11/23/13

Graton-on-the-Rohnert

I HATE GAMBLING.  So when my less-than-nimble sensory perceptions started observing advertising for a new casino named Graton (coming soon, soon, soon --- whoops!  Here it is!) I was horrified.  Gambling has a habit of attracting the less savory elements of society, i.e.:  people like me.  What is the difference between gambling and working a regular job?  The odds are heavily stacked toward the house.  At least in business you're guaranteed a (tiny) portion of the profits.  Gamble and you almost always lose all your money, then your car, your house, your family and your clothing.  I'm a coward --- I'd rather take my chances in the workplace.  But I regress.  Graton?  Graton is just the name of the joint.  It's actually located in an area (doesn't even qualify as a town, as far as I'm concerned) called Rohnert Park, a 60s blot of blight between Petaluma and San Francisco.  Having a casino there is fine with me, since Rohnert Park has the personality of a garden slug, so at least the casino won't run down the neighborhood.  Graton is a lovely small town located north of Sebastopol.  My ex-girlfriend's father was born there.  I know Graton.  Graton has been friendly to me.  Rohnert Park, you're no Graton.  All this is leading to an article I read in the Ess Eff Bay Guardian Nov. 6th by Yael Chanoff; highly enlightening.  As far as I know, there is an Indian Reservation in Graton.  I don't know if Tribal Chairman Greg Sarris is a leader of that particular reservation, but he's the main person responsible for bringing the casino into being.  At his insistence, the resort was built with 100% union labor.  The facility will also be unionized --- without the interference of the NLRB.  It will be done without anti-union big business pressure, just a simple card check where every employee can vote yea or nay.  There was full tribal control of the development board at his insistence.  He also insisted on a LEED certified green building (I'm assuming he's not referring to the paint color).  It will be, of course, Indian owned.  So Graton, I heartily approve.  Since the govt. reneged on all the treaties they signed agreeing to return the land they were no longer using (how about a casino on Alcatraz or in the Presidio?) this seems like the least we can do to accommodate the Indians.  Perhaps one day they can find it in their hearts to forgive us for the inexcusable way we've treated them.  A big shoutout to Mr. Sarris, one courageous man.  If you want more information, visit news@sfbg.com.

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SPEAKING OF SHOUTOUTS,  one is due to Kohel Jinno of Tokyo, whose home and business were demolished to make room for the 1964 Olympics, and now will have to move again because his home is on the site of the 2020 Summer Games.  "Deep inside, I have a kind of grudge against the Olympics," said Jinno, 79.  No kidding . . . Over to Florida, where Anthony Garcia has just grabbed the cash drawer from his church's gift shop and sprinted off, with employee Joe Larkin in hot pursuit.  Mr. Garcia was wearing oversize pants but was not quite as oversized himself.  The pants slipped and Larkin dove at him, pulling the pants down enough so that Mr. Garcia tripped and fell, leading to his arrest.  "Had he been wearing a belt, there may have been a different outcome," said a sheriff's spokesman.  Not a good idea to steal money from the Higher Power . . . Wide World of Sports Dept.:  On game day, Cowboys Stadium consumes more electricity with its air conditioning, massive scoreboard, and other power-sucking amenities than Liberia, a nation of 3.7 million people.  They do everything BIG in Texas . . . Lyndon LaRouche turned 91 recently.  He ran for President as a third-party candidate in 1976.  Took out a half hour on prime time TV, which I remember watching.  He showed an indecipherable series of charts and graphs, concluding:  "So we can all see that Jimmy Carter is committed to thermonuclear war by July of 1977." Really.  Happy birthday, Lyndon.

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DO YOU KNOW what a good farmer is?  I do.  A good farmer is a man who's outstanding in his field (oh, for chrissakes, Schnide --- go back to the essays) . . . Has to be true, it was in the gossip colm:  Bruce Jenner's daughter, Kylie, says she can't remember a time when she wasn't famous.  Funny, I didn't know Bruce Jenner had a daughter . . . Are you old enough to remember when, if you wanted a cup of coffee, you went to a coffee shop;  i.e.: a place where you ordered your bacon and eggs and coffee was included?  Now you go to Stonedbucks, where they give you a cup of coffee that would wake up a narcoleptic.  Somebody brought me one a couple of days ago --- I almost had to be pried off the ceiling.  And we hear drugs are out of favor . . . I have a friend of a quarter-century that I shall refer to as Dr. Bob.  We met where we worked at the time and struck up a powerfully good relationship.  Dr. Bob and I have slightly differing points of view regarding political and social issues --- to say we differ is like saying George Bush and Saddam Hussein had slightly different takes on how to resolve problems in the Middle East.  At any rate, Bob read my recent diatribes about President Obama and the BART strike and doesn't see things quite the same.  Bob will now say a few words about my opinions:  "#%@?&$!"  Duly noted; hope I quoted you properly, sir . . . Finally, I think we should import Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and let him run Ess Eff for awhile.  He'll fit right in with the other comedians we have governing our city.

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FROM ALICE WALKER:  "The long-term accommodation that protects marriage and other such relationships is forgetfulness."

