I Smell A Rant

My friend, "The Old Man," sent me an email today. It was an op-ed piece from the NY Times about some bourgeois twit (Stanley Fish) with two houses complaining about AT&T's poor customer service and lack of staff capable of speaking with proper grammar.

Really?

Really.

Considering the state of the world today, and in a pulpit with a congregation of millions, he wasted time with an "oh poor me" story? He even had the platinum-plated cojones to admit that he would probably offend the logic of a good portion of his readers with his inane-festering-boil-on-the-butt-of-a-grown-man-in-Pampers-crying-because-he-had-to-take-the-silver-spoon-out-of-his-mouth-while-he-flipped-his-legs-over-his-head-to-satisfy-himself (slapdick douche named Stanley Fish) of a blubberfest.

I have friends who have had their hours cut at work from 40 to 16. They don't know how long their savings will cover things like transportation, heat, rent, or food, and this slapdick douche is whining about being on hold because the phone company doesn't have all the services he wants at his second home and all the staff he spoke with didn't have a grasp of syntax that met his standards.

Blow your nose on your sleeve, Stanley Fish Slapdick Douche, because I won't even give you dirt so you can farmer's blow while you cry an ocean of Fiji Water tears, you sorry sad sack of smug.

Sure, I cringe at the redundancy of "Where you at?" The... ellipse... was... designed... to... give... the... reader... a... cue... to... pause... 

The. Period. Was. Not.

"Having" or "getting" are plenty enough on their own; no need to "have got" as well.

I could go on, but I have already reached the point where I understand that language is fluid. I'm sure in the 17th century the educated-and-unemployed class were decrying the death of "thou" in common use, so nothing has really changed except... change. I don't tell people not end their sentences with prepositions anymore. Too many people today don't read books, or know who Descartes was, or understand the point of higher level mathematics for me to judge any one individual.

On the other hand, there is something out there in word land that makes my back itch in the one spot that I can't reach: improper antonyms.

I read an article yesterday about the Israeli offensive (pun intended) that started last week. The author was describing the general ebb and flow of tension throughout the years, claiming that violence would "escalate and then eventually de-escalate."

DE-ESCALATE?!?!? Not descend, ebb, fall, gravitate, lower, return to normal levels, not even chill out, but de-escalate.

I was in the BART station this evening, when an announcement was made about using caution when boarding and off-boarding. Not exiting, disembarking, leaving, getting off the godblessamericadamn train, but off-boarding.

Don't tell me, when a plane is about to take off, they'll start saying "final de-exiting call for flight 1518." Or when someone asks about the weather, the response will be, "it's an ex-dark, moon challenged, uncrappy, not-night!" "You look de-relaxed, why not un-stand yourself on that chair?"

Deity maledictive mass of XY chromosomed bovine excrement.

The Association for the Preservation of Unusual Activities*

This past week, I have felt an underlying, pervasive sense of Donny-ness. I am, to an extent, out of my element. I am good at an awful lot of stuff. Some things useful, some pointless, and some that are entirely beside the point. The one thing that I'm probably best at, is figuring out how to do stuff.

Now I'm faced with a thing that I can't quite wrap my mind around. I've heard (and even witnessed) one person meet a complete stranger, comment to said stranger regarding the stranger's intelligence/wit/attractivocity/inebriation/etcetera, and after a favorable response, say something to the effect of, "Let's ____ (have dinner, see a movie, go for a drink, spin 'round in circles) some time." Then, within a few days (or hours) of this brief conversation, the two people involved actually do whatever mundane activity they have agreed upon. This, to me, is mind boggling.

If I want a to see a movie- I go, unless it happens to be something that someone else I know will particularly enjoy. Why would I want I want to sit in the dark staring at shadows and light with someone, and not know if that person enjoys  those particular patterns of shadows and light? If this is someone I don't know, I don't want to be distracted by menus, previews, or breathtaking views.

I need a certain level of guaranteed, uninterrupted interactivity in a controlled setting. Something out of the ordinary enough that it won't be replicated by or with anyone else, but not so unusual as to be off-putting. Can I possibly be more clinical, intellectual and detached?

Yes, absolutely. However, this carefully crafted facade would shatter into millions of tiny reflective pieces. Each piece would, in turn, be it's own mini-big bang, releasing untold and incalculable amounts of energy into the known universe, turning into the unknown and unknowable universe, enabling children all over the globe to eat massive quantities of Snicker bars without getting a sugar high, and everything that Crispin Glover said would start to make sense.

In all abstract theoretical seriousness, dating- in the traditional sense- is totally lost on me. It isn't lost on me that the activities which I call mundane are those that allow two people to interact at the simplest of levels- the "getting to know you" stage. If two people can't enjoy each other while doing something average, they probably don't have what it takes to last romantically. I get that, but...

I'm going to pull a Palin and get back to you

Synchronicity 3

Some say deja vu is really a form of prescience. Others say it is fate, destiny, past lives remembered or whatever godishness to which one may subscribe. I like the idea of it being a sign to let me know I'm on the right path. A couple of days ago, I saw a note from my old friend K (aka B), who lives in the same state as my old flame R. 'Old Flame' is a misnomer. She is past, present and future. That once in a lifetime soul that bonds and intertwines and even from thousands of miles away, never leaves.

So after seeing the note from K, I googled R, just like I've done a thousand times in the past 5-6 years, and got one of those reunion.com hits, which claimed to have recent contact info, but wants 700 billion dollars to give it away. Please feel free to assume that I did not provide credit card information. If that was the extent of it, I would think nothing more, but right after, I went to meet some friends at a bar, and R's favorite Tom Waits song was playing. Someone (I think it was Dr. Who) once said that if two separate events that are somehow related happen concurrently, pay attention.

Event number three: My phone rang, and for once, I considered answering it. I pulled it out of my pocket, looked at the incoming number, and nearly had a Daffy Duck style seizure. It was an unknown call from area code 505. My thumbs were shaking as I flipped open the phone and said 'hello.'

"Did you know that the factory warranty on your vehicle has almost expired!"

My superhero power will be the ability to reach through phone lines, cell transmissions, space, time, and recording devices in order to squeeze entire tubes of super glue between the butt cheeks of robocall telemarketers.

An odd obsession

I know it's been a while since my last post, but those are the breaks.

Break it up break it up break it up, yo!

I just came home from playing capture the flag.

Yes, Capture The Flag. the same game played in junior high and elementary school gymnasiums for years before me. Yes, this game involved meeting at the bar and drinking shots of whiskey between rounds, but it is still the same in spirit (Spirits?). I haven't enjoyed myself like this in years. I want everyone to come and experience their childhoods mixed with adulthoods again.

Granted, I can barely type as I write this post, but that is also part of the fun (better living through chemicals).

I usually go to yoga on Monday nights, but this was J's night. the same J from this post. J and G are much better now. G's in Minnesota, J will be following behind by the time you read this. But, the night before, I was playing Capture the Flag with J, his brother, and several of our mutual friends.

