Blue Meanies – Oh, Those Prankish Republicans!

Naked Republicans

This follows from “Obvious Truths,” for those who are interested. This is called “Naked Republicans, Blue Meanies Fleeing or Foolish.” May 8, 2009…so maybe some of you seeing the news lately will know what I am talking about as what is going on currently is merely a continuation of what was started then, as I explain.

To start, this follows from how George W. Bush and Hank Paulson managed to get away scot free with their last-minute cleaning out of America’s cupboards—taking even the silver—and leaving America, and the world, closer to an actual doomsday within a generation or two at the most…leaving us closer to the end of all time than ever before….

Yea, I know… that made me feel real good too *sarcasm* … Happy thoughts… [Continued below audio]

Naked Republicans: Blue Meanies Looking Foolish –
an Audio Reading by SillyMickel Adzema

Here is an audio of the author’s impassioned, sometimes, humorous, reading of this chapter. For the author’s reading of “Naked Republicans,” click on the link to the audio site above or click the audio player here.

http://ecdn0.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=ttgmmcbmjj
Image of Naked Republicans Blue Meanies Fleeing or Looking Foolish by SillyMickel Adzema

Blue Meanies Fleeing or Looking Foolish

Ironically, however, by knee-capping all efforts we were put on a worse financial footing even than the already horrible financial footing caused by the war and the eight-years of massive Republican tax giveaways to the Filthy Rich that was already going on and was going to be left to Obama and America to take care of. So what they did with TARP at the very end of Bush’s reign took a very bad situation and turned it into the emergency that we’re experiencing…. Yea, that cheered me up to.

Ironically, however these Republicans-that-got-away by kneecapping all future efforts to steady ourselves made sure we would never forget them either. For the last-minute clean-out was an overreach of the most red-handed, leaving us far worse off than the already horrible financial footing they had left America on, which was the result of a long war and another eight years of massive Republican tax cuts to the filthy rich…following from the twelve years of the same during Reagan-Bush….

So much for Republicans being deficit hawks

So the Republican facade had come down as surely as the Berlin Wall had. However, leave it to Republicans to never let the facts get in the way of saying whatever lies they can dream up to support their benefactors, showing in this way their true servitude to those outside interests. Unfortunately for them, after their embarrassing rejection in 2008 these Republicans were not even allowed the dignity that the Communist hard-liners had when they were so openly shown to be wrong and were allowed to disappear from public life.

Cantor and Bonior with bogus Republican response to Obama’s first budget

They looked all the more ridiculous when they attempted some kind of reverse outrage at Obama for having been put in the position that, actually, their policies over the eight year’s of their governance with Bush put them.

But don’t cry for them. Because Republicans are extremely wanting when it comes to self-consciousness. It is impossible to imagine they they ever look at the “man in the mirror.” They are so other- and outside-oriented (towards money). Naturally it follows they are horrible at soul-searching or even looking inside to their conscience.

To keep this squarely on hard realities and not overreach, I am going against my gut and laying out that huge assumption—that they even have a conscience. Certainly, John Dean of Watergate fame was not facetious when he wrote about “conservatives without a conscience.” So that is the context of this new era.

Phil Donahue – the last pundit to espouse compassion

No. Republicans have ridiculed the inner life, any inner life, for many decades. They have been notoriously ripping into the prospect. Somehow they have convinced too many Americans—with their juvenile and effective substitute for reason—that is, ridicule, mocking, and shaming—that if you have compassion for others you are a “bleeding heart.” They have advanced a perspective that if you shed a tear during a presidential campaign, for example, you are weak, unstable.

If you attempt to raise yourself above feeling and seek the Presidency as someone who would NOT put himself above the law (See how great the opposite idea has worked out during the eight years of the W…that is, we had someone who did put himself above the law)…. If you would attempt to show that you would follow the law no matter what your personal feelings and you would give a legal answer to a personal question about your wife…for those who aren’t as old as me, I’m talking about Dukakis…well, then you are a zombie and have no feelings.

Somehow Republicans had convinced Americans it is better to be irrational and murderous for the sake of one’s family and to shred the Constitution and act dictatorially as a president than to aspire to deal with one’s feelings personally and abide by the same laws as everyone else so that Americans could still have the sense that there is still some democracy left in this country. Like I said, this was Dukakis’s approach in the first campaign we saw of a Bush for president. And somehow America decided it wanted a tough-guy, Bush, rather have than a rational person, Dukakis. That is strange.

