WEEKLY SOUTHERN ARTS
"Sometime the boogaloo 
  • Home
  • From The Publishers
  • Summer 1970 - Fishing with Alligators
  • The Fire-Starters
  • Jimi Hendrix Was The Roy Buchanan of Rock & Roll & Other Rural American Stories
  • Real Genius
  • Guns, Faith and Murder
  • A Blue World
  • Nova Explains
  • Satan's Jr. High
  • The Million Dollar Store
  • The People Who care
  • Jesus and The Red Words
  • Sniffing Out White Supremacy
  • Artistic Con-cepts
  • “The Word From The Streets”
  • A Voice from the Crowd
  • How a White-man Became a Black-man In Order To Find His Whiteness—His Alright-ness.
  • Camille Bertault: 2 Views of a Secret
  • Judy Garland - "Soul Singer"
  • Robert & Jimi and the Twenty Seven Blues
  • The Last Vestiges of Mueller’s Collusion Case Just Died...and Nobody Noticed
  • The Great Pretenders
  • Imagine
  • Me and Junior Parker
  • The Republican
  • "Kill The Pigs!!!"
  • "Another of Trump's Henchmen Falls!!!"
  • Saving ISIS, Killing America
  • Cyrus The Great Strikes Again
  • The Big Lie - "Fear Russia Love China"
  • “The Russians are Coming!” (again)
  • "Impeach This!"
  • “Trump Backs Turkey Down”
  • Congressman Elijah Cummings Died last night at the age of 68.
  • Sweet Home Chicago (The Obama Shakedown)
  • Blind as a Bat
  • "I cannot Tell a Lie"
  • If Only Obama Was Still President, Syria Would Be Swell
  • Impeachment Fever
  • The Ballad of Hunter & Joe
  • "God Will Do It!"
  • Jeffrey Epstein & The Mysterious Case of The Infinite Pedophile Monkeys
  • The World is Insane: pt 4095 - “What is Less Than Zero?”
  • The Magic Bullet and The Lonely Death of Jeffrey Epstein
  • The Facts about Illegal Immigration
  • Chicago
  • Liz Warren Hits The Road
  • Traitors & Lies
  • “If The World Was Fair”
  • "The Few, The proud, The Insane: The Democrats"
  • "GOD & UNCLE SAM"
  • A Minor Complaint
  • Murder in The Meantime
  • The 22-yr-old Bottle Blonde
  • “Jerry “The Toad” & other Sesame Street Lessons”
  • "Riffing in Tongues"
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence Revisited
  • The Few The Brave The FBI
  • Jesus and Liz Warren Want to Forgive You
  • The Witch Hunt Ends? Not Even Close.
  • Divine Guidance
  • The Crocodile & The Politician
  • Uncle Joe Apologizes
  • Why I Hate, Hate Crimes
  • It's Only a Matter of Time
  • Let It Rain
  • Dumb & Dumber
  • ....of Poets & Scientists
  • Goodbye Pork-Fried Rat
  • Hearing Duane Eddy
  • Is It Alright...To Be White?
  • "Hell is Real!!!"
  • Mauled by Reality
  • The Cult of The Secret Unknowing Marxist
  • Resist the Devil and He Will Flea
  • The Unwitting Socialist
  • Personal Stories
  • The Magula Report 2019
  • "The New Blood & The New Deal"
  • “The Wall"....and other, mostly silly conversations.
  • The War for the Soul of Mankind: “Stan Getz vs Eric Dolphy”
  • The "Others"
  • White Cracker-Ass Niggas
  • New York Gives The Thumbs Up To Mass Genocide
  • Rudy & Nat
  • A Close Shave With The Well-Intended Bigot
  • This is What Happens When My Favorite Band “The Mellow Herb” Comes To Town
  • The Hemispherical Brain Activity of a Wayward Somnambulist
  • Gun "Race With The Devil"
  • “Half Of All Millennials Think Barack Obama is More Important Than George Washington!!??”
  • "The Dow Posts The Biggest One Day Gain In History."
  • Good Morning Comrades
  • Sharks, Zombies & God
  • A Road Home
  • You're Getting Sleepy....Very Sleepy
  • Stupid People
  • Jezebel and Ahab Make a Comeback
  • Stevie Ray Vaughn: Derivitive Hack or Genius
  • Music & Reminiscence
  • “The Giant Facebook Id-Monster Attacks”
  • “Bullshit...it’s a Damned Invasion!”
  • Bobby-Jack
  • Lowell George searching for authenticity
  • For The Love of Krazy Kat
  • How I Came To Understand That Fighting The Power Was Useless. Unless...You Fight The Power By Giving Power to The Power To Fight The Power
  • Within the Lifetime Of The Average American...The U.S. Population Could Realistically Exceed That of China & India
  • The Problem of Blasphemy In a Secular Society
  • The Waitress and The Power
  • A Message From The Democrats After The 2018 Midterms
  • On This Day Before Election Day, These 5 Things Should Be Remembered As You Vote
  • A Lie Is As Good As The Truth....as long as it's a good lie
  • "Evil Republicans Suppress The Minority Vote"
  • The Enemy of Mankind
  • The Mob
  • Why Chinese Tariffs?
  • A Caravan To Nowhere
  • Ant Farm
  • “They’re Coming For Your Social Security!”
  • The Witchfinder Speaketh
  • Eating Sawdust & Voting Democrat
  • Muslims Kill Washington Post Journalist”...and other stories best left untold
  • Orwell's Nightmare
  • The Sobbing Walrus
  • A Telling Lie
  • Tribal Marxism
  • A Pimp and His Stable of Political Whores
  • "Evidence?.... I Don't Need No Damned Evidence!"
  • A Post Modern Lynching
  • Talkin’ Blues: A White Social Justice Warrior Meets a Bluesman
  • Pocahontas Wants To Impeach President Trump
  • A Belated Tip of The Hat To John McCain's Funeral
  • "Colin Kaepernick Fights The Power. My Brothers!"
  • Jack Ryan: Promoting Jihad & The Brotherhood of Man
  • Rediscovering Willie "The Fruitbat" Johnson
  • The Allegation
  • Message in a Bottle
  • A Coven of Witches
  • The Communist & The Exalted Cyclops
  • America vs Satanic Goat Worshipers
  • Forcing Transgender Penis Cakes on America
  • The Iidots Lament
  • Irritating Post: no. 529
