Well, well...

It seems that I am becoming Popular. People are reading my wisdom, soaking it in.

I approve of this.

Thus: a warm and happy greeting to all new readers from Dear Old Uncle Tambour. I have been promising for some time a Big Break, a piece of Importance, more than my prattling and rambling and calling Kim Jong-Il a bastard. Because all of you have taken the time to read, I am delivering, making good on my word.

Spread the news of my coming, kids. Tell everyone you know to read me. More readers encourage me, and I know you guys want to be entertained.

Mahalo,

Uncle Tambour

Where's Hawkeye When You Need Him?

I've known a lot of crazy people in my time. Hell, you probably have, too. Someone you know takes anti-psychotics or anti-depressants or MAOI inhibitors or drinks too much or doesn't like themselves. Someone you know is not right in the head. Most people you know aren't right in the head; that's my theory, at least. You might be that someone you know. The simple fact is, life in America (possibly the world in general) fosters and encourages mental instabilities of some sort or another. Because of this, there's a whole spectrum of whack-jobs out there, a sliding scale of madness. I did a brief stint in a homeless camp and saw a lot of the uglier side there, the different flavors and levels of bad lunacy. Mostly you get the harmlessly insane, the ones who had been dealt such shitty cards in life that they needed to move out where the buses don't run in order to cope. These are usually the guys drinking beer after cheap, watered down beer, one minute your best friend and the next whispering panic-stricken half-sentences about the Reptilian shape-shifting politicians that run the Illuminati and all fuck one another to keep the bloodlines pure. These guys are the staple of any Friday night out on the town. You nod, buy 'em a beer, maybe chuck a buck or two their way.

Later into the night, lurking in the darker parts of the city, you find the more rattled, the ones whose screws have long since fallen off and rolled under the workbench. There are the deeply violent, the men who will lash out at anything come near, the ones whose minds are constantly feeding them input that does not, cannot, will not exist, and it's terrifying. The worst nightmare you ever had on acid fucking Freddy Krueger and ejaculating the screams of children and it never stops. And then there's the truly sad cases, the men and women and children so far gone that they're never coming back. There was a guy in my old homeless camp like that, a 'Nam vet named Gary. The rest of the camp pitched in what they could to buy Gary his medicine, probably just codeine, something to ease the pain off while the clock ticked by. Gary never spoke once. I never saw him move. He only gestured with his right hand; it didn't stop the other homeless guys from including him in conversations, passing him beers, letting him speak his peace with his mangled, arthritic conducting. It was one of the kindest things I'd ever seen, a more human gesture than anything I see from most people with comfortable lives.

Like it or not, insanity is a very real part of life today. There are a number of things that can be done to help the folks that need it. Lower the price of mind-drugs, sink more funding into public health care, tip the bums more so they can buy whatever puts them at ease. I'm no lobbyist, nor city planner; I can't give anyone the answer to making the mentally ill, homeless or otherwise, well and healthy. I do know one thing, though. Do you want to know what you don't do with crazy people?

Let them run their own fucking country.

Let's talk for a bit about this guy. Kim Jong-Il has been running North Korea since God took a break for a day, and the country is a festering shithole because of it. According to Kim's official biography, his birth was nothing less than an event of celestial magnificence, a miracle marked by the appearance of a double rainbow and a new star in the sky. Little baby Kim is born on one of Korea's sacred mountains and a new ball of gas erupts in the heavens to commemorate the heralding of the Chosen One. Shit, when I was born my old man got all his friends hammered on 2-dollar martinis and tried to throw me off the roof of the Grand Hotel in some North Florida port town. I was a tenacious little fucker even back then; I'm pretty sure the old man still has the scars.

But I digress. Kim's official biography claims that he was born on a sacred mountain and that the universe shat itself in happiness when he popped out of the womb, theoretically finishing up a copy of "Das Kapital" and writing his doctoral thesis on flaws in capitalism before the doctor smacked his ass. This, like everything else Kim and Kim's people have said about his life, is an utter fucking lie. Look at his wikipedia page; littered with contradictions. "Born on a sacred mountain" becomes "born in a dingy Russian hospital where his father was soldiering." "His mother died in childbirth" is apparently Korean for "she might have been Glocked and left to bleed out." My personal favorite? Kim had a brother, and the kid drowned at the family mansion. Quoting the wiki: "Unconfirmed reports suggest that 5 year old Kim Jong-il might have caused the accident."

And it only gets better from there. Kim comes to power in '97 after his father dies and the nation of North Korea is handed its death sentence. This diminutive lunatic with cartoon-character hair has been trying to play North Korea up as one of the bad boys of the world while starving the nation as hard as he can. Kim is literally in control of everything, having self-appointed titles longer than my rap sheet that put him at the top of every food chain you could think of. He and his cronies have used the nation as their own personal playground while trying to seem like a legitimate military threat to that ever-present enemy, Anything Not North Korea. Kim has long-since been famous for pissing people off by ignoring UN sanctions against nuclear capabilities and brushing aside loud complaints from nearly every human rights group on the planet that the people are starving, the economy doesn't exist, and, as of late, some truly heinous health care situations. So why bitch now, Uncle Tambour? Surely there have been crazymen running nations come and gone, so why North Korea? Didn't we stop caring about Korea when M*A*S*H ended?

