Right Side Out

Do you see a huge blank space between the banner at the top of this page and the top-most post? I just let FireFox update and now the page looks wonky. :\

23 bombing runs over Vietnam in an A-4 Skyhawk. He bombed a power station in downtown Hanoi. Thousands of civilian Vietnamese deaths attributable. If your family, village, or city was being bombed, would you not fire back? This “man” has no problem killing innocent people in the name of war.

He does not support a woman’s right to choose and pledges to overturn Rowe v. Wade.

He does not support equal pay for women.

He voted against MLK’s birthday as a national holiday.

95% of his senate votes supported Bush.

He is a WAR MONGER.

He does not support gay marriage, and I’m sure that if he were to be able to put the words together, he would say that he thinks being trans is a “choice” and immoral.

He thinks (or wants us to think he does) that drilling for oil in the USA will benefit us now when in fact drilling for more oil will not reduce the cost of gasoline more than a few cents, and that couldn’t happen for at least 7-10 years. The simple fact about oil is this: when the world runs out of oil, America wants to be the last one standing with it. That way the price can be controlled and Empire America will squeeze the world in its gluttonous grasp even tighter. Just wait until then, though. The flash-point for war will most likely change to where the oil is most abundant. That is, unless we don’t need oil by then.

His website claims he didn’t get medical treatment in Hanoi, but the Vietnamese saved him from drowning:

a missile struck John’s plane and forced him to eject, knocking him unconscious and breaking both his arms and his leg. John was then taken as a prisoner of war into the now infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was denied necessary medical treatment

So what is THIS picture???

I’m sick and tired of his “pity me” bullshit. I’m sick and tired of his constant lies about Obama. I am sick of hearing this SOB keep using his POW story as a distraction from serious questions. Why is it that people think this guy’s a war hero? So killing thousands of innocent people, getting shot down, and being a prisoner of war for five years means that a man is a master of foreign affairs?

Time to move on from this kind of crap. Obama may not seem like the best presidential candidate to many people, but ANYBODY is better than McCain.

Go ahead. Flame me.

Been thinking a lot about the concept of “freedom” lately and what that means to me. On the surface the definition seems simple enough, but when I began to think more deeply about it there were many underlying nuances that struck me. To begin with, “freedom” is defined in Merriam Webster online as:

1: the quality or state of being free: as a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous d: ease, facility e: the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken f: improper familiarity g: boldness of conception or execution h: unrestricted use 2 a: a political right b: franchise, privilege

After reading this definition one can surmise that we are, indeed, not truly free. We live under the constraints of our government, our laws, each other, and often ourselves. Is there such thing as true freedom? Freedom without constraint? Perhaps if one were to live on a deserted island. What is this thing that we, in the USA, call “freedom”? This ideology that we so gallantly waste the lives of other nations’ people to defend? What does it mean to be free in the United States? I cannot speak for anyone else but myself on this, so here is my take of American Freedom…

White men came from Britain and waged genocide upon the true Americans, the American Indians, and stole their land in the name of freedom from the oppression of British rule. Then white men brought slaves from Africa to work their fields so the white men could amass wealth and prosperity, at the expense of the black men, women, and children who worked for them. White men continued to oppress women and blacks until the middle of the 1900’s when finally those two groups stood up for themselves and declared that they, too, had a right to freedom and relief from oppression and control by others. This country was founded not only on the principles set forth in our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights, but in the actions men took when they conquered this nation. Freedom began with a fist, not necessarily held high in the air.

In little over one century, American democracy has created and destroyed many various business enterprises based on everything from windshield wipers to oil and gas and computers. The USA used to supply most of the world’s oil, now it is dependent on the world for oil. Oil and consumable fuel for power has become our national ball and chain. We are spiraling into enormous debt thanks not only to our government for exporting so much of our national product for the profits of the few and at a cost to us all, but also in great part to the naivety of the American people and our apparently ceaseless craving for more. We were told by Ronald Reagan that more was better and that debt wasn’t a problem. We were told by banks and mortgage companies that we could afford ARMs and balloon-payment loans. We were told that it was okay that the majority of products we buy come from China and that NAFTA and free trade were good for our country.

