Operation Rango: Veteran’s Day 2012
morning, peeps. grey skies here and tough times for some of you, another day of waking up into a bad dream. it’s a familiar feeling.
but as bad as it is being unemployed and broke and sidelined by bipolar and ending up in this giant house alone, it’s not cancer, it’s not a child with a heart condition, and nobody’s going off to war. those things will truly challenge your faith (even if you don’t call it that). my kids are 15 minutes from here, probably ignoring their mom right now just as they would be ignoring me if they were here. and despite being alone i am never lonely (see: this page, almost famous, hummingbirds, etc). as for work, something’s coming my way, i can feel it.
next up: graphic arts, and the RDogg Media portfolio featuring a gallery of the most amazing indie photographers and graphic artists on the web, and a mechanism to monetize their work and connect them with the musicians, real estate agents, and small business owners to improve their web presence. you people should be talking and $$ should be flowing, and not to the big image houses, right to the dudes with the cameras and the photoshops. but somehow i have a feeling that Mgr99 was right when she said “it just seems like you should be a musician”. it’s going to be something like that.
Rango’s a lucky dude \m/.
so, a little levity. let me try to lighten your spirit and maybe it will lighten mine. let me massacre a proverb instead of the random grocery store cashier who pissed me off yesterday and got a face full of rango in front of the store this week (no regrets, but not one of my finer moments: i have worked as a grocery store cashier).
i’m reminded of the proverb of the monk who falls to his death from a towering cliff. on the way down he snatches a strawberry, and pops it into his mouth. his last thoughts before the lights went out were (massacre here): “amazing strawberry”
today: a little time for remembrance. then to clean my skunky body and my physical space. then i’m going to mix/record all day, and share songs, and listen to your tunes. and delete/delete/delete.
\m/ rango \m/
Operation Rango: Election 2012
sorry to ruin the suspense, but my son already called it. it went like this:
Matthew Meadows
rango: who do you think’s going to win tomorrow?
junior: me, but this kid from pyongyang is pretty good.
rango: that’s impossible, there is no starcraft in pyongyang. they’re living on shoe leather.
junior: the internet doesn’t lie, dad. and thanks for the support. what’s next, who’s your daddy online?
rango: it’s me, i am your father (menacing but fail). dude, it’s like The Hunger Games there, but you’d give up your best friend for a Birkenstock. having said that, rich hippies may fare well there. also emos. you should be good despite your horrendous lack of skills and less-than-amazing cache of mojo.
junior: cool story, bro.
rango: you know there’s an election tomorrow, right?
junior: that’s hilarious…(pew pew pew)
rango: …(knocks on desk next to mouse hand)
junior: (glances at rango’s hand by mouse, acknowledges threat) why bother, you’re already pope. besides, you told me plagus had that in the bag, that it was all just a facade for the sheeple. you even called it the “Facade for the Sheeple(TM)” and had him trademark it.
plagus: “job’s finished.”
junior: damn that’s retro. i liked your song though, dad. cool “Election Theme Song”. i’m sure that will be very popular. how’s your reverb score? let me guess, the same, right? (cracks up)
rango: i suppose you think that’s funny.
junior: it was very chuck mangione (in faux italian)
rango: you don’t say it like that.
junior: ba-ha-ha-ha…cool story, bro. (pew pew pew)
rango: no, srsly.
junior: o, rly?
rango: who’s going to win?
junior: obama.
rango: why?
junior: because he’s asian and asians are cooler than you.
rango: o, rly?
junior: no, srsly.
rango: ok, what if they were super-heroes?
junior: obama.
rango: perhaps i’ve biased you.
junior: obama.
Rango’s gloves heating up from mojo.
rango: (puts finger on computer power button and holds it for 3 seconds, one second short of a hard reboot and total shame for generations against people that kill for Birkenstocks by day whilst selling options on their cousin’s kidney’s through a black-market derivatives exchange by night)
junior: yes, father? (perfect angel, full attention)
rango: if the election were a super-hero battle, who would win? the cool black guy who looks like Rhodey from Iron Man, and who one day will in fact be Iron Man, or the smarmy, arrogant rich white guy who looks like every politician/villain from every science fiction movie ever, who looks like he has a personal beautician and a monthly budget for hair gel that exceeds your entire lifetime income, and who hates you?
junior: obama.
rango: cool story, bro.
junior: (pew pew pew!) [stops, breaks character, Skyping now, ignoring rango] what, what? what’s the problem? you promised, dude. Pedro had it in the bag! all the write-ins. i gave you that code from plagus are you telling me it didn’t work? (stands up, points at headset like a disrespectful smartass, then starts shoving rango out of the room, nodding his head “no”.)…what are you, Ron Paul now? that’s never going to work, his brother is type O-Negative, you didn’t get the message? it was on fans of derivatives facebook, dude, pretty sure it made CNN [slams door]. [muffled]you need a better botnet dude, let me hook you up.
rango: cool story, bro \m/
Operation Rango: Klout 101
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…i’m on fire…\m/
klout.com
Klout is the standard for influence.