Anyway, my point is that the Republicans disability in the region of the heart, has left them completely vulnerable to making total fools out of themselves. The polls are showing they are not believed anymore. But that is not the whole truth, which is most Americans just do not think them credible when, after eight years of robbing Americans blind and creating the biggest and most punishing economic debacle in almost a century, it would be discovered the only progress or benefit of all that was to create a brand new class status in America. It was widely seen that Rich-publicans major accomplishment under Bush was the rising up of an entire new level of moneyed power which is above the very, very rich and which is so far removed from normal Americans the cable documentaries to report on it have struggled with any kind of normal sounding name for this class. Lacking even an acceptable euphemism the reporting on this very very very very very very very very rich was forced into the obvious, calling this new class the “filthy rich.” That was the actual name of a documentary, “The Filthy Rich.” So don’t blame me folks, I didn’t make up the term.

So immediately after the end of Bush’s term and after the Bush-Paulson-”filthy rich” caper that cleaned out the Treasury and nearly eliminated Obama’s hopes for economic justice once he became President, they looked ridiculous when they turned right (around) and proclaimed as foolhardy, unworkable, and unnecessary Obama’s attempts to save the economy by funneling money to the actual people who do create wealth in America. These ordinary folks actually create the wealth in that they work for a living, not suck off others’ wealth. They actually pay taxes back to the government when they work…again in contrast to those other people we are talking about. And they actually create jobs because, not being “filthy rich,” they have not had the lives of ease of Bush’s Republicans and his “filthy rich” constituency. So when they get some money, however little it is, they maximize it; they do not feel like they have the privilege to blow it.

I mentioned Bush’s “filthy rich” constituency for certainly his administration was not a government run for the benefit of any but that new aspiring American royalty, those faceless people inhabiting that tiny slice of status above all the rest of us yet controlling more than sixty percent of all America’s wealth.

The Republicans began embarrassing themselves within a few weeks of the outcome of the 2008 election by completely reversing their rhetoric soooo quickly. They had no trouble doing this because they are not ones taking to anything smacking of any namby-pamby “psychobabble” so they do not have a clue, and therefore no shame, about the way they are being perceived. This blind-sightedness is their way of covering up, to themselves as well as others, not only the fact that they are disabled in not having a heart but also the fact they have not the faintest glimmer of what an inner realization, understanding of one self, or even an insight is. So they could not help but expose themselves and their personal inadequacies before the majority of Americans who have had enough classes in the school of hard knocks as to have had to learn a few things about themselves and to have become at least a little savvy about human motivations and the hidden agendas of others. Because of their confrontations with the hard realities of life, ordinary folks are able to see through at least the most obvious of the dishonest ploys or self-serving lies of the people around who might occasionally resort to that. So they were able to see these “emperors” sans clothing and their respect for Republicans turned toward pity. Therein we have our context.

Specifically we have these Rich-publicans…at this point now shortly into Obama’s term and after having blown all that money at their turn…squealing about big spending Democrats! Keep in mind this was only weeks from the ending of their dominance of government which had them, instead, opt for…well, not free spending…like they say “free spending Democrats”…but blatant and free stealing , with the obvious consequence of breaking the bank—the Treasury—in their all-consuming greed.

So, Boehner and Cantor, as Republican minority leader and Republican whip, went squealing and setting the squealing chorus going and keeping it high-pitched and ongoing about the very results of their own actions just previous, which added to the transparency of the shame they were displaying to … the world! For, tragic but funny enough…and they so deserving of being laughed at…what we all saw was a small bunch of squealers who were obviously knowing of their guilt over the years and the suffering , immense, over the years they caused. They could not help but be keenly aware of the way they had enriched themselves and their circles of cohorts (the “filthies”). So rather than…. Christ, their behavior was the kind of thing you are able to see through at least by the time you make it into junior high! They opted to flaunt their shame and hypocrisy…”you lie”–Joe Wilson…rather than stand idly by. Undoubtedly they knew if they respectfully retreated at all, it would leave the center of the circle open to be filled with nonguilty voices. And these voices they knew would circle in increasingly on them and their despicable actions in the not too long ago. So, terrified their silence would leave them naked and exposed to the truth…culpable, perhaps criminal…they opted for tactics of the most, let us say…well,unsavvy and unslick are two words that would apply and would be kinder than they deserve. It didn’t take Shakespeare to see through their juvenile, laughable fakery and lies, which they then were stuck with and trapped inside of. And this caused them only to increase their proclamations to higher and higher levels of—hilarity for the rest of us—inane, embarrassing and telltale inanity for them. [continued after video]