  • Irritating Post: no. 642
  • My Brain is a Liar
  • My New Rap "Alligators"
  • Helpful Hints in Logic
  • The Unredacted News
  • A Loss of Composure
  • The Myth of Objective Fact Checkers
  • Surviving Politics
  • The Pit or The Pendulum
  • Do Not Forsake Me. Not For a Dollar. Not For a Dime.
  • Repeller of The Amorites
  • Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child...but only sometimes
  • Welcome To The Freakshow
  • Part One: The Monster Is Summoned
  • A Sideways Glance at Reality....
  • The Ballad of Trey Gowdy
  • Lies, Spies, and Thighs at The FBI
  • The Ballad of Charlie Crockett
  • Children in Cages
  • A Poem For Clifford Odets
  • Anthony Bourdain
  • Like Billy Eckstein Singing to an Empty Club at 1:00 AM on a Saturday Night in 1975.
  • A Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • Bent
  • "There Were No Spies in The FBI and Other Fictional Tales"
  • The New Rules For Radicals
  • Blood In The Water
  • "3000 American Businesses Colluded with Russia For Profit"
  • I Spy (For The FBI)
  • Free Shit—and Bears
  • Cute Dog Videos
  • How The Press Aided and Abetted Terrorists
  • The Iran Deal Myth
  • The Scouts
  • Pinko Muthafuckas
  • Kelly Joe Phelps
  • Johnny Winter and, 1970
  • Happy Days Are Here Again
  • RAGe Against The Machine
  • Carlos and Buddy
    • How The Bird & Darwin Took Flight With a A7#9 Chord
  • Just a Few Glaring Examples Of Media Scummery
  • They Call it Stormy Monday
  • "I Gotta Take A Wiz" or, "How Starbucks Destroyed the World"
  • Who Needs War?
  • Why The Devil Don't Come Around No More
  • 2+2 Really Does = 4
  • The Tangled Web
  • Shadow Banning
  • What Changed?
  • Oblivious But Concerned
  • "Give Up!"
  • Jesus: The Spirit of Man and God That Illuminates The Darkness
  • Mickey Baker: Goin' To Kansas City
  • "Washington Saves America from Pot-smoking Mass Murderers"
  • Nontraditional Thoughts
  • Attack of The Trillion Dollar Omnibus Bill
  • Hearing Junior Wells “On Tap'' one more Time
  • Just Words
  • Muddy and Me
  • Racist Debtaes About Terrorsim
  • Fidel's Utopia
  • Unwitting Hypocrisy is The Best Kind of Hypocrisy
  • Excess Baggage
  • Excess Baggage pt. 2
  • Fake News Is The New Real News
  • The Death of Billy Graham and Manufacturing Consent
  • American Youth: The Rise of The New Media
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Talk About Slavery and Shit
  • Just Smoke
  • Monkey in a Box
  • How The Children of Sal and Dean Destroyed The World
  • On This Cold Winter's Morn
  • The Crime of the Century
  • Evidence: What The Hell Is It?
  • They Were Pissed: America, Jack Kerouac, and the Beats
  • Negotiating The Maze Of Life and a Blues Shuffle.
  • Everyone Is Hitler (In their own Way)
  • The Mystery of The Giant Balloon Shark
  • Subterfuge and Its Discontents
  • God Debunks Global Warming
  • Day Two: God Continues To Debunk Global Warming
  • Strzoking Russia
  • The Al Franken Effect. Or, How to Destroy America and Lose Elections
  • The Big Maybe
  • The News Apocalypse
  • The Guitarticle (Guitar article)
  • The Nation of Lucifer
  • Slurring Pocahontas
  • Why Everything Good Said About Net Neutrality is a Lie
  • .....and behold, The Cause of Your Demise Is Upon You
  • The Trans-boy That Cried Wolf
  • Believe Nothing
  • Donald Trump Blasts The Heads Off Of Tiny Woodland Creatures
  • The Problem of Hypocrites
  • Roy Moore: Serial Pervert
  • I'm So Frustrated
  • The Devil's Whisper
  • Science Can't Dance
  • You're Gonna Have To Serve Somebody
  • Louie C. K.
  • Common Sense
  • Hunting For Witches
  • Living in The Age of "tRump"
  • The Devil is a Hustler
  • The Skinny
  • Eric Dolphy
  • ISIS Rode in On a Donkey
  • "The Manafort Indictment"
  • The Truth About the Middle East
  • Dennis Budimer's "Alone Together" Revisited
  • The Halloween Edition
  • The 20th Century Was Groovy
  • The Salesman
  • The Dossier
  • Elmore James
  • Isle of The Poor
  • The Patriarchy is Alive and Well
  • Moving Napoleon
  • Guns and Guerrillas
  • Playing Four
  • Hollywood and Scumbags
  • Why Everything You Think, Is Wrong
  • Killing Yourself With Terrorism
  • Being Liberal
  • Laced With Hate
  • A Message From Occupy Democrats
  • A Taxing Dilemma
  • What Really Happened with Aid in Puerto Rico
  • Colin Kaepernick and Beyoncé are geniuses. Part 1
  • When the Levee Breaks
  • The Second Coming of Anthony Weiner
  • How to Never Lose a Fight
  • Creating Chaos out of Meaning
  • Crime and Punishment
  • The Man in the Mirror
  • Guitar Gods of the Sixties
  • Entopy: A Play in One Act
  • The Ragged Tale of a Poverty Stricken Economic Genius
  • The Dreamers
  • Hey There Georgy Girl
  • This Is Not a Defense of Joel Osteen. Or is it?
  • The Ballad of Poindexter Glockenspiel
  • The Big Dummy
  • More Florida in Pictures and Text
  • How Do I Hate Thee
  • Florida in Images and More Images
  • "How To Solve The Healthcare Crisis and Why It's So Damned Hard To Fix"
  • The Big Lie
  • The Demise of the West
  • “Good Times! Good Times! You know, we talkin’ bout Good Times!”
  • "Justice My Ass!"
  • Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
  • The Coming Apocalypse and How to Avoid it: a Historical/Biblical Perspective.
  • "Muthafuckin' Chains!"
  • Lies Our Father's Told Us
  • Poetry and Politics - a few mixed verses
