Decline Of America In The 21st Century

[Disclaimer: I expect no one to agree with or be swayed by my viewpoints. The world must save itself (Zatoichi Principle). One can only be accountable for oneself for when the final accounting is done.]

The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty.

- Abraham Lincoln

Damn the professional left!

The seeds were sown in the 20th century as we butchered every truth-teller we could find. Since "morning in America" there has been none and there will be none until the time of revelation and the world reverts to its original state (and many who are first will be last). What we have seen is the rise of the cult of personality and a disconnecting to reality. One need only study the decline of the Roman empire for a blueprint of the road we currently travel.

As each emperor became more crazed, debased, and wretched than the one before, so do we see the same regression in our leadership. But of course, any decline in leadership reflects the same decline in the people who raise them up. Our 43rd and 44th Presidents were tragedies and the 45th will be the same but without the mask of the previous two. No constitution can protect us from the self-loathing of the masses. Our search to restore former glory will prove fruitless and wasteful and delusional. We had our chances to do the right thing in the previous century but threw them away. Those bills are coming due.

History will speak ill of us and our continual sinking into conservatism (both right-wing and left-wing) and its erosion of human rights in all forms (social, political, and economic). It would be far easier and more accurate to refer to this century's leaders as President Judas. We barely even bother to hide the daylight treachery both planned and carried out. And why not? What did we do but give a collective shrug when we invaded a country unprovoked to plunder its resources? When our banking system betrayed us we instituted no meaningful reform, setting us up for a final fatal blow. There's seems to be no crime too large to ignore (except showing a breast at the Super Bowl! Then we get on our hind legs protesting our phony outrage with relentless conviction.)

Those who don't read the newspaper are uninformed.

Those who do read the newspaper are misinformed.

Those who read the human heart divine the truth.

How Obama paved the way for Trump

With the rise of the cult of personality, as long as "our guy" is doing the dirty deed we turn a blind eye. We shut down our conscience and "trust" the hero in charge who executes "classy and elegant" drone strikes and "inspires" us by repealing civil rights. As we descend, we hear more about the person than policies. We argue vociferously on whom we should give our allegiance, presumably because the arguers have no allegiance to themselves. At what point do we stop and ask what's the endgame to this perpetual power-grabbing?

All the world is a conspiracy. You know the truth and I know the truth. Yet we pretend not to know when we meet. It's understood we must keep the lie alive so as to not disturb the unnatural order of things on which our lives (and lies) are based. But living a lie causes anger and frustration - and bad choices. It's not that there's no solutions out there. It's just that our guilt prevents us from choosing them lest we admit our wrongdoings. All pollution is unnecessary. In the future it will not be understood why we failed to choose that.

With the current elections, our mask has been ripped further away. We are not the just people we say we are. The longer we fail to come clean, the more ludicrous we become. In this state we will continue to see the rise in phony morality ("I need to be nicer to evil!"), the rise of phony populism ("Those other people are fucking you!"), and the decline of the human condition. It's happening right before our very eyes. In our vain search for a savior, we eschew principle for personality (thus making arguments of principle moot). Make all the clever arguments you want on "how things must be" but by our fruits we will be judged.

The Weight Of Gold

Everyone in the neighborhood hated the New Guy. "He's a creep!" "He's a jerk!" "He's a hypocrite!" "He's a liar!" said the creep, the jerk, the hypocrite, and the liar. A meeting was called to find a resolution.

"We must rid ourselves of this man. There's no living with him! He's making us all look bad. We'll lose everything if he remains among us."

Many others stood up to claim of similar outrage and pornographic desires. Yet try as they might, they couldn't find a solution. The more the New Guy was denounced, the stronger he got, tweeting insults in kind as his constant reply. The real problem, of course, was the neighborhood had a prickly problem of being the pot calling the kettle black. None of their words could ever stick.

This left them with only one alternative: Esmeralda.

"Please help us. We know you're an evil witch with great powers of destruction and we must rid ourselves of this man. What can we do?"

Esmeralda shook her head. She was considered a "witch" because she lived outside their social norms and did that which is the greatest enemy of modern civilization: think. That made her mysterious and incomprehensible to the non-thinkers. They were also deeply suspicious of her since they knew they themselves were not worthy of trust. But deep in their hearts they knew thinking was the right thing to do, yet turning to it only as a last resort.

"The answer is simple," replied Esmeralda. "Give him gold."

