Marc Dion from Creators Syndicate

Tough Guys Live in Europe for 05/28/2012

Mon, 28 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Here in the land of the fat and the home of the homeless, a new reason to hang my head.

Europe is tougher than America.

Geez.

In Athens, Greece, the government does something they don't like, and they riot in the streets. In Spain, 100,000 people rocked the pavement this month. Portugal? Riot police had to clear protestors in Lisbon. The French are striking, marching, de ...

Updated: Mon May 28, 2012

Gay Macaroni and Cheese for 05/21/2012

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Like a lot of guys of my age and class, you say "gay," I think "anal sex." You say, "lesbian," I think "chick with a mullet" or "porn movie."

Not nice. Just true. Truth's not nice a lot of the time.

So, this gay marriage thing, it's about what (shiver) those people do to each other. It's what they do in prison. In the showers.
Updated: Mon May 21, 2012

Stranger in a Fat Land for 05/14/2012

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

"Bass ackwards," my old man would say, using a polite '50s locution to describe my way of going through life.

Not that Pop was destroying my self confidence or anything. Pop was a '50s dad, and except in the matter of sex, he didn't watch his mouth around his son.

As a reporter, I'm definitely bass ackwards. Instead of living in a suburb and driving into a poverty stri ...

Updated: Mon May 14, 2012

Anarchy Is What It Used to Be for 05/07/2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Writing on the day after May Day, I pause to consider the anarchists that police arrested in Cleveland.

They were plotting to blow up a bridge.

For some time now, I've been writing that America is rocketing back to the early part of the last century.

With wages slipping backward, unions being broken, immigrants changing the face of the country, Trayvon Martin standing in ...

Updated: Mon May 07, 2012

I Pay My Bills, But ... for 04/30/2012

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

A common phrase from my childhood.

"I pay my bills."

I knew people who said that through missing teeth, in regional accents so grossly malformed they could barely be understood by people two states away.

I had a little hospital work done recently. Nothing under the hood, more like an alignment.

And the insurance paid, and now I pay what's left.

And s ...

Updated: Mon Apr 30, 2012

The Ding Dongs and Ho Hos of Our Masters for 04/23/2012

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

I have become an oppressed peasant.

I became one earlier this week, when I found out that the Hostess company was in danger of bankruptcy and Secret Service agents were, uh, partying with Colombian whores.

As the comforts of the common toiler vanish, the bodyguards of the elite roll in the arms of foreign prostitutes.

This is how it was at the end of the Roman Empire, when ...

Updated: Mon Apr 23, 2012

The Sweetheart of Cellblock 'C' for 04/16/2012

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The reason we have "stand your ground" laws is so white guys will not be anally violated in prison.

If you're one of those guys who wears camouflage pants to the mall, or even if you're a slightly less nuts-o upholder of the American Dream, you are damn well prepared for the day when a gang of cracked-out, hoodie-wearing thugs breaks into your house to rape your wife. I use tha ...

Updated: Mon Apr 16, 2012

Hurry up and Forget for 04/09/2012

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The sad thing about life is that, unless you're a professional musician, your world dies before you do.

As a 54-year-old man trying to resist nostalgia, I listen to rap music. I play war games online. I Facebook. I have a Kindle and an iPod Shuffle. I download, upload and tweet. I try to have young guy friends. I do some of these things because of my job and some of them because I don't ...

Updated: Mon Apr 09, 2012

No Angel Food, No Devil's Food ... Just Caramel for 04/02/2012

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Hoodies aside (so the bank's security camera can see your face), the recent Florida shooting of an African-American by a non-African-American makes a couple points.

I call the shooter a non-African-American to make one of those points. The shooter was half Hispanic. When I was a young man, we did not consider Hispanics to be white. We didn't really consider Jews to be white, either, what ...

Updated: Mon Apr 02, 2012

The Children of God at Wal-Mart for 03/26/2012

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

There's a Wal-Mart in the city where I live — and soon, there will be a much bigger Wal-Mart in the city where I live.

This is inevitable, and it is what we now call "economic development," which is what we called "progress" when I was a kid. We stopped saying "progress" because America became the kind of country in which you don't use one word if it's ...