True Deceivers

It didn’t take a Freud to see this tactic. In the common way of thinking of this Republican ploy–not the psychological way…like Freud–people say the best defense is a good offense. Others might say they made spectacles of themselves caught up in the shame and fear of being caught in their criminality if it were ever to come out what they had done under Bush. So, overburdened this way with anxiety, they could not then think with any rationality, nor even come up with any smooth or artful cover-ups.

But America is not as averse to understanding other humans as these Republicans wish they would be. For a long time they could get away with their habitual lying, and they forgot that things had changed. Remember how McCain was brought down by his lying during the campaign against Obama in much harsher fashion than any of his predecessors? He wasn’t a bigger bald-faced liar. No, he was just as big. But he ran in an era that had seen a rapid increase in technology, including the sort that allowed the production of ever cheaper and smaller little cameras without film, with immediate recall and which also recorded video, all from a tiny box.

So, McCain, being like most Republicans out of touch with the waves on which the normal folks must surf or at least move, also made a laughingstock out of himself…remember this? He time and again and on stages small as well as grand (Meet the Press, for example) adamantly denied ever saying exact wording that, sure enough, the moderator would produce in video showing him, plain as day and exactly, saying and meaning. So it was really rough going for all Republicans whose political skills all ran in the direction of their ability to lie and deceive while hiding their true agenda.

No, technology hasn’t been kind to liars.

And they had been so successful over the last few decades, half century that in the last fifty-eight years prior to Obama’s win, Democrats had held the Presidency for only sixteen of them. Indeed until Clinton managed to prevail for eight years, it had been a measly eight years out of forty-two.

So, many Republicans had become reliant on deception. Hell, perhaps they became Republicans for that reason: They could apparently seek office with even the sleaziest, most criminal, or most selfish of reasons, but they would be surrounded by a sea of true deceivers–liars who made sport, game, and a perfection about that that.

Just ask them. As even McCain was accused by Bush in South Carolina of fathering a black child and came to the obvious conclusion that at least Bush was a big liar and deceiver and so on. Unfortunately that did not stop McCain from doing the same kinds of things. That’s the tragedy there. But that’s Republicans for you. I can’t understand them.

So, that’s the history, the thrust, and the wind behind them, as decade after decade, they turned truth on its head and got away with it. Indeed, they were able to make American heroes out of the best in that art—Reagan the penultimate example. And in doing so they aided their cause of confusing Americans about truth. America’s mind became seriously muddled through Republicans getting away with blatantly and self-servingly turning white into black. Just add a little anti-abortion or a little evangelical sounding talk and they were able to come across to some as as white as the proverbial driven snow.

But things change. I mentioned the technology as helping this along. But how can anyone forget eight solid years of Bush-lies. More than the lies: How could anyone forget all the suffering caused by those lies! No, people were getting harder and harder to lie to.

But when, being a Republican, that is the only tool, the only political skill, the only reason you are even a politician in the first place… well, though they might know that there has been a change in people’s abilities to see through them, still, skunks can not change their stripes, but funnier still is the stench they can’t cover up.

Imagine that, and you’ve got an idea of how they appeared, how funny, how stupid, how much appearing to be the obvious fools, liars, self-interested, uncaring of the public interest, the Constitution, or anything that they they’d ever espoused, and which for most Democrats would be their actual reason for being in office…as it should be for all politicians in our democracy.

So, let’s take a little gander back at the fun of, no, not yester-year, actually not so long ago.… And would you believe it?! I don’t believe they are going to allow themselves to realize how foolish they are appearing. Look, if ya got no clothes, you may have an inkling at times that people are laughing at your foolish, saggy hide, but, well, YA GOT NO CLOTHES!!

So, a little fun, and, then, too, for the record:

I won’t go into the stupid things that Boehner and Cantor and the other bewildered fools said and that were laid out one after the other, the pundits almost chuckling at the spectacle as they, well, being reporters, they HAD to report on this idiotic behavior.