  • The Inner Man
  • The Vampire and The Carpet Salesman
  • Comey Speaks!
  • A Word From Nostradamus about the Comey Hearings
  • The Towering Babble
  • Chain of Fools
  • I Got Ramblin' on My Mind
  • Telling Ourselves Stories
  • Shit! Make Me Wanna Holler!
  • Even More Reasons Why The Paris Accords are Total Horseshit.
  • When Life Imitates Satire
  • Jethro and Becky Sue Come To America
  • Random Apocrypha
  • Why The Paris Climate Accords Are Total Horseshit
  • Urban Stories
  • The Kingdom of God: a personal rant
  • Urban Week @ South Beach
  • Serpico Revisited
  • The Road To Surf-dumb. Or, is it The Road To Serfdom?
  • This is Not a Political Article
  • My Hometown
  • What Does This Mean?
  • We're All Fools Sometime
  • One Pill Makes You Larger
  • "What a Maroon!"
  • Secrets and Lies
  • A Tale of Wine and Murder
  • "White House Under Siege!"
  • The Amateur Narcissist
  • Like a Rock
  • The Greatest of Ally of a True Idiot is.....
  • How To Prove someone's a Witch
  • Jesus Was a Sly Dog
  • An Open Letter From The Democratic National Committee
  • The Power of Language
  • The Existential Croûton
  • Random Facebook Thoughts
  • A Play "The Poverty Racket"
  • The Demise of the 4th Estate
  • Love To Hate My Enemies
  • Feelings, Oh, Oh, Oh, Feelings
  • Art or Reality
  • The Prison Yard Blues
  • Who is Richard Spencer and Why Does He Matter?
  • __an excerpt from "The Power of Voltron "
  • A Plea From a Progressive
  • ANTIFA - The Anti Fascists, Fascists
  • Conspiracy Theory
  • 4 More Poems, 4 More Pictures
  • "Are You Freaking People Insane?"
  • 4 Pictures 4 Poems
  • The Ballad of Carlos Slim
  • Pretending What's in Your Head is True
  • The Cognitive Dissonance of a Faithful Democrat
  • The Human Snakepit
  • George Freeman - Unsung Master of the Jazz Guitar
  • The Price of Milk
  • Suspicious Minds
  • Bill O'Reilly Sexual Predator?
  • The New Soldier
  • Orwell Revisited
  • Larry Coryell - The Godfather is Dead
  • A Tiger Beat
  • South Florida - HOT & COOL
  • Jean Paul Sartre & the Existentialist Mojo
  • Culture Matters, Immigration Matters, Sharks Matter
  • Thomas Sowell
  • A Tree Falls In Central Park on a Gay Banker
  • Black Codes From The Underground
  • Does an Idiot know they're an Idiot?
  • A Poem for Pooh
  • It's All or Nothing Baby!
  • Racism is Alive and Well
  • "Shut the Hell Up!"
  • Jerry Seinfeld - Social Pariah
  • A Man Must Nurture His Pet Peeves
  • Not the Usual Immigration Article
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 1
  • Man Talk, with Donald Trump pt. 2
  • The Bad Seed
  • Dogma Never Sleeps
  • Trump and Clinton Debate
  • Was Jesus a True Pacifist?
  • Brexit Was the Shot Heard Around the World
  • Obama, How Great Thou Art
  • War is Good
  • The Willful Ignorance of Intellectual Children
  • What about All Those Peacful Muslims?
  • Terror! What Terror?
  • Biff and Shorty Play The Blues
  • Forty Miles of Bad Road
  • How Obamacare Became the law of the land: And Other Fairytales for Adults
  • Genteel Republicans vs The Alt-Right
  • Should Drugs be Legal?
  • The Prophet Speaks
  • The Dream Sequence
  • Voting 3rd Party and the Moral Low-Ground
  • Sayonara America
  • What does Never Trump Mean?
  • Barack Obama is the Most Brilliant Man Ever to be President?
  • If God Created War, Does That Mean That War is Good?
  • Never Let Your Enemies Define You
  • Facebook, Science & Religion
  • Bullshit by the Numbers
  • Bullshit by the Numbers - part II
  • The Heated Quest for the "No Information Voter"
  • I Love The Dead
  • Those Who Lurk
  • Battered, Bruised and Beaten
  • Trump and Hitler
  • America in Black and White
  • Trans-Athletics
  • Playing a Rigged Game
  • Who was that Mass Murderer?
  • The Kidnappers
  • The Game
  • Terror in Nice: A Variation on a Theme
  • The Idiots Guide on How to Destory the World
  • Terror in France
  • A Fictional Conversation Between a Pastor and a Historian About the Bible
  • The Immoral Necessity for Scapegoats
  • Who Really Shot Those Eleven Cops? Was It Donald Trump?
  • Killer Cops and Cop Killers
  • Happy 4th of July
  • How Do You Cast Your Vote When You've Only Got a Few Bullets Left?
  • "Yes, She's a Lying Sack of Shit....but She's our Lying Sack of Shit."
  • All Apologies
  • Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up
  • Goodbye Scotty Moore
  • If a Bluebird Plays the Blues Why Can't it Play Free Jazz
  • Terror in Turkey
  • When David Slew Goliath
  • The Life & Death of a Global Fat Cat
  • Intentionally Censoring the News
  • The Brits Leave the EU
  • Chick, Christian, Roy & Kenny G
  • Who Really Committed Mass Murder in Orlando
  • The Tale of the Prince and the Shrew
  • A Dying Father's Last Father's Day
  • Mass Murdering, Terrorist's Father is Obama and Hillary's Best Friend
  • Why Cream still Matters 50 Years Later
  • Misguided Anger and Partisan Politics
  • The Deep Guilt of the Religious Left
  • Radical Islam! What Radical Islam?
  • Denial is a River in Egypt
  • A Response to all the Haters
  • Why Muhammad Ali was my Hero (in spite of being a Racist)
  • Why Trump Matters
  • The New Progressive Racism
  • A Tragedy in Cincinnati
  • The Evil that Men do (Women too.)
  • Differences? What Differences?
  • Racism Revisited
  • Battling Immigration Straw Men
  • Blood Quantum
  • Fighting Transgender Straw Men