So while I'm still smitten with R, who will always have a place in my heart (and who's place came to the forefront for some odd reason last week [more on that to come]) and I am also quite interested in A (whom I haven't mentioned before, but will also have a story soon), I want to play capture the flag as much as I can, with whomever will join me. 

TP=WTF?

I have questioned this from the moment I first left the nest. 

I've attacked it morally, philosophically, and technically.

Surveys have been conducted, and pseudo-scientific studies have been carried out.

Still, after fifteen years, I do not fathom- cannot comprehend this issue:

Why do people put new rolls of toilet paper on top of the holder and leave the used piece of cardboard?

If one goes to the trouble of getting a fresh roll, why not go the extra foot and put it on the holder? Is the spring-loaded plastic thing too complex?  Do people believe the toilet fairy will come and fix it?

This is change I don't believe in

Yes, we did, I helped. It is change I can believe in, but really- Barack Obama is not the Messiah. This is a good start, but he's not paying my rent, or buying me an iPhone. I can't call him up when I need a wingman. He won't have the perfect chord when I get stuck writing a progression. The buses still won't run on time. He's not going to hook my housemate up with a cool girlfriend. He isn't interested in whether or not M can remain in a monogamous relationship. That one sock will still get lost in the wash. If you're stuck in traffic, he won't tell you where to turn. He's not going to un-crazy your job, and contrary to my photo manipulations, he can't walk on water.

Then again, I don't want my president to do any of that. A president should be too busy presidenting to deal with the everyday details of the rest of us. Which is where you come in. Bring "Yes, we can" to a personal level: "Yes, I can." I don't have to spell it out, do I?

Not Your Cheese

I haven't posted in a bit, and I'm sure the 3 or 4 people who read this blog regularly have been devastated by my lack of consistency, however, there hasn't been much going on. Sure we have a president with an IQ above room temperature, and yes, the world has rejoiced, but I figure that is a reasonably well disseminated story. On the same day as the Rapture of the Messiah from Hawaii came the news that a slight majority of Californians believe that the government has the right to take away the rights of some of my friends, co-workers and neighbors to practice an archaic religious ceremony. 

If I were so inclined, I could marry whomever I may choose, and it's none of my damn business whom anyone else chooses to marry. One of my co-workers, who is not a US citizen, told me that if he could vote, he would vote against gay marriage. He actually gave me the "Adam-&-Eve-not-Adam-&-Steve-god-will-punish-them" line and then:

K: Will god punish you?

O: Noooo, of course not. I will not marry a man!

K: Then what does it matter to you?

O: It doesn't matter. The Gay People can do what they want, but God won't be very happy with them

K: If it doesn't matter to you, then it's between them and god, so why should you tell them what to do?

O: I think you are right, but I don't want them to go to hell.

K: What if they don't believe in god, or they don't believe in heaven and hell?

O: OHH, some people do think that, don't they? Well, it is between them and god. I can't stop them from going to hell. You are right. Thank you.

Why can't it be that easy with anyone else?

So, there was the voting thing, and then I went to Indiana for my brother's surprise 45th birthday party.

Yeah, Indiana... I think this is where I'm supposed to spew elitist vitriol against my experience in this not quite blue, perhaps deep maroon-bordering-on-purplish state, but I can't. 

I met a guy at the party who voted democrat for the first time not only in his life, but in generations of his family. His father called him an idiot, and he couldn't bring himself to tell his mother. If that had been the extent of it, I would have been kinda proud of him, but he started that line of the conversation by congratulating me and my mother personally on electing such an articulate African American into the highest office of the US.

So articulate and intelligent that he didn't think of Obama as a black person.

The fact that my mother was there prevented this guy from accidentally running his kidneys into my elbows. Twice. 

As I was preventing him from becoming intimate with a dialysis machine, I remembered that we were in Ft Wayne, Indiana. Before my brother moved there, the only black people in Indiana were the Jackson 5 & family, and we know how they turned out. We're dealing with people who don't see the irony in saying "fine dining" and "Cracker Barrel" in the same sentence. The dialogue has to start somewhere- if people aren't willing to open their minds, no amount of prying will get it done for them. While I haven't grown any more fond of the nine to eleven hours of travel each way, and I still don't trust buying a burrito from a restaurant that doesn't call itself a taqueria and doesn't display it's menu in Spanish; while I don't feel comfortable in a place that doesn't appear to have taxicabs or even sidewalks (let alone a single Chinese video store with SECCAM dvd players), I'm going to give the heartland a break. My family's there, and they were cool enough to have me, so they must know what they're doing, right?

Right?

McCain Scores Major Endorsement

The logic of al-Qaeda's McCain choice
30/10/2008 03:00:00 PM GMT from aljazeera.com

Al-Qaeda says it wants McCain to win because it thinks he is most likely to continue Bush’s ‘war on terror’.
By Ivan Eland

In the battle for endorsements in the presidential campaign, Barack Obama snared a strong nod from former Secretary of State Colin Powell – and John McCain received an equally strong recommendation from al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda? Yes, you read that right, al-Qaeda!

This endorsement indicates what has long been known: al-Qaeda is fairly sophisticated politically. And this doesn’t mean McCain is the more accomplished candidate — in fact, apparently the group believes he is the more gullible of the two men. Quite bluntly, al-Qaeda says it wants McCain to win essentially because it thinks he is most likely to continue Bush’s macho bull-in-the-China-shop “war on terror.” There has been a lot of bull in the China shop, and al-Qaeda wants to make sure it continues.

According to al-Hesbah Web site, which has close ties to the group, “Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election.” The Web site was confident that McCain would continue the “failing march of his predecessor.” The site argued that a terrorist attack could push the election into McCain’s column, and thus lead to an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world in an attempt take revenge on al-Qaeda.

The Web site already brags about having lured the Bush administration and the U.S. into a trap that has “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy” and expects that to accelerate if the even more hawkish McCain gets elected. Most terrorism analysts would agree that al-Qaeda has successfully duped the Bush administration. Al-Qaeda is betting that McCain is an even bigger stumbling cowboy than Bush. 

With talk of terrorist strikes this close to the election, it is possible that al-Qaeda could be once again trying to influence the outcome. In late October 2004, bin Laden released a video tape several days before the U.S. presidential election that warned of an attack, which John Kerry’s campaign believed tipped the electoral balance against them. Let’s hope that the rhetoric on al-Qaeda’s Web site is just bluster, as in October 2004, rather than turning into an attack, as it did in Spain in March 2004. We want a fair election with no outside interference from evildoers.

Are You a McCain, or a McCaint?

'Those polls have consistently shown me much farther behind then we actually are. We're doing fine.'

-John McCain, at a campaign stop in Waterloo.

Yes, Waterloo.

I Approved This Post

"[Barack Obama] has both style and substance. I think he is a transformational figure. I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities as well as his substance -- he has both style and substance. He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president.

"[McCain] is essentially going to execute the Republican agenda, the orthodoxy of the Republican agenda with a new face and a maverick approach to it, and he'd be quite good at it, but I think we need more than that. I think we need a generational change. I think Senator Obama has captured the feelings of the young people of America and is reaching out in a more diverse, inclusive way across our society.

