Bradley Delp ~ R.I.P.

Man. This is a tough one. I'll have more to say soon. But for now, Rest In Peace, Brad Delp. An amazing vocalist, and artist. You were instrumental in creating a sound that literally changed the landscape of American rock and roll. Thanks for so, so very much. I have a million memories attached to the music you created and shared. I hear your music and your voice, and I am transported. I am deeply saddened by your passing. We were lucky and blessed to have you while we did.

It's been such a long time, I think I should be goin', yeah,

And time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'

Sail on, on a distant highway, yeah

I've got to keep on chasin' a dream

I've gotta be on my way

Wish there was something I could say

Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just a movin' along

You'll forget about me after I've been gone

And I take what I find, I don't want no more

It's just outside of your front door

Angelina Adopts Primate!

Angelina Jolie is reportedly in the final stages of adopting an African Tarsier, or Bush Baby (no relation to the President...altho the similarities are striking!). The rare and fragile creature was recently discovered living comfortably in what’s left of it’s natural habitat, and with seemingly no desire to be adopted by anyone. The creature, happily munching on a large bark beetle, was felled from its perch, some 60 feet up, by a tranquilizer dart from a blow gun.

“It was really important that we do this as naturally as possible, so as to minimize the amount of change the poor thing has to go thru.” Jolie was quoted as saying. “Using an actual rifle to tranquilize him would have been way too traumatic.”

Jolie, after quickly stuffing the primate into a small, leather Louis Vitton handbag, and tucking it into the trunk of her rented Range Rover LX, said she was excited about adding some diversity to her rapidly growing brood, and added, “I couldn’t be happier, and I’m at least one step ahead of that bitch, Madonna”.

It’s believed the Angelina and her new addition will be winging their way by private jet to the Island of Ibiza, where she will introduce the newest member of the family to it’s nanny.

Madonna was reportedly on her way to the Peruvian Andes.















More Please, I must have more!

WORLD CRAP

I’m sorry. Once again, I am the bearer of bad news for a huge portion of the world population. Then again, it’s my duty to point out all things ridiculous, moronic, or just plain stupid. Despite the fact that it’s the most popular game played on a global level (which just supports my theory that 95% of the world population are idiots…); Soccer, or Futbol is, hands down, the dumbest, most boring game I have ever seen. I mean, seriously, let’s look at the basics; forget for a moment, the fact that it’s a pansy game for girls and girly-men in short-shorts and knee high sox. For starters…the field. Soccer playing fields are bigger than the Texas panhandle, with goals you could park an eighteen-wheeler in.

Could we make this a little bigger please?


Then you’ve got 22 players, mostly pansy’s, running amok, with no rhyme or reason. They kick the ball back and forth, with the ball flying in incredible arc’s all over the place, but never really going anywhere. The participants kick the ball and occasionally bump it with their heads…but never…NEVER…touch it with their hands…presumably because it has cooties…? The rest of the game resembles a WWF wrestling match; every five to ten minutes one of the players goes down with some kind of near fatal injury, falling to the ground and writhing around in agony so incredible that I start looking for a sniper in the stands with a high-powered rifle.



Everything stops while the Keystone Cops Stretcher Bearers run onto the field to carry the dieing player to the sideline (insert Benny Hill music here). He is carried off the field, where he’s administered last rights.
Then, and this is my favorite part, some guy comes over with a spray bottle of some kind of magic solution that he proceeds to spray onto the life-threatening injury…and, low and behold…he is healed! His pain and injury are magically gone, and he leaps to his feet, sprinting back onto the field faster than he’s run the whole game up to that point. It’s a fucking miracle! Can I get an “Amen”?!

 

"LOOK MA! I'm HEALED!!!"

What is this magic solution, and why is it being kept from the rest of the world? Why isn’t this stuff on hand in every sporting arena, hospital, and emergency facility in the world? Something’s not right…hmmm.