  • Logical Fallacies about God and Money
  • Progressive Straw Men
  • Everybody is Robbing You Blind
  • On The Road To El Donaldo
  • Dear Mark: About Donald Trump
  • Identifying the Enemy
  • Why I Will Vote For Trump
  • I Totally Agree With Myself
  • Teaching Americans Where to Pee
  • Goodbye Lonnie Mack
  • Bernie Wants You To Pay His Fair Share
  • Bruce Springsteen vs. North Carolina
  • Mr. Smiley Is an Idiot
  • Why Does College Cost So Much?
  • Black Power and Bad Vibes At Whiteness History Month
  • How Facebook Showed Me That We're Doomed
  • Muslims kill Muslims by means of White People
  • The Slap
  • America Wants a 3rd Party Candidate
  • Jesus Loved Everybody
  • Call it what it is.
  • Belgium vs. Turkey. Which One is Worse?
  • Barack, Fidel and Che
  • How He Gonna Get His Money pt. 2
  • How He Gonna Get His Money
  • The Turn of The Screw
  • Dear America: Now, about Trump....
  • The Attack of the Anti Trumpers
  • Did You Know that America is Socialism....and boy, ain't it Swell
  • Trump - Prophet or Blowhard?
  • Black Lies Matter, All Lies Matter
  • The Donald and the Debate
  • Leonardo and The Bear
  • The Thunder Rolled and the "Trump" Blows em all to Hell
  • Fragmented Fairytails
  • Cars That Never Were but Should've Been, Part 6
  • Building The Perfect Beast
  • America: A Tale of Two Cities, Part 1
  • Uncle Bernie in New Hampshire
  • The Big L
  • The Diary of a Former Leftist
  • Free Speech not Hate Speech?
  • State of the Union
  • Losing My Religion
  • Don't Take Our Guns Away Until We Kill Those Honky Bastards
  • Bye Bye Europe
  • "Trump is a Racist!"
  • "Hell Yeah! I've Got Obama Care!
  • Trumponomics
  • Woman of the Year
  • Malicious Intent and the Art of the Microaggression
  • Muslim No-Go Zones - Myth or Reality?
  • Donald J. Trump and the Muslim Migration to America
  • There Is No God But Allah?
  • Roadhouse - The Reboot
  • Sometimes You Just Can't Win
  • A Few Thoughts Regarding Trump
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been, Part 5
  • You Can Have My Steering Wheel When You Pry It From Cold, Daed Hands
  • The Great Debate
  • Al, Thomas and Paul - Malthusians Then and Now
  • A Prophet Debates Global Warming and other retated Dogma
  • Memes, Scapegoats, Propaganda
  • Little Hillary and Her Monsters
  • A Prophecy for America
  • The Basketball Metaphor
  • Vladimir Putin: An American Hero
  • Little Things
  • The Democrats Debate
  • It's All Ablout da Benjamins
  • Remember When?
  • Mass Shooter
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been: Part 4
  • Should A Muslim Be President in America?
  • The Strange Case of Ahmed Mohamed
  • Debt and Other Devious Angels
  • Bernie Sanders is Caesar not Jesus
  • An inconvenient Truth
  • Who's really a Native American?
  • The Rebirth of the Silent Majority
  • Money That's What I Want!
  • The Syrian Crisis and the Memeing of America
  • Why Societies Have Generally Valued Men More than Women
  • The Problem of Evil
  • A few Thoughts on a Few Things
  • The Authentic pose of a Black White Man
  • Sweden: Socialist Utopia or Progressive Madhouse?
  • Why Dogs Matter
  • Guilty Until Proven Innocent
  • Was Jesus a Socialist?
  • "The Donald" A Man for the Ages
  • Harvesting the Wheat - or - Karma's a Real Bitch
  • Cecil The Lion
  • Cars That Never Were but Should’ve Been, Part 3
  • Secrets and Lies
  • Can Minorities Be Racist?
  • I Was Just Thinking....Hmm?
  • Iran Deal - Good or Bad?
  • Jihad or Not Jihad? That is the Question.
  • "Let's Do Lunch" with Planned Parenthood
  • America The Contemptible
  • Marriage, Bigotry and Cooties
  • The Things We Care About
  • The Simplicity of it All
  • A Dissenting Opinion
  • Cars That Should've Been, But Never Were: part II
  • Live Now, Pay Later
  • I Am, Whatever I Say I Am!
  • Bernie Sanders is the Dumbest Bastard on Earth
  • Cars That Never Were But Should've Been
  • Bruce Jenner
  • The Good Society
  • A Personal Jesus For My Own
  • Take a Ride on a Hell Bound Train
  • Requiem For a Car Show
  • Obama Channels Neville Chamberlain in Dealing with Iran
  • The Short Life of a Political Lemming
  • The Strongman
  • The Broken Window
  • The Selective Outrage of The Anti Israel Left
  • When the Blind Lead the Blind
  • Top Brass With Class
  • Living In A world On Fire
  • Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell
  • What The Hell Is Esotericism?
  • Unicorns, Free Healthcare and other Mythological Creatures
  • Heroes and Dunces
  • A Few Thoughts On a Few Things
  • The Return Of Super Fly
  • Should You Ever Bet On A dead Horse?
  • Money For Nothing
  • Across The Great Divide
  • Tom, Jerry, Eddie & Sydney
  • The Folly of Foibles
  • Who really killed Eric Garner?
  • The Art of The Sale
  • Political Bullshit and All That Jazz
  • Oh, The Horror of It All
  • To Torture or Not To Torture, That is The Question
  • Selective Justice
  • Executive Action
  • Give Us Your Tired, Poor and Ambitious
  • Johnny Winter, Ahhh-Yeahh!
  • Homeless and Transgender "Let My People Pee!"
  • Are We Insane? You Betcha!
  • Ebola and Racism
  • You're a Racist, Just Admit It!
  • To Discriminate or Not to Discriminate, That is the Question
  • The Life of an Imaginary Historian
  • Why Most Debates About The Minimum Wage are Bullshit
  • The Return of the Infinite Monkeys