"We have got to say to the world, it doesn't make any difference who you are or what you are, if you're an American you're an American. And this business of, for example a congresswoman from Minnesota going around saying let's examine all congressmen to see who is pro America or not pro America, we have got to stop this kind of non-sense and pull ourselves together and remember that our great strength is in our unity and diversity. That really was driving me."

Colin Powell, 65th United States Secretary of State (2001–2005), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), 4-Star General (retired) in the United States Army, National Security Advisor (1987–1989)


"The American people need a strong leader who has the experience and the judgment to be the next President of the United States, and that man is John McCain."

Katie Barberi, Telemundo Soap Opera Actress

A Life Is Death Situation

No, I'm not depressed, or feeling morbid. The only Suicidal Tendencies I have got thrown out with my cassette collection. I just read a great quote from Katharine Hepburn, who said, "of course life is hard- it kills you doesn't it?"

Eye luff hurr

Seriously, death is the leading cause of lives lost in the world. Imagine how little fear would be left if we didn't die. Nice thought, huh? Well guess what? You're going to die, so get over it. Like Pops would say, "are you living, or just existing?"

When I was really little- er... young- I loved heights. I used to love running across the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado (the world's highest suspension bridge- 1 mile above the Arkansas River). Then I got older, and realized that if I was on something really high up, I could fall off and get injured. I didn't like heights so much anymore. A little later it occurred to me that the worst that could happen would be dying, which I've never done before- and no one has told me empirically what it is like- and which I'm going to have to do sometime, so why worry about it?

Some would think that this attitude is too morbid and and devalues life, but it is quite the opposite. Look at how much fear is in our lives, and how so many of us are hiding our true selves because of it. We are afraid of heights because we are afraid of falling. We're afraid of falling because we don't know how we'll land, and if we don't land just right, we might not get back up. So we don't climb the heights, and miss out on something life has to offer us. We don't let go of our preconceived notions and allow ourselves to fall and find that there might be someone or something there to catch us, or that we might just land on our feet.

...or we might not, but since it really doesn't matter, what are we afraid of?     

The Second Person

Keenan is drunk as he writes this. In his drunkenness he has clarity. A certain lack of inhibition allows him to document truth. This is also his chance to write the long awaited (in his mind) Post In Second Person.

So, Keenan is smitten. He feels a sense of adoration. He is cryptically (and the next word will make it obvious whom he writes about, if only to whom he writes about) appreciative of the new friend he has made.

Now here it is, tying in to previous posts about seeking a special someone, and about breaking The Rule of Mates. He realizes that if that special someone actually reads this, it will most likely throw her into a bout of turmoil and indecision, because hypersensitivity to emotional situations is how she rolls. However, Strong and Wrong is how Keenan rolls. If things go in his favor, Keenan is not wrong, and isn't going too strong.  Breaking The Rule of Mates is something he does not take lightly, nor is it something she feels strongly about. But the (drunken) truth is, rightness has no bounds.  That's not a Dubya sort of "god is on our side" manner of rightness, but a John Cusack with a boombox over his head manner of rightness.

Miss Alaskaville

The fact that she counts wonk-eyed weirdo James Galway as her favorite musician should be reason enough to discount Sarah Palin as the person who crosses your name off the list when you go to vote, let alone anyone that should ever hold a public office of any kind. Nevermind the fact that you don't know who James Galway is, just trust that he's a creepy wonk-eyed weirdo. 

She starts off doing a passable job for a pageant talent show, but runs into problems about halfway through. Then I remembered she's supposed to have 10 years experience- I don't even play flute and I could probably play this song with a couple days preparation. Kinda sounds like her campaign, thus far...

As long as I'm at it, how brilliant was Tina Fey last week, and how scary is it that the funniest part was very nearly quoted verbatim from the real Palin/Couric interview:

Palin: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Fey: Like every American I'm speaking with, we are ill about this. We're sayin' hey, why bail out Fanny and Freddie and not me? But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those that are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, to help, uh --- it's got to be all about job creation, too. Also to shoring up our economy and putting Fannie and Freddie back on the right track, and so health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending, 'cause Barack Obama, ya know. [makes gesture with index finger] Ya know, we've got to accompany tax reduction and tax relief for Americans, also having a dollar value meal at restaurants, that's gonna help. But one in five jobs being created today under the umbrella of job creation, that, ya know, also.

One month

Last month, I posted about the woman in the UK that was going for a month without plastic, and how I couldn't figure out what I would be willing to go one month without, or why. As it turns out, I've gone the past two weeks without any meat, and the past four days without processed food. I'm not going to start wearing flip-flops and listening to STS9, and haven't started designing my art car for the Burn next year, but it is going well. Truth be told, I was eating a pile of chicken lo mein and shredded pork when it occurred to me that I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten a salad, or an apple, or any fresh fruit or vegetable. In fact, the closest I'd come to a vegetable that week was french fries. I'd love some french fries right now, but I'm going to stick with it for a little while longer.

I stopped drinking coffee too. At work one morning, B asked if it was the act of drinking coffee- the pavlovian response of getting it, or the actual caffeine that makes one feel awake in the morning. I think it is as much habit as anything else. I know people who can go to sleep early after a day off, get 9 hours of undisturbed sleep, and still feel like they cannot function without a cuppa joe first thing in the afternoon. Then again, I've gotten up feeling like I'd spent the last week with Kerauc & Cassady, and a sip of dark roasted bean juice makes everything fresh as a daisy.

I'm all for better living through chemistry, but I also think that everything under the sun can be overdone. Yin and Yang. Joy and Pain. Sunshine and Rain. Dog and Cat. Starsky and Hutch. Sanford and Son.

"MUTO" by Blu

This is pretty incredible. Actually, it is totally mind-blowing, when you consider what went into creating it.




MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

700 billion

$116 for every person on the planet (approx. 2.8 bil people live on less than $2 per day)
An Xbox for every woman, child and man in India
155 Nimitz class aircraft supercarriers (only 10 have ever been built)

13 hours at the Bunny Ranch for every US male aged 20-64

23 billion handles of JD

A burrito a day for everyone in SF for 40 years

$17,000 for every US citizen below the poverty line

70 Large Hadron Colliders

3.2 mil median priced homes in the US

4 years of college tuition for 8.8 mil students

Free MUNI rides for everyone in SF till 2172

1 first class Lufthansa flight to Paris for the entire population of California, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona

The Former Future President Should've Run Again

"If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration."

Al Gore is going Mad Max on us, and I love it. I mean, who doesn't love antidisestablishmentarianism. I know that antidisestablishmentarianism is a church vs state issue, but it smells like anarchy, and I will use it however I wish. If he could've shown this much personality and conviction eight years ago, there wouldn't have been a war in Iraq, Ahmidenijad would just be kooks on the level of Hugo Chavez, no one would be saying "interwebs" with ironic detachment, no one would be shamed for being fooled once but never again, we would have a president who might read the stories and not just the headlines, no child would be left behind anyway...

What I Meant Was...

Yesterday I was walking home from work, and I had the greatest idea for a post. Not exactly the greatest idea, I mean I hadn't figured out the significance of the number 42 or anything, but it was pretty good. I got home, started cooking dinner, checking emails, surfing for porn, staring out the window, forgetting that dinner was cooking, wondering who it was that told me cats were hallucinating most of their waking hours, eating burned noodles, watching Torchwood, checking my bank account, talking to my housemates, wishing I hadn't undercooked the noodles, wondering if, when I write this post tomorrow, I will wonder if whomever is reading this will go back and make sure that I wrote about burned noodles, eventually closed the lid on the macbook, went to sleep, got up the next morning went to work, went to yoga with A, got home chatted with H (and S) for almost an hour, made dinner (yes, it was mashed potatoes), hung out with the housemates, checked emails, realized I'd forgotten about the great idea i had for a post yesterday, started a stream of consciousness post about forgetting what the great idea I had for a post yesterday was, realized mid-post that the idea I had was actually two days ago, then started meta-posting about posting- which means that I am now meta-meta posting and run the risk of getting stuck in a self referential loop. What it all boils down to, is that I have absolutely nothing to post about, but I feel like taking up surreal estate on the internet for another day, and seeing if the mystery reader in Oakland will be back tomorrow. 

DIY for Dummies

When I go to a new dentist, I really don't want to hear something like this:

"Sooo, I've been a dentist on and off since high school. I never studied seriously or nothin', but I have a subscription to Dentist's World and Dentist Magazine. I always go over the diagrams in the back and practice as much as I can. I figure, the more you do it, the better you get, right?"

No, but say I get hit by car and I hear this:

"Dude, that looked gnarly! I saw some chick get hit by a car a few years ago, and I stayed with her till the EMTs came. She totally dislocated her shoulder, and they popped it back in right there. I watched how they did it, and now any time I see an accident, I'm like, hey I can put your shoulder back together if you need it, alright?"

Not this time, though on the other hand, I could sue you later, and my lawyer might say this:

"Hey you wanna sue somebody? Sweet. Listen, I don't have a 'law degree,' I think that will kill my ability to really feel the law and make a sound argument flow through me. I did take one law lesson from a guy who had the most lawyeristic talent of anyone I've ever seen. He helped his girlfriend study while she was in Pre Law or whatever, but he was a total natural, and didn't buy into the whole 'institution.' That's probably why they broke up. I don't read any of that Latin stuff either, I don't think that's part of being a real lawyer, right?"

No.

Of course, none of these scenarios could ever happen, because there are laws in place to prevent them, and other situations where people who, much like Donny, are completely out of their element. Unfortunately, there are no such laws in place for music. I have studied it. I can read it, write it, and theorize it. I can tell you the history and I can answer trivia questions (if some people who's names might begin with Ls would shut up and listen). I truly do not understand the dictum where the less you actually know about music, the better a musician you can be. How is it that people who don't have the chops to sing 'Happy Birthday' in tune and in the same key as the people singing next to them, think they can...

Hold on, I need to blow some snob out of my nose. There's nothing wrong with hobbyists/amateurs, and if I said there was, PBS and Time/Life Books would write me a very stern but polite rebuke. I just think that if you are going to take something seriously, you should do it seriously as well. If you do happen to be a 'Donny', don't wait until Walter tells you.

Filming In The Stream...

A CERN press release about the LHC was issued last week; it stated: "Starting up a major new particle accelerator takes much more than flipping a switch. Thousands of individual elements have to work in harmony, timings have to be synchronized to under a billionth of a second, and beams finer than a human hair have to be brought into head-on collision....[O]ver the next few weeks,...[the LHC's] acceleration systems will be brought into play, and the beams will be brought into collision to allow the research program to begin...Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to complete a journey that started with Newton's description of gravity. Gravity acts on mass, but so far science [has been] unable to explain the mechanism that generates mass. Experiments at the LHC will provide the answer."

So, we still may have 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds till the world will end, and in that time I'd like to quit my job and do something that means something to me and doesn't involve selling anything, buying anything, or processing anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that. While I'm at it, I want to move into Alex Forest's apartment, but I don't want to move to the meat packing district of New York (even though the interiors were shot at 652 Hudson Street, nowhere near the meat packing district) so I want to have it replicated in the warehouse around the corner from Amber. I'd love to go to Paris again, but since I have already been there, I should do the South American tour I was planning for next year. I think when I get outta here, I'm gonna get laid- it's been a while, and if the world is going to get sucked up by anti-matter, masticating box should be somewhere on the to-do list. I have a feeling J thinks I hate her, and would want to clear that up, because we make very good friends regardless of anything else. I wish we could have another night of KLM, but getting our schedules to jive might be hard. And by hard I mean doggy. Then there's rule #3, which I guess there mightn't be enough time to properly break, though I do like her a lot. I haven't had a chance to see my brother in a couple years so that'll have to go up higher on the list, as should PR and the family. I picked a hellova time to stop sniffing glue...

The Not Quite Big But Conceivably Very Large Bang

I'm not a scientist, but I do think Dr Giovanna Tinetti is really hot. She's an astrobiologist and has absolutely nothing to do with the Large Hadron Super Collider, but so what? As I'm writing this, two beams of protons are being shot towards each other in a 17 mile tunnel under France and Switzerland at nine-tenths the speed of light. The goal is to create the Higgs boson, which is said to be the God Particle, or the origin of matter created after the Big Bang. It could also create dark matter, which would give physicists a better understanding of the atomic structure of the universe. That's all pretty cool, but even better than that, there is the infinitesimally small chance that all of those subatomic particles bouncing around could spawn antimatter, which would eat other microscopic particles, getting anti-bigger until it created a black hole and destroyed the Earth. Then we would have a choice- we either sacrifice Mother Angelina and St Brad's media coverage, or Tom Cruise's ego to save the world.

She Put a Spell on Me

I never thought about it until tonight, but I would have loved to see Hatem and Diamanda Galàs together. Her music is certainly not easy listening, it can be downright difficult to bear, which is part of it's beauty. It isn't the music that makes me twitterpated over her, though, it's the idea that if I use 11% of my brain, she's using about 12.5%. As far as the music goes, she was a child prodigy who played piano with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra at 14, has a BA and a Masters in music, and has worked with everyone from Pierre Boulez to John Paul Jones (the 4 octave vocal range is cool, but it's as much DNA as talent). That's cool and all, but what makes her truly hot is that she also speaks five languages and has citizenship in three countries and while she was Pre-Med doing research in neurochemistry & immunology, she was studying Bel Canto on her off days and being pimped out by transvestites at night. I think I remember somewhere she said she was going back to school to get a degree in marine biology, too.

The Rule of Mates

Even before I'd heard the rule of mates, I thought it was a good one by which to live. I had, of course, already broken two of the rules by the time I knew what they were. Yes, I call it the Rule (singular) of Mates, even though there are three rules, but it is really one rule in three parts: No housemates, no workmates, no bandmates.