This goes on for 90 grueling, arduous minutes; at the end of which the score is….1-0! 1-0?!?! What the fuck?! As if this isn’t painful enough, they then tack on another fifteen minutes just for good measure. At the end of which…the score is….yep…1-0.

Now they are trying to control crowd violence that seems to be getting more common and more volatile every year. This is another mystery…why they would try to stop it? I mean, there’s way more excitement and action in the stands, than there will ever be on the field. They should install cameras on the crowd, and sell it as a pay-per-view event. Now there’s something worth watching…a bunch of stupid soccer fans kicking the shit out of each other! Now we’re talkin’!

Better Than Me, Better Than You

RIVER

1/12/96-1/26/07

River is gone. I am brokenhearted to say the very, very least. I am staggered. I find myself on my knees, sobbing into the carpet. I hurt like I've never hurt. I miss him like no one ever. He was River. Riverdog. Big Riv. The Big Handsome. The Big Hairy. Handsome Hairy. Mr. Biggs. Sweetface. Sweetpea. Names, merely names. All of them too small to truly describe who he was, and how he lived. Anyone who ever spent any time with River knows what I’m talking about, and how special he was. I feel so lucky, so blessed to have shared his life; and perhaps that is why I hurt so badly, so deeply. My favorite nickname, although I only used it when describing him to others, is “The Mayor”. All he wanted to do was shake hands and kiss babies. He was the greatest ambassador of good will I have ever seen. His calling in this life was to make others feel good. To let every individual he met know they were special, and worthy of love no matter who they were, what they looked like, or what their limitations might be. He was a better person, as a dog, than any person I have ever known, or will know. I’m sorry if that’s sounds bold, but it’s the truth and he earned it. He was a true bringer of love, and he brought it to me in his every moment. I am so thankful he chose me. I feel so fortunate that I was chosen to be his. I know what we experienced together was singular, and not to be experienced ever again. I keep hearing a quote by Kahlil Gibran in my head, and it helps to carry me through:

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

I can say, without a millisecond of hesitation, that River was my Delight. He lived a full and happy life, he changed me, made me a better man. He taught me, he set an example that I will struggle to live up to, but will be better for every day if I just try to do so. He showed me that we are all bigger than our worldly selves. That we are all just brilliant lights of consciousness blazing thru the cosmos. He was my equal, he wore a dog’s coat.

River, you are my best friend. The best Dog ever. My soulbrother. I will think of you everyday, and miss you more. I know in time I will fill this gaping hole in my heart, but never completely, there’s just not enough love in the world without you in it. I will look forward to the place and time we meet again.


"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a River runs through it..."