"That's complete madness! That would accomplish the complete opposite of what we're trying to achieve. We're trying to get rid of him, not feed him like a stray cat so he forever begs."

There was much muttering as the leaders left the room. "I told you so!" was heard more than once. But a month later they were back, stymied worse than ever.

"Please! Give us an honest answer. We must have hope for life to be worth living."

"I did give you an honest answer."

"But we don't see how that could work! It goes against all our precepts and understanding of life."

"Naturally. That's because you don't think. My advice is give your gold. I shall say no more."

"OK, bitch. We'll give him our gold. But if this doesn't work we're coming back to get you and cry real hard!"

Witch!

The next morning the New Guy found gold on his doorstep. "This is amazing! You love me, after all! Way to go, you stupid cunts! #morons"

Next morning, the same. "Wow! OK! So maybe you weren't just trying to buy me off. #SoGlad!"

Again the next day. "I'd say this is too much but I'm a greedy son-of-a-bitch! #Suckers"

After another week of daily gold, doubt crept into the New Guy. "Hey guys. I've got more than enough. You need to take care of yourselves. Really! #I'mSoResponsible!"

A week later, he refused to bring the gold inside. "Not sure what's going on here! I'm not some sort of monster who wants all your gold. I told you to stop, so STOP!!!! #NoMas!"

But the giving was relentless. "I can't keep taking all this gold you keep giving me. Don't ask me why. You must be deceived I'm something I'm not. I admit I've been presenting a pose so you would love me. Don't we all? #SoSorry!"

As it yet continued, the New Guy felt as his neighbors had: trapped by behavior he could not control. To keep the gold would be to show himself a greedy monster. To refuse it meant to reveal himself as the fraud he was. Since he couldn't bring himself to admit he was underserving of the mounds of gold he'd been given, his only choice was to run away, never to return lest he be branded a fool for life.

When the New Guy left, he left the evidence of the gold as well. They took it back and returned to Esmeralda to give thanks.

"Your plan worked! Unbelievable. Do you know how we can keep him away?"

"He will keep himself away, believing his life depends on it. To him, returning here is a fate worse than death. Never underestimate the power of self-truth."

"And we got our gold back too!"

"Because you were willing to give it up you were able to keep it."

From then on, whenever anti-social behavior was observed, gold would start to appear on the transgressor's doorstep. Even those who misbehaved on purpose to get gold crumbled under its eventual weight. In this way balance and harmony were achieved.

EPILOGUE: In the next neighborhood where the New Guy lived, he reigned with cruel intolerance having been forced to see is his own ugly face. But because his neighbors there could not give up their greed for gold, they remained powerlessly under his thumb (and then he took all their gold in his contempt). Many, in fact, were drawn to his power, defending and enforcing his rotten ways. And in this way fascism came to rule.

Conquest Of The Useless

As part of the shattered shards of my life I work at times as a contract courier. I had occasion to visit a man named Truscott three times with deliveries in the course of my duties. He has an artist's loft in Deep Ellum, the Bohemian district of Dallas. It was in an old building converted to lofts and was way cool but I knew it was very pricey. But even though I brought him painter's supplies, I never saw any paintings.

So this last time he was my final delivery of the day which allowed me to talk without having to worry about the need to rush off. Curiosity had gotten the better of me.

"I guess I always catch you in between paintings. I see a blank canvass on your easel every time and you don't seem to hang any of your previous work around."

"Oh, I don't paint. I detest painting. It's so limiting."

This is where I start looking around the room for cameras to see if I'm being pranked. I decide to dive in anyway. Enjoy yourselves, asshole studio audience.

"But I bring you tubes of paint. I've seen you preparing the paints for use!"

"But, of course, one must be prepared to paint."

Pretty obvious at this point this is going to be a nut kicking exercise. "OK, I don't get it."

"Take at look at that beautiful canvass. What do you see?" I'm too beaten to answer. "It's infinity, the universe. It's every painting ever done, not done, and will be done. That's the power of a blank canvass."

All I could think about is where the hell he got his money from. "I guess I sorta see what you're saying. But sooner or later you have to put pigment onto paper."

"And destroy the dream? Never! There's no time I enjoy more than when mixing my paints before a painting begins. It's when I realized this I stopped painting as I understood just how miserable it made me."

The guy was probably around sixty so I assumed he'd discovered this over the course of his lifetime, receding into this state. "So that's all you do now, is mix paints for paintings never done?"

"I don't just prepare my palette. I dream while doing it. Fantastical paintings flow through my mind. How else would I know what colors to prepare? There are no limits in my imagination."