Simple, isn't it?

No, it isn't, because you never know whom you will meet, or how, or where. The problem with the Rule of Mates, is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I broke the bandmate portion of the rule, she and I had a connection and a groove like no other. Then, when it started to not work so well between us, it affected everyone in the band. Several years later, I broke the housemate part of the rule. The other housemates dug having a sexy, swaggering vibe in the house, until she showed herself to be a lunatic and I reacted like a petulant toddler (really- I stomped around and cried; thanks for saving me from that, Pops).

So, I'm starting to wonder if the Rule of Mates is really a crock, and that if you don't worry about it , things will be fine. Intrepid reader, you know, as if by osmosis, that I'm only thinking about and posting about the Rule of Mates because I'm perilously close to breaking the final sub-rule. I'll keep you... ugh no puns this early in the morning.

Mi Gaza, Su Gaza

From yesterday's post, it should be pretty obvious that I follow politics. Local, state, national, foreign, robot, interdimensional, whatevs. So, one thing that I find fascinating is how both sides make a point of saying how proud they are to support and fund Israel. I understand that everyone wants peace on Earth, as long as they don't work for the military-industrial complex, and "Peace in the Middle East" makes for a swell catchphrase. But do most people even know what the Israel-Palestine conflict is? It bothers me that Israel became the good guys from the very beginning, and the majority of the public just follows whatever they are told in the matter. Sure, we've been lead astray by political leaders many times before, but this is the only topic I know of where every administration in the last 60 years agrees.

A brief history: The first scientific documented reference (ie. not the bible) to an area known as Palestine was in 5th century BCE. The land stretched from the Gaza Strip to the Dead Sea. It was part of the Persian Empire, Arabs and Jews lived together, everything was cool. Then the Romans took over. Jews and Muslims were OK, the upstart Christians were fed to the lions. Then came the Byzantine Empire. Christians and Muslims were OK, but Jews got fed to the lions. Then Arabs took over. Everybody's cool. Everything remained relatively cool for a thousand years. Muslims, Jews and Christians all lived together, and if anyone persecuted anyone else, it was generally an outside Christian ruler. For all of this time, Israel did not exist. In every incarnation, it was always Palestine.

Everything changed when the Nazis tried to kill all the Jews. After the war, and probably influenced by some misplaced sense of guilt, the freshly minted United Nations bent over for the Zionists, who said that there should be a Jewish state, and that it should be where Palestine has stood for 2,000 years. Never mind that Jews, Christians and Muslims had lived there for two millenia in reasonably perfect harmony, it needs to be for Jews, by Jews, and about Jews. Only Jews. Now.

Imagine if you will, being a child who doesn't understand why there are tanks and soldiers outside the front door, and why the family has to move out of the only house you've ever known. Imagine growing up under an unjustified occupation supported by the most advanced and sophisticated military the world has ever known. Did you know that, unlike every other country in the world, a financial contribution by a US citizen to the Israeli government is tax deductible? I put myself in the shoes of a young Palestinian, who has known nothing but an occupied and marginalized homeland, and I understand making random acts of senseless violence. I don't agree with it, but I also can live anywhere I choose. I haven't seen my home get bulldozed so someone else can build their own house. I've never had friends or family killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I expect that the CIA will be creating a file for me after writing this post, because it sounds like I support the turrists, and this is Amurca, and if it's not Amurkin, we don't support it. Well I don't support terrorism or any use of violence, but I see their point.

Not on the Fence. Can't Even See It.

I missed part of Gov Palin's speech at the RNC, so I went to the NY Times website and read the original text. Her pregnant teenage daughter, who is all over the news in the last two days, got her name mentioned once, but McCain's totally irrelevant experience as a POW was gone over in detail. Twice. 

There was a very odd small town sentiment to the evening, especially when you include Rude Guiliani's speech. They seem to think that if you were going to be leader of one of the most powerful countries in the modern world, it's better to be an "aw, shucks" small town hick that doesn't know cream of wheat from créme brulée, than to be erudite and worldly. To that end, a few people noticed that Palin was guilty of one of the worst Bushisms- pronouncing nuclear as "nu-q-lar." Well, somebody's about to get fired, because the speech was sent out to, and published by  the press exactly as the beauty queen read it- with "new-clear" spelled out phonetically to make sure she doesn't sound like the ignorant redneck she is.

I love how she talked truthfully about Obama's plan to raise taxes, but didn't mention that it would be done by eliminating the loopholes only available to the rich. It was fantastic that she bragged about firing her governor's chef, when she also brags about killing and skinning caribou, and her love of mooseburgers. Might as well throw in her recipe for mayonnaise casserole. It was sheer genius to admit her belief that enemies of the state should not be given the benefit of basic human rights when she said, "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?" It was absolutely hilarious that she thinks Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's first name is pronounced "Terry." I was disappointed that she only used the word "maverick" three times, but she made up for it by saying:

"In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

This from the woman who, just last spring decided to give a half hour speech at a governor's conference in Texas- almost an hour after her water broke while she was carrying a child that she knew had Down's Syndrome and was about to come three weeks early. Not only did she stick around to give the speech, she got on a plane and flew back to Alaska to give birth. Now, I'm not a doctor, and I think the best kids are billy goats, however, I have heard something said against pregnant woman flying in the third trimester. It probably has something to do with there not usually being doctors and medical equipment on commercial airlines (she'd sold the Governor's Jet on eBay). She wasn't trying to promote her career. If you're a governor, even going into labor takes a backseat to being on a national stage, right? Do we really need a woman who makes this kind of judgment call to be VP to a cancerous 72 year old with a bad ticker?

"Statement" by Dr. Hatem

I told you he was brilliant

Traditional artistic ideology is an inheritance. My ancestors, the Pharoahs, were the most successful artists in history, because their artistic formula consisted of their knowledge, experience, and opinions. Art is the shadow of history, or the record of humanity where history has an organic extent. In other words, years continuously divide man's intention to define his relative position to time. Time obviously does not separate from the place. The ideological understanding of the different shapes of artistic definition previously varied more sharply from country to country. At one time, it was easier to identify the nationality of the artist. However, today most artists take serious steps toward internationality.

I refuse adamantly the pretending of traditional works because I understand that emotions cannot linger. When great portraiture, nature, or even still life is attempted, it takes a great deal of time to accurately execute perspective, color, light, and shadow. Let us ask together, "Is it possible for the artist to keep his original feeling alive, yet immutable for the duration of the piece?" Human feeling refuses to be fixed to a constant.

The infinite quantity of facts which surround us, obligate us seriously to search for a more adequate formula of balance. As a starting point, let's separate the surrounding facts into two main branches:

-The Scientific Sciences, such chemistry or physics;

-The Humanistic Sciences, such as religion or philosophy.

