It Appears It Would Not Be In Wal-Mart's Best Interest To Kill Me And The Rest Of Their Customers

How much does providence have to do with chance? What are the odds -- I'm asking because I don't know -- of having my birthday, which is July 21, written or typed on a piece of paper, wadded up and stuck in a big red capsule, being drawn fifth out of 365, or 366 (considering Leap Year), other birthdays? What are the numeric odds of being drawn fifth when the cut-off point for being drafted in 1972 was sixth and above? I mean, what are the odds of cutting it that close? ... always being the loser, coming in second, never first, nearly getting the girl, but in the end ... just getting nudged out. Am I feeling sorry for myself? No, I am not. A Jewish man, a former beloved boss (though to his sons he was just dad, with baggage, like every father has), once observed in a sympathetic though blunt and direct way that I was a schlemiel. A sad sack. Though I was a nice guy. So, it's not just me saying it, and it's not just a matter of me now trying to gain sympathy or admiration or both by saying that someone else has thought it and said it.

I'm saying it ... because it's hard to analyze oneself, to diagnose one's former self, and make a judgment in the present as to what the hell your problem has been ... without some help. If I wasn't taking some very helpful drugs, I wouldn't want any help. I wouldn't care. I don't know where I would be without love, drugs and people who didn't have to care about me, but did, and subsequently saved my life and kept me as part of my very closeknit, loving, but now traumatized family. If it weren't for the drugs and my recuperation I wouldn't be able to say my case seems to be rather fascinating. But since I can, it is.

I have seen this photograph of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Laura Bush and President Bush standing in formal dress several times. It is one of those ... here we are at a formal event in the White House, standing in a pre-designated spot for this kind of crap again, which would be photographs. At least one. And it is a doozy. And the mainstream press would probably be saying the same thing, and having a field day with it, if this was thirty or even twenty years ago. But, you see, now we have reached a point of critical mass, where everything is converging, where history is, where current events are, where the future big time is about to be decided ... as if it were not already decided. Because it is, it already has been, by virtue of the timelessness required to forecast of all these things in advance. Which has been done, but not by the bad guys -- not by the people or creatures or creeple who probably imposed time on the earth, thereby creating aging and death -- but by the good guys. The timeless one and all of his angels. And, because we have reached a point of critical mass ... we can expect the press to be in the pockets of the monopolies, which laws used to prevent, which is only one part of the big converging picture ... or pregnancy. At any rate, any president shooting the el Diablo in public during the taking of a formal photograph would have been fodder indeed for the media. But we have reverted fifty or sixty years, and even further back than that, to the days of the Bay of Pigs, times and events when the press cooperated with the government and didn't write or say certain things, because it would endanger national security or something.

No, I suspect, by the press not pursuing the Bay of Pigs story, that is, on the front end, when causes and hoped for effects were bouncing around, they may have been succumbing to pressure from the exact same people who are applying pressure to the press once again ... incredibly for the same reason: the New John Birch World Order Society. Who they hell was John Birch, anyway? From his name he comes off sounding like some kind of Johnny Appleseed figure, a folk hero, who may have adopted his last name because he loves trees, but I freaking highly doubt it. That's not to say that the Texan firing the el Diablo is necessarily on par with the Bay of Pigs or the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which followed, but I have a real funny feeling that all of these things are related. That all is one. Like history has been planned, designed in advance to do just what it is doing ... and nobody can stop it. No one can stop the narrative, the cosmic drama, which people have been talking about for centuries. And that's a hoot: they used to burn people, I suspect, for always talking about the end, or the beginning, depending on your perspective, or fate, or the matter of your accountability; it once was that people in every century would have a go at projecting the end, or the beginning, and they were all, of course, outrageously and embarrassingly wrong -- and some Elmer Gantry types never lived it down. I guess not.

As for me, I don't have a following of people, at least none that I can see, and I don't have desire to make predictions or forecasts about anything, except to say that critical mass has been forming since the events of September 11, 2001, and if you don't think so ... you're not paying attention and/or you're easily conditioned or densensitized to just get over it. The Apocalypse. A word that I really hate, but it's the word we all know. It means revealing, disclosing, unveiling, the breaking of the hymen, perhaps, or the mother's water? So, people, one I can think of in particular, a guy named Miller who is responsible for the Seventh-day Adventists, God bless 'em, have not been afraid to go out on limbs when it comes to the second coming. Or the Parousia. All I'll say is that it looks like the pregnant lady is about to go into labor ... and that her water is going to break ... and cleanse the birth canal. Like the one David climbed up in to take Jerusalem from the Jebusites. But I have digressed badly. You should have seen me before the drugs. Psychotropic drugs, the stuff that crazy people take.