Because it fucking matters. Even if you want to ignore the fact that this little bastard is keeping an entire nation poor, isolated, and crippled, even if you want to disregard the inhumane conditions, you can't ignore the fact that Kim Jong-Il has started fucking with us. They blew up a South Korean boat (which they vehemently denied, long after the remnants of their torpedo were found), have been laundering money via the Russian mob, and the nation isn't seeing a dime of it. While the populous starves and dies off from illnesses we cured decades ago, Kim Jong-Il and his homeboys have an estimated $4 billion slush fund. For those rainy Pyongyang afternoons, you know.

Bill Maher said it best, I think: "North Korea is like a four year old waving its penis around. Yes, we all see, now can you put that away, please?" in reference to DPRK nuclear policies. Now that little four year old has started pissing on all the furniture and leaving steaming turds all over the glass cutlery. Half of the politicos this side of the Prime Meridian are itching to get Kim and Co. out of power and into shallow, unmarked graves, and I'd like to see the same thing. The actual removal will be tricky; the Russian mob is doing most of North Korea's money laundering, and we can't afford to piss off Russia. That means no direct confrontation, no spearheading a righteous campaign to bring democracy and a little fucking food and medicine to a downtrodden people. No, I'm thinking coup d'etat, Bay of Pigs style. Hopefully we'll get it right this time. Any way you slice it, Kim Jong-Il needs to go if we want to avoid loss of life on a bigger and more tragic scale than anyone wants to see.

Hyeogmyeong ,

Uncle Tambour

PS: I mean it, you bastards. Say something. I need input to ignore, dammit, it's a crucial part of the writing process!

Whiskey, Raisin Bran, Pall Malls.

Breakfast of champions. I am not drunk. Fuck your inquiries.

There are some things in life that make a man feel more alive, more manly. Grilling a steak is a pretty good one; there's an inherent machismo in the act of cooking meat on an open flame that makes your average guy feel like his testicles are the size of Hummer tires. If you've killed, skinned, and butchered whatever you're grilling yourself, there's a major added bonus; you are primitive hunter, taker of life and wielder of the flame, that which giveth and that which giveth naught, he to be feared by all lower on the food chain! Primitive and dominant all at once. If my parole officer is reading this, THAT is why I was in the Wal-mart wearing nothing but a loincloth and a cigarette. I was buying marinade for the animal I brutally murdered. With my teeth. If my parole officer would still like to know why I was flinging fruit at the other customers and at one point smeared most of my body with red Kool-Aid while claiming to be Gotar, Avenger of the Hill People and dispensing ancient Barbarian justice to anyone wearing anything resembling a blue vest, I will still plead the fifth. I won't lob a turnip at him again, though.

One of those acts that gets overlooked a fair amount is mowing your lawn. It seems like a tedious chore, pushing a dinky engine on wheels attached to a barely sharp piece of metal, and more often then not it seems like nothing got done. The grass is maybe half an inch shorter; whoopty shit. Nothing to write home about, much less strip down to a loincloth and hunt the neighbor's cat over. But Uncle Tambour learned the hard way what mowing your lawn COULD be, how it can turn easily into a struggle for dominance...man versus nature in pure form. You see, I've never been what you might call a "mechanically gifted" person. When things break, I either call a repairman, buy a new one, steal a new one, "borrow" one from the neighbors, or (at the very worst) Google instructions on how to fix it. This seems to work well about ninety-seven out of a hundred times. So, in the way of the world, those other three are big, important, and hard to fix. Like a septic tank pump. Or a lawnmower.

My lawnmower did not just break down. Oh, no. It caught the mechanical equivalent of ebola and leprosy and died a miserable, nauseating death, hemorrhaging motor oil and bad gas, dropping rusted, rotted parts all over my lawn. I recognized that this was a degree of repair that was well beyond me. I also recognized that I had no money, and borrowing from the neighbors was not an option. You try asking for so much as a goddamn cup of sugar when you've gone stomping up and down the street in a Dollar Store Aloha shirt and a grass skirt, waving around a homemade spear and bellowing "I AM LONO RETURNED! BRING ME PELE, WHORE OF THE VOLCANOES, THAT WE MAY COPULATE!"

I was not on drugs. Drugs are bad for me.

