The Truth about Earmarks and Taxes

Here are a two quotes that should clear up the whole Earmark-Taxes debacle.

Taxes

"A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken Sept. 5 to Sept. 7 found that 51 percent of voters think Obama would raise their taxes, even though his plan would actually cut taxes for the overwhelming majority of Americans."

-The Washington Post, 9/10/08


Earmarks

"At a rally today, Sen. McCain again asserted that Sen. Obama has requested nearly a billion in earmarks. In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year. In comparison, Gov. Palin has requested $750 million in her two years as governor -- which the AP says is the largest per-capita request in the nation."

-The Wall Street Journal, 9/9/08


I guess it's really not a "debacle." On one side there are "facts," and on the other...things that ain't so sweet.

-KV

Lighten Up by Klaus Varley

Two days after 9/11, the girl I was dating tried to kill herself. I found her next to an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a copy of Prozac Nation I had given her. She lived. I wrote this a few weeks later. Sorry for being so serious. -KV

Lighten Up
by Klaus Varley

I'm a man in doubt; I don't know what will come next. I never knew what would come next, but I never doubted something would come. But now I doubt, and that's what scares me the most.

And I'm nervous. I'm not sure what about. Don't you ever feel nervous and you don't know why? Performance anxiety? That could be it. That's usually IT. What will go up next? The fate of The Brothel in my hands? Pass the alcoholic stimulant, I can't afford to be self conscious when exposure looms on the horizon.

Don't know if I will be funny enough or cool enough or funny enough or redundant or what? Will people laugh? Who are these laughing people? People I don't even know, but hey, if they tell me I'm funny I'll go along with it. I'll say "thanks," because I don't want to lose our five fans, but really I don't know what they are talking about. I'm not sure what they find funny and what they don't find funny, and it seems strange, me taking credit for words on the page.

They're not mine, I just type them.

Shouldn't the words take credit for themselves? I've got these blocks of letters-they came in the mail in a big bag from UPS-looking a lot like the one you've got, and all I'm trying to do is put them in an order that amuses me.

Break.

Some music, and I begin again.

On September 17th, the first day of trading on Wall Street after the tragedy, everything on the market went down save cigarettes, Pepsi, and booze.

Let's go back.

On September 11th my roommate Matt went to work. I got to stay home, seeing how I work in a high rise building. On his break from genetically mutating the last swamp monster back to it's original state* Matt did something he hasn't done since taking his first nutrition class at UCLA back in 96:' he bought a candy bar.

Actually he bought two candy bars. Both from the vending machine on the fourth floor of the Center for Health Sciences.** He ate them both right there in the cold, sterile hallway. Fuck it, he thought, if the end of the world is coming, I'm going to eat myself some motherfucking candy.

On September the seventeenth, the first day of trading on Wall Street after the fucked up act by some fucked up people, the market went down, save cigarettes, Pepsi, booze, and motherfuckin' candy companies.

And yes, I ripped off the "motherfucking candy" line from Me Talk Pretty One Day. It is not necessary to send me an e-mail about these things. I give credit where credit is due (Clerks). But sometimes you just gotta say 'what the fuck' (Risky Business). And all you need is love (Who knows).

Love is all you need (Anonymous.. maybe me?).

I recently told a close friend that when I die, I want to write something clever on my gravestone so when people walk by and read it, they'll smile gently, maybe even quietly chuckling and shaking their head. Odds are, if they're in the cemetery they're feeling pretty down, and wouldn't mind a laugh or two, if only so they realize there is so much to live for that even this dead guy is saying "hey, lighten up."

And as I look at my future, wondering if humor can go on, I smile. Sometimes I even quietly chuckle, shaking my head, because I know there is so much more to life than planning what to write on one's tombstone (although "Don't FUCK with hungry lions" is pretty sweet) and sometimes even I, Klaus V, take things way too seriously.

So lighten up. Humor goes on. The Literary Brothel goes on.

-Klaus Varley

---

* Not sure what Matt gets paid to do. He told me what he does, but I'm not too good with science, or remembering...or listening to Matt?

