Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

             He came in that night, same as any other. Sat down on that green stool in the corner, the one with the big tear right down the middle that exposes the white fluffy stuffing inside, wisps of it sticking out like the hair of an elderly clown. He likes that one stool in particular. Says it suits him.      “You made it just in time,” I said to him with a smile. “Fifteen minutes until the ball drops.” As ever, my smile was not returned.      “Just give me the usual,” he grunted, scratching the top of his head. “And spare me the ball talk.”      I grabbed a frosty pint glass from beneath the bar. As I raised it, tiny pinpoints of light twinkled along the surface, reflections from the multicolored Christmas lights still strewn around the bar. There was no point in taking them down until January at least; hell, I thought, I might just leave them up all year ‘round. Might brighten the place up. I filled the glass to the brim with the cheapest beer we had on tap, a bi

"A Democratic victory would not change the world, but it would at least slow the berserk white-trash momentum of the bombs-and-Jesus crowd. Those people have had their way long enough. Not even the Book of Revelation threatens a plague of vengeful yahoos." -Dr. Hunter S. Thompson The above passage is a prime example of just why I miss Hunter S. Thompson...it was written in reference to the Senate elections in 1986, and yet is every bit as relevant today, and is exactly the sort of sentiment on the minds of millions of us across the country right up to the moment one Barack Obama was elected to serve the United States as its Commander in Chief. And frankly, I wish he were alive to see it today. As a staunch Democrat and vehement opponent of George W. Bush, Thompson was a vocal supporter of John Kerry's efforts to win the presidency in 2004, and the continued reign of the GOP clearly caused him some discontent (I learned all of this from reading the archives of his