They didn’t tell us that American jobs were being shipped overseas to people who would work for one tenth the pay. They didn’t tell us that our imports have doubled over our exports and that with each passing year we go further and further into debt - into debt with other countries, China, the Middle East, and others. We didn’t know our economy was crumbling beneath us, ready to give way and masticate our lives in it’s grand maw. They didn’t tell us, and we were too complacent to ask. Even if we felt it coming, we didn’t want to know. We still don’t want to know and we’re standing inside the gaping maw struggling with our last efforts, still assuming that things will be fine, that our government will take care of us, that we’re the “greatest nation of all” and that nothing can topple the Great Empire of America.

But we’re wrong.

The great American Empire is toppling. For so long we have acted like a high school football team and its cheerleaders. Rooting our team to victory in every effort waged, even those that make no logical sense. We trust our captains to forge us ahead, to spread that Democracy and freedom to the rest of the world, even if they don’t want it, even if we have to kill them to make them accept it. We find it hard to admit that we are no different than the “Islamist Extremists” who proclaim that all shall follow Allah, or die as Infidels. Who can blame them for believing that way when we ourselves play the very same game?

We are so ensconced in our gluttony and our quest for acquisition of things that we fail to see the downward spiral we ride toward our own demise. We assume that “the one who dies with the most toys wins” and in the end we depart this earth with what we came into it with: nothing. Sure, we leave all our acquired goodies and knowledge with our children when we are gone, but what does that teach them? That what really matters is stuff? “Here you go son, here’s my stuff, enjoy it. And I hope you do better than I did. Hope you acquire even more stuff.”

I have a friend and former bandmate who doesn’t live this life. He is what many would call a “free spirit” and he travels a lot and works interesting jobs to pay for his food and shelter. He doesn’t wish to be part of the greater creature that is American Life because somehow he has seen its dark side. He lives on the edge of poverty at times, perhaps, but he enjoys a greater level of freedom than most of us. Freedom to move from one point to another. Freedom from the constraints of owning property or things too large to fit inside a vehicle. But he pays a small price in that the friends he makes, and his family, are often thousands of miles away from him. I can tell, from talking to him, that he wants to settle down somewhere, but something in him drives him to keep moving. He’s the truest form of “gypsy” I’ve known, and I admire him a lot for his ways. To me, he has found a greater sense of freedom than most of us.

Freedom in this place seems to mean that one can choose who they want to sleep with, or what house they live in, or what occupation they choose, or how they spend their time after a long day at the office. Freedom implies that we have limitless room in which to operate our existences, but our freedom is limited by many things, not the least of which is affected by our own government. We are free to decide what color and style clothes we wear (for the most part), but we are enslaved by the constraints of debt, ownership, and obligation. Perhaps these things are not so much enslavements for we do choose to strap them to ourselves. Perhaps that is the truest definition of American Freedom: we are free to decide which constraints to live by.

Woe the multitude of hard drives,
They contain so many, many files.
Where oh where is the one I need?
Lost amongst the piles.

The video I searched for, time and again,
Of myself singing my song, Bitter End,
Has eluded me now, time and again,
I’m not sure where it is, darn it, my friends!

I’ll keep searching through DVD backups
And all my CD-Roms that have managed to stack up.
In hopes that some how I did not lose track
Of that vid, and others, that I really want back!

Annah

Alright, I know, I know… I’m sure you are as sick of politics as I am, so it’s time for a change of subject! Woo hoo!

I have received several requests during the past few months for a follow-up to my book Right Side Out, which is something I’ve already been pondering for over a year. The main issue I have with doing that is that I don’t know if I’ve got a whole book’s worth of material to cover, though I’m sure I wouldn’t be lacking for content of some kind or another. What I would really like to do is cover topics that would be of importance to those who might read the book, so with that, I would like to ask for your input on what you’d like to see in it. Is there anything in particular you’d like me to write about? If so, just comment here, or email me. You can find my email address in my contact info on my main site: http://annah.rightsideout.net

Frankly, however, I find that writing in this blog probably gives visitors more of an insight into my life post-op/post-transition than a new book could. And… I’ve been working for a few years on two works of fiction, one of which I think is quite promising, and that I think could be a good candidate for a multi-book epic adventure-type saga. I must admit, I am far more fond of writing fiction than I am of writing fact, mainly because I can write whatever the hell I want to and nobody can tell me I’m wrong! Haah! And it is so much fun to paint pictures and ideas with words. So keep your eyeballs peeled for that.

As far as the audio book version of RSO, well, that’s been on hold for a while and I admit that I’m not very gung-ho about finishing the project. I am about halfway through the job of recording, but it gets very tiring, very fast and quite honestly I am simply ready to move on from that. It’s not much fun re-living my story so often. I am more concerned with writing a new story each day as I meander through this thing called life.