Basically, these Republicans are obviously the guys who blew all that money there at the beginning of their control. And even at the end, just a month or so earlier, they had wrangled the largest single payout in American history by extortive means. And then there you see them saying Democrats are spending too much money…. And, for what are they spending? The Dems are criticized for wanting to put money into the hands of people who might actually make jobs and could really use it…. Wow.

And but for all but them this is obvious and unseemly. Shameful. But don’t feel too sorry for them. Like I said, they have no capacity for insight. They may even shed a tear on occasion, giving you the impression they have a heart; but, no, not at all, none at all, absolutely NO insight into themselves. Let’s see…. Put this another way…NO self-awareness.

For them it is, “Hell, where’s the time for that psycho blather when there are endless high wire games of swindle, intrigue, and self-interest to attend to!” And all of it with the added wrinkle of it having to be totally lied about. They are become consummate pretenders, precision actors. And of what would seem to be the hardest acting to pull off. Oh, lots of people could pull it off for a moment, a spell. A scene, let us say. But they have to pull off for a lifetime (!) that they are…check this out…that they are the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they really are.

They have to boldly pretend in defiance of every single nerve and thought that comprises them and is obsessing every second how to get a personal advantage out of every, every little thing. Against that they have to appear they are “serving” the interests of the nation. Or, caught in that lie, well, it’s their “constituents” they are serving…

Though, think about it now, just who exactly lives in a district whose constituents want you to enrich yourself? Or who has constituents who are ALL, or even predominantly, so wealthy it enriches them as well? What kind of constituent could there be who would want for you to have power or advantage of whatever secret sort that is the object of your game or who would want you to work to benefit those “filthy rich” folks I was talking about earlier which…and this is match, point, game, no question!…which boon for them is achieved completely at their expense!

What kind of people would want that? What constituent would like seeing the already-haves having more at the expense of their having to accept lower wages, lower standards of living…having to worry about their not being able to afford health care and having to live the rest of their life with the knowledge that but for that unneeded manna on the filthy rich their child would be alive? Or who would want knowing that a war that cost them a child, and much else, was made up to distract and enrich certain corporations and not for your protection or benefit at all? What kind of constituents are like that? Who has constituents who are like that?

Or, just simply, who lives in a district where your actions increase virtuallyall of the struggles of their lives so that you might slavishly carry out the wishes of the hidden puppeteers who have paid for your seat, bought your election for you, and so on, and who you wish to get ever closer to, in the thought that sucking up enough you too can suck yourself, too, right up and through and into the tiny sliver class of the filthy rich?

So, that ploy, you know, goes like,

I have to screw all you Americans because the people in my district basically aren’t like real people and so the increased burden added to life’s struggle by my actions, well…

and here’s when the “heckuva job, brownie” really comes splattering back out from the fan

…because WE are AMERICANS, who’ve NEVER SHIRKED OUR RESPONSIBILITIES, BUCKLED UNDER A BURDEN, RUN AWAY FROM A FIGHT. No, WE are AMERICANS!

And the smell of that bodily waste…well that’s a stench that even that skunk would run from.

I mean, say I’m in that district that person is talking about. Or the person who is representing that district is running for president and is showing me what the years with him leading our country are going to be like. Like I’m going to go…ok, because of course he’s right and I and all the rest of us in the district are the most blitheringly idiotic humans ever spawned…so we’re going,

Wow, yea. You’ve just made me feel so proud, you’re wonderful. This being an American is so great, how fortunate that I am one. Why, now I see, when you’re an American, you get to have stren…no, kind of like powers, Superman like powers.

Yea, that’s the ticket. ’s gonna be so fucking great having McCain as President, what a life I’ll live! I’ll go to war but will kill multitudes and never get a scratch! And, well, who gives a shit if this guy does everything the exact opposite of what would help improve the economy and make jobs.

Damn, that don’t matter. I’m like Superman! I could probably work ten jobs; as he said, y’know, “we never shirk, we never run away from a fight, we will shoulder all responsibilities ,and never buckle under a burden.” So since I’m superman, as he’s pointed out, that’s not going to be a problem for me, I could probably work ten jobs.

But if there weren’t any jobs, I wouldn’t even starve. Thank God I’m a freaking American, how weak those sappy European weaklings who…heh!…have to eat to survive.