  • Politically Correct Genocide
  • Language and the illusion of Meaning
  • Obama vs. Reagan
  • Is Barack Obama our Most Successful President Ever?
  • White Racism Black Racism
  • The Race
  • Should People Be Free to Discriminate?
  • Science, Religion and Brother Neil
  • Welcome To America
  • The Reincarnation of Jimmy Carter and the Return of Scarface
  • SCOTUS, Condoms and Collateral Damage
  • The American Dream
  • Attack of the Bloated Leeches or "Why Does the Economy Suck pt. II"
  • Why Does the Economy Suck?
  • Jaco Pastorius - A Passage in Time
  • How can we save the world, from people who want to save the world?
  • A Short Political rant: pt I
  • Jerry Reed, Tom Jones and the Original Guitar Heroes
  • Part Two: The Politics of the Eloi and the Morlock
  • Angel: part 7
  • Wayne Cochran "Going Back to Miami"
  • Blessed Assurances and other Iron Clad Guarantees
  • James Brown & the Art of the Indefinite Rhythm
  • If the Bible Say's it, I believe It!
  • Go For a Jog, Go to Jail
  • Life as Theatre and The Well-Intended Sociopath
  • Rory Gallagher & Taste
  • Utopia and the Militant Socialist
  • Matt Damon & the Teachers Union vs. the Capitalist Pigs
  • The Fight of the Century
  • The Last Damned Healthcare Article You'll Ever Need
  • The Gospel According to Mark
  • You Might Be an Idiot if.....
  • How To Interpret Political Speech and other Forms of Gibberish
  • Polygamy and the Search For Morality
  • The "Big" Gulp
  • When a Lie is the Truth and the Truth is a Lie
  • Jim Hall - The Subtle Radical
  • Making Deals With the Devil in Iran
  • Dennis and Mary
  • Thank You Lord For the Good Things You have Done
  • Excersise In Futility
  • Is Obama The Antichrist?
  • The Case for Limited Government (and that includes a limited military)
  • The Weekly Southern Blog
  • Angel: part VI
  • The Esoteric Agenda
  • Ted Bundy & The Hunt For The Devil
  • Things I wish the President Knew Pt. 3
  • Really Now, I'm Syria
  • What Will You Do?
  • Charlie & Clint: Dead & Deader
  • God Loves Me and Has a Plan For My Life...Right?
  • Trayvon & George : An American Hate Story
  • Is God's Grace Ecclesiastical White-out?
  • Jury Duty
  • The Left's Contradictory Love Affair With Gays & Muslims
  • Hee Haw and Grandma and Grandpa
  • Little Tommy & The Blues Kings
  • Gay Marriage: Part II
  • Kayaking "The Big Cypress" with Crocodlies
  • The Birth of The Jazz Guitarist
  • Running With The Bullshit In Pamplona
  • Divided By Abortion
  • Gay Marriage
  • Life on the Fault-line
  • Out of the Wild
  • A Generation Out Of Touch
  • Morning Faith with a Cup of Joe
  • For The Children
  • Made up Facts & True Beliefs
  • The Unforgettable - Nat 'King' Cole
  • Slavery Was Big Business....and It Still Is!
  • Garage Band - The 1960's
  • A Man's Best Friend is his Dogma
  • Voting With Our Private Parts
  • Investors of the World, Unite
  • Good Intentions...bad results
  • The Plural of "You"
  • How to Get God to Give You What You Want: Redux
  • We Have Not Yet Begun To Fight
  • Polls–Divination or Manipulation?
  • Why Can't a Dog Give Birth to a Lobster?
  • Go get me my stuff!
  • Better Off Than Four Years Ago? Hardly.
  • The Right To Bare Arms
  • ObamaMath
  • Calvin Whidden
  • Obama's Latest Attack on Religion
  • Rudy's Pub & Resturant
  • Chael Sonnen &The Legend of Stack O Lee
  • God and River Monsters
  • Fedor Emelianenko - All Good Things Must Come To an End
  • Why All Atheists Are Fools
  • King Arthur, Pelagius and Original Sin
  • Be Careful What You Wish For in Egypt
  • Sorry Coach, a Tie ain't Like Kissing Your Sister
  • Jesus and Napalm
  • What is Normal?
  • Separate, But Unequaled
  • Vagrant Contemplation
  • A Case for Decimal Time
  • A Traitor in the Senate
  • Freedom, Jazz, Democracy
  • Whose fault is it?
  • Classic Rock and Classic Jazz: Music or Nostalgia
  • How to get God to give you the stuff you really want!
  • The Story of Ricky
  • In the News and on the Web
  • Be All Everybody Can Be
  • When is a Horse not a Horse
  • Hidden Miami
  • I Hate the 60's: A Personal Rock Odyssey
  • Crocodiles and Alligators in Florida: Monsters in our Backyard
  • Church Wars
  • Tebow or not Tebow
  • Who Would Jesus Vote For - Pt. II
  • Pissing On The Dead
  • Things I Wish President Obama Knew pt. 4
  • Death By A Thousand Cuts / Paradoxical Heroes
  • Christopher Hitchens
  • From Area Code 305 - The American Poets
  • Who Would Jesus Vote For Pt. 1
  • Weekly Southern Poetry - Paraiso
  • Articles
  • Become a Member
  • Archives
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • The Battle: Science vs. Religion
  • The Dwindling Commandments
  • Julie London
  • The Legend of Robert Pete Williams
  • The Crazy and Dangerous Neighbors
  • Things I wish President Obama Knew
  • ESPN , Liberals, Hypocrites
  • Saturday Night At Big Tinys
  • The Mad Hatter and the Tea Party
  • The Case Of The Infinite Monkeys
  • The American Heritage Series
  • Here Comes the Sun
  • The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
  • Noosa Heads National Park
  • Choosing X Rays or Body Searches
  • Blue And Green
  • The Conversation
  • Mundi's, a Love Story
  • The Kingmakers
  • The Burbs: Part one
  • Mass Shooter
  • Ego and Super Ego Debate God and Other Stuff
  • Untitled
  • Back Channels
  • Fat Chance