** Irony. Because he's eating candy in a center for health. I know, it's been a long time. Thought I'd point it out.

the 11th by teddy nutmeg

In this, the seventh year anniversary of 9/11, The Literary Brothel puts up some pieces we wrote just after the events. Raw. Honest. They take you back. The first is from Teddy Nutmeg. -KV

The 11th
Teddy Nutmeg

In the hotel room drinking Beam and Coke (alright, Diet Coke, I gotta keep my girlish figure), I sit by myself, pondering the feel of this new age, fresh out of an empty airport and shell-shock in the puffy eyes of a passersby. I'm too young to remember any other national tragedies, so all this is shockingly, awakeningly new. And it doesn't seem real.

I remember the morning of September 11th. I turned on the radio as I drove to work and heard nothing but surprise-tinged, saddened voices. It didn't seem real. In the office, teary eyes and huddles around 5-inch mini-TV's dominated, all computers were tuned to webcasts and photos of the disaster. Finally the word came at 10AM that there was no work to be done today, that all should go home to pray and grieve. I went home, got stoned, and went to the beach. It was a beautiful day, and my tan needed work. And I wasn't alone on the beach.

A girl I work with in the office, when I'm in the office, lost a father that day, his flight ended up in the Pentagon; her world was crumbling while I mellowed out and my tan deepened. Somehow I can't make myself feel anything, about the crashes, about her father, about 6,000 absences. It doesn't seem real. Does that mean something?

I grope for something to compare this feeling to and my straw yields dreams. Often dreams about WWII America invade my nights. My Grandfathers stern and dutiful on battleships in the Pacific, my Grandmothers volunteering at home while waiting, always waiting for The Word. War rallies, war bonds, youth groups and everywhere an ultimate solidarity that must've been both comforting and creepy. A sense of purpose and unity and righteousness that was awesome in scope and numbing in psychological confines. Some of us are feeling something like that now, lessened by the lack of an identifiable, central enemy, but something nonetheless.

Perhaps its the haunting and somehow distant images of jets flying into buildings or the sudden and unplanned implosions which have been etched into our collective consciousness by the nightly news, the daily news, the motherfucking minutely news. Perhaps it's the cloud of untouchability upon which we've been riding this past quarter-century. Perhaps it's the sheer monstrosity of an act which could've taken the better of 20,000 lives. I don't fucking know. It doesn't seem real.

Or, it didn't seem real, and then I drove around downtown Dallas the other day, looked up at 70 story buildings and realized they're only 2/3 of what the WTC was. I was on top of the WTC in the fall of '98, I paid the 8 bucks, had my ears pop on the elevator ride up, and walked out, mouth agape, to the city lights of Manhatten, NYC, Newark and beyond. That building, I was on top of, it overlooked the most impressive cityscape in the world, and ITS FUCKING GONE.

It's fucking real. Karen's dad is fucking dead. Please, if you're like me, a self-centered West Coast resident who can't seem to attach any meaning to what happened, go find the tallest building you can. Take the elevator up to as far up as you can. Walk around. Look at the people, the offices. Stop at some other floors on the way down. Look at the people. Look at their cubicles, their pictures, their decorations. Fucking see them as people, not robots. Now imagine a building at least twice that size, crumbling like a paper cup, a raging inferno trapping all on the top 30 floors of the building. Imagine those people trapped, choking, feeling the heat through the floor, nowhere to go but for a 90 story vertical stroll out the window. It's real.

I recently moved across town, and unpacking the other day I found a poster I had up in my old apartment: It read "Smash the State," in large uneven type, proclaimed loudly to be made by the "Alliance for Un-American Activities." I first put this up in my dorm room in the mid 90's, when Rage Against the Machine was big, punk was becoming mainstream, and the grunge/slacker attitude was giving way to a more aggressively anti-everything stance. Four years ago I identified with it. I didn't put it up in my room now. I still may not agree with the average American, but damn, I feel a WE. I feel like an American.

About two weeks ago, I noticed among the multitude of crappy, racist, zealously pro-American emails, one about a national candlelight vigil at 7PM. It seemed like a cool idea, but then I forgot about it.