~ Norman MacLean

Covered Mirrors

I’m at a complete loss. I have no sense of direction. I have very little will, and no resources to pull from, or so it feels. My very best friend has died. He is gone. Left yesterday. And I will never see him, in this life, again. I am stunned. I am broken. I feel a depth of pain and sorrow so deep it’s as if the pit in my belly goes to the bottom of all things. I am often distracted from the grief by the grief. I am amazed at how it can stop me dead in my tracks, knock me literally to my knees, and leave me face first in the carpet, clawing it with my hands and shouting his name into the coarseness of the floor. I have experienced death and loss before. On many levels. Friends, relatives, immediate family if Grandparents count. I had a very close friend get himself killed drinking and driving when I was about 24, and a few years later lost another very close friend to Leukemia. Both young, vibrant individuals who probly deserved a lot more, and a lot better than they got.
With that in mind, it might surprise some to find that I’m talking about my dog. His name is River, and what started as a moniker based on a band my son Nikolas and I loved (Riverdogs), has come to mean so much more. He has been the river of my life for the last 11 years. He arrived in this world on almost the exact same day I arrived in San Diego. I had spent my whole life in Los Angeles, with the exception of four years in the military. I was moving everything I had, which was actually not much, and was making a new life for myself in a new city. My son had moved to San Diego with his mother three years prior, and a job opportunity near him was all I needed to make the move to be closer to him and more active in his life. Up until now it was one or two weekends a month, summer vacation, and Christmas/Easter breaks. I had always wanted to get him a dog, but was waiting for the time to be right.
The pain and the grief pour out of me, a dark, black hemorrhage in my soul. It’s all I can do to keep myself on my feet. I understand why some cultures cover their mirrors during times of grief and loss. It’s so you can spare yourself the pain of your own reflection, because you don’t look too good. The whole experience kicks your ass. I look like shit right now. I haven’t seen my reflection, and I noticed I was avoiding doing so. But I don’t need to, I can feel it. I know I look like hell.
I thought for a moment I could just get through this quickly. Feel the pain and loss of River’s passing, and then move on. I’m sure that’s the end result. But the immediate reality is one of a very heavy, deeply entrenched grief and loss. One that is deep within me, and must be exorcised over time. It comes in waves, sneaks up behind me and then pulls me down. My best defense, I have found, is to succumb to it. To let it run thru me, wherever that may be. The physical manifestations can be powerful; flooding tears that fill my eyes, and blind me almost instantly, if I’m behind the wheel or on my motorcycle this can pose a problem. I feel these spasm like surges rush thru my body, finding their way out thru my face and mouth in sobs that literally rock my body, and force my head back, my neck clenched, my mouth agape. My breathing stops, and I gasp for air because my entire torso is compressing under it’s own uncontrolled will. It’s like I’m Fay Wray in the grip of Kong, except, in this case he’s squeezing a little too tight.
I can’t eat. My appetite lasts about as long as it takes me to open the refrigerator or cupboard and then expect him to come in to the sound of the opening door to beg…and he doesn’t. And knowing full well, he won’t, I no longer feel hungry. The hunger replaced by the vast emptiness.
I keep hearing River; his cough behind me, his nails clicking on the tile. I keep seeing him out of the corner of my eye. I keep expecting to have to step over him when I round the corner in the hallway.
I’ve never felt this kind of sorrow. I ache in my core. I feel lessened. If I close my eyes I see this massive valley, seemingly endless. Crossing seems pointless. I’ll have just as much of nothing as I have now. I want my dog back. I want to change the principals of life to suit me. I want the rules that govern the Universe to make exception for River. I hurt that bad. I have no use for rational, or reality. Reality is too painful right now.
I don’t sleep, or I don’t fall off to sleep. I crash. I know that if I lay down before I am ready to pass out from exhaustion, then I will lie there and run the loss of River around in my head until the pain paints itself into a massive lead blanket that wraps itself around me and smothers me with the aguish. But if I hold off, keep myself up watching mindless movies, and then cap the day off with a couple Excedrine PM’s and a beer, I go off to dreamland rather easily, where I still can find my big dog, and get some time with him. Unfortunately, I wake up. Wake to the cold realization that he’s still not here, and he’s not coming back, and that I must endeavor without him.
The hole in my in my life is eclipsed only by the one in my soul. River was my purpose these last few months. Everyday began, and ended with him. The hours in between were comprised mainly of me worrying about him, making sure his needs were met, and that he was attended to in any way he might need me to. Now, without that, the emptiness in my world seems as vast as that valley I see when I close my eyes. Idle time is painful, but finding the motivation to occupy that time constructively is an endeavor within itself. Because, honestly, I don’t care much about anything right now.
The grief has become the newest “demon in the corner”; another nasty little bastard who is just waiting for me to turn my back long enough for him to jump on and try to ride me into the ground. Right now he’s winning. I spend all of my time hunched over in pain, leaving my back constantly exposed and vulnerable.
I can’t even think about another Dog. No way. It’s hard enough to pay attention to the other two here. Both suffering thru the loss in their own ways, on their own terms. Yet, I have to fight off disdain and resentment whenever I look at them right now. Guilty by association. Innocent victims of species and proximity.
I don’t want to move past too fast. I feel a sense of duty to River to not move on with my life too quickly. I owe him more than that. I like that in some cultures there is a set time of grieving, like the Jewish tradition of sitting Shiva for a week. I feel a need to feel his loss until it feels okay not to. I know I will miss him until the day I die, but I’m not ready to put his life, or the part of mine he shared, behind me anytime soon. He has been as constant a part of my existence as the beat of my own heart.
I find myself pacing the house. Wandering slowly through it, hands in my pockets, eyes on the floor. Aimless meandering, as if I’m going to enter a room, and there he’ll be. Looking up at me, panting expectantly. This is brutal. Every landscape a minefield. It seems like the most random and mundane things will remind me, and I fall forward into the pain.
I took two days off of work; Thursday and Friday, to spend with River, followed by Saturday and Sunday to deal with it. I go back to work tomorrow and wonder how it is that I go back to normal. There’s no going back to normal. Things were normal when River was here. So I have to do something new. Some how find a new normal, one that is based in this reality. At least I know River was a huge part of the new one too. W. H. Auden said it well in 1936, and is often quoted:


Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Unfortunately, for now, that’s how I feel. It’s going to be a long time before I’m happy again. They say time heals all, but I’m in no rush to heal.

Dancing's For the Birds

I fuckin hate going out. Fuckin hate it. Especially in this town. It’s just completely overrun with drunken college idiots; fueled by alcohol, testosterone, and low self esteem. Lovely little cocktail right there. The bars and meat markets are one thing, but the dance clubs kill me. I always crack up watching people dance. What the fuck? Dancing is stupid. You ever wonder what you’d look like if the music were turned off? You’d look like a fuckin freak! They’d toss you into a rubber room.
The fact of the matter is, dancing is for women. Women love to dance. Guys don’t like to dance. Guys only dance to get laid. It’s the truth. Any guy who says he likes to dance is either gay, "Cum on boyth letth go danthing!" or…he’s trying to get laid! Or both! Every guy knows that if he’s partyin’ with some shit-faced hottie, he greatly increases his odds of getting laid by dancing. This makes perfect sense. It’s actually Darwinian, as related to Charles Darwins theories on evolution. Man is in his innate sense, an animal, and at our most primal core, we are still connected to that animal. Dancing, in many species, is the right of mating. Birds will fluff up there chests, and stretch out their feathers to look attractive to a potential mate, lots of other animals have specific instinctual rituals of movement that lead up to the act of sex. Dancing today is just our own mating ritual. That’s why women love it! Because they can go out and do the whole sex thing, without actually having to consummate the act. Women’s psyche’s are way more powerful than men’s. We need constant, direct stimulation in order to maintain focus (read: blowjob!). Women, on the contrary, require just a sliver of an idea, and from it they will create an entire experience just for themselves. I just find it funny what guys are willing to do to get a piece of ass. I dunno…maybe I’m wrong, maybe there are guys who dig dancing, but, most of my friends, with the exception of a few, don’t dance. At least not unless they think they got a shot at scoring with the hottie! Then they’re dancing mutherfuckers! Bottom line if we were more primal, and getting laid required a mating chicken-dance ritual, I guarantee you tonight there would be men all over the world clucking and scratching the floor with their feet!

All these fuckers dancin', someone's got to get laid!

Yer a Moron...

Basically this is the Moron List. It's a contantly evolving, developing, growing kind of organism. Make sure to check back frequently to see if you've made the list in any way:

How it works:
If you are guilty of any of the following, yer a Moron. Maybe not always, maybe not forever, but, in these cases, you are, undeniably, hands-down, grab yer fuckin hockey helmet and get on the little bus, a Moron!