 Angel: Part 3 - A Novel By Thomas A. Hall - Parts 1 and 2 can be found in the archives

"She used to work for the government. She just killed her husband. She’s in bed with drug dealers—and she may be the only person left who can save the world"…
Picture

Angel - Part Three (See the Archive for Parts One and two)

Diego 
DiegoTomás Portillo Garcia drove east from Charlie’s along SE 17th Street toward Ft. Lauderdale’s beach.  He stopped for the enormous bascule bridge to go up over the Intracoastal Waterway by Port Everglades and thought of Victor.  His Mayan features crumpled as he began to weep.  He angrily brushed his eyes with his stubby fingers and swore.  He slammed a fist into the steering wheel and said out loud, “I will kill them all.”

He thought back over his years of service to Victor, remembering how they met as kids.  He arrived at school for first grade wearing the only good clothes he owned.  His parents had determined to send him to school for an education even though neither of them could read nor write.  He had stared at the kids in the small school classroom.  They all seemed to be taller and fairer than he.  One, in particular, was tall and lean, with what he later learned, was Castilian features.  It was, of course, Victor.

As the teacher introduced him to the class, some smiled and others snickered.  Victor, however, just looked at him impassively.  Later that day during recess, some of the boys began to wrestle with one another.  One of them jumped on Diego and knocked him to the ground.  Diego remembered how embarrassed he was and concerned that his only good clothes would get torn.  He angrily shoved the boy who had jumped him and, to his surprise, sent him sprawling.  The other boys looked up and began to approach him menacingly.  As Diego prepared to defend himself, he heard a laugh.  There beside him was Victor!  When the other boys saw that Victor was standing with Diego, they suddenly lost interest in the attack and turned away.

Diego turned to Victor and said, “Gracias.”

Victor replied, “De nada.  My name is Victor.  You’re Diego Tomás, right?” 

Diego said, “Si.”

Victor laughed again and said, “Well, you and I should be friends!”

Diego thought, just like that, they were.  As the bridge opened for traffic, he accelerated, remembering how Victor’s family had opened their home to him, how they had even employed his father as a foreman on their farm and his mother as a seamstress in their clothing business.  Just meeting Victor had changed his family’s future and set them apart from the field hands with whom they had lived in the small village outside Medellin.

Diego thought of all the fun he and Victor had had growing up—the time they had spent roaming the fields and hunting and fishing.  They had come to be inseparable in the eyes of the villagers.  Wherever Victor was, there was Diego.

He remembered when Victor met Maria Elena and how he knew before Victor did that Victor would marry her.  He thought of how he had watched them and wished a similar happy romance for himself.  Then he thought, as he had so often thought, that his squat Indios features made him ill suited for such a woman as the graceful Maria Elena.

He thought of the day when Victor told him they should try their hands at the drug trade.  As he explained it, they had the farm on which to grow the coca.  Now they needed a distribution network to sell it.  He told Diego that he was going to leave Colombia and attend college in the United States of America and he would make connections there for their business.

Diego remembered that all he could think at the time was that his best friend would be gone and what would he do?

Victor, perhaps sensing Diego’s alarm, said, “Diego, you will run the farm and I will return with connections so that we can sell our coca.  The Americans are crazy.  They will pay us lots of money and we will never have to worry about our families again.”

Diego remembered how he surprised himself when he said, “No, I will join the military.  While you are at college, I will be learning the ways of the policía and seguridad militares.  We will know their ways and we will know your distributors.  We will know everything we need to prevail.”

He thought of how Victor looked at him that day, so proud and appreciative.  “Diego, you are right.  We will not be like those idiots in Cali, so crude and stupid.  We will rule with a velvet glove!”

He said to himself, “Si, Victor.  We ruled, and what did it get us?  Your family dead—and now you.”  He sighed, “I will stop these idiotas.  The world will go on and you will be remembered.”

Diego turned the car into the driveway of Victor’s house in the Las Olas Isles.  He pulled around to the side and waited for the garage door to open.  Parking inside the garage, he closed the door and opened the Bentley’s trunk.  He lifted Victor’s body out of the car and carried it to the patio by the pool.  Looking around with the lights off, he proceeded to the dock and placed Victor’s body in the boat moored there.  Turning the air conditioning in the boat down low, he locked the cabin doors as he left, noting that he would bury Victor at sea the next day.  He didn’t intend to let the police have the satisfaction of knowing Victor was dead.

