the new mark maynard

The new Mark Maynard doesnt care too much about what other people think. He’s his own man – a real lone wolf. He does what he wants and he makes no apologies.

In the perfect world, I would be this Mark Maynard.

Instead, I’m the guy with a headache who feels like he has to sit here typing up anecdotes for people he doesn’t even know, instead of going upstairs, crawling into bed and listening to 1940s radio dramas on his transistor radio like he wants to.

I’ve turned this blog thing into a monster that needs to be fed every night. I cant quite remember the plotline of Little Shop of Horrors, but I think it started like this.

I’ve read that Little Shop of Horrors was written as a comment on the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s. Of course the play was, on the surface, about a giant plant that kept growing and growing and demanding more and more of the man who had been supporting it, but on another level the plant was fascism. I suppose the point was that what seemed like a nice, new diversion could grow into something much more sinister, and spread like a malignant cancer.

So far tonight, I have equated this pastime of mine to the Nazi party and to cancer. The depression must be sneaking back into my life.

I haven’t been going to the gym or jogging since my eyeball blew out (see previous posts), and it’s beginning to take its toll. I always start feeling worse when my pathetic and completely ineffective exercise routine gets out of whack.

So, tonight, I’m going to try not to stress. I’m not going to stay up late to fit everything in. Im not going to have a panic attack if I can’t tell you all about the big power outage or my visit with Howard Dean. I’m not going to obsess over the fact that there are still several of you that haven’t purchased my handmade panties.

Oh, I meant to mention this the other day… Last week, when Linette and I were first launching the Ypsipanty line of womens undergarments, I had to take some pictures of them for the website. I decided to take a handful of them out into the back yard, where the natural light was good. You have to remember that last week, my right eye was also full of blood (scroll back a few days for the photos). So, I was standing in my backyard, without a shirt, pot belly sticking out, drinking a beer, my eyeball full of blood and taking photos of panties against the backdrop of an old white sheet, when I look up into the alley behind our house and see two young college-age women looking absolutely horrified. I know they thought I was some freaky old pervert. They probably thought that I had a scrapbook full of panty photos in the house, or that I was selling soiled panties to Japanese businessmen on-line. I felt very dirty. I wanted to run after them and tell them that I wasn’t a pervert, but an artist, and that these panties were merely my way of giving back to my local community, but I thought better of it. I just scurried back into the house with my fistful of Ypsipanties.

Linette told me today that a dead man was found in the river down the street a few days ago. She also heard this morning that a street vendor died during Heritage Fest yesterday. He was apparently bitten by a bee and then, immediately thereafter, died of a heart attack. According to his wife, he wasnt allergic either.

The Flying Welendas performed at Heritage Fest again this year. As with last year, they did the Seven Person Pyramid, the same stunt during which they lost two family members in Detroit in the 1960s. As they were doing it, the wind was blowing, and it started raining. I was absolutely certain that they were going to fall from the high wire. They, of course, did not. They did, however, lose four animals while they were here in Ypsi. Apparently, one of their ancient house-trailers caught fire the first night and the firemen were unable to save them.

This isn’t related, but I want to see American Splendor when it comes out.

OK, one more thing before I go to bed I just read a good article in the Washington post about Alabamas born-again, republican governor and the hell hes going through to raise taxes on corporations and high net-worth individuals in his state. (Its coming up to a vote in a few weeks.) Its an amazing, confusing, and, I think, inspiring story. Unfortunately, it sounds as though it may mark the end of this mans political career Following are a number of excerpts from the story.

Seizing Alabama’s crisis as an opportunity to right historic wrongs, he says the state should act to improve schools funded at the nation’s lowest level per child and to lift the tax burden from poor people, who pay income taxes starting at $4,600 a year for a family of four while out-of-state timber companies pay $1.25 an acre in property taxes. The changes would move Alabama from 50th to 44th in total state and local taxes per capita, he says.

“I’m tired of Alabama being first in things that are bad and last in things that are good,” an impassioned Riley told a Rotary Club in Prattville the other day as he traveled the state, sleeves rolled up, hawking what he calls Alabama’s “Foundation for Greatness”

The born-again Baptist governor is telling voters in this Bible Belt state that their tax system, which imposes an effective rate of 3 percent on the wealthiest Alabamians and 12 percent on the poorest, is “immoral” and needs repair. “When I read the New Testament, there are three things we’re asked to do: That’s love God, love each other and take care of the least among us,” Riley said in his office in the antebellum state Capitol.

And he is telling the state’s timber and agricultural interests, who for generations have thrived on Alabama’s low land taxes and cheap labor and who helped elect Riley last November, that they should pay more taxes so that public schools can produce a 21st-century workforce and a modern economy and the state can address other long-standing needs — such as 28,000 inmates now jammed into a prison system built for 12,000 and a state police force at 50 percent capacity, with only six troopers patrolling 67,500 miles of roadway after midnight

“Alabama needs to raise some revenue; there’s no question about that,” said the GOP’s Connors. “But this is not a tax increase any longer. This is a massive redistribution of wealth. We are the Republican Party — of Alabama ! If a Democrat had proposed this, we would be burning down cities”…

The plan would raise the tax threshold from $4,600 to $20,000 for a family of four, and raise the exemption per child from $300 to $2,200, which Riley says would cut or leave income taxes unchanged for two-thirds of the state’s taxpayers. The top third of earners would pay more, as would corporations and large land and timber holders. Alabama’s lowest-in-the-nation property taxes would rise on average to $490 a year on a $100,000 home (a $136 increase) and to $1,540 on a $250,000 home (a $536 increase), according to the governor’s figures

Of course, the corporations, high net-worth individuals, and most of his fellow republicans are against him, but hes not backing down You should read the article. I havent excerpted all the good parts Youll want to read the section of the article about the radio ads that those not supporting the governor are targeting at Alabamas predominantly democratic, black population. Theyre unbelievable. They include not only a gross distortion of the facts (saying that they governors going to raise taxes by up to 100%, but not telling them that their taxes would most likely be cut), but actors speaking in southern, black dialect, telling them to vote like good democrats against the bad republican. Its fucked up.

On that note, I should be heading up to bed.

Good night, my invisible friends.