So later that day I was driving to a hoochie's house, to go get some ass, and I saw people on the street, on the corners, waving flags and holding candles and signs that said "USA #1", and I looked down and it was 7PM. Something in me wanted to laugh scornfully at these people, (especially since I was going to get ass, and they were just standing on some street corner) but then I opened my eyes and I saw their faces. I saw the tears, I saw the resolve, I saw the care. These people cared! The cars were honking, people were cheering, people were getting out and hugging strangers and crying. I honked! I shouted! I cheered! I'm an American!!! Granted, I still went and got some ass after that-great, American ass-and I forgot all about the tragedy for an hour or two. (YES, AN HOUR OR TWO. WHAT?)

But I don't think I'll forget that feeling, those faces, the shouts and honks. I don't think I'll forget Karen's dad. I don't think I'll forget the sound of the radio on the way to work and its absence of music that morning. I don't think I'll forget that IT IS REAL, that my Grandfathers fought in WWII to give us what I've taken for granted. I don't think I'll forget what I hated back in college, in my grunge/punk days.

Well, maybe I'll forget it for an hour or two, here and there. Yes, an hour or two. What?

-Teddy Nutmeg

Army of Darkness and Donnie Darko: Director's Cut = Worse Cut?

Usually a writer/director creates a film, helps edit it, then releases something close to their original vision. Sometimes this turns out good (Bottle Rocket), sometimes not (The Life Aquatic).

And then every once in a while, a talented filmmaker writes and directs a movie that turns out to be phenomenal, despite their best efforts to make it mediocre. These movies are called Army of Darkness and Donnie Darko.

In the original Army of Darkness, Sam Raimi ended the film with Bruce Campbell's character Ash taking drops of a sleeping potion - but taking too many - and ending up in a dystopic future. "I slept too long!" he shouts, and then we fade out.

Luckily, the studio intervened, forced Raimi to shoot a kick-ass ending. The studio then re-cut the entire film, changing it from horror/adventure to horror/comedy, and vuala!

Don't believe me? Watch Army of Darkness: The Director's Cut. Man, that thing is a boring piece of crap.

Exibit 2: Donnie Darko. While the director's cut of Darko isn't nearly as bad as Army's, it is far inferior to the original. Essentially, the director's cut puts in a bunch of scenes that explain away the mystery that made Darko so intriguing in the first place.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, sometimes the artist know not what they wrought.

Or maybe I'm trying to say that sometimes it's best to just give your jumbled piece of poo to a good editor and say "go nuts!"

I hear that's what they did for the original Star Wars as well.

Oh snap, I smell a sequel to this article.

Or maybe a prequel.

Or something.

-KV

Corporate Death - by Teddy Nutmeg

Here's another rant against corporate America from Teddy Nutmeg circa 2002. This one comes in the form of a poem. How creative. (It actually is, we just prefer to be sarcastic than profess our true admiration for Teddy and his writing. It's how we hide our true feelings. Because we are shy. Sort of. Enough! Stop reading this and read a good writer (Teddy)! -KV

Corporate Death
Teddy Nutmeg

Vulgarities crouch anxiously on the tip of my tongue
As the boss tells me how it is.
"Fuck this fuckin bullshit!!"
I want to scream out, shove it in his face,
You don't own me motherfucker!!
But instead, "I realize that, and I'll do what I have to do."
Corporate newspeak, hard and fast, pours through
My intentions like water through a sieve.
Have I become a mouthpiece through which false positivity, plastic happiness and greed spout like slogans from a presidential candidate?

This place, this mindset, tempting, a permeating and permanent cloud thick as
Cuban cigar smoke-once it seeps into you there's no cleansing,
No leaving, no going back to poverty and happiness.
You're going to reek (of money) forever.

Hands and feet and my iron (hah!) will are chained, lashed down, on task,
No room in the brain for thoughts-
home, mom and dad aging faster than week-old milk,
Little sister's not little anymore, did she graduate from college yet?
Brother, what's important in your life now?
Grandma, I miss your sweetness and eternal unwavering love. How long can you hold on?