He returned to the house and poured a shot of rum.  He thought, ruefully, of how often he had forgone liquor to remain clear headed and ready for a fight.  Now there seemed no need.  He tossed back the shot of rum, felt it sting his throat, considered for a brief moment, and picked up the bottle.  He walked to his bedroom, dropping his coat on the floor as he proceeded down the hallway.  There was no need to forego a drink tonight, he thought, as he took another swig from the bottle.

Saturday

Angel awoke at 7:00 a.m.  She had intended to sleep later, but Oscar jumped on her face and began pawing her.  She pushed him away and stretched.  It was then that she remembered Victor being shot the night before.

She flipped back the covers, got out of bed and looked at the nightstand.  There was the dossier Victor had given her.  She had read it last night.  While sitting up in bed, she had gone through the entire file looking for the connections she suspected were there.

As Oscar meowed and wrapped around her feet, Angel walked to the kitchen.  She cooed at Oscar and said, “Yes, yes, I know you are hungry.  You’re always hungry!”

Oscar merely looked balefully at her and began meowing again.

She laughed and, opening the pantry, grabbed the dry cat food and poured it into a stainless steel bowl.  Setting the new bowl on the floor and picking up Oscar’s dinner bowl from the night before, she turned to the sink and dumped the leftover food in the garbage disposal.  Turning on the faucet and flipping the wall switch, the garbage disposal roared to life.  Oscar jumped at the sound and ran into the living room.  “Fraidy cat!” she yelled after him.

As Angel showered and dressed, she thought about the events of the past evening.  She wondered about this Diego character and what she would find out from him.  She was sure that he was a capable man, but she reasoned, he might be too emotional over the loss of Victor Cruz to be useful.  Thinking about that for a moment, she realized that it was hard to conceive of Diego ever being too emotional to be effective.  The short, sparkplug of a man was obviously tougher than nails and ready for anything.

She dried her hair, made the bed and put on her makeup.  She picked up the dossier and thumbed through it.  The pictures of Maria Elena and her sons fell out onto her vanity.  She stared at them.  Whether their dad was a drug dealer or not, these kids shouldn’t have died this way, she thought.  She turned to look at the various documents again.  Two that she’d pulled out the night before stood out.  One was on Halpan letterhead and was a letter from “Juan Arvelo” to Javier Blanco informing him that testing of Halpan’s newest technology was successful.  Angel had highlighted the date of this letter.  It was three years previous.  The second document was an unsigned white paper on a “synthetic virus.”   The paper described the virus and noted its improved performance over previous versions that tended to die within 24 hours of exposure to the elements.  The paper went on to declare, approvingly, that the new virus was also more efficient in attacking the immune system and had no known antibodies. 

Angel sat down on the corner of the bed and thought about the events of the night before.  In spite of herself, she felt sorry for Victor Cruz.  She knew that he was responsible for the deaths of many people, including at least two American DEA agents, but she also had been moved by his genuine concern for stopping the inventors of this killer virus.  Whether his goal was revenge or the good of mankind, Victor had been on the right side of this effort. 

Even with the proof in her hands, she found it hard to believe that anyone would consider making so insidious a weapon.  Even more difficult to believe was Victor’s contention that the virus was created expressly to exterminate mankind.  She thought, “It isn’t that people aren’t horrible, I know they can be, but how could anyone rationalize the destruction of every person on the planet?  Who would conceive of such a thing and why would they wish to kill everybody?  Wouldn’t a rational actor want to save themselves and their fellow believers?”

She thought of the religious zealots who, throughout the centuries, had caused the deaths of millions.  She thought of Jim Jones, the charismatic preacher who brought his flock to Guyana and, when feeling threatened, led them to mass suicide.  She still remembered seeing the photos when she was a little girl of the randomly scattered bodies.  With a start, she realized that the Jonestown massacre looked very much like the photos of the bodies piled around Victor’s clinic.  She winced as she imagined a world filled with such scenes.  This had to be stopped!

As she thought these terrible thoughts, she became aware of the angel trumpet vine flowers outside her bedroom window.  The spicy sweet smell reminded her of the beauty in this world that so often was overlooked.  She remembered the way her father had taken pleasure in gardening and had always kept these same flowers in their yard when she was a girl.  She thought of his pride in seeing plants grow where a sunburned yard of weeds had been when they moved into the house. 

Thinking of her Dad, she thought, always made her miss him.  She couldn’t forget how she had been doing homework during her senior year of high school while watching the news and had heard the report of a drug-related shooting at a shopping center in Hialeah.  The reporter said that a drug buy between two dealers had gone bad and they had shot it out in the parking lot of the shopping center.  Several people, mostly bystanders, had been caught in the crossfire.  She remembered how she had looked up only to see that the parking lot was that of the shopping center where her Dad’s business had been.  She remembered how the fear leaped into her heart as she realized that he might have been caught in the melee.  Then she thought of how she and her Mom, unable to reach him by phone, waited to see him drive up in his little Toyota sedan and, instead, how they saw a police car arrive and park outside their house.  Her Mom began to cry and Angel fell into a chair in the corner of their living room, sobbing.  She remembered how the policeman had tried to be kind while telling them that her Dad wasn’t coming home—he’d been killed while trying to help a woman who had been shot when leaving his insurance office.

Angel sat there on the corner of her bed, smelling the beautiful fragrance of the flowers and feeling nothing but grief.  Thirteen years had passed, but the aching sorrow, the longing for her Dad, was as viscerally real as the day he died.  She thought about her vow, made the same day he died, that she would make drug dealers pay for their sorry ways.  A single tear ran down her cheek as she thought of how she had steeled herself to feel nothing, merely to seek vengeance wherever she found it, and wondered at the fact that she would soon meet a man, a drug dealer, and work with him against an even greater evil.  She looked up through teary eyes and said, “Papi, are you telling me something?” 

Just as Angel uttered her query, the phone rang.  She glanced at the alarm clock by the bed and, sure enough, it was 10:00 a.m.  She picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Angel?  Buenos dias.  Can you join me for a fishing trip today?  I hear the seas are pretty calm and grouper and dolphin are a good bet.”