"Well, I guess if that's what makes you happy..."

"Indeed it does. The canvass must maintain its purity and endless innocence. Any touch of paint is sacrilege. To begin is to sin!"

I started getting queasy at this point. Vast waves of vague guilt washed over me. This was not a time I wanted to be on public display. Somehow this encounter was triggering an internal crisis from one of my many buried love landmines. To begin is to sin! Why the fuck does that bother me so much?? Is it because I want to stay unformed so I can pretend I'm anything I want? My entire being was screaming to exit.

My racing mind, however - as always - didn't stop working. I had to get one last shot out. Pointing to the blank canvass, I said, "You should put on an exhibition!"

Truscott didn't take that as a shot, though. "I do that every day, for all the heavens to see."

At that point, especially with my inner turmoil and my little voice screaming something I couldn't make out, I made my apologies and headed for the door. If he's happy doing all that, more power to him. No need to impose my ideas of what he should be doing even though the temptation was right on the tip of my tongue. Then the buzzer rang from the downstairs' entrance.

"That's my daughter with groceries. She's always afraid I don't eat right when I get too absorbed in my work." He smiled at me with a shrug.

"OK, I'll get out of your hair. Nice to finally talk to you!"

Something told me to race out the door quickly as I could. I failed. For when I opened the door, she was standing there. I recognized her face from a stolen picture years ago. Then I literally screamed in shock and fear at the one who truly knows me. I lunged passed her - squelching my true desire to surrender - down the stairs praying I would not be pursued nor my infamy found out. The entirety of my well-being depended on what happened next - and that's when I woke up in a drenching cold sweat, holding my arms up to God in supplication for death's release.

The Abortionist's Nightmare

The dream invaded him night after draining night...

The crowd roared with applause then rose in standing ovation. The two performers bowed deeply, smiling in the life-giving adulation. They knew it was not them, it was what they created together that was important. It had been a long, rocky journey to this point, fraught with danger and disaster other acts failed to avoid. Do I deserve this? How good are we really? Am I an over-praised imposter?

Like a child struggling to walk, one must persevere in faith it will happen. Many are the voices along the way but the feeling is unmistakably good. It's like being in a boat, surrendering to the river's flow, trusting where it will take you, and bathing in the peace of it. When the journey ends one thing is clear above all else: to have taken any other course would have been sheer madness, betrayal, suicide.

They needed the means to live outside society. Only there could they breathe life into their act. It takes a knowing belief to ask to have more. Doing the right thing brought success and success was the right thing to do. To say, "I am not worthy" is to create a self-fulfilling prophesy. Most of all was the sense of freedom, of limitless love, and the eternal satisfaction of having made the right choices. It was the feeling of life for which every life yearned.

It was the dream of this feeling that owned the nights for Oliver. Only for him, it was a nightmare, trying to suppress the dream he'd aborted.

"No! NO! Tell me I did not do that!"

It was like a never-ending film, laying in wait to continue every time he closed his exhausted eyes.

A critic wrote: What's wonderful about this pair of comedians is not only their perfect timing and pleasant air of innocence, but the friendship between the two we know exists even when times get rough and exasperation rises to the surface. "Another fine mess you've got me into!" This catch phrase lingers in our consciousness because we know it comes from love was well as real frustration we all get from time to time with one another. They are but helpless to stick together. We wish to be in their world.

Losing the act made life an impractical hell for Oliver. What ate at him most was he'd done it in the name of practicality. Forced to live within society's confines boxed his soul in dire daily death. His heart drowned in the tears of a lost existence, perpetually tormented by living under the basest of beasts who rule the daily underworld. There he was to spend the rest of his days trapped in unspoken ignominy; to whom could he speak of his unproven dream?

It's true: Ollie had been a true believer. This was the fact he most sought to hide, the deathly desperate shame he hoped to bury. Safe in the stupid world, none dare question him as a bum. No, his fear was to be called talented, professional, and a star. More than once it occurred to him the irony of his once having craved to the bottom of his soul to be ascribed those precious things. He even based his marriage to his wife that none of those traits were within him: a contract of mutual deceit.

Ollie was attacked by the urchins who now surrounded him. Unhappy with their own lives - failures feigning freedom - they'd demand he "pick himself up" and "quit moping." (In an act of unusual defiance, Ollie once grabbed a mop when told to quit moping. When asked what he was doing he replied, "You told me to quit mopping but I'm doing it anyway!" The confused look on his tormenter's face brought back a long forgotten satisfied feeling. Ollie was truly feeling his old self when he then made a fake apology for not knowing how to spell.)

