is, for better or worse, the core of our world economy and it’s best to keep it stable. News that’s more fitting for international spy novels than the financial pages won’t help that effort. It is incumbent upon the U.S. Treasury to get to the bottom of this tale and keep markets informed.

GDP Carriers

Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia. Yes, they could have built vacation homes amidst Genghis Khan’s Gobi Desert or the famed Temples of Angkor. Bernard Madoff who?

These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors. It makes you wonder if some of the time Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spends keeping the Chinese and Japanese invested in dollars should be devoted to well-financed men crossing the Italian-Swiss border.

This tale has gotten little attention in markets, perhaps because of the absurdity of our times. The last year has been a decidedly disorienting one for capitalists who once knew up from down, red from black and risk from reward. It almost fits with the surreal nature of today that a couple of travelers have more U.S. debt than Brazil in a suitcase and, well, that’s life.

Clancy Bestseller

You can almost picture Tom Clancy sitting in his study thinking: “Damn! Why didn’t I think of this yarn and novelize it years ago?” He could have sprinkled in a Chinese angle, a pinch of Russian intrigue, a dose of Pyongyang and a bit of Taiwan-Strait tension into the mix. Presto, a sure bestseller.

Daniel Craig may be thinking this is a great story on which to base the next James Bond flick. Perhaps Don Johnson could buy the rights to this tale. In 2002, the “Miami Vice” star was stopped by German customs officers as he was traveling in a car carrying credit notes and other securities worth as much as $8 billion. Now he could claim it was all, uh, research.

When I first heard of the $134 billion story, I was tempted to glance at my calendar to make sure it didn’t read April 1.

Let’s assume for a moment that these U.S. bonds are real. That would make a mockery of Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano’s “absolutely unshakable” confidence in the credibility of the U.S. dollar. Yosano would have some explaining to do about Japan’s $686 billion of U.S. debt if more of these suitcase capers come to light.

‘Kennedy Bonds’

Counterfeit $100 bills are one thing; two guys with undeclared bonds including 249 certificates worth $500 million and 10 “Kennedy bonds” of $1 billion each is quite another.

The bust could be a boon for Italy. If the securities are found to be genuine, the smugglers could be fined 40 percent of the total value for attempting to take them out of the country. Not a bad payday for a government grappling with a widening budget deficit and rebuilding the town of L’Aquila, which was destroyed by an earthquake in April.

It would be terrible news for the White House. Other than the U.S., China or Japan, no other nation could theoretically move those amounts. In the absence of clear explanations coming from the Treasury, conspiracy theories are filling the void.

On his blog, the Market Ticker, Karl Denninger wonders if the Treasury “has been surreptitiously issuing bonds to, say, Japan, as a means of financing deficits that someone didn’t want reported over the last, oh, say 10 or 20 years.” Adds Denninger: “Let’s hope we get those answers, and this isn’t one of those ‘funny things’ that just disappears into the night.”

This is still a story with far more questions than answers. It’s odd, though, that it’s not garnering more media attention. Interest is likely to grow. The last thing Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke need right now is tens of billions more of U.S. bonds -- or even high-quality fake ones -- suddenly popping up around the globe.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net

Be bad

Thinking about balance today
yin / yang
life / death
male / female
hot / cold
rich / poor
good / evil
and how one can't exist without the other
and therein lies the way to rid the world of evil
be bad
.

Happy Memorial Day

Let's eat some weinies
and drink some beer
to the brave men and women
no longer here
They died in the streets
in fear and pain
for liberty's pipelines
and free shipping lanes
don't cry in your salad
or weep in your pie
our children were maimed
so our flag would still fly
they died for our morals
our god
and our moms
for the companies that make
the bullets and bombs
they died for our right
to have oil and gas
for our right to praise jesus
our right
to kick ass

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.....

While reading the latest account of the fighting in Swat,
I was struck by this ...........

"The Taleban are still patrolling Mingora, and from where I am based, I can only see the army troops at the emerald mines.The sound of firing can be heard intermittently in various areas of Mingora." (here)

Emerald mines?
That was the first I had heard.
Odd that it hasn't been mentioned in the news.
The Paki's are tearing the place up, killing scores of civilians, supposedly with the intent of subduing the Taliban.
Seizing the mines seems like a wise thing to do if the Taliban are using the proceeds from the mines to finance their "new world order", and this is confirmed in another story found.....

Taliban Jihad against west funded by emeralds from Pakistan. (here)

Seems like that would make for interesting news, so why the silence about them?
And why did the Pakistan government shut them down really?
Know what I think?
The Taliban has been using them all along for funds, with the nod and approval from certain elements of the Pakistan government, namely the ISI.
And I'm not so sure about opium poppies funding them as well.
Karzai's brother was recently linked to drug smuggling and many of the warlords are also,
blaming the Taliban is good cover for the crooked ones running the show over there.

But that's all a sideshow to the goings on all across Pipelinistan.
Here's the skinny on all the latest, from one of the best journalists on the planet,
Pepe Escobar

Blue Gold, Turkmen Bashes and Asian Grids: Pipelineistan in Conflict (here)

Read it yeah, and then you'll see that the shenanigans over there aren't all about....
The Hokie Pokie
.

Dey got bling!

Here's one of the many peacocks that live next door and wander about here all the time.
Very pretty birds.
And they eat scorpions and snakes, Mmmmmmm