Angel recognized Diego’s voice and, realizing that he didn’t want to identify himself over the phone, said, “Hey, that would be great.  What time and location do you want to meet and what should I bring?”

Diego answered, “You don’t need to bring anything but your fishing gear and sunscreen.  Meet me at the 15th Street dock at two o’clock and we’ll head out for some late afternoon fishing in the Gulf Stream.  Look for the Maria Elena.”

Fishing

Angel drove into the parking lot of the 15th Street dock in Ft. Lauderdale.  Parking the Mini, she strolled past the bait and tackle store and out to the dock where she saw two small skiffs and one large fishing boat.  Angel, correctly, assumed the larger boat was the Maria Elena.  As she approached the bow, she saw Diego emerge from the adjacent restaurant with a Corona in his hand.  In spite of the grim purpose for their meeting, Angel laughed as she saw the squat, powerful Diego in his version of sport fisherman’s clothing.  Billowy, knee-length, bright yellow and green bathing trunks, a neatly starched white guyabera and brown loafers made for a slightly incongruous appearance.

Diego saw her laughing and blushed.  He looked down at his shoes and up again, smiling.  Then he turned serious and said, “Hello.  Are you ready to go?”

Angel replied, “Sure but, before we head out, how about telling me the plan?”

Diego shrugged and said, “Okay. Come aboard.”

Angel climbed the short ladder and clambered onto the boat.  As she looked around, she said, “Is this an Henriques?  It looks like a forty-two-footer.”

Diego said, “Yes, Victor likes,” he caught himself, “Victor liked them.”

Angel was, once again, reminded of the immense wealth that drug dealing could bring.  She looked at the teak decking, the gleaming captain’s chairs and the command console and estimated the boat to be worth well over a half million dollars. 

Diego said, “It’s just a fishing boat.”

Angel thought, “Just a fishing boat?” but said, “Okay, but it’s very nice.”

Diego just grunted as he opened the cabin door and invited her inside.

They sat down in the galley and she said, “What are we doing today?”

Diego sighed and answered, “We are burying Victor at sea.  Then we are figuring out how to find his killer.  After that, we need to find whoever is producing this virus and stop them.”

Angel could see that Diego was heavy hearted and so she simply asked, “Do you have another one of those?” and motioned towards the Corona. 

Diego nodded and pointed at the refrigerator. 

Angel stood up and strolled over to the fridge.  Opening it, she grabbed a beer and returned to the table.  “Do you have Victor’s body aboard?”

Again, Diego nodded.  He said, “Yes, Victor is in the forward stateroom.”  He cleared his throat and continued, “Victor seemed to like you so I thought it appropriate that you be there when I bury him.”

Angel thought about that for a moment.  The man who knowingly sent her into an ambush liked her?  In spite of the sarcasm she felt, she responded in an even tone while opening her beer, “Well, that’s very nice.”

Diego looked at her sharply and then said, “So, are we ready to go?”

Angel said, “Sure.”

Diego got up, walked out to the console and started the engines.  As the twin diesels roared to life, he walked over to the bow and asked one of the guys lounging on the dock to unmoor the boat and throw him the lines.  The guy did so and in short order they were rumbling south towards the Port Everglades inlet, passing under the massive 17th Street Causeway Bridge. 

As they headed out to sea, Angel walked on deck.  In spite of the grim proceedings, it was a beautiful day to be on the water and the wide-beamed Henriques was, she thought, the kind of boat to be on the water with.  She moved forward and took off her windbreaker, revealing the bikini top beneath.  “Time for a tan,” she said to herself.

Burial

When they were an hour underway, Diego backed off the throttle and let the boat idle.  Angel got up and padded back to join him.  She looked around and saw nothing but open sea.

Diego said, “This will do.” and headed into the cabin.  He soon reappeared carrying Victor’s body and laid it on the deck.  He grabbed a length of rope and tied one end to Victor’s legs.  Working quickly and efficiently, he tied the other end to a five-gallon bucket filled with concrete.  He looked at Angel and motioned her towards the stern.  With a grunt, he lifted Victor’s body and, pausing long enough to look down at his rigid face, dropped the body overboard.  Using both hands, he picked up the bucket of concrete and heaved it over the side.

Angel looked at Diego’s impassive face and, turning towards the water, watched as Victor’s body disappeared.  As she stared at the water, she muttered, “May God have mercy on your soul.”

Diego looked at her.  “Thank you,” he said, and abruptly turned away.  He strode to the console and revved the engines.  With a low rumble, they headed back to port.

As the boat cut through the water in the late afternoon light, Angel and Diego compared notes.  Angel told Diego about the mansion in Golden Beach and Diego told her of the GAP enforcers that he and Victor had found in South Florida.  According to Diego, the local GAP chapter had an “action arm” that was comprised of those members who started out as protesters but had moved on to vandalism and, more recently, violence towards those they considered a threat to animals.  He told her of a farmer in the Redlands area of south Miami-Dade County who had kept some animals in cages on his property as a kind of informal petting zoo.  After refusing to release the animals, the farmer was attacked one evening and beaten so severely that he was in the hospital for nearly a month.  The GAP members bragged about the beating to other local farmers and warned them to “be respectful of the animals or else.”

Angel pointed out to Diego that having thugs as members didn’t mean that the local GAP chapter was responsible for shooting Victor.

Diego nodded, but looked irritated.  He asked, “Who else would do this?  They knew we were trying to stop the virus from being developed and spread.”

Angel answered, “That may be true, but local thugs aren’t likely to pull off a hit as clean as that one.  Besides, George, my ex-husband, was too much the professional to deal with those kinds of idiots.”

Diego pondered this for a moment.  “Okay, then what do you suggest?”

Angel said, “Let’s follow up on that house in Golden Beach.  I’m sure it’s connected to this whole deal.”



    Please Enter Your Comments Below: