Wednesday, October 31, 2012

How Halloween Gets


Plan A:  Go to LA to be with friends. Especially with Mary at her house near South Pasadena where it is Halloween Lollapalooza and thousands of people swarm the streets in search of candy and who knows what else!

Plan B: A hurricane that closed the airports and turned my apartment into Hotel Rwanda for those who needed electricity and showers. Which was achieved during the day.

Plan C: A date night, my husband and I went to a great Indian restaurant on Ninth Avenue and then came home and watched the 2009 classic The Human Centipede. Oh yes we did.   It was awful. But I kind of loved it because the line was so crossed and bravery kept it there. Besides, what’s so wrong with eating ass?

Hate it, love it, but remember: if it were not for the Dutch, _______________________. 
(Fill in the blank)

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Casino Pier: Betting on Obama

Part of my childhood was going to the Casino Pier in Seaside Heights NJ.


And now...this:


It's not the end of the world. And I'm not that sentimental. I mean, if it were the sixth arrondissement of Paris that dumped its roller coaster into the Seine (if it had one)...well, I'd be sadder.

Friends--I mocked Sandy. I called her "Gloria redux"---I imagined a guy getting his toupee blown off and that was that. But I was wrong. "The storm surge. The storm surge," they cried into the cameras. And it wasn't a cry of wolf. Below ground Manhattan, where all the works are, was ruined. Not entirely. But enough to be pretty awful for so many people. And then---New Jersey under siege.

But they'll pump. And they'll dump. And they'll put stuff back together. It's good for the economy, sort of. Of course, the dollars will come from the government.  How anyone could want to dismantle government as a fundamentalist and self-righteous tactic is beyond me. But hell---I don't exactly understand the behavior of monitor lizards either and they occupy the same planet I do, too.

This mess bodes well for Obama...as he is being congratulated by every single person in need for a great federal response. I love Romney's idea---to put emergency response responsibility back in the hands of the states. Hell, privatize it. And then---anyone who can afford to pay someone to come pump out their subway station...can get that service. Or if the generator at your hospital conks out---you can pull off your stalled oxygen mask, wheeze out a phone call on your cell phone and bargain with local vendors to maybe come get you to whisk you off to another hospital. Because competition and vouchers and anything else that gives you choice is always best for you.

Politicizing Sandy? Sure. Why not? I would have loved to have seen Romney's hair blowing in the wind out in Coney Island. What would he have done? Peevishly accused it of not following the rules he would have preferred? Well, no. He would have used reason and moderation and spent federal government money to fix the situation because that is what sane people do. And to do that...he would have to use tax money. Old fashioned, take-from-the-rich-and-others-and-help-the-less-advantaged tax money.

Suck it up rich people and rich people wanna-be's. The party is over. You had a good time. Wouldn't it be so much more interesting to use your energy to fix this mess of a world instead of consuming gallons of pleasure? In fact, wouldn't solving our greatest challenges IN CONJUNCTION with our government be a privilege?

Roller coasters rusting in the ocean.




Monday, October 29, 2012

Sandy Highlights


Our building stood there like the monolith that it is.

Eighth Avenue never emptied of pedestrians or cars…though fewer, of course.

We were outside for 30 minutes about 2PM when the huge crane snapped down. We heard it. (We were at 8th and 55th. The crane snapped at 7th and and 57th). Adam asked me, “What was that?”  I said, “A truck.” 

It was like a snow day. Relaxing. Eating. Television. Etc.

From the news, it looks like the battery and other edges of Manhattan sustained some flooding. We were high and dry.

It never really got boring, but it never really got exciting either.

Face of a Chelsea apartment building fell off. I have been suggesting knocking down all these cracked, rat infested tenements for years. If the fronts are so “pretty”, then glue them to new behinds.

Our bath towels got moldy. Fuck these green detergents. I’m going back to phosphates. 

Thursday, October 25, 2012

For the Love of Obama...

Fashion


I was looking at some pictures from May, 2012.

I find my fashion sense violently unattractive.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Ohio


As long as there is a place called Ohio…we can solve our equations there.

Have you been to Ohio?  I have seen much of southern Ohio. My father used to go to Dayton when I was a kid for meetings. He would bring back boxes from a company named Reynolds and Reynolds. The boxes had green lettering. It must have been a thrilling company. Read all about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_and_Reynolds.  I knew it was just a little business town where my father had to go work on his computer forms and the like---but it had a bit of romance since, you know, my Dad, a Chevrolet man, went there for business.   As a young actor, I found myself in cheap costumes in civic centers and theaters in Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati. How sad to see what Dayton really was. And again, back to Dayton one time for a photo shoot during my short lived career as a photographer assistant where we shot a “show house” which was a lovely old mansion in an old neighborhood of decaying old mansions where local interior designers each decorated one room and then the locals would pay admission to see these wonders and the cash would go to charity. I distinctly remember a music conservatory with black and white floor tiles and a grand piano with some splotches of red around. It was the early 90s and big bold things were still in. 