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You and Karen Woodham like this.
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Matthew Meadows klout does not release their distribution, but casual inquiries have revealed that 90% of the population is below the 50 mark. it narrows towards the top, where you have unobtainables entities like YouTube and Google near 100. so jumping from 65 to 70 is an enormous leap, statistically it’s far more than 5%, it’s that plus the difference inversely proportional to the slope of the tail of their distribution, silly. :-p
Mike Elgan (pro tech columnist): 77
Marilyn Monroe (she is dead who is this): 79
YouTube: (i has kitty) 91 <– stratospheric
god: 100 (i made that one up, but presumably it’s an asymptote and therefore an unobtainable ideal that we should all strive for) -
Matthew Meadows i like how they measured that 😀. you know what they say, measure twice, cut once.
PLAGUS: CUT!
RANGO: hey, not so close to the edge
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Matthew Meadows (tumbleweeds)
Operation Rango: Somewhat Televised
rango, somewhat televised \m/
guys, ladies, musicians – the revolution will be somewhat televised. in fact it’s already on, and you can interact with it here. please join me at Dean Thomas Barnett’s channel featuring Sony recording artists, or create your own. but just get on it, ok? and tell him Rango sent you? it’s actually important \m/. pretty sure Sam Rahimi and Dianne Murray and John Summers agree 😀
Monster Storm / Tiny Monsters
you all stay safe from that monster storm. i’d like this story to play out with a few tragic Facebook brown-outs and some interesting stories about canned food, nothing more. you know the drill, i’m not going to act like your dad. maybe add cash and a shotgun to the list, and something to toss at the zombies.
here’s to peace, hugs, soup and canned fruit. i was without power once in Seattle for 10 days and we spent so much time snuggled up under the blankets with my ex, i actually thought it would save our marriage. but you see there are monsters, and then there are monsters. the big ones are scary, but the tiny ones are the worst.
heal your heart, and watch for trolls. they tend to troll about during the worst of storms, those opportunistic bastards. if they demand toll, just blast them. you know you have blasters, right? they’re your words. try them, they’re awesome. watch:
pew pew pew
-rango
Operation Rango: Morbid North
Matthew Meadows – Smokehouse (also selling you jeans)
1/2 through the photos but 100% out of steam. 10:30 DING DING DING more lame than rock star but the bloop bloop starts hours before the sun comes up and i love you people, but i’m a tired dogg. r.dogg, actually, hat’s off to super-mom Amy Trout for the moniker, that’s the media arm of my business and 2nd order of priority tomorrow once these pictures are printed and delivered. my number one ass
i am rango the dog \m/.
[stamp: r.dogg, esquire ]
PLAGUS: that’s not your name, and you’re not an esquire.
MONA: what’s an esquire?
RANGO: i have no idea, i thought it was an e-squire. i just want a squire, you know a little help around here with the dishes and facebook and shit? somebody to, you know, sheath the sword now and then? and help getting into/out of my body armor? it’s not easy being green. wait, perhaps Morbid North could help here. yo morbid:
MORBID: what the f*
MONA: BEEEEEEEEEP
RANGO: SINCE WHEN DO WE CENSOR YOU GOD DA***
MONA: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
RANGO: (does buddha) (-.-)
FRANKLIN: ??
RANGO: i’m done \m/
MORBID: ??
\m/ (-.-) \m/
Operation Rango: Franklin on Museboat
…alright guys, here’s the scoop. i need some social love in this vote over at Museboat radio. just go provide your email address in the box, my name, and in the comments section either call out Franklin or request a song for next week should i still be in the running. it’s a little thing, just take you a minute:
cheers,
<rango>
http://museboat.wix.com/multimedia#!__chart-votes
here’s the tune has it was presented today:
The Contravoice
the contravoice: it’s the other voice inside your head, the one that’s always popping off. it’s your mom, the demon on your shoulder, your dad, the angel from the painting. it’s rational when you’re irrational, it provides the suspension of your disbelief. it’s your intuition, your pessimist, your godhead or your serpent. it’s the contra voice and we all have it. sometimes it’s right and sometimes it’s wrong, and learning when to listen to it is a fine art, it’s called wisdom. so difficult it takes a lifetime to master it. that’s why they call them the golden years, if you make it that long you’re doing pretty good at surfing life.