The Scientific Sciences generally have two basic shapes: invention and investment. Invention always places us in the role of traveller progressing from the known  to the unknown. The only certainty is that the unknown is unknown. But that doesn't mean it isn't here or there. For example, we succeeded in pushing the atom to separate by using experience and the subsequent knowledge attained. But that doesn't mean we created the atomic separation. Other inventions accidentally occurred, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a base. Investment is the stage which follows invention. We always invest our inventions to invent again. Art is the the complete understanding of invention and investment's circular shape.

On the other hand, the Humanistic Sciences are more clearly shaped by reaction rather than action. We see Christianity and Judaism through the behavior of Christian or Jewish individuals. But the materialistic mass of religion is intangible. Historical actions are visible, but not the history itself. The relationship between the Scientific and Humanistic Sciences eternally vacillates between the primitive and the advanced. This makes us the catalytic tool affected by the effect. History is the formula between effects and behavior to produce novelty; art is the only agreeable fact for this novelty.

Traditionalists must confess, all they do are geometric equations, relating part to part, or part to whole. They are simply attempting to produce a disciplined rhythm, such as the Golden Proportion, which is a prime example of my premise. We must be serious in acquiring a new judgement which does not equate radicalism with courage. We must ask ourselves repeatedly and directly, "What can we consider admirable?" Forged artistic crisis is the problem of the Modern Artist.

What color or material is used is inconsequential. Let us always keep correction and thoughtful balance as our power of self-direction. We desperately need in this period an acceptable digestion of civilization's secretion which can protect us from this dyspepsia. We do not need to be springs of a clock. We must confess readily that everything in existence is submissive by necessity to exact geometric equations. Intangible Artistic Geometric is the only security against the shock of uselessness. Let us make time the neutral element and strongly face together the impossibility circles and uselessness of others. Let us think together!

Till the Day I Diamond

It's good to know there are others out there as warped as me. When I say warped, I mean doing, saying, and thinking things that make perfect sense, are logical, and morally upright- as long as you are in my head. Some people are very adamant about what happens to their bodies when they die. Most of it is some sort of religiosity, except for the few oogily boogilies that want their ashes thrown out with the humpback whales off the coast of Oaxaca, or mixed into the cement that builds the foundation of the new Yankees stadium. That's kinda weird, but not quite warped. If you want to be like me, and be truly warped, you want your ashes made into a diamond.

Yes, there is a company, LifeGems, that will take a person's ashes, and make diamonds out of them. They process the ashes, distilling and purifying the carbon, which leaves graphite. The graphite is then placed in a machine that replicates the conditions 100 miles below the earth's surface, yielding the most warped thing anyone could do with themselves.

Even more warped than that- you don't even have to be dead! They can use a pile of hair. How hardcore would it be to wear bling made from yourself!

What Would db Do?

Yo

I am a former member of the Egyptian Mafia. You didn't know there was an Egyptian Mafia, did you? That's how badass it is- you don't even know it's there.

A few years ago, I was dating a belly dancer whom I thought was my soulmate, but turned out to be a back stabbing manic depressive with  a schizoid embolism. (Not that there is anything wrong with mental illness in and of itself, but that there are certain combinations of mental illnesses that make for personalities that may be... challenging). So, SIN (yes, those are her initials) introduced me to the Godfather. They were in the smoke and mirrors business, and I was made a partner.

There was a front, a restaurant, that funded The Family. The real business was Art. We were a family of dancers, painters, musicians, storytellers, and, most especially, practitioners in the Art of Living Without Compromise. 

Pops had all that and a Phd. He'd done art shows in galleries all over the world. He saw combat in the Egyptian Special Forces. His mentor was Anwar Sadat. Published novelist? Check. Black belt? Three. Linguist? Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, English, French, Greek and Italian. Oh, the Phd? That was in psychology, which he taught for two years at UC Berkeley. He was also a bit of a song and dance man... in a peculiar Egyptian way.

Pops taught me a lot about myself, and how to live the life less ordinary. He taught me the importance of living like a train, and to make sure you are not a passenger on your train. He taught me how to work a room, the Art of the Wink, and how to talk myself out of anything. There are things he has taught me that are so ingrained into my psyche, I can no longer remember not knowing them.

Dr Hatem El-Sayed died today.

 

Choosey Mofos Choose Jiff

Last night I was out with Mama. She'd come to town for the Outside Outlander Outdoor Pay $300 to See Radiohead but Pretend You Like the Other Bands so You Don't Feel Like A John Festival. We hadn't seen each other since Sutro played in SLO, and I had deluded myself that J was out of the country, pining away for me in the same way that I was pining away for her. The relevance there is that Mama introduced me to J, so seeing her again made for a pretty decent elephant-in-the-room moment.

So now it's Sunday morning, and there's still a residual sad, bitter, elephant smell lingering in the nose of my heart. J's great- I don't have anything against her (other than a perceived inability to open up on a personal level, which I still don't hold against her, because really her ego just needs a Pele sized kick in the pants)- what bug's me, is that I don't make connections with cool chicks like her very often.

I think of myself as very instinctual, though others have called it picky, judgmental, and arrogant. Semantics. I don't play the field. I don't date around. Maybe it's pheremones, ESP, resonant frequencies, or something else that I will discount as hippie BS, but I always know. I don't know if it will be love, friendship, or booty call, but I always know.

That doesn't mean that I'm not open to surprises...

This is only a test

I recently read an article from the BBC about a writer who is giving up plastic for a month (A month without plastic), which got me thinking, what would I give up for a month, and why? 

So first, a month without plastic. The rules are: no new plastic products may be bought, or used. I'm going to say Netflix is OK, because it is a recycled resource. No going to the movies, because the tickets are coated with plastic. No buying wine with plasticized rubber corks. No buying canned food because of the plastic lining. No pasta, no yogurt, no bottled water, no juice, no microwave meals in plastic trays, no disposable razors, no liquid soap, no pens, no Sharpies, no cars, no batteries, no flashlights, no vibrators (no problem), no prescription drugs (you never know), no multi packs of toilet paper, no new clothes, no coffee without bringing my own mug (I don't make my own. I just don't. Ever). That's just what I can come up with off the top of my head, if I actually thought about it, I would know for sure that I wouldn't want to give up plastic completely for a month. It does make me think about ways to reduce plastic consumption, and realize that it is over-used in modern society.

Next.

 

My friend D used to give up drinking every year for Lent, even though she wasn't Catholic, which I always thought was kinda weird. I didn't think it was weird that she was not Catholic and would give up something for Lent, but that she would give up drinking. A few days and a cranberry juice i.v. is fine here and there- but a month? That really isn't an option.

OK, how about a month without sex? Oh, right...

A month without computers? That would make a cool daily blog.

I've already given up high fructose corn syrup, cars, crack, Catholicism, words that don't start with "C", and swizzle sticks. What else is there?

Got it. I'm giving up exclusion.

The M in KLM

I should be sleeping right this very second.

Before I started writing, I was getting a ride from the M in KLM.

Before I got a ride, she and I snugged on the floor of her empty apartment, imitating sleep for all of 2 hours.