One of my best friends from college was from Cleveland. He was extremely attached to being very American, though his father, a successful doctor, was born in the Philippines. His sisters were in cotillions. His mother was a lovely looking woman. He once turned to me, I think it was freshman year, both of us pre-med, and he asked me, achingly, “Don’t you want to marry a beautiful woman?”  I said no. Not because I was against beautiful women at the time, but because I could not believe that his only desire for a woman was for beauty. But hell, we were 18, and I did need women more for their brains than for their bodies, and he had a bad case of acne and I was kind of in love with him.

And then there was the visit to the Cincinnati zoo when I was playing the tin man in the Wizard of Oz. That was a nice day.

And when I moved to California, I drove from New York to Chicago in one day---and I found crossing Ohio to be quick and easy compared with Pennsylvania.

I kind of like Ohio. It’s Midwestern but pushes to be “sophisticated” in its own industrial way. It wants to be New England preppy. It smells of corn and chemicals. It’s kind of conservative, but kind of liberal, industrial and farmy…

It is a true mutt of a state, both eastern and midwestern, northern and southern, and it makes complete sense that this somewhat densely populated state gets to call a lot of elections.

Florida has its moments, as we have all seen. But Florida leans redder and redder with the passing of each acre of wetland into another little affordable neighborhood.
It is one huge exurb plunging into the ocean.

You kind of count on Ohio to be sane, or at least mixed, and you stare at it, every four years, going—“Come on, honeys, give us what we want.”

Romney could win Ohio. He has the hair for it. But maybe not the eyes. They look very scared. Like a rabbit about to get run over on the I-70.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Two Unrelated Things


ARGO was brilliant and if you have not yet seen it, go see it. Ben Affleck has arrived, completely. The movie is enjoyable, smart, suspenseful, well directed, perfectly art directed, well acted, all of it. A big GO SEE.

A question for Republicans:
Why all this fear of government tyranny but not of corporate tyranny? And isn’t the whole idea to have power shared in many places (some redistribution of everything, some regulation of most things) so it is diluted so tyrannical forces might not coalesce?

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Finally: A Solid Comprehensive Tax Plan!

http://www.romneytaxplan.com/


He Called Him Out


Barry O. faced down that lying bully.  He brilliantly baited him. Look, Barry is smarter. And when you’re smarter, you win.

How the Republicans try to paint our president as a failure is completely absurd. The guy who gave us health care, Bin Laden’s corpse and an economy that merely sputtered as opposed to caved?

Romney is one of those googley eyed monsters who simply wants to eat it all. He grabbed at the Right, the center, Obama’s things, and the ghost of Ronald Reagan…his appetite is monstrous.

I did not relish such a boxing match. But hatred is hatred. Why lie about it?

The president was more in command. At one point, Romney the bully looked like he was about to cry. Bullies often do when they don’t get their way. You can’t push everything into existence that you want. Especially from the far end of a pension plan loaded with Chinese artifacts.

Now, I don’t only loathe Romney for his style, his policies, his women-in-a-binder, his fuzzy math and his greed. I loathe him more on a much grosser point. He is disgusting. He is the original flesh crawler.

If he loves the private sector so much, I say---go be the C.E.O. of Pepsi or something.

A country is not a business. A country is people, many of them in business. This distinction is a real one and Obama made it clear that his view is larger, more inclusive and I am certain he swung the swing ladies toward him.

On the last debate, I’d love to hear him sing again.

And when he wins, and Romney goes back to tying dogs to the tops of automobiles, we will all sigh a relief. Well, at least most of my readers.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Anger and Intelligence and Getting


I recently had good cause to be angry and because I’m an adult, I don’t get wacky, I just try to solve problems.

I find this anger energy is not a bad energy for solving so many problems and pushing forward.

Solving lots of problems, quickly, or creating problems even (creatively) and then meeting the challenge, is often a pathway to success.

Could one, in a way, use anger as the propeller for success?  Sure, it’s been done.

I sometimes will be at a party and there will be a few alpha males there. The one thing I notice they usually have in common is an entitlement and if their needs are not met, then they get angry, usually covertly, and then their intelligence kicks in and they figure out how to get what they want: more attention, more money, more pussy.

Since I already have the exact amount of pussy that I want, my craving column is more filled with a desire for attention and money.

The anger might be worth it.