THE LIST

Voted for GW Bush (no arguing with this one)
Own a Minivan.
Enjoy Soccer.
Liked the movie "Titanic".
Think Harry Potter is literature...or a film...
Dress your dog or cat in clothes.
Think any of the following are "really talented":
Christina Aguilera (at anything other than sucking dick)
Jessica Simpson (at anything other than sucking dick)
Brittany Spears (at anything other than sucking dick)
Keanu Reeves
Tom Cruise
Ben Affleck
Listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Collect Beenie-Babies.
Watch ANY of the following TV shows:
The OC
Desperate Housewives
Melrose Place
Beverly Hills 90210
Survivor, Big Brother, The Bachelor (ette), Wife Swappers, or any of that other mindless reality shit. You want reality?? Join the Marine's motherfucker!

Think your Bachelor's degree in business means anything.
Think your Masters degree in anything makes you smart.
Not convinced of Global Warming.
Think Iraq had WMD's or this war is over anything but oil and money.
Stop in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store to contemplate the breakfast cereal, blocking the aisle for everyone else.
Drive slow in the fast lane. It's the Fast Lane for fuck's sake! Who doesn't know that?! Oh yeah...the Moron's!
Pay for your groceries with a check, but don't have it ready when it comes time to pay.
Watch MTV
Believe Dr. Phil
Believe Lee harvey acted alone.
Believe the Branch Davidians Self-Emolated.
Drive a BMW because everybody else does
Drive an Escalade
Use the word "Bling" to describe anything other than the sound of piss on a porcelain urinal.
Think Jim Morrison was anything other than a drunk.
Think Tupac was a poet.
Wore parachute pants in the 80's.
Think we're living in anything other than a Facsist state.


More to Come

President Assaulted During Visit to School for Gifted Children

During a recent visit to a Magnet School for the Developmentally Advanced, one of the more gifted students took a moment to let the President know how he felt about the job he’s been doing during his administration. Seconds later the child was wrestled from Mr. Bush's arms, thrown to the ground, and restrained with a tazer. He was quoted later as saying he spoke on behalf of all Americans with and I.Q. bigger than 70 (which coincidentally is the same as the President’s). Mr. Bush took it in stride, and said with a Texas-chuckle, “After five years of pissing off the world, I guess it’s about time I got pissed on. I just prefer it to be my wife Laura…or our 14 year old niece! That’s how we do things on the Ranch! Yeeeeeeeeeeeee-Haw!”

The next stop is a petting zoo in East Trumbleduck, Oklahoma; where the president anticipates a warmer reception.

For the Love of the Pain

Freshy!

I am tattooed. Quite heavily, actually. Or, at least, heavier than most. I have a complete “sleeve” on each arm, a large piece on my outer left calf, an interesting piece between my shoulder blades, script around my collar line, and, most recently, a large Monarch butterfly on my left pectoral. I never intended to be the “tattooed guy”. As a kid, while I did like to write on myself (my mom used to tell me if I was supposed to do that my skin would be made of paper. I love “momisms”), I never envisioned myself as a guy with lots of tattoos. When I first moved to San Diego in 1996, I answered an ad for a blues band looking for a singer. I have been singing my whole life, and was itching to get back into a band, and learn the city by playing around in it. I had, at the time, two “quarter-sleeves”, basically a couple of good sized tattoos from the shoulder to the elbow on each arm. By chance, the guitar player for the band was a tattoo artist. Not only was he a tattoo artist, come to find out, he’s THE tattoo artist in San Diego. The rest as they say is history. We played music together for a few years, built a friendship forged by common values, common interest, and the bond of mutual creativity. It took about eight years to finish the arms.