Speaking of life, I’ve gotta say, it’s good. Damn good. I love it more now than ever before and am deeply thankful to so many people for supporting me and encouraging me throughout the years. Life is tough, but far tougher when you try to go it alone. We need each other more than I think we know, and perhaps more than many of us would care to admit.

I’m looking forward to this weekend. No special reason other than catching up on sleep and playing lots of pinball and video games. As you might have read (below, scroll down past all the political crap) I recently purchased two new pinball machines, bringing my collection up to four. Eight Ball Deluxe and Cyclone are turning out to be much more special to me than I expected - especially Cyclone. That game is simply awesome. First of all, if you’re familiar with the band Mr. Bungle, a fantastic “side project” of Mike Patton’s (Faith No More fame), you might recall the classic Carousel:

There are sound bites from Cyclone in this song: “Hurry! Hurry! Step right up!”, “Hey you!”, “Velcome to my house!”, some cat sounds, “Round and Round She Goes!”, and more. The other night Anvil said, “This game is freakin’ me out! It sounds just like Carousel from Mr. Bungle!” (he’s an avid Mr. Bungle fan). We laughed after listening to Carousel a little bit later. If you appreciate heavy, strange music, then you owe it to yourself to check out Mr. Bungle.

Anyway, Cyclone has lots of variation and many ways to score, plus the fun/silly carnival atmosphere it creates is elegant in its simplicity…

uh… I just had one of the most incredible experiences I’ve had in… a damn long time!!! Let me set this up with a bit of pre-story… In 1990 a few friends and I formed a band called Thunderin’ Reign. We wrote a dozen or so originals and did quite a few Metallica covers. We played The Mason Jar in Phoenix on a regular basis and one night the owner, Franco, asked us to do a “Metallica Tribute” show. I said no because I felt we were already being pigeon-holed as a Metallica tribute band. But after Franco begged us, I said, “Give us an opening slot for a good band and we’ll do it.” We looked at the schedule and when I saw “TOOL” on it I shouted, “TOOL! We’ll open for TOOL!” He said, “Oh, no. Heheh, no. Not TOOL.” I said, “Fine.” and proceeded to walk out of his office. He said, “Wait, wait! Okay, you can open for TOOL.” And so we did, and I have video to prove it!!! We actually ended up opening for them twice, once in June or July and the next in August, both in 1992.

Here’s a still shot from the video…

I took my video camera and video taped our band’s performance, which I plan to upload a song from tonight… with me singing a song I wrote about my trans stuff called Bitter End. Since the shows I regretted not shooting video of TOOL in action, but as I discovered today, someone else shot video of the second show. Not only that, but CINDY AND I ARE IN IT!!!! Talk about a flashback, trip-and-a-half! There is more to this story, some funny stuff about our drummer Craig, but for now I’m going to close with the video. At about :34 seconds in, you can see a long-haired “guy” with glasses on in the middle-left part of the front stage area and to the right of that person (your left) is a girl. The two of them are rocking out and yes, you guessed it, that’s us!!! I’m the one with the glasses. Throughout the song, the camera person shoots a lot of the front row crowd and at the end of the song you can see when I, and then Cindy, try to get Maynard’s attention. He was zoning out the whole time on a Budweiser sign in the back of the bar. What a fucking trip!

You can see even more of us (a tad more clearly) in this one, too!

Wow, what a life!

1. That McSame doesn’t know how many houses he and his wife own.
1a. That the McSames own at least 7 houses worth many millions of dollars.
2. That McSame thinks the economy is strong and we’re not in a recession.
3. That McSame actually thinks that “drilling here and drilling now” will help the USA ever, or at all.
4. He calls Obama an elitist!?!? (See pic below vid)
5. That McSame is such a putz! GAAAH!!!

This appears a tad “elitist”, don’cha think? LOFL!

When someone in his “town hall meeting” today mentioned they thought a reinstatement of the military draft was necessary to “defeat evil” (yeah, right… just where IS the evil?), McCain said, “I agree with everything you said.” That seemed to charge the draft conversation and a number of folks began talking about it, some Republicans actually agreeing that it may be a wise move. Oh yeah? A draft!? You’ve gotta be kidding me. Would I let them draft MY kid? Hell no.

I’m getting really, really, REALLY sick of this screwball war monger society we live in. War! War! WAR! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!! KILL KILL KILL!!!! God-fucking-dammit can’t we live in fucking peace for a change?!????