I have noticed that being sweet (good guys finish last) is a recipe for pudding.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Martha Raddatz is the Star


Besides the obvious glory of Martha Raddatz who led a very smart, human, well choreographed vice-presidential debate…something else blazed into focus:

The Romney administration is in the pockets of the 1% and will do only their bidding.
They want another war, a real big one.
They want to take away a woman’s right to choose.

Has Obama been perfect?  Heck No!

But he isn’t a classist, war-mongering loon from the middle ages.

Vote. If you live in Ohio or Florida, vote a lot.

(I feel sad for Ryan. It appears his thoughts are small but he had to think they were big when he was growing up in order to survive. I also believe if he and I shared, mixed and redistributed our hairlines, we’d both be better off.)

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

An Easy Way to Kill the Right and the Left


I think Adam and I may have discovered the answer to the moderate-ification of America!
(Adam is my New York State husband. This husbandry is recognized in some states and not others, and not by the feds. This is for internet record…not because you didn’t know.)

Okay---so this is how we are going to kill the outliers. MAKE ALL CFO’s NO HIGHER THAN MANAGER LEVEL.  AND GIVE THEM THE POWER TO SET SALARY AND BONUSES.

There! I said it!  If the money is figured out by the guy in the Middle…he is more connected to everyone. He’ll be fair. Or at least more fair. And won’t shove all the cash northward. Spreading it around a little more evenly, you will have happier bunches of people. And then this fighting from either end---High Up Greedy “Management” and Curb Sitting Union Obstructionists can whither.

Just a suggestion.

It all seems to be about the proper allocation of resources—

I am so bored with the fighting. It’s like living with loud mouthed teenagers.

Grow up, bitches!  And Share!

Thursday, October 04, 2012

HELP

The United States is not a place that will be better off without PBS.

Healthcare is a failing (dying) business. There is nothing you can do to stop people from ultimately getting sick and dying. This can never be dealt with in a rational way by a Bain Capital Hatchet Man who only understands profit above all else. And profit for only a few.

A tired president is a tired president. Maybe B.O. no longer wants the job.  But the secret life of Romney Mitty is not something we need.

I like rich people. In a way. I mean---they went for it and got it. This is wonderful. What I never understand is why they think that people who are not rich are that way because of some flaw. Almost with a sadism that reads, "And you should suffer since you are not as rich as me."   So much goes into where a person ends up. Babies that are born in dumpsters and left to die did not choose such a fate.  I do not understand a lack of generosity that includes killing Big Bird.  There was a glee in Mitty's beady eyes when he took aim. If he wants to kill this harmless giraffe-like bird, what else will he want to kill? The man likes to shrink things. Like government, businesses, joy, everything.   For who's good?




Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Mitt Gipper Romney


Mitt: It was like watching and listening to Reagan all over again.

Obama tried to compare himself to Bill Clinton, but he seemed more like Jimmy Carter.

Seems like the government/no government fight never ends.

What a fucking bore.

I always wonder why Republicans run for office. They want to dismantle government…so why do they want to be a part of something they want to dismantle?

Mitt was a wild man tonight. And he has good hair. But he has the crazy look in his eyes of someone obsessed and blinded.  Fantastic that he could say all that he said while in that state.  He seems a cold one.

Obama was clearly exhausted and was annoyed by Mitt, surely.

Everyone says Romney won the debate. But he still did not say what he would do as president. Not really.

Just a month away.

Trust the Big Based Mug


Just talking to my friend M., I went on about my tacky tourist mug I bought in Mendocino years ago. The Agate Cove Inn is in beige on the front. The rest of the mug is maroon and there is an uneven white glaze that looks a little bit like frosting. You know the kind. But the handle is the right size and the base is wider than the mouth so it tends to stand up. I love this mug. And it is next to me night and day.

However, I have this other mug---the stand in mug---I got at a trade show at Warner Brothers this past summer and I love it for its midnight blue color and how the outside feels almost silky. But it has a small base.

I was using the stand in mug tonight because the good one was in the dishwasher because you do have to do that sometimes.  And there I was, working, and I don’t even know how I did it, but I knocked it off its coaster and it was a full cup of tea and it went all over the place. The keyboard, the mouse, the phone, the blotter, the books, the wallet, the keys, the Kindle, the desk, the lower part of the desk where the black plastic box from The Container Store holds all the loose plugs, the floor and the foot rest.  Full disaster.

Yet---nothing got zapped. Nothing at all.

I am happy to report: If you ever spill an entire cup of tea next to all of your electronics, it is best to spread the hell around.

And---if you are going to use a stand in mug, maybe you should think twice. Or the next time you are in Mendocino buy two of the same.