If you don't know what the el Diablo is, well, it's like two other popular gestures, and then again it isn't anything like them at all. The el Diablo is something even the Europeans have seen President Bush do, and they have taken note of these hand gestures, salutes or signals, whatever, and not been kind, according to one report I read. Can you imagine the Europeans being shocked by anything smacking of satanism (sorry)? I don't know with any certainty that the foreign press run this photograph or commented upon it, but if they did ... talk about a 180-degree reversal of fortunes: the Europeans are getting excited about newfound success and the United States of the Planet that they'll largely be responsible for (which the prophet Daniel foresaw), while we, where Old Glory waves, where patriotism and nationalism are religion for some people, where we had the freedom and the prosperity and all the reasons to gloat, being the bastion of liberty and democracy, a shining city on a hill, go to hell in a handbasket. Or fall into the sea. If the Mississippi widens, and one bank pushes further away from the other one, cutting the country in half, I wouldn't be surprised. There has to be some overriding, driving reason, other than greed, for the robber barons of today to have turned traitor on us and jumped ship. It's not merely treason they're guilty of, but being practical in a most impractical, ultimately destructive way.

God will get you for oppressing the poor. He has like Muhammad Ali used to start out most of his fights, I think, throwing left jabs at those who have oppressed his people -- and who knows what happens to them after they die. They've gotten tagged; the rich have to take their lumps, occasionally, but not like me and you. But you know that right cross is coming. That's the punch that knocked out George Foreman, and nobody thought he could do it ... in the most amazing and thrilling sporting event in the history of competitive sports, in my opinion. Normal Mailer and George Plimpton did a movie on that fight, called When We Were Kings -- and it is a magnificent treatment of this unparalleled event, a real-life version of the fox and the hound, the pupil and the master, the old, but hungry wizened tiger, who waits for his moment, all night and day if he has to, the dope on a rope. Greatness versus youth, inexperience and pride.

The el Diablo is not the Hook 'em Horns salute, but it's similar; and it's not the same as flipping someone the bird or giving them the finger, it's worse, in the estimation of some, including yours truly. And it is at the same time fascinating, because it is a highly telling gesture by a sitting president, in formal attire, standing beside Queen freaking Elizabeth II and Laura Bush, with black eyes, for some reason, who looks a great deal like the Joker, in this shot. Frankly, the Queen looks like hell: her dress doesn't fit, she is the definition of frumpy and out of date, though the Prince, her husband, still looks the same -- robust and handsome, and appearing to me to look a little bit like George Martin, the producer. The el Diablo is a satanic salute, firstly, involving horns. The Hook 'em Horns salute is done with the pinkie finger and the thumb sticking out, and the three middle fingers being folded down. It's a good rallying symbol or signal -- it looks like the approximate shape of a Longhorn's head with horns sticking out. But the el Diablo is made with the pinkie finger and the index finger, and the thumb is used to clamp down on the two unused fingers. And so the president is obviously doing it, looking off camera as he does at someone, with that little kid who just farted look on his face. And I have concluded that this very inappropriate gesture, in more ways than one, was made for one of the following reasons:

1) The president doesn't know why he is flashing the el Diablo, so he is not only an imbecile (and most likely a puppet of ill Uminotty), but he is a satanic imbecile, and he just got an overpowering urge to make the sign of el Diablo with his left hand, his arm hanging straight down; so, while he is doing the el Diablo in a most brazen manner and in the worst possible public setting, perhaps to say hi to dad and mom, or to inform the prince of darkness he won't be joining him for dinner, he is at least being discreet enough to keep his arm and his hand by his side;

2) The president sees the prince of darkness dressed in a disguise to crash the party, and is giving him hell's equivalent of thumbs up;

3) He is slightly, childishly embarrassed in this particular setting, with these particular people around him, for some particular reason pertaining to his private image as a satanist -- an image with which the Queen of England may be familiar. What would cause a person being photographed in formal attire, standing formally with the Queen of freaking England posing for the same photo, when one happens to be the president of the United States, to make a gesture that? From his expression, the president as if he is making light of that which has embarrassed him ... and his response to that stimulus is to make a gesture of admission -- like the devil made me do it. He looks as if he has just gotten chewed out for being a little devil by England's monarch.

Why would Queen Elizabeth II has confronted the president and said things to make him behave in the way he is behaving in this photograph, which might be a photo that has subsequently angered the president and truly embarrassed him; but something tells me he doesn't really care.

... to be continued

-- Randall Carter Gray