Until Christmas I hope,
because I'm too busy to go home more than twice (once) a year.

No room in the soul for soul-
All desires, all hopes, all dreams, all loves now surrendered to greed.
No room anymore for expression, tolerance, spontaneity or lightness.
All those things can't fit into a shiny new Porsche 911 (new metaphor for life)
Barely room for your always-packed bags and trophy girlfriend,
Who comes second to your business trips and golf game, of course.

I am corporate.
I am dead.

-Teddy Nutmeg

Who are these Undecided Voters?

I can't decide if it's worse to be an undecided voter, or a Republican.

Can you?

-KV

Yes, that's the post for the day. Comments are welcome. As are pictures. Especially if they have been photoshopped...

Two from the Mailbag

Below are two letters that typify the stuff we get at The Literary Brothel. Alright, they are actually just our two most recent and coherent letters. The letters are followed by our responses. We also emailed the recipients our responses, that are similar to the responses below, but not necessarily the same. We also might have failed to mention that their letter would be posted on the site. Hey, we can't remember everything...can we? -KV

---
Dear Klaus:

I'm just curious. Are you really going to send me a fedora, or was that just
a literary joke?

Cordially,
Michael Shorb
----

Dear Michael,

Why the hell would I send you a...(memory kicks in)...oh, the poetry contest. Yes, that was a joke.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get the free fedora.

Don't know that one? Me neither, actually. We'll send your fedora later this week. Thanks for the email.

But next time, ask in rhyme. Wouldn't that be cool? I thought all poets wrote in rhyme, like, all the time. Ha, time!

Thanks for the poem.
Something that rhymes with poem.

-Klaus

---
Hello!

We thought you and your readers might like to receive a free full-length novel, Jumble Pie, a heartwarming story about two women, a friendship, and a pie. The author has two published novels (Penguin Putnam) and is providing this as a thank-you to readers!

"JUMBLE PIE is the story of the elusive nature of friendship, sometimes clinging, other times liberating; a story for any woman who has ever lied to her best friend just to make her feel better - and who has been brave enough to tell the truth, even when it hurts. And of course, it's a story about the remarkable healing power of pie."

Please visit www.melanielynnehauser.com/JumblePie to request a copy.

If you post a review of Jumble Pie on your blog, please be sure to let us know so we can link to it from the author's site and send some visitors your way!

Thanks & Happy Reading!
GreenApple Publicity

---
Dear GreenApple Publicity,

We're not exactly sure why you believe a site called "The Literary Brothel" with the tagline "Where great minds are coming.." is a good place to promote your author's work, but hey, we'll give it a shot.

Wait, your email says we should READ the book and then offer a description. That sounds like a lot of work. How about we do like the old proverbs tell us to do, and judge that book based on its cover.

The Literary Brothel recommends "Jumble Pie," a animated exploration of the heart, the feet, and sidelong glances.

And who doesn't love sidelong glances.

So, there's your review, GreenApple. Hope you like it. Feel free to send more links to books in the future.

Love,
Klaus

PS. For future reference, if an author wishes for a real book review, all they need to do is send us the book. If it's good, we'll review it. Seriously.
---

So that's it. Got something you don't want to leave in the "comments" section? Shoot us an email: literarybrothel@gmail.com

-KV

Palin is Poo

I haven't done enough research to make this claim, but I'll make it anyway: Palin is poo.

What do I mean by "Palin is poo?" For one, I mean that alliteration is a good way to get people's attention. You might be reading these very words simply because you liked the sound of "Palin" and "poo" back to back.

I also mean she is not a good pick for Vice President.

She might be an "OK pick" if her very old running mate's slogan wasn't "country first."

She might be an "OK pick" if she hadn't admitted to not knowing what the Vice President does, and implying that she's really looking for a job that keeps her busy. (see below)

She might be an "OK pick" if she hadn't been involved with an Alaskan separatist party.

In fact, this article should probably be entitled "She might be an "OK pick" if.." But Palin is Poo is just too catchy.

-KV