Before imitating sleep, KLM was in full effect- dinner at Farmer Brown, drinks at Whisky Thieves, and more drinks at Amber.

Before KLM, The M in KLM and I packed her apartment into a truck.

Before we packed the truck, we had to figure out where 7th crosses Cesar Chavez (it doesn't)

Before figuring that out, The M in KLM packed while I drank wine and provided moral support.

The M in KLM is on the road right now, and she's a little apprehensive about dropping everything and moving back to Seattle.

And by apprehensive, I mean scared witless.

She has every right to be scared by making such a major change in her life, but then again, this is Miranda.

And by Miranda, I mean awesome.

I love you, too- coin slot and all

...and by love, I mean doggy

Obviously, I use 11% of my brain*

Remember a couple of posts back, I made a reference to astrological signs and the changes in gravity from the sun and moon? Then after that, I posted about the random decapitations in Greece and Canada? Check this out from EnvironmentalGraffiti.com:


What do Lunar Cycles and Gruesome Beheadings Have in Common?

Tue, Aug 12, 2008

Visualize towns torn apart with random beheadings, frenzied knife attacks on grassy knolls and werewolves howling at the moon. No, it’s not your average Saturday night out on the town; they’re just a few of the maniacal incidences associated with the advent of a new or full moon. But is this just coincidence or could these gruesome events of the past few weeks be related to the gravitational forces of the moon?

The new moon in August occurred on the same day as the solar eclipse, August 1, 2008, which, astrologers say, means it fell in the sign of Leo. This is turn is thought to agitate the nebulae cluster of The Aselli**, or the asses, which were traditionally held by astronomers as harbingers of death by fire, fever, hanging and beheading!

During a full moon, the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun and therefore negates the sun’s gravitational pull, but during a new moon the moon sits on the same side of the earth as the sun, thus massively increasing the sun’s gravitational effects.

This dramatic change in gravity may have a significant affect on the human brain. Who’s to say that there isn’t some transient damage to this intricate organ that, when compared to the size of the earth, sun and moon, is minute and therefore more prone to greater changes during these fluctuations in gravitational force? After all the brain is encased in a closed space so even the slightest pressure changes could dramatically affect normal functionality.

Think of the pressure headaches some people get before and during thunderstorms due to changes in the atmosphere. If that slight change in pressure causes blinding headaches then it’s entirely possible that the pressure generated during the phase of a new moon coupled with a solar eclipse could have huge detrimental effects to the human brain.

Are the recent beheadings in Greece and Canada explicable? It’s impossible for us to prove one way or the other, for that there would need to be highly controlled clinical trials. In the meantime we’ll have to leave the ball in your court. What do you think?


*It is not true that we only use 10% of our brains, ya know.
**Aselli means 'ass'? For real? That explains a lot.

Old, Round, Brown and Full

The results of three recent studies show that the United States is in for a paradigm shift within a bit more than one generation. According to a Johns Hopkins study, By 2038, 100% of the adult population will be overweight (if trends over the last 30 years continue). Over at the Brookings Institute (you know them right? over on 132nd St, above the Happy Donut), William Frey says that, by 2040, ethnic minorities will become the majority. Also by 2040, there will be over half a million centenarians (there are about 84,000 now). Oh, and the world population will reach 8 billion by 2050.

OK, so we're fat and getting fatter. I don't buy that EVERYONE will be fat- there will still be soccer players, models, the Olsen twins, crack addicts, and French ex-pats. Still, I have to wonder about the 12 year olds that I see everyday that are... well... round. I had my problems with snacks as a kid, but my parents at least tried to hide the Mars bars. When you bring a life into the world, that becomes your ONLY responsibility- everything else is a function of that primary responsibility. 150 lbs and 10 years old? Not the kid's fault, but I'm not going to get on the soapbox.

Next, minorities become the majority. What do we call them? They can't be minorities if they are in the majority. And you know we don't live in a melting pot. This is more like a chef's salad. All the ingredients can be mixed together, but each one is still separate, and can be pulled out, scrutinized and discarded at will. There won't be a majority of anyone, but I don't think that will be the end of racism, classism, sexism, or isn'tism (isn'tism noun [iz-uhnt-iz-uhm] a belief or doctrine that there are inherent differences among anyone who isn't the same, usually involving the idea that anyone who is the same is superior and has the right to rule over those who aren't).

Case in point, interracial marriages account for about 7% of all marriages in the US. Not that marriage is the last word in relationships, but if only 2 out of every 30 people marry outside of their race/ethnicity, then the melting pot still needs some stirring.

One last point- right now, 30 is the new 20, but with more teens popping out kids, and more adults waiting to become parents, it kinda means 15 is the new 30. Fast forward 40 years, when the retirement age will be around 78, 11 will be the new 40, 40 will be the new 30, and Michael Jackson will have succeeded in replacing his entire body with clear plastic, becoming ageless, sexless, raceless, and able to eat anything s/he wants.

More Stupider

Playwright George Bernard Shaw was fond of pointing out that the word "ghoti" could just as well be pronounced "fish" if you followed common pronunciation: 'gh' as in "tough," 'o' as in "women" and 'ti' as in "nation."

Yes, English is a retarded language. I work with a Korean, two Hondurans, two Japanese, and an Italian. On an almost daily basis, one of them will come to me with a question which I can answer from a purely grammatical standpoint, but truly has no logical explanation.

Take the last sentence of the previous paragraph- why does 'purely' have an 'e,' but 'truly' does not? Why is it that the root of explanation, 'explain,' has an 'i,' but 'explanation' does not? And for that matter, why isn't 'tion' spelled s-h-u-n? By the way, what's wrong with starting a sentence with 'and?'

I will admit to being a bit of a grammar and syntax snob, but I also have to admit that this language's kinda stupid in alot of ways.* Why would mobile phone texting include so many variants on "proper" English, if it weren't in need of some streamlining? Language is and should be of a fluid nature- Chaucer supposedly wrote in English, right? Noah Webster, the dictionary guy, decided, all by himself, after the American Revolution, that some words needed new spellings, because American English needed to be different from English English. Yes, one dude decided that 'colour' should be spelled 'color,' and 'theatre' should be 'theater.' Why? Just because.

So why shouldn't there be another Great Vowel Shift, or something like it? Call it the Gr8 Txt Shft. English is the second fastest growing language, and the most common lingua franca, so some changes are bound to happen, and hopefully, they will make English less harder to think in.

Get In Where You Fit In

Last Saturday, I took Barbarella and her wife and another friend to a fashioney thing at 111 Minna. I could hardly walk two feet without seeing two people I hadn't seen in two years. By the time we left I felt like a bottle of social moisturizer:

Directions for use:

1. Air kiss (for best results, apply to both cheeks)

2. Hug (use equal parts flirtatiousness and awkwardness - WARNING obliviousness to gender may occur)

3. Comment on the fabulousness of each others appearance (wait at least 30 secs.)

4. After applying social moisturizer, nothing of substance may appear. If so, excuse yourself, and re-apply to someone else.

