100 arrested after LAPD, DEA raid gangs for firearms, drugs - The Daily Breeze

100 arrested after LAPD, DEA raid gangs for firearms, drugs - The Daily Breeze

my suspicions confirmed.

Several Suspects Arrested in SoCal Raid: MyFoxLA.com

ellroy, the craprobat

he is indeed, dropping a duece.

and i've no clue why.

kel-tec's

been impressing me as of late.
especially with this one...

@ rest

been beating a dead horse for several years now.

- the War.

- the Marines.

as if i were still an integral piece of the puzzle.

a cog in the wheel of international relations.

stems from my writing, i know this.

these are things i just know.

struggling to remember, to document, to create.

alas, there comes a time when a Marine's gotta drop his pack.

i'll spare ya the many apt metaphors, but ya gotta just put the whole damn thing to rest.

remember those years of boozing and brawling and globe-trotting, with a fondness only time can present.

otherwise ya might just end up a joke.

a punch-line to some skit on SNL;

a one-beat character on Gray's Anatomy

- choking out the lil' lady, spooning gone terribly wrong.

hoarding spilt-peas and bullets;

trip-wires in the backyard;

begrudging every last civilian who didn't serve.

so it's rest.

night-nights.

- the War.

- the Marines.

a piece of time that defined;

that guides;

that reminds.

- look in the mirror.

sun-burned and leathered.

far off eyes.

hands grizzled.

- connect the scars and remember when and where and how.

and why.

the .50 cal thumb;

the forced march in boots three sizes to small;

blisters faint now, smoothed over by cashmere socks, but so deep you couldn't walk;

toes numb, frostbitten in some fighting hole as ya hamstered sunflower seeds.

back sore, unremitting, nagging like am eastern european mother-in-law.

- 150 pound rucksacks hitching a ride for 20 miles or so did that, i think.

those are the "when's," the "where's", the "how's."

and the "why."

well, you were a kid.

that's why.

real simple, Timmy.

take a deep, deep breath.

chest huge, puffed up.

pulmonary alveolus wide open, flooding the bloodstream with oxygen.

and wait.

just wait.

it'll come.

feel it.

warm and tingly.

hold it for a moment.

just a moment.

a fleeting wonderful moment.

and exhale,

like whisper...

China blocks coastal waters, enlarges military - Washington Times

in ten years your 5th graders will be pushing up the Yangtze.

it's gonna be brutal.

just ask the Frozen Chosin...

China blocks coastal waters, enlarges military - Washington Times

RIP Sidney Lumet

' “While the goal of all movies is to entertain,” Mr. Lumet once wrote, “the kind of film in which I believe goes one step further. It compels the spectator to examine one facet or another of his own conscience. It stimulates thought and sets the mental juices flowing.” '

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/movies/sidney-lumet-director-of-american-classics-dies-at-86.html?_r=2

never thought i'd say this...

but aside from the whole "birther," debate, Donald Trump has it pretty dead on. and although i get the whole historical significance of a black president (especially nearing the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Civil War), what's it all mean if the brother's just another limp-dick politician?

JACK.

SHIT.

Ellroy V. Pocket Gopher

he tore my lawn all to hell.

a so-called "pocket gopher."

Thomomys botta.

and on a sunny weekday afternoon, as a stiff breeze rolled off the hill, he met Ellroy.

Canis familiaris...

battle fatigue

war is all hell

Gustav Hansford

wrote The Short Timers, aka Full Metal Jacket, and The Phantom Blooper.

-- unfortunately they're out of print, but there's a website dedicated to him, www.gustavhasford.com. , where you can read most of his prose.

some of what i read, including this in particular, was pretty goddamn insightful:

"Like a woman who has never given birth, the man who has not faced death and inflicted death will for all of his life feel somehow not quite complete. Combat veterans are completely puzzled and bemused by the strangers who try to start fistfights with veterans in bars to prove how tough they are. Macho civilians envy the veteran for something the veteran, or at least some veterans, would be only too happy to transfer, or get rid of, like bad memories, or a plastic leg.

The soldier's war comes and goes, and ends. But noncombatants search endlessly for substitutes for war and attach to war that esoteric glamor which always attaches itself to the unattainable...

Veterans quickly learn that the fantasies of aspiring war heroes and the realities of the experiences of war, what you gain for a short time and what you lose forever, can never be bridged."

- The Phantom Blooper, 1990

i know, sounds like a bunch of Veteran bravado, but we're granted that, i think, @ least.

Gustav Hansford is dead now.

i'd have liked to have met him.

Saturday and gloomy

been awhile. the back's been paining me some, so i've taken time off to resolve it.

gotta appt. @ Cedars Sinai next week, hopefully their treatment will supersede the V.A.

but don't get me wrong -- don't misunderstand my intentions.

there are good people down in Long Beach, off 7th street.

the Veterans Administration.

but not the best.

they're just...available.

and i figure it's my life.

my days and nights awake for hours on end because of some tiny little defect in my spine;

the pills they happily shove down your throat only to shoot daggers @ you when you ask for more;

the MRI's;

the X-Rays...

i'm whining, again.

i quit that.

anywho, i may have to spend big cheese with the doc's up in Los Angeles.

massive debt.

or not.

i assume it's worth it.

i assume that's what you're supposed to do.

not just give up because it hurts.

or guzzle tiny white pills till you're screws-ville.

you gotta try.

@ least that's what they tell me.