But worst of all was the sickening, frightening, shattered feeling in the pit of his stomach lurking around every corner. No matter what small victory he might achieve to bring a rare smile, the dark clouds overhead reminded him in crestfallen doom of his perpetual predicament, re-breaking his heart. Finding the resources to forgive himself was a constant battle. The killing chores that paid the rent made him cry out in pain when praised in selfish ignorance. In the end, Ollie was left with only one gaping question:

"What is left to do to make amends?"

End Of The Line

It's been seven years since I fucked up with Emily. I can live off the echoes of her memory no more. Near as I can tell, she has gone on the run, supposedly from me, believing I don't adore and respect my most favorite person in the world (in this I was deceptive). But were I to die tomorrow (in sweet mercy) she would find she'd still be running. Only then will she understand.

Without her friendship and support I am nothing. I am helpless to stop the erosion of my health. I can pretend to be living no more. Needs are needs.

The world has become one big concentration camp. With glee, they are warming up the ovens - only this time there will be no quick, merciful death. The poor, the weak, and the elderly will be first to die in slow motion terror. Worked to death, worried to death, withered to death. All this will be done in the name of God, and God will be silent.

Seeing this horror, one by one each group will line up next for extermination. They too will stay silent to the end, vainly hoping to be spared. In huddled masses they will listen to the screams. Truth has won battles but never the war. In great satisfaction, it will be seen the liars cannot pray their way off their crosses as they falsely believed. Only then will they know the value of truth.

Once the dead have removed themselves we will be free. Until that time there is nothing more to say. Only our Maker can prevent our wholesale self-annihilation at this point. We will all be asked where we stood in the time of darkness. Be prepared to have a good answer, that is the only thing left for which to live.

Perspectives (Photo Essay Dream)

Yes, this is a picture of an actual supporter of President Caligula.
Can you feel her wisdom?

"When man stops raping his soul he'll stop raping the world - and not before."

- American Indian proverb

We reached a crossroads in the last century: to choose between greed or freedom. If we are to be judged by our fruits our choice was the wrong one. Everything this century is angrier: our songs, our words, our politics. Rage is taking over. Has making the right decision ever made you mad?

With the air of a century past

The fallen leaves on the garden.

- Basho

Perhaps if we look deeper, underneath, and into the hidden corners we see something different. The strands of time are like a flowing river. Try to dam the flow and you'll drown in the rising waters. Try to alter its path to your own ends and the strain will consume you over time. In the end, the river can only be released to flow as Nature intended. But the perspective of many is that if Nature wins, we lose. How very faithless.

Inverted picture, reflection up top

That soon they will die

Is unknown

To the chirping cicadas.

- Basho

I too feel the rage, a nightmare to live at the mercy of messianic monsters. Agents of cruelty armed with snarling lies and forked tongues dream of a false future that can never be. This makes them angry. They must find someone to blame, destroying lives in the name of justice. They must hide their bad decisions, crushing dissent in the name of security. They must blame their victims or see themselves as the monsters they are. What happens when the Nazi killers become Nazis?

Even if the cherry blossoms bloom

Ours is a world of suffering

- Issa

"I'm saying to you I'm hurting, I'm in pain, and see no hope."

What of my own monstrosity? I too wish to blame others for my own tragic self-betrayal. I spout plausible answers, I leave out inconvenient facts, I get patted on the back in false justification. And yet my life remains the same. We ache to rip off our masks because we can't breathe inside them. We ache to keep them on because we fear we won't be loved when exposed. Nature makes it simple in the end. Those who choose to breathe will survive, those who choose not to will die. Only the truth can set us free.

Click here to see the entire set.

Mecum Maseratis, Dallas 2016

The Maserati gods were smiling upon me at the last Mecum auction. A very rare 4.9 liter 1969 Ghibli spyder along with a 1975 Bora were both up for sale. What a painful time to be poor. The Ghibli was the star of the show with an estimated price of around a million. The market for these Spyders is climbing but they usually go for a fraction of that price. The engine must be the difference in this case.









While the Ghibli had had a first class restoration done on it the Bora was a bit tired with some wear and tear showing on the interior. I thought the $160,000 reserve price was way optimistic. $125,000 would have been a good price for that car. I saw Wayne Carini put a Bora up for auction and he overpriced it too. People just don't appreciate them and that's fine with me. Keep my fake hope alive!