I'm not implying that these were vapid people, more that when I knew them...

...we didn't know each other. I had just moved to SF, was unemployed, and lived in a breakfast room that was only big enough for a ratty futon and about 10 inches to stand on either side of it. They were designers, musicians, writers, travelers, and flush with cash that was still seeping out from under the dot.com bust. Admittedly, I was intimidated, and rather than spew BS about who I was, I just let it remain a mystery. The side effect of that, is that none of us really got to know each other.

I think this is why I've been reconnecting with the punk rawk side of myself. There isn't necessarily an imbalance of "power" (I'm leery of using the word 'power,' in that no one had any power per se, more that my self perception was such that I didn't feel like I was bringing much to the table, so I felt guilty sitting down to dinner). With the punks and too-cool-to-be-hipsters, I didn't worry about what was being brought to the table, because we all felt good just having a table to begin with. I'm sure the whole dialectic is all in my head, because the world surrounding me is all in my head, too.

I think I might want to check out the cool kids table at the cafeteria again...

What's with...

...Saint Bradley and Holy Mother Angelina getting paid $14 million dollars to let someone take pictures of their newborns? Sears portrait studio will do it for $34.99

...girls in little flippy skirts that don't care when the wind gives them a full Marilyn? Not that I'm offended, but it isn't normal.

...half the people I know (including myself) that want to: a.) move b.) get a new job c.) start or finish a relationship d.) all of the above?

...Christmas decorations already being up on Market St?

...being satisfied with just getting by?

...the presidential election not being over already?

...Decapitations? In all seriousness- within one week, in totally unrelated events in Canada and Greece, a man and a woman were stabbed dozens of times, then had their heads cut off.
The depth of depravity and psychosis in the individuals that committed these acts is unfathomable, and I couldn't even begin to imagine the pain of the victims' loved ones right now.

Victoria (and every other woman)'s Secret

There is a question that has been perplexing me for quite some time now. I should preface this question by stating that it is not one of a prurient nature (I got that word of off an adult video package):

What's with women walking around in their underwear?

No, I haven't seen a rash of lingerie models prancing through the streets. What I'm getting at, is one comment that I hear frequently in relation to living situations.

"When you move out, I'll probably look for a girl room-mate so I can walk around in my underwear."

"You're going to be gone for the weekend? Call me if you come back early, in case I'm walking around in my underwear."

"The great thing about living on my own is being able to walk around in my underwear."

Do women really walk around in their underwear that much? I hardly ever walk around in my skivvies (I know I don't have any, but for the sake of argument...), and the guys I've lived with only did it first thing in the morning when they walked from the bedroom to the bathroom. Sure, there are those guys who sit in front of the TV in their boxers, scratching their bits, eating pork rinds and watching football. I don't think, however, that these guys pine away for privacy or all male surroundings to indulge in those pastimes.

Granted, a dude laying on the couch in his Calvin's is vastly different than a chick doing the same in her Vickie's. But to hear it from several ladies in my lifetime, it sounds like the first thing they do when they walk in the front door is strip down. I can understand a lady not wanting to be ogled if she decides not to wear a bra under her shirt while she's puttering around the house, but all of these statements ended with the exact phrase, "in my underwear."

Seriously, Bill Moyers needs to get a PBS special on this.

Morespace

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Monday, October 22, 2007
Suing god


The most interesting thing about this is that no one has sought to stop this lawsuit from continuing- which was the point the senator was really trying to prove- yet, people are more than willing to hop to Mr/Mrs God's defense, as if s/he/it couldn't manage alone. That implies Mr/Mrs God is either incapable or uncaring- two things that are not possible if Mr/Mrs God is a "perfect" being. By coming to Mr/Mrs God's defense, they are actually repudiating his/her/its existence, and by bringing forth the suit in the first place (you can't sue fictional characters from old books) Ernie Chambers is avowing his faith (as well as that of Nebraska courts, which does bring up the whole "separation of church and state" issue, which I'm too tired to delve into right now...)

Aiming to prove a point about frivolous lawsuits, Ernie Chambers, a Nebraska state senator, sued God earlier this month in state court. The action seeks a permanent injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities such as "fearsome floods" and "pestilential plagues." Mr. Chambers asked the court to waive the requirement that the defendant be personally served with the complaint. Because God is omnipresent and omniscient, God would have actual knowledge of the action, Mr. Chambers argued.

Last week, an answer mysteriously appeared at the Douglas County Courthouse.

"Defendant denies that this or any court has jurisdiction...over Him," wrote God's lawyer, "any more than the court has jurisdiction over the wind or rain, sunlight or darkness."

"Defendant admits that He is present in Douglas County, Neb., but no more or less than...any other discernible point in the universe."

Playing the role of God's lawyer: Eric Perkins from Corpus Christi, Texas. Mr. Perkins said that when he heard about Mr. Douglas's lawsuit on the news, he felt compelled to respond. "When I read the complaint, it provoked something deep inside me," said Mr. Perkins, a sole practitioner with a general-litigation practice.

As far as his fee arrangement, with the Almighty, Mr. Perkins was mum. "I can't disclose that on the grounds of attorney-client privilege." He added: "And though my soul could stand to be saved just as much as any other lawyer, I'm not counting on any delayed remuneration from my client."

November 2, 2007

Dia de los Muertos is the new black

This year, as usual, I did not go the Castro for Halloween. Those of you who live in the Bay Area know what I'm talking about. I went the first couple of years I lived here, but even then it was bordering on overkill (figuratively and now literally). I don't want to get into what it has become, and all of the negativity and idiocy involved.

So, for the past five years I have lamented Halloween in SF. There really is nothing like getting dressed up in your wildest and running through the streets with other crazy drunk people.

I'd always had a general working knowledge of Dia de los Muertos- Day of the Dead, Mexico's Halloween, but had never taken part in the celebration, until this year. My dear friend Diana had a going away/Dia de los Muertos party (Diana de los Muertos?), that started with a dozen or so of her close friends and plus-ones having a candle lit ceremony calling out our dead loved ones. After that, we all ran down the alley where she lives and waited for the parade to start, and we would join in "when it felt right."

I had expected a somber event, with wailing grandmothers beating their chests, men in cheap suits with pictures of their dead ancestors pinned to their ties, and children banging pots and pans with no idea of why they were doing it, but secretly enjoying the fact that they were allowed to walk down the middle of the street banging things and screaming without any adults telling them to stop.

Well, that quaint idea was totally wrong.

It's like a low stress Halloween. There's no worrying about your costume, because everybody wears one of three things- all black, all white, or all skeleton. No costume? No Problem- grab a tambourine.

We waited for the Aztec drummers to kick the party into gear, then jumped in the parade. Guinness should be there to record the most people spontaneously doing the Thriller Dance. This must be what the Castro was like fifteen years ago. Sure, there were people drinking and, um, doing other stuff, but there were parents with baby strollers, white haired men with drums, children in costumes, and the requisite half (or more) naked people. I've never had so much fun taking three hours to walk around the block.