One of these guys knows the Truth.
now imagine if you’re bipolar. the contravoice shifts in polarity in direct opposition to your mood swings. yesterday your contravoice encouraged you, and told you to keep the faith. you look fine, you’ll be ok, these things tend to work themselves out. maybe you remembered something from bible school or a pat on the back, a child or a lover. perfectly reasonable, dig deep and find the love. and it was enough, just like yesterday, of course it was fine, why wouldn’t it be? don’t worry, keep going .
toot toot, shift change, watch for apocalypse
enter the contravoice. today it presents convincing arguments that you’re poisonous, just point blank and laid out in cogent bullet points before a full-on in-memory slideshow of meteoric failures. the better the memory, the better the slideshow. pitty the genius. that’s why bipolars are 10x as likely as the rest of the population to commit suicide. and it throws in a little shame if you weren’t convinced. you’re smart enough to know it’s just Doubt coming up out of the well, so you rationalize, because you have to keep going, right?. everything’s fine, your family, your friends, your church, they’ll save you. but your contravoice is smarter than you. of course it is, and you have to concede to the logic and the arguments about the long term interests of all the vested individuals in your life because you’re still a decent person, just poisonous. so why are you here?
Zither Sculpture Grayscale Negative
“manic depression is a frustrating mess” – jimi hendrix
so boom, there we go popping off again. what to do about the contravoice? when i cannot crush Doubt with my will i must revert to my established working parameters:
1) what would jimi hendrix do?
2) what about kindness?
solution: take the vaporizer over the .38, and play that funky music, white boy. some girl will love it. love is magic. gather some magic and make a beautiful story. pretty sure that’s what jimi would do.
\m/ (-.-) \m/
Rango the Dog vs. Lakeside Milam Recovery Centers
Rage
i cannot reveal details of this person’s identity other than to say that during the course of the required family group meetings i expressed concern that this person wasn’t receiving effective treatment. i voiced an objection to their policy of treating everybody in group therapy without providing in-depth psychoanalytical skills like cognitive behavioral therapy or considerations for personal circumstances such as living with a bipolar polymath, or a traumatic divorce. i inquired about their efforts to track and improve their recovery rates since they were statistically no better than chance.
for all of my decidedly polite observations and inquiries i was told to (paraphrasing here) “sit down and shut up and be team player and that the patient was no different from anybody else”. i was shamed publicly as part of their protocol repeatedly by multiple counselors. their counselors allowed other family members to demonstrate extreme aggression to me without any efforts to disarm or mitigate clearly spiteful and slanderous aggression that i refused to address.
during the ensuing incarceration/therapy, which has proven to be wholly ineffective and for which we were charged roughly $35,000, this dependant never received significant or effective independent consultation but did routinely learn how peers were more effectively committing their crimes and thus actually became more habituated to the terms of their admission. i’m confident that independently collected and analyzed evidence will support the claim that this company and the performers and staff that work for them are a money-making institution working without substantiated evidence of efficacy, and with this information i intend to expose them and shut them down.
consider this a sidebar until i find a legal advocate willing to work on commission, but i’m taking my intent to wage this campaign publicly before more people face financial hardship and increased personal trauma by doing business with this company. remember, it’s a money-making company, purely a financial endeavor. 12-step gold, baby. my advice is do not take your loved ones here, based on my subjective experience and observations there’s evidence they will come out in worse shape than they went in, but with the tools to navigate social impediments to their addictions more effectively than when they were admitted.
Matthew Meadows
i must say the meetings are very entertaining, one step short of a 3rd rate Vaudeville act, literally featuring a bunch of “recovery” comedians teaching “the 12-step message”, much better than the 20 year old VHS tapes they showed repeatedly, but from this programmer’s point of view the system is decidedly lacking tractable data and not accountable for any results, whereas i am 100% accountable for my co-pay. they could at least afford DVD’s if the patients have to watch the same programs over and over again for weeks on end.
so i’m going to sue them, but this post and ensuing threads here, on Twitter, Socl, Google+ and my WordPress site at rangothedog.com will be my only acknowledgement on the topic until i get legal further consultation. and on the radio, of course, and the rest of the internet, but otherwise i’m going to be very hush-hush except when i’m blogging about it and sharing links to this post and the forthcoming flood of dissertations where i contact other patients and their families personally and broadcast their stories to the world.
buh-bye, milam, you guys got enough money now scoot before you do more harm.
-rango
Operation Rango: Trademarked(TM)
i’d like to trademark the use of the trademark symbol(TM) on posts. that shit will be forever funny to me. like this (randomly):
RANGO: plagus, rack ’em up.
PLAGUS: it’s done, r.dogg.
RANGO: good boy.
PLAGUS: That’s My Line(TM)
Test Shot-11. Duh. Somewhat popeish-no?
^^^ note the use of the proper-noun capitalization. i for one eschew (say it) the use of capitals for delimiting sentences predicated on the notion that as long as you have punctuation you’re wasting key strokes that don’t deliver meaningful information. also in favor of sticking it to that dude who wrote Elements of Style. Strunk? Strup? sounded like a bow-tie dude. anyway, you need them to delimit the proper noun that is your literary moniker for all time to claim in defiance of any other who would use the same words the same way. they’re your words, you have them trademarked, you own them, which begs the question:
do you own your words? or do they own you?
i prefer to use mine as weapons in the war against lameness and boredom, also when things get sexy, but YMMV <– Already Trademarked(TM).
https://rangothedog.com/2012/10/16/operation-rango-a-tale-of-three-popes/
Rango's Dog House 