Of course, there were some other fine examples present. Those who will recall the early days of Miami Vice will remember Crockett drove a Ferrari Daytona (it was fake). Here we have the real deal, will probably fetch around three quarters of a million.





"It's a doozy!" That phrase came from the great Duesenberg line of cars. Pictures don't so this car justice. Just blows you away in person, absolute work of art.



This Aston Martin Vulcan is a glorious beast. Only 24 to be built with a price tag of 2.3 million.



This Lincoln Limo really killed me. I'd have a blast with this car, something straight out of The Godfather. Car was a steal far as I was concerned.







The cost of buying a classic supercar does not end with the purchase. The maintenance on these high-strung creations comes with a steep bill and is one reason why you see so many low mileage examples running around even years later. Here's an invoice detailing some of the work done on the Bora. These kinds of costs are typical.



To find out how the auction went for the two Masers, see the videos below.






Click here to see the entire photo collection

The Abortionist Responds

Dear Stan,

I got your letter. I'm not sure what you're trying to do. The act is gone and can't be recreated. The person I was before no longer exists. Life goes on. You don't need me.

Many people have crazy dreams when they are young. They want to be artists or engineers and other unworkable ideas that get in their heads. You need to get passed that stage and join the grown up world. I have obligations and responsibilities. I cannot support myself walking on the clouds of fanciful dreams. We were never going to become famous.

During the act it was always perform, perform, perform! What pressure! What if the funny stops? How do I know I can keep up my end? Is that fair to you that you should have to carry me? I believe I was doing you a favor when I aborted. Yes, you should be thanking me for giving you a head start in the right direction instead of keep heading down the road of wishful thinking.

Also, for some reason, soon after the act broke I started gaining weight and am unable to stop it. It plagues me to this day. Just imagine how awful it would be for me to be on stage after ballooning like this! They say something in my physiology changed. More proof I was right to quit.

I am married now and have devoted my life to God. We are conservative Christians. I don't believe God wants us walking around in this evil world laughing amid so much misery. I read a scripture on that one time. It's better we sit in sackcloth and ashes and repent. Life is very hard and difficult and bitter! This certainly serves the world much better than two guys clowning around on stage.

I won't say I don't miss you at times. Sometimes the old impulses start coming through (and very ill-timed!). I have learned to ignore them as God wants me to. I'm sorry you keep living in the past. I still remember what you said to me at the end, that I wasn't just quitting the act, I was quitting on life. I think you can see with this letter that's not true. The wife and I will pray for you.

God Bless,

Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Hardy

Rambo Smokes A Joint

The Texas Sheriff’s Association, one of the oldest law enforcement associations in the nation, claimed that considering the legalization of marijuana in Texas is reckless and irresponsible despite 26 states and the District of Columbia currently having laws legalizing marijuana in some form.

"We have never allowed it, and we never will,” the Sheriff’s Association continued. “Our children are the future of our state, and it is irresponsible for us, as adults, to play fast and loose with their minds and their futures. They are not of an age to make these decisions, so it’s up to us to make the right choices."

*****

South Dallas is not Dallas. It's a third world of despairing decay and rejected rot abutting a revitalized downtown with its million dollar condos and skyrocketing rents afforded only by the very few. In contrast, parts of southern Dallas can be mistaken for 1950's rural Mississippi complete with gravel roads. So desperate is the neglect of this part of the city, one can literally be eaten alive by roving packs of dogs.

In this place of forgotten people sat a forgotten man in a forgotten multi-story building. This man himself was also trying to forget. John J Rambo had come back from Vietnam with his body intact but with many parts missing. He could never again be the person he was before he left for the hell of the jungles whose clinging vines still wrapped his soul in tightened torment. The journey out of hell had proven more perilous than the hell itself.

The first step had been denial, to strive to be the whole person he was before. That brought rage. Then came despair, deciding to succumb to the hell and let it devour him. That brought sorrow. Slowly, painfully, over the years he let the regret seep in and the grieving begin. He oscillated between chastising himself and chastising a world he'd never trust again. In time, one thing else became clear: he needed help on an unforgiving planet.

Help came in the soothing inhales of THC-laced smoke. Like every man who'd warred he hungered and thirsted above all for peace if he were to keep his breath. He would not be the whole person of before, he would not be a patriarch to ensuing generations. In fact, he didn't know exactly what he was. But this ancient plant wound between his fingers put Rambo in a place that whatever it was he had turned out to be, it was OK. That brought peace.