Ha! This is going to be absolutely such fun with McCain as president: I’m going to Fight! I’m going to bear heavy burdens, I’m going to have responsibilities that never let up. I’m not going to make much money…them “filthy rich” sorts, well they’re the ones that care about that. Whereas me, because of this incredibly wise and pandering McCain (or Bush, Dole, Romney, Bauchman, Pierce… go ahead, any Republican name will work perfectly), I’m gonna get to have superpowers.

Oh, how dumb, I just realized how dumb that sounded,.. Sorry, my bad, I’ll get this right… No, of course I’m not gonna GET superpowers, just because of this politician, however good, kind, wise, and caring of me. Of course not. He can’t GIVE me any such thing.

But, I’m so alive and happy and grateful because, well, of course you see, it’s so obvious, HE’s opened my eyes to the fact that, well I’m an AMERICAN AND THAT MEANS THIS INCREDIBLE GIFT, Gol Dang, thank you, Lord, and forgive me for not noticing the obvious:

That I ALWAYS had these super powers. How wonderful to be awake. I’ll try my best to forget how stupid I was to have not realized it myself…ever…my whole life long.

OK, enough of that. No, things are changing. I don’t really know how these self-serving phonies, these pretenders, these highest wire liars, perfecting, ever more precisely, their deceptive skills, can continue the mass fooling of people they need to do.

So, there they are, wind no longer at their back but, like salmon, only knowing one thing one direction. And the only thing they know, stumbling and mucking their way forward, are those invisible strings pulling the same way, pushing them now into the wind! No matter how the winds have changed, they cannot change course. For they never got to set it in the first place.

And so, in tandem they march, no matter how foolish they appear stumbling into the head winds, and falling down in their words–their words no longer seeming so artful as they go on and on about having to save the American workers and the middle class as they hand over, so fast it lookin like a holdup, to rich thick bankers the hugest sums ever dispensed by Congress. And this most quickly. And this outflow not to end cancer, achieve world peace, give solar energy to everybody in America. But, no. Rather this effusion into the hands of a jet-owning billionaire who is later going to brag how his bank is not going to give any of that money to people needing loans, homes, autos. No, they are going to store it away as it will increase their corporation’s profitability. And when the quarterly earnings come out, hell, they’re going to look great, their stock will go up… .more money, more money… and in the meantime, they’re going to triple the interest rates of those who already have loans with them…more money, more money, more money, feel like dancin…more money…like singin.

Well, believe me, they did that. It happened to me and virtually everyone I knew.

Well anyway these naked squeaky voiced Republicans…it’s a blessing that they have no self-perception really…idiotically crumbled before that gang of the “filthy rich.” And, like I said it was a damn good thing for them they have no shame either when these bankers did not even cover up or hide…well not much anyway…the fact that they made out like bandits and they had no intention of having that money be anything but for feathering their nest. Indeed, it was all the more suspicious since such a huge calamity was predicted if the money wasn’t forked over. I mean, the Democrats were told it was going to be a “worldwide economic breakdown.” So then when the bulk of the money was not used to help the situation at all, and…well…we’re still all here…. Wow, it really looks like it was quite the con job, I’m afraid to say.

And so these stumbling over their feet and their tongues Republicans…well, Obama is in office and a few weeks go by and now what?

What’s this? They’re claiming that they’re standing straighter now. How’s that? Well, to a person, no one of them voted for the stimulus. Keep in mind that money was to go toward serving the entire economy, even the world economy. And both would of course serve to reverse the suffering and eventually go in the direction of easing the burden of all. Well almost all. After all the filthy rich bunch…well, it don’t help them. You have money going into the hands of ordinary folks and well, that’s not money that they can steal from the government now is it.

So, there you see these Rich-publicans, talking as if they’re not absolutely exposed and naked in everything they say to you and me and the cab driver, butcher, computer nerd, and all the rest of the kind of people you actually see walking about in this world and in its cities. By the way, as for their “people,” where the hell do these faceless “filthy rich” live, anyway? Do they walk? Fly? Are they in fact alien beings? Superior ones, maybe? Well at least then it would have SOME kind of sense to it.