Maybe three weeks went by, maybe a month before I secured the finances to pick up a new lawnmower. By this point, my lawn hadn't grown so much as erupted. My front yard looked like a National Park and my backyard looked like Da Nang. Every time I checked the mail I had to fire a few warning shots off to spook any snipers lurking in the crab grass. I looked at my freshly assembled 150 CC lawnmower and felt like Eisenhower on June 6th. The odds were against me, the casualties would be high, and I wouldn't come out of this the same man...but it could be done. I channeled George Patton long enough to give the wet-behind-the-ears piece of steel a motivational speech that even had the neighbors applauding. The next two hours were spent hacking away at Mother Nature Gone Wild, the Earth Spirit let loose in New Orleans on too many Margaritas. At some points a war of attrition, at some points a fight to survive, but in the end Savage Man prevailed. Grass that was three feet tall at its kindest was now docile and meek. Fear me, for I am Man, called Ruler of the Lands, shining sharp, spinning justice into the dark places of the world!

Now, kiddies, before I leave you today, there's some homework to be done. There's a link at the bottom of the page; click, read, take notes. We'll talk about the subject matter tomorrow. In the meantime, fear not the VC, keep the guns clean, watch thou for the mutant, selah.

Uncle Tambour

PS: Comment, you sons of quadrupeds. Write me. Question my wisdom. Don't just sit there like lobotomy patients and absorb my magnificence! DEMAND CREDENTIALS, you fucking pigs! Have I taught you nothing? Fear me not, for I am harmless. Wink. uncle.tambour@gmail.com

The Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704518904575365793062101552.html

News, Always a good way to start

I have not slept. Sleep is for mortal men. I am the by-product of a celestial orgy: Thor, Artemis, Hera, Enkidu, all going wild and rabid, thrusting and gyrating as only bored omnipotents can. Through the sweating, grunts, and discharging divinity, I slithered out from under the ass-crack of some Higher Power. I stood, looked around, and realized this was the best it got. This was what all the poor bastards down on the blue rock were aiming for, boredom and fucking.

I could feel the anger welling up in me. I grabbed the nearest god I could, castrated him, and strangled him to death with his own steaming genitals. From his teeth I fashioned the first typewriter and tore off layer after layer of his skin to use as paper. I precariously balanced my weapon of choice on his breastbone and rolled my flesh-paper in, eyes sharp to take in every detail. It was at that point that I realized I couldn't write because I didn't know a language yet. As the fury crystallized into solid fire that nestled itself comfortably in my aorta, I sighed, packed my things, and left. If pressed (and possibly drunk) I will admit that I burned the place down and stole Kali-ma's wallet first. I used the Destroyer's money to buy myself enough cigarettes to asphyxiate Mongolia and a prostitute for a young peasant boy. That boy, I found later, became The Once and Future King, Arthur Pendragon. I hold myself personally responsible for this.

Along the lines of divinity, certain news articles have jumped into my feed I HAD to share with my constant readers: a certain Father Kevin Gray, a pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Connecticut, has been arrested for embezzling church funds. The Good Reverend skimmed some 1.3 million dollars off the top, middle, and bottom of the church's funds and blew most of it on a combination of ridiculously nice suits, long stays at the Waldorf Astoria, and a number of escorts. Not content to leave the church's money on the dresser the next day, the minister kept a string of regular escorts and let some of them have credits cards in his name that billed directly to...well, you can guess. The swindling minister got his start when he was transferred to Sacred Heart Church in Waterbury while his mother was dying some distance away in New Haven. He felt that "the church owed it to him." One of the clauses of "owing it to him" was apparently that Gray could lie freely through the skin of his rectum to bleed parishioners for their every last penny. One of Gray's favorite lines was that HE was dying of cancer...think about that next time you drop a few bucks in the collection tin. The priest is currently being held for a $750,000 bond. No members of the flock at Sacred Heart could be contacted to see if they'd chip in for the preacher's bail.

On the other, much less chipper side of the world, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, a woman accused of adultery, could be stoned to death "at any moment" for an adultery charge. Originally sentenced to 99 lashes, she was cleared of a murder charge against her husband in 2006, and all seemed right with the world. Her two boys, glad that Mom was no worse for wear minus the bloody tatters that remained of her back, were eager to go on living a standard Iranian life full of fun, praying, and fear of government leaders. This all changed when the judicial committee decided that she hadn't *really* learned her lesson and, with a vote of three out of five judges, sentenced her to a truly Biblical end. What's interesting here is that in the Iranian penal code it says that for someone to get a death sentence for adultery, there must be "at least four eyewitnesses-- either four men or three men and two women." I love math, too, Ayatollah. Her son has been making trips to Tehran on a regular basis to try and get an appeal from the head talker-to-god-plus-runner-of-country, but so far has gotten exactly shit. At the very least the judicial committee hasn't spouted a line of bullshit about the "will of Allah," opting instead for the more rational justification of "because I fucking said so."

Clearly before I left my place of birth I missed a few gods I should have killed. I am making a list, and arming myself with holy water, garlic, and copies of Nietzsche's works. Behold, sky-dwellers, for I am Prometheus unshackled! I am he which is called "Light-Bringer," and in the shadows and darkness I shall emblazon Truth unto all that I see!

Someone get me a Pale Horse and some coffee. It's gonna be a good day.

Mahalo,

Uncle Tambour.