As it turned out, fighting for peace was much harder than fighting for war. In peace, he was attacked by guilt and doubt that never plagued him during battle. These enemies scoured his entire consciousness looking for every weakness. The only way to win this battle was to realize his self-worth. Of the wounds he suffered in these conflicts he spoke to no one. But now having found a place of peace he knew he had to protect it - or lose his soul forever. Rambo wasn't about to lose another war, and so gradually, bit by bit, he'd become a warrior for peace simply by virtue of remaining alive.

He'd also become a criminal in the eyes of the law-bred. And when law enforcement authorities were made aware of this criminal they knew they must act!

"Listen, men, today we are fighting to protect the future of our children! Either we eliminate criminal activity or it eliminates us. One person violating the law is a threat to law everywhere. So not even the slightest infraction can be tolerated. People start fucking around with the law then all hell breaks loose! Let's go, boys, and save the day!"

With hoops and hollers the armed mass departed to uphold the thin blue line between civilization and utter chaos. For if that is not the fruit of their blind obedience then agents of chaos they truly be, to be reviled as mindless dogs when the final history of mankind is written. The officers wallowed in the force shield of approval that in their minds made them invulnerable on their way to inflict the law at all costs.

"It's so great being the good guy! We can waste these lawbreakers any way we please!"

"Especially when we go to the poor side of town. So much less stress dealing with people who don't count."

"Got that right. You'll never see a #poorlivesmatter campaign!"

"Yeah, man, I heard what the new AG said: Good people don’t smoke marijuana. We'll get this dirtbag and clean up this country of these degenerate pot smokers."

"Lot safer than going after real criminals or Wall Street traders, that's for sure. I was at my Holy Hypocrites Of America meeting last night and we made damn sure it was OK for us to persecute pot smokers even if we do it ourselves, just like that asshole Obama."

"Know what you mean. At my Anti-Christs For Jesus rally last week we pretty much figured out we're the only ones who know what the truth is. We gotta get this country back on the straight and narrow."

"Amen to that, brother! I hope he has a nice car we can seize."

Rambo was in a particularly mellow mood when his radio crackled with a long forgotten voice. "Rambo! This is Col. Trautman! You're surrounded! Drop your joint and surrender before it's too late!"

"Heeey, Trout-man! How's it going?"

"Rambo, this is serious! Look at the odds. There's over 200 men out here."

"Sounds like you're serious enough for the both of us. Don't mess with my wa. Ain't going back to the jungle in my head or in my heart. You were right. It's over. You wanna come in and smoke some ganja, help yourself. You wanna take my peace from me I'll give you a fight you won't believe."

"It's useless I tell you, Rambo. Come on out and I'll fly you back to Bragg. You can't fight over 200 men!"

"You send that many, don't forget one thing."

"What?"

"A good supply of body bags."

"Hey, that's my line!"

"Suit yourself, Colonel."

Thus the signal was given to raid the house. The first group, however, did not fare that well as they were blown to bits by buried Claymore mines. "He can't do that! We're the good guys!" Reflexively, officers in the streets began to riddle the house with automatic weapons fire. But this only drew a response from radar activated nested machine guns on each floor that tracked the flashpoints of the gunfire to guide their aim (ideal for home defense!). Dozens of men fell in the surrounding streets wailing in pain.

Rambo peered out a slit in the building. "Guess they'll need some more cop guys." Then he took another toke.

Chaos ruled on the crime scene. Amid the confusion and flashing lights and approaching ambulances a decision was made to break out the heavy artillery. Attack helicopters, LAW rockets, and the explosives laden robot that killed the police sniper descended on Rambo's location - but to no avail. A series of interconnected drones overhead fired in coordination nullifying each potential bombardment. "Hey, he can't use drones! Only we can use drones! This is, like, so totally unfair! Might is supposed to make us right! Just look at all the death and destruction that joint caused."

"Fuck it. It's Twinkies time. Just don't
ask me how I got the munchies!"

Tired and beaten, the police sulked away, the dead and wounded too many to count. The press reported that the situation was only contained due to the skilled law enforcement techniques of the officers. Chief Brown responded, "I find that the mind is the greatest weapon. We'll outsmart him and pick him up in a couple weeks working at a car wash in Oak Cliff - like we could have done in the first place."

Rambo could only shake his head as he looked at the casualties being carried off on this war on people who use drugs. He settled back into a comfortable spot, still with so many tears left to soothe. "Why is it people just can't mind their own business?"