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And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like willschneider7648@gmail.com

       

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H11/4/2013

Will Work for Spare Items

RAN INTO MY NEIGHBOR, Mary Lou, in the hallway t'other day.  Mary is a tall, attractive woman.  She wears high heels, and I mean spiked version of same.  "Why do you wear high heels?" I inquired inappropriately.  "Because they make me look taller," she asserted.  "You don't need to look taller," I said, continuing to move my foot around in my mouth to try and enunciate the words.  "Some men find them sexy," she posited.  "All it makes me think of is incredible foot pain" I responded, amoeba-ly.  Thought I was home free with the smart-aleck comment.   "Oh, yeah?" she served back.  "Do you think sex exists?"  I had to admit that I thought it did.  "Then I guess that makes you a sexist."  I excused myself, went back to my apartment and broke into the cooking sherry to clear my senses . . . He Must Be Famous His Name Was In The Gossip Colmns Dept:  Dr. Mehmet Oz (How could you not be famous with a name like that?) Prevailed over some chronic malcontent who claimed the doc's advice for how to warm some rice and put it in his sock, then warm your feet did not result in a malpractice verdict.  Why?  Because the foot sock clown didn't notice anything amiss until he had 3rd-degree burns on his feet!  And so Schnide's Dextrous Digit Award goes to aforementioned gentleman for bringing the most astonishingly stupid idea for a lawsuit in modern times.  And a followup to Dr. Oz.:  The name might be helping but check out a different day job . . . The Book Review in the Sunday Chronicle has a little featurette called "Grabbers".  It's the first line of a new novel, supposedly such a Grabber that you can't put the rest of the book down.  Here's a recent offering from book titled "The Heavens Rise" by Christopher Rice:  "I'm not sure how long it was down there."  How long what was down there?  You don't tell us when it got down there.  Nothing about where it came from.  Why was it down there?  How did it get down there?  I'm supposed to commit myself to a couple hundred pages of reading time to finding out about this?  Nothenkyew.  Oh, I forgot about the who, as in who gives a ****?

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THE BART STRIKE is over.  One of the big issues and final stumbling blocks was safety, pushed by the unions.  I confess I didn't really understand it.  Thanks to BART Management and a certain off-day "routine maintenance" workout, two people are dead, both of them non union employees.  Now I get it, and so does everybody else.  There will be an investigation into safety issues, now that management has been caught in a flagrant violation.  I held my fire about this whole mess, partially because it's easy for me to be an armchair yuppie about this (I don't depend on BART) and mainly because of self-preservation since my views are so out of the mainstream.  The Unions had a handshake agreement with Management (tip #1:  NEVER have a handshake agreement with The Boss) that if they didn't ask for a raise in 2009, management would take care of them next time around.  They got taken care of, alright.  A 14% raise stretched out over 8 years --- less than 2% a year.  That's a COLA, not a raise.  They are also getting a 3.5% raise to cover their benefit contributions, which cost at least double that.  I know a lot of union employees who depend on BART who felt BART employees were already overpaid.  Why?  They negotiated contracts that were ratified.  Now management wants take backs?  Does this remind you a little of the Tea Party elements?  We know we promised you certain benefits and you paid taxes (dues) in good faith on your end, but now we can't deliver so we're changing the terms of the agreement.  The reason?  We don't have any money.  In America?  No money?  Huge corporations that pay NO taxes and we don't have any money?  Not enough money for the safety nets the poor and elderly depend upon?  We shouldn't resent the regular schmoes in life that got good paying jobs and worked hard enough to hang on to them.  As far as BART employees being lazy;  well, it's a pretty huge system and runs awfully well.  This does not happen in spite of the hired help, it happens because of it.  The People will rise up and bring death upon the fascist empire!  The Workers control the means of production!!!  Oops --- got a little carried away there.  Time to chill.

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A COLORADO MAN was less than happy about having to pay off his estranged wife, so he bought $500.000 in gold and dumped it into a trash bin.  His comment?  "Damn right I did it." . . . Mixed Blessings Award:  Georgia resident Walter Serpit ran into his burning house to rescue his family.  Then he ran back in to save his Bud Light.  At least he had his priorities straight, although given the condition of some families the point could be open for debate.  If he had emerged with third-degree burns he may have qualified for free treatment from Dr. Mehmet Oz (see above) . . . A Texas safari club is raising money for endangered black rhinoceroses by auctioning off a permit to hunt and kill one in Namibia.  Despite criticism (really?), Dallas Safari Club director Ben Carter insists the DSC is committed to conservation and says the permit may raise $500,000.  Whoever wins the permit, he says, will be "someone who wants to make a major statement about how much they believe in conservation."  No argument there.  But folks, I know where you can get $500,000 --- IN GOLD!  No need to kill anything!  You'll need hip waders, diving gear and good-fitting gloves, but you don't have to kill anything.  Yr' Welcome . . . Time to say "so long":  Dianne Feinstein has been a public servant for better than 40 years, many of them distinguished.  She has also often been a loose cannon on some important issues.  She couldn't hop on the bandwagon fast enough in calling Edward Snowden a traitor.  How 60s!  I have mixed feelings about him, but he's certainly no traitor.  And then to hop on the bandwagon about re-upping the NSA's inexcusable powers of spying, now extending to leaders of our Allies.  What can she be thinking?  She could retire with relative grace.  After all, she's 80.  Uh, yes, I do believe age exists.  Why are you asking?

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Winston Churchill was at a party that had long outlasted its useful expiration date when an elderly dowager strode up to him and announced:  "Winston, you are drunk.  You are very drunk.  You are very VERY drunk!"  "And you, madam, are ugly," responded Winston.  "You are very ugly.  You are very VERY ugly.  But tomorrow I shall be sober."

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I am ugly.  I am very ugly. I am very VERY ugly.  I am also VERY VERY drunk.  But tomorrow I shall be willschneider7648@gmail.com