I can’t speak for others, but I’m pretty sure anybody with a lot of tattoos will tell you that the more you get tattooed, the less it becomes about the tattoo. I firmly believe that everybody knows what their tattoo looks like. Anybody who doesn’t have a tattoo, has, in their minds eye, in their creative conscious, their first tattoo. Someone might comment on my ink, and I’ll ask if they have any. They’ll say “No.” but that is almost invariably followed by, “But I know what I’d get if I had one…” There's something about the first tattoo. It's alluring. It's dangerous, it's renegade...it's one of those things you wish you could do, but up to now, you haven't. The thing is, as you accumulate the work, it becomes much more about the experience of tattooing. It's about the idea, the creative process, the ritual of preparation, and then, ultimately, the needle. When I say the "Ritual of Preparation", I'm talking about the half hour or so leading up the actual tattooing. The artist prepares his work area; he’ll lay out his hermetically sealed needles, pick out a gun or two (this is the actual machine that drives the needle), He loads the chosen needle assemblies into the guns, securing them in place with the snap of a rubber band. He puts on his surgical gloves, and then sets up his little ink tubs. Small thimble sized plastic cups that the colored inks are put into to be used for the tat. As the individual getting tattooed, there is a sense of anticipation and heightened awareness. Yer adrenaline starts moving, you start to get a little “pre-game” pump going. In fact I get the same feeling I used to get right before a football game. This is intensified by the sound of the tattoo machine buzzing in short staccato bursts as the artist gets the needle set up. You settle into the chair, get comfortable, maybe a glass of water, and you set your mind to 'Endure'.

There is no way that anyone who has a tattoo can adequately explain what the pain sensation of a tattoo needle is really like. Fucking impossible. The sting of the needle is not like, I dunno, regular pain. It’s different. I can’t tell you how, but make no mistake, it is a different pain experience. Don’t get me wrong, it hurts. Some spots hurt more than others, and some spots hurt like a mutherfucker!

I am not sure how many times I’ve been “under the needle”, somewhere between 30-40 times is a fair estimate. More often than not I find myself asking myself what it is that keeps bringing me back…to the pain. This is something that happens over time, not a sudden realization. You keep going back. You love the sound of the gun. The smell of the anticeptic, the medieval look of the hand made needle assemblies. There is something very raw and primal about it. You anticipate the burn of the needle, you wait for any sudden change in sensation, and you most certainly know what it's like to feel and hear the motor slow down as the needle digs in. There’s nothing like the feeling of one long solid well burned-in line.

I love those. I call them "Hot Ones". A single strong stoke of the needle that covers seven or eight inches of flesh in the process. Your nostril’s flair, yer jaw sets, you smell the adrenaline in yer sinus, and you breathe deep and feel the endorphin rush kick in. This is reason number one for the purist. Endorphin means "endogenous morphine". They are, in chemical terms, polypeptides that are able to bind onto the neurotransmitters in the brain and provide relief from pain. They are one of several “morphine-like” chemicals that were discovered in the brain about thirty or so years ago. There are actually about twenty different endorphins that are released within the brain, all having different applications and uses, most of which are, as yet, undiscovered. The strongest of these, or at least the one that seems to have the greatest impact on the brain and the body, is Tyrosine. Its molecular structure is very close to that of morphine itself, hence the related effect and comparison. Let me tell you, in the midst of a serious tattoo session, those babies start firing in bunches. The sensation can be intense, pleasing, and downright sedating. The effect, unfortunately, is short lived, and after about twenty minutes it starts to recede, and yer left with a lot of inflamed, exposed, and hyper–sensitive nerve endings in the skin, that are still being subjected to the sting of the needle. This is where it gets serious, this is the part that separates the herd. As hard to believe as this might be, this is the other reason, I believe, that people come back. From this point on, it becomes a mindset. You focus yourself. You gut it out and endure on sheer will, fortitude, and strength of character. You would love to get up from the chair, but will not until the artist says it’s time. Until it is done. It requires putting yerself, mentally, on a whole different plain. And when it’s finished, there seems to be another rush. This one is a rush of relief, confidence, empowerment and satisfaction, and sometimes it's so intense that's it's down right enlightening, fucking life affirming...you know yer awake and alive!. And that is why you do it. That’s what you’re paying for. That's what you come back for. The actual tattoo, after a while, is just a by-product.