But no, they are so pathetically proud, the Republicans, that they stuck together to “do a Hoover” and to screw over ordinary Americans. Do they really think we really believe them when they burden us, when they take the rug out from beneath us when we think we might be getting ahead, and so on? And then they call us Americans who can bear any burden, shoulder any blah, blah, blah, fight this, carry that, blah, blah, blah.

Ok? Now, there was that stimulus package and there was all the Republicans in the house, not one of them voted for it. And they’re saying they’re all helping us all out. Well, sometimes it’s funny…sometimes it’s just sad. but they made fools out of themselves, that’s one thing.

I mean were there EVER any people so pathetically lacking in self-esteem that such claptrap about where they were born actually made them grateful to the politician, who just added another, well not brick to their load, let’s say more like he just busted their truck with the load and now they are going to have to start all over again.

Ok, so now let’s say I’m one of those “constituents.” I’m thinking…

“Thanks a lot, bastard, you think I got it easy? You jerk! Who the hell you think you are down there in Louisiana, Mr. freaking Governor who don’t need no additional unemployment money. No, idiot! You GOT a job!

It’s me that can’t find work and that’s worried about my kids getting sick and, well, now the almost certainty, by the way because of your stupid-assed spiteful action to turn down mymoney for me. Now, I ‘m gonna lose my house, worry about my kids staying healthy.

But you’ve done what? You’ve stood up to Obama (the guy who was gonna give me money?) You’ve said we don’t need no stinkin’ money and made yourself a spectacle on the national stage and, you think (here’s that lying again). You screwed us over and then you’re thinking you can tell us that we were better than that or something of other of a slick confusing fog of insanity.

And you think that this will give you a leg towards the Presidency. You screw me over and then tell me I’m a better person than you? that’s… eyaaaah!

Well, Mr. Jerk-off turning down my money for me like it’s my pride your fighting for, do you really think we are still that stupid, still that happy to be burdened and crushed for your aspirations, which obviously don’t include, you’ve made that damn clear, doing anything for any person, any “constituent, any citizen, no, not anyone”

And it’s clear that our burdens are so meaningless to you that you will heap misery on us to do, now what was that again? You “stood up” to Obama? What the fuck, are you in grade school?

Do you think I give a shit who’s staring who down? I’m trying to live a life; a life that you have just put a cloud of unhappiness and worry over that will not go away for many many years. Thanks a lot! In fact I may never own a home again.

Thanks for the radical change in my life that I wasn’t expecting. But I won’t go on about things that cause your eyes to glaze over. Just let me ask you this Mister, wise-potato? You “stood up” to the guy who’s gonna give me money, and hold out his hand to me? Ok, Mr. more principles-than-brains, what’s your next big plan?

Oh, I see, you’re gonna stand up to, uh, Santa Claus. Oh, yeah, I hear it all right. Out on the National stage; spoutin out as if you’re talkin our mind; shit, you ain’t even one of us. But I hear you:”

“Nope, Mr. Matthews, you see we’re Louisianans? Not beggars. We don’t needChristmas. We can take care of ourselves.”

I hear you saying…

”Let you folks out there have Christmas. I mean, if you’re so weak. So you’ve had it your whole life and now you’re kind of like addicted to it.

“Well OK. I’m not going to talk down any on those who are obviously so weak and needy. But, you see, Mr. Matthews… Mr. Matthews, well let me put it this way, you ever come down to Louisiana? Ever? To visit us, anything? You have?

“So you’ve met with some of our citizens, have you? You have. Well, then you know what a strong-willed, strong-spirited, and PROUD people we are down here, don’t you? You agree. Thought so.

“So you see that’s why. I knew you would agree because it’s so obviously true about the folks that live down here, I didn’t see how you’d miss it.

“So that’s OK, let Santa go somewhere else where he’s , you know, where they’re the folks that need to have a handout and can’t get by the year without having a good time. No, my constituents are strong-willed, and they wouldn’t have me letting any squirrely funny-suited guy out here prancin around and lookin foolish. Well, not us. We’re not foolish. We’re PROUD.”

Continue on this site with
Culture War, Class War, Chapter Twenty-SixAmerican Dictatorship

Naked Republicans: Blue Meanies Looking Foolish –
an Audio Reading by SillyMickel Adzema

Here is an audio of the author’s impassioned, sometimes, humorous, reading of this part. For the author’s reading of “Blue Meanies,” click on the link to the audio site above or click the audio player here.