Updated: Mon Mar 26, 2012

The Tide Is Going Out for 03/19/2012

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Used to be, the best things for a junky to shoplift were cigarettes and razor blades, both of which could be taken to the nearest bar and disposed of for quick cash. Meat stolen from a supermarket ran a close third.

That tradition is far from dead. A year ago, I was sitting in a quiet little tavern when a cadaverous man came in off the street and offered to sell a five-pound bag of froze ...

Updated: Mon Mar 19, 2012

Keeping the Sluts in Line for 03/12/2012

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Rush Limbaugh is very good at his job. He keeps 'em listening. There is no more to the job than that — nor, for any reason, should there be.

And he called a woman "slut" the other day, occasioning a word riot among people whose ears are out of tune with our present non-issue-oriented political discourse.

Not that I'm horrified by the word. Among my friends, for ins ...

Updated: Mon Mar 12, 2012

How We Really Live for 03/05/2012

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

In a time when the big questions threaten to swamp our leaky little lives, when toothed rocks lie off every shore, when metaphor is cheap, it is as well to consider the death of Smokey, the cat who belonged to my wife and I.

He lived with my wife for 17 years and with us as a couple for the last seven.

She got him at a shelter, so tiny he could fit in her small hand. Upon arriving ...

Updated: Mon Mar 05, 2012

Rioting Muslims Have Real American Values for 02/27/2012

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Over there in Afghanistan, mobs of howling, rock-throwing murderous Muslims are showing their American spirit.

Seems a bunch of Qurans were burned by some visiting troops. Muslims, revering the Quran as their holy book, as Christians do the Bible, are on a rampage.

But please, don't think of the rioting, "Death to America" chanting guys who only use one name as dirty, fo ...

Updated: Mon Feb 27, 2012

Whitney Houston Was a Hero for 02/20/2012

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Singer Whitney Houston, whose death echoes like a long-held high "C" note, died a hero.

On television, commentator after commentator tells us she "battled substance abuse." The commentators who want their mournful, yet stirring words to be remembered say she "battled her inner demons."

So, see, she "battled." Battling makes you a hero. Whitn ...

Updated: Mon Feb 20, 2012

It's Pretend Time in America for 02/13/2012

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

I wouldn't watch the Super Bowl if people didn't ply me with salsa and hot cheese dip.

The Super Bowl is not important. Football is not important. It's pretend. The rules are made up, the "teams" are composed of barely literate mercenaries, and the teams are often named after nearly extinct creatures, like lions, tigers and patriots.

But if someone is laying out a spread ...

Updated: Mon Feb 13, 2012

The Replacement Window Theory for 02/06/2012

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Maybe 25 years ago, I went to a wedding that was catered by Kentucky Fried Chicken. Well, it wasn't really catered, but they had the reception in the groom's mother's living room and kitchen, and one of the groom's brothers went out and got three or four buckets of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and I think some green beans. The guy got all white meat, too.

That little wedding story ...

Updated: Mon Feb 06, 2012

Family Values: A Gift Just for You for 01/30/2012

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Like the military, family values is a thing meant to put some backbone into the poor and the working class, two notoriously spineless groups of people who exist as fodder for people who want to make jokes about Walmart patrons and NASCAR fans.

When you hear the words "family values," you need to remember that those values are not for the wealthy. They're for you, another presen ...

Updated: Mon Jan 30, 2012

Parking on Lovers' Lane and Swapping Passwords for 01/23/2012

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The generation of "studies" is one area of the American economy that continues to boom. Why, I'll bet America produces more studies in six months than those DVD-bootlegging Chinese produce in 10 years.

One of the latest in the mountain of studies produced by America's mighty study factories found that 30 percent of American teenagers who are online have swapped passwords with a ...

Updated: Mon Jan 23, 2012

Sixty Percent of My Pay -- Cutting the Fat for 01/16/2012

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

I had knee surgery in December. That in itself is not good column fodder because everyone's knee surgery story is the same. They knocked me unconscious, cut my knee open and fixed the damage. It hurt. I can't walk for a while. They want me to go to rehab. Big, big deal.

But until I shuffle back to my reporter job on a daily newspaper, I have to live on disability pay, which is 60 percent ...

Updated: Mon Jan 16, 2012