Serious

Gasundheit!

Are you prepared to die? Are all of your things in order? Because the odds are changing dramatically and rapidly, and yer chance of dieing before ya want to just went up; and it's climbing. I'm talking about the Bird Flu. It's in the media, just a small story here and there on the evening news, or a blurb in the paper or on the net. WHO meeting in Bucharest. Guess what?? It's gonna kill MILLIONS of people; in rather short order, actually.

In 1918 the world was slammed by a Pandemic Flu. It swept the globe and took between 20 and 40 million lives in the process (being the turn of the century, record keeping wasn't very comprehensive...go figure). This flu, an avian or bird flu, infected one-fifth of the global population, and 28% of the U.S. got sick. It killed 675,000 Americans, which is ten times the number of men killed in the War. And of the American men who died overseas during World War I, half of them died from the flu. It was prevalent in the healthiest demographic of the population, the majority of those infected being between 20-40 years old.

In a nutshell, these start off as a viral flu transmitted easily between birds. As the virus mutates, it becomes easier for the germs to travel from foul to human. On the same token, as it mutates in humans, it becomes easier to pass and easier to get, it's exponential. Sounds great, huh? The truth of the matter is we have minimal defense against it. It's coming, it's on it's way. It's not about if, it's about when.


These guys are hiring!

These nasty fuckers come around every few years, and reek havoc on our poor, wimpy little imune systems. Folks are going to be dropping dead by the tens of thousands right here in our own country.

I got this from the Center for Disease Control's website. A little background:

Influenza Pandemics during the 20th Century
During the 20th century, the emergence of several new influenza A virus subtypes caused three pandemics, all of which spread around the world within a year of being detected.

1918-19, "Spanish flu," [A (H1N1)], caused the highest number of known influenza deaths. (However, the actual influenza virus subtype was not detected in the 1918-19 pandemic). More than 500,000 people died in the United States , and up to 50 million people may have died worldwide. Many people died within the first few days after infection, and others died of secondary complications. Nearly half of those who died were young, healthy adults. Influenza A (H1N1) viruses still circulate today after being introduced again into the human population in 1977.
1957-58, "Asian flu," [A (H2N2)], caused about 70,000 deaths in the United States . First identified in China in late February 1957, the Asian flu spread to the United States by June 1957.
1968-69, " Hong Kong flu," [A (H3N2)], caused about 34,000 deaths in the United States . This virus was first detected in Hong Kong in early 1968 and spread to the United States later that year. Influenza A (H3N2) viruses still circulate today.
Both the 1957-58 and 1968-69 pandemics were caused by viruses containing a combination of genes from a human influenza virus and an avian influenza virus. The 1918-19 pandemic virus appears to have an avian origin.

Now...Add to that, global recession, depletion of the gross national product, weakened infrastructure, social and economic chaos, and lack of adequate resources and qualified personnel; and you have the makings of a disaster of epic proportions. It'll make New Orleans look like...well...Mardi Gras.

The Government knows about it, has known about it, but is fucked to do much about it, because if they really do tell everyone the straight poop, there's gonna be Pandemic Pandemonium. People are gonna freak-the-fuck-out, like the tiny brained, "Chicken Little's" that they are. So they, the gov, are giving us the info in measured doses. Little bits here and there. The internet blurb on a World Health Organization meeting. Something in the paper about Bush's new plan to fight the disease*.


Is it me, or does he ALWAYS look stupid??

A TSA announcement that travel restrictions to certain parts of the world may be imposed. Small, strategically placed nuggets of info. Hoping like hell that the population figures it out, and doesn't go ape-shit when it does.

It's called H5N1. Pay attention people. Do your homework. Tell your loved ones. Seriously.

*Bush has proposed spending 71 Billion Dollars to deal with the Pandemic, and experts are saying that's a drop in the bucket.


www.pandemicflu.gov